here they talked of revolution, here it was they lit the flame

[initiates]

Date: October 1st
Location: The Observatory.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Observatory for the show of the year. Initial briefings are very brief this time around, and that Greeter just won't stop crying.
Warnings: new confused people and old sad people??

Your arrival here has been very unceremonious. One second you were somewhere else, and now, very suddenly, your feet hit the glowing white of the Transporter pad, and you're here. You aren't alone, either. There's a crowd of others around you, each seeming just as bewildered, angry, or confused as you might feel. At the head of the group is a woman in purple robes, with eyes red as if she'd just finished crying. She hurries over a quick overview of your intended purpose here, and gives direct answers when asked for them, but to most things she simply shows you how to access the tablet you've just been given. There, you can find the history of this place and a record of what your new cohorts have experienced — although it won't have Network access for another 8 hours. Someone stands on hand to give you a weapon, and though the armory is now greatly reduced, you should be able to find something to suit you.

You're shepherded down a walkway tunnel and into the Observatory, where you will find screens mounted on three sides of the wide room. The only lighting comes from dull red emergency lights, and the scenes of a dreary, rainy city from various cameras up on the screens; the largest of the screens opens up to a view of Earth from a good distance away -- this one isn't a screen at all, you might realize, but a window. As you watch, all screens in the room fill with light, impossibly bright. It consumes the buildings, the people, everything. There is no sound played, perhaps mercifully, only that white light -- and then nothing.

Through the large window, there's a pinprick of light over one of the landmasses on the blue planet. It grows to a tiny blossom and then dies away, but a cloud begins to mushroom outward in the same spot. It pushes the natural clouds out of the way, claiming that small portion of the world and wrapping it in a uniform gray.

Strings of numbers begin to fill the blanked out screens as the base's AI begins collecting data and calculations, but the show seems to be over. You're free to explore the base, visit and use any of the VR rooms, or discover your new room and roommates, but try not to step out of any airlocks if oxygen is a requirement for your system.

Welcome to the moon base, with front row seats to the grave of Exsilium.

[[ooc; reminder! The Network will be down for 8 hours after the wave of new Transports.]]

Comments

[troublemancy]

[Kelsier glances at his daggers, and narrows his eyes slightly at Sikoyja. It's so natural to him, to wear everything on his sleeve, to use it all as tools, to pry and take people apart with it. He's Mistborn. He kills. He brought down a Steel Inquisitor.]

[Consideringly-]

The first, and most important principle... is to survive.

[Survivor of Hathsin. Titles like those do not choose the man.]

[praevikaan]

That is not a principle. That is a goal.

[She returns his look, untroubled. He expects something, she thinks. A set response. And whatever that expectation has, she is not meeting it. Still, she will not pretend to be anything less than what she is, not here. Where she can just be Sikoyja rather than Praevikaan Kisant. It is pleasant, and freeing to shed the mantle of the praevikaan. She did not realize how much she missed her own name.]

[troublemancy]

[He makes a dismissive gesture. It's not important. Words are weapons too but he cares less about them here. What he does expect is a taste of her true metal, and he's getting more and more of it as the conversation goes on. She's not quite classifiable yet, but she's malleable.]

[praevikaan]

[She is always comfortable with silence. She has spent long months in its company, but now he has her considering the why of it. She folds her hands neatly in front of her and braces her elbows on the table.]

My judgement is that you are a good man who thinks to himself, I have done bad things. You tell me aspects of yourself that could be taken poorly, yet I am a stranger. My opinion cannot be weighted with you.

[The nuance of the term is lost in translation, she means 'hold weight with'.]

You are-- hmm. Guilty?

[She says that a little hesitantly, uncertain.]

[troublemancy]

[Kelsier. Actually. Bursts out laughing.]

You are an interesting one!

[Is that what she'd seen, that he demanded she take a side? Perhaps because it was what he understood. Them. Us. Skaa. Nobles.]

[He was guilty of leaving Vin behind. His daughter. But what was done was done.]

I won't steal from you.

[Unless it's a challenge. But the promise itself is one, too. It's more fun if he doesn't.]

[praevikaan]

[Not quite the reaction she was expecting, it's sudden enough that she draws back. Not afraid, but... wary, certainly. Was she wrong? He does not say, and that makes her curiosity all the more.]

I... will not steal from you as well?

[Perhaps it's some test she's passed, a necessary or cultural greeting. She cannot be sure, and so she simply steps forward, blind.]

[troublemancy]

[Shaking his head, the laughter subsiding-]

No, no. I'm a thief. You strike me... [he tilts his chin up and studies her. She strikes, and her aim is true... usually. Interesting.] as a warrior?

[praevikaan]

[The compliment makes her smile.]

No. I am a hunter. Sometimes a fighter, yes, but no warrior.

[troublemancy]

I wasn't far off.

[Not even bovvered.]

Perhaps, with the right hunt, you'll find out.

[praevikaan]

[Her expression transmutes to something a little alarmed. The right hunt. That is what she is doing, why she is in Shazahd. How could he know? She did not think she gave too much away, but--]

Why do you say such a thing?

[Her tone is very careful.]

[troublemancy]

[Oho, he's caught a scent. He wets his lips, casually shrugs.]

Your enemies are the best judge, you said.

[praevikaan]

[Too close. She glances away.]

My enemy is ignorance. That is all.

[troublemancy]

[Physically, he backs off, settling on his corner of the table. Mentally, it's an aha. A thief knows when he's found the treasure, he has to turn the lock such that no one suspects he's even there.]

That's extremely abstract. Do your people prefer that?

[praevikaan]

[Snares that twist and tighten. She doesn't like the idea that he's uncovered something she didn't mean for him to see, and she purses her lips momentarily. With a trace of stubbornness,]

It is not abstract. I do not generally require that my enemies be flesh and bone.

[troublemancy]

[Kelsier laughs.]

Flesh and bone is much easier. The Lord Ruler found abstract enemies to be the death of him.

[Smugly, he cleans up the last vestiges of the glass on the table, and folds the napkin.]

[praevikaan]

[She tilts her head.]

You are abstract?

[Yes of course she assumes he won whatever fight it was.]

[troublemancy]

[I am hope, he thinks, and that's long ago and far away.]

I was. I got tired of it. Now I'm flesh and bone again.

[praevikaan]

[Careful, Kell, she'll take you literally. She wrinkles her nose faintly.]

I do not understand.

[troublemancy]

Good, I don't like making sense.

[Really, really cheerful, isn't he?]

[praevikaan]

[She 'hrmphs' a little. Grumpy.]

You only do it so that you maintain control of those around you. A poor reason. Allies are better.

[troublemancy]

[Kelsier shakes his head.]

Survive.

[He doesn't know enough about her to trust her. Not yet.]

[praevikaan]

Yours is a bleak home.

[She says it a little tiredly. She's getting a feeling it's going to be a trend amongst the people here. She misses the bright forests of her home. Even Shazahd seems a kinder place than this, and it is a den of iniquity, a deep festering wound on the Hab. She has known all her life that people can be cruel - there was a boy she grew up alongside who was cruel to the prey he caught, he claimed the meat was better if they were killed slowly. She never did like him.

But the cold, deliberate cruelty of Shazahd was against the tenets of everything she'd ever known. Where people could be flogged in the streets for stepping into the path of one of the Atticat.

Had she been there longer, learned more of the place, perhaps it would echo this Kelsier's home.]

[troublemancy]

[With a twinkle in his eye, and a smile, just a touch more genuine-]

Not for much longer.

[He might complain about her naivete, but he too was naive, once. Cruel, too, for he ignored the acts of brutality that took place under his own nose. No more.]

[praevikaan]

[That gets a firm nod.]

Good. For a man who cannot decide what he wants to be in this world, you are remarkably human, Kelsier.

[She stands, then, and finishes cleaning up the rest of the detritus.]

We will meet again, yes? Be well and strong.

[She gives him a final look, and then she's off.]