00 - prologue

[afflictionmods]

PROLOGUE

It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing – something strange begins to happen. There's a sudden burning sensation that wraps around your right wrist and part of your forearm. If you glance at the affected area, you'll find that it's...glowing.  The glow is pale blue, and it's so bright that it hurts to look at. The burn itself isn't so painful that you feel like keeling over just yet, but it does hurt nevertheless.

But before you have time to try to soothe the pain, you start to feel lightheaded, dizzy. Perhaps some of you may attribute this to any injuries you may currently be sustaining. For those who were previously unscathed, however, there's quite possibly no explanation for this other than the sudden appearance of the mysterious burn on your arm.

There is no time to mull it over, though, because it is the last thing that you see before the world suddenly fades to black.

-----

When you regain your senses, your vision is blurry; but when it starts to even out and you survey your surroundings, you find yourself sitting in a rather uncomfortable chair. Looking around you’ll see rows and rows of chairs, all facing the same way towards a desk, a podium, and an empty wall. A projector hangs from the ceiling and the lighting is bright and artificial... For some of you, it might be reminiscent of a college lecture hall. For others, you might have never seen anything like this before.

Your wrist, by the way, feels perfectly fine...though there’s now some kind of strange marking on it. It looks like a scar of some sort, and if you choose to touch it, it doesn’t feel inflamed or damaged in any way...but that doesn’t mean you don’t experience any pain. Perhaps the last thing some of you remember is a hard-fought battle, and the aches from your injuries still linger; some of you might not even remember getting hurt, and yet, your body aches like it has; for the lucky ones who feel fine, well. Pray that it lasts for a little while longer.

Because the moment someone gets hurt – emotionally or physically – there’s a small chance you’ll feel it, too. Where and who and what it’s coming from, though, is on you to figure out.

In front of you on the desk is some kind of device – a tablet, for those of you who are familiar. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be capable of doing much of anything right now, other than take photos and videos with the Camera app. There's also a translating app for those of you who need help reading some of the text around campus, as it is all in English. (Verbally, however, you can understand everyone in your own language. Tablets are also in characters' native languages.) It seems to be incredibly durable and hard to break, but you may want to be careful with it regardless.

Something shifts in your pocket (or...in your socks/shoe/what have you, if pockets aren't a thing) as you move around. Should you reach in and feel for it, you’ll find some kind of card – those who are familiar with modern technology will recognize that this is some kind of card you need to swipe. It has your name and a photo of you on one side, and the back of the card has the word "KEYCARD" on it.

There are also other people here, scattered throughout this mysterious classroom you’re in. In fact, there’re a bunch of you — 29 others, to be exact.

And now... you’re free to do whatever you want. Mostly anything, at least, given that once you step outside and explore, you’ll notice an ominous fog behind the various buildings within view. Still, this is a good time to get your bearings, check on what you have - and don’t have - and talk to the people around you until orientation starts.

-----

( OOC: Welcome to your Intro Log! The partner system is in effect for the Intro Log, meaning that yes, pain share is happening! For some notes regarding the partner system, your character will not know who their partner is upon arrival. It’s entirely possible that they find out now if their partner gets or is already injured, or if they can pick up on their mood. Otherwise, they’ll find out later today...!

Anyone who tries to leave campus grounds will have to enter through the fog, but no matter what, they will mysteriously wind up back onto campus grounds. And for clarification, the keycards are what characters need to gain access to their dorms!

Finally, we will have an NPC Reveal at 6pm EST today! )

FULL NAV

(CODE)

Comments

common area

[vivens]

[ when fai comes to stretch out on one of the couches, sabo will be sitting in one of the chairs with a book in his lap flipping through the pages skimming over the images and words. he'll perk up when asked a question. ]

No, but thank you; I've helped myself to a few myself. [ he'll casually produce no less than five different candy and granola bars from his coat. ] Say, you didn't see anyone behind the counter when you were there, did you?

[ might as well. ]

[partymagician]

[ He situates himself on the couch so he can at least look at Sabo while he's talking. ]

Nope! I guess that means we can take whatever we want.

[ If not... oh well. ]

[vivens]

Until someone comes to tell us otherwise.

[ given that it hasn't been a whole day so they don't know about what restocks and what doesn't. ]

...but I'm sure even if someone did show up later, we could explain ourselves.

[partymagician]

How does the saying go? "It's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission"?

[ He nods. Yep. Sounds about right. ]

There wasn't anyone to ask for permission, so all we can do is ask for forgiveness.

[vivens]

[ with fai's answer sabo will let out an easy laugh as he tuckets away his "rations". ]

Exactly! [ a nod of his head. ] We're all lost and confused. Clearly they should be forgiving of us given our situations. It's not as though we intentionally meant to steal.

[ well, not all of them anyway. ]

[partymagician]

[ He laughs too. ]

That's right! Besides, they should know to lock up if they don't want a whole group of strangers from far away to grab a bunch of snacks and run.

[vivens]

Right!

It's honestly asking for trouble if they're just going to keep letting us run around like this without supervision, too. It only takes just one person to start something.

[partymagician]

It does!

[ But that makes him think... ]

I'm surprised no one has done anything dangerous. Well... anything we know of, at least.

[vivens]

Anything that we know of.

[ repeated for effect. ]

Maybe, if we're lucky enough, we've been grouped with people who are reasonable enough to not go around rampaging or breaking things carelessly.

[partymagician]

But that would be boring, don't you think?

[ They need to get some property damage going on! Too bad that's against the rules, even if Fai isn't aware of that yet.

And sorry that he's basically shown himself to not be in that reasonable group... ]

[vivens]

[ closes my eyes about property damage. wild.

and i, naru, have shown off how sabo has two wolves inside of him that do very different things... ]

Perhaps a little bit, but it's fine for things to be a little boring for a while.

[partymagician]

[ sabo you are amazing ]

If it’s boring for too long, I’ll look for ways to shake things up without property damage.

[ But not right now. He’s too busy lazing around on the couches in here. ]

[vivens]

[ amazing is one word you can use..... ]

Yeah? Shake it up in what ways?

[partymagician]

A party. Maybe some loud music, or camping out in the courtyard.

[ So, pretty tame things. ]

[vivens]

I don't think you'd have to wait to be bored to set something like that up. I'm sure there would be a few people interested in that.

[ because who doesn't like parties?? ]

[partymagician]

I'd have to be bored to actually feel like planning it!

[ He laughs. Look, he's pretty lazy so he'd rather just go to a party than throw one. ]

[vivens]

That's why you get someone else to plan it for you.

[ spoken easily. you know, delegation! ]

[partymagician]

So, you’ll plan it?

[ It was most definitely not an offer, but Fai sure is going to treat it like one! ]

[vivens]

[ nicely played. ]

I'm not good at planning parties, but I'm sure I could find someone here who is. If they don't volunteer themselves first.

[partymagician]

Let’s work together to find someone!

[ He grins. There has to be someone good at it in their little group.

He stretches. ]

Not right now, though.

[vivens]

I can agree with that. I don't imagine we're be going anywhere too quickly.

[ he'll give a stretch of his shoulders before lazily flipping through the d&d book again. he'll stop on a page with an ogre on it. hmmm.... ]

...say, do you understand any of the writings that have been found around this place?

[partymagician]

Nope!

[ He even laughs, clearly unbothered by it. But really, he’s just used to it. ]

None of the books here are in either of the languages I know. What about you?

[vivens]

Not a word, it was the same with me and someone else I ran into.

[ he's a bit bothered but it's really becoming one of those "oh. hm." sort of moods. ]

At least the illustrations are still nice to look at.

[ or ""nice""??? sabo doesn't care for ogres, thanks. ]

[partymagician]

At least we have those! It’s too bad they don’t always tell us everything we need to know.

[ Ah well. Sometimes the stories he comes up with are more fun. ]

I wonder if we’ll be here long enough to learn the language.

[vivens]

[ hmmm. ]

It doesn't seem like an impossible task to do if you try hard enough; it's all about time, isn't it? The first step is finding something to work as a base for the translations.

[ but sadly sabo is not exactly tablet tech friendly. he can fumble around with it well enough but he certainly hasn't spent that much time with understanding it at this point. ]