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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That... was a good point, one Idia hadn't considered until now, and maybe not to the same degree Romeo is talking about right now. "... we can get sick from alien bugs?" Oh... that was a scary thought. He had assumed their devices protected them from it much like anything else they ran into. Sure, there was normal infections, but the idea of an unknown alien microorganism causing harm... that was the topic of horror sci-fi movies...

How scary.

"Maybe!" He would think so anyways. "Once everyone got sick on the train and everyone was sad. Normally we are okay but I think we should be careful especially with cuts because the alien bugs can get in really easy."

"But I'll make sure it is clean so we don't got to worry about alien bugs."

"Y-yeah." Idia got out, a little caught up in the idea of some sort of unknown, alien, disease that could happen at any moment. Then again, there's lot of fighters on the train, right? That meant lot of injuries. And none of them have seemed to have problems with illness in the time Idia's been here. So maybe the train is protecting them well after all.

Or they are just really good at looking after themselves after a fight.

"I'm sure you'll do a good job." Idia encourages after he breaks out of his stunned silence.

"I'll do my best!" He grinned at him and began to clean the wound, pressing the cloth over it carefully. He is trying not to hurt him but also he knows he has to be thorough in order to make it all clean.

He doesn't want Idia to hurt any more after all!

After a moment Idia will realise his cut no longer hurts, indeed on Romeo's hands where he is holding the cloth a cut appears, sending a trickle of blood down the cloth.

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?"

"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!"

That... was not the reaction Idia was ready for as he had started to work through in his head what had just happened. It was like Romeo hadn't expected that to happen. "Is... has this not happened to you before?" Was it a new ability? One that triggered without Romeo wanting it to?

This could be dangerous. Very dangerous.

Idia's the one to reach out for the cloth now, taking it from Romeo and taking the boy's hands in his, holding them there as he dampened the cloth again to start washing up Romeo's hands. This wasn't right. Idia had caused the cuts to himself through his work, he was willing to put up with them until they healed. It hadn't been Romeo's choice, he shouldn't have to pay for it.

"Romeo, don't go touching anyone else who's hurt." That tiredness and soft-spoken tone Idia normally spoke in was gone, becoming something more steady and serious.

"It did before. When we were in that city. Um. When we all had powers. Diagad but it wasn't actually Diagad."

That place! He tilted his head as Idia began to clean up his hands and then blinked.

"But I can help them! If I do this then they won't hurt anymore!"

Idia has no clue what this city was, but if they just got powers by being there... that sounded awesome! Like becoming a superhero! And that's coming from someone who could use magic, but the whole plot of 'suddenly developing a power' was just too good to not be able to enjoy.

However, not important right now, Idia taking the cloth away from Romeo's hand and turning it over so it was palm up and making it so Romeo had to look at it, "Look what happened when you did. You got hurt. It's not just healing people, you're taking their injury." Then returning to cleaning his hand and putting pressure on those cuts to try and slow the bleeding. While he's doing that Idia waves a finger towards the medical supplies Romeo had collected, the antiseptic cream he had grabbed floating up into the air and opening the container with his magic, getting it ready for when it's needed.

"It could be dangerous to you. What if you took an injury which could kill you? No one would want you to do that." There was something sadder about a kid getting hurt than an adult, Idia feeling like he has to get this message through to Romeo.

He nodded, he was taking their injury but that still meant they got healed. His eyes widened as Idia made the medicine float towards him, it was always good to see magic.

"Well... If it could kill me it could kill someone else too... And I wouldn't want my friends to die, not when I could stop them."

But he was thinking at least, it was a bit of a big thing he could do, but it was a good big thing, rather than a big bad thing.

Sigh, see, this was the issue with such youthful thinking. It was wonderful so much of the time, pure, wonderful, but... could be without much foresight. What they thought was selflessness actually was the opposite. This is why it was important to look out for yourself first. If you kept putting all others ahead of yourself you lose sight of the pain you were causing others by hurting yourself.

Idia really doesn't like those type of people...

Romeo though... was a kid, Idia guesses he can't hold it against him, just maybe help inform him a bit better. "No one wants to see a kid get hurt or die." Idia grumbled out, lifting the cloth once more to check and deciding that was good enough, dropping it so he can start putting the cream over those cuts instead. "You may think you're helping someone, but how do you think they would feel if you die because of them? You'll make them feel guilty. It's the responsibility of those older to take care of younger people."

"I wouldn't want them to feel guilty. But if I know they are really hurt and don't help them even though I can that would make me guilty too."

Despite his words he does stay still as Idia begins to put cream on his hand, not squirming at all.

"And younger people can look after big people too. I'm never going to get bigger or older so it's not fair if people just look after me forever."

...ok, he can't really argue that second point. Romeo may have him there considering his situation. But it still doesn't change the first part.

"It doesn't change anything though, you will still have one injured person. If someone gets themself injured then it's their fault, they should have to deal with it, not someone else." Idia pausing to point at the cuts he was cleaning on Romeo's hand. "I knew I was rushing when I got those, if I had been more careful I could had avoided them but I had to get the job done fast. I was prepared to put up with them while they healed." Idia would whine about how annoying it would be, but he was prepared to deal with them.

"At least ask before you do it again. I don't think you did it on purpose with me, but ask first. Some won't like it if you do this for them." Does Idia feel a little bad in telling Romeo off? ...maybe a bit, but he would argue this is important to think about from both sides.

...then again if it was someone else Idia may had just allow them to heal him like this then left. Maybe it was just because it was Romeo... Either way, Idia sighs as he starts securing adhesive bandages over those cuts, mindful to put them securely enough so they won't slip off, but also so not to limit Romeo's finger movement too much. Idia's clearly done this a number of times for himself, knowing the best way to keep his fingers still useful despite a need to be patched up.

He looked down at his hand, it was true there was still one injured person and maybe people wouldn't like it... They'd get mad. He hadn't done it on purpose, he wasn't even sure how he had done it.

He looked down at the bandages, watching as Idia put them on so well.

"I will sir... I don't want people to be mad."

"... I know you don't." And it sounds like Romeo would never grow up to realize that others being mad at you wasn't such a bad thing. You can't please everyone, so why bother trying? However Idia held this back, limiting it just to a shake of his head as he finished covering up the last of those cuts. "How does that feel?"

He smiled at that, at least mister Idia knew he wasn't trying to make people mad on purpose.

He looked at his hands. "It feels good! Thank you for bandaging me!"

It was very neat!

"It's fine." Idia sighed out. Then paused. Then said, "...thanks for healing me." He shouldn't had! But... it was still nice. Very handy.

"A-are you going to be ok?"

He smiled at him and nodded. "I'll be fine sir! It doesn't hurt too bad." And it would heal soon, especially with these bandages on!

"You're welcome!"

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Fissures of Time: Ongoing

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