redstringtheories

➥ Arrival

Photo of a modern office building from the outside. There is a manicured lawn with several trees and bushes. To the left side of the photo, there is a waterbody with reeds around the fringes. There is a purple gradient filter over everything.
(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.)

➥ An Eye for an Eye

Photo of caucasian hands typing on a laptop and holding a cellphone. Internet symbols are displayed around the phone.
(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.

➥ Softly Falls the Snow

Photo of trees covered in snow.
(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?

➥ Phasmophobia

Photo of ghostly woman within a grim and forbidding room. All in black and white.
(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.

➥ Mod Notes

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.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Technology can do all sorts of nonsense here that I never thought possible, [ points out the man from the 1840s who still doesn't know how televisions work. ]

I'm certain that they can acid-proof things. They just haven't gotten around to it for this batch of problems.

[ he says, with the confidence of a man absolutely bullshitting. ]

You're right about the clouds, though. Could have at least put up a sign or something.

Or an announcement to go indoors if you see purple death clouds. What's the point of all this techy stuff if they don't use it for that?

[ Bruno at least knew of televisions before seeing one here! Just... just knew of. That's the fun part of being an oracle, you can tell everyone about the weird things the future has and they get to think you're nuts, ha... ha, yeah, great.

Mobile phones and the internet, though, hoo boy, that evaded him big time. ]

[ Thank God, someone else who doesn't see the point of all that techy stuff. Hickey nods and lets out a grumpy little sigh before, ]

Honestly, it's bloody inconvenient at certain points.

I mean, it has been nice to poke around it and actually verify all the stuff I knew was happenin' in the future but beyond that, eh...

[ He shrugs. It's a big shrug before another thought hits him and he's quick to turn, looking up with a big, surprisingly excited smile on his face in spite of the acid snow having made a good attempt at murdering him. ]

Oh! Oh, and the soap operas! There are entire channels for them! A whole bunch play them all afternoon!

[ You know, because it's what old retired people watch, uh. Maybe no one should tell him that. ]

Right, two things, [ Hickey says, small frown on his face, looking at Bruno as he realizes just what the man actually said. He takes a puff of his cigarette before tossing it on the ground and stubbing it out with his shoe, outright littering like the asshole he is. ]

One, what's a soap opera. Two, what d'you mean 'all the stuff you knew was happening in the future'?

[ Because yeah they're in a world with weird superpowers now, but seeing in the future? That's a thing? ]

[ Bruno's gaze follows the discarded cigarette to the ground. Littering isn't really a concept for him but something about that feels like... he shouldn't do that? ]

Uh, should you be...

[ Just dumping that right there when there's one of those little ashtray stands in the corner opposite of Hickey. Bruno never finishes his sentence, instead kind of just pointing weakly at the ashtray but, uh, kind of late for that, soooo, moving on. ]

Well, a soap opera is a television show! [ The answer to that one comes easily and he looks up at Hickey again. ] It's like a... y'know, a show that's full of drama and all the characters are always betraying one another and all this illicit romance stuff and. Hm.

[ How does he describe them beyond that? ]

They're just. Fun, I guess. Fun to watch. [ Awkward cough. Right, sure. The future part, though, well that earns a shrug and he simply states, ] I see the future.

[ Yeah, that's all, like that's nothing! ]

I mean, I haven't tried to see it here yet and I don't. I don't think I will try, because it tends to be, er, bad and. Yeah. Nice to know the whole moon landing thing was real, at least?

[ Right, forget the soap operas, that's boring. He can see the future and he just dropped that into conversation? ]

Why the hell wouldn't you want to try it here? [ he says, absolutely unbelieving. ] Who cares if it's bad. You'd still want to know if the bad thing's coming, yeah?

[ Riiiight, right, people are... people here don't know about his gift. That's so weird. Everyone back home did and they avoided the heck out of him for it. Maybe he shouldn't be so open about it? Here? It was something to consider. ]

Uh. [ Bruno stared at Hickey for a second, at a loss on how to defend his disinterest in actually using his gift before it comes to him. ] Because then I would obsess over it even if it isn't something I can change? That would definitely... definitely become a problem. I just don't do it, not if I don't need to.

Yeah, but if you know it's coming, you can take steps to make it less terrible. [ He continues to look at Bruno like he's a goddamn idiot as he explains, ]

Say you see a flood coming. You can't do anything about the flood, but you could at least get all your valuables out of town first.

[ Valuables... ]

I mean, something as big as a flood would hit me with a vision even without me trying, so I'd be able to warn people to leave and if they want to waste their time on valuables, well. That's on them? I guess?

[ Bruno can't imagine it. His village isn't like that. They'd focus on the people first, hello? It earns a vague shrug at best. ]

But I'm not going to sweat the little things. I get waaaay too anxious about little things. If I knew all the little terrible things that may or may not happen, I'd just... it'd be a whole thing. [ And he waves his hands outwards to try and punctuate that point when he says 'thing'. ] Pretty sure I'd refuse to step foot outside my room at that point.

[ Hickey nods, listening intently. Honestly, the idea of seeing the future sounds nicer the more he hears Bruno talk about it. Getting anxious? Not a problem for him! He is full of questions though, so he continues with, ]

So if it comes on you without trying, does that mean you can't see a vision on command?

I... can? Yeah, sure, it just. There's a whole thing but.

[ Bruno won't go into detail on the overdramatic ritual he goes through every time. This is mostly because, even without using his gift, he can see where this conversation is ultimately going to lead and he has to stifle a sigh.

Great. He should have kept his big mouth shut.

There's an awkward pause where Bruno shuffles back a step or two from Hickey and reaches down to retrieve the discarded jacket now that it's stopped smoking. The acid is quite done eating through it, leaving dozens of little holes and rendering it useless. ]

Can we maybe change the topic? I already said I'm not doing it, s-so it's just. It's pretty pointless to go too in detail about, y'know?

[ But he wanted to ask even more nosy questions!

Hickey lets out a little annoyed 'hmmph,' as if it's somehow Bruno's fault Bruno doesn't want to answer his invasive questions. After the hmmph, he shakes his head before pointing out, ]

Simply curious. After all, from what I've heard, powers like that work differently here than how you're used to back home.

TDM #18

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