Event - Material Goods

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Material Goods

➥ By Hook or By Crook

(cw: potential for violence, criminal activity, bombs/bomb threats, injury, incarceration, police brutality)

It's not difficult to identify the crates marked for Things of Beauty. They're colorful things, some might even say garish. Whoever chose them has a particular sort of taste, and it seems to be stuck somewhere in the 70s. They're stacked up on one of the docks, waiting to be loaded into delivery trucks by burly dock workers who look alternately annoyed by the hideous crates and disturbed by something about them. Anyone stopping to eavesdrop will hear one of them mention that he heard the crates murmuring. The concerns will be dismissed quickly as they move to load up the trucks, though.

The boat that's brought these over seems… confusingly small, like it's something local, rather than anything international. Getting onto the ship, itself, would be impossible during the day, and it seems to leave after having dropped off the boxes, heading out of port and off to places unknown. Anyone checking the ship's name–The Tarabroo–will quickly find it's not a ship that seems to be appropriately registered. The Tarabroo, as an internet search, does bring up some interesting information about a black hound with two snouts that oozes gasoline and breathes fire. It seems to be a legend associated with the Appalachian region.

There are, of course, many ways to disrupt the supply chain, and while stopping the actual boat that brought things isn't an option, there's slashing tires, incapacitating drivers, and attempting to shift or destroy cargo. However you try to stop things, best be careful not to get caught. There's security on the docks day and night, and they don't take kindly to intruders. You might find yourself boxed, tased, or otherwise incapacitated, if caught, and arrested by the police if a longshoreman doesn't decide to just punt you into the harbor for getting in their way. Enjoy the very icy swim.

Or maybe you're going the more… call in a bomb threat, or a gas leak, or otherwise cause a mess of paperwork route. It's not a simple task, either way. The people dealing with the bureaucracy at the docks seem to be uncannily well-organized and are quick to dismiss obvious lies. There might be more luck with bomb threats and gas leak notices at Things of Beauty, but after one or two, the police are going to catch wise to lies and start looking into exactly who has been making those calls.

For those who are caught, either in the act on the docks or making calls that tie up police resources, you'll find yourself chucked into the city jail for a night, maybe with someone else who was caught. The police seem to have varying degrees of what's considered appropriate use of force against those they catch, especially once they find out they're associated with ADI. You're horning in on their turf and making their lives difficult? How about they leave the lights glaring on you all night while playing some really annoying music and taking away any semblance of comfort? If you got arrested by a particularly angry officer, you might even end up with some bruises or a bloody nose for your trouble, before you're released.

➥ Comfortably Numb

(cw: body horror, injury (hands/arms), bleeding, mouths where there should not be mouths, supernatural drugging/apathy)

Despite best efforts, at least some of the product intended for Things of Beauty do actually make it there. Not many, but a small amount. ADI is tasking volunteers with the mission of acquiring whatever product has made it into the hands of the public… by whatever means necessary. (Which will likely amount to stealing.)

What is the product? Well, it appears to be… phone cases that have the approximate appearance and texture of flesh. Maybe even human flesh. With so much apparently persuasive marketing ahead of time for a product that will “change lives”, the fight to acquire one of these phone cases is intense and people are paying absurdly high prices for them. Those that aren’t able to buy the phone cases from the store itself can be seen offering even more money to those walking away with the precious goods.

Their efforts are all apparently in vain, though. Once someone has their hands on a phone case, they seem to be even more obsessed with it than they were with obtaining it. Any attempts to get them to relinquish the object–either legally or through less honest means–are rebuffed. They also appear to be very reluctant to let the cases physically leave their hands as well.

Even when the cases start growing mouths. Toothy mouths that are employed to bite at their hands. If people notice this disturbing occurrence, they don’t appear to care at all and continue to jealously guard their possession even as it makes a mess of their hands. Victims of these cases can be identified by the blood covering their hands, if they don’t happen to be holding on to the case.

Tracking down and retrieving all the cases will take a few weeks. It also poses a bit of a logistical challenge. Seeing the victims being utterly unaware or uncaring of their mangled hands doesn’t make any sense… until you physically come into contact with one of the cases. Then the reason becomes crystal clear (or will become crystal clear, in hindsight.) Touching them–even with gloved or otherwise protected hands–quickly begins to produce both an obsession with keeping possession of the object and an indifference to pain of all kinds, including emotional. Disposing of them becomes unthinkable, which poses something of a challenge for the mission characters have been given. However, if the cases are taken out of a person’s possession, both the numbing and possessive effects quickly wear off. They can then be destroyed or even just thrown away. Hopefully where no one else will be able to find them again.

➥ Feed Me, Kahlil

(cw: severe emotional distress, emotional blackmail, internalized victim blaming, kidnapping, injury (hands/arms))

Things are not beautiful at Things of Beauty. In the days leading up to the launch the proprietor, Kahlil Nassir, sporadically haunts the place with a wide-eyed, tearful look and bandaged hands he tries to hide under long sleeves, his presence peppering the place with outbursts at complaining customers and his own numb, blank-faced employees alike. Weirder than that, perhaps, is how often he isn't seen around his shop at the height of the new product launch and the days following. ADI's investigations department has been having trouble sniffing out just where he's been going; it appears that he hasn't gone home in at least half a week by the time they finally give up on subtlety.

On the morning of January 18th, Kahlil is hauled kicking and screaming into an interrogation room on floor B1 of ADI headquarters. It seems that a pair of native ADI investigators took it upon themselves to stake out Things of Beauty and caught him pulling into the alley behind the shop several hours before opening time. He was driving a car that wasn't his own and that investigators suspect might be stolen, and at the time they apprehended him they also confiscated several cardboard boxes full of more fleshy phone cases that had been in the car's trunk.

This rather heavy-handed approach has not been immediately fruitful. Kahlil is clearly terrified but has been refusing to answer questions. Tensions are high at ADI; not all staff believe that bringing him in was the correct move, and removing him from the situation doesn't seem likely to have completely cut off the supply chain or sales of the phone cases. He's here now, though, and information is needed. Anyone who thinks they can get him to talk will be allowed to try, though higher ups make it clear that torture is not permitted.

➥ The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

(cw: body horror, uncanny valley, pregnancy imagery, loss of skin, implied animal death, implied human death, unsanitary conditions, self-doubt/body image issues)

The warehouse is virtually silent when people enter. No sounds of industrial machinery, no signs that anyone is there, just the low hum of electric lighting and a heater running. The entryway appears to be utterly unremarkable, and it's not until moving deeper in that people might begin to notice something off. It starts with a smell, the scent of rotten, putrid meat, and the deeper into the heart of the warehouse one travels, the more pronounced that scent grows. The walls, too, take on a moist, unpleasant sheen, turning from an industrial gray to something that looks almost… living, flesh-like. Touching the walls, people will find they feel warm and quiver slightly. It's like touching the inside of a mouth. The doorways, too, seem to be warped, appearing to be more like gullets than anything else. They squeeze inward whenever someone passes through, shrinking just a tiny bit more with each passage. If there are too many people going in, they may find it significantly harder than they expected to leave.

There's a sound in the air, carried faintly through vents, and growing louder as people move toward the center of the warehouse. It's a bleating sound, like there are animals being kept in this place. Finally entering into a large central room, the source of the sound becomes clear: This room is infested floor-to-ceiling with what at first appear to be plants with fuzzy white flowers. They're roughly the size of fists, and in the form of giant puffballs on thick, glistening green stalks. The bleating is louder in this room and seems to be coming from the flowers. Anyone checking closer will find that the flowers are actually malformed lambs, their stalks more like umbilical cords growing out of their stomachs, propping them up.

All around the room, there are scattered evidence of animals being fed to the lambs. Blood and bits of bone are visible in the field of flesh. For the keen-eyed, they might also spot what appears to be some blood-stained clothes and larger bones.

The lambs will nip at anyone reaching for them, and those who manage to pick one up without being bitten will be in for an unpleasant surprise. The lambs split open, once they're 'picked,' sloughing off their skins and transforming into… the phone flesh cases being sold at Things of Beauty. These 'freshly formed' phone cases seem to have a different effect than their packaged and shipped counterparts. Instead of biting, they whisper.

They whisper your deepest insecurity into your mind. They promise they can take that away if you just hold them, if you just feed them. Unfortunately, these early stage phone cases haven't developed a numbing effect, yet, and when they bite, it hurts, but maybe it's worth if for them to be able to take away the thing plaguing you most?

Those not waylaid by the cases will have a tricky time dealing with the plants themselves. They don't seem to respond to being burned with fires fizzling out on their uncomfortably moist bodies and within the warehouse that pulses almost like it's a living thing itself. There are other options, though. Poison maybe? Hacking them to pieces? Eating them? The warehouse has all of the standard safety equipment one might think of. How would you go about murdering a field of fleshy flowers that grows back at a disturbingly rapid pace? The lambs seem to be able to regrow from any part of a live plant.

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompt should be sufficient and you're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. Please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
  
  
• BY HOOK OR BY CROOK (15-16 January) - Information on the Tarabroo as a cryptid is sparse, but stories seem to tie its appearance to disasters involving mines, particularly anything where a collapse or explosion led to the release of a tailings pond. These ponds hold the poisonous cast offs generated during mining operations and are highly toxic. When they break and run downstream, it can poison a landscape for miles.
  
  Anyone attempting to look into the crates at the docks will get a sneak preview of the flesh phone cases, but not have time to really do much with them.
  
  In terms of the dock disruptions, players are encouraged to get creative! Not every officer will be abusive if your character ends up arrested, but some will be. Characters will be held overnight, then released with a fine ranging from $500-$2,000. No complaints to the police from those who are jailed will be taken seriously, but ADI will help to pay fines... provided you're working with them regularly.
  
  
• COMFORTABLY NUMB (16-31 January) - The effects of the phone cases are not instantaneous, but they do come on quickly enough that characters attempting to steal and dispose of them on their own will have serious difficulties in accomplishing the second part of the task. The phones can be dealt with in any way that destroys them except for the use of fire (thus neutralizing their effect) or brought into ADI for disposal. (Or they just can be thrown away, though that does run the risk of them being rediscovered and is not ADI’s preference.)
  
  
• FEED ME, KAHLIL (18 January) - Characters will have the opportunity to talk to Kahlil in this prompt. Please respond to the NPC Threads comment below for responses from him. Shortly after he's brought in, investigations reveal that the car he was driving belongs to Hakeem Williams, a retired bank teller who was reported missing last week. Legally-minded individuals might realize that a private investigations company like ADI "taking Kahlil into custody" constitutes kidnapping–Kahlil is certainly aware of that fact.
  
  
• THE VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY (18-19 January) - While the vegetable lambs' whispering will mainly focus on body image insecurities, if your character does not have those, they will hear the lambs whispering about other insecurities that plague them. Fire is the only option that will not work to kill the lambs, and they're numerous enough that no one person will be able to wipe them all out, whatever method they're using. Once the lambs are killed, the walls of the factory will revert to normal walls. Until then, they will appear to be uncomfortably close to real flesh and will bleed if cut. The 'blood' that comes out will appear to be putrid, black, and corrosive.

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Comments

[retisense]

I'm okay now.

[It takes a lot of effort not to give him a little punch in the shoulder because she's annoyed and worried, but he looks so unsteady and like such a mess with dried blood on his nose that she can't bring herself to do it. Instead, she just hooks a hand into his shirt and pushes her head against his shoulder, shaking her head a little bit.]

No, I'm not headed in there. I'm here to pick you up, you idiot.

[Her voice is a little muffled by the fabric directly under it, so she lifts her head and steps back a bit, scowling up at him.]

Seriously, though, you had me really worried. I texted you a bunch of pictures of Macaroni and you didn't answer, when usually you always answer right away. I don't like it when my friends just randomly disappear off the face of the earth, believe it or not. I called medical and the hospital and a bunch of other places before I figured out where you were.

[stations]

( Oh. Okay. They're on a touching basis now. That's cool. Completely outside of his realm of experience, save for Rosa's enthusiastic hugs from time to time, but cool. He doesn't really know what to do in return, so he starts out by just... putting a hand on her shoulder, and then patting it uncertainly. Nailed it.

Maybe he's just a little too preoccupied by the surprise. )

Oh.

( Wow, that is a lot of actual effort on her part. )

I'm sorry, they took my phone when they dragged me in, so I couldn't text back. I didn't know you'd actually... worry. I didn't mean to freak you out. I'm totally okay, they gave me some Cheetos.

( As though that makes up for the busted nose. )

[retisense]

[It was awkward enough when she touched him, but then he had to go and lift his hand and put it on her shoulder and pat it, in a completely Jack way and abruptly she has the humiliating urge to cry.

It would be so much easier if he'd just gotten hurt or something. She can deal with that, as long as it's not a mortal wound and he's gonna be okay. But him just vanishing from her life even just overnight when he's one of the few people here she really deeply cares about is too much. Thankfully, the tears don't come, but she's still feeling that weird combination of tearful and angry, aware in some corner of her mind that it's a total overreaction, that it's not the way a normal person would respond to someone disappearing overnight.

But she's really just not a normal person.]

It's okay. Wasn't really your fault, though I have no idea why the hell you'd think I wouldn't worry about you. I...get messed in the head when people I care about are in trouble and I can't do anything about it, you know?

[Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she takes a few breaths, then shakes her head.]

Let's...let's find a tree and I'll fix your nose, then we can grab something to eat. Something that isn't just Cheetos.

[stations]

( I get messed in the head when people I care about are in trouble and I can't do anything about it, you know? )

Yeah, actually...

( It's a quiet murmur, honest and with feeling. He knows that intimately. He went off the fucking rails when he found Jerry's severed head in that box. He kept trying to fire Rosa so she could get the hell away from the gas station and all its lethal potential. When they started replacing everyone with clones and he couldn't tell who was real and who was taken...

Well, there's a reason he showed up here fucked up out of his mind clinging to a baseball bat and a cooler full of skull.

He's a compliant guy sometimes, particularly when somebody's upset, and so he follows along obediently toward the nearest tree. There's a big oak in a small park, a few buildings down and across the street. It's pretty empty, save for a few joggers and some guys playing soccer a hundred yards away. He lowers himself down onto a comfortable-looking root nest, discreetly eyeing her while he tries to figure out what to say. ​)

I'm not... really good at this. Talking to people, I mean. Or... having friends. I didn't, for a really long time. I met Jerry like two years ago, and then I picked up two other people I care about last year. But right before things went to shit, I overheard Jerry and Rosa talking. They didn't know I was there, and they were... They were trying to figure out why I didn't like them. Which I did. I do. Like, a lot, actually. More than anything. I'm just... apparently so fucking bad at it, they had no idea. And you know what I did after I heard it?

( A beat. Rhetorical pause, obviously, but it's less for dramatic effect and more because he's a little disgusted with myself. )

Nothing. I didn't say anything, and I really... really regret not doing it when I had the chance. So, I guess this is me. Saying something. Badly. Thank you for giving a shit. I'm sorry I suck so hard at... knowing how to do... normal. Friend. Things.

[retisense]

[It's good to know he gets it, and it's good when he just sort of goes along with her, letting her lead him a few buildings down to a tiny park where there's a big oak tree, exactly the kind she needs for her healing magic. Once they're settled in, she digs into her bag and pulls out a little tangle of leather cord, which she idly starts untangling while she listens to what he has to say.

It takes a few moments for her to gather her thoughts and try to work out how to explain to him what's going on in her head, what her reaction to his story about his friends and his words about their friendship is. It takes a few moments for her to work out what those reactions are for herself, what her own feelings are.]

It's okay, Jack. I suck hard at a lot of those things too. You might have noticed I'm not the most emotionally open person in the world, so it's kind of nice to have a friend who's just...chill. It's okay, like, I get it with a lot of my friends too, where it feels like there's some game people are playing with a whole set of rules about how to do it right and no one ever told me what the rules were.

[A little breath, and she finishes untangling the string. Leaning in, she runs her thumb very lightly against his nose to get a feel for how busted it is, then starts twisting the thread between her fingers, tangling it around the tips of them and then tying a little series of knots. And as she does it, Jack will feel his nose starting to mend, and maybe a few of his other injuries as well, bruises and cuts here and there.]

Did you tell Jerry yet, now that you're both here?

[stations]

( That's exactly how he feels — that thing about the rules. They're not written anywhere, and they don't come to him naturally. Other people seem to just get it on instinct, they seem to pick up things that are obvious to everybody but him. He's accidentally a total asshole a lot because of it.

Maybe it's a testament to their newly synced up Friendship Level that he doesn't move away when she goes to touch his face. He doesn't really even seem to question it — mostly because he's distracted by the other half of what's going on. The conversation part. )

I... well, I cried all over him when he showed up, and told him I was glad he was here, so I think he got the message. Maybe. Probably?

( He's suddenly a little less sure about that, now that he's thinking about it. Then again, he's been carrying Jerry's head around in a cooler for weeks now and Jerry knows about it, so that's probably a pretty big sign too, right?

Wait, is he fucking up again, actively, right now? Damn it, Jack.

Skrt, hold on- Sudden brain switch flip distraction.

He reaches up to tenderly prod at his totally not hurt anymore nose. )

Hey, wait, did you just- do something?

[retisense]

Hmmm, I mean, don't completely rely on my word because of the whole aforementioned rules no one told me about thing, but I'm pretty sure that means he knows?

[Glancing up at the tree, she spots a few dead leaves just before they tumble to the ground around the two of them, and sighs a little, putting the bundle of leather cording into her bag again.]

I don't have anything to clean you up with, but...

[She interrupts herself when he asks if she did something, and then lets out a little laugh, shaking her head.]

Healing spell. It's why I wanted to find a tree. An old oak like this can handle me sucking enough life to fix your nose without losing much more than a few leaves.

[A breath, and she shrugs.]

I'm a witch. Always have been.

[stations]

Oh. ( A beat. ) Cool.

( And that's pretty much all there is to that big reveal. Hope she wasn't expecting anything more dramatic, because Jack Townsend is weird.

What follows is probably an inappropriate question, but it escapes before he can realize and stop himself: )

So, when you were shipwrecked, there weren't any... spells or anything that helped? Shit, wait, sorry, is that bad to ask? Don't answer that if you don't want to.

[retisense]

[Frankly, she wasn't really expecting a drop of drama. Partly because Jack seems to be one of the most drama-free people she's ever met (at least interpersonal drama) and partly because she knows how much weird shit he's seen and how not-normal most of his friends and acquaintances are.

She's about to go on when he blurts out his question, and she goes still for a moment, her eyes widening a little bit. There it is again, that kick in the gut she gets every now and again when something happens to remind her unexpectedly, the one that makes her want to instantly break down in tears and curl up into a ball and disappear. The one that makes her wish she could drop down through the ground and be done with this life.]

Yeah. They really could've helped, if I'd ever been trained in how to do magic. Everything I know is stuff I've learned since then. It...if I'd known earlier, I could've saved us. I could've saved everyone. Could've gotten the attention of the ships that would go by every now and again, could've stunned fish so no one starved, could've purified water and made us shade and...

[Her voice hitches, and that's dangerous, so she stops talking, looking away from him for a moment, breathing very carefully through slightly pursed lips.]

I was out there for a long time.

[stations]

( Oh, shit. Way to go, Jack. You really pressed on a bruise here. Just tripped and fell face first into an egg. This is so not what he meant to do.

Okay, think. You can recover this. Fix it.

Any second now.

Fix it any time now. Whenever you're ready.

Dude, come on!

He knows, or he's gotten the impression, that she's kind of a physical touch person. He can do that. So he reaches out to gently (if somewhat uncertainly) curl a hand around her forearm. Is that... what people do? Is that a weird place to hold? Whatever, keep going, don't overthink it. )

Hey, listen, that's not your fault. You're not responsible for whatever happened there. You couldn't possibly have known, and you can't be angry with yourself in hindsight over what-if.

cw: discussion of survival cannibalism

[retisense]

[She knows he's right, when he says that it's not her fault, that she's not responsible for what had happened to her family and Paul, she didn't do anything wrong by doing what she'd done.

But that's really hard to remember when she's feeling like this.

Jack's hand lands on her forearm and curls against it, and she startles just a little, lifting her head and scrubbing a hand across her face.]

I know. I know. Not my fault. My therapist tells me that all the time, you know? I even believe her sometimes. But there's certain things that happen that you don't get to come back from, not really.

[A little breath, and she meets his eyes for a moment.]

Promise you won't hate me if you hear the most fucked up thing about me?

[stations]

( He totally does not have a flash of mild panic when she startles by the touch — was that a bad choice? Fortunately, he doesn't have enough time to fall down that neurotic rabbit hole.

As for the question... )

My best friend was a member of a murder cult that wanted to blow up the world, and he has a total hard-on for homicide. I can confidently promise you I won't hate you for anything you're about to say.

( And that's genuinely not the most fucked up thing he's done or experienced. His tolerance level is startlingly, unnaturally high. )

[retisense]

Okay, okay. I believe you. But you might be disgusted.

[That might be what she's most afraid of. Because it's one thing to be a murderer or to have killed people or wanting to blow up the world. Somehow those things seem less taboo than what she'd done, and Jack's never mentioned knowing a cannibal before.

For a few moments she's quiet, fidgeting with her hands, biting the inside of her lip, trying to figure out to word it.]

I was out there for a long time. The only reason I'm alive is because I had to...to eat them. My mom. Paul. They wanted me to, to survive, but-

[Not sure how to proceed, she just shrugs her narrow shoulders and avoids eye contact.]

[stations]

( He's not sure what he expected. In hindsight, he should've known it had something to do with the shipwreck, the trauma she obviously carries from it. Still, even if he'd have guessed that much, he wouldn't have considered the direction it actually went.

There's an obvious pause spent just... processing it.

It's a lot to digest — no pun intended.

Keeping true with his tradition of focusing on the least relevant, most innocuous detail in an otherwise earth-shattering revelation, his first question is: )

Who's Paul?

( You know what would have been way better? Saying literally anything reassuring, or demonstrably reacting to the bombshell that just got dropped. Too bad Jack is fucking weird. )

[retisense]

[It's not like she expected him to reply right away, it's not like he's obligated to, it's not like it doesn't make sense that he doesn't, but the pause is long enough for Abby's eyes to go wet. Lifting a hand, he frustratedly rubs the heel of her hand over her eyes and exhales a shaky breath.

It's stupid to cry. It doesn't change anything. But her eyes stay wet anyway.

When he finally speaks, all he does is ask who Paul is, and she laughs, rubbing at her eyes again.]

My ex-fiancé. We were engaged at the time, but I probably would've broken it off soon anyway. I was just...you know, I was just at the point where I was figuring out I'm a lesbian.

[stations]

( Oh shit. Oh no. He made her cry. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Course correct - how does he fix this, where is Rosa right about now to help him manage tactfully navigating this kind of thing? )

Oh.

( He says carefully, quelling the urge to say something wildly inappropriate — not out of maliciousness, but out of sheer social failure and the tendency to just shove his foot throat deep into his mouth.

Find the right alternative. You can do this. )

...I'm not gonna lie to you, my first impulse was to say something about saving on a wedding deposit as a silver lining and I know that's completely fucked up, and the sad thing is it isn't even me making light of the situation by making the world's worst joke, it's me genuinely trying to find the right way to be comforting so you know it's okay and I'm not... judging you or anything, which in hindsight I now realize I could've just said instead of all that other stuff leading up to it.

( Shit. His stupid fucking brain... filter... mouth... social skills. Why is he like this? He genuinely would love to know, because at this juncture it's the biggest mystery he's ever faced. )