Light in the Storm, Part 4

Light in the Storm, Part 4

Part 4: Fighting Spirits

Navis: Lyntael.exe, Vigilance.exe (Lvl 26, see previous registry), Various other non-combat NPCs

Operators: Rogan O'Conaill, Lance Fitzpatrick (by proxy), Various other minor NPCs

Event Synopsis:

Rogan and Lyntael are planning an infiltration and data theft/destruction operation at the behest of Rogan's Sharoan mafia contact, Varda Afonin. By serendipitous coincidence, the target is the very same location that Rogan and Lyntael had, themselves, already started casing for a private venture.

Conflict arises in the differing goals; Rogan and Lyntael planned to remove data, and to release or rescue the navigators and other autonomously sentient programs being held at the site for experimentation and testing; Varda's mafia family will settle for nothing less than the complete erasure of the data in question – and count the victimised navis as data to be expunged. Despite this, the pair undertake the assignment, with Rogan promising his worried navi that a way will be found to manage this dilemma.

Amidst this latest in a series of dangerous operations, Lyntael continues to struggle with her identity, her history, and the question of who she is, was, or wants to be, while Rogan does his best to hide his own internal conflicts and guilt surrounding the young girl, and who she is now, versus the version of her that he failed, and the worry that her growing agitation is a sign of the dangers that Eric warned him of, relating to Lyntael's knowledge of past events.

During the heist, an old enemy arrives to control the situation, revealing some surprises... but at the end of night Lyntael finds herself alone in the dark, facing something unexpected.

Sub-Plot Rewards: No new sub-plot rewards, but the event will serve as the catalyst for activating a custom part that was purchased earlier.

Moderation: None required, with a caveat. This is a story-telling piece, but there will be at least one major part of the event that will be run as though it were a formal combat encounter. I'll set it up and have battle summaries and actions and so on, however, there will be no battle rewards and no statistical impact from the battle – and so I'm requesting to simply run (and describe the turns and outcomes of) both sides of the encounter myself; the battle structure is more of a visual aesthetic to a story set piece.

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New Encounter Registration:

Lyntael.ides

Hp: 500
Level: 30
Element: Elec
Subtype: Wind (Gust)(Airstep)
Buster: 5/5/5 (Disarm)

Equivalent Customiser Value: 125/125
HP +200 (20)
HP +200 (20)
Custom1 (40)
First Armour x3 (15)
Fast Armour (15)
SetSea (15)

Appearance:

The strange echo encountered looks almost identical to Lyntael. Every detail is the same, in every way; a short girl, just on the leading edge of puberty, with a physical form that might be sixteen at most, though her petite proportions make her look younger. She has the same spiky yellow hair and the same vibrant green eyes. Her outfit is the same as well, barefoot, and a short-ish yellow skirt, beneath a simple buckle-front vest. She moves and carries herself in the same way that Lyntael used to, before the incident that took her life; much more hesitant and uncertain, though her expression seems lost and unsure, more than anything else.

The first difference that someone comparing them would likely notice is in her emblem. Lyntael's emblem rests only slightly raised against her chest, about where one might expect to see a pendant sit. This Lyntael has an emblem in the same position, except that it looks to have been shattered. The outer ring remains, with jagged edges clinging to the rim, but that is all that is left. The missing, shattered centre of the emblem gives way to charred and ruined flesh underneath, rather than any broken entry into the depths of her coding - it looks as though the entire emblem could simply come away.

A more pronounced difference is that the girl... flickers. Most of the time, all there is to see is a young girl that looks like Lyntael's twin sister, but every few moments her image shifts, glitches, fuzzes or flickers, and frightful changes appear, then are gone again just as quickly.

Her clothing disappears, either completely or in parts, or shifts to appear torn open and ragged. Beneath, the most gruesome detail is a large, bleeding stab-wound just beneath her left nipple. Long trails of blood track down from it, and it looks to still be bleeding badly whenever it is visible. Similar to this wound, tracks of blood mixed with tears spring into sight on her face, coming from either eye, and her lower lip looks to have been bitten and torn, bleeding badly as well.

Scorched electrical burns which weep continuous trails of blood also show up completely wreathing her wrists, and around her ankles, looking almost as though her strikers have blown out, or ruptured in some way. Similar burns mar the skin around her eyes, almost like some kind of tortured mask.

Other cuts mark her body, appearing and disappearing sporadically; one across her mid-section, another across one breast, and others on her thighs and calves. Finally, broad blood trails run down the majority of her inner thighs, and in the moments that her skirt and undergarments flicker away, it becomes uncomfortably clear where this injury originates.

Though the flickers and shifts also reveal a number of other far more minor hurts and abrasions, these are the most visible and prominent. Whenever the fluctuations show her in her injured state, the girl's eyes go blank, staring sightlessly, and her stance falters, often causing her to stumble or stagger until it passes. Though the flickers happen at random, they rarely last for more than a second or two, and the girl seems more or less unaware of them when they are not visible, instead looking lost, dazed and confused.

Personality:

She is, in all ways, simply Lyntael. A young girl still learning about the world around her and trying to come to grips with her confusing, conflicting, hormonal teenage existence. This Lyntael knows what happened to her, at some level, and has spent long wandering lost and alone, seeking the people she knows and loves without ever finding them. She is hurting, confused and lost, but underneath that retains the same open heart and good nature that Lyntael has always shown. Despite her subconscious awareness of the ways in which she suffered, this Lyntael is from a time before the frustration and anger that set in after her rebirth.

In the moments when her form flickers to her more brutalised state, she dissociates, losing most awareness of her surrounding and becoming dazed and barely responsive.

Signature Value: 1280/1280
Signatures:

Looks good to me, I approve