[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

3

[ophidia]

[He wasn't following her. Not in the crowd, anyway, taking another pass through the village, memorising the layout. When she breaks away, trailing the sense of irritation and being stifled, then he follows. Down an alley and through an archway into the small garden she's sought for refuge.

And when she tells him to move along, he doesn't shift. Blocking the archway, keeping any erstwhile wanderers from catching a glimpse of her bared face.]

Better me than one of them.

[A tip of his head back over his shoulder, indicating the alien culture they're supposed to be pretending to be a part of.]

[nastygram]

[This is another one of those crisp feelings, parts that click together. System pinged thusly, Darlene looks at this dude lurking in the freaking archway and thinks, Dammit.

It's a sentiment comes across that mental link too, a shiver of irritation at how totally familiar he already feels. Another part of the whole. Darlene sucks at teamwork.]

Okay, cool, then thanks, I guess.

[Flat enough that it would communicate how insincere she's being, even if he didn't have the advantage of their connection to tell him as much.

That being said, he has a point. She just doesn't appreciate the forced assistance. Doesn't appreciate any assistance. But if he's going to stand there, then she's going to take full advantage, which is why Darlene starts unwinding more of her layers.]

Lucky me, getting stuck with a bunch of d-bags.

[ophidia]

[The bleed of feeling from her is reminiscent of Seth, the peak of annoyance at the mental link itself as much as his actions. He's unmoved by it, or her lack of appreciation. The whole crew's inability to watch out for each other is nothing new, and his keeping her from blowing all their covers is as fuelled by self-interest as it is any desire to be helpful.

Still, there's some thread of understanding. Even if all it comes with is as casual as a shrug.]

They skip a lot in the sales pitch. [The offer of rescue not including any mention of telepathy or ongoing "missions".] You need some space, outside of town's a safer bet.

[nastygram]

But you're already lurking in the doorway and making me feel so secure. Why bother.

[She does need space. That is so true that it hurts, kind of, in that deep down fuck-you from anxiety kind of way. And the best way to deal with that is to turn it outwards, get a hand around the feeling and use it like a weapon.

Trouble is, the mental impression beamed back at her is one of immobility. Unmoved, is the word for it. Darlene keeps unwrapping anyways.]

Want to give me a ride out there, Protip? Or is this just for my future reference?

[ophidia]

Would you take it?

[She can't see his face, but the sense comes framed around the question: eyebrows raised, already expecting a certain answer based on how she's been acting so far. City girl. Tough. Rattled. She doesn't want help, which means she's unlikely to want a ride.

He'd do it, though. Pragmatically he doesn't have anything better to be doing anyway, but she's brood. Helping her get acclimated would already rank as "better" than most things.]

[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?

[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, 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.

[ophidia]

[Thieves know thieves, but Richard watches her palm an extra without a word. He has enough to spare, for the moment, and pulling her up for stealing is going to change the tone of this exchange to one he doesn't want. She's interesting. He'd rather stick with that.]

Which do you think?

[That impression of raised eyebrows again, flipping the case closed and sliding it back into his pocket. The answer's probably evident enough in the mild aura of smugness. Self-discipline is something he's always been proud of.]