thebastion | Day 248 ♈ Closed

Entry tags:

Day 248 ♈ Closed

Who: the Emissary, the Disciple, the Helmsman
Open: Closed
When: Day 248
Where: Skyway
What: So three aliens walk into a bar, only instead it's a crashed spaceship on a ruined planet, and there's no booze. Actually, wait, this joke sucks.
Format: starting with log, but will match.
Warnings: well, Psii's gonna be a bit messed up.

[0. Skippable wakeup scene]

In retrospect, she wasn't really sure what she'd expected a Scratch to feel like. Amazingly, the written record is kind of sparse on what it's like to be retroactively wiped out of existence. She'd known it was coming, of course. She had plenty of time to prepare herself. It was time to wipe the slate of the universe clean and start over.

The last thing Aradia had expected was to survive.

The Battlefield hadn't been so lucky. It had been torn to shreds, and now great chunks of the little planet's checkered surface floated in midair all around her, cracked and littered with debris. A few spots were surprisingly intact, though, including the one where she'd woken up. Her breath caught, and she whirled to check on her companions. "Tav-"

Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no.

Tavros and Sollux hadn't moved from where she'd last seen them. They stood together, tall and still, gazing up at the shattered sky with blind, ashen eyes.

The Emissary was no stranger to death. She'd grown up steeped in it, with spirits for her playmates. She'd seen wars, and the aftermath of wars. She'd lost friends. But... "Not like this," she whispered. "Not like this." There was a gap between them, where a moment ago she'd been standing. Their flaking hands still grasped the empty space where hers had been. Her boys had been incinerated where they stood, and she'd escaped without a scratch. Why? Why only me?

... After a long moment, she finished getting to her feet. What now? She had to... to go somewhere, do something, but what? She'd thought she would be dead for this, she hadn't exactly made any plans. But she couldn't stay here. They were dead. And if the dead hadn't lingered, then the living had no excuse.

"Well," she said, forcing herself to smile. "Looks like I missed the train again, huh? Sorry about that. I'll have to catch up with you later. Don't cause too much trouble on the other side, all right?"

She leaned forward, took their hands one last time - and jerked away as their fingers fell apart beneath her own. Followed by their arms, and their torsos. "Oh, shit." Tavros's head fell backwards from his collapsing shoulders, and without thinking she moved to catch it, but when it landed in her hands it disintegrated into a cloud of black dust that made her cough and set her eyes watering.

Eeeeyup, those two were well and truly not coming back.

[I. Hours in the future, but not many (Disciple)]

She wandered the fragments for probably hours - maybe less, it was hard to say. The black-and-white chessboard of the Battlefield gave way to greener pastures, quite literally, but she hadn't passed out of sight of it by the time she spotted the light in the distance. At first she took it for a reflection, but on the second look it was too steady, and not at all as far away as it had seemed.

Without any better options, she made her way toward that for a while, until something else caught her eye. Something bright red, pointy, and large, with a column of smoke rising from it. She squinted at it. Some kind of spaceship? It couldn't be carapacian, theirs only came in gold and purple.

Well, that was a much better lead than a light. Curiosity and something like hope took hold of her, and she bounded down the crumbling pathway toward the ship, unaware that anyone else might be around to see it...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, organic style, huh? Don't worry- Her Imperious Condescension had a taste for an organic style too.

That much becomes apparent some... five minutes after they get past the glaring metal hull. The Calamity hit this ship hard. There's no finer ship in the entire Alternian fleet than the Empress' own, so it says something chillingly horrible that even it couldn't stand the force of Caelondia's greatest weapon. The damage shows in how its been torn through like scrap metal in some places, shiny floor and walls cracked apart to show something wet and deeply pink behind it. Tentacles and biowires, laced all throughout the ship, slithering and squelching against one another slowly. What's behind the scenes of the wrecked ship slowly starts to overtake it the further into the depths they go.

There's a hallway, an entire length of it, that seems to be made more of some hard material similar to the pink tentacles, and there's a pulse beneath it if either of them press their hand to it. On the bright side, it seems the deeper into what's left of this sip, the more it's not as broken.

There's a monitor, in fact, at the junction between that hallway and another more metallic one. The screen is cracked, but at their approach it lights up obediently. There's some sort of lens peering at them from the ceiling... and judging by the soft hum coming from it, it's on too.

The wet strange biological element to the ship is barely noticed by Disciple. She touches the metal walls, peering the biotech behind it with only vague curiousity. It's new, in that she's never been in one before, but biotech was universal to Alternia. She's just never seen it to this extent.

"Wow. Something happened to this ship." She whispers, trailing on ahead and blinking up at the lens above her. It's still alive, still on. There must be a helms--

Her brain stops in its tracks and presses on in denial. She looks back at Aradia and then back to the screen. Curiously, she taps it.

"Which way should we go?"

Aradia found the biotech more intriguing, and paused every so often for a few seconds to examine some exposed tendril or broken circuitry. That marked it as a troll ship, and no mistake; of the several spacefaring peoples she'd run into over the sweeps, only her own had been capable of growing their starships. But this... they'd never grown one this large, and the technology was impossibly advanced. Maybe, given another few centuries, they could have reached this level, but she knew very well that they never got another few centuries. Skaia had seen to that.

She caught up to the Disciple at the monitor, rubbing her chin with one hand as she thought. "No kidding... and where's the crew? No ship this size could fly solo." They should have found something by now, even if only corpses.

Approaching the camera, she stood on tiptoe to peer into the lens, as if that'd somehow reveal what was on the other side. That's when Di asked her question, and the Emissary stepped back to consider their options.

"That looks like it might take us back outside," she said, indicating the metallic path. And that was all the more information she needed, apparently, because she promptly started for the organic one instead. "This ship isn't dead, not yet. Maybe she can still tell us what she saw."

And for that, they'd need to go deeper.

Edited 2014-11-12 01:08 (UTC)

Going so soon, Aradia? That's a shame, because the tap and the running commentary make the screen flare up with words. Bold and most blatant against deep fuschia is W3l0m3 t0 H3R 1mp3r10u22 C0nd32c2n210n'2 64ttl32h1p. Pr0v1d3 pr0p3r 1d3nt1f1c4t10n 0r 63 cull3d f0r tr322p4221ng.

...But there's just a bit of static, a glitch in the words, and if Disciple still has her eyes on it, she might see for the briefest of moments in bright aggressive yellow-

w0w 1 c0uld fly th12 69r1ng f12ht4nk wh1l3 g3tt1ng a 6ulg3j0b wh0 th3 fuck d0 y0u th1nk y0u 4re

...But it's gone in a flash.

She's still looking, curious to see if a map shows up or something useful. Hardly. Her eyes narrow as she follows the words. The quirk is a little harder to parse but she gets the message.

"Her imperious--fuck." Her hands curl up into fists and her breath catches in the back of her throat. She wants to tear her eyes out, but she's weaponless. Take her out or die trying, she supposes. She starts to turn to speak when a flash of yellowred catches her eye, draws her back.

"...Wait what? What was that--come back!" She taps the screen again, frantically trying to call back up the words. 69.

Naturally, Aradia thought the Disciple was talking to her, and she did indeed come back. "What? What's wrong?" Of course, by then the yellow part was gone, but the original message remained.

H3R 1mp3r10u22 C0nd32c2n210n? That was a new one. Also, whoever wrote this program had a hell of a typing quirk. "Identification? Half the ship's missing and she's got her shorts in a knot about identification?"

The screen lights up with more words, although perhaps not necessarily what the Disciple is looking for. There's just a correction that needs to be made, you see.

2h1p 12 m1221ng 80%. 6l0ck2 th4t r3m41n:

- Su6m41nt3n4nc3 r00m2
- 1nf0rm4t10n 2t0r4g3
- H3lm26l0ck

H3lm26l0ck 12 4t 10% d4m4g3. R3d1r3ct r3p41r 3ff0rt2 h3r3 und3r 0rd3r2 0f H3R 1mp3r10u22 C0nd32c2n210n. 42 p3r 3m3rg3ncy pr0t0c0l2, H3lm2m4n m4y b3 r3m0v3d 6y pr0p3r 3ng1n33r2 0f 4ppr0pr14t3 6l00d c0l0r.

(But down in the corner of the screen, flickering for just a second or even two, a flash of yellow again. 1f 1 d0 th4t qu1rk 3 t1me2 w1ll y0u 4ctu4lly b3c0m3 th3 r34l d34l h4 h4 1 w12h 2p01l3r 1 pa223d 3 u232 4 l0ng t1m3 4g0. A lot to read in a short time span, however, especially with that mangled quirk.)

The words that flash up are still in that strange quirk, one she's never see before, but she can read it. Well, well enough to get the gist. A helmsman is still intact, that should be their first order of business.

"We need to get the helmsman out, I can't imagine it's good for them, given the ship is dying and--"

'If I do that quirk 3 times will you actually become the real--'

And it was gone. She feels like she's going to cry, from hope and bitter knowledge that this can't actually be happening. It's another dream.

"3 times huh. Helms...yeah we need to go get the helmsman out."

Edited 2014-11-12 02:09 (UTC)

Focused as she was on the regular text, Aradia only noticed the yellow in time to catch the first few words of it. It confirmed what the computer had to say, though. There was someone aboard, and chances were good that person was trapped - which, given the overall damage, didn't come as much of a surprise. What was surprising was that the helmsman had a way to message the rescuers and was still being cagey about it.

She nodded to Di, then turned to the camera. "How do we reach the helmsman?" she asked it.

This time, helpfully, a map flases onto the screen- tyrian pink on black of course. Adjustments have been made to show which areas were sealed off for either the ship's own good or because of damage, but there's still a path apparently clear to the area labelled "Helmsblock". A few more images flash on the bottom half of the screen, showing different camera feeds of the path there. It's not as clear cut as the map would lead one to believe... But it's only a bit of crouching towards the beginning. The rest is fine.

She traces the path with her fingertip, memorizing it as quickly as she can. While she steps back to let Aradia have a better look, she glances up at the lens above.

"Are you ready?" She looks at Aradia, "It looks like it'll be difficult at times but not unpassable." And she orients herself on the map, pointing herself in the right direction.

Aradia committed the map to memory as well, and took note of the pictures. It was surprisingly self-explanatory. She'd almost been expecting to have to solve a rewiring puzzle or something - not that she would have objected to that, of course.

"It doesn't look bad at all," she said, nodding. "Keep a sharp eye, though, just in case." If the passage were to collapse, it wouldn't do to be caught by surprise; and there could always still be traps or weapons active. That'd spice the rescue up a bit, wouldn't it? Smiling up at the camera, she added, "Tell him to sit tight, help is on the way!"

Then she was off, starting along the designated route at a brisk pace. It felt good, being able to help out again. Coming to the rescue was a hobby she hadn't been able to indulge for quite some time. She'd almost forgotten how much fun it was.

No, no traps, no weapons. This ship has been taught and programmed not to get in the way of being appropriately fixed or salvaged by the suitable Alternian forces. Besides... Save for the Helmsblock, a lot of the ship isn't really in the condition to do any combat. There's no crew for it to direct, either.

So it's really just a straight path, ducking aside, to a set of large automatic doors. There's some sparks, just a few, red and blue, that react when it opens... But that's it.

Welcome to the Helmsblock.

It's a rather massive room, and teaming with those tentacles from before. They compromise the majority of the walls, fleshy and shifting just slightly now and then, shimmering in the dull light of the room. Screens peer out from them, almost a harsh match with their smooth surfaces in comparison to the writhing walls. It's on the floor too, although it might be hard to see considering there's water that reaches up a meter once one descends the stairs which come from the entranceway. Everything in here is moist and smells thickly of salt. The mass of biotech all congregates in the middle, rising out of the water to enclose itself around the one solitary figure there.

Her Imperious Condescension's Helmsman has seen better days. His face is sunken in, but that doesn't seem to matter to the biowire goggles which are attached to his face. Trolls are made for dim light, so it shouldn't be hard for either of the visitors to tell even from a distance that the goggles have, in certain places, slipped into his skin. They bulge out at the skin around his eyes, the same eyes which let red and blue energy crackle softly up the wires from his face and up into the mass of tentacles which keep his arms forced up above his head. Presumably there are still arms, anyway. It's hard to tell... The biowiring has crept down and is infringing on his shoulders, now. Thicker cords go from his spine to the ceiling, joining its brethren.

Regardless of how little there seems to be to his body... The Helmsman should be familiar to both trolls. There's only one lineage with a dual set of horns and opaque red-blue eyes like that, after all.

The Helmsman's physicaly body doesn't react to either troll. He could very well be dead, if not for the quiet sound of breathing. A screen does, however, light up near the doorway for them.

42 H3r hum6l2 h3lm2m4n, 1 l1v3 t0 23rv3 0ur 3mpr322' v4l14nt f0rc32 1n wh4t3v3r w4y th3y n33d m3. 422um1ng y0u 4r3n't h4lluc1n4t10n2.

Wh1ch y0u 4r3, l3t'2 63 h0n32t h3r3.

24m3 2h1t 42 4lw4y2!

The way is simple enough, it's true. Littered with scraps of metal and expose fleshy walls, but simple and straightforward. The doors open and she almost loses whatever food she had forced into her stomach. It's a mass, a seething teeming mass colored that vibrant horrible color that makes her try to pull up straight and fall into a fighting stance all at once.

The contrast is harsh and the lighting dim, but she recognizes him. She starts walking towards him before she even realizes what's going on. The screen distracts her for just a moment.

"I'm not a dream. I promise. Psii, I promise." She looked at Aradia, then back to Psiionic, dangling from his prison. She wades into the water, forcing herself step by step. It smells like the sea and it's terrifying.

"We--we have to get him out."

The moment they entered the Helmsblock, all the fun went out of the excursion like the air out of the Emissary's lungs. She froze, staring horrified at the figure half-buried in the center of the room. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She didn't register the text he'd written them, nor indeed that there was even a screen there. For once in her life, Aradia Megido had no words.

Sollux?? But - that was impossible. She'd been there, she'd watched his body disintegrate into a pile of ash. The ash was still in her sylladex, for crying out loud! How? How did he end up here? How long had he been here, embedded in that... that thing?

"We have to get him out." That was all she heard.

Before she knew it she was in motion, splashing loud and heedlessly into the water, past the Disciple, toward him. Her skirts dragged behind her, and she paused just long enough to yank them free with a frustrated growl before continuing. She clambered up onto the gross, slippery mound of biotech that entombed him, reached out, but stopped short at the last moment, afraid to actually touch him.

"Sollux! Can you hear me?" She was all of four feet away from him, he'd better damn well be able to hear her. "It's me! Aradia!" Dear god, he looked like death. Was he even breathing? She couldn't hold still long enough to tell. "I'm here. We'll get you out of there. You're going to be okay." His skin was growing around the goggles. It was growing around everything. She wanted to retch, but swallowed hard against it. "You're gonna be just fine."

He had to be. She'd already gotten him killed one too many times today.

Edited 2014-11-12 05:22 (UTC)

There's just another crackle of psionic energy from his eyes to the biowiring- and it lights up similar in one of the screens embedded in the walls. What was once a status report is replaced by more yellow mutilated-quirk text.

1 l1k3 t0 th1nk 1 c4n h34r th3 h4lluc1n4t10n2 my 6u2t3ed up th1nkp4n thr0w2 4t m3 0n 4 r3gul4r 64212

4lt0ugh th12 12 n3w 4dm1tt3dly

He's still not moving, although whether it's because he can't or just won't isn't quite clear yet. He is breathing, however, and his eyes do blink now and then behind the goggles.

Edited 2014-11-12 05:33 (UTC)

It's slower going for her, fighting the urge to get back on dry land and every inch of her who knows the sea is death and horror. She's crawling up the island when Aradia calls him a different name. Wait--no, he was Psii. He was Psii, he said 3 times, three like her, 33, 69. Her body sways as a wash of grief rolls over her. Was it a lie. Were her hopes all raised to have this be another troll altogether.

No it has to be him. The outfit, now that she notices it, is the same. Under the wiring and horror, he is Psiionic, in that outfit he had designed and the Dolorosa had made.

"Psiionic? Is it--You're the Psiionic right?" She creeps up to his face and looks at Aradia, "How do we get him out?"

He was alive. His psionics were still active. This time Aradia noticed the screen as it lit up, and finally she had the chance to read the whole thing. He was awake, if only marginally. The tension left her shoulders all at once. All tangled up in a horrific biotech nightmare, and he could still make those dumb quips.

"You're not hallucinating." Wait, scratch that, he still easily could be. "You're not hallucinating us," she corrected herself.

But... the Psiionic? That... that wasn't Sollux's title. Only after that little discrepancy did her think pan finally latch onto the fact that she wasn't the only one who recognized him. She eyed the Disciple oddly, as if just remembering she was there. In a sense, she was - when she stopped acting like a hysterical dame for half a second and thought about it, nothing about this situation made a lick of sense. It was an oddly surreal moment, in which it occurred to her that she really had very little idea of where she was, what she was trying to do, or who these people really were.

... No, she couldn't get hung up on that right now. Later, maybe. The Disciple was right - their first priority was to extract Sollux-or-maybe-not-Sollux from his hideous slimy prison.

Somehow.

"I don't know," she admitted. She scooted around to get a better look at the connectors, although since she lacked a bioengineering background, the inspection gave her little more than a mild sense of nausea. They were everywhere - his arms, his entire lower body, his spine. "We can't just tear him out." Even in a best-case scenario, he could come out paralyzed; she didn't want to imagine anything worse, much less say it right in his sponge clots.

2ur3 y0u c4n, wh4t'2 th3 w0rst th4 c0uld 4ctu4lly h4pp3n? L3t2 s4y th3 m3nt4l s2h0ck 12 3n0ugh t0 4ctu4lly 4ff3ct m3 1n th3 4ctu4l n0n-cr4zy-4ctu4l-r34l1ty w0rld, l1k3 1 g1v3 4 fuck 460ut l1v1ng

Hopefully they're ignoring the screens, because the Helmsman isn't exactly being helpful right now, and also still steadfastly ignoring the inquiries about his actual name.

R32cu3 4tt3mpt2 4r3n't r34lly 4 n3w n1ghtdr34m but 21nc3 th12 i2 2uch 4 n3w 2p1n 0n th1ng2 m4y63 1 c0uld 3nt3rt41n 1t. W4nt m3 to pr3t3nd t0 g1v3 y0u th3 3m3rg3ncy pr0t0c0l2 l1k3 y0u d0n't 4ctu4lly 4lr34dy kn0w?

...Or maybe they shouldn't.

Edited 2014-11-12 06:36 (UTC)

She's looking around blindly now, for anything. A panel, a set of controls, anything. Her eyes land on a screen, fixate on the words. It hurts. It hurts in that same way the first depressive swing he had in their presence hurt, when she didn't know how to help. Her hands clutch at the fabric of his ridiculous suit, trying to process that. He needs to give a fuck, he needs to, because she always had to and it's not fair. He can't come back and just leave her alone.

She blinks back tears and they focus her. His words that blurred come back into clarity.

"Emergency protocols. Yes--yes what are those? And--in Alternian so I can understand you, you know I'm terrible at these things."

Emergency protocols. That's right, he'd mentioned that - or the computer had? - whatever, they had been mentioned. The Helmsman can be removed, there's a way to do it. "Yes! Emergency protocols are good," she exclaimed.

Sorry, he'll get to that in a second because for the first time since those doors first opened, the Helmsman reacts. To be specific, Disciple's fingers clawing against his suit make him react, pulling back as much as he's capable which isn't much at all as the biowires strain and stretch in protest. There's a noise, too. Not any sort of words, just a low keening desperate noise from a throat that's not used to speaking anymore.

The words on the screen, in contrast, keep coming like nothing happened.

W3ll 1'm g01ng t0 n33d t0 233 20m3 6ulg3l1ck1ng pr00f th4t y0u'r3 4ll0w3d t0 b3 h3r3 f0r 0n3 th1ng.

Her hands let go at the rising keen and she stumbles backwards. She practically falls into the water in her haste to let go. What was wrong, she didn't know, but she knew better than to touch someone who reacted that way. Her hands are trembling as she straightens and looks at the screen. Nothing, no evidence he even acknowledged it.

"Oh--Like we're allowed. Like rescue parties are allowed to be in here. I'm Meulin Leijon, the Disciple of Signless, I don't know what more you need. Are you not...I don't understand." She gestures at Aradia, to speak. Maybe this is her Sollux, maybe she's chasing a futile dream.

Edited 2014-11-12 07:18 (UTC)

Oh, no, that piteous wail was just too much. On the one hand, logically, it meant he still had some awareness of his body, but that just made it worse. She couldn't even begin to imagine how much pain he must be in. Nobody deserved a fate like this.

... And yet he was still hung up (wait, no, bad choice of words) about their identification. God damn it, Captor, she couldn't even with you.

Aradia watched the Disciple as she spoke. So you are Meulin, she thought. So on top of everything else, they had temporal shenanigans to deal with. Had Meulin been trapped in the Medium after the Scratch? For how long? ... And wait, wasn't Meulin deaf? She thought she remembered Meulin being deaf.

At least it provided a more plausible idea of who the Helmsman was. Sollux was dead, but there was one other person who would fit his profile. Give him ten or twenty sweeps and a haircut, and voila, twinskies.

Edited (hurr it's capitalized) 2014-11-12 16:29 (UTC)

Abruptly, she realized that Meulin was looking to her for help. Her mind raced. She had to do something, but what...? Just as suddenly, though, an idea began to form in her think pan. It was crazy, but... maybe it was crazy enough to work.

Aradia straightened to her full height, mindful of her footing on the slippery mound, and took a deep breath. He wanted proof? All right, she'd give him proof. She'd tipped her hand already. Now it was time to go all in.

"I'm Aradia Megido, Emissary to Her Conscientious Majesty, Empress Feferi," she said, her voice taking on a marked tone of authority. She spun her sylladex - one reel, two, three - and equipped a signet ring on her index finger, holding it up so they could see. "By her authority, and in the absence of captain or crew, I hereby assume command of this vessel."

There. How's that for 'allowed to be here,' kiddo?

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body horror warning

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/sweats nervously and tags suicidal thought mention

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