daybreakacademy | [Open] The Mark of the Herald

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[Open] The Mark of the Herald

Mark of the Herald Part I
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Despite certain disruptive events and ominous visions in the preceding month, August is seemingly still free of any problems.

That’s quick to change, however. Starting from the third of the month, strange, circular marks begin to appear on human students around the school - and, indeed, humans around the world. Those affected begin to feel incurably drowsy, something that no magical or mundane solution can seem to cure or relieve; eventually, they’ll fall asleep entirely, whether they want to or not, and enter a state of magical stasis. Not even nonhumans are immune, though whether they’re marked seems to be much more erratic.

Those who remain awake or are otherwise spared by the mark are free to do as they wish - the Academy won’t ask them to do more than keep themselves safe. But where each marked person falls in slumber, a portal will form; a strange tear in reality, offering glimpses of a surreal, nightmarish plane that differs vastly from individual to individual. One thing is certain; the cause of a victim’s seemingly endless sleep and these portals are linked somehow, and the only way to find out exactly how is to go through...and the only ones capable of doing so are those who are still awake.

This log can be used as a catch-all for event-related threads. The information for this event is here.

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A

Rex doesn't sleep easy, not naturally and certainly not when supernatural forces are trying to bring it upon him. The second he felt the unnatural effects reaching him, he was doing something about it. It won't do him any good in the long run, but someone might catch him shortly before his downfall in the infirmary- injecting himself with an ungodly amount of adrenaline.

B b is for bad

The realm crafted from Rex's subconscious is... wrong. It's at first glance a simple small town at night, distinctly lacking in people. But every seam, every intersection of two points, be that a wall, or paving slabs or screws in a surface slowly leaks pitch black tar. Even the door the visitor came through takes some pushing, as thick strands stick to each other and dribble down the edges. Everyone has to watch their step here and think twice about where they put their hands around here.

The only source of light is an abnormally tall lamppost in the direct centre of the town, shedding long shadows everywhere. Towards the outskirts, away from the light, soft music can be indistinctly heard. In one of the buildings, what seems to be some kind of warehouse a mighty crashing can be heard as if something large is trashing the place.

Ekkehardt follows the music first; the crashing seems like something he'll have to fight, which he's not entirely in the mood for. He moves as fast as he can to avoid even the dream-possibility of being stuck; having his movement hampered in any way, even in a dream, doesn't sit well with him.

Moving fast is slightly harder than it sounds here, where the oozing tar makes everything a little unstable. Nothing to trip someone as agile as Ekkehardt when he doesn't have any distractions, but something to keep in mind if things get...

distracting.

For now though, the eerily empty town falls behind as Ekkehardt's shadow stretches ahead, that towering lamppost being the only light to cast on. As the music gets closer, it also gets clearer, but it's always distorted somewhat like being underwater. Ekkehardt of all people should understand the importance of that particular song in Rex's mind, thanks to their shared memory. Dame Vera Lynn's We'll Meet Again, the song that played over Helen's death.

In fact, outside of the town, everything starts to get closer to that time and place, rough terrain and that vast, dark crag he and Rex visited to lay Helen to rest. It's filled, right to the brim with the same sickly black liquid, bubbling as the song floats to the surface from deep within.

Things look and sound terribly familiar, and it makes him feel more melancholy as a result. While he may not understand what exactly this dream represents, he isn't surprised to see that this is part of it.

He comes to a stop, peering into the darkness to see if he can discern the source of the music - and leaning over the edge deliberately, to see if something will be lured out by his presence.

If not, well, he's just going to have to take the plunge. But he'd rather try other methods, first.

Nothing's coming out except the song, burbled as it is. There's the sinking feeling nothing ever comes out.

But there's always a chance, right?

Nothing ever comes out might be true for things born of this dream, but he's a visitor. If nothing else, that might let him be extricated, when all else fails.

He'd prefer to get himself out, of course. But there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of belief.

He waits a moment longer, and then steps into the seething darkness. He doesn't know exactly what he'll find there, in the depths of Rex's dreams, but he has a feeling he won't like it.

The thickness of the tar-like substance slows the descent and blocks all sight. Not that it matters to Ekkehardt, it doesn't drown those who enter it or sear their eyeballs out. It's just suffocatingly claustrophobic, hot and dark, the song coming from all directions.

It takes several minutes of walking down the steep incline to reach point where the tar stops, acting as a seal across the top of the crevice, like an insidious scab over a wound that never really heals. Once past the membrane, it's a familiar and probably unwelcome site. The place of Helen's death, filled with cracked open cars and corpses. The unfamiliar part that many of those corpses are fresh and a lot of them are recognisable. Several are Ekkehardt himself, as well as other Daybreak attendees and staff.

And Ekkehardt arrives just in time to see Rex killing another. Adelaide, it looks like. Wielding a blackened version of the enormous sword of his mother, he drops into view, driving it through her, with his right hand whilst his left is limb as if broken or dislocated. All his weight on his right side, like his left leg doesn't work quite so well. It's not an injury. It's an imitation of Helen's fighting style and proof Rex is fighting his hardest. A second thrust puts the sword almost to the hilt into the ground, more of that black stuff oozing out like the world is bleeding.

"Another one so soon?" Turning his head, Rex seems as unperturbed as ever he does, hair hanging wetly over his face and dripping that black slime. "Oh well. Sooner or later it's all the same."

The giant blade comes out, held in one hand over his shoulder, his loose posture somehow still radiating danger.

"You'll have to clarify what you mean by 'another one'," Ekkehardt says calmly, glancing only briefly at his apparent several corpses. Unlike Rex, he's trying to be as innocuous as possible.

Even in a dream, he'd rather not fight Rex. Actually, it might deal more damage to his subconscious perception this way. He's not entirely sure about how this all works (and he doesn't like that much, either).

"Do you intend to spend all your time down here?"

Rex just tips his head towards the corpses that litter the crevice. Apparently he's been killing them since he got here. Ekkehardt is just 'another one.' All his paranoid worst-case scenarios about enemies lurking everywhere with the faces of friends are in his head. But that's where they are right now.

The question though gets a baffled look to appear on Rex's face. The sort that people get only when the question itself makes no sense. Ekkehardt may have well asked if Rex meant to spend all his time with his head attached. There's no other option. There isn't anywhere but here, this splinter in the world where he's lived for 13 years.

"Enough meaningless words. I tire of this," he says in a voice which could not more earnestly express the sentiment. Just another enemy, just another kill, just another day. He doesn't want to see whatever trick this one is pulling. Quicker to sever his head and be done with it. The move he pulls is an Arany Style one that Ekkehardt may have even seen cleave 8 men in one blow. He leans back in an extremely unnatural posture, the sword arm rising and his opposite tipping. In ballet, it's called Cambré.

There's well-practised poise, and every apparent opening it gives is a trap. When he swings, it's with his whole body. Twisting right from the ankle, all the way through his hips, shoulders, elbow, wrist. He practically throws the sword at him but goes along for the ride as a leap. His left arm stays limp as to not accidentally provide balance when the entire style revolves around commanding the unruly momentum caused by imbalance.

He remembers this move vividly, as he does most things he'd witnessed Helen actually do in person. It means he doesn't bother to move anywhere but away from the arc of the swing he can follow, though Rex's leap and reach mean that even with Ekkehardt's speed and reflexes, he barely avoids being beheaded.

(Not that being beheaded would stop him. It hasn't before. But, if Rex's multiple dead dream versions of him are any indication, he might not remember that, or perhaps he doesn't know it.)

The blade nicks his throat in a way that would have bitten into the major artery there, if he was alive. But he's not, so it does little. He claps his hand over the disruption regardless, partially out of habit to keep up his imitation of life and partially because this is a dream, so phantom pain is a little more real.

"If fighting is how you spend all your time, it's no wonder you're so exhausted."

He'd say you can't possibly enjoy it, but he's certainly seen that Rex enjoys fighting. This is something different, deeper.

It's certainly the wisest choice, to back away. Courageous warriors see the enormous arc and lax left side and try to move there to counter, but Ekkehardt must have seen the way the move ends- with Rex on one knee, with all that wild, uncontrollable force turned into a stab at the lefthand blindspot. It'd be right in the heart of someone trying to slip around to the supposed weakspot. He's caught out a few of the imitation Ekkehardt's he's been facing with that one.

"There isn't anything else." Not just there isn't anything else to spend his time on. There simply isn't anything else to life than fighting. It's all he can remember anymore. He's stopped trying to remember what it was like before being here, in this abyss where anything that was not a painful battle died. In the same way that in this dream Rex can't comprehend a world outside, he can't understand Ekkehardt's meaning here either. It's a different tact taken than the others, which at least slows Rex down. Makes him think about his next move a little more. Get up on his feet instead of moving into the next terrifying move taught to him by perhaps the fiercest warrior who ever lived. "All of you... always trying to fool me with your words. It will never be enough. You'll never trick me into..."

It takes a moment for him to even conclude what the trick might be, before latching onto Ekkehardt's own words.

"Stopping fighting. Everyone always wants to defang me. Because they want to sabotage me, use me, destroy me... It doesn't matter. The only way to receive my teeth is a bite." The next attack is another of those unusual unbalanced ones that Helen had to use. Laying his sword across his shoulder and essentially falling making it into an intensely heavy downward swing, as all his body weight is added to the sword, spraying stone from the impact. Only catching himself at the last moment. "No one will accept a rabid dog!"

Edited 2020-08-22 23:17 (UTC)

The only way to receive his teeth is a bite, is it? Well, he doesn't fear pain or death, even in a dream. He's been tormented at the hands of worse.

He doesn't dodge this oncoming strike, though he knows Rex's strength is likely comparative to his mother's. He doesn't so much as flinch; he just watches Rex, his gaze level and calm, as the blow goes straight through him, inexorable, unstoppable.

You're not an animal to be put down, he almost says, but he likes dogs. To kill them, even though they suffer, is still its own kind of tragedy.

The acceptance of the incoming blow triggers something in Rex. He tries to stop it, slamming his left foot down from its limp position attempting to haul back his upper body and stop the swing. He proves that he is not as strong as Helen, who even with one arm could have diverted the swing or stopped it dead. Rex may have well been trying to stop a freight train with his bare hands. If he had his precious medal, perhaps- but in the dream, it's far away and forgotten.

As such he cleaves Ekkhardt clean in two, his body bent like a bow as he attempts to hold back his own attack. But the Arany Style was made to be unstoppable.

Immediately after his blade becomes lodged three feet into the ground, Rex releases his grip on the handle. The blackened tar that it's covered in never hinders his grip, but it does leave a pair of handprints on his face.

Edited 2020-08-23 16:08 (UTC)

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spelleton - 2020-08-25 04:35 (UTC) - Expand

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heromedal - 2020-08-31 11:16 (UTC) - Expand

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spelleton - 2020-08-31 11:36 (UTC) - Expand

[Jail isn't one hundred percent sure how she got here, or where here even is. But hey, that's pretty much her typical weekend, so who's complaining, really.]

[Faced with an unfamiliar environment, she follows her instincts: get to higher ground. And right now, one thing stands out as the tallest structure as far as the eye can see.]

[Moving quickly and silently, she heads for the lamppost.]

[ Nothing seems to hinder Jail on her route, aside from the way everything is uneasy ground due to the sticky, clinging tar that drools out everywhere.

Of course, not being hindered doesn't mean nothing is happening. The closer she gets to the light, the longer her shadow becomes behind her. She may not even notice as a big beefy arm emerges from it and starts pulling itself out of the shadow. Because what's coming out possesses her own powers of sneakiness, because it's another Jail. It's more interested in creeping the other way, towards the outskirts.

Should Jail not notice her doppelganger or choose to do nothing about it, she'll quite easily reach the base of the lamppost. It's dead centre in the town square. It's enormously tall, but no thicker than the average. Perfectly climbable, however. ]

Wow, gross. [She doesn't seem thrilled about the tar but eh, could be worse. It's whatever.]

[It takes her a while to notice something's off, to put a name to the feeling of the hairs on her neck standing up and realize it's saying "behind you" for no reason that she can consciously identify, almost at the lamppost itself before it dawns on her that it's not just the ambient paranoia that clings to this place like the tar.]

[Hands in her pockets, expression deceptively casual, she turns around in a slow, almost languid motion.]

Hey there.

[ The Jail double is just pulling her last boot out of the non-physical abyss from whence it came by the time she gets noticed, palms flat on the ground in an almost sprinters start posture. ]

What’s up, you meme loving fuck?

[ In the same lazy, nonchalant tone the real Jail is sporting. ]

[Jail goes from "mildly suspicious" to "delighted" immediately, giving the clone an immediate double finger-guns and a wink.]

Ayyyyy, nice.

So, this gonna be a "there can be only one" thing or an "I'd totally make out with my clone" thing? 'Cause I vote for the second one, but y'know. Shit happens.

You know, any other time I'd take you up on that, but I've gotta go.

[ She jabs a thumb in the direction of the darkness beyond the light of the lamppost. ]

Maybe if I exist after.

Edited 2020-08-17 09:07 (UTC)

...Well now I'm just curious.

[About the darkness or the clone makeouts? Unclear.]

Mind if I tag along?

The thing is that-

[ And that's when the smokebomb gets thrown, emitting a bright flash and a cloud of darkness. Two, in fact. One straight down to the ground and a second thrown up high, so a few seconds later it sets off a second assault to the senses.

They both deliberately smell awful. Unfortunately, it's not a fun kind of awful. It's the distinct scent of decaying corpses. A warning, or just how nothing here can be nice? Who knows.

Either way, the duplicate is full-on sprinting out of there, taking a zig-zag route through alleyways but ultimately still heading towards the edge of town. ]

Oh, it's on now!

[The good news is that a smoke bomb doesn't do much to actually impair someone wearing a gas mask. The bad news is that it does still smell pretty bad.]

[Still not enough to prevent Jail from bolting after her doppelganger, using the gravity-defying effect of her boots to run up walls and on smoke where she can to avoid the tar.]

[ The Jail duplicate seems to have the same gleeful approach to the chase as the real deal and, as many tricks up her lack of sleeves. She throws out a few, each one quite easily countered- because Rex has a tendency to underestimate Jail a little. He often does that with people he likes, because the impulse to guard them against harm affects his perception.

It doesn't take too long before all the progress towards the light brings them to the dark. It's odd how even with the speed difference taken into account going to the lamppost seems a longer distance than going to the outskirts. ]

Catch you on the- [ The duplicate Jail reaches her goal. A crack in the ground barely visible in the light, bubbling with the thick black tar that oozes everywhere. The scenery around it is the mountainous, craggy look of Bulgaria's Musala, though there's no snow. It would be too bright. The Jail copy performs a full backflip into the tar and just before she dives in finishes her words. ] Flip side!

[ As the ripples fade, music rises from the swamp of tar, warbling and muffled by the thick liquid. ]

[Jail rates this clone six out of ten. A promising start, but doesn't quite measure up in the details. Needs revision, please see her after class.]

[She comes to a stop, eyeing the gap the clone just vanished into.]

[Out loud, to no one in particular:] ...so this is definitely a trap. [A pause.] Eh, fuck it.

[And down she goes into the dark.]

[ It's a lone, suffocating trip. The tar is hot and uncomfortable to have sliming over the skin, but thankfully neither drowns nor blinds those who pass through it. It's just a steady, claustrophobic descent, the ground beneath at a constant downward angle.

Until it's gone, and Jail has entered the place Rex never really left. A large crag in the earth. A few vehicles, all at least a little damage, litter the area- but it's probably the corpses that are more noticeable. There's a great deal of them. Jail's unique history with Rex means she may recognise a few as the sorts of people they'd mutually met in the criminal underworld, but anyone from Daybreak would realise the majority are its staff or attendees. All of them cleaved apart or stabbed. Toki, Adelaide, Ekkehardt, Kokoro. More than a few other Jail's.

The culprit is pretty obvious. Head down slightly, sat on the ground with one knee raised to rest an arm on, the other hand in his lap. In front of him, a sword only slightly shorter than Jail, sunk into the ground which bleeds more of that black ooze. He either hasn't noticed her or doesn't care she's there. ]

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B for bad choices

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