[mission: hyrypia] big, but not coarse - merely on another scale

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Everyone
WHERE: The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :036 - DAY :037
SUMMARY: A multiverse away, new hatches wake on the Station. On Hyrypia, the Garstall hunt begins in earnest - and wraps up with terrible consequences.
WARNINGS: Animal hunting and slaughter, death, Bad Times at Ridgemont High. Need something added? PM the mod account!

STATION 72
DAY :036

THE HATCH - NEW HOSTS
YOU WAKE UP and the universe and you in it are altered. --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 from a very deep sleep or coming up from the darkness of some wine colored sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

You find yourself lying in a small, hexagonal chamber with a gentle light emanating from its walls. If you were injured during your escape, you're now 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 until you disconnect the IV running from the base of your neck to the chamber wall.

Then 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.

Eventually you find your way out of the pod, having found whatever belongings you brought with you and a change of crisp white clothes in a cubby near your feet. Once you descend to the Nesting Deck, 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.

EXPLORE the strange environment you've found yourself in. The Station seems to be both infinitely vast and strangely small. It's possible to wander along halls and through chambers for hours, only to turn a corner and find yourself in a place you've already been because your mind happened to think of it.

PREPARE for what's to come. Not long after your arrival, a pair of aliens arrive in a dark ship bearings mission kits for everyone. Get changed into your disguises, brush up on your mission briefing, and ask what questions you have while you can. It isn't long before you're loaded onto the ship and leave the Station behind.

HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
DAY :036

A CALLING
A FAMILIAR FEELING to those that know it is sign enough that the elder hosts must depart to fetch whoever it is remains on the station. But this time, it's not just two of them that strike out under the cover of night. Instead, all four of them make their way from Whalsome House.

( We will not be gone long. ) Collector’s voice is a cheerful lilt in their minds as she gathers a book in hand. ( Try to have only pleasant stories for me, when we return. )

And with that Rhan, The Collector, Siva'co and Lyr are gone. They take with them the comatose Hosts and leave the rest to their own devices.



HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
DAY :037

THE HUNT
DAWN BREAKS over a coastline already bustling with activity. The day has finally come to take those long boats out beyond the shallows and hunt the massive serpent-like Garstall in earnest. A familiar horn is blown and anyone who wishes to participate files down onto the beach and is divided into groups, a dozen or two people for each boat. There's a celebratory air to the whole affair, a true pleasure in taking the boats out into the sea. For all that the Barithian Hunt was anxious and quiet and tense, this is is a day of laughter and shouting and singing rowing songs as the boats slash their way through the open water toward the massive creatures roiling through the deeper water off the coast.

SHORT HANDED might not be the first thought that comes to mind on the bustling ships, but at some point during the hunt it becomes clear that Keya isn't present despite the fact that she's been attending every training session. Should anyone ask, one of the Descendants confesses that Keya skipped the hunt because Shee Naraxa secured a meeting between her and the heads of House Tyrisson concerning "her peace talk idea." The news seems to surprise one of the other Descendants; while it’s difficult to read her expression, it’s clear this is not what she expected to hear. She remains tense for the remainder of the voyage.

FINDING THE GARSTALL is simple enough for the experienced sailors of the Red Coast. They look for signs where the water’s color is more pronounced and where the waves seem to stir in unusual directions. They direct those who have less to do with controlling the fickle vessels to keeping a weather eye out for these signs, and to let out a cry when they spot them. Once a Garstall is spotted, all the nearby boats must rally together to take it.

ONCE SPOTTED what had been a pleasant but almost routine sail becomes something far different. Orders and directions are shouted down the lengths of the vessels. Hunters are armed and those in charge of ballast set to their stations.

The boats maneuver incredibly well for their size, their narrowness slashing through the sea to close on the Garstall that has risen near the surface. The beast is huge - larger than any single boat. It's like a great tree come to life, a twisting trunk of a body in the waves. The ships cut in separate directions, and when the signal horn sounds then the hunt truly begins. Hunters begin to hurl harpoons into the waves, aiming for the Garstall's sinuous body.

When the harpoons find their target, the whole boat shudders and tips. There's shouting and some laughter, the eager deck hands compensating for the drag of the beast by sliding weight across the deck to the opposite side of the boat. On one of the boats, a line snaps and sends the ship springing back the opposite direction - several of the sailors thrown into the water even as the hunters lose their footing. On another boat they fail to slide the ballast quickly enough and the Garstall wrenches them forward as it attempts to dive, leaving the other two boats attached to the beast attempting to compensate. On still another boat, they subdue a smaller beast much more easily. Sailors line the boat's side as one of the crewmen slides down the harpoon line, knife in hand to finish the job.

It’s a chaotic experience - but a successful one.

RAISE A BLADE, RAISE A GLASS
IN THE AFTERMATH of the successful hunt, the Garstall's massive carcasses are dredged up into the shallows. It's hot work to beach the massive animal. Once it's in the foaming purple surf, the most delicate parts of it must be stripped from the carcass before they can rot. The harvesting of the fat under the Garstall's heavy plates can wait, but the exposed flesh must be stripped promptly to avoid rot. Luckily, this work is done under the guise of celebration and the result is half slaughter and half bonfire beach party as night falls over the Red Coast.

BUTCHERY might not be the right work for everyone, but the locals leading the task are good natured and encouraging.

FEASTING on the sweet meat of the Garstall is a given. Huge slabs of meat are roasted over equally massive fires as the work is completed. Drinks are passed around. Music is played. Fashionably late, the heads of Tyrisson House come down for their manor (for a split second in the company of Shee Naraxa before she peels away to join the rest of the Descendants) to give another cheerful speech. The work is hard but rewarding, and for a moment the tenor of this place is so very good.

A DREADFUL DISCOVERY
BUT A MONSTER IS HUNTING and just after the speech, a horrifying sense of dread grips the Hosts. It's sickening - a vomiting, visceral wrongness that reaches out of the universe and finds the symbiote and the Host mind and sinks its hooks there exactly as it did that night on the road from Naerstone. Should anyone follow that dreadful sensation, they'll find themselves in the twisted orchard near Tyrisson House, mist clinging low to the ground in the chilling evening, lit only by a pale moon. What waits for them there is a pitch black circle scorched into the loamy earth - so exact and so precisely like the one discovered so many days earlier. And near this perfect circle: the broken body of Keya, her throat split open and blood still wet on the ground.


NEW FRIENDS (OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES)
NEWS OF THE MURDER SPREADS and all the envoys are encouraged to return to their quarters for their safety while those in the employ of Tyrisson house secure the area-- encouragement which turns to insistence until all the members of the Envoys have returned their respective housing. Lights are lit in every courtyard and at every corner. Tension runs high. During this time, as the Hosts wait in their own row of Whalsome House's low stone buildings, company arrives:

A VISITOR arrives with a special request. An older Descendant wrapped in a heavy cloak with a deep hood comes knocking. When she reveals her face, Lakshmi might recognize her as Keya's aunt. "My name is Casiria," she says. "I believe you knew my niece."

It’s clear from her demeanor that she has far more to say before she goes.

FAMILIAR FRIENDS in the shape of newly hatched hosts and your senior chaperones arrive not long after Casiria's departure. They find their way to Whalsome House in a hush, having apparently faced some difficulty in dodging the added security. Better catch everyone up quickly.

---

((OOC Notes: This log serves as a general catch-all for events from DAY :036 through DAY :037. Please feel free to create your logs outside of this one, though we strongly recommend not forward-dating to the following morning. Please be aware that in the context of this log, new Hosts won't be present on Hyrypia until after Casiria has left. 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

[incinerates]

Fine by me. Stay at my back.

[ A youthful tone that leaves little in the way of questioning him; even in his heavy robes, he surges forward, intent on keeping her behind his left elbow. He needs to know where she is, in case they come into danger. It's his job to be at the forefront, after all. ]

I was just here the other day-- [ The mental equivalent of a cuss. He picks his feet up, avoiding roots and ducking low-hanging branches as he, like her, tries to remember how to navigate as they tumble into the scattered trees at the outskirts of the orchard. ]

What did you find, the first time?

[wille]

[ She could laugh high above the dread that sinks its claws into her guts, the way he takes it as point of pride to play gentleman, to tell her —her— to stay back. She would be offended, had she not been so amused, the only tell being a huff against the eerily still air. Even that rings too loud against the quietness, how the entire land crouches low in hiding. ]

( Tracks and a perfect circle burned onto the ground. Like a spaceship or a rocket. Two sets of tracks. )

[ But they couldn't tell whether those visitors were arriving or leaving, or if they were walking in circles, meandering in intricate paths. It was just the other day that she discussed the logistics of killing some to save some. A massacre by any other name. How the reminder makes her sick. ]

( I was here too. With Lyr. )

[aluminumandash]

( Hold up. ) [ Now they're true echoes of one another, the same slick feeling of terror resounding between them. The shit in their heads in the throes of something. Rust gropes for their minds, roughly, his thoughts fear stiffened. Recognizes one of them, links it with the patterns of Misato's robes.

He reminds himself—drives home the thought of Katie, her confusion. She hadn't had words for what they'd done to her. ] ( Ain't got much time, alright? And I'm not fucking this up again. ) [ A breathless momentum to his thoughts, as though they can outstrip his fear. ]

( One of you take watch, get word out if anything happens. Fuck, climb a tree, use these. ) [ He thrusts a pair of binoculars at whoever's nearest. ] ( I'm a tracker. ) [ An approximation of what he is—he reaches for a word, takes hold of the first he finds. It fits, but not perfectly. ] ( Every person out here besides me, that's twice as much work. )

[incinerates]

No. Keep up. I was here too, with Lyr -- we just, talked for a while.

[ The retort is curt, the bared teeth of an animal with intelligent eyes. Eyes that dart around, taking stock of their surroundings - even in the dark, light on his toes and fast on his feet. He doesn't know either of these hosts. An older woman, an older man. Waiting would be the smart thing, but he's not hardwired to stand back and play safe. He's meant to make certain that others are made safe. The woman can slow, if she wants, he'll forge ahead.

A few more steps, at least, until the man's voice catches him again and he looks back over his shoulder. It's not going to be him who waits, his posture suggests, even though his forward momentum has slowed. He's waiting for them to decide what they're going to do. ]

Good idea, one of you handle it. [ BALLS IN YOUR COURT, FAM. And forward he goes, picking his way through the trees as they begin to thicken. ]

[wille]

[ Misato's the one who catches the binocular, letting out an audible sigh at the younger man's insistence, because it reminds her of her own. She wades through the thickets to catch up after him, hoping to grab him by the arm. ]

( Hang on. It's about making sure we find this Enemy, right? Not about who gets to. )

[ This is her unpracticed attempt at appealing to the better angels of his nature. ]

( I'll keep watch and shout if anything jumps out of the shadows. Rustin, when you find something, we'll take a look together. )

[aluminumandash]

[ Fucker's quick, and Rust's a few steps behind Misato in chasing after him. ] ( Change of plans, let's just strap him to a tree. ) [ An adrenaline-fueled hiss through the teeth, nothing behind it. They don't have time to argue, don't really have time to think.

He nods, puts a hand to her back in passing. Urging her onward, offering solidity in the dark. Surprise coming off him—muddled, sense vying with memory. Throat-high grass, wire-thin lines between living and dying.

Marty hunkered to the ground, voice in Rust's ear: Fuck you. You ain't doing this without me. ] ( Something happens to us, don't be stupid. Got it? )

[incinerates]

I have a better chance of bringing down whatever's on the other end of this awful feeling than either of you. It's safer like this.

[ Misato does catch his arm, it's not as hard as it seems. Wandering through trees and orchard-brush in the dead of night does not a speedy retreat make, and as he feels her hand snag at him, he wheels around. Elbow up, jerking free of the touch -- but, he pauses. Long enough for the pair of them to catch up again, and for him to huff. Whatever degree of fear he's feeling, he's covered it up with urgency and tight focus.

He's used to that. ]

Everyone and their uncle's been here over the last week, it's going to be a bitch to track anything if we lose it.

[ calling u out rust ]

Nothing'll happen to you. I'm here.

[wille]

[ Those words could come out of her own lips. The boy's, not Rust's. The bravado, the grandstanding, the stubbornness. She makes a wince at the realization, easily mistaken for being directed at the way Bakugo wrenches himself free. There's no stopping him, she knows, just as there's no tempering Rust's caustic annoyance in the periphery of her mind, the touch on her back uncannily gentle. 

Fine then. ]

( Let's head to where I talked with Lyr. I have a feeling we'll find something there. )

[ She could have said that she has a symbiote-given power to corroborate her gut feeling, or told them of the many times instinct led her to victory, but faith is not faith without a leap. ]

( Trust me. It was how we found it last time too. )

[aluminumandash]

[ It's too much talking, too much standing around. Rust snaps up Lyr's name, suspicious, then casts his mind outward, beyond the confines of conversation. The stillness of the night air, animal noises in the dark.

The sickening feeling, that low whisper of dread they're trying to drown out with braggadocio. Death's never felt so close, so certain. ] ( You're both fucking delusional. ) [ Flat. Disinterested. You didn't find shit last time, he doesn't bother to correct Misato. The other one—Rust applies his mind to Bakugo's like knuckles to a door, an insistent rap. As if uncertain of the solidity. ]

( Let's go then. )

[incinerates]

[ The woman has a location in mind, where Bakugo has a meandering route - one he'd jogged while Lyr had walked, and the two had spoken of the mission and of morality. Of the presence of kids in what the majority had referred to as "a warzone". He doesn't fall behind -- but, there is the sense that he yields to her guidance, for the moment. Her lead, she knows where she's going. As long as it's towards that horrible, sickening feeling, he's fine with it. ( Heroes are at least two parts earnest psychosis, to be fair. )

Until they arrive at their destination, he bleeds little more than impatience and a tight focus - his eyes and ears ( and mind ) straining to keep a watchful, precise eye on their surroundings. Especially once his skin starts crawling more and more, and a cold sweat breaks out all over him. What a waste of Quirk. It's at the destination itself that he digs his heels in and HALTS, throwing both arms out to stop the adults. Instinctual, and oddly protective. ]

Wait, something's there. Is that -- what's causing this feeling?

[wille]

[ And isn't that right, heroism made of earnest psychosis? It's certainly true of Misato, who doesn't in fact have a location in mind, only the idea of it, or less than that, just a wish and the earnest belief that it would somehow materialize because she wants it to. Insanity by any meaning of the word. But fear, like pleasure, is as good a guide as any.

She stops when the boy stops, fists clenched against the dampness of her palms, her chest made hollow with anxiety. ]

( The Enemy. )

[ Maybe that answers nothing. Explanations will have to wait, when she squints against the darkness and points toward their left. A shadow on the ground. ]

( Do you see something there? )

[incinerates]

Whatever! Keep out of my way -- I'll kill it DEAD.

[ He blusters, it shakes. Perhaps he's not the most convincing, but the way he dips his shoulders and broadens his stance is preparation enough. Frozen in place as he is, he's Ready To Go. And then, she mentions the shape. The dark blur of a form on the ground, supine and scattered.

One step forward. Then, another. Cautious, until his eyes adjust to the dim light-- ]

-- you gotta' be kidding me.

[ The pang. The siren. He knows this form. They all know it, in fact. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ A body.

The boy—later Rust will count the minutes it'd taken to draw so obvious a conclusion, berate himself for each—tenses as if for a fight, and then it's as though their postures bleed together, boy and corpse. Rust watches his stance fracture sickeningly. ] ( It's her. ) [ He says, even before he's glimpsed her face. His turn to tap into that mix of instinct and inevitability, a certainty that's equal parts logic and gooseflesh.

His guilt is almost matter-of-fact. She'd made a target of herself, and they hadn't stopped her. ]

( Get out of here. ) [ Detached—he grasps at Bakugo's shoulder as though it's something inanimate, gives him something between a shove and a squeeze. Without awaiting a response, he looks—up, then steps forward, sweeping his gaze over the ground. ] ( There's the circle. ) [ To no one in particular and with calm unsurprise, as if pointing out a landmark. Mentally matching it up with another circle, scorched in rockier, more desolate terrain. ]

[wille]

[ Hers is a shelf filled with achievements based on magical thinking, so much so that she has deceived herself into believing that her mind holds the power to bend reality to her will. That if she only believes in it enough, and never once lets herself stumble into doubt, what she doesn't want to be true could be made false. So, her mind betrays a trill of irritation when Rust confirms what she wishes could be kept unsaid. Read: kept false. ]

( Rustin, you'll look through the body? )

[ She takes a step back, reaching for Bakugo's wrist all the while. ]

( You. We have to go back and warn the others. )