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𝚂𝚱𝚗𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚡 đ™Œđš˜đšđšœ ([personal profile] synfluxmods) wrote in [community profile] synflux2024-05-13 03:41 pm

TRAVEL LOG #1

TRAVEL LOG #1


CONTENT WARNINGS: potential mentions of drugs, suspected mind-control, alcohol, and gambling, gore.

▶ 001. A RUDE AWAKENING.

On the morning of the 15th, the Outsiders will hear an alarm sound in the early hours. No matter what you’re doing, the alarm will not stop sounding, and it’s because they’re playing directly into your oculars. If one is sleeping, they may even be roused by the spark of colors on their oculars dictating an emergency. After a few minutes of this, the following message will appear:

PLEASE REPORT TO THE DATAPORTAL AT THE TOKYO BRANCH AND BE PREPARED FOR DEPARTURE.

"Captain Yamakawa speaking. You’ve done a great job in testing the data portals. Now that we are able to travel, we were sent a call for help in another city due to lack of personnel and resources abroad. You will be looking for evidence of a new kaiju around the rendezvous point. It may be a difficult journey, so prepare yourself. SYNTHIA will still be online to help you make it to the city. Report to the POD CHAMBER where we have installed an international dataportal and prepare for transportation."

Following the success of the dataportal testing, the engineering department was able to fine tune its abilities and widen the reach of the portals. The portals can connect even abroad now!

Despite their best efforts, however, they cannot guarantee that the same symptoms won’t appear, and ask all Outsiders who are utilizing them to practice caution. Additionally, through all their testing, they found that people who hold hands or make contact with others as they pass through will be hit with less issues.


▶ 002. WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS.

When one passes through the data portal, they will see the refuge city of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Similar to Neo Tokyo, it is also rich in life and known as the city that never sleeps. Incidentally, it is also famously noted as a place of endless vice. The city is built up around a strip of land of roughly 4.2 miles. A vast majority of the city was built up over the wreckage of the old, and some fixtures were simply made new with whatever was left preexisting. The Mojave Desert has expanded towards surrounding cities, though it will take a vehicle to get there in a timely manner.

The city has no shortage of hotels and with each hotel, a casino. While Outsiders here are on a mission, there’s no stating they couldn’t participate in the fun of Vegas while LILITH crew begin their investigation. While some hotels will be clearly abandoned or less traversed, there is no end to all card tables and slot machines, all asking for your KRYPTOS.

The hotel the Outsiders are slotted to stay over the course of the next few days is one where they built directly over the hotels of the old. While it offers a decent place to sleep, it’s not without a refurbished pirate themed bed, or the columns of what appears to have been from Caesars Palace. Is that a giant clown face staring at you in the room? Don’t worry about it. The hotel offers that this is the best place to depart into the desert from. For this mission, Outsiders may bunk up with whoever they would like, and each hotel provides two queen sized beds.

Excited to venture out into the city? Even under the threat of kaiju, the city doesn’t sleep. Outsiders may venture through the Las Vegas Strip and treat themselves to a fun night of drinking, gambling, shopping, partying and circle-style performances. The Grand Canal Shoppes, a Venetian-inspired high end mall, boasts a man-made canal with gondola rides for a fee, along with many retail outlets and restaurants. There are also numerous spas and carnival-style rides to enjoy. Las Vegas was once known as the ‘Marriage Capital of the World’, and in a world besieged by kaiju, the people don’t seem to think they have anything to lose. Outsiders may spot a few bride and grooms-to-be partying in the street.

(LILITH does not have a stance on whether or not Outsiders are permitted to get hitched as long as it does not affect their performance. )


▶ 003. TROUBLE BREWING.

It’s normal for fights to break out with so much alcohol being passed around, but something 
 isn’t quite right with some of the locals here. Outsiders who keep an eye open might notice people acting erratically, and not just from being intoxicated. There are people ready to pick a fight from just being looked at, people falling into despondent sadness and lethargy, people wandering mindlessly and people becoming distressed from seeing things that aren’t there. Ask the locals and they will tell you these cases seem to be popping up more often the past week.

The most concerning of all are the stories of people disappearing completely. One little girl will tell you she cried as she saw her mother mindlessly walk into the desert, as if called by a voice no one else can hear. There are many other accounts of this happening. In fact, all the people acting erratically seem to disappear within a few days 


Outsiders may interact with civilians who are acting erratic and aggressive, but asking questions they may receive answers that do not make sense, are perverse and inappropriate or may trigger aggression. Any Outsider to gets into a fight and is severely injured may report to a local hospital here and will find they are pretty packed with other civilians acting strange, hurting each other and themselves. Certainly, this was the main cause for concern that got LILITH's attention anyway.


▶ 004. FOUR FOR THE ROAD.

Within a day or two, the Outsiders will once again be called to action by a blaring notice in their implant.

YOUR VEHICLES ARE PREPARED. ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE THE CITY IMMEDIATELY.

When they gather at the location provided to them, they will find a fleet of armored campervans waiting for them. Each campervan comes equipped with beds, a kitchenette, and bathroom facilities, and will fit about 4 people. Within the campervans, they will find desert-appropriate attire designed to protect them from the scorching sun. These campervans also come with some basic artillery such as a mounted machine gun. There are also supplies in the form of water bottles and MRE ration packs.

Those who have driven large vehicles in the past are encouraged to take the driver’s seat. If the group does not have any driving experience, they will be given a crash course on driving recorded by the man himself, Seok Dang. (He probably shouldn’t be doing this with the stunts he’s pulled, but the Commander does not have any time to be teaching anyone driving, and Seok Dang volunteered so eagerly
)

"Listen. If you’ve ever handled a ▄▄ before, the joystick is exactly like that. You gotta tug it, but not too hard. Gently, yeah, like that, that’s the path to ecstasy 
 "


If it eases anyone’s worries, the campervans are armored and highly shock resistant, so they should withstand a crash or two.

(Those who finish his course and successfully drive 100km while supervised will receive an international driving license.)


▶ 005. THE HUNT IS ON.

With everyone settled into their campervan, the large scale road trip begins. LILITH has a general idea of where the biggest energy signal is located for the rift and they will feed the coordinates to the Outsiders. The journey will take about a few days into (and around as LILITH is searching for both people & the source of the rift energy) the Mojave Desert, and Outsiders will be permitted occasional rest stops to give drivers a break and to investigate the terrain. The terrain itself is a harsh desert, with cacti and small local fauna abundant. (Those not wanting to eat ration packs can take this time to hunt the local fauna such as birds, lizards and desert foxes.) While there is nothing else around, observant Outsiders may notice signs of human life - footprints in the sand, a shoe or torn piece of clothing being left behind, and even the odd human carcass being torn apart by vultures.

The logical conclusion would be that those missing humans have been here, and the only thing left to do is find them 
 but Outsiders and civilians aren't all that lurk here, and time will tell what lies beneath the desert surface ...



▶ 005. AFTERWORD.

Welcome to our very first travel log! Each campervan will accommodate anywhere between 3-5 people, with 4 being the ideal and 5 being a squeeze. Players are encouraged to connect with each other to fill up a van but the mods will not be enforcing it. If you need help finding roommates, there is a FIND A ROOMMATE header below that you can make use of.

If you'd like to test your gambling luck, we also have an IC SLOTS HEADER for you to comment to for you to see how well your character does at the slot machines. This is entirely for fun, and of course you are always welcome to have your characters winning or losing at the slot machines as much as you want in your prompts so long as they aren't winning jackpots.

Following this log, all characters who have purchased style upgrades will receive an update to their chip enabling them access to desert attire and popular styles within Las Vegas.

All tags on this log are worth 2 points.


frostfist: (pic#16870173)

caves.

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-05-15 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[ bro where tf did you go

One minute Izou is there, head of shaggy dark hair a noticeable landmark, and then he's simply gone, an empty space where one of their resident short kings should have been. Wriothesley blinks, first in surprise and then in alarm, and quickly calls out: ]


Izou?

[ HelllooOOOOooooo..... ]
hitokiller: id: aruchagos7180 (Default)

[personal profile] hitokiller 2024-05-15 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
( a small raspy, voice reaches wriothesley from below... through a hole that opened up in the rock: )

th-the hell? where am i? WHERE IS THIS?!!
frostfist: (pic#16949956)

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-05-15 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Please hold while he gets on his knees and does his best to peer through the hole that's suddenly opened up in the rock next to him. If only he had a rope to anchor himself with, or that he could toss down to Izou. Alas, all he's got are his two hands and feet. ]

Izou? You alright? Did you hit your head on the way down?

[ Just checking.... ]
hitokiller: id: wnut (pic#16920329)

[personal profile] hitokiller 2024-05-16 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
( it's finally dawned on him completely what just happened, threads of light from above coalescing with the occasional shadow as wriothesley does his best to peer into the expanse below.

and if izou had been a regular human, the fall would undoubtedly have hurt his lower back. at most he's got a splitting headache, some cuts, and is dusty. it's hard to make out his surroundings, and he sneezes lightly as he scrambles to his feet after a moment of being dazed.

then something cracks underfoot. something that has him cupping hands around his mouth in order to project his voice better, ignoring the questions poised. )


There's a body down here!
frostfist: (pic#16873262)

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-05-17 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's fuckin' what down there.

It shouldn't be so surprising, all things considered. They are in the middle of a desert, with little protection from the elements and few readily available resources (unless someone happens to be a particularly skilled hunter). People get lost or wander all the time, to unfortunate results.

But something doesn't sit well with him, a niggling discomfort that doesn't fully go away.

Time for him to pitch his own voice down, loud enough to be heard. ]


How old?

[ Are they talking fresh corpse here or ancient skeleton
? ]
hitokiller: id: 69907082 (pic#16857965)

[personal profile] hitokiller 2024-05-20 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
How the hell am I s'posed to know...

( izou grumbles to absolutely no one.

what cracked underfoot was bone, and it almost quivers into the dark soil and sand as izou takes a couple steps back. the skeleton is partially bleached, worn from the weather and possibly the sand surrounding him on all ends. not that he was an expert or anything, but even he could infer that much.

it didn't explain what it was doing down here. )


Old enough to be nothin' but bones.

( he yells back up while fixing a shoulder covered in desert attire. if there were human remains down here, did that mean...

—whatever they were looking for was somewhere down here too? )
frostfist: (pic#16780264)

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-05-20 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Concerning.... Wriothesley gives the revelation a good thinkover before shouting down: ]

Wait there a minute!

[ And then he's....just gone? Okay. For a good handful of minutes, probably at least five, there's no response, just the occasional slither of sand falling into the hole and an unintelligible shout. Has Izou been abandoned? Probably.

Just kidding, there's the dull thud of a rope being tossed down - what's it tied to? don't ask - and then the dark shadow of a body slowly slowly sliding down. Feet land on the sand, narrowly missing the crunched bone, and then without warning there's a flashlight being tossed over to Izou. Hope he knows how to use it. ]
hitokiller: (pic#16873862)

[personal profile] hitokiller 2024-05-25 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
( funnily enough, a sinking feeling does set in after those five minutes or so. that maybe the other man left to get others, or simply abandoned the task for being too much of a pain to endure under the searing heat of the desert.

he doesn't know wriothesley too intimately to make sense of what he might be thinking. all izou considers him thus far is a good listener, and maybe a little smarmy. smarmy in the sense that he always seemed to say the right thing, and that flawless charisma when combined with a way to dodge most questions sort of irked a man with no social skills who mostly spoke his mind.

but before he resigns himself to moving on and finding a way out, there's the sound of sand being crushed behind him, and as he turns— )


Shit!

( he just barely catches the flashlight before it slips through his fingers, fiddling with it until the light catches hanging rocks all around them. )
frostfist: <user name=tanuki_nishi site=twitter.com> (pic#16953513)

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-05-30 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Sorry, buddy. Wriothesley pays no mind to the haphazard fumble of the flashlight, nor the way the too-bright light shines erratically around them for a second, too busy flicking own his own light so he can peer off into the opposite direction. ]

You any good with underground tunnels?

[ Now that there's two of them, it's probably safe(r) to do a little bit of exploring... ]
hitokiller: id: 69907082 (pic#16857727)

[personal profile] hitokiller 2024-06-02 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
( crazy how this cave could've been conceived by the worm now that i have this knowledge... )

If you're askin' if I'm scared, then I'm not.

( defensive as always, even after being presented with the necessary equipment to help get him out of this situation.

he flashes his light back up towards that hole. )


How come we can't just go back up the way we came?
frostfist: (pic#16873228)

[personal profile] frostfist 2024-06-03 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
And abandon anyone else that might have gotten lost down here?

[ It's less accusation than it is casually stated fact. Unfortunately for Izou, Wriothesley's always been something of a do-gooder, a fact made clear by the way he takes another step deeper into the tunnel. Who knows how long it might potentially go on for—assuming there hasn't been a collapse of sand halfway through. ]

But if you'd like to climb up right now, be my guest.

[ The rope is still there, swaying slightly from his descent. It looks sturdy enough to hold Izou's weight for a return journey up. ]