agogelogs | my oath shall be sped;

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my oath shall be sped;

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? The January TDM.
WHEN? The mythic dimension of Vorspiel.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME;

Vorspiel; a land of song.

arrival for new recruits

You wake up in a patch of verdant forest, with the birds chirping all around you. You're not in a clearing; your body lies between the trees. Near you, a frail woman with tired eyes rocks back and forth. You have none of your clothing, just black military-issued underwear, and none of your previous possessions beyond the one you chose (if you remember choosing) to bring with you.

When the tired woman notices you've come to, she speaks in a tongue you won't recognize, but somehow understand, in tilting tones that somehow always rhyme. Tired and sorrowful though she is, if you have questions as to what's going on, she'll answer: you are a member of COST, a paramilitary organization of time travelers fighting against the Regency, a tyrannous kingdom of the future who are trying to stamp out freedom and individuality in the name of peace.

She will provide you with the clothing necessary to fit in, and show you how to use your BCE implant to look up information on this dimension and its social and political mores. She won't let you leave until you're properly dressed to fit in, but once you are, she'll wish you luck. She thinks you'll need it.

And, she says as you depart, if you see the Gods, spit on them. They will do you no favors here.

ARRIVAL FOR VETERANS

While on BASE, you'll receive a message on your BCE.

URGENT MISSION: VORSPIEL UNDER MAJOR ATTACK. ALL POSSIBLE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO PROVIDE AID.

ACCEPT: Y / N ?

Selecting 'Y' will instantly teleport you to Vorspiel. Or maybe you're not the volunteering type, but your BCE glitches and signs you up anyway. Them's the breaks.

When you appear in Vorspiel, you'll find yourself in that same forest with the same woman who is ushering new recruits. She will give you clothes and wish you luck-- though luck, she says, is something true heroes have in short supply.

VORSPIEL

Regardless of how you got here, your BCE will have a short rundown of the situation once you arrive.

Vorspiel is a mythical, magical dimension rich in rare and precious resources. During the course of the war, it's been fought over by both sides. The Regency has recently allied with the leader of the misty country of Nibelheim to issue what is known as a Time Break; a sort of spell only possible in ancient dimensions such as these. Essentially, linear time has been destroyed in this dimension. Everything is happening at once, simultaneously and perpetually, a never ending cycle of lives and deaths and battles. While Vorspiel is a vast dimension, its borders have become warped; it is possible to walk from one country to another across the sea in a matter of moments, by accident. While the BCE is trying to send people to Nibelheim, it's entirely possible it misses the mark completely, or sends them to several places before they reach Nibelheim.

This chaos is meant to be a punishment: bow down before the Regency, or nothing will ever be the same again.

There is good news, though. Vorspiel is a dimension of inherent magic; singing or humming or whistling certain magical tunes will have an inherent effect upon one's surroundings. The BCE lists all the spells, though it notes that some have varying results (AKA go wild, guys, have fun), and the ones named after people will do little unless the person in question is present (a statistical unlikelihood).

As you enter different parts of Vorspiel, the BCE will sometimes give you different assignments, prompting you to take this action or that. If you have any questions about how this setting works, feel free to ask!

THE RHEIN

You come upon a giant river with clear and beautiful water. The sun shines down upon it in yellow light, and wherever the light touches it, gold floats to the surface of the water. The BCE will prompt you to fetch as much of this gold as you can-- it is an extremely powerful magical resource, rheingold-- but it will not warn you about the Rheinmaidens.

The rheinmaidens are mermaids, essentially, and at first, they are very friendly and gentle, singing nonsense songs and welcoming you to their home. But as soon as you begin to make any moves toward the gold, they will curse you, dive for you with surprising speed, and attempt to drown you. They will be vicious, and their natural element is water. You're in their territory, taking their things, as far as they are concerned. They have every right to kill you.

Killing the rhienmaidens will work... for a minute or so. And then they will rise again. Wounds will undo themselves-- whether they're inflicted by the rheinmaidens or you. Drowning doesn't seem permanent either-- you're pulled under, and all air escapes you, death befalls you... and then you wake up a moment later, standing on the shore.

Time has been fundamentally broken. Nothing done here is permanent.

WALHALL

You stand outside a fortress bathed in rainbow light atop a glorious mountain. Around you, the air is cool and still, and the roof of the sky seems terribly close. No matter how far toward the fortress you run, you can never make it inside. And thundering footsteps are coming just around the mountain pass, coming for you.

Lumbering giants wander around the fortress, searching for something they mutter and murmur is theirs. If they see anyone around, they will attempt to carry them off, kidnapping them for unknown purposes. They do not seem interested in eating their catch; they seem more interested in kidnapping it. Still, they are dangerous, brutish and sloppy with their strength. It is best to avoid them if possible, hiding in the trees.

Or perhaps you'd rather fight these fifteen-foot monstrosities on your own?

Of course, if you kill them, they just... come back. Death cannot be permanent in a place where time has been caught in an endless loop.

NIBELHEIM

The misty country of Nibelheim is located within a network of caverns dug into the side of a great mountain. It's a foggy, polluted place that brings to mind a city on the brink of the industrial revolution, not unlike Victorian London, though Nibelheim is entirely underground. There is smoke and smog everywhere, and living conditions are generally poor. The rich class is one family, ruled by a Nibelung named Alberich. He has various objects of great power that keep him enslaving his fellow Nibelung, working constantly in factories of his making. He has allied with the Regency to achieve this goal, and the time break within his home dimension is due in large part to his planning and plotting.

Human visitors to Nibelheim aren't unheard of, due to trade, though they are in a minority. Nibelungs, for the record, look and feel and act completely human, but they are ultimately alien, averaging a foot shorter in height at least, having naturally sallow skin, large eyes, hairless regardless of gender, and long, nimble fingers. They are a race of people made to live underground, and it shows; most can see in the dark, and climb nearly any surface. They are famed as smiths and metalworkers. Most just want to make a living and feed their families, though Alberich's clan keeps them in line.

Your duty here, the BCE says, is to try and befriend these people, the average Nibelung, and spark some kind of revolt. There are Regency spies everywhere, however, so be careful; you cannot call for rebellion in an open voice on every street corner. No, it's better, safer, to be subtle about it. Win the trust of a local businessman, seek out influential Nibelungs and figure out their opinions. Be tactical, be clever, be quick.

And avoid Alberich and his family at any cost.

But if you can, try and save some of the Nibelungs. Due to Alberich's machinations, Nibelheim is the only part of Vorspiel that has been untouched by the time break, but that will only stay true for so long. If you can convince any Nibelungs to join COST, they will do so willingly; you'll just have to escort them to safe places in hidden back rooms within dingy bars and forgotten libraries, the places where COST cells have been fermenting under the nose of the Regency. Don't get caught, and be careful; save as many as you can.

AT THE BASE OF A GREAT TREE

A man lays dying. He looks very much like the woman who introduced you to this place. Regardless, he lies in a pool of his own blood, a stab wound through his heart. The time break keeps him from ever truly passing into the next life; as soon as he dies, his eyes open, and he begins the process of his last painful moments once again.

Each time, he begs you to avenge him and find his love (or sometimes his sister; he seems very confused), and if you ask him his name, he will only respond that he is, "the woeful one". And then he will die again, for the hundredth time.

In the trees, warriors watch, poised to attack. They see you communing with their enemy, and they wish to defeat you as well. These warriors care little for your protest; they are locked in an endless battle that they cannot free themselves from, and you have just joined it.

IN THE FOREST

There is a serpent, larger than anything you have ever seen, sitting at the mouth of a cave. It sits upon a hoard of gold that may be familiar to you. It may not, but the BCE will inform you of what it is: rheingold, an incredibly potent and valuable magical resource.

Regardless, the serpent will attack anyone that comes near it or its hoard, even by accident. It, too, is caught in an endless loop of battle long over, for it calls you boy and foolish young man regardless of who or what you are. It speaks in a deep and sonorous voice, and will not stop until its head is cut off. The creature is obnoxiously large and highly dangerous, and battle with it will be long and painful, not least because, like everything in this place where time has been so fundamentally broken, it is very bad at staying dead.

Be careful when you fight it -- if you accidentally get some of its blood in your mouth, you will be suddenly and temporarily able to understand the language of birds. Which is cool, but also, you know, distracting.

The birds will tell you to find the Valkyries, who will bring you great fame and glory. They will also tell you to run, for Fafnir does not die so easy.

AT THE END OF THE WORLD

You are at a funeral. A golden-haired woman stands upon an unlit pyre, standing next to the man who, she sings, is her dead husband. Her song is beautiful and loud and incomprehensible, and when the pyre is lit, the fire swallows her whole. But the burning doesn't stop there; it begins to destroy the assembled mourners, the forest around it, the castle, the very river burns. The fabric of the world crackles and sets to flame.

Run from the flame all you like, but it always licks at your heels.

There is a trick, though, to saving your life. If one is truly unafraid of death, the fire cannot harm you, or anyone you touch. The BCE won't warn you of this; it doesn't know. But if you are unafraid, you can simply walk through the flames unharmed.

It will bring you to a wide field atop a mountain, where a woman lies sleeping. It's the same woman at the funeral, peaceful in sleep, unmoving, unsinged. She can be awoken by a kiss.

Of course, awakening her will begin the cycle again: the pyre, the fire, the fearlessness, the clearing. Over and over again, endlessly, until the BCE manages to pull you out.

This is the will of the Regency.

As a final note: This will not be the main mission for January. This TDM is meant as a one-off to dump characters into a setting they don't have to read a ton of infopages for, while still getting a sense of what Agoge could be (and as always, this TDM is game canon).

The main mission for January will be the Gallipoli campaign, as detailed here. Future missions for Agoge are always listed here months in advance.

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

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[The glare she shoots him is murderous with how angry it is, but for once, she actually listens to him.

And just like on his stupid base, in the face of this danger she closes her eyes and reaches out for the Force. She doesn't know what she's doing, she never feels like she knows what she's doing when it comes to this, but when she just trusts in it, lets it work through her, she comes out on top.

In the fight with him, when she'd escaped that base just a handful of days ago, the Force flows through her and twists up into what she needs it to be. Now, she puts her hand out because it feels like that might help, a physical representation of what she's doing, palm up until she squeezes her hand into a tight fist.

She's trying to pull the Force around herself, around him by extension, trying to cloak them until the massive creature loses interest and ambles off again.

But of course, she's still mostly untrained and grasping at straws. Whether it works or not tends to be a matter of luck.]

[The only thing he intended to use the Force for right now was combat -- fighting the giant, or maybe throwing Rey off of her branch. Without him prompting, he could feel it rising up around them, making the hair on his arms stand on end. He barely stopped himself from recoiling from her outreached hand, tensing, waiting for her to knock him down, as he'd just been thinking.

That wasn't what happened, though. He got the sense of what she was trying to do, and attempted to fight it off, letting it slide off of him like water. The fact that she could do this at all, untrained and ignorant, infuriated him further. How dare she?

The tree shook, shifting his anger back to the real danger at hand: the giant didn't appear to have found them, but was... sitting down, back against the tree. Probably sitting down for a nap. Perfect. He glared at her as if it were her fault, and maybe it was. She was powerful, but clumsy with the Force, and that calming energy might have just encouraged the giant to linger. They couldn't speak aloud, so he risked reaching out with the Force.]

You're not helping. Stop whatever it is you're doing.

[It is helping, though, is the thing. A sleeping giant is better than one actively looking for them, she'll be able to slip down through the branches without making too much sound if she's careful and really, she's not all that worried about his escape. Let him clamber down on his own.

But then he's in her head, she can hear his voice like he's whispering in her ear, and her foot slips off her branch in her shock. Her stomach twists uncomfortably as she puts her hand back to grab onto the trunk of the tree for balance, to keep herself from falling, and that hateful glare is right back on her face all over again.]

Don't. [Of course, answering him at all isn't the best way to make it clear she Does Not Approve of this, but she can't help the knee jerk reaction to shut him down.] Stay out of my head!

[When she nearly slipped, he felt his heartrate jump. If she woke that giant after all -- but it was pointless to worry. He could just stay up here, let her led it off. Unfortunately, she didn't fall, and their new friend barely stirred below them.]

It's the only option we have, unless you'd like to go back to shouting. I don't intend to find out where these things are dragging people.

[He tested his weight on the branch, confident enough to brace one hand against the tree trunk to maintain his balance. The branch swayed, but didn't break, and he looked up higher. The branches were only going to get thinner, but he needed to take a look around, see where he could run to next without crashing headlong into a giant. Without sparing Rey another glance, he leapt up to the next highest branch, stilling for balance and to listen for the giant.]

[The thing about that, though, is that she should be more focused on finding out where the giants are taking people. Allowing herself to be captured is probably a good way to find that out, but it goes against her nature so completely that she just can't commit to that plan.

And anyway, survival of the fittest has always been what guides her. If other people aren't fit enough to keep themselves safe...

Then, of course, he leaps up into the tree when the clear way out of this is down and she can't help the immediate impulse to completely ignore the demand she's just made of him.]

What are you doing?

[Being almost the opposite of altruistic, Kylo would have let her run off to complete her mad scheme. So long as the giants were distracted, it gave him more opportunity to escape, unscathed. Or, maybe he could follow at a distance, see where they took -- but no, that would never work either. They'd proven incredibly capable of working alongside one another. Briefly. Very briefly.]

Getting a look at what else is out there.

[Once he felt the giant hadn't been disturbed, he jumped again, and this time the branch swayed feebly under his weight. It held, but just barely. It would be so much nicer to have air support, or one of his knights to act as lookout. He hadn't worked his way to the top to forget the grunt work, though, as much as he wanted to.]

Tell me if that giant wakes up.

[She doesn't love that order, but what she likes less is the way the branch he's landed on now bends under him. She's watching it closely, watching the very base of it, and she doesn't have a good feeling at all about this.]

You're too big, come back down.

[Before the branch snaps right off and sends him toppling down and waking the damned monster back up.]

[He has no intention of coming back down at her command, but the more he looks around the top of the tree, the more he realizes his options are nonexistent. The Force would only be so useful in negating his weight and helping his balance, and he'd have to focus on that rather than looking around. Reaching out, he grasped the nearest branches to keep his balance so he could look back down at Rey. It was not a pleased, or amused, look.]

Get up here if you're volunteering in my stead. I need to know which direction isn't swarming with giants.

[What she did with that information, he didn't care. Mostly. He had the feeling that even if they tried to run in opposite directions, they'd run headlong into one another.]

[She wants to snap at him that he has no right to tell her what to do, that she doesn't need his instructions, he isn't now and has never, will never be her teacher, but it's next to impossible to not see the benefit of what he's doing now that she's trying to look beyond her annoyance.

So she doesn't reply to him, out loud or otherwise. She just moves around to the opposite side of the tree trunk and starts to climb upward, trusting her hand and footholds to get her safely up.

There's a moment, though, as she's climbing past him and having to look for a place to put her hand, where their eyes meet. There's a pull of something and it makes her frown, makes her look away the second she can and just keep climbing while she tries not to focus on-

What was that?]

[He watches her ascent like a hawk, and while there's malice in it, there's no real intent to harm. She's moving away from him, so he doesn't sense any danger or possibility of her coming up to knock him down. Not yet, anyways.

When their eyes meet, he lifts his chin, some suppressed emotion twitching on his face. It's her confusion about it that throws him off, and starts to realize their connection is already... different. He thought maybe she'd succeeded in shutting him out, literally closed the door in his face, but now he's thinking otherwise. Now it feels like that bond was only active on his side, and it was trying to find her again. Which didn't make any sense.]

Don't you remember?

[His tone, at least, was a little softer.]

[She almost misses the next branch up when she recognizes how little hate is in the way he's looking at her now, thrown off by it enough that her fingers scrape the branch and she has to look away again to grab for it securely.

The bark bites into her palm and she focuses on that, on pulling herself up to the next branch and just taking a moment there, sitting with her legs on either side of it as she looks down at him again.

It feels better like this, with her having the height advantage for once.]

I remember you trying to kill me.

[Her near miss makes him avert his gaze for a moment, looking through the leaves again to check the giant. At this point he can hear it snoring, and they aren't making enough noise shuffling through the leaves to disturb it. They're as safe as they're ever going to be, given the circumstances.

Kylo looks back up at her, lips curled between his teeth for a moment. He could argue against her statement, but she wasn't... entirely wrong. They were both guilty parties once denied what they wanted from the other.]

And you left me with this scar. But I'm talking about beyond that. Surely you still feel it, too.

I don't know what you're talking about.

[But it's a lie and a badly told one when they're talking mind to mind this way, and she should know better, and yet...]

Just watch that thing and stop distracting me.

[She starts to climb up again, but now her mind is a tangle of confused thoughts, she doesn't know why that connection is there, still or again or whatever the right word is. Nothing about them ever makes sense to her and it's never been as frustrating as it is now.]

Don't lie. I can tell.

[He doesn't press the subject though, actually falling silent as she progresses upwards. As much as he hates to admit she was right, he would've fallen through the tree if he'd gone any higher. The branch he's on now is still creaking a little, but he keeps shifting his weight to distribute it more evenly.

Once he thinks she's near enough to the top, he decides it's safe to talk again.]

What do you see?

[Well, that's entirely disturbing. She glances back down at him when she hears it, searching his face like she's looking for the lie there, but it's with a sinking feeling that she realizes that goes both ways.

He isn't lying. She can tell.

With a frown she climbs a little higher, gets a little more space between them like somehow that's going to sever the bond between them. It serves to give her a better view, though, and she decides to focus on that.]

I don't see any more of those things. There's a- a settlement, I think, to the north. I can't tell if there are any people there, it's too far.

[He stares back, unflinching, unblinking. Somehow he manages to make everything feel like a challenge, as if daring her to refute him again when she knows he's right. If she weren't right in front of him, he'd expect her to vanish like she did in his visions, shutting the door in his face rather than speak to him.]

No giants? They should be easy enough to spot.]

[There were still more questions to answer, of course. Is the village safe? Do the giants live there, or did they kidnap everyone? Given their lack of resources, investigating personally was the only option.]

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my oath shall be sped;

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