MISSION: THE SLEEPER

[ximilian]

● ● ● M I S S I O N   3 . 1

INTRO • MAY ALL YOUR BACON BURN • IF YOU HAVE A DREAM DON'T WAIT • FYI

// INTRO. beam us down!  

It’ll be during the early hours in the morning when the communications device pings the Orbers in the midst of whatever you may be doing: whether it’s sleeping in, having a leisurely breakfast, or being deep into whatever task it is you’ve planned for the day. Viveca’s familiar voice filters through, a cheerful interruption.

// VIVECA.AI

Hi everyone. We’ve got your next mission ready, but I was asked to give you the file a little bit in advance so you could prepare better… so here it is. I don’t think I can delay the teleportation machine more than a day, so early tomorrow morning it’ll be time to go. The situation in Kilnan is a little strange, so I’ve prepared an antidote for you just in case. Pick yours up from the infirmary before you get going. It’ll only work once, so be careful. The orb is somewhere in the castle… I trust you’ll find it. Good luck.

Without any further fanfare, the comms go silent and you’re left with a new mission file and some rather concerning information within the report about a sleeping sickness. But instead of the immediate departure like you might be used to, you’ve been given the day to rest up and prepare for the trip down. So pack your things, grab the antidote, maybe enjoy a hot shower and a good night’s sleep … or if you’re not the sleeping kind, find a good song to jam to and get you motivated for what’s to come.

The next morning before most of your alarms will go off, the teleportation machine will hum to life, crackling with stored energy. Those who have been here for longer might notice this difference and what Viveca had meant when she said she didn’t think she “could delay it for more than a day”. As soon as you’ve been gathered together, you’ll feel the pull — and a tug that removes you from the station.

For what might seem like an agonizingly long moment, you simply hang there in stasis, white light surrounding you accompanied by a strange, ethereal chorus that whispers in your ear, informing you of the goal currently set before you and the cost to achieve it, as well as the exchange for its power —

But before you can venture to open your mouth and respond, the light around you materializes into a fog of cool, damp cloud cover. The moment your feet touch solid ground and the fog parts as you move through it, you’ll see a marble road ahead.

Welcome to the country of Kilnan, Orbers.

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// PART I.MAY ALL YOUR BACON BURN  

Around you, the courtyard of the Crystalline Palace opens up — white marble pavement, extravagant sculptures half-covered in moss, and fountains that have long since dried up — its splendor abandoned and left for time to neglect like a long forgotten secret.

If you look behind you, you’ll see nothing but clouds; and underneath you is mostly open sky. Faintly (if you really squint), you might be able to make out the grassy earth somewhere below the clouds but the distance seems a little treacherous to even consider taking your chance to get there. As such, the only way is forward — up the wide steps and through the imposing, but majestic, double doors of the castle.

1.0   Once inside, a seemingly empty castle greets you. There are no servants rushing to greet you, no hustle and bustle that you'd expect from a castle this size... just silence.

You’ll find yourself standing in the middle of a grand foyer. Daylight filters in through tall windows framed with long flowing curtains that seem to sway just a little, even though the casements are clearly shut. Further in, you’ll notice multiple staircases leading you to the upper floors, some of them straight, and some of them curved, while others wind upwards in a seemingly endless direction towards one of the towers. Most of these stairways will appear to be your regular run-of-the-mill means of egress, but the moment you turn away and look back to where you’d just come from, you might notice that the stairs have disappeared … only to be right in front of you when you glance back. Another set of stairs may take you in one direction, but try and retread your path and you’ll find the very same staircase you’d just used will take you somewhere completely different.

These stairs might be playing tricks on you, or maybe you need to get your eyes checked.

From the foyer, hallways appear to sprawl in all directions of the wind, some of them lined with paintings from a very deft hand (or hands). Walk along and peer at one of these incredibly detailed depictions of vibrant rich cities, lush idyllic countrysides, alluring, well-manicured gardens and find that all of them seem so incredibly lifelike — almost uncannily so. If you study one for too long, you’ll find yourself losing focus of the world around you, only seeing the painting that beckons you forward … and helpless to resist, you take a step forward and wind up within the world of the painting. Is it as beautiful as it seemed from its frame? Of course it is. Just look at that colour! Feel that breeze! Take a deep breath of the air around you. But remember that you probably can’t stay here forever; you have to get back. And the way to the castle is … somewhere here. You just have to find it.

2.0   Inside the castle, your task is clear: find the orb.. and for some of you, perhaps try and look for the people sent to the castle before you. To do that, you’ll need to search through the different rooms and accompanying towers… but the moment that you try to, it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary castle and the rooms are not exactly just rooms either. Some have stark differences in scale: in one room you enter, all the furniture within appears to be made for giants; while in another room, everything has been shrunk down to its miniature.

Further still, another room will appear to be deceptively normal… but the moment you step past the threshold, the door will lock shut behind you and then fade into the wall like it’d never been there at all. You only have one clear objective then: search through the room for a way to get out… or make yourself a way out.

3.0   When you enter this next room, you find yourself having to pause to take it all in, it’s so incredible that you can barely believe your eyes: whatever this room holds within seems to cater specifically to your individual interests and desires like it sees into your soul. It might offer rare books to those interested in knowledge, the best entertainment for those who seek self-indulgence, decadent foods you’ve always wanted to try for those with a discerning palate. What a wonderful time! So wonderful, in fact, that it’s too easy for you to forget the passing of time … what was it you were doing before? Nothing important, surely. Right?

4.0   There are rooms that don’t even seem like rooms at all once you’ve entered them: you open a green painted door and instead of the marble floors, you step right into a hedge maze. When you turn to glance over your shoulder, you’ll find that the door has vanished, and your hand lingering on the door knob is now clutching at a cluster of prickly foliage. With nowhere else to go but to brave the labyrinth, you move forward. The path you take will twist and wind until you realize that the best-case scenario here is coming face-to-face with a deadend rather than the other delights that the maze holds in store. One end greets you with a particularly angry tree, hell-bent on wiping you off the face of this plane; at another turn, a creature that looks suspiciously like a Sphinx, sitting on her hind legs and blocking the way, might ask you a riddle in exchange for passage; and there is always a chance that the right-hook you take will pull you through a cloud of deceptively beautiful fluttering dots of lights that whisper to you with the voices of people long-dead before you.

5.0   Another room will pull you — quite literally — into the eye of a storm. Hail and rain pours down, drenching you immediately, while lightning flashes in the open sky — it almost looks like the countryside you saw beneath the castle, but that couldn’t be, right? You don’t remember leaving the castle… And more importantly — the rain really is coming down, and that lightning is striking dangerously close. It might be wise to find some temporary shelter, perhaps a little cottage to hide in, or at the very least, get to that overturned hay cart and hide beneath it — and wait for a chance to find your way back to the exit door … wherever (or whenever) it may appear.

6.0   Not all of the castle will be entirely strange, however; there, too, are regular, non-eventful rooms scattered within. A large dining room with the table set for one, a thin layer of dust collecting over the silverware, for instance; a library filled with old tomes and scrolls that don’t appear to have been touched in years; a storage room full of strange items; and, if you make it into the cellar, you’ll find the kitchen, its food storage still robust despite the fact that some of the meat has begun to gather mold, and some of the vegetables have darkened and gone a little mushy. On the layer of dust settled over the floor, there is exactly one set of footprints, perhaps smaller than you’d think, but even those seem at least a number of weeks old.

TOP

// PART II.IF YOU HAVE A DREAM DON'T WAIT  

It’s almost too easy to become distracted by all of the strange happenings within the castle, easy enough to forget about the sickness you’ve been warned about — and perhaps, with so far there having been no sight of anyone actually affected by it, it’s easy enough to think that there might have been a mistake or a misunderstanding. But the longer you spend within these beautiful white stone walls, you become aware of a whisper: quiet at first, the barely-there breath of a language you know you understand and yet you still can’t quite grasp it, the meaning frustratingly close to the edge of your consciousness. And the more you try to touch those not-words and too-light-whispers, you feel a little dizzy before the world around you suddenly changes.

7.0   At first you think you’ve simply fallen into another room, just another hidden trap-door or painting you’d stepped into. So perhaps you don’t even realize that you’ve fallen under a spell at all when everything around you is just … dark. Beneath your feet, if you focus your gaze, is a still surface of a black lake glinting — and yet you are not sinking. Every step that you take forward creates a little ripple across the glassy surface. As your eyes adjust, so do your surroundings begin to take shape. It will be different for everyone, this dreamscape morphing and melding into a scene (an island, a meadow, a small patch of forest, or will it remain the lake?) or setting that reflects you — it’s where your soul feels most at ease … for now.

8.0   As expected, the dreamscape does not stay still for long. The more time you spend here, the more it seems to draw inspiration from your memories. Suddenly you find everything around you materializing into solid form, the experience being dragged from the depths of your mind into manifesting a vivid study in touch and sight and smell and sound. It’s something you’ve already been through before, but whether you like it or not, this memory is being replayed around you and now you’re the observer … you and the lucky (or unlucky) person who has entered this memory with you.

Do you stay, or do you try to run from it?

9.0   The stronger the memory, the stronger its effect on you: the heaviest memories, whether they’re happy ones or sad ones, may latch onto your subconscious so tightly that it pulls you right into the memory itself.

Just as these dreams often do, it’s hard to tell whether this is made up or reality itself — perhaps you remember that this has happened before and you’ll try to change the course of events. Or perhaps you think you’re living this memory for the first time. Whatever it might be, you find yourself fully convinced of its authenticity … but the power of belief is a dangerous thing. Beware that the injuries sustained in this state will become real, visible to those who might be observing this — and observing you — from the outside. (You know the line: if you die in the game, you die in real life.)

NOTE: These strong memories might also draw you into them as yourself from that time, so someone wandering into this re-lived memory might find you there as a child, a teenager, a young adult, or perhaps someone with the same or a different face — whatever you were at the time of the memory.

10.0   Once you become aware of these memories, you may push them away or will them to stop. The moment that you do, the dreamscape will immediately shift to become its unaltered state once more. The other way to escape these memories is to leave. At the edge of your dreamscape, you will find that the air shifts and shimmers just a little differently than the rest of this space … and once you get close enough, the doorway will open to let you out of your dreamscape and into someone else’s like a chain of several small links. If your dreams are more akin to nightmares, perhaps you enter the door willingly. But just as likely, you might simply get too close and are sucked into the passageway.

And you never know just whose dream you end up in next …

The only way to leave the dreamscape is by being woken up by someone administering the antidote to you, and it will only work once. So if you fall back asleep, remember — if it takes you in again, you will remain under this sleeping spell, unable to wake … at least until the cause of the sickness has been found.

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F Y I

• The events in this log take place during the month of November.

• If you have questions about any of the prompts or the mission in general, please direct them HERE.

• To submit a search request regarding exploring a specific place during any of the prompts, please do so HERE.

• Voting for how the characters will get the orb will go up November 22. Though voting will be done in an OOC post, it is an IC vote in the sense that you should pick a choice your character would ICly make. What the characters choose to do will determine the conclusion of the mission.

• And finally, have a soundtrack for this log! ♪ ♪ ♪

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takeshi kovacs | altered carbon

[kovach]

( ft. open & closed prompts for both parts: )

OPEN — part i

[kovach]

PART I —

---

3.0 — [ he spends a good deal of time exploring the rooms, slipping into one and then the other, often finding nothing of particular interest (though some have had its own share of small puzzles). but so far, the rooms have still been very consistently rooms, standard and believable in its shape and space, so it's not as if he expects to find himself suddenly on the shoreside of a lake, outdoors with a clear view of two moons, even in the midst of daylight.

his breath stops, held for a long moment as he observes the world around him, feeling the rocks shift beneath his boots, the breeze brushing cold against his cheeks, the scent of salt heavy in the air. if it's a construct, it's a damn good one, because every detail he picks up is an exact duplication of harlan's world — it's home.

investigating is no longer in the forefront of his mind, a tight lump in his throat like he can't even swallow as he takes it all in, imagining himself running across these shores with rei, overlooking the waves of the water with quell by his side.

his eyes remain closed for a moment, listening the empty vastness, opening them only when he hears movement on the rocks behind him. his fingers curl around the gun in his coat pocket, boots giving a sharp turn as he aims the gun straight towards his new company, instinctively on the defensive until he's sure it's not a looming threat. ]


5.0 — [ the rain comes down hard and heavy, stinging over his eyes that he can barely see anything in front of him. luckily, he does manage to make out the cottage a short distance away, and in noticing someone else trying to make their way through the storm, reaches out to grab their arm. ]

Come on! [ he shouts, dragging them without waiting for an answer towards the cottage. whether it's supposed to be locked or not doesn't matter, giving a hefty kick with his boot to swing the door open, pushing his soaked company in first before he follows in. closing the door behind him, he wipes at his soaked face, breathing heavily. ] Real bullshit construct, using a storm like this.

3.0

[aurable]

[ One inconvenient fact about the castle that was readily apparent once they all began to explore in earnest was that most rooms were tailored toward a more human design. After they established that some of the rooms even had an empathetic response to whoever entered, Drift knew he had to adapt to the environment.

Drift idled in vehicle mode out in the halls for rooms that couldn't accommodate him for the first leg of the exploration and switching to his holoform where he could. Likely whoever the original occupants of the castle were wouldn't appreciate tired treads on the marble floors of the hallways. That would be a bridge to cross when they get there. Right now, they had an orb to find and a mystery to solve. Go, team.

This approach wasn't always perfect, and the castle itself was mercurial in its reception of his presence. Sometimes the room would boot out Drift's human guise, and he would have to enter physically. Or, in this instance, it wasn't the room that was the problem.

Unfazed by the gun in his face, Drift calmly said: ]

Asking someone just to go back outside not your style?

[kovach]

[ kovacs doesn't loosen his fingers from around the gun; it's a natural response to moving about a suspiciously empty castle and ending up in a room that's put up a construct of his old memories, likely as a way to try to lower his guard. but kovacs is accustomed to constructs, and for all that this smells and feels like harlan's world, he knows better.

he doesn't recognize the man that appears, and so he's not taking chances yet. while he doesn't prepare to shoot, he's still going to ask questions. ]

What can I say? I'm terrible at a conversation. [ not entirely true. he's at least not a "shoot first, ask questions later" type; he'll at least try asking first. ] Never seen you before.

5.0

[petsthedog]

[Getting dragged in the middle of a magical rainstorm by someone he doesn't quite know isn't exactly Shinjiro's idea of a great time -- he resists at first, startled. Digs in his heels just to be difficult because Shinjiro doesn't particularly care to be manhandled ... but eventually he gives in, allowing Kovacs to drag him like a marionette with its strings cut. Honestly, this might as well happen. He's so exhausted of these shenanigans.

Soon enough, they're inside, and Shinjiro immediately sits in the nearest dry-ish spot, curling in on himself for warmth. His clothes are soaked, but it's not as though he has a change on him. His own body heat is all he's got here.]

You're tellin' me. I'm so tired of magic.

[Never...mind that he was the guy who summoned a wholeass monster for backup during that final confrontation in Braccia, but listen. He hates that too.]

[kovach]

[ he doesn't need to be dragging anyone around, but considering they weren't in a rainstorm about twenty seconds ago before ending up out so suddenly after just being inside the castle, his instincts are telling him that it's likely not too safe to be out here. the cottage might not necessarily be any better but at the very least it's dry, and without the pounding of harsh raindrops against his ears, he can at least hear himself think in here.

his company is somewhat familiar, and he thinks he can remember him vaguely from up in the tower. he's typically better with faces, but he hadn't exactly been in the best shape then. at least he's not bearing any broken limbs this time.

he drags off his coat, tossing it onto a nearby chair. it's soaked but at least it was big enough to keep the rest of his clothes from getting too wet. ]

Really? Seems like everybody else is fucking ecstatic. [ might not be the right word, but compared to last time, they seem to have a better idea about how to approach it than he does. ] Be easier if this was technologically crafted environment, because saying we fell into a damn painting sounds pretty damn stupid.

OPEN — part ii

[kovach]

PART II —

---

8.1 ( cw: domestic abuse ) — [ he knows this room the moment it surrounds him, except somehow it's so much smaller than he remembers. it makes sense; he's larger now than he was then, his eyes falling on the young boy who sits upon the floor beside the smaller girl. the boy's appearance shows signs of asian descent, something so vastly different from kovacs' current heavily caucasian sleeve that it'd be almost impossible to tell that he and the boy there on the floor are one and the same.

he listens to the boy and girl recite the story of "the patchwork man". whoever steps into this memory with him perhaps hears it too, or maybe they step in just as the children are startled by the sound of the front door slamming open, forcing them to clamber to their feet before running to the closet to hide, where they're still able to peek through the door's horizontal slats.

the man speaks angrily. "We're on a new world now, new lives. Stop complaining! Why can't you just be grateful? Just once, hm?" he sighs. "You know what your problem is? You don't know how to be appreciative for what you have."

the woman speaks timidly, tears in her eyes as she tries to smile modestly. "I'm sorry, Jakub. I am so lucky. You're right. I ... I'll be better."

the man slaps his hand hard to her cheek. she gasps and cowers.

"I don't care what you do. Just stop complaining!" ]

No! [ the familiar kovacs shouts suddenly, but before his feet could even move, as if his own voice remains unheard, his father swings his arm, the blow hitting hard while his mother cries. in the closet, the children remain still, a young voice almost unheard beneath the brutal beating — "We stick together, Rei. Never face the monsters alone." ]


8.2 ( cw: child abuse, murder, parental death ) — [ this could be the first memory for the other observer to come across, or perhaps it comes immediately after witnessing the first incident of his brutal father. the room remains the same as before, but the day changes, the mother missing from the scene.

instead, in one corner of the room, the small girl whimpers. the man groans, "Just stop complaining." angrily, he points to the piece of jewelry resting upon her shirt, where an ouroboros hangs from the chain. "Take off that necklace. I told you to throw it away."

her breath trembles, her voice small and frightened. "No. It's Mom's."

"You're just like her." for a moment, another memory blossoms to interrupt, as if it swerves upon the wall, like a backdrop to the current scene — the two children watch their father dragging a sack towards a lake. "Disobedient, ungrateful — " he pulls the mother's body from the sack and dumps it into the water. it's a coolant pool, the chemicals instantly dissolving the skins and bones to nothing. " — bitch."

the memory returns its focus to the room, and in an instant, the man's neck seems to explode with energy, a shot blasted straight through. blood spatters on the young girl's face. as the man falls dead to the floor, behind him is the young boy holding a blaster gun that's just gone off.

the girl whimpers again, "Tak?"

for a moment, kovacs in his current form stands silent, watching the scene, arms folded like he's trying to hold no reaction. but the tension is in his cheeks, his lips, his eyes, and when he finally moves, it's to pull his own gun from his coat pocket, stepping up to the still body upon the floor. he aims the gun and shoots, once and then again. of course, it changes nothing. his father is already dead and the gun does nothing to further harm the body. but there's an angry in his eyes, and he keeps pulling the trigger without stopping. ]


9.1 ( cw: talk of violence/murder ) — [ kovacs, with an appearance unfamiliar to most, stands in the middle a high rope bridge in the midst of a mountainous, forested area. several rebel soldiers stand on either end of the bridge as he remains tied in the middle by his hands, but there's one woman in particular amongst them who makes her way across the bridge closer to him. in their exchange, if someone seeks to listen, makes it known that she is the leader of a rebel uprising and that he's of the opposing side — the protectorate — but has betrayed them alongside his sister. she slowly makes her way closer, amused, a contrast to his visible frustration, responding with snappy replies and sarcasm. she calls out for him to join the rebellion and when she reaches him, she takes out her knife, cutting the rope tying his hands.

"If I killed you ... the Protectorate would forgive everything."

the soldiers hold up their guns, but she isn't frightened. "Do you want their forgiveness? The innocent, the person you were before all this, he's still there." her voice is quiet, her fingers gently touching his temple. "I see the boy inside the man." she leans in to whisper to his ear. "Tell me something, Takeshi Kovacs: What did the Protectorate take from you?"

he gazes out, face stern. "Everything."

"What would you do for revenge?"

"Anything."

"That's a good start." she turns, beginning to walk away, stopping only when he speaks out.

"You don't want me. Don't you understand what CTAC does to make someone like me? They burn out every evolved violence-limitation instinct in the human psyche. And they replace it with the conscious will to do harm."

"And yet you haven't hurt me."

"I might still." his face is serious, but she turns back to him, soft in her own gaze.

"No. You won't, Kovacs." the tension in his expression softens with light confusion at her words. "You're only pretending to be one of the monsters."

when she turns again to leave the bridge, kovacs stands there, lost in a daze, staring out to where quell has vanished. there's acknowledgement of someone beside him, but he doesn't look to them, eyes forward. ] She changed everything.


9.2 ( cw: genocide, mental breakdown, murder, multiple deaths, eye injury, attempted suicide, assisted suicide, violence ) — [ he's a distance away when he hears the explosions, so he runs through the forest quickly, frantically, until he gets to the cave that leads to stronghold, the envoy hideout with a giant songspire tree stretched up through its center. most days, it's a beautiful sight, but right now, ash falls from the open skylight of the cave down to the bottom, remnants of the explosions occurring above, and the sight he finds is nothing but horrid.

he walks amongst the ash-covered corpses, all of them lacking the spirited lives they held, the fiery rebels that looked to a better future for humanity. his breath shakes, unable to believe any of it. he finds one of the envoys, still alive, huddled in one corner of the cover, trembling, mumbling over and over to herself in heavy gasps about monsters, about monsters everywhere. he tries to calm her down, but to no avail, and she instead scrambles to her feet, crying out that she needs to kill the monster, holding up her gun and shooting another crazed woman square in the forehead.

"It was us," she mutters quietly, feeling her own body weaken. "The enemy was us." she falls to the floor, lifeless.

kovacs stares distraught at the bodies surrounding him. on his comms, he hears rei's voice, still alive, and he tells her to get to the shuttle bay, but he's distracted as a bloody hand grabs at his leg. it's de soto, another envoy, a good friend. his eye is gushed out and he cries out almost delusional as kovacs nears besides him.

"Tak, is that you?"

"It's me, it's me."

"I did this to myself. I can't remember why."

suddenly, ctac soldiers appear at the entry of stronghold, climbing down the cave-formed stairs, so kovacs grabs at de soto, to hide him behind a table, holding him against him, as de soto continues to cry out.

"Quell says gotta get to the next screen! Help me get to the next screen! It's in my brain, it's in my brain!" despite the screaming, kovacs tries to calm him down, tries to quiet him as enemy soldiers peer around from the other side of the cave. de soto holds up a gun in his hand. "I've tried, Tak. I've tried. It won't let me. Tak, help me. Help me, brother." there's quiet desperation in his voice. and kovacs understands, throat dry as he tries to hold himself together.

"Okay. All right, buddy." he takes the gun from de soto's hand, holding him by the head as he angles the barrel to the back of his friend's neck. his own voice shakes. "Good talk. Good talk."

he fires the gun, momentarily leaning his head to his envoy brother's head in mourning. but the ctac soldiers have heard the shot. which means it's time to run. he and whoever else happens to be there with him. ]


9.3 ( cw: torture, repetitive death, body horror ) — [ he finds himself in his current body again, the one he didn't ask for, the one they put him in after two-hundred-and-fifty years on ice. right now he's shirtless, strapped to a table in a shot up room on harlan's world, or at least that's what the construct is making it out to be, pulled memories from his mind turning the setting into something familiar — the last thing he saw before he died, before waking up in this body.

the asshole who's put him here, dimi the twin, stands in front of him, calling him ryker over and over, asking him who he works for. all he can think is who the hell is ryker?, though asking the question outloud doesn't help. not as the construct forces him into one torture sequence after another.

the thing with vr is that he can die over and over again without making it permanent, but enough strain on the mind and his body in the real can still die.

first, he tries to break his bones, easy to do when all his neurachem strength is neutralized in vr. of course he tries to fight back anyway, headbutting the man while his arms are strapped to the table. the pliers come afterwards as retaliation, his fingernails pulled off. it's all fake but it feels real enough. he screams out from the pain but no one hears him. when he still doesn't cooperate, he gets a bullet to the head.

waking up, he can still feel the lasting pain of the torture before but as the gasoline is poured on his body, all he can do is taste it heavy on his tongue. dimi lights a cigarette and kovacs yells out "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" he thinks for a moment, like he's trying to decide if he'll confess his name. he mutters, "Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you!" dimi drops the cigarette on the trail of gasoline, the flame following the trail and igniting his entire body on fire. he screams out as he dies again.

it doesn't stop there, torture sequences used on him over and over, dying and waking up, dying and waking up — not too different from the real, to be honest. dimi's no longer in the room, probably back in the real to get something else from the vr tech, but kovacs' breath shakes, panting heavily like he's preparing himself for the next method of suffering.

turning his head, he expects to see dimi back but someone else is in the room instead. maybe they've been here in the whole time, hard to tell without his envoy instincts in here. if he's met them before, he can't remember. not here. ] Who ... who the fuck are you?

9.1

[cruelyethuman]

[The Darkling watches the exchange, the playful banter from the beautiful woman and someone with the same name as his room-mate being obvious about his emotions. They play over the face on the bridge, eyes screwing shut with frustration. As if the very warning he sent to the woman, isn't proof that he isn't the monster he's trying to make himself out to be.

Monsters come with no warning, in the Darkling's experience.]

How?

[kovach]

[ he doesn't know how he's ended up here, how each word out of his lips feels the very same as when they left him the first time. it's happening over again, but with every shift in the conversation, it's like he's prepared for the next part, like he recalls every word she said to him that morning.

it's strange when he sees kirigan, someone who clearly doesn't belong here — a construct, maybe; he's used to those. it could all just be fragments of sleeve memories colliding together. but he still feels attached to this moment, like he doesn't want to let go. ]

She could see right through me. Things no one else saw. Not even me.

9.3

[pursuit]

[ Deuce can't quite remember how he got here, but he knows what drew him to this place. He'd found himself trapped in the Dwarf Mines again, when an echoing cry carried through to him. At first, he thought it was just the rage-filled howl of the creature they'd had to fend off once before, but he soon recognizes there's something different about it.

He's heard shouts of anger enough times in his life. He's heard guys yelling in pain when he talks with his fists. But this... This sound seems to echo throughout his surroundings, sending a shudder through them and resonating in his bones. And all too soon, Deuce realizes that he's never heard such terrible cries of agony in his life. It frightens him, the primal intensity of that sound, even as he begins to follow it, compelled by something he couldn't explain.

His surroundings seem to melt away around him, one darkness giving way to another, and all too soon he finds himself in an unfamiliar room. It looks like something happened here, he thinks, as he surveys his alien surroundings. And he almost questions whether someone or something has already put an end to those haunting screams of pain.

That is, until a voice draws his attention to a figure rather conspicuously strapped to a table. How could he possibly have missed that? He jolts with a startled yelp. Was it this guy? It doesn't look like he's got a mark on him... Yet the vicious implements arrayed near the table he's confined to suggest otherwise. Could he have been healed by magic? Healed, only to be hurt more? The thought sinks into his gut like a stone.

Whoever was using those, they'll be back, won't they? ]

We've gotta get going- [ It's a thought given voice, rather than a true proposal, as Deuce's concern propels him further into the room. He's quick, by human standards, this boy in a black uniform suit with a black spade situated around one eye. The worried, tense line of his brow is genuine as he looks the guy over, sizing up his restraints. But he's no great thinker, and he quickly gives up in favor of brute force, wrestling to loose the man's restraints with gloved hands. ] Just hold on, this stuff's stubborn.

[kovach]

[ sweat coats his skin, like he's been running miles nonstop, even if he's been strapped here the entire time, arms gripped down to the table with no avail of wrestling them free. there are no signs that anything's been done to him, not here — no slashes, no cuts, no burns, no injuries. but the pain still lingers, like he could still feel the flames engulfing him, like he could still feel the instant the bullet penetrates his skull.

dimi won't give up that easily, which makes it even stranger to find the boy that appears, like he doesn't quite fit into what's been set up here. it could easily be a false setup, just something else to mess with his mind, make him think he's going free before latching him back in. ]

You're not here. [ he grumbles with a graveled tone, head lifted up to watch while making no efforts of his own to wriggle free. ] And if you are, you're just as good as dead. They control the construct. [ that's not necessarily true, but he's not pulling that card out yet. ] Just leave me.

9.1

[oiorpata]

[ it's not a terribly unfamiliar sight in layout - opposing forces, defectors, rebellion: it's a story intrinsic to humanity. she doesn't recognize anyone in the scene, but it comes together when the woman says a name she certainly knows, and andy knows all about the sleeves, so she catches up to speed quickly enough. she's witnessing kovacs, perhaps his original body. she's gleaned bits and pieces of his world, and in some ways she's curious to see an actual part of it now. ]

[ andy hovers at the edge of the bridge watching it play out, wondering how much is colored by time. he's old too, and even three hundred years could be enough to muddle a memory. ]

[ she doesn't speak up, doesn't want to intrude, and only when she hears him talk first does she acknowledge she's even there. ]

Who is she?

[kovach]

[ he can't quite tell if it's a dream or a slip in his memory, or maybe even a construct made especially for him; it happens often, especially in torture attempts, to try scrambling into the prisoner's brain for older memories. but if that's what it is, kovacs wouldn't have expected to find himself here for all that he tries to preserve every memory of quell against those that might try to take her away, even in memory.

but the person he finds next to him isn't someone he'd imagine leading any kind of construct. maybe it's just someone wearing the face of someone who's become familiar, someone he's come to regard as a good ally.

either way, he's always too enchanted in seeing quell again, even when he's never stopped seeing her, hallucinations on the daily meaning that she stands beside him in everything he does. but this feels more real than any fantasy, and he wants to come back here desperately, to when it all started. ]

Quellcrist Falconer — leader of the Uprising, founder of the Envoys. [ that's how people see her in the books. but he saw her as so much more. his voice is quiet, almost distant. ] I loved her.

9.1

[spacedisaster]

[ 'Takeshi' makes more sense now, it's a more fitting name for the man standing a few feet from Peter than the one he met in Braccia, even if it takes him a moment to realize who this dreamscape belongs and what's the reason for the stand-off. It's the way he talks, more than anything else, that clues Peter that this is Kovacs before she calls out his name.

The woman...Quell, Peter realizes, from what Kovacs had shared with him in a moment of drug-induced vulnerability. He can understand why he trusted her, why he might have fallen in love, even. Peter doesn't want to impose, but he's always been curious, and once the memory fades and the Kovacs he knows speaks up, he turns to face him. ]

She seems someone worth following. [ Then again, he's biased towards women who can kick his ass and know what they want. Gamora is like that. ] You were trying to change the world, I take it? How come you looked so different?

[kovach]

[ his mind is somewhat still caught up in the dream, snaring him in a way that he's taught himself better to avoid, that quell herself has taught him. but he can't help himself; he misses her, and for all that a part of him knows this is just a picked piece of his memory, he doesn't want to leave it.

because in it, quell's alive, and there's still a chance of saving her.

he can sense quill near him, hearing the man speak, but his attention still focuses on his surroundings of harlan's world, and though he's momentarily back in his ryker sleeve, the question almost seems to reel him back in again, once more wearing the skin he'd worn when he met her. ]

It's my birth sleeve. [ even if the protectorate had taken it from him early on, not seeing it for nearly two decades. ] She made it seem like we could change the world. Like we could make a difference.

8.2

[groupiedrifter]

[Sometimes you just end up watching murder, spousal abuse, child abuse, and more murder, huh? Totally normal things to see. Nothing insane or horrific about this. Newt's just gonna add this as another thing he can have nightmares about later, between the Kaiju attacks and almost getting lit on fire. He's not even sure if Kovacs knows he's there, so focused on the memory of his father getting blasted away, but he is — and he only makes his presence known when Kovacs starts shooting up his dad's dead body all over again, stepping forward quickly to put his hand on Kovac's arm.]

Dude, Kovacs — stop, man.

That's not — he's already dead. It's not gonna do anything.

[Well, no, he imagines it probably feels kind of good to shoot some memory of your abusive dad, but Newt's thinking of the bigger picture; they've gotta get outta here, however the hell that's supposed to work. Selfishly, Newt would also very much like to get out for his own sanity. If his hands are shaking a little, nobody's gotta comment.]

[kovach]

[ kovacs doesn't notice he isn't alone, not with anyone besides the stitched memories within the construct, and it's without hesitation that he shoots the blast of the gun into that man's body — that man — over and over, as if to make sure he's dead. he's not taking chances, not after hearing him speak again, after seeing him try to touch rei again, even if it'd only been in memory.

he only jolts from his trance when he feels the touch upon his arm, shuddering as he turns his head to find newt there, eyes remaining wide, his body shaking in a way that's almost unusual for a man of his threatening size.

for a moment, he says nothing at all, swallowing as his eyes stare off unfocused. ] He killed her. [ mom. his voice is quiet, still not fully shaken from this dream. ] He would've killed Rei too.

8.1 & 8.2

[peasant]

[ in some ways, it's a familiar scene. two children in a cruel world, with no other shelter but each other, finding their safe havens in whatever nooks and crannies would allow them to hide, whispering to one another in the darkness.

but alina had found her escape in bright flowering meadows, the hope of that open space brought her; there is none of that here, cloistered in this closet as she watches through the slats, gritting her teeth every time bone strikes flesh. and as soon as she breathes in, a fool that believes it's done —

the memories shift and fade, a tapestry of every sin this man has committed, woven together into a nightmare. alina starts long before kovacs does, a helpless stride forward to rescue the cowering girl on the floor. the other children would have never shed a tear if she and mal disappeared into ditches, never would have called for help — but this man is more than a bully with his hate in his heart.

he is hatred, made into human flesh. a monster, alina thinks, turning on the family he was meant to love. alina's fists uncurl from where they've blanched, nails biting into her skin, preparing to hurl him away with the heat gathering there — but kovacs moves first, as though he needs to enact revenge on a ghost that still haunts him. a monster never stops hunting you, even after it's long gone and in the ground.

she's quiet through the first bullet, and then the next. on the third, she moves to his side — cups his elbow and lets her hand slide down his forearm, to the finger he has pointed on the trigger, overlaying her own atop it. determination lines her brows a she helps him squeeze, unloading the barrel into that twitching body, again and again, until it clicks. emptied, gone, just like the figment laying in front of him. ]

Takeshi. [ tak, the girl had called him. some distant echo fills in the rest for alina, filtered in by the dreamscape. even as softly spoken as it is, it's almost shattering in the tense silence, nothing but their breathing disturbing the air. ] It's done.

[ her other hand lifts to cover his, drawing his firearm down to his side. ]

It's done. [ her head tilts, trying to chase his gaze and tug it toward her. ] He can't hurt anyone else ever again.

[ but she supposes that isn't true, is it? the pain still lives on in takeshi's memory, a specter she knows he'll never be free of. not truly. ]

[kovach]

[ this isn't a memory he'd have wanted to see again, much less for someone else's eyes to fall on it. even as he pulls the trigger once and then again, it isn't immediate that he notices alina's presence there, despite the envoy intuition that usually prevents anyone from getting the jump on him, and when she slips her hand against his arm, he shakes slightly, momentarily ceasing the shots as his eyes follow her fingers join his on the gun.

he takes a breath, holding it in, sensing her skin on his, feeling a joint instinct in that moment to continue shooting — over and over and over — until it's done.

when she says his name — takeshi — he finally exhales.

for a long moment, he continues to stare down at his father's body, knowing he won't get up, that he wouldn't have even if he hadn't just unloaded more rounds into him. he killed his father all those years ago and whatever might have happened differently in this memory, it wouldn't have changed the events of that night. his mother was gone, and while rei survives that night, she's immediately taken from him the next day. there was no victory that night.

he finally turns his head, staring at alina through the darkness of the room. they'd spoken of monsters before and now it seems like she's found the birth of his. ]

It was already too late. [ he speaks in a whisper, barely audible. ] The damage was already done.

[ mom had died. rei was taken. and he'd become a killer. ]

8.1 & 8.2

[bossily]

[If she hadn't known about sleeves and the world he comes from, Clara would be a little confused as she first takes in the scene unfolding before her. She spots the Takeshi she knows, of course, but her attention is focused on the children. She smiles as she watches them retell the story, and is just about to say something about him being such a good older brother when she's startled by the sound of the door slamming open.

Her eyes widen as she listens to the man go off, and it's as she hears the sound of a rough slap that she instantly turns to head toward the closet where the children are hiding. She cares for Takeshi as he is now, but she will always be driven to protect children. Even ones she can't genuinely interact with or help.

She goes to the closet, whispering reassurances to be brave. Stay together, she urges, right as the sound of Takeshi shouting no gets her to turn and look his way.

As she does, it seems that everything shifts. The room's the same, but the situation is different. It's a new scene now, one that unplays with horror on Clara's face. She knows she isn't able to do anything, but she still finds her feet moving forward on her own. To protect his sister, to keep him safe. She can't stand children being harmed, especially by someone they're supposed to be able to trust.

It's with tears streaming down her face that she watches their father fall. Her heart is completely shattered knowing he's lived through this. But the sound of gunshots snap her out of her thoughts, and pull her in close to him.]

Takeshi. [She doesn't move to stop him. Revenge is something she's felt the need for before. She gets it. For now, she lets it consume him. Allows him to keep his hatred and anger and lets him keep pulling the trigger.]

Tak. [She speaks his name more firmly as she brings a hand up to grab at his arm.] Enough. You've saved her, see? You've done enough.

[kovach]

[ he first hears the trembling tak from his sister in the corner of the room, small and fragile, long before she'd learned how to protect herself. but all else falls silent when he steps up to his father's corpse and begins to shoot at it, like he has to make sure, even if he knows, he remembers, his father never makes a move again after that first shot, never again lays a finger on him or rei.

the next time he hears his name, it's a different voice, with more certainty and just as familiar. clara's touch makes him still his finger on the trigger, his eyes still downcast to the scene.

he'd never wanted her to see him like this, crazed with anger, using violence as a way to cope with rage — a monster derived from his father — but he also knows it was inevitable. these are corners of himself that can't be hidden, and it's for the best that she knows who he is. even the parts he despises, the part that turned into a killer this very night.

his eyes turn to her, red as if fighting back tears, his throat dry. he'd sink into her if he could, but his body remains still. ]

It's not. It's not enough. [ his voice is almost a rasp, angry even if it isn't directed at her. ] I never saved her. She — they separated us after this. Lied to me that they put her with a good family before they put me in a man's body to make me into their soldier and — [ there's a grit in his teeth, looking to the young rei again, the one with a good heart, the one he could have kept safe. ] When I saw her again twenty-eight years later, she'd already been made into a killer like me. She had to fight for her life and I never went back for her, and then — [ his voice quivers, caught in his throat. ] I tried to make a life for us with the Envoys, but she died. They all did.

OPEN — wild card

[kovach]

WILD CARD —

---

0.0 — ( above are a variety of prompts to choose from, most of which relate more specifically to kovacs' history and memories. i'm willing to do more exploration threads in different rooms for part i, but would prefer to do closed starters for those to avoid too much repetition, so if any of the above prompts don't appeal to you, let me know in the plotting post to discuss other options or hit me up at hepburns.

for part ii, the options under 8.1 and 8.2 feature kovacs in his current form observing his childhood. for the options under 9.1 and 9.2, kovacs is in his original body and fully believes himself to be reliving those memories, though his mind might go in and out with confusion on the situation. for 9.3, he'll also be convinced he's reliving the situation but he'll be in his current familiar body. his plotting comment includes other memory options not written up as an open option, but are all available as well for a prompt if preferred. let me know and i can write something up for it.

there's also the option for one character to wake up kovacs from the sleep with an antidote. let me know in the plotting comment if interested. )

CLOSED — daisy

[kovach]

[ he feels like he's been walking endlessly for some time, feet moving through the forest for hours. to whoever watches kovacs wandering through the trees, they might not recognize him, not with his face looking nothing like the man who's been joining the others on their missions for the past couple of months. beside him is a woman, a dragon tattoo inked around her right eye.

for a moment, kovacs halts in his tracks, kneeling down to admire blue glowing roots scattered alongside a mossy rock. "Look at the way the Songspire threads through the boulders. You ever wonder if the Elder civilization designed it to do that? Create structures underground with the branches as some kind of scaffold?"

the woman doesn't appear impressed. "Those are the most words you've said to me in hours. And they're fucking rocks." they're silent for a moment before she starts to walk away, voice exasperated. "It's fine. It's in the past. Let's keep moving."

he halts her before she keeps going. "No. We can camp here for the night. We're deep enough in the forest."

"So, tomorrow we go underground and what? Hide like animals?"

"You got a better plan?"

"I'd said we should find some potential allies, but we just killed everyone we know, so ..."

for a moment, they say nothing else, soon breaking into laughter that soon shifts into the woman sniffling with a soft whimper. "I missed you so much."

kovacs merely stands there, voice quiet. "I'm sorry, Rei." he steps towards her, hand resting upon her shoulder as they tilt their foreheads together for a quiet moment, simply basking in the feeling of their long desired reunion.

but soon, rei throws her arms around him, sobbing as she clutches to him tight. "Why did you — ?" she doesn't finish, merely crying more as she holds him.

he embraces her tightly, never wanting to let go, except after a moment, he feels nothing in his arms, hands empty, his sister suddenly gone from in front of his eyes. ] Rei? [ his eyes confused, he peers up and sees another woman standing near him instead. ]

[morethan084]

[Daisy looks behind her, confused and disorientated from her arrival here in the forest. It's not at all familiar to her, but then she turns around and spots her mother not far off hugging someone whose back is to her. Her knees almost give out.]

Mom?

[She means to speak loudly, but she barely chokes out the word as tears fill her eyes. Daisy blinks the tears away and she's gone.]

Mom?!

[Her eyes fly to the unfamiliar face, absolutely nothing was familiar about him and in a flash of anger she tries to push him back with her power.]

What did you do to her?!

[kovach]

[ his sister is there one moment and then she's gone, and suddenly he's taken back about two decades, to when she slipped away from him, to when jaeger promised she'd be put in a good home but that he'd never see her again. panic instantly sets into his chest, tense and tight, and when he suddenly hears a voice calling out and sees a woman rushing towards him, he's on the defensive with weapon in hand.

any other attack and he might be better prepared but the sudden push of force that throws him back is too unexpected for him to defend himself against. he's knocked backwards, colliding to the ground before he's swiftly trying to pushing himself back up with his hands.

he snags at his gun, gripping it up to angle it from where he's down on the ground, aiming it towards her.

when he looks at her properly, he knows he shouldn't recognize her, but it's like a clash of memories settling in, confusion all along his face. no, it isn't right — ] Daisy?