BEWARE THE WHEELERS [modplot] [event] [free-for-all]

[wildermods]

BEWARE THE WHEELERS
OOC POST
The teleportation spell finally works out its very last kinks, placing them in an area of the city they've never been in before. Placing them here wasn't purposeful, the magic has just been trying its best to just gather them together and properly bind them.

But the area it puts them in is rather unfortunate. On a wall nearby, they can see words graffitied, a warning:

BEWARE THE WHEELERS

They're in Wheeler territory now, and that's why they suddenly hear whooping around them and cackling, maniacal laughter. The Wheelers start to roll out in force, making their situation go a little "Beyond Thunderdome" in the space of seconds. They're strange and terrible creatures, humanoid but with inhumanly long arms and legs that end in screechy wheels. Many of them wear terrifying masks over their heads that are lowered into place when their heads are down.

Because of their wheels, they can roll very fast, making it easier for them to hunt down their prey. Their wheels are bladed and made of a metal that never gets dulled or worn down, even with being rolled on, allowing them to slash at their victims as they roll by.

The Wheelers aren't working alone. Some of Oz's fairies are working with them, little unpleasant things. The fairies are very bitey, with pointy little teeth, and are able to cast magic. Mostly first-level spells: fire spells, ice spells, and disorientation spells.

The group will have to try to fight and run. The city is completely overrun with these creatures, so there's no way to defeat them all, but there's refuge beyond the city limits. The fairies are very territorial and don't like leaving their hunting grounds and while the Wheelers will follow their prey anywhere, their greatest weakness can be found beyond the city limits:

Very tall grass.

The terrain gets too hard to roll over outside the city. But the group has to get there alive first.

---

OOC INFO
✦ Post in actionspam format. Plots and mod-run events in the game are meant to be in actionspam format to keep a brisk pace.

✦ Free-for-all Post. This event will be in "free-for-all" format, meaning that threadhopping is encouraged and that threading should be treated in the same conversational way as network posts.

✦ Bankable Magic. Alongside other mage types being able to figure out and use their magic for the first time, Archivist mages can start reflecting and banking magic for the first time as well. The fairies will be casting first-level fire, ice, and disorientation spells that can either be reflected at enemies or banked.

✦ NPCing. Players are free to npc Wheelers and fairies attacking within their threads. The fairies cannot talk. The Wheelers will mostly laugh and call out threats that they'll rip the characters apart.

Comments

[awfulcer]

[Having failed to make many positive impressions on people - and feeling conflicted talking to Revan - Dixon's mostly been lingering around the outskirts of the group, quietly examining the shield he woke up with. In as strange way, it feels natural to carry, and when that gets tiring he finds out that he can strap it to his back and it becomes inexplicably lighter.

He also finds out the hard way how sharp the edges are when he nearly slices off his thumb. Back turned to the group, he covertly sucks at the cut. He feels the teleportation begin a millisecond before it happens, not quick enough to get a word out before they're all in a new location.]

-got to be fucking kidding me.

[Dixon wipes the trace blood on his hand on his jeans, squinting at the scrawled warning with an indignant huff at whatever powers that be are yanking them around. He half-turns, not particularly excited at their new locale, figuring it's just another stupid and interchangeable part of the ruins. And then he hears whooping and hollering. He huffs again and looks in the direction of the noise.]

What now- ow! [Instinctively, he slaps at a snapping pain on his shoulder, and is not surprised to hit and grab something biting him, but at the sheer size and nature of the thing. It's like a big bat.

Except, you know, biting him and with scales and a screwed-up little face that looks like "injured animal" and more "pissed off".

It's not even really a conscious decision to chuck the thing as far as he can from him. It flies like a rock at first, and then suddenly stops, hovering like a hummingbird in the air. It's also unconscious the way Dixon grabs his shield from where it's strapped to his back in one fluid motion, too, as if he's been using it as a weapon all his life.

His glaring at the snapping bird-bat-bug-thing is rather rudely interrupted by the sudden entourage of Wheelers.

Masked, warped weirdos like a person made a baby with a shopping cart, with spinning blades at their hands. Dixon doesn't even need to really think about it to see that they're bad news.]

Everybody run! [Somewhere he delves up the mettle to not just bolt, and plants his feet and braces behind his shield, checking over his shoulder to see if everyone is, in fact, hauling ass. Women and children and...other kids first. And the aliens.]

[wherenoonegoes]

Outside the city! That way!

[Hiccup points roughly east. It wouldn't help if everyone ran off in opposite directions. Especially since they'd get dragged right back here if they did. He pulls his own shield and lights Inferno to start driving off the fairies, and gestures towards a wall.]

Toothless, if you would?

[Toothless fires a plasma blast, breaking the already crumbling barrier apart. Hopefully the rubble will slow some of the Wheelers down.]

[therevanchist]

How does something like that even evolve?!

[Why yes, Revan's more offended by the implications of naturally-occurring wheels than the fact a pack of angry aliens are howling for her blood. After all, the latter happens more or less daily and she's not dead yet. Granted, her lightsabers are usually working in those instances where she's avoided death. This isn't the worst tactical situation imaginable...but she's got a fertile imagination and she can come up with some terrible scenarios.

After a quick glance around this new area confirming it's no more well-supplied with weapons merchants than anywhere else they've been, Revan holds out a hand and a fallen tree limb jumps into it. Hardly the most elegant weapon, but it's approximately straight, and thick enough it won't break on the first blow. She raises her voice to cut through the commotion.]

Stay on broken ground if you can find it.

[Wheels. Absurd.

With a sweeping gesture, she calls on the Force and rips some of the climbing vines off the nearest wall, whipping the green mass at the creatures leading the assault to tangle their legs and break the charge.]

[awfulcer]

[Dixon takes his eyes off the encroaching Wheelers and sees Revan and Hiccup (and more importantly than Hiccup, Hiccup's dragon - who eminently blasts a hole through a wall). It's not the worst ragtag group to stand off against these bonkers things, but then again, Dixon doesn't exactly have experience with fighting monsters.

Or like, actual combat at all.]

Get the kids through that pathway and we can take the front line.

[You know, as if he's in charge, which the experience back at the first group meeting indicated as an absolute negative. He figures getting Bart and Monika and all to safety is a pretty solid call to make (although he'd probably be okay with Phos getting eaten by a pizza-cutter monster).

One of the Wheelers hells up on him and he instinctively brings the shield up at an angle, countering it with enough force to stop it from plowing him over and, in the motion, slashing its throat with the edge of the shield. A spritz of blood splatters on the shield and his face, leaving him trying to quickly rub blood out of his eyes while avoiding another creature taking a swing at his knees.]

[astrarche]

[For all that Sariatu has, since her weeping subsided, been slowly sharpening the sword she hasn't put down yet in long, almost compulsive strokes, her eyes stay just as glassy as the Wheelers appear. She looks at the oncoming threat and thoroughly underreacts.

At best she looks disapprovingly underwhelmed. The masks have a certain effective horror about their design, and the armor is somehow reminiscent of mangled flesh and exposed veins enough to look Deeply Wrong, but they've come to battle with that posture? On those bizarrely wheeled devices? Is this supposed to intimidate her? Is this supposed to impress her?

And what exactly do they think they're going to do - kill her again?

If they do, maybe then she will see her husband after all.

This dark thought fills her with a certain depressed calm. But when a fairy, screams shrill and teeth exposed, dives into her personal space building up sparks of power between its tiny hands, she dully tracks it zipping around her head for a moment before bisecting it with a flick of her wrist.

That sets the others off. More fairies converge on her, and on the people around her. Suddenly, a thousand small scratches is waking her up as the threat of just another quick, brutal death could not.]

You little -! How dare you -

[Her rage is nowhere what it was before, but it starts to build as the swarm attacks her and she attacks back.]

[prisonerofsasskaban]

[It was hard to ignore a screaming monkey, especially one with a sword. As he tried to make his retreat, he stopped, then changed directions. When he was close enough to grab one of the fairies with his telekinesis, he swung it several times in the air to gain momentum, then threw it at the others. Hopefully it'd bowl enough of them over to give Sariatu a break.]

Don't let them distract you. We've got bigger problems than pixies!

[astrarche]

[She bit back on the 'Don't tell me what to do!' that she wanted, initially, to spit out, as more of the bloody little magic bugs fell in bloody sections around her.

Spare her this irritation, at least, if she was going to die all over again.]

Oh what are they going to do? Kill me again?

[prisonerofsasskaban]

Again?

[And people called him dramatic.]

There are things worse than death. Do you want to help us escape or make a last stand?

[As forceful as he tried to sound, he couldn't be mad. That wasn't a bad way to go, really, he just didn't want to do it in prison robes.]

[konman]

[Crap. Do or die time, special emphasis on 'or die,' what with his lack of powers. Kon finds a tree branch to use as a staff. Besides the little metal S-shield, Guardian had trained him with a bo more than anything else, so the branch is the next best thing.]

[He's more about brute force than skill as he knocks the legs of Wheelers out from under them, but he still gets the job done. Unfortunately, they're seriously outnumbered and he's seriously rusty. One of the Wheelers gets in a glancing blow of a blade to his upper arm. It's only a small cut but Kon's not used to being hurt that easily.]

[He feels an overblown rush of rage as he turns to look up at the Wheeler that did it and then something strange happens. His eyes cloud over and turn black. It'd felt his his powers had been locked away and now they're suddenly unlocked - but it isn't his usual superpowers that are called forth. It's...something else.]

[He extends a hand and black tendrils spring out of the ground, ensnaring one of the Wheelers. This causes a pile-up that sends several of them sprawling to the ground.]

[Kon suddenly freezes and stares at his hand.]

What the hell?!

[wherenoonegoes]

[Toothless bashes a Wheeler with his tail, before giving growl that sounds like the dragon equivalent of a knowing smirk. He knew it, he absolutely knew something hadn't been right with Kon.]

Yeah, yeah, you were right. Not the time bud.

[Hiccup swings the flat of his blade at a fairy, sending it flying into a wall.]

You think you can figure out how to use whatever's going on with you in the next five seconds?

[konman]

[Kon briefly catches a glimpse of himself in the shimmering surface of one of the broken pieces of emerald, sees his blackened eyes.]

I -- I don't know. I have no clue what this is!

[He slams the branch into the gut of another Wheeler. It seems a lot safer to not use whatever weird power that was.]

[wherenoonegoes]

[There's a minor explosion as Toothless blasts a fireball at a wall, burying some of the pursuers under broken emerald.]

Then, might I suggest, not trying to work it out? No offense, I just don't want to experiment in the middle of a running battle with powers that somehow managed to spook Toothless.

[Throwing his shield at yet another Wheeler, Hiccup catches it on the rebound.]

Plenty of time for that after.

[the_hit_list]

[ Admittedly, Tim wasn't keeping as close of an eye on Kon as he was busy hovering near people who aren't built like a mac truck. Long, twisting ropes of black energy stretching across the battle? That gets his attention.

On one end, there is a fallen clump of Wheelers. On the other, a standing Kon with only black eyes. That's - alarming, frankly, but if they've somehow possessed Kon, he's not going to have a j'accuse moment with so little evidence. After all, they're down. Kon is not.

He's just going to act like this is semi-normal, albeit from a good six feet away. ]

Nice move. Was that you? Because if you think I'm going to start saying bum bum bum after your name... [ He smirks slightly. ] I might.

[konman]

How about you bum bum bum can it?

[Okay, clearly not possessed. Or not fully possessed, at least. Just cranky.]

[He's angry but it's in that way he gets when he's not actually angry but is instead lashing out because he's rattled and trying to pretend he isn't.]

My powers are gone. This is -- this is what was there instead.

[As he uses the tendrils again, knocking some of the Wheelers down, the 'lashing out' anger passes and there's a different kind of anger on his face, one that's closer to genuine - unnatural, uncharacteristic - rage.]

[Something about this is just...sweeping him away. Something strange happens to one of the Wheelers nearest him. He breathes in and there's an aura of light that leeches off of the Wheeler, like he's sucking the light away from them. Kon grows steadier where he stands, the Wheeler weakens where he lays on the ground, trying feebly to push himself up.]

[the_hit_list]

I could.

[ A small amount of smugness at having irritated Kon for something other than being four and hard-nosed, but Tim’s internally smothering it.

It’s not funny, and it keeps getting worse. Tim is willing to consider the benefits of Kon using strange powers, but the second time Tim has a front row seat. He takes it all in: the dark magic, the fading glow around the Wheeler, the look on Kon's face, and – worst of all – the overall impression of the life draining out of someone. It’s a different format, but he’s seen enough people in danger of bleeding out to recognize it.

The smugness is long gone when he clamps a hand on Kon's arm, indicating the Wheeler on the ground with his bo. Now, he's smothering his concern. ]

I think he’s down.

[outofresets]

[ At some point, Imp had gotten the brilliant idea that it was easier to ram in to the Wheeler and let them knock into eachother, than it was to try to fight them head-on. So his new strategy had been making himself into a human battering ram by means of getting to high ground and throwing himself at a group of them.

Like most of his other strategies so far, it had mixed results. But as he's put himself in a position to pull the dumb stunt again, he unintentionally ended up in a prime spot to witness Kon's new powers latch around one of the Wheelers and unintentionally send a good portion of the others raming into each other. ]

Whoa.

[ Leaping down off the wall without a second, Imp bolts toward his friend, and apparently not taking notice of Kon's shock and confusion, starts yelling from halfway over to him, gesturing to the Wheelers he just took out. ]

Since when could you do that?!

[konman]

[Kon looks at his hands in confusion.]

Since I got here I guess. When I dug down deep to try to use my normal powers, this was there instead.

[Now if only he could figure out what this is.]

It's kinda freaking me out.

[prisonerofsasskaban]

[Sirius as far from the group as he could manage and when they teleported into this city, that fact did not change.

He'd been running for too long lately, but powerless, and a fair distance from the others, he didn't see much of a choice.

Before he could do more than swear and take several steps back, a couple of fairies caught up with him. He held up his hand and tried to use his magic, acting on pure instinct. Something else happened. One fairy froze in the air. He felt it struggle under his control.]

Huh.

[He twisted his hand and the fairy soared through the air again, this time hitting the other as it dove down to attack Sirius. The impact knocked them both down.]

Two fairies, one stone.

[googledox]

That power. Did you have it before this?

[He asks because Sirius looked surprised and he can feel something strange when he tries to use his missing shield powers. He's wondering if anyone else is finding themselves with altered abilities.]

[Brainy ducks a bladed blow aimed at his throat with ease and kicks the legs of a Wheeler out from under him.]

[prisonerofsasskaban]

No, this is magic is different.

[The Wheelers were advancing. In his state, Sirius couldn't outrun them. It was time to see just how powerful this new magic was.

As one came his way, he tried to hold it as he had the fairy. The Wheeler didn't even slow.]

I liked mine better.

[He ducked out of its way. His knees scraped against the ground and he scrabbled to get back onto his feet.]

[shipoftheseus]

[These things don't attack like the elegant, strategic Lunarians, always working together seamlessly no matter how great their numbers. They're like nothing Phos has ever encountered or even imagined.

Phos has one passageway covered, at least as far as the Wheelers are concerned. As a band of the things come speeding between the ruined emerald walls, Phos hastily tosses up their arms, alloy surging forward to cover the opening in a shifting wall of golden liquid. A few of the Wheelers ram against it, the opposite side distending with the impacts but holding strong and repelling them backwards.]

What the heck are these things?! They're so creepy!

[Phos isn't really keen on sticking around longer than necessary. They've got they're head turned towards the rest of the group for a moment, to see if everyone's alright or ask what they should all do, when another of the Wheelers suddenly comes skidding around a different wall, darting in close and swiping at them with a bladed wheel.

The wheel strikes across one of Phos' legs before they can react, and they grimace preemptively, already expecting the worst. But it's mostly a glancing hit, the wheel skidding across their surface with an awful scraping sound and miraculously not even a crack. Must have hit on one of the stripes of agate. They got lucky, for once.

Not keen on waiting for their luck to run out, they stumble back and sweep their arms at the offending Wheeler, the golden alloy melting into amorphous tendrils that thwack along the entirety of its body and smack it away. The Wheeler is haphazardly sent careening, half rolling where it manages to get its wheels back under it, and Phos realizes belatedly with a panicked expression that they've shoved it towards one of their new companions.]

Move!

[balladin]

I think the word you’re looking for is morons!

[ Robbie hears the warning to move – and does – but he can tell the Wheeler is going to hit him. Not a lot, but they’re going to clip shoulders hard.

Doing his best to avoid their daggery-sharp wheel feet, Robbie throws out one hand instinctively to protect himself. This would normally be the point where a bunch of bright kinetic energy globules would burst into existence to cushion the blow, but whatever’s affecting them is still in effect. Heh. Unfortunate mental wordplay. At least he’s smiling when he’s about to dislocate a –

The Wheeler crashes into the translucent orange bubble that envelopes Robbie. It gives, and he can feel the pressure of the impact fully before it pops, but it doesn’t hurt at all.
This leaves him right in front of the thing, and it looks like it felt the collision properly. Robbie doesn’t waste time before kicking it in the groin and backing up in a hurry. ]

What the hell was that bubble? Was that you? Mine don’t do that!

[loadme]

[Monika is more surprised than anything else. Surprised, and impressed. That the Wheelers are built the way they are, and are still able to function. It's quite literally like something out of a story, or maybe somoene's nightmares. She's still on the fence on whether or not she buys any of this, but she's not about to test any theories right now.

She's not necesarilly a fighter. And there isn't really anything nearby that she can use as a weapon.

It's also not looking likely that she can use whatever powers she's been given to defend herself. She doesn't even know what hers are, yet.

So she does the only thing that she can. She runs.

At least she's athletic enough that she can keep a solid pace without tiring herself.

And yet, luck was not on her side, as she trips over and falls with the Wheeler closing in fast.]

[followingdawn]

[ Sothe...should not try to be a hero. That's the kind of thing that gets people in trouble, or more specifically, dead, and he's kind of fond of being alive, hard as it sometimes is.

But the idea of just continuing to run right past Monika doesn't sit right at all.

Out comes the knife he found when he woke up, being the first one at hand, and with a yell, he leaps towards the Wheeler and takes a big slash across its torso (such as it is). ]

[loadme]

[It's a relief that people here were as willing as they were to help each other out. She would've been very upset if they'd have left her behind!

Monika looks on as the knife goes across the Wheeler's body, noticing the blood the comes out from the cut.

All in all, she's still not showing much in the way of fear. Though maybe she should, considering her predicament.]

Thanks.

[At least she's back on her feet.]