middleofsomewhere | 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

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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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mister Ryo!"

Romeo isn't running quite as fast or as bouncily as he usually does but his voice sounds excited. Or at least amazed. He made his way through the camp towards Ryo, waving him down.

He can't believe what just happened! His eyes are wide. He would be grinning but he's in a lot of pain even if he has a ridiculously large bandage wrapped around the wound. His bandaging skills still leave a lot to be desired.

Romeo will find Ryo finishing up tying a bandage around a refugee's arm and offering them a piece of the gods' fruit he'd received from Eilifi. Tensions may be bad, but something about that fruit helps calm them down - a bit of the familiar in a bad situation, he guesses.

He sends the refugee on their way, looks up as his name is called, and blanches at the sight of Romeo - or rather, that bandage. "Romeo? What happened?"

He's already reaching into his satchel to fish out his mana drive. He can't heal Romeo with his magic, so this is the next best thing, and it looks like Romeo needs it.

He sees the refugee and he calms a little, not wanting to interrupt if Ryo is busy. But it seems they are done and Ryo is looking at him already.

"It's okay! It doesn't hurt much." It hurts quite a lot but he doesn't want to worry Ryo. He got closer so that Ryo could look at it. Romeo knows a bit of how to look after cuts but it's a new skill and Ryo is much better.

"Um... It's a really complicated story! But can you remember the time we were all in Diagad?"

It doesn't hurt much is something he hears a lot and generally doesn't believe. He nods at the recently vacated seat - "Sit." - and reaches out to start unwinding bandages once Romeo settles. "Yes, I remember." He can focus on helping Romeo and still have a conversation at the same time.

...wait. "Is this a result of your power or someone else's?"

He sat down, doing as he was told and holding out his hand so Ryo could unwrap the bandage from around it.

"I don't know 'cause I've not really got many powers except my shinki spells and borderlines but in that place I could help people get better."

He hadn't thought he would be able to do it now!

"Madoka and mister Idia were cut and I was helping them with bandages and I really wanted to stop them from hurting and then! Their cuts went away and went on my hand instead, just like in Diagad!"

And now his friends didn't hurt at all! He smiled at Ryo, wonder in his eyes.

Ryo's hands still completely as Romeo explains. He'd kept his Diagad power, which was evidently the ability to take other people's wounds on to his own body.

This could go so, so badly so easily. Oh gods.

(Of all the things to learn right in the middle of a mission.)

He takes a breath, lets it out slowly, and finishes unbandaging the cut. It doesn't look too bad - it's a small mercy, but he'll take it. He enables his mana drive, draws the healing energy from it, and takes Romeo's injured hand in his, letting the energy spread and heal Romeo's wounds. He doesn't let go of Romeo's hand, taking a moment to steady himself before looking Romeo in the eye. "When this mission is over, come find me," he says with all the calm he can muster. "If you're going to do this, then you're going to need to know how to tell whether a wound is fatal or not. Promise me that you won't use your power again before the mission ends." He does not want Romeo getting himself killed while trying to help someone else.

(The parallels to his own issues will hit him when he thinks about this later; for now, he's focused on the matter at hand.)

The cut isn't so bad, it had just bled a bit and it had been a shock. He let Ryo take his hand and watched as the cut healed. It vanished just as Madoka's had but was gone forever rather than moving on to Ryo.

When his hand wasn't let go of he looked up to meet Ryo's eyes. Ryo sounded very serious and Romeo wondered if he had done a bad thing. Healing couldn't be bad right? He had made Madoka and Idia better.

But Ryo wanted to teach him, to know if a wound was fatal or not. If it was fatal then surely he would need to help even more! Because he doesn't want his friends to die.

But he nodded slowly. "I'll try sir. But I don't really know how I did it. I didn't try to do it it just happened."

So a promise like that was difficult to keep.

...that's fair. Ryo hadn't exactly known how his Diagad power had worked either, especially since it had changed, and he'd been too scared to really test it. At least Romeo is past both of those points.

"That's okay - things happen," he says, gentle but still firm. "But in that case, at least promise me you won't try to use it yet. I don't want you taking on a wound that'll kill you."

He's not sure again is an appropriate thing to add, but Romeo is alive enough for now for Ryo to want to keep him that way, train-provided safety net notwithstanding; there's no guarantee dying doesn't affect their tethers, and Ryo doesn't want to take that risk.

He could promise that at least. Mostly because he had no idea how he would take on a wound like that. He's very confused even though he thinks this is a good thing, he can heal people! Just like Ryo.

But he knows you need to practice and learn things so he nods. "I promise. I'll do my best."

He doesn't seem to find it awkward, after all shinki could die, even though they were already dead. It was confusing but it was just the way of things.

"Okay. Thank you." He lets go of Romeo's hand and offers him a smile. "Now that that's better, would you like to help me pass out fruit? It helps the people here calm down." He hadn't realized quite how far the god's fruit would stretch, but he's grateful for the blessing - it's been helping more than he'd initially thought.

He nodded enthusiastically. He wanted to help! And he liked being around Ryo.

"Okay! I can pass it out. Is it cut up already?"

Because he could do that too!

"It pulls apart, actually - I haven't seen anything quite like it." He reaches into his borrowed arms band, pulling out the bowl of pieces and the bowl of cores and handing the bowl of cores to Romeo. "These are the middle pieces, and they're sweet - can you pass them out to the other kids? You're welcome to try one if you'd like." Romeo deserves something nice, and they could all use some help with the heat.

"Oh!" He looked at them, they were an interesting fruit. Romeo hadn't seen them before either. "I can give them out!"

And try one for himself if Ryo said it was alright. They looked very tasty.

He took the bowl with a grin. "I'll make sure everyone gets one!"

All the kids from the distortions were bound to be frightened so some tasty fruit should help get their spirits up! He skipped off, fruit held carefully so he didn't spill any.

Fissures of Time: Ongoing

Poi 10 wildcardin you

o boy here we go

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wrap!