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

[kaballin]

"Something out there blew up." He gestures towards the sky, ceiling, whatever. "A star or something, I'm not a rocket scientist."

He's a little annoyed that he's probably gonna die in a few minutes from that thing crashing into the dome and all he has is tequila sunrises.

[numerouno]

He's talking about the lightning, right? He's gotta be talking about the lightning. Scaramouche doesn't know what it was he saw that morning. All he could think to do at the time was stare up at the spectacle in morbid awe.

His glowing optics turn to the darkness beyond the bar area. Guess the power hasn't come back on in the main atrium yet.

But wait; what if the guy isn't talking about the lightning?

"Don't go anywhere, babe."

And he's off to go take a look.

[kaballin]

"You're not the boss of me." But since he was heading to the bar anyway he's gonna keep on doing that, even if part of him wants to go somewhere else just to spite Scaramouche.

Shoving the stupid broken bar-bot out of the way he goes behind the counter to grab himself a whiskey because he's not about to have his last drink be a badly made tequila sunrise.

"Gonna go get a front row seat to the end of the world?"

[numerouno]

Scaramouche catches the first part, but not the second; he's long gone before then. He returns after a few minutes to find Mister No-Name right where he left him and the bartender hard at work as always, wiping the same corner of the counter over and over.

"There's nothing to see out there," comes his voice from behind the man. Nothing but darkness. "Looks like the show's over."

[kaballin]

"Too bad for you. Guess you're gonna die never seeing whatever the hell blew up." He still has his mask on but the empty glass nearby indicates he's already downed one. Maybe time for another.

"I'm sure there'll be a fun encore right before it hits the dome and we all suffocate."

[numerouno]

"What makes you so sure that will happen? You said it yourself, babe: you're no rocket scientist."

He'd give the cat a patronizing pat on the shoulder, but he doesn't know where he's been.

"Anyway, if you want to spend your 'final hours'--" the air quotes are practically audible-- "at the bar, go ahead. I thought you'd want to let off some steam; kick the servants around, kill a radioactive creature or two."

Scaramouche might be reveling a little in his companion's despair.

[kaballin]

Scaramouche has got him all figured out. He sits there for a few moments, contemplating the empty glass, looking like he might just stay and spend his final hours at the bar.

But then..

"What radioactive creatures?"

You got him Scaramouche.

[numerouno]

A shock-white grin splits his face in half; then, in the blink of an eye, it's gone, replaced with a docile smile. He gives a careless shrug.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the blackout caused a malfunction and let something in through the front gate."

He doesn't know if it did, but he's starting this particular patrol from the top of Anchor and working his way down; he's heading to the garage first.

[kaballin]

Hook.

Link.

Sinker.

"It did?" He sets the glass down, turning to look over at Scaramouche, trying to be casual like he's not interested. "Something worth fighting or one of them dumb blob things?"

He is very interested.

[numerouno]

Scaramouche rests a hand on the hilt of the blade at his side.

"Let's say we go find out?"

[kaballin]

Behind the mask his eyes flick to Scaramouche's sword. Well that's a good sign, that means fighting potential.

He stands up with a little more enthusiasm than he's trying to show. This isn't someone who's good at playing it cool, he wants the things he wants and those things are generally found at the end of his hookswords.

"Alright, you have my undivided attention." For no reason whatsoever he pulls one of the swords off his back and smashes a bottle behind the barbot, showering the poor thing in a sudden explosion of tequila.

"Lead the way."

[numerouno]

"I knew you weren't a lost cause," he teases, pleased by the unnecessary display of pent-up rage.

He turns on his heel and leads the charge to an enemy that hasn't been sighted by anyone. The point being, anything could have happened while the lights were out. Scaramouche is hoping the rat might have shown themselves, thinking to take a short-cut by moving under the cover of darkness to get to places.

The lights in the main atrium are flickering on now. Good timing.

"Look out for the rat."

[kaballin]

"Rat?"

His guess is that Scaramouche means a person who sold him out, but considering this place there might just be a giant rat running around. Hopefully lugging a slice of pizza with it just like back home.

"Gotta be a little more specific than that."

[numerouno]

If they were that kind of rat, they'd be dead by now. Scaramouche would have seen to that.

"Anyone you don't know or anyone you do know who's acting fishy."

Putting it in simple terms for the simplest man he knows.

[kaballin]

"Now you're speaking my language." Because that pretty much means he can punch whoever he wants. Not that he needs permission but an excuse? He'll take a solid excuse.

"Anyone in particular not being themselves right now? Cuz that seems to be a recurring thing.."

[numerouno]

"You got any favorites?"

Scaramouche usually avoids the elevators on his patrol, opting to take the stairs unless he wants to change it up. His route has to be different every day, every night; he can't be predictable.

He wonders if his companion will be a dumb mug and hop into the elevator coming up on their left, right after a colony-wide power failure.

[kaballin]

"Qubit seems a good start." He eyes the elevator, just to see if anyones on it, but he's sure as shit not getting himself trapped in a small metal box and starving to death if the power goes out again. He's not smart, but he's got too much common sense for that.

"Maybe one of the nerdier do-gooders." Sure he knows their names, but he doesn't feel like remembering them. "How about you, anyone piss you off lately?"

[numerouno]

Two-Bit's harmless. He spends too much of his time in the labs and not enough of it taming that wild thatch he likes to call hair.

Has anyone truly gotten on Scaramouche's bad side in this place? He thinks of the bot he decapitated on his first day.

"I took care of it," he answers with a shrewd smile.

[kaballin]

"That so?" Has someone been out here murdering people and Kabal didn't get to watch? Well that's unacceptable.

"Messy or clean? Because I didn't see the aftermath of nothing."

[numerouno]

"What did you want, an exhibit?"

The delivery is deadpan, but the smile is still there.

[kaballin]

"If you're getting up to no good, the least you can do is do it somewhere public and entertain the rest of us. That's just polite."

Maybe running an underground fight club for years hadn't given him the healthiest view of what constituted 'entertainment'.

"I'd do the same courtesy for you."

[numerouno]

Now there's a place Scaramouche hasn't been to in a while: a fight club. He's never been to one to participate or to spectate; you'll only find him at one if he's following up on a lead.

"You're right," he answers, not really meaning it, "but I didn't start it."

[kaballin]

"Since you're here talking to me I'm guessing you finished it." He twirls one of his hookswords, just itching to slice something to pieces. It's been too quiet lately. Well in terms of things to kill anyway. What happened to the radioactive animals to fight? Or like... zombies. Maybe an army of demons.

He's not picky.

[numerouno]

"You know, you've got a point. Where were my manners? How's this, babe: the next time someone tries what they tried? I'll call you."

Scaramouche watches the man fidget with one of the blades. He hasn't seen them in action, but he's sure they've seen some.

[kaballin]

"It's only polite. I'd do the same for you. Hell I might put out a city-wide broadcast cuz I'm such a nice guy. Looking out for the little people who might want some entertainment."

Because that's what being "nice" is to Kabal apparently.

"You any good with that sword?"