deernet | Video: UN

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Video: UN - JustD

[The video isn't of D, but instead a carefully drawn map of Trench and its close surrounding areas with rough lines indicating the tunnels. The video zooms back to show a rough outline of a path leading from Trenchwood further inland, denoted as '30 miles' and then a point circled and labeled as 'outpost lantern'.]

Earthquakes and underground tunnels last month, and severe storms this month. If this city sinks into the ground or is washed away, there's nowhere to go.

[D puts another sheet of paper down in front of the video, this one showing a rough outline of ruined building and some sketched in structures and a perimeter wall.]

Last month, Manabu Yuuki led an expedition, this lantern point is as far as we went before we had to return. The wilds are full of aggressive plants and animals, high levels of corruption, and even the plants that don't attack will probably kill people.

But this is a chance to make an outpost. Every time I've gone out there I've come under attack almost immediately, but if we made it that far, we can make this work too.

I'm looking for anyone who can and will fight, anyone who can aid in building fortifications to make defenses easier, and anyone with the ability or knowledge to provide magical protection and reduce corruption, or who can provide supplies and support.

I'll provide food and shelter or items for trade to anyone who works on turning this outpost into a haven.

My name is D. I'm setting up a staging point for people and supplies in the house near the Watch Tower with the red door and cloth banners. Contact me here, or look for me there between mid afternoon and sundown.

[OOC: Plotting post for this open and approved player plot here and location post and information here. An open log post will be going up sometime in the next week.]

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Yeah, sure. Give me a few minutes to get there.

[ He's got nothing else going on, and has to find his way there. Nico will be pretty easy to pick out of a crowd, wearing all black while his t-shirt has a skeleton pegasus and the words "Camp Half-Blood: on it. ]

[D is also wearing all black. Black wide brimmed traveler's hat, black great coat. Black scarf.

And now that he can get a better feel for the kid D can tell they're on a similar mystical wavelength. They both have an air of death and doom about them, even if D keeps his suppressed to the point that most people can't sense it, he can never quite get rid of it entirely without hiding himself completely.]

You're young. Wouldn't ghost prince have been a better choice?

[Not that D looks like he could possibly be older than 19 himself.]

[ Ah, someone who could understand his fashion sense.

Somehow, he isn't all that surprised that Just D bring Nico the sensation that he just walked into the Underworld. Though he can't quite put a finger on why or what D might be, having never experienced this before. ]

I'm older than I look. An Oracle called me that once, and I couldn't think of a better one.

[ Nico certainly wasn't going by deathboy. ]

[D spends a moment studying the kid very intently, as if he's looking into him more than at him.]

An Oracle. Are you bound by fate, or can you break free of it?

[Actually important questions here.]

[ That's an intense stare, and he shifts a little, but shrugs at the question. ]

Sometimes she's vague enough that some parts could go the opposite or different way. That prophecy's old, though. She's come out with a bunch more since then.

[ Let's not say that there were actually like 5 Oracles up until recently. ]

I think that particular line was "You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand".

[Not a concrete answer either way. That's fine. D starts walking to lead the way further away from people. It's daytime and it's raining and D is very miserable but barely shows it except as maybe the slightest hint of being tired.]

We're closer than I thought.

Stopping my aura entirely is extremely difficult, but keeping it from killing plants every time is more practice and habit forming than anything else.

[ Some prophecy lines he could do without, but demigods kind of can't do anything without a prophecy. They can if they break Camp rules or decide to say "screw everything". He follows after D in silence, not feeling the need to fill it. ]

There isn't anyone I can ask back home for help, so everything I've learned so far was on my own. Well, my dad, but he doesn't really understand.

[These parallels are uncomfortable.]

He's the one you get it from, and a human mother? What's his name?

[D can't quite decide if Nico is his reality's equivalent of a Dhampir or not.]

Edited 2022-07-07 06:01 (UTC)

[ A nod of his head at the first question. ]

Hades. God of the Underworld.

[ Just in case D's world doesn't have Greek deities. ]

The dead. The undead. The cold dark of a world the light of the sun doesn't reach but longing for it all the same?

[Hades is little more than a word to D. All gods were stripped away and only Dracula was worshipped.]

Yeah, that's basically him in a nutshell.

[ Nico, too. He is dating a son of a sun god. ]

[That's a second parallel in Dark even if it's not Night, but no blood connection he can think of from what he knows so far.]

Control is more difficult for hybrids born with abilities from a supernatural parent. We have conflicting natures, our supernatural and strong affinity for death and undeath is at odds with our human mortality. You accidentally hurt people with your aura?

[D has had to use much more of his mystical knowledge and education since arriving here than he's had to in a long time, and in this area in particular he knows more than his left hand.]

[ He nods at that. Nico has definitely noticed a difference between his powers and his fathers, how lacking Nico is because he's half-human. ]

It's why he could never really understand, he's always been a god.

[ A small shift in posture at the question. ]

Yes. I inflicted my memories and emotions on a friend, mostly the negative ones. Later, when I lost control, I turned another demigod into a ghost and sent him to the Underworld, in addition to memories and emotions - I have no memory of it, only the words of my friends. Plants died, the temperature dropped, the earth bent to my command.

[An Earth component then as well. Vampires are naturally tied very strongly to the earth, but the rest of it sans memory loss makes sense.]

That's a little different from mine, but I think it's because you have a stronger death aspect. We're complimentary that way, you are death foremost and darkness after, and I have darkness over death.

I have to work to use my killing lust as a weapon against all but the smallest animals, but if you don't do that frequently when your aura comes out it could be a different ability altogether.

[ Admittedly, his earth powers aren't all that, one of the lesser ones - which is why he brought it up. Tapping into that power isn't easy. ]

Yeah, though mine may be more intricately linked together. I overextended myself on using my shadow powers, then tried to turn around and use my death ones - almost became one with the darkness.

I think part of it is my father has control over fear, he can inflict other's worst nightmare on them. Me, I seem to inflict my fears on other people.

It'll be interesting to see where our shadow abilities overlap. My aura causes fear, but not of anything but myself or of impending death.

[They're getting a bit off track.]

Let's start with the aura first. I'll know if anyone approaches and your aura shouldn't be able to hurt me if you don't want to even without using my own to protect myself.

I could show you some of them, then explain the most draining one at some point. After all this.

[ He nods at the instruction, putting a lot of trust into someone he just met. His gaze flicks off the side, as he draws on the feelings of pain that Nico is still working through.

The death of his sister, his friend, the horrors of Tartarus he witnessed, the Titan he wants to help down in that horrible deep abyss. The temperature drops enough that Nico's breath is visible, starting at his feet the grass and whatever plants are there begins to turn brown creeping outward.

For someone like D who's capable of picking up these things, he's radiating fear and death a lot more than he would on a base level. It's not the most intense - inflicting those memories and pain just yet - but it will continue building unless D tells him to stop. There's a tinge to the death aura, almost as if anything dead and buried are about to claw their way out of the earth to heed this call. ]

[The differences between them are much more obvious now. The way their auras move is different as well. D can feel a faint hint of beckoning magic, the call of Nico's aura not quite on the right mystical length but close enough for him to notice.]

That's enough for now.

[It's a place to start at least, and D knows there are other necromancers and perhaps some restless dead who might come investigating if they go too far.]

That was grief of some kind, or painful memories?

[It hadn't seemed like anger, there had been no intent to lash out, but if that was what anger looked like in Nico's aura they were that much further apart.]

[ He hears the words and nods, but calming down takes more time than ramping up. Deep breaths are taken, calming ones as he shifts his thoughts to something more pleasant. The smiling face of his shining boyfriend, his half-sister safe back at Camp Jupiter, the threat of the old Roman emperors finally vanquished. While the heat comes back, the grass and plants remain just as they are. Dead. ]

Yeah, grief and... let's just say I walked through an equivalent of literal hell with eyes wide open to its true horrors. It's not something I've recovered from yet.

[ A small shrug of his shoulders. ]

Anger is more, in the moment, kind of thing. I was angry when I hurt my friend, I was worse than angry when I turned a guy into a ghost.

I see.

I usually use anger, or simply a desire to inflict violence. It's easier to control how much I let out.

[D almost always has a melancholy air around him, stuck in the shadow of some terrible loss.]

I see two obvious and relatively safe ways to approach this. You can either learn how to kill plants without bringing out the rest of your aura as the first step, or you can focus on bringing out the other parts of yourself one at a time until you get a feel for them.

[ He nods at the words of how D handles it. Nico has anger, but it's his sorrow and pain that leak out before he has a chance to pull back. Honestly, he's got a lot of weight that he carries around - sometimes it feels lighter. ]

Let's kill plants. Death being the more dangerous power, it would be bad if it goes out of control because something unpleasant happens here. I've already killed one person, I don't want to make it a second.

[ Even with the laws of death and rebirth of this world. Also, he may have some hostility towards plants. ]

I don't have as much free time as I did before. If you want me to supervise, we'll have to work around my schedule.

[D has already taken on an obligation to train a student and he has his project with the outpost going on as well as several other self appointed tasks.]

Fine by me. I can still help out with the outpost. Other than some stuff in the morning and joining up with the Hunters or Sanctuary, I don't have much of a schedule.

[ This is something important to Nico, so he would prioritize it. That doesn't mean D has to. ]

Don't try to join both the Hunters and the Sanctuary. They're at odds and you'll get caught in the middle.

[D thinks this is important to, but he has commitments and he has a very hard time breaking them.]

If you have time to practice on your own, work on speeding up and slowing down your heartbeat while sitting still and keeping your breathing even. It's the same kind of control.

Allen said there were some allies among the Hunters, so I was thinking more along those lines, if I can. Or is that a really bad idea?

[ He definitely was not going to kill those Beasts if possible, Nico will probably be able to sense who they are underneath all that corruption. ]

Meditation-like... yeah, I'll practice. [ Nico's less fidgety than some other demigods. ]

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