[hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - Naerstone House
WHEN: DAY :002 - :003
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station, are briefed, then make their way to Hyrypia to join the rest of the hosts… while they attend a very important history lesson.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :002

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP are are suddenly changed. --No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or surfacing up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and everything is because right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. A matching dread. An easy comfort. Maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a nearby closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone.In fact there are lots of you and none of them are the strangers they should be. Some even seems like people you've known for a very long time.They are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room it's quiet and still, feeling for all the world like a hollow shell.

--Or it does until a voice separates itself from the white noise in your head:


BRIEFING
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD isn't really a voice at all. It's the warm tang of camaraderie, tinged with a flash of impatience like ticking hands on a clock face and a flicker of wonder: a falling star. It says:

( My, you're all very fresh aren't you? Unfortunately, the multiverse waits for no spring chicken. Once you've figured out which way's up, won't you all join us? )
Join 'us' where is the question. And yet, once you're ready to meet the owner of the voice in your mind, your footsteps simply lead you there naturally. Two strangers sit in a small circular briefing room - a tall being covered in short brown fur with a rigid demeanor, and a pale alien with yellow washed frills at her jaw and throat who is smiling cheerfully.

"Hey there, sunshine," says Rhan, her frills humming as she speaks. "Why don't you take a seat so we can get started?"

[ooc note: please see here for the catch-all briefing thread]


THE STATION
WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but a distinct lack of people to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank and going over your mission kit is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...

HYRYPIA - NAERSTONE HOUSE
DAY :003

MEETING
A SINGLE SHIP LANDS in a field the color of burnished gold, returning to the place it had until late the night before occupied. It's carefully inserted beside dozens of other spacecraft bearing more than faint similarities, though each has its own unique aesthetic. When the gangplank drops, the loud engines powering down, it reveals--

New hosts. Seven fresh faces - obscured as they are in layers of intricate fabric - are led down the gangplank by Rhan There to greet them is a number of other hosts - any who answered to the sweet crystalline ring of Collector’s voice in their heads hardly a half hour earlier, speaking with certainty born of truth:

( Rhan and Siva’co are returning. Shall we see what stories they have to tell? )

Despite the solidarity that both combined groups provide, there's a feeling of eyes here. A number of guards along the edge of the shuttle field are watching the reunion like hawks. Better perhaps to return to the apartments where they'll be able to speak in private and teach the new hosts what it is that has been learned since their arrival. --Or explore, for those who prefer not to rest. Naerstone House's grounds are vast and they are almost entirely open to the parties of the pilgrims to explore.

THE PERFORMANCE
AS THE SINGLE RED SUN of Hyrypia dips low on the horizon there is a long, low, mournful sound. A deep bell-- or a horn? Or maybe it's something else entirely, but the call is heard and answered as any nearby servants inform the guests of the house:

“There will be a performance of the First Journey in a quarter turn. All guests are invited to attend.”

There's no mystery as to where the event is occurring. A steady trail of guests and servants lead out past the Veranda into the central garden where a number of pillars have been mounted and a large tiered platform festooned with with numerous draped curtains and abstract representations of trees and mountains - a great stage - now sits. The stage is surrounded by numerous low settees and tables, piles of thick cushions and richly colored rugs around which guests can be found clustered, lounging while sipping thick, syrupy drinks.

Each table is illuminated only by a single glowing orb at its center. Otherwise, as the sun sets it pitches the garden into darkness as even the castle itself has been left unlit. There are no lights in distant windows or on Naerstone House's high walls; these small orbs and the glitter of stars in the black sky might very well be the only points of light in the whole universe.

The allotted time passes and the performance begins. A sun rises over the stage. It's a much larger, more intricate glowing orb and reveals a number of players dressed far more simply than the Hyrypians the hosts have met. They wear complex machine masks upon their faces that shutter into different expressions as their hands flitter across their faces: dramatic caricatures to accompany the droning sound of their singing voices as they unfold the tale at the center of the performance - the one which drives this pilgrimage and for the Nest's very presence in the universe at all. It's the story of lost Rabadoceans coming to a planet near barren intent on brutalizing them - about loss and hardship until finally a single player separates from the rest. The orb of the sun over the stage turns, it's mechanical face shifting and resetting to indicate the passage of time as the very central platform of the stage begins to turn so that this lone player might walk. And walk. And walk through deserts and scrub land, through dark woods and dark caves, against the wind and with it. Through it all, the orb over the stage slowly lowers until at last this lone player can take it in their hands.

It cracks like an egg and brilliance streams from it. Braziers catch fire in the darkness. The garden illuminates itself. Every light in Naerstone House comes to life.

With that, the silence of the crowd breaks. There is applause -- each culture in its own unique fashion -- and then there is a rise of chattering conversation as the guests are served several small dishes and talk about the show they’ve just seen - and whatever possible clues it might give to the pilgrimage they themselves would soon be undertaking.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts as well as the evening's performance. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[miscreant]

Born again.

[She chuckles, a grating and unpleasant sound. That makes it sound pretty, like she had shed a long-overdue skin.]

More like...forcefully resurrected. I am undead.

[shri]

[ She frowns deeper for it. ]

What does that mean? The only creature I know that is like that, is what the kind of creature Damon is.

[ And she cannot imagine a single person here doesn't have an idea of how that relationship is. ]

[miscreant]

[Ah yes, Damon. She was not on particularly positive terms with him either, though for entirely different reasons.]

There are creatures similar to Damon where I hail from, but we are...quite different.

[Their diets were different, for one. Damon's explosive temper matched the speed at which he moved. She was a frozen wall, brutal, heavy, and immovable.]

The nuances of our differences are likely of no interest to you.

[shri]

[ To that, she stands firm against. ]

Perhaps, perhaps not. But you should explain what you are regardless.

[ A firm expectation, she will make up her mind about her only when she has all the facts, so to speak. ]

[miscreant]

[Seviilia blinks in silence once, then twice, then three times. She had thought she made herself quite clear. Any other explanation--

Well, she asked.]

It is as I said. I am undead. An undead elf. An elf that was once alive, then killed, then resurrected into a soldier. They call us Death Knights.

[She looks down the bridge of her nose, somewhat impatiently.]

You're going to have to be more specific if that explanation is not sufficient.

[shri]

[ It sounds... similar. But not quite the same, clear that she is doing her best to take it in, as much as she can. Even so, it's a lot - but everything has been a lot the last few days, hasn't it? ]

And are you like him? Do you feast off of others?

[miscreant]

As I understand, his diet requires blood, whereas mine only requires bodily suffering. No consumption necessary.

[She offers a smile that's mostly hollow. Just because it wasn't necessary didn't mean she was against the indulgence but -- well, that's not a piece of information to share.]

An unfortunate side effect.

[shri]

[ - That is, enough to make her step back, set her hands to her sides, regard her flatly. ]

And you... seek out places of such suffering? Or do you cause it yourself?

[miscreant]

I am a soldier. The years have informed others that the undead are good for battles nobody else wishes to fight. I typically find it in abundance without trouble.

["Typically" being the key word.]

I am afraid our current setting is...less suited for such things.

[shri]

[ She laughs then, as she understands - her head tilting back. This is all very serious, no doubt, she will hate this creature, she must. She has no bend in her about it. ]

Then I must have been food for you indeed.

[miscreant]

Well.

[The tone she takes is most definitely a "guilty as charged" tone, a light roll of one shoulder. No point in denying facts when she had shown them plain as day.]

A morsel.

[shri]

[ She smoothes a hand across her lower face as she settles the smile flat again that twitches so briefly. As amusing as she finds that company, she settles it. It is different again to any Lycan or Vampire she knows, but she knows her duty still. ]

I think if that is as you say, we can have no true companionship. But I will hold to my word, as I see it. Give me a reason to want for your death and you will find me unrelenting in that task. Until then, as I must give my own - [ her distaste could not be more palatable as she says the word and the connection that comes with it. ] brood - I will stay my hands.

[miscreant]

You would hardly be the first. But you will also find it is much harder to kill that which has already returned from death once before. All that aside, the symbiote we share is...reluctant to see its brothers and sisters harmed. I would highly recommend not wasting your time.

[She glances around the room briefly before looking back to Lakshmi.]

With me, or with your brood.

[shri]

[ She hovers on the words, not her own, - there is always more than one way to skin a rabbit. But they aren't her words and they are no more than forced bravado on a circumstance she does not yet understand. ]

So I have been told.

[miscreant]

But you do not believe it? Surely after all that fuss...

[Her eyes briefly move to where she knows the bite wound to be. It is brief, but knowing.]

[shri]

[ A look that is not unmissed, a short sharp bark of laughter for it. ] it would take me more than that to sway me from making a fuss.

[ Back stiff and shoulders set, she lets out a breath. ] But I can appreciate that this is not the time nor the place for such convictions.