INTRO LOG #1

[collectedmods]

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

Comments

[impostersyndrome]

A: And now my socks are wet-

[This is at least the third time in the last few times that Prompto has abruptly woken up in a strange and uncomfortable place, and he's really starting to get tired of it.

His first dizzying thought is that he's landed in a pit of daemon blood, somehow, and oh great he's going to turn into a disgusting monster and then die-

But no, it's too chemical to be daemon blood and he's not sure it's even possible to make a giant pool of starscourge like this. So it's just gross, smelly water. Well, he can handle that. But he should definitely get out of it.

There's an escalator and he starts to swim towards it. Unfortunately, it seems other people are also in the water and all seemed to have the same idea at the same time, and it's only moments after reaching the escalator that he's bumped into and sent crashing back over the railing and into the water. It takes him a moment to get up again, and he comes out spluttering.]

H-hey!

[Ugh, it got in his mouth. He's definitely going to die...]

B: We don't need no cameras we'll just use our eyes

[Bad news: the boots, snow pants, and snow jacket he stole off that dead Niflheim soldier are pretty much ruined now. Good news: his clothes underneath fared much better; it will do until he can find something else.

He's looking pretty pleased that his own clothes are not completely ruined when something seems to dawn on him. Or rather, the lack of something.]

Oh no...

[And so here is one (1) boy, frantically turning the pockets, arms, and legs of his jacket and snow pants inside out, shaking them over the floor and feeling all around.]

No no no no no...

[If his camera is back in that fetid water he's going to lose it.]

C: Apocalypse How

[Prompto knew things had been getting bad, but he has no idea of what to make of what he's seeing outside. Orange sky, thick fog... Even with the days growing progressively shorter and shorter on Eos, he's never seen anything like this.]

...Did they kill another god...?

[Even if he's already figured out he's not on Eos anymore, it still feels like the only thing that makes sense. The only thing that could cause something like this.

He presses his face to the glass to see further, but there's nothing to see. Not even the shape of other buildings.]

How far are we from anything else...?

C

[oraculi]

Please. Gods got nothing to do with this.

[Another god, he notes, but maybe he'll ask about that later. Haymitch still has a knife out, held loosely at his side, but that's probably fine.]

This is just somebody fucking with us, plain and simple. And it won't stop til they want it to.

[He shrugs.]

Whoever else is around is irrelevant.

[impostersyndrome]

[The knife is probably fine! Probably. Prompto eyes it for a moment but lets it go since it doesn't seem like Haymitch is immediately interested in stabbing him.

As for what Haymitch is saying, though... Prompto supposes he can't discount it. He knows at least one person powerful enough to fuck with him on this level, though he doesn't know why the other people are here. Unless they're all illusions?

Now his head hurts. He'll just assume the guy is real for now.]

But what if there's someone out there who can help? Like... the military, or something?

[Even as he says it he knows it sounds dumb. He's more likely to run into a military that is not interested in helping him.]

[oraculi]

What if there isn't?

[He shrugs. His general faith in people is minimal at best, military or not.

Waiting around for them to rescue you won't keep you fed. Won't stop you from being burnt alive by that air either, if it ever ends up getting too mixed up with the air here. I suggest you worry less about rescue and more about that.

[impostersyndrome]

...Yeah. Guess you're right.

[He knows Haymitch is right, but geez. Can't anything be easy anymore?

He pushes himself away from the window and turns to the man, crossing his arms only a little self-consciously.]

Not really anything we can do about the air though, right? I mean... it's air. [It'll get in if it gets in... which he hopes it doesn't!]

[oraculi]

It won't get in. Not til they want it to.

[He's used to force fields, after all, and gasses that stay right where the gamemakers want them. He sighs faintly as he looks Prompto over: a split-second thing, nothing more, but he's not taking any chances around here.]

Got a name?

b

[madjesty]

[ Good news: Prompto's camera is, indeed, not back in the water! As a matter of fact, that very camera is currently slung over the shoulders of a very tall blonde man, removing pieces of corroded armor off himself.

Bad news: he has no earthly idea what a camera is. All he knows is that it is not, in fact, a piece of armor, though it must be removed either way.

Worse news: armor guy too freakishly strong, may or may not crush delicate parts as he tries to inspect the odd contraption. Better act quick? ]

[impostersyndrome]

[Yes! There it is! Prompto nearly whoops in triumph.

Except... someone has it. Someone who seems seconds from crushing it.

Prompto starts running towards him, holding out a hand in his direction.]

Hey! Uh... sir? [This guy has more armor than most soldiers, a "sir" seems appropriate.] That camera you have? Pretty sure it's mine, so if you could just...!

[Please, please not destroy it!]

[madjesty]

[ Dimitri is actually seconds from inadvertently crushing it; he doesn't mean to, but he doesn't always have control over his physical strength. And he just happens to be fiddling with the lenses, trying to figure out what that could possibly be, when he hears a (rather desperate) voice calling out to him. ]

Camera...? [ Said as he turns toward Prompto, the word all too foreign in his tongue. ] Oh, do you perhaps mean this?

[ Holding the weird contraption out as carefully as he can!! ]

[impostersyndrome]

Yeah, that!

[It's weird that he doesn't seem to know what a camera is, but Prompto doesn't devote a lot of thought to that as he reaches out to snatch the camera away.]

You have to be careful with it - I worked all summer my senior year of high school for it!

[And it's very precious!]

[madjesty]

[ He doesn't know what a camera is and he most certainly doesn't know what high school means, either. Some kind of advanced tutoring, he imagines? Something like the Officer's Academy, maybe?

Whatever it is, it's clear this device was meaningful to this man. He's glad to have found it-- or rather, that it found him, in a way. ]

Ah, my apologies. [ Left arm behind his back, he bows in repentance. ] I happened to find it on my person as I finally left the water, but I did not think to ask around. I am happy to have returned it to its rightful owner, though.

A

[scrambledegg]

Move it, kid!

[Eggman may have...no, definitely saw Prompto going for dry land and is selfish enough to have purposefully knocked him aside. He pulls himself out of the water in a clearly desperate manner, spitting out whatever trace amounts of the stuff that got into his mouth and wringing his mustache over the side of the escalator.]

Urgh! If this is sewage, I've got to get at least a dozen different shots now!

[impostersyndrome]

[Prompto might have been willing to forgive whoever just sent him tumbling back into the water if it had been an accident, but when Eggman does it intentionally, well, he just can't let that stand!

So he pulls himself back up onto the escalator and...]

Hey, we're all trying to get out of the water, you know. You don't have to shove.

[In... not a very loud tone. Eggman can still hear it, but this is a little more passive than aggressive. Whoops.]

[scrambledegg]

What? You're fine. The spitting image of youthful exuberance! I'm confident you'll pull through from a little waterlog.

[He's also taken a step or two up the escalator, not to escape from the confrontation given he's stopped already, but because...well, he's a big guy. He takes up a lot of space, so he wanted to give himself a bit more room as Prompto pulled himself up too.]

[impostersyndrome]

You still shouldn’t knock people into the water. What if that stuff is toxic?

[He could have died, he tells you! Died!!]

[scrambledegg]

Then aren't you lucky? I'm a Doctor.

[Not a medical one...well, not primarily. He knows a lot of different things in different fields. But the remark is still disingenuous.]

So I'll perform any operations on the house given the circumstances. I'm just that kind of generous guy! Ohohoho!

C

[aufsassig]

[Well, well, well. Now isn't that an interesting thing to be contemplating — it's not every day you go walking around and overhear somebody talking about killing another god. Meaning that at least one's already been done in.

Okay, so this is worth investigating a little further.]

Sure looks like hell out there, huh?

[Schuldig says, by way of greeting, as he comes wandering over like he'd been nonchalantly passing through. He's changed out of his ruined arrival clothes into a faded green turtleneck and khaki trousers, and on his hands sit a pair of black fingerless gloves that would look like shooting gloves, but for the fact that they're absolutely raided from a Hot Topic somewhere.]

What do you think that makes this? Pandemonium?

[impostersyndrome]

Pandemonium...?

[Unfortunately the reference is lost on Prompto. He gathers that it's a place, or something like that, but that's about it.]

Doesn't sound like a good thing, if that's where we are.

[aufsassig]

Haha. It's from a story — religious bullshit. I know a guy who's really into that sort of thing.

[That's...certainly one way of describing his teammate's obsession with waging war against the divine, but you know. That's not the kind of thing you just talk about in polite company, now is it.]

Pandemonium, it means "all demons". S'what the devils call their house in hell.

[impostersyndrome]

[Demons in hell... He doesn't know what that means, exactly, but he's guessing it's different from the daemons in his world. They don't live in houses, after all.

Still, he can gather that it is, in fact, a bad thing. Oh boy.]

...Well, I guess a place like that would look like a rundown mall... [Can't even get good cinnamon rolls here. What a waste.]

[aufsassig]

Probably. Guess that makes us the demons, then, doesn't it?

[He jerks a thumb at the window, gesturing to the barren wasteland outside.]

Doesn't seem like we're leaving it anytime soon.

c

[takeroot]

[From a few yards down, sitting on a windowsill of his own, Constantin figures - well, this young man is obviously talking to himself while he sticks his face to the glass. But that's invitation enough, especially given how he seems to be wondering about things besides "how do we get out," which frankly are getting a little exhausting. Existentially. There is only so much kidnapping anxiety a man can take.

So killing gods is definitely a preferable topic!! He hops off his windowsill to sidle over Prompto's way, stopping a polite couple feet away and leaning his shoulder against the glass.]

How many dead gods are you anticipating, exactly? [hello] I don't mean to interrupt your creative speculation, but—

[Well, but. He gestures; no one else is talking about killing gods in the multitudes??]

[impostersyndrome]

[He jumps at the voice, pulling back from the glass. Right, guess people can hear him when he talks to himself, now that there are any around.]

Uh, well, there’s only six, right? [He gives a little laugh.] So you have to stop somewhere...

[Preferably at one.]

[takeroot]

Six? Just what are they all doing out there?

[Six! That's a too many cooks situation if he ever did hear one— a whole six. Brushing up against one was bad enough.

In any case, it is perhaps difficult to tell if he's skeptical or simply critical of six gods being floating around, so. It's anyone's guess.]

I'm sure a delegation of gods is the last thing anyone needs. Imagine the council meetings!

[impostersyndrome]

Most of them were asleep... Until recently, anyway. [Until Lady Lunafreya woke them up and then he and his buddies almost died fighting them all again... Yeah, he'd rather not think about it.]

Bahamut makes most of the decisions. I think.

[Despite coming face to face with several of them he's not the most religious, so.]