mockweek | Ceasefire - The Way Out

mockmods posting in

[And then you wake up.]

[The room is dimly lit and made of pitted, industrial metals. You sit up abruptly on- some sort of padded table or cart? There’s a caged structure of metal piping surrounding you like a low barrier, but it’s open on top. You might similarly have a moment of panic about the straps holding you down or the electrodes on your head, but they’re just velcro and lightly tacked on, respectively, and in no significant way prevent you from sitting bolt upright and getting onto your feet. A series of twenty one such tables ring the room at even intervals. All but one has an occupant.]

[However long it takes you to notice, there a twenty of you again. Patches, the Trusty, and Yaiba, the Legendary Bassist, are back among your number. Penny, unfortunately, seems to be missing. Whatever you were wearing to the trial, or at the time of your death, you are back in the clothing you wore when you initially arrived. If anyone checks, CAREFULLY PLEASE, they will find that any powers they may have been missing are back.]

[The room is lit well enough, and there are computer banks and monitors around all the walls, which look to have been monitoring your vitals until just this second. Wires and tubes lead from each table to the center of the room, where a low pool is filled with a thick, milky-looking liquid that looks incredibly disinviting to touch.]

[A door rests on each side of the room, a glowing hand-sized pad beside each.]

[Welcome back, Participants.]

[Now, what do you do?]

((One clarification - any active powers that require some kind of power source or connection from your home worlds will either be not active or severely weakened.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mockmods

[A bold choice, Veronica! Which door are you trying here, let's call them north and south. NEVERMIND, Meredith is going North, that leaves the South door.]

[You going cautiously or just smacking that pad next to it?]

Edited Date: 2018-12-09 05:48 pm (UTC)

From:

canbebeautiful

[Does Veronica Sawyer look like a) she does anything with caution or b) knows how to use a keypad properly? We're just smacking the keypad and Hoping.]

Edited Date: 2018-12-09 06:01 pm (UTC)

From:

mockmods

[Well, good news, it's just a button, basically. It blinks green, and the door slides open, more smoothly than the one to the trial room did.]

[It's... another room, with the same basic aesthetic as the other. No tables and harnesses here, but a large, industrial-looking computer station, a series of shelves holding some labeled cardboard boxes, and another door at the opposite end.]

[And... a whole lot of empty space? There's a large square spot on the floor that's slightly different than the flooring around it, like something big was removed recently.]

From:

canbebeautiful

[Veronica has used a computer like (2) times prior to arriving here, so she leaves that to someone more tech-y and immediately goes over to the cardboard boxes. Is there food in here?

I mean, also what's in these boxes, but realistically nobody's eaten and they apparently found Penny so food is concern #2.]

Edited Date: 2018-12-09 06:30 pm (UTC)

From:

mockmods

[Well, first thing she'll probably notice is that those labels are all names.]

[Including one labeled Sawyer, Veronica.]

From:

canbebeautiful

[Cool, well. We're opening that one first because if her name is on it then it's obviously fair game.

How many boxes are there, though. Are there 22 or 20.]

From:

mockmods

[So, you know how when you all woke up, everything besides your clothes were missing? You just found the rest of your shit, Happy Candlenight.]

[And there are- probably twenty-one boxes here, actually. One for everyone but the late Hodgepodge Miller, unless there was anyone who just didn't have anything on them besides their clothes.]

From:

canbebeautiful

[Dear diary, the world can be beautiful.]

Hey! I found all our shit!

From:

eudaimonikos

Oh! Is there a frog keychain, with a little fob on it?

[That's rhetorical, because he's already coming over to dig through the stuff himself.]

From:

deathroadtocanada

[She doesn't have shit but hey that's good for ya'll.]

From:

in4apounding

[And at some point, here comes Penny. She's going for a hug, at least briefly. Sorry.]

Miss Veronica! I'm- I'm so sorry, I wanted to stop what was happening as soon as I figured out what Mister Yaiba was doing, but- the- Hodgepodge said if I interfered, everyone would be punished. I'm so sorry.

From:

windowsexplorer

[Meredith doesn't have a lot, but she seems to be really glad to get this little green rabbit keychain back.]

From:

aragona

[Runs over there, pulls out a rapier and belt, snaps in onto her.]

Now I have something to fight with.

From:

doppelanger

[ Without another word Helena zooms over immediately to find her box with very little regard for anyone else, because she still remembers what Penny said on the first day, and guess what, guys? It's knife time! Helena holds the blade up to her face and smiles, her gaze enraptured and almost fanatical, before tucking it securely away wherever it is she keeps it.

But also... it's several pieces of face-down paper time? She looks very confused once the high of getting her knife back (again) dims enough for her to realize there's something else at the bottom of the box. Nevertheless, she dutifully retrieves a crumpled piece of paper and two photographs, and upon seeing what's on them the confusion only deepens. A couple of things are visible before she secrets the little bundle away to a corner of the room, to pore over it in relative privacy. There's large, childish writing on the paper, with a big heart drawn on it, and the photographs both appear to be of the same girl. Helena presses her back against the wall, tracing the words with her fingers as she mouths her way through the contents of the letter, but that knife is extremely sharp, within reaching distance, and definitely unsanitary. ]

How is this possible?

[ She's in a world of her own right now, and it's not a good idea to bring her back to this one. ]

From:

eudaimonikos

[Well, he knows how to use a computer, he'll fuck with that.

Incidentally, presuming he can in fact see in nine dimensions again, do everyone's souls look unaltered? For the humans, at least, he's unfamiliar with what the fuck vampires and shit are about metaphyically.]

From:

mockmods

[Having only loose secondhand knowledge of The Good Place, we'll say sure, he can see into nine dimensions.]

[Everyone's souls loom a-okay, actually! Barring any potential damage from emotional trauma, if that's a thing, but everyone who should have a human soul seems good.]

[The computer itself is... non-responsive, but powered up. Lights are on but no one's home, etc. It may be a surprise tool to help someone later.]

[In the meantime, there's a stapled packet of papers resting on the computer console that might be worth examining.]

From:

eudaimonikos

[Okay, let's check that out!

...what, he'll tell them their souls are fine if it comes up.]

From:

mockmods

[With this group that could either be before the hour's out or ten years from now, no middle ground.]

[And this looks to be some kind of manifest or registry. It's got a list of names, and then two long strings of numbers each, with headers identifying them as Local Arrival and Native Coordinates.]

[The former column is all pretty similar, just the last two or three digits changing for each entry. The latter varying wildly, almost no two remotely alike.]

[And it might not need saying, but the first twenty-one names should be pretty familiar by this point.]

From:

eudaimonikos

[Well, that seems useful.]

Got some coordinates here. If we can find the thing they used to bring us to this world, we should be able to get back to where we were...

From:

mockmods

[Good deduction, Michael! That's at least a reasonable assumption here.]

[Though potentially also worth noting; there's way more than the twenty-one of you listed here. You've got names for days.]

From:

eudaimonikos

[Are any of those names people he's heard of or has reason to be concerned about?]

From:

mockmods

[Hard to say at this point, since signups for the main round or rounds are in no way a thing yet, sorry.]

[So let's say no for now, and if anyone actually gets castmates we'll bullshit a little and say this was actually an incomplete list of interdimensional kidnapping victims.]