auroraexpress | Event: Worldhop #1

Who: E V E R Y O N E
When: Day 54 all-day
Where: E V E R Y W H E R E

This morning, just after dawn, you're awoken by a wail so deep and loud it makes your chest rumble. An eerie noise that feels supernaturally wrong, it's like a roar and a screech intertwined, multiple voices lashing out in anger and pain all at once. The sound last several long seconds, before facing into a distant hum.

Should you follow the noise towards the beach, you'll see that the corrupted island across the water is surrounded in a black miasma, floating into a sky that appears to be stained with bruise-like purple. For a little while it remains contained, but after a few minutes, there's a heart-beat like pulse.

Once

Twice

Thrice...

And the darkness rolls across the sky, bringing with it air filled with black dust motes that smell of mildew. The jungle is quiet, its wildlife in hiding from the Malice encroaching upon it, but you swear you can hear whispers out there. They're too quiet to understand, but you just know they're temping you:

Just let go. You don't need anyone but yourself. Everyone else should just go away.

Fortunately, as long as you stay inside the Aurora, the whispers won't actually cause you to act differently. They'll just be unsettling. Head outside, however, and you'll find yourself growing slowly more irritable and likely to say something nasty.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually everyone receives a message on their Chain, from The Construct. The same message is also aired in a robotic voice over the intercom.

Systems have detected imminent danger. Due to progression of purification, it appears the primary source of Malice on this Star has become enraged. This creature must be purified in order to complete Prism restoration.

Heroes willing to venture into the creature's lair, please make preparations and assemble in the lounge in two hours. A guide will be sent to transport you to your target location and aid your search. Please do not attempt to approach on your own.

Be aware, there is an increased likelihood of malicious creatures approaching at this time. It is advised that you remain inside the train as much as possible.

And remember: Stay Positive! The fate of the universe depends on your healthy bonds.

The announcement will prove quite true: periodically throughout the day, monsters common in corrupted areas of this Star may appear around the Aurora. They will appear one at a time and may be driven off -- it seems the overall purification of the jungle has made them weaker than they were before, but they're still dangerous!

It's time to wrap things up in this part of the universe -- good luck!

[NOTES: Please use this post to mingle freely, make IC plans, and general deal with the overall day of the event! To go and purify the island, there will be three sessions of mod-guided exploradora: 3pm PST & 7pm PST on Saturday, and 6pm PST on Sunday! Sessions happen sequentially ICly, so you can go to as few or as many as you like. If you intend to play, please to go sign up in this toplevel just so the mods have a rough idea of numbers. You can play even if you don't sign up, though!

Also, please check out this toplevel to leave your submissions for your new team bond! Submissions must be in by 6pm on the 6th, or the mods will pick a second bond for you. Thank you very much!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Solar Flare has brought back]

[A body.]

[A young woman of around 17 or 18 with very long blond hair, many pale golden wings splatted with blood and grime, and a tattered pink nightgown.]

[Also can't be awoken with magic or physical stuff, so there's that.]

[She's just gonna lay her down in the lounge near the kitchen and get a bowl of water to clean her up because she guesses she has a coma patient now????]

Edited 2020-01-05 07:24 (UTC)

[but WHY did we end up with A PERSON??]

And you're sure she came out of a flower?

[BECAUSE I MAGIC OF FRIENDSHIP'D AND THAT MEANS I GET A POTENTIAL GIRLFRIEND.]

Listen, I can do a play back with an illusion if you want, but she definitely came out of the flower.

That's not necessary. I just don't understand making a totem from a living creature. A ghost or an item makes more sense.

Oh? Why's that?

[Gonna clean these feather.]

Because they're harder to get through to. If you don't want it purified, why make it so easy?

...what happens if you destroy a totem?

I don't know. We don't have much experience to draw from.

That might be why. Lot harder to destroy a totem if it's a person.

That makes sense. Although I suspect that destroying them would only make things uglier. Perhaps it's a matter of maintaining control...

Maintaining control?

As far as we can tell, Malice was unleashed by someone deliberately. We don't know who or how, but with everything that's happened here, it seems obvious they're directly manipulating events. So maybe the totems were less to keep Malice flowing, and more to keep it under their control.

Deliberately.....

[Frowning, looking down.] That would....make a disturbing amount of sense. Pure negativity would be hard to control. It's like using dark magic. The more you use it, the more it eats at you and you become more a vessel for dark magic then what you wanted from it in the first place.

And manipulating objects and creatures is hard.

But people? People aren't so hard to manipulate. Find decent proxies, they take on the burden of using the energy, but if you can direct them the way you want, then you can use it without it using you.

Something like that, maybe. On a grand scale, given it's taken over the entire universe.

Even more important to have proxies. Might be the only way to maintain control of something this large.

I mean, think about how many people are necessary just to maintain order in a country? Doing all this alone without it getting out of hand would be impossible.

Maybe so. But we can't be sure how powerful this person -- or entity -- is. But it'd be wise to look out for any "proxies" in the next Star you visit, if we manage to clear this one today.

It's less about power as mental acuity and ability to be somewhere. Anything playing on the level of wanting to control things is gonna be limited at some point on those things.

Bigger the place, the more of a pain logistics is.

I will. And I think I need to see if I can get any information out of the next proxy.

Event: Worldhop #1

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