nysalogs | ❪ march event log: taken! ❫

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❪ march event log: taken! ❫

CW: This event log will contain descriptions and threads involving extreme violence, torture, and possible death. While we do not intend to push beyond any boundaries indicated in sign ups, players may opt out of any aspect of their group write-ups that they find uncomfortable.

Characters who have been assigned a role for this month's plot will find specific information about their groups and locations in headers below. We encourage that you thread among your groups within these headers, and as a reminder, only characters with plot roles may participate in rescue threads or hostage situations. All characters, however, are welcome to toplevel and tag in this log.

To receive special commendation and be recognized as heroes in a future post, hostages and rescuers must submit a short summary of their event participation HERE by March 24th.

OVERVIEW

While the riots and fanatic celebrating in Olympia and Wyver have subsided, neither city is naive enough to believe that life has yet returned to normal. There remains a tension among the citizens: not the slow simmer waiting to boil over that had preceded the aforementioned events, but an apprehension and fear that, despite the Royal Guard and Knightryder’s best efforts, the worst is yet to come.

In Olympia, as night falls on the 18th, their fears are proven true.

With their previous attempts at revolution through the riots having fallen short, the anti-Simwe radicals in Olympia carry out a more covert operation in their efforts to seize power. Having compiled a list of persons of interest, observed them, gathered intel and taken efforts to ensure that their movements will not be tracked, the radicals strike on the night of the 18th. The entire operation is discrete, and one by one people go missing from streets, homes, and businesses.

News that the kidnappings were a large scale operation doesn’t break in Olympia until the following day, but whispers have already travelled to a similar group of radicals in Wyver, who, fearing what a political coup in Olympia would mean for Wyver—or, more specifically how this could affect their chances to stage their own coup should Shanrian choose to step in—launch their own gambit for power with a similar scheme in the early hours of the 19th before dawn. Many are taken straight from their homes, or on their way to work.

For all their historical tension and division, Olympia and Wyver aren’t that different once the authorities become aware of what has happened. Both cities remain on the alert. In Olympia, Simwe orders immediate action from the Royal Guard, eager to win over the loyalty of her citizens by showing her commitment to freeing the hostages, while in Wyver, Shanrian is equally quick to take action with the Knightryders. The Altar of Volkkra is one of the most sacred institutions in Wyver, and the threat of the radicals drawing followers using its banner is too great to ignore.

ABDUCTIONS AND THE SEARCH

1. Radical groups in both cities have decided that certain citizens of their respective cities would prove to be valuable hostages. Perhaps you've been traveling between cities. Or maybe you've drawn their attention by being outspoken, excelling at your city job, or being an active citizen with a great reputation. What were you doing before you got snatched up? Did someone attempt to stop this terrible thing from happening, to no avail? Did you put up a valiant fight? Regardless of how it happened, you will be forcibly outfitted with an accessory that renders you completely powerless. The extremists are no strangers to magic, either.

2. Those that didn't sign up can still witness characters being abducted and attempt to stop it, though in the end they'll fail to stop the radicals. Characters who either witness these kidnappings or notice the absences can spread the word via missing persons posters, making calls to action, or embarking on searches. Characters that would ICly look for hostages but did not sign-up for the event can still go investigate, but will ultimately not find any kidnappers. All characters may also conduct investigations in locations not included in the clues.

3. With key figures around the cities abducted, several shops and organizations are left stressed and short-staffed. Characters may find themselves working long hours, and can volunteer to help the Guard/Nightryders as they're stretched thin, as well as other key locations such as the Institute, the Fields of the Exalted, etc. There are also children, elderly people, and pets who have been left without care, due to their guardians being kidnapped. Everyone is asked to lend a helping hand.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

1. As rescues take place, extremists will be fleeing the following locations: Simwe Institute, the Sanctuary, and the Royal Guard Academy for Olympia, and a cave high on Namarak Mountain, or an island tower off the coastline for Wyver. Characters that did not sign-up can still catch and round up fleeing radicals as hostages are rescued, with additional details on what the extremists in a particular region are capable of in the group details below.

2. Hostages, both NPC and PC, will be gradually found and recovered between March 18th to the 24th. With how harrowing the experience is, rescuers and abductees alike may require medical attention and a helping hand. Perhaps you hope to support them with a shoulder to lean on, or by being there on Natha Station when any dead awake. Either way, the extremists may be defeated, but morale across both cities has taken a hit.

3. Healing doesn't always mean taking care of just the physical harm. Affected people in the cities, both PCs and NPCs, may have significant emotional scars from their experience. These are much harder to heal, and may not be going away anytime soon, but the people are doing their best to provide happy distractions to those who were taken hostage. Acts of kindness are encouraged and appreciated. Perhaps you can cook a few meals to take a burden off their shoulders, organize a fundraiser to help with relief efforts, or read a book to someone in recovery. A little bit of your time may go a long way.

FINAL OOC NOTES

Once again, hostages and rescuers may find detailed info on their scenarios in subheaders below. These may also be used as top levels for each group! Additionally, all characters, including those that did not sign up, are welcome to toplevel in this log.

For characters that are dying, please be sure to review the FAQ on death! We've updated it to provide more details for everyone this event.

Don't forget to submit a summary of your event participation to guide our plot forward and earn influence with the NPCs!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

❚❚❚❚❚ i. AWAKE (MAR 18TH)

[ It starts with a jolt when Steve wakes up, fully aware that something had happened to him (though he's not entirely sure when that was anymore), and there's something embedded into the side of his neck. It's a hard, smooth stone he can't pull out - though he does try, for a few minutes anyway, to fiddle with it.

Giving up on that, he pats himself down, expecting the worst and confirming it so when he realizes he's without his wallet, his keys, and his communications device. He's dressed down in jeans and a grey t-shirt, just a normal guy with a night off from the Royal Guard going to the marketplace for some groceries for dinner. He's without his dark guard's uniform, he's without his superhero costume, and he's got no armour. No shield.

How many jumped on him to take him down?

He rubs his head, pushing himself to his feet to study the rest of the room. There are others with him, faces he doesn't recognize - he can see them in the dim light that filters through the boarded up windows - and eventually, when someone turns the light on, under the buzzing lamps. He makes an attempt to pull the boards free but to no avail. The place is dim and dank and depressing but it looks like it might have once been used to hold a group of people for something. Gatherings, maybe. Training.

Eventually he'll approach the person closest to him - maybe it's you. ]

Hey. [ His voice sounds hoarse, like he hasn't used it in days. How long has it been? ] You all right? You hurt?

[ Not that Steve has the first clue where they are or how to help anyone if they were hurt. It's automatic reflex that has him looking out for others. ]

❚❚❚❚❚ ii. ASLEEP (MAR 18TH - MAR 20TH-ish)

[ In between torture sessions, there's opportunity for sleep. Except sleep isn't the kind of blessed escape from this unfamiliar hell, because Steve finds himself having the same goddamned nightmare every time he closes his eyes out of exhaustion. It starts off with blackness, a very decided nothingness before the images start to come together - colour and discernible objects following sound. There's always the sound of a sharp, bone-chilling screech and the flapping of large wings from above. Every other dream he falls into, he'll hear scraping of talons like nails on a chalkboard, forcing him to duck and take cover or stand up and fight.

Sometimes he'll find the creature and face it head-on (with very little defence on his part), sometimes alone, sometimes with someone else. He forces himself awake (or, unfortunately, someone else will do the forcing) often enough that he hasn't had the time to fully investigate the dreamscape - not until this moment anyway, when he spots someone - you? - up ahead.

The sound of beating wings is near. The screech of the creature's cry cuts through the air. ]

Hold on! [ Steve shouts. ] I'm coming!

[ Not that he's got a goddamned clue what he's going to do to fend off the beast. ]

❚❚❚❚❚ iii. AND SO IT GOES (MAR 20TH-23RD)

[ Days pass and their captors seem to be growing more and more frustrated. They demand information about Olympia, about the Guard, about the Institute, about whatever dirt they can dig up concerning the authorities. Steve is no stranger to interrogation and torture. He's taken part in his own fair share of difficult missions, and he's withstood a fair amount of pain.

This feels different.

He's not sure what it is, maybe the stone stuck in the side of his neck, but he feels weaker somehow. He's more susceptible to the lasting effects of their kidnappers' punishments, and he finds himself growing tired more easily when they throw him back with the other hostages. Sleep is harder to fend off than it used to be, though he makes goddamned sure to stay awake for as long as is humanly (or super-humanly as it were) possible. Mostly because each time he wakes up, it is to the echoing sound of the creature's scream, often with smudges of blood over his shirt, long gashes and stab-wounds from talons in his flesh. He heals but he heals slowly, slower than he can remember. His shirt is cut up and scratched in places and he's not sure he can always tell the difference between asleep and awake, not when the pain in both realms feels exactly the same.

If he catches someone else in the room trying to fall asleep, he'll shout in their direction - maybe even throw something at them: a chunk of debris, his shoe at one point. ]

Wake up! [ Because if any of them falls asleep ... they're all susceptible to an attack. At least that's what he's gathered over the course of the last few days.

And if only that was the worst of it. ] Don't you dare fall asleep again. Don't do it.

❚❚❚❚❚ iv. RESCUED (MAR 24TH)

[ Steve manages to resist giving his captors any information, though he can't be sure of the state of his fellow hostages. Somehow he's imbued with the kind of training he never really had during the War, at times telling his kidnappers to delicately Fuck off (which gets him into a little more trouble), and telling obvious, bold-faced lies to make light of the situation. He feels delirious and sometimes just a little crazy. He thinks of Peggy, and then he thinks of Claire and Jamie, Clarke and Emma, Bucky (and Bucky) and Wanda and Tony, Steve, Diana, Alan ... He doesn't dare give in or give up because that's just not the kind of guy he is, but he won't give up because he has to make sure that his friends are okay.

It's been a week now (though it feels like weeks), and the toll of exhaustion, malnutrition and punishment have set in. Whatever strength he has left is entirely due to the effects of his DNA, nerfed though it may be. His eyes are dim, dark smudges around them. There's commotion and the beating of wings, shouts of several voices, or maybe it's the scream of the creatures. Either way, Steve can't tell the difference between dream and reality, and he certainly can't tell a human's voice from a monster's either. He forces himself to his feet, eyes slightly glazed, limbs weak, wanting to help but more likely to get in the way at this point. His mind spins and he throws a weak fist forward, intending to punch an enemy - but possibly punching you instead.

No matter. It probably won't hurt anyway. ]

They won't stop - [ He says. ] Those things - they won't - they won't stop.

[ Eventually he closes his eyes, succumbing to a week's worth of consistent torture, worse than what he'd experienced in the War. He dreams, expecting darkness and beating wings, and he spends much of the time chasing after something, defending himself from something ... wanting out and finding no exit nearby.

It's just darkness. ]

NOTE: [ ooc: feel free to use chunks of a prompt to respond to while ignoring the rest; i've kind of divided each section into a batch of days/existences with different hooks for a different kind of steve experience.

also feel free to tag in and wildcard something entirely different! ping me over at

thwip/spidey#2716 for plotting or any questions you may have! ]

[He's not waking up.

She'd tried taking out that weird stone in the hopes that it was the cause, and while physically Steve might be starting to do better, she can still feel his nightmare like pinpricks on the edges of her perception. And as the hours go by and Steve still doesn't wake, Wanda starts to get anxious. Technically nothing is preventing her from fixing it but her own fears - what if she just makes it worse? She'd seen what the radicals did to the group she rescued. Power-wise, they can't match her, but this is more sophisticated than severing the connection between someone and the Mind Stone.

But now it's starting to feel like Steve may not wake up at all without intervention, and at that point she can hardly hurt him worse than he is already. Wanda takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and reaches out to grab the threads of the nightmare and twist them into something else.

She thinks of safety and the scene shifts - not the void anymore, but Novi Grad as it was. It's nighttime, summer from the feel of it, and though the buzz of the city is audible there's no one else on the streets. Just them.]

Steve?

[She hopes he'll still recognize her without further meddling, but in the state he's in it's hard to pick apart just how much damage they've done.]

[ Steve is standing in the middle of a courtyard, arms hanging loose at his sides, hands balled into tight fists. There's a fountain ... buildings all around them. Houses, dimly lit - but it's friendly. It's unexpected.

He has no idea how he got here, only that it's no longer dark. He can hear the distant echo of a creature's scream and it taunts him.

He doesn't trust this place. He doesn't trust much of anything right now.

When he hears his name, it's laced with the high-pitched screech of the flapping creature so that it's hard to recognize the familiarity behind it. His shoulders tense and he surveys his new surroundings but he doesn't notice Wanda yet.

Swallowing, he calls out: ]

Who's there?

[Well that's...not a good sign. In the real world, Wanda frowns. It might not have been as convincing, and she wouldn't have been able to project that same feeling of safety, but maybe she should have tried to recreate the compound.

At least the architecture is obviously wrong for Olympia, or anywhere else on El Nysa for that matter.]

It's just me. Just Wanda. [But if he's forgotten her voice, her name won't be much help, will it?] That thing isn't going to hurt you anymore.

Edited 2018-03-20 14:14 (UTC)

steve rogers | hostage

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wildcard - no need to reply.

iii

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awake

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i

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ii. ASLEEP

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iv, Cheryl Blossom at your service

bless u child

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rescued!!

daughterrrrr

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iv-ish

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