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

[imperiosity]

Gee, thanks.

[He'd definitely rather be human instead of anything else, anyway...! Not that there's that many good alternatives when you're from Zemuria.]

Dunno if the dog's useless, or these bastards really are that slippery. Either way, this is different from last time. If they're gonna pull this shit in broad daylight, then someone must've seen something.

[Although uh. He'll turn his gaze over to the groups of people who are still scuffling. He's not going to retract what he said but it's clear from his face that he's not feeling particularly optimistic either.]

[bloodandstars]

[ Wow, McBurn probably felt that meta McBurn from here. ]

They don't really strike me as that clever. But if they're getting a hand from another goddess or whatever, they probably don't have to be.

[ No matter how you slice it, that truth-forcing shit and mist and walls was weird. Maika glances at the scuffling people, then back at his expression, and gives a tiny snort of laughter despite herself. ]

You could probably run a unicorn-mounted squadron through here without them noticing. Hope you like being disappointed.

[imperiosity]

[Hopefully that means that he's on fire with the sass and not on fire courtesy of McBurn--

The laughter warrants a flat look too, which quickly turns into something incredulous at the mention of unicorns but uh. This probably is not the time to question that!! He has to acknowledge that Maika has a point though, especially when there's a loud, shrill squeal of metal from a wrecked kart being moved but no reaction from the people fighting nearby.]

Hmph... Been there, done that. Didn't find anything new when we questioned a few people near the dorms, but I chalked it up to that neighborhood being empty during the day.

[bloodandstars]

[ Or both! The best of both!!

His flat look gets an exceptionally arch one in return. It's not her fault this place is stupid to the point of comedy. Take it up with Braphine, man! Although she can't hide a tiny wince at that sound, augh. ]

...Good thinking. After that honesty shit, I didn't hang around long enough to check.

[ Not like it paid off, but. Maika will avenge her past oversights by moving to the nearest NPC — and when they inevitably ignore her to keep bickering, grabbing one forcibly by the arm and yanking them around to get their attention. ]

Hey. Did you see some asshole in a blue bandana come this way?

[imperiosity]

[Well, that does move NPC-san's focus straight to Maika, for better or worse. As expected, they aren't in the most cooperative mood, electing to go for a "What the fuck's your problem?!" in lieu of actually answering the question. Meanwhile, one of the other randos sees their chance and decides to take it, deciding to launch themselves at the one Maika's holding. Wow what a mess!!

In any case, Aaron moves to grab the lunging one by the back of the collar so this doesn't turn into more of a clusterfuck, but he directs his next words to NPC-san.]

Look, just answer the question and we'll be on our merry way.

[bloodandstars]

[ Goddess. Maika hates every single person in this stupid fucking city.

...Luckily that's basically different from her ordinary world in no measurable way. So she's not as vexed with this development as she could be. Even if the rando that Aaron is holding is just as uncooperative and just as colorful as the one she grabbed, and is now practically flailing to get at the guy he was trying to attack. ]

Oh, for fuck's sake. We don't have time for this.

[ But they do have a lot of NPCs. Maika considers this for about half a second before she decides it's perfectly reasonable to make an example of the first pair of idiots by... jerking around the guy she's holding and trying to bang his head directly against Aaron's hapless NPC.

It's like cheers! But more violent! ]

[imperiosity]

[Okay, of all the things Maika could’ve done (including alternate means of violence), knocking some heads in the most literal sense was comparatively low on the expectations scale. It seems like Aaron’s not the only one caught by surprise too, because his NPC is so busy being Mad that he genuinely does not see it coming. Cheers indeed!!

One bonk and two yells of pain later, Aaron’s NPC is also on the ground because he also let go when it happened oops. On the plus(???) side, they’re also too busy clutching their head to keep fighting the other one, so everyone is simply treated to a string of curses that also includes ”and I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, so fuck off already!”

Success……?! Or not, because they’re back to square one.]

Tch, figures. [He grimaces as he presses his now free hand against the side of his neck.] Let’s get a move on.

[bloodandstars]

[ Was that her most productive choice? Probably not. But damn if she doesn't feel a tiny bit better.

Well, except for the frustration of futility. And the fact that she perceives her NPC-beating-teammate here taking damage over time by exacerbating that whiplash just like she knew he would. ]

Have to hand it to the people here. They're predictable. [ Predictably disappointing, but hey. ] We're gonna be lucky if they don't just drag us into one of their stupid brawls instead.

[imperiosity]

[Shhh we don't look at the constant stream of one damage floating over his head!!

But admittedly the adrenaline is really starting to wear off at this point, so Maika isn't wrong for thinking that he's just making things worse for himself. Still, if nothing else, their little stroll and encounter has given him some time to cool his head, even if he remains reluctant to admit he needs any sort of assistance.]

And much as I'd like to tell anyone who tries to bring it on, it'd take forever to subdue everyone one-by-one. [...] There anywhere else you wanted to check out?

[bloodandstars]

[ She can't unsee the DoT! And it's driving her nuts!! ]

So you've got some brains under that bravado after all.

[ Pot, kettle... But she can't drag him too hard when their thoughts have been running along much the same lines so far. She gives his question a moment's consideration before shaking her head in annoyance. ]

Some of those shopkeepers were feeling helpful. I'll see if I can shake them down for their devices later. The cameras here take pictures so fast, maybe one of them caught something. Nothing we've gotta follow up right now.

[ They will not, since she thought of this like a month after the event and I never asked BUT THE INTENT WAS THERE. ]