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

[shoplifter]

[She SURE DOES. Hope you don't mind the forehead being launched at your face as she headbutts with what strength she has left. There's an unfiltered yell, bridled with rage and pain, and she is up on her unsteady knees again ready to swing her chained hands at him. She's by no means anywhere near powerful compared to the grown men dealing out beatings, but she does know it hurts to get hurt in certain areas.

Just don't let her hit you in any of those, and you're golden. She looks like she's not all there, and it's probably a concussion doing most of the talking here — the past and reality are blurring a little, and she has a look in her eyes like she's just working on muscle memory.]

[volitaunt]

[ WELP SO MUCH FOR HIS NOSE STAYING INTACT AFTER THE LAST TIME IT GOT BROKEN, FRICKING OW.

He reels back, falling on his ass and suddenly very glad she can't whip out those claws of hers or this would have been a very short conversation. ]

Laura! It's me! It's Poe, we're friends, we were taken together, remember?

[shoplifter]

[She screams and pulls her arms back to launch another attack — but then she blinks, finally looks at Poe (not through him), and flops backward against the wall painfully. Her breathing is deep and hoarse, and only barely just begins to relax. And her injuries are more than when they'd last spoken — her jaw is a vivid collection of swelling and bruises and one eye is pinching shut from a well-placed punch.

She stares for a long moment with her hair a mess around her face, expression sliding into something blank.]

... Poe.

[volitaunt]

[ This is bad. Not just average bad, beat-and-humiliated bad, everyday-cultish-shittery bad. Poe practically vibrates with the need to make someone pay for Laura's injuries, but he can't exactly just get up and bullrush the nearest cultist when she's...

When she has a look on her face like that. ]

Yeah. It's me. [ A pause. ] Do you know where you are right now, Laura?

[shoplifter]

[For a moment, it doesn't look good — maybe she's gotten a few punches to the head and she's entirely forgotten what's going on — but then a recognition sparks. She had been with Poe, had been separated... and then she ran into Quill, when he'd been nearly beaten to death. The one-armed man who had been aiming his ire on her had gotten her separated again, and, well. It wasn't pleasant.

And now she's here — and that's indeed Poe.]

... Sí. I remember.

[She leans against the wall, curling a little protectively around herself.]

I am sorry I hurt you.

[volitaunt]

[ God, he wishes he could at least hug her. He's never going to take the use of his arms for granted, ever again. ]

Good. That's good.

[ Now what? He sits down next to her, exhaling softly. ]

It's all right. It was an accident.

[ A pause. ]

You've been through something like this before, haven't you.

[ It isn't really a question. ]

[shoplifter]

[After a long, tired pause, she nods.]

I have.

[She keeps quiet at length, and then speaks again at last.]

I lived in a facility since birth — we were kept in cells and trained to be killers.

It was different from this place, but... we had surgeries. Injections.

... Pain management training.

[And perhaps that is why she's sitting so calmly, covered in injuries —

And yet simply enduring it with patience, now.]

[volitaunt]

[ God. If he weren't so tired, he'd be hot with fresh rage that anyone would do that to children. That she's forced into a situation this familiar. He kind of knew she wasn't an average kid--no average kid can empty a fridge the way Laura does, not without some seriously messed up relationship with food. Like, y'know, being starved, in one way or another.

Still, he grits his teeth, tense with helplessness, at their situation now, at her situation then.

Pain management training. ]

Did Riverview get you out?

[shoplifter]

[She shakes her head, leaning back into the wall.]

The nurses helped us escape. Gabriela and the others.

From there, I was separated from the other children.

[Hesitant, she imagines claws, blood, Gabriela telling her to hurry. She imagines Logan's bloodshot and exhausted eyes, and the way his skin was covered in ugly scars from wounds that didn't heal right anymore.]

But Gabriela and I were able to find my father, and he agreed to help us escape to the border.

[volitaunt]

[ Poe pushes his wrists outward against the tension of the cuffs. It's completely ineffective, but the pain of metal digging into his wrists gives him something other than anger to focus on. ]

You made it?

[ Maybe this isn't the right time to ask. Maybe it's the wrong question. He's not sure. But they're talking, she's more present than she was a minute ago. She's not trying to maul him. That's an improvement. ]

[shoplifter]

[She nods, quieted by the thought.]

I made it.

[volitaunt]

[ He crosses his legs, groaning a little at the motion. He doesn't have any right to complain about his own bruises, not when Laura is here battered half to hell.

He shouldn't ask. He should let her be, he should talk about something else, but he can't help it. One last question: ]

Did the others make it too?

[shoplifter]

[She glances at him after lowering herself to lay down against her own arm.]

... Some.

Some of the children.

[But only some. She breathes out, uncomfortable thanks to her injuries — but tired enough to not care.]

[volitaunt]

[ He shouldn't have asked. Even if he thought he knew the answer already, he shouldn't have asked. He shouldn't make her remember that, not when she's already half-way buried in the past.

Why are so many of the kids here (kids--he's thinking of Cassian, Jyn, Rey, and Finn now, what it was like when they were changed), why do so many of them have to suffer? It isn't right. It isn't fair.

None of this is fair, but that's the universe. Light and darkness. Good and evil. Balance between the kind and the cruel.

Why does it feel sometimes like the cruel has an edge? ]

I'm.... [ What, sorry? Yeah, he is, but it's not about him. ] You should try and get some rest. I'll wake you up if they bring food around, all right? I'll be right here.

[shoplifter]

[She recognizes that look, it's one that a lot of adults seem to find when she tells them about her childhood — she gets it now, at least a little bit. Even when she was aware it was wrong and terrible, she had never been able to think of it outside of her own little box, had only ever seen it as a normal thing, because it was all she'd known.

Their unhappiness isn't going to change anything, but at least it reminds her that there are decent people beyond the monsters. She gives a slight not, appreciative, letting herself relax and drift off into a light but somewhat restful sleep.

Might as well get what they can, right?]