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deeringtonpost2020-10-20 02:54 pm
sodder) wrote in deeringtonpost2020-10-20 02:54 pm
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Sinkholes
The Sinkholes
As of November 2020 three sinkholes appeared in town. Each sinkhole is a permanent location for the game and provides characters with a variety of oppurtunities to access unique items. The sinkholes have various challenges and enemies within and should be traversed with caution. Each sinkhole also contains a unique door that is currently inaccessible but holds great significance for the future of Deerington. This page provides static, detailed information about each sinkhole.
FLESH FALLS SINKHOLE
CWs: Intense monster horror, feelings of claustrophobia, descriptions of organs and flesh, organ-centric horror, PTSD, mental trauma, feelings of betrayal, eating flesh, spiders, mild eye horror.
This sinkhole has a stench of rot that emits from it at all times. It can be found outside of the Hospital. The edge of it is fleshy and soft, but you can dive in all the same. Careful. As you go deep, the cavernous walls close in, and at times it will feel like you might not have enough room to actually get through - maybe you're stuck - but just as the panic starts to set in, you slip through and keep going on.
Once you reach the bottom, there is a complete absence of noise. You can only hear your own breath, heartbeat, and then whoever may have journeyed with you. It may be familiar to some at once. The floor beneath you is stitched together with decomposing human bodies, all their eyes staring sightlessly up at you, but none of them move. They have long since passed, and there is nothing you can do for them except using their stitched bodies as the floor you walk upon.
This lasts for only half a mile. You can see dark tunnels up ahead, some with flickering red lights, other completely dark. It doesn't matter what you pick - they all lead to the same place - some just lit with dark, red candles while others you'll need a flashlight for.
You will find yourself weaving through tunnels made out of pulsating flesh. A mucous membrane makes the cavern walls thick and slippery, veins pulse beneath your feet. Every now and then, the walls around you seem to sigh and you can feel a damp wind push through. As you move about, you will notice that you're following a similar path as the roads and streets and alleys of Deerington. Instead of a replica layout of the buildings, you find a variety of giant organs where buildings should be. Deerington Hall is represented by a massive pair of lungs, the Mayor's House a giant heart, so on, and so forth. These organs may change each time you visit.
As you venture, you will notice that the candles seem to cluster in the direction of the hospital. Near the entrance of the Flesh Falls Sinkhole is a massive, square-shaped doorway composed entirely of some unknown organ. It vibrates with life, and it's the only sinkhole doorway you can physically approach. When you touch it, you will instantly have your hands stained with blood, and you will feel a sharp, agonizing pain shoot through your whole body. The moment you stop touching the doorway, the pain will stop, but you'll be left with a deep, long-term feeling of depression that may take weeks to get over. You will be anxious to touch the doorway again, and some people may even develop immediate PTSD from the experience, showing fear and genuine trauma over the experience, cautioning others against it.The real prize find would be the Umbilicle Cord. This moves depending on your venture through the Flesh Falls Sinkhole, but you will eventually find a giant Umbilical Cord winding through some of the tunnels. Take pieces of this and you will discover that the Umbilical Cord has incredible healing properties. You can either eat it raw and find your wounds will close themselves up or sickness will leave you, or you can harvest it and bring it back up to the surface to concentrate it into medicines and healing ointments. Some say it can even save someone from fatal wounds...But careful. Consume too much of the Umbilical Cord and you may start to hallucinate and go mad.
And when you're harvesting the Umbilical Cord, you'll want to keep an eye out. It's messy work and the liquids that gush out while you're taking bits for yourself...Well...It's like a drop of blood in the ocean. It's going to draw a lot of attention.
Flesh Falls is the most dangerous of the sinkholes as it is filled with a slew of violent monsters. Characters may experience any of the following at any point during their trip through this sinkhole:
The Lickers: You may hear low, uttering growls in the dark, and in that dark you will discover a strange, mutilated looking creature known as a licker.
That is- if they don't discover you first. These creatures are fast and capable things. They crawl around on the ceiling of the tunnels, making them practically impossible to see in time unless you have the senses for it. They tend to hunt in packs of two or sometimes four if you're really unlucky- and hunt is the right word.
Your one advantage is that these creatures are completely blind. They seem to have been living in these tunnels for a long time, and you might see them gorging on some of the fresher looking corpses on the ground. If you're quiet enough, you might actually be able to sneak by them just fine.
But watch out for those tongues. It's their primary way of figuring out where their prey is next to hearing- and their hearing is just fine, so really, you might be in danger sooner than you realize. These things will scuttle after you, and they will scuttle fast.
Careful now. Just because they seem to be a few feet behind you doesn't mean you're safe yet. Their tongues will snap out and cut into skin. They seem to seek out orifices to dig into for quicker kills. The only good thing about these vicious beasts is that they have no real defense. In other words? An ordinary gun will do the trick. One bullet isn't enough, but gunning them down or cutting them up with a knife should be fine. Hell, if you're strong enough, you might even be able to just beat them down.
Just be cautious about drawing the attention of more.
The Winter Lanterns: In the deep dark, you may hear a soft, distorted singing. Never a good sign, right? When you get closer to the song, you will begin to hear an unpleasant squelching. Then you see it.
This creature isn't impossible to get around. It can only see in front of it, which means sneaking around behind it is very possible and the suggested method of dealing with these ladies.
The problem with getting in front of it? Its eyes will notice you very quickly, and the moment they do, you will become paralyzed in its gaze. At first, nothing will happen. You'll just feel an awful feeling of something sliding around you even though the monster may be several feet away. But after a while, the Winter Lantern will rapidly approach you and grab hold with two cold, blackened hands.
Tentacles from somewhere on its head will begin to wrap around your head but the worst part is that it isn't going to kill you.
What it does is sap your sanity. It feeds on it. You will feel yourself rapidly losing your mind until at last, you're nothing but a shaking, mindless version of yourself- and there's no coming back from that. The only thing that can repair a mind this damaged is possibly magic or some ability or...Dying and coming back again. Sometimes it's best to put people out of their misery. Some people may be left screaming into the void while others may just stare endlessly at nothing.
Sanity can be eaten at various levels. If the monster is interrupted, someone might be left with most of their mind. That's the lucky ones anyway.
Taking down the monster is possible but a little difficult. Its only weak spot is the very back of its head. Destroying that hunk of meat takes some time and effort, but at least any normal physical damage will do the trick. The stronger you are, the more effective your attacks will be, but you'll want to plan them accordingly, because if it's not a one-shot K.O then the monster might turn around and look at you next.
Nightmare Apostles are giant spiders that crawl throughout the caves. They nest in organs and may rupture out of them in a swarm to attack anyone stupid enough to go near a pod of them. You can usually detect them slumbering in the organs before they burst since you'll see the vague outline of them, and if you're quiet enough, you can slip by.
Unfortunately, they aren't always sleeping. Some of them weave bloody webs that blend well into the surroundings and you might just get caught in a tangle of these webs. Even without a web, these spiders are vicious. They are lightning-fast, despite being the size of a cow, and use pack intellect to hunt down prey. If they manage to bite you, you will begin to hallucinate the spiders coming from different angles, confusing you as to where they're actually located. This is technically a poisoning of the mind, not the blood, so anyone with conscious thought can be impacted by this, and will spend days or weeks seeing spiders everywhere if they're unfortunate enough to be bitten.
Although these spiders are quick and smart, they are flesh and blood creatures and can be destroyed with regular weapons/magic/blunt force. They also will lose interest in prey that is trying to outrun them and give up on a chase pretty quickly if you sprint away.
Traitor Parasite: These cute little creatures can be found all throughout the tunnels. They seem completely harmless, shyly curious about Sleepers. They make little squeaks and purrs, and although they look rather...creepy...They do seem to have a sweet disposition. They cuddle into open hands and seem to be eager to make new friends. Plus they're helpful! Their little bodies create a natural, soothing yellow glow that can help guide the way through the tunnels. There is also something about them that seems to keep the other monsters in the sinkhole away. Maybe it's the odd, heavy odor that they emit- who knows? Either way, it seems like a great idea to keep these cuties with you.
Until it isn't, of course.
These little guys infect your mind and feed off your negative emotions. They will make you start to feel suspicious of your friends, the people you're traveling with. You'll grow increasingly paranoid and hostile, and you'll start to make wild accusations. You'll feel convinced that you're in the right, that this person has wronged you in some way. And if you keep the Traitor Parasite on you, you will eventually be driven to kill or at least try to kill whoever you feel is a threat to you.
The Traitor Parasites are surprisingly easy to kill - all you really need to do is smash them like a bug. The problem is whoever they have infected will feel protective of them and will gladly lose a limb if it means keeping them safe.
The more negative energy the Traitor Parasite soaks up, the redder their light will become, and the bigger they will grow, latching onto their host and making their host more and more violent and warped mentally. Again, people can be saved from these parasites, it's just a matter of getting the parasite off them without hurting the host. That and these parasites naturally invoke parental instincts in people - and it's hard to emotionally get over the idea of killing one.
Once you crush the parasite, a wave of negative energy will wash over everyone in the vicinity and may cause internal fighting and paranoia for a few minutes. Once the parasite has been killed, feelings of suspicion and hostility will completely wear off after a few hours.
An alternative to killing them would be to disconnect them with gloves and yeet them like fifty feet away. They are slow-moving creatures, after all, and aren't really fighters.
These parasites could be collected into jars. They only impact someone if they are directly attached to them through their little suckers.
Important Notes:
1. You can determine how much is "too much" Umbilical Cord. Some characters may be able to stomach more of it than others. Characters may become addicted to eating it and may lose themselves to the Flesh Falls and become cannibalistic with the surroundings, wanting to eat other organs.
The other organs do not have healing properties...But aren't a bad option for a source of protein. If you're a weirdo.
DREADFUL DIVE SINKHOLE
CWs: Dinosaur centric horror, themes of possible stalking/being watched.
This sinkhole appears outside of Grady Hotel and looks like the most natural, organic of the sinkholes. Stand near its edge, and you'll feel a hot wave of air blow over you. Distant roars of unknown creatures can be heard from the cavernous dark. You can see moss growing over the rocks, moss that stays alive even in the winter, and you will have to tread carefully as you spelunk into this sinkhole.
You'll need ropes and careful techniques to descend safely (or the ability to teleport or fly...maybe make some sort of craft...). The rocks are slippery with natural humidity and moss, and there seems to be a constant wind making you sway. But you'll eventually reach the bottom after a few hours. It's the shallowest of the sinkholes (not that that's saying much) and once you reach the bottom, you'll probably be soaked through with sweat due to the overbearing heat.
And no wonder! This sinkhole is a literal jungle. You land right in the middle of it, breaking down through a thick canopy of trees and down to a mulchy, jungle ground. You can hear thousands of birds and animals stirring around you, may even see some creatures native to Costa Rica around you. Sunlight filters through the canopy from some unknowable source. Might as well start your exploration!
It's a worthwhile journey. You will discover a variety of large, harsh black stones scattered throughout the jungle. If you mine these stones, you'll find a thick, inky liquid within that can be harvested and made into the antidotes that are used to take away people's abilities / provide a cure for those who have been transformed into a monster. Since this jungle is tropical year-round beneath Deerington, it can be a vital spot for finding food and clean drinking water during tough months. Any native fruits or vegetables to Costa Rica can be found in this jungle...
...And so can dinosaurs. Among the wildlife of the jungle lurk massive creatures you would swear only existed in earth's past. Herds of brachiosauruses move about, eating the giant leaves up above with gentle dispositions. Tallgrass may rustle with the movements of velociraptor packs, and every now and then, you might stumble across the massive print of a tyrannosaurus rex. Most of these creatures will leave you alone, but watch out for the predators...They're intelligent and determined. The dinosaurs existing is weird enough, sure, but the weirder part is upon closer inspection, you will see most of them have been tagged. These creatures were made by someone, monitored by someone. But who?
Explore a bit deeper and you will find an exact replica of Deerington - one so exact that map-savvy people would realize that it lines up identically to the real Deerington up above the sinkhole. Everything's in the exact place it should be. Only this replica is not made to look exactly like Deerington. All of the buildings are made out of scrap metals and materials. It looks like a patchwork version of Deerington and that's not it...Someone had gone through and stitched life-size replicas of all of the Sleepers of Deerington too. These replicas have been organized around town like dummies. Maybe they put a replica of your character sleeping in their bed, or maybe they have them at work where they usually are. Whatever it is, it's clear that whoever made this town has been watching the Sleepers for long enough to be able to replicate their daily life.
The Sleepers seem to move each time you revisit the place. You'll never see them move yourself, of course, and they seem harmless and soulless. They wear the same clothes you wear, and you'll find that the exact tattoo you have is even painted on the Sleeper replicas. Perhaps the most unsettling thing about the replicas are the eyes...While the replicas look as patchwork as the town they're from, the eyes of the replicas look real. They look identical to the Sleeper's real eyes, fleshy and wet, occasionally blinking, looking at you...But are they really seeing anything?
Among the eerie replica of Deerington is one landmark that isn't part of the original copy of Deerington. It stands by the replica of the Grady Hotel, massive, and serves as a guiding beacon for orientation for explorers. It's a door. Not just a door but one of the Doors. It's made out of tree and light, and you can see plants stirring in an unfelt breeze through the doorway. It's alluring and smells sticky sweet, like honey, but you can't approach it. No harm comes to those that try. You merely stop a few feet away and have an impossible urge to go no further. Not from a sense of danger or a sense of caution...You just merely stop wanting to approach the door. Looking at it is enough, and you forget why you should want to approach the door any further. Even if someone is telling you to try and go through the doorway, you simply don't want to. You have a gut feeling that it is not the right time to approach the doorway...That is all. Those who try to mentally probe the door will have a similar experience of immediately losing interest or desire to probe.And so you leave the odd door and as you do, you'd swear that the strange carving in the tree that looks like a person gives a sigh of relief. But maybe that's just a trick of the eye.
Important Notes:
1. Any dinosaur that was present in any of the Jurassic Park movies can be found in the jungle. The dinosaurs cannot get out of the sinkhole unless a character takes them out.
2. The Sleeper Replicas only move when a character has turned their back / left the area. If one were to set up cameras, they would be able to catch the Sleeper Replicas moving around to new places.
SUMMONING STONES SINKHOLE
CWs: Aquatic horror, possible drowning, deep sea exploration/monsters, monster transformation/body transformations.
If you go to where Sodder's Heart once was, you will find that a sinkhole has appeared in its place. Glowing blue crystals, similar to Sodder's Heart, encrust the edges of the opening. Standing at the edge you can smell salty seawater, and if you listen, you can even hear the soft moans of whales.
This is the easiest sinkhole to get inside of. The crystals seemed to have formed an easy path down, natural staircases of blue, glowing crystals that lead miles down. The smell of the sea gets stronger as you go, the noise of waves filling up the cavernous sinkhole. You eventually reach the bottom and there you will find a large, sandy pit.
To the far left there's a wide tunnel that leads to the Summoning Stones by foot.
But stretched ahead of you and to the right of the pit is a dark, vast ocean. You have discovered the Deerington Trench.
The sandy shore is crawling with odd, glowing plants that emit a soft humming noise and bob gently back and forth. The smallest is the size of marbles while the biggest is the size of ostrich eggs. They emit a pleasant, appetizing odor and are easy to harvest and pick. The moment you touch one of the plants, you'll have an insatiable urge to consume one - even if you don't normally eat. These plants taste heavenly and go down easy. For a moment, all the veins across your body, or the various mechanics that keep your body running, will glow bright blue - and then the transformation begins.Maybe you grow webbing between your hands and feet, maybe you grow gills and fish features, or maybe you just turn into a mermaid outright. Either way, in a matter of seconds, you have become an aquatic-version of yourself. Enjoy being able to traverse the Deerington Trench with ease. The Egg Plants grant a variety of advantages: night vision, ability to breathe and swim underwater, maybe even give you siren-song abilities or vague water abilities. All characters who consume the Egg Plant will also be able to clearly communicate with each other underwater.
You can interpret what aquatic advantages an Egg Plant gives your character, and you can change it each time they eat an Egg Plant.
There is plenty of caverns to explore in the Deerington Trench. While underwater, you'll find occasional rays of sunlight from some unknowable source, but you'll learn it's pointless to figure out the physics of how that's happening in a sinkhole.
Travel around and you'll discover an underwater sinking of the town of Deerington. Old buildings, familiar buildings, looking as if they have been underwater for centuries. Barnacles have crusted over concrete, some of the buildings barely have walls anymore. You may even find traces of your own home among these ruins. The one prominent difference would be that there are thousands of deer statues among these ruins - many more than are in the actual town up above. The statues seem to line the streets and can be found in a variety of the ruins.
You may be able to find ancient artifacts from your own canon world buried among these ruins, or maybe you just find a picture frame of your family that's long since been covered in algae. Any weapons you might find have been rendered useless from the water, but it might be cool to find an old, familiar relic anyway.
These aren't the only ruins. If you push past the underwater version of Deerington, you will find a massive sunken ship that kind of looks like...
...The Titanic?
Oh yes, yes indeed, and this is the Titanic specifically from Deerington. One may be able to conclude as much with the consistency of the damage done to the ship. Careful of exploring the wreck though...It's a hot spot for underwater carnivorous creatures like sharks. You can find the ruins of the bathhouse, and if you're lucky, you might even find some of the bath salts preserved in sealed jars that you can take back up to the surface.
If you lurk for too long, you may draw the attention of Godzilla who still swims near, and you wouldn't want to get into another fight with that bastard.
If you explore for long and far enough, you will discover far more ruins than just that of Deerington's. You will discover ancient ruins of your own canon worlds, your own canon homes, canon locations, though they will look just as rough and abandoned as Deerington's replica. Who knows what you may find. But plan wisely - the Egg Plants give you enhanced abilities, but you will still require your body's normal needs such as eating or sleeping and the waters are dangerous.
Important Notes:
1. Characters do not need to use the Egg Plants to swim in the water. They can use manmade technology to explore the depths / create miniature submarines/etc. The plant's effect wears off once they leave the water.
These plants can be removed and used in other locations in Deerington (ie; Koji Pond, Lake Tomie).
2. The effects of the Egg Plants can either last as long as a character is in water, or if you'd like to make the situation direr, you can choose to have the effects wear off after a couple of hours.
Egg Plants will usually wear off once someone is completely dry.
3. Egg Plant enhancements can only happen near a body of water since it will give the eater a desire to get into water immediately.
4. The Deerington Trench is eternally deep. The deeper you go, the more disoriented you will become. Much like the real world Mariana Trench, it is impossible to find the bottom due to a combination of disorientation and an increase of pressure.
5. Due to its depth and size, any aquatic creature can be found ranging from our own aquatic species, such as sharks or giant squids, to aquatic creatures from other canon worlds. Any creatures characters may discover should not be able to destroy the entirety of Deerington.
6. Egg Plants can be harvested above ground, but they must be "grown" / kept near a constant water source or else they will shrivel and die. Their "roots" must always be wet.
7. Fluids will work fine in the Deerington Trench.
Questions
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ASKING FOR A MONK-SHAPED FRIEND
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Re: Questions
Also, there's mention of a super-secret door in each trench that is important for later: The one in the underwater trench isn't listed/described quite yet. Is that one an oversight or currently unfindable due to the depth/disorienting?
Oh yeah... and the Flesh Sink Hole. Is that in front of the hospital or located somewhere else?
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THE SALTS
Pink Salts are physical healing salts. If you have no injuries these will relieve deep aches and leave you relaxed and without pain for hours. If you do have injuries- soaking in the waters will heal them. The more extreme the injury the longer you must soak. They cannot heal diseases or poisonings. They cannot replace lost body parts, but they can stop the bleeding of lost limbs and repair the skin. They cannot bring someone back to life. Smells like lavender.
Side effects of eating/snorting: Body can become completely numb. Eventually, if enough is ingested, you'll start to lose any control of your body.
The one in the trench is described on the extended details page for the Summoning Stones.
The location of all sinkholes can be located on the town map, but yes that one is outside the hospital.
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OH, and a more Maul-centric question. Since his lower half is mechanical, would consuming the Egg Plant magically transform his lower half so he's a robo-mer or give him a temporary flesh lower half, or is he just shit out of luck and going to sink like a stone?
Last question I PROMISE. It says "The dinosaurs cannot get out of the sinkhole unless a character takes them out." Does this mean a character could attempt to take out a baby dino, complete with all the risks of furious parents and the dinos being wild animals involved?
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It could be whatever you prefer since the transformation is technically magical - so it could be robo or flesh.
Yes, they could, but with how deep the sinkhole is it would be challenging to escape successfully with a baby dino alive - but it could theoretically be done.
Questions
Since currently the best technology I was able to find for waterproofing cochlear implants only allows for a dive of 380 meters, but his implants were designed by a comic book mad scientist, I was going to give him much more than that (maybe doubling it to 760 meters) and was wondering how much he might see before things start to go wrong.
Questions
Though the rest of the Deerington Trench is absolutely deeper than 760 meters. He would still be able to see a decent amount.