all this energy calling me

[agogemod]

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.

TOUCH BASE;

backfill armed services echelon
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

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

NOT A SURPRISE: THERE ARE FUCKING BIRDS.

[bynumber]

[There are crows all over BASE: flying down the cramped hallways, fluttering outside doorways, following you into rooms (and maybe reading over your shoulder), and—perhaps most importantly—staking out the mess hall. Many of them keep to rafters wherever they are, content to watch, but others spring on unattended items and people, curious. They'll even spring on the unattended plate.

Sorry if you were eating that.

Others are more polite, coming to stand on a table while you eat and giving you an expectant eye. Sometimes, you might even see a crow with a plate of its own, cawing instructions at the nearest droids. It's difficult to pick things up when you don't have hands, after all.

In any case, they're impossible to miss and they are watching. And, uh, prone to yanking on tails (sorry, Mordred's cat).]

BIRBS

[gerechtigkeit]

[Look, all of this is new to Siegfried, so obviously he's curiously checking out rooms all over the station. Being a Servant at least allows him to adjust to the situation relatively easy. So now he's mostly wandering and seeing what all there is.

Which means he's made his way into the mess hall, and. Oh. That's a bunch of crows. Ah. Hmm. Siegfried stares into the rafters for a good long moment before grabbing a plate with food and sitting.

Sure enough, one of those crows is gonna stand at that table, staring rather expectantly. The Servant blinks, tilting his head.]

...are you hungry?

[Yes, he is asking a fucking bird if they want some of his food. Siegfried, please. You're going to end up spoiling them.]

[bynumber]

I am.

[The voice that comes from the crow is unnatural, almost digital, but with remarkable enunciation.]

Are you going to share?

[The bird sounds so hopeful. Please share the food.]

[gerechtigkeit]

[WELL THAT SURE AS FUCK WASN'T WHAT HE WAS EXPECTING.

Siegfried startles just a little, blinking back at his small companion, before headtilting for a very, very long moment. Then, a hand lifts his fork with some food and he raises a brow, looking incredibly interested as he offers a bit of his plate to the bird.]

Is there anything you don't like to eat?

[Go on, have at it. Just don't eat his entire plate, pls, or he'll be sad.]

PUBLIC ENEMY #1

[dipolar]

(he's sick and has felt it since their abrupt arrival, so his appetite's gone — but he needs to get his energy back up to snuff. so hei's taken up a spot alone, sitting at an uneaten plate of food, watching the crows out of the corner of his eye. a meal that's unattended and vulnerable? absolutely.

doesn't mean he isn't going to take a violent swing at one of the birds who tries to pick at it, aiming for a hard smack.)

Tch—

HEI, HOW DARE

[bynumber]

Hey—

[The bird caws, flapping and retreating when Hei tries to cuff it (he's so close, the birds will remember this one has reflexes above the norm). The commotion immediately perks the interest of several more crows who fly closer to the table, surrounding it but only watching.]

You weren't eating it!

[Its enunciation, if unnatural, is remarkably good. And it sounds incredibly offended.]

1/2 CRYING...

[dipolar]

(what the fuck?)

2/2

[dipolar]

...

(why is a talking animal more familiar and comforting than a plate of food?)

I will. Unless you taste better.

HI BIRDS

[hakanai]

[Somewhere in the room he'd been assigned, Yoshitsugu had found mochi. Three packs, in fact, plenty to be going on with for now. He's walked back out and into the mess hall, taking a seat and getting himself comfortable.]

[It had taken some effort but he's split one of the sweet treats into small portions.]

...have you tried this kind of food before?

[He's looking up, directly addressing the crows. That might be fond amusement in his eyes; his mouth his hidden, so it's impossible to know for sure if he's smiling, but one might bet on it.]

My dear Takatora reminds me of your kind and it's his favourite, so perhaps it will appeal to you too.

HI SAMURAI HI

[bynumber]

[There's immediately a rustle of feathers as the crows look between each other, intrigued. A few of them flutter down.]

Oh, it does. Your Takatora has an excellent sense of taste.

[The crow that speaks has a voice that almost sounds like there's a filter over it, distorted but still easily understood. It and the others cluster around Yoshitsugu, intent and curious.]

I've had it, but it's been a long time.

[hakanai]

[A long time? That's interesting. Not, perhaps, more interesting than the fact that he's talking to birds, but Yoshitsugu is content to drink in every bit of oddity and wonder in this new life of his.]

You can have some now.

[He places a piece in front of the crow that's talking. It's probably better to establish a good relationship with these beings, whatever they truly are, and doing so via food won't be a bad idea.]

It's polite to offer a gift when entering someone else's home.

hail satan

[masque]

[clothes pulled on, took a nap back in his capsule with no roommate in sight yet, still feeling sick... and apparently crackers help, so here he is in the cafeteria.

he's seen the birds all over the place so he thinks nothing of it, armed with a glass of water and small plate of crackers, looking sideways at the crow...

...

holds a cracker out with a sigh]

There's this story on the internet back home about how one of you managed to get an actual criminal record.

[bynumber]

[The crow snaps up the cracker happily, crunching it in half between its talons.

After swallowing down a bit, it looks back up at Akira.]

You should tell me that story. It sounds hilarious.

[And, distorted as its voice may be, it speaks with genuine delight.]

/vibrates into a bird

[fernbeleafer]

[ it's instinct. she barely heard chiron's speech once the crows drew her attention. blah blah blah something about training and kiki is out to go make some new friends!!!

but here's the thing: keyleth speaks terribly in her natural form. and she doesn't spend a lot of time in this form, so when she flaps over to perch nearby her greeting comes out primitive and simple. ]

Hck--caw!

[ ...she needs help, guys. how do you shot words with a beak? ]

[bynumber]

[Keyleth earns herself an audience and she earns it fast. A gaggle of crows rings around her, openly curious. There's a ripple of hoarse, cawing laughter at her attempt to speak.]

It's lower. The bottom of your throat, not the top. [One of the birds faux coughs, sound seeming to echo unnaturally in its attempt to illustrate this.]

[macginger]

[Sweeney wasn't a stranger to birds. He was, at some point, a bird himself. Or like a bird enough to have had feathers, which was a dark time for him. But then, his whole goddamn existence had been dark, so it didn't really matter. He even chatted with birds provided they were among the mythological variety. Regular birds had nothing at all useful to talk about. It was all about the blueness of the sky, nothing at all, and blatant sexual misogyny that would make even the most chauvinistic of men uncomfortable.

Birds. He knew them. And he didn't like them. So seeing them just around? Well, it wasn't great.]

It's the end of the goddamn world so of course the fucking crows make it.

[bynumber]

It isn't the end of the world yet.

[One of the crows in the rafters above volunteers this like it's the most obvious thing in the world, if also dry as hell.]

Rest assured the Regency doesn't care enough for my kind to let us survive.

[handsomefoil]

[ Henry seems to be lucky, with a bird just simply staring at him as he picks at his food. It's been hard to keep down the slop he'd consumed on the last mission, so this is a welcome change but he finds himself going through it very slowly. He can see their itching to nab a piece off his plate as he's slow to eat.

He looks up at it, pretending he'd just noticed it there, then looks down at his plate. Some bread and stuff, mostly. Taking a piece, he sets it closer to the bird on the table. ]

How did your feathery lot come to board this ship anyway?

[ He's mostly mumbling to himself, turning back to his plate as he fiddles with the BCE idly for any news or updates or posts to read. ]

[bynumber]

[Waste not, want not. That proffered morsel is gone.

The bird wipes its beak on an old napkin, left sitting on the table, before looking up at Henry.]

Assigned like you, of course. Though the role I'm given is a little different.

"somebody is watching me" playing muffled in the bg tbh

[pointedlook]

[ The thing he expected least when going to base was the sheer amount of birds. And not just any birds, but crows. Tons of them. He knows from some distant factoid (wikipedia probably) that crows and ravens are prone to trickery and have a long memory. So he isn't about to intentionally piss them off.

But the beady little eyes he can feel watching him from the rafters is unsettling to say the least.

Arthur keeps polite distance where he can, generally attempting to ignore their weird stares. Kind of hard to completely ignore when they've landed on his shoulders but. Hey. It's fine? They're not cawing directly in his ear at any rate.

This one, though, has been sitting on the table just to his left, eyeing him with intent. He's picked apart his croissant on his plate, occasionally staring back at the crow as if daring it to try and take his food. Unfortunately he's a sucker, despite what Eames or Cobb might think of him. ]

One piece. Don't go telling your friends or I'll never eat anything.

[bynumber]

[The crows are living. Look at all these recruits willing to share!

The bird pounces on the croissant, like it might escape.]

Thank you! I was starting to think I'd have to wait until your back was turned.

[ryuji]

[It's a sacrifice he's willing to make. Ryuji had been watched by a murder every single goddamn time he had left his capsule and headed anywhere. It wasn't becoming of a good thief to be so intently gazed upon, so he takes to little gestures at first, waving to them in the morning, nodding his head, bowing a little.]

Crow-san, ohayou.

[A few days of this pass and making no effort to ease the relentless of their gaze, Ryuji isn't unnerved as much as he is motivated. If you can't beat them... join... them? He opens a piece of his 1st ramen packet and breaks off a small handful, crumbling the dried noodles into smaller chunks. Walking outside, he flaps his human wings (er, hands), to try and get their attention.

Not that he has to. He's always seemed to get it anyway.]

Crow-sans. Yo. C'mere, I gotcha something.

[HE WILL BECOME THEIR KING.]

[bynumber]

[Oh yes, Ryuji has their attention. A few watch in the rafters, while a couple others land to stalk the ground around him in an ungainly way.]

Ohayou, Ryuji-kun.

[Yes, one of the birds on the floor is speaking Japanese to him. And familiarly, at that.]

Is that ramen?

[fessus]

[ He's never had a problem with birds, honestly, save for them shitting on the Regalia or being gigantic enough to nearly take his head off. The particular crow he's staring at, while he's just quietly sitting in the mess hall, poses neither threat. In fact he's starting to feel a sense of camaraderie with it. Who cares if it wants to stand on the table and stare back at him? ]

... I heard you guys talk. Care if I ask you something?

[bynumber]

[The crow tilts its head, inquisitive, and spreads its wings to fly closer, talons scratching the table when it lands just short of Noctis.]

Ask away. Though I don't guarantee I have an answer.

[...]

And sharing wouldn't go amiss.

[It's hopeful. These crows are bottomless pits.]