raiamods: (Default)
raiamods ([personal profile] raiamods) wrote in [community profile] ethyraia2021-06-10 06:01 pm

EVENT #01 —

WHO: All PCs
WHAT: Guests arrive at the basecamp
WHEN: June 10 - June 17
WHERE: Basecamp Leviathan
NOTES/WARNINGS: None currently (let us know if we should update this because we missed something)


EVENT LOG 001 — JUNE ❀
CONTENT WARNINGS: None currently (let us know if we missed something and should update this!)

Please note that several of these sections have deadlines, so it's a good idea to prioritize your plotting for the earlier section of the event first.

A calendar of events and deadlines is as follows:
IC:
June 10 -
The thessyx arrive with the shell.
June 11 - Dinner with the thessyx, gifts distributed.
June 12 - Scrimmage interrupted by the formation of a sinkhole.
June 14 - Critters emerge from the sinkhole in the gymnasium.
June 13-17 - Two more sinkholes open up, with more critters emerging within the day.

OOC:
June 13 -
Last day to ask about your character interfering with the shell.
June 16 - Last day to ask about your character joining the closed-door meeting with Childe and the thessyx.
June 30 - Last day to register the way your character engages with the thessyx and the critters directly. (Mods do not anticipate replying to these comments.)
❀ UNEXPECTED VISITORS


At noon on June 10, a dozen visitors arrive. The Thessyx carry themselves quietly, moving through the base as if they were attempting to enter a body of water without disturbing it. Lightweight robes of some native skein cover their green-grey amphibian skin, but do not obscure the fact that each of them possesses four arms. Once inside the base and in the leviathan’s embrace, they will lower their hoods and additionally reveal fins of varying colors along the back of their scalps. These creatures have slit noses; wide-set, irisless eyes; and mouths that stretch the full width of their skull. With them, they bring a great shell about three meters long and as tall as a small adult human.

The security force of the Adamant greets the visitors on their entry to camp. These strange amphibious creatures inform the security force that they are the Thessyx, and that the shell is full of gifts. The security force is ordered by Chief Security Officer Rémi to lock the shell away until Captain Childe has had the opportunity to decide what will be done with the contents. If you intend for your character to interfere with the shell in some way, please reach out in the QUESTIONS thread below BEFORE JUNE 13TH — this includes if your character would try to stop others from interfering with it.

Three of their number with blue fins on their head go to speak in a closed-door meeting with Captain Childe. If your character would like to attempt to get access to this meeting, please reach out in the QUESTIONS thread below with an explanation of how they would attempt to do so BEFORE JUNE 16TH.

The next day, more Thessyx arrive, and they will remain on the base for about one week. They move around the camp fairly casually, mingling with the Adamant’s crew. They are particularly interested in the hatchlings. If your character would like to ask specific questions of the Thessyx they encounter, please direct them to the QUESTIONS thread below.

Just before dinner the next evening (June 11), Captain Childe announces that there will be a special celebration in the mess hall, courtesy of their guests — all of their guests. The announcement is as follows, and goes out on the communication devices camp-wide:
I'm sure some of you have noticed the Thessyx walking among us. In light of their arrival and the gifts they've brought with them, we've decided to have a joint celebration in the mess. They have agreed to have guards from their city patrol our perimeter, so everyone has twelve hours off. Attendance isn't mandatory, but it's strongly suggested.

They've brought gifts for our new arrivals as well. These gifts are to be distributed later. I know some of you will think it's unfair that the Thessyx are favoring them, and that in three years of being here this is the first time they've initiated contact with us. Tensions are bound to be high — but the first person who picks a fight is getting thrown in the brig, I don't care if you're a civilian or not. We could all use this break.

Don't offend them. No fish jokes.

Childe out.
At dinner, a few crew members get out their instruments, and Captain Childe even looks the other way when Senior Engineer Thorkil Bjørnson opens up a barrel of the moonshine he’s just finished. It means going without later, but they’ll share some of their modest wealth with the Thessyx. The mess hall is cluttered with revelry, and some of the tables have been pushed together to make room for people to dance.

The feast is made up of various mosses and seaweeds, pickled insects, and a few mollusks. Whether this sounds appetizing or not, it’s the freshest food anyone on the base has had for a while, and it seems it’s only intended for the Children of the Leviathan. Some crew members look on jealously or externalize their bitterness. Others may be pushier — after all, they’ve been providing for the hatchlings out of their own supplies for a while now. Still others will be surprised if any of the hatchlings offer trades or pawn the food off on them preemptively — they may be inclined towards favors and good will.

A few notes:
  • The Thessyx refer to the hatchlings as ‘Children of the Leviathan.’ They do not appear to sleep, nor do they step out from under the leviathan’s embrace when the sun is out. The three blue finned Thessyx who meet with Captain Childe are not the Thessyx’s leaders, only representatives. They prefer to ask the PCs questions about them and where they came from rather than answering questions about themselves.

  • To interfere with the shell, attempt to be involved in the closed-door meeting between Childe and the thessyx, or to ask questions of the thessyx, please visit the QUESTIONS sub-thread. These options have staggered deadlines so that we can account for each stage while responding to the next; these actions of some hatchlings will reflect on others.

  • By JUNE 30TH at 21:00 EST, please respond to the mod comment labeled THESSYX GREETING with a brief description of how your character would greet the Thessyx. Feel free to write multiple characters in a single comment. We just want to check the temperature in the room.

  • ❀ A DISTURBANCE UNDERFOOT

    On June 12th, the thessyx’s visit is disrupted by the appearance of a sinkhole in the gymnasium. The basketball court, which was already in disrepair, suffers the worst of the damage. In the midst of a scrimmage between PCs and NPCs, which the thessyx observe quite rapturously, a 5-meter hole opens in the middle, with concrete and steel and earth crumbling underfoot. Any injured PCs will have their sprains and scratches treated well by the medical team, and the gymnasium will be closed until further notice. Don’t worry! The Adamant’s engineers are on the case, figuring out how the soil’s stability gave way. This could be bad news for the entirety of the basecamp if it’s an ongoing issue. The engineers could probably use some help addressing the issue — to volunteer, reach out to us in the QUESTIONS thread.

    Over the next couple days, two more sinkholes appear — one near the Memorial Wall, and one in the showers (though it thankfully doesn’t seem to have affected the plumbing). Anyone injured by a sinkhole will also have their sprains and scratches treated well by the medical team. Cartagena shares a helpful (“helpful”) PSA about the dangers of sinkholes and how to protect yourself, which is clearly dated and has nothing to do with whatever is going on here on Ethyraia:

    Hello, Children of the Leviathan! Isn’t that a silly name? I guess it’s the most accurate, since you did come from eggs. Soon you will be one month old! Hahaha! Biology can be odd sometimes.

    It’s not just biology, though! Ecology is certainly strange and confusing, and nothing is stranger and more confusing than the ecology of Ethyraia. I’m sure you have all noticed the sinkholes appearing more and more often these days. Do not be alarmed! Not because there is nothing alarming, but because alarm leads to panic and panic leads to more danger!

    For the time being, please follow these helpful tips for sinkholes:
    1. If you see a sinkhole, go the opposite direction.
    2. If you fall into a sinkhole, try not to cry. Instead, yell for help!

    I think these are sufficient enough guidelines to follow, yes?

    Remember, be careful out there! And protect your squishy selves. You never know when you might be useful later. Then it would be a shame if your squishy self was gone. We’d all be very sad. Or most of us. Or some of us. At least me, to the capacity that an AI can be sad.

    Stay safe! Cartagena out.

    On June 14th, the first of the critters emerges from the sinkhole in the gymnasium. These creatures are roughly a meter tall at the shoulder, blind, with enormous clawed forepaws and supernumerary hind-legs that appear shrunken and shrivelled and barely provide function. These creatures have tough, armored hides and truly, truly awful breath. They are capable of tearing through metal with their claws, and small arms fire does nothing to them. Within the day, dozens of them have skittered into the base. They seem as confused and afraid to be in here as the basecamp’s residents are to have them here. However, these are wild animals; they react to their fear with sharp teeth and claws. A few perseverant critters find their way into the cafeteria, sniffing out food, while others can be found gnawing on cables that power the lights for the basecamp.

    Chief Security Officer Rémi will be quick to pursue an extermination plan. The problem is big enough that the PCs are encouraged to help out, and those who volunteer will be quickly accepted, as long as they aren't trying to offer their own bright ideas.

    A few notes:
  • To volunteer to help out with engineering, please visit the QUESTIONS sub-thread.

  • If your character would volunteer to help security exterminate the creatures, or if they would disregard the security force and go after the critters on their own, please let us know in the QUESTIONS thread so we can talk about what this would look like. Rémi isn’t well-known for liking people who subvert the chain of command.

  • By JUNE 30TH at 21:00 EST, please respond to the CRITTER WRANGLING comment with how you vote the critters get dealt with — extermination, rehoming, or something else. If someone has already commented with your characters’ IC preference, please add your +1 under other people’s comments, so it’s easier for us to sort.
  • angerberg: (Default)

    yennefer of vengerberg (witcher netflix) | ota

    [personal profile] angerberg 2021-06-11 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)
    01. the room where it happens (OPEN)
    [ whispers spread through the base quickly. for such a large community, the basecamp has the feeling of a very small one. like a quiet farming town, it's not long before everyone knows that an envoy is approaching, and plenty have made their way to the edge of the settlement to gawk.

    yennefer does not bother to disguise her interest in joining them. she may think herself better than those who gape and gawk at everything, but there is no shortage of awe-inspiring sights on this planet. she'd rather be informed than proud.

    that's when she sees the security force officers scratching their chins over waht to do with the giant shell that these amphibious creatures have brought. by the time yennefer has her eyes on it, they've already decided the visitors aren't a threat. it's too bad she'd missed the first reactions to them.

    what she doesn't miss, however, is the way that the shell and the envoy get separated, the way that the strange creatures are tidily escorted down the hall. someone says, loudly, 'get captain childe on the line.'
    ]

    More refugees? [ she questions the person nearest her. ] What do you suppose they're going to talk about?

    02. pest control (OPEN)
    [ yennefer returns to the basketball court after the game, days afterward, once the engineering team that was inspecting it has moved on from swarming the area like insects to working back and forth between the sinkhole and their labs to make decisions about how to best repair and fortify. they have cordoned the gymnasium off, but yennefer dips gracefully under the tethers to approach the hole, peering skeptically into it. ]

    Well, it's not Hell rising up.

    [ as if that were some comfort. she does not climb in, but she does try to inch closer to the hole. she'd seen the injuries sustained by those who fell in; she's not interested in getting too close, but —

    it's a good thing she didn't. vermin lunges out of the hole at her with a horrible shriek, and yennefer jumps back, narrowly avoiding its claws. she hadn't even considered bringing her blade with her — why would she? there are no weapons needed around the basecamp.

    but that clearly isn't true anymore.
    ]

    03. wildcard (OPEN)
    [ feel free to reach out to me at [plurk.com profile] protects or on the discord server to plot something else. yennefer will be advocating for a hatchling representative to participate in the closed-door session with childe and the thessyx, and she will also be advocating for the extermination of the critters. here for action sequences and conspiring.

    beyond that, she's not being particularly welcoming of the thessyx or particularly off-putting. she's available for ic plotting around how to engage the thessyx, however, as she's done her time in politics. ]
    Edited 2021-06-11 23:33 (UTC)
    sunmon: (pic#14852472)

    alina starkov (shadow and bone) | ota

    [personal profile] sunmon 2021-06-11 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
    01. the thessyx are the thing (OPEN)
    [ the arrival of the thessyx shifts the way some of the adamant's survivors look at them, not that alina notices. she is too busy gluing herself to the side of whatever thessyx will have her to pay mind to those who've kindly hosted them for weeks, sharing supplies. she gives up on the theater entirely except to tour one of the thessyx around the place. ]

    Unai, come over here and show us what you've made. [ but unai is ignoring her, just as she'd ignored him. ] I'm sorry. He's not usually like this. [ but instead of persisting with unai, she turns to the amphibious creature, hands folded behind her back and asks, ] Are your people's children stubborn like this? You must have left them back in your settlement, right? Is it more of a city or a town?

    [ when unai realizes that he will not get her attention by ignoring her, he arrives then with the wooden flower he'd been painting for the set background and cracks it into her shins. alina curses. eight-year-olds.

    she chases him back behind the stage's curtain, and when she has stolen the flower back from him, unai lets out a loud protest, 'i heard you asking about where they're from. you're going to leave the leviathan and go with them, aren't you?'

    and he's absolutely right about what she'd been hoping, admittedly, but hearing him say it with such betrayal surprises her. alina crouches down and hands the flower back, smoothing his hair against his head despite his stubborn play at indifference.
    ]

    We were never supposed to be here in the first place. [ she won't lie to him and say otherwise. but this isn't the comfort that he'd wanted, so he takes his flower and stomps off, leaving alina sighing and alone. she glances outside to see that the thessyx has moved on — unsurprising, given that everyone is trying to make time with them — and resigns herself to picking up scraps backstage. ]

    02. in the memorium hole (OPEN)
    [ alina is at the memorial wall when the hole opens up. she's trying to search the names on the wall for some semblance of timeline, of cause of death, as if it were a puzzle or a map that might tell her more about the planet and its dangers, but it's just a list of names. if disappointment were the worst of her problems, she'd have been lucky.

    instead, the ground under her right foot gets soft. she has exactly enough time to look down before the shifting soil and splitting steel flooring plates has swallowed her leg. she cries out, the pain of getting caught between steel immense and crushing, but she's not pinned like that long. the steel around it gives too, and she falls deeper, knocking her head on the way down to pin her arm under herself.

    everything hurts. she groans, dazed as she picks herself up. she reaches out to poke at her leg, which has left bloody stains in her torn pants, but she can't feel any bones sticking out anywhere. the same is true for her arm, although after a few ginger attempts, she discovers that she can't unbend it without wanting to scream.

    she points her grimace upwards, towards the wall, and calls,
    ] Hello?

    03. wildcard (OPEN)
    [ feel free to reach out to me at [plurk.com profile] protects or on the discord server to plot something else. alina will be trying to figure out about where the thessyx live and (subtly) if she can go back there with them.

    once the sinkholes start opening up, she will be injured (and obviously unable to go anywhere at all) but insistent that the creatures responsible not be harmed.

    she's available for all things you might need a human night-light for. ]
    Edited 2021-06-12 01:24 (UTC)
    dissemblance: @megascopes (pic#14842346)

    nat romanoff | ota

    [personal profile] dissemblance 2021-06-13 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
    BASKETBALL ᴊᴜηє 11ᴛʜ

    so, things have been — tense. nat, who's dressed down in an oversized hoodie and something suspiciously like yoga pants, is very determinedly not giving off 'i am a spy' vibes. instead, she's playing a little basketball.

    good way to stay in shape without being too conspicuous.

    she bounces a ball to the nearest person walking by, tips her head towards the makeshift hoop in a universal gesture of game?


    So. Aliens, huh?

    she says it playfully, the same way someone might roll their eyes and talk about boys will be boys.


    FEAST ᴊᴜηє 11ᴛʜ

    she's given most of her food away, but she is nursing a small glass of what seems rather suspiciously like thorkill's moonshine. providing your character roughly looks like a legal adult, as they pass by she'll hold out a second small cup.

    Up for a toast?


    SINKHOLES ᴊᴜηє 14ᴛʜ

    she's just putting her boots on, her there's a shift to the ground, a tremendous noise, and then the whole thing goes to hell. the ground gives out from under her, and nat grabs one of her wristlets. no time to put it on, she just hits the grappling anchor and is gratified when it hits one of the solid overhead structures of the shower.

    the end result is that she's sort of dangling over the sinkhole without the immediate momentum to swing to the other side of it.

    she gives a sort of sheepish smile to whoever's nearest, and in a coy tone:


    Little help?

    no hiding that she had the reaction time and gadgetry to deal with not getting swallowed by a sinkhole, but — at least she can play it off.


    WILDCARD

    hit me up on discord @ roy#6263 and we'll hash something out! i'm game for any of the listed prompts, happy to tag cross-canon/medium/whathaveyou and excited to build up any sort of cr!!
    brosbeforeprose: (play the game)

    Varric | ota!

    [personal profile] brosbeforeprose 2021-06-13 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
    cultural exchange
    a. note-taking

    There are kid Thessyx! Fancy that.

    It took a couple days of watching them and chatting to them to figure it out, but the younger ones are the more actively curious, with the others - adults - seeming to all equally look after them and keep an eye on them.

    The kids talk more. They love his stories and answers to eager questions as much as the adults, but they talk.

    At one point he's in the canteen ignoring his food and furiously writing notes in the notebook that came with him - the Hard in Hightown draft in the front of it can wait.

    If anyone happens along, he'll glance up when he notices, greets them with a nod and looks pointedly at the seat opposite him.

    "Feel free, if you're ready to listen to me thinking out loud."



    b. it's for, uh, medical use

    The janitorial staff have a good supply of weed.

    Varric never heard of weed in his life - there are equivalents in Thedas, but he doesn't use them, less predictable than alcohol - but the janitors are too sodding nice and he's too sodding soft, so he drew up a few blueprints for them, helps out some with cleaning various tools and somehow, by showing base kindness, got himself a handful of joints.

    They're great trade fodder.

    So tonight starts with a(n adult) thessyx and a tale.

    "Picture the scene: a beautiful, buxom pirate... 'What's buxom'? Uh, well, our people feed their children from breasts - here, on their chest - and for some people a large chest looks very attractive. It's a warm-blooded thing.

    "Yeah, I'm sure it does explain a lot. Me? No, I guarantee you on me the chest hair is attractive, but not the breasts. It's complicated."

    He catches the eye of a fellow hatchling sitting nearby and grins ruefully.

    "...I've shitted this up in the opening lines, by the looks of it." He leans foward and in his hands appear as if by magic a couple of joints. "Here, has anybody offered you one of these yet? If I'm going to keep explaining tits, no one's allowed to be sober."


    CRITTERS
    a. well, shit

    When his crossbow didn't work on the creatures - the arrows bounce uselessly from the armour, and he could poison or trap one, but he'd have to take the time to make these things, and buggered if they have any time right now.

    All he can do is use Bianca's recoil to propel him in high jumps away from the rampaging things and hope he doesn't...

    ...land on any more of them. He falls from ten feet in the air to land heavily on a rock-solid shell; the creature staggers, snarling with putrid breath that washes over him so he nearly retches on the spot.

    It's taller than him when both are knocked down. He's looking right into a maw.

    "Fuck fuck fuck--"

    He repeats the word like the Chant of Light itself as he quickly calibrates Bianca to aim directly down the beast's gullet, but he's not going to make it, it's too angry and too fast--



    b. gently, gently

    He's good at sneaking, being a rogue and all. That's his best bet now against these Maker-forsaken little sons of nugs.

    It works for a solid day, until it doesn't, and he finds himself cornered.

    It was an accident; he was on his way through a doorway and the critter raced through it, bellowing in foul-smelling rage and fear when they almost bump right into each other. And he's not sure what makes him react the way he does. Maybe thinking it was frightened struck some chord.

    But instead of reaching for Bianca or a knife, or even fleeing, he calmly holds his hands out and makes a shushing noise.

    "There there, hey," he says, voice rumbling low in his chest. "No need to worry. You're as scared of me as I am of you, aren't you..."

    And fuck him sideways, he thinks it's working. It actually backs away a little, just looking. It probably helps that Varric's barely taller than it, too.

    But the moment's closed by another door opening - another hatchling pops through the door, and without looking up, Varric simple pitches his voice to carry farther, still the same soothing tone.

    "Don't make any sudden moves, I think it's calming down."
    unfastens: (my love)

    [personal profile] unfastens 2021-06-14 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
    a. thessyx feast (not feasting on the thessyx)

    [ Aliens are new - the sapient kind, anyway - and yet he's almost distressed by how he takes their appearance in stride. At this point, nothing can surprise him anymore. The shock wore off quickly on the first day, and now Bucciarati's more curious than anything. Curious about who they are and how they live, and especially curious about why they seem to know about them - the ones who came from the eggs. His focus from the moment he gained consciousness here has been finding answers, and it seems someone who might have them has finally appeared. Several someones.

    He's at the banquet, being very polite towards the thessyx and to the refugees, too. Other hatchlings might see him offering bits of the food to refugees, provided they ask him respectfully (or look sufficiently pathetic.) And they'll also see that it's not because he's grossed out by it, himself. He bites into one of those pickled insects with almost no hesitation. ]


    The flavor is surprisingly complex.

    [ local cuisine is good to try!! Don't judge him. It certainly tastes better than the borderline toilet moonshine they've got going around, but he has a glass of that, too, and is taking careful sips of it. Maybe he's gotten too used to the fine wines of Naples.

    Later in the evening, if he catches another hatchling's eye, he'll beckon them over. ]


    Did you see that shell they brought in when they arrived? [ he keeps his voice low and neutral. ] Do you think it's a Trojan horse?

    b. pest control (network)

    USERNAME: bucciarati
    SUBJECT: Creatures.

    I'm in agreement that we should destroy these things before they cause any permanent damage to electrical wiring or pipes we have set up. If you run into one and need someone to deal with it, page me.


    [ yes, page. He's from 2001. Be kind. ]

    That said, I've managed to capture one of them and immobilize it for the time being. Has there been word from anyone on whether we're going to research these things? There might be some scientific value in keeping a small number alive.
    Edited 2021-06-14 03:57 (UTC)
    needfully: (pic#14766414)

    illumi zoldyck | ota

    [personal profile] needfully 2021-06-16 07:09 am (UTC)(link)
    I. sharing is not caring
    [ Delicious bugs, mollusks, and seaweed... it really hits the spot! Illumi here has no trouble at all eating the food offered by the Thessyx, eating it just as diligently as he would any other meal.

    More importantly, unlike a few of the other Hatchlings, he doesn't offer up a single thing to the crew members or civilians, even amidst the very obvious bitterness in the air of the cafeteria. There are more than a few under-their-breath jealous remarks that are pointed at this table in particular, maybe because Illumi is eating the food all so easily and not following the trend of Hatchlings offering half or more of what they were given.

    Any unfortunate Hatchlings sitting near him have to put up with the bitterness, too. ]


    Do we really owe them anything? [ His eyes drift to look behind his shoulder, towards the source of the grousing. ] They sound like they think so.

    [ He asks this completely genuinely, and loud enough for anyone at the table to hear, apparently mostly oblivious as to why they're all catching mad heat for the pickled bugs they were gifted. ]
    II. electric engineering
    [ With the moles having skittered into deeper parts of camp, there's now the issue of them messing with the electrical wiring... one such case is just the type that you and Illumi have been dispatched to deal with! Normally, he wouldn't risk his own hide for hunting these things, but damage to the electricity? Well, that would just spell trouble for everyone. ]

    What do you think? Should we kill it?

    [ The two of you are watching from afar, out of earshot, from behind the safety of a slightly ajar door. A few of the other Hatchlings take a more direct approach, but Illumi favors stealth and delicate planning, hence the pause before moving to action. As far as it looks, it doesn't seem as though he's armed, nonchalant about the matter as he seems. ]

    It might be easier to just lure it back to that hole... assuming it goes willingly.

    [ Though, he of course doesn't know his companion's abilities! And it's apparent he mostly only has regard for what will be easiest for the pair of them in this situation, not what they were told to do by Rémi. From inside the room, there's the snap-crackle-pop of electricity as the creature chews through more wires, so they'll have to make a decision quickly. ]
    III. wildcard
    ( feel free to wildcard me! illumi will be disguised as this gross thing towards the beginning of the thessyx's arrival, so feel free to have your character spot him in this form and be like what the hell (he'll do normal stuff like eating and walking around the camp while like this, it's fine). otherwise, you can reach out to me at [plurk.com profile] lunarians for plotting or hashing out assumed cr! )
    fossils: (pic#7753883)

    steve rogers | open and closed prompts

    [personal profile] fossils 2021-06-16 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
    ( to be added! )
    trassel: (42.)

    matthias helvar | ota

    [personal profile] trassel 2021-06-17 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
    [ ooc: prompts below! will keep adding. if you would like a custom starter feel free to hmu via pm or plurk ([plurk.com profile] midwinters) and we'll have our own adventure c: ]
    cicatrize: (pic#12603010)

    jack benjamin | kings

    [personal profile] cicatrize 2021-06-17 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)
    the thessyx and the shell parade;

    [ Jack’s among the bustling crowd that gathers around the thessyx when they parade through the complex, on their way to meet with Captain Childe. This may be the strangest sight yet. Dragons and spaceships he’d seen in popular media, but aliens? Aliens that look like this? that’s entirely new, and freaking him out a little.

    Chewing at the inside of a cheek, his narrowed eyes follow the procession, lingering on the massive shell they have in tow. ]


    Call me paranoid, [ Jack mutters to the other hatchling nearby, focused on the shell, ] But ‘Trojan Horse’ keeps bubbling up in the back of my mind.

    [ they could be walking in here with a bomb, for all any of them know. Not that he has any reason to truly believe that, besides being jack benjamin, which naturally makes him suspicious of everyone. ]

    sinkhole;

    [ not a great basketball player, nor a terrible one, jack had taken to the court half out of boredom, and half out of prodding from the older teens looked after by the theater troupe. It wasn’t about satisfying their needling or caring about a bunch of brats eager for his less than congenial company, but he was bored.

    It turns out for the best, once the sinkhole suddenly has the ground falling out from under them. Jack had been next to the goal post, waiting to catch a rebound, and next to him, one of the teens that badgered him into playing. The rumble and vibration underfoot triggers a buried memory of rattling earth under tank treads, and distant mortars going off, rocks exploding into the air like shrapnel. Without thinking, jack snatches the back of the teen’s shirt before he plummets to the sinkhole’s depths, fingers clutching in a vice grip, the other arm wrapped tight around the metal goal post.

    The ground’s still shaky underfoot, making jack’s loath to shift his weight and disrupt it. but, clinging to a terrified 15 year old in one hand, and the metal post the hoop’s attached to with the other, is not an ideal, or sustainable, situation. ]
    Stop wriggling.

    [ It isn’t that jack’s a particularly nice person, given 10 minutes earlier, he’d bodychecked this kid to score a lay-up. It’s just that he isn’t a completely abhorrent person. ]

    Assist, please? [ he calls out to the stable ground above. a small chunk of earth crumbles under his heel and sheds a few rocks, jack feeling the support beginning to buckle. ] Child in mortal peril - hurry up!

    wildcard;

    [ shoot me a prompt of your own, or hit me up at [plurk.com profile] wuzzafuzzle to plot ]