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meadowlarklogs2020-02-08 01:58 pm
EVENT #008 AFTERMATH LOG
WHERE: Lots of places—potentially? Mostly New Amsterdam as the focus.
WHEN: March 4, 2512
WHAT: Unlocking of the gates and the game's fast travel network.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Uninvited visions.
The vision itself is almost instantaneous once the last of the four gates activates, hitting the Displaced no matter where they are. It doesn't matter where that individual Displaced is: if they're in New Amsterdam, at one of the gates, or sleeping, they'll see the same vision. A flash of seven colors (red, blue, black, gold, orange, red, and white) followed by an image of a nomadic people heading up a long, stone bridge that appears to be naturally occurring. At the end of the bridge is an open, lit-up triangle that acts as a gateway, inviting them inside. Then there is another flash, followed by the nomads walking through the gate and ending up in a different, new location. And then another.
Any understanding of this vision isn't immediate. The answers won't be apparent until later, when there is an innate understanding of what they've learned and what they've unlocked for themselves. The world has opened up to the Displaced, and in some ways, it's there for them to access and even take for themselves if they so choose.
After the vision ends, any of the Displaced located at the four ruins will immediately begin to glow in all blue before they fade out of view and find themselves crammed into a new location. The relocation is immediate, and if anyone checks a map via their neural implant to see where they are geolocation wise, they'll be able to tell that they're underneath New Amsterdam. For anyone who's been in the underground cave system of New Amsterdam, they may think their surroundings are familiar, if not the same. After all, this area has been locked away for a very long time.
One more thing is apparent: they've landed on another form of gate that needs to be unlocked. After the numerous trials and puzzles the Displaced have faced, what's one more?
◉ The puzzle to solve is right beneath the feet of the Displaced on a bronze-colored mechanism. At the center of the mechanism are multiple overlapping triangles, and on the outside, there are five separated triangles that sit individually.
◉ Solving the puzzle involves connecting a daisychain of Displaced and having five key focal points step on the triangles at once.
◉ Once the puzzle unlocks, there will be another understanding: that what they saw in the vision belongs to them. Any of the Displaced outside of the caves will know what it means.
◉ With that work done, it's time to explore. The underground cave system of New Amsterdam is half-inhabited by the sprawling megacity, and half-uninhabited and untouched. This part of the cave system was locked away for centuries, and just like the other ruins, there are some relics and lost items from the past. The eras vary: some are early medieval burial sites with items like brittle, forgotten swords and shields, while others are crosses and manuscripts that refer to this location as the center of the Holy Roman Empire.
◉ The manuscripts are a mix of imagery from Catholicism and the same, omnipresent geometric imagery.
◉ The way out of the cave system involves touching a hand to a handprint alongside what appears to be a door. This print will only appear to the Displaced, so they will be able to move in and away from this location largely unobserved.
Now that the gates trip is done and the Displaced have new answers—if potentially unhelpful ones, depending on their perspective—it's time to return to their lives. Surprisingly, New Amsterdam has no festivals going on, as if it's time to now be hungover from a February that involved nonstop partying. The city has been cleaned up and everyone's returning to their jobs as if the city around them is not in a constant state of revelry.
◉ Ah, it's time to return to work! No one is required to lose their jobs, but it might take a bit of groveling for the Displaced to return to where they were working before. (With the exception of the Red Wings bar. Poor Mister Doctor Stephen Strange.) El will have sent along any excuses to any bosses who might need an explanation. Ze's used to this gig by now.
◉ What about those cities left behind? No one planned on abandoning those gates at that exact moment. They will remain open to the Displaced. Anyone who had a hotel room in New Oslo or even kept stuff stored at New Beijing will find that they can just teleport back via this new fast travel system.
◉ Though for anyone who's been dealing with tampered food, maybe it's time to go take a break. You know where's a good place to do it? The Displaced-run Red Wings bar. Ah, poor Mister Doctor Strange, at least the people coming in out of nowhere are all Displaced looking for proper food and a drink. It's time to mingle, share notes, and see what's what. Might as well get to seeing where there's overlap—and what to do next.
◉ Or it's time to explore! The world is finally open and available to one and all. Well, to one Displaced and all.
◉ The information on these gates and what they do won't immediately be available to El and Gaby. It's up to the Displaced if they decide to share with their NPC friends. (Of course, if it's mentioned via the Morningstar network, then they'll know!)
This is meant primarily as a laid back, return to life log for the Displaced after their exciting trips around the world (and trips-to-be, most likely). Any questions about the aftermath should be directed to our aftermath questions thread!
Our CR meme will be posted on February 14th (Happy Valentine's Day!), and our arrival log for all newbies will be going up on February 15th.
Thanks again for making this a great event!
no subject
[Clarke has more thoughts on it, though. She's been the one "here before;" she's known how to look forward and has also seen how it's slipped from the fingers of people trying to manage it.]
Having those losses—it's not about friendship, but the worry of things being ephemeral. I'm guessing here, but when you and your friends were like that before, it was a pretty consistent set of you? [It sounds like the type of thing that would be able to build upon itself, like how the delinquents had only come to trust each other.] I'm asking because I've been in this before. I was younger, and we all had to survive together. It wasn't fate that we had to survive—just the knowledge of being expendable.
no subject
He gets what she's saying, for sure, nods and sipping his drink.] It's ... weird to think how easy it could be. To lose people here. [To lose himself. To lose Eliot. It could be as simple as opening his eyes in the morning or never opening them at all. But he also knows he has to keep existing without letting that fear constantly hound him. It's the only way.]
I'm sorry. Some of those people were probably friends. [He can only assume, going through that together. There's a cost.] You did this before on your world. We're doomed to keep at it, I guess. [In a circle.] If you've been here this long, what did you think this all was, if not mixed up with the supernatural or destiny or something that causes a real migraine this way.
no subject
[Her response to it all now is different. She has a lot of clarity of mind, but there was a time when Clarke wanted to set out and find answers. Being turned away from that dangerous path had been difficult, and now she does the same for the others.]
I've come to learn that many of the things I wrote off as being unreal for my people are real to many of the others. I've had to accept the fact of it. But knowing there is something supernatural involved doesn't mean that we're fated in any way. That's a leap, and not one I'm eager to take myself.
[It sounds arrogant, and Clarke can't afford to feel arrogant these days. She's always rejected fate, but she'll keep doing it again and again until it's shoved in her face and proven.
As far as she's concerned, it hasn't been. Not yet.]
no subject
I've always been a believer. Most things I've experienced the past few years seemed unreal before they happened, but I was quicker to accept it than my friends. I thought I was crazy, for real crazy, because a part of me just ... felt it in my bones with no rational explanation. Against logic.
[A feeling. Quentin feels strongly. It radiates off him even without empathy powers, although at the moment he's pretty collected and focused. A little jittery, from a bizarre sense of excitement, because of the visions. Because here they are again and he should hate it but he doesn't.]
It is a leap though. And sure I'm saying this all feels like destiny, because that's what I know well, but it may not be. I could be wrong, you could be right. It could be somewhere in the middle. But ....
[He smiles self-deprecatingly, shaking his head, looking at his drink and not at her.]
I feel it in my bones again. There's something drawing us here, there's some bigger picture we can't see. It doesn't have to be destiny for that to be true. [But it's in his gut and it won't go away.] I'm sorry if I sound like a crazy cult dude though, talking about feelings and fate.
no subject
[It's an outcome she dislikes, but it's one that has led to peace. Without Lexa or Madi, would the Grounders have ever been any better off? It's something that she tried to take and manipulate once, but she knows better than to do that again. And it was that process that led to Octavia keeping so many alive in the bunker, even if it was hell otherwise.]
A lot of us come from places where we had purposes, whether we were born with it or not. Whether we always believed it or not. We did what we felt we had to, what we had the power to do, either as leaders or as something else. [Clarke, of course, was a leader.] It makes sense that we'd see a purpose here.
[She debates adding more. She could qualify her statements, but ultimately decides against it.
She also debates whether to tell him about the faith of the Grounders, and how that faith could start and end wars. She understands faith, even if she doesn't have it in a spiritual sense. It might just be what someone needs to believe to keep going.]
no subject
[He shakes his head, smiling at his drink.] The reality of being that person? Whole different experience. Instead all I could think about sometimes was how much I sucked at being the protagonist. [The terms are all the same, about fiction, about belief in fiction, but Quentin knows they're just words.] Luckily it turns out all my friends are protagonists and some of them aren't as shitty at it as I am.
[Quentin glances over at her and thoughtfully observes for a few seconds before continuing.]
I guess the question is ... we all come from different places, with purposes or not, but like ... what does that mean for this place in this time? What can we do here? What we've done in the past ultimately doesn't matter, but we're stuck here.
[He always has to look forward, to keep going, to try and obsess over the angles and the what next instead of relaxing or taking a few minutes to breathe. He has to know how to live in this place since it's the only option he has.]