WEEK 0 — ARRIVAL

[cartesio]

Week 0: Arrival

When you wake up you immediately feel something’s off. You sit on the bed and find it’s not your bed, and this isn’t your room either. You seem to be in a rather normal-looking motel room. To your side there’s a trunk, if you open it you’ll find a military uniform, the key to your room, a set of rules and a debit card. Don’t lose those items! Or do lose the rules, you'll find a brand new copy the next day under your pillow. There’s also a calendar on the wall, you can see today’s date. The year is unreadable, but the month and day are very clear:

March 28^th
There it says ‘Meet the Sergeant at the Lodge, 9:00 AM’. There’s also a circle around March 31st, with the word ‘END’ scrawled there.

For now leaving your motel room would be a good choice. When you reach the lobby, you see the receptionist’s desk— no one’s manning it. There’s a rack filled with maps, marking several locations in the town.

There are also many strangers here – and you’re one more. For now it may be a good idea to take a map and explore the town.

After all, looks like you’re stuck here in the boonies for a while.

Links

IC Rules
Room Assignments
Locations
Tasks (LOCKED currently)

March 28^th
March 29^th
March 30^th

Comments

[monstrology]

[Will does indeed follow. With his curiosity piqued as it is, he's more than eager to continue the conversation if Serph is.

And as that conversation topic shifts to something more somber, so does his expression. Now is a better time than ever to outright ask:]

What is an Atma, exactly?

[dvaita]

'The mark of demons and the power of our true selves.' So says the Church... [ The words come out more bitter than he had expected. Even now it feels odd to act in rebellion against the system he had known for so long. ]

We didn't always have them.

[monstrology]

[Ah. Disdain for the Church... Not unheard of in the least, and Will sympathizes. Far too many rotten apples in the bunch, and that's part of the reason why he tends to practice alone these days.

This Church isn't his own though, at least from everything he knows. He would have heard of something like this. He's certain of it.]

How did they come to be?

[dvaita]

[ He smiles bitterly. ]

I wish I knew. We were engaged in combat one minute, and the next everyone was hit with a blinding light and marked with an Atma. After that it got...messy. [ ... ] A lot of people fell prey to the hunger that day, and many more after. Officially, the Church stated it was a tool to help us in our battle to reach Nirvana. It took them a while to even acknowledge that Atma existed, so I doubt it was completely their doing.

[monstrology]

[Will does his best to paint a picture of the situation based on what information he's being given from Serph. The transformation is probably linked to the Atma, and the "hunger"...mm. That doesn't surprise him based on what he knows about monsters in his world. But for this to be happening to humans(?) really is like nothing he's ever heard of happening across the skydoms. It's so strange...

Well, one thing at a time.]

Did they really take so long to acknowledge it? I can't even imagine how they'd explain away such massive changes... [He's frowning, contemplative. Despite what Serph said, he still thinks it sounds fishy. Or at the very least, a very poor way to handle it.] Either way, I don't like the idea of them calling such a change a "tool". Were they leading the charge in whatever you were fighting?