maskormenacelogs | (no subject)

WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: De Chima
WHEN: Feb. 16
WHAT: This month's swear-in!
WARNINGS: Possibly some violence

A spiraling new skyscraper has just completed construction in De Chima and, to celebrate, the owners and several of the businesses renting space in the modern wonder have elected to host this month’s swear-in on the top couple floors. These floors can be reached be elevator, slowly strolling up the winding ramp that circles from the bottom to the roof or, if you can, fly or leap or use whatever other superpowers you have to get to the top or to reach one of the many open balconies and gardens available along the sides of the tower.

Though it’s a few days late, the theme of the gathering is still an unsurprising one for this time of the year: love. And, really, after the past couple of months who doesn’t need that in their lives? There are several activities available to celebrate the many stages of romance, all available in different subsections on the top couple floors. On the second floor from the top is where you enter and houses the business end of the swear-in, what you typically find at these gatherings. A lovely ballroom decorated to the nines in red, white, blue (and pinks) with an open buffet of finger foods, drinks, and various information pamphlets about local businesses, the government, and job opportunities for new imPorts.

Branching off the main ballroom are gorgeous balconies looking over the city, as well as a few indoor/outdoor gardens. These gardens range in themes from tropic jungle, to evergreen paradise, to desert oasis. They are all only about 600 square feet each, but they are a nice break from the socializing and whatnot of the main gathering. There are also special drinks provided by the Color Me Cupid company making their way around, both in alcoholic and virgin varieties. They have no clever names, sadly, but rather are labeled after the bright, almost glowing colors each is. A few sips just leads to a fizzy feeling on the lips, but have at least half of the drink and you’ll feel a few effects for the next twenty minutes or so:

Pink Drink: Sentimentality. You’ll feel a fondness for people, places, events, or even a nice piece of furniture. Cozy on up with this soft puppy love or platonic general desire to be near that person/item of interest.

Blue Drink: Melancholy. Alas, love isn’t all butterflies and sunshine. But this isn’t just being in a bad mood, wanting to go home. No, this is artistic, bohemian angst. The kind of mellow drama the poetic soul feeds on. Drape yourself over a table and opine on your lost loves, or stare tragically at the stars, sighing loudly until someone finally asks you to reveal your dark, mysterious past. Follow your tortured heart in getting that attention you suddenly need, just make sure to make a show of your inner turmoil.

Red Drink: Passion. Whether its for a person, a sports team, or a favorite hobby, you suddenly feel the need to share your enthusiasm with the world. Talk for an hour about a baseball game, or shout your love from a roof top. Or challenge someone to a duel over the hand of your loved one- or a balcony you really wanted to stand on. How ever passion works for you.

Green Drink: Jealousy. It’s an ugly part of love, but hard to escape. Depending on the person, this could induce feelings of neediness for attention from people you care about, to paranoia that others are out to steal what is yours.

Scattered throughout the main floor, a couple of the balconies, and along the twin ramps spiraling up to the top floor are two person tables, set for enjoying those finger foods and drinks. Also on each table is a stack of brightly colored note cards. These are important because, you see, the Loose Lips communication service is showing off one of their newest innovations in dating technology: Speed Honesty. When two people sit at a table, a small force field is suddenly erected around them. It won’t suffocate you or anything easy like that, no. It will simply stay in place, keeping you two at the table, until you pick up a note card and, worst of all, each of you must answer the question on the card. The speaker hidden in the table will evaluate your tone of voice, as well. No sarcastic answers accepted and, unless you’re a skilled liar, dishonest ones won’t do the trick either. The table’s AI needs to believe both parties have sincerely answered the question picked, then the force field will lower. Then you can either run or, if you wait more than ten seconds without moving, the forcefield will reactivate and you have to do it all again. This will happen every time two people sit at any of the tables, and sometimes an unwitting third standing too close may be trapped and must answer as well. Good luck, guys.

[[Questions for the cards can be found here or here, or you can OOCLy make them up for fun.]]

The top floor of the building is owned by the With Your Best Shot company and, trying to keep with the theme of the night, they have opened the (bullet proof) glass enclosed training areas on the roof of the building for duels. Hand to hand, with (dulled) swords, (paint ball) pistols, it’s all open for use so long as you declare your grievance against the person you are about to duel and declare what the winner will gain. These can be anything from traditional romantic items- the hand of the maiden fair- to silly things, like who gets the last soda in the fridge back at the apartment after this. Seconds are encouraged, but not required. There are viewing spaces for people to enjoy both the fights and the amazing view of the city below.

Enjoy the evening, imPorts. This month's swear-in appears to be going well until, later in the evening, the shadows seem to grow darker. Attendees might assume there's been a change of lighting to facilitate a romantic mood until hundreds of Heartless emerge from the darkest corners, intent on attacking imPorts and capturing as many hearts as possible.

Quite a few of the unwelcome guests are of the Shadow variety, stronger in swarms than they are individually, but still dangerous. The more fearsome Neoshadows are also in attendance, as are more colorfulvarieties -- some of which may have been people imPorts knew, before their own hearts were claimed.

Whoever they were and wherever the Heartless came from, attendees have three options: fight, run or hide. Whatever they do, they'll want to guard their hearts closely, or they may find themselves becoming the enemy.

[[OOC: Please ask any questions here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's hard to argue with that." Which he wouldn't anyway, because it got him a better weapon than the one he'd been using. One that proves to be more effective as he consolidates it into another cloud, which then explodes and tears through some more of the creatures.

Harry grins as he concentrated and sends a thin beam of fire piercing through another of them. There are cries and the sound of battle from everywhere and Harry shakes his head as some of the shadows split off and start to go after others.

At least they are not endless. He feels rather than sees the cold and ducks and rolls away as a shadow thing swipes the air where he was, and he responds with a gout of flames.

"I really hate these things."

"Do you know what they are?" He's never seen anything like them before, but that doesn't really surprise him. If the imPorts are from so many different worlds, then why shouldn't the threats be from so many different worlds? Or even this one, which is similar to the one he knows and yet so different at the same time.

Firing multiple mini fireballs at the shadows things, blasting them into pieces, he nodded.

"I think they are beings of pure shadow controlled or created by that idiot who was blasting the network the other day. He spoke of darkness and intimated his force would be coming."

"When will people learn that the more warning they give about something they're up to, the more chance others have to prepare?"

He's ignoring a couple of things here: they're not prepared, and couldn't have been because they didn't know what the exact threat was; and he himself has given warning in the past because he knows what kind of fear it can create.

"I don't know, but I am glad he did. gave me a chance to work up some new applications of my spells and to get back into practice."

He sighs.

"This threat could be something else entirely, but it feels like what he was warning about."

"I'm starting to suspect that everything here is related anyway." But then that's what he suspects about everything, so don't mind him. "Someone clearly thought that whatever is going on was clearly important enough to start bringing people from other worlds and giving powers to those who didn't have them."

Without teaching them how to use them. That sounds like a terrible idea.

"Probably. I mean, originally, supposedly, it was the Fates, but I am not sure why it's still happening, or working, for that matter, with them gone."

Harry is relieved to see the stream of shadows start to get less full, whether that is because they are going elsewhere or because they are running out of reinforcements. Either way, he feels a surge of relief.

"Maybe it never had anything to do with them." Not everything is true just because someone says it is, and Erik trusts things even less when the government is somehow involved.

As the last of the shadows in front of them are destroyed, Harry breathes a sigh of relief and turns to the other man.

"You might be right. I don't know. Right now, I have no idea what's going on as far as those go. All I know is this is happening here and now. I'm going to try to get out there and see if I can stop the rest of them, or at least the ones I can reach."

He waggles a finger at the man. "Try not to die okay? it would upset Wanda..."

"It will take more than whatever those were to be rid of me." He's a survivor, and more importantly, will fight when cornered. He's not giving up anytime soon.

Harry nodded as he concentrated. "Good. Take care of yourself." And with a word, he vanished, the air sliding into his space with a popping sound as he went in search of Wanda.