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

[doublejumps]

This time, Genji has no intention of drawing his blade to make his point to Hanzo, not unless he has to for some reason. His voice alone should have made his identity clear, and yet Hanzo pauses and turns toward him like he may as well be a stranger. There's no recognition in his eyes, no sense of relief flooding through his body language. Most anyone would be glad to see a familiar face given their situation, and yet...

Hanzo still doesn't know what to do with him, it seems.

Genji skids to a stop once he catches up to his brother, with little concern for the scene he's made by yelling his name and chasing after him. It's not as if anyone else seems to care. People in this city are distracted with their own problems, consumed by the tension that's eating Lemuria like a plague.

"So it is you." Genji takes a few more seconds to look Hanzo over, but there's really no mistaking him. Everything from that sour expression to the stiff stance makes it crystal clear. "Have you been here long?"

It seems that far more people from their home were recruited into COST than Genji could have guessed. This means that, one way or another, they're working together. Genji can't help but feel warmed by that fact.

[eruit]

Hanzo is tense, fingers flexing as the temptation to reach for his bow flickers over him and makes him even more tense and on edge, a burst of anger and uncertainty resting around his shoulders. There's a level of tension that coils through him that he cannot even begin to shrug off, but he does his best to swallow it down, does his best to act as though this doesn't bother him as much as it does, as much as it is; he could break apart just from looking at Genji.

He doesn't know how to treat him. Doesn't know how to handle the fact that Genji is even here in the first place.

For a long moment he doesn't even want to give Genji the benefit of a reply. He wants to turn around and walk in the other direction, to turn away and act as though this meeting never took place, but he can't. There's a weight to it that makes him hurt - because he needs to earn his redemption. He needs to regain his honour.

He has to prove himself to Genji. But he doesn't know if he can trust this version of the man he had known once.

"No. I have not." What should he do? He looks lost, glancing around as though he can somehow dart away and make himself scarce, but he doesn't. "Have... Have you?"

[doublejumps]

The awkwardness of this unexpected meeting is palpable, and Genji doesn't know if there's anything he can do to lessen it. That being said, letting Hanzo leave isn't an option either, not when Genji needs to learn how he came to be here and what he's been doing in the time since they last saw each other. He didn't expect their second reunion to be anything like this, but he isn't going to squander it.

Standing in the middle of a crowded street isn't going to help matters, though, and so Genji waves Hanzo along so that they can move off to the side of the street, where they won't have to dodge Lemurians as they go about their day. He doesn't remove his gaze from Hanzo the entire time, even though his hood and faceplate keep his own face hidden.

"Not here, no," he responds with a shake of his head, "but I have been with COST for a few months now. That is how you got here, right? COST brought you?"

There's no other way it would be possible, and so Genji can only hope that Hanzo knows what he's talking about. They wouldn't have thrown him in here completely blind, would they? If that's the case, then it's Genji's job to get him up to speed, whether Hanzo is comfortable with that or not.

[eruit]

It's clear in Hanzo's posture and movements that he is ready to turn and run as soon as he feels as though he is allowed - as if he can twist and turn his back on the thing that claims to be his brother and walk elsewhere. He expects, even now, for Genji to lift his blade, to come at him, to give the punishment that honour and duty dictates is his; Hanzo had failed him, and for that he should be culled. That is how it was in the clan, and the tension that bleeds into Hanzo is in part his own mixed expectations.

It's awkward as he moves away from the crowd, clearly on edge, clearly expecting the worst. Despite the fact that he knows that Genji has promised him forgiveness, has offered him a path to redemption, he has no reason to trust it, no reason to imagine that it might be true. It feels more likely, at least to him, that he might suffer punishment before true forgiveness. After ten years of living as he has... Genji has likely earned that if nothing else.

"Yes," the words are clipped, to the point, low and uncertain. The awkwardness of Hanzo being here, feeling trapped and caged, is obvious, and the tension makes him appear as he had when he was a child - back straight, attention forward, as though their father was present with a stick to correct his posture.

He hesitates, eyes flicking over the form of Genji, unsure and uncertain. What does he say? What does he do? The tension catches in his throat.

"A few months?"

[doublejumps]

There's nothing about this that isn't agonizing, on Hanzo's end, and that makes it difficult for Genji in turn. He can see in every line of Hanzo's posture that he wants nothing more than to turn and run away from this situation at breakneck speed. Despite the fact that they're in an unfamiliar place and surrounded by strangers, he still wants nothing to do with Genji.

It's not an easy thing to realize, or to accept, and Genji already knows that he'll need to talk with Zenyatta about this. He can feel his heart pattering in his metal chest like a nervous sparrow.

"A few months," Genji confirms once Hanzo is able to get the question out. "Has it been more or less time for you?" It seems like each new step in the conversation takes so much more effort than it should, and yet Genji doesn't know how to ease up on all of Hanzo's tension. Likely there's nothing to be done for it, and it's only time and exposure that will allow it to happen.

How are either of them supposed to endure this? It's only been a few seconds and it already feels intolerable, all of his initial relief replaced with an exhausting dread.

[eruit]

It's impossible to look at Genji and pretend as though that this is fine, that there is nothing about this that is bothering him. He is still barely able to rationalise the fact that Genji has, somehow, returned from the dead; he had lived a decade certain that his life had been taken and he had to pay the price for it. For Genji to show up, to tell him that all he had done in penance hadn't been worth the time and effort he had been doing... It had broken his heart.

He doesn't know what to do, or what he ought to say. He thinks he hands might be shaking, but he doesn't want to look at himself, either. He fears that he might fall apart. He thinks that Genji might best him.

"Less. Far less." Hanzo has barely been here days, he thinks, but... He cannot think that Genji has been here for that long. He doesn't know what to do with the knowledge, the information, and he takes a deep breath. Slowly, he forces himself to stand taller, to adopt the mantle of the Shimada heir, to become what he had been trained to be before Genji once more.

"... You must know what you are doing." His voice is clipped, tight. "I will not take you from it."

[doublejumps]

There's no missing the way that Hanzo's hands tremor. It's subtle, but for someone like Genji who had grown up watching his brother, there's no mistaking it. Much as he would like to grip Hanzo's hands with his own and still the shaking, he knows that won't be taken well now -- or maybe ever. It's been long, far too long, since they were close enough for something like that.

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't rely on each other in these strange, impossible circumstances. That's what Genji believes, at least, and all he can do is try to get Hanzo onto his side. He may have failed at that before, but this is a different time.

It is a bit surprising for Hanzo to claim that Genji must know what he's doing, as that's not something he would have ever said about him when they were younger. Really, it's an excuse so that Hanzo can get away from him, and Genji sees right through it.

"Not exactly," he says with a quick shake of his head. "I have not been in this city for much longer than you. You seemed like you were going somewhere." Hanzo had been walking with purpose when Genji had first seen him. "Where were you headed?" he asks with a slight tilt of his head.