ximilialog | MISSION: THE SLEEPER

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MISSION: THE SLEEPER

● ● ● 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.

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// 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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wouldn't say he threw it away. He used it perfectly for what he set out to do in gaining all that trust to begin with. To play both sides, to escalate things. The first war nearly ended just like he apparently wanted it to. ZAFT was ready to essentially destroy the Earth and the Naturals with one of its superweapons, and the Earth Forces launched a full-out nuclear attack on PLANT to wipe out us Coordinators. He just failed in the end, and both of those things were narrowly avoided.

I truly hope he- and people like him- never show their face on the Ximilia.

[Admittedly, she's not entirely clear on what standards they use to recruit people, but she'd expect wanting to kill everyone would be disqualifying, regrets or not.]

They wouldn't last if they did.

[ He says that matter-of-factly.

Look, Yzak's not exactly like Kira Yamato, Lacus Clyne and their friends when it comes to their code of avoiding killing if they can. He won't just do it willy-nilly, but Yzak will still straight up kill a mfer. ]

Well, that's probably what would be necessary... but it would also lead to tensions within the crew.

[Ending a life isn't something to be taken lightly, and many of the crew are far more averse to violence than Sabriel and Yzak.]

[ Maybe it would, but, he just shrugs. They can theoretically suck it. ]

[Sabriel can't disagree, but- their surroundings start shifting again, into dim daylight. They're standing at the bottom of a vast sinkhole- perhaps seven hundred feet deep, and much wider across, filled with stunted vegetation- and ships, oars out to battle an imaginary tide, and black sails out to catch a nonexistent wind. Past-Sabriel is standing in front of one that's smaller than the other, lacking sails... and touching the cheek of the figurehead, as a little white cat with a red collar sits beside her.

It's of a young man- a naked young man, carved in utterly lifelike detail, its wooden face frozen in a look of shock and betrayal, mingled with hatred.

A kiss, says the cat sleepily, Actually just a breath would do, but you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.]

Well. It's not a... bad memory, at least?

Edited 2021-11-17 04:58 (UTC)

[ Yzak starts to look around the sinkhole, up, up and up at the sky so much higher above, until the voices start and he turns his attention to the scene at hand. ]

[ ??? ]

[ ?????????????????????? ]

[ What's weirder here, the talking cat? Or the talking cat telling Sabriel to make out with a boat figurehead? ]

Um, what the fuck is going on.

This is- how I met Touchstone. My fiance. By this point I'd... already realized that this was a person whose body and spirit had been placed into stasis. I'd restored his spirit to his body, but I didn't know how to awaken him.

[A breath?

Past Sabriel looks dubious about the suggestion, staring at the cat like she suspects he's been drugged. But she leans forward, taking in a deep breath.

Like this?

She exhales a few inches from the figurehead's face before stepping back to see what happens- which is nothing. So instead she turns her exasperation on the cat.

Catbalm! Yous shouldn't-

But past Sabriel is interrupted by a sound- a faint whistling from carved lips as the figure comes alive, wood slowly giving way to flesh as the figure's chest begins to rise and fall.]

That's something that can happen, too? Turning someone's physical form into, [ He gestures.

Before the wooden figure starts to change and move. Then Yzak pauses and just stares because this is ... pretty wild to behold. ]

Well, it's not a common occurrence, but- a previous Abhorsen wanted to keep the last surviving member of the royal bloodline in stasis. So they did that to Touchstone, and then made sure he was safely stored in the royal graveyard.

[Because that's what this is- each of those ships are tombs, carrying one of the bodies of an Old Kingdom monarch.

The man's eyes are open now, and he's staring at Sabriel, even if he doesn't seem to see her. His hands clench and unclench, his feet kick like he's trying to run in place- and then, his back peels away from the ship, as he takes one step forward before falling into past-Sabriel's arms.

Past-Sabriel is blushing furiously as she lowers him to the ground. But he's not looking at her, so much as the silver keys embroidered on her surcoat.

Thank you, The man's words are slurred, like he's drunk... or long out of practice when it comes to speaking, Abhorsen.

Then he's asleep, with Sabriel looking down on him.

I suppose I'd better get him a blanket. Sabriel can remember that moment- the curiously fond feelings, but also worrying that she'd just added another complication to an already difficult situation.

I can get a blanket, if you want to keep staring at him the cat says, twining slyly around her legs. At that, Past-Sabriel hastily averts her gaze and turns her attention to the cat.

No, I'll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose. The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I guess- we'd be much the same height. Keep watch, Mogget, I'll be back in a minute.]

Quite the graveyard.

[ He takes another look around at the ships. ]

And you just happened to come across him? Or did you know he was here?

In either case, you don't seem very disappointed that you found him.

[ He is absolutely noting that about her awkwardness and blushing in specific. :') ]

I didn't even know it was a graveyard at first- I was trying to get to Belisaere when my paperwing was attacked by gore-crows and I crashed.

[And then, after a pause-]

I probably need to explain several of those words, don't I?

[The memory is fading out, at least, colors blurring together like a soaked watercolor.]

Belisaere is the Old Kingdom's capital, a paperwing is a magical flying device that's steered through wind magic, and gore-crows are- Dead things, created when a necromancer shatters a single spirit and places each shard within a specially prepared dead crow, or other bird. They're individually weak, but they don't attack individually.

I was about to say...

[ Those terms sounded pretty self-explanatory - paperwing, something that flies, gore-crows, maybe some kind of vampire crows? ] Thanks for the clarification. I wouldn't have been able to guess that closely for the crows, at least.

So even if you were a bit taken from the start, that would have changed if the guy ended up being an asshole. Which means if you're engaged now, that didn't happen.

What's he like?

...

And who's the

cat?

[Sabriel really can't help the soft, happy smile that spreads across her face as she starts to talk about Touchstone.]

Touchstone is... brave, and kind. He has a strong sense of duty, and even if I thought he was an idiot at first- he really isn't. He doesn't really understand Ancelstierre's technology, but he's willing to learn. And he understands my responsibilities, and doesn't try to coddle me about it- we will be husband and wife, but also King and Abhorsen, and he understands what that means.

He's also an exceptionally powerful Charter Mage.

[Another thing about him that Sabriel had underestimated, as she'd initially assumed he only knew about fighting-related spells.

Although when it comes to discussing Mogget, she's far less cheerful.]

The cat is Mogget, and he isn't actually a cat- he's an ancient Free Magic entity that's been bound to serve my family, mostly through giving advice- the same binding that forces him to obey us also seals most of his power. Although when his collar comes off- he mostly tries to kill me. I'm not sure why he was sealed that way, instead of putting him in a bottle and leaving him in some remote corner of Abhorsen's House, like I would for any other Free magic spirit.

[ One good thing about Yzak is that he's a little less ugh, feelings when it comes to other people talking about their own. ]

People can be smart but still be idiots. [ Sabriel probably knows Yzak well enough by now to understand what he means. His closer friends, the people he cares about, trusts and respects most, they're plenty smart but if asked what Yzak enjoys calling them the most, idiot would be near the top of that list. It's more a term of endearment coming from him. ]

But, he sounds like someone worthy of your affections, in all of those cases. [ Because clearly, this needed Yzak's stamp of approval. (it did not, and yet here he is giving it like it matters) ]

I assume he tries to kill you without a collar because he doesn't want to be bound by such a thing? And because of, [ He waves a hand. ] what you've mentioned in the past, about Free Magic versus your own.

Probably why he chose to call himself by a fool's name.

[Well, that and his guilt, but still. It's noticeable enough for anyone familiar with Breakespear's work, and Sabriel wonders if she can get Viveca to bring copies to the station.]

Yes. Both that the nature of Free magic and the Charter are generally antithetical, and that Free magic, by its nature, resists constraint of any kind. Which is part of why it's forbidden, as those who practice it often develop the same nature.

[Even when started with good intent, eventually, unrestrained by the Charter, Free magic warps its practitioners into people who see any check on their actions, any defiance or denial of their wants, as an intolerable offense.]

How often?

Everyone outside of my family. And even we're only protected because we're able to balance it with Charter magic- we may have both, but we only use Free Magic for specific purposes, and make sure to maintain strong ties to the Charter.

[Not relying on Free magic when you could use the Charter had been one of the first lessons her father had drilled into her, when she'd started practicing necromancy.]

It's... probably tied to our bloodline carrying one of the Great Charters, but- no one was ever able to explain it fully, just give me vague hints

[But she understands enough now. Her blood contains powerful Charter magic, magic that acts as part of the Charter's foundation.

Magic that could, with her death as part of a ritual sacrifice, destroy the Charter.]

Why just hints? [ Asks the guy who hates vagueness. ] That sounds pretty important, enough to avoid being vague about it. Especially since it's your own bloodline.

And, the Great Charters? What are those, exactly?

There was a binding, that kept anyone from talking about it- tied to the corruption Kerrigor created.

There are five Great Charters- I'm not entirely sure what they are, but they underlie the Charter, and without them- Mogget said it would crumble. There are three in bloodlines, and two in the Great Stones and the Wall.

'Five Great Charters knit the land,
Together linked, hand in hand,
One in the people who wear the crown,
Two in the folk that keep the Dead down,
Three and Five became stone and mortar,
Four sees all in frozen water.'

That Kerrigor asshole sounds like he's pulled a lot of dumb shit.

[ He listens to that poem, committing it to memory. ]

So aside from the stones and the wall ... there's you, there's some kind of royal bloodline, but who's that last one supposed to be? Sees all in frozen water.

[ Sabriel said three were in bloodlines, so he can tell that much. But beyond that, ????? ]

He is- or rather was responsible for much of what's gone wrong in the Old Kingdom for the last two hundred years.

[Also, Touchstone's half brother, but that's not going to be relevant, because Kerrigor is bound, and won't be waking up until the end of time.]

The last one's the Clayr. They can see the future- or potential futures, as they explain it, in ice. They're also the most numerous of the bloodlines, although given the state of the Abhorsen and royal bloodlines, that isn't saying much.

[And the environment starts to twist as Sabriel speaks, twisting to show Sabriel of the recent past standing in front of the Wall- something that might be mistaken for a perfectly preserved relic, standing forty feet high and crenelated, except the stones and mortar are swarming with Charter marks- old, powerful magic, the sense of it echoing through Sabriel's memory. Sabriel's standing in autumn sunshine, but while it's a clear day in Ancelstierre, it's overcast and snowing in the Old Kingdom, the clouds clustering right up to the Wall, where they abruptly stop.]

Well. At least we're not in a horrible memory this time.

Edited 2021-11-26 16:53 (UTC)

And seeing those potential futures ... are they able to share those or move to change them?

[ He looks at the wall, easily noting the marks from experience now. So it's actually seeing the clouds that catches his attention. ]

What the...

So that's how that works?

They can share them... and through that, work to either fulfill or avert what they forsee.

[Like them showing her the location of Kerrigor's body, in the hopes that he might be defeated permanently.

As for the Wall- Sabriel looks up at the clouds, and the abrupt cut off between winter and autumn.]

Yes. Like I said, it's not entirely a natural border.

[Past Sabriel, bundled up against the cold and with cross-country skis over her shoulders, starts pushing forward, walking beneath the arch of the wall as rivulets of Charter marks stream over the stone and mortar. There are soldiers on the other side of the wall- more than a dozen, all bearing swords, and all facing out, towards the Old Kingdom.

The Old Kingdom welcomes you the Colonel Horyse of the memory says, watching the marks on the stones rather than Sabriel, until she finally steps out into the Old Kingdom.

I wish your mission every success, Sabriel. I hope... hope I see both you and your father before too long.]

The Old Kingdom side is mostly abandoned until you go further north, but soldiers from Ancelstierre patrol the area around the Wall- you actually can't get close to the Perimeter or cross without official permission.

That makes sense...

And, you went out to look for your father. How long were you on that mission? And how far did you end up traveling?

MISSION: THE SLEEPER

● ● ● M I S S I O N 3 . 1

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Want to shift to one of Sabriel's memories?

Hell yes heLL yeS 👌👀

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my reading comprehension at a solid 3/10

It's okay!

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