Ever's mope was, apparently, over -- which was a good thing, considering the mission assignment dropped on him. It meant he showed up in actual clothing, instead of the pajamas he'd been wearing to various duties for the past week or so, even if said clothing was battered: jeans with holes in the knees, a faded knit cap tugged down over his hair, layers of sweatshirt under the heavy green canvas of his coat.
It was, after all, cold in Paris. Probably all the colder in the catacombs beneath. Hopefully it would at least be dry.
He was early not out of a sense of duty but because he was just a touch excited to be getting off the island. Maybe when he got back he'd claim some leave days, stock up ashore. Weather depending, maybe he'd even step through the same portal to do it on foreign soil. But for now he settled in to wait by the portal, easing into a familiar sort of crouch to work his way quickly through a cigarette.
moonkitsune
I STARTED
the semblance of unity
AS PROMISED
Survey Mission 6A Location: Paris, France Images:: x, x General debriefing: There are some 185 miles of tunnels beneath Paris. Most are empty, some are occupied by ancient catacombs housing remains, and some have been repurposed by humans, both the wandering homeless and those engaging in (literally) underground activity.
Recent excursions by urban explorers and gossip among tight-knit homeless communities suggest strange activity in a private, closed-off area of the catacombs, including notably bizarre behavior among the thriving populations of resident rats and some rumored disappearances. Reports have grown frequent enough to warrant an investigation. * C class difficulty level (must have a team of three, at least one of them must be an Intermediate Hunter. This is considered a DANGEROUS mission. )
MECHANICS
* MECHANICS: RP assembling a team, as necessary, before heading towards the Lighthouse portal to request a portal to Survey Mission 6A. Once there, roll a 100-sided dice and match the roleplay to the results below, as well as any reactions. Players can continue rolling until any of the players roll a BOSS ENCOUNTER, in which case the BATTLE PHASE begins. See below for battle phase mechanics.
1- 20: You find a pile of blankets and a bag of worn belongings suggesting that you've stumbled on a vagrant's sleeping place. There is a large quantity of dried, reddish brown stains, including a clearly-marked but streaked footprint and handprint on the floor, that lead to the edge of one of the underground canals, then disappear. Many of the smaller spatters are clearly the tiny pawprints of rats. 21 - 30: A rat scuttles out of a crossing in front of you. Its shadow seems... strange, in ways that you cannot explain. Should you choose for some reason to pursue it, you will find that it evades you entirely, and that your flashlight beam seems strangely less effective at penetrating the darkness in the tunnels where the rat flees. 31 - 40: A long, long line of French graffiti in black ink stretches along this corridor at shoulder height. If your character can speak French, they will find that it starts out with the lyrics to a tune currently popular on French radio, before taking a turn for the bizarre in the middle with random words (often "légion") inserted incorrectly, and then disintegrating into complete gibberish and random strings of letters before stopping suddenly mid-tunnel. 41 - 60: A bag of dried fruit and stale bread lies in a corner alongside an abandoned backpack that turns out, if examined, to contain supplies for impromptu urban exploration, but no identification. The dust is studded with dozens and dozens of rats' pawprints, but the food is entirely untouched. 61 - 80: You enter an area with a high, vaulted ceiling, full of a strange squishing, echoing sound. Something falls to the ground in the beam of your flashlight. It is a maggot. Should you decide to point your beam upwards, you will find the ceiling completely crawling with the same, all apparently hellbent on reaching small cocoon-like objects, roughly the size of a softball, strung thickly across the ceiling. 81- 100: BOSS ENCOUNTER: - The sound of scrabbling paws is faint at first, but soon grows into a din punctuated with the chatter of many, many oversized teeth. The beast that manifests is a King Rat: a writhing mass of rodents joined by the tails, so that the teeth all face outwards. This is clearly a creature of FEAR, not of nature: each rat is substantially larger than the average dog, their beady eyes gleam bloodthirsty and manic, and the entire unit moves with a cohesiveness that suggests a hivemind at work. They (or it) fully block the tunnel ahead.
- BOSS MECHANICS: This boss is a mob that has collective 100 HP. Every time you attack it (following the general battle rules), you TAKE 8 damage. Make sure to tally the boss's total HP (the damage you did to it) at the bottom of your post as well as your total HP and the damage you did that round. If the boss's HP hits 0, you have defeated it, and your team can now take the portal back.
After Boss defeat: When the final rat is slain, all the carcasses melt away. They leave, however, a scrap of evidence for you to take back to the labs for further research. Roll 1d4 to determine what is dropped
1. A single, normal-sized rat skeleton, bound together with striped baker's twine and sealed with a Belgian postage stamp. 2. A plastic baggie containing cigarette butts and bottlecaps. Shift the contents a bit and you will find that in the center of the litter is what appears to be a dead baby rat, hairless and pink--and still fresh. 3. What appears to be a bit of fur but on closer examination turns out to be a dessicated rat head (normal sized). Someone or something has nailed a bit of yellow legal paper to it, but all that remains is a shred. 4. A bundle of freshly-severed, normal-seeming rats' tails, bound together with what looks like an elastic baby's headband of pink lace.
* 2 mission reward points for completing this successfully
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:30 pm
Horace sighed as he triple-checked his bag. Flares, thin rope, sample bags: he tried to think of things before they happened. Paris, beautiful Paris, foreign Paris, and he'd be stuck underneath it all. Maybe one day, he'd try to go there on leave. It seemed the sort of city Jan would enjoy. He thought of his nearly empty wallet and frowned, scuffing his shoe against the floor. Couldn't do anything as long as he was broke as joke, now could he?
The dossier had, of course, been memorized; he soaked up whatever residual knowledge he could glean between the lines of terse mission-text. It wasn't much. The homeless, the urban enthusiasts, had been talking. He jogged to the portal. His messenger bag was now helpfully secured to his thigh, and although Horace wore a warm sweater to combat the cold, it was still sleeveless. Sleeves felt restricting and surely Paris would not be colder than Russia.
He arrived at the portal before the exact leave time. In Horace's mind, on time was the same thing as five minutes late. "Hey, you here for the Paris thing?" He sighed and resolved to pick up some cigarettes on his first leave.
and be blue
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Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:19 pm
Melvin hadn't been on a mission since Rin "left" and he was feeling a bit nervous about stepping out again. However, he still wanted to be strong and prepared for whatever he had to do when Rin finally asked him what final steps he would need to take to bring her home. He was rusty, that was for certain, and without a weapon, he was even more useless than he already was. Right now, he just had to rely on runics which was a poor alternative.
He came up to the portals, pristine and finely pressed as usual, and at least managing to catch a few hours of sleep. He noticed a man fiddling with a cigarette indoors and frowned. "You can't smoke in here." He said.
After looking about, he then looked to the portal and the man beside it. "Are you waiting for a team?" If this was the team he was with, then this guy was part of his group.
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 10:26 pm
"I imagine I'm the certified translator." The comment about not smoking indoors went completely unanswered: after all, Ever was three quarters of the way through it, at this point, smoke escaping with the words. It seemed crystal ******** clear to him that smoking it had been not only possible, but easy.
Dark eyes flashed from one of them to the other in a faintly distracted way. Horace had read all the dossiers and come equipped with the sundries he might need. Melvin had stocked up on runics, seemed more than just mildly acquainted with the rules.
Ever had a change of clothes, a blanket [in case they got stuck overnight], and a book.
"...assuming you're going to Paris, anyway." He stomped out the cigarette and shook himself out some, offering a hand to Horace, but not Melvin. He smelled like smoke. He suspected there'd be objections.
"Ever Ambrodiel. Life. Intermediate. We ready, or do you think there's one more?"
"Paris it is. Better you than me - all I've got is highschool level French. So I can ask where a McDonald's is and that's pretty much it." He clasped Ever's hand and gave it a firm shake. Belatedly, he looked to their third, wondering where he'd seen the other man before. Suddenly, it clicked.
"Oh, you're Coffee! Well, the Life with the coffee from before." He smiled at Melvin, dimple popping into his cheek. "So we've got two Lifes and me. Horace Nokoni, death trainee. Hmm, I think we're good to go, as long as Coffee is, too." Yes, Horace had forgotten Melvin's name. He was nonplussed by his faulty memory - Horace knew he could memorize things with a snap, but only if they were written down. Spoken things sometimes flew in one ear and out the other.
Shrugging, he looked from Melvin to Ever. Coffee & Cigarettes.
MoonKitsune
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:36 am
and be blue
the semblance of unity
Melvin was always dressed warmly. Sweaters made up most of his wardrobe, mostly turtlenecks, WITH sleeves. He wore a thing jacket under his coat, and made sure his phone was charged. If they had to spend time overnight, which he hoped they wouldn't, he made sure to grab a few granola bars to which he kept in his pocket. It was something at least.
"I'm glad someone can speak French, though I don't know what we'll find down there will want to talk to us. It's good to have someone who is bilingual." He commented, and nodded to Ever. Handshakes were not necessary if the man wasn't offering.
As for Horace, Melvin frowned. "It's Melvin. Melvin Wood. I already told you this. It's not Coffee." He corrected, looking at Horace with annoyance. "Or should I start referring to you as Genius or Sherlock if we are so close to give pet names." Though it would not be a pet name to be taken literally. Horace seemed to have just forgotten him to the point of only refer to him by objects he had around him.
"I think we're set. I didn't hear of a bigger group than just us."
Ever didn't say to Horace that he looked like he hadn't finished high school at all; just looked him over, sweeping his own hand back up through his hair as his eyes settled on Melvin, instead. His expression was just a little uncertain, wishing that they had a fourth. One who didn't look like a teenager, or like a cage-y lab assistant...
"...it was a joke. The interpreter." But it was only offered dryly over his shoulder before he went through the portal. In truth, he suspected he was there as something more like a babysitter, and that was terrifying.
the semblance of unity
I can roll stuff in my next post!
moonkitsune
Or you guys can roll when you post if you'd like. 8D
Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2014 8:04 am
Horace shot Melvin a curious look. It seemed so many people here were so touchy about names, of all things. "I don't particularly care what you call me, I'm just bad with names. If I don't write it or read it, I never remember." Horace's one saving grace was that once it was read or written, he had an almost photographic memory for it. He shrugged and very deliberately pulled out his little notebook. In it he wrote: Melvin Wood, coffee, Life, touchy, but not physically-touchy, cute in a nerdy way. Everything except the name was in a sort of bastardized Gregg shorthand. Horace was proud of the he resisted his urge to joke about becoming closer with the other man.
To be frank, Ever's own joke had gone completely over his head. He still didn't get it. If Horace could read Ever's thoughts, he would have pointed out that he had not yet finished highschool, after all. He was only 17. But Horace could not and merely followed after him wordlessly. "C'mon, Melvin," he sing-songed and stepped through the portal.
And squeaked. <********, but it was cold in Paris.
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Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2014 11:41 am
and be blue
The Semblance of Unity
"OH! Well, uh...good joke." Melvin said, failing to notice the joke and still not getting how it was funny. He had hoped there would be someone who might translate for them, but with most missions, he imagined they would be doing more shooting than talking.
He looked to Horace and took note of the man's bad memory. "I didn't know. I thought I was just so unimpressive that you couldn't' remember my own name. I'll remember that next time." He followed after Horace into the portal and started buttoning up his jacket when a cold breeze hit.
"They weren't kidding about the forecast." He commented, glad he usually dressed warmly for the season. He adjusted his scarf about his neck and looked about. "Not exactly the highlight of Paris."
and be blue rolled 1 100-sided dice:
42Total: 42 (1-100)
Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:41 pm
Quote:
41 - 60: A bag of dried fruit and stale bread lies in a corner alongside an abandoned backpack that turns out, if examined, to contain supplies for impromptu urban exploration, but no identification. The dust is studded with dozens and dozens of rats' pawprints, but the food is entirely untouched.
"What," Ever tossed over his shoulder at Melvin as he lead the way into the catacombs -- not even pausing outside to take in the sights. Of course, there weren't many sights, outside. THose would be found within. "Have you been to Paris before? Maybe this is the best part."
And then he would pause, at last, taking in the rows of skulls, the narrow hallway, adjusting the bag on his shoulders to take out a flashlight that suddenly felt uncomfortably small. There were lanterns, of course, but when he moved it seemed like the nooks and crevices swarmed as well, something living in the shadows.
His imagination, perhaps, until the beam landed on two bags in one corner, half-hidden behind a battered desk chair, sprawled on its side. As Ever stepped in closer, he'd get a good look at the paw prints.
Those were enough to make him uncomfortable. The untouched food, though, made it worse, somehow. He held up a loaf for the other two to see.
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 100-sided dice:
33Total: 33 (1-100)
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Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:57 pm
Quote:
31 - 40: A long, long line of French graffiti in black ink stretches along this corridor at shoulder height. If your character can speak French, they will find that it starts out with the lyrics to a tune currently popular on French radio, before taking a turn for the bizarre in the middle with random words (often "légion") inserted incorrectly, and then disintegrating into complete gibberish and random strings of letters before stopping suddenly mid-tunnel.
Horace grimaced as they entered the catacombs, blue eyes flicking over the skulls lined neatly along the walls. Great. "If this is the best Paris has to offer, I think I'll pass." He shivered and pulled out his own little flashlight as Ever found something. Strange. A loaf of bread untouched, fruit uneaten, a bag just left there alone. He edged closer to Ever, squatting down to stare at the prints. Unease prickling along his neck, he picked up the bag of fruit - might as well take it along. Rebagging it, he slipped it inside his messenger bag.
"Why didn't the animals eat that? Unless it's poisoned or those aren't animal tracks or something." Turning, he made to stand and paused. His flashlight flickered over the walls, revealing a long line of French graffiti. It started off normal enough. The words grew shaky as it traveled, the accents no longer precise. It made Horace feel a little queasy.
Je perds le nord, je perds la tête. Toi ma belle espagnole~ [there is a crude heart spray painted here] Quand tu bouges tes épaules Je ne vois plus le monde autour. C'est peut être ca l'amour. C'est peut être légion.... C'est peur... On pouvait lire la peur sur son visage. Légion..
"So...." He stood and leaned over to run a hand across the words. Dry. Looked like normal spray paint. "Does anyone here actually speak French? From what I can tell, it... says uh... 'this might be love?' or something. 'This might be legion.' Weird." Pulling out his phone, he snapped several pictures of it.
61 - 80: You enter an area with a high, vaulted ceiling, full of a strange squishing, echoing sound. Something falls to the ground in the beam of your flashlight. It is a maggot. Should you decide to point your beam upwards, you will find the ceiling completely crawling with the same, all apparently hellbent on reaching small cocoon-like objects, roughly the size of a softball, strung thickly across the ceiling.
"I haven't. It's one of the stops I have yet to get to. You sound like you're a native?" He asked, following after them as they walked through the tunnels. Pulling out his own flashlight, he pointed at the walls and cringed at the walls of skulls. It wasn't exactly the festive decor of the season, and he wondered how sanitary it was for aged old skulls to fill a dirt tunnel he was now occupying.
His concerns went into the red when he saw stale food and no one to claim it. "I don't know much about the homeless, but I don't think they would leave food lying around." He also noticed the prints. "Neither would any animal. So either they went after the person or they were too busy running away." Both ideas didn't seem all that great. He couldn’t see a animal just passing up food, especially rats who were known to eat whatever they could find.
Maybe they found a hunter was a hotter meal than fruit and old bread.
He looked to Horace as he took the food. "Are you…saving that?" He asked, hoping he was going to use that as bait instead of consumption.
He continued to look at the bag, pushing it with his shoe before kneeling down and seeing if there was an ID or something, but he didn't find anything helpful. "I guess even the homeless here don't take free food and a backpack." Though he had only seen this bag.
When Horace called them over, Melvin stood and headed over, staring at the wall of words. "We should have brought a French Dictionary or something." Since they didn't have a translator. He looked at Ever again before looking back at Horace. At least he knew a little.
"Oh great. Someone is writing love poetry on the wall." Guess even hobos needed romance.
It was at least good to take pictures and since it covered the investigation, Melvin went back to take pictures of the backpack.
Pointing the flashlight down the tunnel, he started to advance, looking at where the tunnel split. Looking back, he then turned to the right and stepped into a room. The room was large, he could tell by how thick the shadows rose above him, but most concerning was a noise.
"Hello?" He asked, turning his flashlight about the room to search for the source. Whatever it was, it sounded – wet.
Plop Something fell down, and pointing the flashlight down, he approached to find something moving. Small. White. Melvin cringed when he realized it was a maggot.
"Ugh." Stepping back and covering his mouth, he pointed the beam up from where it fell.
The sound of loud (and rather high-pitched) swearing in a string echoed as Melvin bolted out of the room and moved straight past the two before leaning against the wall, catching his breath.
He didn't say it, but a big NOPE was plain on his pale face.
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Kinda long.
The Semblance of Unity
Melvin says NOPE to bugs. Drawing the line.
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and be blue rolled 1 100-sided dice:
29Total: 29 (1-100)
21 - 30: A rat scuttles out of a crossing in front of you. Its shadow seems... strange, in ways that you cannot explain. Should you choose for some reason to pursue it, you will find that it evades you entirely, and that your flashlight beam seems strangely less effective at penetrating the darkness in the tunnels where the rat flees.
For a bit, Ever lingered over the bags, taking in what was left of the long-forgotten supplies of whatever scavenger had brought this in. Horace's discovery, though, drew him over -- and he let them mull for a bit, head cocked to the side, before he bouged his own épaules in a brief shrug.
"It's a poem but it's obviously modern to me, and then it turns into complete ******** gibberish, right around here." Ever did, after all, speak French; he'd been joking about the translator but not the translation. He brushed fingers over it, maybe checking to see if it was still damp. Of course, it wasn't: long-dry and forgotten, just like the bread.
"It's like teenagers trying to be clever --" He broke off as Melvin came out, weapon springing to hand all at once, jumpy. Maybe too jumpy. At least he didn't attack. And then, slowly, his expression melted into a frown, concerned.
A rat ran out of the shadows, and he couldn't help thinking that Melvin had been running from a simple vermin. He would have teased, had his eyes not settled on the shadow of the creature a moment later: shifting, oddly, something wrong, something that kept Amory in his hands for a little bit longer.
His heart was pounding, when the beast ran off again. And he definitely didn't follow.
the semblance of unity
MoonKitsune
The Semblance of Unity rolled 1 100-sided dice:
92Total: 92 (1-100)
Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:17 am
Quote:
81- 100: BOSS ENCOUNTER: - The sound of scrabbling paws is faint at first, but soon grows into a din punctuated with the chatter of many, many oversized teeth. The beast that manifests is a King Rat: a writhing mass of rodents joined by the tails, so that the teeth all face outwards. This is clearly a creature of FEAR, not of nature: each rat is substantially larger than the average dog, their beady eyes gleam bloodthirsty and manic, and the entire unit moves with a cohesiveness that suggests a hivemind at work. They (or it) fully block the tunnel ahead.
"Yes, I'm going to eat it later," Horace deadpanned, giving his messenger bag a shake. "It's for the lab, just in case." He turned pale eyes back to the graffiti. It somehow seemed strangely compelling. He rubbed the shaved side of his head comtemplatively, flashlight bobbing strangely with the motion. "Guess I should try to pick up more French, after all. Though it seems like Ever is an alright dictionary." He slanted a look at Ever - it seemed the man knew the language well enough.
Melvin suddenly flew past them in a blur, the string of curses trailing behind him. "What the ******** happened? Are you ok?" The man was pale, which was not new, but there was no evidence of blood. He heard the skitter of a rat running away. Had that been it? Horace opened his mouth, question poised on the tip of his tongue, but... A faint scabbling noise caught his ear. Feet, teeth, the chitter of rodents. With a muttered curse, he pocketed his flashlight and summoned Jannisari, the tekkos gleaming dimly.
Then he caught sight of it. "Oh ******** hell no. Ever, Melvin!" The rat king had more teeth than a monster had any right to have. He'd read about the normal version of them - rats so close-quartered that their tails tangled together and they lived and died as one unit. As if scenting them, it began to move towards them.
Melvin was taking deep breathes. DEEP BREATHES while counting and thinking of comforting things – like lemon-scented hand sanitizer, bleached white sheets, and tombstone white teeth set between a boyish smile.
When he looked over to them, he narrowed his eye at Horace. "There is a room FULL of MAGGOTS falling from the ceiling crawling towards big masses of…Just… The grossest thing I've ever seen!"
And as if summoned by that statement, something moved down the tunnel. Something that thankfully didn't sound squishy like the room from before but it wasn't a nice sound. It was a sound that at it's very nature made you hunch your shoulders and alert the very creature inside of you to want to run. It said that, even not seeing, this was not good. That danger was here, and you should either be prepared to fight or run for it.
Melvin was all for running for it, but as the glow of Ever's and Horace's weapons went up, he reminded himself he was here on a mission to be useful. To be better. To not be a liability, a danger, to others.
I have to be strong. She had said so.
He rose a runic dagger, unable to summon his own.
What came was that of urban legend. Greasy, matted black fur gleaming in the dim light of their flashlights and weapons. The eyes, red beady specks that focused on them. Too many tails. Too many small, pale pink claws. Too many yellowed teeth. All parts were parts to something else, and the bodies moved about not in a clumsy fashion of an animal inconvenienced by its situation, but one that figured out how to live, thrive, and as it bared its teeth, FIGHT.
"Okay I take that back."
When the creature moved, he moved to, and taking a breath to not intake any rank air from the Rat King (and also wondering if there was a FEAR equivalent to Black Death), he swiped with the dagger before he got a lashing of claws to his legs.
He moved back, pulling close to them with his dagger still held. "See any weak spots?"
Survey Mission 6A
