☆TRACK V: I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE PT. 2

[interdimanagers]

Who: Everyone in the last part of the log.
What: Everyone has a terrible night.
When: December 7th, 2054
Where: Naomi's ocean side mansion, followed by a secret Pride laboratory.
Warnings: Violence, blood, and at least one murder. Vague gore. NPCs being unhinged in a threatening way, though it's possible to have your character avoid ended up in the ballroom if you don't want to see this mess.

☆I WILL TWIST THE KNIFE The bubble has burst. The chaos of the night’s violence has finally boiled over into something uncontrollable – blood has been spilt, screams have been heard. No matter where you are in the mansion, you know by now that something is acutely wrong. Multiple members of Pride have been hurt – possibly killed – and you may still have no idea why. Some will try to escape. Some will try to fight back. Yet, as any rebellion starts to descend, a piercing note - a melodic cry - will summon you towards the ballroom. It can be resisted, in part - but only as far as you find yourself frozen in place instead of moving forward, at least while this spell holds. It's drawing you to the source...if you follow it, maybe you can stop it. The compulsion is strong for members of both labels. The cry seems to echo long past its termination point, to be heard wherever you are. If followed, it will bring you to Naomi Rivers in the center of the ballroom, her expression creased with strain. Though you may desperately want to strike her, something intangible is holding you back. "No!" she shouts at any Virgo nearby. "It isn't done! You need to...you need to finish this!" She'll point desperately at the nearby Pride, rendered unable to flee. "Get them now!" You don't want to. "Do it!" The compulsion weighs heavily on you - for Virgo, to act, and for Pride to surrender themselves. All subtly has disappeared. This last effort is unconcealed and nearly hysterical. You feel yourself slipping beneath the soundwaves. Power rolls off of her, the energy thick in the air, like something you can taste and smell. You can't do this. "I command-" The fabric of space-time cracks like a peal of thunder. All at once, the spell shatters.

Comments

[trustme]

"Perhaps... Ignorance is bliss. But it's also dangerous. If one of us are put in Naomi's position we too will be potential targets." He closes his eyes tight. "I spoke with Blanche after the fact. He said he's the only one who can protect us. There must be something we can do though. There has to be. He'd like to make us believe we only have one choice but in life there're almost always multiple paths to choose between."

[panspermia]

There's a pause, filled only by their music, before Greg wills himself to speak up again. "I talked with him too." He takes a breath. "Blanche wanted me to help... spy for him, or something. Keep an eye out for people who were acting up." He sends Doctor a sidelong look. "He wants to keep us from trusting each other." It's not enough that the man owns them, he doesn't even care about them feeling safe amongst each other.

[trustme]

Doctor looks over at Greg, shocked for a moment, then his eyes darken again. "It's fear. I don't think it matters which label we ended up under. Both of them intend to control us through fear to do... Whatever it is they ultimately want." Now that he thinks about it they still didn't know what their CEOs wanted most. Was this like the tango of rival gangs or was there more to it? "If only we knew what they want."

"I have trouble imagining you as a spy," Doctor tries to relieve some tension with a small laugh. "You're a good fellow."

[panspermia]

Greg's returned smile is weary and empty. "Never thought I could be so proud of being an awful liar." The mere idea of trying to pull one over on his friends is absurd, and honestly painful to imagine.

Blanche had to know that, too. He must've been picking on him in a moment of weakness. "I wonder how much of this whole music stuff is some sort of... dog 'n pony show, for whatever else they've got going on." He just can't see how it fits into the big picture, aside from keeping them busy.

[trustme]

Doctor tries to laugh again and it barely comes out. "Do Blanche or Lesedi even like music that much? Can't help wondering if they could do what they're doing as rival... toy manufacturers instead."

He stares up towards the ceiling, considering all the other musicians living in headquarters who had been a part of Virgo long before he or Greg had. How many of them knew the truth?

"There must be a number of senior artists who have all ready asked these exact same questions."

[panspermia]

Thoughts of mind-controlling toys sent out to unsuspecting children strikes Greg as far too plausible, and does little more than stress him further. The two of them sure wouldn't have any problems with that sort of plot, after all.

"I wouldn't be surprised if all of them do. We've only been here a few months, and everything is already..."

That begs the question--if those who have been here even longer knew full well, was there really no way out that anyone had found?

"...Naomi really was desperate for all that to work."

[trustme]

"My best guess is that she wanted Blanche's recognition so he would make a point of protecting her but if that was it her plan backfired in the worst way. Blanche said he wants us to prove we're worthy of his protection from Lesedi but it doesn't make sense. Won't Lesedi target us if we become a threat to her, rather than if we lay low?" He sighs loudly and frowns. "If only we knew the rules of this game of theirs."

He blinks rapidly as a thought occurs to him, "No... Naomi knew she was putting herself in danger. If we can tell taking that sort of action makes you a target just from what we learned tonight then she must have known what she was risking. She could have been attempting to change things, something worth the risk to her."

[panspermia]

"If we trust Blanche's word, Lesedi would take us out as soon as we got away from him, laying low or not." Trusting Blanche's word is a big "if," but Greg doesn't doubt Lesedi's fury. "He must have promised her something in return. Maybe not something for her, but... someone else..."

She was so desperate, right before..." He takes a deep breath, doing his best not to remember the blood. "Maybe she thought, if we'd succeeded, she'd... be protected, somehow.

[trustme]

"I don't know what type of person Naomi was but I know a lot of people would take that type of risk if victory was in their reach- either for them or someone they love. I wish we could see how Naomi's friends at the label are reacting. I bet they know what she was thinking when she tried what she... tried."

Doctor hesitates, licking his lips, and biting them before asking, "Were you there to see Naomi's performance?"

[panspermia]

"I wonder what people on her level of the totem pole must think of us." Greg's seen the hierarchical environment at Virgo as maybe a bit snobbish, to this point, but it puts things in a different light. The fact that so few were willing to talk said plenty in its own way.

He shakes his head, not catching on to Doctor's meaning. "No, I missed it. I never got to hear much from her."

[trustme]

"Good. It's better you weren't there... It made a great number of us feel strange and have violent ideas. She definitely wasn't singing a normal song. It was more like that performance we had in the basement," Doctor explains. "I believe that's what Lesedi was so upset over."

[panspermia]

Greg looks up at Doctor, blinking. "That's what did it? You're sure?" He'd been trying all night to understand what could have made so many of his peers act in such a way. "At... the end, right before she... I felt some of that. I thought I might..."

[trustme]

"Unless she covered her real technique up with her performance, I don't see how it could have been anything other than her singing that started up trouble tonight. By the time it was done a number of us felt strange. I..." he hesitates. "I had terrible, violent thoughts, just as her song lyrics spoke of."

[panspermia]

He watches for another moment, before averting his eyes again. "You didn't realize at the time at all, huh? I saw some people come out of it. One second acting like murder's the most obvious and simple action in the world, the next completely horrified."

[trustme]

"No. I didn't. I... I think I was caught up in the spell, I didn't know at the time- just like others didn't know until after the fact. Did someone... Actually try to hurt one of the Pride artists?" He hates asking it but it would explain Lesedi's anger so much more.

[panspermia]

So at least Doctor kept from going too far with it. Not all of Greg's friends can be the same. He nods, somber. "I think... some people got pretty seriously hurt. I didn't see anything, um. Successful. But they were going at it pretty hard."

[trustme]

"If we could find out how they do that with music... Maybe then we'd stand a chance of protecting ourselves from this sort of control. Keep what happened tonight from happening ever again." On the subject of strange dangerous powers... "Blanche and Santiago's powers. They could very well be related to the music too."

[panspermia]

"You think? But... they don't play, do they?" They say Blanche used to, but Greg's never heard anything from him. "They weren't tonight, anyway. I can... sort of get how music would let you in a person's head, but I dunno where teleporting comes in."