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

[ Yet another new arrival. They always seem to stand out. This one does seem to be doing a good job of looking extra miserable, though. Onyx watches her for a few seconds, no more than idly curious, before she pushes off of her lean to head over. There's nothing better to do, she tells herself, so why not?

Once she's close enough to speak without having to raise her voice much: ] You look new.

[ alisha frowns. perhaps her confusion breaks away the perfect image of misery she's been painting since she received her overload of information? she misinterprets, taking a moment to look down at herself, before she realises that perhaps she might be a little shiny to those who have been stuck in this shithole for longer. ] I didn't know there was a look.

[ she thinks about leaving it at that, but her brows pinch together tightly. this place is so frighteningly alien and new, and anyone who happens to speak to her, or responds when she initiates it, is someone she should poke for information. ] Is that a bad thing?

[ She smiles. She's been practicing her smile, but there's still something just a little off about it. It might be a little too cold, or it could be the particular shade of gold of the eyes gleaming above it. ]

Well, it could make you an easier target.

[ alisha tries her best not to outright stare at her eyes. she's used to superpowered freaks coming through the community centre's doors with the weirdest powers up their sleeves, but never have they ever had something physically different about them. ]

For what? This United bullshit? [ she tries to put on a bravado that isn't there. the crease of her brows is hard, but her voice shakes just a little. ]

Maybe. [ Her smile grows just a little, amusement creeping in. ] Or maybe just someone here. You look awfully lost and confused, and you never really know.

[ alisha's starting to wonder if perhaps her new companion is someone to watch out for. she doesn't want to think about it, placing these notions into the universe, but she's uneasy, and on edge, and isn't quite sure how to deal with this place without one of her mates. ]

Just because someone's lost and confused doesn't mean they don't know how to protect themselves, yeah?

[ it would help if her voice wasn't shaking a little. ]

[ This time, she outright laughs. It's not something she does much, so it's not as practiced or easy to shape the sound of it like it is to shape her smiles as a human. In this case it comes out amused, almost childish.

When it's passed: ] Try saying it again, but this time like you're not afraid I'm about to gut you.

[ alisha doesn't. she's not hysterical, but her voice does continue to shake - whether with fear or anger, it's mixed. these things don't have happy endings. alisha's come to expect the worse, thanks to the superfreaks at wertham. ] Isn't that what they're going to do, anyway? Gut us somehow. People don't kidnap others just to give them a gift and leave them alone, yeah?

Edited 2013-06-16 04:30 (UTC)

No. Not the Initiative, at least.

[ She shifts, moving to make herself more comfortable in a lean against the wall. ]

And there's a difference between kidnapping to kill and recruiting to fight.

[ her brows knit together as she mulls it over. for her, it all seems the same. ] Doesn't it all just end the same, anyway? You end up dead. I doubt this place is going to let anyone go home, you know?

[ She'd have fired back with some sort of haughty I won't end up dead a month ago, but things have changed a little since then. She died seven times, for one. So instead, she grins. ]

Don't worry, death isn't permanent. Didn't anyone tell you?

[ she looks at khisanth as if she's never seen her before, which is ironic, since she hasn't, and she's been looking at her at times as though she's never seen someone like her before. but it's this, that death isn't permanent, that surprises her more than the environment and situation itself. ] No one's told me much. [ or anything, really, considering she's been sulky and sullen since she arrived here. ]

How? Don't tell me they've made us all immortal or some shit. [ and her mouth curves around the idea without any slip of mirth. ]

No, their machinery does it. It brings you back. [ She shrugs, the picture of indifference. It's just ressurection, so what. ] Don't ask me how, I'd never see technology like this before I came here.