apocalypsehowcomm | Event - Material Goods

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Event - Material Goods

Material Goods

➥ By Hook or By Crook

Photo of a white delivery truck waiting outside a building. There is a caucasian driver just visible inside.
(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

Photo of a caucasian hand pinching what appears to be a phone case made out of pale flesh/skin.
(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

Photo of a bloodied, dark-skinned hand reaching out in supplication.
(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

Black and white drawing of the legendary cryptid, the Vegetable Lamb of tartary. It is a medieval-esque rendering with a sheep propped up on a thick stem that originates at its belly.
(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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"I was doing my nails." She holds up a well-manicured hand for Bruno to admire. But that's... probably not that important right now. Forget lunch. "Show me where they took him." Yes, you, sir. You're coming with her now. No more standing in the canteen looking stricken. It's time to do something about this.

"...Oh, those look great!"

What? He can appreciate a nice set of nails. What he has a harder time with is realizing that apparently he's going on a mission now. "Wait, like--follow the big guys with the muscles int the deepest dungeons where they took the screaming guy? Like show you there? But...it's lunchtime."

He holds up the scanner to demonstrate that it is lunchtime and he's on shift.

"Yeah, and..." He makes to snatch the scanner away from him. If she manages it, she'll shove it at the person behind her in line. If not, she'll point to them. "He'll take care of whatever you were doing. You need to show me where they went. We're not going to fight anyone, if that's what you're worried about. I literally just did my nails."

And she's not messing those up. But she can yell and pitch a fit with the best of them as a distraction... or sneak in and break someone out, if needed.

Luckily for Donna, Bruno interprets the sudden movement as an attempted strike and actually lifts the scanner up in front of his face to protect himself. He grabs after it when she yanks it out of his hands, but by then it's in the hands of a surprised and annoyed cafeteria-goer.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? It's just that I kind of fell through a hole in the world just a couple weeks ago and this place is all pretty new to me, still learning the rules--"

"If they've got rules that say dragging some bloke kicking and screaming through the offices is okay, then I think they need some rewriting, don't you?" She reaches for his arm next, trying to tug him toward the lifts. "Come on... god but you're skinny, aren't you? Could use you as a ring toss. You should be eating at the canteen, no working it."

"Well, yeah, but--okay! And we're going!"

Because it appears they are, no matter what mess it leaves behind. "The rats can only carry so much," he replies to the criticism (is it criticism?) as if that explains everything. "It's downstairs; we can take the elevator," he adds, relenting and walking to the elevators under his own power.

Donna lets go of him when it seems like he's agreed to do her bidding. She does give him a look when they step into the car, though. If they dragged someone in, maybe it's for the same questioning she went through? She punches the basement level for the interrogation rooms.

"What have rats got to do with anything?"

An elevator is a threshold, which means...

Oh. Oh, no. The inside of the elevator is all metal and it's too late to knock on the way in. Bruno spins in place, giving the inside of the elevator a desperate once-over, raps himself on the head twice with his knuckles, then sucks in a deep breath and holds it, both hands held up with fingers crossed. He eyes the elevator doors and the bank of buttons worriedly, holding his breath for the entirety of the short ride down. He's squeezing through the doors the instant they open without letting out his breath or lowering his hands, casting about for--yes, wood paneling! He gasps for air and reaches out to rap his knuckles on it.

"Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock, knock on wood," he chants, ending with another strike to his head. To Donna, he says, "The rats brought me food when I was living in the walls."

There's a long stretch of silence. This man is... very unwell. If his conversation wasn't enough of an indication, that little display certainly was. Is he in therapy? Some of the fire for going to rescue the stranger she hasn't seen drains out of her as she eyes Bruno.

Her tone softens just a little bit. "Why, exactly were you living in the walls? Is that, like... normal where you're from?"

Edited 2022-01-21 16:32 (UTC)

"Normal? Oh, hah, no. No, that's just a Bruno thing. I had to leave, you see, because I had this vision about my niece, Mirabel--it's a long story, doesn't matter now. This way."

Because that's all that needs to be said, right? Bruno gestures down the hall toward the interrogation rooms.

"Bruno..." She assumes that's his name when she reaches out to try to touch his arm. It's much gentler this time, not trying to grab him. Visions just remind her of... Vesuvius. Greece. All those people dying in confused terror because of... her. Them. "It matters, okay? We don't have to talk about it now, but it happened. It matters." She's going to have to keep an eye on this strange man.

"Let's go." And with that, she turns down the corridor and starts walking. He's right in a way. There are other things that need taken care of, and rescuing someone in immediate physical need is going to have to take precedence over... something that sounds like it needs a long talk and a large bottle of wine.

He starts to flinch even though the touch is gentle, but aborts the motion. He looks honestly confused at her reassurance that it does matter. "That's...nice of you to say," he manages. In the next moment he's entirely on board with the change of subject and refocus on the mission; now that they're on their way he's lost his hesitance about it.

"I think it was that one down the hall," he says, pointing. "I didn't follow them all the way; it was too scary and Hernando couldn't really see anything."

"And where's Hernando got off to?" She's fully prepared to believe this is a different person he snuck down here with the first time. It would have been more sensible to grab someone who'd seen more, but what's done is done, and they can still try to help with more limited information.

There's a brief scrambling motion as Bruno pulls up his hood, followed by him putting on a deeper voice: "Hernando is always here!"

He tugs back the edge of the fabric so he can see her, and a little sheepishly adds in his normal voice: "It's really just me, it helps."

... He really needs help. What even happened to him with... evertything? He's a new arrival like her, isn't he? What is this place going to do to him if he's already like this?

"O... kay. Whatever helps, mate." She's trying very hard not to sound judgemental. That's probably not working out great. "Has Hernando considered, I dunno, eyeholes on top of the hood? Might help him see better."

He drops the hood so it conceals his face again. "That would just look silly," he replies, back to his Hernando voice. If she's going to judge him and have him take her down a scary hallway, Hernando's going to handle this one. He's doing alright with basic navigation, at least; he can see the floor in front of him even if he can't necessarily see...much else.

"This way," he adds with a gallant gesture.

"Yeah, 'cause you don't look silly already, doing voices." A brief pause as she recognizes she's falling backing a rather unproductive and catty tone. "Sorry."

She follows after him, but as they approach, Donna sees a pair of guards standing by the door. She grabs Bruno's arm to halt him. "Guards ahead." Her voice lowers. "I'm taking it Hernando didn't try talking to them, yet."

"Hernando does not fear your judgment!" declares Bruno, pulling his hood down tight around his face with both hands. Bruno fears her judgment, and her apology is met with a silent pause as they continue down the hall, no more reply until she speaks up again.

He lifts the hood and drops the voice with a wince. "I, uh. May have turned around at this point last time," he replies in an equally low voice. "But that's--yeah. You should talk to them. That's a great idea."

Donna sincerely doubts Hernando is being honest, but she just sighs. "Right." She takes a deep breath and stands up tall... before grabbing Bruno's hand to hold and walking forward with him in tow. Unless he plans on fighting that. "We can do this. Just let me do the talking."

"Whoah--!"

She probably won't be surprised that his resistance is summed up in a cry of alarm and not much else as he lets himself get towed along behind. "That's my plan--you've got a really strong grip--"

"Useful to keep people from running off," she mutters low. And then stops near the guards. "Oi! My friend here says you've been kidnapping people. What's that about, then?"

There's a wary glance passed between the guards before their eyes turn to Bruno. "We needed to interrogate someone..."

"He was screaming," clarifies Bruno, doing his best to hide behind Donna. "And crying? He looked more scared than scary."

"That was... he wasn't cooperating." The guard looks to his compatriot. Both continuing to look uncomfortable.

"I wouldn't be cooperating either if someone dragged me in off the streets," Donna points out. "Who authorized this."

There's dead silence for several seconds. "We wanted to take some initiative..."

"What does that even mean, take initiative?" Bruno asks. "Wait, did you just...you just decided to grab him? You can do that? And they let you put him in a cell?"

"It's not a cell," the guard on the right insists. "We're just going to ask him questions. Those phone cases he's selling are hurting people, or did you miss that?"

Donna's having none of that. "Oh, it's a 'he was bad, so that means we're free to be terrible people? You don't know what's going on with those things. No one does!"

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