The Wittgenstein Institute - Data Incomplete (thewittgenstein) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-23 13:53:00 |
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GOALS
JUST THE FACTS
THE ARENA Click to Enlarge Room A: The Fallout Shelter This room in the northeastern corner is a 1950s bomb shelter that has long been abandoned. The steel shelves are nearly bare (though occasionally will have a can of spam, peaches, or ovaltine powder on them). The furniture seems to be stripped of any upholstery or niceties and a calendar on the wall says that it is November 18, 1956. Two cots sit against the southern wall which are covered with thin and scratchy sheets, dusty pillows, and green wool blankets. The room has some amenities, a toilet in a small closet, intermittent electricity from an unknown source, and a 40 gallon tub of potable water. The only functional exit is a hole in the wall to the west, leading to stairs that go down into a sewer. The other exit, on the eastern wall, was long ago sealed and won't open. A heavy steel shelf has been dragged in front of it and propped against it. Along the east wall are two narrow, hopper style windows that do not open from the inside and which are glazed over by a mostly opaque film of dust. However, the orange light from outside casts shadows of movement on the walls of the shelter. The shadows are long and humanoid but move in a monstrous manner suggesting something not quite, or perhaps more than human exists outside this world. The longer tributes spend here, the larger the shadows get. After about 12 hours, groaning and shuffling can be heard if you listen closely or get too close to the windows. It grows progressively louder and closer if they stay beyond that point. Room B: The Sewer From the shelter's east wall, there is an escape into the sewers which are in poor repair. Water is brackish, foul, and shin deep. Concrete is crumbling and uneven. Broken wooden ladders lay rotting there that when sturdy reached near 40 feet up to the surface of the tunnels. The occasional rat runs down the corridor and leeches are common in the water. Glowworms cling to the roof of the cave, creating a dim and eerie approximation of a night sky if they weren't so obviously clinging to slime covered concrete. You feel like you could get sick by even staying there this long. But it's the only way to get between the shelter with its bed, toilet, and occasional food, and the larger cave complex. About 450 meters down from the shelter is a hole in the wall that leads into the cave complex. About 40 meters further, the sewer is blocked by fallen concrete blocks, allowing tributes to go no further down. Room C: The Bat Cave If you head west after running north of the cornucopia, you'll find yourself in a high ceiling caved whose floor is plastered thick with guano. The guano provides life to the cave, giving shelter to any number of insects, arachnids, and creepy crawly arthropods, as well as a pale white mushrooms. Along the western wall, a 3 foot tall banana tree tries to grow in the guano, and occasionally produces an underripe banana or two. Because unlike most of the caves in this complex, Cave C has an opening at the top, nearly 80 feet high through which the colony of vampire bats living in the cave can escape. That means that sometimes, hazy and indirect light actually penetrates the darkness of the cave complex. If a person should happen to get up that high, they'll find the opening too small for a human, but the climb is steep, sharp, inverted, and covered in aggressive bats. Room D: the Cornucopia The Cornucopia is in one of the largest rooms in the arena. It is largely circular with a 100 foot roof and somehow seemingly lit though there are no obvious light sources save for four bamboo tiki torches surrounding the Cornucopia which maintain their brightness despite only having a small amount of oil in their vessels. The Cornucopia itself is a large gold 10 foot horn facing open to the south though crates, bags, weapons, and other items are scattered in all directions. After it's been deserted, all that's left of items are a 50 lb iron camping stove (though I guess if you really want to steal it you can). The Cornucopia sits atop a craggy island that is elevated about 5 feet above the ankle deep brackish water. 26 plates engraved with tribute names and a number indicating their odds sit 30 m away with a 7.25 m (arclength) between plates. Room E: The Multipart Cave If you head north of the cornucopia then go east, there is a dry cave with multiple nooks, crannies and ledges that is great for sheltering, setting traps, or catching your breath. There are no specific, superficial features beyond that save for a small cave in the southeast which contains a hot spring. Beetles frequent these caves, as do rats and beauty ratsnakes that follow the rats. But mostly it's just a cave. Room E: The Hole Cave To reach this cave, tributes must go down a winding tunnel that descends over 200 feet into the earth. As they go down the sandy soil transitions more to a compact clay. But it's possibly worth the trek down. Here, they will find a cave that is quiet, dark, and calming. A small waterfall trickles in the northwest corner, and there are no creatures that come down this far. That should say something. But the most prominent feature of this cave is a wall 50 feet tall with a winding ledge that snakes and climbs up it and hundreds of humanoid outlines. Legends says that if you can find your outline, you might find the contentment man had before he was torn from the earth in creation. Not that you get to hear that legend as tributes. The holes themselves make a soothing rubbing sound if you get close enough to listen, and if you can fit in one, are like the best hug ever. That's maybe not the best reason to come, but those that have gone in the holes before do tend to leave supplies. (Dropbox if you're looking). Cave G: The Glowworm Cave This cave can be accessed through the tunnel coming off the sewer (Cave B) or through the Hodag's lair (Cave H), but approaching it requires wading and then swimming. Water starts about knee deep, continuing to several meters deep in the cave proper though stalagmites stick up through the water, so watch your legs while swimming. What makes this cave remarkable, besides the two beaches, one sheltered by rocks on the Southern side and one smaller and sandier on the northeastern wall, are the colonies of glowworms that grow rampant in this cave, decorating the stalactites and the ceiling like a starry night sky. Visibility in this chamber is better than in most of the arena, and the water is clear and sweet (though still requires iodination or boiling to be potable). Fishing is ample and if not for the other tributes, it might be an ideal place to stay. Except, also living in a cave beneath the water, though it occasionally comes out, is a meter length long snake, the tsuchinoko, which spits venom, bites, and can mimic voices from the squeak of a mouse, to a cell phone notification, to lifelike and familiar human voices. It can be territorial. Cave H: The Bone Cave To the east of the Glowworm cave is a dry cave. The soil here is more gravelly than other rooms and it's littered with bones of various sizes. Along the walls small tombs have been carved out, though only few are accessible. Some in fact, seem to be home to creatures in this cave, notably, a colony of albino bulldogs which while sometimes friendly, can turn aggressive on a dime. But the bulldogs are there to feed the Hodag, a large, dragon-like beast with spines and a gaping maw. Like the Tsuchinoko, the Hodag does not come out frequently, but it is a constant threat, as its piles of trophy bones should be evidence. However, one of these holes occasionally has a light breeze coming through its passage. It would be a tight squeeze, but suggests a possible exit to the cave if a specimen is bold enough to explore it. At least, when the wind is blowing. Cave I: The Sweet Cave If the rest of the arena is a threat, this is your respite. Nearly 75 degrees with soft, glowing sand, non-poisonous mushrooms, and a gentle waterfall of potable water, this cave is welcoming and sweet. Even the skeleton in the south corner doesn't detract as much as it initially should. There's something intoxicating about climbing into this cave that makes you forget the stress of your days in the arena. But the cave is like a venus flytrap, inviting, but nearly impossible to leave. And once a specimen realizes that, it reacts to fear. The air that once smelled sweet like sunshine takes on a rancid quality. The skeleton moves when the specimen's back is turned, will loud pray for salvation, and heaven forbid if you fall asleep--it's known to spoon. Cave J: The Beach Cave This cave, the southeasternly most portion of the arena ends in a beach which opens to very deep water. While the first meter or so is treatable without desalination, in general, it is still saltier than the rest of the cave's water. Perhaps this is where the cave opens to an ocean if one could hold their breath long enough and navigate the stalagmite laden pool to find an egress. But maybe it wouldn't help much. This cave is dark, lit only by light brought in or the bioluminscent ostracods in the sand. But the gentle lapping of the waves make for a background noise, and the water has ample fish for catching. It's a defensible point, with only one entrance so far as tributes can tell. But as with anything in the arena, it may not stay so welcoming for long. Ecology The arena is limestone anchialine cave with a predominantly sandy soil, though as you descend into the deeper caves such as cave F, the soil becomes more clay dense. The cave atmosphere is cool at a stable 60oF (15oC) with about a 95% humidity, making the cave walls cooler to the touch and allowing condensation to form and drip down the sides of the cave or the significant stalactite buildup on the caverns ceilings. The sand in the soil is infiltrated with ostracods which emit a light blue bioluminescence when trod upon, giving the sand a temporary dim light, particularly where tributes (or animals) have trod in the last hour. The walls of chambers seem to softly glow on their own creating some ability to see within the caves and from Cave G up through the sewers in B, colonies of glowworms hang from the ceilings, providing extra light. In all, the chambers are better lit than they should be for being this deep underground, however, visibility is still low, akin to a dark night. (Fortunately(?) the view is much better for those watching at home). The water in deeper caves is sweet water to about 2 meters deep wherein it has an interface with salt water. Shallow water in passageways tends to be more brackish (indicated by darker colors on the maps) with a too high saline content to be drunk without desalination. While water in pools is low enough salt content to drink, it will still need to be boiled or iodinated to be made potable. Flora Due to the extremely limited light in the cave, there's really not much to speak of in terms of plant life, edible or otherwise. Occasionally, tributes may find a small, anemic plant trying to grow, particularly in more dense guano deposits, though these plants seldom get more than 6-12 inches tall. In Cave C (the bat cave), where there is the only natural light visible in the cave, a small tree grows that occasionally bears anemic bananas. Instead, the cave is home to a diverse fungal community with the most common fungi being small, spindly white mushrooms that are edible, if bitter. Fauna There's not a lot of large fauna in the cave, but what there is is surprisingly diverse. The apex predator of the arena is likely the Hodag which lives in Cave H and feasts primarily on the colony of albino bulldogs that also live there. Other caves have the occasional rat which are hunted by Beauty rat snakes. But there is not much to speak of in terms of mammals in the caves. A colony of bats live in Cave C and their guano supports a thriving ecology of trapdoor spiders, cave scorpions, cave crickets, centipedes, and millipedes--many of which are edible if you're careful and hungry. These are eaten by small albino geckos. However, in the water, there's an entirely different story. The pools in Caves G, J, and I have ample communities of crustaceans: shrimp, white crayfish, eyeless fish, cave eels, and crabs. In more brackish water such as B, leeches are a problem. The Wittgenstein Specimens at the Wittgenstein will be given special clothing for this scenario which they are required to wear for sponsorship events if they wish to help their squad's specimens. There will be several events throughout the Games, particularly focused on fashion, art, and culture, and less on your friends murdering your other friends. :( Specimens will be given a flat-screen television in their bedrooms, and screens have been added across the compounds so that no one falls behind on the games, however, at 7 pm every night, a mandatory highlights reel plays on all their devices. Training will be suspended and the library and diner are closed. However, a party with rotating menu of decadent tapas, sandwiches, and other foods, drinks, and desserts will be served in the Auditorium (and there is the cafeteria but that food's passable at best). Your priority is and should be the games. Alfa On the day following their death in the arena, specimens will awaken fully healed in Alfa in a common ward with 25 beds. They will have limited network access (to other dead tributes) and access to a screen which plays the games, but also livestreams of any sponsorship activities going on in game. They can interact with one another, and apart from using the bathroom or showering, have little option but to stay in the ward Upon the completion of the game, they will be released back into the general population and given their items from the games for their inventory. |
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