[OPEN] Mission 155

[soul_mods]

Characters: Open to those who signed up here.
Location: An unmarked cavern system outside Death City.
Rating: Various.
Time: March 18th, sunrise.
Description: Shibusen agents brave underwater caverns to take out the first of three Madness emitters.

Missiongoers pile out of the mirrors early in the morning, just as the first hints of sun start to color the walls of the sandstone canyon red and purple; it'll be the last bits of real light they'll see for at least a few hours. The atmosphere is electric -- there're quite a few new (and old) arrivals who're eager to see some action, but just as many people who're feeling rather more apprehensive… And for good reason.

The only way to their destination is blocked by a few hundred yards of sunken tunnels. Luckily they've been provided with mouthpieces, breathing apparatuses with enough oxygen to last about ten minutes: more than enough time, provided that the guests don't lose their way in the dimly-lit, twisted caverns. It's as easy as following the person in front of them, right?

Upon emerging safely from the pool onto mostly-dry land, they'll find themselves in an immense cavern, illuminated by countless, blue fungi clinging to the walls and ceiling, looking like stars dotting a night sky. Already the first signs of the way Madness has been corrupting the wildlife are evident: the mushrooms exude strange spores that make some people's head pound the same way the increasingly noticeable Madness wavelength does.

As they travel further into the watery caves and explore its many branches, they'll begin to encounter creatures twisted by Madness: moles, snakes, beetles, centipedes, all grown to monstrous proportions, some with a venomous bite that quickly turns their victim feverish and delirious. The more daring fighters can easily dispatch those and delve even deeper, and it's near the source of the Madness, in the chamber housing the emitter itself, that they'll encounter the kishin eggs.

There're dozens of them-- eyeless, white, vaguely human-shaped things, but despite their blindness they have no problem finding their quarry, fighting with claws and exuding their own Madness wavelength. If the missiongoers can stand strong against the kishin eggs and the ever-present wavelength given off by the Madness emitter, Shibusen's specialists will have enough time to shut the machine down for good.


OOC NOTES.
- The event summary post containing all relevant links is located here.
- Make your own threads, but please indicate in your subject line [CHARACTER(S) | LOCATION | OPEN/CLOSED] and, if applicable, if you need a kishin egg NPC!
- The locations are the sunken tunnels, the medics area, the cave system, and the emitter chamber, but only the medics will have their designated sub-thread.
- If you have any further questions, the mod thread on the coordination post is here!

Comments

[badcop]

Barricade simply grunted in response to the commentary concerning the soul, pausing a moment before just scooping it up in one hand. He rolled it between his talons - kind of airy, not really substantial. Weird. Again, he had that moment of dreadful curiosity if this is what he'd see if he opened the armor of his chest, to see if the spark remained or not. He wasn't ready for that just yet, and definitely not here. The Madness might have abated, but he didn't need anything else to push him in the wrong direction.

Pinching the tapered end of the soul delicately between two talons, he lifted it up to his face. It was Qilby's tone that made him pause again, shooting the old man a careful, suspicious look. Take your reward, he said. Was he missing something here? The Meister couldn't do anything with the soul, aside from feed it to his Weapon to make it stronger. He thought of Qilby taking samples of the fungus, of Demona's promise for the three of them to speak - and knew he was still in the dark here. However long those two had been working together, they had a more cohesive plan he wasn't privy to yet. Fine. He'd get it out of them eventually, before they tried to take advantage of him.

Instead of arguing the point, Barricade tipped back his head and opened his mouth. He dropped the soul between his jagged teeth, black tongue curling around the orb and sucking it down easily. The glass door wings over his shoulders shuddered as he swallowed, armor rippling at the bizarre sensation. Oral consumption wasn't the most efficient, and his systems couldn't track something as intangible as a soul. Even if it had been there a moment ago, it was gone now, and he hardly felt any better for it. Maybe after 98 more Kishin souls and Witches' soul, but one was apparently a drop in the ocean.

"Not very appetizing," he decided.

[dissenter]

"It couldn't be," Qilby pointed out drily. "Otherwise everyone would be killing each other for a taste."

That was it, then. All that work and little to show for it save for, perhaps, a little smidgen of trust from the Cybertronian. Friendliness would be pushing it, and loyalty-- well, he held no loyalty to those outside of his race, and he couldn't quite fathom a reason for anyone else to be any different. Not if they were halfway intelligent beings, and from the suspicious look he got, he could tell Barricade fell squarely into that category.

After all that action, and all it'd been through, his hat was beginning to slip off his head again; he tugged at its front irritably, grimacing when his bloodied sleeve brushed against his face.

"I admit, I've never made a habit of fighting that... Up close and personal." So, what he was trying to say was that it wit went a lot better than it might've. His eyes followed Barricade's illuminating beams of light to the defeated kishin egg, trailing over its spines, its claws, its sharper bits, everything he had the pleasure of not seeing firsthand. If he hadn't kept himself so limber, things might've gone quite differently. He hoped the machine appreciated that.

[badcop]

Barricade wasn't so sure about that, unless the taste of the Kishin affected how much of a pain they were to kill. Innocent, human souls must not have much flavor either. If they did, everyone really would be killing each other over them.

He looked over at Qilby in time to see him pull at his hat, making that hilarious face. So he had no problem with death and killing, but apparently getting his hands dirty was distasteful. His comment only seemed to drive home the point, though he was thankful the Meister had gotten the job done. Well enough for them to both be alive, at least. There was a big difference between those that planned wars, Qilby, and those that fought them, which was Barricade. He didn't look forward to when the old man and Demona figured that out, if they hadn't already.

"You don't strike me as the 'close and personal' type, anyways," Barricade said, optics following Qilby's line of sight. "You want more samples, or are we good to go?"

Not that it was really practical to be carrying much from that thing's carcass, unless they wanted every carnivore in this cave following them home.

[dissenter]

He regarded Barricade with some mild incredulity. "Do I sense a hint of growing consideration? Keep it up and one day we might actually be able to call ourselves partners." Qilby's words were as ironic as ever, but they were missing the harsh edge they had before... He actually might've sort of meant what he said.

"But no-- no, thank you. I'm more interested in the flora at the moment." And then, he added a touch too pleasantly, "There'll be plenty of kishin eggs to take apart later... Perhaps more than I initially thought. And I hope they'll come to me more intact, in the future."

Brushing the dirt off his loose sleeve (and, to his annoyance, leaving more light streaks of red on it) he turned to continue down the tunnel. More kishin eggs than he thought, indeed. Once they'd overcome their hurdles, the two of them didn't put up a bad fight. But surely things were only going to get more dangerous from here on out -- how much deeper would it be safe for them to delve, exactly?

[badcop]

"No, I just didn't want to listen to you complain about it if we left too soon," Barricade rumbled. Like Qilby's, his words lacked their earlier bite, which was a step in the right direction. He only had to think of before, though, when the old man had been pushing him into a fight, verbal or otherwise. He wasn't forgetting that little exchange any time soon, and it was going to color the remainder of their so-called partnership for some time.

Leaving the carcass to whatever else happened down this passage, Barricade followed after the Meister. He kept his headlights pointed ahead of them, though they were dimmed slightly because of all the glowing fungus.

Barricade came very close to making a comment about buying some flowers back in the city, but let it drop instead. If they were playing nice right now, no sense wrecking it on purpose. "There ought to be plenty of them down here, once we're deeper. No promises on how intact they'll be, though."

[dissenter]

No promises, indeed. Luckily, this wasn't an alliance that seemed to be built on those -- but whatever the robot might've thought of him, he should know that Qilby always kept his word, even if the results weren't always exactly what the recipient had imagined. Barricade would undoubtedly find that out first-hand, one day soon enough.

"You'll only see them if you admit I'm not as useless as you thought I was." It wasn't nasty or vindictive, per se, but it sure was smug as hell; that was the clearest indication so far that things were slowly going back to normal.

And it wasn't as if he was going to call this all off if he couldn't get Barricade to eat his words. No, for the first time in a long, long time, he actually felt alive. There was no way he was going to turn back off this path, for whatever reason.