[closed] Mission: Don't Wake the Deity

[couldkillthedevil]

who: Akihiko Sanada, Nico di Angelo, Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Rin, Keith, Lyle Dylandy, Khisanth (Onyx), Jason Todd, Ava Orlova, Morgana, Takashi Shirogane, Yuffie Kisaragi, Chloe Decker, Lucifer Morningstar, Thor Odinson, Link
what: Mission: Don't Wake the Deity
when: Friday, July 28th - after the scouting party has returned and shared their information
where: The Abandoned City and surrounding woods
warnings: Violence, probable monster attacks, mind control/people being compelled, etc. Will add more warnings as needed.



[Taken from the June TDM, with some additions:]

Whether you've just arrived in the city or you've been here a while, and you have a sensitivity to the spiritual, magical, multidimensional, or anything else outside the realm of everyday normal, you've probably noticed a distinct uptick in weird feelings, strange nightmares, or daymares - hallucinations of scary things that are lurking just behind you.

You're not the only one who's noticed it.

There are rumors going around that the psychological and spiritual disturbances are due to the emergence or re-emergence of a deity. Some people say that it's something new that's come through the portal with the sharp increase in new arrivals recently, and others say it's simply an ancient spiritual presence or some ancient incorporeal monster that's been somehow awakened. Gramarye, the top-tier magic research center in Riverview Quarantine, has been studying anyone who's felt this presence, and have recently confirmed that whatever it is, it's being fed by all the extra energies and prayers and thoughts as the city's population increases. The one thing everyone agrees on is that, if the expanding community is feeding the entity, then the entity has got to go!

A scouting party recently travelled into the Abandoned City and forests outside the walls to search for leads or any other evidence of a way to solve the problem. After a day of searching, the team stumbled upon an abandoned temple. While it didn't seem like much, its exterior run-down and wood rotting amongst the centuries' old mulch and muck, it felt... unsettling. Alive, almost. One member of the party could feel a powerful presence emanating from it; realizing they were out of their depth, the team returned to the Quarantine to relay the information and obtain reinforcements.

Teams are now being assembled across the city to travel into the Abandoned City or the forests outside the walls and find this temple once more. The mission might be dangerous, though - there are the usual dangers of venturing out into the wilds, but this time, characters may also face booby traps, spectral or physical guardians, and if the entity itself gets awoken? Someone may have to kill it.

[So this log will be set up in 'stages'. The first few headers will be closed to each of the teams for initial travel meetings, camping, monster fights, etc. Feel free to post your own top-levels underneath and tag out, mingle, whatever you'd like. Headers for further 'stages' of the mission (such as once all the teams meet up at the temple/deity hideout) will also be posted so that teams can intermingle/have more CR.

Since there are so many people involved, consider this one big mingle thread in the vein of the TDMs. Here's a link to the google doc for those interested as well.]

Comments

[tempredmental]

Keith charged in, going for one of the others. The three things were the same, at least, and he went in first with the sword in his left hand, slicing up diagonally across the front of the monster, sending it stepping back from him, and then quickly followed with a swing from the bayard in his right along almost the same arc, continuing his momentum. The creature had pulled back to the side, exposing its flank to the second strike. Keith spun with the motion, and then brought his arm up and over for a downward strike as the monster fell to its side, getting the killing blow once it was on the ground.

He turned back, focusing now on the third creature that remained.

[deathkid]

As soon as Keith put on that impressive display, Nico was moving too. Together, they could take down the third, quicker than they'd individually taken down the others and Nico felt a rush that usually comes with battle. He sliced outwards, driving his sword into the beast's flank before nodding to Keith, allowing him to do the honors of finishing it off. Because Nico's never been a glory hound. Just someone who wants to get the job done.

[tempredmental]

Keith was the same way... get the job done. Since it had been proverbially put in his court to do just that, that's what he did. He took the opening Nico gave him, and finished it off by running it through with his bayard. He pulled the weapon back out as the creature fell to its side with a thud.

And then Keith took a small step back, away from Nico's aura.

"Is that another kind of spell or something?" he asked. "That... cold. Is that from you?" The skeleton popping out of the ground was still pretty fresh in his mind, so he was... weirded out? That was probably the best way of putting it.

[deathkid]

So Keith had been affected by his aura, Nico realized. It just seemed he'd powered through it to face the task at hand. An impressive feat, he thought, given some people would pee their pants. It made him respect Keith all the more and wonder vaguely what he might've been through that made it easy for him to withstand such fear. It must've been a hard life, one with a lot of danger, and Nico was slow to respond, wiping off his blade before sheathing it.

"Something like a spell. It's an aura. I can expand and shrink it as much as I want, but mostly I keep it under wraps," he explained, hands moving as he spoke. "It's one of my powers. I kinda inherited it from my dad."

[tempredmental]

Oh, it hadn't been easy to power through, but Keith had this weird ability to power through a lot of things. It was his default mode. Injuries, mind tricks, and he'd put it all to the test recently with the Blade of Marmora. Considering the trials had put him through both a severe physical challenge with the battles, but also a mental test by feeding him hallucinations that twisted his memories and the people he cared about, dealing with some of his deepest seated issues, an aura wasn't something he couldn't figure out how to muscle through by swallowing his feelings about it.

"An aura." He knew what an aura was on a basic definition level. He'd never actually been exposed to one that he knew of, unless sensing the Blue Lion's energy could be considered that. Either way, he didn't want to think too hard about it. "Who's your dad?"

[deathkid]

Alas, Nico didn't know what kinds of things Keith had been through. For all he knew, his interactions with aliens had been rather mundane. But if he did know, he'd have even more respect for the other teen, because it would've taken a lot of guts to go through what he'd experienced. And Nico was never the type to disregard someone's experiences.

But that was a possible topic for another time. At the moment, the focus was on him and Nico felt a little uncomfortable with the attention. Still, he figured he might as well answer. For all he knew, Keith wouldn't recognize the name of his father.

"My dad is the god of the Underworld for the Greek Pantheon. You said you're from Earth, right? Have you ever heard the name "Hades" or maybe "Pluto"?

[tempredmental]

Keith frowned a bit.

"Yeah... but more in reference to the planet than actual mythology," he said. His specialty had been space pilot, not history. But, now that they were talking like this, Keith noted that the crazy cold creepy feeling had gone away, which also made him realize that he was still holding his weapons... rather tightly, too.

He forced himself to relax, both blades retracting... the dark one with the glowing purple emblem shrinking down to a dagger that he slid into a sheath on the back of his belt, and the red and white one disappearing so only the round handle remained. He held that near the two blue lights at the top his thigh armor for a moment. The lights flashed, and the handle disappeared in a flash of light.

"I uh... didn't think those stories were real."

Though, the idea of alternate dimensions and worlds was still pretty new to him.

[deathkid]

Nico watched with minor amazement as the weapons changed. He's familiar with magical weaponry, recalling Percy's Riptide which could shrink into a pen, and Jason's Imperial Gold sword which could change into a coin. But those were godly weapons, made of magical material. What Keith had was different and suddenly Nico was intrigued. But they weren't talking about that so he shelved his questions for another day.

"They're real," he said, eyes still on the dagger where it had been stashed. Realizing it might look strange to be staring in that direction, he lifted his eyes to Keith's. "Most mortals don't realize it though. I'm sure that where you're from, my father still exists, but since you're a mortal, you wouldn't know it."

[tempredmental]

"Maybe." Keith shrugged. If there was one thing he was slowly learning about this place, it was that there were different versions of the same place. There was a chance that it was real for his world, too, but there was also a chance that it was just what they thought it was... a myth.

"So... you're his son. And that's how you can do that stuff?"