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.

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[ Anduin's about to answer Poe when Rey gets hold of him, and his half-formed name--"Prince And--" dies in his throat as he stumbles out of the cell. He dusts himself off as he walks, trying to regain some measure of dignity, but mostly just succeeds in looking sheepish. He takes a second, pressing his palm against the stone wall, catching his breath. His bones are still aching, and his head's looking to join the party, too. ]

My name is Anduin Wrynn. I'd like to know your names, as well.

[ He pauses, thinking about Poe, thinking about the depth of his injuries. Anduin had cast a significant spell on him, and it's left him a bit tired--he had expected breakfast in Dalaran, and now he's not sure how long it's been since he's eaten or had a drink. He wipes the back of his hand against his forehead as he goes on. ]

Did he ... do that to you?

[Walking and talking he can do, and as soon as Rey gets her hands on the kid and starts jostling him towards the exit he falls back to take the rear, hand wrapping around the blaster at his hip, eyes trained forward.

They weren't the only people down here, and now he's starting to think Kylo Ren might not be the only dark thing hidden in the shadows.]

Have you seen anyone else?

[He knows the boy's answer, so that one us for Rey. She knew more than he did, so maybe-

He his eyes flick away for a moment, to the boy- Anduin's- shoulder. Hard to tell, but he's pretty sure he looks tired. Then again, who knows how long any of them have been down here.]

I'm Poe. Poe Dameron- [He considers not saying more- a stranger, even a kind one, might not be on board with the Resistance. But he owed him. And honest was about the only thing he was good at.]

I'm with the Resistance. And yeah, he did. It's not the worst thing he's done.

[Even now the exact magnitude of the loss of the heart of the Republic isn't known. It might never be. Incalculable. The sheer, heartless waste of it. Innocent lives, people just trying to live their lives as best as they could. It's hard to even think about.]

And I'm Rey.

[Simple enough. Once outside the cell and back into the corridor, she looks left and then right and then reaches out again to catch a faint grip on the stranger's - no, Anduin. Anduin Wyrnn's sleeve. His glowing palms don't shed much light to see by, but they're subtler than a lightsaber and that's all she cares about in the moment. Grip sure, she nudges him out ahead with the clear indication that he follow the corridor in a particular direction. She's already been the other way, after all.]

I've seen one or two. Most of them were just as lost as we are now. [And had been lost in the darkness or whatever god rp time is stupid.]

[ Anduin obeys this mild directing, lifting one open palm in front of him so as to cast a wider net of light. He'd make it brighter, but he needs a drink. Hopefully there's water ... somewhere ... in here. He squints as he walks forward, his steps uncertain, his body feeling even more unwieldy than usual. He's only sixteen, but his growth spurt had hit him hard, and he still sometimes walks like a confused gazelle. Especially when he's got no idea where he is. ]

Er, the Resistance? What are you resisting?

[ They're humans, he thinks, but they don't look like anything out of Stormwind. Are they from the Masons' Guild? That would be bad. ]

And, sorry, but who is he?

[Just as lost as they were, huh? That's- strange. This is starting to seem more and more like one long, bad dream. Except his bad dreams ended different now.

Whoever these Alistair people were, they had a real odd sense of humor. There's a chance this is just a kidnapping- extortion, or maybe they were slavers with dangerous taste- it's not unheard of. Or maybe-

The question has his head snapping back around to Anduin, brow furrowing. Not being recognized didn't hurt his feelings or anything, he wasn't that proud, despite what his squad may joke. Still, a question like that? Odd.]

Where are you from Anduin?

[Heck, he though Jakku was backwater...]

He's a force user. The dark kind. Dedicated to wiping out hope and ruining as many lives as he can. A real piece of work.

[She's more than happy to let the two of them chat. The moment they reach the point the corridor curves away from this set of cells and into another, Rey takes a half step out from them and ignites the lightsaber with a snap-hiss. She's quick to score a harsh black mark into the stone, something that isn't an arrow but nonetheless indicates to her which direction they're traveling in. If they come back around this way, she'll know exactly where they are.

Not that she's hoping it comes down to that. After the mark is drawn, she's quick to disarm the saber and throw them back into the low light of the glow from Anduin's hands.]

[ 'Force user' doesn't mean much to him, but the rest of it reads pretty clearly. Someone who's done terrible things. He's familiar with that. He nods somberly, and then knits his brow at the question. Not many places for a human in Azeroth to be from, these days. ]

Um--Stormwind.

[ He smiles nervously, really hoping they aren't masons. ]

Prince of, actually.

[His attention is again drawn away, this time by Rey. He doesn't flinch at the sound of the Saber, which feels like more of a victory than he wants to admit. Still, it doesn't matter that they're both just tools, hers- Luke Skywalker's- was undoubtedly a less frightening thing, less malignant than Ren's. Still dangerous.

Good.

As much as what she did with it. It was a smart move. Hinted she'd been at it for awhile.]

Prince, huh? [Not like he wasn't used to royalty-] Ive never heard of it, though. Outter rim?

[(un) Educated guess.]

Hey, Rey. Do you remember how you got here? Last I saw you were on the Falcon.

[A prince? It's a good thing it's (mostly) dark because Rey is staring at Anduin again with something like a combination of 'gobsmacked' and 'suspicion' that makes the lines of her face both too wide and too sour all at once. What kind of Prince didn't know about the Resistance? What kind of backwater planet could he possibly be royalty of?]

I don't. [Answers while half distracted, still turning the thought of Anduin's princehood around in her head.] I was there and then... I don't know. I just woke up here.

[ Outer rim? What? What. Anduin's not unfamiliar with interstellar travel, but he's never actually been inside a moving draenei ship. The phrase, then, just registers as a half-sentence, lacking an object. Outer rim of what? He stands still for a second, frowning, letting himself think. He looks at the scorch mark left by the lightsaber--a weapon he's never seen before, despite having lived long enough to see just about every kind of weapon imaginable. Their strange clothes, their mention of a 'force' ... no, something's not right, here. ]

We're not where we think we are. Not any of us.

[That doesn't shed any light on the situation. It's close to his story. He was there, then he was here, and then things went to hell, which is actually even more mysterious. How do you steal someone off a ship without them remembering anything?

Unless they'd been drugged, but he didn't feel drugged. Actually, at the moment he felt great. Aside from the very real very present threat.]

I don't even know where I think I am. I guess getting out of these tunnels is about the only thing that'll she'd light on it-

[He gestures vaguely ahead of them with his right arm, which causes the bracelet he hadn't noticed before to catch against his wrist.]

Hold up. What's this?

[Wherever this is - wherever in the galaxy Oska is -, to her mind it doesn't really matter. What's important is that she's not where she's supposed to be. Neither is Poe Dameron or, presumably, Prince Anduin. Finding out the where and the hows and the point of wrist cuffs seems like a secondary necessity to getting out of the labyrinth.

Right?

--Oh, really, what does she know.]

I've got one too. [Rey turns her wrist, the silver bands glinting in the low gold light.] No idea what it is. --Do you have one? [To Anduin, squinting at his jacket cuffs.]

[ He taps the gold bracelet, fitted snugly on his wrist. He's wearing other jewelry--silver rings with the lion crest of Stormwind stamped on them--but this piece does look out of place. ]

It broadcast something as I came to. A garbled message.

[ His pace slows down as he thinks. ]

I came here through a portal. I mean, it was actually some kind of hole in the ground--the portal was meant to take me somewhere else. I thought I was still on Azeroth ... but now I'm not sure I'm even in the same universe.

[He chews his lip, bringing his wrist closer to his face, his free hand coming up to twist it on his wrist- a message? Which is as far as he gets before the bracelet starts speaking. He's not an idiot, it must be some kind of communicator, even though- a glance up at Rey makes it seem like she doesn't hear anything, and he can't see a speaker on the thin silver band.

But he listens, head tilted, staring at his wrist in a way that makes it obvious that he's listening. And that- clears some things up. Some. It also made their situation a lot more complicated than he was hoping it would be.]

I'm guessing neither of you heard that?

Heard what?

[It's a bitten off response, short for the fact that she's distracted by the process of wracking her mind to see if she can't place Azeroth. It doesn't sound familiar, but maybe that's just because she'd spent hours staring at the map to Skywalker, trying to place the systems and planets in her head. What if that was a tiny planet in one of those systems and she'd just missed it or forgotten it?

She shakes her head, attention fixing on Anduin.]

What makes you think we're not in the same universe?

[That's just ridiculous.]

[ He fiddles with his bracelet, and the same message that Poe heard plays back again for him. ]

There's ... something about trapped people. Survivors of some attack? And--recruits in the dungeons. That's us, I think.

[ He shakes his head. ]

I went through a portal meant to take me someplace else--and the portal dropped me right into some kind of rift. This certainly is not Azeroth--I'm open to all explanations.

What?

[Trapped- that wasn't what he'd heard, until, with a sound, static and interrupted, it is. It explains less, and more. If he was wondering about being recruited and then abandoned to the dark, to Kylo Ren, that probably explained it.]

Rey, listen- [He steps forward then, reaches for her wrist and sets his fingers to the bracelet with a tap, urging it up to the air in front of her.]

Listen. I'm not saying it's true, but it's more than we had to go on before.

[He's not sure how this tech works- it was a lot more advanced than anything he knew. Which went against the cold stone, the dirt and the quiet.]

[He might not know much about the tech, but it apparently doesn't take much. She brings her own hand up to touch the bracelet when Poe maneuvers her hand up and somewhere between the two of them, the message starts to play. She blinks, clearly caught off guard and distracted by trying to listen to all three of them - Poe and Anduin and the bracelet at once. This is--

Ridiculous, if she's being honest.]

Have you ever heard of anything like this? [It's a question for both of them if her glance from Poe to Anduin is any indication.]

[ Anduin fiddles with the bracelet, shaking his head, frowning. ]

Portals malfunction, but they don't usually take you this far. And I've been kidnapped, but ... never as a recruit for anything.

[ Just as a hostage. Just as the White Pawn. ]

No. This would be pretty elaborate for a slaver ploy.

[some traded in high-risk 'stock', but even a Hutt wouldn't bother with this kind of story. It was too crazy for one. Too expensive, for another.

So, true then. Maybe. Got unlucky- but Rey's there too, more than luck then. Some people said the force moved in mysterious ways. This was sure mysterious.]

You're right, though. We won't find out any more standing here.

[She can feel something in her jaw working at the prospect of-- what, exactly? How is she supposed to make sense of any of this? If they're somewhere so radically different, but still being hunted by the likes of Kylo Ren, does that really change anything? What is she supposed to do with any of this?

The lightsaber feels heavy in her hand. After a moment she shoves it into the bag at her side and tries to simply forget it's there at all.]

Let's move then.

[And she does: charging through the dim light toward the next intersection of corridors.]

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EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

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