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childrenofbahamutlogs2025-02-01 12:10 pm
diceofthegods) wrote in childrenofbahamutlogs2025-02-01 12:10 pm
EVENT #2: BRAIN BOGGLING
A CRASH IN THE NIGHT
In the dark hours of a snowy early morning, a sudden BOOM can be heard all across Town. It is swiftly followed by sounds of warping metal and then a screeching crash. Curious, albeit groggy, residents emerge only to find a smoking wreck just a mile outside of Town.
The strange craft appears to be almost nautiloid in shape with wrenched, broken tendrils streaming out the opening.
Much of it is metal although some of it almost seems... organic.
Those who with to get a closer look will be met by Charlie and Dimitri who are already on the job. They request curious onlookers keep their distance since this craft is, without a doubt, tremendously dangerous.
Later in the day, there appears to be an outfit of officials coming from the west to investigate and clean up the wreckage. Thankfully(?), you will all find out soon enough what's going on.
The strange craft appears to be almost nautiloid in shape with wrenched, broken tendrils streaming out the opening.
Much of it is metal although some of it almost seems... organic.
Those who with to get a closer look will be met by Charlie and Dimitri who are already on the job. They request curious onlookers keep their distance since this craft is, without a doubt, tremendously dangerous.
Later in the day, there appears to be an outfit of officials coming from the west to investigate and clean up the wreckage. Thankfully(?), you will all find out soon enough what's going on.
INVESTIGATION & PROTECTION
Deathcard Cabin by Jonah Senzel
4:07 / 13:06
▶︎
From the Inscryption OST: A unique and haunting sound paired with a unique and haunting game.
Charlie reports to the citizens of Town that an Illithid cargo transport. The pilot did not survive the crash, but they appeared to be transporting some kind of new breed of Intellect Devourers.
"We do not yet know what this new breed is capable of, but..."
Charlie does give everyone a rundown of what an Illithid and what an Intellect Devourer is, what they are capable of, and a keen warning to tread lightly. Many dead ones were discovered in the cargo but several of the enclosures were damaged in the crash and the likelihood of escapees is high.
Charlie reiterates: These creatures are to be killed on sight, or contained until someone can kill it. If you are not confident in your combat abilities, please remain in your homes as much as possible and seal all openings to your dwelling. Those who are capable though are urged to begin patrols of Town alongside Slayd, Dimitri and himself to ensure that Town and the surrounding areas are safe.
Please travel in pairs or groups, do not be alone! Attack from a distance when possible. Hoshiko will offer her assistance as a markswoman as well by picking off any Intellect Devourers from a distance that she can for those that are forced to travel alone. (Don't worry about any jokes she makes of her service not being cheap though. Charlie wouldn't actually let her charge you anything.)
Unfortunately, not even they can predict the blizzard that rolls through Town in the midst of all this. If you happen to see anything skittering through the snow, don't panic too much. It could just be a tiny woodland creature looking for a warm burrow to hide away in!
At least you hope it is.
"We do not yet know what this new breed is capable of, but..."
Charlie does give everyone a rundown of what an Illithid and what an Intellect Devourer is, what they are capable of, and a keen warning to tread lightly. Many dead ones were discovered in the cargo but several of the enclosures were damaged in the crash and the likelihood of escapees is high.
Charlie reiterates: These creatures are to be killed on sight, or contained until someone can kill it. If you are not confident in your combat abilities, please remain in your homes as much as possible and seal all openings to your dwelling. Those who are capable though are urged to begin patrols of Town alongside Slayd, Dimitri and himself to ensure that Town and the surrounding areas are safe.
Please travel in pairs or groups, do not be alone! Attack from a distance when possible. Hoshiko will offer her assistance as a markswoman as well by picking off any Intellect Devourers from a distance that she can for those that are forced to travel alone. (Don't worry about any jokes she makes of her service not being cheap though. Charlie wouldn't actually let her charge you anything.)
Unfortunately, not even they can predict the blizzard that rolls through Town in the midst of all this. If you happen to see anything skittering through the snow, don't panic too much. It could just be a tiny woodland creature looking for a warm burrow to hide away in!
At least you hope it is.
PROMPT #3
Hybrid intellect devourers are unique from the regular ones in that the goal is not to kill their target, but to gather intelligence and act as a kind of spy network.
They will flee when confronted directly by greater numbers, but will attack a lone target. They do this by jumping at the target's head and wrapping a wet tendril around their neck. They will choke who they've wrapped around if anyone tries to remove it. They are also far more likely to try and attack sleeping target (hence the advice to keep your homes closed!).
These hybrids emit spores that will keep the target asleep during feeding. Their primary goal appears to be infiltrating the targets' minds and absorbing some of their memories. The target will have their mind left mostly intact... though they may suffer short term memory loss, confusion, distress, fatigue and head pain.
Here's where the fun starts!
Once one of these critters has fed on someone, they are onto their next target. When a fed Intellect Devourer feeds from another target, that target may absorb some of the previous target's memories. This can span across multiple victims and be erratic in whose memories taint whose mind. The memories will cross-pollinate in the form of dreams or waking visions and hallucinations.
If one of these creatures is killed, it will explode, releasing a powerful psionic wave and the memories it had absorbed from any recent targets. Anyone within ten (10) yards of the dying creature will be afflicted with extreme head pain in the short term and also witness the memories of it's previous victims.
Enjoy your muddled memories and leggy brain-hunting!
The outfit of people who have come to investigate are from New Svihelen's disaster containment squad and are investigating the hybrid creatures and the possible reason for an Illithid ship to crash here of all places. Right now, the running theory is that interference from the selfsame summoning circle that brought you all here could have caused the interplanar navigation systems of the ship to malfunction but nothing has been determined yet.
Eventually, these creatures will all be rounded up and taken care of. They are persistent and stealthy though in their efforts to survive above all else. Charlie assures that they're doing all they can to make Town safe once and for all but it will take some time.
They will flee when confronted directly by greater numbers, but will attack a lone target. They do this by jumping at the target's head and wrapping a wet tendril around their neck. They will choke who they've wrapped around if anyone tries to remove it. They are also far more likely to try and attack sleeping target (hence the advice to keep your homes closed!).
These hybrids emit spores that will keep the target asleep during feeding. Their primary goal appears to be infiltrating the targets' minds and absorbing some of their memories. The target will have their mind left mostly intact... though they may suffer short term memory loss, confusion, distress, fatigue and head pain.
Here's where the fun starts!
Once one of these critters has fed on someone, they are onto their next target. When a fed Intellect Devourer feeds from another target, that target may absorb some of the previous target's memories. This can span across multiple victims and be erratic in whose memories taint whose mind. The memories will cross-pollinate in the form of dreams or waking visions and hallucinations.
If one of these creatures is killed, it will explode, releasing a powerful psionic wave and the memories it had absorbed from any recent targets. Anyone within ten (10) yards of the dying creature will be afflicted with extreme head pain in the short term and also witness the memories of it's previous victims.
Enjoy your muddled memories and leggy brain-hunting!
The outfit of people who have come to investigate are from New Svihelen's disaster containment squad and are investigating the hybrid creatures and the possible reason for an Illithid ship to crash here of all places. Right now, the running theory is that interference from the selfsame summoning circle that brought you all here could have caused the interplanar navigation systems of the ship to malfunction but nothing has been determined yet.
Eventually, these creatures will all be rounded up and taken care of. They are persistent and stealthy though in their efforts to survive above all else. Charlie assures that they're doing all they can to make Town safe once and for all but it will take some time.
Notes
⁂ The partner plotting post for this event/quarter is also up!
⁂ Additionally, we have a state of the game post available for people to read about updates, clarifications, and housekeeping items!
⁂ If you have any further questions or feedback about this event specifically, please comment here!
⁂ For even more ambient event music, you can check out this this playlist!
⁂ Full Navigation ⁂
⁂ Additionally, we have a state of the game post available for people to read about updates, clarifications, and housekeeping items!
⁂ If you have any further questions or feedback about this event specifically, please comment here!
⁂ For even more ambient event music, you can check out this this playlist!
no subject
For once, Cloud might be...if not fine, then at least as close to it as men like the two of them are likely to get. That's a pleasant surprise, under the circumstances, and it's enough to relax him.
And then...Rhadore.
Cloud will see the way Sephiroth's whole body goes quite still, will realize just how surprisingly open and earnest Sephiroth's eyes tend to be when something deep in them shutters - they become distant, inscrutable, carefully blank. Whatever emotional response Sephiroth has to even the mention of Rhadore has been shut down as abruptly and ruthlessly as locks engaging on a bank vault at the sound of an alarm.
Something there, some pain...is being guarded there, so carefully. And even though, arguably, the vault has already been emptied, the security system can still be triggered.
Sephiroth's own memories of Rhadore, his violent stew of emotions about it, are so vivid that for several long moments he isn't even considering what it means that Cloud has some knowledge of them now - he's simply reliving his own agonies in the privacy of his mind. Only heightened by his impossibly convoluted feelings about Glenn having been in Town, so briefly, and disappearing again without ever exchanging a word with him...and, of course, his own younger self, so fresh from Rhadore, also gone now. Even as far out from it as he is, it's never gotten easier to think of it...and only harder still in recent days, with the recent reminders. And now this.
Finally, the wheels start to turn in regards to Cloud in connection to Rhadore. If he saw that...well, it's hard to know what exactly he saw. All of it? Parts of it? Sephiroth supposes it doesn't matter. None of it was good. None of it was excusable.
"Hardly memories worth seeing," he says, finally, through lips that seem to have very little feeling in them. "Context, perhaps, for some of the things I've said...but not sights or knowledge that anyone would welcome sharing."
It's not quite an apology - for once, Sephiroth can't pretend that this being inflicted on Cloud is his fault in any direct way - but it is an acknowledgment of how unpleasant it couldn't help but have been. Beyond that...Sephiroth isn't sure what to say about it. It's possible that Cloud thinks even worse of him now than he once did, but Sephiroth would hardly be the person to question or argue that if he does.
no subject
What the merc may never realize is that it is all of the above, felt not at or against Sephiroth, but for him. That was a child, who had no say in anything, driven to heinous crimes.
Against all odds and against every one of Cloud's instincts, he's slowly come to understand and start to accept that the Sephiroth he knows here in Town is different from the monster plaguing his nightmares. A man possessed of his own mind, wanting nothing more than to do right by the man he scarred irreparably. One who...Genuinely cares about Cloud, enough so he asks after his wellness in the face of his own pain.
Monsters just aren't like that. Even the ones with the best disguises. The monster Cloud knew was this man, broken painstakingly over time by one of the most fucked up systems and men to ever exist. A weapon, forged in flame.
"Sephiroth," Cloud says quietly, head lightly shaking side to side. He can easily recognize the familiar pattern of shutting down to stop nosy others from. He's done it himself, after all.
"I think the question is if you're ok."
Genuine concern reflects in those mako eyes.
no subject
friend?person inquiring after his current state of well-being. There are only so many ways to express that sentiment.But perhaps because he's rattled, perhaps because he's always struggled not to take things too literally, perhaps simply because there is no more natural reaction for a man in his position to have, more words fall from his numb lips. And this time they bypass the usual screening process where he carefully analyzes what he's going to say, whether or not he ought to say it or what people will think of it.
"I don't know if okay is a thing I have ever been."
There's a touch of bemusement to the words, lingering still at the very idea of being asked such a question. He'd realized what Cloud really meant by it after only a moment, but that first kneejerk emotional response is taking time to fade. Strong enough, indeed, to have him respond to the feeling instead of the meaning.
He passes a hand over his eyes, breathing out slowly. "Forgive me, I know...that isn't what you were truly asking. But...I'll be all right. I've had more reminders of Rhadore recently than just this...and I've certainly been through worse. Mostly I regret that you've been forced to share in memories and burdens that aren't yours to bear. I have to live with them, but...that's my penance for creating them. You've done nothing to deserve it."
no subject
Even so, it still winds the merc to hear those levels of emotion come from the First's mouth. It hits as a shock every damn time, especially when the emotions are ones he hasn't yet witnessed.
And especially when the emotions and what's said strike Cloud as relatable on any level.
"...Yeah..."
Every interaction between them seems to result in more of their similarities coming to light. Cloud isn't recoiling from that as hard as he did initially any longer, instead landing in a contemplative space only lightly tinged with the remains of denial. After all, it keeps happening over and over.
His frown deepens at the initial response, and stays steady while Cloud bears witness to Sephiroth doing something he is no stranger to himself- pulling everything back together and putting the walls back up. The recognition of that in particular actually hits the blond with an unexpected pang of sympathy and understanding. For a fleeting moment, Cloud Strife got to see Sephiroth's buried self, felt a piece of what lay beyond the ironclad fortress around him. Perhaps, with moments like this, he can start to understand what Aerith and Tifa saw in him. What Wedge sees in him now.
Cloud actually finds himself shaking his head, the words coming out surprising even him. "You don't need to apologize when I'm asking." A pause. "...Just makes me want Hojo's head on a platter even more. You were just a kid." Sephiroth was a child. A child, traumatized and honed into a weapon against every shred of his own will as a human being. The memories Cloud witnessed are tangible proof. While it doesn't and would never erase the death and destruction the SOLDIER caused with his own hands, it certainly makes the situation far less black and white than Cloud ever would have dreamt of considering prior. "You saying there's things here now from back then?"
no subject
He exhales, slowly. "And also...Glenn was here, briefly. I had no idea what to say to him, and we avoided each other...and I suppose as a result I lost my chance to ever speak to him again. He disappeared again not long after his arrival."