redstringtheories

➥ 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.)

➥ Sticks and Stones

(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.

➥ I Will Survive

"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.

➥ Shifting Perspective

(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.

➥ Mod Notes

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay. [Practice a little every day. Like piano, except not really. Learning muscle memory is the same principle either way, though, right? She can see how he doesn't meet her eyes directly, and she thinks of Yuri in spite of herself. But it's different from that; he certainly doesn't have Yuri's lack of self-confidence. Also, the idea of Yuri physically fighting anyone is--

Hm. Maybe possible, actually, even if it seems silly at first blush. Oh well. There's no point in thinking about that.]

My name's Monika, by the way. Maybe I'll get some muscles to show off later! [But maybe not too defined, she doesn't think that would really look good on her...]

Monika. Okay.

[He nods. He'll remember. He does not, tellingly, offer a name back. He's still wrestling with the one he's been told is his. Instead, he suggests,]

You should walk around the room a few times, slow. To cool down.

[Monika notices the man doesn't give his name, but she doesn't want to be pushy about it. (Sayori would do better at this. No, that's not fair--Monika's sure she's lost the right to go to Sayori for this kind of help.)]

Alright. [She nods, looking decisive even if she's still a little unsure of herself.] Thank you for helping me out. Hopefully after I practice more I can show you I've improved.

[She'll go to walk around the room as instructed.]

You can ask me for help, too.

[He's going to be in here every day he's not on duty somewhere. What else is he going to do with his time, anyway? He has no idea how to just relax or have fun, so. Training.

He watches her walk, patient and standing in what she might or might not recognize as a parade rest. Which... might be kind of creepy, sorry Monika.]

[Monika doesn't know the specifics except to think his pose seems vaguely military--which she might just be imagining. It seems formal, certainly. But actually, if he is or was in the military, then it would explain how he knows all this stuff. She's not sure if it explains his behavior or not. It would be rude to assume, she reminds herself forcefully.]

Alright. [The time spent walking around the room gives her enough time to work up the courage to ask after the thing he'd skipped over before:] Um, so, what's your name? So I know who to ask for if I need help again.

[That's... not an easy question. Your name is J-- No. A few plates in the metal arm shift restlessly.]

I was called the Asset.

[It's not a name. He knows it's not. But it's what he has right now.]

Um... [Monika hesitates. That's not a name, really. It's something people called him, but he didn't say it was his name. The Asset, like he's a thing and not a person. Some traitorous impulse wonders if that means he's not a person and she pushes it away. No. She's going to do better here.]

Are you okay with that...?

[He looks maybe a shade confused by the question.]

That doesn't matter.

[It's not like he's going to pick a new name, just for the hell of it.]

[That's a strange way to reply to that question--he could have just said yes, but he didn't. Monika feels like there's some thread to tug on here, but she has no idea where it goes or what the implications of it being there are. She can't exactly peak into the code for spoilers here.]

Why wouldn't it matter? Like--you should be called something you like to be called, I think.

[Now the look he gives her shades... maybe it's skeptical. Maybe it's wary. It's hard to tell, his expression is very subtle.]

I do not like or not like things.

[Well, that's an unsettling thing to say!]

Um... I guess it'd be weird to come up with a different name for you, huh...? [That's something Sayori might do. Monika is just thinking of all the ways that could go wrong: picking something he doesn't like (even if he just said he doesn't not like things), picking something people think are weird...]

[The gears in his arm shift and buzz a little.]

I am not. Supposed to have a name.

[He's pretty sure he'd get in trouble for that, even though he doesn't remember, exactly. Maybe HYDRA isn't here, but it's hard to shake a lifetime of conditioning.]

Um. [She's sure saying that a lot. This is only getting more and more ominous. She'd joked a little about things seeming like one of Yuri's fantasy stories; maybe she shouldn't have made that joke.]

What about--a nickname...?

[Sorry, Monika. He's been dehumanized for a long time. He'll get better eventually. Probably.

He has, however, had a variety of nicknames over the years. Most of them are derogatory, but he knows the word, and picks the most recent.]

Sometimes they called me the Winter Soldier, too.

[That's a little better than Asset, right? Not a lot, but a little.]

[An asset, a soldier... Really, this is painting a grim picture of his life back home. Monika is trying hard not to make assumptions, but she's getting the feeling some of her assumptions are moving out of the territory of guessing. At least a soldier is a person, though.]

I guess we can use that for now? Or maybe just Winter? Since, um, you're training me, not doing soldier things with me. [Maybe he'll think that's stupid. And Monika knows that self-defense is definitely something related to being a soldier. But she could pretend Winter is a name. Winter could be a name, even if it's not really his.]

[He nods. That's certainly acceptable. (Would he say if it wasn't? ... Probably not.) It's still potentially less disturbing than Asset, though, for everybody.]

Training is also a thing soldiers do. But you may call me what feels comfortable for you. Do you feel cooled down now?

Oh--yes! [Monika had almost forgotten that was what she was doing when they got into that whole name conversation. Between the reminder and being able to call him something more name-like, her smile smooths out into something less worried.] Thanks for helping me out.

[He considers that for a moment, unused to being thanked, then gravely says,]

You are welcome. Keep practicing. And I'll teach you more when you're ready.

TDM #1

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