CHAPTER FINALE ♔ as i went down in the river to pray

[telekinection]

♬ dead bodies everywhere - korn

WHO || Tia Ellison, Rose Hathaway, Sterling Archer, Spike, Klaus Mikaelson, Violet Reedhym, Finnick Odair, Myrilandel de Tanos, Anastacia O'Keefe, Faith O'Keefe, Nick Starkweather, various others
WHAT || The night following Luthir's death and the concert
WHERE || NYC, New York
WHEN || June 7th to 8th, 2014, middle of the night.
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread.

The night has not gone as planned.

With the help of the unicorn Nick Starkweater, Faith O'Keefe used her dreamwalking powers to take Violet and her new husband Luthir into Vi's dreams to face down the shadow remnant of Malaak'a that had consumed her nightmares and prevented her spirit from returning to full strength with the return of spring. Keijen Blade's warning, however, that such an attempt would end in blood, proved true: Luthir gave his life to allow Vi to do what must be done.

Meanwhile, the 'reconnaissance' mission meant to gather intel on what Keijen Blade was doing at his concerts went south when several of the team members fell prey to Blade's compulsion. After almost prompting Archer and Rose to commit suicide onstage in front of an eager crowd, Blade let the team walk out with their lives, which was almost as unsettling as the power he'd displayed in controlling such a large mass of people.

No one is really in the mood or shape to take a flight that night, so it's crashing at a hotel for the Knights tonight.

Some people might need the sleep, while others may be less than able to get any. Feel free to single-thread tag what your character is up to at 4AM or so.

Comments

[bigbad]

[Spike hugs Myri back tightly.] It's all right, love. I'd have been fine. They forgot vampires don't have to breathe. [Spike, you would have lost a third of your hp a round. He looks up at the stranger, raising an eyebrow.]

Maybe you should ask the bastard that did this for an apology instead. [The bastard that is still doing this. He looks back down at Myri.] Can you do that again? I don't know if we can stop 'em all...

i can't find a photo of him grinning fast enough to icon for this so just imagine

[craic]

Then how's your tomorrow looking? I'll give you a call, we can try again. [ I suppose there should probably be a roll of some sort here, but he's just going to flash Rose a wide, easy grin, the reply more joke than actual come-on.

He scratches at the back of his neck and eyes the crowd again, squinting into the morning light. To Spike: ] Yeah? Who's that then?

[witchwoman]

[She pulls back, releasing him from her hug and shakes her head, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.] I don't... I don't really know how I did it the first time... [She's going to need to spend some time getting in tune with the way her magic is changing to be able to get a better handle on this.]

I could end up making it worse. I'm just glad I was able to stop it, to stop both of you. [you too, rose. even if you were rude as hell :( She finally notices the stranger in their midst.]

A dangerous man in league with even more dangerous people.

[asuma]

[Klaus rolls his eyes and follows after Tia. Because he should probably feign a little concern here. Plus they were out of scotch. But he doesn't actually know what the fuck is going on because he didn't go to look, so once they get outside he's like oh, well shit.]

I think it's safe to say that we've found the reason behind the mass mind control at the concert earlier.

[bigbad]

[Spike looks back over at the stranger, frowning slightly.] Who are you, again?

[littledhampir]

[I figure he's being charming enough that a Will Save of 8 isn't enough for her to resist, so she does soften a little. Of course softening by Rose's standards today just means that she's not going to introduce her fist to his face.]

That could be hard. My phone is currently in pieces. [Tone dry. No but really. It is.

She does catch that both, lips twitching in a way that's supposed to be grateful but it doesn't quite work and instead just looks pained.]

We're in over our heads. [Almost in answer to Myri's explanation.] Keijen. That's what he said when he released Me and Archer and let us walk out of there without a scratch. [Wisdom 19] It was too easy.

[telekinection]

He was giving us a preview of the night's entertainment. [ she shakes her head ] We have to save as many as we can. But I don't know if I'll have any more luck getting in their skulls than I did in Spike's.

[graveflowers]

[ y'all know people are still killing themselves right? anyone? ok. fine. vi casts a heightened entangle, which hopefully will snare everyone within that forty foot radius. full round strength or escape artist check of 20 to not get tangled. but... you know, she's was aiming past the group so probably none of them got tangled. ]

[asuma]

I can always give it a go. [Just saying. Although he has no idea how that might work since his compulsion domination is completely different here. But it might be worth a try.] Though doing this one by one hardly seems productive.

[And then, after a beat.] I suppose breaking their legs is out of the question. [No, really. Is it tho?]

[littledhampir]

[Rose's big fat Wisdom Check of 7 has her thinking the leg breaking might not be such a bad idea.

*Crickets Chirp*

She does follow it up by watching (yeah there's nothing at all disturbing about watching people go to their deaths) the zombied masses (Spot 23) as mun works a theory that a bunch of these people, maybe even all of them, might look like they've been to a Heatless Passion concert in oh, say the last 12 hours.]

[craic]

In pieces? That's a new one. [ He seems more amused than anything else. To Spike he replies, as if it's obvious: ] I'm Brendan. Who are you? [ And more generally, as he watches Vi in particular now: ] You lot seem pretty familiar with this sort of thing.

[silvermaid]

I hope no one ever comes to feel familiar with this.

[ anastacia has just emerged out on the stairs, staring at the scene before them as some of the zombied people get trapped in vi's snare. they're so few and far between that it's not... a lot of them, but it's enough to let rose get a better look.

her theory doesn't seem very far-fetched when she sees that many of the people up and down the length of the river coming closer to it appear to be in their late teens or early twenties. some sport piercings or tattoos, odd hair colors, raccoon-like makeup they didn't bother washing off when they got home. a few are even still sporting bright yellow wrist bands from entrance. it's not all of them - but there's definitely a solid representation of people who look like the concert goers from earlier.

anastacia sets immediately to work, casting break enchantment as she moves down the bank, trying to halt as many as she can. ]

[graveflowers]

[ well, that's done and since vi is still, hilariously (only not), incapable of giving a single fuck, she just sits down on the sidewalk and pulls her knees up to her chest. suicidal ideation is actually super familiar to her, but she doesn't bother speaking up. she did her thing, she's done, she's retiring.

now that's a thought... ]

[moonheart]

[ faith comes down behind anastacia, and then books it down the street the other way. where she runs across people, she puts her hand on their shoulder and closes her eyes. they gently fall to their knees, and she lowers them to the ground, asleep. ]

[bigbad]

I dunno, it's starting to be a bloody habit. [He glances around at all of them, frowning as he considers it.]

All right, Faith's got the right idea. Knocking 'em out's probably better than leg breaking, cause if they can still crawl, they will. [He felt that determination. Leg breaking wouldn't make a difference.] Few bumps and bruises, can't complain if it keeps them alive. Finnick, put your mermaid skills to use and try and pull some of 'em out, if you're sober enough. Vi, get up, you'll probably feel better if you're hitting something. I always do.

[Yes, he's elected himself leader now. Sorry, Tia. He glances over at Brendan.]

If you want to help, new bloke, I'll give you that apology you want so badly.

[And now he's gonna give Myri a reassuring squeeze and head towards the river without waiting to see if anyone's gonna listen to his plan. TIME TO KNOCK OUT SOME ZOMBIES.]

[asuma]

[Classy as fuck, aren't you, Spike? He shrugs toward Tia, because it seems as good a plan as any right now, before breaking away toward another group of concert-goers.

As much as Klaus wouldn't mind knocking a few random strangers out cold, he's going to give that domination thing a try first. He hasn't had many opportunities to practice in order to work out the finer differences between how it works here and the compulsion that he's used to, so now seems as good a time as any.

Of course, if ordering these people to stop marching to their death doesn't work out the way he hopes, then beating them senseless makes for a nice fallback plan.]

[graveflowers]

[ no, spike, hitting things will not make her feel better about her husband being dead. nor could she manage to actually knock someone out without her bow. she doesn't move to follow spike's directions, but she does cast another entangle so some more people are caught in her snares to make punching easier on everyone else. stationary targets, get. ]

[craic]

Mermaid skills? [ The new bloke arches a brow and kind of looks around. Are they serious, here? They're serious. Okay. He shrugs. ] Why not. [ He turns and starts punching people out with what should maybe be slightly alarming readiness but given the company and the circumstances probably isn't. ]

[witchwoman]

[Myri isn't a fighter. She's not going to be able to knock anyone unconscious, probably. Plus, she doesn't want to just leave Vi sitting there. So she hangs back, but she's too nervous to sit down beside Vi, so she's just hovering and watching. Go team go.]

[littledhampir]

[When Rose Hathaway is the person to consider that violence maybe isn't the answer? This could in fact be the Kolpocalypse but seeing people that reminded her of the concert, reminded her of what happened to her. She'd been able to break free and okay, so it's a long shot and probably the cheesiest thing she will have ever done in her life but if it works, in theory there could be a way to make it work on a grand scale.

Approaching random zombie # 8754 she tries to slow their progression (Str 24) all the while talking to them, asking them about their friends, families, girlfriends or boyfriends and I'd write it out for you all but really this is going to start looking like a hurlmark movie.

And ya know... if this fails she can always just punch them in the face.]

whoops i forgot to refresh the page lmfao

[65]

[dryly, to ... new dude (THANKS FOR THE GREAT INTRODUCTION BTW SPIKE)] I'm a good swimmer.

[and now he's going to take off stuff that would weigh him down (like idk his shirt /waggles eyebrows) before heading off into the water. so vi can boost his str. coincidentally he's also leaving his stuff with vi since she is ... just sitting there.]

[graveflowers]

[ before finnick can go fishing, vi reaches out and pats his leg, giving him a +2 bonus to his strength score for four rounds. (quick boost) then she reaches out to take myri's hand just to hold because she needs a tether so she doesn't float away and myri is... it. ]

[65]

[and then ... finnick goes out in the water to do his mermaid shit. (swim 24) he'll probably try to save anyone who's already like glurg glurg glurg jack from titanic first so he doesn't have to fight against them in the water.]

[bigbad]

[Spike's just here to hit people (though he's being nice and only doing subdual damage) and try and knock them out. Possibly tossing some of them at Vi's vine patch, when it's convenient, but he's really doing his best to make it to the edge of the water so he can stop the most people. For all the good it can do.]

[telekinect]

[ klaus tries to bend his will on the first few people that he sees... but for some of them, they won't even focus to look him in the eye, and it's like trying to dominate a brick wall. he manages to get one or two to zone in on him, but it's a slow going process and pretty hit or miss.

rose manages to pull one zombie to a stop easily with her mighty strength, and her string of questions is met with listless struggling at first, but when they ask about a girlfriend, the guy's expression furrows a bit, and he starts shaking his head slowly and finally says weakly: "Linda?"

finnick easily fishes people out of the water and deposits them onto the shore, where tia helps reel them in. it's chaotic and crazy, and in the distance they hear sirens, and screams and wails and other sounds of the city reacting to what is going on all down the length of the river. ]