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

[bardish]

[ Jeff returns the smile with one of his own too-cheerful, too-forced smiles, like that'll cover up the fact that he's pretty sure he's on the verge of a total mental breakdown or something. Then, the smile fades as he tracks Alex's glare over to the cultists.

And then-- then!-- Jeff looks at her with some disbelief. Did she just say...? ]

You too?

[ His voice is hushed, but oddly excited. ]

It's like... Fucking demons! [ THEY'RE JUST THE WOOOOORST. ]

[11calls]

[Okay, Alex was used to getting a fair variety of responses when someone heard her cursing demons and cultists and the like. Normally, she needed to follow up the statement with something along the lines of 'yes, I am aware how crazy that sounds' and smile and laugh it off. It was something that was the norm both here and back home, and she'd gotten accustomed to people thinking that she was, in fact completely insane. It was a hard place to be occasionally, but Alex knew what she knew, no matter how many times Richard or other people around her attempted to deny the reality of what was actually happening to the world around them.

So for a minute, it was all she could do to stare at Jeff before she offered him a little laugh that was low but had a fair amount of bitterness in it, along with a nod.]

Fucking demons. [Alex agreed with his words completely, and she had to add to her lament once more even though he wasn't as familiar with it as someone else in her life would be.]

It's always fucking demons. Don't tell me: trying to use you, someone you care about or something to start the end of the world? [Because it typically ended up being something that went hand in hand; you rarely got one without the other, she'd found.]

[bardish]

[ He shares a laugh with Alex, because come on, what the hell else can one do in this situation? At least he's not the only one who's apparently had a near-miss with something like that before, only to get kidnapped by a crazy cult that wants to use their bodies as meat puppets.

It's interesting, though. He's never really talked with someone who's had the same predicament before. Sure, it's this sort of hush-hush thing that happens from time to time in the Gifted community, but good luck finding anyone who'll talk about it. Like everything else to do with magic, it just gets buried and sanitized under a hundred different euphemisms, so no normal people really have to face the full, unfiltered reality of magic being a thing at all.

Jeff rubs the back of his neck, wincing a little. ]

Mine wasn't that ambitious. He wanted... [ Nothing he's wanted to think much about in about twenty years, to be honest. ] It happened a long time ago, when I was younger and a lot stupider.

[ He looks at Alex, curious. ] What happened with yours? If... you want to talk about it. Since we've got nothing but time here.

[11calls]

[Alex's near miss may have been more of a near miss than she'd realized, but for now, she just thought about those two sets of plane tickets in two bags in Howard's house in the middle of town and about the decision that they had before them. She didn't know what they were going to do, and she didn't want to know what his answer was going to be until the two of them were back at home. For Alex herself, she went back and forth on the choice at least once a day, and her only personal involvement with the people who were taken is that she'd seriously like to smack the both of them.

Settling in to get a bit more comfortable, Alex just watched him for a second, and she was reminded of Simon, and of Sebastian, and how young they were when they'd become involved in this sort of thing. She was drawing a parallel between those two and Jeff himself, and her face instantly lightened with a little bit of sympathy and she placed a hand on his arm for a second.

A few days before this, Alex had said that she wasn't going to talk about her podcast here, even if she did actually have access to all the master files and could upload them to the network. Instead, she was going to make the effort to keep Strand's life (and not-dead wife) under wraps here for the most part. But the difference was well... they were kidnapped, and all of Alex's reporter instincts were alerting her that Jeff had a story that may not have come from the same neighborhood, but they might very well have come from the same planet. So, Alex let out a soft sigh and for the first time, didn't qualify this with the statement: 'I know this sounds insane..; She didn't have to, not when he knew himself.]

Well, Thomas Warren, he's this creepy head of a cult called the Order of the Ceonophus, and the owner of this shadowy corporation called Davea Corp is attempting to take over the world through the use of demons, both natural--I mean if you can call demons 'natural'-- and manufactured ways. His group believes in an extreme offshoot of Pythagoreanism, that if they find the perfect musical cord it'll tear open the veil between the worlds and all of the creatures that were banished when Tiamat were killed will come back and take over the planet.

[bardish]

[ Young guys and demons, man. What a combo. Jeff notes the sympathy, offers a slight grimace in return, and glances out at their captors, making sure none of them have gotten it in their heads to come closer or eavesdrop.

Then, his gaze finds Alex again, and he listens. They're not from the same version of Earth-- he's pretty much certain of that-- and who knows how much demons differ from reality to reality (maybe they're just, like, the worst universal constant), but maybe the common threads in their stories can lead to...

Fuck if he knows. Closure, in the face of all this shit?

And-- yeah, okay, that sounds way more organized than his own youthful run-in with a demon. The incident that completely derailed the course of his entire life had been, far as he could always tell, sheer dumb happenstance, Jeff drawing some kind of cosmic short straw. But now that he's listening to Alex, there's an unexpected commonality in her own demon encounter. ]

Hang on-- wait-- musical chords? They weaponized music theory? [ Which, god, it's been ages since he's read up on Pythagorean scales and all that crap, but back when he was a kid, still learning to use music to weave magic, it was some of the fundamental reading he dove into. With time and practice, so much of it became so intuitive that he was able to ditch the books and theories and musing of old dead guys and just create, on his own.

...

Shit, no wonder he got a demon's attention. ]

Oh my goddd... [ He has to drop his face in his hands and laugh. What else can a guy do? ]

[11calls]

[For a long moment, Alex wasn't certain what to say, and she looked down at her palm as she always did when she thought about the Horn of Tiamat and how she had needed to touch the damn thing. Simon had called it 'safeguarding it' even though all she'd done was touched it and taken a picture. It hadn't bothered her so much at the time, because everything had been ramping up to things, but now it did. She wasn't sure how a picture and a touch could protect it from Warren and everything that he wanted to do with it.

And Richard.

But instead, Alex focused on the story behind her and in front of her, and she found herself slipping easily back into the narration voice that she used when she was explaining on the show. Force of habit as it were.]

Yeah, there's this group called the Order of the Ceonophus, which were created after Cylon, one of Pythergosus' students split off from his school. They believed that there's a secret ancient song that they can play and if they played it at the right place, it would start the Apocalypse. For a little bit, they were convinced that this... Axis Mundae was the IP address for my show. But Thomas was using it to create demons that were different than the ones that were summoned by parents of small children who could see them and who had certain abilities.

[A beat and a bitter laugh to go with half a smile.]

Yeah, it's completely insane. So, fucking demons.

[bardish]

[ It sounds completely insane, that's for sure. Way more insane than his own youthful brush with one of those things. Hallucinations, nightmares, blackouts, and his own ensuing drug binges-- a desperate attempt to shut off the noise in his head-- sounds pretty small-time compared to... people making demons and summoning them into babies? Is that what was going on?

Music being a common link is pretty eerie, though. That's the part he can't get over. Jeff lets out a sigh, a note of exasperation in his voice, and rubs his eyes. Exhausted, hurting, trying to wrap his head around the possible implications. Maybe it's nothing. Or maybe he really was right that demons were just some shitty universal constant. ]

It's kind of insane. Not that insane.

[ He offers that assurance with a wry sort of smile, before going quiet again. He shifts, pulling his knees up, arms resting on them as he tilts his head back against the wall and looks at nothing in particular. Here's a glimpse of the man beneath the friendliness and occasionally frustratingly sunny disposition. ]

I used to want to be a rock star. When I was a kid. [ There's a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth, and a self-deprecating tone in his voice. Look, he knows it's stupid. A lot of people want to be famous when they're young. ] Sometimes, I think I could've made it, too. I was so close.

[ It's not delusion, or ego, he doesn't think. He had what it took. The band did. If they hadn't, the rest of them wouldn't have gone on to actually make it on their own. Though sometimes an ugly voice inside him points out that maybe the reason the others wound up making it was because Jeff had been the thing holding them back. That he was the only one who never could've hacked it. ]

But I did a lot of stupid shit. Used my music to cast spells-- [ There's some humor in his voice, at least, when he looks at Alex and points a finger. ] Now, in my defense, it made for a great show.

[ But then he shrugs, the humor drying up again. ] But, y'know, you do that enough times, and you wind up getting the wrong kind of attention. I found myself stuck with the groupie from hell. Goodbye, Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

[ He waves a hand, his own bitter laugh reflecting Alex's. ] Fucking demons.

[11calls]

[As he spoke, all of Alex's attention was on him, hyper focused like a laser only warm instead of scalding hot. It was the sort of attention that Alex gave to all of the people that she interviewed, the way that she watched them as if they were the only important thing in the world. In this moment, it was. Yes, Alex was always fond of stories, and yes she always had nose for news and uncovering things, but this wasn't for the show. There was no recorder blinking bengingly on the table, no signed releases, or other trappings of Alex Reagan's normal craft. Instead this was having a much more important effect on her: despite the fact that they were talking about demons and cults, it meant that Alex wasn't thinking about what was going on around them, or the possibilities of what could happen if they all weren't found sooner rather than later.

So she just nodded, and held onto her questions until he was done. When he was, her voice was soft, and there was concern laced through it.]

You must have been scared out of your mind. Were there places in your world that helped with that sort of thing? Or was it the sort of thing that if you talked about it it'd go full on Catholic Church and need to have you exorcised and what not?"

[Honestly, given demons it could go either way, but she hoped that he hadn't needed one of those Thomas Warren boxes. But whatever else, it was quite clear that Alex believed every word, she knew a fellow survivor when she saw one, if that was what they were doing. ]

Fucking demons, I swear. It's always demons.

[bardish]

[ He could play casual and shrug the whole thing off, insist that, nah, even if he was scared, it was so long ago he doesn't even remember. Time, distance, maturity, and all that, making it into a distant memory. Normally, Jeff does, because if he talks about that whole ordeal at all, he'd rather downplay it. And because it's true, to a degree, that the trauma's dulled enough by now that he can go weeks, months, without being reminded of it. He's had over twenty years to work it out.

He'll never forget his near-brush with possession, but he's found a way to coexist with it. Normally. Until now. Thanks, you kidnapper assholes.

So Jeff laughs, short and without much humor. ]

Oh yeah, I was scared shitless. But I was also 21, so I tried to take care of it on my own at first. [ It was obvious well before the demon even started chit-chatting with him that something was deeply wrong. And even when that otherworldly asshole started whispering in his head, he still tried handling it on his own, thinking denial and drugs would take care of it. Because he was young and invincible, and who the fuck gets semi-possessed by a demon, anyway? ]

Eventually I went to rehab. Sort of. [ Ninety days' worth of intensive inpatient treatment with other fuckups who magicked their way into this calamity or that. ] Officially, there's no such thing as demons. Just like there's no such thing as magic or wizards or anything. Just Gifted people, using their particular Talents, and having the occasional Complication. [ The way he says those words, as if they merit particular emphasis, probably makes it clear that it's just a bunch of bullshit euphemisms. Standards-- Blanks, magically-bereft, non-Gifted, whatever you want to call them-- the people without a Gift still don't really feel all that comfortable acknowledging it for what it is: good, old fashioned witchcraft. So they dress it up in more comfortable terms.

The humor finds its way back into his voice for a moment: ] Anyway, the doctors sorted me out with a medical exorcism [ No, that's not really what it's called, but hey, if the shoe fits. ] and loads of therapy. But god... [ He sighs. ] I think it took me at least a year before I could look in a mirror without expecting to see that thing from the corner of my eye.

[ Every once in a blue moon, he still gets that feeling. It's rare now, but never gone forever. Probably gonna get worse after this shit's over. (And they will get out of this alive, he tells himself. Dying, without ever seeing his daughter again, is not an option.)

Jeff makes a bit of a face, as if finally realizing just how much he's said. ] Rambling. Sorry. I haven't talked about this with anyone in years.

[ Going off on a tangent was a nice distraction from the current predicament, but it doesn't exactly make for good conversation. He'd only even started because she mentioned Pythagorean scales and that apocalyptic song, then went way off into his own head. Back to the matter at hand: ]

What happened with that cult in your world?

[11calls]

[If there was something to be glad about given Alex's whole ordeal with the show (and honestly, at least one amazing thing had come from it) but it would be that she was for the most part an adult when things started going badly. Impulse control was always something that Alex had struggled with, even now, but the idea of trying to deal with it when she was twenty-one made her pulse run cold. Alex had reached the point in her thirties that twenty-one was still a baby, and the idea of a baby trying to deal with a full blown possession of his own made her cringe.

So, Alex reached out and she gave his arm a little squeeze, letting him know that she was there and she was listening while he went on and kept talking. No small part of Alex wanted to go into reporter mode, and she was biting her lip so that she didn't launch into a thousand questions. Not doing it went against everything that Alex was, especially when she was listening to something like this, so needless to say it didn't last anywhere near as long as she would have liked it too.]

Medical exorcism? Really? Also it's so weird to have magic be an accepted thing in your world but people aren't open to the full spectrum of it.

[Of course Alex's world was the same with what Simon called "the world beneath the world." Strand could deny it all he wanted, but there was definitely things underfoot at home, and she was expecting him more than a little to try and do the psychic thing that he'd tried with Coralee all those years ago in order to find to find Alex.

Catching her attention, with the question, Alex just sighed softly, and she leaned forward and planted her chin in the crux of her knees while she considered how to answer the question.]

We're still working on it. Kinda. Things got... Well, they got personal in a lot of ways towards the end. Well, if it is the end anyway. If nothing else the two of us ended up here instead of making the choice back home. It's... kind of a long story but my partner, he's supposed to be the one who is going to open the door to the demons, and Warren [All the dislike is in that name. All of it. She might as well have spit it.] well, he's willing to do whatever in order to make it happen. He's actually in charge of both the Order of the Ceonophus and the Cult of Tiamat. So, he recorded me in my bedroom with a demon present and then much worse... [Alex wouldn't have told him this if Jeff hadn't been so forthright with everything that he'd been through. Working on respecting Richard's privacy was something new that Alex was trying, but she was actually trying.]

My partner's father who was allegedly dead for twenty-five years who had been working for Warren all along called and told Richard that he was alive, and not only was he alive, but the wife who had faked her death and been a double agent for Warren before she'd fallen for him... [Alex gave a hopeless little smile, because she knew how it all sounded. But.] Well, both of them were being held by Warren in Geneva where the Axis Mundae had the door had been sort of moved too, I guess.

[bardish]

[ He offers a brief smile at the gesture. Comfort's not necessary for him-- the whole affair's long-past-- but it's probably nice for that boy he used to be, stupid and shortsighted though the kid was. ]

I mean, they didn't call it that. But in practice? [ He shrugs, looking a little chagrined. YEAH. A doctor-mandated exorcism. ] Magic was kind of a huge secret until, ah... my grandparents' time? [ Or his parents', technically, but they're sliiiightly too young to remember the worldwide magical coming out. Jeff makes a short, wry note of amusement. ] So we're still kinda figuring things out. Coexistence.

[ And judging by how things tend to go, historically, they'll be 'figuring things out' for decades-- centuries?-- to come.

He goes quiet, listening to Alex tell her own story of demon shenanigans. The whole part with the recording makes his skin fucking crawl, little pinpricks of discomfort going straight up his spine. ]

That's... [ THAT'S WHAT? He inhales, considering his words, then just goes with: ] So fucked, man!

[ Really, what else can you say about demons, their worshippers, and their crazy schemes? ]

That just-- God. I'm sorry. It... It didn't hurt you, did it?

[ A question on his mind, that he won't ask just yet, is: does that mean in coming here, they diverted the apocalypse? It's such an odd thing to consider, how this portal might have saved some version of Earth... ]

[11calls]

[Alex just nods along with what he's saying about figuring out how things coexist, and she hates how her brain gives her the analogy of how people have had a problem with civil rights and rights for queer people, and she wishes that people changed more quickly than they did. She also knows how a lot of people respond to magic, so she can't even imagine how bad something like the religious right might be when it came to this.

But Alex just laughs in a bitter tone when he says that it's so fucked, because it is. The whole thing, all of it is so fucked and even though Alex wouldn't go back in time and undo making those eleven calls to Strand's office, she wished that she'd prepared a little better for the clusterfuck that it turned into. Because honestly, that's what it was. So bad that the two of them were considering saying fuck it and just leaving it all behind. Well, Strand was considering it. Alex was giving him the choice to make, when he didn't have the chance to make barely any in his life. After all, she was at the center of this with him, but it wasn't because she was supposed to be or anything like that.

She just shakes her head quickly.]

No, it didn't hurt me. I mean, it's probably a warning but to do or not do what is all up for debate. I already didn't sleep so it shouldn't be a warning about doing that. I think it might have been that they were proving that they could get to me too before they sent the message from Howard about him and Coralee.