[ The post comes from @rileysung, but it's clearly Ellana's voice coming through. Her voice is hushed, maybe even a little deeper, but determined to share something. ]

I knew it. I could tell these people are a part of it. They tried to act like they didn't know what I was talking about, but they're the ones trying to shut down the protests. They have no right. I had to get away from them. I'm in a safe place, but I know they're lurking out there.

Has anyone else ran into these people? I don't know if they're undercover cops or something worse. Maybe they work for a secret organization, I don't know. But the way they're acting? It's clear they're up to something.

[It's past lockdown when a certain name that hasn't been seen in a while appears on the network, video feed showing the young woman trying very hard to keep it together despite being rather perturbed.]

... Hello, everyone. I'm... [Back? Up? Alive? None of the words seem to fit, but she eventually settles for--] ... awake.

[It was one thing to see another die and come back; doing so herself is quite another. Exhaling a shaky breath, she glances just off-screen, as though he wooden floor of the church she awoke in and is now stuck inside until morning will give her an answer for what to say. It doesn't, of course, so she falls back on that faithful standby of facts.]

I'm alright, physically. I still have all my senses, so... it's likely I've lost some memory, if we follow the pattern. I can't say what it might be, though.

[She knows who she is. She knows where she's from. And she knows she's been trapped in Norfinbury for at least a month, if not longer. Which, speaking of--]

... Does anyone know how long I was gone? Has anything notable happened since then I should know?

[Naaaaah.]

[ Steph is still pretty freaked the fuck out over having died, and now she's found that her notes are outdated and she doesn't have the spirit to update them. She figures some socialization will make her feel better. ]

[ Text ]

I can't decide if I'm offended or relieved that I beat my obituary.

Also reposting the link to my notes about this place. They're a little behind, but the map is up to date.

[ Attached: Infodump.doc ]

[Video feed begins on a wall and slowly pans across a room. Dorian's voice begins a monologue from behind the tablet.]

For tonight's entertainment we bring you something live. As you can see, I am not filtering this in any way.

[He briefly pauses to wave his hand in front of the camera.]

No alterations or tricks.

[A pair of legs appear in the edge of the frame.]

Here we have Her Worship, the beloved Inquisitor. Leader of armies. Slayer of dragons. Killer of darkspawn. Shoe neophyte. Ellana Lavellan.

[The image continues to pan toward her head as she begins to stir.]

In general, she appears as a smallish woman but really-

[Ellana opens her eyes which reflect the light of Dorian's tablet in a catlike fashion.]

What are you doing, Dorian?

Notice that the eyes do not, in fact, glow. Instead, they reflect the ambient light causing-

Dorian!

[There's a fumbling sound and the feed abruptly cuts off.]

[OOC: Ellana will be threadjacking on this post.]

Characters: Anyone in the hospital exploration team
Location Starting on square D11, house 58
Date: Night of Day 34, All of Day 35, All of Day 36
Summary: Several mini teams converge into one massive hospital exploring team. Includes Team Dad over the tablets.
Warnings: Possible gribblies hiding along the way.

( Read more... )

Day 26
Building114; N10

[Early Morning; Video]

[Tadashi wakes up with a start as thunder rattles the attic.

It's only been a few days since he left the company of Al and the others, and he still half expects to see one of them staring back at him, as shocked as he is after such an enormous boom. Another follows the first, shaking the already questionable walls. Mochi is the only thing staring back at him in the dim light that filters into the attic. It's only barely bright enough to see the geometric shapes painted on the floor here.

He drags himself up and staggers to the attic's window, scrubbing at the glass until he can see out. What he sees makes his expression turn grim.

Tadashi slides down with his back to the wall and pulls his tablet over and turns it on. Immediately, he sees the alert put out by the Admin and his stomach sinks.

Next, he sees the obituary and almost can't go through with turning on his video. Baelfire's name is there.

He flips his video on, fighting to say what he needs to say even as his distress is apparent.]

Is everyone okay? Where did this storm come from? Can anyone see which direction it moved in from? Has the entire town been hit yet?

[His concerned expression grows as his eyebrows knit together.]

Hey, Hiro. Check in with me as soon as you get this.

[He flips the video back off.]

[Afternoon; Voice]

Is anyone else seeing things?

[His tone is short -- clipped. Anxious bordering on afraid. And yet still with his next words, he manages to infuse more determination -- a line of no-nonsense hardness.]

This has happened before. The storm is interfering with something. We need to find the source and stop it.

[Evening; text]

i can't see the paint anymore.

I don't know where it went.

I need to leave. Someone else is here. They're behind]

[The text cuts off there. Tadashi's second guessing whether to share his fears with the network. He can't trust them, after all. Not just the network itself, which he hasn't trusted for over a week. But the people on the network. They can't all be what they seem.]

[Morning]

[He's more tired than he should be.

No. Really. It's easy to chalk it up to the cold, to the fact that he's been trudging through snow with the barely adequate protection of a coat and a scratchy sweatshirt found in the house he'd woken up in, a thin satin bathrobe wrapped around his neck and face like a scarf, but the fact of the matter is that he still shouldn't be this tired. Not so weary that he'd dozed off while skimming through the contents of the tablet within the first couple hours of his first night here. These are hardly the worst conditions he's ever been through. It's nothing compared to some of the grueling days he endured back in the Wutai war. But it's almost a struggle to get his body to get up and get moving when he wakes up in the morning the next day.

In fact, at first, the only thing Kunsel can manage is the near-habitual motion of pulling his PHS out. Only, not his PHS. Not the one he spent half of one of his mission paychecks on so he could get the latest upgrade available. That one's safely stowed in his backpack, unfortunately useless while he's this far from any ShinRa cell tower. This one is... well, he can definitely admire the model, even if he still finds the whole thing a little suspicious.

Then, more to get his brain active than anything else, he types out a simple text.]

[Network: text; @standardissue]

Someone tell me how to go to hell. If the rumors are true, at least I'll be warm.

[Once it's sent to the general network, he gets around to the business of eating what counts for a breakfast of a tasteless ration bar and water.

[After nightfall]

[The lingering exhaustion doesn't clear up the way it should in anyone with SOLDIER enhancements. It helps once he gets going, continuing his search of his surroundings, but it shows in the way he doesn't search the buildings he comes across as thoroughly as the ones he found the first day.

Even so, at the end of the day, when he finishes his reconnaissance of the house he's found himself in for the night and has curled himself up in a bed, he finds he can't sleep. Too many thoughts. Too many worries. He hasn't found any running water yet, or any significant caches of food, other than a can of creamed corn. (The bag of opened and highly suspect potato chips doesn't count, even if the bag itself might prove useful in another way.) He hasn't found any way to contact HQ. He still has no idea where he really is, even in relation to the maps people have made. His sore muscles only add an extra edge of anxiety.

Well, anxiety's at least something he has a familiar coping mechanism for. With little else to do, he pulls his tablet out and spends some time just browsing. Eventually, he even puts together another text.]

[Network: text; @standardissue]

Am I the only one experiencing abnormal fatigue? I mean, obviously I'm still awake, but the rest of my body feels like a lead weight, even though I haven't done anything besides hike through the snow. Vision's not as sharp, either, and my hearing seems duller.

Are these symptoms of something I should be worried about, or is this normal?

[ the past few days have been overly eventful for those he's traveling with, and with some downtime, he's at least able to catch his breath a moment. the video flickers on, showing nothing more than a red faced, rather flustered looking young man. ]

Okay, so let's get this straight.

[ unfortunately, the people of Norfinbury are about to get an earful from one Edward Elric. ] So I'm sure most of you know Al. Alphonse Elric. About a hundred feet tall, shiny and metal, he's really hard to miss.

[ seriously, how do you even miss a suit of freaking armor? ] That's my younger brother, do you hear me? Alphonse is my little brother. Got that? I'm the older one, I'm the rule maker, the elder, the wiser!

I. Am. Not. The. Little. Brother.

[ he takes big, heaping breaths between each word, his face only seeming to grow more flushed with each passing second, his voice rising near to the point of yelling. ] So if anyone of you calls me little, younger, small, tiny, pipsqueak, nosmallerthanacrumb one more time--!

[ he lets out a wail, a sort of frustrated cry that really does not work in his favor. only younger brothers cried like this, right? ]

That's all.

Characters: Dio, Zelda and Link
Location E6 in building 34
Date: Day 23, late afternoon
Summary: Dio finds a building with 10 minutes of hot water in it and gets a little too relaxed, saving his energy by catching up on sleep and dozing well into the 23rd day, letting Link and Zelda catch up with him. Unfortunately, his voice hasn't come back yet.
Warnings: Dio is a terrible entity made of sentient garbage and Link and Zelda don't deserve this. Manipulation and encouraging the seeds for backstabbing are very likely, depending.

( Read more... )

If you're confused, read this.

- Clarke

( welp i forgot to unprivate it! it's fixed now! )

Characters: Link and Zelda
Location: Building 40
Date: Day 21, night
Summary: Now that there aren't beacon monsters outside of the room, these two nerds can address the large pachyderm.
Warnings: Nope!

( what an unusual view )

afternoon - video

[The camera comes on to the dim interior of the abandoned school, focused on a nearby spot on the floor. There's nothing there, but there's plenty of other things to notice. Primarily, the heavy distortion of the film itself; it's stretched almost to the point that it's unrecognizable and frequently flickers in and out of focus. At the points where things seem to align and the video is reasonably coherent, Clayton's panicked, gasping breaths come through in the background. It sounds like he's trying to calm down. He's not doing a good job of calming down.]

[The tablet is given a firm shake, as if attempting to resolve the apparent camera abnormalities, then Clayton gives up and shuts it off.]

afternoon - text

[Thankfully, Clayton doesn't let this video stand alone for too long after he posts it.]

Sorry about that--thought I saw something. The air isn't right here.

[And that's putting it lightly. A hallucination that vivid and alarming isn't something Clayton can brush off so easily, especially after experiencing something similar the day before in the school's kitchens. It's recurring. That's a problem.]

[He would think it's a personal problem, if Enoch wasn't experiencing the same sorts of things.]

Who else has been to the school? What have you seen or heard while there that you would consider "abnormal," if anything?

slightly before lockdown - video

[It's much later in the day when Clayton turns on the camera again, and in significantly more dire circumstances. The video is trained on his face this time--he looks flushed and exhausted, like he just ran a marathon, and he's only now letting himself relax and slide the rest of the way down the wall of the sports shed. Other feet and voices murmur and shuffle in the background as three other people position themselves in the tight quarters. Clayton's eyes flicker to them with a look of immense relief.]

[There's a loud thump at the door, followed by distinctive scratching noises. Clayton's expression sobers.]

Alright... [Pant, pant. He quickly swipes a hand over his brow.] ...I got good news and I got bad news.

Bad news is, we ain't lost them shadows yet. [There's another round of clawing at the shed's door to verify this.] If any a y'all 're in the school, run. Don't you come to the shed t' the west. It ain't safe out there. Pack up what yer doin' an' head north 'r south. You ain't got much time.

[He lets that hang in the air for a few moments.]

...Good news! [Clayton chuckles giddily and his mouth twitches into a tired smile.] They ain't that smart. Enoch 'n I just gave one the runaround outside. If you get one of ya to lead 'em, the other can head in an' get the door--trick 'em 'fore they know what's happenin'.

Anybody else runnin' into these things out there? If they're gettin' bolder, we oughta start travelin' 'n pairs. Safer that way.

[He pauses again to finish catching his breath and adds a couple more airy laughs for good measure. The monster continues thumping against the door. Clayton is clearly too relieved to notice.]

Y'all be careful out there. Keep in touch.

[And the feed ends.]

[Until now, Clementine has mostly kept to text. Not necessarily for speed, since she stopped going to school at age 8 and isn't the best typer (though not bad for her age), but more for hiding the fact that she's an 11 year old girl. People don't usually take kids seriously, which can have its advantages - but not so much here.

In any case, now she feels like she'll do better to show what she needs to, and to explain it properly.]

Please listen, okay? I think... this might be important. I found something. Me and Lea - we were exploring in the tunnels, south of that giant wall. We found this door in the snow, but it's locked. It needs a key card, look -

[The video pans to the door of building 131, which does indeed need a key card to enter. There's a lot of ice and snow around it.] I'm gonna head back out the tunnels... I don't have much food left. Lea isn't with me anymore, he's - gone.

[He's dead; she knows that, and the despondent way she said that probably says as much. She's lost people, here in Norfinbury and many, many more back home. It's just something you have to live with. But it's still not something she likes admitting. At least she knows the threat of walkers here seems low.]

I thought it was important to let people know. Especially if someone out there found a card that could fit. I could show you where to go if you want.

A: Network (Video); 11am - Open

[A lot has happened over the last few days, and it's no wonder that everyone is feeling ragged and stressed. Al knows that their worries aren't over, there are still monsters around and they've all been injected with god knows what again. He knows that they're trapped, their clues are dwindling, and they seem no closer to answers, but...

But he also knows that focusing on the negatives will just lead everyone into a spiral of panic and fear, they have to keep hope and determination going strongly if they're going to get out of here. So he's going to turn on the video function, possibly for the first time for many people, to make a small how-to video. The tablet is propped up a short distance away in a snow bank so that Al's entire armour frame can be shown.]

A while ago a really smart friend of mine mentioned snowshoes, but I haven't been able to do anything about it until now. It seems to be getting harder to move around here, and the conditions aren't letting up, so making something as simple as this might help save lives. I thought... I thought I would show you how. I've not made any before, but the principle is easy enough.

[He holds up two logs that he found a while ago, cut and planed down to size over many nights to make two huge paddles with criss-cross holes in.]

If you can find anything around, it should be easy to make snowshoes. You need a large surface area, that's to help distribute your weight and keep you from sinking into the snow, and to try and keep them as flat and thin as possible. If you can't make snowshoes, then maybe something long and thin could help you make skis!

[He ties on his wooden shoes with a necktie and a strip of bandage, before giving the camera a big thumbs up.]

See? Easy!

B: Network (Voice); 9pm - Open

[After the slightly more light-hearted instructional video of earlier, Al takes time after lockdown to address more serious issues.]

I know that a lot of people have been talking about maps recently. I've been making one myself, and I've gathered the maps that other people have made, and put them all in one place. You can see them, uh... here.

[There's a pause, before Al manages to upload the document to the network. He's still not a pro at this technology, but after twenty days, he's a lot better than he was. He knows he promised to tell Stiles about any supplies he found, but he thinks it's important enough that everyone should know.]

The convenience store further to the east is the one that's stocked with food. I've been to both, and that one has had large quantities of supplies both times I've passed through. I propose that we try to build a base in the houses immediately surrounding there. After that, we can take turns carrying supplies to more outlying houses so that, in time, every house will have a cache of supplies... not to mention we'll be able to map out the area and look for more clues at the same time.

Using the different maps that people have made, hopefully you should be able to find the store I'm talking about, but don't push yourselves too hard. It's better to get here in five days safely, than rush and get caught out at night in three... okay?

Characters: Link and Max
Location Building 126 in square H14
Date: Day 017
Summary: Link and Max are traveling together. Link decides he can't actually leave Zelda behind despite their agreement. They turn around and backtrack. Max has cabin fever in the worst f---ing tiny building ever. Things do not go well.
Warnings: CABIN FEVER. Thankfully, not as gross as the movie. Unfortunately just as violent though. Possible foul language and definitely violence within.

( he's a raging feral! )

[ when Draco's voice comes over the network, it's clear that he's doing his best to keep his emotions reined in; there's a waver to his tone, a sort of high pitchiness that suggests he's more than a little on edge here. And really, why shouldn't he be? But if he was ever anywhere near tears in this place, he's not going to admit it to people. Especially not people he doesn't know. ]

Will someone tell me what in the hell is going on here?

[ Draco's never been that good with things he doesn't understand. It's why it's taken him something like three days before he's actually bothered to take to the tablet and the network. That and the weird goings-on this last little while.

[ He doesn't know where he is, and he doesn't know why he's here, and he's getting the gist that neither does anyone else, but they're all helping each other. And that means someone's got answers, if nothing else. He's got little to no motivation to really get to know any of them, or to help any of them in return, but if they can even give a little insight...

[ He's slowly but surely been poking around, searching things and trying to find some clue, but 2x4s and red pens don't give him much to go off of. Draco's about ready to tear his hair out. He's never really been that good at not having answers. ]

[ He'd been pretty quiet the day before. And honestly, he might have stayed that way today as well. Hasn't been in a talking mood and that says a lot for Zack.

But admittedly, this is getting a bit frustrating and his grumping belly isn't exactly helping matters. ] so anyone know how you get into the school? I haven't found a door yet from this side.

I'm on the side by that art studio if that helps any. [ There's nothing else for a while. Anything immediate just... He just doesn't want to talk about it. ]

found a photo too. the other day. don't know how much it'll help but.

[ It takes him a moment to fiddle with his tablet. Eventually-- oh, look. Video from his end although you can only see a gloved hand clutching to the photograph of a young lady in a cap and gown. It's black and white. The voice that follows is definitely that of a young adult. Male. Light if a bit clipped. ]

Got a paintbrush, too, if that's anyone's thing. I was just gonna use it for kindling otherwise. Guess you'd probably need paint, too, but... [ Not matter how sideways the thought, really, he gets wanting a distraction at this point. All too much. ]