[hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :025 - DAY :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; getting them down to Hyrypia proves to be more complicated than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :025

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe and you in it are 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. But 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. Some of these emotions might be 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 others very like you here, all of them somehow intimately familiar.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room, the vast Station is quiet and still. It feels for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the hollowness:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a brilliantly warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze - the blooming pleasure of a familiar face after a very long time away. 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 small grassy lawn in the center of the lush, circular gardens where an aging woman waits on a stone bench. The pin straight sheet of her hair hangs like a graying curtain and the sensation from her is lovely and golden, real delight pouring through her like light through a pinhole camera. She smiles and sets aside the book in her lap.

"There you are. 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."


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 other than the people you woke up with there's a distinct lack of company 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? Otherwise-- well there's plenty of places to get lost...

By the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots are in the process of unloading-- bodies. No, scratch that, they're clearly still alive, though in some kind of comatose state. One of the pilots - a pale female alien who calls herself Rhan - says, "Well, this is awkward. We were supposed to be done with this already. Uh don't mind us, darling. We'll finish up here and get on our way. In the meantime, why don't you go through your packs and get changed?"

She nods toward two trunks on the hangar deck where assortment of pre-prepared packs are waiting for each new Host. In each pack is a series of items, including a set of beautiful and very all-encompassing robes. Better get comfortable. Not hot on the fabrics or patterns in your pack? Mixing and matching with your new best friends is totally acceptable.

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

HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
LATE DAY :026

A PURPOSEFULLY SUBTLE WELCOME
UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, Collector and Lyr make their way through the barracks where the Hosts on Hyrypia are meant to be sleeping. It's nearing whatever the Hyrypian equivalent of midnight is; if you're awake, all the better. If not? Expect to be roused (gently and silently by Collector, rudely and abruptly by Lyr).

"Get dressed. We're going for a walk."

There's nothing quite so suspicious as bringing a bunch of reinforcements to the planet in the aftermath of a rather public murder, which means a highly ritualized midnight procession of Carbasuchians into the highlands. It's easier to secret a handful of newbies in an anonymous group, right?

That meeting in the dead of night in the rocky wilderness above the Red Coast bears even a passing resemblance to the strange occurrence on DAY :010 is probably just a coincidence. Besides, there aren't any mystery circles burned into the stone and grass here: just a stealth ship materializing out of the black night and touching down in a stony outcropping where it disgorges the freshly hatched (or newly reawakened) Hosts.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch on Day :025 as well as the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia late on Day :026. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find additional information pertaining to the Red Coast on the previous mission log (located here); newbies are welcome to utilize that log as well as it occurs within the same time period as the hatch.

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

[nastygram]

[Darlene, catching that flush, and the little prickle of feeling that comes mentally with it, smirks to herself. She doesn't slow to make catching up with her any easier, but allows Pidge to fall in beside her, to lead the way.]

Darlene. By the way.

[sistershoggoth]

( Extra livers? )

[ Nah, she's teasing. ]

( We just called it something else. Pathos-bearers. )

[ Pathos for passion, a euphemism for power. ]

[erbier]

You don't have to go.

[ Ilde herself has refused a mission, stayed behind on the Station while the others went on with their work. ]

But it will be lonely here, on your own.

[nastygram]

[Would she take it?

Maybe. If it seemed worth it. If it was something she could easily exploit. But it runs too close to accepting a helping hand, letting in someone who is already in, intimately, rubbing up against Darlene's brainmeat like he belongs there.

She pushes the scarf off of her head and shakes out her hair. Rounds her eyes in his direction, a total ingenue.]

Stranger danger.

[That's a no without saying no. She smirks like it was a joke.]

Just keep being my privacy curtain and I'll be cool. I pretty much already know the answer to this, but-- [She looks him up and down, calculating. Feeling out with her senses. Clumsy, like picking up a single pill while wearing a pair of thick mittens, but trying to get good at it.] Got any cigarettes?

[somnifacient]

Earth...

[Not the first or the last time he's going to hear that name, he thinks. So many times has he felt the ghost of that place, whispering through their shared mental links. So many memories of it, and he wonders what might be so special about "Earth" that so many hail from it.]

Yeah. Popular place. I'm from Eos.

[somnifacient]

His own flames, or his own arrogance? ["So innately talented," she had said. It sounds like both could be applied, or some terrible entwining of the two that lead to his madness.]

It kind of sounds like you feel sorry for him.

[And yet... that edge of criticism that would come coupled with such words seems to be softened, or missing altogether.]

[incinerates]

'Cause I said so.

[ Clearly, he's not the type who's used to offering long-winded or non-egocentric excuses for his desires and needs. And this is one big clusterfuck of a want-need; that astral-bodied bastard is his to bring down, for what it did. He'll do it for himself, and by default, his might and generosity will extend to everyone else who's been threatened by it. That's all. ]

'Cause I'm -- [ "going to be number one" doesn't have as much weight or validity here ] a hero, that's why. You're supposed to let the hero handle this sort of thing, that's what we're here for.

[nastygram]

I'm good with being alone.

[Not really. A practiced liar, Darlene can only do so much to disguise her mental tells. Like bruises, you have to look for them. But they're there. She folds the blade of grass once more.]

If I stay, you gonna lock me out of here? Does the door disappear when you do?

[erbier]

[ Ah... Ilde would not have believed that much, either way. Being alone has taken on such a new meaning now that they are hosts. It had not troubled Ilde as much because she was more entrenched in the Nest. She no longer felt alone. The Station speaks to her. The Hive speaks to her... ]

Could I trust you, to be kind to my garden? I have had my plants set to fire before.

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ So she was right then. She's met a few of her fellow Earth folks, but there are bound to be others, and with all the possibilities of the multiverse, it's entirely possible that they're all from different versions. It's both sad and exciting. ]

I've never heard of Eos. What's it like?

[ She's genuinely curious, wanting to not only know more about his home, but about the man himself. ]

[whereabout]

[ Well, okay. He can do that. It's not like he's actually accomplishing anything by brooding.

So he starts sifting through, flicking aside the rejects and keeping the ones that look promising. ]

Anything useful enough to figure this out?

[ From what Pidge told him, they're still flying blind on which faction the enemy is working through, and until they get that one nailed down, he can't see them making any decisive progress. ]

[whereabout]

( It didn't matter to anyone in Ouroboros. )

[ Renne had said it best, once - the Grandmaster saw only two kinds of people: useful, and useless. Using children had been more the exception than the rule, but it was an exception the society wasn't above making, given that there was one particularly useful quality that was harder to find the older one was.

Malleability.

So the flicker of distaste in Elliot's reaction doesn't offend him. Nobody hates what he's become the way Joshua himself does. But it's also beyond undoing, and so his own age doesn't matter much no matter how disgusting the general principle is. He is what he is. There's no fixing him now. ]

[whereabout]

Frequently?

[ Please, please don't let her say "frequently"... ]

[whereabout]

[ No kidding. Getting hit with the emotions of the few of them who've just awakening is already more than he thinks he can handle; dealing with - however many of them they're about to catch up with...

It's not going to be pretty. ]

How do you tune it out?

[whereabout]

Has anyone ever left?

[ - aside from in a body bag. ]

[whereabout]

Sure.

[ No matter how much his brain is screaming inside, it's never inhibited his ability to keep a straight face and pretend nothing's up.

At least there's that. ]

[ophidia]

[She's pretty, in a surly, sullen kind of way. It's an observation, detached and objective: the same sense that exudes from his mind. He has no walls to speak of, hasn't attempted to construct any, but right in this moment the heavy feeling of watching may as well stand in for them. A sharp, unrelenting desire to learn. To know. All of it currently directed at her.

He doesn't say anything to explain or excuse it. Just lifts one gloved hand to slide into the wrap of his robes at the chest, fetching out a slim silver cigarette case. Flipping it open to offer her one, as smooth as an old movie.

But they weren't usually covered head to foot in layers of fabric in those movies.]

Might want to savour it. They're in short supply.

[The case is almost full. He hasn't had any since he got here.]

[nastygram]

[Darlene snorts. She does stop bending the grass--like she's maybe unconsciously trying to prove herself worthy of garden privileges--but swats it away, removing any thought to that end.]

What jackass sets plants on fire?

[greentech]

[ Pidge manages to brush past the feeling after a moment, thoughts already flung forward to her room and the precious, stolen cargo she has packed away. She glances up and there's the impression of a smile. ]

I'm Pidge. Nice to meet you!

[greentech]

Not that I know of.

[ Pidge admits that with a groan. ]

They either die or they... go into that weird coma thing. It's stupid.

[erbier]

[ She was meant to feel sorry for him. She had been his outlet for what lingered of his humanity and remorse. He would kneel before her and confess, because she was an angel. A holy girl in which he could instill the last of his virtues, which only served to give so much more light to the crimes he had done. ]

He suffered.

[ And they had all suffered with him. It had been, beneath all his violence, his dearest desire to end that suffering. ]

[erbier]

As you gain control of what you extend, you will also learn to control what you receive. Some of the others prefer only to build walls, but...

[ A faint self-deprecating smile at nothing in particular. ]

I find that approach limited.

[erbier]

A childish one.

[ A hell demon residing inside of a boy. Ilde had learned to accept him, eventually, but at first she had thought she might simply kill him, remove his malevolence from the Nest. ]

Who knew my plants were very dear to me.

[nastygram]

[Darlene, used to scrutiny, does not flinch. She has had her systems scanned. She has had her phone thrown out the window of a friggin' limo. Attempted hacks, thwarted by her defenses. And she is used to being looked at more generally, too, objectified, viewed, purposefully on display as a bargain. It's no different than presenting face in the digital. Careful image designed to get what you want.

But also there's something more to this watching. Like first of all: it's brain deep. And second, there's something else that she can't place. Feels alien. Maybe because she knows it more intimately.

She ignores it anyways, reaches, with perhaps unexpected grace, to pick out one of the offered cigarettes. Two, actually. One neatly palmed, one she sticks in her mouth.]

Please don't remind me.

[She has a lighter of her own, doesn't wait for any old-timey-gentleman move of being offered a light. Easy to extract it considering she's storing in her pack, and she's less impeded by her layers after stripping down. Crisp and practiced, she lights up, inhales, quickly, and then exhales a stream of smoke.

Better.]

Adding to the list of how much this place blows is not helpful. And I can tell just how helpful you wanna be.

[Because. Darlene taps her temple, cigarette pinched between her fingers. The burning end dips dangerously close to her hair, but doesn't touch; she move to take another drag.]

You got a pretty decent stock. So you're either good at self-discipline, or you're a noob.

[nastygram]

[Same, is the vibe Darlene gives off. Her level of how "nice" of a meeting is directly tied to how useful this could be, but so what.]

Guessing you are not a noob.