exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Date: August 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

[Tempest had been talking to Jesse for a bit - but it's hard to ignore that shade of purple hair, or the fact that he's eating cookies.

In the tent with it's dim lighting, it's - ironically - easy to mistake her for a man, what with the hood pulled up and her deep voice, but the fair skin that can be seen may help in determining that she is, in fact, a woman]

Should you be eating all of those?

They're my payment.

[For sitting here and greeting people and for the fact that yes, he made these cookies. Still, he's leaving a lot for the newbies. But yes, that's his explanation. And his expression of nonchalance would prove that he doesn't see it as a joke.]

[Tempest snorts, though she's in a good mood. Which means she has to tease a little bit]

Payment for sitting there handing them out, or . . . ?

I baked them.

[Said as he spreads his arms out to the cookies in front of them.]

You'd think it'd make you feel better to know I eat my own cooking.

My, that does make me feel better.

[she says, picking up a cookie] What kind are these?

Chocolate chip, snicker-doodle, sugar, oatmeal, all kinds. Gets boring making the same batch of cookies all over again.

[For someone who looks like a hoodlum, yes he really knows how to cook and amazing things at that.]

[the look of surprise on her face gives away that she may have been doubting Yuri's cooking abilities. She blinks down at the cookie - a snicker-doodle - and then looks at Yuri]

It is delicious.

It better be. Wouldn't set anything on this table that wasn't short of that.

[He's... oddly proud of this.]

[that's . . . adorable. Between Yuri and Jesse, she's going to have to change her train of thought that comes to men and baking]

So it seems. Thank you. [she holds up the remaining snicker-doodle, then finishes off]

Yeah, not a problem.

[There's something rewarding about people enjoying his cooking. Just... he hopes people won't continually ask him... like they do in his homeworld.]

[she regards him for a moment, then extends a hand - pale-skinned, though it certainly isn't a hand that hasn't seen rough times.

Like the missing finger]

Tempest. What is your name?

[Yuri doesn't think anything of the state of her hand. He's met far too many women who had rough lives and could hold their own. Hell, one of his female friends honestly scares him and rarely does something scare him.

In response to her hand being held out, Yuri grabs it in a firm handshake. His own hands are calloused and anything but smooth.]

Yuri. Yuri Lowell.

[her handshake his just as firm. Hmm, a swordsman? She couldn't be absolutely sure, but]

Well met, Yuri.