( april event log )

[hownkai]

Who: Everyone
When: April 14th and on
Where: The Moira + Del Pascia
What: The prison isn't all that contained after all.
Warnings: For the (sort of) undead, possible violence, and nudity. Please label your content!

E V E N T

revive the risk "Big things have small beginnings." Things have been going relatively well for the crew of the Moira thus far despite their current circumstances. With D-E-L’s help, many supplies have already been gathered, and those with the necessary components have begun making much needed repairs. Yet, things aren’t as peaceful on Del Pascia as they might have seemed. The resident facility AI has slowly started growing more and more unresponsive to questions, often answering in rather irritated tones and short, snippy answers. Still, no system glitches appear across the prison except for one minor detail: random doors and hallways suddenly lock and close for no reason and don’t open again for varying amounts of time—ranging from minutes to hours. Does this have anything to do with the unsettling feeling some crew members have experienced since stepping foot onto Del Pascia? Or is there a simple explanation that can be easily chalked up to as an accident? ☄ DECONTAMINATION #2 ( 04.14 - 04.17 ) On the Moira, crew come and go without much hassle. They take a transporter to planets and moons and back again without any fuss... Until today. All crew that try to reboard the Moira coming back from Del Pascia will be denied access, a warning flashing on their MID - Decontamination Required for Entry. It’s a protocol that hasn’t been enacted before, and the MID offers no explanation as to why it is now. The transporter will seal and then be permitted to dock in the Cargo Bay, where the procedure will begin. All crew on the transporter have to dispose of their clothing by placing it inside hazardous waste bags located in a compartment near the front of the craft. After all clothing is stored, a gas-like substance will fill the transporter, breathable yet tasteless, and once it dissipates, crew will be free to go. Other crew members will be waiting in the cargo bay with clothing and blankets, per the captain’s instruction, but no clear explanation will be given for this sudden new protocol aside from “potential health risks”. ☄ D.ON'T E.VER L.EAVE ( 04.18 - 04.23 ) After the decontamination procedures for the Moira go off, the captains issue a ship-wide alert to let the crew know that the ship is picking up on something inside each person that boarded the space station. It is speculated that the crew came in contact with an unknown biological contaminant either during the station’s decontamination procedure or sometime after. At this point, they aren’t aware of what will happen to those that are carrying the contaminant, and the captains ask for anybody with experience to head to the Medbay to begin testing. Crew don’t appear to be in any danger, so they are allowed to continue gathering materials and supplies on board the space station at their discretion. (Every time they come and go, they will be made to go through the procedure described above). Any crew remaining on Del Pascia will find that D-E-L is more vocal than ever before. It is answering questions, as well as trying to convince crew members to abandon the Moira and take up permanent residence aboard the space station. ☄ FEAR ME, LOVE ME, DO AS I SAY ( 04.24 - 04.28 ) Like most unfortunate things, it seems everything happens all at once.The noises you heard, a step falling moments after yours or a rattle coming from the vents, become louder. You can’t place where they are coming from at first. You turn, you follow, but the search yields no results. And then, without any warning, it’s crystal clear as “they” begin to creep and move from within the shadows and ruined sections of Del Pascia: the prisoners and workers said to have been relocated by D-E-L. Their voice is one, regardless of how many gather, and they tell you, “You can be happy here” and “I can make you better” shortly after. Worse than the way they speak in unison is the way they look. Mutated and deformed, their prison uniforms are in tatters and covered in various levels of the same blood that the crew has experienced during their time on Del Pascia while visiting the prison blocks. They don’t attack to kill; they only try to detain, to drag crew members further into the station and are methodical and precise in how they do this as if they’re being controlled by something greater and much smarter than them. To those that fight, D-E-L’s voice will call out, telling the Moiran not to struggle, to stay here and be safe, be better. The AI explains that life there on Del Pascia is easy, peaceful, and nobody will cause you pain. Suffering is a thing of the past and loneliness is something you’ll never know again. The prisoners follow the command of the AI, its voice falling from their lips. D-E-L claims they feel no pain, no hunger. They are united in one purpose and are therefore free of all strife. Wouldn’t it be nice to be free like that? As always, fearing for the safety of the crew (and despite the disrepair of the Moira from events prior), the captains ask for all those capable to assist with extracting those aboard Del Pascia as quickly as possible before D-E-L tries to lock them inside. Running, after all, is better than dying, and it’s certainly something everyone aboard the Moira has gotten quite good at.

Comments

familiar faces ; a hallway in the prison blocks

[quixotically]

Of course Elle rushes in to help people. There's no way she wouldn't. But in her haste, she doesn't stop to ask anyone about what they're fighting against. It'd be a lie to say there isn't some part of her that's... happy there's danger. Not because she's happy other people are at risk, but... because it means she can throw herself into it. She's relieved that her request to change jobs was approved, but she still has been feeling... restless. There are feelings she knows she isn't dealing with properly. Aside from her initial cry when she found out that Curre couldn't bring Cannae back, she... She's been coping by being proactive, trying to make sure something like this doesn't happen again, at least, not by Rinzler's hands, thinking a lot about how she can make it work.

Apparently, it isn't enough.

But, she has the Survivalist's Rifle back. And, maybe even more importantly, A Light Shining in Darkness, too. It bolsters her confidence to recklessness. She'll be fine. These guns, together with the Desert Ranger Armor, saw her through the Divide, so she should be able to handle anything D-E-L throws at her.

... or, so she thinks, until she actually sees what the prisoners are like. Shooting them doesn't seem to matter, and not in the way that deathclaws shrug off bullets. But their wounds are healing right before her eyes -- .45, .50, it doesn't matter what she puts into them, they stumble, but they don't stop. This is... the worst fucking kind of déja vu. But -- It's okay. It's okay. She knows how to deal with this. If she aims right with the Survivalist's Rifle and keeps shooting, she should be able to take off an arm or a leg.

Except that doesn't stop them, either. She blows a prisoner's arm off at the shoulder, and he just fucking picks it up and puts it back on. This isn't like the Ghost People. This is worse than the Ghost People. At least those can be put down.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no." She's trying to focus on thoughts like how am I going to save anyone if I can't fight them off? There has to be a way. There has to be, but it's getting harder to think. Run. She should run. She has to run -- She wants to run. She can't calm down. Anything reminding her of the Madre gets under her skin, prickling and lingering, and her emotional fortitude isn't what it could be right now.

But as she turns to run, she realizes her mistake. She let herself get distracted. They've taken advantage of it to surround her. She swings the butt of Survivalist's Rifle up, hitting one in the chin, but that's just one, and it barely even makes him stumble. He reaches out to try and seize the rifle from her. She yanks back on it, but not strong enough to make him let go.

first meeting, not counting TDM as canon

[warandpeace]

Kaz had heard her over the network, and while the voice had been familiar, the language was not. The woman he knew could never speak English that well. Looked like her, but like so many faces couldn't be her. That's what his life had become, a repetition of faces, over and over. Voices that called to him in recognizable tones.

That one. That one was horrified. It was a cry that not a month earlier had come from his own mouth when he was being swarmed.

That voice, that particular note of terror at being swarmed, that's what had him sprinting. Never thought he'd be so happy to move that fast again. Nearly tripped over his own feet in his hurry. When he came in, the young woman was on the ground and trying to pull her gun free. "Let go of it!" he warned her away, aiming the stun gun at the thing. He didn't want to accidentally hit her. The situation was kind of hectic. Hard to focus quickly, get off that shot.

The thing recoiled at the stun, making a desperate noise. Her rifle was dropped.

[quixotically]

Elle hears the footsteps pounding down the hall, getting louder. She can't see around the prisoners to be able to see who it is, but it doesn't matter. It's someone here to help, because a single prisoner wouldn't be in that much of a hurry to get here. So when Kaz yells out to her, she obeys without a second thought. She doesn't know why he wants her to until she hears the shot, sees the prisoner spasm.

But she doesn't reach to pick the rifle back up. It's faster to draw Joshua's pistol. She fires frantically at another one of the prisoners, aiming for their face as best as she can. Not all of her shots make their mark, but enough of them do to achieve what she was hoping for. She can't kill them, but she can blind them, right? It'll be enough to catch it off guard that kicking at its legs, no matter how wildly or feebly, will make it trip and fall into its fellows.

[warandpeace]

Miller, however, risked getting closer. His sleeves were rolled up, overcoat gone as he'd passed it on a while earlier. Instead he reached with his bare prosthetic arm, which was grabbed as he grabbed the rifle.

Then his arm vanished in a flicker of light. The thing lost purchase, scrabbling at nothing as he turned the arm back on and grabbed the gun away from its thieves. He took a few steps back, holding it out behind him.

"Get down the corridor. I have an incendiary grenade."

Wouldn't damage the ship too bad, not enough to breach a hull. And it would sure as hell take care of these things. His voice, for the moment, all business. Couldn't worry about the other thoughts in his head. Not yet.

[quixotically]

Elle doesn't have time to be surprised by his disappearing arm. There's some part of her mind that sees that and thinks, huh, that's new, but then she's scrambling to her feet. The one she knocked over is getting up, and the one that was hit by the stun gun has recovered by now, too, but a quick jog and she's behind the man, out from that mess of prisoners.

"But you can be happy here," the prisoners intone, every syllable in sync.

Elle is in the middle of reloading, and she laughs, a short, shaky, unpleasant sound. "No. No, I can't. I really can't."

[warandpeace]

"Don't listen to them! They've already gotten to someone. Don't let them get to you, too."

He reached behind him with his real hand, ushering her further back, before he pulled out something small, flicked something on it quick (though the thing strongly resembled a lighter) and he flung it into the mess of approaching prisoners.

"Run!" He turned, shoving her down the hallway ahead of him. Not that she couldn't run on her own, but, you know....

Longer legs.

[quixotically]

Gotten to someone...? Did someone actually believe them when they've said this shit?

But she doesn't have time to think or ask about it, just like how she didn't have time to be surprised earlier. She stumbles when shoved, because she didn't react quite fast enough to have already been moving, but then she books it. Getting well out of the range of an explosion is a familiar enough experience. So is getting caught in one, and she really doesn't want to do that today.

[warandpeace]

When they got further away and he knew it was time, he tackled her, half covering her up protectively in a way that any stranger normally wouldn't do. The right arm used to shield her head the one without substance, physically there but she could see through it. His clenched expression was visible even behind his glasses through it.

After that he pulled away, looked towards the flames and the squalling, aimless prisoners thrashing around in them. Seemed like that worked decently. He didn't trust it to do the job.

He helped her up, checking her over. Then eyed that scar over her brow with caution, suspicion. No, it wasn't her. Just another lookalike.

[quixotically]

It doesn't occur to Elle just yet that he's treating her differently, like she's something important. She just assumes that this is who he is, someone this protective of someone he's met for the first time -- She gets like that, sometimes, too, with relative strangers. His arm finally registers as bizarre, though, her mind instinctively noticing light coming through where there shouldn't be. But her eyes are mostly trained on his expression. Is he okay? Is he hurting? Was that grenade more powerful than expected, or did they not get far enough away yet?

But... Then it's over. There are wails of anguish back behind them, and it makes Elle have a kneejerk surge of guilt. She doesn't let go of him after he pulls her up, hands lingering on his arms, partially to ground herself, partially out of a lasting instinct to comfort.

"Are you okay?" she asks, only noticing the way he's looking at her after she says it. That's not usually the look on people's faces as they're looking at her scar. What's wrong...?

[warandpeace]

"Yeah. It didn't get me." But not really okay. He stood and helped her, unaffected by those wails. After all, the monsters had been after them. And generally he had a harder heart.

"Should be asking you that, I think." He'd bring up the state of her guns, but, to be honest, here he was with a stun weapon and a crutch. The grenades were the best that he had on him. If they worked, good enough for him.

"Come on. It's better to move with someone at your back."