synflux | TRAVEL LOG #2

TRAVEL LOG #2

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

➟ Where the Air is Rare

[ Some people appreciate flight, one of the greatest marvels. Some people enjoy watching the ground, the people the buildings — all of them get smaller and smaller as the ground disappears beneath them. It's probably likely that most of the windows on the plane are open.

The one next to the dour, annoyed looking man is not. It was sealed shut shut nearly immediately after takeoff (just long enough after for poor Choso to look out 😢) which is probably not great for anyone who wants to look down and through the window for the rest of the flight. Then again, anyone in the vicinity of the man is not exactly enjoying the presence of a good neighbor. The man is small, and lean enough, that he doesn't take up much room, but he's far for unobtrusive.

First, there is the occasional attempts to smoke a cigar (Which are stopped by the robotic staff on the plane, several attempts to shame the man into behaving are met with a half-unblinking, hateful stare, which often winds its way to others on the plane, watching their every move) to the fact that he keeps trying to get up and cross over his rowmates, to the annoyed occasional shifting that seems to bump both the seat in front of him, and jostle the tray of the person behind him, to the occasional drawings that seem to land in his lap from one of the other rows... this is a two hour flight, but it probably feels like an eternity. Give him a tunnel, and he's great, but put a flying tube in the air, and this man doesn't know how to behave. Does he talk to anybody? Not unprompted. Does he even apologize? Absolutely not. Honestly? He's kind of a pest.

Although, his dour head peeking over the airplane seat (how?) is a great target, if you're wanting to start an argument. Or maybe just try to stop him as he lifts his cigar to his lips again, a small matchbook in hand. Are you all nearby going to suffer this misery again? ]

➟ Train to Busan
a.

[ The train is somewhat similar to the plane at first. The pop-clink of a metal lighter opening echoes in the train car in the silence. Though without assigned seating, the only people sitting near Silco are probably people who don't ... completely hate him, or hadn't found him completely obnoxious on the flight over. The train rocks with movement, though this is a far better mode of transport than the plane, but Silco won't admit it. He instead will close (one) of his eyes, the other still staring out in that eerie way it does, ever-open and staring outward. It's an eerie effect, supposedly sleeping with one eye open.

When it happens, one of his eyes is closed. There's a sort of weightless feeling for just a second, as the metal machine seems to move both forward and off — and though one eye is closed, the other never does. It shifts with frantic alertness that seems out of place at the moment, and he lowers himself, his hand gripping a seat-rail tight, head down, hand over his neck as quick as a near-50-year-old man can, his lips peeled in a grimace as everything dipped into chaos, and the world went dark. If you're nearby, maybe you got nudged down by the force of him moving so fast on accident, or maybe you woke up too just in time and you're cowering together. Or maybe you're looking to help someone, and checking around for injuries? Could there be the scent of blood somewhere nearby? Is someone injured? Or is it him? ]

[ The train is on its side, rubble everywhere, the squeaks of wheels, pop of severed electronics, and groaning of doors being opened. The tunnel underneath the mountain is dark, pitch black. A pinprick of bright orange in the dark, like a small pilot light burning. Getting up is a bit of a fight, with crumpled seats, the walls of the train crushing in, and the sound of chaos starting to filter in like a low roar. Silco gets up soon enough, but squirming out from whatever little hole this cockroach of a man has scurried into is only the first step. He's got to get out next, and the train seems to be... a mess. Chaos, bodies, junk, you name it. He can't really see in the dark, so it's a delicate balance of trying to nudge and move his way through it. The first body he comes across in the dark remains of the train, he nudges with a foot, though it's not quite a kick. ] Get up, you're in the way.

[ Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but he eventually steps over them, or passes them; unless stopped, to slip quietly and silently into the darkness. He may not really be able to see, but... it doesn't seem to bother him. His feet find the ground, and he moves confidently in the dark, as if it's second nature. For the most part, it's difficult to miss the guy with the glowing eye, even if he isn't using the implants given to him, though he's already started moving on his own, and isn't really stopping to check and see if anyone else is ok. Teamwork makes the dream work, eat your heart out. ]

[ Out in the open again, it's tough times. It's hard when supplies are scarce, and it's the sort of thing that tends to bring out the worst in people. It's not like living with scarce resources is something Silco hasn't seen before, and really, if anyone can survive it, it's him, but it's always deeply fascinating to him, how far people will go when they're forced to live without. He doesn't seem to be doing much to help, often leaving on his own into the woods, his head swiveling around as if he were looking for danger from every corner, every single individual among the outsiders suspect.

Out in the woods, his feet are uncertain — he is not made for the wilderness. He's at the edge of a small drop, sheer and rocky to the side, the grass seems stable, and he's busy looking in the inside of a large, hollow log. While trying to investigate, there's a snap and a pop somewhere nearby, and his head snapped, like a beast of the wild himself, but the sudden movement jostles something else, the way he moved, and twisted enough to make his foot slip, and —

It's with a grunt that he starts to slide, the log going with him, and his fingers start to seek purchase on something, anything else. ]

➟ Wildcard!

[ Seriously, throw me anything! I didn't want to go too long, but if none of these work, and you want to do something, feel free to throw me something random! Use only a part of the prompt, do something in Seoul proper, or if you'd like a closed starter, feel free to pm me or hit me up on plurk at hundreds and I'll be more than happy to throw up something for you! ]

( It is not a human hand that saves Silco, but rather the claws of a dragon that seize upon his arm and pull him up off the ground just as the log plummets down. Still, despite the size, and the shape, the creature is careful when it settles the man back on the earth, quick and efficient and ever so wary. It immediately lunges out of the way when Silco gets his feet underneath him, retreating back to the line of trees where Suguru Geto steps out of. He looks at the dragon, and then the man, mouth pursing, but he does reach a hand out to touch it's flank before the curse unwinds once more, slipping back the way it came. )

Hello again.

( Friendly enough, if you don't notice the dead distance behind his voice. )

Looking for a place to hide away from the heroes?

( Says the man who just helped out, but he won't admit to that on pain of death. Rainbow dragon has been acting odd since he woke up here, that's all. )

[ Silco hadn't really thought he was about to die — maybe get injured, or maybe crack a bone — but he hadn't really expected to get foisted by... something. He looks at it. Sees it.

Has no clue what it is, because while Runeterra has a spark of the Arcane in it, Silco is from the back-alley undercity of an isolationist city in the greater whole. He's seen sea creatures, and that's it. So don't mind if he struggles slightly, fishing toward a boot on reflex (even though he has not been given a weapon yet) before it puts him down, and he struggled to his feet, a touch wobbly as he did so. He brushed the grime off his legs, before he turned his mismatched stare toward the dragon, and then Geto. ]

Yes, though... [ A twitch of his lips. ] Not my best moment. I usually do not spend much time in forests.

Noted. It's not my preferred place to be either. I much prefer four walls. Amenities.

( It feels too out in the open here, he feels too perceived. Geto is a man more used to smoke and mirrors, secrets and shadows. The woods provide good cover for his feelings but the campsite does not. Which is why he's here, wandering, the more palatable of his curses allowed to hunt. )

I hope Rainbow Dragon didn't frighten you. ( Mild, polite about it, an undercurrent of faint amusement ever present. ) We heard a noise and it's curious.

It did not.

[ He lied. Okay, it's a lot bigger than he expected and came out of nowhere. He eyed it again, like he was trying to figure out if it would try to eat him, or not.

Thankfully, he suspected that attacking other "outsiders" was discouraged, so. Perhaps not.

Silco wasn't exactly used to the lack of competitiveness, his fingers twitched in instinctive wariness at his die. ]

It's a good thing you noticed. Otherwise...I'd have likely ended up with a broken leg. [ Or worse, lbr. ]

You mentioned the desert last time, and now the woods this time. Except for the lucky half that got to stay in the city.

[ Does he sound...jealous? Yeah, he does. ]

▶ 001. WINGING IT.

▶ 002. WELCOME TO SEOUL.

▶ 003. TEAM SEOUL.EVERLIGHT & REDEMPTION

▶ 004. TEAM BUSAN.BRIMSTONE & REVELATION

▶ 005. STATUS REPORT.

▶ 006. AFTERWORD.

silco | arcane | brimstone

busan c.

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Where air is rare, he loves having just cause to disrespect the elderly

and what an elderly to disrespect

He shoots for the top :')

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not really here but also here

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not here but also sort of

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peanut gallery

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whoops thought I responded to this

totally wasn't about to attack silco

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that's his man right there

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somewhat here

busan c helLO

OH YESSSSSSSS this can only go well

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▶ 003. TEAM SEOUL.
_EVERLIGHT_&_REDEMPTION

▶ 004. TEAM BUSAN.
_BRIMSTONE_&_REVELATION