October Event: Crystal Clear

[lifeaftr_mods]

OCTOBER EVENT: CRYSTAL CLEAR

By now, several groups of people have discovered and discussed the Storyteller's intentions to explore beyond the door found at the mountain temple, as well as the additional door found at the temple in the monkey compound. The doors are functionally similar in almost every respect save for their locations.

For those who weren't part of those exploration groups, all characters will bear witness to a dream on the evening of the 17th, advising them that they are being instructed to go past both doors and explore what can be found behind them.

The reasoning?

Simple, really. Upon both doors is a rather distinctive mark, one that is meant to bar the Storyteller's way. While eradicating the sigils on the door's themselves might be simple enough, there is clearly more to them, some ancient magic or another limiting the Storyteller's influence. Whatever exists beyond the door is utterly unknown to them...and by extension, unknown to you. Anything could be hidden there, helpful or harmful. And it's really in everyone's best interests to determine what. Your mission, should you choose to accept it or not, is to travel beyond both of these two doors and destroy the sigils barring the way. And you may wish to do that quickly, dear adventurers.

Spelunking for Dummies Characters will find themselves waking up on the opposite side of the doors on the morning of the 20th. Each character will receive supplies for this adventure, backpacks brimming with enough dried fruit, vegetables, and jerky for one week. Adorning their heads? A very basic miner's cap, fueled by a small pot of oil that will easily run out within two days, if used constantly. So limit your use wisely!

These hats will prove a dire piece of equipment, as characters will find themselves navigating a series of caverns beneath Ensō itself. The deeper characters go into the cave, the more apparent it will be that there is an awful lot of natural light here, exhibited by the crystalline growths on the walls. None of them appear to be dangerous - characters can interact with the walls, pick up shards of the glasslike crystal, chisel away at the clusters of it as they see fit...as long as they don’t stay in contact with the stuff for too long.

Deeper still? There’s certainly evidence that civilization once thrived here - old buildings, ruined tools, possibly salvageable supplies. Whatever was down here was advanced enough to dwell without sunlight. And what's more, characters can find additional sigils identical to the ones on the doors - engraved on walls and etched deeply into the stone of the caves themselves. Each will have to be destroyed as they proceed. But that raises the rather pertinent of question: where did all the inhabitants go?

Unfortunately, the answer will become all too clear in due time.

---

We Always Save the Day During their exploration, some characters may experience an unsettling feeling of being watched. As of the 22nd, however, things will begin to progress from unsettling to dangerous as the great crystalline protrusions begin to shift, and things begin to move from within them. Large, humanoid things. Out of the walls. Rising from the floor. Descending from the ceiling.

Quartzalcoatl have now been unlocked in the bestiary.

Quartzalcoatl are unmistakably humanoid silhouettes, distorted by awful crystalline growths - most of which have completely swallowed any recognizable features. Anyone who was in contact with the crystal for extended periods of time - sleeping on it, for example - will find that growths have started to sprout on their skin as well.

That said, the lumbering, person-shaped, eight-foot tall mass of crystal approaching them isn't what they should be scared of, no. It's just the product of something that ravaged the body of what was once a living thing, converting flesh into a greenish, crystalline growth. The person it once was is...well, they're probably not aware of what it is that's happened to them. Hopefully. If they were, would they really be unconsciously spreading the virus that turned them into this creature by reaching out for you, leaving behind shards of that same emerald, glasslike crystal beading on your flesh? It only takes one touch, and the infection spreads so quickly. It would probably be the most humane to simply put them out of their misery.

Quartzalcoatl can be shattered and beaten back. However, this is clearly not without its own set of dangers. The crystalline disease spread by the Quartzalcoatl cannot be repelled by regenerative abilities, and characters with chances of immunity at 50% or higher will be required to RNG the results. Once infected, there is no current cure. Slowly, inexorably, characters will begin to change, and the virus that has taken root in them will begin to swallow them whole.

This part of the event comes with a high chance of death, including the potential for characters to request assistance in ending their own life. Due to this, the death penalty for this event will be reduced to one week. While we still ask players to properly submit all deaths and penalty removals to the Deaths Page, please note that in this instance, non-compulsory AC will not be required for a penalty removal.

This event also comes with a high chance for body horror and associated content warnings. For those who would prefer to opt out of this entirely, please let us know below, as we will arrange separate circumstances for those who would prefer to avoid the worst of this scenario.

Despite the reduced death penalties, we ask that any characters that do perish in the duration of the event let us know!

As always, have fun and feel free to use this post for event plotting!

---

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 17th: Storytelling occurs early to allow people time to make item requests.
[ ♆ ] October 20th: Spelunking begins. Points of interest will be provided.
[ ♆ ] October 22nd: The Quartzalcoatl make their presence known.
[ ♆ ] October 24th: The final sigils are broken and the Storyteller returns all uninfected to the Islets.
[ ♆ ] October 26th: All deceased will be returned at midday, suffering from a reduced death penalty.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS

[lifeaftr_mods]

Guys what the fuck.

[prettypurpleparlor]

Soooo... Like most monsters, Muffet's magic can make a soul physically manifest. If the quartzalcoatl were once sapient beings, do they still have souls now and if so could she (or Sans) draw them out?

OPT-OUTS

[lifeaftr_mods]

For those who would prefer to avoid the risk of death or threading out potentially unpleasant content, please let us know by commenting here or PM-ing the mod account!

[crosslaced]

Opting Laurent out of death!

ASRIEL / SEVERS-THE-THREADS

[dontkillme]

I saw beyond the universe
Far past the places we should see
But for my vision I was cursed
Torn from my home and family
Lost to my crystal kingdom.

[dontkillme]

ha ha ok no seriously

So Asriel's gonna be right at home in a dark underground only lit by crystals lmao. That's just. Waterfall. He can offer up fire magic to light the way if oil is precious, but he'd really rather not fight if he can avoid it. I'm open to infection, but I'm also not super committed to having him Immediately Die within my like my second week here unless it ends up furthering the narrative.

Severs has that sweet sweet natural Argonian disease resistance, so I'm gonna be banking on that as hard as I possibly can. She's got a Detect Life shout that could conceivably clue her in on the crystals around them being sentient, but her arrows won't be much good against rocks, so she's pretty limited in terms of ranged ability. No immediate plans for her to perish a rocky death, either, but I'm also not opting out of the death rest entirely.

The Batter

[unpurify]

(cw for suicide)

The Batter will be heading down to check things out and fight back against the Quartzalcoatl once they show up. He also has healing spells, even if they're not going to be much good against the infection ahahah. I'm open to the possibility of him getting infected and dying himself, however the Batter will seriously attempt to take his own life immediately afterwards or ask someone to do it if it spreads to far and he can't. So if you are not comfortable with playing out anything to do with suicide, please let me know! Otherwise I'm happy to give anything else a shot :)

[solperierat]

Ed is available for mercy killing!

Yrel

[karabor]

Since I’m still developing this character in the setting, I’m not very keen on her falling to a crystal disease. That being said, I love crystal-based body horror and would love to be a part of threads where that body horror is very intense. As Yrel is a paladin and thus all about community service, she will gladly travel underground with other explorers. About that: Yrel’s armor, as most draenei pally armor, is encrusted with glowing gems. She already glows quite nicely in the dark. And so do her eyes! So luckily if the lamps run out, someone can always shove the draenei to the front of the group.

She is also armed and battle-ready!

Editing to add: if a lot of characters go underground, I'll have Yrel opt into something else. I'm wedded to balance druid and it makes sense that Yrel would stay with the smaller party to protect them.

[ajackandanace]

if Yrel goes underground i'd love to plot!

Jaune

[aurabble]

This is going to be a moment where he probably Should Have Thought Ahead but didn't, underestimating the Quartzalcoatl, so if anyone wants to be the one he stupidly sacrifices himself for before getting infected that's cool.

Also if anyone wants the rest of his rations after he dies go for it but please save his sword.

[tenthstreetbred]

Idk if you want Jaune to sacrifice himself for Shepard seeing as she has armor and can take care of herself but I know Shepard would absolutely be willing to save his sword for him if no one else will.

Ouse

[immortalflower]

I might come up w/more later but just so everyone's aware: Part of Ouse's abilities is called Mitori. If she witnesses someone die in real time, she can take on the pain of their death so they feel nothing and she feels it instead without suffering the actual injury. (ex. she sees someone stabbed to death, she can take the pain of the stabbing, but not the wound itself. The person being stabbed will probably still bleed out and die, but at least they won't feel it!)

So if anyone's begging for death she can help ya out there and make it painless.

There's also an optional part of this that involves Ouse bearing witness to some of your characters memories of your choosing if she does this; I have a permissions post w/more info about it here but feel free to ask questions here too.

I'm v. flexible with it so if you want your character to die painlessly, but Ouse not see their memories we can do that! It's also entirely up to you on if your character is aware of what memory she sees or not--they can be clueless and Ouse can just bring it up out of the blue later, or they can totally know and re-experience it themselves, etc. etc. We can play with it!!

Ren

[catpiper]

Has a strong possibility of getting infected because she can't keep her grubby mitts off shiny things. Someone please stop her.

As soon as crap starts moving she'll be outta there tho. And get lost for the rest of the week, probably. She will be useless and freaking out 99% of the time.

[crosslaced]

if Ren gets sick I want to be at her bedside please, my daughter,

TIM WRIGHT + THE DRIFTER

[hyperlit]

Tim...I'm on the fence on tbh. He's paranoid enough to not go near the Radioactive Lookin Green Shit and he has a lot of people he'd prefer to stick around to protect (and/or keep an eye on hRMM HRMM) so unless I have a reason for him to kick it, I think he'll scrape through this one okay.

The Drifter won't be so lucky. They're not in the habit of touching crystals - the Western region of their home world has some crystalline garbage that doesn't look terribly unlike this stuff, and is generally best left alone - but once they realize there's fighting to be had they'll throw themself in with a gusto. And when there are shards flying every which way, eventually that one little patch of skin they keep exposed will leave them vulnerable. Oh dear...

[catpiper]

DISTRESSED REN SOUNDS???

drifter drift away from this pain

Tataru

[alittleditty]

Tataru.... is going to leave all the Big Adventuring to you guys. BUT she doesn't want to leave you all without support.

So, if anybody else is interested in helping, she is going to be setting up a base camp closer to the surface, to help anybody who might need rest, food, healing (as much as can be done depending on the circumstances). It'll be a lot for just one Lalafell, though, so she'll welcome any help she can get!

Mods have confirmed that closer to the surface there will be less danger from the Quartzelcoatls, so it works as an option to give characters a break or keep them out of the worst of harms way.

I am a-ok with threading out body horror and death if you want (just... not ready to kill off the popoto myself)! Tataru may even end up trying to make sets of gloves from her existing supplies if/when she finds out the disease spreads via touch.

[shatteredlenses]

Tsktsk, Iggy so much of your skin is like completely covered aside from those cut out thumbs on the gloves. They just may be the death of you. Ah well, all that coverage certainly will help hide what is going on, won't it?

Ignis is going to say to hell with sitting still because he's done so much of it lately and well...his mind isn't in the best place right now. Not that he's letting anyone know that. And Team Mum can't exactly see the crystals to know how much he's lingering in danger. Helping others is certainly more important anyway.

There is a endgame plan afoot, which probably should comfort exactly NO ONE. In the meantime, does anyone want help from, want to help, want to notice he's not doing well, want to be saved or do some fighting with Ignis? Let me know! :-D

Look at it this way, the crystals are so nice and green. Just like the color of his eyes once were...

[alittleditty]

/looks at you
/looks at Nao's question
/looks at the both of you in my plurk

Why do I feel like I know what your endgame will be

Muffet

[prettypurpleparlor]

Muffet is going to end up being very glad that she wears gloves, and also very distressed that her green magic can't cure this. I don't want her to get killed in this one, I think, which she should be able to avoid since her fondness for excessively frilly fashion choices means that her outfit doesn't leave any exposed skin from the neck down. (...I guess she could rub her face on a crystal, but why the fuck would you do that.)

She's going to be suggesting that they Get The Fuck Out as soon as she realizes the danger down here, and will be available for helping anybody who needs an attacking quartzalcoatl restrained or an emergency amputation to remove an infected body part.

[ajackandanace]

potential amputation cr?

Mercy & Gobbet

[caduceusoncall]

Mercy will be helping set up a base camp near the surface and can offer assistance in emergency amputation of infected areas. When she realizes the danger, she'll want to focus on containing and caring for the affected. She wears gloves and protective armor and should, generally, be fine.

Gobbet is liable to die. She will be in the thick of things and probably very touchy with the crystals. Once she starts showing signs of infection feel free to put her down, although she will likely fight.

[alittleditty]

Since it looks like we both had the base camp idea, shall we combine our efforts? :D

[want_to_belong]

No solid plans as of right now, but this boy sure doesn't cover the majority of his arms with much of anything.

On the other hand, he might be a wee more resistant than others.

Newt Geiszler

[ohnehalfte]

LBR, Newt's probably gonna die. He's too curious for his own good, and there's no way he could resist the temptation of those caves, despite his own misgivings.

He's not gonna be v happy about breaking all these sigils, tho.

Anyway, he'll probably need someone to kill him at some point, esp if he sees what happens to someone else. He's not gonna want any part of becoming a crystal monster, but will probably hang on until it's clear he's shit out of luck and the only way out is death.

[ishotyouuu]

for what it's worth, uh... Wade knows how to make it quick

I mean he won't be happy about it, but

might as well be someone that you trust, right?

Jack Foley

[ajackandanace]

I think I can only expect Jack to get infected. If anyone wants to plot potentially helping him try to deal/or try to end it before the inevitable, I am here for this.

Jesse McCree

[jinglejangle]

So ya cowboi is gonna get HECKED. He's not going to be super invested in all of this...destroying the sigils nonsense but he'll be doing his best to protec the people who actually do care and are useful.

Also he's going to get infected and if Echo's down, gettting amputated as a way to stave off the infection but he might end up keeling over anyways. But! If anyone wants McCree to tag along/be a nuisance before or after getting hecked, he's here for you.

[ohnehalfte]

hey so newt's gonna get infected too

wanna get infected together bro

[requiemofsunshine]

As much as I'd love to throw Kanaya into this, I'm not certain I want to kill her like two weeks after getting into the game. I still need to think about that.

HOWEVER: Kanaya is a practical little thing from a culture that unfortunately normalizes violence. If you want someone who'll be willing to mercy kill your character or try some emergency amputation to prevent the infection from spreading, she's the person you want. She once chainsawed a friend's legs off to get him outfitted with a pair of robot prosthetics; she don't give a fuuuuuuuck.

At the very least, she'll be going down into those caves and doing her best to destroy the sigils and fight back/support others more equipped to handle the quartacoatl.

[solperierat]

Ed, uh...Ed might wind up needing that mercy-killing help there. Minotaurs don't know how to avoid fites, news at 11................

Mickey Mouse

[souris_keteer]

So not killing off the mouse (just yet) because I'm still certain ya'll would rise up and murder me in turn. That said, Mickey will head within the caverns to explore, see what tools/supplies he can pick up, and then be horrifically traumatized with his good friends dying in agony with him being unable to do anything and not knowing they'll come back.

Huh, that's almost like his movie.

Anyway, Mickey will have his sword if anyone wants to use it for slicing off crystals/amputation, though the latter will be tricky for him and he doesn't have it in him to mercy-kill anyone. But he will give you the sword if you're capable of doing so yourself.

[hellawrath]

The elves have literally been through this ordeal before (even if Lup was in an umbrella at the time) so they'll be suspicious of the crystal from the get-go and might warn their close CR away from it too. Lup will definitely help scout deeper into the cave and if anyone wants to be Magic Missile'd to death, hit me up! Might not be a quick death though, she can only cast that at the lowest level here so it might require a couple hits before someone goes down, depending on how weakened they already are by the infection...

Jury's still out on whether or not Taako kicks it, but if yes, expect literal hellfire just, all around.

[achievementhunter]

Potentially Lup and Chara will be in The Same boat regarding siblings, jury still out for both. In which case hey Lup how about we Raise Fucking Hell.

Commander Shepard

[tenthstreetbred]

So Shepard is not dying this go round because dying here would just make her pull away from all of her CR and we can't have that now can we? ;) Anywho, she WILL be at the forefront of danger however but she will be wearing her armor since she's kind of... taken to wearing that off and on to bed... (forgive her paranoia). Since she'll be covered from head to toe she won't be at risk for infection and thus will be more than willing to fight the Quartzalcoatls when they make their appearances.

She's also willing to help ease other people's suffering by either giving them a swift death or staying with them as they pass, so feel free to hit me up for that! She'll also help out in destroying the sigils since that is the "quest" here.

All in all I am very flexible with what Shepard is going to be up to, so if you have any ideas or things you want to plot out with her, I'm all ears.

Ginko

[onegreeneye]

oh hey horrific deadly body horror, THIS is familiar

SO Ginko will be... very suspicious of these crystals, and will be avoiding contact as much as he can. However when shit starts going down and people are getting infected, he’ll be trying to do as much as he can to help - that is to say, try and pry off the crystals before they reach the bloodstream. He will be very sympathetic to how much this will inevitably hurt because uh, boy, getting rocks pried out of your flesh, isn’t THAT more familiar than he’d like.

Speaking of which feel free to have your character assume Ginko is infected even if he isn’t, because... honestly just look at him.

IN MORE MINOR NEWS since Ginko can see just fine in the dark he’ll be glad to give his lamp oil to anyone who needs it more.

[encircling]

guess whose jam is body horror

this giiiiiirl

Mira will probably be trying to heal those who have been infected! ... She'll also try to heal the quartz creatures, probably, and since her magic requires her to touch her subject... yeah. Girl's probably gonna get messed up. Once she realizes they can't be healed, she'll go on the offensive. She's a pretty good shot with a bow and arrow, so if you need a sniper, she's your gal.

Other than that, I'm not sure if she's gonna die, but I'm open to it.

Kid

[builditstrong]

Kid will not be dying, but he will absolutely be doing plenty exploring, sigil-destroying, and fighting. He's almost certainly going to chip off a few bits of crystal early on and just tuck them into his backpack so he can potentially study them later (he's going to think they might be like the Cores and Shards that powered his world). Once he realizes what they really do, he'll get rid of them.

Kid comes equipped with one (1) Big Fucking Hammer which is very good for smashing crystalline things, so if you need someone to come to the rescue, Kid's your guy. He's an all go no quit Determinator type who will absolutely go up against as many Quartacoatls to do what needs to be done and/or save people.

Roy Greenhilt and Maridian

[greatcleavage]

Once the quartzalcoatls emerge, Roy Greenhilt and Maridian will be among however many people are immediately removed from the dungeon to the outside.

Maridian will immediately set to work on the door, using what knowledge they have to attempt to destroy the sigils, open it, and free those inside.

Roy, conversely, will immediately move to secure the islets and the mana pools. Since he will of course find no trouble there beyond the routine, he will then establish a base camp at the Storyteller's temple, then clear a path from there to the cave using whatever force is necessary, in order to facilitate an evacuation.

Re: Roy Greenhilt and Maridian

[esper_magic]

Guess it's gonna be up to us to bust those doors down and free the people inside~!