The City at Large & Mission Alpha

[baedalites.livejournal.com]

Who: OPEN to all residents.
What: The ant-situation is changing!
Where: Throughout the city.
When: NOW. This thread will likely cover a few days.
Warnings: To be updated.

Dear Mission Alpha,

It is your undeniable privilege to bring back as many of the so-called 'crow pearls' as possible to the Temple. Any temple. No one important cares how you do it, just get it done. Try to be substantial about it, let's say more than 50, hmm? The actual task here is to deprive our deranged ant-friends of as many pearls as possible, but no one is going to be rewarded for stories like 'oh we absolutely threw two tons of pearls down the whirlpool, we swear on our broodmother's grave', okay? Okay. Peachy. Bring me the pearls, chop chop.

Your totally sweet gods have decided to lend you some ...boons I guess, however that goes, to aid you in your quest. Useful objects. For you, my gifted pilferers and negotiators:

A Skeleton Key - it will open any unwarded lock. It will not open warded locks. That means magical locks. No magical locks will be opened with this key. Unless the magic is broken first. Good luck with that.

Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card - I realize no one has bothered to build proper jail cells in Our City yet so it's more of a Fend-off-The-Local-Authorities-Free Card but that's not as catchy. Think of it as An Official Voucher From the Gods that says you're on Official Twelve Point Business and can't be arrested right now. Keep it for the Sheriffs as it might not have the desired effect the Militia.

Privacy Ward or App For Your CiD - Well you don't want to get caught leaking signals and communication everywhere, do you.

It is a week and some change after the ants first noticeably began their labour and it seems they have finished rebuilding their houses. It's hard to see exactly what is going on from the ground, but the brave few who have ventured into and up the hives or climbed neighbouring buildings get a good enough view. The rooftops are now crowned with organic spires, much like malformed and undernourished termite nests reaching for the heavens. They are not the best constructs, some of them have broken off or imploded, but the majority of the spires stand.

Then one morning, individual ants are seen climbing to the very top of their towers. They then sit still, mandibles locked and antennae arched. It's hours before any change becomes noticeable, and by then it's too late. The ants have sprouted strange fleshy fungal tentacles, all filled to the bursting with spores.

Soon there after, reports come in from all across the city about people acting out of character; some have become catatonic or violent after brief a period of sickness. Individuals have been seen entering the ant-occupied buildings to help defend the ants against intruders, others have attempted to climb high points in the city or thrown themselves in the rivers.

Once again the City is under siege, but this time the enemy is invisible.

Comments

[im_apimp]

"Universe is ever expanding." Big giant brain that won't quit? Yeah, that would be Alec. "There an infinite number of options and choices. Who's to say there isn't one of everything?"

There's a beat as he considers that before smirking. "Hell, there's even a theory that alternate universes are created based on the idea of choice -- how if a person makes one choice in one universe, there's another universe alongside it where they make the opposite choice."

[ironshodboots]

Nazca considers this as they walk. "So the more different the universe, the farther back the different choice would be."

[im_apimp]

"In theory," he said with a nod, before shrugging. "But before I arrived here, I was pretty sure it was just that -- a theory. It hadn't been proven, and with the state of the world, it probably wasn't going to be. At least not in my lifetime."

[ironshodboots]

"Before I arrived here, I had never heard of anyone who thought there was more than one world," she replies, frankly. The lack of Eldgerglass in the city still unnerved her a little. "But no one seems to have been anywhere near mine."

[im_apimp]

He tipped his head to the side, his curiosity getting the better of him. "What's your world like?"

[ironshodboots]

She smiles, a bit ruefully. "Oh, much like here, in many ways. There were other people - not human - on our world before us, we think. They left structures behind, and most of our cities are built around them. Eldren, we call them, but we don't know what they called themselves."

[im_apimp]

"Huh. So they're kind of like your religion? Or your history?"

For some people it was one in the same, but Alec liked to distinguish once in a while.

[ironshodboots]

"We worship the Twelve," she says, "the Eldren are something different. We don't know who or what the Eldren were."

[im_apimp]

He nods as that information sinks in, before he frowns. "The Twelve as in ... the Twelve?" He gestures to the world around them for a moment, before continuing. "Or do you mean a different Twelve?"

[ironshodboots]

"Well, they go by different names back home." She shrugs. "I don't see why that shouldn't mean it's not still the Twelve, though. It seems likely a different world would bring out different aspects of the gods, though I'm no priest."

[im_apimp]

"Well, a lot of religion is just reinventing itself with a new prophet. In the early polytheistic years, a lot of early civilizations just stole their gods from the other societies and gave them new names. Greece and Rome being the most notable."

He did a lot of research into religion, okay? His evil twin was a little obsessed with the Virgin Mary and Catholicism, he felt it was best to keep himself informed from an objective sense.

[ironshodboots]

"The gods are the gods," she says, giving him a wry look. "I don't think they're terribly bothered about what humans decide to call them."

[im_apimp]

"Fair point."

He's not going to launch into the speech about how they were only created to explain things that people couldn't explain yet. He was a rambler, but he knew when to keep things to himself.

[ironshodboots]

They walk for a bit, then she says, "So, were you a thief before the gods you're skeptical of recruited you?" She's uncommonly observant, even if she can't make the jump all the way to his unbelief.

[im_apimp]

"I was more of a jack of all trades," he replies, trying to figure out the best way to put it. "Thievery is just the easiest way to make money."

[ironshodboots]

"Only if you steal from idiots," she observes, cheerfully.

[im_apimp]

"Isn't everyone who manages to get things stolen from them an idiot?"

[ironshodboots]

Nazca wrinkles her nose. "Hardly. Many of them are, but there's no challenge in taking from people too stupid to make it difficult." If Danny Ocean had existed in her world, Nazca would have bought him a drink.

[im_apimp]

"Eh, maybe not," he says with a shrug. "But where I'm from, you take what you can get. You can't afford not to."

[ironshodboots]

"Stealing to survive and stealing as a profession are different," she acknowledged. "It comes with different considerations."

[im_apimp]

"True that," he sighed. "But living in a post-apocalyptic society means you never know what you might find. And that always makes things interesting -- even if you're just stealing to survive."

[ironshodboots]

"That's a different sort of stealing," she repeated, glancing at him. "Post-apocalyptic?"

[im_apimp]

He nods. "About ten years back, there was an electromagnetic pulse that went off and fried all of my country's financial information. It went from the richest country in the world to having diddly squat a matter of seconds. We've been in an economic depression ever since."

[ironshodboots]

"I don't follow. Losing information would slow things down, of course, but why would it actually impoverish you?" White iron is white iron, as her father used to say.

[im_apimp]

"Because we had digital money," he says, before realizing that to her, that probably wouldn't make any sense. He pauses for a moment before trying to think of the easiest way to explain it.

"People keep their money in banks. Banks use that money to pay their employees, pay their bills, lend out money, what have you, so it's almost like the money is on loan. The amount of money you saved with them is tracked on a computer, so that when you come to withdraw money that they've borrowed from you, they know the amount of funds that you have access to. It's all done electronically."

He then starts gesturing with his hands. "EMP pulse fries all technology. Computers are crashed, then wiped clean. Any information that the banks may have had is gone, forever. And since they don't have all of that capital on hand at all times, banks get looted for whatever money they have in the safe, but a lot of people lose what amounts to their life's savings."

Another pause. "Does that make any sense?"