EVENT ★ GILLIGAN'S ISLAND

[futurologists]

MAROONED Three days after the eruptions wrecked their havoc, a storm begins. It's not so different from the storm the recruits first encountered upon arrival, but this storm seems oddly and peculiarly driven. In some places of the islands it's nothing but pattering rain, but in other places it's strong enough to lift a fully grown human off his or her feet. And that's just what it does. It sweeps up recruits here and there -- not all of them, and there is no apparent method to who it takes and who it leaves. Some stay on the Nalawi islands, some are simply swept up into the sky. Here and there the storm grabs a Nalawi as well, but these victims are always dropped again. Sometimes out over the water, sometimes crashing down into land. They do not generally survive this. The recruits stolen by the storm aren't aloft for long. They emerge eventually from the tumbling, buffeting, blinding winds, spewed out onto the beach of a strange new island. This island, to anyone paying any attention to their surroundings, is a recent addition to the surface of the ocean. In fact, flying in the face of physics and statistical likelihood (much in the way the storm had), it seems to have recently been on the seafloor. This island was clearly once inhabited, although it's been a long, long time since then. Uniform structures can be found arranged in streets and avenues, now all thoroughly caked in barnacles, coral, seaweed, and other assorted debris of the sea. Here and there can even be found dead fish, suffocated when the water began to drain away and turn to open air. Most of them are horrifying, the things that tend to keep to the dark depths of the water. Toward the center of this empty, silent, sea-claimed city a giant sea serpent threads around and through several buildings. It's just as dead as the rest of them, its huge, pale eyes staring at nothing. There are a few things here that aren't quite dead, though. Sometimes something armored, dull red, and hungry crawls out of some dark place. These creatures can't really be compared to anything on the surface, but they are each about the length of a human, with three sets of sharpened limbs held up off the ground, used for stabbing forward to pierce its prey, and one set of pinchers below that. The pinchers might anchor prey in place for easier stabbing, but they also create a tiny sonic boom when clacked. Standing too close to this can leave you dazed and momentarily helpless. These creatures aren't fazed by the lack of water around them, they're just hungry and ready to feed on anything nearby -- even each other. The danger they present to recruits is at least slightly mitigated by an unknown force, though. If a recruit finds themselves unable to handle one of the creatures or overwhelmed by it, the storm itself will lash out at the thing. This isn't a very precise defense, but it is generally enough to pick up one or both of the contestants and separate them. Nothing here looks anything like what can be found on the Nalawi islands, except perhaps the flora. It's difficult to tell. What trees have been left are waterlogged, petrified mockeries, it's unclear what they may have looked like while this island still lived. The buildings are all very inorganic, made of processed material and with the obvious aid of machinery. Whoever lived here was actually very proficient with machinery, it seems. Within the buildings, some residential and some commercial, can be found the rusted, now-useless remains of a technologically advanced society. Personal belongings can also be found, waterlogged and largely ruined, and all in an upset as if they had gone through frequent and destructive earthquakes. Still, they can tell the story of mundane, day-to-day lives here for anyone who cares to look. Food is going to be a little tricky to come by unless you're a fan of seafood; fishing will be possible for anyone who opts to brave the edge of the storm, and of course there are the bizarre delicacies so thoughtfully raised up from the seafloor, dead among the streets and buildings. Recruits would do well to be careful with those, though. There is a particular kind of seaweed that, while it looks perfectly innocuous, will cause vivid hallucinations an hour after ingesting, for 10 minutes to three hours, depending on how much was ingested. Above all else, though, is the eerie silence. The storm rages on, but although it completely surrounds the island, it keeps to the perimeter. Even the rain stays off of the island, though the sun is obscured by the heavy, ominous clouds. Thunder rumbles now and then, punctuated by lightning flashes, but there isn't a single sound on this gray, dreary, dead island that wasn't made by an ALASTAIR recruit. OOC INFO Recruits will ICly be here for one week, and OOCly the log will last for two. The storm will prevent any travel off of the island. Should anyone feel brave enough to try risking a trip into it, they will find it still possesses that ability to literally sweep recruits off their feet. It might also be due to this mysterious storm that no one on the island can seem to reach out to anyone on the Nalawi islands via jewelry network, nor to any of the NPC recruits they'd met at Oska. Players who signed up for plot slots will be receiving additional information, which we ask they share with the rest of the characters. You may sign up here for information that can be found while exploring the island, as well. Please direct any questions to the OOC write up.

Comments

[respired]

[ Well, this is a lot of aggro. Ordinarily, it wouldn't be an issue, but Koltira's powers are not at their height. Still, he strikes their first attacker again, slicing it open about its middle, and then turning on his heel to stab at the hard shell of its companion. The shell cracks, but does not break; the beast staggers back, clacking angrily, though ice has already started to spread slowly over its body.

Koltira leaps away from it for the moment, turning towards the sly thing that snatched at Ashraf. He throws out his hand--he can still yank things to him. And this he does, with his shadowy whip, quick as a lightning strike. He holds the thing by its weird fish neck, crushing its windpipe, scowling. ]

Can you do anything, priest?

[healplz]

[ The question rankles, largely because it's not sure he can even give it a good answer. Ashraf purses his lips, eyes on the smaller creature as it meets its end. That happening a few moments earlier would have helped a lot; he can feel blood matting the leg of his pants, and the knowledge that he won't be able to immediately ease the burn of the wound is trying. ]

My talents are in magic.

[ And, since said magic is gone... no. He really can't do anything, and it's getting old. He runs a hand through his hair with a short, tight sigh. ]

Lead on.

[ Maybe he can get his useless ass somewhere and plant it. ]

[respired]

[ Koltira throws the monstrous corpse down to the ground with some force, looking satisfied as its cracked carapace crunches, crumples. He keeps his sword drawn and brandished as he moves forward, heading for the entrance to the run-down building. Once they arrive, he pauses, looking in, around. ]

What is this place?

[ Half to Ashraf, half to himself. It's too big for a house, and it doesn't seem like a hotel or other kind of business, either. He steps on stacks of torn paper as he walks in, kicks old pencils across the garbage-strewn floor. ]

[healplz]

[ Ashraf is silent as he follows Koltira inside, and his eyes take a moment to adjust. When they have, though, he drops them to the floor, to the shuffle of paper, pencils... ]

A school. [ He says it as he realizes it, and the thought adds a knit to his brow. He moves to one of the walls, peering in through a foggy, stained window to the room off of it. ] There, desks -- these were the classrooms, along this hall.

[respired]

[ He sees it, as soon as Ashraf points it out. The silence here is stifling, as though the clutter itself suffuses, suffocates the atmosphere. He feels the weight of memory in all this debris as they walk through, and he imagines what once was. He murmurs as they look through the largely empty and incomprehensibly filthy rooms, his voice soft. ]

Ah. I ought to have known.

[ He spots an intact door--strangely free of stains, either from water or age. ]

The academies of Silvermoon looked much the same after their devastation.

[ He pushes the door open ... what's in here? ]