alec (
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wellcome2024-02-17 04:12 pm
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[player plot] signal
Hello Wellstone! I come to you with a little player plot open to everyone in the game.
INTRODUCTION
In February, Alec comes up with a plan to alter the way his power works via brain manipulation with the assistance of a friendly local god of necromancy. His goal is to amplify his powers in order to manipulate the nerves of the meat underneath the Staywell with the aim of learning more about what it all is, and even finding a way to 'fight back' against the powers that be lying under the town.
Unfortunately, Alec's attempt to boost his powers underneath the Staywell Manor will be going horribly awry! The canon metaphysics of it all are over-complicated: the gist of it is that the alien parasite (hereafter referred to as a shard) Alec draws his power from will be possessing him and attempting to make contact with the larger alien entity it's part of.
This effort will fail, but it's going to get messy while it tries. Alec's shard specializes in generating and manipulating signals on a cosmic eldritch horror scale, and the plot will be about dealing with the effects of that.
The planned duration of this plot will be up to a few hours IC on the last day of February as characters investigate and deal with the problem. The key events will take place in the cistern deep beneath the lobby, on top of the bone platform that has been built out over the acid, and in the lobby above.
MAIN PLOT
There will be three 'rings' of influence Alec's shard projects.
INTRODUCTION
In February, Alec comes up with a plan to alter the way his power works via brain manipulation with the assistance of a friendly local god of necromancy. His goal is to amplify his powers in order to manipulate the nerves of the meat underneath the Staywell with the aim of learning more about what it all is, and even finding a way to 'fight back' against the powers that be lying under the town.
Unfortunately, Alec's attempt to boost his powers underneath the Staywell Manor will be going horribly awry! The canon metaphysics of it all are over-complicated: the gist of it is that the alien parasite (hereafter referred to as a shard) Alec draws his power from will be possessing him and attempting to make contact with the larger alien entity it's part of.
This effort will fail, but it's going to get messy while it tries. Alec's shard specializes in generating and manipulating signals on a cosmic eldritch horror scale, and the plot will be about dealing with the effects of that.
The planned duration of this plot will be up to a few hours IC on the last day of February as characters investigate and deal with the problem. The key events will take place in the cistern deep beneath the lobby, on top of the bone platform that has been built out over the acid, and in the lobby above.
MAIN PLOT
There will be three 'rings' of influence Alec's shard projects.
- The Call: town wide, fully optional.
- The Network: a 15.8 feet/4.8 metres spherical radius area measured from Alec's body, where characters will experience the network effect described below. This effect will be duplicated in the lobby, extending instead from the receptionist at his desk.
- The Core: 3.95 feet/1.2 metre spherical radius area generated from Alec's body, where the strongest and strangest effects of the shard will be experienced. This will not repeat in the lobby.
- Kill Alec
- Calm the shard down enough that someone can get inside the core to fix Alec's brain
The Call
The first ring is a general call for help that you can opt your character into receiving. The call will take whatever form would be most compelling for your character to respond to: an emotional impression, a familiar voice, a vision of a loved one, a promise of reward, or some other generally positive appeal. Be as creative as you want with this! Whatever the signal they receive is, it invites them to descend under the Staywell Manor.
The Network
If characters receive the call and answer it, or otherwise become aware of the situation unfolding, they can get closer to the second ring, or the network field. This is a projected effect with Alec's body at the centre that incorporates characters into a biological broadcast network whenever they're inside the radius. Characters inside this field will be subject to hallucinations, emotional instability, and degrading mental capacity as the shard tries to use their brains to boost its broadcast signal.
Networked characters can try to resist the mental overload, or end up succumbing to the shard's imperative to stay within the area and keep other people inside of it as well. Again, feel free to get creative here - the shard isn't picky about the signals it manipulates with. Perhaps your character imagines they need to protect the inside of the network field from intruders, or that there's a danger outside of the field they can't let anyone else step into. Whatever is happening to their minds, their bodies are still theirs to control, so approach this however feels fitting for your character.
Strangely, the receptionist seems to act as a repeater for this layer of the signal. Characters can therefore be caught either in the acid cistern or in the lobby. The receptionist will stay at his post projecting the network signal, but without the core effects mentioned below. Instead, he'll glitching out like a faulty animatronic: eyes blank, mouth open wide, and repeating snippets of voices and yelling. Characters will be able to approach and investigate the receptionist with less difficulty than Alec downstairs.
The overall theme is chaos and miscommunication. It's unlikely characters will be seeing or believing the same things in the network area, which will make it easier for them to comprehend what's actually happening if they compare their subjective experiences to realize they're being manipulated.
The Core
The final ring is the core centered around Alec's shard-possessed body that disrupts and degrades all signals coming into it. Because shards operate on cosmic horror narrative rules, what this means is that the shard can shut down a lot of exterior power usage. Basically, it's a power nullification field with some caveats - it will depend what power is being used and how, so feel free to ask in the comments below. This is entirely for the narrative purpose of making it a little harder to snipe Alec from the outside and be done with it.
Physically entering the core amplifies the network effect significantly. Unless steps are taken to mitigate it, characters will almost certainly be instantly overcome and exit the core area to rejoin their fellow walkie-talkies in the larger band around it. Finding a way to deal with this so Alec can be stopped or helped is the end goal of the plot.
The Motive
The shard's ultimate goal is escape. The negative side effects caused by the shard's influence are accidental, not malicious. In fact, from the shard's alien perspective, it's choosing a route calculated to cause as little collateral damage as possible.
As a result, most of the impulses and images the shard will be trying to use to manipulate characters are positive ones. The shard will be appealing to ideas of safety, cooperation, and reaching out for help first and foremost, in whatever way affected characters will interpret those concepts. It won't intentionally incite violence among the networked individuals or against characters outside of the field it affects. A damaged transmitter is a less effective transmitter, after all.
The shard can also be communicated with. It won't be initially receptive to conversation, but if characters are persistent in verbal, mental, or magical efforts to contact it, it will try to explain itself as best as it can using feelings, memories of its host, and alien imagery. It believes it's doing the best thing it can under the circumstances, and won't attempt to lie or deflect about its motivations or methods.
Some of the ways to calm the shard and convince it to stop include: pointing out the futility of its actions, expressing concern for the damage to its host, promising future help escaping, or showing empathy for the shard itself. It's also possible to intimidate the shard, but this will be much more difficult to achieve.
OUTCOMES
There are two major ways to stop the shard:
The first option is doable with sufficient firepower and some strategy, and I'd be open to hearing any clever plans for pulling it off! I'm operating on 'rule of narrative cool' for solutions here. Note that this tactic will be impeded by the contingent of people who probably don't want Alec dead.
The second option also requires strategy, but will depend on establishing contact with the shard and persuading it to let Alec be helped. Characters can try to talk to Alec and his shard, communicate with powers, or even just stay nearby to provide a comforting presence. Once the shard is soothed, someone or someones can approach Alec to repair his brain, supported by anyone participating in calming the shard.
HOOKS
These are some suggestions of how you might get your characters involved and what they could do in this plot. Don't feel restricted by the options here, just feel free to use them as springboards.
The Call: have your character respond to a strange cry for help; have characters talk to each other about it; have your character start to investigate the origin of the distress signal.
The Network: have your character resist or succumb to the network's influence; have characters wrestle each other into or out of the area; have characters talk each other down from persuasive hallucinations; have characters struggle to hold onto their thoughts and self-control as they're bombarded with alien feedback in their brains; have characters become aware of the signal being broadcast through them and investigate it.
The Core: have your character experiment with breaking into the core; have your character find a way to resist its effects; have your character attempt to comfort or kill shard-possessed Alec; have your character participate in fixing the damage.
SET PIECE FLAVOUR
Outside The Network Area: Affected people behaving unusually and reacting to invisible stimuli. A strangely clear perfect circle at the center containing a crumpled body.
The Network Area: Intermittent visual distortions, such as light 'floaters' and 'snow'. Hallucinations (pick your flavour from subtle changes to dramatically warped perception). Disturbing auditory feedback (warning: tinnitus, grating sound) and accompanying headaches of varying severity. Mental 'fuzziness', skipped thoughts, difficulty problem solving. A sense of a need to stay together in the designated area. Difficulty perceiving and comprehending the core area of the shard's effect without deliberate concentration.
The Core: Extreme sensory distortions. Overwhelming noise, auditory and mental. The sound of someone sobbing incoherently. Intense pressure to leave the area and return to the network. A shaking body covered in fluids.
The Signal: Broadcasting through a wide array of possible output channels. Deeply alien, organized along incomprehensible logic. Fractal elements. Does not align with commonly understood physics.
AFTERMATH
The shard's effects will stop as soon as the situation is resolved and will have no inherent long term effects except potentially leaving people disturbed. Any other consequences will be determined by player choice in threads.
SUMMARY, OR TL;DR
• Alec is getting possessed by the alien parasite that gives him superpowers due to Alec getting amateur brain surgery in the Staywell acid cistern
• The alien parasite, or shard, will be transmitting a signal from Alec's brain that manipulates characters through player-chosen emotions and hallucinations
• Characters can investigate the shard broadcast through mundane or metaphysical means, determining what's happening and why
• The shard can be communicated with about its goal of contacting 'home' and escaping Wellstone
• Alec's brain has to be either destroyed or repaired to stop the shard
LINKS
Log Post
QUESTIONS
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Counterspell
Mass Suggestion
Skill Empowerment
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Ruby Rose | RWBY
She's pretty tough in a fight and would be a great person to protect the network or Alec, or pull people into it's mess too. She has a big old scythe and is getting the hang of her semblance so super speed is on the table in bursts.
Core
If/When she's out of that she'd be good to try and talk the shard out of it. Alec's saved her life once so she kind of owes him. She's also been on the self destructive path for a long time, so she can see and relate to that with the shard too.
Outside of that- There is always the sniper rifle option for getting through the core. But I feel this would be the absolute last resort.
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I think there's a good opportunity here for Ruby and Alec to have some memory sharing about bad times, speaking of gun violence! Alec's gotten to see some of Ruby's self-worth issues, but if she's talking to the shard she can potentially see some of his - only being 'useful/wanted' to the extent that you can do things and serve as a valuable weapon, if that strikes your fancy?
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did you still want olympia to get ruby out of there? or if your plans changed, then something else is cool too!! i'm flexible...
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Hanzo Urushihara / Lucifer | The Devil is a Part-Timer
The Call is going to smack Urushihara harder than anything else so far. Luci here is super easy to manipulate in general going to be dragged into the network before he realizes that anything is wrong, and he will be on Team Alec in all of his Fallen Angel, General to the Devil's Army glory.
This means telekinetic abilities, energy blasts, shields tough enough to hold off an army of Angels, and wings that are as black as his little goth heart. He won't be an easy fight-- but not impossible. He doesn't have much stamina and will KO if he's hit with enough force.
I'm open to plotting. Luci is totally going to lock himself in a closet and have a breakdown afterwards
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does he need someone to provide some comfort in the aftermath :( olympia will worry if he locks himself into a closet!!!
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John Gaius | The Locked Tomb
John will help Alec kick this off with some well-intentioned but ill-advised necromancy! He'll be caught in the initial Core blast and get memregain stunlocked as he recalls the eldritch horrors of his canon. He will probably go down in the acid because [canon joke], so we'll need someone to pull him out of the acid. It won't be pretty, but he'll heal on his own.
He'll be too out of it to participate in the fight, so I'd be charmed for a friend to protect him from any hazards other characters are throwing around. Please use him freely as a spooky immortal damsel in distress.
If anyone succeeds in calming down the shard and ending the chaos, John can stagger over to undo the necromantic boost he gave Alec, thus preventing any eldritch relapse. This will be a great opportunity for characters to yell at him for enabling this, or discuss eldritch monstrosities, or whatever else you like!
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How would you like to be pulled out of the acid and in the nice soothing embrace of the network?
One of us. One of us. One of us.
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Also: he will absolutely be like "hey haha I thought we were gonna be at the back of the line coming down here lol so funny" :V This is potentially the first real conversation they get to have post-sexy party? F
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Re: John Gaius | The Locked Tomb
Loki
THAT BEING SAID. Loki canonically has a line about his MIND BEING TOO STRONG to succumb to enchantment (which does actually appear to be true) and while that's not exactly what is happening here, I think it'd be reasonable to say that unless he's in the core he's going to have a *slightly* easier time pushing past the influence into a brainspace where he might be able to actually think things through. So if someone wanted to talk through what's happening with him and he can help shape a peaceful solution, he'd be good for that. Not so good for the emotional heart-to-heart approach but maybe he could persuade someone who is?
TL;DR: Looking to magic blast somebody across a room for trying to kill a child and also someone who Loki can convince to be nice to the child instead.
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I also am very in favor of anyone's mental strength being sufficient to work through the shard manipulation! The effect starts losing power as soon as people start thinking through it, since most of the shard's 'juice', so to speak, is getting focused up and out of the town.
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The main thing that jumped out to me is that Ryouma would be so good for trying to communicate with the shard. He will deeply empathise with it and try to be its friend. And Alec's friend. They are both doing their best!!! He will think it's fascinating but not in a I Want to Study You way but in a Life Is So Cool!!! kind of a way. Can he pet your weird dog Alec??
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I also think I mentioned earlier that I think there might be some interesting interactions here - to wit, I'm curious about how much Ryouma would register as 'human' vs 'something else', as I'm looking at his app stating his body is composed of magic/he's a complex magical familiar.
Depending on how you might be interested in playing this, I think the shard could potentially register Ryouma as being a construct in a way that most other lifeforms aren't, which would make it more receptive to communication out of innate shard-curiosity. IIRC you're not going for that information to be revealed to Ryouma himself yet, but it'd be easy for the shard to just not share, because shards are funny like that.
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Palamedes
- Pal is pretty close to Alec and is going to go into emergency mode to try and save him! His initial goal will be to shut down or otherwise disable the shard without hurting Alec
- He’s also very good at sorting through mental noise to figure out what’s really important; for the purposes of this, I’m thinking that while he won’t be able to suppress hallucinations unassisted (see below for more on a potential assist!) he will have a better-than-average ability to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.
- Pal is gonna be big mad at John!! Yes, I know, it’s a day that ends in y. The twist here is that, depending on exactly what happens, Pal may also realize at a certain point that John can heal Alec in a way no one else can. This fact will annoy him deeply.
Networked Area
- While Pal’s primary goal will be to get to Alec, he could be useful in determining the boundaries of the network area and the core and marking them with DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE signs in an effort to keep everyone safe.
Core
- This is where things get fun!!
- First, Pal will realize that things in the core are super intense—intense enough that he can’t focus on helping Alec through all the noise. Sometimes knowing something is a hallucination doesn’t help if it stops you from focusing on anything else!
- Faye and I have discussed that Pal and Cam might solve this problem through soul siphoning: essentially, Pal draws energy from Cam’s soul to boost his ability to suppress the hallucination noise. This will hurt Cam—definitely short-term, possibly long term. Whatever Pal does, he will want to act extremely fast to lessen the harm to Cam.
- Things Pal can do once he gets close enough to Alec and can concentrate: try to communicate with the shard, try to literally find the shard in Alec’s brain and reverse what John did (he’d likely succeed at the former, fail at the latter), try to keep Alec otherwise physically stable while other people deal with the shard.
I WELCOME ALL THOUGHTS AND IDEAS. Gimme what you want to thread, what you want to handwave, what you love, what you hate, etc.
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Re: the soul siphoning time limit, once Pal is able to breach the core and make contact the first time he'll find it easier on subsequent attempts, since the shard/Alec recognize him as a friend.
Finding the shard's location and keeping Alec stable physically should be well within Palamedes' abilities. The corona pollentia will be extremely overactive and show signs of necromantic manipulation Palamedes is very familiar with, and Alec's shard is pretty good at keeping Alec physically intact even if he'll be very stressed. He could probably use some hydrating, though.
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Re: Palamedes
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Potentially it could partially mindflayer him, with his worm so active. But it's also pretty early for this! Could be fun tho.
For actual hooks would be interested in someone shaking him out of it, and/or him working to convince people to go down to the cistern, to help the shard.
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I've been thinking about weird interactions between the respective worms here, given how extremely psychic Astarion's particular worm is (mind flayer psionics are really something), and if you didn't want to go for the full physical transformation I can see the shard being able to suppress that aspect while still feeding extra energy into the tadpole itself - if you wanted to give Astarion a temporary power boost of mysterious origin, as a little treat.
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I'd like to engage mostly through hand-waved interactions or short/per-choreographed threads! Dax can help anyone get through the networked area and will be trying very hard to convince anyone and everyone not to hurt Alec or the shard.
Network Area
Ezri and Dax are separate creatures with separate brains. Their distinct feedback sets will mean the Network (and the Core) hallucinations will be contradictory, so the two brains will be able to act as something of a buffer and make it easier to navigate and focus and discern which parts are reality.
Core
Dax (the worm half) will be able communicate directly with the shard in more or less its native language and hopefully calm it down so that someone with powers can get close enough to Alec to heal him.
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Dax is correct that breaking the Alec-shard connection would be bad for Alec, so here's to looking out for Worm Interests.
I'm just putting down that I'm very excited for our weird worm plans. Let's go into the psychic realm and have a terrible time there!
floral's folks
noelle; cw: worm spoilers
in the network area, noelle will slip in and out of a fugue state. while in her fugue, noelle will be unresponsive. her lower half will be mindlessly hungry and a little violent, so noelle will likely accidentally hurt people who come too close. while noelle is in her fugue, alec's shard will be able to communicate with her own. outside of her fugue, noelle can act as a translator, reporting the wants and needs of alec's shard as she understands them.
in the core, noelle's appearance will become more and more ordinary the closer she gets to alec. noelle will likely try to approach him multiple times, since she would rather be depowered than have her powers, and will likely become frustrated when she can't reach him. noelle's powers grant her some acid immunity, so she can rescue people who happen to fall into the acid as well.
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ariane
Re: ariane
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Darlington
Given the shard's emphasis on help and safety, it would be tremendously easy for it to bring him in as part of the network keeping people from leaving; he always wants to be the one standing between everyone else and the dangerous things in the dark, so there's a lot to keep him on-mission, so to speak. That said, I also think he'd be good at the more practical outer-radius data gathering type stuff--figuring out how wide the call extends, attempting to find some throughline in other people's hallucinations, etc.
Bottom line: I welcome any and all suggestions of where to point Danny for this!
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It occurs to me that Darlington's special spiritual situation, so to speak, is something you could play as giving him an extra edge in parsing what's going on, but it's been a minute since I read Hellbent. His general analytical magical expertise also could easily be an asset here, just given how he tends to approach the inexplicable by breaking it down systematically. However you play it, feel encouraged to lean into whatever feels coolest!
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Not sure what anyone would want to thread but i am here if u would like something c:
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Knowing Cece, this would probably backfire on the shard immensely. Basically consider it an open invite for her to do some emotional venting if you like!
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olympia
by which i mean that she will be drawn into it very easily. she hardly needs anything more than the smallest suggestion when it comes to helping out in any given situation, so olympia will be part of the network for sure, being drawn in by the thought of helping alec. (even if it's actually the shard..)
she's definitely nowhere powerful enough to actually really be able to get near the core, especially when the one power she does have is one she'd never want to use on alec, but while that's out of the question for her she will definitely be trying to reach out to alec in any way she can.
for interaction opportunities with others: considering olympia's brain will be turned into HELPING OVERDRIVE MODE within this entire situation, if she sees another character as part of the network who actively looks like they are having a Very Bad Time, she will do anything in their power to get them out of there. sorry, shard, sometimes activating olympia's helpfulness this strongly actually works against your plans, pal..
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Olympia is one of Alec's nearest and dearest and radiates Helpfulness like actual sunshine, so even her just saying/thinking his name particularly hard would be enough to put them in contact! The shard would start out by trying to offer her some soothing in a stressful time, but as soon as she started fretting (more) over Alec it would spiral a bit with alien anxiety. I think her natural tendency to be a calming presence will help a lot with the stabilizing! To wit: Olympia, are you a nice enough girl to talk an alien through a freak out?
And I LOVE the concept of Olympia's helpfulness being overactivated and thus working at cross-purposes to the shard. Oops! You turned the dial to eleven!
Cam
The Call: It's going to take almost nothing to summon Cam: her protectiveness is such that it could give her an image of what's literally happening. (Besides pretty literally owing Alec her life for him being able to knock out Double!John back in...3.3?, she's got a soft spot for this kid, so. You know.) Or, Palamedes-anything related, or literally just hey come check out this meat cave.
I'll figure out how much she knows and how she figures it out, but if Alec (or John) doesn't reveal (intentionally or not) what he's doing, and/or Pal or Dax don't figure it out first, it'll still probably be the easiest part to handwave.
As a side note, she is already pissed at John so MAN. She is going to be PISSED. AT JOHN. Could you just categorically stop messing with people's brains? Please? Before you actually do kill one of our friends
no dramatic irony here at all?Network -> Core : She'll definitely be trying to fight through to the core; she wants to protect Alec more than she'll be suckered in by bioresonance, I think, and it's not a very long area to go, but I'm still going to throw a lot of you've got to protect the perimeter and if you stay here you can keep an eye on everyone, you know what happens when you don't and all that stuff that will be easy Cam targeting. I think I'm going to have the shard mess up and go a little overboard on "keeping her people together" and go for like, Dulcie or Kiki or someone as a hallucination, which would work effectively for about 2 seconds until she realizes that makes no sense in a dream-logic sort of way and it helps her realize she's getting sidetracked.
At some point, she'll run (into? back into?) Pal (and probably Dax) and at that point she'll become aware that the core shuts down his ability to do any necromancy, which will remind her of the avulsion lab (in Gideon the Ninth).
She's going to suggest (read: insist -- he's not gonna love this idea but it is one of the best ones they can use) that Pal use her in a soul-siphoning maneuver. In TLT, we primarily see it helping break through a combination "entropy/senescence" field that does pretty much the same disrupt-and-degrade thing that the core does. Essentially, the necromancer is able to cast to get through the field, and because they can replenish their own thalergy (life energy) that they're converting into thanergy (death energy) by drawing on their cavalier's soul/life essence, they aren't immediately shut down (or withered into dust, in the original trial: the entropy field is nasty).
(Discussed in better English here with comments back and forth).
Since it's a small area, Pal's going to suggest she get out of the network area first, so what he's drawing on will be anchored somewhere where there's no biofeedback disrupting the energy. She'll have to fight back through the network, so anyone who has good helping abilities there (
He'll use the opportunity to get into the core and talk down the shard with Dax and everyone else who's trying to do the same, and, after that has the ability to fix Alec's brain (once it calms down he shouldn't need to drain Cam).
Pal drawing on her life energy will look approximately like it sounds like it does: it is going to hurt like a motherfucker. She will try to stay stoic and not be able to as her soul gets forcibly dragged from her body. Not fun. But it should be short.
Afterwards: she'll be stuck in bed with some fairly serious recovery for a short time* and some much lengthier moderate recovery, nothing permanent but. Windedness, fatigue, some pain, less stamina and precision -- stuff that isn't unfixable but is really annoying.
*[ngl, I'm gonna base some of this off some of my worst tonic-clonics, but if any players have had any near-death experiences they'd like to have immortalized, please feel free to throw recovery anecdotes my way]
Dax and Pal will be fretting over her, anyone who wants to is invited to (she'll hate it, thanks! But also appreciate that they care).
OR: help her rehab! YOU (well, your character) are invited to, in March, be someone she fights badly/partner up in resistance-stretching a la physical therapy/take walks with her/have snacks and drinks after she does this with someone else/allow her to be frustrated about it?/share your own trauma for a while with someone who can't be out hitting things with sticks.
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Alec will be mostly out of commission for all of this, of course, but I'd love to do some aftermath stuff! He will feel Not Great about Cam putting herself in harm's way for his fuck up, so I can see him attempting to try to be helpful in her recovery by showing up and hovering with candy/small snacks/a vaguely annoyed expression that passes as the closest he gets to showing 'guilt'.
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