parz | PLOTTING 16: ATTACK on AUGUR

PLOTTING 16: ATTACK on AUGUR

I. Week 1-2: Dream of the Seas

Have you noticed that things have been a little stranger than usual on the Island? Storms building on the seas, disappearing walls, skies that seem to pixelate if you stare too long or too hard. Voices seem to sing to you from beyond island sands. Many Islanders have been strangely attracted to the shorelines by these mysteries, while others remain safely in their homes and safe havens, chalking it up to more of the same… but not for long. Soon, even the most reclusive of Islanders will find their dreams haunted by lucid visits to the ocean deep. Some may see visions of the things their fellow Islanders discovered beneath the waves, or perhaps the things that were missed: even more grandiose city structures and highly advanced underwater labs.

In your dreams, however, these things are no longer ruins. They stand in their full glory. Explore them if you like, but you will wake as soon as you open any door or cross any threshold. If you're lucky, you may run into another dreaming Islander before you do, someone to share this bizarre experience with you.

Others still will instead dream of less than pleasant things. While you stand there on the shore, peering curiously into choppy waters, pale hands and iridescent tentacles suddenly reach out to grasp at your ankles. You may struggle and fight, but they pull you under. Water fills your lungs as they whisper in your ears your fears about the Island, about your future here, about the people and the circumstances you left behind.

Those Islanders who engaged in any ocean exploration - real or imagined in their sleep - might find these dreams especially realistic, but any Islander could be affected. Dreams will go on nightly for weeks, leaving some Islanders irritable and wanting for sleep. Will you share what you have seen with others and seek out their comfort, or do you refuse to be spooked by mere nightmares?

II. Week 2-3: Mass Malfunction

As tensions between sleep-deprived Islanders may grow, the friendly island robots probably aren't helping much. For one thing, there appears to be a lot less of them - fewer and fewer robots with every day that passes, in fact. Although 'bots are typically rapidly replaced whenever they are malfunctioning, that doesn't seem to be the case for now. Every 'bot is malfunctioning! Household and restaurant helpers are suddenly dismal at their work, unable to produce anything more challenging than a cheese sandwich and sometimes leaving behind more mess than they clean up. Islanders are enthusiastically herded to the spa or the bath house and helpfully relieved of their clothing, regardless of whether they're in need of a bath or not. 'Bots at the Steaming Carafe cafe might think you need to be frosted rather than the cinnamon rolls, and if asked any questions? Expect only nonsensical, yet inspirational quotes in response.

Fortunately, the 'bots are insistent as ever, but not aggressive - unless you consider extreme annoyance an act of violence.

III. Week 3: It Came from the Deep

The cries get stronger as time goes on. The voices of the sea pull at the ears like gulls calling and waves crashing upon the shore. The waters around the island are churning and frothing, the foam not white spray but a dirty, inky black like mold and decay.

And then they come.

Fingers of bone and bare sinew, rotted flesh and bloated wood, eyes frozen open and mouths overflowing of black water and poison bile. Figures that for all their monstrously twisted shapes and forms might look familiar to those around the Island. Some may recall the events of last year and the unliving of the deep flinging their wrath upon the shores and the being that holds all here. This time is no different, with the hordes of the sea attacking the city and all robots they can find in their quest to once again assault the hospital, to strike back at the Augur and take it out once and for all.

Others might recognize the faces for entirely different reasons.

Is that your friend once here now long gone, taken by the robots into the hospital, or so you thought? A lover you found here that you’ve missed dearly? Islanders no longer present have returned, but not as you once knew them. Their voices are familiar and yet twisted, unnatural and disconnected from the personalities they once had. They will fight you, they will seek to break you, to remove you as an obstacle as their army marches on the hospital and their true enemy. For many, they may remember you, but your past bonds will not be enough to stop them from trying to kill you or even turn you into one of them, bring you into their horde so they bolster their numbers for their final attack on the Augur.

But others may attempt to reason with you, to seek your help in their twisted way. Join them in tearing down the Augur’s hospital and ripping the machine to its circuits. Help them in freeing all of you from its tyranny and the horrors of what may come if you, too, are taken away. They may insist that the future doesn’t matter as long as the Augur is no longer in control, that you may be free to build your own civilization or find out the truth of why you are all here. The Augur can no longer hide behind its doors and refuse to pay for what it has done.

Or you could choose to fight back, to defend the hospital and the Augur just as was done a year ago. You may remember the emptiness of Erku when you offworld Islanders first arrived. What future will you have without the Augur to provide safety and sustenance, and what will this world truly be like without the Augur and her robots to collect the Eros energy that has slowly been rebuilding and salvaging the island? Will the Augur’s defeat really free all the people that have been turned into creatures of the deep and save you from that same fate, or will it only leave you at the mercy of the horde and their barren world once its enemy is gone?

Make your choice, Islanders. The world of Erku depends on it.

Whatever you decide, the few active 'bots left on the Island will defend and protect you until their end. You are their precious Islanders, after all.

OOC Notes:

Your character has a choice to make: help defend the Augur, or aid and abet the attack? A potentially new direction will be decided for the game based on how the majority of characters decide to act.

Access the poll!

You can vote at any time! Details about the consequences for each choice will be posted when the event goes live on the 5th.

Votes will be accepted through Sunday, September 12. Votes cannot be changed once cast. Results will be revealed with the next TDM!

The event will go live on the 5th.

Feel free to plot in the comments here! Event top levels may be posted to the event log and/or to your character's catch-all logs, but please wait until the event log is posted to

lusi to use these prompts.

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N A V I G A T I O N

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Could be interesting to have these two run into each other on opposing sides of this battlefield, since Felix will definitely at least start out defending the Augur, but the possibility is there of zombie Sylvain and/or Annette and/or his own damn zombie clones convincing him to do otherwise, so he and Constance are going through similar dilemmas!