The Return Journey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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returnjourneylogs2022-06-25 06:00 pm
returnjourney) wrote in returnjourneylogs2022-06-25 06:00 pm
PORT: EMERGENCY LANDING
PORT: EMERGENCY LANDING
Something's gone wrong.
On June 25th, the Navarch makes an announcement — not over the CommLinks, but the ship's PA system. It might surprise you to find the ship has a PA system, but her tone is brisk, businesslike.
She announces that the Peregrine is making an emergency landing, on the nearby planet of Pugreo. And in under half an hour, the ship lands heavily — crashes, it might be more accurate to say — in the middle of an abandoned amusement park. Or, well, at least a closed amusement park.
The full OOC write-up for the event is here. If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.
1. Crash Landing
Even if you miss the announcement, you won't miss the alarms. They blare down the halls, lights flickering as the ship reroutes power to its forward shields, bracing for too-quick entry into the atmosphere. The message is clear: find somewhere to hunker down and ready yourself as well as you can for impact.
The ship hits the ground at 8:07 A.M., Peregrine standard time, hard enough to disrupt its built-in gravity and tear through a small shed like paper. The crash indiscriminately bounces wardens and inmates off the floor, along with anything else not nailed down. Anyone in the open-air areas — or, worse, near a hull breach — will find themselves thrown overboard. The rest of you, well, hopefully you find yourself with nothing more serious than some cuts or bruises.
Passengers will exit the ship to find it's already evening on the planet of Pugreo, but the locals who come to investigate are friendly and attentive. A few of them make casual mention of an upcoming holiday and the Peregrine's fortuitous timing, but fail to elaborate on specifics.
2. Lookout & Repair
All passengers are asked to secure resources and guard the Peregrine, though those with the means to assist in other ways won't be refused. Wardens especially are expected to keep close tabs on inmates; circumstances make it much harder to tell who is or isn't sneaking around.
There are members of the maintenance crew around, investigating the hull breach and organizing bots. While most of them are too busy for conversation, you might be able to catch one of them here.
The amusement park is quiet, almost desolate without a crowd coming and going, and it's recommended everyone travel in pairs. While the locals have been polite and the park mercifully closed in anticipation of the holidays, the Peregrine staff didn't have time to research Pugreo. And without humans as a steady deterrent, there are wild animals to consider.
3. The Purge
A day or so after the Peregrine crashes, the Deathbed Blossoms bloom — and the Purge officially begins. The aggression of the locals is sudden, but calculated; the ones who show up in the night, to loot the Peregrine and strip it for parts, are well-practiced and familiar with violence. There is little discrimination in their targets.
Not all of the locals participate in the violence, however — or at least not willingly, under the influence of the Deathbed Blossom's pollen. A few people take refuge in the tunnels or use them to flee the city; some seek out the forest-dwellings, reputedly high enough in the trees that the worst of the pollen doesn't reach them.
The pollen will wear off after a while, so long as you aren't constantly exposed to it. It isn't the worst idea to wrestle the badly affected back aboard the ship or even into solitary, whether they're a warden or inmate. The ship's shields keep out the worst of the pollen...so long as no one contaminates the area some other way.
4. Escape
Finally, the ship is space-worthy and ready for takeoff. It isn't back up to 100% after possible sabotage, but the maintenance crew can at least guarantee it's safe.
This time, Archimedes sends a brief ping to everyone's CommLinks. It's time to get back aboard as quickly as possible, lest you be left behind. And after the mimics, the last thing the Peregrine needs are more stowaways, so you'll want to lose any pursuers — and quickly.
MAINTENANCE CREW
no subject
You might even catch him sprawled inside the ruptured hull, half hanging out of the ship while he uses a commlink like a flashlight. "MAINTENANCE" is stamped across the back of his jacket, like the various other crew helping around the site.]
Maaaaaan, talk about a mess! [He threads some of the wires together, realizes he's missing the tools he needs to solder them, and lies there, stymied for a second before he flags down the first person he sees.] Hey! Pass me that toolbelt, yeah?
[It's hopeful.]
Lucifer | OTA!
Lucifer is attempting to enjoy a fond memory in the SIRE - a warm golden beach, bright sunny day, the smiling faces of the two people he loves most - and then the whole thing glitches out and he gets tossed onto his ass.
Luckily, he's basically invincible, so he's not hurt, just a little disheveled as he climbs out of the SIRE. But of course, other people might be hurt, or worse.
"That was unexpected," he says mildly, adjusting his cuffs as he goes hunting. "Best get a head count after that."
2. Lookout/exploration?
He stays close to the Peregrine for a while, greeting some of the locals and helping make inquiries. He can't exactly be much help to the maintenance crew, since he doesn't know the first thing about maintenance, let alone the maintenance of a space ship, but he grudgingly acknowledges that he can play muscle if need be.
"The locals are friendly enough," he comments to anyone nearby - "but did they really have to go for the creepy abandoned amusement park vibe?"
3. the Purge
The pollen doesn't have much of an effect on his supernatural metabolism - it maybe makes him short-tempered for a while, but it wears off pretty quickly, as most substances do. This means he's at least able to keep his head (mostly) on his shoulders, and he frowns as some noises start up in the distance.
"Those aren't screams of pleasure. Best check it out," he mutters to whomever he's with.
4. Wildcard!
[ I'm down for just about any shenanigans you'd like! Fighting, rescuing, exploring, whatever! Toss me a starter or hit me up on plurk at
no subject
Just her fucking luck.
When the alarms go off, Tess takes off like a shot –– there's nothing in the hall to really brace herself on, and the nearest doorway belongs to the reference library. The counters in there are bolted down, and that is good enough for her: she drops to her knees and scoots underneath, bracing herself there for anything that might come down, in case the whole ship tears apart. She stays there until the impact's through, and everything is still again, but her heart is still hammering so hard she's ready to burst.
Her temper flares, and she shouts to no one in particular:
"Maybe they could hire some asshole who knows how to drive?!
3. The Purge
Tess is calm as the sun sets. Eerily so, her expression neutral, gaze distant. The Peregrine feels like a colossal target, beached where it is and full of people. When the Purge ends and the pollen subsides, the locals will mourn any loved ones or neighbours they kill. Outsiders, she knows, are far easier to be guiltless about.
She looks down at the bio-locked pistol. It's set to stun. This setting feels both safe and dangerous at once, a feeling that she does not relish in the slightest. If they're overrun, she can switch it. If she doesn't switch it, they could be overrun.
She drags herself together and asks a nearby warden: "What setting are you using?"
To inmates, she says: "Let's find you a weapon."
no subject
He's always felt clear-headed after a killing. It's like the ultimate post-nut clarity, freed of the frenzy and intensity of bloodlust. The mental fog dissipates. The world seems more real, more coherent. What the hell just happened? Damn, is that a piece of intestine on the ground? It's probably going to get eaten by ants. Wow, the body returning to the earth. Everyone is dirt before long. All of humanity is just billions of little fleeting dalliances with corporeality. What the fuck is anyone so stressed about?
Travis couldn't retrieve his spike from where it's been stashed for weeks, but that's okay. The earth also gives you all sorts of options. None quite as good or satisfying than a blade made of lasers, but he's got a nice machete from... somewhere... and it makes quick work. Actually, he thinks it might be better: it uses different muscle groups. More force. It's like a workout! Cool.
He steps over the most recent body and keeps meandering down the path. He thinks he hears footsteps.
He calls: "Anyone there? Yoo-hoo?"
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"Travis?" She calls out before any higher level of thinking can kick in. Travis has always been the one on board she worried about most. He'd gotten into numerous altercations. Showed no remorse for his life as an assassin. But he'd not been unfriendly, as of late, taking some sort of liking to her--and she hopes that's enough.
She feels like she's walking to the gallows the closer she heads towards his voice.
"Are you all right?"
Surely he's not lost his mind like so many others.
Surely he wouldn't use this as an opportunity.
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"I'm feeling great!" he announces, a note of genuine cheer in his voice. "How you holding up out here?"
He opens his arms wide, machete glinting in the light.
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Even still, some part of Claire would like to believe he's been only defending himself, relishing in that chance for bloodshed, and yet she still feels like she wants to vomit when she takes in the sight of Travis. She takes a shaky breath and tries to ignore the blood.
"We shouldn't be out here. We need to get to the ship. Tend to the wounded and injured."
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"Wounded? Injured? Isn't the whole point of a Purge that people get... you know..."
He makes a little throat-cut gesture with his free hand.
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She declares to the trained killer, soaked in blood.
Claire takes a step back. As if that will help her any.
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He wipes the blade off on the front of his jeans, still advancing. Gotta keep your tools in shape, right?
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"What about our friends from the ship? We can't let them come to harm."
She tries to stay rooted, but there's another small footstep back. He's fucking with her. For as rough and tumble he may be, this has to be below him. Low hanging fruit.
"Let's go, Travis."
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He takes two long strides to close the distance between them faster, machete pointed up.
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She spins on her heel to run back the way she came, but it's obvious who is the faster of the two.
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"Strawberry on the shortcake!" he yells, as he does so.
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She screams for help as she tries to crawl with the arm not pinned under her body, but the blade means she's not going anywhere. Her nerves won't cooperate. Probably cut or she's already in shock. It's over, she knows it, but maybe she can at least draw someone's attention. Make Travis run or at least fucking feel like he should.
She knew this would happen.
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"Wow, that went fast," he says, and he pulls the machete out with a sickening wet noise. "I never liked killing women, but sometimes that's just how the game goes. No hard feelings, right? You were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
no subject
Unfocused eyes try to land on Travis, and she tries to lift her head so she can properly spit at him, but the power just simply isn't there. So, the pink-and-white glob just sort of flies from her mouth in a hiss, expression pinched before her lids droop as consciousness floods out of her.
no subject
"Claire," he says, a little harder. "The world's a shitty place. Sometimes you don't get any more choice in how you leave it than how you came into it, right?"
He lets the machete hang at his side for a second, a rivulet of blood sliding down the side to pool and then drip, drip, drip. He looks down at her body, the little trembles of an interrupted nervous system, and when his gaze settles on the exposed back of her neck his grin has faded entirely, leaving his mouth with an ugly neutrality. He thinks about how her body will lay here in the dirt until it is a putrid mess, just like the others, and how animals will feast on them and then birds will pick at the bones and then insects will tear away the microscopic remains. Right back to the earth, yeah? As nature intended.
Maybe her clothes will remain. And oh, shit. Microplastics. The micro plastics, too. Bizarre how you can't just stand over someone you've killed and think about the whole body being taken apart without remembering there's microplastic pollution in like, 80% of people's blood, the same ones you can find on the very tip of Everest and at the deepest parts of the oceans, the parts where the fish don't have eyes and shit because no light reaches there. But there are micro plastics. Where they are, people were. How fucking influential they are. They can go everywhere, but they can't totally go back to the earth.
That thought, amongst all others, is sobering.
"Hey, I'm sorry," he says, and crouches down at her side. Lays a hand on her back, over the wound. Nothing's going to fix this shit but he can at least give her what he didn't give the others. He closes his eyes for a beat and mumbles something –– how twisted it is to fight someone whose back is turned –– and then he gets up again and shucks off his jacket. He hangs it on a knob in a tree. He takes the machete and starts cutting up the ground.
It takes an hour, but he digs enough of a grave that he can drag her into it by her ankles and bury her in it. By time he's finished piling the dirt on top of her, he realizes he didn't go deep enough, and her nose is sticking out. Tendrils of hair. The point of a shoulder where her body is a little twisted. Oops.
He's fucking beat, though, and the dirt clings to the blood soaked into his clothes, and he smells like rot. Is he supposed to dig her out again and dig deeper? Fuck, that'll take hours. Doesn't he have shit to do?
"We're not going to see each other again," he informs her, or at least the tip of her toes. "I'm definitely going to Hell. You? Who can say. It's not up to me. But I hope wherever you go, you're at peace."
And then Travis wanders down the path. Where he's going, he doesn't know.
OTA
[Sure, Theo should probably be banned from ports for the rest of time, but this is a different occasion. So long as a warden doesn't let him get more than a few feet from them, it should be fine, right? Okay, maybe even more than one warden at a time. Believe it or not, though, he doesn't have any plans to run. Not at the current moment, anyway. He just wants some fresh air and get a look at the local flora. After all, he's still working in the greenhouse, and they definitely need to catalog some of these unique species. He's always looking for something to do.
He stops to take a photo of an unopened Deathbed Blossom, then swaps his comm for his notebook. He takes a few notes, and starts to sketch what he sees, which he's surprisingly good at. He got a lot of practice with it during his mentorship back home.
Theo is without any gardening tools for obvious reasons, so he turns to the warden chaperoning him with a question.]
I want to take this one back with us.
[Probably not a great idea.]
B. greenhouse
[Theo needs constant supervision in the greenhouse as well, so it's not easy to sneak in the blossom he managed to get. He'd have to work quickly to clear a space for it and do some more research when his babysitters' backs are turned and attentions wander.
When he enters the space the next day, something is amiss. The unfamiliar scent of a blooming flower fills the air, its pollen finely coating its vicinity in the lab. The locals haven't at all been shy about the blossom's effects, but Theo wasn't expecting it to happen so soon. He was expecting to walk in today and dissect the flower for research, and it wouldn't even have been a problem.
Too late for Theo and anyone else who's come into the greenhouse, though.]
... Shit.
C. purge
[It's bad. Very, very bad. Theo is already someone with a hair-trigger temper and violent outbursts. During his time on the Peregrine, these have bubbled to the surface a few times, but it's always there, simmering.
Spending so long in the greenhouse being exposed to so much of the pollen has effected him greatly. And in the chaos of the crash and the Purge, Theo manages to slip away, barely in control of himself.
The moment the wrong local crosses him, violence erupts immediately. Theo looks weak, is weak. But he's fast, smart, and brutally ruthless. What looks like easy pickings in this nightmare turns deadly quickly, Theo managing to wrestle away a machete from his opponent and turn it on him. Of course, he had to, to save his own life. Except he keeps attacking. And attacking. And attacking.
That's when someone from the Peregrine stumbles across him. Theo, covered in blood both his and his victim's, standing over the body with weapon in hand. His breathing is ragged, and that dark stare of his is colder than ever.
Theo had told himself that he was done with killing. He never expressed this to anyone, but promised himself that he wouldn't take any more lives. But this was justified. Just like those hundreds of other deaths were. They had to die. To prove his point. To show that he was not to be trifled with. That he meant something more than them.
And he'll prove it to you if he has to, too.]