ARRIVAL LOG 012

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: A research outpost not far from New Amsterdam proper
WHEN: November 22
WHAT: The twelfth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Body horror, general horror, experimentation on animals and humans, violence, etc.

> ARRIVAL LOG #012

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. Murmuring voices saying indistinguishable words. There's fleeting memories of something else, too: an accident, and the pain that followed. Chaos, the echoing noise of gunshots overhead, and the cold sensation of your body going into shock. None of it can be grasped onto in any detail, the flashes of memory more like a fading dream than any real recollection.

When you fully awaken, you'll find your movements to be weighed down and heavy, your body struggling to respond the way that you want it to. Your hair is grown out, perhaps even past its usual length, but not maintained in any way, and you're wearing a hospital gown. The room around you is small and sparsely furnished. There's a bed, the one you woke on, along with a desk pushed against the adjacent wall, but no other distinguishing features. It feels, somehow, that you have been here for a while -- even if you can't put any of the memories together.

As soon as you leave the room, you'll find that your sense of something being very wrong is proven correct. You exit into a dark hallway. There are other doors lining said halls, most of them leading into rooms similar to the one you just left. The area you're in seems to be some sort of dormitory wing, intended for the people who work here, though for now none of those people can be found. Sometimes lights will flicker up and down the maze of halls, but the facility remains dark, and for the most part, quiet. Is it the middle of the night, or is this place completely abandoned? Soon enough you'll come across others like you: wearing only a hospital gown, confused, lost, barefoot.

Unfortunately, it turns out that you're not the only ones here. There's a loud blaring noise that rings through the halls, and somewhere in the facility, a door is unlocked and the proverbial floodgates are opened. At first it won't be clear what happened, but then you'll hear them: scrabbling claws, guttural growls, the thundering approach of creatures that want nothing more than to feed.

They might round a dark hallway and leap, claws extended, or burst out of the vents to wrap around you, fangs ready to sink in. They're twisted, grotesque creatures, but one thing that all of them have in common is their golden glow and eyes. It will take smarts, strength, or speed to survive. Killing them is an option, but without any weapons or your usual powers, it might not be as simple of a task as it once was. Running and hiding is an option, too. There is a new power you've been granted — maybe the stress of the situation will allow you to discover it sooner rather than later. Or maybe with enough teamwork, you can all find a way out.

But don't worry: help is on the way.

> INTO THE WOODS

Instead of the usual head's up from El, the Displaced receive a very different kind of message to tell them of a batch of newcomers who need their assistance:

@100342
Well, well, well, I'll save the trivial "nice to see you again" for later, as it's time to put yourselves together and go. Funny story, a bunch of your pals have been located somewhere outside the city. I know what you're going to ask: How do I know? Let's just say I have some access to points that usually lay beneath the radar to keep it friendly.
Since I was feeling generous, I left you a gift to bring them back. The best part is that you don't have to drive, the worst part is that if you miss it, it'll be gone and you'll be SOL.
Don't be late, or there won't be much to salvage.

Along with the message, all of the Displaced will receive a GPS pin and a warning that they're on the clock. They'll need to reach their destination before 1900 hours or they'll be left behind, and when they arrive at the place in question, they'll see why. It's a boarded-up entrance to a subway station, one that seems to have been out of commission for some time now. Once they break their way in and walk down the stairs into the abandoned station, they'll find that there's a train waiting for them.

How did it get here when most of the public transit is still down? How is it functional? Why hasn't anyone noticed this on a map before? Who knows, but the Displaced will be able to board, and as soon as it hits 1900 hours the train will shudder into movement. There are no announcements to let them know where it's going, so they'll simply have to wait it out.

As it turns out, the train takes them all the way out of the city. When it reaches the city gates, it's let through with no incident, and then it continues on its journey, winding a path through the wooded area that at least a few of the Displaced have explored before. When it finally comes to a stop about an hour and a half later, they'll be let off at an outpost. They're miles out of the city now, too far to easily walk back, and before them lies an unmarked building. On top of that, the train keeps going without them. For the moment, everyone's stranded.

They'll be able to get inside the building with little trouble, as it's from this research outpost that the new set of Displaced will need to be collected. By the time that they arrive it's late into the night so it might not be surprising that the place feels abandoned, but it won't take long to realize there's a commotion. A pack of genetically altered animals have been unleashed on the Displaced who woke up here, so they'll need to help everyone get out in one piece and then figure out a way back to the city.

Some notes about the research lab and these monsters:

◉ The building is six stories tall. The first floor has a lobby/waiting area, a cafeteria, and some office spaces. The second floor is the dormitory floor, which is where the employees would usually sleep if they chose to stay at the facility while working rather than returning to the city in between shifts. This is where the new arrivals woke up. Floors three through five are dedicated to lab spaces, which is where the actual research work is usually done. Most of these laboratories are going to be locked, but that won't stop Displaced from breaking into them if they want. Some of the lab rooms also have exam rooms, rooms with gurneys, stacked and locked cages (some even holding sedated monsters), and other evidence that both people and animals were being experimented on here. Displaced will be able to swipe lab equipment and medical supplies, such as syringes, vials/beakers, first aid supplies, scalpels, bandages, multi-lens microscopes, etc. The top floor is dedicated to offices for higher-ranked scientists, so think of it as the C suite. All floors also have bathrooms, of course, and the dormitory wing also has showers.

There are also a few rooms which might be of interest to the Displaced. These will all be locked tight and will have to be opened through brute force, as they won't respond to any of the Displaced's implants. Of course, a locked door doesn't always mean that there's no way through, especially for this bunch — breaking the locking mechanism, brute force, or even finding a control mechanism are some ways the Displaced can get inside. As for what's beyond these doors:

◈ An operating room. It's clean and emptied out, but the consoles, surgical tools, and lighting make it obvious that surgeries are performed here.
◈ A room that holds in-progress experimental subjects. Some of the animals look almost normal, while others are further along in their mutations, but all of them are sedated and either held suspended in fluid pods or kept in cages. It's possible they could be woken up with enough effort, but why would you?
◈ A morgue. This is where all of the discarded animals and yes, even scientists are kept. It's essentially a dumping ground for failed experiments. The corpses are in sliding drawers as you would expect from any morgue, but opening these drawers will reveal disturbing monstrosities. Some of them are humans, but only barely recognizable given that they've been ripped limb from limb. Others are various animals twisted into impossible positions, or with added appendages/defects. These are experiments where the mutations didn't enhance them, but made it so they could no longer survive.

◉ The monsters who are attacking have the same golden glow and eyes that some of the Displaced have already seen, but they are not the same ones. They look like different kinds of animals that have been spliced with monster DNA, and that DNA has warped them into different forms. Here are a few examples of the monsters, though you are also welcome to come up with other types based off of what we've already outlined:

◈ A large snake, except that it also has four small legs (two near the front of its body, two near the back) which allow it to skitter around rather than slither, making it much faster than any snake has a right to be. It's large and strong enough to strangle its victim, making it difficult to remove by a single person. Don't let it unhinge its jaw, it's got way too many teeth.
◈ A hyena-creature with impressive amounts of agility, due to the fact that it seems like almost all of its joints are double-jointed. It can turn its head almost completely around as well, making it an extremely skilled hunter. Its fangs protrude from the top of its mouth in rows of three like a shark. Even if it's disemboweled or it loses a limb, this creature will still continue to attack in a frenzy.
◈ A stag beetle, except that it's the size of a medium-sized dog. It's still able to fly and its pincers can do damage if it's allowed to get too close. Worse than that, they tend to move in swarms of three or four. Beneath the hard shell are human-like eyes with dilated pupils that follow shadows and light.
◈ A humanoid creature that stands on two legs. Its eyes glow in the dark, catching bits of light from a distance. Upon closer inspection, the creature has snake-scale skin, a long, flickering tail, and claws for hands. These scales are incandescent in nature, shimmering whenever they're underneath enough light.
◈ A sloth-like mimic that cries from a distance for help from hidden, high places. Once it hears a voice, it can mimic it, drawing someone in toward it due to it sounding like another Displaced. Getting too close will leave them within reach of the creature that's all arms and little else, leaving a toxic and poisonous trap to weaken its prey. Its hiding places include the rafters, where it may drop on those looking for their friends. Under certain lights, the slothly creature's eyes are humanoid in appearance, sharp and aware — yet still gold.
◈ Humanoid creatures that give off a thick, putrid smell of decay. Not unlike zombies, they move sluggishly, but upon closer inspection, it appears that something is off about these people. They have claws, sharp rows of teeth, and skin that flakes off with every shuffle of their feet. Potentially some early or later stage experiment of the snake-skinned humanoids. They're highly aggressive and will follow someone with the intention of attacking until they're incapacitated.
◈ A cross-breed insect that looks like a mix of a wasp and a mosquito, but is only the size of a dime. Its sting can draw out a large amount of blood, sedating the individual. The toxin that they inject will leave large, red welts, depending on the efficiency of the immune system. They're blotchy and painful. Once they have found a target, they will swarm around that individual all at once.
◈ A naked creature resembling a dog with a reptile's body, with patches of hair. This creature has long rows of crooked fangs protruding from its lips, mouth and tongue, with a large, dilated eye. It has sharp scales on its back to keep it from being touched, but it has a thirst for blood. This creature will attempt to surprise its prey from around corners, jumping onto someone's shoulders with hopes of sticking to them and drawing blood like a reptilian tick.

◉ These monsters will move through the vents in the building and up and down the stairwells, but they can be killed like any other creature. Or hidden from, if you want to go cry in a bathroom stall or something.

Once the newbies have been collected and taken outside, the Displaced will have to decide if they want to try and get back to New Amsterdam on foot or wait to see if a train arrives back at the stop. The train will return 24 hours after it originally dropped the Displaced off to return everyone to the city, though they won't get any indication of that other than a cryptic hint from Cassius.

Have fun camping, hiking, waiting it out in the building barricaded somewhere, or whatever else you decide to do!

A final note for characters who have been in Meadowlark from the first arrival log (Bobbi Morse, Clarke Griffin, Kylo Ren, Loki, Ojiro Sniper, Rey, Stephen Strange): You are free to have your character recognize any of the newcomers as having been on the bus crash during that first log, if you want! Have these characters been kept in this facility all this time?

For new characters, all of your characters were "present" during the very first log, but either injured to the point that they couldn't trail after the first bunch to the safehouse, or killed during the initial crash and resulting fire fight. We'll leave whichever it is up to you, though your character will not remember the circumstances beyond the vague recollections alluded to at the start of this log. For now, all signs point to them being in captivity after that first crash was cleaned up and swept under the rug.

> NEW AMSTERDAM

Eventually, the Displaced will all make it back into the city one way or another. What the newcomers will find is a city that is very much in recovery mode. There was a recent disaster that has left the city badly damaged and killed people in the hundreds of thousands. For their first few days the new characters will be confined to the safehouse (more on that below), but after that they'll be let out to explore the city as they wish.

◉ Relief efforts. Given that the city is still trying to rebuild and will be for some time, many of the Displaced have already thrown themselves into helping, whether through their normal jobs or by pitching in with the relief organization called PRESERVE. Everyone can pitch in with delivering supplies, escorting people who've lost their homes to relief centers, furnishing and repairing shelters, and so on. Unfortunately, only a few trains are in working order, so getting around is going to be more difficult than it would be normally. Hope you don't mind walking!

◉ Golden-eyed animals. While they're not like the monsters in the research outpost, there will be animals with golden eyes who've somehow found their way into the city. This is noteworthy given that animals are very rarely seen in a megacity. They're not aggressive, and if anything they seem sickly. Some of them look like strange chimeras, like two or three different animals mashed together. Others have too many limbs or eyes. Either way, they will die within a few days of arriving, so it's also possible to stumble on strange corpses scattered around.

◉ All Star game. It's not all doom and gloom, thankfully. The city is trying its best to pull itself up by its bootstraps and carry on despite all the tragedies, which means that the annual soccer All Star Game is still on. Near the sports stadium there will be stalls selling food and merchandise, bands performing, and so on. It's not a full-blown festival the likes of which New Amsterdam is known for, but it is a place to swing by if anyone needs a break.

Please refer to the Setting and Locations posts for more ideas of what the city has to offer, and you can also check out the Aftermath Post from the last event and the July Calendar if you want a better idea of what's going on in New Amsterdam!

> 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.

◉ 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.

◉ It can be assumed that new arrivals will be told that any requests or queries can go through El for the time being; Gaby is currently not available.

◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network upon arrival in the safehouse, whether they had their ID set up by Cassius or they still need it set up by El. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet. El will restrict widespread internet access while ze reviews everyone's preset backgrounds or reviews what's already in place. Once El has set up IDs — or revised/retained Cassius's work, the newbies will be free to go. See the comment below to learn more about this!

◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until NOVEMBER 26 (JULY 21). 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 — or review the ID that was set up by Cassius. We have another option for IDs this log which will be explained in a comment below; it's opt-in!

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will not be allowed out of the safehouse until NOVEMBER 26 (JULY 21). 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 had job potentials reviewed with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.

If you would like your character to have a wildly inappropriate background or incredibly unique setup by Cassius, please comment to the background review below! Since Cassius has a different set of accesses and resources available, he'll be able to provide a different path for your character. This background does not need to be accurate to your characters' skill set — in fact, it's more likely that it wouldn't because Cassius is a troll that way. El will try to revise it into working order, but ze can only do so much.

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 July calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month, as well as some additional notes from the mods.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in July 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 August 1 at 12 AM UTC and close on August 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

Comments

[hierophante]

Like you've been caged.

[OA nods her understanding. She can't pretend to understand exactly, in perfect detail, what that feels like, but she knows what it is to be stolen and she knows what it is to be rendered powerless, to have her agency and her hope and even her life systematically stripped away.

It must have changed him, the way it did her. She wonders what he would have been like before, what she should be reading in that fractional shift in his tone.]

Like losing a sense. It changes everything. Everything is different, materially. The whole shape of it, where you fit. You end up somewhere completely new and you have to find a way to live in it. Maybe in some ways it's better, but it's still... changed. Coming here physically is only part of the whole.

[If it's true, if that is what he means -- even, really, if it isn't -- she can't help the little pang of sympathy.]

Maybe that's presumptuous.

[Maybe I'm projecting.]

[selfimage]

[ caged, maybe—but stripped and left without all of his senses feels more like a loss of self. ]

That would be a pleasant euphemism for what happened.

[ going from experiencing reality one way to being left with some senses dulled, and the others gone completely, well ... he didn't really like to think about it. the situation made him angry. ]

The trick is to not belong anywhere. [ maybe it's a joke and maybe it's not, but he seems to find it somewhat amusing. ] Change will always come—violently, if it must. Someone like me? I'd rather die than not change.

[ and he had, in some ways. a story for another time. ]

[hierophante]

Isn't failure to change a kind of death in itself? The only way to stop it is to stop being affected.

[OA doesn't put much stock in the idea of individuality anymore. She has a good enough sense of herself to know that she's constantly in flux, constantly tied to her surroundings, her circumstances, other living things.]

That sounds more like not belonging anywhere.

[She's not going to press him on that statement, not belonging. Sometimes people take pride in being an outsider; she's not here to cut him down. OA herself certainly feels set apart more often than not, but she can only feel that way if she's sensitive to what other people are doing, feeling, believing. It's a connection. There's always a connection, no severing it.

Not even in death. There another irony. She's not going to contest that point either, though. Instead she pauses, assessing. What she's about to say is dangerous, in a way. Not necessarily the sort of information one ought to give to the powerful, no matter how diminished.]

I was blind. Not from birth. There was an accident. I was eight.

[She looks at him steadily, sympathy in the faint furrow of her brow, the slight uptick to one corner of her mouth. In this world of strange things, at least, there's less chance of anyone calling her a miracle.]

Everything changed. All my old assumptions no longer made sense. The fabric of the universe was altered with me. It's not the same, but it's the closest I have.

[selfimage]

[ for him, being an outsider has always been both: first it was a source of his own ire, and afterward he had embraced the concept as he tried to make it his own. if he was an outsider, he was going to be the best outsider.

for the moment he chooses to ignore the sympathy, it's not really his thing. ]

Before that, you were mortal? You are mortal?

[ he asks it like you'd ask about the weather, like there's a difference but without any scale. there were mortals and creatures of the immortal, gods and humans, spirits and other beings that rode the line between the two. perhaps in another life he would've judged, but he's had a new life to explore the different sorts of joys that came with immersing himself in the middle realms. ]

[hierophante]

[OA supposes that's a fair question in light of everything but something about it draws a soft huff of laughter from her, not quite a scoff. She wavers on the answer.]

What's mortality? What am I?

[The questions are rhetorical -- she asks them to prove a point.]

Immortality is hard to define. What has to survive to qualify?

[It isn't strictly a philosophical question. Her amusement wavers and then fades. What does she say? That she's as human as any other human? Does that necessitate an end?

The words that come to mind are strange to say. The first time she'd ever said them, during that long-ago police interview, they'd left her mouth of their own accord; she'd been too disoriented to stop them. Walking into them eyes open feels... bold. Perhaps too bold.]

I've died more times than I can count.

[Does that answer the question?]

[selfimage]

[ there's some amusement on his side as he listens to her speak, as she goes through the motions in broadness of definition of the terminology that surrounds their existence. ]

Immortality and divinity are how one interacts with reality. They both generally come with the territory: I remember many lives. [ there's a hint of an ironic smirk. ] Did they happen, or did reality just think they happened, and thus have embedded them into my memory?

[ there's a pause and he holds a finger to his chin, looks her over from head to toe. ]

The universe is fairly easy to trick, once you get the hang of it.

[hierophante]

[That much OA can understand, in her own limited way. It neither surprises nor alarms her that a god -- if he really can be called that -- should also be limited. There's always something bigger and stranger.

She considers Loki considering her, solemn.]

If that's what you're living in, does it matter?

[Truth is a function of perspective. OA is fiercely protective of hers, to the point of intransigence, even self-sabotage. She inclines her head, having come to a conclusion as to the best way to answer his question. The words sound like a concession:]

I was born human. I died human.

[And if something else crept in through the open doorway before she came back, that's another matter entirely. Maybe even one she'll tell Loki about someday, once she's decided how she feels about him.

There's another pause; her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip and her brow furrows in thought.]

Your many lives. Do you experience them as a sequence, or... ?

[She brings her hands together side-to-side, forefingers extended. Two parallel lines. They stick for a moment before the fingertips diverge and she pulls her hands apart again -- two lines continuing in parallel, but no longer touching.]

[selfimage]

[ that is an interesting question. by logic, there should have been a Loki that went from point A to point B, one life after another that followed the same sequence of time. but neither the experience, reality, nor time tended to work that way, especially not for him.

did the world really begin with the scattering of the organs of the giant Ymir? ]

It's like looking at a mountain through the fog. Sometimes it's clear, sharp edges against a red sun, and sometimes it's covered by the mist.

[ Loki is a story, an imprint on reality's surface. as long as the resonance of the story continued, there would be a Loki. ]

Sometimes it looks different. Sometimes it is different. Who's to say, we can only see the mountain for what it is at any given time.

[ a tap on his chin. ]

So, teal deer? No, but I've many memories of the same event, it just depends on the day that you ask.

[hierophante]

Teal...?

[OA shakes her head, giving a dismissive little gesture of the hand. No, never mind. She's not chasing that one down. Not when the rest of what he's said is so interesting.

The hand with which she'd indicated her dismissal comes up to rest against her brow, thumb rubbing at her temple.]

No, of course. We can only touch what's in front of us right now. Sometimes not even that.

[An almost pained grimace crosses her face for the briefest of moments before her expression smooths out again and her hand falls away. What's to be said? The truth of it? Isn't that only fair?]

We thought the same. A garden of forking paths, realities layered on realities, but we could only... we only saw hints; we could only move through it temporarily. None of us ever got far enough away to really see the shape.

[It doesn't actually surprise OA that someone who is... whatever he really is should also be limited to his own perspective, though that doesn't stop it being something of a relief. She regards him steadily, wondering what she looks like to him: Small? Weak? Breakable? Presumptuous? Perhaps simply mad.]

Thank you. For answering, I mean; that was... personal.

[Or does he experience the personal at all? Do gods have private lives? In spite of everything she's seen -- or maybe because of it -- OA is unaccustomed to having to wrangle with questions like these.]