INTRO LOG - OCTOBER 2013

[rekindlemods]

Who: Everyone Where: The Welcome Plaza When: 18th October, afternoon Summary: The new arrivals, freshly pulled from their worlds or others, awaken in a strange plaza... Warnings: Inbox death may occur. System overload at own risk. SOME NPC RESPONSES WILL BE SLOW. The lanterns flicker and the shadows rise... Perhaps you felt a rumble beneath your feet, a sensation of what you were standing upon giving way underneath you as something pulled you in and away from what it was you were doing. Or, perhaps it was simply a gentle tap on your shoulder before you had the same tugging sensation from behind your navel. No matter which it was; there is one other constant: lp... A quiet rustle of the wind, wherever it is coming from as it hits your face. help... u... The earth grumbling beneath you resounds with something unintelligible. Of course; it's the earth. Dirt can't speak, after all. Yet it won't stop, nor does the wind. All you wanted to do was sleep... Yet suddenly it stops, and as you begin to stir, you begin to feel the crisp wind still seems to be picking up, yet as it settles, it's almost as if it whispers something to your ear. 'elp... u... sh.... Before you can make sense of it, it is gone; and when you awaken, you begin to realize your surroundings. It looks like...a plaza of some sort? As they look around them, the ground beneath them is an intricate mosaic - a water fountain at the center of the plaza in this foreign world. There are many buildings around its perimeter, making this location seem like a central hub of whatever town this was. Some may even recognize the peculiar design of the buildings and sloped tiled rooftops as a Far Eastern theme. Were they somewhere along the Pacific? Who knows! But what is quite apparent is this: Along with the many buildings surrounding the plaza, the first thing that is noticeable is the amount of people sitting or standing around you in a similar daze. You are not alone... One building seems to stand out among all the others; one that seems large enough to house all of the completely lost and confused masses gathered here to the welcome plaza. A sign outside the door reads: WELCOME CENTER Newcomers: Please come inside for refreshments and your welcome packets! Odd... This wasn't written in your own language, and yet you find it easily understandable. Soon enough, if you don't enter on your own, someone comes from inside the double doors to usher you and everyone else inside. "Welcome to Saeng Seong! I know you must be confused as to where you are and what's going on, but we promise to explain this to you once we're inside and away from this windstorm!" Whether you go inside immediately or linger outside a little longer, eventually you must come in from the slight autumn chill, and sooner rather than later would probably be better. ...What was that shadow from the corner of your vision? You'll find yourself in a well-lit lobby, filled with comfortable-looking couches and chairs. Along one wall are refreshment tables, loaded with all sorts of food and drink, including some you probably aren't familiar with. On the wall opposite are a pair of desks, each with a sign and a person seated behind them - Irene, General Assistance Devin, Technological Assistance Mai, Medical Assistance Unlike a few waves before, the only people in charge seem to be the people behind the desks. They look a bit busy. However, before you can go over and give them a piece of your mind and ask questions, the same person who ushered you inside hands you a manilla envelope that contains your welcome packet, urging you to read this before asking the two figures questions that the packet likely answers. Inside it, you will find: a ring with a key and apartment number on it, some kind of cash card, a map and informational guide to the city, and a letter folded neatly on the top - Welcome to Saeng Seong! You are among a new group of arrivals to our city, from many far-apart worlds. We have gathered you here because our city is in a crisis, and we are at our last resorts. The energy of the city is in a slow downward spiral, and is dangerously close to expiring altogether. That's where you come in - you and everyone else we've brought to the city. Unlike those of us here, you have the potential to generate the energy the city needs, but you'll need to work together to do it. Why? Because the energy can only be generated when two people touch each other. Any touch will do, but it must be between two of you who are new to the city. If you don't keep in contact with someone, eventually your energy will begin to drain as well, making you dangerously ill. A few other things: The closed-off sections of the city are closed off for a reason; approaching them will cause your energy to drain very rapidly. We're working to open the rest of the city to you as soon as we can, but for now, please remain within the four districts in the south and west parts of the city You have been given a key to a one-bedroom apartment in a complex set aside for you and the other new arrivals, near the riverside in the 1st district. You're free to change your living quarters whenever you like, and we encourage you to move in with someone in one of the larger apartments. When you want to change, just come back to this building to exchange your key. We've also included a cash card with a living stipend; if you're unfamiliar with this system, or the network established for new arrivals, you can talk to Devin in the lobby for help. It's what he's here for. If you need medical assistance, contact Mai, one of our newest and brightest doctors. Again, welcome, and thank you for all your help. Irene Arrival Liaison Back behind you, others still linger, and through the translucent glass you can see a banner hanging from the tiled roof of the building across the street in the blistering summer day: WELCOME TO SAENG SEONG (ENJOY YOUR STAY!)

Comments

Batgirl - Oldbie Open to All

[ichoosefight]

[ Stephanie Brown has called out sick today. She's supposed to be helping Mai with Medical Assistance, but she has... a bad feeling. So she figures, to be safe, she'll come to the welcome party but in full uniform. With her belt, her collapsible staff and her kevlar-blend suit she feels much more secure. She scans the crowd for trouble makers, keeping to the shadows of the welcome building. ]

[someonetowatchoveryou]

Observers always looks suspicious. Hairless white guys in suits, completely expressionless, just watching everything and writing it down? Even though they wear what is technically perfectly normal clothing for the 20th/21st century (white shirt, black tie, jacket, trousers, shoes and hat), they still manage to stick out like a carpenter's sore thumb--maybe it's the unnaturally straight posture or their minimal movement or their keen stares.

There is an example of said Observerkind right over...there. In this crowd, it's kind of like a Where's Waldo picture, only in this case it's Where's Baldo.

What's he doing, casing the joint?

[ichoosefight]

That's her first instinct, when she spots the man. He screams 'suspicious character' from rooftops like a giant gorilla. She tries not to let her eyes linger on him too long but they keep finding him again and again.

What is he writing? Why is he so stiff? Everyone else is absorbed in the drama that is arriving in this place, but this guy is in a nice-looking suit just writing. She wants to know. She needs to know.

So naturally she circles around several other buildings to come up behind him without being seen.

[someonetowatchoveryou]

The book is full of what appears to be incomprehensible glyphs, but they clearly make sense to him. Alien writing? A code? A few symbols might look vaguely familiar, but that could be a coincidence.

He sees something in his peripheral vision, but chalks it up to the shadows that have been flickering there ever since he arrived.

[ichoosefight]

Okay, so he's writing in code. No problem for one Batgirl, right?

She frowns at the text, taking advantage of the fact that he doesn't seem to have noticed her.

Okay, so she has no idea how to break a code. Where's Oracle when you need her? Time to try some good old-fashioned intimidation. That means adopting her Standard-American accent and lowering her voice a little, just because Batman does it, so it must work.

"If you're thinking of causing trouble, you'd better think again."

[someonetowatchoveryou]

He doesn't startle when she speaks. In fact, his movements when he turns to look at her are just as eerily fluid and economical as always. He blinks expressionlessly at her, yet his gaze is keen. His head tilts to the side.

"I do not plan to cause any trouble," he answers, his voice quiet, yet able to carry over the crowd, inflectionless and also Standard American with almost exaggerated diction.

Is he an alien? An android? A genetic anomaly? He looks human enough, even close to, but that movement pattern and vocal cadence is just a little bit uncanny-valley. He looks at the notebook in his hand and the idea that it might be considered suspicious finally comes to him. Well done, September, you've only been watching FBI agents for four years. "It is my duty to record significant events. Spontaneous transportation to an unknown and anomalous location in a manner not of my own volition qualifies as significant."

[ichoosefight]

He seriously gives her the creeps, but his explanation... actually makes sense. At least, the same sort of sense that anything in her life ever makes. It's not really strange to think he might be writing in some alien language, though he sounds human enough. He wouldn't be the first alien with an American accent.

"Record for whom? You're not reporting to some alien armada bent on galactic domination, are you?" She head heard of that sort of thing before. Brainiac, if she remembered right. Her memory for records outside of Gotham was a bit on the weak side.

[someonetowatchoveryou]

If the alien armada idea confuses him a bit (which it does,) he gives absolutely no indication. Damn, he's tough to read.

"No." Now that he's being questioned by someone whose persistence would put Agent Dunham to shame, which is saying something, he figures it'd be the path of least resistance to be forthcoming.

"It is for scientific record. I am one of a group of twelve scientists whose assignment is to record significant events in the past in order to better understand how our present came to be the way it is."

[ichoosefight]

She blinked at him for a moment. She wasn't sure she could trust that he wasn't from an alien armada, but the best way to figure out for sure was to inspect his story for holes.

"So... you're a glorified historian?" She realized, now that she was properly talking to him, that he seemed to have no eyebrows.

Freaky.

[someonetowatchoveryou]

He'd never thought of it that way, but... well...

"In this capacity, yes. It could be said that I am."

No eyebrows, none of the hair on the back of the wrists that some men exhibit. He is completely hairless... save for rather thick eyelashes. The unfairly lush kind you see on some men.

[ichoosefight]

"Historian's a weird job for a scientist. Couldn't make it in research?" She was being rude, she knew, but that was partly the point. If she could rile him up maybe he could get emotion out of him. Any emotion at all.

[someonetowatchoveryou]

"Technically, this is research," he answers just as calmly. No-one yet has managed to get a rise out of an Observer. "Observing the past in the manner which we need to do requires knowledge of temporal mechanics to avoid damage to the timestream."

Well, okay, that was a tiny hint of pride.

[staystraught]

[Ahem. A foot and a half from Batgirl B's left elbow, he lands with just little flutter of the cape.]

I'll tag in, if you wanna stretch your legs a bit.

What are we waiting for?

[Yes, it's a "we."]

[ichoosefight]

[ It's the flutter that lets her know he's someone she trusts. She's had time to get very familiar with the comings and goings of bats and birds. She doesn't even look back at him to talk. She's trying to catch those shadows with her eyes. ]

The more the merrier. I don't know, I just... have a bad feeling. This one might be a doozy.

[staystraught]

This what? Group of arrivals?

[His fingers dance across the birdarang pocket of his utility belt. She's got bat ears, she knows her stuff, and-- well, currently, she's alive. She does know her stuff. She knew a lot of stuff when he arrived.]

Particular day of the week? This decision to wear bright purple costumes?

You and the other Batgirl, I swear...

[That's a joke.

Laugh, dammit.]

[ichoosefight]

Hey, at least mine is subtle. [ She's rather defensive of the costume, since it's basically the coolest thing she's ever owned. And it's not bright purple. ]

I don't know. I'm just on edge lately. [ It sounds a bit crazy, she knows. ]

[staystraught]

Stripes are never subtle.

[Not that crazy. It sits uneasily in the pit of his stomach, because familiar.]

Well, what have you seen so far? These things do tend to come from some kind of source.

[ichoosefight]

Says the guy in red and yellow.

[ She takes a breath and lets it out. Everything she's seen today? It's been about as weird as usual. ]

A time traveler, Frankenstein's monster in a lab coat, a chick with wings, one child, and a surprising number of familiar vigilantes. You?

[staystraught]

I have four years of advance stealth training. But I'll give you more credit than the other B.G.

[Eyebrows up.]

I love that you call him "Frankenstein's monster" and not "Frankenstein."

[The lit geek in him is just thrilled. Thrilled.]

Otherwise, I just got here. So all I've seen is you.

[ichoosefight]

Well yeah, Frankenstein made the monster. [ Like BFF already being plural, it seems so obvious. ]

So you can be my fresh set of eyes. Do you see anything suspicious?

[usedacrobatics]

You know that, and I know that. [He's read the book. More than once.]

Besides the two dorks in capes, not yet. [But he begins scanning intently. Cataloguing people mainly by their height and build, since that's not as easy to change as hair color. Not infallible, but something...

He blinks, suddenly, when something dark starts to fade to the far left, and cranes his neck to try and catch another glimpse.]

Uh. No other criteria than that?

[He blinks again.]

[ichoosefight]

[ Life is so sad when people make silly little mistakes that bother you disproportionately. She watches his eyes, checking what he's looking at. From the way he cranes his neck she suspects what he's confused about. ]

Not a one. What do you see?

Re: Batgirl - Oldbie Open to All

[acro_bat_ic]

Barbara has only a few traditions in this place. She goes on dates with Kara, fights crime (sometimes with Kara), and occasionally goes out to eat. She also waitresses in a coffee shop, because... well, because she's copying Steph. It wasn't like anyone was looking for a gymnast around here. And dating gets expensive.

Her other tradition? Come meet Steph. It's just a quick check in with her blonde counterpart. Particularly when the other woman seems this on edge.

"Something got you worrying?

[ichoosefight]

"It's nothing," she protested immediately. She trusted Barbara, so the girl's arrival didn't raise her suspicions any more than they already had been. Her eyes kept scanning the crowd, looking for any sign of trouble.

"Just a bad feeling." A bad feeling and shadows crawling at the corners of her eyes.

[acro_bat_ic]

"Yeah." She glanced around, tracking a sudden shadow. Nothing. She doesn't think. "Guess Halloween is coming."