WEEK 4

[linkupmods]

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~
  

ic comm | inboxes | ooc comm | full nav

code

Comments

[bloodandstars]

[ Now there's an answer that just becomes the seed for a thousand other questions. Maika blinks slowly, raising an eyebrow despite herself. ]

...Why? [ Seriously!! ] Raised to it? Oracle decreed it? It was what paid?

[kandata]

I found what makes me happy is to help others reach their goals. There is a lot of satisfaction to be gained when someone you support reaches the top of their world.

[Kirumi sounds pretty sincere! She's that devoted]

[bloodandstars]

Sure. Maybe. Depending on who you're supporting and just what the top of their world looks like.

[ Maybe from a more peaceful world, that sounds less ominous. But if it's something that makes the girl happy... well. Everyone's got their own quirks. ]

So in the absence of that you're just trying to support... all of us?

[kandata]

That is correct. The less everyday trouble you have, the faster you can finish that goddess' demand. I assume everyone would rather be done with this as soon as possible.

[So she's here to do support! Good luck with your bonds, guys, because Kirumi doesn't want to take part in that]

[bloodandstars]

You'd be right that I've got places to be. If I could've found a door out already, you'd all be on your own.

[ She's not missing the weird exemption in Kirumi's speech there. Is it just that self-effacing maid thing again? Hm... ]

You don't care about getting out of here? Even if you just want to support others, I would've thought you already had favorites back home.

[kandata]

My situation is...complicated. Leaving aside I am dead, it is a complex enough situation I cannot simply go back without extensive planning -- which I cannot do easily since I do not know what has happened nor where I will arrive.

[Sure would suck if she was thrown into the Danganronpa killing game upon being revived!]

[bloodandstars]

[ Leaving that little thing aside, yes. Maika raises her eyebrows, but she's not exactly surprised by that anymore. ]

I don't know shit about worldwalking. I'm no cat. But it seems to me that if this goddess of theirs had the information to pull people from another world, she should be able to give you the intelligence about what's going on there.

[ Enough for planning, though that's no guarantee it'd make it worthwhile to return to a world that kills you. ]

[kandata]

I do not trust what the goddess might say.

[If the goddess doesn't give Mina, her helper, any information that might be important to know, Kirumi has no faith the goddess would give her or anyone what she wants to know]

[bloodandstars]

[ It's a bad situation for it, but Maika can't resist letting out a quiet snort of near-laughter. ]

That's a given. It'd be whatever would be the most use to her, anyway.

[kandata]

Indeed. Perhaps once it is all over she will be more willing to be truthful.

[Truthfully, this is a very important motivation for Kirumi to want to help others do their whole bonding thing, as soon as possible. Kirumi is sincere when it's about helping, but also she wants real answers and that's probably going to be easier to obtain once this city is fixed]

[bloodandstars]

Maybe. That's assuming she wants to bother, when she doesn't have a use for us anymore.

[ But maybe that's a little defeatist. Time to change the subject to... something possibly even worse? What's tact. ]

How'd you die?

[kandata]

[It takes a moment for Kirumi to respond. She's trying to figure out how much to tell while still hiding what she doesn't want to tell. In the end...]

I was trapped in a complex, having been abducted and brought there. While attempting to escape, I found myself in a tower where I had to climb a rope and reach an opening high on the ceiling, but only after getting through many obstacles meant to harm me.

I died because the opening was false. The fall from there was high enough to cause instant death.

[It's brutal! But she sure avoided telling the worst details of it and why she was in that specific situation in the first place beyond 'i was abducted']

cw: threats of violence/gore

[bloodandstars]

So you were kidnapped and murdered.

[ Elaborately and horribly, from the sounds of it, not that there's a good way to be murdered. Maika's eyes narrow minutely in calculation. Either she was unlucky enough to cross paths with some sick fuck — or she's a lot more important than "maid" would imply. ]

...I get why you want to stay here. Though if it were me, I'd be clawing my way through the dimensions to hang whoever did that by their guts from the rafters and toss them off.

[kandata]

Were I to know who was behind that all, I would have considered it.

[That line is...

Kirumi was very calm. Almost like she's consciously trying to be, even when in pain from whiplash and all, but when she talks about whoever put her in that position, her voice wavers with barely restrained anger. She has plenty of reasons to be upset, and not just because they led to her death, although that's indeed part of the grievances she has. For her to admit such a thought, well, it sure speaks a lot how deeply enraged she feels.

Kirumi isn't really a stoic person. She just keeps it all under wraps]

[bloodandstars]

So you can get pissed off about things after all.

[ Yeah. Rage recognizes rage. Paradoxically, perhaps, Maika's shoulders relax a little. It's the kind of anger she feels like she understands, even without knowing most of the circumstances. ]

You really had no idea? Were there so many people trying to kill you that it's hard to guess?

[kandata]

My memories had been tampered with. It is possible I once knew and now I do not.

[It'd make sense, for someone who had done such a brutal kidnapping to Kirumi to wipe all traces of their existence in hers and everyone else trapped with her's memories]

[bloodandstars]

[ Wait, what? Maika sits up a little straighter, eyes narrowing again. ]

What, before here? [ Otherwise Maika has a new bone to pick with the goddess. ] ...Whatever sick bastard did didn't spare any trouble. I wonder if that really worked out for them.

[ It's not like she has the capacity to take on anyone else's revenge too. It just... rankles, that's all. ]

[kandata]

Yes, before here. As you can see, I was captured by someone with plenty of resources. I was not alone in that place, and I have no doubt after my demise they all stayed trapped.

Surely now you see why I cannot simply return. I need to ensure I will not be trapped there again, and I must know who and how many organized such a brutal kidnapping.

[Kirumi is very obviously hiding many details, but the point is delivered anyway! She's highly reluctant to going back without a whole lot of preparation, even though it may take a while. Everyone else can leave once the bonds are done, Kirumi will stay for longer in this city]

[bloodandstars]

[ Oh yeah, the point is perfectly vivid even with those limited details. And Maika is filing all of it away as one more piece of how fucked up this place — and every world — is. ]

Yeah. Your unfinished business is going to be very short if you can't get at least that much information first. [ Would Maika, personally, try it anyway? Yeah. But she generally advises doing the opposite of what she would... ] ...In that sense, you've got just as much need as the rest of us to "make friends" and get this done. Even if you're not going back right away, you've probably got a better chance of learning something once the goddess' little errand is complete.

[kandata]

I am not used to forming relationships with anyone.

[It's not that she's not capable of being sociable! But also she hasn't really 'made friends' in a loooooooong time]

[bloodandstars]

[ Girl, she knows it. Maika lets out a short laugh and flexes her fingers unthinkingly. ]

Tell me about it. That was practically one of the goddess's criteria, as far as I can tell. [ How does she usually do this... try to run away from people for months until they forcibly befriend her, honestly. She needs a plan b here. ] Start with something easy. My name's Maika. What do I call you?

[kandata]

I am Kirumi Tojo. Pleased to meet you. If you ever need anything, please call for me anytime.

[Despite the conversation, it's as if Kirumi snapped back into perfect professionalism for the introduction, even standing up for a moment to do an elegant curtsy with her uniform. That lasted only a moment, because as soon as that was done she sat back down, rubbing her neck with a grimace]

...I...might have overdone it.

[bloodandstars]

[ Well... alright. Some things hit the maid button faster than others. Maika will just have to remember that. ]

No shit. You'll be feeling that one for a few days.

[ But the tone is wry-sympathetic, not anywhere near as sharp as Maika can be. ]

...Habit's a hard thing to break. Look, I can't stop you if you want to work yourself into a hospital bed. But there's definitely things to do that'd be a better use of your time than hauling stuff around here.

[kandata]

.........

[Kirumi sighs]

Alright. I will stop for today.

[She'll take it as a request from Maika. That should be justification enough to rest]

[bloodandstars]

[ That... was weirdly easier than expected? Maika actually looks surprised for a second before she gets it under wraps. ]

...Good. Then you can do me another favor while you're at it and let me walk you back.

[ Juuust to make sure. Maika doesn't do things by halves. ]