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

[ninjavampire]

Buffeted by the wind, his claws hook into the ground to keep him from being knocked over. The tension on his webs indicate that she was pulling away instead of trying to attack him, so he steals a look while Garurumon leaps in between them in a blur of blue. In the storm of coffee cups and pens - yep, that sure was a(n) Alchemax Prometheus grunt crawling towards trouble.

Leaving his partner with the hot potato, Miguel severs his lightweb to move in the opposite direction. She glares at the wolf monster beneath an unkempt mop of hair, eyes blazing brightly. Her free hand swipes at the snowglobe in Garurumon's paw in an attempt to fight back and knock his aim off balance with her talons. The skin of her hands and forearms are covered in rough, protective scales.

"Traitor - You should be helping me spill his guts on the ground!"

There was no doubt she'd be a menace in a prolonged scrap, fully prepared to turn on even a formidable enemy like him. But the Fury is weakened from her imprisonment, and slowed from being tangled up in the tightly wound lightweb.

Miguel is left with a much easier problem: His weblines leap ahead of him, tying together the wrists of the lab worker a few inches away from the gun. The man reacts in a less dignified way, letting out a squawk of terror before finding himself pinned beneath one very large hand.

[kemonookami]

Tanking any swipes will be necessary, he judges! Just to make sure he's not driven back. The Fury's swipes strike true, scratching successfully, while he tries to juggle a globe and trying to subdue this myth without harm, attempting to put enough of his weight on her to pin her down to get less resistance from her. This probably will end up with one of his front legs scratched enough to make the blue and white fur be pretty red.

The Fury's shouting makes him growl a little. Oh, trust him, he'd like to bite some of these Prometheus people. They're not aligned with Kuk, probably, but they're one opponent more. As much as he'd like not to hold back, it's not an option right now. After all...

"If they got you they can get me too! Not risking it!"

...every second spent here means one second more risking capture. Better focus on getting them all out and then leave. Focusing on attacking them all will have to be some other day.

The globe he was trying to use is swiped away, shattering against a wall. While he's having a paw shredded, Garurumon manages to get a new snowglobe, activating it to transport the myth out.

[ninjavampire]

There's only so much the myth can do trapped under a giant wolf, but she leaves her marks: struggling and pushing back with avian talons, striking with her loose wing. She's been locked up for too long to be restrained without fighting as hard as she can. With the marks of Prometheus' cuffs on her neck and the scales of her wrists, who could blame her?

"The Erinyes never forget a face. I'll find you both and take what you've denied me!" she growls back with bared white teeth. "You'll regret this."

But the sight of the actual portal in front of her turns the rage to a mute surprise. Even the Fury can't deny that freedom being so close was impossible to ignore...!

Miguel keeps his foot planted on the back of the Prometheus minion to keep him from wriggling around too much. The gun was safely in his own hand - the only reason he didn't crush it was for interest in something on the item.

He looks over to Garurumon and briefly makes eye contact with the Fury as she's given her one-way ticket to the outside.

She'll thank them later, he's sure.

[kemonookami]

The threats of coming back for revenge are curiously familiar.

"Sure. Give it a try someday, I guess."

...Garurumon hopes he himself never said anything like what the Fury said, because it was a bit hard to take seriously...or at least that’s how it felt to him, being on this side of the equation. Had he sounded like that every time he had given threats as parting shots...? Distracted somewhat by how he must have sounded like a sore loser whenever he had done that, he unceremoniously gives the Fury a push to get her to freedom through the portal.

Garurumon raises the pretty injured paw to his snout to lick the scratches, lapping a couple times, but this is no time for literal licking of wounds. He glances at Miguel.

"Right, you had some guy to deal with. You got that under control?"

Sure seems like Miguel does, keeping the minion pinned and without the gun!

[ninjavampire]

The Fury struggles to keep what bearings she has left as the portal begins to pull at her. Garurumon was saving her, yes, but there was something she couldn't forgive in being denied her rightful vengeance. This wouldn't be the last time she'd see them, if she had any say in the matter!

With the push, she departs with a roaring cry befitting a myth meant to hound and torment unfortunate souls to ends of the Earth, making the glass in the room ring. Her flight would not aid her here. The portal closes with a flurry of black feathers, and the fight was over, for now.

"Oh, thank god. You saved me." shouts out the man, breaking the ensuing silence with desperate relief despite his inglorious position on the floor.

"Shut up." Miguel interjects. The last thing he wanted was appreciation from this slime mold of a human being. The body of the handgun was in one hand, the ejected magazine in the other. There is something uncanny about the weapon that looked a little different from bog-standard steel and plastic.

"I've got our Prometheus stooge secure. Status update on the paw?" he asks, concerned. "And the rest of you."

[kemonookami]

"Stay safe..." ...and far away, Garurumon thinks. He's not looking forward to the possibility the Fury will make her way to the North Pole. Slim possibility it is, but it could happen, he thinks. If that happens then, well, better have some explanation prepared for the rest why he and Miguel gained a newcomer's enmity right away.

He comes closer to Miguel and the Prometheus grunt, walking mostly fine despite the injuries.

"I have had much worse than this. This is small potatoes. I'm fine."

A paw scratched to hell and back? It hurts, but at the same time it's far from the worse thing that has happened to him. The Kemonogami world is far from kind where strength prevails, he has had his fair share of skirmishes trying to be as strong as he can be to survive.

Garurumon leans his head so close to the Prometheus the guy can pretty much feel this monster's breath on his hair.

"You're gonna live but it's just luck. You know that."

Yeah, Garurumon already made pretty clear he's not happy this guy will get away pretty much unharmed. Would he have harmed him if he had been alone and Miguel hadn't been there? Well...probably not, really. As much as he can fight, he's no cold-blooded killer. At best would have turned a blind eye to the Fury's actions but he wouldn't have mauled this man himself.

"So, what you plan to do with him, Miguel?"

[ninjavampire]

The portal circles smaller, and smaller, until.. whoosh! it was gone. And for now, the battle had ended. Miguel looks unconvinced of Garurumon's answer at first - that blood, for starters? Worrying. But they had a minion to frighten, so he can't fret too much in front of their new prisoner. Not yet, anyway.

It didn't seem like take much to spook him. The man yelps in surprise when Garurumon's breath hits the back of his neck and the beast speaks. He covers his face, expecting the torturing to follow. You didn't need to be dead to suffer! But Miguel just tosses the empty gun body well out of reach, and more closely examines a dart-like bullet of a magitech nature in his fingers.

"That all depends on how inclined this guy is tell us what he knows." he says. "So, now you start talking."

"It's not for killing! It was just to capture any escaping myths. Tranquilizers!" the man wheezes out the words rapidly, impinged by the pressing weight on his back. "It ain't easy finding a real Fury to - you know, uh - study."

[kemonookami]

Ah, a lead. Garurumon immediately presses for details.

"How. Come on, tell all about you bunch found them in the first place."

How they get captured is secondary to how they manage to pinpoint the myths' location in the first place! If they don't have a way to find the myths, then they can't capture anyone. It's a good starting point to dismantle Prometheus' operations, probably!

[ninjavampire]

"T-that would need a more thorough explanation to answer - and an org chart! Which we don't have... right here, on my person." the man says, squirming to get the boot on him to sit in a slightly more comfortable manner.

"It's above my pay grade, really. Searching the world for hidden magic? Scouring evidence of creatures you only see in fairy tales? I just make sure all the sensory lab equipment is working to specifications-"

His eyes widen through the cracked glasses as the very pointy knives on Miguel's fingers are held close to his face. He just escaped the wrath of a bird-monster! He is not thrilled about more talons anywhere near his body.

"Why don't you start with the Fury?"

[kemonookami]

"So let me see if I get something. If the equipment isn't working well then you can't do your job well?"

That's tempting...it'd mean breaking the equipment will delay them and their tasks. Probably not completely stop them because they probably can replace, but hey, if the things are broken in a way they can't be repaired...