be careful in the dark.

[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 be careful in the dark. TW/CW: THIS EVENT CONTAINS HORROR THEMES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO: Body horror, blood, violence, and psychological horror. Use TW/CWs liberally. The days and nights have started to blur. With the help of your fellow Circle Members there is more access to food, water, and electricity but you are still stuck on a stranded ship in the middle of space. There are only clues and a single voice to tell you what happened. Whether or not you trust your new friend is your decision, but it does seem like she has something to say. All of your exploration has turned up very little. Most of the doors have been opened, but only a few hold anything of significance. Even then, it feels a lot more like they’ve led to more questions than answers. And that sound? It's starting to drive you crazy-- if it hasn't already. Where is it coming from? Why is it so far away? What could it be? You might have an answer, soon. There is no warning. One moment you are hearing the same distant rumble and feeling the same sense of fear and uncertainty. Oh, I know this, just give it a few moments and it will end, but that isn't the case this time. The rumbling happens, then the ship goes quiet, and then - suddenly - there is a loud explosion of sounds from the depths of the open lift shaft. Anyone near that hallway will be able to distinguish the sound as one of the doors, a long way down the shaft, being blown open. The explosion is enough to send a shuddering through the entire floor. A new opening has been discovered, and some of you have decided to investigate. INTO THE BELLY OF THE SHIP. Your teams have been separated, maybe strategies are in place. Either way, you are now descending into the depth of The Horologium, closer and closer to the noise that has haunted you for days. What are you going to find? What are you going to do? Well, Circle members, that is entirely up to you. But know this for sure: as soon as you descend, your watches will stop working. So whatever it is you find, it is entirely up to you to either destroy it, fix it, or simply return to the rest of the Circle. And what you find is...well. To put it simply. Horrifying. CW: BODY HORROR, FACIAL HORROR. The monster will not show itself to the Circle members immediately, instead preferring to use its abilities to echo noise throughout this level of the ship at will. Those voices you hear? Could be coming from literally anywhere, and could be entirely up to the choice of this beast. It will lure members into certain areas of the ship, will try to separate groups. Any and all of the psychological effects listed below are in play here, and the monster will do anything it can to get to you. But you get a distinct sensation that it's not just hunting you, but playing with you. The monster itself, when it does appear, can move through shadow and darkness - appearing through walls before disappearing into them again, making its way into rooms that you were certain were closed. The only thing it really seems to be adverse to is direct light, but even then it just simply disappears again, back to playing with you and your minds from a distance. When you do interact with it directly, it is a horrendous sight - standing nearly ten feet in height and made of what you assume is some kind of fleshy substance, it is almost hard to look at for too long. It moves with a speed that shouldn't be possible, jumping from place to place, shadow to shadow. It will speak to you, but only in voices of those you know, those you recognize, to lure you away from the others. You can try to communicate with it, and it may communicate back, but nothing you say or do change its directive in any way. It is here to hunt, to kill, maybe even to feed? You're not sure. Either way, look after your fellow Circle Members. You've stepped into a dangerous place. ➜ Each and every group is in a different area of the ship. Your journey has only hardly begun. But it will be equally as difficult for all of you. Regardless of where you are, what lies before you is a dimly lit wreckage — the hallways are shrouded in darkness, narrow and littered with debris. Something is grating along the walls. Had you not known any better, you would think someone was dragging their nails against the metal, digging and clawing away. CW: BODY HORROR. The noise is incessant and persists throughout the day. However it isn’t until you’ve started feel the slightest bit comfortable, perhaps by your lonesome or in the company of other people, that an appendage protrudes through the wall. It’s bone white and moves at an alarming pace, like a wing flapping, before attempting to seize you and slashing in your direction. The creature’s movements can be evaded and buffered, but the limbs themselves seem to be incapable of fracturing. It targets your joints, first and foremost. Should you be harmed in any way, the wound will fester black and for the next few days and it will feel as though you’re growing a new, inhuman appendage in its place — like you’re malforming into a monster. Perhaps you are? ➜ Tattered clothing, bone shards and scraps of metal are strewn across the ground. They lead to the rooms of former crewmates. Something about them is comforting — the urge to enter them will be difficult, but not impossible to resist. Once you do, however, it’s as though the room is closing in on you. Apparitions of your loved ones will manifest before your eyes. Whoever might be in the room with you will see them as well; they can be spoken to and will respond in turn; they are belligerent and will attack you. The pain feels real, but the injuries you sustain aren't. The only way to do away with these spectres is by attacking them in turn. ➜ CW: BODY HORROR. As you navigate the belly of the ship, the sense of dread will loom over you — the darkness helps very little, but the machinery seems to be whirring moreso than usual. When you interact with any of the panels, they may malfunction, as the wiring will attempt to electrocute you. The electrocution will impact you...unusually, to say the least. Eyeballs and fingers will sprout in place of these wounds. They can be removed, fortunately! As you continue along your journey, panels on the wall will leak and sputter acid on occasion. The ground beneath you will shake violently, doors will attempt to trap you, and for a moment it feels like— The ship is rebelling against you. ➜ In the midst of the carnage, there is a rest stop in each and every route: it resembles a safehouse. In it, canned food and additional medicine are stowed away. In the room, you feel at peace — and it’s genuine peace. The monster is nowhere to be found, and your mind is clearer than it has been by far. Make camp, recuperate, and discuss what’s happened while you’re still able. MOD NOTE: We will not be NPCing the monster! It's up to y'all to decide how you want to interact with it, how it comes into play, what it does, etc. Some members have signed up to die in this part of the ship, and how that happens is entirely up to you. The only thing to keep in mind is that this monster is quick, smart, and will always, always get away before it is destroyed completely. Sometimes you don't even know how, or what it is trying to accomplish, but it will always get away. THE BRIDGE. ➜ The ship is malfunctioning on all accounts — the power fades in and out, leaving the Circle members stranded in darkness. When the lights flicker back on, wounds will appear on your body at random. They can range from bruises to lacerations, and will worsen with each and every power outage. The outages are most likely to occur while you are deciphering the messages. Something about this ship -- or something about what lies beneath -- certainly does not want you to uncover what is in that database. ➜ It happens suddenly; a small explosion sounds from the back of the Bridge. The source appears to be a case of faulty wiring: it sparks an ember that grows into something much, much larger within minutes and threatens to consume the Bridge whole. The only way to quell the fire is by activating the sprinklers and taking an extinguisher to the flames — but it can’t be done alone. You’ll need the cooperation of at least one Circle member if you intend to live through this. ➜ Sleep is scarce. At some point, when you close your eyes and find yourself drifting off, it will plague you: grotesque and gruesome sights that rouse you from your slumber. The issue is...they bleed into reality. When you are alone, the world around will warp into a memory that brings you utmost joy — before being corrupted entirely. It will, however, stop once you manage to put what you are seeing into words. It can be through any means, but only until you convey the horrors you are experiencing to another Circle member. They say that we’re stronger as one, don’t they? ➜ Around the Bridge, there are caches of worn down possessions that once belonged to the former crewmates of this ship. They’re personal — deeply personal. The items consist of diaries, journals, photos pocket watches, and accessories. But when you touch them, you’ll hear it: the wails and screams of the dead. For a reason unknown to you, you will be stricken with grief and terror for a random period of time. ➜ Finally . . . deciphering these messages will yield a lot of clues as to what, exactly, the Circle might have to do in order to "save" the Horologium. However, the more you piece together, the more panicked you become -- whatever lies in the darkness beneath, whatever you just sent half the Circle to go investigate, is dangerous. But when you try to communicate that to them via the network, the line is dead. You cannot reach them. You cannot contact them. You cannot save them. You cannot save them. You cannot save them. You cannot save them -- wait, is that your voice, or something else's? THE HOROLOGIUM. Regardless whether you decide to go hunting down into the belly of the ship, stay on the Bridge to help decipher messages, or go your own way: there is still something off about the ship. You might already know this, because everything about this ship is wrong in some way. This is different. This is worse. In fact, you may start to see, hear, or feel things that aren't really there. You might experience dark thoughts you didn't think you had. More than the captivity, strange food, and lack of a day/night - something is getting to the people on the ship. Something you can't quite pin down. ➜ For those who have been hearing the low whisper of voices, you have managed to kind of ignore it. It’s a creepy ship. It’s a terrifying place. They’re harmless- right? Except something changes, somewhere along the way. Maybe it’s after the explosion, maybe it’s after the crews have descended into the lower levels of the ship, maybe its once the hallways become a bit more empty, feel a little less lived in. But those voices? Get...louder. And not only are they louder, but they seem familiar. Too familiar. No longer are you just hearing voices, but you are hearing voices, comments, prayers, whispers, pleads - all of those you knew from home. They seem to be coming from everywhere, and no matter where you go, they don’t quiet. Are you prepared to face the whispers of your past? ➜ Without any kind of day or night, it’s been difficult to keep a schedule. It’s enough to cause headaches, to blue images in your periphery. Or...was that a blur? Or did you really see...whatever that was? If you follow the shadow, you may find that you are, in fact, seeing things. Things that can’t possibly be true. But you’re seeing it, or them, or whatever that is that can’t possibly be there simply. There. But they’re just visions, aren’t they? There’s no way they could be real. Right? ➜ Being locked together with people who you may or may not even like does something to your patience. It’s been annoying, up until this point, but it’s been easy enough to ignore. Except that, again, something feels different now - something about the ship, or the open lift, or- something, but where there was once annoyance is now replaced with anger. But it’s more than anger, but it’s an understanding that those people are after you. They hate you just as much as you hate them, and you know, you know, they’re going to kill you at the first chance they get. Unless you stop them first. MOD NOTE: Please do not hesitate to ask questions on the OOC POST throughout the duration of this event. You must use TW/CW in your top levels if you are playing with any triggering material in this post. ALSO: Feel free to continue to sign up for groups! Those are not closed. Death via monster, however, is now closed Have fun, and be careful in the dark.