maskormenacelogs | DREAMFUCKERY CONCLUSION

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DREAMFUCKERY CONCLUSION

WHO: Kylo Ren, his army of nightmares and YOU
WHERE: The Meadows
WHEN: May 6th-8th
WHAT: Kylo's been fortifying his position and building defenses around the sleeping body of Ronan Lynch in expectation of attack from imPorts on a mission to kill Ronan. This log is for anyone wishing to save the world at the cost of Ronan's life OR hoping to talk with Kylo to find an alternative solution! The final conclusion will take place on the 8th, but anyone wanting to explore before then is welcome to do so...
WARNINGS: Descriptions of violence, possible body horror...

THE PERIMETER

Those who have visited the Meadows before will recognise certain changes to the landscape— the first and most notable being the addition of the obligatory enchanted forest. What fairytale centred around Sleeping Beauty would be without one?

This particular variation on the theme takes the shape of a stand of trees that form a boundary fence. Until approached there's nothing about them to make their true nature immediately apparent, but these trees are well armed and will move, albeit smoothly and slowly, to block the paths of unwanted guests. Perhaps more importantly, the forest faithfully reports any such attempted incursions to its master in the same eerie, breathless whispers it employs to warn explorers to turn back. You have been seen. You are not welcome here. Trespassing will have consequences.

Movement above triggers loud, raucous cries and the ominous sound of wingbeats from the large, scattered flock of ravens keeping tireless watch for any sign of approach. They are far more numerous and persistent than they have any right to be, dedicated to the singular task of driving the unwelcomed out.

Beyond the border, life at the Meadows appears to continue as if the blending of dream into reality is a mundane, everyday occurrence— perhaps because for the inhabitants of this place, it often is. If expected, visitors will find Kylo waiting for them just the other side of the perimeter, but should the boundary be breached by an uninvited guest, the Meadows will reveal its teeth.

Please feel free to write encounters with perimeter defenses if your character would come up against them! Some threats (such as the forest border and the raven spies) are hazards that will be hard to avoid, while others are pick-and-choose features:

TREES:	Trees are spaced roughly 3ft apart, and have grown up in a ring around the property. Each one is willing to move a couple of feet from its original position to block and trap intruders, but at a speed that would be fairly easy to outrun. Their spines are exceptionally sharp! Being crushed between these trees would be pretty nasty. Characters will be able to hear the forest whispering as it raises the alarm. Trees are not sentient and will not engage in conversation, but they are very definitely aware. Characters may hear them whisper strangely personalised threats and warnings.
RAVENS:	Ravens act as more mobile sentinels. These are dream creatures, but they're physically identical to their non-magical templates and will behave much like regular ravens as they obey their imperative to defend the Meadows from intruders. Solitary ravens may dive for characters' faces or band together to form a more dangerous mob. Anyone attempting to avoid the protection of the forest by flying over it will likely find themselves under attack from a sizeable group attempting to force them to the ground.
DROIDS:	Scattered about the property are a handful of sentinel and battle droids (Star Wars fans, feel free to pick your favourites. Nothing too chatty; these droids are not sentient). A few of these appear to be First Order troopers, but an attempt to look inside will reveal there's nothing wearing the armour. Regardless of configuration, these droids are never more than lightly shielded and could likely be taken out with conventional earth weaponry, but they will mobilise to respond to incursions and they will be armed.
FAILINGS:	These are Kylo's variously malformed and distorted failed first attempts at bringing sentient defenders out of his dreams. Lacking full sentience, these creatures are often unrecognisable, deformed horrors, physically twisted from their original intention. Some may successfully resemble the persons they are based on, but they will not be capable of communication. These failed creations cannot be distracted from their purpose and will use whatever powers or abilities they've successfully retained from their templates to attack intruders.

THE SANCTUARY

The entirety of the Meadows is under the protection of Kylo's dreamthing army, but it's the chapel that seems to be the treasure at the centre. Anyone making it past the perimeter and pressing on towards the sanctuary will attract the attention of Kylo's more successful attempts to create powerful, sentient guardians- champions tasked with the defense of Ronan Lynch. Dreamt to specification, these beings do not require sleep, and though they have been altered and imprinted with the imperative to protect their ward, they have retained as much of the powers and personalities of their templates as Kylo imagined necessary. Two of these stand watch by the chapel itself while others roam in restless, endless patrol.

As indicated here, I'll be offering up to 5 separate confrontations with Kylo and his dreamthing champions. I'll be putting up a confrontation toplevel for players wanting to face him— if you're one of the players who've signed up feel free to respond. Once those slots are taken, it'll be first come, first served!

Please feel free to hit me up if you've got any questions!
plurk:

starktech // discord: cryloren#2195

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

By the time his thoughts begin to manifest, Kylo knows the confrontation has become inevitable. Whether the greywaren's power is increasing simply because it has so many more minds to draw from, or because it recognises the gulf between the command Kylo had charged it with and the solution it had attempted to provide, he isn't certain. He doesn't know if the greywaren shares Ronan's desire to provide for him. It could simply be a function of its purpose.

But in any case, Ronan's body sleeps on, and Kylo renews his efforts to protect it. He begins work on sentient defenses now, no longer restricted by paralysis— failures are cut down or sent out to guard the perimeter. He could make anything, with this power. Anything. But the threat of attack is looming, adding fuel to his fear, and Kylo does what he did before when faced with a nightmare certain to destroy him.

He becomes it.

They're coming.

He's almost glad of it, exhausted from the continual effort of keeping as much control over his thoughts as possible— the Meadows has been under siege from imagined incursions for hours, now. Days, maybe. Since the border between dream and reality began to blur into insignificance, time itself has been that much harder to measure.

This time, though, he's certain the intruders are as real as he is. He can feel it. And so, leaving Ronan's sleeping form under the protection of his dreams, Kylo stalks out of the chapel and into the fields to face them, lightsaber crackling fire in his hand.

Here's the plan, Poe had said to Finn earlier that day.

He didn't really know what to expect or what was waiting for them, but he had a plan anyway. He knew his way to the meadows. There was no way - with what people could pull out of dreams - that Kylo wouldn't have fortified the place, but Poe had absolutely no idea what with. So. The plan was, hold hands. Finn could then teleport them through the defences until they could get to wherever Kylo was.

He had a good feeling that if they showed up and Poe just started yelling they'd be able to find him.

Poe didn't bring his gun. What was the point? He was going to talk, that was it. And despite all the calls for murder, Poe was hoping that other people might give him time to try it.

They flew most of the way there on Poe's carpet, but there was a strange black smoke swirling above the farm. Poe slowed, and that's when he realised that it wasn't smoke - they were birds, hundreds of them, flying in a flock that ebbed and flowed like water dashed on rocks. So they landed in the woods and took the rest of the way in on foot. At first the trees seemed normal, but then they started to move, trying to block their way in.

That was when Finn and Poe started holding hands.

Woosh! A hundred feet further. Poe felt sick, but he was still on his feet, and the trees were leaning in above and around them--

Woosh! Another hundred feet, and there was something moving in the trees. Almost humanoid, but lurching, its mouth yawing and gaping wide as it started to scream--

Woosh! Again, another hundred feet, and Poe felt positively ill, at this point, but there was no stopping now. The droids were there, and things that looked like stormtroopers, and--

Woosh!
Woosh!
Woosh!

Poe lost count, his head was pounding with pain and he felt nauseous. Fuck teleportation, fuck it forever. But they were here. They were in the centre of the farm, and there was a chapel--

"Kylo!" He yelled out, still gripping Finn's hand tightly. "Kylo, come out here, we just want to talk!"

He heard the crackle of the lightsaber before he saw the form emerge from the chapel, the sound making the hairs rise on the back of his neck. This was a bad idea. This was a really, really bad idea.

He knew about Poe's general dislike of the teleporting but Finn saw no other way in or out of this mess. If this was all just to save Kylo, he didn't know if he'd go through this much trouble. But it wasn't. There were too many innocents involved, especially now that Jadus went and decided he was smarter than the rest of the world combined. People were going to be throwing themselves into this when the outside was only going to get worse.

At this point, though, he felt like the wrong person for the job. Him and Poe both. Kylo had no love for either of them, they had none for him, and there was no reason to listen. Especially when Finn sort of agreed...

The crackling lightsaber made him squeeze Poe's hand harder, his mind going back to a night in a snowy forest. Couldn't focus on that right now, nor the man that had been struck down by that very blade. "We're not here to fight. We-" He glanced at Poe, back to Kylo. "We want to help."

Teleportation was one thing Kylo had little defense against— though he'd made some arrangements, considering the possibility that aside from the risk of being pulled away from the Meadows leaving Ronan helpless, Rey's newfound power might have her appearing right at his side. Ronan's side.

But Finn didn't appear to be preparing an attempt to materialise in the chapel. Kylo's eyes flicked between the two of them, the fiery blade still crackling in his hand. Help? Did they really expect him to believe that? No. It was far more likely they were here as some kind of diversion, to hold his attention while someone else made a move to reach Ronan.

"Do you think me so naive," he shouted, furiously.

Behind him, a figure in black stalked out of the chapel as if summoned by Kylo's rage, ready to throw itself into the fight should Kylo need the support— but at a gesture made with his free hand it came no closer.
At the distance still remaining it would be impossible to say for certain, but the stance it fell into, the posture, the shape of its face... perhaps Ronan Lynch wasn't as incapacitated as reported.

Kylo's glare was fierce enough to feel solid. "You want to talk? Go talk to your friends. Tell them I'm ready for them. Tell them I'm waiting. Tell them I know nightmares and I'm not afraid to use them all."

"Hold onto my clothes," Poe muttered to Finn, released the man's hand in order to raise his own in the universal sign of surrender.

"Yeah, yeah, we're pretty well aware that you've set up the battlements, but we're not here to fight a war. We just want to talk. Hopefully before anyone decides that what they need to do is fight you. Though which friends of mine you think we're planning on siccing on you or something is beyond me."

He let out a hard breath, keeping his eyes on Kylo but keeping aware of everything around them, including a flickering glance over at the figure in the door of the chapel.

Great. If Ronan was doing all of this on purpose that made things a hell of a lot worse.

"Will it make you feel better if I remind you that for one, I'm not armed, and that for two, even if I was, you could make mince meat out of me the second I even thought about anyone? We're not here to hurt you, or Ronan, so you can calm down the psycho-eyed act."

If Kylo thought them to be a true threat, they'd both probably be dead right now. Instead, they were at least talking this much.

Finn gripped at Poe's jacket, not raising his hands in surrender but rather watching the dark figure. He didn't know Ronan well enough to recognize the posture. It was the fact that it existed at all (a being yet as far away from a being as one could get) that drew his eyes.

He tore his gaze away when Poe mentioned the 'psycho-eyed act' and figured that would win them no favors. "No friends of ours want to fight you or attack him. Jadus tried to give people a way to end this quickly, and they are coming, but we're looking for alternatives before they get here. We don't want anyone else to die."

Nothing about Kylo's stance suggested willingness to listen— and if anything, his grip on the hilt of his lightsaber tightened a fraction.

"If you're not here to hurt anyone," he hissed, eyes dragging across Poe's cartoonish pose of surrender to Finn's wary readiness, "...then you are wasting my time. You have nothing of value to offer me."

And wasting his time suggested a co-ordinated attack.

"You're not capable of the alternative. None of you are."

Frustration flashed across Poe's face as he lowered his hands, and then he defiantly stepped forward again.

"We're not. But this isn't about us, Kylo. This has got to stop. You see that, right? So if you have a way to stop it, tell me, and I'll help you." There was a note of desperate frustration to his voice, barely contained, reverberating in his throat.

"We'll help you. But you gotta do something. This amount of power - this can't be good for him. This can't be helping him. "

"Aegis can get a power nullifier," he offered, glancing to Poe and hoping things stayed somewhat civil. "If this is beyond that, we can figure something else out. There are so many different abilities and tech here, something has to help contain the event or wake him up or something."

If the only person on Ronan's side was Kylo Ren, then that wasn't good. Not that Kylo wasn't capable but he wasn't a person who would reach out for help. More like lay waste to anyone who tried.

He kept his hand on Poe's shoulder for just that reason. "If nothing else, maybe we can move him somewhere more isolated until we can figure it out."

"He's staying here," Kylo snarled. "In his home. With me. No-one's touching him."

His blade crackled as he swung it, raising it to point at Finn, holding it level. This far and no further.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. He isn't like you, and I will cut every last one of you down before I let anyone collar him. And you—"

The lightsaber spat bright, furious sparks as Kylo turned it on Poe.

"What do you think you could possibly do that I can't. What could you possibly offer me. Us. Do you think I wouldn't have taken it? If there was anything. Anything, that any of you have, that would help me. Do you think I would have waited for someone to offer it? That I would have put my hope in you?"

Poe’s spine straightened, the defiance setting in his bones.

He knew this Kylo. Had seen him froth and spit outside the gate on Crait. Focused, but emotions sparking just like that blade, the promise of violence rippling from every atom.

Poe recognized this man, and was filled with a sudden and intense bitterness that this, of all things, should bring him back.

“Fuck, you are frustrating,” he snapped. “And you aren’t listening. I get it, okay? I get it. If I could do the things you can and I needed to protect someone, I would do it. But you’re not protecting him. Is this what he wants, Kylo? Because I thought he was an ass but I didn’t get the vibe that he wants to burn the world down. If he does want everyone to suffer then I’ll just tell the cavalry to come get him. But if he doesn’t want this - if he can’t help it - and if you love him even half as much as I suspect you do - then it’s your job to protect him. Not his body. It’s your job to protect what he believes in, too.”

Afterwards, it would be impossible to recall the true length of the silence.

The sour, discordant stretch of futile, miserable rage and despair held out for at least the amount of time required for Kylo's shoulders to shudder, heaving as he sucked in air and hissed it past his teeth. Once. Twice. There was space for his grip to shift. For his pulse to pound. For his expression to darken, signalling his intent.

And yet, there was no time at all for thought.

It was the reflex to recoil from being burned turned outward.

Kylo responded to the threat of the truth he already knew but couldn't accept with vicious, nerve-sharp speed, crushing the reminder of every incomplete, starved and silenced attempt to face the inevitable into the familiar shape of violence before it had the chance to unfurl into something dangerous.

Suddenly fluid as a landslide, his body whirled into motion. His arm swung low, round, up, the heavy weighted momentum dragging the crackling fire of his blade behind it in a smooth, deadly arc designed to slice Dameron clean in two from hip to shoulder.

THE PERIMETER

THE SANCTUARY

PREPARATION

CONFRONTATION

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slides in fifteen minutes late with starbucks

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