🏝️ dulces sueños group excursion! 🏝️

[hearthwarming]

🏝️ who: intrepid adventurers (vacationers?) and more!
🏝️ what: ori organized (origanized?) a group trip to the resort! mass memshare ensues.
🏝️ when: fall 9-10
🏝️ where: dulces sueños resort
🏝️ warnings: threads will be marked as needed for memshares.

[ Hopefully everyone had fun on the Arco Lunar! The morning after the boat departs from the docks, a letter arrives to your mailbox: ]

Hello, intrepid adventurer!

I am excited to have you along for a group excursion to the mysterious new island! In two days' time, let us gather in the town square and set off from there! Please be prepared to stay the night. It will be so fulfilling and memorable for everyone to spend a night on an adventure together!

If you have any questions or concerns, please come find me at my flower shop in town or at the forest farm where I live!

Sincerely,
Oriphi

[ If she accidentally delivered it to a few wrong mailboxes, then... Oops!

On the promised day, once everyone (and likely a few surprise tag-alongs) has gathered or been gathered, Ori distributes little paper bags of snacks to everyone. Inside are cookies, oat snacks, and a freshly-picked apple from her and M-21's orchard. Do with them as you please... Just don't let her catch you throwing it into the sea or something. 🥺 ]

Alright. I think we should head out, then! Thanks for coming along, everyone! I hope it'll be a great time. Oh, and please don't forget to drink plenty of water and use this incredible ointment I discovered on this island! It's called "sunscreen!" Tieflings don't really get sunburnt, but you should use it!

[ And with that our intrepid adventurers set off to the mysterious, dangerous, unknowable... resort island! ]

( This is the ill-fated mass extinction memshare event. Please refer to the event for details on the resort and the plotting post for any specific details for characters' memshares! There are toplevels for each area of the resort (and for the memshare). Enjoy! )

Comments

[yourlenore]

( Dust settles through the cold-flickering candlelight, a choking thick in your lungs.

Your consciousness fades into a dim-lit room sealed tight deep beneath the earth, the walls a cemetery cool. How beautifully this room was carved, how precise, as if from one single block of broad obsidian. Holy imagery cut into the walls suggests a holy war, once upon a time. With so little light, it all feels an optical illusion, no beginning or end, a ceaseless, unrelenting void.

About you, there are people; there were people. They are corpses, now. They are laid about you in an orderly fashion, like cards spread on a table, in a semicircle about the room, row after row.

At the back wall, where both ends of the bodies terminate, there is Adelis. Have you seen Adelis, lately? He doesn't look right. Right now, he even seems close to death. Bruised, bleeding, and disciplined, limbs shackled. Still, there is grit in him; he grinds his teeth, and he refuses to feed. This is what all this is: an exercise in starvation; Alexei's attempt to force Adelis to drink from human beings.

You and Mishka are, like all the others were, so near to death, because you will taste sweeter, more addictive, when fed from on the brink. Your consciousness fades in and out, your vision bleary, and Mishka fares no better.

Still, as you settle slowly into your skin, half-conscious as you are, your gaze fixes onto Mishka, and you can tell, perhaps unnaturally so, that somewhere in the cool calculation of his gaze, he knows how to escape.

He'd only have to leave Adelis behind.

---

Yet, he break Adelis loose from his shackles with a pick he keeps hidden in him (extracted from him in the same way he extracts insects from his mouth), and he slips a ring onto his finger, and tells him to use it with care. Adelis is somewhere between irate and uneasy in his replies, but he is too weak to fight the attention. Adelis had spotted a loosed stone in this optical illusion of a room, and Mishka tells him to slip through it, while he takes the door; he relates to him the floor plan, and tells him what path to take to escape.

Though Adelis protests, Mishka ruffles his hair and tell him to meet him on the hill that overlooks the cathedral. It will take him no time at all, if he follows the path. He'll see him soon.

---

As the stone is lodged into place behind Adelis, and Mishka has begun inspecting the lock upon the door, he hears you stirring as you take firmer hold of your consciousness, finally. He turns back, pausing, and after some moments he recognizes you in that strange dream way, where things make sense even though they really shouldn't. )

... Steinbeck?

( He stands from his crouch, and with some care he attempts to make his way over. )

How are you feeling? Terrible, I presume.

[graftage]

[.........]

[Steinbeck's usually cheerful face is something almost passively cold, now as he comes to. His eyes flicker across his surroundings, before alighting on Mishka. What is this? His body is naturally tense, expecting threats, danger.]

...What's going on?

[yourlenore]

( He studies Steinbeck for a few moments, assessing whether he's going to be too much of a liability or not, before ultimately deciding he's in equal enough shape. Very well, then. )

... You were abducted to be dinner for someone who wasn't hungry. Myself, as well, though I loathe to admit it.

( His assessment through, he returns to the door to fuss at it with the pick. A little cold, maybe, but he doesn't want to be in here when the next member of the church comes in here for a food delivery and finds it empty of Adelis. )

I know a path out, but we will have to be mindful.

( Small insects spill from him, scuttling into the lock while he works. )

What is your skillset?

[graftage]

Didn't I tell you that you'd probably poison yourself on me?

[A light statement, but the expression is still something solid, immutable. Like goodwill has been scrubbed away, leaving something tarnished underneath.]

Alright. [He puts his hands in his pockets, watching Mishka and his insects.] Mm. Depends on the situation we're in and what we have to expect, here.

[yourlenore]

( That first remark earns half a laugh from him, if a wry one.

The lock clicks once. )

... You will want to be quiet, and you will want to ignore anything that invokes your pity, or calls to you. If you must kill something, then you must, but be discrete.

( The lock clicks twice. )

There are monsters here, and they are all people.

( The lock clicks thrice. He rises, forcing the handle open with a scraping sound.

He glances back at Steinbeck. While dream Mishka's recollection of Steinbeck is vague, it's enough to not ignore and leave him behind as he would have a stranger. )

Shall we go?

( Should Steinbeck follow after, roll a 1d20 as a general gauge for his stealth! )

[graftage]

...You must think I'm softer than I am. [He says, after a moment.] That's not a problem. I've known plenty of monsters.

[That's not a problem at all. He may look like sunshine, but he's anything but, when it comes down to it. Even the screams of a child wouldn't faze him (even if they did, that one time, deep inside...)]

[He nods.]

Yep. Let's go for it, then.

[He rolls...a 9! Well. Could be better, but he's cautious enough.]