EVENT ★ RECOLLECTION DAY

[futurologists]

RECOLLECTION DAY On the recruits' return to Oska, they will find some dreary weather, plus the entire castle and town decorated in purple and silver. Ribbons, streamers, and lights in ALASTAIR's colors fill every populated space, and there are more people milling about than before: humanoids and others in equal measure, all of them dressed in ALASTAIR uniforms of some degree. Dagny, Uruz, Cherenkov, and Crowley can be found among the others, as can recent recruit Pomarr, the undead Dakal from the last mission. The weather seems to be due to Pomarr. It's generally overcast around Oska, but the in area nearest to their newest recruit it will always be softly raining to some degree. THE FEAST Inside the castle, one of the many studies is decorated lavishly in the same purple-and-silver scheme as the rest of Oska. Today the kitchen is porting food directly into this room, where it's set out along long tables at the edges of the room. You can find anything here, food to suit any kind of diet from any kind of planet at all. There are no promises that all food will suit all diets, though. But still, if you want to try the bubbling pot of orange with the little worms that keep trying to struggle out of it, no one's going to stop you. A well-dressed, gently green lady stands at the center of the room, nursing a wineglass full of something silvery and addressing the room at large. She seems to be going over the history of Oska, to anyone who will listen. The gist of it is that Oska was once an entire world, densely populated and well known for its music and carefully bred hunting companion animals. However, its energy was severely unbalanced, and the world was swiftly coming undone. ALASTAIR recruits of the time realized it was the very animals the natives so loved that were the focus of all of the planet's energy, but by the time they had finally figured it out and began to cull the animals, it was too late. This little scrap is all they managed to save. What locals remained eventually died out, being too few to repopulate by themselves, and ALASTAIR opted to move in and reclaim the space, so as not to let this world go entirely forgotten. With their very base of operations as a reminder of what can happen to any world at any time, ALASTAIR of today is not likely to forget the necessity of their mission any time soon. Come for the food, stay for the slightly depressing story, and leave again fuller and maybe a little more somber than you were before. THE OBSERVATORY This room is usually home to a large telescope, a ceiling that slides open, and a lot of gauzy, ethereal decoration. Today it's been cleared out for what seems to be a room-wide, three dimensional documentary, playing on repeat throughout the festival. Images of a vast star system are projected into this room from no identifiable source, floating holograms the viewer can walk between and admire from any angle. A deep, soothing, presumably male voice speaks over the moving images, describing the action as it unfolds. In the beginning, there was one universe. It was vast and eternal, and most importantly, self-sustaining. There was no reason to doubt it would go on forever. The images at this point are on a cosmic scale, an impossible number of tiny stars swirling in silent patterns. We don't know what shattered the harmony, we only know that shatter it, it did. We call this the Cataclysm. This part is clearly an artist's interpretation. Slivers of light snake across the universe like the cracks in a broken window, shaking apart the entire scene. Some of the broken sections implode onto themselves in beautiful colors; some of them spread out and consume their neighbors. It's beautiful in a way, and probably completely visually inaccurate to whatever the real event looked like. The voice continues: The Universe became the Multiverse. The harmony is broken, and the energy no longer balances out. Worlds are thrown into disarray and chaos, some burning out immediately while others struggle on as they are able. There are even dozens of iterations of the same reality existing in some places, just barely splintered from one another and overlapping in impossible ways. The shards of our formerly united reality are nearly limitless. There are flashes of worlds as the narrator's voice continues. Each one lasts no longer than five seconds, filling the room and then flashing into the next scene. These are flashes of real worlds, broadcast up from the mysterious Viewing Hall and all of its mirrors down in the dungeons. Recruits watching diligently enough may even catch sight of familiar scenes. This is ALASTAIR's duty. We travel from reality to reality, doing what we must to equalize the energy. The necessary tasks can vary wildly, as wildly as the realities themselves do. In some worlds we find great success, snatching them from the brink of destruction and allowing them to continue on, rebalanced. Some worlds cannot be saved. The images shift, this time replaying old, completed missions. The variety is huge here, too. One team of blue humanoids dressed in ALASTAIR purple struggles to pull a mammoth out of a tar pit. Two small, doglike recruits dash through a dark alleyway, dodging laser fire. A team of something human-shaped but bundled up in spacesuits climb carefully through the weightlessness of space along the outside edge of an enormous spaceship. The narrator has just one more line to add: Ours is no easy task, but if not us. . . who? The informational recording fades out, and five minutes later, plays again from the beginning. THE COURTYARD Down in the courtyard, the festivities continue, this time led by Dagny and Uruz. They have a great number of temporary pens set up in the middle of the area, each one holding a strange, fantastical animal, which doesn't seem at all happy to be there. These are new mounts, Uruz will explain. Each one of them was personally rescued from a dying world by Dagny and herself. They're not quite tame yet, though, and so they've made a competition of it: anyone who can convince a creature to let them sit astride its back and then guide it into a pen in the stables proper will win a prize. Dagny would like to request that you be really careful, please! Those tusks and spikes can get really sharp. The prize given to any winning recruit will be a small, silvery musicbox. Opening it plays a soothing tune that will calm anything within the area for about 30 minutes. It can only be used once. Feel free to make up what kind of creature your character runs into. The stables of ALASTAIR are well known for their variety! LOST ORBS Have you ever wondered how Oska is powered? Well, obviously it's plasma orbs, how else? Oska's resident cats have been hard at work creating more of these, to the point that those not yet in use need somewhere to be contained. The problem is, these things are mobile. They'll float anywhere they please with some kind of debatable mind of their own, and lately it's not been uncommon to see two or three of them floating idly down the hallway together. Crowley and Cherenkov have requested recruit assistance in corralling these things and bringing them to a room set up to keep them in on the third floor. They're a bit like slowly deflating helium balloons, and can be guided with gentle taps to get them floating along in the right direction. Touching one of them is a strange experience that tends to leave hair standing on end. Touching more than one of them at the same time, however, is not recommended. Simultaneous contact with two or more plasma orbs has been known to have strange effects on people, including but not limited to developing the power to fly, sudden weightlessness, animal shapeshifting, ice breath, teleportation, and creating a protective and impenetrable bubble around oneself. None of these effects lasts longer than two minutes, and in each case, the following magitek hangover will make any orb-toucher feel awful for at least half an hour. HOTSPRINGS There's a new addition to Oska, down by the lake. It seems another team recently extracted an enormous, very hot core from a sentient and murderous AI. The core's power source isn't expected to run out for at least another thousand years, and unsure what else to do with it, the team dug it a pit not far from the lake. They failed to realize that this would accidentally have a very, very pleasant outcome. There are now hotsprings by the lake, nestled into the small grove of trees that grow around it. The water bubbles softly up from the ground in a new (technically man-made) pool, and some enterprising recruits have built wooden decks and stairs around and through the whole affair. It's a little bit of a hike to get there from the castle, but anyone who has visited can agree: it's worth it. OOC INFO Welcome to the festival! This will ICly last for 3 days (and OOCly for 2 weeks), at the end of which the other teams visiting the party will ship out to other missions and leave the PC team to unwind with Oska all to themselves. Through the duration of the festival, recruits will find themselves asked one question repeatedly: do you new guys have a team name yet? It seems everyone else has a team name! Really, it's just sort of sad that a team this big doesn't have a name, isn't it? We'll be including a section for characters to ICly suggest team names, and later on will be hosting an IC vote to pick a team name. Characters who signed up to remain in Nalawi for three months will arrive late to the party, but how late is up to players.

Comments

03; because it's funny

[ofobedience]

[At first it seemed unlikely that he'd indulge in any such thing himself - he's accustomed to showering when he wants to be clean, and unaccustomed to being seen in anything less than full formal attire - but eventually he'd been persuaded, and as long as he's left to his own devices he doesn't find it to be particularly unpleasant.

Quite the opposite, really.

There'd been a moment of uncertainty regarding bearing his skin so openly (or more accurately, that band of metal locked tight to his neck, bolted down and immovable), but there's no need for secrecy in a place so far from home, and its not something he feels any shame towards. Never has. Besides, the hot water acts to soothe the bone-deep ache in him that never quite goes away, and with his eyes closed and head back he can easily pretend he's alone.

That is, until his ears prick at the sound of nearby rustling.

His reaction is more instinctive than anything, eyes snapping open and head turning in the direction of the sound. He's a little surprised to discern a familiar face, one hand pressed to her eyes, fingers parted. He raises up slightly in the water, lean body partially visible along with the dull gleam of the collar and the long, twisted scar that stretches from nape to tailbone. One thin blond brow is raised, questioning.]

What are you doing?

[grunehexe]

[As distracting as all the flesh in the hot springs was, Sieglinde had been mildly interested in the metal collar bolted to a certain familiar neck, the scarring. That didn't meam she wasn't still peeking, however.

And him standing up wasn't helping things.]

...

[Well, that was a good question. And one she ought to have prepared an answer for beforehand. Sieglinde kept staring, meanwhile, until finally, a barely audible answer escaped her.]

- I am cooling down from my bath.

[Nevermind she isn't wet at all. At least she's clutching a towel?]

[ofobedience]

[The short delay that comes before her response, the fact that she doesn't appear to have been in the water at all-- these things don't escape his attention. She's clutching a towel, yes, but the hesitation and her furtive behaviour in the bushes leave him unconvinced.

Brow still arched, his expression is one caught between incredulity and mild confusion.]

You look suspiciously dry, to me. If you wanted to lie, wouldn't it have made more sense to pretend you were preparing for your bath, or looking our for a good spot?

[grunehexe]

...

[Sadly, this was Sieglinde after having improved her lying ability. She had a long way to go, but it could at least not be said that she wasn't stubborn.]

I take quite some time to cool off. I have a very high natural body temperature, I shall have you know.

[She was sticking with that one, whatcha gonna do about it, Giovanni?]

[ofobedience]

[What's he gonna do about it? Laugh, just a few sharp syllables but with honest mirth in them, even if beneath that there's something else. Something echoing and slightly cold.]

Is that so.

[He looks at her then, head tilted in an oddly canine fashion.]

Are you sure you weren't looking at this?

[Fingers move to the collar bolted down tight into flesh, scars blooming beneath the metal like twisting weeds. That she might have been peering at him for any other reason doesn't seem to occur to him at all.]

[grunehexe]

It is very much so.

[The key, Sieglinde figured, was sticking to ones guns. Metaphorically. But at his question, Sieglinde cocked her head, curious as to what "this" was...

But it made her frown a bit, when she realized it. As curious as she was to know the cause or purpose, she was at least more tactful with medical things than with... spying on nudity, and she hadn't thought to ask. She didn't appreciate questions about her own... peculiarity, after all.]

Well... I was not... not looking at it...

[ofobedience]

[Well, she's stubborn, he'll give her that.

Her reaction, though, is somewhat unexpected. Given her previous responses he'd have predicted something more in line with steadfast denial, perhaps some sign of embarrassment at being so overtly called out. The slight frown, the fractured admittance-- there's something there that strikes him as odd. If not the collar - his most obvious marker of difference, the thing that in so many ways defines his entire existence - then what else could it possibly be? He's slight and pale perhaps, but there's little else about him worthy of spying...

That a small girl might want to peek at naked men bathing doesn't quite seem to register with him.

His brows infinitesimally pull together, blood-coloured eyes flickering down over his own bare torso and then away again.]

You were looking at something.

[grunehexe]

[It doesn't seem to quite register with most people... which has saved her from punishment, thus far, thankfully, but.]

Well, that shall remain my business, then, yes... ?

[Though she was starting to think it might be time to quit while she was ahead, slowly inching a bit more behind the tree as if she might could just vanish from his sight and he'd forget he'd even caught her.]

[ofobedience]

[It helps, perhaps, that he falls fairly far outside the category of normal, that for him all thoughts stray first in the direction of bloodshed and violence, of strange dark places and the thing in him that scrabbles and jitters and shakes even now, wanting outoutout. Staring at his collar makes sense. Anything else? His bemusement only becomes more plain in the face of her response.

He just stares at her for a moment, saying nothing. It flashes up in him quite unbidden, the desire to get out of the water and close the distance between them, grab her up hands wrapping around the fragile stem of her throat he could squeeze the answer out of her or just keep going until the vertebra crack and crumble into dust in the pressure between his palms--

--but it's an abortive feeling, lucky for her. It rises then sinks back down in him, held in check. There's no need for that. Instead he just flashes her a vague sort of smile before sinking back into the water, eyes falling closed.]

You're going to get yourself in trouble, creeping about like that. Be careful, now.

[It could almost be mistaken for concern.]

[grunehexe]

[Forgetting he ever caught her peeking was starting to seem like the best idea. Without knowing at all what was going on behind the man's eyes, she could only tell he was displeased with her violation (appreciation) of his privacy...

And it was probably best to disappear.]

I shall... !

[As if she would take that advice to heart... she disappeared back behind the trees.

Probably best not to get caught again.]

[ofobedience]

[For his part, he'll let her slink off without so much as another word. That doesn't mean, however, that her actions will necessarily be forgotten.

The best she can hope for is that he'll let it go unmentioned.]