MAY MISSION PLOTTING

[etrayamods]

⏵ mission prep ⏴ As the inhabitants of Etraya go about their daily routines, a strange phenomenon unfolds before them. Visible from the rooftops of taller facilities, an eerie sight emerges: a vast Labyrinth materializes just beyond the atmospheric bubble enclosing the city. The scale is impossible to discern from within the city, but Aurora has also made an announcement regarding the next mission and the tasks they must complete: make their way to the exit of the Labyrinth which wraps back around into the city before the oxygen levels in Etraya diminish entirely. Only by reaching the exit quickly can characters ensure their city will not crumble. Additionally, those who pass through the exit first will help in choosing the next mission. How they choose is not clarified. Aurora will reach out to them after the mission with details. Characters who walk into the Labyrinth will find the pathway behind them changing as soon as they step into it, making returning the way they entered impossible. Within its walls, they’ll find numerous challenges to face. Some creatures may be familiar, ones they recognize from their home worlds, favorite fairy tale books, or perhaps from the invasion that hit just weeks ago. Mimics lurk in shadowy corners among treasure boxes full of useful items, waiting for people to approach them so they can capture those who aren’t careful. They’ll have to be careful while making their way through it. Nothing is as it seems within these walls. The first group of characters to reach the exit will do so after just under two weeks. The mission time frame is May 3rd - May 15th. You can sign up to have your character chosen as a victor here. If your character is not chosen to complete the Labyrinth first, they are welcome to continue struggling through it until May 28th when it sinks back into the dirt covering the empty zone of Etraya. Companion bots will make sure every citizen is removed before this if any still linger behind. Once characters go through the exit, they cannot go back in. Ear pieces will still function, but their mapping capabilities will be disabled. No one will know how far along they are or how close to any of the others they may be. Characters are encouraged to bring along their pets or leave them in Aurora's care until they return. ⏵ entering the labyrinth ⏴ As Aurora had warned in her announcement, the Labyrinth tends to mess with superhuman abilities. How much this affects your character is up to you. Our goal is to ensure that the Labyrinth is a challenge for characters to complete. We wouldn’t want Superman flying through at superhuman speeds, avoiding all obstacles, and completing it before those without super speed even get a chance to explore, for example. All healing abilities will be active, regardless of whether it’s regenerative or healing spells to assist others. Every other ability may be limited. If someone does have super speed, they may find that their super speed only works when they’re facing beasts capable of keeping up with them, and as soon as they walk through another corridor, their speed diminishes once more. You're welcome to play with this to your preference! Your character can be limited to only having their abilities affect the area around them, having them when moving through the Labyrinth but losing them when fighting opponents, or have them only when fighting opponents. We want this to be fun for you, our players, while keeping the challenging nature as intended. Questions regarding the power cap, or if you would like some guidance on how to apply this to your character, can be directed here. We’ll do our best to guide you! ⏵ labyrinth challenges ⏴ The Labyrinth feels alive, as if it’s responding to those who enter its domain. The walls around characters shift, change, and adapt to create new obstacles for them to face. In addition to this, it will work hard to separate characters from one another and to bring them into the pathway of others who are also working to reach the finish line. You may walk through the entrance with full intentions of sticking close to a partner, or a group of friends - the Labyrinth will do everything it can to pull you apart, to force you out of your comfort zone. Teamwork is necessary, as many challenges are meant to be completed by two or more. Please note that the challenges listed are a guideline. The Labyrinth is a massive web of challenges and opponents to battle, and we invite you to create your own as well as utilize the ones offered. The limitation is that characters must remain themselves throughout the challenges. There are no mirror replicas, nothing within the Labyrinth will affect their personalities or core values. It’s meant to challenge, not change them. If you have an idea and want to double-check that it falls within the lines of the mission, please feel free to drop it here. The Labyrinth opens into a massive, open space with an obstacle course. The obstacle course itself doesn't look too difficult: many of the tasks involve climbing over a wall (but needing to help one another as the rope needs to be held by both ends; otherwise both parties will fall), carefully crossing a balance beam without offsetting the weight and causing both parties to tip off the edge and into icy waters below, and building a bridge to cross over a river with only a few pieces of wood. A pathway opens into what appears to be a large garden. One companion bot lays on the grass, ketchup covering their abdomen. They state that they are injured, bleeding profusely, and require immediate medical assistance. The companion bot carries a bag of medical supplies and MREs, which player characters are welcome to utilize. The pathway out of this section will not open until the companion bot states that they are no longer in danger of dying. How characters get to this point is up to you - perhaps they put the companion bot out of their misery or roleplay patching them up. A glass box drops down to barricade characters into the area they have entered. In front of them is a pedestal with two buttons: one red, one green, as well as a tablet above it displaying the image of another group of characters. The tablet states hindering them will help you. You may either choose to make the second group's time through the maze more difficult, or you may hinder your progress by pressing the green button and helping the other group forward. Pressing the green button will drop several squishmallows into the glass box. Inside one of them is a key that unlocks the roof of the glass box. Pressing the red button, while it promises to hinder the other group, actually. . . causes a toxic yellow gas to flood the glass box. The gas will burn the lungs of those who breathe it in, but it also begins slowly melting the glass box. This gas will make breathing difficult for the next 24 hours, but will not kill those who inhale it. Healing factors will not offset the gas. Groups of two characters will walk through one corridor and find themselves strapped to two chairs, the backs of which are leaning against each other. In front of the both of them are drills, slowly approaching their chests. They cannot go sideways but can push forward and backward. They can push backward and get themselves further away from the threat of injury - forcing the person behind them to suffer but allowing themselves to escape - or they can push into the drill and free the person they're with. Alternatively, they can choose not to push either way, potentially sacrificing them both. The floor falls away, revealing a body of water and - no solid ground to walk on. Within the water are numerous Sirens - beautiful androgynous creatures that sing soft songs meant to entice others into following them deep into the water. While they may look beautiful, their mouths are full of razor-sharp teeth, and their intentions certainly aren't innocent. However, the sirens cannot touch competitors until they have initiated touch first. They will do their best to encourage this: holding out their hands, crying out for help, pretending to drown, or trying to coax them into coming in close enough for a kiss. As long as they remain on path, they're harmless. But the moment they reach out for the sirens... getting away from them will not be easy. Their tails are powerful, built for moving swiftly throughout the water and dragging others along with them. They bite hard and will dig their teeth deep into flesh to discourage struggling. If one gets captured by them? They're lunch. Or worse yet: if they get bitten but manage to escape, they may find themselves becoming a bit.. scaley around the neck as their eyes shift color to a too-soft green and they develop an almost impossible-to-resist urge to take a bite out of their friends. This effect will continue until May 28th regardless of when the character reaches the end of the Labyrinth. Numerous beasts roam the corridors of the Labyrinth: mimics, dragons of all shapes and sizes, centaurs, ogres, mutated wolves, ghouls, zombies, dryads, etc. They lurk around corners, waiting for unsuspecting characters to approach so they can attack. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ May's mission is the completion of a massive Labyrinth. All characters must enter the Labyrinth; whether or not they participate once they're inside is up to them, but no one will be permitted to stay behind in the city. The duo who completes the Labyrinth first will be allowed to assist in choosing the next mission. Sign-ups for this are here. We will reach out to the chosen characters on May 13th. This mission will cover the time between May 3rd and May 28th. After May 28th, any characters who have not yet exited the Labyrinth will be gathered by the companion bots and brought back into the city. The first to exit will be returning to the city on May 15th. There will be powercapping during this mission, but the extent of which is fully up to players. We want the Labyrinth to be challenging but don't want to hinder gameplay too much. If you have any questions relating to this or want assistance coming up with ways to powercap your character, please feel free to ask us here. We will be largely leaving this up to player discretion. Food is scarce within the Labyrinth, but not impossible to find. There are chests (or maybe they're mimics?) strewn throughout with various useful items. One might have a sword, another might have a fresh chicken nugget Happy Meal from McDonalds. Or an entire birthday cake, candles included. Large vehicles will not fit in the Labyrinth and will need to be left behind in the city. Numerous challenges are throughout the Labyrinth. You are welcome to make your own, but we will also provide several you may utilize! Deaths that occur within the Labyrinth will last 24 hours. Please make sure to report these on our Death Tracker. All current pending new locations will be going up after player characters have returned to the city. ⏵ plotting form ⏴ <b>PLAYER:</b> <b>CHARACTER:</b> who are you plotting for? <b>ENTERING THE LABYRINTH:</b> how's your character going to feel about the labyrinth? are there people they're going to try to stick with? <b>CHALLENGES:</b> what challenges are you interested in playing? are there ones you think would be fun to bring into play but weren't mentioned? <b>CR GOALS:</b> what are you looking to get out of this event? new friends? enemies? frenemies? ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

angel | hazbin hotel

[bad_habit]

PLAYER: Sly
CHARACTER: Angel Dust

ENTERING THE LABYRINTH:
Angel is so used to having to do this sort of team building nonsense. He is going to be vaguely annoyed by it as a whole but after months of doing weird team building exercises at the hotel he's oddly prepared for this kinda thing and might actually enjoy it a little, though he's may whinge and bitch that he doesn't at first.

CHALLENGES:
Presets that i'm interested in;
Obstacle course, Drills, Glass, and maybe the Siren one.

General ideas for others;
So I LOOOOOVE me some working with portals concepts and Resident Evil's elaborate nonsense with going all the way forward to get a piece of medallion only to have go all the way back cause YOU MISSED THE OTHER HALF SOMEHOW and that's really all I can picture here. I want to get real with buttons that do specific things and having to work with the environment to push activation pads and the like or having to find gemstones to put into pedestals in the right order to open doors and stuff! Lets work through it and find something fun if you want!

CR GOALS:
I would very much like Angel to get some positive CR for this as he has mostly had negative thanks to the Doppelgänger stuff and his general bad attitude. I don't might a little bit of a greasy surface start but would like them generally to be able to work together to be successful.

[thorncrown]

Hey Angel, you wanna do some puzzles with one very friendly vampire gal? It'll be positive, I promise.

[bad_habit]

My toxic trait is that I love puzzles, so yeeeess. Did you have thoughts on original concepts, or wanna make our own up (I have ideas depending on how deep you wanna get with it!), or even a blend!

[thorncrown]

I'm so down for a blend! I'd love to hear any ideas you've got too.

I will say the last time I did a labyrinth with puzzles in an RP game (who knew it'd happen twice, lol) we had a puzzle where you were in a room with what looked like a painting on one side and a bunch of objects from that painting around the room.

The solution was you had to recreate the painting exactly across from it. Then the painting unlocks and it turns out to be a door instead.

[bad_habit]

Oooooh man, I like this idea a lot! But maybe add in some like 'remember where that item was' as they adventure through the labyrinth? Like maybe something triggers a thought to be like 'oh shit i saw this same lamp back there'.

We could easily make that idea as hard or as easy as you wanted! And can easily fold in some other puzzle tricks encouraging cooperation as they find said items to recreate!

[thorncrown]

Oh yeah that's a great idea. They get there and find out they had to collect all this random crap, lol. Could be they have to go backwards and do some dumb pushing things onto switches but one of them has to stand on a switch to even move a thing to begin with business.

[bad_habit]

I love this idea, imagine their surprise when they get to the end and have to be like WAIT ALL THAT STUFF WE PASSED WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED IT UP!?

This is exactly why you take everything that isn't nailed down.

It's just this scene...

[thorncrown]

The adventure game logic is a solid logic that has lasted this long because it's necessary. Unfortunately these two never played adventure games, lol.

Ah bless, the junk lady. Ironically I play Sarah over in another game atm so this whole event is wild for me.

[redheadcarrier]

GET ALONG SHIRT GET ALONG SHIRT

by which I mean some convoluted puzzle where someone has to stand in the right spot while someone else walks over a balance beam and puts something in the right slot and they have to work together or die trying.

[bad_habit]

DOES IT HAVE TOO MANY ARMS OR NOT ENOUGH?!

Oh man I love this idea! Like 'OH GREAT YOU AGAIN ARE YOU SERIOUS!?'. Especially if they get to work through some 'I'm just trying to do a good job' stuff and realise they maybe aren't so different and need to stop being so rage-y.

One of them is def gonna try and blast through it without really reading/understanding the puzzle first and maybe almost die. That somebody might be Angel.

[redheadcarrier]

Not enough because that's funnier.


AND YEAH force them to work together under pressure (and almost die maybe). Love everything about that.

[bad_habit]

It's just an oversized t-shirt that says 'best friends club'.

I am very much all for this because honestly their chaos energy is just too good to pass up.

[redheadcarrier]

It really is. Just let them be cringe at one another.

[redheadcarrier]

quick follow-up: you wanna tag into my toplevel or should I write a closed starter or tag your top level, eventually?

[bad_habit]

I have no problem doing a starter! But I am on the road all today so I will likely be doing top levels tomorrow! Just let me know either way!

[redheadcarrier]

Will do! I'll see how the rest of my day pans out.

oh noooo more ideas~

[bad_habit]

So I may be updating here with additional ideas for anyone who may be interested because I can't stop...

[prevail]

I see RE-style puzzles and come running. Sandalphon will be so very done with all of it so fast but that will only serve to make him more determined. It will not best him.

Look, sometimes you solve puzzles out of pure spite. It works.

But also I think they'd make for some funny cr. Sandalphon's social savvy is wobbly and he does not grasp flirtation so what's Angel even doing? No idea. Just decides that's a personality quirk.

[bad_habit]

One sided flirting is Angel's favourite pastime! Even better when the other doesn't get it at all. Poor little buddy! I love this idea~

And yeeeees spite solve these puzzles! Truthfully Angel is going to be SO ANNOYED by the concept of find something that fits in this slot in the back of this statue so that it moves and reveals… MORE PUZZLES!

like who made this shit in the first place!? The animals.

[prevail]

Excellent, Sandalphon is a reliable source of cluelessness in this arena. Someone may try to tell him otherwise but no, no. He comprehends this perfectly (no).

They can complain about the neverending parade of puzzles together. Just mounting exasperation as somehow...another banal little task. PEAK BONDING, truly.

Maybe they swear a little vengeance on the lunatics who devised such cruel torture. Motivation.

[bad_habit]

too bad there's no one to tell him here, poor fellow.

Yes, yeeees! They both need to just become broken little puzzle makers and question just why anyone would build something like this! I love it~ Any specific puzzles you're craving or fly by the seat of our pants?? These two are gonna be a very unlikely pair all things considered and I loooooove it.

They have to get to the end so they can write a sternly written letter to the manager.
Or punch em.
What eeeeever happens first!

[prevail]

Ever the better, he'll accept Angel's "odd quirks".

Hmmm! My mind just always returns to how the police station in RE2 felt like a mess of puzzles, keys, solving puzzles to get more keys to solve more puzzles... Fetch-puzzle-quest jamboree seems like it would drive them up the wall. Maybe guest star several chests at some point, only one of which is not a mimic? Something like that maybe? The more Done they get, the more we profit, seems to me.

Sandalphon will register his vote as punch the offender 100%.

[bad_habit]

yaaaaaay~ he needs someone who is like 'yup that's a okay' right now. HE NEEDS IT.

That's basically all I could picture at first too. I am totally fine with doing like a mess of wandering and solving just an endless slew of puzzles. Like having to break statues to get pieces of key, and having to slide tiles to form a map of some sort but GUESS WHAT THERE'S ONE MISSSSSSSING. man the people living in raccoon were wild~
and OH MAN Angel meeting up with a mimic will send him, like 'OH YAY STUFF' only to have it try and chomp him! i hope you're ready for so much bitch screaming anyone who adventures with him. He was not built for this...

good because that is 100% what Angel is gonna wanna do after living outside like a fucking animal for two weeks, he is so not impressed. I want this all for him because he'll hate it! :D

[prevail]

He'll be a-okay in Sandalphon's book. The Grandcypher crew is a highly varied, quirky bunch, honestly. Also includes at least one serial killer. Nothing wrong with Angelisms.

YES, give them all the silly little tasks that get progressively more obnoxious the more they have to do. People in Raccoon are truly unhinged or had serious time on their hands before it hit the fan... Sandalphon at least knows what mimics are, but not to expect them here, so they're bound for a delightful time. At least he can heal Angel if one gets a good chomp in.

Truly they deserve revenge after all this is over. And same, it's fun to drive them a little crazy. What else is a suddenly-appearing labyrinth for?

[prevail]

Ope, I should ask: would you like me to set up for these guys?