EVENT #1

[collectedmods]

EVENT #1

JULY 15TH - JULY 17TH

Time in the mall thus far has been ripe with tension - between the silence, the lack of resources, and the worrying conditions outside, it’s normal for morale to be less than high. But on the early morning of the 15th, things will truly take a turn for the wicked.

Starting on July 15th, and continuing on until the following Wednesday, characters will find that there are doppelgangers of them in the mall.

The first sign of this will come on the first day they even appear: in the early morning of the 15th, just as the radioactive sun is starting to rise and characters begin to stir from slumber, they’ll find a smoking heap of… bodies of mall residents with matching clothes to boot outside the mall’s front doors, cooking in the radioactive sun. And with them? Most of what was left of the frozen rations from the food court’s freezers. No more philly steak and cheese hot pockets!

On the First Floor, much of the remaining furniture that had not been in immediate use by characters has been torn apart and thrown into the toxic waters below. Floating amongst these dismantled furniture pieces are what appear to be drowned bodies of mall residents.

Doppelgangers found on the first day of this event are more likely to resemble characters whom have survival experience, or have adapted well to the mall thus far. Inspecting any of these first bodies discovered will reveal that they are identical to mall residents down to the fingerprints. Characters may retrieve the bodies from the First Floor and even the outside (if they work quickly enough) for inspection.

JULY 17TH - JULY 21ST

Throughout the rest of the week, characters can be expected to be dealing with a myriad of trouble from these doubles:

» Witnessing doppelgangers sabotaging survival efforts. Most commonly, doppelgangers will be doing things throughout the week like destroying food, cutting power lines, ruining water piping - you name it. They are difficult to catch, as they flee whenever seen, and can contort into impossible shapes to evade capture. If captured, they will either continue struggling until they escape or are killed, or they will try to convince their captor that they are the original - and if threatened, will begin to beg for their life (convincingly.) See below for more information about the doppelgangers themselves.

» Hearing screams for help identical to the mall residents' voices. Doppelgangers will be extremely convincing actors, and will attempt to lure away and confuse resident characters by any means necessary.

» The doppelgangers become more similar to their “originals” as the week goes on. Doppelgangers will be able to act increasingly in likeness to their originals towards the end of the week. Each day they continue living, they become smarter, more convincing, more advanced at impersonating their originals. This means that if they are witnessed apart from their “original” in the latter parts of the week, they may be capable of carrying on simple conversations and acting as their “original” in order to create confusion and plant seeds of doubt over who is the “real” one.

JULY 22ND

Almost as abruptly as they’d come, the doppelgangers will meet their end on the following Wednesday: those who had not already been killed by characters present in the mall will be found dead on the morning of the 22nd.

Corpses will be in every inch of the mall, and killed in a bunch of different ways: some look to be freshly killed, as though they had been ambushed by surprise (throat slit from behind, pushed from a high area, etc.) Others seem as though they have been dead for days - and are beginning to rot. These corpses will not disappear, and will need to be cleaned up or disposed of by the characters, unless they’d like the mall to start smelling a whole lot worse. Get to work, shoppers!

More than anything, their sudden appearance and equally sudden demise does beg the question - can you trust the ones around you?

NOTES

Welcome to Collected’s first main event! We’re going to provide some additional notes about the doppelgangers here, so everyone will know what they’re dealing with:

» Doppelgangers are identical physically to their originals.

» Doppelgangers DO NOT have the magical or supernatural abilities of their originals. They will retain only the skills and abilities related to their physiology (like physical strength), as they are biological duplicates (or mechanical, in the case of androids).

» Doppelgangers will be wearing clothes identical to the ones characters arrived in.

» There is only ONE copy of each character in the mall. This means that if you would like to have your character among the first ones discovered by characters, they won’t find another copy of their doppelganger doing things throughout the mall for the remainder of the event.

» Doppelgangers can be killed - they are not immortal and will not heal the same way characters do in the setting. However, they are extremely difficult to capture, and will flee if they are witnessed participating in sabotage, or if they are caught impersonating their original. Of note is the fact that they are strangely able to contort into impossible shapes to evade capture - bending limbs the other way, folding in half, that kind of deal.

» You are free to NPC your own doppelganger (so long as you’re not solely tagging as your double the entire event). If you’d like to handwave other characters witnessing your doppelganger doing things throughout the week, or handwave your doppelganger successfully interacting with your CR while impersonating your character, that is fine as well!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask them HERE. Have fun, shoppers!


NAVIGATION

Comments

misa amane / death note

[lifespanned]

I. july 15th / discovery

[ After the corpses had been discovered - Misa finds herself high-strung with tension for the days following it. There's too many implications that the bodies bring - that something caused them to come, or caused them to appear, or placed them there. It's horrifying. At the moment, she's only glad that she didn't find herself among those (which she would later learn to regret.) ]

What could even do something so horrible...? [ For the most part, she'd avoided taking a closer look at the bodies, but now that people have started to retrieve them from outside or drag them up from the water, there's no choice but to look at them a little. Even if it's just out of sick curiosity. ] I mean, have you ever heard of anything like this? And not in a zombie movie.

[ She tries to make the conversation light, but it's mostly out of shock, as well as a healthy dose of plain denial that something so surreal could happen. She's practically hiding behind you so she only has to peek at the mess of bodies that litter the front doorways and top of the escalator after the retrievals. ]

II. july 17th - july 21st / shenanigans

[ Most people would keep from being seen by themselves after the whole doppelganger reveal, but it just doesn't occur to Misa that she might get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time if she's wandering off alone. Which is exactly what happens.

Caught by the leg underneath a hefty piece of ceiling tiling that seems to have fallen from the rotted infrastructure, she waves frantically from where she's trapped, calling out to you: ]

Wait, come over here! I promise I'm not one of them!

[ Will you believe her? She's at least giving you a convincing distraught look. ]

III. july 22nd / clean-up

[ Nonetheless, nothing gets to her quite like having to clean up her own corpse. It has to be the most disturbing bit of it all - her body, limp and crumpled across the floor, has a deep gash across it's neck - a pool of blood stains the tiles beneath it, and a dark red dyes the front of all of it's clothing. From far away, it seems like she's trying to decide just how she's going to move the body, but the way she recoils after even touching just the ankle makes it seems like there's more to it.

She's just standing there, staring at it, like it's going to move on it's own. Misa has seen a lot of dead bodies in her life, but it's downright disturbing to be looking at your own. Finally, she seems moved to silence, for all her talkative and obnoxious energy that she's shown to the other residents here - for the first time since being dragged here, she seems grave, her usual level of over dramatic hysterics nowhere to be seen.

When she finally musters up the courage to start dragging her double's body by the ankle, it leaves a streak of blood with each stride that she makes. She seems almost out of it, eyes staring blankly at the blank expression of her corpse. ]

Do you know what everyone's doing with these?

[ She doesn't turn to you when she speaks, focusing on readjusting her grip around the corpse's ankle. ]

clean up

[oomfies]

[ Come discovering that these bodies.. Aren't just going to mysteriously go away, like how they all appeared so suddenly that first day, Lottie's resigned herself to helping at least somewhat. Of course, this is after her freakout, her tears, her panic attack. The sight of Misa dragging her own corpse is horrifying in itself, but Lottie barely feels her terror, a taste of that existential crisis, come seeing the blood drag behind each little tug of hers. She only stares, dumbfounded. ]

I don't know..

[ Her tone clearly conveys that she wishes they did. Where are they going to put them? In a freezer locker that doesn't work? In a store all of them will vow not to go into until it starts reeking even worse? She gives a pause, stares at the blank expression of the double below. ]

Definitely not a funeral. That's too fucked up.

[lifespanned]

[ Misa's having an existential crisis, too, truth be told, which is why she's having such a hard time putting up the front she normally does. It seems the both of them are in the same boat, creeped out and disturbed by the dead body in front of them. ]

It doesn't deserve a funeral. [ She mutters, almost bluntly, blowing a puff of air from her lips to blow her bangs out of her face. ] I just want it to be gone, is all.

[ With a pause, she blinks slowly and finally lifts her head to meet Lottie's eyes - yes, she's seen this woman around, of course. There's not many faces in the mall, so you see everyone at least once, even if you haven't talked to them. ]

Do you think it's okay to just put it outside...?

[oomfies]

[ Lottie feels bad for Misa. Not as bad as she feels for herself, but she still feels some sympathy for her. After all, this is going to be her exact situation in a couple hours. She slows to a stop at her question, stares heavy at the body lying limp on the floor. ]

..I don't see why not.

[ That's how some of them were discovered, in the first place. But the only problem is the smell.. And the fact it'll stay there. Rot out in the sun for everyone to see. She hesitates explaining this, only because she doesn't have an alternative offer. ]

We'd need something to push it, though. I'm not sticking my hands in there without a hazmat suit or something!

[lifespanned]

Oh, yeah, it's way too scary...!

[ Even if she knows they'd heal, allegedly, so she's heard, she can't trust like that in whatever powers reside here. She'd hate to feel pain like that, anyway. Lottie's demeanor helps her calm down a bit, or at least pretend to calm down, tamping down the excess of anxiety in her heart for the moment. ]

Maybe if we found a shopping cart or something... we could push it out? [ She recalls there being a lot of old, rusted ones left over where the department stores are at. ] That way, we could take yours at the same time - if you've found it.

[ Misa offers with a note of concern, meeting the other woman's eyes tentatively. ]

[oomfies]

[ Lottie takes a pause at that. She has found her body, but she hasn’t done anything to it. Maybe she’s just pushing it off until she absolutely has to, or maybe she just wants someone else to take care of it - either way, she isn’t disclosing that tidbit. ]

I think it’d be easier to just take yours.. I might try doing that later myself, if I find mine before sundown.

[ That’s better than outright admitting she’s refusing the existence of her dead body, right? Right! ]

I’m down to try that, though. Let’s just leave it like, [ She gestures to the body, a scrunch to her brows as she examines the area. And then, she points to a corner between two store walls. ] there, until we find a cart? It should be safe there..

[lifespanned]

[ Misa nods, if not a bit belatedly to Lottie's request. Sure, she knows in her heart of hearts it's best if she moves this body out of everyone's way, and so that they know where to look for it after.. but the bigger part of her would really love to just stop touching it altogether. Nonetheless, she starts dragging the body in the direction Lottie pointed out - grimacing all the way. ]

I hate doing this, [ She complains, bluntly, moving slowly but steadily. ] It was scary enough seeing the other bodies, but seeing myself... I don't know. It's different.

[ A cruel reminder of her own mortality, she supposes - but she's only trying to find camaraderie with the other woman, feeling that grasping for closeness like that is about all she can do in a dire situation such as this. ]

[oomfies]

[ Lottie scratches at her arms, giving a brief, but understanding, nod to Misa's words. It's a bit too much, she thinks. Something straight out of a movie, or a TV show, yet here they are - lugging around their own bodies. But no matter how much she associates this with fiction, it is very much real.

She can tell from the stink of the bodies permeating the mall, from the blood on the floor she has to step over so she won't be yelling in Misa's direction. ]

I mean.. It's never not gonna be different. I'm used to seeing my face blasted up on a board or something, not.. Dead.

[ Or on any other body, really. ]

It's kinda creepy. It almost makes me think it's a wax dummy or something but I know it's real..

II

[teaserving]

[Abbacchio hesitates. Which is shitty, he knows it is, but he doesn't want to get caught up in dealing with one of the doppelgangers if it turns out that it isn't actually her.

So he slowly approaches and peers down.]

How do I know it's you, Misa?

[It's convincing. He wants to help her. But he wants to make the right decision even more.]

[lifespanned]

Oh! Umm... I know! You can ask me something only the real Misa would know!

[ Foolproof, right? Misa tilts her head, trying out her best shaky smile. The pressure on her leg is not so bad that it's painful - it's only preventing her from moving, so she doesn't look too scared. ]

I guess you don't know very much about me, but I promise I'll tell you the truth...

[ The only other way of proving it she can think of is to... well, the doubles don't heal, right? She'd like to avoid shedding blood if she can, though. ]

discovery

[trample]

[ At "zombie movie", Eren goes quiet. The look he gives her says enough about whether or not he's seen one at all. He turns his head away from her - who is uncomfortably lurking behind him - to stare the pile of corpses just beyond the doors, some of which are still being brought back in even now. ]

...Where I'm from, burning bodies isn't anything unusual. We'd stack them five feet high and let them burn all night. There'd be nothing but bones and ash left come morning.

[ Completely unreceptive to her attempts at lightening the conversation up - mostly because he couldn't make sense of it to begin with - Eren opens up about something he might not have, had things been "normal". Yet, with current circumstance being anything but, even by the mall's standards, he had let slip something shouldn't have; he quickly redirects the conversation elsewhere to make up for his mistake. ]

...Are you ever going to come out from behind me?

[lifespanned]

[ Misa doesn't miss the tidbit of information - a world where burning bodies is normal? What sort of world is that? One torn by war, she assumes, or some other horrible atrocity. It sounds tragic to her, gives a little pang in her heart, no matter how fleeting his mention of it is - she can't imagine all the people being burned in such a state deserved it. Probably. ]

It's just— I guess you're used to it, but seeing things like this is so creepy... [ However, she doesn't prod into the topic, seeing his avoidance of it. She merely goes along with his distraction, continuing to peek out from behind him. ] What if they start moving again! That's why I'm afraid. I can't fight at all..

[ Which is an excuse for cowering behind other people, considering that she'd wager about half of the people here have some sort of supernatural strength or weapon of the sort. Yes, these corpses look cooked and drowned to death, but she can't help but feel apprehensive they'll rise like zombies and start trying to eat them. Or something! ]

[trample]

...I guess I am.

[ What shouldn't come as a surprise seems to bother him to a degree that keeps him quiet for the rest of her chattering. At the mention of being unable to fight, Eren fixes his attention back on the girl, who by now has been more shallow than he had initially thought. If he were to veer the conversation in a different direction, though, he might be able to tolerate h for longer. That's what he hopes. ]

Even if they started moving again, they'd be too weak to do anything, don't you think? Even someone like you could give them trouble. [ His foot meets with some rubble on the ground, sending it in the way of a trash can - it hits it head on with a loud clang. ] Just kick them like that.

[lifespanned]

You are way too casual about this.

[ She complains, crossing her arms and breathing out a huff. Seriously, she feels at a disadvantage when she talks to someone like this - someone that can so freely just suggest kicking an undead body if it starts to rise up again. Burning bodies, no care for acts of violence - what kind of life is this guy living? ]

... What about just burning them up, like you said? [ Misa swallows, fidgeting behind him. ] If they're gone, we wouldn't have to worry about them doing creepy stuff or having to kick them.