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monstrousfiling2024-03-21 07:22 pm
bignightcat) wrote in monstrousfiling2024-03-21 07:22 pm
VOIDSEA
A small, round island located in a void of sea and sky. Wreathed in eternal and unchanging night, incredibly quiet and still. Scattered with ruins and debris, with no living things originally present besides playable characters. Characters wake in the southern edge: on the beach, or in or under the water. There is an invisible barrier preventing characters from straying too far from the center of the island, like a bubble enclosing the space, stretching both deep in the water and high above in the air. A massive celestial cat has made its appearance, puttering about doing cat things when it isn't telepathically 'speaking' to characters who interest or address it directly.
✦ SEA
Unfathomably deep and dark. Cold water with pinpricks of light like suspended stars. Originally completely still and silent, now has a quiet and gentle tide. Populated by flying fish and glowing jellyfish. Past a certain distance from the island itself, there are dangerous aquatic creatures, including massive shapes in the deep.✦ SHORE
Dark sand encircles the island. Your footprints only last for a short distance from you before they fade away.✦ SKYBRIDGE [WEST]
An industrial inexplicably lying half-submerged off the western shore. It's relatively easy to climb atop it and walk along it like a pier, if you'd rather not brave the open mouth of the tunnel itself, though it does seem dry inside even past the point it dips into the inky sea. At first the underwater view is almost charming, but the dark closes in quickly, and you can't seem to reach the end of it, somehow - walking far past where it should end in the water still results in a dark, silent path forward. Crushing terror propels you from it before you can find whatever end it may have.
✦ ESTUARY [EAST]
A freshwater river cuts through part of the island, ending in a deep basin that feeds into the sea. Scrub brush and scattered vegetation become lush grass and a copse of trees, some along the banks and some a mangrove of tangled roots along one side of the basin. This area is home to fish - strange eyeless things, with no discernible organs and dark translucent flesh and bones. Some appear speckled with white or with splashes of piebald patterning. Small cleaner creatures like transparent glass shrimp and black or white snails can occasionally be seen as well. Some of the plants here supply starchy edible tubers.✦ RUINS [CENTER-SOUTH]
Patches catch you off-guard as you explore. A half mile stretch of asphalt, emerging from and leading to nowhere, smelling faintly damp. A set of concrete stairs and steel railing set into the earth like an inconvenient trip-hazard. A strangely uniform pyramid-like rock that, upon closer inspection, seems to be the upper corner of a building jutting from the ground. These irregularities increase the closer you seem to get to the skyscraper, the landscape changing from interrupted empty land to brutalist city ruins – there seem to be very few whole structures, as opposed to things half-present, half-crumbled or half-buried. This is the prime spot to scavenge for items, both mundane and those transported here alongside travelers, but besides those, you never find anything very complex nor electrical.✦ SKYSCRAPER [CENTER]
The skyscraper appears to be somehow upside-down, judging by the windows and fire escapes on the exterior. You can perhaps make out what might be the lobby at the very top, with their gaping but inaccessible doors. Your best bet seems to be looking for a broken or open window to get inside. A cursory glance reveals it to be completely vacant, somehow between a fresh construction and having been abandoned for years.Climbing down is much easier than climbing up, though descending underground is its own kind of nervewracking, especially with the empty central shaft. The air is still and stale, and you are more and more aware of the weight of the dirt pressing ever inwards. There are muffled, distorted sounds at the lowest point, where the roof access door waits with its faintly glowing exit sign – voices, traffic, sirens, echoes of life. Unfortunately, it currently seems to be locked.
There is an antique radio with no clear power source nevertheless playing static and snippets of music and speech. You may hear music from your homeworld, or perhaps a female show host reading out weather and news you can't fully make out. If you linger close, though, or bring a friend, she may be able to speak with you. The signal fades entirely if the radio is removed from the building.