(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: November 1st
Location: The Observatory.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Observatory after their initial briefings. The zombie plot will not spill over into this area, this area is safe and unaffected! To face zombies, characters must leave the area, and please move to the event log with those threads.
Warnings: None.

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, solemn and taciturn. 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, or tells you that the DITR's greeters will explain everything. On the tablet, 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. It's night outside the great wide windows, and the lunar landscape isn't much to look at right now; the only lighting comes from dull red emergency lights, but there are… noises. Listen carefully. Over the voices of your fellow Transports, now and then you might catch the sound of a scrape, or a low and muffled cry. It doesn't sound human. Are there animals up here?

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, and to the remains of Exsilium.

[[ ooc; As a note for players of current characters: please keep your root comments confined to the various groups and organizations that set up root comments to greet new characters! We highly encourage tagging around here, but since it's a log meant for new characters specifically, we ask that they be the ones to set up root threads to the entry. Thank you, and happy playing! ]]

Comments

[maddeninghatter]

[ Unlike Kevin, he can't do the magic costume change thing, but fortunately for everyone he has taken the time to clean up before investigating the newest batch of Transports: he's not slimy anymore but is decidedly damp. He obviously has other priorities at the moment, but having been surprised by the appearance of people from home (a half-mad Leo and Jabberwock took out half a city block last time; something similar in this situation would be deadly for everybody), he won't take that chance again.

That's the only reason. He certainly isn't searching specifically for anybody, or wishing to find them. Anyone who isn't here is much better off at home. Obviously.

At the moment he is surreptitiously stealing cookies from the welcome tent and listening to the snippets of conversation all around him. ]

[tergiversant]

[Given the madness and chaos not too far outside of the walls, the aura of a Chain in use might seem noteworthy, if not entirely justified...

Maybe it's the nervous sound of glasses being cleaned. Maybe it's the electricity in the air that can almost paint out affronted anxiety. I AM SUPPOSED TO STOP A WAR? WITH THAT LITTLE INFORMATION? IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY?

Still, even with such distraction, Reim's voice, lifted above the murmur of the crowd carries a terrible mix of hope and disbelief.]

Xerx?!

1/2

[maddeninghatter]

[ It's the squeaking sound that he picks up on first, that makes him stop, mid-reach, for a cookie. For fifteen years he's heard that sound in the back of his consciousness. Once upon a time it annoyed him beyond measure, because it was generally a preamble to a lecture, delivered in serious, affronted, childish tones. And then Reim's voice started breaking, and well. Break started giggling at the lectures, which in turn triggered more angry glasses cleaning. Squeak squeak squeak.

Is this the same sound? Is it just a memory, something he desperately wants to hear? It certainly wouldn't be the first time his senses have played tricks on him. In his first weeks at Exsilium, he had sworn he'd heard Lady Sharon calling him, out of the murmur of the crowds...

Mad Hatter begins stirring in his chest, sensitive to powers of the Abyss; but it's at this precise moment that he hears his name called: "Xerx." Nobody, nobody calls him that, except.... ]

[maddeninghatter]

R-Reim?

[ He knows he's making a completely pitiful expression right now, but he can't help it. ]

[tergiversant]

[Reim straightens at his name, glasses returning to his face in an instant. For a moment, he reaches out... possibly to steady Break. Possibly to take him by the shoulders and shake violently. Whichever it was going to be, it dies in a fretting half gesture in the air.]

You have gotten wrapped up in this- this... mess as well?! No. I should have expected that. What in the world is going on? You look wretched- [Quickly continuing-] How bad IS it?

1/2

[maddeninghatter]

[ He'd spent month after month desperately hoping that Reim would not turn up here. The man is too nervous and twitchy: he'd die of fright in a place like this.

But when he hears Reim's voice, he knows he's been lying to himself the whole time. ]

[maddeninghatter]

[ Perhaps he doesn't need to worry so much. Hadn't Reim saved himself at Yura's party? For all his nervous agitation, the man is resourceful. It's not that he's weak; he just doesn't use violence to fight. And isn't that the best way, really? ]

It's horrible.

[ A beat. ]

Why, it's been whole minutes since I've had any candy~!

1/2

[tergiversant]

[For a moment, Reim straightens into that full bodied, focused attentiveness that he takes when he's at leisure to directly listen to information. His face is pinched with seriousness at the first comment.]

[tergiversant]

[It snaps and shatters the next.]

BE SERIOUS!! Why is it you always make a game out of things the very moment that it seems the least appropriate!? One of these days you're going to have a hard time getting anyone to take you seriously and there wont be anyone but yourself to blame!

[maddeninghatter]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

[ It's a real laugh, the kind that makes you believe in sunshine and rainbows. Reim Lunettes is lecturing him, and all's right with the world again. ]

My dear —

[ Mister Reim, he was going to say. But there's no reason, anymore, to cling to the formality and the implied distance that goes with it. Always he has held people at arm's length, never allowing anybody to get close. But that seems silly now, after everything. ]

My dear Reim. We are on the moon. If you can manage to take that seriously, why then — I'll be very impressed with you indeed.

1/2

[tergiversant]

[For a moment, Reim's expression seems to soften. While hidden from Break, the faint lowering of his shoulders is clear as day... and shoot right back up, intending to lecture about the fib of that caliber.]

[tergiversant]

[The illusion of Reim is struck dumb and still by the specter of the planet and space outside of the Observatory windows... at the same time Barma is.

Hidden in illusion and invisibility alike, Barma walks over to the display himself. This was.. foreign and a little terrible. Too vast, too empty, like an abyss...

It's Reim's voice that speaks up.]

T... the moon?

[maddeninghatter]

[ His first thought is to sugar-coat the situation; but hiding the truth won't do Reim any good, in the long run. Best to get it over with, like pulling off a bandage. ]

I'm afraid so. It's a bad business, and no mistake. The people who brought us here — the "Initiative" — are using time travel to change the past, on purpose to prevail against an overpowering foe, the "United Earth."

[ He pauses, to let that sink in. At this point, Reim should know very well his feelings on such a subject. ]

Things have gone very well, as you can see. The Initiative and their people have all been slaughtered, save for a handful. Still, they cling to the hope that we can change the past and save them. In the meantime, we survive on the Moon, hiding from the United Earth.

[tergiversant]

[As much as Reim is known for his wild shows of fussing and anxiety, true emotion is in the little things, as Barma knew well. An oh-so-tiny rise in his shoulders... his mouth would remain still, but there was something pinched around his eyes.]

So. We've already lost.

[Now the glasses come off, the squeak, squeak is slower. Turning convoluted emotions into the banishment of some imagined spec on the lenses.]

I suppose you'll next say that we have no intel from this "United Earth" as well.

[maddeninghatter]

[ He could tell Reim about the United Earth's plans for universal invasion and colonization, and how they had massacred six billion people on a fellow Transport's world. But it occurs to him that there's a difference between ripping a bandage off and pouring salt in a wound. ]

"We" and "they" are not the same. Although it's certainly the case that "they" have lost, I think it's premature to say that "we" have, as well.

[ He plucks one of the cookies he's pilfered from his jacket pocket, and makes as if to offer it to Reim. At the last minute (of course), he jerks back and crams it into his own mouth.

Thickly: ]

There's a lot of strength here, you know. People with all sorts of powers. But what we don't have are people with precise minds, with the patience to think things through and attend to all the details...

[ He grins. You might notice, Reim, that he is spilling crumbs everywhere, in a matter calculated to annoy the fastidious. ]

...no matter how dull and tedious~♥

[tergiversant]

[Reim had lifted a hand, intending to decline when the offer was pulled back- grotesquely, speaking with his mouth FULL NO LESS. Somehow, that lost chance seemed to annoy him more than the blurred words or the crumbs LITERALLY EVERYWHERE YOU SLOB!!!]

I think you mistake me for Lord Barma. [SQUEAK SQUEAK] But I will do what I can, naturally... [SQUEAK SQUEAK]

YOU KNOW YOU CAN JUST SAY HELLO THE NORMAL WAY, RIGHT?!

1/2

[maddeninghatter]

[ Break pulls his usual face and eye-roll at mention of Barma. And then: ]

Oh well. I suppose you're right. If you insist...

[maddeninghatter]

[ ...and then he grabs one of Reim's arms tightly and shrieks in a manner designed to draw all sorts of attention: ]

I missed yooooooooou~! ♥

[tergiversant]

S-STOP THAT, XERXES BREAK! YOU'RE! YOU'RE MAKING A SCENE!

[As if his shriek and flailing wasn't.]

[maddeninghatter]

[ Quietly and quickly, as if to slide the sentiment surreptitiously under Reim's strident protestations: ]

I did, you know.

[tergiversant]

[No one else may have heard it over Reim's shout, but the man was hardly one to miss even the quietest of details. His expression smooths, a little touched, a little concerned.]

How long have you been here?

[maddeninghatter]

[ He lets go of Reim, satisfied that his dearest friend really is here, and not some creation of his lonely mind, or some sort of illusion...

Mad Hatter wriggles again, under his skin; he regrets, not for the first time, having made his unhinged familiar even more sentient. Down, boy. ]

Nine months.

[ He starts to say something else; by the quick intake of breath, it's probably going to be something else embarrassing...

Oh wait. ]

Ah —

What's the last thing you remember? Before coming here, I mean.

[ Timelines. ]

[tergiversant]

I had just awoken. There was some dreadful commotion going outside and I was about to head out to see what the matter was.

I don't know how much time had passed since the conflict at Isla Yura's manor.

[He straightens his sleeves, as if a little self conscious at that, or perhaps simply feeling far off his guard for not having a proper answer to that.

From this distance, Break may be able to catch the faint smell of antiseptic and blood under powder and soap.]

[maddeninghatter]

[ So he's from after Isla Yura's, which means....

And what's this about a commotion at Pandora? That means the Baskervilles had attacked, doubtless. He wants to press for details, however... ]

It's tedious, standing about. Let's, ah, let's go and sit down, okaaay?

[ Reim is injured and must be in pain and exhausted at this point. Also he totally remembers the "I'm glad you're alive" line, which... which Break doesn't regret in the least, come to think of it. ]

[tergiversant]

[Reim's shoulders only drop by a degree, as much relief as he was willing to show.]

I think you have the advantage. [Reim looked around. This place was as familiar as it was fantastically foreign.]