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Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.
We do not merely destroy our enemies;
we change them.
WELCOME TO THE END OF TIME.
The Regency has its spies and its cloaks and daggers. You may have even brushed shoulders with one and not have known it. There is a place for such tactics. You are not in that place any longer.
On missions like these, the Regency prefers to keep its base close, in a intradimensional time pocket. You're apart from Gallipoli, no longer technically on Earth or in the 1910s. There are multiple segments to this complex base of Regency operations, but you can only really see two places...
THE BRIG
This is your holding cell, a constantly shifting room of indesctructable grey squares. It folds and bends to hold you and your seven companions as you await... something.
There are no guards in this place. There are no bars to look through, or sounds to listen for. You are simply in the box, left to your own devices.
Occasionally, holes will open in the ceiling, and packaged, processed rations will fall from them before immediately closing. This is the only way to measure time. There are always exactly eight bags, each with the name of one captive written on the side in their native language.
Holes will occasionally open in the walls, and they always bring with them a searingly bright light. Sleeping and sitting is difficult on the ever-shifting floors, and when you try, it always seems like a pinhole of light opens right on your eyes. Even leaning on the walls has mixed results.
DON'T GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT
The windows of light that open always stay very small, making it difficult to look through, and always pour radiantly bright, hot light. If you're feeling particularly self-punishing, you might be able to peek at an odd angle and see something of the world outside without being completely flashblinded. The world outside the Brig looks rather like the interior of a Dyson sphere. In the center, a great, bright, hot energy radiates out like a sun, and it reflects off the exterior globe the pocket dimension functions within, illuminating everything from every angle. The Brig floats around it in a slow orbit, as do many other similar looking box-rooms made of similar material, connected by constantly moving tubes and chutes. Some boxes have more chutes going toward them than others. No chutes connect to the Brig, unless someone is about to disappear into the floor...
Getting this view will be difficult, but not impossible; it will just take characters willing to blind themselves with an overabundance of light multiple times until they get the correct angle, allowing them to see outside for roughly a half second before the room shifts to redirect the light back into their eyes.
not so solitary confinement
Occasionally, the cube will split into smaller segments, throwing characters together with others at random in close confinement. This is unpredictable and fast, splitting you off from the whole for what feels like hours at a time, often with only one companion as the cube shifts and squirms around you.
technical malfunction
The power nullification is still in full effect. No magic or special abilities rule this place. Your only master are the walls, undulating with no discernible pattern, always moving.
The Regency has also attempted to break the BCE's translation capabilities, but due to the fact that COST-jailbroken BCEs work on a different system than Regency ones, this is an intermittent problem that occurs sporadically. (ie, have the translation capabilities blink in and out at your discretion.)
THE OTHER PLACE
And then, suddenly, the floor drops out from underneath you. The shifting walls make a hole perfectly your shape and size, and sucks you through. The hole closes neatly, immediately, and you slide along in a world of boxes pressing close to your skin as you are moved from one holding area to another.
When you emerge, you do so in total darkness. Power nullification is still in effect, but even if you can naturally see in the dark, it doesn't matter. All you can see is an endless blackness, and walking doesn't help. You can keep walking for however long; there is nothing to walk to. The floor is perfectly level, but you'll never reach a wall.
Finally, there's light in the distance. A spotlight from nowhere shines down on a person with the head of a jackal. Looking closer, you'll find it's some kind of highly technical mask. They are wearing armor that obscures their exact shape-- no skin shows, no hint of identity or personality, just the cold eyes of the mask. They turn to you, and speak in a voice clear and soothing, almost gentle.
"I am Kebechet. I have been looking forward to speaking with you."
no subject
[ They're hostages, she knows, but... her father wouldn't allow for this sort of treatment of his prisoners. Or so she'd like to think. King Arthur had far more honour than anyone in the Regency. ]
If I don't eat, I'll disappear. So it's not like I have a choice. [ She starts shoveling the food into her mouth, despite the distasteful look on her face. ] Steal it, and I'll kill you. [ Her tone isn't accusatory, but it is serious. ]
no subject
[She says this flatly, almost like she's tired of these conversations about food and the quality of it, what's fit to eat and what's somehow lesser because of the taste or the smell or the look of it.
It's going to keep them alive. That should be good enough for anyone.]
I don't steal. [That can be kind of a sore subject to a scavenger, oops.] I'd trade you, but if I did try to steal from you I hope you would try to kill me.
[Thieves are rarely dealt with kindly... well, anywhere, Rey expects.]
no subject
[ Obviously. Mordred lets out a hmph as she eats, looking somewhat placated. ]
But at least we're on the same page with that stuff. I'd rather not have to kill you. [ What a reassuring answer. ] Being stuck with a corpse would get boring after a while.
no subject
That doesn't seem like a very good idea, not when this is the first place we've been that does smell like corpses.
no subject
[ Not that she misses the smell of rotting bodies, or the filth of the trenches. But this is so clean, so sterile, that just existing within it makes her uncomfortable. She's used to the battlefield, and medieval castles weren't spotless at the best of times. ]
At least there's not more of us. Any more people, and this would get seriously annoying. [ Read: she's glad nobody else got captured. Or, she hopes they didn't. For all she knows, there could be another holding cell somewhere, with more than just the half-dozen of them. ] But it makes sense. Obviously, they wanted the strongest warrior. The rest of you are probably just afterthoughts.
no subject
She's bored, that's all, and this seems like as good a way as any to keep her mind off the fact that they've been in there for who knows how long with no signs of ever being able to get out.]
Or a backup if they stop giving us prepackaged food. You probably don't want to start with me, though. Go for that one.
[She nods towards Kylo Ren, not at all above making jokes about cannibalism to stay alive or putting someone she doesn't like on the chopping block.]
He's tall, he'll last you awhile.
rey please
Yeah, and he's really annoying, too! But he probably tastes bad. [ If annoyance is tied to taste, then Mordred would be the worst of all. ] Anyway, Servants eat the souls of humans, not their bodies. Do you think he even has one of those?