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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.


kubricks: (wish we had one of them doomsday machine)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-05-18 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly.

[A nod as things move into uncomfortable restraint and then pushed over. It's fine, maybe not the best response, but it's also not the worst.]

It helps foster cooperation too, for what it's worth. I don't think too many around here would want to answer questions if they saw you do something like that.

[No that would probably scare people away. ...more than they might've already been scared away already anyways.]
mechspeed: (my limit's drawing close)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-05-21 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
It was not something I took into consideration. [...] ...it is an inefficient method of furthering the investigation. Do you believe otherwise?

["I'm not good at talking to people" is the crux of what he really means, but whether he doesn't want to admit it or he thinks he's communicated it well enough that way, well.

Who can say.
]
kubricks: (Eyes Wide Shut)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-05-22 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
I think at the moment yes, but it could be effective later.

[Probably when the kaiju is actually found, then it's definitely the appropriate time for violence.]

That said, I think it's important to keep every option on the table, and if there's something you're not particularly skilled in or cut out for, to find someone who is.

[She can do the talking for example.]
mechspeed: (pic#16075225)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-05-22 11:23 pm (UTC)(link)
It would be pertinent to leave matters of conversation in your hands, then. I am a weapon; such a task is ill fitting for me.

[He could funnel his newfound conversational skills into manipulating people? In a way that could be just as useful, but uh...he doesn't really want to. The less he has to talk to people the better.]
kubricks: (I Stole 16 Million Dollars)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-05-23 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
That's okay. I'm used to working with weapons. I think we'll manage just fine.

[She's not worried about it at all.]

Though I think we should find someone else to talk to, I don't think this person would be too willing to cooperate with me at this point.

[No, she doubts that very much.]
mechspeed: (and so i yearned)

1/3

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-05-29 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[Eugh.]
mechspeed: (but ordinary)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-05-29 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I would not have engaged in hostilities had I known this person would prove in any way necessary.

[Just wants to make that clear, he isn't dumb (he's a little dumb sometimes but it's ok)]
Edited 2024-05-29 22:53 (UTC)
mechspeed: (my end result)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-05-29 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
[With that out of the way, he has a quick look around the immediate area to take in any locals they could talk to.]

It would be pertinent to avoid those displaying similar signs of aggression. [And there's quite a few...weird.] Perhaps over there.

[The person who looks like they're actively trying to avoid being dragged into a fight. Always a good sign.]
kubricks: (origin and purpose are still a mystery)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-06-01 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
It’s fine, no harm done.

[Or no permanent harm, probably.]

It’s hard to tell sometimes, I wouldn’t think most people here have important information, but you never know. Sometimes they might surprise you. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have handled things the same way, but I think I would’ve come to the same conclusion.

[So hard to tell who’s useful when one isn’t entirely sure what to look for.]

And I think that will work fine. Excuse me?

[She’ll start walking over to the next person, trying to come across as completely friendly and non-aggressive.]

I’d like to talk to you for a few moments, please don’t mind my...colleague here, they were a bit overzealous but you don’t have anything to worry about with me.

[That’s her story and she’s sticking to it.]
mechspeed: (just dancing along)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-06-02 10:21 am (UTC)(link)
[He'll be his best behaved self and just stand beside Makima, a little behind her, arms at his side attempting to look as unintimidating as possible.

It seems to work, because while they regard Metal with some initial suspicion (as they're trying to avoid getting dragged into violence and they saw him just...) they decide Makima seems reasonable enough.
]

"S-sure, lady, but maybe somewhere a little less crazy? Everyone around here's off their rocker!"
kubricks: (I Stole 16 Million Dollars)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-06-03 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, that's no problem at all. Let's go in there if that's all right with you?

[She gestures over at a nearby casino entrance. A little noisy, sure, but not a lot of people being thrown around or acting crazy in there.]
mechspeed: (pic#16075225)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-06-04 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[They nod, heading on over as Makima and Metal follow. Once the three arrive, their shoulders seem to relax a little.]

"Well? What's this about?"
kubricks: (Do I look all rancid and clotted?)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-06-07 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
We wanted to ask about the strange way some people have been acting. Like that man my coworker here spoke with.

[That's a way of putting it, all right.]
mechspeed: (i've locked my door already)

[personal profile] mechspeed 2024-06-20 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh it's nuts, right? There I thought it was the usual, you know, who doesn't like getting up to a bit of mischief on a night off...but this is unreal! It's like the world's gone feral!"

[He's accompanying his assessment with some appropriate arm gestures, too. Pretty active guy here.]
kubricks: (Eyes Wide Shut)

[personal profile] kubricks 2024-06-21 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's fine. He can be the more animated of the three of them. Makima isn't going to react too much.]

Right, it does seem like it's a bit much...I'm aware things can get out of hand here, but like you said it doesn't seem like the usual way.

[From what she's heard about Vegas and seen on TV or in movies anyways. Not like she's been here before either in this world or hers.]

I imagine the casino staff must be unhappy too, not doubt having to be on guard for someone walking in and causing problems. Much different from an unhappy gambler or someone who's had a bit too much.

[It's an assumption on Makima's part, that it's people from without rather than someone being totally normal and then just losing their mind inside the casino. The casino itself doesn't seem like the right location for a kaiju to hang out. A Devil maybe, but not one of the creatures here.]