station72 | [hatch log / mission: hyrypia] the winds that will be howling at all hours

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 )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[If Murphy still needed some outward sign or confirmation to recognise a fellow Host, he'd almost be glad for the disguises they're all using. But he hasn't needed anything like that for a while, and he knows she's nearby even before she takes a seat on the bench next to him.

It's enough time to pull some of his mental presence back in. Not tidy, not hidden, but tamed enough.]

Sure. [He isn't injured or otherwise in physical pain. He's fine.] Just getting a reminder on exactly how deep the crap we're stuck in is.

[ Tamed, but not entirely invisible. ut then, it's almost impossible for any of them to completely hide themselves any longer isn't it? Aloy shifts her weight a little and her curiosity and her own tumultuous, roiling emotions brush against his mind. ]

It's not really the best situation, is it?

[ The first time she's admitted that out loud. It feels kind or relieving to have someone else to gripe to about things. ]

Anything in particular bothering you?

[The second question sparks a thread of caution in him, unused to strangers pressing him for the particulars of his troubles, and he looks at her sideways through the layers of fabric covering his face. He can't see her, but it comes together that he knows who she is. The one who'd backed up Lexa at the fun briefing they'd had to sit through. Who's been shadowing her since they landed.

An incredulous kind of amusement rises. The idea of Lexa sending someone else to get chatty with him was ridiculous, but caution's kept him alive more times than he can count. It's not a habit he's even interested in shaking.]

What are you, some kind of shrink?

[His mind - always walled, but usually something porous, permeable - glosses over fully, a faultless layer of ice.]

[ Aloy seems a little taken aback by the sharp rebuttal and she almost recoils physically. It ends up being more of a mental thing. If she knew his thoughts, she'd be incredulous--Lexa hadn't sent her to do anything. In fact, Aloy was off sulking to avoid Lexa! She takes a breath and holds her hands up, warding off Murphy's annoyance. ]

I'm just concerned. You could feel that black cloud a mile away.

[ Okay. Deep breath. You can do this. ]

Sorry. I shouldn't have pried like that. I'm Aloy.

[He wishes her face wasn't covered, for a moment. For all that having their brains tied together gave a deeper level of insight, it still never seemed to tell as much as seeing someone's expression could. What they wanted you to see. What they were hiding.]

Murphy.

[He offers, finally, tone losing some of the sharp edges.]

You know, most people steer clear when they see a black cloud.

[Concerned, she said. That ticked one box on the list of available kinds of stupid. But he has the feeling she's multiple.]

[ Murphy. The name is stored away in case she needs it later. She probably will. At least he seems to be relaxing a little bit. ]

I'm the kind of person who runts towards trouble, sorry.

[ That's amusing to her and her mirth shines for a moment. Hell of an understatement, Aloy. ]

Because you're bored? Or because you want to fix it.

[Probably the latter, he guesses, before she's even answered. That made her the hero type, and he almost feels like rolling his eyes already. He had a lot of experience with that type. Ongoing. He doesn't really need another one.]

I'm not the fixable kind of trouble. [Dry and casual, even with all the self-disparagement in it.] Just as a head's up.

Because it's worth trying to stop trouble.

[ She wouldn't call herself a hero, though many others probably would. Aloy is humble that way. She shrugs a little at his words as if to say 'oh well.' ]

The kind of trouble I'm good at fixing is rampaging machines, not people. Didn't think I'd fix you, just thought I'd ask if I could help. If not, that's fine too. It's your business and I can keep my nose out if that's what you want.

[Depends on the kind of trouble. He doesn't say it, because he doubts she'd understand - a thought that sends a splinter of pain digging in. Casual enjoyment of recklessness, chaos, danger was one thing he'd found near totally absent in the nest so far, too many heroes and soldiers and do-gooders. He misses Emori. Viscerally.]

You can't help.

[Even if he felt like talking it out, it wasn't like that was going to make anything better. Just rip it up. Make it raw.]

But I'll let you know if I see any rampaging machines around.

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

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