agentlelog | event: a gentle explosion

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event: a gentle explosion

I see a world just out of reach
With shoulders of giants at my feet
There’s not a challenge I’m afraid to meet

► The OOC plotting post for this event can be found here.

► Direct all questions to the mods at this link.

STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
You wake, warm and comfortable, and realize that you’re no longer where you were when you went to sleep. The dream was real. As you clamber out of bed and open your door, an impassive footman greets you and leads you to breakfast in a large hall filled with many, many people. They sit around a hodgepodge of tables in a mishmash of furniture—nothing matches anything else, and no two chairs are the same.

The woman from your dream catches your eyes. She stares at you with open shock. “Well,” she says, as a number of males turn to her with withering looks. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She smiles at you. “Welcome to Draega, Stranger. Please, join us.”

Join them at the table and have your breakfast, Stranger. There isn’t much to offer: porridge, water, a bit of milk, some wrinkled fruits, and bread. Coffee, thankfully, is not in short supply. Meet your fellow Strangers, both the ones choosing to live at the Queen’s Residence and those who arrived in the night with you.

As breakfast draws to a close, the Queen’s Steward, Prince Loren Sorey, explains that you may choose to find your own home or stay in the residence for as long as you please. Those who stay will receive a modest stipend but are required to participate in Allairavar’s morning trainings every day. At dawn. Before breakfast. Those who go will need to find their own homes among the ruined buildings of the city and make their own money.

The court begins filtering out of the Great Hall, dispersing to attend their many duties. Linger, Stranger, and overhear…

“What did you mean?” The man leaning over the Queen is Prince Allairavar. His membranous wings flare around him, and his expression is menacing. “This wasn’t supposed to happen?”

Queen Fayura doesn’t look at all alarmed by the massive man caging her against a wall. “It was a one-time spell,” she says. “The web was—” Her eyes go wide. “I need to go look at the web.” She ducks under Allairavar’s arm, which could put a tree trunk to shame, really, grabs Prince Verim, and drags him from the hall.

Allairavar bares his teeth at the wall and snarls. The sound rumbles through the room, and dark temper washes briefly through the residence before all the tangled webs tucked in corners absorb it, leaving the building peaceful and clean of psychic feeling once more.

A TALE OF TWO IDEALS
At exactly 5:46pm, an explosion rocks the city of Draega. Black clouds belch fire to the northwest of the city. Concurrently, in Old Town, a mob of landens armed with Breakers and Muters descends on The Last Meal. They surround an older, Blood woman.

i. Black Out
The power plant maintained by the Tinkers and the Elektrics has exploded. Across Draega, e-line appliances shut down and the city plunges into darkness—the sun set some 45 minutes ago.

Prince Loren reaches out to approximately half the Strangers, asking them to go to the power plant. He shares a mental map with them so they know how to reach the building, as well as the Craft used for air-walking. The tutorial is quick and hardly complete, but now you’ll be able to run above the city to reach your destination.

The power plant burns. Black smoke pours into the air. Master Elektric Doriah organizes the Tinkers and Elektrics who were able to escape on their own. A quick glance reveals how absolutely exhausted she is. When Strangers approach, she sneers but isn’t about to turn away good help.

“There are still people inside. The Blood who did this trapped us in shields.” She hesitates only a moment before collecting Breakers from guildmembers carrying them. “Take these. Your Jewel may not be able to break through the shields.”

Inside, well-ordered building is a mess of fire and melting steel. Airwalking protects your feet, and shields can keep out the heat, but you’ll need something more to protect your lungs. Put out fires, stop systems from overloading, save the machines from complete destruction, and rescue missing workers who are suffocating and cooking inside shields. The guildmembers trapped in the power plant will assist the Strangers who free them, helping mitigate the damage done to the plant and keep it from exploding the rest of the way.

ii. Death of a Councilwoman
Councilwoman Vera enjoys dinners at The Last Meal, and this is well known by everyone in the city. Today, public knowledge of her schedule doesn’t work so well in her favor.

As she approaches the restaurant with her family, a group of landens descends on them. Muters prevent the Blood from taking any action that isn’t purely physical, and this is enough to throw most of them off their stride; they’re used to relying on Craft to fight. The landens separate Vera from her family in a short-lived brawl. She shouts and screams—“Let me go! Don’t you know who I am? The Queen will have you executed for this! Your families will be thrown out of the city! You’re making a mis—”

A shot rings through the air.

The landens peel away from one of their own, a young man gripping a Breaker in both hands. He trembles as he stands over Councilwoman Vera, whose expression is frozen forever in shocked disbelief. Her body crumples to the ground, blood from a gunshot wound on her chest staining the white fabric of her blouse.

In the silence that follows the shot, Allairavar shoves free of the crowd. “Go home!” he snarled, Craft powering his voice.

No one moves.

Except the young landen man. He takes off at a run, and the crowd is still too horrified to do much to stop him. Allairavar wastes no time. He plunges after the young man. At the same time, he reaches out to the minds of the Strangers closest to Old Town. *The Ebon Council is, collectively, a sack of reeking shit, and Lady Vera was a bitch,* Allairavar tells the Strangers. *But if we don’t get between the Blood and the landens, we’ll have another war. We can’t afford another war. Keep them from killing each other while I deal with this idiot.*

AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you’re spinning the dial on your own device, you’ll hear…

the news
…angered local landen families by her hard-line position that Blood homes should receive priority as the city continues to recover from the fires set by the Hunter Guild last month. [The man speaks at a brisk pace, hurried and harried as though he has too much to say and not enough time to say it.]

Councilwoman Vera is known for her vocal disdain for the landen Guilds, isn’t that right, Garret? [Another man, nasally in tone. He doesn’t sound rushed so much as put upon.]

[Garret:] Correct, Wilt. She—excuse the interruption, but we are just now hearing— [The feed abruptly cuts off. Static pours from the Far-caster regardless of what local channel it is tuned to.]

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[Jonathan stumbles back against the wall and pitches his head against it, taking great gulps of air and digging his fingers into the brickwork in an effort to control himself.]

I can't... the smell is so strong.

[Unbidden his head snaps to look back at the crowd and a growl sounds from the back of his throat.]

[Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. He needs to keep him from the crowd. He could just web him to the wall but then what? Jonathan can just break free with magic.]

[The man is struggling. He doesn't seem evil. And he had Peter's back during the fires. He just...is what it he is, maybe.]

[It's rarely ever their fault. In fiction, they're always afflicted by a vamp biting them. In reality, Morbius got changed because of a failed experiment to cure his blood disorder. Attacks and accidents.]

[Instead of looking at him like he's some kind of leech or a monster, Peter sees... he sees someone that's a little sick. Sick people need transfusions, right? Maybe they don't have instincts that scream at them to chase after someone with a needle and donation bag, but there's not much difference between this and donating to someone with sickle cell. There's still someone in need.]

[The last place he wants to do this is uncontrolled in some alley but he doesn't know how to move it somewhere it can be controlled. So he just has to gun it and hope for the best.]

How much do you need? Would you be able to stop short of killing someone? And can you feed without fatally nicking a major blood vessel?

[He jumps down from the wall.]

I heal fast. I can regenerate blood a lot faster than most people.

Edited 2019-02-23 07:58 (UTC)

[It takes a moment for what Peter is offering to sink in and then he has Jonathan's entire attention, although his expression is utterly horrified.]

Have you taken all leave of your senses?! You cannot trust me! I cannot even trust myself right now! I need to... to leave this place. Once I'm away, I may be able to regain control, find something else, another option. Anything else.

[But all the same he's rooted to the spot, his eyes locked on the faint pulse of Peter's heartbeat he can sense beneath the skin.]

There's a whole city of crowds between you and the castle. And if you're so hungry you're inches from attacking people, you need to eat sometime, before you lose control.

[He has to break the hunger somehow and Peter would rather he do it with someone that can heal than losing it and attacking some innocent bystander who might die.]

[If there was a large animal nearby, that'd be handy, but he didn't see anything promising in the street outside. And he doesn't trust that the guy won't bite him mid-air if he tries to webswing him somewhere else.]

[So there aren't many other options.]

Like I said, I heal fast. It'll be a lot harder to kill me than someone else. And I'm strong, so I can fight you off if you start taking too much. If it can take some of the edge off, it'll be safer to move you through the crowds.

Edited 2019-02-23 08:30 (UTC)

[A low, rumbling snarl leaves him and in an instant Jonathan is gone and reappears in front of Peter, one hand gripping the other man's throat and pressing him back against the wall with just enough force to give Peter a taste of how strong Jonathan really is.]

Do you honestly think you could stop me? [He rumbles, crowding in close enough that he can almost taste the heat on his tongue already. Abruptly he lets go and, his hands trembling somewhat, takes a step back.]

You have no idea what manner of monster you're dealing with.

[A twinge of spider sense is barely enough warning, especially since Jonathan isn't actually trying to hurt him right now. Peter is slammed into the wall and yes, he does get a sense of how strong he is.]

[But that just makes him even more worried the man might gun for someone weaker than him. At least Peter has super strength to match.]

You're a vampire. Denizen of the night, possibly undead, and saying you're anemic would be an understatement.

[The glib tone fades a little.]

I had a friend like you. He started off my enemy but he wasn't a bad guy, he just needed help with what he'd become.

[Jonathan growls in frustration. He should leave, disappear fast enough the Peter can't follow, but it's a testimony to how accurate the other man is in his observation that he cannot bring himself to leave the offer behind. Instead, Jonathan fumbles in his coat and draws his pistol, holding it out grip first.]

Very well, but if I cannot stop then you must stop me. And mean it.

[The prospect of getting bitten doesn't scare Peter but having the gun held out to him makes him go pale and look visibly shaken. He refuses to take it, backing away slightly.]

I don't do guns.

[For a very good reason, one that has to do with memories of blood spilled on a sidewalk, and sirens that still occasionally haunt his dreams, even after all these years.]

I can fight you hand-to-hand. Trust me. I'm not a normal human.

[Peter looks up the alley, towards the crowded street.]

We should go somewhere more out of the way. If anyone sees this, they're going to get the wrong idea.

I remember seeing some buildings that looked abandoned down the other alley up ahead.

[He's already been swinging around mentally mapping the city.]

[Jonathan shakes his head, angry and frustrated and hungry and very much tempted to simply bite the man and be done with it.]

It won't kill me. Believe me, I tried.

[He doesn't believe that hand-to-hand will ever be enough to stop him if he truly cannot control himself, but Peter is already moving away and Jonathan has to admit he has a point. Getting away from the crowd and the temptation... perhaps if he's lucky he won't need to try and test himself now.]

Fine. Lead the way but... slowly. I have to focus.

[It's only a short turn around the next alley and they're pretty far from the crowd. There's the remains of an old storage space of some kind, maybe a stable, or somewhere dry goods were kept. There's still scattered hay on the ground. An ugly place, but out of the way. Slightly blocked on the odd chance someone comes down the alley for some reason.

I'll tell if you if I'm starting to feel faint. It'll take longer for me than someone else, so you should be able to get more blood.

[Peter pushes past a crude wooden door barely still on its hinges, then sits on an abandoned sack of some kind of meal. There's another sack next to it so Jonathan has someone to sit. He takes off a strange red wrist cuff with a prong that sticks out into his palm and pockets it in his wool coat.]

If it comes to a fight, it comes to a fight, but it'll be worth it to take the edge off so you're not this desperate.

[Then he rolls up his sleeve, tapping his skin to find a good vein.]

[He's still hesitant as he follows Peter, but his hunger makes it hard to simply leave, no matter how much Jonathan curses himself for his weakness. Despite the other man's reluctance, Jonathan deliberately places the pistol within arm's reach and gives him a look. He might not want to use it, but he's well aware it could come down to that and he would rather it be there than not.

That done, he circles around Peter towards the other side of him, suddenly feeling awkward, his mouth dry with the realisation of what he is about to do. It feels wrong, too trusting for what he is, and part of him still wants to shake Peter until he realises what a fool he's being.

But another, darker part doesn't want him to change his mind until it's too late, and as he kneels and reaches for the other man's wrist, Jonathan has to wonder if this is how Sean felt when he had forced the man to drink his blood and if this is some punishment.

Though as soon as he can see the bright and pulsing lines just under the surface of Peter's skin, the thought is forgotten. The hunger rises to the surface and Jonathan leans in and bites. His fangs sink into flesh so easily and immediately there's that addictive, rich taste on his tongue and heat rushing down his throat. His earlier concerns are gone as he swallows again and again, instincts taking over and driving him to feed until sated or the body had nothing else to give, whichever came first.]

Edited 2019-02-24 11:20 (UTC)

Gnnnnh! Wow that hurts.

[A lot of vampire movies make getting bit by a vampire look sexy, even if the victim is dying. It is decidedly not sexy. It really hurts exactly as much as you'd expect a bite that breaks the skin and digs into your veins to hurt, and Peter's natural instinct towards someone jamming fangs into his arm and keeping them in the wound is to try to shake them off.]

[(He's been bit by more creatures and sometimes people than any person should be in their life.)]

[He has to fight his instincts to fight back, and he has to keep paying attention to how he's feeling as Jonathan feeds, which isn't exactly easy when he has no equipment to do it with and no way to measure how much he's drinking. With a smaller vein, it's fortunately not easy for Jonathan to drain him dry quickly, and even though it hurts, it's a relatively minor wound to heal. Veins don't bleed out the way arteries do, less hydrostatic pressure.]

You're going to find my blood probably has a slight radioactive tang. It shouldn't hurt you, even though you're probably a different kind of vampire than the one I knew. It actually made him less hungry if he fed off me.

[He grounds his feet, keeps himself bolt upright (so dizziness becomes apparent sooner) and presses the fingers of his free hand against his neck to keep an eye on his pulse. He tries to breathe deep so the pain and stress of something weird and unnatural happening to him doesn't cause his pulse or breathing to be heightened and skew his judgment of whether it's from blood loss or not.]

[Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. Nothing unusual going on here, just a grown man clamped onto his arm like an over-sized lamprey, sucking his radioactive people juice out.]

[He'll know when it's getting too much, he's dealt with dangerous levels of blood loss before: faster heartbeat, feeling faint, sweating, cold skin.]

[(God, it's so weird and gross having someone's mouth clamped on his arm.)]

[But he's pretty sure Jonathan is probably having a worse time of it than him. The hunger has to be painful and miserable. The lack of dignity that comes with that kind of desperation has to be degrading. His fear of harming others is obvious. That's why it's better to risk doing this than letting it go until something catastrophic happens - because it'd hurt both the doc and whoever his victim was.]

[After he's a little less desperate, maybe he can figure out a better long-term solution than whatever he's been doing before now.]

[The blood isn't flowing fast enough for his hunger, and a rumble sounded at the back of his throat as Jonathan drew back and bit down again, higher up this time, seeking out a thicker vein and pulling more from that. His whole body feels alive with warmth and pleasure again, like he hasn't felt in months, and he blindly shoves the sleeve up further to expose more of his willing prey's arm.

He couldn't keep track of how long it's been if he tried; every sense is narrowed in on sating his hunger and nothing more, and it becomes clear that he has no intention of stopping before then.]

Gah! Hey hey, easy! I agreed to feed you, I didn't agree to you chewing up my whole arm.

[This is rapidly disintegrating into not good, but he knew this was a risk. So he just has to manage it. His hand goes back to his throat, he breathes in and out, tries to keep his pulse normal. But the new vein is letting him bleed faster, and that means he loses a lot of blood, more quickly.]

[His pulse starts getting quicker, his skin gets clammy, he can hear his heartbeat started to pound in his head. He starts to get dizzy. It has to be maybe three pints that he's lost now, with him sucking away at the bigger vein. He'd like to give more, like to push it all the way to whatever he can safely give but part of the safety here involves being able to fight him off, if necessary.]

Okay, I'm going to have to cut you off.

[He starts by flicking at Jonathan's temple, a very irritating thing to do to someone, the kind of thing that makes them flinch. It doesn't hurt that his super strength means he can make it hurt worse than if a normal person was doing it.]

[The flick startles him away and Jonathan draws back with a growl, his pupils are narrowed down to pin pricks in the pale blue of his iris. His gaze flicks to Peter's neck and immediately he lunges for him, intent on sinking his teeth into a thicker artery so he can make short work of his prey.]

[He was expecting this and even if he wasn't, his spider sense pinged bigtime.]

[Thwip, with the hand that still has a web shooter, he shoots some webbing at the good doc's mouth, and then aims a kick for his face to get some space between them, and flips backwards to land on the wall.]

Doc, come on, you know you've had enough.

Edited 2019-02-26 04:46 (UTC)

[The strange liquid hits his mouth and whatever it is, it's thick and binds his teeth to each other, leaving Jonathan coughing and choking. The kick that follows catches him off-guard entirely and he staggers away, stumbling to his knees as he continues to try and clear his mouth.

It's had the desired effect, however, giving Jonathan something else to focus on and after the initial, bestial response of clawing at his mouth fades, he drops to his knees and then falls back to lay on the floor, breathing heavily. Eventually he turns and shoots Peter a pleading look.]

[Peter nearly stumbles down off the wall because ha, doing a backflip in this condition? Not fun.]

[He staggers closer, but keeps out of arm's reach at first.]

Nod yes or no. Do you think you can control yourself now?

[He doesn't look angry or unsympathetic but he has to be practical. He's weak and he needs to know Jonathan is out of whatever feral mindset he was in while feeding, before risking getting close.]

[He uses his web shooter to spray a makeshift bandage over his bleeding arm, knowing that openly bleeding in front of the guy won't make things any easier for him. He's used webbing as bandaging before and it works well until it dissolves. He can get somewhere where he can get real bandages within an hour.]

[Then he pulls his other web shooter out of his pocket and puts it back on his wrist, pulling his sleeve back down. He reaches into a compartment on said web shooter for a little vial of solvent. Provided the doc nods yes, he'll use it to dissolve the patch over his mouth.]

[Jonathan lays very still as Peter approaches, reminding himself that the other man has every reason to be cautious and it would do better for him to swallow his pride and behave in a way that's reassuring, even if it feels demeaning.

He nods slowly, each movement careful and practised, and remains still as the solvent is applied. Once his mouth is free, Jonathan rolls over to cough out bits of the strange substance and drags his sleeve over his mouth to rid himself of it and the flecks of blood still clinging there.]

What is that substance?

[Peter stores the vial away again and then woofta, he is unsteady on his feet, so he leans against the wall. He doesn't sit again - just in case this turns into another fight.]

Super strong, artificially synthesized spider silk. Don't worry, it's as nontoxic as the real thing. So is the solvent that dissolves it.

[He raises his eyebrows.]

You feeling a little less bitey now? How would you rate your biteyness from one to ten? [He asks it the way a nurse might ask someone to rate their pain.] One for "wouldn't even bite a lawyer," ten for "baby bunnies sure would hit the spot."

[He's aware that it's a pretty rough thing to be joking about but at the same time he needs to do it for himself a little bit, too. That was genuinely scary, even though he knew what he was getting himself into. His heart is still racing and it's not just the blood loss. Humor helps him cope.]

Edited (sorry the edits that's what I get for tagging late) 2019-02-26 11:02 (UTC)

[Artificial spider silk? A strange item to have, and stranger still to try and imagine how it might be made, but Jonathan suspects it has something to do with Peter's unusual abilities. The question gets a bark of wry laughter.]

A rabbit would be easier to live with than a human.

[He stands slowly, and while he's still pale and there's still a hunger to his gaze, he seems more energised somehow.]

That... could have ended far worse. Are you alright?

A little dizzy but I'm okay. Like I said, I can take a bit more of a punch than most people. I can walk away from things that would put other people in the hospital.

[Wow he is dizzy, though, especially after flipping. Black starts curling in from the corners of his vision. He slumps to a sit against the wall to try to stay still until he gets his equilibrium back.]

Or crawl away from things that bad. Sometimes it's crawling.

[It's not much worse than the way some people faint after giving blood, though. Maybe a little worse but not by much.]

[He nods reassuringly.]

I'll be okay. You really need to take care of that, though, pal. I'm sure some of the others would understand. We could set up a donation system. Maybe make it less risky by doing it by blood draw instead of you feeding from people directly.

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event: a gentle explosion

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tw: for vampire snacking

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this okay?

sure!

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