applesaucedream | Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

photo encampmentunderthesea_zps98ceddce.jpg

Since the dreamers of Manhattan had such a lovely time at the last vaguely-nautical-themed party, the Rift has decided to step things up a notch. Tonight, the dreamers will find themselves in what appears to be a city very much like the one they inhabit in the waking world, full of towering skyscrapers, neon signs, and heavy traffic. But there is one rather crucial difference: this city is located deep underwater, and the aforementioned traffic is mostly whales and fish, with the occasional submersible thrown into the mix.

The walls and windows are heavily reinforced to withstand the pressure of the water outside, and the people who dwell in these buildings seem to be doing rather well for themselves, for the most part. Buildings are connected by enclosed walkways, so barring any horrible accidents, the dreamers should have no problem getting around without getting too wet.

Much like the city they inhabit in the waking world, some areas are more obviously affluent than others, and the dreamers are as likely to stumble upon an upscale club as an underwater pub. But while the chances of a full structural breakdown are slim, there are definitely some areas that are on the leaky side, and a general sense of claustrophobia pervades the city wherever you might find yourself.

Explore. Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, attempt to escape. Either way, take care - it's hard to say what might be lurking in the darkness just beyond the city lights.

[ooc: Y'all know the drill. All characters are welcome, whether they are in the game or not. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dreaming at the player's discretion. And the party never stops - backtag into infinity!]

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"Uh..." Johnny glances back down. For that, he'd definitely need to make a staircase or something. "I think it'll be okay. Just... hang on."

He strips off his shirt, because fuck it, and it's covered in monster blood anyway, bearing all his scars and ink to Daniel, the ocean, and God. Whatever.

He tears it up with some difficulty - it's a lot harder than they make it look in movies - and wraps a piece of it around his fist. Then he punches right through the window.

"Ow, FUCK!" He jerks back, clutching his bleeding fist. "I - I'm fine, I'm fine. Just stupid."

At least the glass actually broke. He would have shattered every bone in his hand if it had been as thick as what's keeping the water from them.

"Johnny!" He grabs at the pillar as soon as he hears the explosive swear, reflexive and useless because he knows he won't be able to climb up there to help, not without possibly dislodging them both, and he hears the tinkling of broken glass and he can see, barely, Johnny with his scars and his bleeding hand and his torn-up shirt and the smashed window, and Daniel has enough context to figure out what just happened and seriously, what an ill-advised course of action, but there's nothing he can do about it now.

"Johnny, maybe that's - not such a good idea," he starts again, halting, because it's not like he could do much to stop him regardless. He's already punched out the window.

"OH REALLY," Johnny snaps back, and uses his mangled fist to punch out the rest of the glass. Ahhhh shit that really stings. Fuck.

"Okay I'm going in. You just hang tight, Flash Gordon." He hoists himself up with a great amount of effort, hauls himself through, and lands heavily on the floor inside the booth. "Aagh," he grunts, and just lies there for a while. What is he doing. What is he doing.

Welp.

He picks himself up and gives Daniel a wave. He's got cuts all over his arms and torso from the glass, stupid idiot, but whatever, right? Maybe they'll find more of that magic neon shit.

He takes a closer look at the control panel, which is all to do with something called a 'Bathysphere,' whatever the fuck that is. It looks sort of promising, though, like summoning something. Operating cleanly on his ongoing inertia of 'what the fuck ever,' Johnny cranks the lever.

Immediately the floor rumbles, and just near where Daniel's standing, a little hatch opens, and up slides something small, spherical, and distinctly submersible-looking.

"YEAH!" yells Johnny in a manic burst of excitement, and then upward, as though addressing the dreaming itself, "Suck it!"

He can see Johnny through the window, waving, remarkably triumphant for someone who's just spent the last few minutes getting cut up in broken glass. Daniel raises a hesitant hand to wave back, torn between relief and concern.

Johnny sets to work on...whatever it is he found up there and Daniel just stands there, feeling thoroughly useless and with no idea what to do with his hands. He opens his mouth, intending to call to ask if there's anything interesting, except that at roughly the same time, the floor decides to begin shaking.

"What -" is all he manages before the floor just opens, an apparent hatch folding out, and something metal and globular just rises out of the floor.

"What did you do?" Daniel yells, staggering backwards in full preparation for the thing to start beeping out an ominous bomb-like countdown, because that would be exactly in line with the kind of luck they've had so far and to be honest he just expects that sort of thing to happen regularly at this point, except that now the floors have stopped rumbling and the sphere device-thing hasn't made any indications that it may have a hidden bomb-related nature, and Johnny is making victorious noises from within the booth and, upon closer inspection, the sphere actually more vaguely resembles a submarine than a bomb.

"What's it look like?" retorts Johnny, heaving himself awkwardly back out of the window and shifting his makeshift bridge so it becomes a gentle slope back down to the floor. He slides down, wrapping his hand more carefully, bandage-like, in the remains of his shirt.

He pats the 'bathysphere', if that's what the kids are calling it. "Way out," he says.

"That's assuming we can figure out how to use it." It looks more like a submarine - albeit a small and oddly shaped one - the longer he stares at it and it's not like there are any other ways out of the place, but Daniel's doubtful of how well the thing might work in terms of functionality.

He glances over at Johnny, frowning when he sees the latticework of glass cuts over scar tissue, then quickly pulls off his jacket and holds it out to him.

"Here."

Johnny ignores Daniel looking at him; he doesn't need this shit right now, he swears to god - but he takes the jacket with a mumbled "Thanks."

It's way too big for him, but whatever.

"We'll figure it out," he says. "I mean, what's the alternative?" He inspects it briefly, then pushes on an important-looking switch, causing the hatch to swing open. He peers inside. It looks cramped, but safe enough.

"Cozy," he says dryly, and steps inside. There's not much of a console - just a joystick and an ignition, really. "I think I can probably drive this thing. Wanna find out?"

Daniel would be crazy to just go along with this. Johnny is distantly aware of how reckless and stupid he's being, like there's no tomorrow, or maybe like he just desperately wants to wake up, and he doesn't want to wait for it. But he levels a challenging stare anyway.

"I mean, the dream gave it to us, so I guess that means we should use it." He looks back at Johnny, shrugging. It's not foolproof reasoning, but Daniel did just stab himself with a needle full of neon green goo under an equally flimsy premise, so he's decided that standard reasoning doesn't really have a place in this dreamscape. Besides, when has Daniel not participated nonlinear intuitive leapfrogging? It's practically his specialty. Other than, well, dying.

He enters the submarine - he is going to call it that because that is the best word to describe its function, vocabulary-wise - a little uncomfortably. This thing was almost certainly not built to hold two people, especially if one of them is a six-foot man who's spent the past eight years working out of a military base.

"Ready when you are," he says once he's settled. Johnny is either very practiced at navigating these sorts of dreams or very at the end of his rope and just wants to move forward, away from this place. Daniel doesn't blame him in any case; he wouldn't mind terribly getting out of here either.

"Yeah, okay." Johnny sighs heavily, feeling a little tired and less excited now that he's faced with actually going somewhere, exploring the Dreaming. This seems like something he shouldn't be doing. Right?? This is probably a really terrible idea.

Too late now. He steps in after Daniel and all but curls up in the corner of it. He takes up a lot less space than his companion but he still feels cramped as hell, and that's not a good feeling for him. Better move fast.

The door clangs shut, seals itself with a hiss of air, and there's a drop in his gut as the sphere plunges down a short shaft and into the water, and then just sits there, kept up by some mechanism they can feel vibrating beneath their feet. Johnny reaches out, on autopilot himself, and grabs the joystick-looking lever.

"Let's see how this works," he says, not sure if he's grim or manic, and gives the lever a little jerk. Instantly the whole mechanism follows that direction, puttering along in the water. Johnny stares out the grimy little excuse for a windshield and navigates nervously through the depths.

"Ugh." Daniel's eyes screw shut at the sudden shift in pressure but he manages to ride out the sickening twist of his insides when the sphere drops fairly quickly. It's not such a jarring transition; a little like stepping through a 'gate, in all honesty.

"Seem to know what you're doing," Daniel comments lightly as Johnny starts the thing forward. He peers outside through the submarine-thing's windshield, straining to see anything of interest in the gloom. Mostly he just sees water. Ever and ongoing, disconcertingly quiet, uniformly murky green-dark water.

A minute later, a horrible thought occurs to him.

"You think oxygen'll be an issue?" Despite the awful implications of the question, Daniel fights to keep his tone casual. Mostly he succeeds. Mostly.

"A little late to be asking that, isn't it?" mutters Johnny, endeavoring not to think of it. "I don't have any fucking clue what I'm doing, but we're not dead yet, so I call that a win."

Johnny's bar for dream success is pretty fucking low at this point.

"Oh, I agree." Daniel nods, still working at keeping himself relatively phlegmatic in the face of what's promising to be a terrifying if adequately interesting enterprise. "Agreed on, on all counts. I just think it bodes mentioning that this, this dream doesn't, well. It doesn't seem to have any set course for logic here. I think it's safe to say we can expect anything."

Oh, very comforting, Daniel. He cringes a little. He meant for that to come out a lot more reassuring than it did.

"Well," says Johnny with a shrug and a vague gesture at out there, "underwater city, I mean, that's a theme. These dreams have their own rules. Sometimes you can't... leave the general area, and sometimes you can. We already kind of left, so... I think we should just go up." Right? Right. "Straight up. See if we can surface. And then at least we'll be able to breathe and wait it out."

It all sounds so reasonable and likely, spelled out like that.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, it sounds like a solid plan.

There will probably be unforeseen circumstances.

Of this Daniel has very little doubt.

"Up sounds good," he says. "Just hope we can get that far."

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Encampment Under the Sea [Open to All]

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