Gather Up Your Loved Ones, Gather Up Your Friends

[hfm_npcs]

Warnings: Nox. So many Nox. All of the Nox. And also violence.
Location: All over the city
Characters: Everyone, and also so many Nox. Did we mention Nox?
When: Not long after the repairs on the sinkhole start
Summary: People getting kidnapped by Nox. Yikes.

The repairs on the sinkhole have been going well, but somehow, the city hasn't been the same. There's a heaviness in the air, like a thunderstorm building on the horizon. The normal sounds of a city night have given way to hoots and howls of creatures. The Nox are restless at night and quiet during the day. The local people are opting to stay inside when they don't absolutely have to go out.

Something is coming. Something big.

Then it happens, on a unseasonably warm fall day. High noon and the streets start rumbling, the violent rattling of the manhole covers loud enough to drown out thought. Then, shadowy tentacles burst out the street from every underground entrance, blindly grabbing for whoever they can snatch, overpowering their unlucky victims and bodily dragging them into the nearest available manhole or sewer entrance. If you’re lucky, you get away. If not...enjoy your private tour of the unending blackness and horrifying whispers that is the sewers.

[OOC: Feel free to play out your character's kidnapping or reactions to the chaos however you want in this log! If you want an NPC Nox to react to, just let a mod know!]

Comments

gently... sashays in here... with pain

[exuviiated]

Red sky at morning, shepherd take warning-- despite that, Aaron goes out to do some shopping and refill his ailing fridge. The entire city's on a live wire, tense and coiled. Something's got to happen. Just what. he doesn't know.

The rumbling begins, and he's finally home-- perhaps taking advantage of his still-open door, the tendrils of shadowy goop burst into his place and snare about his ankles, waist, though leaving his hands free-- if only because he's fending that onslaught off as well as he can with healing magic (and screaming for help) even as he's dragged unceremoniously out the door and down into the sucking blackness of a manhole.

And then it all goes dark.

[raisethemoon]

Luckily, many pegasi instinctively take to the air when startled. Luna is an alicorn, but she is no exception.

She's quick to gain enough height to avoid the tentacles. From there, she turns around to lash out with a whip-sharp tendril of water. She can't control enough to take on all of those tentacles at once, but she can at least hinder some.

[goddamngrenades]

For the record-

Not how York thought he'd be spending his day. Getting people where they need to be, clearing out more debris, that kinda shit? Yeah. that's how his days tend to go lately. Air all tense and thick like something is about to happen? He remembers how that feels from back in the project. How usually something went FUBAR shortly afterward. He's got half a mind to wear his suit down to the sinkhole. Argues with himself about it for a good half hour before deciding, no, today it won't kill him to try to work as normal.

He'll kick himself for that later.

But man, if Wash is happy walking around without the armor? He can too. See? Not paranoid, not losing sleep, not twitching and waiting for something to go wrong. It's noon so they should be safe? Just. Two guys, walking to grab lunch. No biggie.

"Anyway so I get the guy there, right on the dot, where we need to be and everything and he's a little dizzy but that's normal and I warn them about that before we start jumping and he wants a discount. For distress or something like that and I tell him 'look, I gave you a heads up, you knew about this going in, you don't get a discount because you got a little dizzy' and he starts puffing up like-" Like he's some kind of big badass or something, is what he was going to say but can't because.

Shit.

Tentacles.

"Oh fuck me-" He gets one hand on Wash and half of himself ready to get them the hell out of there, thinking of the apartment, the night safe apartment when his legs go out from under him like a chump. Rookie mistake. At least he knows enough to let Wash go before they both get dragged down, kicking at the thing around his ankle, scrabbling with it until it starts dragging him down and no, fuck no, HELL no- He ports himself somewhere else, out of the grip, ten feet up the street and sprinting- "RUN!"

[letteropener]

You'd think Celestia would be no easy target, and you'd be right.

But it helped immensely that a thundering mass of shadows burst out of a sewer grate with enough volume and force to crack stone, surging like a wave over the alicorn. She had been positioned just right for them to tangle her wings as she spread them, and haul her sharply to the ground hard enough that her head smacked heavily against the pavement.

[diediediediediedie]

no no no no NO NO NO NONONONONONONO-!

Peridot's state of absolute panic mirrors that of the city. Why did she let them take her limb enhancers, didn't she say something like this could happen?!

Tentacles burst through the ground, out of subway tunnels and she's not sure what's louder, the destruction or her screaming, which slowly becomes more of a mantra.

"Clods clods clods clods clods clods clods clods-"

The only thing she can do now is find someone we knows and hope that they have some sanctuary from this...havoc.

[oldfashionedfutureboy]

Should've seen this coming. Go out on a quick errand run, he thought, grab some beer and boxing gloves and maybe a few things to get Casey a more well rounded (practical) education, he thought. And the streets are full of shadows and whispers he remembers on a bone deep level.

It hadn't killed him, last time. God almighty knows he might've preferred that to the endless void.

He's too dumbstruck to do more than stand and stare till glass shatters nearby (bye beer) and he's startled into movement, sprinting as far from the mess as he can. Not that it does a damn thing when three thick tendrils snake out of nowhere and get him by the ribs, arm, and throat.