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where we're going--
✖ 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.
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.
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.
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.
Is anybody out there listening?
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.
I
"Uh, yeah dude," he agrees. "Like an entirely abandoned space station of this size? There's definitely a room full of corpses around."
He considers this, then adds, "Unless they sucked all the bodies out into space. But someone or something would have to have done that."
Kyle sips his coffee. "There's got to be surveillance footage."
no subject
"Gross. Hope someone else finds it before I do," he says. It's not as if he's going to stay put here and not go looking around. That's just not in his nature, after all.
"You think we can find the footage? It has to be here somewhere, right? There has to be more to find than just…shitty coffee and a lot of nothing." He has no idea what kind of tech knowledge Kyle has, but no time like the present to learn.
no subject
He snorts laughter. "Dude, seriously. Although with my luck it'll totally be me."
Kyle nods and sets his cup down. "Oh, it's definitely SOMEwhere. I bet if we can get into somewhere with an actual computer we can use we could go digging for it. I'm pretty good with computers, so if it's anything like back home I might be able to figure it out."
no subject
"You'll just have to make sure you're not alone when you find whatever it is, then," he says, grinning. He can joke easily enough now about whatever it is they don't know. It isn't that he doesn't take this seriously, but he has to deal somehow. Playing it off a little is just a way of coping, especially when he feels (ironically) too grounded here, unable to use his actual strengths in the enclosed space.
"I'm not terrible with computers myself, but I'm not some kind of hacker either. Maybe we'll be able to figure it out together, though. Wanna have a look? There's gotta be some usable tech not too far away."
no subject
He nods, pushing his coffee away. "I do. Most of the rooms here seem to be locked, but maybe we can fuck with the electric locks."
no subject
"He'll do you a whole ass lecture," Hawks agrees, but he's smiling. He hasn't told anyone else about his thing for David, but it's not a big secret now that they kind of talked about it? Probably? He's never had the freedom to just like someone before, so it's kind of weird.
But he doesn't dwell on David right now either way. He stands up, leaving his terrible coffee on the table to come back for it later (is this littering? can you litter in a shitty empty space station?).
"We can at least try," he says. "What else are we doing other than waiting around for a black hole to swallow us?"
no subject
He chuckles. "He will. But he's kinda great, I care about that dude a lot."
Kyle bounces to his feet, determined. "Dude, you're SO right. Okay, you seen a map anywhere here? I haven't. But if I'm going to guess based entirely on a bunch of old Star Trek episodes, where we are right now is the sort of living quarter area. So anything important will be like, in the opposite direction. So. Let's go toward the other end of the station and look for signs or maps."
He heads out, looking excited. "This place is pretty cool aside from being hella creepy."
no subject
"Yeah, he's definitely great," Hawks agrees with a grin. He's got a thing, okay!
He appreciates Kyle's enthusiasm, though. Even if they find nothing on this initial search, it's worth a shot. And Hawks likes working with others. He can do the solo thing, sure, but two heads and all that.
"Nah, haven't seen a map, but that's a good start. Important stuff hopefully this way!" He starts walking.
"It would be cooler if I didn't feel so stifled. I'm an outdoors kinda guy, you know? Wide open spaces."
no subject
Kyle usually gets into trouble more if he's not alone, but at least it's never boring? He walks along just slightly ahead of Hawks so the other man has plenty of wing room.
"Oh, fuck, yeah, I guess you would be," Kyle says. He glances at those frankly impressive wings.
"Okay I hope this isn't rude to ask, but like, do you just avoid vehicles as much as possible back home?"
no subject
"Super cute," he agrees. His feathers fluff up a little bit. Okay, maybe this is slightly embarrassing, which isn't really a thing Hawks is used to feeling.
He laughs at Kyle's second question.
"Nah, I don't think it's rude. Sometimes I get in cars or whatever, but I don't usually do public transit since I can just fly wherever I need. I know how to drive, but what's the point?"
He doesn't mention that it's possible for him to use up all his feathers and be grounded for a few days. That's still not something he's told anyone, just in case.
no subject
He nods, smiling. "Dude, for real. If I could fly I wouldn't bother with cars or anything either. Totally pointless."
Kyle peers at any doors they pass, looking for anything that reads as official.
"I guess it's nice that other superheroes are here, huh? You guys all have shit in common even if you're not from the same universe."