exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

Date: May 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings, while those Transports on the mission to Wollongong return.
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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Just about. [He steps a little closer and moves his elbow out of the way so she can see what he's doing. They had provided all Transports with a tutorial, but Jaime's not even going to pretend he hadn't been too busy freaking out to actually listen to it properly.

Nevertheless, it's not that hard to find the pertinent information, and he shows her how to toggle over to the correct screen.] See?

Ah. [peering at his screen...she'd still rather not risk switching on her tablet right now] Yeah, it looks simple enough.

This place is sure big! I bet I'll get lost without reference of some kind.

[With that done, Jaime turns the tablet off, folds it and stuffs it back in his backpack... which he's really wishing he filled with something marginally more useful than school supplies.] I haven't explored enough to see how big it is, but yeah, I'm betting we'll be getting lost more than once before we get the hang of it.

I'm Jaime, by the way.

Kirika. [she manages a smile, this is one of the few good things that could have happened to her since arrival, she can be thankful for it]

You spot anyone familiar yet? All that talk about multiple worlds and such, and I started wondering.

[He shakes his head.] Not one. I took a look around, but the chances of us finding anyone we know must be pretty remote if they're taking people from every world. That, and the world's pretty big.

[He looks a little rueful.] I guess we should probably be thankful about that. How about you, see anyone you know?

Nope. [she's decided to withhold judgment on whether it's to be taken in the positive or negative sense until later] Why's that, though? Won't a friend help make the whole process easier?

Well... yeah, of course. It's not that I wouldn't want to see them. [Or that he wouldn't be happy to see Paco and Brenda around this place. There are few people he'd rather have by his side more than those two.] But we've been brought here to fight a war. I wouldn't want my family to get caught up in all this.

Oh -- right, I can see where you're coming from with that. [her voice carries a certain odd quality, as though the idea of people she is actually biologically related to being involved either never occurred to her, or she didn't concern herself with it in the first place]

My family would probably be useless for war stuff, anyway, so those Initiative guys better not have any weird ideas there.

[He huffs a quiet laugh underneath his breath at her response. His own family had no problem taking up arms when it was necessary, but that doesn't stop him from very emphatically wanting them to remain normal as possible.]

They don't seem to be paying much attention to who they bring. If they did, I'm not so sure if there'd still be a war.

Which is what I don't get. They'd have it far easier if they had involved people who know how to fight, or organize stuff and all that, instead of a whole lotta liabilities.

[a pretty convincing point to make when the two of them look like nothing more than typical teenagers, too]

Right? [He says it in a more personable way than anything else, perfectly happy to go along with just being an ordinary high school student.

Which he tries to be, to his credit. Most of the time.] All they'd have to do is bring in Superman, maybe the rest of the League and they'd be set. Instead they've got us.