january 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Seventh Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of January 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.

a. champagne supernova.

Normally, the changes in the sky are subtle, happening between glances or over the course of days.

That's not the case now, when the bright sky with its three suns is wiped away in an explosion of blue light, right at sunrise on the morning of January 1st. The light pulses across the sky in uneven blazes, sending out lattices of what might be lightning or something worse. There's no moon. No brightness. Just this lightning-storm brilliance in space, shedding little light on the world below.

And the suns don't come back on. As the day wears on, the supernova brightness in the sky starts to fade out and no new light appears. The sky is static and black, with no stars, no moons, no suns. The mild rolling blackouts that started with the opening of the relaxation room intensify with the sudden loss of solar power, as the backup systems try to compensate for the increased use of power.

For a moment, power goes out in Anchor entirely, leaving the place plunged into darkness.

The darkness doesn't last. Thanks to those generators everyone worked so hard to sort out, the backup systems struggle back to life, keeping the lights on and the bar, kitchen, and agricultural supports open, but there are some things that the limited power just can't cover.

b. tower of babelfish.

The first, and perhaps the most noticeable system to start failing, are the auto-translation programs. While not affecting every area in Anchor equally, communication between those who speak different languages is going to be a lot more difficult. The effects are spotty, coming and going, sometimes completely failing, leaving only people's naturally-spoken languages available. Sometimes it just struggles, making conversations sound a lot more like babelfish translations than recognizable speech. People themselves seem to be affected differently by the translation struggles, depending on who and where they are. There's no rhyme or reason to when and how it fails. But the problem persists through most of the month.

c. the hidden passage.

The second system failure is harder to spot.

At the end of what seemed to be a maintenance hallway, a set of doors have appeared from behind what used to be a shielded hologram of a dead end. The doors stick out from their surroundings: thick metal, barred heavily from the outside. A clear attempt to keep something locked away inside, not to keep people from entering.

For those adventurous enough, or foolish enough, to wrestle the locks open, a problem will reveal itself. A short flight of stairs, leading down into an area flooded by murky water. It's hard to see more than branching halls down below.

Those who choose to brave the water will find a hallway lined with bulkheads and sealed doorways, all guarding rooms that could be accessed with the right combination of smarts and brute force. It's the question of what would be ruined by the water if the doors are opened that might give people pause. What kind of secrets could be wiped out or destroyed if the doors are forced and the water passes through the bulkheads? Can the water be drained? How?

But there is one room open, or mostly open, where the bulkhead doors didn't quite manage to seal when the area flooded. It'll be a squeeze, for bigger characters, but the flooded room beyond contains artifacts preserved behind glass - strange medallions, strings of glowing beads, broken sceptres, arrows fletched with feathers from creatures no one has ever seen before.

Only one object isn't sealed away. It's a handful of small orbs, with shifting colors, held in place by a shield array that still seems to function, for the most part. They can be touched, can even be removed from the stand with the right know-how or a willingness to smash stuff.

But once an orb is touched, the colors start to spin more rapidly. The more it's handled, the brighter and faster the colors shift. Whether it takes hold immediately or not is up to you, but those who handled the orb will find the bright colors start to glow under the surface of their skin, in the shape of veins, glowing bright for a few minutes before fading. And those people bring a different kind of contagion back with them to the surface. Memory loss, communicated from one person to the next via contact. It can be partial or complete, or not happen to your character at all - they can be an unwitting "carrier" of the effects, passing it on without experiencing the losses themselves. The loss can last from hours to weeks, with carriers being "infected" for the duration of that time.

It also leaves behind magical traces, ones that don't fade after memories return. The cleverest might start to wonder if it wasn't a kind of inoculation, though against what, it remains to be seen.

Navigation.

Comments

[scowlish]

[Even at fifteen, Onni had known Lalli well enough to recognize the signs of an impending meltdown, but he doesn't have the memories of how to deal with it properly. Doesn't have those years of experience behind him, all those trials and errors and learning experiences. So he steps forward toward Lalli and reaches out for him as his hands lift to clap over his ears and closes his hands against his shoulders.]

It's okay Lalli, don't worry.

[It's similar to how he might comfort Tuuri, squeezing his shoulders and then patting carefully.]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, it's okay. Calm down, don't worry...

[lallipop]

[Everything Onni does is wrong. The way he moves, the way he talks, and for all that they look the same as they always have Lalli is eight years old again, sitting on a boat, listening to Tuuri cry and Onni alternate between unconvincing, tight-lipped reassurances and grim silence, knowing without really understanding yet that everything they know and loved had just been forever destroyed. Being pulled along, utterly powerless, the only recourse just to weather it all.

The roaring in his ears is like the sound of the water.

All of it's too much, and he jerks away from Onni as soon as his hands take his shoulders. This Onni doesn't know how to help him.

But unlike him, Lalli does remember their history and the experiences that made it, and he knows how much he's capable of unintentionally hurting Onni. And he doesn't want to make this worse.]

Sorry. I--

[You're not leaving me, right? Guilt spikes in his gut. But he can't do this. Not right now. He doesn't know how to be the pillar, and suddenly he wonders how Onni ever managed it. He wants to, but he's eight years old and his grandmother is telling him to run.]

I'm sorry. Find Reynir. Okay? He'll help you. I'll find you later. I promise.

[scowlish]

[He realizes he's done it wrong when Lalli jerks away from him so harshly, the minute he touches him. Onni drops his hands to his sides, his fingers closing into loose fists at his sides, his body a bit tense, and he keeps looking at Lalli, unsure of how to help, unsure of what to do. For the moment, at least, most of his own distress is forgotten because he's worried about his cousin.

But Lalli steps back and away from him and Onni lets him go, can feel the tears welling up again because Lalli doesn't look any better and he can kind of tell it's going to happen right before it happens. Lalli looks at him and apologizes and tells him to find Reynir and that he'll find him later and Onni can tell he's going to go. He's going to leave him out here by himself in a place he doesn't know, and Onni's heart starts pounding, lifts a hand to reach out for him.]

Lalli, don't...please don't leave me by myself...