THE AMAZING BASE.

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Welcome home, nerds.
WHEN? Outside time and space, in the aether between dimensions.
ANYTHING ELSE? There is also a fish. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

MYSTERY FISH;

question the mystery fish

DEPARTING GALLIPOLI

The order comes the day after the Marie Antoinette sets sail:

PACK UP AND GET READY TO MOVE OUT. WE'VE DONE ALL WE CAN HERE.

DEPLOYMENT: BASE.

WE NEED TO RESTOCK. BE PREPARED FOR MORE TRANSFERS ON ARRIVAL.

STAY SAFE. TIME-STEP EXPECTED TO BEGIN WITHIN THE HOUR.

FOR THOSE OF YOU NEW TO COST: FIND A SECLUDED SPOT AND TRY NOT TO EAT ANYTHING BEFORE THE JUMP.

The Time-Step

The transfer begins like a vibrating heat on the collar bone, just a hum of sensation.

But the vibration spreads. Veteran COST soldiers often refer to this phenomenon as "the buzz". The feeling builds, not unlike standing near a great engine or the wind-rattled branches of a massive tree. There is a long moment of motion sickness and you can't be sure if the world is shaking you from the inside out or the outside in. It may be better to close your eyes against the growing nausea, as the world blurs out of focus.

A star shines in the distance. You may hear the faint rustling of leaves. Some swear they hear voices in this moment, indistinct words echoing off nothingness. Others say they feel a touch of the divine, that the eyes of the eternal look down upon you. Ancient bones rattle just out of earshot, cold and brittle and nothing more than the suggestion of sound. Or maybe it's only an illusion, brought on by the powerful technology grafted into your skin.

One thing is for sure: One moment you are here and the next you are not.

The shift takes you from whatever solitude you could find aboard the Marie Antoinette to the temperature-regulated hallway of what looks like a very poorly put together space station. Droids rush up and down the long hallway, fixing broken bits of machinery or just chattering with each other. A few crows sit on high ledges, looking down and watching. Someone mutters something about a centaur around the corner.

And you might just notice, provided you were in Gallipoli long enough to acquire stowaways, that the parasites lurking on your skin are mercifully gone.

For new arrivals who didn't experience Gallipoli: You, too, will appear in this long hallway, filled with droids and crows and humans (still filthy and clad in ANZAC uniforms, carrying battered equipment from the first World War). And you'll be wearing the minimal COST-issued athletic underwear and holding whatever one item you were allowed to bring. Surprise!

READ THE BASE INFOPAGE.

home away from home

Those who have been to BASE before may find a strangeness to it all: BASE seems...still. The windows show a verdant world instead of the usual aether (though with the typical paranoia), and the halls are bereft of all but a few crows. A man stands at the end of the long hallway you arrived in, waiting for you to get your bearings before he speaks.

Except, you know, he's not a man. He's a centaur.

"It's been barely a week since you left, by my reckoning. But for you, I'm sure, it's been much longer. Still, much has changed. You may have noticed we are...becalmed. This is due, it seems, to an error in our ways. We kept something that does not belong to us, several wild creatures that are meant to be free. They seem to have psychically called out to their home, and their home responded; we are now somewhat stranded.

"But let me explain—the Aether is the nexus between worlds and times, but it is not a dead thing. Creatures live in it. We have crashed onto the back of one such creature, a mighty beast, as large as a small country and entirely undiscovered. We have found why the creature has intercepted us: we have accidentally taken captive some of its children. Shapers, the wild creatures I mentioned, it seems they form a symbiotic bond with the creature, and live happily within its stomach."

He frowns, considering this.

"Shapers, I should mention, are creatures that briefly infested our fair BASE. The issue was dealt with, though we kept some for experimentation. The coelacanth took issue with this, it seems. It can speak, of course; we are stranded very near its head, and if you wish to ask it a question, I implore you to do so. The creature is older than creation—older than me—and only speaks once to any creature it encounters. It's said its wisdom brings kings to their knees."

His eyes crinkle in humor.

"My name is Chiron and I am the caretaker of this place, for those of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting. More importantly, I am a trainer and a teacher of some experience; if you wish training or schooling of any sort, do summon me. I will be happy to assist."

He's easy to contact, often found in the library, the training area, his capsule, or elsewhere in the station, attempting to fix what he understands and arguing with crows.

"We intended to spend this time exploring, for this is a rare opportunity to discover more of an entirely uncharted world. I hasten you to see if anything on the coelacanth can be of use, but be careful. Take only what you need, not what you may want. I intend to learn my lessons well; these creatures are not pets. Takes food, water, and any materials of use to us for our survival and perseverance, but no more. We task you with this: explore the coelacanth, and see what of it can be understood. Bring us back samples, but do try to interrupt the natural habitat as little as possible. We are guests here."

He bows and the action shows a slight limp in one of his back legs.

"I would join you, but I am far too old for such activities. Still, do pepper me with any questions you should encounter. I am always available on the network, or in person, within this hulking mass we call home."

And then he leaves you to find your capsules and rest.

CAPSULE ASSIGNMENTS

Once you've found your room and settled in—perhaps taken a shower, collected clothes, and eaten—a droid will approach you with camping equipment and give you a brief explanation of how to access and use the database. It's time to get your gear and go.

Of course, you can decline. You can stay and tend to the fort, maybe try and clean up this patchwork jumble of metal and machinery. But seeing the sights on the back of a giant fish flying through non-space? Who can say no to that?


the undiscovered country.

BASE's airlocks open into a lush valley, vibrant with color and rustling with life that has thrived on the coelacanth's back for millennia. It's a striking shift from the rot and gunfire of Gallipoli, unmarked by shrapnel, bombshells, and never-fresh air.

No, the air here is clean in a way that can leave you breathless, untouched by pollutants and stirred into a gentle breeze. It's a marked departure for anyone used to a more modern Earth or rough equivalent; letting the air sit on your tongue leaves a crisp, unsullied taste behind. And the whole forest feels alive, in a way that reminds you of how small you really are.

A white crow perches in a tree near BASE's exit, too high up to properly engage but a stark contrast to the bright leaves around her. She merely watches recruits come and go with a shrewd eye, feathers fluffed against the light chill. There are other crows scattered throughout the wilderness, some easier to find than others as they flit through the trees, sit on camping equipment, or hitch rides on the hoverbikes.

Besides those brief flashes of black feathers, however, you're left unsupervised.

Try not to fuck up anything too badly.

EXPLORE:INFOPAGE|DATABASE
talk to a fish | destruction report

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Comments

[raisedbybirds]

[Did he just mutter to himself? Samus tilts her head, a gesture that makes her look profoundly bird-like as she's still perched half-way up the stairs.]

My belongings came with me. Technically speaking.

[prizeneck]

[Finally removing his gaze from the sword, he peers over at her.] I only had these with me when I arrived. [Points at the sunglasses he's wearing.

Very carefully, he sheathes the sword again, lets it rest on the bed. It's almost revering, the way he handles it. A stark contrast to what he does with it.]

What's upstairs?

[raisedbybirds]

A kitchenette and sort of common area.

[She goes all the way up the stairs so no tot block him as she expects he'll want to stick his nose up here too. They'll presumably be spending a lot of time in here until next mission, so they might as well get used to it. She takes a seat on one of the corner-booth cushions and throws both her arms over the backs of them, slouching comfortably. He's tolerable, so far. Another person who favors swords, though? Maybe COST had a thing for them. Makes her feel like the odd woman out.]

Interesting that COST is able to retrieve weapons and belongings after acquiring the person who owns them. Seems like an awful lot of trouble.

[She mostly muses out loud. Samus could at least understand why her suit was still inaccessible, and she didn't expect that to be a permanent feature. You know, technically speaking.]

[prizeneck]

Huh. [He follows her to the upper floor, looking around once she gets herself settled. He frowns a little, interestingly enough, as he moves his head one side to the other. The air sounds... different, on the side of the kitchenette, and behind her, over her shoulders, there seems to be something buzzing. He had heard that, too, above his room, when his focus hadn't been on the sword. A machine, of sorts, or an engine. He wonders if it's something in the walls or a room beside theirs. But the whole corridor had been sleeping quarters, right?

He pads over to the kitchenette, actually finding it bigger than he expected. A sink, washing appliances, an actual counter, but no stove. Hm. He'd have to make do.]

Heard that some quantum connections are kickstarted [a press of a button, and-- oh, ok that's the trash -- beeping it closed] only when other connections are made with the same elements. If that makes any sense. I ain't an expert.

[He nods, coming back to near the stairs. Mapping how many steps it takes him to reach it - creating sound landmarks. He's glad there's enough decent room to move.] But yeah, sounds off, doesn't it? Why would they bother?

[raisedbybirds]

[She watches him carefully as he moves, noting something slightly off about it. It's hard to pinpoint as the dark shades cover his eyes but it's almost like he's not really looking directly in the direction he's going. It doesn't seem to impede him regardless so she doesn't think on it too long.

Nor does she decide to dwell too much further on COST's methods with regards to retrieving mementos from home.]

They've been very forthcoming with me. [Implying if either of them really wanted to ask the details of it, she feels confident they'd get an answer.]

Still a little difficult to see the fruits of our efforts. [On the other hand, she was also implying she was still building trust with COST. She supposed that would, you know, come in time. In all manners of that word.]

[prizeneck]

Yeah, so I've been told.

[The thought that he may be doing something to no end at all was both leaving him an acrid taste in the back of his throat and something he was already used to. He never really knew that the outcome of his actions would end the way he predicted, the way he rationalized over. Sometimes, not even the precog girl would know.

All he had left to do was the resolve to do it. There was no way around it. Still, being reminded of the uncertainty wasn't exactly the nicest of tastes.]

Was this your first mission, or have you been here longer?

[raisedbybirds]

I was employed shortly before Gallipoli.

[Technically not long, but Gallipoli managed to make it feel exponentially longer. The way he phrases it makes it sound like this was his first mission.]

Just enough time to haphazardly train with archaic machine guns before being dropped in the trenches.

[prizeneck]

Same as me, then. Though I didn't have much time to do so.

[Snorts.] Putting a blind guy doing ballistics... But I guess they had to make me seem believable.

[One thing, that he just remembered.] The bathroom? Where is it?

[raisedbybirds]

[So that confirms that suspicion, but, again, his actions defy that; too smooth, too practiced. He's shown no signs his blindness hinders his ability to get around the capsule. Those glasses must aid him in some way.]

Back downstairs, just to your left.

[a beat; the stairs are sort of narrow and she makes no attempt to get out of her spot. Not that she really thinks she needs to help him find the bathroom.]

The blind guy can handle that, right?

[prizeneck]

[Were this a couple of months ago, and Mamoru would have bristled, squared his shoulders, throw her a don't be foolish.

Today he snorts at the question. ] I didn't notice where it was, downstairs. Don't worry, ya ain't gonna need to guide me to the toilet.

[He takes off his sunglasses, and shows them to her.] Take a look.

[raisedbybirds]

Good. [When he offers her his sunglasses she flits her gaze between them and his eyes, marred by something long, long ago. The glasses themselves are treated with both care and scrutiny. She turns them over and closes one eye before putting them out out of over-caution. There's some flickering of light as soon as she puts it on but it's brief. What's visually displayed is a detailed wire-frame version of the entire capsule and everything in it--even through walls. She swivels her head around slowly to take it all in with a small sense of envy. She even brings her hand in front of her face and waves it around as an additional test. If it were some composite of x-rays, it'd show her bones. There's a pause, one of quiet thinking, then she snaps her fingers as she looks at them.]

Through sound?

[She takes them off and hands them back to him, both eyes open now.]

[prizeneck]

[Without his sunglasses on, his eyes fall down to where a corner of the table was lined out. That way, he can take in the acoustics of the room just a little better. The rustling of her clothes as she moves her arm, subtle but louder now, the soft echo on the walls against a mixture of acrylic with metal and some other material Mamoru can't really name.

He hears the way the temple tips brush against her hair as she puts the sunglasses on, the way her breath changes rhythm - it's not a gasp, so that means she must be used to technology like that. He hears the snap of her fingers and his lip twitches.

Then the rustle of her arm, her voice moving forward just a little as she hands them back. He reaches for them, but he doesn't know where her hand is, so Mamoru waits for her to place them in his fingers.] You figured it out quickly. Do you know tech like this?

[raisedbybirds]

[She nods, wondering if he can hear that too.]

The Echo Visor, something I obtained from from a fallen Luminoth champion long ago.

[There are words there he probably has no understanding or context of and she pauses only to remind herself it's not going to compromise anything out of her life if she explains. It's all history now, anyway. Despite that, her tone is very narrative, almost impersonal.]

They were... a bipedal moth-like race. Their home planet was split into a realm of light and dark and on the brink of destruction. The Echo Visor helped me pierce through that darkness using echolocation.

[She snaps her fingers again after he's got his shades back on.]

This would show up as circular ripples in space instead of on a neat wire frame. It was hardly as sophisticated as yours.

[Which says a lot when she is otherwise used to very advanced technology.]

[prizeneck]

[He nods, although there’s a frown angling his eyebrows.]

That’s a planet, then? Not one I’ve heard of.

[Although he doesn’t look that surprised. He did meet some people in Gallipoli who talked about other unknown planets, even traveling between them.

He doesn’t hear her nodding unless she is wearing her hair down - if so, the hair brushing her shoulders would rustle just enough for him to get the motion. He’s nodding at the snap and pushes his shades a little higher.]

You can actually set these to do that. Helped me out when I was in a place where the echo was too much to give me a decent layout.

[raisedbybirds]

[Her hair's up, but her bangs are long and always find a way to escape to the front of her face. She's gave up trying to tame them a long time ago, lets them go where they want so long as they don't obstruct her vision.]

I found it jarring and muddled [even overwhelming, at first]--a lot of information comes from sound when you open your ears.

Aether was the planet's name, ironically. [As they are currently suck in a very similar kind of aether, a place between places.]

Unfortunately I couldn't keep all the toys I gained from that mission. [Alas, no more Echo Visor for her. For now, anyway; no reason she couldn't build it from scratch if she really wanted. Her head tilts slightly and her eyes flit back in the direction of the stairs as if to point to his sword, and to suggest by toys she means weapons and equipment... and it takes her a moment to realize the subtle non-verbal communication cues she prefers to use so much are going to be greatly lost on him. What a pain. She's going to have to learn to use her words, but in this case she doesn't. He'll ask if he's curious. Or pee or do whatever he intends to do in the bathroom otherwise.]

[prizeneck]

Don’t I know it. [He knows it. More than anyone he knows how overwhelming skewed senses can be. Remembers the time he lost his sight, Jesus’ words on his ears almost echoing in the middle of the forest the same way as his gunshot. He could swear he could hear his sweat and blood dripping into the pond lapping at his knees.

He is pretty sure that if his consciousness hadn’t joined his sight into the void at the moment the adrenaline subsided, he would have gotten to his knees in a very undignified manner with the nausea that was threatening to overtake him.

The years adapting had been hard, but Mamoru wasn’t expecting anything but.

Interesting, really, how Mamoru’s head picks the memory of a walking aide landing on the floor last. The reverb of its weight and its owner’s hitting his knees, the taste of bile in the back of his throat, the dryness and ache in his eyes as he adapted to the prototypes Igawa had stuttered to him about.

The kid had been so terrified of him, he remembers.]

That’s a pain. You never know when that kinda thing can be useful.
[ He moves to lean back against the wall.] What was it you did before you got here, then?

[raisedbybirds]

Bounty hunter. [He's been pretty straightforward with her so far so she returns it in kind. And strangely she finds he's not terrible to converse with. Then again, he must have an ear for listening, for better or worse.]

Military and police, prior to that. I didn't enjoy all the red tape.

[prizeneck]

[His lips curl sympathetically. He knows the story. Kind of. Followers of justice. The Praetorian comes to mind, in a more direct association.

His shoulders shake with a silent 'huh'.] So I bet traveling through space is nothing new to you?

[raisedbybirds]

[She shakes her head no, a gesture she even stops halfway through making it resulting in just a soft jerk of her head knowing it's mostly lost on him.]

I'm more comfortable here than I was at Gallipoli.

[She thinks most of the individuals here would vastly prefer BASE to Gallipoli, however, no matter how far out of their element either may be.]

It was 2081 by my time, though such time seems to mean little anymore.

[prizeneck]

[He nods at the jerk of her head. While shifting her eyes towards something isn't something he can see, he does get to see movement. The gridwork, laying over surfaces, makes things like dents and shifts easy to spot. Like a square widening or tightening. That, and he hears her breath, her hair shift, brush against surfaces.]

What kinda [he pauses, a little curl to his lip as he crosses his arms in front of his chest] "toys", like you said, did you get in 2081? I'm from 2015.

[raisedbybirds]

[He's been curious and she can't fault him but for a first time interaction but he's encroaching in on territory where she feels like she needs to subtly start putting up barriers, especially in the absence of said toys that would physically and effortlessly do it for her.]

Cool ones. But not like yours at all. [She juts her head again.] Blades are considered pretty archaic even before my time.

[prizeneck]

[He chuckles, rapid fire and dry. He's used to the misdirections and the aversion of getting into detail. Occupational hazards. He recognizes and lets the idea of 'do not enter' rest and respects it.

He's also used to the jab.] They are pretty obsolete, aren't they?

[raisedbybirds]

You handled yours with great care.

[It was clear he wasn't expecting it to be here. Perhaps he lost it?]

[prizeneck]

[He shrugs.] You work with blades long enough, you learn how to keep them in top shape. Even light but constant pressure is enough to get them to bend and fuck up your swing.

[He turns his head slightly to the stairs, as if he could follow the path to where the sword is, resting carefully on his bed.] Not sure why that one is here. I usually work with a lighter one.

[raisedbybirds]

[Wow what a nerd about blades. Why is everyone in COST obsessed with blades. With how he goes on about it however she's not surprised he owns more than one. It's not unlike her great arsenal of guns and other utility upgrades; different tools for different jobs.]

How many do you have? ...Or had?