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.

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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 ... ?"

Good choice. Zecora shuddered abruptly as the majority of her pain, from failing organs and burning infection, subsided abruptly. The sensation left behind was by no means pleasant, but it had far less of that raw, primal need to escape it than pain did.

Her eyes snapped into focus abruptly, a moment before her head jerked violently at the feeling in her muzzle. Then she lifted it again, looking at the three of them with quiet desperation mixed with resolve. Muzzle, please... please.

Scout winces in sympathy.

"Normally a few hours, but here, this..." She's reluctant to move her hand or shift her attention too far just now. Iron on part-Fae really is something else. It's like muting the pain of a lightsaber burn while the saber is still touching flesh.

"You get it. There's a spike on top and one underneath." Scout bears down, interfering heavily with pain's signal.

There's nothing for it but to go ahead and do it, then. Lambert nods, stepping forward -- might as well take advantage of the relative lack of effect that it has on him while it lasts.

"I'll try to make it quick," he tells Zecora. She seems a little more conscious, but that's both good and bad, in this case. At any rate, as soon as his fingers find a firm place to grasp, he braces himself and begins tugging the spikes out. Despite his own words, he doesn't rush it, working instead to draw them out slowly and steadily. As soon as they've cleared her muzzle enough that he can pull the whole thing off, he does so, letting it clatter to the ground.

The moment the iron left her body, Zecora exploded.

Well... not, you know, fatally or anything -- just out of pure reflex, out of a desire she could not consciously master just yet, the zebra ballooned outward into an amorphous cloud, like mist or smoke. Like that, she felt nothing, not the pressure or the intensity or the lingering remnants of pain, and it was relief beyond measure.

A bit inconvenient though.

Steven has been cowering away from the sight of this mess, trying to focus his scattered attention on the hallway outside. This is a bit much for him, and he definitely can't bear to look at someone getting huge spikes pulled out of their face.

Of course, his attention is drawn right back when Zecora suddenly explodes.

"OH MY GOSH," he says, jumping in alarm and turning to see the cloud of zebra in total bewildered surprise. His immediately response is to compare it to a gem poofing, and he isn't sure what to make of that. "Is she okay?!"

Well, that's inconvenient.

"Does she do this a lot?" Lambert asks out loud. There's something he could try to pull her back to a solid form, and he's keeping an eye on the cloud to see if it coalesces or it looks like it's starting to drift away. If it's a conscious cloud that can be ordered around, it's one thing, but if it's just as scattered as Zecora is right now, that's another matter entirely.

Scout lurches as the physical shape she was leaning on becomes vapor, almost hitting the ground before she manages to catch herself. Face red she brushes off her coat and squares her shoulders.

"I don't really know her. Maybe?" She shakes her head. "Zecora, can you understand us? We want to get you out of here."

So far, the cloud didn't seem to be going anywhere, nor did it seem to be expanding further than it was. So they had that going for them. In fact, it did seem to be slowly coalescing, as Zecora tried to put her mind and willpower against the sensation she'd felt, the pain she'd dealt with for so long, and her instinctive response to it... but not at an encouraging rate.

Unfortunately? Time's of the essence, around here, and Lambert doesn't think they have to wait.

"Can you move?" he asks, out loud. It's not really a problem if Zecora is a cloud if it's a cloud that can follow orders ... and it's easier than dragging a body around, at least. He glances at the other two.

"If either of you have something that could hold vapor, now's the time to speak up. ... Or else I'll try something else."

"Um!" Steven takes a quick step forward, trying to think. He might have just the thing... he can get it to work. "I... I might have something. Just... let me..."

Steven raises his hands, and tries to form a bubble around the cloud of her body - except, it turns out to be a strain to try to make it big enough to encompass her whole self. The bubble stutters in its form, and the strain on Steven is obvious.

"I can't... I can't reach all of her! Can you... Zecora, please pull yourself together!"

Zecora tried.

The cloud that was the zebra healer visibly condensed, down into a smoky equine shape that looked much like the deepest and darkest of thunderclouds, before it slowly began to grow stripes. This was taking a great deal of time, though, and faint noises outside hinted that they might not be alone too much longer -- did Steven want to bubble her in that smaller form, now? Compressing her would be easy...

He can see and sense her attempt at cooperation and, thankfully, it's enough. As she makes her cloud smaller, he manages to stretch his containment bubble large enough to encapsulate all of it, without risking cutting any parts of he cloud off. Once the bubble is sealed, he'll reduce it down to a more manageable size.

In the end, he's left with a much smaller bubble, filled with zebra cloud. It's sort of odd, but it's good enough for now!

"Phew," Steven says, wiping away from sweat. He's getting really tired. At least when she is clouds, though, nobody has to deal with the blood holes in her mouth. "Thanks, Zecora. I'll let you out as soon as it's safe."

Edited 2017-04-04 18:07 (UTC)

It's a far neater and kinder solution than what Lambert could have offered, which is for the best -- particularly as his ears pick up on the sound of noise in the corridor.

"Good work," he offers, but that's all. Lambert's not good at dealing with kids even under regular circumstances. Still, Steven stepped up when there was a chance to-- he'll remember that.

For now, the witcher steps ahead towards the door, drawing his sword again and looking over at Scout and Steven. "Let's get out of here. Stay close."

Well, all right. People here have some very strange abilities. She wants to ask questions, but this is so clearly a bad time.

Scout takes her lightsaber in hand, unlit for now. She wants to fight, she's ashamed to realize; fighting is almost never the clear, clean thing she wants it to be, with good obvious courses of action, but it's better than waiting. "I'm with you. Steven, you can move her right?"

Steven nods - as he moves his hands, the bubble will float along with them, supported a few inches into the air. From the confidence in his movements, he's obviously used it like this before. He rubs the last of the tears from his eyes, and raises his shield again, ready to go.

If only he could just send the bubble back home like he can on earth. He's not sure how that would work, outside of the carnival, and he can't afford to risk it.

"I've got her!" he assures them, and moves to follow Lambert, as ordered.

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⇨ HELL

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