modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2019-11-01 09:49 pm

november 2019. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Fifth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of November 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. outbreak.

There's a plague in the city.

What was an annoyance before, a bug that seemed to be passing, has erupted into a full-scale biomedical hazard. Onset is slow. It’s a near mystery who is infected and who isn't, who is immune and who isn't. Doors lock themselves seemingly at random to prevent people passing through. Is that person with you one of the sick? How do you know? Would they tell you if they were?

The city will do its best to isolate the ill, once again locking them out of communal areas and trying to force them down toward the MedBay for quarantine. All bots will be temporarily shifted to plague protocols, rounding up and caring for the ill as best they can. (Lucky you, you get your cough syrup with a mixer courtesy of the barbot.) But they might not always get things right, and what healthy person wants to be locked away in a ward full of the violently ill? How do the bots even know which is which?

The ill will slowly find themselves dizzy, lightheaded, with chills and fever. They may cough hard enough to spit blood from irritated throats, or sneeze so long and hard they give themselves bloody noses. The symptoms can vary wildly depending on body chemistry, species, and dozens of other factors, making it difficult to pin down a specific set that indicates a person is infected. All bodily fluids are dangerously infectious. Maybe you want to keep your distance from your friends if you start to feel the onset, to keep them safe. But you also want to keep your freedom, not get trapped in a room full of people who seem to be dying. And anyone who was exposed to the first outbreak will find themselves either completely immune to this new one through early exposure...or far more susceptible, their immune systems doing almost nothing to protect them, with extreme symptom sets that hit them much harder than the average infected.

And through all of this, that voice that cheerfully chirped out helpful hints during the item exchange, that giggled and sang songs in the crashed spaceship in the wasteland can be heard again - but this time it's different. This time, there's very little cheer left, and though the commentary is still sing-song, it's much harsher, more monotone and without much energy. 'Go on, hurry up to the MedBay. No breaking quarantine!' it says, or to those moving through the city with friends, 'You must not like those people much, are you sure you want to get them sick?' In the depths of the worst of it, in the third week of the month, people may start hearing more of those 'helpful' suggestions - 'Maybe it would be better if we just left them out in the wastelands, you know? For the greater good and all...'

Mod Note: An NPC post will be going up next weekend on [community profile] redshiftrp to supplement this prompt. Keep an eye out!

b. gone to shit.

With 90% of the city's bots repurposed to serve the ill (the matchmaking bot being the notable exception), things are starting to go downhill fast elsewhere. Didn’t realize how much work the bots were actually doing? You can't avoid knowing now.

Restaurants, slowly coming back online after the increased activity in the agricultural areas, are promptly shut down again with things starting to go bad in the fridges. The VR rooms have no attendants to help with glitches. The maintenance bots are prowling the halls looking for ill people to assist to the MedBay. The spa bots are all down in the lower levels helping keep people comfortable while they convalesce, leaving the spas to run themselves. Sometimes to overflowing. It's definitely going to be an adventure discovering what else the bots were doing to keep things running smoothly.

There's no bots manning the bar (make your own drinks while you can), but this also means there are no bots cleaning up the messes people leave behind in the bar either. The detritus of people living their lives starts to pile up - which means if you don’t want garbage filling up the most used common rooms, you're going to have to apply some good old elbow grease. Exactly what you wanted to do while everyone is violently ill, right?


c. dance of the moonlight jellies.

In spite of everything going on elsewhere in the colony, something magical is happening in the lakes and ponds of the park. Maybe your healthy or recovering character stumbles across it on their own. Maybe they see the glow from a higher levels and are drawn down to it. Maybe a persistent and super helpful voice, the same voice from the item exchange, the same voice that suggested throwing the sick out into the wasteland, suggests that you should go down and look at what's happening there.

However you ended up in the park, the place is filled with a silvery glow that emanates from the ponds, rivers, and lake. Fish have come up from the bottom, from where they were buried under the sand. They look almost like East Asian dragons, for those familiar with Earth. They're long, muscular, with two sets of fins trailing in the water like legs. Their heads are delicate, beautiful things that trail whiskers in the water along beside them.

And they're dancing.

In loops and whirls, over and under each other, diving deep and then rising up again to create patterns of light and shadow. Anyone who watches for more than a minute can start to feel relief moving through them, calm, the sense that things will be okay. Watching the dance is almost like meditation. Probably, for some, a much-needed break.

itsnotaonesie: (Default)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-09 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
[oh so this is just Qubit being RIDICULOUS got it

Anyway, Peter leans over to peep this thumb drive, yo.]


That's like malware, right? It can get you into a computer system that you wouldn't normally have access to.
writtendestiny: (040)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-11 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
[N O . Sneezing means nosebleeds!

There has been enough bleeding.
]

Work trips?

[Explain.]
writtendestiny: (060)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-11 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
[She catches that hesitation because Carlisle does not do a good job of hiding it, but she isn't sure what it's for. Her curiosity is only for what makes him different to other revenants like him, given that he is the only one that she knows.

But there is still a great deal that he never told her. A lot that he didn't know, when they knew each other before.

She listens, and there's a flicker of something like doubt on her face - something that tells of her realising he's hiding something, but she at least has the manners and tact to not point it out.
]

So... other revenants wouldn't have been healers before.
abheirrant: (❧ but what have you there?)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-12 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
No. They- they couldn't be. As I said, the energy that keeps me animated is counteracted by that used to heal. An undead shouldn't be capable of healing at all, and even if they were, they would not have the cognizance for it. Their energies, what ones they could wield, would instead shift toward the necrotic, as mine have.
And—

[More uncomfortable shifting, his eyes back on his lap.]

And it's not merely rotting away walls or ruining skin. It's raising the undead.
itsnotaonesie: movieconnoisseur (im not saying it's aliens)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-12 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
[Just that one time!

but no he never wants to see that much blood coming out of his girl again, NO THANKS.]


Oh man, it's complicated. See, I was recruited by this guy Tony to come help him stop this guy Steve from-- from doing a dumb thing. I honestly didn't ask for details, I probably should have but I was just a dumb kid. Anyway, we had to go to Germany to fight him and it was a whole thing.
redwinekindofgirl: (Default)

[personal profile] redwinekindofgirl 2020-01-12 04:53 pm (UTC)(link)
... Sure.

[And a nod, because she doesn't know Allison and Klaus hadn't talked about her even half as much as he'd talked about Ben. Does she believe that it isn't a big deal? No, not for a damn second, but not everyone is as free with their horrifying injury stories as Julie can be.]

What do you think of the place? Anchor, I mean.

[She makes a vague, all-around gesture with one hand.]

Most people freak out when they get here, or start trying to make threats like anyone really gives a shit. You look pretty chill.
writtendestiny: (068)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-12 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
[She would also like to not see that much blood coming out of her again, thank you.]

Hmm. [Interesting.] Tell me more about that. I like hearing about your life.
writtendestiny: (036)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-12 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
No, that... that's not what I meant.

[This whole thing is making him uneasy, she can tell, but she's still so convinced that the person sitting in front of her is not as far removed from the person she used to know as he would probably believe.

She wants to learn, though, about the person he is now.
]

Were they healers before they were revenants at all. Like you were.
abheirrant: (❧ but none could be found)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-12 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know. Perhaps, but- but one would have had to have been a healer and twice-cursed for it to be possible, and even then, it would be an unlikely situation. Revenants are terrible oddities, undeads who retain the abilities they did in life, even magic. While restorative magic is commonly practiced by anyone with even a hint of magical ability, true healers of my caliber are rare.

[Given how self-deprecating Carlisle can be, he must have really been an exceptional healer to have actually taken pride in his work. He often did consider it to be his true calling, his singular purpose in life -- and being stripped of that purpose has undeniably shaken him.]
writtendestiny: (067)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-12 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[She smiles when she hears that. It makes a change to hear him not saying something negative about himself.

And she notes that he says 'are', not 'were'.
]

Maybe... that had something to do with it. Why you can still do it now.
abheirrant: (❧ a sudden happening)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-13 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
That is what I assume, though that does not answer why I am aware now. Why it is I awakened in this form to be tormented by what I have done.

[And that brings him back to the question of if he's the only Revenant who would awaken like that. He's never heard of any others, though given how uncommon they are, how rare the right combination of traits and talents and curse-bound gifts would have to be to give him his particular set of skills—

There has to be a reason for it; it can't all just be unfortunate coincidence, can it?]
superposition: ((explain you a thing))

[personal profile] superposition 2020-01-14 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ that's my secret Cap, I'm always ridiculous. ]

[ nods ] Exactly. Once this is in, I'll be able to commandeer the platform and overwrite its command module. The trick is, the delivery vector I've chosen is a firmware vulnerability - essentially, it has to be plugged in manually, to a specific port, while still powered on.

[ He offers Peter the drive. ] And since it's not letting me close, I thought I'd let you take a crack at it.
itsnotaonesie: (110)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-14 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Anyway Peter takes that drive and looks it over with a nod.]


Jam this goober into the thingy-whatsit, got it.

[He flips it into the air and catches it all cool-like. so cool.]

You said a specific port, which one is that?
writtendestiny: (062)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-19 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[There has to be something to make it make sense. Something about him - or his curse - that's different and what makes him what he is. Could it have been his advanced healing abilities? Something peculiar about the way he was curse, or how long he lived after it finally, completely took effect?

It's an ample distraction from Poison's current predicament, and she furrows her brow while she thinks through it.
]

... Where did the curse start? Where does it come from?
abheirrant: (❧ he had some (many) concerns)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-20 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
It afflicts each twice-cursed differently, its manifestation varying from person to person. Some say it is the result of coming so close to death that one catches a glimpse of the land beyond living, their minds and bodies scarred from the experience. Some say it is for wasting a god's time, inconveniencing him by having him come to retrieve their soul, only to not have died after all. Some say the afflicted are poisoned from birth, and that what we perceive to be a curse is something they've had within them all along. There are many theories, but no one truly knows where it comes from.

[His brow knits.]

Did the other me not tell you this? You knew I was cursed, and what I would become.
Edited 2020-01-20 00:48 (UTC)
writtendestiny: (016)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-24 07:34 pm (UTC)(link)
You didn't like to talk about it too much. There's a lot I didn't get to ask.

[She liked Carlisle then, as she does now, and she hadn't wanted to push him too far. It had obviously been a sore topic, and the girl had not needed to press for more information to understand that.]

But I suppose it's not surprising that no one knows where it comes from. Do you have science where you come from? I don't.
abheirrant: (❧ i lost myself)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-26 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
We do, though it is very different from the science here. More alchemical in nature, and less... technological. I am still adjusting.

[And if his previous self never fully acclimating to technology is a sign, he'll be adjusting for a long time. His glowing eyes flick her way.]

How much did I know? About... this.

[A vague gesture toward him.]
superposition: (So let it be known)

[personal profile] superposition 2020-01-27 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ Yep, the goober and the thingy-whatsit, those are the technical terms, of course. ]

It's under the access panel on its back. The figure-eight port third from the right. Its right. [ A wry smile. ] Think you can manage?
writtendestiny: (029)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-01-27 12:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[She nods, understanding entirely. It's much the same for her, and alchemy is nothing like the science and technology that she has learned of since she began this journey.

When he asks his question, she closes her eyes in thought and lets out a slow breath through her nose.
]

You knew that the curse would mean you'd become a revenant. [She says carefully, rummaging through memories of conversations.] There was this... tar, that came out of you. You didn't know where it came from, only where it was said to come from. [Her large violet eyes open, and she looks at him.]

But you didn't know that you'd ever be aware of yourself again. I'm sure you didn't know that.
itsnotaonesie: (40)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-27 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Of course I can manage, it's not like you're asking me to save the world.

[Just a simple 'jam the thing into the other thing' mission, he's totally got this.]
livingdeadgirl: (smile 8)

[personal profile] livingdeadgirl 2020-02-04 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Ami is already about as comfortable as she's going to get, as she's still cozily enveloped in her little blanket cocoon, but she pulls her arms back inside and wriggles to make herself snug as a bug in a rug. (Someday she wil be able to do that literally.)

She pays close attention to the story, and saves whatever questions she has for the end. A creation myth! This is gonna be cool! ]
birdical: (💋 (i don't need the weight of words))

[personal profile] birdical 2020-02-04 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
[She waits patiently for Ami to get comfortable before starting, giving a dramatic flourish with her hands.]

My world was shapeless once. It existed, but was without life and character. That is when the three gods came. The first was Ulbrech.

[She stands, her back hunched, her hands splayed before her like huge claws.]

A great and lumbering beast, he rose from the ground, his back the highest of mountains. As he walked the world, he would shake off pieces of himself to become the hills and mountains, eventually making the valleys and the highlands. The fur that fell from his back buried into the ground, and became the trees. As he walked, the second appeared: Ulneft.

[She wriggles her arms like snakes, darting between the imaginary hills and valleys.]

Not at all like Ulbrech, Ulneft was fast. Their many feet cut into the ground, their tail becoming the rivers. When tired, they would curl for a nap, and form the ocean. And then they would sprint again, weaving across the plains. Their speed made the canyons, and where they have not yet been, the deserts. As the world below was made, so was the sky above by the third to appear: Ulfrith.

[She brings her hands above her, and with another flourish, she brings them together and moves her fingers like wings.]

Her wings became the clouds, each beat of them the wind. She gave us the light in her eyes, and the night when they are closed.

[She pauses there for effect.]
abheirrant: (❧ a creature with his skin)

cw: vague suicidal ideation

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-02-05 09:13 am (UTC)(link)
[His brow tightens in a mixture of disbelief and muted irritation.]

I am amazed I did not end it there and then, knowing what would become of me upon death.

[Was the other him truly that happy, so fulfilled in his life that he would risk dying and turning at any moment? What if something terrible happened to him one day? What if he dropped dead, and wasn't found for days? It would have been too late by then, and Hadriel would have become like Bear Den, menaced by its own scourge—

The what-ifs lead down a dangerous road of contemplation, one he's not comfortable with at all.]
writtendestiny: (107)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-02-09 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
You had things to live for.

[People to live for. Poison is sure that thoughts of putting an end to it must have crossed his mind then, too, but she doesn't doubt for a moment that Hadriel would have refused to make it easy for him.]

And... we didn't stay dead. Something about the beings that needed us there. They'd bring us back again. It might have just made things worse.

[She straightens up and reaches out, the tips of her fingers brushing his sleeve.]

Would you have really wanted to die? Really?
abheirrant: (❧ they weighed upon him,so heavy)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-02-12 09:46 am (UTC)(link)
[She says he had things to live for, but doesn't describe what those things were. Perhaps that garden, or the rabbit -- there had to be something that made him smile enough that she could capture his happiness in a drawing, but he has a hard time imagining what it could possibly be. The fact he is currently the embodiment of all he despises does not help his outlook, unfortunately. However, he was apparently once satisfied enough in a world where, had he died, he wouldn't have stayed dead.

So... not all that different from his own world, apparently.

He does not move as she brushes against his sleeve, but his eyes fall and affix themselves on the bed, shame coloring him; it ebbs into his visible features as a crease at his eye, a twitch in his brow. His voice is small, lingering in the back of his throat.]


It would have been the right thing to do. A kinder gesture to those around me than what could be.

[And yet, he selfishly chose to risk living. The beings Poison speaks of may have brought back the dead, but it would still be necromancy. This other him was truly a fool.]

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