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]

For better or worse, right?

[ He takes the bottle back, its neck held loosely between his index and middle finger, thumb stabilizing the bottle further down. ]

What were they like?

[fortitudosalutis]

Mhmm.

[ Carver shifts to rest his head on his knees again. Watching Cy. Wondering what Sam got into. If his busted nose healed up okay. And then Carver wonders what happened to Leah Shaw way back in the world. If she's even still alive. Or if it's like Matthew and she was gone from the start, and Carver's just been wandering through the world praying to her ghost.

Hard to say. ]

Honest, [ he says finally. ] Brutal. They taught me how to survive.

[hallowing]

[ He tilts his head. Curious. ]

And is that the same as living, to you?

[fortitudosalutis]

You fight or you die.

[ He returns Cy's gaze. Not for the first time, he wonders if any of this is real. What he's supposed to do if it is. ]

I want to go home. Can you help me with that?

[hallowing]

Only if your Earth is the same as the one I'm from. I can do world-hopping, I can't do fucky trans-dimensional fucky hopping. Can't beg, barter or steal that kind of influence when I'm outside the sphere of my own.

[ Maybe there's one out there where he didn't pull a dying god out of a shallow creek. But even then, it would just be someone else's problem. ]

Sorry.

[fortitudosalutis]

Oh.

[ He shouldn't have asked. It's weakness to beg. But God, there's a part of him that wants to. That says, just get on your knees. Take it like a test. You already know how to pray, so what's really the difference between the God of the Valley and a god of war?

But you don't pray until you've proven yourself. Gotta be blooded before you can be anything.

Carver curls tighter into himself. Breath hitching suddenly, painfully. And then it feels like he can't breathe at all. That something's broken in his chest, snapped off at the root. I want to go home, he wants to say, like a child. Please, God, just let me go home.

He curls his hand into a fist and hits himself in the head, as punishment for the weakness. He does it as hard as he can. ]

[hallowing]

[ Well, that's one way of handling trauma. And it says a lot, doesn't it? Brutal, he says, and Cy wonders what failure looked like to people like that.

The first blow lands, vicious. But if Carver tries for a second, he reaches out and just hooks his hand around the guy's forearm and holds him there. ]

Hey. [ He can fake it well, that drill sergeant whipcrack of a tone. ] Knock it off.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ There's a really nice moment, right after the pain blooms in his skull, where shit goes quiet. Only a moment and then everything feels worse, the weakness compounded, but that moment is like the sun breaking through a bad storm. Clarity. Quiet. Everything he wanted.

That was a nice moment.

Cy's hand catches his arm. Holds. If he's surprised, or angry, it doesn't show.

Carver shakes himself. His skull throbs like a bad hangover. ]

I'm not right, [ he explains, a little distantly. ]

[hallowing]

Yeah, and?

[ It's not the first time he's seen behaviour like this. Hell, he's lived it. ]

You only have two options. You pull your head out of your ass and fix yourself, or you stay miserable and fucked up forever.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ It’s a familiar tone, even familiar words. It ought to be a comfort. Orders usually are. He was asking for some not so long ago.

But that, Carver realizes, was when he knew what to do with those orders. How to fulfill them.

He can feel his heart pounding. The pressure of Cy’s hand around his arm. That’s real, isn’t it? ]

I don’t know how, [ Carver admits softly. ]

[hallowing]

So what? You think that's a good excuse?

[ He does let go, finally, of the guy's arm. Cuffs him lightly upside the head. ]

You're here. There's only one thing to do, and that's put one foot in front of the other. It'll suck, it'll be painful and hard and stupid and you'll probably want to eat a bullet more than once. But that's not an acceptable reason to be a bitch about something just because you don't know how.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ Oh, Carver thinks, blinking several times at Cy. Because this, at least, is familiar. Shaw would cuff him upside the head like this, too.

Something in him settles, even if only for a moment. He recalls the cadence of her speeches. How she never promised anything would be easy, not a single thing, but she made it sound worth doing anyway. ]

Okay, [ Carver agrees, a little distantly. He has no idea where to start. ]

[hallowing]

Don't okay me, dumbass. That's a 'yes sir' to you.

[ Sure, he'll lean into it. Why not? ]

[fortitudosalutis]

Yes, sir.

[ It's automatic. Thoughtless. Cy isn't a Reaper but certain lines just click into place. ]