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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.
Caleb Widogast | Critical Role
“Oh no,” Caleb says out loud, possibly an understatement to the predicament he’s found himself in. His mind races through all of the possibilities that could have led to him being here so suddenly. Wild magic- but he had been in Rexxentrum. A miscalculated teleport? He hadn’t been going anywhere. He had been still and peaceful in the library. And now he was very much not.
So ‘oh no’ didn’t really cover it.
It takes him a few long moments to process that this is a bathroom. There is a row of sinks with a long mirror stretching across the wall above them, and he sees himself there, pale and confused and possibly more bedraggled than he was expecting.
Stepping back he looks along the row of individual cubicles that his brain suggests must hold the toilets, though that step is far enough for him to see that he isn’t alone. The shock makes his heart jump, but there’s some relief that there might be some answers to be found here.
“How did we get here?”
It doesn’t seem like it should be the first thing to ask, he surprises himself, but those are the words that come out of his mouth.
How did we get here?
2. Butcher’s Camp
“I think we have seen enough,” Caleb says, despite the fact that they’ve just arrived. It probably says a lot for the place that one glance can tell you that you really shouldn’t hang around.
The air smells of blood and rot and death and Caleb is pretty sure he would be vomiting right now if he had anything inside him to vomit up. As it is his stomach just curls and twists and clenches and his mouth fills unpleasantly with saliva.
He’s been to bad places before, but even facing down a dragon he never got this immediate feeling of fear, of wanting to turn back right now and run.
“It’s really not worth it. We should go.” He doesn’t advance forward. He doesn’t think he could make his legs work that way anyway. “Please, let us leave.”
3. Mirror Mirror
Caleb is only washing his face. It's the simplest thing, which is why he's taken by surprise. Which is an understatement.
Looking up, Caleb looks at his reflection to make sure he hasn't missed anything, then startles. Something moves behind him.
He turns and looks around the otherwise completely empty room. There's nowhere anyone else could be hidden. No one else is here. He was probably just seeing things.
Scratching his damp beard, Caleb turns back to the mirror.
This time he physically jumps, spinning around to pin himself against the sink, staring around the room, his heart hammering in his chest.
Trent was in here somewhere. There was nowhere he could have hidden, but Caleb had seen him. Standing behind him in his reflection, smirking at him.
"I know you're here," he says loudly. "I know you're here. Show yourself."
When there is no response, Caleb turns again, looking over his shoulder at the mirror. He sees himself, but the room behind him is on fire, flames lapping all over the walls, smoke curling against the ceiling. And Trent is there. Smirking, then laughing.
"What are you doing?" Caleb yells. "Was willst du von mir?" His fingers are gripping the sink as he stares blindly around the empty bathroom, the image in the mirror not changing when he glances over his shoulder again. "Lass mich in Ruhe!" His voice cracked, panic rising in his chest.
[ooc: you can find me on
no subject
"Caleb? Caleb, open the door. Are you alright?" He's not panicked himself, but his voice rises with concern. "Did something happen?" German is a language Steven never bothered to learn, but he gets the basics. "Let me -in,- Caleb, or so help me I will break this door down to rescue you."
no subject
Trembling, he scurried towards the door and flipped the lock, opening the door and almost falling into the other man, clinging onto him.
"Don't go in there. Don't go in there, I don't want him to know you're here," Caleb said, his eyes wide and wild.
no subject
"Calm down, Caleb. Talk to me." It's soothing, his tone. He's not always the calmest, but Steven's pretty good at keeping his head. "Tell me what you saw? I promise I won't judge."
no subject
"He's in the mirror," he whispers. "He's-um, my teacher, my old teacher. He's set the room on fire. He wants me dead. I didn't think he'd find me here." But the man had his ways, and Caleb shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss him. "Don't go in there."
2. Butcher's Camp
She means to turn to go, but something in the leaf litter catches her eye. Stooping awkwardly with the support of her crutch, she picks it up and turns out over in her free hand. A marker? Frowning in puzzlement, she uncaps it, hesitates, and then puts it to her own skin.
[OOC: Heads up that Moira is missing her left leg below the knee; didn't manage to sneak that into the exposition naturally.]
2. Butcher's Camp
Despite his better judgement Caleb moves forward to help, because he's polite even if this isn't a situation he wants to be polite about.
"What did you- what is that? What are you doing?" the questions come rapidly and with increasing concern. "Moira, what are you doing?"
no subject
"I, um..." she says, struggling to explain. What is she doing? "I just gotta...just gonna be a minute."
no subject
"Stop, Moira." His voice is shaking, which doesn't help, it's far from convincing, but she's starting to scare him. And watching her draw those lines, he begins to think of where on his body he could put those lines. Just above his elbows? Remove the contamination that had been left there so many years ago.
"We need to go-" he says, even less convincing than before. "You can do this when we get back, ja? Finish it somewhere safer?" That seemed like a good idea. They could both do this somewhere safer. He could take a spare brush with him-
no subject
She recites it like a distant memory, not sounding convincing or convinced herself. And all the while she keeps drawing, dotting those lines where the joint ought to be carved.