lostcarnival | ⇨ HELL

Entry tags:

⇨ 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

Scout raises her eyebrows at Lambert. Non-civilian kids in dangerous situations isn't a big deal, to her; she did start her combat training at three or four. Letting young people go into these situations without backup is what counts.

She reaches towards the door, first with an open hand, then folding down her pinkie and ring fingers. Her brass nails gleam in the crystal's light as she tries to stretch out with her senses. One issue is just that she doesn't know Zecora well. Even so...

"I don't think it's a good idea. We should try the others first," she says, frowning.

Lambert's in favor of the plan, so he turns his attention to their surroundings a little more closely than he had before, employing his own senses to the task. His are a little less abstract: he's looking at the floor for signs of recent disturbance-- like a heavy body being dragged in, blood, or perhaps even a lost piece of jewelry or two -- and he's also going to bring his medallion close to that sigiled door for a moment, waiting to see if it will react to indicate the presence of active magic.

Behind the thumping door lay nothing but hunger and malice. Which, to be fair, might be a vampirized and starving zebra desperate for blood, but...

Lambert's senses, on the other hand, offered a more concrete clue. Plenty of blood showed on the floor here, ranging from fresh to long-dried, but only one slow trickle corresponded to the occasional hoofprint on the grimy, sticky floor. That trail led further on, deeper into the darkness.

Oh hey, it's Lambert again. Steven waves nervously, backing away from the door he was checking out. If they think it's a bad idea, he'll go along with the group, for now.

"Okay," he agrees, swallowing. He looks towards the door. "Sorry... We'll come back later!"

He notices that Lambert seems to be searching for something, so he'll lift up his crystal to give him better lighting. Sorry, he has no idea you're using a magic eye potion right now.

Scout smiles faintly and shakes her head. Steven's a sweet kid, and what a strange thing to say to a door that basically has Bad Feeling About This written up and down it.

Now there's enough light for Scout to see where Lambert's looking, even to pick up on one of the hoofprints, but not to distinguish that blood from the rest of the mess here. This is the most striking difference between here and Vjun, she muses; the slaughter there had happened long enough ago, and the caverns flooded readily enough, that it hadn't smelled terribly. Here, well, here's a charnel house.

"See anything?" she asks.

There's a lot of blood all around, but Lambert isn't paying much attention to Steven talking to rattling doors, focusing on the one trail that seems to stand out among the rest. The extra light washes everything into sharper relief, mostly, and he nods in the direction of the trail even if he's pretty sure the others can't see...

"There's a trail this way," he says, without much further explanation -- he's not even sure they're looking for the same person, but it doesn't matter much to him. He advances, following the trail where it leads, but truth be told he doesn't much know what sign he expects to find of the doctor. He'll just keep his eyes on the ground and one hand on his medallion, hoping -- although he guesses it's unlikely at this point -- that he might pick up ambient enchantment.

The trail leads past four more doors as the corridor wound further on... and then the doors stopped for a period, but the trail kept going another twenty feet or so.

And then nothing. The trail stopped cold, leaving them sandwiched between two blank walls.

Steven is searching for basically anybody, so that's fine. He follows along, keeping his crystal aloft and his shield at the ready. He trusts that Lambert knows what he's doing.

At least, up until they come to an obvious dead end. Steven is quiet for a few moment, frowning.

"...Are we lost?" he asks after a pause.

That's weird. Lambert frowns, looking around.

"Trail ends here," he says. But there's nowhere to go. Hidden door, maybe? But what would she even open it with ... he runs his fingers across the walls regardless, idly thumping to see if he can detect a hollow spot, though he doesn't expect to find anything.

"I think it's the doctor. Haven't seen any of those demons with hooves yet." He offers. "Either of you know anything about her?"

An excellent thought, Lambert. One section of stone did, in fact, tremble more beneath the blow than most should. There was no support behind it, clearly, and a careful look revealed cracks and splits in the stone that lined up in a most suspicious pattern.

"I only know her vaguely." Scout unhooks the hilt of her lightsaber from her belt and activates it, the blade sliding out with a deep droning hum. With the extra light it cast she can see some of the pattern. She frowns and looks at Lambert.

"You want to work out if that means anything, or should I just cut the wall open?"

Lambert's never seen a weapon like that -- from the way she's holding it, it's got to be one, unfamiliar lhough it is, but he shakes his head.

"Keep it handy in case the noise attracts anything," he suggests. "I should be able to knock this down..."

He squares his stance and raises a hand to sketch out a brief, sharp gesture to call on the spell he needed-- something that sent a short, sharp blast of telekinetic force at the wall, with enough force to break weakened stone.

With a whump and a crunch, a section of wall shifted an inch or two inwards, as if he'd bashed his spell against a door. Really, that was what he'd found -- and the force of the blow had damaged the inner mechanism of its latch enough that human strength would be up to the task of opening it.

If that was what they wanted to do.

Lambert glances at Scout, then Steven. Well, that could have gone smoother. Finally, he shrugs and steps forward to set his shoulder against the door, giving it a short, hard shove to push it open.

Everyone knows you've got to open a hidden door when you find one, right? If nothing else, maybe there'll be something valuable behind it.

Steven doesn't really know why they'd be keeping prisoners behind a secret door in actual hell, but since the trail led here... better check it out. He nods back at Lambert in anticipation, and holds up his shield defensively. He's so ready to bubble everyone if something scary pops out.

The inside was almost completely dark, almost because what little light they'd brought shone in to illuminate the wide, spacious, almost entirely empty spell. In its very center stood an equine form, mindlessly struggling against the chains that held her hooves to the ground so tightly that she couldn't move in the slightest. More chains wound over her back to hold her in place, while an iron spike below her stomach prevented her from lying down. A muzzle wrapped around her jaw to keep her mouth shut as well.

In the faint light, Zecora looked almost an inch from death, and her struggles were mindless. She gave no sign of knowing they were there.

With eyes that can pick up things in the dark? Yeah, it's not a pleasant sight. Lambert doesn't flinch, though he raises a hand as he advances into the room, signaling for caution. It doesn't seem occupied with enemies, but someone had put her in there to start ...

"Zecora?" He raises his voice to be heard over the rattling chains, although he can already tell that if she can hear them? She's not in any state to comprehend them.

His silver sword's going to be no good for this, so he sheathes it, taking out the steel instead. "Watch the door," he tells Steven -- they're going to need that healing spit of his once they get her out of that crap, and in any case unless his spit also dissolves metal, he probably isn't going to be much use for this part -- and turns to Scout.

"Can that thing cut through iron?"

Scout's breath hisses between her teeth. She thinks of herself as jaded these days, and it's not that she isn't, but this is pretty bad all the same.

She approaches and kneels, examining what she can in the low light. Carelessness with a lightsaber costs dearly, so while what she really wants is to just make a couple of clean cuts she takes a few breaths to evaluate. "Sure it can," she says absently as she studies the lay of the chains and the muzzle.

Then her blade moves - flick, flick, the tenor of its hum intensifying, and the spike and cuffs holding the chains fall, glowing orange from their contact with it. There's probably minor singeing where the heated metal was too close to flesh, but at this point does that even register?

"Lambert, drag those chains off her back," she orders, trying to remove the muzzle delicately, without catching it on Zecora's teeth. It feels unpleasantly cool against her hands, but her changes are relatively minor.

The moment Zecora was free, she started to thrash, kick, and buck, striking out with obsidian hooves and shaking her head as they tried to touch the iron muzzle. Closer, now, they can see it didn't actually enter her mouth at all -- it was held in place by two spikes, driven into the top and bottom of her muzzle, quite cruelly and painfully. Between that and the septic infection coursing through her system, Zecora was quite out of her mind with pain and reacting instinctually.

Possibly lucky for them, but it certainly made the muzzle difficult to remove.

Steven wasn't ready for this at all.

Peridot had been one thing... she had obviously been mentally disrupted, but she was in one piece and she wasn't in pain. This is totally different. As Lambert and Scout enter, he's frozen in the doorway, only technically following Lambert's instructions. He's paralyzed with horror.

He doesn't think he can fix what's wrong here, and it's a sinking feeling in his gut. He's scared now - really scared - and a few moments later he has to force himself to look away.

Tears start beading from his eyes, against his control. He buries his face in his hand, sniffling and ashamed of himself.

With Scout's weapon making quick work of the iron, Lambert doesn't need his sword after all, so he puts it away -- in time for Steven to start crying, apparently, which is just another layer of complication he doesn't need to this right now. It does, however, mean that the sooner they finish this, the better. Wiping up tears can come later, but right now, they've a job to do.

"Calm down, we're helping you," he directs the spell at Zecora, putting the force of will and magic behind it as he waves his hand in the air, dark enough here that the faint sigil he traces is visible. Honestly, Lambert's not sure the magic will take hold -- he's used it to calm panicking horses before -- but it's worth a shot.

In any case, he'll take this opportunity to do what Scout says and drags the chains off her back as quickly as he can without doing more damage to what's already there.

Edited 2017-03-22 18:53 (UTC)

Scout catches a flailing iron-covered zebra snout to the face, smashing the flesh of her cheek against her teeth. She staggers back a step, shaking her head and feeling what's going to work out to be a big ugly bruise later, and makes herself stop and take stock. That she tends to focus in way too tightly when things get hairy is a fault she knows already. Got to treat the hostage as a hostage and not just something to retrieve.

"Sorry, Zecora," she says, and in the same tone, both sympathetic and certain, "Steven, it's going to be all right. We're going to make it all right."

The muzzle's definitely more difficult than she'd thought, not something she'll really be able to remove unless Zecora holds still. Scout runs through the pain-blocking technique in her head. Zecora's physiology is fairly removed in some ways from that of standard mammalians, but she's still based on that pattern, still carbon-based. "I can stop the pain," she says, with more certainty than she really feels. "But I've got to touch you for that."

Edited 2017-03-23 01:40 (UTC)

She might be a zebra, but for all intents and purposes her minds is closer to a human's than an animal. That made all the difference for the sigil, which hit her with enough force to calm her down just a bit. Enough for her to go motionless, sides heaving and legs trembling. Luckily there was no one to fight nearby...

But do they block the pain first, or remove the muzzle first?

Pain, because otherwise getting those spikes out is going to hurt a lot. Everything Scout can pick up on, which honestly is mostly sight, she's not a healer - says 'nasty infection', too.

"It'll be all right," Scout says again. "Let me touch you. I can make it feel better." Carefully, her fingers spread, she lays her hand on the zebra's neck, pulls a deep breath, and lets the living Force open up and reveal the extent of the task. It's pretty considerable.

Pain is a signal the body sends the brain. Damage, act accordingly. With the quiet help of the Force Scout traces nerves and judges that they're basically all signalling, and she can make this a lot faster if she sets up only two blocks - one big one at the back of the skull, receiving from the body in general, and the one cranial nerve that picks up most sensation.

The sensation as Scout fits blocks into place isn't numbness replacing pain, exactly. It's more a feeling of pressure and of cold or heat, maybe a hint of pins and needles, right on the edge of unpleasantness and still crossing over where the muzzle is but, she's judged, better than the kind of pain this degree of injury and exposure to iron creates.

Whatever Scout's doing, it's pretty obvious it's nothing that Lambert can help with except stand by and be at the ready to grab Zecora if it seems like she's going to buck again. Axii will keep working without his conscious will powering it until Zecora's mind naturally shakes it off, and hopefully by then what's being done to take the pain away has taken effect.

"How long's that gonna last?" he asks. Without a maddened zebra in the room, at least, it's quieter, though he can still feel the adrenaline coursing through. They're so far out of the clear here, it's not funny. "Can you take the muzzle off and do that at the same time, or should I ... ?"

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