collectedlogs | INTRO LOG #1

INTRO LOG #1

Welcome to Collected’s first Intro Log! The information we’ve provided about the setting is not exhaustive - feel free to interact with the setting as you see fit. Rather than have specific prompts, our event posts throughout the game will generally have information listed out like this and players may come up with their own prompts.

If you have questions about the setting or the intro log, please ask them HERE in the comment thread! And most of all, have fun, shoppers.

PROMPTS

The first thing anyone does is gasp for air.

It’ll feel like the first breath you’ve taken in years. That’s right; before you can even become aware of your surroundings, the most immediate thing they’ll process is that you’re in water. Foul smelling water - like rotten eggs and decay. It’s pitch black, and you’re swimming in it with only your head above the surface. If the smell doesn’t deter you, the longer you stay in will; the water stings to have on your skin, chemical in nature.

So - you need to get out. This water can’t be okay to stay in. Once you’ve gathered enough about your surroundings, you’ll see that you’re inside a mall, of sorts. There’s a large (non-functioning) escalator in front of you that will lead you to the semi-safe havens of the second floor - but be careful, because everyone’s going to be gunning for that only exit.

» Once on the second floor, exploring will lead you to a few notes of interest: Long windows and tall glass doors show the conditions outside. The sky is a burnt orange, and there is a thick sort of fog on the horizon. Nothing for miles in every direction - just an empty parking lot, completely devoid of life or any sign that anyone has come across this place in many years. Even so, you’ll find the windows and doors unlocked, so getting outside is easy… the problem is what’s out there.

A trip outside will make it instantly clear why you see no life outside the mall’s walls: exposure to the radioactive sun outside causes your skin to bubble with welts, and the thick, toxic air of the outside is impossible to inhale without keeling over. It’s blistering hot, too. Even non-organic creatures would melt or be eroded by the sun’s radioactive qualities. One thing is abundantly obvious: you cannot survive outside. Not now, at least. Those who receive a burn or other damage from the conditions outside will discover that strangely enough, upon returning inside the mall, the wound begins to heal up on its own. Slowly, and extremely painfully, but it’s healing. That’s strange…

» Another thing of note is that there’s a food court on the second floor. There, you’ll find a variety of abandoned restaurants that have varying amounts of non-perishables inside - canned vegetables and preserved meats, as well as dusty old jars of sauces and the like. There are a few walk-in freezers with hefty locks on them, but if the locks are broken or picked, there’s actually some frozen rations, as well! Many of them are not labelled, so the dining experience will be pretty hit or miss. None of the stoves or cooking appliances in the food court work anymore, either, so you’ll have to get creative when it comes to cooking up these ingredients. (Or just, you know, eat them cold.)

» Throughout the mall’s bathrooms, water fountains, and gym showers, you’ll find that all the water in the mall is suspiciously clean. Like, way too clean to be normal in a place as run-down and clearly abandoned as this. You’ll find that toilets flush completely fine, and shower water heats up (eventually). Should you be grateful, or concerned?

» There’s an electronics store on the second floor, as well, along with a internet cafe. Should you try to turn on the computers in the internet cafe, you’ll find that it only opens to the same forum page: a site called Mall Watch. It’ll prompt you to make an account and password if you try posting to it. In the electronics store, you’ll also find that any phone you forage for and try to boot up will also only open up to this forum page. Weird!

» If you’re looking for a place to sleep, the department stores of the mall still have a variety of furniture sets collecting a lot of dust. Then again, no one’s around to tell you where to sleep - and maybe you don’t trust all these new faces you arrived with. If you’re okay sleeping on the floor of a random store, more power to you.

» You’ll probably want to do something about your clothes that were stained by the black water on the first floor.. try foraging for some clothes! Looking around, you’ll find that some clothes stores have some stock left over, though everything’s generally a mess in clothing stores - it’ll take you some time to find anything that’ll fit you. Looking around enough on this second floor, you might end up stumbling across some of your own belongings or clothing, or those of your peers.

More than anything, the longer you explore and scavenge the mall, you’ll recognize how eerily silent it is. If not for you and your peers here, this place would be totally desolate. Clearly, there’s no one around for miles, and as far as you can tell, you’ll only be able to survive here for as long as the supplies here last. No one’s coming to save you - no one even knows you’re here. In every sense of the word, you are alone.

For now.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. SWIMMING IN GRIMM

[ At least Ruby's a strong swimmer. She's quick to get herself to shore, even if this doesn't make much sense at all. Did the plane go down? Maybe she just passed out after it? But it seems like she's inside...and the water, as she tries to shake it off, is gross and clinging. Sharp. It reminds her of the dark pools she'd seen in Jinn's vision of Salem, and Ruby's expression twists to distaste because of it.

But there don't seem to be any Creatures of Grimm to go with the Grimm (?) water, so at least there's that.

She's quick to get as dry as possible and doesn't bother to complain, instead poking around. While she is more than willing to help anyone out of the water, she doesn't linger for too long on the clearly flooded level, instead heading up as soon as possible...

Although she's also fine with letting people cut in front of her for the escalator. Ruby doesn't seem to be that frantic about her new situation, but more a little tired and a lot confused. ]

How did we get underground...?

[ Also, who the heck are all these people? All good questions. ]

II. VAMPIRE RULES

[ Of course she's quick to test going outside once it becomes clear they're not locked in - and once her skin is burned, Ruby tries to put up her cloak hood (little red riding hood style) but once it becomes clear the sun is too harsh even for clothes, she darts back inside, making a face as she examines the hand she'd burned in the sun earlier.

Again, she's not complaining. It had to be tested, even if she didn't get very far. ]

What kinda mall has an air filtration system that can go against all...that?

[ She's a seventeen year old girl, of course she RECOGNIZES that she's in a mall, but like. What. ]

III. SALTY

[ You know what else food courts have? Condiments. Lots of (probably expired) packets of salt and pepper and ketchup and mustard and soy sauce and...well, a bunch of stuff that might help make some of the other stuff more palatable. Maybe. Ruby's not that picky about food, and she's just relieved they HAVE food. Should they like...be rationing it, though? Or, uh, taking inventory? Or...talking about food supplies?

This all sounds like stuff they should probably be doing, and she really wishes Weiss were around to micromanage the entire debacle. It'd be easy to talk about it with her team and JNR and Penny and Oscar and Uncle Qrow and Maria - but she doesn't know anyone here, and what if they don't agree?

What if they all run out of food?

This all feels above her pay grade even though Ruby supposes it theoretically is her entire pay grade now, if her Huntress license isn't just flat out revoked by Ironwood now which??? Maybe it was?? But she's assuming it's valid until proven otherwise so you know what, whatever.

It's a lot of stress about should I be responsible??? How do I do that?? And she ends up instead collecting all the condiments and shoving food court tables together to make larger tables and...arranging the condiments nicely?

Okay, Ruby, whatever.

At least she's happy about the salt in particular. ]

You know, no matter how bad the food itself is, if we just smother it in salt it should be fine! Or, like, these sauce packets.

[ That's not how seasoning things works. This is why Ren wouldn't let you handle the cooking, Ruby. ]

IV. SLUMBER PARTY

[ Making the best of things and remaining optimistic against all odds is pretty much Ruby's job these days. So, you know what? Okay! If she has to stay here (which...seems likely for the time being until they figure out how to get out without the whole, uh, boiling alive thing) she's going to stay here in comfort! Which mostly means rearranging inside one of the bigger department stores. She claims a mattress that looks mostly okay and tries to find bedclothes for it but whatever, she has her sleeping bag to settle on top...and then she just starts collecting random stuff for her little "area", making walls with some mostly broken dressers and the like and decorating the corners of the open side with some funky fruit lamps that have broken bulbs.

She's also basically going to try to settle some old sheets over the top like a...Not a tent, actually.

Yeah, no, she's making an elaborate blanket fort here. That's what Ruby is choosing to do with her time right now. If she notices you coming up on her area, she'll gesture at it grandly. ]

Okay, be honest! What do you think? I think it's missing a little something, but I'm not sure what...

V. FLOWER SPEED CHECKERS

[ So, Ruby has found Azula's Pai Sho set and has...cannibalized some other board games from the department store she's set up "shop" in. She's setting up the game on a (broken) low table she's dragged over in front of her mattress, and has included various pieces and cards from other games. Pai Sho doesn't have Get Out Of Jail Free cards normally, but guess what she's added? That.

Ruby claps her hands together happily. ]

I think this is ready for action!

[ Do you want to hear the rules to definitely not Pai Sho? ]

WILDCARD

[ If you want to throw me something completely out of left field please feel free to do so! Otherwise I'm very easily reached via journal pm or at roseburst or #Maggie0451. Ruby is very likely to explore around and to try to get to know people: she's as friendly as they come, and she's used to weird nearly apocalyptic world conditions outside of major cities (RWBY why are you the way you are). Still up for grabs of hers to be found is her scroll, which is basically a phone which at most can take photos or show photos here - maybe you can see her shiny new Hunter's License on there! It probably also shows that all her contacts are out of range. Shocker. ]

[Hunting down board games is exactly the kind of thing teenagers would do at a time like this, huh? Not that Abbacchio has any room to talk whatsoever, but he's looking a little puzzled as he looks at the Pai Sho set.]

I don't think I've ever seen this game before. Looks kind of like... Go?

What are the rules?

[ Ruby certainly does it, anyway. ]

Go? I don't think I've played that. [ She's more a video-game gal. ] But! The rules are pretty simple! The white tiles you can hop over things, but the black tiles can murder things!

[ This is not how it works. ]

The goal is to get all your dudes to the other side of the board!

I haven't either, but I've seen a board before.

Huh. [Well he's not gonna argue, it's not like he has any clue.] Why do some of them have designs then? Are some stronger than the others?

Yeah! The flower ones are the most powerful ones.

[ Because she likes flowers :) ]

⟪ She recognises the Pai Sho tiles, though she doesn't specifically know that the set was – or, in a way, is – her own. It was a gift from what feels like a lifetime ago that has been languishing somewhere in her drawers for years at this point. Once she spots the bag the tiles came in, she'll know better –

but for now, all she sees is a girl about her age setting up a game of Pai Sho, plus some... additions. ⟫

What does the card do?

⟪ She draws near, vaguely gesturing towards the 'get out of jail free' card, and curious in spite of herself. Princesses don't play. ⟫

It lets you get out of the lockdown zone!

[ Which. Is like, a moustrap game cage? How do you get in there? ]

If you break a rule you go there. BUT...sometimes you've gotta break the rules, right?

[Prompto's immediate priorities on waking up in the mall had been to find his camera and his phone. His camera he had thankfully found by now; his phone was still a no-show, but he'd gotten another at the B*st B*y in the meantime. After that he'd found his gun, and really he felt like that was all there was to search for.

He wasn't thinking about the other things he'd had on him when he was taken, like the small stash of lumen flares he'd still had. At least not initially, but now that he'd had time to think about it...

Wonder where those things ended up.]

[ Those things ended up with...Ruby Rose! Who hasn't QUITE set one off just yet unless the commotion will draw Prompto to her like a beacon. She's in the open courtyard food area of the mall, fiddling with one of his lost weapons because...

Well, weaponry. SHE LOVES THEM OKAY ]

[He's coming into the courtyard himself, actually looking for food, not weapons, except...

He sees Ruby holding something that looks suspiciously familiar, and he calls out.]

Be careful with that!

It's okay, I'm a trained professional!

[ This is mostly true however she should absolutely still be careful... ]

Uh...

[Is she? She looks kind of young... Not that Prompto looks that much older, but he's just got a young face!

Anyway, now that he's closer... Yep, that's definitely a lumen flare. He holds his hands up.]

Well, just... don't set it off. Especially not at close range...

So toss it?

[ She was examining the mechanism and that DOES sound fun - ]

...Though that'd probably be a waste.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

INTRO LOG #1

no subject

V.

I'm really sorry, my IRL exploded but I'm...back now...

no prob!

note to self hiatus next time

v

I'm really sorry, my IRL exploded but I'm...back now...

wildcard!

I'm really sorry, my IRL exploded but I'm...back now...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject