redshiftlogs | november 2020. welcome to the void.

Entry tags:

november 2020. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Monthly Mingle
When: The Month of November 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

[Announcement: Hello! One of the writing/NPC mods here. I pilot Creepy Joe and in the last nine months my life imploded, and then did it again, and then again, and you get the idea (not even bc of COVID! Lucky me.). But things have finally stabilized and I have the brainspace to actually mod again, so Joe will be around reliably and will even start responding to character posts. There are a couple of people I owe interactions to, and I’ll be reaching out to them over the next couple of days via Joe’s account so we can either set up threads or talk through what happened. If you want him to hit up your post or toplevel, please let me know under the “mod questions” section at the top of the comments page. It will be on a first-come, first-served basis, as I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew when I’m only just stepping back onto the mod team. All this to say, I’m really glad to be back, and I’m really glad I get to toss my creepy nutjob at all of you again!]

a. colony 2.

It takes a while, but by a combination of destruction, manipulation, and reasonable discussion, you all are able to smash your way through the tunnel and...up to another bulkhead door. It's cracked open at the bottom, enough for smaller people to squish through. Definitely enough for some of the remaining golems to get their limbs under and lift.

Once the combination of golem and Anchorite efforts have forced the doors open, the Anchorites are faced with...another hall. This one slopes upward and is lit by intermittently sparking lamps between spans of darkness. The sparks cracking overhead are the only sound.

At the end of the hall is another door, this one only half-shut, with plenty of room to get through. It's scarred with claw marks, burns, and ripped-up metal, inside and out. It's impossible to tell if someone was trying to get in or escape. Maybe both.

The space beyond is vast. It's clearly a set-up not entirely unlike Anchor, though there's no dome overhead, just a solid metal shield. The bleak roof is lit by powerful flood lights that are certainly not lacking in the energy to run smoothly and consistently. The rest of the space, however, has spotty, emergency lights here, jury-rigged illumination there. Crystals under lingering magical spells. Electric lanterns that are starting to fade. By this thin light, it's possible to see the stretches of broken plexiglass that served to keep each level separated from the open air between them. No luxury suites here. The med bay is utilitarian and barely stocked, but not at all dusty. The space that serves as a park in Anchor is a mass of dead or half-dead vegetation, most of it weeds arranged in rows that imply some kind of long-abandoned farming.

Level by level, this place is like Anchor's evil twin. The halls are narrower, the entertainment areas almost non-existant. It looks much more like a military installation than a place meant for people to live and thrive. There are hydroponic gardens that still seem to be in use. A farming area with a few gun-shy cow-like creatures that bolt at a stranger's approach.

This place might be desolate, but it isn't empty.

b. what remains.

For all the signs of intelligent humanoid life, the monsters are more common. Creatures prowl the halls, but not all of them are aggressive. Some are as nervous as the cow-creatures on the farming level. But those that are aggressive attack at once, like they expect to be killed if they don't strike first. And it looks like someone has tried. The monsters have missing limbs, missing eyes, wounds that have scarred over or that ooze with pus or have just begun to scab.

As the creatures get more curious about these strangers in their territory, more of them start to emerge, and it's clear something isn't right here. The ones that aren't badly mauled are patchwork combinations of limbs and heads and tails that don't all belong together. One of them, with a cow-creature's head stitched on next to the head of a cat-like thing that's all teeth, keeps trying to either eat or escape itself. It isn't the only one in this miserable state - there are an incredible amount of these stitched-together creatures in almost any combination you can think of. Even the creatures that people recognize from home will be warped, like someone poured a dozen puzzles into one big box and started cutting pieces to fit.

What was that shadow? Another hapless monster?

Maybe. Maybe not.

c. trick & treat.

It's not all monsters and thankless, dim-lit halls, though. Near the top, in much the same place where a person would find the weapons room and garage in Anchor, there's a weapons room and garage in this colony to match. Only the weapons room is open, and it's jam-packed with goodies from a dozen different worlds and then some.

Of course, it's not as simple as walking in. The entire area is boobytrapped, the floors ripped up here and there to accommodate pits full of stakes covered haphazardly with twigs and grass and monster bones, logs that come swinging out of nowhere when you step wrong, falling boulders that could crush you if you time your jump over that manufactured cavern poorly... Basically it's like someone set Indiana Jones in a Mario 64 level only more violent. Much more violent.

But hey, there's a benefit to making it through the traps first - and you have to get through the traps in order to get to the armory. The first two through the doors will find lightweight, shimmering cloaks resting on a pedestal in the center of the armory. It's impossible to tell what they're made from. They pool over hands like water, barely feeling like anything - and yet somehow, you can't see your hands through the cloth. In fact, put a cloak on and you'll disappear entirely. Undetectable by the eye - organic or robotic - and invisible to magic, area scans, bio detectors, heat detectors - you get the idea. Moreover, you'll be invisible on surveillance footage too. Somehow these cloaks even work on electronics. Besides the cloaks, there are a variety of very nice weapons in a range of styles - a few automatic projectile and laser guns, a couple of easy-to-use staffs that even those not magically inclined can use to deal magical damage with a thought, and a wide variety of angry-looking pointy sharp hand-to-hand weapons.

The garage might be an even better surprise for the curious, and the, you know, trap-averse. Not only are the vehicles inside more heavy duty than the ones at Anchor, but their power levels are clearly higher and they're built for long-term exploration. Not only that, but there are small personal shield generators, like Anchor's dome on a micro scale. When turned on, they provide just enough room for a small camp.

A little something for your monstrous troubles.

mod notes.

The garage is open and relatively easy to get to once you get past the creatures that populate the area, the armory is supposed to be a challenge. Players should not post top-levels that start with having already beaten the traps around the armory.

While there are enough weapons in the armory that every person currently in Anchor could have one, there are only two invisibility cloaks. The first two characters to thread out a trip through the traps will receive them. These threads must be a minimum of 10 comments (5 from each character) to qualify. If characters aiming for the cloaks would not be doing so in the same group and would be going in with other characters whose players aren't interested in the cloaks, please contact the mods by PM and we'll work something out!

Navigation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any mod questions can go here!

a.

This place makes Finnick's skin crawl. He knows the feeling of unease that comes from being sure danger is present even when he can't see it, has been intimately familiar with it for years. It's everywhere here. It's eerie to see a starker, more utilitarian version of the place they've all been living.

It's almost like coming to Thirteen after the Capitol. Everything seems useful, designed for survival without any of the (admittedly small) luxuries that exist -- or existed -- in Anchor.

It's even worse to see how dead it is.

The first cow mutt he sees nearly gets a trident through the head, and when he realizes it really is just a cow, Finnick takes a deep breath, lowering his trident as the thing skitters away.

"This was a waste," he says, kneeling by a row of dried-up, dead plants that he assumes were once crops.

b.

If he'd been waiting for the next shoe to drop, it does when he reaches the ...

It's a Cornucopia.

He knows the word is armory, even has some idea of what an armory looks like since he'd joined the military in Thirteen and been issued with his own weapons. But he knows a Cornucopia when he sees it, the shining rows of weapons laid out in a room that's open for anyone to see.

He knows better than to take that bait, though. Senses jangling from the mutts and the desolation, he expects traps before he even notices the pits full of spikes.

He chuckles, darkly.

"Just waiting for the gong," he says when he hears footfalls behind him, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of movement.

Edited 2020-11-02 10:54 (UTC)

The poor cow creature is so unnerved by almost being attacked by Finnick that in its haste to get away, it runs straight into a giant metal leg as Starscream comes up on the remnants of the planting beds. He makes a disgusted sound, giving a little kick and launching the poor thing away. Thankfully he doesn't use anywhere near full force, and the creature recovers after a moment, staggers back to its feet and limps away.

"Disgusting," he remarks, and surveys the dead rows of crops. "Would those even have been edible?" he asks; he's not entirely clear which flora are edible for humans and which aren't.

Finnick doesn't have a full understanding of mutations and radiation and what has made the creatures the way they are. He's used to thinking of the mutated animals as the discards or leftovers from projects of deliberate engineering.

That does mean he tends to assume they're dangerous until shown otherwise. The cow-like thing staggers away, and Finnick turns his attention to Starscream -- who demands a lot of attention.

"Maybe." It's been a long time since he last traveled the districts on a Victory Tour, and the propaganda from the Capitol never showed what an abandoned crop would look like.

"I don't know anything about farming."

i. colony 2 | action & voice;

[Julie, being slight and small-boned as she is, wriggles her way under the doors befor they're wedged further open by the golems. What she finds on the other side is... disappointing, in all honesty. At least at first. To find nothing but another hallway at the other side of a previously locked door feels like one hell of an anticlimax.

But she ventures deeper with a torch in her hand, swinging the beam in wide arcs in front of her. Now and then she darts it behind her, thinking she hears the noise of someone following (is it you?) but eventually she reaches the vast space at the other end.]

Wow. [She murmurs, pointing the torch upwards and not hitting the uppermost parts of the ceiling with the light. Not that she needs to to be able to see that it's entirely different to what she left behind.] What the hell...

[Julie fumbles her communicator into her hand and holds it up to her mouth.]

Is anyone in here? This fucking... evil mirror Anchor?

ii. trick & treat

[Slow, careful exploration takes her up to the topmost areas of this dimly lit, abandoned zone. It hadn't been long into her trip through the quiet halls that she had turned her torch off and tucked herself into a corner for long enough to let her eyes get used to the dark, and though her heart is in her mouth at every clatter and bang she hears in the distance, the deeper she goes the less she feels she can turn back without finding something to take back with her.

She may not be the first to find the weapons room, but the boobytraps are still active when she gets there. Julie discovers this when she almost falls into a pit, losing her footing and falling backwards rather than forwards only by the grace of whoever is watching over her (and doing a shitty job of it, most of the time). The young woman scrambles backwards, cursing, then claps her hand over her mouth and looks over her shoulder.

Shit.

Hope nothing out there heard that.]

[ Fortunately, by most definitions, Finnick would be considered someone, rather than something. He hears the swearing, and it brings him running from where he'd been poking around down another corridor.

He's expecting some sort of attack; gun raised, Finnick looks for one of the mangled mutts that he'd encountered earlier in his exploration.

He doesn't see one, or any obvious injuries at a glance. But his skin's been crawling with the feeling of something else being about to happen, and he can't tell if that's becase something else is about to happen, or if it's just the oppressive atmosphere of this place. ]

You okay?

[ He glances back over his shoulder, because if he'd been attrached by the noise, anything else could have been as well.

So far so good. ]

Yeah-- Fuck. Yeah.

[She's fine. All in one piece, more or less (the missing finger isn't new). Julie stares into the trapped area as if it had committed a grievous offence against her and slowly gets up to her feet, brushing herself off.

At least the person who saw her make an ass of herself isn't someone she really minds seeing it happen.]

Fuck.

[Julie briefly pinches the bridge of her nose, then lets her hand drop.]

You any good with traps?

[ Finnick has seen a lot of things happen to a lot of people with traps doing a lot more stupid things than Julie was. Studying the Hunger Games meant seeing what scared kids did in response to danger.

Nearly being caught by one doesn't make him think any less of her.]

Better at setting them than disarming them.

[ He eyes the pit. ]

Might be able to avoid them if we're careful.

QUESTIONS.

Finnick Odair | OTA

a.

no subject

Julie Grigio | OTA

ii. trick or treat

no subject

no subject

i. voice;

no subject

ii. trick or treat

no subject

Poison | OTA

ii!

!

Anthony J. Crowley | OTA

Network | @Sparrow

no subject

i

no subject

Deputy Pratt | OTA

What Remains

Re: What Remains

Network @middlebro

no subject