MISSION: WAYPOINT SHRIL, PT. I

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: WAYPOINT SHRIL
WHEN: Day :025 - :029
SUMMARY: Welcome to Waypoint Shril, the soon-to-be home to the galaxy's most incredible competition!
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.

SOMETHING IS WRONG. Strange, how a moment ago everything seemed perfectly fine - as normal as things get on Station 72 - and then the next the entire void shifts by a degree. There's a crackling, anticipatory feel in the air. Dwelled on too long and it might become nauseating, triggering some hindbrain impulse the nervous system under the skin or--

Something is coming.

Something is coming undone.

In the heart of the Station in a small, featureless circular room, The Prince and Cathaway dredge the Station from its mooring. There's a rush of shared adrenaline, then an massive sensation like an inhale. A gulp of breath. Relief floods through the body like something palpable as the massive beehive structure of the Station snaps into real space above the deep space space station known as Waypoint Shril.

( ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬...Please meet us in the hangar. We have your next assignment....▬▬▬. )

Once they've arrived at the hangar, the Hosts will be briefed by Cathaway and Prince on their new objective. They'll be given their mission kits, along with a written brief on their databanks. The usual warnings apply. Try not to kill anyone. Do not get killed yourself. And accomplish your mission. From there, pack yourself onto the transport shuttle and make your way to the Waypoint. --One of you knows how to drive, right?

Once ejected from the Station, you'll find yourself on one of literally thousands of ships. The black space above Waypoint Shril is full to bursting with air traffic from the smallest pod-shaped one being ship to the most gargantuan floating planet cruisers. Some of them rival even the Station which now lurks, a mottled white and grey latticework structure that's no more bizarre to look at than any of its neighbors.

VROOM. A ship shaped like a sword with a naked multi-limbed alien painted in lascivious, technicolor detail along the blade slices directly across the path of the shuttle transport. It blares a proximity alarm and a holographic message full of swearing and threats pops up even as the ship blasts down toward the traffic choked landing platform in the distance. A school of insectoid fighters go swarming after it. In the distance, the flash of ships dropping out of hyperspace through the gate rings gleams like a strobe light and on around the landing platform itself buzz two dozen security vessels desperately trying to keep order.

Welcome to Waypoint Shril. Don't crash into anyone on the way in.

     I. PLATFORM ALFA
When the ship finally docks on Waypoint Shril - after a lot, lot longer than you may have liked -, the scene that greets you is more hectic than even the busiest rush-hour on Concordia. There are simply too many people in too small and too hastily prepared of a space. The platform itself was clearly designed for utility, not for comfort and not for style. The walls- towering sheets of welded metal from a countless number of sources, flecked with old paint and the occasional slash of grafitti - offer nothing in the realm of sound dampening, and the electro-cloth banners that hang from the ceiling, advertising the Aurora Blue Arena! in dozens of different languages do little to help. As a result, the entire platform echoes with thousands of voices trying to talk over each other and the newly enhanced intercom system struggling to be heard over the din as it works to provide simple directions and instructions for the teeming mass of tourists.

In the press of flesh and the constant motion, it’s easy to get swept away from your party. It’s easy to find that the items you just had on you are suddenly missing, expertly palmed away by slippery fingers as you try to push your way towards the series of pneumatic tubes leading to the Waypoint proper. Ship's hydraulics hiss, lights flash, and the smell of greasy stall food spreads out from the edges of the platform. There are a few bright-eyed, clever locals - or what count for locals on Waypoint Shril - who don’t hesitate to reach out and grab your arm, offering to be your guide. Asking if you’re here as a spectator or a participant. Asking if you need information. Company. Everything has a price.

Get your bearings - if you can. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks.

     II. THE MOST FABULOUS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE (Please Excuse Our Dust!)
Waypoint Shril's main thoroughfares and twisting platforms may have made sense to someone, but now absolutely no one knows how to navigate them as the ABA! has swept through Waypoint, bulldozing and building up anything and everything in its path. Oh, did you like that tentacle sandwich shop you stopped in five minutes ago? Too bad! We decided two minutes ago we're tearing it down to make way for a spa-slash-beer-garden! Stand back please, there are explosives detonating in this area in 3, 2, 1…--!

Everywhere you look, Waypoint Shril is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Maybe there are places on the outskirts, far from the Arena Zone that aren't literally being paved over or built on top of, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. Don't get lost as the neighborhood quite literally changes shape around you!

     III. MEET THE COMPETITION
Between the fabulous prizes and the fabulous fame - every single still-living winner of the previous competitions became household names before they stepped out of the Arena, then went on to live lavish lives of excess where they're paid exorbitant fees just to be seen and heard, known for canoodling and cavorting with the best, the brightest, the most privileged the Galaxy has to offer- it’s no surprise that the ABA! draws competitors like a magnet. And while not everyone advertises their status, plenty do - hoping to exchange the slimmest possibility of their victory for favors or drinks or just plain old attention. They’re loud, they’re visible, and plenty of them are very, very drunk, or whatever counts for drunk for their species.

If you want to size up the competition, now’s the time - in the middle of Blunt Force, with scores of other competitors lined up. The club itself is home to a deep, thrumming beat that vibrates through your chest, the industrial concrete walls covered in splashes of electro-paint that pulses in time with the beat. The floor is dark and smooth, the bar is long and there isn’t a single seat to be found at it, just an endless slab of some ancient black stone that drinks slide back and forth across. Every bartender wears a half of a mask in clear plastic run through with simple circuitry in complex patterns and they’ll keep you hydrated for a modest price. Above the floor on a catwalk composed of corrugated metal and transparasteel there are low couches and cushions in rich fabrics of a hundred different patterns of velvet and neon, two dozen tables, and another small bar that will hand out drinks and powders and oils and smoke. The patrons are as varied as anything else in this place, as hodge-podge. Slender, slick looking people with hunched backs and long necks. Short, broad aliens with four legs and four arms. Something heavily shrouded, the only part of them visible a proboscis. Some are here to dance, some to drink, some to talk and more than a few to fight - maybe for keeps. Hell, you might be one of them.

     IV. WILDCARD
There's plenty to see, do and explore. You've got a few days before the competition kicks off - might as well make the most of it.

---

((OOC NOTES: Welcome to Waypoint Shril! This log covers the arrival on the Waypoint and can be used for anything prior to the start of the Aurora Blue Arena! on Day :029. However, feel free to make your own logs if you choose! You can find a complete mission overview and a place to ask any mission-specific questions over at the OOC post.

Thanks everyone!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[miscreant]

Her smirk spreads as she watches the boy scoot away from Shepard like he had been shot at, and she chooses to take the seat she'd been offered, leaning back in silent observation. She has no doubt that whatever the other woman is attempting to introduce her to will largely be a wasted effort, but she can appreciate the attempt and offer. It's certainly more than most would try.

Her opinion changes when she takes the top off, and her ears flick upwards. After all, her people were magic sensitive -- it is not a familiar sort of magic (maybe, not even magic at all) but she can smell it's foulness easily at this distance. Not quite fel, but certainly not the purity of arcane. Tentatively, she reaches for it and twirls the mug to watch the substance slosh about.

"From experience, I can say that it doesn't take much," she replied with some jest. Before asking any further questions, she takes a larger sip that she rightly should, and her ears go back immediately. A surprised swear escapes in Thalassian, something about a dragon's nether regions. She hadn't been certain what to expect but -- well, she didn't expect to taste it. And she recognizes the magic now -- sickly sweet, similar to the plagues her kind spread.

She peers down into the mug with one eye half closed. Is it working? It feels like it might be. If only she'd remembered what it felt like.

"Where did you find this?"

[earthborn]

"I didn't find it, I had it thrust upon me," Shepard intones meaningfully, then takes a mouthful of her own. She can't help the expression as it goes down, or the guttural whoo-ahr of appreciative suffering, but it's not really enough to do much-- just a sip, honestly, "I've got a few friends among the Krogan; Ryncol's their drink. Turns out, you do a friend enough favors, they'll con ya into having a celebratory drink; I thought it was gonna eat my stomach."

She gestures with her mug, sloshing it slightly, and grins at the memory.

"Urdnot Wrex, King of Tuchanka. Calls me his sister then tries to feed me uncut Ryncol. That's family for you, I guess."

[miscreant]

"Sounds like an orc -- though, he would go by 'Warchief' rather than King," Seviilia comments, bemused. "Or a troll, I suppose. Disgusting creatures they are." She takes another sip -- this one isn't as awful. In fact, the burn is almost exciting. She could hardly remember the last time something felt new. Almost all feelings she was experiencing through the Nest were entirely unpleasant.

Not so, with ryncol.

"My time with them was minimal, and you cannot often measure a people by those sorts that make up my regiment. But if these 'krogan' are anything like the orcs, you should be proud of yourself for gaining their trust. They are at war, elsewhere." Said offhandedly-- after all, Azeroth had always been at war, she imagines even when she was alive and young.

[earthborn]

"Speaking as someone who's sitting across from a self-proclaimed literal corpse," Shepard says, punctuating the declaration with an abbreviated toast and the touch of her lips to the cup, "...Takes one to know one."

Those who live in rotting houses shouldn't throw stones, or something.

"Well, that sounds like the voice of experience. I don't know how these Orcs work, but when the Krogan go to war, it's not exactly... small."

[miscreant]

"Orcs are more tolerable than trolls, truth be told," is her simple reply, to which she does not bother refuting Shepard's comeback. She takes another large gulp of her drink, to the point that she nearly gags it in return. Once she is certain it is down, she offers a secondary reply. "I do not know the whole tale but the orcs are not from our lands. Ultimately they were forced to flee their own, and war has followed ever since in several different forms."

To this, Seviili waves her hand. "But these are not the kinds of topics for drinking. Tell me more of how you came about this krogan King of your's."

[earthborn]

"Alright, fair enough," Shepard replies, without malice. Alien politics were boring enough without the added benefit of them being completely irrelevant and well beyond the ability to effect any of them, "Right, so-- How I met Wrex..."

She thought back on it, shit, had it really been in the middle of C-Sec? Shit.

"When I first saw Wrex, he was nothing more than a broke-down mercenary, sitting in the middle of the local law enforcement offices, on account of him being a big, mean Krogan, and they didn't want to deal with the trouble," Companionably, Shepard reaches out as she talks, topping Sev up, "I happened to steal his target, and he said as much when I went past him on my way through. I thought I was going to have a fight on my hands, a guy like that, but instead he gave me his commission fee. Said I earned it, not him, so the credits should go to me, one professional to another. It made an impression, so when he asked to come with me on my mission, I said yes."

It takes a little more focus than it should, but with a moment's quiet, and some concentration, Shepard manages to push the image of Wrex-as-he'd-been at Seviilia. There was a certain sensation that came with being barely five feet tall and facing down someone who was big even for a notoriously large species. Red carapace and scarred face, Urdnot Wrex had never seemed like someone lightly fucked with.

"We did some good work together, nearly killed one another a time or two, saved the Galaxy, and went our own ways. Next time I saw him, he'd gone home and kicked out the old clan chief, taken his throne, and set up his own way of doing things. Inside of a year, he's got influence over an entire world, and he's uniting the whole damn species under one banner. Not bad."

[miscreant]

Seviilia received the image easier than Shepard is able to pass it and pauses in her drinking to admire it. "Oh. He looks a bit like dragonkin. Fascinating." She absorbs all the details the other woman offers about her relationship with him. The idea of saving the world isn't a new one to her -- Azeroth was constantly in need of saving. But an entire Galaxy? That is much grander. So she nods along, sipping ryncol until the magic holding her together starts to rebel in protest, forming a headache between her eyes.

Right. Slower.

"Sounds impressive. You would be hard pressed to mend such bonds among many other species."

Try getting the kaldorei and sin'dorei to talk civilly to one another, for example.

"We could benefit from such pragmatism here."

[earthborn]

"I don't know if he mended anything, so much as grabbed them by the balls and told them to quit being a bunch of big scaly toddlers," Shepard was speaking into her cup, eying the crowd as she did so. Two good-looking women, drinking together, and not giving of the signals that said we're involved might not be quite as good a hook as doing it alone... but it wasn't nothing.

"As I recall, his biggest power-move was convincing all the female clans to take his side. Name me one society that can walk away when all the women put their feet down."

[miscreant]

Seviilia practically titters at Shepard's crass correction, enough that she feels the need to clear her throat -- the sound, in reality, is awful and draws the attention of a few people nearby. Caught between the urge to drink more casually and call them out, she ends up staring straight at them until they go back to dancing -- after moving farther away from their booth, of course.

Whoops. Maybe there was a good reason that it was so hard to get a corpse drunk.

"I suppose you are right," she offers after a second clearing of her throat. She nudges the now empty mug away from herself and towards Shepard, as if she had come to expect her to simply refill it again. Typical elf.

"Do you find comfort having your feet on solid ground again?" The idea of space travel is still a lot to wrap her head around but -- well, her people could teleport in the blink of an eye. Perhaps there were more farfetched ideas in the world.

[earthborn]

Shepard's feeling no pain; she refills Seviilia's cup without comment. You're killing her bait here, babe, but at least you're providing alternate entertainment for the evening.

"Eh, I wouldn't call this solid ground, myself," Shril is a pretty big station, but it's still just an astroid outpost, at best, "But, come to think of it.. nah. I like space. What about you?"

[miscreant]

She hadn't really thought of it that way -- the Station only felt like it was adrift because of all of its walls, and the strange organic feel it had. This was really no different, and for a long moment she is clearly at odds with the idea. Eventually a long suffering sigh escapes her nose and she pulls the drink back closer to herself in exchange for pouting.

"Well, I was delighted," she half-grumbles, leaning all of her weight on her elbows. "Open air, the arena -- something a bit more familiar would have been nice."

She makes a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Space travel is a bit out of my purview."

[earthborn]

"Oh, don't give me that, you've been in space for the last month, and you're not going to get any better," This with an accusing finger from the hand still wrapped around Shepard's glass, "Space travel is your purview, from here on out."

And drink to that, a harsh, burning, painful thing. She shakes her head to clear it, after.

"The open air is nice, I'll give you that. And, I'm always up for arena combat."