Fissures of Time: Ongoing

[voidtreckermods]

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FISSURES OF TIME: ONGOING

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... 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

[worthallthis]

Soldat, at least, has dealt with dead who don't stay down, and who looked warped and strange. Even stranger than this, actually. Beacon was weird.

But even this is excessive, in the getting-back-up department. As Tidus goes down, they duck an attacker of their own, heave under the body, and lift it up to hurl at Tidus's foe, knocking them both down and away from him. "Tidus! Are you hurt?"

[blitzcheer]

The two bodies smash into one another, no amount of holes about to make an otherwise mostly-intact person that less heavy of a lump to receive. Tidus sees the two fall, but the confusion in him, the squirm in the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat-

"M'fine." It's a delayed reply, difficult. He knows he should get up, but there's a bigger part of him that wants to stay planted to the ground. The bodies twitch, show some signs of movement, but their capability to get up isn't that fast. But, ugh - is that a plant rising up? Is something growing from them?!

Tidus is trying, slow to get back up - and he won't deny some help, his skin pale.

[worthallthis]

Soldat claps their hand to Tidus's wrist, aiming to help haul him to his feet, giving him a once-over as they do to make sure he's not bleeding or showing any obvious broken bones. "You're okay," they say, as firmly and reassuringly as they can, which is, frankly, not that reassuring. Soldat only has decent control over their own tone about 70% of the time.

But Tidus does look whole, at least. They have a couple seconds before the former soldiers untangle themselves. "Do you need to go back to camp. I can cover you, if you need to go."

[blitzcheer]

He gets up, stumbling, but that's just his feet adjusting, working to stay up than to topple again. There's scrapes, but nothing deep or that's worth Tidus grimacing over, whose expression is more unnerved by everything else.

He's okay - he's okay. But it's not for himself that his stomach are doing twists over. Still, he's quick to respond, "--No." A breath and- "No, let's keep moving. Get this place down. Keep Orange protected."

The blade he'd been using gets swapped for a smaller pistol, arms band used to switch from one to the other. Deep breaths, he thinks - but he nods to Soldat.

[worthallthis]

"They're almost to the equalizer point," Soldat offers, taking the couple seconds to clap a hand on Tidus's shoulder, gripping where shoulder and neck meet in an oddly old-fashioned sort of gesture of reassurance.

Then they sight along their own pistol's barrel and shoot down another rising warrior. "The flowers are a little much," they admit. "But one time I had to fight a pack of moving rocks. At least these can get shot."

[blitzcheer]

It's a comforting gesture, one that Tidus easily recognises; the kind of support from a teammate in a blitz game. He's trying to steel himself for what he's witnessing, the faces of people (what's sometimes present, not always is). He's gone up against people before, as much as he would've avoided it, but this is- this is something else.

And raising and pointing the weapon in his hand is difficult, so for as short a time it's out - it's gone again. His stomach is a sinking pit, but he steels himself, brings in his hand to conjure a spell.

"Fiends I can deal with," he grits through teeth, "not-- dead people!"

And he unleashes a thunder spell, a spark of a bolt appearing above head and down on the ground that some warriors try to step into. It catches one and knocks them back, not entirely off their feet, but it does delay them and the other with them, making them easier pickings for Soldat.

"This is sick!"

He's said as much already, but he'll say it again, whatever helps him feel like he won't burst inside out.

[worthallthis]

That one gets a headshot, which will drop them, though not forever. "That's why we're here," Soldat says grimly. "To make this stop." They don't disagree, but they're going to focus on making a difference.

A pause, a half-turn, and another head shot for a body trying to sneak past them towards the Orange team member.

"And we will make this stop," they add, for Tidus's benefit.

[blitzcheer]

Tidus does find it in him to bite on his emotions, to turn his brain off (actually impossible, but he's trying) and just waste that energy into spamming with his magic. The thunders are weak for it, a means of stunning than anything to down them - and fortunately, it doesn't take much more work for the Orange-goers to get the equalisers up, for the world around them to start dissipating. The smoke and smell of blood and more still sticking to Tidus even as it goes - as all they have is the red-orange sun above their heads.

He wants to retch once they're out, but a dazed dizziness makes the sensation come and go.

No one's come through the distortion - none of the locals - and he might be glad about the fact, if he wasn't busy pressing stars into eyes with the bottoms of his hands, trying to inhale a satisfying breath that's always just out of reach.

[worthallthis]

Soldat waves the Orange team members on, back to camp, and stops to hover next to Tidus. They hesitate a beat, then put the flesh hand on his back. It's not the same as the fellow-soldier grip from before, but it's meant more gently. "You did good, Tidus."

[blitzcheer]

It's shameful in a sense to be caught like this, though it's nothing he can hide. But Tidus swallows it, pushes it down as he can, the tight pull of his mouth not quite a smile, but an attempt. Looking at Soldat with it, then back away.

"Thanks, yeah, sorry -" Usually, it's the magic that makes him light-headed, but this is a kind he isn't sure how to deal with. "I thought half the stuff I saw back in Spira was bad."

He looks back up, steeling his nerves as he attempts that smile again. "Wouldn't mind the stone stuff instead."

Soldat's rock golems, whatever they were.

[worthallthis]

"Considering the only way we figured out how to get rid of them was with grenades," Soldat says, "I wouldn't. I don't have any grenades right now, and I'd rather not blow myself up again." It was quick and painless, and coming back on the train is even easier than coming back from the labs in Beacon, but they'd still really rather not do it.

"Anyway. Don't apologize. Everybody gets tired of this shit. There's no shame in that."