MISSION HYRYPIA: NIGHT OF DAY :038

[onemind]

A SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT

THE FEELING OF DREAD RETURNS JUST AFTER SUNSET ON DAY :038.

If things weren't complicated enough already, that certains makes everything moreso. By the time the dread feeling returns, the NPC Hosts (Lyr, Rhan, Siva’co, and Collector) will have decided they need to positively and definitively identify the enemy agent. However, exactly how to go about it was unclear until the feeling returns-- from nearby. Should anyone chase after the sensation (though be extremely careful - if Lexa, Mat, Elliot and Pidge are right, the circles may act as a portal through which the Enemy enters the universe), they'll discover a third identical charred circle just outside the ring of light cast by brilliantly lit courtyard of the Whalsome Home.

Fortunately, who or what came through it is no longer present (which: phew - it'd be awkward/deadly to get caught running in that direction). Now it's just a matter of figuring out where they went.

Luckily, it hasn't all been setting fires and kidnappings this afternoon. After examining the charred circle at the prior night's crime scene, Pidge has determined that a rapidly fading radiation is left in its wake and she's designed a device to track it. As Casiria suspects the Admiral is responsible for her niece's death and it follows that the murderer is the Enemy, the best shot at either confirming Casiria's suspicions or ruling them out entirely is to get the tracker into the Admiral's lodgings and see if they can confirm there are traces of similar radiation on his stuff and/or find other clues.

However due to a number of unfortunate events - the death of Keya, the fire set to one of the Descendant’s lodgings houses, the attack on the Second Elyiad -, security in and around Whalsome Home has increased. To make matters worse, the Hosts will be working within under a strict time limit. There are only two hours before the remaining traces of radiation dissipate entirely.

Because of this, a contingent of Hosts will need to provide an adequate distraction (or distractions) while still remaining entirely covert while a smaller strike team infiltrates the Admiral's quarters. After all, identifying the enemy is only the first step of their mission. The second is making sure you can stay stick around to sabotage their plan.

Which is where we come to plotting! We want you guys to let us know what kind of distraction(s) the Hosts would come up with, what kind of teams they’d want to form, and who wants to take part in which actions. Based on what you come up with, we’ll come up with the full calendar for the evening of Day 0:38 and put up the IC event log. Please take the time to make concrete, fully realized plans - we'll do our best to incorporate as much as we can, but it will be easiest if everyone works together to nail down a definitive timeline of events.

This OOC plotting post will be open until Sunday the 28th at 11:59PM and the log with the finalized timeline of events will go up Monday.

Questions? If they're specific to the events here, ask them in the thread below. If they're concerning wider reaching Mission: Hyrypia details, please ask them here.

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Comments

QUESTIONS?

[onemind]

[wille]

since kavinsky may be making copies of the device, meaning it's possible the hosts can test a few of the factions at the same time, should we pursue forming several teams to go after the different sides, or for one ic/ooc reason or another, it's best that we focus on only the admiral?

[sizeofyourbaggage]

hi i'm sorry i'm in your inboxes again

Just one question for now! If Kavinsky's able to copy Pidge's device using his dream mojo, would it work as well and enable them to try to cover twice as much ground in the Admiral's quarters to cut down on the time they have to be in there?

[wrackful]

Thinking of points for a "natural" fire to start that would get the locals all !!! and prompt an all-hands-on-deck response:

Is the Garstall fat flammable? How far have the locals got on harvesting it/storing it?

Considering how much fishing and hunting they do, are there are smokehouses in the village?

[aluminumandash]

Obligatory eagle scout question, I'm sorry.

Re: QUESTIONS?

[erbier]

Am confused by this format, where/how are we reporting our final decisions to you?

[perroquet]

If Gildor were to use enthrall to captivate an audience in the center of town, how big a crowd could he draw / would this be a good start? This is basically one starting distraction to give others a chance to set up their own distractions, since he can't hold the spell for more than an hour.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Spinning off the fire setting stuff, but what kind of disaster relief/fire putting out type things do they have? If Sam and Rogue were going to try to organize a group of the Carbooshes to help put out the fire/get NPCs out of the path of the fire, what kind of equipment/practices would the locals already be doing?

the "shee was framed" plot

[ryohji]

SO! based on the information gleaned from the bead rust picked up off keya's person (thx gildor) rust, mat, and kaji will begin to suspect that shee naxara may have been framed in keya's murder, either at the hands of the enemy or another council member. the where and whyfore:

- the bead was made recently (which could also imply it is counterfeit, a story for another time)
- shee naxara is a "very junior member" (quote not mine), which could explain the bead's age. gildor's ability revealed that it was given to a "stranger"; compelling evidence for the bead changing hands, likely to someone outside the 'family tree'
- the bead has only "known two worlds", likely hyanna'vi and hyrypia, seeing as the descendants abide both
- rust knows that any suspects may be still around thanks to his eagle scout powers

and because rust likes to... eschew large crowds at all costs, we were wondering how we were to pursue this while the distraction(s) are going down and the (official) infiltration team looks into the admiral. how much risk are we incurring if they were to follow this concurrently with the official effort(s)? do there exist more (non?)descendants other than the admiral who could be investigated? if a 2 man team were to piggyback off the main infiltration team and use the nestwide distraction to their advantage, could they find their way inside the mourning quarters?

[earthborn]

Just spitballing here but.


What about........more fire. Fire is an Excellent distraction.

[aluminumandash]

true but it's so passe

[perroquet]

Here's a list of potential covert distractions this one can provide:

-can make guards temporarily blind and/or deaf
-put guards to sleep
-jedi-mind-trick guards into leaving their post

Less covert:
-SUMMON A SWARM OF BATS, RATS, OR SPIDERS!!!


These are mostly one-on-one things. With the increased security it'll take teamwork!

ENTHRALL OPTION

[perroquet]

Updating this to make it more comprehensive than reading a screenshot of a DnD spell and all the jargon of tabletop!

One of Gildor's spells is Enthrall. Basically what it does is grant him the ability to hold a large group of people spellbound by his music for a certain amount of time within a certain amount of space - time being up to one hour and space being a 300ft radius. That can potentially hold a lot of Rabadoceans spellbound! But not for as long as they need, so there's still plenty of room for others to cause distractions. I would only ask that any fire distractions happen after this spell (if chosen to be implemented) is exhausted, since that distraction will end the spell as people move on to deal with the more urgent problem.

It should be noted that the spell won't effect every Rabadocean - ones with high wisdom are immune and can either listen or move on. Also anyone who has a predisposition for disliking Gildor magically gains a better throwing arm with which to lob a tomato at him, but I doubt Rust will be in attendance so he should be safe. Also, if any member of the audience is attacked while under the spell, it ends immediately and those wise unaffected people in the crowd will be out for Gildor's blood. There is room to play things and either have them go smoothly or horribly wrong, (and thus require a new fire distraction~).

[shiro2hero]

I'm here to volunteer what amounts to basically a wrecking ball for distractions and/or strike teams. There's not a whole lot that's ... covert... about his ability and the last time he had to sneak in somewhere he got shoved in a box.

So uh.

here to start shit

[earthborn]

HIGH FIVE

[raw]

hey so here's some stuff

• right now my character elliot really thinks that nobody should take individual action unless it's for the good of the mission. so if your character is likely to try and go off and just do random shit on their own that jeopardizes the overall plan but you, the player, want to stop them, i'd be happy to have him try and convince them to stay on track, or even calm them if he has to. (if you don't want to be stopped that's fine too haha)

• he's also all about dissemination of information, and so am i, so if you would like to handwave telling stuff to elliot (or darlene who will tell elliot) or handwave your character learning about something through elliot (or darlene probably, though i haven't checked with cee on this) then go right ahead! basically if you need your character to know something to put forward an idea or participate let's try and make it happen!

oocly i am considering making a gdoc which anyone can edit OR an ooc post, for info people have that they want to be general knowledge but don't want to thread the same conversation a million times, and links to conversations or mod answers with that knowledge, just to have a central location for that. lmk what you think!

• thirdly and lastly, distraction brainstorming. bakugo's explosion power could come in very handy here, as people will often rush towards the sound of an explosion (and shep can ever have more fire) - if we could make it look natural, even better!

another thought i had was that these people have a real investment in hunting, if we could fake some kind of interesting creature or lure a real one a lot of the guards and warriors might choose to pursue that glory -- but i don't have a constructive idea of how to make this happen so it's just spitballing.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

an interesting creature you say

what if I had a really dumb guy with a pair of wings who wanted to look up folklore or fauna to see if they have any winged creatures he can impersonate

INFILTRATION IDEA

[shri]

Lakshmi has somewhat of an in with her previous relationship with the Admiral, namely that she previously offered to do a mourning ritual with them.

Which was already her attention if only to further a relationship with them so she's got half the prep done, but since Keya was the one that Levallan died to save?? (If I've remembered it right ) she will go to the Admiral with whoever is willing to come do the checking and the sneaking to provide both a distraction for them and try and get some info out of the Admiral about who dunnit. She'll angle to call together as many of the descendants as she can to lead a prayer for Keya.

This, of course, pending on mod approval and who might be into it. So if u would like too, have further ideas, etc, etc. Requires something of an ability to be sombre and serious to the event, etc.

[wille]

I LIKE THIS! actually covert A++

they can probably make up some convoluted ritual that requires them to ~shut their senses to the world~

KILLING MORE BIRBS

[wille]

further from this!

since the hosts are aware of less than a dozen significant Rabadoceans and even fewer of those seem fishy, they could target a few more in addition to the Admiral, namely Saridian Black and Shee Naraxa (last seen with Keya), if not also one representative each from Hyrypia and Meradan to cover their bases (all of this pending mod go-ahead!). that would total 3 to 5, which sounds doable considering how many hosts there are

it means more convoluted planning/dividing into possible groups with various distractions specific to the people being targeted, but it also means each character will get a shot of being a bigger part of something cool and we're not crowding into what should be a lean stealthy mission -- plus they have a better chance of narrowing down who is the Enemy!

what say you?

[adamance]

Lexa has her doubts about Shee, but she does know that Keya was laying a lot of her hopes on Shee Naraxa. As for Saridian Black, he seems unlikely as a target as he seems to be acting in the interest of his people. That might be spreading the operation too thin.

[adamance]

In all of this, Lexa will be taking on a role like Elliot in trying to run a more strategic operation in all of this. While they've done missions like this in the past where "random" weirdness can go really well, it won't work with the Enemy. The Enemy will immediately spot random foreign objects for what they are and act on it immediately.

some ideas/suggestions and some of Lexa's thoughts

Note that Lexa isn't entirely convinced that the Enemy is unaware of their presence. It seems unlikely at this time. That said, it may be little more than a hunch, and they don't want to risk confirming it.

My biggest thing is that Lexa will want these distractions—explosions and otherwise—to be something that can be pinned on another envoy. The most unlikely unfortunate target? The Meradan envoy. It would be easy to stir up something to pin it on them. While it's unfair, they may need an out within all this chaos, and the Meradan are the likely targets. Plus, AFAIK, some people are providing evidence to clear the Meradan, making the Carbooshes seem like they're on their side.

Lexa has fire abilities and can set things on fire easily.

Given the time crunch and the lack of planning, Lexa will be endorsing a two-prong strategy: first, that they primarily focus on the Descendants. Second, that they ensure that any and all distractions seem like they come from the Meradan party. Having the additional radiation censors will be good, but it might spread the group too thin with so little planning unless people have really good covert abilities (like Pidge's invisibility).

I know Bellamy and a few other people have abilities to make people sick. That could be useful in messing with people? Similar abilities like being able to persuade someone to confess to a crime (for example) could help in setting up the Meradan. Hell, they could even get the Meradan to do some of the things.

Lexa will be the spoilsport who wants to shut down anything too weird that could really out them. While utilizing the Meradan might lead to too much happening (she mostly wants them to have an out if things go badly), she'll be a big fan of subtler actions to ensure their information gathering.

[incinerates]

+1 spoilsport and explosion-bringer

he's more inclined to ensure he's on a team that's handling the distraction, mostly to ensure that the potential fallout is contained or anything that goes wrong is quickly dealt with -- due to both his hero training and the promise he made to bellamy lmf

/replies to this 2 make sure as well, since i'm bouncing all over

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Some thoughts on my end!

+ Sam is gonna volunteer Kavinsky to be a part of the infiltration team with Pidge, since the two of them will know the device the best and can each operate one. They can cover the whole Descendants lodging quicker instead of just the Admiral's area. K also essentially has a stun gun with his symbiote ability, which is a pretty decent infiltration bonus along with Pidge's invisibility.

+ He's also gonna argue that they stick with just the Descendants quarters because one: everything mentioned elsewhere about spreading too thin, and two: Kavinsky's dream powers means he has to take a nap and pull energy from somewhere to create things, and with their limited time they might only have one copy of the device.

+ ...he wants to fly guys I'm sorry. Depending on mod answers, if this is gonna out them he can be talked out of it. But essentially he'll want to draw the attention of anyone looking to "hunt" him, cause a little panic, and can be another reason why fires are breaking out - either from him knocking things over or from other people doing the same.

+ He's also gonna be another one who encourages coordination and working together, and he'll be in touch and easy to get any information from. He was in the Descendants area already thanks to Shep and Damon so he'd share memories of the layout with anyone who wants it.

[adamance]

Lexa will be pretty opposed to him flying! The other creatures they've hunted have been prepared for the events themselves (hence the special borders and so forth). Creating another mythical creature (when Koke actually has a plot in order for one boogieman already with Richie) would be two mysterious things happening as a result of this pilgrimage, and that would be the opposite of covert. Too many things piling up is too much, basically.

Also, if most people (namely the Descendants) are indoors at the time of the distraction and mourning, he wouldn't be seen anyway. Something appearing out of nowhere and having no relation to the ecosystem of the world is just going to make him stand out like a sore thumb. As much as he could be the cause of those fires, there would be a question of why that's never occurred before, etc. It doesn't really create a scenario where plausible deniability can really be set up (especially since Sam ... still looks like a dude in wings ...)

[persevere]

If anyone needs anything in the form of a distraction, Caroline can compel the locals into doing pretty much anything you could want. She'll refuse to force anyone to hurt themselves or seriously hurt anyone else, but otherwise, the sky is the limit.

Seeing as she's new and still a little scatterbrained in general, she's not likely to take initiative herself just yet, but if she overhears people talking about a plan and she can be of help, she'll volunteer.

If you need a speedster, she's good for that too.

[deployed]

maybe she could help with any heavy lifting that they need to do with the explosive end of things?

[redheadcarrier]

Asuka can help w/ distractions pretty much. Other than that, she hasn't got a whole lot of relevant skills for this one.

Pidge is on board for sneaking since she can be invisible and also she has the tech dealie.

[shri]

HEY ASUKA, DO YOU WANNA HAVE A GO TO WORK WITH MUOM DAY?

[wrackful]

Bouncing off my question to the mods here, Murphy will be suggesting setting the Garstall fat on fire as a distraction. He was involved in the butchery of the meat after the hunt so probably chatted with the locals about the fat harvest and storage, so he has the IC info for this.

He will suggest this as being a distraction that should ultimately look natural/accidental in order to minimise suspicion or questions being asked, and therefore will be against attempting to pin in on another envoy. Another important part of keeping it looking natural/accidental would be to make sure the Carbooshes have a decent presence in the subsequent attempts to put the fire out.

For his own actual involvement, he will want to be with the infiltration team as they had the highest risk of running into the Enemy, and he's taking his danger alarm role due to his symbiote power pretty seriously!

[detestable]

i like this

[memita]

Just a side note: Luv is heat resistant, in case that's useful if we end up going the fire route. Although neither she nor her robes are fireproof.

In theory she could easily fake a fire-related injury or something to help reinforce their cover story, but she's not currently motivated to be that helpful unless the nest is in imminent danger of getting caught (annoying), or someone else in the nest is in imminent danger of being injured in a painful way she'd have to experience second-hand. But I thought I'd throw the option out there in case anyone can use it!

[shri]

Heya!

I have Lakshmi running distraction for the team sneaking into the manor, along with Asuka - and would you be interested in running along with her? If you haven't gotten any better more action-packed offers ofc, I don't want to like shove my way in etc.

I am not sure how to use her ability exactly however - but I am comfortable with whatever you might have in mind, etc? she could burst in on fire or something such and be like I NEED HELP and so on or whatever tickles your fancy.

FINALIZED PLANS

[onemind]

Please post your finalized plans below, using this form:
<b>WHO:</b> which characters will be taking part, also please specify if there’s additional space for other people to join in and take part! <b>WHERE:</b> At what location will this take place? <b>WHAT:</b> What exactly is your character’s plan? Please try to lay it out in bullet point format or something similarly linear. Note: Some of these plans may end up being interrupted part way through, we will reply to you to let you know if that occurs!

We will be using these in creating the log for this event, and will reply directly with any special notes regarding fallout/etc. We have included an example below:

WHO: Uhura, Kirk, Scotty, Bones, Sulu, room for a couple other players!
WHERE AND WHEN: At the top of the sand dunes, after dark
WHAT: A distraction!
Uhura will stand at the top of the sand dunes with the rest of the team lying in wait nearby
When the soldier’s are spotted, she will begin to sing The Moon’s A Window to Heaven and perform a fan dance
The others will be waiting nearby with their phasers drawn and ready for when the men approach her on foot to ambush them
They will take their horses if successful

EXAMPLE REPLY:
Looks good! As a note, Uhura will have to nearly complete the dance to attract their attention, thanks! They will get five horses.

Please have your finalized plans posted here by Monday, 6PM PST to have them included in the log write-up.

[bracchium]

WHO: bucko and himself
WHERE: the furthest corner of the barracks and or randomly scouting out plants
WHAT: Bucky is isolating himself due to the events of the last time he was involved in mission stuff. He will maybe peak out to scout out some poisonous flora but other than that he will be purposely avoiding everything and anyone. Said poisonous flora will be used maybe -040/041 to poison himself due to the programming telling him he failed, he needs to be punished, etc. Nothing with SI.

finalizing the infiltration team! (admiral's quarters)

[wille]

hi folks, we're firming up the infiltration team to the admiral, but please feel free to still pitch any additional ideas/your characters for it!

here's what we have so far:

WHO: pidge, kavinsky, murphy, misato
WHAT: the team will scan the quarters for traces of radiation to confirm he's the enemy and look for evidence that the admiral killed keya to be used as tool for sabotage
HOW: pidge will be the closest thing they have to a lead because she's most familiar with the device, kavinsky will help pidge scan the quarters, murphy to act as alarm for danger with his precog abilities and help look about, misato to act as muscle and activate her luck powers

[wrackful]

If the other infiltration team are going after Shee Naxara herself and these guys are the only ones going in on the Descendants' quarters, maybe we can extend the sweep? Shee Naxara's quarters, maybe Casiria's too?

infiltration team 2.0 (shee + casiria)

[erbier]

WHO: Ilde, Joshua, Noctis, with room for other helpers. Purposefully stealth geared group, but could be bullied into accepting other skill sets.
WHERE: Tyrisson Manor
WHAT: The Host group at large wants the final verdict on Shee to confirm or deny their suspicions concerning her place in all this. Since Ilde's been in their areas already, she's offered to take point in returning with more helpers, a tracker, and under the cover of distraction. We know Casiria is in there as well, and there's really no reason not to be as thorough as possible...

The skills of the initial spy trio to contribute:
Ilde: fear manipulation, stealth skills and stealth buffs, some status effect buffs/debuffs
Joshua: assassination, stealth skills and stealth buffs
Noctis: teleportation, hammer space

[aluminumandash]

Hey, so! Since their interests kind of intersect, I thought I'd offer Rust and Kaji for this. Ilde's welcome to vet them, Rust is a cop with extensive undercover experience/tracker and Kaji's a spy (though how candid he'll be about that remains to be seen). No enhanced abilities, but I'd put their stealth capabilities at solidly above average.

If everyone's amenable (and because group threads can get real unwieldy real quick) we were thinking we could split the manor team into two groups--Ilde and her handpicked team, and Rust and Kaji working with Lakshmi. (Rust and Kaji will also not be entirely forthcoming about what they find, but if you wanted to work around this via brainjacking or whatever, that'd be totally cool, since Ilde's an older and much more experienced host.)

This is pretty bare bones, I realize--I'm happy to talk things out in more detail if it sounds good!

finalizing team fire containment/sabotage!

[sizeofyourbaggage]

WHO: Sam, Rogue, Annie, Luv, Shepard, ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS IN
WHERE: all around where the fires are
WHAT: I will fancy this up into bullet point format later, but essentially fire containment/sabotage to avoid suspicion by helping contain it, keep the distraction going by subtly sabotaging containment efforts, and help make sure no one gets hurt! So far ideas include:

+ Luv passive aggressively sabotaging as much as she can
+ Annie using taunt to provoke someone into starting a fight
+ Sam making some of the workers more fatigued
+ messing with the buckets, possibly with Rogue's metal manipulation
+ messing with the technopump hoses
+ Shepard sabotaging + helping Annie with the fight
+ Sam and Rogue actually helping to contain the fire and make sure no one is hurt
+ keeping in touch with the infiltration team to know how long to keep up the distraction