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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they turn around another corner, and kaz's eyes scan the hallway, checking his direction, where they're headed. ]
A door.
[ you know. because he's an asshole like that.
but then he arrives to a stop, turning to face the door itself. ]
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instead, inej crosses her arms, looking the door over for any sign of weakness, any crack, any defect. seeing none, her eyes stray to the lock. complicated, but not impossible, particularly for kaz, who can get his way in and out of any lock without too much difficulty. if he had a set of lockpicks, anyway.
she unfolds her arms, then, and dips her hands into her pockets, removing what appears to be a leather-like pouch. it looks as if it were fashioned from some sort of thickened seaweed -- taken, no doubt, from akvos.
she holds it out to her side wordlessly, for him to take. and, should he look inside, there's a set of what appears to be lock picks. definitely not as nice as his set from ketterdam, but finding the underbelly had been a pretty easy task, and bartering in some pretty shells for a set had been an even easier one.
besides. kaz had gotten her a set of knives. she figured she should repay the favor, after he had more than enough time to sulk about not being able to break into anything he wanted anymore.
and, without dwelling on it too much longer, inej says: ]
What do you think, one minute?
[ kaz brekker, taking one solid minute to open a door. a greater insult had never been uttered. ]
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and no, in case she wanted to ask - it was not a random door. it was specifically chosen to be less likely to kill them and more likely to be able to get in and possibly, maybe, have something hidden back away from it.
it wasn't anything impressive, really. but it was a locked door, which automatically piqued his curiosity. he needed to get inside, no matter what was in there. he could feel the questions starting to bubble, and was about to open his mouth - about to explain his plan - when inej held out the pouch.
he looked towards it, curious. after a moment, he does reach out to take it, glancing through the tools, finding....lock picks. or what could equate to the tools he knows s well. he's still looking them over when she speaks, and something about the exchange, about the relief of holding familiar tools in his hands, it actually has him snorting once. ]
If it takes a minute, I will take you to dinner next world that has anything more than goo.
[ its said in jest, because there's no possible way that could happen, his eyes still on the tools in his hands. like an afterthought, really. ]
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and, obviously, that wasn't going to happen. and the idea of taking her out to dinner was just a joke.
she had thought she was long since past kaz brekker hurting her feelings, but the mood simmers underneath her skin, weaving past her own armor to dig underneath, and she rests her back against the wall next to the door, folding her arms over her chest. regretting spending so much time bartering for the stupid lockpicks, but it was too late now. ]
You owe me an apology before you owe me dinner.
[ it's said with something of an edge to her tone, but she glances at her watch, and before kaz can say anything else: ]
Fifty-nine seconds.
[ if he was going to be rude, she was too. ]
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[ there are more complicated emotions wrapped up in all of that. how ridiculous it would be to go out to dinner when they are being shuttled between worlds. how he's been trying to get them home and how he shouldn't be thinking about dinner or acting like any of this is normal at all.
he knows he probably owes her a nice dinner. and he definitely owes her an apology. but he is going to make good on his promise to get them home, first, and worry about the rest of it after. so when she settles, looks obviously annoyed, he merely slips the tools out of their pouch and steps forward to get to work without the least amount of urgency to his movement. the tools are carved out a bit differently, made a bit differently, than the ones he was used to. but they fit in all the same, and he went to work.
if everything went well, this door would be unlocked in a manner of seconds - ten, maybe fifteen. he would get to see what is inside and then they would move onto the next.
except things never go well for kaz brekker, do they? because that would be too easy.
so he gets the picks in place, starts to apply just the right amount of pressure, waits for the sound of -
crack.
not. that one. he pauses, obviously thrown off by the sound, looking down at where the tools were sticking just out of the lock . confused, more than anything. what...did he...? but when he shifted, a piece of the pick fell out in his hands, obviously cracked through. broken.
kaz stood there staring at it for a few more moments, partially in shock. ]
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but then there's a crack, and she sees an almost comical expression of shock on kaz's face, and inej shifts, resting a shoulder against the wall of the ship to look down over his arm, at the piece of pick in his gloved hands. broken.
she never thought she would see the day where she would enjoy watching kaz brekker fail at something, but her eyebrows arch slightly, and she glances at her watch nonchalantly. a minute gone, and the door still locked. saints alive, kaz brekker was stopped by a door. ]
My time is not a prize to be won, but I'll consider your offer.
[ jerk. and she gracefully straightens, pushing herself up off the wall to stand properly, pulling her sleeve back over her watch. and, because if kaz insulted her, inej was going to return the favor: ]
I suppose we'll just need to find an easier door.
[ (: ]
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[ because in part, this is supposed to be one of the easiest doors to get into. but the larger part is that kaz brekker does not back down from a door that cannot be opened. he will not, especially in spite of the way inej is definitely looking at him like that, to which he will not even briefly return her look. no, his eyes are still ahead, still on the door.
out of the corner of his eye he sees her push off the wall, ready to continue on down the hallway, when he clicks his cane to the floor below him. a quick sound, but one she probably recognizes he does to get attention. and when she does look back to him, he will glance to her and then glance upwards.
directly at a vent. ]
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there is an incredibly long silence, before inej says, in her beautiful and eloquent native tongue, something that kaz does not understand, but roughly translates to over my dead body. and then, in a language kaz does understand: ]
Would you like a boost?
[ a bit shrewdly. ]
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expectant.
he doesn't say a single word. just waits. ]
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she should just leave him in the hallway on his own.
but instead, she moves toward the wall, scanning the smooth steel surface. the vent about four or five feet above her head. and, before she moves, she says, curtly: ]
All because you failed to open a door.
[ and, with that, inej positions a foot against a seam that is invisible to anyone but her, and pushes herself up to grasp the doorframe, smoothly pulling herself up the wall. she nearly slips, once, but catches herself on another edge.
she won't ask kaz for help.
why she expected anything but kaz ruining her evening out of this walk was beyond her, but serves her right for anticipating anything else but aggravation. ]