station72 | [MISSION LOG] GET IN THE CAR

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[MISSION LOG] GET IN THE CAR

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)

((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!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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Sort of. [ She looks back down again, and she can't explain it -- that's the problem. Thing is, she was born like this, but that didn't mean she ever understood why she was like this, how it worked. In that way, she felt no different to the rest of Pandora, things decided long before she was born that left her only running into an unforgiving world.

Harder still, when Ilde doesn't know the terms she would use to describe it otherwise. ] It's like we are, how you can feel what I feel. That's how I am connected to them, only that I can will them to do what I want. [ She's wary, Ares hadn't reacted well, and there's a lifetime of guilt to consider. But tentatively, she lifts her hand, that marked glowing hand, to take. ] Let me show you?

[ There is assuredly apprehension in Ilde's eyes. She has liked Angel so far, but... was it foolish to accept her at face value? Was her name a farce, was she a liar even in her mind. That was a witch's way, the bury herself so deep in the pretense, only to be exposed when it was far too late.

She thinks of Cathaway, her brilliant unquestionable like. She thinks of Ren, the terrible knotted briar patch tying him to her. She thinks of Dreus, full of both longing and despair.

She takes Angel's hand because not to feels like a wasted chance. She tries to relax and ready herself to learn far too much all in a breath's time, but apprehension lurks in the corner of her mind, like the eyes of a creature peering out of the darkness. ]

[ She would say if asked, if she knew: first, that she is no divine being, but second, that she knew how the Grigori felt more than any other story she had ever read. More in common in Lucifer than the Gabriel her father would have her pretend.

But that was it, this myth, that she was seraphim with six wings and holy purpose, was Jack's Book of Genesis, not hers. She is not holy, ( not with what she had done ), but she can be vast ( alien - unknown, unknowable, to never be defined, she will die never truly know what her life ever meant ) and she would no longer pretend to be more or less than that, she is exactly as much as her hand as she wraps fingers around the other woman's. Soft, life has not touched her, but even less than that, life has not happened to her at all, to that her hands are cool, slight things. A consideration too, though, to stay grounded, she had never done this with another after all. Jack never listened, Jack never cared about this part. The scientists functioned on their orders to attend her and never asked questions either ( wake up with the ghost of their fingers in her spine for maintenance, loveless intimacy ). So she squeezes her hand gently in reassurance as she watches her prepare herself, giving her the time to do so, she doesn't want to scare her, hurt her -- break her. This time she doesn't throw herself into it. Because it is a mind splitting apart, it tore her apart the first time, screaming, she understood not just too much, but all of it at once. Then again, sirens were gifted with the ability to heal wounds most couldn't.

Takes it by steps, lets Ilde's mind twist with hers in an openness that the softness that is her fingertips and the untouched skin of her neck underneath the control collar. Sensitive places, shifting -- how odd to make another comfortable in her own mind. Before she turns back to the terminal, her own eyes shutting and mutters the words of that came instinctively. Phaseshift. Seems like nonsense until the world peels apart by layers of three, and she steps through them with a tilt of a head, dismissing them. There is here still, boots on the ground, the street bustling about them. The safe return. But it ceases being the only place, they are in two worlds, one solid to touch and one, tucked inside every machine, every bit of software that she feels so keenly. Not as just lifeless hunks of metal but warm with teeming purpose, and for a second they are staring up at two places, integrated into each other, filled the sounds of hundred different lives, and in a third place altogether.

( something else, there too, that isn't who she is, but what she is, but that -- that is between, that allows the passage between both. Old and alien, another realm, another place, it reeks of chemical purple and burning air, and she carefully does not linger in it. for all that it is written into her, in purple veined stones that shine from within like no ore should ).

As infinite as the stars in the galaxy to behold it all, and they are weightless, hovering in the middle because there is no up, no down, layering over and over and over again. She and the whole mass, hold a deep breath for aching moment as she opens herself to it all and drags them both over to it, like she's swallowing all those stars. Flickers in shape, form, between the woman that appeared so confidently on the datapad, without markings and a direct gaze, to her in her body as it is on the street, to something that hovers, wings and all, flooded with purple light that comes up her throat like bile. She turns it and twists with a tilt of her head, rolling back with the flood of it, writing and feeding herself out. Takes it all into herself and spreads -- over it, under it, through it. Thread her into the nebula, stretched like light stretches, from sun to planets and moons. One moment to get it all in place, to turn all those streets into where -- she is Ilde and Ilde is her, and she presents those devoured stars up like a handful of diamonds.

It's quiet, quiet, quiet. Like the first time being submerged, where the rush comes as silence.

Then all at once: they speak, begins as chatter, then a whistle and sing and scream, it blathers letters and announces numbers and they give up their information willingly like she was just another part of them, and in this way, she was, she is them and they are her and she is Ilde. -- 'I can't get a good price on the ore from the Trench'. -- 'Mother? Mother please, please wake up.' -- 'What about on the next ship out? I heard the Constant has some empty space.' -- 'The weather is set to be freezing tonight, rug up if you can.' -- 'You fucking asshole, I can't fucking believe you' --

Lets it go for a second, because it is no more than that, externally, here, inside machines, time passes differently, a hundred things are accomplished every second just to do one single thing. A hyperfast world, rushing and pouring and moving around them and through them and carefully, she yanks back the parts to be monitored at different levels. Here, she is real, here, she functions carefully. Runs her mind in an expert manner, controlled, that calm she always keeps. With all this information pooling in the corners of her mind, she picks up, absorbs and discards, takes and bends and twists, and with each thought, it bends to her. She controls it, and they respond to it. In here, she is absolute. Right now, she's already raked it through for information, hasn't stopped listening to it even when she was talking, so she's more concerned about her company. Keenly aware, and as she turns to her inside this unreality, where she's connect to every bit of program, it too turns to look at her. ]

( If it's too much... ) [ a nervousness, skittish, so concerned that she's doing well. Fears so deeply the rejection, the hatred, that she had been promised so often was the only thing she would find. Like this, pulled in so deeply, there's no filter on the thoughts she's having either. All concern, for the programs, for Ilde, making sure that they are all seen to. She'll break this world down in a second, if she needs to, if she thinks she's hurting her even slightly. ]

[ The force of it all is incredible, but something of it is made easier in the way that their landscapes dovetail together as opposites. Ilde has done too much with her own two hands, crawling and scraping in the dust and the dirt. And Angel's hands are soft like her namesake, full of sorrow and nothingness. They make an inversion, two images running in the same circle but always at opposite sides of it. In the center are a stack of white bodies treated lovelessly, their doll parts broken off and scattered to expose red interior paint. Lives ruled over by the watchful gaze of mad men who spread death and hate wherever they go, they too in opposition to one another, one all the organic chaos of fire, the other cold and steely and methodical in his selfishness.

The simple completeness of their opposition is like a cushion fall, starting within herself, the angles changing to expose the upside down world where the Angel lives. Bridged by burning stars and lightning.

The phase shift into the machine is easier then, familiar to Angel and now familiar in its way to Ilde. A muscle memory that is not her own, made unconsciously before the realization settles and she grips the girls hand more tightly, her breath increasing with stress, overwhelmed but not shattered.

She has done this before now, a few times. Cathaway had taken her hand and showed her the life within the ship. She had showed Ilde its heart and its lungs, and now Angel shows her what must be its thoughts and its veins, its nerves. Another piece of the body that is this world of inorganic and machinery that she is so unfamiliar with. A kind of magic, a kind of life, and Angel moves it in her hands so simply, so elegantly, like weaving threads of light.

She thinks of her king--perhaps gone now with her world, perhaps not, living on the edges of perhaps being a traitor to herself—and his magic, the way it would rise up from his self like this, the way it had wings of fire. She wonders if he went to a place like this, a state of being where he woven webs of fire as grand as universes. ]

( It’s very beautiful. ) [ Not in pain, but dizzy with so many whirling things around her mind. ] ( You could get lost in here. )

[ Spend the rest of your days enveloped in this and never touch the world again, let it all turn and turn as it would. ]

[ There's a completeness, to this, to being so set into her, to in turn having Ilde settled under her own skin. Feels the quick breaths like they are her own and by nature of matches on the inhale-exhale, letting it all simply be at once. The machines in time again, thudding with their steady life.

Nervously waiting, and when she isn't feared, isn't rejected, the relief that floods her is instant, bubbling up and over. ] ( I do, I did. It's infinite, in here. ) [ When she's got a mind the size of a planet, she thinks, it certainly made it take longer for her to feel keenly the bars of her trap.

More than that, though, than just this. So much more to show, with someone that has the interest to see such things, to not just dismiss it all as what is useful and what isn't. To have it called beautiful, instead of terrifying. ] ( Think of your gardens? Exactly as you remember it. )

[ And it builds again, ready in inside her ( their ) skin. Anticipation crackling in readiness, the code all but hums with movement. ]

[ Angel's fear of rejection is unlike anything Ilde has ever thought of before. She had no fear of being rejected. She had no fear for the kindness nor feelings of others, such things were immaterial to her survival. Such things were immaterial in the inevitable deaths of all those around her. Only she had the Godking's favor, the certitude that he would not torture her like the rest, not when she was so honest and pure.

He thoughts start there. Start with Dreus and his palace set upon the hill, a beautiful open air structure with high stained glass windows, onion doomed rooftops, and mosaic floors that were always stained with blood. The stairs that lead down into the earth are grand, tiled in alternating colors of sand and clay, winding in a spiral deep into the cool underground. One pathway leads to dungeons, one pathway leads to torture champers, another to a dwindling harem where sick and tired looking women lie in chains.

But one secret door leads to her garden, hidden in the labyrinth behind its ornate door.

Her garden smells like dirt and compost and lightning, the lingering ephemeral scent of the magic that Dreus has imbued into the cavern. A warmth subtle enough to nourish life rather than extinguish it, his small experiment in gentility, abandoned by him and handed to someone better suited to peace. The garden is dense and lush, suffocatingly so in the enclosed space, but in this wasteland world where nothing grows it is a miracle.

Ilde's plants are pampered, growing larger and larger every year she tends them, her sweet monstrosities of which she shows no fear. They droop heavily with sweet fruit, right into the palm of her hand. She thinks of their sweet smells, the stickiness of fruit juice, the sweet rot of fallen petals. She thinks of dirt beneath bare feet, in the grooves of bare hands. Of sitting hidden deep within the foliage, separate from the rest of the world, whispering poetry to herself to keep her soul from starving, ]

There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was--and then no more of Thee and Me.

Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

Then of the Thee in Me works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without--"The Me Within Thee Blind!"

[ In the way she had drunk sunlight and laughter and oneness from the memories of others, of her brood, of the hive, it is as then, she doesn't fight it, she says nothing, like charging the vault key, she is well versed in being conduit. Lets it roll over her, through her, weaving across the markings and veins and little impulses of her mind. It's a little less like just seeing, so much as opening up her own veins and offering the path of least resistance. She peels herself apart to take it all in, taking a breath for the smells, copper tainted and sickly sweet and damp, turning her head in slightly to listen to the sound of leaves and water -- and no part of it is forgotten, the words too, she takes them, rolls them around her teeth like they are drink too -- she knows what it is to be empty, to hang on to so little a thing that it becomes everything. There is just so much space inside the soul to fill.

Holds it all within herself before she shapes the world around them in it's likeness. It is the same but, space to fill so that garden sprawls itself vast. It becomes labyrinthine, crooked pathways of thickly packed green that turns around corners into the heavy droop of big leaves, greedily soaking up the sun to shade the bench that sits below it. Flowers she picks from the memory that splash a myriad of colours. Streams that criss-cross under foot, and at times, water that falls from somewhere high up over rocks and between plants and goes to flow without an end. Parts of herself in it too or, more exactly, the things she cannot completely help, where the pathways underfoot are grey slabs of stones that swirled with purple back lit patterns, shimmering as they're glanced over, statues of strange beings that peer out between the leaves, they are old, but the details are all there, bathing the ground in a unnatural light.

There is more to it than that -- creation of a world, she's learned, is not completely the same as just imagining it, but rather she layers it over and over itself with a intimate understanding, learned the exact way light would bounce off that leaf, around that stem, over that wall. The way the weight of the branch held the leaves to turn them this way into the wind. All carefully controlled to keep it as real as possible. Under it all is the numbers that made up the universe, the left over parts of decaying stars that scattered themselves across the galaxies that were in every vein of every leaf that made them just that shade of green.

Pours it out and out and builds and builds until there is a comfortable eternity of garden for them to wonder in. Behind them if she turned, would be the door to take them back to those blood drenched halls, made larger again, but empty of people.

Just them, here. No suffering, nothing to hurt. Just a twisting turning reality. ]

( okay, it's done - you can look now. )

[ Her companion is not so well-versed in these little mind games, but she is a rho to her core. She picks them up quickly, and with each new experience she has with the Hive, with the Station, with Ren and Steve, with Angel and her mind, she gains in leaps and bounds. She as a knack for it, an intuition, maybe something to do with her world of magic and superstition, she doesn't fight the reality of these new powers, and is flexible in what they might accomplish... This moment with the angel is the sort of training that interests her above and beyond the scavenging and the weapons.

She cannot keep up with everything Angel does, but she gets and impression of its complexity, like strands of wind stirring against her cheeks, through her hair and fingers. What will it take her to be so proficient? Cathaway had promised her it could be time, with patience, with dedication. Her determination is not hidden, a beacon of fire that twists inside of her, a tightly wound cyclone of spirit.

It is not quite pleasure that she shows at the lovely vision her companion has created for her, far too serious and grim, studying the concept of it all with ferocity. ]

[ It's better shown rather than explained for Angel at least, her abilities had always been hard to explain to others. Like trying to explain what it was like to move an arm or leg. It came intrinsically, if somewhat haphazardly at times. An understanding that if she twisted her thoughts just so and moved the light through her in just this way, it all came apart under the force of will and twisting forgotten things.

At that attention, she assumes she likes it, isn't terrified by it. Rather, she doesn't say anything after that, just lets her explore this great expanse. Its details, -- that are in almost constant movement, never stagnant, always shifting as light shifts, moving like atoms do. It shimmers with its information, as close to life as she can make.

After awhile, and it does seem to go on without note in here, she speaks again. Softly, reverberates through the leaves and the path and the stones. ] ( I can build like this wherever I want. So if you ever want to see it again... )

[ A charming offer that Ilde has no interest in. A pretty picture to indulge in, but... ]

( It is false. )

[ Perhaps one day it would be appealing to lose herself inside that garden, the one now written into a safe place inside the many files of Angel's mind. But for now... there is so much else to be done. ]

[ She nods the once, sighing, and it shimmers and dissolves like it never was at all, and once more they look over a city of code, walls that teem with life. She gives a sigh as it goes, and settles back flat on her feet. ]

( Yes. Think of it like a painting that you can walk around in. ) [ she's right, there are other things to be doing, a great deal, and others she needs to give information too when they come to her. ] ( But whilst within it, I decide what is perceived and what isn't. It can be incredibly hard to break, I've practised it a great deal. ) [ Which she says not to brag, there's no arrogance in her tone, she's not there to say she's all powerful, to lord it over others, rather it's just a statement of use. Illusions have their place, and one day, if she ever needed misdirection, it could be useful and Angel would always be willing to help. ]

( I should mistrust you. You are the very definition of a witch. ) [ Their pretty faces, their sweet and gracious ways, their mastery of illusion which hid the ugly ugly things inside of them. The women who had risen up to face the man who would burn through the world. ] ( Cathaway too. She dazzled me with light and noise. It does not make her pure. )

[ A very severe topic for Ilde. Purity. It was important to her, and she wrestles with her desire to have and do what these other women show her. What would it make her, if she took on such guile? Not the girl the King had loved. ]

( I think perhaps he would forgive me. To be strong and thrive, he would forgive me. But perhaps I flatter myself. )

[ She steps back, just enough to loosen her finger's from Angel's and leave the illusion. It is becoming exhausting. ]

Perhaps I can wield such things with love in my heart.

[ Love for Him, so that she would not become what he most hated. ]

Edited 2016-04-25 17:41 (UTC)

[ She lets Ilde detangle from her, mentally, physically, and it is exhausting, a shuddering shake that moves through and the programs held deep within her mind chatter with concern. When she lets it drop, it's like letting go of a breath she was holding onto. She staggers, catching herself on the terminal, head down, sucking in like she'd been running. It kicks her like a craving, sharp to her stomach, the want of eridium. She would have no trouble with it coursing through her veins again, and her fingers curl around and in a need to hold steady.

But -- no, that's just exhaustion talking and she shakes her head. She chose this, she wanted this, she would keep wanting this, she's not what Jack wants her to be, she wants to be who she wants to be. ]

Trust me, or don't. That's up to you, but I can tell you I'm no witch, and I'm not an angel either. I'm not here to lie to you and pretend I'm pure either, so you can make of it what you want. I'm done with... with all of it.

[ For good or for ill, whatever that came of it. ] But I do know these powers are what we make of them, so... if it's love then, that's as good as anything else I've ever seen it been used for.

[ She has no idea what love is. She does not know if she feels it for her brood, for her King, for herself. Love is nothing more than a word to her, and she doubts herself that she can make it into anything else. She has never loved, all she knows how to do is save herself.

She hadn't meant to vocalize such a thing to Angel, she had gotten overtaken with one too many thoughts, and perhaps for a moment she was back in her garden alone with only the plants to hear her. She gives the girl an uncertain look, lips pursed. She likes Angel. But... yes, mistrusts her, assuredly. Her eyes are too pretty, it is dangerous. She is too kind and too helpful and Ilde is certain she will need her assistance again. Such is Hive.

(So perhaps, it is herself she mistrusts, most of all.) ]

I'm sure you're right.

[ A somewhat sour and distant platitude. ]

Edited 2016-04-26 16:29 (UTC)

[ She pushes herself upright, working through the craving and the need. They'd saved her definitely, but it wasn't without its side effects. Maybe if she were in a stronger mood for it, she might spell out what she means more directly. For now, she just presses her lips together and frowns a little at the tone. ]

Really? I'm not.

[ She shakes her head, finally letting go of the bench and wipes her palms on her pant legs. Flicking out the numbness and the crackle of electricity that sparks on her fingers like it's so much unwanted water. ]

[ A sideways glance, unapologetic but grimly contemplative. ]

I suppose that is the wisest position to take.

[ She shrugs with a lift of her shoulder, she's a little too open with her tiredness at the moment. This is more exhausting than she ever remembers it being.

It might be nothing really, after being so close as they were, it feels odd to stand apart from her now, being watched and contemplated. ]

We'll work it out, somehow. [ It's a plainly given smile and something of an offer, to help, to muddle through this with someone who knows what it is to have to deaden the soul to survive what must be done. ]

[ Ilde purses her lips. It occurs to her that perhaps Angel's good humor is just a determination. Ilde herself had a few behaviors, more subtle, but the same in that she simply enacted them because the alternative was unbearable. They each dealt with their strife in their own way.

To call Ilde empathetic was not quite correct, but she was quite willing to let people be as they were. ]

Somehow.

[ Soft agreement, and then in a tone slightly sharp, a symptom of her conflict. Perhaps she feels vaguely sorry for insinuating Angel was a witch, but by all definitions she knew the girl was one. ]

This excursion has barely begun, you should not expend all your energy too quickly.

[ Embarrassed somewhat, her hand comes up and brushes against the back of her neck. trying to hide the faint shake in them. She's right -- just, gotten too excited. ]

I over estimated a little, it's nothing that resting for awhile won't fix.

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[MISSION LOG] GET IN THE CAR

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