Seems like crime has taken a step up from just purse-snatching or someone stealing forty cakes when no one was looking. Those with a great sense of hearing or who happen to be at the wrong place at the right time will find that the good people of Vatheon are in danger. It's up to anyone who is willing to help to work together to save the day!


( Something is happening in the lower district! )

( Something is happening in the middle district! )

( A string of crimes happening all over the City! )


( Something is happening on the Network! )

[They may also wind up stumbling or following a goon back to the actual secret base to listen in on a meeting at their own risk. Good luck!

((If you are open to being threadjacked, then please put Open in your subject line. If you have an idea already and want to play it out with a particular group of people, then please put Closed in your subject. Thank you.

Have fun playing out the scenarios, and feel free to drop a note in the subject line if Carol or the hotel owners are needed or if you believe characters may have solved the riddle! The location of the bombs is random and characters are encouraged to locate and defuse them on their own.))

Though things are certainly a bit busy, Station Master has decided to go ahead with the welcoming party for the new arrivals. Partially because he had decided to take this task upon himself and he certainly wasn't going to slack, and partially because making things appear as normal was as good a cover as they had right now.

However with how much has been going on, this party is not quite as extravagant as previous ones have been. The location is near to the elevator, on the beach. A large banner hung between two trees proclaims a cheerful 'Welcome to Vatheon'. The long food tables that normally take up most of the space are missing. There simply hadn't been the capability of whipping up the sort of food they normally served. What is there however is a lot of fruit. Fresh apples and pears. Bananas. A few bowls of strawberries and pièce de résistance several large and perfectly ripe water melons. One or two have already been split, the water melons pieces set out on small plates on one big table ready for any to take. Drinks are available too. Fresh water and fruit juices. The weather might not be entirely the best for this kinda thing (though occasionally the sun seems to peek out from between the clouds!) but at least it isn't raining.

But that is not all.

In the cover of the storage building turned bubble reparation headquarters sits C. She has been contacting the people who signed up for catching the fish, asking them to start bringing them to her today so she can start working on the marks. Similarly the people who have signed up for early mark change have been invited too to drop by today or in the next few days so the first step in making sure the coral is returned to proper working conditions can be taken.



[ooc: This month the monthly mingling log is combined with the log for the fish catching + early mark changing. Also, if your character is new but you want them to learn what is going on, please leave a small ooc note on your comment and we'll send a NPC your way. The mingling log part of this post is only on the first, in the afternoon. The fish catching and mark changing parts will serve as a collective point for threads of this nature for this whole week.]

[It has been a bit of a wait, the kind of wait that feels days longer than it is in reality, but Friday evening has arrived at last. It is a rather busy night, all in all.

First off, at quarter to ten while people are still gathering in the storage building, an explosion shatters the peace on the other side of the island. That scenic light house? Gone. The culprit? Unknown. Luckily, with how big the island is, the explosion is hardly noticeable in the village. There's a momentary shaking of the ground and smoke on the horizon, but beyond that little happens.

Station Master does not seem to notice or care about the short shaking of the ground, instead continuing to welcome people inside the building, occasionally making sure that nobody brought along their SFC. Inside the building is rather plain. Most of the items inside of it have been moved and put in other storage buildings. Some crates remain, mostly stacked along the walls, giving a seat to those that want or need it.

There are a couple things that stand out. The first are four tall devices in each corner of the room, glowing faintly. If anyone tries to come close to them and touch them, they are shied away by Station Master along with a promise that he will explain the devices once everybody is present. The other is a woman sitting on one of the crates. Some might recognize her as the one who had been cast in the role of the Cleric during one of the previous curses. For now, she does not engage anyone, simply sitting there silently, her fingers tracing over the mark on her wrist.

Once 10 pm rolls around (with a few extra minutes bumper time in case of stragglers), Station Master makes his way to the center of the room where he can easily be viewed and heard by all of those present.]


Good evening. I'm very pleased to see so many of you here. As you all know I've been contacting you recently over a possible way to fix the barrier below. Tonight I'll be giving you all the relevant information I know, and I'll try and answer as many of your questions as possible, so please do not hesitate to ask them. However, I want to underline that nobody will be forced to help. In fact, if my explanation does not convince you on why it is so important to act, you may all walk away from here tonight and continue on your own ways.


First, I want to explain the devices in the corner as I promised. These four devices are currently creating a barrier over this building making it impossible for us to be monitored while we are in here. I'm certain that most of you have come to this conclusion already, but your captors are monitoring your every move and your every conversation over your SFCs, which is why I asked you to leave them outside today.

In essence, while we are in here, you can talk freely. Nothing you say will become known to them, unless you repeat it outside. Anything planned within these walls would come as a complete surprise to them. If you agree to help me out today, I will let you have this building and the barrier technology inside. I can even try to set up similar ones in other locations or teach you to do so, however I must caution you that at best only a few of these barriers should be made. While a single blank spot will not be detected by your captors, if too many of them are created, they will likely catch on and investigate.

Now, first I would like to introduce someone to you.


[Here he motions to the woman sitting silently.]


This is C. Up until recently she was part of the group you have come to refer to as the Natives. Though she was not brought here from another realm like yourself, she was kept captive because she was judged to be a danger to the Vatheon experiment. Her memory had been taken from her and she was kept docile as all natives are. Recently she has started to slowly come to and regain some of her memories. These last few days she has been helping me put together a possible way for restoring the barrier below. It seems that the reason the barrier was failing to begin with and the reason why her memory has been starting to return to her have the same cause. Namely the fact that the coral has been starting to become desynchronized.

As you all know, you have been marked. These marks were supposed to act as a connection to the coral allowing it to cast these so called curses on you, but also to draw your energy in return. And this energy was instrumental in keeping the barrier strong. However the problem is that the coral is not a static entity. While it is not alive per se, it is also not unchanging. Over the last few years it has slowly been changing, whereas your marks have remained the same. This was a variable overlooked by the scientists. By now it appears that the marks you carry and the coral are so out of sync that it can no longer drain enough power from you to properly project the barrier that has been keeping the underwater city safe and protected. The connection has been muddled with too much white noise, so to speak.

Yet this is also the reason why C has been regaining her consciousness. Similar to yourself, the natives also carry marks, though for a different purpose than yourselves. Rather than being used to drain energy, they are being used to suppress them. With the link between the marks and the coral becoming this desynchronized, it seems C's connection no longer fully functions, giving her back part of her memories. There is a chance that in time more natives will become disconnected from the coral and will return to their true selves.

Together C and I have been creating a technique to change the marks which will hopefully bring them back in alignment again with the coral and restore the bubble. It is not all that needs to happen, but by doing this, we can solve 80% of the problem, we believe.

Now, I know this is a lot to take in. And I am not completely done yet. For now, I'll allow you to talk about this, and to ask both C and myself questions. We'll try to answer them as best as we can.


[ooc: Okay, you guys. Here it is. This is the post. We apologize again for getting this up so late. what we'll do is this. This post is pretty much a big free for all discussion post. Don't hesitate to jump in anywhere or at any time. This is happening in one room so it is easy to overhear other people talking and such.

There will be one separate thread for C answering questions and two for Station Master. With Station Master one will be for asking him questions directly and one will be summarizing the questions that have already been asked of him and answered. This is mostly to keep everybody from having to crawl through all the discussions. Please read up on what has already been asked via these bigger subthreads as much as possible so we can avoid having to answer the same question over and over. You are free to ask him any question you want, even if it's unrelated to this current plot. He will answer at his discretion. I know this might end up being a bit of a messy post, so once most of it has been threaded out, we'll put up an ooc post summarizing the proceedings.

Of course, characters are allowed to make their own threads to discuss among each other! We ask just one thing of you. If you character has a direct question to either Station Master or C that you want us to answer please mark 'NPC QUESTION' in your comment title. We'll be trying to keep up as much as possible, but this way we can quickly see where we are needed and where people just wanna discuss things among themselves for a little bit.]

Who: Vanitas & Kimblee
Where: up on the island!
When: backdated to Dec. 24th, ~evening
Style: [] just for speed?
Status: Closed


( ISLANDCEPTION )

Who: Vanitas + Kimblee plus anyone who wants to pester them!
Where: Around Vatheon/bakery
When: ~afternoon of Dec. 19
Style: any
Status: open!

<sub>[Five days.

Kimblee had five days to prepare for the plans he had in mind for the 24th and ensure that Vanitas was properly prepared for the weather on the island. He didn't even know if the teenager could even get sick but taking care of an ill person was something the alchemist didn't look forward to.

In an attempt to get the lesser half taken care of, Kimblee decided to drag Vanitas out to do a little shopping. Somewhere along the line the pair decided to take a break just outside of a bakery. For once, Kimblee decided to forgo the suit in favor of a white turtleneck and a pair of jeans, while Vanitas wore a hoodie and jeans. Who knew they could do casual?

After a moment, he reaches over to tug on a chain hanging from Vanitas' pants to grab his attention.]</sub>

Remind me before we head back home to bring you to my usual store. They have a few coats you may like.

<sub>[Gee, these two sure do share some resemblance with the gold eyes, don't they?]



[ooc; replies may come from both!]</sub>

Is it that time of the month already?

...No, today is not the start of shark week.

The Station Master's taken precautions to make this month's mingle party nice and laid back, after that rather magnetic week. Today, locals are all over the Plaza starting to put up the decorations for this strange holiday known as "Christmas", and they're more than happy to cheerfully rope any foreigner who doesn't look too busy into helping them.

The food tables are back, albeit with more drink than food. Hot chocolate, gluhwein mulled wine, a huge bowl of fruit punch, you name it, it's there. Foodwise, there's snowflake shaped crackers with cheese and meats, shrimp cocktails, cups filled with green or red jelly, and plenty of cookies to go around.

Near the food tables are the two usual booths, one belonging to the Welcoming Committee, armed with all the information a newbie would want to know, and the other belonging to the Host Club, manned by all the male eyecandy you could ever need. Have they done something special for their booths this festive season? Better sashay their way and find out!

Walking around all the tables and booths is what looks to be a giant lobster(???) in a Santa suit handing out candy to anyone and everyone nearby. It seems the locals don't understand that it's "Santa Claus", not "Sandy Claws."

Finally, it looks like there's been a new addition to the plaza. Was that ice skating rink over there last night?? It certainly fits the theme, and the locals don't seem to be surprised. They'll even help you lace up those skates and take them for a spin. Bundle up and try not to fall too much!

Who: Ratchet (last_lombax) & Kimblee (fulmination)
When: Backdated to August 31st/Wrath Day
Where: Throughout Vatheon/Lower district
Style: I'll follow!
Status: Closed

( Because messing with one Lombax gets the others riled up )

Who: Archer and anyone!
When: Evening, September 1st
Where: The Plaza
Style: Action
Status: Open!

( TL;DR Archer is new here, can you tell? )

[He stops and turns to consider the civilians. He rotates the gun arm so that the gun is in use.]

There are ways to get answers quickly, of course. Plenty of ways.

[The gun arm is then pointed toward the closest crowd of civilians and Archer raises his voice enough to be heard.]

I require information about this place. I will not have you waste my time with trivial information. Where am I? Why am I here? What is this place?

[...well, that's certainly one way to make an entrance...]

Characters: vatheon + an eventual mystery guest star
Location: island + new area
Time: all week starting monday
Style: any
Status: open - threadhop & theadjack away

[ after the kicked up damage wrought by yami in the south forest quadrant settles down and becomes surveyable by monday, characters are in for a little— or, well, a big surprise that is the secret research facility. the entrance of it is easy enough to find, thanks to the destruction— although a lot of the research facility itself is destroyed as well. the power still works, at least! although whatever network it had seemingly been hooked up to is currently (and likely permanently) offline.

near the ENTRANCE of the facility, characters will likely find a very large chart on one of the walls— it resembles a map with handwritten annotations and will undoubtedly prove useful in further exploration. there's nothing else interesting near the entrance, sans for a few empty desks and a trash bin full of what appears to be torn up employee information of some sort. the other areas that can be found will be as follows:

DORMS

↪ pretty self-explanatory, although they are extremely minimalistic and completely abandoned. it's likely that the scientists made use of these— some of the beds seem a bit unkempt, as though they were recently used; whereas some rooms have full garbage bins with various papers. many of them are unuseful or flat-out irrelevant, others appear to be outdated schedule data— the dates on most of the papers seem to be from a little over a year ago. basically, the bins are filled with what they were made for— trash.

VARIOUS LABS

↪ deeper into the facility, it's obvious that quite a lot of research had been being conducted within— multiple rooms seem to be arranged for just that purpose. most of the rooms are empty or have a lot of strewn tools within them as though they were emptied in a hurry. although one room in particular was left as it was; it's both locked and blocked off though, and might take a little force in order to get into. once inside, a completely white room will be found that might feel familiar to people who had been directly involved in a strange event that had happened quite a while ago... the room is slightly less white than any "experiments" might remember, however. in fact, there seems to be quite a bit of dried blood about the place. the blood can be found on nearly everything in the room— the table accompanied with surgical tools, the cabinet filled with both syringes and old vials of a blue fluid, and a prominent list visible on one of the walls.

MAIN LAB

↪ one lab in particular found further within the facility appears to be bigger and better than all the others— it's also the only lab with a multitude of computers. due to the power being on, computers will be responsive— although because whatever network they once runned on is no longer online, the only data accessible is offline data found within any harddrives or memory devices.

and there is plenty of that. however, any data found is heavily encrypted and unlike anything ever seen before, so even a normally excellent hacker will have a problem getting past the security walls; and the only file that can be opened immediately seems to make no sense whatsoever:

w3spEvU3

furthermore, nearly everything resembling paper evidence has been torn or shredded, as evident by the completely empty and ajar file cabinets— not to mention the fact that there are plenty of scraps of unreadable paper strewn across some parts of the floor.

SUBMARINE EXIT

↪ in the deepest part of the lab is a peculair hallway that seems to drop downward— which is curious, since the facility is located so closely on the edge of the island itself. although everything becomes clear should one reach the room near the end of the lowering hallway— a majority of the equipment is damaged, but it is indeed a submarine exit of some sort. could this be how all of the scientists left so suddenly..? in fact, most of the submarines are missing— sans for one, but it's quite old and probably nonfunctional in its current state. you're fully allowed to try and fix it, but it will take both a team of people and several weeks.

CONTAINMENT UNIT

↪ also in the deeper part of the facility, although closer to the main lab than the submarine exit, is a completely closed off area— mechanical doors and a digital lock that seems to be online block all from entering. the door seems to open automatically for a keycard, but there's also an emergency override function— that activates via a password. blinking in an almost mocking fashion, it prompts you:

enter password: |

Who: Roy Mustang & Anyone else.
What: The colonel returns to the city, though the landing leaves much to be desired.
When: Late Afternoon/Early Evening on the 5th of July.
Status: Open
Style: Any

Roy wasn't entirely certain just what he actually expected upon being thrown out of that pure white space, via the Gate. But landing in a body of water in a pitch dark location likely wasn't on the expected list. Getting to the surface was a relatively simple matter, unfortunately he had no way to tell which direction to go to get out of the water, provided there was actually an end to the water in the first place.

So Vatheon, which of you good good samaritan's will help the poor man out of the water?