where we're going--

[polymods]

✖ EVENT HORIZON

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
There has always been some confusion as to whether or not the ferry cuts through sea or sky, but this month as you glide along you will find yourself more and more convinced that it is the latter. It is nigh impossible to see where you are headed, the way forward shrouded in darkness.

At first you think the lights ahead are stars.

The ferry docks inside of a metallic bay of some kind. It’s an extension of what must be the island, although this one does not resemble any earthly land mass. It appears to be a deliberately constructed structure, contained on all sides. Maybe you’re familiar enough with technology or science fiction enough that you realise it resembles a space station more than an island.

Once you’ve disembarked from the ferry, you will find that you cannot go outside of the structure.

Inside, there are seemingly endless corridors for you to explore. The halls on the upper deck are rounded, metallic, with lights set at regular intervals. Here there are chambers roughly the length and width of a single bed, with sufficient height for a person to crawl in and sit up on the bed. There is a television screen set in the wall at the foot of the bed by the door, and sockets for electronics. That is all.


Also on this floor is a mess hall where you can get beige, mostly tasteless nutritional sludge dispensed from machines. Water and coffee are also available, likewise dispensed from machines. (There is a cookbook hidden on a shelf written by one Serak the Preparer, but no ingredients anywhere.) There are private showers and bathrooms, a small gym, and rooms clearly meant as places for people to sit and talk. There is a medical bay, although there is no staff. In fact, the whole place seems empty.

There are some rooms that are locked - these look like offices. The doors to these rooms are extremely difficult to break down, but if you have superhuman strength you could manage it. Or maybe you’re clever enough to work the electronic panels beside the doors.

Inside you will find round monitors on the walls and square tablet-like devices on desks. Attempt to work any of these and a soft, pleasant but emotionless voice will inform you that you do not have access. You can try to speak to the AI - called MUTHER - but it is supremely uncooperative. Someone very good with technology could use the tablet the old fashioned way, perhaps, to access files. You might want to be careful, though - MUTHER might decide to retaliate. Harshly.

There doesn’t seem to be a temple anywhere readily apparent.

Notes:
1. The High Temple and anything characters may have stored there is only accessible to those who are experiencing their first island outside of the TDM via a marked door. Everyone else must make do with what is available.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The televisions play mostly game shows. You can also find a set of controllers for it and play Pong. Just Pong.

4. MUTHER will not deliberately kill any people on the station - her programming forbids it. She is not above releasing hallucinogenic gas into the air vents, though.

5. Have fun!

---

Ⅱ. CONSCIENCE
CW: psychological trauma, threat of death.
It’s easy to get lost; nearly identical corridors branch off from one another. As you walk along you gradually become convinced that someone is following you. Periodically you’ll hear footsteps, a sigh, a rustle of cloth. But every time you turn around you see nothing… unless it’s one of your fellow Travelers. Or maybe you run into them because you’re so busy looking over your shoulder.

Regardless, as you walk along the lights in the corridor flicker, and when they turn back on you will find someone you know standing directly in your path. Someone who you know absolutely cannot be there.

Maybe they died. Maybe you haven’t spoken in years. Whoever they are, the feeling they inspire within you is one of intense guilt. You did something to this person, something for which you think you can never be forgiven.

The apparition might speak, or it might just watch you with silently accusing eyes. You begin to wither under its gaze, feeling weaker and weaker until you can barely stand. You just want to lay on the floor and close your eyes… maybe forever.

Your fate rests in the hands of whoever is with you or finds you. All they have to do is introduce a smidgen of doubt into your mind, a recognition that maybe it isn’t all your fault. Of course, that means you might have to tell them what you did.

Oh, dear.

Notes:
1. The severity of the offense is of course up to the player - this can be deadly serious, or played for laughs. No matter how it is played the only way to save a character from sleeping on the floor until they die from dehydration is to convince them of even the possibility that they might not be guilty. They do not have to feel completely absolved.

---

Ⅲ. STOWAWAY
CW: monstrous creatures.
The lower decks of the station are darker, more utilitarian looking. These are corridors that lead to rooms full of computers and machinery that keep the station running so it’s probably best to keep out of there.

There are also storage bays filled with both prosaic wooden crates and large metallic pods. Most of these are locked up tight. But not all. Investigate some of the pods and you’ll find that the floor around them is wet with some sort of milky, slimy substance that sure seems like it came from a living organism.

Maybe you should get out of here.

Before you can get good and gone to the upper decks, however, you find exactly what you probably didn’t want to unless you have a very exciting Tinder profile: an alien.

At least eight feet tall, with pale almost translucent skin, the creature has an elongated skull and a mouth that hosts two sets of jaws like a moray eel. It has a whiplike tail and spiky protrusions along its upper back. It is bipedal, and very, VERY fast.

Better hope you’ve got something to fight with! Your chances of survival are definitely greater if you work with a partner.

And you better hope there’s just the one.

Notes:
1. The aliens are extremely dangerous, but they CAN be killed. Their blood is thick and yellow but is not acidic or poison.

---

Ⅳ. TEMPLE
CW: potential insanity, violence.
If you wander the dark lower decks long enough, you will find yourself moving ever inward toward the very center of the station. There is a door there that is supposed to be locked, but often isn’t. It’s waiting for you, beyond that door and down a dark corridor: the station’s heart.

The room the solitary corridor opens into is round, walls sloping gently up to a domed ceiling. In the middle of the room is a machine of some kind: a series of concentric thick metal rings rotate in different directions around a sphere. The only noise it makes is the gentle swooshing of the circles as they spin out, up, around.


The air feels heavy and charged. It’s not pleasant.

Before you can leave, all of the rings line up so that they appear to radiate out from the sphere in the center. Light flares, and then in the space where the sphere once was you can see it:

Home.

It’s your homeworld, perhaps exactly as you left it, or perhaps earlier or later along in the timeline. It may be pleasant, or it may be awful, but it is undeniably the place from which you came. The place where you belong.

Stare into this portal home long enough and the compulsion to return will slip over you. You just need to jump into the glowing, trembling center of that dimensional gate.

Whoever is with you, however, realises that leaping headfirst into an unknown dimension might not be the smartest idea you’ve ever had, especially considering how ominous the whole place feels. They might be able to talk you down. Hopefully they can talk you down, because the longer you stare at the portal the more convinced you become that you MUST leap into it, and the only way to do so is to kill whoever is trying to get in your way.

If instead you turn away from the dimensional gate, the lights will flare once more before the rings resume their movement. That brief glimpse of home is gone. In its place is the sound of soft voices; people you have left behind, calling out to you with accusations of things left undone, begging to be told why you won’t come home...

These voices will follow you throughout the ship. They are not constant, but they never leave you alone for very long. They won’t be silent until you give them an answer to the question of why you have chosen to remain.

Notes:
1. If characters DO jump into the gate… They can pass through and emerge on the opposite side gravely injured or completely out of their minds. Or you may use this as a very dramatic exit from the game.

Is anybody out there listening?

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[dothelokimotion]

I'm tired for a completely different reason, thank you very much.

[ but yes, it does. ]

[unkindled_madness]

[He's just asking a question, Loki.]

And what reason is that?

[dothelokimotion]

Annoying encounters in space.

[ like his mother. which he would normally speak of, but he's feeling reticent. ]

[unkindled_madness]

...one of the Ancient's games?

[dothelokimotion]

Most likely.

[unkindled_madness]

[Reticent is right.]

...I won't pry then.

You performed well, in spite of it.

[dothelokimotion]

Ah, well. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's surviving. Despite the odds.

[unkindled_madness]

I would have assisted you.

[Loki just got it to drop him first.]

[dothelokimotion]

[ his expression softens minutely. ]

Yes. I know.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth eyes him a moment.]

...good.

[It should be apparent by now that he isn't headed back to the upper decks but looking for further signs of aliens. He opens the door to one of the storage bays, filled with crates.]

[dothelokimotion]

Mmm.

[ oh, he's tired. this existence is so tiring sometimes. ]

[unkindled_madness]

[Going farther in makes him tense, his focus narrowing. Hojo kept stacks of crates like this, specimens waiting their turn. There's evidence here of the creature's passing: a streak of slime across the floor, leading to a large metal pod, torn open from the inside.]

...they were storing them, intentionally.

[dothelokimotion]

[ he shrugs. it's not unsurprising. ]

It's a vast universe. People resort to such things.

[unkindled_madness]

...I know that.

[He knows it better than most. He approaches, slowly. Several pods are open, but more are still sealed than not. There's no obvious way to see inside.]

...do you think they're all the same?

[dothelokimotion]

[ loki hesitates. ]

There might be. It's hard to say.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth turns to him, realizing.]

You could listen. Surely the mind of a monster is... easy to identify.

[dothelokimotion]

[ loki openly flinches now at the word monster and purses his lips tightly. ]

What for?

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth hesitates now. What for? He's having trouble thinking.]

I...

They may be something else. There is a difference, isn't there?

[Between monsters and.. him. Shinra saw them all as property but there is a difference.]

[dothelokimotion]

[ now loki is confused. ]

A difference between them and . . . you?

[unkindled_madness]

What?

Why would I be speaking of myself? Humans research all sorts of things, is what I mean.

[Very convincing. No one brought up research either.]

[dothelokimotion]

[ and loki is deeply unconvinced. ]

I thought you didn't want to be near my powers. Especially that one.

[unkindled_madness]

[Sephiroth's turn for confusion.]

I only said I don't want you to read my mind.

[dothelokimotion]

Name one reason why you would think that of me. Why you would think I would do so without your permission.

[unkindled_madness]

...I don't. Not now.

[dothelokimotion]

[ loki makes an irritated sound at the back of his throat. he won't claim to be a saint with his powers. he's certainly mindcontrolled people before, but sephiroth was his friend. a person loki had trusted.

and despite that, here he was. in the same position every person put him in. untrustworthy, unseemly loki. ]

If you're worried you're a monster, don't be. Only humans are so narrow-minded.

[ he turns on his heel to leave. he's done with monsters and humans. ]