Plotlogs
Feral Forces Fight Frakking Sr Novel 241006
In the dim light of a hippie apartment filled with activism paraphernalia and nature posters, a diverse group of characters gather, driven by a desperate call to save the environment from the destructive clutches of corporate fracking. Among them, Fayad al-Munaqadh, a thoughtful figure wrapped in pelts; Emmanuel, a skeptical Frenchman with a penchant for cynicism; Lilah, a pregnant redhead with a strong connection to nature; and Lepia, an ethereal presence whose speech ebbs and flows like poetry.
The crux of their gathering is the plea of a tiny naiad, outraged and teetering on the edge of tears, who warns that construction, fenced off and guarded, threatens the sanctity of their waters and woodlands. She speaks of the construction crew: about fifteen armed individuals, suggesting the enormity of their task. Fayad, reassured yet contemplative, suggests conviction as their weapon against the mercenary motivations of their foes.
As they delve into plans and ponder their course of action under the fervent encouragement of the naiad and the weary gazes of their hosts, the group oscillates between sabotage and distraction. Emmanuel, ever practical, scouts for more information, facing the digital age's frustrations head-on. The mention of dangerous machinery and potential avenues for subterfuge spark a collaborative brainstorm, blending the arcane and the mundane towards an undefined yet hopeful route to impede the frackers' progress.
Lepia intertwines the conversation with mysticism, suggesting perhaps the more subtle forces at play and the spiritual significance underpinning their quest. The apartment, filled with the soft snores of resting activists and the steady hum of strategy, becomes a crucible for their combined wills.
Fayad and Emmanuel, despite their varied backgrounds, find common ground in their willingness to act, touched by the fervor of their hosts and the persuasive pleas of their diminutive, aquatic ally. Lilah, ever mindful of the consequences, weighs risks with a strategic mind, contemplating the implications of their actions on the public face of the environmentalist movement.
Their makeshift fellowship bonds over shared concerns and half-eaten pastries, a camaraderie fueled by the urgency of their cause. With mismatched plans of picnics as cover for reconnaissance and the hint of magic and technology as tools of resistance, they step into the unknown, unified in purpose but uncertain of the outcome.
The apartment, once a haven for weary souls, now stands as the launchpad for a group determined to confront corporate might with the power of grassroots activism, the whispers of ancient spirits, and the unyielding love for the natural world they're sworn to protect. As they part ways with promises of further strategy and action, they carry with them the hopes and fears of a community on the brink, bound together by the shared belief in something greater than themselves.
(Feral Forces Fight Frakking(SRNovel):SRNovel)
[Sat Oct 5 2024]
In A fire-hazard violating occupancy maximum in a Hippie Apartment
A place of sleeping bodies on every available soft surface, of small rooms and softness, of gently, earthy, nature scents, lit dimly by the glow of lava lamps and the blinds kept shut. Voices talk quietly and the walls are smattered with posters of various riverways and tapestries and rugs across the surface. A small, low table, with pillows arranged across it, a dozing waterfoul and an open mason jar denoting the major focus.
The long-haired girl in the room fidgets and moves protectively of both.
It is about 50F(10C) degrees.
(re-remake due to dumb newbie and repost) The call was sent out, a desperate thing, borne by a lack of options and disinterested response. Phone calls. Pleading. A few protestors reaching out to the contacts they have from a place that is a ten hour drive from Haven. One way or another you all have chosen to come through various means.
The trip has a much larger, much more important Great Meadows National Wildlife refuge between it and Haven, coming out to the other side of the teeny-tiny town of Maynard, surrounded on all sides by luscious greenery and waterways, a larger farm to the northwest and the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge being to the southwest.
The meeting place? One of the protestor's apartment. A cramped thing. Signs of SAVE OUR WATERWAYS scattered about, stacks of paperwork, the computer humming open to the recent, dreadful entry of corporate america being once again allowed to destroy native land. But hey, they got a bunch of doughnuts and coffee from Dunkin' so at least you all have something to snack on after passing through the entryway with many multicolored beads hanging down, lava lamps, relaxed chatting and beanbags. A rather earthy smell fills the room and it seems this particular group is almost exclusively female. Working-class female, many of them still sleeping, or getting ready to work in the wee hours of the day. Posters litter the room of various refuges and nature-loving and peace signs. Those familiar with the flavor will recognize a very small dose of mandrake tea mixed into a rather substantially larger carafe of coffee. The reason why becomes readily apparent, a small open glass jar full of water taking on a more sparkly hue, while a ruddy duck - a rather distinct rust-colored mallard with blue beak - dozes nearby.
As there is suddenly one that that demands attention with a stomp of the foot and a "HEY! LISTEN!" from within the jar, a teeny-tiny naiad or some other minor nature spirit, who jumps herself half-out of the water and grasps tightly onto the lip of it, legs kicking, clad in a dress of reeds, her skin a mottle-blue green and her vines covered in flowers. She looks upset and angry, and nearly on the verge of crying, her green teeth nibbling her lower lip and the waterfowl flapping briefly before resettling. She huffs, and struggles, shoving herself up, throwing herself onto the back of the bird with a subtle splash, sprawling across it. "They're going to wreck everything! They've already put up a fence and they're stomping all over!" She pleads.
Rather more soberly, the severly sleep deprived servant laying back on the couch mentions more quietly, "It's off the main trail, at one of the smaller ponds near Sudbury road that runs between Lake Boon and the Refuge, on the far side of it. They're using that road to bring in the gear and up the trail. I'm..." She rubs her arm. "They have guns," She says, plainly. "And an encampment they're busy clearing and tearing everything down in order to start digging up with a drill. We're - kind of on a clock."
(OOC: Feel free to post how you got here, whom you came with, and various reactions.)
Fayad emigrates out of Haven to the apartment quietly and furtively, in his small cloak covered in frankensteined pelts - not precisely under the radar, but it's a lot better than walking in with his gaudy golden gauntlet on display. He beelines for the doughnuts, selecting a maple bar as he sits down easily on one of the pillows, turning his head to listen intently to the naiad. "They won't get away with it," he promises. "They might have guns," he states, to the NWO woman - probably a werewolf, although with how sleepy she is he wonders if she might be a were-sloth instead - "but we have conviction. All they care about is money, so they'll probably turn and run if it seems like it's turning against them." Then he takes a big bite of his maple bar, turning towards Lepia and blinks quietly at Lepia. "Oh, I don't think we've, er, met." He extends his non-encased hand, the appendage dainty and small. "My name is Fayad al-Munaqadh, I'm here to help against Vetr Corp."
You know how it goes, one minute you're driving along in your terrible, unroad worthy van with your motley crew, and the next you're eating someone else's doughnut. Emmanuel had almost definitely gone straight for the doughnuts, really. America runs on Dunkin', after all. The little downward twist of his lips as he chews suggests that the States can keep them too, really. He glances around the apartment, and their occupants, eyebrows raising as he notes the gender ratios, but electing to keep any thoughts to himself about, "Ah," The Frenchman notes on the subject of guns, "This is the land of the free after all, non? The guns are a given." He does not seem quite as sure as Fayad that conviction trumps firearms however, considering that he'd brought his own along for the ride.
There's another wary look afforded toward the itty-bitty figure who jumps out of the jar. Blink, blink. Then he finishes off his doughnut. It's a terrible, cinnamon one. The worst kind of doughnut.
Having arrived with the group via their transportation, for her own reasons that fully include not being able to path them here, herself, Lilah also listens. She avoids the questionable baked goods and the coffee, but ponders the little naiad for a long time, before stating with the flash of a far more reserved smile, "Sister, if it's possible, we'll stop them." The pregnant redhead touches a small vial of water that sits in a leather tube attached to her own bag with an almost reverent sort of respect, then turns back to the two men she does know, and Lepia whom she clearly doesn't, for she offers, "I'm Lilah. Hey."
(And the second one) With the amount of costuming and storytelling that goes on these days, Fayad could probably lie and say it is a convention thing or dress thing. Or religious. You never know, really. She nods, slowly, and the Naiad complains vehemently, "Money, money, money! It's crazy!" She buries her face into the duck's neck, the arms reaching around to scratch the animal's sides just above the wings, the animal briefly stretching them out before tucking them back in and re-settling. "Hello, to you all, and thank you for being here." Is greeted a bit distantly from the human woman who produces a long yawn, answering Lepia. "Well, we're not exactly... going to charge an encampment that's being watched like that. We've tried our best to drum up interested but it seems like whenever we try it just - goes away. It's why we finally reached out of town. A nod to Emmanuel, a tired yawn. "But we don't really have time between - work and all. Some of us floated the idea of driving to Haven..."
"NO WAY." Shrilly calls out the little sprite. "They're all CRAZY there. The'll torture you!! Or WORSE!!!" She puts on a big show of a pout, her face brimming with energy and tears. Honestly, as a fully sized being she'd be kind of average looking.
"So. Er." An awkward clearing of the throat. "What do you - plan to do? Do you need to know anything?"
The wildlife refuge and the area you are in are all real places, including Maynard, and feel free to have your character emote and access real-life internet resources to poke around."
Lepia simply bobs her head at the tiny figure who popped out of the jar, giving her a faint smile; a knowing look entered her eyes at the sight of her. She peers at the others that seem to have gathered as well; she arrived sometime in the last day or so, as part of the ramshackle mob of activists that decided to show up and do something about this crime against nature. Spotting Emmanuel, she gives him a short little wave, before standing up from her discussion with the hippy obsessed with theory. Walking over to him and someone, she gives them a nod, before taking out a jelly-filled doughnut from within the confines of the cardboard box. "Hello hello hello." She then peers at the hand offered to her like it was an alien appendage. Her own hand reaches out, before giving him a high five - perhaps more of a side five - instead of a handshake. "Hello hello hello, again. Lepi, leap, leapt, clear over the horizon, to distant shores, distant lands, far far far away." The sing-songy voice was ethereal; almost as much so as the woman who spoke it.
Lepia simply bobs her head at the tiny figure who popped out of the jar, giving her a faint smile; a knowing look entered her eyes at the sight of her. She peers at the others that seem to have gathered as well; she arrived sometime in the last day or so, as part of the ramshackle mob of activists that decided to show up and do something about this crime against nature. Spotting Emmanuel, she gives him a short little wave, before standing up from her discussion with the hippy obsessed with theory. Walking over to him and Fayad, she gives them a nod, before taking out a jelly-filled doughnut from within the confines of the cardboard box. "Hello hello hello." She then peers at the hand offered to her like it was an alien appendage. Her own hand reaches out, before giving him a high five - perhaps more of a side five - instead of a handshake. "Hello hello hello, again. Lepi, leap, leapt, clear over the horizon, to distant shores, distant lands, far far far away." The sing-songy voice was ethereal; almost as much so as the woman who spoke it.
Fayad slowly retracts his hand, clearly terrified of Lepia's side-five. He scurries back towards the safety of Emmanuel. "These people are ... strange," he murmurs to him, not quite quietly enough to be heard. "Good thing, I think..."
"..Ah, hallo, hallo. This is Leapier." That's wrong. Emmanuel is wrong. That is not the woman's name. He glances aside to Fayad and Lilah, gesturing at them like he was going to introduce them in turn, but being too late for it. There's a long, pregnant pause as the Frenchman considers Fayad's half-whispered words, and then the claw attached to his hand. There's a raise of the brow toward him. A wordless accusation of kettles and pots, and calling one another names.
"Crazy, cherie, in what manner?" Emmanuel directs a question over toward the little sprite then, doing his best to keep his expression neutral as he considers the magical little menace. She hasn't even done anything to deserve this, really.
Plan? Plan... they're supposed to have a plan. This might be a terribly telling part of Lilah's character, or perhaps merely that she's been sidelined of late with pregnancy and midterms, but she looks entirely blank at the woman's question of the group. Briefly, she's distracted by Lepia's introductions and Fayad's reaction. It makes her smirk, almost drawing a giggle before she seems to remember exactly what's going on around them. So she turns back to ask, "Any idea of how many people are there? Especially the armed ones, but... all of them. What exactly are we walking into? Five? Fifty?"
Lepia has had - well, not a cold reception, but most of these people work multiple part-time jobs and then collapse home and fall asleep. As far as she can tell they're mostly human (with the occasional werewolf thrown in), but the grinding gears of corporate life and needing money to keep a place to stay keeps them, by and large, oppressed in the great wheel of capitalism. They're happy to talk to her, share what they know, but just as often they drift off and fall asleep, or in the midst of a flurry of activity of laundry, cooking, going to work, handling calls, and other such things. They all find her sing-song very charming and at least two of them have taken up to copying her. Her being here might have far-reaching consequences.
The tiny magical creatures gives a big ol' frowny face at Emmanuel, taking in a deep breath to answer, "Crazy! Constantly fighting! Constantly getting up to things! Doing all sorts of STUFF to each other! All the others talk about it in real quiet terms and how you're so WEIRD! You even had to put up a spell to stop the town from being a torture blood orgy!" Apparently some of the supernatural community doesn't hear good things about Haven. "And there's at least... " At Lilah's question, she holds up her fingers. Then she sticks out her bare feet, counting on the toes, and holds up three limbs to Lilah. "THIS many. They work in shifts. They're the only one's staying, I can't tell what's going on when they bring in all the big... rumbling stuff!" She flails, energetically, flopping back 'pon the duck.
"Construction workers," The more human fills in helpfully, her eyelids drooping low.
Fayad grunts a faint noise of thoughtfulness. "It'd probably be more trouble than it's worth to engineer accidents of the lethal type. But if they're bringing in a bunch of construction equipment, that's a weakness. We could try to break them," he helpfully suggests. "Fifteen workmen can't watch all of their gear at once ,right?"
"THERE'S WAY MORE PEOPLE THAN THAT!!!!" The naiad frownyfaces at Fayad. She even brings up her hands, in a V, down from her forehead, to create a deeper furrow. More frown. EXTRA FROWN for the Fayad. "Sorry, that's - fifteen people with weapons, bodyguards, or.. just a foreman or worker or two, staying there." The woman fills in, reaching up to rub her features. "They have a normal work-day shift where there's a lot more people and equipment. Maybe a few dozen? But they're just - people. Some of them live here."
Fayad winces, chastised horrifically by the naiad. He visibly wilts under her angry frown that he underestimated the amount of workmen so significantly.
Lilah looks all too enthralled with this water 'sister' of hers, watching almost indulgently at the child-like response to Emmanuel and then to herself. "Fifteen," she says and nods again, looking relieved at the news that they're just construction workers and not trained guards. But before she turns back to Lepia, Fayad, and Emmanuel, she does say to the tiny creature, "Sister, not everything about our town is so bad. If you ever want to come visit, I will show you the most beautiful river, and a gorgeous bay, mm?" Then, she steps back and turns, tipping her head toward the men in the room as if to ask their thoughts and offer to Fayad, "A cautious use of fire might do it. It's a bad time of year to risk setting the place alight - right at the end of summer. But machinery is full of plastic and rubber parts..."
And then there's an emoji-style frown and clarification from the naiad, and she winces, visibly. She'd made the same mistake! "So we need a distraction...?" But she's still thinking, listening, and clearly wanting to defer the big decisions to Fayad and Emmanuel.
Her! Charming! Incredible! Lepia seems to have found, in part, her people; the ones copying her bring a smile to her face. "Fortune favor fortune fade, give me some time among them, twist their fate. I can sneak, crawl, hide, slither, move 'tween holes, 'tween space, hiding in the fabric, in the weave." The sing-songy words continue, seeming to have little sense behind them.
"Yeah, Fayad. Geez." Emmanuel laments with a shake of the head, and a 'would you get a load of this guy?' tone of voice as he joins with the naiad in her frowning toward the man. "This was a good question, hm?" He notes over to Lilah then, approval evident in his tone, "Haven is a terrible, terrible place. Oui. Best to stay away." Emmanuel intones to the little figure then, as much for his sake as their own, and in apparent agreement with their opinions on the place. He leans a little closer to the smaller figure, appending to Lilah's words, "The bay is full of poops, and the monsters, hm? Scary ones." There's a mild nod following the sharing of this secret.
Emmanuel starts to straighten back up then, "I am thinking, hm? The first thing we need to be knowing, hm? Is if they are only here for the frakking, or something else? And then we can do the sneaky-beaky, and the sabotage, oui?"
Fayad quietly assents to Lilah, "We could easily break anything we got on our hands on by frying the electronics inside. But we'd have to get our hands on it. Pretty much no machinery these days is entirely analog.."
Fayad says "I've seen you cast flames on operation, so I know you know at least a little pyromancy, like I do."
After a few moments Emmanuel starts to glance around the room, while lightly fanning himself and unbuttoning yet another button on his flannel. He squints in search of air con, though is likely to find any relief in this eco warriors home.
Lepia is seemingly unconcerned about the temperature, as she sticks the drawstring of her sweater into her mouth, beginning to chew vigorously on the fabric; the sound of her teeth grinding against the cotton barely audible amidst the murmurs of the crowd around them.
"One ruptured hose would put it out of commission for awhile though. They still use like hoses and shit, right?" Lilah is pre-law, not engineering, so once more that appeal is made to Fayad and Emmanuel, though as soon as she looks at the Frenchman, an amused little smirk crosses her lips and she winks at him. "Wouldn't it be lovely by the beach right now?" she coos without a hint of vindictiveness as the air cools itself right back down again to whatever it was before. "Manny. You know machinery, right? You keep that van of yours alive. What's the best bet if we want to sabotage them?"
Fayad holds up both his hands, a finger extended on each, which he then taps against each other. "So a sabotage team and a distraction team. The sabotage is easy, just break everything so they can't work. The distraction team, what should they do to get all eyes on them...? Pretend there's a cryptid in the river or something?", he chuckles.
Back to Lepia, the naiad chirps, flapping her arms "To life's little mud-holes, to the toads and the birds, the hopping and dancing of little birds." And then, sobering at Emmanuel's statements. "YEAH!!! Well the Bay's OK. I know some who live in there. Fish spirits and stuff. The ducks share stories-" She pats the animal beneath her. "But the place is mostly awful!!" And there's fans. One blowing lazily, through the windows, passing cooler high-humidity air through the stuffy room and out the other, but not nearly as impressive as a genuine air conditioner.
"Something else..?" There's a bemusement at this. "I thought they were just in it for the money. They have a lot of digging equipment and all. I guess they could be looking for something...?
She screeches, "I knew it! They're after MY DUCKS!" The woman gives the spirit a look. Then back to the group. She shakes her head, mouthing a 'probably not'."
"..It is a very impressive duck," Emmanuel allows back over toward the little spirit, humouring them for the time being. Then it's back to business, and information collection, "I am wondering if we get any survey maps, hm? Be cross-checking where they are digging with anything in the aware libraries, and network sixy-sixy-six?" These tasks seem to be assigned to Fayad, before he glances back aside to Lepia, "You have been here a little longer, mon amie, non? Have you heard anything helpful?"
Fayad murmurs quietly, heatedly, "I love ducks," ignoring Emmanuel's command to Internet entirely as he cautiously approaches and holds his hand out towards the bird. Apparantly the 15 year hikikomori is not actually that good with technology. How genre-breaking. How iconoclastic.
"Quack quack quack." Lepia agrees with Fayad, seemingly, giving the duck a small pat of affection. Apparently, she, too, was very good with animals, giving a look to Fayad and a faint smile. "Little mud burblebabble. Toads croak, birds sing, they say many many things." Perhaps that was in response to the Naiad, perhaps that was in response to Emmanuel. "Those who long for Promethean embrace; comfort beyond truth, be wary of those apart, away. Points, lines, drawn from distant places, all coming, coming, coming, meeting here. Hear hear, many lives here, many many lives."
Emmanuel exhales softly as Fayad ends up playing with a duck in front of everyone, and then turns to squint aside to Lepia as she shares the information she'd managed to glean. He nods along with her words, eyes a little glazed over, before chirping, "Oui," in a manner that suggests he wasn't quite able to follow along. With his compatriots distracted for the moment, Emmanuel digs his crappy phone out of his pocket, and starts checking up local papers, looking for the wider story of this frakking adventure.
Fayad plays with his duck right in front of the entire apartment. The most horrible part is that it isn't even his duck. He glances, peering strangely, at Lepia, as Lepia mentions 'Promethean'. "I'm not sure if you're being poetic or if you're actually talking about the prometheans," he mutters to himself, distracted.
Lepia similarly gives loving attention to the duck; truly, this duck was a loved one. She idly strokes its feathers as she says, in response to Fayad's words, "Poetic prose poem pristine presence, Promethean promotes perfidy, purging preserves, passions, pines."
"His name is," A deep inhale is taken by the water-based being before she rattles out, "Sir Quackington McFeatherbeak the Third, Lord of the Waddling Waters, Duke of Downybill, Commander of the Pond Brigade, and Supreme Overlord of All Things Quacktastic! Esquire." She says, very firmly on the last part of it, the animal waking up and perking as it is addressed. The rust-colored wings slowly unfold and then - there's the little waggle of the tail, a sign of acceptance and excitement, the head and neck stretching out for the adoration. Ducks are oily. A groomed bird, for sure, lacking twigs and sticks and mud, but an oily animal, the grease working to keep the water slickened from the creature.
"Uhm? There's the public libraries. It's all online, now, too."
Corporate lobbying. Deals cut. It's a lot, a LOT of very boring, very tedious political mechinations, but... Emmanuel does have the sense to piece together that spirits push back against this. Even making a tiny foothold like this in reality is a huge amount of work against something like this, and the fact the bureaucratic glacier of the government dislikes changes. There's something inserting a putting leverage here, against something spiritual, though for what purpose remains a questioninmark. Google maps and other surveys, full terrain map - it's mostly wet flatlands, a downhill from the road. Easy to get into. There's even public notes where the temporary dirt road is pounded off the highway.
"Ah, this is being the problem with the world, isn't it?" Emmanuel mutters to, well, himself, as he reads over the various documents and news sites. Pinching, and prodding, and taking screenshots with his terrible device from time to time. The sheer effort of keeping multiple tabs working causes it to heat up, as it's single-core processor goes into overdrive, and it's poorly, cheaply made heatsinks fail to do very much. Eventually it begins to lock up, freeze and then brick. Lovely. There's a string of French curses from the Frenchman, before he tucks the molten slag of the device into his pocket, "Well, there is being nothing better than getting our eyes on it, eh? Why do not we not go for a picnic? Load up the van?" He suggests to his compatriots.
Fayad assents, quietly, to Emmanuel's assertion to load up the Great News Community Center, 2015, Mercedes-Benz, Sprinter van. Truly an illustrious herald of Business everywhere. Which made it ironic what they were planning on using it for. "I have the keys still," he murmurs, patting his pocket and ensuring he does, in fact, have the keys.
"A picnic sounds good. Did anyone bring food?" Lilah asks of the others. But food or not, she's still avoiding those doughnuts for some reason as she turns to meander over to the van with the others. There is a moment of pause though as she cautions, "Umm... the signage might be remembered? If we do significant damage, we might end up having them track down your center. Just... be careful where we park, maybe?"
"Mmm. Picnic, a packet, a little woven basket." Lepia seems to be pleased at the idea of a picnic, before drawing out a half-eaten bag of gummy worms and a Monster Energy Zero can from within the bulging front pocket of her hoodie. That was not food. Not real food, at least.
Fayad says "Oh, I hope she brought enough for everyone."
"I have.." Emmanuel pauses to reach into his pockets, producing handfuls of pocket salt, pocket sand, and several dinner mints. Too many dinner mints. Most of them are melted. He hands one over to Fayad. "We could take Fayad's very subtle van, or my own too." He notes then, clucking his tongue softly.
"The chemicals in that..." Lilah groans softly, but then she laughs too at Fayad's quip. Brushing aside her worries over the van's wrapping, she instead chooses to cringe at Emmanuel's pocket-contents. "Wh- no. Don't tell me why," she decides, in a moment of self-preserving sanity. "Either way. I'm with the weird group," she muses, looking over her shoulder to toss a wink to the water spirit and her more human guardian. "We're a whole lot more capable than we look!" she promises.
Fayad leans over and takes a chocolate donut from the box, scarfing it down. "Although I'm not sure I need to eat after this anyway," he chuckles. "The weird group? Is that the saboteurs or the distraction?"
Lepia says "Yes. "
"Uhm." The reassurance from Lilah only makes the woman look more uncomfortable. More uncertain. Whereas the naiad is ALL FOR IT. "YEAH!" She shouts and gives a fistpump. "You're all from CRAZYLAND and SIR QUACKINGTON likes you so you have this! I believe in you!" Sadly, the Storyrunner is fading fast in terms of brainpower, and needs to call it. Same time next week?
// Lilah is fine to continue next week. Just remind me!
SRNovel says "Let me know if you need me to teleport ya somewhere specific."
Emmanuel brushes a little sand from one of the mints, and then tosses it back into his mouth. No wonder his breath always smells so pleasant, hm? He chews it, and the sound of some grit can be heard as his teeth grind. He does his best not to react. "We will plan a picnic, hm? Get some eyes on the place. Until then, we should try and find a little more information on this company, and any spirits about the place." The last task definitely belongs to the other three.
The crux of their gathering is the plea of a tiny naiad, outraged and teetering on the edge of tears, who warns that construction, fenced off and guarded, threatens the sanctity of their waters and woodlands. She speaks of the construction crew: about fifteen armed individuals, suggesting the enormity of their task. Fayad, reassured yet contemplative, suggests conviction as their weapon against the mercenary motivations of their foes.
As they delve into plans and ponder their course of action under the fervent encouragement of the naiad and the weary gazes of their hosts, the group oscillates between sabotage and distraction. Emmanuel, ever practical, scouts for more information, facing the digital age's frustrations head-on. The mention of dangerous machinery and potential avenues for subterfuge spark a collaborative brainstorm, blending the arcane and the mundane towards an undefined yet hopeful route to impede the frackers' progress.
Lepia intertwines the conversation with mysticism, suggesting perhaps the more subtle forces at play and the spiritual significance underpinning their quest. The apartment, filled with the soft snores of resting activists and the steady hum of strategy, becomes a crucible for their combined wills.
Fayad and Emmanuel, despite their varied backgrounds, find common ground in their willingness to act, touched by the fervor of their hosts and the persuasive pleas of their diminutive, aquatic ally. Lilah, ever mindful of the consequences, weighs risks with a strategic mind, contemplating the implications of their actions on the public face of the environmentalist movement.
Their makeshift fellowship bonds over shared concerns and half-eaten pastries, a camaraderie fueled by the urgency of their cause. With mismatched plans of picnics as cover for reconnaissance and the hint of magic and technology as tools of resistance, they step into the unknown, unified in purpose but uncertain of the outcome.
The apartment, once a haven for weary souls, now stands as the launchpad for a group determined to confront corporate might with the power of grassroots activism, the whispers of ancient spirits, and the unyielding love for the natural world they're sworn to protect. As they part ways with promises of further strategy and action, they carry with them the hopes and fears of a community on the brink, bound together by the shared belief in something greater than themselves.
(Feral Forces Fight Frakking(SRNovel):SRNovel)
[Sat Oct 5 2024]
In A fire-hazard violating occupancy maximum in a Hippie Apartment
A place of sleeping bodies on every available soft surface, of small rooms and softness, of gently, earthy, nature scents, lit dimly by the glow of lava lamps and the blinds kept shut. Voices talk quietly and the walls are smattered with posters of various riverways and tapestries and rugs across the surface. A small, low table, with pillows arranged across it, a dozing waterfoul and an open mason jar denoting the major focus.
The long-haired girl in the room fidgets and moves protectively of both.
It is about 50F(10C) degrees.
(re-remake due to dumb newbie and repost) The call was sent out, a desperate thing, borne by a lack of options and disinterested response. Phone calls. Pleading. A few protestors reaching out to the contacts they have from a place that is a ten hour drive from Haven. One way or another you all have chosen to come through various means.
The trip has a much larger, much more important Great Meadows National Wildlife refuge between it and Haven, coming out to the other side of the teeny-tiny town of Maynard, surrounded on all sides by luscious greenery and waterways, a larger farm to the northwest and the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge being to the southwest.
The meeting place? One of the protestor's apartment. A cramped thing. Signs of SAVE OUR WATERWAYS scattered about, stacks of paperwork, the computer humming open to the recent, dreadful entry of corporate america being once again allowed to destroy native land. But hey, they got a bunch of doughnuts and coffee from Dunkin' so at least you all have something to snack on after passing through the entryway with many multicolored beads hanging down, lava lamps, relaxed chatting and beanbags. A rather earthy smell fills the room and it seems this particular group is almost exclusively female. Working-class female, many of them still sleeping, or getting ready to work in the wee hours of the day. Posters litter the room of various refuges and nature-loving and peace signs. Those familiar with the flavor will recognize a very small dose of mandrake tea mixed into a rather substantially larger carafe of coffee. The reason why becomes readily apparent, a small open glass jar full of water taking on a more sparkly hue, while a ruddy duck - a rather distinct rust-colored mallard with blue beak - dozes nearby.
As there is suddenly one that that demands attention with a stomp of the foot and a "HEY! LISTEN!" from within the jar, a teeny-tiny naiad or some other minor nature spirit, who jumps herself half-out of the water and grasps tightly onto the lip of it, legs kicking, clad in a dress of reeds, her skin a mottle-blue green and her vines covered in flowers. She looks upset and angry, and nearly on the verge of crying, her green teeth nibbling her lower lip and the waterfowl flapping briefly before resettling. She huffs, and struggles, shoving herself up, throwing herself onto the back of the bird with a subtle splash, sprawling across it. "They're going to wreck everything! They've already put up a fence and they're stomping all over!" She pleads.
Rather more soberly, the severly sleep deprived servant laying back on the couch mentions more quietly, "It's off the main trail, at one of the smaller ponds near Sudbury road that runs between Lake Boon and the Refuge, on the far side of it. They're using that road to bring in the gear and up the trail. I'm..." She rubs her arm. "They have guns," She says, plainly. "And an encampment they're busy clearing and tearing everything down in order to start digging up with a drill. We're - kind of on a clock."
(OOC: Feel free to post how you got here, whom you came with, and various reactions.)
Fayad emigrates out of Haven to the apartment quietly and furtively, in his small cloak covered in frankensteined pelts - not precisely under the radar, but it's a lot better than walking in with his gaudy golden gauntlet on display. He beelines for the doughnuts, selecting a maple bar as he sits down easily on one of the pillows, turning his head to listen intently to the naiad. "They won't get away with it," he promises. "They might have guns," he states, to the NWO woman - probably a werewolf, although with how sleepy she is he wonders if she might be a were-sloth instead - "but we have conviction. All they care about is money, so they'll probably turn and run if it seems like it's turning against them." Then he takes a big bite of his maple bar, turning towards Lepia and blinks quietly at Lepia. "Oh, I don't think we've, er, met." He extends his non-encased hand, the appendage dainty and small. "My name is Fayad al-Munaqadh, I'm here to help against Vetr Corp."
You know how it goes, one minute you're driving along in your terrible, unroad worthy van with your motley crew, and the next you're eating someone else's doughnut. Emmanuel had almost definitely gone straight for the doughnuts, really. America runs on Dunkin', after all. The little downward twist of his lips as he chews suggests that the States can keep them too, really. He glances around the apartment, and their occupants, eyebrows raising as he notes the gender ratios, but electing to keep any thoughts to himself about, "Ah," The Frenchman notes on the subject of guns, "This is the land of the free after all, non? The guns are a given." He does not seem quite as sure as Fayad that conviction trumps firearms however, considering that he'd brought his own along for the ride.
There's another wary look afforded toward the itty-bitty figure who jumps out of the jar. Blink, blink. Then he finishes off his doughnut. It's a terrible, cinnamon one. The worst kind of doughnut.
Having arrived with the group via their transportation, for her own reasons that fully include not being able to path them here, herself, Lilah also listens. She avoids the questionable baked goods and the coffee, but ponders the little naiad for a long time, before stating with the flash of a far more reserved smile, "Sister, if it's possible, we'll stop them." The pregnant redhead touches a small vial of water that sits in a leather tube attached to her own bag with an almost reverent sort of respect, then turns back to the two men she does know, and Lepia whom she clearly doesn't, for she offers, "I'm Lilah. Hey."
(And the second one) With the amount of costuming and storytelling that goes on these days, Fayad could probably lie and say it is a convention thing or dress thing. Or religious. You never know, really. She nods, slowly, and the Naiad complains vehemently, "Money, money, money! It's crazy!" She buries her face into the duck's neck, the arms reaching around to scratch the animal's sides just above the wings, the animal briefly stretching them out before tucking them back in and re-settling. "Hello, to you all, and thank you for being here." Is greeted a bit distantly from the human woman who produces a long yawn, answering Lepia. "Well, we're not exactly... going to charge an encampment that's being watched like that. We've tried our best to drum up interested but it seems like whenever we try it just - goes away. It's why we finally reached out of town. A nod to Emmanuel, a tired yawn. "But we don't really have time between - work and all. Some of us floated the idea of driving to Haven..."
"NO WAY." Shrilly calls out the little sprite. "They're all CRAZY there. The'll torture you!! Or WORSE!!!" She puts on a big show of a pout, her face brimming with energy and tears. Honestly, as a fully sized being she'd be kind of average looking.
"So. Er." An awkward clearing of the throat. "What do you - plan to do? Do you need to know anything?"
The wildlife refuge and the area you are in are all real places, including Maynard, and feel free to have your character emote and access real-life internet resources to poke around."
Lepia simply bobs her head at the tiny figure who popped out of the jar, giving her a faint smile; a knowing look entered her eyes at the sight of her. She peers at the others that seem to have gathered as well; she arrived sometime in the last day or so, as part of the ramshackle mob of activists that decided to show up and do something about this crime against nature. Spotting Emmanuel, she gives him a short little wave, before standing up from her discussion with the hippy obsessed with theory. Walking over to him and someone, she gives them a nod, before taking out a jelly-filled doughnut from within the confines of the cardboard box. "Hello hello hello." She then peers at the hand offered to her like it was an alien appendage. Her own hand reaches out, before giving him a high five - perhaps more of a side five - instead of a handshake. "Hello hello hello, again. Lepi, leap, leapt, clear over the horizon, to distant shores, distant lands, far far far away." The sing-songy voice was ethereal; almost as much so as the woman who spoke it.
Lepia simply bobs her head at the tiny figure who popped out of the jar, giving her a faint smile; a knowing look entered her eyes at the sight of her. She peers at the others that seem to have gathered as well; she arrived sometime in the last day or so, as part of the ramshackle mob of activists that decided to show up and do something about this crime against nature. Spotting Emmanuel, she gives him a short little wave, before standing up from her discussion with the hippy obsessed with theory. Walking over to him and Fayad, she gives them a nod, before taking out a jelly-filled doughnut from within the confines of the cardboard box. "Hello hello hello." She then peers at the hand offered to her like it was an alien appendage. Her own hand reaches out, before giving him a high five - perhaps more of a side five - instead of a handshake. "Hello hello hello, again. Lepi, leap, leapt, clear over the horizon, to distant shores, distant lands, far far far away." The sing-songy voice was ethereal; almost as much so as the woman who spoke it.
Fayad slowly retracts his hand, clearly terrified of Lepia's side-five. He scurries back towards the safety of Emmanuel. "These people are ... strange," he murmurs to him, not quite quietly enough to be heard. "Good thing, I think..."
"..Ah, hallo, hallo. This is Leapier." That's wrong. Emmanuel is wrong. That is not the woman's name. He glances aside to Fayad and Lilah, gesturing at them like he was going to introduce them in turn, but being too late for it. There's a long, pregnant pause as the Frenchman considers Fayad's half-whispered words, and then the claw attached to his hand. There's a raise of the brow toward him. A wordless accusation of kettles and pots, and calling one another names.
"Crazy, cherie, in what manner?" Emmanuel directs a question over toward the little sprite then, doing his best to keep his expression neutral as he considers the magical little menace. She hasn't even done anything to deserve this, really.
Plan? Plan... they're supposed to have a plan. This might be a terribly telling part of Lilah's character, or perhaps merely that she's been sidelined of late with pregnancy and midterms, but she looks entirely blank at the woman's question of the group. Briefly, she's distracted by Lepia's introductions and Fayad's reaction. It makes her smirk, almost drawing a giggle before she seems to remember exactly what's going on around them. So she turns back to ask, "Any idea of how many people are there? Especially the armed ones, but... all of them. What exactly are we walking into? Five? Fifty?"
Lepia has had - well, not a cold reception, but most of these people work multiple part-time jobs and then collapse home and fall asleep. As far as she can tell they're mostly human (with the occasional werewolf thrown in), but the grinding gears of corporate life and needing money to keep a place to stay keeps them, by and large, oppressed in the great wheel of capitalism. They're happy to talk to her, share what they know, but just as often they drift off and fall asleep, or in the midst of a flurry of activity of laundry, cooking, going to work, handling calls, and other such things. They all find her sing-song very charming and at least two of them have taken up to copying her. Her being here might have far-reaching consequences.
The tiny magical creatures gives a big ol' frowny face at Emmanuel, taking in a deep breath to answer, "Crazy! Constantly fighting! Constantly getting up to things! Doing all sorts of STUFF to each other! All the others talk about it in real quiet terms and how you're so WEIRD! You even had to put up a spell to stop the town from being a torture blood orgy!" Apparently some of the supernatural community doesn't hear good things about Haven. "And there's at least... " At Lilah's question, she holds up her fingers. Then she sticks out her bare feet, counting on the toes, and holds up three limbs to Lilah. "THIS many. They work in shifts. They're the only one's staying, I can't tell what's going on when they bring in all the big... rumbling stuff!" She flails, energetically, flopping back 'pon the duck.
"Construction workers," The more human fills in helpfully, her eyelids drooping low.
Fayad grunts a faint noise of thoughtfulness. "It'd probably be more trouble than it's worth to engineer accidents of the lethal type. But if they're bringing in a bunch of construction equipment, that's a weakness. We could try to break them," he helpfully suggests. "Fifteen workmen can't watch all of their gear at once ,right?"
"THERE'S WAY MORE PEOPLE THAN THAT!!!!" The naiad frownyfaces at Fayad. She even brings up her hands, in a V, down from her forehead, to create a deeper furrow. More frown. EXTRA FROWN for the Fayad. "Sorry, that's - fifteen people with weapons, bodyguards, or.. just a foreman or worker or two, staying there." The woman fills in, reaching up to rub her features. "They have a normal work-day shift where there's a lot more people and equipment. Maybe a few dozen? But they're just - people. Some of them live here."
Fayad winces, chastised horrifically by the naiad. He visibly wilts under her angry frown that he underestimated the amount of workmen so significantly.
Lilah looks all too enthralled with this water 'sister' of hers, watching almost indulgently at the child-like response to Emmanuel and then to herself. "Fifteen," she says and nods again, looking relieved at the news that they're just construction workers and not trained guards. But before she turns back to Lepia, Fayad, and Emmanuel, she does say to the tiny creature, "Sister, not everything about our town is so bad. If you ever want to come visit, I will show you the most beautiful river, and a gorgeous bay, mm?" Then, she steps back and turns, tipping her head toward the men in the room as if to ask their thoughts and offer to Fayad, "A cautious use of fire might do it. It's a bad time of year to risk setting the place alight - right at the end of summer. But machinery is full of plastic and rubber parts..."
And then there's an emoji-style frown and clarification from the naiad, and she winces, visibly. She'd made the same mistake! "So we need a distraction...?" But she's still thinking, listening, and clearly wanting to defer the big decisions to Fayad and Emmanuel.
Her! Charming! Incredible! Lepia seems to have found, in part, her people; the ones copying her bring a smile to her face. "Fortune favor fortune fade, give me some time among them, twist their fate. I can sneak, crawl, hide, slither, move 'tween holes, 'tween space, hiding in the fabric, in the weave." The sing-songy words continue, seeming to have little sense behind them.
"Yeah, Fayad. Geez." Emmanuel laments with a shake of the head, and a 'would you get a load of this guy?' tone of voice as he joins with the naiad in her frowning toward the man. "This was a good question, hm?" He notes over to Lilah then, approval evident in his tone, "Haven is a terrible, terrible place. Oui. Best to stay away." Emmanuel intones to the little figure then, as much for his sake as their own, and in apparent agreement with their opinions on the place. He leans a little closer to the smaller figure, appending to Lilah's words, "The bay is full of poops, and the monsters, hm? Scary ones." There's a mild nod following the sharing of this secret.
Emmanuel starts to straighten back up then, "I am thinking, hm? The first thing we need to be knowing, hm? Is if they are only here for the frakking, or something else? And then we can do the sneaky-beaky, and the sabotage, oui?"
Fayad quietly assents to Lilah, "We could easily break anything we got on our hands on by frying the electronics inside. But we'd have to get our hands on it. Pretty much no machinery these days is entirely analog.."
Fayad says "I've seen you cast flames on operation, so I know you know at least a little pyromancy, like I do."
After a few moments Emmanuel starts to glance around the room, while lightly fanning himself and unbuttoning yet another button on his flannel. He squints in search of air con, though is likely to find any relief in this eco warriors home.
Lepia is seemingly unconcerned about the temperature, as she sticks the drawstring of her sweater into her mouth, beginning to chew vigorously on the fabric; the sound of her teeth grinding against the cotton barely audible amidst the murmurs of the crowd around them.
"One ruptured hose would put it out of commission for awhile though. They still use like hoses and shit, right?" Lilah is pre-law, not engineering, so once more that appeal is made to Fayad and Emmanuel, though as soon as she looks at the Frenchman, an amused little smirk crosses her lips and she winks at him. "Wouldn't it be lovely by the beach right now?" she coos without a hint of vindictiveness as the air cools itself right back down again to whatever it was before. "Manny. You know machinery, right? You keep that van of yours alive. What's the best bet if we want to sabotage them?"
Fayad holds up both his hands, a finger extended on each, which he then taps against each other. "So a sabotage team and a distraction team. The sabotage is easy, just break everything so they can't work. The distraction team, what should they do to get all eyes on them...? Pretend there's a cryptid in the river or something?", he chuckles.
Back to Lepia, the naiad chirps, flapping her arms "To life's little mud-holes, to the toads and the birds, the hopping and dancing of little birds." And then, sobering at Emmanuel's statements. "YEAH!!! Well the Bay's OK. I know some who live in there. Fish spirits and stuff. The ducks share stories-" She pats the animal beneath her. "But the place is mostly awful!!" And there's fans. One blowing lazily, through the windows, passing cooler high-humidity air through the stuffy room and out the other, but not nearly as impressive as a genuine air conditioner.
"Something else..?" There's a bemusement at this. "I thought they were just in it for the money. They have a lot of digging equipment and all. I guess they could be looking for something...?
She screeches, "I knew it! They're after MY DUCKS!" The woman gives the spirit a look. Then back to the group. She shakes her head, mouthing a 'probably not'."
"..It is a very impressive duck," Emmanuel allows back over toward the little spirit, humouring them for the time being. Then it's back to business, and information collection, "I am wondering if we get any survey maps, hm? Be cross-checking where they are digging with anything in the aware libraries, and network sixy-sixy-six?" These tasks seem to be assigned to Fayad, before he glances back aside to Lepia, "You have been here a little longer, mon amie, non? Have you heard anything helpful?"
Fayad murmurs quietly, heatedly, "I love ducks," ignoring Emmanuel's command to Internet entirely as he cautiously approaches and holds his hand out towards the bird. Apparantly the 15 year hikikomori is not actually that good with technology. How genre-breaking. How iconoclastic.
"Quack quack quack." Lepia agrees with Fayad, seemingly, giving the duck a small pat of affection. Apparently, she, too, was very good with animals, giving a look to Fayad and a faint smile. "Little mud burblebabble. Toads croak, birds sing, they say many many things." Perhaps that was in response to the Naiad, perhaps that was in response to Emmanuel. "Those who long for Promethean embrace; comfort beyond truth, be wary of those apart, away. Points, lines, drawn from distant places, all coming, coming, coming, meeting here. Hear hear, many lives here, many many lives."
Emmanuel exhales softly as Fayad ends up playing with a duck in front of everyone, and then turns to squint aside to Lepia as she shares the information she'd managed to glean. He nods along with her words, eyes a little glazed over, before chirping, "Oui," in a manner that suggests he wasn't quite able to follow along. With his compatriots distracted for the moment, Emmanuel digs his crappy phone out of his pocket, and starts checking up local papers, looking for the wider story of this frakking adventure.
Fayad plays with his duck right in front of the entire apartment. The most horrible part is that it isn't even his duck. He glances, peering strangely, at Lepia, as Lepia mentions 'Promethean'. "I'm not sure if you're being poetic or if you're actually talking about the prometheans," he mutters to himself, distracted.
Lepia similarly gives loving attention to the duck; truly, this duck was a loved one. She idly strokes its feathers as she says, in response to Fayad's words, "Poetic prose poem pristine presence, Promethean promotes perfidy, purging preserves, passions, pines."
"His name is," A deep inhale is taken by the water-based being before she rattles out, "Sir Quackington McFeatherbeak the Third, Lord of the Waddling Waters, Duke of Downybill, Commander of the Pond Brigade, and Supreme Overlord of All Things Quacktastic! Esquire." She says, very firmly on the last part of it, the animal waking up and perking as it is addressed. The rust-colored wings slowly unfold and then - there's the little waggle of the tail, a sign of acceptance and excitement, the head and neck stretching out for the adoration. Ducks are oily. A groomed bird, for sure, lacking twigs and sticks and mud, but an oily animal, the grease working to keep the water slickened from the creature.
"Uhm? There's the public libraries. It's all online, now, too."
Corporate lobbying. Deals cut. It's a lot, a LOT of very boring, very tedious political mechinations, but... Emmanuel does have the sense to piece together that spirits push back against this. Even making a tiny foothold like this in reality is a huge amount of work against something like this, and the fact the bureaucratic glacier of the government dislikes changes. There's something inserting a putting leverage here, against something spiritual, though for what purpose remains a questioninmark. Google maps and other surveys, full terrain map - it's mostly wet flatlands, a downhill from the road. Easy to get into. There's even public notes where the temporary dirt road is pounded off the highway.
"Ah, this is being the problem with the world, isn't it?" Emmanuel mutters to, well, himself, as he reads over the various documents and news sites. Pinching, and prodding, and taking screenshots with his terrible device from time to time. The sheer effort of keeping multiple tabs working causes it to heat up, as it's single-core processor goes into overdrive, and it's poorly, cheaply made heatsinks fail to do very much. Eventually it begins to lock up, freeze and then brick. Lovely. There's a string of French curses from the Frenchman, before he tucks the molten slag of the device into his pocket, "Well, there is being nothing better than getting our eyes on it, eh? Why do not we not go for a picnic? Load up the van?" He suggests to his compatriots.
Fayad assents, quietly, to Emmanuel's assertion to load up the Great News Community Center, 2015, Mercedes-Benz, Sprinter van. Truly an illustrious herald of Business everywhere. Which made it ironic what they were planning on using it for. "I have the keys still," he murmurs, patting his pocket and ensuring he does, in fact, have the keys.
"A picnic sounds good. Did anyone bring food?" Lilah asks of the others. But food or not, she's still avoiding those doughnuts for some reason as she turns to meander over to the van with the others. There is a moment of pause though as she cautions, "Umm... the signage might be remembered? If we do significant damage, we might end up having them track down your center. Just... be careful where we park, maybe?"
"Mmm. Picnic, a packet, a little woven basket." Lepia seems to be pleased at the idea of a picnic, before drawing out a half-eaten bag of gummy worms and a Monster Energy Zero can from within the bulging front pocket of her hoodie. That was not food. Not real food, at least.
Fayad says "Oh, I hope she brought enough for everyone."
"I have.." Emmanuel pauses to reach into his pockets, producing handfuls of pocket salt, pocket sand, and several dinner mints. Too many dinner mints. Most of them are melted. He hands one over to Fayad. "We could take Fayad's very subtle van, or my own too." He notes then, clucking his tongue softly.
"The chemicals in that..." Lilah groans softly, but then she laughs too at Fayad's quip. Brushing aside her worries over the van's wrapping, she instead chooses to cringe at Emmanuel's pocket-contents. "Wh- no. Don't tell me why," she decides, in a moment of self-preserving sanity. "Either way. I'm with the weird group," she muses, looking over her shoulder to toss a wink to the water spirit and her more human guardian. "We're a whole lot more capable than we look!" she promises.
Fayad leans over and takes a chocolate donut from the box, scarfing it down. "Although I'm not sure I need to eat after this anyway," he chuckles. "The weird group? Is that the saboteurs or the distraction?"
Lepia says "Yes. "
"Uhm." The reassurance from Lilah only makes the woman look more uncomfortable. More uncertain. Whereas the naiad is ALL FOR IT. "YEAH!" She shouts and gives a fistpump. "You're all from CRAZYLAND and SIR QUACKINGTON likes you so you have this! I believe in you!" Sadly, the Storyrunner is fading fast in terms of brainpower, and needs to call it. Same time next week?
// Lilah is fine to continue next week. Just remind me!
SRNovel says "Let me know if you need me to teleport ya somewhere specific."
Emmanuel brushes a little sand from one of the mints, and then tosses it back into his mouth. No wonder his breath always smells so pleasant, hm? He chews it, and the sound of some grit can be heard as his teeth grind. He does his best not to react. "We will plan a picnic, hm? Get some eyes on the place. Until then, we should try and find a little more information on this company, and any spirits about the place." The last task definitely belongs to the other three.