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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
...Maybe it's under the table.
The thought kicks air through his chest, choked and hysterical beneath the gathering fulcrum pressure of Rinzler's grip.
Not Rinzler.
Voxels grind gold in the cut with the effort of turning his head, of looking away, of looking again--shaking his head with gritted teeth.
"Tron got in my way." A firefly shiver of gold, a jagged loop. "I smashed him because he was in my way--!"
Rinzler’s elbow is still digging down, like he’s just gonna go through by pushing harder. Less robust programs would already have sheared apart under the pressure. The angle of the disc shifts forward, inward in Rinzler’s hand, and a hot rush of alert: blurs Clu’s vision for a nano.
He makes one more grab at it--the knee; get them apart, go for the--
There’s a tiny, brittle little noise somewhere down deep in his back and a sharp bloom of static all the way up the trunk line, and he forces himself to lay very still as Rinzler slides the edge of his weapon flat to lay hands on him. It’s almost serene, the way Rinzler is grinning, and the touch when it comes is so gentle that his sensors ache more from expecting hurt than receiving it.
At least at first. Its palm just rests there, black and implacable with its oilslick sheen. And then, gently, whisper soft, the script pries its way in.
“No.” Harsh, jagged with feedback under the mounting icicle pull, and like the Sea a bottomless thing, an absence of light, a deep anode draw that has power welling to the surface as warm and sudden as the rush to clot a wound. “Don't; you aren’t even--”
It is so cold, bitter with the risk of shutdown. He’s never been this cold, a chill of certainty that bites in down to the core.
Because you’re weak.
He’s so cold he’s shaking with it. And that’s all it is.
“No.”
no subject
Gold pales, and red swells, a flexing, feedback hum of satisfaction. Rinzler's voice is all sharp edges, but this question is almost casual. Like shallow cuts, sullying the smooth expanse of the Arena a few voxels at a time.
"Not permitted? Not right? Or are you still trying to pretend that I'm not Rinzler?"
The pinning, draining point of contact stays, but Rinzler's other disk drags in as he leans closer, feathering over lit pathways without quite digging in. Shoulder to node. From node across core. There are so many options, aren't there? Should it be a test? A Game?
"Because Rinzler wouldn't do this? Because 'as long as he's himself, he's yours'?" Teeth show as he smirks. "Even then, you knew better." The disk hums a little closer. A little deeper, digging just enough to slice a shallow curve in and out of a gold stripe. Can Clu stay silent like he had?
"I'm just what comes next."
Whether to screams or stillness, Rinzler's grip won't budge. The disk curves to a neat spiral before merging with its match. Clu's vantage will offer little view of the seething coalescion of darkness on the floor. Still, he can watch as Rinzler's empty hand recedes from view.
"And as for Tron?"
He can watch as it returns, closed around a slim, gold circle. Not under the table after all.
"I didn't say 'shattered'."
He said that Clu broke him. Because he wanted it. Because he could.
Black eyes fix on the administrator's disk.
no subject
"No authorization," his teeth want to chatter, would mince his words for him if he let go even slightly. But this is his function: access control and the law of least permissions. "You're something else--"
He's built for throughput, designed to turn one thing into another with minimal signal loss: transfer of power in a bright highlighter smear that pools thick and winks out ashen along the razor track of Rinzler's? brightening disc.
Because Rinzler wouldn't do this?
You know better.
"Still using my words for it!" Sharp, too high, half-shrieked against the pain. "Still mine."
Night seethes in the corner of his vision, boiling down below his line of sight, and his breath comes quick and hard through his nose, shaking his head or just shaking as he cuts himself again on his reluctance to look.
Rinzler's fingers curl dark around the very core of him, midnight eyes fixed and staring with a familiar acquisitive grace, dark and total as the first things that ever walked out of the Sea.
"No," and it seems to be all he can say, bright, sharp with the taste of mounting error, "no, no, no no no--" words, frantic in their haste to get out of his mouth, "Oh, I need that. Please."
MUTILATION INCOMING in 3... 2...
Clu really should know better.
"Yours?" It's a low whisper, a gentle scatter of fine scorn, overlaid atop the percussive mutter of Clu's pleas. "You could barely make a claim worth stating with your fingers in my code. Should we see if the reverse applies?"
Fingers curl tighter, drain dragging Clu's last reserves of strength out through his core. If the administrator's lights are dimming near to dark, the clear gold of the disk display is all the brighter by contrast. Clu's face, sketched out in motes of light. The interface beneath, ready and waiting to be opened. It flickers under the sheer influx of intent, and for a moment, Clu will feel the ghost-pressure crawling inward, something sticky and dark pushing at his edges—
"Don't worry," A sigh, rising to laughter, and the code display goes dark.
"I don't want you."
The disk lowers. Rinzler's touch recedes. The enforcer reaches back to dock his own disk, and for a moment, Clu is left alone. Untouched. Unbothered. Drained and empty, as worthless and abandoned as he always was, beneath it all. No user. No system. No allies, and no slaves. It's fascinating to see how little is really there.
"Still... it's better to avoid confusion."
Clu's disk flares to life again: gold edged with white, sharp edges and a ready hum. Whatever barrier the locks on Clu's codebase might have posed, weapons overrides are no trouble at all. Any resistance he might muster will prove just as useless: as Rinzler's empty hand locks around his jaw.
Forcing it open.
"Especially about those words."