middleofsomewhere | Swirling Consequences Ongoing

SWIRLING CONSEQUENCES: ONGOING

QUICKSAND 11-13 ~ TEAM OBJECTIVES ~ LOCATION INFORMATION ~ OTHER DETAILS
COMMS ~ ASK QUESTIONS ~ SHENANIGANS ~ TEAM PLOTTING ~ MISSION TASKS/REWARDS

OVER THE YELLING HEIGHTS...

As they arrive at their destination, the Voidtreckers are quick to get to work into the various jobs that need them. The Blues have slowly but steadily been doing their best to fulfil all three of their tasks. They've worked to locate locals and to get them aid after being cut off, and have been searching for those from other worlds. A few helped with the dralite work, but took priority in helping people and leaving the dralites to others.

Orange have largely focused on collecting herbs, doing some work to help farmers relocate their animals, but only a few helped the dralite with their nests. At least there will be plenty of potions, teas, and craggy leaves to hand out, with the leaves sure to help the stressed out animals yet located.

For the Purples, they've been working well to clear the roads and ruined layouts of farms and villages to give better access around the Yelling Heights. A few have helped in escorting their fellow team members and the locals in getting around.

As for the Reds, they did what they do best: going on the offensive. They've been working to get rid of the voidblobs, but don't have much interest in setting up safe perimeters. A few voidtears, however, have been located, and hopefully that will help everyone push forward in the next few days of the mission.

Overall, the farmers are thankful for the help so far, and a good decent have been assisted. They will help Voidtreckers as they need it, and have tools on hand that can be borrowed. They will be willing to assist with the voidtears, if only able to push back any voidblobs, or to make sure Voidtreckers get back somewhere safe afterwards.

The storms have increased, changing the spotty but sunny days into more rain and wind. The choral singing can be heard more, even if one isn't near a voidtear, causing an increase in animals becoming stressed and spooked. Fortunately, transgates - quick travel gates - have been set up between the Weary Wanderer (near the forest and scrublands), one in the largest village on in the farmlands, and one can be accessed around the scrublands. These will help with some of the travel.

Animals are scattered around the scrublands and fields between farms, some unfortunately perished over the first few nights, but also some safely brought back to their appropriate farms. Adult dralites will be more hostile around people, spreading out father and bothering farmlands, screeching up a storm that stuns most people even from a distance. Their young can still be found, alive or not, and they will leave with either, though with wails for their deceased child. Even capturing them and leading them back into the forest will do some good.

↪ Prompt: There's a farm not too far from the Weary Wanderer that Albany asks for people to go to - some earmuffs can be taken along to help with the sound, along with earplugs. The reason becomes clear as soon as Voidtreckers approach it, where dralites can be circling around it. A woman greets whoever comes - "Thank ya for coming out here, I know you're working hard" - and leads them to the cause.

There's a ditch where trees have fallen, their farm bordering the forest. The cries of younger dralites can be heard, but the adults are squabbling amongst one another, and people who try to approach the fallen wreckage can thwapped at by the adults.

What will be the best course of action? To bruteforce the paralsying wails and peckings and to get at the trunks? Or to pacify these disagreeable winged things? Voidtreckers can also come here and find a displaced person or two taking shelter. (B2, B3)

While a good portion of the roads have been cleared and managed, there are areas away from the Weary Wanderer that need help, where the Ciyesia mountain suffered its damage and plenty of the farm animals and more secluded farmers have been cut off from help. The great chinchillas and the voidblobs are taking advantage of the ruined roads to kill and take animals (the chinchillas), or just to ruin them as they're found (the voidblobs).

↪ Prompt:"We're gonna need all the hands we can get. Can some of your folks come with us 'round Ciyesia? We're having trouble to getting to some of ours in a tricky part, and the animals that way - oh, they're nasty."

There's a trail - or most of a trail - that goes around the side of the Ciyesia mountain, leading over to a smaller collection of hills. While good work has been done on clearing up, around this area there's still a fine slide of rubble that's scattered over the walking paths. Those with sturdy arms are necessary to clear the wreckage, but also to deal with the voidblobs, great chinchillas, and even the dralites in this area, with the latter preferred to be pushed back to the forest. The farmers coming with the Voidtreckers will help to round the animals, but they'll need help dealing with the trouble along the way.

Doing this will help them gain access to a few farms, grateful to find visitors, though their families will be around, trying to deal with trouble. Find them on the road, with animals or in a troubling situation with a voidblob, and do what you can to help. (P1, B1, R1/R3, O2)

While Voidtreckers have worked hard to get rid of them, larger voidblobs have been spotted, and are becoming a bigger issue across the community. Further perimeters will need to be set up to keep them away from the farmlands scattered around, using good coordination to cover as much ground as possible. The voidtears as a result are easier to find, as blobs can be easier to spot if people are on watch, but are tougher than the result blobs: as tall and wide as a newsagent storefront, they will take more than one or two people to deal with them. Their speed can be unpredictable, and they're sturdier than the smaller variants, having a more gelatinous ability to move - even to rise high or to spread out.

It is advised stronger Voidtreckers deal with these - coming in with little experience or just a blade will be dangerous.

↪ Prompt: "We're seein' some of those big boys out around the fields. I'm telling ya, they're fast bastards. Think you can help us get rid of 'em? Anything you need, we've got your backs."

The locals of these lands are doing their best to help the Voidtreckers, as well as each other. Getting word out to the farther communities is hard, but they have set up a system - flags. Flags made out of any bedsheet that can be found, then put up on wooden logs. They're a call for help, being used especially if they spot voidblobs. It's a desperate attempt at communication, but the voidblobs are troublesome - and more so their larger variant. No fence or barricade works to keep them back, and the best the farmers can do is hope they won't come towards their homes when they roll into their lands. It's also worse if there happens to be a voidtear nearby...(R1, R3)

Finding displaced people will be all the more important, though some have been put forward to aid. Glowing marks around the Yelling Height's forest have been put on the tree trunks to help guide people out of the forest easier from different spots, and another Voidtrecker has been encouraged to create crystal trackers, that can be picked up. These crystals will glow the closer they approach a non-native, nor non-Voidtrecker sentient being - which means both displaced people, and the voidblobs.

Sending people home will require the same anchoring technique used during Jinnjar, Diagad, and similar to the recent events. It only takes one Voidtrecker to return someone to their world, hand in hand they will cross a metaphysical void river, seeing flashes of the visitor's world and life. And Voidtreckers will be just as exhausted as they were getting their own returned to the train... Probably best to share this burden out between as many who are willing.

↪ Prompt: Some displaced people have found their way out of the woods, found around the escorts for those keeping check, or even making their way to Albany's inn or a nearby farm. The locals themselves can't help send them home, but they're used to helping outsiders, warming them up and getting them fed. Some will accept help easily, but others are less keen on approaching unknown houses. (B2)

To approach a voidtear will be a challenge, but as they're found, planning a route straight to them that minimises time will help. Closing a voidtear will require more than one person, a small group even - with each getting under a voidtear and then pressing their anchor button. They will need to focus on keeping themselves grounded and to resist the pull of the void, as they offer their own energy in stitching up the tear. For smaller tears two people should be able to close it but more voidtreckers will be necessary for the larger ones. Colours and music entice them, to just give up, let themselves float into the void... They will need to support each other to keep steady.

OOC NOTES

OOC Post ~ Questions ~ Shenanigans ~ Tasks Check-In & Mission Rewards
Notes: A conclusion post will go up on the 26th. Feel free to put toplevels put up at the end of the start log here! Or to re-use portions and to put up fresh posts here. Or to just link them here, have a blast.

Here is a TL;DR of the above tasks: Dralites are everywhere, more aggressive and hostile; farm animals are more scattered and harder to reach, being attacked by chinchillas and voidblobs around scrublands; displaced people need to be found and sent home, and voidblobs now have a larger variant; the voidtears are becoming easier to find, but the effects of the storms are worsening, closing them will be a priority.

Please have your tasks submitted by the 25th to help determine the conclusion of the mission! We will start to count mission rewards around this time too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's glad to see that he's doing alright. But he doesn't bring it up. Yondu knows that Vegeta wouldn't have wanted people to see him out of control. So he didn't do that to him. He would have hated it if the situation got more out of hand, but they'd done what they could. Yondu was glad that he lasted just long enough for back-up to arrive, in any case.

And now here he is, doing his level best to pretend none of it happened despite every bone in his body still hurting even after being patched up. Or maybe that's cause he's just goddamn old now. He's lucky like that.

"We need some more debris to make spike traps to ward off the pissy goats. But they ain't gonna do nothin' against the temperamental goo. ...Goddamn, I guess this is what happens when we go free-range, huh? Get turned all around." And no one giving much of a shout out about what they're doing.

"You got a good view up there. Any weak spots we're gonna need moren' a fence for?" Meaning they look like they're gonna be more prone to attack.

...yeah, Vegeta was going to have to find a way to pay back Yondu more for what he had done and the hit he had taken. It wasn't something to talk about now... but when it was needed.

"A ditch of some sort may limit their movement long enough for them to be dispatched." Short of the locals having enough firepower around to take out the blobs before they became a danger. Though hopefully they here would solve the issue of those voidtears and it wouldn't be trouble in the future. "It's rudimentary but it may offer something for them to... fall into." Would that be a danger to the people too though, or their live stock? It may just be a whole waste of time to put effort into.

Looking around from his position, Vegeta took a moment to consider the options. "Depending on the jumping capability, that are over there towards the higher ground may give anything trying to get in a jumping point to get over it." He pointing out a location a bit further away from where Yondu was currently working, but not so far as it's completely across the full property.

"I might get your help to dig somethin' out. A ditch an' linin' it with these traps for the blobs to get hung up on'd really do us some favors."

Unfortunately the locals barely had any firepower. The joys of being an agrarian culture that mostly had goat issues, six legged ungulates, and whatever the fuck happened to the chinchillas.

Speaking of which, one of the larger ones comes speeding across a field towards them.

"You wanna get that one or me?" he calls up to Vegeta with all the casualness of a man asking which one of them should get the door, because really Vegeta could just like, probably spit hard enough to kill that thing.

"I can blast a line clear around the entire area." Vegeta considers out loud, turning the idea over in his head about how that would go. "It would be better for me to start that before you get too serious with the rest of the fencing, so not to accidentally damage that. Though I would aim to have the force face outwards to limit damage." As well as making sure not to cut too deep into the ground.

Glancing over towards what Yondu was talking about, Vegeta calmly keeps his eyes on it as he spoke. "Can you're arrow even take them out?" It's both a serious question considering how these blobs are made up... and maybe a little bit of a taunt to see Yondu in action. He certainly had felt the effects of that arrow not too long ago... but Vegeta was a very different make up compared to these... bags of meat bouncing around.

"That's fine, I reckon. A good startin' line of dirt'll help us out an' we can work out what side to square off from there. Presumably even if they don't trap it somehow, it'll be difficult for those round things to navigate." The void blobs existing is still messing with him. He's not all that clear on how they are what they are. But he supposes that's not his job. Might ask Anan about them later, though.

But now it's the chinchillas they have to worry about, and Vegeta taunts him. Yondu ffts a little, leaning back against the fence and picking a solid stem of wild grass to pick his teeth with.

"You're just hungry," he jokingly accuses. "Your stomach done forgot what size it's supposed to be an' you already had a hell of an appetite." He flicks away his improvised toothpick, pulls open his coat, whistles, and his arrow zips out to hover in the air. Before he sends it flying though, the fin on top of his head is lighting up.

There's a brief 'heh' of a breath of a laugh out from Vegeta at that, not denying that he has been needing to fill his stomach more on this mission than others. Between that sudden Oozaru transformation, trialing out his new form, and closing these voidtears, he's been going through a lot of energy, and a lot of calories. "It's a good thing we'll have a station stop soon. Or however the train restocks itself." Vegeta's never seen how it replenishes itself, it just does.

For now however he's happy to watch Yondu deal with the animal. True, as Red Team he should do it, but everyone needs a chance to stretch out their skills and use them now and then. Not that any of this was much of a challenge. Though... maybe after what happened that first night a slower stop was better...

No it wasn't. He wants to test out his new form, damnit! Vegeta needs something to fight that's a challenge!

They drop one at a time, quickly. But the arrow zooms off into the woods after that, and a few seconds later a giant goat comes running out, panicked until its downed.

The arrow returns and he catches it in his hand, lazily tucking it into its holster.

"Figured you'd have some room left for a second course." It's the dumbest way to show off, finding something hidden off by itself without much effort, and he knows it is. But it is mostly in jest.

Swirling Consequences Ongoing

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