welcome to the horologium.Some of you know it is coming. The World Jump, the chaotic thrust into a new universe. But some of you are new, and though you know what the mission is, it is a bit . . . troubling, sitting around and waiting for something to happen. But eventually, you get a message on your watch. It shows Astoria . . . dark hair framing her features, her voice light and musical. She sounds like herself, for the first time in some time . . . that spark of determination back in her eyes. A MESSAGE FROM YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD WITCH. "It is time, my beloved Travelers, to go to our new destination . . . and I want you to know that I have the utmost faith in you. Akvos' loss has hurt us all, and I know that many of you doubt our mission. But please believe me when I say that you have done the best job anyone could ask of you. Akvos' destruction was not your fault . . . and to our newest members of our Circle, welcome to our journey. I can only hope that your journey here will work out to the benefit of us all."
That being said, you are journeying to the Horologium . . . it is a ship that has sent out a distress beacon. I am not sure when, or where, but I can feel great darkness, emanating from that place. I believe you all can combat what is done there, without interacting with the Void . . . so please, be safe, and I will see you all when you return."
And, just like that, there is a pull in your stomach . . . your vision blacks out and you feel the sudden sense of vertigo, a sensation of falling, and then . . . nothingness. You open your eyes, and you are suddenly waking up in the midst of . . . fog?
 THE AWAKENING.When you wake, you are greeted by metal — there’s an expanse of silver all around you. The cot you’re laying on is somewhat rigid, like a flattened wedge of cotton more than anything, encased in a capsule-like structure. Should you inspect your surroundings, you’ll find that there are three more cots in your room..or more notably, another person in the room in of itself. Depending on where you’ve been roused from your slumber, however, you’ll find that your circumstances differ.
➜ If you’ve woken up in the northeast wing of the ship, there seems to be a pool of saturated pink goo at your feet. It sticks to the bottom of your heel and collects at the very center of the room, oozing from the cracks and crevices within the metal lining of the walls. And even more notably, the goo has a particularly saccharine scent, as though it’s meant to be...consumed. Looks like you had the misfortune of waking up in the wing adjacent to the kitchen.
➜ In the northwest wing, the ship is functioning at an all time low. When you wake, the room is illuminated for a brief moment...before flickering out, only to leave you in pitch darkness. Power returns to the room intermittently and only for a few seconds at most, but it appears as though you and your newfound roommates will have to navigate the darkness if you want to leave.
➜ In the southwest wing, the fire alarm in your room has been activated for some inexplicable reason. It’s an obnoxiously loud siren that slices right through the whirring of the machinery around you — and it goes as far as to trigger the sprinklers hanging from the ceiling. Water sprays from above you, hopefully ensuring that you’ve woken up if nothing else has. It doesn’t seem to be draining either, so it may be for the best that you escape with some haste.
➜ In the southeast wing, your circumstances are for the most part rather unremarkable. An untouched room, mostly intact...until you try to open the door. It won’t budge — unless you have some form of super strength, your muscle power is rendered useless on its own. You might just have to commission someone else to help you...
Beyond your room, the word “Horologium.” stretches across the wall.
Welcome to your new home.  WHISPERS IN THE DARK.In a way, it feels as though you’re suspended in time.
The ship is always humming, always whirring as it makes a haphazard attempt to function. The noise comes to a halt every so often, leaving you with nothing but silence and the idle creaking of the floor beneath you.
There are remarkably large, bright white doors that divide each and every wing. A circular window is positioned at the center of all 4 of these doors: but nothing can be seen through it. It’s likeness is that of a black hole’s, like someone had gone as far as to paint over it.
On every door, the same word is emblazoned in black lettering: EXIT.
Except the word itself appears to be scratched out to some degree — as though it were scrubbed out in a fit of desperation but remained no less.
When you see the door, you might be overcome with excitement. Or perhaps not. Regardless of what your reaction is like, the lights around you will dim and flicker at an alarming frequency. For a moment, it’s almost as though the gravity around you has slowed, and the hallways are becoming narrower by the second.. Voices and faces from the past emerge in your mind. You see someone you shouldn’t; they’re calling for you. They’re here with you right now, beckoning you to come closer...
If you reach the door and attempt to open it, it won’t budge. And the further you walk away from it, the more the effects will subside.
But there’s no telling if you’ll sleep well tonight.  INVESTIGATIONSThe ship is fitted to house approximately 500 people — it’s a bit of a ghost town, however, lived in but abandoned no less.
The chairs are in the mess hall aren’t aligned perfectly. The tables are a bit crooked. The lounge is lofty, but not pristine. The rooms may be barren, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that they were somehow someone else’s before they became yours. There’s an array of locked doors, varying in sizes and shapes, all of which withhold something potentially useful to you. You may be inclined to visit the lounge, the mess hall, rifle through the bedrooms . . . the ship is yours to explore.
However, how you interact with the ship is….entirely up to you. There is something to be found everywhere. Regardless of what you do, where you investigate and how, you might be tempted to look behind your shoulder.
After all, every decision you make matters...right?
(Every Player’s investigation prompt has the potential to differ greatly as your investigation will require mod input. We encourage you to ask as many questions as you would like, we are here to help and provide you with the information necessary.) 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. 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_logs2019-02-12 12:27 pm
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Onward with conviction, then. [Because conviction will get you a lot of places, even if Molly isn't great at directions either. He trusts that either Ren will find the lounge or they'll find it better. They've barely made it down two hallways before he has to grouse. They might be headed the right way, but it's still all Celestial to him.] Why does it all have to look the same. When you do a lot of traveling, you can't really tell the subtle differences between trees from one to the next, but even those differences are starker than this. That's the part that's gonna tear at me. Not the creepy parts or the implication that everyone who used to be here is dead now, but the fact that I can't tell one hall from another. I'm going to start painting my own trail markers with that slop I found in my room.
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He gives a slight hum of concession to Molly's point - Molly doesn't seem like his world would've had this sort of thing, and even a lot of those from worlds that did probably wouldn't be personally used to them.] Mmm, spaceships have to be pretty strictly made, otherwise things can go really wrong...I have a friend in my world who studies space so they can help make stuff like this. But it is pretty boring, if you actually have to spend that much time in it. Usually you have to have all sorts of training to be allowed on a ship like this, so I guess people like that don't get bored with the samey decor as easily....
[Ren definitely sounds like he's more on the side of "bored with the samey decor", though.]
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[Too much, really.] It's enough to make a person plant their feet in a corner and not do anything, but then I'd just go fucking stir-crazy.
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[Molly's wording about "things that can exist in that space" does provide an opportunity for an intentionally obtuse tangent, though, which Ren eventually decides to take.] If you don't have other stuff that exists in space, what about other planets...? The moon and sun and stars are things that can just exist up here, right?
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[And worshiping a moon goddess. He chuckles, awkwardly.] I don't know a whole lot about a whole lot of things. I feel like blissful ignorance about anything too complicated saves a person a lot of grief.
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[Now that he thinks about it. His own country puts pretty high importance on academics, but even outside of that, you'd have to be entirely removed from the education system somehow to avoid learning about things like the basics of how space works. And probably displaced from the entire sphere of pop culture to boot.]
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You get the people who are properly educated and then you get the students of the open road like me, which is about the majority. And even then, most of the academics are going into history and magic and... tinkering. [He shakes his head, a little overwhelmed but amused at the same time.] I can't get used to how different everyone's worlds are and yet everyone is still exactly like I expect them to be.
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That elaboration definitely explains more about Molly's attitude, though, and Ren laughs a little.] Well, people are people wherever you go, right? Like with what we're talking about, even in worlds where being properly educated is really common, being properly educated doesn't change the person you are.
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[He rolls his eyes.] That's one thing I like about this situation. Everyone starts at zero.
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[The corridors haven't changed much while they've been walking, but they're starting to pass the occasional dinged or broken-down door. Ren points out one in particular as they pass, tilting his head a bit at it.]
Is it just me, or was that one pretty close to the lounge...? I feel like I passed it earlier.
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[And then he gets an idea. He swats at Ren's shoulder a bit to stop him.] I have an idea. I have an idea. [He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts:] If anyone around can point us to the bloody lounge, we'd be very grateful!
[Oooh. There's an echo. Neat. He looks gleefully excited about that.] ...I've never done that in a place that has an echo before.
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[And they'll probably have much better luck finding the lounge from the bedrooms than from this maze of samey corridors.]
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[Because it is madness. It feels like they're waiting for something and Molly's never been very good at that.]
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They're getting pretty close to an intersection of paths, so Ren cranes ahead a bit to see if he can make out which side has more busted doors.] At the worst, we can probably use our watches to ask someone to send out a search party.
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[He looks down at his watch like he's never really seen it before, which means he's not looking for anything in particular. He is marveling at the wonders of technology while being deeply confused.] Right. I'm still getting used to the idea that you can just contact anyone without a spell. That would make it easier.
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[Having said that, he's circling back around to the first point, because on second thought, that really would be anticlimactic.] Saying it like that makes me kind of hope it's not that boring an outcome now, though...I at least want something original...
[Someone's seen too many horror movies for this.]
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I mean I've seen a lot of things, but I'm curious about your experience.
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My world has a lot of horror stories and shows, though, and I used to like them a lot. Stuff like people eating people or whatever is actually pretty common in those.
[Okay, it's mostly zombies, but still. He doesn't actually use the word "movie" in favour of putting it in a way he feels Molly might understand a bit quicker.]
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But he gets it now, even if stories don't compare to the madness that is actual adventurer life.] When you've been to abandoned places full of ghosts and met actual monsters... You always need to ask.
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[There's another corridor coming up, and it sounds a little bit like there's something faintly echoing down it - a lot like the sounds that normally come from the lounge area, in fact.]
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[Oh is that the sound of freedom? Molly breathes a sigh of relief, and then goes into overwrought theatrics.] Civilization! At long last! By god, we're free from this madness.
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[Granted, Ren has a pretty broad definition of "boring" that generally just means anyone who hasn't caught his interest personally.
Ren is also no stranger to theatrics, and he puts a few fingers to his forehead with a rather dramatic flourish.] I was starting to get a headache from all these identical corridors and everything...
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[There's not much of an open bar here, but by gods he will try to find something.]
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[The rationing has still been pretty harsh on water, at least, to his knowledge. But maybe they'll get lucky and someone will have come across some weird alien beverage that nobody's brave enough to try.]