madimpossibledreamer

the lair area is actually near the Park, not the black goat woods. I think I just included it before the Filth pool because it felt like something important to include and I wasn’t going to have it pop up again—except now it has, so now it’s non-euclidian with two different entrances far away from each other and absolutely no explanation. Random non-euclidian geometry is perfectly in-character for this game.
Also almost named this Outside the Story, but the next chapter’s title is more concrete, so I thought I’d go for contrast.
 

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Time to check out the lead at the lighthouse.
Word Count: 2534
Rating: Teen 

 

( in the rain )

 

Warning: this might be a feels chapter.

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Chelsea's return is entirely voluntary, because she's got a secondary assignment.
Word Count: 1099
Rating: Teen 

 

( back in London )

 

Extra notes from playing: Sherriff Bannerman, fixer Sandy “Moose” Jansen he might well take stuff to
something about the ravens and trouble they came in the last time. Also 25 years ago? Maybe it wasn’t such a weird idea to go trying to talk to the ravens
An artifact with glowing protective runes. Doesn’t get a good feeling from it. Looks like...a winged creature of some kind? Like, a lion or something with wings.
Idol of nergal? That’d be really cool to study...but yeah getting it there would be a hassle, and the Dragon probably wouldn’t be too pleased.
Magic fire. He’s disposing anything potentially dangerous in here now. Oh it turns blue that’s not normal

And a rich lady named Elizabeth Franklin elsewhere on the island.

Worse than zombies. Stay in the light, out of the fog and the trees.

Wabanaki Indian grounds.

!!!! HE JUST GOT A CHAOS FOCUS THAT’S RANDOMLY APPROPRIATE

the morninglight sending people to die to...send off flares?

Clouds...don’t move that fast.

Norma Creed knows enough Greek mythology to make references. Fog came in with the ship. Red seaweed

the anima wells have more plants around them

Feels like he’s hearing ravens everywhere now.

Yard sale

something shiny + fog

“It might still create havoc, but at least it’s havoc we can control, and that’s the kind of havoc we like. That’s chaos.”

“We look forward to the blood and violence. Killing always ends with the same result, but each unique way of getting there provides valuable information about our enemies.”

Everyone is eager to watch everyone. It is a sign of the apocalypse.

They also call him a drunken dog

Also note the second he could start climbing desmond started climbing.

the greatest gift is an enemy who runs toward you only to lay down and kiss your feet.

The dragon are sure he’ll learn to do wards too

failed attempts to cover up murder—cannot accept what it is and will tear itself apart

the draug have been discreet, have a philosophy—desperate & invasion “let us assume all possibilities are true”

“Steal more artifacts for yourself. The Illuminati will blame the Templars for having taken them, for no one suspects the Dragon.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever win him over, though.” ...wait. I have questions.
Eagle vision to the sewers. Of course.
Desmond is unreasonably happy about explosives. Moose agrees.
Ohhh they’re bonding over explosives, that’s nice

also I never thanked/welcomed spring_gloom /facepalm.  Hi, hope you enjoy your stay & good to see you again!

In the actual game, they build the Park up, and then you just...only get two missions in there. (To be fair, all the mind games individual to the character would be a little harder to do, with an MMORPG.) They almost do enough with it in the standalone game, The Park, but then...don’t actually finish Lorraine’s story there. So this wound up being about...three, four actual missions, plus the spinoff, plus at least a little bit of Lorraine’s mission, plus some of my own stuff and other horror inspiration thrown in a blender and then vacuum distilled down to a manageable and coherent volume.
I had no idea how Winter’s murder-void thing would go until he started going off on an Arkham-rant, so. Yeah, that happened. (If you don’t get the reference, don’t worry about it.)

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Time to tear the heart out of Atlantic Island Park.
Word Count: 2661
Rating: Teen   

 ( looking for an ending )

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: The Witch puts on a production for Desmond, Carter, and Alice.
Word Count: 2469
Rating: Teen

( secrets eating you up inside )

I’m actually one of the weirdoes that prefers the first game to the second but thinking about “Chad” there’s some similarities here that make this song pretty relevant for writing this chapter.
Desmond actually getting to use information from Initiate is great.

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond finally has an assassination target, though the Park is fighting them on even making it to Chad the Chipmunk.
Word Count: 1906
Rating: Teen

 

( winter's lieutenants )

 

I thought I’d added in something foreshadowing for a bit in this chapter previously, but I hadn’t. I went back to fix that. That being said this is actually a really good place to start to pull this in.
Thought this note from my first draft might be of interest to readers. (((Desmond share something for once in your life and stop making this so much of a pain thank you no stop no getting super vague and don’t lie about it Desmond seriously)))
This is in fact the Stephen King reference character who’s also his own thing now, because both authors coexist in my version of the world. The plot of Anne is now partially a reference to Joyland though, mostly because it’s one of the Krieg books that doesn’t have even a blurb or excerpt. You can find Krieg listed on Google Books along with covers and such despite the fact that he’s fully fictional. The mentioned blog also exists. I think I mentioned that this game had ARG elements, enough that they had an in-game browser so you could find, say, Danny’s Twitter for answers to in-game missions. (I wonder if he’s moved to Bluesky.)
Also there’s some interesting stuff here now about commonalities between books Desmond’s liked, now that we have two mentioned: at minimum for some inexplicable reason he might like “outsider protagonist” stories.

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and Carter open up and they progress further on dismantling the machinery of the Park.
Word Count: 3085
Rating: Teen

( twisting reality )

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Hey, Sonnac, it’s me, your old favorite. Reports enclosed on my observations, written by only the best, the brightest, the sexiest agent we have, yours truly, as ordered, etc. -R.C.
*Templar Bees often get greeted with a teasing or envious “you’re Sonnac’s new favorite”.
Word Count: 1925
Rating: Teen
Spoilers marked by the name

 

( Rebecca's Third Reports )

 

The chapter music is kind of important for this one, too.

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Alice and Carter react to Desmond's stunt, and it turns out it had some unexpected side effects.
Word Count: 2094
Rating: Teen

 

( broken pieces left unglued )

Desmond you say that but it’s still bugging you, you’re just so used to it that you haven’t noticed it’s bugging you.
and not that most people are playing it, but happy majima pirate launch day

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and his allies get a look at the Park's plans.
Word Count: 1891
Rating: Teen

 

( lost in time )