Fissures of Time: Finale

[voidtreckermods]

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FISSURES OF TIME: FINALE

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... POI 12-13

DESPITE THE DIFFICULTIES OF POI 11, A RHYTHM SETTLES TO KEEP EVERYONE PROTECTED. The rumbling of Kolokifi's domain continues to persist, as do the more intense distortions, but the Voidtreckers are not alone. The equalisers keep the camps safe, as does the Ministry base, and as well the Voidtrecker Express itself.

Late into Poi 12, the Voidtreckers receive a call from Zhak through the map on their SCA.

"Hey, hope everyone's doing alright. You're all doing great so far." Zhak is nothing if not encouraging. Though it's a very textbook encouragement, he quickly moves on to the next point of business.

"It seems reports were right in that you lot are effective, and troublesome. But considering all that has happened this last week we believe we are at a crucial changing point on this world. We have been working on a device for a while which we are hoping could... reboot things as such. Give us and the Gods some idea how to move forward, anyway. We plan to set it up tomorrow, and we're expecting resistance. Any help you can give will be great though it's a bit above and beyond your mission brief so I'd like to make it clear you can say no.

We're not expecting this to fix anything, but if we get even a small somethin' out of it, it'll do some good for this place. We'll need some people to help defend the device, and some to keep the area we're working in secure. We suggest some fighters stay in the camps in case anything untoward happens, but we'll have some guards come and boost your numbers."

POI 12: THE FINAL NIGHT. Whatever the voidtreckers choose individually or as a group, it seems that this mission is coming to a conclusion. There is one last night in the camps altogether; one last night where the sky hangs in an unending sunset. The refugees have been subdued since the day before, and it's a quiet night for the most part.

Some of the refugees, perhaps feeling bad about the commotion and trouble or perhaps just thankful for the help the voidtreckers have given them in the last few days, have made foods out of the ingredients from the supplies shared by the Ministry. It's messy given the camps, but they show their cuisine of flavourful dips, vegetables roasted in a special cooking oil that adds an unusual taste, and skewered meats.

Tonight is a night to prepare, but also to rest and save their strength. Tomorrow, they will fight.

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MORNING DAWNS. Bright and early the next morning, the camps awaken. There is much to do, to pack and be ready for the day ahead. There are three main tasks to be done: People to go and help the ministry with their plan to mend this people, people to stay and keep dealing with the smaller distortions, and people to stay and defend what camp was left.

If any Voidtreckers decide to stay behind. Regardless, they won't be alone,

... THE FINAL FIGHT

THE MINISTRY ARE ALREADY AT WORK WHEN THEY ARRIVE, having set up a large device that looks almost like a mirrored horn. Around the area there are a ring of equalisers that sets the arena, ready for trouble.

That trouble comes quickly. The ground is already rumbling when the voidtreckers arrive, but as they draw close the air itself seems to erupt, throwing some people backwards towards the equalisers and pulling others inwards as a distortion envelops around them.

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INNER CIRCLE. Those who are pulled into the centre find themselves stood in the grounds of a temple. The place is frozen, in temperature and in time. The ministry workers are still there, but they are not alone, golden tendrils swarm out of the temple towards them, picking one of them up by the ankle and pulling them into the air.

From the very centre of the temple a figure is emerging. A woman, growing larger than the temple, bursting out and reaching for the voidtreckers with many golden arms like rays of sun, bent and disfigured. Her face is a cracked mask symbolic of the star, surrounded in a halo of tendrils that whip out everywhere in wisps, crackling lightning and winds thrashing in level with her head.

Help the Ministry contractors, and help each other against the tendrils of gold - the equaliser guns work best. But watch out - each touch of the golden ribbons will leave a burning sensation that can't be healed while inside the distortion. A divine curse.

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OUTER CIRCLE. For those who were pushed backwards, they find themselves looking at a swirling whirlwind. Getting through is impossible, but that is not their only problem. The distortion is growing and it takes constant use of the equalisers to keep it under control.

As well as growing, the distortion itself seems to be fighting them, with gusts of wind trying to trap them, vines reach out to fling them away. There are also the warriors from history, more transparent and less stable, but their attacks just as damaging as before. Sometimes, stepping in the wrong place might suddenly drop you - and you'll find yourself somewhere else, at some other part of this chaotic mess.

Everything is attacking everyone - the Voidtreckers, others with the Ministry. Help each other, as well as yourself.

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CAMPS. Here, things are calmer at least. The minstry workers who have been sent to help out try and organise people to take shifts manning equalisers just in case, but for the most part, tasks are practical ones. Keeping people calm, keeping people fed. There are some smaller distortions that still appear nearby, and so teams are encouraged to go out and deal with them.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. Rewards go here.

TL;DR: Later on Poi 12, the Voidtreckers receive a message that the Ministry are going to attempt a weapon that's been in the works to help do something for the state of the world. Voidtreckers can come help, but don't need to feel obligated to.

We included a few prompts in case anyone wanted to do something lax, if anything at all on the finale log!

Poi 13, those who decide to come to the spot (located on their maps) will find a large area of land bordered by equalisers, as well as a camp. The weapon the Ministry spoke of is a large mirror, which can be seen inside and outside the distortion, reflecting each.

The goal of the boss battles are: 1) to protect the large mirror from attacks. Equaliser guns will be provided, but also trying your own attacks can help.

2) To keep Kolokifi in line with the mirror before it and the distortion starts to crack.

Assume Ministry people are around in the boss battle and outside. To make it easier to read, we won't refer to Ministry folks unless necessary (because boss battles get hectic enough!).

The boss battle is done in rounds with the NPC tag marking the start of the round. Please tag once in each round and don't worry about tagging order between players. If you miss a round don't worry just jump in the next. If you are late don't worry and just jump in the current round. If you accidentally post over someone just repost in response to them. If you need any help just ask a mod.

For those fighting on the border of the distortion (non boss battle) please feel free to play with anything from earlier in the mission. Things are fracturing and going a bit mad so use what you want and have characters be bounced the outskirts for team ups with other voidtreckers.

NOTE FOR BOSS BATTLE PARTICIPATION: 1 character per player per boss battle. Your character can't be in both threads. The Kolokifi fight is more suited to characters with high power levels whereas the mirror protection fight is more suited to characters with more mundane fighting skills.

Don't worry if you don't feel you can post or keep up with this - there won't be any negative consequences for not participating! A conclusion will go up on the 28th.

Art credits: Whirlwind, camp2, sunset, second header

Comments

BOSS BATTLE: KOLOKIFI

[voidtreckermods]

From a temple already grand in height rises a woman even grander, unfurling upward like a rising sun set to fast-forward. Golden, white, with tendrils reaching out from every part of her body, along with a multiple of arms at her sides. The God of Summer and Life is a dominating presence to behold.

A circular mask represents their face, cracked in places. It shows a permanent state of laughter, like the one that rings out in the air with the thundering of an approaching storm around her head. An outer halo rings around the mask, where further rays intend to extend their reach.

Everything about her flickers, her limbs contort, her head twisting in unnatural positions. The blinking of dark eyes open and close across her lower section, dark strings clinging from strange pools around the temple, and a hundred voices can be heard whispering from her despite her laughter, none of it likely to make sense.

'I will stop the destruction...'
'No one destroys this land! No one destroys my realm!'

'Why... We must keep safe Life...'

But no one is here to listen to the ravings of a troubled God. They're here to keep her distracted while the mirror can do its job - to cleanse Kolokifi, and unravel her from corruption, and Time.

And she turns to it, crying out a joyous, 'Children! My children!' with every strand and limb of her stretching out for it.

[jingyeets]

The equaliser gun in hand is not as reassuring as his sword, but his sword is there, too, clutched and tossed underfoot as he gains his bearings once the push and pull has turned into this strange diorama in this temple that knows no peace, only a frozen semblance of it, and the being, the god, who looms overhead, sparking into tendrils of golden light that...

... Caught a Ministry person to his left, and Jingyi lifts the gun and fires, only to miss. His sword is unsheathed and out, his feet on the blade as he flies up, the third shot finally striking the tendril, and leaving the Ministry personnel in freefall, pinwheeling arms and activating something to catch themselves, though Jingyi cuts in on that process, an arm bringing them close and his sword aiming back for the ground, the gun leveled forward to snipe at another golden tendril.

(He misses. He's still adjusting to how this works, even using it earlier on in the time distortions.)

"What the hell."

[redmeguca]

When the hell...

[Kyoko snarls as countless spears erupt from the ground and fly towards Kolokifi, each one the size of a train. They move as if with a will of their own, seamlessly avoiding each other.]

-did we become your children?!

BOSS BATTLE: MIRROR

[voidtreckermods]

The device that the ministry workers have brought here is a large mirrored horn. It is large, much taller than even the tallest voidtreckers. But it is dwarfed in the shadow of the god rising from the temple. It is bright, the mirror reflecting the light which adds to the brightness of the frozen courtyard they have found themselves in and making sight difficult the closer to the mirror they get.

If they can get there in the first place, the mirror is currently the focus of the attack of ribbons, curling around it. It seems to hold some energy of its own, pulsing the ribbons back but when any touch it they leave scorch marks, dulling the metal.

Getting to it requires skill, to dance through the ribbons without being caught or hit. The ground rumbles beneath their feet and anyone who gets close will soon learn that something somewhere is controlling these ribbons, for they attack with precision.

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian regains his feet, steadying one of the ministry workers who'd fallen nearby. He's not precisely prepared for this, whatever it is, but he's prepared to move, and so he moves, toward the mirror and the blinding brightness of it and whatever the ribbons are reaching for its surface.

Pointedly, learning what will work against them is a matter of pulling answers out of thin air as he moves, twisting and dancing through the lashing of them, but he can see: here, a shot from the loaned weaponry that still rested foreign in his hand, impact unerring (damn him for being a fast learner, perhaps), there a talisman with the weight of its own gravity to see if it will stick or drag down, another glanced back with the barrel of the gun itself, leaving a scorch mark? Perhaps. He doesn't linger to look, dodging another two striking ribbons.

"Talk! Anyone seeing what gets these things to back off the mirror?"

The SCA as well as shouting, hoping either will provide an answer from fellow Trainlings or the ministry workers themselves.

[jan_ken_hacking]

Kiyoiri on her own would have a fairly difficult time so much as standing, which makes her infinitely grateful to be sitting on the shoulders of a literal 'wolf-man'; for all that Kolokifi is Summer and Light, it seems that Takechirou has been able to at least trick their own form into determining that it's simply a midnight sun. Conveniently a common event during the summer itself.

A time where the moon and sun can coexist, means a time where werewolves can see the sun as well, and as such Kiyoiri keeps the better of her allies. ...For now. The trouble is that being balanced on a werewolf's back doesn't make things easy.

For that matter, it means she's the only one who can shoot, loathe as she is to do so. Simply holding a firearm brings dark memories, but given the alternative she'll swallow that discomfort.

"The borrowed weapons are best," is Kiyoiri's curt reply, only barely keeping her aim true as she fires. "Hitting the target will be the difficulty."

[miseris_socios]

Camps

‘Stay at the camp. Protect it.’ It’d been a good suggestion, but Ken is bored. It doesn’t take long for him to get antsy, and eventually he starts wandering. He meanders through the camp, ready to draw his spear… but nothing’s happening right now.


Rifts

Eventually he’s called away to help deal with the smaller rifts. There’s fighting, but Ken gets around most of it by stabbing people in the leg or knee. Not fatally, but enough to slow down things for whoever is setting the equalizer.


Wildcard

[Go nuts!]

camps

[happyends]

".. Ken-kun?"

Madoka looks up mid-jog through the camp. Even if there's not really much fighting going on here - thankfully, though Madoka knows that's entirely due to the efforts of the people fighting out there and keeping the camp safe - there's still been plenty to do. Especially since the people only seem to get both more agitated and afraid with everything going on outside of the camp.

But they're not the only ones seeming kind of antsy. Something about the way Ken looks makes him seem kind of antsy as well, and it's what gets Madoka to stop, even though she was obviously busy handing out food. (Her arms are full of it.)

"Is.. something wrong?"

Did he spot something dangerous near camp, she wonders?

[miseris_socios]

"I... no. Just restless." He looks over at Madoka, her arms full of food. They're both doing what they can, huh? He shakes his head.

"I'm just tired or resting in bed..." He never did tell Madoka that he got hurt, did he?

rifts

[myblueskies]

"Good job Ken!"

Romeo is currently hunched over an equaliser. He and Ken might both be kids but they could take down these distortions just as well as any of the grown ups!

He's a bit worried about Ken doing all this fighting though so he is working as fast as he can to get the equaliser set up. This button and then this one.

He glances back at Ken, just to check he doesn't need any help. Romeo is ready to throw a borderline his way if he needs it, though it will be hard to concentrate on both that and the equaliser at the same time.

[miseris_socios]

He's doing all right as well as he can. He keeps his spear up and continues stabbing, trying to not get overwhelmed by the people.

"Hngh -" He presses a hand to his injury as pain flares up, and he has to roll to the side quickly to avoid getting stabbed.

[averyusefultray]

Camps/Perimeter

If there was no one else available, Hera probably would set out and fight a god. But there are people here who can do a great deal more in that situation than she can and she would be a liability.

And there are still civilians in these camps who they'd like to keep from harm.

These missions do seem to often end with a giant fight where someone needs to look after the less glamorous crowd control work. ANd she seems to be someone.

She's on the move around the camp, watching for disruptions, making sure the civilians are staying clear of any new incursions. She's not cooking herself, but she'll direct people that way as needed.

At she is, as always, perfectly ready to put her fellow Voidtreckers to work even as she joins in on dealing with perimeter incursions.

[fivemilesdeep]

It's while she's on the move that Ryo calls out to her - as far as he can tell, she doesn't have anything in her hands, so hopefully she's not too busy. "I need your help - do you have a minute?"

Next to him, seated and staring ahead with the single-minded expression of someone who is trying really hard to ignore how much something hurts, is a teenage girl with her arm bent at the wrong angle. If Hera was wondering what kind of help Ryo was asking for, that's it.

[averyusefultray]

Hera both always has a minute and never has a minute. That's the reality of the end of a mission.

One look at the situation though... that's a priority. "I will make a minute."

Injuries need to be treated. There's no way around that.

[knifewithnoname]

She had gone with the others to where the ministry had asked them to go, to help protect their device while it fixed... Something the gods had done. The gods of this world were strange, here present and yet almost at odds with the world.

When the air had erupted she had been pushed back, away from the distortion. So now all she could do was protect the perimeter. She trusted that the others were being useful in whatever they were doing inside.

She stepped to the side to avoid a root that had burst out of the distortion and she found herself somewhere else. The other side of the distortion, next to Hera.

Next to Hera and a warrior with a great axe who had just stepped out towards them.

[averyusefultray]

It's unwise to assume any Voidtrecker kid isn't able to handle themself in a fight. So Hera skips over that particular concern and until proven otherwise will regard the girl with the same standards as anyone else who appears around someone with a giant ax.

"Look sharp!" She's already raising her pistol.

[yondu]

What's funny is Yondu has not yet retrieved his coat. So he's still without it, but back in the leathers that usually lurk under it. It's something between a biker outfit and a flight suit, and that's what he's in when he drags a case with an equalizer out to fight one of the time dilations.

"I could use some cover!" he shouts to her as he goes. It's close to camp so he doesn't even bother with the cart. This'll be quick work, if he has back-up. But god he looks tired and frazzled.

[averyusefultray]

The day anyone is well rested by the end of a mission is the day... Hera doesn't actually have a viable end to that thought given her tendency to just keep going.

Until the others finish whatever it is they're doing exactly, she's clear on what she needs to do. So never mind being tired, she checks that she has her weapons and joins him. "On it."

[10billionpercent]

Camp

Senku had a horrible habit of getting involved in combat on these missions, especially surrounding the end. That kind of recklessness didn't bother him, but he was actively hanging back this time.

Mostly, because he'd been attacked in the middle of the night. He was one of the lucky few that found himself at the mercy of one of those they were protecting.

So, Senku remained in the camp, prepared to help people and dole out any lingering healthcare, even though the one who looked like he needed a doctor might be him, considering the ring of dark bruising around his neck and the fact his eyes looked a little bit bloodshot.

He wasn't much for speaking at the moment either, but at least he was keeping out of trouble.

[wewillwewill]

"Senku, allow me to heal you." This doesn't seem to be a request exactly. But it is more tiresome, in Elidibus's mind, when the mortals start panicking and flailing around because their privacy has been violated. Thus a question rather than just doing it.

Should the scientist be willing to remain still and to submit to the mostly-an-order, the Ascian raises a hand and swiftly executes the spell to make physical ailments- though not the fatigue sadly- a thing of the past.

Why he's here and not engaging in the battle is anyone's guess. But he does have things to say on looking over the bedridden and the youth.

"You should rest. I will take over your duties."

[10billionpercent]

He didn't answer his request, but he did stop and stand still. Senku wasn't going to protest magical healing, he just hadn't figured out if he had the finesse to do his own throat or not. There were other pressing matters.

He'd also stopped caring if the denizens around them saw magic or not. Things had essentially hit the fan when he was awoken with a man trying to kill him.

The first thing Senku did was take a deep breath, and was pleased not to hear any wheezing.

"Appreciate it." He answered, rubbing his throat absently, glad it didn't hurt any longer. That was still strange and novel to him.

"You don't have to go that far, the healing will help a lot."

[goingthroughaphase]

Kitty had also opted to stay behind this time around, rather than getting involved in combat. Though she had also been attacked by the refugees, her reasons for staying at the camps was still to help protect them while others were out fighting.

Staying behind also helped her check on others were still remained, which is how she came across Senku at one point. "Hey," she said softly, and she couldn't help noticing his appearance. "How're you holding up?"

[fun_thementalist]

Lucky was an interesting choice - Gen would long since maintain that his husband had completely awful luck. This time was no different. Of course, there Senku was, working as hard as he could despite the deep circles under his eyes and the bruises lining his neck.

As his unofficial assistant, Gen was usually lingering in the background anyway - but this time he was lingering with purpose. With a certain little look. The silence spoke volumes.

closed to ~obliviouspatriarch

[calmness]

With the teams further divided, the mission and mess of the distortions feels even more chaotic. Xichen finds himself selfishly wishing this would end sooner, that they had a moment to rest.

It was not that long ago that he'd been fighting another war, one in his home and the time on the train has not been a reprieve. Not the well earned peace he'd wanted.

That is not his main focus now, as the golden tendrils coming from the woman turned goddess splice through the air. Xichen has Shuoyue here, sword held in hand. Liebing is tucked away for now. "We need to cut these down and get closer, move faster!" he calls out to whoever is closest, not surprised to see Wei Wuxian there. This version of the man is not the one he is most familiar with, not with his tails and fox like features, but that's not a worry on the battlefield. He is aware Wei Wuxian is capable, more than, in all forms.

[obliviouspatriarch]

Wuxian doesn't need to be told twice about cutting things down, and fortunately he has Suibian with him and even has been starting to use the sword as he used to. Which still is strange to him, but he's got a core again and the powers of a fox spirit, which has helped in strange ways.

"I'll watch your back if you clear the way unless you want to go about this differently and quicker."

Like becoming an enormous fox that can carry his different yet same brother in law and keep from getting separated in this chaos should he say yes to the offer of quicker.