epidemiology | 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

[ the frown on his face doesn't leave, but he crosses his arms once riku steps up next to him, thinking back to when he first arrived. he's not sure what to make of ALASTAIR but he supposes there isn't much they can really do for now except try to survive in this world. ]

You'd think they'd at least give us a choice of where we want to go.

[ what is up with organizations these days? ]

[ a snort. ]

Yeah right. Like they'd let us make that kind of decision if they can send people to worlds themselves.

Well, it's stupid. They're the ones that need our help.

[ they're no better than organization xiii as far as he's concerned. what a pain in the ass.

he shifts his rucksack over his shoulder before picking a random direction, nodding towards it. ]

Might as well find shelter before something else hits this dump.

[ he opens his mouth to make a quick remark and...

stops himself, because he just looks at the apple in his hand and his stomach doesn't growl--it snarls. he shuts his eyes and just rubs the apple against his shirt before he follows. ]

How long've you been here? Where were you, anyway?

[ he makes a quick shrug, movement sharp as he picks his way through the rubble. ]

Dunno. I woke up in the castle dungeon about two days ago. Not sure how I got there, but there were other people stuck down there too.

Of course, the one place I didn't bother checking.

[ he puffs an exhale as he follows, though he's slower. ]

Should I bother asking if this is poisoned or not?

[ are u for real. ]

[ flatly: ]

Yes, it's totally poisoned. Because that kind of thing is definitely easy to find in this scrap of a world.

Hey, I don't appreciate my face getting smart with me. We were just fighting each other, alright?

Then maybe you should think about it before asking dumb questions.

[ he'd stick his tongue out at him if he could, but he's not that much of a brat. ]

Didn't you just say I'm not your replica anymore?

[ no point in fighting him now that he doesn't have the organization breathing down his neck. ]

I didn't say you were a replica, I said you had my face. Twins have each other's faces, too.

[ he makes a bit of a face. ]

So what, I'm related to you now?

[ DEEP SIGH ]

That's what everyone's gonna think, might as well get used to it.

[ you're gonna get wrinkles from all that sighing you're doing, riku. ]

You'd think with the amount of people they pulled in at least someone would've heard about the concept of replicas.

[ well he's already grey, so it works. ]

You want someone to figure out you're a replica? With how many worlds there are, who knows what being a replica could mean in any of them?

Who knows what they'd wanna do to you.

They can try.

[ and more importantly: he's dead already. it's not like they can hurt him anymore than he already has been. ]

Ugh.

Man, I'm annoying.

[ ... squints at him.

is riku really referring to just himself or is that like a backhanded overarching insult that includes him too? ]

Yeah, I was calling you annoying by association.

[ clearin it up there ]

Not my fault they cloned me after someone obnoxious.

So you're not obnoxious, huh?

[ suddenly, it's clarity: his voice makes a complete 180. ]

'cause you don't have to be. I mean, [ he tosses the apple into the air before catching it. ] you seriously don't have to be. Nothing wrong with being nice.

[ you don't survive the organization by being nice, is what he wants to say, but ends up biting his tongue on it. it's not as if he never wanted to be nice, namine was the only one he was ever nice to, if he really thought about it. but even that was complicated in and of itself. ]

I never had a reason to be.

EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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