my oath shall be sped;

[agogemod]

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

Comments

[dipolar]

Every time he sees it, it's startling. Noctis disappears in the blink of an eye and all that's left is a crystal silhouette. It makes him feel like he's back in a dream — a nightmare? — and struggling with how lacking he was compared to him. There's nothing he can do about that, now, but it leaves him stewing in nostalgia.

"Ah. Sure..." Trailing off, staring at the surface of the river.

He doesn't move in the hip-deep water, simply turns his head towards the bank, glancing over at Midnighter. Ignores the comment on his cooking, a low-lidded stare raising from the grin to the black mask.

"Lucas Trent. That was you, wasn't it." No room for disagreement, he's pieced it together. He isn't foolish, he isn't blind despite the fact that the two look nothing alike. He's sharp, analytical, and these are the three things he needed. "Your username, the experimentation, the fact that you can breathe underwater. That boy was you."

[thingpuncher]

Midnighter reacts like he was slapped. Lucas Trent. He was expecting a thousand things, but not this.

His first response to any change, any challenge like this, is defense. "Don't fucking call me that." It's not his usual idle calm. It's the voice he uses for threats. People tell him it's not a comforting voice. At the moment, surrounded on all sides by friends, he doesn't give a shit.

It takes him a second to deflate. He's not going to fight Hei. Hei's not going to fight him. He's asking a question, a fair one.

"...Yeah, that was me." And, "keep it the fuck to yourself."

[dipolar]

This reaction's exactly the one he wanted. It tells him the information he needs far faster and far better than any follow-up verbal cue that forces him out of the Rhein. No, it isn't a comforting voice; Hei is more than ready for a backlash that doesn't come.

On the shore, silently dripping and weighing options, he can't come up with anything better than a clipped: "Understood. I needed to know who was in my head, I have no intention of discussing it."

Finding out who to speak to about his dreams was a challenge, there still exist so many loose ends he needs to sloppily tie up in an effort to keep his own past from surfacing, but — Midnighter doesn't want to discuss himself and neither does Hei.

"I can't electrocute the river with you two in it, so my hands are tied. You're stronger in water than I am." A jerk of his head towards the water, reassessing a threat in M that he'd rather place somewhere he can fight it. "So, logically you're more capable of getting the ice blocks Noctis is floating up."

[thingpuncher]

"Whatever," Midnighter grumbles through clenched teeth. He can't afford to get distracted with Noctis underwater, and of course that means he's doing a terrible fucking job of it. Thanks, Hei. "Just don't ever fucking call me by that name."

And with that, he begins to trudge forward the banks, toward the chill the ice is making. Fucking golden icecubes. This is ridiculous.

[dipolar]

No reply from Hei, knowing full well it'd mean an unnecessary argument. He understands and it's got Midnighter's hackles raised, steers clear of the topic like he's ordered the other man to, and waits on the shore for any tossed ice blocks.

"... He's been down for too long. The women are reviving."

[fessus]

He has been under the water for a generous amount of time, putting his all into his work as he intentionally rustles up flecks of gold before freezing them piecemeal into the larger blocks. The denser they are in gold, the better. His lungs are burning by the time he floats up the sixth block, deciding that now would be a good time to kick back up towards the surface... or it would be if there weren't suddenly hands grasping for his hands and ankles.

All that will be seen topside is a dull blueish glow from deep underwater, brief and seemingly effective, before the last block, Noctis, and a few more pinkish trails of blood start to make their way up through the water.

He breaks the surface with an immediate gasp for air, frustratedly chucking that block towards the shore before he's swimming after it and hauling himself out with less dignity than usual. So none.

"I'm... really sick of the fish women..." A pause, then a glance over his shoulder. "You guys didn't grab 'em all yet?"

[thingpuncher]

So Midnighter begins wordlessly volleying the ice blocks from the surface of the water, taking his frustration out on that. So they might careen toward Hei with a little more force than necessary. Fuck it.

When he senses Noctis coming up, Midnighter reaches over for the kid, hefting him toward the bank with a grip at his shoulder. Nobody's getting pulled under, here, even if he can feel the fish women coming, sense their movements in the current.

"We got the biggest ones. Let's go."

[dipolar]

"Tch—"

Stops the blocks with slaps of his palms poised like catcher's mitts, letting them drop before collecting them up when M's through with his duties, jaw setting at how petty the action is. It's not worth addressing, despite his irritation; it's not worth any attention at all. His hands sting and his wrists ache, but there's nothing for it.

Secures his fingers around the large ice cubes with every intention to melt them with the applied heat from his electricity run-off, steam rising like a current that catches already damp bangs and beads off of his chin.

"I'll have them reduced to gold in a moment. Keep them away."

[fessus]

His hand swipes blood-tinged water away from his arm as he straightens to full height with Midnighter's help, even giving him a quick nod of gratitude over his shoulder.

"--yeah, thanks, Midnighter... I got most of 'em down there so it might just be one or two stragglers. Wouldn't worry about it much; I got it." His dagger's tucked back at his hip in exchange for his magic flask, more interested in finishing this quickly instead of getting pulled into another lackluster fight. He makes sure both he and Midnighter have distance from the water before he's tossing that lightning spell... and not a second too soon, watching it crackle through the water the instant it touches the surface just like Hei's had earlier to buy them more extra time.

Only then does he lean over to rest his hands on his knees, taking the chance to fully regain his breath.

[thingpuncher]

Midnighter looks back at the crackling water and the frying fish women. "Fuck, does everybody pull Static Shock but me?" He'll just have to settle with punching fish people, wow, life's rough.

"Let's get the fuck out of here, I'm sick of being assaulted by the little fucking mermaid.

[dipolar]

"You should have brought your shock rod then." Wryly in M's direction, "Stop complaining."

Reaches over to grab Noctis by the shoulder, a steadying hand before moving away from them to bend at the hip and tie his cloak tightly around the collected gold. It's heavy, but with a quick sling up, he fixes it around a shoulder and under the opposite arm, a bundle nestled snug against a soaked back.

This won't be comfortable, already feeling the chafe through his tunic, but there's not a whole hell of a lot they can do.

"Are we heading back to Nibelheim, or carrying on?"

[fessus]

Well, if he didn't suspect that something was up he does now, seemingly rejuvenated by the Hei's touch to the shoulder for game mechanic reasons that are out of our control and it gives him more energy to actually notice.

He looks first to Midnighter and then back to Hei, peering at each of them through his messy wet mop of hair that continues its annoying quest to drip water into his eyes. Hm. Ah-- Wait, is Hei addressing him? He must be if he's saying "back to Nibelheim", which places him back into a position of leadership in this group. Fine, fair enough...

"We should contact Grothia or Chiron to see if there's an extraction point set up for the gold, right?" ... "... did something happen?"