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redstringtheories2021-09-05 08:32 am
TDM #3
(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: animal death, both human and animal butchery, implied cannibalism, potential for flesh/small limb removal)
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 characters who venture into Dogtown will eventually stumble across what seems to be an abandoned camp. Its usage is fairly obvious: the remains of a hunting camp. And remains really is the operative word, considering that whoever used the camp wasn’t particularly fastidious about cleaning up after themselves. There are bits of various animal carcasses strewn around and by the looks of things the prey of these hunters was quite varied. Not all of them are prey animals either.
Stepping into the camp seems to have an effect: anyone who passes over the threshold to investigate will find themselves powerfully driven to mark themselves - or their partner - with lines that seem to indicate where a butcher might cut. There are black, red, and white paint pens littered around the camp that are perfect for this exercise. As they proceed, they will get the sense that once the lines are completely drawn, something will be coming along to make use of them.
Staying too long after those marks are completed - either through curiosity or through some other force - will result in a sudden unconsciousness. And when you wake up? (If you wake up…) Well. It seems the butcher has returned and taken just a bit more flesh. At least the wound is properly dressed, though. Thank goodness for small mercies.
(cw: altered perceptions and unreality/hallucination, body horror, dissociation, wounds, cancer, stalking)
Something is wrong with the mirrors.
Everywhere around Gloucester - at ADI headquarters, in ADI housing, at Bonnie's Flophouse, even in the bathrooms of mundane businesses (and, presumably, the homes of the innocent and uninvolved), looking in the mirror has become...risky. It's not predictable; it doesn't happen every time and may or may not happen to any given person the same way twice, but look into the reflection and you may see something that should not be there.
Perhaps your own reflection has changed, a face (human or monstrous) you don't recognize looking back at you, eerily in sync as though it has every right to be your true reflection… or un-synced from your movements, smiling knowingly at your distress.
Or maybe you still see your own face, but something about your body is warped, wrong: a growth or a seeping wound you can't find on your own physical form but that exists glaring and insistent in your reflection and feels, somehow, as though it's there in phantom form.
Maybe it's a pair of eyes watching from over your shoulder, hiding in the shadows, peering at you from every mirror you pass. Is it watching you from your reflection in that window, too? Is it growing nearer?
Possibly there's nothing wrong with your reflection at all, but the reflection of the room behind you stretches and twists, a view into an impossible, broken world that leaves you dizzy and wandering, lost down an imagined maze of hallways or following a phantom figure until someone else can snap you out of it.
Something is wrong with the mirrors. Best not to look again, lest you find out what else they have to show you.
(cw: hallucination, hypersomnia, vehicular accidents, potential for injury)
The summer is fading, and businesses around Gloucester have taken note. Fall decorations go up, and even some very early Halloween decor is on sale. The air is crisper in the mornings and evenings, the ocean breeze just a bit stiffer. There also seems to be a new melody floating around the town, one that leaves people feeling fatigued, heavy. Did you hear a snatch of it near the docks? Something that's vaguely familiar to you, nostalgic, almost. Maybe it's more a memory?
That song or memory seems to grow stronger when approaching the graveyards scattered throughout Gloucester. So, too, does the fatigue. Wouldn't it be nice to just sit down and rest? To close your eyes and let every worry that troubles your mind be soothed into the quiet oblivion of sleep?
Those most affected might find themselves passing out, and they always seem to do it when they are putting themselves in the most danger. You might drop while crossing a busy street or while riding a bike or some other wheeled mode of transportation. Those who investigate will find that traffic accidents seem to have seen an uptick recently, associated with the onset of these haunting tunes. They seem to be focused on the graveyards, but there's nothing immediately apparent there that might be causing problems.
Drink lots of coffee, and be careful trying to do anything. Stepping outside could be the last thing you do.
- ARRIVAL (Sep 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.
- THE BUTCHER'S CAMP (Sep 1- 24): Characters will only encounter the camp once. Everyone will feel the compulsion to draw carving lines along their own skin or that of the person they're with. If they stick around for long enough, they will pass out and may not wake up again. Those who do wake up will find that a piece of their flesh is missing and the wound has been bandaged. Whatever is taken will be non-fatal, but it will likely be inconvenient (e.g., some part of their calf or forearm, perhaps a finger or toe). Once ADI is made aware of injuries happening, they will stop sending people to Dogtown for training and only send people with the understanding that this is a potentially dangerous mission. 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. Similarly, injuries will not magically disappear. If your character loses a chunk of themselves, it is gone unless they can find someone who might be able to magically heal them. No one at ADI will offer this service, just mundane medical assistance. Magical healing is reserved for fatal injuries given the price of it!
- MIRROR, MIRROR (Sep 1- 24): Characters may encounter a mirror effects multiple times, and may experience the same effect each time or different ones. As noted in the prompt, there is no apparent rhyme or reason to when any particular mirror exhibits any particular effect. Within the first week of the effects becoming known, ADI will cover all the mirrors within their headquarters and send out an advisory for characters to do the same in their homes. Characters who experiment and/or interview locals will, after a lot of legwork, be able to ascertain that the effects seem to be most concentrated on the west side of town, nearest the empty fields where the Fenix Down Extravaganza had set up their circus tents last month, with additional concentrations around ADI-affiliated buildings and Bonnie's Flophouse. Mirror effects will gradually grow less frequent over the course of the month and cease to occur after the 24th.
- HAUNTING TUNES (Ongoing Effect): The tunes will be oddly familiar to the character, even if they are not from modern Earth. There are currently no ill effects from the song apart from inducing fatigue in characters. They can fight it off with coffee/caffeine, or other things they'd typically use to wake themselves up, but that tiredness always returns. An examination of the graveyard will not turn up a specific source. It just seems to be something there.
Sebastian Monroe | Revolution (pre-Blackout) | OTA
This was clearly a sign from God that he was going to get a dishonorable discharge. Bass had dtepped into the supply closet to meet Sgt. Thompson for the kind of fun no one was allowed to ask them about and that Miles was the only person he'd tell about it. Mostly because they needed a lookout, and Miles was exceptional at that. The irony of stepping in to a closet to do things that only military regulations kept him "in the closet" about to begin with was not lost on him.
But when he looked around, not only was Thompson not there, but the supply closet had undergone a serious remodel since last week's meetup. He peeked back out in the hall wanting to get Miles' opinion on the place, but that was not the barracks hall and Miles was not standing guard. That was the most ridiculous part, honestl. No one ever asccused Bass about being great on details (though the Marines had drilled situational awareness into him pretty damn well), so the hallway looking different could just be his not paying attention and even going to the wrong barracks. He'd met Cpl. Jameson in her barracks three days ago - maybe he'd wandered there instead, which was gonna be even more awkward if he got caught. Though less likely to lead to a dishonorable discharge. But, really. Miles wouldn't have let him make that stupid of a mistake, and, more importantly, there was no way in Hell Miles would've sbandoned him.
"...Miles?" He kept his voice low, even as he called out inquiringly, then backed up into the closet again to try and figure out a plan, bumping in to someone else. He gave a slightly undignified yelp for a Marine (or anyone but a teenage girl) because no way did he miss another person in here before.
Turning, he straightened the jacket of his desert camo BDU and tried to look like no one who would've made that sound.
"You weren't here a moment ago." He really hoped it didn't sound like a question. "And you are not Sgt. Eric Thompson." Of that, at least, he was sure. It might be the only thing he was sure of, but he hadn't forgotten the man's face or name before sleeping with him. Even he wasn't that careless. Although he did just admit to expecting to find another..male...Marine in the closet with him, so..that last point was debatable. "I don't suppose you know where 'here' is? I seem to have gotten turned around."
If he were Miles he'd come up with something about where he'd expected to be that wasn't a supply closet with another male Marine, but Bass sucked at lying, and Miles was better thinking shit like that up on the fly--even if he picked the worst aliases when giving a fake name. So, he just smiled and tried to not look as lost and incompetent as he felt.
2. The Butcher's Camp
cw: animal death, both human and animal butchery, implied cannibalism)
He wasn't feeling any less lost--or out of his depth if not incompetent--when he and his assigned partner were dropped off with their instructions and sent down the trailhead. It was, at least, a more familiar feeling--he was used to being sent to scope out potentially dangerous places, though usually better armed and more often for insurgents than "paranormal activity," but this whole place is fucking weird, and Bass remained unconvinced he hadn't had a stress-induced psychotic break. Their last engagement had been brutal...
About as brutal as what they discovered in the camp in the woods--it had been as bloody, at least. Less of a sense that one might end up dinner if one lingered too long, but the oppressive feeling of not-nice people and the liklihood of a bloody death were refreshingly familiar. "Refreshingly?" Christ, he had issues.
He hesitated before moving farther in.
"I don't know if thid counts as the 'paranormal' stuff they're looking for, but it sure isn't normal," he remarked quietly to his partner. "You think we should at least document it? It's 'peculiar,' for sure."
He appreciated his necessities were provided for by these folks who'd clearly kidnapped him into a psych ward or whatever, but he wasn't going to turn his nose up at $100. If he ever found somewhere to go away from here, he could use the extra at the ready.
Still, he really didn't want to go in there.
3. Mirror Mirror
There had been a horrific wound obscutring his tattoo when he glimpsed himself getting in the mirror after his shower that morning. When he'd looked down, it had been fine--his and Miles' mark, with "Monroe" draped beneath it. Catching a glimpse of his back in the double reflection of his mirror and the one behind had dshown its own mess--a criss-cross of bloody welts. When he'd tuened and twisted to get a better look, they were gone his back an unblemished stretch of tan skin.
"What the hell?"
When he looked a 3rd time, both wounds were back and he could feel them, too. Not pleasant, not pleasant, not pleasant.
He was pretty sure that seeing things and feeling phantom wounds was something he was supposed to tell his shrink--err, "grief counselor"--about, but the man was back in Baghdad, with Miles, either on the other side of this world or on another. When a sideways glimpse in a window along the street showed blood leaking from his left eye and a bad head wound above it, he stopped looking.
That didn't stop the pounding of his head, though, or the fact that hisperipheral vision seemed wonky on the left. It didn't stop the raw feeling on his back of the burn where fabric chafed against his forearm, either. Looking away helped, but only so much, and the headache wasn't going away.
He found someone who looked like they might know something about this place.
"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you, but is there a med unit or clinic or something around here? I think there's something wrong with me..."
4. Haunting Tunes
Just as recent as two years ago, in the time Before the accident, Bass had loved Fall. Now the decorations twist his stomach in knots, but he waas getting better at pushing it aside. He'd gone off on people putting pilgrims up in the barracks last year, but he just winced a bit at the decor around Gloucester. The music caught his attention more, not least because of his own musical leanings. He found himself chasing it, trying to find the source. The grester number of traffic accidents he noted and felt personally attacked by--like someone hasd poured salt on his not-yet-healed-wounds--but his situational awareness still functioned, remarkably, even when he felt in a trance, and he managed to not get hit, even if he had a couple of close calls. Honestly, it was enough to make a fellow wonder just why he hadn't died before now, given all his close calls and dangerous life choices. Why them and not him? Whatever it had been back home, it seemed to be continuing here.
Which was how he found himself in a graveyard, investigating. That was his job now, right? But there wasn't anything he could explicitly identify as causing it. He left for supplies and came back later with a blanket and a large thermos of coffee. If he knew where to score here, he'd have gone for something stronger, but he had yet to figure that out. He told himself it would just be like a late patrol, but he usually took something before that, and coffee, it turned out, wasn't enough. Eventually, her fell asleep, blsanket around him for warmth and propped up against a gravestone. There might not be any immediate danger to key him awake, but that surely can't be a safe place for a nap...