exsiliumlogs | [open] welcome to the masquerade

Entry tags:

[open] welcome to the masquerade

Date & Time: Friday the 7th, 4pm to midnight.
Location: Palace of Versailles, France, 1772.
Characters: anyone! Even characters not yet accepted as of when this log goes up. 8)
Summary: It's just some fancy masquerade dance with spiked punch.
Warnings: here be pictures, slow connections beware.

Welcome to Versailles.

The decorations are arranged, the food is prepared and laid out, the music has been rehearsed, and... most people have their costumes and masks ready. At precisely 1600, the Transporter machine activates, and a full room of people and all of their decorations, food, musical instruments, and costumes are sent back to 1772. The Palace of Versailles is in the height of its splendor, the weather is perfect and cloudless, and the gardens are in full bloom for the spring.

➣ Explore the Palace

Holy shit look at this, you have the chance to get your grubby little fingers all over history before it even becomes properly history. Do you know how many famous butts sat in all these plush velvet chairs? Or are going to sit in these plush velvet chairs? And they were all probably just talking the hell out of French, too. Wow. Go invade some bedrooms, poke your head into the kitchens (but no more than that, or territorial cooking elves might take offense), just. Touch everything. Everything. Just know that where ever you are, there's no escaping that beautiful music your fellow Transports are inflicting on you, that shit's just echoing all over the place tonight.

➣ Admire the Gardens

Jeez look at this, these people just had way too much money. But you get to benefit from it! You can basically just get yourself lost for hours here, so try not to starve or anything. Meet all the statues, go streaking through the fountains (please don't, no one wants to see that), get lost and desperately burst through cute little trees in your increasingly frantic attempts to find the exit. There's all sorts of fun you can have!

Just don't wander too close to the edge of the grounds, or you'll encounter (run into?) the invisible forcefield set up to keep wandering guests from utterly ruining history. That's probably a good way to get yourself a bloody nose.

➣ Enjoy the Banquet

There's tables and tables of this finger-licking good finery here, and it's all for you. And can you believe how fancy it is? Oh my god, those sausages have adorable little spears through them. And those spoons gently cradling their cheesy goodness? Yeah. They're made of crackers. And don't even get me started on these desserts. This is amazing. You've never eaten this good. And naturally, each drink (some of which are spiked, you're welcome) has adorable little frozen flowers in the ice cubes. Who even comes up with this stuff? Elves, that's who.

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It was difficult to miss such a bloodcurdling scream, though it had regrettably taken Samus a few moments to reach its location from where she was, even running as fast as her armored boots would take her. She could only hope she wouldn't be too late; she'd idly been wishing for a little excitement on patrol, but never at the expense of someone else.

Those boots came skidding to a halt, just in time to witness Blue's outburst. Samus could only assume that he was the hostile, and treated him as such. Her arm cannon locked onto him, glowing vibrantly and ready to fire.

"Stand down!"

The psychic blast sends the Doctor sprawling, and when Blue comes back to his senses he'll see the Time Lord flat on his back and wheezing for breath. He's trying so hard to keep that energy locked away and is, for the most part, succeeding. For now.

He looks blearily at the newcomer.

Blue's barely has time to frame this person, this...carrier of that terrible notion before an external will imposes itself upon him, honed in on him – a supposed source of threat. His chest tightens, all too familiar with this danger, and his glow lit anew as he braced himself, his breath caught and lost.

Escape, he thinks right away. Instinct. Humans have come to destroy him again. But that's...No. No...

"Don't," he utters, his body hunched forward, shrinking. This isn't what he wants. "Please."

I won't harm anyone, he said – the thought passed to all near him. Pleading.

Samus isn't unfamiliar with the notion of telepaths, though incredibly uncommon in her experiences; certainly enough to cause her to balk as thoughts other than her own make themselves known in her head. There's a sincerity in his expression she believes, though she's too hardened to lower her arm right away.

The lights dim from her cannon, but she keeps it aimed on him as she carefully sidesteps towards the Doctor, feeling the need to secure his safety first, act as a shield. Only after she's in front of him does she slowly lower her cannon.

"Can you stand?" She extends a hand to the Doctor, all while not turning her back to nor tearing her eyes off of Blue.

"I'm all right," the Doctor wheezes, hauling himself to his feet. "He didn't harm me... rather the contrary, I think he's... more the victim...."

The Doctor certainly doesn't look like any kind of an aggressor as he sways visibly, one hand to his head.

"There was... a psionic bleedthrough. I'm afraid he panicked, is all. But I need to know what he heard." He looks past Samus to focus on Blue as best he can. "Can you tell me?"

Blue's head lifts slow, his eyes locking on the new aggressor – Samus, the sharp-minded warrior. She is the greater danger then, the buzzing the Doctor emanated having ebbed to a level no longer painful to his mind. Yet its persistence...

Psionic bleedthrough? His attentions snap back to the Doctor at that, his brow pinching with a desperate need to understand. But before he can even ask, he's questioned in turn.

"Zagreus," he said, hearing it echo in his mind once more. And in saying it, his expression began to harden. "You did this to me...? The wailing, the screams..."

Despite quick explanation, Samus tenses and remains steadfast in front of the Doctor, unwilling to move out of the way.

Not once does it cross her mind that this is an unstable situation she probably shouldn't be standing in the middle of. Selflessness is far too ingrained in her, despite the possible threat standing before them.

As soon as the boy utters that name the Doctor goes very pale.

"Oh, no," he breathes. Then he pulls himself together, but not well enough to stop himself blithering, his gaze flicking panickedly between boy and armoured soldier. "Listen--listen--listen, I swear I did not do this deliberately. I've been... invaded, but I thought I had it under control when I was brought back here--I hadn't heard a peep from it until I felt that change in time, that... lurching in the temporal flow, somewhere in there...." He gestures at the palace. "Please, you have to believe me, I honestly mean no harm, and that change in spacetime is much more pressing...."

"Invaded." Blue repeats this as though it's a word he hardly understands. What he'd just experienced wasn't wholly understood yet, and the explanation was hard to fathom. What he could glean from the Doctor was only more of the same – that startling buzz that caused him to recoil from his move to stand between him and the armed woman.

His hardened, conflicted stare then lifted to her – a mind clear of that horrible sensation. If she knew what he was speaking of...

She wished she did. Samus was observant none the less, assessing and working off of what little she had just learned.

She was unaware the extent of either men's abilities (sans blue glowy powers and telepathy) but could assume one or the other (or both) were at least sensitive to the effects of time travel. However, they had been sent back in time for this party with the express caution taken of not disturbing anything. Were these two men simply overly sensitive to the time jump itself, or had something gone wrong, something unaccounted for?

The prospect of an invader didn't settle well with her either, suggesting that may have been the thing unaccounted for; maybe this Zagreus. Immediate images to come to her mind were a bit more... physical and parasitic in nature. Finally, Samus tore her gaze away from Blue to the man behind her, scrutinizing him.

"Are you compromised? What is this invader?"

More importantly, was it contagious and would she have to shoot it out of him...

The Doctor pushes his hands through his hair. "Zagreus is... it's--it's an entity of anti-time that I ended up absorbing when I tried to contain explosion of anti-time.... it's all the realities that never were, that were obliterated from our time. But energy has to go somewhere, it can't simply cease to be, and in this case all of these realities became anti-time, the opposite of our space-time, a thing with no causality." Now he rubs a hand down his face. "Oh, I know this explanation doesn't make any sense--it scarcely makes sense to me and I was there. It--it sits inside my head, it... no, not that. But it does reside solely in my mind. It can't escape."

It is, perhaps, a fair explanation – honest, earnest. But Blue is still rattled by that horrible onslaught. His head ducks again, his own hands going to his temples, pressing, trying to squeeze it out. The buzzing, still...

All that screaming. He said obliterated, and Blue's mind returns to Ganymede. It's almost as palpable as that day, some three hundred years ago.

It can't escape, the man says. Blue's mind takes it in different context. He has to. Has to get away. These humans– that human girl–

It's no good. It's no good – his focus is gone.

Wincing once more, the glow intensifies to a quick flash, then is suddenly gone – as is Blue as its source.

What... Her mind reels with his rattled explanation, but not for very long as her focus is sharply drawn back onto Blue. Samus braces for an attack, arm protectively in front of the Doctor and expects the worst.

"..." Instead, that guy totally just blinked out of existence. Her visor flashes as it goes through another volley of scans, showing no signs of the mysterious and apparently pained lad.

Finally, her posture eases, emitting something of a sigh under the helmet.

"If it can't escape then what the hell was that all about?" A very strong influence, then, she wonders?

The Doctor breathes a sigh as well, wobbling as he does so.

"I think he was... overwhelmed by its presence."

Whoa there. She draws up on her feet, looking for a comfortable open chair to gently lead him too. Over there, that one would do.

"Is this the first time this has happened?"

He lets himself be led with a murmured "thank you." Once seated, he rubs his hand over his face again and then pushes the hand through his hair, clearly attempting to collect himself.

"As to the boy, I don't know--I've never seen him before now. But he's apparently a very sensitive psychic and they have a tendency to panic, especially when they're that young.

As to me..." You've been honest so far, Doctor, might as well keep it up. "I... honestly did think I had this under control, ever since I took in that zero matter. Like I said, I hadn't heard a peep out of it since I returned." A sigh. "I may have to isolate myself until we return to Exsilium." A beat and he adds, wryly, "Or at least sober up the rest of the way."

This is perhaps the part of the job Samus has never been good at--comforting civilians was unarguably difficult to do when one of her arms was mounted with a cannon. Not exactly ideal for a pat on the back or something of the like. She stands beside him and listens intently.

A psychic... That explained a lot. Samus wondered if it'd be worth her time trying to hunt him down later just to make sure he was alright, or leave him be. She inclined towards the latter.

"Returned? This was something you picked up on the last Initiative mission?"

Confinement sounded like a plausible plan, for what little else she could think of suggesting (aside from the aforementioned shooting-it-out-of-him).

"And if alcohol is a contributing factor I'll make sure personally that you stay away from it." That was threat, not a warning.

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[open] welcome to the masquerade

whoops misfire

It's all right, I moved my tag.

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