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

[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. ]

[littledhampir]

It worked... [Complete and utter disbelief because really, Rose sure as hell didn't see that one coming and neither did her mun really.]

IT WORKED! [Explanations are good Rose, who grabs Mr now not a zombie by the arms and urges him.] All these people are going to die if you don't help me. [Diplomacy 16 - First time ever doing diplo over intimidate - night full of firsts.] Stop them, ask them about their loved ones. [A beat.] And if that fails punch them in the face.

[Releasing him she tries to repeat the process on another (str 19) but even as she's trying, she knows this is a slow way to do this. (Wis 17)]

Is there a spell that can give people warm fuzzy feelings about their loved ones?! Or... a really really big megaphone?

[craic]

This all seems kind of hit or miss, [ the new guy calls as his fist meets another glaze-eyed face. ] No pun intended.

If you know the guy behind all this shouldn't you be doing something about the source instead?

[graveflowers]

We are. It's a hydra. [ so easier said than done. vi doesn't mean to sound so unenthusiastic or apathetic, new guy (she didn't bother to retain his name), but she's had a bad day. which is an understatement. ] But we could call Nick?

[bigbad]

It's a rather large city, if you hadn't noticed, and knowing him isn't the same as knowing where he is. And while we searched, people'd keep drowning. [Plus, Blade can kick all their asses FAR too easily.] Go for it, pet.

[He isn't entirely sure how a unicorn will help but anything that gets Vi doing something...]

[witchwoman]

Trust us when we say that it's better that we stop them now and worry about the rest later. These people could die. [And its only by the grace of a will save of 30 that Myri's empathy isn't dragging her into the ocean to go after them... because she's done that before in canon, so let's not repeat that.]

Nick. Yes, we should call him. Is his number in your phone? [Myri didn't really get the unicorn's digits tbh.]

[graveflowers]

Yeah. [ which... she doesn't have with her. ugh moving. she gets up, using myri to help herself to her feet and heads inside with a "be right back" to call the unicorn and ask him to breathe in people's faces with his unicorn breath. please. please and thank you. ]

[craic]

[ He's kind of incredulous that they can make vines spring out of the ground and stuff but can't find a dude, but magic. Magic. Who the hell knows. ]

It's a lot of people. [ is a helpful and encouraging thing to say, ] You're never going to get them all unless you've got a bigger trick than this up your sleeves. [ But in the meantime because this is all very little skin of his nose he's just going to continue punching people, switching up to give his off-hand some practice. He eases them to the ground, though less gently than others. ] Nick another mermaid or magician?

[silvermaid]

[ officially out of spells to break the connection, anastacia comes back to catch that much, pulling out her phone. ] He's a unicorn. [ said like THAT SHOULD EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. ring ring calling nick and letting him know what's up. GET YOUR FURRY WHITE BUTT OUT HERE. ]

[craic]

A unicorn. [ He eyes Anastacia for a second (and then another second because hi there) before he nods and smiles. ] Right, of course. And I'm a dragon. [ You are crazy, lady. ]

[desperatewarning]

[Apparently, Nick was awake as well when he got the call, but that's understandable, considering someone died in his living room tonight. It's mere moments (greater teleport get) before he arrives in unicorn form. People might stop a gangly seven foot tall kindergarten teacher, but ain't nobody gonna stop a giant horse with a horn, moving through the swarms of people and casting mass hold person on a group of afflicted persons he passes (caster check 23, since ALL THE UNICORN WIKI SAYS IS COMPULSION AND THAT'S JUST A SPELL CLASS, APPARENTLY, SO BEST BE SAFE)

Now you can talk to them before they try to jump.] This is madness.

[witchwoman]

[All the chaos going on makes it a little hard to follow but she understands enough to see that she can try to talk them out of this madness. She doesn't want to leave Vi alone but if she can help save these people, she needs to try. She moves towards a group of people that Nick has held and starts to try to talk to them, asking them to remember the people that matter most, trying to help them remember what they have to live for (diplomacy 25).]

[littledhampir]

[Rose keeps doing her thing, moving on to those who haven't been caught up in the spell only because she has the strength to at least slow them, leaving the rest to those who were much better with words than she was. If she was successful on snapping out of it, she asked them to help them (Diplomacy 22 - good time to break out the good roll). If not (Because I have to assume at least a handful of people might not have loved ones to think of) they received a blow to the head.

Her way is slower than mass urging but she's trying to convert some helpers in the process (Wis... Nat 20?! IDEK if that's a Nat 20 worth of Wisdom but this IS Rose so lets take it.)]

[bigbad]

[Spike is gonna stick to the punching out people method for those not caught by the unicorn bubble or vi's spell because he's really good at it and sucks at diplomacy. It probably just takes one hit for most of them too cause how many have even have 5 hp. He does a double take when Nick shows up, though.]

Bloody hell, that's a unicorn. There's a unicorn in New York.

[Hearing about it and seeing it are totally different things, ok.]

[craic]

Well fuck me. [ It is a unicorn. Spike's reaction is kind of gratifying, and after eyeing the actual unicorn for a minute new guy lifts both hands in a 'who the fuck knows!' gesture. And then turns back to knocking people out, though since more and more of them are stood still by the spells, he attempts some talking at them as well (Diplomacy 19), deciding who gets which approach mostly based on how much he likes their face. ]

[desperatewarning]

Yes, thank you. Please do keep shouting it. Bad enough there's going to be a bloody unicorn on the telly.

[NICK HAS BEEN IN HIDING FOR AGES, OKAY. HE WOULDN'T DO THIS FOR JUST ANYONE. But, sadly, this is a very desperate time. He trots off to join the O'Keefes.]

[asuma]

[Klaus also pauses momentarily to steal a glance at this majestic creature. BECAUSE HORSES, LIKE BIRTHDAYS, ARE A THING FOR HIM OK. But he realizes there will be time enough to stare later.

He's since abandoned the slow process of attempting to dominate these people in favor of knocking them the fuck out, for the record. This bargain bin domination bullshit is really making him miss his compulsion.

And, given his strength, incapacitating these people with a well-placed blow is is a much swifter alternative to trying to talk to them so he's sticking with Spike's method of getting shit done.]

[isisagent]

[Archer has been flexing his muscles helping the team punch people out. In the chaos of running around, cracking skulls, he's snagged up a sign and is using it as a makeshift club of sorts.]

It's like Whack-A-Mole. But with people! [Archer's enjoying himself. Then there's a...]

UNICORN! WOOOOOOOOO!! [Archer is going to do his drunken best to mount Nick, with a ride check of 19.]

[desperatewarning]

[ARCHER YOU ARE FUCKING LUCKY AS SHIT BECAUSE NICK GOT A NAT 20 WILL SAVE TO TOLERATE THIS. Either he's too shocked by the situation to properly be offended or he's here to remind everyone he's des's friend and thus used to this shit. he even lets archer get settled before turning to anastacia.]

Bit of a strange lot you have with you. [he misses your old friends, ana.]

[isisagent]

[It's the best day to be Archer! He casually smashes heads in with his sign-club, as they walk through the crowd.]

HEIGH-HO [CRACK!] Heigh-ho, [BAM!] it's off to [POW!] work we go! [WHAM!]

[telekinection]

[ ♬ to rid the disease - opeth

everybody contributes to the strange and bizarre act of preventing shadowkind from reaching the river... and what's amazing is just how many people they're able to save all told. of course, the river goes on quite a ways in both directions, and they know that they're only covering one section of it ... but they're still able to save an impressive amount of people.

those who are knocked unconscious wake up with no idea what was going on, whereas those who were talked into stopping seem to realize what was going on and many of them are willing to help stop others from meeting the fate they almost met themselves.

finally, the trickle of shadowkind ends, within half an hour of when it began, and as they settle exhausted to a halt, tia looks down the river further, where several bodies that were already too late to be saved are floating silently.

her expression hardens into grim resolve, as she turns back to the gathering others. ]

I think we all know what this is. [ she looks across each of them, drawing their attention away from the horrible sight. ]

This is a declaration.

[ she closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath ]

This is war.

[telekinection]