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(no subject)

Who: The People Staying behind and those who go to the Sphere
Where: The Agricultural dome, the tunnel to the Sphere chamber, and the Sphere chamber itself.
What: The Choice plot.
When: ICly: August.
Warnings: Sudden disappearances, despair, depression, violence.
Important Notes: This is the final log for the Choices plot. This log only covers Those staying. . The other choices will have their own logs up. Please remember to warn for things that need warnings in these threads.
Additional important notes for this part of the plot: Important NPC threads will have their own threads. Max will have one, Annie will have one and so will the Sphere obviously. If people would like Laurie, John or any of the other NPC interactions for additional clues in the investigation, let me know and I will do my best to accommodate you.
Each person who goes to interact and try to convince the Sphere can have their own comment unless you decide not to.

The First Three Days

The doors out are closed, and no matter how hard you try, there’s nothing that you can do in order to get them to open. It seems like whoever told Enis that they would only open once was entirely correct. So it’s all you can do is wait. There’s an anticipatory feeling in the air, whether you’ve got abilities or not, and it’s the generalized sense that the sky is going to fall down around them. Even if it already has. While it’s getting cold and it is the temperature seems to linger at a livable 45, but it’s still cold to those who were living in a perfectly climate controlled environment. The air is stuffy, but it’s not enough to do any real damage yet. Instead it’s more like being in Denver with all that implies: altitude sickness. People may experience something that is close to having the worst hangover of your life: headaches, nausea, fatigue. Additionally, because of the hunger combined with this and everything else, tempers are short and flare hot when necessary. The effects get worse if people end up trying to be more physical, so most of the NPCs in the Sphere don’t. They just sit or lay down with a generalized sense of apathy; for them there is a lack of hope that almost seems infectious: no one is going to fix this, and none of this matters.

Food continues, the rations getting smaller as the Council tries to keep feeding people for longer. All of the blankets are removed from storage, and people huddle together to try and sleep.

Some try and make music, or hold conversations, but other than what the player characters are doing, an eerie stillness hangs over the Sphere.

The Great Departure

No matter how apathetic the general population is, when it comes to times where food is being distributed, they all line up to make sure they’re eating. Even the worst of them do. Being in the food time is the place where they seem most themselves, and most animated. Like in the days before, they try to barter and steal other’s rations, even if attempts to raid the storehouse proper have largely stopped. Perhaps they are even trying to steal your rations. It’s not like they haven’t tried before, honestly. So, there’s nothing for it but to just try and stop them, and try not to let the lack of oxygen get to you.

But then it happens. There’s no flash of light, no sound of thunder or a booming. Even if you were making eye contact with someone they’re just all of a sudden they’re not there. Whatever they were holding drops to the ground in a clatter left vacant in the wake of two hundred people vanishing. A third of the population is just gone without a trace.

Then the screaming starts: people who have lost loved ones, people who lost friends or enemies, they all just scream out. Wailing and screams echo off the top of the dome, and reverberate around them as people realize what has happened. All of the empty spaces and anticipatory silence are lost in the din of loss and fear.

Loss and fear permeates the Dome, spreading almost like an infection. Whatever lingering hope that might have remained in the NPC population is entirely gone.

The Investigation.

While despair is spreading, the Council does something that it hasn’t done before. Or at the very least Max hasn’t. There are secrets that he’s been holding about his time here at the Sphere and it’s time for him to spill them if people ask. Additionally, there are clues hidden around, pieces among the camps of the missing people that had vanished in that first wave. Picture frames that you know you’d seen people longingly looking at before, are just empty frames, missing even something like a stock photo.

Rations and things that NPCs may have taken from player characters are in the tents entirely untouched. There’s a stockpile of rations and water in each tent as if someone had just come back to these tents and deposited them.

The beds are made still, as they were when the refugees first started streaming into the domes en mass. An outline of people remains on them, but it’s nothing more than that. Despite the chill, it’s clear to people who have looked that once people had gone into the tent, they hadn’t needed to cover themselves with blankets anymore.

Even the remaining NPC population has an odd vacancy in their eyes that has never been this apparent before. They answer questions in a flat voice with no affect. Questions are answered in the simplest ones of yes and no as if they can’t grasp anything more complex than that. It’s a frustrating effort, but perhaps one worth making.

Max, however, sits on the top of one of the picnic-like tables, with his foot resting against the seat of it. In his hand, he holds a good smelling cigar, and there are spent ends of others all around the ground on him. More than that, he’s also got a bottle of whiskey that he keeps drinking from. Whatever is going on with the other NPCs isn’t affecting Max in the slightest. Instead his eyes simply just offer resignation, a quiet sadness and the pain that has always been there is moved to the forefront. “Well,” he barks, but most of the force is missing from it. “Go ahead and fucking ask me.”

The Second Departure.

The next day after the first one, thirty more people vanish. This time it’s not as showy as it was in the lunch line, but it happens nonetheless. Those who disappear this time however are those who seemed to be the furthest gone with the despair. Those who couldn’t respond to questions. And anyone who could. All of those who talked to anyone investigating are gone in the second round of disappearances.

A Ghost from the Past

On the day after the second disappearance, Annie makes herself known to those in the agricultural dome. It starts quietly, the anger about this. NPCs murmur and mutter as she walks past. Those who remember her or those she hurt are welcome to try and stop her or talk to her. She will. Unfortunately for you, whenever she decides she’s had enough, Annie just moves on. It’s that simple, really, she moves on and there’s nothing that can be done to stop her or hurt her as much as some people might want to.

In the end, Annie ends up in front of the crowd at the dinner line. Standing on a table, she makes an Announcement and all of her responses will be on there. Then she walks into the crowd and seems to disappear.

Depature/The Tunnels/Reaching the Sphere

Perhaps Annie is worried about Max (or possibly others) attempting to stop her, but when she arrives at the door, it’s five to six and she seems to appear out of almost nowhere. She looks the same as she did yesterday, the look of resolution on her face. At precisely six am, Annie stares at those assembled and then she nods. Raising her hand a bit, the knuckles of her fingers extend outwards, and she presses them against the side of the dome. Unlike the two other doors, this one almost seems to dissolve slowly like it’s in a movie. As the well-light hallway behind the door lights up with golden light, fresh air whips through the door, showing just how stuffy their oxygen had been before. Just how bad it’s getting but they don’t notice because they’re essentially frogs in a cooking pot as the water starts to boil. The opening itself is wide enough to allow people to go three abreast if they chose to, and this time Annie steps through the door after the last person does.

When the door closes, the dome disappears. The hallway is warm and clean and clear, the familiar illumination giving familiar animals swimming in the deep sea that same shadow it always did. The walk isn’t as long as the others, hours instead of days. Annie doesn’t talk but she doesn’t mind if you do. Instead she just steadfastly leads you forward always somehow three steps ahead.

At the end of the tunnel,‘you can clearly see the Sphere on the other side of what has been, until now anyway, sealed behind the dome of its own. Annie touches it, and it just dissolves away, leaving the ten feet around the Sphere open for anyone who wants to look at it. The Sphere up close looks like it’s always looked, large and shiny and gold and metallic, even if there doesn’t appear to be any other sources of light in the room other than the Sphere itself.

Annie allows you to walk around it, be awed by it before she just softly says: “Come on.” And walks right into it.

Do you?

Inside The Sphere.

Walking through the outer barrier of the Sphere feels like the tension in the air before a thunderstorm. It doesn’t hurt, and no one gets wet. Do you remember before you woke up in your domes and there was the white room where you talked to the person who was most trusted by you, and they explained not to be worried? You’re in the same room now. Perhaps the person you’ve trusted most has changed during your time here. Perhaps not. But for the most part you’re alone with that person, sitting facing them on comfortable sofas and speaking.

The Sphere’s voice is soft and kind for all of the tension of the situation and it just says through that familiar mouth: “what is it that you wished to say?”

photo inspiration

Threaded | Flat

Put your starters here for the investigation, after the fight with Annie what have you.

Drop your starters here for after the announcement or before the depature.

Put your starters here.

Put your starters here. Can your characters make their cases for their lives?

The First Three Days

[It’s cold. Normally this is among the coldest temperatures that Alex needs to deal with in Seattle, so it feels like it settles into bones that are already aching from the fatigue and the thinness of the air that they’re breathing. Or rebreathing or whatever. Pounding sounds of the blood in her head make the line between a caffeine headache and the headache caused by the atmosphere nearly indistinguishable from one other. At some point, someone had stolen the candy that she’d had left, and the energy bars.

Back home, and even here, Alex is someone who’s used to not eating on a regular basis unless Richard ends up cooking for her. So, when she can (normally at lunch honestly), Alex skips her rations and shares them around the other people who seem to need them more. One thing that she has managed to hold on is to coffee (probably because it’s precious enough that Alex practically has the remainder of it down her bra. It's so close) and the night before they go to sleep, she starts setting the grounds to brew in just plain water. There’s not sugar, or milk but there’s coffee and Alex tries to share at least half of the pitcher each day. The coffee means that she’s not as hungry as she should be, so she doesn’t miss those rations.

So, Alex sits outside of the tent that she shares with Richard, sandwiched between the large gray pitbull and the golden retriever who work on keeping her warm as the cold doesn’t affect her, and Simon’s cat sits in her lap as she passes around stories and hope along with that tiny bit of coffee that she offers to anyone who needs it.]

Investigation Part One: (Closed to Harry)

[Richard’s trying to hold the fort back at the space that had formed into the school. She knows that despite what he might argue, he’s good with kids, and Alex knows that they need him to be what he does best: be their teacher, and try and keep them calm and distracted even after the terror and shock of so many people just disappearing like that. Alex also knows that if they don’t throw both of their work-a-holic selves into doing something then they’d definitely be just as lost as so many people around them would be.

So leaving Richard with the dogs in order to help distract the kids, Alex has cut a hole in a blanket and is wearing it like a poncho (ignoring the way the edges of it dragged along the ground after her) and has definitely slipped into her normal investigative mode. The first stop, of course, is the lunch line. Despair almost seems to wrap around Alex the closer that she is to the scene, or maybe it’s the way that the things that people were holding and had on their person were scattered on the ground like litter from a warzone. But still Alex crouches down and tries to see what, if anything the dropped items have in common. Her voice is soft when she asks the person investigating this part with her:]

I’m not seeing anything the same but the food, but I don’t think it can be that considering how we all had it. What about you? Anything jump out?

Investigations Part Two: Open to anyone.

[The second place Alex went to investigate was the tents of the people who had disappeared, that she knew, that had been alone. The world seems colder here in the lack of those folks, especially considering the ways that they’d left all of their things around as if they were coming right back to it. There was a book on a blanket, a glass of cold water that had a teabag sitting inside of it, a deck of cards or board game. Alex just swallows around the lump in her throat, and she realizes how lucky that she is that Richard is still here; Alex doesn’t know what she would have done if he had disappeared like that. She really doesn’t want to find out either. So, looking at the person who she’s investigating the tents with, Alex just desperately grasps at straws, trying to find some sort of commonality between the items.]

They were all stuff that we’d brought in and stored at the storage tent so people wouldn’t be bored. Maybe that’s it? The link?

[But Alex’s voice is lack-luster. There’s not so much a gut instinct here as there is Alex grasping at straws in desperation.]

Investigation part three: Interviews. (I’ll be NPCing the NPC heh.) OTA

[The guy doesn’t look good and Alex knows it. He doesn’t look good, and he doesn’t look connected to anything and it almost seems like he might drift up off to space at any moment. Or at least drift out of what is left of the Sphere city. Biting her lip, Alex shifted her focus from the man in front of her to the person who’s with her and then back to the man again. With a little smile that Alex tries to use as a dam against the rolling and rising waves of despair coming off of the man, she just says again, using her best and softest and most compassionate interviewer voice.]

Can you tell me what you saw again?

[The man’s voice sounds far away.]

I told you, it was a flash of light.

Research part four: the perimeter of the Dome. OTA

[Well, the only thing that was left was for Alex to take a look around the edge of the Sphere. Using the last of the glow sticks that she’d throw into her bag simply because they’d be a good distraction for the kids (and Jesus doesn’t she regret giving them over to the kids to play with now. They would have had so much more light then) Alex just walks along the edge, tracing her fingers across the line of the cold and dark glass that she can reach as she walks. There’s a resignation to her movements though and Alex sighs.]

I know it’s probably a last ditch effort but I think I had to try anyway.

An immovable object and an unstoppable force: Closed to Richard

Of course I’m going!

[Alex just scowls at Richard for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest, her voice is hot as she glares at him. It doesn’t escape her notice that those are the words that Richard had spoken to her when she’d begged him not to go to Geneva. The situations are similar and Alex knows that too: that this is an imminent source of danger. But the whole thing is one, and Alex doesn’t want to be here suffocating to death or worse: watching him suffocate. Trying to take a deep calming breath is something that does more harm than good. ]

I know what she did. I can’t not know! I see it in my nightmares. But we can’t sit here and do nothing. I won’t!

First Three Days - Blanket Duty

He's listless. This wasn't what he'd signed up for. An echo of a dead city, held under the thrall of fear and oblivion threatening. It was too much like home, too much like the ache of the time before the end. But he has to act.

So he acts. Rhy moves among people, arms full of blankets, throwing extras upon people wherever and whenever he could. Offering them what lingering warmth was possible. He even, though it was never truly safe, would call fire into his hand from time to time, to offer light.

Light and warmth, the only comforts he can give in the darkness.

"They will make it," he tells anyone who will listen, a small tongue of fire cupped in his hand. He doesn't dare offer the fire for very long, it will take up some of the air. But the light... Oh the light. It's like a benediction, and he cannot deny them it.

"They will return," he tells anyone who can hear him. Because it's easier than admitting to his own fear. That he'll die slowly in this place, fading out until there is nothing left for even the magic to call back.

Departure Plans

He shouldn't go. Rhy knows this. But the slow end of all of this was too much. He refused to just stand by and wait. Stand by and watch it all end? No. Action. He's got to be a man of action. Rhy sighs and wraps himself in a blanket as he dozes near the area where people are supposed to meet Annie. There is no way he's missing this. He didn't care what Max and Laurie might say about it. He had to... He had to do this. He had to try.

"Don't tell me not to go," he says when he hears someone approach. Because the argument isn't going to work.

The First Three Days.
Sansa's grateful for her cloak, for the furs she had collected so she always felt part of home near. The colder temperatures suit her fine, and she has Theon to hold close at night, so she's given away nearly all that she can. There's no fire, so little light down here, she's reminded of the stories Old Nan had always told them, about the Long Night. Once, she'd thought she was facing that, but the sun had risen then. She prayed it would rise again.

But each day drags into the next and she sees the hope and despair written on the faces of the citizens, and her friends. She tries to keep her own head up, setting an example for those around her. She offers stories and songs, even as her head aches. She walks amongst the citizens, offering comfort where she can, even turning her own rations over to those that need them more than her.

If they're going to die here, she would rather die having done what she could to comfort those that lived on.

Departure.
True to her word, Sansa is there at 6 AM, and she's wearing trousers. Rather, she's wearing Jon Snow's, that she's belted up about her waist. Her tall boots hide how the trousers are just an inch or two too short for her. She completes the look with a blouse, her cloak fastened about her shoulders with the familiar leather straps. She carries no weapon, but a leather satchel under her cloak, and a pair of leather gloves. Her long red hair has been twisted into a long braid down her back, making her look far more ready for adventure than she had ever expected.

Arya would have been proud.

She waits as long as she can, wanting to say her goodbyes to those who would see the adventurers off. There was no guarantee of return, or returning to familiar faces. But she could not sit holed up in some dungeon again, waiting for death.

At last, she can't wait any longer. "Shall we?" She asks, quirking an eyebrow.

The Hallways.
Her feet ache, but there is air down here. Air and light, and the familiar shadows of sea creatures washing over them. Whales and krakens, she's sure, perhaps more creatures she's never heard of. But she's seen dragons.

She keeps her head high as they walk, running through scenarios in her mind, trying to put together her argument. Or at the very least a discussion, to try to shed light on what was happening, what they could do to save their friends, or at the very least grant the citizens leniency.

"Surely the Sphere cannot be without mercy."

[The decision wasn't easy made. It's not like either of them particularly trusts any of the loud voices vying for their attention and actions, but Richie figures that if they're gonna get a chance to talk the the thing (person?) that landed them here, they might as well take it- especially when the other option is sitting around getting progressively more panicked as people continue to disappear, with no idea what's happened to their friends.

They stick close by each other in the tunnel, shoulder to shoulder, and Richie is too anxious to feel self-conscious about the way he clings to Eddie's hand. He'd kept up a running commentary at first, cracking jokes about why a sentient sphere even needed a tunnel, and about how he should have brought a step counter down here with him, but as they've gotten closer to the end, he's fallen quiet. He tightens his grip, and tries to focus on anything other than how wrong this could go. How if this doesn't work, he has no idea what to do.]

THE FIRST THREE DAYS

The lack of food or oxygen hasn't affected her the way it has others. Inesa isn't human. She doesn't need anything to survive but the lack of atmosphere has begun to change her. Her skin is paler but shimmering a soft silvery hue in the lacking light. Her usual pale gray-blue eyes have begun to shift to a deep purple and strands of her hair have slowly begun to streak white.

It's her magic, shining through.

Her hair is pulled into a loose knot of tangles behind her head while her once white dress has been stained with dust and soot from the fires. There isn't a lot of resources and Inesa is more than happy to give up what little she has to make people comfortable.

She is holding a white bunny in her lap, keeping her friend safe, while she hums a soft tune. It's a subtle sound but without knowing it, Inesa weaves magic through the air, hoping to relax and uplift those who hear her.

THE GREAT DEPARTURE/INVESTIAGTION

The changes continue to progress. Inesa's hair is nearly white with the blonde wheat hue coloring a few inches at the tips of each strain. Her eyes are a dark deep purple that glow as she calls the subtle twists of magic that surrounds and makes up her form.

She barely looks human and yet her expressions are the same, it's still Inesa beneath the alternations to her appearance.

It's terrifying when the first wave vanish but Inesa doesn't want to give up. She keeps Lancelot with her, the bunny held safely against her abdomen as she walks around and inspects the tent. It's only when she see's another who is searching that she pauses and voices what's on her mind. "What's happening?"

THE TUNNELS

Inesa inhales deeply as the doorway opens. She doesn't need air but it rushes against her skin and she feels the magical shield she'd formed into a physical form begin to solidify back into place. The magic glittering under her skin softens and she feels more like the girl who's been living in the sphere for the last year.

She glances at those on either side of her and smiles, inclining her head in a confident nod.

They can do this.

The tunnel is pretty however Inesa feels disconnected from the rest of the Sphere. It feels so far away though that might have only been the fading tension over the last few weeks.

∳ The others depart

He can’t help it; Seregil is useless for the first day or so. With Alec going with the others and the decision for him to stay back, it’s hard. So for the first day, he secludes himself in the blankets and pillows they’d shared and prays to Aura for Alec’s safe return.

∳ Keeping up moral

After his pity party and praying, Seregil gets to work investigating what is going on and listening for unrest among those left behind. There’s no shortage of it, of course. If the groups don’t succeed, they’re all dead. That’s never an easy thing to face.

When he can, he breaks into the conversations, commenting on how brave the groups are, how skilled. After all, several of them were present when the moss attacked, and they all made it through unscathed, didn’t they?

∳ Investigation

One of the things a Nightrunner is good at is investigating strange and disturbing occurrences. It’s something that Seregil is best at. He moves silently through the tinned crowds of people and looks over things.

At present, he’s simply looking out into the endless blackness, thinking over the things that he’s heard and found.

Threaded | Flat

Questions?

NPC interaction: Max

NPC Interaction: Annie

NPC Interaction: Random NPCs for the investigation.

NPC Interaction: The Sphere Itself.