letsgolegion: (Default)
The Legion [Mods] ([personal profile] letsgolegion) wrote in [community profile] legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am

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.
ka_sera_sera: (old drama sad lookdown)

[personal profile] ka_sera_sera 2017-01-12 01:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"No man can promise that." It's clear he isn't arguing. He's kneeling, staring at his fingers stretched over his knees. His voice is remote. The memory of his teacher's voice, that hadn't needed clarification. Cort's statements rarely had. But this creature - a spirit, maybe, or some kind of demon, one more in a long line of horrors - does. It seems to be laboring under an essential misunderstanding, and it seems the thing to do to correct it.

"Not without asking me to cry off my quest, anyway. That I won't do. I won't stop." This, still, is no argument. It is one of the deepest truths he knows about himself; if he has to choose, his search for the place which ties reality together will always win. He is very tired. But truth doesn't care how tired you are.

[personal profile] the_real_sir_prize 2017-01-16 11:18 am (UTC)(link)
Victor creeps around the corner and sees something that must be what that tinny voice is referring to as the Faceless doing something to one of his teammates. And then the Faceless turns toward Victor and reaches for him -- but the vision mercifully ends before Victor finds out what the Faceless would do. He shrinks backward, cringing in horror, his tongue thick in his mouth and bile filling his throat.

But...but he can't just leave. He can't just let the Faceless do whatever he wants to a teammate, a person. But what, exactly, is Victor going to do to the thing that controls this whole place? With his bare hands?

He looks around and spies a piece of piping protruding from a wall. It's rusted through in places, but still seems solid in others. Maybe he can break it off and use it as a weapon?

It can't hurt to try. Not any more than trying to face this thing armed only with his wits, anyway.
legionnpcs: (silent horizon - the faceless)

[personal profile] legionnpcs 2017-01-17 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
"You don't have to give up your quest. But wouldn't it be easier to accomplish what you've set out to do if you no longer felt the pain and guilt from every death? What I offer you isn't incompatible with your desires."

His voice drops to something almost gentle.

"They're not strong enough to face what's to come. Your fellow heroes. They hide behind their screens, afraid to even talk to each other face to face. They refuse to kill, even when it's noble. They're soft. You can become stronger, Roland Deschain. Strong enough to protect them, to carry a weight they're too weak to bear."

He gestures to the world around them.

"I know this world of flesh must seem like a realm of horror to you. But it's not entirely of my making." A lie that can be made to seem like a truth. "It only reflects what lurks in the minds of those who accidentally wander into my realm. It mirrors the darkness in their hearts and those. And they only succumb to their dark desires if they hold such hatred in their hearts. For those of purer intentions and greater purpose, they can change into something better than what they were. Instead of self-destructing, they are sharpened and honed like a blade, into something stronger."

He doesn't see Victor coming -- or maybe he's only pretending he doesn't.
Edited 2017-01-17 01:38 (UTC)
ka_sera_sera: (old general profile squint)

[personal profile] ka_sera_sera 2017-01-17 02:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"Better." He's looking up now, head no longer bowed but not really seeing the horror in front of him, either. He's thinking. Thinking of his teacher. Cort, who knew very well how Roland would end up. Wouldn't he have approved of this? Of his student becoming a weapon even more capable and deadly than the one Cort had been able to mold?

Not all the words he's hearing ring true. Some of them hit just far enough off-center to send his instincts to warning him that something's off here. But it doesn't matter. If there's some catch here, some consequence - what does it matter? If there'd ever been a time for shying away from the consequences of his own greater purpose, he doesn't remember it.

He's never been one to dither over decisions. Not when he knows very well what he needs. This place has shown him that. Maybe reliving all those horrors was a gift, after all. Of sorts. It's shown him what he needs.

"Tell me what I'm to do." His eyes are focused now, sharp, seeing the horror im front of him and accepting it. "What do you need?"

[personal profile] the_real_sir_prize 2017-01-29 12:51 am (UTC)(link)
It takes more effort than expected for Victor to tear the pipe loose. Though, to be fair, he'd never had to try to tear a rusty piece of pipe out of a flesh wall before, so his expectations aren't exactly trustworthy. The metal makes horrible sounds as he twists it free, but nothing comes around the corner at him so either he's very lucky or the horrible thing is waiting just around the corner to surprise him.

There's a skill he hadn't realized he had. 'If I were a horrible monster, how would I surprise me?'

He creeps toward the corner and peers around it, prepared to jam the pipe into anything peering back.