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

[antigravboy]

There are some clicks and a loud crackle. Then the high-pitched whine starts dying down. The warning lights on the device change back to their neutral colors and then start to power down.

"Got it!" His voice is shrill but with delight. "It's funneling the power back through the main conduit. Once the battery's drained, it'll power down for good, though we might have to worry about some feedback that could cause -" There's a high-pitched whistling sound, like a tea kettle about to blow and Boimler's eyes go wide. "That!"

He doesn't have time to explain, he just acts, launching himself up and away from the equipment.

"Down!"

He tackles Apollo towards the other side of the one barricade. Having the layers of them that Apollo set up is really doing them a favor here - he manages to get a barricade between themselves and the generator in one direction but there are still some between them and the guards in the other.

There's really no graceful way to fall, he sort of just falls right on top of him and fortunately, the bow and quiver just fall slightly to the side rather than breaking. As he shields him, there's a small explosion that pings light shrapnel around them but the tea-kettle shrieking stops after that.

And then he's left in a super awkward position. With someone that, again, he can't help but notice is excessively, dramatically good-looking.

"Yeah, uh. Sorry. Stopped the antimatter explosion but there were was still a little too much internal air pressure from it overheating. Just...locally."

He starts to awkwardly extricate himself.

[divasmio]

It was nice to have a warning about the explosion, but the tackle was a surprise. Apollo's eyes go wide as the bow clatters from his hand, and he looks up at Boimler with wonder. He's quite attractive up close, too. Apollo smiles, eyebrows up in interesting.

"Thank you," he says as the two of them start to sit up. "I wouldn't have known to—"

A sound from above draws Apollo's attention, and he glances up to see a guard at the top of the barricade. Without even a vocal warning, Apollo pushes Boimler back down and grabs his bow, straddling him as he nocks an arrow. The longbow is heavy, and the draw requires immense strength. The rippling of his muscles is clearly visible through his own tank top as he aims.

There's less than a second between Apollo hearing the noise and the guard topping backwards from the barricade, arrow in his chest.

[antigravboy]

Sneaky so-and-so. That guard had to have taken advantage of the brief time they were down to get close to the barricade.

Boimler had been closer to being on his feet so when the guard loomed over the barricade, he was the one in the line of fire, but just as quickly, he was the one knocked down to safety this time, and then he was being straddled (sensible, expedient, it let Apollo quickly sit up to fire an arrow), watching a literal god draw his bow in a godly way and shoot an arrow, godly muscles rippling, visible thanks to his little tank top.

Now that he isn't preoccupied by essentially disarming a bomb, now that all he can do is look up at a god straddling his body, muscles taut, he thinks, Oh NO.

Oh no, he's hot.

Fuck me.

(That was the "Well fuck me" way of saying "fuck me," he tells himself, not the other kind. He tells himself. Definitely telling himself.)

Perfect. Great. He absolutely isn't going to be kept up at night imagining some Neoclassical thighs tight against his sides. He absolutely wanted to know what it felt like to be straddled by a Renaissance painting.

Super.

(This absolutely would've happened to Kirk. This is a Kirk type thing. But Kirk would be able to make some kind of quip and charm the straddler and he is sooo not Kirk.)

"Good shot."

Someone please shoot me.

[divasmio]

Apollo steps away from Boimler and gets to his feet, He doesn't miss that look in the man's eyes, and is pleased to know he's still got it.

"Thanks." He offers a hand to help Boimler stand, tossing him a flirty smile. He has enough self-control to keep himself from winking. Being shot at isn't really a situation that calls for a wink. "Good job turning the explosion into a smaller, more manageable explosion."

[antigravboy]

He takes his hand and is helped up. Annnnd maybe holds on a second too long before drawing away to get back to it.

Ignore the smile. Focus on the mission. Focus.

"Oh, we're great at that in Starfleet," Boimler says, voice wry, expression amused as he takes stock of their current situation. "Turning explosions into other types and sizes of explosions."

Fortunately, that appeared to be the last guard, the generator had powered down completely, and they got what they came for.

Boimler whisks his scorched uniform top - now no longer hot - back on and redoes the velcro, then grabs his phaser and the PADD With the stolen data.

"We should get going, before more guards come. They still need help with the rest of the evacuations and we need to get this data back to the Pole."

[divasmio]

It's a shame he has to put the shirt back on, but in situations like this, there are priorities. "If only more solutions could be solved that way," he says with a soft laugh. "But speaking of solving problems..."

He glances back at the computer terminal, holding up his bow and nocking another arrow. "A computer virus isn't much different from any other plague, right?"