( 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

iv with a bit of iii, hope this is okay!

[rehabbed]

[ Those noises in the walls. Every thumping bang sets Jesse's teeth right on edge, makes him flinch, almost jump out of his skin with panic. Every voice sends a chill down his spine. But then— A child's voice. It sounds like a child, anyway, faraway and muffled, crying out for help.

That's the voice Jesse has been chasing. He moves down the corridor, hands pressed against the wall, ear sometimes pressing against the wall, too, when the voice seems to fall silent. Until he hears it again, further ahead, which sends him chasing after it more. The dread in his stomach is a nauseous knot, thick and unsettling, and the voice seems to come to a stop by a room. Which Jesse barges into, the moment he fumbles the door open.

He comes to a very sudden stop at the sight he's met with. A huge guy, in a towel, holding a knife to his lower stomach like he's about to disembowel himself. Jesse probably looks mad, with his shaggy, filthy hair, and his wild, haunted eyes, his skittish gaze, his unkempt beard, scars on his face. A crazy, skinny, malnourished hobo. Staring at the guy, at what it looks like he's about to do. ]

[tumang]

[ Getting a knife was easier than he thought it'd be, considering his current circumstances. Back home, he would not go anywhere without a butterfly knife, and he still carried one with him, even on the Roci, even with so many better, more powerful weapons to work with, too. He'd woken up on Reverie without even his trusty pocket knife, without friends and without support and without... anything.

It was surprising to him that the first person he'd asked a knife from had actually one to lend him. Lend. Yeah, sure. Good luck getting that knife back.

It was an emergency, anyway, considering what was currently going on. Amos wasn't exactly known for making the best decisions, but he couldn't imagine Holden or even Naomi disagreeing with opening him up to find out exactly what's moving under his skin. And he's just about to do that when the door to his quarters open, and he looks up to find the most haggard guy ever, looking at him with wide, wild eyes. ]

Don't know what you're looking for, but this ain't it, buddy. Move along.

[rehabbed]

[ Jesse doesn't move. Doesn't answer. His eyes have been drawn down to— it looks like he's staring at the guy's crotch, but that's not where he's looking. Not at all. His expression morphs into something baffled, mystified with creeping horror. ]

Y-Yo...

[ That comes out a little faint as he lifts a hand and points a slightly trembling finger at the guy. At the thing moving underneath the guy's skin, just above where the towel is lashed low around the guy's lower stomach. ]

[tumang]

[ Amos spares the guy another look, before rolling his eyes. ]

Yeah, I know. What, you think I was just about to gut myself for shits and giggles?

[ Fuck this. Amos puts the knife to his skin, starting to cut along the pulsing thing inside him, pressing until he feels something foreign, gritting his teeth against the pain. He doesn't stop until he's got a couple inches open, enough for him to reach in. ]

[rehabbed]

[ All Jesse can do is stare, the mystified horror on his face dissolving into frozen expressionlessness. Once upon a time, witnessing such a thing would have made him shriek out in horror. Jesse has long since learned to internalise horror, fear, disgust. A part of him - the human part of him, whatever shred of humanness is left in him - wants to recoil, look away from the grisly, disturbing sight. Another part of him - the part that's forgotten what being human even means anymore - goes into a strange detached numbness, unable to look away.

He swallows thickly. His mouth goes both dry and watery while his stomach churns. He thinks he might be sick. He sees that thing beneath the guy's skin slithering around. He doesn't know what's worse: Seeing that thing, whatever it is, moving around like a parasite, or seeing the guy begin to sink his fingers into that fleshy cut he's slit along his lower stomach. ]

Wh... What the fuck...

cw: blood, body horror, injury

[tumang]

[ That's something Jesse and Amos have in common, then; the ability to completely detach themselves from the moment. Amos, with years of practice, has learned to remove any emotion from any situation, leaving him often empty behind the eyes. Needs must, he says.

He looks down at the open wound he's given himself, sinking thumb and index in the cut to grip onto - he pulls, the thing slippery with blood, trying to escape Amos's hold. He hisses, face scrunched up as he pulls, pulls, pulls, the thing feeling like it's feet and feet long, coiling all around his body, making it difficult to breathe.

It's just slight panic, though, and Amos finally gets an inch out, the end of the thing popping out of him with a small spray of blood, splattering the floor and his towel. He closes his hand around it, and keeps pulling.

He lets out a loud, harsh breath when the thing slips out of the cut on his lower stomach, his skin bloody and an angry red around the edges of the wound. In his hand, limp, dangling lifelessly: a wire. Long, thin, looking like it might be copper, underneath the blood. ]

What. The. Fuck.

[rehabbed]

[ Why is he watching this? Why can't he look away? What's wrong with him? The back of his throat tightens, a retching gagging threatening to cut loose. At the same time, everything seems to close around him until he feels like he's watching all of this unfold through a long tunnel. He's disappearing into himself. Dissociating.

Maybe the only reason he can't look away is because he needs to know what that thing under the guy's skin is. Maybe, somewhere in the back of his dumbstruck mind, he knows whatever that thing is could wind up affecting him, too. Maybe that's why he takes a step forward instead of backing away. He finds himself crossing the threshold of the door into the room, his mind splintered away from his body and leaving him in a surreal autopilot state, as perplexed disgust flinches its way across his still numb expression.

The closer he gets the more that flinching, dismayed disgust takes over, and when the guy finally rips that long, dangling thing out of himself, Jesse is standing right near him with wide eyes, mouth agape, face pale as a sheet. ]

Th... That can't b... That's— Jesus. [ He gulps, and then with sudden alarm: ] Drop it, yo, drop it, y-you don't know if-if that's thing's gonna—

[ If that thing is going to come to life. It was, after all, seemingly wildly alive inside this guy just a second ago. ]

[tumang]

[ There's white noise in Amos's ears. Honestly, he can hear the guy talk, something panicked about it, but it just goes straight through, doesn't register, as Amos looks at the wire in his hand. There's a tiny pool of blood in his palm, collecting from his own fingers, and the wire itself.

How did it get where it was? Did Amos get drugged, did someone perform surgery on him just to insert a wire into his chest? What's the fucking point?

He slowly comes back to the moment, blinking a few times before he looks back at the guy in front of him. He doesn't drop the wire, instead grabbing it with both hands and wiping the blood off on his towel. Then he brings it up to his eyes, looking at both ends. ]

The ends have been cut off clean, and there's no current going through it.

[ It's just a wire. ]

What I don't get is how and why?

[rehabbed]

[ Jesus, what is this guy doing? Jesse thinks to move, to swipe it out of the guy's hand and throw it as far away from the both of them as possible. He's frozen, though. Frozen on the spot, staring. He watches the guy wipe it clean, and inspect it, while a weird depersonalising hum rings with delayed shock in his head.

The guy talking brings Jesse's mind back to the present. He blinks his attention back into focus and peers down at the wire. He finds himself talking, pointing to it. ]

That's— It looks like... like copper. [ It looks like copper, but they're on a futuristic spaceship, so it might not be copper at all. Still. It looks like copper. ] Copper's, like... It's a conductor. Like, for electrical circuits and battery cells and stuff. It ain't gonna have a current if it's not hooked up between a, uh— Like, a-a cathode and a, um... an anode, or something. A positive and a negative terminal.

[ Which... sends a chill down Jesse's spine, because why would a conducting wire be inside somebody? ]

[tumang]

[ Amos is still entirely detached, like this thing wasn't in his body only minutes ago. His face is entirely blank, just focused on the wire in his hands. ]

Maybe it got in via my bullet wound, but I didn't feel any of it.

[ The other guy starts to speak, and Amos blinks. Well, at least that's correct. Amos is very well acquainted with these kind of wires. This one is thin, probably not able to carry much of a charge, but if it was actually live, it'd have given him a shock, and so far, nothing. ]

Yeah. The human body is a pretty good place to create some charge, though. Maybe that's why it was moving.

[ Without hesitation, he brings the end of the wire to his mouth, pressing his tongue to it. Nothing, besides the taste of blood. ]

Yeah, I don't think it can hurt anymore.

[rehabbed]

[ It's possible that's why it was moving. Jesse's mind is fixated on the why it's in there, though. He really doesn't like the possibilities his mind is coming up with. It makes the chill running down his spine even colder. ]

Or maybe it was inside you because someone put it there.

[tumang]

Well, I didn't put it there, that's for sure.

[ Amos pokes at his wound again, moving around the guy to go to the bathroom again, tugging a big wad of toilet paper and pressing it to the bleeding. Gotta apply some pressure and staunch it, otherwise he's going to be even more of a mess soon. ]

If it was someone else, means I was drugged during my sleep.