We shall rebuild [mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 2/1/19
Characters: Open

---

With the festive season well and truly over, and most wallets smarting from the festivities, Mossgate has, as usual, been extremely quiet through January. The last of the sales are still lingering in the stores, hoping to entice any shoppers who aren't desperately holding out for that first January pay day at the end of the month, and the seafront is empty of all but the hardiest dog walkers, wrapped up against the cold winter winds. At least the evenings are finally starting to ever so slowly get a little bit lighter, but that's small compensation for the otherwise grey and dull month.

It seems as though it will drag on this way all the way through to February, but on the afternoon of the 20th Mossgate is shaken awake. Literally. A 4.5 magnitude earthquake hits the town just after 3:15PM, with the epicentre located at the mouth of the Moss River. The shaking lasts for a couple of seconds, and sends a couple of chimney stacks flying, but there's very little real damage done around town. As earthquakes are extremely rare in the UK, most people are unsure what is happening, and most report it to the media as assuming that a bomb had gone off, or a lorry gone past, or something similar.

Almost immediately the internet lights up with the usual British response to such events, and it's headline news on the local papers and TV for the next few days. Initially they cover the event and the clean up, and then the social media response to it.

However, those who have numbers will not just be subjected to the initial scare and then the following ridicule. As the shaking fades, an unsettled feeling starts to rise; subtly at first, but increasing as the days go by. They are left feeling anxious and uneasy, but also curious and excited. In particular, they will find themselves drawn to the earthquake and the information about it, perhaps checking the news or social media about it more than they usually would, or easier to draw into conversations about it. Whatever they can find just doesn't seem to be enough, and they're drawn to discuss it and the other unusual events (such as the appearance of the poppies in November, or the strange gifts over Christmas) of late more, and to find out more about them. It can be ignored, but as any niggling annoyance it won't disappear if it is.

Comments

Action OTA!

[iamnotgod]

[The only good part about it taking place at 3:15 in the afternoon and not the morning is that, rather than falling out of bed in surprise, he is outside for fresh air and holding himself very still in order to not drop his laptop.

Or, well, fall over in surprise.

The earthquake may only take a few seconds, but it feels like much longer for him.]

"What- what was that?!"

[He has also literally never experienced an earthquake before.]

[Text]

[warped_replica]

[A minute or so after the tremors have passed, Walter will get a text from the teenager.]

Walter? Are you okay?

Re: [Text]

[iamnotgod]

[Once Walter's reoriented himself, his response is swift.]

I am now. Was not expecting that.

What about you? Where are you right now?

Action OTA

[twirighted]

[ Anyone walking by the Teufel Doll Shop will hear the immediate reaction as the earthquake happens. The sound of a few smaller things breaking and a very distressed shop owner. Not too much later, they'll find him putting up a "closed" sign and cleaning up broken dolls. ]

Such a shame, such a shame... I worked so hard on these...

Re: Action OTA

[iamnotgod]

[Walter does, indeed, happen to walk by on his way home after the quake hits.]

Need any help?

[Because it helps him to feel useful, in times like these. And the work will ease his conscience if anything in the flat has been broken.]

[twirighted]

Sure, if you don't mind potentially cutting yourself. There's broken porcelain. Not all of it's small enough to just sweep up.

[ He really appreciates it. Even if he doesn't mention it and seems a little distressed. ]

[dragoonrouge]

I-The Quake Itself

Sadie, as she always does on the weekend, had spent her Saturday morning at the RSPCA shelter and had stopped off in town to do some window shopping when the earthquakes struck. The seismic waves send her stumbling, shoulder knocking into the window of the stationary shop.

"The fuck?!" Before she could react any further, she freezes as the thudding of an Echo begins to run its course.

II-The Itch.

Sadie runs her hands through her hair and groans as she stares at her computer screen. Something wasn't right. More so than what had become the Mossgate usual. And the earthquake...It was needling at her, sure she wanted to be a Geologist but this was ridiculous. And with all the other things as well. It was filling her with restless energy.

Pushing herself up from her desk, she grabs her bag and her coat.

"Mum! I'm going out!"

It was time to organise a couple of things, she was going to try and plan to have all of the Numbered meet at once. She just had to invite them first, and the Network was the wrong place to do so.

III-The Dive.

The river mouth was the epicentre.

This couldn't be a coincidence, not with that being the centre of the boundary. She needed to check it out, get some samples of the rock and water, and anything else unusual. Luckily she has just the right skill to make that a reality.

"I'm going to do something that might be stupid but will probably help us figure this all out, and I need your help."

III! ... Though now we have to figure out where they are. |D

[iamnotgod]

Walter gives Sadie a flat look, which softens after a moment's consideration.

"What can we do to help? And, more to the point, what do you plan on doing?"

The library?

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie leans in, trying to minimise being overheard.

"The epicentre of the earthquakewas the mouth of the river, which is also the centre of the Boundary. It can't be coincidence, and seeing as I can breathe underwater I would be the best choice out of all of us to go and take a look."

III

[warped_replica]

Only a day after the earthquake, Benjiro is in constant contemplation regarding the event. So when he finds himself seated together in a now otherwise empty classroom with Sadie, he already suspects the reason when she broaches the topic of doing something risky in order to gain information.

Reaching to take her hand, he takes a breath in before he answers, “You have it. Tell me everything you’ve planned so far.” If possible, Benjiro wants to find ways to make the endeavor safer – whatever it may be.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie squeezes his hand back, shooting him a thankful smile.

"I'm going to go swim down to the bottom of the river mouth." She tells him plainly, "It can't be coincidence that the centre of the barrier and the earthquake epicentre are the same place. All of the stuff from Halloween, Bonfire Night, and Christmas just keep swirling around my head. I think this might yield some answers."

III

[fairfeste]

Feste blinks at her, wide-eyed and very confused and not at all sure why she's talking to them. ...Maybe because they're there. That is probably what they would do.

"O... kay?" they agree, which maybe they shouldn't have done before knowing what she wanted, "What is it?"

[dragoonrouge]

"I'm going to go and look at the quake's epicentre. I'm going to record it, not on the Network, but I think it's about time all of us meet up and have a detailed talk about what we know."

Sadie frowns, nails tapping against her bottle of water, "Something's niggling at me and I think we need to lay all the cards we currently have on the table somewhere where we can't be overheard."

Action OTA

[lovedramamoron]

A. The Quake
At 3:15 PM Jimmy was walking by a bookshelf in the public library. He'd returned to check out more Sherlock Holmes novels, after he'd quickly finished the first one. He braces his feet as he feels the tremors start, and has to duck hastily to avoid several books falling from the shelves above him.

B. Curiosity
At first Jimmy was merely interested in the local news. Some of the social media was entertaining, and he collects a few of the more interesting jokes to send back to his family in the United States.

But as the days pass, he starts to feel restless. It wasn't enough any more to just read about things. Honestly, it hadn't been enough ever since he'd read that book, and that memory appeared in his head. Of what it felt like to want to be someone who could investigate things for himself.

He starts spending time in the library after school, reading the newspapers and reading every book on earthquakes they had. He approaches people and asks them about their experience with the quake. It doesn't take long for that to extend to asking about other things. Even things that had happened before he had arrived in Mossgate.

It wasn't detective work. Not really. It was more like how he collected information for his stories.

But it was something.

B

[saveournpcs]

Most of what Jimmy can find about earthquakes in the area from studying books amounts to: The area is not particularly active tectonically, there only very rarely are any earthquakes, and if there are they're of low magnitude.

Digging deeper, however, he'll come across another bit of information. Perhaps he reads old newspaper clippings that point him to this, or perhaps he branches out to the uni library by himself and finds an old dissertation, and then follows that papertrail.

Either way, the information amounts to this: In the 80ies, a group of students from the fields of geology, history, and archaeology teamed up in an attempt to write a story of the earthquakes in the Mossgate area and use the results for their various dissertations. For the most part, it's uneventful and just a very scholarly, number- and historical record based reiteration of the general information to be found.

Except for that they did find one aberration that occurred a little while before the Norman Conquest. If Jimmy finds the dissertations, he'll find that one of the history students wrote their whole dissertation about how people interpreted the events as the first calamities before the apocalypse, as a sign that the world must surely be ending soon, and how a wave of Millenialism swept across the area. The others mostly mention it as a part of larger context, but the information boils down to: A series of earthquakes took place around this time, including two major ones. There is no exact localisation to be found, only that the epicentre must have been located somewhere in the south tip of Kent or in the Channel close to that area.

B - also holy crap that infodump! o.o

[iamnotgod]

"... Yes?"

Caught on a(n increasingly infrequent) grocery run, Walter turns to the source of the directed question.

"What did you want to know?"

I know! Looks like Jimmy has some work to do.

[lovedramamoron]

Oh good, someone familiar.

"I'm just curious. This was the first time I've been through an earthquake. What did it feel like to you?"

[fairfeste]

This is... annoying.

Feste has felt decidedly Off since the earthquake, and it's driving them crazy. They looked way more into it than they should have, and even when the funny memes about the minuscule amount of damage done ceased to be funny they still wanted to talk more about it. So... they guess they're going to talk about it.

"Have you ever felt an earthquake before that one?" they'll ask, with absolutely no context, to whomever might be nearby.

Set this a week or so after the quake, maybe?

[iamnotgod]

"No," Walter says firmly, shaking his head.

It is good to see Feste, regardless.

"Never been in a geologically active region in my life, and this isn't exactly supposed to be one regardless."

Not that geologically inactive regions were somehow immune to earthquakes, but that was rather beside the point, Walter feels.

[fairfeste]

"No, it's not..." Feste frowns. Admittedly they'd never really thought about that before, but geology was not one of the things that had ever caught their attention. More things to ask Sadie about, maybe. "Do all of them feel like that?"

[warped_replica]

Initial Event (Open for contact through his phone)

When the tremor rumbles through the ground under Mossgate, Benjiro recognizes the energy rolling through the lithosphere with only a few seconds delay to overcome his initial shock. An earthquake occurring away from a fault without human activities inducing seismicity is high unlikely, yet undeniable for someone that had become used to them while living in Japan. Walking in the break room at the warehouse when the shaking hits, Benjiro immediately stops by a counter with a partial box of donuts left from the start of the morning from a generous manager and the aging air freshener still reminiscent of grapefruit. The teenager breathes them in as he grips the counter with a hand, and he feels his inside slip. The heartbeat that follows pounds over the rattling of the dishes left in the sink and the earthquake fades into the background as his mind takes on a new memory...

An earthquake shook the underground lair as the planets in the solar system came into alignment. Water flooded the city as an island began to rapidly form off the coast of Greenland. The crystal he kept as a momento reignited with energy after being spent. The tunneler was prepped and back down into the deeper underground tunnels they went with Michelangelo at the helm driving them straight into the magma and back out. The necropolis had regained life, and the crystal moon shone with new light. They attempted to enter and were ignored only to be set on by magma creatures. With no way to fight, they tried to flee only to be cornered over a trap right into a prison cell. He came to lord over them and taunt them with a promise of slavery once human civilization had been degraded by the natural disasters they were causing. Left alone, a hole melted through the wall gave them escape. She disagreed. Versaillia wanted to stop the repetition of history, and told the brothers everything. A crystal meteor had fallen to the island nation during a previous planetary alignment and became charged with power. Power that the denizens of Y’Lyntius used to create an advanced civilization. Yet, in this rapid rise, they began to think of themselves like gods and enslaved humanity. Human slaves were then mutated to better suit their tasks. In time, these slaves and humans of all nations banded together and overthrew the cruel empire. The slaves turned the crystal weapon back on the source crystal and sank the island - which would later be known as the Lost City of Atlantis. The survivors lived underground until their power waned almost entirely and put themselves into crystal suspension to await the next alignment. Now attempting to resurrect the old ways, they had to be stopped. Versallia took them to an armory and gave them suits and crystal tipped spears to fight the magma sentries. Able to then shut down the sentries, the four brothers turned to the ceremony underway to raise havoc on the surface. Disrupting the process with a distraction, Leonardo broke the focal crystal, causing a feedback that turned on the city. Versaillia swept in with transport and helped them flee as the city sank into the magma pool. Versallia, who had lost all she had ever known, struck out to seek other survivors, and the four brothers turned homeward.

The memory runs its course by the time the rumbling has ceased, and setting it aside, Benjiro moves to the doorway to check on the floor of the warehouse. A few items had fallen, but all present workers confirm no injuries were sustained one by one. After reporting himself in the roll, he ducks back into the break room to contact friends and family to check on them by text.

Sunday Evening and Onward (OTA)

Off his shift at 1700, Benjiro wastes no time in driving his motorcycle to check on anyone who had left an inkling of doubt after briefly conversing following the event of the afternoon. Even with no particular logic to cite, Benjiro makes sure to catch up with Sadie in Mossgate in person before he returns to Moss Manor.

That same night, he barely naps let alone sleeps as he researches online in an attempt to find information relating to data from the earthquake that rocked Mossgate, faults, earthquake activity in surrounding areas, any mining operations on or offshore within a radius, or any reports of explosions, landslides or volcanic activity. Anything he can think of that could explain the occurrence or give him a hint. Even after exhausting his resources at home, he finds it difficult to stop thinking. The earthquake, the poppies, the spiders...all of the odd events playback and he ends up reviewing all his notes and research around each.

At least once Sadie has brought him onboard with her plan the next day, he has something he can do that feels productive. Gathering supplies after school the following day once they scope out the mouth of Moss River, he can be found out and around in Mossgate until the evening when he has to host his stream and focus on schoolwork.

Sunday Evening

[iamnotgod]

Walter is waiting and ready at the park, and if there's one thing a slowed-down perception of time is helpful dealing with, it's coming to terms with unsettling events.

Like earthquakes. And, theoretically, Echoes.

While Ben didn't sound distressed about his own this time, with Echoes that could still mean most anything.

[warped_replica]

The sound of his custom motorcycle engine can be heard faintly when Benjiro arrives at the parking lot of the park. Quick to prop the bike and dismount, he walks from the lot onto the paths then picks up a jogging pace to reach the area he has met with Walter previously with hands hanging onto the straps of his backpack. Steps slowing once he spots his friend, he walks the last of the distance as he greets him with a nod of his head, “Hey. Anything new reported?”

He really hadn’t had time to check news feeds or the Network in his rush to limit the time Walter had to wait for him.

Sunday Evening

[twirighted]

Seth is out shopping, too, looking for a care package for his daughter. Because why not. Just random things he thinks she might like. So it's by mistake he almost runs into someone, paying more attention to looking over his haul than anything else.

"Gack! S-Sorry for almost running into you! Uh... ...I'm really out of it lately..."

Sorry for such a long delay!

[warped_replica]

One hand raised instinctively as Benjiro notices the man walking on a path to collide, he sidesteps with a fluid motion to avoid as the other takes notice of his presence and stops. Although not fully visible behind his facemask, the teenager smiles at the apology, “It’s okay. I’ve been pretty distracted myself today.” He shrugs, one arm occupied with a small shopping bag of items his great aunt had requested he pick up before heading back to the house.

Benjiro does take a second to glance and make sure neither of them dropped anything in the sudden stop.