[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

[greentech]

A Dreadful Find

[ The rising sense of dread almost makes Pidge want to vomit, but she's not about to shy away form it. There's something out there and she plans to take a look, even if it means the potential of danger. She thought she'd be looking at danger to herself - not one of their hosts. Then again, there have already been murders. She should've expected it. The presence of fresh corpse is more than a little disturbing - downright rattling in fact - but she's trying to force herself to focus on what they know and what they can find, even as the sense of panic threatens to squeeze the breath out of her lungs.

Her focus is on the circle that's been burned into the earth. And she tries not to let herself be swept awya by the emotional pull of herself or the people around her. ]

Hey - I need your help.

[ Whoever it is is getting a tug on the sleeve for emphasis. ]

Wildcard

[ You know the drill! ]

[whereabout]

[ Joshua is...moving in the opposite direction, though it's not really the danger or the corpse that he doesn't know how to cope with. It's the press of everyone else's emotions that's a little too much.

Still, he stops when she speaks, because while his immediate instinct is to stay away from everyone, keep his head down, and pray that everyone stops thinking so loud, a task? Okay. Something to focus on, hopefully distract him from - everything, and then when she's got what she needs he can go back to sticking his head in the sand like an ostrich. That could work. ]

What do you need?

[greentech]

Help me measure this circle. I need you to pace out the diameter and tell me how large it is. As close an estimate as you can get. And see if you can get samples from the center - I'm trying to get samples from the edges, but I don't know how long we're going to have before more people show up.

[ Information is how they're going to win this war. ]

[whereabout]

Got it. Do you have anything to put the samples in?

[ Asked as he already starts pacing it, to determine - ]

I'd say it's about three arge.

[ ...so yeah, the metric system has funny names in Zemuria. That's a thing. ]

[greentech]

Just my bag. Try to keep them... intact, I guess. I didn't exactly bring any beakers or sample baggies...

[ As he leaves, she's already examining the circle and how it's scorched into the terrain, carefully collecting ash and dust. When he returns, she looks a bit confused for a moment. ]

Uh - what's an arge?

[whereabout]

[ Oh, man. He's gotten into religious differences, and that made sense that it wouldn't be the same, but this is one of those culture clash things he never anticipated. ]

An arge. A hundred renge. It's about...

[ He holds his hands apart, about a meter. ]

[greentech]

[ Pidge squints, trying to mentally calculate just how large that is. It looks right. Fortunately, she's had some experience with this. Converting Altean time units into Earth time units had been a bit of a doozy, after all. ]

Looks like a meter. We'll call it three meters, then. Just like the last one...

[ Which pretty much confirms her thoughts, anyway. ]

There's got to be something here we can track. Some element in their fuel...

[whereabout]

Okay, so three m...eters.

[ meters? wtf your words are weird ]

If they're using combustible fuel here to start with.

[ Hey, he's from a world with stupid fantasy power sources that don't have to burn, it's a legit alternative in his mind. ]

[raw]

What's up?

[ If she needs another partner in crime, Elliot's her guy. ]

I was just going.

[ But he doesn't seem too shaken by the murder, didn't even know the kid. He just sees no point sticking around when his skill set isn't exactly CSI Miami. ]

[greentech]

[ OH! Hey, Elliot. They keep meeting in the weirdest places. She blinks for a moment and then shakes her head, as if to clear it. She has other things to worry about. ]

Can you help me get some samples of this stuff...? And maybe some vegetation from just beyond the burned area? I want to see if I can find any residue or something we can isolate and use.

[raw]

[ It means he thinks she's interesting, at least. Since they seem to run into each other in interesting places. ]

Sure. I can try.

[ Though. He isn't sure what he's supposed to put his samples in, really. ]

Do you want me to go find some jars or something.

[ He wove a basket about a week ago, so if nothing else he can use that. ]

[greentech]

Jars. Bags. Anything that'll work. I didn't think I'd need to do analysis like this - next time I'm bringing beakers. Or just plastic baggies. Anything, really...

[ UGH. She feels dumb for not thinking about it ahead of time, but she'll save her self recrimination for later. ]

This... circle has to be related to the enemy somehow. Or at least that feeling, which is bad enough. Figuring out what causes it might actually help us sort this out.

[raw]

( I agree. )

[ Chatting over the mental intercom because he's already dashed away — after so much boredom it's really good to have a task that he can do. He knows there are small containers that the jewellery salesmen package their wares in at the market — if he ends up having to barter something, that's fine. And there are a growing pile of fucked up pots that were too imperfect for use near the pottery kilns, left for anyone to take — he stops by there, takes some ugly and lopsided cups that don't have any holes. ]

( Just, be careful, okay? If it is the enemy, then we don't know if that black stuff can harm us. Though I guess that's what you're hoping to find out, right. )

[greentech]

( It's exactly what I want to know. And I want to know if we can trace it, somehow. If it leaves residue like this on the ground, it must do the same thing to people standing nearby, right? Maybe we can track some of them down. )

[raw]

( Smart. )

[ A rare note of approval in his mental tone. Because if the body is nearby, then maybe so was the killer. ]

( They've found one of these before, right? The last time everyone felt shitty like this. )

[sistershoggoth]

What's on your mind, adventure kid?

[ She is not at all promising to help, there are plenty of other people for that. ]

[greentech]

[ Adventure kid. Really? ]

Just... try to help me get some samples, will you?

[sistershoggoth]

I mean, what are we supposed to do with 'em? You got a microscope tucked under your shirt or something?

[ She continues lolling around not being useful. ]

[greentech]

Not in my shirt.

[ Pidge gives her a Look that is totally ruined by the veils they're wearing. ]

But I can test it later!

[sistershoggoth]

So you did sneak along a telescope. Damn that's nerdy.

[ She's grinning. ]

[greentech]

Do you even know anything about science?

[ Someone put Pidge out of her misery. ]

[detestable]

To do what?

[ Seth's skepticism is followed almost immediately by a very clear thought: They're bringing kids in on this?

His mind shutters almost immediately after. The reactions of the Nest are suffocating. Seth doesn't need to carry the burden of their guilt and fear and grief. It's too much. It's going to cloud his judgement, and that's the last thing he wants. Some of them have to be thinking clearly.

Some of them potentially including this kid, apparently. Seth isn't sure what to make of that. ]

[greentech]

Collect samples - figure this thing out. Someone's... dead. But we can at least try to use this to figure out what happened and how we can deal with something like this in the future. Right?

[ She has to keep moving. Has to figure a way past this. It's an obstacle on the road to her ultimate objective. And if she stops and thinks too hard, she's going to start cracking up a little. ]

[detestable]

[ Seth transparently approves of Pidge's approach. It's better than most of what's happening here: people spinning their wheels while grief overwhelms them. Seth's attention swings to her fully, appraising, while he thinks about long term solutions. Could they even fend something like this off in the future? ]

How do you figure we deal with it?

[ The answers about whether or not they can kill whatever they're trapped down here with have been mixed. Seth can't get a good read on any of it, and the lack of clear intel makes him loathe to come up with any more where he'd have to stick his neck out. ]

[greentech]

If we can tell who's been hanging around spots like this or detect them while they happen... maybe we can figure out what's causing it and do something about it. Maybe we can actually find our "enemy", whoever that's supposed to be.

[ Pidge is tired of wild goose chases. She's tired of struggling to make sense of everything. She wants to find real solutions. Not grope around in the dark. ]