exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Date: June 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings. Now with 200% more People-Seeking lists!
Warnings: None.

You've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities. Now and then around you you might spot paper fluttering in the faint wind from somewhere relatively dry. It looks like a list.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of course he has a light. Stanley always has a light. But it still takes him a moment of blank staring to get it, because frankly, he's pretty rattled at the moment. It's the pack of cigarettes waving in his face that gets his attention, in fact. His own pack got ruined in the river before he got here, after all.

He eyes them with the sort of reserved hope that suggests he often doesn't get his own way, but hasn't let it deter him this far in his young life. He fumbles in his pocket, reaching around the bulge of something that's obviously hidden up his shirt, and retrieves a lighter. It takes a few tries to spark, but that's no surprise. The kid isn't merely damp from the rain, he's soaked through and through, and smells faintly of pollution. Still, the spark becomes a flame on the third try, which he cups for the strange woman and holds it out in a silent offering.

Hopefully she doesn't mind him staring like a hungry puppy hoping to be tossed a bite of steak.

The hopeful look doesn't go unnoticed, but it does go unmentioned at first. Mallory's own eyes light up with the appearance of that little flame and she gleefully lights the cigarette, then takes a nice, long drag of it. The smoke gets blown out, but away, not into anyone's face. She has that much in the way of manners, at least.

"What a dear, so helpful," she says when she turns back, but the carton goes back into her pocket. He'll have to try harder to get one, because looks alone are so easily ignored. "Kind of soggy, though, aren't you? What you do, stand out in this rain for a few hours?"

His eyes definitely follow the cigarettes as they're tucked back out of sight, but he seems to accept this with a general sort of resignation. Damn. Still not his day. The question, he answers almost nonchalantly, in spite of his word.

"I fell in a river. Uh. Drove into one."

Yeah, not his day at all. But he shrugs, mimes patting himself down, carefully avoiding that bulge, and nods. See? He's pretty much fine.

"Drove into one? Why in the world would you do something that daft?"

That gains the lad a second, closer look over. Obvious he survived it, though. She snorts and leans back a bit, balancing on one foot as the other gets hooked over the other's ankle and she hangs onto her elbow with her free hand. It's a casual stance, despite not having anything to lean back against.

She's about the same level of nonchalant here, now that she's got a cigarette to happily puff away on.

"And what's with that thing you're hiding there? If it's a gun, you gotta do a better job of it, if you don't want anyone to spot it a mile away."

"It was Tony driving, actually. I just bumped the stick, and..."

He mimes something rolling down a slope with one hand, and shrugs. There's not much he can do about it at the moment besides worry, and he's been trying to avoid doing a lot of that. The other admonishment, however, makes him shift uncomfortably.

"It's not a gun."

Which is a good thing, probably. He certainly wouldn't know what to do with it if it was one.

"Off went the brakes?"

It's been so long since she's driven a vehicle of any sort, so she can only assume. Even then, she never drove often, just when necessary. The uncomfortable look at his denial, however, doesn't make her any less suspicious.

If it wasn't a gun, why would he shift about like that?

"It ain't? Then what else would you even have that you'd want to hide?"

"Nah, the brake wasn't on. Just knocked it out of park."

Actually, had the brake been pulled they wouldn't have gone anywhere. But who could've guessed all the paranoid old people might be right about something eventually?

Stanley shrugs. It's water under the bridge, at least for the moment. Now there's a whole new mess of strange problems to deal with. Not the least of them being the lump in his clothing, which certainty isn't a gun but also isn't something he's keen to show to strangers. It's a shitton of marijuana, in fact. He hunches over a little, trying to hide it even though it's too late now.

"It's not dangerous, okay? Promise."

"So not dangerous but still something you don't want anyway to see. Yeah, sure, that's reeeeal convincing, that."

But all in all, it likely wasn't a gun. Gun lumps were a bit more hard-edged, if memory served, and ultimately she doubted it mattered much here. Seems like everyone leaves armed, the way the greeter went on about weapons.

"Fine, whatever, but don't expect me to do more than laugh at ya if it is and you end up accidentally shooting your guts out."

That was pretty much the exact reason he didn't ask for a gun, actually. They looked familiar, but as soon as he picked one up he realized he had no business holding one. He really would've ended up shooting himself in the foot or something. Which sucked, partly because it had left him more or less unarmed. Another thing which he wasn't going to disclose to anyone anytime soon.

"I won't."

Stanley agreed, with a shrug. Though it wasn't going to happen, anyway. He put the gun back before he left the hold.

"And it's not a gun."

"Alright, alright, I believe you," she gave up that line of thought for now. Whatever else is might be, well, it's not all that important to begin with! And now her curiosity has waned.

"Thanks for the light, kiddo. You run off and go find somewhere less rainy to dry off now, eh?"

Actually, that's good advice. He's soaked, and definitely starting to feel a chill. Stanley nods. Yeah, maybe it's about that time.

"Alright. Don't melt."

(no subject)

oh sweet prose thank you

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