voidtreckermods: (train)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2021-05-09 06:48 am

What their Eyes See: Start

"Good Morning Voidtreckers, today is day five of the month of Llama." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation and Arrival

As usual they have a couple of hours before arrival to ready themselves for the mission ahead. As promised the dressing carriage is open for them to find suitable clothing. Trench coats, a lot of leather, a lot of black with neon colours thrown in here and there. There is a lot of choice in a variety of sizes so everyone is bound to find something to fit. Hopefully something they like, though some passengers may be more comfortable with the fashion choices than others.

A couple of hours after the announcement of the mission the voice speaks again. "Shortly arriving in system #93426194992. Arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train shakes as it leaves the void, colours fading to be replaced to a grey thick smog outside the windows.

The train bumps slightly as it hits rails, snaking its way towards the city before entering a tunnel. A few moments and they come to a stop, the doors open onto a platform. Stepping out into the station the first thing to hit them is noise, it sounds like there are ten different advertisements blaring, someone or something is playing loud music. There's a lot of flashing signs, screens with advertisements, bright lights that change colour for no real apparant reason. Heavy on the senses as they make their way to the gates.

They will find that their SCAs allow them through the barriers and into the wider train station, which is somehow even louder. It is busy as well, people hurrying from place to place. There are signs declaring this to be Tier Three, Home of Manufacturing. as well as signs pointing the way to lifts, to take them to other tiers.

Tier One

Mapping

For those travelling up to tier one the first thing they will notice when they leave the lift is, it is a lot quieter up here. Peaceful even, there are people around, all looking official and busy. None will pay the Voidtreckers any mind unless they are acting particularly suspicious.

The air feels better here, probably because the whole tier is encased with a dome that they will be able to see as they enter, coming from a lift near the edge of the tier. The buildings are all harsh dark metal, almost uniform in design. The streets are clean and there has been an attempt at greenery with some shrubs and simple plants.

The buildings all need to be accessed using their SCA's. Their SCA maps show them where the buildings are but give no information about them, nor do they have maps of inside. Once the voidtreckers enter they will find that their maps fill in as they explore.

There are plenty of different buildings, offices, labs and meeting rooms. There are also a lot of security staff and anyone acting too suspiciously will be approached and questioned. Hopefully they have a plan, blend in or sneak around.

Flickers

Sometimes though that is a little harder, they might enter a room to find themselves on their old street, in a world they have visited before on the train or somewhere else that is decidedly not here. These illusions get more common as time goes on and people will begin seeing the illusions of others or find the two scenes merging together.

Voidtreckers who are immune to illusions will not see these strange visions and those who are particularly strong willed will be able to fight them off. Once people know they are illusions they can focus through them to see reality even if it is overlaid with what their minds want to see. It will take a lot of concentration to stay focused and get an accurate map.

Tier Two

A Mystery

The lift here brings them out into a glass covered corridor. Outside the glass the air is thick with smog but the filtration systems means that the air seems fine inside, especially with their SCA's helping out. Outside the tunnels they will be able to see the lights of hovercars zipping around and the silhouettes of buildings. Office blocks and large houses make up this sector. Large billboards blare out advertisements at all hours, neon lights shining through the smog.

The atmosphere of the sector is one of fear, people hurry about their business, keeping an wary eye on their surroundings. The newcomers won't get too much scrutiny but people are likely to be very wary if approached or questioned.

But they will talk once they guage them to not be a threat. Murders. Six people dead, from inside their own houses. Locked doors, security systems, all for nothing. Is it a serial killer? But the reports suggested an animal attack? From what animals?

Getting access to the houses will take some negotiating or breaking and entering. The bodies themselves have been cleared by law enforcement, caution tape still up to keep out any nosy public.

The rooms the bodies were found in were all rooms that used holograms as decoration and the voidtreckers will realise when they enter them that these holograms seem a lot more realistic than some of the others they might have seen in their stay in the sector so far.

Creatures

As they talk to people, or overhear gossip they will hear more about animal attacks. Someone swears they saw a lion prowling the streets. A hovercar crashed and the driver swore they had been attacked by an eagle. Neither of those creatures live in the city. Neither of those creatures exist on this world anymore.

But the Voidtreckers will quickly learn there is something to these rumours, especially as dark falls, the feeling they are being hunted. A paw tread, a tail disappearing around a corner. As days go on they may get attacked by a bear, a tiger or perhaps a creature from their own world, one that should not exist here at all...

Tier Three

A Crisis

Leaving the station brings them into crowded streets, air thick with smog, Up above them is the floor of the plate above, set with bright lights to offset the lack of natural light getting through. Billboards and screens blare advertisements, traders yell their wares. Life is fast and swirls around them as they step out into the streets.

Here also there is an air of worry. The talk is all of Spectura, kids unconcious after playing video games, hospital overflowing. Spectura's fault, there are calls for accountability, claims of sabotage. No person gives the same story and it becomes clear that most people don't know what has happened but almost everyone knows someone who has been affected. Fear, blame, tensions are high.

But life must go on, the factories never stop, people can't not work and with so many people unconscious people have to pick up the slack. The whole sector feels at breaking point.

If they try and buy Spectura systems they will not be stopped though they will need to sign a waiver, to take on all responsibility for what might happen to them if they go into the system.

Spectura


There are a whole range of games to look through, though the two most popular ones where the majority of players can be found are an open-world farming MMO called AgriTopia VI Ultimate, with bright landscapes and calming diegetic music, and Aegis Force, a tournament team shooter with short battle scenarios and smaller maps.

Those entering the system will fall unconscious in the real world and as they enter the problem will be pretty obvious straight away. Red vines, covering everything, tangling trees, creeping up buildings, coming straight for them to attack.

Anyone who gets overwhelmed by them will be stuck, unable to move or progress. It is possible to fight them off and for those voidtreckers who have faced the vines before they will find their soothing powers will work here as well.

People are tangled throughout many different games and once they are freed will need some help to find the next save point or exit. They need to help plant the final hundred potatoes, or team up to take down the level boss or solve the next puzzle, keep the vines away and free as many people as they can.

Tier Four

A Way In

As they leave the lifts they will find this tier is dark, dim lighting barely penetrating the smog. Homes are makeshift and all on top of each other. The streets are crowded, loud and people don't stop to chat. It is incredibly claustrophobic, with large support columns, exposed wires and large pipes running alongside and over the 'roads'.

Here there are plenty of stores selling anything and everything, certainly not above board. Credits are sometimes accepted but more often store keepers will prefer to trade in barters, food is popular. Anything that isn't nutri slime or the even worse unbranded basic version.

Bars and other seedy establishments are open all hours, neon signs beckoning. It is here that they will find the entry points to the fighting rings.

People don't talk about it openly but you look big enough, mean enough or dramatic enough then it will be slipped into conversation. Have you heard? Winners get a dream come true.

The fights are a mix of one on one and group fights. All terms are negotiated before hand with an overseer and fights are to the yield. The crowd wants a show and so dramatics are encouraged.

What was that?

The rumours about people going berserk are spoken in whispers. No one really knows what has gone on. A few fights have gotten out of control, a couple of fighters broke down after fights, at least one has quit for good. Most spoken about is The Crimson Fist. The best fighter in the ring who two days prior just left. Left the city with no protective gear, no word to anyone. No one knows what happened to them.

As the voidtreckers get further into their fights they will begin to realise something strange is going on. That opponent you are facing? They now look like your worst enemy, or perhaps your best friend, your lover. Sometimes you're no longer in the city but in a place of fond memories or your worst nightmares. Fights can very quickly go south when your opponent believes you their greatest foe.

Advancing the ranks now seems like it might be more difficult than first it appeared.
knifewithnoname: (caught!)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-14 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
She stared at Alice in shock, how could she not see? She spins round to keep an eye on the other fighter.

She should just fight. She can do that. It doesn't matter who it is.

But it does. "Can you no be seeing?"

Surely this has to be weird for everyone, after all they are identical. Why was the audience not confused at how she might as well be fighting herself?
irrationally: (goodbye to reality)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-15 08:07 am (UTC)(link)
Alice shakes her head.

She figures that's the clearest message she can give here. The girl apparently can see something she can't see, because no matter how much she looks at the boy, nothing about him looks odd to her at all. Nothing that should be obvious enough that it should stand out even when the girl only says that much.

But what does that mean? What's going on here? Is the girl hallucinating?

"You should get out of the ring! There is something odd going on!"
knifewithnoname: (running)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-15 10:00 am (UTC)(link)
Alice is shaking her head, she can't see anything wrong. Which means something is playing with her head. Was it her opponent. And if it was then how did he know?

Anger replaces the fear pretty quickly which is useful, she can deal with anger a lot better than she can fear. Alice is calling for her to get out of the ring but she's alright now. This boy has stolen her sisters face, if it is his fault or not isn't the question here. She will beat him either way.

"You do be being dead." She growled at her and then pounced. It took her opponent by surprise and he went on the defensive as she attacked, months of discipline going out the window as she resorted to the scrappy street fighting she had known before she ever arrived on the train.
irrationally: (tell me what's my destination)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-16 10:45 am (UTC)(link)
Oh dear.

At first Alice doesn't see a full problem with it. After all, the boy got into the ring - he should have expected this sort of fight.

But on the other hand, there are troubling aspects to it. Mostly the fact that the girl isn't in full control of herself. There's obviously something controlling her, though Alice can't tell what it is. And the last thing she wants is for her to do something she'll regret later, something outside of her own control.

So she moves to climb inside of the ring, even though she can hear the protests of the watching crowd - but Alice has gotten very, very apt at ignoring the complaints of people around her - and moves to bodily grab a hold of the girl as if she's a particularly feral cat, trying to move them out of the ring before either the boy or the crowd can attack them.

"We have to get out of here," she mentions to the girl, trying to be audible despite the jeering and booing. "Trust me. I will explain."
knifewithnoname: (okay that's not good)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-16 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
She isn't expecting Alice to grab her, she kicks out instinctively but she trusts Alice. She is not stupid and there is not even any fire around so it's not as if she is acting on her feelings.

If Alice thinks they need to get out, they need to get out.

She bares her teeth, growling at the booing crowd, wanting to fight them as well. The boy, the crowd. Whoever was doing this. She would make them pay.

But she lets Alice pull her out of the ring, shaking with anger.
irrationally: (we've not sung before)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-16 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not quite the easiest thing to do. Getting her out of the ring while she's obviously angry, and while Alice is getting more and more annoyed by the second too with this crowd of grownass men who apparently wanted to see a little girl fight this desperately to be booing now.

But Alice, champion of ignoring annoying people and surpressing her urge to stab all of them, just shoves her way through the crowd while looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with anyone.

She finds some seats all the way at the edge of the room, near the wall, where practically no one is sitting since you have no sight on the ring.

It's there that she puts the girl down on a seat before taking one herself, huffing as she brushes some of her own hair back.

"Sorry that was so sudden, I didn't really have much of a choice." It was either doing this or ignoring it all, and the latter didn't feel right. But Alice likes the girl enough to at least offer apologies, rather than insist her way was the right way and no apologies are necessary. "But you were under the influence of something, and even though I have no idea what it was, I didn't trust it."
knifewithnoname: (quiet fear)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-16 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
She is still furious, wanting to fight but knowing that she can't fight Alice. She doesn't want to fight Alice. She wants to fight whoever did this. She doesn't even know who it is. She hates them. She hates them all. They booed her. That boy wore a face that was not his.

She wants to scream. She wants to smash things but what she does is curl up as tight as she could when she was put down on the seat and glares at the floor.

"I want to be killing them."
irrationally: (now the past is gone)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-16 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
"I know."

It doesn't sound like it's being said just to pacify the girl. It's a knowing tone. If Alice had been in her shoes, she's fairly sure she would have felt the same about all of it.

"But who knows what would have happened if you had tried to do that back there. Maybe they would have tried to kill you as well." Maybe she could have won from the boy, but that crowd? They would've torn her apart.

And Alice isn't just going to stand there and watch it happen.

"I think you were seeing something I couldn't see. Once we find out who's causing that, you can do whatever you want to that person. Promise. I won't stop you then."
Edited 2021-05-16 19:14 (UTC)
knifewithnoname: (But I don't want that)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-17 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
Alice understands, she never got scrunched nosed mad at her when she wanted to kill things or smash things. She understood. She was sensible too. Maybe they would have tried to kill her. Something had gotten into her head. It was stupid.

"They did be having no right to be taking that from my head."

When she found out who had done it they were dead, no question about it. But it was good to know Alice wouldn't try and stop her.
irrationally: (i was travelling through the past)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-17 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Alice stares at the child for a moment. She understands her frustration, especially at that age - that age where you feel like you could still get back at the world somehow for its cruelty towards you, and yet it's Alice who took that opportunity away from her.

It all just hits a bit too close to home for Alice, and so she can't quite help herself. Sure, it's something she's done with some of the other children around here, but never with this girl. Because she didn't seem like the type who'd want it, or even need it.

But seeing her so frustrated, Alice can't help but lean forward slightly, wrapping her arms around the girl and pulling her against her. It's not a tight hug, more light than anything else, but it's very much meant.

"You are right. It's a horrible thing that they did to you. And they deserve to be punished for it."

She releases a breath, and, at the same time, lets go of the girl.

"Do you want to talk about what exactly you saw? Perhaps we can figure out its source starting from there."
knifewithnoname: (okay that's not good)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-17 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)
She freezes as Alice's arms go around her. It's not her first time being hugged by someone on the train, Peter hugs her sometimes, Tony had hugged her. But it's still strange, more so because hugs used to belong to one person only and she is too bright in her mind right now.

But she doesn't fight, even leans against Alice slightly, not hugging back but just resting, for a moment. She trusts her, Alice won't hurt her and she won't laugh at her for a moment of weakness.

She scowls at the question. She doesn't want to talk about it but at the same time... She can still see her rushing towards her, that boy wearing her sister face.

"He... He did no be looking like himself. He did be looking like someone else. They do be being dead now so they can no even be being here."
irrationally: (i was travelling through the past)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-17 08:06 pm (UTC)(link)
"Someone you knew back home?" She asks. Alice figures that's got to be it, with the girl saying that person is dead by now, but technically it could have been someone who left the train and who she knew to be dead back home..

Not that she'll go fish for more details than that. She figures the most important part has been said already. She saw someone who shouldn't be here. Not the boy she was fighting.

"That means it doubtlessly must have been fake."
knifewithnoname: (serious)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-22 12:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yes it did be being fake." She nodded, "No one do be knowing her here."

Of course it might have just been her, rather than her sister. But it wasn't. She knew it wasn't. He wasn't copying her, he was wearing her sisters face.

"That boy did be getting in my head. Can I be killing him now?"

She was calm now, surely Alice could see she was being rational now.
irrationally: (now the past is gone)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-23 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
Alice slowly releases a breath.

"I don't think it was him doing it." She frowns as she says it, obviously still thinking about all of this. If it was him, she would have let the girl go to do so already, but she's trying to remember what he looked like, back in the ring..

"He seemed to be confused about the whole thing, as if he didn't know what was going on with you either." Not that it's a 'no', it's more just an.. 'I don't know if this is the right person to take out that anger on in the most satisfying way'. "Perhaps someone was projecting that person's image onto him."
knifewithnoname: (serious)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-24 10:38 am (UTC)(link)
It wasn't him? She scowled. Who else could it be? Someone else projecting the image? She doesn't like the idea of that. Not at all. That's stupid.

It's all stupid.

"So we do be finding out who did be doing it."

And then kill them.
irrationally: (and set sail for dreamsy)

[personal profile] irrationally 2021-05-24 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yes." This is something she can get behind. After all, it's better for their mission anyway if there isn't someone distracting all of them with illusions, right? No one could blame either her or the little girl for doing something about it.

"Stay near me while we look for who it is. We can't tell when they might try to target either of us with those illusions." Alice is thinking it probably mostly happens in the ring. It'd explain the eccentric behaviour of some of the fighters that she's heard people talk about.

But she'd rather not assume in such a precarious situation.

"And if we notice the other getting caught up in one, we pull them out. So I'm relying on you if something like that happens to me, alright?" .. Even if the girl can't exactly bodily carry her away, but Alice trusts her. The young girl is crafty. She'd find a way to snap Alice out of it.
knifewithnoname: (serious)

[personal profile] knifewithnoname 2021-05-24 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)
She looked at her, nodded. "I will be doing that." She was sure she could. Alice was strong yes and smart but she was sure she could help her if she saw something weird. She had helped Alice before when she had gotten weird and scrunch faced.

She could do it now, after all Alice had helped her now. "It do be being a deal."