logsinthenight | INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

characters: everyone.
location: the harbor, as well as the rest of town.
date/time: october 1-3.
content: beacon's newest batch of residents arrives on the ferry. scavenger hunt prizes are awarded. the ferry capsizes in a blaze of glory.
warnings: n/a.

welcome to beacon.

It's dim, and the room won't stop swaying, gently rocking you back and forth. A loud sound startles you fully awake, a deep, moaning call: a foghorn. As your eyes adjust, you note faint red light streaking through the room from a tiny, round window.

You've found yourself in a private room, lying on a bed. The last things you remember are the events that led up to your death. Beside you is a folded tablet and a lantern that glows steadily with a healthy flame.

You're on a ship. And that ship is docking.

Making your way to the deck, and eventually the pier, you find only moonlight to greet you, and a dark forest beyond. There are other people here, each with their own unique lantern, and many of them look just as lost as you are. On the ferry you've just disembarked from, the speaker system begins to play a song.

In the distance, across the waters of the lake, you can see the tall silhouette of a lighthouse, its red light slowly turning.

•••

Luckily for all the newcomers, the tablet and the town have some resources available for playing catch up! In fact, as soon as they're prompted to enter a network username, an app containing all sorts of useful welcome information will launch. Newcomers can always check out the weekly bulletins and the records in town hall as well, and everyone's welcome to get in touch with the NPCs through their inboxes.

When the ferry docks, it seems as though you've been spared from any weirdness this month! It's good to have a break now and then, isn't it? And if you participated in the scavenger hunt, you're probably eagerly awaiting your promised prize—

But, ohp, what's that sound? Is that the ferry's engine firing up again? The ship roars to life again as some brave mutineers overthrow its autopilot system. Crowley and the Winter Soldier man the ferry's control room while Aziraphale flits between the cargo hold and the deck, attempting to assuage any accidental kidnapees with reassuring words and cake.

Unfortunately, the joyride is shortlived. Between the ferry's complex control panel and the haphazard attempts to override it, all the group manages to do is send the boat charging full speed ahead—which would be great if it wasn't facing the beach. The ferry jolts forward and careens smack into the dock, tearing down the entire structure and punching a sizeable hole in the ferry's hull.

Well, that could've gone better. But there's no time to dwell on the mistakes of the very recent past! The ferry is sinking, and quickly! Looks like you'll have to scramble if you want to save what's left in the cargo hold before the whole thing goes under... And that's gonna be awfully tricky without a dock.

Oh, and maybe save the new arrivals? Make sure they don't drown? But, then again, if they go down with the ship, they'll just show up again in the church... The same can't be said for the restock for the general store!

As smoke billows from the damaged ferry and the last the harbor disappears into the lake, the Lighthouse Keeper appears on the network with a pretty straightforward question. Also, the ferry's song changes, so. That happens.

ooc.

Hey there, wonderful players, and welcome to In the Night! For this intro log, you are officially without a chaperone. Rastus is back at the bonfire, Will is characteristically elusive, and Robin is, well, you know where she's at. It's up to the veteran residents to fill in the new folks.

And regarding the ferry disaster... Well, you have some options. Here's what you need to know:
This is a player plot organized by MJ, Xy, and Gail! A big thank-you to them for providing us with this intro log event!

Whether or not your character and any packages addressed to them are affected by this plot is up to you! If you would like to assume your character avoids dealing with this chaos and somehow grabs their delivery without issue, go right ahead!

Similarly, if you're looking for an opportunity to make your character's life harder, injury and death are always on the table! Or maybe it's your package that takes the abuse, lost forever to the lake's depths or washing up all waterlogged a week or two down the road. In short: How you engage with this plot is entirely up to you.

What happens to the ferry and the dock? Within a couple of hours, the ferry will sink completely, and anything on board when it goes down is lost forever. Which bodes super well for the ferry, huh? Sure hope the next batch of newcomers has some strong swimmers. Oh, and the dock is gone, too. If you want it back, you'll have to rebuild it.

As for Crowley, Aziraphale, Bucky, and anyone else on the ferry or dock during the collision... Hope you boys like concussions, bruised ribs, and a broken bone or two, because you've got 'em! The exact injuries are up to you, but they're the equivalent of a semi-serious car accident.

One last thing: The fate of the shop restocks, including all of the food for the month, depends on you! Let us know if your character will be participating in the rescue attempt. In exchange for letting us beat up your character, you can save a portion of the month's supplies! We'll let you all know on October 3 what the rations for the rest of the month will look like.

DELIVERIES

The following packages can be found in the cargo hold:

The monthly store restock
For Daylight: A variety of gardening tools piled into a wheelbarrow, as well as packets of seeds for the following plants: Boneset, dogtooth violet, starflower, Carolina springbeauty, pipsissewa, bloodroot, red columbine, narrowleaf blue-eyed grass, harlequin blueflag, and purple pitcherplant; he will also receive a translation for the following: An invitation to join the speaker as company
For Aziraphale: A record player, the complete discographies of a variety of bands (Abba, Rob Zombie, Tool, Hanson, Eiffel 65, and Spice Girls), a two-tiered wedding cake, and packets of seeds for the following plants: Strawberry, cherry tomato, cucumber, blackberry, carrot, potato, raspberry, and pumpkin; he will also receive a familiar copy of a familiar book: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, along with a blue ribbon that reads "BEST IN SHOW"
For Bruce: A handheld metal detector and a rechargeable battery for it, a chisel, a climbing harness (that, according to the packaging, is the #1 Safety Rated!) and a 50 ft. coil of rope
For Cao Pi: A go board
For Rosinante: A sextant, and 3 cartons of cigarettes; he will also receive a translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "Danger! Run and hide!"
For Kuai: A basket of 16 mooncakes, as well as incregredients for more
For Javert: 3 pairs of handcuffs, a greatcoat in Javert's size, and a trunk full of swords in varying styles and conditions; he will also receive an electric chainsaw
For Kol: A record player, the complete discographies of a variety of bands (New Kids on the Block, Weird Al Yankovic, Sound Garden, Ke$ha, INXS, and Spinal Tap), a cooler full of blood bags and ice packs, and an assortment of stamps; he will also receive a translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "I'm lost" or "Need directions"
For Elena: A journal; she will also receive a portable generator (powerful enough for a single power tool or small appliance; can be charged through a typical wall outlet)
For Xayah: A thick journal and a glass vial of black ink; she will also receive a sizeable roll of barbed wire, as well as a stuffed animal
For Ignis: A spice restock (with a few new ones mixed in!), 3 paired of leather gloves, and... 12? pairs? of glasses? They're all in slightly different prescriptions, though. A variety pack!; he will also receive a power drill (runs on a rechargeable battery or can be plugged directly into a wall socket)
For Riku: A wood stove, a set of paints, and 5 canvases; he will also receive a translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "Looking for water" or "Thirsty"
For Matt: A rosary and a Braille Bible... which is more of a collection of volumes, really; he will also receive a translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "Looking for food" or "Hungry"
For Noctis: Two complete sets of the Lord of the Rings series (except, wait a minute... they appear to be the novelizations of the movies); he will also receive an SD card that, when plugged into a tablet, will upload GPS directions to a new location...
For Rosalind: A crate of basic all-purpose lab equipment, a fancy microscope, an emergency eye wash station, a mortar and pestle, a lab coat, a Lite Brite, and... the things she needs to make things float, whatever those are; she will also receive a pair of dousing rods (that will actually point in the direction of water, checkmate atheists)
For Jason: A translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "Sympathy" or "I'm sorry"
For Coraline: A translation for the rough equivalent to the following phrase: "Teach me"
For Eliot: A bottle of hospital grade painkillers (it contains 10 doses and functions similarly to Vicodin)
For Allie: A bottle of strong antibiotics (it contains 10 doses and can fight off most any infection)
For Vanitas: A portable camping stove (runs on a portable battery or can be plugged directly into a wall socket)
For Hope: A soldering iron (runs on a portable battery or can be plugged directly into a wall socket)
For Quentin: A cannister of foaming bandage (can be used 5 times to immediately close a wound/stop semi-severe bleeding)
For Mary: An SD card that, when plugged into a tablet, will upload GPS directions to a new location...

If you submitted an item request last month and we've missed it here, let us know!

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[ She follows, lacking a better plan. The darkness doesn't feel any more oppressive than a regular night, though the sky is strangely unfamiliar, and she's spent many nights outside before. Her eyes will adjust, she thinks. Surely they will adjust.

And if for some reason they do not, then the sun will rise in its time and she'll take stock of things. ]

A tablet?

[ She frowns, then realizes there's something tucked into her belt. Something small and metallic smelling. ]

Oh.

[ That's a sure a thing. ]

Who left it?

Same person, or people, or supernatural force that put your soul in a lantern, I guess. I don't know exactly where they come from but everyone has one. There's a man you'll meet eventually, Doctor Ingram, who has them pretty well figured out so if you need help with them, he's a good one to go to.

[He glances back at her briefly.]

Unless you already know how. Some people come from places that have things like that back home. I think most people here I've met say they're from a world called Earth, but there are others too.

[ Kettara lifts the lantern, eyeing it doubtfully. She can feel the heat radiating out and the light flickers like a living flame. But to think it holds her soul? ]

I don't know this Earth. But it's possible to bottle a soul. Trap it somewhere and force the body to rise.

[ She never fought the Lich King. But she heard enough. ]

The bodies rotted. I don't think it felt like this.

Zombies?

[More fairytales - or horror stories, in this case - that are real in other worlds. The universe is truly wild. But maybe it makes sense somehow. Maybe they have those stories because somehow, somewhere, it really did happen and word traveled across the stars.]

Reminds me of something I should warn you about. Dunno what it means exactly, but last month I tried fishing and fished up my own dead body out of the lake. Also, sometimes other strange stuff happens for no reason, like at one point for about a week or so, shrines and grave markers with our names turned up here, and if you left someone's grave a farewell gift of any sort, you lived through how they died.

Sometimes. When they retain their minds, or at least part of their minds, we call them Death Knights.

[ The Scourge was a terrible evil, though one Kettara has little first hand knowledge of. There were other, more pressing concerns back in Mulgore. She almost explains there is a hierarchy of resurrection magic, and that there are beings less powerful them Death Knights but stronger than ghouls who still remember themselves. She met one once, a hunter with a longbow made out of bone and gristle who called himself Forsaken. But that is not here, and her body has not begun to rot. ]

...I see.

[ Kettara lifts her lantern again, eying it warily. ]

Perhaps this is the afterlife, punishing us for our failings.

A lot of people think that. I'm still withholding judgment. It's a sort of afterlife, I suppose, but I don't feel entirely dead, either.

[And he doesn't feel like he failed. In some things, maybe - he failed his mission, betrayed his government, and everything he'd collected on his brother's underground kingdom of weapons and slavery and chemical warfare was lost. But he saved the kid's life and somewhere along the line that became the most important thing.

Some would surely call him a failure. To him, his priorities changed.]

According to those who have been here for far longer than I have, we're here to save this world. Monsters they call World Eaters are coming and we're supposed to work out how to stop them. It's not just a place to be because we're dead.

There are different kinds of death. Hierarchies.

[ She lowers the lantern, watching the man instead. ]

World eaters.

[ That's....not a good name. ]

Who summoned us to fight these things?

Well, Robin. The lighthouse keeper. Only I'm not sure she summoned us in particular, but I think she has a hand in making sure people get here. She definitely has a hand in getting rid of us if we don't look like we're making progress fast enough. All the lights draw their attention. So by being here for long enough, eventually they find us. If she has us all killed off, no more lights, no World Eaters come, and then she can just bring in a new batch and try again.

[And if he sounds sour about any of this, well, it's because he is. Extremely. Whatever rationalizing she's done to kill off entire groups of people who just wanted a second shot at life, it seems to have made her entirely too callous. But maybe twenty years in the darkness does that to anyone. Even what was once a teenage girl.]

[ Robin. Like the bird. And the World Eaters are drawn to light, like deep sea predators. Those are things worth knowing, Kettara thinks, but it's not enough. ]

You've met this woman?

I've seen her at a distance, and spoken to her on the network, on the tablets. I was one of the few that helped hook her up to the network after the last reset, and she nearly killed us in return, though she claims it wasn't her intent. She knows a lot about this world, and withholds information from us, claiming it's to our benefit. But trying to go to the lighthouse directly will end in your death, so think before you go try to find her yourself.

[Just in case she's the impulsive type. Plenty here sure are. Robin has maps; has a way to send signals out beyond their reach, to the spirits and to whoever is responsible for the ferry. There are so many reasons to go striding up to her doorstep and yet the lack of a coordinated effort to do so has kept him from doing that on his own.

They'll need a group. A large one. And a very thorough plan. He mulls it over almost daily still but hasn't spoken up just yet. Too many disruptions.]

[ That's....a lot of information all at once. Kettara takes a deep breath and then lets it out. She'll need to be careful with how she moves forward. ]

But she can be contacted? Through this...tablet?

[ Kettara supposes that's possible. She knows magic that can do similar things. ]

Yeah. There's a directory, you'll see it. Anyone who's here, it'll give their name and a way to send them a message. Or if someone wants to send a message to you, your tablet will probably make a sort of chime sound.

[That's the default, right? He can't remember. He silenced his within a day of receiving it. He'll check his messages when he's good and ready, thanks; he doesn't need some alien machine nagging him all the time.]

[ That gets him a long, blank look. Technology like that is something she's only vaguely aware of and had little impact on her old life. Still, Kettara rallies as best she can. ] Like sending a letter?

Right, like that. But faster, and people here seem less formal. Maybe more like short notes than a letter. You can also make calls, like with a snail phone.

[Though so far he has yet to come across anyone else here who uses snail phones on their home worlds. Those tablets, and some other phone-like device but rectangular, seem to be the things they mention most.

This strange woman suggesting a letter over one of those things actually gives him some small amount of comfort. See, Earth people? Not everyone in the universe has the same familiarity with technology as many of them seem to.]

A snail phone?

[ It's hard not to get stuck on the small things, but Kettara isn't sure what's an important detail and something she can dismiss. Better to just learn as much as she possibly can and then sort it out later, when she has a better sense of where she stands. ]

Yeah. It's a... Well, not worth explaining if you've never seen one, let's just worry about what we have here. You can write to people, or you can pick a person from the list and talk at the tablet and they'll hear your voice and be able to reply with their voice, too. It's faster than writing.

[She'll just have to try things out - that's how he figured out how to use his. But at least he can suggest some ideas so she knows where and how to look. It's a start.]

If you need help using it, you can always ask me. Or anyone else here. Or Doctor Ingram, he knows the most about them, but I've noticed he's not always very patient with people.

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INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

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