Chaos in Cassandra ( OPEN )

[bardbarous]

Who: Anyone caught in the violent fallout of an attempted execution
What: Chaos in Cassandra (Player Plot info here)
When: July 28th
Where: Hamlet Crossings, Cassandra

Content Warnings: Attempted public execution, near-suffocation, flaming middle fingers

Chapter I: Out-cooked at the Cookout

For somebody about to get torched in front of a blood-thirsty crowd, Vyng is remarkably calm. You might even think he's got everything under control. After all, each time somebody in the mob tries setting the straw beneath Vyng's feet ablaze? It promptly goes out, as if somebody smothered it with an invisible blanket.

"Knock it off!" Ethan — a zealous Disciple tasked with burning the heretic — hisses. "Accept the punishment being meted out to you with dignity, so that justice may be done."

"You mobber-fuckers call this justice?" Vyng retorts, defiant. "You dog-pile onto this blind, injured guy — uhh, me, just so we're clear — and tie him up? What does this accomplish?"

"Reckoning," Ethan declares. With a wave of his hand, fire crackles beneath Vyng’s feet once more. And Vyng, with the long-suffering sigh of a parent waiting for their tantrum-throwing child to tire himself out, closes his eyes...and the flames snuff out.

“Reckoning!" Ethan insists, louder. The fire roars back to life. Vyng puts it out again. "R-Reckoning!"

This time, when the fire comes back, it's shaped like a human hand. Flipping the crowd a flaming middle finger. Vyng, pleased with his own handy work, throws his head back. And starts laughing.

That's when somebody in the restless crowd gets tired of his shit. "Kill him!" they shout. "Kill the Waste!"

Vyng can control the elements. He can withstand the heat of a volcano. But he is not immune to bludgeoning damage. A boot (a freaking boot!) sails from the crowd, clocking Vyng in the side of the head. Stars explode behind his eyes. Smoke pours into his gills and nose. His lungs begin to burn.

And that's when he realizes...he might actually be kind of fucked this time.

"A boot to the head?" he grouses to himself as unconsciousness begins to claim him. "What a lame way to go." But if the townies want to make him a martyr...then, so be it. He accepts his fate.

He just hopes he’s the only Sleeper who gets targeted.


((OOC: Vyng is currently blind, but he’s watching the proceedings from the eyes of a raven circling overhead. Feel free to have your character get caught up in the mob, become a target themselves, or alert other Sleepers to the blood-thirsty crowd congregating in Cassandra. Tuck will be saving Vyng, but he will need help in Chapters 2 and 3.))

Chapter II: Save the Flammable Damsel

Like a demon bat out of the Outer Dark, there is nothing stopping Tuck now as the front of the crowd finally split open from the force of his fellow Sleeper. His thundering stomps shake the very earth under them all as he makes a beeline for his best friend and the father of his son, tossing aside any dumb Trenchies that think they have any shot of blocking a seven-foot behemoth from his duty.

His giant hands rip apart the ropes binding the half-elf to the pole stabbed into the ground. It likely took several people to beat down, but it only takes one Tuck to pull it up and thrust it out into the sea of Trenchies and Sleepers alike to keep them at bay with one hand. The other holds Vyng like a wilting damsel curled against his chest. Boy would it make a great metal album cover.

"You want him so bad?" Tuck bellows out into the bloodthirsty crowd with his new wooden pike. "Come and get him!"


(( OOC: Tuck and Vyng need a path out of the chaos from Hamlet Crossings to a secure location, or at least a place to lay low until the mob can be dispersed. Your characters have the opportunity to scout out a better location, to lead them and other Sleepers through the mob by force or by cunning, or distract what you can of the crowd! Ultimately in Chapter 3, Tuck and other Sleepers will defend Vyng from inside an abandoned building. ))

Chapter III: Defending the Sanctuary

What's that saying, "Out of the fire and into the abandoned building with no discernable means of escape?" Those Sleepers who bravely led the charge to save Vyng from his fiery fate and cut a path through the outraged mob now find themselves in this exact situation.

Tuck has claimed this abandoned building a sanctuary in spite of the loud naysayers in the crowd pointing out it is, in fact, not. The Pale Sanctuary is on another corner of Cassandra, but that's beside the point! It is their safe haven against the rising riot that threatens to overwhelm them and take back Vyng as a heretic.

Until reinforcements arrive to disperse the mob or they find a way to escape, it's up to the Sleepers to defend themselves. Everything still left in the three storey building is fair game to keep these crazed Trenchies at bay. Ways a Sleeper can interact for the Sanctuary or against it:

• Defend the house (either from inside or outside)
  
  
• Set inventive traps to ensnare or slow down intruders
  
  
• Go vigilante or full-on beast on Trenchies in the mob
  
  
• Or, go vigilante on anyone defending the Sanctuary*
  
  
• Be Evil and spread C H A O S (if that's your bag)
  
  
• Collect and share intel about possible escape routes to the nearest lamp location
  
  
• Crowd-thinning (peaceful or otherwise)

* Note: If your character falls on the Trenchies' side of The Roastening, they will have to contend with either a housecat-sized child (with a serious bodycount) or a 7-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide warrior (with a semi-sentient axe). Alternatively, you will likely make a friend for life if they see you helping even a little bit.

Comments

Chapter II

[imaglyphwitch]

Luz had, obviously, heard the hubbub from her house, it was very unlikely that she would be able to ignore anything like that, but was sure that she would be a target of a kind if she just appeared like she normally might, so she opted for using Eda's gift, the little cowboy hat, and had taken to the skies as a bird, joined soon by Owlbert, who had chosen not to be a staff yet. With him in tow Luz flew overhead to see what was happening and was pretty horrified to see it was something that would relate to her.

It looked to be an actual attempt at a burning, a WITCH burning at that, something that made her blood run cold. She watched as they were failing at first, which abated Luz a moment until she saw that they could, indeed, hurt Vyng and proceeded to do so. Luz also spotted there was another bird that seemed to be observing and made a note of this before removing her little hat and transforming a little way aways so she could punch out a warning message for those who were around Cassandra. Owlbert flew off at that point, and Luz gave him a wave, hoping he would come back soon.

After a time though, she did hear a roar from nearby, and stuffed her omni in her pocket before spying that yes, Vyng DID have someone looking out for him. A great big guy Luz knew she'd seen before had thrust himself onto the platform and was brandishing one of pikes, eager to get his friend out of there.

And Luz was just as eager to help, and was glad that her animal friends knew that, because here was Owlbert with her Omen Tempest in tow, who had her witches wool cloak in her mouth. Luz grinned, reaching out to pet her timberwolf and give Owlbert a smooch, who then turned into a staff and landed in Luz's hands.

"Showtime guys," Luz declared, and ran into the fray, glyphs in hand, throwing a few expertly and activating them with Owlbert's help. Plant vines came from the glyphs and were starting to work a path for the two to rush through, and any Trenchie attempting to stop Luz now had to deal with a pretty ferocious looking timber wolf looking intent on crushing an offender between her jaws.

[bardbarous]

Suddenly the path between Tuck and freedom was no longer so congested. The last Trenchie he swept off their feet was pulled back behind a roiling coil of vines that parted the crowd by brute force. Usually that was Vyng's M.O., but he wasn't at his best right now lying like a bag of dirt over his shoulder.

So who? His bright brown eyes scan the crowd for the obvious—he doesn't expect to a find a kid.

"Holy shit, are you doing that?" he shouts across the divide.

[imaglyphwitch]

Luz wasn't wasting time and was still moving through the crowds on her staff, going fast and making sure to leave glyphs in her wake to break up the groups of them that were gathered around the two of them. She knew it was necessary to give them the room to go, and she intended to do just that, even if things were going to get very hairy at this point.

"I'm doing it!" She replied. "Might be a good time to start running, in case no one replies to my message!"

She wished she could count on that, but for some she knew Cassandra was pretty far off.

[onerthes]

(OOC: From here)

Vira-Lorr barely got here in time. Everything was crazy under the circumstances, and getting to the party in a timely fashion was hard, but the lantern network helped. There was no sound to indicate she was present. The feathered shrug saw to her passing silently through the foliage before catching up to Luz.

The only real sign that Vira-Lorr was there came when she doffed the shrug, and there was a cacophonous shot. The round exploded like a flash bang where it struck the ground, causing a few of the trenchies to cover their ears, stunned. Vira-Lorr's Absol lunged out and charged. "No deaths, Sharona!" she shouted after it as it aimed to headbutt one of them hard while avoiding the glyphs.

[imaglyphwitch]

This was the first time she'd seen Vira's Absol in action and was enthralled a moment before resuming her glyph distractions. She went with her plant glyph because she knew she'd need the others if things got very serious. She wasn't prepared for the bang but was glad it got the Trenchies' attention.

Once she was headed toward Vira though, some Trenchies did come toward her to stop the two of them from meeting. Tempest got to two, wrestling them hard to the ground and absolutely ready to tear them apart, and Luz hit the ground with ice, preventing the rest from reaching her. It was grueling to anticipate the attack, but Luz's senses were all alight now.

She didn't want deaths either, if they could be avoided. She knew she still couldn't say the same for Michael.

"Vira! Have you seen him?"

Chapter III, ota

[bardbarous]

[ Tuck seems to be everywhere in the three storey building. Even if you can't see him, you can certainly hear him.

On the roof, his booming voice is being used to hurl insults at the crowd if any are brazen enough to get close. Unfortunately, as every child knows, words will never hurt anyone, so he moves to hurling construction materials. All along the dilapidated rooftop are fractured bricks and debris, and Tuck takes plenty of liberty with it collecting himself a pile of rubble.

If anyone happens to join him on the roof, Tuck may try and show off, ]

Hey, hey, you think I can hit someone in the back row? [ He points out into the crowd below them. Whether he knows the stranger or not, Tuck can never stop himself from making a crazy bet. ]

---

[ Tuck's found a case labeled FRAGILE with glassware and crystalware packaged haphazardly. Struck with a flash of genius, he begins smashing everything into small pieces of glass all over a hallway floor. With each piece placed, he moves back further and further until he hits a wall. And when he looks up, Tuck finds that he's trapped himself in a corner looking down the proverbial barrel of a shitton of broken glass. ]

Ohh, shh... iiit. Uh, hello? Help! HELP!

[On the roof]

[subject_013]

[He might find he has company, in the form of a blond guy in unseasonable black with dark glasses hiding his eyes, who's just scaled a roof gutter drainpipe - and then proceeded, despite a lot of uncharacteristic grunting and swearing under his breath ("Damn this weak shell to the bottommost chamber of a volcano..." etc), to pry off a long section of the drainpipe and heft it like a javelin.]

I bet you a round of drinks at The Red you could.

[bardbarous]

[ Tuck's eyes are bugging as he watches the man pry off parts of the building and use them as a weapon. Be still his beating heart! But Tuck won't be outdone at his own bet! After a long, unblinking pause, Tuck abandons his brick and walks to the edge of the roof.

He, too, pries off the remaining section of the drain pipe. ]

How 'bout now?

[facultative]

[Anakin is wearing these things called shoes that prevents him from being trapped in a corner of Tuck's own making.]

...What are you doing?

[bardbarous]

[ Oh sonuvabitch! It just had to be Anakin who comes to save him. Like hell he'll allow this! ]

Uh. N... Nothing.

[ Instead, he lounges back against the wall with an elbow propping him up. ]

What are you doing?

Tuck in a Corner

[onerthes]

[She'd taken a while to get over here, and sneaking into the place had required the careful use of an old feathered shrug she'd gotten in the nightmare. Nice toy. Very useful. It dampened all sound, including the exasperated sigh and the first sentence she tried to say.

Right. She slipped it from her shoulders and groaned.]

You're not supposed to trap yourself with this, you know... now, how do we get you out of here. They're currently very confused and busy. I hope.

[Groan]

You know, I really thought we were past all this.

[It was probably a good thing they hadn't heard her approach. Her straddling the line of the Scholars didn't make her a favorite here in Cassandra.]

[bardbarous]

Yeah, he really pulled a number on himself this time.

I know, but if I can't get out, they can't get in. Ehh? Ehhhh?

Now there's a way to spin a bad decision!

[On the roof] (Luca and Luz)

[schoolingfish]

[When Luz flies Luca up to the roof, he spots Tuck, who immediately asks them a question that Luca has no idea the answer to.]

I don't know. You could try it and see.

[He knows Tuck is pretty strong, after all, and he wonders if he can.]

chapter ii

[faceblocks]

[having heard the rumblings of this whilst on an incense run at odds and ends - vi had checked the network only to hear luz confirm it. she doesn't know the sleeper mentioned, but that's not really a factor here. people are trying to set someone on fire.

vi has come prepared. she is not bleeding the reckoning's rage into the air this time - it's controlled chaos, her goal is just that: is to control chaos of the crowd, whether it be genuine, or stoked by the heat-hate of the beast moon.

she comes in hot (ha), down the side of one building only to vault off the wall of another - her omen trails her as formless smoke until she reaches a wave of trenchies surging forward. smoke becomes a dog becomes wolf becomes huge. fang is now roughly twice vi's height as she attempts to push them back, growling as she goes.]

Vyng Vang Zoomba | Spout Lore | Mostly OTA

[spiritwalks]

I. Bird's Eye View

An ebb and flow of consciousness — dark, then light, then dark. He's floating above Hamlet Crossing. Below, smoke. Shouting. A throng of people, and his own form tied to a stake.

Vyng's mind drifts between himself and a raven perched overhead.

There isn't much he can do. He loathes controlling other creatures if it can be helped, and his grasp of the present is dreamlike at best. So he fuzzily observes, for as long as he can.

---

II. Closed to Tuck

"Come and get him!" Distant. Fuzzy, like he's submerged underwater.

Unbeknownst to an unconscious Vyng, the mob zeroes in on the most obvious target: The screaming 7-foot man who just snatched their scapegoat. A sea of bodies and torches converge on the scaffold, seething with murderous intent as they clamor for blood.

---

III. House Hijinks

A. Recovery

Vyng's body is concealed by a haphazardly tossed-together fort: Stacks of crates and dusty furniture piled on top of each other.

Faintly, he hears someone else's voice.

"Who...?" Vyng rasps. His throat still burns from soot and smoke.

B. Reconnaissance

He thought he was fine. But clearly, he didn't think this one through. Amidst all the chaos, Vyng blindly reaches around for the nearest creature — anyone or anything. He's not picky.

"Quick! I need to borrow your eyes."

C. Reassesment

Turns out, it's hard to maintain a steady spiritual connection when 1) the living embodiment of this world's Spirit Realm is pissed off, and 2) you're constantly acting under pressure, where the odds of failure and complications go up with each act.

Vyng stays out of sight, back pressed against the wall as he regains his bearings...again. Hot air caresses his face — clearly, from a nearby window. That probably should have been his clue to move away. But he doesn't.

"This is crazy," he mutters to himself. "Maybe I should hand myself over."

D. Redirection

He's flying over the crowd. Gripping the back of a massive flaming bird some people may recognize as Vyng's spirit animal Cloudpiercer. As for the fire wielded by the mob? It's being siphoned into the bird, as the creature grows in strength.

"Torch this, ya' zealots!" he shouts at the top of his lungs as Cloudpiercer passes overhead.

Vyng can't see through his eyes, true. But he doesn't need to. He and Cloudpiercer are united in spirit and purpose. Their mission? To draw some of the crowd away from the house, lure them as far as possible, and leave them in the dust once he circles back around to his friends. If they're lucky, he can do it unscathed.

But he'll need help from down below. Illusions for distraction, trapping Trenchies, or maybe manipulating some of the fire for their own purposes — the Druid will take whatever he can get and run with it.

(Vyng never said he had good ideas.)

---

IV. Wildcard

((Got other ideas? Feel free to hit me up at my plotting post, jackets, or Jansen#8997.))

Reassessment

[onerthes]

Vira-Lorr was one of the latest to the group. She only knew something was going on in Cassandra because of Luz, so she'd had to take time to get here. Breaking in and joining folks had required the feathered shrug she'd had since the Mayor and his blasted dome, since she could stay stealthy and incredibly silent with it. But, now that she was here, she wasn't about to let him just hand himself over.

A hand reached out as someone kept a cloth to her their face and crouched low. Pulling the shrug back, her voice was low, pitched to keep things quiet. "It won't help anything. You didn't do anything... It won't stop them or appease them. I don't know what's wrong, but that's not the answer."

[bardbarous]

When you challenge an entire mob, they are going to take you up on the offer. And Tuck hasn't thought that far ahead. But as a few instigators begin stepping up on the platform, Tuck's cold focus narrows in on the most direct threat and will worry about the rest as it comes.

With one arm, he holds the large wooden pike out and swings it through—through the Trenchies in one motion. Each one crumples like a crushed solo cup in a frat boy's hand. It makes the rest of the crowd hesitate, enough so that Tuck has enough space to jump down from the platform.

"Anyone else?!" he roars out, watching the line around him waver and step back instinctively.

Audio; Closed to Obi-Wan

[spiritwalks]

[In the wake of Michael's transformation, Vyng doesn't waste time. Hunkered behind some crates, he asks his Omen to contact Obi-Wan. The commotion threatens to drown his voice, so he beckons the creature closer before speaking with an assertive, evenhanded clarity.]

I need your help with something. It's important.

[Gentler:]

Please.

Chapter II

[schoolingfish]

When Luca gets Luz's message, he races out. She mentioned not endangering the fathiers, so he grabs his bike instead, pedaling as fast as he can to the angry mob. Once there, he looks around, trying to spot Luz or anyone he knows so they can work together, but as he sees the crowd coming closer, he decides he can't wait. He pedals out, trying to get between the crowd and his friend. As he draws near, Luca opens his mouth and spews green venom out at them. It's not a deadly venom, but it is an unpleasant one, leaving any Trenchies hit with it dizzy, disoriented, nauseated and vomiting.

Re: Chapter II

[imaglyphwitch]

[Luz looked up and realized that she IMMEDIATELY regretted not telling Luca to ride the Fathier. On a bike, it was going to be hard to avoid these people if they decided to give chase. Luckily, Luca had already spit venom at them, so they were already taking a step back. Luz wasn't about to let them capture him, and she still had to clear some space anyway.

She slapped herself with an invisibility glyph and held her breath, and once she was out of sight she ran over towards Luca's trajectory and let off a light glyph. It was so bright and jarring it did exactly as she hoped: it blinded anyone who had their eyes on the boy on the bike, and Luz was now catching up to him.

"Luca!" Luz called out, now visible since she took her breath. "Do you need a lift on the broom?"

III

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael's not around for the beginnings of this. He ought to have been. Surely, he ought to have noticed that his own housemates are under public assault, even if they have been living on the farm lately.

But he's been reclusive these past few weeks. It's just so frustrating. Everyone in town has been horrible lately! He hates them for all their senseless violence, and he hates himself for being such a hypocrite about it, and he just doesn't want to see anyone.

But Vyng's his friend. When he gets the call, he feels awful immediately - he should have noticed. It's his fault for being like this; they were right to leave. He'd stay, so as not to contaminate anything else...except that Vyng's in danger. He wants to help. He will help, and so he finally forces himself out of his room.

When he arrives at the edge of the crowd, he's already visibly off: far thinner than he usually is, with glowing eyes and skin that seems faintly cracked with light around his jawline and joints. At the sight of the crowd - armed, baying for his friend's blood for no reason, something in him feels like it snaps.]

You motherforkers.

[His anger is cold. It's easy to snatch up the nearest Trenchie by the throat and squeeze until their spine snaps. He doesn't think much of it; they deserve it, for what they've tried to do. His fire licks over his body as several others turn to face him, brandishing weapons. The cracks on his face spread quickly, skin flaking away to reveal something shining white underneath, though he doesn't seem to notice.]

Look at you, pinning the blame for your sorry little lives on someone else. You're disgusting.

[And he's not much better, is he? At least he knows it. He's awful, and so are they, and he loathes them all -

Michael's body abruptly erupts into a blazing tower of light. The initial flare engulfs those standing nearest him, burning them quickly away. Glowing shapes like wings snap out towards others, slashing with concentrated swathes of light and heat.

The beast moves through the crowd with purpose, pursuing and attacking members of the mob with wings of light that emerge from the central blaze and dissolve back into it just as easily - but it won't attack any Sleepers it sees. If they're defending the house too, it's liable to protect them; otherwise, as long as it doesn't see them doing something wrong, it ignores them.

Try not to do anything wrong.]

not quite here - from inside the house

[spiritwalks]

[Vyng's stomach twists into an uneasy knot when he realizes Michael is out there. It's only by happenstance that he catches sight of his friend's startlingly thin form through his Omen's eyes (was he that thin before?). But before he can make sense of what's happening, the scene warps in brutal, horrific fashion.

He wouldn't describe himself as an empath — not in the steady, effortless way people like Ezra are. At the same time, he's hovered over the knife's edge of beasthood before. He knows the self-loathing that fuels it, and the knife twists a little deeper into his own heart, as if Michael's pain were his own.

And yet that pain is eclipsed by the scorching anger building inside of him, like smoldering coals igniting under a steady pour of gasoline: Fury over this cruelty. Defiance in the face of condemnation. Purpose in combatting injustice.

Maybe he deserves the Disciples' ire. Maybe he doesn't. It hardly matters now. Michael is out there, suffering a fate far worse than anything these assholes had planned for him. Michael doesn't deserve this. His family should be safe, at home. That's all the reason Vyng needs to act.

(Besides. Vira-Lorr is right, as she so often is. The mob won't be satisfied as long as the Reckoning holds sway over this town.)

Time to phone in some favors. And if he can't quell the storm outside? He'll gladly make a mess to thin out the crowd. Get everyone out. And end this.]

Re: III

[imaglyphwitch]

At Vira and her own urging, Luz is on her staff, rushing toward Michael. Yup, this is bad. This is all bad. She really should have tried to get to him sooner, but getting Vyng away from those people had already been a chore, and she needed to make sure that Michael didn't strike so much fear that they now wanted to keep them out of the town.

"Michael! You have to stop! We live here! Besides, we've got Vyng now! Don't kill...uh, any more people!"

Late was late, she might as well acknowledge that.

Chapter 3 (A bazillion years late, cw for child endangerment and violence, including NPC death)

[wapples]

[If there's one thing that will absolutely raise Billie's ire, it's attacking his friends - his family. That it's the Disciples in Cassandra that have turned on them is intolerable. It was hard to think particularly fondly of them after their refusal to help rescue Tuck from the zealots back when Billie first arrived, but mostly he had settled into 'well, maybe they're not so bad' since.

Until they tried to burn Vyng at the stake anyway.

Of course they realize, this means war. Or at least they ought to by now.

Billie tries to talk the mob down when he first steps outside the house. He tries to reason that what Vyng did was necessary, and that with the loss of his vision, he's already paid a high enough price, but it's to no avail. They're still looking for blood.

Oh well. Even before he came to Trench, he would have been able to handle this. Now, he's learned a lot from his time under Johnny's wing at Cobra Kai.

Strike first. Strike hard.]

NO MERCY!

[The cry comes as he buries one of his throwing knives in the chest of one of the Trenchies gathered outside the door of their chosen sanctuary.]

[spiritwalks]

[Vyng's eyes might not be working like they used to...but he still recognizes the tell-tale gurgle of somebody who just had a knife plunged into their heart.]

Billie? [He shouts from a half-broken window on the second story.] Is that you down there?