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Entry tags:
- * dreamy,
- * npc: agent young,
- * npc: commander grothia,
- * npc: sergeant chiron,
- * setting: base,
- achilles [fate],
- akira kurusu [persona],
- arthur [inception],
- ashitaka [princess mononoke],
- daenerys targaryen [asoiaf],
- hei [darker than black],
- henry cooldown [no more heroes],
- keyleth [dungeons & dragons],
- kylar stern [the night angel trilogy],
- mordred [fate],
- noctis lucis caelum [final fantasy],
- ryuji sakamoto [persona],
- siegfried [fate],
- soldier 76 [overwatch],
- travis touchdown [no more heroes],
- yoshitsugu otani [samurai warriors]
all this energy calling me
WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Welcome home, nerds.
WHEN? Outside time and space, in the aether between dimensions.
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.
WHAT? Welcome home, nerds.
WHEN? Outside time and space, in the aether between dimensions.
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.
TOUCH BASE;
backfill armed services echelon
COST re-appropriated vehicle 854A-5.2
COST re-appropriated vehicle 854A-5.2
read the base setting infopage
DEPARTING FRANCE
The order comes out the second day after the Tuileries is sacked:
PACK UP, 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, and it starts like a vibrating heat on the collar bone, not painful, not to start with. Just a hum of sensation. But the vibration spreads. Veteran COST soldiers often refer to this phenomena as 'the buzz'. The sensation builds, feeling not unlike standing near a great engine, or the wind rattling the branches of a great tree. There is long a moment of motion sickness, and one cannot always be sure if it is you that is shaking from the inside out, or the world that is shaking you from the outside in. It may just 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. Some swear they feel a touch of the divine; the eyes of the eternal look down upon you. Ancient bones rattle just out of earshot, cold and brittle. Or maybe it's an illusion brought on by powerful technology grafted into your skin.
One thing is for sure: One moment you are here, and the next, you are not.
Nausea is commonly accompanied by this shift. One moment, you're in the cold of France. The next, you're in a temperature regulated hallway, looking not unlike 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. Crows sit on high ledges, looking down, watching.
(For those of you who just apped in and didn't participate in the TDM, you'll appear alongside your comrades now, standing in this long hallway filled with droids and crows and men and women in clothing from 18th century France. Of course, you'll be wearing the minimal COST athletic issued underwear, and holding whatever one item you were allowed to bring. Surprise!)
At the end of the hall is a long table with heaps of used clothing on it. The sizes and styles vary, along with color and detail (AKA none look exactly like the linked pics, they're just a baseline, use your ~imagination~). One thing's for certain, all the clothing has been used before, with holes darned and worn edges. They're all clean, though, and each bears a single patch with the words 'KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN' and 'COST sewn into the side.
They're not exactly high fashion, but they might be more comfortable than the late 18th century digs you're still wearing, if you showed up in France. Or, you know, the underwear.
Meet the Drill Sergeant
There is the echoing sound of hooves, and a strange creature emerges from a nearby room: a centaur. He smiles kindly, happy to see you've arrived. He has a significant limp in his back left leg, causing his hoof-beats to pitch an irregular rhythm as he walks slowly through the hall.
"Hello, all!" His voice is kind, but it's pitched to carry. "You may know me as Sergeant-- I am in technicality a drill sergeant. You may call me Chiron, if you wish, though I'm to understand some may know others with the same name." He laughs, amused. "In any case, welcome home. It is not much, but we have tried to make it hospitable for you in your time here. Your room assignments have been uploaded onto your BCEs, along with some technological upgrades we've been testing out. There are a few prototypes and experiments you may find in your rooms as well. Our agents are..." He looks up at the crows. "We are a curious people."
He looks over to the table stacked with clothing. "Please pick out what suits you, and make adjustments as needed. If you have any complaints, and wish to change your rooming situation, your username, anything of that nature, please send me a request. I am also known in some capacity as a trainer-"
One of the crows caws, and it sounds almost sarcastic.
Sergeant Chiron ignores it. "Hm. If you wish for me to make a training regiment for you, to better your skill in this organization, please let me know. But for now: I am to understand your last mission was... tumultuous. Please, rest and acclimate yourself to BASE."
He turns to leave, before stopping-- "And please be kind to the crows. They remember slights."
The crows' cawing sounds like laughter.
HOTSPOTS
There's been some technical difficulty since the prognosticators had their little meltdown. Coolant is in short supply, and some of the corridors of BASE are a little warmer than others. Pleasantly warm. Comfortably so, like walking through a sunbeam. In these hotspots, it feels comfortable and snug.
Characters walking through them will feel the urge to lie down and rest, maybe take a quick little nap.
Sleeping in these spots will cause unsettling or confusing dreams, but not nightmares. Dreams in these hotspots-- and sleeping in these hotspots will never be dreamless-- will be hard to remember upon waking, but they seemed very... strange. Almost as though you were intruding on something important but private.
Yet you can't quite remember it when you wake.
If you're clever and watchful, you'll notice the crows avoid these areas, so you can avoid them as well before you're seized by the urge to lie down and nap.
Particularly watchful characters may notice the hotspots are growing in size and number as the days wear on.
(More information about these and the forthcoming December plot will be coming in an infopost on the 12th, but if you have any questions now, feel free to ask here!)
read the base setting infopage
no subject
There is nothing that can be changed now.
[So he doesn't dwell upon it. It seems as if COST only recruits those willing, and so he would have to trust in them and also in his past self that the agreement was mutual and understanding. Regardless, even if it wasn't the case, there was nothing they could do about it now.
He can sense the faintest barrier around the words, the minute aversion to details that allowed him to pick up on that it wasn't a subject he would want prodded further. He respects that wish, nodding.] I see.
[He's thoughtful for a moment before continuing along a conversational whim:]
I have begun to think, if they have such control over both where and when you are able to go, there is a chance that wrongs in our past might be able to be righted if we accomplish COST's goal [He thinks a moment longer.] But, in the same breath, it seems as though what we are doing warns against that very thing.
[He sighs.] We might never come to a point where it would matter.
no subject
(despite all of the wrong he's done to others and despite all of the wrong others have done to him, he wouldn't choose a different life and he wouldn't change the past. wonders how people can think so differently about the opinion-heavy topic, but that's exactly why it's so important to protect the chaos COST believes in.)
Chaos is formative. Without it, we wouldn't be here at all.
...
I suppose that's what we're protecting.
no subject
Was there anything he would have done differently? Would he not have struck Nago down? Would he have refused Jigo's company? Would he have failed to save those injured men he found in the stream? Would he have failed to restrain himself when he nearly drew his sword upon Lady Eboshi? Would he have turned his back on San and tried to forget her? Would he have finally broken down and railed against the stupid, cruel fate that had been thrust upon him?
The answer he always came up with was no. He found it difficult to regret the decisions he had made. They had seemed best at the time, and they still feel best to him now.
His opinions upon it were different than Hei's. Ashitaka is no agent of chaos. There is an element of it in nature, the sort of randomness that allowed anything to be possible. But sometimes even that chaos seemed ordained, part of a much larger network of interconnected things. It seemed almost purposeful in its lack of purpose, lack of plan, lack of goal.
He's quiet a moment as he considers this, weighing the sagacity of Hei's words.]
Yes. You're right. [He nods.] COST has been trying to show this to us, I believe. We have this ability to go back, but we do not change what has already happened. To do this would remove the purpose of things happening the way they did in the first place.
[To do so was to have the arrogance of the Regency.]
So it is best that you are at peace with your decisions. With the circumstances of your past.
[However difficult they may be.]
no subject
(ashitaka seems level-headed. he knows he doesn't need to hear this, but it's far easier to lapse into instructing others than to leave everything in their hands.
it's nice of him to take the time to speak with him. talk him down from the ledge his mind was sizing up and ready to jump off. that's already happening once today with midnighter and he'd be embarrassed to have it happen again. everyone else is so calm about the majority of these issues — it's easy to feel like he's losing grip.)
I have choices now. That's all I need to come to terms with. My first will be to avoid this window.
(points.)
no subject
He gives a solemn nod.] You are right. We should have caution, or as much as we might be allowed.
[Because they would still need to succeed, regardless of what they believed. Or, if COST was correct in what they told them, things could get very bad.
Ashitaka gives the man a small smile as he continues.] That sounds like a good one.
My name is Ashitaka. What do I call you?
no subject
(a pause, wondering what exactly to do next, before dipping his head in a surprisingly polite gesture. it's been a decent conversation, one that's calmed him down — and that deserves some thanks.)
I'll be off, now. Perhaps I'll see you around the ship.
no subject
I shall see you then, Hei. Fare well.
[And that, kids, is what you call dramatic irony.
Regardless, Ashitaka departs along on his own way.]