Sojourner Deep - Panfandom RPG

(This message is transmitted as both text and voice.)

Good... afternoon, I believe, though I'm not sure that has any meaning given the current chaos of our day-night schedule.

To those of you I haven't met, my name is Harold Finch. I'm from... a planet called Earth, circa 2014. My background is with computers; I've been attempting to figure out how to make the communications devices shed light... among other things. So far that hasn't been successful, but I have rigged a fairly simple, portable, and safe lighting device if anyone is still having difficulties with the lighting situation.

It seems we're all in... a very strange situation, and that the situation has gotten worse: most of the passengers I've spoken to say that the lighting and the gravity are not normally like this. I'm trying to ascertain if there's any sort of pattern to this, but it occurs to me others might be doing the same as well, and there's no need to duplicate data sets, so to speak.

If you'd like an explanation of my lantern-- there's a picture attached-- or if you'd like to discuss these recent fluctuations, please feel free to contact me. We are, I think, all very strange to each other, but I imagine that we all have one thing in common: we would like to go home. It might behoove us to work together.

(There's a picture attached of what looks like a glass tube halfway filled with water and capped at both ends with copper or bronze; there's some glowing blue ice cubes? inside the tube.)

There is a passageway in Sojourner dotted with irregularly-placed stone plinths that serve as columns for a latticed ceiling. The first thing one might notice about it is the scent wafting forth; a sweet, warm smell that is... well, what is it? A scent from one's childhood, surely, a comforting scent. Fresh bread for some. Mown grass for others. But it's a scent that tugs one's lips into a smile, and twinges a string of nostalgia in the heart, and more often than not, draws feet in that direction.

Finch has one such pair of feet. He limps down the corridor, his leashed dog at his side; and he pauses occasionally to sniff the air, to smile absently, then to resume his forward progress and idle inspection of each of the rough-hewn stone monoliths he passes. There are no markings, but they glitter as if fine mica or quartz had been dusted along their slate-dark surfaces.

Another scent, replacing the fragrance of (for Harold Finch) a pot roast dinner. This one is... thick in the air, cloying, and Finch pauses with a slow blush creeping up his neck. (For Harold Finch, it's now the smell of a former lover's aftershave; for others it might be any number of scents that bring to mind intimate moments.) After a long, hesitating moment (while Bear whines in confusion, his canine nose registering entirely different things than a human might), he keeps going.

And any others who follow this fascinating olfactory trail to its conclusion - well, they find Harold Finch standing at a blank wall that fills the passage floor to ceiling. It appears to be steel - or something like it - its blank, ugly surface scarred and pitted with gouges and gashes, like a spoon put down the garbage disposal.

And for those viewing it? They feel a curious sense of existential dread, visceral, dwelling in the gut rather than the mind. There is no obvious threat. There is no sense of a knife-wielding maniac or a monster about to devour you. There is only that wall, flat, scarred, final as a summary execution, and the slow flooding awareness that all is meaningless, has been meaningless, will always be meaningless.

Harold Finch stands and stars, stands and stares. There is a cold sweat beaded on his brow, and he looks somewhat grey around the gills.

The dog barks, a worried sound, unsure what is wrong with his human but knowing that something surely is.

[ooc: Open to any! Finch is going to stubbornly return to this wall a few times, so multiple people should feel free to jump in and we'll assume chronological jumps if necessary. Feel free to add any details about this hallway you think would be interesting!]