meadowlarklogs | EVENT #010

Entry tags:

EVENT #010

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam and any other megacity the Displaced happen to be in/travel to!
WHEN: May 28, 2512
WHAT: Golden-eyed monsters stream into New Amsterdam and other megacities the world over.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, death, body horror, mind control, and transformation.

> EVENT #010

It starts in the middle of the night, when most everyone should be fast asleep in their beds, whether they're still taking up a cot in the safehouse or staying in their own apartment. One moment it's quiet, with most of the rest of the city having also turned in for the night, and then in the next? It isn't.

There will be mass confusion as the scope of the situation becomes clear. Monsters stream out onto the streets, thundering up the stairs of a train station, skittering out of construction sites, or climbing up the walls. Some of them fly. Others slither. Others run, loping forward with only one goal in mind: to find something to sink their teeth or claws into and to leave destruction in their wake at every turn. They are a horde, a swarm, a teeming mass of creatures that have no intention of stopping. All of them have eyes or bodies that shine gold and wherever they go, they seem to leave decay. Concrete turns black and porous where they step; plants wither and die.

There is no real preparing for an attack of this scale. New Amsterdam will awaken as the sound of these monsters crashing down on cars or bursting through storefronts or into homes forces people to run screaming from their dwellings or places of work. There is no discrimination in who these beasts might target, and no discernable pattern in where they go.

All that one can really tell is that they seem to want to spread out. They're constantly on the move, leaping from victim to victim, and they're relentless. No one knows why they've come, where they're come from, or what will make them stop. At least for now, the only option seems to be to cut down their numbers. It's time to fight the horde.

The first night will be utter chaos as everyone reacts to the monsters' sudden appearance, but by the morning hours news reports will start streaming in. This is not only happening in New Amsterdam, or wherever else a Displaced might be staying, but seemingly everywhere. Some cities seem harder hit than others, but practically every megacity is overrun with the creatures.

With no way of knowing who might have unleashed the monsters, all of these cities have essentially been turned into battlefields. Not many civilians are prepared to fight for their lives, and it will take a mobilization effort from the police, Morningstar, the Displaced, and anyone else who's willing to take up arms in order to survive.

◉ As a note, this attack starts simultaneously in multiple cities. While it's the middle of the night in New Amsterdam, the monsters will appear at other times of the day in other parts of the world depending on the timezone!

> BESTIARY

So as to not make this post overly long, we have compiled all of the monster descriptions into a Google doc here for everyone's reference!

> (NOT SO) SAFEHOUSE

For those Displaced who stay at (or spend any time in) the safehouse under the hoverbike shop or the Red Wings bar, they may become aware of the presence of the monsters sooner than others, due to the fact that at least a few of the giant mole monsters will end up burrowing up through the concrete basements to wreak havoc. The screeching noise of steel claws tearing through the floor will be sure to wake up even the deepest of sleepers.

This won't just be an occurrence on the first night of the attack, either. Unless something is done to deter them, tunnels leading straight into the safehouses will continue to be created, allowing even other types of monsters to find their way through (the smaller ones, that is). Where exactly they're coming from won't be entirely clear, though it's a safe bet to assume that they must have originated in the cave system somehow.

Suffice to say that El won't be happy about the safehouse being compromised in this way, though this isn't a possibility that ze or anyone else could have really prepared for. While ze can't do much to physically help with containing the invasion of the monsters, ze will offer whatever resources ze can—though Morningstar is going to be busy in plenty of other locations, as well, and they only have so many resources.

The Red Wings, being a Displaced-operated location, will also be in need of assistance, especially if it's meant to be a point of safety and a hub for handing out supplies. Speaking of—

> RED WINGS HQ

As things begin to deteriorate, Clarke Griffin and Stephen Strange sink their resources into Red Wings, adapting it into a base of operations for the Displaced. Clarke also called in PRESERVE to set up a checkpoint here, too, and anyone—from the Displaced to civilians—will be able to seek aid here. (Of course, Red Wings will be just one of a few locations throughout the city where they attempt to set up shop, but Red Wings may prove to be more fortified thanks to the talents of the Displaced.) Civilians will not have access to Red Wings' safehouse, however. That's still something that Clarke and Stephen want to keep under wraps, for now.

In the bar proper, there will be medical aid, supplies, and even weapons for those who can use them. During rare moments of downtime, the gang at Red Wings will also work on reconnaissance missions to find safe spots throughout the city to provide much needed protection and safety for the people of New Amsterdam. This task may be much easier said than done. Gathering intel on the monsters is a high priority, too, and for anyone who tries to capture a monster to learn more about them, the basement might be a good place to hold them. If the Displaced are going to be able to fight back, they need to know exactly what it is they're fighting.

However, the truth of the matter is that this attack happened quickly, and in the middle of the night to boot. As much as the group at Red Wings tries, resources are stretched thin, and they didn't have time to prepare as much as they wanted to. Supplies need to be rationed, bandages and stitches used for wounds that really need them, and if you're not a great shot, it might be best to let someone with more training take that gun you're eyeing.

More than anything, despite the difficulty, this is a way for the Displaced to help out as many people as they can, and a way for them to cement their humanitarian efforts and affect the population's opinion of them. The citizens of New Amsterdam are sick of this cycle of destruction, and are just waiting to be empowered. Now's the time to teach them to fight back and help them protect their city.

Red Wings' safehouse underground will be damaged by burrowing monsters as well, and will need protection. The bar itself will escape relatively unscathed.

> INVESTIGATING / GATES

Maybe the best way of dealing with the monsters isn't violence at all. Maybe there's a more strategic way to deal with this.

The monsters will be moving from city to city via the gates, just like the Displaced do. There might be a way to keep them from spreading, or at least slow them down, by shutting down the gate network. Of course, with the mag trains shutting down, getting back home could be an issue. One option is the delivery network of hover trucks. They'll still be running to get supplies from city to city, but their batteries don't run indefinitely, so these will be relatively local trips only. No getting from New Tokyo back to New Amsterdam with this method, unfortunately, and convincing a driver to let you hitch a ride might be a challenge, but it's doable.

Of course, there's also the question of where these things are coming from. Intrepid characters might be able to track them back to their nests, which are tucked away in wildly different places depending on the city. In New Amsterdam, they might be in the caves below the city. In other places, they might not be in the city proper at all, but just outside of it. It's important to keep in mind that the nests are far away from any of the action taking place elsewhere. Tracking these origin points may provide some answers, but the cost would be less involvement in the crisis taking place.

And then there's the matter of the monsters themselves. How can you fight an enemy you know nothing about? For those determined or crafty enough, capturing them might be an option, although this will take some creativity. Once these creatures are captured, they'll need to be kept contained, and kept alive. Just because they're monstrous doesn't mean they don't have to eat, after all, and some will need special environmental considerations as well, such as the mind control slugs.

What happens after that is up to the Displaced. Is dissecting them the best bet? Their internal anatomy won't be wildly different from most "normal" animals, with the exception of some creatures who have strange appendages or the like. Still, this might give the Displaced a better idea of how they operate and what their weak spots are. Sending samples to a lab is another possibility, if the Displaced can figure out how to safely store those samples. After all, the world is in a crisis, and no one is running tests at the moment.

All monsters, though, seem drawn to the blue light. When a Displaced uses a power or activates the empathy bond, the creatures will lock onto it, utterly transfixed, and if this is done enough times, that gold glow of theirs will intensify. What does it all mean? Maybe figuring that out will be a pathway to stopping their attacks.

> PITCHING IN

While all of this is going on, it certainly won't be just the Displaced who are heading out into the streets to try and stem the flow of the monster attack. These creatures are certainly not holding back, and no matter how much work might be put in, their numbers are overwhelming. Plenty of people will end up dead as a result, ripped to shreds or dragged off somewhere to be eaten. Yet, for some reason, these monsters are not as vicious toward the Displaced. They'll engage them in a fight and injure them, but they never go so far as dealing a fatal blow.

Seeing how that's not the case for the rest of the populace throughout the world, however, some groups and organizations will be rising up to do their part.

Police departments will be mobilizing in every megacity to put the monsters down, and while they are armed, it's not on the same level as the UNA. They also don't have any sort of training that's prepared them to fight monsters, but they'll still be putting their lives on the line to put a dent in the monsters' onslaught. When it comes to enforcing regular law and order, they certainly won't have the bandwidth for anything like that. Then again, most people won't be in any position to take advantage and commit crimes either, given the chaos that will be a constant everywhere.

Morningstar will also be jumping into action around the world. The New Amsterdam branch will be most likely to work alongside the Displaced and share some of their resources, particularly with those who are signed up as official agents or those who've supported them in the past. In cities like New Prague and New Beijing where the Displaced have made some contact with Morningstar before, they'll also be open to working with the Displaced. However, their resources are by no means robust. Morningstar is an organized rebel group, but they're hardly an official army in any sense of the word. They might be able to hand out a weapon here or there and they have a safehouse set up in almost every city, but beyond that, they'll mainly be getting boots on the ground to help with the fighting.

UNA soldiers who have been left without any sort of purpose or guidance will now have an opportunity to put some of that training to use. Their involvement will be much more scattered, though in some cases small groups of these soldiers who used to work in units together will reconnect in their effort to fight off the horde. However, having been cut off from the UNA in an official capacity, they won't have much in the way of gear or weapons. They're still formidable fighters, though, and now might be the perfect time to reach out and make a connection with some of them.

Mercenaries belonging to various different outfits, depending on what city they're based in, will also be joining the cause. Whether they're acting out of a basic desire to survive the attacks or if they're actually being paid by someone to go out there and risk their lives will be less clear, but they're some of the best-equipped fighters (other than the police). They also won't really find much reason to protest any of the Displaced pitching in to fight with them. The more firepower, the better, right?

A group of regulars from the New Amsterdam fighting rings will be rising up to add their fuel to the monster-fighting fire, as encouraged by Hawke and whoever else might know them well enough to reach out. Given that some of these people have illegal mods to enhance their strength or cybernetic attachments that can do impressive amounts of damage, some of them might hold their own against the monsters. Hell, some of them might even ask the Displaced to demonstrate some of their powers if they end up fighting together, as word of their abilities has become more known among their ranks. Either way, they'll be jumping into the fray with quite a bit of gusto.

PRESERVE will be involved on the other end of these efforts and will be doing their best to tend to the wounded and the dead, along with finding shelter and safe spots for people to barricade themselves from the attacks. It's not like the grand majority of civilians could stand a chance against these monsters, after all, yet not all of them can rely on their homes to be safe enough to stay in. They'll be quick to accept an offer of Displaced help, as they'll be doing their best to try and drag the recently dead to hospitals to get them put into medi-units before they're too late. Along with what's set up at Red Wings, they'll also be cobbling together other relief spots throughout the city for taking care of wounded and offering up what supplies they have (food and water, medical supplies, etc).

And what are the corporations doing in all of this? Well, suffice to say, mainly just panicking. Unsurprisingly, they're not much help during a crisis like this, with most of the super-rich opting to hide away in whatever highly secure bunkers they might have. Too bad that these bunkers might not prove so secure in the face of these attacks. Could that prove to be an opportunity if someone went looking?

> FINAL OOC NOES

Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event. Given the spread out nature of this event, as well as the amount of additional details provided here, please direct all questions to our QUESTIONS thread below. This is, naturally, a huge event in terms of scale, and so we're certain there are aspects of it we haven't covered and questions that have yet to be answered. We do encourage that all of our players use the event planning post for any additional ideas and for touching base!

Please do not begin to thread out any aftermath until AUGUST 8, 2020, which is when we will put up the aftermath log and OOC post. If this date changes, we will provide a gamewide update as needed! As a note, the August calendar will be posted alongside the aftermath!

As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event, granted for a thread of at least 5 log/action comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way during the event itself. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.

Our Activity Check will be posted AUGUST 1 at 12 AM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on AUGUST 8 at 12 AM UTC.

Have fun and fight some monsters! Or … whatever else you might do with them. 😉😏 Your secret's safe with us. 😙

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know their eyes are glowing, but nothing beyond that.

[So if Wash means something more, Lance is interested to hear it.]

Awhile back, there was a virus that made people insanely, blindlly violent, and the giveaway was that their eyes would be glowing gold. This time there's... these slug things that crawl into your ear and cause the same effect. I tried to kill my girlfriend.

[ He wants to tell Lance how to cure it, but there's a civilian in front of him... ]

The blue fixes it.

[ That's vague enough, right? ]

[The first part of that pieces together part of another story he'd heard, and he makes a mental note to talk to Nate about it later. But then the comment about the slugs happens and Lance is pretty sure he's read these books, but more importantly--]

I'm sorry; are you both okay?

[Wash and his girlfriend. Wash seems okay-ish physically, but that isn't what Lance means, and of course he has no idea who this version of Wash's girlfriend is or how she's doing.

As for the cure, he nods; that's easy enough to understand.]

Good to know.

We're fine -- she saw my eyes and knew what to do, knows it wasn't me. I did get a few good hits in but she's patched up and back out there.

[ It wasn't fun, and Wash was a little more traumatized by it than Carolina, but they're going to be okay. ]

I'm just sick of things getting into my head.

[It sounds like it went about as well as it could go, so that's at least something, but it would have to have been a traumatic event. Even more so if it wasn't the first time something like this happened, which is what Wash's last comment implies.

He wants to ask if he wants to talk about it, but they're kind of in the middle of stitching someone up and it's probably not the best time for that conversation. Still, he can offer genuinely--]

I think that's a pretty fair thing to be sick of.

Thanks...

[ Wash says it awkwardly, not sure how to respond. Of course it's fair, right? But it is nice to hear someone say it instead of just telling him to suck it up. He offers the stranger a tiny smile to make up for his awkwardness, then focuses on the task at hand. It isn't long before the guy's all stitched up, and gets up to find a new shirt and an escort out of the bar. (He's correctly assumed that Wash is Tired.)

That leaves them alone, and Wash wipes the blood off his hands as he introduces himself. ]

Thanks for the help with him. I'm Wash, by the way... is there somewhere here I can camp out while I finish healing up?

[Lance would be a huge hypocrite if he didn't accept awkwardness gracefully, and so he just offers a brief and knowing smile of his own before letting the subject drop and refocusing on finishing what they're doing. Getting the man patched up enough that he's able to go home is a victory, and at the sight of Wash wiping blood from his hands Lance gestures for him to follow to one of the sinks as he answers the question.]

Lance. Nice to meet you, Wash.

[He'll have to remember to call him that instead of Washington, which might be a bit of a challenge.]

Yeah, a lot of us are using this as a home base; any empty space you can find is yours, and you should get something to eat while you're here too.

[ Right, a sink. Wash follows Lance over to clean up, nodding at the advice. ]

I should... is the kitchen open right now, or can we use it? I don't have provisions on me.

Um, I think so, but I'm not sure how many supplies are left.

[Lance is not exactly a person who cooks, so he hasn't been messing with the kitchen here much. Hurray for prepackaged protein bars.]

[ Wash has been out there long enough that a protein bar really isn't going to cut it right now, but he nods. ]

I'll find out. If they've still got supplies, do you want something hot?

[Wash totally has his attention at that.]

Yeah, that'd be great; thanks for offering.

Okay, I'll go ask around.

[ He smiles a little, glad to be potentially helping even as he's taking a break from battle, and heads to see if anyone's in the kitchen, or if Strange is around to ask if he can use it.

When he doesn't come back right away, Lance might surmise that he got permission and found supplies. And he'd be right. When Wash comes back it's with two plates -- nothing fancy, he isn't a chef by any means -- but fast energy food tends to be pretty easy to make anyway. Pasta, a protein that looks and mostly tastes like cut up chicken but is probably soy or processed bugs as usual, and whatever veggie he found in the fridge. If Lance looks he'll see that there's a pot on a towel on the bar now, with a stack of plates and some utensils set out beside it. Wash made enough for some others to grab a meal too, if they're hungry. ]

Here. If anybody else comes in hungry, there's more. I'm probably heading back out there pretty soon after I eat.

[Lance spends the time while Wash is busy doing some other work around the building; he helps out a few people with relatively minor injuries, organizes some supplies, informs a few people they should be taking a break, etc.

When he senses someone approaching he looks up, and then brightens noticeably; simple or not that looks amazing, and he accepts the plate with a thank you as he steers them back over toward the bar so as to have a solid surface to use.]

This looks awesome. I'll let anyone who asks know to thank you.

[ Wash blinks, not used to being praised for... well. Anything. ]

That's okay, I don't need credit or anything.

[ He does follow Lance back to the bar, though, his expression almost double checking that the stranger wouldn't mind them sitting together before he claims a stool and spears a forkful of... dinner? It's the right time for dinner, he just didn't have lunch today. Oh well. This should hit the spot. ]

Have you been working with the medics here all this time?

[Lance definitely doesn't mind, and as he realizes that Wash seems unsure he tries to make his posture more welcoming and less distant, the latter of which he tends to fall into on accident. He casually sits on one of the stools, winding one leg through it and leaning on the bar, nodding at the question.]

For the most part, yeah; I've left a few times for supplies and things like that, but otherwise I've been here. What about you? Have you been out the whole time?

Most of it. I did come back once before now to pick up a better weapon and see if anyone needed minor healing.

[ Since apparently he can do that now! ]

I'm wondering if it'd be safe to go back to my apartment to actually sleep at some point or not.

Is your apartment intact?

[There's been a lot of damage already, after all.]

It was before. We haven't been back there all day.

Well, if it's not, that'll kind of answer your question of if it's safe.

[But that said--]

If it is intact though, I can't say it would be safe, but then again nowhere is.

You're right, nowhere really is. I've heard about those slugs getting into people's apartments... we'll probably just take turns sleeping.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT #010

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