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

[abheirrant]

"The necrotic energy rotting through the walls?" he asks, as though he needs clarification. "Someone... used necrotic energy to rot through the walls."

And realizing that might not be as self-explanatory as he thinks it is, he continues, pulling his eyes away from his work on the wall. "The walls here are merely metal, and necrotic magic is able to break it down the same as it would any other material. It rusts and buckles until it can be easily broken by any brute with a strong arm and enough gumption to do so."

He turns back to the wall, purposefully avoiding eye contact as he continues. "Someone- a magician capable of wielding such foul energies once did so near the generators. Had those been damaged, it could have meant a terrible end for this place and all who live there. Even if they did not mean any harm, I- I am hoping to prevent that from happening again with wards that would repel magic of that sort. Better safe than sorry, after all."

[einselective]

Right. A wizard did it. At least according to this fellow.

"Is this individual still here? Was it an accident?" she asks, a bit harshly.

With the emissary she'd angered... no. No, it hadn't been an accident at all. And the inevitable outcome for those who'd been holed up there to try to stay warm...

Better not to dwell on it. She swallowed hard and instead looked more carefully at the marks being etched into the wall. Meaningless gibberish as far as she could tell.

[abheirrant]

Were Carlisle still capable of sweating nervously, he would be doing that right now; as it is, he doesn't manage to completely shake the tremble from his voice, nor the one in his hand to match it.

"N- no I don't- I don't know." Yes, very believable. He goes back to etching, hoping his work will keep his hand from shaking. "Surely it was an accident, though. Who would- who would want to put themselves and everyone else at risk?"

Or just everyone else, if they were an undead who could survive without air.

[einselective]

Marian just makes a vaguely disgruntled noise at that. Who indeed. Someone who didn't care beyond apparent glee in the existence of free energy and breaking down atomic bonds, something well outside conventional understanding of the word 'life'...

This fellow definitely knows. Should she assume they're still here then? It seems reasonable, given how inhospitable the outside environment is to anyone or anything. Ask further or settle for now? Marian's not sure, and so lets an uncomfortable silence fall for a few moments while Carlisle finishes drawing.

[abheirrant]

The silence may be uncomfortable, but it's marginally less so than the conversation, so Carlisle is happy to continue without another word to her until he's finished. When he steps back several minutes later, what he's produced is an ovoid array that covers most of the door, one surrounded by various arcs and sigils, each intricate detail required for the final effect. Some arcs house a sigil all to themselves; others are written still between the various lines, a script from which the spell will read.

After another moment to inspect his work, making sure every piece is where it ought to be, he stoops next to the bottom of the array and places a hand on the lowermost arc, and lets his energy flow into the glyph. It illuminates bit by bit, energy flowing into the lines like water through a channel until it touches itself on the other side. The glyph shines brightly for another second or two, then finally dims, leaving behind a faint glow that, too, fades.

Carlisle nods, apparently pleased, and turns back to her.

"Forgive me for finishing this before a proper introduction. My name is Carlisle Longinmouth, and this room should be safe from such threats for now."

[einselective]

When he turns back, Marian's clearly been watching, right hand half-covering her watch and fiddling with the band in what will no doubt, in time, become a very familiar nervous gesture.

Longinmouth, network ID match. So, the same fellow going on about 'technomancy', right. Obviously magic doesn't exist, but something unfamiliar enough to appear as such... well, this is the latest item to add to that list.

"Dr. Marian Tenebris. I believe we communicated a short while ago," she replies a bit flatly, approaching to frown at and have a closer look at the etchings of the glyph. She's not about to touch it though. "I hope there are more conventional security measures in place at the generators now as well."

[abheirrant]

Oh, they have spoken -- Carlisle looks mildly, but pleasantly surprised, putting together network ID with the name he's given in his own head, as well. He watches as she surveys his handiwork; she doesn't sound impressed.

"Likely not ones that can repel necrotic energy," he assures her as he steps away from the wall himself. The glow of the glyph fades completely after another step. "But measures nonetheless. Did you get a hold of Mister Qubit?"