sticksandbones | TDM 001

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TDM 001

INTO THE WOODS

WAKE UP

Whatever you remember last, something interrupts - be it a fight, a test, a walk, or death itself. All you can recall is a childlike voice (or was it voices?) asking, "Do you want to play with me?" before everything stopped. Your eyelids feel heavy, and the surrounding air is chilled. When you wake up, you and the others find yourselves standing in a makeshift plaza on a foggy morning. In the very center is a well. The water within is cold and clear as can be.

Surrounding the clearing is a ring of what looks to be the foundations of buildings never finished, save for two rather large ones and a smaller one. Only the small building has any light shining from the windows. One is labeled as an inn but has no name, and the other is an imposing, large manor with a red dog quietly scratching at the door. Given the indents on the wood, he's been at it for a very long time. Beyond the buildings is the start of a forest, though it quickly fills up with a fog so thick you can't see through it at all.

The smaller building is simply signed as a general store. A thick figure stands in the doorway, layered in brown and dark red cloaks that cover most of his body, save for brown worker's gloves and his pants. Two blue lights shine from the shadows where his face would be, and they shift as they watch you... before he turns around and takes his seat at the counter of the store. It's open, but he doesn't seem too thrilled.

There's a gap in the fog in the south east corner of it all, and you can hear the flow of water if approached. Trying to force your way through the fog lets you move forward four feet before you hit an invisible wall, while trying to go up- be it flight or climbing- sees you thwarted twenty feet above the canopy with a similar experience. Those above will see only the tree tops and a dense, heavy fog, and a cloudy, cold sun-lit sky. Through your explorations, you can find the start of a gate almost opposite across the clearing of the river, with a somehow familiar sign hanging from it:

Welcome to Aldric's Grove.

THE INN

The inn is just as empty as the rest of the grove, save for the shopkeeper. Four rooms on the first floor are locked, and won't budge even under force, and their keys are missing from the clerk's counter. On the bright side, there are remaining keys, free to claim - keys to the store rooms, too. The kitchen is large, as one might expect from an inn, but the kitchenware seems a touch out of date, by anyone's standards. The pantry has enough to feed the lot of you for a time, fresh food and vegetables and dried or cured meats, alongside spices and herbs. One could bake if they were so inclined.

There's a lounge room as well, just before the stairs. All the furniture was pushed to the wall for what can be presumed to be cleaning, if the empty bucket and dry mop is anything to go by. In the center of the far wall is an empty fireplace, but there's no firewood to be found.

Upstairs are more rooms, accessible only with keys. It's not perfect, but it's at least a place to stay. There's a bed for two, a small table by the window, a dresser and closet, a very small stove and a private bathroom to each, but everything seems bare... at a glance.

The worst of it is that you know the layout. You've been here before- or... no, that can't be right. Surely you would remember a place like this. Right?

THE RIVER

"What you take from the river, you must return." That's what the Shopkeeper says, if you stop by the store before going to the river.

The water rushing over rocks can be heard even from the distance of the grove itself, but upon approach it only seems louder. From what can be seen, the fog has only receded enough to grant access to 30 yards of the river and it's matching banks- after that, only fog and unusually thick bramble patches remain and block off passage on land or water. At it's deepest, the water is four feet deep and the current seems gentle. Fish can be seen swimming through the water, and objects glitter beneath the sand and mud.

Along the riverbanks, scales, small bones and teeth and strange coins marked with canines litter the ground. Keen eyes will note that some of the bones and teeth are that of animals, and some are that of humans. Some, however, are impossible to identify.

Stepping into the water feels relaxing. It's cold yet inviting. The fish swirl around your ankles before darting away, and just for a moment, everything seems like it will be okay.

On the other hand, when trying to cut through the brambles, there's a low rumble from the surrounding woods. Persist, and a vine coils around your ankle, dragging you into the water. That feels less relaxing, most likely.

PLAY TIME

At some point, there's an unusual sound- earth moving on it's own, old trees parting from their nesting place and rearranging themselves behind the fog. And as the din dies down, the fog parts, showing a thick tunnel of trees and leaves. It might look like something out of a fairy tale, if not for the sickening noises of the bark and wood creaking and writhing slowly. Whether you want to go or not, however, you will find yourself compelled to walk down the road eventually.

The road seems like a brief fifteen minute hike and a near three hour trek at the same time, but when you come to the end, you find yourself still in the woods, still circled by fog, but not the same as the grove. Once enough people are there, the path closes behind you. Keen eyes may spot hollowed out logs, trees with holes beneath the roots or high up above the branches, and large patches of very tall grass. Within the center is a cage with a pinecone shaped button on two opposing sides. Before you can finish taking it all in, however, a soft, cheerful whisper of a voice speaks:

"Let's play! If you win, I'll give you something special. Promise! Here, I'll explain the rules:"

1. Robbers must hide within the arena, and not get caught. Upon being found by the jailer, they have the opportunity to flee. But if they get caught, they get brought to jail.

2. Prisoners cannot free themselves, but free players can by pushing both of the buttons on the cage. This will give everyone a three minute immunity to run and hide again.

3. Players must move every five minutes, or they get caught immediately.

"The game will end if everyone gets caught or if at least one person stays free at the end of the hour."

The voice doesn't elaborate what happens if everyone gets caught- if you lose. Instead, it's jailer steps forward from the shadows, staring at everyone with a featureless face. It resembles a moose-faced centaur made of rusted metal and wood, yet what should be creaky, slow steps are light and agile. You have five minutes to hide. But when it bursts into a run, searching forcefully through grass, leaving cracks in the earth beneath its hooves as it starts to run, there's an unsettling feeling in your stomach: what happens if you get caught at all?

In order to win as a group, 10 threads featuring a successful escape- be it from the monster or from the cage- must be submitted by the end of the month. You may only submit one thread per character, but two characters can use the same thread. If you want to get caught and suffer consequences, or try to fight the monster, please use the "FIGHT OR FLIGHT" comment beneath the submission toplevel. Should the characters win the game, they will get a prize after all submissions have been accounted for!

SPARK NOTES

CLICK TO EXPAND!

WAKE UP

A general welcome to Aldric's Grove! The shopkeeper has witnessed your arrival and seems... resigned. Rusty is trying very hard to get inside the manor. Otherwise, everything seems eerily still.

THE INN

A cursory glance at the inn! It's bare, barely furnished yet stocked enough to provide shelter and food. Several doors are locked and won't budge. But you know it. You know this place.

THE RIVER

The river is only barely accesible, though opportnity to try and explore anyways is possible. Bone fragments, scales and teeth from all sorts of species, including humans, litter the banks alongside canine-decorated medalions, and something glitters beneath the sand in the river itself. While in the water, there's an unnaturally soothing feeling.

PLAY TIME

The forest opens up a path through the fog to invite people to play with it. Once they reach the next clearing, the path closes behind everyone and a disembodied voice announces that we're playing cops and robbers. The cop is a large moose-faced centaur statue made of rusty metal and wood, and it packs one hell of a punch. Don't get caught!

OOC

Welcome to the very first TDM and Event of Sticks and Bones! This TDM is game canon. Questions may be asked below or on the faq, and everything may be revisted with bonus ac items as time goes on. Applications are now open, and all TDM threads will count for AC and Bonus AC.

UPDATES

❖ Rusty has a bed to lay on on the porch! Izuku should be so proud of himself.
❖ A portion of the arena of the game- alongside the hiding spots in that area- are on fire, or destroyed by fire. Kjell forgot they were in the forest when fleeing the jailer.
❖ One of the cutting boards in the inn kitchen is cleaved in half, and the counter has deep gouges in it. Yor was cutting bread.

SUBMISSIONS

QUESTIONS & INVESTIGATIONS ⚘ NPC CONTACT ⚘ PLAY TIME ⚘ FIGHT OR FLIGHT

(CODE)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ In the inn... Well, a settlement was a place to start. 9S can figure out what exactly was going on here if he gathers enough intel, surely. So he reasons to himself, needing to latch onto something when he doesn't even know why he's functioning right now. ]

YoRHa units look...well, like me. At least the ones that're my type. The only remaining Scanner besides me is 4S, an earlier model. He's got dark hair, but we're built the same, more or less.

Then I haven't met any around here. No one else in a blindfold! Ah... wait. There was a man wearing all black, with dark hair. Last I saw him was while poking around the food storage. He could have taken his off. He was.. taller..er... than me, though.

_{[ nines' has got... just shy of an inch on this guy, given the time across their conversation to take it in. ]}

Edited 2023-04-19 03:30 (UTC)

Blindfold? [ A curious tip of his head, before 9S realizes— ] Oh, you mean my goggles. Standard issue equipment for field units.

[ As opposed to Operators or the Commander. ]

A male model of that size wouldn't be YoRHa, but that's no surprise.

Gog...gl...es...? It's not a strip of fabric...?

_{[ did he learn that word wrong. That doesn't look like any damn goggles he's ever seen. ]}

I-I see. Well, that's too bad, but at least he might understand a little more of what you're talking about. I'm... ah... not so well traveled.

_{[ also humans ABSOLUTELY aren't extinct where he's from, but he's not gonna dig his heels in on this one. ]}

Edited 2023-04-19 04:13 (UTC)

Hopefully... Not that all Resistance units are familiar with YoRHa. We were far fewer in number, even before...

[ He trails off, frowning as though he has the taste of something unpleasant on his tongue, and changes the subject. ]

I'll have to see what I can dig up. [ It's what his unit type was built for, after all. ] Anyway, nobody agrees to play a game without knowing the rules.

[ Look, he answered eventually. ]

Agrees to play a....

_{[ gears, turning... give it a sec, he'll get there. listen, rennuid's got an entire 8 for a Wisdom score. ]}

Oh ☆! Ah-heh-heh-- Heh... yes, nobody would have just... heard that... and said yes right away. That would be silly.

_{[ He'd said yes, in his head. ]}

For all you'd know the game could be jump off a cliff or blow yourself up, after all.

[ The words come with a casual shrug. 9S had, in fact, known an android who just loved blowing things up. Not knowing the nature of the asker or the request, it'd be foolish to agree so easily. ]

Or they even expect us to keep gathering more and more materials for them, over and over again.

[ From the dire tone his voice adopts with regard to that last possibility, this is somehow the worst of all prospects. ]

Edited 2023-04-19 07:04 (UTC)

....some of those games would be... difficult to play more than once. Good reason to recruit so many playmates at once, I guess.

_{[ rennuid comes to crouch down by the mushrooms 9S had been observing when rennuid had popped up to distract him. He's trying to decide if these are any he recognizes... with mushrooms you really can't mess around. ]}

...or maybe, the rules will change, whenever you get close to winning, just so that you give up more than you thought you would...

At least we're not alone.

Edited 2023-04-19 13:37 (UTC)

[ 9S groans at the reminder of that particular pain in his synthetic behind. ]

Or they decide you've only won this round and pile on more.

[ Oh, he's been there. Mankind help him, he has been there. It gets pretty exasperating, after a while. ]

Dunno if not being alone's reassuring or not. Depends on how this place turns out to be, I'd say.

_{"Ot avess, ot aveer." Tyymab.

[ Grumbled quietly to himself. ]}

How do you figure...? I think it's easier with more heads together, dealing with things like this. More than just your own eye...

[ It's more to lose, he almost says, but the words are a leaden weight on his tongue. Of all the Scanners that once existed, what had their coordinated efforts won them on that ill-fated day?

And they were the best, the apex of android technology. ]

Personal experience. [ A pause, and he calls out into the empty air: ] Pod, where—

[ As if on cue, a machine roughly the size and shape of a shoebox uprighted for vertical height with tubular limbs capped off with three-pronged hands comes tumbling down from above in a rain of leaves.

Upon closer inspection, it has a pair of even smaller arms close to its chassis. ]

Wuh--Woah!

_{[ that started as being startled by the pod, then became something else when his lil reflexive jump threw him off kilter.

it was either try to keep his balance and risk a pitch forward into the fungus, or fall like an inch or so backward onto regular old ground, and he's chose the latter. ]}

..is that your...pet?

_{[ he finds he can believe him a little more about his origins, seeing that little thing. Now THAT is a construct. ]}

Edited 2023-04-21 06:25 (UTC)

[ 9S hastens to crouch beside the pod, inspecting it for damage with black-gloved hands. It beeps and blips at him as it uprights itself, brushing away dead leaves. ]

It's a tactical support unit.

[ Because that makes all the sense to anyone ever. ]

They get assigned to androids like me when we're deployed.

_{[ ...strung together, he's uh, having a little trouble intuitive exactly what that means. But from the clear concern he's showing the clumsy little thing... ]}

Your... ally. Yes? I'm not.. Terribly familiar with that phrasing... _{everyone here speaks the one language I'm WORST at.}

But... You aren't alone. That's good. I haven't seen anyone else who came.. with, another, I don't think. I had thought over if we were being singled out.

_{[ later he'll be proven wrong. But for now, it's the truth. ]}

Edited 2023-04-22 05:22 (UTC)

So you speak a different language? [ Interesting. ] Most Old World languages are long dead, but I've got data on some of them.

[ Even if he doesn't know it, there's a good chance he can decipher it. That's easy for a Scanner unit, 9S reasons. ]

Pod's helpful for a lot of things...though this isn't the one I'm used to.

[ He pats the pod on its top, as one might a faithful pet, and it responds with a bright, electronic chirp. ]

I speak a few! Elze, Urk, Under, Carseve... _{[ the secret language of druids, but uh, that's a secret language, so he's not mentioning it. ]}

I even understand a little of Song, but I can't make any of the sounds.

_{[ the wry little smile on his face betrays that he already thinks asking isn't gonna go anywhere, but-- ]}

Hllat Elze ul?

[ 9S tilts his head, listening to the sounds, a thoughtful frown on his lips. He runs it through all that he knows and comes up blank... But that's very interesting, so far as he's concerned. Something new is always interesting.

Well, unless it's disturbing. Or gross. Or annoying. But in theory, most new things are worth exploration. ]

It doesn't match anything I've got. What about you, pod?

[ The pod is silent for a beat, before it beeps with a little wave of its arms. ]

Well, if I've got more of a sample, I can figure it out.

[ He sounds confident about that much. ]

A-hah-hah-ha... I'm sorry I have no book to give you. But if you can learn to understand Elven from only hearing me talk... please. I invite you. I would love to sound less like a child to someone else here.

Edited 2023-04-22 06:49 (UTC)

Hearing you talk beats a written sample, anyway.

[ Though 9S can admit to himself that both would be even better. ]

So what would you call some of the stuff around here? I'll figure out the patterns to your speech.

Oh! Well-- ah...

_{[ He looks around... and settles on the mushrooms first. He points them out. ]}

These are... Gorfuin'aut. You have to say aut very strong. Or it might sound too much like 'ot.' Ah.. it's not that I know what KIND they are, don't get me wrong! But that's... rotten things that are living things...

_{[ he takes a moment to stand up properly, so it's easier to point more objects out.

A tree, nac.
The ground? Grass? It's not clear which, but he calls it mau.

The clouds up above their head, belsame.

Rusty, sitting on his porch, he names as a complete mouthful-- gyohanqul'tyednae. Or.. just qul, he admits, but Rusty is a cute, nice doggy.

9S gets a pretty decent rundown of their immediate surroundings, until Rennuid runs out of ideas... and points out two final terms.

The pod, another tyednae.
9S himself-- ]}

Android~! But, if I had to describe you... Tyiarr-autlot. Or just autlot, but I thought you would find the 'human' part important.

[ 9S listens with rapt interest, following the purple man's indications as he points. His eyes are covered, but he turns his head to regard each item named, even if only fractionally. That is, of course, until he is the named object.

He gathers, based on the explanations of the compound term, that it's something along the lines of humanoid — or human-like — automaton. And that would be a close enough approximation, if no such technology exists where he's from.

Purple men certainly don't exist where 9S is from. ]

That gives me a base to work with. So then...

[ He lifts a hand and several hologram display panels spring into being in front of him. These come with various text and modules, and 9S' gloved hands practically dance across them as he works.

If he were to isolate a pattern in the speech that has been supplied to him this far... ]

So for instance, would "I'm going for a walk" look something like this?

[ He points to the result his analysis has generated, curious as to whether it's correct. There may be nuances to the language that syllabic patterns don't cover, so the only thing for it is to ask. 9S got words, but is their grammar at all similar? ]

Almost. But more like... Walking, myself... I-I will be... _{[ he wilts a little the further he gets. feels weird going against the grain on purpose rather than when he slips up. ]}

First what you're doing. Last who's doing it.

_{[ He holds up his hand, and loosely moves it around as if guiding the parts of the sentence to the proper places. ]}

Tsudsas, fet, felz.

So the verb first instead of the subject? Huh...

[ 9S taps away at his monitors again, inputting this new data, only to pause. ]

What about when you're describing something? If a bird is blue, would you still call it a blue bird?

[ He surmises this to be the case, based on what the fellow called him. ]

Yes~! Though there's... a lot of differences place to place... Just calling it blue isn't very common where I'm from. So the same color, someone might call it blueberry-bird, or somewhere else it's nightbird. There's a little.. bit, you can use to say 'this is the color,' but I never remember to put it... feels so... _{[ wordless circular motion with his hands. ]}

Edited 2023-04-24 01:40 (UTC)

[ It strikes him as peculiar.

A bird isn't a blueberry. Most aren't active at night.

9S would almost say it's an inefficient way to describe something, but it isn't conducive to learning the language and its rules. Many dead languages had rules he didn't find agreeable. ]

Kind of sing-songy, isn't it?

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