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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[ 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?
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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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There’s a robot on a steel table. It’s hooked up to a cord that stretches to the weird, cybernetic-jellyfish object atop this room’s WAU Wall Infestation. The end of the cord is plugged into some sort of exposed socket on its side. The machine emits intermittent fountains of sparks. There’s almost a grotesquely organic quality to the way it’s laid out on its “back” on the table, like something being prepped for surgery. Or after surgery, if its exposed head-meat is any indication — optical processors (red, glowing), with a Cortex Chip (looks like a probably-so-primitive-as-to-be-unrecognizable hard drive) and microphone. It catches Simon’s notice; it’s not moving, but it wasn’t here, last time he was in this room.
His attention is redirected quickly. There are voices coming from around the orange chamber. Not from inside it, exactly, and not even from the panoramic set of computer monitors around the empty seat in the middle. They display a set of 3D models, diagnostics.
I think they’re bigger. Catherine’s voice, cautiously optimistic. You should be able to wear them both. ]
Catherine? [ Simon steps toward the Compound Examiner, as if sleepwalking, or lost. He doesn’t stop even when it becomes apparent that this is an old conversation that’s being played, somehow, verbatim, maybe more than one mashed together, and not even any of their more pleasant discussions.
...Imogen Reed, really? She sounds curious, a little skeptical. None of Catherine’s emotional reactions to this ever struck him as normal, but, whatever. That’s how she is. ]
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But it isn't coming from anything, nor does it seem as though she's speaking to them. That's when his head snaps back toward Simon. ]
—Wait, hold on. She's not here.
[ ... But then, is this a recording? From where? ]
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[ It looks like the basis for your body is one of my old colleagues. The Catherine-echo sounds like she’s describing a mildly interesting invention. A standard Cortex Chip for robots including the Data Reader and the Occu-Torch has just been forced through the skull.
Simon can almost predict it all, just remembering this exchange. In the recording, or whatever it is, he balks. What?!
Structure gel has fused the whole construction together. Amazing stuff. She’s almost gushing, the way only a scientist with dubious people skills possibly could about this.
Simon takes another step, baffled, barely cognizant of 9S entirely within earshot of all of this, and the monitor lists off horrible ingredients with unrecognizable proprietary names. Structure gel, the suit, the battery, the blackbox, the cortex — which, when illuminated in model form, resembles the head-parts of the busted robot across from them exactly, the crude-looking tripod-like sum of its parts. There’s a little jawbone left, where it’s jammed into, but it’s mostly a stump of neck.
FEMALE; REED, Imogen. It’s a robust enough scanning mechanism to separate and highlight the suit and goop from the partially-skeletonized corpse in its rotating computer image.
He hears himself, aghast, say, That’s disgusting, and backs away from the chamber, looking at 9S before the fear of doing so can even set in all the way. ]
no subject
And it settles in, soon enough; it's becoming increasingly more evident that something occurred in this room—like, say, discovering the basis of a body. Simon's. That was, without a doubt, his voice in the conversation with Catherine, short of words it may have been.
Eventually 9S turns away, but only to tilt his head toward the unmanned computer. He's starting to feel like he's walking into something he shouldn't, growing privy to a deep secret being ruthlessly dug out; it doesn't stop him from looking. (It never did.) ]
... What happened here? There was something, right?
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He doesn’t want to look at 9S, but he doesn’t want to look at a diagram of the repellant body he has to go back to when they get out of here. He preferred the mental game of telephone he was in the middle of, where he hadn’t seen this long enough that he could fudge it, into something still horrible, but maybe a little mistaken.
Yes. It makes sense. Think about it. Now Catherine sounds almost excited about it, about this discovery, or about explaining it, maybe.
It’s faded into noise. Simon looks away, face white, not wanting to answer, not able to answer until his voice unsticks from his throat. He wants to jump out of his skin, and he’s not even in that body right now. ] Yeah.
[ All those simplistic minds we've run into... just reviving a dead person doesn't seem to work that well. A robot body seems to make people a bit... unreliable. It’s a hypothesis. She’s musing to herself. You are the best of both worlds. A sound mind in a sound body. He barely hears it, now, but it sounds even less credible.
Then it goes quiet.
What the fuck else does he say? He’s using all of his brainpower to feel weird and guilty for concealing it to everybody he’s met in the past year and also justify it to himself simultaneously.
He settles on, hollow, ] Yeah, something.
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The conversation around them finishes, shedding more light to the scenario; if the diagrams before him weren't enough, "body of an old colleague" and "half a dead person" sure add to it. It's hard to know how to respond even without Simon going utterly still, paling. 9S has a tendency to dig deeper into the unknowns that face him, no matter how detrimental doing so may be, but this time, he thinks he may need to leave this one alone.
Still, it's a shock, to put it lightly, and grappling with his feelings on the matter is a tough one. How? No, he knows; the WAU, responsible for the state of everything in this dying place. 9S eyes the barnacle-like growth across the room with disdain. ]
... Simon, you—
[ 9S stops short, then shakes his head. It seems he's still at a total loss, but at the very least, he circles away from the monitors in lieu of saying he won't read any more than he already has. ]
no subject
He responds, quickly, as soon as 9S cuts himself off. ] We should keep moving.
[ Behind them, the monitor goes black. The Compound Examiner’s lights go off, and a few of the overhead fluorescents go dark, enough to dim the room.
Almost immediately, noises start coming from the robot on the table, of motors and attempts at movement. Its eyes move, the same incandescent red as Simon’s with that same consistent tick of actuators, back and forth, up and down, as if trying to understand its surroundings. Its limbs are almost toy-like — like the Helpers’, but smaller, simpler, with rudimentary little claw-hands that twitch at its sides.
Another one. Simon steps toward it, cautiously.
It’s soon apparent that the sounds are coming both from its mechanical parts and from the microphone, but for a few moments, the latter are so garbled as to be unintelligible. Then it resolves into something fuzzy, like a bad recording, and for a few moments more it’s strangely modulated until it becomes recognizable. It’s still overlaid with static, but not enough to drown out the familiar adolescent surliness.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah—doesn’t matter—matter—Yeah, yeah— It’s like a collection of soundbytes, cutting abruptly into each other. Simon looks up at 9S to see if he’s, you know, hearing this shit.
The machine fizzles, its LED eyes shifting quickly, most of the rest of it seemingly unable to move.
—eams. Dreams. 2B. Sweet dreams. 2B. ]
no subject
After the initial surprise, 9S grits his teeth, muttering a low, sharp 'shit'. The kind that's figured out there's definitely a problem happening here, and why. ]
What the hell do you think you're doing?
[ 9S' voice is suddenly several volumes louder in its direction, and no less razor-edged, like perhaps he's expecting something beyond this machine and the growth its connected by to hear him beyond this room. Potential proxies lingering around this floor be damned; sorry not sorry about that, Simon. ]
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So he gets it. He understands the yelling. But also, even as Simon moves to touch 9S’s arm, to try to stop him, there’s a distant screech, neither human nor animal. Heart in his throat, he immediately changes course and circles around the table to yank the WAU-cord from the robot, which goes still and silent, eyes dimming. The intermittent sprays of sparks stop.
Simon pointedly raises his finger to his lips, trying to catch 9S’s eyes through his blindfold, then looking at the door, posture a stiff, hunted slouch. No Yelling Holy Shit.
It does mean 9S is spared a discussion of whether or not having your memories absconded with by a machine feels as fucked up to him as it does when it happens to a human, though. So like... there’s that. ]
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If nothing else, he does stop yelling, but that doesn't mean 9S has taken into consideration why Simon is quietly hushing him while looking like a spooked prey animal. Voice lowered, he hisses out: ]
—What?