meadowlarklogs | ARRIVAL LOG 011

ARRIVAL LOG 011

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: November 5
WHAT: The eleventh arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion, loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #011

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs.

You realize there are others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips.

The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, and false, colored light, illuminating the streets in the distance will first alert your senses of being somewhere else, combined with air that's only cooled with the setting of the sun. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded. The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind.

"Stay here," one of the guards barks, right before looking to the guard to their left. "You've got the honors of passing on the message from the boss?" he asks. The woman nods, and then steps just in front of him. "Now listen up, everyone! This is way warmer than I'd ever go for, but he's got a soft spot for you." She offers a twisted smile, as if she isn't keen to play messenger. "Hello, everyone. You're likely wondering how you got here." She pauses to roll her eyes at the joke – because it is a joke, albeit a bad one (in her opinion). "That's not something I can share right now. There are too many hands invested in this pie. But I need you all to stick to the festival, and not go looking for trouble. Don't hurt anyone. Don't look for a police officer. Have fun out there until it's time to process you. I don't actually know how that goes, but the ones like you? They've got it down to a science." She pauses here, looking puzzled. She's read this message in advance, but there are still aspects of it that stand out. Oh, they were warned about the others. To avoid them at all costs, because they'd be looking. "And sorry for the scrubs – I know they aren't great for a party, but they make you stand out. Have a good time. Just don't get arrested out there. I can only pull out my Beijing contacts so many times." This message is read entirely off her neural implant – not that the people dressed in scrubs in front of her would realize that.

After she's done, the last of the guards turn to climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then the bus is gone.

You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here.

Around the corner of the alley, there are many food stalls selling foods in mason jars, as well as a stage off in the distance with people in colorful outfits moving in unison. It seems that you've arrived at some kind of festival, and believe it or not, this is low-key compared to some of the last.

◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request – and that includes the lengthy message passed on from the mysterious patron.

> HARVEST FESTIVAL

The message from El comes the same as usual: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it.

Well, everyone, it's time for another round of saving your newly arrived displaced kidnapees. This time they're not blending in at all. It's white scrubs all the way. Probably doesn't really go with a harvest festival – is that some corn-in-the-cob in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Anyway, have fun out there.

The New Amsterdam Annual Harvest Festival begins with a parade bright and early in the morning. Rather than being dressed up with large holographic displays with AR functions that interact with everyone's neural implants, this parade is au naturale. The floats themselves are handmade with careful craftsmanship and designs, especially given the lack of wood available in this world. Everything is bright and colorful. Between each float, there are large dancing troupes dressed in lavish costumes full of colors. Some of the dances featured are unique to this world and its future, while others pay homage to harvest festivals of the past, hailing from regions of Japan, Korea, China, India, Nigeria and the Philippines. The garb itself is unique to these regions – relics of a previous world, celebrating the harvest and promise of what may come in the future.

Unlike many New Amsterdam events, there is very little room for technology and heavy advertisements. While numerous subsidiaries provide donations for the harvest festival, they do so with the understanding that their involvement will be obscured. The harvest festival is meant to act as a way of celebrating the natural way of the world, and of stepping away from technology for a time. That said, there is little emphasis on any artificial intelligence or mentions of the Xelkoven War – it seems as if this celebration is meant as more of a pure revelry of what the Earth used to provide, rather than what humans managed to avoid.

Once the parade is done, there is a large festival in progress. Every worker at the harvest festival is there because they believe in this celebration, and thus they volunteered to be involved. Anyone who wants to be there because they chose to volunteer can. As for the native volunteers – a large number of them will be sporting numerous tattoos of unique symbols that have been seen around the city (most notably the Insomniac's Ball and the shrines to the Displaced). They'll look at any of the Displaced that they recognize with admiration, but won't be quick to engage with them.

The harvest festival is just a one-day event, but it's jam packed full of things to do!

> HARVESTS

While the hydroponic farms around New Amsterdam are always working to keep the citizens fed, they celebrate their harvests once a year at the harvest festival. Many of these farms come together and sell their vegetables in mason jars and even create various sauces for citizens to purchase. Want some delicious spaghetti sauce that's ready to go? What about taco sauce or something to make quick tikka masala? These food stalls have everything ready to go – and they're all too eager to share what they've made. The stalls all offer discounts to anyone who buys their jars in bulk, hoping that they can happily impart their delicious and natural foods to the citizens of New Amsterdam. While hydroponic farms on a whole are "less natural" in how they grow food, these jars of food are less processed. What's in there is, for the most part, pickled or cooked down into a sauce, making it so that New Amsterdam citizens can enjoy a flavorful meal.

> CHARITY

In a continuation of the mindset during Halloween, the harvest festival doubles as a site for charitable activity around the city. Gaby will ask Morningstar's people to set up a booth to collect any clothing donations, and it'll be obvious that while this booth is not noticeably linked to Morningstar, it's set up every year in hopes of gathering these clothing donations for people in need. The Morningstar booth isn't the only of its kind, and many of the food stalls with mason jars will also have a box for people to donate goods should they want to help people in need. Unlike every other New Amsterdam festival, there are no food trucks. Instead, there is an all-day buffet that constantly rotates out food so that people who are hungry can have a full meal as the day goes on. Everything is free. However, this buffet includes no alcohol – as if to counterbalance the drunken revelry during the Halloween celebrations, there is none on the premises here.

> FERTILITY

In the past, harvest festivals have almost always been linked to fertility. While fertility is less of a concern in 2511 – thanks to the rigid population control – there is a sense of hope that Earth itself, as well as the terraforming colonies, will eventually give way to a future where these mandates aren't as necessary. For now, the harvest festival celebrates the idea of fertility, as well as allowing the Earth to replenish itself. Fertility is an aspect in that, after all. One section of the festival's stalls is dedicated to this ideal, and has a unique tradition brought over from Japan. Each of the stalls feature large phallic structures on the top, and like the parade floats, these are newly made every year from scratch. In addition, the food stalls also partake in an all-natural popsicle contest (after all, it wouldn't be a New Amsterdam festival without some kind of food contest). These popsicles come in all different flavors – from strawberry to pickle brine – and are all slender and phallic in their presentation.

> DANCING

Throughout the day, music will always be playing while some form of dancing goes on on the main stage. Most of the day, this dancing is thanks to the dance troupes that come in and perform, even though they've already done it at length on the parade routes. Many of the volunteers will be put in charge of keeping these dancers fed and hydrated so that they can keep at it – though they're always happy for the opportunity that the festival offers them. When these staged shows aren't happening, they have interludes where festival-goers can come on stage and learn more simplified versions of the different dances from the Earth's cultural history. Once it's dusk, there is a two-hour long dance contest where these troupes compete with one another, putting on a unique show that they've prepared for the event.

> WRESTLING

The other event that goes on all day is an event borrowed from Korea: ssireum. Multiple people enter this wrestling contest, and thanks to the amateur-nature of it, there is little concern about who wrestles with one another (outside of age, of course). The sport itself involves two opponents holding on to each other's red and blue band called a satba. Throughout the contest, they try to put the other person down, making it so that their upper body touches the mat. There are rules set up to ensure that no one brings any real harm to their opponent, and since it's wrestling, there is no room for any dirty tricks like punching, kicking, biting or anything similar. When it's over, the person who's wracked up the most wins throughout the day is given a sash that declares them "The Most Powerful."

> SAFEHOUSE

Located under an abandoned hover-bike garage, access to the safehouse is a hatch in the floor beside a rusted set of metal shelves that used to hold tools and supplies. The immediate area is similarly abandoned: full of rundown and dilapidated warehouses and forgotten businesses, where numerous people squat in hopes of having some stability because they can't afford a place themselves. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information.

◉ The safehouse is a large space with multiple rooms for storage, with the largest of the rooms filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum.

◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries.

◉ There is a mini-bar set up in the kitchen. The quality of the alcohol inside is akin to what someone might get from the well, but it's well-stocked.

◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her or El.

◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them.

◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet.

◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until NOVEMBER 09 (JUNE 17). These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until NOVEMBER 09 (JUNE 17). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.

As a note: all new characters arrive after the parade ends.

If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below.

Please check out our June calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month, as well as some additional notes from the mods.

As a note to the entirety of our playerbase, we are at 58 players, which is 2 players away from our game cap! This is very exciting for us as moderators, especially as we quickly head toward our one year anniversary! There is a very good chance that this will be our last "full" arrival log for a while, though we have plans (and ideas!) in mind for future months.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in June will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on July 1 at 12 AM UTC and close on July 8 at 12 AM UTC. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Does anybody know what's going on now?

[ people have been steadily arriving every few weeks since june, and yet to caroline, it seems like they've got no further on the answers everyone asks for. how did they get here? why are they here? why are they changed, how could it be possible, and how does it work?

they may have established some independence with the new safehouse, and they may have gotten into a groove, but it still feels like the same mystery drags over all of their heads. it's hard to feel optimistic about finding the answer when there's no way to tell if they're even making progress. ]

I feel like I should be doing more, but I don't even know what I should be doing.

You said you do committees back home, [Clarke says, already switching gears into the leader version of her. She doesn't phrase it as a question, but there's something about the way her expression changes that shows that she's now seen a problem to tackle. It's how she looks half the time she's talking to people via the network—hunting down answers, hoping to reveal something new.]

These festivals happen all over and they happen smoothly. If there's a volunteer commission to get on, or a company that's behind getting all these stalls out here, you might be able to get a job there and see where it goes. Maybe we can find out if someone who's working them is making people look the other way when a bunch of people in scrubs show up.

[There's a beat.]

For what it's worth, I doubt that anyone's doing that, but it might give us a better idea of this world's traditions and beliefs. We're always kind of floundering when it comes to that.

What, like a party planner?

[ it's not a bad idea. it's the sort of thing caroline might have chosen to do as an actual career back in mystic falls, back when she'd thought that getting a career was the most exciting thing that would happen to her in life. ]

That's a really good idea! [ a bonafide Caroline Forbes Smile. ] I guess I just have to figure out how to apply for that kind of job.

[ her gaze skims out for a moment, taking in the volunteers at this festival all doing their best to be helpful. ]

Oh! I'll go ask them how they signed up. They would know, right?

Yeah, ask around, see what they say about it. I get the sense that you should ask anyone who looks like they're bossing people around. [If there's anyone who can find someone bossy, it's Clarke and Caroline. They're both incredibly bossy, and anyone would mistake them for bossy sisters if they were in a world where that doesn't happen. Ever.]

I can try to help, too. Once we, uh—[She shifts the bag she's carrying, indicating its place.]

I'd offer to carry back everything you have, but I suspect you're a lot stronger than me.

[Just a hunch.]

[ bossy cousins, perhaps. caroline hums her agreement, but any verbal statements are stopped by clarke's broken off statement, the shift of her weighty bag. the implication in her next set of words. ]

Yeah. I totally am. [ caroline is stronger. that's why she can carry a ton of mason jars filled with food without so much as breaking a sweat. she could take all of clarke's, too, if it came down to it. ] Comes with the whole fancy diet thing.

[ the smile doesn't falter. she's teasing, a little, trying to say it casually and cheerfully rather than in the midst of a heated argument. ]

The blood drive has cookies now, for the record.

Huh, too bad. Too much sugar tends to upset my stomach. Though I can't lie and say that I'm not curious. I mean, scientifically. How long it would last. If it would make your system permanently like mine, and what it would mean. [Clarke doesn't know all the vampire lore. Or rather: she doesn't know what's real. Looking it up had been a trip. Sure, everyone hears about vampires, but there's hearing about them and being chewed on by one. Or ... whatever is the right word for it.]

For what it's worth, we'll have to build up to the point where I'm interested in experimentation.

[There is a joke in this about experimentation, but Clarke isn't the sort to make it.]

[ for a minute, caroline wonders if clarke is joking. clarke's good at a lot of things, but delivering a laugh isn't exactly one of them. ]

Well. The cookies are just regular cookies. They just help with your blood sugar, because people tend to need that after they donate.

[ for, like, regular blood drives. not even vampire blood drives. caroline knows this because she worked for one in high school during homecoming week as part of her volunteering regiment — all to build up her miss mystic falls application. funny how that didn't matter at all anymore. ]

You donating doesn't have any long-lasting effects. For some people, it feels kind of good, but... [ she shrugs. she honestly can't remember whether clarke in the dreams had liked it or not. too much has happened since. ] It's not anything permanent.

[ caroline considers one of the jars in her bag, pulling it out and weighing it in her hand. ]

If somebody got injured, I could feed them my blood back. It would help them heal... but if they died with it still in their system?

[ well! then you get a spicy vampire! she shrugs, gesturing at herself. ]

[Would that still happen here? Clarke wonders if it would carry over, but she has no real way of asking. Even the vampire lore of this world had a lot of different opinions. Some of the really, really old stuff was weirdly obsessed with virginity, which—truthfully? Not a mindset that a person from Clarke's walk of life can fully wrap her head around.]

I see. I know how blood draws go. I am a doctor. [Ish.] ... In training. [That isn't meant to be condescending. But knowing them? Eh, it might come across that way.

Clarke looks thoughtful.]

No, it's more—my blood is special. Different. I have to wonder what effects it would have on you. How do you metabolize blood? ... Do you have any trouble with sunlight, or is that just a myth? It doesn't see like you do. That's what I meant by experimentation.

[A doctor-in-training with a background in overthinking.]

[ caroline considers the question for a moment, her gaze drifting between clarke and the jar in her hand. or, rather, her hand itself — specifically the lapis lazuli ring perched on her index finger, said finger currently curved around the label. it's a closely kept secret, the daylight ring. of all the humans in new amsterdam, only fitz knows how it works.

if she tells clarke, it's a risk. a weakness. what clarke could do with that weakness, she doesn't know. ]

We do. [ a true statement. but, even still, caroline's not bursting into flames. ] Well, most of us.

[ they'll have to build up to the point where clarke can joke about experimentation, and then caroline might feel comfortable telling clarke about her ring. for now, half-truths. better than unexpected feedings, though? ]

My best friend Bonnie is a witch, though.

[Clarke can see the edge in her behavior, but doesn't have enough to go on to guess about her ring. That bit about magic is peculiar, though. A half-truth doesn't make much sense, unless it somehow doesn't extend to this world and she's relieved of that worry because she's here.

Yes, that might make sense, too.]

I understand. A lot of myth covers it. I had to look it up after we met before. You acted like it was such a "duh" thing, and ... it wasn't. Not for me. [That's not Clarke's fault, but maybe it's not Caroline's, either. Different worlds. Isn't that what Clarke's been trying to say?

They'll always have unique contexts.]

I don't get magic, but I can see how a friend could help. Loki's explained a bit about it to me here. [She doesn't get it conceptually. Theoretically. But she knows it is a thing to get. It's a start?]

But since you're here, it's less of a concern, I'm guessing. [One thing Clarke knows: a spell like that wouldn't hold. So she's filling in her own blanks. Whoops.] Well, if it ever is a problem, I think my blood can provide temporary immunity to sunlight. Depending on your metabolism.

[Hence why her blood tastes like blood dark chocolate or whatever it was.]

My metabolism's pretty fast — [ which clarke has seen first-hand now, during that train ride to new tokyo that seemed so very long ago ] — wait. Are you offering?

[ she is surprised. caroline had assumed that clarke would never cross that line, even in a hypothetical sense, and though caroline didn't blame her, she wasn't expecting that to change. clarke had seemed particularly deadset on being unhappy about the whole involuntary feeding thing. ]

It might be helpful. Not for me, but.

[ there are others. ]

In case somebody needs it.

Your metabolism is fast when it comes to alcohol, but what about when it comes to something like blood? You need that, right? [Clarke only realizes afterward that she put the emphasis on the wrong word. It should've been "need." She doesn't double back to clarify her point, pressing on.]

I'm not offering in the moment, but if there are more people like you, it could be a thing to help them get back to the safehouse. We'd have to make sure it lasts long enough. That's where the experimentation comes in.

[A pause. She considers.]

And we may need to obscure that I'm the source of the blood. Just in case.

[ there's a beat, in which caroline levels her with an amused look. not quite laughing in her face, but silently chuckling at the question. ] Yes. Vampires live on blood. I have to have it. [ it's just so obvious to caroline that it doesn't even register to her that it might not be obvious to someone else. ]

But I've never had blood with magic powers before, either. I guess it could work.

[ weirder things had happened. she's mostly just glad no one's apparently growing vervain in the future. ]

Are you planning on dumping yourself into blood bags? Because I don't know how else to hide that kind of information. I mean, if they've got their fangs in your skin, it's kind of obvious who you are...

It's not magic, it's science. [Clarke says this bit without a beat of hesitation, the words flowing so naturally from her mouth that she doesn't even question how it might seem to someone else.] It's a biological change and enhancement of some kind. All science, no spells. [The difference does need to be spelled out, however. After all, Caroline just mentioned that she knows a witch.]

As for the blood bags—yes. That's exactly what I'd do. I can take my own blood. That part is easy enough.

[Said as if it is, which ... could be a selling point, and explains why she didn't need the cookies helping blood sugar thing. She knows. She may not take care of herself.

But she knows.]

Okay, [ whatever you say, clarke, it's still magic ] Science powers, then. I've never had blood with science-y powers. So I don't know if it would work.

[ she does, however, wrinkle her nose a little at the idea of clarke taking her own blood. not because she doesn't trust clarke to do it right, but simply because it hasn't been that long since caroline was a living, beating heart human — and she can't fathom the idea of having been steady enough with a needle to hook up a blood draw to her own arm then. she could stack cans and run a pageant no problem, but she'd definitely been on this side of queasy. not now, though.

granted, if caroline the vampire was going to make someone into her personal blood drive... she probably wouldn't bother with bags. ]

We could test it, if you want? Before you make a bunch of them and need to lie down, I mean. It would be pretty obvious if it works or not.

[Strangely, the thought of taking her blood and preparing herself for donations doesn't bother her. That was a part of her early medical training: knowing that everyone who grew up on the Ark was a universal donor for everyone else. Having that knowledge was easy enough. Acting on it? Yeah, that was easy enough, too.

(Too bad for Caroline: Clarke's going to come back from "vacation" even edgier about people and blood.)]

My worry would be your metabolism. I think it will work. It's more the amount of time it would work. The good thing is this city has an underground. We could make that work for us once we have the timing down.

[ if they're going to test this, and if it really works, it could change things completely. caroline still doesn't know how she got her ring but damon and the others didn't, or how her ring even came out at all, but she does know how difficult it was to try and make a life in a city when you couldn't be outside during the day.

her index and thumb twist around the ring on her opposite hand, never quite pulling it off but spinning it around on her skin. ]

I'll be okay. If you decide you want to do this, I can make it work.

[ she'll just have to be careful about storing her ring while she waits for the blood to actually work. ]

All right. Once the newcomers are taken care of, we'll set up a plan to do this. I hope you're fine with drinking my blood out of a glass, even for this experiment. [There's too much about it being so intimate that is uncomfortable for Clarke. It's not that she doesn't mind, it's that she doesn't think that Caroline really gets that it can be ... intimate in that way with a woman.

Maybe she's not giving her enough credit, but better to avoid the awkwardness.]

That's not up for debate, for the record.

[ is it more or less weird to say oh yeah, i've totally drank b-positive blood out of a fancy rocks glass instead of a blood bag before? caroline figures it's probably the latter, so she only nods. there's no real reason for her to disagree, in any case. blood is blood. she will eat it regardless. ]

It's fine. [ no debating here. ] Blood bag, weird vial thing, rocks glass... I can make it work.

If you want to have it on the rocks, I won't object. It might look a little strange. [Much like red blood is thick, black blood is no different. Clarke struggles to picture exactly how it would look in a glass—and whether that would be appetizing in the least.

Probably not.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

ARRIVAL LOG 011

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