Matsu Xiangu
The Haruspex
THIS EVENT WILL RUN FROM 10/20 - 10/27.
Option to continue if people want to.
Your DM's are Matsu Xiangu and @Six-O.
RULES/GUIDELINES
- Your ultimate goal is to escape. This will not be easy, and not so obvious as running out the front door. Although you could try.
- You do NOT HAVE WEAPONS. All weapons will be returned to you at the end of the event, in perfect condition. If you survive. Use the environment and what you can pick up to your advantage.
- There is no posting order besides the one you establish with your partners. Post as often as you like.
- Interacting with our NPC’s is GREATLY encouraged, but you will not be penalized if you avoid them! If you’re writing a killer story without them, that’s coo’.
- This is a freeform environment. We’ve given you the basic set-up and you must acknowledge our DM posts, but the rest is up to you. Create rooms. Set up scenarios. Escape NPC interactions through hallways you imagine, or fight them! Run wild. We’re only here to guide and challenge you.
- What gets you good marks? Creativity, pushing the story forward, good sportsmanship, and creating a fun environment. You will NOT be penalized for getting hurt, maimed, trapped, having bad luck, or making a poor decision. This is not about who does the best - it’s about who writes the best story.
- What gets you bad marks? Bad sportsmanship, ignoring your DM’s, making your DM’s or your teammates do all the story legwork, being a fun-sponge.
- IMPORTANT: All survivors of the Horrible Hawkins’ Hellish Halloween are eligible for an all-expenses paid visit to one of Maena’s REFRESH clinics. There, all wounds of any nature, including missing limbs, can be repaired should the person so choose. You can keep any sweet scars you want to though.
- All questions, anything at all, should be directed to the OOC thread. No question is a bad question!
HAWKINS HOSPITAL
Hawkins Hospital hasn’t been around for that long, though the building in which it found its home is ancient by Maenan standards. Repurposed and refitted, Dr. Hawkins saw his dreams come to life - at least in part. With intermittent electricity, unreliable water, temperature control issues, and any number of sanitation concerns, Hawkins Hospital never got off the ground. Its staff stays out of fear, knowing if Dr. Hawkins doesn’t get to them, the Orderly will. The paint is peeling, there’s mold on the ceilings and in dark corners, endless puddles of condensation, dirt and grime all over the floor. Everything seems blue, either from the cheap fluorescent lighting (if it’s working) or from the glow of the rest of the city’s neons flickering outside windows. Ten floors and a basement, it’s a huge maze of endless rooms and supply areas. Like most of the Hawkin’s family properties, it’s not far from the others - the smell of Hawkins Meat Hook drifts through open windows where they can be found, the lights of the school can be seen from here, and the Hawkins Manor itself is just past all three.
[member="Aria Vale"] | [member="Liya"] | [member="Kellyn Muir"] | [member="Greta Kohler"] | [member="Oran Shule"]
OPEN SPOILERS FOR STARTING POINTS
1. Aria Vale - 2nd floor: The room is dark, the tiles and stonework broken and chipped. Atop a soiled gurney Aria awakes, a sharp pain in her abdomen, her hands bound in chains and secured in a way that she can not wiggle or squirm free. Music plays in the Theatre, shadows loom all around them. The Force cannot detect actual life, but visually the image is imposing. Shapes and outlines of all size and make staring out from the blackness. The pain is so intense, uncomfortable. (See Greta Kohler’s start.)
2. Liya - Ground/1st Floor: Hearing is usually the first sense to come back after unconsciousness. Maybe it’s the steady drip of condensation off the moldy spots in the ce[iling that she hears first. Or maybe the slow, repetitive sound of something dragging along the tile floor to her left. Then smell. Then sight. The return of her eyes reveals the nurse dragging a limp right foot behind her as she moves off to the left, whimpering quietly. To her right is a corner that dips in to a stairwell that will either take her up or take her down.
3. Kellyn Muir - Basement: Electricity is a precious commodity this far down in the New City, and is intermittent on the best of days. Dr. Hawkins picks and chooses where the electricity is shunted in his hospital, and the basement is an afterthought - after all, only dusty old machines, unused surgical instruments, and the dead occupy this space. There is absolutely no light where Kellyn awakes, the smell of mildew and stale air the only indicators he’s even conscious. However, a light flickers off in the distance to the right. Behind that door is the morgue. But if he ventures further there may be other options.
4. Greta Kohler - 2nd floor: Same Location as Aria Vale, same scenario. Same setting. An old Operating Theatre. Music echoing from the walls eerily. Unlike Aria she is not trapped on her Gurney, but rather can instantly remove herself from the surface. She too suffers wildly from a certain sort of cutting pain, hers in her left shoulder, just out of reach for her hand to probe what the cause is. Aside Aria’s Gurney primitive medical tools rest, terrifying in their state of upkeep. They are dull, dirty and rusted. To free Aria, her abdomen must be opened, and from between flesh and muscle a key fished. Then for them to exit the Theatre proper, so too must Greta be cut. Down her back. (See Aria Vale’s starting point.)
5. Oran Shule - 1st Floor: Oran Shule was dumped rather unceremoniously in the Specimens Lab, a weathered face nearly pressed up against a specimen jar in which a small, deformed head floats in formaldehyde. One eyelid rolls back, revealing an electronic pupil - a camera, watching the stirrings of his return to consciousness as 300 million citizens eagerly await the start of their favorite show. Something deeper in the rows upon rows upon rows of tissue and limb specimens rattles a jar, the sound of shattering glass echoing through the cavernous room.
LOCATION 2
HAWKINS HIGH
Hawkins High is a bit of an anomaly. Education isn’t generally considered a priority among Maena’s lowest levels, so the burgeoning success of a school among its generally criminal elements was surprising to say the least. Before the TV-station took over the level in pursuit of this year’s location, rumors abounded that Eloise Hawkins cast a spell on the locals, or threatened them with bodily harm, simply so she could get a student body upon which to unleash her terrifying power. Shiny and new as if no one has ever set foot within its walls, Hawkins High is a large square made of three floors and a basement, with an open courtyard in the center filled with scraggly, poorly-grown trees, duracrete benches, and opposing statues of the galaxy’s great minds. The electricity here is generally stable, but in the off-hours many rooms are dark, the lights turned off with no one home. But Eloise Hawkins is always home...and she sees everything within her school’s walls...
[member="Imogen Daniels"] | [member="Jacob Crawford"] | [member="Venthis Zambrano"] | [member="Lark"] | [member="Vulpesen"]
OPEN SPOILERS FOR STARTING POSITIONS
1. Imogen Daniels - Second Floor: It’s dark when she wakes up. Maybe it was the discomfort of standing in such a strange position for so long, or maybe it was the clicking whirr of a camera staring at her through the small metal slits from which came her only light, but either way - consciousness finds her. The camera doesn’t move, watching and waiting for her realization when it becomes apparent she’s in the most classic of predicaments: trapped in the claustrophobic, dark, cold space of a locker with no one around to hear her.
2. Jacob Crawford - Second Floor: We’ve all done it. Fallen asleep in class, groggy and scared someone noticed when we come up out of stupor. The classroom is dark, lit only by the small space lamp glowing on the surface of an unoccupied teacher’s desk. As Jacob’s eyes open, the door gives an audible clunk as it locks him in. The Headmistress does not care that it wasn’t his choice to fall asleep - after all, those who cast this show aren’t nice when they take their ‘volunteers’. Though she’s nowhere to be seen, she can be felt as a pencil rockets past Jacob’s head, missing his face by inches as it shoots past him to impale the wall behind him. There is deafening silence for a moment before another comes shooting for his ear.
3. Venthis Zambrano - 1st floor: The water is green, the pool full of vibrantly glowing algae. It’s unnatural, it’s slimy, it burns the flesh in a very acidic sort of fashion. More than three hundred people had drown in the pool during the School’s heyday. Steam rises off from it’s water, and at the bottom, Venthis awakes. A tube forcefully pressed down his throat, oxygen seeping in to his lungs at an almost dangerous level. Pull the hose and surface quick, for once he stirs the oxygen shuts down. The Pool Room is in utter disrepair, clothes are waiting for him on a broken diving board and a sledge hammer to bash his way free through the barricaded exit.
4. Lark - 1st floor: Detention at Hawkins High was always a nightmarish affair, with a Headmistress whose powers made her the very walls of the School she controlled, to the vicious New City Monsters she employed for her specific brand of punishment - corporeal punishment. There are two others in the room - one of them just awaking like Vulpesen, the other. . . in what could only be described as nightmarish throes of agony before their final descent in to the blackness of the beyond. Louder and louder the person cries, another contestant that wasn’t meant to make it beyond the first room. But before Vulpesen can awake fully, the terrible deed has been finished, and the body left bloody and abused at the front of the class. (See Vulpesen’s start position.)
5. Vulpesen - 1st floor: Neither managed to witness the horror that befell the poor third party that was in their room. His body was torn and tattered, whipped and tortured with instruments that were made illegal in the Galaxy Proper many Generations ago. They’re able to move, able to investigate. Even with the Force they are unable to break the barred windows, pull down the battered walls, break through the locked doorway. The clock strikes four and the Headmistresses Voice speaks to them. They have ten minutes to find the key to the door, hidden deep in the bowels and guts and gore of this ill-fated soul before them. Lest they stay to fester and meet the cruel hand of her Dean the same. (See Lark’s start position.)
LOCATION 3
HAWKINS MEAT HOOK
Hawkins Meat Hook, while generally regarded as one of the finest Butchery Staples in the sea of rival and food savvy New City establishments, has fallen in to a state of disrepair at it’s oldest and first location. Now located in the heart of the Television Owned section of the Low Level it resides in, it’s become less known for the fine meat and cuts that comes from within it’s main plant and now is renowned for it’s savagery and the sentient slabs of meat that are ushered out in the off season. A place of horror and death. The massive plant resides at the heart of Hawkin’s Territory, a square of space in the crowded Level that has featured nine times in the last fourteen years making the Hawkin’s a household name in the New City. Built with crumbling, black, Maenan Brick, with windows broken and smoke stacks constantly pouring the scent of meat and Almakian Applewood out in to the urban center that is the New City. The smoke hangs like a fog around the plant, dimming the glows of neon from adjacent and close standing buildings. Inside there are a myriad of halls, large open rooms for carcass draining, halving, primal cut harvesting, and most importantly livestock preservation. The most common being Bladeback Boars imported down from the upper levels of the City. They’re kept in an artificial habitat that is as ugly and cheaply made as the crumbling building that surrounds it.
[member="Darren Onyx"] | [member="Kyle Raymus"] | [member="Xin Boa"] | [member="Causstik Rahn"] | [member="Zul Grimm"]
OPEN SPOILERS FOR STARTING POSITIONS
1. Darren Onyx - The conveyor belt on which Darren Onyx woke up was long and winding, sticky with the uncleaned filth of pounds upon pounds of raw meat processed along its length day in and day out for years. The massive slicing blades that scream at the end of the conveyor, hungry for new meat, haven’t been sharpened for the same length of time and no doubt that’d make for a rather painful and gruesome death should Onyx not find a way to release himself from the swiftly moving belt. Too bad he’s tied down to it, and that the key to free his ally will also be chewed up by the blades if he’s not freed. (See Causstik Rahn’s starting position)
2. Kyle Raymus - They’re packed in tight, the ground has turned to mud, blood. Filth and decay. The scent is wrong, cheap materials used in the creation of this Pen. This location of the famed New City Staple has known better days - it’s glory long gone. The Boars, Bladebacks, imported down from the richer Levels and Establishments in the Upper-Levels. They were of imposing size, scarred, some with milky eyes that were left blind from fighting and abuse. They had enough room to roam, but not enough to really feel free. Most importantly they had a very particular sort of diet. Sentient Flesh - with a particular taste for Human. Bound by a collar and staked in to the ground Kyle Ramus awakes to the nudges and shoves of an animal in hungered frenzy. An animal many times greater than his weight. An animal that has alerted the others that it’s found some food. Yank the stake from the ground, fight, flee, escape. Or help your ally. . . Kyle must choose. (See Zul Grimm’s starting position.)
3. Xin Boa - There is a sound of water - or something much thicker - dripping. . . it’s almost deafening. Chains are rattling, the sound of a hose spraying. The high-pressure burst stops, metal clanks the ground and heavy foot falls grow closer. A man, his belt weighted low with butchering knives, a greasy blood stained apron clinging his front brushes past Xin Boa forcefully. Spinning him on the chain he currently hangs from, a moment that enlightens our immobilised that this place is vast and full of death. Carcasses ready to be harvested and broken down. And The Butcher has found his next slab he wishes to work with. A young Zeltron boy - the perfect and most soft sort of meat for the food savvy Maenan’s to enjoy. The Butcher and the Boy disappear, leaving Xin Boa alone in this hall of death to discover he himself is hung from a butcher’s meat hook. And that he must suffer and ache if he ever wants to lift himself free.
4. Causstik Rahn - Rahn, also in the room containing the winding section of the conveyor belt that Onyx finds himself trapped on, escaped the fate of traveling its twists and turns. However, he’s in no less a bad situation. One arm chained to the tiles of the dilapidated wall, Rahn is effectively the only person who might be able to do anything about Onyx’s situation. But he better have good aim. There’s a big red button halfway up the wall a small distance away, and no shortage of things to throw at it if Rahn can reach something heavy enough - could it stop the conveyor belt? And more importantly, can Rahn hit it? He better hope so. Onyx hides the key that will let Rahn try and escape. (See Darren Onyx’ start position.)
5. Zul Grimm - Zul Grimm is in equally dire a situation. Buried in the rusty trough that feeds these frenzied Bladebacks. He is soaked with ribbons of flesh, shards of bone, thick and viscous blood. Organs and all manner of gore. His body his bound tightly, a collar choking him to the point where it was uncertain he would ever wake for the Shows delight. The Force is unable to break or unhinge him from this grave of filth and slop. Spear like tusks are beginning to dive in to the soup and chomp down close. He will have to rely on Kyle Raymus to use the stake he had been stuck in the ground with to unlock the device holding him, or use his wits and figure another way out. (See Kyle Raymus’ start position.)
LOCATION 4
HAWKINS MANOR
The Hawkins Manor. It’s stood as a monument of this family since long before the Level was mostly taken over by a yearly show that turned the New City’s love for Halloween, Madness, Violence and Extreme Excess in to a Ratings firestorm. Built during the heyday of the family, some four generations prior. It’s made of Maena Black Wood, a strange material that feels rough and splintery to the hand, but stands as sturdy and strong as the duracrete that envelopes much of the rest of the landscape around it. It’s a stones throw from Hawkin’s High, a brisk walk from the Hospital, and perpetually bathed in the Applewood smoke from the largest Hawkin’s Meat Hook Plant. The windows are blacked out and boarded, the section of mock-yard filled with all manner of trashed Speeder and other more sinister looking trinket. It stands four stories tall, with three living floors and an attic as well as a basement that goes below the surface of the construction platform this section of city rests upon. Full of doors and staircases that lead nowhere, long halls and creaky noises. It’s a place that has seen many lives end. Many more driven to madness. Can you survive the secrets and traps of the Hawkin’s humble home?
[member="Kyrel Ren"] | [member="Jorryn Fordyce"] | [member="Zahori Denko"] | [member="Asheda Tyr"] | [member="Halron Corr"]
OPEN SPOILERS FOR STARTING LOCATION
1. Kyrel Ren - 2nd floor: Masters of the Force, Bill may say. Weak ass sheep in a world full of wolves. There is no Force, there is not Sith and Jedi and Dark or Light. There is just life and death - and Bill. Bill is Death. He’s seen it all man, he’s rode the elevators and taking the cars, and followed the paths. He’s seen the blackest blacks, and once even saw the World from the lip of the Volcano. That unreal, surreal, unfeeling land. No duracrete, no narrow alleys and sprawling vertical blocks. That place don’t exist, maggot. Only here, only right now. Only this pain that Bill gives to you is the real genuine stuff you kark. You soft Core World kark! (See Halron Corr’s start position.)
2. Jorryn Fordyce - Attic: It is absolutely sweltering where Jorryn regains consciousness. Hot, humid, unbearable air sits stagnant with not a breeze of relief, sticking and cloying to her skin. It is dark, but the place is lit by the white glow of an image rolling out of a projector. It becomes apparent from the slanted roofing and wood that this is, of all places, is an attic. But the floor is solid - no ladder to push down, no hole to drop through, and no windows on any of the side walls. No escape. Jorryn could spend all day tearing up the floorboards looking for a way out, stuck with the horrid movie playing in the background. Bill’s voiceover describes his experiments in loving detail, images of his human ‘art’ on display as he discusses details of his atrocious creations as if anyone truly cared to listen. But hopefully Jorryn would listen. Because if she watched, she might see that the floor didn’t used to be this way. And it might help her figure out where the trapdoor to the second floor below is.
3. Zahori Denko - Basement: A giggle cascades down through the feet of bone and dried sinew that comprise the pit in which Zahori Denko wakes. Feminine, bordering madness, the laugh disappears with its owner. A soft, yellow light glows at the distant mouth of the pit, barred by dozens and dozens of old bones left under the house from generations of Hawkins. They’re an old family, ones that respect their elder’s ways. And they’ve had a lot of time to let this pit grow. From here it looks near impossible to reach the top, trapped at the bottom of some figurative well. But bones...bones might just be climbable… (See Asheda Tyr’s start position.)
4. Asheda Tyr - Basement: The uncomfortable press of knee, shoulder, hip bones, decades-old vertabrae, would no doubt wake even the deepest of sleepers. Asheda would find herself at the bottom of the pit along with Zahori, trapped under bones. Some stretches were free of obstacle, just the steady descent of foot and handholds made of projecting rib bones and eye sockets. Other parts were obstructed by skeletons, and there the two would need to crawl deeper in to the wall of bodies on either side, working their way through a maze to the top. Though, that laugh that had echoed from above sounded no more pleasant than their current situation… (See Zahori Denko’s starting position.)
5. Halron Corr - The room is lit with neons and Jack-o-Lanterns. The walls are sprawled and laden heavy iconic imagery from the New City. A place that is decidedly rich in grotesque Americana-esque, and gruesomely vibrant art styles and symbols. Bill is off on a tangent, Asheda and Kyrel are just coming out of their fugue to realize the things he is saying and the plans he has for them. He’s talking anarchy, isolationism, occult ideals and the overthrowing of all order. When his dialogue ends he abandons them to their own devices, lets them begin to figure out how to free themselves from this place the Force cannot touch. Resident Evil Biohazard-esque game ensues. (See Kyrel Ren’s starting point.)
The citizens of the New City, the Slums - Maena at large, eagerly await the start of their favorite yearly bloodbath!
They crowd around holosets at home, settle in at movie theatres playing the show on all screens.
The wealthier levels gather in squares to watch the games on the big screen.
Lower levels clamor in to bars, gather around stores with holosets in the window.
Who will survive?
Who will become crowd favorite?
Are the Hawkins the only villians among those broadcast to millions?
Stay tuned to find out!