JULY EVENT LOG 2.0

[recollecters]

EVENT

CRASH AND BURN The last day of the ReConvention finds con-goers crowding the convention center for last-minute panels and purchases. The halls fill with attendees bartering for wares, attending autograph sessions and showing off their cosplays. But for a select number of people, time is of the essence. Those who scanned their QR codes at the Retrospec booth will notice that their countdown clock draws closer to zero. With each second ticking closer and closer to the end, a sense of urgency settles around the crowd. But, perhaps you’re one of the ones who will carry on as if nothing is happening. Or maybe you didn’t scan your code at all. It doesn’t matter though. There’s nothing stopping the clock from its descent backwards, and as the timer strikes zero a loud, piercing roar echoes off of every wall of the convention center. I. Those who were brave enough to scan their received QR codes (and even those who didn't but received one regardless) will find that their mobile devices shock them, a quick electric burst that leaves behind a white-hot sort of pain. When you open your eyes after the initial hit, a floating treasure chest appears. While there may be multiple chests surrounding you, it seems you may only open those with your name on them. Another beam of light shines upon opening your prizes, orbs skyrocketing through the air as they circle briefly before settling around you. A surge of energy ignites within, and for some lucky few new companions and items have also been rewarded to those who played Jim's game. But…perhaps they aren't the ones you expected. Perhaps they make no sense at all. Why not give them a try? II. But seeing how the convention center continues to shake, it might be better to find out what’s up. The source of chaos can be traced back to Seto Kaiba's gaming booth as a projector in the wall releases monster after monster that pour out of the projection and come to life. Though the TV above Kaiba’s booth is shattered, the projector keeps rolling and the monsters appear while destroying the booth itself in their haste to be free. Among the rubble left behind the blue glow of the Retrospec symbol shines brightly from a side-panel of the projector. For those in the convention center, there is the option to run and hide. With the building shifting due to the onslaught of attacks, piles of drywall, cracks and crevices and more provide for good hiding spots to give you time to make a new plan. Of course, there's always the fight option. What will it take to bring these beasts down? Maybe it's best to lure them outside instead and away from civilians. III. Or perhaps that was a bad idea. Whether citizens manage to wrangle the monsters outside or not the beasts will make their way out on their own, fighting amongst themselves and chasing people through the city's streets. Even those who didn't attend the convention will find that the infestation spreads to every district of the city itself, and their QR-given items and abilities kick in. They aren't going for the kill, but they will follow any moving target including those who aren't on the Retrospec network. Though these citizens may run, hide or need rescuing, if asked they will simply remark that the city's always had a bit of a monster problem. However, now that the fight's moved outside, it's easier to see the distinct red tint to the monsters' eyes every time they blink. A monster that has to forcibly change direction will flicker for a moment, like an image buffering and loading. Even when a monster unleashes an attack, some fighters may take the full impact while others get away with minor to no damage. In those moments, it's easier to bring them to a halt. When a monster meets its demise though, something strange happens. The flickering is more rapid and faster, and the creature will dissolve into black blocks and spores that evaporate into thin air. What the hell was that? Now probably isn't the best time to ask questions. IV. The fighting rages on but with the sun still hanging in the sky it's impossible to tell what time it is. One of the monsters seems to have knocked out the nearby cell phone tower, too, taking down not only cell phone reception, but the entire Retrospec network as well. It goes on for what feels like hours with the sun beating down from above. Retrospec users battle monsters and fight to reconnect while the network errors out any time someone tries to send a message about the city under attack. It seems as though a new wave of monsters appear just as the last one dies down. It's with a sudden jolt that reception on your mobile device returns, but Retrospec appears to be in a maintenance mode where the network is still inaccessible. A quick glance at the date on your phone reveals that instead of the mere hours you thought, nearly five days have passed by and you realize the date is now August 3rd. Upon that realization everyone's devices begin to chime with several notifications and the monsters all seem to pause for one brief moment. Not long after, Retrospec members will also find themselves frozen in place no matter how hard they struggle. The spell on the monsters breaks as they swoop upon these unfortunate few, picking them up in their claws, hands or mouths. A large swirling portal opens not far away and one by one creatures dive straight through the portal with the Retrospec users. These portals may spit you out anywhere in the city, but several of them send residents to Peach Beach. Strangely, the monsters are nowhere to be found, but way out in the distance appears to be a creature, swallowing up the ocean in a swirl of waves. You can try to run out to fight it, but the moment your feet touch what used to be the ocean floor a forcefield throws you back to the sand allowing the ocean to slip away right before your eyes. The moment the last drop is drained, that monster disappears, too. What happens next? To be continued… And welcome to the wrap-up of the ReConvention! As Prompt IV says, monster attacks will continue through all five days (July 30th, 31st, August 1st, 2nd and 3rd) and the network will not be accessible to anyone in-game from now until August 3rd when a mod-posted Retrospec post goes live! Please feel free to play with the monster attacks as you wish! You can have your characters escape via glitches in the monsters, or you can fight the monsters and and your character can actually take damage for a real battle (though death is not an option at this time.) We leave that up to you! Please do not post any threads in this log or in your inboxes set for after this log just yet! We will be setting up August's event via this log and for plot purposes we ask that you refrain from doing anything prior to our Retrospec post on 8/3. Those who are in Group One or Group Two will learn more about their small-focus teams on August 3rd when your logs goes live. Please direct questions about this log to the mod comment here. Thanks!

Comments

[manufactured]

[It takes him a while to work out how to respond to that; technically he can, it's just kind of a matter of...working through whatever all of this is.

He'll nod eventually, though the gesture is odd, and it's fairly obvious despite the dark glasses he always wears that he's not making eye contact.]

[scythegun]

[Jaeger waits patiently for Wesker to find a response. He's not entirely sure what to make of that response, but he nods anyway.]

Albert, it'll be okay.

[His hand is shaking again so he tightens his grip on Wesker's arm.]

Right now it probably doesn't seem like it, but I'm right here, ja? I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here for you, for whatever you need.

[manufactured]

...I know.

[It's...quiet, and oddly breathless-sounding, but at the very least they're words, and for the time being that's what matters; his chest still feels tight, impossibly so, and it's hard to force through it, but they don't have time for him to continue to fuck up like this - ]

I know, I...

[He shakes his head after a moment.]

Fine, it's... It's fine.

[scythegun]

[Jaeger brightens at that and he pats Wesker's arm sympathetically.]

Even if it isn't fine right now, it will be. I have complete faith in that. We can rest here for awhile and we'll return to your place whenever you feel you're up to it, okay?

[manufactured]

...That's fine.

[There's a bit more behind that one when he says it; that's...fine, that sounds fine - ]

I don't know what happened... I'm not physically injured. I can tell you that much.

[All right. All right, that's. Slightly better. Jaeger is familiar and that always makes it a bit easier, recovering from things like this, just...give him a second.]

[scythegun]

I'm glad to hear it. I was really worried, you know!

[He still is, but he's doing his best to hide it. His voice isn't betraying him anymore, at least.]

[manufactured]

...I know you were.

[There's something weird in his voice as he says it; he twitches a bit before just...shaking his head again.]

I haven't had that happen in a long time. It's not common. But it's not the first time, either.

[scythegun]

[There's no sense in trying to deny it; he really was worried. He still is. Wesker can probably tell.]

...I don't understand. What happened, exactly?

[manufactured]

[He can, yes; he won't mention it, but he can tell.]

The...sudden inability to speak, I suppose. It's happened before; it's often stress-related, and usually not half as severe.

[...]

Everything else was new, that part less so.

[scythegun]

I see.

[There's plenty there he wants to ask about, but now really isn't the time. Besides, Wesker's still recovering from whatever the hell that was; he probably wouldn't want to talk about his past experience with this.]

It was worrying, but at least you were responding to me in some way. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't responded at all.

[manufactured]

It won't happen again.

[That's...quieter again, but at least it's still words, which is better than it could be. He'll pick up again after a moment, his head still feels...strange, entirely too many thoughts tugging at the back of his mind, making it hard to focus. But the conversation is helping, at least.]

...If you need to move me when things are like that, just physically do it. I won't be pleased about it, but I'll likely catch on after a while and follow.

[scythegun]

[Jaeger looks momentarily torn for a moment. He can't decide if he wants to say something about Wesker's first statement or leave it be, but in the end the latter wins out and he drops it.]

I'll keep that in mind. We're lucky there weren't any other monsters around.

[He can just imagine how poorly that would've gone and his grip tightens a bit on Wesker's arm in response.]

[manufactured]

[He tenses up a bit at that, the shift visible.]

...I know.

[He shakes his head again.]

I know. As I said, it won't happen again.

[scythegun]

It's not as though you had any control over that, ja? That monster did something to you.

[The words are careful, like he's testing the waters. It's obvious this has really upset Wesker.]

[manufactured]

[That's...true enough, isn't it? He can't exactly say what it did, but - ]

The fact of the matter is that it wasn't handled well. I can... It'll be fine, Jaeger.

[And then we can leave this godforsaken alleyway and not discuss this again.]

[scythegun]

It will be fine, I believe that. You're not the sort of person to let anything get you down for long, ja?

[He pauses for a moment and considers leaving it at that. But...]

It's okay, though. We made it through, didn't we? Even if it wasn't handled well, we're both still here.

[manufactured]

[For a moment it seems as though he's considering saying something; he changes his mind, however. Switches tracks to something else.]

Thankfully. It'd be highly inconvenient for everyone involved if we weren't.

[scythegun]

I like to think it'd be more than just "inconvenient", you know!

[Though really, who would miss him if something had happened to him? That's not something he's going to think about right now.

Anyway, he sounds like he's back to his usual level of joking and he finally removes his hand from Wesker's arm.]

[manufactured]

[That seems to relax him a bit, at any rate; he hadn't tried to pull away or anything, and it isn't even as though he disliked the contact all that much once it had been established and hadn't been anything unexpected - it's just not something he's all that used to.]

...We should probably go.

[scythegun]

You're sure you're ready to move?

[manufactured]

...It isn't as though I have much choice; it's better that than staying in one place.

[scythegun]

Ja, that's true. If you're sure you're up to it, we can continue back to your place.

[He'll even hold out a bag for Wesker to take, because like hell if he's carrying both of them all the way back.]

[manufactured]

[He hesitates briefly - there's at least one gun in each of these damn bags at this point - before shaking it off and just taking what he's been given; he's fine, he can handle himself, let's go.]

Thank you for all of this. It shouldn't have been necessary.

[scythegun]

[For what it's worth he's given you his bag which only has one gun in it?? Does that help any...]

You're welcome but whatever happened was because of that monster, wasn't it?

[That... is what happened, right...?]

[manufactured]

[It does, honestly...

He's kind of quiet for a moment at that, but it's not the same sort of silence from before, where he'd more or less locked up; this is likely a bit more familiar, the sort of thing that happens while he's trying to choose an answer to a question he doesn't particularly like.]

I'd assume so. Something happened in my head as soon as it touched me. Intrusive thoughts, I suppose you would call them - they were extremely negative, some of them things I've thought before, some of them things I've had said to me. Vague memories of things I haven't thought about in some time and are best forgotten.

I couldn't stop it, and there didn't seem to be much point in trying. My mistake, I suppose.

[It's a little disjointed, but at least it's an explanation; his tone is even, at least, and he's clearly trying to keep himself as calm as possible. He's succeeding, for the most part.]