multiversallogs | plot } the creatures descend.

Who: Everyone!
What: Creatures descend!
Where: All across the city, although attacks will be most fervent at its heart.
When: Friday/Veerdi evening and into the week.
Notes: Slow and back-tagging is, as always, permitted. If you are confused, look at these two posts for more information.
Warnings: Violence, creepiness, swearing knowing these characters.

On Veerdi, the presence of the creatures reaches a fever pitch. Something has provoked them into launching an all-out assault, though it is one that begins slowly. The pipe-crawlers, generally harmless though they may be, are seen across homes in Baedal, sneaking up through the pipes and into bathtub drains or sinks. They come by the dozens, and their keening makes most homeowners nauseated--but it's their appearance that leads to a number of distressed Network calls.

This is just the distraction for the rest.

The call of the crawlers draws in the armored, sickly creatures with the tiny primates carried inside of it. They are inelegantly lumbering, but much faster than one might expect, and certainly hostile. They trudge across the city, barreling over anyone who gets in their path and leaving them half-crushed in the street. They're certainly unsettling in their obvious unhealthiness, and the disease-ridden animals they carry are downright vicious, especially once they escape (messily, bloodily) from their fleshy cage.

It's the birds that are the worst, though; the cleverest, and the cruelest.

These strange black birds are resistant to typical attacks and flying in large groups. They descend on pedestrians, picking at their eyes and faces, ready to rapidly tear flesh from bone until there's nothing left but skeletal remains. They fly out of range when they can, only to divebomb anyone who might think they've escaped.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mabel grabbed the third person, supporting most of his weight with her shoulder, half dragging him down the street. She's keeps darting back and forth from the skyline and the ground; the next attack could come from anywhere, if one was coming at all.

"This is starting to piss me off," she huffs. Something's moving in the shadows to her left, but when she turns to look at it, it's gone. She can't tell if it was a creature, or something else. It's not worth investigating unless it's going to attack them.

The jostling they receive causes Hellboy's cargo to retch just a little bit more than they already had, adding a wash to the repair work that his coat was already going to need later. The birds continue to circle overhead, but the occasional glare skyward seems to be enough to keep them from making another play, at least for the moment. Down one alley, something like a huge armadillo can be seen trundling along the street on the other side of the block.

A few blocks after that, Hellboy leads them down an alley, narrow enough that the upper levels of the buildings on either side offer some cover from above but barely wide enough to allow his bulk room to maneuver.

"Over here," he says as he sets the two he was carrying down next to a door set into one of the buildings. He hadn't had time to check before, but a quick jiggle of the door handle reveals that it's actually locked. "Crap. Hang on." The easy solution would've been to bust the door open, but they need it intact, so instead he fishes a couple bits of long thin metal out of his belt and picks the lock. "Okay, everyone. Inside, quickly."

There's a brief moment of confusion (not helped by lingering effects of nausea) - were they going to stay here? Wasn't there some sort of centralized secure place to get to? - but Mabel quickly realizes there's not a whole hell of a lot of choice in the matter, and Hellboy knows what he's doing. She drags her groaning charge inside, deposits him as gently as she can (which isn't very gently, right now), and braces her hands against her knees.

A quick scan of the building showed that it seemed relatively secure,with windows that were small covered in bars, other doors that were tightly locked, and lacking in a great deal of plumbing that would cause problems. The civilians were in rough shape, but Mabel was chalking their survival up as a solid win at the moment.

She's starting to catch her breath again. "Don't know what we'd do without you, Hellboy."

As far as Hellboy knows, there isn't currently a central shelter. Maybe he'll find out about one later and he'll get them shuffled over there then, but for now this is it. It's pretty bare inside, but the shelving on the walls, the secure doors, and some of the scrapes on the stone floor suggest that this might've been some sort of storage room at some point. That the place is so bare, however, does present one sort of problem, and he scratches at the little goatee on his chin as he acknowledges it.

"Well, you might have to manage for a little while." Reaching into his coat, he pulls a slightly battered old-fashioned metal canteen from its spot on the back of his belt, shakes it to confirm that it has a decent amount of water in it, and hands it to Mabel. "Here. I'm going to go get some supplies. Lock the door behind me and hold down the fort until I get back."

Mabel opens her mouth to protest and snaps it shut again. Now was not the greatest time and it didn't take a genius to tell she wasn't in the best shape to go back out again.

"Alright; we'll make sure this place is secure." Which means she'll do it; the civilians didn't seem like they'd be able to stand.

Hellboy nods, then slips out of the door as quickly as he can. He's gone for about an hour, although he checks in with Mabel every so often via text. (The spelling isn't the greatest, because he's in a hurry and the keyboard isn't so great for one handed typing, but he manages.)

When he returns, he picks the lock again to get back in -- it's a skill that he doesn't get nearly enough changes to have fun with -- then drags in a fairly hefty sack with a few portable cooler packs hanging off of it by their straps, like Santa Claus on a beach holiday.

"Okay. I had to hit up a couple places to get everything, but I think this should be enough to last this place a while." There's food and water, a gas-powered portable stove, a couple of flashlights and lanterns -- apparently thinking ahead, not sure whether the room still had electricity -- and an assortment of first aid supplies.

Mabel is well on her way to clawing down the walls when he returns; her wounds have long stopped bleeding, her muscles rested enough. She digs through the first aid supplies in a hurry, slapping a bandage on the worst of them (no antiseptic - her wounds never got infected).

"You left out the kitchen sink," she says, her tone admiring. "I think they'll be alright with this; I'm ready to bounce."

"I went looking, but the sinks all had pipe-crawlers in 'em." He's probably not really serious, but the way he says it sounds like it was truly a tragedy.

He gives the quickness of Mabel's patch work a brief side-eye as he lays out the remaining contents, then puts his canteen back on his belt. "You folks going to be okay here now?" The civilians nod and mumble through their thanks, and he nods in return, satisfied. "Okay. Give a call if there's a problem. Let's go, Mabel."

plot } the creatures descend.

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