Priority Log - Part 1

[locomodo]

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:

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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)
   
   
3. 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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Comments

[unrepentant]

[If he were younger Anakin would have struggled to understand it. Every slave on Tatooine had wanted to leave- had felt both the instinctive desire for freedom and the bone-deep need to flee a place that's been nothing but pain and cruelty. How many times had he dreamed of leaving?

But then, he had. It was his mother, and countless other slaves that had been unable to escape. That had been unwilling or unable to leave behind the only life they knew, their sometimes separated families and the small friendships that had kept them alive all this time. Anakin's gaze moves off, cast out in the direction of the town center without really looking at anything; his plate, long empty, remains in his lowered hands as if forgotten.]

Maybe it's a test.

[soulshard]

[ A test. That isn't the worst theory, and Ardbert looks back to Anakin with a nod. ]

Aye, it could be. It certainly feels as if someone's watching. How else would the doors know when to open?

[ A test of their moral compass, then? Without guidance, would they still go out of their way to help people who may not even be real — is that the question? It would hardly be the first test Ardbert's had to undertake, and at this point he'd like to think he's proved himself a number of times over. ]

I do wonder what's at the end of all this. At the front of the train.

[unrepentant]

[He isn't the first person to mention a someone, and that word alone is enough to bring Anakin's gaze sliding back, landing on the man's face. He isn't inclined to go betting his credits on it, and the circumstances are just strange enough to give him pause.] A few other passengers have said as much. That they figure the conductor's involved.

[But.
Anakin frowns thoughtfully- he just isn't so sure it's a someone. If it's going to be everywhere, if it's capable of doing something this huge, this complicated...
How could one person do all of this?]

You think we'll get answers?

[soulshard]

[ The conductor. Ardbert assumes that would be the person in charge of the train, as he doesn't have much experience with them. Trolleys, certainly, but this is a far more advanced piece of machinery than that.

He can sense that Anakin's not so convinced, and mayhap he has some other theory. All they're doing at this point is guessing, of course, but it's likely healthy to do so. Keeping all of these questions bottled up won't do them much good either. ]

I can't say. [ He sighs and shakes his head as he glances down toward his lap. ] I don't even know if there will be an end, or if this will just continue into some sort of terrible eternity. [ He knows a thing or two about that.

Yet Aria had insisted that this was only temporary, that they would find a way out and return to her home. Ardbert believes in her, if nothing else. ] I'd rather not assume as much, though. I'd like there to be some point to all this. [ He reaches up with one hand to run at the back of his neck, unintentionally drawing attention to the red numbers imprinted there. ]

[unrepentant]

[Anakin hasn't made the leap to eternity because his life experiences so far have landed on the gone-too-soon end of the spectrum more than they've ever allowed for the idea of something that lasts. But the man continues thoughtfully, rubs at the back of his neck and in the process, exposes the the numbers stretching across his skin.

Some point to this, he says. It's a perspective he'd expect to hear from the Council, or even from Obi-Wan. For something so impossible to come to pass it must be the will of the Force, right? To pluck so many different people from so many different worlds and times- from whole universes? What kind of person would have a power like that?

His chin tips forward, a partial nod for partial agreement. After all, Anakin's the last person to complain about having a clear goal.] If it had been just this car I'd assume we were brought here to help.

But I'm not sure it's that simple.

sorry for the delay!

[soulshard]

[ Ardbert's taken note that his number happens to be quite a bit higher than a lot of the other people here, though he still doesn't know what it means. Likely nothing good, but he also doesn't think that dwelling on some random assignment that has yet to be contextualized will do him much good.

It feels as if Anakin has a lot to get off of his chest when it comes to the nature or purpose of their presence here, and Ardbert can't help but want to tease it out of him. ]

What are you thinking, then?

[ He leans forward and braces his elbows on his thighs, taking some strain off of his back for a moment. Soon enough he'll be pestered back into work, so he may as well enjoy the time off his feet while it lasts. ]