the tides shift.Darkness has begun to spread, rapidly, throughout the entirety of Akvos. Different areas of the Kingdom are plagued by different instances of terror, but one thing remains clear: the Circle does have the available tools to help . . . of sorts. Many of you have discovered different areas of Akvos to focus on, but by and large? There are no shortage of people to help, of people to fight, and of creatures to save. Hurry quickly, Circle members. Akvos needs your aid.  SHADOWS IN THE DARK.Shadow creatures have begun to multiple en masse in the Depths of Markolos, and are spreading to every which corner of Akvos. They will be at their highest density in the Depths, and take the form of terrifying creatures with massive claws and gnashing teeth. They seem to be impervious to non-magical damage, so some unique tag-team action may be necessary in order to actually kill the things.
As the monsters multiply, mermaids from across Akvos will fall prey to their attacks, drifting listlessly in the currents of the sea as they fall unconscious, the life-force drained from them by a shadow creature. In order to wake them again, the shadow creature that drained them of their energy must be killed. Act quickly, and you may be able to rally the native forces necessary to stage a proper fight back. But the more you fight, the more exhausted you begin to get.
Those who cannot fight will not find themselves of a shortage of ways to help, though. Shelters are being set up within the Palace of Wahine, a fortress unto itself. Children are corralled there, the injured are kept in the impromptu hospital beds that are guarded by the Royal Guard that are still conscious from the onslaught. They will desperately accept help to care for the children whose parents are unconscious, or to console parents who have lost their children in the mayhem of the sudden attack upon their city.
Food still needs to be gathered, supplies still need to be run from door to door. People need to be evacuated. And from each area of Akvos, there are "runners" of powerful merfolk who have set up caravans drawn by dolphins to quickly whisk people from place to place. Each caravan is under threat of attack from shadows, though -- sign up for the evacuation committee, keep your heads down, and fight back as much as you can to protect these people from whatever the hell is going on.  THE SEVEN SEAS OF WHY.In addition to the shadow creatures, each area is plagued by a different onslaught of dark magic. Each area has different needs, and each area will require your attention. Focus your energies where able, and do your best to stem the flow of chaos before it is too late. (Check here for a breakdown of types of effective magic.)
The Palace of Wahine is facing an onset of red algae, blooming through the alleyways and infecting mermaids rushing to seek cover. Inhaling the algae doesn't seem to do much to you, in small doses, but it causes violent coughing fits with the mermaids, preventing them from breathing properly underwater. Getting into contact with the red algae will turn your own skin a brilliant shade of pink, and it will cause it to itch uncontrollably (something that is, apparently, impossible to alleviate under the water). It will wear off within a few hours, but the same does not hold true for the mermaids. The healers in the community say that certain herbs in the Fields of Akvosia can be harvested in order to help cure the illness, but they are notoriously hard to find . . . and in the middle of the sharpest parts of the coral reef, naturally. Tread carefully, and be careful not to anger the shadow creatures in your quest.
The Depths of Markolos is the hotbed of chaos, and seems to be where the majority of the shadow monsters are lurking. In addition to the shadow monsters, ice is cascading out of control from the western wall of the depths. Melting it will do the trick, or controlling it to move it out of the way, but it seems to persist. Some of you may find your way to the far back wall, to discover what appears to be the source of whatever this ice seems to be . . . but it will be tough going, and will require some teamwork to make it there. The ice, too, seems to fight back against your forces, and may curl its way around your legs, your legs, to freeze you into place. Hopefully you have a buddy that can get you out of there, before you become a frozen popsicle under the sea.
The Fields of Akvosia's beautiful coral reef is quickly dying, and the mermaids are working as hard as they can to curb the death by harvesting the essential food sources they can before it is too late. Schools of fish desperately flock from reef to reef in search of shelter and food, and soon meet their demise the moment they settle in to a new habitat. Working to cure and reinvigorate the coral reef will be met with great relief from the merfolk, who are desperately trying to cure what they can. Beware the shadow monsters, here, and be on the hunt for herbs that can assist the merfolk falling ill in the Palace of Wahine. Caravans of dolphin-pulled carriages will be whipping by to refill supplies, too -- jump in and help guard them on their way back to civilization.
The Thunderdome has a fresh stock of weaponry that is particularly effective against the shadow monsters, electrified with old runes that the merfolk will happily give to the Circle free of charge to fight back against the monsters. In addition, the jellyfish of the Thunderdome are darkening at a rapid pace. Electricity seems to do the trick in reinvigorating them, but touching them will still turn you a brilliant shade of blue . . . so tread lightly, in that regard. The electrified weapons will do the trick to jab the jellyfish into feeble light in addition to magic already gifted by Astoria, but the mermaids are a bit busy trying to fight off the shadows that are growing increasingly prevalent in the Thunderdome. Help wanted?  THE WHISPERS OF KEA.Throughout the duration of this battle, investigations taking place by members of the Circle will begin to unveil certain . . . clues. The Princess is still missing, but members of the Circle are getting close to unlocking where she is. King Kathashun, at the beginning of this journey, indicated that she was the key to stopping all of this, and while most of you have no idea who that guy is, he seems to be genuine. (Right? Right.)
But where is she? The Queen is unavailable, for the duration of this event, and who knows where this mysterious "King." is. But as the Circle battles for the life of Akvos, certain messages begin to pop up through your magical watches. Riddles, if you will -- pleas of assistance, begin to trickle through, popping up on your watches in a series of nonsensical words.
The only problem is that the messages seem to be all scrambled up.
lktmohidionl.
hsdpepelgnyeiaior.
herywaeoleeahhthpyveneto.
ehdtetirviarcaeshrasmaohmitnrn Additionally, please feel free to write up and work with your own prompts! These are presented as jumping off points for your characters, not limitations. The idea of this world- as with all the others- is to explore. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask them back on the various threads back in the OOC post from before! NOTE: The Princess' messages will unlock a hint to their meaning (if they aren't solved by the time this happens) once this log hits over 750 comments. :) We are pretty sure this will happen well before the End Log for Akvos happens in January, so we won't be putting a time limit on it. ;) Have fun! |
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acatalepsy_logs2018-12-03 11:47 am
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But here he is, still. Being that person. How can he not? He can’t just... ]
Sort of... in theory.
[ he gestures to the not-corner, talking distance, but too far from Hank to be considered sitting next to him. ] Mind if I sit?
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One of us might as well be able to fuckin sit.
[He mutters it, thinking briefly of oversized beds.]
They can lay down too, you know that? They don’t float away or anything. Wonder how that fucking works.
[He mutters this too, deciding that if he’s going to have to keep going with this small talk bullshit, he’s going to have to be a little drunker. So he tries to navigate his way around the stupid sippy cup top of this weird underwater bottle again. He’s getting the hang of it.]
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So he sits, and pulls up his knees and drops his arms over them. ]
Oh... yeah. I didn’t even think about that. Rough. Maybe it was either that or the breathe-underwater spell.
[ And when he keeps drinking Simon eyes him, for just a moment, but opts not to mention it, for now. Even though Hank’s timing is terrible, you know, in a “top 10 worst times to have delayed reflexes” sense. ]
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[He almost wishes he hadn’t decided Simon was probably just a guy who some really terrible, really weird shit happened to. If he was just a fancy diving suit with some basic AI, motor functions, and a funky smell, Hank could probably tell him to fuck off. As it is he just has to sit - float - here, aware of the eyes on him.]
Look, I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m not gonna be great company for a minute. If you need to hide out from, I don’t know, whatever, feel free, but-
[He shrugs.]
I mean, unless you can drink in there.
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[ he doesn't side-eye him again, averting his eyes, landing them squarely in Two Bros Sittin In A Hot Tub territory, but Simon's not about to push him on whatever incited this. Hank hasn't ever come off as eager to talk about feelings. Except "pissed" and "exasperated". So what can he do, really? ]
Don't worry about it, I'll be out of here in a minute. [ Getting up and walking out right this second would feel shitty, even as he's being asked to. Plus, then he has to go outside. ]
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[Talking is- well, it's not better. It's not even a distraction, really. But he doesn't even have a weird little room to call his own, some place he can just shut the door and not deal, with people, with anything. He doesn't have the freedom to just sit here and - and do whatever. He has to go back there eventually. He watches himself tap the bottle against his thigh, wondering if he even can.]
There's- There's, uh, one of those mermaids out in the shelter. Has Sumo with her. Do you think you could, uh. Keep her company? Tell her I'll- I'll be back?
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Yeah. I can do that.
[ it’s important, and probably the only favor Simon can do Hank while he’s sitting in a corner drinking away his demons, anyway. He doesn’t know him well enough for anything else. Maybe hanging around here isn’t even the right thing to do.
Somehow things like this got a lot more complicated post-Earth. Even with the Earthliest other person here.
Simon gets to his feet, pauses when he gets to the threshold, still feeling like there’s something he could say before he walks out of here, but it’s not coming to him. ]
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Hank looks at the bottle, taps it against his knee, knows exactly how the rest of his day is going to go if he does finally get some fucking privacy. He doesn't let himself think too long about it.]
I didn't say now. I mean, unless you have some other fun shit to get to. It's not like she's going anywhere.
[Hank laughs, a brief, breathy noise, and wonders if he should feel bad about doing it.]
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“It’s not like she’s going anywhere”. ... ]
Did one of the monsters get her?
[ If she’s ‘asleep’— people do say you should talk to people in comas, even if there’s no way of knowing if they can hear you. Just in case. ]
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[Hank doesn't look up at him.]
Little kid. It's just- Fuck, I know this probably feels like small potatoes to you. It's just been a while since I, uh, since I had to be in the room when someone got news like that.
[It's not too weird, someone who's been on the force as long as Hank has making someone else handle that part. But even then- cases with kids, where someone has to talk to the parents- Well, somehow those just never seem to end up on Hank's desk.]
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No, that’s not— [ It’s hard to explain the surreality of the apocalypse thing, how the scale of importance, or caring, just isn't that simple. It's more than enough, to make somebody... like Hank is being, right now. ]
It doesn't work like that. That’s not ‘small’ anything. I don’t know if I could handle that either.
[ This is a powerful understatement from a powerful denialmancer who has what might be charitably called problems with harsh truths.
Anyway, back he goes, taking a seat at Not Really Next To Hank, leans against the wall with his elbow on a bent knee. ]
Did you used to do that? Part of your job?
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Yeah. Part of the job for all of us at uh, some point or another. No one wants to do it, so everyone's got to. We kind of train for it, some people specialize- but yeah.
[He sighs, coughs, and runs his thumb along the edge of his bottle.]
Yeah. I used to do that. The higher up you get the less often you're makin the house calls, though, so. Thank fuckin god for that. But the thing is- handling it's not your job, but it is mine. So-
Fuck, I don't know. Fuck it.
[And here goes another disgusting drink. He's rationing. But 'fuck it' is pretty much the best reason to have a drink that there is.]
Ugh. Shit. Be glad you can't drink, man. This tastes like fuckin' fish.
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[ ...Fucking y i k e s. Just knowing that one additional factoid about Hank's life makes Simon wonder how often he does this very thing. Except with more booze, that isn't floating away and intermingling with fish gunk. 'Cops are messed up from being cops' is a stereotype, but they have reason to be messed up. ]
Do you think it shouldn't affect you or something? Sure, you were trained for the job, but you're still human.
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The day it doesn't affect me, though - shit. That's probably the day I got to arrest myself.
[It's on the tip of his tongue, it's not just, it's not just... Followed by, fuck, some kind of explanation. 'it's harder when it's a kid,' maybe, that'd be safe. But it's too- No. It's still too close. He can't.]
But, what, didn't I tell you I was a cop? Would that of got in the way, you know, if you and I hung out, back in the day? The cop thing?
[It's a weird little scenario, still, being back in the world - the real world - back in twenty-fifteen, driving up to Toronto to see this guy when he still had, uh... a face. Weird, and impossible, but floating here with water going down his lungs and the taste of fish-whiskey in his mouth, that weird impossible idea feels kind of normal and comforting. To him, anyway. He has no idea how it feels to the guy who'll never see that time or place again.]
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And Simon’s fine with playing along. Imagining a hypothetical where it’s 2015 and his home is intact is more uplifting than grieving parents, even if it would literally require a time machine... so if Hank’s got soul-baring fatigue, then hey. It’s not the worst diversion. ]
Why would it? [ Simon shoots him a look, from where he’d been looking at the ground listening to him talk, now feigning suspicion. ]
Okay, wait, what are we doing in this scenario that’ll make me worry about you being a cop?
[ He’s sort of surprised Hank even remembered that, that they talked about that as if it could ever happen. That he mentioned it again. It’s.... nice, kinda. ]
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[Hank lets his head float back to look up at the ceiling, trying to get in the groove of just normal conversation. Gearing up to navigate around all the heavy shit and into something... else. Feels wrong, like he should be brooding about it, sitting here and... But there's that kid out there, freaky mythological mermaid thing or not, dream or not, still a kid, still maybe needing Hank to be in the shape to get out there and do something.
So, okay. He started this, he can follow it up. He taps the bottle against his knee, thinking, and if his voice comes out not really as enthusiastic as all that, you know what, that's fine.]
I don't know, pot was still illegal up in Canada back then, right? I kinda had to keep my nose clean by that point, but there's some stuff no one'd look too close at. Why, didn't you do stuff that'd make you worry about cops normally? Come on, live a little.
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He stares at Hank, for his, you know, two-second time limit of that, and incredulous laughter bubbles up. ] “Live a little”? What kind of cop are you? Aren’t you supposed to want me to be... you know... a law-abiding citizen?
[ there’s still something the tiniest bit careful and stilted about it all; usually Simon does this to avoid his own problems, not someone else’s. ]
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[He watches himself tap the bottle against his knee some more, frowning, quiet for a few seconds. Saying shit that doesn’t remind him so much of what he’s here doing, that’d probably help, wouldn’t it?]
Why, what laws would you not be abiding? You don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d make me regret sending a blind eye your way.
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[ kind of a geek, in much the same way that the sun is kind of hot. ]
I mean, I guess I could do whatever I wanted now. Nothing on the books about how to charge a robot with a human brain, right?
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Well, there aren’t a lot of laws on the books about cyborgs yet, so I guess it depends on whether you’re plannin on being a menace to society. Downloading the newest movies, whatever. Hacking into government servers? Eh...
[He wiggles a hand in an either-or gesture.]
‘Anything you want’ is a pretty wide net, anyway. What kind of anything are we talking?
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[ He mulls over Hank's either-or, anyway. Conversations with Hank have an amazingly shallow learning curve, for this place. ]
I keep forgetting you're an old millennial. That's a weird thought.
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What, why? I don't got the look?
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[ In today’s news, robot swamp zombie throws light shade about normal human man’s appearance, like he can even talk. ]
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So, what, you’re gonna give me a millennial makeover? What would that even look like?
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Me? I wasn’t even qualified to give fashion advice as a human. [ he glances down at his hands— ] At least I’m not the only person here with only one outfit.
[ proobably the only one with this level of “one outfit”, but. ]
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that last line was so good. i love your unique, snappy descriptions
thank you!! just trying to keep up with your beautiful tags, bats eyelashes
XD
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ok that link made me laugh a lot