FINAL HOUR
chapter 1 - part 1
The past few months have been rather uneventful while the faction members were given a chance to properly mingle and continue to keep Cradle at peace from the plight of anomalies from the outside and from within. The familiar faces surrounding you appear unassuming, getting on with their day to day tasks of making sure that supplies are fairly distributed and that Cradle is able to uphold its fortress from external threats. The idyll, however, is known to never last. Whenever the general sense of anxiety subsides from an ebb to a steady surface, something is bound to disrupt it, whether it is a distant sound or a movement. Something so delicate is easy to reach for the distant rumblings of trouble.
A long time ago it was said that animals were the first to sense disaster through the low frequencies reverberating through the earth. Whether it was an oncoming earthquake or an eruption. These inaudible frequencies were enough to even set the human inhabitants at unease, the weight of dread permeating through the body. Perhaps recently it has been harder to sleep or today, something just felt slightly off despite your best efforts to tell yourself that it’s just the weather.
BAD NEWS
On this day, the previously absent Paradox officer, Bentley Sinclair, finally returned to the Cradle from his recent research mission. Through the streets he sprinted, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to reach his faction’s headquarters in West Ward. However his expression was not of excitement and nor did he look relieved to be back home, no. He wore a look of panic.
There was no time wasted in getting his message across to both the Paradox and Black Ghosts factions, the City Council, and in time to the rest of the city:
“A flying anomaly…coming in from the South. The subject is a Colossal, there is no doubt about it. It’s much larger than anything we’ve ever seen here. Looked like it was bringing all its smaller friends along too, and I don’t think they’re showing signs of changing their course or stopping any time soon either.
“Not only that but…there’s a storm following behind it. Tell the citizens to board up any windows and stay indoors if they can. There’s not much time before this hits Cradle.”
what will you do?_
BLACK STORM
Whatever followed the anomaly in its wake was far worse. It was as if reality itself retaliated in response to nature’s desecration. After the initial movement, there was a major disruption in the atmosphere from a distance, seeming like a dense wall of moving darkness. The phenomenon seemed to consume everything in its past like a dense, screaming whirlwind accompanied by sounds that seemed to resemble shattering glass. To make matters worse, those on the lookout that the cyclone was heading directly towards the Cradle. With a prognosis of a few hours in between the sighting and touchdown, you are left with little time to collect yourself.
Unnatural, lethal, and full of torturous suffering; few ways of dying are more painful than what is known as Black Storms. The whispered approach of the rare Black Storm is enough to send icy chills running through blood, causing immediate fight or flight responses in hearers of the news.
Colossal Anomalies, besides being horrific abominations of the natural laws of the universe, warp space and rules of physics around them and extreme weather storms build and roar in their wake, signifying their coming descent. Black Storms are a telltale mark of their arrival.
Black Storms appear as massive, swirling windstorms of solid black, glasslike particles that suspend in the air at high speeds. The particles are jagged and sharp, causing physical lacerations to exposed flesh and can cause traumatic esophagus and lung damage if inhaled in excess. In addition, Black Storms are known to cause disease in cases of extended exposure, commonly in the form of severe necrosis infection. If left untreated, the infection will spread to cover larger areas of flesh and cause excessive cell death.
NECROSIS /neˈkrōsəs/
Irreversible cell injury and eventual cell death. It is an uncontrolled cell death that results in swelling of the cell organelles, plasma membrane rupture and eventual disintegration of a cell, and spillage of intracellular contents into the surrounding tissue leading to further tissue damage. Unlike programmed cell death, necrosis occurs due to overwhelming noxious stimulus from outside the cell and is almost always associated with swelling and inflammation in addition.
ANOMALY ATTACKS
(AUDIO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
The sirens rip across the already tense environment like a serrated knife, building dread with every blaring wail. The sound interrupts the hushed, hurried conversations and talks of finding shelter as red lights haphazardly flicker across buildings signaling an unexpected threat.
One of the south walls of the Cradle falls in a deafening crash of glass, steel, and metric tons of concrete. Blackened, mutated limbs and appendages spill over the walls and debris.
Anomalies. They are spilling into the Cradle like a deluge, driven by the approach of the Colossal. Impossibly large, twisted bodies, appendages, and howling jaws overtake one another in a bid to get into the city first. Screams from unfortunate Cradle citizens of the South Ward could already be heard echoing in the distance.
There was no time to begin preparing for the lethal Black Storm's approach now-- you must take up arms and fight. Any attempt to create shelter against the Black Storm would be thwarted by the damned creatures ripping apart entire buildings and defences in their bid to consume flesh and grow stronger.
Not much time passes before anomalies quickly overtake not only the South Ward but also North, West, and East while their reinforcements slowly consume everything in their path--humans and one another. They must be culled quickly before the Black Storm sets in. Blood and sacrifice will be required payments if success is to have a chance at all.
Having no time to regroup and organize, Hyeri and Aurora call for you to team up with whatever people are nearby you and be ready to dispatch to the different wards. Rival faction or not, it's time to battle for survival.
KILLING ANOMALIES
Event-related Art and Writing will award points!
In order to claim the event currency containment points, calculate the worth of your submission as you ordinarily would in e-coins through the calculator and divide your total of e-coins from your submission by 33. This will leave you with your total worth of containment points.
Decimals above .5 should be rounded up to the number above, whilst decimals below .5 should be rounded to the number below.
Take note, you can do so only for every piece of art (that is greater than a flat bust or sketched waist)
OR 500 words of writing and over.
e-coin total / 33 = 1 containment point
You will self-count your points in the Containment Squad Registration sheet below
ROLEPLAY PART 1: 2 WEEKS
1. In the #EVENT-RP channel's "Bad News" thread, write a blurb about your character reacting to Bentley's news
2. You will create a Containment Squad to deal with the threats. Decide OOC who you want to team up with (minimum 2 people), pick a Ward, then register your squad here
3. In the #EVENT-RP channel, create a thread for your squad team to RP or draw your character battling anomalies