The Second Announcement

[Brackie]

London, England, United Kingdom

Despite the urgency of the situation, the room of MI6 agents, standing around computers and tables like they were back in school, was relatively humdrum. The volume had barely risen above a murmur, with everyone simply talking amongst each other for the duration.

Which is not to say that the room hadn’t seen some action in the past twelve hours - in fact, the room was busier than it had ever been. Impromptu projectors had been set up to broadcast information in its entirety to everyone, since the people in charge didn’t know how to utilize the mounted screens on the walls to their entirety; there were tables solely dedicated to housing bins for styrofoam cups, remnants of exactly six hours ago when everyone hit their first tea break, which didn’t curb the problem of the carpet being perpetually crunchy.

And speaking of unused remnants, Pamela Marlowe was the only one with a notepad and pen.

She’d been there the whole time, of course - when she first walked in and the MI6 Chief himself was telling the entire room everything the agency knew about the abductions, because, surprise of surprises, it was bigger than they’d all thought. It wasn’t just organized abductions in the United Kingdom, actually - they were in Africa, in Asia, in the Americas, in Oceania, and the one thing all the countries had in common was their ties to the United Kingdom. There were entire rooms of people not present because they had to liaise with representatives from all those countries, who each had people flying in - hell, even countries who had no known abductions were getting involved, trying to gauge for information.

Hours later, they’d been sent files from the CIA, all lengthy and in depth, and all detailing a list of American extremists with appearances on every watchlist known to man. The seven most important ones were all permanently projected.

Jayne Dandridge.
Holly Dawn.
Audry Diaz.
Ian Alda.
William Mitcham.
Henry Steward.
and Jon Eastwood.

They all had names, “codenames” which had sprung up in intercepted communications, ages, places of origins, every piece of information they knew about these people and how they’d joined together to form a terrorist cell responsible for one of the largest scales of kidnapping the world had ever seen. The only things that were missing were “where are they right now”, and “how did they get the manpower to abduct almost thirty children near-simultaneously from around the world in multiple countries”.

And to be frank, nobody in that room, Pamela included, was closer to figuring that out than when they stepped in, at least in any tangible sense. Theories rippled throughout, but none with a basis in reality.

As the twelfth hour entered its minute stage, Pamela sighed. Surrounded by men and women she’d never met before from departments that a language specialist such as herself would have no reason to visit, she felt as useful as bows on a bull. Marley had been snatched up by one of the liason teams several hours before, since he was the only one there who spoke perfect Hindi and the RAW was always testy towards the MI6 internally, so Pamela was floating aimlessly throughout, feeling more like a PA than a well-respected agent.

Fifteen minutes, she told herself.

That’s as long as she was staying there before she went home - it was long past the middle of the night, so she had long since missed dinner with her husband and children, but maybe she could take Jasmine to school in the morning.

She knew she was setting herself up for another fifteen minutes as the invisible tea lady, but that’s what she got for having hope. It was such an American concept to pretend she was useful on her own.

--

???????????

Tension was off the charts in a far-off complex, even further off the grid. The main responsibilities of everyone in one particular wing were rooted in darting back and forth across stations to make sure cameras were functional, that sound from the collars was coming in properly, and the more menial task of noting who killed who, where, and with what.

They had a special room set up for that, with rows of monitors showcasing different feeds of the various areas at their decided locale. Various workers looking across the screens at different times, cross-referencing times of death with their footage. Off to the side was a whiteboard with different pictures of the lucky chosen, lines connecting and notes plastered around.

It was a tough job already, and a harder job than it would have been if the bosses hadn't decided to take this time to gamble in the break room.

A group of particularly stressed workers were grouped around a monitor. They stood staring at it, and the feed it was projecting. It was of a particular area of interest; the fishing village.

"Well, it has to be her, right?" One of them said to a murmur of agreements. In his hand was a picture of a girl with a white ball cap on, his index finger flicking at the edge of the photograph.

"Fits the whole thing she'd been giving off since we started." He finished his statement by dropping it off at a desk, one with the nameplate of "Aaron Fields".

"Can't be, see? She hands it off beforehand, right around here." Another older man said; pointing with his pen at the time as the worker in front of the monitor turned the footage back.

"It has to be the other kid, what's his name?" He asked, snapping his fingers as he looked away from the monitor to the others.

"Uh, let's see... Caleb Po-policarpo? Policarpio?" Was the answer across the room, a rough-looking fellow standing next to the board; finger tracing across the board for the boy's picture.

"What about the shots from off the docks?" Aaron asked.

"Can safely take those out of consideration." Was the answer given by the older man. He rubbed his bald spot that had lines of hair combed over.

"She was firing at the duo so she couldn't have done it."

"What about the duo, you know, the other one on the other side of the church?"

“Neither of them had guns so that rules them out.”

"The girl got shot in the head, didn't she? Is she kicking or?"

"Somehow got out of there alive."

"What about the boy, the Australian. What was that all about?"

"Wait, what?"

"Didn't he get hit? He just vanished for me."

"No, the Spanish girl took him, didn't she?"

"She was there?"

“She got in during the window smashing. I think.”

While all this was going on, Aaron had made his way towards the door. He needed to report this.

--

Aaron swiftly walked down the hall, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible before finding the door that he wanted. Without knocking, he entered.

"Aaron? What's up?" Was the question before the door closed.

A few seconds later, and the other gentleman made his way out of the door, leaving Aaron on his chair staring at the door. The other man, just as swiftly, walked down the hall before making a turn towards a certain door near the head of the facility and opening it.

"Graham? What's the occasion."

“Just some… issues going on in the base, sir.”

“Oh? What kind of “issues” are we talking about?”

“You see, there’s a particular case with the village that our guys have been steeving over for the last hour. Mostly putting the thing in perspective.”

“And?”

“None of the bosses are there it seems. Disco, Freebird, Quaker and Polar.”

“Oh.” Was the answer before Overlord started tapping on his desk. A minute of silence filled the room as Graham kept his eye contact with his boss.

"And what were they doing while all of this was going on?"

"Uh, well, no one knows, sir."

"I see."

“There’s, um, reason to believe they’re all in the break room.”

Overlord raised an eyebrow.

“...doing what?”

“Gambling, sir.”

“...Gambling.”

“Yes sir.”

The fingers on Overlord’s right hand folded, and his knuckles tapped lightly on the edge of the desk. A few moments later, he opened the topmost desk drawer and retrieved a manilla folder, opening it to a set of papers, the contents of which evaded Graham’s eyes.

“Sir?”

“Mm?”

“Is, uh...well, the ones on the screens really just want to know if they’re in trouble.”

“Oh, absolutely not, they’ve done nothing wrong.”

Graham’s eyebrows raised slightly in relief, even though his neck was nowhere near the proverbial guillotine.

“So, uh, about the death-”

“Just take a vote, go with whatever gets the most - it’s not like we’re answering to the kids, now are we?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’ll be all, Graham.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As Graham began to make his way back to a waiting Aaron, he saw Overlord pull a small device from the same draw as the manila folder, but experience taught him better than to stop and gawk.

--

“Good morning, good morning and good morning, kids!”

Jack’s voice crackled across the island once more.

“We’ve had a busy night, haven’t we? I must say, I was being a bit facetious when I said you should be scared, but by gosh did some of you go and prove me right! Some of you really took this opportunity by the horns!

“Before I get to that, though, I should add that we may have missed a death from yesterday - see, there was a big kerfuffle in the village, and Pranay Shankar did end up dead; but here’s the kicker, children! So many of you, who I unfortunately can’t name, were so gung-ho about the whole thing that we couldn’t actually figure out who was responsible for his death until only hours ago! So for that, we’d like to offer a retroactive apology to Caleb Policarpio for not announcing your name yesterday - but as you’ll find out later, I don’t think we have much to apologize for!

“Now onto last night! I know some of you may be thinking whether or not we actually did give you these motivational collars with the power to kill you in an instant, but if you want proof, and you’re near the village, then you don’t have to look further than the body of Lyberté Renaud, who unfortunately did not take proper heed to the fact we’d told everyone to go on and get, and now there’s a nice big demonstration wound where her neck once was.

“So remember what I said about not getting too friendly with the people you meet? Well, Jia Li Qiáo seemed to take what I said to heart, and brutally tried to turn on someone she’d been spending the whole day with! Unfortunately for her, Archibald Harper did not want to die, so he sent her over the cliffs! We’d like to play her brilliant death scream for you, but we’re pretty sure it’s now considered a form of enhanced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay!”

“Now unfortunately for dear Archibald Harper, he didn’t get to enjoy saving his own life, or really taking in what it meant to now be an integral part of what we’re running here, because Jia’s corpse was barely cold before Seychelles Charity Tress showed up and riddled him with bullets! Considering what we’ve got going on up there, I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts pushing up his own Flowers of Scotland soon.

“Now remember what I said last night about us caring about you kids and your mental health? We truly meant it, and we’re sorry to say that another amongst you decided that life just wasn’t worth living! Deirbhile Callahan hung herself last night - yawn, we move on.

“Seychelles Charity Tress got another kill under her belt when she gave Jevaun Barrett a patented cranial adjustment - however, we regret to inform you all that chiropractic medicine is not actually a licensed medicine, so she was in fact committing malpractice when she beat his head in.

“And finally, we have the reason for why we weren’t too pressed on missing Pranay’s death yesterday - namely, Caleb Policarpo didn’t need our encouragement! He went and shot Abel Atkins with his own inner encouragement, which we find very fulfilling!

“Good news, everyone! The Fishing Village is no longer a danger zone, so you can all go back and find out why it took us such a long time to figure out how Pranay died, and maybe go get a look at Lyberté if you want first-hand proof we take the whole Danger Zone thing seriously! But in the meantime, try not to go too east, because The Cold Harbour, as well as The Mysterious Circle, and The Temperate Rainforest are all out of bounds.

“That’s all for today, kids! Keep up the pace, and I’ll see you tonight! Well, most of you.”

---

Weather: Day Two, 9am, Sunday March 7, 2021

The clouds that plagued yesterday's skies have finally cleared up, leaving the island bathed in sun and slightly warmer weather for the second day. Some light, scattered clouds will begin to pass by as the day winds down, but nothing that will adversely affect the weather.

---

And finally, the rolls. Please remember all appropriate etiquette.

1. Matthew Omeruo (Pippi) Tarren Joseph (Naft)
2. Ajay Bachmeyer (ItzToxie) Rainbow Moseki (Brackie)

Three days for cards and standard Danger Zone posts, and a further seven for deaths for both deaths and to make a final post exiting a Danger Zone.

[+] rolling logs

Brackie — Today at 03:11
@Definitely a deredere I do declare, that we have rolls to do
Definitely a deredere — Today at 03:12
So we do
Brackie — Today at 03:12
These will be the fourth rolls of SOTF: International
We'll be rolling two (2) characters for this set
Myself and @Definitely a deredere are presiding
Rolling list is located here: viewtopic.php?p=29477#p29477
I'll do the rolls themselves, Ohm will read out the names
Test rolls to see if the bot is functional
There's 20 characters in the rolling list so we'll be doing it with a d20
Test Roll 1:
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:14
@Brackie,
7 ⟵ [7] 1d20
Brackie — Today at 03:14
test roll 2
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:14
@Brackie,
14 ⟵ [14] 1d20
Brackie — Today at 03:15
test roll 3 for good measure
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:15
@Brackie,
14 ⟵ [14] 1d20
Brackie — Today at 03:15
once more, just to make sure the bot isn't stuck on multiples of 7
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:15
@Brackie,
13 ⟵ [13] 1d20
Brackie — Today at 03:15
13 is not a multiple of 7!
Definitely a deredere — Today at 03:16
Excellent
Brackie — Today at 03:16
@Definitely a deredere ready to go?
Definitely a deredere — Today at 03:16
@Brackie As ready as you are!
Brackie — Today at 03:16
SOTF: International Fourth Rolls, rolling two characters
First Roll:
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:16
@Brackie,
3 ⟵ [3] 1d20
Definitely a deredere — Today at 03:16
Matthew Omeruo
Brackie — Today at 03:17
Second Roll:
d20
Roll Bot 2.0
BOT
— Today at 03:17
@Brackie,
1 ⟵ [1] 1d20
Definitely a deredere — Today at 03:17
Ajay Bachmeyer
Brackie — Today at 03:18
I shall get the post up ASAP, as well as roll logs

[ItzToxie]

Good lord, i'm being bullied. Hoping for another hero but I understand if you don't wanna do that with how these rolls go, and im also looking for death ideas.

[Brackie]

Heroing Ajay with Rainbow

Send me death ideas!

ETA: death idea has been settled upon!

[Pippi]

Hello! Writing Matthew has been an incredibly fascinating and engaging experience for me; he's a character unlike any I've written before, being someone from a totally different country and culture to my own, and one who's faith plays such an important part in their life, and I'm truly enjoying every moment I get to do so! I'd love to keep writing him, and i will give the entire batch of brownies I made yesterday to anyone willing to throw me a hero!

That being said, I'm open to any and all death ideas that people may have in the meantime!

[The Honeless Beard]

Heroing Tarren for Matthew. I think I've got a death idea.

[The Honeless Beard]

I'm going to ask for a week's extension at least, as my killer and I are both entering into a pretty busy period over the next bit so this is gonna take a minute.

[Brackie]

I'm going to ask for a week's extension at least, as my killer and I are both entering into a pretty busy period over the next bit so this is gonna take a minute.

Granted.

That's also time on Danger Zone posts, so for everyone who is still in Danger Zones, make sure your next post is an exit post.

[Brackie]

a day late and a head short

[The Honeless Beard]

much more than a day late tbh