KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody! Including fourth wall visitors.
WHAT? Time to kiss the spiders goodbye and strike out for greener pastures.
WHEN? 10 XI, Year 6 of Sanaliel's reign (as of arrival in Lemuria).
ANYTHING ELSE? Please warn for anything besides physical violence and move to a personal journal if it's beyond PG-13.

this is a public service announcement;

with guitar

ESCAPE TACTICS

READ THE JHASHCH INFOPAGE.

The departure from Jhashch has none of the ceremony of arrival. A few hours after the last of the mission teams report in, a bulletin goes out. It's the only forewarning for the time-step.

@SCOUT | @ALL

emergency time-step approved
expect it within the hour

you won't be returning to base; we'll port in supplies after arrival
if you have your standard cost clothing, change into it now
cover your face and hide the cost patch

It's hurried and without embellishment, and for good reason. While the teams have deterred and distracted the Regency and burned House Shaiy's residence, it hasn't stemmed the chaos. If anything, it encourages it.

Princess Chch still lives, but Queen Thsh is viewed as the Aranean ideal of a tyrant, confidence only bolstered by surviving the Regency's assassination attempts. COST has her blessing — and that of the Twin Generals and Prince Shch. Aranean soldiers throw themselves into brutal confrontation at their generals' behest, dragging Ythaway further into bloodshed; the male Araneans decline direct involvement, but they're skilled saboteurs. And the public watches; while the media teams couldn't completely convince them of the cause and House Oujh still maintains its influence, they spare the Regency no love.

This is the fate of the weak.

Young has already sent Serket ahead with the mines' valuable deposits of Ymir. And, with the queen's position assured amidst all the gore, COST wants to evacuate as quickly as possible.

» THE TIME-STEP

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

But the vibration spreads. Veteran recruits 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.


WELCOME, GHOSTS

A siren blares in the distance, accompanied by unintelligible shouting and the low rumble of engines. The air is chill, no matter where you arrive; the ground beneath your feet is like ice if the soles of your shoes have worn too thin. Closer, there's the crackle of an air quality alert and the creak of swaying metal. A nearby terminal declares the date to be 10 XI, 6 SNL.

The time-step has scattered the cell throughout the districts of Lemuria.

@SCOUT | @ALL

now that i have more time
if you weren't briefed by your commander already, this is an emergency time-step, possible through the efforts on jhashch
for those of you with my cell, the sergeant and i won't be present, at least not physically; we can't be
you can contact us, but the regency carefully monitors this time stream so excessive communication through time and space could be dangerous

you can ask the scouts available for more information
@ASHOLE @STARBOY the two of you are the most accessible

Almost immediately, a second bulletin pops up.

@STARBOY | @ALL

are you shitting me

[And that's it, until five minutes later:]

lets get this out of the way
read the 1st attachment
its not done but dwi

if youre new read that and the 2nd attachment
and if youre looking for us for some bullshit reason
x marks the spot on the 3rd attachment
we got clothes and weapons since no one sent you in w shit
(lmao ofc)

[ATTACHMENT: lemuria.html, beginnersguidetodumbfuckery.html, map.png]

The files are succinct, establishing COST's mission and role as opposed to that of the Regency. The beginner's guide even addresses the side effects of BCE glitches and wiped memories, for newbies who don't remember joining COST. These scouts want you up to speed as quickly as possible, because fucking up could have dire consequences. And they also really don't want to explain it to you; this shit is not in their purview.

The map indicates a cellar in one of the low districts, identified as the Skhan District. If you're missing an outfit of your own, the scouts have several bins of secondhand clothing and more than their fair share of weaponry. It's a mismatched collection and far from the height of fashion (unless scavenger chic is in), but be careful: while most of the patches have been torn off, some clothes still bear the insignia of COST. You'll want to get rid of that.

POST-APOCALYPTIC WEAR IS IN THIS SEASON

Blasters load six to fifteen rounds, depending on model; none are larger than a shotgun. And, because of the dangers of porting in and out of Lemuria, the bolthole has its own revivicator installed. Which means if you die in Lemuria, you revive in Lemuria. It isn't as refined as BASE's rundown tech; chances are, when you wake up, you'll feel echoes of whatever killed you.

READ THE LEMURIA INFOPAGE.

» NEW RECRUITS.

New arrivals, here by virtue of the fourth wall, can arrive in one of two ways.

The first is as a fresh recruit, in COST-issued athletic underwear and holding whatever item you chose to bring. Hopefully your clothes and circumstances don't embarrass you too much, because you're stuck with them until you can rendezvous with a scout or steal your own.

The second way for fourth wall characters to arrive is as a seasoned member of another COST cell. Their assumed missions can be to your tastes, as fantastical or historical as you like. Need ideas? Feel free to read back through the game's logs and infopages for inspiration.


HIDE YOUR SHIT

Welcome to COST's little bolthole in Lemuria. It's a cramped space, a basement's basement in an abandoned factory overrun by squatters. The community doesn't make much notice of anyone moving through as a rule, so it's easy to weave by the masses huddled together in rags and find the long, dingy staircase, leading down, down, down to a padlocked door.

The padlock will twist and open as soon as you tap the corresponding app on your BCE. It automatically loaded when you got to Lemuria and reads FUCKINGPADLOCK.IO.

And then there's the bolthole. Dug into the ground, it's not unlike being in a submarine; it's certainly cramped enough. It could hold maybe four people, very uncomfortably.

It has a selection of security cameras and terminals on one end and the rest of the walls are decked with cabinets and drawers, all locked by various means. Some are traditional and some ask for eye scans or fingerprints or "identity samples", whatever that means.

There is a not insignificant number of empty takeout containers in one corner.

And, thanks to the staircase, you can at least hear whenever someone's coming.


GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

You can't hide in the bolthole forever — the scouts, for one, will kick you out — and Lemuria is a restless city. Many of the low districts are overflowing, too many people packed in too small spaces. And everywhere is an air of discontent, evident from disgruntled muttering.

It's often hard to tell what's news and what's rumor, even surrounded by terminals with easy access to the Lemurian network. Fafnir is causing a ruckus at the city limits; maybe someone will ask Jörmungandr to "deal" with him. Terrapin Labs is dumping genetic waste in the sewers. The Crosslands are already drained dry and the war is a coverup. A red dragon ate someone near the upper districts. Sanaliel's advisor is a shape-shifter. The list goes on.

For now, your orders are to keep an ear to the ground and maintain a low profile. In general, the scouts would really like you not to make their lives any harder.

» THE ANTS GO MARCHING.

If you manage to find your way into the Pyramid District, the Lemurian upper class is having a military parade and even the lower rungs of society have dragged themselves to see it. The crowd is mixed, though it naturally segregates itself, with the richer moving away from the poorer. Myths fit themselves in where they can; faeries flit through the crowd and a few kappa saunter through, promising eternal blessings for a few spare cucumbers.

The parade itself is a magnificent thing to behold, if you like gaudy splendor and overzealous displays of wealth. Each regiment walks in unified steps, their battalion announced. At various points, the parade stops and the soldiers perform demonstrations of will and might, shooting rockets into the polluted fog of the sky, shredding dummies with advanced weaponry, and sparring with one another.

Occasionally, radicals break through the crowd, throwing smoke bombs that bleed colored mist and sting the eye. They shout slogans like "Freedom for the Crosslands!" and "Justice for Lemuria!" and "Food for the poor!" Sometimes they cause a riot. Sometimes they escape back into the crowd. Sometimes they get shot in the head.

The bodies are dragged away without much comment, like it's a common occurrence.

The parade continues.

» I PREDICT A RIOT.

If you wander into the low districts, you'll find something else entire. Some would argue it's a coincidence that there are bread riots the same day as a military parade. Some wouldn't.

Basic sustenance — rice, bread, beans, and lentils — have skyrocketed in price. Fueled by tax increases and missing supply vans, what it means is the poor are poorer. People slink back to their hovels to beg or barter. And the rest, well...

The rioters come prepared, stomping boots and guns fired into the sky. The majority are teenagers and young adults, commandeering food shops and carts, scaring away (or killing) the owners and giving out food for free (or at a lowered price). Other people try to stop them and the scuffle quickly becomes untenable, escalating into bloodier violence.

What do you do?

» THIS IS SO ILLEGAL.

Maybe you got involved in a riot. Maybe your fingers were a little sticky. Or maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time; the police force is largely apathetic to crime in the low districts and reacts all too readily with violence in the upper districts.

Whatever the case, you've gotten yourself on the wrong side of the Lemurian law and you're handcuffed to (or sharing a cell with) a comrade-in-arms. Maybe it's fortunate that Lemuria has only just begun to distribute power nullification tech to deal with the influx of myths; most officers don't carry it and even fewer would think to use it on someone who looks human.

The guards make no comment, if asked how long they'll hold you. Other prisoners, filthy and dressed in rags, remark they've gone months without knowing.

Escape is really the only feasible option.

» SPECIAL DELIVERY.

If you left items behind at BASE, you can handwave filing a request and COST will deliver them to the bolthole. The scouts will send an alert if necessary and you can pick it up at any time. Just preferably sooner than later, because there isn't exactly a lot of space in that cellar.

Alternatively, if you're a veteran recruit, maybe you just received an unexpected delivery.

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Comments

Jon Snow ✥ Game of Thrones

[northerndragon]

[Top-levels in comments; may add more as necessary.]

HIDE YOUR SHIT

[northerndragon]

Everything here is new to Jon again... everything that he doesn't recognize from Jhashch or BASE, that is. But he makes his way to the cellar -- the sort of place that has too many people in not enough space with not enough bathing and probably not enough food -- then down the steps to the locked door. FUCKINGPADLOCK is obvious enough.

i. Daenerys is not far away from him, but the bolthole is small, and the chances that they're in it together simultaneously are only middling. But it may be that you find him outside, near a white spider that's taller than he is.

ii. Once he's inside, It's not long before he's sorting through clothes, trying to find something like what he's typically worn at BASE: black or brown or blue, a cloak, a hood, boots, and so on.

He isn't alone there, and he turns to the other person, offers them a bundle of fabric from the table, and says, "It's not for me, but it might do for you." Or, if not that, he says, "Wait. You're still wearing the COST sigil." He has a dagger at his belt; he'll happily remove the insignia for anyone who needs him to.

He was a steward once, after all.

ii. sort of

[unprays]

She's midway down the stairs when she hears his voice. Who he's speaking with doesn't matter; that she might trip down the stairs in her hurry to get to the cellar doesn't matter. She knows her footsteps echo far louder than they should, but that doesn't matter either. How could it? She hasn't heard anything from anyone, not about home, not about Bran and Arya, not about the meeting in King's Landing... not about Ser Davos, not about Jon.

She stops at the foot of the stairs, feeling a striking sense of deja vu, even if this cellar could not be more different from the Wall, even if it was Jon, the last time, who ran down the stairs to meet her.

"Jon," says Sansa, in case the noise from the staircase hasn't alerted his attention yet.

[northerndragon]

When Jon hears someone clattering down the stairs, his gaze snaps in their direction, though he thinks that anyone who meant COST harm either would have come more quietly or would have made more noise sooner, out in the higher cellar.

Then he sees who's making the racket, and he freezes completely, his surprise showing in his face.

"Sansa?"

It's been more than a year since he's seen his sister... even before he found himself in Jerusalem, more than six moons had turned since he'd left Winterfell, then traveled to Dragonstone, then Eastwatch, then back to Dragonstone and King's Landing, then back yet again, this time bound for Winterfell perhaps for good and all. Then more travel to stranger lands than he could fathom. Every so often, there had been a time when he had wished for her counsel or for her face in a diplomatic party.

The space is very small. He abandons the set of breeches he was looking over -- too big at the waist and too long at the leg anyway; he isn't a big man -- and shifts clumsily over to the foot of the stairs to pull his sister into a hug.

"How?"

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

[northerndragon]

Jon does not like gaudy splendor and overzealous displays of wealth: they make him think of the people of his own lands who would be glad of the funds, and of people of the lands south of his who have suffered because of Lannister wars. And the shooting itself is like boys and girls playing at war for no real purpose, something that sickens him after what he's seen and done in his own time, what he saw and did at Valmy, and more than anything, what he saw at Gallipoli.

i. So, for the most part, he watches the parade with a look of undisguised distaste. Sometimes it shades into contempt.

ii. Once, his face brightens, as he sees a myth walk past. He looks at the person beside him, amazed, and says, "Was that a -- ?"

iii. At one point when radicals break through, he reaches for the arm of someone who's just thrown a bomb, hissing "Get down, you fool, they shot the last one" -- and misses, grasping the arm of a passerby instead. He's now dragging the wrong person through the crowd to relative safety.

ii

[horsepowered]

"A what?" Chiron asks mildly. If the matter is related to identification, well, Chiron's probably more useful than most. "You might need to be more specific."

[northerndragon]

"I'd know a centaur if I saw one," he retorts, dryly. "A child of the forest. Though I've never heard of them having wings."

And this girl, now walking close enough to them to still be in sight, but not much closer, does. She's shorter than Jon, shorter than Dany, even, and her skin is pale green. "One of the myths?"

It makes him wonder, and worry, about what else he might see.

[horsepowered]

"I would hope you'd know one at sight," he replies, just as dry.

But all snark aside, Chiron looks, finding the individual in question. He pauses, the wings being the thing that throw him off entirely. The guess might have been a dryad otherwise, or another nymph. Without that, Chiron shakes his head, uncertain.

"A different tradition than mine, I'm afraid."

[northerndragon]

"I would now." That comes with half a smile. "There are men who had them as a sigil in our country, but I never knew them to be real before I met you. So many things we thought might not be real have turned out to be so.

"The Children -- they were the first people, before the First Men, my people. Our gods are the same: the gods of the trees and rocks and rivers. The Andals killed most of the Children when they invaded, and burned their godswoods. But we still have godswoods in the North, because the Andals could never gain much of a foothold there; the First Men kept them out."

[horsepowered]

"You'd find some of those Children in the things of my own time. They weren't worshiped as other entities were, but they were known to all humans."

Chiron does wonder if any of Jon's gods and ilk might appear here, as slim as the chance is. This is Earth, after all, but that may very well not mean a thing.

"I must ask, out of curiosity. What do godswoods look like?"

[northerndragon]

"A grove, a stand of trees. The one at my home was three acres or thereabouts. I can't say how old the trees might be, but I think the castle was built up around them, and around the weirwood. White bark, red leaves, red sap. Long ago, longer than anyone can remember, they carved faces in the bark. It looks like the trees are watching you with red eyes -- like some of them are weeping."

He doesn't say that it looks like they're weeping blood, but he's sure Chiron will reach that conclusion on his own.

"In your time, what did you call the Children?"

[horsepowered]

"That's..." different. Chiron pauses, letting the mental image fill in. It's a fascinating thing, a weeping tree, and he knows his own people would take a weeping tree as an omen.

A very bad one.

"Ah, it would depend on where they lived. Those associated with trees are dryads, with the water naiads, with the air the aurae, and countless other highly specific examples."

[northerndragon]

"Maybe like the dryads, or maybe it was the dryads the Children worshipped, if they were spirits in trees. We don't have names for the Old Gods, but your naiads and dryads sound a little like them. Did they have laws?"

They walk along; the girl's wings bob gently with every step she takes, and sometimes, they catch the light in a way that makes them shimmer.

[horsepowered]

"To my knowledge, not at all," Chiron's happy to move slow. There is some nostalgia in him, which is a dangerous thing, for this place does have the things of home far more than any other place he's encountered.

"They lived in the wilderness. There's no need. The only thing I have some authority on is the oceanids, naiads of a specific parentage."

I PREDICT A RIOT

[northerndragon]

[(I'm working on this one.)]

THIS IS SO ILLEGAL

[northerndragon]

He'd been trying to break up the riot: get the people their food, but stop them from killing the owner of the food cart, who looked as though she was hardly much better off than any of the rest of them were.

The city guards didn't seem to be interested in the finer distinctions, and the wounds that still trouble Jon a little made escape from the ones who initially subdued him less feasible than he would have liked. Rather than speaking for him, the woman he'd been defending had melted away into the crowd, abandoning her cart.

Now, Jon finds himself in a cramped little cell, not yet very worried, waiting for a quiet time when he can try to get out.

As the guards lead a new prisoner in to be locked up with him, he looks up, asking, "What's your crime?"

He has some appreciation for why people here might be a little lawless. They're free -- free to starve, but not free to do anything about it.

[foughtvaliantly]

It was a fool's errand to try and break up the fighting, how many times had he seen something like this break out in different cities and times? The end result was usually the same, but like the fool he was, Rhaegar had still charged forward to try and break up the riot. He was usually quicker and able to avoid the law enforcement of wherever COST sent him, but this time, he had caught a glimpse of dark hair in the melee and been sharply pulled back to the woman he left behind. All it took was a moment's hesitation and he was knocked down and cuffed, dragged away with all the rest.

He expected the quiet of he cell, but not the occupant already inhabiting it. It was a better look at the figure that had summoned those memories in him, clearly bearing Stark features and the dark hair Lyanna possessed. Across the expanse of time and universes, he had never seen anyone who looked so close to her before.

"I was caught in the riot." He said, lifting his hands for Jon to see. "You as well?"

[northerndragon]

The cell is big enough for two. If the city guard keeps to what they've done so far, it will house six or eight or ten before the day is through, but for now, it's just Jon and his new companion.

Something about the man looks startlingly familiar, but not in a way that Jon can place. It's not just the pale hair: that's obviously like Dany's, and not like much he's seen in their travels, but he's heard that people from anywhere that the Valyrians had ever ruled might look like that, and that's only in his own world. The man speaks like a southron, much as Jon himself has a heavy Northern cadence to his speech.

None of that really explains the sense of familiarity, sudden and nagging as it is. It's in everything about the man that he's able to observe in the half a minute of their acquaintance. He would swear they've met before... and knows that they haven't.

"Me as well," he replies, ruefully, but his gaze is curious and troubled. "It's a fool's game to march in silver and gold when people are starving. If you want a bread riot, that's the way to get it."

[foughtvaliantly]

His men would wonder where he was. Even if there wasn't a reconnaissance mission, they spent their evenings together like brothers. Now for ten hours at most, they would be without any idea where Rhaegar had gone, if he was dead or MIA. It was a dangerous thing to be without contact for so long.

Indigo eyes hold Jon's dark gaze, drinking in his features. There was little word about Eddard Stark before the battle of the Trident. He was still alive and fighting for his friend, Rhaegar's cousin. There was talk that he had married his brother's former betrothed, the Tully girl. But this boy had no signs of a Riverlander about him. Rhaegar had seen very little of Eddard at the tourney of Harrenhall, but what he did remember, he saw before him.

"We don't have enough ways to help them, only in small gestures." He still sang on the street corner with his harp, distributing the money he earned. Some recognized him on sight now, dangerous for his line of work, but it was better than doing nothing. "You are of the North." North of what, he didn't say. It was as close as he'd come to speaking of Westeros, but he needed to know.

[northerndragon]

There's no point in asking the other man if he's Valyrian. Someone from Old Valyria, or someone from Lys in Jon's own time, wouldn't immediately know that he was a Northman, not just from the way he talks. The Andals hadn't conquered the North, and the Valyrians hadn't really tried to conquer Westeros -- not when their empire was at its height.

His eyes narrow a little. "I am. You sound like a southron. From near the capital?" What he means is that there are a few kinds of people the other man might be, but now that things have moved to this subject so quickly, it becomes obvious: he's probably a Targaryen.

That explains the familiarity, but whether it's for good or ill, Jon doesn't yet know.

[foughtvaliantly]

"From the stone of Dragons." Even if they aren't on the network or surrounded by others, there is still a need for subterfuge. The North was safe to say as there were a number of Norths, but an actual landed title, that was risking too much. "I don't know what has become of it." Did Robert burn it or give it to someone else? The history in its halls, the table that Aegon had carved, was it still standing?

"You have their look." The Starks, he means. There was a wildness about him hidden beneath a dour expression. Not the sort that Eddard possessed, but wholly Lyanna. There were times he would look at her and couldn't be sure that she wouldn't bolt ahead of him, reckless and free, her dark hair streaming behind her like a bushy tail. He might be exactly that wolfish, but a touch of it regardless.

He was familiar. It went beyond the features and mannerism, it was something else. Blood calling to blood, perhaps? Was he one of Lyanna's kin? A cousin or Benjen now grown?

[northerndragon]

"I've been there. It's the seat of a queen now. She doesn't have the capital; the lions do. Did you ever meet the... the golden twins? The lioness rules in the south now, but not all of it."

The man doesn't seem mad. He seems too old to be Daeron... around Jon's own age, if he had to guess. He can't be from the time before the Conqueror, the century when the Targaryens lived at Dragonstone and mostly kept their own counsel, if he recognizes a northerner. He's not sure Aegon the Unlikely ever lived at Dragonstone. Several other candidates are likewise discarded; the man can't be one of the Dornish Dragons, because they were dark.

Some of the wariness has fled from Jon's expression.

"Not all Northmen look like me. I don't know much of my mother, but I think she was a southron herself. I'm sorry, but is it that you might be -- the Dragonknight?"

[foughtvaliantly]

"Aye, I've met them. The girl was offered as a bride while I left the son to protect my family." He didn't know the end result, but being aware of his own fate, he could not imagine anyone else would fare better. "A queen? Does she have darker hair? Features of those further south than the capital?" Was it Rhaenys? Did she rule in her grandfather's stead?

He didn't know much of his mother, which either meant she died young or he was a bastard. Curious though, as he had a noble's bearing and most men did not raise their bastards. Not unless their wives could have no children of their own. "Your father was a wolf?" Which Stark though and from when? "Did you see the great tourney and the Knight of the Laughing Tree?" If it was Benjen, he would know the tale.

He laughed at that, shaking his head again. "I'm no Dragonknight. A musician is more apt. My harp is closer to me than my sword."

[northerndragon]

"No. The queen on the stone is pale, like you. Her father was the Mad King; she's my betrothed. And aye, my father was a wolf. But I'm a Snow."

The uneasy feeling is returning, but none of it comes from the other man. From his presence, but not from his demeanor. It puts Jon in mind suddenly of Ygritte, how he had been told that her kind were evil, yet had never been able to sense any real evil in her. She was a killer, but she wasn't cruel.

And he supposes he's a killer too.

"That tourney was -- I don't know when, long before I was born. Was it -- " His expression darkens. "Did you win there?"

Why is he asking? He knows who it is: the man he's thought of as a splendid monster, the one who stole his aunt away and started a great war. Maybe this is how he was able to steal Lyanna Stark away, with his easy presence, his pleasant demeanor.

[foughtvaliantly]

"My sister." He had met her and heard some of her experiences, but it was always hard to judge when exactly a person came from. A part of him held out hope that his children survived, but it seemed like a foolish dream. How could he trust Jaime to keep his promise when he knew what blood compelled a man to do. Was he not fighting his father's war? Fighting for a man he no longer respected?

He can sense the wariness in the younger man, the apprehension. He heard the stories then, the sort his cousin spread. By the time he returned to King's Landing, he had heard them as well. But there was little reason to explain himself, not at the moment. Putting his feelings to words cheapened them unless they were accompanied by music. Even then, Lyanna sat in altogether different place in his heart, not easily accessed by others.

"I did." If he asked the question, it meant that he knew who he was. "I named the Knight of the Laughing Tree the Queen of Love and Beauty." Was it a story this lad knew? He was not Benjen, which meant he was a son of one of the Starks.

"A Snow? Was the older wolf your father or the younger?" Not the quiet one. Ned would never father a bastard.