meadowlarklogs | OPEN PLAYER PLOT: OPERATION LOST BOYS

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OPEN PLAYER PLOT: OPERATION LOST BOYS

WHO: Anyone
WHERE: A research outpost not far from New Amsterdam proper
WHEN: November 28
WHAT: The Displaced arrive to save the captured Morningstar agents, including one of their own.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, mentions of interrogation/torture, etc.

> DEPARTURE BY TRAIN
Early in the day on November 28th, Prompto and Poe will conspire to get an out-of-service train car onto the same tracks where the Displaced were guided by Cassius earlier this month. By all measures, the train car doesn't look operational. There are telling dents in the side, and it does not appear to be powered on. Yet those involved in the rescue operation already assembled are climbing on board like they know that this is their ride.

Inside, the train is fairly battered. Some of the seats on the far wall seem to have been damaged when the train collided with something during the EMP, and the rattling of the crash took out some of the internal handrails as well.

Once everyone is settled, though, the car begins to move. At the front of the car, Poe uses his power to move the train car on the tracks and out of the city. As they hit a checkpoint, the car doesn't slow down to be inspected; instead, it accelerates and blows right through the barrier, which makes for a pronounced jolt for all the passengers inside.

Once the train is rolling outside of the city limits, the Displaced can grab scrambler masks that have been provided by Morningstar for use in infiltrating the outpost when they arrive. It is imperative, El suggests, that they don't allow their identities to be compromised. They will also remind the Displaced to keep this project under wraps, lest Morningstar as a whole has its operations compromised.

This is a good time to solidify any plans about what to do when the outpost is reached. The train ride won't be especially long, but long enough for some tension to settle over the car.

> INFILTRATE THE OUTPOST
The outpost they arrive at is a less grimy version of what the Displaced saw earlier in November. The interior is almost identical to what was present there, with some wings repurposed as jailing sites. There are bright, fluorescent lights with white walls and a sterile smell throughout. Even cleaned up, these labs do not recognize any of those that the Displaced may have seen in their dreams.

The description below is borrowed from the arrival log for reference:

The building is six stories tall. The first floor has a lobby/waiting area, a cafeteria, and some office spaces. The second floor is the dormitory floor, which is where the employees would usually sleep if they chose to stay at the facility while working rather than returning to the city in between shifts. This is where the new arrivals woke up. Floors three through five are dedicated to lab spaces, which is where the actual research work is usually done. Most of these laboratories are going to be locked, but that won't stop Displaced from breaking into them if they want. Some of the lab rooms also have exam rooms. Displaced will be able to swipe lab equipment and medical supplies, such as syringes, vials/beakers, first aid supplies, scalpels, bandages, multi-lens microscopes, etc. The top floor is dedicated to offices for higher-ranked scientists, so think of it as the C suite. All floors also have bathrooms, of course, and the dormitory wing also has showers.

✦ Notably, this outpost is also empty of scientists. However, stoic soldiers stand guard at every door. These well-armed warriors are with the UNA, who has taken over the outpost. These soldiers are not an easy fight. In the fights with UNA soldiers, PCs might die and need to be revived in New Prague by Morningstar.
✧ DISTRACTION: Some of the PCs may choose to deal with the UNA by attempting to distract them using wit, charm, or apparent helplessness. PCs may search for a way to draw attention away from some of these doors to let others sneak past.

✧ INFILTRATION: Those who sneak past will find the jailing areas similarly guarded, and eventually, stealth and quiet infiltration is no longer an option. Rey and the other Morningstar agents are being held in well-secured cells, and UNA soldiers must be engaged in order to get past them.

✦ Inside the jailing sites, they find the missing agents in terrible shape. These Morningstar operatives have gone through extreme interrogation, and if they can get persuaded to talk sense--or talk at all--they might impart on their rescuers that the subject of that interrogation was most recently about the blue technology. However, most are catatonic, seemingly unaware of who they are or where they are, and some react negatively and violently toward anyone who displays the blue glow in front of them as the result of a conditioned response.
✧ Agents from the September raids will explain that Rey's arrival worsened the interrogation. Some of these agents may admit to confessing that Morningstar started helping a new group that emerged. It was clear in their interrogation that the UNA was not involved in the June firefight because they only then put together that the Displaced were involved in it. They're only aware because they were tasked with cleaning up after it.

✧ Some of the agents taken during the raids will still be resentful of the Displaced, and this will help convince the UNA that the Displaced are separate from Morningstar.

Once the agents are freed, the Displaced can make their way back to the exit of the outpost, where Poe Dameron waits in an armored truck liberated from the UNA. This flying truck is meant to transfer large numbers of UNA soldiers for load-outs, so despite the Displaced and rescued agents' numbers, it will be sufficiently spacious to fit them all. Though it flies, it's smarter to stay low in the interest of staying off trackers on their way to New Prague, where they can hopefully wait out the heat of pursuit by the UNA.

> NEW PRAGUE
When they arrived in New Prague, El contacts local Morningstar agents to escort them to a safehouse. Notably, El will warn the Displaced that no other parts of Morningstar know about zeir identity as an AI. El is hoping that the Displaced will keep their secret, but is more concerned with helping than with keeping them separate from the New Prague Morningstar chapter.

These Morningstar agents will bring the Displaced to an abandoned chain convenience store at the edge of town, Zesco. The convenience store is located near the edge of the city, and it's meant to be a temporary stop. The upper part of the store is just an empty space, though there is a wall where it's clear that there were once icee machines. All of the Morningstar agents will be held under an abandoned convenience store.

✦ The inside of the safehouse is like most safehouses, but since it's meant to be temporary, there aren't any clothes or food in place to help someone out. There will be Morningstar agents who come in to supply these things throughout the stay, showing up about an hour in to help out.
✧ It will be apparent that this safehouse is not one of the ones that's typically used in New Prague, but instead one of the miscellaneous ones that they've had around. Unlike New Amsterdam, most of the safehouses in New Prague weren't compromised. Of course, there is a high likelihood that this safehouse will be decommissioned after all of this.

✧ Notably, the New Prague agents are all quite impressed that the missing New Amsterdam agents were able to be saved at all—previously, NPC Morningstar cells had believed rescue to be impossible.

✧ Anyone who kept their scrambler mask on during the infiltration of the outpost is allowed to leave the safehouse and explore New Prague. Anyone else … can do that if they want, but it's not a good idea! The safehouse won't be fun, but jail will be worse. Please reach out to the mods if you do this.
✦ Beyond the safehouse, New Prague is a large, beautiful city housing around 30 million people. Unlike many of its brethren, it pays homage to the "Old" Prague in a number of ways: there are impractical cobblestone streets, and the architecture adheres to an older, gothic style throughout the city. In fact, there are ordinances that demand the city continues to look as if it harkens to an older past and time. Above all else, New Prague is very green: there are trees everywhere.

Throughout the city, there is a large, man-made river that cuts through to the underground, causing there to be beautiful falls underneath the main city itself. This river is called the New Vitava River, once again paying homage to the Prague of Old. The New Vitava River is maintained to the degree that there is no littering in it, and there are strict local rules about doing anything lewd in it. (That includes using it as a toilet. Don't do that!) There are bridges all over the city to easily cross from one side to another, and all public transit has been constructed to adhere to the river and also offer its citizens views of it on the regular.
✧ The weather here is just as extreme as it is in New Amsterdam, so anyone who's not been checking the news will find that the world really was screwed over by Cassius.

✧ Food throughout the city is just as eclectic as it is anywhere else. Visually, it looks like they want to remember Prague, but culturally, it's just as varied. This isn't an Eastern European city in anything but aesthetic.

> THE RETURN
The train ride back to New Amsterdam will resemble the ride to and from New Tokyo, but it is a considerably shorter trip. There is no stop for the train at New Amsterdam, so they will need to devise a way to get off the train without dying in the process - this will be difficult, but not impossible. This should not be too much of a surprise, as some of the New Prague Morningstar agents will join them on this train ride, and will explain the situation.

Once they're outside the city, these agents will get them back into the city, as they've done this rodeo before. They can sneak in easily through the opening made by Cassius earlier in the month, which if it has been found, has not yet been addressed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To a prince?

[ She was a Queen, after all. That would have been true of all the stories that she's heard before.

Mostly, Rey puts forth the question to give herself something else to focus on, other than Dany's gentle scrubbing. She looks deliberately away, eyes on the nearby showerhead, squinting against the ambient spray. ]

A khal.

[Rey will not know that word — not well, anyway. She might make the connection from what she had spoken of the dothraki, but she imagines she has forgotten. So she offers the explanation, slow and thoughtful as if she were also divorcing herself from the task of cleaning Rey’s chest of blood.]

A warrior king of a dothraki horde. Arranged very similarly. Promised lands and holdings from the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms in exchange for his army .

[There is some humor in how she offers that title. It is easier to joke about it now than it had been years ago.]

He perished some time later. Infection.

Edited 2019-08-09 01:38 (UTC)

I'm sorry. That must have been terrible.

[ Rey's cheeks grow red. She's trying very hard not to consciously acknowledge how familiar and inappropriate this scenario feels. One too eager remark about Daenerys' presumed loneliness and she'd be in pornography. This is not a thought she should be having, and the glowing empathy bond makes her certain that Daenerys can feel the steady burn of Rey's embarrassment too. ]

Or ... [ She pulls herself out of it enough to rethink that. ] Was it? [ That sounds cruel, but, ] You said arranged. Did you love him?

[As the bond opens up and greets Dany with Rey’s embarassment, she grows quiet for a moment to give it space to breathe. It is a curious thing for her to behold — she had never been particularly prudish. There was no opportunity for it.

But a question had been asked of her. And so eventually, she speaks again]

I did. The blade he took was taken defending my honor.

Then he loved you too.

[ Which is equally debatable, she understands, in real matters of arranged marriage. But valuable, in the wake of his death. ]

What was he like, your husband?

[ Obviously something has Dany talking about it, so Rey reaches for what she wants to know. To pull it out of her. ]

[The silence is longer this time. Rey might feel how something briefly squeezes in Dany’s chest, painful and momentarily seizing before it washes away as if it were never there, buried deep underneath everything else.

It does not surface again when she speaks.]

Proud. Honorable. Passionate. [Another pause.] He would have moved the skies for me if he could. Carried me across the sea on his back.

[It feels wrong to talk about Drogo while she has Rey naked in front of her. Now she understands the feeling Rey had been passing over to her.]

He was twice my size, with skin kissed by fire. A long black braid that had never been cut by battle or in war. Dark eyes — endless.

[ An affectionate smile spreads across her face at the mention of carrying Dany on his back. The image endears him to her, this stranger. That, at least, makes it easy to distract herself from the strangeness of juxtaposing this conversation with her nakedness and their contact. The Khal is a person to her now. ]

I'm sorry that you lost him.

[ Warmly offered. ]

[After that, Daenerys goes quiet, like she does not know what to do with Rey's condolences. Nobody had ever offered them at the time -- it seemed like a different time, a different life. Jorah had been focused on trying to rescue her, hadn't cared for her pain. The khalasar had largely reviled her, blaming her for Drogo's death. She'd needed to move past it on her own, much like everything else.

She finally lifts her hand from Rey's skin, the glow dying away. The worst of the job is done -- now all that remains is the scabs that have formed between her breasts.]

It was a long time ago. A different time.

[She offers an appreciative smile that doesn't quite reach her violet eyes or her tone of voice. There is something hard and icy there, a wall that doesn't seem like to come down anytime soon.]

He would not have known what to do with a place like this.

Sounds like someone I would have liked to know.

[ She hardly knows what to do with a place like this. Settling into city life after being wild and free on Jakku is hard. Either way, she's slave to work. But at least there, she had open spaces. She likes the people in her life. She just doesn't know that she'd ever want to actually live on a planet like Coruscant after this.

Maybe Yavin. Maybe D'Qar. Except, of course, that D'Qar had fallen to the First Order. Not forever, though. ]

Perhaps. But the dead oft have little to say to the living.

[Which is a great opportunity for her to change the subject. However fondly she might wish to think of Drogo, she has no time to look back and reminisce.]

Speaking of the dead -- you said that you will need a new identity. I suppose that also means you will need new living quarters.

Yeah, I guess so.

[ She's catching up slowly to all of what that entails. ]

El said I can't stay in the same place I was, or with the same person. [ She'll have to break the news to Poe. It's going to hurt. ] And I'll need a new job before I can get a new place.

[Daenerys nods with understanding, chewing on her lip lightly in thought.]

I am afraid I will not be of much use in regards to employment but...Jon vanished not long after we checked in on our return here.

[She is careful to mention that last bit, so she does not try to blame herself for any heroics he may or may not have gotten into.]

And I have not been able to contact him.

You were staying with him.

[ Rey hadn't known that for sure. She'd never made it to Jon's bird hotel, despite her best intentions. She had a way of throwing herself into things with all of her heart — and Jon had never been one of those things. ]

If you can give me a few weeks to get my feed back under me, I can find a place for both of us. [ A beat. ] Or we could look together.

[ Something told her that Jon had not offered that, with regard to the bird hotel. It had always been about Sansa with him. ]

[Her smile is grateful, though perhaps a touch sad. She and Jon weren't what someone might call close, but he was one of the few familiar things available to her in New Amsterdam. It would be odd not having him around.

But this is a good outcome, at least.]

Yes. I would like that.

Do you ...

[ Hm. Rey gets to her feet again. Uneasy, slow, forced. But she does it. She wants to rinse the dredges off and at least try to scrub the rest of herself. Plus, it buys her time to think of how she wants to phrase this. ]

I keep a lot of plants. And I eat out a lot.

[ And her apartment is full of the containers. Certainly not what one might think of as queen's quarters. ]

Are you concerned that we may be incompatible housemates because I am a queen?

[Said gently, like Daenerys could not imagine anything more ridiculous.]

My holdings have always been modest. Your concern is unfounded. Only know that I will not entertain insects in my dwellings.

[So at least make sure the containers are empty.]

Other than the ones we eat, you mean.

[ Just to be clear. ]

Live insects.

[She offers Rey a Look.

I don't imagine you would actively invite infestation into your bed chambers -- sparse living or no.

Of course not.

[ No one would. Rey gets her hands under her arms, then rubs between her legs hastily, trying to be as thorough as needed without making a production of cleaning herself that draws attention to any of her more sensitive parts. ]

Not actively. [ Or, at least, ] Not on purpose.

[ She shuts off the water. ]

So I won't have to pour your water for you or anything? [ This is, hopefully, an obvious joke. Given who just bathed who. ]

[Her smile is easy, plenty amused and indulging. She deliberately pauses until Rey takes her hands off of her own body.]

Not unless that is your desire, of course.

Generous offer.

[ This, of course, Rey offers with a bald grin. She shuts off the water. ]

I'll bear that in mind. [ She is unlikely to get a hankering to act as Dany's servant, but it's good to be able to joke about these things. It makes her feel less like nothing. ]

Of course. I am a generous queen.

[Just as Rey is glad to joke, Dany is happy to lean into all of her bravado. But when she hears the water turn off, she moves to offer her arm again, so that she does not slip on her way out.]

Your Highness.

[ Rey pokes fun at the formality as she takes Daenerys' arm, clueless to the fact that the title's inappropriate for the station. No one ever told her there were differences, in her defense. She takes each step slowly, aware of the slippery floor and her wet feet and her own fatigue.

She grabs for her towel, and after a moment's consideration, hands it to Daenerys first. ]

Your Grace.

[It's a gentle correction. Despite her next words, Dany is still smiling as she wipes the water from her face and her breast before handing the towel over to Rey.]

If you are going to mock me, then you should do it properly.

Not you. Never you. But I'll remember that.

[ This she says warmly, seriously. She'll mock the system which privileges one life as more worthy of respect than another, but never Daenerys' role within it. Specifying that goes beyond her mental faculties at the moment, however.

Rey collects the towel and takes up the perfunctory task of drying her limbs. She tries not to put herself off balance as she does, moving slow, but at no point using the towel for modesty in place of functionality. At one point, in fact, it loops around her shoulders while she wrings out her hair on the floor, twisting it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN PLAYER PLOT: OPERATION LOST BOYS

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