BEYOND THE SHADOW YOU SETTLE FOR ❅ PART 2

[nightmods]

BEYOND THE SHADOW YOU SETTLE FOR

Alarms blare and red alert lights flash and illuminate hallways. The intruders have either escaped the traps or avoided them altogether and are invading.

It still won't be easy for the Guardians. There are armed checkpoints to overcome and giant security doors to figure out how to unlock or break through.

Once they're past the initial security checkpoints, the place is a maze of hallways that contain cells with captured myths that need to be freed (some friendly and some unfriendly), offices with computers and tablets that can be hacked or stolen, science labs with myths being experimented on and technomagical devices of unknown purpose, archival rooms with useful (and potentially cursed) tomes and artifacts, and storage rooms with the plundered belongings of many myths captured over time.

Some of the magical artifacts and Prometheus devices can be used against their forces and used to help the captured myths.

For those that would like to be extra helpful and let others know where security forces are congregating (or to cause a little chaos) several redundant security rooms have screens showing video from closed circuit monitoring. Provided they knock out the guards in each room, they can potentially maneuver them to consoles for the fingerprint panels and retinal scanners that would allow them to unlock cell doors on many of the cell blocks.

Given that the the master unlock for all cells requires the base's Director's security bypass, it'll be useful if several groups do this if they want to mass unlock all the cell blocks.

Some captured myths will also have to be comforted. Others may need to be chased as they escape their cells, rush past, and go on a rampage.

And of course the myths will have to figure out what to do with the escaping staff that isn't security, all of them running for exit stairways and elevators to the outside world or to escape magical portals, whatever's closest and ensures the best chance of survival. Some of these staff members are simple office drones, handling the minutiae and bureaucracy of a large organization like this. Others are even lower on the organizational ladder, like the janitorial staff. But some like the base leadership, scientists, and guards, have a much more active hand in the treatment of the captured myths.

The more aggressive escaped myths will make a beeline for the base staff, to go after them in revenge. The Guardians will have to figure out what they want to do in response.

In any case, there are myths to be freed, artifacts to be pilfered, intel to be gathered, and decisions to be made.

This base of Project Prometheus is going down.

OOC DETAILS

OOC PLOTTING POST

❅ Format: Use prose or actionspam as desired.

❅ Environment: Please feel free to use the plot as an open and flexible environment, and simply ask for anything the requires specifics or might affect the full facility so the mod can provide accurate intel and keep track of the evolving situation during the plot. Players should feel free to largely do what they want. If they want to access and manipulate certain aspects of security, question Prometheus npcs, information gather from captured myth PCs, etc, they can request to do so.

❅ NPCing: This part of the plot will have limited mod npcing, for moments people decide to do in the plot, like getting info from Prometheus npcs or breaking into and messing with security. There will be a thread to request either npcing or information to use in self-npcing from the mod. The mod will decide whether to npc or if players can just self-npc with provided info. The mod will automatically comment in after each round of PC tags unless asked to pause for more PC tags. The mod will use prose for npcing but players don't have to match.

❅ Powers: Now that they've escaped the trap rooms, everyone's powers will work as normal and all their devices and artifacts like the globes will work.

❅ Myths: You can assume rescued myths match their RL myth counterparts. If I need to use a myth later on and make them different from what's been established, we can handwave there are just variations within the same type of myths sometimes. The only thing I'd like to limit is two things:

1) Using some of the big individual myths in mythology in case they need to be used later or I have plans for them. Specific gods and named folk figures, etc. But myths that are just general, like general nymphs, brownies, fae, etc, you can kinda go ham with.

2) Try to be respectful and avoid using myths that still feature heavily into IRL belief systems and cultures like wendigo. Please be thoughtful and maybe do a quick google about whether something would be offensive. There are plenty of other myths from ancient societies to use with less baggage, like creatures from Greek mythology.

❅ Collars: Rescued myths will have power blocking collars that need to be broken or the rune design on them must be scratched when they're freed, to give their powers back.

❅ Resources: Elle will be their man in the chair acting as a coordinator for the mission on the games. Players can handwave that important information was conveyed to or from Elle.

Mini-globes: Mini snow globes the size of marbles will have been given to everyone to use to transport myths out as well as emergency transport to the Pole. For those who don't carry storage with their normal outfits, they'll have been given fanny packs to carry them.

Devices: Courtesy of Miguel, there are mini bombs; spy bots that can fly and scout ahead, transmitting video to their comms; and elemental handheld devices can use to cause localized effects of extreme freeze or extreme heat. The latter is hot enough to melt the door looks to the thick cell doors.

Magic crystals: These can float over the hand to guide the Guardians towards other myths, as well as provide the location of their home habitats so Guardians can tell the snowglobes to right location to transport them home.

Comments

[armagettingpancakes]

Hellboy wasn't opposed to Little Cato getting his pound of flesh. Everyone here deserved what was coming to them. He just wanted the kid to be smart about it. You lived longer that way.

Letting loose on the guards ahead of them would be cathartic for more than just Cato, though. Hellboy had a bone to pick with them too.

"Oh, they're already dead," he says matter-of-factly. "They just don't know it yet."

cw: some gore and murder from here on out

[furtitude]

Oh, that sure is a line. It sounds like something his grandma would say. He has to resist the urge to clasp his hands to his face in admiration over Hellboy's absolute coolness.

(He knew someone named Hellboy would probably be even cooler when he got out of his cell and could actually fight.)

"We're almost there," he pulls out the computer again. "I'm going to cut the main lights and just leave the emergency lighting on."

They'll be able to see just fine, but the emergency lighting they've passed so far has been a really bright red, ie the kind of lighting that would cause red and orange dudes to blend slightly into the scenery. It'll also cut down on the eye shine as Little Cato approaches.

The normal lights in the entire section go out. The red lighting floods the whole area. It's fortunately something that can easily be explained by the emerging emergency situation, too. The guards might not assume a threat is immediately nearby.

Little Cato puts the computer away, peers around a hallway corner, and sees the guards are in nervous disarray near a guard station, with one of them radio-ing someone. The voices and faces make it clear they're definitely the usual suspects, almost the whole group.

He books it at full speed and dives right into the fray, only letting out a yowling scream when he's already in the middle of clawing one of their faces. Right in the middle of the crowd actually isn't the worst place to be. They're scrambling and all in each other's line of fire so if they try to shoot him they might unleash some friendly fire. And he's trained for his whole life in hand-to-hand like this just as much as he's been trained to use a gun. (Sometimes close quarters for someone small can be a blessing.)

Little Cato's training will be obvious as Hellboy joins the fray. Most kids wouldn't know how to kick off a wall to get enough height to jump kick someone taller in the face. Or know how to jump up, wrap their legs around someone's neck and use their whole body weight to drag them down and throw them.

There's a gross crack as the guard he threw slams head first into the floor, and his neck is at a very unnatural angle after that.

"You just got Beasted! I totally Beasted you!"

They're the ones that came up with the nickname, of course he's verbifying it as new slang. Some variation of "Beast" will probably be in his username on every social media site he signs up to in this world. It'll be in his gamer handles.

Re: cw: some gore and murder from here on out

[armagettingpancakes]

Hellboy, on the outer edge of the fight, is much easier to shoot at. Not that it helps the guard who tries. The bullet is blocked by Hellboy's stone fist which is then swung at the unfortunate guard's face.

The guard's face is more pulverized than broken. That, along with the heavy hoof going down on his chest, means that if he's not dead he will be soon.

Another guard is thrown towards a wall and shot with the same gun his buddy failed to take Hellboy out with.

[furtitude]

Great minds think alike, because Cato grabs the sidearm of a downed guard and puts several bullets between the eyes of some of the other guards. He goes full Neo from the Matrix kicks off the shoulder of a guard that's dropped to his knees and flips through the air, still landing more shots upside down.

As he lands, the gun finally runs out of bullets and clicks.

"What? Aw, come on, projectile ammo?" He slashes a guard's calf so he drops to his knees and then at his throat, grabbing a clip from his belt. "This isn't even an antique, it's like practically an ancient artifact."

He gets it reloaded in time to shoot another guard.

[armagettingpancakes]

"That sounds like a skill issue," Hellboy says as he shoots the last guard.

It's a fatal shot, but the guard still has life left in him. Enough to try for some last words at least.

"M-monsters..." he coughs, hacking up blood.

Hellboy gets close, just to make sure the guard hears him even as he's slipping away. "Buddy, I know monsters. The only ones here are the ones in uniform."

[furtitude]

The guy dies. As Little Cato retracts his weirdly-now-more-powerful claws and shakes the blood off that hand, he's glad to see it. In fact, it's obvious how much he's found the whole thing soothing. The people who hurt him are dead now. Unlike Lord Commander, they'll probably even stay dead.

He has a gun.

He has some control.

That's why his tail sways in a relaxed way as he starts looting bodies, because of course he's the type. No point being squeamish about it when he's already a bit splattered with blood. He's not gentle about it, either, but at least not morbid other than the occasional unfriendly kick.

"Just grabbing some more ammo and then let's keep moving - ooh!" He grabs a very large sheathed, bowie knife and tosses the little belt it's on over his neck and shoulder. "And this. I like this. Mine now."