MINI-EVENT: MIMICS

[returnjourney]

MINI-EVENT: MIMICS

May 28th – June 1st, 2022
The Peregrine recently stopped in Bhujerba and took on a whole bunch of new supplies, courtesy of the ship's crew. The transport bots are now positioning those massive pallets of supplies in the storage facility, and wardens (and sneaking inmates!) won't have trouble noticing them: unlike the smooth metal and glass cases that make up the bulk of the storage facility's freight, these were packaged in Bhujerba. They look like great black-and-gold amphoras with matching legs. Practical? Certainly not. Nicer to look at? Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it sure breaks up all this minimalist shit.

And then one morning, the passengers will discover that some of the amphoras have been moved, and no one really seems to know by who (though Archimedes has ideas).

This event takes player submissions for what will be found in the amphoras, which you can find on the OOC post here. If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.

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1. Missing!

They're gone.

One day there were dozens of amphoras, lined up in neat rows on a metal pallet, and now their numbers are halved. The storage facility is supposed to be off-limits to inmates, but it doesn't stop them from walking in anyway to poke around. Thieves, perhaps? Stored goods don't just get up and walk away on their own.

2. Fighting the Mimics

The amphoras show up all on their own a few days later, tucked into corners in odd rooms, between rows of plants in the greenhouse, under a desk in the resource library... Anywhere a door wouldn't stop them and, even then, they occasionally sneak in. A sharp eye might notice the slightest variation in color, or question how they got in at all, but a curious cat will find the answer quickest.

When touched, the amphoras come to life, their stands unfolding into four spider-like legs, the body pivoting parallel to the ground. The lid becomes a terrible eye. It may look like a machine, but its thick carapace makes it an insectoid.

What it wants, unfortunately, is to feast on sentient brains.

Good luck!

3. Goodies

Destroying the mimics yields loot: a dropped cache of goods. The problem is there's no way to tell what belongs to who...and finding the intended owner means knowing what that person might want.

Please respond here if you'd like your character to find any items; just remember, it's their job to figure out who it rightfully belongs to! (There's a cheat sheet here with what items are intended for who, but it's always fun to consider who your character would think would want that item...if only to play keep-away.)

Comments

[shiftedshape]

2. Round 1

There's only so many places on board that an inmate could hide something, and only so many that give any sense of privacy. The resource library is one of those places, and Loki searches it slowly. If any of them was going to steal something, it would likely be a weapon, and if they were going to hide it, it would be a small one. He's taking his time, running his hands under desks on the off chance someone has stuck something to the underside, when he rounds a corner and.

Oh.

Or it could just be a giant fucking vase? Thing?

"Well. That's disappointing."

Loki sighs. He can't get something that size into his pocket dimension. Time to get a volunteer to help him carry the awkward thing. He's just about to pull out his comm when he spots someone near the door and calls out, "Excuse me, do you have a moment?"

3. Well. Now what?

The trunk is only slightly smaller than the whatever-that-was had been, but at least it has handles. Loki's able to lug it back to warden command easily, and he dumps it on the conference table. It wasn't terribly heavy, but he ought to check it's actually empty. Right?

Damnit, this is a moral question, isn't it? Is the possibility that there's something dangerous inside more important than the invasion of privacy? The name engraved (and shoddily scratched out) on it isn't anyone on board. It probably doesn't even belong to anyone anyway. But if it does...

Loki can be found standing, hands braced on the trunk to open it, clearly lost in a deep ethical debate as he stares at it motionless. Or maybe he's fallen into some kind of coma again.

3

[counterstep]

Bucky, ever the good sport, snaps his fingers in front of Loki's face after he walks up. You know, to make sure he didn't fall into a coma or have some kind of stroke (possible stroke still pending based on how Loki replies, but—)

"Hey. You gonna marry that thing or what?"

[shiftedshape]

Loki startles, hands tingling with the magic needed to summon his daggers, but upon seeing Bucky he relaxes. Well, if anyone is going to sneak up on him, at least this makes some sense.

He rolls his eyes. "Cute. No, I'm trying to decide if it would be violating, to open this." He pushes it away with a sigh and drops into the chair he'd left behind him, sighing. "Entitled prince and all. Can't be sure if it's simply the smart thing to do to determine the owner or my instinctive need to know everything, whether it's mine to know or not."

An amused curve twists his lips as he looks up at Barnes. "I'm guessing you too struggle with that sort of thing. Being something of a spy in a past life."

[rank1]

2. Fighting (Open)

When the first Mimic springs to life and attacks him, Travis feels his blood rushing through his veins. Going toe-to-toe with a giant insectoid isn't what he envisioned for his day, but he's thrilled to be here; it calms his mind like nothing else. Add a good loot grind on top of it and he's the happiest motherfucker on this ship.

Now, it's a little weird using wrestling moves on a giant bug –– where to grab, where to grapple –– but Travis doesn't hesitate. Catch him dropping his full weight onto the things, breaking their legs with a well-placed stomp of his foot, seizing them by their appendages and twisting. By time he's slamming the third to the ground, he's sweaty and bloodied and flecked with bits of insect carapace, but his grin is a mile wide.

2. Fighting (closed to Jack)

There's a Mimic chest between them. Twenty steps, by Travis' estimate; he doesn't know just how fast she is, but he'd bet good money he could close the distance first, and he's sure he can skewer the thing to death before she could do anything with her fists. But she's a tough chick, right? She's got an edge to her. She could do anything. She could win this.

"We splitting the loot, or fighting for it?" he calls to her, eyes on her, his grip on his katana-hilted spike readied.

Could go either way, but he knows which one he has his money on.

3. Goodies (Open)

Travis knows he could go for more loot. Maybe he will, once he's caught his breath. For now, he sits in a hallway, noodling on an acoustic guitar. He knows his way around it, but he's definitely not an acoustic kind of guy –– he's itching for an amp, for something less fucking folksy, but he's still running through a song that sounds like Eric Clapton's Layla, but definitely isn't. An audience? No audience? The tone of the performance is the same: sincere.

(Ignore the mimic corpse he's sitting on; this one is largely intact, save for a wide puncture directly through its head.)

twooooo

[n0ught]

"If you think I'm splitting anything with you, you're dumber than you look," she calls back. She's smiling, but it's not a nice smile.

By this point on Peregrine, Jack has adjusted to being without her biotics. She still doesn't have a ton of experience actually fighting without them, but this is as good a time as any to see exactly how strong she is without her powers, without the threat of being thrown in solitary. Probably.

So.

She darts forward suddenly, head low, and dives into a sliding kick once she's closed enough of the gap. She doesn't expect that she'll beat Travis in a dead run, so she's aiming more or less at him instead of the mimic.

[rank1]

The corner of his mouth twists up in a grin so wide there's a flash of his canines. With a click he pops the first inch of the katana from its sheath, and then he draws to reveal a spike. Two and a half feet of metal, glinting in the soft light of the hallway.

"I'd hate to disappoint!" he tells her.

And with that, the mimic goes momentarily forgotten –– the allure of fighting another person, a woman as hardcore as Jack, that feels impossible to turn down. Travis runs to meet her head-on, and when she goes low, he goes high, jumping above her with the spike pointed directly down.

3.

[goty]

Ellie stands in front of Travis and she might be staring at the mimic corpse or she might be listening to the music. Who knows! Her expression is blank, save a steely gaze that would look far more threatening if her eyes weren't so big, her face generally sweet-featured.

He might notice that the decorative moth on the guitar matches the moth inked into Ellie's hand. He might not. Ellie doesn't expect him to.

Her voice is carefully neutral. "How long have you played?"

[rank1]

Travis looks up at her at a slight delay, his attention concentrated on the fingering –– look, a lot of hobbies have fallen by the wayside these past few years. It happens. It never came naturally, anyway, it was always something he had to work at. Never enough to go pro.

He cuts a strum short with the flat of his hand against the strings.

"I dunno, fifteen years or something," he replies. He knows the tattoo, but finders keepers. "You play?"

His gaze flicks to her truncated fingers, and then he looks her dead in the eyes.

one

[oinks]

Thank fuck somebody wants to fight them. Amanda has killed one mimic through sheer dumb luck. It attempted to drop down on her from above, missed her when she ducked, and hit the ground with a loud, oddly chilling crack. She had to stomp on it until it stopped moving. Its shitty, broken open body granted her a fucking cache of random items.

She's looking at a set of old dog tags, turning them over and over in her head, when she hears the crack of another mimic from the hall, follows it down.

"Having fun?"

OTA

[sanctus_dei]

[The door of the chapel is always open, and it's almost always empty. Who knows this better than the guy who once trashed the place for no real reason. But lately, it's a room he's been haunting. It's the best place on the ship to get some alone time, since the Observatory tends to be popular among everyone else for such a thing. No nice view in the chapel, though.

What Theo wasn't expecting when he was heading in to get some reading done was a lone amphora sitting just inside the doorway. What in the universe was this thing? Storage? Some kind of new decoration? Theo reaches a hand out to investigate, and that's when it transforms and lashes out at him faster than he can even properly react.
It slashes his hand, and Theo makes a surprised, strangled noise and drops his comm.]

--The fuck?!

[The creature starts advancing on Theo, blocking his way out the door. There's not much in the chapel he can use to defend himself, so he picks up a chair. Those lightweight, molded chairs that probably would shatter on impact. But hey, when you have no regard for your own life or safety, any old weapon will do.]

Fucking-- get away from me!

[theartofmadness]

( Wild how fast boring can go all tits up in a matter of seconds. Not that Jason is complaining. He could use a little action and these weird things provide enough of it. So once Jason figured out what they were and what the hell happened when you touched them he figured putting them to bed wasn't a bad thing.

And besides, he was rewarded for it. Weird, but okay--not going to question it. Especially not going to question when one of the things he got was a knife. A fucking big knife too, like who the fuck. Not short enough to be a dagger, not big enough to be a sword, who the fuck-- was this made for Andre the Giant or fucking what?

Anyway, Jason didn't get out of the whole scenario totally unscathed. He had a pretty wealthy rip along the outside of his jeans and in the lower right stomach area of his hoodie. Punk rock or whatever, right?

So here he is, just fucking chilling with a big knife tucked away and who does he see? Theo. With a fucking chair. So of course, Jay decides to be helpful: ) Yo, dude. You need to learn how to fucking fight, man.

[n0ught]

OTA.

Jack very much still wishes she had her biotics, not only just to feel more secure and protected, but also in cases like these. In the other prisons she's been in, she only had to fight other inmates---and the occasional handsy guard---but Peregrine is fun in the way that sometimes random shit just tries to kill her.

But she's not about to find a corner to hide in while other people get to tear living (?) things apart without repercussions (??), so she can be found throughout the ship, curb stomping whatever mimic she can come across. Her prison uniform is splashed with black insectoid blood, her hands stained with it past the wrists. It breaks up the monotony, anyway.

CLOSED TO TIMTAM.

After the fun's over and Peregrine is boring again, albeit now strewn with insectoid limbs and splashes of bug juice, Jack is sticking around to pick through the carnage. Most of it is boring shit that she doesn't care about, but there's a photograph and something about it draws her eye.

It's very unlike Jack to be sentimental about things, but she frowns and looks over the photo as she holds it in her ichor-stained fingers. Is this someone on board? Someone who was allowed to have a childhood, who has a pleasant, tangible memory from their youth?

[doppleman]

[ Kinda weird, since they're neighbors and all, but Tim hasn't seen much of Jack. He has been assured more than once that the name does not belong to the person he dreads most, but she mostly seems to keep to herself, so the most he's actually come to know of her is the occasional flash of an inked limb or restless movement just beyond the pod wall.

All that changed with their bug problem—the solving of which Tim eagerly partook in once it became clear these things were dropping loot. Used to be he was no good without a gun or something otherwise shooty, and that's still a little bit true, but the years have made him scrappy enough for the melee to play out easily, like second-nature. A comfortable violence.

By the end he's covered in gross black goo and only slightly bloodied, and he's really hoping there's more to be had from this situation than a set of dog-tags and something like a mini-ECHO named for some rando. ]

Hey, uh... is there a guy named Fleetwood Mac on this ship I don't know about?

[ Something like, you know... look, he's gotta at least talk to the badass bald chick who may or may not have stomped a mimic before it could use his skull as a slurpee cup, all right? Shoot for the moon, et cetera something whatever. Screw Jack's inspirational pablum. ]

Thanks, by the way. You, uh... really know your way around an insectoid abomination skull.

[ Erm, not this Jack, though. This Jack can say whatever she wants? You know? It's cool? It's cool. He's cool. ]

[goty]

(a.) Ellie is still concerned, mostly, with keeping to herself. Just like everyone else, she assumes an inmate stole the missing amphoras; momentarily, she's impressed, before she reflects that once, she, too, would have been in a rush to steal them.

There's just no need, here, where meals and safe places to sleep are provided. Unless the thief is much, much more knowledgeable than she is. What did they have in them, that needed to be stolen?

It makes her curious about the missing amphoras, and when she sees one tucked into the shady end of a long hallway, she immediately begins to investigate.

But a simple touch makes the thing twist and unfurl, coming to life under her fingers. She flinches back for a shocked moment, but only one. The instinct to fight takes over, and Ellie grabs a nearby cleaning droid, bashing the thing into the amphora's glaring blue eye.

(b.) Later, Ellie can be found sitting in a corner, nursing some new bruises. Fighting robots with no real weapons is apparently inadvisable.

She's got a small toy, a tiny man on a tiny tricycle. She pushes it idly, back and forth with sneakered feet, while she reads a book on her comm device. If you stop to look at it, she'll greet you with an amused, "creepy, right? Fuckin' hate clowns."

(c. closed to aki) It's pretty late at night when Ellie summons the courage to go to Aki's room. She hopes to fuck Amanda isn't there-- or, at least, that Amanda's folded well away in her bunk with that weird fucking crocodile. As long as Ellie doesn't have to see her, she's fine. And if she doesn't see Aki, either-

She hasn't decided how she feels about that, yet.

She knocks on the door, and on instinct, raps out the tune of shave and a haircut.

b

[oinks]

It's not that Amanda is trying to find an excuse to say something to Ellie in the wake of everything, but more that she has to address the sudden presence of that fucking puppet-

That she almost expects to turn and watch as she approaches, say her name–

Hello, Amanda.

She shivers, an obvious fucking shudder. "Where did you get that."

c;

[spanning]

There's very little warning before Aki answers, just a scuff on the other side of the door before it slides open. He pauses, surprise skirting across his face before it flattens into muted concern.

The hour, coupled with the avoidance—she wouldn't be here unless she needed something from him.

"What's wrong?"

[omniavincit]

a. jock mode

The day starts normally, with no hint of a disturbance in the gym. The pool's surface is smooth, untroubled; the eels ripple through their tank and the grey sponge perspires in its corner. William pays little mind to any of it as he drags every mat he can get his hands on to the court. It's a tedious, time-consuming process and by the end he's sweating, but his spirits are undaunted.

Today's the day he tests his shoes.

Unfortunately, once he's strapped on the strange metal stilts, he realizes he'd neglected to consider just how he's going to stand up. Perhaps you enter as he's crawling over the sea of mats on his hands and knees, feet occasionally getting tangled together. Perhaps you join him after he's taken his first few cautious steps.

Or perhaps you walk through the door only after the amphora half-hidden behind the basin of chalk dust has transformed into a brain-eating metallic spider that is chasing William, seven feet tall and moving as fast as he can, across the room. (If you're an inmate, perhaps you're drawn by the cries—angry and desperate—of “FUCK OFF” audible through the door.)


b. GAMER MODE

He has no reason to think the oversized key belongs to someone. Why would he? A key belongs to a lock. It's too big to fit a locket, anything small and sentimental, and too new to open a busted old trunk. He imagines, briefly, it being used to wind some half-comprehensible clockwork, as intricate as it is convoluted—maybe the key to the heart of an airship.

Find him en route to or engaged in any of the following:

His first stop, storage, where he (guardedly) inspects the remaining amphoras—looking them over for symbols, searching for echoes of the key's design in theirs.

The inmate showers, staring intently into one of the reflective displays above the sink. Or trying to fit his fingers between the display and the wall. (If you're showering, he'll at least yell before barging in.)

The resource library, brandishing the key in front of Archimedes and peppering him with questions.

The chapel. Look, he's never been here. He does not seem impressed.

He either carries the key in hand, as though expecting any second to be confronted with a lock, loops the chain around his wrist, or wears it as it was apparently designed, around his neck.


c. warden mode

After a day or so of mimics crawling the ship, William sends out a brief text:

gym clear if u need shelter
lmk & i can escort open door blah blah
arm 2

B

[sanctus_dei]

[After his and Jason's tango with a Mimic, Theo needed a handful of stitches from the slashes one of the monsters gave him. A surprisingly fastidious person for being a necromancer, it was timed to get cleaned up.

He stops dead when he sees William just standing there, though. William can catch the reflection of a perplexed teenager with one raised eyebrow standing behind him.]

You, uh, expecting to see somethin' new in there or what?

b

[oinks]

What's the point in trying to tuck yourself away to pour over your own finds if somebody is going to make a fucking racket just around the corner. Amanda listens from her hiding spot, touching her lower lip, fiddling with the pins in the corkboard that the mimic's body gifted her when she cracked it open like an egg in one of Peregrine's dimly lit hallway. The questions she's overhearing don't mean anything to her. She zones out until she can't stand the constant chatter, and then she surges up from the ground, rattlesnake-esque, to strike at whomever won't shut the fuck up.

Archimedes is as much to blame, and Amanda would have stuck a pushpin into it had it been made of something softer than metal. Happily, William is.

"If it's a mysterious key, maybe go and try it on a fucking door. Y'know how to do that? Or do you need to ask the owl that too?"

[expectaspectre]

2: Ghost vs Mimic (ota!)
She'd noticed the things going missing from storage. Of course she had, storage was her daily haunt (ha ha.), who else would have reported the changes in the first place? Her search radius began in the same place-- maybe one of the robotic forklift-mover-vehicles had a short and misplaced some things, it would make sense just to check the rest of the warehouse itself. Soon she found one, an ancient-looking ornate vessel standing out amidst the high-tech containment units, like a misfiled movie prop. Grace thought nothing of walking over to check the thing for damage-- until it grew legs, and an eyeball, and slashed her across the upper arm with one vicious-looking pointed talon.

She instantly flings herself backwards, her hand reaching up to clap over the wound, blood already beginning to soak her torn sleeve. Instinctively, she shifts, her form becoming as insubstantial as vapor, watching the creature fix its unsettling eye on her with a deadly focus.

Before it has a chance to decide whether it wants to leap towards her again or run, Grace shoots forward, her arm outstretched, and puts her pale fingers into the creature's body. It freezes instantly, its pupil fluctuating wildly between saucer-wide and pinprick-small-- paralyzed. Neutralized, but not permanently. Grace shifts solid again, grabs one of the creature's insectoid limbs, and turns back to her ghostly form once more. This time, though, the mimic shifts with her.

She flies, directly up, as close to the ceiling of the warehouse as she can safely get, and after briefly checking that there's nothing and no one too fragile below her, she drops the vaselike creature. The moment her fingers release it, it becomes whole again. Gains mass. Gains weight, and it plummets to the ground, shattering on impact, sending fragments of its ceramic-like carapace scattering across the floor.

If anyone saw that, Grace thinks as she gently descends to the ground, the wound on her arm spiraling a trail of not red liquid blood, but charcoal-dark smoke out behind her. I might have some explaining to do.

[shiftedshape]

Loki is too late to be of any help, but evidently Grace didn't need it. He rounds a corner just in time to see the amphora crash into the floor and to, instinctively, trace its path backwards to find what caused it to fall in the first place. When he spots Grace floating downwards, his arms drop to his sides, the daggers he'd pulled when he heard the commotion dangling limply from his hands.

He's come up behind her, which means he could potentially leave without her knowing she's been seen. But that's the sort of move he would have made before. The move of someone who gathers information to use as ammunition later. At this point, he hopes he doesn't need to think like that anymore.

Still, he doesn't exactly know what she's capable of, so he's cautious. He banishes the knives and takes a tentative step forward as he calls out, "Grace?"

[smugreport]

Closed to Viktor

[ Rhys hasn't been allowed near the ATV's since his last encounter with them. For good reason, given the whole hijacking attempt and all...so he should be counting his luck that Viktor trusts him enough (or at least trusts that he'll be sufficiently punished) to let him not only near one of the things but to get arm-deep into it's guts.

While Rhys doesn't consider himself a mechanic, and more of an engineer out of either hobby or absolute necessity, he still knows his way well enough around conductors and wires and whatever else to fake it till he makes it. And if they break the ATV well, Viktor is his warden right? It won't be entirely on him. ]

Wait wait I think- I thiiiiink I found what this wire is connected to.

[ He's been following a singular wire for the past couple minutes, trying to find it's source out of the spaghetti mess it's entangled in. ]

Let me just

[ He turns the palm light of his prosthetic on, sticking it into the wire pile and trying to get a good angle to make out what he's tugging on. ]

[grindset]

[The tools are spread out, the manuals are open, the ATV is beginning to look like it's puking up its own insides. Should there be a pile of wires? Probably not. Is there one? Yes. It's fine, probably, they'll sort it out—]

Shielding system, yes? It leads back to the relay block?

[It sounds like a guess, but he expects to be right.

Viktor is standing up on some rim or other that was almost certainly not meant for feet, bent over the edge like he's thinking about climbing in, already wearing a little grease and not even slightly upset about it. The coveralls he pulled out of maintenance are definitely too baggy on him, but so are most things anymore; Rhys may have had better luck in that regard.

Speaking of which,

he is now observing spaghetti. Compared to his own mindful, methodical approach, it's a bit ghastly.]

I hope you're psychologically prepared to untangle this later.

Alex Mercer | Inmate | OTA

[lessandmorethanhuman]

2-1

Alex had not expected to find an amphora here. He'd heard about them missing of course, and was going to take it back to storage. Except when he went to touch it, it changed.
So anyone nearby will here some cursing and some crashes. Alex's picked up a chair or other piece of convenient make-shift weapon.

3--[Video]
[The video shows Alex, standing in the cafeteria.]

So anyone else run into trouble with those fancy vases? Like, they transformed into strange monsters? They dropped stuff. I've encountered two, and they dropped a weird sword and a photograph.

[Alex holds up a photograph. Where the comm can see it.]

text; j.todd

[theartofmadness]

( ... It's been a long fucking time since he's seen that face. ) what a babe, who is she?