pridecroweth

psl;

jamjar au;

monster attacks, low resources, no revival mechanics ingame but no power nerfing either.

weapons are available but hard to find. monsters are 'corrupted' but their bites don't transfer it. they are however v slow to heal.

set in a super fancy old museum with active historical displays. however, there's been lots of damage to the building/displays, few are 100 percent intact. the pcs have set up in the basement where the valuable archives were kept bc there's an actual vault.

power has been jury-rigged by pcs (idk, maybe tony stark is wandering around). water and food need to be scavenged for and rationed. maybe 30-40 pcs at present?

sam checks in with them regularly but has a 'hide-out' that's actually an old security/control room that overlooks one of the larger display rooms.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let me correct myself — no one I've seen. I'm not sure how old some of the signs are. Not recent, but.

[ He lets the statement truncate in a shrug. People learn to move, quiet and unseen. He's not going to definitively say that there's no one living out here, just that he hasn't borne witness to it himself. ]

And yeah, a bit — not the whole way. Basic recon. There's supposed to be a battery up north, at least according to some old microfiche I dug out of the museum archives.

[ Okay. It's about what Carver expected, then. There's no major group out here that Sam knows about, or wants to admit knowing about, but there could be scavengers. It happens. Problem there is if there are scavengers, they'll be desperate because there's fuck all to survive on out here but scraps. And people get ugly when they're desperate.

Carver hums a little, ducking under an outcropping of concrete and bristling rebar. ]

Microfiche. Okay.

[ He's gone out on thinner hunches. Sometimes you just have to risk it. ]

How long you been in this mess, anyway?

Few weeks.

[ It seems like the first handful of people have been here maybe a month, so it's not like he missed much. Stark brought him up to speed well-enough, even if Sam doesn't like the way privileged rich guy drips off the man. ]

Make a right after the busted fountain up ahead. We have to go deeper into the building, the street exit is blocked off, but we can get out through the alley.

[ Carver tucks that information away for later. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not. But it's context either way and he has precious little of that. Not much makes sense here. And not for the first time, he wonders if he's dead and stuck in one of those ironic Hell.

Maybe. But would he have come up with someone like Sam?

That's the question.

Carver nods, adjusting. Checking up at the ceiling, the floors, the corners. Always, always watching. ]

There anything worth taking in here?

[ If they strike out with the battery, maybe there are some scraps in here they can grab. ]

Some art hanging in the lobby.

[ That's said with a bit of wry amusement. ]

Vending machines all empty, no weapons, no medical supplies. Defibrillator with no power in the security office. I haven't gone higher than the second floor, though, so could be something upstairs. We can always check it out on the way back if we come back empty-handed otherwise.

[ He doesn't like casing buildings. Too many unknowns. In theory, he could land on the top floor and work his way down, but he hates close walls and confinement. Gets antsy when he can't see the sky. ]

[ If the art's in frames, they can break those and burn them. Use the scraps for building. Repurpose some of the furniture. Some of the chairs still have their backings. The fabric looks study. Sometimes people leave pills in their desks. Bandaids.

Little things matter.

Carver hums, accepting that. ]

This place is still in one piece. More or less. Probably won't crash through the floor if we do it careful on the way back.

[ Probably, he says, with the air of one who's done exactly that and doesn't care to repeat the experience. ]

I enjoy your confidence.

[ 'Probably'. ]

I've got some rope in my bag. We go through any dicey areas, probably not a bad idea to tie off somewhere stable.

[ He's less worried about himself. Bird magic trumps falling floor, as long as whatever's above him doesn't give out at the same time, in which case he'd probably chance it in human form. ]

No unnecessary risks. I don't want to have to princess carry you back to basecamp because you stubbed your toe.

I'm fun like that.

[ It comes out in a drawl, faux lazy. His grin shows teeth because sometimes you have to be that, wear that mask, or fall into a hole you don't ever get out of. The kids needed him to be confident and bold, the foil to Shaw's calmer presence, and if that meant playing up the reckless angle, that's what he did.

Only, the kids are all dead. And Shaw's been shot. He remembers the boom of the gun, the way that she screamed as she bolted. But he never saw her fall, doesn't know for sure what happened. And if he didn't see it, then she can't be dead. ]

I can make climbing spikes, [ he adds, because that's useful information and he's not so far gone he's hoarding all of that. Not just yet, anyway. ] If it comes to that.

[ He has good boots and sturdy gloves on. He won't tear himself open climbing this shit if he needs to. ]

I'll keep that in mind.

[ They pass an open-concept office. Desks he's searched. There are family photos, discoloured and moldering from the effects of inclement weather, that showcase a people that are almost human-looking, but with some uncanny differences that makes it hard to tear your eyes away. Like watching a CGI movie and being aware that the people onscreen don't move quite right, don't look quite right. ]

You believe this makes me all nostalgic for my desk job?

[ He says that almost idly, pausing to leaf through paperwork at a desk. It's not a language he recognizes, but he can tell it is a language, repeating patterns and symbols. ]

[ Carver glances briefly at the office, the open and ransacked drawers, and then moves on. There's nothing worth dwelling over except that nagging sense of wrongness. Something's different here. Something isn't right.

Even so, he pauses to go through one of the desk - just in case. There's a pencil case, or something that looks like a pencil case, tucked into the back. He gives it a little rattle and then opens it up, searching through. Comes up with a little pill bottle and an unrecognizable label. He gives it a shake to show Sam and then tucks it away.

Might be useful. Might poison them. Who's to say? ]

Nope.

[ He keeps moving, ignoring the photographs on the desks. Strange, smiling ghosts. ]

Nostalgia's a trap. What'd you do, anyway?

[ There's an acknowledging nod, and then he moves on to another desk. He's not really looking for anything in particular, just — observing. ]

I'm a detective in Chicago. Ninety percent paperwork.

[ Carver's eyebrows lift and he angles a look back Sam's way. Considering that. ]

No shit. Why'd you go there?

[ It's not all that surprising. A lot of the guys he served with went into law enforcement after, or tried to. Those were the ones who weren't completely messed up, though. The Reapers filled their ranks with the ones who were too crazy for civilization. ]

Grew up there.

[ People who don't live on a Rez have a way of getting scattered. ]

Mom was a lawyer specializing in tribal litigation. She cared a lot about land and water rights in historic territories — she started working with the Potawatomi back in the eighties, Chicago was central to a lot of her work. Once you put down roots, have a few kids... gets harder to leave.

[ He knows that'll say a lot about his upbringing and privilege, and so there's no attempt to downplay it or deflect it. His mom wasn't rich on her own, but his old man was — and it made life a lot easier than it would've otherwise been. ]

Huh.

[ It makes sense, Carver supposes. You go where the work is and then you stay. The Reapers never had that. They wandered from job to job, one deployment after another, until the whole world became a war and there was no home to go back to. Maybe if he hadn't gotten so messed up, if his grandma hadn't died while he was deployed, he might have gone back to Colorado. Made something of himself there, where people knew him. He'd thought about going to college once, a long time ago.

He puts those thoughts away. They don't matter now. ]

You like it, being a cop?

I'm the lead on the juvenile crimes unit.

[ Everybody wanted to work narcotics or homicide. Those were the 'flashy' jobs. But Sam stopped giving a shit about flashy after Iraq. It was Billie who made him realize what he actually wanted was to build a village. Make a difference where it mattered. Most days, it's the only reason he gets out of bed. ]

I could take or leave the coworkers. [ A few are okay. But for every guy like Donnie, there's six others who expect him to answer to Chief. ] But I like the work.

[ It's hard. Heartbreaking. He's had kids spit venom at him and wield abuse and trauma like a knife. He's had little girls try to flirt with him to get out of trouble, because that's what they know. What they've learned — or more accurately, what they've been taught. He's had boys cower from his size, and just as many who started doing the mental math on whether or not they could take him with a knife.

But there's also kids who've never seen someone that looks like them on the other side of that desk. Who've begun to come around to the idea that maybe there's more they can be meant for than just treading the same patterns that residential schools, genocide and trauma cut out for them. ]

Sounds like rough shit.

[ The Reapers were full of fucked up kids who turned into fucked up adults. Sometimes in Afghanistan they called each other the orphan club, a joke that wasn't really one because who wants to admit they've got nowhere to go, no one to come and take the flag if they died? And then of course there was Matthew, but he doesn't want to think about Matthew in this place. Cannot think of Matthew here, among all the bones and rot and broken glass. ]

What'd you like about it?

[ He crouches to open an office mini-fridge. He's pretty sure he's been through it before, but — just in case. ]

I teach Hapkido down at an old rec centre in the south side. You buy a kid a pizza on a birthday their parents forgot, that stays with them. The rest is... hosting movie nights, video game tournaments. I've brought my older sister in to teach kids how to make drums, or medicine bags, or how to do winter counts on hide.

[ That's not the job. It's obvious he's talking about after-hours, but it ripples outward. People see him in the community, without a badge, without a gun. They see that he plays basketball with a knee brace, they see that he'll sit still to have a superhero mask painted on his face, they realize he's human too — like they are. But the truth is — he volunteers to keep his hands busy. Anything he can do. It's not selflessness, it's not some innate goodness he has. It's because if he stops, if he spends more time alone in his own company than he can stand, he's not going to come back from that. ]

Most kids just need hope. They do the rest for themselves. But when they trust you — when they have faith that they can fall and know you'll catch them, dust them off, get them back on their feet, that matters. You get to watch as some kid who was into shoplifting, or petty arson, or whose deadbeat parents got them into meth when they were ten years old — watching those kids as they realize that there's something else out there they can do, or be. That's the job.

[ There's a slight upwards tick of one shoulder, as the fridge proves fruitless and he stands — ]

I had a kid quit meth cold turkey when I told her I'd never even tried pot. She didn't realize it was possible to be an adult and not be on drugs, it was such a normalized thing for her. Moments like that make it all worth it.

[ There are plenty of bad moments, too. He's had kids get shot, or overdose. He's seen all the bad endings the world has to offer. But the good things, that's what he has to focus on. ]

[ It occurs to Carver that he wouldn't know what to do with kids like that in the old world, before everything went to shit and the rules change to reflect the brutality. He doesn't know what he'd say to a kid that young who'd already been on meth, though of course he knew it happened. There were always addicts back home, his mom and grandma among them. Carver grew up watching them, cleaning up the mess after. Getting his mom more beer on the rare occasions she showed up. He could've mirrored that but it wouldn't have done much good. How'd you do better when you don't know what better looks like?

Maybe you just try, in a world where you've got room to try. And he thinks of the younger Reapers he tried, like Bossie. The ones who were primed to flinch if you raised your voice too much. A lot of them died, but some made it through.

He tries not to think about Bossie, stepping around a broken desk and a mess of shadowed photographs. The glass in the frames all cracked. ]

You were good at it, then.

Tried to be.

[ For no real reason, he rights a chair, tucks it back beneath the desk. ]

Sometimes you make out all right. Sometimes a kid stabs you in the knee with a pen. Never know what you're gonna get.

[ Carver snorts at that. Kids are tough like that. Matthew had been. ]

Ouch. You shake it?

Don't walk with a limp, do I?

[ He's hilarious. ]

[ Carver snorts at that, stepping over a broken chair and someone’s abandoned bottle of soda, the label unreadable. ]

Had a kid smash my nose once when we were sparring. Blood everywhere. The sergeant set it like that.

[ He snaps his fingers. ]

And I’m still pretty.

You're no Halle Berry circa Die Another Day, but I bet there's somebody out there who wouldn't kick you out of bed for eating crackers.

[ The heteronormativity is real tho?? ]

[ Carver snickers at that, though he’s never seen Die Another Day. ]

Who the fuck eats crackers in bed? Goddamn.

Crazy people, that's who.

[ There's a door up ahead that will lead him past the fountain he'd mentioned — he gestures to it, nudging aside a broken monitor with his foot. Gently, just in case. IEDs never sleep. ]

C'mon, it's this way. Just, ah — there's some gnarly skeletons on the other side of the door.

[ Bodies that were once hung from the artistic exposed rafters above the fountain. It's not the work of monsters — humans, or whatever the local species called themselves, did that. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject