Fearfest 2k15

[restingstitchface]

WHO: YOU!
WHERE: De Chima University; exhibition center and campus grounds.
WHEN: Saturday August 15th, 4.45pm start.
WHAT: A registration at the annual technology fair, with a fireworks display!
WARNINGS: Non-consensual use of fear toxin, disturbing mental images, cannibalism and violence. Characters are going to be a psychological mess.

"A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more."
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden.


Disunity had been the aim of last month's game. Secrets and lies and truths in fiction. Suspicions in minds. Doubts on tongues. Gossip block-printed in rags. Newspapers, from tabloids to broadsheets, had carried the news; some left-leaning publications had made a greater dinner of the expose than others. Scandalous magazines and imPort celebrity weeklies showed versions of the same 'exclusive', and many daytime shows pandered to the demographic who believed there was nothing to worry about if you had nothing to hide.

The last swearing-in of the summer has people gathering in the Exhibition Center of De Chima University, where certain imPorts have worked before. Spread out over the campus, every imPort will rub shoulders with the local students and faculty of the School of Applied Technology. Inside they will see a staircase with an events banner strung over the atrium. Outside there are modern interpretations of classical statues, on square plinths, and inside there's metal sculptures of scientific and technological principles. Rules discovered by those who studied the world they lived in; procedures and concepts of both organic and inorganic forces. Next to them are standing banners flapping in the breeze, tied to weights, to which blue, purple and silver balloons have been tied with thin string.

The Exhibition Center, located next to the park, is hosting the annual highlights of scientific progress this Saturday evening. The spacious Exhibition Hall that occupies most of the interior space serves as the focal point for the annual technology fair, and expects a smart-casual dress code. The focus of this evening is on medical technology and the benefits imPort involvement can bring. People are free to wander in and out of the building as they wish. The forecast is for a warm, clear evening, with no coastal wind or rain to bring cool relief. People are also free to wander around the center to explore rooms and corridors not locked and bolted to the crowd. Everyone is free to investigate for troublemakers or to cut through the crowd - or to see what isn't locked down and there for thieving. But try not to be caught by the security cameras!

If you climb upstairs or catch a lift to the upper levels of the Center, you will be able to access the grand and expansive glass floor that gives you a bird's eye view of the Exhibition Hall far below - if you've got the guts! There's a stack of supplies stored behind a large exhibition banner attached to the far wall, and you may peek inside to check them out. There's nothing that seems suspicious. A couple of anti-flammable canisters, containing nothing more suspicious than foam. Just try to enjoy the sights beneath your feet.

MEDTEC - the National Exhibition for AMERICAN Medical Technology

With the minutes passing by, with hundreds of figures in the crowd moving between the Exhibition Hall and the various function rooms, the event seems to pass without celebration or accident. That is no promise the evening will be uneventful.


REGISTRATION - 4.45PM - 8PM

The doors are thrown open to the crowd, who are free to collect their passes in advance from any available kiosk, or by digital means; electronic tickets on their phones to hard passes collected from the mailman or the University's box office. For those last-minute registrations, passes are available just inside the doors. Feel free to arrive early or wander in ten minutes before closing. It's all good!


MEDTEC - 4.45PM - 8PM

Get out on the floor. You are free to watch any of the displays local companies and R+D have to offer. This is a good time to watch the crowds or to slip out for a visit to the rest of the center. If you wander upstairs, you'll find locked corridors and rooms. But feel free to wander towards the glass ceiling that's above the Exhibition Hall.

Companies who provide to both civilians and the military are here - though you'll notice a lack of high-level technology for the latter. There's a hexagonal stage at the back of the Exhibition Hall that's standing ready for the imPort displays coming later. Please do not touch the tech if signs say not to. But don't think that means you can't try.


IMPORT DISPLAYS - 6.30PM - 8PM

The stage is lit. You may want to head over if you wish to see what your fellow imPorts have cooked up - or even to put on your own show! You'll get an explanation about the cash prizes on offer, and the scholarships. Or you'll wonder why you're watching this ass-patting when there's hardly an inch of space anywhere around the stage.


DRINKS AND NETWORKING - 8PM - 9PM

The Exhibition Hall is closed. The function room next door is thrown open for imPort milling. Make friends around the tables and order free food and drinks from the bar. Sit back, throw your feet up and take a load off. Lighten up! You're here to let your hair down. Please listen out for the public address that announces the upcoming awards show in Conference Room 2, and the fireworks display that's scheduled at 9:10pm outside. You'll get a good view of it from the park.


UNIVERSITY GROUNDS - 8PM

To those exploring the grounds outside the center. Have fun. The balmy night is perfect for walking around without a jacket. Feel free to sling it over your shoulder and enjoy the hot summer air. How the hell is it this warm, anyway? Don't jump in the fountain by the park, kids. Don't put bubble-bath or soap in it, either. Go past it and check out the park, or not. 7You may like to step back into the city. Just be careful of the traffic.

You are free to avoid the main roads for smaller side-streets, but that won't help you. The trash bins hold too much litter. You may wish to investigate them, but will find nothing. But much of the urban area and parkland is turned to a new, sinister purpose. There are minute bombs hidden in drains, or in flower baskets. In every miniscule place in the corner of your eye that escapes your notice. Timed devices primed to detonate in sync with the green and yellow fireworks overhead.

At 9.30PM, the earth will seem to split open and rumble. People screech and shriek about a range of hallucinations; from finding their loved one's body in the city morgue, to being the meal for a pack of monsters, to a flock of crows diving from the railings and rooftops to rip them apart. Those terrified of spiders see nothing but; on the floor, in windows, crawling up the walls. Some folk cough and splutter. Unable to breathe, they suffer a heart attack and can die on the spot. Others are given to a frenzy by the gas, and some experience flashbacks to hideous crimes - except they are the lunatic responsible for murdering children, or the killer stalking people through the streets at night.

It smells of pollution. It smells of fireworks. It smells of street food. There's the sound of blaring horns due to the traffic. There's the smell of fire, caused by the delirious rioting, and blood spilled by those around them, whom they cannot see. The gas enters cars, apartments and buildings with their windows open; the chaos echoes indoors as much as out. Those driven to a murderous lunacy pursue other victims of the gas through a twisted, nightmare version of their neighborhood, and violently resist any calls to cease and desist.

The gas hangs heavy on the air and fills the campus, engulfing the streets, entering the university buildings and student apartments. People around you are panicking, violent, delirious. You might experience what they do. You might hear the screaming, the illegible yelling and see cowering people talking of spiders, ghosts and scarecrows. You might rush indoors to help. You might meet friends who you wish to kill. Or you might run off in a manic state - unable to realize you're running into open traffic. Oh dear.


AWARDS - 9PM

Celebration time. The University has arranged a judging panel that has deliberated on the technology imPorts put on offer - this is the hour where your contributions to local society are being noticed and celebrated. Between the floor and stage, to the assembled chairs and technological displays dotted around the vacant exhibition hall, there's little standing room. You're free to stare down from the glass ceiling high above, or to stand at the back of the crowd below, but don't crowd the doors.

At 9.30PM, with the judges leaving the hexagonal stage so the Head of Applied Technology can present the first award, you might hear a loud hiss of air. A gas leak! The particles are colorless till they meet the oxygen in the room and form a grey cloud that fills every inch of space, from the upper echelons of the ceiling above the glass, to the chairs and the floor down below.

It doesn't smell, and the effects are instantaneous. All noises and images will twist and warp. You might find the neon lights burn as hot as sun-fire. You might see the room on fire and hear the horrific screaming of those trapped and dying in the ruined building you now find yourself in. Perhaps you smell ashes. Or perhaps you smell saltwater and brine - you're drowning! Or you might be one of the few. The brave. The unaffected. Look around and you will see some in the crowd clawing their faces to oust whatever they think is wriggling beneath their skin. They scream and they cry. Others devour their own skin, suffering from hunger - or they eat the flesh of others. They turn on each other. They turn on you.

If that's not enough there's a different show in store. You might be unfortunate enough to be on the glass floor when it kicks off. Enjoy it or don't. It's all the same.

GOGO - 9.30PM - 10PM

At 9.30PM, you may think the metal warping around you is just another part of the hallucination. But it's real. The expo hall groans as the walls react to another power, and the displays twist as if a greater force is squeezing them and pulling.

Before too long, the smaller things rattle and jump back and forth across the room. Pens, instruments, small change, etc; even piercings will tug at the skin with increasing force until they may just rip out to join the rising storm of metal. You can stay and test your luck, dodging unpredictable attacks, or you can risk escaping into the night, out from underneath an increasingly unstable roof. Just pray the decoration in the hall doesn't crash into you as you flee.

At 10PM, the stress of the chaos is finally too much for the expo hall. The supports have twisted beyond recognition, the walls damaged by their own warping and displays crashing into them at force. There's a loud crack as one of the supports snaps under the weight of the glass ceiling and with a heavy shudder the whole network starts to unravel and sends the ceiling crashing down. Anyone on the second floor may be lucky enough to get out of the way before it drops, or perhaps they can grab hold of a railing that will creak under their weight.

Or maybe you are one of the unlucky ones who rides the glass from above, all the way to where it shatters across the floor.

FIREWORKS - 9PM

Ten minutes past the hour, as a loud bang echoes for each firework shot into the night, the sky over the park is filled with the sort of brilliance one would only see on the Fourth of July. You might ask what's a nighttime event without fireworks, anyway?

For that charming couple on their date, to the curious student, an extravagant display comes on the rocket-propelled tails of rockets and bombs and flares. Look to the sky and lose yourselves in the colors as they appear - crimson stars and butterflies, and the pink crackling comets that leave behind a tail of effects. A red geometric circle of lines and dots glitter and break apart into smaller circles, then scatter and disappear, their fuel and powder spent. Memories of the sight are left behind; the smoke barely visible overhead; the smoldering gunpowder - and the warm company of whoever you're with. Perhaps you're one of those unafraid to visit such events alone. Perhaps you have a brilliant memory and the sight has burned itself into your eyes. One display follows another till the last; the end of a 25 minute display mentioned over the public address and published in the brochure.

At 9.30PM, the fireworks fizzle out. The display is over. It should be over. Then there's one more show - a collection of rockets and flares colored in yellows and greens, the colors one associates with poison and sees in cornfields. The colors are sickly and nausea-inducing as they explode in the night sky. It's just another display, right? Then cracks appear in the sky itself! All the yellows and greens, blacks and blues run into the white, hollow emptiness.

Perhaps you believe those eyes in the firmament are real. Or you're part of the crowd who believes the entire sky is falling down. A stampede breaks out. The slow are trampled underfoot. Students, faculty and guests stand shock-still. Some are clawing at their eyes. Others cannot contain themselves and empty their lungs with unfocused wailing. From the sky fall shards of glass. A flood of color threatens a deluge, even as the smoke and particles of the toxic gas contained in those green and yellow fireworks are carried by the wind over the locality.


AFTERMATH - 12:30AM AND ON

There's a collection of police, emergency services and reporters in a boundary around the university area and affected streets. Safe on the edge of the gas cloud, they are evacuating the surrounding areas. Ambulances and stretchers are ready for the wounded; RISE and any relevant factions may be helping with the chaos - or caught up in it themselves.

You might be trapped within the gas, cowering in fear. You might irrationally run into the lights you see in the haze, not knowing what you are seeing or the faces that watch you scramble by, screaming illegibly. You might be directing others in the chaos. You might be one of the people driven manic by it all. You might emerge from the mist with blood on your hands. You might recall how it got there. You might not. But you won't forget this night, will you?

Comments

( post-toxin | going with the cat option if that's okay! )

[boobwindow]

[ When news of the fear gas spreading into the public hits, Peej veers down the hall of the campus and toward the exit leading into the university grounds. She throws the doors open so those clear-minded enough are able to follow her trail, dispersing onto the grounds in a hurried fashion.

Peej hesitates in midair, focusing her sense of hearing onto the sirens in the distance. She's trying to pinpoint how close they are, where she needs to go and how long it will take her. When she's able to determine where, she's about to zip off when a slightly familiar face is spotted. Slightly familiar, because Peej has only seen Mary Watson's face in photos in her and her husband's apartment once. In spite of the pandemonium, having not seen John so far tonight, Peej can't take off without taking a moment to check on his wife.

But as she moves toward her and a small crowd rushes past, distracting her, she looks up to see Mary's form vanished. Instead, there's a cat making its way in the same direction Mary had been facing just a second ago. ]

That's... not right. [ She trails after the cat, utterly confused. ] Where did she...?

[sizetwelve]

[ Said cat has as much reason to try and escape the crazy mob as much as the next creature, except there are people just about everywhere. The perfect storm for inducing maximum anxieties. Limiting to tiny forms when in fight-or-flight mode makes her more liable to get confused, and she's less likely to recall any calming techniques.

The cat form isn't necessary for getting through the fence, but it does make it easier as she's able to wriggle through some loose chain for a makeshift hole to the other side. Constantly finding moments to shift when passing crowds allows her to lose tails, too, or so she thinks. She's too busy thinking about 'agents' or authorities coming after her, and not enough about super-powered imPorts. Anything can trigger her paranoia, and as she thinks to hear someone or something behind her with the helpful ears of the feline, knows she has to move quickly once again. (Even if she hadn't heard someone, her jangled nerves might have imagined something, but she just can't be certain of anything.)

On the other side, the cat shakes off dirt, and then seemingly it's own shadow. In a state of urgency it happens fast, the shadows about the cat spreading to envelop the small figure as it darts behind a building where darkness can't be told apart. Who steps out isn't the cat or Mary Watson, but apparently Abigail Hobbs. If agents are looking for Mary Watson, then she can become someone else. Despite past issues, nobody should stop Abigail, a teenager, from going home, should they? Home...she needs to get there.

Like this, it's easier to let the agitation slip through as she quickly stalks on in the direction that the cat had been heading. If there's any limp, it's subtle. It's easier to ignore pain when the adrenaline doesn't seem to stop. ]

[boobwindow]

[ Maybe the gas has gotten to her and she hasn't realized it. Peej feels as if she's gone slightly mad following a cat that's unsurprisingly scared out of its wits and trying to find cover somewhere safe. And yet she continues to trail after the cat, a feeling in her gut unable to overlook the fact Mary Watson disappeared too quickly for an ordinary woman.

Or Peej has lost her mind like so many others. Only one way to find out.

She dips lower to the ground, scanning the area from side to side. She's ready to call out Mary's name to pinpoint her, but as she glances back at the cat and spots it sinking into shadow she's almost ready to call it a quits and head back to the main floor of the campus.

Then something even stranger happens. A cat doesn't dart out of the shadows, but a young girl whose face she's seen around the network a couple of times. Hobbs. Something Hobbs. Peej can't remember exactly right now, though it's hardly of importance when for the second time a figure she's sought has disappeared right beneath her eyes. Only then it clicks in the back of her head: not disappearing -- changing. ]

Hey. [ Her voice doesn't carry over the noise, so she exclaims loudly a moment later: ] Hey, you!

so sorry for the late! i'mma here

[sizetwelve]

[ When she turns to the voice, the figure on display isn't one she expects. Of course, one isn't above hallucinations this evening, but even if she wonders if what she's seeing is real, she is in fact seeing Power Girl for true.

But there's no recognition; only suspicion. As Abigail, her eyes widen just a touch in somewhat of a challenge as she turns and tilts her head, lips pursed while trying to analyze this woman without completely freaking out. Of course, given that everyone else has gone insane, shouldn't a teenage girl be more worried? ]

What do you want? I just want to go home.

[boobwindow]

[ The defensiveness would have been normal considering the circumstances, but under these specific ones and what she thinks she's seen, Peej notes it instead. She descends toward the ground, her feet just a few feet off it. ]

Wait one second; who are you? How did you do that?

[ She skips all niceties without a care; something is terribly amiss and she's getting to the bottom of it now. ]

[sizetwelve]

[ She takes another step back as Power Girl lowers. Everything about her body language screams defensive, but she's poised in limbo. Somewhere between fleeing and attacking. ]

I didn't do anything. Get away from me or you'll regret it.

[ If she could think more pragmatically, she could see this as an opportunity. A chance to touch Power Girl and learn about her powers. To become her. But standing here as Abigail, hearing Abigail's voice, it's easy to become confused. It takes all of her focus just to remember who she's supposed to be. To not attack. To not lose it again. ]

[boobwindow]

[ The threat has her taken aback, but only for a fleeting second; a moment later she's planted her boots onto the ground in a noisy thud and she starts toward Abigail Hobbs -- whoever -- without missing a step. ]

Who are you? Where did Mary Watson go?

[sizetwelve]

[ She only shakes her head as Power Girl repeats her question. Who are you? This is Abigail. Can't she see?

Maybe she can. Maybe she's seen too much. The name Mary Watson triggers a reaction, shoulders seizing and hand darting for something in her coat pocket. Would bullets do anything to Power Girl? Probably not. Her tone drops. ]

You're hunting her, too? What you heard is a lie. You're making a mistake.

[ Bullets might be useless, but she has other weapons. She is one, but to turn into one of her stronger forms now might draw attention. That's the last thing she wants. Everyone is out to get her. John and Sherlock, those idiots, have wrecked it all.

Even knowing who Power Girl is, she's prepared to fight. Could Crematia take her? This shapeshifter is willing to find out, at least if it will give her a chance to escape. ]

You won't find her. Back off.

[boobwindow]

What do you mean "too"?

[ If her behavior hasn't pinned her as suspicious already, the phrasing of that accusation sure does.

She doesn't think her next move through and her arm shoots out, a hand reaching to snatch the girl by her wrist and hold her in place. She's not using the firmest grip someone with her ability can, so it's not entirely difficult for Mary to break free if she needs to. ]

Okay, I've got questions and you've got answers.

[sizetwelve]

[ She doesn't scream for help, but she still reacts, smoky tendrils whispering around her, though the darkness they create isn't absolute. Beneath the dark haze, light seems to reflect with every subtle movement as the teenager's form shifts into something else. Or many somethings.

Panicking, she can't seem to decide on the most effective shape. First she gains thorns in Raina's true form, then remembering who she may have to fight, her size increases, hard red scales beginning to form over place of the thorns. All of this Power Girl can no doubt feel or perhaps see if she tries, but then a nearby scream distracts Mary and stunts her battle plan. She thinks she heard John's scream, despite it being a woman's, and now she would rather flee.

Just another moment and she shrinks instead, hoping to dodge both grip and sight as she makes a run (flight?) for it in the form of a local hummingbird. She may take the forms of a couple different birds, either to avoid detection or due to confusion (but both are probable). She's desperate to escape being dragged anywhere for any kind of questioning, and to find the source of that scream. ]

[boobwindow]

[ The smoke appears harmless, so Peej holds on for as long as she can, up until those thorns emerge. Despite the thorns being unable to penetrate her skin (though they do catch her gloves and tear at the fabric), it's only a reflex that she pulls her arm back to avoid them.

The scream also distracts her momentarily, her head snapping in the opposite direction before she looks back for Abigail -- Mary -- whoever. Her heart skips a beat when she turns around to see a hummingbird flitting away from her. Her arm jumps out to nab it, but it's too late and she's grabbing blindly at the air. ]

Hey! Get. Back. Here!