epidemiology | EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

The scene that greets you after the mist of world hopping fades isn’t a pretty one. You may remember Oska from your first, brief trip here — it was a stately, serene place, a grand castle usually wreathed in low lying clouds or gently sunny. Not so today. The damage done to Chantes by the demons and chimeras pales in comparison to what has been done to Oska.

Only one tower of the formerly impressive castle stands upright, the others have been knocked down and torn to rubble, some of which is still smoldering or in flickering flames. Most of the castle has been flattened, entire rooms torn apart and laid to waste. No exterior wall is without gaping holes, as if some army and their immense battering ram had needed a whole collection of entrances to storm this castle. Nothing is untouched, and worst of all, the underground larder seems to have been completely buried in a fall of rocks from the kitchen’s exterior wall. Even if you were able to dig it up, it’s dubious much of the food is unspoiled or intact.

If there is any up side to all of this destruction, it’s that no bodies can be found amid the mess, human or otherwise. Even the livestock are missing. Personal effects can be dug out of the ruins, and it seems very clear that this castle was populated until recently. There remains not one soul to tell what happened, though.

Well, almost not one soul.

The network that usually connects the jewelry is completely nonfunctional. Attempting to access it only brings up one static message, repeating for as long as you care to listen to it:

Something [ SHHKT ] --rrible has happ-- [ The message cuts out frequently, replaced with static. ] The-- [ shhhhhhkt ] came, they destroyed everything and n--

[ The static fades slightly. ]

We’re trapped. You’re on your own. But please, we ne-- [ shhkt ] your help. They’re still here. There’s worse to come. But when you [ SHKT ] --ind them, you can’t kill them. They need to be questioned. We mus-- [ shhhhkt ] know their motivations.

Some of the new recruits… they’re in the dungeons. You need to he-- [ shkt ] them, please. They can still be saved.

SURVIVAL

The dungeons are, of course, the only part of the castle left intact enough to present a challenge to escape. Some newcomers will find themselves lost in a labyrinth of cell-lined corridors, able to wander for hours before stumbling across any hint of daylight. How that’s even possible with most of the castle destroyed is anyone’s guess. Other newcomers might even be locked into the cells, with keys left nearby but just out of reach — or not. Better hope some sort of escape artist happens across you, if you’re one of those unlucky arrivals.

Food isn’t going to be easy to come across. You might try digging out the larder, but not much food can be salvaged from it. Are you going to put in the work to dig up a single shelf of intact loaves of bread, a cold roast chicken locked in a wood stove, and one barrel of apples? Maybe you try scavenging in the small, abandoned village outside the castle. This will uncover some food, but not much. Most of the food out there is either rotted through or missing entirely. You might find enough to last one person two days on your own, but who knows how long you’ll need it to last?

Wherever you find your food, if you find your food, rationing is highly recommended. Water isn’t so simple to find, either. There is a lake not far outside the castle walls, but the water in it tastes rancid, a sign to any right-thinking person that it’s no good to drink. Anyone brave or stupid enough to push through the taste and drink it anyway will find there aren’t actually any adverse effects, but is it worth the risk? Water can otherwise be found in very small amounts, collected by rainfall in buckets, on indented stones, in mislaid pots. It won’t be much, but if you search diligently it’s enough to keep you going.

Shelter will be a little easier to find… at least, at first. No one is using any of the beds in the village, they’re free to pick from as long as you don’t mind the eerie silence. If your character is particularly awful at scavenging, please see the end of this post.

HELL WEEK

Survival aside, that still leaves the question: just what did happen here? Characters are welcome to dig through the ruins for hints at what fate may have befallen Oska. We have provided a thread here to sign up to find belongings or other little signs of life, and try to piece together the picture. But what about that culprit, mentioned in the broadcast? Some characters will be able to stumble across very, very specific clues — riddles and puzzles, purposefully laid to guide the finders toward… something. Who knows what lies at the end of this oddly deliberate trail? You can sign up to find and solve the puzzles here.

Day one in Oska is easy enough to survive, an almost peaceful acclimation to the dismal scene. Things get a little bit tougher from there, though.

On day two the ground begins to shake. It’s just little tremors at first, easy to miss if you’re not standing still. But by mid morning they’re large quakes, enough to break some structures further. The quakes continue through the night and into day three, when they are large and severe enough to throw someone off their feet, tear apart a house, and even open wide chasms in the ground. They come with unpredictable frequency, anything between five minutes to three hours, but they definitely come more closely together as time passes. The village is safer at this point, without quite so many stones to shift and crush you, although those chasms are still a concern.

Come the evening of day three, the quakes stop entirely. A soft rainfall begins to patter down instead — still thirsty? Now is your chance to find some battered coffee tin and gather your drink. The rainfall continues steadily overnight, and by the morning of the fourth day it is a torrential downpour. It never lets up, not even once, and soon the water is more than the ground can handle. Flooding begins at this point, just a few inches deep in some places, more formidable in others. This also lasts for two days, and by the end of the fifth day in Oska most of the village is washed out. You’ll have better luck among the sturdy stones of the castle. Remember that still-standing castle tower? It’s not exactly the most structurally sound thing, but it is definitely out of the water.

The water stops very suddenly at sundown on the fifth day, affording a pretty peaceful, clear night. Come dawn of the sixth day, however, heavy clouds move to obscure the sunrise. They seem to flame around the edges in the light of it, and then in the middles. That’s clearly not sunlight lighting up those clouds by this point. The clouds flash from within as they build more and more heavily, but no lightning has ever been that flickering golden color. At midmorning the first drops begin to fall: not rain this time, but liquid fire. By noon the firestorm is at full strength. It swings between sheets of fire pelting down, and clearing up only to pelt down great fireballs. The rain-drenched village and castle can only fend off the rain for so long. Eventually the water evaporates and anything that can burn will burn. Time your ventures out into the weather very carefully, because the firefall never lets up for long, and that’s the kind of downpour you don’t want to be caught in.

OOC INFO

Is your character awful at survival? Can’t scavenge to save their life, completely out of food and water and about to expire? Wherever they fall asleep, they’ll wake up with a small, inexplicable wrapped bundle left next to their head. Within will be a half an apple, a single leg of chicken, and a very small canteen of water.

~~This log will last for one week, and there will be new information available on the 17th~~. As per our informal poll, this log will last ICly for one week, and OOCly for two. There will be new information available on the 24th. What the setting will be from here will depend on characters' ability to work together to catch whoever is responsible for these events.

You can sign up to find hints about the people who lived here and what may have happened to them here, and puzzles left by the perpetrator leading to the discovery of them on this post. Please direct any questions here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[That's certainly quite a flashlight, indeed. Keats has nothing of the sort - he never carries any weapons on him, and certainly not any ones that can shed any light. As far as regular flashlights go, he doesn't have one either. And yet, he gets around easily in the dark.]

[When Rey activates her lightsaber, and Keats steps forward from a nearby corridor to investigate what made that noise, it should be evident at first glance what he uses to help get him around. His eyes are glowing unnaturally with a purple light bright enough to fill the lenses of his glasses.]

[He produces his own light.]

What's that? [He says casually, after a pause, his expression curious - he's never seen anything like her lightsaber before. Is it a laser of some sort? He doesn't know, and he wants to find out.]

A fancy torch, I suppose?

Edited 2016-02-16 05:13 (UTC)

[The shape at the edge of the dark earls forward into the blue haze thrown off by the beam and all the short hairs at the back of her neck stand on end with the appearance of the man. Rey lowers the lightsaber, angling it more directly between them. It isn't that the man seems overtly threatening - not even the flow of his eyes is odd enough to put her off (there are plenty of strange looking people who drift through Jakku; occular implants aren't really that bizarre) - but he's a stranger in a dream.

Is that supposed to happen? Is she supposed to imagine people she's never met before with such clarity?

Rey wraps her other hand around the hilt of the blade. She bares her teeth and grits her answer out through them:]

Who are you?

[So not much of an answer at all, really.]

[Pity, she won't answer the question. Keats gives her a "really, we're doing this now? look, but decides to relent - he has plenty of opportunity to find out what it is, as long as she doesn't go and run off out of fright or something.]

[He digs his hands into his coat pockets, his accent probably somewhat foreign to Rey's ears (though who knows if there's a Space Ireland out in the depths of the galaxy).]

Keats. The name's Keats. I'm a reporter. [He tilts his head slightly to the side, like a curious owl.]

And you are?

[A...reporter? What was some HoloNet reporter doing here? The look that flashes across her face is pure confusion, the line of her mouth pulling and brow furrowing hard.]

Do you know where we are? [Her grip on the blade's hilt shifts and reasserts.] What this place is?

[She's a poor interview subject, apparently. Her name doesn't matter. What does is waking up - getting out of this dream or nightmare or whatever this is. The Falcon can't have much longer in hyperspace before they reach their jump end point. Once they reach it, she'll need to oversee R2-D2's new astronavigation calculations into the next system. Again and again until they reach Skywalker. She doesn't have time for...whatever this is.]

This is Oska. Used to be a nice place, I've been told, but since certain things went down, well...it's rather turned into a ruined mess.

[He never did get to see what it looked like before, which is a shame - he probably would've liked it in all it's fantasy-castle splendor.]

[He pushes his glasses up with a finger, not moving just yet - he can tell, just by her stance and her questions, that she doesn't quite understand what's going on. That's fine. He's patient.]

...You must be one of the new recruits for ALASTAIR, right? There's been some message telling us about saving some of you people from the ruins. You do know about ALASTAIR, don't you?

Edited 2016-02-16 13:37 (UTC)

[Oska. She searches her memory. A colony? Had anything by that name been on their navigation charts on the way out from D'Qar? --No. She snaps her attention back. This is dream, she tells herself. This isn't real, just like the message that had come pouring out of the unfamiliar wrist cuff was just a jumble of unfamiliar phrases.

ALASTAIR, though, that much is singular enough that she can recognize it.]

No. [Though the level of the lightsaber has dropped slightly, wavering.] I heard it, but I don't know what it is. If they recruited me [--the word tastes sour in her mouth--] I didn't get the holo.

The...holo.

[He arches an eyebrow, mentally searching his own personal vocabulary for anything similar to that word.]

Er, a hologram? [That's...sort of random, he has to admit.] Yes, well, ALASTAIR is some sort of corporation that kidnaps people to go help them save worlds and such. I'm one such recruit. You're in the same boat as me and the others, sad to say.

[Kidnapping. It sends a chill through her bones and crawling up her flesh. Out of one prison and into another? How had they found her in hyperspace? How long had she been blacked out down here for? Was the Falcon being kept somewhere? What about Chewbacca? How far had they taken her? Did the Resistance have any idea they'd been waylaid?

Something like panic rises in her chest, hot and sharp, but she lashes it down by instinct. No. Stop. Being frightened isn't going to help her. It wouldn't help anyone.]

How many others are there?

More than fifty, less than a hundred would be my best estimate. I don't know the exact number.

[Still, between fifty and a hundred is nothing to sneeze at. It always made him wonder just how powerful ALASTAIR was, if it could drag so many unwilling people into its schemes without consequences.]

Sad to say, you probably won't be seeing home for a while.

[So this was, what? Some kind of slave operation hidden somewhere no one knew to look for it? Well done, Rey. You've managed to drop from simple scavenger to legitimate conscripted labor. She doesn't know why, but the thought doesn't strike the chord that it should. For a second there, it'd seemed like things had been falling apart but in a way that meant something different, something worthwhile. For a second there it seemed like something was going to matter - that somewhere she was going to matter - but of course all of it goes to pieces. What else did she expect?

Nothing, she tells herself.

Her hand is going numb from the subtle vibration of the lightsaber in her hand. For a second she thinks about angrily double clicking the trigger on the hilt and shoving the saber back into her bag, but the total darkness wouldn't be worth the satisfaction.]

Alright. [She wants to say 'That's fine', but can't so settles for something equally simple.] Is there more to this than walking in circles down here?

[As she deliberates the nature of ALASTAIR and her purpose within its operations, Keats' attention turns to her lightsaber. He has no idea what it's supposed to be - some kind of fancy sort of torch? But it's oddly shaped, and the way she's holding it starts to make him think it's more "weapon" than "practical tool used to light up dark areas".]

[But he doesn't have the chance to think on it any more, as she suddenly speaks up. He smiles.]

Of course there is. [He gives her a casual shrug, as if the idea of getting lost in labyrinths is as common an annoyance as getting stuck in traffic.]

Want me to show you the way out? I'm sure you'd like to see more than the same drab walls over and over again.

[The way she rolls up onto the balls of her feet is a clear indication that she's thinking positive thoughts about that idea. The line of the saber wavers, but doesn't drop and after a moment her grip steadies again.]

Yes. Please.

[See, she's not entirely without manners.]

Good! Come along, then. [He says with a smirk, turning away instantly as if he was already expecting to show her the way out even before she gave her answer. His eyes provide a nice source of warm, purple glow for her to follow.]

By the way, I never did catch your name.

[It's not like there's much to say anyway, is there? She's not about to refuse the help in any case, so she steps in line after him even as he turns away. While she's careful not to stray too close - well outside of arm's reach, just in case -, Rey winds through the dungeon corridor in his wake.]

I'm Rey.

[No profession. Do scavengers mean anything outside of Jakku?]

Rey? Like a ray of sunshine? Or the musical note?

[As in, "re". He likes the sound of that name, though. It's short, simple, and somewhat to the point. Much like his own name. He smirks, turning a corner, but never going too fast for her not to catch up.]

I suppose I should give you an official welcome to ALASTAIR, but I don't know if you should honestly feel welcome, what with the state the world is in. If you have any questions, I can do my best to answer, though I can't say I'll have answers for them all.

Not like sunshine. I don't know anything about music.

[Like everything else about herself, that answer comes out clipped and curt. There's no reason to go into detail. Not about her. And there's no reason for anyone to know anything about her except the basics, if that.]

I wouldn't even know where to begin. What planet is this? Who's in charge? Where are their ships? Did they really just leave us here? [She's clearly just throwing out hypotheticals. She doesn't honestly expect him to have an answer to any of it, just spitting out whatever words find their way into her mouth. And then--]

Have you heard of the Resistance?

Re's a note in music, Just thought it sounded similar.

[A quick smile passes over his face that disappears as soon as she starts to ask questions.

Planet, I don't know. Persons in charge, that would be ALASTAIR, the organization who was behind our kidnappings. Ships, that...I don't know. I didn't see any transport. And I suppose they did leave us, even our communication systems are down.

[He says, replying just as quickly as she answered. The last one makes him pause as he thinks, but nothing comes up in his mind that relates to a "resistance"?]

Resistance? What, like one in general? Or a group called the Resistance?

[Hardly any of that makes any sense. Taken individually, fine. But in context? Knowing that before she'd arrived in this underground dungeon, she'd been relatively secure on the Falcon? None of that connects like it should. She frowns, brow burrowing hard, and shakes her head.]

It's a group.

[He should know that, shouldn't be? Even she knew about the Resistance and Jakku was as remote as it could get.]

Nevermind. It's fine.

...

[He's silent for a moment. A group called the Resistance. His curiosity pushes him to ask more, but he realizes that now really isn't the right time for it. She's lost in a labyrinth and entirely uncertain as to what being an ALASTAIR recruit means. It isn't right to keep pressing her for answers he knows she won't give him freely.]

[He puts the detail aside for later.]

...Hm. Well, let me tell you, you'll find that many others will have no idea of what you're talking about. We all seem to come from different worlds, you see. I've encountered people who don't even know of a place called Earth, for example. I wouldn't be half surprised if you were one of them.

I've never heard of it. [She doesn't hesitate to confirm his suspicions, her tone clipped and straightforward.] But that doesn't mean anything. There's lots of places no one's heard of.

[No one. Her. Same difference.]

Does that mean there are other people here from your planet? Has anyone said they're from Jakku? Or-- or Coruscant or Endor or Hosnian Prime?

[She's just throwing out names at random now - any notable planet she can think of, honestly.]

[There's a snrk from him.] If you said that where I come from, people would look at you funny. It's kind of hard to not hear about the only habitable planet in the system you'd be living on.

[And a shake of the head as he turns another corridor - they're almost out of these winding catacombs.] None of those ring a bell, sorry. And there are a few from good old Earth, though jury's out if they're from my version of Earth. Possible alternate realities, and all that. It's like stuff out of a science fiction story.

[What kind of person hasn't heard of Coruscant? Only he'd told her just then, hadn't he? Alternate realities. It sounds completely ridiculous - like something out of a holo drama, she assumes, though she can't say she's ever seen more than scraps of any of those. Then again, plenty of what she's done in the last few days feels that way. For a moment, just a split second, she feels-- exhausted

What about planets in other systems? How many are habitable there?

None, as far as we know of. Of course, we find stars and systems outside our own and such all the time, but only through telescopes and the use of satellites. We're still years away from building any kind of ship that will take us beyond our system. And as far as we have discovered, all the planets out there are enormously inhospitable to human life.

[He shrugs.]

Apparently its not the same in other worlds. I don't know how to feel about that. Still seems like a pipe dream, to me. [He turns the corner, letting out a slight "ah" when he sees the exit.] Here we go. We're out of this labyrinthine mess, no need to worry about getting lost in there again.

[They turn the corner and the scent of air - fresh, not the stale stuff she's been breathing in for what feels like, must be, hours - finds her like a blow. She blinks, momentarily shocked. Stupid. You should've been able to find this yourself.]

There are systems like that where I come from. [There must be. There are lots and lots of them.] I'm sure there are some people out there who are living at the same time and place as me who don't have any idea about what's flying around above their heads. Maybe that's how it is in your home too. Maybe someone will come to visit you and give you the thing you need to go.

[A silly dream, maybe. A few weeks ago she would've believed it more, but now it tastes oddly untrue in her mouth. It shouldn't - that's exactly what had happened to her, wasn't it?]

[He laughs at that, like she's told him a very nice joke. Oh, it sounds almost naive. "Someone will come and visit you." It's nice to think about, but...]

Ah, well, some people claim that such a thing has already happened. That someone's given us a "visit", so to speak. But it's never been proven, and more or less, we're still as isolated from the rest of the universe as ever.

[He turns back to her, the glow from his eyes gone - his eyes are normal now, dark in color.]

Still, people can dream, I suppose.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

day 3 (early)

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god sorry im a scrub

no shush you're good