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.
no subject
Kubo instantly wished he hadn't blurted out her name upon hearing her voice. If this place had changed her as it had Stephen, there was no telling how terrifying she'd become.
But there was a strange equilibrium to be found in being on edge already, encountering someone who put him on edge as much as Azula.
And there was nowhere to hide in this fog, anyway.
Better to find out how terrified he ought to be now, rather than later.
Kubo approached her through the fog, cautious, playing a little tune to clarify his identity, just in case his voice hadn't been enough.
"Are you still you?"
no subject
That said, part of her wasn't sure she wanted to be alone in this place.
"Who else would I be?" she asked as she walked closer, finally able to see him more clearly through the fog.
no subject
Kubo finished his approach through the fog faster, sighing with relief as he realized she was still her. Still the same frightening, unkind, complicated girl he knew, without additional monstrosity layered on top.
"This place changed Stephen. It turned him into a monster. He tried to convince me to become one, too."
He looked her up and down for changes. He saw none.
"Have you seen my mother?"
He could hope.
no subject
"You're the first person I've seen," she said after a moment, her voice emotionless as ever. There was enough going on already, she couldn't dwell on mothers and all that right now.
no subject
If she was to be found, he'd find her. Kubo looked down at the bleeding landscape, pressing his lips together.
"Be careful if we see anyone else," he cautioned, when he looked back up. "I haven't noticed anything strange about myself, but . . . but we should keep an eye on each other."
He looked around the foggy landscape, eyes wide with dread.
"It's not safe here. We should keep moving."
no subject
"First, tell me what else you've discovered here." She wasn't thrilled to know less than he did either but if she thought of him as a scout, then it wasn't so terrible.
no subject
He thought he'd gotten that across.
Okay, well, Azula was Azula, and he'd learned that. Things would go her way or they would go awkward and dragged and full of contention, and really, neither of them had time for that. Besides, Kubo reminded himself, she was a warrior in a way he was not. Maybe she had a better reason for asking than just not trusting his judgement, or maybe her not trusting his judgment was a better reason in a way he couldn't see.
"There are really big animals that have better senses of smell than sight," he said. "They wanted to eat me. I met Stephen - one of us, a Legionnaire - and he had turned into a monster. He tried to convince me to join him. I think he tried to convince me to be turned into a monster too, but I got away. He looked -"
Kubo paused, his empathy striking him again.
"He looked hurt," he said. "He was bleeding. Like transforming had . . . had actually hurt him the way that . . ."
The way that it must have hurt his father, when his grandfather transfigured Hanzo into a creature not entirely a man and not entirely a bug, the way that broken limbs and split skin and bones exposed must look without magic to smooth that pain over.
"Like you'd expect," he finished, not wanting to go into too much detail.
"If we don't go, something will smell us or hear us soon," he pressed.
no subject
Plus, it clearly made Kubo anxious and even if he had helped her with his music before, she still enjoyed that.
She didn't like the sound of large animals, though knowing that they couldn't see that well would be useful information if they ran into them. Of course, if some of the monsters were Legionnaires, that complicated things, since she probably wasn't supposed to kill any of them. That rule was such a pain sometimes.
"Well," she said finally, "I suppose we should get moving. I'll go first and roast anything that gets in my way."
no subject
"There's a sea of acid that way," he said, pointing in the direction behind him. "I -" He paused, looking over his shoulder. "I think it was that way -"
He didn't spot a sea of acid in the fog that separated him from the direction he'd come.
But he DID see a shape, charging at them, its wide, sharp tipped antlers coming into clear view through the fog.
No, wait - their sharp tipped antlers. It wasn't a shape, charging at them. It was three.
"You might want to start!" Kubo suggested, holding his ground as the beasts came into view, their damp hides littered with open, oozing sores, their sharp antlers tipped with reddened points, two of them with eyes gouged out, following their prey by scent alone.
no subject
The creature made a terrible noise as the fire hit it, part squeal, part scream, part something Azula couldn't even begin to name. The smell of burnt flesh joined that of the miserable fog. The creature hobbled to the side, in too much agony to attack - at least, not for the moment.