welcome to the horologium.

[acatamods]

I ▫ main IV ▫ premise       XI ▫ applications XIV ▫ activity II ▫ logs V ▫ rules VII ▫ bestiary   IX ▫ canon updates XII ▫ taken XV ▫ drop/hiatus III ▫ ooc VI ▫ faq VIII ▫ setting   X ▫ mods XIII ▫ reserves XVI ▫ players 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. INVESTIGATIONS The 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!

Comments

[lonered]

[Keith visibly jumps at the sound of Firo's voice. That's strange too. Keith is too used to always being on guard for being snuck up on. It's rare. But now all he can here is his mother, and she's calling for him, and he needs to find her.]

I'm...

[Wait. He frowns. Who is he talking to?] My mother. I heard her voice. She's... she has to be here.

[foundafamily]

Here?

[Firo frowns; nobody passed him in the hallway, and he didn't see anyone else in the area.]

Was she at the temple?

[When all the new people showed up is what he's thinking of. He considers Keith a pretty reasonable person, and this place is fishy; while he's skeptical that she's actually here, he doesn't want to dismiss it outright without more information.]

[lonered]

No.

[Keith frowns now because that is a good point, right?]

She wasn't. But she could be here... She's a Blade. If the Blade came across a stranded ship, they'd investigate.

[Because space? But no that doesn't make sense, does it? As he backs away and closer to Firo though, that doesn't sound right.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo rests his hand on the wall; the space feels so strange here, as if it's moving around them, and pressing back on the wall makes him almost believe that it could be steady and unchanging.

He bites his lip as he thinks over Keith's words--this is important, so he has to be careful...]

Look, I dunno what a Blade is, but we'd notice if a whole other group landed here, wouldn't we?

[Would they?

He also wonders if trying to talk Keith away from this is a good idea at all. The ship is so vast that it almost does seem plausible to him that there could be other people here--and wouldn't that be important information to investigate? Especially if one of those people is important to Keith. For all Firo knows, he could be talking his friend away from someone out there who actually does need them.

One thing he's sure of is that this place has plenty of hazards, for them and for anyone else who might be here.]

[lonered]

No, you wouldn't.

[Keith answers quietly,] Not if they didn't want you to. We're stealth operatives.

[But Keith takes a breath and shakes his head.] But this... I don't think this is my universe. This ship isn't like any I've ever seen.

[His head feels clearer as he steps back again.] So I don't think she can be here. It's weird though. I could've sworn I heard her calling me.

[foundafamily]

[Firo makes a mental note to ask more about that later, when the current problem is fixed or set aside.

Mirroring Keith, he takes a few more steps back as well. For some reason, getting farther from that door is feeling like a better and better idea. If the voice was just Keith's imagination, he really couldn't blame him in a creepy place like this.]

Just calling out? Or did you hear her say anything else?

[He's not sure if it'd be a useful question, but if there's something--magical or otherwise--that's imitating her, it would be useful to figure out what it wants. Aside from just screwing with their heads, which currently seems like it could be the most plausible option.]

[lonered]

Just calling for me.

[Which was weird. It all seems weirder and weirder now that he thinks about it with the benefit of some clarity.]

Something is going on. I don't usually just hear voices.

[Very rarely. During the plague, yeah. But you know. There was a reason for that given the fever and all.]

I think she wanted me to open the door. But I couldn't.

[foundafamily]

[Open the door, huh? Firo wonders if that's a flag that they should avoid the door completely--or if there might be something worth looking for back there.

Dangerous? Probably. But it also might tell them something.

He considers the door carefully and takes a few cautious steps closer, still addressing Keith as he goes.]

But not never? Was that here--well, since Astoria grabbed us, I mean?

[There seems to be a common enemy between worlds with this "darkness" stuff. If this is a weapon in its arsenal, that seems like a good thing to know.]

[lonered]

Not never. Last time it was when I was sick, after Struxta. I heard my dad.

[And that couldn't possibly be right, considering his father died a long time ago. He looks over at Firo.]

I think that was probably just the fever. I mean, that sort of hallucination happens with fevers, right?

[Maybe. But then his expression darkens.] ...I wonder if it's related to what happened in the rift in Akvos though. [The dreamscapes, memories, people and things that shouldn't have been there, that weren't really there. He'd seen his mother then, too.]

[foundafamily]

\Come on, more of that crap?

[The thought is enough to make him pause in his advance toward the door, at least. He doesn't relish the idea of going through any of that again--the taste of home too soon denied, the memories he doesn't want to share with people. No thanks.]

What would that mean? That there's a rift somewhere around here too?

[lonered]

I hope not.

[They do not need to find one of those again. Especially not on a half-dead empty ship in space.

He shakes is head.]

Whatever it is... I don't like it. It felt real. Or maybe everything just felt confusing. Until I moved away.

[foundafamily]

I hate to leave without knowing what's going on back there, but maybe that means we should go somewhere else.

[He cants his head and pauses. He'd hate to be the first one to give up if Keith isn't thinking the same thing.]

Unless you wanna try investigating more.

[lonered]

[Keith considers this because part of him wants to put distance between him and that weird door and all the voices that came along with it.

But the other part of him wants to know.]

Let me see if it happens again? If it does, I don't know, maybe throw something at me?

[Solid plan, right?]

[foundafamily]

[Firo raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to respond, then closes it again. Keith has shown himself to have good judgement (by Firo's standards) in the time they've known each other, and it's Keith's decision to make anyway.]

...All right. I'll drag you away kicking and screaming if I have to.

[Good luck, buddy.]

[lonered]

[Keith spares a grin at that.]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

[But he kicks hard and stabs more than he screams. But! Firo is a friend, and Keith will remember that.

A breath and he steps closer to the door again. Step by step the whole ship seems wronger, which is impressive given the overall level of wrongness that it has as a baseline. Closer still and the voices start again. Keith glances back and Firo looks so far away.

Then the voices start and he shuts his eyes.] ...I hear my dad.

[It's hard to focus, to remind himself this isn't real. Because he'd do anything to turn around and see his father. It's just not something that's possible.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo watches Keith as closely and carefully as he would a cheat in the casino back home, staying light on his toes so he can rush in (and do what? he'll figure that out when the time comes) at the drop of a hat. ]

What's he saying?

[lonered]

That he's waiting for me. That I should come to him.

[It hurts to hear, honestly. He hasn't heard his father's voice for over a decade. He wants to go find him. Of course he does.

But something at the very back of his mind can still keep a hold of his rational thoughts. His father isn't here. His father died a long time ago. This is the ship. He staggers back a step, then another.]

It isn't real. But... it feels real.

[foundafamily]

[Firo takes one cautious step forward, and the lights flicker so feebly that he expects them to gutter out completely. He stops moving when Keith starts stepping back.]

And you're not going to, right?

[lonered]

[Keith hesitates at the question. He forces himself to take a breath before he can shake his head. It's an effort.]

No. I can't. Dad... dad's been dead for a long a time.

[Another step back and he can shake more of it off.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo nods slowly, just glad to hear that Keith's still grounded, mostly, as near as he can tell. He feels almost like he should apologize when Keith says his father died; it's the kind of detail Firo prefers to keep buried and assumes others feel the same. But because of that, he decides it's best to keep moving without saying anything--and they do have to keep their focus, after all.]

Can you still hear him, or did he stop?

[lonered]

[Keith slips back another step. He finally tears his eyes from the door and looks to Firo. Okay.

He's got this now.]

No. I can't hear him unless I'm closer to the door. Whatever is going on, it's connected to that.

[He hates it.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo meets Keith's eyes and gives a firm nod of acknowledgment.]

So if we could break down that door, do you think that'd make it better or worse?

[No door, no problem, right? Unless the real problem is what's on the other side of the door and breaking it down would just unleash it.]

[lonered]

...I'm not sure. Is something about the door trying to scare us off?

[That could be it, right?

But far less reassuringly,] Or is the door holding back something that's starting to leak through anyway.

[foundafamily]

[Both are pleasant thoughts to consider. Firo presses his hand against his forehead.]

...So no breaking it down, I guess. If it is that second option, it's already bad enough. What kinda thing can do all this, anyway?

[lonered]

Not without some contingency plan anyway.

[This is how far Keith has come since he first left Earth those years ago because plan of any sort, never mind contingency plan weren't often in his vocabulary.]

I have no idea what could cause something like this though. Saying magic just feels like a cop out answer.