exploration mingle: CAPTIVITY

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: exploration mingle: rescue mission!
when: June 15 - August 15
where: The River Structure
warnings: violence and/or torture; please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

captivity

One of the major and most highly-valued cultural concepts in Riverview is that of exploration, expansion. Especially now that, with the recent influx of new arrivals, as the portal kicks into high gear for reasons not entirely known, the Inhabited City, already comfortably full, is rapidly becoming overpopulated. With all the refugees from other worlds pouring in from day to day, the city's safe space and resources are being taxed to their breaking point.

Right now, exploration and expansion is key, and each month, the government has decided to focus on a particular objective, in order to unite citizens in expanding, securing, and supplying the city for everyone's benefit.

the story so far

Exploration & Expansion Progress Report ● The Guardians of the Deep ● What Lies Beneath ● Plotting & Questions

After some serious flooding at the banks of the river, the cause was discovered to be the Guardians of the Deep, creatures protecting a circular labyrinthine structure underneath the river. Residents of the city explored and mapped the structure, and dealt with a good portion of the traps and other dangers, until they found a little piece of history in the Central Chamber of the structure, revealing that it was inhabited by the first people to live on the moon.

While this news has been exciting scholars and historians in the city, something a little more pressing has been bothering the average citizen - an ever-increasing number of missing persons. People have simply been disappearing all over the city, and only now are residents starting to realize why...

how it works

● Phases: Each prompt is a different phase of the operation. Characters may partake in whichever part of the operation they choose, whether it is a large and prominent part, or a more of a backseat or support role. Characters may participate in as many phases as they wish.

● Completion: When next month's exploration mingle goes up, the mission featured on this exploration mingle will be considered complete, and game canon, providing the entry has 200+ comments on it.

● Entry Reward: The reward for completion of this month's exploration objective will be...well, the safe return of everyone who was kidnapped. And some sweet hurt/comfort.

● IMPORTANT NOTE: Having observed how the pacing of exploration mingles has been going and how they are tagged, I have noticed that posting one exploration mingle each month has been a little hectic, both plotwise and for me as a mod (writing three mingles a month has been tough!). I have decided to space them out a bit further, and post an exploration mingle once every two months, starting with this one - the next exploration mingle will be posted in August!

phase i: the abducted

People don't simply go missing, they don't disappear into thin air, they have to be somewhere. And while those who are missing people keep frantically searching, those who have been kidnapped are the only ones besides the kidnappers who do know where they are.

Abducted by a group who have taken up residence in the structure under the city after last month's exploration died down, the missing are trapped in the Central Chamber, in fear of the kidnappers. Their abductors are a group of people that is starting to slowly take on cultist tendencies, believing that the remaining spirits of the First People still live in the structure, that it is a temple, and that those First People need offerings of host bodies to inhabit so they can return and bring their wisdom and magic back to the moon. Things are getting a little hairy - there's no agreement among the kidnappers as to how 'intact' the host bodies have to be and whether or not the sacrifice is in the form of alive or dead captives. Even worse, some of the kidnappers are only with the group to enjoy having power over others and using it to hurt them.

Captives are held in the Central Chamber of the structure, with next to no amenities. Blankets, food, water, and other necessities are in short supply, and they are kept huddled together, constantly guarded and either restrained, wearing or in the presence of a power suppressor to keep them subdued. But the captives haven't lost hope - they are working on getting a message out, finding a way to contact the outside world so their loved ones can rescue them...

This prompt is to play out interactions among the captives before they are rescued, and may include violence or other character suffering. It is also to enact plotted plans for the abductees to find connections with the outside world to summon help.

phase ii: distraction and infiltration

Once would-be rescuers become aware of where the captives are being held, they start making plans to rescue them - whether someone they love has been taken, they're just a good person, or they just want to feel like a big damn hero, there are lots of people willing to take the plunge and jump into the rescue. But the cult group has been in control of the structure for a while now, they definitely have the home team advantage. They know the lay of the land and where the traps are, and have used some of them to their own advantage.

It's not going to be as easy as storming the castle.

There are two parts to this phase of the rescue: a distraction and an infiltration. Distractions are planned to draw as many of the kidnappers away from the hostages being held in the Central Chamber as possible, while those who are stealthily infiltrating will try to find another entrance into the chamber so they can surprise and surround the remaining kidnappers.

This prompt is to play out any plans for distraction and infiltration. If you have plotted something out on the plotting post, feel free to post up a header for specific groups for threading rather than an individual character top-level.

phase iii: the brawl and after

Distractions only last so long, unfortunately, and so eventually the whole thing is going to break down into a big fight. Rescuers versus kidnappers, on the kidnappers' home turf, and surrounded by traps left over from the First People, while pieces of stationary tech throw out auras and waves of power suppression. It's going to be a doozy of a fight, so prepare for an epic throwdown!

And once the dust settles, there's going to be a lot of injuries to tend to, a lot of people traumatized and hurt and frightened. A lot of hungry, suffering people will need to be transported out, given medical care, and brought supplies.

This prompt is to play out the final fight between the kidnapping cult and the rescuers, as well as anything in the aftermath of the fight.

phase iv: wildcard

Have an idea for a mission-adjacent plot, or want to make up an unexpected plot twist or problem and solve it with your character? Just write up a starter, and don't forget to give yourself props by submitting it for the Progress Report.

navigation
[Asterion - Environment Art: Ariadne's Forest by Nicolas Mendoza]

Comments

Ronan Lynch | The Raven Cycle

[somnioergosum]

[Can switch to brackets.]

phase ii. distraction

Ronan would have preferred to go in with some kind of knowledge of what exactly they worshipped. But realistically, even if he knew every detail, he no longer had the control to perfectly replicate it. Which was why he brought out his old friend, the night horror.

This one was an albino, the better to stand out at night. It looked more bird and less human than usual, the two arms it had in addition to the wings looked like it belonged to a komodo dragon instead of a man. It turned its head this way and that, clattering its two beaks together. It curled one claw around Ronan’s shoulder.

Tck. Tck. T--

Every muscle in Ronan’s body tensed. After a second, when he realized the gesture was one of protection, he shrugged the tall beast off. “Knock it off,” he whispered.

The night horror fell silent and slid onto the ground.

“Go bother them.” He nudged its tail with his foot.

The night horror screeched and Ronan instinctively covered his ears. With no further instruction, the night horror charged toward the Central Chamber. And it would not stop screaming.

“Christ!” Ronan instinctively started to follow it, suddenly realizing that yes, his night horror was probably going to get itself killed. Then he remembered his promise to stay out of the way. “Hey,” he tuned to the closest person next to him. “What do you have that’ll distract from a distraction?”

phase iv. wildcard

[Let me know if you want anything else. Ronan's doing his best to stay out of the actual fighting but can easily fail because he is Ronan.]

[11calls]

Alex had seen a fair amount of shit during her tenure working on the black tapes. For the most part, the supernatural aspects had only been visuals left on tape or in the form of symbols and it was something that she was eternally grateful for. When the things weren't there on tape, they were in her nightmares, all too tall with arms that were too long and with faces that were familiar or not, but they were always, always, always upside down. Faces being upside down was the sort of calling card of the Order of the Ceonophus, so she was used to them.

But what she was not used to was seeing something similar in the flesh. Or... not flesh, she supposed. It was different enough that it hadn't come from her normal dreams, but she was reminded of the Helevition, if that demon happened to be white. Swallowing around the fear that was threatening to force up the scant amount of food and water that she'd been allotted in the days that she'd been here, Alex forced herself to focus once more on the larger problem at hand: the kid who's (demon? not!demon?) was supposed to be a distraction, and here she was against the wall talking to him about how he needed a distraction for it.

Taking a deep breath, Alex just looked around once more before she leaned down and took off the flat on her shoe. Normally, she'd have something like a whole bag of tricks, but at the moment, the only thing she had was this. Keeping her voice low, she just asked: "If we try to get it to focus on you, would it come back?" And the whole time Alex was silently begging anything and everything that happened to be listening Please let it be a pet, please let it be a pet, please let it be a pet!

[somnioergosum]

Ronan thought of all the times that a night horror had focused on him. Lately, the bad memories outweigh the good but this one was not like the others. They were all different because how Ronan felt about himself was always different. One thing he did know was Alex didn't have to worry. Well actually she did, but the cultists were everyone's problem.

"I don't know if that's a good idea. It will kaill you but..." He shook his head, his eyes still fixed on his night horror. The creature from somewhere to get back out of sight and wait while the cultists must be scrambling. The behavior didn't surprise him. Lying in wait or stalking their prey before checking was fairly standard.

"Hey wait." He looked at Alex. "What are you doing h--"

His night horror screeched again, some even more like a raven, assuming one knew what a raven battlecry sounded like. Ronan didn't but he assumed it was something like that. So that was the sound it made.

[11calls]

Let it be said that Alex Reagan was not known for her decision making skills when she was running on things like lack of sleep or an overabundance of fear, both of which were in full swing with her right now, along with the addition of a concussion and all of the pain that went along with it. So, yeah, this may not have been the best idea that she ever had. That much was glaringly obvious when the thing (please don't be a demon, please don't be a demon) darted back into sight. Instantly,. Alex dropped the shoe.

"I wasn't actually going to hit you with it!" The words were a desperate announcement both to the boy and to the thing that sounded like a raven and was making Alex's skin crawl as much as the tunnels themselves did. There was something about the noise that grated into Alex's very core and she swallowed again. "I was just trying to distract it to come back to you. I can be an idiot sometimes but I'm not a complete moron."

Most of the time anyway. Alex most definitely still had her moments. "I sort of assumed you had control over it. Don't you have control over it?" Well, probably not if he asked for help in distracting it.

[somnioergosum]

Ronan thought back to the first night horror he'd meant to make and how it seemed to intuitively know what he wanted. Staring after this one, it looked like it intuited that what Ronan really wanted to do was scream and thrash around both violently and futilely.

Spot on.

"Are you asking if I taught it to sit?" he snapped. "Fuck's sake, put your--"

Another shriek. Ronan felt it reverberate inside him, rattling his bones but now that Alex was here to vent at, he was no longer as worried. He'd figure it out. He just had to think about the night horror coming back and--

It stopped shrieking.

"...Shoe back on," he finished. "Put your damn shoe back on." He looked away from Alex to try and spot not only his creature but also any cultists that it made have scared out into the open.

Shit. Where the hell did it go?

He didn't ask that. But he did ask something. "You're not about to drop dead, right?"

[11calls]

The shriek cut through Alex in a way that before only the idea of demons seemed to do, and her fingers gripped at the while until her knuckles turned white against it. This entire week was a nightmare, of course, and now Alex was seeing something that could almost have been born from her dreams that was supposed to save her. Well, save them. She was already on her way to safety and escape at the moment, before she had stopped to talk to or perhaps save him. Now she didn't know what the hell was going on.

The sudden silence of the thing was deafening, making the screams and the sound of fighting seem even further than they were. Alex had no idea about this thing and she honestly wasn't sure if she wanted to know. The sandal was left abandoned on the floor because Alex didn't want to waste the time fumbling around and trying to strap the damn thing to her ankle in order to secure the shoe. Especially when it looked like neither of them looked like the thing that was almost Tall Paul did.

His question was super easy to respond to, because even if she was going to tell him she was fine even though she wasn't. All and all for her injuries and everyone who had been hurt she was fine in comparison. So, Alex just shook her head quickly. "No, I'm fine. Go get that thing."

[somnioergosum]

Ronan gave her a look that made it clear how full of shit he thought that answer was. As much as he was concerned for his night horror, he knew first hand it could defend itself, unless bullets were involved. And Alex was an ex-captive armed with a shoe. Scratch that. Formerly armed with a shoe.

"What if one of those psychos comes along?" As he talked, he noticed the familiar scrabble of claws against the ground. He still had that initial reaction of fear but it was soon replaced by a sense of relief.

It sounded like it was on its way back. He looked to be sure and recognized it. Having done its job of sowing chaos, it inched its way closer.

He glanced from it to Alex, uncertain. Then he took out a gun and held it out for her. In better light, the design on it would be clearer but the pattern of vines could still be felt.

"Don't shoot me."