logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

Entry tags:

EVENT LOG: ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DREAMERS)

characters: all characters that signed up as a dreamer for the event.
location: dreamland feat. beacon of the past.
date/time: november 16-29.
content: the dreamers investigate beacon as it once was.
warnings: psychological/existential horror. further cws will arise depending on the location; mods will cw tags appropriately, and you will too!

say your prayers, little one.

Hello, dreamers. Welcome to Beacon.

Below, each group has a toplevel ready and waiting for the investigation to begin. Feel free to tag in however to establish a tag order, and mod responses will begin once each character has tagged in. If you need a refresher on how the event will work, give the OOC info another read!

As for those of you in the ~~sin bin~~ opt out area...

The Beacon of the past isn't all too different from the Beacon of the present, frankly, except for a few notable exceptions. For one, it's far better lit: daylight leaves everything feels a lot brighter and more sensible than eternal night does. Several advertisements for community theater in the Invincible are hung up (Tryouts for the Ice Man Cometh! Cometh try your luck!) and minor lost and found posters are tacked to a community bulletin board nearby. Oh, and a merry little tune is playing on loop from a record player set up outside the Invincible.

It's cheerful, if not a little off-putting. But the signs of life are clear, even if the forest still looks darkly oppressive over yonder.

Additionally, since investigation threads 1) rely on mod responses, and 2) will likely move on the slow side given the nature of the event/size of the groups, if you would like to have your characters "mingle" in their assigned location, please feel free to write your own toplevels! We ask that you post them as separate toplevels not in response to the mod toplevels (so our inboxes don't get super flooded/we don't accidentally miss stuff). Remember that groups may only interact with each other during the event, but you're welcome to assume timey-wimey shenanigans to excuse why your characters are mingling instead of searching for clues—they do have two weeks in this dream, technically, and dreams are not always linear. If your investigation thread has not yet progressed to a point in which you've got enough of a handle on the setting to write a separate mingle starter, ask the mod you're working with! We'll fill you in on some OOC details so you can mingle accordingly while still allowing for characters to discover those details ICly in the investigation thread.

If you're still jonesing for more threading action during the event, we encourage you to check out the TDM!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's the thrum of electricity overhead that wakes them. It's dark, this place, and while waking up in darkness is not a cause for alarm in Beacon, the faint stench of copper and decay certainly is. The floor beneath Sarissa, Kol, and Daylight is cold and littered with debris, and somewhere nearby, flies are buzzing hungrily.

Their eyes will adjust as they collect themselves off the ground, and with the help of their lanterns and a single fluorescent light flickering in the southeast corner, they'll see that they're in a large room. Once, it might've been an office—desk, tables, and chairs have been shoved up against one of the walls in a floor-to-ceiling heap. Files and broken remains of furniture have been scattered haphazardly like the place was ransacked, though it's been some time since the mess was made given the layer of dust covering it all.

The still-intact furniture has been shoved up against the south wall. The east wall seems inconsequential at a glance, while the west wall has a filing cabinet still standing up against it. The north wall, however, has a couple things of note: A closed door, and a nook containing a desk with a single computer monitor.

The group also seems to have collectively misplaced their tablets... Hm.]

Edited 2019-11-16 23:32 (UTC)

( Sarissa's expecting to wake up with a hangover, and that hazy few moments of consciousness before she cracks open her eyes are pretty nice, in that she's not. When she stretches, though, she's suddenly aware that she's lying on something cold and hard, paper rasping noisily beneath her, and she jerks to sit up very suddenly as just how wrong the circumstances are.

Quietly, as she becomes aware of the other two with her, she pushes herself up to stand and takes a few steps away from them, suddenly not so different to a caged tiger. )

Hey.

( Rough, urgent - it's the fact that the two of them were bundled in here with her, it seems, and the fact that she recognises Kol, which is keeping her from more volatile introductions. )

Don't 'spose either of you gentlemen have an explanation for what the fuck is goin' on?

( Calmness... was attempted. )

... No.

[ daylight cradles his helm in his servos as he speaks, a response to the sudden rush of vertigo and nausea he feels. he almost doesn't answer the question while he tries to fully stand up to his full height.

urgh. what happened? that's the million credit answer here so he tries to remember the events but- they don't make sense to him. not with how abrupt (and unsettling) the new scenery is. ]

I- [ he looks around now, his processors finally registering where all three of them are. he can't help but make a scared little sound. ] Where are we? I've never seen this place before during my time here. I don't think.

[ kol stays quiet as he pulls himself to his feet, instantly recognising both sarissa "with an s and arissa" and daylight. it's calming in a way that it's not—he's far from davina and hope, he can't remember how they even got here, and it's cold, stinks like hell and is quietly noisy. it's vampire senses overload, even for someone as seasoned as him.

feeling anger at being displaced (and the strange smells and sounds) blossom into a rage, he walks over to where the chairs have been shoved against the wall, breaks the leg off by swiftly bringing it down over his knee, and pegs it at the high glass windows.

with a deep sigh, he lifts his shoulders. easily, ] Nope.

[ kol feels better, though. only slightly.

with a gesture toward the computer in the room, he says with a sharp bite to his words, ] Perhaps we can Google where we are. My tablet's gone; I'd assume both of yours are, too.

[When Kol yanks a chair from the pile, the whole thing shifts just enough to reveal the corner of a door buried in there.

The chair leg hits the glass, a single pane shatters, and a beam of sunlight streams into the room. It's small, and certainly not enough to provide much additional light; the main takeaway here is that, oh, it's sunny outside!

A peek through the shattered glass will show the group that they're in a forest. It sure looks similar to the Beacon they know, just much brighter, and a much different time of year. It's spring, it seems, as the trees are just beginning to bud. There's even some snow piles still lingering.]

Oh, good. Great, wanton destruction. That's what'll help! Brilliant.

( It occurs to her as she saying it - snapping it out, let's be real - that Sir Kol just did exactly the sort of thing she might do. She doesn't care, honestly.

The fact that there's sunlight cutting in makes her doubletake, though, and she jogs over to the broken window, wrapping part of her scarf around her fist and starting to punch out more of the glass so she can safely stick her head out, deeply inhaling as she tries to get a look of what the building they're in looks like. )

[ daylight pulls back a bit when glass starts breaking. at least it makes day get a better view of the sunlight that pours into the room, illuminating the room better and-

hey- wait- that’s sunlight. ]

Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow oh wow oh wow. [ It’s the sun. in normal circumstances, daylight would feel silly for saying that with such awe but after being in the darkness for months, it's a sight for sore eyes.

optics, in his case. he tries to cycle them to a setting that'll adapt to the sudden introduction of light and colours, daylight finds himself getting distracted by a lot of things in the room. the computer, for one thing, since kol pointed it out and the sheer potential it might have in it. then there's the fact he can see the undertones of yellow(!) now. and then there's- ]

Urgh. The flies are so gross.

[ the darn bugs were really ruining the moment with how they loud they're buzzing. he looks towards their direction, hoping to get a better look of where they're coming from and why they're here. he really hopes they're nowhere near the computer. as he does so, a suggestion/idea pops up: ] Could you- Um- Call out the window, miss? Please? Maybe someone's nearby.

[ whereas daylight and sarissa seem to fly toward the sun, kol steps back into the shadows. without his daylight ring, he knows he'll burn to a crisp—and letting his body be ash, regardless of how death works in an afterlife realm, isn't at the top of his priority list.

but he does want to see what's out there…

grabbing another chair, he holds it like he's ready to either charge or break it again. kol doesn't snap the leg off or move.

nodding his head toward sarissa, ] Need a lift? Cutting your hands on the glass probably isn't the best idea, given the state of this place.

[ and he's a vampire who is obviously a bit hangry despite eating a nice meal beforehand. ]

[The exterior of the building looks about like this, a rough, squat little thing built of cinderblock and metal.

If Sarissa looks up, she'll notice some metal scaffolding or antennae towering well above the trees, but just the very top is visible from this vantage point. There's no telling what it is.

Also, with her head out the window, she'll notice something odd about the forest: It's utterly silent.]

( Looking around out the window, Sarissa frowns. )

Hey, quiet for a sec.

( Listening intently, she catches nothing. No birdsong, no bugs. No wind jostling the branches and leaves. It's unsettling, and after she looks up the grey wall of the building, she leans back in. )

I ain't sure shoutin' out is a thing we wanna be doin', Tin Man.

( She's not sure if in their raggedly yellow brick road troop that'd make her the Lion or the Scarecrow, but she'd rather not tell Kol he needs either, with his mood so far. ) It's dead quiet out there. Ain't right.

( Taking a moment, she drags her hand down her face. ) Oh, uh-- there's something above the treeline, but it was kinda hard to make out.

( A nod towards the filing cabinet, and she heads over to it. ) Maybe there's something in here so we can figure out whereabouts we even are.

-Day. [ he can't help but huff a bit at the nickname, winglets hiking up. ] My name is Day.

but- [ she has a point. better to check the room and see if there's something to give them an idea of where they are and why they're here in the first place.

so, with that in mind, ] I'll check out the computer to see if it's on. Maybe we'll be lucky and our tablets are on the desk?

[ hopefully something of interest will have to be on the desk than beside the computer. he heads towards the nook, checking out the computer to see its condition and whether or not it'll be worth an attempt to communicate with it. ]

Are you- Are you guys okay? You're not hurt or anything? [ wouldn't hurt to do a group check as he pokes at the computer. just in case. ]

[ when kol blocks sarissa and daylight out, he can hear the silence. it's eery the way nothing else really ticks, except for the damn buzzing bugs somewhere nearby. he's used to hearing something out in the woods here—footsteps, crunching of leaves, spirits.

remaining where he is, he looks at sarissa from his dark corner. as if remembering the chair is stall in hand, he quietly puts it on the ground—just in case something chooses to time its own noisy movements with the crashing of a chair. he hadn't been quiet back there with his temper.

keeping his fingers wrapped around the back of it, he looks at the chair in hand to see if it has any identification—a name of its sitter or a sticker of a manufacturer.

he fans out his fingers at daylight's question, as if counting them, ] Got all ten fingers, mate. Figure that counts for something.

[ except those bare fingers aren't going in the sun just yet. ]

[Inside the filing cabinet, Sarissa will find a few things. Most of the drawers are filled with paperwork for a radio station. Talk show schedules, music catalogs, personnel files, radio skit scripts, and so on. In one drawer, she'll find a record of the last few years of incoming telegrams. Finally, in the last drawer, she'll find two photographs.

As for the computer, it's currently turned off, and Daylight will be able to tell that it's because it has no power source.

When Kol inspects the chair, he'll find a label on the underside! It reads:

FAIRPORT FURNITURES SHOP
FAIRPORT
QUALITY FOR OVER 40 YEARS!
YOU ARE SAFE HERE YOU ARE SAFE HERE YOU ARE SAFE HERE
MANUFACTURED UNDER PATENT #3018.926
When Kol next blinks, the label is shredded, unreadable, and smeared with blood. Two of the fingernails on his left hand have been worn down and bloodied, as if he'd scratched at the label straight through to the wood and kept scratching. He has no memory of doing this, nor will Sarissa or Daylight have seen him do it.]

( Did she just make a microwave angry? Sarissa's brow quirks curiously with the motion from the wingy things, and she purposefully flicks her gaze back to filing cabinet. It reminds her of deimatic behaviour in certain species, like when a frilled lizard's neck flaps pop up like an ELizabethan ruff, except for how she can't imagine a big robot looking guy is really lacking in defenses.

Maybe it was like certain members of the animal kingdom in other ways: don't stare, and it won't feel threatened, or something. )

Nice to meet you, Day. I'm Sarissa.

( As she speaks, she's looking through the files, trying to be as thorough as she can, taking her time. )

This is a radio station. Or was-- ( Oh, shit. The photos fell out, and she crouches down to pick them up. )

... Hi, Sarissa. It's nice to meet you. [ it sounds like a genuine greeting. distracted but genuine as daylight focuses his attention on the computer and takes a deep breath, placing a servo over his chassis.

a few seconds pass. then he begins to pull his servo away, revealing that there are flickers and arcs of purple-white energy that connect his servo to his chassis. the more he pulls away, the more arc energy is summoned and gathered into his servo. he slowly wills the excess arc energy into a ball that hovers in his servo, planning to use it to try and power on the computer. he hopes he summoned enough energy to turn it on but not enough to, um, make it explode.

daylight turns around upon hearing kol’s comment, out of the instinct of hearing someone address him, and he barely holds back a scream at the sight of the bloody fingertips. ]

I thought you said at least your fingers are okay? [ the hovering ball of arc energy nearly dissipates in daylight's servo, the shock of seeing kol's injury nearly breaking his concentration. ] What happened?

Fuck.

[ although kol's let out a ah sound of pain, he's not looking at his bloodied left hand, even though he knows it's shaking from shock of him finally realising what's happened. instead, he's looking at the chair, pushing it forward as he glares at the scratched out label.

is that his blood? why the fuck did he scratch that label off? all he'd wanted to do was look at it and then possibly break the chair so he could pocket the rectangle…

he looks up at the two of them frantically; he's learned during his time here to take note of every little thing that's found or said. clicking the fingers of his right hand—so far, so good—he glances around as if he can see something as small as a feather in this dump. ]

Is there any paper and a pen anywhere? Fairport 3018.926. It was on this bloody chair.

[ before he... scratched it off. what the fork. ]

Oh my god. ( And a sudden, inappropriate burst of humour: ) I don't have a million dollars?

( No? No weird the-opposite-of-what-I-say stuff is coming true? ) Three-oh-one-eight. Nine-two-six.

( Repeating it to herself over and over as she rummages for a pen, trying to force it into her memory. )

I found some photos, by the way. ( She holds them both up for the others to look at, while she keeps looking for a pen. )

[ daylight takes the moment of confused bewilderment at what she said to gather himself together and it's- it's a good thing too. really, it is. the orb in his servo was flickering dangerously so.

when sarissa motions to the photos she's discovered, it snaps day out of his shock and nausea of seeing kol's injury. enough to get him into motion, at the very least: ]

Um- Let me take a look at that- Hang on- [ daylight turns his attention back to the computer, slowly and carefully allowing the ball so it can leave his servo and gently float over the computer. the orb quickly dissolves in mid-air, crackles of electricity soon attaching itself to the computer monitor in day's attempts to boot it up.

with that done - it's a waiting game now, frankly - day turns back to sarissa and the photographs. ] Do any of them have any writing? Dates?

[ kol really wants to throw this chair out the window. he doesn't.

instead, he shoves it pretty hard into the other stack of chairs and makes his way over to sarissa and her photographs, taking the shadowed route (although some sun does touch him...)

taking the photograph of the man looking out at a street beneath a bridge, kol frowns as he looks at it rather closely—the photo is almost at his nose. ] Who is this? [ he turns the photograph back onto its back to see if it has any writing on it. ]

[Daylight does manage to briefly boot up the computer terminal! Nice! It's an old device though, so he'll need to focus to keep it running. When the computer boots up, the screen will prompt him to enter a password.

Sarissa will eventually find the broken nub of a pencil amidst the debris on the floor. It has enough of a point to write with, although it's... sticky, with some sort of dark substance that has a foul smell to it.

When Kol shoves the chair, the pile once again topples slightly to reveal more of the door beyond.

As for the photos... The photo of the man is dated August 22, 1978, and the other is dated November 23, 1978. The second photo has some numbers scribbled on the back, as well:

RISE 13:47 SET 15:32
Flies continue to buzz somewhere nearby.]

( Oh, she regrets sniffing the pencil, stomach churning a little bit as she represses a dry heave. It reminds her of summers and the dark, and she shakes her head to dismiss the memory threatening to leave her shaken. )

Three-oh-one-eight. Nine-two-six.

( Scrawling it down on a piece of paper, and she leans to look at the writing on the back of the photos, and writes that down, too. )

We should take this shit with us. ( The photographs, and she hesitates before grabbing the file of telegrams, as she glances to the door. )

I think there's gonna be more to explore out there. What do you both reckon?

[ when he hears the computer turn on, daylight feels a little spark of success and accomplishment. but then he feels the bond flicker and he frowns, realising he needs to keep it.

now that he feels the tenuous bond his arc energy has with the computer, daylight finds himself channelling some of his focus unto the computer - just to make sure it doesn't die out on him from lack of arc energy being circulated through its wires. this causes him to have a semi-distracted expression on his face.

but he can still converse with the others. he's just choosing his words carefully, processors heavy from the effort he's exuding. ] I definitely want to, um bring the stuff with us. And I want to try and get this computer on before we head on. Maybe there's information in here too. It could let us cross-reference the things we have so far...

I'm just- Hang on- I gotta check out those flies. What's going on with them...?

[ daylight quickly takes a look at the computer screen and notes the need of the password, informing sarissa and kol about it as he heads towards the area where the most flies are. ]

Maybe someone's here.

[ dead body-wise, ya know?

kol's at least kind enough not to add that bit… despite being having a heightened ability to pick up the softest of smells, he's not looking for that of a rotting body. something tells him it might be a skeleton by now, given the dates on those photographs.

looking around the room for something to poke at, his gaze lingers on the pile of chairs. is that an unfortunate marking on the wall? it'd be greater if he could smash open another lot of windows to brighten up the room...

approaching it, kol steps right into the sun and doesn't burn. ]

[The flies, the flies... Daylight won't actually see any, even when he wanders off to the northeast corner of the room, where the buzzing seems to be the most concentrated. Now that Daylight's investigating, though, he'll notice two things: This room has a drop ceiling, and the noise seems to be coming from somewhere overhead.

Some good(?) news: Kol won't smell anything so foul as a whole rotting corpse. Decay, copper, and something generally putrid, but there's... probably not a dead person lurking nearby.

As Kol approaches the pile of furniture and steps into the sunlight, glass shatters. A pane of the window cracks, and then another, and another, until the window's been punched out in the shape of a smiley face! Aww.]

( The cracking sound catches her attention, and she looks over before-- ) Nope. No. Fuck off.

( Nope!!! )

That's fucked.

( The paper, the waking up in a weird place, the sudden nail trauma, those things she could take relatively in stride. Smiley faces in glass? )

We're going to be murdered. Probably by a poltergeist, probably because they built a radio station on an ancient burial ground, the cocks. Hey, maybe you should try the password, "we're fucked."

( Is she dramatic? No, never, how dare you. Sarissa starts moving to the door that's still partly blocked by furniture (fuck moving it, seriously), grasping the handle to see if she can just pull (or push) it open. )

This is either a barricade to keep something awful, out or some fuckhead dumped us here and barricaded this door to trick us into taking the other door.

Edited 2019-11-18 23:14 (UTC)

THE RADIO TOWER

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cw fingernail trauma

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