[MISSION LOG] GET IN THE CAR

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Avera 9
WHEN: Day :156 - 160
SUMMARY: Welcome to the jungle muddy junk pile in space. Avera 9, pt.1
WARNINGS: None; will edit if necessary.

THERE IS AN EXPECTATION that all hosts meet on the flight deck; that much is obvious on waking - something that, strangely, all new hosts seem to have done at the same time. Pack your things, says a gut sensation. It's time to go somewhere different.

ONCE ASSEMBLED, it isn't long before Prince and Cathaway make their own appearances. They have a set of kits with them - one for each young host - and a square that unfolds into a data pad with mission details. Each kit contains some of the materials hosts will find helpful for their assignment, and the equipment is not to be traded away or sold, Prince explains. The rest, Cathaway adds, will be provided once travel is complete. And then it's time to get underway. Today that means piling into a sleek, arrow shaped ship with plenty of space to carry personnel and equipment. There are a number of bikes lashed in the cargo area, places for hosts to stow their things, and enough seating at each side of the carrier's interior for hosts to be comfortable. It's a short trip, Cathaway assures and then makes her way with Prince to the cockpit. Today, they're coming with.

Initial checks. Engines go. The landing circular landing pad under the ship turns, lowering down into the flight deck floor as it goes. The ship comes with it, descending into the cool dark depths of the Station. There's a shudder as it locks into the launch tube, as the channel overhead is sealed; there is no countdown, just a pulsing moment of anticipation-- and then rocketing, teeth rattling momentum and a bright, hot flash of joy as the ship is projected from the Station - as it sears through time and space and a hundred versions of the same universe until it comes to rest here: smacked out into real space hung above a murky brown planet, clearly visible through the massive viewscreen at the front of the ship.

It's a good thing there's not much to look at; Cathaway doesn't waste time before deftly setting a course, slicing down through upper atmosphere with hardly a shudder from the knife point shaped ship. The planet comes up rapidly and a hum passes through the carrier as it lowers - cresting down through dark clouds to be battered by rainfall and the cross cutting of wind. But it flies steady, sure, and in time they streak at ground level across muddy flatlands and massive stone slabs - skim across inert bodies of water in the slow process of expanding from the constant sluggish rainfall.

The ship eventually comes to rest in the middle of what must be a massive valley; it sets down with hardly a shiver, then something clangs loud and the ramp at the rear descends. Cathaway unhooks her harness and rises from the pilot's seat.

"Here we are. Be well and do well; try not to kill anyone." Yourselves included, being the unspoken addendum. "Make sure to return here at the specified time. We can't extend our time table to account for stragglers."

There is a pause before Prince adds, with an edge of silent reluctance, “If you find yourselves in a situation you cannot handle, call and we will come.”

And then you're free to go wherever you like. Welcome to Avera 9.


(click to zoom; blue is water; yellow is lowlands/flood plains/etc; green is higher, drier terrain; brown is for ridges/high ground)

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((OOC Notes: You'll notice that this log only covers the first few days of the mission; this is to allow for player character decision making to effect the back half of the mission. That said, feel free to make your own logs and posts on the IC community as you see fit - just be aware that dating past day :160 may get a little wonky depending on how events proceed!

If you have any mission specific questions, direct them to the OOC post here. For exploration and salvage discovery, we've decided to give players a largely free rein for what items can be found. However, if you want specific mod-generated items for your characters to stumble across during their salvaging, feel free to use THIS thread to request that!))

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Comments

[erbier]

[ The smell of blood has long since ceased to cause her any distress. There was always blood on the floors of Dreus's palace, smeared over the beautiful mosaics of the natural world, depicted in charm and innocence when he padded across them, trailing blood and preaching the innateness of chaos. The smell which bothered her more was the acid savor of a disemboweling, the subtle fetid perfume of bodies decaying in the hot sun. Those too had been a feature of the palace.

The small trail of blood across her right hand and down her sleeve are nothing to her. She doesn't suspect for a second that is what drew Prince to her, and so she follows him without any resistance. She assumes he has a task for her, little more. It will disappoint her to find out otherwise. ]

[regalled]

[He moves through the winding paths with a canny way and a confidence that almost makes up for how his straight posture makes him stand out in the drizzling miserable rain of the planet. She follows without complaint which bodes well for the coming conversation and allows him to focus entirely on turning the exact right corners, until he finds them a place near abandoned, quiet, some distance from which he expects she found trouble.

He gives the back alley one last looking over before he is satisfied and turns back to her with a singular focus.]

What transpired that has left you with bloody hands?

[He doesn't think to add that she would do well not to attempt a lie. He assumes she knows.]

[erbier]

[ Her eyebrows go up beneath the frizzled curls of her hair. She has never had anyone ask her that question before, the answer was so obvious. She had made someone bleed to spare herself from bleeding her own. She isn't entirely sure to what depth to even answer, but it is true.... it does not occur to her to lie. Lies were a witches game. ]

My bargaining took a sour turn.

[regalled]

[This was the danger with Hosts so young. Their world's were many and varied, their expectations of behavior too broad. Some were quite nasty, and her brood had already proven to be trouble. He finds himself thinking Castor would likely get far worse before it got better.]

And how did it leave the other?

[He would not be satisfied with half answers and casual dismissal. There was a reason he provided them with a means of defense and the offer of assistance.]

[erbier]

[ She tilts her head, maybe intuiting what he wants from her. She won't play coy with him, ]

Dead.

[regalled]

[As a reward for her careful gaze she is rewarded with the crease between his eyebrows deepening, eyes sliding off her and away to the spot past her shoulder, as if anyone would sneak up on them. There is no hot splash of emotion to roll off of him, no pulsing wave in answer of her words, although his attention does stray down the threaded line between himself and his other self.]

Where is the weapon?

[A distance in his voice, almost distracted as he drags his eyes back to her, expression and gaze once again going hard and firm.]

[erbier]

[ Ilde frowns at him in return. That, she does not particularly like. What business was it of his? She struggles with herself, the secretive and possessive parts of her beginning to smolder brightly inside of her. Like there so often is, she thinks only of death, its comings and its goings, always so frequent. She needed every advantage she could get her hands on, or she would become one of the many ugly and torn apart corpses she has seen in her life, they flicker through her thoughts like a slideshow that will not end.

She did not know how ruled by fear she was until the Hive took her. It had all become so commonplace, so understood, fed by her Godking's sermons. Now with everything turned upside down, she feels it again, it bleeds from her pores and touches other, makes her feverish and nauseous like an illness bearing upon her from within her own heart.

She looks away from him, overwhelmed by what goes on inside of her more than by him.

She decides to give it to him, if for no other reason to make the thoughts stop, to make a decision and move on, leave all the detritus attached to it behind. She says nothing, merely passes over the small and blood-stained blade. ]

[regalled]

[The longer the stretch between his demand and her producing the weapon stretches the more displeased he grows, anger tempered only by the first signs she's shown of something other than a strange apathy. He knows she is from some dark place, although he had not seen it nor pried to learn more himself, and it buys her some measure of patience where very little would, just then.

And eventually she does obey, handing him a blade that was small and unimpressive and no less dangerous for it, the hand that holds it stained red along her nail beds, an unattractive marring of hands that had the chance to be clean. He takes it by the blade and holds it in his hand, the tacky feeling sinking into the ridges of his fingertips.]

You chose not to heed Cathaway's words. You chose not to use the weapon provided to you for defense. I see no mark on you that warranted such a reaction nor do I see a single sign of remorse in you. You will no longer be allowed in this place.

[More for her own safety than the safety of the locals, although were it up to him he would return her to the station until something could be done with her to impress upon her the incorrectness of her behavior. The thought of placing her again in the field after this left a taste in his mouth as sour as blood.]

You have placed us at risk with your choice. You have ended a life. This is not our purpose here.

[Their purpose here had been simple. It had not required them to kill, something that would not always be true. At times it was the cost in accomplishing some greater good. There was no greater good here, and her appearance, whole and unmarred except by the blood she spilled with her own hands, leaves him quite certain this was not even an unfortunate necessity.] We do not come as a blight, bringing death. Do you understand this?

[erbier]

[ She has never in her life been spoken to this way. She does not know what to make of it. To someone else he might remind them of a stern father or a disciplinarian but... she knows neither. She knows only Dreus and his wildly swinging moods, his hypnotic voice and foul poetry. She does not like being spoken to this way. Like she is a child but with none of the affection she would appreciate from such an implication.

She struggles to place him inside of her symbols for the world. She knows she does not like to be spoken to in this way, but neither is she sure what to do with that emotion. With that obnoxious boy Parker she'd had no qualms about snapping backing at him, with the man she'd killed and his unruly little posse, no qualms. But the Prince holds himself as if that would be unwise.

Quite honestly, his words hurt her feelings, swift little cuts of disapproval that she has no experience in weathering. To insinuate that she has done this simply to be willful feels false and hateful.

She stares at him for a moment, weight behind her eyes. ]

You disapprove of me.

[regalled]

[He had been spoken to this way as a child- although there is an argument to be made that no child should be spoken to as such. He had spoken to his men this way, when they had performed dishonorably on the battlefield. And he found himself speaking to the young Hosts this way when they behaved with a lack of foresight and caution. There is little friendly or warm in him when it came to what he saw as responsibility. Duty. Acceptable behavior.]

I disapprove of your actions. I believe you have made no attempt to follow the very few requests made regarding your behavior on Avera 9.

[Not all members of the nest would agree with how seriously he took the issue, but he found very little benefit in handling the young Hosts with kid gloves. To spring new expectations on them seemed far more cruel than simply expecting their best from the start.]

I would like to believe you are better than this, as I would like to believe of any of us.

[erbier]

That is foolish.

[ It slips out of her mouth before she can truly think on it, a measure of its honesty, for whatever that is worth. She did not come from a place where ones better nature was ever spoken of. That was not a concept the Godking espoused. She can hear him, and to her his words sound so moving, but to one such as Prince they can only sound sinister, manipulative, insane.

The shadow of Dreus falls between them, a divide. Maybe it is too late to untwist what he has done to her. ]

[regalled]

You are foolish.

[He replies just as instantly, just as honestly.]

Whatever it is that causes you to believe your actions have no consequence, I would advise you to change your thinking.

[Change was something all Hosts must do. Their ability to adapt would be their ability to survive this. To grow into their power and into their place. If they didn't, they would die.]

Do not kill anyone else. If you continue to behave like this you will not be permitted out of our sight. Is this understood?

[erbier]

[ Her eyes narrow at him. She does not see at all how she has suggested that is what she believes. ]

Very well.

[regalled]

Good.

[Stern, still, even if it was not the right tact. He didn't know another way. He could speak to her of empathy, of the sacred nature of life, of their responsibility as the strong to protect the weak, not to abuse their power or their position.

But he's unsure how it would sit with her, and the end empathy was something that would come to her regardless of what he said. A keen knowledge of the pain and suffering of others as her own. And perhaps someday that empathy would become so great as to devour the personal, leaving her as impassive in the face of death as Cathaway.]

Leave now. I will attempt to clean up the mess you have left.

[erbier]

[ She won't argue with that, confused and agitated she would like somewhere quiet to be, away from all of this. ]

[regalled]

[And he will not stay to be sure she goes. Consider instead his eye on her- or perhaps her eye, were she to stray too far- even as he turns back to head in the direction she had come from.

He would see what the rumor was. There was no true form of law enforcement on this planet, but there were plenty of gangs and bounty hunters. Depending on who she had killed she could become a target- if they were willing to admit such a girl had killed their friend.

He flips the knife in his hand as he walks, wiping it clean on his cape and pausing at the nearest intersection to stab it into the joint between two steel panels of one of the prefab buildings, using the leverage to snap it in two.

He leaves the blade, takes the handle, and goes to do his duty, as unpleasant as it may come to be.]