October Event: Crystal Clear

[lifeaftr_mods]

OCTOBER EVENT: CRYSTAL CLEAR

Who: Everyone!
What: Your exploration takes a turn.
When: October 20th - 26th
Where: The caverns situated underneath Ensō
Warnings: Character death, body horror, descriptions of illness. Please mark any additional warnings as needed!

Part I: Attack, Attack!
Congratulations! You've successfully gone where no Storyteller has gone or can go, and woken up in the network of subterranean caves buried beneath the island's mass, along with your designated supplies: a miner's cap, a week's worth of food, and both your knapsacks and their collective contents. And the further along you go, the vaster and more sprawling these almost labyrinthian tunnels seem to get. There’s certainly evidence that civilization once thrived here - old buildings hewed from the rock of the cave walls may very well contain old tools, or even salvageable supplies. Careful examination of structures and cavern walls alike will reveal sigils resembling those carved on the doors, each of which will need to be destroyed entirely at the Storyteller's behest. Whatever was down here was advanced enough to dwell without sunlight. But that raises a rather pertinent question...

If there were once people here, where did they all go?

Fortunately, one will soon discover that there's plenty of natural light underground, exhibited by the crystalline growths on the walls. None of them appear to be dangerous, and those attracted to shiny things might even find them useful for picking up or chipping away in order to better light their way. The crystal has about the thickness and hardness of quartz, and bathes its surroundings in a luminous green glow.

The closer you come to the center of the mass, however, the denser the crystalline growths seem to become, until one has to be quite ingenious in navigating them. Eventually, they'll simply be too dense to be squeezed through, even by the smallest and most agile of your number.

That’s when they it will start to become apparent.
Something in the crystal is moving.

Huge chunks of crystal are starting to detach from the center and move slowly, inexorably, toward those unfortunate enough to have explored the caverns. Unmistakably humanoid silhouettes, distorted by awful crystalline growths, most of which have completely swallowed any recognizable features.

...most.

The good news is that the creatures can be shattered, and beaten back. The bad news? Well...

Part II: Retreat, Retreat!
Those who get close enough to the crystalized beasts to get a good look at them will soon make a horrifying discovery - the fact that, underneath those thick layers of luminescent quartz, there was once something that might have been recognizable as human. These quartz monsters aren't native to this region, or indeed, to any region of the island at all. They were formed.

Formed out of the very crystal that you explorers have been touching, picking up, sleeping on, and just generally remaining in prolonged contact with ever since you set foot down here.

Indeed, anyone who has been in contact with the crystal for extended periods of time - sleeping on it or getting dealt a swipe from one of the crystalized monsters, for example - will find that tiny, quartz-like growths have started to sprout on their skin as well. Once the virus has taken root, it will spread rapidly until it has swallowed you whole. Indeed, the unpleasant symptoms will reveal themselves within twenty-four hours of the initial exposure: in addition to clusters of crystalline growths pocking the affected areas, the inflicted will begin to experience intense stabbing pains all over as the crystal begins to grow - both inside and out. The transformation is slow and arduous and painful, and vocalization tends to be one of the first things to go once the crystals sprout in the mouth and throat. Within the span of about three days since the initial exposure, the transformation will have sheathed most of the physical body in crystal entirely, sealing the victim in a humanoid cast of glasslike green.

It has not been confirmed if the inflicted are sentient and aware of their state of being once they are completely consumed. Whatever their intentions, those are easily overridden by the virus's innate desire to spread to as many organisms as possible.

As this is an event with a high risk of death, the Storyteller will impose death penalties for one week only. Additionally, deaths succumbed during the event count towards the character's total. There is no known cure to the virus, but that doesn't mean characters can't or shouldn't try!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 20th: Spelunking begins. Points of interest will be provided.
[ ♆ ] October 22nd: The Quartzalcoatl make their presence known.
[ ♆ ] October 24th: The final sigils are broken, and the Storyteller will return all uninfected to the Islets.
[ ♆ ] October 26th: All deceased will be returned at midday, suffering from a reduced death penalty.

Event Specifics

[ ♆ ] If your character perishes in this event, please let us know!
[ ♆ ] For those who opted out, please see the top-level below!
[ ♆ ] Item claims can be found on the OOC plotting post here!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

10/23 cw: character death, ptsd, body horror

[justribbing]

[ Sans is a little through with seeing kids around here.

Nothin' personal, except that when a power greater than you decides to throw you and a bunch of kids into a death trap without so much as an 'if you please', it can't be anything but.

Sans is surprised, judging from the way his haggard eye sockets seem to widen somehow, just enough to notice, but not so much at seeing them as seeing the state they're in. His hoodie is stuffed into his backpack, but his t-shirt is caked with dirt (and blood, when he strayed too close to another casualty). He's surprised, but hopes.

Hopes like hell this isn't another sign like Clem's skin weeping long shards of glowing green crystal, because Sans isn't sure he can watch another kid look down the barrel of their own doom. He can't get the idea out of his skull, that somewhere, one of those shambling, crystalline horrors is, somewhere in there, Clem. Wade's own found daughter, another lost child among an island teeming with them.

He hazards, staring at them, shuffling forward without knowing what to do with his phalanges, like they might shatter too if he, you know. Reached for them. ]

Hey--hey, wait, kid. Where do you think you're goin'? [ With that knife, no less. And--

He looks around. ]

Wait, where's the other one?

continuing the above cws throughout

[achievementhunter]

[They could have simply passed on without issue- but of course, Sans has never done precisely what they wanted of him. He doesn't ignore them. Doesn't think about his own hide, or the hides of those he remembers enough to care for.

No. He haltingly raises his arms, and Chara comes to a halt. Flinching back minutely, as if he has actually attempted to touch them, instead of standing about like the helpless fool he is.

Where's the other one?

Their last LOAD was...perhaps, twelve hours ago. If that. Meaning they can't chance it again, right now. They're tired, eyes red-rimmed... even if their cheeks have long since been stained with more dirt, more blood. What makes them meet his gaze is a sudden heat in their chest- the same thing that has them ignoring his first question. The same thing that has their answer spat out through clenched teeth, bared in what some people could have mistaken for a smile.]

They fell down.

[Falling, of course, has a different meaning for him. A little bit outside the usual definition, an understanding of the human concept.

Falling, of course, has a different meaning entirely, for them. For them, for Frisk- for the multiple children who came between them.

Isn't it ironic? After all this time, one of them finally succeeded.]

Get out of my way.

[justribbing]

[ Of course he's helpless. Aren't they all? How much good does that knife do against crystal creatures that will infect you the moment you get close enough to strike, kid? Go figure -- full to the brim with powers that stretch the imagination, that can sweep clean the slate of the experiences of an entire civilization, and yet the great equalizer is a tropical vacation on a not so deserted island.

Not that Sans remembers them as anyone but another kid on this island he met.

A persistent kid, overly interested in his personal business. He fails to see his own hypocrisy, there.

And a kid who is clearly grieving. They fell down. Those three words prompt not the expected connection to what they mean in monster vernacular, but an unwanted, unexpected image of a small hand slipping out of his and into pitch blackness, the echo of a loss so intense it'd steal the breath from his lungs if he had them.

He doesn't think about it. ]

...

No way, kid. We're getting outta here.

[ He finds he doesn't care if the job's done yet -- he is getting this kid out of this hell hole and he's doing it now. ]

[achievementhunter]

Was I asking you for an alternate option?

[He doesn't get it.

And of course, that's their fault, isn't it? For going ahead with this plan, thinking that somehow, they'd be happier, this way. That they and Frisk could sleep, instead of being stuck on an island where nobody knows them. He doesn't understand what it means, to lose their Partner again. He doesn't recall what those eight weeks were like- the utter torture of their absence.

He can't possibly understand how this feels. And all they can do is laugh at him. Sharp and high pitched.]

Excuse me, for failing to put my faith in the monster who was looking to kill himself during our first meeting.

[If he'll excuse them, they're going to push past, whether he wants them to or not.]

[justribbing]

[ Sans, he doesn't exactly let them by. More like he shuffles backwards, passively presenting an obstacle they'll have to speed up and weave around to get by. He half expects it to come to that. ]

Good thing I don't need your faith to getcha outta here.

[ He exhales. It's been a long and difficult day, and Sans, he's a little tuckered out, a little short on patience. He puts out both arms and shakes his head, warning them -- because he can't trust either of them to act wisely under the circumstances, and he just hopes that kid keeps that knife safely away. ]

C'mon. Whaddya gonna do, carve your initials in those things while they make you a crystal pincushion?

Don't make me carry you, kid.

[achievementhunter]

[It doesn't come to that. As he seeks to obstruct them, Chara once again comes to a halt, quietly allowing him the time to say his piece.

Don't make him carry you, Chara.



They say third time's the charm.]

I see.

[So that's how it is.

A long time ago, they'd wondered. Made it a personal mission; a treat for all their hard work. The potential that one day, he would actually fight them was the sort of vindictive pleasure that made stepping over Papyrus' dust worth it; not just because they couldn't care less about the younger of the brothers, but because it would get to him.

They no longer have those sentiments. There's no desire there, to fight him; no wish to steal the happily ever after they've sacrificed so much to achieve. That Frisk sacrificed so much to achieve.

But he's in their way.]

Perhaps I should make my own stance clearer.

[Chara raises their knife.]

We can part ways now, or I shall continue on- over your dead body.

[justribbing]

[ The skeleton stands there, his shoulders settling back into the familiar slouch beneath the weight that's just being him, watching that kid brandish a gleaming length of metal. Yeah, he remembers this kid and their knives.

The look on the skull that passes for his face doesn't seem thrilled at this development, at the challenge they're bringing him. Sans's eyelights dim in exhausted resignation. ]

Ok. [ He says, like a sigh. ] Looks like you wanna do this the hard way.

Have it your way, kid.

[ Drawing them both into a FIGHT like this, something about it feels disturbingly familiar, like a bad dream he's had too many times to be a coincidence. The air is close in a way unique to subterranean spaces long sealed. ]

Just don't say I didn't warn you.

[achievementhunter]

[Their SOUL bursts forth from their chest, a vibrant red that casts a red glow into the space about them- simply magnified by the crystals on the walls. Chara's smile simply stretches further, widening the mask that's made of flesh and muscle.

They don't feel anything. Perhaps, Sans wishes to give them a bad time. But he's too late.

All the kids are already in hell.

He's going to use his magic on them again, that much is certain. So as soon as their SOUL appears, Chara is on the move. Darting towards him with a blade that whistles through the air, aiming for his- jacket, mostly. Close to the sternum.

Accidents still happen. He's forcing this situation, but that doesn't mean they can't simply move him out the way, exhaust him.

It wouldn't take long.]