legionmissions | AFTER THESE MESSAGES [modplot]

AFTER THESE MESSAGES [modplot]

Who| Anyone who signed up
What| "After These Messages"
Where| Earth, Universe 32444-TV
When| After Game of Throne
Warnings/Notes| Opening tv show example has violence towards a child. You can skip if you want to get right to playing. The log will probably contain all kinds of awfulness. Please try to give heads up for warnings in your comment headers

CHANNEL 3∞54fΩfa

"Inspector Grandpa, what do we do?" cries out a teenage boy in a red shirt.

"We have to run, Marti!" cries a graying old man with wild mad scientist hair and a multi-colored scarf. "Once the Blorgeks get into this complex, they'll turn every single sentient being inside out with their transmegulator rays! They'll transmegulate us, Marti! They'll inside-out us! Our dongles will change from outies to innies!"

"In-inside out us?" the boy stutters, eyes wide with fear that is suddenly very sincere and real. "Seriously?!"

The boy's composure dissolves and he tugs at his hair and starts screaming, "I can't do this! I can't do this anymore! I want out, I want to go ho --"

Inspector Grandpa slaps him across the face and shakes him.

"Listen to me! If you panic, you're dead!" His voice suddenly drops, so low the mics can't pick it up. "Six seasons and a movie. If you survive six seasons and a TV movie, you get to retire, kid, and they swap in a totally new character as the Inspector's Compatriot, just like hey have the Inspector regenerate and change actors. I'm halfway through season six, it's not impossible, you just have to keep it together!"

The boy nods frantically, tours pouring down his face.

"We have to ruuuun!" Inspector Grandpa cries, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him along.

Tinny voices fill the hallways around them as they run.

"TRANSMEGULATE! TRANSMEGULATE! TRANSMEGULATE!"

As they run, other people run with them, trying to escape the complex. A little alien girl falls down in the hallway, crying and clinging her doll and "Marti" lets go of the Inspector's hand and turns back, running towards her to help. A Blorgek turns around a corner just as "Marti" picks the little girl up.

"No!" cries the Inspector, also turning around, running back towards the boy. "Rookie Marti mistake! She's not re --"

"TRANSMEGULATE!" KZZACK!

There's a horrible scream that cuts out to silence. Blood and viscera splatters all over the Inspector's face.

"GODDAMMIT!" he cries, turning to run again. He keeps running. Tears in his eyes, he exposits through gritted teeth, "It's a good thing I have my - my trusty Re-Martifier back on my ship! I can pull him from the timestream and replace the body of the one that got transmegulated with a synthesized one! In the meantime, I need to set the self destruct on this station! Most of the people have evacuated already and those that haven't, it's too late to save!"

He takes out his trusty sonic omnitool and sets the self destruct at a nearby panel, because that's just...what you do. It's what he's done for nearly six seasons. He reaches his ship when the count is almost down to zero, and flies it away from the station as fast as he can. The station explodes in a brilliant colorful display behind him.

"Annnd cut! Let's go to commercial!" calls out the Director. The space scene and spaceship fades and the old man falls on his butt as the seat disappears under him.

"That was Fantastic, Justin," says the Director. "The emotion! But let's cut down on the meta a little, please? You're so close to the end of the season, it'd be a shame if we needed to recast, don't you think?"

The old man stays silent, face impassive, standing up and walking over to craft service and picks up a bottle of vodka from where it rests on ice.

"God!" he cries out, leaning against a wall, and sliding down it. The old man starts sobbing uncontrollably. "God, whyyyy!"

Another teenage boy in a red shirt is led towards the holostage, one that looks just enough like the last teenage boy for the differences in appearance to be explained by "chronal instability."

"Nonono! Not here! Not here!" the boy cries out. He's also sobbing. "Please, any other show, put me on any other show, I'll even take Teen Gladiators -"

Still sobbing, the old man opens the vodka and starts drinking straight from the bottle. Just drinking and drinking and drinking...

And that's just one channel. After Metron's throne transports the Legionnaires to this world, after they're captured, they're separated and given their fifteen minutes of fame on so many others...

[ooc: Players can do their plot threads in this log or in logs that players start for themselves.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The lights go up. A zoom shot travels slowly through large, holographic leaves, only to rest on a large stone head. It remains still and silent for a moment, then opens its blazing red eyes. The audience gasps in an appropriate amount of awe and more than a little trepidation - after all, everyone remembers that time an audience member failed to show the correct amount of respect at a dramatic moment. That statue has superheated laser eyes - the protective barrier had never stood a chance, and neither had that audience member.

Satisfied, the head addresses the camera. "Welcome," it booms in a voice that rolls like thunder, bass rattling through the audience's chests, "to Sagas of the Mystic Ziggurat!"

The lights flash. Steam hisses from vents in the ground, fogging up the barrier long enough for the host to make a sufficiently mysterious entrance (though he's careful not to upstage the stone head, note repeat audience members). "And here's your guide," the head thunders, "Danny Storm!"

"Thank you, Bramec," says Danny with a practiced grin. He looks for all the world like he's about to go hiking, in khaki shorts and hiking boots and a simple collared shirt, a style so retro it's passed trying too hard and come around to show business. "And what's the legendary item our teams will have to find today?"

Bramec's eyes glow red again. "The Golden Girdle of Pecos Bill." It's a silly enough artifact, though Bramec makes it sound as though it ought to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom.

"But before our teams face the Ziggurat, they're going to have to get past a couple of trials!" The camera pans past the many rooms of the ziggurat - the spike pit; the silhouette puzzle; the pedestal of the gilded lemur - and settles on a game on the other side of the set. At the starting line, contestants are sorted into pairs, made distinct by their color-coded shirts. One team member stands at the starting line; the other rests on a raft, blinking behind their goggles. The protective eye gear is good for the fumes, true, but they're really just for show - after all, health and safety concerns are nostalgic too. They're floating in real acid; if they fall, the goggles will do nothing.

"When I say go, one team member will have to paddle down the acid river," Danny explains as the camera pans along the course with him. "They'll collect these mystical rings and toss them back to their partner on the starting line. If anyone falls in the acid, or drops a ring, then both members of the team are disqualified. The first four teams to bring back four rings and hit the gong will move on. Are you ready?" They never are. Danny learned long ago not to wait for an answer. "Three! Two! One! GO!"

The goggles may do nothing, but Sam's still adjusting them dubiously, glancing up and down the line with the teams. He's got a t-shirt in silver, with a snake (or something close to one) on it; but there are others - purple, red, orange, green, something he's pretty sure he just can't see right because he doesn't see into the UV range, but it's probably plorgo...

"Wait." He doesn't know everyone in that line; there are some other unfortunate souls here alongside the other captured Legionnaires, but the team at the very end, who both appear to be some kind of bipedal fish -

"Are they literal blue barracudas?"

Wash is standing behind Sam on the starting line, wearing the other silver shirt and an expression that's displeased at best. The last thing he wants is for either of them to wind up in that river of acid or face whatever other punishment on the horizon if they fail. "Doesn't matter," he says tersely. "Let's get through this first, and then we can talk about the reverse mermaids."

"I'm figuring we should be glad they didn't go more literal than that." Dick's down a bit further, decked out in red with something cat-like on the front. Since there's only two to a team, he couldn't be on the silver team with Sam and Wash. "I'm with Wash, though. Stay out of the acid, then we'll deal with the rest of it."

Still. He does take a moment to look down at his shirt and snorts. "Really not my color."

"No, it's mine. Not that it really helps." Peter says from his place in the raft. He could throw better than he could catch, hence his place on it.

Rotten egg smell. Definitely sulfuric acid, although he doesn't mention it out loud. Knowing what kind of acid it is won't really help anybody, and if he's going to have any chance of getting out of here without his powers, he needs to use science. Something that won't be happening if they find out just how good he is at it.

"You guys are super serious."

Which isn't actually a criticism, given that the gravity of the situation...is, in fact, pretty damned serious, but buckling down and admitting to the seriousness isn't how Sam functions. If he's asking stupid questions and making jokes about the situation, it's the best sign that nothing's getting to him.

Yet, at least.

The smell of that river underneath them is the farthest thing from encouraging.

"Normally I'd joke, but I feel like if I made the inevitable crack about being upset there's no robot piranhas, they'll actually take that seriously."

Petervs young. He's not quite the mile-a-minute-joker he'll eventually become, and while he doesn't need the suit to be Spider-Man, it definitely boosts his confidence when he does have it.

"Robot piranhas wouldn't work. You'd have to make the circuitry acid-proof. But I consider it an insult that they don't have lasers on their heads, at the very least," Robbie sniffs. He makes a face, too, because sniffing is definitely not advisable when floating on a river of sulphuric acid.

The orange shirt is definitely the best of options, with its curled lizard logo. All the cool clothes have reptiles.

He's eying his paddle as he goes, though, and ignoring whatever rules they're theoretically operating under to continue chatting with his full team. "How sure are we the gear is river-proof?"

"Please stop giving them ideas," Wash says in his long-suffering-Team-Dad voice. He's been in plenty of life-or-death scenarios before, between being a soldier, a Blue, and a Legionnaire, but he hadn't planned on dying in front of a live studio audience for their entertainment. It's going to be hard enough to get through this as it is; the last thing anyone needs to do is make it more difficult for them. "We don't need this to be any harder-"

As if to illustrate his point, the Blue Barracuda on the raft overbalances and topples into the acid. Its shrieks as it goes under are nearly drowned out by the roar of the audience and a very disconcerting chortle from Bramec. "Oh, and it looks like the Blue Barracudas are disqualified!" Danny announces. As if on cue, a trapdoor abruptly appears under the remaining Blue Barracuda on the dock, and they drop through, disappearing from sight. "Seven teams are left, but only four can move on," Danny continues as though this is a perfectly normal occurrence - which, given the hellish state of the obstacles for this show, it probably is. "Which four will it be? We'll find out soon enough!"

"The fish dudes just lost the water event."

All of this awfulness aside, Sam is looking for the humor in their horrible situation.

"The fish dude just lost the water event."

And with that, Wash is out of patience. "Oh my God Sam throw me a damn ring!"

"Everyone's a critic."

He's not quite sulking, but he...well, maybe a little bit.

But he is finally managing to get ahold of a ring while he not-sulks, and pitching it back, so hey! Progress!

The production assistants fluttering around the platform Wash is standing on are all paying very close attention to detail - making sure his collar on his shirt is perfectly starched (it hardly shows the shock collar underneath! Wardrobe really outdid themselves this time), that the creases in his khakis are perfectly folded, and that his apron is perfectly clean.

Wait. His apron?

“What-“ he starts, and is immediately silenced as the makeup artist dab powder on his face. “Quiet,” she hisses. “Look, you’ve got an easier round than last time. Bread Week was last week, and that took three people out because they’re really picky about underproving, but this is Explosives week and you should be okay. Just try not to wrinkle your shirt - the hosts go crazy when that happens, and they have free rein of the set, and you do not want their attention beyond the basic questions!”

“Lydia, my dear, I think that’s quite enough powder.” The makeup artist stiffens and backs away as a production assistant approaches, looks Wash up and down, and ignores his glare completely. “Perfect!” she announces. “Send him up.”

“Wait, what-“ is all the further Wash gets before he’s sent up to-

What looks like a very quaint countryside. He’s standing in a line of about twelve people, side by side in the front part of a long white tent, with flooring, a few refrigerators at the back, and multiple...baking stations? The hell?

“Right, bakers! Now that you’ve all arrived, it’s time for your technical challenge.”

In front of him are three people and a robot - not a Robotican or an Omnic, but a full-on robot - all looking expectantly at them.

“Today’s challenge,” continues one of the people - short hair, suit jacket, almost predatory smile, “has been set for you by the Marytron 5000.”

“Marytron 5000,” continues the person next to them - long hair, different colored suit jacket, smile that’s just as predatory - as though they were in the habit of finishing each other’s thoughts. Hell, they might be. “Do you have any advice for our bakers before they get started?”

“It’s all about the mix-ing,” intones the Marytron 5000, and not even a British accent can make that robotic voice seem warm and friendly. “You must be ve-ry care-ful with your pro-por-tions.”

“Or else you might go out with a bang,” adds the fourth person. He has light hair, a dazzling smile, and incredible cold eyes that make it clear that going out with a bang is not a joke.

“Right,” says Thing One, as though they hadn’t just witnessed something incredibly threatening. “The judges will be judging this round blind, so off you go!” They wave their hand as the man strides off and wait awkwardly as the Marytron 5000 hovers slowly behind.

It takes a few minutes for them to go - long enough for everyone to stew in their own juices. The temperature in the tent stays steady, but it sure feels hot in there.

Finally, the Marytron 5000 disappears around the corner, and Thing One and Thing Two turn once again to face the unwilling contestants. “Today,” says Thing Two, “for your technical challenge, the judges would like you to make them a perfect cup of nitroglycerine.”

“Your nitroglycerine,” says Thing One, “should be perfectly clear, perfectly balanced, and extremely volatile, so don’t drop it!” They look for all the world like they want nothing more than for someone to drop it.

“Ooh, yes, that would be a disaster.” Thing Two looks just as pleased as their counterpart at the prospect.

“You have one hour and thirty minutes to make your nitroglycerine. On your mark!”

“Get set!”

“BAKE,” they intone together, in much the same way that a more violent or less reserved person would say DIE.

As the bakers’ countdown begins, the camera cuts to a different tent, where the man is seated comfortably at a table while the Marytron 5000 hovers nearby. On the table is a glass of colorless, viscous liquid, ensconced in a thick clear plastic container - shatterproof, because the judges need to be safe while talking about this week’s technical challenge. “So Marytron 5000,” says the man languidly, “why did you pick nitroglycerine of all things? It’s a very old explosive, isn’t it?”

“It is, Bob Tin-sel-town,” intones the Marytron 5000. “I wan-ted to test the ba-kers’ know-ledge of clas-sic tech-niques, and ni-tro-gly-cer-ine is a sta-ple that should be in ev-e-ry-one's skill set. They'll have to mix care-ful-ly to ob-tain that per-fect-ly clear co-lor."

"And also to prevent the nitroglycerine from exploding during the mixing process," Bob says helpfully.

"Of course. We shall see who is up to the task."

The camera cuts back to the tent, where the bakers have headed to their baking stations while Thing One and Thing Two - Sam and Dylan, respectively - hover watchfully. It's not quite time for them to start asking questions, but they are looking forward to the point in the episode when they're allowed to sink their claws into the contestants. Whether that's metaphorical or literal remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Wash stands at his station and stares down at his pared-down recipe and ingredients, bewildered. What in the actual fuck is he doing here? He surreptitiously looks around at the other contestants - some of whom are already hard at work, some of whom are still a little confused, and some of whom are simply shaking where they stand - trying to catch someone's eye. Somebody has to know how to get out of this, right?

Edited 2017-11-07 20:31 (UTC)

The costume this time is different - Wash wasn't expecting to be wearing a white tuxedo, but the top hat and domino mask are what really push it over the edge. He's been giving a briefing and a script - evidently now he's playing a love interest in a kid's TV show.

Of course, he'd sassed the Director as they'd walked by - partially because he's angry, partially because he can't help himself, and partially because he's hard-wired to automatically distrust anyone with Director as part of their title. "What part of my acting experience led you to believe I'd be good for this role?"

His sarcasm got him nothing more than a grim smile from the Director and a sharp zap from the shock collar that was still around his neck, nestled in under his bow tie. "Your obedience, actually," the Director said. "That's what I'm counting on. Remember, don't disappoint the kids!" As if that's going to be Wash's number one priority here.

Still, he has to play along. Playing along means survival, and survival means going backstage again, where he'll have more opportunities to escape...if he ever gets that for. For now, he has to get through this.

His entrance is on a high ledge on the outside of a building. It's not a sane place for any person to be standing, and even the script doesn't know how he got there - he just appears in a puff of holographic smoke and goes for it. He throws his cape over his shoulder dramatically, looking down at the teenagers below him, all clad in different colors and fighting a large monster with way too many appendages for comfort. "Never fear, Princess Placidity! I, the Masked Tuxedo, will save you!" It's not the dumbest thing he's ever said, but that's only by a very slim margin.

The script gives everyone down below time to react to his oh so mysterious and unexpected appearance, so he waits, silently pondering what exactly he's going to do to whoever wrote this script if he ever gets his hands on them. (The Director goes down first, though. He'll make sure of that.)

If getting backstage is the goal, then either the scene needs to be finished to completion -- and the approval of the Director -- or an excuse to leave the stage needs to be presented. She's seen television. No one stays out on the stage for the entire performance.

The issue is giving them enough of what they want to not be zapped, while also not being actually murdered by the monster they've given the actresses to fight. It, as far as she can tell, is a very tangible and real threat.

Luckily, Marjara's not the lead. Poor girl.

Unfortunately, this costume they've put them all in is highly impractical for leaping around the stage they've been given, and might be 90% holographic tinsel on top of a pair of the most uncomfortable heels in existence. For someone used to going barefoot or in boots? It's proving challenging just to keep from falling, much less doing the sort of acrobatic leaps and bounds around the monster that are required by the script.

And then Wash shows up. Script or no, the elf looks exasperated as Hell by the entire ordeal. It's a good thing she's been cast as the 'cranky' one. "Well you can start any time now!" she calls back, before drawing back her hand. Flame licks at her fingertips, and she aims high, intending to distract the monster and avoid setting her fellow magical girls on fire in the process.

Seriously, who MADE these costumes?

This may all be incredibly stupid, but Wash is at least grateful he's not in a costume with heels. Sure, dress shoes have zero grip, but at least they're not purposefully uneven. It's the smallest of favors, but damn it, he'll take it.

The teenager playing Princess Placidity is in it to win it - likely because this is a victory or death scenario. Nonetheless, she delivers her lines perfectly, a very short monologue about how very happy she is to see him and how she's loved him forever and they're destined to be together, and it it's all incredibly creepy given that this girl is less than half his age. He hadn't seen any romantic scenes in the script for this episode, which is probably a good thing, because might just stage a small rebellion of his own if they ever get to that point.

(Like hell. He plans on getting out of here long before they ever get that far.)

But then Marjara - and he's pretty sure that is Marjara under all the holograms and bullshit - sasses him and calls up fire, and that's as good a cue as any to get started. Combat, at least, he knows how to handle, even combat in a bullshit situation. (Hell, especially combat in a bullshit situation.) "As you wish, my lady!" (Marjara is going to kill him for that one later, but he'll deal with later when he makes it there.) He pulls the weapons they've given him (because the script called for a weapon, so of course they'd be there) out of his cape and-

They're flowers. Chrysanthemums with sharpened tips.

What the fuck- how the fuck- these aren't weapons unless the monster happens to have an acute flower allergy-

He's been staring for a moment too long, and he receives a sharp zap from his collar to get him back in the moment. Right. Well, if he can fight a monster with flowers, he can definitely maim the Director with one. Things to keep in mind after they get through this increasingly vapid and stupid scene. He hurls one, and watches it go absolutely nowhere wile an enterprising sound board operator plays the requisite womp womp sound.

Right. They throw like darts, not like knives. "Everyone gets one!" he says with a cheerfulness he does not feel, because covering his ass with a terrible quip is better than getting zapped again, and throws another flower, like a dart this time. It lodges fairly harmlessly in the monster's side, but the monster flails and roars like he's just laid it open with a broadsword. Huh.

Magical throwing flowers. For fuck's sake.

Flowers. She stares a little too long and receives a reprimanding shock from the collar, reminding her to keep moving despite the ridiculousness of the situation. He's throwing flowers.

Well, the monster seems to be reacting to them, so let's just run with it!

Running is still something of an issue, but avoiding being snatched up is key. Princess Placidity, bless her heart, seems to be the main target, and it's Marjara's job to keep her safe. So sayeth the script. Unfortunately, the girl seems content to waltz directly into the path of a number of attacks, all with a desperate look in her eyes that says she needs the rest of her team on point to survive this.

So, Marjara aims another fire blast across the monster's...belly? Belly. Something to distract it from taking another swipe at the princess while she looks for a weak spot.

Wash had been here for too goddamn long. He wasn't quite sure just how long it'd been - it couldn't have been more than 24 hours at most, but it felt like days. Not having any way to keep track of time certainly hadn't helped the feeling. Not sleeping hadn't either; being unconscious as he was shuttled from set to set didn't count, because it sure as hell hadn't been restful.

He hadn't managed to convince anyone to let him have some down time or at least remain awake between shows - after nearly half a dozen shows, he'd developed something of a reputation as a troublemaker, and nobody wanted to deal with that. The Directors all seemed to believe he wasn't worth their time, and the PAs probably believed he wasn't worth whatever consequences they'd face if he staged a rebellion while he was in their care. (He couldn't blame the PAs - most of them went around looking petrified all the time. Life here had been hell so far, and they hadn't done anything to dispel that image.) There'd been exactly one exception to all of this - the first makeup artist he'd run into - and he couldn't ask after her without it being suspicious at best. All told, he was bordering on exhaustion and floating in a sea of uncaring faces.

He'd faced down a kid's game show with hellish obstacles (why had they started on a river of acid? Why had they gotten goggles if they were going to be worthless?), and a baking show that had had exactly nothing to do with baking (where the hosts had been terrifying and his failure to be exploded by his own half-baked creation had been about the only thing that had kept him alive; the bits of the losers that could be found had been carried out in tiny little bags), and an odd magical girl show that was useless in just about every way he could imagine (if he was going to act like a moron and dress all in white, he would've just done his Wyoming impersonation and been done with it). And now, as if to get rid of him, they'd put him in yet another game show.

The official excuse was that makeup to cover his scars would take too long on a comedy or drama, whereas game shows really didn't care about that sort of thing, but he knew it was bullshit and he was pretty sure everyone else did too. He had no patience when it came to putting on a part, especially involuntarily, and the drama and comedy producers had probably just as sick and tired of dealing with him as he was of dealing with them.

So he was in another death trap. Must be Tuesday.

(It might have actually been Tuesday. He had no idea.)

"It's simple," the Director of this particular show had told him with a sharklike smile as he'd been led onto the new set. "All you have to do is play the game. Don't even worry about anything else - the game is all you need." Because that wasn't creepy.

The platform had risen before he could ask any questions, and he'd found himself on an incredibly simple set: there was a wheeled chair, like an old-fashioned computer chair; there was a simple desk; there was a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, in a style that was obsolete long before Wash's time, let alone this weird alternate dimension space future.

Juggling the mouse woke up the screen. On it, a simple 2D game ran in demo mode. A small square slid along a straight line, occasionally jumping over triangles or gaps in the line. Evidently the control scheme was easy: press Up to jump.

Okay, then. Wash gingerly took a seat (and the chair did not try to entrap or kill him, which was a nice surprise) and started up the game for real. The first thirty seconds or so went well; the game was definitely simple, the patterns and rhythm were easy to pick up, and having fairly honed hand-eye coordination certainly helped.

The next thirty seconds went straight to hell. The difficulty slowly ramped up, and Wash hit a section that he couldn't time correctly, no matter what he did or how many times he'd tried. In the long, proud tradition of frustrated gamers, he started to talk to the game. "Come on, come on, jump- no, dammit, I said jump- oh come on-"

Then, in the long, proud tradition of infuriated gamers, he started to yell at the game. "Are you kidding me - look, you're a fucking jumping square, you've managed the miracle of vertical ascension without having legs, you can fucking jump this- oh! Oh, no you can't! Thanks for letting me know! Jesus, if you're that fucking determined to see what's in the basement, you could at least tell me! We'll take a little break and head down there! Have a siesta and explore! Go see your family, the secret basement squares! Get eaten by a grue for all I care! Have a good fucking time!"

He leaned back abruptly in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and glared as the screen as the square, currently unguided, merrily slid into the gap in the floor and fell offscreen.

The words GAME OVER flashed on the screen before the screen itself shut off and the lights dimmed. The Director, still grinning like a shark, strolled on to the set, slowly applauding. "Those last thirty seconds were the best numbers we've had in weeks. I think we'll keep you for now."

"Yay," Wash said flatly, waiting for his collar to shock him into unconsciousness again.

It didn't come.

Instead, he was ushered backstage, given his pick of the craft services table (which wasn't anything to sneeze at, and how long had it been since he'd actually eaten?), and given a seat. "Fifteen minute respite while we reset," the PA assigned to him told him, "and then you're on again. Look, the audience really likes you - if you can do that again, you might have a good gig here."

"Okay?" There was something here that Wash was missing, regardless of the fact that he didn't intend to stay in show business any longer than he had to. "Is that not usual here?"

"Nah," the PA waved his hand dismissively. "Usually people get shocked when they start to fail, or the chair disappears and they get dumped into the pit. Failures aren't usually entertaining like that was, so we usually don't keep them."

"...good to know." Yikes. Evidently his current strategy now consisted of creatively yelling at video games until he could figure out how to get out of here.

It lasted him several hours, on and off, until he'd told the Director he needed a break or else he'd lose his voice. "Normally I'd just replace you," the Director told him flatly, "but-"

"Your ratings are too good to replace me."

For a moment, that smirk turned into a snarl, but Wash had bet - correctly - on his ratings draw, and the snarl subsided back into the sharklike grin. "Yes, of course. Take an hour - I'll send in a makeup artist to touch you up in the meantime."

"Can you send in Lydia? She's the only one so far who's made me look good." More to the point, she was the only one in this hellhole who'd treated him like an actual person. There was something to that - hopefully he could figure out what it was.

"Fine, fine, whatever." The Director waved his hand and closed the door behind him, and for the first time in a while, Wash was left alone with his thoughts.

Well, and with the security cameras in the very small dressing room and the Censor he could hear pacing outside, but really, it was his thoughts that he was most concerned about.

Several silhouettes of figures dance to an bland, yet catchy musical number as the camera sweeps past, spending a second or two on each figure performing a different type of dance move before the title of the show blows past them all to the sound of a hyped up studio audience.

As the lights take to the stage, a smiling hostess welcomes the viewers to join her as she reviews the challenges that lead up to tonight's performances. She takes time to introduce the choreographers and their chosen dancing styles, and of course, there's the stage hazards that are included in each number! A montage of past performances, from unexpected victories to tragic flops catch the viewers up on past seasons and participants. There's a fox trot number, where the pair of dancers smile through the pain as the stage floor grows red hot amidst the frantic steps; a paso doble with the circling threat of a very mechanical bull critically watching each step. The crowd lets out a mournful cry at the reminder of one of last week's performances, where a waltzing pair had confused their paces across an invisible floor and had fallen into the void. Such a shame, they had been gearing up to be a crowd favourite.

As the video fades back to the hostess and stage she makes a show of calming the cries and cheers of the crowd and beams with a smile to the cameras to continue her announcements. "Worry not, dear viewers, for this week there's going to be a shake up! New pairs have been announced, and lets not forget the group dance battle royale at the end! Now lets see what our new contestants have in store."

And with a camera wipe via sparkle effects and another short musical cue, the camera cuts to a short recap of the new dancing partners. And after that? The performance!

He's never been one to shy away from the limelight, but this is kind of ridiculous. Like, James Bond-villain levels of ridiculous.

Still, it all appears to be all too real. So better to roll with it. If the goal is getting backstage, then all he has to do is survive the show long enough to make it there. Easy, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's got this, no worries.

There's a brief moment of fidgeting with the collar before he finds himself hoisted up on his pedestal onto the stage, one in a line of people smiling through gritted teeth as the footage from a previous show plays. A dancing competition? Well at least it's something he can do, even without all his gear.

It looks like their going one pair at a time, and he's got a few couples between him and whatever obstacle course they're meant to be dancing around. As subtly as he can, Lúcio's eyes dart to his side.

Who'd they partner him up with, anyway?

The word 'bullshit' isn't adequate to match Connie's description of their current circumstances.

The general concept of 'perform to a satisfactory level before a critical audience with the mild threat of death' isn't too far off from some of the training missions and matches Connie's done in the Project- and don't get her wrong, those were bullshit too, but. At least she didn't have to do any of those in barely-a-dress and high heels. She's not even going to start wondering how they got her into the get-up as the pairs down the line from where she stands start to take the stage.

At least in the Project she didn't have to fake a smile behind her helmet. Leaning forward a little to glance down the line, she sneaks a glance at her assigned partner, murmuring under her breath as the music kicks up.

"I don't know about you but this is just a little out of my league."

"It's cool, I got you."

He says, with more confidence than he necessarily feels. Both of them have to do well to not end up on the chopping block in a very, very literally sense. It's alright, though. Just gotta think of a way to make this work.

No reason to panic yet.

"How good are you at copying back? You know, you watch me, do what I do."

That's comforting to hear. It's been a while since Connie was last able to go dancing and had a good partner for it so...she's a little rusty. But at Lucio's suggestion she gives a slight nod, offering him half a grin as another dancing pair takes to the stage.

"Pretty sure I can follow along. And if we get it a tight spot you can throw me around a little, I'm pretty acrobatic."

"Just gonna wing it, then. No problem."

The pair in front of them goes up and he takes a breath, settling a hand at the small of Connie's back in preparation. There's another quick glance in her direction, keeping the smile on his face. Mostly unforced.

"Hey. Don't tense up. We're not gonna worry about what comes next, just gonna do our best and we'll get through this." It sounds like he honestly believes it, too.

This campaign is just dragging on and oooon and they're being railroaded like crazy. If this was a normal game Dipper would...probably not complain because that meant someone besides Great Uncle Ford had at least agreed to DDmD with him.

STILL. Bad dungeon design, super railroady. F-minus GMing.

He and Marjara are a little singed because of the fire-breathing jabberwock they faced in the last room but still alive by the time they reach what he desperately hopes is the last chamber before they finally reach the Mystic Gemerald of Shandhara that will supposedly unpetrify the city of Eldhaven and its imaginary hologram people.

He really, really hopes it's the last chamber. (Gosh, this whole dungeon is just a grind and they're not even getting decent loot.)

"Okay, so there are probably another few million traps, so we have to be really careful."

Marjara has been great so far, especially since both of them have their real powers suppressed. Since he's just a low-level halfling rogue, he'd have been curb-stomped without her. But she's an actual elf from an actual fantasy world, not a pretend one, and that's made this hard. She doesn't know any of the rules.

And there are a lot of stupid, stupid rules.

First of all, the rather assumptive casting of her as a druid? The costuming, with the hides and bones and bared midriff? Yes, it's a little offensive, but she's figured out by now that she's better off saving her rage for the monsters they have to defeat.

The problem is that it isn't just a matter of defeating them. Attacks have to be called, powers selected from a list, with only a finite number available to them.

It is highly frustrating.

But Dipper's been helping to correct her before the shock collars can do worse, and she's starting to pick up on what needs to be done. More important is keeping Dipper safe, which has been a trial all its own.

Those entangling roots she'd been able to call up against the jabberwocky had really come in handy, however, and here they stand. In another room that looks no different from the past dozen they've come through. There is a low, put-upon noise that she swallows back. "I check the room for traps."

As deadpan as possible.

A giant pair of d6's fall from the ceiling and roll across the floor until they stop.

The combined roll gets a 10 and the word "Success!" flashes.

"Okay, so the room's clear of conventional traps," Dipper says, and he pulls out the book that has the map and all his scribbled notes, spell lists, and some math scratched on it. "But that doesn't mean it's safe. There has to be something."

There's a bunch of treasure in here, but no gemerald.

Edited 2017-11-19 06:47 (UTC)

"'Conventional' traps?" She sighs and shakes her head, before moving towards the treasure pile. "This looks like all there is. But I don't see what we're after here, unless it's in one of those chests."

And, almost without thinking about it, she gives the side of the nearest chest a light tap with the end of her staff. But it doesn't give the sound of hollow wood tapping that one would expect.

She goes very still, dark eyes darting downward.

The mimic that was masquerading as a treasure chest suddenly erupts into a giant clawed monster with a treasure chest for a head right in front of her.

"I cast 'Obfuscate'!" Dipper calls out and the spell lands and is effective, disorienting the monster enough that when it swipes at Marjara with clawed hands, it might miss if she's fast enough.

If it were as easy as using her natural ability to get the hell out of the way, it'd be one thing. But this stupid game needs rolls and announced moves for everything. Trying to pull back on her own achieves only a tug as her feet remain firmly stuck in place, and she just barely manages a "Fenedhis!" before the swipe knocks her off of her feet. Somewhere, she can hear the beep of a counter ticking away health points as she pulls herself upright.

Luckily, the creature is now disoriented, thanks to Dipper's spell. Her eyebrow ticking, she lifts her hand and grits out through clenched teeth, "I cast 'Grasping Vine'."

Immediately, through the cracks in the stone wall, thick gnarled vines snarl outwards and wind themselves around the mimic's limbs to entrap it, and keep it in place while she catches her breath. Gods, remembering to announce everything is annoying.

In lunging back to make sure Marjara has room to escape, Dipper accidentally puts his hand down on another treasure chest...which immediately starts morphing into another mimic. He turns around just in time to see it transform.

"DODGE DODGE DODGE!" he yells, and the gameboard lets him, making him fall back into another treasure chest.

...Which also starts to transform.

"Seriously?"

The mimics jostle against other treasure chests and bits of treasure, which also start to transform.

Mimics! Mimics everywhere!

"Seriously?!"

One of the mimics touches what seemed to be the door out and even that turns into a mimic.

It's enough for Dipper to do something he's never really done before.

"Son of a bitch!"

Somewhere, back on Legion World, Grif may find himself feeling the random urge to shed a tear of pride.

No, it's fine, that reaction is entirely warranted.

This is rapidly turning into an overwhelming scenario, and it was easy enough to protect Dipper against one or two or even three foes. Now? They appear nearly surrounded by the things.

So she puts her back to the wall, adjacent to where the grappled mimic now struggles, and calls out. "Dipper! Get behind me!" Maybe she can at least put them on one side or the other, and attack them as a group rather than worry about hitting the kid with any of her larger attacks.

They're made to wear red shirts with the show's logo on it, as well as elbow and knee pads and suddenly get shoved out on stage together, near a podium. There are obstacle courses in the massive studio, some of them dressed up in certain themes.

There's a tv show host at a podium with a smile that's too big for his face waiting for the show to start, and three other pair teams like them. Each is possibly a parent with their child. All of them wear matching colors like he and Bunny.

They all look utterly terrified. The ones closest to them, a father and his son, are clinging to each other and the father is whispering things to his son, trying to comfort him and get him in the right mindset to stay calm and survive.

It's been a day so far, but not enough of one to put Dipper into panic mode.

Not much can put him into panic mode anymore.

"This looks like a kid's game show. They're going to make us work together on different obstacles and they're probably going to kill the people who lose."

This is Murderworld 2.0 after all. People are disposable here. But that idea doesn't create the same flutter of fear in his chest that it did sometimes in Murderworld. Instead he just quietly tightens the straights of his knee and elbow pads and readies himself. They're going to have to compete well enough to survive and hopefully if they survive long enough they can help.

Hopefully.

"This just a rerun. The team's done a mission like this before."

There is so much rage and fury that rises up in him just hearing that description, absolutely dizzying him with intensity as he sees the father comforting his son, knows that if he protects Dipper it will mean the harm is only transferred to another child -

And that dizzying fury is a liability in this particular moment, when he must do the work that is in front of him in order to make his way to the big-picture work at the end that will do more to solve this. So he breathes through it.

"Any notion who's in charge?" he asks, scanning the room for possible weapons to throw, possible sources of the deaths to come, possible force-shields between him and the people pulling the strings.

The last several hours have been a spate of gladitorial combat for Bunny, who fell into the control of some executive who felt it was high comedy to watch a rabbit of his skill level in pitfights with animals that generally kill rabbits. He's done a lot of killing today, consequently, but nothing sentient. At least, nothing he knows was sentient. But there are certainly sentients in this blasted horrorscape that he intends to kill, anyway, Legion code be hecked.

"The host is probably just a mouthpiece for whoever's running this thing, so there's nobody we can actually fight in the studio."

This isn't his first show of the day.

"I was backstage for a little while after the last one. There are these Directors that are in charge? And they're way too into this, enough that it's obvious they're not being forced. That's who we need to get at, them and whoever's giving them the permission to do this. We're going to have to play along until we can reach them. Even though that probably means..."

The boy being comforted by his dad starts crying and Dipper's jaw sets.

"If we get the chance to wreck this place in the middle of it, we need to take it, but if that doesn't happen, we need to stay alive long enough to get at the people causing all this. It's the only way to make it stop."

It's way too tactical an assessment from a supposed 14-year-old. Maybe it's better for the two of them that he's not panicking or crying like the other children, but the fact remains that he should be.

This should be so scary that he's upset. But he's not. The prospect of passively harming other kids for the sake of his own survival - and for the sake of the greater good - should be a lot harder to swallow. But it isn't.

Of all the things in this moment to be upset about, Dipper's too-calm reaction is one of them.

But it's up there with the fact that if he's going to keep this kid alive, then that kid is going to die unless he figures out who's pulling the strings on the deathtraps early enough, so all of his attention is fixed on the various machines around them. There's nothing that looks like a weapon yet, but there are so many moving parts around to consider -

There's something terrible just at the edge of scent in here. Something making every hair on his body stand on end, but it's stored away somewhere and muddled by the residual scents of the deaths that have already occurred in this room.

"Have you made any progress breaking one of these?" he asks, flicking the power inhibiting collar. The metal underneath them would prevent his powers from working on the floors, but if he could just get his hands on the materials for explosives, if he could get to the earth underneath and tunnel the captives out, that'd be a good start to wrecking the set.

Edited 2017-11-21 02:02 (UTC)

"I've got no juice as far as powers go, and I managed to get my hands on some bits of metal to use as lock picks but didn't even come close to picking the lock on mine before I got shocked and they took the picks away."

He shakes his head.

"But I don't think it would've mattered, even if I'd had more time."

The host starts getting ready, the other families start to prepare themseleves, and Dipper moves closer towards Bunny behind the podium.

"They're going to quiz us with trivia questions and then make us do stuff like run through obstacle courses. I've seen a million TV shows like these, so just...do what I say until you see an opening. Then I'll follow your lead."

Edited 2017-11-21 02:18 (UTC)

"Huh. Too bad."

Too bad that this kid sounds that calm about being shocked, too bad that there aren't any bits of detritus from previous contestants lying around to have another hack at his shock collar with, too bad that every single obstacle ahead of them looks like the sort of slimy that is not going to get out of his fur fast.

"Good plan though," he agrees, still scanning the room for anything usable. Some of the obstacles have moving parts that look like they'd break away easier than others. "I'm with ya."

It doesn't make sense that a child as young as Dipper is this calm in this scenario. But as long as he is, he does have the insight worth following to start out with, until they've figured out how to get all the kids in this room - not just him - out alive.

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AFTER THESE MESSAGES [modplot]

Legends of the Hidden Temple [OTA]

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Agent Washington

1: The Wrong Kind of Showstopper

2: In the Name of the Producer, I Will Act Out This Farce

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3: Rage Continue [Closed]

So You Think You Can Dance [OTA]

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Adventure Critical Roll Zone? locked to Marjara

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Double Dare - closed to Bunny

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