WEEK 4

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WEEK 4

READY, STEADY, GO-KARTS!

After a harrowing week of forced honesty and a surprise attack from the God of Conflict, it seems the Goddess’ “gift” has finally faded - and just in time! Today marks the date of the highly anticipated Go-Kart Race, featuring a whopping twelve teams from the Goddess’ picks and a number of teams comprised of locals. Fortunately the weather is holding up well for the event, with clear skies and a radiant sun beating down on all contestants as they wait to begin, the heat reflecting off the asphalt. Hopefully everyone thought to use sunscreen!

The local arcade has decked out the go-kart track in flags representing the different teams, and some local businesses have set up both a spectator stand area near the finish line, as well as kiosks selling snacks and drinks for the spectators and anyone who happens to wander by! There are also some midway fair game booths and portable game machines if you're not really here for the go-karts and just here for a fun afternoon out. The best part is that everyone who enters the event zone gets three free tokens courtesy of the arcade, so you've got nothing to lose~ Unless you do happen to lose, which means that you'll probably have to purchase more tokens from the distracted teenagers volunteering manning the admin booth.

ALL'S WELL THAT-- HUH?

Eventually, all the preamble is completed, and it’s time for the race! A light counts down from red to yellow to green, and the racers are off!

While the start of the race is a jumble, a few in particular begin to pull ahead of the pack: Spade of the Sea and Kururu and Schneider in particular! Tragically, Team Bloody Angels just can’t seem to get the speed they want and seem to get stalled by various traps, falling further and further behind…

In the middle of the bunch, Atem and Sunrise manage to maintain their speed, while THE CUTIE PATOOTIES, Fire’n Ice, and Aaron and Morgan all struggle to surpass each other - leaving Beautiful, Bright Knights of Lovely Radiance, and Exquisite Midnight Shimmering unfortunately trapped behind the three and unable to pass at all. Towards the back of the group, Badass Ladies compete directly with TEAM ROADKILL for their place, while Frieren and Arven have a leisurely drive by comparison.

The first and second laps go without incident. But on the third…

Something about the local teams changes. Instead of the regular frustration of losing, some of them seem to fall into, well, road rage.

Schneider and Kururu, nearly caught up to Hiiro and Jordi, find their hopes dashed as a woman in a blue bandana bumps them from behind - the impact enough to cut their engine for a moment too long, allowing Hiiro and Jordi to pass the finish line in first place without any trouble.

The middle of the pack gets the worst of it. Jesse and Mafuyu find themselves hounded by a woman in aviators who manages to ram into their Go-Kart hard enough to dent the guard, putting pressure on the wheel - while they cross at the same time as others, they are unable to steer the Go-Kart due to the damages, and find themselves ramming into guardrail. While Mafuyu is miraculously without injury, Jesse takes the brunt of the force and will be feeling that whiplash the next day.

Aaron and Morgan get a brick - a literal brick - chucked at them, and while they manage to avoid getting hit themselves, they have to do a violent swerve to do so. That’ll also be a bit of whiplash for them, too. Badass Ladies get sideswiped by one of the locals and their kart ends up grinding against one of the guardrails. Eek.

The real destruction, however, hits the back end of the group - a man in yellow sneakers manages to bash hard into Eli and Kirumi, pushing them off course. The impact causes them to bump into Aerith and Maika along the way, who lose control of the steering wheel and knock Fray and Argenti into the wall. Fray sustains injuries as he’s dragged against the wall for a moment until Argenti is able to right their path again, pulling them back into the middle of the course. Eli and Kirumi don’t get off so easily, either - the bump against Aerith and Maika isn’t enough to stop their momentum, and Eli cracks his right shoulder against a barrier as Kirumi hits the brakes to prevent further injury. Fray, Argenti, Eli, and Kirumi will be feeling whiplash the next day.

Braphine’s chosen aren’t the only victims, either - a woman with red combat boots and a man in a green jacket each crash into local competitors, and the result is a six-kart pileup.

Frieren and Arven and Team Bloody Angels witness all of this from the back of the race, though neither team can do much except to continue on to the finish line.

What should have been a celebration at the end instead turns into panic as medics are called onto the scene and emergency personnel are summoned to the track. While many of the people in the stands seem roiling with discontent and beginning to argue and fight over the cause of all these injuries, a few of the locals hurry down to the course to help. Schneider, Aaron, Argenti, Aerith, Eli, and Kirumi will find themselves aided by familiar faces - the boutique staff recognized them and are here to lend them and their partners a hand in getting treated for their injuries.

As the racetrack descends into chaos, it soon becomes difficult to keep track of everyone. However, Hiiro, Schneider, Sally, Morgan, Argenti, Aerith, Frieren, and Celeste all notice a figure in a strangely ancient hood standing among the stands, a fierce grin on their face - before the figure turns and disappears into the crowd.

Mina - having come to spectate and cheer on everyone from the stands - gets a rather panicked look on her face as she watches it all unfold. She quickly takes out her phone and begins typing frantically at it, before hitting “send.”

All at once, all of Braphine’s chosen will hear their phones begin to beep.

CALL FOR HELP.

I've added emergency commissions to the app - please take them on if you are able to/need to!

We can get through this if we all work together. So, please... look out for each other out there, okay?

COMMISSIONS

HELPING HAND

Please help the injured! Even if it's as small as first-aid or comforting a scared child who's gotten lost in the aftermath of the go-kart crash, any little bit of help would be appreciated by the overwhelmed medical staff at the scene! Unless you’re already injured, in which case, please allow yourself to be tended to!

(OOC note: For clarity, this commission reward applies both to characters who are helping the injured and those who are injured in the thread!)

HOLY HEALING

The hospital is going to need more supplies. For those who are strong enough, please seek out Archangel Shadows in the Nekyia. They should drop blessed feathers - these feathers then can be taken to Braphine’s Temple, and the priest or priestess there should be able to turn them into medicine for the injured.

RACETRACK REPAIRS

In the aftermath of the go-kart pileup and everything associated with it, it's time for people who are good with their hands to roll up their sleeves and help the locals with repairs - clear the debris off the track and make sure the way is clear for the emergency vehicles and construction crews who need to access the site!

OOC

READ ME!!!!

• Welcome to your Week 4 event log! While this log covers the go-kart race and its immediate aftermath, please feel free to use this log to thread out anything else happening during the week after and we will see you next week for the Week 5 event!
  
• Note to all go-kart participants that there has been some shuffling in the team compositions due to player drops as well as Everything That Happened on Friday. Regardless, you can claim event participation gacha rewards if you signed up and have one thread of at least 10 comments with a go-kart related prompt on this post.
  
• Archangel stats and information have been added to the bestiary!
  
• AC is due end of the month! Make sure you get that in~
  

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Comments

cw: human experimentation, cannibalism

[beautifulknight]

[ After a certain time when conversations have died down, Argenti sees fit to raise his voice, which is all too easy to do, and to capture everyone's attention. ]

Everyone, I appreciate your chatter thus far. All the same, there is something I must inform you all, so that you are not in the dark regarding this person's situation, and state of being.

I killed Ushirono. Otherwise known as Fuyu.

[ Not that Fuyu ever gave him his other name, but Mina spilled the beans so Argenti assumes the guy has two names or something. Anyway, Argenti is not the type of person to be like "ama" about this, so he's just going to keep talking first. ]

I will get straight to the point on the main reason why I struck him down.

Ushirono was a man who told me he was researching mental illness for a cure, which naturally needed to involve other people, I concluded. I saw...an example of his work, on paper, which he told me were his notes on the subject.

But, I later became aware that the man conducted various experiments, where he stated he was doing so in the pursuit of curing "Zeno". His idea of curing mental illness...of treating those when they no longer suited the purposes for his experimentation, was to kill them. He told me there was a "lot of trial and error". Multiple deaths, only to then inform me that...

cw: cannibalism, we goin' dark, fam

...the only way to cure such a disease is to have the person afflicted was to have that individual consume another person wholly.

[ Argenti takes pause and then just immediately moves on from that point. Please be thankful, or not. ]

He had no intention of caring about anyone here. He told me that he only treated people as to be used an disposed. He could care less in the end how many people he's put away with, doing who knows what, for his own, twisted ends. And upon apparently finding a horrid answer in the midst of it all.

I could not abide someone who clearly had committed such heinous acts. Who clearly would have had no hesitation in doing the same here or elsewhere.

...And so that is it. If you have any other questions, I will take them as they come.

[ Or other responses, really, but Argenti can at least think he can predict that. ]

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis couldn't care less that Fuyu has been killed. The two conversations he had with the guy were fine, but people die all the time and it doesn't feel all that noteworthy.

What he's more worried about is the precedent this sets - especially after yesterday he'd been forced to confess to murder himself.

The issue isn't that Argenti killed a man, McGillis couldn't care less. The issue is his reasoning. ]

Is that how you are planning on dealing with dissenters going forward as well?

[beautifulknight]

...What exactly do you mean by dissenters?

That man was pure evil. That is the main reason why I struck him down.

[ Argenti has killed plenty of times himself. Fuyu's reasons for discarding people, and even doing worse is enough for him. ]

[unweathered]

[It wasn't like Schneider particularly liked Ushirono. But nor did she feel particularly nauseated by Ushirono's story. Was it any different from feeling the madness that came over her as she desperately fought against the urge to eat gold or money?

Hah.]

And what made you so sure he was willing to do the same things here that you had to act as judge, jury and executioner, Mr. Knight?

[She will allow that there was a measure of appreciation in her for someone who cared as little for gods as she did.]

[imperiosity]

[Aidios, here it is. At least it saves them the trouble of figuring what happened then, but Aaron looks decidedly less than impressed at the confession.]

Y'know, there's a lot I could say about this, but let's start out with something easy: what the hell made you think it was a good idea to leave that guy's body out to rot on the street?

[emptyself]

[ that is... a lot to hear. hearing about fuyu's death hurts deeply, even with the explanation of why argenti felt like he needed to. with everything he's heard about death lately, he simply shrinks back in the corner of the room, brows knit together in frustration.

he's mad, but he's not sure if it's towards argenti for what he's done or himself for feeling bad for fuyu. ]

He hadn't even hurt anyone here.

[kandata]

While I understand your reasoning, I find you might have acted rashly.

Would Ushirono's absence cause any problems for our...current task at hand? Or could the action you took make it harder to achieve?

[Murder isn't tremendously good for bonding, she has found. Danganronpa, yo]

[fullmoonmutt]

[ What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuckity fuck fuck? Eli's been seated for most of the meeting, unusually quiet but, then again, meetings are for smarter people to come up with plans. He isn't so dumb to think he's one of those smarter people, c'mon.

This, though...

Eli surges to his feet, chair knocked over from the abrupt and fairly violent motion. ]

Holy shit, I get the guy was a psycho freak, but that's exactly what the conflict guy wanted us to do! Turn on each other! So what the fuck is your deep, dark secret, huh?! Do we get to judge whether you get to live or not for it, too, or what?!

[ Eli legit did not like Fuyu and was planning on kicking the guy's ass based on personality alone, but that isn't even remotely like what Argenti did! So! He isn't actually being a hypocrite here! ]

[swordthatsmilesback]

...

[Chihiro stares at him for a moment. As much as others are in shock, he only lowers his head for a moment, before his red eyes find Argenti and fix onto his face.]

The wicked must be felled at all costs. If what you say is true...I find no fault in it.

[oinkoink]

[Typically speaking, Sally is team "let's not just take it upon ourselves to murder people". After going through a traumatic event of her own so recently, however, people eating other people to gain that powers type shit is exactly her trigger. At first, she doesn't want to say anything, because people sure are giving Argenti a hell of a time for his confession--and again, not without good reason. But...]

...I think you did the right thing.

[Oh, god, she said it. Now everyone is going to yell at her, too. She clams up immediately in preparation.]

[beathollow]

( mafuyu is quiet in the meeting- she hasn't been out for any information, or anything like that. she hasn't been trying very hard except in slowly pulling herself back together.

and she's quiet now, at the confession. anxiety bubbles in the pit of her stomach, she doesn't know what to do... )

[bloodandstars]

[ The people with a moral leg to stand on can — and have — already chimed in just fine on that aspect of things. Maika can't really say she has a strong feeling one way or the other about a sudden murder in their midst. If anything, it's probably overdue.

She definitely doesn't have it in her to be disappointed in anything anymore. That requires believing in something in the first place. ]

I've got a question. What's the point in telling us?

[ She'll hear the answer and all. But for the moment she's plowing right on: ]

Sure makes a statement, doesn't it? You'll take out the trash as you see fit. You're scarier than a monster like that, scarier than whatever we're facing down from that "God of Conflict." Trying to set yourself up as a leader? It's a pretty good precedent to make sure no one puts a toe out of line.

[bloodweapon]

[Fray is here, of course. Lingering in the background, sticking to the shadows and holding up the walls, but he is here, and he is listening. He was already well aware of all of this - after all, he was there when it happened. But he doesn't speak up now - there's no need to, as far as he can see. Argenti laid out exactly what happened and it seems no one is doubting his story any, even if there are questions and doubts about his actions. Fair enough. He can't argue that much, although his decision to stand by Argenti's actions remains ironclad. So though he says nothing, he is here, should Argenti have need of him.]

[pointzeropercent]

[(Handy BGM!)

Sou hears this, and he feels frozen in place. The horrific crimes, the incurable disease, the fearful nature of a man Sou had thought wasn't so bad. The act that ended that man's life...

His eyes are wide with shock, and a little bit of fear is mixed in too. Fear at the fact that Argenti would just...do that. Just cut down a man like it's nothing.

The darker part of Sou's mind says that this could all be a lie, that if nobody can corroborate the story then Argenti could be making this up to justify his actions. He knows plenty of people who can and have done that same thing before. And a deep, dark voice inside Sou says to himself 'how long will it be before this man cuts down everyone else?']

He's...dead? Aren't the cops going to come investigate that? What are we going to tell them?

[silentfury]

[This... wasn't something Yuri was expecting to hear. While he's only known Argenti at a surface level thus far, he didn't expect the man to be the kind of person to strike someone down like that. But after hearing the whole story...

...all he can do is shrug his shoulders. If Fuyu was going to act on his instincts and kill others, it was for the best to strike him down before that happened. Still, Yuri feels like he needs to add one thing to the conversation. Pulling out his phone, he types slowly and holds it out for Argenti and anyone else nearby to see:

Maybe let some of us know before making a snap judgement next time. That's all.]

[drawnorigin]

[A slow blink with his one good eye.]

Huh.

[So, that's part of his code? Taking down who he sees as irredeemably evil...

Well, it is what it is.]

Is that all?

[Clearly some people think this is a big deal, but, like. What happened has happened. There's nothing to be done about it at this point, and it's not like Jeno feels particularly strongly about this.]

[pharology]

[Oh. Argenti, no... Don't go judge, jury and executioner here. This is way too much like the Inquisition for his liking, and it hurts to know that someone he considered a friend is acting like this.

He keeps himself a distance away, hands clasped together.]

Did he... Did he have any intention of doing the same to people here? Has he already done so?

[moodwrecker]

...Wh...

What the hell?

[What do you even say to something like that?]

[supherb]

[Nekiya was scary, but this is so much worse. One of his so-called allies has killed another. That guy sounded fucked up but to kill him for what he was capable of?

Just like the moment of their arrival, this is way too much for Arven to take in. It makes him sick. The ensuing arguments don’t help matters.

Then the gunshot rings out and he’s done with this.

Lmao bye he’s also going to his dorm.]

[cleansewithfire]

[ Sunrise stays quiet for a long time, but listening to Argenti (and honestly at least some of the reactions to him), gazing at him as if studying him. She doesn't seem to flinch at all, though her eyebrows crease at the mention of cannibalism.

To her, the act represents a degradation of the soul, the subsumption of the spiritual self by base instinct, one form of the ultimate fate that awaits all restless spirits. It is the state of the hungry dead and their samsara.

So she cannot abide by anyone who would prescribe it to anyone else.

When she finally speaks, it's her honest opinion. ]

I will trust your judgement, Mr. Argenti. If the wicked do not wish to repent, then they must be punished.

cw: human experimentation

[gardenful]

...You know, I thought it was kinda funny when he told me how he felt about his "research subjects." Who would have thought, the former research subject and the researcher pulled from different worlds would end up rooming together?

[ She looks up at Argenti, a whirlwind of emotions on her face. But of course there would be, given her admission. ]

It's weird. I never felt unsafe. He didn't seem motivated to really do anything here unless he was provoked, after all. I hoped that maybe he would find some kind of meaning here, that he could find some way to be happy... but I don't know how possible that actually was.

Maybe he would've just gone back home and back to his research when all of this was over. I don't know.

[ Aerith shakes her head in an attempt to clear the sheer number of thoughts racing through her mind. ]

All that's to say that... I can't condone what you did, Argenti. But I can't hold it against you either. Every time I get upset on his behalf, I think about what the people he experimented on might feel, how I felt when I was growing up and saw what the researchers back home did and... and I get mad at him instead.

[ She takes a breath, like she wants to say more, but ultimately she doesn't. ]

...Sorry. I've probably said too much.

//hilariously late

[destage]

[...

Sayaka's stunned silent when she hears that. There's...there's a lot to take in here, and really, Sayaka can't even find that she sees anything wrong with it. If that man was truly such a bad person...

But that shouldn't justify taking a human life, should it?

...

Sayaka has to leave, and dismisses herself from the meeting post-haste. She'll apologize later but...this is too much.]

[idealitas]

So a path is cut short. I suppose with what you've presented as your reasons for doing so, such a path is one that "should" be.

[ Deaths, experimentation, and violence are what Yi Sang is used to, with all the trappings of justifications. He is not here or in a place to judge Argenti or Fuyu. It seems to balance out. ]

As a former researcher myself but also as a captive for that purpose rather that one who is completely willing, he had no real interest in discussing such matters of his own work with me. We were at something of an impasse, as I failed to understand why one would end up stained with blood over it. I understand now.

I leave one observation. In a more mundane scenario that yet eerily parallels what his methodology entailed... he wasn't surprised that he would be "punished" for his ruthless tactics to achieve his goals. He conceded the game, in fact. He was only seemed annoyed that I asked if he was disappointed I didn't enjoy beating him in such a manner.

That's all I have to say.

[privatedomicile]

...goddamn, dude.

[And Jesse thought he's seen some fucked up people.]

I mean, if you're right, we could'a had a serial killer on our hands, yo.

Nobody's gonna snitch here, right?

[goei]

[Izou almost ignored the summons but he doesn't hate Argenti, so he deigned to show up. Now he's glad he did.]

Damn, if I knew everything was gonna go this far fuckin' sideways I woulda showed up to the stupid car race!

Didn't know you had it in ya, Red!
[IZOU DON'T SAY YOU'RE SAD YOU MISSED THE MURDER AND GLAD THAT IT HAPPENED.]