thespherelogs | (no subject)

Who: The People making the Right Choice: The Power Station
Where: The tunnels to housing the Power Station system to the agricultural dome.
What: The Choice plot.
When: ICly: August 1st or so.
Warnings: Death, violence, creepiness, bugs, being buried alive, fear of failure, claustrophobia etc. I will update this as the warnings come out in the threads.
Important Notes: This is the first log for the Choices plot. This log only covers The Power Station. The other choices will have their own logs going up. Please remember to warn for things that need warnings in these threads.

Departure

The door that Enis opens is very small, the sort that only allows one person to pass through at a time. From where you stand outside of it, there’s no glimpse of light, or if there is it’s so far away that you may as well be imagining it. Flicking on the flashlights that had been found from the storage tent, the corridor is small as well, and it looks very wet and green in the dim lighting. This door lingers open for a fair amount after the group passes through it one by one. From the way it appears in the glass of the dome, it almost looks like a hungry mouth.

But when you’re about halfway down the extended hallway, the door creaks on audible hinges and then slams shut in a way that it absolutely shouldn’t.

That’s not ominous or anything.

Encounters: Environmental

Once the door is shut behind you, and you’re moving towards the single path, you start to realize just how old all of this around you is. Where as things in the Sphere normally seem bright and sparkly and new this is ancient and rusting and crumbling. The light here is a sickly barely there orange that creates more shadows than something that you can actually see by, which makes the way the metal grating floor incredibly perilous. Water drips constantly here, making everything wet and slick and slippery. There are places where the lighting seems to have burned out. Or has it? Sometimes it has, and sometimes it’s just that the grating has no walls to hand hold across a chasm that you can’t tell the distance on. Hope you’re getting creative.

But needing to walk over epic heights isn’t just something that you need to contend with. There are places where the flooring just gives way below your weight suddenly, and places where there’s none of it all together. Better tread softly and be fast on your feet--it’s an incredibly long way to fall, and not something that you can live through.

Every so often, the pathway will end with a door with a rusted hatch, the window of it coated with grime and rust and dirt (and is that ash?!) that need to be forced open, and then closed behind them before the next door will even budge.

The entire way, the feeling of being watched doesn’t stop, neither does the sound of distant screaming. It’s far enough that you only seem to catch the smallest hint of it, and no matter which direction you go in, it never seems to get any closer or farther away.

Encounters: Archetypal Fears.

There are things that humanity as a collective is afraid of, and has always been, even if it’s something that some fear more than others. Different rooms are full of different fears in varying amounts. Some of the rooms will only affect one person, or a couple of people. Some will affect the entire room.

In order to defeat the fear, you must move onto the next room before the fear becomes overpowering. Panicking people in an enclosed space is never a good idea.

The different archetypal fears that can be experienced in whatever configuration of people are:

The dark: The flashlights don’t work. Any lighters or matches or won’t work either. This can be either a group or individual fear.
Claustrophobia: The walls feel like they’re closing in, and the ceiling is getting smaller. This can be a group or individual fear.
The fear of being buried alive: The room starts to rapidly fill with dirt. Individual fear.
Drowning: The room starts to fill quickly with water. Group or individual fear.
Bugs: Bugs start rapidly spilling out of the ceiling, and quickly cover the individual and the room itself. Individual fear.
The fear that everyone hates you or dislikes you: The person keeps thinking that they’re hearing the group talk shit about them, that they hate them, etc. Individual/group fear, but even in a group, it’s everyone each hearing this for themselves.
The fear of being hunted: Something is coming. It’s right on your tail and if you don’t get out ASAP then you’re going to die. Group fear.
The fear of falling
Whatever you can come up with: Be creative! Do it in an interesting way! Just remember that these are archetype fears that loads of people have. Not personal.

Encounter: Personal Fears.

These fears are the ones that each character had on their own applications. They can be individual or shared, but that should be decided among yourself on the plotting post.

As they get closer to the power station, their fears become more and more intense. It’s going to take great strength to continue onto the room where the power station is.

Encounter: The Power Station.

When you step into the main room of the power station, all of the individual fears intensify around you, but you become aware, at least dimly, that you have reached your destination. There, on a pedestal in the middle of the room is a golden half-sphere that needs to be pressed in order to start the power up again. But it really can’t be that easy, can it? The longer you wait to do it, the more the feelings and fears of doubt that this is what you need to do wash over you. Eventually, that fear swells into the feeling that you probably shouldn’t even push the button. This mixes with the fear that you already have failed, and that everyone back outside has died already. They’ve died and it’s all your fault. You took too long, you didn’t do enough. And now you just need to wait to die too.

Or, you can push the button.

Once you push the button, the half-sphere becomes flush with the pedestal and it sinks slowly into the ground. As it meets the floor, the panels in the floor light up in a pattern of rings leading out to the door. Sure, you’ve got to hike back to the Sphere proper, but the fears that you’ve already faced are gone even if the physical obstacles are not.

The door into the Agricultural domes won’t open until both objectives have been fulfilled.

photo inspiration

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"She is very brave, yes. But I still would not say more than you." She considers this for a moment.

"Saved you, yes. But you are brave to have wanted to not be that monster. To work hard to avoid it. That is very brave." She had welcomed her own darkness, cloaked herself in it and allowed it to protect her. The darkness was comfortable and familiar.

"You're one of the few who would say so." He knows that Rey and his parents would say the same, but he also knows there are others who would say that wasn't enough. That his death, inevitable as it is, wasn't enough either. The truth was that it probably wasn't.

"Then very many are wrong."

She's silent for a moment, walking, trying to focus on the noise her boots made instead of the screams. "I don't like shoes."

His brows scrunch slightly before he looks down at her shoes. "Why?"

"We only had one pair in Paris, for the whole family. When it was my turn to wear them, I had to stuff the toes with old papers so they would fit. They were uncomfortable and so loud." These ones, at least, were better. They fit right, for starters.

"I would think that would make you appreciate them more while you're here." For Ben, he'd wanted for nothing but understanding and affection. He didn't really understand the feelings of someone who didn't have anything before here.

Eponine was in the unique position where not only did she know what it was to have nothing, but she knew what it was to have as well. Her family had been better off when she was a child, leaving her old enough to remember how things had been before. She was the only one of the Thénardier children to have known a life other than one of starvation.

"You make a good point," she says after a moment, picking up her feet again and looking at her shoes. "These are much more comfortable."

"As strange as it is for someone like me to say, it's best to focus on the positive things in life." He's trying to, at least. He's dwelled in darkness and anger for so long that it's hard, but at least he's trying.

"And I believe they are women's shoes." Which was another good thing to consider. It was a fun exercise, finding positive things about her new footware.

"And I'd rather my feet not be wet."

"And you have the power to get many pairs of shoes here. Boots, even." It was a strange exercise, but he will willing and happy to help her with it.

"I do! And did you see my dress? The one my Robb had his sister make? Oh it is beautiful! When we return, you'll have to see it. I wear it often at the tavern." It certainly makes the stink better.

"The stink?" He doesn't understand.

"It smells down here. You distract me from it."

"This? I've smelled worse; my uncle was a Wookie." Which probably doesn't mean much to her, but since most people have seen his life he never knows.

"And what is a Wookie?"

"A species from a planet known as Kashyyyk. They're tall, hairy, and have a distinct musk. Especially when they've been in the rain." To help her understand better, he sends her a mental picture of his uncle Chewbacca soaked to the bone. "It isn't pleasant."

She tries to keep up with what he's saying, but truthfully, it's the mental image that helps. Which is exactly why she starts to laugh. "My goodness! He as if dog and a bear were combined with a man! And this is your uncle?"

"My father and he were best friends, and Chewie was a good uncle." Unlike his uncle Luke who tried to kill him twice. It's hard to let go of the resentment over his uncle, especially after he's seen the documentaries of the man's life. Why couldn't he have known him when he was younger and more willing to understand others?

She looks at him incredulously. How strange a world he lived in, with his swords of light and wolf bear men. "I am sure he gives wonderful hugs, so long as he is not wet."

"He did. He and my uncle Lando were my favorites." Which would be saying something if she knew that they weren't his blood uncles and that the one who was wasn't a favorite.

"I never had any uncles or aunts," she says with a small shrug. "If we had, father would have written to them begging for money."