middleofsomewhere | Fissures of Time: Ongoing

Fissures of Time: Ongoing

FISSURES OF TIME: ONGOING

... POI 10-12

FOR SOME, THE MISSION HAS BEEN MORE MENTALLY EXHAUSTING THAN PHYSICALLY. Distortions sprout around the domain without rhyme or reason, and the camps must be moved every new day to meet them, as well as stopping a distortion from deciding to form under them from their presence.

While there's bare-bones vegetation, at least they have their own resources to help one another, as well as what can be retrieved from the Ministry base during return trips to take misplaced civilians to safety. It's straight-forward so far...

...but that wouldn't be standard for the Voidtreckers, and some in their ranks don't want straight-forward. Starting during the early hours of Poi 10, there will be occasional rumblings throughout the land. They last for a few seconds and then stop, seemingly for hours; but then they return, and as the days go on, so do the tremors increase.

It seems the distortions too have become affected...

THE UNQUIET CITY. (CW: People unable to die/rising from the dead, body horror)

A city of rubble and ruin stretches far out around them, where once there were hills and vegetation. Much of the rubble is still smoking as fires smoulder. The fighting isn't over, heard before it's seen.

It must be connected to the same skirmishes seen in other distortions, and so most of you are prepared to meet warriors on foot and mount. But what awaits isn't only the horror of bloodshed. No: the reason that the fighting still continues even as the city lies in ruin is because fighters fall and rise again, as if death were nothing but a short rest.

Puncture marks litter skin and armour, holes from weaponry and blessed-magic visible in torsos, even the spaces of where portions of one's skull and brain should be.

Yet they cannot stop fighting. They cannot fall to the ground, rest. Whatever drove them to fight this war still inspires them to continue, screaming as much in pain as in some sort of twisted ecstasy. Perhaps they are too shocked to do anything else. A city locked in eternal war, distorted in time, doomed to repeat itself.

It's hard to set the equalisers here. Not much is stable and fights are likely to break out wherever there are people. The people of this city have their factions, but they will not hesitate to band together to fight intruders.

EYE OF THE STORM.

They might feel this distortion before they enter it. A spine-chilling thrill, the feeling one might get at the edge of a storm.

—For a storm it is. The moment they enter it their vision will be obstructed, winds howl around them and rain lashes down furiously making a swamp of the ground below them. It's freezing cold and as they walk they will feel something in the storm. Almost as if there are icy hands, reaching out to grab at them, to pull them further into the worst of the weather.

It's hard to know where to place the equalisers, hard to see where the edges of this distortion are. Easier, not by much, to move further in, to find the epicentre and try and take it down from there.

It's a treacherous journey, but the centre truly is calm, water frozen like crystals. Yet temperatures are dangerously low, so it's in everyone's best interests to set the equalisers quick and get out.

MEAN AND GREEN. As the rumbling continues, there comes a strange and worrying distortion. Worrying, as this distortion can be seen from the outside. A hazy blur that seems to move across the countryside, along the left side of the camp you're stationed at. It gets dangerously close at times, and when it does...

Green tendrils of plant life burst out, entangling people to pull them into the distortion. Or chains of flowers spread from the distortion out across the countryside. Beautiful and colourful in the otherwise sparse environment, but those flowers work as anchors, spreading the distortion, expanding it.

To get rid of it they will need to enter, and inside is a thick jungle of vines and bright colourful flowers awaiting them. The foliage is thick and the air musky and sweet. It's easy to get separated, and getting lost is only a matter of getting turned around. The leaves are sticky and vines move seemingly on their own, curling around unsuspecting limbs, trying to trap people in this colourful paradise forever.

And up in the sky above, a woman's laughter can be heard, the heat of the sun bearing down that becomes uncomfortable quick. But don't look up - you may find a large yellow eye - yellow iris, yellow pupil, golden yellow everything - peering back at you, and find yourself being pulled in by the very ground itself by a powerful force.

NO SANCTUARY. Protecting the camps hasn't been difficult, despite it being a Purple task. Other than rowdy refugees breaking out into fights, little else has appeared to disturb them.

'Eiiiiliiifii.... Siiiiliiifiii...
Merios? Herios?
Don't hide... don't hide...
Everything will be so perfect soon...'

People are woken abruptly in the early hours of Poi 11. If by some special sense, or by a grab at their throat, by a body falling on top of where they sleep, someone else stopping the refugee who was about to take a knife to them.

The refugees have become uncontrollable, raving about wanting 'their Gods back'. The ground rumbles as the woman's voice from the hazy jungle - ethereal, so divine - speaks from below. Grass rises and the sky above burns with a brightness like an approaching sun.

Setting an equaliser will calm the refugees, but only those in the camps. Starting from lunchtime, more warriors and civilians will be found appearing from the distance and from thin air, seemingly knowing where to find the Voidtreckers' camps - and after some very specific people.

Those with divinity, control over weather, nature, and death will be especially targeted, along with anyone who received blessings from the Gods.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. Let us know about shenanigans here. NPC requests here, set up a thread here. Rewards go here.

TL;DR: Starting on Poi 10, there will be odd tremors around the domain, and more aggressive time distortions. From Poi 11 refugees will lose control of themselves and start attacking Voidtreckers, in and out of the camp.

It will happen abruptly to begin with, but some keen to reading energy will find that it is shifting; like something is breaking in from somewhere else (similar to the time distortions).

Extra equalisers can be picked up from the Ministry base and they will be there to help, but there are also more distortions happening around the domain, so they'll be dealing with those. The Ministry will advise that any non-combatants should stick to the base, and even use the scouting drones to help from afar, if they really need to help.

Undead warriors can be found outside of time distortions, and not all of the people outside of distortions will be 'permanent' people. Equalisers can be kept going for a few hours to keep these people away, but will also need go into recharge/cooling mode.

Don't worry if you're still busy with the Starting log! Or if you've been meaning to tag, jump in here!

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This is surely a plan that can't be goofed. If Jingyi's taking to the skies, then Tidus will keep to his feet, dashing with the call from above. He won't question Jingyi's sensitive ears (he's met a guy like that already--miss you, Piccolo), but start to navigate around the dome-shaped tents. He's at least got some of a direction to follow, the sun hovering in the sky like an early morning, and Jingyi a hard sight to miss in his dragon form even in the night.

It's just, if Jingyi's in the middle of netting ahead while Tidus happens upon a couple of people along his way-

"Hey, hey! You! Stop!"

He might hear, as Tidus goes in for the grab, not really sure if they're out of their mind or not, but now in a struggle regardless:

"JINGYI!"

Jingyiiii over here!!

There is the notion of not wishing to adopt and then have his own child at some nebulous time in the future; Jiang Cheng had grown up as the less favourite of his siblings, as the one where the adopted was preferred, and he would not wish that on his child. He had been busy enough the last handful of years with a nephew and no one had ever matched his desires, a-Ling's favour included. It was easy enough to dismiss it when he was younger, but now...

Everyone seems to have children. It's starting to become irritating.

"He seems to think so," Jiang Cheng replies after a moment of pause, enough time to register the words and for him to digest it, to think on what he would like to say in return. "I will find the time to give him more. You should as well, especially now there's two of them."

They'll be twice as demanding, twice as wanting, twice as spoiled. It's completely his fault, of course, but the point stands.

Idia can't help but cringe at the pressure on those cuts, his face relaxing against a moment later once he got used to it. Ughh, it was always such an annoyance, injuries to hands, too sensitive, but it came with working around mechanic items more often than he liked. Even more frustrating when they were all patched up and made it difficult to bend his fingers for playing games on his computer. Controllers were a bit better, depending on what fingers he had hurt.

In fact, you know, Romeo's doing a good job, a real good job. Idia didn't note much pain after the initial lot. Did he have some sort of numbing gel on the cloth? That was smart. Idia was happy to just let this happen and almost drift off, though came back to the here and now as he saw that blood start to stain the cloth.

...what was that? Well, he knows its blood, duh. Though he leans in closer and angles his head towards it. Something wasn't right here...

His eyes shifted back up to Romeo's face, eyes narrowing a little as he asks, his tone low and steady. "What's going on?"

It's a little awkward, he's not the tallest person but neither is she. He helps as much as he can, to be as less of a problem for her.

The corridor made him feel worse, he just hung limply to her, not sure where she was taking him but glad it was away from this tent.

The pulling stops as the world calms again and he finds himself half clung onto Tidus, lay in the dirt as the vines disappeared from around them.

It takes him a moment, blinking up at the world, to realise it's safe and he lets out a small breath before his focus is fully on Tidus.

He sits up, but doesn't let go of his friend. "Are you hurt?"

"So something did be happening or they do be being very good liars."

Either way Senku was right, this one would be alright for a while, tied as was.

They could go and figure out what was happening. She wrinkled her nose at him one more time, since he still sounded pretty terrible. But there's not much she can do about that so she followed him out of the tent.

Oh it worked! That was good! Romeo nodded and reached out for Tidus' hand, he should still be able to feel him even if he can't see him.

"Yes! Keep hold of me and we'll go get him and then we can all stick together."

Because that was important. At least the bad storm hands seemed to have been tricked by the invisibility.

"I don't know!" Romeo looked a bit surprised. Because all of a sudden his own hands had began to hurt.

Which was strange because he wasn't the one who had cut himself! He looked down and was surprised to see the blood, the cuts on his hand. "Oh..."

He raised the cloth and blinked, wiping some of the blood off Idia's hand... The cuts were gone!

"Oh!"

It's true. Even in this form, Guri is easily more quick than Alice. Especially since the shift in form doesn't seem to have done a whole lot for her speed as much as it seems to have done to her physical strength, considering the ease with which she's sweeping enemies aside.

But the brainlessness with which she's sweeping these enemies aside is what's coming into play here. Because even though she at least doesn't seem to be attacking Guri directly - maybe she just looks too different from most of the enemies they're facing here for her to register as one to Alice.

But she still doesn't verbally reply. Instead she just tries to get around Guri, her hands - now claws - lashing out in the direction of the enemies still moving behind Guri.

Soup is simple, but it's not like that makes it any less good. Maybe it's a little hot, considering the circumstances out there, but it's not like Inigo dislikes it. Especially when he really could use some food by the time he's sitting down now - he feels like he's starving.

So he doesn't hesitate much longer before he's already having some of the soup. He swallows - perhaps a tad too quickly, given the fact that he really wanted some food - and then nods.

"It's good."

Though he would have said the same thing even if it hadn't been. Sssh, he can't ever do anything but praise Taiki, that's the rules. Even with the current mood Inigo has found himself in, making him a little less ~~cutely~~ expressive of this fact as he usually would have been.

"Thank you for working hard."

Inigo isn't sure hot it went out there, really, once the two of them had started to try and suppress the situation in camp. Everything had gone by too fast, and Inigo had been too focused on trying to get it done to really analyse whether they had come for him more often than they had come for Tidus.

But there is one moment he does remember. A moment during which those people had no reason to come for either of them. They had just been sleeping, side by side, and when they woke up, one of them had been strangling Inigo, despite having no reason to do so.

(Hadn't they said something too? Inigo sure doesn't remember, the entire situation hazey in his mind due to how little breath he had been getting back there. If he hadn't been saved by Tidus, then--)

It's not something he can bring up in front of Taiki though, which is why he's shooting Tidus a Look when the other is looking over at him. Bro, they can't talk about details like this in front of Taiki!!

"It doesn't matter," Inigo instead says, trying to shut down this line of inquiry before it goes too far. Before Taiki asks something they can't answer, for his own sake. "The situation seems to get better once people put up equalizers in the camp. So it seems like everything has been taken care of for now."

Look at Madoka over here. She's baffled. Just baffled. Because yes, Romeo is right, but.. he's also very wrong at the same time. Except calling out that last part means accepting the chance of ruining that happiness on the other's face, so this is.. hard.

Maybe Madoka should leave this to someone else to call out? A responsible adult? Someone who could convince Romeo of this better than she could?

.. it feels a little irresponsible, but on the other hand, she's not so sure she could say the right thing here.. So she just sticks with the basics, an awkward smile on her face.

"Um, Romeo.. Please be careful with that power though." Saying that should be safe at least, right? "It's no good if you're hurt either, you know..?"

"I guess that is a good thing." AT least from a certain view point. Fai didn't know enough to make an exact good or bad from it. He just knew it sounded good.

Fai looked over as it seemed like some people had started to make their way over.

"Looks like people have started to realise there is food, so that's good."

The group gathers a little slowly, some of them having stumbled on their way. It is definitely odd, to walk the grounds like thieves, under the blazing sky that has no sun, no matter how late the hour. Many of them are exhausted, but there are no complains; things had turned sour, but they bear it as best they can. Romeo's presence and cheer is a blessing.

Esteban is last, relieved when he reaches the group, curved in a shadowy cove underneath the large tent's rain protector. He does a quick headcount, just in case, before nodding at them all, then dropping down on one knee near the child.

"Great job out there!~" He cheers, and there is far less tension in him than had marred their early wake-up. "Quiet as a fox~" He offers one more shoulder pat, beaming, but it soon turns more serious, as he stands up in their group.

"Who's up to checkin' the tent out with me? We need t' be quick an' quiet."

"Maybe they can't, but..."

Rich grits his teeth and watches for a moment, hands nervously hovering around his guitar strings as he wonders if he should hesitate or just jump right in.

Thankfully, Alice's caution does give him a little hope, and he gives a determined nod to her.

"Hey, that's just so far. Something's got to work to help them. And if not, we can find whatever made them act like this and take it out!"

"Yes..!" And gosh, is she ever happy that she paid attention while members of the orange team went in there to grab some of the devices before.. Otherwise they might have been even further stuck in trouble at this point.

It's why Madoka lets go of the man's hand now, figuring that there's hopefully nothing dangerous in the supply tent itself, and she dives into said tent - starting to look for one of the boxes that she's seen other people take with them out of camp.

She tries to grab it herself too, but.. well, obviously that's going to be a little too heavy for a noodle-armed young girl like Madoka.

"Mister Wei Wuxian..! I've got it, but.. um, it's a little too heavy..!"

H-Help? Please?

He shakes his head. "Though Tidus would probably have some dumb jokes to make at those questions." Knowing the other guy..

But no, that isn't what Inigo is thinking about here. It's just-- he has heard some of these people yell about the gods. And while Inigo isn't sure if they are pissed at the concept of gods as a whole or just the gods of this world in general, he does remember the feeling he got back when he prayed in the room of the gods of this world. And the fact that he is literally linked to a god from his own world probably sure helps amplify that.

So he shuts his eyes, thinking really hard about that feeling, starting to internally pray the way he did a few days ago.

At first it doesn't seem to do something, but then it suddenly does. One of the nearby people, busy trying to destroy a tent in what seems like blind rage, turns towards them instead. Then more follow, and while it isn't necessarily a stampede of all of the people going wild in the entire camp, there is still a decently sized group of them blindly running right in their direction now.

Alice lets out a slight breath.

It's difficult to place the exact emotion behind it though. It could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Maybe it's just that she's glad to see Rich acting like the hopeful one for once. It is good to see some determination in him, that's for sure.

"If you have any ideas on how to stop them, I am all ears." It's not said sarcastically either. It sounds like she means it - like she's really willing to give any idea coming from him right now some consideration.

It's still not sarcastic as Alice turns towards one of the people running at them, the weapon in her hands shifting to an oversized pepper grinder. Apparently it's her way of using non-lethal means, since it sprays pepper right into the guy's eyes, making him sink to the floor before he can fully attack either of them.

"If we need to go somewhere to try out a solution, I can help you get there."

"Keep on expectin' feathers on you," Esteban manages, half to himself, though it's loud enough to be heard by both. "Wind, hun. Haven't met a wind dragon b'fore. Keepin' yerself cloaked in one?" He has to be; else there would be much more resistance to their passing. It gives the half-elf the confidence to get just a bit of distance away from the mane, but there is only a soft breeze caressing his face, as opposed to a rushing, screeching gale. It's surprisingly soothing. He could get used to this.

It makes him smile, calming him as they approach the med tent. There is nostalgia and comfort, just to be flying, and he gathers his strength in those little memories of happiness, readying himself for the next horrors that threaten to jump at them. He still feels wrong to be touching the dragon's mane carelessly, but he pulls himself just a little higher to make sure the other can hear him properly.

"Thanks! For the flight." He probably won't understand how much Esteban means those words when they feel so casual, but he truly is grateful.

The moment the dragon lands, however, he's scrambling off to help, sliding down the neck before Jingyi even has to lower it. When he hits the dragon's shoulders, he uses the settled arm to push himself off the limb, avoiding any area that might do more than a quick sting as he leaps off. Landing like a cat, he's skip-quick as he rounds up to free the dragon's talons-- the best spot for the girl would be in the tents after all.

"Alright, gimme five minutes, I'll be back with you!" He promises, hefting the teenager up in his arms without too much trouble. There's not much of a plan for what comes next, but securing the med tent-- and the supply tent next to it-- sounds like a step in the right direction.

She pegs the last of those after Alice's slashes, quickly moving to make sure her weapons are secured before stepping right in front of Alice.

"Alice," she repeats, her voice gently pleading.

What Jingyi's saying sounds more confusing the longer he rambles, and Shen Jiu - whose concept of reincarnation has never extended to fractured souls trapped in weird time pockets - is struck with an increasing urge to tell the kid to shut up.

He scowls instead. "And what do you propose to do about all of that? Do you plan to rescue them from this distortion now that they've been rescued from the storm? Would you like to try performing an exorcism for them while they're still presumably alive?"

Shen Qingqiu may be a professional master cultivator, but science fiction isn't part of his job description, okay?

"I'll just bring it along. That's been stirred enough for now." They pick themselves up, bowl in the flesh hand and already rippling some plates open on the metal one. "Promise I won't spill anything on your bedroll," they add, only about half joking.

"Mmm." They know she's probably right, but that doesn't stop their brain from leaping to dozens of possibilities. Making plans for things that can never happen. "I guess I can't help worrying. It's a bad habit of mine."

Oh good, at least Buttercup knew it wasn't necessarily a good thing. "I'll yell at him, too, if I--" They pause, duck, swing. "--get the chance. I'll get out of here. Just try not to kill them. It's--" A drop and roll, getting to their feet out of range. "--it's probably not their fault."

"There are worse ones," Cassie says. "Thinking too much is better than not thinking enough."

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Fissures of Time: Ongoing

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