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OCTOBER EVENT PT2

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→ THE BEGINNING

(click to expand - happy early Halloween)

It's on the evening of October 28th when everything quickly descends into madness.

It begins with faint static in the air, gradually becoming louder and louder until it's impossible to ignore, the pattern of cries that was once hidden now audible to everybody as it grows and grows until it culminates in an explosion. The walls of the local bookstore burst outwards, a rampaging Hydreigon within unleashing Hyper Beam after Hyper Beam without any rest in between. Its trainer, an old man, hobbles up to it in a panic in order to ask what's wrong, but the Pokemon knocks him to the ground, ignoring him and continuing to destroy everything in its path while its trainer lies motionless on the ground, blood pouring from his head.

Further down the street, another eruption shakes the city, a group of Galarian Rapidashes slamming themselves against walls and windows until they break through, careening and crashing through buildings with wild abandon. Occupants inside a cafe scream as they attempt to flee, crushed under rubble and trampled by merciless hooves. From the sky, Murkrows and Natus swoop down on residents on the streets, long talons outstretched to claw at any exposed skin and pluck out any staring eyes. All around the city, Pokeballs burst open on their own and the Pokemon rush madly at human and Pokemon alike, disregarding orders or pleads from their trainers and attacking anything within sight in a wild frenzy.

Fires blaze across the city as children wail and adults scream. All the while, the pattern of cries continues...

→ THE RAMPAGE

(click to expand - you're in for a bad time)

Throughout the night, dark, ghost, and psychic-type Pokemon rampage throughout Mango City. Wild Pokemon appear from the outskirts of town and attack anyone and anything on sight, while companion Pokemon force themselves out of their balls and turn upon their trainers. No other types seem to be affected, the other Pokemon just as confused and distraught as the humans as they're forced to run from, defend against, and fight the Pokemon they were once allied with.

While many of the mad Pokemon physically assault those around them, other use innate abilities to wreak havoc. Musharnas emit a dark mist that engulfs entire beings and brings their fears to reality, forcing all those within the fog to face the same delusions. At the same time, Shedinjas steal souls away in their shells and keep them captive in a shared endless nightmare of their worst experiences relived. Similarly, Beheeyems cause those nearby to reexperience their most feared and hated moments, erasing all memory after that moment in order to trap their victims in that vulnerable mindset of the past. Meanwhile, Zoroarks trap their targets within grand illusions that force them to undergo a series of deaths over and over again, causing them excruciating pain and suffering while their physical bodies continue to live. Haunters phase in and out of walls to surprise and lick their victims, sapping years off their life and causing a frigid shivering that won't stop until they wither away, and Gengars loom in the shadows, sapping heat away from its surroundings and causing the small and the weak to slowly freeze to death. Umbreons spray poisonous sweat all over the street, causing people to choke and convulse if they stay too long near the toxic areas, and Cofagriguses drag humans into their coffins and wrap them up as mummies, bound so tightly nobody can hear them scream. No amount of pleading nor bargaining will cause any of them to stop; the only option left is to defeat them in battle, either by killing them or knocking them out.

It'd be kinder to do the latter, but in the heat of the moment, it's difficult to hold back. It's desperate times, after all, as the city streets soon begin to fill with the cold and still bodies of both Pokemon and humans.

→ HELP...?

(click to expand - is anyone even sane enough left to help)

At the outskirts of town bordering the forest, herds of Stantler lead the unaffected and helpless deeper into the forest into an area where the trees are so densely packed that even the shine of the moon can't break through. The only source of light are the small Litwicks that scurry towards the humans, smiling and holding out their little hands. Follow them. They'll keep you safe(?).

Perhaps it's time to abandon the city, where the fires continue to grow and rage throughout the streets, threatening to engulf entire neighborhood blocks. The hospital and Pokemon Center get repurposed to disaster zones as the doctors and nurses struggle to treat their patients while fending off rampaging Pokemon at the same time. Mari's large Steelixes wrap themselves around the buildings to become iron walls keeping the wild Pokemon out, but even their great defense struggles against the never ending attacks.

In the midst of the ongoing disaster, the radio tower remains undamaged and completely abandoned, untouched by the rampaging Pokemon outside. The receptionist has fled long ago, leaving the front doors open but the door to the stairs and the elevator up remaining locked. The tower stands empty and silent, completely free of the static and pattern of cries playing outside, the one place of reprieve from the hell that has descended upon Mango City.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Welcome to the Halloween event! Due to the nature of the prompts, please properly warn for any potentially disturbing content in your threads/tags for all players.
⬥ This event is forward dated to the evening and night of the 28th and may last past the 28th if no proper IC measures are taken to stop the rampaging Pokemon. The OOC deadline to solve and fix the disaster will be October 29.
⬥ Please comment to the mod question & investigation thread to report any actions that characters may take to stop the events of the log.
⬥ Have fun! :)

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Characters involved: Sagi, Efina
Problem investigating: The radio tower, time is fake, maybe the 1-year-old can stop Sagi stealing the antenna
Action taken: They're looking for a room with machine controls in the hopes of shutting the antenna down. Is there anything on the walls, near the elevator, on the reception desk or anywhere else in the lobby that looks like a directory of rooms or the different floors?
Link to thread: here

There is no map of rooms, but there's a directory next to the elevator that suggests mainly offices along most of the tower, with the company president's office located on the very top floor. Nothing is clearly labeled as a control room, though. There is a door to the basement that I decided existed for Hythlo's investigation before I saw this one but it's unlabeled and is also locked to prevent unauthorized persons from entering.

They decide it's perfectly reasonable for a company president's office to contain some kind of self destruct mechanism and decide to go there. Since the elevator and the door to the stairs are both locked per the earlier question, they trash the door to the stairs with their Pokemon and start to climb the 248290459830485394 sets of stairs... does anything impede them on the way to the top floor?

Nothing but 248290459830485394 sets of stairs! The tower seems to creak a little when they smash open the door to the stairs, though, maybe wanton destruction at the base of a tower is not their smartest idea. The tower continues to hold, though, as they trek up the many many flights of stairs past all those offices that could potentially be useful but we will never know, because here we are at the president's door!

As expected, it is also locked. Instead of a physical key, though, it seems to open using a password. There is an alphanumeric keypad next to the lock and four spaces total to the password.

Sagi... is contemplating more vandalism in the near future, but for now types in "1234" on the basis that maybe they forgot to set the password like he sometimes does.

A little light on the side of the keypad beeps and flashes red.

Try again?

1111? 0000? ABCD? AAAA? PASS? SQUI...?

Edited 2020-10-21 20:32 (UTC)

WHAT IS SQUI............... I had an actual password in mind but then I looked at AAAA and went "yeah, you know what, that would be the password."

The lock clicks open when Sagi enters AAAA. It looks like a regular office when they walk inside... At first glance, they will see:

There is a large desk towards the back of the room, behind which is a very plush leather spinny chair one of them can sit a while and rest their feet. Several chairs line either side of the room, but they are not as comfortable. There is a computer on the desk that seems to require both a password and a physical keycard, and short stacks of papers in baskets on the desk labeled "to do," "out going," and what originally might have been "scrap" except somebody's taken a pen and crossed out the s. A small potted fern sits on top of the desk that could use some watering, and an intricate oil painting of a Sylveon is hung on the wall to the right of the desk.

Is there any water nearby, because Sagi's immediate thought before noticing anything else is that the plant looks sad :(

There doesn't seem to be any drinking fountains or anything around here... But there is a bathroom outside in the hall and idk Sagi or his Pokemon can always spit on the plant, he'll have to do what he can

Efi reminds Sagi that he literally used a water-type Pokemon to break down the door in the lobby, so he asks his Marshtomp nicely to water the fern. Hooray! With this done, he is going to compulsively put his hand on the seat of every chair in the room to check how comfy they are and whether anything happens to be stuck in there. He also runs his hand along the frame of the painting.

With that done, he'll check the baskets on the desk, "to do" first.

The fern's leaves wiggle happily at being watered. The dirt also wiggles. An Oddish pops its head out from out of the dirt and blinks blearily up at Marshtomp, mouth all O: in a wide yawn before it sleepily settles back inside the pot to watch what's going on.

The main desk chair is definitely the comfiest, but the others aren't absolutely terrible either. They're all very sittable! Nothing seems to be stuck on the chairs and there is no dust along the frame of the painting. It seems well cared for?

The papers inside the "to do" baskets seem to be bills... Running a radio tower seems to rack up a lot of expenses that the president has been putting off dealing with, especially with the actual radio stations not working in the recent months and there being only static.

How about "out going"?

Out going seems to be business faxes! They all seem to be requiring signatures of some sort, and with each original is a hardcopy with a "failed to send" notice on the top ): Life's hard when you're a radio station owner with no electronic access outside of your city. Nothing to do but keep trying...

The last basket, "scrap"? Sagi will attempt to block Efi's view of the label while he looks through the papers, although it's probably kind of late.

The scrap basket seems to be filled with printer failures... Some are incomplete faxes, some with the words too big or too blurry or are corrupted or otherwise only part of the original page got scanned through. Life's hard when you're a radio station owner!! There is a trash bin under the desk with these sorts of failed faxes with hand written notes on the backsides of it before being balled up and thrown away.

It's scrap paper. We're being environmentally friendly.

Sagi is absolutely going to go through the bin under the desk for any legible notes too, unless he finds that someone put something gross and not-paper in the paper bin... but why would anyone do that :(

IT'S A TRASH BIN NOT A PAPER BIN

I'm laughing, I read half that first sentence and went "Sagi sticks his hand inside and gets a wad of gum stuck to him." so that's what happens. There are empty boba cups in there too that might spill a little too if Sagi is too rough digging his hand around.

oh nooo yeah he takes his hand out and does his best to scrape it off before getting any deeper, ew, glad he wears gloves rn!! it's still not the worst thing he's ever stuck his hand in

Since there was no obvious keycard or password, he'll ask the Oddish if it knows how to get into the... machine. what is a computer

The Oddish helpfully makes cute little Oddish noises! It even waves its leaves a little for emphasis.

Does the desk have drawers?

The desk does have drawers! The main drawer at the center contains some very nice pens, a couple sets of colorful sticky notes, and a box of staples. There are two drawers to the left and two to the right:

The top left is a smaller drawer with more office supplies like staplers and scissors and tape, a boba shop stamp card with six stamps already on it, and also a toothbrush and little travel tube of toothpaste.
The bottom left contains several reams of plain white printer paper.
The top right contains a single Pokeball.
The bottom right is locked.

Does there seem to be a physical keyhole for the bottom right drawer? If so, Efi is pawing through the office supplies for the staples or a paperclip or something she can use to pick the lock like Theo taught her, while Sagi watches with Concern because they're under a certain amount of pressure here but stealing is bad. :( :( :( (unless it's the radio antenna)

It's a physical keyhold and there are paperclips Efi can use to pick the lock! Inside is............

It's a filing cabinet. There are files. This radio tower has been standing for several decades and this drawer contains neatly filed invoices for the past ten years. Sometimes you run a business and have important documents to keep instead of secrets you're hiding from punk kids rooting through your office, damn /:

Efi's crimes continue as she messes up all the invoices looking for pictures and steals some scissors from the office supplies. Sagi, this close to just leaving and stealing the antenna from the roof after all, attempts to open the Pokeball in the top right drawer in case anything is inside.

(no subject)

teamboba - 2020-10-21 23:50 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

scension - 2020-10-22 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

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