[MISSION: HYRYPIA] And through that cordage threading with its call one arc synoptic of all tides

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Everyone
WHERE: Station 72; Naerstone House
WHEN: DAY :001
SUMMARY: Makeovers, wining, dining and...dead bodies??? The first night on Hyrypia.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.

CASTING OFF
     I. MAKEOVER, MAKEOVER
[It's less than one full day after the briefing that the hosts once again have a voice interrupt their thoughts. It is familiar this time: the curt, low sound of Siva’co in their mind without warning.]

( There is- ) [the passage of time pressed into their minds like a flower into a book- one hour-] ( until departure. All hosts will report to the Hangar Deck for supply and outfitting. ) [He does not say precisely when they should report, but something about the weight of the words says sooner rather than later.

When the hosts arrive there is a strangely antiquated looking ship waiting for them, its rivets and steel in bizarre contrast with the seamless white flow of the Station’s walls. Its gangplank is already lowered, but before they can pass into the interior there is a raised platform manned by Rhan and Siva’co. Once again clad they're clad in the layered robes that Misato and Aloy had seen them in. On the platform there are stacks of similarly lush and contrasting fabrics, one for each host, each one a neat pile topped with a pair of odd boots that give the impression of heels.]

There will be no space on the ship to kit up. You will need to outfit yourself before we depart. If you cannot figure out how to dress yourselves, get assistance.

[His voice is clipped, sharp and precise. It does not invite conversation. The slightest survey of the deck reveals that there is no kind of privacy provided, which may explain the crooked grin on Rhan’s face.]


     II. IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
[Once aboard the ship there is little time before the deck of Station 72 drops out beneath them, lowering them down and out and into the still darkness of the in between.

They stay there, frozen for a second before the engines kick on - a low efficient hum, no apparent feeling of motion to accompany it. After a moment another much louder noise begins. It's a gurgling, creaking sound that seems more suited to the ship’s exterior appearance.

Siva’co remains where he has been since they boarded, poised beside a panel just to the left of the hatch to the exterior where he's checking a number of crisp readouts. They're digital black and white like the databanks held by all hosts and are completely out of place in the ship's leather and wood interior. After a moment, seemingly satisfied, he reaches down and snaps the display shut - holding his hand there as a glow spreads around the edge of the panel the fades into a seamless fusing into the interior walls, just another section of brass and pipe and spinning dials. He moves through the cabin then, down the rows of seats and towards the cockpit, nodding to Rhan as he passes her.

She seems to take it as a sign, standing up as he disappears with a dip of his head under the low bulkhead of the hatchway. She drags a heavy bag out from under her seat and drops it with a thunk.]

Well my dears, we've a few hours ahead of travel ahead of us. I hope everyone brought along something to read. If you're feeling bored, might I suggest swapping notes on the mission briefing? You've brought your highlighters along, right?

[She grins, flashing an encouraging wink.] --Oh! And before I forget, I've a little present for you all from myself and Siva'co.

[Rhan reaches into the bag, producing a series of ancient looking books.] Take one and pass it down. [She hands one to the nearest Host. The books are shockingly light... because they've been hollowed out into the perfect shape to conceal a databank.] This way you can keep your cheat sheets with you at all times. I've decided we're all very religious -- or at least that we have the pretense of it.

[As promised, the trip in is indeed long. It takes them through vast reaches of real space. It's quiet and still - the perfect atmosphere to get some last minute studying in.]


HYRYPIA
     [At a distance, Hyrypia is a world made of gold and brass banded with iron. As the Host ship pierces down through the atmosphere, the colors morph and curve into hard stone, bitter scrub, black seas, and beautiful - but barren - golden waves of long valley grasses. White stones and squat farmhouses speck the landscape which slants as if inevitable toward the glittering pastel household acting as sentinel at the landmass's edge where today a hundred brilliantly colored banners and flags fly from every tower and gate, are wound through every garden and adorning every tent on the grounds surrounding it.

Naerstone House sits at the eye of a veritable flock of ships of every design and taste. They range from delicate as a rapier to solid as a stone, from as slight as this small ship the Hosts have used for their transport to large enough to cast a shadow across the entire structure of the compound. The yellowed grasses bend and shake in the shadow of them as they drop from the sky and the Hyrypians stuffed on the gray road leading to Naerstone from the valley hold their clothes against the energy dispersal from the engines. The host ship touches down in the fields in a place marked out with blue and yellow flags, just one of scores.

Welcome to the corner of Hyrypia where hundreds upon hundreds of varied Rabadoceans have met under a flag of peace for perhaps the first time in two centuries. As the gangway to the platform is lowered, it becomes immediately apparent that Rhan and Siva'co's companions have come to meet you. Completely obscured from head to toe, there's no telling what they look like, but surely they must be familiar to the agents, as no one asks questions when one of them hurries aboard.]

[Lyr's mind is cool like a river stone, though in this moment the river is being chopped by rainfall:]

( Half of you - the ones who know how to speak - follow me in the procession to the Veranda. The other half - take everyone's things and go with Collector. )


SPLIT THE PARTY
     III. THE PROCESSION AND VERANDA
[Lyr leads the hosts in his company to join the long, winding procession making its way up they gray road to Naerstone. They are all recognizably Rabadocean, though their styling and some mutations of their biology separates them into clear subsets. Here is a group with elaborate cloaks of liquid silver billowing as flags in the acrid sea wind; there is a group dressed in thick rich furs, huddled close for warmth and trying not to look it as they make their way. Everyone travels on foot through the field of ships, the village of brilliantly colored silken tents, and everywhere one looks is another strange collection of people to stare at. --And some of them may be staring back.

The grand procession winds its way through the main entrance of the sky blue compound, through brilliant open breezeways painted with frescos of four legged animals, lush vegetation, and threads of light. Eventually this train of people reaches a vast garden at the center of which is a massive shallow pool with a path leading to the covered structure at its middle. THE GARDEN has clearly been decorated for a party. On one side is an apparent series of games and common entertainment, and on the other are a series of low tables and long benches dressed for an inevitable dinner studding the space between low flowering shrubs and beds of golden grass punctuated with winding stone paths.

But they bypass this all in favor of THE VERANDA itself, draped in gauzy silks and furnished with a series of low couches and delicate wood chairs with elaborately embroidered cushions. It's clear that the Veranda is where the ranking officials and their aides will start the evening. There's easy conversation to be had or overhead. Two musicians skillfully play large string instruments balanced on their knees and a series of mute servants make their way through the gathering with trays of fine finger foods and small cups of rich black wines. They're so silent and unaffected by the hosts of company that they might as well be dead.

--Which is because, on closer inspection, they apparently are. Or close to it. They've an ashen pallor and milky eyes; one or two of the re-animated dead servants wears conspicuous articles of clothing to cover the thing which killed them - a cracked skull, a terrible wound.]

( Act naturally, ) [says Lyr's voice in the mind] ( If you find yourself drowning, call for me. )

[Enjoy the appetizers and polite company, everyone! Strangely enough, it seems perfectly simple to understand the rough, low shared language of the Rabadoceans and as equally easy to mimic it.]


     IV. THE APARTMENTS AND GARDEN
[Those who remain after Lyr has departed are greeted by the second stranger. Much like Lyr, she speaks into their minds, but unlike him her voice is soft and sweet and melodic, ringing pleasantly as a bell, accenting somehow the sound of crowds and distant pulsing beat of some kind of music. She is taller than the rest, and the process of elimination says that this must be Collector.]

( Welcome to Hyrypia. I hope you will tell me your stories, when there is time. For now, please follow. )

[She turns, heading in the opposite direction as Lyr and his batch, weaving her way effortlessly through the crowds towards the largest collection of buildings on the castle grounds. Each building is connected to the rest by plain walkways through simple stone gardens with the occasional gently sloped awning. It's a longer walk then it seems like it should be, but after they pass some of the more grand rooms - most of them at least partly open to the air - they come across another low stone patio. This one Collector steps on to, passing through the wide open entry and into the half shadowed space beyond.]

( There are a number of rooms, please, take your pick. I would suggest keeping your most valuable possessions with you, but there are lockers beneath each bed. They have tales here of lovers being secreted away in them, but these should not be occupied. )

[With that thought - the bubbling cheerful ring of it - she passses through the living area, sidestepping the low piles of cushions and disappearing into one of the rooms.]

( We should join the festivities soon- ) [Her voice is as near as it would be directly into their ears, despite her absence-] ( And please, feel free to speak. Silence is only my virtue.)

[It is only a short time later that she again emerges from the room, pausing in the center of the space and pulling a bell from her sleeve, ringing it once with her gloved hands - a sharp peal that interrupts even the low background hum of the surrounding apartments.]

( We must now venture out. There are stories waiting to be made. )

[She leads the hosts out the same way they came and then further into the heat of the festivities. Here the crowd grow thicker - a myriad of Rabadoceans, some wearing intricate costumes, some in elegant garments or wearing very little. All head towards the same space - a great GARDEN at the center of which is a shallow pool and VERANDA. Clever eyes may spot the other hosts there even though the obscuring gauze. They're hard to miss in all that heavy layered cloth. It draws attention even from strangers here, some of which shoot them glances with their sharp dark eyes. Others Rabadoceans whisper as the hosts pass, but the exact words are hard to hear.

The garden itself is as sprawling as the apartments and is mainly composed of a low shrubs with pale flowers and the same amber grass that covers so much of the planet only broken by the occasional rug and twisting stone path. The largest open areas are home to what appear to be games: balls and hoops and poles. Some look like they're to be struck or thrown, others which appear to be a part of some elaborate strategy game involving the placement of people around a central pole. The Rabadoceans laugh - low coughing sounds - but you recognize them for what they are. Just as you become aware that their words - thick and mealy as they seemed at first, now sound perfectly natural. It would be easy to mimic, easy to speak. Collector smiles through her mind.]

( Go on now. You may be shy, but you must be sharp. Life waits for no soul. )


     V. A COMMON PURPOSE
[When both sides have completed their tasks - picking their rooms and playing alongside the common folk, or eating appetizers and rubbing palms with the elite - all are summoned at once to gather in the gardens together by the signal of a deep resounding horn. The two parties merge on their short trek across the garden to the long low benches. Each set of benches has an equally long table with a narrow walking path through the center of it, and as guests sort themselves into their correct places - each distinct party collected with itself - food begins to be brought out. They're sumptuous and heavily spiced dishes. Although you cannot immediately see her, Collector’s voice joins the procession-]

( You can process all of the food without risk of death, however humans may wish to avoid the eel. It will cause indigestion. They are scooped up from the shallow streams that flow out of the highest mountains, and they dine only on the passings of the cave rodents that surround such places. )

[Lively string instruments play through dinner and talk is encouraged on the fringes of each envoy. Dishes are passed from hand to hand down the length of the long table and re-animated servants pour long streams of dark wine and faintly bitter water from long necked pitchers to wide, intricately inlaid cups. And while you are clustered in with the rest of your “delegation”, there are other Rabadoceans sitting across from you- strangers with strange smiles. Food does not seem to prevent conversation. Anything you want to say without being overheard is better left in your mind- and the minds of others.]


     VI. EVENING'S END
[Evening falls. The braziers are lit. Eventually, the music of the uncanny reverberating string instruments wanes to a tinny pervasive whine that stretches long enough to rouse suspicion. Ting, comes the chime of a small metal bell. Ting, ting, ting - the sound of the metal adoring the robes and elaborate headdresses of the small group of four Hyrypians which passes now down the long path from the Veranda and into the middle of the feasting.

They come to a halt there in the burnished grass. Quiet falls, save for that pervasive buzzing whine. Finally the Hyrypian at the front lifts her hand in the dark, revealing from her belled sleeves the rows and rows of brass and gold and glass scales adorning her gloves. She breathes across her glove and for a moment it's as if the air has turned to gold. It slips glittering between her fingers, then the scales peel themselves from her hands and flitter away to reveal themselves as wings of thin intricately beaten metal with glowing glass bodies: insects with watch-gear small mechanisms powering the rapid beating of their wings. They take flight, swirling and dancing through the thin breeze. As they do, the acolytes behind her raise their own hands to reveal larger insect-lights within each palm. They toss them lightly as jugglers. At their highest peak they too take flight, elegantly pirouetting to hover over the tables and casting a warm glow over the guests who applaud, each according to their own custom. This group cheers with a low whooping sounds from one corner, that one with stomping feet, another with lightly chiming bells. The smaller lights come to land along the edges of cups, on the high peaks of guest’s hats, and on knobby wrists. The machines are small, twinkling lights held on wire fine legs and they hum with a comfortable, welcoming heat.

The leading technomancer then goes swiftly to one knee, her hand pressing into a barely visible stripe of copper that runs down the main walkway. With that, the Veranda behind them lights up suddenly and brightly like a catching flame. The light races along the branching pathways of of the garden led by similarly fine wires, and not long after the lit garden is joined by the entire castle: every castle and balcony shining brilliantly in the darkness by this lone technomancer's hand.

From one of the long central tables, an elder Hyrypian in an elaborately draped tunic and cloak picked with gold rises. She raises a mottled hand before her, palm to the summer night sky.]

Friends. [Ysiddia Cabrielle's voice is low and thick, requiring attention without demanding it. She speaks with all the ease of a Major House of Hyrypian's head - which is appropriate, for that is what she is.] Welcome to our Hyrpyria and this Naerstone House. You've done my family an honor that will persist for generations. Tonight, we know each other as strangers-- [Some measure of her smoothed facade shifts; Ysiddia has a wry smile, as if she's telling a small secret to a cherished second daughter.] --or as enemies. Tonight, we are separate peoples divided by the places we came from and the things which those places required we be. But in the weeks that follow, it's my wish - and the wish of all Hyrypians - that we remember we are all Rabadocean and that the prosperity of one is the prosperity of all. We look forward to reaching the end of this great pilgrimage not in the company of friends, but with honored family.

We hope that this journey will do for you what it has done for our people. That it brings you understanding and renewed respect for The First and all those who have followed down their path. We hope you will come to see our people’s true destiny and true strength. But for tonight and the two days that follow, we invite you to enjoy yourselves as yourselves.

[Ysiddia bows her head to the assemblage, then to the techomancer who rises. The light fades as she does - first form the distant apartment, then to these gardens, to the veranda and finally where she and her acolytes stand.

The music resumes. Ysiddia takes her seat once more and the Seconds retire into the darkened garden.]

---

((OOC NOTES: This is the log for the first day on Hyrypia. For events beyond this evening, feel free to make additional logs/posts occurring on DAY :002 and :003 as the assemblage will be at their liberty in Naerstone and beyond for those two days. What follows after? Who can say.

'Wait, can I NPC this character?' If they don't have a name, go wild. Should you desire mod input or for us to bounce into a thread, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to accommodate. We may also be threadjacking some of these threads, however don't feel compelled to wait for us to do so. Have fun and don't blow your cover!))

MISSION HYRYPIA OVERVIEW • NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[servitor]

( Yeah? Share with the class or not at all? )

[As a precaution, his shields starts to get more complex. Thick, lush forests start to grow as if from nothing, darkness settles, instead of sunlight. There's a sense of being... watched. Overseen. Monitored. Somewhere, bright blue eyes hide between the thickets of the forest, slowly moving from undergrowth to undergrowth.]

[shiro2hero]

[He grimaces. Both in reality and in his mind. But at least with the added sense of security, there's not much chance anyone is going to overhear. And it probably needs to be said.]

(Far as I know... the Darkling isn't his biggest fan and... that's partially my fault, apparently.)

[Embarrassment leaking around the edges of his own mental shields. This doesn't even really make sense to him.]

(Because... he apparently takes offense to us ...) [Oh god he has to say this doesn't he. It's easier to punctuate the word "offense" with the memory of the sharp feelings the Darkling always attached to Sam's name. The way he brushed it off like an irritation.] (... dating.)

[servitor]

( A guy named "The Darkling" is offended that you two are dating. )

[There's about 80 layers of disbelief here. As if anyone should take someone who calls themselves "The Darkling" seriously.]

( He sounds like a real winner here. )

[The coeurl's eyes almost glower and shine, fur bristling. He's had a fair share of people who do and say stupid things because... they're stupid.]

( What kind of jackass calls themselves The Darkling anyway? He doesn't sound worth the time. )

[shiro2hero]

(If that's not his real name, he hasn't decided to tell me what it is.)

[The mental suggestion of him spreading his hands, a big, tired shrug. Something he's just put up with. All of it. Just accepted won't be accepted. Old words still filtering through his head -- do tell your beau not to mind after me as much as he tries to // keep him away from me // irritation, aggravation.]

(He's powerful, and capable with the link and the symbiote.) [A shake of his head.] (And we're in the same... brood. I don't have a say in whether or not his time is worth something.)

[servitor]

( People with power are sometimes the worst ones. )

[But Shiro has a point. Being hyperlinked makes it complicated. And yet...]

( No wonder no one here gets along. Because no one tries. )

[Nyx gets the sense that he really wouldn't like the Darkling, all powerful or not. And maybe it's supposed to be some kind of warning, but the last warning that was issued to him resulted in him still putting on the Ring and winding up here.]

[shiro2hero]

(Fair enough.)

[The sound he makes is somewhere between an exasperated huff and a laugh.]

(Nah, it's easier just to complain and expect everyone else to fix it. Or antagonize people genuinely trying to get along. Not like we need to bond here or anything.)

[Spoken with the tone of someone who has dealt with this before, and expects to be dealing with it for the rest of time.]

[servitor]

( I'm too used to the Glaive to expect at least teamwork around here. )

[Like he's said before, he doesn't even actually care if people get along or not. He just wants there to be enough trust and discipline to work together. Apparently no one can see past their own noses.]

[shiro2hero]

(At this point, I'd settle for open communication.)

[Which would be better than running around relatively blindly if you asked him. But nobody did.]

(Glaive?)

[servitor]

( It's short for the Kingsglaive. I was a member of the king's personal guard back on Eos. Still am, technically. We were more like a second army, taking out daemons and forces sent from the Empire to take down the city of Insomnia. )

[And likely so much of his attitude is explained here. The reason why sometimes it's not just forests and lightning and fire, but discipline and bullets and knives. Why he carries himself with a straight back, shoulders slightly braced, chest out. Why he so desperately believes that teamwork more than anything else will save them.]

[shiro2hero]

(You're a soldier then. Glad to have one around who knows what he's doing.)

[Or, at least, in his opinion, someone who's willing and able to work in teams. Someone who won't explode at the suggestion. There's relief on his end. A lot of it.]

[He'd never considered himself to be one, before recently. But there's an odd security in finding one, all the same.]

(Did you work with a large or small set of people?)

[servitor]

( We used to be a lot more, but by the end of it, we were about a hundred at best. )

[He can't help but fall back to thinking on Crowe and Libertus, his comrades and his most trusted friends. The war had been a losing one, but they'd done their damned best. A brief, shooting melancholy and a weariness echoes in the link. The leaves of the trees in the shield shudder softly

Some days, he just wants to retire and call it day. He already knows that's never going to happen.]

[shiro2hero]

(It sounds like you left a bad situation.)

[There's nothing but sympathy on his end. Sympathy and understanding etched between the stars in his shielding.]

[He hasn't been exactly there. But in the middle of a bad moment, in a war that felt like a losing one at night, when everything crawls out of memory to tackle him... he's been there.]

[servitor]

( Desperate. Not bad. Not yet. )

[It was pretty bad, in truth, but nothing that he couldn't think he could help, or save. He still had hope. Probably the one thing that would lead him to his death, in the end.]

[shiro2hero]

(Hope it doesn't head that way.)

[The worst thing would be doing all of this work, risking all of this, and having your world collapse on itself anyway. At least, in his opinion.]

[servitor]

( Whether or not it heads that way is out my control by then. It's not up to me, but up to Noctis. )

[Things got bad, then they got worse. Noctis got pulled on the brink of salvation.

Nyx can only hope and pray they can both get back to their lives, to make sure things get worse to get better.]

[shiro2hero]

(Isn't he here too?)

[Or is he wrong.]

[He can remember, he thinks, talking to someone with that name briefly. They hadn't ever made a real connection... or maybe he's confused.]

[The Waypoint had been weird.]

[servitor]

( Different time than me. We've both got things to see to, make sure they happen. )

[What it is Nyx isn't... entirely keen on sharing right now.]

[shiro2hero]

[Hey, there are more important things to talk about than specifics. Such as:]

(You two are from different points in time, too?)

[This is a first. He and Pidge were the only ones he was aware of.]

[servitor]

( Ten years ahead of my time. )

[And he'll pointedly channel all the thoughts of his death, the images of his strung up corpse, into his coeurl. It growls angrily and bares its teeth as a response, as a mechanism.]

[shiro2hero]

(That's... that's a big gap.)

[Bigger than his and his teammate's. There's more here. Something else under the surface he doesn't feel right digging for.]

[Instead, he offers:] (Pidge is from my world. She's from a few days after me. And by her account, I was never gone.)

[See what he's trying to figure out?]

[servitor]

( Anything big happening then? )

[Both he and Noctis were taken from the brink, the final moment, something that would've changed everything. And he figures that would've been a turning point, possibly in favor the Enemy finding them.]

[shiro2hero]

[What wasn't happening? That's the question. But it's a good start. If there's a similar link...]

(Yeah -- for both of us. Two different events, but still.)

(You guys?)

[servitor]

( I was in the middle of a stupid idea as a last resort. Noctis? He was about to end a war. )

[The beast's eyes shine bright and piercing. Its fur stands a little more on end, its body a little more braced. His own story is one he could share. It wasn't his place to share the rest of the details of Noctis's story, or even the complicated tangle that was the entire war itself.

Because it hit close to home for Lucis Caelums, close to his own heart for the eventual shortcomings of his actions. Those are answers Shiro won't find in Nyx. Clearly he's willing to protect the integrity of the King without a throne.]

[shiro2hero]

(That... honestly sounds familiar.)

[The bitterness in the words is probably tangible. At himself. At the situation. The memory of Allura's face as fresh and clear as ever. Even after all this time.]

(Maybe there's something to that. Pulling people from last resorts and wars.)

[He can't ask for more than he's given -- he's not the kind of guy to dig for those answers.]

[servitor]

( Well, the Enemy finds and targets us when they know us, right? We might be big threats to them. So we're taken out into safety. Who knows. I told Noctis it might be a big cover-up between our own worlds and the Enemy might've already infiltrated the enemy armies for a long time. )

[Because he doesn't believe that they'd pull people out at random, not when they've been told they're being hunted. It's a bigger plan and a bigger game anyone in the Station has probably considered.]