ARRIVAL ▒ 002

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps again.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post.

T H E   C A M P   ( C U R R E N T   C H A R A C T E R S ) Clouds have rolled in, obscuring the high noon in grey shadow when the alarms start. Wailing through the air, not as keenly as it had when base camp still huddled in its shadow, but still loud enough to turn heads and give people pause. It sends a shiver of nervous energy throughout camp. They were out of range the last time, and there is no sudden scrambling attempt at retreat, but the crowd does begin to thin. Some pick up and go, just to put distance between themselves and the inevitable, because you never know. Others stay behind, for whatever that reason might be. Those who were closer towards the ship emerge from the treeline in a hurry. It's ten hours later when it happens. A tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, sending the jungle's wildlife into distressed flocks of movement and alarmed cries. Under the shrouded sun the wreck of the Tranquility begins to cord with lines of white light, threading across the hull like veins, some patches remaining dark, standing out against the vision like splotches burnt to the back of the eyelids. There's no great sound. In an instant, the ship is gone, a soft whomp, a feeling of air rushing past, the trees bending towards the site as if blown by a fierce wind. It's only a second. With a crack, the wreck returns, a rumble rolling through the air like thunder. The earth shakes. The trees tremble. The ship groans, the sound echoing out like the cry of a wounded beast. The jump has passed. Before search and rescue can gather and see for themselves if anyone new was dragged from their homes, something strange happens. A gas mask, old fashioned and heavy, round-eyed, with a filter like a muzzle at the mouth, lands in the packed earth at someone's feet. With a clatter of plastic and metal, something that was once a radio receiver apparently plummets from the air, shattering on impact when it strikes the metal framework of a communal tent, and another lands in softer earth, intact. Tin cans of food, earthenware bottles of water, candles wrapped in paper and tied in string, a box of matches, a set of well-used playing cards with roughed up corners, a rough woollen blanket, a pillow, a gas lamp all hit the ground throughout camp, or are discovered in the jungle beyond. This unusual rain of items ceases, hardly a minute after it has begun. M E D I C A L   ( N E W   A R R I V A L S ) You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. The impact is painful, winds you, and it takes several seconds to overcome and persuade uncooperative limbs to move. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, close and claustrophic in the wreckage of the medical bay you've awoken in, lit dim and red. Around you, others are waking up, falling from other gravcouches, stumbling to their feet. Light catches your eye, and you look up to see a huge rend in the outer wall high above you, overhung by broken structural beams and damaged cabling. Climbing up takes all the strength you have. You emerge in bleak, grey sunlight, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle are a clustered crowd of figures, moving towards the wreck. Your welcome party, but are they friend or foe? N O T E S Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreperably damaged. Soft organics will be pulverised, while all trees and plants will initially appear fine but crumble to pieces within a day (or sooner if disturbed). Non-organic material will also be weakened, bending or falling apart when touched. Newly arriving characters venturing through the medbay will discover their inventory items somewhere in the heavily damaged locker banks. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage. The alarms will cut after two hours, a which point a looping audio message telling passengers to make their way to the blue lifts will be audible. The lifts, if investigated, will be missing, leaving only empty elevator shafts. The wreck will show increased signs of instability for a few days after the jump, and will have seemed to have sunk further into the rock of the cliff than it was before. As mentioned, items as described above will also rain down on camp and all areas beyond it. Feel free to find these in sporadic quantity. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Comments

[spittle]

[ The pads of Flint's hands are blocky with calluses, old cuts and scrapes healed white across the bony backs of his fingers. That his nails aren't black is a phenomenon that has everything to do with how little time he's spent out of his tube. His pants are already dirty and his feet are bare, dark on the bottoms.

His windbreaker has shed the worst of the rest, morning dew caught in the creases around the hood. It's not just stylish.

The carefully choreographed concealment of her smile is lost on him.

But he can't not hear her, and his eyes work their way up at the same dumb rate as the beetle feeling its way up her robe one clumsy claw at a time. Her hand expedites the process, and he's easily led, attention channeled like water along the lowest path.

He makes the leap from her mouth to her eyes on his own, locking in from one focal point to two.

She's weird.

This is weird.

Tension that had eased off starts to creep back in, low in his spine, as he calculates for her position between himself and the door. ]

[metempsychotic]

[ He'd have to shove her out of the way to get out, by sheer dint of spatial dimensions. But that doesn't look like it would take too much doing. Though her outfit's voluminous, it's all suggested depth. What can be seen of her doesn't suggest there's actually that much to her.

So just what is making Flint so nervous? His tension is something else you don't need to read auras to see.

Ieza lowers her hand and tries to urge the beetle off her hand, it's function served. Emboldened, however, the critter starts for her wrist, little claws too curious; she's forced to brush it off with her sleeve. ]

Were you expecting to be dead? Was this- [ she gestures vaguely around them and behind her, inclusive both of present situation and the broader context ] -the sort of thing you thought would come after death?

[ Though not a believer in afterlives herself, Ieza's heard of cultures - typically archaic, tribal ones - that cook up fantasies of postmortem paradises. ]

[spittle]

Maybe.

[ Choppy seas and iron chains seem like a recipe for that kind of thing. ]

I dunno, I’ve never died before. [ He reaches back as he says it, eyes forward, groping to recollect the split bag of her weird iridescent lima beans. Once he has them, he crams the bag into his pocket, spilling a few out along the way.]

This has been bizarre, [ he tells her, and now he’s shifting his weight, rising to a knee, building momentum for the door. Mounting pressure as a warning to get out of his way. ] Let’s do it again sometime.

[metempsychotic]

[ Death is one of those things you tend to remember; unless of course you don't. Like so many of the truly Important events to occur to one over the course of their Being, death is at once totally universal and utterly personal. So it's understandable that he might not want to talk about why he thinks he maybe should expect to be dead.

Understandable, too, that he might want to leave now; it hasn't seemed like he was at any point expecting company, let alone conversation. Just a little plunder, something he has already managed to help himself to. ]

Is that a promise?

[ Ieza has never been the kind of person to restrain herself, particularly in the face of a fascination. Which may be overstating matters, but there is something - that uncommon something - which flickers within the mournful lunar lambence of his aura. She's not about to try and overpower the man; to what end, really, other than maybe to cocoon him in the upper reaches of the ficus until a more convenient time. More trouble than it would be worth, and she is not quite at that stage of predation, has not wandered so far off the path of the Docence.

She is, however, capable of hiding some of what she does even as she does it; it's one of the only kinds of dissembling she's ever had practice at. And since 'this' is already bizarre, certainly a little more bizarreness will not come as a shock. ]

Do take care of yourself, [ she says, finally knee-walking over a half foot or so, offering almost enough clearance for him to bolt without bumping into her. She lifts a hand to her forehead, half of a gesture which is indeed an actual legitimate hail, then reaches out to repeat the gesture on Flint, fingers making for his brow in a manner that is certainly no more intrusive than, say, a Continental cheek kiss. ]

Anamnēsteon [ she intones, in the sing-song of farewell. ]

[spittle]

[ Flint shrinks from her reach and shows her his teeth, eyes bright, piss off bit out unspoken in a grimace that threatens snipped fingers. But he’s too keen on the exit to wait for the door to get any more open than she’s already left it, and after a beat’s indecision, he twists for the flap like a cornered housecat skirting a broom.

Contact is brief, the memories that channel through out of order and indistinct.

Strange creatures with strange faces caged in a dark tent, the sweet smell of iron and rust over hay and animal filth. Sprinting downhill in driving rain, sliding, lungs burning, dogs barking. Torches on a tower wall, fires burning in the town below, different from the others. Older. Softer.

Saltwater scalding at scars around his wrists, choking, struggling with leaden limbs to keep chains looped onto floating debris in swells like liquid ice. Something inside twisting to get out, fought down against the shock and the panic and the beating cold.

And he’s gone, pelting for the jungle on his toes, pockets dribbling magic beans in a breadcrumb trail that ends at the treeline. ]

[metempsychotic]

[ As parting gifts go, this strange scattering of visions isn't half bad. Even were she inclined to interfere, Ieza is quite preoccupied with what she snatches in passing. The exchange, her food for his memories, is one she feels contented with. She's barely paying attention as Flint takes flight, her eyes glazed and gazing inward.

As the pale light of dawn begins to press through the ficus's innumerable perforations, Ieza examines these fragmented impressions, holding them before her mind's eye with an appraiser's fingers. Memory is the heart of her discipline, and while the cohesion of these particular memories leaves something to be desired, she is free to pour over what details she has gleaned at her leisure.

Of the first cluster, the sights and sounds and smells are not unfamiliar, not to an estate-born provincial girl. They are suggestive, but not particularly informative, not without context. The cold water, the chains, the wild terror of drowning- this is new, and she holds it at arm's length so as not to be overwhelmed. But it is in this cluster that she finds what interests her: that something, that something inside.

Something uncommon. But what? ]