> F L O O D < -- (A Mostly Text Adventure)

[fuzzysocks]

Dropping off partway. Will you need coordinates, or should I tell you when to drop me?

[kaninchen]

"Partway," you say towards one of the intercom speakers. "If you need coordinates..."

"That'd be appreciated," the voice says.

<I can send coordinates to their nav computer. Don't worry, it won't reveal anything about our mission. Just tell them that you're wiring them the coordinates.>

"Right," you say under your breath, then speak up once again. "I'm wiring the coordinates to you now."

"Just got 'em. Thanks. Feel free to make yourself comfortable back there. Should be some seats somewhere. Just don't mess with the cargo."

"Got it. And uh... thanks for letting me aboard."

"No problem. Do this all the time for Sanctuary. Just lemme know if you need anything." The intercom buzzes, then clicks off.

Okay... time to get comfy. Seats, somewhere? Let's go find those...

---

Somewhere else, a dim room is greeted by two figures.

One goes to shake the hand of the other. "Good to finally meet you in person." A rugged voice, gravelly from years of stress and combat.

"And the same to you, Jackal." This voice, robotic from a voice-changing mask. "If you don't mind, I'll still conceal my voice."

"No offense taken. I understand why you might not trust me."

"Trust isn't what's important here. The job and the money is."

"Straight to the point, alright. Well, first... let's get some light in here."

The gravelly-voiced figure, apparently named Jackal, goes to flip on the light switch, revealing the mercenary he's meeting with...

Describe the Mercenary. A name, nickname/callsign, age, height, weight, gender identity, skin color, hair type/color, and so on. Get as detailed as you wish. You can even describe the mercenary's weapons, tools, and armor of choice!

[fuzzysocks]

Name: Maurice Olgilvie
Callsign: "Blue Blur"
Age: 29
Height: 5’ 1”
Build: Lanky
Gender Identity: Cis Male
Hair: Spiky Blue Mullet
Outfit: He has white gloves, a brown bandana, a bomber jacket, blue jeans, and a signature pair of red converse with golden buckles on the side. Surprisingly less armor than you'd expect him to have.

[Morphimus]

Nov 19, 2020 18:00:40 GMT -5 fuzzysocks said:

Name: Maurice Olgilvie
Callsign: "Blue Blur"
Age: 29
Height: 5’ 1”
Build: Lanky
Gender Identity: Cis Male
Hair: Spiky Blue Mullet
Outfit: He has white gloves, a brown bandana, a bomber jacket, blue jeans, and a signature pair of red converse with golden buckles on the side. Surprisingly less armor than you'd expect him to have.

Seconded.

[guets]

Flora Cervantes, aka Lily of the Valley. she has sharp features and even an even sharper tongue. she is 34, 5'9", and built like a brick house. her hair has an auburn hue to it and is kept in a loose braid. she has only 3 fingers on one of her hands. she's dressed to the nines in combat gear and has about 12 knives hidden on her at any given moment, though she does also carry a pistol for ~special occasions~. she used to be a botanist and knows more than her fair share of poison.

[Fish]

Name: Marina Marks
Callsign: Cool Beans
Age: Late twenties, early thirties
Height: Average
Build: Average build with boobs that could be described as ‘totally poggers’
Gender Identity: Cis Female probably
Hair: Changes through a variety of increasingly cool wigs.
Outfit: She has cool glasses and lots of shirts with witty sayings on them. Also, her shoes light up if she stomps because she’s just that hard core. All her pants and skirts have pockets that can hold many things. She usually has at least three glow bracelets on at any given time because you never know when there's going to be a rave that needs attending.

Her usual method of dealing with her targets is to utterly demoralize them. If she were a DnD character, she’d be a bard who loves vicious mockery.

[kaninchen]

"I suppose all pretenses are up," the mercenary says, removing their voice-changer mask. "The name's Marina Marks."

A tall woman, clad in combat gear from head to toe. Overtop a ballistic vest, she wears a bomber jacket with various patches from her past mercenary allegiances. Some have a soft, subtle neon glow. Strapped to one thigh is a heavy revolver, upon which the words "Lily of the Valley" are etched upon the barrel. Her average height is offset by being simultaneously athletically muscled and voluptuously built at the same time. Her face is sharp, with a jawline capable of cutting steel. A pair of aviator sunglasses rest on a broken nose, and they whirr and click softly -- clearly they're not just sunglasses, perhaps some sort of tactical readout device as well. Her medium-length hair is dark, with several neon stripes. It could be a wig, though if it is, it's impressively real.

"Ah, but most know you by another name..." Jackal says with a smirk.

"Blur."

Jackal chuckles. "An interesting nickname. All my intel on you, and I still don't know why that's your callsign."

"I gotta keep some secrets from Solaris."

"Understandable." Jackal pulls out several credit chits, marked in various colors and monetary denominations. "So, when can you get started?"

Blur smiles, and one could swear that she's winking behind her glasses. "I already have."

---

> F L O O D <

> P A R T   2 <

> F A L L <

Choose: Dynamic, or Isolated?

[fuzzysocks]

Dynamic! (Also I like the antagonist, good combination)

[thesnackmonster]

Dynamic!

[Fish]

Yes, let's go with dynamic!!

[kaninchen]

You are shaken awake, not by hands but by a tremor.

^{"This is Sidewinder, cease fire! This is a civilian craft! We are unarmed!"}

The interior lights of the aircraft begin to glow red. A panicked voice buzzes over the intercom.

^{"I repeat, this is a non-combatant aircraft! Why are your systems targeting us?"}

"Strap in back there! We're taking fire!"

^{"Hello? Is anyone there?"}

"From who?" you shout, trying to tighten the buckles keeping you in your seat.

^{"This is Sidewinder, requesting an immediate halt to your ground-to-air defense weapons. I'm taking heavy fire!"}

"Ground forces, they have anti-air. I'm hailing them as a non-combatant civilian craft but they're refusing to listen. I'm going to pull some evasive maneuvers!"

_{"This is Blur, I read you."}

Muffled explosions outside continue to rock the craft, and your stomach drops as the aforementioned maneuvers take place. The craft rapidly ascends and banks to one side.

^{"Blur, this is Sidewinder. Are you in charge of the AA cannons?"}

"Damnit, grab two parachutes from the back. I swore I had one up here, but it's missing!"

_"Yes."

You unclip yourself from the seat and carefully walk to the back of the cargo hold, grabbing to anything that you can for stability. The craft continues to bank from side to side, and the walls rumble.

^{"Cease fire! We are a marked civilian craft and this is not a no-fly zone!"}

<This seems suspicious.>

_"Correct."

"What do you mean?" you say, voice barely audible over the explosions outside. Two parachutes are hanging from a hook.

^{"Blur... please confirm, will you cease fire?"}

<Missing parachute for the pilot. A civilian craft being fired at by military-grade weapons. This isn't bandits or something, this is a targeted attack.>

_{"Will you do something for me, Sidewinder?"}

You make your way back up to the cockpit. Cargo crates slide around slightly, held in place by cables and elastic netting, but it's enough to be unnerving. The air smells of smoke and danger. And then, a bright flash. There are no windows, but the sudden shudder of the craft and the blinking red lights tells you enough: something got hit.

^{"Yes, what is it?"}

"Shit, brace yourself! I think we're going down!" the voice says over the intercom. Your stomach drops even more, and your hair begins to float around your head. Rapid descent. You scramble to get back to your seat, but another explosion shakes the craft, sending you careening to the very back of the hold. You barely manage to grab onto a cable, but your sudden weight snaps it, sending several crates crashing around. One strikes you in the head.

_{"Do me a favor, and die."}

And everything goes dark once again.

And then you dream of...

[Fish]

kpop music. it reverberates thorough the abandoned auditorium, slightly muffled but ever present. you have no sense of what direction it's coming from and the words slip past your conscious awareness as easily as eldritch words chanted by cloaked priests. the smell of mildew and hotdogs rests over the large space and you feel the smells cling to your body and clothes without any any consent from you. it feels like something is watching you.

[fuzzysocks]

You're at the bottom of a pool. Abba is playing in the distance. Someone's down in the pool with you. You aren't sure why, but they terrify you. They aren't supposed to be here.

[kaninchen]

Another vision. It seems less prophetic, and more... unnerving... this time around.

Suggested Audio Experience:

You're alone. There are pools and puddles of water all around you, on a raised platform of sorts. You realize it's an open-air auditorium. Arrays of lights shine down onto the stage, surrounded by buzzing insects. The night sky is clouded over, but the puddles reflect stars and galaxies. Muffled music echoes all around you. The words are barely audible, enough that you can make out one or two words, but it still sounds as though it's coming from an unknown direction. Above? Below? Somewhere in the stands?

The seats and stands. They're dark. You swear you see a shadow moving among the seats. Something watching you.

You slowly walk across the stage. The pleasant scent that comes after a rain mingles with what can only be described as fat, grease, and rot. Cheap food, perhaps some sort of processed meat or crunchy fried soy bits with fake butter. Whatever it is, it permeates the air, making you nauseous.

Something vibrates on your arm. You look down, and see Valerie's screen. It's cycling through dozens of letters and numbers, pixels jumping to and fro as though scrambled by a giant magnet nearby. It finally settles on a sentence, for just a fraction of a second:

<YOU'RE SPECIAL. BLINK, AND YOU'LL MISS IT.>

Then, back to scattered letters and numbers with no discernible meaning.

Hm.

You blink, and you realize you're halfway across the stage now. Your prosthetic feet squish into a puddle, and you find yourself falling in. Falling, falling, surrounded by water. The auditorium lights grow fainter and fainter, until it's just darkness.

The stars reflected at the bottom of the puddle turn into neon lights. Gently, your feet alight upon damp concrete.

Suggested Audio Experience:

More muffled music, this time in a language you can't understand, pounds out from a nearby club. Even as you walk further away, the sound continues to thump through the air. Every beat of the bass reverberates in your chest. The air has a haze, a mist. A city street, skyscrapers looming overhead. Giant signs and advertisements glow and flash, but you can't read the words. Hundreds of people walk across the street, and hovering cars pass overhead, occasionally dropping down to let off a passenger.

You realize every person is a shadow. No features, and light does not reflect upon them. You pass right through them as though made of nothing but smoke.

One shadow, however, isn't walking and going about their business. It stands and stares at you from across the street. But before you can call to them, or walk in their direction, a bus comes down from the air into the street, and several passengers leave. As the bus goes back up, the staring shadow is gone. You shiver. Something about it was wrong. Like it wasn't meant to be here. It forced its way in here, just to see you. Just to stalk you.

A hand presses on your shoulder spins you around. Finally, a person who isn't a shadow. Red hair, shoulder length. Their eyes are a dark red, and they're wearing a white oversized hoodie with similarly warm-colored accents. Long thigh-high boots and leggings cover their lower half. But they give you little time to take in how they look as they grab your shoulders and shake you.

"Wake up! Come on! You have to wake up!"

"What?"

"WAKE UP!"

And then you blink.

The music stops. The city is gone. The shadows are gone. The strange person is gone. The vision is gone.

You're in the battered wreckage of the aircraft. Fires are burning everywhere, and the only thing pounding harder than your headache is the sound of gunfire just outside. A Conean in military gear is shaking your shoulders. "Come on! This place isn't safe! Wake up! Are you okay?"

[fuzzysocks]

How injured are we? Is Valerie alright?