Route 29: ｍｏｄｓ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
these_balls) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
route_292011-02-11 10:39 am
these_balls) wrote in route_292011-02-11 10:39 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Hey, loyal Rockets! Yeah, you! The ones who didn't have to be kidnapped, and were therefore put on a flight back to Goldenrod to help aid in the takeover of the Radio Tower!
So far, it's been a nice trip, right? Hotel rooms for each of you - two people a room, for efficiency! - with all expenses paid, an allowance for snacks, just time to get acquainted to the city and your new stomping-ground-to-be. (Feel free to assume you're staying with other disguised grunts as well. You're not all alone!)
On Saturday morning, all Rockets will receive a small text message:
Four days to secure a job? That means by Tuesday. Obviously, Arianna's got something planned, but she's keeping a tight lip on it for the time being... but with that close a deadline, the reveal can't be far away. You know what you need to do, Rockets. Time to fill out some job applications!
Later this weekend, we'll formally announce Arianna's strategy.
Meanwhile, you filthy traitors in that glorified closet...
You've got a visitor! A new Rocket Beta (that's one rank higher than a Private, uh-oh...) decides to stop by, whip in hand. He doesn't attack, only glaring darkly down at the lot of you.
"You have all strayed down the path you were given," he says to the little group. His voice is deep, yet his words are laced with a deep poison, threatening your ears, worming into your mind. Perhaps it's just from the lack of food or comfort recently, but there's no doubt that some of you have to crack eventually. He's obviously playing on this.
"I bet you're hungry, aren't you?" he asks, continuing as he leans against the wall. "Thirsty? Do you want a comfortable bed to sleep in, after all of these long nights on the floor? I know it's painful down there.
"That's why I've come to offer you guys a preposition. We'll let you out if you agree to join ranks with us. Officially. We'll give you ten pokéballs, send you to Violet. All you have to do is catch rare and interesting-looking pokémon for us, and we'll fly you right back in a week to see how you've done. Not hard at all, is it?"
Your next question is probably, What's the catch? He's got an answer immediately: "No catch. All you have to do is join properly and these are all yours."
It's a good plan. No real strings attached, just staying as a Rocket whatever and catching some odd pokémon. If you decide to go with him, he'll lead you down a corridor, down a locked staircase... and you're in a civilized Rocket Headquarters. You can each go find a room, you can eat anything in the kitchen, have the cook even whip something up for you.
But before you all run off, he tells you that you've only got until Wednesday to rest and recover, because on Wednesday, you're shipping up and heading off to start the task.
If you're indecisive, questioning your morals and wondering if you should join him, or if you hate Team Rocket so much you refuse, you'll... stay in that case.
...until the day and/or night of the break-in.
Either through overconfidence or slip of mind, there's a mistake to be made tonight. With the 'loyals' all sent on their important Goldenrod mission, the HQ is surprisingly quiet, leading the usually-harsh and unforgiving guards of the prisoners to want a bit of a night off. After all, it's not like anything will happen, right? In their place, they decided to put a poor new Grunt to guard the captives. Unfortunately, the kid's so new and inexperienced that the high-level Victreebel won't listen.
Because he's rather small and scrawny, once he's in--stuttering in the hopes of "insulting" you--it won't be too hard to take him down. What will his disobedient pokémon do? (It'll laugh, that's what.) Get in a good punch or two if you want, but once you take down this little pathetic new guy, you can run right out of that room.
After all, he accidentally left the door open.
As for the rescuers....
Mahogany Town. For the rescuers who’ve never been there before, it probably seems like the last place any criminal organization would be hiding a big, underground secret base. The remote little mountain town is quaint, isolated, and full of big, hearty lodge-style homes with billowing chimneys and tall, dark pines standing sentinel all around. It looks like a regular village—one whose greatest sin was maybe being a bit of a tourist trap, but that’s it. Still, anyone who’s come there with rescue in mind knows better. This place has something nasty under the surface.
Unfortunately, anyone hoping to find their way into the Rocket base to bust some prisoners loose will be needing to use their brains quite a bit. That said, for a bunch of bright guys and gals like them, it shouldn’t be too hard, right?
First things first: that shoppe.
It looks so dang innocent that most people looking for something suspicious would walk right past it. So it might take a few days—or maybe just a few hours, who knows?— before they can see anything off about the quaint little building, but if one of them happens to creep on one of the windows at the right time (aka, once every few hours), they’ll spot something just a little odd…
That is to say, the sweet little old man or lady (whichever one’s in at the time) will get up from the counter and touch a certain book-- the unofficial biography of Giovanni (titled "Hail Giovanni!") on one of the stock shelves, and then moving out of sight and disappearing from the building entirely. Should they venture into the shoppe once the clerk is gone and try the same trick, lo and behold, a DOOR will open in the floor over by the corner! Congratulations, you have found the door to the secret hideout!
However, you will need a password to get in all the way—a small staircase dips down from the trapdoor but ends in ANOTHER door—this one heavy and steel, with a number pad attached to the handle. Sadly, there don’t seem to be any Post-it notes conveniently containing the password anywhere on the counter, but some shrewd-minded folks might think to take another look at the book that triggered the trap-door— while keeping the number of letters shown for the password in mind.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(spoilers: it’s H A I L G I O V A N N I )
Once the password is entered, there will be a metallic click of locks releasing, and a whoosh of cold, air-conditioned air (because obviously the winter wind outside isn’t cold enough already—this is an EVIL fortress, after all) will signal the rescuers’ entrance into the Team Rocket HQ at last.
But both the cozy ‘loyals’ suites as well as the cold and uncomfortable prison cells are far below—before anyone can make it that far, they must first navigate their way through a veritable labyrinth of whitewashed hallways floored with a curious sort of tile and presided over by glossy-eyed Persian statues every ten feet or so…
… And oh look, there happens to be a somewhat oblivious Rocket Grunt sitting at the bottom of the entrance stairs, munching away on some pizza and listening to a set of headphones (blaring—what else? DJ Ben’s Pokemon March) at full blast.
He doesn’t see you guys behind him.
Man, this is pretty much a piece of cake so far, right?
… Well, it might not be so easy on the way back out. Good luck, rescuers. You might need it in the end.
-While rescues/break-outs occur, the HQ is largely deserted—all the ‘loyal’ (ie, those who came to the base without needing to be kidnapped) Rockets have already been flown to Goldenrod to await the commencement of Operation Radio Tower, and the admins themselves are scarce—probably locked up in those labs of theirs, working on… whatever it is they’ve been working on. As such, the rescue parties, so long as they’re stealthy and avoid triggering any traps (more on this in the next point), will not encounter too many obstacles on their way in.
-THAT SAID, how about them traps, huh? Unfortunately, not being Rockets themselves, the rescuers do not know how to navigate the thoroughly booby-trapped hallways. In order to get to the inner sanctum where the prisoners are being kept, they’re going to need a guide— someone who knows their way around and, with a little persuasion (force is pretty persuasive!), will help them avoid detection. … Hey, what about that Rocket Grunt with the headphones? What an easy target!
-However, it should be noted that once the rescuers meet up with the prisoners (whether they have broken THEMSELVES out or are still imprisoned), said doofy Rocket grunt will ESCAPE and set off an alarm—which means you will have no more guide, and there will be previously-unaware-but-now-on-high-alert Rockets descending upon you en masse. Rescuers and rescue-ees will need to be fast and determined to escape—and will more than likely need to fight their way through both Rockets (not just grunts, either—fully-trained native privates who pack teams of nasties well into their 50’s in level; Golbats, Weezings, Raticates, Nidorinos, Arboks, and Magmars, mainly) and an assortment of traps, ranging from everything to some nasty electric shocks, paralyzing gas, and waves of Grimers. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like. By hook or by crook, it’s your job to escape and get out that door again with what you came for—the rescued prisoners! So get creative, throw as much or as little at your character as you like (as long as they have SOME difficulty!) and have fun!
-You may NPC Rocket enemies for yourselves, or, if you want someone to play off of, you may request that one of the mods NPC a grunt or enemy for you.
-Those ex-prisoners who took the Beta’s offer and had been let out of the tiny room prior to the break-in have a choice—they can stick with their guns and continue to serve the glorious Team Rocket, or they could… maaaaybe just sneakily try and help some of the escapees leave. If they’re subtle enough about it, they won’t get caught—and hey, maybe those rescuers could use some inside help.
-Most of the rescue event will be at the discretion of YOU, the PLAYERS—this is a team effort for multiple characters, and it’s up to you how fast or slow your gangs of intrepid rescuers will be able to figure out how to get in, whether or not they trigger some of those nasty booby traps before they realize they need to nab themselves an oblivious Rocket grunt to lead them through, how beat-up or smelly they wind up getting before being able to escape, whether or not individual prisoners have made a break for it on their own or are still stuck in the small room when the rescuers arrive etc, etc.
-FOR THE LOYAL ROCKETS IN GOLDENROD: We will be posting more specific details on what’s to come for them later this weekend, likely sometime on Sunday.
-FOR THE KIDNAP/BREAK-IN SITUATION: We've got an anything-goes log set up in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
route_1065, and we'll let you guys take it from there. Feel free to make posts on your Gears or action spam all over the place as well, whatever seems more convenient for you guys, but hopefully the open log can get you started.
Okay, guys, so here’s what’s going down on the home front! Hopefully this will clear up any confusion, and if questions remain, as usual, feel free to ask them here!
So far, it's been a nice trip, right? Hotel rooms for each of you - two people a room, for efficiency! - with all expenses paid, an allowance for snacks, just time to get acquainted to the city and your new stomping-ground-to-be. (Feel free to assume you're staying with other disguised grunts as well. You're not all alone!)
On Saturday morning, all Rockets will receive a small text message:
Get jobs at Goldenrod Radio Tower. Don't take no for an answer. You have three days.
- Arianna
Four days to secure a job? That means by Tuesday. Obviously, Arianna's got something planned, but she's keeping a tight lip on it for the time being... but with that close a deadline, the reveal can't be far away. You know what you need to do, Rockets. Time to fill out some job applications!
Later this weekend, we'll formally announce Arianna's strategy.
Meanwhile, you filthy traitors in that glorified closet...
You've got a visitor! A new Rocket Beta (that's one rank higher than a Private, uh-oh...) decides to stop by, whip in hand. He doesn't attack, only glaring darkly down at the lot of you.
"You have all strayed down the path you were given," he says to the little group. His voice is deep, yet his words are laced with a deep poison, threatening your ears, worming into your mind. Perhaps it's just from the lack of food or comfort recently, but there's no doubt that some of you have to crack eventually. He's obviously playing on this.
"I bet you're hungry, aren't you?" he asks, continuing as he leans against the wall. "Thirsty? Do you want a comfortable bed to sleep in, after all of these long nights on the floor? I know it's painful down there.
"That's why I've come to offer you guys a preposition. We'll let you out if you agree to join ranks with us. Officially. We'll give you ten pokéballs, send you to Violet. All you have to do is catch rare and interesting-looking pokémon for us, and we'll fly you right back in a week to see how you've done. Not hard at all, is it?"
Your next question is probably, What's the catch? He's got an answer immediately: "No catch. All you have to do is join properly and these are all yours."
It's a good plan. No real strings attached, just staying as a Rocket whatever and catching some odd pokémon. If you decide to go with him, he'll lead you down a corridor, down a locked staircase... and you're in a civilized Rocket Headquarters. You can each go find a room, you can eat anything in the kitchen, have the cook even whip something up for you.
But before you all run off, he tells you that you've only got until Wednesday to rest and recover, because on Wednesday, you're shipping up and heading off to start the task.
If you're indecisive, questioning your morals and wondering if you should join him, or if you hate Team Rocket so much you refuse, you'll... stay in that case.
...until the day and/or night of the break-in.
Either through overconfidence or slip of mind, there's a mistake to be made tonight. With the 'loyals' all sent on their important Goldenrod mission, the HQ is surprisingly quiet, leading the usually-harsh and unforgiving guards of the prisoners to want a bit of a night off. After all, it's not like anything will happen, right? In their place, they decided to put a poor new Grunt to guard the captives. Unfortunately, the kid's so new and inexperienced that the high-level Victreebel won't listen.
Because he's rather small and scrawny, once he's in--stuttering in the hopes of "insulting" you--it won't be too hard to take him down. What will his disobedient pokémon do? (It'll laugh, that's what.) Get in a good punch or two if you want, but once you take down this little pathetic new guy, you can run right out of that room.
After all, he accidentally left the door open.
As for the rescuers....
Mahogany Town. For the rescuers who’ve never been there before, it probably seems like the last place any criminal organization would be hiding a big, underground secret base. The remote little mountain town is quaint, isolated, and full of big, hearty lodge-style homes with billowing chimneys and tall, dark pines standing sentinel all around. It looks like a regular village—one whose greatest sin was maybe being a bit of a tourist trap, but that’s it. Still, anyone who’s come there with rescue in mind knows better. This place has something nasty under the surface.
Unfortunately, anyone hoping to find their way into the Rocket base to bust some prisoners loose will be needing to use their brains quite a bit. That said, for a bunch of bright guys and gals like them, it shouldn’t be too hard, right?
First things first: that shoppe.
It looks so dang innocent that most people looking for something suspicious would walk right past it. So it might take a few days—or maybe just a few hours, who knows?— before they can see anything off about the quaint little building, but if one of them happens to creep on one of the windows at the right time (aka, once every few hours), they’ll spot something just a little odd…
That is to say, the sweet little old man or lady (whichever one’s in at the time) will get up from the counter and touch a certain book-- the unofficial biography of Giovanni (titled "Hail Giovanni!") on one of the stock shelves, and then moving out of sight and disappearing from the building entirely. Should they venture into the shoppe once the clerk is gone and try the same trick, lo and behold, a DOOR will open in the floor over by the corner! Congratulations, you have found the door to the secret hideout!
However, you will need a password to get in all the way—a small staircase dips down from the trapdoor but ends in ANOTHER door—this one heavy and steel, with a number pad attached to the handle. Sadly, there don’t seem to be any Post-it notes conveniently containing the password anywhere on the counter, but some shrewd-minded folks might think to take another look at the book that triggered the trap-door— while keeping the number of letters shown for the password in mind.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(spoilers: it’s H A I L G I O V A N N I )
Once the password is entered, there will be a metallic click of locks releasing, and a whoosh of cold, air-conditioned air (because obviously the winter wind outside isn’t cold enough already—this is an EVIL fortress, after all) will signal the rescuers’ entrance into the Team Rocket HQ at last.
But both the cozy ‘loyals’ suites as well as the cold and uncomfortable prison cells are far below—before anyone can make it that far, they must first navigate their way through a veritable labyrinth of whitewashed hallways floored with a curious sort of tile and presided over by glossy-eyed Persian statues every ten feet or so…
… And oh look, there happens to be a somewhat oblivious Rocket Grunt sitting at the bottom of the entrance stairs, munching away on some pizza and listening to a set of headphones (blaring—what else? DJ Ben’s Pokemon March) at full blast.
He doesn’t see you guys behind him.
Man, this is pretty much a piece of cake so far, right?
… Well, it might not be so easy on the way back out. Good luck, rescuers. You might need it in the end.
-While rescues/break-outs occur, the HQ is largely deserted—all the ‘loyal’ (ie, those who came to the base without needing to be kidnapped) Rockets have already been flown to Goldenrod to await the commencement of Operation Radio Tower, and the admins themselves are scarce—probably locked up in those labs of theirs, working on… whatever it is they’ve been working on. As such, the rescue parties, so long as they’re stealthy and avoid triggering any traps (more on this in the next point), will not encounter too many obstacles on their way in.
-THAT SAID, how about them traps, huh? Unfortunately, not being Rockets themselves, the rescuers do not know how to navigate the thoroughly booby-trapped hallways. In order to get to the inner sanctum where the prisoners are being kept, they’re going to need a guide— someone who knows their way around and, with a little persuasion (force is pretty persuasive!), will help them avoid detection. … Hey, what about that Rocket Grunt with the headphones? What an easy target!
-However, it should be noted that once the rescuers meet up with the prisoners (whether they have broken THEMSELVES out or are still imprisoned), said doofy Rocket grunt will ESCAPE and set off an alarm—which means you will have no more guide, and there will be previously-unaware-but-now-on-high-alert Rockets descending upon you en masse. Rescuers and rescue-ees will need to be fast and determined to escape—and will more than likely need to fight their way through both Rockets (not just grunts, either—fully-trained native privates who pack teams of nasties well into their 50’s in level; Golbats, Weezings, Raticates, Nidorinos, Arboks, and Magmars, mainly) and an assortment of traps, ranging from everything to some nasty electric shocks, paralyzing gas, and waves of Grimers. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like. By hook or by crook, it’s your job to escape and get out that door again with what you came for—the rescued prisoners! So get creative, throw as much or as little at your character as you like (as long as they have SOME difficulty!) and have fun!
-You may NPC Rocket enemies for yourselves, or, if you want someone to play off of, you may request that one of the mods NPC a grunt or enemy for you.
-Those ex-prisoners who took the Beta’s offer and had been let out of the tiny room prior to the break-in have a choice—they can stick with their guns and continue to serve the glorious Team Rocket, or they could… maaaaybe just sneakily try and help some of the escapees leave. If they’re subtle enough about it, they won’t get caught—and hey, maybe those rescuers could use some inside help.
-Most of the rescue event will be at the discretion of YOU, the PLAYERS—this is a team effort for multiple characters, and it’s up to you how fast or slow your gangs of intrepid rescuers will be able to figure out how to get in, whether or not they trigger some of those nasty booby traps before they realize they need to nab themselves an oblivious Rocket grunt to lead them through, how beat-up or smelly they wind up getting before being able to escape, whether or not individual prisoners have made a break for it on their own or are still stuck in the small room when the rescuers arrive etc, etc.
-FOR THE LOYAL ROCKETS IN GOLDENROD: We will be posting more specific details on what’s to come for them later this weekend, likely sometime on Sunday.
-FOR THE KIDNAP/BREAK-IN SITUATION: We've got an anything-goes log set up in
route_1065, and we'll let you guys take it from there. Feel free to make posts on your Gears or action spam all over the place as well, whatever seems more convenient for you guys, but hopefully the open log can get you started. Okay, guys, so here’s what’s going down on the home front! Hopefully this will clear up any confusion, and if questions remain, as usual, feel free to ask them here!
no subject
Will this do him any good here?
no subject
no subject
And it won't help that Asmodeus keeps pushing him into them~!
no subject