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

[gorb]

There are worse ones to have.

( He thinks he would have sympathised with her once, back when he was young and bright and oh so naïve. He'd had the same badly fitting optimism, the desperate need for things to fit in the boxes he'd created, the want for the world to follow the rules he'd set out. He might not have tried quite as hard as she did though, and he wonders if that means there was something wrong with him even then. Good, without the backbone for it. )

You could be a nihilistic old man. At least you have something likeable about you.

( Small mercies. )

[undrowned]

I guess so.

[ at his words, she gives him a rather sad smile. it's brief, but it's there, before her face turns a bit more pensive. ]

Believe it or not, there's plenty likeable about you as well. The fact that it endures regardless makes me want to work hard to maintain something good.

I have lived a very long life for myself as the Arbiter. [ of souls, of ... she doesn't elaborate later on, and it becomes sort of clear after: ] But I can't tell you what that life is like. Only that it becomes necessary to be disciplined with hope; otherwise it would wear me out in infinity.

[gorb]

It might wear you out even then. Endless hope with nothing to show for it can chafe.

( He finishes the cup of wine carefully, immediately starts fiddling with his cigarette packet but doesn't move to take one out. He just turns it in his hands, chipped fingernail polish glinting in the light. )

No, chafe isn't the right word. That's easier to deal with. It's like a noose. It tightens with every disappointment until you're too tired to scramble at the rope. I was like you once, I believed. I wanted so badly to be good, to do good, but eventually I realised I was one of the only ones trying. It got easier once I realised that. I didn't struggle so hard.

[undrowned]

[ is that not the mark of being human? rover thinks as she listens to him, her golden eyes carefully watching his gestures, with the way he toys with his pack of cigarettes and how he talks about hope. the short-sightedness of humans that forces them to define their singular lifetime with their own agonies and disappointments because they only have this one lifetime and can't envision infinity, where everything else follows you from one cycle to the next. the way she feels haunted by the fractsidus in her every move; the way the black shores seem to be waiting, patiently, for her to find her way back to them; the way jue looks at her and asks, what now, arbiter? as if this has happened time and again.

she doesn't say that, but instead allows a silence to linger uncomfortably as geto talks about himself and how badly he wanted to believe. and what else can one ask, after that? ]

What made you stop believing, then?

[ simple question, heavy like tar. it sinks in the background noise of the pub and the liveliness of the crowd that seems to ignore their little table. he was like a member of the fractsidus without the mask on. she sees scar in him.

but at least one can talk to geto, because the same can't be said for scar in his maniacal obsession with the future. a future. and perhaps in speaking to someone like geto, she can understand scar.

it's a selfish goal for her, but a goal nonetheless. ]

[gorb]

A girl died.

( There's no point in pretending otherwise. LILITH pries his secrets from him time and time again. It will do so with this too. It already has. He thinks of Lucy trapped in his memory with him, the terror she'd felt. He thinks of Riko, the scar tissue she'd left. No point hiding it. ) A single bullet right through her head.

( Tap, tap, tap goes the cigarette packet and then Geto pulls one free, holds it in his fingers, twisting the stick between them. ) Not moments before I'd told her that she should do what you're telling me. To live, to have hope, to find something. It would be all right, because I was going to protect her. And then a human came along, and just like that there was nothing for her hope for.

( There's no emotion in either his face or his expression. It's like a story, one that happened far, far away from him. But sometimes he can still smell the iron of her blood. )

It started then. She should have had more than me. ( He should have had more than himself. But Toji had incapacitated Satoru, had told Geto he was dead too, and that death knell had sliced something open inside of him, left it to fester, to rot. They'd been abandoned, and he'd failed, and there was no walking away from that whole for Geto Suguru. ) But what I was doing wasn't working. I couldn't protect people like that. You learn to be pragmatic, after.

[undrowned]

[ rover frowns as she listens to him, trying to put the pieces together in her mind. it's an unfortunate tragedy. when he speaks about it it sounds like an incident he witnessed himself, something he was late for, a missed opportunity to save someone -

- wait. ]

You couldn't protect people like that, [ rover says slowly, repeating his words. ] People who ... like this human, killed a girl you cared for.

[ and nevermind the fact that he singled out a human's appearance which apparently snuffed out all hope here - she'll get back to that, eventually - there's something about this situation that bothers her, and finally, she says, ]

... Why were you left in a position where you're unable to defend her? This was ... when you were younger, I assume. And back then, you told me you worked with others. It wasn't until recently - when you became stronger, working as a monk, taking care of your twins - that you worked alone.

[ rover tries to think about the situation more. she doesn't have the full picture, just what geto has given her. and they've talked so much that it's ... actually hard to determine what geto is honest about, going through their conversations, because he moves with ease between half-truths and lies. and perhaps he has his own reasons for doing so - if anything else it clearly pains him, if he continues to warn her against caring too much for him or even holding out hope. while there's a part of geto that clearly holds on to his own principles, there's an even bigger part of him that struggles with his own past, clearly picking on it like a scar or an open wound. it seeps right out of him like smoke, or tar. he carries that weight with him every time he walks. and rover is sympathetic to it, she truly is, but there's a part of her as well that dreads what she'll find. that there is something there beneath all that muck, sharp edges and blunt poison.

when rover speaks again, she's remembering snippets of their conversation before, and she talks like she's talking more to herself - ] If your ability is to control and manipulate curses, and you were unable to save this girl, did she die because the curse wasn't exorcised from her in time? Was the bullet a mercy killing?

[ this is ... what makes sense to her based on what she knows of geto, and his abilities, and what little she understands of what being a sorcerer entails. she looks at him for his reply. ]

[gorb]

A mercy killing.

( At the repetition Geto's voice goes flat. ) No. She was just a girl. ( A potential vessel for Master Tengen, but Geto doesn't have it in him to explain that. He and Satoru had changed their minds on the rightfulness of delivering her, and that was all that mattered to him. ) She might have been something more, made someone stronger, and that frightened the non-shamans. An assassin was hired. I wasn't fast enough or strong enough to protect her from him.

( Riko or Satoru. It doesn't matter that his friend survived, Geto still recalls the horror. )

I let my guard down because we were somewhere I thought to be safe, and the assassin was being held off by someone I trusted. And then he found us. All Riko wanted was to go home, all she wanted was to take her maid and leave, go back to school with all her classmates. Her whole life and she'd been used by people and I told her I could help her have that. That she wouldn't have to die for the greater good. But she died all right. For nothing at all.

( He takes the cigarette between his teeth, expression gone empty. )

He's here, you know. He sleeps down the hall from me. He should be glad I'm behaving, I'm stronger now than I was at sixteen.

[undrowned]

[ ... but geto had told her that sorcerers are born, not made. in order for her to become someone stronger - that must mean -

- she'll deal with the fact that that person is with geto right now and geto had broken his promise with this girl. there is something that rover has to know first of all, something that made geto so familiar to her. ]

... Let me tell you a story. I apologize for interrupting you - but something feels familiar about the situation.

[ rover inhales sharply, and then speaks gently, quietly, as if trying to recall a series of events that were difficult for her to speak about. ]

... I was once assigned a task in an area called Hongzhen back home. To make the story short, a series of events have frightened an herb collecter and a hunter regarding certain Tacet Discords - what we call 'monsters' - causing havoc in the area.

While investigating with a colleague, we find out that a faction called the Fractsidus was involved. They are known to us as an organization that aims to accelerate the destruction of mankind. You can call them a cult, they certainly have similar inclinations.

The Fractsidus strongly believes that in order to attain the next level of human evolution, individuals must absorb Tacet Discords into themselves. They call this a 'transformative struggle'. Forcibly absorbing Tacet Discords into a human, if you aren't a Resonator like myself, has its own consequences. [ rover reveals her right hand to him: a mark that looks like a jagged line, which marks her a resonator. it looks like it has been carved into her skin. ] That's not to say it isn't successful: the proliferation of the Fractsidus in Hongzhen meant that they've had some success.

In Hongzhen, we discovered that the Fractsidus had been priming a new member of theirs - a man named Ogo - for this 'transformation'. My colleague and I were able to track down Ogo's journal. Ogo did not want to go through the ritual. His diaries strongly hinted fear and rejection and a growing doubt regarding his decision to join the Fractsidus and their promises of power. From then on, the task turned into a search for Ogo in an effort to rescue him from the Fractsidus, and to learn more about the factions' experiments.

Our search led us to Mt. Firmament in Hongzhen, until we found the Fractsidus in the middle of their ritual. Ogo was here - [ she takes her empty cup, signifying ogo. ] preparing to receive the Tacet Discord meant for him: a Lightcrusher. Even for someone of my skill, it is not an easy creature to defeat.

The Fractsidus merged his soul with the the Lightcrusher. [ rover pours her wine into the cup, the wine signifying the lightcrusher. ] Ogo did not survive the attempt to merge. I had to kill the Lightcrusher.

[ some of the wine spills down the side of the cup. rover leaves the wine on the side, and then looks at geto - ] Is this story familiar?

[gorb]

Parts of it.

( Carefully, a frown between his brows. )

Riko was ... more the lightcrusher. ( Mouth shaping the word cautiously, like he wasn't entirely sure of it. ) She was a girl with no power who was destined to make someone else more powerful. A battery. Only she remembered she had people she loved at the end, and foolishly I wanted to let her keep that. Your analogy works, but I'm not sure what you want me to take from it.

( The rest of it is ... well. The cult is certainly a prickly subject. Geto imagines laying it all bare then and there, but he's absolutely more of a creature built for survival. Instead he sighs. ) Either way, LILITH has a habit of bringing similarly experienced people together, I'm not surprised there are echoes. Did it hurt you? Losing?

[undrowned]

[ what does she want him to take out of that? well - ] Only that we have such similar situations.

.... when I speak to you, I feel very nostalgic for parts of my home that haunt me.

[ what an awful time for rover to be too honest and entirely not, at the same time. it's all she can do to stop herself from saying whether or not she suspects he truly is someone she shouldn't associate with. but rover likes him well enough that the thought of giving up over someone is distasteful to her; she uses honesty as an armour, sincerity as a knife. ]

And I am very nostalgic to begin with.

[ does it hurt her, losing? rover sighs. ] It's not the first time we've failed. The Fractsidus continue to menace Jinzhou. We can only keep trying and keep being vigilant towards our duty.

Don't ask me if there's an end to it. It doesn't matter if there is or not.

[gorb]

What a terrible home you must have had.

( Mild and a little wry, even though he knows it could come across as cruel. It's just that he knows himself, he knows the person he is here. Devoid of his family there has been nothing to make Geto Suguru kind, he doesn't have daughters to dote on or family to nurture, he doesn't have anything that makes him care. And he knows that shines through, the rot, the misery. Poor Rover, to have settled on him. )

Oh, I know there's not. Whatever people like us try to do. There will always be more monsters, more things to fight. You and I don't even get the luxury of it being one lifetime alone. No, we end up being recruited across universes. Such is the burden of the powered.

[undrowned]

It can be. But if asked to, I'd be honoured to lay my life for it. [ a gentle smile, contrasting with his wry tone - they're both contrasts to each other anyway - ] I love my terrible world and its secrets.

[ her sincere admission, something that she easily admits considering she was called to, once, to help them defeat the threnodian and she was there, too, answering the call for a place she barely even knew and a place she had to prove herself to the moment she'd woken up. it's a miracle she didn't die during the war, but there were other reasons for that anyway.

but she could have, and it would hardly be the worst thing in the world. rover doesn't respond to her power being a burden, because she loves her duty enough that it's not, not to her.

just the worst thing about faith, really. ]

[gorb]

I hope you don't lose that.

( It's startlingly sincere for Geto. He means it too, clear in the way he looks at her, tired eyes but fully present. As much as he doesn't understand why she spends so much time with him, he can appreciate that she's a good person. She cares about people. )

I hope it never stops being something you love.