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ximilialog2021-11-06 01:06 pm
- ! event log,
- ! open,
- altered carbon: takeshi kovacs,
- btvs: buffy summers,
- cotar: rhysand,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: the doctor (11),
- fear street: ziggy berman,
- fullmetal alchemist: edward elric,
- grishaverse: alina starkov,
- grishaverse: the darkling,
- gundam seed destiny: athrun zala,
- gundam seed/destiny: yzak jule,
- mass effect: kaidan alenko,
- mcu: bucky barnes,
- mcu: daisy johnson,
- mcu: erik stevens,
- mcu: gamora,
- mcu: peter quill,
- mcu: sam wilson,
- mcu: shang-chi,
- mcu: yelena belova,
- old kingdom: sabriel,
- one piece: rosinante donquixote,
- pacific rim: newton geiszler,
- star trek aos: james t. kirk,
- star trek aos: leonard mccoy,
- star wars: finn,
- star wars: l3-37,
- star wars: r0-gr,
- stranger things: eleven,
- supernatural: dean winchester,
- the old guard: andromache,
- towards the terra: soldier blue,
- transformers: drift,
- transformers: megatron,
- twisted wonderland: deuce spade,
- yakuza: zhao tianyou
MISSION: THE SLEEPER
● ● ● M I S S I O N 3 . 1
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
F Y I
• 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! ♪ ♪ ♪
no subject
He already knows the answer. It was a conclusion that delivered him here with such a small regret compared to all the great and terrible things he has done. ]
Yes. Yes, it was worth it. Without what I learned... without what I had done I don't know if I could have helped them gain their freedom. And they deserve it as much as any Cybertronian from our universe, Drift. If I must become a monster to become a hero, then I accept that as my just fate.
no subject
Caught up in the memories, the abiding loneliness, and just the resurgence of Megatron always saying the right things when he needed to hear them- Drift did something stupid. Tilting his head up, he soundly but chastely kissed his old nightmare and only friend in all the world who understood. ]
Thank you.
no subject
Megatron hadn't expected that. It's a chaste thing, soft yet pressing. Megatron half-returns it, mostly out of surprise. It is nothing like the sort of hungry, victory-drunk embraces they used to share at the start of it all. When the rigidity of the system had been trembling, on the verge of collapse and to love whoever and however you wanted seemed to be as much an act of rebellion as gunning down a police officer or hurling a brick through a bank's window. As the shock clears, he smiles, almost embarrassed by affection he hasn't felt expressed in... far too long. ]
Among this army of lovers and killers
I never understood the joyous truth of flight
Until I saw you drive Kaon's streets
With no mech able to mark your steps
Or tell you what was forbidden
[ He murmurs the words softly from memory. A little thing, never published, but probably shared among the Conclave at some point. From a time when things had been different and complicated and yet so much simpler. ]
For what?
no subject
[ Those lines, that poem- would stay with him always.
Drift should have hated himself for this; how quickly he proved he knew the right words or remembered the off-beat lines they wrote, they inspired. Yet he need only look to his right see the vibrant, unrestrained joy from his brothers. Or look to his left and see the street alive for the first time, free of the yoke of the senate.
Then Drift looks up at him, and he doesn't have an answer. Hands fall away, and Drift steps back; the flayed open look of uncertainty clear across his face. ]
I- Nothing.
no subject
He doesn't, though. He lets Drift step back, let's his hands separate. As lovely as this little reunion and mutual memory might be, there are still unhappy truths that sit between them, waiting. ]
I'm not... We're not those people any longer, Drift.
[ Megatron turns deliberately away, ignoring the ache in his chest. He leans forward to look over the cityscape. ]
You shouldn't return home with more regrets than you started with.
no subject
Yeah, don't remind me.
[ Drift grips the balcony railing and tunes out the laughter behind him. Wishing these memories weren't ghosts- that he could turn and beat some sense into his younger self. For being a violent junkie turning his hopes for a better future into just another addiction.
Then, quietly, Drift said around a tightening throat: ]
If what we're told is true about this place and regrets then I won't have to worry about going home.
no subject
He wants so badly to take Drift's hand again. He had thought himself prepared for whatever came but that prison is so lonely that it's impossible not to ache for connection while the has the chance. ]
What do you mean?
[ That sounds disturbing. Self-sacrificing in the usual foolish way. Megatron turns back towards Drift and steps closer again on the balcony that already feels too small for both of them. ]
What is it that you're trying to undo, Drift?
no subject
Of who and what they were, and of how Megatron would only be returning from a punishment Drift himself deserved.
When he finally forces himself to look back at Megatron he doesn't make any attempt to mask how broken and miserable he feels. ]
I don't want to undo anything, I want a do over. The victory lap, the quantum duplicate if there's even the slimmest chance it could work then-
[ Drift can't even say it.
They'd all be together again. He would have Ratchet back. ]
no subject
[ It's a horrid realization and it makes Megatron feel sick. The other mech is caught up in a tidal wave of grief, unable to properly mourn and he thinks that this will help bring back his conjunx. It's maddening, of course, to think of that little 'magic trick' as Rodimus would have called it and not know--but that's the risk, isn't it? Megatron steps forward, then pauses again. He doesn't have the courage to try and touch Drift or offer him comfort without being invited. He feels too weak, too distant. ]
We can't know if it worked. It might have, but we're the Lost Light left here, in this universe. We knew that was a possibility when we voted!
[ He finally reaches out to take Drift by the shoulders, staring down into the other mech's optics. ]
Wondering about it, wishing for it will only cause you more sparkache. It's already happened and we can't know whether it worked or not! If it did, the pair of us are probably still sitting at Swerve's right now somewhere. I know you're in pain, but this isn't going to heal you. What if you go back and you still end up on this side of the jump?
[ He gives Drift a firm shake, as if it might shake him free of the thought. ]
What will you have left, Drift? What will you do to yourself?
[ As he's speaking the scene around them shifts, the dreamy memory seeming to shift and change in response to the turbulent thoughts of the pair. The high rise shimmers, melds, and melts starting to half resemble a ruined penthouse and half the bar on board the Lost Light with it's cozy booths and glimmering engex tanks. ]
no subject
[ Even the sound of his own name was so saturated in pity that it made Megatron seem repulsed by what grief had turned Drift into. Already, Drift could read into Megatorn's posture and knew the other fought back the impulse to comfort him. Hiking up his shoulders, Drift took a defensive stance that made him appear tense as if he froze mid-flinch. Drift didn't want to be comforted or talked down as though he were hysterical and unreasonable. Only when Megatron did put his hands on his shoulders did Drift not even twitch. His sparkache so pinned him down it left him too physically exhausted to pull away. ]
I wasn't gambling with Ratty's life when I cast that vote! [ Drift's words come out as strangled hiss louder than a whisper. Afraid his vocoder would combust if he screamed at the volume his pain wanted him to. ]
Why are you now speaking as if the universe only exists as a binary- the one where we fail and the one where we don't. Did you become inflexible as well as miserable when they put you in that box? [ That was a low blow, even given their history- especially give their history. Somewhere behind the thick veil of his misery, Drift knew that. ]
A week ago, I didn't think it was possible that a strange voice in my head would ask if I wanted to erase one regret then wake up on a space station! But here. We. Are.
[ Drift shakes his head ]
It isn't a secret what you all still think of me: Hippydippy Drift is so desperate and gullible that he's touched in the head- he'll believe anything if you sell it to him as a way to make all his problems go away! But what if I take you advice- what if I do nothing? That would be just as bad as abandoning him!
[ This time, he was shouting, but it cost him whatever the last bit of energy he was holding onto. The last fiery blowout before whatever was keeping Drift going in that moment was snuffed out. When Megatron shook him, Drift wavered in the other direction—swaying as though Megatron was the only thing keeping him standing. He just stared past the other mech, not even acknowledging where they stood now.
Drift didn't care if this was another memory or that neutral liminal space between the dreams. That would make sense that it would look like this. Like home.
Quietly, Drift only answers the first question. ]
Nothing. I'll have nothing.
no subject
You know I don't think that of you in that way. You're intelligent, a believer with a wonderful spark. Far wiser than me, even if you're maddeningly stubborn.
[ He releases his grip on Drift's shoulders, steps back as the bar begins to solidify more firmly around them. As if Swerve might appear to take their orders at any moment, or Nautica, Perceptor, and Brainstorm would clatter through the door speaking in scientific gibberish. ]
It's not wrong of you to mourn. My point isn't that it's wrong to want someone back. I--
[ He flinches, something most people don't get to see Megatron do. ]
I am here to try and save Ravage.
[ His voice trails off, melancholy, sad, and old. ]
...I am sorry. Deeply sorry for your loss. He was a good mech, the best of us. I know you want him back. I merely--I worry about what you will do to yourself in pursuit of it.
no subject
How can you want to save a friend just to stand there and ask me how far I'll go for my conjux?
[ Finding himself unable to muster the energy to stand, Drift swayed in one direction, and by pure stupid luck, a barstool was there to catch him. The lights in Swerve's weren't all on; what parts of the bar were visible were mostly illuminated by the glowing tanks of engex. In the near dark, with his face resting in his hands, Drift looked more like an interloper after last call. ]
Mourn? I haven't had a chance to mourn. [ Drift lets out a low, keening sound somewhere between a sob and the groan of an animal at death's door. ] I was still at his funeral.
[ Drift could barely lift his head up to look back over to Megatron. ]
At first, I tried to tell myself this was how things were meant to be. To pass peacefully in your sleep, leaving behind the world better than how you found it. In balance with the natural order. [ Drift sniffed to stifle a cry and because he was sick of his own dogma. ]
Those platitudes buckled under the weight of reality in an instant.
no subject
I didn't realize. My apologies.
[ Being brought here right from the mech's funeral seemed a cruel joke to play. Drift clearly still needed time to process his feelings--which made him throwing himself into this self-flagellating quest even more concerning. ]
I know you love him deeply.
no subject
I told him everything, you know. Before we answered the distress call that led us to the Necroworld we had a lot of time on our hands and before I knew it I was blurting out every awful little between when we met to when I joined the Autobots. This awkward, verbal exsanguination nearly made me pass out I was so scared of what he would think. Of what I had done, of what you and I used to be.
Do you know what he said? [ Drift looked down, tracing invisible circles on the bar top. Wishing there was a drink in his hand with an offlined FIM chip. The urge to suffocate his inhibitions had been growing as of late. ]
"You don't love in piecemeal."
[ Drift vented with a shuttering, fragile sound like breaking glass. ]
No one's ever cared about me as a whole, and I don't think anyone ever will. If I do this...if I find a way where we're all on the Lost that made it I could be losing the centuries we had together. And if I don't then I'll return to life that's already killing me with new regrets.
Either way this feels like the end of the line for me.
no subject
He'll try, though. ]
I don't think it's the end of the line for you, Drift. I see so much life left in you.
[ Megatron's voice drops into something quieter and he struggles to find words, an unusual occurrence for him. ]
I have too many regrets about life. Things I didn't say. Paths I didn't follow. Lovers I never had.
[ This is difficult. Baring his spark hurts, it feels humiliating and dangerous but... he needs to try and connect with Drift somehow. Needs to assure this old comrade that he is allowed to continue living. ]
I kept myself silent because I did not want him to mourn me too much, when I had gone. I wish I had said something, though, because ultimately I'm selfish. It's a horrible thing, to wish you had left someone behind to mourn you.
[ Megatron's vocoder grows thick with static for a moment and he has to clear it. ]
Ratchet would likely have wanted you to live to your fullest, even without him. I think you can. Whether you pursue this regret or not I believe in you and your strength in the face of this tragedy. Don't close yourself off from living because of your grief. Live all the more.
no subject
You get to think you didn't leave him behind because you weren't there to see the aftermath. Regrets are so much easier to quantify when you're not there to see who gets left behind. [ Knowing exactly who Megatron was referencing, Drift knew this was just twisting the finishing blow where it hurt. Only there was such a catharsis in it all that he couldn't stop himself. ]
I've made friends here, people I think I could care about again. But none of it- none of it I would take for just one more...one more day- just another day-
[ The happy-go-lucky front Drift had kept up for the last couple of weeks around Buffy, Dean, or Erik had collapsed right along with his resolve. Drift doubled over, face in his hands, and let out the frustrated and devastated howl of pent-up anguish he had been holding back. ]
no subject
Can he not even have that comfort in this interminable hell? ]
I've always been good at deceiving myself.
[ The words are low and sullen. Anger mingled with an unspeakable grief for all the might-have-beens and maybes that he had let pass him in his life in his pursuit of so many goals. As Drift lets out that sound of pure, unhappy anguish and grief Megatron finds himself unsure of what to do. He's not a touchy person, never been to offer a hug even in intimate moments. This...
This is awful. He feels sick and torn up inside, worse than normal. Trying to do something he grips Drift's shoulder and squeezes, trying to impart some small form of support as the bereaved mech lets out everything he's been holding in. ]
no subject
Turning, Drift allows himself this passing moment of weakness and simply collapses against Megatron. The familiarity of it all was warped by the passage of time and bitterness of their shared memories. Only here, in the dream, on neutral ground, could Drift finally relent as he mourned for them both. ]
no subject
It's the least he can do for an old comrade. ]
no subject
When Drift pulled back he vented heavily; his fangs bared and his optics dilated. Dehydrated, aggressive, and nostalgic: A dangerous combination. ]
no subject
Drift? Drift, are you...?
[ Of course he's not alright, but what else is he supposed to ask in this situation. ]
What do you need?
[ Asked softer, as if Megatron could really give him anything other than temporary comfort. ]
no subject
Neck, or a wrist. You know how this goes. [ Drift groaned before he growled. ]
no subject
[ The answer shouldn't have surprised Megatron. He'd been here before with Drift, long ago. When Drift had been Deadlock, he leans back a little further, head craning to expose his neck to the other. It's an act of trust--it always had been between the two of them. Megatron's optics half-shutter. He's bracing himself, not necessarily for the pain because pain is something he can deal with. More the closeness of it, the way that he knows Drift will press against him.
He's not sure he'll ever be ready for it. The sense of vulnerability that comes with his is overwhelming and uncomfortable and yet Megatron can't seem to make himself rethink what he's about to do.
Maybe it's the nostalgia of the dream or just the feeling of helplessness in the face of Drift's grief. ]
no subject
Drift was suddenly under the wave of his old shame, and instead of the tempting neck Drift goes for what's the best offer. He licks his tongue up Megatron's arm before biting down into his wrist.
siphonist
Drift bit down harder and dried not to remember. ]
no subject
In the corner of his vision, an alert blinks, warning him that he's losing energon. He ignores it--shuts it off, actually, and lets Drift do as we will. One hand rests gently against Drift's shoulder, Megatron letting the siphon go as long as its needed.
As long as Drift is reasonable about it, in any case. ]