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TDM018: TRICKS AND TREATS
| TDM018: TRICKS AND TREATS |
Uploading user data to environmental systems. . . please wait.  Augmentations c̴̦͋o̷͓̺̘̓m̸̮̈̾́p̸̻̃l̵̠̱̤̅e̷̢̧̺͐̃̽t̸͈̓ḙ̴͙̓͘. Proceed . . .? Y/N > Y  Your eyes blink open to the blinding glare of overhead lights and the sight of a pair of glassy mechanical eyes boring into your own. The face above yours moves like liquid mercury, forming an approximation of a figure that you recognize and trust implicitly: a friend, a loved one, a caretaker. Perhaps even a god or a goddess. From its lips fall the patterns of a language that is strange and robotic, and yet familiar to you: Welcome to the N̵̩̈́̓ä̶͇́͂͘m̸̠͒e̴̞̻̾ͅl̷̹̄͝ḙ̷̺͗s̵̳͊̀ṣ̵̱̚ͅ ̶̧͒̄Í̴͔s̵̡̛̺̍̓ļ̵̥͖̄͛͌ḁ̸̳̟̒́n̵̻͑́͗d̴̩͕̰̂̊̔ Darkness overtakes you once again. I. Arrival  When you awake, you find you have washed up on the otherworldly pink sands of an impossibly beautiful beach, the tropical scenery spoiled only slightly by your seasickness. New arrivals, waterlogged and covered in sand, will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. If you don’t manage to get away from them quickly enough, they may even usher you toward the Laid Bare Spa, where new arrivals will be offered free massages, a sauna, hairstyling, and their clothing may come up permanently missing. But you will be given a complimentary towel to leave with if needed! Feel free to explore the Island, all is available for your use. Stake your claim on a place to live in the now, whether an apartment in the City, a shack on the beach, or a bigger space at the House of Worship with friends. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each arrival's home. II. Spooky Scavenger Hunt  Even with the Nameless Island reborn and open to your every whim, the robots still like to provide stimulating opportunities for people to get to know one another and earn some credits. But instead of the manual labor typical of the previous situation, they have engineered a scavenger hunt in honor of the Island's new autumn scenery! Islanders will find themselves pulled off the street, from inside establishments, and even from outside their own homes and paired with a partner. Their bracelets will be scanned and they will both find identical messages in their inboxes detailed they have 24 hours to find 10 randomized items on their list provided. Do so and bring them back (or take a picture if they are too big) to the Scavenger Station and they’ll receive a hefty reward of credits! Bonus Credits if they can show proof or pictures of the items being put to use before they turn them in. The robots certainly encourage the full scavenger hunt experience. The items can be found anywhere in the City. Sometimes in likely places and other times in a place you might not even consider (on other Islanders, for example?), although each team’s list will provide clues of where to look.
… and more! (Feel free to get creative! Items can range from silly to outright explicit.) III. Two Moon Film Festival  In order to promote the various community college classes available at the Library for Islander enrichment, the resident robots have cooked up a very special opportunity for Islanders to show off the new skills they have been practicing in their Amateur Porn classes to the growing Erku community: the Two Moon Film Festival! Everyone on the island, both new and old, gets a ticket for the festival itself. In the meantime, there are openings for pairs and groups to participate in creating the entries that will be showcased at said festival. Up for a creative challenge? Found yourself involuntarily signed up and unable to back out? One way or another, many Islanders are now entered into the film-making contest. New arrivals are encouraged to buddy up with Islanders who attended the classes, but anyone is welcome and encouraged to shoot their shot! Each duo or group that participates is to meet at the Library at sundown for their assignments: a genre, a line of dialogue, a character type or name, and a prop, all of which are randomized and different per group. You now have until sundown two days from now to create a short movie that incorporates at least three of the four items. Everything they need, from equipment to props and costumes, will be provided. Engaging and interactive VR sets can be programmed by helpful robots, and catering is available to help keep the crews properly fueled up. The punch and pie provided have the added effect of inspiring great bursts of creativity (and for a lucky few, horniness) in those who consume them. Following the deadline, all finished entries will debut on the big screen at Two Moon Film Festival, hosted by the Full Moon(ty) Theater. Chat up other contestants and the viewers before and afterward, laugh at the cringeworthy moments and bad acting, and aim for winning the Audience's Choice Award! All entrants to the contest earn one small reward of their choosing, while the winners of the contest will each receive one free BINGO-level request from the Augur! [ OOC: Shout out of thanks to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} zunge for this prompt! ]Load Simulation . . .? Y/N READY: Simulation 1.1 Tenebrae Town  Your consciousness comes to you in the midst of a dense autumn forest. You haven't been asleep. You stand there, fully clothed, but perhaps not in your usual attire - perhaps you're wearing a belted tunic with trousers and leather boots to protect you from the cold ground, or a long and modest dress with an apron and a hood, hand-sewn in natural fabrics. The chill in the air and even the smell of the dirt and the trees are not like those of the Island. This place feels old, a strange energy crackling in the air. Some may recognize it as a very ancient magic. In the distance, colorful lights dance between the trees. Approach closely enough and they look like fairies, but they are always just out of your reach. Are they leading you somewhere? No - if you follow them, as they seem to bid you, they will only lead you deeper into danger: a snarling wolf, a sudden drop into a craggy ravine. They are mischievous, sometimes cruel little things. You'll never escape this forest by yourself. For as long as you are alone, the night is interminable - days long, it seems. Are you the determined sort, willing to choose a direction and continue walking no matter what, or will you give into despair of being hopelessly lost? With any luck, it won't take you long to find out that your only way out is with the help of someone else. Only by agreeing to work together will the dawn finally break, and your path into Tenebrae Town will become clear. Should you refuse, or never cross paths with another Islander? Maybe the wolves will take you in. OOC Notes:To accommodate our smaller community and split-setting environment, TDMs going forward will be open to old and new players for top levels! Please state in your subject line whether you are a TDMing a new character, or top-leveling with a character currently in the game! Voting for Audience Choice Awards for Prompt III will be held in November. Threads should be started by the time you submit your entries, but need not be finished in order to win! Entries will still be valid if they include characters who TDMed but did not apply to the game. ALL participants in the contest may handwave one small Augur reward request equivalent to an incomplete thread reward. N A V I G A T I O N |
>> Arrival
Today is not most days, if only because of who it is he spots being led away from the ocean by another damn bot.
No. No no no, it can’t be, but Juno opens his mouth anyway, the shape of a name just barely there on his tongue—
Nureyev.
Only he can’t go shouting that out here, can he? Especially not if it’s a trick or something, another sim or a mirage. He’d be betraying that name for nothing. So he wracks his brain instead, trying to remember the new pseudonym Nureyev had used that first night (Juno’s only night) aboard the Carte Blanche.
“Ransom?” He tries to project, but his voice mostly sticks in his throat—right alongside with all the fear and longing he feels at the thought of this actually happening. Juno clears it and tries again, managing to shout it louder even as he dreads (hopes for) an answer. He no doubt looks as stricken as he feels by the sight of the man he can’t stop thinking about, looking beautiful and improbable as he ever has even while dripping saltwater everywhere he steps.
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He tensed briefly, instinctively, casting a wary gaze toward the source of the sound. The second call came just as he met Juno's eye. On the one hand: immediately finding a familiar face — and one he was so very fond of — was oddly comforting. On the other, this place was so strange and new and potentially dangerous, he could not be entirely certain it was real to begin with.
But something (that he would absolutely need to file away and deal with later, for all the implications) told him it had to be him. Something in his voice; that the way he said his name. Well, his fake name.
"Juno." He corrected himself, still gauging the other man carefully. "Fancy meeting you here, love."
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“It is you. Shit.” This is both the best and worst thing that could have happened. Juno closes a bit of the distance between them and looks Nureyev over again, from his bare feet to his near-transparent shirt and up to his hair, which doesn’t look half as bad as it should. It’s really unfair how good he still looks.
“You really have no idea. I…” he shakes his head a little, at a loss, then finally goes with the one thing that makes the most sense:
“I don’t really have spare clothes, but I’ve got a room and some towels if you want to get dry.”
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When the detective drew close, Peter set his hands on the other man's shoulders, lips twitching up in a faint, confused little smile.
"I don't think they'd fit anyway, dear. But, yes, I would like to be out of these clothes as soon as possible. You can...enlighten me as to our situation along the way."
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“I’m happier to see you than I should be,” he admits, that new tension easing out of him slowly. “And I’ll try to explain it, but honestly? I’ve been here a month and I still don’t believe it some days.” He looks down at the hand on his shoulder and, for a moment, considers resting his own over it. He thinks about telling Nureyev how much he’s missed him too—not just here on the island, but the whole time they’ve been apart.
But the man is still soaking wet, and Juno knows from experience how awful dried saltwater is on your skin and clothes. It isn’t the time or place for any of the conversations they need to have. So he lets the hand he’d raised halfway to Nureyev’s drop, and he looks back up at him with that same mix of longing-fear-disbelief as before.
“Come on." He steps back slowly, fighting every instinct willing him closer. "It's not that far."
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He slowly loosened his grip and let his hands drop back down to his sides under the guise of picking seaweed from his trousers.
"All right. Lead the way." He murmured, hoping his expression was steeled enough to not give away the pang of hurt that hit him square in the chest. Get yourself together, Nureyev.
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“Yeah, a month. Full thirty days. But even before that, it’s not like we got the chance to talk much. Or, like, at all.” Nureyev had avoided him so deftly that, if Juno hadn’t known him so well, he might not have even noticed it was on purpose. He sighs, dragging a hand back through his hair and glancing back at his… at the thief again. Like if he doesn’t keep checking, he might up and vanish into thin air.
“Last thing I remember is going to sleep on the Carte Blanche that first night, and then I woke up here. Pretty sure I still had Martian dust in my eyes even. Or maybe that was just the sand from the beach.”
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"The first night..." He repeated. "It has been quite some time since then, at least for me. Are you suggesting some sort of time travel?"
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Except who is he to say it isn’t possible? The Augur can snatch them up out of any universe, out of any sort of world. What’s time to a thing like that? Juno’s steps falter, and he looks momentarily lost in thought. A little freaked out too to be honest.
“Actually, I… I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t get yet that I should probably know by now.” Which reminds him that he hasn’t told Nureyev any of it yet, and he probably has just as many questions as Juno had when he’d washed up.
“What I do know is that we were kidnapped. Basically. Everyone here that isn’t a bot was brought here from somewhere else by a rogue AI with really, really weird ideas about sustainable energy.”