tushanshu_logs | Event | Console Crash Chaos

Event | Console Crash Chaos | Phase One

Characters: ALL!
Date: April 17-30, 2014
Location: Keeliai
Situation: In an unexpected and bold attack by Malicant, the console system is completely shut down while food and supply locations all around the city are targeted by bombings.
Warnings/Rating: Explosions! Possible descriptions of related aftermaths, injuries, death, etc.

Shortly after eight in the morning of the 17th, the consoles experience a strange glitching effect. They'll display 15-20 seconds of static, interrupting anything being done on them at the time, before going utterly dark. No power, no signal, completely offline even to detection of their normal bio-mechanical signatures. No amount of energy influx will get them going again, though taking them apart (or trying to) will still cause them to melt into goo.

Within minutes of the console shutdown, explosions will begin ripping through Keeliai. The bombs are all timed as close to simultaneous as coordinating a city-wide attack can be, with many going off within seconds of each other, throwing the thriving morning rush into chaos. They tear into businesses and across public spaces, collapsing walls and blowing piles of debris into the streets. Places of high traffic quickly become evident as prime targets: marketplaces, hospitals, schools and cafes. The streets take only moments to fill with panicking, screaming kedan trying to pull their injured fellows out of harm's way. All told, the explosions take place across approximately a 10-minute stretch and their explosive yields are fairly high.

In addition to the bombs that cause destruction through their blasts, smaller bombs are going off around the city that specifically target food and water supplies, particularly where large stocks of it were kept such as grocers, produce markets, and the like. Rather than cause mass damage, these explosions spray out a fine mist of spores. Any perishables in their immediate area that are splattered develop an oozing black mold within minutes, eventually breaking down organic substances that turn to foul smelling rot and release their own mist, perpetuating the cycle. While skin contact with the mist doesn't harm, inhaling or ingesting it will produce shakes, fever, vomiting with a cumulative effect that has the potential to be fatal. It is much slower to infect the water supply but the sheer volume of rotting perishables will eventually put enough of the spores to taint water sources, approximately 6-8 hours after the original bombings.

The police force are out as soon as possible and within the hour are helping move the injured to safer locations with Evandau in charge, right in their midst and shoulder to shoulder with his subordinates. Not being stockpiles for any of the apparent targets, many of the Foreigner residences have been left undamaged and, wary of putting them in further danger by collecting large groups in public spaces, Foreigners may even be asked to take in a few individuals or a kedan family.

Despite the number of explosions, there are far more reports of injuries as opposed to casualties. The person or persons (or That Bad Guy) responsible for this were, for this attack at least, more intent on damage than on death.

LINKS
Fire Sector | Earth Sector | Metal Sector | Water Sector | Wood Sector
Treating the Injured & Safe Houses | Investigations | OOC Plot Post

OOC NOTE: Remember that the consoles and network will be completely offline for the duration of this aspect of the the plot running April 17-23, though Foreigner tech is not affected. Plot questions can be directed to this comment. Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As the figurative and metaphorical dust settles, those who pursue leads on what happened will find the following:

The explosive bombs were comprised of a fertilizer mixture and fuel, almost eerily similar to what might be used in the world many Foreigners are familiar with. The fertilizer is what's used exclusively for agriculture across the turtle, specially formulated for flora that's growing on a turtle shell and available everywhere. The bombs themselves were designed for concussive force rather than injury, made to destroy parts of buildings (storerooms, etc) rather than specifically target the people inside of them or take down the buildings as a whole. The rapid timing of their detonations suggests they were all in place before the first one went off, meaning they'd been planted at some point prior to this day. Overall the bombs themselves are crude with simple timers and rudimentary containers but they were very effective.

The contamination bombs were smaller and comparatively, yielded almost no physical damages. They were placed strategically in storehouses and where there were known stores of food. Since the spores self-perpetuate, the current level of contamination far outstrips the number of originally infected places. The spores cannot be washed off, but can be killed by fire.

[She helped with some of the clean up, made sure civilians weren't left buried in the wreckage, but there was something in the debris that caught her interest. Shining scraps of metal that weren't part of the building she was standing in. Or what was left of the building.

She inspects it and then goes back to the mess, using her x-ray vision to see through the charred wood and stone and broken furniture to the ground. There is more scraps--shrapnel, but not much--and it all looks like it was blown from the same area.

Guess she knows where the bomb was hidden now. She manages to dig a larger, chunk, what looks like part of the container the fuel was held in.]

Cheap and basic, but this would do the job. [So she starts looking around in other buildings that got the brunt of the explosions, trying to find as many of the bombs in better condition as she can.]

[She's not the only one looking for intact bombs. Skulduggery spent most of the morning putting out fires and carrying the injured out of harm's way, but now that the dust has settled and no more explosions are imminent, he starts digging around in the rubble.

He doesn't know much about the bombs themselves, but he can tell a lot about the bombers' intentions from where those bombs are situated. In basements, or upper levels - less frequented areas. They aren't meant to kill. Just to create as much damage as possible. Likewise, the bombs in areas with high concentrations of black spores are very deliberately placed where people don't normally go, because the damage they would cause would be much more long-term than just the initial blast.

Skulduggery burns as much out of the air as he can, clicking the fingers of his left hand to summon the flames, only growing careful as he gets close to bomb debris. There aren't many other people interested yet, but he does spot one other woman investigating. On the off-chance she knows a lot more about bombs than he does - and still has both of her arms - Skulduggery approaches her.]

Find anything useful?

[She heard the guy approaching but doesn't toss a look over her shoulder until he speaks up. And since there isn't anyone else around, he's probably talking to her. His face is a skull and he's missing an arm. There are so many things she could say--it is the first time she's met a talking skeleton, but she's heard of weirder around here--so instead she stares at him for a moment and then shrugs.]

Besides the fact it's homemade and didn't have any shrapnel built in for extra damage. No nails or buckshot. Notice anything yourself?

Homemade? Hm. [Granted, Skulduggery hasn't been on this turtle's back for very long, but everything he's heard has put him in mind of Malicant being a very powerful individual. Why homemade bombs, then? Does Malicant not have access to magic, or is he only capable of working through less powerful individuals?

Either way, Skulduggery nods.] Death wasn't the goal here. If there is a list of the dead once all of this is over, most of those will be accidents. [He gestures at the air.] These spores are going to infect the food supplies and cause more of a long-term mass panic than the bombs themselves. This is an attack, and a well-coordinated one, but it's not the main event. This is a distraction.

[The more he speaks, the more obvious it gets that he's speaking mainly to himself, and using the excuse of someone nearby to avoid looking like a fool while he does.]

[It is really weird talking to a guy with a skull for a face, but at least he's not spouting extra bull. Straight to the point, she likes that. She looks down at the bomb in her hand, only half intact and sniffs. It's enough to make her wrinkle her nose. Not a smell she'd ever want to bottle.]

They used some kind of fertilizer. Probably to keep it simple. Bigger blast, but not really much power behind it. If this was a distraction...who was it distracting?

Us.

[It's the only possible explanation. But, like most things, Skulduggery isn't fully aware of the realisation until he says it out loud, so there's a moment's pause before he continues.]

You'll have to excuse me. I'm relatively new here, and I haven't been told very much about he-who-must-not-be-named or what it is he's trying to accomplish. Death and destruction for its own sake, I understand. But this was planned. Does he have an end goal? He had an Emperor murdered once - could he be trying to do something like that again?

Oh, you're new. To catch you up to speed: the Big Evil Mally Pants has a cult that tried to kill the turtle, comes whenever you call his name, and is connected to the Dark and Dreary Dimension we got trapped in once somehow. Nothing much else more to it. He really hates turtles.

[And Tea doesn't care to know why. She just wants to kill him and get it over with.] And I'm not so sure if this was about us as much as it was about the natives. More damage in the kedan-areas than the Foreigners.

Dark and Dreary Dimension?

[Skulduggery makes a note to find out more about that later. He's been told Tu Vishan is at the crossing between three different realms, but he's never been told that the entire turtle was once trapped within one of them.

But, first things first.]

That is interesting, isn't it? Here we are, meant to be some sort of army summoned to fight back against this Big Evil Mally Pants character, and he - or some sort of workaround - planted these bombs where they would only drastically affect the kedan. When you know you're facing a resistance, why not take out that resistance in one fell swoop?

[Maybe he can't, for some reason. And that's what's intriguing Skulduggery.]

[Not the whole turtle at once, but they all had some run-ins.]

Which is why I wonder if it was really about us. Last time they got kedan to work for him just because they were scared and thought the world was going to end anyway. Could be trying to scare up new followers again. Put the fear of God into the weak and they'll jump on the first offer of salvation they find.

The kedan are hardly well-suited to resist if he comes in. The former Emperor wouldn't have tried summoning people from other dimensions if they were.

[Skulduggery's more apt to believe that putting the fear of God into the weak, as it were, is a side effect. Beneficial to Malicant, obviously, but not the main goal. There would be far more death if it was. Either Malicant has some other end game in mind, or he's severely underestimating the ability of the so-called Foreigners to fight back.

Skulduggery could easily believe either one. Arrogance and ignorance of the enemy were how his side eventually won the war back in his own universe.]

Of course, if all of the kedan in Keeliai were to turn on us at once... [Skulduggery goes quiet, pondering that.]

He pretty much almost managed that the last time. He poisoned the turtle and food rationing had to go around. Most of the kedan blamed us for it. Took the fun out of being their "Saviors" for a while.

[Tea was done looking over the bomb casing so she drops it to the ground, shifting so she can use her x-ray vision to look through the wreckage of another damaged building close by.]

Or Mally knew most of the idiots around here would rush in to save the kedan more than they'd care about saving themselves. A few thousand damsels in distress to get them moving and out of the way for whatever else he's planning.

[Skulduggery nods.] Precisely. A distraction. You've just made my argument for me.

[There's no malice or accusation in the tone. It would be teasing, in fact, if Skulduggery could find it within himself to be teasing right now.]

This is probably a long shot, I know, but have you seen a skeletal arm anywhere? I think I lost it in the Fire Sector.

[Well, so much for ignoring just how strange it is to talk to a skeleton if he's going to point out his missing arm and everything.]

I've seen a lot of things around, but not really arms. Maybe someone's dog found it.

Ah, dogs. [An unfortunate fact of his existence.] I haven't seen very many dogs in Keeliai.

[Or pets at all, come to think of it.]

Because that was sarcasm, not something you were supposed to take seriously. Why do so few people around here know how to take a joke?

[It's somewhat annoying.]

Will it sprout up and wave if you get close to it?

[Skulduggery gives her an amused glance, though the amusement isn't obvious until he speaks.] Oh, yes. I'm blind, you see. When you step within a few metres of it, it jumps up and waves. Unfortunately, I'm unable to see that myself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event | Console Crash Chaos | Phase One

INVESTIGATIONS

Galatea | Around | Open

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