lifeaftr | June Event: Chaos, Chaos!

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June Event: Chaos, Chaos!

JUNE EVENT: CHAOS, CHAOS!

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: It's just a little chaos...
When: June 17th - June 22nd
Where: Primarily Io, though also across Ensō and the islets if applicable
Warnings: Violence, possible body horror, potential anxiety and dysmorphia associated with body-swapping

Who Keeps Spinning the World Around?

The morning of June 17th, you'll probably notice things are amiss rather quickly. Your hands aren't your hands, or you're no longer in a squishy human flesh shape, or worse. Maybe your Lawful Good persona has plummeted into an outright Chaotic Evil one. Or maybe you wake up with a brand new power in your hands! Whatever the case is, no explanation is going to be immediately forthcoming, from Eleu or the Storyteller or anyone else. You'll have to figure out this mess on your own.

Adjust to your new circumstances, master your new powers, and do what you can to make it through the next few days...because they're going to be some very interesting ones, for certain.

Catch Me If You Can!

Come June 20th, whether you're back to normal selves or not, Eleu has a job for you. A request, even. They're going to need your help to take care of this little problem and put a stop to all this absolute madness.

Those interested in helping can get in touch with any of the honeybees buzzing anxiously about Io, and they will redirect you to the Honeycomb, which has now been provided with several barrels of Honeycomb Sledgehammers for your use. You don't have to take one if you don't need it, but they make a very powerful weapon. Additionally, Eleu will take care to assure that, in exchange for your help, you may keep the Sledgehammer, if you so choose.

Those interested in assisting may access our boss fight at its top-level below. This is a single thread with no order, but anyone may participate, regardless of their current state of being. Don't worry about how you contribute, or tag speed. Anyone who's concerned about being left out is welcome to reach out to us to handwave or backtag their involvement, if necessary!

The Clown Box is going to put up a fight, though. And it's not going to be pretty.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] June 17th: Chaos begins!
[ ♆ ] June 21st: On the eve of the final battle, Storytelling commences.
[ ♆ ] June 22nd: Characters confront the Clown Box, and all parties return to normal.
[ ♆ ] June 25th: All parties become privy to the final outcome involving the Clown Box.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They're from me. They're...responding to me.

[The constant slow-burn of his anxiety. The abyss-like nature of his own dread. Constant terror, constant paranoia, constant uncertainty, constant doubt - of course it'll pick all of that from the mire in his head and feed on it.]

Don't...get too close. Sets stuff on fire at random. I don't wanna...

[He doesn't wanna set you on fire, either.]

Don't worry, I'm at a safe distance.

[He probably isn't, who knows how far that fire can surge. But Kravitz isn't going to just leave him here, especially not when he's feeling at unease with this too for a reason he can't perfectly pinpoint.]

Listen, I've had abilities innate to me for many, many years. Think of them as an extension of yourself. Like you can stretch your limbs to reach outside of yourself. Concept the entire thing as your body, your form. Can you try that for me?

Don't talk to me like I'm a kid.

[He snarls it out before he can fully suppress it - irritation and toxic instinct spiking sharply to the surface. He doesn't realize why until there's the echo splitting several fractals through his brain: Can you do that for me, Tim? Can you hold out your arm and relax it for me, Tim? Can you lie down right here for me, Tim?]

[The flames roar all the higher in response.]

[Immediately, Tim sucks a breath in realization.]

Shit.

[He grimaces as the flames shoot higher, like he can feel the tension in the air, breathing out through his nose.]

I'm-- I'm sorry. I was trying to help you calm down.

[Okay, okay, he just needs to not sound patronizing. He can do that. This shouldn't be as hard as he's making it out to be.]

I'm attempting to instruct you. The sooner you recognize them as an expansion of your own body, the sooner they should stop harming you directly. But I know people are not... built, for this sort of thing. It is hard.

[Kravitz hesitates, one more second.]

Is this... helping? Tell me what you need if it's not

They're not an expansion of my - they're not mine.

[Stop being a dick, Tim. Calm down. Calm down, and stop snapping, because he's trying to help, and he's trying to be patient, and he can tell - why's he even trying? What has Tim ever done to warrant help?]

[Stop.]

I don't know where these even came from but I'm not supposed to have them. [He hisses between his teeth immediately after, grimacing hard. The skin at his wrists has turned rash-red and flaking.]

[He's not supposed to be on fire for this long, either.]

[Most people aren't supposed to be on fire at all, but here we are.]

They are for now. The less you fight yourself the easier this should be.

[He can feel it, the worry, the conflict. Kravitz wouldn't even begin to consider himself a good person, but he's just too orderly to leave someone here on fucking fire. It isn't just. It isn't right.]

Feel them as yourself and cast off personal judgement. It will be easier.

[He's trying to listen, trying to think through the smoke that feels like it's fogging his brain, but the hard bite of the flames is making it hard, and - and where's this guy get off saying that he can shrug off personal judgment? He can't, does he get that? He can't, not for a second. Not for anything.]

Personal judgment? I've been fighting myself my entire life, asshole!

[FOOM.]

[The towering inferno abruptly flares outward yet again, and Tim abruptly buckles forward with a strangled yell as they start to sear at his skin.]

[He ends up on his hands and knees, reflexive tears springing to his eyes.]

[Well, fuck.

Kravitz presses his lips into a tight line, and now he absolutely has to do something. That man is on fire. He searches quickly for what he can find here, and ends up simply sprinting towards the temple, grabbing literally anything that holds water, and dousing him with a bucket of seawater. It ain't great, but it sure is something that maybe won't backfire on him.]

Tim! Answer me! Please-- you should not die here, and I think I can speak with expertise on that front.

[god kravitz is it REALLY the time]

[Smoke and water make a bad combination for beleaguered lungs. He's already coughing by the time a deluge of saltwater soaks his shirt to his skin, and that just intensifies it.]

[Apocalyptic flames aren't so easily tamed by water, so he doesn't go out entirely, but a combination of the shock of cold water and the sheer exhaustion of having to maintain an explosive burst of fire that large is enough to dim them for a moment.]

Fuck - fu - [Another coughing fit robs him of anything else he was going to say, but you can rest assured that it was something to the effect of: fuck this.]

Ghg.

[Yeah, that's... that's about what he expected. Kravitz is breathing harder than he means to, a nervous seize in his chest while he waits for Tim to come down, holding the bucket near his head like it's some kind of flail.]

Sorry, I'm-- very sorry, but I figured this was better than the alternative.

[He'll hold out a hand to try helping him up, though. If it makes any difference.]

Alt...ernative?

[He glances up, his expression screwed up in the midst of cough after spluttering cough. His skin's damp enough to minimize the ache, though that might just be the shock of the cold.]

[Kravitz has a hand out to him.]

[He takes it.]

What alternative?

You burning to death, I imagine.

[He'll try to bring him up gently, but without looking overly worried about the experience, even though he sure is feeling some kind of way and dislikes it greatly.]

The water likely wasn't pleasant, but on a scale of the two, this was less likely to kill you immediately.

[Kravitz isn't sure Tim has the energy to make jokes about death saving his life or refusing to let him cross, but he's anticipating it regardless.]

This isn't burning me alive. [Yet.] It just hurts. I dunno if it...maybe needs me alive to k-keep burning.

[The words peter off the longer he says them aloud - possibly because he realizes a) how fucked up it is that he's just going around saying this shit like it's not big deal, and b) how applicable that metaphor is to his fucking life.]

[Can't die. Can't be killed. Not while It still has a use for him.]

[He shakes wet hair from his eyes.]

But, uh - th-thanks, I guess.

[That's an even more gruesome thought, but it would make... sense, through it all. He won't say that though, with the full knowledge he's kind of done enough damage here.]

Right. My apologies for trying to, er, take control of the situation, I suppose. I recall when I first was granted many of my abilities, I was very confused about how to really use them. It's a finesse that takes a long time to learn, but I know you have not been granted that kind of time.

[Not that that's anything Tim doesn't know, most likely.]

Perhaps you can ride this out at the bathhouse? What with all the water.

Assuming I don't set anything on fire.

[Didn't all this trouble start because wouldn't stop messing with Io? He doesn't know. He gave the Box a tape, and that was enough to get it to leave him the hell alone. Should've known better than to think that would be the end of it.]

I d-don't think this is mine. It's not me.

[If it was his, it'd be burning him alive.]

They may not be originally. But for now, they are. I doubt this is something you can completely solve, and with luck we will not be dealing with it much longer. But I would like it if you survived that long.

[Probably a selfish way to think about it, but he also doesn't want to tell Tim to do anything about now.]

So, if there is anything I can do, I would like to.

What's it matter to you if I survive?

[He doesn't have to clean up after, right? He'll burn to death, sure, and that'll suck, but it'll be faster than the flowers, and does Kravitz think this is the first time Tim's had to contend with the possibility that he might be burned alive? He was setting shit on fire before he was even eighteen.]

[Ready to burn if it burned too.]

Because it isn't just.

[Oh, here we go, even if he's trying to pick his words so Tim doesn't burst into flames again.]

I'm a bounty hunter, but I'm more importantly a judge of the punishment for the crime. My primary objective is just to make sure the balance is restored- the dead stay dead, the living do not meddle with that. It brings me no joy to murder desperate people who are backed into a corner.

[And he doesn't. He didn't kill Lucas despite coming within an inch of destroying the world. He just needed Maureen to come back with him.]

Suddenly having a power thrust upon you that you cannot control that strikes you down? It's simply not fair. No one should die like that.

[Laugh. Don't laugh. Laughter isn't his instinct, and he knows it isn't his instinct because he doesn't laugh at things on reflex. But he wants to. God, he wants to. Wants to burst into laughter burst into flames burst into laughter at the simplicity of it the irony of it the cosmic cruelty of what Kravitz is saying to him right now.]

[His eyes are watering. They sting. He coughs, shutting them. He's still soaking wet. No one'll notice if he starts. Does it matter if Kravitz notices, anyway? When has he cared who sees him like this? A wreck, shivering and trying not to sob. Hundreds of thousands have seen him like this, and not cared.]

[Without meaning to, Tim's shoulders have drawn up around him as he tries and fails to choke back a hitch in his throat, a cough that turns into a sob.]

Th-that's just my entire life. Everyone I've ever -

[Everyone you've ever known.]

[And this, right here, is why Kravitz is so militant at his job. It is so impossibly rare that someone is truly evil, trying to destroy the innocent in the name of power. More often his dealings are with the victim- the soul he has to pull back from the trauma of dying again and again, from the pain of a soul getting stretched and torn between worlds. He is the jury and often executioner of his Lady's judgement, but in tandem, he finds himself the pallbearer, the last hands standing at the end of the line.

He knows. He knows so badly the type of horror that can come from being beaten around by the universe, and that's why his job is so important. The world isn't fair. The universe is not just. So he makes himself it's attendant, the janitor of the cases that fall by the wayside. They matter. This is why the rules matter.]

That doesn't mean it was right, or deserved.

[Because he knows right, and he can tell just from this it damn well wasn't.]

I am sorry that no one was there to stop whatever force held power over you. There should have been someone there managing that entire situation, and it should never have been expected that just anyone pulled in could fix it. I say this with the confidence of a man who has seen thousands of cases, despite not intimately knowing yours.

Managing - ?

[The word chokes halfway. Don't laugh. Don't fucking laugh, but god if that isn't maybe the worst idea he's ever heard. It sounds too much like what Alex thought he could be, what Alex thought he was doing. Managing it. Keeping it under control.]

It's not fucking manageable. Y-you think that, that every anomaly out there in the universe just pulls up to some official building and signs itself in for surveillance? Some fucking - case. What the hell are you talking about.

Of course they don't.

[Maybe it's because he's trying to be composed, or maybe he's just been challenged too many times on this particular point, but his words are sharper-- and probably with more genuine feeling than Tim has seen from him before.]

I'm not an idiot, nor a hopeful fool. I've been doing this for a thousand years. The universe does not keep itself in check, but it has rules for it to be sustained. Do you know how easy it is to break the world? It's fragile. The balance of life and death is incredibly delicate, and that is why the universe employs servants to make sure it stays stable.

[He doesn't know if he's ever explained this to someone, but well, circumstances. It's never been relevant.]

Keeping the world running is no small task, and that's why when I hear things like this, where someone obviously gave little care to letting some horror wander about amassing power! It's not right. It's work, work to specifically stop what has apparently happened to you from occurring. Of course it isn't easy! But this is why it's vital.

Y-you listen. No one let this thing happen. It just happened. It just bleeds into the fucking universe and takes whatever It wants and no one can stop It.

[The words are getting louder. They're getting louder, and the flames are - hot. Even despite the soaking quality of his clothes, his hair wet and clinging to his forehead, the sodden ground around his feet, there's the hiss of steam as the bluish fire flares ever higher, burning at the moisture and crackling at his clothes. Bites at his skin. Hurts like his grit teeth.]

No one can do anything about It but try and forget and th-that isn't even enough, so you don't ever, ever think that it's something fucking fixable - you understand me?

[The flames roar.]

[Maybe that's just the blood pounding in his ears. Can't hear anything - are you even listening to yourself?]

[What is he doing?]

[Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, oh god shut up you brought It up you brought It up now It's coming It's coming and it's your fault - ]

No.

[It's quiet, barely audible over the hiss of the fire roaring up along his shoulders, sparking down his fingertips, spitting sparks onto the ground. But he's gone still, as though rooted to the spot.]

No, no, no, no, no -

[You did this. Your fault, Tim. You brought it up.]

[Everything that's happened is your fault.]

[He should have known this would happen. This is the problem with passion, the way he so often falls to it; always have to be a right. Always have to be a structure. He swears he can hear Anbaki giving him shit in the back of his brain for it now. But that's not important when the man in front of him is back to being on fire, and without thinking, he just reaches out and grabs his shoulders.

Oh, this is going to hurt.]

Tim! Listen to me! It is well within your right to be scared and not believe me, but however long you are here you will not be found! And if whatever great beast arrives here, we will handle that ultimatum when it comes. Please--

[He won't let go, even if it burns and he wishes he was more himself and less mortal.]

Please listen to me. Listen to someone.

[In another minute, Tim's shouting inarticulately. Give it a minute further, and that shouting has words.]

Get off me get off me get off me get off me get OFF ME -

[He's not listening. He can't listen. He can't listen to anything but the heat biting at his ears and the flames are starting to sear his skin, burning into the hands of someone who's gripped his shoulders. He can't do this. He can't be grabbed like that'll fix it not like this he can't do this.]

[He needs to get to the water. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like the water, but if he doesn't, he burns.]

[Maybe he should.]

June Event: Chaos, Chaos!

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