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thisavrou_log2017-07-09 01:05 pm
pillz) wrote in thisavrou_log2017-07-09 01:05 pm
The Demon Plot: DEATH OF GRINDING MADNESS [July Player Event]
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.
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)
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
no subject
"Downnnn boy," it breathes, making a show of licking the finger Rinzler's helmet had grazed, voice wrapped in tones tones of hurt so fake they might well be dripping with the lie. "You're really making me work here."
A flick of the left wrist and the omni-tool glows to life. The shade summons an equipment diagnostics panel usually used for hardware repairs, conductive contact points wrapping around its claws.
"That IS... interesting though."
It doesn't go for the pattern on Rinzler's collar this time, but lower, to the little set of lines sitting just above the enforcer's gouged abdomen. This time, pressing the pad of its fingers firmly down, closing the circuit.
The data sent over the touch isn't diagnostics though. The connection yawns open, a quantum system bigger anything Flynn would have access to, but it's not the harmless nonsense gibberish of an alien system trying to connect with binary: it's intent. It's maliciousness using the tiny strips of orange light as a conduit, pinging the connection over and over, faster and faster.
"How 'bout we run you through a stress test?" Nihlus' shadow murmurs teasingly as it slowly ups the output.
no subject
He can't. He tries anyway. There's nothing else to do.
Nothing but watch the threat ready its tools. Nothing but feel the touch-connection close, stray data flicking inwards in a ping. It's corrupted. Sick. He shuts it down, shuts it out, but it comes back. Again. Again. Lights flicker, struggles lagging as internals strain to match the speed. Rinzler is skilled. Rinzler is fast. Rinzler is a thousand cycles of efficiency: pared and practiced and perfected from code that was already a marvel in its elegance.
Rinzler is nothing at all, compared to the enormity he's been hooked into.
It's not quick. Not instant, and that fact alone is staggering. But noise catches, a new pitch threading through the rattle of mismatch. The distressed flicker of the program's circuitry gives way to a maze of color: red lights speckled with pixelized glints of pale blue—both darkening to black in patchwork. His entire body warms. Heats.
Crash imminent.
no subject
The heat is alluring and it makes the shadow press down harder against Rinzler's frame with a soft sigh, watching with a quiet fascination as the lights glitched and flickered and faded. It's such a captivating sight and it was almost tempting to let it go through to the inevitable conclusion.
But, just on the brink, just on the edge of shut down, the fingers carefully lift away.
"Rinzler." A gentle hand cups the side of the enforcer's helmet and the voice drifting down from above is a soft, soft croon. "Come on now, sweetheart. I can't have you blacking out just yet."
no subject
There's too much. Externals barely register, sound rising and falling in harsh, too-fast clicks. Still, Rinzler knows his name. The tags associated with the voice that speaks it (taunt, trap) won't parse, but another does, at the very core of his directive. Threat. It's what's wrong. It's here.
Kill it.
The black mask jerks clumsily, a full ten seconds' lag after the contact. It's not the only part of Rinzler trying to move, but limbs are unresponsive, imperative unfilled.
He'll need another micro to remember why.
no subject
"Rinzlerrrr," it sing songs again, drawing glowing fingertips along the little orange strips in the enforcer's helmet, but the contact points stay dormant.
It's patient. It waits. There were other things to occupy itself with anyways, waiting for the labored ticking to level out.
Curling long claws around the point of the enforcer's mask, it pushes down, holding him down, leaving the arch of his neck exposed as it leans in. The tip of a long, oily tongue slides languidly along the circuitry in his collar, following the seams in his gridsuit in lazy exploration. Up and up, until it reaches his throat.
"Come back to me, dear," it whispers just before slowly sinking its teeth in.
no subject
([
Rinzler] was always made to fight.)Slowly, responsiveness picks up. Recovery can be read in the strength and timing of the struggles. Awareness can be read in the tense loathing that threads through them. The slick, wet slide against his indicator draws a flicker and a flinch, frame yanking in forcefully enough to dig the pattern of restraint into his wrists. It's this that turns that tension to a lock, memory slamming back in jumbled fragments. Had he—Clu—?
No. No, and revulsion washes through every fragment of processing he's gathered—every line he's cleared from the virus' malicious code. Get. It. Out. Teeth sink in, and Rinzler thrashes: mask against hand, limbs against bonds, disks flaring as hands twist in search of a target.
Code splits with the taste of ozone.
no subject
"There you are," it whispers, mouth pressed against the nook where helmet met neck now, the heat of its breath fogging up mirror gloss and it's smiling for all that there were no lips or eyes to convey the emotion. "Sure took you a couple of minutes. Losing your edge a little there, hm?"
Tones playful and teasing and hungry, the shadow presses its tongue against the fresh cuts, into them in ways a Turian tongue shouldn't have been able to. It watches intently as Rinzler twists under its weight, as he wrenches and jerks against the bindings, breath catching in quiet awe.
"Goddess, you're so pretty." Pulling back on its mech arm, it tightens the tether just a little further, ups the temperature just a little higher, mouth plates sliding against apple. "Look at you."
This time the jaws clamp down hard enough that it doesn't need to hold Rinzler's head down, long teeth sinking deep. Hand now freed, the shade reaches down and slides the contact points into the gape in the program's abdomen, sinks them in.
And there they start to slowly split into long, fine tendrils, slowly pushing foreign mass into Rinzler's core, spreading outwards like some kind of malignant root.
no subject
He can't not.
Teeth dig back into his throat. Something else forces into the raw hash of his abdomen. He can feel it split, feel it grow, get it out get it out get it out. He can feel, too, as core functions fracture. If root code destabilizes, the program won't hold together long. He won't survive this.
...he's furious that he can't take this creature with him.
The black helmet jolts in place, trying to slam into the head already buried in his neck. Rinzler's lower body is completely nonresponsive, whether from blinding heat or binding tendrils or the intrusion spreading through his core. He's splitting. Spine arches against the ground as arms struggle weakly, straining to drag what parts of him he can up towards his disks. Even if he breaks in half, even if it kills him, if he can cut the line—cut it—
As many errors as he's thrown already, Rinzler can't feel the booted foot that steps onto his disks. But he can see it. Can hear it.
He can't not.
The crunch of impact. The sigh, hissing and sibilant, backed with a static scatter of delight. And the voice, his voice, harsh and sharp and choked with pleasure.
"Now this is a sight."
no subject
That would be the end though. That would be the end, and as tempting a prospect as it was to make the program shatter, as beautiful as it would be to see him break-
There were other wants to sort out first.
It can feel Rinzler beginning to fall apart as is and that just won't do. It needs him intact for this to work. It needs him alive and awake. It wants to see how far it can push this.
The hand inside the enforcer's gut melts down to bones and tendrils, black pooling inside the wound and it moves, living and intent. It pumps into the gaps between fracturing voxels as the foreign circuitry continues spreading, gluey and thick, trying to hold Rinzler together, trying to force the integration.
Come on, the shadow wills, feeling the shuddering strain of the body under it, hearing the discordant skips of noise rattling through its teeth.
Coooome on...
Rinzler heaves himself upwards, sudden and hard and it feels a tension on the tether, a the familiar hum of energy being directed into the disks-
Until the crunch of a heavy sole against the bound blades draws everything to a dead halt.
The shadow stops. The spread of circuitry through Rinzler's frame stops. Tension wires sharply through its spine, spikes of tarry slime bristling along its body like magnetized ferrofluid.
Slowly, it unlocks its jaws from Rinzler's throat, exhaling a mouthful of ozone and little slivers of voxels as it eases back. Spikes smooth down and the rippling goo is replaced by dark, russet plating and familiar pale markings, the gape in its neck sealing off.
Opening its reformed eyes, it peers up at the other mirror, gaze half lidded in a lazy, hungry smile.
"I was wondering when I was going to see you."
no subject
Every exquisite detail.
"I wish I could say the same. Oh—" Vocals waver with a breath of laughter. "I knew he'd overestimate himself somewhere. But this is..."
Enjoyment suffuses every word, crackling thickly in their echo. It's a sharp contrast to the choppy snarls coming from the figure on the floor. The invasive pulse of darkness might physically glue Rinzler together for a time, but every drop of the shadow's not-form can feel the flat rejection coming from his own. Whatever code it might fashion, however deeply it digs, this isn't a matter of permissions or disk edits. It's not a computer breaking down a blip of attached code. This is them, and it is intent. Willpower. And Rinzler's never slips for an instant.
Rinzler will die before letting that infect him. Before integrating even the slightest part of its corruption to his shell. Rinzler can, and Rinzler will, and [
Rinzler] has spent lifetimes fighting his own function. Physical intrusion never had a chance. He's still shedding data, but as the creature's head draws back, his own smashes up after: trying to slam it. Hurt it. Weaken its grip.Hit or miss, Rinzler won't so much as glance at the attempt. It's nothing more than pathetic scrabbling. The misbehavior of a pet, strangling on its own leash. "...perfect," breathes out the conclusion, dark and amused, and he crouches easily, a finger tracing the stripe of light along the inside of a disk. There's no tension at all to his posture. Just fluid grace and a rueful twist of features, as his gaze returns to the other shadow's.
"I am truly sorry to interrupt."
no subject
"Downnn boy." Tones soothing, it winks and gives Rinzler's hips a chastising squeeze. "Behave a little for me, hm?"
The lines of foreign circuitry light up suddenly then, connections flickering to life between split voxels. It's not the same, violently powerful tidal flood of pings from before. Barely more than a trickle really, but it's just enough to- hopefully- keep Rinzler a little distracted. Just enough to keep him busy. Filling him to the very edge of the brim and nothing more.
Spirits forbid he get overheated in his delicate state, after all.
Leash tied down, the shadow turns its eyes back upwards.
"You can make it up to me by joining."
Soft and warm, the suggestion comes with the barest hint of a quaver, still wound up, still wired from tasting the edge of Rinzler's breaking point. It leans forwards, inwards, careful to keep its weight on its knees, hungry for contact, hungry for the other shadow's closeness.
"I could use some guidance." Playfulness edged with a plea. "I could share."
no subject
Not from him.
"How very tempting."
Sardonic? Genuine? Rinzler makes no move to reciprocate the other shadow's lean, but the cruel enjoyment on his features as he surveys the scene is hard to miss. Restraint. Control. And reinforcement: of his place, his purpose. Of how useless it was to fight back. It's exactly what his lesser self was made for. What he chose.
More than anything, this kind of reminder? Is what that pathetic shell deserves for his weakness.
"Perhaps... later." The smile flashes wider, teeth gleaming as his fingers curl closed around the pair of flattened disks. "For now, I'm afraid I have another arrangement to uphold.
"I'll need to borrow your toy here."
no subject
As quick as it comes, the expression melts away again into nothingness. Gently, so, so gently, it leans in and whispers, pressing the words into Rinzler's ear, the softness of the other shade's hair.
"Mmm, and what makes you think I'll just... give him up?"
The data being sent over the lines take on a new form now. Rather than just pings of invasive code, they start mimicking the data from the enforcer's own sensory inputs. Flashing heat, flashing cold, tingling numbness between thin slivers of pain- and then slow, low pulses of pleasure.
Imprecise at the moment, a cudgel more than anything. But it's learning. And quickly.
"We're having so. Much. Fun."
no subject
Get. It. Out.
Rinzler watches with the same sharp smile, eyes trailing in fascination over the show. The other shadow's proximity doesn't seem to bother him, and he rolls a shoulder, forcing just enough space to turn and regard it face to face.
"I could promise to bring him back."
Fingers squeeze, grip tightening around the trapped red-orange disks. As bright as either blade is flared, no cuts or cracks appear. These are his disks. His code. Of course he can hold it.
"Cleaned up. Fixed. A blank slate to work from. You weren't too careful getting him this far, were you? Just im̷a͢g̡̧į҉n̸͝e̷ what you could do if you really took your time." The words linger in the air, trailing static in sharp edges. Is he imagining? Rinzler is.
He'd like to see it happen.
"I could point out that you won't have much longer to play now." His free hand curls around a bound wrist, and Clu's pet shivers, lights on the limb darkening to null. The cracks of instability grow brighter, though, overheat from the burning cable juxtaposed against Rinzler's own drain, and after a wavering moment, the cracks spider out and slough apart. The render crumbles along existing faults, hand dissolving to voxels, and Rinzler raises an eyebrow at the jagged stump of forearm left behind.
"If that's not taken care of, it will go the same way soon." He nods towards the seething wound split through their prey's core. "It would be a shame, wouldn't it? Especially now.
"Still, if none of that sounds fun enough for you... how about I offer something else to keep you busy while we play?"
Something. Someone. He smiles warmly.
"She's been hiding from you."
no subject
And then-
Hunger.
It's all that fills the connection now, aching, gnawing, utterly pervasive. The raw, primal, violent hunger of a starved creature and it hollows and weakens, pouring like acid into the space between each zip of electricity, drowning out the rest of the world in a crashing wave. It rises and rises in a screaming, deafening tide of nothingness until-
A delicate, glassy, 'tink' cuts off the overspill. Two more ring out in close succession and the shadow shifts, placing a skeletonized palm against Rinzler's chest, running neatly broken contact points over shuddering shell.
"Alright," it whispers, idly smearing possessive, abstract patterns through the black goo that'd seeped through fracturing voxels with its thumb. "I'm listening."
no subject
Rinzler isn't aware of his own panicked thrashing. He doesn't know when it all stops. He knows that his core is shattered and still crumbling, that every line of power and sensation aches. The contaminant is still leaking out between his cracks, sluggish pulses as he gasps for air. The shaking persists, but he still can't move: not from the weight overhead, and not from the other hand that closes around his wrist.
Rinzler meets the other shadow's gaze squarely, an arched eyebrow and a sharp grin. He recognizes that look. Voracious, isn't this one? Still, it serves his purposes just fine.
"Her apartment. She's been making some supply runs." Or trying to. Another leech of energy, and Rinzler pries the second disk free. Snaps both weapons to one unit, a twist and hum of power to the blade to sever the line fixing it in place. It's a satisfying weight in his hand. All the more so with the way his double's focus jerks to follow it: sharp and desperate, even like this.
"You can catch her, if you're quick."
And wrapping up this awful shitshow!
It's like everything else had ceased to exist entirely. And perhaps the other shadow was lying, perhaps this was all just a trick to make it give up its plaything- but the fact of the matter was that Nihlus' shadow existed for Shepard. Being reminded of its purpose was enough.
It needs to find her.
It would be a pity, after all, if it never got the chance to play with her, too.
Rinzler doesn't get so much as a parting glance. The shade disappears soundlessly out the door in barely a blink.