January Event: Rejection Rooms

[lifeaftr_mods]

JANUARY EVENT: REJECTION ROOMS

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Rejecting your Light comes with dire consequences
When: January 25th - 28th
Where: All over Monsun
Warnings: Violence and possible character death; please note any specific content warnings if they come up!

You're Ruled by the Things You Feel

This log is primarily for the Rejection Room portion of the event, for ease and convenience. To quote our event post:

Characters intent on rejecting their Light will find themselves irrevocably drawn to Monsun's shores. They might not even be aware of it - driven by their rage, their paranoia, their fear, or all of the above, and more. Monsun, for its part, is happy to receive them. Its landscape has become so warped over time...and those parts of Monsun consumed by shadow will start to distort, molding into structures that such characters are only too happy to hide within: Rejection Rooms.

Those who challenge the Rejection Rooms need not worry about death for themselves - damage taken within the rooms will simply translate to exhaustion outside of it, with seemingly mortal wounds leading to expulsion from the room itself, and an inability to re-enter.

The same holds true for the boss of each Room. Failure to beat them into expulsion means that the Room will continue to feed from their wildly catastrophizing mind, until there's nothing left to save at all.

So, simply top-level below with your character if they've signed up for a Rejection Room and prepare for whoever wants to gamble a confrontation. We recommend linking to the comment that details your character's Room, for the benefit of others. Remember to communicate; if your character is still trapped in their Room by the event's end, they will suffer a character death, though characters who merely try and fail to free them will not.

If your Rejection Room opt-in comment did not receive any response or additional discussion from the mod team, consider your Room and moveset approved; we want to allow for retroactive edits to your comments and plans, if those become necessary!

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Some useful links, for reference:

[ ♆ ] OOC Event Post
[ ♆ ] Rejection Room Sign-Ups, for information on what Rejection Rooms look like
[ ♆ ] Deaths Page; death penalties have been reduced for the duration of this event, but remember to let us know if your character is still stuck in their Room by the event's end!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.
[ ♆ ] January 21st: Shadows of both initial variants appear.
[ ♆ ] January 23rd: Shadows of both initial variants disappear.
[ ♆ ] January 25th Lights and Rejection Rooms appear.
[ ♆ ] January 28th: Lights and Rejection Rooms dissipate. Those still trapped in their Rejection Rooms by the event's end will suffer a character death.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[lesbeau]

[The hit connects with Yasha as the Mockery comes, causing her to take a step back and clutch at her head. Damnit, he won't shut up. But with Yasha handled, she can shift her attention, even though between the spell and Yasha she doesn't get the bonuses of being prepared when Molly comes for her. She goes for a block but the blades come quickly, only one getting deflected by her staff and the other carving right down her front. Beau hisses in pain as blood comes quickly from the wound, leaving her range limited as she tries to toss him back.

But for the first time since the start of this fight, she also speaks.]

Damnit!

[The archer's round turns, again to one Molly damaged, who uselessly fires nothing into the sand. Only one left, now, but Beau isn't paying attention. If they stay in range with her, that'll be one way to ensure she can't use that weaponry.

In the meantime, she'll run at Molly again, not even bothering to stop the blood dripping down her chest and into the sand, going for a swing at his head with a pop-pop follow up.]

gurl fight gurl fight

[devilstongue]

[ He really doesn't like the way it feels to cut into Beau, and that's probably what distracts him.

The staff cracks into the side of Molly's face, staggering him and making him pierce his tongue with his sharp teeth. The hits that follow is too much, and he sinks to his knees before falling over in the sand, the glow in his eyes dulling as they roll back and he passes out. ]

love a bit of girl on girl action

[barberian]

(Yasha knows that the hits are not enough to kill him, that he's hardier than that, but when Mollymauk folds like paper into the sand and his eyes roll back all she sees is red.

She rips herself out of the sand with a wordless shout of anger, and skeletal, translucent wings burst forth from her shoulder blades, arcing into the air. Past the point of resorting to her fists, she draws the Judge from her back and holds it out in one hand, taking large strides, over Molly's unconscious form on the ground, and turns her pitch black gaze upon- the thing pretending to be Beau. Her heart is thudding in her ears.

Beau is bleeding. Yasha pauses for just a moment, and then she lunges for her, swinging the Judge with reckless abandon to slash across her chest.)

;) ;) ;)

[lesbeau]

[She's already starting to breathe heavier as Molly falls, the cadence of the battle starting to take its toll on her along with the blood dripping down her torso, off her hips, dotting the ground with a trail wherever she goes. It means her reaction is slowed as she turns back to Yasha, even as her scream and the wings unfolding make her eyes go wider and her heart leap into her neck. Shit. Shit shit shit shit sword--

Beau leaps backwards but the sword is fucking big and the end catches her, sending a slash across her collarbones and opening the skin there. Her feet kicking up the sand hurts as it mingles with sweat and exposed flesh and she hisses, but she can't stop, she has to find a way to beat this.

So instead of stopping, because she can't, because she should, because she can't, she leaps and goes twisting towards Yasha again to slam into her head. She's got one more stunning strike left, and something in her is putting in strength and speed she didn't think she had as the monks around her start speaking in tandem, voices starting to rise from nothing to a chant underlying the combat.]

Be strong. Keep going. Don't make us regret this.

[barberian]

(Yasha blocks the sudden strike with the flat of her blade and usually she would lash back, take her sword and cleave whatever it is she's fighting in two but even though this is not Beau, Yasha finds she can't fucking do it. She can't divorce whatever this is from the skin it seems to be wearing, she can't rend Beauregard in half. Seeing her hiss and react to the gash across her collarbone is bad enough, even through the heave of rage roiling and broiling in her gut.

Yasha seethes, and thrusts her backwards with the momentum of her block. The monks around them have started to chant, quiet at first but their voices swell in volume every second until they're almost shouting.)

Stop it! Stop– (she turns her back on Beau, perhaps unwisely, and lunges for them instead. The monks she has no problem with ripping apart with her sword and she swings for one after the other, carving a path through them with a roar of fury.)

[lesbeau]

[Yasha parries her but doesn't retaliate; it's surprising on Beau's end too, whose eyes go wide when her blade catches and she thinks it's over, it's over. Instead she gets tossed back, twisting in midair to land on her feet, even though her legs tremble on impact as her chest heaves with exertion. And then, it happens-- Yasha turns her back and she thinks she has it, she can beat this--

The blade carves right through the monks at the edge, and Beau's hands go to her head instead.

They don't scream out loud when Yasha's sword meets them, but the noise is louder in her head, the pounding of go, go, go like a heartbeat mantra drowning over her other senses. The more of them that fall from the edges enter back to her consciousness, a construct of her mind Yasha doesn't know she's hitting.

The final arrow flies, and strikes Beau directly in her upper arm.

And she screams, rips it out, and leaps onto the archer to pummel him with her hands.]

Fuck you! Stop tossing shit at me! I'll get you first!

[barberian]

(Yasha has no idea what she's doing but she does notice that Beau's strike at her back doesn't come and doesn't come and doesn't come. She has time to knock one more monk down. One becomes two, becomes three, and she's nearing the archer with the final arrow but doesn't make it before it's released, in a long, clean arc right toward the center of the room.

Beau's scream makes her blood run cold. Yasha's lungs feel clogged with ice water, but before she can turn around, her movements suddenly sluggish with shock, Beau is kick-spinning past her to attack the archer herself with nothing but her fists.

She's okay, she isn't dead. She's okay. She isn't dead. Yasha's eyes dart wildly around the room, glancing off of Molly's prone figure in the sand, around the room. All of the monks are down. Beau is taking apart the final archer, and doesn't seem to need any help and so she finally stills, breathing heavily, awash in a cold sweat.)

[lesbeau]

[She isn't dead. Far from it, it seems. She's beaten to shit, of course- blood falls from the still-open wound across her chest, soaking into her shirt below where it too is cut open. The wound from the arrowhead is ragged in her left bicep, and every swing of that arm sends more running down it. Her hair is disheveled, sand caked onto her legs and hands, clinging to sweat anywhere it touches. She's a mess.

But she isn't dead.

Interestingly enough, the monks won't fight to Yasha, falling to her blade effortlessly. But the archer fights with a relentless precision the moment Beau comes at him, like a man trained to tame lions, best wild beats. That said, he's trained for range, and Beau has the arrow- it's a smaller scuffle than he would like before she's plunged it into his eye and cut his scream short by snapping his neck.

Beau sits there, on the corpse she wrestled to the floor, shoulders shaking with every breath. Her voice, when it comes, is small.]

... Yasha? Is... is he okay?

[She probably doesn't mean the archer she beat to death, even if her head is bowed at him.]

[barberian]

(The moment Yasha's heartbeat stops thrumming so loud in her ears she goes to Molly, dropping her sword into the sand as she kneels beside him, lifting his head gently into her lap. He's stable, thanks to the little trinket looped around his neck but she still takes the time to concentrate and touch glowing fingertips to both sides of his face. The spell grants him six hit points back, all that she has to give.

Yasha clears her throat to make sure her voice does not come out hoarse.)

... He's fine, he'll be up again soon.

(She sighs, and brushes his hair back from his forehead.)

Beau, (she says after a beat, her voice low. She's not angry, per say, but she doesn't sound all that calm either.) What was all of that about, exactly?

[lesbeau]

[Six will be enough, when this thing dissolves, and no injury will have come to any of them. But until that point precisely hits, until Beau can let go of this, they stay with the blood slowly hardening on her chest, the raw wetness of her wounds as exposed to the air.

She keeps her back turned to Yasha, body still as she breathes through her stomach, keeps her shoulders steady. There's a silence, just too long to be comfortable, before she speaks again.]

... Why'd you come here?

[What is she asking? She doesn't know. But suddenly the answer is very, very important.]

[barberian]

What?

(Yasha stares at her back for a long moment, waiting for some kind of tell but Beau is unnaturally stiff and silent. Holding herself that way. She must be in pain. There's a wet sound of blood spattering the ground, dripping from– her arm? Or the place where Yasha's sword bit into her?)

We wanted to find you. (She completes, after a beat. Doesn't drop her gaze from Beau's squared shoulders.) We... came to get you. Bring you back.

[devilstongue]

Of course we came for you. [ Molly says from Yasha's lap, sounding a little winded but alive. He keeps his eyes closed, however, just piping up his two coppers. ]

You're a heinous bitch, but you're our heinous bitch. Don't be an idiot, you'd come for us, too.

[lesbeau]

[She listens, doesn't move. Hears Yasha's voice, then Molly's, then the silence from the rest of the room. The monks are gone. It's her and these voices and the sound of her own blood rushing through and around and out of her.

But they said what she needed to hear. They came for her. Not for her usefulness, or her rank. Not for something she could do.

Just to make sure she was okay.

Beau shifts, sways, and falls to the side. By the time her body hits the ground, the entire scene around them is gone- it breaks in a blink, like the shattering of a mirror, one second everything so real and the next in the sand of Monsun. They're on the beach here, waves coming in not far off, and Beau rolls onto her back in the now sunlit sand.

She's uninjured. Yasha and Molly will be too. Just tired, and sore, and weary. But alive. And she'll speak, though mostly to the air, limbs lazily at her sides.]

So was I possessed, or did that just suck, because I'm taking both options here.

[barberian]

Beau-

(The moment she wobbles dangerously Yasha is already lifting Molly's head very gingerly, setting him back on the ground, but Beau hits the floor before Yasha can get to her feet to help. She's standing when the scene changes with what feels like a lurch and she sways, reaching out to grab onto something that flickers out of view, replaced with nothing. Just sand, and sky, and sun.

Yasha blinks into the latter, squinting. Beau rolls over in the sand. She isn't bleeding, any more. Yasha glances down at her own arm where the arrow had pierced her and finds the wound missing, but her limbs feel so heavy.)

... I vote both.

(She sighs, and fists a hand into her hair, glancing back toward Molly. He looks fine too, so she turns, and starts to stride away across the sand, stooping to grab the Judge as she passes. She has a few things to think about, and she'd rather be alone right now.)

[devilstongue]

[ Yasha is always so gentle. He loves that.

Molly watches as she tries to go catch Beau, but the world sways and he is momentarily a dizzy before his head feels a lot better and his nose isn't broken any more. Confused, he sits up and then swears.

This fucking place again. ]

I agree. Both.

[ He can see Yasha moving to pick up the Judge, and Molly can tell she needs space. He knows her too well by now, and there's a soft nod from him that says he gets it. He'll give her a while and come check on her later.

Instead he gets up from the floor and heads over to Beau, holding out a hand to pull her up from the sand. ]

[lesbeau]

[She doesn't really know what's happening as Yasha gets her bearings, as Molly stirs without injury. Her breaths are coming like her body has more injury, but her brain is catching up like she just woke up from a dream where she was killed. Not real, now that you're back in yourself. But what's to say what wasn't real, especially in a place like this?

Yasha's leaving like it was. Real enough for her to fuck up that.

Beau lies there until Molly comes over, takes his hand with only a moment's hesitation.]

Well, now we've learned fighting each other's a shitty idea because someone's absolutely gonna die. That's progress.