EVENT: The Mouth Waiting, Patiently Waiting (December 2023)

[citycenter]

THE MOUTH WAITING, PATIENTLY WAITING.

WE ARE UNCONQUERABLE. » SCIENCE DISCOVERY CENTER — INTRODUCTORY NOTES Though the museum has been partially open for several weeks, residents will notice the lights coming on in previously inaccessible wings starting the evening of December 18. The doors to these areas will remain locked, but those with keen observation skills may notice the occasional shadow moving across a window, or perhaps new, hulking forms appearing on the other side of the glass where before there were only vast, empty rooms. If you press your face up against the tinted windows, you'll see curtains drawn across previously blank walls, sheets thrown over the vague shape of a display case, and signs hung from the ceiling that await proper illumination to be read. At dawn on December 19, the devices of all residents will buzz and light up not with the usual friendly notification, but a white screen likely to blind those awoken by the sudden noise. You should be used to this now, the nearly blank page similar to the one that welcomed you on the train your first day here. There are no questions, just one bold phrase—STAND THE TEST OF TIME. Beneath it, your only option is to click the "OK" button if you wish to make your device functional again, because even if you turn it off and on again, that same message will be waiting for you until you accept it. For those who willingly venture into the museum through the front doors, they'll find themselves in the middle of a large atrium with welcome desks and information centers—all empty, of course. There are no staff, nor even that many information kiosks besides a tall pillar in the middle with a map of the center's layout as well as a list of exhibits that are currently open to the public: BODY WORKS: Get up close and personal with the inner workings of your body. NATURAL HISTORY: Learn all about the world around you, from its weather to its fossil record. THE HISTORY OF US: See the pasts of our fair city and experience history like never before. Have a look around, enjoy the educational enrichment, and don't forget to stop by the gift shop on your way out! If you make it out. The city's Science Discovery Center is a combination of a natural history museum and a children's discovery center, aimed towards cataloging knowledge pertaining to the city and its residents. Some exhibits focus on accurate information about the city's history and the biology of the people who have lived here, while other displays are a twisted version of facts. The Center is large, and has plenty of room for smaller exhibits showcasing natural phenomena from all manner of home worlds and canons. Players are welcome to find mentions of their own species, depictions of native flora and fauna, or other tidbits of information that might get your characters asking questions. Inspiration was drawn from several sources, so please feel free to do the same! Some worthwhile mentions include: Body Worlds Don't Hug Me I'm Scared Westworld JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS WE ARE TERRIBLE AND SPLENDID. » SCIENCE DISCOVERY CENTER EXHIBIT — "BODY WORKS" This exhibit is down the left-hand hallway that branches off from the entrance atrium. That is, if you choose to come to the museum of your own volition. For some residents, they will wake up to find themselves included as a piece of the exhibit, posed in a variety of non-lethal positions—riding a bicycle, playing guitar, wrestling a fake bear—within glass display cases. Don't worry, you're not trapped! Simply find the door on the back of the case and free yourself to go exploring through the rest of the exhibit. You're already here, so you might as well enjoy the free entrance fee and learn a thing or two about your fellow residents. BODY WORKS is a mixture of informational displays and interactive activities that all focus on the body of sentient city residents, mainly humans though including other species that have called this city their home over the years. Through a winding maze of hallways and rooms, visitors can find informational plaques covering vampire digestion, genetic mutations in empowered individuals, moon cycles of werewolves, and human reproduction. The highlight of all these mini exhibits are the sample bodies, displayed in relevant poses and either bisected to show the inner working of the organs or stripped of skin to reveal the movement of key muscles. Not all of the rooms within this exhibit are fully factual, however. Keen-eyed visitors, or anyone who passed middle school science, will notice there is a fair bit of misinformation as well. Most of this is concentrated in displays aimed towards younger residents—a felt model of the human body made to look like a house, the various organs pictures as nonsensical rooms or appliances. Similarly, one room is full of life-size versions of the popular game Invasive Surgery where plastic models of a human, an elf, a gray alien, and an anthropomorphic velociraptor all lay prone on individual table with their bodies ready to be operated on. Cavities are already hollowed out and filled with tongue-in-cheek representations of various body parts—the human male's Adam's apple is a literal apple, the alien's ribs look more like a rack of lamb, the elf's two hearts are bright pink love hearts, and the velociraptor's claw is represented by a box cutter. Residents who are suspicious of the city's newsletters and constantly opening attractions may go to bed somewhere expected and then wake up as a display in this exhibit of the Discovery Center. There is no rhyme nor reason to who gets transported and is left up to player choice—there simply is need to fill all of the displays in the museum, and some of those samples may be living residents rather than past ones. There is no exit from this exhibit, however, and it will loop visitors back around to the main atrium where they can either leave or explore the rest of the center since they're already here. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS BLEEDING THORNS, THE ENDLESS DILATION. » SCIENCE DISCOVERY CENTER EXHIBIT — "NATURAL HISTORY" This exhibit is reached by taking the hallway on the right side of the atrium at the entrance of the Center. Visitors looking for an in-depth and scientific approach to the city's history may be disappointed to find that most of the displays here appear to be half finished and very rarely occupied by any helpful models. Life-sized dioramas line the walls and sit behind thick glass. They all boast highly detailed set dressings, but none of the wax models or taxidermy animals that guests might expect from this kind of exhibit. They also lack any plaques or other signage that would provide context for what is missing from the displays. In the middle of rooms and hallways are empty display cases, or in the rare chance that there is an artifact inside, it looks like an obvious replica. Fake fossils and artificially weathered ceramics fill these displays as if mimicking images from an old history textbook. Other areas of this wing of the center focus on explaining natural phenomena, such as weather patterns, plate tectonics, and rock types and their formation. Charts explain the rain cycle going through evaporation condensation, and precipitation with small displays of each step—a secondary branch shoots off to explain how certain weather patterns can cause fish to be sucked up into storms and rained down upon towns. Large tables with levers and handles show the movement of different tectonic plates and the kinds of pressure that build up to cause earthquakes. A short video explains what gravity is and shows what would happen to all of the residents of a city if gravity were suddenly turned off. Everything has a slightly ominous tone to it, as if these examples are explaining possible natural disasters that could befall the city. Players are encouraged to have their characters find any kind of display that might be included in their canon as if a display was created to show their own local customs or history. There is unfortunately not much of substance here in terms of true city history as the majority of the exhibit seems to be faked. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS THE FIRE THAT ALTERS NOTHING. » SCIENCE DISCOVERY CENTER EXHIBITS — "THE HISTORY OF US" Taking the central hallway from the entry atrium and walking towards the back of the Science Discovery Center, visitors will be brought to a large circular room that is dimly light from lights sunken into the tall ceiling. Though the space is grand, it has an intimate and somewhat claustrophobic feeling thanks to the darkness and deep navy aint covering the walls and ceiling. There's easily enough space for fifty people to move about without brushing elbows, yet guests may find themselves seeking the company of others amongst the shadows that find home here despite the lack of corners and nooks. The main attraction here are the framed photographs that line the rounded wall, forming a neat line from one end immediately to the left of the entrance from that hallway and stretching around to end at the right-hand side. A small paragraph of text is the only context given, explaining that these photographs are records of the city throughout its history and that the preview buttons beneath each frame will supply additional information. Upon further inspection of each photograph, visitors will recognize the city they've come to know and love. Each photograph has a different event depicted, as described below, though the images are slightly muted as if waiting to be backlit. On the bottom of each frame, similar to name plates on portraits, is a small plaque, and beneath that is a silver button embedded into the wall. These are the preview buttons mentioned at the beginning of the exhibit, and pressing them will indeed provide guests more context of the images they're viewing. After pressing a button, the photograph will light up in a more crisp, saturated version of its previous self. As viewers look more closely, the image will come to life around them until they are literally consumed by the contents of the photo, falling into that exact moment in time to experience it first-hand. These events range from earthquakes and tornadoes to alien attacks and dinosaur stampedes. There's no clear exit, no trick to escaping certain doom and find your way back to the museum—all you can do is participate in the past cataclysm around you until your death returns you home to current time in the city. It will be as if no time has passed at all; you simply spaced out a little staring into the photo and then, with a blink, find yourself perfectly intact as you were before. The last three frames have no button beneath them, no past to relive, just questions to add to the list. Plaque Text Photograph CE-01 A wide shot of the city sinking into a hole that perfectly runs along the borders of the outermost buildings' foundations. CE-02 Residents, cars, animals, and anything else not bolted down to the earth float up towards the clouds. CE-03 Buildings lean at various angles, some broken in half, as people run from falling debris and cracks open in the earth. CE-04 People are strewn about in front of City Hall, slumped on benches or fallen to the pavement, hands to their necks and faces showing signs of suffocation. CE-05 A group of people wearing rubber masks break into a ritzy apartment and brandish weapons at a man wearing a silk dressing gown. CE-06 Horizontal winds wipe rain through the city, tearing up trees and stop signs and breaking the glass of nearby buildings. CE-07 The city is almost unrecognizably arid, heat haze rising from the streets and all plant life withered and dead as dirt swirls through the air. CE-08 Fire engulfs the city, setting buildings ablaze and covering the water with a layer of aflame oil and debris. CE-09 A crowd of frenzied citizens attempt to murder one another in various ways, sometimes using weapons and sometimes resorting to their bare hands. CE-10 Dark clouds unleash torrential rain upon buildings half sunk in floodwaters that climb up the sides of buildings. CE-11 A group of cloaked figures move through the city in formation, carrying scythes in one hand and skulls in the other. Another group of people flee before them. CE-12 Plant life covers the city, crawling across and through skyscrapers and apartment complexes, sprouting massive carnivorous blooms and vine piercing the bodies of frenzied citizens. CE-13 A typical scene of city life is literally frozen in a second, ice forming sideways as a blast of cold deep freezes residents as they go about their days. CE-14 The sky is darkened by a swarm of locusts that descend upon the city and eat up all plant life. CE-15 The air is hazy with heat as human bodies melt into the pavement beneath a sky of bright reds, oranges, and purples. CE-16 A gray cloud darkens the sky as it moves through the city, everything dissolving in its path as nanites destroy all matter. CE-17 A wave taller than the city's skyscrapers approaches from the waterfront. People run from it, tripping in the proceeding flood waters. CE-18 The city streets are filled with residents who look like they're dressed for a parade, wearing party hats and carrying balloons, but they're participating in mass murder rather than a fun event. CE-19 A large mushroom cloud blooms in the background, buildings silhouetted by the blast. CE-20 Residents sit huddled in heaps as their flesh is eaten away in vast chunks, falling away from their bones. CE-21 A huge volcano stands in the center of the city, lava flowing from it and melting everything in its path as buildings sink into the glowing red rivers. CE-22 The same large volcano, this time in the background of the city, spews hot ash into the air that chokes out the sun. CE-23 Sickly green rain falls on the city, eating through the metal and glass of buildings and creating holes in the streets and pavement. CE-24 A flash of light takes up most of the scene, the few areas of shadow depicting people evaporating in a split second. CE-25 The city is covered in a thick layer of ice, doors and windows frozen shut inside while plants wither under rime outside. CE-26 From out of frame, an avalanche of snow covers city streets and buries residents. CE-27 Three tornadoes churn through the city, sucking up trees and cars and residents. CE-28 Bodies sit beneath dead trees, sunburned to the third degree, as the sky roils with abnormal colors. CE-29 The city is choked with yellow-gray haze, too thick to see through, that settles as oily filth on every surface. CE-30 Residents run through the streets covered in dark red boils, clawing at their faces and arms. CE-31 A small black hole hovers above the grass in the park, trees and people being sucked towards it. CE-32 From the sky, a barrage of silver marbles rains down on buildings and people like artificial hail. CE-33 Bodies fill the streets, writhing and contorted, their skin covered in black spots. CE-34 Massive flaming meteors rain from the sky and punch holes through buildings and streets. CE-35 A thick haze of pollen hangs in the air as residents find various ways to kill themselves. CE-36 From the waterfront, a hulking waterspout spins towards the city, flashes of sharks visible within its swirling waters. CE-37 People appear to be in the middle of going about their day, frozen in motion and turned to alabaster stone. CE-38 Lumbering zombies fill the streets, attacking residents and destroying storefronts. CE-39 People lay dead in the streets. There is no sign of struggle, nor environmental issues, nor other inciting incidents. CE-40 A shot of inside a train car shows the horrific scene of piles of blood, viscera, and human bones oozing off of the train seats. CE-41 A few residents' bodies lay emaciated and crumpled in the aisle of a grocery store, its shelves completely empty. CE-42 The city is barely recognizable beneath futuristic technological augments that cover buildings and people, yet all the lights are off and the screens are blank. CE-43 A swarm of murder hornets flies through an alleyway chasing people and stinging them to death. CE-44 In front of City Hall, a group of werewolves face down an opposing group of vampires, each brandishing fangs and preparing to fight one another. CE-45 A stampede of dinosaurs, big and small, run through the city streets, trampling everything in their path and eating the fleeing residents. CE-46 UFOs hover in the skies above the city, shooting lasers at buildings below. CE-47 Humanoid robots march into an apartment building looking for human survivors to destroy. CE-48 Blank CE-49 Blank CE-50 Rather than a photograph, this frame is filled by a mirror. A spotlight is perfectly aimed to highlight anyone standing in front of it. Pressing the button beneath a photograph will instantly teleport residents into the event depicted, either right before it starts or as it is playing out. Multiple residents can end up in the same event, either by viewing the same photo together or pressing the button some moments apart. Players are encouraged to embellish the disasters that are shown—an earthquake can cause a gas leak or a tornado can crush you with a car. The bottom line is that the only way to escape is through death, as if snapping residents out of the experience that might feel like a flashback upon their return to current reality inside the exhibit. Even characters who may no usually experience death from certain events—robots suffocating or merfolk drowning—will still be able to participate in this fun new perspective on mortality. While characters can interact with NPCs in the events they enter, they won't be able to get any meaningful information out of them. Consider a stranger coming up to you and interrogating you as your world ends, and you'll be able to guess how these residents are likely to answer: panicked, pained, and generally in shock. For any questions about specific photographs, such as what is being depicted and how a character might die in that scenario, please leave your questions below in the thread titled PHOTOGRAPH QUESTIONS. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS IN THE NIGHT'S WINDOWLESS DARKNESS. » SCIENCE DISCOVERY CENTER — THE BACK ROOMS Throughout the various exhibits, visitors will notice doors with a STAFF ONLY label on them. These doors are painted the same color as the walls so that the eye is more likely to pass over them, blended in to avoid standing out. All of these doors are, unfortunately, very much locked and unable to be picked due to the lack of a keyhole or any other identifiable locking mechanism. If you're determined enough to gain entry through one, however, you might have some luck in the Natural History wing of the discovery center. In the back of a room dedicated to how rocks are formed, there's a small annex with a sign above the entrance that reads LIVE SCIENCE LAB. While there isn't much live science actually happening here—just a lot of rock samples and microscopes—there is a staff door that opens easily with a twist of the knob. This door leads to a nondescript white hallway where your footsteps echo off the blank walls that twist and descend with a series of stairs. Eventually, a door appears at the end of the hallway, unlabeled but also unlocked. Welcome to the animal science lab, a large and sterile-looking space sectioned off into smaller rooms via plexiglass walls and translucent plastic curtains. Some rooms are taken up by bulky machines that look similar to a loom, but far more technologically advanced and oddly dimensional. A few of these machines appear to have stopped halfway through running—the front end of a horse stands halfway out of the mouth of one machine, the wings of a raven spread out on the platform of another. For anyone brave enough, or skilled enough, to turn on one of these machines, they'll be greeted with a catalog of animals and a simple question: PRINT? Other rooms have similar but smaller machines that are in various stages of completion with printing various items: a T-bone steak, a rack of ribs, a bucket of chicken wings. There are various meat samples in cold storage as well as vegan samples, and in one corner is a large bubbling vat of what appears to be blood. This lab appears to be stocked for printing a variety of animals as well as animal products and their alternatives for all manner of diet. After the 3D printers have been booted up and restored to operational, characters may print animals! There is a limit to one animal per character, access by biometric scan (so no loopholes for double dipping). Though the catalog of animals is extensive, including a variety of sizes, shapes, and origins, the machines have all been locked to restrictions in order to save resources. Characters may pick from this catalog, or if they are skilled in 3d modeling or similar skills, they could create input for an animal from their canon that may not be included as a preset option. Players may pick one animal up to the size of a golden retriever, and while some animals can be scaled down in size, they cannot be scaled up—characters could have a "mini" great dane, but not a massive pet ant. These animals cannot be fully sentient (think Pokemon) nor can they speak. They are also not protected by the city's respawning safety nets—if they die, they will stay dead, so be careful to protect your new pet. They are, for all intents and purposes, real animals that will need food, water, rest, and medical care. Choose wisely, and make sure you're prepared to take responsibility for your furry/feathery/scaly friend. JUMP TO TOP ↑ | ↓ JUMP TO COMMENTS WILDCARD. The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back. If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations. This month's event headers come from Dedication by Franz Wright. 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