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.
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clara | ota
[Taken to exploring by herself for the most part, Clara's fascinated by both the light and dark monoliths. While she observes others touching at and opening the ones that light up, she keeps her distance from those, choosing to instead work at attempting to replicate the script she's found on some of the ones that have gone dark. After she and Clark tried writing words they found to make sense out of them in the Hull, she's been very keen to see if maybe the language here can find some kind of meaning for her if she uses it enough. The problem is that things don't ever seem to be consistent, and her mind isn't able to piece together if this is a language she once knew.
She takes to crouching toward the ground and tracing a gloved finger along the dirt to copy what she can. When she makes mistakes or doesn't come up with anything she becomes frustrated and huffs as she wipes at the dirt to erase what she's done. When someone approaches her she glances up at them with curiosity.]
Are you able to make sense out of any of the things you've seen written on anything we've found since arriving here?
Visions:
[Clara's recently seen planets destroyed in front of her eyes. So to see what she's shown doesn't sit well with her. As the vision ends and tears stream down her cheeks, she starts to back away from the source. Knowing that she needs to suck up her emotions so the others here don't think her to be weak, she keeps stumbling her way back until she runs right into someone. She spins about, looking visibly shaken. But at least she's managed to stop her crying. Looking up at who she's just bumped into with wide eyes, she gives a little shake of her head.]
Might want to be careful going this way. You may see things you're not ready to.
visions.
Or I could get answers.
[ Firmly, though it softens into a polite smile at Clara. ]
Are you okay?
no subject
I think I will be. I just saw something that upset me, that's all.
[She turns back to look at the stones, before glancing back at Kara.]
But I'm not sure if what I saw offered me any answers or just gave me more questions.
[It likely means she needs to go back and see it again, and develop a thicker skin.]
no subject
We can try again. I didn't experience any side effects, what about you?
no subject
No. Just emotional reactions.
[Which means she needs to try again, because if nothing else it can at least help her feel stronger.]
It knocks you for a loop, when you're reminded that all things end.
no subject
Not all things end that way.
[ It's different. A world collapsing like that — it rarely happens. Kara's own memory has blotted out much of the details, but nothing smoothed over the shockwave of Krypton. She felt it through her again though this planet's death was silent. ]
I'm Kara, by the way. I got here recently.
no subject
You're Clark's cousin. It's good that he has family here.
[Even if things are complicated and it's not something she should be butting into. Instead, she moves to gently link her arms through Kara's, to guide her back toward the stones that will provide them with the visions.]
My name's Clara. I've been here for weeks now.
no subject
[ Of course she is. Any other option is unimaginable to Kara. ]
It's nice to meet you. Were there a lot of you?
no subject
[And so far, his cousin is just as kind and calming as he is. It must be a weird family trait or something.]
There were a lot more of us the first few days. Then some of us started to disappear, and it seems like more are showing up now. I'm not sure what it means, besides the fact we should be checking for pods everywhere we go.
no subject
It could be a dimensional rift. Time doesn't work the same way on both sides. We won't know for sure until later, obviously, but [ she shrugs, one-shouldered ] it explains why nobody can recognise any constellations or the language.
no subject
You know about dimensional rifts? I fell through one a while back. It knocked me for one hell of a loop. It was just to a parallel world, a pocket universe. If this is anything like that, I'm not sure how we're supposed to get out.
[And then carefully, she puts her hand out toward the monolith she's standing before and braces herself for the vision.]
no subject
Yeah, I was stuck on the other side of one for... a while.
[ She closes her eyes briefly, then opens them, looking through the details of the vision, whatever it holds. ]
no subject
When the vision ends, Clara glances over at Kara, mouth drawn in a tight line.]
It's a little easier to watch, when it's not happening in reality. Did you learn anything from it?
no subject
[ She's already folded an arm across her chest and balanced the other on it, tapping her chin. ]
People explored this place... and then either they or someone else destroyed it?
no subject
[Crossing both arms over her chest, she wishes that there was more information shown.]
Not us specifically, but people in the same position as us. They could be the reason we're all waking up in pods, scattered across the desert.
no subject
no subject
[Still, she tries not to make it sound like total gloom and doom. It can definitely be worse.]
no subject
I'm really missing having something to punch.
monoliths
It also means she can read the script on the monoliths a little better, although it hardly makes a difference considering it's all nonsense to her. That doesn't stop her from heading back to look for a second (fourth, really) time, in case something clicks into place somehow.
When she comes across someone else, she isn't surprised; there are a lot of interesting things down here, it's worth exploring. But still - she shakes her head at Clara's question.]
It is nothing like any language I know. Or... any language I did know, it seems.
[She tried to pray, in Italian, and she couldn't grasp it.]
no subject
[Clara offers a final glance over at some of the writing, trying to make sense out of any of it. It drives her crazy that she can't.]
I was just speaking with someone about language here, and how I can't seem to recall specific phrases and words in what I spoke my entire life before waking up here.
[The concept of that is baffling to her, and just a little eerie. She wants to blame it on their suits, of course, but isn't sure if they're the culprit or if they've all been altered somehow.]
Have you tried recalling certain words in languages you used to know?
no subject
[Unlike Clara, this is the first time Max is discussing it with someone else, mostly because she wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't just losing her mind, or if this, somehow, proved that none of this was real.]
Of the several languages I know, I can't speak a word from any of them. It's deeply unsettling.
no subject
[Frowning, Clara tries not to let it show just how unsettling she thinks it is.]
The fact they're able to mess with our minds at all means we aren't sure what's real and what isn't, as far as our memories of things are concerned.
[Which doesn't do much for the mental stress she's been under as of late, but her focus stays on attempting to discuss written and spoken language and not her own distress.]
no subject
[No one can get into Max's apartment without setting off a ridiculous amount of alarms going off; surely she'd remember that.]
For all we know this entire experience could be a simulation.