Payback Time

[thewatchers]

PAYBACK TIME
Log Comm | Network Comm | OOC Comm | Navigation

The daemon base was large, a massive obsidian skull carved from the base of a black, foreboding mountain within the Outlands and surrounded by a forest of dead trees. This was inevitable, as accompanying faculty could explain. As much as it could influence the human world, the Outland was heavily influenced and shaped by human thought and culture. Weaker daemons, such as those within the base, would find their personality, forms, and even desires inexorably shaped by the thoughts of humanity and what was perceived humans would expect and fear.

The focus of the two main assault groups would be the clearing of the main hall and the lower dungeons. The groups will be divided as follows:

Main Hall:
Ky
Mav
Kanata
Tyzias
Gunvolt
Bumblebee

Main Hall Support:
Toki
Kano

Dungeon:
Valvatorez
Goro Akechi
Ren
Minako
Naoki
Keith

Dungeon Support:
Ekkehardt
James

Control Room Supervisor:
Yang

To get through to the fortress proper, the students will have to make their way through the forest. This is an open log, even for those who didn’t sign up and will consist of clearing a path and fighting off living trees and mimics in the form of any number of objects that would otherwise be expected in forests such as rocks, brambles, bushes, and other foliage..

The Main Hall is lined with massive rooms full of daemons such as the banquet hall, treasure vault, and throne room where the daemon lord resides. The Daemon Lord is the target here, and he’ll be well-guarded. Beware! Many of the rooms are trapped with mimics taking the form of treasure chests, braziers, boxes, barrels, and just about any other item.

The Dungeons are where captured humans are kept and tortured. The objective is to free the humans and defeat the Jailer, a powerful Daemon who runs the chambers. Students should beware, doppelgangers are said to be commonly slipped in amongst prisoners to ferret out rebellion and will be hidden in with those who are to be rescued.

The Control Room is located in the Citadel, with a massive monitor visualizing the area with floor plans and video feeds. All students and faculty will be wearing small cameras that will record live footage, and will be wired with a communication earpiece that will let those in the Control Room communicate freely. Students working in the Control Room will be able to relay data and information, and use the powerful supercomputers to analyze items on the ground in near real-time.

code bases by tricklet

Comments

OTA

[yokeye]

|| 01. ARRIVAL

[The control room is gigantic. Somehow he didn't think it would be this huge; or that there would be so many monitors and consoles with buttons and data screens. A few of the larger monitors near the walls seem to be holographic and transparent with displays of maps and trajectories and continually updating statistics of some sort. Banks of less futuristic computer screens display the visuals from the field operatives' cameras. There's too many blinking console lights, changing screen displays, and general commotion in the room for him to focus very well. He's going to monitor a team and guide them through a daemon fortress to take out the like king daemon guy. How? This is impossible. He's going to get people killed.]

I can't do this!

[Toki whispers it to himself and walks right back out of the room. Returning a few minutes later, he's still unprepared, but determined to prove himself somehow. Maybe. He freaked out a little in the hallway and made the questionable decision of taking more sedatives than prescribed. At least he'll speak slower for a while, and not panic for the first hour or so.]

Okay~! So ready for this. Where do you want me?


|| 02. DURING

[Toki recognizes the forest instantly. He's seen it enough times over the last few weeks. There's no frozen people or little girl with antlers, but this is definitely the dead trees. People are going to be hurt, he's absolutely certain of this. They needed to be warned appropriately.]

That was enough detail, right? Do they need more?

-

[Later, he's now focused on the team in the Main Hall. The audio comes in static-y sometimes. He switched his earpiece out twice, but it keeps happening. He's now going on the assumption it's Ky's fault, or Gunvolt's, and the equipment isn't malfunctioning. He can't stop paying attention for one minute or something's going to go wrong. Like now. It took him mere seconds to swap ear pieces, looking away from the monitor for less than that, and now there's bad decisions being made.]

-- Don't touch that! It's not what you think it is!... I'm reading the information on it right now! I know what I'm doing! You're supposed to listen to- NO, YOU SHUT UP! This is -- Oh wait! Shit! Sorry~! I'm looking at the wrong data!... It's fine, you can touch it!... Once! I only sent you in the wrong direction once!... You're still alive, aren't you!? --

[He's doing a good job here.]


|| 03. AFTERMATH

[He's under the assumption none of his team were seriously injured or dead, but Kano was dealing with them half the time too and he may have missed important information on their overall status by the end.]

Everything went fine, right!? This is good? It's over? What about the group in the forest!? I stopped paying attention to them after a while, but no one died!?

[His hands are shaking and there may be a bit too much panic in his voice. He held off as long as he could; but now the built up stress of the mission is hitting him all at once.]

02 - forest

[onebetter]

[ James is just kind of staring over in horror as this broadcast goes out. ]

Well, they know what to look out for, but... [ He stares at the forest video feeds for a second. ] ... they might panic, too.

[yokeye]

[If his expression is anything to go by, James thought the broadcast was a mistake.]

That's why I wanted it detailed, because if it's too vague they might not react in time when the trees attack and go for the heart! Was that wrong!? Should they not be informed of potential impending doom and only certain impending doom!? We can delete it, right!?

[The mic is still on.]

[onebetter]

[ And that mic will stay on because James is also in a control room for the first time ever and not quite used to the tech yet. ]

Couldn't you have found a more... factual way of conveying this? Like 'the trees might attack your chest, be careful' not 'one of you is going to have their heart ripped out, I saw it in a dream'??

[yokeye]

[How dare he. Toki is legitimately trying to help here, and he may have made a little mistake yes, but this is an unacceptable response. That, and there's a small part of him that thinks he doesn't have powers at all and he's just hallucinating half the time, but this forest was helping to prove that untrue. James isn't going to make him question any instances of validation, of which there are very few, by calling them dreams.]

Factual!? It's factual! It may not be completely accurate, but it's relevant and I said it wasn't necessarily the way it's going to happen! There was a disclaimer! They're not dreams!

[Oh shit. He regrets that immediately.]

Sorry! I didn't mean to yell at you like that! Yeah, let's just forget that happened~! Okay?

[Back to the forest monitors. It's not time to derail things.]

[onebetter]

[ James looks kind of dumbfounded to be yelled at to this degree. From his perspective, he really hasn't been saying anything dramatic, but his perspective is also that of a person who hasn't dealt with other magical people for most of his life.

He's just about ready to yell back when Toki does a 180 and James is definitely getting whiplash here. ]

... yeah, whatever. Just... less fear-mongering, okay? "Here's how to avoid injury" sounds better than "You'll probably die". Does that make sense?

[yokeye]

[Toki is unfortunately over-dramatic about everything, and rarely thinks before he says or does anything. Realization after the fact doesn't make his behavior any less out of line.]

Yes! It does. I'm sorry, again, I just... It's stressful~! You know~!?

[He doesn't have an excuse, and he prefers to move straight past it. He hasn't looked at James again, trying to focus solely on the forest video streams for now.]

01

[spelleton]

Take a moment to get yourself adjusted to the control room, Mr Rikugou. [ He's not quite sure why Toki has signed up for this considering how highly strung he is, but he's hardly going to turn him away or tell him to sit in the corner and not to help.

He carefully doesn't mention Toki arriving, walking out of the room, and then coming back in again. Probably nerves that won't end with panic or fainting, he hopes. ]

Familiarize yourself with your station, and try not to worry about what's going on beyond that.

[yokeye]

[He doesn't know why he signed up either; he shouldn't have. But he just wants to help, and he knows field positions are beyond him at this point.]

There's just... a lot going on in here. I didn't know what it would be like.

[Toki intends to do exactly as Ekkehardt suggests, if he can manage it. Just focus on what he has to do and not worry about anything else.]

[spelleton]

You should use this time to prepare, then. Do you need any assistance? [ Thankfully, there's options in the systems for those who haven't taken part in such missions before, but it might be hard to find without help. ]

[yokeye]

[Toki's first instinct is to say that he will be fine and have no problems with this, but then he'd ask a million questions later on about the system functions or how to interpret the data anyway. He might as well admit he has no idea what he's doing from the start, so he has time to learn something before there's too much else to do.]

Assistance would be appreciated, yes. Nothing's too complicated though, right?

[It looks complicated; readouts of objects and projected attack paths and too many things to keep track of at once. He thought it was just watching camera streams and talking to people, but there appears to be much more to it.]

[spelleton]

Nothing too complicated, but maybe a little overwhelming. Here. [ He reaches over and toggles a little switch, and more prompts pop up on the screens, highlighting certain aspects. ]

This is a training mode. Press on the things you want to know about, like so - [ and here he gently touches a diagram of a daemon] - and it will tell you about them.

[ As if on cue, an automated voice pipes up. ]

"This screen is used for information on current enemies within scanner range. This screen should be considered low priority unless information changes drastically, in which case you will be alerted by a high-pitched alarm noise."

And, of course, if you require further information, you can always ask Professor Yang, or myself. Try not to worry too much - you're still learning, after all. You're allowed to make mistakes.

[yokeye]

[Toki observes Ekkehardt's demonstration without asking questions. He's relieved when it appears the screens aren't all going to require the same amount of attention. Alarms are good too, then he won't miss something too important. He's allowed to make mistakes. That knowledge helps too.]

Okay! I'm going to look through everything I can while there's still time!

[It's not so hard. Not yet.]

03

[suddenlybees]

Yep, yep, it's over~

[ Not saying anything about things going fine, or that the outcome is good, or that nobody died, but at least it is over and Kano swivels his chair around, scoots across the room, and pats Toki on the arm. ]

How was it? Was it fun?

[yokeye]

[Fun. How could Kano think any part of this was fun? Toki doesn't even attempt to twist facts and somehow convince himself it was indeed fun. He's losing the ability to fake that kind of thing.]

It was distressing and awful and nothing was fun!

[suddenlybees]

[ No... his faker buddy... Kano, unfortunately, can keep the charade up forever if he has to, spinning around in his chair so he can fold his arms over the backrest and prop his chin up on his arms. ]

Aw, it's your first time, right? It does get easier the more missions you go on! What about the parts where things went right? [ Very scant few times... but they existed! Toki's got to hold onto those times. ] Was it fun then? Did you feel happy? Proud?

[yokeye]

[Toki wishes he felt nothing, like Kano seems to. It didn't get to him. Toki doesn't bothering arguing that it's not his first mission; Las Vegas was completely different and ultimately inconsequential.]

I guess... I was happy or proud when Professor Yang said I did a good job?

[He was just shocked and confused, but he knows that should have made him proud.]

I had fun sometimes~! Yelling at Maverick and some new people~!

[Like Kohaku and some of the other forest crew he hadn't ever actually met. But then shit happened with Nana and Yuya and he listened to half of it before he had to focus on his team and he doesn't know what happened to them. He hopes no one in the forest actually did get impaled by the trees, or had their hearts ripped out, or got stabbed by daemons. The fun times didn't really offset that.]

[suddenlybees]

[ Las Vegas was them on the field, each responsible for themselves and nothing much to be lost if they screw up— which Kano did on purpose anyways, keeping the money he earned and all he had to do was write an essay for his troubles. Something like this, it's much higher stakes, people's lives and safety on the line and no room for messing around and screwing up, which Kano did anyways, because otherwise he'd be just as tense and freaked out as Toki is all the time. Fun times have got to be of his own making. ]

And you did a good job! You got everybody through, didn't you? That's a great job! I bet everybody's super grateful of all your help too. I think if I were out there, I'd have fun too, if you were there watching me~

[yokeye]

[He doesn't believe a word of that, but he's smiling like it's no big deal after all.]

It all worked out in the end~!

2 - main hall

[ohgoodgrief]

[Yang has been keeping an eye on the students throughout the battle. When he sees one start to slip, he hurries over; in this case, he's quickly behind Toki, arms folded over his chest, and then he leans forward.]

Deep breaths, Mister Rikugou.

[yokeye]

[Yang is just suddenly right there. Toki switches off the mic for a minute, after realizing he's been shouting a bit too much.]

I'm sorry! There's just too much to look at and I keep reading the wrong information! Everything's all burring together, but I can't look away for more than a second because what if that's when a daemon shows up that I missed somehow and somebody-

[He doesn't finish the thought and instead tries to concentrate on breathing. This wasn't supposed to happen today.]

[ohgoodgrief]

Deep breaths. [Yang repeats it, because it's worth repeating.

He looks at the screen for a second, hand at his chin; he's thinking it over.] I know the temptation is to rush and get all out there. Don't. Your job isn't to see everything. You need to trust the people down there will see what's in front of them better than you will.

Focus on what they can't see. Pay attention to the monitors showing what's coming at their flanks and rears, or what's out of sight. Give it a few seconds, then put it into words.

[yokeye]

What they can't see. Okay.

[They know what they're doing. He should only interject when they need help.]

I can do that!

[Waiting to say something is going to be harder, though.]

I should only tell them what they need to know, right? Nothing extra.

[Concise and relevant information. So hard.]

[ohgoodgrief]

Concise is important. You can say extra, if you think it could be important--or if they look like they might miss it.

[He considers if he should explain more.

He doesn't want Toki withholding too much.]

Get an idea of how they think and what their decision-making process is. You've seen them in action, now. What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Use those to inform your decisions.

[yokeye]

[That was a good idea on Yang's part, as Toki is likely go to from one extreme to the other and accidentally omit something necessary. He thinks he's understanding the usefulness of being deferential with information according to whom he's talking to, though.]

Like I can assume maybe Professor Kiske doesn't need as much extra information as Maverick!? And that Kanata needs only relevant parts so he doesn't get too scared! And Tyzias won't listen to me anyway, so I should let her do her thing!

[He hasn't gotten a feel for Gunvolt or Bumblebee yet, but they seem fairly self-sufficient if given all important information.]