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

[advance]

... Katakura-kun. [ after a pause, he lets out a sharp huff, remembering the sword at his hip. ]

That's a healthy reaction.

[sengetsu]

[Kojuro's eyes flick to their surroundings, assessing his chances without his swords. Thankfully, the corridor is probably too narrow for Hanbei to use his whip-blade to it's full extent, and if it comes to a grapple, he has the definite physical advantage - but that would be risky. If he can avoid a fight, that would be for the best]

Damned right it is.

[advance]

[ hanbei can see where his eyes are moving, and he can't humor so much as a glance at their "battlefield" before he sighs. with begrudging form, hanbei lifts his hands in an attempt to settle him down. ( although, kojuro forgets about the way his jointed sword launches straight and true, and if the power within the initial shot doesn't pierce something, the trailing edges of the blades retreating might do some damage. ) ]

I'm not quite certain you can tell, but I've just arrived here. [ somehow, kojuro's strong reaction balances him out a bit. ]

As much as I would like to resume business with you, Katakura-kun, I'm afraid I'm not here to attack you.

[sengetsu]

[Kojuro can't quite resist the urge to snark back, even though he knows he shouldn't provoke a fight]

Just as well, because then I'd have to kill you again. [and yes, he knows you've just arrived, Hanbei. He'd have known if you were here before this] But you're here for the same reasons the rest of us are - ALISTAIR thinks you'll be useful.

[advance]

... ?


Hah. [ the laugh he emits is nothing but a breath– humorless and almost defensive when he hears those words. ] Have you lost all your rationality here, Katakura-kun?

[ kill him? again? ] I'm well aware of why I was brought here, as they informed me so graciously when I awoke. [ ... ] But do you care to explain yourself?

[sengetsu]

[There's the briefest expression of surprise on Kojuro's face, because it doesn't seem like Hanbei is lying - he genuinely doesn't remember. But - timelines. It hasn't been an issue with any of the others, so he hadn't considered it before now]

...Ah. It hasn't happened for you yet, has it. [He sounds less defensive, now - he knows something Hanbei doesn't, and in a fight between strategists, information is powerful.]

[advance]

[ this is all utterly ridiculous.

being made to accept that he has “fallen through a rift,” taken from hideyoshi and subsequently recruited for some cosmological need. time traveling, world jumping— ... on top of this? he doesn't take kojuro for such a flawless liar, either, and that unsettles something in him– creates something misaligned beyond what has already been thrown into disarray.

the response is beyond frustrating, and he lets out another sour laugh, this time as harsh as the words it proceeds. ] Slip of the tongue, was it? You seem rather composed for someone speaking to the undead.

[ his last word is punctuated with a kind of contempt that threatens to give rise to something else. something he smothers for now. ]

[sengetsu]

[Kojuro can tell he has the upper hand - it was a slip of the tongue, but perhaps a fortuitous one] The 'not yet dead', actually - the undead look a little less... fresh. [There's a hint of amusement there, but it's not a full-out joke] If you're here long enough, you'll see stranger things than that.

[advance]

[ as minuscule as the humor in kojuro's tone is, it only serves to touch on everything hanbei wants to be rid of. the rising exasperation in his chest is a weakness– a fatal one– a fatal one, and not one he'd like to show to kojuro of all people. so he doesn't react immediately, and tempers himself as well as he can.

after a pause, hanbei passes his face with a hand, and runs it through his hair. a heavy sigh later, he looks at the other man once more. ]

I sorely doubt that.

[ what could be stranger than speaking to someone who is supposed to be dead? extending the lifespan of one who fate had it entirely written out for? is that really what alastair is about? it's like a slap in the face... to know that a power of that caliber had existed all this time. ]

[sengetsu]

We killed a goddess. [Well, two of them, but only one fought back. The humor is gone from his voice - he's religious enough to have taken that mess fairly seriously.] And not all the other recruits are human.

[advance]

[ throughout his career, hanbei has criticized most everyone else for having a world view too narrow to be compatible with what the people actually need, with the weight he placed on his single dream– on helping hideyoshi change the world for the better, he's feeling a bit stubborn. nonhumans, gods... that doesn't matter; not compared to what his life with hideyoshi meant to him. ]

Yes, so it seems. [ he tosses some hair aside, and decides not to allow any more detrimental reaction from himself. besides, though he doesn't particularly care for it now, he knows this will end up being relevant later. ]

And you've adapted rather well. Taking the job here quite seriously, are you? Katakura-kun.

[sengetsu]

[Kojuro crosses his arms - though the posture is dismissive, rather than defensive.]

I take all my work seriously. [He's been accused on more than one occasion of not knowing how to have fun, usually by Masamune.]

[advance]

[ hanbei's sharp eyes search kojuro's in that answer. not quite because he thinks the man is hiding something in it but because of the blatant opportunity it gives hanbei. he smiles. ]

Really? That gives me hope, Katakura-kun. [ so he can be made to work under another banner in the right circumstances. barring the fact that these particular circumstances involve finding themselves in some sort of limbo of the multiverse, but it's telling all the same. ] It is what suits you best.

[sengetsu]

[Ah, now Hanbei looks imminently punchable again. Though Kojuro manges to resist the urge to try.]

Don't think it means I'd work for you. [He would rather die, basically]

[advance]

Of course. [ he's going to remain that way for a bit, probably, so self-assured in the way he speaks suddenly.

in all actuality, though, he's got far too much to think about now, and fighting kojuro has moved to the very bottom of his priority list. ] Then? Is Masamune-kun here as well?

[sengetsu]

He is. [Something Hanbei would find out easily enough even if he didn't say anything, so it's not worth trying to hide that particular bit of information from Hanbei, though he's not getting any details out of it right now.]