EVENT | ALL HALLOWED

[cherrywood]

Characters: Everyone!
Date: Oct 27th - Nov 2nd
Location: The City of Keeliai
Situation: The kedan have decided to participate in an Earth tradition: Hallowe'en! But there are other mysterious things afoot this holiday and when people start disappearing they'll have to find a way to reverse the effect... though all of their selves might not make it back.
Warnings/Rating: Please indicate content warnings in subject headers as applicable.

As the weather turns crisper, the nights and mornings carry with them a hint of chill promising cooler days to come, the month starts drawing to a close. This is a pleasant time, soon to be the season of harvest even on such a nomad as Tu Vishan. Yet the relations with the kedan have been good lately and even the Emperor's latest warning has not dampened the resilience of her people (both willing citizens and not) and so today marks a new tradition to Keeliai and it starts with receiving a simple, handwritten invitation.

"Come and celebrate the Keeliai of ages past..."

---

OOC: See the OOC plotting post for event details and this post for assorted subheaders outlining various parts of the plot. Feel free to start your own thread header if none suit, or make your own logs for various threadings... this is just for a central post for the event. Any questions can be directed HERE. Thank you!

NOTE: NPC tagging will be mostly in the Palace Rewards and Touch of Memory threads unless specifically requested elsewhere! Normal rules for players writing NPC interactions remains the same as always.

MID PLOT UPDATE!
Through the course of investigations will be discovered that every Foreigner who went trick or treating has acquired themselves at least one pot of what appears to be iridescent paint, sometimes more than one. Experimenting with these pots (because lbr who doesn't want a few randomly shimmery possessions) oddly enough lets ghosted characters interact with them completely solidly. Which, if you've inadvertently been ignoring someone, might mean you get your new shiny lamp thrown at your head.

Now if people get the smart idea to the paint the paint, that would let ghosted characters get hold of this stuff themselves...

TL;DR - Ghosted characters can paint themselves back into phase. Eating the stuff is also acceptable.

I. GIVE A LITTLE, GET A LITTLE!
Trick or Treating (All Sectors) | Palace Rewards

II. SHADOWS AND SHADES
Tangible: Kedan Museum | Disappearances | Investigations
Ghosted: Sense of Loss | Touch of Memory | Shift of Perception | Poltergeisting

Comments

[asouthron]

"Immeasurable, huh? That's a mighty kind distinction. I'm flattered." As can totally be discerned by his deadpan voice as he enters Jim's humble abode and takes in the sight of him. While it was up there on his list of the unexpected, it at least doesn't make him want to slap the kid. In fact, he's... impressed. Really, he's impressed to see him expressing himself in a productive way.

"Well, Jimmy boy, I figured I'd take the time out of my busy schedule to catch up with you and bring my friend Jack here. Yer pretty familiar with him, right?" He sets the bottle down on the nearest flat surface, and with both hands crossed behind his back, he slowly makes his way closer to the painting. "But I see I caught ya at a bad time..."

[jirk]

"You should be flattered," Jim says smugly as he wipes the paint off his hands with an old rag. Which. Doesn't work. So then he uses some combination of his pants and his shirt to try and get the last few smears off. Your captain, in technicolour. Then it's into the kitchen for a drink of water, he's been painting for quite a while.

"Bad time? No such thing. I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks, come on." He slams back the glass, and then sets it out on the counter for Bones to refill with something a little more palpable, and because he's awesome, he even leaves one out for Bones himself.

"How's the clinic?"

[asouthron]

His eyes zero in on the newly emptied glass that is just so subtly placed by him. Apparently receiving three doctorates and graduating the Academy has turned him into Jim's personal mixologist. Just what he always aspired to be. Well, a few hypos in the neck will certainly compensate his time as a personal bartender.

Cracking the seal of the bottle, the doctor pours them several fingers. "Yeah, it's been awhile..." And that in and of itself is rather strange. Really, McCoy can't remember the last time they have spent so little time together. They were practically attached to the hip at the Academy, and that certainly hadn't changed when they got their commission aboard the Enterprise.

"Hectic. We're a man down with Doctor Natu gone." Thankfully there have been no critical injuries, but with Reyes and him as the only two certified it doesn't let him get much sleep at night. "But speakin' of the clinic--" Oh yes, it's McCoy's time to shine. "--I brought another buddy of mine." Finally, he brings his hands around from behind his back and places his medical kit down with a delighted grin. "Thought maybe we could incorporate it into our male bondin' this evenin'."

[jirk]

He grimaces, both at Bones' mention of awhile and at the reminder of Soranik's disappearance. Jim has been avoiding him, there's no point sugar coating it. He doesn't know how to deal with the fact that McCoy brought him back from the dead, and is still busy sorting out his feelings from the whole mess. But really, he should be a better friend.

All feelings, however, of gracious magnanimity disappear outright when Bones pulls out the medkit. Jim eyes it rather like one would a venomous snake.

"Really? You're bribing me?" Jim asks flatly. "How is this bonding? More like torture, if you ask me!"

[asouthron]

"Pickin' at semantics ain't gonna get you out of this, but if this is not good enough for yer definition--" He picks up his whiskey and takes a small swallow. "--I can add a prostate exam to the list? I brought my gloves." That sure would bring them close, huh, Jimmy boy? "No? Okay, then enjoy yer gift--" It sounds better than bribe. "--and stop squawkin' like an infant."

With that, he unlocks his kit and pulls out his medical tricorder. With all the permission he needs as the Captain's CMO, the doctor takes up Jim's personal space, entitled to every inch of it. "So, you paint now." He decides they might as well get to the talking since they have a lot of ground to cover. "When did that start?"

[jirk]

"I'm not squawk-- and oh my god, isn't that what medical tricorders are for?" Gloves? How barbaric. Real doctors would never, and Jim squirms away and around to the other side of the kitchen's island, though he reaches across the table to grab his glass as he goes.

"Painting? I dunno. Since Kyle. He's an artist."

Yes, focus on the topics of distraction. Bones can't possibly chase him with that thing, can he? ... Honestly, it's probably best not to speculate.

[asouthron]

"Only if you stand still!" It started out as a joke, but so help him, McCoy will turn it into a real threat if Jim keeps squirming off. He's most concerned about his friend's mental state after having his mind violated by a living archive. Sure, McCoy had been a woman, but he had still been himself through and through. Jim had an entire new universe crammed into his head.

So, with all the concern of a best friend and a doctor, McCoy patiently follows after him to get a better reading.

"Huh." He can't say he's surprised Kyle's artistic. The kid has the thoughtful patience for it, while Jim seems a little too dynamic to sit still long enough for such detailed work. Maybe it's good for him to focus on something quietly like this. Hell, his friend's practically good at everything; it's not likely Jim would succumb to frustration as an excuse to quit.

"Listen, can you spot me some more money? Just spent the last on some sorry excuse for a burger..."

[jirk]

Jim grinds to a halt, less because McCoy (told? ordered?) him to and more because did he seriously just ask for money. Again? Jim gives him a purely indignant look, and the moment gives the good doctor more than enough time to slap him with a hypospray.

[asouthron]

McCoy has learned long ago to just take what he's given; it's the best rule of thumb when dealing with Jim. Like a magician, he uses the tricorder as a distraction while his other hand deftly reveals a vaccine with his friend's neck written all over it. One little sting and it'll be all over, Jimmy. Well, until he pulls another out. You're kind of out of date on some things.

"The hell's that look for? I'm out! What, am I supposed to beg on the street now? Is that what you want?"

[jirk]

He eyes Bones' hand suspiciously, because excuse you he does not trust your hands, Doc. "You could try getting a job, Bones. You remember those? Jobs? Like the six I've been juggling to support your ass for the past few months?"

'Indignance' no longer covers the full emotional spectrum of James T. Kirk, tyvm.

[asouthron]

"Jim, maybe you've been on shore leave too long, but I have a job. It's called healin' the sick and injured--Which, I do on a daily basis, by the way! I think that kind of devotion deserves a cover charge for the man that keeps your ass alive and in one piece."

What, exactly, would he do in the real world, kid? If it wasn't for his brilliance, he's pretty sure he wouldn't have stayed afloat long enough in the sea of Starfleet politics to make it where he is now. And you want that kind of cantankerous attitude in a regular job? He'll be fired in two days!

[jirk]

And in their day and age, it'd be enough. Having to work - for money is just about the weirdest experience of Jim's life, and that includes those two twins with tentacles he met back on Geshar VI. Still, he wrinkles his nose.

"So why doesn't the hotshot in charge actually pay you? You're performing a service."

[asouthron]

"Because that hotshot? She disappeared, and now we're down to me, Mrs. Reyes, Kyle, and volunteers to bring in juulan through hand outs and Kedan check ups. I'm not gonna start grabbin' coins hand over fist just for my needs! Now shut up, so I don't miss!" Because so help him, Jim, he will just to spite you if you keep bringing this up!

"Honestly, a job," McCoy snorts as he changes the dosage on the hypospray. Can you really imagine him working a regular job, Jim? It would be a disaster--Actually, it wouldn't even get that far because no one would hire him. No one! So, you're stuck with a beggar. At least he's a beggar that keeps you alive.

With his thumb poised on the plunger, he presses the head of the hypospray against his carotid vein and injects. But, instead of the gentle hiss it usually gives, the alloy cracks and the broken heel of the plunger slices straight through the pad of his thumb.

"Shit!" It falls to the floor with a clatter as he recoils, trying to keep any blood off of their clothes. "Goddamnit!" As much as it stings, he's more pissed that one of his few hyposprays is now broken. It's one less in a place he can't get them replaced! "Oh, well, this is just great!"

[jirk]

"I wasn't talking about Sora," Jim says with a slightly sharp tone. He'd never bitch about one of Kyle's people like that, thank you very much. "I mean the guy who funds the clinics or whatever. I know there's gotta be someone at the top. Or the Emperor. You're still performing a service for her pe-- Jesus!" He jumps back when McCoy swears at the hypo, and at the sight of blood he reaches immediately for one of the kitchen towels so he can hold it under the steady drip.

"Hey, calm down, don't flail blood all over my kitchen. Where's the skin thing?" He definitely means 'dermal regenerator'.

[asouthron]

"I'm not flailin'! Doctors don't flail. Jesus..." Applying pressure to the small cut as he waits for Jim, McCoy grumbles all the way to his medical kit. "I'll get it." He picks it up--Well, tries to pick it up. His hand goes right through it as if the table was a hologram.

"What the hell?" Christ, hallucinations are the last thing he needs right now. Is he really this tired? Or maybe this is Jim's doing. Yeah, he's going to go with that.

"Jim! Yer table's givin' me attitude!"

[jirk]

Jim's look of mild amusement disappears a nanosecond after Bones does, and turns frantic about the same time. "Bones?" his voice is somehow still firm, but he's not sure how he manages it. He can't lose him too. Jim flings his hand out where Bones has been, contacts nothing. No, no, no--

"Bones!" Jim circles through the kitchen, to everywhere they'd stood and everything that Bones touched. Panic wells up and kicks his brain into overdrive, he yells up the stairs for Kyle. The ring has Bones' signature, it can track him-- tell whether or not he's gone.

But there's no answer there, either.

Jim's breathing is erratic, he's standing in the middle of the room flexing and unflexing his hands. Think. Upstairs first. Look for Kyle. If he's gone, call Spock, then Chekov. Clara. Ivy.

He tears the upstairs apart. Finds nothing but Kyle's ring, which he knows - he knows he'd never leave without. Jim swallows, puts it on a finger. It says something in his mind about his not being authorized to use it, and he frowns at it and almost pitches the damned thing across the room because he was counting on it (on Kyle) to find--

To find Bones.

He rearranges his priorities. Ivy. He needs to get to her first, and he casts about the room, picks up the first piece of paper and reasonably writing instrument he can find, scrawls out a message to her. But he can't sit still while he waits for her (he knows she'll come, he knows everything about her--) so he keeps looking, racking his memory for anything he can think of that would be relevant here. People don't just disappear.

(But they do. Spock did. Rose did. Jack-- so many people.)

And he's not going to give up.

[asouthron]

"What? I said yer table's--" When he turns around, McCoy can barely describe the look in Jim's eyes. That boy, he's perceptive, calculating, keen, like he can look right through you and understand everything. Now, though, it's not the same. His friend is looking right through him as if he doesn't exist.

They both collide with one another, Jim rushing toward him and McCoy doing the same. The only problem is he goes right through the man. "J--" His voice cuts out before he can finish the name.

God, what the hell is this? Is he gradually disappearing? First his body, now his voice... McCoy's heart thunders against his ribcage as he waits for the inevitable. Will his sight go next? Will he just fade from existence?

Shit shit! This can't be real! It has to be some sort of sick nightmare! What is he supposed to do? He can't call for help and he can't interfere with the corporeal world! McCoy calls to Jim in frustrating silence, slashing his hands through his friend's body, hoping it will eventually connect. Nothing. He's lost to this world. Absolutely lost.

No, no, what is self-pity going to accomplish? Snap out of it! Compartmentalize and move on, Doctor! It does neither of them any good to fall apart now. Jim knows that. It's why after Jim stops his frantic search, he finds a more productive avenue. He follows right behind Jim, still trying to get his attention as they storm up the stairs.

Jim! What the hell's a piece of paper goin' to do for me? Unbelievable! He crosses his arms over his chest, waiting impatiently for him to finish. Whatever the point of it is, it seems all Jim can do now is wait and continue gathering up any information in his house. Wait for what or who, McCoy has no idea. And it's all the doctor can do to stay beside Jim as close as he can without actually touching him, mouthing that he's still here. He hasn't left him. God, he would never leave Jim. He's still here, even if... If in this form.