lostcarnival | ⇨ HELL

Who: Vampire prisoners and rescue squad.
When: Evening Day 67 - Day 68
Where: Vampire Hell
What: The rescuers go to hell. Top levels are in approximate chronological order.
Warnings: Violence, torture, tryhard demons who aren't very creative.

RESCUE MISSION: HELL↴

The air smolders as you travel through the star-shaped portal the Ringmaster has opened - the gateway to the hell dimension that has taken so many if you. Ahead, you can see the grand entrance to Morningstar's fortress, a single point of civilization in the center of a barren, lava drenched hellscape. Of course, you won't be entering from the front. That would be stupid.

The Ringmaster's plan is simply in explanation but far more difficult in execution. Her instructions are that she will attack the fortress directly, and that the rescue team is to enter inconspicuously and rescue who they can while she engages Morningstar. She has provided you with silver weapons - daggers, swords, and some projectiles - which you may or may not choose to use. Shedding a trail of orange and green embers, the Ringmaster will sprout her dark, feathery wings and take to the air, leaving the rescuers to contemplate their instructions now that they've arrived.

The fortress is large, and as such there are many potential side entrances to find. It will take some doing, but the group will be able to accomplish it. Meanwhile, many of the vampires within will be distracted by the Ringmaster's now very audible arrival, and don't seem to be expecting a secondary attack. The initiative is yours, and the captives are there to be found... but will you succeed?

► GATEKEEPING: For those who don't trust their mettle enough to travel all the way to hell, there is an important job to be done back at the carnival. The Ringmaster's obsidian daggers have opened a portal there, but while the rescuers enter that portal must be protected - both to keep it from collapsing and stranding everyone there, and to prevent anything demonic from escaping onto the carnival grounds and causing havoc. If you need to take it easy but still want to help, this is a good place to be. It's also a good place for nervous hand-wringing about whether any of your friends will make it back alive.

► PLAYPEN: The cavernous pits where the neonate vampires are dumped, in order to engage in a survival of the fittest style battle royale where only the strongest and most cunning will emerge. Those that were turned during the masquerade were dropped down here a couple days ago, and so someone needs to go collect them. Try not to get eaten by the hordes of other starving neonate vampires down there while you're at it. Maybe you could even try to save some of them, if any seem worth redemption.

► CAPTIVES: While the supervisors were initially all caged together in large cell surrounded with a moat of lava, it seems that most of them have now been moved elsewhere. Where they have ended up is a puzzle you'll have to solve quickly - there are plenty of vampire sentries about to try to get in your way, and some of the prisoners may already be significantly worse for wear. If anyone has any powers that help them find people, this would be the time to use them.

► MINIBOSSES: Unfortunately, the enemies here aren't only capable of damaging the body, but the mind, too. In these particular cases, that corruption of the mind has been used pointedly to Morningstar's advantage - two of the carnival's most dangerous members have now been turned against it. If you want to get out of here alive, you'll have to go through them. If you're really lucky, you'll get them out alive, too.

► BOSS FIGHT: Before the rescuers and the rescued can escape, Lord Morningstar will arrive to corner them, with an entourage of elders. Let's hope that she gloats long enough for something to turn the tables.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Peridot skids a little ways beyond that, yelping in surprise and digging her claws into the ground to try and keep from sliding too far. Instead of rebounding and attacking Amethyst, she glances around frantically; in her present state, she can't even come close to comprehending where Lapis disappeared to.

The only sensible conclusion she can draw is that she has somehow lost track of one of the intruders, and that is an idea that terrifies her. Her mistress, her currently absent pack leader, surely won't treat her kindly for such a failure.

"Lapis--?" No time to freak out about that, though -- if she's gotten poofed then there's all the more need to get a hold of Peridot. Amethyst seizes her from behind, one arm underneath each of Peridot's and a leg hooked around her middle, and braces herself for getting bitten in the hand or something equally unpleasant.

"Steven, c'mon!" she yells. "I've got her, get over here and lay some magic spit on her!"

Steven is super alarmed by what happened just there, and lets out a small cry of dismay, but Amethyst's shout pulls his attention back to the immediate situation. He can check on Lapis in a second. They have to help Peridot first.

"I'm coming!" he shouts, and licks his hand, running over to smack his palm over Peridot's gem.

Peridot is putting up an unholy racket during all of this, thrashing and clawing and kicking and biting, slapping her tail on the ground. She's definitely going to put her teeth into Amethyst's hand, if she dares to let it get within range.

...The healing spit does nothing. It doesn't even slow her down? She just looks Steven in the face and hisses, spitting embers as she does.

Amethyst wraps her arms more tightly around Peridot even as she's getting them bitten and clawed so that she can haul her back from Steven before she does him any more damage. "Are you kidding me??" she grits out, "This is – ugh, Peridot, quit it!!"

Steven pulls back, looking mortified that it didn't work. That was his only good idea! If healing doesn't work, then...

He glances down at the sword Lapis dropped. He considers that he could pick it up, but he can't make himself move in that direction.

"Amethyst," he says, helplessly. "I don't know what to do!"

"I think – hey, I said quit – augh!" Her face scrunches up as she tries to wrest her arm free from Peridot's teeth without letting go of her. "Just – rrgh, just hold onto feet and her tail for me, willya?"

Edited 2017-03-14 03:38 (UTC)

"O-Okay!" Steven says, eager to take instruction from someone at this point. He swallows, and then tries to get close enough to grab her without getting slashed again - his arm is still hurting badly enough on its own. "Come on, Peridot. It's okay. You're gunna be okay."

He tries to speak as soothingly as he can while wrestling his arms around her legs and thrashing tail. He's reminded stupidly of the time that he and Amethyst were trying to teach her how to shapeshift by pulling on her arms and legs, except this is way less funny in retrospect. And way more difficult.

Two quartz should be able to grapple one Peridot, shouldn't they? Man, why are him and Amethyst so bad at things sometimes...

If there's one stroke of good luck about all this, it's that Peridot's physical strength is just about as sad as ever. She's just... An extra squirmy pain in the ass, who unfortunately happens to have sharp teeth and claws. Two weapons which she's trying her damnedest to make the most of, at the moment. That means she's just gonna keep chomping repeatedly on Amethyst's arm in an attempt to get her to let go, while her two attackers try to wrangle her.

Steven getting a hold of Peridot's lower half means Amethyst's free to use the arm that isn't being vigorously chewed on -- and man does that hurt, but she's doing her best to plough through it -- to produce her whip.

"Auughhh, I swear, if this doesn't hold her–-" But it does, once she's managed to actually get it around Peridot's shoulders. She tears her arm away from those teeth (it feels like Peridot keeps some of her arm, but she's not going to stop and look right now) and wrestles the whip around her upper arms. "Steven!" She holds out the end to him. "Get this around her legs!"

Steven takes the whip and painstakingly wraps it around Peridot's legs and tail, grunting with the effort as he tries to avoid getting any toe claws to the face. Finally, he manages to wrap the end of the whip into a knot, and he loosens his grip in relief.

"Phew," he says, wiping some sweat off his forehead. Man, it's so hot in here. "Do you think this will stick?"

"I hope so," says Amethyst, grimacing as she does her best to secure the whip at Peridot's back. Usually when she gets people caught in her whip it's from a distance and temporarily... she really has no idea if this will hold.

It certainly seems to be holding. Peridot is still thrashing and putting up a horrible ruckus, but instead of being a menace with her claws, all she's managing to do is perform a pretty good impression of a break dancing caterpillar.

It would be sort of humorous if the whole situation wasn't so tense and miserable. For Peridot is basically a cornered animal; she's so frightened and confused, and now she's physically helpless to boot. She still spits off a few angry embers here and there, but without her hands free she can't do much else.

After a minute she curls up like a shrimp, trembling and hissing.

This sucks. Steven can't help but exude concern and calming thoughts towards Peridot, hoping that he can somehow quell her fear. It doesn't seem like it, but...

"Can you carry her?" he asks Amethyst. "I'll carry Lapis and her sword, until she comes back." He leans down to pick up Lapis's gem, checking it over for scratches or cracks before determining that it looks fine.

Someone is going to have to carry her sword too, unfortunately. He leans down to gingerly pick that up, too, pointedly turning away from Peridot so it'll look less like he's considering using it on her.

"Yeah," says Amethyst, glancing guiltily at Lapis as she hefts the hissing Peridot into her clawed-up arms. (She winces a little as the spikes of her whip dig into the scratches in a few places.) "Hey, c'mon, P-pod," she says, kind of dejectedly, "we're tryna help you out..."

Peridot starts thrashing again the second Amethyst hoists her up, making the kind of ruckus that could put a tasmanian devil to shame. She doesn't want to go with these people, she wants to fight them, to maim and claw and tear her enemies to shreds and defend her home for her mistress's honor--

⇨ HELL

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THIS PROBABLY WON'T DO ANYTHING

NOPE

WELP!

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