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

doppelgangers

[bestaround]

[ Like everyone else, 9S is well aware of the situation they're currently faced with. It's made interacting with others a risk at best if he isn't certain that their copy's body has already turned up dead, which is... most people, but he decides if there's anyone who should be pinpointing these doubles, it's him. Better than putting the actual humans in danger, he would say.

So he's keeping an eye on things where he can, and that means approaching those who are out and about if there's something peculiar about them. 9S wouldn't know what sleep deprivation looked like if it slapped him in the face, so when he spots a woman looking worse for wear, he thinks that perhaps there's something a little odd going on here, and it's time to see if this is the real deal. (Somehow. He doesn't know her, but...)

But she quickly spins on her feet, catching his gaze—sort of, there's a blindfold in the way and all—and an uncomfortable pause. 9S opens his mouth to break the silence, but she finally beats him to it. ]

—Huh? What would I have a phone for?

[ If that answers her question. ]

[oomfies]

[ He doesn’t have a phone? Suspicious.. Not suspicious enough for her to do anything about it other than write in her notebook, glancing up in his general direction between intense bouts of scribbles and pushing up her glasses. And when she’s done, she scrutinizes him as best she can - squints her eyes at him. ]

Well.. I guess if you can’t see it wouldn’t make sense to have a phone.

[ She relents, entirely unsure of if the blindfold is purely aesthetic or for.. Medical reasons. Blindfolds are probably an option at hospitals! Right? ]

I guess you can’t use the computers, either.. [ She mumbles. ] How are you even getting around?

[bestaround]

Uh—

[ ... What is she writing? He has half a mind to peer over for a closer look, but between the frazzled air about her and suspicious stares, he thinks he should keep a short distance away. He has a feeling she might not react well to any scooting closer, real person or otherwise.

His nosiness is set aside quickly enough in favor of wrinkling his nose a touch; she's far from the first to make such an assumption about his sight, but it is growing old quick. ]

The same way the rest of you are. I can see just fine, you know.

[oomfies]

[ Lottie's own nose wrinkles at that, face scrunching the slightest at his answer to her question. Despite him clearly being able to hear her just fine before, somehow she didn't expect him to catch onto her muttering. It makes her all the more crabby when she waggles her pen at him and opens her mouth - ]

If you can see then why are you wearing it?

[ She crosses her arms. ]

That's super suspicious.

[bestaround]

[ He opens his mouth, but quickly bites his tongue on the matter. It'd be easy to argue back it isn't weird at all, but if she's actually at her wits end, there's no real point; otherwise, this is one of those bizarre copies that is managing quite the convincing act. 9S can't tell yet, but whether he has the visor on or off is negligible. In the end, he relents, lifting a hand to pull apart the knot tying it together and reveals the rest of his face. ]

Is that better?

[oomfies]

[ Truthfully, she didn't really expect him to humor her. To actually take off the blindfold - Lottie visibly reels back, a slight pinch to her brow when the rest of his face is out in the open. Her own mouth opens, then closes, pen waggling aimlessly in the air for a few moments before she does her own dramatic reveal... By taking off her own glasses. Her plain, round rimmed, glasses.

The only thing this affords 9S is a better view of the bags under her eyes, and the stark contrast of their color to that of her skin - makes it a little more obvious how raggedy she looks. She glances down at them (well, more like frowns), before bringing them up to view in an attempt to say 'fair's fair'. ]

I can't read without them.

[bestaround]

[ 9S has seen glasses before, but rarely, worn purely cosmetically because "humans once had them too" most likely, as was the reason for a lot of things they did. No reason to build an android with intentionally faulty vision and all. This means he's unaware of the true purpose behind glasses, so when she slides them off pointedly, there's a curiousness in 9S' face that isn't difficult to catch now that he's considerably easier to read.

And so is she, although glasses don't do as much to hide the face. Regardless, she looks awful. It's kind of worrying, and he starts to wonder if any copy out there would run themselves this ragged for the sake of deceit. ]

How do they make it easier to read?

[ It just looks like plastic to him. ]

[oomfies]

[ For a moment, she brings the tip of her pen down and onto the paper. Aimlessly moves it around on the page - it's hard to tell whether it's because she wants to look busy, or she had a stroke of abstract genius and desperately needed to write it down, because she's frowning. Hands bring the glasses closer to her own eyes, close enough to stare at and puzzle out an answer for him, but not exactly put them back on. ]

It definitely has something to do with these things.

[ The lenses, the pristine frames catching what little fluorescent light there is left inside the mall, ]

And faulty eyeballs. Like mine! [ Unhelpfully, she doesn't clarify any further, only folds them up to hook it on the inside of her jacket. ] Your vision must be perfect though, if you're flaunting it around behind that thing.

[bestaround]

[ He continues to watch her, less out of suspicion and more out of an ever present curiosity. Still unable to catch what she jots down, 9S focuses more on her movements. ]

—Huh?

[ He blinks dumbly at her, taking only a quick glance down at the black cloth still in hand. ]

Umm... I don't know about perfect, but my visual sensors are all working as intended. If anything went faulty, it most likely could be repaired. [ ... A luxury humans wouldn't have, he supposes. ] So long as it wasn't anything too major. Come to think of it, I don't know what I'd do for maintenance around here if something did break that badly...

[ 9S cups a chin underneath his hand in thought. ]

[oomfies]

[ Oh no.. Is this guy a weirdo (thinks the person who is the very definition of ratty and Doesn't Care™)? Who refers to their internal organs and eye sight being tended to as.. Maintenance? ]

I'm sorry.. What.

[ She scratches at her head, an odd tilt to it as she tries to process all this information one more time. And when that doesn't work, she just rubs at her eyes like it'll grant her some awesome epiphany (it doesn't). A quiet groan follows that before she starts gesturing with her hands, ]

If something broke you'd just.. I don't know. Stick some wood next to it and bandage it? Use some alcohol? Like a doctor would?

[bestaround]

[ Her baffled state isn't missed, and 9S realizes that once again, she isn't seeing him for what he is. This isn't the first time, so he's beginning to think that maybe he should assume it's not that obvious. ]

No, I— I'm not human like you. I'm an android, so I'm pretty sure how we'd deal with that is... different.

[ Don't call him an expert, but, you know. ]