Dave and Hal drop you off well outside of Dirk’s neighborhood. You give them a small wave as they head off and then start hiking to the perch you chose with your backpack full of gear. First thing’s first, as you slip through out-of-the-way passages you slide on more and more concealing clothing until somebody would be hard pressed to even note your skin tone.
Even as you walk you rifle through the pack, mostly just keeping your hands busy. You approach the billboard, one of those big ones, on a hill overlooking the area and advertising “Proud Home of Crockercorp HQ!” and that they’re currently hiring.
Well, that sure isn’t going to change tonight.
Stifling a noise of disgust, you see just a tiny flicker, only perceptible because you were looking for it, right as you pass underneath. You also note all the cameras, which isn’t a big issue for you. By the time you’ve scaled the rungs attached to the post (this thing probably needs engineers pretty frequently) you figure your partners are probably waiting on you by now. You reluctantly put off assembling your gun for now and get to plugging in as many of your devices as you can find connections for. The tangle of red cords and circuit boxes remind you of veins, and you wish you could bleed it dry, but it’s not what you’re here for.
In order for them to update and change the display on this thing it’s gotta be connected to something, so you exploit that, using the specs Hal gave you last night and you spent hours pre-loading into all of your gear, to get access to anything Crockercorp adjacent in the area. You give Hal the signal to be ready in about ten seconds, and you flip the switch on surveillance around Dirk’s home. Your own display of the camera feed shows exactly what you wanted; a flicker of the same subliminal propaganda on the billboards, and then a looped recording of what’s normally business as usual. Beautiful. Should just look like a bug when they check it out later.
With your gun finally assembled you look down your scope. Dave and Hal are in position and waiting for Dirk to come home. Perfect. Now’s your personal time. You tap into electronic advertisements and reduce the interval speed so subliminal ads will be more visible to everybody. You turn up the audio on subliminal recordings so people will start to realize they’re listening to it. Anything you can find. You want the people to be in the know. And you want them as angry at this fucking company as you are, for doing to them what they did to Dirk.
You see his car on one of your periodic checks, and you poke Hal to be ready and waiting. It’s go time.
[The rolling wisps of fog are gone but she feels it still, creeping at the edges of her vision, of her mind.
She runs a hand over disheveled hair as she sits up on the grass. The world around her spins... she closes her eyes as she attempts to catch the last bits and pieces of herself, fitting themselves back into the physical boundaries of her body.
Breathe. Breathe.
Her head falls back as she does, and a heartbeat later her eyes flicker open to see-
“Stars?” she exhales, asking no one in particular. The sky overhead is dark. Cetacean blue, dotted with flickering pinpricks of light.
When had it become night?
The question slips from her mind just as soon as it enters, too much for a brain that feels scattered among the very same stars that hang overhead.
She rises from the ground unsteadily and reaches out for the nearest leaning tree trunk, feeling as though the ground under her feet could just as soon slip out from below.
Time seems to stand still as her gaze slowly pans over five other figures. Her brow furrows as she rubs at a dull, throbbing spot on the side of her head. Her whole body aches. Like it’s been dismantled and put back together many, many times over.
And as something - no, someone - approaches, flashing a bright light in her face, asking her name, asking too many things in quick succession... she asks herself the million dollar question, for what feels like the umpteenth time since her arrival at NYADA:
Your name is Tobias Lifera, and you have a BAD FEELING.
Its not all there, its just been in recent days that this BAD FEELING has wormed its way into your chest and started growing. You have just stepped outside to try to relax while you waited for this NEW GAME to install onto your grubtop. You are one of 12 players, whom you have talked much about the NEW GAME in depth.
======> Survey Surroundings
You are currently on the roof of your hive, looking over the plot of land dedicated to the beehives and the GIANT LUSUS BEES at the base of the cliff in the distance. You are quite fond of BEEKEEPING and SWEET CONFECTIONARIES made with the STICKY SWEET GOLDEN HIVE SAP that the bees produce in abundance. In fact, it’s all you have ever known. You have lived on this NATURAL HONEY FARM all of your life, alongside the 25 other trolls who also manage both the CAFÉ and the NATURAL HONEY FARM with you. You have never felt a part of them, due to your GENETIC HIGHT DISADVANTAGE, and are often bullied harshly for the favor you have with the MANAGER.
Currently, they have gone to the BIG CITY for a month-long trip to the FEAT OF TROLL BODIES GAMES. Being Hive alone has given you peace, for now, as you take care of the bees and keep the closed CAFÉ clean.
======> Jump off the roof
You will not jump off the roof. That’s reckless and just asking for trouble.
You will, however, use your PSIIONIIC ABILITIES to float gently off the roof and over to the closest beehive. The honeybees have always been kind to you, landing on you and accepting offerings of SWEET CONFECTIONARIES and STICKY SWEET GOLDEN HIVE SAP. Right now, they seem nervous, buzzing in such a way that makes your insides twist. No matter how much you sooth them, the buzzing continues.
======> Answer your messages
The dings from your bedroom alert you to your messages, and so you pull yourself away to go answer them, slipping through the window and sitting fully on your RESTING PLATFORM on which your grubtop is perched THE GAME seems to have finished downloading, and the messages from your server host seems to have started.
practicalHoofplay: Hey
PH: Hey
PH: T00bias
PH: St00p messing with y00ur bees and c00me answer me
PH: We need t00 get started
PH: T00bias
PH: Get up Here
PH: We need t00 t00ucH base
PH: T00bias!
jarredHoney: Im heeree
JH: How did you know I wa2 with my Beeee2
JH: I wa2 out2idee
PH: Y00u’re kidding right?
PH: It’s the game
PH: I can see y00u
PH: And m00ve y00ur shit ar00und
JH: No way;
JH: That2 again2t the law2 of Eeveerything
PH: I’ll pr0000ve it t00 you
======> Stay Safe!!
You barely manage to dodge your personal safe as it flies towards your window, crashing through and landing in the garden below. The alarm in your chest jumps into your throat in a startled screech. Your computer dings and you float into the corner with it as the next messages come in
PH: 00H fuck
PH: S00rry
PH: Im n00t u2eed t00 this yet
JH: what thee FUCK
JH: How in heeveen2 did you do that
JH: I could have dieed
PH: It’s the game
PH: this is what it is
JH: I thought it wa2 a 2imulation
PH: n00, its in real life
JH: Weell I can 2eeee that
PH: We Have stuff t00 d00 s00 let’s talk
JH: okay, okay, then talk
======> What was that?
You float by your window and peer out, gazing down at the fate of your safe, crushing this odd gremlin looking thing. It squeals for a long moment before poofing into a handful of ELONGATED HEXAGONAL BIPYRAMIDS in a black puddle. Upon further inspection, there seems to be a sudden appearance of many of these dark gremlens, of various varieties and sizes, including larger Ogres figures you’d swear are taller than the hive. Your heart flutters and you float away from the window, breathing getting heavy as your back hits your door and slides down to the ground, grubtop landing in front of you.
======> Look at Zokouh’s messages
Its just about the only thing you can do right now, so you might as well
PH: alrigHt, s00 t00 start 00FF we b00tH need t00 start grinding immediately, wHicH means getting rid 00F tHe enemies. Y00u kn00w H00w t00 kill, rigHt? Well y00u sH00uld start learning at least.
PH: T00 d00 tHis y00u need t00 pick a striFe specibus. It can be anytHing, but 00nce y00u use it as a weap00n, tHat’s tHe 00nly tHing y00u can use. 00nce we Have en00ugH grist we need t00 place tHe AlcHemiter, Cruxstruder, and T00tem LatHe. THat needs t00 start as S0000N as p00ssible
PH: D00n’t w00rry ab00ut remembering all 00F tHis. I can d00 tHat F00r us. Just be sure t00 d00 wHat I say s00 tHis can g00 sm0000tHly. We need every00ne t00 get t00 tHe next stage.
PH: s00 F00r n00w, Find a weap00n and start FigHting.
It seems to be true what Zokouh said, you could see right in to his apartment, where he was easily tearing apart the weird goblin looking things, collecting the strange shapes, making a “Grist Cache” increase. This feels surreal for you, You shouldn’t be able to do this. This is unnatural. Finally you close your grubtop and stand up, preparing yourself for the next step.
======> Get your safe back
You walk over to the window and let your hands stretch towards the safe. Closing your eyes, you cup the safe with your PSIIONIIC ABILITIES and lift it off the remains of the gremlin, pulling it through the window as it zaps with your energy. You set it down and open it with a ZAP, stowing your laptop for safety and leaving a note on top of it saying “Don’t touch, Laptop inside”
[She hovers in the doorway, twisting and twisting the end of a long braid. The room is dark, the curtains blocking out the mid-morning sun though the rod slants at an odd angle against the frame. A bookcase lays splintered on the floor. Books, clothes, fragile items are scattered across the floor. An overturned desk chair props up against the bed, and the girl inside sits perched on the edge of it on the other side, her back to Marley.
Nothing has moved since she was last here.
She sighs, shifts to knock lightly on the door frame. She can see the other girl’s shoulders tense.
“... can I come in?”
A beat passes.
‘Yeah.’
The voice is hoarse. Small. It’s not a sound she’s been able to get accustomed to hearing.
With the permission granted though, she steps inside, careful not to tread on anything sharp or otherwise valuable. Her stomach churns uncomfortably as she takes in the mess. A visible manifestation of the chaos that the state of things feels like at the moment.
She makes it to the other side of the bed but the other girl doesn’t look at her. She hesitates a moment before taking a seat beside her. She follows the girl’s gaze to the wall, covered in an amalgam of photographs, doodles, fliers, posters. She can pinpoint the exact Polaroid she’s staring at and fresh guilt washes over her.
“Have you heard from her?” she asks, though she has the sinking feeling she already knows the answer.
The other girl shakes her head.
‘No... no phone call. No pollen message. Nothing.’
The girls in the photograph are smiling in that way that betrays the fact that they were laughing just moments before the shutter clicked. Their close proximity betrays their intimacy. They look so happy.
And Marley feels so sick.
It’s the most subtle of vibrations but she can feel the split moment of change when the girl beside her moves from catatonic to shaking. A fight against a swell of emotion that keeps coming back, wave after wave after wave. Marley’s been there for most of them. She knows the warning signs of the oncoming pain.
‘I don’t know if she’s okay,’ the girl barely eeks out between gasps for breath. ‘I don’t know if she’s alive or if she’s dead, if she got arrested, if she got buried and trapped when the earth sank in... I told her not to go, I pleaded with her, I-’
She girl suddenly hits the mattress with both hands, jarring the both of them with her force. Marley flinches and squeezes her eyes shut. For a moment, she waits to see if she’ll hit her instead. For a moment, she wishes she would.
But the girl just dissolves into a staggered, straining sob, her head falling into her hands. ‘She went to look out for you, but she didn’t come back,’ she cries. shoulders heaving.
It hurts. Aether, does it ever hurt, but Marley does the only thing she can do and wraps her arms around the other girl as she doubles over in pain. Holds her tighter for every shake, every sob, every cry of her name. Even as the feeling of drowning intensifies as her chest tightens and the corners of her eyes prickle painfully. Even as the possibility of the worst case scenario overwhelms her to the point of incapacitation.]
[‘... she didn’t come back... she didn’t come back... I just want her back...’
“I know, Evie,” her own voice cracks, her chest feeling ready to split open and spill onto the floor. “Me, too.”]
[She flinches with the first few drops of precipitation but as it turns into a light drizzle, she returns to paying it no mind. Instead she wraps her arms around herself and forces herself to keep looking.
It’s almost like the forest is stirring. Churning.
Has to be a trick of the shadows. Or maybe the rain pattering on leaves and branches moving swiftly towards decomposition.
Maybe she’s just... tired.
She scrubs a hand over her face, lets it tangle in her dark hair and tighten as she picks at her brain.
How many paces southeast again? Was the tree with the peculiar bio-luminescent moss still standing nearby? How much had the ground beyond the borders of the forest shifted? Had the stone been swallowed up by the earth too?
Was the old Willow gone? Had the campus circle been destroyed?
Had anything been left alive?
She feels eyes on her again and sighs.
“I’m not touching anything,” she mumbles for what feels like the hundredth time, brushing rain drops from her face and glancing back over her shoulder towards Sciron Square.
It’s so late. She should head back.
And go where? Do what?
“Five more minutes,” she mumbles again to no one in particular. Five more minutes to loathe herself for the damage on display or to at least remember a pathway that very well no longer exists. Five minutes to find something remotely useful she can do for Saltus without people thinking she’s trying to raise an undead tree army.
[She’s probably been lingering too long but she can’t stop staring.
The infamous Great Tree lays fallen on the rattled grounds of NYADA, the ground sunk in and swallowing up dirt that still trickles into the cavernous pathways underneath. She can feel the ground beneath her feet start to give a bit as she dares to move closer, so she takes a step back again. Much as she’d like the ground to swallow her up as well, it won’t fix anything.
She shouldn’t be here anyway. It’s her fault this had happened in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, but it doesn’t feel anywhere near enough. Nothing will ever be enough, not after this.]
[She stands at the edge of Saltus for what feels like the hundredth time. The hundredth hour. Minute. Second.
It truly feels like a graveyard.
She doesn’t dare move a step beyond uneven hunk of earth jutting up from the ground, standing in the way of her and countless broken, downed trees. Doesn’t dare touch. Doesn’t dare hope to cause a stir in the tangle of roots that stretch out further than she can see.
It’s quiet. So painfully quiet.]
[She wishes she could reach out a hand. Touch the earth, somehow mend the hurt, take away the pain. Fix it.
But there’s just so much of it. It’s no easy fix and she’s just one Fae.
‘Miss,’ a voice nearby sighs. ‘I’ve told you already, you’re-’
“-not supposed to be here,” she finished for them. “I know. I was just... looking.”
She can feel their eyes on her, so she gives the expanse of decimated land one more long gaze before turning away to head back to Sciron.]
