EVENT ★ POKAREKARE ANA

[futurologists]

NALANNI Now as weak as any mortal, Nalanni only needs one person to dispatch her. Though Jason has been selected for the sad deed, it would be smart not to let him go it alone. Once Nalanni ceases to be, the ground quakes and roils. The planet's rock and earth can feel the loss of its mother, and with Ryba still living, the power imbalance throws the world into turmoil. Monsters stream forth from the cave Nalanni had been held on the risen Dakal island. But unlike before, when Pomarr blew through the side of Nalalona and left lava creatures in her wake, these monsters are made of stone. And they are gigantic. Ranging from five to nine meters (roughly 16-30 feet), the stone golems are slow-moving but powerful, capable of crushing anything in their path with their feet or powerful fists. The golems cannot be spoken to or reasoned with; all they feel is the loss of their mother and the vacuum of power she has left behind. Their mindless anger makes them easily distracted, so teamwork is the best way to keep them at bay. Roughly formed of rock and hardened mud, they are weak to water. Luckily, halfway through the day, a light rain begins to fall. The golems will continue to come forth from the earth until Ryba is defeated. Upon her death, they will simply collapse into inert piles of stone. RYBA THE DEVOURING ONE Pomarr stays true to her word and draws the sea goddess to the shore of the deserted island that once housed the Dakal. Without comment, Pomarr turns and steps into an ALASTAIR rift, leaving your team to its business. Ryba is impossibly large, a mass of twisting, searching tentacles with no discernible body. She is especially weak to electrical attacks, but can otherwise be defeated by simply wearing her down with brute force. Now that you've got your collective powers back, it should be a piece of cake. Right? ATTACKS: TENTACLES. Ryba's initial attack is waving her massive, numerous tentacles around to try and keep combatants at bay. Despite their size, they are surprisingly quick -- capable of snapping at anyone who dares get too close, whiplike, or simply crushing those who stay still for too long. Her tentacles are seemingly endless, impossible to count, and move about in a nearly hypnotic way. THE STORM. After enough damage has been dealt, Ryba will grow more desperate and begin to use her connections to the sea itself. Though the battle is near the shore, sudden winds whip at the recruits, pulling them away from the shallows. Drowning becomes a real danger: the waves are high and fast, and intensely swirling waterspouts crisscross with intent to sweep recruits up, scrambling them. SHARKNADO. Ryba's last-ditch effort calls upon the creatures of the sea as well as the wind and waves. She creates a swirling vortex with her massive body in the center in attempts to shield herself from attacks. But that's not all -- spinning around her at high speeds with the vortex are sharks. A lot of sharks. And they are all angry. If characters attempt to speak with Ryba through the battle, she will respond in a calm, dark voice throughout: she has nothing to say to the invaders who would dare take her from the peace of her trench, except that they must destroy her or she will kill them all herself, before the world crumbles to nothing. Once Ryba is defeated, her massive body will simply cease moving. Goddess or not, it seems her form is as physical as any other creature of the sea. ISLANDERS During the day-long battle, characters who choose not to fight are advised to stay behind with the Nalawi to keep them safe. Though the battle rages far to the west, on the once-sunken island of the Dakal, the storms may travel to the westernmost edges of the Nalawi islands. Recruits may attempt to temporarily evacuate the westernmost Nalawi, though there may be considerable resistance. After the battle, the Nalawi can instantly tell that their goddess is gone for good. Where there was once confusion and desperation in the face of Nalanni's disappearance, there is now only sorrow and directionlessness. All recruits are invited to return to Komo, the first island at the start of the mission, for a somber memorial for Nalanni: the Nalawi don't blame the recruits for what has happened, and only expect them to join in their grief. For the rest of the time on Nalawi, characters may spend their time as they wish. The locals will need help learning how to cope without their Gifts and how to live without the goddess on whom they had come to rely. They will need help learning all sorts of trades, from fishing to pottery to plumbing, so characters who have knowledge in the mundane will have their time to shine. But the Timeline is always in need of tending, so recruits can't stay here forever. Say your goodbyes, because soon a rift will open and you'll be headed back to Oska. OOC INFO Mods will not be NPCing the Ryba encounter, so you are free to NPC her attacks yourself. Please remember that defeating her is a group effort; no one person will have the "killing blow." The battle against Ryba will take one full day. After she is defeated, recruits will have 13 days to say goodbye to the Nalawi before departing for Oska. If characters wish to temporarily stay behind in Nalawi, see here for details.

Comments

[ex_adept136]

I'm used to having a division wholly devoted to logistical support, so this has been quite...different.

[Haise wasn't sure how to phrase it more delicately, still scrubbing blood from the side of his face and neck. Cleaning himself up was usually the part that took a while, after any protracted battle.

One would think he'd have found a more efficient method]

Some sort of command structure would be preferable, in my opinion. Even having more senior recruits teaching newer ones how the system works.

[evantuality]

You're not wrong! There's a small degree of that that goes on, honestly; we have four -- five? I think five recruits that act as, um, touch-points I guess to the larger ALASTAIR organization, we're sort of encouraged to go to them with questions... but they're not really leadership, per se, and the longest any of the rest of us have been with the organization has been I think eight months? Maybe ten? Not really long enough for what you might consider meaningful leadership to develop.

[He may still be a touch salty about how it was decided that they would kill the goddesses. He sighs, a gusty thing, frowning.]

But instead we're all basically left to endlessly debate and inevitably end up doing what those with the loudest voices demand. It's, well, it can be infuriating. You missed it, but it was a disaster of a discussion when Timeline told us we would have to get rid of the goddesses.

[ex_adept136]

[The exasperation was apparent, and certainly echoed his own growing sentiments about their circumstances. It had seemed to Haise that there was an inherent lack of organization and a number of his associated had made comments and provided information that further solidified the notion]

If the people I heard from were any indication... Opinions were quite mixed, regarding that directive.

[To put it lightly. Even from his first emergence on the beach after Pomarr sent him flying with a storm, he'd seen that there were those who were very dissatisfied with the circumstances as they were]

The lack of seniority and structure, not to mention outright information, really makes me wonder. Do we have any idea how long this organization has been in operation?

[evantuality]

They were certainly mixed. The problem was it wasn't the people speaking the most sense that got listened to, in the end, but the people who basically said, 'to hell with the rest of you, I'm going to go do my own thing'.

[Evan frowned fiercely. The whole argument had put his back up, as much for the way it had been executed as for the actual conclusion. About four voices had dominated the conversation, driven by emotion rather than intellect.]

After all, none of us knew how either of the goddesses would react when attacked. It was either attack en masse, or don't attack at all: if two or three fools had taken on the battle all by themselves -- which, might I add, was in fact the entire plan of one party I spoke to personally -- who's to say when they failed that the goddesses wouldn't turn their wrath on the rest of us recruits? We already know that Nalanni committed genocide for the actions of a small handful of a single species. Essentially we were committed to a course of action because otherwise, a couple of hotheads would have doomed us all via impulsive idiocy.

[He speaks with real, passionate irritation, his frown deep, his whole face scrunched with it.]

[ex_adept136]

[For the first time, Haise considered that perhaps he was fortunate in having arrived after a seemingly inevitable conclusion had been reached. He hadn't heard about the disagreements between sides quite this candidly, perhaps owed to the lack of privacy in their remote communications methods.

Now that he was hearing it, he wondered if perhaps it wasn't so much a majority rule decision as a small number forcing the issue... And somehow, that seemed even worse than what he'd already been aware of.

He frowned, lips pressed into a thin line. For all the insistence that the Timeline was infallible, had it come down to a few forcing the hands of everyone else? Had they convinced themselves because of that?]

It sounds like a missed a pretty contentious debate...

[To say the least]

The way people made it sound, I thought it was some majority decision.

[evantuality]

Well, in a way it was. [There was a ferocity in the way Evan exclaimed as much. He huffed, though, and shrugged his shoulders and tried to put it down.] But it was more a case of those of us who weren't quite entirely on board with the proposition having to look at each other and shrug and figure it was help out or be that much more likely to die.

[Shaking his head, Evan shrugged again, this time a helpless kind of gesture.]

One way or another, to be fair, magic has to leave this world and we have to help it out. It's true that there was no guarantee that talking the goddesses into as much would have even worked.

I can rinse that cloth, if you'd like. [He pointed. It was getting pretty bloody, the scrap of bandage Haise was using to clean.]

[ex_adept136]

[Haise paused, having become absorbed enough in the conversation to almost forget about the cloth entirely. He glanced down at it, surprised despite himself at the deep red that had overtaken it, and offered a bashful smile]

Thanks... Guess I didn't realize how messy I got.

[Perhaps an understatement, but he and his squad were able to endure more than the average person could. The injuries seemed less concerning at present than the potential of exhausting finite resources was]

I can only imagine what that must have been like. The organization to which I belonged had far less in the way of internal conflict.

[Although...he wasn't sure if it was for better or worse that he'd so often been alone in his objections]

[evantuality]

[Evan took the cloth a little gingerly and stood, flapping a hand in a 'wait' gesture, and headed at a trot to the side of the tent where the washing station was. There were a few pots of water, including one for messier rinses, and then another to get the dregs of blood out, and he took several moments to vigorously scrub the cloth until it regained some of its white.

When he returned, it was with both a clean cloth and another bowl, a larger one than the drinking bowl had been, for the rinses Evan anticipated would still be needed. He dropped back to a sit in front of Haise and offered up the moist cloth again, tucking the bowl in beside himself.]

So what exactly did you do back home? I'm assuming from your, er, expertise, that you're some sort of fighter? What was this organization?

[ex_adept136]

I'm an investigator, where I'm from. That's...primarily concerned with a species that preys on humans, so combat was involved.

[Haise was starting to become accustomed to summarizing his job in terms that weren't wholly grim, though the results were mixed. The more people asked, the more difficult it was to hedge around the reality of the circumstances, but he remained concerned with the prospect of disturbing his fellow recruits.

So far as he could tell, they didn't have a ghoul in their ranks, aside from him. Given the range of age and experience, it seemed best to avoid causing paranoia. Not to mention, there was the question of how others would regard him...

He accepted the cloth, glancing down at himself to assess what he could clean up while maintaining modesty]

I'd doubt anyone here has heard of it, but it's the Commission of Counter-Ghoul.

[Evan did ask the name...]

[evantuality]

Well, I've not heard of it, but that doesn't say much. From what I've been able to tell, pretty much all of us who are from Earth are from different versions of it.

[He smiled, figuring that tidbit might at least be a little bit comforting. It had been for him: for all anyone else knew, it wasn't unusual for his version of earth to have nonhumans running about, and Haise's reactions had really driven home that he must be in a similar boat.]

I take it ghouls were the bad guys? That's not really a term for anything we have back home, either.

[ex_adept136]

Different versions of Earth...

[Now that was a curious notion. He would've thought everyone was from a different place altogether, rather than iterations of one. It felt so much like being part of a science fiction novel when he thought about that.

But it was something useful to bear in mind, going forward]

Biologically speaking, ghouls can only consume humans or one another. Most everything else can make them ill... So as you might imagine, it's cause for public concern.

[evantuality]

Oh, good lord, I certainly can imagine. [Evan scoffed for the unpleasantness of that proposition, and shook his head.] That sounds a little like vampires back home, only most of them are gone and the rest have gotten canny enough not to eat their way through a city and call attention.

[He laced his fingers together on his knees, sitting back. He could probably have gone and made himself more useful in the tent, considering how well-off Haise seemed to be, but he was enjoying talking to the other young man. Evan did rather have a soft spot for learning about others' worlds.]

So, it's your job to search and destroy, hmm?

[ex_adept136]

Actual vampires...

[Despite himself he sounded a little awed by the notion. Coming from the sort of world he did, there were ghouls and humans, but certainly not vampires. Perhaps he shouldn't have found it so notionally curious, and yet he did.

What must that have been like? He'd ask if they're anything like what he'd seen in books, but he shelved the thought]

Sometimes it's capture rather than kill. Personally, I prefer that approach.

[evantuality]

[There was something about Haise's awe over vampires that made Evan grin. For goodness' sakes, he's a ghoul hunter, and more than that, he's something himself that regenerates quickly enough to lose a pretty obscene amount of blood and be none the worse for wear ten minutes later. What was so impressive about bloodsuckers?]

So what do you do with captured ghouls? I mean, can they be rehabilitated, or... hell, I don't know? 'Ghoul' is a pretty undefined term on my world, but it sounds like it's got to be a pretty specific one in your line of work. What are ghouls, then?

[ex_adept136]

For one thing, they're not undead, as people seem given to expect here. They're born just the same as humans are.

[Usually. He omitted the part where people could be made into half-ghouls through kakuhou transplant, as he apparently had been. And on extremely rare occasions of course, half-ghouls were born out of a union between a human and a ghoul...

That too he thought it best to omit, for the time being]

And their physiology limits what they find palatable...and what they can digest. [He doubted that list needed to be reviewed, so he moved right along] If they're not disposed of, they're generally confined in a high security facility.

[Among other, much darker things. But it often seemed preferable to destroying their lives outright]