TDM #6

[apocalypsehowmods]

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➥ Arrival

(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.)

➥ Widowmaker

(cw: body horror; existential horror; animal death; potential for severe injury; being eaten; skin loss)

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, especially not with recent events that have transpired surrounding Dogtown. An employee gives you a number to call if anything truly dangerous happens and you've been left with another person at the trailhead. 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 the forest seems to press in on the trails that run through it. Looming. Waiting. Ravenous. Tree branches snag at passersby or fall suddenly across the path to block the way and force hikers off the trail and into the woods. The undergrowth has grown thick, the gnarled branches of trees and bushes so much more alive than they should be this time of year, leaf-bare limbs all but thrumming with energy and anticipation. Peek through the snare of bark and wood and you might spot the carcass of an animal on the forest floor, fur and skin eaten away to reveal the raw, naked, bloody truth of the meat that lies within all the pitiful creatures of this world that ever dared think themselves to be more.

Step off the path and step out of your place at the top of the food chain; it wants you. This is something so much bigger than you and it will swallow you down. The ground is soft muck into which your feet sink and the trees are waiting to drop heavy branches that will pin you down, stop you from running. Fairy rings have sprung up all over these woods, too, and stepping into one invites mushrooms that quickly spread over your feet and up your legs, eating away at shoes and flesh, digesting whatever they can reach. Eating you.

You are fertilizer. It was hubris to think otherwise.

➥ Hermy the Wormy

(cw: worms, decay, altered mental states/compulsion, emotional corruption, potential for violence, theft)

un: pamoramicview
Hi, everyone! If we haven't spoken just yet, my name is Pam. I'm here to help off-worlders however I can at ADI. And one thing I'd really like to do more of is some icebreakers for our newest arrivals.

Now, I've uploaded a new app to everyone's device. It's this cute little game I found called Hermy the Wormy. Do you know the song?

"Sitting on a fence post, chewing my bubblegum! Chomp, chomp, chomp!
Playing with my yo-yo! Woo woo!
When along came Hermy the Wormy, and he was This Big!"

It's something to help little ones learn to count and how eating makes you grow bigger. My kids loved it when they were toddlers. I think it's just a modified version of Snake, if anyone remembers that. But we can set up a company-based league. Try it out and see if you can make the high score. The top three at the end of the week are getting a gift basket of Halloween and Thanksgiving treats.

Seeing as my Halloween gift baskets didn't get much use.

For reasons.

But I'll make sure to make our Holiday Party in December the best you've ever seen! We will have a good holiday party. I will make this happen!!!

- Pam

Anyone who checks their ADI-issued devices will find that a snake-type game has, in fact, been added to their phones. It's a worm this time instead of a snake, though, and he's eating colorful pieces of fruit that seem to become more and more decayed as the game goes on. It is, in fact, hard to resist opening the app, most will find. Almost as if there's something compelling you toward clicking on it. And once you're in? Well, you have to at least try once.

Those who begin playing will find themselves getting sucked into the game, deeply invested in winning to the point that maybe… maybe it would be a good idea to start sabotaging the competition. Just little things. Stealing a phone here. Surprising them while they're playing. Breaking a few fingers… Little things.

The (overly-)competitive spirit sweeps the halls of ADI and Bonnie's Flophouse, and once you score high, well, time to let everyone know. They should be aware of who you are, shouldn't they? You need to be acknowledged, appreciated, loved. Don't you deserve that?

➥ Writhe and Squirmy

(cw: altered mental states/compulsion, emotional corruption, toxic relationships, body horror, mold, potential for amputation)

The next mass network message goes out several days later and is from Reyes Amador, the person in charge of managing the visitors from other worlds.

un: sunreyes
¡¡¡HIGH PRIORITY!!!

All ADI personnel will uninstall the Hermy the Wormy application from their communications devices immediately or surrender these devices to the ADI IT team so that we can do this manually or destroy your device and replace it.

Do not play this game. Do not look at this game.

Check all parts of the body for a purple, fuzzy mold. If found on the body, report to medical immediately for removal. Amputations may be required if mold has spread. DO NOT WAIT.

- Reyes Amador

Unfortunately, at this point, the Hermy the Wormy 'virus,' as it were, has already spread. Even those who did not play the game may find themselves affected. People will find themselves compelled to begin acting upon their worst impulses. Perhaps they decide that now is the time to admit a crush and make that person they fancy love them. Or make that friend they want spend time with them. Why heed these new orders when you're perfectly fine? Everyone else might be acting strange, but not you. You're as you should be… aren't you?

Those infected will find that they have a patch of fuzzy purple mold on them somewhere. Whether it's somewhere easy to see or completely obscured, it's there. It starts out very small, just the size of a freckle, but it has the chance to grow and spread to others if accidentally touched. Those who go to medical, as ordered, and have the mold removed will find that their minds return to them. Removal may be as simple as scraping it off like it's a scab, or require full amputation of affected areas. Those who don't report… will find their negative impulses only growing stronger as the mold takes a deeper root in them, corrupting them from the inside out. Anyone who hasn't reported to medical or had friends drag them there by the 13th will be forcibly rounded up by ADI's Security Team and taken to Medical to be cured.

➥ Mod Notes

• ARRIVAL (Dec 1 - 16): 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.
  
  
• Widowmaker (Dec 1 - 31): While characters will not feel compelled to leave the trails, the forest will seem to do everything in its power to get them off the trail and ensnare them so they can be digested. The mushrooms will quickly digest shoes, clothing, and flesh; characters will need to escape (or be helped to escape!) quickly to avoid injury and death. Any major injuries, including limb loss, will be relatively permanent: ADI medical will do their best to heal characters, but will not be able to help characters regenerate lost toes or limbs (they can get characters advanced prosthetics if needed). Please note that any character killed and eaten by the forest is permanently dead. A different version who doesn't have TDM memories may be apped in their place.
  
  
• Hermy the Wormy (Dec 1 - 7): Characters will feel compelled to play the Hermy the Wormy game, but it's possible to resist that impulse. Those who play will find themselves overtaken by a sense of competition and may find themselves acting in ways they wouldn't normally. Becoming irritable or obsessive about their ranking, checking the leader board and wanting to confront those who may have a higher score than them in the game. Shouting matches or physical altercations may ensue. It's not just PCs affected by all of this, either. Characters might see NPCs at ADI fighting with each other, even people who seemed to be close friends.
  
  
• Writhe and Squirmy (Dec 8 - 10): Characters will feel compelled to act on negative impulses to a greater or lesser degree, whatever that might mean for them. They will also experience a need for attention and love/praise, whatever the cost of those things. If your character did not play the game and has not touched someone affected by the mold, they might escape from any effects from it and just be able to assist in getting people to Medical to have the mold removed. You may have as much or as little mold on your character, as you'd like. Please note that amputations will be relatively permanent. ADI can get characters advanced prosthetics if the amputation is significant enough, but limbs will not be regrown/replaced by NPCs. Characters may also work to remove the mold themselves. Once the mold is off, the mental effects will cease completely. Playing the Hermy the Wormy game may cause additional infections.
  
  Those on the ADI IT team will be asked to go through the code for the game application, and while it will all seem fairly standard, they will find one bit of code that doesn't actually do anything except to generate a binary code when clipped and run separately. If they do that, they will decode the following message:
  
  hi jim
  i am a big fan
  i have a special film for you
  it is real
  promise promise
  more to come
  =:)ocoocoocooc
  
  griffmejim69
  
  Further investigation for this particular plotline will be available during the December game event.
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Comments

guillermo de la cruz | wwdits

[killerlineage]

arrival

[Once again, Guillermo wakes up in a dark, cramped box. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything is right where he left it: his glasses, in his breast pocket, since he doesn't need them on his face at the moment; his cross necklace, around his neck, tucked into his sweater; his guilt and loneliness, both weighing heavily on his soul; his Oreos and Pedialyte—where the fuck are his Oreos and Pedialyte.

In fact, those aren't the only things missing. The coffin doesn't have a top or a bottom anymore. And it's not lined in satin and velvet anymore. And the constant wave of the ocean is gone.

He's in a fucking air duct.

Upon realization he lets out a blood-curdling scream, but only for a literal half a second. His instinct kicks in after he allows himself this moment of panic, and he wills himself to swivel around and into a crawl so that he can get himself the fuck out of there and figure out where the hell he is. Hopefully whoever has done this to him will let him go free after a thorough Threat To Their Life. Or show him to the shower.

Eventually, Guillermo makes his exit into... whatever room your character would be in! Just a guy punching himself out of an air duct, possibly ready to fight, no big deal.]


writhe and squirmy

I knew that app was a fucking virus, it was so obvious.

[He's raising his voice at his phone, hoping to attract the attention of whoever happens to be sat by him in the canteen. Guillermo had been right, as he always is. And he needs everyone around him to know it, as he always does. So he continues mumbling (except, is it really mumbling if he wants everyone to hear him?):] No offense to Pam or anything, but with everything else going on around here, you'd think to be a little more careful...

[He deletes the app.

No, no, no, he doesn't. His finger hovers over the delete button, but he cancels the operation.

One more game. Then he'll delete the app.]


wildcard

[Hit me up on plurk at aldigrocery if you have anything to throw at me!]

arrival

[champagnefueled]

[This is not the Carte Blanche. This is not space. This isn't even a room construction she immediately recognizes, which is somewhat unusual. When you've been to so many planets to rob them blind for one thing or another, you tend to pick up the styles. This looks... old. Ancient, really. And they apparently have very large rats in their vents.

Buddy glances up from her seat at the desk she's made herself home at in the short few, disorienting minutes she's been here and grabs a pair of scissors off the desk. And then a man punches through the vent. She cocks her head at him, words quick and clipped, expression mild. She's dressed in an elaborate white wedding dress.]

Good to know I won't be enjoying this kidnapping on my own, darling, but let's save your fists any further damage and keep quiet in here while we figure out our options beyond 'vent-based travel.' Buddy. And you are?

[killerlineage]

[A bit to take in here—the scissors, the stance, the dress. The possibility that he isn't the only kidnapping victim here. Possibility here implying that he doesn't fully trust Buddy to not be the kidnapper. ...Actually, that's kinda dumb, she armed herself with scissors of course she's not the bad guy here.

As he makes his silent observations, his face gives the impression that the only thought running through his head is, "uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Eventually, he pulls himself together and responds.]

Guillermo. And I, um, didn't choose the vent life. The vent life kinda chose me. Let me just... [He glances around the room.] Could you bring a chair over or something?

[champagnefueled]

[She stands and wheels the desk chair she's been sitting over to him.]

I'd offer to help you down, but you wouldn't believe the dry-cleaning bill I'm expecting for this dress already. So, Guillermo, where were you when the vent life chose you?

[Because the last thing Buddy remembers is standing in front of Vespa about to say her vows.]

[killerlineage]

[Luckily for Buddy, he's too proud to ask for her physical assistance.] The chair's more than enough. Thanks.

[Here's how the going down goes down: Guillermo has no choice but to attempt this face-first, thanks to the narrow size of the vent. He attempts to stabilize the chair, which fails, given that the chair is on wheels, but he keeps on truckin'. Then, he scoots himself forward, inch by inch, so that he might be able to reach the seat of the chair without falling.

This also fails. He falls face-first into the chair, and his tumble continues onto the ground. He is beauty, he is grace. He has fallen on his face.]

...I'm okay, [he mumbles into the floor, and brings himself back up again. Though he's clearly flustered, he acts as if none of that had happened.]

Yeah, I was, um, trapped in a coffin.

[Nothing weird about that!]

[champagnefueled]

[It's a little like watching Juno struggle his way through something, and who is she to ever stop someone bound and determined to make life harder on themselves in amusing and relatively harmless ways?]

From coffins to vents, darling? The universe certainly seems to have it out for you when it comes to affording a generous amount of space. Now, why don't you sit down and catch your breath. From what I can tell, we're somewhere called Apex Detectives, Inc., and this seems to be an office with a rotation of owners.

[She begins to pace, high heels clicking along the floor as she taps the scissors gently into her gloved hand.]

We may have some time before we're bothered, but it likely won't be forever. Given the fact you wound up in the vents and I woke up here, I think we can surmise our kidnappers are either highly incompetent, purposefully trying to throw us off, or something that might not be a person at all.

[She means an artificial intelligence gone haywire, but she'll wait to see what he has to say to those conclusions.]

arrival;

[ratjesus]

[ The fact that someone in the vents isn't a new thing is about as grating as mornings, if mot more so, just because of the connotation that Kugrah has been here long enough for something like 'noise from the vent insinuating new arrival' is relatively normal. It's annoying. Kugrash is annoyed.

Kugrash is almost always annoyed, though, usually at himself. But there's definitely someone in the vent--the scream definitely confirms that--and Kug is about to squeeze right up there to coax him out when he hears the person beginning to move.

Woah. Normally they just sorta wriggle a little and start screaming. This guy--guy?-- is pretty resourceful. Kugrash'll follow the sounds, annoyance quickly fading into curiousity, waiting for the new arrival to drop down.

When the new arrival does turn the corner, he's greeted by a two foot tall rat man. To Kugrash's credit he's bathed even if he looks like he lives in the sewers, and he does try to smile, it's just that all of his smiles tend to look somewhat menancing. It's the rat teeth. ]

Hey.

[ He looks down at his mug, realizes he hasn't had a drink from it yet, and offers it to the guy wearing glasses. ]

Vent, huh? That sucks, bud. [ Good morning, new ADI sucker. ]

[killerlineage]

[Guillermo is in the process of putting his glasses on when he comes across........ a creature. He assumes it's some kind of demon before his glasses make it all the way on. Once he can clearly see that, no, it's just a Very Large Rat, it talks.

Normally, Guillermo would scream. But seeing as he's used up his daily scream allowance, he just sighs. Like, yeah, this is weird at first glance, but let's be real—he's seen weirder.

As soon as the mug is offered, Guillermo reaches for it with a fervor. Holy shit, something that isn't Oreos or Pedialyte.]

Thanks. [He downs whatever is in it. Tea? Coffee? Whatever. Sustenance. He hands the empty mug back to the rat once it's empty.]

Do you, uh, get people in vents often? Or something?

writhe and squirmy

[carmesi]

[the canteen is empty but for herself and this one guy who keeps raising his voice to say something. wanda actually, briefly, strays her attention away from the soup she's having and glancing around to see if there is anyone he may be actually talking to.

nope, there's no one else.

sure—the name "hermy the wormy" should have clued them in on the fact that it was a fucking virus. however, some things they are compelled to do and it is extremely hard to break away from their otherwise insidious spell.

she looks up at him. for as much as he is going on about how he knew better, being a little more careful, he seems incredibly engrossed in it. wait—if he has it installed still, doesn't that mean...?]

You're not supposed to be playing it anymore, you know.

arrival :V

[lowficharm]

[Martin's beginning to get the distinct feeling whatever being is calling them into this world, it finds a lot of humor in stuffing decently big guys in air ducts. He had to fumble his way out of those, once, and he really very much did not like it. On top of that, he's almost getting so accustomed to the sound of something banging in there he doesn't recognize it's probably a person for the first, oh, three seconds.

Then there's a scream, and maybe thirty seconds later, a man coming tumbling out of the fucking wall. As one would expect, this cues another, similar scream from one (1) Martin Blackwood, who was simply in one of the lounges trying to have a simple cup of tea. He's skittered backwards from the chair he was in, but starts approaching one or two cautious steps when he can tell yes, it's a person.]

Uhm... are you alright, there?

squirmy... hello..

[frankzappa]

<sub>[ There was no reason for him to even bother going to the canteen, so if one who knew his species would question what he was doing there, he would be straight up honest and admit that he simply liked the acoustics in here. It would make for a great karaoke all-nighter if he had a say in it. Destroy the kitchen and build a stage. That's what he would do. Since his arrival here, he sometimes liked to sit and listen to people. But only when there were few people in here. Too many of them made him ornery.

Nandor doesn't look great; somehow it was possible to look worse even when you were and undead creature of the night, and he was aching from not being properly fed here (the last blood drive was three days ago) and it's taking every ounce of energy he has left over to not kill anyone who looks at him funny. The worm game was probably the only thing keeping people alive at this rate.

Yes. The worm game. He had become quite addicted to it right away and it was a great distraction from everything else going on in his eternal life right now. Nandor was convinced this worm was his only friend. The warning message about it had gone ignored... ever since the chainmail curse, Nandor had been sceptical of any message that popped up on the small light box he had been given. It's fine. Nothing else mattered besides the worm. ]</sub>

Fuck!

_{[ Oh. Those are great acoustics across the room indeed. Another round lost and an another last bit of patience wasted. Just because he was addicted to the worm game doesn't mean he was particularly.. good at it. There's a hiss, followed by a threat (this isn't how apps work, bro..) ]}

You will eat all the fruit I command you to, or I will slit your stomach and suck out your entrails! Is this how you always treat your superior? You disobey?

_{[ um.... he's talking to the device.. yeah. Did he have some mold on him? He sure did. Was he aware of it? Absolutely not. Where was it at? It's a mystery. ]}