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Entry tags:
- +npc: jack frost,
- aziraphale,
- beckett mariner,
- bradward boimler,
- branch,
- elle bryant,
- loki (mcu),
- miguel o'hara (spiderverse),
- stacia novik,
- ✘ aiden price,
- ✘ barbara maitland,
- ✘ bunnymund,
- ✘ dean winchester,
- ✘ henry townshend,
- ✘ jennifer,
- ✘ mackenzie haynes,
- ✘ nico minoru (comics),
- ✘ nyara,
- ✘ peter b parker (spiderverse),
- ✘ rainbow brite,
- ✘ rowan heart-eater,
- ✘ sam wyldhammer,
- ✘ steve harrington,
- ✘ the grand elusa,
- ✘ tim drake (comics)
LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY
LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY
For those that arrived early, the fearlings have been dissipated enough for the children to escape and go get help for the bus driver. For those that are just arriving, you arrive to see a crashed bus and a group of battered and exhausted myths, fresh off a fight. Before you have a chance to ask anyone anything there is chaos nearby.
Merely a street over, there's a fight that sprang up at the same time as the fearling attack. It seems chaotic. There's yelling and crashing and the sound of rending metal. A separate fearling cloud is circling above this other fight -
- until a distant figure with a staff rises up in the air to meet it. Energy crackles like electricity but there's no warmth to the color, it's white-cold. The fearling cloud freezes in mid-air and then explodes into something that looks like frozen sand before the frozen fearling particles start trickling off into the distance. The gust of cold is so chilling it can be felt all the way where the group is.
But then something is flung from the ground, knocking the figure out of the air.
For those curious for answers, the answers may lie that way. For those hesitant to go to another conflict (or a new conflict if you just showed up), there is now a whisper in your head that seems to come from above, urging you along. It's pushing into evening and the Moon has risen early, barely visible as the evening light starts to fade.
His name is Jack Frost. Please go to him; he fights the ones that attacked the children, that attacked you. They will hunt you until they kill or imprison you. He can bring you to safety, but only if he lives long enough.
The Moon warns you now because you deserve to be warned, regardless of how much Jack needs help and how true it is that you need Jack to help you:
You'll be walking into a fight but if you don't save him, they will never stop coming for you.
It's not a lie.
ENTER JACK FROST
The fight is taking place on a playground. The children there have long since escaped thanks to their savior, buuuut he's not doing so good.
Jack Frost, the last of the Guardians, had the situation handled - until his enemies told him about the bus, the Jersey Devil, and the cloud of fearlings a few streets over. The problem is that when you're desperate to end one fight and escape to another, you tend to slip up.
And he is so, so tired.
By the time anyone else gets there, he's down and nearly out. He doesn't look like much: a spidery-limbed white-haired teenage boy in a frosted-over blue hoodie, brown tattered pants looking ancient and bound to his legs with leather cords. He's barefoot and pale like someone who's recently died in the snow.
When you arrive, Jack is trying to extricate himself from the twisted wreckage of a metal jungle gym, a broken up geodesic metal cage. He's clearly battered and scraped up, his hoodie clawed and bloody in places, and bleeding profusely from a head injury.
He gets to his feet, sees there are new people and backs away from both you and the figures penning him in, staff held out and ready to fight. The two figures on the ground that were menacing him seem to be backing away slightly at the sight of the group. A terrifying woman with bloody claws, Bloody Mary, and the Trunchbull, a massive vicious-looking woman with a riding crop and stern school-marm-ish outfit that looks like she could bench press a steer, don't like the look of the crowd.
A red-haired man with sunglasses is staring down from above, where he stands on a floating cloud of fearlings. This is Mr. Benedict.
"Aw come on, Benny," Jack calls out. "Do you really need that much extra help to handle lil' ol' me?"
But a ray of moonlight casts down on Jack, and with it comes understanding, in an instant. He looks over at the group and slowly raises his eyebrows at what their existence might mean.
The figure floating above shakes his head. "They're not ours, Mr. Frost," says Benedict, signaling some of the fearlings to quickly swoop down and scoop up Bloody Mary and the Trunchbull before anyone in the group can bring them to harm, shielding them from any possible blows. "But if that means they're possibly fresh faces that might join your side, well then I've clearly got to bring in some of the help to clean this whole mess up, don't I? It's worth the wasted ticket."
Before letting him follow through, Jack Frost blasts ice at the man but some of the fearlings rear up and take the hit instead. The second the wave of ice passes Benedict throws something down, something gold that strikes the ground like a blade and sticks there. It's a large movie ticket, solid like metal and glowing with golden light. In an instant, the ground under the group's feet starts to glow, too late for any of you to escape.
The fearling cloud and its three figures starts to whiz off. Jack fires off a few more blasts but the fearlings block them yet again.
"Ta ta!" Banedict calls out. "Enjoy the show!"
Jack clearly has seen this ticket thing before. And he is waaay past overwhelmed with this crap. In the past, he wasn't the type to curse. Now?
"Son of a biscuit-eating bulldog!"
Okay, so he's kept it kid-friendly but he's definitely expanded his vocabulary and found something he can use as invective.
He holds two fingers to his lips and lets out a very loud whistle. There is the sound of jingling bells coming from the distance, as merry and sweet as a child's laughter. Before Jack can explain what they're from, he's suddenly gone because the area around the group expands and suddenly has walls. Everyone becomes separated.
YOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT
Mr. Benedict's tickets can do several different things involving the movies, and fortunately take time to form, slowly growing in Kuk's base. That means he uses them sparingly. Buuut you've had the misfortune of this being one of those times.
You are now trapped in the Multiplex. It seems almost like a normal movie theater, but it's not formed right, with each of the rooms connected in odd ways, sometimes to each other, sometimes to hallways. It's almost as if a computer procedurally-generated its own twisted idea of a movie theater layout. There are nearly countless theaters, hallways, and concession stands - all of them dark, lit only by the dimmest of floor lights and the light of the movie screens, which are currently flickering with nothing on them.
Jack Frost's voice suddenly comes over the intercom - he knows where it is because of the last time he and the Guardians found themselves in here.
"I don't have much time to talk, but my name is Jack Frost and yes, those people were exactly as mustache-twirlingly evil as they seemed. Benedict's tickets create a magical pocket dimension. I've been trapped here before and things are about to get rough."
Hooray, sounds fun, right? (God he wishes he could do that "fun" thing instead of this.)
"Stay away from the screens and get out of the theater through any exit you can find! The exit signs are mostly real." Just...rare. "You're about to be surrounded. Don't try to stop your attackers, just fight your way through, because they'll just keep coming. And don't bother trying to get into the projectors, it's a waste of time. I'll try to help you all get out. Once you're out, I swear, I'll get you somewhere safe, and figure out how you're even here."
The intercom cuts out. The nonexistent movie projectors can be heard in their closed off rooms, starting to whir. They project onto the screens with a light that can't be physically blocked - it just goes through whatever's in its way. The screens themselves are also indestructible.
Movies start to play, usually cutting right into the middle of the action. The characters on screen can be seen doing whatever it is they're doing in the movie...and then looking right at the viewer. Then they walk towards the screen - and out of it, slowly passing into the theater aisles and becoming three-dimensional. This wouldn't be a problem if these were good characters, but no. No no no, the group is not so lucky as that.
They're all villains, every single one.
"Hi, I'm Chucky, wanna play?"
"Ba-ba-dooook."
"We all float down here."
"Heeeere's Johnny!"
And hidden in the theater among all these movie monsters is a surprise for everyone - one of Benedict's sentient allies, a follower of Kuk, slithering between the seats and taking advantage of the chaos. Kaa is Benedict's secret weapon.
PROMPTS
a) HORROR
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Countless horror movie villains are stalking the aisles now, ranging from classics like old school Dracula to modern slashers like the Scream guy. Some are fortunately not that powerful, like a certain axe-wielding inn caretaker who likes to shove his face through gaps in doors and talk about how all work and no play makes him a dull boy. All he's got is an axe and a bad attitude.
But others are nearly unstoppable. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers just won't stay down, regardless of how much damage they soak up, and even worse: they've apparently struck up some kind of mutual non-aggression pact and are hunting in a pair.
But the worst one is a little bastard that keeps going around and stabbing ankles. Chucky is absolutely taking advantage of the darkness of the theater to try to take out some Achilles tendons and hit some arteries with a knife.
Only rarely can they be reasoned with, typically only in cases where their on-screen situation is truly tragic, like the blood-soaked teenage girl in her prom dress. Only then can someone perhaps talk their way out of a situation by offering kindness and de-escalation. And even then, they might only spare that person and who they're with before turning to attack others once more.
Mostly, though, they're all just being pretty stabby right now.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Countless horror movie villains are stalking the aisles now, ranging from classics like old school Dracula to modern slashers like the Scream guy. Some are fortunately not that powerful, like a certain axe-wielding inn caretaker who likes to shove his face through gaps in doors and talk about how all work and no play makes him a dull boy. All he's got is an axe and a bad attitude.
But others are nearly unstoppable. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers just won't stay down, regardless of how much damage they soak up, and even worse: they've apparently struck up some kind of mutual non-aggression pact and are hunting in a pair.
But the worst one is a little bastard that keeps going around and stabbing ankles. Chucky is absolutely taking advantage of the darkness of the theater to try to take out some Achilles tendons and hit some arteries with a knife.
Only rarely can they be reasoned with, typically only in cases where their on-screen situation is truly tragic, like the blood-soaked teenage girl in her prom dress. Only then can someone perhaps talk their way out of a situation by offering kindness and de-escalation. And even then, they might only spare that person and who they're with before turning to attack others once more.
Mostly, though, they're all just being pretty stabby right now.
b) ACTION
Some of these villains are fortunately a little less of a handful. Hans Gruber and his armed thieves are at least just like...guys. They have guns but not much else. But they sure do seem to be taking things personally, calling out to you as if you've really ruined their day, and are really laying down some gunfire in your direction. No matter how many times they're corrected, they also keep calling you "cowboy." Hans seems to just never shut up, either, taunting you the entire time.
Some are a little less chatty. The T1000 mostly just keeps pursuing people in a standard Terminator-like fashion, transforming its arms into blades and trying to stab you. Or, worse, it imitates someone you know, even taking on their voice. Its smart enough to not chase everyone, observing some people in secret while transformed as objects to later morph into them and imitate their appearance and voice. Only a warning from the real thing might be able to save you if it dopplegangers to get in close.
And nothing seems to be able to damage it, just slow it down.
One of the most dangerous one of all at least has a musical cue to warn you it's coming.
DUUUN DUN. DUUUUN DUN.
Yes, that is a fucking Great White shark swimming through the air of the theater like its water. And it's a man-eater.
Some of these villains are fortunately a little less of a handful. Hans Gruber and his armed thieves are at least just like...guys. They have guns but not much else. But they sure do seem to be taking things personally, calling out to you as if you've really ruined their day, and are really laying down some gunfire in your direction. No matter how many times they're corrected, they also keep calling you "cowboy." Hans seems to just never shut up, either, taunting you the entire time.
Some are a little less chatty. The T1000 mostly just keeps pursuing people in a standard Terminator-like fashion, transforming its arms into blades and trying to stab you. Or, worse, it imitates someone you know, even taking on their voice. Its smart enough to not chase everyone, observing some people in secret while transformed as objects to later morph into them and imitate their appearance and voice. Only a warning from the real thing might be able to save you if it dopplegangers to get in close.
And nothing seems to be able to damage it, just slow it down.
One of the most dangerous one of all at least has a musical cue to warn you it's coming.
DUUUN DUN. DUUUUN DUN.
Yes, that is a fucking Great White shark swimming through the air of the theater like its water. And it's a man-eater.
c) SCI FI
The xenomorphs are some of the most dangerous of the sci fi bunch, slinking through the shadows and hiding in the rafters or between rows of seats, making it so you only see the occasional glimpse of shining black carapace.
They're definitely a handful. Their tails can spear people, their inner jaws can break through skin and bone, they can spit acid, and they spray acid when their exoskeleton is pierced - they also can sponge up quite a bit of damage, needing heavy gunfire or equivalent force to take down.
Even worse, they somehow found time to lay a few eggs...and the facehuggers are starting to hatch.
One of the other enemies from the world of science fiction is slower but unfortunately has strength in numbers. Figures appear in the humid fog spilling through one of the screens, from what looks like the twisted interior of a space ship. They're from one of the cinematic offerings in their particular franchise. Their voices sound out in unison from the fog as the red laser lights from their eyepieces pierce the fog in rapid arcs.
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
The Borg are slower and less cunning than the xenomorphs, but they have great numbers. They seem to never stop pouring through their screen, as if the entire ship's worth of them on the other side is invading, slowly and ponderously through the Multiplex. They are extremely strong, difficult to damage, and worst of all, have personal forcefields that slowly adapt to attacks over time, gradually becoming immune to some of them. The best tactic is retreat and laying down fire with different types of attacks each time they adapt.
If they successfully get their hands on someone, they're massively strong, with a strength many times that of a human. And that means it's a struggle to stop them from assimilating someone, piercing their neck with two nanotubules that puncture skin and pump nanites into the bloodstream that will eventually take over someone's mind and start to changing their body into something mechanical.
If they're not stopped, they'll try to drag an assimilated individual back into the screen to their ship for further augmentation - where they'll be forever lost, with no hope of a cure.
The xenomorphs are some of the most dangerous of the sci fi bunch, slinking through the shadows and hiding in the rafters or between rows of seats, making it so you only see the occasional glimpse of shining black carapace.
They're definitely a handful. Their tails can spear people, their inner jaws can break through skin and bone, they can spit acid, and they spray acid when their exoskeleton is pierced - they also can sponge up quite a bit of damage, needing heavy gunfire or equivalent force to take down.
Even worse, they somehow found time to lay a few eggs...and the facehuggers are starting to hatch.
One of the other enemies from the world of science fiction is slower but unfortunately has strength in numbers. Figures appear in the humid fog spilling through one of the screens, from what looks like the twisted interior of a space ship. They're from one of the cinematic offerings in their particular franchise. Their voices sound out in unison from the fog as the red laser lights from their eyepieces pierce the fog in rapid arcs.
"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
The Borg are slower and less cunning than the xenomorphs, but they have great numbers. They seem to never stop pouring through their screen, as if the entire ship's worth of them on the other side is invading, slowly and ponderously through the Multiplex. They are extremely strong, difficult to damage, and worst of all, have personal forcefields that slowly adapt to attacks over time, gradually becoming immune to some of them. The best tactic is retreat and laying down fire with different types of attacks each time they adapt.
If they successfully get their hands on someone, they're massively strong, with a strength many times that of a human. And that means it's a struggle to stop them from assimilating someone, piercing their neck with two nanotubules that puncture skin and pump nanites into the bloodstream that will eventually take over someone's mind and start to changing their body into something mechanical.
If they're not stopped, they'll try to drag an assimilated individual back into the screen to their ship for further augmentation - where they'll be forever lost, with no hope of a cure.
d) FANTASY
Maleficent seems to be making the most trouble today, trying to blast at you with magical fire. If she's particularly pissed, she may turn into a dragon that fills up one of the theaters. Her fire may not burn the Multiplex itself but it will burn you.
Gollum, on the other hand, is a much smaller threat - but good at attacking with surprise. The wiry creature may hop out from behind something and try to strangle you to death, screaming about getting back his Precious.
Maleficent seems to be making the most trouble today, trying to blast at you with magical fire. If she's particularly pissed, she may turn into a dragon that fills up one of the theaters. Her fire may not burn the Multiplex itself but it will burn you.
Gollum, on the other hand, is a much smaller threat - but good at attacking with surprise. The wiry creature may hop out from behind something and try to strangle you to death, screaming about getting back his Precious.
e) KAA
Kaa is Benedict's little surprise, originally intended to be left for Jack himself, but now a useful tool to kill some of them. The snake is able to split himself into many smaller snakes that slither and slink around the multiplex. A single one of them slithers to an exit to meet up with his allies outside. Back in the safety of Kuk's abode, that snake will regrow to full size. The others try to find good places to hide - and then strike, regardless of whether or not this leads to their deaths.
Though he was not venomous before, he is now, and his poison? Deadly to a myth in a way many normal poisons are not. Those that get bitten will start hallucinating wildly, either seeing frightening surreal visions, reminders of past regrets, or the embodiment of their fears. Slowly, the venom will kill them.
There is a cure, but it's back at the Pole, and you have to get there alive first.
Kaa is Benedict's little surprise, originally intended to be left for Jack himself, but now a useful tool to kill some of them. The snake is able to split himself into many smaller snakes that slither and slink around the multiplex. A single one of them slithers to an exit to meet up with his allies outside. Back in the safety of Kuk's abode, that snake will regrow to full size. The others try to find good places to hide - and then strike, regardless of whether or not this leads to their deaths.
Though he was not venomous before, he is now, and his poison? Deadly to a myth in a way many normal poisons are not. Those that get bitten will start hallucinating wildly, either seeing frightening surreal visions, reminders of past regrets, or the embodiment of their fears. Slowly, the venom will kill them.
There is a cure, but it's back at the Pole, and you have to get there alive first.
f) WILD CARD
Not interested in one of the movie villains listed? Pick another one! Use a movie villain from absolutely anything, whether it's horror, sci fi, action, or fantasy. Have multiple ones appear in a thread.
You can even have non-npc threats from movies start to appear for your characters the longer they're there. They may turn a corner and find the temple traps from Indiana Jones, for instance, or a marshy area from the Swamps of Sadness in Never-ending Story, threatening to suck your character down if they let their sadness consume them. Some of these hurdles may be in the way of the only exit they can see.
OOC DETAILS
❅ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc any villains from movies they want. They will be exclusively from movies, though these can be movies that are part of larger franchises based on shows, books, etc. Other events over time may deal with villains from other mediums so we're playing with just movies for now. Players can have them speak, with their best approximation of their dialogue. It is okay if this is slightly ooc if someone is mostly working off some basic perceptions and catchphrases of a character. These constructs are not sentient and therefore won't always be the most accurate to the characters. It is more like they are just animating as puppets. This means you can npc them without concern for being slightly off on IC-ness.
❅ Jack Frost: So that he can earn their trust Jack Frost may be popping in for the occasional save and extra bit of directions towards an exit. The mod will tap people in a thread to ask if it's a good place for it or you can request him for a brief interaction in the mod question comment.
❅ Enemy damage: Players can have their characters successfully kill the villain npcs. The problem is...they just keep coming. Every time they successfully kill one of the solo villains a new iteration will walk out from their screen. This means that players can at least successfully finish off a villain in their thread to get clear without ruining the timeline of other characters facing that villain too. You can even have a character kill a villain and have the same villain walk out of the screen and come after them again to make their day even worse.
❅ 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. For instance, the larvae can be poofed away before they cause any chest issues, Kaa's poison has a cure with some plants growing at the Pole, and the Borg nanites can be fought off by just the base myth healing, even if it takes time and is an unpleasant process of a character having a fever and being very ill until the nanite infection clears.
❅ Healing: Characters will lose Kaa's poison effect the second they get the cure but the bite will need to heal. They will have to rest for several days without putting stress on the bitten area to keep their bites from bleeding too much. Characters with no myth healing will heal from Kaa's bite in about 1 week. Characters with myth healing will heal in 2-3 days.
❅ Long-term effects: Players who go with some kind of status effect for a character can optionally have long-term consequences from it if they like, whether it's a curse, enchantment, or something else. The Borg assimilation, for instance, can be fought off but may leave characters with some mechanical body parts like reinforced spines, small mechanical growths on their faces, or permanent scarring in the shape of mechanical parts. (Normally myths don't scar but it can be permanent due to the sinister magic of the Multiplex.)
❅ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are lots of rooms to work with, curtains that can be pulled down (and set on fire, even if the whole building won't take), concession stands that have things that can be thrown at villains, butter substitute that can be poured on floors to make villains slip, etc. Chairs can even be ripped out and thrown at villains or used to barricade doors if someone is strong enough to do it.
❅ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding together to rescue an overwhelmed 3rd.
❅ Follow-up: There will be posts for escaping to the sleigh for characters to care for each other during the escape, and arriving/recovery at the Pole. After everyone has been healed and comms have been distributed, and after briefly conferring with some allies to get more info, Jack will talk to the group about what's going on. From that time forward, the standard welcome/intro will be fully in place where Manny is the one that infodumps the situation in new characters' heads. But for game start everyone gets to work through the confusion together.
Not interested in one of the movie villains listed? Pick another one! Use a movie villain from absolutely anything, whether it's horror, sci fi, action, or fantasy. Have multiple ones appear in a thread.
You can even have non-npc threats from movies start to appear for your characters the longer they're there. They may turn a corner and find the temple traps from Indiana Jones, for instance, or a marshy area from the Swamps of Sadness in Never-ending Story, threatening to suck your character down if they let their sadness consume them. Some of these hurdles may be in the way of the only exit they can see.
❅ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc any villains from movies they want. They will be exclusively from movies, though these can be movies that are part of larger franchises based on shows, books, etc. Other events over time may deal with villains from other mediums so we're playing with just movies for now. Players can have them speak, with their best approximation of their dialogue. It is okay if this is slightly ooc if someone is mostly working off some basic perceptions and catchphrases of a character. These constructs are not sentient and therefore won't always be the most accurate to the characters. It is more like they are just animating as puppets. This means you can npc them without concern for being slightly off on IC-ness.
❅ Jack Frost: So that he can earn their trust Jack Frost may be popping in for the occasional save and extra bit of directions towards an exit. The mod will tap people in a thread to ask if it's a good place for it or you can request him for a brief interaction in the mod question comment.
❅ Enemy damage: Players can have their characters successfully kill the villain npcs. The problem is...they just keep coming. Every time they successfully kill one of the solo villains a new iteration will walk out from their screen. This means that players can at least successfully finish off a villain in their thread to get clear without ruining the timeline of other characters facing that villain too. You can even have a character kill a villain and have the same villain walk out of the screen and come after them again to make their day even worse.
❅ 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. For instance, the larvae can be poofed away before they cause any chest issues, Kaa's poison has a cure with some plants growing at the Pole, and the Borg nanites can be fought off by just the base myth healing, even if it takes time and is an unpleasant process of a character having a fever and being very ill until the nanite infection clears.
❅ Healing: Characters will lose Kaa's poison effect the second they get the cure but the bite will need to heal. They will have to rest for several days without putting stress on the bitten area to keep their bites from bleeding too much. Characters with no myth healing will heal from Kaa's bite in about 1 week. Characters with myth healing will heal in 2-3 days.
❅ Long-term effects: Players who go with some kind of status effect for a character can optionally have long-term consequences from it if they like, whether it's a curse, enchantment, or something else. The Borg assimilation, for instance, can be fought off but may leave characters with some mechanical body parts like reinforced spines, small mechanical growths on their faces, or permanent scarring in the shape of mechanical parts. (Normally myths don't scar but it can be permanent due to the sinister magic of the Multiplex.)
❅ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are lots of rooms to work with, curtains that can be pulled down (and set on fire, even if the whole building won't take), concession stands that have things that can be thrown at villains, butter substitute that can be poured on floors to make villains slip, etc. Chairs can even be ripped out and thrown at villains or used to barricade doors if someone is strong enough to do it.
❅ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding together to rescue an overwhelmed 3rd.
❅ Follow-up: There will be posts for escaping to the sleigh for characters to care for each other during the escape, and arriving/recovery at the Pole. After everyone has been healed and comms have been distributed, and after briefly conferring with some allies to get more info, Jack will talk to the group about what's going on. From that time forward, the standard welcome/intro will be fully in place where Manny is the one that infodumps the situation in new characters' heads. But for game start everyone gets to work through the confusion together.
no subject
[When Branch notices that the snake can't seem to squirm out from under the now-unconscious killer, he lets go of his grip on the snake and slides his hair out from under Ghostface. The snake doesn't follow. Angry, stifled hissing can be heard muffled there but snakes of that size really aren't meant to be squished by full-sized people. The hissing eventually goes silent. The killer starts to convulse from all the bites that happened before the snake went silent.]
[Branch breathes out a sigh of relief.]
Phew, that was close. That thing was huge!
[It really wasn't. It was a pretty average-sized snake but it was certainly large compared to him.]
[Then he feels something wet running down his calf and looks down at the cut there. It's just a graze. The smallest, lightest graze of a fang as the snake's head went wide. But a small graze at his size is enough to open up a large cut. And when something has strong enough poison to kill 200 full-sized myths with a single bite, even just a few drops to someone 3 inches tall is a lot of poison.]
[The poison spirals up the surrounding blood vessels, coloring them black.]
[The blood streams from his leg, starting to thin a little too much. It helps only a little with the swelling that starts up. Blood starts streaming from Branch's nose too. His pupils narrow to little dots.]
[He stumbles and falls back to a sit, struggles to get up, then stumbles again. This time he stays down.]
[Around him, he doesn't see tunnels but he sees the theater ceiling start to cave in, in places, shovels and picks breaking into it the way they had once done in the Troll tree escape tunnel.]
[Death is looking for him.]
[No, it's possibly finally found him, because it feels like something is clutching at his heart and making it start to pound faster. At the same time, all the blood feels like its draining from his head.]
[In his world, there is no such thing as antivenom and only a few natural cures for poisons. Even when they survive the overwhelming trauma of a bite, like if it's from a very small or baby snake, a snake's poison usually means death, especially at a troll's size. It just is what it is.]
[He closes his eyes tight, as if picturing something.]
[What he says next makes it clear that maybe it's a someone. It comes out in a whoosh of breath.]
Poppy...
[Then he collapses entirely, falling back as he falls unconscious, his little chest rising and falling rapidly.]
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And yet: oh, how the mighty have fallen.
[Her good humor is undercut by the way he staggers and falls back on his butt. She hops off of the counter, a worried expression on her face.]
Hey, you okay there, buddy?
[Shit, she should have gotten his name earlier. Anything to not be calling him 'buddy' right now. He wheezes something that might be a name and goes limp.]
Shit! Shit! Shit!
[Okay, snake bite first aid, what does she know about snake bite first aid? Hopefully enough! She looks around, but the stupid concessions stand doesn't have a handwash station, so that's cleaning the bite with soap and water out. She needs to try and keep him in a neutral position, which at his size and hers means she needs to find something to carry him in.]
[The concessions stand does have a smoothie machine, which comes with its own waxed paper cups. She grabs one of the biggest size and a matching lid, and runs over to scoop him up and slide him inside, trying to keep him as horizontal as possible.]
It's okay little guy, I'm going to get you out of here, we're going to find something to deal with that snake bite or I'm gonna kick Jack Frost's ass.
[Snapping the lid into place, she rises to her feet and looks around. Nothing else moves, not even the guy with the knife she was fighting when this all went down. Speaking of, his knife doesn't seem to have dissolved into the ether with his death; she cradles the cup with the little guy in it close to her chest and grabs it. Then, because any distraction might give her the time she needs to deal with whatever comes next, she grabs another cup and fills it with smoothie.]
The next one of you bastards gets a faceful of strawberry-banana, and I hope you're allergic.
[Cup full of dude horizontal and cradled in the crook of her arm, knife in that hand, and smoothie in the other prepared to throw, Stacia advances.
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[Not by anyone or anything in the hallway to the right as she passes. It's coming up from behind. Silently, as is its way, after climbing out of a vent.]
[Because today has been a nightmare.]
[Its exoskeleton is strangely scentless but there are still subtle acidic notes in the air as it gets close.]
[But here's a sudden gust of cold from the adjoining hall, that saps all the moisture out of the air. Jack, far more powerful than he once was, doesn't freeze things with the cold of winter, or even the cold of Antarctica. This feels like a brief burst of the cold of the dark side of the moon.]
[If she looks behind at the sudden gust, she'll see that a xenomorph has been blasted to the wall by ice and frozen there. Now that it's frozen solid so the acid won't spray, several ice spears comes flying from the same direction, so hard they shatter the iced up creature.]
[Jack comes flitting through the air around the corner like a snowflake tumbling on the breeze and lands far enough away to give a potentially spooked person some distance.]
That was close. Those things are so quiet. [He briefly glances at the now shattered monster and the ice fragments slowly burning the floor as they thaw, and then back to her. The fragments disappear as the construct fades and reconstitutes elsewhere.] Are you okay?
[He looks pretty worse for wear himself, with dried blood still on his face and gashes all over that have stained his clothes bloody. But he's still trucking.]
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Huh.
[Sorry little buddy, she doesn't think she's going to be able to kick Jack Frost's ass if he doesn't have the antivenom. Still, she doesn't have time for sass.]
I've got a guy who got tagged by a snake. I don't know how badly it got him, but he's real small and he passed out immediately. You got something that can help with that?
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...Are you keeping him in a smoothie cup?
[He shakes his head, realizing that's not what needs to be focused on right now.]
It was probably Kaa. [He comes over to peek into the cup. Seeing his size, and the gnarly blood vessels on his leg, his expression grows even more concerned.] Oh, he really is tiny. That's bad.
One of Kaa's bites could kill 200 myths. Even if he only got a few drops in the wound, at his size, it could probably kill 2000 of him.
There is an antidote. It's a magical plant called aglaophotis. It has to be used fresh, though, so we'd have to get him to the Pole - that's where I work out of while fighting people like the ones that trapped us here. I was going to take everyone there.
There's nothing we can do until then and there are other people here we need to lead out. If there's one Kaa, there are other snakes just like him, so he's probably not going to be the only one that gets bitten.
[He takes to the air again, to lead her to the way out.]
I saw an exit not far from here. The sleigh will be outside - yes, that sleigh - and there'll be first aid supplies. They'll magically adapt so you should find some supplies his size.
If you tie it off with a pressure bandage it'll help slow the spread until we get him to the Pole. Not a tourniquet, just a bandage.
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About how long does he have? Can I grab one of the reindeer and make a trip to the Pole while you're getting everyone else?
[With his emphasis on "that sleigh", her brain finishes assembling the facts and presents her with a conclusion. She blinks.]
Wait, are you Bunny's Jack?
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But you'll never get into the Pole on your own, even on one of the reindeer. I'm going to have to let you in the first time. It's a new security measure, in case the sleigh was ever stolen to try to find it and get inside. Only a Guardian can get in until I adjust the seals inside.
[Huh.]
And I'm a Bunny's Jack. I saw Bunny earlier before we split up to cover more ground in here. We figured out he's from an alternate version of our world. My Bunny got captured by the Being those myths I was fighting answer to, and his Jack also had...something happen to him that made us visibly different.
He didn't say what.
[Worrying.]
But it sounds like we used to be identical up to a point.
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Okay, I'll bandage him up and keep track of the venom's progress. What do I do when it starts getting up past his waist if you're not out yet?
[She flashes Jack a quick, sympathetic smile.]
Well, I'm glad to meet anyone who's friendly with Bunny on this wild and wacky trip through realities. I wouldn't worry too much right now about the differences between you and the Jack he knows though. If I understand correctly about the kind of stuff you guys get up to, it could have been a matter of you zigging when the other Jack zagged. Goodness knows if I had, I might not have a scar on my butt.
[It's actually more inconveniently located than that, more on her upper leg where not even full coverage bikini bottoms are going to cover it up, but 'butt' is funnier to teenage boys and Jack looks like he could use a chuckle.]