etrayamemes | TDM 007

Entry tags:

!tdm

TDM 007

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⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( Ignoring the whole mention of Xavier. This... can't be.

The only Icarus he knew of had been one of Apocalypse's men of the Elite Mutant Force. Where he, himself, had once been imprisoned. He stares to him — everything flooding back. His escape, Forge, Cyclops and Jean, Sinister, Magneto, Apocalypse himself... the breeding pens and the camps. For a moment, he threatens to lose control of himself, left eye flashing a bright gold and a ripple of telekinetic energy spilling off him.

He reels it back in — the glow of his eye dimming and he stares to Jay there, brows furrowed. )

It's a you're one of Apocalypse's goons and I'm doing everything in my power to not punch you across time and space for what you did.

[ Jay does take flight at the eye-glow. He doesn't go far, just a few feet off the ground and back because, um, that's a reaction and he'd rather not be in the path of it again.

And then the accusation isn't what he thought it was going to be at all. Nothing about being a traitor who got a bunch of his friends killed because he was an idiot, no, something straight outta left field. It's so wrong that he'd laugh if it was a deadly serious accusation coupled with either a deliberate show of powers or a temporary loss of control. ]

Apocalypse? What are you talking about? I'm not anybody's goon, and there's no way I'd work with Apocalypse, are you crazy? Everybody knows what he did to Angel. I was a student on the New Mutants squad, and before that, I was on the Hellions squad. That's it.

( Nate stays where he is on the ground. If he wants, he could easily join him up there, but. For the moment, he stays grounded, fists clenched at his sides, staring up to him with bright blue eyes. )

Where I'm from you're part of the EMF and do whatever else it is Apocalypse wants.

( Nails gently cut into his palms but... he remembers Forge and his words — even recalls the things Sinister had said to him recently about control and how he lacks it. More than that, he reminds himself of different worlds— he's from one himself. With different worlds come different people and he has to remind himself this isn't the same Icarus as from his world, it's just a kneejerk reaction to certain traumas he still carries with him.

It's why he stays where he is and stares up to Jay there in the air. )

[ Really flying away's probably a bad idea, because the guy could drop him again with a thought, and Jay doesn't want to go through that again if he can avoid it. If they could work this out with words instead of rocks, that'd be... hang on just a second. ]

Is that why you hit me with a rock?

[ Sure looks that way from where he's flying. The guy's body language is furious, fists balled up so tight like he's still got half a mind to punch Jay through all of space and time. Jay's not coming down, but he doesn't know if he could win a flight race against a telekinetic.

I told you: I don't know Apocalypse, and I've never heard of the EMF. I don't know who you are, for that matter. You want to find a bible so I can swear to it?

( If he took off, he could easily catch him — stop him mid-air with his mind even, but. He still recalls Forge's words alongside Sinister's and... there's other versions of people. He knows this. Cable is another version of him, never mind Scott and Jean being alternate versions of his parents he never knew. But just the sheer thought of being around someone who had anything to do with Apocalypse and those pens— those camps...

He stares to him still. Doesn't say a word. Until he does then... but it's within Jay's mind. )

You can't win against me.

( Especially not in a race. )

But you don't look like him. ( A beat. ) The Icarus from my world.

[ Why are half the mutants their age so furious half the time? Some of them - Jay gets why they're mad. Maybe they've told him, maybe someone else has, maybe it's blatantly, unfortunately obvious why they'd be mad at the world, but it's not fair that they're all stuck with so much baggage -

Jay tenses when he hears Nate in his head. It's one thing if it's the Three-in-One linking everybody because the Blob is attacking the school. It's another when some kid he doesn't know just invites himself in.

Because I'm not him. Maybe I am somewhere else. Maybe you're in the Brotherhood. Maybe you're in a boyband. I'm not going to hold you responsible for that.

He tries to not think so quiet, so it comes across, but heck if he knows what thinking loud should feel like. Probably won't matter anyway, the telepath's already there. ]

Go on. You're in my head. Just check and see if I've ever even seen Apocalypse outside of a simulation. I haven't. When you're done seeing if I'm lying, you let me know.

( Well, if he's inviting him to...

Nate goes and does just that — searches Jay's mind for any trace of Apocalypse or anything related to the tyrant.

He keeps it as simple as he can. Doesn't inflict any sort of pain on him while he quickly scans for what he's looking for. True to the other mutant's word, he doesn't find anything related to Apocalypse and he likes to think he'd be able to pick up on Jay trying to hide that if there were.

Most of what he sees doesn't really catch his interest, but. Then he sees a familiar face there — two actually including Domino — in a particular memory and, after looking at it for a moment longer, he slips out of the other's mind, staring to him there still on the ground. )

How do you know Cable?

[ Hardly an invitation when Nate had already sashayed on into his brain, but Jay's not catatonic and the guy doesn't seem any more mad. Jay must have passed whatever test that was, because he's never met Apocalypse like he said, only to walk into a loaded question about Cable. Great.

Jay squares his shoulders and stares right back at him. ]

I know Cable because my brother knows Cable. Sam was on his old X-Force team, and I met them all when they came to the farm. If Cable did something terrible in your world, I'm sorry. I can't force my world to match yours, and it sounds like I don't want to.

Cable wasn't a thing in my world.

( He's... pretty sure anyways. )

I met him in the world I fell into before ending up here.

( Arms coming to fold in front of his chest, he regards the other mutant for a moment longer, unsure of how much he wants to say, if anything at all, before he glances away. )

He's annoying but he's not anyone I'd consider a threat personally.

The world you fell into...?

[ You can't just say things like that with giving more detail. Jay fell into Etraya, and then essentially got shoved through a portal here to Aphaia.

Well, more likely drug through the portal by Julian, but it's essentially the same thing. ]

You had something like this happen before you were here? And it wasn't Etraya?

[ Oh, right. The point. ]

I don't know if he's annoying or not. He's a middle-aged time-traveling X-Man who always seems to be in the middle of a mess. I was a kid who was mad that his brother wasn't coming home to stay.

( It's at this point, what with Jay being in the air and all, Nate gently lifts himself up into it as well, arms still folded there in front of his chest as he does. He eyes him. Not with suspicion or confusion. But almost... curiously.

Well. Maybe just a touch of suspicion, but. He feels that way towards almost everyone as of late. )

The world I'm from, Apocalypse has enslaved mankind and mutants either side with him or are hunted like traitors to their kind. I ended up somewhere else before ending up here. Another world but one where Apocalypse wasn't a tyrant in power.

[ He thought Jay was involved with that? Jay'd be insulted, but it's the kind of story that sounds just real enough. Just on the verge of a plausible nightmare worst case scenario that he could see how certain people would want it to happen. They'd point to people like Stryker and say he was proof that it's all that humans should be. ]

I don't know how I'd ever do that. My mom's human. Half my siblings might be human, we don't know yet. They're too little and it doesn't matter anyway - family's family. My girlfriend - she died because I was a mutant. I wouldn't - I don't know how I could be a part of that and live with myself.

[ He wouldn't be able to, that's how. ]

I don't hate humans. I don't call them any of the derogatory names. I just want everyone to have the same chance to live.

You all don't exactly give me much in the way of reasons to trust you.

( It's more in regards to Jay's surprise of how he'd linked him to that name — how the thought that this could be another version similar enough had quickly entered his mind when learning who the other mutant was. )

That's also not why you got hit with a rock. I told you. It was an accident.

( If he were really trying to hurt him, he'd do more than just telekinetically toss a rock at his head. )

How'm I supposed to give you the perfect reason why you can trust me if I don't know who you are? I know you're a mutant, if the telekinesis wasn't enough of a reason, you know that Jay Guthrie goes by Icarus, when I've never been an X-Man officially. Nobody outside the school knows that. You know enough to dig Cable outta my head, but he's not a thing in your world. So why even mentioned it if you don't know who Cable is?

[ Seriously, this is enough to drive anybody up a wall. When Jay realized that Laura was way too young and spoke a lot more Spanish that he realized, he didn't kick up a fuss about it. ]

You might as well ask me if I know who Captain Britain or Forge are. Sure, I do, but I've never met them. You want reasons to trust me? How about you hit me with a rock, accidentally, but I didn't try anything to get back at you and I flat out told you to go digging around in my head to see for yourself. You know a lot of people that tell you nah, go ahead and dig for gold in their heads? I don't think you do, and I don't need to read minds to know most people like their privacy. I trust you, and I've got no reason to.

[ He's out of arguments, but there's a nagging sense of I can't just leave him here to get in trouble. ]

If you can find it in you to trust me for the next ten minutes, we can go find Ms. Grey or Julian, and you can find out what's going on from one of them. Personally, I'm hoping for Ms. Grey. You and Julian'll get along like gas and a lit match.

( The way Jay says what he does… he can feel that his words are genuine — that they’re not a facade or a means to manipulate him. That there isn’t some other agenda he has with saying what he does nor does he mean to try and confuse him. Honestly, Jay’s probably one of the very few people who have been the closest to honest with him.

He floats there. Arms still crossed, white bangs gently blowing in the breeze that drifts by. Blue eyes stare intensely to the other mutant when the name Forge comes up and, after a moment, he looks away. If there’s another version of himself here — Cable — then of course there’d be another version of Forge. Of his parents. )

My name’s Nate Grey.

( At that, he looks back to Jay and just… stares. Telepath, telekinetic, the last name Grey. He should figure it out. )

Edited 2025-04-08 11:32 (UTC)

[ It doesn't take long at all to figure out, as he's only just gotten done saying her name. Jay wasn't aware of her having family, aside from the general way that everybody does. ]

You and Mrs. Grey-Summers related?

[ That ought to narrow it down, unless Jean Grey's got a sister who ran off and eloped with Havok.

... she probably does. ]

( It's more of a loaded question than it should be and, for a moment, he doesn't know how to respond to it because of his having been denied the relationship he's wanted and meant to be nothing more than a temporary weapon in a war he never asked to be part of.

Again, he glances away, blue eyes staring off. Wistful almost. )

She's my mother.

( Or, he would have liked her to be. Thanks, Sinister. )

[ That'd make sense. Telepathy, telekinesis, but Jay mistakes the looking away as trepidation, like the guy's worried that Jay's about to judge him based on her. ]

I only just met her here - never had her for a teacher.

[ Seeing as how she was dead for awhile, but will be back at some point in the future and knows him. ]

Uh, if she's even a teacher where you're from. She was in my world? I think this one's from mine - I'm just gonna assume telepaths can tell which world you're from.

I didn't know her where I'm from.

( He didn't know Scott either. Didn't know he had parents until after everything. A glance down, he lets his eyes fall shut — tries to not let his thoughts drift too far back to the world he came from and how it's gone now. He was supposed to stop Apocalypse and fix it all, wasn't he? So much for that

Letting eyes flutter open, he drifts there in the air, arms gentle at his sides as he looks around them. )

I landed in her world not all that long ago. I've only encountered her once.

[ Well shit, now he feels like crap for asking about her. He thought if someone had to politely twist away from talking about a dead parent, they did what he'd do if someone asked about Pa. Use the past tense, gently emphasize that -ed at the end of the verb. Not hide it in a contraction. She was my mother, not she's.

He flinches a little, clearly both embarrassed and empathetic. She's alive again in his world; how was he supposed to know that wasn't always the case? ]

Sorry. I thought maybe, if she had a kid, that... I shouldn't have assumed. My Pa died before I was 13. I'm not going to say I know what it's like, but some of the littles don't remember him at all.

( There’s a genuine flicker of confusion there on his face when Jay goes and almost fumbles with his words. It takes him a second to piece together what he’s saying and, when he does, he can only find himself staring to the other mutant. )

I wasn’t… born. ( He looks away then. ) Not in the way people usually are.

( A blink of blue eyes, he lets go of a quiet breath. )

Sinister made me from the DNA of Jean Grey and Scott Summers to be a weapon against Apocalypse. ( At that, he looks back to Jay. ) I never knew either of them because I didn’t even know who I was. Not until a little while ago.

( Looking back down, there’s a quietness that comes over him. )

I’m sorry about your father.

[ This conversation is swerving off the rails so hard, Jay's not even sure there are brakes anymore. Just... casually being Mr. Sinister's... what would that even be? ]

I know you're only trying to be nice, but I'm okay. I've heard sympathies with just about every word choice people can come up with, and you don't need to figure out a new version. Speaking of word choice.

[ He risks a glance over at him, but Jay's been trying to avoid eye contact when talking about hard stuff. Makes it easier. ]

Who do you want me to think of as your folks?

[ Because somehow Mr. Sinister is in the mix now, and Jay doesn't want to start theorizing or mis-stepping more than he has. ]

... and do you want my helping avoid her?

If you're trying to ask if I think of Sinister as my father, I don't. He's a madman who killed Forge and my friends back in my world.

( Something he'll never forgive him for, regardless of the things he's told him concerning his existence. )

I'm still trying to figure everything out. I haven't had the chance to because everything just keeps happening one after another for me.

( Really, all he wants is some semblance of normal for once in his life, but. Apparently, it's too much of a thing for something like Nate Grey to ask for. )

[ Well, that's a relief. A small one. It still makes him flinch, because he's gone and made it worse, but what was he supposed to do when everything Nate says seems to take his world down five notches in Jay's opinion? ]

Sorry. I didn't know, and you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, okay? I'm still going to stick with you for awhile 'cause... yeah, things keep happening one thing after another for me too. And for Julian. And - really, if you're a mutant, everything happens to you. I keep hoping there's some other choice...

( Relief comes to Jay but confusion gently comes to Nate as he looks over to the other mutant and it's written there all over his face. )

Why? ( A beat. ) What do you want to stick with someone like me for?

TDM 007

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