epidemiology | EVENT ▸ RESCUERS DOWN UNDER

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EVENT ▸ RESCUERS DOWN UNDER

RESCUERS

Tensions are high in the Democratic City-State of Drakstaden. It's been two days since the infiltration of the Broadcasting Station, where a secret recording of the Prime Minister laying out plans to enslave the lower classes was broadcast to the entire city -- leading to a number of bystanders, Ophelia, and Rost to get arrested and thrown in prison.

Of course, no one's useful to the resistance effort behind bars, so Rost makes contact and explains that they've been spending the past two days planning a prison break -- and it's time to put it in action.

▸ VAKDIR PRISON

Rost’s most studious member, Brynja, proposes that the prison break effort be split into two groups: a distraction group and an infiltration group.

The infiltration group will need members familiar with technology who will be able to use -- and if necessary, manipulate -- the Vakdir security tech. Stealth and speed are of the essence, as being caught could blow the entire operation. It’s possible there will be run-ins with stray Vakdir who will need to be dispatched quickly and quietly, then hidden; fighters who specialize in guns, explosives, or other loud weaponry might want to join the other group.

The distraction group will have to busy the Vakdir on guard duty and, in the worst-case scenario, take them out before they can investigate or stop the break-in. Good conversationalists are required, but good fighters are necessary, too. Most importantly, creative minds who can think on their feet and get themselves out of tight spots are ideal for the distraction group.

The main Vakdir security is positioned in the lobby near the entrance and around the perimeter of the building. The minimum number of guards at any given area is two; the Vakdir do guard duty in groups. The most important thing while there are no alarms going off is to keep the guards busy and in place -- you don’t want them heading back and finding a group of infiltrators. Whatever it takes to keep them there! Each guard is a different person and has a different personality, so what works for one may not work for another. If an alarm goes off -- when an alarm goes off, since one does near the end of the operation -- it’s time to pull out all the stops. This is when it likely gets violent, unless you’re particularly persuasive. The security camera footage will be deleted and the released inmates won’t be taking any prisoners themselves, so no one will be left to remember your face; don’t worry about becoming a fugitive.

The infiltration part is a little trickier. Brynja knows the location of an alternate entrance, but it's locked. The only hope is a small, impossibly high window. Looks like you’ll have to do some teamwork! With some standing on each other’s shoulders -- and a good lookout -- someone will be able to drop in through the window (watch your landing!) and unlock the door from the inside. Unluckily, one of the first obstacles they’ll run into is a retina scanner. Luckily, a few of those retinas are nearby... some Vakdir officers have accidentally stumbled upon the team. They’re unprepared, but armed; take them out quickly, before they can alert anyone. Once they’re out, you can hold them up to the retina scanner.

The door to the holding cells is the next obstacle. It appears there’s a password, one that changes daily if the TODAY’S PASSCODE IS... is any indication. For a moment, it looks like they’re out of luck, before a prompt pops up: WOULD YOU LIKE A HINT? If pressed, it will bring up the following hint:

6
16
1611
111621
31161211
THE PASSCODE IS THE NEXT NUMBER IN THE SEQUENCE.

Eventually, someone’s bound to figure it out -- the answer is 132116111221; each number describes the number before it. In this case, one three, two ones, one six, one one, one two, and two ones. Once inside, it’s up to inventors to hack the locks or bruisers to brute force their way in. Either way, free the prisoners! Yes, all of them -- not only are most of them probably locked up for bogus charges, but the more people on your side, the better your chances are for winning not just this battle, but the war.

Once they’re all free, it’s time to lead them all back the way you came so nobody trips an alarm. Except... everyone’s a little bit worked up about being freed and running amok. And it looks like someone just tripped an alarm all on their own.

Well, no one said it would be easy!

▸ DISCUSSION

After the break-in and escape, you'll need to lie low. Go back to the hotel, hide with Rost, spread throughout the city with your newly freed friends -- whatever you like. But wherever you go, you'll notice that Vakdir presence has increased, even in the previously unguarded lowest levels. If you're wanted for crimes, you'll need to be especially careful, unless you want to constantly be running for your life.

With the sudden surge in criminal and treasonous behavior, the entire city has gone on lockdown. There is now a curfew in place: everyone must be in their homes by an hour after sunset, which, given the short daylight hours on this part of the planet, means citizens only have ten hours per day of freedom.

This curfew applies to the rebels of Rost and Ophelia, of course, though with your combined resources, you should be able to find a way to get around it and continue your work throughout the city, whatever that may be.

Still, things are bad. And despite the combined efforts of Rost and Ophelia, things keep getting worse; Rost worries that the Vakdir will increase its efforts to root them out, pulling innocent citizens into the thick of everything and bringing the lower class ever closer to the Prime Minister's planned subjugation.

Purple-haired Rost agent Froken stops by the hotel one day before curfew, surreptitiously letting Ophelia know they're ready to do whatever it takes to finish this once and for all; Rost is prepared to hear any suggestions that Ophelia may come up with, trusting them as experts in this matter (whether or not that's true for the individuals in the guild).

But first, you'll need to discuss what to do.

▸ OOC NOTES

This log takes place over one day, with the next log beginning two weeks later. Get ready to get serious!

Please note: due to a dip in activity, we have shifted some plot points, combining this log and the next. The next planned !plot log on 26 May will be the final log of this mission.

If you have questions about this log or the mission, please direct them to the dossier. Questions about the game in general can be directed to the FAQ.

▸ Up now:

Player Plot: Mayission Impossible (sign-ups closed).

▸ Coming next (Futurology runs on timezone UTC):

19 May: Resolution submissions and voting begins.
23 May: Resolution submissions and voting ends.
26 May: Final log of Mission: Drakstaden.

▸ CR/Welcome Meme ▸ Drakstaden Dossier ▸ Drakstaden Locations ▸ Drakstaden Bounty Board ▸ May Calendar

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Since their return to the hotel Hayame has kept largely to her own room in order to remain in her natural form, fed up with the suffocating shape of humanity she had been forced to remain in for too long, even while suffering Vakdir abuses. The only reason she has returned the shapeshifting ring to the finger of her tightly bandaged hand and left her room at all in that weak two-legged form again is because of hunger.

She is set to return to said room, an enormous amount of food in her arms (actually a normal amount of food when you weigh half a ton), when she spots Kylo Ren.

Her steps slow, then stop, appraising him from where she stands. Asleep? In an open, unprotected place such as this? But more than that... she had seen Otaka embrace him, within the prison walls. And he did have a large chest for a human...

Could he be the person she had spoken of, back on Hanabira? Curious... Hayame keeps staring as she contemplates the possibility, eyes narrowing.]

[Kylo doesn't stir right away, when he feels eyes upon him somewhere far away in the Force. His breathing is labored and slow. In truth, he was utterly exhausted. He hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours at a time thanks to his broken ribs. Everything he did was uncomfortable, or wracked with pain.

Right on cue, he shifts unconsciously in an attempt to get more comfortable, and the arm of the chair presses on his injury.

He jolts awake with a sharp inhale and a grunt, his opposite hand flying to cradle his side as he forces himself to sit up.

Hayame's eyes are more present in the Force now, but he does not turn to look at her right away. They'd both seen unpleasant parts of one another in that cell, after all.]

...did you need something?

[He finally forces it out, chancing a half-glance over his broad shoulder. He'd had a different greeting in mind, but...well.]

[Hayame knows an injury when she sees it. She's nursed her share with ALASTAIR, now Hathaway. Had been trained to inflict them and look for them in her enemies since she was old enough to trot. Being stuck in a cell with him with the both of them injured had certainly not made her less aware of his condition-

But she surprised to see him still injured. Most of the other members of the "team" usually seemed all too eager to rush to their sorcerers and healers at the slightest wound. Here she thought she was the only one who disliked their methods- for surely that was the only explanation?]

I did not realize you knew Otaka so well.

[She answers smoothly enough as to the matter of her contemplation, shifting the food in her arms. If Hayame herself was a more social creature, she surely would have connected the dots between Rey (Otaka) and Kylo Ren ages ago... but she was not. She avoided most any group events, the discussions, the celebrations.

But there was little privacy in a prison cell. (Both ways.)]

O...taka.

[He says it like he's still half asleep as he forces himself to stand up. Looking at her over his shoulder, as it turns out, is tough on his injury. Standing wasn't a treat either, but it was better than trying to pretend he wasn't interested in talking to her.

But then he remembers the Force, and probes it for her meaning -- it doesn't translate, but he does understand who she is referring to almost immediately after that.]

Rey.

[He corrects her aloud, absently, before realizing that maybe it would have been better to pretend that he didn't know who she was talking about. There is a short hesitation after that, where he holds onto the chair instead.

Names were important. Identity was important. So he continues:]

Her name is Rey.

Edited 2018-05-15 16:21 (UTC)

[Having put her own name into the field as she had been asked when taken first into ALASTAIR, Hayame assumes that all sensible creatures were doing the same unless the "username" was just blatantly not a name. And "falcon", translated into her native tongue by the magitech device... was one. A strong name, with a good kanji character. She added the prefix as a sign of respect, but.

She watches him with some measure of confusion for the correction, silent at first. If her name was something different, she surely would have not been answering to her call all this time, why would you-]

I mean Otaka.

[Perhaps he meant a different woman.]

I do not know "Otaka". But I know Rey.

[He frowns some. He can tell that Hayame isn't speaking maliciously -- just out of what she thinks she knows. Some piece of him wonders the same thing that she wonders, but he also does not voice it. Perhaps he will ask her later, if it continues to bother him.]

Strong. Brown hair. Angry.

[Compassionate. Lonely. He leaves these adjectives out. "Angry" was how he knew her best, and a quality he could relate to. It would be better not to go into just how well he knows her.

But he can confirm that much.]

[Was she so angry? Perhaps Hayame, with the strength of her rages and the simmering grudges she tries to hide beneath her more stoic warrior's exterior simply cannot see something like that, but... the the other two adjectives were correct, so...]

"Rey", then.

[If that really was her name!!!

But she'd seen them both now, wielding that power to move things with a force invisible, and so she has already decided they might be of the same world... a comfort she has not ever imagined to feel. That she imagines with a small ounce of jealousy, for no matter your relation with the other... there was someone like you. But if that were the case-

She looks to him in silence, waiting for answer to her original "question".]

[He senses her jealousy, and it encourages a flicker of curious confusion on his face. It is brief, gone in just a blink.

Rey had mentioned Hayame to him, when the Force had connected them again in that cell. Her concern radiated in a way that made him ill to think about -- not because it was directed at someone else, but because the complex feelings that came with compassion still made him uncomfortable.

More importantly, he recognizes that Hayame is waiting for a response to her original observation, one that he isn't entirely interested in supplying.]

She has an abundance of concern for others.

[Its the first thing that comes to his mind, in an effort to continue to seem an unremarkable party. Was that a vague but also familiar enough reply? He does not know Rey's relationship with Hayame well enough to know.]

That she does.

[To the point that Hayame considered it unwise. Noble, perhaps, in intent, even admirable in a way... but impractical. Potentially hazardous. At least, when viewed through the lens of her own experiences, and the risks she found inherent in caring about anyone but a select few.

But there was caring and then there was embracing.

Suspicions raised by the rather sparse description of a man she had heard from the other woman, Hayame feels duty bound to follow. After all, they were... apparently "friends". And if that was so-]

You share a world?

A galaxy.

[It feels odd to agree that they share "a world" when they had grown up so differently from one another, on two entirely opposite ends of the galaxy. Even confirming that much feels like driving another nail in the coffin.

Of course, he has no inkling that she's been talking about him to other people -- not beyond people who already knew who he was, and what he was to their galaxy.]

We are both Force sensitive.

[That's common enough knowledge that he doesn't mind supplying it.]

[Ah, yes. He is the one who actually taught her that word, or at least, the one who finally used it in a way that allowed her to understand, standing on that beach in Hanabira looking at the first real ocean she had ever seen. "Galaxy". Speaking to people of other worlds was always fraught with these words- like "Force". It was easier to avoid them. But she had interfered with him in the prison, taking Odinson's side on action even though in her heart of hearts she had wanted to be as Kylo Ren had been then, her weakness and broken hand be damned-

And she thinks that had been "Force".]

That power you use to twist the world. I have seen it.

[Maybe doesn't have the best words to explain what it seems to her it does, but.]

How powerful it seems.

[Maybe that's praise?]

[Is it praise? He blinks suspiciously, in a manner that only those practiced reading nonverbal communication might notice.

Yes -- it likely was. She seemed to be well acquainted with Rey, at least enough that Rey had nearly cried over the knowledge that she was locked in a prison cell with Kylo Ren. He chooses not to voice that much.]

It is...a rare trait. It tends to frighten people.

[But he did not know all of its secrets -- if he had, perhaps the wound he was currently enduring would not trouble him so.]

She is still learning.

[Hayame thrives far more in the realm of the nonverbal- at least, in the way her world utilized them. Her entire life it was not her voice that had been valued, but her silence. All she'd been required to do was obey, and in order to obey better than the rest... she'd had to read the desires of master to anticipate and act. She was yet unskilled with words, but.

She notices the blink.

And perhaps it was praise, in a way. She valued strength, physical or otherwise. His had been... a violent, raw sort of thing... but she cannot say hers is not, when bestial rage overtook trained warrior.]

Most people do not like that which they cannot see.

[... which included her. She was yet unsure of her feelings on it, though for Rey's sake she had attempted to overlook it. (Maybe even benefited, from the way the Force allowed Rey to read her thoughts when Hayame herself could not articulate them.)]

So you are the master, then?

Perhaps. But the Force is in all things — including you and I. I cannot see it — I feel it.

[The answer to Hayame’s question is “Not exactly”. What Kylo Ren says is:]

Correct.

[He was not equipped to be a master. He was something of a poor teacher thanks to his nonverbal tendencies and inability to express his feelings, but in Kylo’s mind, he has experience and training on his side whereas Rey does not. If one of them had to be the appentice, then it would most certainly be Rey.

He can almost feel the twitch of annoyance from her in the back of his head when he offers that confirmation, but its too late. Its out in the world now.]

[Hayame almost replies "not in me". She was flesh and blood, not... this mystical Force, nor the element binders "chi", nor "spirit", or any of the other things these people from other worlds made claim to. ... but over the months she has seen their work. Cannot confidently deny any longer that she is not.

Instead, she awkwardly shifts the mountain of food in her arms again.

Perhaps it is not her place to ask. But if they are "friends"...]

You seemed far more than "master".

[Painfully aware of her own hypocrisy, Hayame fights to keep a blush from her face, even asking in such a roundabout way as that. She had been very careful, beyond her slip up in Azeria, to not betray her own relationship publicly. She often didn't even stand that close to him for fear it might be commented on... but she had been pained and weakened both in the prison cells, and she knows she had relied on Odinson more than was proper. Been given more attention and allowed more touch than was to be expected for a simple teammate.

Still- she recalls Rey's words in Hanabira. Her drunken advice to seek another, if that one was so confounding. And here someone stands- confounding.]

[She is too pushy. He makes a noise of displeasure and forces his spine to straighten to make himself look bigger even though it causes him great pain.]

I am not certain what business of that is your's.

[His tone is that of a man who's pride is being threatened. He will fight you even with your arms full of food and with his broken ribs, Hayame!!

He didn't miss the way she interacted with Odinson, but he doesn't think to throw it back at her. After all, relationships were normal...for everyone but him. Its not really an insult so much as it is a vulnerability that he is beginning to recognize might be a foolish, trained response.

But he doesn't care. He's gonna bark at that tree.]

[That height trick might work on a human. He is taller than Hayame is, in this two-legged shape... but mentally, she is still jinba. Even men the heights of Kylo Ren or Odinson are little concern for her, and she still speaks to them as if she looks down instead of up. It only makes the effort he puts into it in his injured state seem silly to her.

(Also he obviously has it wrong. Relationships are normal for everyone but her. Obviously.)]

I merely seek to put a name to the description I was given.

[A completely reasonable desire, surely. (Surely?)]

[If nothing else, the big chest is exceptionally obvious this way.

Kylo’s nostrils flare and something in his blood runs reflexively cold — they same way it always seems to when someone suggests they know something personal about him, or how he feels about people.

“A name to the description I was given”. Does he ask for clarification? Does he pretend he didn’t hear her correctly? Does he change topics?

He doesn’t know how to do that last one.]

Description. What sort of description?

[There is a moment when Hayame thinks to answer prettily, to throw back at him that perhaps that was none of his business if he was going to play things that way...

But instead, with her expression... forced very flat... she gestures with her uninjured hand to his... upper half.]

Very large. For a human.

[He doesn’t have any idea what to do with that. So he just blinks — he was fairly large for a human but that didn’t really answer the question he didn’t realize he needed to ask.

A little more urgently:]

What else did she tell you?

[He tries and fails not to sound both impatient and uncomfortable as his paranoia kicks into overdrive. Why was she talking to Hayame about his body??? Was she caling him fat??? Were they even actually talking about him at all???

Help him.]

[It is the urgency in his tone that confuses her. She does not know what it means, and that serves only to remind her that she knew almost nothing about this realm. Speaking to others about things that weren't missions and duty in general, but in particular... relations. Perhaps she ought not to have said anything at all- but after observing him in the prison, she'd wished to confirm things, and with as cagey as Rey had been about naming him...

It occurs to her just now that she had asked, then, if the man was from her world. And she had made it sound as if it was not so.

But she does know one thing, and that is that she will not be answering that fully. That much wasn't his business, she is sure.]

Surely what two mares speak of at a wedding is little concern to a warrior not bedding either?

[Er- women. Mares. Whatever, this was not going as she'd planned. (Things rarely did.)]

[There are so many things wrong with that sentence. The verb "bedding" actually causes him to briefly short-circuit -- not because it related to Rey in any fashion, but because this conversation in its entirely just escalated grossly out of his ability to handle.

He isn't graceful enough socially or emotionally to navigate this topic. He tenses up so badly that his ribs are forced to scream at him and remind him that they are broken.

Half blindly, he reaches for the chair again to lean on. Just a bit. He has to find his breath again without being completely obvious.]

--nevermind.

[He'll just. Grill Rey about it later.]

Edited 2018-05-17 02:57 (UTC)

[... well. It seemed he was a private person.

Hayame does not pursue the topic any further, judging at this point that any attempts would do little good... but also knowing that perhaps it wasn't her business. She has never had a "friend". She does not know if she trespasses boundaries here or not, so she has tried, and... failed. As usual.

Lips purse as she watches him attempt to hide the pain of injury, but she doesn't leave. Yet.]

Have you yet to see a healer?

[She certainly isn't about to chastise someone for avoiding the instananeous healing of the mages amongst them, she's been dodging them for months, but a medical minded person for the physical? That she has the right to.]

[Oh good, she did him the favor of switching topics. He forces himself to clear his throat, which — also hurts, like anything else. But it allows him to relax some, instead of existing in perpetual panic.]

There is no use for it.

[He says this with some authority, despite the way his voice gets slightly rough with pain.]

I have shattered ribs before. The technology here is not advanced enough to repair such an injury. Not on these levels.

[And he was a fugative elsewhere, so — this is how it must remain.]

Edited 2018-05-17 04:50 (UTC)

[(Let's be real, she did them both the favor.)

As it was, she finds that excuse lacking, and does not bother to disguise such. Hypocritically, she believed her own reservations against magic use to be a reasonable excuse, but that? At minimum, he should be flat in a bed rather than moving around.]

So you walk about unbound by bandage and make a target of yourself in this "lobby"?

[A masochist, perhaps?]

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sololoquy - 2018-05-17 14:30 (UTC) - Expand

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kisha - 2018-05-17 16:47 (UTC) - Expand

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