trainmasters: (Default)
Aurora Express Mods ([personal profile] trainmasters) wrote in [community profile] auroraexpress2019-02-15 09:27 pm

Unlock! (1)

Who: Everyone
When: Day 12, evening into night
Where: the Aurora

[As evening approaches, you hear the jingle associated with an official message from your Chain. It's the same balloons and confetti animation as the last time newbies arrived, and the same message as well:]
WELCOME NEW HEROES

[As anticipated, some newbies are waking up in their rooms, in the usual nondescript undies or team pyjamas.

Just after this, however, something much more startling happens...

Outisde, the bell tone gets all the louder, a beautiful resonating sound that fills the air. Then, suddenly, a flood of strange square-shaped sparkles appear, floating around like magical fireflies, bringing with them a pleasant warmth. They increase in size and volume until the air itself whites out with a bright but pleasant light. While you can't see, you can hear the bell, and the distant rumbling of stone.

Abruptly, the sound stops, and the bright light fades to reveal a sky painted in sunset hues. Where there was once a dark and hostile jungle with cracks in the ground, there's now a colourful rainforest environment and a floor thick with bright moss. The sounds of birds and insects and regular wildlife rise over the previous silence, and the aggressive plantlife is replaced by large flowers and succulent fruits. In one direction, a dirt path winds through the trees, and in the opposite, the brush gives way to a stone formation with a flat top and an opening flanked in carvings of water and plants.

If one were to enter the new cave entrance, they'd find the previous moon crystals replaced by rainbow ones that reflect sparkling light onto the floor, and feel soothingly warm to the touch. Further into the caves, there's a carved stone path that leads to the beach you initially arrived on. There stands the Prism: a large floating cube in the center of gyproscope-like concentric rings. Where it had been glowing black, it's now a royal purple, and the light and energy from it are significantly less malicious than before -- though still far from pure. The beach itself is now covered in fine white sand, and the sea no longer tries to pull you in -- provided you don't go out too far.

Because not all is well on this Star just yet. While the nearby water contains a reef of colourful fish, 100 meters or so out to sea the water turns black again. While under water in the safe area, you can occasionally see the shadows of great and terrible monsters deep in the dark.

Likewise, should you choose to follow the first path, after ~1km you'll find the forest fades back into the previous dense, dark jungle. At the edge of the darkness, there's something new -- the remains of what looks like a modern town. It's all overgrown, cottages twisted into ruins and streets covered in vines and prowled by tiger monsters and a new threat: towering reptilian creatures that climb the crumbling shells of apartment buildings and the empty City Hall, like geckos increased to dinosaur size. They're fast, and if they catch you they'll swallow you whole. On the one side, that makes it easier for someone to save you -- they could cut you out. On the other, those unable to be rescued will find their skin and muscles becoming slowly more transparent and stiff, the colour and feeling leaving them until their minds are trapped in a useless shell. Those found in that condition later must be saved via the healing pods -- but they'll remember their stay in their glass bodies, with their blood running and heart pumping like a living anatomical model of their organs.

On the Aurora, however, you're welcome to enjoy the first sight of the sun in 12 days. As the brilliant sunset moves into a night reigned over by a gentle moon, the Heartbeat Festival remains in full swing. So celebrate your victory with a glass of shimmery alcohol and a kiss, because you've done it -- your love has purified a part of this Star!]

[[OOC NOTES: CONGRATULATIONS on your first Prism purification, guys! There is a toplevel for ICly suggesting train upgrades here, so check it out! Next week we'll post a poll, and the week after the upgrade will be implemented.

The updates to the Setting page to reflect this post will be made soon, so keep an eye out!]]
desirestruth: (I wonder which one is better)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-16 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
Naeva dos Martos.

[She bows formally, because when you're drilled in manners for a century, these things stick.]

I'm on...orange, it appears?
ewestmarch: (Default)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-16 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
You just get here?
desirestruth: (Default)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-16 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I am freshly arrived, yes..
ewestmarch: (light)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
Hi. Welcome to... the kidnapping.

[She shifts. Someone's not great at small talk.]
desirestruth: (Ran away on it's own)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-17 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
...Ma’am, I’ve been kidnapped, and if this is a kidnapping, it is the politest one I’ve ever been party to.
ewestmarch: (Default)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 01:03 am (UTC)(link)
You woke up somewhere else and can't go home, and someone did it. That's a kidnapping in my book, even if he's keeping us in a big moving hotel.

[fucking Cross at the prince, still. he may be able to talk to flowers but that proves nothing.]
desirestruth: (Default)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-17 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
If it’s fancy, that’s just politics.

[ah, the bitter dry wit of someone who’s been involved in the process!]
ewestmarch: (stare)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know what it is. It feels like a cult to me, the way he wants us to think he's the only one that can save the universe.
ewestmarch: (Default)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
What do you mean and? And I want him to stop and let me go home.
desirestruth: (Have you forgiven me?)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-17 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
If you think this is some kind of cult—which we can’t rule out, to be clear—what is your plan for achieving that? Do you have evidence? Leverage to use against him? A plan of action?


If he’s truly kidnapped us, he won’t just release us again because he wants to.

If he hasn’t, and what he says is true, what will you do then?

Just telling me he’s a kidnapper and a cultist isn’t something I can do much of anything with.
ewestmarch: (darkness)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
[She's not the kind of person who acts, she's the kind of person who casts out lines and waits, like a spider, for something to come to her.

But that's hard to articulate when all this is coming at her.]


Before this you were handing out drinks, [Emilia snaps.] I didn't tell you that to to ask you to save everyone, I'm filling you in.
desirestruth: (This would have been easier)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-17 04:57 am (UTC)(link)
[Naeva is quiet for a long time. Staring, without blinking. Barely remembering to breathe. Something about this is nostalgic, isn't it?]

You misunderstand my intent. I'm not asking you what I should be doing. Figuring that out is my own problem.

But if you're going to tell me we're kidnapped and you think this is some sort of cult, why do you have nothing to follow that up with?

[Naeva's grown up under a curse. Under the weight of a throne and a dying people. You cannot simply wait to act.]
ewestmarch: (hmmm)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-17 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[Hum. How much does she want to say.]

It... came at a convenient time.
desirestruth: (Ran away on it's own)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-18 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
...Then isn't it a good thing.

[SHE IS GENUINELY CONFUSED BY THIS ENTIRE INTERACTION.]
ewestmarch: (stare)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-18 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
It can be both good and bad.

[A little defensive.]

I don't like being used.
desirestruth: (I wonder which one is better)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-18 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, of course, but it feels a little contradictory to go telling people we've been kidnapped if you aren't intending to immediately fight back. You'll make people panic that way.
ewestmarch: (wait wait)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-18 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Someone will fight back, and they'll make an opening for the rest of us.

[She crosses her arms. Actually immediately fighting is too dangerous, but in her life she's never had a shortage of hot-tempered do-gooders.]
desirestruth: (Have you forgiven me?)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-18 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
So you'll use someone else, then.

[Yeah, Naeva's not particularly impressed with this strategy or outlook.]
ewestmarch: (Default)

[personal profile] ewestmarch 2019-02-18 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[Yes.]

You can call it whatever you want.
desirestruth: (Of a future that only)

[personal profile] desirestruth 2019-02-18 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
...I'm going to call it time to walk away.

[And she'll turn on her heel to do exactly that.]