JUNE EVENT: CAMP

[sailmods]

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

 

 

 

 

 

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Comments

[neverleave]

[Natsuno is dead and has nothing to go back to, so he really isn't bothered but what happens after they take down the captain.

The people he cares about should able to return if they want, but he's not going to complain about his own fate.]

No, he sees us as playthings because he's an uncaring sadist. [His eyes narrow. Seriously Mizuki, what kinda bullshit is that - ] It shouldn't matter if we are copies or whatever. Friday is a construct he created - you think that excuses how he treats her?

[opheliac]

He's like a hero. Or... tries to be, anyway. — He wants to save all of our people and since we're all stuck here on the boat, he'll probably wanna save all of us here, too.

(but if only the two of them can see eye to eye on how things should be saved. jinx wants the same goal as him but wanting to use a different strategy. and knowing him, he probably wants to return home to zaun. it's... to be expected, really. he is the leader of the firelights. he has people that care for him and vice versa. contrast to her besides silco, she... has nothing really waiting for her. vi, while having a truce with her, she knows everything will just go back the way it was before the moment they step back in their realm.

she'll leave her caitlyn, ekko will be her enemy again, and she'll lose all of her friends and fio. but maybe, she can sneak off to a different realm with her -- a world that's better and nicer. then she can really start anew that way.)

[opheliac]

I have a sneaky suspicion the Cap has the gemstone. 'Cuz I wouldn't be caught dead losin' something like that. 'Sides, I specifically remember havin' it on me before I blew myself up.

[selenokinesis]

Of course he did.

[Ebalon sighs and shrugs, though the shrug is less nonchalant and more "I expected that much". He considers himself lucky, then, that he doesn't typically bring his stuff out of his room.]

I wonder where he keeps things like that? If you could steal it back, perchance...

[bloodmunchies]

Totally, yeah. Hey, look, man-- [ And Aiden leans in, whispering conspiratorially, except people can probably still hear him, ] --I'll even help you bag it if you want. I'm nocturnal so I'm gonna be around all night, and then we can break in.

[ Never mind the fact that his sleep is trashed enough that he's awake during the day half the time anyway. ]

[bloodmunchies]

"Nah, they don't like me very much. Apparently I taste nasty."

He seems to realize that his hands are damp after shaking with Ruby, then tries to wipe off the water on his sopping clothes.

"Aura, huh? You some kinda hippie mystic? Hey, that's awesome, I used to know a couple'a those!" Aiden frowns. "Some'a them disappeared with a cult, though."

Oh, the seventies.

[bloodmunchies]

I don't think you're gonna find any, dude. I was trying to look too. Didn't smell anything even as a bear, and those guys are the most impressive at tracking things by smell on land. Turned into a bat, too, and I still didn't hear anything.

[ If there was anything in the radius of a couple of miles, he's pretty sure he would have found it by now. ]

Unless there's, like, a single cicada burrowed in the dirt or something.

[lightconductor]

Watson's eyebrows had gone up at Darcy's request, and when Clarke chimes in, he nods. "I've known any number of men, soldiers, insist they need no such thing, and then regret it. This will hurt no matter how quick I am about it, there is no shame in needing this, and we are in no danger in running out of morphine."

He holds a syringe in his hand, waiting for permission, but his expression is serious.

[prodigalmess]

"I don't even remember what it was," Malcolm says with a shake of his head, "but it was something from the gift shop on the ship. To be fair, they didn't know there would be a prize or what it would be." Not that it stopped some people.

"Nice to meet you, even though..." Yeah. All this. Talking to Marc has helped reduce Malcolm's anxiety somewhat. His hand has stopped shaking at least.

[sabigoe]

Okay!

[ Her eyes are intense as she focuses on the screen, guiding Pac-Man along to devour the blue ghosts. She manages to get the enemy count down to one, but before she can finish up, the duration of the power-up ends.

Pac-Man's a little too close to the ghost to be able to flee fast enough, ultimately leading to the end of her first round. There are two more lives left in her gameplay, at least! Still, she pouts a bit. ]

Aw! I'm sorry, Mr. Pac-Man...

[prodigalmess]

[ Malcolm commits that name to memory. He wonders why he's called 'the moon freak'. ]

I haven't died, but I'd imagine that it's still traumatic, regardless of whether it's painful or you regenerate. There may be no consequences with the captain, but there are other types of consequences.

[saltwaterlungs]

[ Ugh, getting ganged up on by people telling her she does need painkillers, feels like home. Darcy puts her cleaner hand over her eyes so she doesn't have to watch the syringe going in. ]

Fine. Just get it over with.

[ And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live, she whispers to herself over and over. Clarke's mother may have been the one who taught her medicine, but Darcy's mother was the one who taught her tools of faith to keep her steady, things to make her feel better, even if they weren't any kind of magic. It's helping, somehow. ]

[prodigalmess]

"So it's more like being caught between a rock and a hard place," Malcolm observes. "Or, the lesser of two evils."

He stands up and grabs his Glock. It's time for a perimeter check again. Malcolm shines the flashlight towards Rin as he moves down the steps of the cabin.

"Do you feel that there is still more freedom here than there was at home?"

[prodigalmess]

Well, he hadn't meant to make Stede rip his flower, but clearly Malcolm has hit a nerve. And yet Stede persists to turn the tables back on him and ask him about Ava. Why talk about Malcolm's relationships friendships when they can talk about Stede's?

"I know a bit," he says, continuing to fold, as Stede has taken up again with a new piece of paper. "She's elusive sometimes."

[prodigalmess]

"It depends when it was made," Malcolm replies. "This particular one is from the 1600s, so that makes it an antique." It's very decorative too, a beautiful weapon. It amazes him how intricately made instruments of death used to be.

"Are you a perfectionist?" he asks.

[prodigalmess]

"Oh," he says again, instinctively looking down. Her feet are well enough away that she wouldn't have stepped on them. Malcolm looks back up at her.

"Are you okay? Do... you want to keep dancing?"

Maybe he should stop asking her and just... be. His questions might be making this worse.

[baubled]

[ Effie is fairly certain she's misheard him. ]

Did you say bite? He bites people?

[ look that just seems really rude ok? ]

[hellonspectacles]

That is, admittedly, a reasonable question, and a decidedly unsettling one.

"If he truly lost control and this reality dissolved? Nothing good," Palamedes admits. "But given what we've seen of the Captain so far, I doubt that one little seance will cause the entire illusion to crumble. It may just...crack a little. If anything more than that starts to happen, I'll stop what I'm doing immediately."

[decohere]

"I'm fine," Ava insists, a bit sharply. She's mostly fine, just trying to get used to all this.

"I'm supposed to not think so much about it," she tells Malcolm the advice she received. From multiple sources. "But not thinking is very difficult because then I start thinking about not thinking and..." she looks at him helplessly.

"I just wanted to be closer."

pretend i didn't lose this notif

[light_mischief]

Most definitely the opposite of sleep; Skulduggery props himself on his elbows as Jade talks, more comfortable in the pose than someone with muscles might be. It's as big a shift as he'd suspected, as if the Earth were left with only ten years of oil left. Maybe some of the technology can be redesigned or reworked in time, and others might be replaced entirely by new inventions, but there will be a great deal that people will have to leave behind.

But, that is the nature of change, and people tend to adapt more rapidly than anyone might expect. "Given the forewarning, I'd expect some serious technological advancements will be made in the oncoming decade. People do bounce back quick."

Jade's warning is met with equal glibness. "No, you have not! But now I'm afraid I have to know. I assume it's some sort of energy runoff from the Planet Storm, but I could be wildly wrong."

[hellonspectacles]

Nothing happens.

Palamedes’ own hands are clasped in fists at his side; he’s breathing hard, and a sheen of blood sweat coats his brow, glowing unsettlingly in the moonlight. For all of that, the trees continue to lightly sway in the breeze, the sky remains bring and clear, the air gently cool. Pal takes off his glasses and wipes his face, and then he tries again. “In the name of Cassiopeia, sacred Lyctor and founder of the House of the Sixth, in the name of all the Lyctors living and dead, in the name of Lady Abigail Pent, heir to the house of the Fifth and a spirit-talker for the ages, I beg the souls of the River to join us in our battle against darkness. We offer our blood to you, we welcome your madness and your pain, if only you would rent open the skies—!” Again, the young necromancer cuts into his hand, raising his palms as the blood drips down his arm.

And again, nothing happens.

Quieter, and sounding a bit hoarse, Palamedes says, “Damnit.”

[hellonspectacles]

That's weird even by my standards.

[Palamedes looks like he's about to say something more--maybe ask whose brain the captain is keeping in a jar, for example, but finally, the lack of thanergy and his overexertion gets the best of him.

Right there, in front of the bus, he faints dead away.

Seems like someone will have to carry this necromancer home.]

[sictransitgloriamundi]

[crouches down

picks up stick from ???

immediately begins poking him]

[truthkills]

"Do you now?" The shit-eating grin in Kiriya's voice intensifies and he roguishly waggles his handlebars. "So who am I then, if not a devastatingly handsome motorcycle rolling wild and free?"

[firewalled]

Listen, I literally just got here and half of the people on the ship seem to be invisible anyways, why wouldn't I believe you were a ghost?

[He knows he's not smart, but the clues are sort of there! Invisible equals ghost, right?]