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redmarsshit2019-10-24 11:41 pm
modblob) wrote in redmarsshit2019-10-24 11:41 pm
redshift: tdm #5
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.
▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.
a. don't be a sap.
Good morning, October 25th! Whether you're a confused new arrival or a current resident, you probably had some plans for today, right? Grab breakfast, visit a friend, pick some fruit, explore a new part of the massive city.
Well. Too bad. Because, as every single bot in the city will be telling you the moment you show your face, it's GOOP FESTIVAL DAY! What? You've never heard of it? Preposterous, everyone knows about the Goop Festival, it's one of the most anticipated holidays in Anchor! Haven't you been preparing for this for a week now?
The Goop Festival is a harvest celebration, in particular, a celebration of the sap-producing trees that grow wild in the Park, thick around the edges of the south side of the lake. The bots have been hard at work setting up the festival grounds in the shade of the trees in the balmy fall temperatures. There are spiles tapped into trees with buckets placed underneath that are already half-full of a thick, viscous, amber-colored sap. The bots have also set up troughs of shaved ice with long sticks nearby, with which they will demonstrate for excited residents (you are excited, right?) how to cool the sap in the ice and wrap it around the stick to make it a sort of taffy candy. That's not the only sweet surprise waiting, either.
A long table set up in the grass is loaded down with all sorts of delicious sap-related goodies, ranging from cupcakes with thick globs of sap-flavored frosting to sap-flavored jerky to sap sugar candies, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a wide variety of offerings that would taste good coated, flavored, or glazed with the sap, which tastes sort of like a caramelized toffee. Another table is laid out that has row upon row of cups, each half-full of the sap, heated lightly to a thinner consistency and served similarly to hot chocolate - at least, if hot chocolate gave you a floaty, happy, hazy sort of feeling. Everything made with this sap does, actually, with the cups of pure sap having a stronger effect and items with less sap content having barely any effect at all.
Does this not sound like your cup of weird tree sap? Too bad. This is the GOOP FESTIVAL, and everything is shut down for this lovely paid vacation day. Spa? Locked down. Kitchens? Locked. Bar? Nope, totally shut down and the server bots are all down at the park. VR Gaming? Too bad, the computers are all shut down. Even roaming the halls and trying to stay out of the way won't help much...be prepared to be dragged down to the park to participate in this mandatory festival! Isn't it exciting?
Well. Too bad. Because, as every single bot in the city will be telling you the moment you show your face, it's GOOP FESTIVAL DAY! What? You've never heard of it? Preposterous, everyone knows about the Goop Festival, it's one of the most anticipated holidays in Anchor! Haven't you been preparing for this for a week now?
The Goop Festival is a harvest celebration, in particular, a celebration of the sap-producing trees that grow wild in the Park, thick around the edges of the south side of the lake. The bots have been hard at work setting up the festival grounds in the shade of the trees in the balmy fall temperatures. There are spiles tapped into trees with buckets placed underneath that are already half-full of a thick, viscous, amber-colored sap. The bots have also set up troughs of shaved ice with long sticks nearby, with which they will demonstrate for excited residents (you are excited, right?) how to cool the sap in the ice and wrap it around the stick to make it a sort of taffy candy. That's not the only sweet surprise waiting, either.
A long table set up in the grass is loaded down with all sorts of delicious sap-related goodies, ranging from cupcakes with thick globs of sap-flavored frosting to sap-flavored jerky to sap sugar candies, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a wide variety of offerings that would taste good coated, flavored, or glazed with the sap, which tastes sort of like a caramelized toffee. Another table is laid out that has row upon row of cups, each half-full of the sap, heated lightly to a thinner consistency and served similarly to hot chocolate - at least, if hot chocolate gave you a floaty, happy, hazy sort of feeling. Everything made with this sap does, actually, with the cups of pure sap having a stronger effect and items with less sap content having barely any effect at all.
Does this not sound like your cup of weird tree sap? Too bad. This is the GOOP FESTIVAL, and everything is shut down for this lovely paid vacation day. Spa? Locked down. Kitchens? Locked. Bar? Nope, totally shut down and the server bots are all down at the park. VR Gaming? Too bad, the computers are all shut down. Even roaming the halls and trying to stay out of the way won't help much...be prepared to be dragged down to the park to participate in this mandatory festival! Isn't it exciting?
b. familiar ground.
Every year in Anchor near the end of October, there's a very strange interaction between the protective dome over the city and seasonal radiation surges that happen in the wastelands. Some complicated combination of refraction and reflection means that for the last few days of the month, residents will experience some of the more benign effects of the red shift inside the city.
Did we say benign? Because while there may not be any dangerous radiation to melt your skin off, there are some mind-bending dangers. Characters experiencing the shift will find the world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate; they are enveloped in auditory and visual hallucinations, and can become so disoriented that they can't even recognize people they've known for years. And characters will find that the citywide shift brings in slivers of other universes, little slices of places characters have never seen before...or places so familiar they make the heart beat hard with joy or fear.
And just like in the wastelands, the things that show up in these shifts are all too real. Characters may find themselves walking through a door into a scene straight from home, or from someone else's home. Whether it's a favorite place to share with a new friend, or the nightmare landscape you almost died in, complete with the monster that almost killed you, be careful. Everything you experience here is real, and if you die in the shift, you die for real.
Of course, the city has its own safety measures in place - residents experiencing the hallucinations and appearances of items and places from other worlds may find themselves locked down in the room they're in, trapped with the otherworldly effects of the shift.
Did we say benign? Because while there may not be any dangerous radiation to melt your skin off, there are some mind-bending dangers. Characters experiencing the shift will find the world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate; they are enveloped in auditory and visual hallucinations, and can become so disoriented that they can't even recognize people they've known for years. And characters will find that the citywide shift brings in slivers of other universes, little slices of places characters have never seen before...or places so familiar they make the heart beat hard with joy or fear.
And just like in the wastelands, the things that show up in these shifts are all too real. Characters may find themselves walking through a door into a scene straight from home, or from someone else's home. Whether it's a favorite place to share with a new friend, or the nightmare landscape you almost died in, complete with the monster that almost killed you, be careful. Everything you experience here is real, and if you die in the shift, you die for real.
Of course, the city has its own safety measures in place - residents experiencing the hallucinations and appearances of items and places from other worlds may find themselves locked down in the room they're in, trapped with the otherworldly effects of the shift.
c. the virus.
A few weeks ago, people in Anchor started getting a case of the sniffles. While some of the earliest cases might be clearing up, there are still a few people suffering, or people freshly infected by those who were sick earlier, including some of the new arrivals who may not even be feeling it yet.
Which may make the cause of some unexpected 'glitches' around the city a little unclear. Residents who are feeling the effects of the illness, or who are infected but not showing symptoms yet (or anymore) will find that their access to certain parts of the city are restricted. Suddenly, automatic doors aren't opening for them, as if they were ghosts, particularly when they try to access anything that may facilitate transmission of the virus. Suddenly, only some of the residents of the city will find they can't get into half of the MedBay, or the spa, the kitchens, the VR or games rooms, the bar...anywhere people gather or eat or sit close together.
Residents may put together that it's related to the illness some of them have been experiencing over the past few weeks, but it might take a while, since these safety and security measures are affecting people who are showing no symptoms yet. Be prepared for a few days of paranoia while seemingly perfectly healthy people are locked out of common areas. What does the computer know that residents don't? Are these people security risks? Is it a system glitch? What could be going on?
Which may make the cause of some unexpected 'glitches' around the city a little unclear. Residents who are feeling the effects of the illness, or who are infected but not showing symptoms yet (or anymore) will find that their access to certain parts of the city are restricted. Suddenly, automatic doors aren't opening for them, as if they were ghosts, particularly when they try to access anything that may facilitate transmission of the virus. Suddenly, only some of the residents of the city will find they can't get into half of the MedBay, or the spa, the kitchens, the VR or games rooms, the bar...anywhere people gather or eat or sit close together.
Residents may put together that it's related to the illness some of them have been experiencing over the past few weeks, but it might take a while, since these safety and security measures are affecting people who are showing no symptoms yet. Be prepared for a few days of paranoia while seemingly perfectly healthy people are locked out of common areas. What does the computer know that residents don't? Are these people security risks? Is it a system glitch? What could be going on?
c. the network.
Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to warn a friend not to leave their apartment unless they want to be forcibly press-ganged into the Goop Festival? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?
Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.
Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.
Mod Note: The "familiar ground" prompt will be active between October 29th and October 31st; "the virus" prompt will be active until the next introductory mingle, which will be kicking off the second part of the illness plot.
no subject
Thank the gods! You're awake!
[ He still has one hand against Carlisle's shoulder, steadying him as he wakes up. Does he not remember the dream? Did whatever spell he used have any other side effects? Quickly, Reynir explains: ]
I don't know how much you remember but we were together in the dreamspace and you had some magic tea and maybe something about it went wrong because you were asleep for a whole day and you asked me to come in here and wake you up and I promised I would and actually um I kind of had to sort of break your door a little to get in and I'm sorry but also I'm not sorry you're okay because I was a little worried for a second there that you weren't.
[ How Reynir manages to get all that out without seeming to pause for breath is really a mystery. ]
no subject
Distracted with his immediate concerns, he seems to belatedly realize Reynir's hand is on his shoulder, shrinking away from it the moment he does. The gesture he makes is somewhat vague, as though he's apologetic for avoiding physical contact, all while doing just that.]
I'm fine. I'm fine and I remember, ah. Most of that. Not the part where you— wait, you did what to my door?
no subject
More than anything else, though, he continues to feel worry. Perhaps it is because of the contrast, having seen Carlisle just a few moments ago in the dreamspace and seeing him now, but he looks... unhealthy. Sickly. Pale. And even if Reynir had been silly and wrong about him not breathing a moment ago, he had made that mistake for a reason. Carlisle doesn't look like he's doing great, health-wise. ]
I - well, it was locked. So, I broke it.
[ Reynir sees Carlisle recoiling from his touch, and quickly moves his hand away, feeling a surge of guilt for forgetting that Carlisle doesn't like to be touched. It had been necessary for a moment there, but he should have remembered after. Reynir tucks his hands inside his pockets and continues speaking: ]
I'm sorry. I had to. I - was worried about you. I'll fix it.
[ Reynir means it, too - but that is a worry for the future. Doors can be replaced. Friends cannot. Anxiously, he asks: ]
Are you feeling alright? Do you need to go to the medbay? I know you hate the constructs but - I can come with you.
no subject
[Said like someone who is definitely still disoriented and trying to convince himself as well as Reynir. Frankly, he's not sure the constructs in the medbay could do anything for him, and he'd rather not deal with them long enough to find out. He shakily gets to his feet, his limbs sluggish to respond.]
I'm fine, and the door is fine. A lock will fix, and- and I wanted your help. You need not- need not apologize.
[Annnnd he's back on his feet. Sort of. He's at least vaguely upright as he puts a hand on his bed and takes a seat, deciding he probably shouldn't walk like this. There's a second where he seems to suddenly remember his mask and his veil, and he checks to make sure they're all in place, covering his ruined features. Thankfully, they didn't get displaced when he passed out. He straightens them, and then his glasses.]
Thank you, Reynir. Truly. I don't- I don't know what would have happened if not for you. I could've been asleep forever.
no subject
So Reynir just exhales slowly, and gives a reluctant nod of acceptance. He stands, along with Carlisle, ready to reach out and steady him the moment he starts to fall, aversion to touch or no - but he doesn't need it, thankfully. Still, Reynir hovers close, for the time being. It's a relief to him with Carlisle sits down on his bed.
And Reynir's heart twists with sympathy and sadness when he sees Carlisle touching his face, checking his coverings. Now that Reynir knows they are not a mark of devotion, but of trying to hide himself because of a curse... well. He can't help seeing them differently. He just stands there, arms loose at his sides, full of fondness and fretting and helplessness.
His voice is quiet as he promises: ]
I won't let anything like that happen to you. Not if I can stop it.
[ He glances over towards those glyphs. He wants to ask what went wrong. He wants to ask if Carlisle had set up any kind of safety measures. Instead, swallowing, he asks: ]
Can I stay here with you, for a little while? Just so I am sure you're okay? We don't have to talk if you don't want to.
no subject
I would like that, I think. I could use the distraction from, ah. [He makes a vague gesture similar to the one in the dream, albeit stiffer.] From myself, frankly. Just- just having a friend around helps.
[And he does hope it's still okay to refer to Reynir as such.]
no subject
When Carlisle refers to him as his friend, Reynir smiles. Sure, it's nighttime and he'd only just gone to bed when he found Carlisle still in the dream, but he can catch up on sleep later. This is too important. Carlisle had a bad scare and he needs a distraction from himself and Reynir is his friend, so of course, he will help.
He thinks he knows just the thing, too. ]
Then how about I teach you a bit more about Icelandic runes?
[ Reynir knows that Carlisle is interested in the topic already, that it seems like a real passionate interest of his, something that takes him outside himself. And if they are talking about magic in Reynir's world, it might take Carlisle's mind of himself, his curse, his own world that he might be missing or mourning or both. ]