etrayalogs | MISSION 004 (part 1)

MISSION 004 (part 1)

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: July 19th-July 27th.
WHERE: Moorecroft Village
WHAT: Enjoy life in your new suburban neighborhood!
NOTES\WARNINGS: Potential death.

⏵ welcome home ⏴
Welcome to Moorecroft Village, where the sun casts a gentle glow through soft white clouds. Pavement paths wind around the village, adorned with wildflowers in every hue. Birds sing a soothing melody, while a few content cats lounge in sunspots or on benches along the streets. Cars hum by, ferrying residents to work, the store, or back home after a busy day.

It looks almost perfect. The ideal little village, occupied by individuals from all over. Orcs, elves, faeries, werewolves, vampires, and dhampirs coexist harmoniously, each contributing to their quaint little town. Despite their varied backgrounds, they appear to embrace this place as their own. They take their baby carriages out during the day for a stroll, chatting with friends and neighbors about current happenings, discussing their most recent mission (a ‘game’ of Whodunit, in which one of theirs, Theo, was tasked with killing one of their own each day and they all had to figure out who had killed them before they could come back to life) and the difficulties therein, new job assignments, weird things the teens in their houses are getting up to... generic, neighborly conversations.

The village is full of life. There are numerous facilities to wander and things to do! The library houses a vast collection of books spanning history from countless other worlds and whimsical children's tales. Teens gather at the ice skating rink, while the movie theater screens films spanning generations. An aquarium full of wonders: glowing rainbow fish, miniature great white sharks, a colorful octopus with patterns running over it that almost look like ivy, and numerous others.

In the daytime, everyone can explore clothing stores, indulge in gourmet cakes from the grocers, and partake in leisurely pursuits without financial concerns; just like on Etraya, money does not exist here.

⏵ help wanted ⏴
Moorecroft surpasses Etraya in its development, offering attractions and activities to engage its inhabitants throughout the day. But with these advancements come additional responsibilities. By day, at least one adult from every household is expected to fulfill their shifts at 'day jobs', lasting anywhere from four to eight hours. Meanwhile, the youth are expected to go to school, absorbing knowledge in various disciplines.

Each job duty requires different skillsets, but whether or not those required skillsets are matched to those who are expected to work them... well. They’ll have plenty of time for training, won’t they? Or perhaps they’ll get dropped right into their job and be expected to figure it out all on their own.

For the younger residents, education is structured into two main institutions: "Sandalwood Lower" for those twelve and under, and "Maplewood Upper" for older students. These schools offer a broad curriculum encompassing Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Physical Education, Technology, Fine Arts, and a diverse array of Foreign Languages. Electives range widely, from specific sports to Survival Training, Creative Writing, Journalism, and Sociology.

At lunchtime, the school cafeteria presents an array of choices. Options range from standard fare like school pizza to other offerings such as vampire's blood, brains, and hearts—just in case an unexpected guest should drop in. After all, one never knows who might show up in Moorecroft.

⏵ honey do's ⏴
But life extends beyond work and school. A structured routine of what is expected of each household is kept on digital calendars, and installed on the wall in the kitchen of each house. These calendars update daily with smaller tasks, and weekly with larger ones, detailing what is expected of those residing within its walls.

Typical tasks include simple activities such as:

Take the child(ren) for a walk outdoors.
Visit the local park.
Bake a pie for the neighbors.
Tell your spouse(s) how important they are to you.
Share a secret.
Shop with your child(ren).
Mow the lawn.
Don’t forget to attend your child’s school’s PTA meeting!
Help with homework.
Take family photos.
Go on a date.

More complex tasks are found under weekly checklists, and may involve:

Host a neighborhood barbeque competition.
Volunteer at the hospital.
Teach your child a sport.
Start a soccer league.
Create a garage band.
Get a part time job.
Join a club.

Eos will check off each task as it is completed. At the bottom of each calendar, a tally records the completion of tasks, providing a visual measure of productivity and community involvement.

⏵ night watch ⏴
As the sun lowers over the horizon, everything shifts. Every long-term resident understands the consequences of curfew and the threats within. They retreat to their homes, urging those unfamiliar to them who may not understand the rules just yet that they, too, need to return indoors for the night.

Within the confines of their houses, life continues under a fragile veil of normalcy. A peek into some of the homes of long-term residents will find them playing board games with their family units, completing homework or work assignments they were unable to finish during the day, watching a few family-friendly shows on their couches, or enjoying a late dinner. Eventually, they’ll return to their beds and wait for the sound of their alarms.

In Moorecroft, no friendly companion bots roam the streets during the day. In their place, highly advanced robots emerge to enforce curfew once the time comes. They silently make their way through the streets, sweeping away anything that isn’t part of Eos’ design: trash left out on the street, bugs left by suspicious men wearing cowls that have ears on them, graffiti, new decor that Eos decides she doesn’t like. No winds shake the trees, there are no cars on the road, but noises can be heard coming from outside that don't sound... normal by any means. Croaks, whispers, scratches against doors and walls alike.

Those who defy curfew will be asked, once, to return to their homes. If they opt not to listen, they are met with force: physically restrained, subdued, and dragged back to their homes. If they decide to fight, the bots are not above killing them and dropping their limp bodies just inside the front door of their houses. They will revive after 48 hours but not without cost. Each return carries an absence—a missing memory, a lost skill, or a fragment of their very essence, stolen away in the process of their revival.

Even those who manage to evade capture will awaken in their beds with no recollection of their death or what they may have witnessed before dying. They will instead have a vague feeling that something horrifying happened.

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Daily and weekly tasks can be chosen by players! We won't be listing these out for each household, but relying on players to choose what's most fun for them to play with within their households.

As noted on Mission Plotting, we're open to one group successfully staying out past curfew, but would like to keep this to one thread.

We have a separate log for NPC interactions for this mission!

For any questions relating to the contents of this log, mod queries thread on the initial plotting post to assist us in keeping all mission-related information in one place. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.
⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

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The green-haired highschooler squints at the file like it's personally offended him. He wishes it would just explain things clearly instead of assuming the reader knows everything that goes on in this community. He looks like a geek frowning at something mislabeled—

He nearly yelps and jumps out of his skin when he sees the person, and he claps his scarred right hand over his mouth tight to muffle himself.

"What are you doing?!" he whispers, as if he isn't also doing something weird and fishy.

Izuku seems to jump about a foot in the air with how surprised he is, dropping the file and clapping his scarred right hand to his mouth. His other arm is at a weird angle in a move more suited to interpretive dance than self-defense, but he needs to wag it about to express just how much he did not expect a locker to start speaking at him.

With a glance at the door to make sure no one is lurking beyond the frosted glass, he tentatively asks, "Uh... do you need help getting out of there?"

[ Strategical laziness--or that's not really Gorgug's thinking, but he prefers it compared to caring deeply about the tasks (and would his fellow house-mates be up for it anyway? The parents don't look particularly thrilled about everything they get designated).

Fortunately, Gorgug doesn't have to think too hard between Messaging and talking on some other subject--which is thanks to being friends to such a group as the Bad Kids, where at least his pauses are natural. Very him. A furrowing brow as he considers the question. ]

They're alright. The parents get along, and I don't mind the guy I'm a brother with. [ He also doesn't visibly look like he wants to die talking about his situation, unlike some poor souls. Possibly the benefit of having a decent enough home life. ] Does anyone in your family know how to cook?

[ Yes, that your is very telling. But even as he asks it, he thinks, you know, this is Riz; and he's tapping at his hand on the table to a beat, decides to pull a similar move to him as he points in the other's direction as he takes some fries himself. ]

I've got some videos, on my crystal--if you wanna talk more. We can watch them, 'cause--I'm wondering if this is all this is. Really.

Is playing families all we're gonna do?

[ And it's Riz, so of course he's figuring that out. And as it's Riz, they'll need the excuse to not be talking for the length he'll need, and maybe when you're Gorgug, you just pack everything with you, and know that videos are better than the books in your backpack for this occassion. ]

[ Apparently it, in fact, does not help, because Fabian immediately pulls the crying baby closer towards himself when Natsuno makes that suggestion. Sure, it would stop the noise, but it feels-- bad. Even just thinking about it feels bad.

Fabian doesn't want to think about why it feels bad, but he knows it just does! ]

You can't just smash it! [ He says, showing that he at least did hear what the other is saying now. It takes some volume, but it allows him to be heard over the baby's weeping too. ] I mean-- Just think of what will happen!

[ It feels like the easiest excuse to use.

Even though Fabian knows that's not even what he's really worried about. It wouldn't be his first rodeo when it comes to getting into trouble with authority. But he doesn't want to think too hard about the real reason it bothers him, let alone sharing it with other people. ]

[ Oh.

awwkward. That makes Gorgug duck his head a moment, but- ]

S-sorry. That-- that really sucks.

[ For multiple reasons. Yeah, he-- he thinks he can get it. ]

No, I-- are stores like this weird to you?

[ He could correct himself, but also, maybe this store could be weird? We need to be respectful of different wordly expectations, now! ]

[ Though Sandalphon remains unaccustomed to much of the technology he's faced with here, let it not be said that he does anything halfway. If his mission is to be a secretary, if the fate of his world depends on it, he will be the most exemplary secretary in all of creation.

Yes, he had to investigate what exactly a secretary for the head of the PTA is supposed to do (and what PTA even is, for that matter), but beyond this initial hurdle, the rest seems straightforward. Preparing documents, scheduling, record-keeping, and his self-assigned addition of supplying coffee. He can do all this and more.

As another day winds down, Sandalphon approaches Barnabas' desk with a neatly stacked and stapled set of papers, fresh from the printer. He has already deemed the copy machine his nemesis, but the printer is a close and cursed second. Nevertheless, he has prevailed. ]

Here is the agenda for the upcoming meeting, and notable recent events for review.

[ Sandalphon is a creature of order, and accordingly, information is grouped by relevance, sorted by import, and takes into account which subjects should logically follow others for minimal flipping back between pages. ]

Well, it is fairly standard as far as general stores on Earth tend to go.

[ She lifts up the disposable tourist camera. ] These are something of a rarity, however. Most people take photos with a phone.

[There really is a world of pacifiers for those who have done any studying about them at all. There are pacifiers for all different ages, and some that are good for freezing if the infant is teething, some that are supposed to be better for their little mouths than others. There are pacifiers with wide bases, square bases, circle bases and some that have bases in shapes Natasha has never seen. It's a wonder any caretaker can pick something that's supposed to be so damned simple.

If Natasha had been almost anyone else, she might have been taken aback by the man in full armor standing beside her. As it was, she gave him a long look up and down. It was like nothing she'd seen before, and she's seen quite a lot. He didn't appear to be aggressive after all her frantic questions and so that was positive. Taking a long breath, Natasha turned to Violet and ran her hand along the oddly skinned baby's kicking leg.

Glancing at the pacifier he tossed in her basket she looked back and nodded. ]

Thanks. I guess I'll grab another couple in case we lose this. She likes to throw them.

[Honestly, Natasha really hadn't meant to slam him with questions, it was more random things that all hit her at once. They tend to now and then when she starts to worry about this little thing that she's been given the care of. It's a secret dream of hers, but she never let herself think about it and so now that she has this little android life, it catches her off guard. She knows it's only temporary, but that makes it even worse. ]

I guess I have to figure out what size diapers she wears now. I wish these things came with instruction manuals. It would be easier.

Thank you.

[There isn't really a graceful way to respond to something like that, so Otto isn't judging. Frankly he's brooding too hard anyway.]

It...well. It isn't my housemate's fault, of course. But I still can't say I'm happy with the company. [If it were just the kids, he wouldn't mind so much. That isn't a sore spot in quite the same way.]

I never said I was going to do them.

[He's just pointing out the relevant facts here!]

I don't care what happens, they won't get some of that out of me. [Though he's more focused on the spousal bonding ones.] But the little stupid ones might be worthwhile, if it keeps them off my back. You can do with that what you will.

[Otto doesn't mind taking a bit of time to mow the lawn or something if it means no one will come after him about date night or some of that other nonsense. But he isn't interested in pressing any of the other members of the household to do their assignments; it's not really his business.]

[Otto's not all that comfortable with it, but this is what happens when you get measured by a tailor. He'll deal.]

I don't see why not. There's a school here. Earth history might not interest anyone with no ties to Earth, but I can tell you that my housemates aren't enjoying the classes they have. Maybe employing actual teachers would help.

[He's not going to call them his kids, because they decidedly aren't.]

[ The noise is enough to make Gorgug's ears twitch, and though he doesn't look as sharply as Krouse does, his slower--lesser--yet still captured interest does momentary make him glance over at them. But he doesn't see the result of the game played, only the backs of bodies for the most part, and returns to Krouse again. If noting anything about his posture, thinking nothing of it.

Especially not under this environment. It would be relaxing, or at least normal-adjacent, if not for the nagging that everything here isn't normal. A small reminder, always there in the back of the head.

But also, sorry, Krouse, but we have to ask, with a second or so spent trying to figure it out: ]

...What's a gibbet?

[ Gorgug is delighted when he sees Nuvia at the table.

It's a subtle kind of delighted, but some amount of the feeling is there--because he's come here searching for woodwork books, has a couple in his hands to check out at a table, and lo and behold. The state she might be in doesn't occur to him immediately, or as he approaches her and says- ] Hey.

[ Close enough that he shouldn't get in trouble. But he stands at the edge of the table, a small smile on his face. Hiii, Nuvia, hiii. ]

[Cass makes a face about the school thing and shrugs.]

I was homeschooled. [ Kind of, not really, in fact she didn't even learn to speak til the age of 18.]

A parachute and something to absorb the energy on impact is the best idea then?

[This time it's more than a glance, a full turning off the head before he has to focus back on the road ahead. She could be making a general statement, but... is it just him, or there's a certain knowing weight behind her words?]

It's not. [Painful at times, or scary, or just an annoyance he needed to get over with. Never fun, even at that dark time when Natsuno welcomed death as freedom.] But it's not the worst part.

[His tone is still calm, but a bit more serious. Gone is the casual disregard.]

It's the revival that sucks the most. Knowing the consequences.

[Natsuno shrugs. If this guy says so, sure. He's certainly not going to bother with chasing some girl around.]

Find anything interesting?

[Accelerator doesn't look like much, but Natsuno's learned to never judge by appearance. Anyone could be wielding mysterious freak powers in a place like this.]

Oh, well yes, that would be lovely, thank you. [Loki didn’t expect the invitation, but he can’t help but accept. Though it was under strange circumstances, he quite enjoyed his first conversation with Hob and is interested in getting to know him better. If there is one thing Loki knows, is that he needs friends and allies behind him if he wants to get out of here, and he thinks Hob could be one of those for him.

That and he just likes him.]

Odd that they would have you work in a tailor shop if you have no experience as one. Though I can’t say I have any specific experience in where they have put me either. But I can see you excelling with the customers.

[ Oh. Gorgug tilts his head as he sees the object in her hand. Actually, he hadn't realised what it was before. ]

How do you look at the photos? Isn't it too small?

[ Maybe if she turns it sideways...? ]

Yes, essentially.

[She's an adult, so Otto doesn't feel the need to offer aid on what's largely a project for young children. Still...]

Let me know if you need any supplies. I'll have to go out anyway.

[ He looks back at the tank for a moment, pondering. ]

I guess moving out wouldn't be going along with the idea they have going... [ Unfortunately. ]

Is your job anything good?

[ Is that at least a positive? ]

They put me in tech support. Not exactly interesting, but it could be worse.

[Otto shrugs a little. There's a lot of helping people who have seemingly never seen a computer in their lives figure out how to reboot or what a program is, but at least he's in a comfortable office and can play Solitaire or something until the time runs out. He could've ended up in retail!]

They're making you go to school?

[Peter startles out of what was the cusp of a power nap, before turning to look at Krouse with some relief; it's nice to have familiar company, especially company you get along with pretty well.]

For some reason I haven't figured out yet.

I'm not exactly dad material. I'm barely out of high school... Now I feel like the dad in a PSA about abstinence...

[He climbs out of the gap and stands on the bleachers, watching as Krouse grabs Rita's hands. Natsuno tenses, ready to leap - petty or not, he's NOT going to anyone hurt her - but fortunately they calm down, even if Rita is clearly unhappy about it.

He huffs and climbs down. Dim glow starts pulsating under his skin and the air around him distorts as he draws on the sun magic in his blood. Hopefully it'll make him dry off faster.]

I'm fine. So glad you two worked it out.

[Why don't people ever do that before they cause collateral damage is beyond him. Natsuno is going to give Rita a piece of his mind about this - when they're alone.]

[ Otto sounds indifferent to it, and yet....Gorgug is pitying the guy. Have you seen his machine arms?? They're so cool... Gorgug knows he made them!!

It makes him feel conflicted with the question he's given, and he rubs at the sleeve of one of his arms. ]

Yeah, but it's--it's nothing like the schoolwork I was doing. The maths is easier, and-- we do woodwork, and that's been interesting, but I-- I feel like I'm wasting my time.

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MISSION 004 (part 1)

Re: staff only

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