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

Monika misses the cat's muttering; as she turns the corner, all she sees is a cat jumping adorably at the doorknob like it's a person trying to open a door. It's the kind of thing she'd want to take a video of and show to her friends under different circumstances.

"Hello, kitty!" Monika says as she crouches down, cheerfully unaware of just how clever this particular cat is. "I thought pets weren't allowed here."

Three hundred years of experience tell him to keep his mouth shut, metaphorically speaking. The last day, however, has done more than a little to rattle him; he's learned quite suddenly about great evils beyond even his own painful experiences. And this girl, he knows by seeing her here, has been dragged from her home the same as he has.

"They aren't," he says, making his decision. All the same, if she's offering a hand to pet him he'll bump his head into it. He's not too proud for scritches.

Monika absolutely is offering a hand, and she keeps it held out even as she startles at the cat responding to her.

"I'm sorry, talking to you like that must have seemed really rude!" Monika says, and tries not to think about all the fictional stories with talking animals. "Do you live here?"

Here as in this specific apartment, because now that Monika knows this cat talks, the adorable jumping turns into someone who got locked out of their apartment. Or maybe a very literal cat burglar?

"Believe me, I've heard worse," Binx chuckles ruefully. He twists his neck, insistently trying to get her to rub a particular spot behind his ear even as he speaks. He's too old, he's decided, to be ashamed of such things.

"I'm told so--I was shown my room inside a while ago, but I'm afraid I've been locked out. Or...latched out, as the case may be."

Monika scratches gamely at the spot behind his ear. Petting a talking cat is strange, but maybe not that much stranger than a talking cat in the first place. She's going to have to really work on not judging by appearances here--even appearances she'd think of as having no alternative.

"Maybe someone who takes care of the building will put in a better door for you?" Monika asks, though she's really not sure how accommodating the ADI is going to be about everything. Maybe getting a free place to live is the limit, and it doesn't extend to figuring out a lock that a cat can work with. "But I can help you with it right now!"

Assuming the door isn't locked, anyway... Monika stands up and, with her superpower of hands with opposable thumbs, tries the doorknob.

Binx chuckles ruefully. "I believe it's called a 'cat flap.' I'm not certain, however, of how accommodating they might be...you may not have noticed, but I don't think many of our hosts have much trust in those touched by magic. Not that I can blame them."

Lo and behold, the door isn't even locked. Thumbs are a wonder. By thunder, he really misses having thumbs, even three hundred years after losing them.

"Thank you," he says, the humor in his voice so dry as to pass for not being humor at all. "I'm in your debt, miss...?"

"Maybe you could ask them to install the handles you just push down instead of the ones you turn." Monika remembers the warning about not using any supernatural abilities. It hadn't been relevant to her, but she wonders how that entire conversation went when you were talking to a cat. She peeks into this other apartment, and at least at a glance it looks very similar to the one she was assigned to.

"My name is Monika," she says. "Are you going to need any more doors opened inside? I don't mind helping."

"Binx," he provides in return. "Thackery Binx."

He's not expecting much reaction to that. His legend had been a very local one even before he was brought to another world. He slips inside the apartment as she's looking, then turns to glance at her over his shoulder. It's sterile in the way of furnished apartments between tenants, none of the residents having been there long enough to give it personal character. "Well," he says a little sheepishly, "If you wouldn't mind making sure the ones to my rooms are open...."

What he's going to do with an entire bedroom and bathroom he doesn't really know, but it would be annoying to have a bathroom to himself but be unable to get inside because the door happened to be shut.

Monika's first thought is that Thackery Binx is a weird name for a cat, but on second thought, she has no idea what kind of names cats would give each other. On third thought, those first two thoughts are absolutely ridiculous. She steps in after Thackery once he implies he'd like more help.

"I don't mind! Maybe we can find something to prop open your bedroom door with, too."

It would be a bad idea to prop the apartment door open, but a cat wouldn't need the bedroom door to be too open to get in, so that would still be a bit private. Do cats like privacy?

~~It's a weird name for a human, too.~~

"There's bound to be something," he agrees. "Honestly, it's been so long since I lived in a house that I don't know what I'll do with the space. Sleep in it, I suppose."

Yes, Binx. That's one of the primary functions of a bedroom.

"Compared to the rest of us, you really got luxury accommodations!" Monika jokes--if she'd gotten a bed that was as big compared to her as the bed is compared to Binx, she'd definitely think she'd gotten something wildly unnecessary. "You'll have a lot of room for decorations, if you want them."

What do talking cats decorate with? Do they decorate at all?

"It's the same--" Thackery starts to object, but then he understands. "Ah, yes. I see...I'm not sure what I would decorate it with. I've not lived indoors in quite a long time."

Is he a stray? Wait, if you're a talking cat, does that count as being a stray? There are a lot of questions Monika could ask, but she doesn't want to come across as rude, so she holds her tongue. If he's used to being outside, maybe he could decorate with plants, but--

"I guess it would be pretty hard for you to take care of plants or something like that, huh? Maybe you could have someone help you bring in some fake ones."

Yes. Yes, he is a stray. A weirdly healthy stray, though.

"Hmm...maybe. I think I might become too fat and contented if I only get things like blankets and pillows for this place."

TDM #1

ADI Housing

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