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

[weifinder]

"Why not?"

It's a half-smile, and something brightens in his dark eyes when he holds over the controller, waggling it in a dare you to take it way. They're seated, they're not going anywhere, and the drone can let them speak at a distance, can't it?"

Asking directly, getting answers, the way to doing these things, what's to say it can't be this roundaboutly direct?

[blitzcheer]

His shoulders heave with his breath, a show of conceding as much as when Tidus finally reaches out to take the controller with a lift of his head, sitting his alcohol on the ground. Screw it, why not; and he's seen from some distance others use it, but he won't stop himself before he's trying buttons to actually ask if Wuxian knows what to do. Instead: "Is this thing easy to fly?"

He manages to hit a good button apparently, when - and if Wuxian hasn't got the drone secretly hidden away - the tiny machine rises on fluttering wings, stationed in a spot where Tidus hadn't realised it to be. Please, getting all the facts before messing with toys? Not the Tidus way. Ohhh - can he make it move if he wiggles this stick? Let's give it a waggle.

[weifinder]

"It's intuitive," comes the answer, which to a man who invents in his sleep isn't a helpful observation. Still, he doesn't offer guidance or correction as Tidus gets the drone to lift off from where it was nestled amongst it's brethren.

He laughs, clapping his hands around the bottle of alcohol, once Tidus has it dipping and dancing with his wiggling of the controls.

"See? You're getting the hang of it! Bet you'll crash before long, and that's how you know you're really understanding how it works!"

He's even serious. Messing up is incredibly informative of limits to movement and reaction times.

[blitzcheer]

"Don't say I'm gonna break it!" Break it, crash it - what if they're the same thing?! It's a weak protest, but the thought he can do that might be the reason for the increased wobbling, a scare in his fingers and chest as it dips to one side more, rattles in near-place as Tidus waggles its controls with too much hesitation. He's worrying about the balance, but it's not as flimsy or easy to flip over on itself as Tidus has experience - a childhood of it - of worrying over.

"Isn't there an eye-piece?" It's asked without looking away, as Tidus keeps all eyes on the drone. You can't be sure it won't take his valiant efforts to keep it airborne and find the nearest tent to crash into if he peels his eyes away for one second. "I can't find anyone like this."

[weifinder]

He makes a sound of realisation, partly exaggerated, as he pats at his pockets, finally brightening when a cargo pocket unloads the eye-piece Tidus was asking after.

"Yes, one of those things, one moment, I know I had it somewhere... not that one, not in there, was it? No, but, hah! Here, here, see, an eye-piece to look through," he says, handing over the folded piece, tucked into a smaller section to protect the small microphone likewise attached, for the way this hooks over an ear.

"Flying blind might be a sensation most of us are familiar with," he says, lips twisting into something wry while Tidus gets the rest of the technology in place, "But I agree, it's better not to need the practise. So!" A pause. "Feeling more confident?"

Teasing implication of you haven't crashed it yet. Though he does still think it's part of learning, when you mess up, when nerves take control, and you learn how to control them in turn.

[blitzcheer]

Please, Wei Wuxian. Tidus would watch the affair beside him, if he wasn't attempting to keep the drone airborne. He told Kitty to practice landing it, didn't he? But now that it's his turn (what if he tried on top of a tent, he wonders, perhaps dangerously), he's experiencing the nerves that comes with it.

Rikku would love this more than him. But, hey - he's not so bad himself!

But it turns out he'll need to look, the hand that presents his required addition, but Tidus makes it hang there while he figures if he can leave the drone hovering without any touching. It does - which only brings a certain amount of relief as he lets the control sit on his lap so he can take the headwear, small clicks as the unfolded pieces sit into place.

Now this is a new fiddly job, figuring how to rest it on the side of his face. He blinks at the new screen directly in front of his eye, a perspective he was both expecting, and not. It's the kind of disorientation that might need a minute or two to adjust.

"Always!" But who wants to say that? He's got the controller back in hand, and does a twirl with the drone, for his new vision. Okay, okay, he's got this! "Just lemme find the guy. Lessee... -- want me to bump anyone in the back of the head?"

He's not getting distracted.

[weifinder]

He watches the drone as Tidus fiddles with getting the eye view in place, and claps his hands, once, with a smile.

"No, that would be childish," he says, sounding utterly unconcerned in reality, "We could only perch on people's heads by accident. Clearly."

Which is plentiful in opportunity as the drone makes its way through camp, though Wei Wuxian has no idea anymore what it looks like. He simply holds his alcohol and sips at his cup, because downing everything doesn't help, and he's on the better side of alcoholic for the time being.