4188/Elimination: Urban Decay (2)

Elimination: Urban Decay (2)
Date of Scene:	04 June 2016
Location:	Lumiere
Synopsis:	Further efforts are made to cleanse the Urban Decay of the Unlit that infest it.
Cast of Characters:	974, Tomoe, Count Kord, Kushiko, 984

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Carna (974) has posed:
    Ever since an expedition was launched to reduce the number of Unlit in the Urban Decay and thus reduce its general threat level to the Lantern residents, even more dangerous Unlit have appeared. This does not necessarily mean that the previous mission was a failure, or that there is no merit to this work in Lumiere... Only that removing a monstrous predator in one area has allowed for creatures that were being kept in check in the Arcade to begin to migrate into new 'hunting grounds'.

    The Urban Decay is a lightless, murky place, composed of a seemingly-endless expanse of run-down buildings across all manner of eras. The streets are cluttered with debris, crates and other storage containers, makeshift barricades, and wandering dead things called Unlit that are more than mere zombies but less even than beasts. Empty shells that seek to replace that emptiness with Light... No matter what must be killed and eaten to obtain it.

    The area is mostly quiet, aside from occasional distance shrieks or mad laughter, or the sound of savage fighting that is likely to draw the local Unlit to seek prey at the sites of battle... As well as opportunistic Lanterns.

    This current expedition, is centered in the Urban Decay rather than the Arcade that has barely been explored yet. As those assembled venture out into the darkened streets, senses alert for that which might lurk therein, a native of this world, Carna, is keeping her eyes out for the rumored new monsters. Ones who attack from above. She heard something about 'Stone Devils' when asking around... But she is not sure what that refers to, and other descriptions paint these as distinctly Unlit in nature, not anything made of stone.

    Crossbow ready, garbed in hat and cloak and leather armor, the Dead woman intends to put an end to this threat right now. Allowing whatever they are to infest the Urban Decay could become a huge problem later on. Just suddenly being divebombed in the middle of other activities could spell the end to many other expeditions. And unlike Carna, not everyone who is coming to Lumiere can return from death.

Tomoe has posed:
Monster migration, Tomoe thought? This is what they were dealing with and who knows how many new things would come in. She does not know but she'd fight what came at them evne with the risks, right? It's about all she could do honestly? Fight and pretend to be something she really is not amd that ate at her more so as of late and she's nto sure why. She looked over to CArna however as she fall in and had her Naginatta out and ready as her purple eyes dart about looking for signs of more undead to deal with. Okay the correct term is feral undead really.

"I don't like this..."

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord has had ambiguous goals for the world of Lumiere, the ambiguity reinforced when he goes along with the hunting expeditions that the others interested in the world tag along on. Though he didn't put much effort into the last trip, today he seems on the ball, with his battle scythe at the ready and a loyal Tyranitar ambling along with him to handle the stragglers Kord would prefer not have to worry about, with the Pokemon's trainer, a soldier dressed in dark and light-weight armor, directing the creature as they travel.

    Kord takes to the higher altitude, using his ability to fly to augment his leaps and find greater perches in search for the flying beasts that plague this area. Since he can't rely on his supernatural senses, he keeps extra alert using his vision to scan for blind spots or ideal areas where bestial monsters would like to hide. The elevated nooks and crannies in the ruined structures that dot the Urban Decay are given a thorough lookover.

Kushiko has posed:
Curiosity.

Curiosity and wonder is what drove one of the Tenno here to explore this place, one of her Warframes accompanied by the Helios Sentinel--a twitchy-seeming drone but one devoted to scanning and other kinds of data collection.

One could be forgiven for thinking the figure was purely technological by the way she appeared. Faceless; and for all intents eyeless was the Valkyr Warframe operated by the Tenno remotely (though such facets were not widely known, it did allow for a certain ability to 'die' without dying.) that had made her way towards where Carna and the expedition was.

She didn't yet associate herself openly, and saw no reason to just yet as she entered the Urban Decay, yet did everything to not draw attention to herself yet. Moving without sound, crisscrossing through fallen skyscraper and Victorian-style buildings alike.

High tech weaponry was worn; a quadbarreled-looking gun and twinned SMG-like things, with one seeming exception: that of an odd sword upon the figure's back. Lines of emergy, lilac glimmered slightly when she emerged from the shadows above; she might be able to be /felt/ but only scarcely so, and were it not for her overall appearence could be confused for another predator.

Then again, a predator was likely what was needed as her head canted skyward. There was something oddly supernatural about her presence that defied appearences; what that was for certain was yet to be seen as she shadowed the group.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
As before, Karal Rei Lin's come ready for a fight. This time with more confidence and less fear for the surroundings. Nor is she here on any contract exactly...

    Although her clothes are starting to look a bit on the 'needs replacement' side (there's several noticeable patches and heavy stitch lines, a few stubborn stains...) she's nevertheless recovered perfectly from prior injuries and once again joins the group at the established meeting point with her sword already drawn. The curved blade gleams quietly in Lumiere's strange lighting. Lin's other hand rests at her side, doing nothing of importance... but will instantly grip her scabbard if anything ODD emerges.

    "All that work last time... can't really tell we were even HERE just by looking at the place."

Carna (974) has posed:
    There are plenty of nooks and crannies to search. Flying through the air or leaping across the roof tops alike should paint a pretty bleak picture of the surrounding area in terms of just how much ground there is to cover. The peak of a gleaming spire in the distance, its light cold and muted and yet still bright enough to provide the sole constant source of illumination in this place despite its vast distance, is alos easily seen from up high. Though given that, even up in the air, only the tip of the spire can be seen indicates a FAR larger structure. It is a structure that attempts thus far to even reach have ended with disappointment and being sidetracked by other matters.

    Eventually, however, something is spotted. Just barely, in the gloom. It moves like a lizard, in that swerving sort of way as it skitters across a rooftop and down one of the walls, out of sight. Though its movements were reptilian, its outline was something other. Difficult to discern in this lighting, it still appeared as though it had... Wings? Feathers?

    That might be what they're after.

    Carna can not sense the supernatural. It has taken her time to be able to distinguish between Living and Dead via her senses alone, and that is primarily by scent rather than anything mystical. The Unlit, on the other hand, have keener senses for hunting any and all sources of Light. While Carna was once one of them, only grand sources of Light, like Gwynevere, stand out to her now. Thus, Kushiko is successfully in escaping Carna's notice at the very least, in this world of death.

    But as she moves through the streets, listening, looking, smelling the stale air that is choked with dust and ash, she holds up a hand suddenly to indicate Tomoe and Karal should stop.

    Since it's just the three of them down here, with Kord scouting from above, they can move more quickly and quietly as a trio. Assuming they don't engage in idle chatter. And as a result, they haven't alerted some nearby Unlit clustered around the entrance to a bowling alley. The street they're walking on just drops off ahead, leaving a pit-like area with the recreational facility situated at the center. It's a pretty odd place for the building to be, though Carna just accepts it. She has never seen an intact city, so she wouldn't know it to be odd. Instead she views the area in terms of threat potential, whether she needs to avoid or eliminate the enemy, and what might have drawn these Unlit here to begin with.

Carna (974) has posed:
    As she hunkers down and searches for some indication of if there are other Lanterns in the area or something similar, it becomes evident that the slender and partial bodies of things that look human-like but aren't are moving in ways Unlit don't. They're practically... Praying? There's some effigy or something that they are surrounding and worshipping. The Unlit don't worship. They kill things, and they eat things, and they wait until there are things to kill and eat. That's it.

    Meaning they've just stumbled upon a group of Lanterns. Civilian-seeming ones at that, based on the lack of armor or weaponry.

    Then Carna just barely spots it, as might others paying attention to the shadows. A creature moving down the side of the building from the roof, in that swerving, winding way lizards do, with long claw-tipped fingers. Ragged wings drape from its limbs as the shadow moves closer and closer to the Lanterns, stopping occasionaly to test if it has been seen, before resuming its descent.

    Carna does nothing to stop the creature. And then they'd witness something terrible.

    The creature on the wall suddenly leaps off the building, snatching up a Lantern in its clawed feet and then flapping up into the air, beating its shredded wings as it flips the Lantern up towards a mouth that belongs to neither bird nor reptile, and begins eating the Lantern feet first, until he is gobbled right up. The other Lanterns may be knocked down by stray blows from the creature's wings, but slowly pull themselves back up onto their feet, looking up enviously as their fellow is consumed, only to start pleading with the Unlit monster to come back for them as well.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
What in all the layers of HELL is this?!

    Lin does come to a stop, but it's an instant before the hand is raised in warning. Does she too sense something? Or did she sense Carna was about to do that? With senses as sharp and subtly ocused as hers... Lin herself isn't quite sure. Perhaps...

    Perhaps it was her gut warning her of danger.

    Whatever the case, the redhead's steps gracefully halt... and she turns to examining the surroundings. The freaky buildings.

    ... the monster....

    ... the cultists...

    ... THE DEVOURING.

    All this Lin watches in complete silence. So complete... because there's enough chill down her spine to have stopped her breathing for a good thirty seconds. Her face has gone pale with shock, horror, disgust, CONFUSION.

    This does not compute. There's no sense to it. Why...

    "... why." She croak-murmurs at barely a whisper, throat too dry to make it too understandable.

    It's not exactly the most freakishly monstrous monster she's ever seen. By Creation's standards... ehhhh, there's probably an animal that looks kinda like that somewhere in the eastern forests.

    But cultists don't sacrifice themselves to it. That makes this a whole new level of mind-shatteringly creepy.

    Her mouth gapes open from sheer dumbfoundedness, but for now she makes no move to engage...

Kushiko has posed:
The wreck and ruin of the world does not seem to place a demonstrably nuanced reaction on the face of Kushiko's Valkyr; though that is owed primarily to a lack of actual face.

Another leap, a momentary pivot, clawed digitgrade feet propelling the Warframe forward, occasionally gliding before enhancing that movement between building with surges of energy. Usually this resulted in clinging to a wall, circumventing a few basic laws of physics in the process.

Not that such a thing bothered the Helios sentinel, the drone constantly oscillating it's optics and documenting not just the terrain for later extrapolation, but Tomoe, Carna, Karal, and of course when seen, Kord. After what was remarked and rumored about this place, understanding was sought.

Kushiko might frown, far and away from this place, watching through the optics of her battle frame. <What the...?> she quietly muses. The sickening gore, the devouring of the Lantern by the gargoyle-like Unlit is not something that fazes her. It is disgusting, make no mistake...

But what concerns her presently is if there are more, and what these so-called 'Lanterns' are doing; are they given to desperation, to praying, to this cultlike behavior in the vain hope they would be chosen next?

Her clawtipped fingers grip the sheer surface of one of the buildings as she transfers over carefully, sometimes slipping into the shadows in order to avoid outright sight. An instinct rises in Valkyr to /kill/ but not without some more intelligence. Blindly leaping in was the quickest course to destruction.

It warranted more observation, but for how long? Sure, kill these things, but according to sources here, the culling had brought these monsters here.

Tomoe has posed:
There's a lot of ground to cvover, a lot of places for things to hid and she had to be wary about all of it. The Salamander Paladin keeps moving foward with her speart at the ready. It has taken some time to be able to figure out who here has a mind and who does not, but she'll be at least far more wary than she normally is in her own actions. She stops at Carna's hand signal and it was a good thing as well. As it seems they have some lanterns who seem to be civilians of some sowrt. She pauses seeing something moving and the creature greabs a lantern and she's bolting to go after the creature.

She's no tenno but she's still pretty good with the parkour and she's showing it as she tries to go after it and she's made a very bad mistake but it's too late now.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord had been observing from a fairly distant spot, a silent and dark silhouette in a realm of shadows and stillness. He fit in pretty well when he needed to, meaning he wouldn't be the one to spook one of these Unlit beasts away from the rest of the party. But he is there when everyone discovers the horrors in Lumiere come in new and different forms every time they visit. Kord tilts his head in a bird-like manner at the sight, confused by the Lantern culture for a moment, and then he balks at the monster devouring one of the Lanterns.

    He moves quickly. He launches off of his perch and a pair of large red and black wings appear from behind his shoulders and gives several beats to pick up his speed. And he tries to land on top of the flying creature, and slam it into one of the walls by planting his feet on its center of mass. He doesn't wait to study it or even think about the Why of this alien scenario. This is an Unlit, and it needs to be slain, and that's about as far as he cares to think about it.

    Trying to apply reason here would just drive him mad.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Karal, Kushiko/Lotus, and Carna all hang back initially, for their own reasons. Karal is shocked. Kushiko is careful. Carna is uncaring. She doesn't know these Lanterns. She's more concerned with identifying whether that's the only enemy or if there are more they should be aware of before charging in. But Tomoe and Kord take action, and the monstrous thing, still flapping closeby as it finishes its meal, is kick-slammed into the bowling alley wall. And Kord gets a close-up view of what he has just attacked. A disturbingly humanoid face with flesh so charred and rotten in equal measure that it forms into flaps of charcoal like blackened tree bark, completely concealing whether it even has eyes. Its nose is just a recess of two indentations like one would find in a rotted skull. It has no lips, its teeth slick with grisly moisture and strings of its own face dangling down over the opening of its mouth like a veil or shroud... But those are clearly human teeth. Even if the jaw just distorted like a snake to swallow a Lantern half as big as the monster whole moments prior.

    Its torso bulges with the meal it has just consumed, rib cage spread out in a way that would be agonizing for any human life form... But those visible ribs seem to be barely below the surface of its pitch flesh, rather than internal structures. Its shoulders are arranged in the way one would expect of a reptile or bird, at an angle, with elbows likewise designed to facilitate movement of its bat-like wings.

    Long, claw-tipped fingers with leathery flaps stretched between spread out in shock as the Unlit monster is crushed into the building, partially collapsing its torso. Kord might feel a second body inside of the monster beneath his feet when he collides with the monster. The Lantern in its belly.

Carna (974) has posed:
    Its lower body is more bird-like, but even there, subtle differences paint it as something that would never have existed in the nature of many Earths.

    The Unlit can not cry out properly when the pressure on its chest, but the noise it does emit is a howl of something monstrous and yet hauntingly human.

    And as it falls towards the ground, injured but thrashing in its attempts to fight back, Tomoe reaches it as the crowd of emaciated Lanterns try to flee in terror before the fighting that has commenced. And she cleaves it open with her polearm, causing the Lantern that was eaten to spill out, partially crushed, and partially dissolved. Only when he is exposed to the air and free of the confines of the Unlit predator does he suddenly begin to dissipate into mist like other Lanterns do when slain. Implying that he could have been digested the 'normal' way and not come back from death if he'd been permitted to remain there.

    Carna raises her crossbow just incase the gutted Unlit requires further harm to finish off, even as the split-open monster staggers around, shrieking in its death throes, before collapsing limply to the ground.

    Carna finds cause to fire shortly thereafter. Because answering shrieks and howls, all oddly DISTINCT in their tones, as unique as one's own voice, resound all around as more of the awful creatures begin wriggling out of the darkness or swooping down from the sky, or circling over head, looking for a chance to join the sudden assault. Crossbow bolts fly, but against these numbers... Carna is aware she is probably better off running. Or at least she would be if she were alone.

Count Kord has posed:
    Kord's face twists into the telltale visage of disgust as he struggles to keep his footing while so firmly planting on the creature's chest. He tries to get a proper footing to slice at it with his scythe, but when he spots Tomoe approaching, he instead leaps back so she has plenty of room to cut the monster open. He lands and makes a soft coughing noise, gagging from the graphic and bizarre sight of the thing that he had just seen. Corpses, mimics, he can handle a lot, but when something like that is right in front of him, even the Count of Death can get overwhelmed. The smell is probably even worse for him.

    He doesn't have a lot of time to recover. He flaps those spiritual claw-tipped wings once and twice, shooting up into the air like a rocket. He moves quickly so that he can find a perch to briefly land on where he won't get swooped down onto and grabbed like that Lantern that got gobbled up earlier. Behind him an ocean of shadow manifests, churning and swirling, prepared to be used like a gigantic weapon against anything that comes at him from any angle. It looks like an angry black storm cloud up there, crackling with deathly red light deep within.

    "Come and get me, you rotten flying heaps of trash," Kord taunts the flying Unlit, trying to get one of them at the very least to fall for his goading. It's a supernatural effect designed to make the beast want to target him more than the others.

Kushiko has posed:
And this is precisely why Kushiko elected to hold back; the Lotus didn't even need to advise her Tenno in this matter, it was a matter of instinctive common sense. Sure there was the one... /thing/, whatever the hell it was beyond 'Unlit Monster' as it had erstwhile been described and witnessed.

The fact there were more was something met with thinly veiled anticipation and expectation; such things like this could never be alone, or easy. Yet throughout, she remained keenly observant. From Kord and the Tyranitar, to Tomoe, to the reactions and interplay of violence stemming all the way down to this so-called Solar, Karal.

There's little time to dwell on the observations only that the 'devouring' was not necessarily as instantaneous as believed. Gore aside, disgusting monstrosities that these were, Kushiko, the Tenno knew there was one way to experiment, to understand.

And that was through combat.

There had been enough time for observation, so once a number of these birdlike horrors had begun to take the sky, Valkyr-Kushiko focused Void energy into her legs and sent herself skyward, at an angle away from the building.

It was midair she fired a grappling lighthook that flew out with incredible accuracy to target taloned claws, to grip and connect a tether a solid line of energy to yank herself upwards towards the circling Unlit; depending on their reaction to Kord, she has a very simple plan: use their own height against them, slingshotting herself upwards while pulling free her sword.

And then coming down on top of one of them once she had made her way above their flight, to bury the hardlight-edged blade into one of the Unlit as both a measure to assault and to keep herself from being immediately bucked off, owing to her intention to springboard off of it and... well.

Parkour her way towards the next flying Unlit with her Sentient-boned blade being brandished towards her next target.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is having one of those days, however what else could she do? She's trying to keep after the beast and isn't going to take no or an anser, she stops at the thing move to and it clearly does have a lantern in it's belly she's not sure what to think about this thing she ties to not think anymore. She takes it dow she's not sure if she made the right call but there's nothing else she can do at this point. She stops her attack, she prays she thoguh did the right thing an she's breathing raggeldy as she watches the thing to maker sure it's down. She looks up to the flying unlit and calls back

"You want a fight? You want something to eat come on try to eat me!"

She's also taunting the heck out of them it's what she does sstart to change a spell to make ready for the flyers and will fire a bolt of flame at the first to get close to her.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
"U--UUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRAWGH!!" The sudden violence shakes Karal Rei Lin from her shocked stupor, triggering... a primal, furious roar instead of anything intelligible. She's shocked alright. Shocked beyond words. Disgusted beyond reason. And just plain WEIRDED THE HELL OUT.

    The creature is so ugly, so ridiculously distorted and WRONG that some part of her's having a hard time believing what she's seeing. CAN anything look like that?! ... if it can, it really, REALLY shouldn't.

    "Freakish.... monstrous.... WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!" Well, ONE of these is bad enough. She isn't even needed to handily dispatch it.

    It's when MORE of those things' awful cries join the dead one's that she changes tactics. Her sword's instantly sheathed. Instead of it Lin gestures as if unslinging a new weapon and... one does materialize. A long bow and a quiver full of arrows.

    "I think... we'll need a strategy... if we're going to take ALL of them on!!" She stammers out, noticeably shaken.

    A Solar she might be, but she's quite new to being assaulted with THIS much awful at once. Her face is pale and wrenched with fright...

    After Kord draws their attention... she takes advantage of the situation. Although her arrows are quite normal, she takes aim for wings joints and eyes and similar... HOPEFULLY good points to aim at. Arrows are drawn back swiftly and with clear practice, the bow drawn smoothly and shots let fly. They cut through the air with far more precision than most archers could hope to achieve...

    Mortal archers, that is.

    But within no time at all she begins to faintly glow. A radiant gold-white light shimmers forth from her skin, a divine aura of purest Sunlight...

Carna (974) has posed:
    Crossbow bolts are being shot by Carna, Kord is taunting the monsters, and Kushiko is wiring and stabbing them. Tomoe uses her fire spells, and Karal uses her bow. In the ensuing fight, many of the Unlit fall, and unlike most humanoid Unlit, their bodies do not remain behind. They have consumed so many Dead Lights that their bodies are practically composed of them. There may or may not be injuries among the defenders, but eventually the fight is over and all that remains is an empty pit and a damaged bowling alley, and the fading echoes of combat in this enormous cityscape.

    Echoes and questions. What could drive a Lantern to do such a thing? Carna knows Lanterns can potentially lose their sanity, but she has never seen it in this exact way. Is that what's going on here? Did their minds just crumble? Whatever the cause, it looks like this infestation has been taken care of at least.

    Hopefully, at least for awhile, the Urban Decay will be a safer place. Or as safe as a world like this can be.

Kushiko has posed:
For what it's worth, Kushiko nor the distant Lotus cannot offer these answers. What they can offer is the abilities Kushiko demonstrates through her Warframe, ruthlessly goring and practically riding the last of the arrow-stricken and mauled Unlit downwards.

The very impact has her somersaulting off, misty light and energy steaming off her blade as she reaches around to lock it back behind her. Yet not a single word is offered by the Warframe, the flares of Void energy, that living yet not living energy that could tweak the senses of those present brought quickly under wraps.

It seems, once verifying the others here are understandably okay, she elects instead to use that grappling hook to sling herself towards the rooftops and into the darkness to depart.

Well. That was a thing.

Count Kord has posed:
    After the last dark creature falls and the battle quiets to a standstill, Kord finds a place to stand that isn't an unsteady piece of rooftop or a bit of rusted machinery. His nerves start to calm down and his pulse lowers. He breathes in and then out, and feels the sensation of Dead Lights on his form creating a unnatural yet familiar warmth, for whatever reason behaving similarly to a Lantern or an Unlit. He waits for more activity and finally folds up his battled scythe, collapsing the weapon and placing it in a holster behind his waist. Then he turns to track down the trainer he brought for cleaning up minor Unlit.

    Once he finds the fairly uneasy pair of living beings after they had crushed another minor Unlit, he guides them on out of Lumiere. One of Kord's hands shake as he walks, from one of the creatures slamming into him during the scuffle and pinching his nerves and bruising him pretty severely. He rubs at his forearm with his opposite hand, flexing his fingers to see if his sensation is still there.

    Kord doesn't have anything to say to the others, not even praise for a job well done. He just wants to leave Lumiere for a little while and remind himself of all things physical and alive. This place takes its toll on him.

Karal Rei Lin (984) has posed:
Lin lowers her bow, still a beacon of light amidst the ever-present gloom. Shoulders bunched up, lips peeled back and breaths coming a bit raspily... she's clearly been RATTLED by this place.

    "Oh... come on..."

    NOTHING left of them when they die! She scowls. "... They could've left bones or something... not sure I'd wanna make anything out of THESE though. On second thought. ... too... damned... freaky..."

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "We're gong to get swarmed at this rate!"

She calls out to the young Exalt and she contounes her changing nce more as she's not going to stop until all the Until have been dropped she has to wonder just about this even if there's little harm to her avatar? The mental strain on Tomoe may be rising, this place is like places she's been but a special brand of horror all of it's own.

"Would you even want to touch stuff like that? Who knows how it might react..."

She notes to the young exalt.