epidemiology | EVENT ★ ROLLING 'ROUND THE BEND

EVENT ★ ROLLING 'ROUND THE BEND

ASTERION PRISON

The white light is blinding. The weightlessness continues. The air thins into nothingness, though those who breathe won't feel the pain of suffocation -- in fact, they won't feel the need to breathe at all. The sensation continues for what may seem like a second or an eternity; it's impossible to tell.

And then the floor hits you. Or rather, you hit the floor. It's cold and metal and as your vision returns, you'll find you're not alone in this small room, though you're definitely not with anyone you know: standing in front of you is a brawny alien in a black uniform, its many purple eyes staring at you. The alien is flanked by a pair of robots, who take advantage of your dazed state and grasp you in their metal arms to drag you from the room into what appears to be a gigantic prison.

As the robots drag you past cells -- some containing other aliens, some containing humanoids, and some containing your teammates -- you'll catch a glimpse of the outside through a window.

You're in outer space.

If questioned, the guard will only tell you that you've been accused of conspiracy to commit grand theft, and your trial will begin soon. But in the meantime, you'd better get cozy.

YOUR NEW HOME

Asterion Prison is a dreadnought class spaceship with several different cell blocks making up a majority of its innards, with the rest of the space designated for day-to-day running of the ship and living quarters for the guards. Audentes is housed in Block 26, which has six tiers of cells situated in a circle around the main recreational area, out of which juts the Block 26 guard tower.

Each inmate, including Audentes recruits, has a glowing blue symbol emblazoned on their forehead. Though it's not immediately clear what the symbols mean, inmates who have been around longer will explain: it's a record of how many lives you've taken, a way for the guards to know who's the most dangerous. The symbol glows through any kind of attempt at covering it -- whether by makeup, clothing, hair, or something else -- so it's best to learn to deal with it quickly.

Speaking of clothing, whatever recruits were wearing upon their abduction has been replaced by a uniform orange jumpsuit. Similarly, any weapons are no longer present, though those with a special connection to their weapons will feel that they are being held elsewhere on the ship.

Luckily, the guards appear to have overlooked jewelcomms, so Audentes will be able to communicate with each other via magitek (text only is suggested, of course, unless you want to get caught!), though contact with Oska or any other outside ALASTAIR recruit seems to be blocked.

LOCKDOWN

As long as inmates keep to themselves and don't bother the guards, things run pretty smoothly. Two meals a day, five hours of sleep, and all the weights you need to get yourself swole. But on the sixth day in Asterion Prison, all hell breaks loose.

No one knows who started it, but there's suddenly a loud roar from the milling crowd in the recreational area. Most inmates scatter, but some rush in -- to see what's going on or to get a piece of the action themselves, who knows -- and then everything becomes an all-out brawl.

Super strong aliens with various powers fight each other loudly and violently while others cower and run for cover. The old alien ducks behind his chess board just in time to avoid a barbell sailing overhead; a six-armed being shoots lava out of its mouth, which does nothing to the metallic floor but severely burns a group of humanoid toads wielding shivs.

The fight goes on for a few long minutes before correctional officers and their robot guards pour in to try and get things under control. Those who are still around once the officers come in are in threat of being dragged off to solitary, even if they had nothing to do with the brawl, so make yourself scarce unless the idea of sitting in the dark for another six days seems appealing.

OOC NOTES

Welcome to space prison! We hope you'll enjoy your stay. There is a plotting write-up here with extra information about the prison ship, and please note that participation in the symbol directory is mandatory.

If you have any questions about the prison that aren't answered here, please direct them to the Leramzen dossier.

Questions about the game in general should be directed to the FAQ and you may submit mission ideas or player plots at any time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No.

[She had believed it for all her life, up until the very day ALASTAIR had "rescued her", so there's no hint of lie or deception in her tone, just a quiet retelling of what others found shocking but to her had simply been how things were.]

The Green Witch is bound to the village and to the manufacture of the Ultimate Magic. My ancestor gifted the wolves of the wood her legs in return for their protection, and all daughters of her blood honored that pact.

[Gently, she knocks her toes together, explaining why her feet had been bound. (At least, the version she'd been raised on.) She doesn't feel it as strongly as she knows she's supposed to, but. It was something.]

I was not to leave, but to live there and create the magic, and bear my own daughter to continue the work when the time came.

[It takes every ounce of restraint in his body to keep from blurting out the truth, or what he feels is just that. Asher listens to her talk and only grows more angry on her behalf. While there's a chance that what she's saying is true, as he's heard more fantastical stories from some of their other teammates, it doesn't change the fact that a little girl was trapped in a place without the ability to move on her own or make her own decisions.

Legacy is a word he has come to loathe in recent years because he knows that he will never fulfill his own and ultimately doesn't want to. If riches come at the price of ruining the lives of the innocent, then so be it. In that case, he will choose poverty.

Relative poverty, that is.]

And you were just okay with that?

[It's a fair question.

And likely that she didn't know any better.]

[It wasn't the first time someone has asked her that, and she doubts it will be the last. What to her had been normal, simply been her lot in life, was something abhorrent and wrong to most people she met... and it's not like she can blame them. Knowing what she did now, what her "mother" had revealed to her... it made her sick. But back then-]

Of course I wanted to see the Outside World... even if it were just once, just for a short while...

[In a moment of childish weakness, she'd even begged for it, tears streaming from her eyes. She remembers it like a distant dream, after nearly two years with ALASTAIR removed from that place. Her hair has changed since then, her height, her skin now marked with tattoos and scars she'd not had then, and her feet unbound...]

But I had a responsibility to the women of my village. They looked to me for protection and leadership... and if angered, the wolves of the wood would take their wrath out upon them. How could I be so selfish as to condemn them just so I could leave?

[Its only then that she looks to Asher properly again.]

Would you not then... learn to be alright with it?

[Not be. Learn to be. Make yourself be.]

[He watches her carefully through the metal bars, noting how she appears to shrink before his eyes, unsure of what to think. Cultures differ across various landscapes, but what she describes is more absurd than talking skeletons and flying pigs. Placing that much responsibility into the hands of one person, much less a child, is just downright unfair.

Asher thinks upon her inquiry briefly, wondering if her snooty attitude is a byproduct of this somehow. Looking down on others for not having her skills is easier than suffering, than doubting everything you have ever known.]

Honestly?

I dunno.

[Yes he does.

Asher would do his best to help and then fall short, probably. Like he always seem to do.]

I can't say I've ever had that much on my plate before.

You know you don't have to worry about that stuff while you're here, though.

[She's been told that almost as much as she's been asked his previous question. They seemed to follow one another as natural, to most people, but to Sieglinde, who had been raised on duty and responsibility... it's not easy at all. She can't see how it could be.]

Just because I am here doesn't mean my duty is erased, or my promises broken. I swore to find a cure for the Ultimate Magic, and that is something I will think about every day until it is complete.

[So dedicated to this, in fact, that she had tattooed her theories on a possible cure onto her skin in Oska, that which she had told him vaguely on the network was simply "something important for my world". The very edge of one of the tattoos can actually be seen on the outside of her ankle, where her jumpsuits long pants legs are rolled up.]

If I cannot see it done in my lifetime, my heir will take on the task. And so on, and so forth.

[That was the price she paid for ignorance. For creating SuLIN in the first place.

She may have escaped her village... but until she'd righted what she'd done, she could never feel free.]

[He can sort of understand that a pressing issue, whether it be from home or elsewhere, will always loom figuratively over one's head. Asher is still reeling from revelations that occurred months, almost a year ago, so he'll give her that.]

You keep talkin' about this kid you're gonna have, but uh...

[His tone is neutral, gentle even, lacking any accusatory remarks. In his opinion, while Sieglinde is most definitely a bright girl, she's myopic at best, often lacking compassion or foresight when it comes to matters that aren't innately logical. For her sake, he hopes she doesn't jump the gun on this family thing all too soon.]

Is it really fair? To like, determine their fate for 'em?

What if the kid doesn't wanna do any of this stuff?

[Asher at least is not the only one with doubts on Sieglinde's child-rearing capabilities. She herself had concerns, born of their mission on Zeta-12, and her inability to connect emotionally with... the squidge. But that had been a failing on her part, she knew that- and blamed part of it on the nature of the creature. It had not been born of her, it was not her heir-

It would surely be different.]

Of course it is not fair.

[It hadn't been fair to her, that was how she knew. To be the only heir to the prestigious Green Witch's bloodline, to have all of that on her shoulders... she'd accepted it, been proud of it, in her way... but it wasn't fair.

Her expression grows a bit softer, a bit more reserved, fingers tangling in her lap.]

My child will be raised in the tradition of the Green Witch, but... when they come of age, if they do not wish to take on the title... I will bear another child, and try again. They can do with their life something else, if they truly wish it.

[If she begins as soon as she can... she thinks she might be able to have... up to three children if need be. Considering her vision of "of age" was likely much younger than more modern Audentes members.

Much better odds.]

[Her reasoning doesn't seem to make it any better.

Asher sits in silence, bothered by how her words do not appear to match her face. She averts her gaze, eyes remaining focused on the fidgeting fingers in her lap.

It's good that she is young, and despite the mark on her forehead, somewhat innocent despite everything, because he can't hold his tongue for very much longer.]

That's no way to raise anybody-

[His voice gets louder, despite it being a terrible idea, what with all the guards around-]

So you're just gonna keep on poppin' out babies until one of 'em decides to clean up the mess?

They're gonna end up hating your ass.

[Sounds like he knows a thing or two about that.]

Is that really what you want? Don't you care about having a relationship with your kids?

Like, a good one?

Edited 2017-06-23 02:41 (UTC)

[She's heard this before, too. Wondered if there would ever come a time when someone might listen to this and nod, agree, tell her that indeed this was the best of awful ways. She had the fortitude and the will to forge her own path, to disregard naysayers and things like morals and compassion when it suited her...

But that didn't mean she liked it, constantly being questioned. Told she was wrong, or a bad person.

(She already knew that what she had done was wrong. Was bad.)]

If being despised by my children is the price I must pay to see a cure made for a poison that could kill countless thousands, then that is the price I pay. The price they pay, for being unfortunate enough to be born the children of the Green Witch.

[Despite herself, her tone hardens defensively, and her body language grows cold where not moments ago they had joked and laughed.]

If you think I relish it then you are mistaken. If my heir is fortunate, I will have already found a solution before they are even a seed in my womb, and they will know me as a kind and generous woman who did everything she could to fix her mistakes. If not-

[If not-]

Then I will have ruined another life, and if they are lucky, they will find a solution to their mother's folly before they bear their own child.

Poison gas?

[There's so much wrong with everything he's just heard, and he'll address that in a minute, maybe, but for now-]

How does that have anything to do with protecting women from a werewo-

[His stomach drops for the umpteenth time this week, and his gaze is finally redirected to that mark on her forehead, the one they both share. Truth be told, Asher hopes, prays, that he is wrong-]

Oh my god.

You're lying.

[She's lying.

She's been lying since the day she came into ALASTAIR's employ. She's been lying about her mother, her past, her duty, the village, the werewolves, why her feet had been bound, and even about being a witch. All of it, every bit, because it had been easier that way. She'd believed it to be true all those years, only finding out the horrible truth a mere hour before she'd suddenly been a member of Audentes.

And it had been less painful to just lie. What was she supposed to say? How was she even supposed to begin to say it? There had only been three people she had trusted with the knowledge of that truth... and all of them have left her but one, and that one... she had only told him to try and comfort him. Not unburden herself.

She just stares back at Asher, more like through him, for what seems like an eternity but was only a moment.]

... the Ultimate Magic that the werewolves require to survive. What nourishes the magical is poisonous to humans. I knew that, yet I still created it, because I thought...

[Even she didn't know if she was going to lie to his face again, or not. Not until she actually speaks.]

I thought it would only be used in my woods. The people outside say the wolf wood is cursed, and normally do not enter... but the lives of those foolish enough to try seemed like a worthy enough price for what I had to do.

[It isn't the whole truth. But she can't stand to face that herself most days- least of all now.]

What I created is my responsibility to undo.

[What she created is her responsibility to undo, but how? By creating an antidote or destroying her work? For all his ignorance, Asher has paid enough attention in history classes to know that formulas are stolen and misused all the time. There is a chance that, even years after she ceases to exist, someone will stumble upon the crude remains of her studies or even "improve" upon her technique by fashioning an even more lethal weapon out of what she has to offer.

He should not feel so angry, as he has done the same- Committed a crime he can never undo, no matter how much he tries to catch the perpetrators. What would Tiffany Walker say, if she knew?

Asher swallows hard, stopping her with his hand. The look on his face is one of grave disappointment.]

So, you mean to tell me that...

You tested this thing in a place where there were innocent people-

[Child or not, that is not something he can easily accept-]

Knowing that they would die?

That is...

[His voice breaks as he continues. Sure, she is only thirteen, but she's earned his chiding now.]

So messed up.

[Though her expression hardens in response to that disappointment she sees there, (how dare he look at her like that, like he of all people had the right to judge her for what she'd done?), her answer comes without pause.]

Knowing that people could die if they ignored the warnings and entered the forest. Yes.

[She can't shirk away from that, certainly not now, with a glowing symbol on her forehead that speaks to the fact that she's responsible for deaths. Blood on her hands, no matter how it got there...

It's not like she can pretend to be innocent. Pretend to be some normal child. Pretend like her entire life hadn't been a fabricated lie designed to funnel her efforts towards the creation of the poison her parents had failed to succeed with/]

But if you would choose the potential loss of a few lives over the wellbeing of an entire village, you may cast your stones now.

[It wasn't like she could run from it.]

[There's that thrumming in his chest again, the knowing and unknowing. Asher is aware that this is not a matter of right and wrong, as neither of them are blameless. The glaring symbol of his own crimes is what makes his face visible, glowing as it may.]

What if it'd been you?

[Warnings are warnings, sure, but that doesn't change certain circumstances.

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time-]

What if you had gotten into a fight with your boyfriend, or your dad-

[Asher words are painted with too much color for the situations to truly be hypothetical.]

Or run away from home because your family couldn't bear to look at you, for something you couldn't change?

[Those people who had died, they could have easily been any one of his close friends.]

This isn't normal.

[His volume doesn't change as they must keep from drawing attention to themselves, though it's clear from the look in his eyes and the way he stumbles over his syllables that he is pretty damn upset.]

I don't care where the hell you are from-

[A breath.]

This isn't normal!

If there is something you aren't telling me, and you think you can just lie to me like that...

[Then, a flare of the nostrils.]

You're wrong.

[It's too obvious to Sieglinde that he seems to be talking about his own circumstances now, and not her own. It's too specific, too impassioned over the potential deaths of poachers and hunters in a German wood in a world not his own. It's this that allows her to look on him somewhat impassively as his emotions overflow, still sitting where she was with her feet just slightly hanging over the edge of the cot.

She doesn't even respond at first, either, just staring at him with the same expression she used to use on her villages before announcing some sort of revelation or predication from her dreams before she finally opens her mouth.]

I never claimed to be normal.

[How hypocritical he seems to her right now, saying those things with the exact same symbol on his forehead. Was he so blind? Was he so ready to condemn her actions when surely anyone would agree the lives of the few outweighed the lives of the many?]

Do you mean to tell me that the people you killed all unequivocally deserved to die, and that what you did was normal?

[She's waiting.]

You don't think I feel bad about that?

[Here is proof that she is not a normal child.

She lashes out and attempts to corner him like an adult would, hell, like all the adults in his life do, and he is sick of it.]

Sieglinde.

[If she can see through the darkness, she will catch his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Despite what everyone has told him, that the bandits were no good and that they didn't deserve to die, it doesn't change the way he often replays that night in his head.

How would things have gone if he hadn't panicked? If he and Hiruma had somehow managed to just knock the other two out and run for their lives? Differently, for sure. Nobody would have died and neither of them would have blood on their hands, and-]

I spend my time at home around professional liars.

[Annalise's voice seems to echo through his words, although he's already forgotten where he's heard them before.]

I get that things were bad for you. I get that maybe there was no way out of that situation, so you did you what you had to do.

That's not why I'm so pissed right now.

Bad enough that you feel justified in trying to make others feel bad about theirs.

[She'd resigned herself to "acceptable losses" at the age when she suspected Asher had been playing with toy trains. Knew by the time he was likely beginning his schooling in earnest that morals were negotiable when it came to scientific advancement. Her mother had made sure of that- that every part of her upbringing would create a mind that thirsted for knowledge, creation, and experimentation no matter the cost.

It didn't mean she didn't regret that losses happened, though. Didn't mean she didn't try to think of the better ways to do things, the ways with less loss or less suffering.

But it doesn't always work out. She wasn't that naive anymore.]

But if you have some other reason you are angry with me, I advise you spit it out.

The Green Witch's line is that of healing, not the reading of minds and hearts.

[He can't help but find it deeply disconcerting that a thirteen year old had just cornered him like a real lawyer, even though he may have deserved it.]

That's not what I'm tryin' to do here.

[For now, Asher focuses himself on the task at hand.

It's petty, he knows, to be so determined to win an argument with a girl barely half his age.]

Old school Germany or nah, some of the stuff you said right now just doesn't add up.

Okay, so you come from some long line of witches that have been protectin' the village with ye olde voodoo or whatever. If this has been a problem since like, forever ago-

[The 1L shakes his head, attempting to ensure that he's got his facts straight.]

Why leave the safety of so many people all up to one person? If this has been goin' on for so long, wouldn't the villagers have reached out to somebody else for help? Why didn't the government step in?

It doesn't any make sense.

[Even though he has reason to be upset, he still wants to be careful. Big lie or not, it's obvious that a girl with these kinds of capabilities would have to have been forced into some kind of uncomfortable situation, otherwise she wouldn't have turned out like this.

Cold, unfeeling, overly analytical. And yet still so much like a child, petulant when she does not get her way.]

That and it sounds like you're still gettin' your story straight.

[Her perfectly fabricated account is recounted all too logically, in places. Like some of it is a poem that she has learned to recite, as opposed to events that actually occurred.]

I call bullshit, basically.

[A part of him, too, still wants to believe that she is innocent somehow.

That this whole mess isn't really her fault.]

What are you leavin' out of all of this?

Edited 2017-06-23 19:49 (UTC)

[She could be honest. She could tell him the truth right now. There wasn't anything stopping her- except the fact that she didn't want him to look on her with the pity she knew the actual truth would inspire. Didn't quite trust him to be able to keep a secret, with her experiences with him being what they were, and how much he seemed to love to talk.

So she doubles down.]

My people fled the witch persecutions spearheaded by those in power, they aren't going to help us. There is no police, no government. [One hand moves to her heart, presses a bit too firmly.] I am the lord of Wolfsschlucht, which makes me the government. The only reason the other women cannot work on the Ultimate Magic is because they are descended from weaker witch's than mine own ancestor. There is almost no magic left in their bloodlines at all, but there remains yet enough in mine to see to the work- and they all did their part to try and support me in those endeavors. Every day.

[Her voice cracks in those last words, because they had. The women who had practically raised her, smiled at her, fed her, helped her... had revealed themselves in the end to be soldiers on a mission, and willing to kill her rather than let her leave and potentially lend her brain to another country.

She can still remember the smell of burned flesh and the manic look in Hilde's eye when she'd sighted down the barrel of a gun aimed straight at her head.]

How is it you have spent this long with ALASTAIR and still assume other people's worlds are anything like your own? I do not understand at all-

[She might not be able to read hearts and minds like a true seer, but she could see enough to know projection when she saw it.]

[She fires back at him as the fire within himself flickers and dims. His cheek puffs out as he listens to her berate him, and rightfully so. She is competent in ways he will never be, but that doesn't change the fact that she is a child.

Asher is guilty of this everywhere, even back home. Such is the nature of the rich white man, to just assume that everyone has had the things he always took for granted, like actually being protected by the law. He makes this mistake despite knowing that even in modern Philadelphia, the same thing happens every day.

David Allen had been in prison for 21 years for a crime he had never committed, and if Asher had just taken the easy way out and never challenged his father, that man would've died for no good reason. Just like him, Sieglinde was ostracized and forgotten about.

He should know better, and so he does the one thing he constantly finds himself doing.]

I'm sorry.

[He apologizes.

At the same time, the world he comes from is all he has ever known. It is gilded and beautiful, a life of luxury vehicles and fancy wine glasses, but the laughter in those houses has never felt real. Everything about that place is cold, lonely.

Asher doesn't talk about it, though. It's no excuse for the way he just behaved.]

I believe you.

[The words are simple and earnest as he looks at her from the cot of his own prison cell, leaning against the wall with tired eyes. His smile is bitter, resentful, though all of that negativity is directed mainly at himself. If what she says is true, Sieglinde deserves not only his sympathy but also his utmost respect.

He can barely stand under a fraction of that kind of pressure, and yet here she is, a living symbol of what it means to be strong in a tiny little body.]

I just hate when people lie to me.

Edited 2017-06-24 07:03 (UTC)

[Sieglinde wished that the manor she had grown up in had been cold and loveless. The village women respected her, looked to her for their salvation. Her maid servants had dressed her and cared for her, brushed her hair at night and styled her complex hennin each morning. Wolfram had been stern and intimidating, but his hands had been gentle and apologetic when he unwrapped the bandages from her bound feet only to clean them then bind them tighter. Oh, it had not been a gay place, full of merriment and joy, but she had felt loved. Treasured. Important.

It had made the betrayal of the truth so much more shocking.]

Most people hate it.

[She feels no victory at his concession, only the awful pit of relief that did not need to navigate the emotional pitfalls of a confession even she didn't like to face most days. Masamune, Kidagakesh, Riza... they'd had so many questions. Why? How? Questions she had no answer for. Only Gilgamesh had simply accepted it, and he, like all of them, was gone.

She didn't have it in her to explain again. Not to most anyone, let alone to Asher, right now, with his strong ideas on right and wrong, and how a world ought to be.

With a slight shift, the little pretend witch slides from the cot back to the cell floor, adjusts her jumpsuit.]

Keep your head down here until we figure out a plan. I would advise you not attract much attention to yourself.

[Back to business.]

[He is ready to forgive her, that is, until she opens her mouth .

Sieglinde unfortunately says the words he hates the most, implying that he is nothing more than some spoiled little rich boy, useful for little more than a laugh. It doesn't help that he stares back at her like a spoiled child, seething in silence instead of dignifying her with an answer. This is the second time today that he has been made to feel like he is lesser than, adding salt to a wound that's been festering for as long as he can remember. He feels betrayed in a way, knowing that he had done everything within his power to make sure she had not fainted from exhaustion in Woodhurst, and extended his kindness to her when she was mourning the loss of a loved one. Apparently that is not good enough, and he will never be good enough, because he is not a genius nor an iron-willed warrior carved from stone. Try as he might to change, Asher Millstone will always remain one thing: Soft.

He wonders, half-heartedly, if her respect is even worth seeking.

But for now, he is done talking.]

Edited 2017-06-24 11:17 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ ROLLING 'ROUND THE BEND

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sorry for all these question tags ASLDKFJ

all good fam

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i'm laughing he's so simple let me die

le sob

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