☆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

[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."