EVENT & TDM 014

[sticksandbonesmods]

THE OCEAN IS ONLY SCARY IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT

WAKE UP

You open your eyes to a peaceful, beautiful forest. Whatever you were dreaming about — be it something happy, something sad, or something nightmarish — seems secondary to the bright wash of greenery and the comforting, cooling breeze that washes over you. It rustles the leaves of the canopy overhead, disturbing a small nest of two-headed birds who chirp as the sticks for their nests are blown away. A hop, hop, hop later, and they return to continue their building, unbothered by your gaze.

As you walk around, you will find that Aldric’s Grove feels… empty. You pop your head into the inn only to find a fine layer of dust on the furniture, and an ever-burning fireplace refusing to be put out. The General Store is unmanned, the door locked, and the lights inside completely out. The house to the south is abandoned, and a building labelled as a clinic sports no patients. The most life you’ll find lies in the church, where the pigeons see you and swarm at your feet, cooing and asking for breadcrumbs.

Flowers bloom, a deer with a halo of horns skips through the clearing, and a small lizard shaped like a leaf climbs the well. You spend several hours alone… and then from the woods to the east comes a giant capybara and a monstrous moose two stories tall. Upon each of them, they carry a hoard of people coming back from what is clearly a summer vacation, if the inner tubes, swimwear, and overwhelming stench of sunscreen are anything to go by.

Maybe the people dismounting the two animals will be nice enough to greet you and tour you around. It’s the least they can do, since you were excluded from the vacation activities.

NOT A MOMENT OF PEACE

It’s still early in the month when a cacophony occurs; an enormous crocodile with too many eyes, known simply as “The Behemoth” suddenly rushes out of the river in a panic as some kind of blue, veinlike latticework covers the surface of it, nearly trapping her within it. It spreads across the entire length of the river from east to west, creeping onto the shoreline up to the church and across the back of the home to the south. When touched, it stings bad enough to paralyse the nervous system, and after making contact for too long while you’re unable to move? Death is imminent, unless someone saves you.

The Behemoth certainly doesn’t try to, too occupied plonking around on land to look for something to do while she can’t go into the water. She won’t attack anyone, but she’s normally searching for a meal, if you don’t mind sharing a snack. As for the other supernatural creatures in the Grove…

Ever since that latticework covered the river, the moose monster — Moder — and the gargoyle that sits on the church’s roof — Zahliya — have only stared and scrutinized. One wrong move, one fight with another resident of the Grove, means either of them are getting up to deal with the problem. It seems that they’re waiting for someone here to show the wrong hand, suspicious of everyone — including those who have been here for over a year at this point. And the second one toe is out of line? Either of them are willing and ready to kill.

Though the suspicion of the Guardians doesn’t wear off and won’t any time soon, the blue gunk covering the river disappears at the end of the first week of July, and it’s anyone’s guess what’ll happen for the rest of the month.

UNDER THE SEA

cw: thalassophobia
What happens is pretty simple if you don’t think about it: Another week passes in peace, and then a disembodied voice somewhere in the woods says, “You guys still smell like seawater and sand, and it’s putting me off of my lunch,” and if you’re new and haven’t gone to the beach yet and have no idea what the voice is talking about… too bad, you’re being lumped in with the crowd. Being lumped in also includes, well… a burst of magic, the sound of fingers snapping, and a loud splash of water. When you next open your eyes…

You’re underwater in some kind of reinforced metal base, one thousand meters under the sea, and something is slamming against the outside of it in an attempt to get in and — presumably — eat you alive. If anyone finds the on-board torpedoes in the command room in time, you might be able to kill the creature before it breaks through the hull and kills everyone inside. And with that hopefully taken care of…

Welcome to your new home for the next two weeks. Your only objective is to survive. There are several rooms here dedicated to underwater research, a bedroom with enough uncomfortable single-person beds for everyone (sadly glued to the floor, too), and a “cafeteria” type room that you can eat in. While the seabase comes equipped with supplies — torpedoes, enough rations to last for everyone but not enough for big eaters to eat big, diving suits and oxygen tanks, and underwater planter boxes growing strange fruits — it may take some effort on your part to ensure that survival is guaranteed. After all, the hungry leviathans know exactly where you are, whether you go outside of the base or not. Water, of course, may pose an issue; there’s no way to filter the seawater here, so the bottled water you have is all you’ll get.

Should you venture out, make sure you’re equipped with the proper gear first. Those of you who cannot swim should probably stay indoors, as there are no fancy vehicles to take you anywhere. Those of you capable of going out may consider braving the danger in search of additional supplies… or perhaps you’re just curious about the ecosystem. You’ll be here for two weeks, after all, there must be something to do. Travel far enough from the base and you’ll find the skeletal remains of something far larger than the Grove itself… and if you’re not careful, a monstrous, snakelike thing who wants you for dinner.

Try not to lead it back to the base for the others to deal with. Who knows how kindly people will take to that?

AN OMINOUS RETURN

As always, when one of the Forest’s “games” ends and you’re returned to the surface when the magic wears off, there’s a reward waiting for you. This reward isn’t as obvious, however. The fog wall is, for the most part, rolled pretty far back. The folks that have been here before may expect to see it revealing more of the trees, or showing off some new area that hasn’t been accessible yet, but the Grove remains quiet upon return. The Guardians, too, have little to say. Normally, they’d be a little more overjoyed at your return… alas.

No, the “reward” for surviving — or blowing up the base immediately and dying, either way — is that the fog wall obscuring the lake ever so slowly rolls back. From within it, something jumps out, a dark black shape, and disappears into the forest.

…

Perhaps you’ll see whatever it is another time.

SPARK NOTES

CLICK TO EXPAND!

WAKE UP

Welcome to the empty Aldric's Grove! ...oh, here come the people, back from summer vacation! Hey hello.

NOT A MOMENT OF PEACE

The river and shoreline near it are messed up for a week. The Guardians are suspicious of everyone here. The Behemoth is taking big steppies around the Grove asking nicely for food. A week passes, and the Guardians are still suspicious of everyone. Yaaaay.

UNDER THE SEA

And then, everyone was trapped underwater in a seabase, made to survive the horrors of the open deep sea. Watch out for leviathans! And try not to eat and drink all of the rations immediately; that's all you'll get.

AN OMINOUS RETURN

Your reward for playing in yet another of the Forest's games is the fog wall over the lake rolling back. Of course, what jumped out of it and ran off into the woods could either be your greatest boon, or your biggest nuisance. It all depends on you.

OOC

Happy summer! This is a reminder that TDMs are considered game canon. For your threads, feel free to make up your own leviathans/weird fish/whatever you want for spice, or just steal from Subnautica, it's all good. OOC Plotting Lives Here if you'd like to plot anything out!

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Mirabelle | In Stars and Time | New prospector!

[aromance]

I. CHRISSY WAKE UP

[ It's hard to say how long this young woman has been sitting amongst the flowers, looking both frazzled and bewildered. It could be mere minutes. It could be hours. One just truly never knows, except for the young woman in question who is kind of shifting awkwardly where she sits, mumbling under her breath as her expression finally shifts to...

... Anxiously Determined, if you had to assign it a name. ]

All right. Normally, when one is lost, the best course of action is to stay put and await your companions. But this is less lost and more misplaced, so maybe the rule doesn't apply? But, but, this could also be similar to the House, except, ah, outdoors, and not House-like at all, but--

[ This mumbling will continue until she's interrupted. ]

II. UNDER DA SEA

[ She's had many an adventure over the last few months, but nothing quite like this. Nothing that involved being underwater and despite Maribelle having since learned that one didn't need to take every class ever and that it had, in fact, not really made her feel as though she'd learned all that much, she can't help being curious about quite literally everything.

Carefully and politely, of course. She's not here to step on anyone's toes, she's just here to satisfy her curiosity about things like what one would research underwater or what kind of plants these planters are really growing or maybe she's just sitting on one of those beds in the communal sleeping area and looking kind of nervously at you, like she'd like to ask a question, but maybe not--

The sky's the limit! ]

III. WILDCARD

[ Anything else, pretend it's not August maybe! I'm up for anything! ]

III??? also aaaaa hi mira i love her... sorry loop is Like This

[theuniverseleads]

[It really does Not matter what Mira is doing, because there's no way Loop is going to approach her on purpose. They just happened to be heading out from their tree to visit the shop or something and. Well. Mirabelle jumpscare.

They freeze in place the moment they make eye contact with her... and then immediately turn around and start walking away, bye]

this is why we love them

[aromance]

[ Oh. Oh. Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, she has to think about that in staccato or it's going to sound like a snooty laugh and that's not what she wants to convey in her mind--

Mirabelle kind of emits a thin squeak of surprise, but then, much louder-- ]

Wait! Please wait! Star individual!!

[ She's running after them. I'm sorry. ]

also puts an ISAT spoiler warning here sighs a lot

[theuniverseleads]

[This feels like another nightmare. Maybe it is! Maybe they're back in that kid's dreamscape, seeing copies of their favourite actors again! But this time, ohhhhh this time feels so much worse!! At least before they weren't being perceived!

It's tempting, to just keep speed-walking away. To keep running from their problems. They're fast enough to do it, they know, they could, but...

but some part of them, maybe, realizes it won't end with this. It's not that simple. They've already been seen, haven't they? And even if they hid... if this is real, then she'll find them eventually, or someone else will confirm their existence, and then what? They do all this again? How many times? Can't they just rip off that bandaid now, and get this part of it over with?

If this is a dream, they hope it can at least be a kind one. Please, just once.

They stop as suddenly as they'd started, turning sharply on a heel. All smiles! Strained, strained, strained smiles.]

Oh, I didn't see you there, teehee! What can I help you with, dear Housemaiden? Directions? Advice? Party tricks?

pats your hand sympathetically

[aromance]

[ Mirabelle is nowhere near strong enough to speak frankly, especially with someone she's spoken to only once. Twice, now. So she doesn't bother attempting to point out that they'd made eye contact before turning to leave and that their current smile now (or eye crinkling?) leaves something to be desired. Like genuine amicability. ]

Um. Thank you, but none of those things, really... I was just surprised to see a familiar face here.

[ "Face." FACE?? WHY DID SHE SAY FACE?!? THEY HAVE A STAR FOR A HEAD!!! ]

[theuniverseleads]

[A




familiar face

familiar.


familiar??

But this is the first time they've met, unless— unless—!]

Do you mean that? [they sound frantic compared to two seconds ago, a fragile and desperate flicker of hope in their eyes. does she see them? does she see them? does she see them, who they really are, does she does she does she???

they lean in, begging, pleading, please let it be true]

I'M ALREADY DISTRAUGHT

[aromance]

[ Mirabelle is wholly unprepared for the power walk away to warp into this dramatic lean that would be more fitting in any of her romance novels. Maybe something like a long-lost reunion except one of them has lost their memories, perhaps? She thinks she'd read something along those lines before, but being the actual position has her floundering a bit. ]

I--

[ Why wouldn't she mean that?? ]

Y-yes? You were a big help, with the House and everything and the--

[ Her hand forms the universal PHONE craft sign. ]

I'd wanted to thank you!

i

[start_again]

[Siffrin freezes upon spotting a familiar face in the field. He pauses, half hidden behind a tree, and forces himself to take slow breaths.

It's not the first time he's seen Mirabelle here. But the last time in was in a trippy dreamscape and she wasn't actually real, just a faceless simulacrum that acted like he wasn't there at all.

This one is different. It really looks like Mirabelle and even sounds like he remembers from every moment he ever caught her stressing on her own when she thought no one would hear her. But it's hard to simply believe it. The Universe has historically not been that kind to Siffrin.

They linger where they are for a long few moments, unseen amidst the trees, until they finally work up the nerve to call out.]

...Mira?

[His voice feels fragile, only a slight impact away from outright cracking.]

I'm just gonna slap up ISAT spoiler warnings in here preemptively

[aromance]

[ Mirabelle hard flinches in surprise, because Siffrin is really, extremely good at not being noticed when they don't want to be, but there he is. And even though she recognizes the voice, it still takes her a few additional seconds to wildly look around until she spots him.

The look on her face is both relieved and a little frantic with worry, because he'd... disappeared. He'd gone in on his own and they'd been looking and he sounds so vulnerable-- ]

Siffrin!!!!

[ She scrambles to her feet, stumbles, tries again, hurrying towards them. She'd seize their hands, but she hesitates mid-reach, pulling her hands back. No. They don't like that, do they? ]

Are you safe? Are you hurt?!

[start_again]

[Real. She seems real, and it's simultaneously relieving and unsettling. He's missed her so much, but the fear that this could be somehow fake still lingers.

If it's fake, though, it's a really good one. He doesn't know if he could dream up that much nuance in an expression, all the little details that he couldn't have called to mind blindlg but can recognize on sight as being so very Mirabelle.

But her recoiling like that only makes Siffrin's face fall before he tries to school the expression into something more neutral. Granted, they hadn't really outright talked about it much, because there's little that sounds as embarrassing as explaining that he does crave physical intimacy like a normal human being. But it seemed like everyone had sort of picked up on the fact that he doesn't actually mind being touched by the end there. He'd thought they were past this. There's an awful little voice in the back of his mind – one that had been silenced after everything that happened only to pipe back up again upon finding himself here – that says of course she wouldn't want to touch someone like him. He tries to ignore it.

But he can't just...reach out on his own. That's insanity.]

I'm okay.

[He should smile for her sake, but he's still a little too shocked to act properly.]

...Did you just wake up here?

[aromance]

[ Oh. Maybe they're still upset with her for the slap.

Mirabelle's shoulders slump slightly as she tries to suppress the tension. She can't quite tell how Siffrin's feeling at the moment, but she's not entirely certain it's "happy to see her". They hadn't really had a chance to talk things out, after all. She'd just gotten upset and everyone else had similar stories and...

But this is still Siffrin. Their traveler. Her very important friend, someone she still wanted to trust and spend time with. ]

An hour or so ago... about. [ Her tone's a little quieter, hands clutching at each other for comfort instead. ] But I don't really understand it. We'd just gone to the House to look for you, and now this...

[start_again]

[The happiness builds slowly, fighting to overtake the situational disbelief and his normal awkwardness. He's so, so, so glad to see her, but they've already established he's terrible at communicating how he feels.

In this moment, though, it's pretty obviously confusion. Siffrin blinks, head tilting slightly.]

What do you mean you just went to the House?

[That's... She means all of them going together to talk to the Head Housemaiden one last time, surely? But why would they be looking for him? They went together.]

[aromance]

I mean... you went there alone, right? And we went in after you, with that star person's assistance, but the House was very... confusing. With the rooms and everything not being like how I remember. And you'd made it to the King by the time we caught up.

[ Tentatively-- ]

So if you're upset...

[ Surprise!! ]

II

[ephemeralflow]

[Well, if there's curiosity to be sated, that makes two of them, then. The difference being that Timekeeper Cookie has no truck with things like "careful" or "polite," and has simply been meticulously taking a datapad apart at a desk for a little while now. (At least it's not the fabricator this time? Did she even put that back together or just wander off?)

She's felt eyes on her for the past few minutes, certainly. But it isn't until the silence is almost unbearable that she speaks up.]

You can ask, you know. I don't bite!

[Loop might disagree.]

[aromance]

[ What is it like not to be shy and to be fine with burdening people with questions or anxieties, she's still struggling with it--and doubly with people she hasn't had the chance to get to know. In a new place. Doubly new seems somewhat unfair. ]

Oh, um. I-I didn't think you were going to--it wasn't high on my list of expectations!

[ Nailed it. ]

I was just... wondering what you were doing...?

[ephemeralflow]

[It probably doesn't help that everything about Timekeeper is loud, either. The extravagant steampunk suit with clock hand details. The top hat adorned with goggles that look very impractical but sure do appear to be made of clock bits. The gleaming, fancy metal eyepatch. So much curly, fluffy hair that it gives the impression of having more volume than her actual body. The giant golden scissors resting against the wall near her. Clearly, this is a woman who knows her style and isn't afraid to scream it to the universe.

She chuckles, and even that sounds like the ticking of clocks.]

Disassembling this device, of course! Most of the technology I usually work with is quite a bit more analog than this, and I am curious how it compares to both that and the sleeker technology from my own timelines. Why not see what makes it tick, given the opportunity? Also, I was bored.

[The tiny screwdriver in her hand finally extracts one of the last of a series of equally tiny screws, which she sets aside in a neat pile before gently pulling apart two sections of the datapad's case.]

What about you? Are you familiar with its like?

oof sorry for the delay, work is Rude

[aromance]

[ Mirabelle knows a thing or two about curly, fluffy hair! And it's true that this lady is, uh. Full of. Visual magnetism? Is that a thing? She's not sure, but there's a lot to look at and she can't quite see the colors of anything, but her shades are largely Very Bright. ]

No, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before. Though, I, ah... haven't seen a lot of this? Before?

[ Dormont is not very fancy or technological, but she feels like Claude would have liked this person with all the stuff she tried to compile on new experiments. ]

Work is always rude and we're chill here, no worries! (hi ough I am free of overtime)

[ephemeralflow]

You are far from alone! Everyone here is from quite disparate timelines. It is fascinating!

[More tiny screws, there sure are a lot of them. Timekeeper is separating more parts of the case from a circuit board now, and the screen, and the physical buttons.]

I would like to ask you about yours, in fact. After all, I have only seen two others quite so monochrome. Ah, but where are my manners?

[lol what manners.]

I am Timekeeper Cookie.

[aromance]

Timekeeper... Cookie?

[ That sure is a name. ]

O-oh, I mean, it's a pleasure to meet you! My name is Mirabelle. Is "Timekeeper" your name or a title?

ii!

[succiduous]

[Gnosis is one of the nerds who frequents the research rooms... sometimes he doesn't sleep because he's in there playing around with things, but that's fine. He does love questions, though, and he'll answer to the best of his ability.]

Normally facilities like this would be used to observe deep sea life that isn't observable on the surface for any number of reasons. Many fish are used to deep-sea pressure, and bringing them to a zone of lesser pressure can seriously harm them and therefore the research one is doing. The most notorious example of this is the blobfish...

[Better stop him now or you're gonna be here all day.]

[aromance]

[ But it's learning! And she likes to learn, even if what she learns may not be all that useful in the long run! She's just not at Odile levels of study and research, technically. ]

I would have thought it would be the opposite... that deeper pressure would be more harmful and even if the fish were used to it, that lesser pressure wouldn't make much of a difference. How does it threaten them?

i am. so sorry about him.

[succiduous]

In simple terms, all creatures that are born have a certain environment they thrive in. For people like you and I, we're used to a certain amount of atmospheric pressure — at sea level, that's about 1013.25 millibars, or 14.7 pounds per square inch. For fish, they're used to variable amounts of water pressure. To compare the two, at about a depth of five hundred feet below sea level, the pressure amounts to about 220 pounds per square inch. That's why undersea vehicles and humans themselves have a certain crush depth.

The same is true for fish. If you were to bring something like a koi fish to these depths, the water pressure would crush it. If you were to bring a deep-sea fish to the surface, conversely, what happens is that the pressure isn't enough for it. That pressure helps keep their cellular structure together, and so rapid depressurization can cause massive tissue and bone damage.

[Adjusts his glasses with a finger.]

In summary: Moving creatures who are evolutionarily built for one amount of pressure to another can seriously harm and, most likely, kill them in terrible ways.

I don't know anything about him but I love him and I am sorry to have made you do this

[aromance]

[ Thank goodness for the summarization, even though Mirabelle is listening very intently and trying her best to not let words like "millibars" hurt her head. ]

So that's why places like this are constructed deep below the surface! So the existence of certain fish aren't threatened and neither are we by coming down this far!

[ How interesting! ]

he makes me google a new thing every day it's fine-

[succiduous]

[There's a... well, it's a purring noise, but from a man with feathers on his head. He's a crane, if she's ever heard a crane purr, that's literally the noise this otherwise human-looking man is making. Certainly one of the sounds of all time.

All of this to say, he's pleased! Finally someone who doesn't roll their eyes and go "okay Gnosis thanks Gnosis" or starts crying.]

That's correct. Although, you wouldn't commonly see glass this far down. [Gesturing to one of the windows.] The things that happen in this place tend to be against standard scientific understanding regardless, but know that we should be surrounded by nothing other than reinforced metal, with an entrance that's locked down so hard it would require an external crew to remove the door. That's how submarines work.

[aromance]

[ Mirabelle has never heard a crane purr and neither have I, so what an educational experience all around--

It's a very strange sound that gives her a start at first, until she realizes it's coming from him, which is both a little less concerning but a little more confusing. What in the world? ]

I see... um, as long as we aren't all in any actual danger, at least, it's probably fine? I hope.

[ she'd rather not die so quickly. ]