nightlogs | SLEIGH BELLS RING ❄ MINGLE

SLEIGH BELLS RING ❄ MINGLE

SLEIGH BELLS RING

Those that escape from the theater all seem to come out through the same doors. When they get there, they can see that the theater isn't actually a building. There's only a free-standing set of theater doors on the playground. At the rear side of them is a brick wall.

Those that exit will find they can't re-enter.

None of the humans have seemed to notice the door or them, even those driving by.

Not everyone escapes at the same time. It comes in fits and starts, them filtering of the theater. Some can walk out mostly unharmed, some limp out, some come out supporting each other.

What they find outside is... uncanny. There in the playground is a massive sleigh, but one that looks not-exactly-traditional, with equipment and boosters that look almost like a mix of technology and something magical.

It's been expanded into many carriages, almost like a roller coaster. Harnessed to it are eight massive reindeer, champing slightly at their bits. It appears the people that attacked and created the theater are at least long gone. That means that as people slowly filter out they can check up on each other, provide first aid, and reassure each other.

OOC DETAILS
❅ Status effects: Any injuries or damage that happens to a character will stick when they leave the Multiplex. That means that someone that gets facehugged by a facehugger will have an alien larva problem that may be causing some serious indigestion soon. Anyone that gets Borg-nanited through the neck will start having the nanites take over them. However the myth healing will slow these processes down until they can get to the Pole, and there are magical means at the Pole to help the characters survive this.

❅ First Aid/Other Supplies: The sleigh will have magically anticipated their needs. While it won't have the antivenom for Kaa because only a magical plant that grows at the Pole can cure the bites, it will have plenty of well-stocked general first aid kits. Applying first aid can help the myth healing heal someone more quickly and is important for injured characters that opted out of the myth healing.

❅ Timing: People can bendytime the timing of when their characters have escaped to play in this and "Let's All Go To The Movies" at the same time. People can also intro here late if they need to wrap some things up in the other post first.

❅ Intro: Players can use this post to intro instead if that's their preference. You can just assume your characters had to run from scary things in the theater and either handwave their circumstances, or assume your character found a way out more quickly than others.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's no need to apologize.

[ this cat girl!!! you're breaking his heart here! ]

Can you just... disconnect while I get the worst of it?

[ Miguel doesn't like other people taking on his burdens, Nyara. Don't fight him on this. He's not going to continue knowing that the action was hurting someone else. ]

[She pauses. Can't she convince him?]

There is so little I am good at. If you do not... [It sticks in her throat, she clears it and goes on-] want to have sex then this is all that I can offer.

[That and having pain inflicted on her more directly, but she doesn't want to offer that, and he doesn't seem like he would enjoy it anyway.

Nyara's answer to any request about sex has always been 'yes', every time, because it's never really been a request. She can pose herself and look inviting and profess a desire to do anything to repay someone, but just saying it like that, not even an actual invitation, was hard and feels intensely awkward.]

...I would not offer something I could not bear. This is little enough.

[ very flatly: ]

That is not what I had in mind.

[ Well, now it felt awkward to be sitting there half-naked with Nyara bringing that up. And the petting, too. Suddenly he is extremely aware of her hand-paws on his back. Had there been some signal here that he'd missed?

It is here that Miguel seems to decide he'll probably be fine with his own healing ability, what was left of it. It feels like the most responsible thing to do at the moment, especially with the apparent trade-offs of the magic. ]

Thank you, but I think I'll handle it.

[ This is about as gentle as he can be at saying 'No'. He's scooting a bit out of reach now. At least he isn't walking away? They can still talk. ]

[There's not enough exposed skin on her face to show it properly, but Nyara blushes at the rejection, feeling shame and embarrassment. It maybe shows a bit inside her ears, which are pink and get redder. She lowers her hand and clasps it with the other, looking at them studiously. The streak of skin where her fur was burned off is about as pink as if it's blushing too, though that's the new skin, that hasn't taken on her pigment yet.]

I - I understand.

[The sensations she was intercepting start welling back up, though they're not as strong now. Need can still work at this distance, if not as well, but she decides not to. Miguel is after all not in danger, and Need has taken care of the worst of it already. Also he doesn't have to know her capabilities.]

[ Well, the pain certainly isn't fun, and it shows in the more tentative way he's dabbing and redressing his side. But it's been something he's been sitting with up until this point, and he's dealt with worse, so he gets through it with simple stubbornness, if nothing else.

That means they sit there in the awkward silence for a little bit. Where another Spiderguy might have found a good mood-lifting thing to say, Miguel simply focuses on getting his task done in deeply unfunny fashion. So intense!

Once a sufficient layer of the gauze is covering him up, he pats his side a bit and asks: ]

What about you?

[ Looking at the burnt fur. ]

[The silence is filled on Nyara's end by a chat with Need, who's graciously hidden her anger at the reminder that her girl has had little experience with actual consent, and now assures her about things not being personal and et cetera. It gives Nyara a chance to stop blushing and feel less bad, and occupies her enough that she doesn't think maybe she should walk away and sit somewhere else.

It is kind of nice regardless to just have people around in the same space as her, and not paying particular attention to her. That's something Need can't or doesn't provide, a sense of physical presence.]

What about...? [Startled enough to look up enough to catch his gaze, follow it back down, oh.] It is nothing. Truly. Need healed it so quickly - she is amazing. I hardly knew I was injured, so well and swiftly she worked.

[wait she was trying to refer to Need as impersonally as possible]

-it. I should... it. [Grimaces a little, she knows Need doesn't like that pronoun.]

You lost me.

[ Once Miguel is fully in control of things happening to Miguel, the thick wall of awkwardness seems to come down a little. He finishes tending to himself to his satisfaction and lets the suit reform over his torso in a wink. The nanotech weave should hold things in place for a while longer. ]

You're talking about the sword like it's a person.

[ Did he miss the part where she mentioned it was sentient? ]

Is the sword a she?

It - ah - I am very sorry. I think I have become confused.

[Nyara, a bit flustered, tries to find a good explanation and defaults, as she generally does, to apologizing and making it her fault, something that will save face for the other party.

With a feeling like a sigh, Need takes pity on her. :Kitten, just tell the man, he's annoying but it will probably be fine. You don't have to play stupid.:

Nyara sags a little. She was totally going to be able to pull this off! Be the absolute fool who personifies objects that don't have personas in front of people! Turn Need into a security blanket! It's easier to be the object of contempt than it is to try to navigate an uncertain place in a conversation.]

...yes, she is a person, or she was, a long time ago. Now she is an artifact.

[:You're still trying to look mad,: Need insists. :We might as well go all the way.: Resigned, Nyara starts undoing her swordbelt. If she can extend the sword in her scabbard to Miguel, he almost certainly won't consider the next statement to be a come-on the way touching a sword strapped to her body might be.]

If you touch her, it will be more clear.

I see.

[ Pensive eyebrow raise. Peni Parker has a telepathic link with her spider, so why not a telepathic sword?

For what it's worth, Miguel has moved on from the misstep earlier. To him, Nyara has the vibe of someone who was very sheltered rather than ill-meaning, and he was deathly allergic to being vulnerable. Entirely different scenario.

So he still gives the sword a try. Reaching forward, pausing, and then touching his fingertips to the handle to see if anything happens. ]

[Nyara doesn't want to outright hand Need over because, again, after getting whisked to New Jersey she is deathly afraid that it could happen again but without the sword, her only sure ally. If he actually takes her, Nyara will look dismayed and increasingly anxious, probably hugging herself.

Sensitized as Miguel is to weird things happening to his body, he can feel something on touching Need's hilt, some aspect of how it had felt to be Healed by her. Some echo of Need as something quite large and holding back, with a dispassionate interest in his retinas, the talons he's keeping folded up inside his feet, whatever he uses to interface with his suit. She's interested in any body and its flows of life and vitality, but his is unusual.

She grumbles irritably and has a voice that is sort of a voice, deep and gravelly, but is also sounds like metal ringing on metal or rasping on stone, and various scraps of imagery and other sensation that people generally learn to tune out quickly. If she was in a comic book, she'd have custom speech bubbles with a lot of faint things happening in the backgrounds.]

:Yes, hello, whatever. Boy, it will go easier for you if you think of me as an artificial intelligence. One of those - ugh - uploaded oneself types, I suppose. It's a useful metaphor.:

[ 'It will go easier for you if you think of me as an artific-'

--aaand his hand is gone.

Yeahwow, Okay. The speech doesn't surprise him so much as the sensation of something traveling around his blood vessels up to his literal eyeballs and down to his toes. No? Nope. This seems like a cursed thing to give access to his limbs and suit and eyes, actually.

He looks up at Nyara. ]

So... is it supposed to feel like your whole body is touching a live wire?

[ The girl can keep holding the sword. ]

[Nyara cradles a retrieved Need to her chest like a baby, completely ignorant of the interplay.]

A live... what? What is wrong?

[Need, being the adult in this and every room, is not snapping at either of them. She's picked up that this is one of the few people who can feel her presence so physically and that often puts them off, fine. It's still insulting to cut her off mid word like that. She has the ability to keep Mindspeaking to Miguel, having touched him through Nyara and more directly, but you know what? Now she doesn't want to.]

I'm pretty sure your friend decided to borrow the space behind my eyes.

[ Miguel isn't here to deny the sword's sentience. But he is going to be very upfront of how weird it felt to have a second person there hanging out in his body. He's got enough unusual tingling on his own without adding more to the mix.

But he supposes this is normal... for them? Dimension hopping always brings with it new experiences, he supposes. ]

[Nyara blinks at him. Her tone remains soft, but there might be the lightest suggestion of 'isn't it obvious?' to it.]

Y....es? She is blind and deaf alone. If she did not have we living people...

[She grimaces a little and cradles the sword closer. Need is insensate and can't move, she knows that much. It seems like a horrifying way to exist, all in nothingness, dependent on others to a degree that makes Nyara uncomfortable to think about, and even death will not come to end it. Need is so much stronger than Nyara that to think of any weakness in her is strange, but Nyara wouldn't be able to tolerate her life.

:Don't worry about me, kitten,: Need tells her, having compartmentalized this fork of her attention neatly away. :It's sweet of you to worry, but I've had a long time to get used to it.: She is not going to tell even Nyara the extent of her abilities, or just what 'getting used to it' has meant.]

She was an ordinary human once. As I was, before - before. [shy eye contact!] As... you...?

[ eye contact! Fleeting! Okay. He’s starting to get a better picture of what just happened. ]

Make sure to mention any eye tingling next time, yeah?

[ 9/10 times Nyara isn’t handing it to someone with such an alert awareness of their body. But Miguel isn’t thinking about that.

He recognizes this as some strange form of… sword commensalism. Or mutualism, if the healing was really the sword’s doing. He can’t avoid the comparison to a parasite of sorts, but Nyara does not seem to be getting harmed by it as far as he could tell. No, maybe it’s more like a Symbiote. She seems to be better tempered than Venom, at least.

Well. To new frontiers out in the multiverse. He… holds out his hand. ]

Can I try again?

Edited 2023-08-19 15:41 (UTC)

[blink! she is looking at his chin again.]

I have never noticed.

[but okay she will hold Need out again.

Need would like to be extremely waspish but, fine, as the adult here she'll pretend not to be insulted and have only slightly more acid in her tone than a minute ago. And politely not inspect his kidneys, though there's absolutely still the sense of her awareness in the skin that touches her hilt, a sensation almost like as if the sword is noticeably cooler or warmer than the surrounding air.]

:Well, you're either brave or foolhardy, I'll give you that. I'm not here to waste my time and energy turning you inside out, boy. I can't do anything much without consent.:

[ touching the hilt again. as a man who dishes out daily rudeness he can handle a snippy sword or two. ]

:I’ve already had enough turned inside out, if you couldn’t tell while you were poking around.:

[ he would like his body to remain stable please thank you. He’s been through the wringer today. But, hello sword! ]

Edited 2023-08-19 17:37 (UTC)

[The sword cannot snort, but there's a sense as if she did.]

:Yes, yes, you got beat up flinging yourself about like a bouncing ball and carrying people off in your enormous arms, very heroic.:

[There's a distinct tactile element there to bounce-ing-ball and enormous arms. Need is being sarcastic, of course, but with Mindspeech as it is there is also a slight undercurrent of approval that she doesn't entirely manage to conceal.]

:I don't know what medicine is like where you're from but on my plane we've got to know what we're working on or it's all tremendously inefficient and can get reconstructed wrong. I'm magic, but that doesn't mean I can just waft good wishes and make whatever I want happen.:

[It's more complicated than that, but that is true.]

Edited 2023-08-19 18:26 (UTC)

[ Sarcasm beats being called a vampire, so he'll take the compliment. Someone recognizes he was trying to do good things!! Finally! ]

:We'd call that a diagnostic scan, and you generally ask for those.:

[ Ignore the fact that Miguel spent a day scanning anomalies without asking for permission. Different circumstance! No medicine is involved. But he supposes that explains why she was tingling at all the unusual parts of his anatomy. ]

[Need recognizes that he has a point that she doesn't want to countermand; she's been on the other side of enough arguments that went consent is irrelevant if I act in someone's best interests that it would be stupid to say that herself. She also thinks asking before a 'diagnostic scan' is a waste of time.

So we're going to give an irritable acknowledgement, like tipping a head to one side, and move on, and not let on that she's listening to more than he's outright telling her and that a lot more of his anatomy is unusual than he's thinking. It's just mostly very subtly strange and she doesn't know what DNA is.]

:I'm not letting just anyone know I'm in here. But, as I was saying, you may as well think of me as one of your AI. It's not quite right but it's a useful metaphor.:

:Fair enough. I was going to stick with “talking enchanted sword”, but the former Personhood is a helpful note.:

[ Miguel, not immune to banter when he is curious enough about the party at the other end.

He could pick up on very obvious prying, but he wasn’t omniscient. She could take a peek at all the strange cells and modified tissue enough to know that despite his appearance, his body was very different from a human’s internally. It would be befuddling for a doctor or healer without knowing it beforehand. ]

[She sends him a rare spark of amusement like seeing the flash of a sardonic, lopsided smile.]

:Hah. I'm as human as you are. Or I was.:

[It's a line she uses when meeting people, sometimes, but it has a particular little twist of irony here that she accentuates by turning a moment of clear attention to the setae in the pads of his fingers. There's a lot more going on with whatever's happened to Miguel than she can quickly pick up on, it's quite systematic and under a certain degree of tension and instability that is ve-ry interesting - but certainly he's still markedly more human than she is by now. A human mind can't survive as it is outside of a human brain, after all.]

:I want to know more about this and about whatever it is you're wearing. I'm not saying I'm not impressed, I am saying there are certainly a lot of choices made. But it's far enough outside my experience that you'd have me saying 'What?' every two seconds.:

[This is as close as she's going to get to saying she won't pry and just read his mind about all of it! Need is sitting on her curiosity; she can tell that she could come to like Miguel quite easily, his voice can be rather soft when he's not raising it. She can't afford that right now.]

:All right, you can let go. I can talk to you by now without contact, if you're close by.:

[ Finger tingle. Curiosity about the hands are to be expected. It's inoffensive this time. At this point, he had trained himself to keep the talons retracted in as close to an automatic way as he could - but it wasn't designed that way. Releasing the claws would always be akin to letting out a held breath. So, there is always tension.

Miguel can't really imagine what it is like to go from being a walking, talking person to an inanimate object. Sounds rather torturous, really. At least a (programmed) AI wouldn't be carrying that burden of knowing with them. All said and done, Need appears to be handling it rather well. ]

:I'm not sure if the answers to those questions will be illuminating, or just make more of them.:

[ But he lets go. Felt a little weird exclusing Nyara from the conversation, to be honest. He looks back at the girl. ]

She seems polite enough.

[Hah, Need thinks cynically.

Nyara was glad to have the attention off her for a bit, to not have to decide things to say or do. She tries to take on attitudes and express opinions that she thinks will please people but it's a lot of work. But she reclaims Need with a sigh of relief and belts her back around her waist.

And then Miguel gets actual eye contact! A surprised, hopeful look, with her pupils widening just noticeably! She actually registers his eye color!]

She says you are another Changechild, or, like one.

[wait she's pathetic he'll think she's saying he is pathetic, she winces and shifts her gaze to his shoulder.]

I mean, that you were normal.

[what if that sounds bad too how about she looks at her hands again]

-I am sorry, I am saying this wrong.

:A 'Changechild' is what they call a human who was heavily altered, sometimes of their own volition. Usually they're combined with animals.:

[Need fills in, her Mindvoice not as clear now, and her tone more remote as well. She doesn't use the term much herself.]

Well, that sounds similar enough.

[ If he is offended, he certainly doesn't show it. He doesn't have the context of a 'changechild' being used as an insult, just some weird alternate universe fantasy phrase. And at least she still folded him in to the 'human' category. ]

On my world, we just deem it having spider powers and call it a day. Keeps with the theme.

[ gesturing to the spider on his chest. ]

SLEIGH BELLS RING ❄ MINGLE

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