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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Mercy Graves | OC

[graveyounglady]

Arrival
What the-

[Mercy blinks rapidly, disoriented as she finds herself going from the sun-dappled shadows of the forest in Leighland to something close to pitch blackness in her eyes. It's a cramped space that smells of strange chemicals and dust, and she grips he dagger she's had out for cutting herbs even tighter as she takes a step backward.

Into someone.

Mercy shrieks bloody murder and whirls, flailing an arm. If her fellow new arrival is particularly unfortunate, they may be stabbed.]


Sticks and Stones
[Never in her life has she held something as fantastically amazing as a camera. Mercy can barely focus on the job at hand with her companion after they're shown how to take pictures with it.]

Wait, wait! Here, let me get a picture of... oh, he's gone. Did you see that bird? He was brighter'n a cherry just come off the tree. It's- Oh, hey... Ain't that one of them stones they said was in the-

[She breaks off, blanching as her eyes skim the words carved into the face of the stone:

'You're the reason Crys is dead.'

Her gaze flicks to her companion, horror painting her features. Are they seeing this? This- No. No, someone couldn't have carved that? How would they even know?]


I Will Survive
You need some help?

[The young woman smiles gently at her fellow... new arrival? She's not heard a term for them beyond that from the people working here. She's dressed in a short brown dress with green sleeves and black stockings. The white cloth of a novitiate covers her head, but there is no crucifix or other notable jewelry about her person. She speaks with what seems to be a Southern drawl.]

I been told I'm excellent at surviving. Specially when it comes to cooking. You know how to build yourself a campfire that don't smoke something fierce?


Shifting Perspectives
Come on. We gotta help.

[Mercy's whisper is urgent as she and her companion watch the person on the beach clawing pitifully at the sand. This is what she's been training for. Brother Earth wouldn't look kindly on her if she let another go to him before their time. No. Not Brother Earth. That's not the one she's serving. This is for the Spring Tide. Life. She is here to bring life.

She starts to stand up, unless her companion stops her.]

shifting perspectives.

[deathrespect]

We gotta help? Says who?

( Samatoki has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, watching the poor person, stranded further into the sea than he'd feel comfortable with at night.

He goes so far as to grip her wrist from the place he's crouched in. )

Don't be so damn hasty — ain't this sketchy to you?

[graveyounglady]

[Mercy frowns at the man and sets her jaw. She still keeps her voice quiet.]

Says my order. The Spring Tide comes to help and heal. We can't just leave someone like that. They washed up in that boat and they look hurt. How would you feel if people just left you like that?

[deathrespect]

( The Spring Tide?

The situation is too weird to let Samatoki ask about that further. He shrugs. )

I probably wouldn't be out fuckin' kayakin' at night in the first place. Ain't that sketchy to you, or d'you just have no survival sense?

( Riou would be proud. Probably. )

I Will Survive

[writetheway]

[Monika's smile, when the other woman asks if she needs help, looks a little frazzles. Does she look that lost? Well, Monika supposes she probably does. Her skillset doesn't have anything to do with cooking on anything besides a stove or in a microwave. Still, there's some excitement to the prospect, tentative as she's allowing it to be inside her.]

This is all pretty new to me. I've only seen people start fires like this on TV. [By "like this", she means without a lighter or matches, though even campfires with those things are pretty theoretical to her.]

[graveyounglady]

TV... that-that's the thing we got in the big dormitories, ain't it?

[Mercy beckons Monika over to an area where different varieties of wood have been separated into piles.]

Starting the fire's just part of it, but it can be a good one if you got the right tools. They got, uh... matches, they called them. But you just need a good set of flint to do it right, honest. But the first thing you gotta do is learn to set it up.

[A pause.]

Oh! Oh, and I'm Sister Mercy. May the spring bring life to you and yours.

[writetheway]

[Oh, Mercy hasn't heard of TVs? The ADI people had told her people were coming from different worlds; maybe she should have assumed that would include places that don't have television. Every peculiarity makes things feel more fantastical, and she's wary of that feeling, but it's not as if her perspective on reality was the most normal, anyway.]

My name is Monika. It's nice to meet you. [If she's Sister Mercy, does that make her a nun? Monika moves to the various piles of wood. ] If you want, I could tell you about TVs in exchange, but I don't think that will help much with survival...

sticks and stones

[120vision]

You lost your cheer awfully quick.

[ Gojou glances to the rocks and then back at her. He can see his own horrible truth written on them, but he's not sure he wants to admit this until he knows for sure what she's seeing. ]

Read something you didn't want to?

[graveyounglady]

I- I don't- ah...

[They need to leave this place. It feels suddenly like this wonderful and miraculous place is significantly more dangerous than she'd thought. It's a sickeningly familiar sensation that she hasn't thought about in years.]

It's just- I think... someone's playing a joke. [A cruel and horrible joke.] What-what do you see carved there? [She points toward the rock.]

[120vision]

I'll say mine if you'll say yours.

[ After all, truth should only be swapped for truth. It was a fair deal to make. Never once, since the start, did he think this place was wonderful - he has enough sense of the mechanics of things to know something is wrong here. ]

Do you agree?

Arrival

[henchgal]

Good fuck!

[Meredith staggers out of the way of the dagger--her blouse has a nice tear in the front of it, but there's no blood. She lifts the cane in her right hand to try to defend herself from any further attacks.]

I'm really not sure I did anything to deserve that, and I'd like to ask you to refrain from further attempts at violence. Please?

[graveyounglady]

((ooc: Mercy is speaking Middle English, which is going to likely come off strange before the translation effect takes hold. Just think... low-class Shakespearian dialect and pronunciation.))

[That's... that is the Common tongue, but it's a bizarre accent that Mercy has never heard before.]

S-sorry, I didn't-

[Oh, Brother, did she just stab some kidnapped person?]

I think we been kidnapped. I don't... know where we are.

[She keeps her dagger out, but turns it away from the source of the voice as she reaches out and feels metal shelving.]

I got some flint on me, but I ain't risking starting a fire. I don't know what smells in here, but it might burn brighter than we want.

[henchgal]

[Right, nearly got run through by some medieval chick. Even for her, this is a little ridiculous. But she's trying to navigate the space by touch.]

Cleaning supplies. Smells like bleach. I suppose that's not a thing where you're from, yet, is it? Think of it sort of like lye or soda ash.

[Not just bleach--she's pretty sure there's some Simple Green industrial cleaner spilled in here, but that doesn't explain anything on its own. She fumbles for a doorknob, careful not to get too close to her companion.]

sticks and stones

[felttheburn]

[ Kieran has never seen a camera before, either, but he's much more reserved in his interest. The phone is stranger still, almost magic in how it works but he can tell it isn't. He could feel the power, if there was any in it. No, it's just technology he doesn't understand... he wonders if Ashes could make sense of it if he were here, but as far as Kieran knows he isn't. And that's what's on his mind as his investigation companion chatters on incessantly.

He doesn't know what she's talking about, honestly isn't listening at all as they walk along, but then she stops abruptly and that gets his attention. ]

...what is it?

[ It's obvious he was ignoring her until now and that he doesn't care it was rude. ]

[graveyounglady]

[Mercy's too wound up in her own excitement and now her own dread to take offense. He wouldn't be the first person to let her ramble on without paying her any mind. He won't be the last.]

It's... that. [She points toward the stone, not daring to approach any closer.] It's got- that ain't what's supposed to be carved there is it?

[felttheburn]

[ Although Kieran can't see what Mercy does, there is something carved there that seems... out of place. He frowns, stomping off the path towards the stone to see if he can feel anything from it. But there's nothing. Just a rock. Not even old scratch marks for what's meant to be carved instead of MURDERER in crude text. ]

Dunno what's supposed to be here instead, but you're right. Take a picture.

[ They might as well get some money out of this bullshit. ]

Sticks and Stones

[bookbrawler]

Nah, I just missed it.

[If he didn't quite believe that people were getting pulled in from different worlds and times, he certainly did now with the way some people were acting like they've never seen a camera before. He looks up to see if he can find that bird when she looks at the stone--

--and he doesn't see what she sees, but his own truth. Jacob Stone is a genius. The way she looks though, as if she's seen a ghost--it couldn't be that she's horrified about him, right?

He stuffs down old insecurities and tries to focus at the problem at hand. His own accent places him squarely from Oklahoma.]

Hey. You okay?

[graveyounglady]

Y-yeah, I'm- yeah.

[She's not the best liar, especially not when she's staring down that.]

No. That's just- how do they- why's that- What's going on?

[Mercy stabs a finger at the rock.]

[bookbrawler]

[He almost wants to wince, because it really does feel an awful lot like she's reacting to what it says about him, even though her reaction in that regard wouldn't make any sense. Is it possible she's just upset about the words being there in the first place?]

You...you see that too?

[He motions to the rock as well.]

The words?

Sticks and Stones

[raynos]

[Jamie can't really complain if Mercy's not paying as much attention to their assignment as she should be; he's a little distracted too, considering everything about Earth is new and overwhelming to him. Most of the other people he's seen since he arrived here all seem thoroughly unimpressed by things like squirrels, the smell of freshly-cut grass, and the single moon in the night sky, so it's kind of reassuring to see someone else for whom some of this is strange and exciting.

He catches only a flash of red from the corner of his eye as the bird she'd been admiring flutters into the trees, and then, following her gaze, he sees the rock.

there's something else living in your head, it reads accusingly.

He glances up again to see her horrified stare and scrambles to try and explain himself.]

Look, it - it's not a big deal, I promise.

[graveyounglady]

[Is it not? Mercy's head whips toward Jamie.]

It's... not?

[Maybe it's because he doesn't know who Crys is. What Crys was.]

But- How did that even get there? That don't make sense. This don't make sense.

arrival

[myfavoritemurder]

[What's better than one girl with a dagger? Two girls with daggers. Holding hers at the ready is second nature to Callisto, and so as dizzy and disoriented as she is, she wraps her fingers around it firmly, her other hand going to the hilt of the sword that's strapped across her back.]

What trick of Hades are you?

[She asks, in Ancient Greek - and though she doesn't attack, she does take a step forward as Mercy takes her step back.]

[graveyounglady]

[In the dimness, Mercy just sees the glint of a blade and hears someone shouting in a language she can't understand. She brandishes her dagger. It's just a little thing meant for work, not fighting, but it's all she has. As she does so, she takes another step back, feeling a door handle. Maybe she can make a break for it?]

Don't you come no closer! I been called a frog-sticker before, and you're a sight bigger than that to be sticking it to.

[It's not a very Sisterly threat, but they hadn't exactly prepared her for this in temple, and she's reverting to old habits. She can bark well enough, even if her bite isn't much to speak of.]

I will survive

[thatsreallygreat]

[At first, it's just a pair of boots she's addressing. Then, slowly, the person standing near her folds himself down to kneel next to her. That person is roughly seven feet tall, with pink hair, long ears, and a flat nose. And a tail.

Caduceus offers a wan smile.]

I'm pretty good at cooking, too. [He... knows he sort of stands out on a good day, never mind when he's surrounding by what looks to be humans. He considers the material they've been given to work with and he nods.]

I've got a few ways of making fire. I think the smoke depends more on what we're burning, though.

[He rolls things over in his head. He's used magic to keep smokeless fires going, or to at least warm a space. He's not so sure that's the best thing to whip out right now, though.]

[graveyounglady]

[Mercy finally looks up at the person who's come to stand beside her. And then looks up some more. She keeps going, mouth falling open.]

Oh... you're a... mighty big fella, sir.

[And extremely not human. It's probably rude to just gawp at him, but whatever else she was going to say escapes her for a moment.]

Uh. Smoke. Smoke. R-right! Yeah. Well, I mean it matters what you put in it, but you can do a lot with the construction to make it smoke less. I-I'm Sister Mercy. May the spring bring life to you and yours."