![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsehowmods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
redstringtheories2022-08-01 11:47 am
TDM #13
(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.) You might even arrive in a section of building that has been demolished, leaving a pit of rubble open to the sky–hope you're up on your tetanus shots! 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. The one exception is the demolition zone off what used to be one corner of the building: it seems the security teams are keeping a particularly close eye on that area to document new arrivals and bring them in quickly.
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: trypophobia, phonophobia, air raid siren in link)
Weird things happen in Dogtown, everyone knows it. And the weird things have been getting worse. Much worse. The rise in dangerous rather than merely uncomfortable or startling phenomena has put an end to ADI's use of Dogtown as a testing ground for new recruits. Under ADI's advisement, the City of Gloucester has officially and indefinitely closed Dogtown to the public, and work is ongoing to construct barriers around the entire park to prevent trespassing. Dogtown's borders are now patrolled by Gloucester law enforcement as well as ADI employees from the Investigations and Security divisions, who document phenomena visible from outside its borders and actively keep people out. New arrivals who volunteer for the work may still find themselves dropped off outside the borders of Dogtown in order to beef up patrols and help document paranormal activity while receiving an introduction to the kind of work ADI does. An employee will give you a GPS device where you need only press a button to alert ADI there is severe danger and someone needs to come help you right away, explicitly instruct you not to actually enter Dogtown, and leave you with another person at the edge of the park. 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 record any paranormal activity visible from outside the park. Those who succeed in documenting anything peculiar will receive a $100 reward to be used as they see fit, but those who are caught entering Dogtown in pursuit of such proof will be reprimanded and receive no reward.
This month, everything is quiet. Peaceful, even! With Dogtown closed up and the hand creatures ostensibly dealt with, it seems the breeches caused by low manpower are finally dealt with.
And then the phones start acting up.
For some, it starts low and builds, a wailing warning issued from every cell phone on the block for stretches of seconds that feel like hours. Nothing makes it stop, the phones won’t turn off, and there’s no actual banner or text warning offering explanation.
For others, it happens in the middle of calls or while they’re browsing the web: static, sharp and sudden and loud blares from the phones in a small area all at once, seemingly at random. Annoying enough on its own, but those affected begin to notice something…off. Is that mailbox following you? Did that signpost turn to look as you passed by? Inanimate objects seem to come to life around you; those that can stalk you will, and those that can’t 'move' do all they can: watch. At least you don’t seem to be the only one noticing, right?
For those who look long and hard enough or for the truly perceptive, a commonality will eventually be spotted. It’s a cell tower within Dogtown. Tall, innocuous, with its rusted metal frame and pillar structures attached near the top; it seems perfectly normal, if weather-worn…at least until your eyes travel the form more closely. The crossing of beams doesn’t make a thin pyramid shape as it should, instead they twist over themselves into impossibly long limbs. Legs lead into a hollow torso and spindly arms, the metal so twisted and rusted that it begins to look like leathery, flaking skin the longer you stare.
The amplifiers at the top nestle in a tangle of wires and twisted metal with empty sockets at random intervals, as though the eyeless structure didn’t always used to be that way. Now it sways ever so slightly in with a gentle rocking.
(cw: dismembered bodies, flayed bodies, body horror, zombies, hand-based trauma, human-caused environmental damage)
Last month it was horrific little dolls, this month what's washing up on the shores of Gloucester is far, far worse. ADI has people continuing to patrol the beaches, particularly those where the dolls had been found. On the night of August 13th, it's not dolls, but pieces of some sort of sea creature that wash ashore. A sea creature touched by something terrible. It's almost like an eel… if eels had irregularly-spaced and sized hands. And the face of a human woman. The pieces of its body are wrapped in fishing line, netting, and other bits of garbage that are regularly thrown into the ocean. The head, for whoever might find it, still seems to have at least a little life left in it because if it is approached, it sobs, a broken sound that shouldn't be possible when it has no lungs. It can't form words, just cries and cries. Characters who ask native ADI personnel who have heard the sobbing or heard recordings of it will let them know it sounds distinctly like the wailing heard beneath one of the local bridges last month. And the wailing beneath the bridge? That's stopped.
If it were only the strange eel creature, that would be disturbing, but manageable. It is not only the eel creature. On August 14th, the tide pulls in something else. Perhaps you're actively patrolling, perhaps you're just strolling places you might want to rethink. Whichever it is, your eye is drawn to a figure lying prone in the surf, the waves buffeting them, shifting them up and down. It's hard to make out who the body might be, and as you come closer, it doesn't help in the slightest.
The body has been flayed. All visible skin stripped away, leaving exposed muscle and fat. The salty ocean seems to have cured it to some extent, but not nearly enough. Whoever this was, they are no more. There is all manner of refuse wrapped around their feet and ankles, old fishing hooks dug into their skin. Glance into the waves beyond, and you'll see something watching you. It has reflective, animal eyes, and disappears almost as soon as you've noticed it. The analysis of the bodies by ADI personnel (native or off-worlder) will show that these are people who have been reported missing or kidnapped from Cape Ann to Essex Bay.
The next night, August 15th, there are more bodies. So many more bodies. They wash ashore in groups of five or six, always when you're not watching. These are different. Still flayed, still wrapped with refuse, but when you reach toward them this time, they reach back. The bodies grasp for you, rise and try to wrestle you into the surf. It's clear they mean to bring you their fate, whatever it was, if they can. There's no signs of life in these bodies when they come for you. The keen-eyed may note that they have large fish hooks run through or near their hands, though. Removing those seems to be an effective means to make the bodies stop. Or removing the hands/arms from the rest of the body. A headshot or two might work, as well.
(cw: gaslighting, altered mental states, supernaturally induced paranoia; please place additional cw's in subject lines)
The random, blaring sirens aren't the only problem with the phones, though one might be forgiven for missing a second issue that begins more subtly a few days later. Voice and video continue to work as expected within ADI's network when the sirens aren't going off, but text... text is another matter.
Sometimes the messages are dropped into the middle of a conversation. Sometimes they come out of the blue, perhaps even from someone the recipient has never met. Always, though, the messages appear to come from a legitimate network user, and always they are somehow sinister in nature. Some are uncomfortable truths about the sender or the recipient, some outright lies, others accusations or horrifying anecdotes. From the sender's perspective, nothing is amiss: all outgoing text messages will appear exactly as typed when viewed on one's own phone, no more and no less than one had chosen to send. From the recipient's perspective, additional messages appear seemingly at random. Compare phones side by side and it's clear that the people around the characters are receiving texts they did not send.
But maybe that's what they want you to think. With the phones already on the fritz this is a nasty time to play a prank on the network, but it's not as though it would be all that hard to pull off, right? There's a whole department full of hackers right there within ADI headquarters, after all, and who knows what technical skills the other off-worlders could be hiding? You can't trust what you read on your phone, obviously, but more importantly, you can't trust the people around you. They're lying to you; they wanted to scare you. If you've gotten creepy messages from multiple people, that's just evidence that they're plotting against you together.
Don't believe their lies.
- ARRIVAL (August 1 - 31): 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 (or the rubble that used to be part of the building). PC's already in-game are more than welcome to interact with and try to guide new PC's to get them oriented. Please refer to the Arrival page for details regarding the arrival and onboarding process, as well as information about the state of ADI Headquarters.
- A FACE FOR RADIO (August 1-12): The signal creatures will be hard to spot. While tall, they are shorter than average cell towers. They can be neutralized through various creative means as well as through traditional violence. While there are only a few, they move about and make the number seem more than it is. While not inherently violent, if provoked the creatures will defend themselves. Please remember that death is permanent in the setting!
- WHAT BELONGS TO THE SEA (August 13-15): The 'zombies' can be killed in the standard zombie trope manner by destroying the head or enough of the body, but for characters who might be more inclined toward a less direct solution, removing the fish hooks from the hands will also cause the body to stop moving. For the bodies that are found, ADI will be directing the police to collect them after the first few. Players are welcome to make up who the victims are, if they'd like to focus more on that aspect of the prompt, and have their characters analyze the bodies or research who they might be. The only commonality between the victims is that they are from the same general region and those listed as missing seem to have last been seen near the beach. For any characters who might be inclined toward PR, ADI will also be spinning this up as a serial killer being on the loose to try to encourage people to stay indoors/move around in groups.
- TELEPHONE (August 4-15): Characters will be unable to find evidence of any outgoing messages from their own accounts on their own devices. Tech-savvy characters will be able to discover that the messages are being inserted by a nameless account spoofing the ID of whomever appeared to send them, but will not be able to pin down a location for the mystery user. Exposure to the messages will inevitably induce some level of paranoia, but players are free to decide how quickly and how severely those feelings develop. Players may choose any variety of disturbing subject matter for their characters' unintended messages; please place appropriate cw's in subject lines.
Hige • Wolf's Rain
[Some time after an inelegant start to his day (waking up, stretching his legs, and immediately falling from an office desk) but before getting his neck snared in a dog catcher's pole at the doors of ADI HQ, Hige may be spotted acting like the wild animal he is.
Considering he's a (rather well-fed) tawny wolf, acting like a wild animal shouldn't be this much of a problem. Humans shriek or cower away as he gallops past, nose leading the way to the fresh air of freedom. Dare you try to wrangle the big dog? Hey, he's got a sturdy leather collar on his neck-- the wolf can't be that bad!]
• A face for radio •
[Hige stays because there's free food and a lot of it. He won't stay at the apartments, the stench of humans and artificial lights and cool air being too much to handle. He stays in ADI's records though, because now that he can blend in with the humans again with his disguise it's like returning to life in the Dome. He stays aloof, a young man who only sometimes joins in the 'investigations'. Like now, with his partner. Hige has his attention on the warm smell of a waning summer... he can't even remember the last time he had felt the sun so strong...
The wailing of the siren makes him shout, covering his ears harshly and instinctively. Sensitive hearing. He glares at his companion, bewildered by the onslaught of noise and not actually mad at the person... yet.] What the hell is that supposed to mean?! Nothing's happening!
Wildcard
[Any prompt or meeting you want! Outside of the first Arrival prompt, Hige will appear in his human disguise (seen on his journal). Hope you don't have dog allergies, though!]
Arrival
[Mercy hadn't meant to get in the way. She really hadn't. She'd just been returning from the canteen with a bag of chips and some fruit that promptly goes flying when she rounds a corner and finds something large and fluffy bowling her over. She's not a small woman, standing at 5'9" and built for digging and hauling, so she considers herself fairly sturdy. A galloping wolf, unfortunately, wins. But while she flails a bit going down, she does try to latch onto the creature instinctively and yank it to the side to throw it on the ground, if she can.
She's never wrestled a wolf, but today is a new day.]
Re: Arrival
The little exclamation is huffed through a closed mouth, Hige taking a tumble as well. He feels a tug on his fur reminding him of clumsy hands, but when Hige turns on the girl he's baring his teeth.
One canine tooth is missing. Because trans-dimensional travel requires a sacrifice. Hige hasn't quite noticed.
He does notice the girl... not really acting aggressively. Smelling of... salty and sweet goodness. His nose twitches and Hige drops the snarl. He cautiously steps back to observe.
So the wolf is at least somewhat intelligent, girl. What will you do with it?]
no subject
Hey, there, fella. You just... stay where you are. Good boy.
[She looks around and sees her apple lying not too far away. She'd seen that nose twitching.]
You hungry?
[Mercy starts reaching slowly for the apple, not wanting startle the beast.]
no subject
That said, Hige is the savvy one, the one who has dealt with these creatures the most. He's already been seen by this girl in his true form, and there's no threat approaching... and he is hungry... he opens his mouth, still squirrelly (and a little out of breath) .]
Yeah, yeah, just... don't go asking me to Sit. Or go tattling to anyone else.
[Human is a single language, right? It is now!]
no subject
[Mercy stills, her brows jumping up.]
You're... oh! She does place the apple into his mouth before moving to stand up. You just turned up here, didn't you? I'm Sister Mercy. You, uh... you had your introduction with ADI, yet, Mr. Wolf?
Arrival
Ack! (In a panic, she latches onto the first thing she encounters to stop her fall-Hige's tail, unfortunately.)
Whoa!
(At least she's small and light enough it's unlikely to actually hurt?)
Face for radio
But he winces at the noise, too, and puts his hands over his ears after a moment, as well. He guesses hopefully:]
Maybe it's a test of the emergency system? And it will stop soon?