etrayalogs | 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⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Went through the teacher's desk, [ Riz says with a sigh, stretching his tattooed arms out in front of him to rest his head on them, cheek smushed against his forearm as though he's intentionally looking as pathetic as possible so that the teacher will take pity on him and send him home. Which he's not, for the record. If anything, he just looks more peeved at Riz's general existence.

Riz's eyes flick over to the teacher, then back to Amy. ]

There wasn't anything interesting in there. Just some dirty magazines that honestly seem kind of inappropriate to keep at your job?

[ Is he just going to the staff room and -- ew, ew, ew, no, never mind, not thinking about it. But it does explain why the teacher is glowering at Riz as though he'd kicked his cat. ]

...what'd they do to piss you off so much?

[ Beyond being a fucking moron. Which, considering his experience here so far, seems extremly credible. ]

[She nods solemnly. Sounds about right.]

For a school, yeah. You'd find that sort of stuff in hospital break rooms too. [She glances at his tattoos. They seem a lot less intricately designed than her own red and gold ones. Much more akin to mad scrawlings you'd expect to find on a cave wall. Not that she's judging. Hers are a little much, even she'll admit.]

Well - I didn't mean to say it out loud.

He just... proudly declared that humans only use 10% of their brain and it just slipped out.

[ She probably didn't need to go all the way out and call a classmate a fucking dumbass for operating off of faulty information. That's not necessarily nice.

But Riz isn't exactly going to defend some random kid for being stupid either, so that's neither here nor there. He stretches his arms out in front of him and slumps back in his seat, glancing idly at the clock, waiting for the time to tick tick tick away. ]

So you had to correct him, naturally. I'm sure that the teacher didn't. If the teacher even knows. [ He wrinkles his nose. ] Y'know, I'm pretty sure none of the teachers here even went through any training. They were just dropped in here like, oops! Guess you're responsible for children now!

[ He has a pretty good idea that that's the case from the various teaching styles, and also because Fabian is, beyond all sense of reason, a cop. No training, no nothing. Just howdy, how're you, here's a gun! ]

[He's giving her an out to avoid coming off as a complete and total asshole, which she'll take. She's not really ashamed of it, but she recognizes that she comes across as a judgemental dick in this instance.

Mostly because she is one.]

Mm. And then on the flipside I think there's some students at this school that are in their twenties.

It's all play pretend rather than anything actually substantial.

[Part of why she was so crabby. There's only so many times she can be taught the same juvenile level information before she gets a bit snippy.]

Exactly. Everything here is for appearances. Some poor lady in my house got assigned the task of housewife, which is kind of wild? Hey, welcome to our town, here's a baby.

[ He hates that thing. It gives him the creeps. Yes, they can discuss sentient life all day long when it comes to mechanical beings, but it's one thing when you're having a nice chat with a robot and an entirely different one when the robot that you're pretty sure is surveilling you all is shitting itself and it's your job to deal with it. ]

So I guess here's the question: if we just ditch detention, what's the worst that can happen? I'm still testing out the boundaries here.

MISSION 004 (part 1)

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