EVENT 004

[sticksandbonesmods]

ASHES TO ASHES

DUST TO DUST

It’s a calm, misty morning. The sun is peaking over the treetops, and the air is chilled, almost like the onset of fall. How long have you been here, now? Days? Weeks? Months? Everything blurs together. But so you persist… just. Not quite yet. The day’s only just waking up and so are you! Whether you like it or not. You see, as you slept, something has crept its way into your room, and as the sun peaks through windows and closed blinds, it’s finally grabbing you and pulling.

As you meet your rude awakening, the intruder is clear to see. Or rather, it’s incredibly unclear. Mist and fog and sickly-looking vines wrap around your legs and up your body as it drags you to the woods, and attacks of all sorts slide off like water on glass. There is no escape. It’s time to play, and the air is unusually, painfully hot.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN...

The fog of the forest grows dark and heavy as you’re pulled along against your will, and as you go something seems… different. Maybe your body seems lighter and off balanced. Maybe certain features are no longer tickling your skin. Maybe the connection to the world around you has been brutally severed — all that can be said is that as you’re eventually spat out to a metal platform, you feel incomplete somehow. Magic doesn’t come when you call. Gear doesn’t activate properly. Whatever happened, you’re a completely ordinary human, and it stings.

You and your fellow denizens of the Grove stand on a seeringly hot metal platform, and the air burns your lungs. Ash and soot float through the air, singeing wherever it lands for a split second. Towering up before you is a volcano that has no right being here — but it is. Platforms and smaller spires and rocks litter your surroundings, and scorch marks are everywhere.

The only consolation is that whatever is about to happen, you at least aren’t doing this in your pyjamas.

...INTO THE FIRE

Eventually, as sweat builds up and the wind only burns further, a too-familiar childish voice rings out: "It’s playtime! If you win, I’ll show you something REALLY cool. …Oh, but surely I don’t have to explain ‘The Floor is Lava’, right?"

It goes silent, and there’s a loud metal grind of something. The lava beneath the platform begins to rise, and so does the hateful heat.

At least there are multiple ways out. You can attempt to hop across crumbling platforms, mysteriously and magically floating overhead — though they might break after a few footsteps. You can try climbing the burning-hot, stony surface of the surrounding cliffsides, where flows of magma get a bit too close for comfort. You can take the safer-but-risky way of running through the game area’s many mazelike paths, cut into and through the cliffs, but be careful; should the magma rise too high, those pathways will be flooded. No matter what you choose, the goal is to get to the top, out of the volcanic arena and to a designated “safe zone" waiting on an overhang at the volcano's lip. Up there, an invisible barrier prevents victors from climbing back down into the game zone, and up there is where you will wait with your fellow victors if you succeed. It’s air-conditioned, as if you’re still not trapped within a volcano.

As the first of you reaches the top of the rise, a victory fanfare plays from somewhere, but the lava begins to rise faster. Faster and faster, for each person who succeeds — or dies a horrible, fiery death. You’d better hope your success doesn’t come at the cost of someone else’s life.

DYING EMBERS

As soon as there are no players remaining in the game, another chime plays from a still-mysterious location. After a cheerful voice congratulates you on your victory, the fog encircles you again, as it had done earlier in the day. When you next blink, you’re back in the Grove, standing exactly where you were when you were first taken.

Those of you who died, however, will wake up the following morning in your usual sleeping quarters, be it in your bed or outside in the forest. The good news is, you’re hale and healthy despite everything. A voice whispers to you as soon as you reawaken: "Better luck next time!"

SPARK NOTES

CLICK TO EXPAND!

DUST TO DUST

Good morning. You are being stolen. You can shout for help, if you'd like.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN...

Welcome to today's event: A big game in a volcanic arena! Use this time to talk to your fellow players. You might need to devise a strategy to get out of this one.

...INTO THE FIRE

The game begins, and the lava starts to rise. For every player who successfully makes it to the top of the arena, the lava will begin to rise faster and faster, intending to kill your fellow competitors. If you make it to the top, you'll find yourself standing in an air-conditioned platform still within the volcano, walled in by an invisible wall and unable to leave until there are no more remaining players.

DYING EMBERS

Once there are no more players remaining, and if you completed the game successfully, you'll find yourself back in the Grove in short order, standing where you were when you left. If you died, however, you'll wake up the following day, restored to full health and (probably) not damaged at all.

OOC

If you'd like to plot with someone, head to the OOC Plotting Post for this event! As a reminder, we will have a sub-event later on in the month that will be much lighter in nature. Stay tuned! And watch out for the New Moon...

UPDATES

❖ None yet!

(CODE)

Comments

QUESTION

[sticksandbonesmods]

 

[neverleave]

Maybe I'm too late for the lava party, but I'll ask anyway:

If Natsuno takes one look at the lava, decides that fuck this shit and jumps straight into the lava... will there be consequences?

felicity morais ♡ original

[amethystic]

i. good morning, starshine! ( ota )

[amethystic]

( the only nice thing about this is that she somehow was changed to her day clothes over her nightclothes- imagine having to scale a fucking volcano in a nightgown. the only downside is that her cardigan feels like fifty wool blankets stacked on top of each other now. and she can't even store it with magic- as she tries to summon anything to her fingertips, there's nothing. she can't feel the ebb and flow of mana.


not even within herself.





troubling. )

... Did we get split up? That's... fuck.

( ... especially when she spots add, but no elsword or chung.


double fuck. )

ii. to rise, to rise, to rise ( closed to add until it's time for elsword )

[amethystic]

( some people have already set out. add... has not. because of a lot of very obvious reasons, including the fact that his one mobility aid is down for the count. god, let this man have a break? please??? he looks like he'll fall apart at this rate.

but the lava's rising and they're both still here at the bottom- )

Hey. I'm stronger than I look- let me help you up.

iii. on the up and up ( potential? chimings from add maybe? depends on a lavvy )

[amethystic]

( sometimes you are an eighteen-year-old girl who looks like a waif carrying a grown man up a volcano. sometimes that's just your life. but they aren't the only ones here- so, hey, care for a chat? felicity wouldn't, actually. but every instinct screams at her to check in at the very least as they go- )

Hey! How are you holding up?

( because despite her insistence on helping add out, she's fucking miserable in this heat, actually. sweat and ash mix together and she hates the feeling, and her lungs burn with every breath. but she, at least, didn't change biologically. )

iv. little lion man ( closed to elsword )

[amethystic]

( add isn't... entirely the best passenger, but they do their best. she can't resent him for it, all things considered- between his eye and his leg, this is a terrifying situation, and she's ultimately a busy-body stranger. she's sure he'd rather be with his friends from home.

eventually, they at least manage to find elsword, though- there's probably a very touching reunion, and felicity pretends to not be there for most of it if only because she knows she'd be a third-wheel otherwise. instead she takes the opportunity to at least... well, she can't say it's really taking a break when the heat is almost boiling sweat off of her skin, but she can at least sit down on a larger rock for a while.

she makes a point of not sitting near the edge, but still tries to keep an eye on the lava levels. and eventually, her name is called. )

... I'm fine, just needed a breather. ( the heat makes her sound more hoarse than she really is. ) D'you think the Shopkeeper's got ice cream? Could go for some, after this...

v. burning the wick at both ends (closed to roommates) (cw: lava damage, suffocation, burns)

[amethystic]

( she remembers all too clearly dropping into the lava- the way her heart stopped as the floor gave out beneath her, how she couldn't even catch onto a cliffside as it crumbled away, how it wasn't even a fast sink-

how she burned slowly and metal warped and melted against her skin, how she could only scream in agony as her lungs choked on the gas and smoke and how everything, everything melted away-

and yet. even as her body failed, even as her last breath couldn't even be completed, even as she saw elsword diving over the edge for her- she didn't fade at all. even as nothing of her corpse remained, it was like she was there, still trapped beneath the molten glow, and could feel everything still.

and then, like a blink, she's laying in her bed, cardigan and choker still gone but otherwise the same- her skin feels too hot, her lungs hurt and the cold air of the house feels like ice comparitively, and it turns out- it turns out even in death she had never stopped screaming. and she isn't about to stop now, either-

even when someone bursts through the door to find her curled up on her side, head in hands and new burns littering her body, as if they're still smoking. )

Mizuki | Arknights

[mooninthewater]

I. Miles of fire, I'm losing ground (OTA)

[mooninthewater]

[ Hey, you know what's not a fun time? Literally all of this. Being dragged out of bed, being thrown into a dry, miserable heat, and being completely tentacle-less as a sea jelly. He doesn't even have time to freak out about his lack of appendages because he feels like he outright just can't breathe. His skin feels so itchy, like he's suddenly just rash-covered, and every single inch of him is screaming to be tossed into a cool tub of water, but… alas, that's not an option.

He reaches his hand into his bag frantically to pull out the water bottle he has but… pulls it out to find there's only about half left in it. Evaporated, maybe? Or, did he forget to fill it? He doesn't know, but… if he doesn't use it all now, he'll risk it actually all disappearing after too long. Hff…

But he only uses about a quarter of it, leaving the rest to approach the closest person to him who seems to be struggling with the heat as well. He might literally dry up in the heat faster than anyone else, but far be it from Mizuki to put himself over someone else. Thus, he's shoving it into your hands as he helps you up. ]

Drink it quickly, move with me, okay?

II. And in the flashing, my world comes crashing down (OTA) (cw: suicide ment.)

[mooninthewater]

[ The climbing method is probably the most appealing to Mizuki, if just because his harpoon and gloves would keep him from getting too scorched, at least, and it's likely he'd be able to get to the top faster. Mizuki's on a bit of a time limit here — everyone is, of course, but Mizuki especially. If he stays in his dryness too long he's not going to be able to move at all.

There's a very small part of him that says if he'll just come back, he can reduce the suffering to just a couple seconds. It would just take a little step off the edge and he wouldn't have to deal with this silly game. But Mizuki is much too stubborn to let that be the case. Be it if it really were the best option here, he doesn't quite understand the risks of not "playing".

Ugh, it would be so much easier if he could just grab everyone with his tentacles and fling them to the finish line. It wouldn't have been hard. Where were they…?

Well, if he can't carry someone the jellyfish way — ] Climb on my back, we'll get out of here faster that way.

III. I'm left in nowhere, no place to hide, out in the open (OTA)

[mooninthewater]

[ How could something make him feel so useless, so awful, and render him unable to even find respite after "winning". He isn't sure how many other people are here at the top with him because the first thing he does is slumps down somewhere out of the way and trying to calm his wheezing. He can hardly breathe, even here. How miserable. He can't even so much as check up and make sure everyone else is alright?

Useless, useless, useless.

If this is a bad dream, he'd like to wake up now. He's at least alert enough to notice if there's any footsteps in his direction. ]

This isn't fun. [ He rasps. ] What an awful game…

IV. Like ashes in the sky, I quit the illusion (The aftermath, OTA)

[mooninthewater]

[ Volcanoes aren't fun. No Aegir should have to deal with such an arid place like that. (God forbid any of them were brought to face against Pompeii.) Mizuki has to apologize for not coming out of his room after several hours once they're safely back home. He would like to feel less like a fish stick directly out of the oven, and more like himself, so he's going to spend the next six or so hours submerged in ice cold water.

Good news! His stingers are back. Bad news. There's only a couple left. Most of the others are just nubbins. What a hassle...

Once that itchy, rash-like feeling went away, though, he's out and about. Or, rather, just out. He wants to check on all his friends, poke his way under doors to see if they're alright, make sure everyone is still here, but... something tells him they are all still here, and they are not okay. No need to check. It's just something in his gut. Maybe he's just hungry.

Maybe he's starving.

He finds himself standing at the edge of the fog, umbrella open and covering his head despite the clear skies. Maybe you'll hear him utter allowed after a long bout of silence: ] I don't... get it.

Toge Inumaki | Jujutsu Kaisen

[cursedwords]

I. Rude Awakening (OTA)

[cursedwords]

[ Dragging Toge out of bed, out of the inn is not a fun time. Whacking on the vines with his hand is not getting him anywhere. ]

Don't move. [ The order is incredibly faint, with his powers out of commission, he can't get anything to work. It's not working, it's not stopping. ]

Release! [ Again. Another order. His voice isn't sounding very strong, because the cursed energy just isn't there. It's like he's completely burnt out.

Wait. It's like he is completely burnt out? What an unpleasant feeling.

He's dragged very unceremoniously and dumped on this platform where the vines finally let go and he braces himself with his hand to sit upright. ]

II. No Escape (OTA)

[cursedwords]

[ The Floor Is Lava. What were they, children? Technically yes, but it's a technicality at this point.

There are no spirits to battle, this is just a sick game, not unlike something he's familiar with but this one doesn't offer him a fighting chance. Scaling a volcano seems highly improbable. He could, normally, but without cursed energy he's stuck being an ordinary human.

He tilts his head backwards to look at the jumping path. Unstable, certainly, and athletic he may be, without the subtle help of his cursed energy...

This path is unlikely designed for someone as small as him. He doubts, looking at it, that the jumps are even. They're likely further and further apart. This is the kind of game this place expects them to lose.

His only option realistically is the mazes. That, or he should just give up now. For a sacrifice he can come back, he learned that. It didn't matter what he gave up, as long as it wasn't his voice. That was the only thing that made him valuable.

Time to start and Toge hasn't moved yet. ]

Gnosis | Arknights

[succiduous]

I. He's literally from Kjerag guys

[Gnosis is none too happy to be here. The second he's put upon this platform, he feels the pressing heat all around him, like being in the Sargonian Deserts but ten times worse. It's a dry, arid heat that's stifling and suffocating, more so to someone from a literal ice-and-snow country than others, he thinks. Trying to use his Arts at all doesn't work... and he quickly realises everyone here has been "locked down" as well.

Gnosis counts the minutes in his head, doffing his coat and leaving it on the arena floor. Most people suffer hyperthermia after ten minutes in an environment with a dry heat over 60 degrees Celsius. A pyroclastic flow at 200 C is liveable for approximately two to three minutes, if one is lucky enough...

Two minutes and thirty seconds. With any luck, sweating will prevent everyone from expiring early. If they're dehydrated...

Gnosis starts walking. The second the lava starts to rise, he walks faster.]

There isn't much time. [Is he talking to you, or to himself?] I don't particularly feel like getting roasted alive today.

II. Please put him back of snow

[Gnosis is a Supporter archetype, which means he a) cannot climb walls and b) cannot parkour across mysterious floating platforms. This means he has to take the long way, through the various tunnels and "easy road except not really" passageways. The adrenaline has kicked in, so he's at least able to fast-hike up the mountainside, but...

That might not work for him soon. He's clearly getting exhausted. A misplaced footstep nearly sends him tumbling over the edge into the pool of lava some twenty feet below; Gnosis quickly grapples the wall as the stone crumbles under his foot, spinning and pressing his back against it for purchase. Why is this path so narrow... why are the rocks so fragile? This is a heart attack he doesn't need right now—]

Be careful. [Again, talking to himself, but it might be mistaken as talking to you if you're nearby.] Burning to death would be a disappointing way to go out.

["Disappointing" because if he says "horrifying" he might actually let his brain register how dire the situation is, and that won't do.]

III. wildcard

[hi throw something at my face]

II

[cleavethetides]

[ Irene isn't nearly as strong as the Abyssal Hunters. Skadi with her strength of a whale, Specter with her tendency to swing around her buzzsaw like it has the weight of Irene's own rapier, and Gladiia who could pull a horde of Seaborn towards her without breaking a sweat, but that doesn't mean she can't lift a scrawny bird man. Gnosis isn't small, but for someone from the ice and snow, man's got no meat on his bones. How do they survive out there, honestly? "Layers," sure, but-

Whatever the case, Irene hoists the bird up before he can make a misstep. Unlike Irene, who can feasibly make those missteps and catch herself. She's used to be light on her feet and traversing slippery, jagged rocks with the threat of death below. Really, the only difference here is the fact that the wet sheen on her skin is from sweat and not from the rain coming from a violent, howling storm.

Really, the fact that there's no raging winds makes this easier.

Gnosis goes over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes so she can use her rapier in her other hand as a balance and to catch herself if anything drastic happens. She says nothing as she does so. ]

I. He's literally from Kjerag guys

[amhran]

[ She is following after him... But she is terribly exhausted and tired, every step is heavy. The top looks so far away, she is not sure she will be able to make it. Her hair is so long and Caoimhe almost tells herself she should cut it all off. ]

I-I am trying... I... ... Remember Add.. Said... We ... Wont die but... Im sure it will.. Still be horrible.. .And they will take from us... I think... They truly want us to die.... ah....

II

[cursedwords]

[ Toge is not so sure if it would be disappointing or just fact. Burning to death wouldn't be a pleasant way to go, no. He's also the type that cannot scale the volcano unfortunately at the moment.

What he can do is take two steps back and hold out his hand. ]

Tuna tuna. [ He makes a beckoning motion. Take his hand? ]

ELSWORD FROM THE CRITICALLY IRRELEVANT MMO ELSWORD

[simplicitas]

I. oof ouch hot oven

[Not knowing where Add is? It's more likely than you think.

When everyone winds up on separate platforms and there's no Add in sight, Elsword's first act is to panic immediately and look for him — not that there's many nooks and crannies for him to hide in. He doesn't see Add. Where could Add have gone? By the El's Light, he's not losing Add again, fuck no, fuck that—

He takes a breath, ash and smoke filling his lungs. The voice signals the start of the game, but Elsword doesn't move, staying until everyone else has gone just in case Add shows up. And... he doesn't.

It takes maybe two minutes for the heat to be unbearable to the point where Elsword starts to literally fry in his armour, too. There's a distant sizzling noise as metal burns his skin, a somewhat-panicked look on Elsword's face as he starts unclasping his gauntlets and doffing his armour as quickly as he can before he boils. The game is only just beginning, and he's starting late. The lava rises. Add isn't here. He has to literally free himself of all of his armour if he wants to live long enough to maybe, hopefully, see his friend — and anyone else — again.

Sephira's wings won't come, which means he cannot fly out of here. Sephira won't even float like this, but that device is too important to lose; he pockets the golden ring in his remaining clothing, and just before the magma can touch the heels of his shoes, he sprints toward the nearest cliff face.

Maybe you were waiting for him. Maybe you turned around to grab him. Maybe you're far ahead. In any case, Elsword is swift to catch up to you so you can both get out without cooking.]

II. extreme rock climbing

Shit—!

[Climbing the hot rock wall was probably a bad idea, but it's also the fastest way out by Elsword's measure. There are lava floes nearby that bubble up sometimes, and one of those just struck him against the cheek. He's lucky it was just a tiny splatter, like bacon grease in a frying pan, and not anything worse.

Swiping it away hurts his hand, and he spits out another curse before carrying on. Up he goes, up and up...]

Hey— [you there, yes you!] Hey, are you holding up okay? Do you need help?

[Self-preservation sense: 0. Let him help you instead.]

III. mmm deep fried angel
cw: semi-graphic mentions of 3rd degree burns

[Elsword is at the top of the rise, in the air-conditioned safe spot, literally shivering because the cold in contrast with the heat throws his body temperature completely out of whack. It's like stepping out of a dessert into a tundra. He's only in his undershirt, after all. There are no sleeves.

He thinks quietly, if he goes out because he suddenly got hypothermia, at least he lived through the worst of it.

He's not the first one to the top — there are others up here, but he doesn't immediately start talking to anybody. Instead, he's assessing the damage done to his left arm, where it was submerged entirely in lava for a good ten seconds. His skin and some of the muscle underneath is completely destroyed, some black and charred, some still meaty-looking and bloody. The familiar white of bone shows on his forearm in patches where the lava had burned away everything else.

It's a miracle he can move that arm at all. He's desperately trying not to. They just need the game to end so that he can heal his injuries, it's fine, he's fine...

Finally, he speaks up:]

You're okay, right? As okay as you can be, anyway.

IV. wildcard

[hi again. it's me again. you can throw something at my face, again—]

UNFRY THE ANGEL except we can't

[shineprism]

ELSWORD!

( he doesn't mean to yell, but- when he sees the other like that, how can he not? running over, chung skids to a stop in front of him, dismayed. even now his magic doesn't come to him- useless...

after a few moments of desperately trying to think of anything he could do, he chokes on his own words. )

What happened to you?

( it's like he tried to reach into the... he couldn't have, right? )

II. extreme rock climbing

[devilishkouhai]

EH??? Whats this the lone hero caring about little old me? Rather devious arent you?

[ Elsword may have heard her cackling wildly in a fit of broken laughter as she was climbing up the wall. Her legs are burnt. Her hands are burnt. Her body is burnt. However, she is full with as much vigor as she had when she first started climbing. ]

THIS IS NOTHING! Don't tell me youre so pathetic you cant climb a wall like this?

[ She is burning, her skin is burning as she peaks climbing like a crazed lunatic against the wall. ]

BB / FATE GO

[devilishkouhai]

𝟏㏒ ...INTO THE FIRE

[ You only get one log, one option, one view - a deranged girl climbing along the walls laughing hysterically as her skin burns away. The amount of pain she felt was reminiscent of a memory implemented within her mind regarding the Moon Cell - the truth of it was, that the version of her in that memory wasn't This Iteration of BB.

BB never burned away for Hakuno against the Firewall, but thanks to Kiara delving herself into every timeline she existed. Causing the Moon cell too, to collaborate all its data together into one conception: BB.

BB, as she was now. Was able to have that data, have that memory all for herself, and she feared burning away. Feared the way that it felt as it ate her skin and her entire existence - the plethora of data that made her up. Causing the firewall to ebb away at her entirety while it gave Hakuno the time to run away with her servant.

She feared it so much that the Goddess she picked specifically, Pele - was one who could not be burned away by fires ever.

However now here she was. Amidst lava. Without the ability Pele granted her. Immunity from fire.

BB now was here, learning what it meant to feel fear, and reveling in it. As if it were a high she needed to chase.

So anyway, you have this deranged woman climbing along the walls screaming every now and then letting it turn into a laugh as she makes her way to the top of the mountain. Looking devlish and evil, but deep down scared more then anyone else here and wanting to conquer this fear the only way she knows how -

by telling it to go fuck itself.

Feel free to stop her, join her, or question your insanity. ]

Natsuno Yuuki | Shiki

[neverleave]

Into the fire (CW: suicide, this is a meta prompt to establish it happened)
[It's playtime!

It's all so mockingly familiar, salt inside an open wound. The only difference is that this time the force behind the sadistic "game" seems content the let the environment kill them instead of having them do it to each other.

The moment the lava starts rising, Natsuno makes a decision. He doesn't move from his spot, just stares calmly straight ahead and says to whatever cruel entity listening:]

Fuck you.

[He presses the Glock to his temple, pulls the trigger and falls off the platform. Hopefully the lava will kill him before he regains consciousness.]

Aftermath
[It didn't kill him right away. He was left there, blind and deaf and mute, burning for what felt like forever. On the sliding scale of his multiple deaths, this one is possibly the worst.

Revival is familiar at least, respawned in his bed no worse for wear. Everything seems to be in place, no scars or corrupted memories.

He wanders outside, a detached look on his face, still smelling like fire. The grove and residents seem unchanged.]

...No surprises there.

[mooninthewater]

[ Hey.

It doesn’t matter if they do come back, dying sucks. Mizuki isn’t sure if he’s miserable because he wasn’t able to save people, or because him making it to the top made it harder for others, or just because… his friends getting hurt in anyway leaves this sludgy, gross put in his stomach he doesn’t like. He can’t say he knows what happened to Natsuno, but he does know that he wasn’t at the top with him when the game “ended”.

Whatever the case, Natsuno is getting a visit from the concerned jellyfish. The only thing that saves Natsuno from a hug is that smoky fire smell. All too familiar to Mizuki, and it makes him bristle. Why was there so much fire lately… ]

…Mister Yuuki. [ His hands nervously fiddle with his umbrella. He clearly wants to provide some physical comfort, but hhh… ] I… Are you… [ “okay”? Clearly not. What a stupid question. ] I-I tried… to find you, I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you in time…