Fissures of Time: Ongoing

[voidtreckermods]

---

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!

Comments

[strings_theory]

Of course she's paying attention to her surroundings as much as she can, it comes with the territory of everything in her life. Years of dealing with people, being part of a gang, even more so with the prison and people after her throat. People after her throat for daring to exist. It's either stay on guard or be one second too late in protecting yourself.

The voices, though, none of it really means anything to her. She'd purposely avoided the talk of gods, finding the whole thing a bunch of nonsense, but why wouldn't she after everything that had happened in the past? You could essentially become a god if you wanted to, if you had enough power to do so, it had sounded like utter bullshit to her.

Though it seemed this time she was... wrong? Wrong. She could admit to it. But, for the time begin, she's focusing on their situation, continuing to move and pulling Emporio with her if she has to. The weather is primarily ignored as it's just stronger versions of what she's used to. Constricting humidity and then sun beating down on the back of your neck? Sounded like a typical Florida summer to her, nothing that she cares to investigate further. But they need to get out, need to find some way to get out of this mess.

How far have they gone? Have they gone anywhere at all? She doesn't know, it's all become a weird blur, but there's gotta be something.

"I wouldn't worry about what some supposed god is fucking around with right now, doubt it's anything good." She has no idea what's going on anymore. Until they're losing their footing as they fall and she's about to make sure that more string can be used until Weather's grabbing them and she somewhat relaxes for the time being. The string won't break, they won't be separated. That's... that's the important part at the moment.

Shit, this is getting to a point where nothing makes sense and she's not entirely sure what can be done about it. She won't give up, that's the last thing she would ever consider, but it's sure starting to feel like a losing battle. "Who the fuck is scared?" Her voice is probably a little sharper than it needs to be, a little higher pitched than normal. She can feel the dread of some kind of realization starting to creep into the pit of her stomach.

"If you got any ideas, might as well say 'em. Because I'm runnin' out of 'em."

[voidtreckernpcs]

Nothing continues to make sense, and as Emporio reaches out, logic further decays - with the motion somehow, possibly, being the reason that the ground drops under them once more. Hopefully Weather Report can aid them, the pair not falling quite as before, but somehow now in the air, skybound.

Right in the centre of a storm.

A typhoon surrounds them, a whirlwind of water that makes the vision glassy beyond it. But when they both adjust from their sudden "fall", they'll see there's a figure on the other side: larger than either of them, its head - all yellow, golden, rays reach out and everywhere, all that can really be made out.

(Their anger and confusion isn't only their own. They don't know what's going on, they want this to stop, they're trying to find their way--something about the air around them speaks this too.)

'What is the point of this?' speaks a voice, frustrated, close to them, but the source likely unclear. 'You'd consume Eilifi and Silifi? Now I? This is madness, even for you!'

The sun - the light - is spreading around their typhoon, the walls of weather between them and that force outside.

There's no sign of an exit, no apparent way to escape. Are they trapped in this space of time?

[seacub]

Spring, Nature- if he remembers right Emporio thinks, those gods were borne of Summer- all of them came from one another after all. Moving back, up the chain, to-

Time.

But Time is not what matters now, perhaps.

"...H...Herios..." Emporio realizes, fighting to get his own feelings in check. They're all stuck here together. Stuck, fighting, trying, desperately-

"Herios was the god of Weather," Emporio explains rapidly to Jolyne. "He...He sacrificed himself to save the others from Kolokifi, the twin of Merios, god of Death-"

Can they break time? Should they break time? Emporio's brain runs a mile a minute as he tries to think.

"Hermana- Jolyne..! We need to try and connect to Herios...try to bring back...something! Anything..! ...we can't come this close and not give Merios something once we get out..!"

Weather Report tries to contribute to the storm- spreading their energy through it, mingling with the storm. To fight it would be suicide. But to encourage from within the darkening chill that comes from fleeing summer for autumn? To encourage their safetly, for all of them, from Kolokifi's madness? They have to try.

Try anything, Emporio thinks, even as he continues to let himself lose his thoughts to a god. As he clutches Jolyne tightly, closely.

(You're not alone.

He feels anger, sadness, terror-

You're not alone.

He could drown in those feelings, especially as he allows his Stand to do so to reach out and help-

You're not-)

[strings_theory]

Nothing makes sense, everything continues on around them, out of their control. The only control they have being this connection and their own selves. Even if it feels like that's beginning to slip out of her grasp.

For the time being, she lets things go as they will, focused on keeping Emporio close and trusting that Weather Report will at least handle that part of the nonsense. Though the explanation of the god, the words of sacrificing himself, that they need to do something?

She actually can't help but laugh, the noise probably a little weird and a tiny bit unhinged in this situation. "You mean to tell me that this god thought it a great fuckin' idea to be fucking with us because of that? Jesus fucking shit, it's almost like suffering and sorrow fucking attracts one another. I already sacrificed myself one, you stupid fucker, don't think I got the self restraint to not a second time!" This is probably not the way Emporio meant for this to go, but she's gotten started and she might as well keep on going. Not that she has a single clue who she's actually yelling at anymore and is pretty much the embodiment of old man yells at clouds.

"How many goddamned times did I have the shit kicked out of me for someone else? How many fucking times did I put my life on the line for people I barely fucking knew? That I fucking failed to protect goddamned anyone while being shredded? But you know what you utter god cocksucker? My ass is fucking here and I sure the fuck ain't causing a goddamned scene over it!" Will this do anything? Probably not. Does she feel better getting it off her chest? Absolutely. Even if she's sure the frustration is extremely clear in her voice at this point.

[seacub]

Something- whether the fact that he's neck deep in the feelings of the deity Jolyne may or may not be shouting at, or the simple fact that he knows Jolyne, snaps; though fortunately it isn't the string around them, nor the desperate hold he has around her now.

"I KNOW!" he can't help but shout, the anger of the storm bleeding through. "BUT WE...HE'S HOLDING HER BACK FOR US, THE WAY YOU HELD BACK HIM FOR ME..!"

It's a last stand, Will be a last stand, the proof of it in Merios' mourning and the mourning of the rest of the gods.

Emporio's shouting quiets to a rasp, and through it all Weather Report continues to do what they can to harmonize with the storm.

"...he's helping us...he's protecting us from her...the way he protected the rest of his family from her," he chokes, eyes watering. "...If someone had been able to bring you back for me... ...can't we try to do the same for them...?"

[strings_theory]

Certainly she didn't expect for him to snap at her like that and it takes all the blustering and wind right out of her sails. She quiets, for the most part, jaw set hard. What does she say to any of that? What does she do?

She has nothing she can do in this situation as far as she's aware, this is some kind of storm and there's nothing for her to grab to or use or anything. Her Stand, and by extension herself, are completely incapable of being useful here. What else does she have?

"How." The word is almost hissed, the frustration still clearly there. Not at him, not at the fact she's here, but the clear lack of ability to be useful. "I ain't able to do shit, if you hadn't noticed."

[seacub]

He should feel terrible for shouting. Part of him does. Part of him is lost in the knowledge that the beating sun is only being held back from them now by the storm that will 'one day' die. How can the past be undone? It can't. Not really.

It could only be Cheated, perhaps- do something no one notices, will never notice, until the far beyond future.

Emporio lets one arm free, and focuses on the storm again.

"...Don't let me go," he tells Jolyne, and with a shaking breath, steadies himself for whatever might happen. "...This time...don't let me go."

(After tying him to his escape, she'd cut herself away from the string to fight Pucci alone.

No one should fight alone anymore.)

[voidtreckernpcs]

The light had been rising, reaching somewhere as high as to their level. But something has been pushing down on it since their arguing - the harmonisation of Weather Report with the storm? Possibly.

...or, it might have something to do with patches of darkness appearing in the weather itself. Slits, and the amount of growing under the glaze of the water, disrupting the control that Weather Report is able to contain over the storm.

'Wh-what?' The voice from before speaks. 'Who is--guh!'

Jolyne's string will do well for the two when the storm breaks, torn apart between light and dark. They fall again, no weather to control - the storm they had been in above their heads disappearing as the darkness around it consumes it.

Darkness, but not an emptiness. A thousand strings and lines and a vastness surrounds them - and a multiple of opening eyes, all peering on them.

Someone speaks, no voice, but every word understood to them.

DON'T.

DEFILE.

TIME.
Some force grabs them, pulling, yanking - through time, through space, through the mess of it that they've become lost in. A noisy and unkind process, but Jolyne's string will make sure --

that when they get spit right out in the present, they'll be spat out together.