the great escape.The Circle has quite a lot on their plate, this time around. Multiple players are fighting for the control of Akvos, and many difficult choices to make. No matter what path you choose, though, one thing is for certain: it is a bitter fight to the death to ensure that Akvos remains standing, one way or another. There are three main areas for the characters to explore in the final log of Akvos: (1) The Kingdom of Akvos, where the King is fighting to seize control; (2) The Rift, where the characters will encounter the Dreamscapes; and (3) The Kingdom of Polankos, which is where King Ka'pouli has reigned since his arrival in the pocket dimension. Decisions made in all there areas will affect the outcome of Akvos, so get to exploring.  THE ASSAULT ON WAHINE.The King’s forces will attack in three different fronts. There will be mermen attacking from above, riding saddled giant seahorses and manta rays, launching spears at the mermaid-warriors below with terrifying precision. They seem to be indiscriminate, in their aim -- the weaponry, charged with the same dark energy that the shadow creatures seem to be made out of, find their target in civilians and warriors alike, raining down a sea of terror upon the central stronghold of the Kingdom of Akvos.
The mermen will also be attacking at the ground-level, attempting to burst their way through the Palace Gates to flood the city with numbers. While the mermaids outnumber the mermen, the mermen are certainly more brutal than the mermaids. Some of them, though, in finding the city, are more concerned with looting it than with senselessly murdering everyone inside. Indeed, this is the most food they have seen in a long time -- and markets are destroyed in grabbing as much food and riches as they can, pressing closer to the Palace, and toward the Queen's stronghold.
And, finally, they will be attacking from below, navigating their way through a network of tunnels meant to transport goods and bursting their way into people’s homes, to sneak their way closer to their ultimate goal, which seems to be the Palace itself.
The Circle's main goal, here, is to protect civilians, usher theminto the underground strongholds beneath the Palace, and fight for their own lives should they attack the mermen first. Man the wall, if you so choose, to attempt to block the air attacks from the mantas. Fight on the ground, to protect Akvos from destruction. Or make your way to the underground strongholds and tunnels, to block access to the Palace. All of these will certainly assist in keeping Akvos safe.
In addition, please remember that shadow creatures (which can only be killed by magical means) are still making their way through the entirety of Akvos. While King Ka'pouli's forces are targeting the Palace of Wahine, the shadow creatures are still present everywhere. Get to killing!  INTO THE RIFT.Some of you, however, have elected to traverse into the mysterious rift that appeared in the midst of the Fields of Akvosia. It looks like a black hole into nothingness, crackling with odd energy . . . and passing through it feels as though you have stepped through an icy waterfall. For a moment, you cannot breathe -- and then, you are treated to beauty.
The gaps between time and space are full of sparkling lights, bolts of rainbow starlight winding around you as you move through the uncertainty that is the void. It seems endless, but something inside you is tugging you forward . . . and, suddenly, there is a soft voice in your ear. A familiar one, to those who reside within the Circle . . . the confused voice of Astoria.
 "Hello? My Travelers? How are you within the Void?" The Void? That word hadn't been used to describe whatever this magical place is before, but . . . well, a witch with the ability to send you all across the universe probably knows what she's talking about, right? "That should not be possible . . . who opened this doorway?"
You can tell her, or you can not. It seems to matter not, because: "Is this not getting through? Why can I not hear you . . . but I can feel you, I can -- please, if you can hear this, be careful. The Void is not something for mortals to interact with, and it can show you terrible things -- terrible things, so please--"
And, right before you have the opportunity to respond to our benevolent witch (or captor, depending on your point of view), you see a bizarre glass-like surface in front of you. It looks like a mirror, and you see a perfect reflection of yourself. It is absolutely captivating, and it beckons you . . . almost urging you to touch it. And Astoria's whisper grows a bit louder, more urgent:
"My dear Traveler, be careful what you encounter here -- can you hear me? Can you see me? I am trying to get you out of there, to bring you back home--Akvos is--"
But it is too late.
Your fingers graze the edge of the mirror, and you are pulled -- a sensation that is familiar to you, the same pull in your stomach that you feel whenever Astoria thrusts you across the universe, into new realities. And, when you blink your eyes again, and look around . . . you are no longer in Akvos, or the Void. You are somewhere entirely new.
Welcome to the Dreamscape.  THE KINGDOM OF POLANKOS.Once the Circle emerges from the Rift and the Dreamscape, they will stumble into another world . . . but this one's wateris shallow, in comparison to the massive depths of the crystal-clear kingdom of Akvos. You can quite clearly see the surface, here, and there are shallows that allow you to come up onto islands, tropical in nature with fruit, odd creatures that appear to be multiple-headed monkeys and parrots, and sandy shores. It's a bit jarring to see, after spending so long underwater. Indeed, you emerge to trudge onto land, and look around, somewhat mystified that the deep-dwelling mermen would be from a place like this.
However, exploring the islands (which is not very difficult to do, as they are all small and will not take very much time) will yield the discovery that on the islands themselves are tunnels -- underwater caverns that thread through the islands to much deeper water. It's almost as if the islands themselves are barriers to the underwater caverns below -- shallow water, a layer of land, and then a (mer)man-made bubble of water below the barrier of land. And that whoever lived on these islands tunneled through them to find deeper water. Princess Kea, (who will attend on these journeys, while remaining in the water), will tell the Circle members that King Ka'pouli told her that when the mermen were cast out, they landed on solid land, and had to slowly dig deeper to their salvation.
Navigating through these tunnels will be somewhat perilous -- and the Circle members will need to carry Princess Kea to the nearest tunnel to get her into some water, because while she can breathe on the surface for a certain period of time, she cannot navigate the land as quickly as you people with legs. Additionally, underwater caving isn't exactly a blast, but the deeper you go, the more clues of civilization you can find. And, eventually, once you go deep enough, you emerge into a massive underwater cavern to find the small Kingdom of Polankos.
In comparison to the Kingdom of Akvos, Polankos is witheringly depressing. It is not brightly colored, nor open -- indeed, it is tiny, with mermen huddled together waiting patiently for the forces that went through the rift to return. There is not a lot to find here, save for some interesting weapons that possess a dark energy, versus a lightning energy -- and those weapons will be given to the Circle members who ask for them, because those who wield them are in no condition to fight. There is little food, little room to sleep, and these are a people clearly in need of assistance.
In order to get them out of Polankos, you will need to usher them through the tunnels back up to the Rift above -- it seems that King Ka'pouli opened the Rift on the surface, rather than risk the city below in case it did not work. The mermen there (who seem to be elderly and weak) will be eager for the assistance to get out Polankos, and at the promise of being brought into Akvos, they will happily go. There will be no resistance from them.
You may also see Princess Kea, who has filtered in and out of the Rift to assist on the journey -- teary-eyed, heartbroken at the sight of these individuals who require rescue, organizing the mermen with the promise of keeping them safe in Akvos.
"Hurry," she tells you, as she rouses another merman into getting to the nearest tunnel. "We do not have a lot of time to pull this off, and we must work quickly." Additionally, please feel free to write up and work with your own prompts! These areas of the world are presented as jumping off points for your characters, not limitations. The idea of this world- as with all the others- is to explore -- you may use as much leeway as you want in order to come up with what your character will do, especially in the Dreamscapes. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask them back on the various threads back in the OOC post from before! |
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acatalepsy_logs2019-01-04 10:22 am
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9S pauses again, falling silent as he takes a moment to study Simon. It's weird to see a face to go along with his actions—an unhappy one, no less, along with the antsy-at-best demeanor 9S is beginning to see as a trend in him when they're thrown into the unsettling, risky situations. 9S has always had a tendency to blow him off when it happened, but maybe that was just easier to do when he saw someone with a body too similar to a machine and wonder why someone like that would grow anxious so easily.
But now he sees someone with the face of a human, and the distress actually dawns on him for once. He'll get back to the terminals later; for now, 9S closes the short space between them again, gently tugging at Simon's shoulder to still him. ]
Simon, calm down. [ Maybe it isn't the gentlest tone, but he tries. ] We'll figure it out. I won't let anything happen to you, either.
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Surprise flashes across his face. It’s not an unpleasant surprise. He figured out a while ago that the androids can’t fathom the things humans intrinsically feel the right to be able to expect from their own existence, and that most of his angst is either that, or falls into the “mundane facts of everyday YoRHa life” category. It’s not something he really thinks about consciously, not something Simon can even blame him for, but maybe he always works under the assumption that he’ll never manage to impress his anxieties on 9S. Plus, 9S is kinda just like that.
But now he’s being reassured, and with a pledge to protect him from harm?? In a 9S sort of way, but still. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it; scratches his temple quizzically and taps the Omnitool against the side of his leg, disproportionately thrown by this. ]
Yeah, well... I survived it the first time. If staying away from them doesn’t work out, we’ll do it your way.
[ He sneaks a glance at 9S’s feet, but does not disclose this epiphany he’s having about how he’s extremely tiny and Simon never noticed. I mean wow. With the boots, huh? Wow. ] But, uh- I found an Omnitool, so we can go.
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One sec—you said you didn't recognize where we are, right? [ Back at the terminal, 9S taps at a monitor with the back of a knuckle. ] This thing mentions "Upsilon". Does that ring any bells?
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[ He paces along the terminals, recognizing the interface just fine, but there were so many fucking screens and options down here, and Simon didn’t exactly have to understand them all to jury-rig them for his rudimentary PLEASE OPEN DOOR purposes. They could be from anywhere. He doesn’t care enough to have two of them looking at them at once. For all he knows, 9S would get more out of them than he does, even without ever having been here before. ]
If we’re in Upsilon, the power plant’s here... maybe that’s where a portal would be.
[ There’s no real logic in deciding that a magical rift in a non-magical dimension would be any more in one place than somewhere else. He just vividly remembers being able to see down that cooling tower thing as it spouted steam, glowing red like it led straight down into hell. Sure looked like a portal to something. ]
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[ Not that 9S has any idea where a portal is likely to wind up either, so Simon's reasoning is completely lost on him. He could shoot him a skeptical look, but 9S shakes his head instead. ]
We could guess, but if it's as dangerous as you say it is out there, we can at least play it a little safe. [ Regardless of whether or not Simon is any eager to wait around longer, 9S returns to the main menu on the monitor, pulling up the update logs next. ] I'll see if I can grab some kind of... hint, or whatever, out of this.
[ Maybe they'll end up with absolutely nothing. Regardless, 9S wants to see what's here. ]
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[ Being a backseat driver is pretty much the only thing there is to do in here.
The update logs, each found individually under its timestamp (with one exception) in a navigation pane, are: ]
2098-10-09
2099-07-11
2099-08-05
2103-01-14
Temp_Validate =? =?
2104-01-06
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Now that you mention it...
[ 9S stands straight, waving a holographic screen to life in front of him. There's another few windows he flips through, then: ]
... Whoa, awesome! Okay, this is good—my hacking functionalities are usually stuck on disabled these days, but it looks like I can get it all working again. Maybe I should just download all this data instead, then... No, no, if there's any barriers to get through, it's easier to...
[ This only ends up in 9S endlessly yammering on about what-ifs and other possible scenarios, thinking aloud over his options from here. At this point, he's less talking to Simon and more mulling it over with himself. ]
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Simon stares at him, uncomprehending. This is the Hackermanniest 9S yet.
But he hears the basic beats of it, and holy shit, he does not understand this compulsion androids seem to have to get their brains invaded by tsunamis of unknown data.
His response is wary. ] Download all of it? You don’t know what you’re downloading. You could- end up connected to the WAU, or shorting the whole place out. It’s 10,000 years old, remember?
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[ Back to the good ol' flippancy he is. Clearly, 9S isn't worried. ]
Have a little faith! What's some old, broken machine against a state-of-the-art model like myself, anyway?
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If those would even work on him. The ego might be right, in this case. ]
Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast and don’t break anything.
[ It’s said with all the enthusiasm of “fine, you can have a party while we’re gone, but no alcohol”. ]
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[ Simon knows how to be a real buzzkill, even if 9S knows it's the anxiousness talking. No amount of telling him it's going to be fine will make him believe it until all is done with, huh. Oh, well; 9S supposes he'll compromise in the meantime. ]
I'll just grab what's stored in here. [ He keys through a few more menus on the hologram, and then a download bar appears. ] It'll only take a minute—then we can go.
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When it’s almost done, a download bar appears on the screen, too. It starts at zero. For a few moments Simon assumes it’s part of whatever 9S is doing, but eventually he leans in to look at the line above its progress; they don’t usually hang on one thing like this, and why would it have an interface to display that it’s sending its data to an android in the first place?
... processing ...
His stomach does a sick backflip and he grabs 9S’s shoulder. ] Turn it off! Christ—
[ Incidentally, this is right when the computer goes black with a characteristic final bwooo of death and one last spray of sparks, evidently overloaded.
But hey, he gets to keep the data he got. ]
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Simon reacts before he does, however, jerking 9S back. The hologram flickers away, as does... everything else, apparently. Wow. Okay, that was weird. 9S is confident he likely could have handled that, but it appears the terminal took matters into its own hands.
When the dust finally settles, 9S cuts into the following silence with a very anticlimactic dryness: ]
Well, that was something. I guess that means we're done here.
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There are a lot of nuances that being a robot with a third of a face doesn’t allow you to communicate. Ordinarily, the look Simon now gives 9S before he answers would be unidentifiable, but now it at least carries the weary, apprehensive aura of “wondering if those harnesses they put toddlers in so they don’t run into traffic come in 9S size” if not the specifics. ]
Yeah. [ He presses his hand against the yellow door panel. It opens vertically, into a hallway. The door directly across from them has an electronic namecard next to it that says “Guy Konrad”.
It’s the same, on both sides, a line of crew quarters — Nadine Masters. Maggie Komorebi. Brandon Wan. Catherine Chun. Javid Goya. John Strohmeier. Mark Sarang. Robin Bass...
Some have yellow switches, some red. A few are red and have crank-operated pneumatic seals on the front, for good measure.
Simon takes a few steps down the hall, brows knitted in confusion. ] This is Theta. What?
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He does stop in front of Catherine's, briefly, when it's the one thing out of everything so far that's recognizable. 9S looks over his shoulder, like maybe it's something he wants to point out, but Simon expresses confusion before getting a word in is possible. ]
Sooo... The power plant is out of the question then, huh?
[ Look man this is going over his head. ]
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He stops by Catherine’s door, too, uncertain. He’s been in Catherine’s room before. It wasn’t the room he was supposed to be looking through, as she had miffily reminded him in her intermittent requests to not snoop through her things.
So, obviously, he’d forced her floating mainframe-bound consciousness to watch him open all of her drawers and respond to his uninvited commentary on every single thing she owned like an asshole sibling.
It feels like prodding a bruise to think about. Simon keeps going, onto the intersection if raised hallways in front of them, railed, the floor white (made to be white, at least). Nothing but steel. Bits like these are when it most feels like PATHOS-II is in space. ]
Really not a fan of Theta. [ His tone is almost conversational. It’s also a huge understatement and deeply charitable to Theta. ]
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[ Guess peeking into the rooms isn't happening, but if anything they really needed were in them, Simon would probably know. So 9S follows, covered eyes circling around them.
Nothing seems out of place—or at least, 9S doesn't feel so, despite how unrecognizable any of this is. ]
Sounds like there's a story behind this area, then.
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It’s where Catherine built the ARK. She did most of the crew’s brain scans here.
[ It’s not a complete explanation, or even really an answer to 9S’s question. So. ]
A lot of the people stationed at other sites got relocated to Theta. It’s just full of... [ he tries to sum up how grisly it is, even by PATHOS standards, the constancy of it, between the WAU and the continuity enthusiasts. ] Of- death.
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A response from 9S comes belatedly, following a string of silence beforehand: ]
Did you know the crew members here? Before everything...
[ He trails off, but even the incredibly vague hand gesture he makes obviously implies "before it all went to hell". ]
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[ Did he never tell 9S this? It feels like he did, but he can’t actually remember telling him the specifics. Maybe he loses track of whose apocalypse and whose rogue machines they’ve talked about. ]
One second I’m getting a brain scan, and the next second I’m a hundred years in the future... at the bottom of the sea... after a comet wiped out humanity.
[ the dry detachment with which Simon says this, gesturing for each insane bullshit thing he enumerates, is a cultivated skill. ]
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Right...
[ Another beat, then: ]
You seem pretty familiar with what happened to all the people that were down here.
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[ And clothes. And sticky notes. And photos, and sketchbooks, and journals, and love letters. Simon drops his gaze; it was always sad, especially when he found the headless corpses or confused simulations or half-dead, half-lucid remains of the people whose human existence he’d rifled through to preserve his own, but he never really thought about it like that, in terms of knowing a lot about the individuals here. They were information, about how to get out, how to get into locked terminals... and which crew members were friends, and what they liked to do, who they loved, where they were from.
He had to keep moving, and freaking out over how the monsters and rotting husks used to be people who didn’t do anything wrong, how they’d spent a year trying to grapple with the Armageddon he’d known about for thirty hours, wasn’t super conducive to that. ]
I guess it does kind of feel like you know somebody when they leave their life lying out in the open like that.
[ Thanks Simon. Going on this tour was a great honeymoon idea. Anyway, he presses the door’s switch when they reach it and it opens to reveal... the most colorful part of the complex they’ve run into so far, and not just because there are splatters of blood on the floors, although rest assured there are. The words THETA LABORATORIES sprawl down the wall adjacent to them, and the architecture has surprisingly modern touches of orange and yellow paneling.
Large standing whiteboards, posters, and desks with computers — normal ones, with chairs that people would have sat at — are visible even from this distance in the conference-room-esque area down the upcoming hall, which is even lined with windows. (That’s actually one of Simon’s less-favorite parts, but it looks nice.) If it weren’t for the guy slumped back in the chair also visible through the glass (he’s also covered in blood, and not doing much), it would almost be a laboratory you could take home to your mother. It’s the first place that really looks, from here, like somewhere space-age brainstorming happened. Somewhere you can imagine the people who worked here designing, and troubleshooting, and engineering the future, when they thought there would be one.
Now, it’s very quiet. ]
Don’t run ahead, okay?
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He doesn't make it through the doorway before his gaze fixes on the deep red that stains the floor, caught off guard suddenly. There were people down here, he knows that much, but it occurs to him that he hadn't thought of what, precisely, became of them all. Not that he has to ask; once 9S finally decides to follow Simon into the next hall, he catches a glimpse of his answer.
9S' mouth presses into a flat line. That man is undoubtedly dead, and so he merely looks ahead; there's nothing to be done about it, much as he hates to admit it. ]
I know, I know. [ So he'll focus on sounding patronized instead. ] I couldn't tell you which direction we're going in, anyway.
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Of course this time it’s something a biased organic would think of, that violence with blood is different, worse, than the violence Simon knows full well 9S is intimately familiar with. That he’s only surprised by this because the war he was made for is between people who don’t, you know, have blood. He just can’t help thinking it anyway. He wonders if 9S feels some kind of grief seeing it all, if his hardwired servitude to humanity includes that somehow. If the androids feel reverence that deep. But he’s not about to ask.
Instead he waves him over. He glances at the map on the wall — Storage, Payload Design, Conference Room, Examination Room, Project Development Hub... well, it looks normal, he guesses. ]
We shouldn’t be out in the open. [ He keeps his voice low, stays out of the middle of the hall and flanks the walls until they reach a door that asks them to “Swipe Omnitool”.
Simon waves it in front of the panel — “Access Granted” — and steps into a room with the excellent omen of a biohazard symbol in its decor. The door to the orange chamber in the back is open, which is... weird... but whatever. ]
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They slip into yet another room without incident, however. 9S looks around, taking slow steps further inside, but very little of it has any meaning for him. His fingers brush over a dusty shelf, but he refrains from touching any of the equipment. ]
So, uh... where are you taking us to now?
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