meadowlarklogs | ARRIVAL LOG 006

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ARRIVAL LOG 006

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: Night of September 3 to night of September 4
WHAT: The sixth arrival
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Coercion and loss of autonomy. Further notes at end of log.

> ARRIVAL LOG #006

Awareness comes to you in blurred snatches, cloudy fragments of sound and light, color, sensation. Hazy and difficult to grasp on to, but slowly aligning into focus. A series of regular, rhythmic beeps. A medicinal, astringent smell. The sensation of movement, a low hum and accompanying vibration under you. Your eyes are heavy, hard to keep open, but in the glimpses between slow, dark blinks you see four people in black body armor seated opposite you, as well as a man in dark gray scrubs.

You realize there are others next to you. All of you in white scrubs, hair recently cut but at various stages of growth, restrained by straps across your chests, arms, feet, holding you to the bench under you. To your left, an armored interior door, two more people visible, the movement of streets passing through a windshield. You try to open your mouth to speak, but it's as if your tongue is coated in tar, and you manage nothing more than an empty parting of lips.

The vehicle stops. The guard opposite you stands and comes to unbuckle you from the bench, helping you to your feet. Your limbs feel wooden and heavy, slow to move. One guard opens the back of the vehicle, and false, colored light, illuminating the streets in the distance will first alert your senses of being somewhere else, combined with warm air that's only cooled with the setting of the sun. The nurse moves to stand at the back, checking each passenger over one by one just before they're helped out of the vehicle, quick and methodical. He doesn't climb out after you, moving to sit as the last passenger is unloaded.

The guards keep their heads down. Their actions are quick, firm, but not entirely unkind. Once all the passengers are out, they climb back into the vehicle and close the doors. The engine powers up again, and then the bus is gone.

You're left alone in an alley, with no idea of where you are or why you've been brought here.

Around the corner of the alley, the streets are lined with bright orange, yellow, and red ball-shaped lights cluttered together overhead. Despite seeming rather tangible in nature, the balls themselves are merely well-designed projections. These lights illuminate the streets filled with people – some of which seem indifferent to the festivities, while others move in dense clusters toward a city square filled with countless trucks and tables. They disperse as they arrive – to trucks, to stations to have faces painted, to admire the wide array of sweet confections available. Numerous bits of signage announce various additional activities – but anyone new won't be able to interact, won't know what information is there.

◉ Though entirely capable of independent action and thought, new characters will find themselves completely, unquestioningly compliant to any verbal statement which could be taken as a command or request.

> LANTERN FESTIVAL

The message from El – no, wait. It's Gaby this time. Otherwise, it's the same as previous: insistent, not waiting for any active attempt to open it. Scrolling within your vision as if being written while you're reading it.

I'm on announcement duty this time. Bus #6, for anyone who's counting. The location? Well, the heart of the lantern festival. A short walk from the safehouse.

Like many of these festivities, the New Amsterdam Lantern Festival is an annual event, dating back decades as a means of celebrating the mish-mash of culture that influences New Amsterdam as it's seen today. Sponsored by Polarized – a known subsidiary of Pulsar – the lights go bright just as the sun begins to set late in the evening, spreading over the city, acting as a dense layer of luminescence for 24 hours. Even in the daytime hours, the lights remain, and the technology seems to make them seem just as bright – which acts as a sign that the lights themselves are not natural, projected outward by numerous devices set up throughout the city.

Most of the events are concentrated in a district square that was once known as the city's Chinatown. At the heart of this festival is a large gathering where numerous food trucks and restaurants come out to advertise their wares. Specializing in desserts and little else, these businesses flood the street every year in hopes of bolstering their business because they can't partake in the restaurant promotion throughout September. The festival concludes with a competition, with each chef revealing their unique lantern festival dessert. These are often rather impressive in nature: cake pops strung together like a dragon, ice creams that make people's mouths look like they're glowing, and large cakes, shaped and designed to celebrate New Amsterdam's arts and festival scene. Many of this year's offerings will both celebrate the year before and offer a somber reminder of the lives lost in the monster attack just months ago. Smaller, sample sizes of these desserts will be available for purchase, which also grants people access to one vote for their favorite dessert.

As the lantern festival comes to a close almost a full day later, the lights clear a path to the river, where countless people will be stretched out and looking skyward for this year's fireworks. Loud, symphonic music featuring some of New Amsterdam's most popular composers will play throughout the area, synced up with the bombastic explosions themselves.

Most of the six newcomers will have hopefully been gathered long before the fireworks go off – but anyone else is free to enjoy them and the festivities leading up to that final conclusion. The festivities vary in nature, from a place for someone to claim a lantern of their own with a wish, to using UV paint to legally cover the ground in unique symbols and lights, to joining competitions where people place chess and checkers for a wider audience. Each of these activities is monetized, so don't expect anything to be for free.

> A VISUAL DETOUR

There will be several new and persistent additions along the most likely path to the festival from the safehouse: small, man-made shrines that have appeared just hours before the dense layer of lights settled over the city. Depending upon their makeup, these shrines vary in structure, size, and design, but have several unique, persistent similarities between them.

Some of the shrines are fully formed, with candles lying underneath them, and cloth blankets acting as an overhang for the art within. At the heart of each of these shrines is an image of a person, with a large, upside down triangle projecting from their chest – blue and noticeable – with their arms spread wide. Some of these triangles project from the chest as if a piece of a 3D pop-up structure, while others are simply a part of the image itself, a flat, smooth surface. Beneath them, there will be a scene from a familiar event for anyone who's been here for a while: a car flying into a monster's mouth, a person healing someone else, bright blue eyes and fingertips, showing the artist's personal interpretation in motion. Any of the cloth is covered in geometric symbols, intersecting circles and triangles, many of them in specific and particular patterns.

Other shrines are two dimensional in nature – painted, to be more specific, on the walls themselves – both hidden bits of scenery meant to blend in with the surroundings, or large and spread out, splashing wide arrays of colors and symbols. Whoever set up many of these artistic displays had a special paint and familiarity with the lantern festival lighting, as it draws special attention to the blue light that pours out of the people featured, whether it comes from their eyes, mouths, or the traditional chests. Silver and gold geometric symbols stretch around these images, framing the scene portrayed.

These additions aren't only located near the safehouse, but that's where they're concentrated for now. Within days, they'll be elsewhere: on walls in oft-frequented public restrooms, behind popular nightclubs and bars, and just about anywhere else – popping up and coming down as people tire of their presence – or are simply bothered that they're there at all.

> THE SAFEHOUSE

Access to the safehouse is a hatch hidden behind stacks of empty storage shelves in the back of an abandoned supermarket in an outer district of the city. The immediate area is similarly abandoned, empty stores, flanked by several blocks of dive bars and clubs which cater to more niche tastes. A place where people can come and go unseen, or, if seen, not spoken of. A dark haired woman called Gaby is ready to greet the new arrivals and get them settled in, brusque and no-nonsense – she'll be open for in depth questions later, but will advise everyone to ask the people who brought them in for the beginning bits of information.

◉ The safe house is a large open space, filled with rows of basic cots set up to sleep a large amount of people. Basic, but outfitted with everything necessary for daily life. A few doors lead to back rooms for storage, medical care and a large communal bathroom, and past the long rows of cots there is a communal kitchen, fully stocked, and an eating area. Privacy is at a minimum.

◉ New characters will be asked to pick their beds, and provided with a change of (second-hand, mismatched and somewhat threadbare) clothes and basic toiletries.

◉ While there were previously also NPC occupants of the safehouse, natives to New Amsterdam, these people have now been moved on to somewhere safer. A few of their belongings remain, discarded or accidentally abandoned.

◉ Gaby will make it clear to all new arrivals that if they have any requests or queries, they should contact her or El.

◉ The drugs making new characters compliant will remain in their systems for a few hours after their arrival at the safehouse before finally beginning to fade. They will be gone entirely after a night's rest. In the meantime, they may want to be careful of what others say to them.

◉ New characters will be given rudimentary access to the network on arrival in the safehouse, but will not have their ID set up yet. They will be able to make posts and replies, but their messages will be anonymous and they do not have inboxes yet.

◉ New characters will not be allowed to leave the safehouse until SEPTEMBER 7. These 4 days are for them to adjust, learn about the world they've arrived in from their fellows, and for El to speak with them and work on setting up their IDs.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Welcome to Meadowlark, newbies! You're now free to post to the network and logs comms. To reiterate, your characters will have no IDs or inboxes, nor be allowed out of the safehouse until September 7 (January 14). At that point it's expected they'll have gotten a good idea of their new situation from their fellow characters, and will have discussed their background and job potentials with El in order for their false IDs to be set up.

If you have any questions or ideas about how you'd like to get your character involved in the world, or if they'd like to join Morningstar, please head over to the plot engagement post and drop us a comment! For questions specific to this log, there is a thread below.

Please check out our January calendar rundown for a look at things happening this month.

As a reminder, AC for new characters accepted in December and January will be 10 comments across 2-4 threads, while current characters will need to provide the full AC of 20 comments across 2-4 threads. AC will be posted on January 20 and close on January 27. If you do not reply to AC, you will be considered idled and dropped from the game. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a. make a wish

Do you think there's any power to this? [Clarke asks a familiar face as they pass her by the booth where all the "wish-granting" is happening.

Back on the Ark, religion and feelings of fancy were often lost to the past: lost to a world that could believe in such things, could hope and believe in miracles. Seeing and hearing that their world burned was all but evidence that they would need to move forward and embrace a different doctrine. For the many people who came together to form the Ark, that became a doctrine of survival.

God wasn't completely absent from people's words or thoughts. But the concept of a deity was more like a distant, judging entity. It didn't often come into play.

And Clarke herself never heard many whimsical things growing up. That's why this moment—these lanterns—actually remind her of a cool night with a boy she'll never be able to forget. It had been their first and only time together. She tries not to think of Finn much these days, but it's Finn who's on her mind as she observes the lanterns.

Inherently, she knows that wishes can't be granted—especially if you have to pay to make the wish. But perhaps it's the act of voicing it that has power.]

b. shrinage

[On the way back, Clarke spots some of the shrines. First it's the painting that catches her eye. The art itself is quite nice, and she assumes—at first—that it's somehow linked to the festival itself. That perhaps someone had been paid. Closer inspection of the figure depicted told her otherwise. The bright blue light that is shown "shining" is telling. All too telling.

It's not the first time that she's seen an object of ... worship? At least one like this. The chamber where the Flamekeepers kept the reminders of Becca Pramheda was a much larger version of this, with paintings on the wall to remind everyone of how she came down and gave her people hope and a vision for the future. Just as it was strange for Clarke to accept the inherently spiritual nature of the Flame and the Commander to the Grounders, it's difficult for her to see ...

Well.

Herself at the heart of it. People like her.

(There was, at one point, something to be said about the legend of Wanheda. But that felt less like reverence and worship. Far less.)

And then there are the designs around these paintings.

Clarke stops at a final shrine and bends down before it. There are many candles here spread out, lit and illuminating the image behind them. She looks up at the cloth, once again taking note of the patterns. With her neural implant, she takes pictures of everything she sees, just as she has with the paintings.

When she hears someone behind her, she looks up.]

I've seen these symbols before. At least—I think I have.

c. checking in

[Somewhat shaken by all the ... worship ... Clarke returns to the safehouse with the intention of putting herself to work. If anyone's nursing any recent injuries, or wants her to take their vitals, or to even be checked to see if the drug in their system is the same as the drug in everyone else's system, she's around, and offering any assistance. Clarke will hover near the first aid room to offer anything she can at this time.]

d. wildcard

[Anything! Hit me up on discord, plurk, or PMs if you want something more personalized or want to plan something specific.

That said, someone should also play her at chess. She'll be doing that, too.]

Edited 2019-01-07 04:10 (UTC)

Have you?

[ He hasn't. He understands that they're shrines, understands the superstition and drives men to worship. Eugenides has given at the temples since he was very small. It was what was done. And it was his chosen policy to court the favor of as many gods as possible.

Maybe not these ones, though. ]

Do you know what to offer, then?

[Clarke turns her gaze up toward Eugenides, and then shakes her head. Although she wasn't like Murphy, standing and pointing out the story of the first Commander on the wall and how it involved the people in the Ark, she knew images like this well. It was still strange to think of herself as the focus of it.

She turns her gaze away, reaching up her hand to brush it over the image in front of her. It stops over the triangle.]

Do you offer when you're the focus of it? I think that we might be.

So.

[ The way he says it makes it clear that he's signaling agreement. ]

The last time I went to the temple the priestess refused to see me. [ He still remembers her wrapped in her vivid green peplum, eyes shining with certainty. Eugenides had been very angry, that day. ] I don't know the fine for this.

Well. [Clarke reaches out, tugging at some of the cloth, careful not to knock over a couple candles in the process. There are so many, but she can see that this was set up to catch eyes, perhaps to even catch their eyes.]

I think you can take them evidence that you're the wrong one to turn away. No fine involved. Unless it's ... to them?

[Okay. So, things Clarke knows little about: money and religion. And she just tried to combine both as if she gets both of them.]

[ Religion and money are intrinsically interlinked in the sort of tribute culture Eugenides has until recent times taken for granted. But he listens to Clarke as she struggles with the candles. ]

You've never given offerings, have you?

No. We didn't have much in the way of religion where I grew up. Space didn't leave a whole lot of room for that for my people. [It's easy to explain it. Clarke wonders if it should be harder to spell out how aspects of it were a foreign concept for her. And where money comes in is hard to say. Her first interaction with it is here, and it's not something tangible that can be left behind.]

There are temples all over Eddis. Mostly unkept shrines for the superstitious to leave tribute. But in Eddis we are all reckoned to be superstitious.

[ He looks again at the figures, haloed in blue light. ]

I suppose we could take any tribute without fear of reprisal. [ As the gods are said to punish those who steal from their tribute. ] But they haven't left us anything. We need a higher class of supplicants.

[This is Gen, so she assumes that there is some degree of humor behind what he says in that last bit. A little ridiculous, but with some truth at the heart of it. Would it be good for them to have "better" worshippers? She's at a loss: uncertain about whether that should be the case.

They don't belong here. And she still believes that a fervent religiosity and sense of superstition had allowed the Mountain Men to manipulate the Grounders outside. It was easy for them to take advantage of that mindset.]

Do you want us to have that? These are new. Perhaps the offerings will come. Maybe we should give them our implant IDs for donations.

[ Maybe offerings would come. Maybe the drawings were a kind of offering, themselves, a worship he didn't recognize. ]

No. I think I'd rather be poor than be that Eugenides.

[ He was named for a god, after all. ]

But I don't particularly want to explain that to them, either.

[ It was a conversation he couldn't imagine having, and tactically unwise. Being overestimated could be just as useful as being underestimated. The only completely useless thing was being well and truly seen. ]

No. I'm not sure that exposing ourselves is a good idea, or ... I don't know. Giving this leverage. I don't know about you, but I never asked for this. [Yet hasn't she been in these shoes before? People claiming that they could kill her and absorb her power to command death. Clarke knows what it's like to be on the end of some ... reverence, if not worship itself. She had tried to take advantage of that to bring peace as Praimfaya burned on the horizon.]

Who was that Eugenides? Do you think it'd mean anything here?

The gifts the gods send you are seldom asked for. [ There's an easy bitterness in his words, like chewing on a dandelion leaf. Of course he didn't ask for this. ]

Eugenides is the god of thieves. [ Who the legends say was colored black as soot, but really was just the reddish-brown color of fired clay, like the people who left portraits of themselves on the ruins of middle sea. ] But no one here knows that.

[Clarke makes a thoughtful sound. The god of thieves isn't what catches her attention. It's what he says before that, some inherent belief that these shrines are ... gifts from gods? She struggles to make the connection.]

So. Wait. [Better to ask.] Do you think gods send us all things? Not just ... [She motions before her to the shrine.]

clarke griffin | the 100 | ota

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