EVENT: Three Days of Rain

[applesaucemod]

EVENT: THREE DAYS OF RAIN



At seven o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, July 30th, it begins to rain. It's not a drizzle or a downpour, but a steady, soaking sort of rain that puddles on the sidewalks and saturates the ground. The storm seems to park itself over Manhattan for the morning, and reluctantly rolls out to sea shortly after noon.

An hour after the skies clear, any rifty who got caught out in the rain may start to notice something unusual: namely, that they're escaping the notice of others. It's as if the rain has washed something out of them, and they're slowly fading out of others' awareness. Afflicted rifties are still corporeal, visible, and audible - they're not ghosts. But as time goes on, they'll continue to slip beneath everyone else's notice. By the evening of the 30th, they'll find that others' eyes tend to slide right over them, and afflicted rifties will have to grab people by the shoulder or raise their voices just to get a little acknowledgment.

Over the next two days, the effects will only worsen. Unless a significant effort is made by both parties, afflicted rifties will find themselves relegated to the background, their voices on par with the ambient sound of traffic, their faces as noteworthy as any given brick on a wall, their touch the equivalent of a sudden draft. Those who were not caught in the rain will still remember their fading friends, but they'll have an increasingly difficult time physically focusing on them.

On the bright side, afflicted rifties will be able to perceive one another with typical clarity, allowing them to easily interact with one another, if not the general population. The network will also be less affected than the rifties themselves, so text messages may be more easily perceived than speech (though by the end of the 31st, text alerts from afflicted rifties will be less noticeable than usual).

Most importantly, the weather isn't done with them. There will be occasional, sudden cloudbursts over the course of July 31st and August first, and another little soaking will reverse the effects of the initial storm. By evening of August first, everyone should be back to normal.

[OOC: Initial reactions to the fade-out can be posted here. Other shenanigans can go up in their own posts using the tag 'event: three days of rain.' Whether your character is affected and for how long is up to you, though it's safe to say that as the first of August draws to a close, rogue cloudbursts will be difficult for any still-afflicted rifties to avoid (we're not saying a tiny raincloud will spontaneously coalesce above the heads of afflicted rifties regardless of whether they're outdoors or not, buuuut we're not saying one won't, either). Backdating is, as ever, allowed and encouraged. And since this takes place over three days in game, forward dating will also be allowed if you want to get right into day three terribleness.]

Comments

[wildmage_daine]

Well, this is a fine morning to be making her rounds. Daine's curls defy being entirely contained by the hood of her raincoat, and it doesn't take long for the ones flying loose to frizz, and then end up waterlogged. It's a pity she can't actually tend to the People in a shape of some kind - in this sort of weather, duck or goose shape would serve nicely - but animals don't leave off getting sick or injured just because it's raining.

Daine squelches around the park, her pockets stuffed with treats for her friends, and her mind open for any creatures that need help.


[ooc: Daine's going to be wandering around the park for most of the morning, so feel free to run into her to establish your character's soaking, or spot her patching up some creature or other.]

[johnny_truant]

Well fucking great. Could have gotten the groceries he needed yesterday, but noooo. As the heavens open onto him, Johnny pulls up his hood, an entirely useless gesture. Is it worth breaking into a run? New Yorkers seem to make an extra special effort to show how little anything fazes them, so nobody's reacting much more than to zip up their jackets or open umbrellas if they happened to be carrying one. Johnny doesn't want to out himself as a tourist, or... whatever he is. So he just picks up his pace a little, soaked and irritable. He's really gotta get a pair of shoes that aren't thin cloth.

"Fucking fuuuuck," he mutters to himself as he fumbles his keys out of his pocket and lets himself into Gabe's building. He passes Mrs. Chen on the stairs and gives her a nod. He's only met her a couple times, but she seems to have accepted him as a grandson or something. She stops him and starts scolding him about how he's going to catch cold and is Gabriel making sure he gets enough to eat and he's too skinny, etc etc. Johnny accepts all of this strange mothering with bemusement. It's hard not to enjoy it a little.

He escapes her attempts to dry his hair with a napkin, making his excuses all the way up to his apartment.

"Hey baby," he says softly as Yarrow bounds over to greet him. "Gimme a second." He goes to the kitchen to set his bundle of soaking wet food on the counter, putting away the perishables and leaving the rest out for now. He strips his dripping clothes off and leaves them over the shower rail, toweling himself off half-assedly before changing into jeans and a t-shirt and flopping onto the bed.

"Come up," he says, and pats his chest. Yarrow hops onto the bed and onto him, and Johnny sighs, running his hand over the soft little rabbit. "Is it naptime?" he asks. "I think it's naptime."

Maybe he'll go and see what Gabe's doing later. Right now he has a rabbit on him and he doesn't want to move. Yarrow curls into a ball and Johnny drifts off pretty quick.


[ooc: this is just gonna be a standalone, obvs, I'll edit to add a link to his post when I've set that up]

[etherthief]

When the rain starts, Iman is at the B&H looking for anything affordable that she can appropriate for lab equipment. She's beginning to lose her patience with that, however - she's just about reached her limit for "dealing with morons" today. Anyway this is obviously only a starting point. She'll find somewhere better soon. Hardware stores would be the best thing, really, but she needs computer components as well, and for now she'll just have to take what she can get from inside these disappointing gadgets. Freakin' dark ages, this place - no one's even heard of alchemy, or if they have they still think of the shit that was going on back in Newton's age. Useless.

She makes her meager purchases with her "credit card" (at some point she'll start using real money, but that day is not today) and heads back toward the pneumatic entranceway to behold the rain. For a moment she stands there under the awning and debates - she could get a cab, but she doesn't like the idea of cheating some poor driver with fake money. And she hates the disgusting, grimy, rat-infested excuse for a "subway" this city has. Ugh. Grow up, girl, you can get a little wet. It's not cold out, and the walk isn't that long. It'll do you some good.

She tucks her bag under her jacket and steps out. It's not so bad, really. Not annoyingly light but not too heavy either.

At the back of her mind she wonders if it would be worth trying a little ethertheft, de-hydrating the air a bit, to create kind of a metaphysical umbrella for herself. That kind of trick was a dime a dozen in her universe, but she hasn't actually tried anything like it since she got here. No way of knowing what effect it'll have with a whole different world, especially knowing that the Rift sometimes gives people 'powers', or takes them away, or alters them slightly. Is it really worth messing around with that just because she doesn't want to get wet?

Probably not. She sighs and stands at a crosswalk, waiting for the damn light to change.


[ooc: Iman's at the northern edge of Chelsea and heading southeast for Greenwich Village. Run into her if you want! She might be persuaded to alter the rainfall, oooh~]

(for sunshine)

[erratic_hematic]

Spike is standing just outside the doorway of the bookstore having a smoke when it starts to rain. He'd been having a fair amount of success at keeping people out of the bookstore this way. Not many people seem willing to barrel in past him and risk smoke and him to see what's inside. He marks the new technique down as a success and flips up the collar of his jacket, not quite ready to head back inside yet. He wants to finish the cigarette.

As he's nearing it's end, the rain changes from a drizzle to an abrupt downpour and he gives up, throwing the remainder down and heading back inside.

It's a couple hours before anyone bothers to come in, but he pipes up from behind the desk, "We're closed," which usually is enough to send people away if they're not put off by the store itself. The woman is not put off. In fact, she seems to be ignoring him altogether. He pipes up again, louder this time. She pauses for a moment then just continues on poking around, so he sighs and pushes himself up from the desk. She doesn't seem to notice him until he's within a foot of her. She jumps in surprise and, finally, he gets her to leave.

The same thing happens another two times before noon, and he's starting to think that something might be wrong.