EVENT ★ LABYRINTH III: THE ESCAPE

[futurologists]

LABYRINTH III The correct passageway to the inner ring of the maze is hidden behind a thick wall of vines. After cutting through the plants, the structure of the maze is noticeably different: the overgrown plants continue creeping up the walls, but the walls are no longer brick and stone, composed instead of some sort of blue metal with holes and divots carved elaborately into the surface. From some holes gush forth pure, clean water; from others, acidic liquid. The air is cool and crisp, the plants creating a lush, dim environment lit by eerie blue lights spread throughout this section. The lizards, rats, and other monstrous creatures seem to be absent from this area of the maze, replaced instead by rhinoceros-sized beetles. The beetles each have a single horn protruding from the head, and their hard carapaces make them difficult to kill -- a better method might be to simply climb somewhere high and wait for the beetle to get bored. But unlike the other monsters encountered in the maze, the beetles seem to have something else on their mind beyond wanton violence: they can sometimes be found rolling massive balls of dung throughout the corridors of the labyrinth. (This might explain why the plants are so lush closer to the center.) There is little time to explore this section of the labyrinth before there's a flicker of light all around and more ALASTAIR recruits suddenly appear, most dressed in a freshly pressed uniform and carrying extra food and supplies. They have been told that the cloaking surrounding Asterion Labyrinth is so strong and complex that Oska was only able to send in a handful of recruits at once for a relief effort. In order to leave, they'll have to locate the escape mechanism that lies deep within the labyrinth; the remaining Asterion Prison correctional officers know its general location, but not precisely what it entails. All they know is that it will require technological cunning to operate and that it's heavily guarded. After five days, the portal room is found. THE PORTAL ROOM The center of the labyrinth is a large, circular room with a raised platform in the middle. On this platform rests a circle of computer consoles surrounding another platform, on which sits an empty circular frame 2.5m (8') in diameter. This is the dormant portal, and it is now Audentes's task to turn it on and find their way back to Oska. Because the portal is not made for interdimensional travel, it must be overclocked, which will cause it to burn out and explode once it is used. In order to override the safety protocols in place to prevent such dangerous tampering, the control panels must be unlocked -- and unfortunately, the locks are all complicated puzzles, ranging from the numerical to sliding pieces into place to complete a pattern. There are many of these puzzled scattered around the portal room, and once they are all unlocked, it's a simple matter of flipping the power override switches. Ignore the dangerous humming sound and the way the frame suddenly fills with violent purple energy. That's probably normal. The new recruits have the correct coordinates to locate Oska, which has temporarily lowered its cloaking shield to allow Audentes to return. So there is a bit of a time crunch. Adding more to the difficulty of the situation is the presence of a monster lumbering around the circular portal room. Six meters (20') high, the beast is best described as a minotaur, but perhaps not in the traditional sense: while it resembles a bipedal bull, it is an amalgamation of flesh and machine with its body covered in pistons and glowing lights. One of its hands is an enormous axe and it belches fire and acid. Despite its head resembling an herbivore, the piles of desiccated bones scattered throughout the portal room tell a different story. Upon seeing the group, the minotaur charges. Mavahari, the Zymandis recruit, rushes to meet it with her sword drawn. Inmates and correctional officers do their best to fight it as well, but something becomes quickly apparent: it cannot be harmed by projectile weapons. The machinery of the beast keeps it protected from most attacks, though electricity will stun it and acid will corrode its metal. But in order to injure the minotaur, it must be stabbed between the metal plates where its vulnerable flesh remains. During the battle, the minotaur fights viciously and without regard for its own safety. The first casualty comes early: the minotaur swings its axe toward Mavahari, who is pushed out of the way by George. The axe connects with him solidly, sending him flying into the wall with a shuddering impact. George lies there still, but there's no time to mourn. The beast continues its rampage. Once the minotaur is defeated, you'll have to quickly decide what to do with the correctional officers and inmates who have followed Audentes through the Asterion Labyrinth. The overclocked portal won't hold forever, and the longer Oska leaves its cloak down, the better chance they have of being found by their enemies. OOC NOTES This log will last for six IC days: five days for exploration and one day at the center of the maze. We have also recently altered the calendar this month, so make sure you review it! IMPORTANT: Participation in the solution poll is mandatory for August AC. Failure to participate will result in an automatic strike. The only exception is for those who are exempt from August AC. The poll will close on 11 August 23:59 UTC. If you have any questions about the labyrinth that aren't answered here, please direct them to the Leramzen dossier. Questions about the game in general should be directed to the FAQ and you may submit mission ideas or player plots at any time.

Comments

scott mccall | ota

[banded]

i: interference in a major fight

[So much for a company logo. Scott had hoped that it had been something as simple as that, so when he finds out that he's wrong, he just kind of cants his head to the side and accepts it for what it is. Being a werewolf means that he has the right kind of claws to help, but he doesn't want to risk turning a minotaur into a werewolf and end up finding out that this universe doesn't work the same way his does. So, he sticks with the claws.

And with running interference. Most of his movement is swift, with him rushing in to help someone get out of the way whenever the minotaur comes in for an attack—or if someone's injured.

In either scenario, he will pause as someone is left in safety, completely unfazed by the fact that he's likely just carried another person without a struggle, and ask:] Are you okay? Do you want me to stick around?

ii: mourning George

[It was George's first mission ... and his last. Scott can't say that he had a major bond with the guy, but seeing someone who had been thrust into this scenario go out a hero like that is definitely something that gets to him. Part of that was their chat: he had been afraid that George would end up being hurt by the other members of Audentes, so he did everything he could to try to improve that. And ... he got why this was hard. He did.

At some point, he comes to kneel beside George's body to pay his respects. If anyone comes to join him, it'll be clear that Scott is genuinely bereft. When he looks up, his eyes are a little red—not in the werewolf way, but in the "I've been crying" way.]

Hey, [he'll say, voice somber.] Did you get a chance to talk with him?

iii: save everyone

[When it comes down to a question of whether to save everyone or ... give them a rather ruthless choice, Scott has strong views on the matter. From the very beginning of this little excursion to now, he's been evolving in his mindset, but one thing has been clear: he believes in saving everyone. He knows that Audentes are going to be the ones making decisions, which is why he makes a point of going around and asking a single question:]

You know we have to rescue everyone, right?

[It's not really an open-ended question. But then, Scott hadn't intended it to be.]

[banded]

You're one of the new guys, right? [For one thing, he doesn't smell like he's gone a month without a shower. For another, he has a nicer set of clothes. It makes someone stand out after a while.]

So ... you know you were sent to rescue people ... right?

[Scott doesn't know if he should be giving the benefit of the doubt here, so he doesn't add anything after his question.]

iii.

[selfimage]

[ strong views might be an understatement. saving everyone is a wiggly little reminder of the child that he once was—the one he killed, and the one he became again. Loki wasn't a save everyone type of person normally, he was a best option sort of person.

regardless, the look he gives Scott is curious. ]

You seem ready with a compelling argument as to why.

[ he doesn't give his stance either way. ]

[banded]

We aren't judges, lawyers, or anything like that. [What he doesn't know is that there are actual lawyers (in training) on the team, but give him a break. Scott isn't really the type to go around asking for legal advice on the best of days, so he wouldn't have had an opportunity to look into that.] We don't have a right to decide who gets to live or die, and if we don't save people, we're probably deciding the latter.

Everyone should get a fair chance. Everyone.

[selfimage]

[ for the moment, Loki listens. it was all about decisions, wasn't it? it was the same in Nalawi, when they took the knife to the goddesses. it was the same argument that Loki had used, because he could have so easily found himself in their place. it had been selfish, but so easily relatable. ]

Fair chance really is a domino, isn't it?

[ there's a sigh and he hooks his hands behind his neck, and stretches. ]

Has anyone told you about Anwick? Nalawi?

ii

[ex_mettacrusher33]

A little.

[This is, quite possibly, the last person Scott would want to talk to outside of the minotaur that struck George down.

Let's blame the tears on not being able to see him clearly.]

...

[If there's any guilt in the way Mettaton holds himself, it's easily mistaken for exhaustion. His arms are crossed, shoulders hunched. One of his pauldrons is missing. His expression is neutral and his eyes don't seem to go anywhere near the body.]

Did you?

[banded]

[Definitely the tears. Scott focuses for a moment, realizing the pointlessness of his question. He doesn't seem to roll it back in any way. After talking to George and Mavahari, he had gone about what he was doing. Reporting back hadn't been a condition—at least for him. And now, the worry seems ... colder, callous, especially in hindsight.

But he's not going to call Mettaton on that. It is, after all, a matter of hindsight. Scott is generally a fair person.]

I did. I'm glad I did. He ... he needed the morale boost at the time.

[It may have been why he got here.]

[ex_mettacrusher33]

...

He wasn't very good at anything. [It isn't meant to sound cruel, only contemplative. Mettaton's head tilts, his working eye finding a rouge splatter of blood. There's been a lot of it, this battle. Who knows who it belongs to.] Planning, standing up for himself, logic, reason...

I'm surprised he managed to stand up for someone else.

[Again, there's nothing outright malicious in his tone. If anything, he sounds like he's talking about a dead friend of a friend of a friend - someone he knew, but not nearly enough to weep over.]

I suppose that makes his friend a free agent, now. If wonder if that's what he wanted.

i

[warheaded]

[Yeah, as much as Bakugou could tell his attacks weren't having any effect on the monster, his pride definitely doesn't react well to being rescued, especially by some rando. He's reacting literally the moment he's picked up;]

What the hell do you think you're doing!? Put me down, asshole!
[Even though he just got a nasty sideswipe from that monstrous axe, prompting the dashing rescue, he's still got a whole lot of pep. Probably too much. But he wasn't put on this weird extra-dimensional rescue team just to look foolish and get rescued himself.]

[banded]

I'm not about to let you die. [Scott had all but expected that someone would take his rescue as a bad idea, and wouldn't enjoy the experience. That's definitely what's happening here, and he doesn't seem to be relenting. For one thing, he has to duck down and then run, losing some of the dark hairs on the top of his head in the process. For another, this isn't the place to stop.

Once they get into a more ... concealed place, he sets his new "friend" down.]

See, you're not dead. [Simple and self-satisfied, but said in a tone that shows that he's being a little bit of a brat himself. He was just trying to help!]

[warheaded]

I didn't ask for your help!
[He doesn't need help from anyone, after all. Because he's NOT WEAK and that means he can DO EVERYTHING ON HIS OWN!! Except that's not how anything works, but don't tell him that. He does seem capable of standing on his own, sure, but the question is would he have pulled back out of the fight if Scott hasn't. He really shouldn't keep fighting with this injury.]

Now get out of my way!
[He is sure going to try to keep fighting, though.]

ii

[feytality]

[Maya's come too. She'd tagged along with George and Mavahari in the labyrinth, and gotten to know them both, and-- then he was gone. Just like that. She's also come to pay her respects, kneeling on the other side of the body and keeping her head bowed. When Scott speaks to her, she nods, uncharacteristically muted]

Yeah.

Do you.... want to say goodbye?

[How vague]

[banded]

[It is vague. While the dead have returned in Beacon Hills before (or once, thanks Peter Hale), he doesn't draw the necessary conclusions that might be available here. It doesn't occur to him that she means it in a literal sense.

He looks up at her, recalling their brief chat in the dressing room, and he nods.]

Well, I kinda am right now.

[feytality]

[She readjusts into a sitting position, touching her magatama and beads -- one of the few things she has left from her original acolyte uniform.]

Well-- I mean... to him. His spirit. If you want to see him again.

[That doesn't make it much clearer. After a beat, she adds]

--- I can channel him, I mean. I can try.

[tolight]

[ The one downside to fighting in a war is that every soldier can't be sent off with proper respects — not enough time, and yet too many bodies. It never sat right with her, the quick, generalized funerals ( a pyre, stacked high with bodies, so that they didn't return as one of the undead ) or the fact that they could never give anyone a proper burial.

She's not sure if it's a blessing that she gets to do that here — but when the opportunity presents itself, she takes it. Spends a moment by George's body, eyes closed and head bowed. It's not until she looks back up, expression grave, that she answers. ] Briefly, during our first capture, and... once we arrived here.

[ But not since. She's not sure if changing that would have made any of this better. ] ... He died protecting someone. [ Her eyes are back on the body, and with the pause comes a dramatic rise and fall of her chest. ] As a hero.

[banded]

I only wish I had the chance to get to know him better, [he says, realizing that their one chat, while informative, hadn't been enough. But Scott had taken it for granted that someone wouldn't die here. They would somehow all get out. No one mentioned large amounts of death. They only mentioned the successes, and the difficulty in getting there.

Odd how he thought it would just be that. He feels a little foolish now.]

I wish we all had the chance. I'm not even sure ALASTAIR knew him all that well.

[tolight]

We never realize what we're missing until we lose it. [ A lesson she's learned far too many times, by this point — also the reason behind why she's insistent more oftentimes than not, to get to know the rest of the team. And yet, somehow, George had slipped under the radar; between her focus shifting towards the mission, her growing frustration at the way he bumbled, when they were trying to succeed. To escape.

Proving, once again, that she has a long way to go. ] ... We'll honor him, once we return. It's the least we can do for him.

[ She lets the sentence sink in, before her eyes finally flicker over, voice quieter than before— ] How are you faring?

ii.

[ofobedience]

[In truth, he was just passing by, hadn't intended to pause. As is so often the case with him, he feels little more than shapeless indifference in the face of the other man's death. He'd neither liked him nor disliked him, hadn't taken the time to speak with him much-- most people, they're background noise to him, as though he exists at a remove, behind a wall that he struggles to penetrate. Often doesn't even try. It's what comes with a lifetime of near-isolation and a past so big and dark it swallows him whole.

He does pause though, when the question comes. Looks down at George's motionless body, already beginning to cool. At the end there, he'd gone out of his way to save the Zymandis woman, an action that Giovanni can't really comprehend. Isn't sure what to think of it. And so he shrugs. Shakes his head.]

Not really. The odd word, here or there. In passing.

[banded]

[That's not surprising. Giovanni likely wouldn't know what to do with someone like George. He was unassuming, willing to handle things his own way, and largely keep to himself. He had a very good reason for being angry at all of them, but never seemed to show it. Scott knows that none of these are standout reasons to pay anyone attention, unless that someone giving the attention is him.

It's a thought that could come from a place of judgment, but oddly enough, it doesn't. Not here.]

I don't think anyone really had the chance. Or thought about it. Once everything went to hell, we kinda had no choice but to look out for ourselves.

[ofobedience]

[His eyes linger for a moment on the body of their fellow recruit, Giovanni's face blank as a pure white sheet pulled tight, messy edges tucked out of view. Just another dead body. He's seen so many of them that one more doesn't rouse him in the least, although vaguely, in the smallest of ways, he wonders whether it should. There's something here, isn't there, if his teammate seems so affected by it? Something he's missing, struggles to grasp.]

That's true enough, I suppose. We've all been a little dispersed, of late.

[He's barely seen much of the others, lately. Has kept, largely, to himself. Searching for a way out with the rest of them, or spending his time hunting down the monsters of this maze, if for no other reason than to give him something familiar to focus on. Something he knows.]

But there will always be casualties. I'm surprised we haven't had more of them.

iii

[cachemoney]

[Fiona is currently trying to strip armor -- space Kevlar, whatever -- from one of the dead correctional officers, her foot in his chest, so Scott would be excused for assuming her opinion on the matter skews a little ruthless. He would also be largely correct, anyway.]

Uh. [She grunts in exertion, glancing up and squinting.] Define everyone. 'cause he's not gonna make it.

[banded]

Whoever's still alive. You didn't do that, right? [It's not impossible that someone would take advantage of the chaos going on to hurt one of the officers who caused them problems before the crash. Maybe it's wrong to leap to that question, but that's exactly where his mind goes.

Especially since it looks like she's looting his dead body. Who does that?]

[cachemoney]

Oh, my god, no. He was like this when I got here.

[She manages to pull a gauntlet off the corpse, which is awesome. Except the disgusting cracking and tearing noise that comes with it is not awesome, because she just kind of ripped his hand off with the glove. At least she has enough presence of mind to look a little sheepish about it.]

Uh... okay, I did that.