TRAVEL LOG #2

[synfluxmods]

TRAVEL LOG #2

CONTENT WARNINGS: natural disaster, acid rain, vehicle crash.

▶ 001. WINGING IT.

In the early morning hours of the 1st, Outsiders will receive a rude awakening blaring through their implants. No matter what they do, the alarm will not stop sounding until they are forced to get up. A message will flash through their vision:

ALL OUTSIDERS ARE TO REPORT TO THE HANGAR IMMEDIATELY FOR DEPARTURE

Get up, get dressed in your plugsuit, and it’s time to go! Once they report at the hangar, they will be met with a huge spacecraft, large enough to fit at least 80 people. This will be their mode of transport to their next location.

"My Angels of Lilith. You are needed once again. We have received distress signals from the neighbouring country of South Korea. Unfortunately, since we have not established data portals in that country, we require you to embark via air. Your aircraft is ready for you and your seats have been assigned. I bid you a safe journey."

True enough, there are more than enough seats on the LILITH SKY CRUISER to accommodate every Outsider, and to get everyone organized quickly for departure, all Outsiders will receive a seat number. Like any plane, seats are rather cramped and there isn’t much leg room. Once the seatbelt sign is off, Outsiders are free to stand up and move around the cruiser, but they might have to climb over other people or make the whole row stand up to give them room. The aircraft is serviced by robotic stewards serving light snacks of nuts and crackers, and coconut crab kimbap and seaweed soup at meal time. Any characters who use a cloaking device will be instructed to use it during the flight to accommodate the aircraft. Also, any characters who rely on a weapon or anything else (such as a Gundam), it will be loaded onto the cargo of the aircraft.

The flight will take about 2-3 hours. Outsiders may take a nap, chat or try the inflight entertainment available. This inflight entertainment is delivered through a virtual reality headset. Outsiders may pick a selection of AI movies of questionable quality, along with several virtual reality games. There are single player or multiplayer options available for every game.

Available games include:

• The Sims 30: One player gets to become the ‘god’ of a world and build houses or dictate the lives of other players and NPCs within the game as they see fit.
  
• Farm Crossing: A farming simulator game where players get to build and manage their own farms. Harvest your crops and tend to your animals! Impress the friendly villagers in the town with your beautiful ranch!
  
• Tales of Heroes: A fantasy game where players are reborn into a world of monsters and magic and have to level up by fighting monsters and slaying demons.
  
• And many more … (Feel free to design your own VR games.)

Eventually, the sky cruiser will touch down on Incheon Airport. There’s no need to be stuck waiting in line at immigration... it appears as if the Incheon Airport has not been used in decades and seems completely abandoned with the exception of the Outsiders. The old scanning machines and luggage belts are simply collecting dust. Outsiders will be ushered immediately to the nearest train station, where they will continue their journey by train.

▶ 002. WELCOME TO SEOUL.

Once descended from the train ride, they will have arrived in the city of Seoul, South Korea. Similar to Neo Tokyo, a lot of the people on the outskirts moved to this area in order to receive shelter and the benefits of being amongst civilization, rather than fending for themselves. As such, there is a certain hustle and bustle, but considering the state of their dilapidated airports and most of the other cities falling to ruin, there definitely is a more somber vibe to the city. Despite that, the residents carry on and there is no shortage of shopping, food stalls (mostly with foods that are not easy to perish), cafes, pojangmacha to have a late night food or drink at, and many more smaller businesses. The people are resilient and have every single desire to continue making a living. As such the prices here are competitive and Outsiders will find if they look hard enough, there are some fairly good deals to be made. Currency exchange is no issue, as KRYPTOS is the universal currency.

Since a lot of efforts were made to keep Seoul intact, there are still some important sights that were kept up and can be visited if desired. While LILITH urges people to keep their eyes peeled out for any clues to the next kaiju’s whereabouts, Seok Dang may or may not have sent each Outsider a map of the best sightseeing amongst many other not-so-innocent suggestions. He calls it the difference of experiences and “doesn’t want anyone missing out!” If people check back on the message a day later, they will find it was almost as if it didn’t exist at all. On the list, however, includes sights like the Gyeongbokgung Palace, COEX mall and aquarium, Seoul Sky, and many others. However, some of them may or may not exist anymore. How long was he out of the country for? For an extra “freebie” he throws in, Outsiders will find an odd message on their style upgrade saying there is a new outfit available, when opened, it will download a hanbok that they can wear at any time.

"Well, well. Unfortunately, whatever fun could have been planned will need to be halted just a mere two and a half days to get settled. Once again, a message will be produced on everyone’s oculars suggesting an emergency is on the horizon. Guess we better get to that instead of showing you my home country!"

And Seok Dang wonders why he is the Commander's least favorite.

Beep! An alert pops up on the Outsiders' ocular devices. According to the information LILITH just received, there is not just one large kaiju occupying this region, but two. In order to chase both of these leads, Outsiders are split into two groups in order to chase these two kaiju. They have described these kaiju as being very agile and fast, but resembling a serpent from the few sightings that have been spotted. As for the rift that it originated from, there is no sign of a rift in South Korea. Did it migrate here from somewhere else? More details will pour into the Outsider's devices as soon as possible, but for now, Outsiders are called to pursue the hunt.

▶ 003. TEAM SEOUL.
_{EVERLIGHT & REDEMPTION}

Within the next hour, rain will begin to fall upon the city, but this is far from the average summer shower. The precipitation doesn’t seem weather-related as much as it does seem to be a proponent of the kaiju’s abilities. They find this when studying the rain itself, which is acidic to the touch. While the buildings and other structures will remain sound, the people will need to evacuate quickly in order to avoid any lingering effects to the skin. Skin contact with the acid rain will cause both minor and severe burning, depending on how quickly it is rinsed off with normal water. At the first discovery of the acid rain's danger, Outsiders will be commanded to press a button on their plugsuit on the left shoulder, activating an invisible helmet to keep their heads and faces safe.

The Outsiders’ plug suits prevent them from receiving any damages from the rain, but that’s certainly not the case for everyone else. The first team, made up of the members of Everlight and Redemption are to prioritize the initial evacuation of the people, especially those who live slightly outside of the city limits of Seoul. They are the most vulnerable during crises like these and will need to be pulled from their homes, and those who live in the basement shelters will need to be pulled to one higher ground in case of potential flooding with the acid rain. Individuals who have skills in healing will also be called forth in order to tend to the injuries of those who are saved.

Between evacuation, there will also be tidbits of information provided to those on the team that remains in Seoul to check out specific locations in order to figure out more about this kaiju. The first location listed is Gyeongbokgung Palace. Outsiders that remain in Seoul will be utilizing that as their base. They are set to look at any remains the kaiju may have left behind. Any findings are commanded to be surrendered to LILITH. Emergency response of South Korea will use this palace as a safe haven, providing cots for sleeping overnight and other emergency supplies.

▶ 004. TEAM BUSAN.
_{BRIMSTONE & REVELATION}

The second team will depart via train on a journey to the city of Busan. The journey is expected to take 2 hours, and while there are comfortable seats available on the train, any luxuries beyond that are minimal. At least LILITH has brought along a few VR headsets for whoever wants to kill time with games or bad movies? Anyone can sit where they'd like for this ride.

An hour into the trip, a loud crash is suddenly heard, with the entire train rocking and falling to its side. This causes a complete blackout throughout the train and it stops functioning completely, leaving Outsiders stranded within the pitch black tunnel. The train system is completely inoperable in this condition. Outsiders will need to make their own journey to the city, following the rails by foot and helping any Outsiders who happened to be injured in the crash. It’ll be dark within the tunnel, but light will soon emerge once they exit it, and they will find themselves at the foot of Mount Geumjeong.

From then on, they’ll need to put their trekking skills to the test and cross the mountainous, forested region, where they will encounter various local fauna such as snakes, deer and black bears. They will also spot many destroyed villages and temples on their way to Busan. However, evidence of the Kaiju can be found in both the subway tunnel and throughout the mountain trek, suggesting that the kaiju has moved through here. This encourages LILITH to keep Outsiders in this area. The Outsiders will need to make a campsite in one of the destroyed villages, though emergency response will also pay them a visit several days later with sleeping cots and emergency supplies. In the meantime, hopefully they brought enough food with them or know how to forage and hunt for food in the wilderness. Some of those berries out there are poisonous....

The team here will be encouraged to explore the area to find further traces of the kaiju and help any villagers who are still alive.

▶ 005. STATUS REPORT.

Promptly, at the same time, all Outsiders will receive a text message and be put in an encrypted chat-room: OPERATION: RED/BLUE
CODENAME:
LOCATION:
STATUS:
FINDINGS:
Outsiders are instructed to fill out this information and send it into the chat to communicate with one another.

▶ 006. AFTERWORD.

Welcome to our second travel log!

Characters do have ASSIGNED SEATS for the duration of their flight to Incheon airport, though there are just enough empty seats that some characters can move around if they really don't like their seat buddies. Teams BRIMSTONE and REVELATION will be traveling to Busan, while teams EVERLIGHT and REDEMPTION will be staying in Seoul.

RNG below to discover what your character will find in both Seoul and Busan respectively. For the STATUS REPORT Prompt, treat it as an open chat room for all Outsiders and respond to the HEADER COMMENT. Feel free to threadjack and discuss among yourselves. You may also include this as a text prompt in your top level if you would like for people just to reply to you instead of using the header comment.

All tags on this log are worth 2 points and will count towards August AC.

EVENT BREAKDOWN/RECAP (CLICK TO EXPAND)

1. WINGING IT: Characters are told to head to the hangar for DISPATCH to SOUTH KOREA where reports of a kaiju have been seen. Characters sit in their assigned seats for a short air travel ride.

2. WELCOME TO SEOUL: We arrive in Seoul and are given orders to split into two teams: Everlight & Redemption in Seoul, Brimstone & Revelation in Busan. Seok Dang has tried to sneak in some sight seeing in between mission briefs, but it looks like there won't be much time for that, as two kaiju have been found in South Korea.

3. TEAM SEOUL: Everlight & Redemption deal with acid rain in Seoul, ushering civilians to refuge, tending to acidic burns and using Gyeongbokgung Palace as a makeshift base. Investigation hints at the kaiju being somewhere in this area as Outsiders find claws, teeth, droppings and other things that belong to a dragon-like creature.

4. TEAM BUSAN: Brimstone & Revelation board a train to Busan which has an outage, trapping them to travel along the tunnel in the dark. They arrive at the end of the tunnel at the foot of Mount Geumjeong and create a makeshift base in the village there. Investigation hints at the kaiju being somewhere in this area as Outsiders find claws, teeth, droppings and other things that belong to a dragon-like creature.

5. STATUS REPORT: Outsiders are encouraged to share their findings and speculations on the kaiju in an encrypted chat room.

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Comments

[zauneyete]

[ Ah, but Dearka, trying to distract Silco, who never gives up a line of attack, isn't one to be distracted. ]

I frankly don't care, the mechanics aren't of interest to me.

[ Has he heard a detailed treatise on what an airship is like and how it functions? His daughter is a mechanical genius who loves to talk, of course he has. That being said, Silco hasn't retained a lick of it, so therefore: ]

Now, I'll be clear with you on one thing. [ He turns fully around now, leveling the power of his unblinking, black and orange stare through the gap in the seats, a sneer on his face. He's ugly, this man. A scar that runs from his hairline down to his lips, fetid and rotting, like the skin has peeled back only to reveal the rot underneath. His teeth misshapen, his lips scarred. This man has seen Some Shit, and he looks to be fully using the appearance of this to his advantage. ]

Laws and rules are threats, and the only good they serve is to keep the people in power comfortable and safe in their places of power. By enforcing petty laws, they use it as a bludgeon to keep the people so overwhelmed by the little crimes that they never look to the ones happening around them.

[ I close my eyes. ]

So forgive me if I see these robots' regulations as merely trying to keep one quiet and complacent.

[ His hand is still there, still palm up, fingers gesture to ask for it again. ]

I will ask nicely for it only one last time.

[busternaut]

[Damn. Yeah he kind of didn't really expect that to work, but can you blame him for trying to de-escalate?

Now, Dearka's a soldier: he doesn't rattle easily. Getting a look at Silco's mug only elicits an eyebrow raise and a vague grimace, and quickly after that his expression dulls, and from there it's a downhill race into Dearka barely listening to a single word the man is saying. One might get the sense that he's VERY used to tuning out long winded lectures. He sees those scarred lips moving, he hears the sounds they produce, but as far as he's concerned anything coming out of them is just getting disregarded and shoved away in the mental drawer labelled "sanctimonious prattle".

He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. He digs a finger in his ear. He texts Yzak. He takes a picture of Silco. He texts that to Yzak, too.

When Silco's done talking, he blinks rapidly like he's waking up from a daydream, shaking his head lightly.]

Or what, you'll call the robo-squad on me? Go ahead, they'll probably thank me for my service. Just, sit back down and wait out the rest of the flight already, would you? Go find a cigar simulator to play on VR or something.

[That's probably a thing, right? Smoking Simulator??]

[zauneyete]

I don't need to rely on mechanical devices to get what I want.

[ He says, his done dipping down into disgust.

Had he even listened to a word he said? Probably not. Mayor of Crime City doesn't expect people to understand what it is to live under arbitrary rules meant to keep them poor and meek, of course. Too few people here have gone without, or struggled to survive in the way that made he and other Zaunites strong.

He doesn't care, of course. He's built his case, and if nobody listens... well. That's not his problem these fools are willing to let robots do the enforcement for them.

New place, same nonsense, after all. ]

No I assume...

[ He hits the catch on Choso's unoccupied seat, tipping it back as far as it will go into Dearka's neighbor — which admittedly isn't far — before he's up and onto the seat of his own, feet planted. He isn't used to being in the air, but a scarred hand grips the head of the seat to stay steady. ]

That you are used to getting your way, hm? A show of power or quick thinking that means that puts someone else int he position to deal with what you have decided. [ SILCo... stop projecting. ]

And now for the first time, you're being challenged. Instead of understanding that some of us come from places that are different than yours, with different rules or perhaps even different cultural ties toward them — you decide to judge, take, and then lord it over. You think that I will back down if only because it is the easy course of action. The one that doesn't draw any attention.

[ He plants his other foot on the back of the unoccupied seat, and leans forward, his lean frame closing in on trying to jump the gap. ]

Do I look like I'm going to back off?

[busternaut]

[It's at this point that Dearka is really starting to regret fucking around and finding out the way he did, because it's becoming crystal clear that this old fossil is actually fucking psycho. When he grabbed those matches, he expected some butting of heads and gnashing of teeth. He did NOT expect seat climbing and infinite lectures about power dynamics and... Whatever the hell else Silco is saying, Dearka is still only kind of half listening.

Invading Izou's space is actually the first thing that succeeds in getting Dearka kind of pissed off; he barely even knows the guy, but he does know he didn't intend for his fellow row-mates (or really the other people on this plane) to become collateral damage in his ill-advised efforts to try and prove a point. He scowls at Silco; he briefly gets that distracted look in his eye where his optic lights up from the conversation he has ongoing with Yzak, who is also advising him to just let this go.

So he heaves a sigh, shoves his fingers through his over-gelled blonde hair, and then shakes the matchbook out of his sleeve, holding it up; not for Silco to take just yet, just showing that yes he has it and yes, he's about to give it back. But first he's got some shit to say of his own.]

You wanna know why I actually took these? [He's not shouting; his tone is serious, but his volume is low and even.] It's not because of the rules; I don't really give a rat's ass about any of that, when you get right down to it. I swiped em' because by lighting up and stinking up the whole plane, you were being obnoxious and disregarding every other passenger on here, and that kinda pissed me off. But congrats: this tantrum of yours is officially way more obnoxious, so. You win.

[He tosses the matchbook back to Silco with the flick of a wrist.]

[zauneyete]

[ Dearka, you are learning a lesson that everyone eventually does — several lessons, in fact. For one, Silco doesn't have regard for anybody, but that would be obvious if anyone took a single step into Zaun, and the answer would be made crystal clear. Why show regard for one another when their very autonomy is disregarded by topsiders, after all? Then there's the fact that yes, he is completely psycho. Now mind, that would be harder to find out, given even a shred of the man's history, but add two years of fighting tooth, claw, and nail for the one thing he cherished over all things. He's lost most restraint, but he'd had the ability to back it up.

Now he doesn't.

So he smiles, wanly, his fingers closing around the matchbook.

A petty part of him wants to light up again, just to prove that he would not be cowed. It's terribly tempting, and he wants to do it. ]

Thank you, now was that so hard? Where I'm from, we do not concern ourselves with the stench around us.

Ah, but you're probably uninterested in the fact that we live near the ends of the sump, I'm sure. More concerned with the comfort of the people around us.

[ He turned around, and slid into his chair, a slight quirk on his lips, as he said: ] I'm so glad you could see reason.

[busternaut]

[Dearka just fixes him with an unimpressed smile and tries to be the bigger man for like, approximately the first two sentences? But after that he is actively rolling his eyes and bidding himself to focus on literally anything else so as not to give Silco the satisfaction of showing that he's even remotely paying attention to any of this.

As soon as Silco's back is turned and he's back down in his seat, at about the same moment he's telling Dearka he's glad he can see reason, Dearka is leaning forward a little in his seat to try and catch Elan's eye at the end of the row. He jerks his head towards Silco as if to say, "can you fucking believe this bozo?" and makes a wanking motion with one hand.

Whatever! Silco's not smoking, so this is still pretty much a win as far as Dearka's concerned. He has better things to be doing right now anyway... Like getting up and grabbing that ginger ale he promised to Lucy.]

[gundemn]

[ Elan meets Dearka's eyes and flips Silco the bird in a show of solidarity. Very mature behavior. ]