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ximilialog2024-01-04 08:37 pm
MISSION: A WASTE TO LIVE
● ● ● M I S S I O N 1 8 . 1
It is the twilight hours, the time of day when evening blends into night, that the ping of a new mission file finally comes — some of you may have waited for it impatiently, while others have dreaded the now-familiar sound.
With that unsettling piece of news, she falls silent, leaving everyone to read over the file and make their final preparations, whether it is gathering your things, or making sure to spend the night with someone dear to you, before you are separated for the mission.
The next morning, after breakfast, the hum of the teleportation platform starts to grow, signaling that it is time to leave — for the last time. You may feel nostalgic, seeing all the faces around the platform, and take a moment to commit all of them to memory… or maybe you’re just eager to get it all over and done with. Whatever the case, Viveca and Degar will not send you off until everyone has arrived; instead, they stand and wait, pausing to look at everyone in turn, as if they, too, are committing to memory the faces of their teammates.
Finally, when all are present, Viveca nods.
Viveca smiles, almost despite herself, despite the visible anxiety on her face — but Degar is right. They do believe in this team.
A flash of white, and the platform fades — all there is, is a voice, a multitude of voices, telling you your very last task to do… until something seems to tilt, as if you’re pulled just a little bit to the side, losing your balance, an impossibility in this white nothingness —
And then there’s sand beneath your feet, and a scorching sun above you.
Welcome to Go’ama.
The air is dry as you breathe it in, the stones of the city streets burning your feet — but wait, stones? Streets? You were supposed to be in the Plains. Not so, it seems, for the Roof bustles around you, people with their head and half their face covered with scarves glancing at you before they move on, ducking into some of the stone buildings, carved into and around the large, half-decayed ruins of what must once have been a great city.
It seems if you were packed and prepared for the wasteland of the Plains, whatever you have will not help you — instead, what you must dive into is the clan politics and the fragile peace between the three clans for the duration of the winter.
1.0 The Roof, it turns out, is a city built on top of a city, one that now lies in ruins — it climbs towards the sky with several levels, stone paths leading up and up and up, houses carved into rock and out of rock lining the streets. The houses have no windows, and the doors are each made out of a strange steel-like material that keeps out excess heat, yet keeps the house itself warm.
Despite what the planet has suffered from everything that happened nearly two hundred years ago, it still has some of its original technology that helps the clans to survive in the harsh climate. Some of it is on clear display in the houses: crystals that trap in heat are kept outside the houses during the day, then moved inside at night to provide warmth, and a round disc in the shower collects moisture from the air during the day, to replenish its supply for when it is time to have a (very, very short) moment to wash.
The first thing you must do, after finding somewhere to stay (an easy feat, as many houses lie abandoned, their once-owners now either prowling the Plains, or littering its surface with their bones), is find a change of clothes — the locals all wear some type of ha’fa, an outfit consisting of a long-sleeved upper part and either pants or a long skirt, made out of a special material that adapts to the temperatures and conserves water by minimising the water loss of the person wearing it. All in the Roof wear the insignia of one of the three clans, too, so you must make your choice of which clan to claim to belong to.
Should you choose Vo’a Mahdin (and yes, you can be a Daughter of Twilight despite being a man — gender doesn’t seem to be a factor for much of anything in Go’ama), you gain easy access to weaponry and can be sent out of the city to hunt or to patrol the streets and catch errant spark-users. If you choose Sen Reuma, you will find it easier to gain political influence in the city, as well as access to all the higher administrative buildings — including watching the prisoners. But if you go for Gal Masen Dai, you have access to all their produce brought to the city — not simply the limestone that inhibits the use of powers, but also everything that is used to make the local weapons, clothes, and a varied selection of food that is otherwise not traded openly.
2.0 When you are sure that you will blend in at least decently, you can take to the streets of the Roof and explore what there is to see. It seems that while the two lowest levels are full of houses meant for living, the buildings on the third level are made for the purposes of meeting and trading.
An immediate thing to catch your notice is the fact there doesn’t seem to be any particular currency — instead, things change hands through trades, and nothing is more valuable than water. In its absence, though, you may try and see if you have anything technological to part with, as that is what the locals keep in next highest regard. But whatever it is you want, be it food (mostly some easily grown root vegetables, a few different berries that still grow in the desert, and dried meat, out of rodents, insects and the monsters outside the city limits), new clothes, or some of the local weaponry — spears and swords made of a blue-tinted metal that are activated by heat from the one holding them, turning into a plasma-like substance that cuts through anything and everything — you will not get anything for free… and whatever coins you might have in your pocket have little value here.
If you have nothing to give, you may bargain with favours: cleaning, metalwork, maybe offering to join those digging for groundwater — or maybe you’re confident in your hunting skills, and wager that you’ll be able to brave the edges of the Plains to bring back one of the monstrous creatures that inhabit it.
3.0 On the fourth level, a large, dome-like structure houses not only the relics from times long past, prior to what is known to those living today as the Choice, but also the clan chiefs and their advisors, dealing with everyday troubles under the Roof — and of those, there are many, with clans whose members have many feuds with one another, where the clan’s leadership is only as secure as the strength of the one holding the position… as anyone, anytime, can challenge the clan chief to a fight for the title.
For that, in the middle of the dome, there is a large circle within which duels can be fought — both those that are held in practice, and those that are fought to the death. On the nights when there is no true duel fought, the space is open for anyone wanting to test their mettle; though sometimes, the battle is not fought with weapons but with words, contests of poems crafted to insult, or arguments of logic carefully shredding the opponent’s reasoning. Under the Roof, you can fight not just with spears or swords but with your tongue — and those who succeed in either often gain regard for their clan and themselves.
4.0 Everywhere in the city, members of Vo’a Mahdin patrol the streets, their spears high and faces masked, only their eyes showing as they watch for signs of anyone using the spark, for the telltale glow around the person — but even if it’s not there, anything suspicious, anything unexplained, and you might have an unpleasant encounter with their plasma spears… and, if you’re not lucky enough to be able to outrun them or maybe portal yourself to another part of the city, be sent to the prisons to wait for the next time a batch of prisoners is sent to the plains — in one month’s time.
But the Daughters of Twilight are not the only thing to note when walking the streets of the Roof: it seems that clan members regard those of other clans with suspicion, and sometimes even members of their own clan, hurrying along when they don’t recognise the person looking at them. If you listen carefully, you may hear whispers of outsiders — they’re among us, someone says in hushed breaths, Hahn’s legacy come to destroy us all! We must find them, and kill them, before they kill us.
It couldn’t be that these outsiders mean… you?
And something else seems to be happening, too, that you might find strange: one day, you see a rat-like creature scuttle across the floor of your house, when it suddenly falls over, dead, on the spot. The next day, the heating crystal cracks in half when simply standing still… and wasn’t that thornbush across the street alive that very morning, when come evening it’s withered and dead, as if all life has been drawn from it?
It seems that whatever is happening under the Roof, not all is as it should be — and you, all of you, may be in danger. The only way through is to find the orb that is hiding somewhere in the city.
You open your eyes, and all you see is sand. That can’t be right. Weren’t you supposed to arrive in a city? A city on a desert planet, sure, but a city nonetheless. But rather than civilization, what you see before you are miles and miles of barren wasteland, occasionally broken up by sparse smatterings of flora that look about as tough as the harsh sun bearing down on you overhead.
You check the network and find everything in working order. It seems the groups were sent to the wrong places during teleportation. An awfully inconvenient glitch, but it could be worse. At least everything you’d packed to take with you into the city is still on your person, even if, perhaps, most of those items won’t be of any use to you now. In the Plains, the only politics you’ll have to deal with is the law of the jungle, and diplomacy is left for forging alliances with the strong and the trustworthy.
5.0 After gathering your bearings, there’s nothing left to do but adjust and adapt. Trying to return to the Roof is not possible — the outside of the city is paved with the limestone that restricts the use of magic, and members of Vo’a Mahdin patrol the outsides, so trying to go back is a guaranteed death sentence — which the Plains, though tough, is not. You quickly find that the weather in the Plains is straightforward: long days of clear skies and sweltering heat, and even longer nights with brisk winds and temperatures dropping as low as 0°C.
No matter which extreme, the harsh temperatures can sometimes have an effect on the mind. Mirages or hallucinations can suddenly spring up without warning, making a person believe they are in their most treasured or safe space. It will take more than just a splash of water or aggressive shaking to snap a person out of their delusion; intense feelings of ecstasy or pain are the only known successful solutions.
6.0 While most days can be uneventful, every now and then a sudden sandstorm rips through the area, kicking up sand and detritus and anything else light enough that hasn’t already been weighed down. The sandstorms are brief but powerful, utterly rearranging the landscape of whatever area they formed in. Here’s hoping you had other ways of mapping out your journey!
7.0 Speaking of journeying, you’ll definitely want to watch your step. Quicksand is an ever-present and almost undetectable threat, and some of the local flora prey specifically on travelers who aren’t paying attention. Maw traps (CW: mouth and teeth imagery) like to hide within the cracks of red rocks and sediment, snapping open to feast on any poor creature that happens to skitter past. Though they may only be about a foot wide, their grip is vice-like and more than capable of damaging flesh and tendon.
It is strange, though. No matter what direction you walk, you’ll always be able to see it: a lone, tall tower, nothing more than a smear of black against the horizon. Looking at the tower for too long will start to feel wrong, and before you realize it you’ve already looked away.
8.0 You have other things to worry about. The wildlife, though limited, can be a danger all on their own. Fruit flings are small but make up for that by being incredibly annoying. They travel by the dozens, swarming anything even remotely resembling a food source. Bioluminescent sand salamanders like to swallow up heat sources and burrow into bags or pockets. Bonekits are ruthless and solitary scavengers, known to sometimes follow stronger predators to then lay waste to whatever prey they may have fallen. Chameledons are massive herbivores who use their individually rotatings eyes to seek out vegetation and snatch them up with their whip-like tongues. While the desert devils only feast on the bleeding, able to sniff out a single drop of blood from over thirty miles away. At least they’re all, in their own way, edible.
9.0 Don’t worry, not everything about the Plains is unforgiving. Discover a cave in one of giant rock formations scattered throughout the Plains and you’ll find the refuge you’ve been looking for. These caves seem to hold all the humidity that’s absent in this desert planet, lit entirely naturally by bioluminescent fungi along the floor and ceiling. In here, it is easy to take a break from the harsh realities of the Plains, and even enjoy a nice soak in the crystal clear waters of a cave pool.
10.0 But don’t forget: you and your crew aren’t the only ones out here. On top of the beasts and the plantlife, you will also have to share the Plains’ finite resources with the others who have been banished there. Many have formed groups out of pure necessity, making it easier to ambush lone wanderers or smaller groups for a chance to rob them of their goods. Remember that these people were sent here to their deaths after showing evidence of the spark, and there are no laws here to keep them from using it to their advantage. If these ambushers don’t attack you with homemade weapons, they’ll use their spark to fling you aside, rip your own weapons or goods out of your hands, send shockwaves through the earth that will have you falling flat on your face, or even hit you with an invisible force so hard it steals the breath out of your lungs. The attacks are always quick, messy; the only real warning you get before someone uses their spark is a sudden glow around their person, but by then it could already be too late.
One such group is one you’ve already been briefed about. It would not be very long until a member of the Dai’a Svar hears wind of your arrival. As the most prominent — and thus the most powerful — group formed under the banner of magical liberation, the members are always eager to seek out new followers to help them with their cause. Identifiable by four intersecting lines carved into the apple of their cheek, these devoted followers are happy to answer any of your questions… you need only follow them to speak with their leader, Garam, first.
But don’t let the treacherous Plains distract you from your real goal here: somewhere within this dangerous wasteland is an orb, and the sooner you find it, the sooner you get to go home.
F Y I
• If you have questions about any of the prompts or the mission in general, please direct them HERE.
• To explore a specific location or speak to any of the NPCs, please submit your search request HERE.
• And finally, your soundtrack for this log: ♪ ♪ ♪
no subject
However, soon enough things start happening. What hits them first is a sandstorm, harsh as the grains of sand whip at their faces, even drawing blood, the cloud over the dunes obscuring everything in the horizon. Weirdly, if they turn around and start walking away from the tower, the storm seems to die down... only to start up again when they turn back towards their destination.
The storm continues raging for some hours, only quieting towards the evening. When they finally think of making some headway, though, they hear the unmistakable sounds of the desert devils following them; the blood drawn earlier by the sandstorm is attracting them, and while they all try to fight off the pack, one in the group will receive a rather serious bite wound on their leg, requiring them to stay put, perhaps either with someone giving them medical aid, or with help on the way from elsewhere on the Plains.
The next morning, the rest of the group is able to continue on their way, and half a day's walk goes under the scorching desert sun, unyielding in its intensity. A little after noon, when the terrain has changed from sandy dunes to rock formations, they are ambushed by a group bearing the signs of Dai'a Svar. The group will not stop to chat: it seems that they were lying there in wait (though how they knew of their impending arrival will remain a mystery), and spring to action immediately. The fight that follows is a hard one, for three out of five of the Dai'a Svar use the spark, seeming to draw waves of energy from their surroundings that they use to attack, either as lashes of fire, blows of wind that push the group back, or even sharp needles of ice that forms right there in the air. In the end, four out of five fall to the firearms of the group (or Natasha's impeccable hand-to-hand combat skills, if it wasn't her who took the bite earlier), the final surviving Dai'a Svar disappearing into the caves they came from. But the group isn't unharmed, either: one of the group wasn't able to dodge either the fire or the ice needles, and has to take to one of the caves to recover.
In the end, only two or three in the group make it to the tower itself — depending on if the two injured were left on their own or if someone stayed with one of them.
Please decide amongst yourselves who are the final two to make it to the tower.
no subject
Yujin and Natasha will stay behind to patch their wounds and call for help over the network. Ziggy will leave them some of her supplies to make it easier for them.
no subject
When the trio make it to the tower, there will be no one outside of it, and there is no entrance — the tower is without a door or even a window, and no matter what they try, it won't reveal a hidden doorway. It truly seems like there is no way in, and no way out.
The only sign that the woman they saw might have been something more than a mirage is half of a footstep print, there on the sand, while the rest (if they ever were there) have disappeared into the wind.
no subject
Sherlock will also try to do any number of different approaches to the tower, including walking backwards into the wall of the tower, or at different speeds... while looking in different directions (as he is used to weird concepts like this working in his canon). Basically, if there are any weird little tricks that may arise. Worth a shot!
Ziggy will like to test if she can damage the wall in some way! Her primary weapon to use will be the Bismarck, a gun recently tested by Viveca aboard the Ximilia. She wants to see if there is any at all effect on the tower, with bullets likely created from the rock formations. She's never used the gun before, but she hopes it packs a punch.
no subject
Nothing else they do has an effect, either — it seems that getting into the tower through these means is a no-go.
However, when they are finally giving up on their attempts, the wind picks up again; hidden in its howling, all three will hear the echo of a voice... or perhaps multiple voices, all blended into one, whispering words that form into one message:
You will not have me.
The wind, as it suddenly dies down again, takes with it this blend of eerie voices... and yet, on its last breath, a different voice can be heard if you strain: a woman's voice, quiet, barely-there:
Help—
This search will yield no further results.