modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2020-11-01 09:02 pm

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!


redwinekindofgirl: (112)

Julie Grigio | OTA

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-11-08 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
]
fishermansweater: (Default)

ii. trick or treat

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2020-11-11 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[ 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. ]
redwinekindofgirl: (010)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-11-21 07:34 pm (UTC)(link)
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?
fishermansweater: (Marilyn Monroe)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2020-12-07 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ 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.
redwinekindofgirl: (007)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-12-13 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[It isn't the first time she's nearly been caught out by one of the traps in this ridiculous rat trap of a place. 'Scared' wouldn't quite be the word for it, but Julie's instincts for survival are highly strung after spending most of her life in danger.]

Yeah?

[She pulls her lower lip in between her teeth as she takes a better, calmer look at what's in front of them.]

Looks easier than avoiding gun turrets, anyway...
fishermansweater: (Watching you)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-01-06 12:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah.

[ He's getting used to the fact that nobody here admits any knowledge of the Hunger Games, but the comment can't really be explained in any detail without getting into the Games and right now isn't the time for that particular story. ]

Get me some rope and a few sticks and I can make you a pretty good trap, but it looks like someone beat us to that.


Though the stick would still be a good idea. Give us a chance to test the ground as we go.
redwinekindofgirl: (037)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-01-11 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[Julie thinks about it. She plants her hands on her hips and looks over the task in front of them. Her own experience is dodging the infected Dead who want to eat her, not spikes and traps, but she's sure she can figure it out.

And two heads have got to be better than one.
]

Don't know about sticks. Have to go back to the park for that. Can probably find a pipe or something around here?
fishermansweater: (Default)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-01-21 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, there's enough broken stuff around. There might be something in the garage.

[ Not that he knows anything much about garages, but he knows enough about boats to know that there's often tools and parts to be found around marinas and boatsheds. [

You mind staying here while I go look?
redwinekindofgirl: (020)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-01-31 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Sure, maybe I can keep someone else from losing a hand or something.

[She wiggles her left hand at him as she says this, and the top half of her ring finger is visibly missing. It doesn't seem to be a deliberate move to make a point, as she notices and immediately drops her hand back to her side.]

Yeah, I'll wait here.
fishermansweater: (Hold up)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-02-07 10:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ He manages to swallow what would have been a laugh if the way she dropped her hand hadn't made it obvious that she wasn't joking. He knows too many victors who are too sarcastically bitter about their injuries. ]

I'll be quick.

[ He's good to his word. He moves carefully along the corridor towards the garage. He'd been in there earlier but he hadn't been looking for anything to prod traps with at the time. Now he is, and sure enough, there are some pieces of metal lying around that look like they've come off some sort of machine. Or are meant to go on some sort of machine.

He doesn't pretend to know. But he can use them, so he grabs a few and makes his way back to Julie. ]


These should do.
redwinekindofgirl: (005)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-02-10 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[If he plays it right, she might tell him how she got it. It isn't like it's a secret.

Julie waits for him to come back, pacing lazily back and forth and occasionally jogging on the spot, or inching closer to where the traps are to see if she can set something off without getting hit. She doesn't succeed, but she's getting impatient by the time he reappears.
]

Oh, awesome.

[She reaches out for one without hesitation.]

You want point or rear?
fishermansweater: (Trident - Waiting)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-02-12 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He hands over the pipe, keeping one -- and some spares -- for himself. The eagerness with which she greets him gets a smile; he's known plenty of people who don't like sitting around and waiting, and it had taken him a little while.

He considers her question for a moment, weighing training and experience and the little he's gleaned about what she'd be able to do. ]


I'll take rear. Done it plenty before.

[ The gun will probably be most use there anyway. ]
redwinekindofgirl: (020)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-02-16 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay.

[She's good with either. Julie moves forwards with the pipe in her hand, prodding at the ground as she goes and making a point of not staying too close to any of the walls.]

Keep your eyes up, too. The last time I saw something like this they had fucking gun turrets.
fishermansweater: (Oho what have we here?)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-02-17 01:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Gun turrets?

[ If he sounds surprised, it's because he's not even entirely sure what that means. He's used to the idea of guns, even used to the idea of guns being pointed at him. The Peacekeepers had never particularly lived up to their name, but the last year he'd been in District Four, things had gotten tense. Four had revolted, and they'd been put down, by force. Maybe if he'd gone to Two, he'd have seen something like what Julie's describing.

Whatever it is, he doesn't like the sound of it.

He follows after Julie, gun ready. As she suggested, he's sure to look uo as well as forward.

Not enough people look up. ]




redwinekindofgirl: (037)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-02-21 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. Nearly took my fucking head off.

[The last time she'd seen anything like that, they'd been shooting at her family from the top of the US-Canada border wall. It wasn't something you easily forgot about, and she'd been none too keen to get that close to something like that ever again.

It doesn't look like there's anything like that here, but that doesn't mean she isn't still wary.

She taps her pole against the floor, and it makes a hollow sound.
]

Here. Hear that?
fishermansweater: (Glare)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-02-22 02:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He knows very little about heavily fortified borders, though he'd passed through them on several occasions. Then, the Peacekeepers had been on guard rather than on the attack, because the rebellion hadn't started yet. But he knew what soldiers with guns shooting at people who didn't deserve it was like. Before he arrived in Anchor he'd been a recruit in District Thirteen's army. But before that, he'd been in the revolt in District Four. He'd been there when it was put down, with fire and gunfire and floggings and public executions.

He pulls a face, even though she's focused more on the traps than her companion.

But Julie draws his attention to the floor in front of her, with the hollow thunk of metal on ... not the ground. ]


Yeah.

[ He's seen enough pit traps to be able to guess what she's found. ]

Tread on that and you'll fall straight through. Can you tell how big it is?
redwinekindofgirl: (042)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-02-27 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Not really.

[Tap tap. Tap tap. Everywhere she prods brings back the same slightly hollow sound. Julie frowns, pulling the pole back and leaning on it.]

Need to trigger it.

[It could be that the trap is long but not wide, or it could stretch from one wall to the other, but there's really no way to know one way or the other without testing the whole lot of it and risking falling into another pit on the way, or just caving the thing in. It won't support their weight anyway.]

See anything heavy? I don't really want to jump on it.
vosseeker: (eighty-nine.)

i. voice;

[personal profile] vosseeker 2020-11-27 06:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Like Anchor, Starscream cannot navigate all the various areas — some are just not built to a scale allowing him passage. But there are plenty of places for him to poke through and search for anything worth hauling back to Anchor. Hearing the voice on the communicator, he pauses in what he's doing. ]

It does appear that way.
redwinekindofgirl: (008)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-11-29 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's funny, but she doesn't actually expect someone to talk back. She jumps, almost dropping her communicator, and hisses a soft curse before she replies.]

How the hell did you even get in?
middlebruh: (pic#14362525)

ii. trick or treat

[personal profile] middlebruh 2020-11-29 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[This was literal hell, and somehow worse than all the golems and threat of zombies. Thankfully some of the creatures had already been taken care of or ran away from him as he carefully made his way.

He should've taken Ichiro with him, but he couldn't keep dragging his bro down with him. Besides, Saburo would make fun of him if he knew that Jiro was being a wuss.

Nonetheless, he off when he heard a woman cuss up ahead of him, stopping short enough so he didn't go careening into the spike pit or run into her.]


Shit, everything okay??
redwinekindofgirl: (009)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-12-06 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, peachy.

[Julie's immediate response as she pulls herself up to her feet and rubs the small of her back is nothing short of acerbic, but she quickly simmers down and lets out a huff of frustration.]

I'm sick of this fucking Indiana Jones bullshit. Who were these people trying to keep out, anyway?

[Or what. It's probably a 'what'. Ugh. She doesn't want to think about that.]
middlebruh: (pic#14362527)

[personal profile] middlebruh 2020-12-08 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
A spike pit, really? With all the tech around you think they'd come up with somethin' more scifi.

[That really wasn't the concern here. Thankfully the girl seemed to be fine, if her attitude had anything to say about that. However, his eyes soon lit up.]

Hey, but there being traps here obviously means there's something worth it on the other side.
redwinekindofgirl: (023)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2021-01-11 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
If it works, use it.

[Hell, she'd used things like that before... Nothing stopped a zombie hunting group quite like a pit full of spikes. Kind of disturbing when they didn't die in there, but...

She lets out a soft snort.
]

That's what I was thinking. How fast are you?