TDM 007

[etrayamods]

content warnings for this TDM include: violence, potential death, body horror, physical transformation, loss of senses, loss of autonomy ⏵ arrival⏴ Arrival does not happen as Aurora usually plans for it. New characters are introduced to the AI, then informed of a mission that they are required to participate in before they can return to their home base of Etraya. A world called Aphaia is falling apart, and while there is nothing they can do to resolve this broken world, they can participate in the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Their mission is simple: step through the glowing purple portal that Aurora creates once they've had time to listen to her, and survive until a similar portal reopens in front of them, allowing them to return to Etraya. The Gamerunner's Stratagem is something they have been working on building for quite some time. She informs all newcomers that they will not be present on this world that long: their exit will appear to them exactly when it's meant to, allowing them to meet the others who have been recruited to save their worlds. She provides each and every arrival with an earpiece, allowing them to communicate with the other Etrayans. Aurora suggests taking a bag full of supplies along with them, which she will fill with a few generic items as well as any specific items they may need: synthetic blood for vampires, protein bars for those who may burn through calories faster, medication for anyone who requires it. ⏵ aphaia ⏴ Aphaia is a neon-lit, chaotic planet. Cameras are everywhere, every action and inaction is judged by the 'audience'. Towering holograms advertise upcoming events while flashing leader boards track the most "popular" players. Contestants are thrown into challenges, many of which are games of skill, survival, and deception all to keep the viewers entertained. Not participating is an option! However, avoiding playing along and not putting on a show will quickly cause participants' score to go down, and scores that reach zero? Well. Unfortunately, there are only so many resources left on Aphaia. Their wildlife has died off, their planet is falling apart, and most others in this galaxy were either destroyed from the inside out, or warring planets trying to gain control of remaining resources destroyed them to avoid others getting involved. Their natural resources are depleted, and only those who manage to keep their scores up are given the luxury of having any supplies. As soon as one steps foot on Aphaia, as soon as they breathe, they intake nanotechnology which tracks their oxygen consumption, their food, everything they do or need. As soon as their scores reach zero? They disappear. There one moment, and completely gone the next. Their communicators go offline, and while everything they were carrying will be left behind, no one will be able to find them. They are simply--gone, erased from existence. This is a death and counts as a death as outlined in the game FAQ! Please keep this in mind. "Points" that go towards their total score will be assigned to contestants from the moment they drop down on planet. This will be visible using the HUD on their earpiece, and will be randomized at the beginning. For the sake of the TDM, we ask that no one be assigned Paragon initially, but you're free to use other ranks! The possible rankings are: 100: PARAGON 99-80: LUMINARY 79-70: CHAMPION 69-50: CONTENDER 49-30: UNDERLING 30-0: SHADE Ranks may change daily, or even hourly depending on the kind of situation one has found themselves in. Are they having a very public break up in which it comes out that they wronged their ex? They may go from a Champion to a Shade before they can even blink. Did they save a defenseless reporter from the big bad villain of the week? They may find themselves quickly elevated up to Luminary and given all the benefits that comes with being upper class. The world is their oyster, they only need to figure out how they'd like to utilize it! Aphaia is broken up into four districts. The Colosseum is a dynamic battle arena where combatants fight for entertainment, with shifting environments controlled by the audience. Victories earn points, while losses depend on performance. The Symposium is a lavish social hub for top contestants, where alliances and betrayals are made under the audience’s watchful eye. The Agora is the public center of Aphaia, where contestants engage with the audience through polls, interviews, and challenges to maintain popularity. It also houses the contestants in high-rise apartments. And Backalleys provide hidden spaces with intentional blind spots for secret dealings, though the Gamerunner is always aware of what happens there. ⏵ st★rlight soirée ⏴ Something special is happening in the Colosseum. Lights flicker as the arena shifts, rearranging itself into a grand, glittering ballroom - if a ballroom had stadium seating, paparazzi drones, and an ever-changing floor plan designed to disorient those within it. Silver chandeliers pulse with artificial starlight, their glow refracted through the crystalline floors. Music swells, but it sounds - unnatural. It thrums through your veins, setting your blood alight with the urge to dance. Why is the ballroom designed as if intentionally put together to throw off one's balance? Well, it's time for the Panopticon Prom, of course! The Panopticon Prom isn't just an adventure in dancing and impressing your most recent crush. It's a test of endurance, cunning, grace, and charm. The floor beneath your feet moves as if it has a mind of it's own, shifting to the beat like a living creature all of it's own. It tilts, undulates, even vanishing in sections to keep dancers on edge. After all, it's difficult to keep up one's pace if they're falling through a hole in the floor to the foam pit below. Drones zip through the air, catching every stumble, every misstep, and every attempt to throw off others on the dance floor. This is a competition, after all; and what fun is a dance battle without having the freedom to thwart someone else on their road to victory? The rules are simple: You must dance with a partner. This can be an ally, an enemy, or someone you intend on using as a stepping stone to victory. It matters not, as long as you have one hand (or limb) on them at all times. The longer you last, the better your chances. Endurance is the name of the game, meaning one must pace themselves on the dance floor. While epic twirls and impressive moves will garner more attention, it may also hurt your chances in the long run. You may sabotage others by throwing them off balance, but keep in mind: everything is televised, and it won't stay secret for long. The arena adapts to the chaos. Expect sudden obstacles, environmental shifts, and sudden changes in the music's tempo. Gravity may shift, walls may close in, but participants can't let that stop them - they must continue to dance, if they wish to win. The audience is watching. Who will make the final cut and become Prom King and Queen? Everyone is vying for the titles: it doesn't matter what rank you started at when you joined the Panopticon Prom. Whoever wins becomes a Paragon until their points drop. There aren't many opportunities to sail through the rankings, but this is a sure way to do it. As long as they can keep up. ⏵ casino royale ⏴ Out in the Agora, another popular quarterly event is being set up! The Casino Royale has been destroyed countless times, but it seems as if the Gamerunner just can't let it go - every time it gets knocked down, it gets rebuilt. There is one rule. One must take a turn at the revolving wheel just inside the door as their entry fee, and whatever the wheel lands on, they must maintain until they exit the building for the night. Sometimes, this is easier: an effect they have no control over and cannot undo even if they wanted to. Sometimes, this is more difficult: an assigned task they must complete. Failure to abide by the wheel once means receiving a penalty. Twice? Certain death if caught by any employee. The wheel's effects are as follows: 1 You must speak entirely in rhyme. 2 Your body has become unnaturally delicate. The smallest injury hurts like a fatal wound. 3 You must avoid stepping into any sources of light. Doing so causes massive burns to appear on any area of your skin where light has touched. 4 You have been transformed into an animal! You can still think as you had before, but you cannot speak or communicate easily. 5 You have been cursed with supernatural strength, but cannot control it. 6 Time doesn't flow normally for you anymore. Each mistake you make makes you visibly younger, slowly erasing your experiences, skills, or even memories. 7 You can no longer form your own words, but only repeat what others have said to you. 8 You cannot meet another person's gaze. 9 You can no longer turn around, physically or metaphorically. If you try to return where you came from, you'll find that the pathway no longer exists. 10 You are given a specific letter that you must avoid using out loud entirely. "A"? Better hope you know enough words without one. 11 Every time you speak, your words come true - but never in the way you intended. Trying to control this is futile; the monkey's paw curls with every new sentence. 12 Within the casino, you lose the ability to feel anything. No pain, no pleasure, no warmth, and no cold. At first it may feel like a blessing - until you realize you cannot feel hunger, or tell if you're injured. 13 Regardless of if you've drunken anything, you still act inebriated. The effect only gets worse the longer you stay. 14 No one can see you. You are invisible, even if you are still able to reach out and touch or converse with those around you. 15 Any special ability you have is gone. You are reduced down to what an average human being is capable of - regardless of if you are human. 16 Violent impulses become impossible to ignore. You are rage incarnate, and you will be heard. 17 Every time you make a decision - to walk into an area, to start a conversation, anything, a small thread pulls loose from your clothing or your skin. Keep making choices, and you may become entirely undone. 18 You may speak freely, but for every syllable you say, your ability to hear slowly fades. You may want to watch your word count - too many, and you may not be able to hear at all. 19 Perhaps you arrived with a friend, or beside a stranger. It matters not: whoever came in either just before or just after you, you feel a powerful urge to protect them to the point of aggression. 20 Love is in the air - at least it is for you. Every time you meet someone's gaze, you feel the need to try and make them fall in love with you, through whatever means necessary. The casino is alive with the hum of conversation, the clink of glasses, and the steady whirl of the roulette wheels. Golden chandeliers cast a warm glow over velvet-lined tables, where fortunes are made and lost with the flick of a wrist. But something feels. . . off. The dealers never blink. The cards never seem random. And the house always wins - always. Maybe it's just paranoia, or maybe this casino is something more than just a den of chance. Tonight, you're not here just to play; you're here on a mission. You've arrived dressed to kill, blending into the sea of bodies filling the casino's floors. But you're not here to win points or boost your social standing - you're here to win intel. Somewhere in this casino is a single flash drive containing information on just how Aphaia maintains their system. The only problem? The House knows someone is coming for it. After all, they're well-aware of the game: whoever retrieves the flash drive will obtain information on how to flip the script, to change the rules of the game to fit their wants and needs, rather than following the current Gamerunner. After all, this is the Gamerunner's Stratagem that Aurora has sent them out on! Many apply for 'employment' within the Casino Royale in hopes of getting insider information on where the flash drive is hidden and what it looks like. However, it seems that even the employees have no clue where it has been hidden. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ This is an extension of our Aphaia Mission! We have included enough information in this post that catching up to current in game logs isn't necessary to play with it, but you are welcome to use any part of the Aphaia setting in your prompts as you'd like. Current players are also welcome to bring the events from this TDM into their in-game threads. This mission can happen outside of time as needed! Incoming characters will find themselves introduced to Aphaia as they arrive. Current characters may find Aurora calling on them to visit Aphaia after the current mission for the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Characters already in game are welcome to post to the TDM, too! Please mark them as current characters in your header. Threads can be kept as game canon as long as both characters get into the game! Please direct all questions relating to this log to our mod queries comment! All other questions can be directed to our FAQ. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

Logan Howlett | XMCU

[heybub]

arrival

[ To say he's disoriented would be a truthful statement. He has a headache but it's fading under the work of his healing. The bullet holes in his forehead take a little longer to close. The earpiece he hasn't put in. In fact, when he realizes it's in his hand, he looks at it then throws it on the ground. A few unsteady steps forward, lips parted, brows knitted. This isn't where he woke up. This isn't...

Aurora told him before he stumbled into the portal. But it doesn't make sense. It doesn't...]

Where the hell am I?

network. username: logan

When're we goin' back?

arrival.

[redvisor]

( He’s been through this before. The ending up in another world entirely and, in that world, coming across a member of the team who has a penchant for taking off— for passing through when he feels like it.

Figures he’d be passing through here as well.

He’s a little ways from where Logan is — making his way through Aphaia and trying to get a better idea of what he’s got to work with here when he spots the other mutant and he stops. Stares at him and the way he chucks the earpiece down to the ground through those ruby shades of his before he lets out a sigh. That about tracks. )

Well it’s not exactly Kansas, Logan.

( Hi, Logan. )

[heybub]

[ He can't be startled. He heard Scott approaching. Smelled him? It was weird kind of feeling, like he was getting used to his body again. When he turns to look at Scott, the bullet holes finally begin to close.

He doesn't look familiar. None of this did. ]

What did you call me?

[ Logan. Wolverine. Both are stamped on the dog tags dangling from his neck. ]

Network | UN: Laura | bless you and im sorry

[shoplifter]

[This place is undeniably both cruel and kind, but she's not sure which one it is being right now. The voice is instantly recognizable — and she goes through every kind of feeling before she settles on frustration. The staple of being a Wolverine is a hothead, though she tries her best not to let her sadness turn entirely heated.

The third time. This is the third time she has found him all over again.

This rude old man. Always running off. Always coming back when she finally accepts that he's gone. Taking a deep breath and fighting off hopeful optimism with a metaphorical bat, she asks with a mostly level tone:]

Go back where?

never be sorry

[heybub]

Back to where we come from.

[ The voice sounds young. Unfamiliar. She gets lost in a sea of other voices he doesn't have a name for. He'll try not to lose his patience, but he's short on that these days. ]

[shoplifter]

[He doesn't respond to her name, or her voice. It gives her pause, makes her think carefully about what she should say. He must be from before her — but he's lived a long time, and that could be any year. Was it just before getting sick? Was it just days before she'd shown up at his door, nowhere else to turn?

"You're up next in five rounds," the host tells her. She sits in her chair with her fingers tapping the armrest anxiously.]

And where are you from?

[heybub]

[ He doesn't answer for a long while. But she'll know he's still there if she can hear the subtle sound of him breathing. He tries to think, but anything beyond opening his eyes and greeting Aurora is. Gone. Just gone. ]

I don't know.

Arrival

[heartofthedream]

[ It's new and different—the connection she feels to Logan since she took on the responsibility of carrying all of his memories. A memory far, far than the length of her life, and yet now, so much shorter than the Phoenix's memory of all life from its first inception. Still, it's new, and not like her bond with Scott.

But another something else. Nebulous and newborn.
It pulls toward him, too—a steady tug.
(In that same just-shifted key.)

Until she finds its source.
Concern coloring her expression.

Her looks worse than the confusion he feels. ]

Another universe.

[heybub]

[ He could hear her approaching. Even if she's far away, the subtle strike of her shoes against the ground still hit his ear with near perfect clarity. She's coming his way, he can hear that too.

He's already turned in her direction by the time Logan's able to see Jean. She walks toward him like she knows him. But the only thing he knows about her is that he's never seen her before. ]

Do you know who I am?

[ Knowing that seemed more important than the where. ]

[heartofthedream]

Yes.

[ Even if the simplicity of the answer ends there. Because on one hands sometimes it's felt like she knew him better than himself since all the time skipping. But. Also, because he likeness is the same as that key, just a touch something different, something other. Reminiscent of Scott's, and if this is the Logan from his world, she might need to reach out for him. ]

Your name is Logan.

I'm Jean. You can't remember anything?

[ There's a cursory glance about the street, even as she reaches far beyond it with her mind,
making sure there aren't any groups they might be set upon shortly, while he's in this state. ]

[heybub]

[ He tries to remember because he thinks if he'd ever seen her before, even briefly, he would have remembered her. But there's nothing. It's blank. Empty. Gone. And that he can't get past that block frustrates him endlessly. How could there be nothing?

Giving him a name solves the mystery of at least one side of the dog tags around his neck. His name is Logan. ]

No. Who are you?

network: Storm

[agoddessonce]

That depends on where "back" is. Where is it you want to return to?

[heybub]

Away from here.

[agoddessonce]

That's hardly specific. How can you go somewhere when you don't know where you are going?

[heybub]

Cause it don't matter at this point. I just don't want to be here.

Network: Manny | Voice

[bigpoofymammoth]

If you're talking about going back to our worlds, don't count on it. None of us have a single clue about when it's going to happen.

[heybub]

Ain't worried about that. I can find my own way. I just wanna get out of here.

[bigpoofymammoth]

Well that’s the thing. As far as I know, the only way to get out of Etraya is if Echo decides to send us back. And even then, there’s always a chance that we could get dragged back to it.

arrival.

[vexant]

( logan stumbles through the portal and right into aphaia, but unfortunately, he also stumbles out right where julian's busy walking.

which has him taking several steps backwards, hands up in mock surrender as he

looks

up logan(???). the confusion hits on three separate levels because a: when the hell did logan get here. b: when did he get tall. and c: ... this is logan, right. it's not as if many people choose to look like that, unless they're trying to do a real good impersonation. except with the height all off. and okay, it's not an exact science, he doesn't look exactly the same, but - look, julian can figure that out, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discern logans from not logans.

just the thrum of his telekinesis in the air, the electric hum of it as it goes right through the guy rather than stopping to grab onto him and - that's definitely not a regular bone-y skeleton, is it. logan. yep. )

Seriously?

( don't mind him. he's just looking at logan with an expression on his face that's half between confused and disappointed. )

[heybub]

[ If asked, Logan wouldn't be able to explain why he's so heavy now. His body can carry the weight, but it feels heavy in that 'I'm not used to this' kind of way. Julian's just the unfortunate victim of Logan's graceful arrival into Aphaia.

It takes a moment - his brain feels like it's on fire - before he looks up to acknowledge he'd even collided with anyone. The guy is standing there staring and it sort just riles him up. Is he staring at those holes in his head that are slowly closing one by one? ]

Watch where you're going.

[vexant]

( (un)fortunately, julian's witnessed significantly worse gore than just a few holes in wolverine's head. but it does mean that despite the fact there's holes in his skull that are actively healiing, he doesn't look bothered at all. this is just another ordinary tuesday at xavier's. the watch where you're going comment is, also, extremely common. enough that julian scoffs, but he doesn't back up any.

come on, logan. you can not be a dick for two seconds maybe. julian can't. but that's different. )

First off, I was here before you. Second - who the hell did you piss off this time?

( don't mind him, julian is just going to extend a hand out towards logan and without touching him, just - sift through insides to make sure there's nothing else stuck in there that shouldn't be. he can telekinetically dislodge it if need be, and he knows logan will just patch himself up so there's no point in being concerned over his well-being. )

[heybub]

[ Great question. Who had he pissed off? It hadn't even fully dawned on him that he didn't look that great - holes in his tank top where he'd been shot and stabbed and burned. Hair wild and unkempt. Dirt and grime caked on his bare arms. If you held up a mirror to him, it would have shocked him again.

As Julian's telekinesis works its way through him, it hits the first two bullets lodged in his back. Logan makes a face as they move, the pain feels searing. But they come out and drop to the ground. So does the one in his chest and the two in his skull. By the time it's done, he's down on his knees, trying to catch his breath. ]

What the hell was that? What did you do?

arrival

[fourthwalled]

Logan! Heya, buddy! [Shouts out a friendly sounding voice, and possibly familiar?]

It's a battle planet or something, keep up! [The red suited menace walks up beside the new arrival. Wade's only just portalled on this planet himself, but he's been in Etraya before... although not here. But he's pretty good at rolling with the insane punches.]

[heybub]

[ It hasn't been easy, but he's gained his bearings somewhat now that the initial shock of his arrival's worn off. He still doesn't have the first clue about what exactly is going on, but he's at least looking a little less like a lost puppy. Or Wolverine, I guess.

He doesn't know why, but that voice really grates. ]

I ain't your buddy.

[fourthwalled]

That's what they all say. But I grow on you. [He saddles up closer, arms crossing as he contemplates their surroundings, adding under his breath-] Like a fungus.

So, which way you headed? Thinking Colosseum? Casino? I think I also heard something about dancing?