multiversallogs | The City at Large & Mission Alpha

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The City at Large & Mission Alpha

Who: OPEN to all residents.
What: The ant-situation is changing!
Where: Throughout the city.
When: NOW. This thread will likely cover a few days.
Warnings: To be updated.

Dear Mission Alpha,

It is your undeniable privilege to bring back as many of the so-called 'crow pearls' as possible to the Temple. Any temple. No one important cares how you do it, just get it done. Try to be substantial about it, let's say more than 50, hmm? The actual task here is to deprive our deranged ant-friends of as many pearls as possible, but no one is going to be rewarded for stories like 'oh we absolutely threw two tons of pearls down the whirlpool, we swear on our broodmother's grave', okay? Okay. Peachy. Bring me the pearls, chop chop.

Your totally sweet gods have decided to lend you some ...boons I guess, however that goes, to aid you in your quest. Useful objects. For you, my gifted pilferers and negotiators:

A Skeleton Key - it will open any unwarded lock. It will not open warded locks. That means magical locks. No magical locks will be opened with this key. Unless the magic is broken first. Good luck with that.

Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card - I realize no one has bothered to build proper jail cells in Our City yet so it's more of a Fend-off-The-Local-Authorities-Free Card but that's not as catchy. Think of it as An Official Voucher From the Gods that says you're on Official Twelve Point Business and can't be arrested right now. Keep it for the Sheriffs as it might not have the desired effect the Militia.

Privacy Ward or App For Your CiD - Well you don't want to get caught leaking signals and communication everywhere, do you.

It is a week and some change after the ants first noticeably began their labour and it seems they have finished rebuilding their houses. It's hard to see exactly what is going on from the ground, but the brave few who have ventured into and up the hives or climbed neighbouring buildings get a good enough view. The rooftops are now crowned with organic spires, much like malformed and undernourished termite nests reaching for the heavens. They are not the best constructs, some of them have broken off or imploded, but the majority of the spires stand.

Then one morning, individual ants are seen climbing to the very top of their towers. They then sit still, mandibles locked and antennae arched. It's hours before any change becomes noticeable, and by then it's too late. The ants have sprouted strange fleshy fungal tentacles, all filled to the bursting with spores.

Soon there after, reports come in from all across the city about people acting out of character; some have become catatonic or violent after brief a period of sickness. Individuals have been seen entering the ant-occupied buildings to help defend the ants against intruders, others have attempted to climb high points in the city or thrown themselves in the rivers.

Once again the City is under siege, but this time the enemy is invisible.

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Cassandra coughed. Maybe it was because she had been laughing. Her throat felt so dry. Which meant she was tired of words. Yes. That made a lot of sense, the more she thought about it.

"No healers," she whispered, looking up at him. "Healers only prolong the inevitable anyway."

She giggled suddenly. "Except Oenone. She knew the proper way to deal with sickness." By killing Paris. But he had that coming.

Cassandra kissed Apollo. "I'll go without you," she said quietly.

He kissed back, holding her close. The idiot. The wonderful, stubborn, completely mental idiot.

Apollo pulled away as she did, still holding onto her face. Careful to keep her from turning away from him or bolting away and into the night.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. Right now, you're not well."

Now Cassandra was starting to get upset. "No!" she said sharply, shoving his chest so hard that she freed herself of his grasp. "You never listen. You never, ever listen."

She took a few wobbly steps back, away from him. "I'm not waiting. I'm not holding off again. I'm going. And I don't know where I'm going. Maybe up, maybe down, but at least I'm moving. I'm tired of being a pawn of the fates."

For a moment, she paused, her breath a bit jagged in her chest. "Don't you understand that? I thought you understood."

"No, I don't understand," he snapped, suddenly irritated with her. "And it's because you're not making any sense. You can't leave here, all you can do is kill yourself and I don't want to watch you die all over again."

He was tempted to shove her back, clenched his fists to stop himself. "Which part of that is it that you don't understand?"

Cassandra laughed. It was her typical, cutting laughter, but there was a new edge to it. One that had never been there before. Well, maybe once. On a ship, on its way to Mycene. But that had been an awfully long time ago. "I'm already dead," she told Apollo. "I saw it in a prophecy. It was violent and brutal. But quick."

The river wanted her. It was calling to her. But she wasn't going to let it have her easily. There had to be another way. The fog was the other way. The fog was the only way.

"There was a terrible fight in Rowan once," she said. "Against a mermaid. I've forgotten her name. It started with a sound. Like the word ever or elephant. And she swept me away in a tidal wave. And for the first time since I can't remember when, I realized that I wanted to live. And I do. Oh, how I do." She shook her head. "I love you. But I love life more. So I'm going to take my chances."

She turned from him and started walking off to the fog.

Well that caught his attention.

After a moment of staring after her, blinking, trying to figure out if she was joking or teasing or if she were aware enough to be cruel, he ran up to her, beside her, caught her by the waist.

"You love me?" he asked. He tried to remember the last time anyone had admitted to it--well, there were all the doe-eyed women, of course. The ones who fell under his spell without any resistance and who offered eternal love before knowing more than a rumor or two about him.

But truly? Love? It wasn't exactly a word he and Artemis tossed around casually, though he'd never really doubted it. But she may have been the only one.

Why did he keep doing that?

Cassandra wriggled a little bit, trying to plant her heels. "Let me go," she told him, holding her hands up in the air in an attempt to slip through his arms. The more he held her back, the more desperate she was becoming.

"I have to go," she said. "I'm running out of time."

He held on tighter this time, feeling a bit more insistent now that she'd said the words she'd said.

"You're not running out of time, the damn fog is always there if you're that eager." He shook her a little, stopping himself abefore he could get too violent with it.

He always had to remind himself of how fragile she was. She always hid it so well.

"You love me?" he asked again, a slight growl to his voice.

Cassandra looked over her shoulder, eyes wide and startled. She didn't understand why he was doing this. That seemed just a bit beyond her right now, like something at the bottom of a very deep chasm, filled with echoes and blackness.

"I said that, didn't I?" Was something wrong with his hearing? Or maybe he was at the bottom of a chasm too. She could understand. Relate. Even empathize.

But she didn't understand why he was so upset and bothered.

"Let go of me. You look like a wolf. Sound like one too, with all that growling. It's unpleasant."

She did say it. But he couldn't think any more about that right now. He'd tuck the words away, recall them later, analyze and overanalyze and probably end up finding something to resent in her phrasing.

But that would be later.

He began to release her but stopped himself just as his grip was loosening. "Are you going to try to run off again if I let go of you?"

She looked up at him with her wide, fathomless eyes. They seemed shallow tonight, owing to the sickness, perhaps. "I have to go," she told him, a twinge of apology in her voice, although she couldn't put her finger on why she was feeling any kind of remorse. She just was.

Lightly, Cassandra touched his cheek. "But you can come with me, you know. I'd like that very much."

She paused. "But you don't want to go, do you?"

He leaned into her hand. He didn't want to go. He didn't know what was in the fog and as terrible as this world was, at least there was some freedom that came with living here. More than came with the caravan, that was certain.

"I'm frightened," he admitted, mostly because he was almost positive that she wouldn't remember this. If they even survived this evening.

"But if you're going, I'll come. If you really insist."

Cassandra smiled, giddily, almost. What a wonderful adventure they were going to have. And she could think of no company better suited for an adventure. No one she would rather face the unknown with.

She was going to say as much.

But when she opened her mouth, instead of words, she started coughing. A sudden, sharp pain stung her side and she clapped both of her hands on top of it, keeling over with a low moan.

There was something inside.

"Cassandra!"

He lurched forward, grasping her shoulders, completely unaware of the pained noise that had escaped from his own throat.

Apollo shook her again. He had known something was wrong with her. She looked terrible. Frankly, he was amazed that she'd managed to get it this far.

He stood up, gathering her into his arms as he rose. "We're going to get you somewhere safe," he promised her, talking quickly, worried she would argue and roll away, crawl into the fog. "I'll take care of you this time."

She wanted to argue, to fight against him. She had to go. She had to. But when she tried, nothing came out. For all of her new found strength, she felt empty inside all of a sudden. And it was all she could do not to go completely limp in his arms.

The pain in her side was stronger, radiating with heat. It was growing too, spreading through her entire midsection. Was it punishment? Was it hurting because she wasn't going? In her current state of mind, that made perfect sense.

"I have to go," she whispered.

And then she did go limp.

Apollo rushed through the crowds, pushed his shoulders past the other hoards of confused citizens. He clutched Cassandra against his chest, kept his head low, refused to pause long enough to make eye contact with anyone.

Inside the inn, at her room, he laid her down on her bed and ran off to fetch some ice or a cold towel, pausing at the door to reassure her "I'll be right back."

Cassandra was only vaguely aware of the journey, which was probably for the best because she hated crowds and she hated unwanted contact and she really hated being helpless.

Her eyes opened slightly when she felt the bed beneath her. "Who are you going to find?" she asked weakly.

She knew the healers could do nothing. She didn't know how she knew it, she just did. Like so many things.

He was gone for only a minute or two and when he came back, there was no healer to be found. Instead, he carried a bowl of icy water and a white cloth. He closed the door behind himself, careful not to let the water splash out.

He paused beside the window, debated opening it to let in a breeze. But no, there was something strange going on outside now. Better to be saf.e

"Here." He sat beside her, setting the bowl into his lap and soaking the cloth inside, wrung the cloth to get the excess water out. He pressed the cold, damp cloth against her jaw, her chest, ran it along her arms before finally laying it across her forehead. She was so warm.

"Better?"

No, it wasn't better. But Cassandra didn't want to hurt his feelings. What a horrible way to part with someone. Then again, she had never been known for her tact. Or her kindness.

That was a regret.

"Apollo," she said quietly, "a lot of people don't like me. It's my fault. Promise that you'll say kind things about me. Make something up. Something nice."

"You're not dying," he said from between his teeth. Picked up the cloth, began dabbing at her again. If she kept acting like this, he was going to have to kick her in the head.

"And people like you. I like you. I'm sure lots of other people do too," he added as an after thought. He didn't mean it, but it seemed like the thing to say.

"Hmph."

It was a tired noise, too exhausted to be defiant. But she was still Cassandra. And that was her way. Maybe she wasn't going to die. Maybe she was. But as she felt sleep coming on her, she decided to go out on that particular note.

Just for consistency's sake.

As she fell asleep, Apollo carefully lifted the cloth and dropped it into the bowl. Quietly, slowly, he put the bowl down on the night stand and stretched out beside her, slipping an arm around her waist.

"Please be okay," he whispered softly, watching her sleep with a furrowed brow. "I don't want you to go again."

He rested his head against hers, too worried to sleep himself, and too concerned to leave her. Uncertain of how long it would take to find a healer. "I'll be here when you wake up," he murmured against her hair. "Promise."

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The City at Large & Mission Alpha

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