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thearena2014-12-13 08:10 pm
69problems) wrote in thearena2014-12-13 08:10 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Who| Signless and Psii, Signless and Davesprite, Signless and OPEN!
What| A catchall for the first two weeks of the arena, including but not limited to: fighting xenomutts, CBOT-12 shenanigans, Signless having inopportune trances, puzzle rooms, and gravity throwing a fit.
Where| All over the station.
When| Week 0 and Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Injuries, most likely.
A | Week 0 | Closed to Davesprite
This is not the first pack of the smaller, quadrupedal xenomorphs the Signless has fought, but it's the first he's fought on his own and all he has is a pocket knife (and a taser, but he isn't entirely sure how to use it and so doesn't feel like giving up the knife to experiment). It doesn't help that his usual method for dispatching small game -- stabbing through the eye and up -- doesn't work on creatures with no actual discernible eyes.
They've backed him into a corner where two hallways cross and while thus-far he's managed to ward them off, he is probably not going to be able to do so much longer. His first instinct when he catches movement out of the corner of one eye is to think oh, no, not more of them.
B | Week 0 | Closed to the Psiioniic
The Signless is exploring the hallways of the upper levels when he first hears the voice, distant and yet unmistakable.
"Help! Please--"
His Disciple is somewhere nearby. His Disciple is in danger, and if she's screaming for help then it must truly be dire. Did they bring her back? He knows that sometimes a tribute will show up in an arena already in progress: it's how he arrived all the way back in arena six. His bloodpusher skips several beats and he holds very, very still until she cries out again and he finds his feet carrying him toward her voice without input from his brain. For the first time he gives no thought to the noise his boots make against the floor or to checking around corners before turning them; all he thinks about is getting to her.
He should know that it's a trap, but part of him wants so desperately to believe he hasn't permanently lost her.
C | Week 1 | OPEN
The one downside to Signless's strategy is that, while wandering in order to have as clear a picture of the arena he's dealing with as possible is a good idea in theory, he often finds himself stumbling into places he probably could have gone without exploring. The first few puzzle rooms took him a good while to work his way through (they would have gone faster if gravity hadn't switched on him halfway through the first one, leaving him floating awkwardly near the ceiling). Now that he has the hang of them (and gravity is back to normal for the moment) they're not quite so bad -- in fact, he's starting to get good at working out the solutions.
That's why this room worries him. It's clearly built to require two people to solve, he can tell that much by the configuration of platforms and buttons. This poses a problem, as he is only one person. With no other option, he's forced to wait for another person to accidentally stumble in and hope that they'll be the sort to be more interested in solving logic puzzles than killing other tributes.
[Signless in his wanderings will probably get stuck in many impassable two-person rooms. Feel free to state in your tag the current state of gravity at the start of your thread; we can also always switch midway through, since it changes every half hour!]
What| A catchall for the first two weeks of the arena, including but not limited to: fighting xenomutts, CBOT-12 shenanigans, Signless having inopportune trances, puzzle rooms, and gravity throwing a fit.
Where| All over the station.
When| Week 0 and Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Injuries, most likely.
A | Week 0 | Closed to Davesprite
This is not the first pack of the smaller, quadrupedal xenomorphs the Signless has fought, but it's the first he's fought on his own and all he has is a pocket knife (and a taser, but he isn't entirely sure how to use it and so doesn't feel like giving up the knife to experiment). It doesn't help that his usual method for dispatching small game -- stabbing through the eye and up -- doesn't work on creatures with no actual discernible eyes.
They've backed him into a corner where two hallways cross and while thus-far he's managed to ward them off, he is probably not going to be able to do so much longer. His first instinct when he catches movement out of the corner of one eye is to think oh, no, not more of them.
B | Week 0 | Closed to the Psiioniic
The Signless is exploring the hallways of the upper levels when he first hears the voice, distant and yet unmistakable.
"Help! Please--"
His Disciple is somewhere nearby. His Disciple is in danger, and if she's screaming for help then it must truly be dire. Did they bring her back? He knows that sometimes a tribute will show up in an arena already in progress: it's how he arrived all the way back in arena six. His bloodpusher skips several beats and he holds very, very still until she cries out again and he finds his feet carrying him toward her voice without input from his brain. For the first time he gives no thought to the noise his boots make against the floor or to checking around corners before turning them; all he thinks about is getting to her.
He should know that it's a trap, but part of him wants so desperately to believe he hasn't permanently lost her.
C | Week 1 | OPEN
The one downside to Signless's strategy is that, while wandering in order to have as clear a picture of the arena he's dealing with as possible is a good idea in theory, he often finds himself stumbling into places he probably could have gone without exploring. The first few puzzle rooms took him a good while to work his way through (they would have gone faster if gravity hadn't switched on him halfway through the first one, leaving him floating awkwardly near the ceiling). Now that he has the hang of them (and gravity is back to normal for the moment) they're not quite so bad -- in fact, he's starting to get good at working out the solutions.
That's why this room worries him. It's clearly built to require two people to solve, he can tell that much by the configuration of platforms and buttons. This poses a problem, as he is only one person. With no other option, he's forced to wait for another person to accidentally stumble in and hope that they'll be the sort to be more interested in solving logic puzzles than killing other tributes.
[Signless in his wanderings will probably get stuck in many impassable two-person rooms. Feel free to state in your tag the current state of gravity at the start of your thread; we can also always switch midway through, since it changes every half hour!]
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Karkat looks from where he stands to the room stretched before him. He can see large tiles on the floor that look too deliberate to just be a stylistic choice, a selection of large blocks settled amongst the grid, and a few shallow indents on the wall that look to correspond to their shapes. Some are taller or shorter with indents to match, giving suggestion of which goes where. That wouldn't be hard on its own, but he can see a button atop the nearest block - with ones to match atop those more distant.
Considering where they are, he hesitates to go up and press it. Instead, he bends down, sets his case of stuff on the floor, and takes his things out from inside. After, he closes it and holds it over.
"Your arms aren't bruised like old fruit, so do me a favor and toss this on that button there." He points to the top of the nearest block, which sits at the edge of the tiles. "I want to see what it does without risking life and limb."
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"Okay, this looks straightforward enough. Obviously we need to get the block from point a to point b, and that path is too obvious to ignore. I'm guessing the other blocks will have their own paths once we get to them and press their buttons, and obviously they're going to have to move anyway so we can get the first one into the right spot."
He looks back to his ancestor, showing confidence this time as he asks, "You think we can do it?"
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"Shall I go start on the next one? We shouldn't need the both of us to a block and it might go faster that way."
we can probably just jump to weird blood vision unless there's important convo stuff to have happen
"Yeah, go ahead. Just make sure you stay on the path, or else something will probably pop up and kill you, if not both of us." Him, he goes over to start pushing the first block. He leaves his case right where it is, too; it's easier than trying to carry it at the same time, plus it keeps his path illuminated.
can do!
He's sitting on the floor next to Mituna and Latula, holding a game grub controller like it's a venomous snake. He doesn't play videogames at the best of times and certainly not violent ones and yet here he is, incredibly out of his element and whining loudly about it.
In the real world he's gone motionless, eyes unfocused. Occasionally his mouth moves as though it's making words, but no sound comes out.
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So when the Signless stops, he doesn't worry at first. Maybe he's just considering where to push things next, or pondering an intersection of paths. But when the moment extends and he looks up, he sees his ancestor... mouthing something? Where's he looking? Karkat glances off in front of him but sees nothing unusual, and it doesn't look like he went off the path, either.
"Signless? What are you doing?"
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"... May be fake but that does not make it any less problematic..." he mumbles, with a tone that may be familiar to Karkat even if it's not one this particular voice often adopts. Pitch it up a little, though, take some of the tiredness out, and it should start to ring a bell.
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He checks the paths, shoves the block a bit, steps around, heads over, and--
SMACK.
"Knock it off, asshat!"
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Why does this keep happening? He never had visions this often even back on Alternia when his powers weren't disabled. Maybe the Capitol made him overly-sensitive to them in order to make giving him back his mostly-useless prophetic abilities more interesting? If that's the case, he is officially annoyed. #tw: prophet privilege #tw: wait no, no no no, damn it--
"Karkat? Karkat. Slap me again, would you?"
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But before that...
"What?" His brow crinkles up, but that was much clearer than anything before. It kind of worked. Maybe another will do the trick, and dear Mother Grub he hopes so as he swings another for the opposite cheek.
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"I'm sorry. On Alternia I used to have visions of my life as Kankri. Whatever holds our abilities back has been lifted for this arena, so I've been getting them again, and they always come at the worst possible time."
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"And there's no way to warn me when your pan screws off to the Grand Church of Problematics?" he asks, now rubbing his own hand a bit. He's wondered about the hair on his face before, but he didn't realize it would feel that weird where it caught his hand. "You even had his tone. You know, the one where he treats you like a grub but not enough to shut up."
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"I don't get any more warning than anyone else, unfortunately. It comes when it wants to."
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And that's about all there is to be said on the issue. No warning, just deal with it, slap his weird, hairy face if he needs to...
Karkat's head perks. "Your face. What's with it?" He points up, not touching, but hovering a finger before one stubbly cheek. "I'm not going to catch your infection on my hand now, am I?"
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It's been a while since another troll has asked about his facial hair so bluntly, though a few have made off-hand comments.
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"It started growing in when I was about eight sweeps old," he adds, with just a hint of sheepishness in his voice. "I always left it alone as a sign of defiance, I wouldn't fault you for removing it. Kankri did."
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He's definitely staring now, fascinated in his horror, almost wanting to touch the strange, rough surface. It's creepier than it has any right to be now, transformed by the teenage dread of his body's inevitable betrayal.
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"Demonic is taking it a bit far," he says instead. He's always rather liked his weird face prickles.
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He's frowning now, petulant and defiant. "You can't stop me."
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He steps back, and his gaze is wary. "I'm going to finish this puzzle." He watches him, still for a moment, then says as he turns, "You go back to--"
His stomach lurches, or maybe lifts, like missing a step only to find the stairs were an illusion all along. He doesn't tumble forward, but his turn sets him into a lazy spin as his feet leave the ground.
"TAINT-LICKING NOOKMAGGOTS, WHY NOW?!"
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"I don't think my face is a hazard. You're the first to have had a problem with it."
Might as well keep talking when they're got thirty minutes to kill.
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"It's scratchy. It felt weird on my hand and it probably would have left marks if I kept having to slap you," he insists. "You don't have your visions normally, either, so don't give me that I'm-the-first argument."
His head turns, looking out the way he's headed for what bit of architecture he might be nearing, and what handholds there are available. As soon as he's close enough he grabs on.
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