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Priority Log - Part 1
Log 02 Priority (Part I)
The Mine Car
As characters enter the car, their phones will notify them of a new message…
> ▮▮▮▮▮▯▮▮
> ▮▮*
> OVERRIDE: TUTORIAL MODE DEACTIVATED.
> OBJECTIVE:
>
NAME: The Mine Car
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT: Gothic era
DANGER LEVEL: High
GENERAL STINKINESS: High
COMMON DENIZENS: Humans, ornithrops, bearkin
CUISINE: Peasant gruel, bird seed
There is no sender. Or objective?
But that's fine, probably! The car itself is completely functional, and features a fully developed society.
Passengers will arrive in this car and be immediately greeted by a fog that chills them to their core. The car around them is vast, and yet deathly silent. They'll find themselves starting off in a forest of petrified wood, the ground hard and unyielding underneath their feet, with flora and fauna in various stages of decay around them. While the fog around them is thick, the lights of a nearby village can still be seen from a distance, and as they travel, the dirt road will give way to cobblestone.
Eventually they'll be greeted with a signpost, welcoming them to the town of MINECRAFTIA.
While Minecraftia's denizens are harrowed and distressed, they're quick to warn the passengers traveling through of the ailment, a mysterious illness that is plaguing their town. It's been leaving even healthy youths bedridden, and while the town mayor has passionately declared that he will find a solution, it appears that there's no cure in sight.
Locations
Minecraftia is a foreboding little town, even in the daylight, with murky skies above and fog blanketing the roads. Still, the denizens persist through their daily routines, and won't stop the passengers from exploring.
Clinic: The town's only clinic with the town's only doctor. It's a small, rickety building that operates all hours of the day. Between the rapid spread of sickness and the steady depletion of supplies, it's a grim place to be nowadays. Anyone healthy who visits might be roped in to help, and those who look ill will be quarantined with an uncomfortable bedroll and thin blanket.
Cemetery: Located on the outskirts of town, the cemetery is home to dead bodies, even deader earth, and a deadpan gravekeeper. The exit door is here in a flower-covered plot, but cannot be opened.
Chicken House: A barnyard building home to the town's chickens. Lately they've been more worked up than usual, and taken to flying the coop and finding refuge by digging their claws into the scalps of bystanders. Agitating one chicken may cause a whole flock to descend on you!
The Dark Woods: The village is surrounded by what was once lush woods, but the trees now stand dark and eerie, an unusually thick fog rolling between them. While there are some of the usual, woodland creatures chirruping in the dense silence, they're hard to find. Monsters, meanwhile, are much more common.
The Mines: In the heart of the woods are entrances to the town's expansive system of mines. Stepping inside shows that the dirt and stone is laced with beautiful gems and minerals, but passengers will be shooed away by miners if they try to explore any deeper. It seems there's several dangerous mine shafts underfoot, as well as past attacks by what seems to be mole monsters.
Mayor's Mansion: The largest building in Minecraftia, situated on a hill. While Mayor Chadsef's staff welcomes guests, they will be cautioned not to explore past the lobby, which just smells a little like cleaning chemicals thanks to a diligent maid crew.
Denizens
Players may use denizens as convenient in threads, as well as these NPCs, except for the Mayor. He's a very busy man!
Madam Vermeer: The Madam is a human extremely afraid that she'll die before seeing her son marry. Which means that she is hunting the streets for eligible men and women, and whisking them in droves away into her mansion to be made over, trained in the art of serving, etc. before presenting them to her son.
Cassy Cassatt: Cassy is an ornithrop and the owner of the chicken house. She's shorthanded nowadays, but business-savvy enough to prey on considerate bystanders. She'll rope anyone she sees into helping out, whether it's collecting eggs, feeding or breeding.
Turner: Turner is a bearkin, and one of the nurses at the clinic. He's taken to drinking his weight in mead whenever he's off the clock, and it's not uncommon for his body to be seen unconscious on the road. He'll try to flee or swat blindly if anyone tries to help him, but he really does need help getting home.
Chadsef: The mayor of Minecraftia, who is notably wealthier than the rest of the citizens. He's young and inexperienced, but carries a Birds of Economics degree, and is determined to bring jobs to the town. He'll just need to make sure people are alive to do them first!
Other
The longer that passengers remain in the car, the more they'll learn, and soon they'll realize the following:
- They are not immune to the illness. They can't determine what it is that triggers it. At first it's a sense of fatigue, then hunger and irritability. Then, the numbness will begin, starting in their extremities and spreading up their limbs, until that numbness turns into pain. Eventually that pain will lead to madness, a state of delirium where they begin to behave erratically, endangering themselves and those around them.
- There is something in the woods. Though the passengers saw nothing when they arrived in the woods, at night they can hear growling. Venturing outside will reveal grotesque creatures emerging from the fog, rampaging into the town and tearing flesh and stone with their massive claws. These creatures appear rabid, familiar but warped, and they swarm the town with no regard for their own safety or benefit. Examples: (1) (2) (3) (4)
- Corpses are disappearing. Despite deaths, the cemetery isn't seeing any more business. Rumour has it that a certain wealthy denizen has been paying to have the corpses taken away. But to where, and why, remains unknown…
Numbers
Numbers! Everyone starts with one that glows on their bodies — as a fun thread mechanic, we suggest they're somewhere visible, but it's up to you!
Because while this is not IC knowledge yet, numbers are determined by how troubled your character is. This may be based on their past actions and crimes, but also alienating habits, regrets, personality flaws, trauma, etc — a higher number does not necessarily mean they're a bad person, but it may signify a difficult time in their life, or substantial personal issues.
As passengers enter this car, they'll notice that their numbers may begin to change in response to certain actions and decisions. The general rule is that numbers change as characters work through their issues. If they make a decision that serves to better themselves, their number will decrease. But if they make a decision that is ill-intentioned, their number will increase. Players can change their number as they see fit going forward.
OOC Notes
Exploration: Players may submit on-going threads here to get a short mod tag with further discoveries in any given location. Characters can potentially earn items or clues as to the car's objective this way. Please limit your explorations to one per player; we will let you all know if we have the capacity to do more!
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no subject
Nanu listens mostly quietly, interjecting occasionally with a thoughtful 'huh' or parroting the last most ridiculous sounding thing as if he hadn't heard it right, all while slowly walking around the rest of the cemetery and bequeathing each empty grave with a flower. He would even offer some to Sylvian with a gruff, Here, make yourself useful, kid. Don't need anyone haunting us in addition to everything you've been talking about. when it became apparent what he was doing.]
Sounds like I got my work cut out for me here. What a pain.
[Final flower deposited, Nanu permits himself a well-earned break by leaning also a bit too casually on the opposite end of that same grave marker. His eyes are a bit sharper on Sylvian now, suspecting his answer of was on a train, then woke up here wouldn't be any more useful of an answer than he's gotten from any of the other folks trapped here he's had weeks to be acquainted with already. No, he's probing. As he should, too.]
You wanna' know about that name I was calling out--Acerola.
[ Cripes, weeks-- is he going to be stuck here that long too...? ]
Sort of my niece, not by blood. She's got a thing for ghosts and folk tales. She'd probably love all this nonsense.
You got none of your own, right?
no subject
(He can't help but think about how Miklan didn't even get a burial, his gruesome death still very much fresh in Sylvain's mind. His older brother had been disinherited by their father years ago, and besides there hadn't been anything left of him to mourn, material or memory. The world was undeniably better off without him.
But even if nobody would miss Miklan, perhaps it would've been good to put him to rest, to have this sort of ritual for a sense of closure. Better to weigh his ghost down with dirt and stone than with nothing at all.)
...Sylvain shakes himself out of his somber musings when Nanu mentions Acerola—and immediately feels bad for making snap judgments about unfamiliar naming conventions. She sounds like a cute kid, or at least someone very dear.
He chuckles and shakes his head when asked. ] Nah. I'm an only child.
[ (Had Miklan been anyone else, would Sylvain have a cute niece or nephew to tell Nanu stories of? Or maybe he has sired a poor bastard or two that Sylvain is entirely unaware of.) ]
...But I'd love a niece or nephew of my own. Kids are always so honest with you. I could use more of that in my life.
[ He offers Nanu a genial smile, before he flicks the leaf in his hand away and pulls out his phone, flipping through the directory. ]
Huh. I don't see an 'Acerola' on the list, but that's probably for the best. How old is she?
no subject
He leans over the tombstone as he pulls out the phone starts scrolling through it. He wasn't some fuddy-duddy with technology but hadn't taken the time with his yet. His eyes narrow as profile after profile scrolls by, and there at the bottom--his own face. He frowns. ]
Why? This place got an age limit with its passengers?
no subject
[ Nanu does seem... older. So perhaps by "niece" he doesn't mean a young girl... ]
I haven't seen any child passengers around here, anyhow. Teenagers, sure.
[ Sylvain has only recently turned 20 himself so he's still kinda classified as such... ]
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who gets brought aboard.
no subject
He decides he'd rather not talk or think about what's going on outside this train car because it's nothing he can help right now anyway. He leans towards Sylvian again, unsatisfied with the earlier remark about the numbers. He suspects its importance is being understated if they're plastered on his body somehow and glowing ominously as they are. Nanu hooks one of his fingers in the collar of his shirt and tugs it down. 418 is on his chest, right below where his necklace would hang. ]
What's this about? Isn't my age, for the record.
no subject
He grins wryly back at him. ] Aww, my guess was wrong.
[ Shaking his head, ] No clue. Nobody else knows anything about them either—and you're free to check with the others if you don't believe me.
[ Sylvain is still not going to show his number, making no indication of where it might be on his person. ]
We've had them since we first woke up here, and they haven't budged—not until we reached this car. You saw the commotion on the network too, right?
[ *cough*JACK*cough* ]
no subject
Sylvian won't kiss and tell but him confirming that 1) he knows about the numbers and 2) Nanu's not alone with them is enough to go on. If he had to guess maybe they were right on his chest too, and his eyes dare to squint in that direction, but he won't ask to confirm. If they were on everybody's chests then that's going to get obnoxious and inappropriate fast.
Nanu relinquishes his own shirt and sighs performatively. He just got here and there's already a commotion on the network. He pulls his phone out and starts scrolling through it. It's hard to miss, of course. He closes it, not wanting to bother right now but he'll have some words later, for sure. ]
You friends with this mess who thinks he's going to die? [ That why he brought it up? Other than the number thing. ]