(july intro log) WELCOME TO THE CONTAINMENT ZONE! (for real this time.)

[vestigemods]

JULY INTRO LOG

► PROMPT 1 ► WAKING UP

Whenever you're from or wherever you were, you awaken now with the mildest of headaches in-... oh, this is new. For some people, you wake in a cabin - in a bed, on the floor, amidst boxes in the basement - and for others, you wake up somewhere else entirely. Off in the woods. Between aisles in a run-down gas station. Lying on a branch ten feet up a local tree. Perhaps even on a leaky boat out on the middle of a lake. It's mid-morning, and across the nine square miles of containment zone, a little under two-dozen people are waking up just as you are. I'm sure you'll run into some of them soon enough.

This might be your first time waking up where you don't expect to be. If it is, consider yourself lucky to have missed what came before. For those have been through a Loop or three (or five or twelve), you'll find that waking this time feels different. It's as though you've woken from a dream - and that's what those memories feel like, trapped in the semi-tangible realm between dream and reality, though if pressed you can probably discern that they were undeniably real. (Or perhaps you can't - or perhaps some of the memories are missing altogether. This is hardly a precise science.)

Somewhere in your vicinity (in your hand, in your pocket, on your chest) is a smartphone, if you're able to recognize it as such. The models tend to vary, but they all share the capacity to connect to what seems to be an overarching network, able to connect to others with similar devices via text, voice calls, or even video messages.

But the phone is likely the least of your concerns, at least for now. More pressing is where exactly it is that you've awoken and whether or not you've woken up alone.

PROMPT 2 ► THE CABINS + LAKE

As many as a dozen cabins sit in the general vicinity of the lake, some along the shore and some a bit farther back in the woods. Perhaps you awoke in one, or perhaps you're stumbling into one after dragging yourself out of the lake or through a couple of miles of woods. Either way, you're in perhaps the best place you might have ended up. The cabin's amenities are sketchy but functional, and the kitchen is stocked with food...

And let's not forget about the pamphlets.

On at least a couple of nearby tables or countertops sit a handful of them, fanned for display. They're vividly colored, depicting what you might recognize as the landscape outside, and the title reads: THE CONTAINMENT ZONE AND YOU! Within these pamphlets, a conversationally cavalier voice explains a bit about the Containment Zone, which (as it turns out) you're stuck in right at this very moment.


"THE CONTAINMENT ZONE AND YOU", summarized


• Where am I?
  Earth. Well - an Earth. Definitely not your Earth. if that creates more questions than it answers, glance to your left and right and ask any follow-up questions to whomsoever seems least confused.


• Why am I here?
  To feed the elder gods with your death and/or suffering in order to prevent any more of an apocalypse than we already had.


• Can I leave?
  Voluntarily? No. Involuntarily? Probably not.


• What do you mean, 'death'??
  Oh, calm down. You'll come back.


• I have very important shit to be doing/people to be saving/weed to be smoking back home!
  Lucky for you: If you go back, we'll put you back right where and when you left off. You won't miss a thing.


• Isn't that how you break time!? I'm pretty sure that's how you break time.
  Only if you remember this place and/or what you've learned here when you get back. Which you won't.


• Supplies?
  Cabins and gas station.


• Cabins?
  Yours. Pick one.


• Lake?
  Safe. (For now.)


• Moon?
  Haunted.


• Who even are you?
  Call us the Technicians. Individual identities don't matter. We may give you sweets and toys but we're not your friends.


• Do you at least negotiate?
  We'll consider it. Depends on what you're asking for. And, of course, on what you have to offer.


• Wait! I'm (insert emotions) and have more questions!
  How unfortunate. Expect your next pamphlet in 4-6 weeks.




Well, that certainly is... something. Lots to discuss, lots to consider. If you're the get-right-to-business sort, that could easily occupy you for a good long while.

Alternatively: It's a hot day, and you've just ever-so-conveniently learned that the lake is 'safe (for now)'. Why not go for a dip to clear your head? The water is actually impressively clear, offering visual reassurance of the lack of abject horrors lurking below.

Those who do swim find that the lake is, as promised, mostly innocuous. 'Mostly' being the key phrase, as anyone who swims out close to the center will find it getting more and more difficult to stay on the surface. As if you're getting heavier and heavier, or your limbs are getting weaker and weaker. It isn't enough to drown you (probably), but you certainly might find yourself considering how peaceful it might be if you let yourself sink.

These thoughts are simple enough to push away in much the same way you might push through the heaviness of your limbs. One could consider it more a warning than anything: Even that which is 'safe' should be treated with proper caution. (Quick and senseless deaths are junk food to the elder gods - tasty but unsatisfying.)

PROMPT 3 ► THE GAS STATION

At the south end of the containment zone sits an old gas station, run-down and overgrown at first sight. It sits alongside a cracked asphalt road, one which (as you might discover) bisects the containment zone from the east wall to the west without a single other building in sight.

You may have woken up here, or perhaps you found it at the pamphlet's behest. Either way, it's a discovery that you'll thank yourself for many a time as throughout the next few months here, for reasons that become apparent the moment you step inside.

In sharp contrast with the outside, the inside of the gas station looks... well, like a functional gas station should. Floors and surfaces seem recently-wiped, shelves seem stocked and organized... It's enough that if you're familiar with gas stations as a concept, you might find yourself reflexively glancing around for an attendant.

But no attendant seems to be present. Just shelves and shelves of goods - perishables and nonperishables, first aid supplies and whatever else one might expect to find at such an out-of-the-way pit stop, all ready for the taking. You might even find an extra surprise. Oh, and let's not forget a nice array of THE CONTAINMENT ZONE AND YOU! pamphlets on the check-out counter, in case you missed them back at the cabins.

Maybe you encounter someone here - are they friend, or foe? Maybe they're as lost and confused as you are. Maybe they're reaching for that last fucking can of Spaghetti-Os and you're serious about your fucking Spaghetti-Os. At least one person is definitely waking up in a gas station fridge... Maybe you're lucky(?) individual who spots them and has to decide whether or not you've discovered a corpse where the soda should be. The world (or, at least, the gas station) is your oyster.

PROMPT 4 ► THE WOODS + BARRIER

The vast majority of the containment zone is covered in evergreen forest, populated with wildlife that look and act disarmingly normal. It may, in fact, be a nice quiet place to stroll in order to clear your head. While large swathes of the woods are moderately dense, there are a number of paths to make your way along should you choose to. Birds sing overhead, deer occasionally bound across the path ahead... If you didn't know any better, you might be able to forget that this isn't a normal stretch of woods somewhere not far from home.

But nothing in the containment zone is truly harmless. The blackberry bushes that line many a cabin (you remember, the ones that make your mouth and tongue go numb?) are out in force in the woods, and out here they're even more of an infernal menace: While the cabin variety only cause havoc when ingested, so much as a scratch from the woods variety's thorns will induce a tingling numb in the affected area that lasts for the better part of an hour.

And let's not forget the lovely field of "wildflowers" that definitely aren't not infested with poison ivy. It's a shame, really. The flowers themselves are quite pretty, an array of pastel blues and pinks and oranges. It's almost like a painting, if touching that painting happened to make you itch, burn, and blister for one-to-two weeks.

But why are we talking about flowers? What you're truly interested in is the containment zone barrier, aren't you? That's fine, you're bound to encounter it out there somewhere. It's invisible until you touch it, at which point a honeycomb pattern ripples out from the point of contact. As a general rule, the barrier gives back what it gets: Place your palm on it and you'll receive a faint uncomfortable buzz. Run headlong into it, and it will ricochet you multiple yards back into the woods.

The barrier stretches all the way around the containment zone without a single break or point of yielding. No further buildings can be seen beyond the barrier, nor any real sign of civilization at all save for the gas station's road stretching past the barriers and out of sight. The only thing of passable interest is the somewhat concerning tree sitting at the far end of the field across the street from saud gas station, at least two-hundred yards past the barrier. At this distance, it's a bit tricky to make out what flocks in the tree's branches. Those have to be birds... right?

► MOD NOTES ►

• This log takes place from July 4th onward, arguably through whenever the event goes up - though you're welcome to toss up your own logs in the meantime. I'm gonna troubleshoot the HTML to leave a space for IC dates, but I didn't want to waste any more time on that right now.
  
• Vestige is now open for business! You're welcome to post logs + network posts of your own, post memes on vestigechat, whatever you want.
  
• This log is functionally intended to be a tour of the containment zone for new characters and players, with dashes of mild horror or discomfort along the way. Don't worry: The actual horror is rolling in later this month. (I'm tagging this under 'event' anyway, just to keep track of it.)
  
• You can literally have your character wake up wherever you want within the containment zone, even if I didn't list it. Go nuts.
  
• It's worth noting: None of the cabins are recognizable as the precise one from the TDM loop, nor is the forest fog still present. The forest is recognizably the same flora/fauna, but that's about it.
  
• You're welcome to include a network post with your top-level (or to put it up on vestigenet as per usual) - but don't forget to consult the NETWORK: USERNAMES ARE FUCKY drop-down of July's Infopost before you do!
  
• Direct any and all questions at Trace on plurk/discord or (for slightly slower answers) this top-level.
  
• My deepest most heartfelt apologies for the lateness, I failed to factor in my own godforsaken attention span.
  

Comments

[brickbat]

[ north, who deals almost entirely in feelings and finds facts most convenient when they back them, would articulate exactly that, that everything, from the air to the ambient temperature to the soundscape of trees and water, fills in none of the gaps she expects as she comes to. for as many horrors (and inconveniences) as it offered, deerington eventually became capital F familiar, and this--this is simply somewhere else.

she searches the cabin for anything (anyone) she knows, can grasp the roots of, finds, fucking oddly, a jumble of her previous life: the botany books connor could be collecting massive fines on just now, their child singular potted plant, the physically impossible scissors she resolves instantly to keep close until she knows what she's dealing with here (and then, you know, forever after that), neatly stacked together in the dusty, mold spattered kitchen.

once she's confirmed she's alone she does, as they often move in complement, exactly the opposite of what connor chose to start out doing, i.e. she stays put. if anyone is looking for her she wants to be findable. it's against the instincts of the north who fell headfirst into deery hell from detroit, the instinct of a shark who keeps moving or dies, and yet...and yet. she's different now. she's a north who relies on a very small handful (t...wo...) of people only a blink and a breath (neither of which she needs to do, technically) away from herself.

she is still north, however, so after that she begins moving through the house again, this time in search of useful objects (ie weapons; the food in the cupboards is of no use to her even if she did take the time to open a can of syrupy peaches and take the absolute tiniest of bites without swallowing, just in case).

though her senses are only as enhanced as the average android and therefore doubtlessly hears his footsteps after connor has ascertained he's not the only one in the house but that he's probably not accompanied by a bear, but in about a second and a half that ceases to matter; she lets the enormous kitchen knife she was contemplating clatter to the floor as she follows his voice to the other room. there is no hesitation or demanding vocalization back; north deals mostly in feelings, and the quick crunch of a fist around her off-brand heart says she knows who's on the other end.

he looks exactly the same as he did the last time she saw him, which only makes sense since the information feeding her brain says that was...it wasn't long ago, was it?, though that ceases to matter instantly, since she is going to just yeet herself across the room and into a hug that employs every ounce of strength from her Canonically Improved Limbs. ]

Hi.

[ oh hey, that's still a thing. there will now be a solid minute of sheer, unadulterated clinging; connor is just lucky she's not hitting him in the chest like when markus appeared in deerington. once satisfied he actually exists and isn't a software malfunction, she pulls back to look up at him, expression darkened mostly by worry and confusion but also, of course, a spark of self-replenishing anger. ]

You know this isn't Deerington. [ it's not a question. ] And--and Markus would have found us by now.

[ if he were here, she doesn't add. ]

[metanoias]

[ It's presumably difficult to glean accurate probabilities in impossible situations, assumes the narrative who is very bad with numbers, but Connor has at least a rough idea on the likelihood of being spirited away a second time and, by extension, the likelihood that he and North would be the two picked up and spat out together again. The odds aren't high.

Yet, Connor finds himself not in the least bit surprised when a tiny feral cat in the form of an android comes hurling herself at him. Their entire story so far had been one unlikely moment after another so it would only be right that, yes, they were the two these Technicians had decided to pluck from Deerington and toss into... wherever this is.

The general eeriness and impossibility of this place has been so familiar in the worst way, so North brings with her a shred of the good kind of familiarity, the kind Connor wants to hold onto. He hugs her tight, relieved that these low odds had decided to work in their favor again. He would have made it through whatever this place has in store on his own, because he was designed for peak functionality in the face of adversity, but they were better together.

He steps back to look at her — unsurprisingly, she looks just as she had the last time he'd seen her. That hadn't been so long ago but it felt like uuuuhhhh two whole years. Maybe his inner clock had glitched. ]

I know.

[ In response to both things, really.

His internal gps is still scrabbling for numbers, numbers just beyond his reach, and that is not so different from Deerington, but he still knows. This is someplace new.

As for Markus — ]

But we shouldn't give up on him yet. This is a big place. There's a chance he simply hasn't opened the right door yet.

[ A small chance is still a chance. Statistically speaking, you know. ]

[brickbat]

[ North was designed for absolutely nothing like peak functionality in the face of adversity (it could probably be argued, in horrifying fact, that Tracis were made with the opposite in mind: easy to break, easy to replace), and yet that would have stopped her from carrying on not at all. There was a time she considered herself totally alone and liked it that way, even deep in the dark of Jericho with the others; she could go back to that, if she had to.

For all that ...it's true. They were better together. She lets the same knowledge sink in a moment, now that her feet feel even moderately under her checking him over for what limited damage she can assess. Nothing visual, and as per previous mention she has only the average android eyeballs, so--she'll just have to trust he would tell her if something was wrong. To wit: ]

I hope you're right. [ sigh. ] How're your operating conditions? I've run all my own diagnostics and can't find anything wrong--

[ if there's one thing that should be concerning either of them, she can guess. ]

The heart is still working fine.

[metanoias]

[ Connor's special eyes aren't quite special enough to do a full diagnostics scan on another android based on visuals alone, but he can look at North and tell that she's relatively fine (not that he doesn't believe her, of course, but it's second nature to observe what he can, particularly now after all that had happened). Her stress levels are a little high (presumably, probably — if not then nevermind nothing to see here) as anyone's would be in this situation, but she's mostly alright. Perhaps it's not so surprising given Deerington was supposed to be a dream. Maybe nothing there had really happened in any sort of tangible capacity — maybe her heart is still a factory-issued Cyberlife heart. Can she tell by diagnostics alone?

A discussion for later, though not too much later. For now they need to figure out what the hell is even happening.

Connor's own diagnostics scan (which he'd done at some point after his abrupt awakening here) had produced unremarkable results which, given recent events, was actually quite remarkable. ]

I'm okay, [ he says, then, after a moment of consideration as though that pesky flu might suddenly come creeping back, ] I'm not sick.

[ After a few days of aches and pains and congestion that shouldn't have been possible this is a relief. It might have been enough to lull him into a false sense of security, to instill the idea that this place is more real world adjacent than Deerington had ever been, but Connor knows better. He had seen the barrier and the new faces from worlds away. This is Deerington with the warm mid-century smile stripped away. He doesn't trust it. ]

Have you been outside?

[brickbat]

[ Narrative has retroactively just realized North should almost certainly have had the flu, since like fuck was she getting that shot, so maybe they were miserable and achey for a couple days (not that North would have noticed, on top of already being post-death miserable and achey), while Markus cared for them like the beautiful, incapable of illness angel saint he is. Narrative will also decide right in this moment that no, North couldn't tell the difference as long as either thirium pump kept working normally. Although it might be worth opening her chest to check, and isn't that a sentence.

Meanwhile her stress levels are, correctly assessed, about Deerington Standard High, returning to relatively normal slow now that she has an anchor. That Markus isn't with Connor is--it should make her feel more defeated, that she's not surprised, but if he's not here she has to keep in her (possibly offbrand) heart that he's home, with their people. According to what he'd told them the brief time they'd all been together, the world really did just stop for those who were gone.

That leaves just right now to worry about, and by worry North means surmount, if necessary by climbing with her teeth. She touches the back of one hand to Connor's cheek and finds it cool, which is comforting - given an android's reaction to extreme heat a fever was probably legitimately terrifying - and steps out of the hug, reluctantly, without actually leaving his orbit. Looping their fingers together for security (physical, mental, emotional, pick any combination of the three) comes second nature by now. ]

Not yet. It looked like more of the same bullshit, and if you were here I wanted you to be able to find me.

[ The same bullshit being recognizably not Detroit. She is not, of course, capable of being this blase about it, and steps back entirely for a moment to ball her hands into fists and then, uh--punch the nearest wall. Which pops a hole right in the plaster, and North has absolutely no idea how to drywall, and that's just such irrelevant nonsense her frustration tips over into tears of sheer inexpressible rage. ]

Shit.

[ ....about just, all of that. ]

Why does this keep happening?