interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK V: I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE PT. 1

Who: Everyone that isn't an opt out!
What: Naomi Rivers throws a terrible holiday party.
When: December 7th, 2054
Where: Naomi's ocean side mansion.
Warnings: Violence, poisoning, various murder attempts, mind control, general uncomfortable lack of consent. Also, probably drug use. Maybe sex? Who knows what you'll get up to.

“I will burn for you;
Feel pain for you.
I will twist the knife 
and bleed my aching heart,
And tear it apart.”

☆I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE

The first two hours of the solstice party are surprisingly normal. Members of both labels arrive by private sky shuttle, and are invited into the ballroom for food and drink. It’s even more surprising when both Lesedi Santiago and Edward Blanche arrive as well, and spent most of that first period speaking quietly in a nearby lounge area. Lesedi’s body guards and Juno watch the space around them, keeping anyone of lesser important from interrupting what looks to be quite the serious discussion.

After food, the ballroom stage is taken over by a number of increasingly impressive entertainment pieces. It seems to be obligatory for everyone to stay and watch (not that it’s a struggle – the talent involved is unmistakeable), but not long into it Lesedi and Edward can be seen disappearing outside together, and show no immediate signs of returning.

And that’s when Naomi Rivers takes the stage.

To the Virgo that have heard it before, the song is more viscerally familiar than anything you’ve only heard once should be, and it awakens the ideas that were implanted there the night before. You have a job to do here, tonight. One that is only fair – almost righteous. Lesedi Santiago and her ilk will suffer for her transgressions.

The performances end, and everyone is released out to the rest of the grounds, to mingle and celebrate at their leisure. While things may seem civil on the surface, beneath that something dark is brewing. You gradually begin to notice that almost none of the more veteran members of either label are present.

► BALLROOM: The central nexus of the party, the ballroom is the location of the buffet table, the stage, and the dance floor. There will be music available all night, even after the official “performances” have ended. There are tables set up around the edges of the room for eating and relaxing.

► LOUNGE: Where Lesedi and Edward were having their meeting earlier, the lounge is filled with comfortable chairs, classic art, and a large, ornate fireplace. If you figure out who to ask, there are a number of chemical vices available to all guests.

► BALCONIES: There is a generous series of balconies that line the exterior of the upper floor. The ocean can be seen from one side and the gardens can be seen from the other.

► GUEST ROOMS: Down the halls from the ballroom there are a few generous guest bedrooms that have been left open for use.

► GARDENS: Out towards the back there are a wide variety of plants, and a well kept stone path and manmade waterfall. The plant life is on the sedate side due to the winter, but it’s still green.

► OUTDOOR POOL: There’s a pool out front with a shallow and a deep end. The water is clear and artificially warmed.

☆OOC CONSIDERATIONS

Please remember that any attempted assassinations are meant to remain covert, and if your character is incapable of being stealthy then you must assume that any attempts you make are happening towards the end of the evening – let’s say around 11PM. The spell compelling people to do this does not want a riot or a bloodbath – what it wants is for people to die before the rest of the group can realize that anything is even going on. Of course, this isn’t exactly going to work out, but if you are finding yourself getting into the realm of intense physical violence you might want to stop and slow down a little.

Virgo members that didn’t hear the song the night before are free from any compulsions, and so are all members of Pride. If non-mind controlled characters start clueing in to what’s going on and start trying to evacuate in large numbers, that is where you’ll want to wrap up threads and wait for Part 2 of the log, which will contain the end results and will be triggered by any large amount of chaos.

If any characters attempt to escape earlier in the evening, they’ll find that the shuttles have all been grounded, and wandering in the woodland nearby just seems to result in them getting lost and ending up back at the mansion. It’s a real pickle.

If you’ve got any question about what’s going on please leave them on the original plot post and they’ll get answered! The opt out event will be posted ASAP.

“I will lie for you;
Beg and steal for you.
I will crawl on hands 
and knees until you see:
You're just like me.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He comes out to the balcony just because he doesn't want to be inside anymore. It feel crowded and oppressive - and maybe it's just him but he feels like everyone, especially the Virgo, are looking at him with ill intent. He's noticed by now that he's physically smaller than before, which he doesn't understand at all. He's a few inches shorter, he's been careful to measure, which is almost more distressing than the obvious pink jewel that formed in the middle of his abdomen.

He'd asked for this, he keeps trying to remind himself. He asked to have something back that he'd lost, but he had no idea it would be this. Why is he shrinking? What does that mean? What kind of person has a rock embedded in them?

He wanted more than anything to stay home, that night. Being at an event like this just leaves more and more opportunities to have someone discover his secret. The best he could do was wear one of his shirt dresses and leggings underneath.

He notices Undyne out there when he approaches the railing. He's so on edge, he notices everyone around him, but he knows that she's Virgo and it immediately makes him uncomfortable. Yet, the increasingly small combative part of him insists in staying out there anyway, pushing the idea that he can do whatever he wants and that they can't stop him.

He leans on the railing and stares out at the ocean, feeling homesick for a place he can't quite remember.

His arrival snaps Undyne out of her reverie, and she looks sharply down at him, frowning. One hand twitches momentarily into a fist, but – it's not out of the way enough, here. He'd probably yell. Not here. Not yet.

Something about the way he was looking at the sea resonates with her, anyway. Her frown softens slightly.

"Hey, kid. Shouldn't you be partying or something?"

He actually flinches, and then tries very hard to pretend that he didn't. Undyne is kind of intimidating as it goes, and he's just in the mood where he assumes she's going to aggress him for no reason. A few months ago, he thinks, he probably would have been trying to "party." Back when he'd actually been trying to fit in instead of just feeling more and more out of place to the point that he can't even pretend anymore.

He doesn't feel right. He doesn't feel like he should be at this kind of party, with all these people so much older than him. He remembers the girl on the beach, who felt like his age, and talking to her for hours at twilight.

"Shouldn't you?" he asks.

She snorts quietly. She sure as heck noticed that flinch, but it doesn't trouble her much. People are scared of her pretty often. She feels like she should be able to recall more examples off the top of her head, but whatever!

"Not really my kind of party," she shrugs.

"What is your kind of party?" He sounds sort of like he's part way between asking an honest question and trying to size up whether Undyne is being covertly threatening. Really, he's kind of on guard for anybody that talks to him around here trying to posture at least a little bit.

"Ehh... one with more stuff getting thrown out of windows," she says, flashing him a little (by Undyne standards, anyway) grin. Inwardly she's still feeling pretty crummy, and there's still that itch in the back of her head that makes her feel like she ought to be slam dunking him off the edge of the balcony if there wasn't a risk someone would see... but it turns out it's surprisingly easy to put on a smile for a kid.

It seems a little bit less scary this time, knowing that she is apparently just going to talk to him instead of pointedly trying to freak him out. He lets out a tiny laugh, looking up at her with more transparent curiousity.

A lot of the Virgos have been nice to him in the past. Maybe...maybe she's okay?

"You should try being in Pride sometime," he says, looking down again but with the smallest bit of an impish expression. "You'd probably like it."

Honestly, that is 100% true. However, Undyne has just been subjected to some wack mind control encouraging her specifically to murder Pride members, and the joking suggestion makes her bristle irrationally. "No way!"

"Probably," he insists, but doesn't push it past that. He looks off into the distance again, reflectively. "...But I'd probably like Virgo better, so...whatever I guess."

Maybe he'd get slapped around less over there.

She narrows her eyes a little, finding that claim almost equally offputting. "Oh yeah? How come?"

He falls silent, starting off onto the distance blankly, before deflating just a little bit. Part of him just wants to point blank tell her why, just to see what she would say. But...he can't really bring himself to.

"My label doesn't like me very much," he says quietly.

So maybe nobody would miss him much if she did haul him off the balcony? She can't quite decide whether that's an incentive or a reason not to.

"Huh," she says. "What'd you do to piss them off?"

He shrugs his shoulders a little. He can't really talk about it much, can he? It's sort of complicated. She probably won't get it, but...

"I tried running away," he says.

She stares at him for a moment, trying to sort out her reaction to that through the incoherent cocktail of brainwashing that's currently sloshing around in her head. On the one hand, the idea of wanting or needing to run away from one's label seems completely absurd – on the other, he's Pride, and Pride sucks, and he sucks, so –

Undyne blinks, frowning. "... Why?"

Edited 2015-12-09 01:05 (UTC)

He falls silent for a moment. It's sort of complicated, isn't it?

"I dunno..." he says, after a moment, staring out at the ocean. "At first...I just got really scared of everything that was going on. Some of the older Pride bands messed around with us pretty bad, and I just...I couldn't deal with it anymore, so I wanted to leave."

He leans down against he railing.

"But that just make things worse."

She puts a hand on her hip as she looks down at him, the confusion she's feeling pretty clear on her face.

"So they just don't like you now, huh? Then..." Her brow creases. "Why would they want to keep you around?"

"I dunno," he says, earnestly. He really doesn't. Most of the time he feels like everyone hates him, even though that isn't objectively true. He could tell her about how he got hauled away to be interrogated and experimented on, but that's not something he can share with most people. It's a secret that eats away at him.

"It doesn't matter," he mumbles.

☆TRACK V: I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE PT. 1

BALCONY

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