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meadowlarklogs2019-01-06 09:54 pm
- !arrival log,
- darker than black: hei,
- dc comics: dick grayson,
- dc comics: jason todd,
- detroit become human: markus,
- ffxiv: x'rhun tia,
- ffxv: noctis lucis caelum,
- marvel comics: thor,
- npc: gaby,
- re6: jake muller,
- starfighter: cain,
- the 100: clarke griffin,
- the silver case: sumio kodai,
- voltron: keith,
- westworld: maeve millay
ARRIVAL LOG 006
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
no subject
that's precisely why he watches his new benefactor pop one of the cakes into his mouth, smile quieter at the familiar comment he can't place, leaning an elbow onto the picnic table. he talks like he knows him from somewhere, emphasis on the words odd enough to stand out amongst the few they've shared with one another. but that can't be — there's none of that recognition in hei's eyes. just an unblinking study of the schmuck helping him out.
whatever. not his problem, is it?)
It's a festival, we're supposed to be enjoying ourselves. (the liar edges further onto the table, broad shoulders curving over loosely crossed arms free of those damnable white scrubs in a tank top too large to belong to him.) So there's no harm in entertaining a, ah... bit of good company, right? What's your name?
no subject
He hadn't known the other man that well before he was suddenly taken out of COST, but he'd at least gotten to understand his idiosyncrasies. Hei is definitely acting strange, and it leads Achilles to conclude that he doesn't know who he is. ]
Kale. [ Just. So flat. He stares at him as if expecting realization to suddenly dawn on him.
He doesn't eat the treat yet. ]
no subject
(LMAO)
No offence meant, though; I think it's cute.
(hei ducks his head apologetically, before getting back to his cake pops. if he doesn't get any help eating these he's going to be in for a night of bad stomach pain, but there's nothing he can do about it. with the order still ringing in his ears, this is his first and last priority.)
I'm Tak Seo-joon. (no he most certainly is not.) C'mon, dig in. Don't be shy.
no subject
But then he's saying it's cute... and that catches him off-guard. He had no idea the man had it in him to be charming, and what should only work on a woman is now working on him.
Embarrassing. He bows his head, trying to suppress the heat now flooding his cheeks. ]
What? I'm not shy.
[ He isn't, really. ]
You know why I came up to you, Tak?
no subject
(there's a bump at achilles' foot, hei's running parallel to it. the motive is obvious here, get him off-guard, get him to go to the food truck to buy another round of food and drink, then ditch his clueless ass with the bill. push just a little more.)
Why don't you tell me why?
no subject
Achilles just has a hunch. Regardless of the possibility this isn't Hei, he isn't entertaining it long.
His words are suggestive, and the foot nudging his reinforces that intent. Even if they hadn't gotten along most of the time, Achilles can't deny his attraction to him, as it had always existed. He can feel his blood start to rush in interest, the hand holding the stick moving to the counter as he rests his forearm against the edge. He turns towards the stranger, eyes roaming over his face. ]
You remind me of someone.
He had pretty blue eyes like you, but his bangs always covered them, and there was a scar on his right cheek. [ He gestures to his own cheek to emphasize. His expression is too neutral to properly read, but the fact that he's stoney now might convey his intent to entrap the other man into coming clean with him. ]
no subject
it's gone entirely when he finishes, the skin beneath his eyes creasing deeply with that pretty blue gone cold. that's enough. there was a time when hei would push through and call someone's bluff, two years ago he might've. not now. not when it's so difficult to make himself care about much more than walking in a straight line.
"tak" is replaced by the man achilles knew, former master staring from across the picnic table.
who is he? hei's first thought after being drowned in so many. is he a contractor? has someone finally managed to find him? how could he know that kind of detail, down to the fading mark on his cheek?
it's impossible, in that moment, but his paranoia flares and his throat constricts and it's high time he beat a quick retreat. his first instinct is to get his legs out from under the table, get them on firm ground, and run, but there are the drugs to consider. being ordered to stop. resist resisting. his more logical plan is to throw a foot at the inside of achilles' calf in a kick to the separation between muscles and follow it up with a leap at him, one that'll flatten his hand over his mouth until he has time to disengage him.
that is immediately performed, starting with the jerk of his leg, stomping into his.)
no subject
Up until now, Hei was faking, playing the part of a stranger who probably didn't consider him as anyone of importance or threat. More than being interested in his flirtations, Achilles thinks he likes this side of his former Master the most. Dangerous, wild, and impossibly beautiful.
The moment his eyes darken, life seeming to drain right out of them, Achilles prepares himself. He is the man most known for his swift feet, but without his divine speed he is only as fast as what is humanly possible. He anticipates an attack, but he is a split second too late to react as Hei suddenly thrusts his leg out - the distance between them is so little that he succeeds without a misstep.
Achilles' balance is thrown off as a result, electric pain shooting up through his leg that he has to grit his teeth through as the other man begins lunging at him. Pankration has honed his reflexes, and grappling with other men is nothing he isn't privy to. Hei's arms will by grabbed by strong hands, and instead of pushing him off, he tries to throw him up mid-fall and somersault backwards so that he's changing their positions when they land. If they land. ]
Tch! [ There's no air left in him to spare for taunting or banter. Right now he has to make sure he gets the upper-hand in this. ]
no subject
fuck—)
Impossible, how the hell did you find me? (spat at achilles on the tail-end of a gasp, the meaning of his words — so sure the man is a contractor from home, recognized and hunted in the streets of a new world — lost when his heel slams into the pavement to send his knee hurtling up into achilles' gut.)
Die!
no subject
Again, there isn't time left for him to mull over the meaning, working on arranging his hands so that he can pull at the other man's arm and maybe restrain him. ]
You know you tried to kill me the day we first met, too! [ He uses his arm to block his knee, but doing so causes him to lose whatever hold he had on him before. Instinctually, he pushes off to gain distance between the two of them before Hei can do any damage in trying to escape underneath him. ]
Just who the hell do you think I am!?
[ If successful in separating himself from the other man, he'll get back up on his feet. ] I won't give you orders, but you should listen to me.
no subject
I don't know you.
(breathing laboured from how exhausted the day's gotten him, hei throws an arm out in frustration, cutting a line through the air.)
I don't remember. Leave me be, I'm not a part of that world anymore. Leave me be!
no subject
He's afraid, isn't he? The desperation in his voice is palpable. ]
Hei... [ God dammit. Why is this filling him with dread? There is a weight in his chest that has wound him tight, and it's familiar. He felt this way when he'd been confronted with his teacher during the War, realizing they were enemies. ]
I don't want to fight you. I can take you somewhere safe. We can talk.
[ Because out here, they're being watched from every corner. There are eyes on them both now. Should he be deflecting? ]
I'm sorry for hurting you! [ Can he make this out to be a lover's quarrel? ]
no subject
hei shakes his head vehemently, brain feeling swollen.)
I don't know who told you my name, but I'm not going anywhere with you... (indicative of something far beyond the scope of what COST did to achilles' version of this damaged man, who's begun to think of new amsterdam as a second chance to make his own choices — instead of leaving his life up to the whims of others,) and if you try to make me then I'll kill you the second these drugs wear off.
I'll kill you...
(it wavers out of him, trailing off. he's winded, even that many words a struggle to make out with how nauseous he's become.)
If you know my name, you know what I'm capable of. Be rational about this. Leave.
no subject
He's not the type to lie about anything, though he's willing to compromise for the sake of the mission. This is no longer about the Morningstar, COST, or the Regency, or whatever the hell it is that has brought them here. Whether Hei is a friend or not, he is still his comrade and has proven himself to be loyal when his own teacher, Chiron, had made him question his trust.
He acknowledges that he is fond of this bastard. He cares enough that he won't simply walk away from this and let him drive himself crazy with paranoia. ]
You can't kill me. You think you could really stand a chance against a hero? If you force my hand, I will have no choice but to take your life. [ He can be revived here, anyway. ]
I'm not the enemy, here.
[ He grits his teeth. ]
I'll come check on you later, once you understand what's going on. You can listen to me, then.
achilles: /paying their bill with a boner
staggering back a ways, hei wipes at the corner of his mouth were spat fury collects on his lip, jerking his face away with a shoulder to follow.) Hero? There's no such thing. Your efforts would be in vain, just like everyone else's. (he should've died years ago, decades ago.
yet somehow he's the one who has to stay, alone and on the run.
hei leans into a walk, heads down through the busy streets, and disappears effectively into the old chinatown crowds.)