The Signless (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
69problems) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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!]
Bee!
This was worse than he thought--but not bad enough to result in her death. He'd had no vision, hadn't heard her death-cry. She had a chance, if he could get there in time. What a skilled hunter couldn't claw up, perhaps a high-level psionic could incinerate.
He flashed into view, a
bananayellow-clad troll surrounded by a wreath of red and blue. There was the robot pleading in Disciple's voice. He had been tricked. Psii's eyes widened with the fury of an optic blast, but the robot was facing away from him. Its claws were raised towards the far end of the hall and the stocky person hurtling around the corner.Psii screeched, but reined in his fatal blast in favor of wrapping his mind around the robot and wrenching it backwards. He slammed it left and held it against the wall. This took more effort than it should have, and he feared he'd have to drop it and run soon. He looked to the Tribute he'd saved, hoping he wouldn't have to do the same to a possible attacker.
"SS?!"
no subject
"Psii-- she's not here, is she?"
He tried to keep the bitter disappointment out of his voice. He had no right to be disappointed when he should have known. Instead his tone was businesslike, clipped and to the point.
no subject
He'd been disappointed too, knowing worlds separated them, but immediately felt guilty that he could wish his friends be enslaved here, simply because he missed them. If his suffering kept them safe, he'd endure. But Psii didn't have what Signless and Disciple had, and he knew it must have been harder on Signless without her. It didn't surprise him that he had come running at full speed.
Psii broke into a sweat and began to breathe heavily as the robot began to struggle in earnest against his hold. More sparks danced around his head and the robot as he bolstered his mind's grip.
"SS, my powerth are weaker here, I can't hold it forever and I can't inthinerate it. If you don't know how to dithmantle it fatht, I have to get rid of it thomehow. Ith there anywhere around here I can dump it and it won't come back?"
no subject
"Down the hallway, where I came from, some of the floor had given way. Will that work?"
He watched the robot twitch, wincing very slightly every time it called out in that familiar voice. The sooner it was gone, the better.
no subject
He jerked it from the wall, its razors clawing uselessly the air. But a few of its cylinders slid around to point a barrel at Psii. His eyes widened with barely any time to spare, only managing a small optic blast of his already weakened powers. It drowned its sight and prevented the laser from injuring him, but only charred the robot. ("Please stop!" it protested.)
"Out of the way!" Psii gasped as he swung the robot through the air towards the path Signless indicated. If he tugged it around fast enough, maybe it would have a hard time locking onto its targets. He flew with it down the hall, saw the hole, and hurled the screaming robot as fast as he could into it.
no subject
"Thank you. I couldn't have even begun to fight that thing."
no subject
"Let'th jutht get the fuck out of here before it figureth out a way to climb back up. That, or thome pthycho cometh running towardth the noithe to finish uth off."
He spun on his heel and clapped Signless's shoulder as a signal to follow. He wasn't going to wait for the last of the robot's echoes to fade.
"We can find a thafe plathe to compare noteth.... Tho far I've only run into deformed alien barkbeathtth and other Tributeth. Nothing like robotth. Are they a Gamemaker favorite, or are they jutht trying to run with the thpathe and tech theme?"
no subject
"I've seen robots before, but never one like that," he says as he follows the Psiioniic down the hallway at a brisk trot.
"It changes every arena -- there have been dogs, insects, spiders, daywalkers, anything you could possibly imagine. Once there was a dragon." He shivers, remembering the footage from the very first cataclysmic arena finale he'd ever seen. He'd been dead by then, at least.
"Enemies that wear the faces or speak with the voices of our loved ones are common, though. I should have known it was a trap. I've been doing this for long enough it should be obvious by now."
no subject
Just nights ago he'd been with Disciple and the rest of their little family. Psii had to remind himself that this was a Signless who had been without his beloved for much, much longer than that. Even so, he'd come blindly running instead of cynically assuming it was a robot. Psii was shaken and angry that they had put effort into tactics sure to prey on anyone with half a heart. Wasn't it enough that they were told to kill each other? The Gamemakers were more like Subjugglators than Psii thought: They had a twisted sense of humor.
"They played uth." The taste was bitter. "Maybe from now on we should have a code word for when we're being attacked, tho we don't mithtake each other for robotth. Thtill," he added sarcastically, glaring into the distance, "nithe to know that if another Tribute doethn't finish uth off, a shitload of other terrifying predatorth are waiting in line to get the job done."
Speaking of Tributes....
"Even with all that shit, that clown ith thtill the motht terrifying thing I've run into in here."
no subject
"You won't have to worry about an attack from him," Signless pointed out. He felt just a little obligated to defend his moirail, though he agreed that in theory the subjugglator was the person one should be most worried about in an arena.
"He's frightening but in my experience he doesn't often kill without being pushed to it."
no subject
He didn't talk about apiculture out loud, in case Gamemakers or robots were eavesdropping.
"You're a little late by the way, he wath already thcrambling people'th headth when I ran into him, including mine. Walking around with pthychic chuckleshit leaking out of hith thponge, I had to tell him to thtep off." He crossed his arms, growing more acidic. "What, did you think I wath terrified of him thimply becauthe of his dashing good lookth? He wath fucking with my mind like clawth on a thchoolfeeding board!"
Despite his feigning mere annoyance, Psii was actually actively disturbed. He had plenty to worry about without some other psychic latching onto his mind like he was a banana yellow fear beacon. Psii had.... also made another death threat, but he left that part out. Two death threats to Signless's moirail, and Psii didn't even like killing. Things were not looking good.
no subject
"I'm sorry. Are you okay? It hasn't left any lasting effects, has it?"
no subject
He started muttering his thoughts aloud, "He made out like it wath thomething he couldn't control, but I thaw him thtop it anyway. He should have turned it off if he wath going to talk to me in the firtht plathe. What the hell wath he trying to do?"
no subject
"I don't know. Without being there... I couldn't tell you what he meant by it. But if he intended to harm you, you would know without question."
He put a hand on the Psiioniic's shoulder and squeezed.
"It's okay. You'll be fine. And if I see him again, I'll tell him to leave your mind alone. He should know better."
no subject
He scrubbed his hands over his face and rubbed his temples. If he had his way, he'd have nothing more to do with clowns. He wondered, for the two thousandth time, why Signless thought it was a great idea to be in diamonds with one.
"Do you mith Di? I mean—I wouldn't wish thith on her, but it mutht be hard without her here...."
He didn't want to say what he was thinking, that maybe losing Disciple had unbalanced Signless enough to embrace the clown. It didn't make sense, first of all. Other than weathering several arenas and dating a clown, he seemed more than stolid. Psii was the one freaking out here.
no subject
Some of that sadness might have shown on his face. He carefully pulled it back in. Breathe in, breathe out.
"Of course I miss her. She was my everything." Psii of all people should have known that. "But she's gone now, and for her sake I hope they don't bring her back. She doesn't deserve this." And he can't let himself dwell.
no subject
This was one of those times where he tried to get something out of someone, but he asked something imbecilic to attempt jump-starting it, instead of just saying what was on his mind. Psii normally said exactly what he was thinking, especially to his friends, which said something about the magnitude of his hesitation. That, and he remembered that all of this was televised. Way to go, Captor.
"We're the only two trollth here who remember her from back home. If.... if you ever want to talk about her or Trollmom if we get back to the Capitol, I'll lithten."
we can probably wrap this up in a comment or two?
"I'd like that," he said, carefully sidestepping the 'if we get back to the Capitol'. Of course they would. He needed to believe they would, if only because having something to believe and hope for kept him sane in this place.