The Legion [Mods] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letsgolegion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am
letsgolegion) wrote in legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am
Entry tags:
SILENT HORIZON - [Part 1: The In-Between] [modplot]
Who| Everyone who signed up
What| 2 spoopy
Where| In The In-Between, the pocket dimension inside the Silent Horizon
When| After Valor's Day. Mission starts shortly before "No Sanity Clause" and runs simultaneously in game time
Warnings/Notes| Potential warnings for EVERYTHING. This is a horror plot that may tread a lot of ground. Please keep in mind that you can stumble on disturbing stuff in almost any thread. We advise all players to put warnings in the subjects of threads when they lean towards cut-worthy stuff.
The mission was simple. The team had to board the derelict Silent Horizon, a ship with an experimental stardrive, after it finally reappeared in UP space, many hours after it was supposed to reappear, during its first field test. No life signs were aboard, but the presence of several Roboticans on the crew -- who were undetectable by bioscan -- meant that the ship had to be boarded to make sure the Robotican crewmen were gone, too.
The United Planets government, concerned about the loss of the crew members, asked the Legion to step in, in case the threat on board was of a metapowered nature. Due to the massive danger implied by an entire starship crew going missing, the response team sent on the mission was relatively large, more than enough to handle any hostiles. None of this "we'll just send one tiny team to go alone into a giant starship against an unknown threat" business. No, if there was a hostile force on the ship, the plan was "let's drop 25+ Legionnaires on its head." Safety in numbers.
It was a good idea. In theory. In most cases, it would've given them the edge that would've let them face something very nasty without succumbing to it themselves. But in practice, it just meant that it was a much larger team that suddenly went missing after watching the last video log of the previous crew on the command deck.
Screams poured out of the screen the moment it started to play -- automatically -- when they entered the command deck. Onscreen, they saw the original crew murdering each other, tearing each other apart in a blood-soaked rampage.
"Wait, stop! What's wrong with everyone? Why are you --?" cried out one of the Robotican crew members, clearly immune from whatever was causing the madness, but his cries went unheeded as one of his Coluan crew-mates bashed his head clean off with a chair.
After the video played, the darkness swept in, wrapping around the whole team of Legionnaires, making them feel frozen all the way down to their bones and stealing consciousness away from them. When they woke again, they all found themselves separated, waking up in a realm of nightmares.
The halls breathe here -- at least in the places that have walls. They flex in and out, like the passageways inside the lungs. Sometimes the walls give way to open nightmare-scapes, remote and foggy, or bright and alien and exposed. The landscape bends and shifts around them, reacting to their thoughts and fears. And every so often, far off, there is the pitter-pat of something strange moving through this place. Like the sound of many feet -- or hands -- slapping against the ground or flesh-walls.
At some point, there is always a voice that each of them hears, tinny and robotic and distant, warning them of a being called the Faceless, that rules this realm. They're told not to feed from his blood, that if they do they'll be made a part of this place. If they accept his offer, and change forms, they'll eventually bleed to death, and if the Faceless isn't stopped before they die, those that die in their mutated forms will belong to him forever.
It's not the only voice they'll hear, though. This is a land filled with whispers. And screams. And the sounds of begging sometimes, too.
And for some of the Legionnaires, the In-Between speaks to them, touches something deep and dark inside them -- and it's calling them home.
What| 2 spoopy
Where| In The In-Between, the pocket dimension inside the Silent Horizon
When| After Valor's Day. Mission starts shortly before "No Sanity Clause" and runs simultaneously in game time
Warnings/Notes| Potential warnings for EVERYTHING. This is a horror plot that may tread a lot of ground. Please keep in mind that you can stumble on disturbing stuff in almost any thread. We advise all players to put warnings in the subjects of threads when they lean towards cut-worthy stuff.
The mission was simple. The team had to board the derelict Silent Horizon, a ship with an experimental stardrive, after it finally reappeared in UP space, many hours after it was supposed to reappear, during its first field test. No life signs were aboard, but the presence of several Roboticans on the crew -- who were undetectable by bioscan -- meant that the ship had to be boarded to make sure the Robotican crewmen were gone, too.
The United Planets government, concerned about the loss of the crew members, asked the Legion to step in, in case the threat on board was of a metapowered nature. Due to the massive danger implied by an entire starship crew going missing, the response team sent on the mission was relatively large, more than enough to handle any hostiles. None of this "we'll just send one tiny team to go alone into a giant starship against an unknown threat" business. No, if there was a hostile force on the ship, the plan was "let's drop 25+ Legionnaires on its head." Safety in numbers.
It was a good idea. In theory. In most cases, it would've given them the edge that would've let them face something very nasty without succumbing to it themselves. But in practice, it just meant that it was a much larger team that suddenly went missing after watching the last video log of the previous crew on the command deck.
Screams poured out of the screen the moment it started to play -- automatically -- when they entered the command deck. Onscreen, they saw the original crew murdering each other, tearing each other apart in a blood-soaked rampage.
"Wait, stop! What's wrong with everyone? Why are you --?" cried out one of the Robotican crew members, clearly immune from whatever was causing the madness, but his cries went unheeded as one of his Coluan crew-mates bashed his head clean off with a chair.
After the video played, the darkness swept in, wrapping around the whole team of Legionnaires, making them feel frozen all the way down to their bones and stealing consciousness away from them. When they woke again, they all found themselves separated, waking up in a realm of nightmares.
The halls breathe here -- at least in the places that have walls. They flex in and out, like the passageways inside the lungs. Sometimes the walls give way to open nightmare-scapes, remote and foggy, or bright and alien and exposed. The landscape bends and shifts around them, reacting to their thoughts and fears. And every so often, far off, there is the pitter-pat of something strange moving through this place. Like the sound of many feet -- or hands -- slapping against the ground or flesh-walls.
At some point, there is always a voice that each of them hears, tinny and robotic and distant, warning them of a being called the Faceless, that rules this realm. They're told not to feed from his blood, that if they do they'll be made a part of this place. If they accept his offer, and change forms, they'll eventually bleed to death, and if the Faceless isn't stopped before they die, those that die in their mutated forms will belong to him forever.
It's not the only voice they'll hear, though. This is a land filled with whispers. And screams. And the sounds of begging sometimes, too.
And for some of the Legionnaires, the In-Between speaks to them, touches something deep and dark inside them -- and it's calling them home.
Sariatu
She hadn't wanted to scare Kubo by clinging to him when the monitors screamed. It was the only reason she hadn't had him in her arms when the cold began to overtake her, even as he held her arm. She'd tried, when she felt it, she'd tried to grab him, to hold on to him, but unconsciousness had taken her even as she'd grasped for him, and when she woke, her arms were empty.
When she woke, it was to the deceptively peaceful halls of her father's palace. The Moon King's palace.
Beautifully painted murals, technically perfect but with no soul to them, adorn the walls. The floors are clean. Bluish light - like moonlight, but brighter - filters in through a window. Everything seems washed out, devoid of vivid colors, and it's hard to tell if it's the quality of the light or an intrinsic part of the setting.
The murals depict a masked warrior slaying powerful men, her robes and hair streaming behind her in the light of an overlarge moon. Sometimes two smaller, black-cloaked figures follow in her wake. Sometimes she is alone. It seems to tell a chronological story, as she moves from the right side of the room to the left, cleaving through enemies until one, with a beetle on his banner, pulls her sword away from her. Until she is removed from the moon's light. It shows her languishing in darkness and decay with only her son beside her until she dies, and the Moon King himself comes down and takes the boy, putting the mask she wore over the child's face before lifting him up to the moon, leaving the earth (and the boy's shamisen) behind.
And, on a stand, as if a memorial, the white robes worn by the warrior in the murals, and her sword and mask, on display in the center of the room. The whole room is pristine and perfect in every way, save for a solitary worn black eyepatch on the floor in front of the warrior's robes.
Sariatu can only stand and stare for a long time, her face schooled into a mask of impassivity. Her flashing eyes and her white-knuckled grip on the hilt of her sword are the only indications (aside from the fact that she's standing perfectly still and not attempting to go anywhere) that she is upset. But oh, she is. It's her nightmare made real - her precious, kind, compassionate, loving Kubo taken from the earth, blinded, and made into one of her father's subjects. Made into something like she used to be, behind the mask she wore to earth to keep her from seeing its beauty.
If one watches carefully, one might see that she's trembling.
b)
She broke away from the calm, perfect, horrifying nightmare she'd woken into eventually, folding herself down into Monkey's form and finding her way down the halls, the Sword Unbreakable strapped to her back and ready to be wielded at a second's notice.
She will find her son. Everything else can wait until she's done that. But of course, if she happens to find anyone in trouble before then, she can't really leave them behind, can she?
And if anything attacks her, well... if it's recognizably someone she came with, she'll do her best to disengage. If it's not, she won't hesitate to bring her considerable swordsmanship to bear on them.
A
"Sariatu?" Hiccup said as he spotted her. He pulled up his mask as he jogged over to her. "You alright?"
no subject
And yet her face still holds that cold, impassive expression.
She does process the voice, and the face, and she blinks twice before seeming to shake off whatever has her so on edge, and though her expression is still very controlled, she lets her relief show through.
"Hiccup. Toothless." She smiles - faint and tight, but there. "I'm sorry, I was... lost in thought." She glances back at the mask, briefly. "We should go. This place isn't safe."
no subject
"I hate to say it, but I don't think anywhere is safe right now." He warned.
"This place isn't even the whole of it. Out beyond here? Rust-covered metal hallway with flesh and bone growing out of the walls. Although I'll agree on the danger here being more immediate, if here I where I think it is."
Kubo had told his story to the team, after all, and Sariatu's reaction to the palace definitely lent itself to allowing some educated guesses on Hiccup's part.
no subject
"It is," she says grimly. Between this place and what Hiccup says about outside this place... "I need to find Kubo. Have you seen him?"
no subject
"Look, he's a smart and resourceful kid," he added, trying to reassure her.
"He should be able to take care of himself until we track him down."
B
Victor tears down the hallway at terror-driven top speed, not even daring to look back over his shoulder at the horrible fleshy thing chasing him. It pull itself along after him, ropy limbs stretching out to grasp wetly at the floor just at his heels, crooning invitingly, almost welcomingly.
It wants him. Oh, how it wants him. It wants him the way the world wants him back on the ice, beseeching, demanding that he stop wasting time and just come back. Come baaaaaaaack, where it knows he belongs...
It catches him around the ankle, pulling it out from under him, and he shrieks as he falls to the floor.
no subject
"You go back," she says, pressing the attack, "where you came from!"
She's almost dealt with it when a second creature slowly peels itself away from the ceiling, preparing to drop down on her.
no subject
"Above you!" he shouts. It's not like throwing himself into the middle of everything is going to do any good.
no subject
She shoves it off of her so she can get better purchase, removing the sword from its chest in the process, and decapitates it in one swift motion.
She looks at Victor, breathing hard. More will be coming, she's sure, but they seem to be slow enough she can catch her breath a bit. "You. Are you all right?"
no subject
But the angry talking monkey has just killed two monsters with a sword, and his survival instincts do actually work, so he bites his tongue.
"I'm not injured," he says, shakily climbing to his feet. "Thank you."