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The Mark of the Atlas

THE MARK OF THE ATLAS

Into the heart of the city you go.
Down below the lowest levels of the city, somewhere beyond the twisty maze of passages, several of the paths converge in a huge underground cavern. Here the air is blissfully cool compared to the desert above. A single shaft of light shines down from somewhere on the surface; motes of sand drift lazily as if suspended in the light. Elsewhere, the cave is lit by small clusters of glowing fungus that live off the moisture collected down here. Dim but navigable for most.

But perhaps the most striking items in the area are the monoliths. Great fragments of stone over three meters long, too smooth to be natural but too jagged to be whole either. Several of them glow from the pulse of energy running through them. Others, while dark, have recessed notches large enough for a person’s hand. And still another group seems nearly shattered, a larger fragment surrounded by smaller ones. All of them react when the interlopers draw close enough...

LIGHT

Upon closer inspection, the lit monoliths have a curious pattern worked into the tone. The symbols are rather arcane, but perhaps they make sense if one tilts one’s head and squints. This one has strokes that resemble tongues of flame. That one is covered in cascading, fluid lines. Another … well, that look more like a warning sign than anything else.

Interacting with these monoliths results in a warning crackle and the scent of ozone before the monolith opens. Something comes pouring out of it in response. Gushing water is the most common, matching up with the cascade monoliths; others open to flame or greenery or other odd things. And one definitely opens up into a vacuum. Careful with that unless you want to have something sucked out into space.

Whatever connection they make is brief and non-traversable, but whatever comes through stays on this side.

DARK

The unlit monoliths aren’t nearly as flashy as their glowing brethren, but they have their own stories to tell. With the help of a little light (and the suit), the interlopers will find that these monoliths are covered from top to bottom in alien script. Most have at least one solid crack or chunk in them - at the juiciest parts! - but there may be enough left to be intelligible, given a little luck.

VISION

The last set hum with an ominous energy that belies their dilapidated appearance. Interlopers who approach these monoliths trigger strange images that float in the air. No two visions are alike, though they all share common themes. Silhouettes descending to the surface of the planet and spreading out across it. Exploring and interacting with an alien environment. There’s something deeply familiar about these shadows despite the variety of body types represented by them. The shape of their clothing is reminiscent of your own suit...

Other snippets are set in space. Here the silhouettes are a darker patch of black against the darkness of space. The mood in these images is strangely pensive, somewhat tense. These figures are searching very desperately for something.

There is one, though, that’s different from all the others. No silhouettes, no searching, no space. Only a shaft of light starting from a point beyond this planet’s moon. At first it’s a too-bright star; then, a solid beam stretching down to the planet itself. The light increases in intensity and breadth exponentially until it impacts physically with the surface of the planet itself. The eruption kicks up huge clouds of dust that race towards the city with all the heat and speed of a pyroclastic explosion. It rises up like a wave...and then crashes down, burying the city.

Eventually, each of the images go dark once again.

BROKEN

Amidst the myriad of strange monoliths and now-flowing water? Is some sort of chassis. The ruined frame of an old robot of some kind, easily as large as a cement mixer's chamber and just as tall. Most of it lies buried beneath the sand, stuck near the far end of one particularly large chamber within the caves' network. It takes a bit of walking to get there, but there's a reward to be had for those who find it:

The room is not empty.

Standing in the exact middle is a strange, hulking figure. It stands at eight feet at least, a massive frame encased in black. Whether it's carapace or suit is impossible to tell, and whether or not it's alive is another story altogether. It stands perfectly motionless, skull-like face staring ahead at the robot's husk as water pools in through cracks and recesses, giving the ground a glass-like appearance through which tiny grass-like eels can be seen rising from tiny holes in the sand.

For all intents and purposes the figure seems nothing more than a statue.

Eerie.

OOC

There will be an 24-hour event encounter which runs from Nov 26th at 8:00am EST to Nov 27th at 8:00am EST. Feel free to let characters toy around & thread in the innermost areas of the city before the main event! Sections will go up in this entry and will be linked here when they are ready.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OOC

Intercting with this NPC will consist of a single thread only, so tag this comment to get started. "Boney" will reply once every (5) tags, meaning once (3) or more characters have threaded out (5) comments, it will reply.

This thread will close on November 26th at 8:00AM EST.

Reply to this comment to begin interacting with "Boney."

[ Eerie is one way to put it. Jim feels like the statue (if it even is a statue) could chill him to the bone with how creepy it is. Then again, he can't really tell if it's the statue itself or just the overall feel of the buried city, with its large chambers and echoes and dim lighting. The whole thing just makes him feel a little too on edge.

Not that he lets that stop him. He never has, after all, and he's made it this far so why stop now?

Which is why he starts looking around the room, studying the area closer to the figure, then stepping up close to it. Close enough to try and get a glimpse into its suit, reaching up to prod carefully and curiously at the mask. ]

hope this is okay!

astromechanic - 2016-11-22 01:21 (UTC) - Expand

and hopefully this is okay too

mousewhisperer - 2016-11-22 04:17 (UTC) - Expand

ATLAS: DETECTED. ELIMINATE AT ALL COSTS. The room of The Last no longer remains still. With the arrival of the Interlopers The Last can no longer be a silent statue. They beg, demand, implore: they want answers, they want to understand. And The Last can think of no other way to appease them than to answer. They reveal the location of their own Atlas mark, the orange circle on their shoulder: and from it comes the final message of The Last of the Travellers. Kharas is dead, the result of The Overseers' overzealous quest to destroy The Atlas. The First, the interlopers--those The Last of the Travellers tried to save. And the strange figure which calls itself "The Last", the one who watched and waited alone on the planet. The Last has to focus on the interlopers and does not see when the broken robotic hull at the far end of the chamber's three main lenses flicker with light. It records. It broadcasts, a single message: ATLAS DETECTED. And that's all that's needed. Without warning the floor of the room begins to shake, just subtly at first. The pristine surface of the water on the floor shatters as ripples begin to blur reflection, and it steadily grows until tiny waves form. All the eels vanish and The Last looks down just as the whole chambers shakes. The ground beneath their feet rises and swells like a bubble about to burst. And then it does. A large, tarnished blue claw rips its way up through the ground and into the room with enough speed and force to lodge itself into the ceiling. The metallic appendage digs in for purchase but slicing clean through the rock like nothing...leaving behind some very familiar-looking claw marks. It doesn't stop at just an arm though. Easily larger than the robotic husk lying at the far end of the room, this machine's arm alone is the length of a small vehicle. The head that bursts through the ground is the size of a grown man. Its torso is too big and wide to fit in the chamber. Three bright yellow lights mark its optic sensors as The Overseer Drone emerges from the depths as rock and water crumble around it and swings one massive, deadly clawed hand out towards the room's occupants. Right before it tears its way clean through the ceiling and breaks through to the city above. OOC The Overseer Drone Event will consist of a single thread only, so tag this comment to get started! It will reply once every (4) tags, meaning once (3) or more characters have threaded out (4) comments, it will reply. It should look something like one of the following:
Character 1 Character 2 Character 3 Character 4 Overseer Drone	Character 1 Character 2 Character 3 Character 1 Overseer Drone
This thread's outcome will be determined on November 27th at 8:00AM EST but will continue until it is ICly complete. Please remember that the outcome of this event will affect the story path of the game and that players cannot "fail" this event by running out of time; it will simply provide a default ending.

THE MARK OF THE ATLAS

BONEY

kicks this off by poking things

no subject

Lets see if we can one more set started

Lexa | OTA

B

a

B

CLARK KENT | OTA

a.

c

b.