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lostcarnival2019-01-16 02:56 pm
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⇨ THE WYLDLANDS
Who: Everyone pursuing the Huntsman.
When: Day 134 - Day 140
Where: The Wyldlands
What: Working as scouts from the Summer armies, the carnival makes a dangerous trek into the Wyldlands to find the Huntsman, defeat him, and save the Ringmaster from the Hunt. The day descriptions below are an outline, and details may change based on actions earlier in the week. Overall, though, it will keep the same general locations. You can make up encounters with Wylderkin at any time.
Warnings: Probably violence and gross Huntsman stuff.
When: Day 134 - Day 140
Where: The Wyldlands
What: Working as scouts from the Summer armies, the carnival makes a dangerous trek into the Wyldlands to find the Huntsman, defeat him, and save the Ringmaster from the Hunt. The day descriptions below are an outline, and details may change based on actions earlier in the week. Overall, though, it will keep the same general locations. You can make up encounters with Wylderkin at any time.
Warnings: Probably violence and gross Huntsman stuff.
HUNTING THE HUNTER↴![]() Upon first arriving in the Wyldlands, the carnival will find themselves in a scene much like the picture above - strange mountain ranges rise up around them, while thick forest cling to the land between. Every so often, giant silhouettes of Wyld Fae will fly overhead. Thankfully, the Summer Fae have picked an area with plenty of cover to hide in to begin their infiltration, and as the carnival is arriving via teleporation, there will be squadrons of Summerland and Summer Court Fae spreading out and concealing themselves within the trees. They will be following the carnival's trail as they move deeper into the Wyldlands, looking for their guidance to avoid the maw of the Hunt. The carnival Supervisors will be given several golden scrolls that unfurl into small light elementals. These will transmit information between the Summer armies and the carnival at speeds similar to sending a text message. They takes various forms, but most of them are abstract motes of light with wings and tails. When delivering messages, they take the form and voice of whoever gave the message, like a custom hologram that disappears immediately after finishing. After the carnival has been debriefed one more time, they will be sent off ahead to begin their scouting duties. Through a mixture of augury and expertise, the Summer Fae have narrowed down an area the Huntsman should be, as well as designated a general route that will mostly have ground cover. Who knows if it will stay that way, though, with how quickly the Wyldlands change. Much like in the Summer Court, time here is subjective - all sense of time varies between individuals, and the only solid way of knowing when a day is over is to have the light from the sky disappear. All time pieces will perform erratically while here. The carnival will still need to eat and rest, as well, which means that they will have to figure out the best times to set up camp. They have sufficient rations, at least. ► DAY 134: The carnival heads deeper into the forest on the first day of their scouting mission, told to head for a giant tree that they can see on the horizon. Apparently, this tree is a landmark that will remain consistent for the time being. Someone will have to check above the canopy every so often to keep everyone on target, which risks gaining the attention of flying Wyld Fae. There are plenty of Wylderkin around (lesser Wyld Fae that behave more like standard fantasy animals) but overall the journey through this section will not be hugely perilous, as long as they remain cautious and hidden. There will be a Megathread on this day, dealing with some optional and only mildly important Summer Court NPC interactions. ► DAY 135: Early during the next day of travelling, the forest will begin to fill with more and more magical fungi until giant shrooms have almost completely replaced the trees. At first they will seem innocuous, but as their presence becomes more inescapable, it will gradually become apparent than many of the mushrooms are poisonous to the touch - and eating them will be far worse! Those with empathetic connections to plants may be able to determine which are poisonous and which aren't, while some fungi may even have beneficial effects, if they get lucky enough to find and identify them. Generally speaking, though, there are few non-plant creatures around here, due to the fact that everything is toxic, including the swampy water that covers large sections of the ground. There will be no mod directed interactions during this period, besides handling general investigations. ► DAY 136: During the middle of this day, the carnival will finally reach the giant tree. On one hand, the plant-life has become relatively safe again. On the other, the giant tree is the lair of several neutral Wyld Fae who probably won't like the carnival's presence. On the other other hand, maybe those Wyld Fae might be willing to help or offer them directions? It's up to the group to decide if they want to attempt diplomacy, or to stealth past the tree and find their own way. There will be a Megathread on this day, based on however the team decides to handle it. ► DAY 137: Past the area surrounding the big tree, the lush foliage of the forest will begin degrading until nothing is left but dark naked trunks filled with glowing pods of various sizes. It's here that those with a connection to the Hunt will start to get a sense of the Huntsman's presence, and will be drawn in a vague direction. Unfortunately, this will also be their first major brush with the Hunt itself. Hunt patrols skirmish with neutral Wyld Fae in this forest, and the collateral damage of their warfare can be seen all over. The carnival will want to either map out a path through the trees that the fighting can be avoided for the sake of the Summer troops, or give them enough data to be able to handle the threat. How this portion goes will partly depend on the outcome of the previous day's Megathread. ► DAY 138: The forest will open up into the beginnings of a mountain range, with flowing water, luminescent plant life, and the occasional cluster of crystals sprouting from the earth. There are large parties of Hunt controlled Wyld Fae patrolling this area, and so making it through will require careful navigation. As the path becomes more and more mountainous, it will be possible to find routes that mostly avoid the patrols - this information will need to be communicated back to the Summer troops. There will be a Megathread here dealing with a Hunt patrol encounter. ► DAY 139: The mountains will continue to steepen, and the crystal formations will grow more huge and consistent. The air is always cloudy, and the air condition is bad, making it harder to breathe. Weather will become more and more unfavorable the higher into the mountains the carnival gets, with cold winds and lightning that frequently strikes the crystals and causes them to send out bursts of destructive energy. Paths will occasionally crumble. There is still a heavy Hunt presence, here, though they keep to safer trails - the best way to avoid them may indeed be taking the most dangerous routes. It's probably better than being mauled to death by beasts, though. Some distant mountain tops look like the might be volcanoes. There is almost no plant-life here, besides the most stubborn of brambles. By this point, the pull of the Huntsman has grown much stronger. ► DAY 140: The sky clears enough to show a deep red skyline. Barren cliffs are punctuated with rivers of lava, and paradoxically vibrant trees and foliage in erratic spurts. The those in the carnival with a connection to the Hunt will find themselves drawn to a valley in the center of the rocks, absolutely filled with Wyld Fae and other slaves gathered from around the multiverse. This will be the final encounter, and the carnival may have to trust in their Wyld Fae disguises to make it through. There will be multiple Megathreads here, detailing the encounter with the Huntsman and bringing this log to an end. |
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"Peh," the voice says. "This is taking too long."
It's a quiet remark, made to one's self, but without the care to fully conceal himself from those present. It won't make a difference, he thinks, because in the next moment he's already zipping away from his hiding place in the bones and appearing in the arena, looking down on such a touching display with a look of amused contempt.
"Hope as you may," says Frost, footman of the Winter Queen, "my Queen's thirst for revenge will not be quenched so easily!"
His attack is already prepared. Several shards of ice, black with death, float before him - and as he speaks they will be launched towards everyone who has gotten close to console the Ringmaster. They are already weakened, he thinks.
Should be easy prey.
[OOC: Each black ice shard has a potent death spell on it, and will kill whoever they strike within a minute or two even if the wound itself is not fatal. If it hits a vital area, the death may be instant. You are free to dodge or avoid this (blocking will not work, as it will cut through most spells) but you can also get hit if that appeals to you - plot stuff will enable your character to be saved during this scene.
You may have a wild guess how.]
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Zangetsu tears off after him, sliding to a stop at the edge of the arena.
"OI!! FROST IS HERE!"
He only barely manages to get the words out before Frost announces himself anyway.
Cheeky little fucker.
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And then there are the shards of ice.
"NO-"
Gongenzaka's voice is a hoarse whisper- a show of weakness, his legs already buckled to bring him to the ground, and his hand only barely able to cling stubbornly to his friend. A hand is no shield- all he can do is shout-
"YUUYA-!"
Shout and hope, that the stronger of them, can protect them.
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A less familiar voice breaks among them, and Yuya tilts his head, glancing around and then--up. At frost. At the ice, pointed, and he knows exactly what's about to happen.
Yuya takes a sharp breath and pulls himself up, twisting to angle himself between the Ringmaster's face and Frost as he covers her. Yuya squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out his shield and thinks only about maintaining the magic, whatever power he's found in himself in all these months needs to come now--
Something shatters. There's a blinding pain in Yuya's back, angled through his waist, and at once he feels hot and freezing, biting cold. He chokes, his throat clogging until her cough and spills blood out of his mouth.
There's no shield, and the light in his fingers starts to fade as well.
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"You are interrupting my work--not to mention scientific procedure!" he snaps hoarsely, glaring up at Frost. He tucks the syringe into his pocket so he can toe off one of his dumb cat paw shoes and pick it up with his good arm to huck it at Frost.
He's not very good at throwing, especially when depleted by two kinds of death magic, so it doesn't even reach Frost but he thinks it communicates his point anyway.
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But he's just as quick to act, dashing around to get Frost in view as he waves his hand, weaving a fireball into the air over it. And then he throws it with speed and precision, watching for the results of his attempt to roast the damn pixie.
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"Everyone, get down—!" is as much as he gets out before he takes a shard of ice in the shoulder, cutting through his magic as if it were nothing. He staggers back against the Ringmaster and Lambert both.
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But he doesn't have the time to move before one of the ice shards hits him in the gut, the dark death magic seeping into his body. It hurts, it hurts so much, and again he can't turn his regeneration off. It fights back against the potent magic, a losing battle, and only serves to make it hurt more.
"Frost... you son of a bitch!"
Scuttling what energy he has left, he snatches Kurikara from nearby. His body blazes bright blue, especially the open ulcers from the Ringmaster's miasma, and he pours what remains of his life force on the flames like gasoline. With a pained scream, he directs it all toward Frost.
If he's going to die, he's going to go out with a bang.
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The ice strikes her gem, and she lands on the ground, flickering.
"--nevets-S--"
She really needs to know that he's OK, but the gem damage is making her attempts to speak come out backwards.
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That's when she sees Amethyst take the hit. And then, at that point, she basically feels like that ice has skewered her anyway.
"Amethyst?" she whispers hoarsely, horrified. Her form flickers again. The projectile-- it hit her gem? This can't be happening, no-- Steven. Steven can fix it, can't he? Her mind reels, completely overwhelmed by the decay of her physical form, and by her own dismay. It's one of those moments that feels like a lifetime, time stretching to match the depths of the despair she feels.
Then all at once, she snaps her attention to Frost. Steven can fix Amethyst. He has to. She flat out refuses to think about the alternative. She hasn't got the strength left to use her dragon spell, but there's one power that she knows she can still use. Peridot charges forward, teeth gritted, gauntlet glowing, and calls forth the Vorpal Blade. It appears, hovering by her open palm, and then she whips it forward and flings it at Frost with her metallokinesis, steering it towards him like a pixie-seeking missile.
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It's actually through the Ringmaster's emotions that he becomes truly aware of what just happened. There's a surge of confusion and defensiveness - and then loss and dismay. Something has just slipped away from them, and they didn't do anything to stop it.
Steven opens his eyes, trying to bring himself back into the real world - but the moment he does, his legs give out under him, and he slips to the ground right next to where Amethyst fell. He hears her speak, and it's a found he couldn't forget. It's the sound of a cracking gem.
He doesn't know what happened. Someone... attacked them? Frost attacked them. Frost. Frost did. Frost, that fucking bastard-
Those thoughts aren't his own. His own thoughts are completely focused on Amethyst, even as his vision swims. He crawls to her side and tries to lift her up, to cradle where her broken gem is... finding tears, this time, is not difficult.
"Amethyst..." he blearily looks around him, and he can see she isn't the only one. Yuya, Gongenzaka, Childermass... "Guys?" What just happened? He can't take it. He can't heal everyone - even now, his own strength is fading more quickly than he can give it away.
"Guys..."
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Besides that, he still needs the Ringmaster. He needs her alive, to help save his world. He wants his stuff back. But more than all that, he wants to make Frost suffer for how he's made his friends suffer. He feels their souls flicker, beginning to fade. He kicks off the ground, cloaking his blade in dark energy. He raises it high above his head, red-edged blackness swirling around it.
"Getsuga--!"
He slashes downward.
"TENSHOU!"
A crescent-shaped arc of pure soul energy surges toward Frost at incredible speed, joining the volley of attacks on the pixie.
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He's too well-trained to drop the light he's holding on to, but it's a near thing. He grabs Childermass as best as he can, supporting his weight and struggling to keep him to his feet. If it's any kin to the magic the Hunstman used on the Ringmaster, he already knows, it's over. Childermass isn't the embodiment of life and death, isn't a miracle. He's the man Lambert loves, and he's dying, with no guarantee that magic held in the shells lying dormant in a pocket dimension will bring them back.
"No." Lambert doesn't scream or shout his denial, ears pinning back against his head as he tries to brace Childermass with one arm, offering the only support he can, because he's got fuck-all to fix this and his voice is choking with useless rage and tears. "No, not like this--"
They'd been so fucking close.
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But he has better things to do than yell at a pixie. Clenching his jaw, he straightens and walks the rest of the way to the Ringmaster, checking for whatever part of her is the most fleshy. And then, unless she or someone else actively stops him, he goes to inject her with reagent.
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He reaches up, hand hovering over where it the shard is stuck. Black ice to go with black blood and black clothing, he supposes. He doesn't touch it, though, thinking better of it even as he answers Lambert's choked words with his own fading voice, "It's only my shoulder. I've had worse. This... this won't even leave a scar, I'm sure..."
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He can't help but feel like he should have done better.
One of the ice shards strikes him in the side, though the ribs, and the feeling is immediately familiar. It's the kind of thing that is rare but expected on the battlefield. He received a wound similar to this a long time ago, before being captured by the Winter Court. The associations are immediately unpleasant.
The ice part doesn't bite as hard as it might have in the past, though. That part he has some control over. As for the rest... he doesn't scream or panic. After feeling the hit, he just exhales as calmly as he can imagine, and lets go of the Ringmaster so that he can take a knee on the ground.
He visually confirms that Rita hasn't been hit. Then, he siphons some of his own strength through the connection in their Hearts.
"Rita," he manages, his voice a bit muffled by the tar-like fae blood that's now in his mouth. He is clearly focusing very hard on staying calm. "Do something about him, could you?"
He doesn't trust himself to control his own magic after taking a hit like this, so he funnels what he can to Rita instead
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"Yuya--!" she chokes out in horror, stopping dead in her tracks.
That magic... Death... And he isn't the only one struck with it. Childermass, and... As she spots Ignatius, her gaze is transfixed on that shard in his side, her fists tightening so hard her knuckles turn white. It's all she can do to keep from shaking. She looks up at Frost with rage in her eyes, opens her mouth to yell something...
But she stops as Ignatius speaks. Do something about him? She would have thought he'd tell her to get away. Of course she wants to rip that little freak to shreds, but his encouragement is unexpected. That is, until she feels a surge of power in her heart, and immediately, she understands.
"You're dead!" she shrieks at Frost, seemingly having lost whatever other words she was trying to muster up a moment earlier. In an instant, her body erupts into pale white flames, and it's in this elemental form that she launches herself into the air and charges at Frost. She conjures in one hand a whip made of more of the same flames, and as Rin's own fire flies at him, she moves at a different trajectory before lashing out with the blazing weapon, hoping to catch Frost should he try to evade that first attack.
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Being closer to the back, however, puts him closer to Frost himself. He's never encountered this pixie himself before, but it was obvious from the beginning he was nothing but trouble to show up. With the culmination of everyone's rage, right now...
Yuusei lunges at Frost himself, intending to grab him and hold him still with two sets of arms while the pixie anticipates the others' attacks, hoping that his own lack of magic will keep attention off of him. The least he can do is help everyone stay on target with the little bastard.
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But then eventually Frost appears, making what's already gone to a slow and agonizing hell thanks to that fog of death. One by one the carnival seems to begin to fall...
"Yuya...!!!" It's bad enough when he can see that Carly won't last much longer, he has to get over there!
And so he moves to do exactly that. There's nothing of use in his skillset, but emotion rules over logic.
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Childermass might be managing his bravado, but the witcher can feel what he can't: his body losing the strength to hold itself up. Exhausted as he is, he can't hold both of them up for long, either, so they end up awkwardly crumpling to the ground, half-sagging against the Ringmaster's shuddering corpse.
The Ringmaster. Lambert raises his head, teeth gritted, and looks at the hulking, rotted corpse of her, hearing the rest of the Carnival hurl themselves at Frost -- though for all they know, it's only to fling themselves onto more of the same black ice that's already claimed more than a few of their number.
"Come on!" he shouts hoarsely. "Snap out of it! Are you just going to let him take it all without a fight?!"
There really probably isn't any real harm he can do to the embodiment of Life and Death by hitting it ... but that's what Lambert does, anyway: clumsily whacks the nearest bit of bone he can reach with the misshapen lump of Creation's light he's still holding in his hand. The impact is more than his faltering grip on the spell can stand; when it makes contact, it bursts apart into scattered motes of light, leaving only the other Carnival members to keep the shadows at bay.
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He shifts, letting out a cry of pain as he jostles the shard wedged into him and slumps back against the Ringmaster. His fingers twitch, brushing against her before Yuya closes his eyes with a sigh and focuses.
The light from his hands almost dims, but not quite. Instead it starts to quickly build up again, a smaller hope standing against the loss of illumination from Lambert as he focuses on sharing his energy with the Ringmaster--this time to rejuvenate her. He doesn't have a lot left, but--if he can just get her started, that's enough, isn't it?
"We didn't... give up on you," Yuya rasps. "So you--you can't give up..."
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But it seems like she's lashing out less, as if everyone's encouraging words are getting through to her, and that's promising. He turns back, planning to walk around past the cluster at her face and check the legs on her other side - walking to save the energy of blue magic for getting everyone to safety out of this fog, as soon as they have a plan where to go...
When Frost appears. And the fae barely announces himself before there's shards of ice flying everywhere.
It's a normal-looking sort of magic, perfectly familiar aside from the odd coloration, and Papyrus tosses a few bones up to block the projectiles almost as an afterthought. But the errant shard of ice in his direction doesn't get blocked; it cuts right through the bone bullet and continues at him, stabbing through the metal and into bone.
It hurts, a lot, but everything already hurts, so he grits his teeth to keep going towards everyone's shouting... and makes it only a few steps before his leg buckles under him.
"Huh...?" He looks down to see dust trickling out of the puncture in his hip's coppery shell, a quick tap of a knuckle on his hip results in a hollow, metallic clang "Oh. Oh."
Maybe he's dying. Papyrus looks away from it, trying to put it out of mind, and squints towards the others' silhouettes in the fog ahead to take note who's fallen and who hasn't. His brother's standing. A lot of people... aren't. And there's a lot of unhappy voices.
Maybe... there's no sense in saving his energy. Papyrus looks up towards wherever Frost's fluttering at, focuses, and does his best to ping the fae blue - to drop him to the ground, hard. Maybe somebody who didn't get hurt can talk him into not killing anyone else.
...Or, maybe one of the others can 'convince' him to stay here, and not hurt anyone else. Maybe that would be fine, too.
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He'd summoned a portal in the way of Frost's trajectory, hoping to redirect the shards away from the entire group. Unfortunately, the shards had no interest in participating in his spell, and shattered right through it instead of disappearing into a pocket dimension. It's over very quickly, and his death senses sing. The looming threat of death is gone and real, present death is here.
He thinks about attacking, about just latching onto the aggression the Huntsman has been trying to coax out of him and going on the attack. There's so many other angry people here, though, so many people who want to fight. Maybe he doesn't. For once, he wishes he could just fix something instead...
Papyrus is hit. Carly is almost certainly already dead. Amethyst's gem looks like it's about to break. He thinks about souls and how if you lose them, they're gone forever. Will the egg dimension work with all this death in the way? Has the magic of death destroyed their souls as well?
He summons up his angelic aura and dives down towards those that have fallen, latching onto what memory he has of guiding souls during his time as an angel. It was his job to make sure they got to the right place.
As the others fight, he reaches out for the souls that may be ready to depart, aiming to shelter them in angelic magic. He doesn't know how long he can hold it but he has to try. He lands next to Papyrus, putting a hand on his shoulder in particular, that angelic radiance bright in every bone.
"H-Hold on, bro," he says. "I've got you."
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So when the first attacks come, from Syrlya and Rin, he's already got a shield on the read and is quickly moving away. The flames smash away chunks of the shield, but the death fog seems to diminish the power of anything that flows through it - anything besides more death, at least. Zangetsu's attack has a similar effect, with Peridot's sword simultaneously sticking into the ice up to its hilt, and its enough to cause Frost to let the shield go and dart away instead.
Yuusei tries to reach him, but Frost is too high in the air for that - Papyrus's blue magic manages to tug him, though, just long enough for Rita to be fully unleashed. As he darts away, she will catch him with the crack of her fiery whip, with a force far greater than he was expecting.
He smacks into the wall with an odd high-pitched laugh and then puffs into a cloud of snowflakes.
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