The Emissary ♈ Aradia Megido (
emissaries) wrote in
thebastion2014-11-11 12:55 am
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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...
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...
I. which doesn't look as good down here
She has little hope it's anyone she knows, the sheer amount of those 'humans' had made it painfully clear she was one of a kind and the likelihood of her whole planet spitting back out someone she personally knew was rare. Which is why she's a shocked but not stunned to silence by the unfamiliar troll she spots a few floating rocks away.
"H--Hey?" Her hand raises to wave, then pulls back uncertainly. She has more enemies than friends in the world.
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Which was... almost as odd as finding another survivor at all. She'd never met Meulin face to face, but she knew of Nepeta's descendant, and this person seemed too old to be her. Plus, the clothes were downright anachronistic. Practically antebellum, if she had to guess.
Let not the Emissary be called impolite, though. She hesitated only a moment before raising her still-dusty hand to wave back. "Oh, uh, hey there!"
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All her words seem to catch in her throat, unsure of the troll and unsure of herself. Instincts are still screaming at her to run and hide.
"Do you know what that is?" She settles on the obvious, pointing ahead.
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She glanced back at the wreck as the other troll indicated it, a worried frown playing at the corners of her mouth. "Some kind of starship, dollars to crullers," she said. "At least, what's left of it. I was just on the way to look for survivors."
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"One of ours?" She tries to get a better look. The red makes her think of their ships, the imperial in particular, but maybe other species had similiar ships. It's hard to say.
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Discontented with waiting, she started navigating the path again, motioning to her new friend to follow. Though she wouldn't know the cause, the going should be easier now, thanks to the proximity of the Disciple's amulet.
"You know," she added, over her shoulder, "I feel like I've seen your sign before. What are you called?"
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The change in subject startles her and she almost misses the next step on their path.
"What? I'm the Disciple?" Either this girl wanted confirmation or honestly didn't know who she was. In which case, the kindness was strange. But where else would she know her sign from.
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Oh well, it was worth a shot. Ultimately, the Mystery of the Leijon Lookalike was a little less urgent than the Case of the Busted Battleship. Aradia put the matter to the back of her think pan for now, and smiled. "Ah - never mind, then, my mistake! Pleased to meet you, Miss Disciple, I'm called the Emissary."
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"Nice to meet you Emissary--Ah that's got to be ours." The closer they get, the easier it is to see.
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And the Disciple had said it was "ours." That was a little bit worrying right there.
"If you say so," she said, but she picked up the pace slightly. Not enough to be running per se, certainly not fleeing, but noticeably quicker nonetheless.
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"Don't you think it is? The right shape and color to the hull. Maybe Imperial..."
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"Of course, there's only one way to know for sure," she added, suddenly cheery. "Let's scoot on down there and crack open the porkbeast hollow, eh?"
And scoot they did. Luckily, the crash seemed to have scared away most of the local fauna, so nothing much got in their way en route. Before long, they were there, dwarfed beside the broken hull...
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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.
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"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?"
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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.
no subject
...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.
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"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.
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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?"
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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.)
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"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."
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She nodded to Di, then turned to the camera. "How do we reach the helmsman?" she asked it.
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"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.
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"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.
body horror warning
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!
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/sweats nervously and tags suicidal thought mention
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1/2
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More suicidal thoughts, more Captors being unhelpful
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1/2 whoops
2/2
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