( 0 0 1 » ENSEMBLE ) welcome to the inaugural log

[reveriemod]

» WHO? everyone
» WHEN? may 1 onward
» WHERE? all over the station
» WHAT? introductory log feat. waking up, exploration, meeting over food and noises in the walls
» WARNINGS? potential for body horror, psychological horror, hallucinations, physical injury

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home.

( ♪ )

( 0 0 2 ) LOOK AROUND

You've woken up — but where have you woken up? It may be time to explore your new home. Rifling through a crew quarter will make the room's terminal lock to the comms device you're carrying; the room becomes yours. That includes everything in it, from the additional jumpsuit to the two extra sets of underwear. In some quarters, you may find remnants of whoever was here before you: a book on the nightstand, a coffee mug still on the table, a lonely sock on the floor.

A look around the shared areas will reveal the bar, some of its bottles already open, the mess hall, observation deck and the gym area with its dirty pool. An even closer look around these areas might reveal basic first aid kits as well as basic tool kits and fire extinguishers. The kits are located near the fire extinguishers in compartments in the wall that are not immediately visible. Hopefully, nothing's on fire and no one needs first aid... but that tool kit might come in handy.

Every now and then, as you explore, you might find yourself standing before a door that is locked. Try as you might, you will not be able to get it open.

( ♪ )

( OOC: What items characters find of those who were there before them is up to players, but please limit it to a single item that is mundane and somewhat useless in nature. )

( 0 0 3 ) HAVE A BITE

Sooner or later, all characters will have to make their way to the mess hall if they want to eat. In the mess hall, here are a number of replicator-like devices that sometimes work and sometimes don't— but after a recent malfunction that some characters may have noticed, they seem to work just fine... or at least as well as ever: nothing is particularly palatable, but at least it's nourishment, right?

So why not sit down at a table, whether it's already occupied or not, and have a meal. Maybe use it as an opportunity to introduce yourself, or just to complain about what passes for coffee around here.

And if coffee isn't your preferred beverage, well. There's always the bar.

( ♪ )

( 0 0 4 ) NOISES IN THE WALLS

For some, it's been over a week on the station. For others, merely a day or two. For all, things are starting to change: maybe you were asleep or maybe you weren't, but surely the scream that reverberates through the station will startle you. Was it human? Whatever it was, it seems to be coming from the walls of the station. Banging, clanging, then more screams.

Are you going to chase the sounds? Hide away from them? Try to investigate?

If you follow the sound of screams through the station's corridors and halls, you might feel someone - or was it something? - grab you from behind and pull hard. But when you turn around or turn your head if you've fallen, there's nothing and no one there. If you investigate and perhaps put your ear to a wall to see if the noises really come from there, or bang on the wall, you might hear something other than screams and clanging. Strain your ears and you might hear nothing at all — or you might be able to make out a soft "help me". It's barely above a whisper. Did it sound familiar? If you try to take apart the wall, two things will happen: you'll feel uncharacteristically weak and lethargic all of the sudden, and you'll find nothing at all but wiring and more metal.

Whatever you do, you'll find that the noises stop after a while, with no discernible source other than "the walls". And then hours later, they'll start again. Stop again. Start again a day later— and then stop for good.

( ♪ )

( O O C ) ACTIONS

Hello Reverie Terminal Operators! Welcome to our inaugural event. We hope you'll enjoy it!

To help exploration and interaction with the station, we have put together ten (10) 'actions' that you can request. These actions range from very minor, such as receiving a small piece of information about the station, to major, which may be a more vital piece of information or something far less pleasant, and are completely opt-in. These actions can help get your character involved in the plot, jump into the plot and its mysteries, and have more of a personal prompt to jump off of if you so wish.

Please note if you would avoid particular kinds of consequences (for example, if you'd rather your character not be injured), and we'll try to accommodate that, but please be aware that heavy themes are in play and the actions may feature body horror, injury and hallucinations.

If you'd like to receive an action, please reply to this comment with the following:
» Character: » Type of action: minor, medium, major » Notes:

In the future, actions such as these may be "bought" with bonus AC.



Please use content warning in your top-levels wherever necessary.

Comments

003

[veristitalian]

I'd say it tastes soulcast, but that's actually uncharitable to cast food.

[Agrees Jasnah, following his gaze down to the food, before taking a seat down at the other corner of the table. Sorry, but the face is filling up, and that means company.]

That's saying something.

[wentnuclear]

[ Soulcast? This must be a different worlds thing again, because Raleigh has no idea what the woman is talking about, but he gets the gist. And wholeheartedly agrees. ]

Never heard of it, but I believe you. Pretty much anything's gotta be better than this slop.

[ He's really hungry, so he shoves another forkful into his mouth. And looks very unhappy having to do so. After swallowing with a grimace he tilts his head at the replicators. ]

Do you have any idea how these things even work?

[veristitalian]

Half the time I can't work out how to activate them.

[She admits, with a look of absolute exasperation over at the machine.]

I know how something like it would work on my world, but it's plainly a completely different system.

[wentnuclear]

I mean, it seems like they're a little busted. Pretty sure they poisoned a bunch of people a few days ago, but it's not like we have any other choice.

[ They've gotta eat, right? They can't just not eat. If there are emergency resources elsewhere on this station, they're behind a locked door and Raleigh sure hasn't figured out a way to get past those yet. They're sealed pretty effectively, and despite searching he hasn't found any vents or access panels. It's frustrating. ]

[veristitalian]

Poisoned.

[She answers, flatly, with her own bite half way to her mouth.

Jasnah hadn't heard that. He's right, of course, but the news means she needs a moment before she can continue eating.]

Among my people there's men's food and women's food. It'd be taboo to share the same dish, or even eat at one table, in anything but exceptional circumstances.

[This isn't relevant, she just needs a moment to control herself before, yes, finally taking that next bite.]

[wentnuclear]

[ He's sorry to be the one to break that to her, but it definitely happened. Better to be prepared in case these things are on the fritz again.

The subject change is both random and... perplexing. Raleigh blinks at her, then his face scrunches in bewilderment. Seriously? Even as far back in history as he knows (and he's quite the history buff), sex segregation had never applied to food. Eating together, in some specific cultures, but not the meal itself. ]

Why? What even counts as men's or women's food?

[ It's possibly a very rude question, but he can't fathom why such a thing would be necessary. Does it apply to everyone? What about a mom feeding a young son? ]

[veristitalian]

Pepper for men, fruit for women. In the courts, it's separate feasts, cooked in seperate kitchens. At most tables, steamed cremling with a sauce for each. In an active war, perhaps just ceremonial seperate distribution to the two.

[And it's changed her palate. The sauce here is unexpectedly spicy to Jasnah, even if it's normal by most standards. A lifetime of no exposure makes a difference.]

All of our customs are much more strict. Men read here, and learn science?

[Amusing, but a little shocking.]

[wentnuclear]

That seems arbitrary. So you've never tried pepper?

[ Not that anything that comes out of the fabricators here could be considered a particular food, but it seems awfully restrictive. If he could, Raleigh would be making her try all the things. Food is important -- it's one of the first things to be shared across cultures, something everyone can enjoy even with total strangers. Seems like a shame to segregate that kind of thing. ]

We... yeah, men read and learn science. In my world women are the ones who didn't used to do that, actually. Education was only for men at first, women were sort of stuck just taking care of the family. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids. Eventually we figured out that was stupid, and there's no difference between people based on sex. There's still some prejudice out there in some cultures, but we're definitely better off since we started moving towards equality.

[ Then he seems to realize what he just said, and how rude it could sound. ]

I didn't-- not saying that your customs are stupid, just that you're missing out on a lot by saying half the world isn't allowed to do a certain thing.

[veristitalian]

I've tried it, because I agree with you. I've always felt strongly that trapping men and women both into these categories was a waste, and another irrational relic of a misguided religion.

[She says, and gamely takes a bite of food. She'd give anything for pepper of any kind here, honestly, or sweet.]

But I'm a well known irredeemable heretic. Unmarried, too. Yes, we have education in my world, but the family duties are ours as well. Trying to find someone to teach me military strategy was an ordeal.

[wentnuclear]

[ Oh good, she agrees. That neatly avoids the potential awkwardness of his judging her culture. Raleigh nods slightly, then his lips quirk at her description of herself. Looks like he's got a real trailblazer on his hands -- he admires that. ]

Sounds like you did find someone. How did that play out? If your culture's that strict about gender roles I can't imagine you were given a command easily either.

[veristitalian]

The answer to problems like that is to make yourself indispensible.

[No one else could do what she did, and so she'd ended up in- well, extremely unexpected positions. But enough of that, it's too much to really get into.]

Where were you, before you were here?

[wentnuclear]

[ Huh. She's sharp, alright. Raleigh isn't sure quite what she means by it, what making yourself indispensable as a war strategist would involve, but he lets it go when she changes the topic. Honestly, he probably doesn't want to know. The war he's been fighting in is... different. ]

The bottom of the Pacific ocean, last I remember. Or technically... maybe in another dimension entirely. There was a portal down there that led to an alien world, I was trying to blow it up.

What were you doing?

[veristitalian]

I was leaving a wedding.

[She admits, with a disoriented little shake of her head. It's incredibly difficult to remember how much everything had changed back home in the hours before she left. She's nostalgic to return to a world that doesn't exist any more.]

Was your other dimension Shadesmar? Or some other point along a perpendicularity?

[wentnuclear]

[ A wedding, huh? This must have been disorienting, then, to say the least. Raleigh doesn't feel like he lost any time, he blacked out and then woke up here and it had seemed like a natural continuation of things -- that he'd been fished out of the water and brought to a bunker somewhere. It had made sense, until it hadn't anymore. ]

Shadesmar? I don't think so, but I guess it could have been? We never had any sort of communication with the aliens unless you count them constantly sending monsters through to try and wipe us out. So who knows what they called that world.

What's a perpendicularity?

[veristitalian]

A perpendicularity is a means of crossing between two worlds. A bridge, of sorts, between them, where they run alongside one another.

[She answers, while she considers what he's saying.]

What was the other world like?

[wentnuclear]

Oh. I have no idea if that's what the Breach is. Or how they opened the portal in the first place, honestly. We don't have any technology capable of that sort of thing. Or the level of engineering they must have used to make Kaiju -- the monsters.

[ He frowns a little at her next question, not sure if he can answer that either. ]

I was busy, I only got a glimpse. It was dark, but everything glowed... there was energy like lightning, blue and purple, and something burning red in the distance. I didn't see the aliens.

[veristitalian]

I wish I could say I understood.

[She admits, letting out a regretful breath. It sounds fascinating, there are plenty of potential implications. She would need to be there to know more.]

We'll need to learn a great deal more about it if we want to find our way out of here. And I don't think we can afford to wait for the place to decide to send us home.

[wentnuclear]

Me too. I'm not a scientist, and people way smarter than me have been studying it for over a decade and come up with very little. I just hope it's over now, back home.

[ They could probably create another portal, and Raleigh's not really an optimist, but. He's got bigger problems right now, like being trapped on a space station. Jasnah's phrasing catches his attention, though. ]

This place..? You don't think we were kidnapped, then? Maybe this was just some cosmic wormhole accident?

[ He seems pretty skeptical about that. It wouldn't explain why everybody woke up already dressed in station jumpsuits, for starters. ]

[veristitalian]

Close to a hundred people, from half that number of points in space and time, across many universes... I struggle to imagine how an accident like that could possible take place.

It's nearly surgical.