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redstringtheories2023-01-01 11:39 am
TDM #18
(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: toxic online behavior; supernaturally induced cruelty and social anxiety)
Since the dawn of the Internet, hiding behind a screen has always seemed to bring out the worst in people. You'd think, though, that a company network with accounts easily traced back to their owners would largely be an exception to the rule, and maybe so far it has been–but lately the ADI network is becoming a seriously unsafe space. It's not that the rumor mill is churning out falsehoods, at least no more than usual (there's always some risk of that when you bring people together and make communication lightning-fast). No, the problem is that lately people are being entirely too honest with one another. Brutally honest, in fact.
Do your coworkers annoy you? Maybe they smell weird, maybe their eyes are set too far apart, maybe they whine and complain too much or you simply find their mannerisms off-putting. It just feels right to tell them about it over the network–you're just being honest, after all, and the truth shouldn't hurt unless they deserve for it to hurt. Even the kindest, most socially conscientious individuals on the network find themselves getting caught up in the need to share their most judgmental truths, feeling righteous in the moments those messages are written or recorded. It's good to get things off your chest. It's good to air everything out.
Being on the receiving end doesn't feel so good, though. Everything hurtful that's just been said to you: that's the truth; that's how people really see you, and you know with certainty that everyone around you is keenly aware of your every failing. The brutal honesty of friends and acquaintances cuts through even the thickest of skin, and coming back to the network to argue, to tell your own truths in retaliation, to read and reread hurtful messages like you're prodding an open wound just feeds a growing addiction.
Off the network, face to face, the urge to be brutally honest with one another is suddenly gone, replaced with shame over all you've been told and all you've told others. Can you still meet your roommate's eyes after what you said to them online? The compulsion may be gone until you're back on the network, but the impact of your words remains, unforgotten.
(cw: potential for temporary blindness/injury to eyes, skin injuries, acid burns, weather catastrophes)
Snow seems to have arrived late this year in Gloucester. January sees the first big storm blow in, blanketing the coastline in light flurries. As the early part of the month progresses, there are occasional storms that bring fresh powder. Most of it is fine, but every now and again…
"Acid snowfall," the weatherman announces. "Keep yourself bundled up and inside, folks. It's not just the sting of Old Man winter on your cheek this year. Experts say it's not likely to melt you like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, but it can do some light damage if you're out in it a little too long. Researchers from NOAA - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are looking into the reason for the sudden and unusual phenomenon in our slice of the state. More news to come on that front as they figure out just what's going on with our ever-changing climate."
Out on the streets, the reporting seems to be mostly correct. Those who find themselves out in the snow will find that it tingles a bit more when it lands on bare skin. But mixed amongst the normal snow, there are darker, heavier clouds with a purple tinge to their bellies. The snow that drifts from these clouds is sharper. It doesn't just tingle where it lands, it burns. Faces, eyes, tongues, anything it hits. Fabrics are eaten away at a faster rate, and you might just find yourself hurrying inside with holes all through your clothes if you're not fast enough to escape. The indoors might not even give you full respite. The flurries from these clouds seem to last a great deal longer than they should and dance through the air on wind currents that don't make sense. They'll follow you in through doors and windows to add another burning rebuke. The sky, the weather itself, seems to have turned against everyone. How do you escape a 'natural' phenomenon?
(cw:ghosts, broken/altered limbs and necks, implications of drowning and being buried alive, spider-like imagery)
It starts as a flicker in the corner of your eye. The sound of someone moving, of eyes on the back of your head. Except no one is there when you turn to look. There’s a brush of fabric as someone walks past, but the storage room you’ve stepped into is too small not to see who’s there with you. Someone crosses the street beside you, but when you look up to take notice, they’re already gone. Maybe it’s just the stress of living in Gloucester, no one’s immune forever. It’s a reasonable thought.
Until you’re headed out of the bar one night and a man lingering nearby the oddly deserted street gives a hoarse cough. You think. A dry, wretched sound that doesn’t hold the harsh repetition of a cough, but of a low rasp of a voice that doesn’t come out correctly. He steps closer, and the evidence of why is clear: his neck isn’t right.
Stretched impossibly long, his neck holds his head on his shoulders precariously upright as he reaches a hand out to you. Snapped vocal chords rasp and he staggers a step forward, causing his head to roll unsteadily on the column of elongated muscle and dubious bone.
Across town, you look up from washing your hands and perhaps learn the taste of your own heart jumping up as a face stares at you in the mirror from directly over your shoulder, her mouth spilling dirt and blood onto it as she tries to scream and torn fingernails claw at your back.
Elsewhere, there’s the wet splat sound of something slapping down the hall towards you. If you don’t go to investigate yourself, it will soon come to you as a dripping, bloated, corpse drags bound legs behind it. As soon as the pits that were its eyes turn in your direction, its pace quickens in a desperate drive to get to you. It claws at your ankles, at your knees, as its mouth spits water and wretched howls of insistent anguish.
There’s eyes on your back, you’re sure of it. Positive. And there’s a sound of something creaking and the unsteady pattern of steps, like each one is carefully made. This time there’ll be something, you tell yourself, this time- you’re right. When you turn, something long lurches and hobbles behind you. Each limb is rail thin, stretched beyond comprehension, but what looks like a stick-legged spider, is most assuredly a person. Or used to be. Now it offers wretched rasps like whispers mixed with nails on a chalkboard as it toddles towards you.
The ghosts change, each one as horrible and gruesome as the next and never in the same place, but they all do the same thing: talk and grasp and try to catch whether with nail or teeth or arms that might wrap too many times around you, they want to get you, chattering their static or scrambled or damaged voices at you the whole time. Take a swipe, a kick, swing a weapon….and it passes through their desolate forms, trailing the image like smoke behind it as they vanish from sight. Though, not without leaving traces of their scratches or dirt or blood behind.
- ARRIVAL (January 1-31): Two people will almost 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.
- AN EYE FOR AN EYE (January 1-15): Tech-minded individuals who manage to stop tearing into each other long enough to dig into the network's system and access history will discover that the increase in antisocial truth-telling corresponds with an external device having hacked in. Further investigations reveal that the hostile device in question shares unique identifying information very similar to a security system ADI agents recently encountered while cleaning out the Oculus Cult's warehouse of horrors. Once the source is discovered, the network will be shut down for a day on January 15 to revert settings, beef up security, and eliminate the brutal honesty-inducing effect.
- SOFTLY FALLS THE SNOW (January 1-31): There are two kinds of acid snow. The normal sort that is discussed in the weatherman's reporting, and a more supernatural variety. Anyone who comes in contact with the supernatural acid snow will experience acid burns that can vary in intensity from mild skin irritation to something that needs medical attention and skin grafting to fix. The acid snow probably won't completely dissolve you or your clothes if you don't stand out in it for hours on end, but characters may be able to surmise that if someone were to fall in the supernatural snow overnight and not get back up, there might be nothing left of them by the morning. The supernatural acid snow also seems to have a mind of its own, moving in ways it shouldn't and trying to land itself on bare skin. If examined under a microscope, the supernatural snowflakes seem to be pulsing and moving.
- PHASMOPHOBIA (January 1-12): The ghosts can’t be fought, actions taken against them will dissipate their forms temporarily. More than one person can see the same ghost at the same time or in two different times or locations. Regardless, if they get hold of a character, they will claw and scratch in a way that, afterwards, might seem more like desperation than intent to hurt as all the injuries are largely superficial unless an errant nail gets lucky. Despite their attempts to seemingly talk to the characters, the only words anyone might be able to parse with any dubious certainty are pleas. Sightings of the ghosts will taper off towards the middle of the month with no further reported incidents past the 12th.
Yvienne Magnolia | Ciel: The Last Autumn Story
[It isn’t an immediate surprise that Yvienne finds herself waking up in an unfamiliar place. That tends to be what happens when she overdoes her magic, and her body shows all the signs of it, from her dully pounding head and the annoying sense of disorientation and heaviness. She wonders how long it was this time... surely her parents and Lariatte must all be quite worried. Perhaps even her teacher had managed to muster up some concern!
It’s only gradually that she comes to realize that something is wrong. The ground under her is hard and cold and shifts with each movement she makes, and she can both hear and feel the wind blowing past her. Despite her own struggle to stay away, the alarm gives her the adrenaline needed to push herself up and get a better look at her surroundings. The mountains are gone. She’s in the middle of rubble, surrounded by an odd kind of fence, with only the sky as a familiar sight. This isn’t... somewhere anyone she knows would have taken her.]
Oh dear... to leave a lady lying in the dirt like this, some people really don’t have any manners at all. A good thing I’m not in my uniform... [She says it lightly enough, but it’s clear from her face how uneasy she really is. And while the language sounds close to English, there’s an odd cadence and accent to her speech that makes it ring not entirely right to those from Earth. Looking around for any clue as to what happened and how she got here, she finally manages to spot what looks like another person. It’s not that she doesn’t find that suspicious as well, but... at this point, she doesn’t have many options other than to try and speak to them.] Ah - excuse me? Are you alright?
B - Softly Falls the Snow
[Even in a strange world, the weather is something Yvienne can’t help but be drawn to and fascinated by. And weather as bizarre as this, she definitely can’t turn a blind eye to. She hadn’t even had any exposure to snow in her own world since she discovered her magic, so how could she miss the chance to do so in this one? Her teacher would be disappointed with her to know she was slacking off - and it felt like what a witch and student should do in such circumstances.
But still - she’s no fool. She can see people hurrying inside with holes in their clothes and burns on their face.]
Hm... it’d be one thing if I could borrow someone else’s, but I hardly have enough spare clothes to go and waste them for curiosity’s sake. [She’s talking to herself as she stares out one of the office windows at the dangerous flurries. It was empty when she came in, but she’s too absorbed with her thoughts to have noticed someone else entering.] Maybe there’s a way to catch some? If they can’t get through glass, a jar should be able to hold them...
C - Phasmophobia
[A dark night, and a ghost lurking in the corner of her bedroom. A ghost with long arms and a gaping mouth, reaching out for her. It managed to grab the corner of her bedsheet before she had properly woken up and recognized if for what it is, and then she was out, rushing to the door and out the hall.]
Ahaha... I wonder if I should feel nostalgic. [So she says, as she hurries down the hall, putting as much distance between her and the ghoul as she could. But she keeps her eyes straight and does not dawdle or look back. She knows better than to try and fight them. It never worked, not since she was a child. All she could do was avoid them.
Still - it follows, and she prioritizes staying away from it over staying quiet. If she happens to wake up others in the apartment complex as she goes, well! She has more important things to worry about!]
B
[Donna's cubicle just happens to be nearby and she's already nursing a grudge against the stuff and everything, in general after a miserable Christmas holiday.]
Are you mad?
no subject
My, that’s quite a rude question! Research and investigation are both done here, right? Wouldn’t it be stranger to not want to learn more?
no subject
no subject
[A particularly pertinent detail for her. Her ability to use magic had certainly diminished severely in this world without Lariatte, but that made it seem all the more important to make up for it in other ways, like studying and preparation. If she couldn’t call herself a witch, she’d really be at a loss for what to do.]
no subject
C
He yawns, taking his time trotting up to his apartment - at least until he sees Yvienne rushing up to him. He doesn't recognize her but the way she hurries down the hallway gives him pause.]
Are you all right?
A - please disregard, no longer canonical
Sigh. He pinches his brow, and is about 6 beats into trying to count to 10 and clear his head when the voice interrupts him. She gets a thin smile (polite, but weary) and a slight, respectful inclination (more than a nod, less than a bow)]
Is this thy doing, then?