The Demon Plot: DEATH OF GRINDING MADNESS [July Player Event]

[pillz]

Who: Ensemble production, all individuals who opted in to the plot
When: July 9-21
Where: Two inhabited planets around the Ingress
What: The demon plot kicks off, in which malevolent shadow beings, copies of existing characters, begin to materialize and harass the PCs across the worlds. Plotting post is here, and a network post will go up within the next 2 days from several PCs advising on how to end the plot.
Warnings: Violence, psychological themes, possibly past trauma, etc.

Death of Grinding Madness
The Demon Plot
(mild spoilers for The Raven Cycle)

On July 9, a demon begins to make its way through the Ingress, summoned through by a shitty teenager.

July 9-12
Harrying

It's innocuous in the beginning. A movement in the corner of your eye, a shadow through a curtain-- merely a tree. But then the shadow figures begin to emerge into full being. Black-eyed wraiths that look like enemies, friends with whom you've had past conflict, or even you yourself. At first, it's merely harrying, minor harassment. Threatening gestures, broken gestures, jump scares.

Pursue them, and they disappear-- you might even catch a glimpse of how. They melt down into black slime, racing away across floors, through sewer grates, up walls, impossible to follow. By now, the worst of the climate freeze is over, but residual ice does pose a needles extra obstacle.

July 12-15
The Violence Escalates

In the days that follow, the situation only gets worse.

Sporadic harassment turns into outright attacks. The targeting is unmistakable. The shadow beings who can speak tell cruel tales of animosity, spite, even hatred. They are as deadly with their hands or strange powers as their doppelgangers are, and worse, they're functionally indestructible. Rip off one's head and it merely reforms out of sticky black ink. Limbs regenerate just as easily. The being might dispell for a few hours, but no doubt— it'll be back, if not to hurt you then someone you know.

The Savrii begin to notice. It's hard not to. While there is hardly an epidemic of panic, the disruptions are hard to miss-- broken windows, screams, random violence. Soon, the authorities begin to open safehouse facilities at which characters can seek shelter.

July 15-18
The Golem

On July 17, something horrific begins to happen— several shadow beings merge to form a massive golem in Kauto R1. It is a grotesque, horrifying spectacle, of limbs and eyes and pulsating flesh. It reaches almost sixty feet in height. Combined together, this shadow creature is considerably less intelligent than the individual beings were. However, it is also immensely strong and regenerates just like the smaller ones did.

Within the mall, hundreds of daytime shoppers are trapped within. Luckily, they have food and climate control. Perhaps you're one of them-- or perhaps you're trying to get in to provide medical care.

In the meantime, the attacks from the individual shadow beings don't stop. Despite the intelligence exhibited by some, all of them seem mindlessly bent on tormenting their targets until they are killed.

July 18-21
The Sacrifice

On the 9th day, a network post goes up (link pending, will be OOCly forward-dated to July 10th latest) revealing how to remove the invincibility of the attackers.

And by the 21st, the remaining beings utterly vanish without explanation— unless you happen to bear witness to the events that take place at St. Monmouth.

Comments

[dreamkid]

It has been quiet. The human population of St. Monmouth has dropped significantly in the last few months, and then... grown again, sort of. Matthew has seen them. Not-Declan watching him from the doorway and then melting away, not-Ronan haunting his real brother like a shade. He's seen the reports on the network.

But this is the first time he's seen himself. It's weird.

"Uh, hi," he greets in return, lifting his fingers in a confused wave. Those are his curls, his sneakers. The other Matthew is even eating his favorite fruit cup. Boof the giant dream dog comes forward from behind the real Matthew to sniff the shadow version, and he doesn't growl. That seems a good sign.

Real Matthew places his hand on the counter and moves closer.

"Yeah, sure. How to save who?" He squints, trying to find a hint of iris or pupil in the inky blackness of his twin's eyes. The next words come out in a breath. "Ronan and Declan?"

[pillz]

A beat. "Yeah!" Shadow Matthew decides to answer. We will have to forgive Shadow Matthew. He isn't lying about the future. It's just that he can't very predict it, otherwise he'd be less cavalier about making the promises. "Yeah, you can save them." He stuffs one last wedge of peach in his mouth, not because he's selfish but because he wants one. When death and mayhem is all around, the least you can do is make sure you're fed with something tasty.

He then stucks the fork in one of the remaining fruit slices, and hands the remaining cup over to Matthew. "But also everyone." He kind of forgets to wash his hands before reaching down to pet Matthew's dog. Matthew's dog probably won't mind if there is a trace of syrup on his broad digits. There's a lull as dark Matthew is somewhat fixed on the task at hand... literally at hand. He stares down at the pooch, uncertainty flickering behind his dark eyes, but not much else. He does not and never will have eye-whites. It's just not part of the shadow deal.

"Would you think about running away?" he asks, suddenly. "If I was dangerous. Or. Stuff."

[dreamkid]

Real Matthew lets out a slow exhale, watching his double eat another peach without judgment or irritation. They're delicious, and he'd eat one more, too. His mind, however, isn't on the fruit cup when shadow Matthew hands it over, because he's still turning those words over in his head.

Yeah, you can save them.

Make no mistake, Matthew Lynch isn't a hero type and he knows it. In matters of rescuing people and making selfless choices, well. He's just a kid. But his brothers are suffering and if it came down to it, he would walk through fire for them.

He goes still, the fork and peach slice halfway to his mouth when shadow Matthew asks him about running away. "Are you dangerous?"

Boof still doesn't seem to think so. The giant dog is licking syrup off of shadow Matthew's hand.

"The other Ronan and Declan..." Matthew doesn't even know how to finish. They're the worst. "You're not just messing with me?"

[pillz]

"Not really... I'm not dangerous in the usual way," shadow Matthew answers, after a moment's thought. He looks down at the dog licking his fingers, and he spreads his hand to cup the giant pooch's gigantic face, a smile ghosting over his face. It's only with the shift in his expression that it's truly clear how worried he was, the change in the shape of his big baby blue eyes. Scaredy-scared.

After all, Matthew's virtue is courage. You can't actually have it, without a little bit of fear, at least.

"Your brothers will have to kill the shadow beings, but the first step is making sure they can be harmed." Shadow Matthew apparently decides to lean into the distraction. He drops into a crouch on the kitchen floor now that his hands are empty, rubbing his hands up the sides of Boof's neck, around his head, to his ears. "Right now, the shadow beings... they can't be stopped. Not by anyone." He looks up at his counterpart, black eyes unreadable. "If you hurt them, they heal. They aren't alive at all. It's demon work."

[dreamkid]

Not dangerous in the usual way could be a hint that his shadow self is dangerous in some other way, but Matthew doesn't quite manage to put that together. He'd much rather believe that not dangerous means not dangerous and there's nothing more to it.

It's hard, anyway, to be afraid of himself. Especially a version of himself that's offering him a way to help his brothers.

"A demon?" That, on the other hand, sends a cold shiver running down his spine. He drops the fork and can of peaches on the counter with a clatter and a thunk, respectively, and kneels down near his other self, planting his hand also on the big comforting dog between them. Boof lets out a low bark of contentment that sounds just like his name.

"How? That's--" He swallows. When he was a kid, demons were like man-eating sharks or tigers. Spooky to think about, but nothing he ever needed to worry about. God wouldn't let something like that get near them, he thought.

"Never mind. What do they have to do? I've gotta tell them soon."

[pillz]

Shadow Matthew nods understandingly, blinking his eerie, whole-black eyes. Then he turns away after a moment, going to the cabinets. Getting himself some water. This whole situation seems rather terrible, even if he's part of it; it stresses him out to be a part of this. "They have to make sacrifices," he says. "They can be deeds, or they can give up some memories. The demon's evil, you see. And to end evil, you have to do something good— something difficult and painful, but good."

The water foams white into his cup. He turns back once it's half full. (Not: half empty.) "There are four big sins. Anger, distrust, grief, and fear. So there are four big... redemptions. Forgiveness, fidelity, resilience, and courage. They're about giving up the sins, even when they're familiar. Doing good things for people you don't like, or putting your faith back into people you've started to lose it in. Stuff like that." Matthew wiggles their glass of water contemplatively, then sucks down a mouthful of it, draining a quarter of it in one gulp. Then they stoop down to offer the rest to Boof. The dog reassures the Shadow boy.

"Four virtues for four people," he says. "Can you guess which one you are?"

[dreamkid]

Four sins, four redemptions. Matthew's eyes follow his double and his lips move silently as he repeats the virtues to himself, willing them to stick in his sieve-like dream brain. This is important. He has to remember them, for his brothers.

And, well, this information could probably help other people, too.

"Umm," is all he says at first, tilting his head. He can't think of anything nice he's done for someone he didn't like--but he dislikes very few people--and he doesn't remember losing faith in anyone. For a second or two, the only sound in the kitchen is Boof lapping up water as best as he can, his huge snout shoved into the glass. Matthew pats the dog's back distractedly.

"I don't know. Fidelity is like faith, isn't it?"

He isn't likely to pin courage to himself; that seems like one of those many descriptors that has always fit Ronan or Declan better. They've always been a lot more than Matthew has.

"Oh, hang on, hang on. If there's four people, who are the other three?"

[pillz]

"Kind of," dark Matthew says, reaching up to scratch his own stubby lil chin thoughtfully. "This one is more about like... being faithful to someone you're dating. Like Declan!"

Look. He may be dark, but he's still Matthew. What does he know about Declan's love life, really.

At this point in the conversation, he starts to wander back toward the refrigerator. He is not the standard issue teller of mythical secrets, characterized by swooshy shapeless clothing and four-syllable word vocabularies and an air of mystique, for sure. He opens the door and peeks in. Anxiety eating! What else are you gonna do, when your person is the paragon of courage and you're thus... the antithesis of that. "The other three are... Kurt Wagner. And also the woman named J, and Bryan. Who lives in the tree district." What'st his. A cup of chocolate pudding?? Well they already had fruit, it's definitely time for dessert.

"Do you know any of them?" Dark Matthew extracts two (2) cups of pudding just in case he and other Matthew are on a similar wavelength.

[dreamkid]

Matthew nods his agreement for a full three seconds. Like Declan, of course! It doesn't occur to him to question how much his shadow self knows about his brothers, or his life, or anything else. That he can share all this stuff about how to save everyone is lucky, and Matthew's always taken people as he finds them.

Maybe he and the other Matthew can be pals. Maybe if he stays here, and Matthew can keep him away from the fake Ronan and the fake Declan, he won't have to be so nervous all the time.

"Oh, Kurt." He brightens. "Yeah, sure, I know Kurt. We're friends. I dunno the others." When the two cups of pudding come out of the fridge, Matthew doesn't even have to think about it before he hops over to the drawer and plucks out two spoons, one to keep and one to hand over to his double. Of course he's on the same wavelength. Boof perks up and wags his tail, expecting a treat as well, but the real Matthew ignores him. Dogs don't get chocolate, silly.

"So..." thinking hard, here, puzzling it all out. "Does that mean Kurt's okay? His-- the other Kurt will be nice to him, too?" Is that what it means? There's a lot going on here that he doesn't fully understand.

[pillz]

Dark Matthew exchanges the pudding for the spoon. Sometimes it's not so bad, having some kind of mystical clone. Not if you both find comfort in chocolate and are similarly disturbed by dream demons. "Yeah, Kurt's should be nice too," Matthew says. "At least, he won't be trying to hurt your friend.

"They'll be scared and skeptical. The ones who've been fighting their alters." The boy starts to peel the top off their pudding and starts to look at Boof. Look, what he gained in mystical knowledge took up precious space for dog facts ok. "And 'sacrifice' is a scary word. You'll have to be really, uhh. Reassuring. Can you do that?"

[dreamkid]

"I can try," Matthew promises, peeling the foil off his pudding and sticking his spoon inside. (And there is something reassuring about the earnest tone in his voice.) He's glad to hear Kurt's shadow is nice, too. To be honest, he's been so wrapped up in worrying about his brothers he hasn't had much time to think about anyone else. Sorry, everybody in the universe who's not a Lynch.

"He'll beg but don't give him any," he instructs his double, referring of course to Boof and the pudding. He licks the chocolate off the bottom of his lid, and then continues on as if he didn't just interrupt himself.

"So, once everybody knows about the sacrifices and the virtues and stuff. They'll get rid of the bad shadows, and that'll make everything go back to normal?"

The demon will just... give up, one hopes.

"Will you stay around?"

[pillz]

There's a moment where dark Matthew seems to think about that. He's not a big picture kind of a fellow either, and he hadn't thought about much beside the current problem, with the demons, the threat they posed to people on the ground. The demon itself? That'll be a problem, probably. "I hope so," they offer, after a long, cautious pause. "I think if the demon's gone, I will be too. Gone from here, I mean."

He should be afraid of that. But he isn't quite alive, so death holds a different weight. Pain, though. The loss of Matthew's brothers. This distorted echo of Matthew himself feels that more than he feels most things. He eats chocolate a bit thoughtfully, careful to keep the treat out of Book's reach. And then he suddenly sets it down on the counter.

"This might be the only time we meet. Maybe we should hug."