❧ Life's An Adventure

[luministimods]

[surprisingly, a private text message is sent not to the device Nathan left behind but to all of the residents' CATs. it reads:]

Get to the nearest door and wait. When the alarm sounds, immediately go through the door and await the next signal.

[surely such a text is confusing, but the sender hopes those words are heeded. ten minutes after it's sent, all vidscreens in the town begin to flash red, and a wailing siren breaks the din. the only word that flashes on screen is:]

EVACUATE

[similarly, back in the spacestation, red flashing lights drop down from the ceiling and a constant, beeping alarm begins to ring. over this, a pleasant and feminine automated voice says:]

Please find the nearest exit and evacuate the station via escape pod. A distress signal has been sent to the closest galactic space authority. Those with small children are asked to--[but this message is interrupted with another]

Life support systems in sectors A through L are at 80%--65%--50%. Life support failure in sectors A through L is imminent. Warning, please evacuate sectors A through L immediately. Warning...

[the automated voice continues with warnings about those sectors--but oddly enough, nothing is wrong in the spacestation itself. no one is evacuating, and in fact, no one can be seen fleeing from the town. the only people who should be in the station are the residents, if they all heeded the text message's warning and went through their respective doors at the right time. all doors brought everyone back to the observation deck, near the first hallway that used to lead to the Mayor's house.

suddenly, Nathan's device begins to chime and an audio message from him begins to play. (oddly enough, the automated voice's warning messages soften, like the volume's been turned down.]

Oh good, you made it out safe! I didn't think that person would...[he trails off] Anyway! I've had a bit of help and I think I can finally get you out of there. I'm sorry though, but I can't get you back into town. I had to shut off life support there to distract those in charge, but I also managed to open up access to the lower level. I can't find the staircases, but the elevator should be working now, so you'll have to use that. This is your chance, everyone! Find the one responsible for this mess and find Lab #3. Contact me if you need me.

[the audio transmission ends. a moment later, there's a soft "ding" as the elevator set behind the Maintenance door in the nearby hallway opens, ready for occupants to board it.

shame it won't be a simple elevator ride.]


❧ Plot Details: Life's An Adventure **Quick-time Event**

Thank goodness everyone (hopefully) got out in time! Staying in town during that life support shutdown would have been...unfortunate (and if anyone DID want to stay behind during that? Let me know.) But who sent that helpful text if it wasn't Nathan? Was it Audrey? Was it someone else? Was Nathan just pulling a fast one? In any case, now everyone can move on to, well, the final level if we take it in RPG terms.

Funny that though...

For this quick-time event, we are going to keep things to this entry. You'll be given a choice of going up or down in the elevator. Actually...just about every action in this plot is based around choice, and fittingly too. Depending on how much you discover during this plot--there are four objectives that can possibly be fulfilled (and they don't all have to be by every person)--the outcome will shape the end of this plot, the game, and next season as well. I'll have a list at the bottom of this entry so people can easily see how many objectives have been completed. You'll only have a week! Keep in mind that only one objective--the main one--has to be accomplished by week's end and things will not progress until it's accomplished. (If we accomplish the main one before the week is done, I will still wait the full week before going ahead with the second half of this plot.)

So what are we doing in this mad week-long event? Like I said before, you'll be given a choice of taking the elevator up or down. From there, you'll be given the another choice via vidscreen about which direction you want to go in. Sometimes it'll be two choices, other times it'll be three. But nonetheless, you'll have to make a choice--and you'll have to make the choice in the style of a text adventure. This is a bit of a hybrid rather than a straight text adventure, though. You can talk to people normally and interact with them as you would do in a normal action thread, but when you go to make your choice or wish to interact with the environment (you don't have to do it for every single step or anything), you'll basically be inputting your command to help the adventure to progress. If you don't ever interact with the environment or make a choice, well, you're stuck in that room. Kind of a boring adventure, being stuck in a room.

If this explanation isn't quite making sense, I did a mock-scenario of this to illustrate the hybrid/pseudo-text adventure I'm talking about. Head here! Hopefully that helps explain things? If it didn't, please, please don't be afraid to ask me. The first two comments to this entry will be for the IC interaction, and any additional ones can be for OOC comments/questions.

I do advise that while you can go in groups, please keep them small so we can go through things at a steady pace. Heck, if you want? You can even solo this and interact just with, well, me as the text adventure prompts, and then contact people if you find something. I just ask that if you want to solo it, that you indicate your intentions in the subject line to whichever direction you wish to go in the elevator.

Threadhopping via the CATs can still happen, especially if you or someone else learns something that might be important for the others to know. (Of course, if you want to join in physically, you can do it like this.) Also, I do recommend tracking your threads, especially when I pop in with prompts and disrupt the notification process. (And let's hope varnish errors are few to none!)

So...that's it! If you have any questions/comments/etc, leave them here or get a hold of me through the normal channels! And before I leave, here's our handy objectives list!



Objectives! Objective #1 = Completed! Objective #2 = Completed! Objective #3 = Completed! (Also here and here.) Objective #4 = Completed!

Comments

[luministimods]

> You find there is nothing special about the WALL, aside from the BRUSHSTROKES creating the picture-perfect details of the real PALM HOUSE.

[grandbellknight]

A sign for the research labs. And something that someone wrote after the fact: "The past is the road to the present and onwards to the future."

[He shakes his head.] I'm not sure what it means. Or why the sign would be here - there doesn't seem to be a door back here. We should probably move on now.

> You begin to make your way back, toward WASHINGTON and the EAST DOOR.

[vengefulagent]

"The past is the road to the present and onwards to the future", huh? Interesting. [far more than a sign for the labs, though it is somewhat curious as to why it's there and not back out in the lab proper. it feels misplaced to him] It doesn't quite make sense, though.

> Weird messages aside, you wait until CROIX is up the stairs and then lead him through the EAST DOOR.

[luministimods]

> For a brief second, you can't see. Curse the BLACKNESS! However! The blackness immediately goes away to show that you have entered "The Chrysalis". You notice a few TABLES and CHAIRS set out for a dinner party, and FOOD of the highest quality set upon SERVING PLATES in the center of the TABLES, surrounding a blank VIDSCREEN lying flat on the CENTER TABLE. But is the FOOD real? It definitely smells like it is. To your LEFT/NORTH, STRAIGHT AHEAD/EAST, and RIGHT/SOUTH are THREE DOORS set into the WALLS near the end of the room. The placement of the DOORS doesn't jive with the original shape of the RESTAURANT, making the irregular shape into a square. Like previous rooms, you see that the WOODEN SLATS, BRIGHT BLUE SKY, and FOREST are merely painted on.

> Are you hungry? Why are there three doors this time?

> What do you do?

[grandbellknight]

[The food might look real, but Croix isn't hungry and wouldn't touch it even if he was.]

Not quite, no. It might still be important somehow. [pause] More than just A and B this time, or so it seems.

> You approach the VIDSCREEN, per usual, and activate it.

[vengefulagent]

[he can't help but sigh] This is getting just stranger by the minute.

> You start surveying the ROOM, being sure not to touch any FOOD, CHAIRS, or TABLES that might suddenly spring to life. Or start to multiply for inexplicable reasons.

[luministimods]

> You have activated the VIDSCREEN! Congratulations. You win the following text:

Choose your destination! If you wish to go to the White Rabbit, please press the "A" button. If you wish to go to the clinic, please press the "B" button. If you wish to go to the Janus Theatre, please press the "C" button.

> You see THREE BUTTONS appear on the screen below the text, one below each choice and labeled as indicated above.

> What do you do?

---------------

You notice nothing different than when you first entered. How boring.

[grandbellknight]

[He sighs as well and shakes his head.] I don't think there's going to be a single room in this place that isn't strange. [A beat.] At least we're not drowning?

> You press the A button. You also find yourself quickly withdrawing your hand once that's done, just in case the FOOD decides to bite you, or something equally as twisted. This place really is getting to you a little bit, isn't it...?

[vengefulagent]

Don't give this place any ideas.

[he pictures being attacked by the lobsters on the table. he's got his pistol armed and ready just in case anything funny happens.]

[luministimods]

> The NORTH DOOR ("A") opens all on its own! Congratulations! But do you go into the DOORWAY? It is pitch black just like before and still doesn't show what lies beyond. Hopefully, you trust that it really does lead to the WHITE RABBIT.

> Also, absolutely nothing happens with the FOOD. Nothing at all. Seriously. It's your last chance for some food!

> What do you do?

[grandbellknight]

Honestly, I think it can come up with worse on its own.

> No FOOD for you. You just can't bring yourself to trust it. You exit through the NORTH DOOR.

[vengefulagent]

> You don't comment, deciding not to press your luck, and follow CROIX though the same DOOR after making a final visual sweep of the ROOM.

[luministimods]

> For a brief second, you can't see. Curse the BLACKNESS! However! The blackness immediately goes away to show that you have entered the area just outside the WHITE RABBIT PUB, but it appears to be painted on a WALL to your LEFT. The PUB door is to your LEFT/WEST, and two other DOORS are STRAIGHT AHEAD/NORTH and RIGHT/EAST, but these two are set on very obviously painted walls of the ROAD LEADING OUT OF TOWN and the SHOPPING PLAZA across the street.

> You also notice, if you turn around and look to your LEFT again, that there is a PHONEBOOTH situated in the corner. The usual VIDSCREEN isn't anywhere in sight.

> What do you do?

[grandbellknight]

[Croix blinks. Are these painted rooms getting less careful as they go, or is he imagining that particular detail...? The lack of vidscreen makes him wary, but he doesn't let it stop him from looking around.]

> You approach the PUB door and try the handle.

[vengefulagent]

What the-- This room doesn't make any sense at all! At least the others were inside a building of some kind.

> You go over and inspect the DOOR to the RIGHT and try the DOORKNOB.

[luministimods]

> When you both touch your respective DOORKNOBS, a sudden BRIGHT LIGHT goes off, blinding you both. And yes, you get a shock as well.

> Strangely, the one thing you can see is the PHONEBOOTH.

[grandbellknight]

[Croix is startled enough by the shock that he jumps backwards, and the blinding light leaves him squinting and rubbing at his eyes with the hand that isn't currently stinging from the sudden jolt.]

Ah-! Dammit! What was that?!

[vengefulagent]

[he hisses in pain, surprised such a shock could get to him through his suit. part of him wants to remove his helmet and rub his eyes, but he knows better than to that.]

Argh, I don't know, but it doesn't like us going through without trying to find that damn vidscreen.

[a hand on the wall/door to keep his bearings, he turns around and doesn't see anything else--until he sees that phonebooth] Croix, if you haven't moved at all, look to your left.

[grandbellknight]

[Puzzled, Croix looks to his left... phone booth. How come that's the only thing he can see...? Ugh. Nevermind, whatever, let's just do this.]

Got it. Hold on. [He keeps one hand along the wall so he doesn't fall over or run into anything. ]

> You carefully make your way over to the PHONEBOOTH, but before you touch anything, you take a closer look at it. Just in case.

[vengefulagent]

[he pauses a moment before moving, listening for any sounds of Croix's movement so he doesn't risk running into him. why he can't see him but he can see the damn phonebooth, he doesn't know. he's giving up on trying to make sense of this place, he's decided.]

Coming up on your...um, most likely your left.

> After making (almost) sure that you're not going to hit CROIX accidentally, you make your way to the PHONEBOOTH too, deliberately making more noise so CROIX can hear you in your ARMOR moving across the FLOOR. Once at the PHONEBOOTH, you open the DOOR to see what's inside.

[luministimods]

> You see that there is nothing special about the PHONEBOOTH--other than it looks like this.

> When you open it, however, you see that the VIDSCREEN somehow fits inside the PHONEBOOTH, and that it somehow seems bigger on the inside than the outside.

[grandbellknight]

[Croix can hear Washington approach perfectly well, and he relies on that to guess where he is. When Washington opens the door, the fact that it's bigger on the inside makes Croix look in and out of it a few times, just to be sure he isn't completely making things up...]

This is ridiculous.

> You step inside of the PHONEBOOTH, activate the VIDSCREEN, and then take a look around the interior.

[vengefulagent]

> You wait outside in case anything happens, but keep an eye on what's going on inside the PHONEBOOTH.

[luministimods]

> You have activated the VIDSCREEN! Congratulations. Added bonus? You both can now see again! Yeah!!! You win the following text:

Choose your destination! If you wish to go to the inside the pub, please press the "A" button. If you wish to go to the theatre arcade, please press the "B" button. If you wish to go to the butcher shop, please press the "C" button.

> You see THREE BUTTONS appear on the screen below the text, one below each choice and labeled as indicated above.

> What do you do?

[grandbellknight]

[Croix lets out a small sigh of relief when he can see again.]

Hopefully nothing has changed much out there...?

> You press the A button, and then step out of the PHONEBOOTH.