[mission: hyrypia] i am not there; i do not sleep

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Graze
WHEN: DAY :019 - DAY :020
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; down on the planet Hyrypia, a Host is laid to rest.
WARNINGS: Mentions of character death, funerary services. Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :019

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe with you in it is suddenly different. --No. That's not right. You're you, the universe is as it's always been, 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 coming up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

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. There are a handful of you here, somehow intimately familiar to each other.

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

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the black. It says:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze. It says or feels like:

( Come meet with me, won't you? )

Where exactly this meeting is supposed to occur isn't immediately clear, but head in the direction that seems correct and eventually Station 72 gets you where you're meant to be: a circular briefing room with tiered seating, empty now, before a woman with a sheet of graying hair and something focused in her expression. It's been some time since she's spoken with a young host - since she's done one of this briefings. Apparently she's feeling something like her usual self. She smiles and it's very warm.

"Welcome to Station 72. Unfortunately, you won't be here long but we'd like to answer as many of your questions as we're able before you leave this place."

[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 is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...

In the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots unload two heavy trunks, then dole out a series of kits to the new hosts. One of them - the pale female alien who her calls herself Rhan - cheerfully announces, "Get changes and buckle in. I'm afraid we've some grim business ahead of us today. Funerals, you know. But chin up, my darlings. One uncomfortable day and then we'll leave the matter behind us. --Oh, but do be gentle with the others. I suspect they might be tender for a few days yet."

You leave the Station. If you're lucky, you might one day make it back.

HYRYPIA - THE GRAZE
DAY :020

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION
A SHIP DESCENDS from the iron colored sky early in the morning on Day :020. Before it even pierces the planet's atmosphere, its cargo should be obvious to the other Carbauschians: a new batch of Hosts, freshly hatched and just in time for the grim festivities.

The idea is simple: that they are part of a mourning delegation, only here to briefly oversee Lavellan's funerary rites. Luckily (...) there's plenty of comatose Hosts lying in the tents to trade places with the newcomers.

Better get to know your new friends quickly - there's plenty to be brought up to speed on (such as, uh, the recent death of one of the elder Hosts), and likely enough work to be done that the new spare hands are welcome. Or maybe the state of nothing-like-faux mourning is a good excuse for some alone time on a strange new alien planet. You're all so very, very far from home.


BURIAL RITES
THE FUNERAL has been arranged to the Hosts' precise specifications. Each and every single request they've made has been met, carried out by two soft-spoken, contrite Hyrypian servants who had come to them not long after their return from the hunt. Perhaps because the members of the other envoys are unsure whether it's permitted or welcome to attend, the site of the funerary pyre is hardly full to bursting with onlookers. Or maybe the burning of corpses goes against some obscure tradition. Or maybe some of the minor envoys simply don't care much and think the Carbasuchians are best left to their grief alone. Still, while it's hardly the entire encampment in attendance a notable selection of diplomats and their respective entourages and several of their Hyrypian hosts have turned out for the ceremony. It seems the Descendants in particular have turned out in some force, including the very hunter saved by Lavellan's quick thinking.

When the time comes for the rites to proceed, it's left to the Hosts to light the fire and say their farewells to their fallen comrade - the first and hopefully last to be lost in this strange land.


A SOMBER CELEBRATION
ASH SCENT HANGS HEAVY STILL over the encampment. Or maybe that's simply the perception - after all, the breeze still blows in from over the Great Flat. Surely it's just a memory of the smell which lingers, as circumstantial as the mournful note the wind sighs as it cuts across the Graze and into the tangled Finger Maze.

However, matters of the universe don't pause for the tragedy of the loss of an envoy - and there is so much riding on this Pilgrimage. To their credit, the Hyrypians have done all they can to provide for the Carbauschians in their time of grief (including a visit from the Matron Bassita herself, pale and full of sympathy and apologies), and as evening falls what clearly was meant to be a carousing party to celebrate a successful hunt and completion of the Pilgrimage's first stage has been considerably tempered.

The drinks still flow; the food is still plentiful, rich and lavishly spiced - but the music being played is soft and careful and of the hundreds of small technomanced insect lights the drift over the encampment tonight, a considerably portion of them are dedicated to lingering around the charred skeleton of the funeral pyre as a sober acknowledgement of what has come to pass.

Give it a few hours and maybe the mood will lighten slightly. On the other hand, there's nothing like an uncomfortably close tragedy to bring people together - and as Rhan suggests, maybe now's exactly the right time to ask a few pointed questions. Or to get hammered with new friends. Or to take a nice long walk while everyone else is consumed by the muted festivities.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch, the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia, the funeral of Lavellan and the supremely awkward dinner party meant to wrap the first stage of the Pilgrimage. 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're brand new to the game. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[100mitsubishis]

[How fucking funny would it be to ask for money? Ten dollars a pop, but only American made. At most, assuming this guy is from the US, assuming he has anything in his wallet, he's got a couple twenties. That wouldn't last long.

And unlike Kavinsky, he couldn't make more when he ran out.]

( That's when you get creative. )

[Newbie does himself a service by never asking Kavinsky what it is he's after directly. That means he's saved Kavinsky listing off obnoxiously impossible tasks to perform, items to procure.]

( But if creative isn't your strong suit, I'm sure I can come up with something. )

[Kavinsky has never lacked in that department, himself.]

[raw]

( I'll think about it. )

[ Elliot does carry a little more on him than your average American, a side effect of destroying all credit cards and the American economy — just a subway apple cart charges like, five bucks for a piece of fruit now. But even then, it wouldn't last, and he prefers the barter system anyway.

Right now he's too new to have anything beyond what he arrived with, and his extensive skillset has been made defunct here on planet walk-and-camp. Maybe he could hack a spaceship, but it doesn't seem likely. Would computers even be babbage-based, binary coded, so far from home? ]

So what do you like?

[ Out loud again, because mouth words are habit. ]

I mean, what are your interests.

[100mitsubishis]

[It's been a while since someone asked him that.

It's been ages, it's been

Since ever. Because they've gotten so intermingled up in the Nest that everyone seems to know, and most of them want Kavinsky to give those interests up. They aren't convenient, after all, and when he indulges, the rest of the party wants to do the same.

But he keeps them close to his chest. He ricochets his heartbeat off of 'em every day, just to remind himself of what he used to have every weekend. Fire. Engines roaring. Empty vodka bottle cracking against cement.]

I like to drive.

[raw]

[ Elliot nods, acknowledging that. ]

Not me. I mean, I don't hate it. But I lived in Manhattan. Easier to take the subway.

[ It's possible none of that will mean anything, he's learned, but cars and drugs and cigarettes make for a good chance this guy knows of New York. That concrete jungle of the LES flavoring all of Elliot's mental communications.

Still, it's hard to imagine working with that. What's he gonna do, build this guy a car? Maybe if he hijacked a spaceship — how much morphine would that be worth. (Because of course that's why he's asking, god forbid he make small talk for the sake of it.) ]

What else.

[100mitsubishis]

I like to sleep.

[Two things that might initially sound at odds with each other, but Kavinsky's dreams carry unfathomable treasures, provided that Kavinsky--at the very least--fathoms some of them.

His grin is lopsided, mean. Pity that the other man can't see it. He'll feel it, though. A curved engraving into steel. A brutal sideswipe.]

Don't think too hard, man. What's everyone like? What's everyone after? A good. Fucking. Time.

[raw]

[ The feel-good motivation. Sure. Elliot doesn't bother arguing about how he always thinks too hard: he's beginning to get the picture now. Generally the easiest way to figure someone out is to assume the worst of them, and someone who comes offering a semi-stranger the miracle of a perfect drug makes those assumptions easy.

It's fine. Elliot has dealt with worse. Can accept the existence of a certain level of scum in order to get what he needs to function. ]

You want to party down, I'm not your guy.

[ Might as well be up front about it. Elliot hates parties. Though the stray thought chases it that he's not adverse to fucking around with his dealer, if he's on enough shit that his myriad sexual hang-ups are drowned out (waking up next to Shayla after that free molly on his dirty floor mattress and barely remembering the sex.) ]

[100mitsubishis]

Nah, darling, I think you are my guy.

[Because he showed weakness, right out the gay. He wants his pretty pills, and he wants the hangover after to go away quick (maybe not exist at all). Newbie reads like one of the public school kids that sometimes wandered into Kavinsky's territory. They had to be good to keep up with the speed of Aligonby youths--dropping thousands on fluff, on nothing, because they could.

And yet Kavinsky kinda liked them. Liked the hollow way some of them looked.

Everyone's dad beat them, but maybe some kids got beat by their dad and couldn't buy ten pairs of Oakleys to make up for it. Imagine that.]

I got a nose for this shit.

[raw]

[ The corner of Elliot's mouth quirks, just very slightly, his lashes low beneath the veil, shoulders hunched in a little. ]

Okay.

[ It's a neutral statement, the kind that says he doesn't agree but isn't going to fight about it. He reaches up and tugs at the fabric that covers him, suddenly claustrophobic. Sick of this disguise. ]

So are we doing this.

[100mitsubishis]

[That would make two of them. Sick of the disguise, that is. Kavinsky tried to tear his initial version apart until a couple people complained that he would 'sabotage the mission' and 'doom them all from the start.' Something like that.]

We could do it right now if you want.

[raw]

Let's find a tent.

[ Because if he's going to make bad drug decisions he's at least not going to jeopardize the mission while doing so.

The tent he's been using is so far only shared with Peter, and Elliot takes up the barest fraction of the space, pillows laid out in a corner to mimic his floor mattress back home, hi tops and black hoodie tucked neatly at the foot. He starts stripping as soon as the tent flap falls closed, not particularly body conscious and wanting to be out of the weird footwear and constricting hood. ]

[100mitsubishis]

[They're alike in one regard at least; soon as they're in relative privacy, Kavinsky's also stripping down. The uniforms of their current mission are suffocating shackles that he's glad to be rid of at any given opportunity. He could care less what skin's revealed as he strips down to a slim, final layer--a tank top, boxer-briefs.

Morphine Man isn't gonna complain once he gets a taste of what Kavinsky can get him.]

Think you can keep yourself busy for fifteen?

[raw]

Yeah.

[ Kavinsky stays stripped, but Elliot redresses himself, his hoodie a comforting embrace. Then he just flops backwards onto his makeshift bed, pulls out a cigarette and his datapad — for all that he hates the mission requirements he's obsessed with the theoretical particulars, rereading both the original files and the additional notes he's made following his conversations with others around the camp.

And then he proceeds to have a conversation with Mr Robot, who is better at keeping them shielded than Elliot himself, so to an outsider there's nothing more than Elliot smoking and reading — certainly not getting castigated by his alternate personality for wanting to escape into drugs again instead of doing any damn useful thing.

If he had any sense of self preservation one of them would be keeping an eye on Kavinsky but he's really not.]

[100mitsubishis]

[Elliot's intriguing for the exact reasons most would find him dull or overly suspicious.

He doesn't ask enough questions. He hasn't pressed Kavinsky for more than a cursory amount of explanation. And that's explainable on a surface level--he's a junkie looking for a fix, as single-minded as any dedicated cokehead Kavinsky's ever dealt for. Hell, he's one of them, and when he's jonesing for a fix, he loses sight of the big picture, too.

Except maybe this isn't about missing the forest for the trees, it's more like tuning a radio to the frequency just below where the music's playing. White noise spits out, fuzzing over half the lyrics.

Cool.

Kavinsky knocks himself out. He does it with a pill he hid in one of the many folds of his robes; this one's black. It works immediately, and he slumps in the opposite corner of the tent, dead to the world in a matter of seconds.

Aware in the dream.

He gets to work.

What does he need? Morphine, no hangover.

He doesn't have to worry about it being too addictive, since this man already has the need coiled in his chest. After one hit, he'll want more, so give him two. Three, maybe. Three red pills, and instead of an M, etch J followed by K.

Shit, maybe he wants to inject it. Too bad.

It's more than fifteen minutes, but not by much. Kavinsky wakes with a gasp, with a start, and he thumps his fist against his chest like he means to restart his heart. In his fist a bottle, and in the bottle four red pills all reading JK.

The number isn't wrong, he'd wanted one for himself.]

Got it.

[raw]

[ Elliot has an amazing capacity for obtuseness, given how smart he is. It's only once Kavinsky's knocked himself out that he panics a bit (is this a set-up? In New York that's what he'd expect, someone else coming into the tent flap. But things are too different here. An over abundance of difference and the only refuge in the face of that avalanche is to just accept and ignore.) but then after taking the pulse of that scrawny body and finding it tick-ticking along, manages to calm himself down before any of that panic, say, slides along the phoneline. Or, any more than usual.

So it's still just Elliot when Kavinsky comes back to himself, and when he has the drugs Elliot makes the most incredible what the fuck face with those alien eyes all bugged out and distressed, but he doesn't actually. Ask.

Like, okay, you make shit in your sleep.

(Anything, he'd said, right? Elliot doesn't think, great, an endless supply, he thinks: how else could I use this.)

(Sorry.)

-- Can you believe this kid? asks Mr Robot, arm slung around Elliot's shoulder, both of them peering down as the little red pill is tap-tap-tapped into his palm. ]

What's in it.

[ How many milligrams of morphine — he always did exactly fifty with twenty suboxone after, his own rehab nurse. It's not just about side-effects and withdrawl symptoms, opiates can build up a tolerance and get expensive, so it literally paid to be anal retentive about how he used.

Also, it's easier to pretend you're not an addict if you set yourself rules to follow. Limitations.

He is an addict, though: pretty much regardless of how Kavinsky answers Elliot is fishing his wallet out of his jeans pocket. It has a razor, a pocket mirror, a credit card. So no, he doesn't want to inject it. ]

[100mitsubishis]

Enough.

[He's got a heavy taste in his mouth, like gauze spread over his tongue. Happens sometimes when he wakes up and doesn't immediately indulge himself in a chaser.

Next time he makes new kid's eyes go all buggy like that, he'll make sure he brings a bottle of gin along for the ride.]

Start with one. See how you feel.

[Dream stuff has trouble with exacts; it took Kavinsky ages to make a believable car with the right numbers of wheels, the correct number of headlights, a usable height on the spoiler. He had to be the artist that knew exactly where to place each brush stroke.

Dreamworld wanted to deal in poetry; it wanted magic and fluff.

It's hard to shape milligrams. It's easier to shape do this and don't do that.]

Don't trust me? I'm having one, too. You pick which.

[No poison pill, see? Kavinsky's practicing integrity. He blames certain members of the Nest.]

[raw]

[ It's true, Elliot doesn't trust him, but that mistrust doesn't go far enough to suspect poison. It seems like it would be harder to get away with murder when people can just push into your head, even more revealing than hacking. Or maybe that's just the reasoning of a vigilante.

Anyway, he picks a couple of the pills at random. They look like candy. But only briefly, before he crunches them and then chops them into two neat lines on the pocket mirror, straightens them with the credit card, rolls a dollar bill into a straw. American money. Not the tools he'd use at home, but what he's got.

He doesn't wait for Kavinsky to go first, even though that would be the smart play. The junkie itch beneath his skin doesn't let him wait that long. One good sniff and it's gone, and he hands the other line to Kavinsky, standing unsteadily, chin tipped right up to expose the long line of his throat, blue-green veins and caramel skin. His eyes are closed, and he wavers like a tall tree in the wind, riding out the initial sensation somewhere far away from the tent.

It's good. He'd forgotten how good it could be: numbing, peaceful, a heavy blanket of well-being smothering down all his anxiety and fear. ]

[100mitsubishis]

[What good manners.

Kavinsky knows all about good manners. He knows all about the world of civilized men, so many wolves in wool suits. He knows about those in the dumpsters of the world, too. Doesn't matter where on the sliding scale one lands, anyone can be junkie. He's there, this one as well. And he plans on savoring it at some point, really getting down by being high with his new client, but not on the first date.

No. Let him rest and take the other line if he wants it. Kavinsky will leave it on the floor of the tent near to wherever Elliot ends up settling.

He watches him a few long moments without a word, then he's gone; in and out like a motherfucking thief. But this time he chose not to take anything, only to give, which will make it really, just, something amazing when the tables turn.

Look, ma. Finally learning patience.]