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redstringtheories2021-07-04 06:36 pm
TDM #1
(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)
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 the stones around the park. Instead of the questionably useful advice they offer, there is, instead, something embarrassingly or horrifically true about you carved into the stone. Trying to show your companion or gauge their reaction will net nothing; they will simply see their own truth. It's only when you admit to what's on the stone that it seems to become visible to others or any camera in your possession.
Take a picture. The least you deserve for the trouble is some money.
"We'll have others with you, but all of you will be out on your own for missions, so to speak," the ADI employee who had led you down to the underground training facility explained. "You'll need to have some basic skills. Even if you're not going out soon or ever… it's safer to know these things."
Basic skills, in this case, appear to mean survival and weapons training. The room you've been brought to on Floor B3 below ADI Headquarters is a massive, underground gym, and there are sections set up for various skills practice. One side of the gym is dedicated to fighting: bare-knuckles, wrestling, knives, and tasers are all out on display. There are also a few guns, but those are reserved for people who can prove they can manage the other weapons first. The other side has areas for fire-making, building a shelter, navigating without a phone, supply preparation, cooking, and basic first-aid. Through a side door, there's also a small pool where people are being taught the basics of swimming.
Any or all of these skills would be useful in a dangerous situation, and there aren't enough native ADI employees to cover training for all of them. If you show that you're proficient with something, you'll be asked to man one of the areas to assist in training others. If you're at a loss and looking lost, you will be pushed toward whatever skills practice area is physically closest to you, whether you wanted to learn anything about that or not. Best make the most of it… and try not to kill anyone or burn anything down.
Even those who have refused ADI Housing and taken themselves to Bonnie's Flophouse will find that they're welcome for this training under the strict understanding that no supernatural abilities will be used. Bonnie will have informed them of it and helped them get to ADI to ensure they learn some of the things they might need to survive... and also just to bond with the people they'll be working with for the foreseeable future.
(cw: body horror, implication of near-drowning, violence, potential for blood, gore, drowning, death)
The beaches around Gloucester are numerous and varied with reported supernatural activity at many, if not most of them. For those working with ADI, they'll receive the direction in a mass email from Reyes Amador, the assistant to the Head of ADI. For those not technically working at ADI, Bonnie will provide the same information.
All,
We have received reports of strange noises and sightings at Coffin Beach. Please take at least one other person and investigate. A $300 bonus will be offered to those who bring back evidence of the source of these reports.
Take Care of Yourselves,
Reyes
Those who head to Coffin Beach will find that the sand beneath their feet squeaks softly with each step, like the faint sound of a poorly-maintained hinge protesting their movements. It makes stealth especially difficult, and those who wish to maintain their cover would do well to stay farther up into the vegetation and off the beach, itself. There aren't any houses out this way, just coastal marshes, the beach, and some higher ground with low-growing shrubs, tall grasses, and thin trees.
For the patient, those who wait for night to fall, they will be rewarded when they hear the sound of someone crying. Searching the beach, they will be able to spot a young person who appears to have washed up in a kayak on the beach. The young person is visibly injured in some way with blood coming out of them. Those who approach cautiously may get the sense that there is something not quite right about this person. Man or woman, their face is too long, their angles too sharp.
There is something wrong. It's not the injury.
There is something very wrong with what this person is.
They will not respond to any calls or move from where they lie, half-submerged in the surf. Anyone who approaches within a few feet will discover they're not nearly as helpless as they seem to be, though. The person will burst from the water with a powerful thrust, attempting to tackle anyone nearby and bite them. The person's face transforms into a long, fanged maw, trying to rip and tear and drag their prey into the ocean with them, away from any safety.
- ARRIVAL: 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. Please refer to the Arrival page for details regarding the arrival and onboarding process.
- STICKS AND STONES: If so desired, to facilitate CR, characters may feel themselves compelled to ask about the stones when they see their truth written on it. Resisting the compulsion will become more and more difficult as time goes on.
- I WILL SURVIVE: Characters may be students or trainers in this scenario. They might be able to get away with small displays of supernatural abilities if they want to risk it and if they find themselves with the necessary reserves of power. Anything significant will have them immediately removed and asked not to return to ADI for a few days.
- SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: Characters may fight off, capture, or kill the creature. If they successfully capture it and bring it back to ADI (or call for someone to come and do that for them), they will receive a significant monetary bonus beyond the promised $300 for their work. If characters successfully kill and document the kill, they will also receive the bonus and instructions to push the body out to sea. If a character is taken by the creature, they will be killed. 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.
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[ His world has no superheroes or mutants, so he wouldn't know to look for those. But as they walk along, the rocks off by the bushes catch his eye. It's like there's something written there, carved deep into the stone? Marcus veers off the path, motioning Meredith to come with him. ]
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It also gives her an excuse to linger over the answer to that question.]
Oh, I suppose, but I don't think it believes in me any more than "democracy" or "justice" do, if that makes sense. There's people to whom those sorts of things matter greatly, who might actually have an influence over the world, but I'm just a normal person, a single mote in the grander system, and what I believe or what I do isn't significant. I'm awfully normal.
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Unlike certain other characters I have on this tdm...Marcus slows his pace for Meredith to keep up with him. ]Why does it matter if it believes in you? Normal or not, you're here now. And we've been given a job to do that will bring us into contact with forces we don't know how to deal with. You'd think they would have given us more training.
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[There's a dry sort of humor behind the question, like whistling in the dark.]
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[ He sounds entirely serious. ]
Knowing what we're up against is key, don't you think? If we're actually to stop it.
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On-the-job training, if you will. Like, I imagine they get people in who don't believe in any of this, who need a firsthand demonstration.
[But she's bullshitting. Marcus is right, they are pretty underprepared.]
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[ Which... he doesn't know their motives, maybe they want people like the newcomers gone. ]
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[But they haven't any choice, now.
As the pair start to approach the boulders, Meredith glances around the area.]
I don't see anything unusual yet.
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[ It's meant to be encouraging, but he's not sure it's hit the mark. Marcus glances around as well, though, and something carved into the boulders catches his eye.
THEY DIED BECAUSE OF YOU
He blinks, and raises a hand to point at it. ]
That counts as a bit strange, to me.
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YOU'LL ONLY EVER BE A BURDEN]
Strange, or just a major dick move?
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[ Maybe not him. It isn't necessarily him. But it feels that way. ]
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[There's a playful self-mocking there that would seem very out of place with the message he's seeing.]
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I'm not sure we're seeing the same thing. What do you think it says?
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...that would be supernatural bullshit, wouldn't it? I see 'you'll only ever be a burden to everyone.' Which I'm not, but...
[She offers a self-referential gesture with the hand not holding the cane.]
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[ He motions to her for the camera; this definitely counts. ]
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[She sees what he said, now, snapping a couple pictures before her attention turns to him, gaze lingering like a laser pointer on a projection screen.]
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[Meredith's actually found the city she lives in doesn't exist in most worlds that the others have come from.]
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What makes you think they existed in the first place, here?
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[The fact that this is all something she's thought out, that she has this speech pretty much at the ready, might say something.]
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It sounds as if... you don't expect to go home?
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Here, there's a looming apocalypse. There, there's an economic recession and climate change. There's no world in which I'll really feel safe and content.
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[ He says it almost idly, an observation that tells him something about her that she would put them on a level playing field. ]
I feel I need to go back because I was in doing something important, personally. Something that very few people in my world can do.
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[She smiles, but it's a tight sort of smile that doesn't reach her eyes.]
...but you think your world doesn't have superheroes. That's pretty much the definition of one, if you remove the colorful costumes.
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I'm just a man. Doesn't a superhero have to have some kind of power?
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