SAND IN THE GLASS ※ EVENT ※ TDM※ 2

[wildestmods]

SAND IN THE GLASS

The group's journey across the sands is fortunately one that's guided. The small desert they're in has mountains off to either side to guide them. They just have to traverse the desert valley until they reach the end.

The sun is bad but not completely unbearable. The heat is intense, but not enough to make them collapse instantly. A dry wind occasionally blows and while it's hot, it at least causes any sweat to instantly evaporate off.

But dry heat is still heat. And they still have to traverse the valleys between dunes and occasionally struggle over them if there are no dips to pick their way through. The mountains to the sides are tall and seem to have very few valleys, and their enemies are far off behind them.

The only way through is forward.

The intel from the letter they found is correct. It's only a day's journey to the ruins that were spoken of. It's evening when they arrive. A large, deep, deep well is one of the first things they find, just before the city. It still has water, clean and clear.

Beyond it...

AGRABAH

The ruins of a once-flourishing kingdom lay before them. The domes of the palace are cracked and one seems to have fallen, crushing part of the city - but there is no trail of damage. It didn't roll, it was somehow thrown by something massive.

The city has furrows of destruction and debris blocking certain streets and paths. It looks as if something tried to block certain paths and carved out other straight paths that led right to the palace. Claw marks and blade marks are visible in the debris clusters, like something tried to claw through it. Half-buried in those areas are the crushed and rotting remains of armored monsters - orcs.

The open paths have the discarded objects one might expect of evacuating people - dropped belongings, discarded bags of grain, lost sandals, children's toys. It looks almost like something blocked the monsters and created straight paths for people.

Or perhaps it's not a something but rather a someone. Right near the area they walk in, there's a massive handprint in the debris and dirt, large enough to stand in. And near the beginning of the paths to the palace there are massive finger holes dug into the dirt, like that same hand clawed those paths clear.

Whatever happened here, the city is now silent. The enemies that were here are gone and so are the kingdom's people. And it looks, from some of the belongings left behind - like children's toys that clearly look like trolls - that the trolls of Trollmarket followed in the footsteps of the kingdom's residents, through their evacuation routes.

It's safe for a moment, long enough for the group to hydrate, rest, and recover. There are even some supplies to be scavenged from the wreckage. Crude weapons they can steal from the dead orc bodies, small bags of grain, even bags of spices.

The light of the moon and stars is enough to move around with, due to the lightness of the sand and buildings. It seems to light the ruins up with its own glow. Due to the cracks in the walls and roofs of the remaining buildings, there's even some light that reaches inside them.

They'll need it because of the darkness that's due to descend.

NEW PLAYERS/CHARACTERS
Test drive memes in Wilderlands are full game events that are open to new players and characters. This means that current players can also top-level in them. Current characters will be able to sense that a new person is bound by the quest magic (so they'll know they're not an enemy) and know instinctually that they're new to the group.

Since the group already knows that new people can and do show up, they can reach out to the new character during the event to help them. There are also downtime prompts so people can intro during a quieter moment.

USEFUL LINKS


Premise/Short Facts | Arrival/Welcome | Setting Background/FAQ | Major NPCs


SHADOWHUNTERS

The Shadowhunters attack first, some of them firing arrows at the group to separate and herd them. The only words the squad hears at the beginning is a deep voice saying, "You know what to do."

The Shadowhunters are disciplined warriors. Each has an enchanted weapon of some kind, empowered to have minor advantages in ways similar to the group's blessed weapons, or magical runes for these advantages are already tattooed onto their bodies. Some can run faster than normal humans, up to 40 MPH, some have increased accuracy with their arrows and seem to never miss. Some heal much faster than normal, glowing healing runes activating anytime they're hurt. They fight with any weapons other than guns - whips, bows and arrows, swords, large knives, etc.

Their teamwork, however, seems to have its limits. While the Shadowhunters are all skilled, many of them were solo hunters, or only worked in small groups. They outnumber the squad but their teamwork isn't as impeccable as their skill with their weapons.

Nets

While they're extremely willing to injure the squad they seem to be trying to capture most of them instead of killing them, occasionally tossing out nets of glowing silver. Being caught in the nets renders someone paralyzed and weak, a deep cold settling into their bones. Some may even hear the shrieks of dying loved ones, whether they've actually died in reality or not. When someone particularly large is captured, the Shadowhunters work together to drag them in the net.

The nets are difficult to destroy, but can be with great force of some kind. It has to be aimed at the part closest to the Shadowhunters' hands, because the force required to break the nets would also injure those trapped inside them. The cold and paralysis fades when the victims are free, but some of the rescued may feel weak and need help staying on their feet. Unfortunately, even when they're broken, the nets of moonlight seem to be something they can recreate within several minutes, drawing them from runes on their arms.

Flying Monkeys

Exactly what it says on the tin. Chimp-sized flying screeching monkeys in dapper little hats and vests help the Shadowhunters by grabbing and carrying people towards them or their nets, herding them, or attacking and grappling with people to make them more vulnerable.

Orders

The Shadowhunters are dogged, and seem to have very clear orders: they're trying to capture people the way the Sisters did. They seem to have different sensibilities on how they do it with different types of people. They can automatically sense what kind of person someone is.

• Mundane humans or PCs with blessed weapons get the kid gloves, with the Shadowhunters telling them, "I know you don't understand, but we need you. There's a war, innocent people are dying. We need normal humans to join our cause." They'll still go in for the capture, but only with as much force is necessary.
• Nonhumans like aliens or metahumans with superpowers (who aren't mages, fae, vampires, or werewolves) get a slightly more brutal beatdown. Though sometimes the less disciplined Shadowhunters (since some are young or new) might coo over the cuter squad members (cute furry ones, short ones, etc) in a dehumanizing way, like they should be pets.
• Classic supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves, fae, and most mages (with the exception of Necromancers) get sneers and particularly brutal attacks before attempted capture. They're not averse to putting them in traction before carting them away.
• Those that have unholy inclinations, like wielders of Cursed Weapons, Necromancers, and demons, they try to kill these people on sight, often using their seraph blades, holy weapons that can burn with a holy fire. Just a nick from these weapons causes a serious searing wound, and a full on stab anywhere on the body is instantly fatal. Any survivable wounds will automatically get a holy infection resistant to any external forms of healing other than the body's, though this is survivable if they're small.
• Actual Biblical angels will have the Shadowhunters straight up bow down before them and refuse to lay a hand on them - because they have oaths beyond that of the Unfinished Princess.

NAZGUL

Shortly after the Shadowhunters attack, a cold dread fills the city. A darkness sweeps through its streets, even though there's no change in the moonlight. The sky seems colder and the stars seem much farther away. A knee-deep fog seems to roll in from nowhere and cover the ground.

A piercing chill fills the air and a quaking dread rolls through the streets and alleys in waves. Regardless of who an individual is or what they've faced in life, regardless of powers or telepathic blocks, the dread and terror is a magical force of nature. Even those who never feel such fear will feel it now.

The Shadowhunters feel it too. There is a thin, anxious cry of "Nazgul!"

Dark cloaked and hooded shapes now move through the city streets, and something terrible happens: they multiply. Nine shapes enter, and as they stalk through the streets, they split into even more shapes. 9 becomes 18, 18 becomes 27. Each of the Nazgul is able to prism into 3 Nazgul total, linked as one mind, able to spread through the city and attack separate enemies.

They start slaying Shadowhunters immediately, creating chaos as the Shadowhunters attack back while still trying to complete their mission of kidnapping. There is mass chaos. Flaming arrows and flaming swords start lighting canopies and stands of cloth rugs on fire - at least enough to show the Nazgul are not particularly fond of it.

"Use a scatter rune, throw them off balance!"

A rune is activated, but the person that activated it is stabbed from behind right when they do, causing the spell to misfire, and instead of throwing just the Nazgul off balance, everyone is scattered through the streets. The Nazgul are not a terrifying united front now, but the squad and Shadowhunters are scattered as well. And though the spell will eventually burn out, it keeps firing off for a time, causing people to be teleported around. The only way to stop the effect is keep trying to move out of its range, deeper into the city, towards the palace.

Not an easy feat while the looming shapes of Nazgul stalk the streets and carved out evacuation paths, moving like ink.

Nazgul Effects

• Terror. Regardless of how big and bad a member of the squad is, regardless of whether or not they can usually block psionic influence, every character will feel stomach-churning, "what the fuck is this??" fear in the presence of Nazgul, though it depends on them how they work through it. They're not just ghouls or ghosts, they have the power of basically a world's version of Satan (or at least Satan's apprentice) working through them. While they don't cause flashbacks like the Nightrenders, they give off an unblockable aura of cold, monstrous, terrifyingly pure evil
• Morgul-blades. Their normal swords just work like normal swords but the Nazgul also have long blades they stab people with that have a shard of the blade fall off into the wound. This shard slowly works its way to the heart of the victim and eventually turns them to a wraith like them, forever subsumed to the control of the Dark Lord. While healing powers will be able to help somewhat with these wounds and slow the progress of the shard, they won't cure it or push the shard out of the body. Even those with surgical skills will find it impossible to pull a shard out - it'll always slip away from things like forceps. They'll have to reach Rivendell in time and get healing from the Elves to remove the shards.
• Black breath. If they can get in close - and especially if they can touch someone, the Nazgul can inflict a serious and eventually fatal condition, an infection from their aura. If they don't knock the person out instantly, they'll gradually lose consciousness and have a coma state filled with terrible nightmares. Then they'll eventually die. Players can decide how long it takes for their character to be affected, whether they go unconscious instantly and have to be carried, or last long enough to reach the woods beyond the palace. These characters won't have to wait for Rivendell to heal, a certain plant in the woods past the palace can be used to draw them out of their comas and cure it.

PROMPTS

a) HOTTER THAN HOT
The desert is not infinite but it is unforgiving. A day's journey is still a day's journey and because the Nightrenders will become active when the sun sets, you can't wait to travel by night. You have to hope that the information the group got about the length of the crossing will make up for the fact you have to trudge across it under the ruthless light of the sun - and hope that your water supplies will hold out.

It's a journey that will be difficult to make if you don't support each other, share water and food, help the weaker members keep moving - or even carry those who wind up collapsing of exhaustion and dehydration. It'll take a group effort to get everyone to the end.

If you're new, you'll have an even worse time, thrown in to the ravages of the desert with no warning. The caravan of oddball strangers you're drawn to may be your only salvation.

b) WHEN THE WIND'S FROM THE EAST
The desert gets especially bad when that big dust storm rolls through, whoops. You'll all have to hunker down, take what shelter you can in the rocks, and hold onto each other. And help dig out the smaller members after the storm to keep them from being buried alive.

And then there's the first aid after, like helping get sand of each other's eyes and tending to scratched corneas and sandblasted skin abrasions.

c) 'NEATH ARABIAN MOONS
Rejoice! You've arrived! And the well water right before the ruins is still pure, unspoiled, and abundant. There are also some supplies that can still be scavenged from the abandoned market. Fresh fruit and vegetables are right out because they've definitely been rotting at least a few days, but there are bags of rice and bulgur wheat grain, and some of the more nonperishable foods were left covered or in tightly sealed barrels, like dried dates, nuts, pickled turnips, and olives. You have some time to collapse and drink your weight in water, rest, replenish, and scavenge from the marketplace in the fading evening sun and the light of the rising moon. The empty marketplaces also leave room for cooking fires and some of the surrounding buildings have cooking oil and the right cookware to grind grain and make things like flatbreads.

d) A FOOL OFF HIS GUARD
Of course your period of rest is interrupted by another attack. Pretty typical by now, right? The Shadowhunters at least aren't as coordinated as they could be, but they are effective in their different squads. However, while they have subtle advantages in stretch, speed, agility, and accuracy from their angelic runes, they can't quite match the raw power of some of the squad.

Especially if you stand together.

So whether it's fighting Shadowhunters, swatting at their flying monkeys, freeing each other from nets, or protecting the group's more demonically-inclined from very fatal seraph blades, your best bet at everyone getting away is by trying not to do it alone.

e) COULD FALL AND FALL HARD
The dark shapes of the Nazgul are good at clinging to the shadows but the light of the stars and moon seem to be working extra hard at causing their movement to be seen, almost as if there is something holy to them that's watching over the group. The Nazgul don't speak, their gliding movement just push them inexorably after their prey. They don't seem to be trying to capture them. Just like the Nightrenders the group has dealt with in the past, they mostly go in for the kill.

The only exception is the times they draw one of their shorter Morgul-blades. Those wounds don't have to be fatal - any wound anywhere on the body will cause someone to succumb to becoming a wraith in time, forcing them to join them in the cold clutches of the Dark Lord, trapped into obedience to him forevermore.

One advantage you have is that the Nazgul aren't particularly acrobatic as keeping a solid form is its own challenge to them. You can take to higher ground to move safely, run through broken down walls, climb up to roofs, and/or jump across to other buildings. You may have to also make quick escapes, taking advantage of holes in floors that lead to stores of soft grain, scaffolding, ladders, ropes, or soft, bouncy canopies over shops that can act as trampolines.

Sometimes the only way to get away from the danger is by staying one jump ahead of the hitmen, one trick ahead of disaster, and one skip ahead of your doom.

f) WILDCARD
Maybe you decide to do none of the above. Or want to play out something like your character getting another to safety away from the battle. Go nuts!

OOC DETAILS
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic is tugging the group together, and towards the palace and the lands beyond.

❧ Archivist Spells: There will be little eddies of leftover genie magic that allow Archivists to bank 4 iterations of a Sandstorm spell during downtime before the attack. This spell allows for a localized mini-tornado that can sandblast 1 enemy. Alongside disorienting and distracting them, the tornado's winds are strong enough to damage corneas and cause some abrasions.

❧ Teleportation: The flawed scatter spell one of the Shadowhunters activated with an angel rune can explain why two characters that might otherwise stay together through the whole thing might get separated. They'll blink around a few times before they can make their way out of range of the spell zone.

❧ Network: The network can be used by current players. Mirrors can and do float, and can follow someone as they move, allowing people to communicate while running or fighting. Feel free to use the network in parallel with the log events. Prospective players can handwave not using the mirrors because they haven't kicked on yet and it takes some time to figure out how they work, like magical Zoom calls.

❧ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc the actions of the Shadowhunters, flying monkeys, and the Nazgul. The flying monkeys won't speak. The Shadowhunters can be npced as speaking, as long as it's kept to the listed rules for how they treat each type of person. They won't reveal any information other than they're kidnapping them to take them to the Unfinished Princess to fight in some kind of war, and are less likely to share this info the more inhuman a character is. he Nazgul, on the other hand, will never speak.

❧ Enemy damage: Players can have their characters successfully kill Shadowhunters if they would do so. They're a bit tougher than normal humans, but not by much. The Nazgul, however, can't be killed, though they can be routed off by holy attacks, fire, or powers players have gotten approved as being able to hurt unholy or ethereal beings. If you have a question about whether/how something will affect either enemy, feel free to ask the mods in the first comment below.

❧ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are lots of buildings close together with scaffoldings, ladders, ropes, piles of barrels, just about everything you would want if you were either Jackie Chan fighting bad guys while holding a baby, or trying to PARKOUR! The orc corpses provide options for necromancy if Necromancers have powers to animate the date, and also crude weapons that can be scavenged for use.

❧ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding to rescuing a 3rd. Players are also encouraged to set limitations if they think it'd be more interesting, like locking their final escape prompt through the palace to the other side to a single thread partner and playing out the drama of a full escape.

Comments

Sarah Kerrigan

[zerg_rush]

ok i'm not anywhere close to having all my ideas sorted so i'm just going to post beneath this as i get starters written

a - hotter than hot

[zerg_rush]

During one of the group's rest periods—more frequent than she would have taken, but there are a lot of people here who aren't psychic space Amazons—Kerrigan sprawls against a rock feature too large to be a boulder and too small to be a cliff, but nomenclature isn't the important part. The important part is that it casts a shadow.

She takes measured sips from a salvaged troll cup that in her hands looks more like a tankard. If the stuff were coffee it would be lukewarm, but since it's water, it's past tepid and starting to edge into outright hot, and something about the spring it was drawn from or the vessel it was stored in or the cup it's inhabiting now has given it a metallic taste. Despite it all, it's requiring a considerable exercise of will to keep her from chugging it down in a few gulps.

Sweat darkens Kerrigan's red hair and has left streaks in the sand on her face, and where it's dried, the salt pulls at her skin. The exhaustion of the rest of the group presses at her mind, and where her armor isn't trapping sweat, it's itching. The engineers who designed it hadn't considered there'd be a time she'd need to wear it in the desert without the active temperature control working, so she has no way to unzip a shirt or take off her boots to cool herself. Her only option would be to strip it off entirely, and it's not modesty that's stopping her. It's the thought of the skintight bottom layer trapping sand against her skin. The burn blooming on her cheeks and nose is already shaping up to be bad enough without rubbing the rest of herself raw.

Kerrigan scratches underneath her ponytail, or tries to, her glove making it an unsatisfactory experience. "Dammit." Why is adversity always so annoying? "Can I trade this for a nice sucking chest wound?"

Re: a - hotter than hot

[millenyal_pink]

Elle, in one of her many rounds of checking up on people, wanders over to Kerrigan. The only time she's shifted out of Crinos today have been when she's gone into Feline to scout ahead.

"Here, this should at least keep the sun off your face some," she's holding out a medium sized rectangle of cotton cloth she grabbed from their supplies. "And help with the heat. If you need help putting it on, I learned how from Crowley."

She sticks her thumb over her shoulder and points at where Crowley and Aziraphale are talking and wearing their keffiyehs. The seem to be at relative ease in the environment, especially compared to some of the others (Kerrigan included).

[zerg_rush]

Kerrigan looks up at Elle, and with the extraordinary tact of someone who didn't have any social skills to begin with and who can see heat stroke from where she's sitting, asks: "Why is Stacia a dog and you're a cat? Do you get to pick?"

[millenyal_pink]

Elle snorts like Kerrigan made a funny joke.

"Uh-- no, not really."

Except for me, she thinks.

"It's a species thing. Shifters can generally crossbreed with humans and whatever animal we shift into. There's no guarantee that kid'll be a shifter, but it's possible."

And each other, she doesn't say, because the Metis are a whole bag of worms that's honestly difficult to explain, and Elle has a hell of a lot of questions, comments, and concerns about how they're treated (especially by the Garou).

Elle has managed to temporarily forget that Kerrigan has telepathy and can hear all of thoughts going through her head.

[zerg_rush]

"Huh." Kerrigan really only wanted a general answer. She herself being an exception to rules about the species she comes from, she's perfectly okay with those existing, and she did promise she wouldn't act on any harmless thoughts she picks up. Choosing to be a cat-person is weird, but she doesn't see a way that it'll get anybody in trouble.

Except...Elle's been unprecedentedly accepting about the mind-reading, so it seems unfair not to mention to her that Kerrigan noticed the big mental asterisk on that statement. If she can't keep from overhearing, she can at least level the playing field a little.

...Right?

(Wow, it's almost like raising a kid to be a weapon gives them limited ability to work through ethics problems.)

"Uh, you should know I caught that bit about yourself."

[millenyal_pink]

Shit.

"Shit."

Okay. Well, now Elle has to figure out what to do, but unfortunately Kerrigan is going to be privy to that mental process no matter what she does.

It's not a particularly long story, it's just one that Elle really doesn't want getting out. Not because she's ashamed or embarrassed, or that she thinks something bad will happen, it's just...

Ace and Stacia are in the group. They're Garou, and as a general rule, the Garou she meets already don't like her. She knows how Stacia reacted in the future, or at least what she showed, and that was generally favorable, but she doesn't know how Stacia will react now. Or how Ace would react. Silver Fangs are always a crap shoot, even the half-decent ones.

Plus, it's been nice to be somewhere where people just... don't know. They don't already know about her and haven't already come to their own judgements about it. She isn't working against her somewhat infamous reputation to get a seat at the table. That probably wouldn't change, even if people knew, but... It's hard to let go of the emotions that have been ingrained in her for so long.

There is then a thought that can only be described as the mental equivalent of a cat yowling in annoyance and frustration. It's a noise that sounds like, if translated from cat-speak, would mean "fuuuuuuck!".

"Awesome. Um, it's... something I--"

She hasn't really really had to explain this before. Everyone always knows what she did and what it meant, and everyone always has their own opinions on it already formed.

"I'm a very, very big exception to the general rule." Which is putting it mildly. "It's not-- I can talk about it, I'm just not used to that? Where I come from everyone I meet pretty much already knows, and you probably already know that because you can hear me thinking."

God, she hates knowing how redundant she's being in conversations with Kerrigan. She also kind of hates not being able to pick and choose what parts of herself she gets to present, but she doesn't resent Kerrigan for that. It's just something she's going to have to adjust to.

"I did something real taboo, but ultimately not dangerous," to anyone but herself. "Like, no one got hurt," except herself. A lot.

--A flash of indescribable pain as every atom in Elle's body separates from each other, the essence of her being unmade at the same time her physical form is ripped apart. For a blessed moment, the pain stops as Elle ceases to exist.--

She lets the sensation pass through her, not holding on but letting it happen and then letting it go.

"But, for a lot of werewolves, they took it as a betrayal."

Which it wasn't. Even if she hadn't gotten the Gaian stamp of approval afterward, it's none of their damn business. It's not like she transformed into a human, or something.

"So I've been avoiding telling people, mostly because there's a lot of cultural context that's kind of hard to explain." And because she doesn't want to deal with it getting back to the wolves.

[zerg_rush]

"I don't care," Kerrigan says, then immediately realizes how that sounds and looks mortified. "I mean—it doesn't bother me." Well, obviously, since she's not privy to whatever subculture Elle comes from. Kerrigan takes a big drink of her disgusting water to give herself a second to recover from the embarrassment of how badly she's flubbing the response. "I won't tell anyone, but... If it needs to come out for any reason, you can trust Stacia."

You get that kind of relationship with someone when you team up to do a brain raid-slash-psychic assassination together.

[millenyal_pink]

Elle laughs a little at Kerrigan's embarrassment before waving it off. "It's fine, I get it."

'Trust Stacia' is always good advice, in Elle's opinion.

Kerrigan sees an image of Stacia in Elle's head, looking similar to the one she knows. But this Stacia is a little older, more refined, and holds herself a little higher. She's settled into her own skin some, and wields authority so naturally that people don't always realize she's doing it in the first place.

Flashes of meeting with Stacia in restaurants, or talking to her on the phone. A Stacia who's grown into herself a little more.

"Thank you, I appreciate that." She appreciates it a lot.

"I know," Elle agrees. "Stacia's good people and I trust her judgement."

She trusts it, but she can't always predict it and that makes her nervous.

"It's just something I'd rather not even have to deal with, especially not right now. The whole thing is just complicated, and it's probably better for it to stay quiet for now."

[zerg_rush]

"Complicated? Kind of like a person constantly having to explain they're a telepath?" Kerrigan gives Elle a tired little half-smile. "Don't worry. I've got plenty of 'complicated' of my own. I get it."

[millenyal_pink]

"Yeah, kind of like that," Elle smiles. It's a little disturbing in her current form, her mouth opens too wide and there are too many, very sharp, teeth, but it's definitely readable as a smile.

It's weird to have someone who just... knows stuff without having to tell them. It's kind of nice, in a way, but weird.

[zerg_rush]

Telepathy helps with not being terrified of a giant cat-monster baring teeth at her.

"You, uh, said something about keeping the sun off my face?" Kerrigan knows it's an awkward subject change, but she's also too hot and sweaty to care. "I need all the help I can get."

She gestures at the sunburn that's already showing. She's going to be a boiled lobster by sunset.

[millenyal_pink]

Oh yeah, Elle's still holding the fabric for the keffiyeh. It's a lighter-tone grey with bright blue and purple geometric patterning. Probably not exactly Kerrigan's style, but functional nonetheless (and Elle thinks that the colors will suit Kerrigan's complexion.)

She holds it out agin for Kerrigan to take.

"It should keep the sand out of your hair, too."

Elle doesn't know if Kerrigan knows how to put it on properly. Elle herself had Crowley walk her through the process a few times, but ended up not needing one for herself since she's spending her time in Crinos and Feline

The steps flash through Elle's head, quick and disjointed. Then slowly and deliberately. There's need to talk anyone through it when she can just show them.

c - 'neath arabian moons

[zerg_rush]

FOR KARKAT

Kerrigan is sitting on a rubble pile, using her mirror for its mundane purpose. As she'd predicted before they'd left, the trip has turned her face as red as the sunset whose majestic glory she's ignoring to prod at the burn as if she expects that to do something besides hurt.

Poke.

"Ow."

OPEN

With the weird alien kid's help, Kerrigan's fast-forwarded a few days in the course of healing a bad sunburn, and combined with food, water, and the descending cool of evening, she's almost comfortable. Head propped on a rolled-up carpet that she doesn't realize was a work of art before it had been abandoned to the sands, back to a wall and feet close enough to a cookfire to chase off the night but not recreate the day, she can feel the fatigue she's been ignoring creeping up on her....

"Wha—" Kerrigan startles and bolts upright from her doze. No, she totally didn't fall asleep in a strange location while on the run from an enemy with unknown capabilities without arranging someone to cover for her, why would you even think that? "Uh. Hi."

[pasthole]

Karkat has had a day. That's already a negative, in his reckoning. He may be of a species that's a bit more hard-wearing, and he may be functionally diurnal now due to a combination of time in a dayless void and long socialization with humans, but he is not required to like this.

He's composing a complaint as he checks around the group, building up an exaggerated and profane description of the day's miserable trudging, when he finally locates Kerrigan.

Yes. Right. The human mutant with the thought-reading. Do humans have a lot of mutants like that? He'd never asked, but it's almost homey of them if they do. Knowing people with telekinesis and suggestion and animal control and whatever other freakish abilities could boil up out of the troll genetic soup was always a minefield, but it was their minefield, dammit. It weeded out the weak, probably. Unless the weak could fucking crush your nugbone with their extra brain lobe, at least.

Shit, she can probably hear him thinking all this garbage. (Is anything he ever thinks not garbage? Stopthinkingaboutitstopthinkingaboutitfuckthisissoembarrassing-)

The young troll's expression pulls into a snaggle-fanged wince as he reaches her. Karkat is, for better or (usually) worse, a thinker, and is trying very hard to more or less stop being himself.

"I said I'd help, so here I am. Let's take this obligation out behind the shed and put it out of both our miseries?"

[zerg_rush]

Once Karkat's thoughts begin to focus on Kerrigan, it's like hearing someone murmuring her name over and over until she narrows in on the source...and that's the first and last time anyone will describe anything Karkat does as "murmuring," probably.

That sure is a stream of consciousness you've got there, kid.

"Thanks." She flashes him a tired half-smile, which transforms into a wince of her own when the expression pulls at sunburned skin. Kerrigan might not have any idea where Ireland is, but her genes sure do, and it's a place with way less UV making it through the atmosphere. Humans are not supposed to be that shade of red. "I think my ancestors came from somewhere a lot cloudier than this."

[pasthole]

"This is why my species is nocturnal. We figured this shit out," says Karkat as he comes over, as if this is definitely how that happened. He's sure that has to definitely be how that happened. His pragmatic foretrolls took one look at the sky and said "you know what, fuck that."

"Alright, so. Less than fantastic news first: For this to work, I do have to touch it."

open

[ahelpingpaw]

"H-Hi!"

Oh, grump, she woke up. Filbo couldn't sleep. Even though he was pretty tired from the trip, even though he would love to just lie down in some corner and rest, he just can't. It's not even that he feels something bad is going to happen, he just is too worried. He was lucky to not have been around when the Nightrenders attacked days ago, but from all he heard it's not hard to figure out just how dangerous they are. There's always a chance they could cross the desert and reach this place, no?

Disaster strikes when you least expect it, he knows that so well. Can't let his guard down.

But despite that, seeing someone else lying down and falling asleep, well...Filbo doesn't have the heart to wake them up. They probably don't need absolutely everyone in the group to be awake, letting them sleep should be fine. He had intended to just cross this place and just settle somewhere else, somewhere he could watch the outskirts of Agrabah, but he can't just walk away right now, not after being talked to.

"Sorry! I hope I didn't wake you up"

Re: c - 'neath arabian moons

[wisdomreceiver]

"Oh, hey." Henry waves at Kerrigan awkwardly "I know you. You're the one that got me out of the well."

e- could fall and fall hard

[zerg_rush]

FOR LOKEN

Fighting the Shadowhunters had almost been relaxing—regular, squishy people with mediocre training and an objective she's more than happy to prevent them from achieving.

The Nazgul are something else entirely. Every instinct she has screams at her not to engage. As she sprints through the city searching for her comrades, she does her best to stay above ground level, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and letting the much less acrobatic Shadowhunters on the streets below draw the nightmare creatures' attention. Fear tugs at her and running feels right, even if she has no real destination and the aura of dread never lessens. In the absence of safety, action will have to do.

Adrenaline masks her exhaustion, but it still lurks, slowing her reflexes and clouding her judgment. Inevitably, she misses a jump, falling short of her intended landing spot on the building below. She stops her plunge with a one-handed grab at the arabesque decorating the facade, but the low relief doesn't provide enough purchase for her fingers, and after an agonizing wrench, her grip gives way and she plummets once again. Tearing through an awning, she crashes into a pile of cheap clay bowls and jugs that shatter beneath her, dissipating the force of the landing and saving her life.

Dazed, Kerrigan hauls herself to her feet, shedding sherds of pottery, and realizes she's gone from frying pan to fire, or perhaps lava flow to open caldera, as the knot of Shadowhunters and the Nazgul they're facing pause their fight long enough to turn and look at her. The terror goes from sourceless to very understandable, tightening around her throat.

"Oh, fuck."

OPEN

The fear is still there, still clawing at her, but eventually, Kerrigan's unbreakable will proves, if not its master, at least its equal, forcing the panic to a stalemate and checking her wild flight through the city. She drops to a knee, chest heaving and darkness nipping at the edges of her vision, but the unthinking terror has been driven back far enough for rationality to regain a foothold.

Unfortunately, rationality hasn't got much to work with right now. Kerrigan whirls on the newcomer, knife in hand and teeth bared in the reflexive defiance of a cornered animal before recognition clicks and her aggression drains away. She should say something. She knows she should say something....

Kerrigan sits down hard.

Re: e- could fall and fall hard

[greyerrant]

Loken himself has been giving the shadowhunters a bad time, his previously sandblasted armor now coated with a patina of human blood, as he lost patience with their taunts and their magic, but agreed with Kerrigan wordlessly once the Nazgul arrived, withdrawing while ground-bound since without power his armor makes him too heavy to easily jump around, though he keeps her within visual range by sheer physical effort (and smashing through some of the less sturdy masonry in Agrabah.) Once he sees her fall, he smashes through the lintel of a nearby house, bursting through the remains of the display that Kerrigan didn't land on, and looks down at her.

Once he assesses that she is alive, he half-turns, saying, "It would appear that we shall have to make a stand."

[zerg_rush]

Still regaining her composure, Kerrigan gets showered in brick fragments and even more pottery. Oh. Hi, Garviel. She tosses a tight but genuine little smile up at him, yet the unnatural fear still hovers behind her eyes.

"The humans are no threat," she says, half hoping the humans in question overhear her, "but I don't like that other thing."

[greyerrant]

"Do you propose we evade it, or remove it from the battlefield?" He says, with equanimity, but his body language suggests something she's never seen in him before. On some level, even his psychologically conditioned and chemically manipulated psyche is deeply frightened by the wraiths, though he seems loathe to admit it.

[zerg_rush]

Despite Garviel's fear being deeply unsettling on its own, his mind is a familiar anchor, and she focuses on that, a beacon against the darkness seeping from the Nazgul. It will destroy her, quench her like a candle dropped into the ocean if she touches it. She knows this the way rabbits know to flee the fox—instinctively, primally.

:Keep the humans between us and it and get out of here,: she says into his mind. With what's at stake, he's just going to have to deal with telepathy. :We can't beat it the way we're armed.:

Not for the first time since arriving, she finds herself wishing for a firebat. A nice gout of flame would certainly level the playing field.

[greyerrant]

Loken nods, and makes sure she looks ready to move, preparing to fight with his short blade should they get cut off unexpectedly, and says, "Lead the way, I shall follow."

He trusts her on evasion tactics even more than he trusts himself. If it were an assault he'd naturally take the fore, but this kind of work is more suited to a covert elite operative like a ghost, and he's not too proud to defer to excellence when he sees it.