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redstringtheories2021-08-05 08:25 am
TDM #2
(cw: potential for severe disorientation/vertigo, claustrophobia, arachnophobia, body horror)
It happens in the blink of an eye. You may have been asleep. You may not have. You may have stepped through a door or turned a corner. You may have seen a flicker of something at the corner of your vision and turned to look. Or maybe you didn't.
It doesn't matter. What matters is that you find yourself somewhere entirely new and entirely unfamiliar. The arrival point is not always the same. (If you're lucky, it might be a canteen or an open office. If you're not, well... you aren't claustrophobic, are you? Or arachnophobic. These ducts do seem to be a bit cobwebby.) There is no one waiting for you but you don’t seem to be alone, either. Even in a janitor’s closet or the bathroom, you’ll find at least one person who seems to be just as out of place as you are.
If characters have arrived in a location devoid of NPCs, they may want to work together to figure out what is going on... or to avoid their 'kidnappers.' If you’ve arrived in the middle of the entry foyer or the gym, there may well be a few people who startle a bit at your arrival and try to approach (or discreetly leave the room... where are they going?). Will you cooperate or fight? Do you even understand what they're saying? You might need to find a translator, if you’re not immediately willing to follow a stranger.
After characters follow their new hosts (or are forcibly taken in) there will be a limited tour and the chance to settle in at the ADI-provided housing. (Do you enjoy living with strangers? Well. It's a new situation to navigate, anyway.)
(cw: hallucination, potential mind-control, blood, ritualistic sacrifice, claustrophobia, potential for being buried alive)
Weird things happen in Dogtown, everyone knows it. The Apocalypse Disruption Initiative (ADI) is not above taking advantage of that to test out the waters for its newest arrivals. They're not looking to send anyone to their death, though. That's far too much paperwork, you'd been assured with a wink from the employee who'd directed you to the park trailhead. You've been left with another person. Maybe they're a new arrival, as well, or a more seasoned 'veteran.' Either way, you're together for the next while and you've been asked to find and record any paranormal activity in the park. You have your phones and any other equipment you might have brought with you. Those who succeed in documenting anything peculiar will receive a $100 reward to be used as they see fit.
This month, there seems to be something odd afoot with some playground equipment. ADI has had reports of a few disappearances around town and Dogtown seems to be the locus of them. When characters go investigating, they will invariably stumble across a lone tube slide somewhere out in the woods. Though it seems a little grimy - though less grimy than one might expect from something you’d find in an abandoned settlement - there’s nothing noticeably off about it. (Not unless you find abandoned slides suspicious.)
Nothing, that is, until someone climbs up to the top of the slide and looks down the tube. As soon as they do, they may feel the urge to slide down. (Or perhaps this is just nostalgic and they feel like taking a trip down it anyway!) Either way….anyone who disappears into the tube will be disappeared. Characters who find themselves in this situation will slide for much longer than expected. It might almost seem interminable, with plastic walls closing in around them. The slide does end, though, and characters will find themselves in one of two places when it does: underground in a cramped, winding cave system or in the interior of a stone temple.
The former experience will be disorienting as characters try to find their way out. They may realize that they’ve already passed certain features...or they think they have? Even a level-headed person might be given to panic, to the fear that they might never find their way out or that they might make a wrong turn and be simply stuck. They will have the sense that they are not the only thing down here, that something is lurking just out of sight, following them. However, perseverance will be rewarded, as will reliance on one’s partner. Eventually, they’ll find another plastic tube and if they climb through it, will emerge back where they started.
Characters who find themselves in the temple will discover that they are locked in. There is seemingly no way out, since the tube that they slid through is just too steep to climb back up. But the room is not... empty. No, there is an object suspended above a pit in the ground, held by chains. And there are two stone disks set slightly out from the wall on opposite sides of the room that seem like they could be depressed inwards. Like a button. Pressing them in tandem will lower the object (which seems to be a... great big black garbage back) down into the hole. As they do, the bag starts to... move. Is it living or... is there just something alive within it? Characters will not be able to get the bag open, whatever they try, but they'll notice blood leaking from it
Lowering the bag -- whatever it is, whatever its contents -- will eventually cause two previously hidden doors to open. An unearthly scream comes from one. The other reveals a stone tunnel. How fast can you crawl?
Still. No matter how close those screams follow characters as they crawl and slide their way through the tunnel, they’ll eventually find themselves sliding down...bright plastic. They too will emerge back into the clearing they disappeared from.
In both cases, that clearing will be empty, with no sign of the slide.
(cw: large-scale vehicular collision, industrial disaster, fire, harm to animals)
It's nearly midnight when a thunderous crash shakes the buildings of Gloucester. It begins with the shriek of metal on metal, a drawn-out, tormented sound like a great beast screaming out its last dying breath, followed by a terrible concussive blast like a clap of thunder. There's the sound of shattering glass and roaring wind as the buildings that make ADI Headquarters and apartments, as well as Bonnie's Flophouse, shudder on their foundations, and in the moments that follow there come the pitiful cries of the wounded and dying amidst the groans of twisted metal. The air reeks of burnt flesh and the taste of hot metal lays cloying on one's tongue. Somewhere, animals are screaming. Somewhere, flames lick upward, filling the heart of old Gloucester with a sickly, unnatural light.
Except...
Except the people of Gloucester lay sleeping peacefully. Most native guards stand their posts blissfully unaware of anything untoward happening on their watch. There are no alarmed crowds flooding into the streets, and what few people are out on some errand in the night drive on past the flames without so much as a glance. No windows are broken; the buildings stand miraculously undamaged. Those who venture out into the night to investigate or to help will find that the phantoms of destruction flicker back into darkness and silence, though not before the light of the flames leads the way to an abandoned railyard.
(cw: fire, destruction of home, mention of insects, infection, and altered perceptions)
It's hard to say when this railyard ceased to be a major hub of the web of rails that connects Gloucester to other cities up and down the coast. Freight trains still periodically rattle through on a few of the lines, so one best stay aware of one's surroundings, but this is by and large a dead place. The few railway workers here seem perpetually to want to keep moving, and there's the sense of a heavy, oppressive presence that hangs over the place both night and day.
A derelict train car sits rotting on long-unused tracks. The local workers take no notice of that ramshackle hulk of metal and wood, gazes skittering past as though they don't want to see. At first glance it seems there's little to find here but termites and tetanus, but for those brave enough to scramble inside, there's something more. Inside, the train car is almost like the burnt husk of an old house after a fire, with the collapsed remains of bunk beds and a cracked washbasin still recognizable despite signs of an inferno followed by decades, perhaps even a century, of neglect. What looks like peeling wallpaper turns out, on closer inspection, to be a large number of posters pasted to the walls. Many are burned and decayed beyond recognition, but on a few it's still possible to make out the shapes and faded colors of clowns, elephants, and tigers.
Little information seems to be available about the railyard or the crash at ADI headquarters. The more junior staff members of the research department are eager enough to help and will do their best to set new staff up to search online databases for information, but there's an unfortunate lack of a real starting point for research and the overworked senior staff aren't available to help. For now it's a long slog through online journals and newspaper archives with no results in sight.
- ARRIVAL (Aug 1 - 21): Two people will always arrive in the same general location together. Arrivals occur throughout the early month, not all on the same day or in the same place. Arrivals are not naturally fluent in English/other languages immediately upon arrival. Characters may attempt to evade capture, but they will eventually be snagged before they can leave the building. PC's already in-game are more than welcome to interact with and try to guide new PC's to get them oriented. Please refer to the Arrival page for details regarding the arrival and onboarding process.
- SAY, SAY O PLAYMATE (Aug 1- 21): Characters will only encounter the slide once. If they make it out, it will not appear to them again. For those who enter the cave system, the pervasive sense of being observed and followed will not relent, nor will characters be able to find the source of it. The caves are utterly silent save for the noise the characters themselves make. For those who enter the temple, there will be no way to get the bag off the chain or pull it onto stable ground. The pit it hangs over is just too large for that. Both characters will have to press buttons on opposite walls in order to lower the bag and open the way out. Characters who try to stay and face what is chasing them, they will be met with a bubbling, oozing mass of mud. If it washes over characters, they will be buried alive and die in the temple. If characters jump down the pit, they will die in the temple. If characters refuse to lower the bag into the pit, they will be trapped and eventually die in the temple. Please bear in mind that if a character dies in the TDM prompt, they are dead. A different version who doesn't have TDM memories may be apped in their place.
- SILVER GHOST (Aug 21): Characters will find that native NPCs are largely unaware of the apparent crash, both within ADI and without. Any characters who appear at ADI in the minutes before the crash will also be unaware of the sights and sounds. Only characters who have gone through ADI's onboarding process for interdimensional arrivals will have heard or seen the ghostly crash. Some native ADI personnel appear to be aware of it, but not all.
- A SWITCHMAN'S STORY (Aug 21-24): If characters talk to any of the railway employees, they'll find that everyone who works at this railyard is a new hire, a recent transfer, or here on temporary assignment. All of them want to transfer away as soon as they can, though none of them can articulate why they don't like this place. None of them have any awareness of the crash the characters heard. Within the relatively brief timeline of the TDM characters will not be able to find historical resources regarding the railyard and rotting train car; characters conducting in-depth research will be able to uncover more information during the in-game event that will take place later in the month.
no subject
His eyebrows rise thoughtfully as he leans back in his chair, giving Shiroe's clothes another brief once-over.
"I was curious," he admits after a moment, with a small nod. "I'm still getting used to the idea that people are taken from other places. Times. Worlds."
He thinks about that a moment more. "'Originally'. So you've been other places, then, before coming here? If you don't mind my asking, of course."
no subject
As he explains that, he gestures with both hands, as if Kei is over here on one side and Shiroe's on the other, and the two don't quite meet in the middle.
no subject
"That sounds like quite a change," he finally says diplomatically. Then, he gives a small, crooked smile.
He can understand balancing two lives, at least, the identities of two very separate people. He had done the same for a long time, even if it wasn't quite as massive a shift. "I'm sorry, I suppose it seems rather unreal to me. This place...is a lot like my world. The idea of others that are so different, that's going to take some getting used to."
no subject
He's not only asking out of curiosity; Shiroe likes to have a handle on the capabilities of those around himself, in case he needs to deploy them strategically at some point. That doesn't strictly mean in battle, either. He's been known to ask attractive friends to leverage their appearances for his causes, when the might be useful.
no subject
God, that's a massive understatement. He huffs quietly, trying not to think too much about just how bad the bad side of all that is.
He's got plenty of scars to prove just how terrible they are.
"The Powers are something new, though. There are things in my world that are...somewhat similar? Old, alien, often malicious consciousness. But very rare to encounter and they don't tend to have a lot of influence unless someone lets them in."
He gives a thin smile, and a shake of his head. "So this world and mine have quite a few things in common. At first, I thought that they were the same, but...apparently not, from what I've been told since."
no subject
He noticed that mention of organizations on both sides, and mentally sticks a pin in that; he can't assume 'good'-ness on the part of this man yet, even though he wants to default to hoping everyone around him is on the right side.
no subject
"I worked magical security and investigations, yes. Protecting assets of various types. A lot of artifacts and private collections. The occasional bodyguard work." He pauses, tilting his head ever so slightly as he considers what more to share. Then, because Shiroe had guessed it easily enough: "I'm a mage. Trained in magic since I was very young...in my world, it tends to run in families."
He doesn't sound quite as happy about that as he should- his smile is just faintly on the sour side.
"But it's good to be in work that I'm familiar with, I suppose. It made the entire idea of staying a lot easier than it would normally be."
no subject
"Do you have any tips for those of us who aren't veterans in this field?"
Not that security and investigation aren't what Shiroe's guild did in game, but the circumstances are very different here.
no subject
The question is a much easier path of conversation, and he's happy to go with that. In another life, he might have made a good college professor- calm, collected, and thoughtful.
"The biggest bit of advice I can give is, always be aware of your surroundings. What's normal, what stands out as different. The exits and entrances, having something solid against your back in case of a problem." He taps the cover of his notebook. "Don't be afraid to gather as much information as you can, and record it in some way you can keep. Camera, voice recorder, notebook. Sometimes, when you sit down to look at a situation later, you notice things that weren't obvious when you were actually standing there."
It's advice that can go for a lot of situations, which is what makes it particularly useful in Jaeger's mind. Sometimes taking a step back to see the whole picture makes all the difference.
no subject
"Part of my role as a strategist in the game was spotting details no one else thought were important."
no subject
"Situational awareness is useful in a lot of occupations, especially where you need to be able to react to a situation quickly." Before it had become a survival skill, it had simply been a professional requirement. Now, his life often depended on it.
"Investigation gives you a bit more leisure of time, I think, but even then, things can be very time-sensitive. Crime scenes can be compromised, data buried, trails go cold."
He considers Shiroe for a few seconds, then says, "It sounds like you're used to coordinating a team?"
no subject
"It's only effective if I have a good handle on what everyone can do. When we were dealing with game rules--classes, spells, cooldowns, mana points, monster abilities--all of that could be calculated, and I could predict where the battle would in a certain amount of time. At my peak, I could calculate to within 1% on health and mana points, up to thirty seconds ahead. I don't think that'll be possible here, but I think I'll still be useful."
no subject
Useful skills, if they translate well. Jaeger is familiar enough with computer gaming to know that some skills do carry over to the real world. (Real? What does count as real here, anyway?) Communication, foresight, managing numbers and adapting on the fly. He'd worked with younger folks with a vast background in online pursuits, and it seemed to work well enough for them.
"And we're all learning how our abilities translate here. Especially with the...difficulties of magic here. It definitely recommends reliance on other skills. Getting back to the basics, I suppose."