transport log » ❝ welcome to Exsilium ❞

[initiates]

Date: January 3rd
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports have all arrived and have been led to a banquet room within the Hold.
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.

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

Comments

[bad_is_better]

"...It's verra strange." Her Scots burr could erode stone with how thick it was. She turns to look at the man, as she was glancing around and now gives him her full attention.

Her eyes narrow a little bit, her lost expression changes to something more deeply interested in what she looks at, and she finds herself having to restrain an appreciative noise - for a second, her regarding of him becomes perhaps a bit... predatory. Then it changes back after a moment as she remembers what she's decided to pretend to be for a bit, and she curtseys deferentially.

"Morrigan Aensland, if you please, sir."

[trustycrowbar]

The predatory look isn't completely lost on him, but he isn't sure what to make of it...

...well, other than the obvious when a beautiful woman gives that look to a man. He swallows and angles his head in a greeting as she curtseys.

"Freeman. Gordon Freeman. You... looked a little lost, and since I don't think I've seen you here before I can only assume you're a new transport. That's what they call us." He adds, a little awkwardly. "Do you need any help? Directions, anything like that?"

[bad_is_better]

At least she didn't lick her lips.

"No, no, I just arrived, aye." She nods, then pokes her glasses back up her nose. There's a sudden strange expression on her face. "...I think these spectacles just made themselves fit better. A trifle odd, that."

She holds out her computer. "They said this would help a bit with findin' things. I know things like this, and can work them, but, um..." She looks a bit helpless.

"...is it always so dank? E'en Inverness isn't quite so gloomy."

[trustycrowbar]

He just can't resist, dammit.

"--I can show you the way back to the apartments, at least. It IS dismal here, but you get used to it... Did... you just get those glasses from up in the Hold?"

He's never heard of sentient lenswear before.

[bad_is_better]

"Oh, that would be most kind of you!" She gives him a dazzling smile, curseying again, then nods. "Aye, nothing else looked like a thing I could use, but, well, glasses, how much harm could they be? I think they were just tryin' tae make sure I didnae lose them."

[trustycrowbar]

He waves her towards the exit. Whenever she's ready to leave, of course.

"I wonder just what a pair of glasses would do as a sentient object... It is sentient, you see, insofar as it responds to the user's needs and grows as the needs change. From what I can tell, they must build each item practically from scratch the way the tech is incorporated so seamlessly into it."

[bad_is_better]

She curseys yet again, and moves to walk with him. Perhaps a bit close.

"How verra strange it is. I mean, I can see better with then, that's for certain, but... I wonder what they'll do."

She has some idea - her more mystical senses are enhanced by them, that's for certain - but playing the poor shocked confused girl always helps to get some information.

[trustycrowbar]

She certainly is playing the young scientist like a fiddle... He holds no complaints about her closeness.

"We can only guess so far. The, ah... improvements they'd made on mine hasn't showed any results so far."

Of course, he hasn't worn it as much as he used to either...

[bad_is_better]

It's in her nature.

"How strange. I wonder how it works for others." She looks straight-on at him. "What's yours, if that's not too rude to ask? And what do you do here, besides fight? And do you think there's a place for simple kitchen-help to find work?"

[trustycrowbar]

He halts for a second, a little dumbfounded, when those green eyes turn up to his, and it takes a moment for his forebrain to restart...

"It's... it's an armored hazmat suit that I came into the possession of recently. It has a charging station in the Initiative Labs, which is incidentally where I work when I'm not off on missions or fighting. Before my, ah, unexpected career change, I was a physicist back home."

Unexpected career change. Yeah. That's a diplomatic way of putting it.

"As for finding work, there's bound to be a place around here that would be happy to have you; the entire city needs as many able bodies as they can find...." He clears his throat. "What other things do you do?"

[bad_is_better]

And she's not even using any powers other than her appeal.

"Ah, stepped up to trouble? That's verra brave of a man." She flashes a smile. "A man gets respected for that kind of thing."

She considers. "Well...." She's NOT going to bring up her entire resume (queen of the Makai realm, et cet,) until she's got the land better mapped. "Mostly domestic work. Cleanin' the doctor's office and his workspace was important, all the glassware and such... but I cannae cook a'tall, so that's not something I should be near."

[trustycrowbar]

He breaks into a grin towards the floor. "Sometimes a man has to do what he can to set things right, and protect those who can't. That's all. You say you used to keep up a doctor's office?"

Hm.

"Maybe the Labs would be a good place to start for you. Between the chemistry, biology and physics sections there's always something that needs polished, sterilized, labeled or organized."

[bad_is_better]

"Well, he called himself a 'gentleman scientist', doin' experiments with chemicals and ought." She pauses. "Truth to tell, he might hae been a bit ....mad." The last accompanied with a tap on her temple.

"Oh, I'm good at that, aye." She smiles brilliantly. "And you're kind for helpin' me."

[trustycrowbar]

"Good gentleman scientists are hard to find these days." He adds with a smirk. "And it's no trouble. I'll put in a good word for you tomorrow and you can stop by when you're ready. Hm, here we are."

Big ugly grey building is helo.

"It's not much to look at, but... well, okay, it's not entirely comfortable either. But at least it's a safe place to sleep at night. Which apartment are you assigned to?"

[bad_is_better]

She looks up, then shakes her head, drops spattering off her glasses. "Ah, much like Aberdeen that way," she says wryly. "And I'm sure I'll find it all right to sleep in." She gets her computer out, pokes it a few times, and pulls up a note.

"Seven hundred and seven." She looks up at the building again, a bit more carefully to not get rain on the glasses. "So up there a bit." Then she glances over, a bit less predator and a bit more shy. "And which one are you in? I might come by and meet you on a morning, so I can be properly protected on the way to the laboratory, then."

Little finger, Gordon.

[trustycrowbar]

"207. And you're free to stop by anytime, my dear."

My dear? Oh brother... They traverse the lobby and make it into the elevator, and he shuffles a bit as the door first closes. Circumstantial claustrophobia is a thing when one is trapped in close quarters with a beautiful girl you'd just met, and it has almost nothing to do with the confined space itself and everything to do with the unstoppable chain of ideas of what one can do in it--

"...There's... there are also places to eat around here and near the Hold should you get hungry, although I can't say much for the quality or even identity of some of the menu items."

...Maybe he should have stuck to the whole My dear thing.

[bad_is_better]

She does not in fact get a 'I win' expression. Externally.

"I'm from Scotland. We have haggis there," she informs, a bit primly. "There's many things I can deal with."

"Although," she says after a moment, "if you know safer places, perhaps I might impose on you tae show me one ye like?"

[trustycrowbar]

He grins at the quip about haggis, and then raises his eyebrows when she proposes he take her out. Really?

"...Absolutely! I can be your guide in navigating the gastronomic minefield tonight."

DING! His floor.

"Say... in three hours or so? To let you get settled?"

[bad_is_better]

Blaine is going to be crushed. Or ecstatic.

"Aye, that sounds perfect! Thank you. I'm sure I'll be settled by then."

[trustycrowbar]

If he believes him, that is. He nods in assent with a wide, close-lipped smile and ducks out of the elevator. Until then.