agogelogs | my oath shall be sped;

Entry tags:

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Arrival.

[Mamoru awakes to heat shifting on his face and torso.

Eyes open to nothingness [nothing new there], fingers reach out for something out of habit whenever he awoke somewhere he didn't know [nothing new there either]. He doesn't find purchase in what he wants instinctively [that's new, but starting to become a habit]. Instead, he finds a wrap of cloth, worn out and slightly damp [very, very new, and weird]. A bit of plastic sticks out of the fabric. That's familiar.

Muscles on his back contracting, he senses a drop of liquid trickle on his back - slides down his trapezius to the corner of his shoulder blade and... drips. Dew. He's laying on grass and he's been there a while. From the sound of soft rustling and the way the heat shifts and switches places on his chest, he can tell there are trees above him swaying to a high breeze, casting shadows on his naked skin.

Besides his eyes opening and his fingers twitching, Mamoru stays still. He still doesn't know who's around him, but he knows they're there.

It's a woman. She notices he's awake and her faint footsteps approach him [small feet, lithe frame, capable, but seemingly stuck in a job she doesn't really want to do or spent too much time doing]. He sits up, and she tells him to reach his arms forward. A soft weight lands on his palms, wrists and forearms. Clothes.

He listens carefully about the place, about the tech he now holds. But while every comms system seems to be based on the same thing wherever he is, he pays attention to details he's not used to. Every detail's useful in foreign ground.

She tells him that he can use the item he brought with him, but would have to keep it covered with the cloth it's wrapped on. It wouldn't be tolerated otherwise.

He snorts, not at the information - that explains his lack of clothes - jeans and T-shirt wouldn't mingle. Where had he heard that tone before?

Instead of taking care of his clothes first, he unwraps the item in his hand, puts it on instead. The sunglasses turn on, and his eyebrow twitches slightly. It had been a gamble, to bring this instead of a sword. He hadn't been sure that Igawa's tech would work in this setting, but it seems to be working, somehow - maybe he's around?

He looks up, knowing the wire-grid frame has a delay in transmission - casts his hearing to the breeze above him. It sways the trees, the rustling sending sound waves to sync his sight with the motion.

Good enough. He puts on his clothes and waves a hand when the woman insists he covers the shades with the cloth. Everything felt rough, but not impractical, even if the fabric around his head felt way too worn, needing more than one knot to tie properly. No matter, the projection to his retinas is created through sound, not actual sight, and he had enough leeway to move.

The woman is interrupted as she bids him luck, startled when he spots a branch that's long and sturdy enough and snaps it. He gives her a look with a small smirk. What? You wanted him to be legit, he's gotta have a cane, too.

She sighs, tiredly. Wishes him luck again, albeit half-heartedly now. She knows it'll end up in deaf ears.]

Now...

[Voice to text function activated.]

@PRIZENECK | @ALL: Where do I get a weapon?

At the base of a great tree.
[He knows it's a trap.

He's still trying to wrap his head around the magical intricacies of this place - give him technology, military tactics, almost superhuman abilities, hell, even the quantum physics that Wiseman spouts about, and he'll deal. He's not quite ready for how this world really works, though.

Lore, magic, or whatever runs this place, a trap is a trap. And that man whimpering by the tree is definitely one.

Still, he swallows hard, not when he sees the man dying as he arrives in the area [dragging the tree branch in front of him for the sake of blending in - blind people in the old days didn't swing their canes to the sides - see, look at him being nondescript, the woman in the arrival place would be proud]. It's when he gasps for air yet again back to life that gets to Mamoru, the whole thing starting again. Please. That's torture, and Mamoru knows torture well - inflicted on many a crook. It's messy.

Rationally though, he can't help but figure a death through the heart is a lot peaceful than, say, through the stomach. No acids coating the rest of your organs. But he finds little comfort in the thought because the dying man is surrounded by killing intent.

He saw one shift on a tree - wire-grid frame twitching at the motion. They are waiting for Mamoru to make a move. To them, he is only a blind man that stumbled upon the scene, but that makes their aggression no less directed at him. He only has a tree branch that could be used as a staff, but only to deflect the one arrow, and perhaps only one swipe of a sword. They seemed capable, experienced but not experts. Still, there was a slight disadvantage, and the situation was new. He had to be smart.

But he's patient, despite the tortured man boiling the blood in his pulse. He weighs his options. Tests the waters - the time resets at the man's death, but does it apply to them as well? He's testing the way they move as he walks around, reacts differently, just to see how they react, but not enough to get them to strike.]

Edited 2018-01-03 16:43 (UTC)

(receives the message, a blip in the corner of his vision. accessed, processed, acknowledged. a new recruit?)

Nibelheim, undeground. Where is your location?

[That was fast. The woman wasn't kidding.]

Just arrived.

What do you use?

Ain't picky. But I prefer blades.

Understood. I'm on the forest's outskirts. Turn on your BCE's location tracker and I'll find you.

Understood.

[And a blip. GPS On.]

Edited 2018-01-04 17:56 (UTC)

(he's been fighting on behalf of the nibelungs for what feels like days due to time slippage, they're more than happy to gift him the shortsword he carries to "prizeneck's" location. a glance at the mini-map negotiated to his peripheral vision, checking on his relation to the new recruit. closer than expected.

it doesn't take him twenty minutes, weapon hung at his hip, steps light through the underbrush.)

Prizeneck.

[It may be a cliche, a blind man listening to the footsteps of a person he barely knows for clues. But it’s something Mamoru is used to do way before he lost his sight. It explains footwork to be learned, told him when one of his students was wasting ineffective motions by giving too many steps in an attack, called for him when someone lurked in the shadows, ready to strike.

He turns, and assesses the outline of this person’s body on his shades. His lip twitches with slight giddiness itching at the confirmation that signing into this shitty excuse for a militia might have not been a bad idea after all.]

Location off.

... Burgerking, was it?

Mamoru Hijikata | Until Death Do Us Part [new recruit] ota!

@BURGERKING............ I'M HAVING A FIT

JKSDFHSDKF HELLO CLARICE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

@NIGHTLIGHT

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

@USERNAME_

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject