logsinthenight | INTRO LOG: AUGUST

Entry tags:

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

characters: everyone.
location: all over beacon!
date/time: the first part of august.
content: a few new faces, the teleporter is up to old tricks, and overall just loving not being trapped in an underwater science station right about now.
warnings: n/a.

welcome to beacon.

The first thing you're aware of as you come to is the glow of a lantern, just within reach. Hazily, you start to recall the events leading up to your arrival. You died, somehow, but how does that equate to you being wherever you are?

The second thing you're aware of is that you're being handed a slice of cherry pie by a six-limbed masked creature with a hairnet. Looking around, you find yourself inside a school cafeteria. The school looks to be in decent condition, despite being dark and clearly abandoned - except by whatever this creature is. Stick around long enough and they will also serve some chicken nuggets and a box of milk. Wander a bit, and you may find a memorial wall for dozens of unfamiliar names and faces. Where is this?

A few answers can be found if you pick up and look through the tablet that's settled right beside the lantern. Some of the information is a little out of date at this point, but the most important details are still there: yes, you're really dead, keep your lantern close, and watch out for the spirits. You might notice mention of a ferry, but that's odd, especially if you're nowhere near the lake...

Leaving where you are and using the provided map on the tablet will help you find your way to town, and along the way you might find some out of place items, like crates of food or toiletries or clothing. Feel free to grab what you find as you make your way there, your new neighbors are sure to appreciate it.

Luckily for all the newcomers, the tablet and the town have some resources available for getting acquainted with their new situation! In fact, as soon as they're prompted to enter a network username, an app containing all sorts of useful welcome information will launch. It's still a little messed up (maybe someone might want to record a new message?), it has plenty of important information to share. Newcomers can always check out the weekly bulletins and the records that were thankfully saved from the bad storm a few months ago. If that's not enough, there's many long-time residents of Beacon that will be happy to share how things go around here. If not in person, network works too.

hide and seek.

The teleporter repair team has been hard at work, and their hard work has paid off. Items have arrived in Beacon aplenty! Only, the aiming protocol is still a little off and it's still all over. Whoops. While anyone with a specific request will find a spirit guide to help them find their wares, everything and anything else is fair game for a little fun.

The spirits are in a playful mood, and have taken the liberty of locating all these lost sundries and supplies. And of course, after that, they chose to hide them around town. Spirits vary from great at hiding things (lining a hollowed out trunk with swim trunks) to downright terrible (is it really "hiding" that sheet of plywood when you put it behind a streetlight that is smaller than it is?), though they seem to enjoy the experience either way.

Need something in particular and don't know where to start? Don't worry, spirits will be happy to give hints. If you can understand their esoteric forms of communication, that is. Others give away the game in the fact they hide with the items themselves, and find the prank so hilarious that little snuffles and giggles are an easy clue to the stowed stash. If characters play along long enough, the spirits will give up the game and will show the poor things with no seeking skills what they've hidden. Still, why not have a little fun with it? The spirits sure are!

ooc.

Hey there, wonderful players, and welcome to The Next Night! We're so glad to have you with us, both new and old. For a run-down on what's upcoming in August, please see the August gameplan, or check the calendar for a quick overview!

As a reminder, things like newcomer arrivals, item deliveries, and lantern repair all depend on the help of the characters in the game! If your character would be interested in assisting with the equipment at Dr. Solis' Lab in any way, please let us know!

DELIVERIES

The newly ported in items have arrived, but as in July, they're still kind of everywhere. Learning to use this portal technology is hard, and more hands helping out are always appreciated! As mentioned above, the spirits will readily help find people's personal requests, but the general resupplies? Guess you'd better be willing to play the spirits' latest little game. The following can be found, one way or another:

The monthly store restock, which provides enough food, general sundry items, and basic supplies to comfortably last the group a month. You can check what kind of items to expect in a monthly restock here.

For Elektra Natchios: several slightly oversized t-shirts and sweatpants made of comfortable materials, a bottle of black nail polish (chip resistant), a bottle of whiskey with a slight odor of sewer when the bottle is opened (though it tastes fine), and a teddy bear.

For Rosinante Donquixote: 4 boxes each (25 rounds per box) of shotgun and flintlock pistol ammo, except in every box two of the rounds have been replaced with nerf darts that some poor kids probably lost long ago.

For Fitz Kreiner: A limited set of lockpicking tools and a set of locks to practice on, and some paper umbrellas which may require some disassembly before they can be used.

For Matt Murdock: an assortment of 14 lovely rings (not all pictured here) as well as 6 rings to share with his friends!

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

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[His brows knit together with concern.]

No, they didn't. It was impossible to come up with something even stronger than atomic bombs when said bombs reduced the world to an irradiated wasteland, caused billions of deaths, and brought technology to a standstill.

Those people are lucky they didn't have the same thing happen here.

[ oh! now that's a question she never thought she had to consider. ]

I hope there's coffee here. I really do. [ she says it in a way that's lighthearted enough but it's easy to tell that she means it. ] Don't think it'll be easy for me to function without it, especially with the idea that I have in mind to help out.

Funnily enough, it fits with our topic of preservation. [ trying to repair the surviving cabins in the village is, in a way, preservation and conversation of the history here, no? ]

It's always a pleasure to meet a friendly face, Matt. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me!

[ she activates her multitool's notes program, already copy/pasting her (unfinalised draft, she's working on the fly) questions template into a fresh entry.

knowing it's better to get to the heart of the topic when you ask for someone's time, she opens with, ] I was wondering if I could hear your thoughts on the current state of the village and, if you're willing, the state of Beacon in general.

I've heard from others that the majority of the damaged cabins are being used for building supplies for the other buildings in Beacon.

Poetry again, and philosophy, too. She would like Cao Pi. He'll make a note to introduce them, or at least suggest they speak to each other.

Meanwhile, he frowns in sympathy. "I appreciate what you're trying to say here, really. I think it's really kind to want to try and empathize with them somehow. But they're not human - they're farther from it than anything I've seen. We can't assume they think like us or want to even be understood."

But hell, if she wants to try, he'll advise against it for her safety but quietly hope she can make some progress anyway. Daylight was like that, always trying to improve relations and communication with the spirits. They could use someone to fill his very large shoes.

I've only tried it once before, and it was a 200-year-old can our scribe found in a closet. It tasted like ashes. [The faintest nostalgic smile rises as he remembers.] I've always wanted to know what the fuss was all about.

[Small silver linings. Maybe he'll get to try it now. And if it doesn't exist here, at least he won't be missing it.]

What's your idea?

It might have. Hard to say, with it all dark and overgrown. But the world eaters had the billions of deaths part already covered, so I think they were pretty desperate.

[And here they are, left with swords and axes for weapons. The bomb Weaver built worked on that one world eater but how are they going to make more?]

Mind answering something for me, though? What's radiation? Because people keep using that word when talking about the bombs here.

[Something in the air, something they're afraid of, but he's never gotten a real description.]

I have a hard time imagining an enemy worth that level of desperation.

[But he's always going to be biased against nuclear weapons. He had to live in their aftermath.]

Radiation? Put simply... [Oh, that's a promise he shouldn't have made...] It's a form of energy given off by certain naturally-occurring elements, such as radium or uranium. Radiation waves are powerful and able to pass through other types of matter, so it can be used as an energy source or in other legitimate applications.

Unfortunately, radiation is extremely harmful to all living things. Unshielded exposure damages the cells, causing burns or sickness. Extreme exposure can cause mutations, but is more often fatal. Worse yet, the energy takes a long time to dissipate, so even hundreds of years after the bombs fell on Earth, high levels of radiation are present in the ground, the water, and even the air in some places.

[That's as simply as he can put it.]

[ Coraline wasn't here because she needed anything, or because she really cared about defending anything. She's just curious, and what the fuck else is she supposed to do? What else is there to do?

Point is, she was kinda hoping to be left alone. But of course, the universe hates her so... ]

Fuck if I know man.

[ She says, rolling her eyes beneath her everpresent sunglasses. ]

I think I saw some guy patrolling? There's like, hostile spirits. Fuckin' world eaters people are trying to kill... like. That's all I got man.

"These ones belong in space," Soldat explains. "They travel between planets and eat all the life on each one. They kill stars. Don't know if that's a kind of predator anybody actually needs, anywhere." They shake their head a little. "Don't even know if they're natural or some kind of weapon."

[It's lengthy, but truly not a bad explanation. He gets most of it. Trying to read some of the physics books in Dr. Solis' lab for the last month means enough of the words are familiar where he gets the gist of it, or so he'd like to think. That, plus hanging around Will, who has a tendency to go off on subjects at length, then patiently back up and explain when he asks questions.]

Plutonium's one of those elements, right? There was a sample of it in the museum once, and Pluto sometimes asked us to bring her some if we found any, which I figure she was using as a power source for their station, but maybe also for the bombs she was planning to build. We never did find more, though. Just looked like a rock to me.

The Invincible is in Bonefire Square, yes. Big enough to house many people, plenty of supply space, set up for defending. There is also the Landmark Hotel off downtown. It is near another supply area and is also fairly defensible, though not near the bonefire.

[They look a little regretful, now.]

We could all fit in the Invincible itself, now, I think.

I. Arrival

[ Coraline is still sitting where she… did some approximation of waking up as she finishes poking through the information given on the tablet. All of which is… a lot to be honest. Because this was never on the list of predictions for “Shit That Might Happen When I Die”. To be fair, past her would probably be glad. Now? She wishes she got fucking obliterated like what was 50% of that list. Because it fucking hurts. Knowing she didn’t matter in the end. That she was a mistake even to the person she was closest to.

Her focus drifts to her lantern, studying its dense vantablack surface that seems to absorb most of what little light can emanate from the open hatch, a ~~black~~ dark flame dancing inside. Maybe if she keeps smashing it…

No.

Not again. She’s not fucking doing this again.

Besides, someone’s approaching. Way closer than she’s used to, but dealing with one thing at a time. ]

Hey.

[ She says with a small wave, other hand reaching for the staff collapsed in her pocket. There is absolutely no cheer in her voice and she’s way too tired to bother even trying. ]

II. Hide and Seek

…

[ What the fuck. One second, she’s just walking. The next? A massive bottle of some sort of alcohol is being dropped on her head, something she proceeded to catch out of reflex.

So yeah. She’s just holding it now, unsure if she should throw it back up at the giggling spirits or… oh perfect someone’s coming! ]

Hey this is yours.

[ She says, trying to foist the heavy ass thing on you (not that she’s treating it as if its heavy). ]

III. No Talk. Me Angy.

[ So yeah. She’s living in the inn now. Brooding more like. She knows she’s brooding. She knows she should find… something to do. Even if it’s just throwing herself at the world eaters. But fuck man. She wants to brood. She wants to be angry and alone. Isn’t she owed that after her absolute bullshit of a life?

Basically, she’s been doing a great job avoiding people, aided by what’s left of her Senses and just. Being good at being quiet and out of sight. But it’s inevitable that she run into someone sooner or later considering the way hallways work, and that day is today. ]

… excuse me.

[ She says sullenly. ]

IV. Eating???

[ Catch Coraline just. Collapsing in the middle of the path a week into her stay at Beacon. She groans slightly, not sure exactly what she’s feeling. Tired? Maybe? Can she feel tired? Also her stomach might be… huh. ]

Am I hungry???

[ She asks the air, disbelief evident in her tone. ]

Wildcard

[ HMU on plurk baybee

JejuneN ]

Edited 2020-08-08 22:30 (UTC)

[This sullen young woman is not terribly helpful, but she has apparently heard the same rumors he has.]

Are you newly arrived as well, then?

[He thumps the bat in his hands to check its balance. Yes, he can work with this. A little adhesive and some sharp bits of metal...]

If so, you're likely operating off the same intelligence that I have. I apologize for the inquiry. It's important to gather as much information as possible before it becomes relevant to need it.

Correct. That's the insidious thing. Without a device to detect its energy, it's entirely possible not to know radiation is present until it's already begun affecting the body. Many of the scientists who discovered these elements later succumbed to radiation poisoning without understanding what caused it.

[It seems so naive now. But a lot of the prewar world strikes him as naive.]

Where I come from, it's a constant concern. People have developed preventative medications and treatments to help the effects of radiation, and there are devices to filter it out of our water supply. But without such things here, it's better we simply avoid having any exposure, regardless of the source.

[This place is fairly nice. He'd rather it not turn into a second wasteland, with pre-dead residents this time.]

Edited 2020-08-08 22:37 (UTC)

Good to know. Interesting that something that looks like a rock could be so harmful. If the people here were wearing masks in town back when this place was alive, and that was over a hundred years ago, do you think the air is safe now?

[Got to be, right? It was more than a hundred years, even.]

The people who had that rock, I don't remember any of them saying it burned them, but maybe they just never mentioned it on the network. Seems important to keep track of something that dangerous.

"I did find the inn earlier. The Invincible? I like the name."

Merwen sighs a little, and offers a sad sort of smile. It had been easy enough to lose herself in the moment of following the spirits about, but yeah, she does have to focus a little on the realities of the situation. "None of these places are what I would consider a first choice to stay. They are not very much like my home. I suppose I must make do with what hospitality is shared, however, and your company would be much appreciated."

Yes, I would say so. It would take something like an atomic bomb to spread the radiation wide enough to be troublesome to current residents.

If the plutonium sample has become misplaced, it's probably not going to cause any trouble. A sample that small is unlikely to cause any widely-harmful effects to anything not directly in contact with it. So as long as it isn't inside the local well or underneath someone's pillow... [Was that a joke? It sounded a bit like a joke.]

I apologize for the rambling explanation. It's something I have more experience with than most.

[Honestly, he wouldn't put it past some of these people to keep a thing like that under a pillow. Stranger things have happened here.

But at the apology, he shakes his head. It's been nice, actually - good to meet someone knowledgeable, and a welcome distraction from the ripples of intense hunger the world eater instilled into his mind.]

I'm glad you do. It's experience we might need since this keeps coming up. You should talk to Dr. Ingram if you can track him down, or Weaver. Or, actually, go see if you can't make sense of what's in Dr. Solis' research notes at her lab. Maybe you can help us find a way to use these ideas for when the world eaters eventually find us for real. Because they will, they're looking. Dunno how long we have left.

She tilts her head. "And if you are wrong," Merwen says, a hint of challenge coming into her voice, "if they can be convinced to listen but you assume they cannot, then you will carry the weight of their souls upon your own. It is not possible to act and not be acted upon in return."

This... might not be the sort of argument she wants to throw herself into so quickly, but it's also the sort of argument she almost has to.

"Their inhumanity might make their intelligence harder to see, and perhaps for the same reason they cannot see ours. We must try. At least, I will try, if I can."

"I cannot see such a creature having a place in any natural balance," Merwen says, musingly. "I cannot believe any creature has no role at all to share, but I also cannot believe any positive can come of creatures that destroy entire ecosystems. If some mad lifeshaper created them, then..." She shakes her head. "This is a sombre place. My thoughts run dark, here."

I'm not sure if I'll be able to help with any real research. I have a basic education in science, and experience living in a radioactive wasteland, but my expertise is in combat. A bit of mechanics, as well. [He supposes most would call him talented with machines, but he doesn't consider himself an engineer or an expert.]

Truthfully, I came out hoping I'd be able to locate something more akin to my usual loadout. More ammunition for my laser, and a suit of Power Armor, if I was lucky. I can be of more use around here if I'm able to feel in my element in a fight. [A sigh.] I don't suppose you've seen or heard of Power Armor here, have you?

She's got fight in her, and he likes that, but it's worrying at the same time.

"You're likely to get yourself killed," he warns her, but there's a gentleness to his voice. "Talk to Diode, see what he says. He claims he's fluent in the spirits' language. He might have some advice. What you're talking about is something we've been attempting from the start, so I don't want to say it's hopeless, but I'd hate to lose someone so quickly. Even though we can repair lanterns, there's still a lot of people who never come back. We might not find your lantern if they take you."

Which is why he can't encourage her, even though he wants to. Most important is to keep people safe. Wandering off alone to negotiate with green-eyes is the opposite of that.

[Ardyn is wandering down the path, heading nowhere when he spots the strange woman collapsing ahead of him.

He tuts loudly and walks up to her, holding his tarnished lantern up in one hand.]

Oh, dear, not used to needing sustenance, are you?

Don't worry, you're not the only one around here who's had to adjust to such inconveniences.

[He recognizes the disbelief. After all, he'd gone through the same thing after being in Beacon for a few nights.]

She's quiet a moment. It's hard to say how much weight she ought to apply to the wellbeing of this existence, this half-death. At last, she nods.

"I appreciate that. I promise I will wait longer than a handful of days, at least, to take any serious action, but I will not promise not to try to share understanding with these spirits. It must be tried. It must be possible."

[ Ugh. She winces as light shines past her disturbed sunglasses, hitting her blankly staring eyes before they finally manage to flutter closed. Fucking hell that hurt way more than it should’ve. She slowly ~~puppets~~ pushes herself up to a sitting position, the movements far jerkier than normal, preferring to face this conversation with more dignity than… you know. That.

Now to actually reply to this dude. ]

Y-yeah. It… it’s been a hot sec.

[ She grits her teeth, wondering how the whole hunger thing is even working considering the state of her body. ]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 5 of 13

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

B.

no subject

no subject

no subject

Coraline Li | Original

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

IV

no subject

no subject