psl;

[pridecroweth]

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.

Comments

[hallowing]

[ He gets up, and comes in a bit closer. Sits down beside the guy, companionable. Easy. He's lived in this body, for better or worse, for over ten millennia. It's demonstrated in easy grace and absolute certainty. ]

I'm not a soldier, [ he says with gentleness that perhaps feels jarring in contrast to the bullshit devil-may-care act. ] And I'm not really big on giving orders. Why don't you tell me about yourself, instead?

[fortitudosalutis]

[ The urge to do violence twists in his soul. To himself, maybe, if he can't find a better target. Because sometimes that shuts the world up for a second. Sometimes that's the only way things will go fucking quiet so he can focus just for a second.

It's easier when there's a target, something to focus on, but God's not always so generous.

Carver rocks. He brings his closed fist to his mouth and bites at his hand. The pressure doesn't do shit. He's wearing gloves. And someone's talking. Probably not a ghost.

For once in his life, Carver wishes it were. ]

I did what I was supposed to, [ he hisses. He was a good soldier, wasn't he? ]

[hallowing]

[ Don't they all. ]

Okay, [ he says, easy and slow. ] but wherever that was, whatever you did — we're not in that place, and those same things don't apply.

[fortitudosalutis]

No. No, they do...

[ There have to be rules. Otherwise the world doesn't make sense. You can survive if you know the rules. You'll suffer, sure, but that's just a given.

Carver rocks. He holds onto his weapon. That was one of the first rules. He hasn't forgotten. He'd never forget that. ]

They always do, [ he insists. ]

[hallowing]

[ He could lie. Let that be a kindness, and tell the man what he's desperate to hear. Would it be the coward's way out, he wonders, or Auhle's? ]

Kid, I'm over ten thousand years old. I've seen civilizations rise and fall. I've seen worlds burn to ash. Nothing is always. Absolutely nothing.

[ He thinks about Abbrenon, and how all that's left of it is a graveyard in the void. The city had stood for thousands of years, erased in an instant's ire. ]

Tell me about where you're from.

[ That, finally, has the ring of an order to it. He can give them, it seems — he just doesn't fucking like to. ]

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Reflex says to clam up. Shut it down even though it's an order and he was made to swallow those. The world spat him out one way and the Valley cut him down to side. Burned the weakness out and what remained was what God and the commander decided was needed. The world can be simple if you let it.

He rocks. It's hard to focus now. Everything feels distant from his body. Nothing the other man is saying makes much sense. ]

A dead world, [ he replies, throat tight. He has to say something, doesn't he? ]

[hallowing]

Dead how? Gonna have to be more specific than that, buddyguy.

[ He's seen his share, most of them the product of his hands. Eleven worlds sacrificed on the altar of war. Billions upon billions of lives. He doesn't think anything can shock him now. ]

[fortitudosalutis]

People got sick. Dead came back.

[ He wants to get up and pace. Move. Maybe hit something. Carver grits his teeth and curls into himself. Adjusting the grip on his gun so he won't do something stupid and discharge it by accident. ]

People did what they do.

[hallowing]

[ He 'hmms' faintly. It's strangely melodic, like he's trying to figure out the bars for a song. ]

People will do just about anything when they're desperate.

[ It's not really — absolution, just understanding. He's both seen and lived that life. ]

So, you lived through some shit. And now you're here. How're you feeling about that?

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Later, if he's even marginally coherent, Carver will look back on this moment and wonder at the calmness. The way the other man just sat that and absorbed it all, seemingly. Not unaffected, no, but -

Calm. Like a ballast.

Carver rocks. Then he makes what might be his last clear decision and ejects the magazine from his gun. Then he sets it down before he does something worse and pulls his knees to his chest. ]

Doesn't make sense here.

[hallowing]

[ He reaches out, and takes the magazine. It disappears in his hands like a magic trick. Just in case. If the guy's that far gone that it seemed like a good idea, then Cy reckons it's a better one to get it even further away.

Then: ]

What isn't making sense? People are people, even these weirdos.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Something in Carver's brain refuses to connect what he sees to anything real. This is a trick, he tells himself. You've lost your marbles and you deserve whatever test the commander decides you're due for that foolishness.

In the meantime, a handsome stranger's doing magic tricks with his ammunition.

So, that's fun. Carver rests his head on his knees and watches the other man's hands. ]

They don't know the rules. They do stupid shit like it won't hurt them.

[hallowing]

So?

[ It's said with a touch of the cavalier — head cocked faintly, inquiring. His hands are open, spread, palm-up. He has no scars, but maybe that's no surprise given that Carver shot him not too long ago. ]

People get hurt. They learn or die. You try to pound people into a mold, the only thing you get is flat people.

[ Ha, he's hilarious. ]

I know, I know. Rah, rah, military uniformity, rah. But the world doesn't function like the military. It shouldn't — because if everyone's a soldier, what's the point? Who're you meant to protect then? It just means everyone's a target.

[ There's a bit of a shrug. ]

I never get sick of people because for all the differences and similarities you run into, you never quite meet the same person twice.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Carver just shakes his head, disappointment curdling in his chest. He should've known, he thinks. Because nobody gets it. Maybe just the ghosts and this isn't one of his. Nobody understands that it stops being a choice and turns into an inevitability and they crossed that line a long time ago. And once it gets there, it's like fighting against gravity. You don't get anything for trying except exhausted and probably dead. ]

Everyone's a target. Everyone's a fighter.

[ This he knows. This he had to learn at cost. ]

I'm not crazy for knowing that.

[hallowing]

[ He gives the man a sidelong look, and then there's another twitch of those long fingers, producing a cigarette and a lighter almost from nothing. ]

I mean, sure. In theory everyone's either something or not. Everyone's a Bluey fan or not. Everyone's a woman or not. Soldier or target, fine.

[ He will never know the name of the girl on Aikelyk. Brave, fleet-footed. She died horribly, but she fought. He'd believed then — naively — that she would be the last person he'd ever kill. He'd wanted so desperately for her to be the last person he'd ever kill. Maybe she was, until Abbrenon. ]

Miserable fucking way to live, though. Locks you in a box. 'Fighter'. Okay, what are you fighting? People? Emus? Cancer? Yourself? Delusions, ghosts, trauma, a fucking rap battle? The word means too many things, and in that immensity it means nothing at all.

[ He lights the cigarette, and uncoils slightly on the first drag, stretching one bare foot out in front of him. ]

What did you want to be, before you became what you are?

[fortitudosalutis]

[ The words echo, following the smooth cadence of a man who probably does believe he's talking sense. Carver rests his head against his knees and watches the stranger's hands. Another magic trick blooms. There's a cigarette there, a lighter. Held with strange grace.

Carver doesn't smoke much. Sometimes, he had cigarettes put out on him as a test. But those weren't much of anything. Most of the scars have faded now. He and the commander laughed about it after. How easy it was. ]

Doesn't matter what I wanted. That's dead.

[ He'd wanted to be a librarian, once. He's never told anyone. ]

[hallowing]

I was a farmer.

[ It's conversant. Pleasant, all things considered. ]

There are times I miss that.

[fortitudosalutis]

Oh.

[ Carver watches him. Thinks about all the farmers he's killed. ]

Why'd you stop?

[hallowing]

[ He takes a long drag off the cigarette, holding it out for the guy to take or decline as he prefers. A slow exhale becomes a smoke ring, just because he can. ]

I became a slave.

[ He says that dismissively. Like a footnote. Just one quiet little underpinning in a long, long life. It's not quite the truth. It's also not quite a lie. But it's sanitized in a way that's meant to evoke a less specific sort of pity. Slaves still have some amount of free will, at the end of the day — even if it's spent surviving. ]

Didn't stick.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ It happens, Carver doesn't say. Which is true but not especially useful. This man already knows. Carver knows liars. Was trained to suss them out, by trickery or force. Whatever God decided. He doesn't think this man's lying right now.

Funny, that.

Carver just watches him for a moment. He takes a shaky breath, then exhales. And he takes the cigarette, sitting up just long enough to take a drag. It burns down into his lungs.

It's something to focus on, at least.

He passes it back. ]

I think I've lost my mind, [ he explains, almost conversationally. Lost, past-tense, it's already happened. ]

[hallowing]

Easy thing to lose.

[ It's said with a measure of agreeability. Hasn't he been crazy, too? ]

The good news is, if you're lucid enough to recognize that, you can probably do something about it.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Carver shrugs at that. Easy to lose, the other man says, like this is a regular conversation. Maybe it is.

It's easy to die, too. Life's not all that precious now, if it ever was. ]

Hasn't been going well, [ he points out softly. He's not so far gone he's lost that. ]

[hallowing]

Dude, you're living in a fucking flop house with a gun filling all your social needs. Of course it hasn't been going well. Dumbass.

[ 'I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!' energy over here. ]

Newsflash, asshole, humans benefit from having a tribe. And I know you're gonna go all puppydog eyes on me and boohoo about how everyone in your little coterie of weirdos is dead or at least not here, or whatever other sob story that's got your dick in a vice. Don't get me wrong, that sucks. But you aren't doing yourself any favours, either.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Sam tried to bring him back, didn’t he? That didn’t go so well. It couldn’t have, Carver tells himself. This is how the world turns. He’s tired of fighting other people on the truth. ]

Why’re you out here?

[hallowing]

Believe it or not, looking for a Starbucks.

[ Hard to tell if he means that seriously or not. There's a twitch of his fingers where he's holding the cigarette and then: ]

I can teleport, so, you know. Distance ain't no thing if I ain't got that swing.