EVENT #2: BRAIN BOGGLING

[diceofthegods]

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.

INVESTIGATION & PROTECTION

Deathcard Cabin by Jonah Senzel

4:07 / 13:06

▶︎

Click here to listen.

From the Inscryption OST: A unique and haunting sound paired with a unique and haunting game.

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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.

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.

Notes

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Comments

Brain muddle wears off in 3 more turns.

[recreator]

Confused indeed. Emet-Selch looks at Byleth as if he doesn't quite believe him - as if this is surely some clever one-liner meant to unbalance him before the flash of a knife at his throat. But no... even that look shifts uncertainly, as if he could possibly believe him, but is hesitant to admit as much. After all, though he cannot explain why that would be save for the visions still tickling the edge of his consciousness - he feels safe with this man. Comfortable - were he not so decidedly uncomfortable due to circumstance. In the end he indignantly reaches up to hold the warm cloth to his own forehead - pride taking over where memory yet struggles to make sense of the loose threads desperately attempting to weave themselves back into their proper places.

"I don't recall saying that I would be the one to do it." Emet-Selch's stare is meant to be reproachful, but more closely resembles an old cat squinting in the sun. "Only that it must needs be done. Obviously I would be little help at the present moment."

Between his own disorientation, the pounding in his skull... he'd only get lost out there if he didn't keel over first. Disgraceful. Not to mention a liability for everyone else - which is something he can be sure he would never allow. No, he will remain as he is, even if the idea of being fussed over by the person he was in his recent not-quite-memories irritates him somehow.

[perfectteatime]

Byleth gives him the grace of not commenting or refuting him all too much right now. He has confidence that Emet will eventually gather his wits back. Right now, the best he can do is offer the comfort and stability to facilitate that faster.

"Well, rest assured it is seen to." Byleth assures him, affording him his personal space for now.

"What is the last thing you recall doing?" Perhaps it will help jog his memory? Or confuse him further, Byleth isn't sure, but he's willing to try. His tone is even and calm as ever. He's careful with his words, knowing how prickly the man can be on a good day. When he's confused and in pain, he doubts for the length of Emet's patience.

2.

[recreator]

Which is just as well. It's bad enough that he's aware of his uselessness in the moment without another standing by and agreeing with him. Emet-Selch closes his eyes, as if it'll will away the ache. When he scowls this time, it somehow seems more real than the others he uses more generously on the day-to-day.

"Depends," he replies tersely. "Was this before or after the Intellect Devourers ambushed me in the middle of a blizzard? Going outside was obviously a mistake. Colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Imperial Theatre on an Earthsday night."

[perfectteatime]

Well at least he appears to know what happened to some juncture.

"After, if you please." He probably doesn't please, but perhaps at least they can sort through the gist of things and get his head on right. He doesn't enjoy to see the man in discomfort or pain, and there's a deeper part of him that is rightly bothered by it. So much so that his own muzzle creases down into a near-matching frown.

The placid surface of his lake rippling slightly with the stronger emotion that dared bring out something more than a neutral affect.

1...

[recreator]

He doesn't please at all. Just gathering the words and images slowly dripping into his mind like the slow-forming of stalagmites puddling up from a cavern floor into something coherent and meaningful takes far too much energy. A swell of dizziness and the sensation of falling overtake him, even though such a thing - logically - is utterly impossible given he can feel the shape of the pillows and mattress pressing into his back.

No, he wasn't falling at all. He was...

"Flying."

Which doesn't sound correct given his own struggles to master the wings this world has bestowed upon him, but he knows it to be right. His eyes blink halfway open as he tries to focus on the nature of that flight, the sun-touched world whisking by below him, the joy of it, the swell of eager anticipation.

"Somewhere unfamiliar, on wings that were not mine. Yet I knew it. I was going to meet someone. In the garden."

[perfectteatime]

The memory comes immediately rushing to the surface. Just with the little he's given. The garden. He feels his stomach drop. It's clear the way his gaze is drawn away from Emet and seems to almost drift off somewhere unreachable.

"I see." That's all he can manage at the moment.

"Well. Perhaps the image will become more clear with time." A part of him hopes not. At one point he would have liked to show him this. The affection. The love. Now though, there is a piece that fears the risk. He has rarely feared rejection. Only elsewise from Dimitri, and that is... a whole other can of worms.

He shakes himself of it though, and goes back to his self-appointed duty of looking after Emet.

[recreator]

Emet-Selch glances in the man's direction, one eye following his movements and noting his apparent distraction. And then he sighs, reaching the other arm out from beneath the covers and snapping for the cup of water to teleport itself into his waiting hand. He still feels sluggish and unsteady, his mind murky like a pond following a flood. But a pond can be crossed, provided one has a boat. Or skirted. Or one can simply fly over it.

"On the contrary, I would say the image is plenty clear already, though I can't say I much enjoyed the view of...me."

He takes a long, cautious sip. Not because he's suspicious - not anymore - but simply because it won't do to overexert himself.

"I remember things, they're just frustratingly out of context. Slow. Jumping all over the place, with no regard for the natural flow of time. And, I assume, a good portion of these visions are not mine at all - but yours, given I was speaking with your voice. That boy, Dimitri, was there, too. Although he had obviously grown into a man by then. Looked like he'd seen a ghost, or perhaps something far worse."

Gradually do the pieces begin to click satisfyingly into place. Emet-Selch gives no indication that he's rejecting any of it, really. If anything, he seems entirely neutral about the whole affair. Or maybe he's simply too exhausted to be outraged. But when he glances at Byleth this time, there is recognition, at least.

"Lucky for you, I am disinclined to gossip."

[perfectteatime]

Ah. Byleth visibly wilts. Even though he doesn't immediately reject it, there is a distinctly terrible feeling about-

About being known. He could imagine that Emet might tell him that's how he felt when Byleth had initially divulged all those memories. Just desserts, Byleth decides. It doesn't make him feel any better about it.

"Yes... please do not tell Dimitri of it. I do nit know what this timeline may bring for him, and I don't want to influence him either way. He has and will go through great hardship. I cannot even begin to quantify." He glances away, looking at the door for a moment, thinking of the currently younger charge of his.

"Thank you, for your discretion. I will answer any questions you may have but- otherwise I am satisfied to drop the matter if you are." He sounds stiffer than usual. A hand folded into his tunic clearly grasping, and he does not make eye-contact. It's an odd feeling. Shame. Not something he used to feel much at all.

[recreator]

Satisfied? That earns a mild huff from him.

Just desserts, indeed. Emet-Selch's gaze sharpens wordlessly, and he does not miss the way Byleth's demeanor shifts to something more...defensive and closed off. Well. He's too wrung-out to feel resentful or petty. And honestly, even if he weren't he would not say that he faults Byleth specifically in any of this. Rather, it seems, the tables have been reversed, and now he is the one in possession of information he was never meant to have. Not the best feeling, as he well knows. And even less so for his caretaker no doubt.

Emet-Selch closes his eyes again in an effort to make some determination beneath the persistent ache in his skull.

"I will leave young Dimitri out of this," he says, and it sounds like a promise. "However, I would be lying if I said I didn't have questions. Mostly concerned with your world, and that ability of yours."

"As to the rest, I don't believe I require any further explanation." After all, that wasn't them, even if it felt far too intimate not to be.

"...Nor do I have any intention of interrogating you at this very moment. Thus, you may lower your hackles and take your rest." He sets the glass aside, and with a grunt he moves to sit up properly, unwilling to allow himself to remain vulnerable for even a second longer.

[perfectteatime]

That does settle him, to hear that Dimitri will remain unbothered by the hard truths awaiting him. Byleth isn't sure if it's the right thing to do, maybe he should warn him? It doesn't feel good, though. Hard things rarely do.

The mention of his world, and-

Ah.

"You saw it then? Divine Pulse?" He rubs at the base of his neck, a nervous fidget, though barely noticeable to anyone who wasn't keen to examine and dissect the man. "Yes, I will be glad to tell you of whatever you wish to know. I am an open book to you."

In more ways than he would care to admit. Still, he holds up his hands as Emet attempts to rise.

"Easy! You can rest here a while longer. I can leave you alone if you want. It's senseless to push yourself."

[recreator]

"Is that what you call it?" That time-reversing ability of Byleth's that allows him to seemingly alter fate, to snatch those close to him back from the brink of death. It makes sense, now. What Byleth had said to him when they first met: 'Oh, well. I guess you could say I've gotten quite good at cheating death.'

But that is, perhaps, a discussion for another time. One in which they are both far less on edge. Emet-Selch casts the other man a mildly challenging look, but for a mercy, he doesn't seem any more annoyed than is typical. He also doesn't cease his efforts to rise - though he takes it slowly, in increments.

"I am perfectly capable of determining what I can and cannot do, Byleth. Your concern is...precious, really, but entirely unnecessary. Need I remind you that I am not one of your students?"

However... there is one problem, one which has made itself glaringly obvious in the fit and stretch of the bedclothes he's currently wearing. They, like this room, are unfamiliar to him. And, further, they were decidedly made for someone of reduced stature compared to himself.

Well.

Without preamble, the Ancient draws the hem of the sheet around himself like a shroud, his gaze turning slightly more accusatory.

"Now. My robes and mask, if you please."

Look. You cannot expect him to go about wearing clothing that is much too small for him. While, yes, he could simply adjust his borrowed trappings to suit his needs, it's a matter of propriety. He is not going to budge until the mark of his seat is returned to him.