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

[aelwyn_aberration]

[She shrugs. You do you, Meredith.]

Well, I am, because I'm a wimp apparently.

[henchgal]

That is entirely not what I was implying, and I think you know that.

[Mere moves to sit against the same wall as Aelwyn.]

[aelwyn_aberration]

I know, I know. I was kidding.

[She brings her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them.]

...Is this your first time being arrested, Meredith?

[henchgal]

[There is visibly a moment of thought before Meredith answers.]

By the police, yes.

[aelwyn_aberration]

[Aelwyn hums in response. It's not as weird a clarification as you might think, at least from her perspective.] Technically it's my second time being arrested by the police, but they weren't the ones who caught me or beat the shit out of me.

Same for you?

cw: vigilante justice, kidnapping

[henchgal]

I was once taken into custody by a costumed vigilante. The Meteor, he called himself.

[She seems a little distant, more in the memory of that incident than in the cell for a moment.]

The police weren't involved at all. He held me in a warehouse.

cw for vigilante justice

[aelwyn_aberration]

Mm. Did he hurt you? I know it's a bit of a mixed bag with those types.

[henchgal]

He threatened me. I'm sure if I hadn't been rescued, things would have escalated. But beyond a little rope burn, dehydration and general strain, I was okay.

You sound like you have experience with that kind of thing, huh?

cw for implied past attempt at suicide by cop

[aelwyn_aberration]

[Eh, fuck it. Might as well. Meredith's not the judgy type.]

...A bit more intentional on my end, but yeah. There's a school in the town I spent all of my teenage years in, called the Aguefort Adventurer's Academy. My sister goes there, and my now deceased ex something went there.

They produce heroes of all kinds, all of which are basically given free reign by the government to do what they want because the principal is one of the most powerful men alive.

I got... wrapped up in a cabal of conspiracy, did some not so nice things. My sister and her friends found out about it and confronted me at a party. [That she'd anonymously invited them to, of course.] My sister said she was going to kill me, but she didn't for whatever reason, and then the cops came and dragged me into a holding cell.

[henchgal]

Oh, Jesus fuck.

[Because, like, there's not a proper thing to say to all of that, not really, and especially not in a jail cell.

Well, if they're being honest.]

The reason the Meteor grabbed me is that my boss is a supervillain, as well as a tech CEO. I'd known for years, and never said anything about it, to him or anyone else.

He'd have hated the idea of that academy on principle. The whole reason he fought was because of how little oversight there is for superheroes.

cw for internalized homophobia and child soldiers

[aelwyn_aberration]

This is the one you hate, yeah?

My boss was an ancient dragon named Kalvaxus that wanted to lay conquest across the entire continent. Though, my... [She shouldn't call Penelope her ex. Penelope wouldn't want to be remembered that way. She'd want to be normal and perfect.] ...friend and I talked about double crossing him. He was a gullible, sentimental idiot, and now he's dead apparently.

Things like the Adventuring Academy are bound to exist, it's just a more honest reflection of the way that the rest of the world works. [She hums in consideration.] Though, maybe enrolling 15 year olds is a bit much.

[There's also an elementary school and middle school that are interconnected with the basic principles of adventuring, though they don't start killing people until high school.]

[henchgal]

A lot much. I'm sorry. Though all of that ironically means you're pretty well suited for here and now, and all of what ADI's got going on. More than some of the folks around.

[Meredith gives Aelwyn a sympathetic look.]

[aelwyn_aberration]

You'd think so, wouldn't you? [She smiles thinly.] It gave me too high expectations, I think. I mention maybe doing something instead of waiting around for the monsters to come to us and everyone acts like I'm a deranged psychopath.

It's been an odd transition from the moral principles of a culture that isn't mine to the moral principles of a culture that also isn't mine.

[henchgal]

I don't know if I'd call ADI a culture. It's an organization, but the morals are determined top-down by leadership.

[aelwyn_aberration]

I meant Earth. I'm familiar with corporate structure. Though, the leadership is more rooted in bias than the people on the ground. [The pain is making her honest and bitter.]

Not that the people on the ground are free of it. If I never have to deal with any more of Ren's moralizing, it'll be too soon.

[henchgal]

Could almost envy people who come from worlds simple enough that they think the moral high ground is even a thing.

[Meredith sighs heavily.]

I think if I had any mote of power to defend myself with, here, ADI's rules wouldn't hold me back.

[aelwyn_aberration]

[She snorts.] Ren was all for using powers. So long as the way you cause fear to keep those powers fits his extremely arbitrary and self centred way of thinking. Random acts of vandalism? Evil. Stalking shitty people and then beating them into a coma? Heroism.

[She rests her head against the wall and stares at the ceiling.]

It's suspicious, isn't it? The way they've gone about managing that rule?

[henchgal]

I figure they're reacting to past incidents, the shit that went down before you and I arrived. Trying to play catch-up and keep us from falling down the deeper rabbit-hole.

[aelwyn_aberration]

Right, but are they really this naive? If they wanted to keep us from using our powers, they'd have to keep us under closer surveillance, keep the amount that we do use and what we do end up feeding on closely monitored.

I suggested a system like that to Nia, keeping some of the monsters we fight prisoner and such, and she gave me an animal rights speech.

[henchgal]

[Meredith tilts her head to one side slightly.]

I know Reyes isn't from this world, but I can't remember if Nia is. Do you know?

[aelwyn_aberration]

Nia is.

Hence her attitude being, "Just say no to powers!" I think Reyes is the ultimate authority on a lot of the decisions that happen in this branch specifically. Nia might even be a puppet.