TDM #1

[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.)

➥ 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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Comments

[vigilatum]

[His external movements are jerky and a bit uncoordinated, but inside his mind everything feels sluggish, slowly drawn out like everything is much too confusing for him to comprehend. He Knows there's someone there, but he can't see them unless he-- well, he actually sees them. It's difficult for even him to explain to his own head, and he's obviously got more pressing matters.

All of this is to say that he stares a moment of processing at the person in front of him, and then puts his attention back on the knife.]

I'm... not sure if taking it out would make it worse.

[Is this just another place where the Eye will heal him right up? Seems debatable, considering his most recent actions, but if he was afraid of death by now he certainly wouldn't have made it this far.]

I-- yes, I think I do.

[pinebarrens]

I've got you, kiddo, [ he says with probably more cheer than is technically appropriate in a strange place with a strange man with a knife in his chest, but then, hiram's seen stranger things in his years. hell, he is a stranger thing, and a little blood and gore used to be a normal tuesday for him. and the smell of it, hot and coppery, still makes him salivate even at his age. his better nature is probably never going to entirely overtake his biology.. whatever his biology really is.

he reaches with both hands, reaching for jon's shirt, plucking lightly at it and then beginning to pull it up, careful around the knife. ]

Take this off. We're going to hold it against the wound after the knife comes out. [ will it help? will it keep him from dying? he has no idea. but the shirt's ruined anyway, and it may help keep him from going any further into shock if he has something to focus on that isn't, you know, a knife in his chest. ]

[vigilatum]

[As much as he'd like to protest, everything is much too disorienting to try and get himself away from the given situation. He's not your typical fighter and the lack of his ability to think straight is causing a significant number of his usual guarding to be set aside. All of that said, he's handling it all fairly well- there's a wince here, a sigh or ah when something gets jostled, but he's certainly no crying mess over it all.]

I'm-- not a child.

[That's the only thing he has in his power to correct, so that's what he's correcting. He lets the shirt come off, revealing only more scars in various places- another stab wound to the torso further down towards the stomach, those small exactly circular holes trailing down off his neck, and... something odd around his bottom left rib that just doesn't look quite right. It's all fairly inconsequential for the time being, but he gets it around and balls it up in his hands tight.

He just needs to focus. That connection is-- it's tenuous, but not severed. He's not human. Not yet. Maybe not ever again. Right now, that may save his life, whether he likes it or not.]

Alright, it-- I know how this works.

[pinebarrens]

[ he's not a child, no, but there's something a little lost about him anyway. and at hiram's age, it's hard not to see anyone under fifty as sort of a kid. although anyone as marked up as this has done some living, so there's that. his pain tolerance is either through the roof or he's so far deep in shock that he doesn't feel anything. ]

Looks like you do, [ he agrees with a huff of laughter, and reaches with both long-fingered hands. one curls over jon's shoulder to brace him, the other wrapping around the handle of the knife. ] Okay, here we go. Try not to die, yeah? [ he pauses for a moment as he observes the wound and the angle of the knife, not wanting to cause more damage than necessary when pulling it out. but then he just moves, no warning, pulling it free in one smooth motion.

immediately after, he sets the knife aside, calm and collected, and nudges bloodied fingers beneath jon's hands to help push the balled-up shirt against the injury. ]

[vigilatum]

[It's especially interesting because Jon is used to being thought of as much older; most people clock him in his 40's when he's not even close. He probably shouldn't be doing this, but-- well, there's really very little loss here. He's either dead and is going to die again, or he won't. He no longer has the energy to worry about anything else.

He stays mostly quiet even as the knife is removed, just something that sounds like it could almost be a huff if it wasn't apparent what was happening to him. Instead it's just that and a hiss through his teeth as he presses the shirt towards himself, thinking.

He can feel it. It's not-- it's not gone. And if the Eye is still here, he figures his chances of dying are pretty slim... but it also means he may have failed. Jon collects himself just enough to speak.]

Thank you.

[And now he can concentrate just a little bit on wherever the fuck he actually is.]

Where... is this?

[pinebarrens]

[ there's a lot less blood than he was expecting, and none of the cold shaking he'd expect from shock. if anything, the guy's taking it in stride, like being stabbed in the chest is nothing to worry about. .. hm. maybe less human than his initial thoughts, which is a notion that teeters in his head between relief and caution. hiram is a monster, but he's a monster that's defined by more than that. some monsters, on the other hand, lean into it a little too hard, identify with the idea a little too much. he really doesn't want to have to kill anyone today.

he's very tempted to lick the blood off his fingers, just for old times' sake, but instead he cleans them off with the hem of his shirt, glancing up in time to catch the thanks. his brows lift, faint amusement quirking his lips again. he hasn't really done anything as far as he can tell, but if the stranger wants to thank him for the bare minimum, well, he's not going to stop him. ]

No idea, [ he answers the follow-up question, shrugging and finally tilting his head back to peer around the space they're in. ] One minute I'm home, next I'm here. [ he reaches down for the knife, flips it in his hand, observing the length of the blade and then glancing back up to the stranger again, to the cloth pressed against the sluggishly-bleeding injury. ]

You're a lot tougher than you look, huh? [ no offense or anything. just.. jon's kind of small. ] Still, probably a good idea to let someone professional take a look at that. [ he cleans the knife off with the same edge of his shirt, then pushes it through the back loops of his jeans--finders keepers--before rising to his feet and offering a hand down. ] Think you can walk? [ if not, he'll carry the guy. ]

[vigilatum]

[It's been a lot of work not to be defined by it, frankly, and he owes much of it to his partner that's currently absent. As it stands, he's trying to just keep everything together, keep still, and take things each second as they come.]

Not... not often by choice.

[He doesn't want to say that he's afraid he won't need medical attention, that what he's going to need is a lot more complicated, that it's beginning to burn at the back of his throat that it might help him. But no. He's not doing that again, not wherever here is, not to a stranger well enough to try and look after him in his near-death state.]

I probably... could, but I-- shouldn't, by the feel of it. You, uhm-- you don't have to, ah-- wait for me.

[Why is he even bothering to say that? Maybe it's the thought that at least if he's alone and the Eye finds him again, hones in on his presence, he'll be by himself.]