[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

[perroquet]

What-?

[ He answers to his name aloud, startled, because he wasn't expecting to be grabbed just then. Something is pressed to his hand along with Rust's eagerness, and if not for the gloves he's still wearing from the aunt's visit, perhaps the detective would've been rewarded instantaneously. Instead, Gildor rolls the bead between his fingers and shifts his cane to the crook of his elbow to remove a glove. Not taking his time but not quite hurrying either, a sense of dread underlying his willingness to go along with this. ]

( Alright, give me a moment. )

[ When he touches bare fingers to the bead, nothing happens - at first. The first time he hadn't known what was happening at all. The second time was also by chance. This time he concentrates, eyes already closed and closing tighter. Fingers curl around the bead, concealing it in his palm. A beat. Another. Four, five-

And then he inhales sharply, exhaling another startled gasp- ]

Oh.

[ The little bead's history doesn't come to him slowly. It is dropped, sudden and disrupting, like a stone into still water. The ripples of it's effect spread through his consciousness, and just as suddenly there are things about him that are no longer in working order. The gentle hum that always fills his senses is cut off. Shapes against the earth stop making sense to him, and Rust - whose presence he was quite aware of until this moment - feels like he's vanished. And that startles him most of all, but he swallows hard and pushes past it. ]

( This was carved from a desert tree. Recently. I'm not sure how long ago, but... not long before we all arrived here. It was made into a necklace and then given... no, before that it spent a short while in storage, then given. It isn't clear to whom, but... it knows the land it grew from, and Hyrypia. The graze, the flying ship, and the edge of the sea. I can't get a name, or- )

[ He hesitates to add or a face, or voice, because there are no visuals or sounds that accompany this new knowledge. It is just the simple events of being a bead in a necklace. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ Maybe Gildor's known something similar to this, when he held a crowd in raptures. Rust utterly absorbed by the other man's movements, noting but not heeding the feeling of fear. He gives a mental scoff as Gildor closes his eyes.

And then part of Gildor shuts off; another comes on—or maybe it's not like that, more like his consciousness sprouting a limb. Rust follows along—desert, interesting, given the climate on Hyanna’Vi, but then most of them live on the moons—until the information peters out. ] ( Bullshit. You knew Keya's name. ) [ No anger to the words—they're applied like pressure, in service to an inexorable drive to know. ] ( You know what's at stake here, Gildor, c'mon. )

[perroquet]

[ There is no anger to Rust's words as he presses, but there is a tinge of it to Gildor's- ]

( Excuse me, I didn't know her in life as others did. ) [ The tone of his thoughts are put-off, perhaps more than he'd like to reveal without the filter of spoken word. His nerves are laid bare, not from anything to do with what he's revealed, but that he's settled into the cost of his ability now - and how vulnerable it leaves him. ]

( I am not some witness to be pressed, Rust. This is new to me, and likely requires practice like anything else. I've told you all that the symbiote provided, unless you'd like to hear more about the bead's riveting time as a tree. )

[ Indeed, many of the revelations mentally yields before Rust are just hot and sand. He holds the bead between his fingers out for Rust to recollect, ready to be done with it. ]

[aluminumandash]

[ There's an unexpected force to Gildor's words, a tremulous anger that at least gives Rust pause. He hangs on—by his fingertips, it feels like—for those last impressions of grit and heat, then reaches to take the bead. Breathes out, eases the mental pressure. ] ( But you are a witness. ) [ More than a word to him—a duty, a debt. ]

( A conduit. ) [ Something like envy, something like understanding once-removed. His turn to rub the bead in his fingers, review what he knows. ] ( You make anything of it? Storage. )

[perroquet]

[ But you are a witness - the logic of it eases him back. Not to the murder he isn't, not directly, but even without the new insights he was there last night. He felt Keya's wound recreated on Sam's neck and inhaled the scent of blood. Pressed into it with his own hands and sang it closed. The memory is fresh and there should Rust want to grasp that too, hungry as he is for anything and everything about the previous night.

He tugs his other glove off and grips his staff in both hands, wringing it. Pushes past the unsteady imbalance he's suddenly feeling to consider the issue of storage. ]

( It reminds me of a prop. Something made and then and put away while the rest of the production is pieced together. A costume. )

[ Not one of his facts, but a gut intuition derived from once being part of such productions. Staged things, plays, operas, ballets. He was only ever involved in the musical side, but he'd been young and inquisitive enough to learn a bit about the other work behind it all - even costuming. And aren't they also in a similar production? ]

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust braces himself mentally before plunging in, heading off his grief, his anger. It's strange, covering ground he'd stood on not half an hour ago. Strange and chaotic—Sam's throat spilling blood, an animal in the background threatening to break loose, Elena's blood. ] ( The fuck were they—explain it to me later. ) [ There's nothing of Keya in there, just people scrabbling in dirt. Trying to salve wounds with more blood.

Gildor's assessment meets with Rust's approval, fits with the bead's relative newness. ] ( Mmm, supposing you're right—it's a plant or it's the Enemy. Wish I knew the first fucking thing about these necklaces. ) [ With barely a pause he amends: ] ( Familial, probably. Keya's matched Casiria's. )

[ Finally, he takes notice of Gildor's unsteadiness. ] ( You need a hand? )

[perroquet]

( No, just- ) [ If there's a mental equivalent to stammering, it is in Gildor's uncertainty. For a moment isn't sure what he needs, and he's a bit surprised that Rust pauses his investigation to ask. ] ( I just need somewhere to sit and wait it out. Perhaps get some practice in if I can just- )

[ Apprehension is written in the lines of his face as he attempts to reach - mentally, physically, magically - for his violin. It should be the simplest thing for a bard to summon his instrument. It is still tied to him by forces from his world, but resides on the other end of a string he cannot, at present, feel. When he closes his outstretched hand, it closes around air. ]

That's annoying.

[ He grumbles aloud, because a grumble can mask the spike of fear rising in him, or at least note his desire to keep calm despite it. He's aware of Rust still in his head, but doesn't trust him to understand - both as a nonmagical being and human. ]

If you could... point me towards a chair. And my violin case, if I could bother you further.

[ The instrument won't be there, but something else will. Something he's not keen on sharing. ]