UNICORN HUNTING

[goneawaymod]

unicorn hunting

PLOT DESCRIPTION
Wanting to strike up a good relationship with a town with many magical resources the group is dispatched to help the town with a magical plague harming its children. The only thing that can cure them is the unicorns in the nearby magical woods. However, due to past attempts at capture, the unicorns no longer trust any of the townspeople and can reocgnize them on site. The town wants the New Hires to try their hand at luring them in.

The only catch: the unicorns aren't attracted to virgins, they're attracted to emotional vulnerability, and they'll only come if the whole group displays it. Loudly. Which means the New Hires will have to shout their insecurities into the forest and submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

After the unicorns are caught they'll also have to navigate a difficult moral choice.

SCENARIO

Meanwhile, one of the locations Jorgmund is building connections with is a small village in an wooded area that one could easily distinguish as “enchanted”, on account of the overgrown mushrooms and general sparkliness of the air. Sunbeams lance down, rainbows seem to sprout out regardless of lighting. Lush berries hang from the bushes and shiny red apples dangle from the trees.

Unfortunately, the idyllic aura of the town is besmirched by the sad fact that the children in the town have all been struck by a mysterious disease - a pox that puts children into an endless sleep and has been debilitating this town for weeks. The locals know that the only cure is fresh emotional wounds for the unicorns that inhabit the woods, but their own fear and sorrow over their children isn’t sufficient to get the wily beasts to cooperate. In exchange for their allyship, they require assistance luring in the healing unicorns, which will require public displays of emotional vulnerability from the hires. Beat poetry readings, a cappella ballads, merely shouting into the woods - so long as the hires bare their wounds and weaknesses to the forest, the unicorns will approach.

There’s still a little struggle involved, though - just because a unicorn gets close doesn’t mean it’s willing to give its forces over to the sick children of the town, or to humankind in general. Unicorns must be lured and lassoed and forced into the role of caretaker, which the Jorgmund insists is both for the best and a task that will be well-compensated.

This is, naturally, even more difficult when other forest denizens decide to interfere; in addition to the mortification of shouting your deepest fears into the forest, a hire might find themself accosted with tricky imps trying to steal their belongings, or pixies trying to pluck out their eyes. The local fae are particularly sneaky, trying to play pranks or draw the hires into loser’s contracts to prevent them from ever going home. One might find that the mortifying ordeal of being known is small potatoes compared to the trials the magical beings in the woods are setting up.

For now.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Characters have been given enchanted golden lariats to catch the unicorns with. Once they get them around their necks, they'll be far more docile.

➤ This is a multi-part plot. A later part will involve some moral choices about what to do with the unicorns after the children are cured.

➤ The vulnerable thoughts they shout have to shout have to be fairly extreme, though characters who have very few insecurities can get away with less serious ones. They have to shout them at a fairly high volume.

➤ Other signs of vulnerability like crooning a love song dedicated to someone they have a crush on are also valid.

➤ Players can make up mystical annoyances or minor threats in the forest, and have the freedom to make them anything that might be reasonably found in your average generic enchanted forest.

➤ Feel free to ask questions in the question top-level below.

Comments

[vampthropologist]

[Beckett is standing with his arms crossed, looking down his nose behind his dark glasses. He's tall, with long dark hair, and not a hire Steven would have seen before]

I'll happily promise to plug my ears, but I have no intention of participating in this - whatever this is.

[His voice is low, cultured, and at the moment, extremely snotty.]

[gempathizing]

[ He doesn't know what he expected. There's New Hires, and then there's New New Hires, and the latter Steven knows from his own fresh-to-Rig experience tend to have a lot on their plate already.

First week, he can't imagine how much more it would've sucked having to do something like this.

It doesn't stop an impulsive little flare of irritation, alongside that understanding. Big picture, he'd like to think he can attribute that towards Jorgmund in general. ]

If you don't feel up for it, then yes. I'd appreciate you plugging your ears while I yell at unicorns about my insecurities. [ In fact: ] I... also wasn't totally joking about the secrecy thing. Is that okay? I'm, I'm working on my own stuff. It doesn't need any extra hands on deck.

[ Things that are lies that he doesn't know are lies, 2020. ]

[vampthropologist]

[Beckett somehow contrives to look even more remote, snotty, and unreadable]

I doubt your innermost secrets are of any more interest to me then mine are to you. That being said -

[he covers his ears]

- whenever you're ready.

[gempathizing]

[ It is an incredible display of snotty power. Steven turns and takes a couple of steps in another direction, partly to gear himself up and partly because it's rude for him to roll his eyes in someone's face.

He believes very firmly on every level that he'd rather be going solo on unicorn duty than forcing someone else to yell a bunch of sensitive stuff out into the void. He doesn't have a grudge to hold over that, nothing he wants to take out on someone. He knows that.

Being in this situation at all has him feeling a little short, though.

This guy sort of reminds him of Yellow. There are better and worse people to be reminded of. And in theory, way worse people to be forced to yell deep insecurities around. Yellow really wouldn't be interested enough to listen. Empathy was always more his thing than any of the Diamonds.

What vulnerabilities has he not trotted out for unicorn luring already...?

Oh.

Ugh. ]

I'm... secretly still pretty sure my mom had me so she could permanently avoid all the lies she told and ways she hurt people? I mean, I don't think she thought I'd have to deal with all her stuff! She just didn't really think about what she did at all! Except that maybe if she had me, no one would think she was selfish for running away from it!

[ It's hard to reconcile everything he's ever been told or found out about her, still. Every time he thinks he's got the full picture, it's like some new horrible thing was only waiting for that signal to come out of the woodwork.

It always comes back to his mom. Every time. Except for Jorgmund, this mission excepted. It's been a while, but he's still tired of it all the way down to his bones. ]

Honestly, I'm. I'm not so sure I'm ever gonna work back around to a place where I think good things about her, and I'm not sure I want to anyway! If any unicorns might be interested in hearing about it!

[vampthropologist]

[Beckett can't block the sound out entirely. He winces, and bites back something tart and unnecessary at the boy's rather prosaic concerns. That is, after all, what the damn magic horses want. And he's a child, after all.]

[Hellfire and damnation, now he's feeling either guilty or indigestion. He doesn't owe any of these people a damn thing.]

[Besides, he's almost embarrassed for the boy. They may be prosaic but they're still his private feelings. Hearing them confessed is an intimacy he has emphatically no interest in. Like being forced to rifle through someone's underwear drawer. Just... icky.]

[So surely a unicorn will come along any moment now. It's quite a lot of emotional blood in the water. Any moment now.]

[Any.]

[Moment.]

[Now.]

...For heaven's sake, isn't that enough? What do the damn things want, a bloody memoir?

[gempathizing]

[ If the flush on Steven's face says anything, it's that he is also quite embarrassed about having to foster and endure the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Just standing here... in the quiet... awkwardly.

Beckett's complaint drags a short burst of genuine, surprised laughter out of him, though. Unexpected, but something he's infinitely grateful for. ]

Yeah, they're, uh. They're awfully picky about their emotional flavors, I guess?

[vampthropologist]

Well, now what? Try again?

[He doesn't like that idea one bit. And he's damn well not going to participate. What would he even talk about? Anatole's dead, Aristotle might as well be, Lucita's vanished up her dead sire's arse and who knows what Vykos is doing. Beckett probably doesn't want to know.]

I suppose... [he hesitates. Weighs risk vs risk: exposure again being stuck out here indeterminately and dealing with Jorgmund if they fail]

Hmph. One could make the argument that there are certain secrets my kind hold so close that revealing them might satisfy these damn creature's fetish. Without getting into any - personal details, on my part.

[Sometimes there are end runs. He devoutly hopes this is another one of those times. The thought of being forced to watch the child bare his soul again is excruciating]