modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2019-09-04 09:06 pm

september 2019. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Third Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of September 2019
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.

a. turrets.

That power surge kicked off some sh... stuff, all right. It took a while for the systems to cycle back on, but two new areas of Anchor are now accessible and usable. One of them is nice and relaxing and safe, and we'll get to that one in a minute. The other one, addressed first, is not very nice and not very relaxing and definitely not safe.

The internal defense systems on the upper levels have come to life, and have targeted anyone within their range as a hostile entity. Get ready to run the gauntlet if you want to turn them off - you'll have to dodge lasers, bullets, and aggressive defense bots (that can be rewired and/or rebooted to assist characters instead of trying to murder them). The reward? Getting to the heavily protected (think many many murderbots and lasers) security control room. If you can make it, you'll be able to reboot the internal defenses, turning off the aggressive targeting and having access for the first time to surveillance of almost all of Anchor. Those areas your characters didn't know were there? Revealed. Those dense patches of jungle-like growth in the agricultural center? You've got a spotlight into their heart.

Though, huh, not all the cameras seem to be working. What's with those screens that show up from time to time that are nothing but static?

Oh well, doesn't really matter, does it?

b. hot springs episode.

One of the areas adjacent to the bar and intimacy lounge has been sputtering on and off ever since the power surge. One evening, with a loud crack and a humming sound that slowly dissipates, the lights come on and water starts flowing down the artificial waterfall into the fountain out front. The spa is back online!

The lobby is inviting and zen, with holographic walls that depict scenic locations (some of them very unlike Earth), with fountains splashing delicately on either side of the door. The attendants are slightly malfunctioning bots, but the most harm they'll do is bring you six towels when you ask for one, or a bucket of massage oil to work on those knots in your back with.

There are three areas in the spa, each of them fully-outfitted with towels, robes of all sizes, fuzzy slippers, the works. One has all the amenities of a Turkish bath, right down to the fantastically arched roofs and mosaics of Istanbul. One is designed not unlike a Japanese hot spring, though the spring is heated artificially rather than naturally. The springs are large enough to be communal in some areas and small enough to be private in others, varying in depth from deep enough to swim on one end and shallow enough to sit on the bottom on the other. All hot springs have a stone shelf around the edges where those who don't want to swim can sit. The last area is more Western, with steam rooms, saunas, massage tables, and mud baths for the adventurous.

One thing all of these areas have in common: the settings on virtually everything can be adjusted to taste. Not in the traditional way, either. The steams and waters can be tweaked to be soporific, can serve as muscle relaxants, can ease anxiety, and can even bolster moods. None of these effects are involuntary, and none of them are brought on by drugs - it's more an advanced mix of pheromones and harmless compounds that can affect a single person or a given pool or room. Also, the baths and hot springs have adjustable bubble settings. The water colors can change, some of them even allowing characters to dye their hair the color that's been selected for the tub without staining their skin. Bubbles of all kinds can rise up out of the water, from the foamy comfort of childhood bubble baths to hovering golden bubbles that chime when you pop them. Characters can choose from a variety of bath salts, scents, and oils - the spas were designed not just for relaxation, but for pure and simple fun.


c. joe's dirt.

So you've survived the security malfunction. You've washed off the dirt and anxiety at the spa. But the newly reactivated security stations throughout Anchor have revealed something odd. There's a blip in the power systems in one area of the agricultural level, like something is siphoning off power from the main lines. Tracking down the source in the deep tangle of underbrush won't be easy, and there may be a few mutated, fanged, clawed cattle that maneuver shockingly well between the trees, but eventually you'll come to a breach in Anchor's wall. At first it just looks like a crack, but it's large enough to squeeze through and there's the darkness of an open space behind it. A tunnel, leading down into the earth outside, well below surface level and thus largely safe.
Wires run along the roof and floor, though the tunnel itself is dark. Walk long enough and you'll come to a wider space, open enough for two or three people to move around comfortably at the same time. It's still dark, lit only by screens that show the same security feeds that are available at the stations throughout the city. And others. Angles on the surface that show Anchor from a distance, and other visuals that don't show Anchor at all, trained instead on massive structures or formations or lakes out on the surface somewhere. But there's something more disturbing: there are cameras set to record some people's rooms. And the only rooms that are shown are occupied.

Someone has been here, recently enough to track where new people have moved in.

On the floor in one corner, there's a crumpled photograph of a man some might recognize as Creepy Joe, happy and whole, with a little girl sitting on his shoulder. It looks like it's been stamped into the dirt.

circumitus: (oops got into another fight sorry dad)

i.

[personal profile] circumitus 2019-09-11 07:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Wherever the ghost of those cuts and bruises on her face came from, a turret attack likely wasn't the culprit. But Rey doesn't seem all that concerned when she follows the all too familiar echoes of both yells and gunfire. Sounds that she couldn't possibly ever ignore.

[Which leads her to a scene of a girl trying to avoid a hail of bullets, all coming from a hallway -- maybe the system is protecting something? It's worth checking out.

[Sure, it's probably not a good idea to do acrobatics around ammunition shortly after being impaled by a spear of metal, but... that's not an issue now, is it?]


Protecting something, if one had to guess. ["Duh," might as well have come out of that tone, casual that Rey might be for someone who's standing barely a safe distance from turret fire.]
redwinekindofgirl: (007)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-09-14 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
No shit. [She responds waspishly, still half-deafened by the thundering of her heartbeat in her ears. Not daring to step forward another inch, she decides on stepping back instead (and quite carefully, not being sure what else she might set off.]

Can't think what might have given you that idea.

[Julie brushes herself off, huffing out a breath.]

So now they're randomly arming corridors. That's great.
circumitus: (come again?)

[personal profile] circumitus 2019-09-16 10:13 am (UTC)(link)
[When in doubt, being a smartass is the way to go -- so Rey recognizes that right away without bothering to feel affronted by it, shrugging it off in order to take a moment to assess the hallway in question. At least from a safe distance and angle so as not to get her face shot off. She was never much a fan when that happened.]

Maybe not so random...

[Squint.]

See any alcoves or someplace to take cover while the turrets are on? Beelining isn't exactly foolproof.

[Then again, nothing really is when you're planning to run right into a storm of bullets, but oh well. She's faced down worse.]
redwinekindofgirl: (024)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-09-16 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[Julie, too, can do very much without having her face shot off. It just reminds her of trying to get across the boarder into Canada, when the wall's defence systems went haywire.

She glances across at the question, then peers back into the corridor and presses her lips together.
]

Maybe there. [She points out a likely position.} And there, but I didn't see where all the bullets were coming from. I mean, I'm not out here to get shot.
circumitus: Why was that not a good enough reason to put me to bed? (threw a jar of pickles at a police car)

[personal profile] circumitus 2019-09-18 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
[Her eyes dart to the location Julie points out, studying it for a moment. She nods absentmindedly.

[Seems legit.]


Same.

[Despite supposedly not being here to get shot, Rey doesn't hesitate to bolt forward. The defense systems immediately spring to life. Bullets spear the floor as she weaves back and forth out of the turret's aim, boot kicking the wall a couple times to avoid getting shot in the legs.

[Before long, she disappears into a small recess on the right side of the wall.]


...

[A few seconds pass. A hand pokes out just out of the turret's range, thumbs up, for Julie to see.]
redwinekindofgirl: (129)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-09-21 03:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[Julie doesn't follow, because she's been shot at once already and isn't keen to make a repeat of it. Instead, she watches Rey dart across the room and manages to keep her sound of triumph when the woman ducks into her first hiding spot.]

Great! Now you just have to get across the rest of the room without dying!

[Just a few more thumbs up to go, right?]
circumitus: There's my chippy! (where's my chippy?)

sorry this is super late! (´;д;`)

[personal profile] circumitus 2019-10-10 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
[Getting shot at is small potatoes for Rey. She's been shot and stabbed and blown apart enough times than anyone normal would ever care to say is normal -- and those were times before she knew her bodies could be replaced.]

Just need to get close enough to take out the guns.

[She could probably do that from here, but she prefers trying her luck.

[With that, she bolts towards cover in the next alcove, getting a better view of the weapons. At least now she's within comfortable range and distance from Julie that she can work on frying out their firepower... by fighting it with a little fire of her own. Before long, the air in the corridor begins to undulate with heatewaves, as the metal of the turrets glow red hot.

[It's okay. She's done this before; she can do this again.]
redwinekindofgirl: (021)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2019-10-13 11:23 am (UTC)(link)
[It's impressive to watch, though it gets more difficult to see what the woman is doing as she moves further away. Julie's not chancing getting any closer than she is, even if the turrets seem more focused on their new target now.

She doesn't get shot at much, if only because the Dead are bad at handling firearms, but she has been shot at (thanks, Null) and she's not at all keen to have it happen again if she can help it.

But she sees that odd shimmering in the air, the way it moves in a way it shouldn't, and she leans forwards slightly to call out.
]

Uhhh... something weird is happening!