multiversallogs | we can watch the world devoured in its pain

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we can watch the world devoured in its pain

Who: Balthier, Nazca, Rodolphus, Dean, Sonja, Idle, Katniss, and a boat.
What: A mission to see if there's a way out of Baedal over the ocean.
Where: ... The Ocean.
When: Dawn on ~~Tuesday~~ Misdi ("This morning" for those of you in the western hemisphere) and continuing on for several days.
Notes: This is an experimental format, so bear with me here. It's going to be a bit like a party post with some structure. Different happenings (new days, important stuff) will appear in new comments with corresponding headers - please keep related threads under each of the base comments. ... It is possible there will be a second post later but for now we're going to try and do it this way to see if it works. lmao.

● DAY 1. (Free for all comments.)
● Nightfall. (Tag the base comment.)
● Trapped. (Free for all comments.)

Warnings: Eventual violence and disturbing imagery, possible triggers; will edit as needed.

Perhaps it's fate that they leave on a Misdi - "Mist Day", the day of mists and fog, the second day of Baedal's seven-day week. It's dull but clear, the white light not quite warm but not particularly cold, either. Empty, almost, like it's waiting to make up its mind.

The boat is, fortunately, not the downtrodden thing that Balthier won in a card game, but a proper research vessel outfitted with a power source of glowing stones. It has a collection of clockwork equipment, a small kitchen, a smaller bathroom, and a few bunks, though most of the thing is dedicated to workspaces. It'll be cozy, but not inhumanly cramped - unless you like your space, in which case, it's still going to be a headache. There are two life rafts, and an anchor with a mermaid carved onto it. It is called the Winged Lamp, and her owner doesn't think they're going to get anywhere, but has been talked into lending it, For Science.

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Once everyone has met, sorted their equipment (Balthier made sure to bring food and water, assuming everyone else was just going to bring weapons - fantastic forethought, that, but one cannot live off eating bullets), said hullo, and gotten squared away, the Winged Lamp set off, observed from shore by a collection of rubber-neckers, the stelanmancer who lent the craft, and a few folks taking bets on 'dead' or 'returned but crazy'.

All in all, not a bad send off.

The first hours tick by uneventfully, until they reach the edges of a great maze of limestone karsts (http://i.imgur.com/Yanv5.jpg), which makes navigation a bit trickier, and the water a bit less stable. There are other ships and boats in the water as they go, mostly those combing the water for bleed-through items. In the distance past the field of great rocks, there are buoys marked with red flags, warning greedy adventurers that the Fog has been known to creep in even that close.

Sonja makes sure "her" people (those she's decided she's going to look after a bit, anyway) are settled, but is mostly fairly relaxed, for now. She's used to communal living, so the close quarters don't faze her. She might be a little bit of an interesting experience, though, since one of the sartorial choices she makes involves a crop top (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=31269216) and she is insanely well-armed. She brought a few other miscellaneous items she thought they'd need, or at least that would function as supplies, but she knows they're going to end up fighting something, inevitably. Sonja's law of the universe. She's willing to help out with any sailing requirements, but mostly she is watching the water for the unexpected.

She passes herself off as a combat girl, too, so this is part of that. (No magic succubus witchy stuff here, no sir.)

For now, she's out on deck. She's sure she's not the only one, either, since there's considerably more space to roam up there.

As he tends to plan for the worst, Rodolphus has forgone the robe for this trip, reasoning that it will only help drown him if he falls overboard. This leaves him slightly uncomfortable in dark trousers and a gray button-up shirt, a makeshift sheath for his wand tied to his forearm.

While he doesn't make any significant attempt to stay apart from the others and exchanged greetings courteously enough (he limited it to his surname), his natural inclination is to stare off in the distance. He is listening, however. Whatever his opinions on the rather young collection of people he's found himself temporarily a part of, he is as interested in them as he can be.

Along with her own weapons (...significantly less than her taller, more animated companion), Ilde brought some more water and first aid in the 'emergency purse' she habitually carries, stowed below decks now with her jacket while she acquaints herself with the Winged Lamp above decks. She's more comfortable up here, and quietly trying to make a few educated guesses about how salt water will treat her; she thinks she can live on it if she has to, but she can tell already it isn't quite right, and if this goes long enough...

...she's not sure how long it'll take to start sapping at her strength. Still- she'll manage, like always.

Ilde watches the other ships, blandly suspicious of them on principle.

Katniss brings food, actually, not having much else to offer in return for letting her tag along -- she caught some rabbits and shot a wild turkey in the woods she discovered while exploring the city. No one said how long this expedition ought to last but she knows to always plan for the worst and extra food is always a good idea. She brings water, too. Dehydration's not something she cares to experience again.

She left her CiD buried in those woods. She'll dig it up if she can find someone to anonymize it for her, but she doesn't want it on her if there's a tracker in it.

She stays mostly on deck, having been totally unsurprised by how anxious going below makes her. Her hands shake harder the closer they get to the fog. She compulsively goes through her weapons, just to know that she still has them -- bow, arrows (eight -- more than she needs for hunting, but...), giant-ass hunting knife. When that stops being helpful, she finger-combs her ridiculously long hair and rebraids it.

Sonja is not oblivious to Katniss's reactions to the incrementally nearing fog--she doesn't mother quite as she might, say, Ilde, because she doesn't know Katniss and they're two different people, but she notices. She's attuned to people's moods in general, but she pays more mind to those she already knew, and frankly, Katniss already strikes her as someone she could have met at home, so she's more inclined to...care.

So, of course she doesn't bring it up or ask if she's all right or anything like that. Instead, she ambles over up on deck.

"You're good with that bow, yeah?" And by 'good', Sonja's tone suggests not just 'better than average, but 'insanely competent'. It's a knack, that inflection of hers.

Edited 2011-05-11 06:59 (UTC)

One good thing about this cramped boat is that it's hard to sneak up on people -- she can hear them coming or see them. That suits Katniss, since she's aware of how easily she startles, and how bad things tend to be when she does. She glances in Sonja's direction to confirm her location and stays still, her fingers deftly tying off her braid.

She shrugs. "I'm all right," she says with the kind of nonchalance that indicates she is insanely competent and doesn't care to brag about it.

Sonja's hair is loose, for now, and she runs her gloved free hand through it to keep the wind from pushing it to the wrong angle. It'll have to be tied back later, but for now, this is fine. Mildly, she proffers the bow she brought for examination--just a look.

"I usually use a sword. But I picked this charmer up recently for its modifications--it's set on an assault rifle's body, and this bit's for grenades. Figure she'll do?"

(All weapons are female, in Sonja's vocabulary.)

Edited 2011-05-11 07:27 (UTC)

One of said young people, quiet and generally a bit distant herself, joins him above decks without so much as a by your leave - though it must be said that Ilde isn't much of an interruption, placid as she is and disinclined to talk simply for the sake of talking. (At least initially.)

The reason for her decision to stand just downwind of him is promptly explained by how she appears to be using him as a shield against it as she cups her hands around the cigarette she's lighting now. Maybe that's why she stopped by him in the first place, he is sort of conveniently large and 'people as mobile furniture' is not an unusual frame of mind for her to find herself in.

"Thank you," she says, absently. For considerately having grown into a large enough person to act as a wind-breaker for tiny nicotine-addicted fairies.

Katniss has had the opportunity to use some pretty technologically advanced weaponry, including the bow that had specifically been made for her as the Mockingjay. This isn't the same, but she can tell the kind of power it's got anyway, and she whistles appreciatively as she examines it. "What's its range?" She guesses about forty yards from her (limited) experience with crossbows, but it could be more.

"The usual, on its own," Sonja confirms Katniss's guess, "but with this--"

She taps the riflescope at the top.

"--it can add on a good eighty or ninety feet of accuracy. I haven't had a lot of opportunity to use this particular one yet." But she is certainly expecting to, judging by her voice; it's light, indicating she's used to this, but she's preparing for anything. (Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.)

There's no way this trip is going to be anything but difficult in places, after all, and on more than just their nerves.

"Soldier?" she guesses, taking Sonja as not a hunter -- if it were her, she'd already have given the thing a test-run for that purpose. Then again, Katniss gets a bit enthusiastic when it comes to archery. Her range with the recurve -- which is what she learned on as a little girl -- can easily get up to a couple hundred yards, accurate at about fifty, maybe sixty given her natural talent. Forty yards is more than she needs for hunting anyway, but the scope would be useful for small critters like squirrels, who like to hide on the other end of a tree if they hear you coming.

The grenades are just kind of cool. "Do you have any grenades?" she asks, after a pause, half-hoping the answer is no because that does sound kind of completely insane!

'Sailing requirements' consist of occasionally moving the heavy poles that anchor the broad fan-like sails, but fortunately, the boat has an effective steering system. Balthier is able to sort it easily enough, though he reckons if the limestone outcroppings get any dodgier-looking, they'll have to send somebody out front with a long stick to go poking about. Thrilling.

"It's beautiful."

No, she's not the only one up here. He navigates, but wanders, too, since there are other people who can be doing it; he's calm enough, but he knows other people aren't.

"Which is, of course, annoying."

"Something like that." She'd been abducted by Baedal shortly after acquiring the crossbow in Boston, as part of her meeting with the gangs there. They had some nice hardware, if some truly chaotic politics. Sonja doesn't especially look like a very effective soldier (cut-rate underwear model waving a piece of metal around, Lucas's father had sneered, following that up by implying she looked more like an offering than a bodyguard), but that's part of her advantage, sometimes. Especially since she's as inclined toward brutal guerrilla tactics and manipulation as she is straight-up combat, but she doesn't think there's currently much need for the former on this boat.

At the question, she cocks her head to the side.

"Why, did you want one?"

Share and share alike!

That receives her typical low little breathy sound with a ripple in it, cousin to a laugh, with some genuine amusement in it. Sonja turns to lean her back against the railing of the deck, glancing out over her shoulder and then back to Balthier.

"Everything in nature needs its lure, I guess. The locals think we're crazy for doing this...maybe both because it's dangerous, and because they like it here."

Not that it deterred her. Or any of them. She wonders what they figure that says about this particular motley crew.

Katniss is used to some pretty unconventional-looking soldiers, especially coming, as she does, from the side of the rebels. Everyone age fourteen and over was considered part of the army and trained as such.

Prim was thirteen. That didn't protect her.

Her eyebrows rise at the question. "I don't think I need to be blowing up any of my own fingers anytime soon." ... well, she might. She runs her fingertips along the edges of her bow like it's a security blanket. "I used to have arrows with explosive tips. A friend made them for me. That could get..." Her mouth quirks upwards in a half-smile. "Intense."

He inclines his head with a touch of irony, dryly tolerant of her presence since she hasn't proved talkative thus far. She wears dark clothing and seems calm, so his first impression of her is about as favorable as any first impression ever is with him. It's not something he's put a lot of thought into but he just naturally assumes Sonja is trouble, given her weaponry and attire, and Ilde's association with her probably indicates something similar. This is not a bad thing, considering the little adventure they're on. Still, he appreciates the comparative restraint Ilde is showing.

Rodolphus has more or less served his purpose here, as far as Ilde is concerned, but having no especial reason to wander off and not finding his silent company off-putting (a neat bit of hypocrisy that would be) she remains at his side for now, blowing smoke out over the ocean. Downwind serves the other, slightly more considerate purpose of not blowing smoke at Rodolphus.

(The gun is holstered at her hip, the knife sheathed on the other side; she seems comfortably accustomed to carrying both.)

Ilde rests a hand on the railing in front of them, leaning forward (not quite far enough to be classified 'dangerous') to peer down into the water like she's weighing certain possibilities. Her fingers flex. Hmmm.

Dean has been rounding the edges of the deck, taking everything in. It helps to know where things are in case hell breaks loose--where not to jump, what might trip him up or knock him out if there's trouble. It's a reconnaissance mission, but it's also a chance to try to get his sea legs under him. He hasn't really done this before. He wants to adjust, make sure he doesn't embarrass himself later.

And at least, thank God, it's not a plane.

He heads down one side, fingertips occasionally reaching out to touch the rail for a slight boost of balance--he's doing this less and less now, he's a bit proud--when he spies a woman in his path.

"Hi," he calls out as he approaches, both because it's the nice thing to do and to warn her of his presence, just in case. She seems to be a bit occupied eyeing the nearby ships and he doesn't want to startle anyone.

They have a shared appreciation for weaponry. This is actually not an uncommon way for Sonja to get to know people, these days--she defines herself aggressively in her capacity and unnerving skill for killing. (She never spars. The idea of a fight in which death is not the object still strikes her nature as alien. Maybe she'll learn, eventually.)

"For everyone involved. Those sound interesting to make, too."

She wonders at the technique.

With her attention elsewhere, Ilde isn't looking to realize that she's being spoken to and Dean's call fades into the rest of the dull sounds that don't quite mean anything to her; she isn't expecting it when he comes near enough for her to register him and she does startle, her hand curling white-knuckled around the rail for an instant.

A pause, then, "Hello," because at a glance it doesn't look as if he meant to do that.

Nazca explores the boat thoroughly, and seems well-satisfied with both its outfitting and its condition. (The clockworks, especially, draw her approval.)

That done, she settles herself on a rail for a bit, watching the ocean, and eventually making another round. She may also be listening to other conversations on deck, but it's hard to tell; she isn't, however, at all unapproachable.

"I can see the appeal," he admits, and leans his forearms on the railing next to her, looking out over the water. "There's certainly more security here than what I imagine even the average society offers, anywhere."

He doesn't expand on his thoughts, but, well - he's the one who suggested this trip. Obviously the appeal he can recognize does not extend to anything that he actually feels. Maybe his world and his life is some phenomenal paradise; maybe he just doesn't like being trapped.

She inclines her head in agreement. There's something about this place that is designed to be so streamlined and convenient in assimilation: the pamphlet, the Inn and its arrival room, the job center. When America was whole and real in her world, it wasn't so welcoming of new arrivals. The sea ripples, reminding her (a little) of the Pacific and home--but it's not home, and she can't stay there. It's not where she belongs, and she has things she has to take care of back in Boston.

Revolutions and wars aren't supposed to be paused like television shows. Momentum is important.

"Yeah. Security has its price, though. I haven't seen real civilization in five years," Sonja admits. New York's fucked up status quo, even if it's running, doesn't count as civilized to her.

She loosely shrugs one shoulder. It's not hers.

He meets her eyes, understanding there, but says nothing. It's not his business - as he's not going to share his reasons, it's not fair to ask after hers. (Maybe pirates shouldn't believe in fairness, but he's going to be stuck with these people for gods only know how long.)

"I was in another place before this." That much, he'll speak of. "Another city that abducted people from across the multiverse - except it was in endless disarray. Called itself the city of sin, locked in some sort of apocalypse. I even went to hell, for a while." So conversational.

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we can watch the world devoured in its pain

DAY 1

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