maskormenacelogs | There must be something in the water

There must be something in the water

WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: Lake Tahoe, the Nevada side
WHEN: May 17 all day
WHAT: Swear-In
WARNINGS: Some violence

Welcome imPorts new and old to the lovely city of Jeopardy! For the five minutes the swear-in is here, anyway. See, there’s been some unusual activity at the (relatively) nearby Lake Tahoe. The Better Believe It Museum of Cryptozology has appealed to the government for help, and the powers that be generously volunteered this Swear-In as a chance for imPorts to be voluntold to help. Of course, you can always skip the swear-in or just decide to kick up your feet at a nice lakeside property in May, but the local natives would really appreciate the assistance. So much so that they’ve rented out a legion of party buses to transport you from Jeopardy to the museum in style. Yes, there’s a bar and snacks (though only juice for the kids). It’s about a three hour drive, try not to get too sloshed on the way over.

Just what is the issue? It seems that Nevada’s most famous cryptid, Tahoe Tessie has...well. Been seen. And, yes, of course, there is that whole museum you are going to at the edge of the lake dedicated to fuzzy, shaky-cam ‘sightings’ of Tessie and other cryptozoological marvels over the years, but this is different. Like, ‘oh no, we actually found her’ different. And by all appearances, Tessie’s pretty pissed at being found. Any boats that attempt to go out into the lake are sunk, divers have vanished to never be seen again (whole, anyway. A few parts have washed up), and police have noted a sharp increase in random, violent attacks around the lake shores.

That’s where you come in.

The museum has requested Tessie be captured and transferred into their crypto-aquarium where she can be studied (and rubbed in the faces of all those ‘real’ scientists that called them crazy over the years). There are other options, though. The police are just fine with you killing the creatures; let the scientists dissect the corpse. And a very well funded individual party is more than willing to pay an exorbitant amount to the imPorts that hand her over to them.

While you ponder about the ethics and money involved, here’s the lay of the land.

First there is the cryptid museum itself. Not the tidiest of places, the museum is three floors of winding narrow aisles between shelves heaped with curiosities and walls covered in fuzzy photographs with plaques explaining what cryptozoological marvel is depicted in them, or poster sized print outs of ‘testimonials’ of alien abductions, bigfoot sightings, etc, along with artists interpretations of events described. There is also, of course, quite an expansive gift shop. Get your BELIEVER t-shirt before supplies run out. Please no powers in the museum, the owner is quite forceful about how everything in there is one of a kind.

For those of you not into monster hunting, or hunters that need to recharge, the cryptid museum is right next to a resort that has thoughtfully opened its doors to imPorts. It’s lingering around 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit at the lake, not exactly swimming weather, but there’s charming outdoor seating, fire pits to gather around, and free drinks and finger foods abound for every one to mingle with. There’s plenty of nice walking paths around the lake, some low-key events like horse shoe tossing or croquet to pass the time with. Just a nice break by the lake to recharge after a rough month.

Then there’s the lake itself. The locals have provided you with canoes, small fishing boats with radar, diving suits and snorkels, fishing nets, pretty much anything they could think of that will help you catch dear old Tessie (if you have a specific request for an unusual item, ask here if it will be provided!). A certain eccentric (the one offering cash money for Tessie to be turned over to them) even provided a one person submarine for use- though it doesn’t have any arms to grab with or much in the way of catching power, the gesture was still nice?

But catching a cryptid isn’t that easy. See, turns out that surge in violent attacks isn’t just dear old Tessie. If you just pressed A and skipped to the lake itself, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. Those that took time to view the museum first, or chatted with the hotel staff about local legends, will have some warning of what is waiting for them. They’ll learn that in addition to cryptids lake Tahoe has a very real monstrous history- it’s a known mob mass graveyard. Through the 1900s, possibly up to today, the lake served as a very convenient spot for mobsters to send people to ‘sleep with the fishes.’ No one knows how many bodies have ended up under those placid waters, but it’s an unpleasant number. Just an interesting historical tidbit until you actually enter the lake. There you’ll see these dead are, somehow, awake. And not that happy about it.

The lake is crawling with revenants. These angry undead will fight tooth and nail anyone that comes into the waters of the lake, trying to pull you down to meet the same watery fate as them. We’re literal on the tooth part, their bites are strong enough to rip out chunks of flesh. They will follow anyone that disturbs them out of the lake, focused on destroying the life they no longer have. These creatures will need to be destroyed or laid to rest for the lake to be safe again. This can be done through sheer physical assault, break enough of the bones or destroy the skull and the creatures will collapse into the muk. Or they can be put to rest one by one with rituals specifically made for putting the dead to rest (from any religion or philosophy). Those that can talk with the dead and have the dedication can talk the spirits into releasing their mortal coil and returning to the void. Just remember their first emotion is rage at the living, and their first instinct will always be to attack. Those going for a more peaceful route may need back-up to keep the creatures at bay until they start seeing results.

Finally, there’s Tessie.

While legends have reported, and the cryptid museum lead you to expect, a more serpentine creature, characters are once more in for a surprise. Those that finally get past the undead to Tessie herself will discover she is none other than a legendary lusca: half shark, half squid, all attitude. For those still trying to apply biology to this, Tessie’s front half looks like a bull shark, a species infamous for its ability to swim in both salt and fresh waters. There is a little good news: unlike the revenants, Tessie isn’t looking so hot. Some of her tentacles are rotting off and teeth are falling out. She is mostly working to avoid anyone that wants to bother her, darting to deeper waters and running away from close encounters. Anyone that does get too close will face a fight, but it’s that of an animal in its death throes. While an unlimited number of characters can see Tessie, the final decision of what happens to her will be decided by a poll.

After a long day at the lake, imPorts are bused back to Jeopardy in the same party buses. Hopefully still more or less in one piece.

OOC PLOTTING AND QUESTIONS SHOULD BE DIRECTED HERE!

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i. RESORT

Rene is absolutely not the sort of person who says yes to a Ripley's knockoff museum when he has access to a free resort and the drinks and snacks they've got on offer, so he can be found lounging around the fire pits in casual clothes (jeans and a t-shirt with an over-sized flannel tossed over it) making his way through a truly unreasonable amount of pilfered hors d'oeuvres at any given time of the night, pre-revenant outbreak. If he gets enough alcohol in him, he might (might) even be persuaded to share his bounty!

It's not exactly a safe bet, though.

"Man," he can be heard scoffing once folks start to filter out of the cryptid museum, after all those long tours and viewings have finished, "you gotta be crazy to pick the haunted ass museum over free rich people shit."

ii. REVENANTS

Rene is the sort of person to show up to a government sponsored party illegally armed, however, and unfortunately (for good sense, common decency, and just the public in general) that in particular is a terrible life choice that keeps on getting validated by circumstance. Circumstance, as it happens, such as the dead rising up out of the nearest body of water and proceeding to terrorize the various lakeside revelers.

Rene springs into action at the first blood-curdling scream, pulling a pistol out of the holster hidden beneath his baggy over-shirt, and he can be found in the thick of the chaos for the rest of the night, putting bullets into undead skulls whenever he has a clear shot or throwing punches when he doesn't, shouting progressively higher numbers the whole time. Navy SEAL training makes him quick to jump into the water to pull anyone he sees go under back out, and he actually seems to be in fairly good spirits the crazier the night gets, finally getting to stretch his legs in the new dimension.

...Wait, shouting numbers? Is this idiot keeping score?? Honestly, no respect for the dead.

iii. WILDCARD

[Hit me with a wildcard or PM/PP me at relatable to plot!]

Ruby looks over to him, taking a break from her attempt to kill the lake with her glare, and speaks.

"Why not do both though?"

She was wearing a rainbow 'BELIEVER' t-shirt over another shirt (and another under that). It was probably safe to say she went into the museum, even if she didn't take a tour.

Rene shoots her a skeptical look. Surely that's something only a big nerd with bad priorities would ask!! So obviously, the shirt just confirms it. "You kidding me right now?" He spreads his hands out to indicate the fancy resort surroundings, not to mention he plate of snacks perched on one knee. "Free rich people shit, limited time..." He raises both eyebrows as if to say need I go on?

"Variety is fun." She says this with a shrug. "I might get more out of it than most, since I'm not from America, but I could still easily see people enjoying both."

She takes a look around the resort. "Maybe I'm also just not all that impressed by rich people stuff."

Or maybe, just maybe, she was bad at sitting down and relaxing.

Rene looks intensely skeptical, in a way only someone with as many pilfered snacks as he has had can manage.

Generally speaking, he takes too-snooty-for-free-luxuries as someone-never-had-to-go-without-them, but for once in his life he doesn't throw that assumption out as a barb. He is, in fact, much too sat down and relaxed to be acting like too much of a dick right now. That takes energy and focus! "Your loss," he shrugs, instead of even considering that she's got a point.

It was for the best, perhaps. Ruby would have had a few choice words, including asking him if he'd ever spent years on the edge of starvation in a forest. It would probably have not been pretty.

Instead, she laughed a little. "I mean, maybe? But this way I can enjoy both before I go down to see what I can do to help. I get to experience basically everything, just not in as big of a chunk as someone picking one or the other." There's a small pause. "I do have to admit the food is nice. I didn't expect to like so many different variations of 'food on a cracker' as much as I do. I mean, I know I'd still like it, because I like just about anything edible, but I had no idea there were crackers that tasted so good."

As far as she was concerned, the snacks weren't pilfered if they were being offered.

Diego didn't care much about the legends or the museum, but once things went sideways and the dead were running amok and causing problems? That was right up his alley. Death, danger, and displays of violence were kind of a favorite pastime of his, after all.

This is really the first time he's been in anything like a combat situation since arriving in this place, and it's really putting his new, secondary power to good use-- never running out of knives is really freaking handy in the middle of a battle.

"Six!"

That number means something to Diego that it wouldn't to anyone else outside of his family; the owner of the voice isn't registered on hearing it shouted, it just makes his head snap immediately in the direction of it. A knife whizzes by, curving impossibly around the voice's owner to land in the eye of the dead thing trying to get the upper hand with--

"Rene?!" if he sounds a little incredulous, it's because he is. What is his idiot roommate doing, yelling numbers in the middle of a battle?

"What the fuck!" Rene protests as the revenant sprouts a knife from its eye socket and keels over into a lump of gross wet decaying flesh before he can even pull the trigger of the gun he'd had aimed at it's forehead. He whips around, offended, at the exact same time that it clicks in his head that he's seen that style of dagger before...

"Diego?" A beat. "I had that!" He waves the muzzle of his gun at the now double-dead thing that used to be a person. "Damn, you never learned not to kill-steal?" Honestly, this guy.

He looks his roomie up and down, a quick assessment to see if he's got any holes in him that he shouldn't—the kind he'd give a teammate during a lull in chaos, if he had any here. Rene himself is breathing hard, his clothes are wet and stuck down to his skin, and at some point he ditched his overshirt and his boots in the sand to make diving easier. All he's got left are his pants (you're welcome, everyone) a tank top, both darkened with the silt that has been churned up in the lake, and a pistol. Even this early into the fray, his lip is split and bloody, and one of his arms has a nasty gash across it—he fights messy, okay? "How many you got so far? That one don't count." Because he did all the work softening it up! Obviously.

"Did you? Cause it looked like that thing was about to take you for a swim." He pulls a face at the question about kill-stealing. "No, asshole, I learned nobody gives a shit, as long as we all come back alive."

If Diego looks any better than Rene, it's marginal and not worth any bragging rights at all-- he's soaked, but he hasn't ditched any of his clothes or his gear, and there's a smattering of cuts and bruises that he'll probably feel a hell of a lot more later when the adrenaline has run its course.

"I don't know--" He spreads his hands, the expression on his face half-exasperated, "who fucking counts body drops in the middle of a fight?"

Rene's eyes skip down over the various spots for holstering knives on Diego's harness (and the rest of him) in a way that's deliberate and obvious. Not a single one seems to be missing. "Uh huh, you know you can just say if the number is zero." That's gotta be why he's so shy about it, right? Because tactically, Rene assumes everyone keeps in mind the number of hostiles they've taken out of the chaos, and also the number remaining on the field. In this spawned-from-the-lake situation, the latter becomes more difficult, but to him it's still good sense in any active engagement.

Granted, most people wouldn't use that count for bragging rights, but that's neither here nor there.

"And I can swim just fine hoss, so don't worry about that shit." Still slightly offended, to be honest.

Diego lets out a laugh at that accusation, "That's not the case, but good try." The tactic is not a good one, and as much as he may be giving Rene a hard time about it, he might adopt it himself in the future.

"Good to know." Diego's probably not even picking up on that offense, honestly. Sorry, he's bad a social graces.

"So you—shit! Down!" Rene gestures sharply to the ground with one hand while swinging his gun up and around with the other, at what would be just over Diego's shoulder if he doesn't drop, aiming for the revenant who had taken the opportunity that their ridiculous conversation afforded to come lurching up behind him.

When Rene gets his shot in it's clean through the head, and after the tense heartbeat that comes with taking combat seriously for a few seconds... he cracks a big, cocky grin. "And, seven. Might want to catch up, knives."

Diego doesn't hesitate at the command, ducking without much thought to it at all as Rene takes down the creep that had decided to interrupt their competitive banter.

"Oh, shut up," he rolls his eyes and shoots Rene a look that is somewhere tilted more toward annoyance than anything else at all.

[Bobbie is doing pretty much the exact same thing—she's got a little stack of tea sandwiches beside her, along with a veritable smorgasbord of other food. Usually, the tea cakes are her favorite, but tonight she seems more interested in anything with even a bit of meat on it. Meat that isn't tank grown isn't exactly the easiest thing to find out in space, and she seems quietly delighted until Rene speaks up. Then she snorts, amused.]

You must not have spent time with enough rich people. Most days I'd pick monsters over talking to a politician.

Edited 2019-05-25 02:56 (UTC)

[Rene laughs—first person he's talked to about it that actually makes any sense, and bonus: this is clearly a woman after his own stomach.] Alright, you got a point. [Even when he worked for politicians, he hadn't liked the ones that weren't secretly his fellow vigilantes using the system as just another weapon. Which is probably like, you know, shady and terrible, but it's the kind of shady and terrible he can get behind!!] So that mean you went to Ripley's-believe-it-or-knockoff, then? Was it all as hokey as it sounds?

[Ah, someone she can talk shit with. Thank god.]

Yep, and too many stories about probing for my taste.

[She grins, then pops another sandwich in her mouth.]

[Rene snorts, knowing he shouldn't be surprised, but damn. These folks are thirsty, aren't they?] Everybody got their fetish, I guess. [He says, like he ain't judging the shit out of them right now. Either way:] Don't see why they got to pretend, they got like a moon base and shit here. [People!! Hanging out in space!! That's crazy, Right?]

Yeah? I'm guessing that's not for you. Back home, the entire moon has been colonized.

Damn! You from the future or something?

Guess so.

[From his point of view, anyway.]

What year was it where you're from?

[Rene spreads his hands to indicate all around them.] 2019. We ain't built a rec center on the moon yet though. [Thoughtfully:] Have had an alien invasion - no probing.

2019.

[Wow, the dark ages!]

It's 2350 for me. What alien invasion are you talking about?

Yeah, like here. [The dark ages that she's currently occupying!! But then Rene briefly chokes on his food.] Twenty-three— [A cough. Hang on he's having trouble focusing on the followup question] Holy shit, we made it that long?

[Bobbie bursts out laughing at that.]

Kind of a surprise for Earthers, huh?

[She has to talk a little shit. It's a law.]

Hell yeah it's a surprise! You seen this place? It's irradiated. [But they offered free food and party bus transportation so here he is in Jeopardy anyway...] And the ice caps are melting, everybody throws their garbage in the ocean, corporate lobbying basically run the government. Nobody regulates shit, for real. I'd have guessed a hundred more years at most.

[Talk away, Bobbie, Rene supports and encourages any and all opportunity to complain about the 1%!!!

Anyway, Earthers?] That make you from the moon, or what?

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marineris - 2019-06-05 03:26 (UTC) - Expand

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There must be something in the water

Rene Ramirez | OTA

i. RESORT

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ii {Let the bodies hit the floor

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i!

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