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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
I know most of the details. They're not even very complicated. Most of the things that make up a human body can be bought at a store, or extracted from other things. There's not even a need for human sacrifice, if your goal is just transferring a soul to an empty vessel. Or, rather - the original body is the sacrifice. It's a surprisingly convenient bit of science.
[She's rambling, a little, but she likes talking. She goes back to sorting through the clothes as she does, gives her hands something to do.]
The real difficulty is in the finesse. Even one teaspoon more or less and I'd have been condemned to a slow and painful death. Twice over.
no subject
I was going to inquire about the matter of the soul. How is that extracted from...wherever it is originally housed? Forgive me if my terminology is incorrect.
no subject
[She brings her finger up to her neck, drags it across, clicks her tongue sharply - like the fall of the guillotines back in France.]
Of course, if you don't have a proper container prepared, the soul will disperse into energy, formless and thoughtless. But since the new body's right there, the soul just has to be coerced into its new shell - and since the soul wants to have a form, the same way a human enjoys being alive, it's not that hard.
See? I told you it was simple. [Prepare a new body, shoot the old one in the face. Easy.]
no subject
[The method makes sense. But what Chiron's most curious about is location, location, location.]
And how does time factor in. Say, if there's one hundred years between death and the alchemical act is performed?
no subject
[Only, you know, it's a person. She hums at the thought, trying to think back. There's Fine, of course. She didn't know how exactly her resurrection worked, but there was a delay. But the issue there is that Fine kept her soul... ah.]
If the soul was still whole, you could do it a thousand years later without any issues. Of course, the problem is keeping the soul whole... it isn't something you could do after the fact. You'd have to contain them within a few minutes of their death.
Thinking of someone?
no subject
I see. I feel as if your Saint-Germain must have spent a great many years focused only on research and understanding these mechanics alone.
[He does wonder how long Prelati took for resurrection, but that's private. Her question is met with a thoughtful hum.]
Not so much. One of my students was punished by the gods for bringing the dead back to life, something I never taught him. The mechanics are simply interesting.
no subject
[Frankly, Prelati thinks she might have already endured them. Or been about to endure them. Regardless, nothing for it at this point.]
Saint-Germain's been alive for much longer than I have. I haven't asked her the details, but she's at least two thousand years old. Compared to that, all my research is just a blip. And a lot of what I do know, I was taught by her.
Who did your student bring back? Resurrection is a little different from soul transference. Much harder.
no subject
[At the question, Chiron's fairly straight forward. At least, to begin with.]
Asclepius brought back Hippolytus, I believe. The mechanics were never explained, and it resulted in Asclepius' own death. [Chiron's sigh is disappointed, more at the situation than the act.]
A shame. He surpassed me in medicine, and could have gone on to do even more.
no subject
[She's glad Chiron doesn't seem judgmental, at least - research, progress, these things are important. And the morals of society, of God, can often restrict those things. It'd be one thing if those morals actually protected people, but...]
How much do you know about medicine, then? You didn't seem the type, to be honest.
no subject
At any rate, he moves on from the confusion quickly.]
Asclepius was the god of medicine. And my student in that art. I'm curious about how I don't seem the type.
no subject
[... Oh. Wow. Asclepius. Right.
They'd moved on from the situation with the Sergeant so quickly that she'd forgotten what he's said - Chiron was the same as the Sergeant. Which meant he was a centaur. Which meant that when he said he was Chiron -
It was facts she'd put together before, but somehow she hadn't bothered to give them actual context. She at least has the grace to look embarrassed.]
... Forgive me. My mind's in a jumble. I know who you are, I just... [She'd been distracted, is the thing. She'd read all about him, but alchemy occupied her mind - and not the medicinal uses. And then the past few years hadn't even given her time to study, and then the past few months had been... painful. Even now, she's still trying to regain her bearings, remember that she's a scholar.]
Pretend I didn't say that. I have a reputation to protect.
heading to work now but i can't stop laughing at this entire exchange
Happily forgotten.
prelati's trying so hard
[Somehow Prelati's managed to forget herself - she's reminded of how she was when she was 'mortal', talking at a hundred miles an hour in the hopes that she says something worth hearing.
She sighs after a moment, pushes her glasses up so she can rub at her eyes.]
Cagliostro would never let me hear the end of this. For once, I'm thankful I'm alone here.
no subject
[Chiron pauses, and the motion of rubbing her eyes suggests the obvious:]
Perhaps rest would be the better idea for now.
no subject
And then see about the library. I might nap for an hour in there, but this body of mine hardly needs sleep the way a normal human's does. I've gone weeks without it. Even then, I only rested because Saint-Germain noticed. [It explains the heavy bags under her eyes, at least, the wrinkles and shadows that make her look not quite as young as she probably should.]
Basically, sleep is a waste of time. My mind will be in order once I'm stuck back into some research.
no subject
But he's also not the boss of her, and he can only offer recommendations.]
Factor in the time-shift into your calculations, just to be sure.
no subject
[Jokes based on bizarre logic aside -]
I'll sleep for an hour and a half. A full REM cycle. Will that satisfy you? I appreciate the concern, but the Sergeant didn't say how long we'd be here. I don't want to waste time.
no subject
But I don't blame you regarding wasting time.
no subject
Thank you again for all your help, Chiron. If you need me for anything, I'm in Capsule... 12. If we had keys, I'd give you a spare one, but... [Well, sadly, she can't do anything quite that neighborly.]
Speaking of capsules, have you met your roommate yet? I'm curious about mine.
no subject
no subject
no subject
You'll figure something out if it is.
no subject
[It's gentle prodding - she likes Chiron well enough, and she doesn't expect him to really do anything for her beyond talk. She just likes her teasing.]
no subject
Doubtlessly I'd disturb the organization of your research.
no subject
Basically, just toss the papers wherever. I'll figure it out.
(no subject)