redshiftlogs | may 2020. welcome to the void.

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may 2020. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Monthly Mingle
When: The Month of May 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. useful information.

It's midmorning on a bright and sunshiny day, and even as the several brand new (to Anchor anyway) suns pour their eye-bleaching brightness down upon the dome of Anchor, there is a rumble from deep in the city.

It's preceded by a voice that sounds very much like SINI's, echoing faintly through the halls: "Bitches want me to be useful, here, have something useful."

Those who investigate will find that the cube maze behind the door under the city has been reshuffled, and its doors are open - leading directly across and down into a new area. Beware, the traps are still active, and there are new ones there, too - use your imaginations!

b. tabula rasa...or not.

Should a character risk traversing the maze and actually succeed, they will find a door on the other side. As soon as they step through the door, they'll find themselves entering a decontamination chamber much like the one at the entrance to Anchor. Only, along with a rather invasive scrub down, adventurers will also be hit by a thick cloud of vapor meant to induce amnesia and/or delirium. Remember those memloss orbs? No? Well, those lucky lucky people who handled them or were infected from someone else will find themselves immune to the vapor that pours into the room. Those who are affected, well. Just don't let those affected wander back into the maze unattended.

The mechanism holding the second door at the opposite side of the decontamination room is shut, but it can be opened by brute force, but you'll have to really brute force it. In the 'can't close it again because it's busted open' kinda way - here's hoping you wanted that open permanently.

Beyond the door is a long hallway lined with cages, each cage with a door set into the back wall. Some of the cages are empty, or have ancient, grotesque dessicated animals inside, some strange and obviously twisted and others torn apart or mutilated. Others are broken open. Is that sound coming from deeper down the hall growling? Whatever it is, the creatures who broke out and survived can be familiar or strange - maybe a little something from home that you really didn't miss.

Man, it's too bad you had to break that door open and now things can get through the maze and back into Anchor.

Those who were smart enough not to go down into the maze could still face the creatures in the depths, should any of them get past the adventurers who released them. Not all of them are vicious. But all of them are definitely hungry and angry and scared.

c. welcome to the strip mall.

Should people emerge from the depths of the maze again after being hit by the memloss drug, those who know them (and those who don't) will find that the effects are not passing. Not after a day. Not even after two or three. There's a problem here, and it's one that will take work to solve and fix.

Meanwhile, a new store has appeared at the end of the row of shops propagating outside the dome. This one, a garden center for truly alien plants. The place is department-store huge, sporting everything from outsized venus fly traps to utterly foreign, tiny little trees, with grape-sized fruit hanging from their branches.

Down several aisles are… for lack of a better word, the "chatty" plants. These are the noisemakers, rattling against each other, chiming like tiny bells, making sad trombone noises or just...

Talking?

With a snap of...whatever passes for lips and teeth in the creepily vertical slit "mouth" of a three-foot-tall plant with broad fluffy leaves that sway despite the lack of a stiff breeze, anyone venturing too close will hear a deep, raspy, sarcastic voice making snarky quips at them.

"Wow, you sure are wanderin' around a lot. Forgot what you're looking for? HAH! Well, y'know, we got a cure for what ails ya!"

How is that helpful commentary?

Navigation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That hurts, that hurts so much. Her fingers curl in like she'd been burned. Her arms falling back to her sides, then in, tucking around her, like she doesn't know what to do with herself.

But that wasn't useful. So she focuses on what she usually does. Work, and what is happening in front of her.

"I'm. Uhm. Okay. Okay, we can work with that. Where do you need to go?"

It comes out shakey, but it's a clear something is wrong, and if they are going to get to the bottom of why her boyfriend all of a sudden doesn't want to even touch her - then, making him feel at ease and helping him work out where he needs to be is... is where they are going to start. Even if looking at him and not being even known by him... hurts, hurts like a knife in between her ribs, searing and hot.

The tremble in her voice and the look on her face makes him pause, hovering uncertainly as he tries to work out why she seems so ... hurt. If he'd met her, surely he'd remember. She isn't someone one simply forgets.

There is more going on than he can begin to comprehend but-- What can he do about that? He needs to reach New York, he needs to make sure the plan to assassinate Washington isn't successful. How much time does he have? It must be running out.

"I-- I'm sorry," he says, because he thinks he has to say something. "I need to reach New York. I do not know how I got here."

Angel inhales in a short breath. New York? Shit, where does she even start?

"So... So this might be a little bit hard to understand right now. But you're not on Earth. So... nowhere near America, either. You're on another planet, in another galaxy. It's called Anchor."

It's not just hard to understand - in fact, it may be less difficult than she thinks, because of what he's been told about Those Who Came Before - it is also completely unacceptable. And he can't work out how he got here. As far as he knows, he hasn't touched any artifacts since the crystal his village had. Did the man going to New York with him have something to do with it?

"Why?" he asks, his tone tense. "For what purpose am I here?"

Because there has to be one. Doesn't there? For the last few years, at least, he has felt that what happens has had a purpose. This? He can't be here. He needs to deal with the Templars, he needs to help his people.

Isn't that what the crystal told him?

She nods slowly, and some of this is by wrote, so to speak. She is placating, her hands palm up, and gives him his space. Assuring and not demanding, and most of all, not losing her patience with his questions.

"We are still determining that. What's happened is called Cross Dimensional Travel, and the study of it isn't... exact. This one appears to be at random, and currently irreversible with the technology we presently have. But we are working on it, to get ... get, people like you... home."

It hurts to say. Hurt to know she'll lose him. But it was what they always agreed on, and right now is hardly the time to tackle that when he can't even remember why it's hard.

Irreversible?

No. Can't be. He shakes his head furiously, and turns away from her, putting his hands on his hips as he turns his head to the sky. An unfamiliar sky. Not even on Earth? This can't be happening. It twists in his chest and his throat, makes it feel hard to breathe, and he can't be here.

"That is not good enough."

There has to be an artifact. Somewhere. If he could just find that--

"I know. I know you have a lot of people waiting for you. A lot to do, for your home, and your homesteaders..."

She doesn't know all of it, she knows she doesn't. He has kept those parts of his life to himself, often enough. It had always seemed better that way, somehow. She contented herself like she often had in life, his happiness in that place was enough her for, even if she couldn't be part of it. Best leave it vague.

Still, this was Connor, what Connor wanted more than anything was action over petty assurances, not being told this is how it is and no one is going to change that.

She just can't hold his hand and tell him he'd be okay, and that was... harder than she ever imagined.

"But we are working on it. We all are. To get you home. A lot of people are stuck and everyone is working as best they can to get out. Every day we get closer and closer to managing that too, I'm sure of it."

I know, she says, like she could possibly know anything. Who is she, to say that so confidently? She doesn't. Doesn't know that there is more than just people waiting, that there are lives at stake, that he is the only one who can prevent tragedy. Nobody else knows about it.

"I do not have that time," he says sharply, with just a hint of the anxiety and desperation that makes his head feel thick.

Not good enough. No word on when, nothing about how close they are, too much uncertainty. He needs to find this out for himself. He can't stop.

So he starts walking again.

Angel's eyes widen as he walks away from her. Heart stuck somewhere in the back of her throat in the pain of it. He never walked away from her. He always listened, even if they had to talk it through because they didn't come to it the same way, he always tried to listen.

Swallowing down, she can't let it get to her right now. He's not safe, they're not safe, and he wasn't listening to her. Why did they never listen to her?

( Because you're a liar, Angel. )

Tried and true tactics, then. If he wouldn't listen to her as a friend. He will listen to her for what she knows.

If he thinks he's going to just walk out of here like that. Well, he could try to, but like hell, she was letting him get hurt. "Okay, so you don't, but you do have enough time to listen to the Magical Minotaur Mythological - " lover, friend, girlfriend, the person who you kiss and make smile and I make you smile, I do, I do, I do, and I won't forget that even if you - . Her tail snaps like whipcord as she out steps him. " - companion you're stuck with, who can't get lost even if she tried, when we're stuck in a maze."

Despite her short stature, he can't outpace her. For the first time since she met him, she uses it all. Her speed, strength, senses, to march past him to the door he's head towards, and before he can try to get it open in any sensible way, she leans over and punches it clean off its hinges. Then gestures for him to go through. "So since we're stuck together, why don't we work together?"

Well, if there was ever an efficient way to distract him from his worries for a moment, it's punching a door off its hinges with such ease. Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that someone who is so obviously part monsters like she is can do that, but his eyes widen and his mouth opens with it nonetheless.

"Who are you?"

None of this makes any sense.

"I'm Angel." Angel rolls her shoulders back as she shakes out the easy display of strength because there is something exhilarating to letting loose like that when she often doesn't get to. That metal, concrete, all the trappings of simple beings mean nothing to her. Rolling her weight with a hand on her hip, tail flicking, lifting her chin to lift those big, terrifying horns of hers, eyes as black as her hair as she watches him. Half dressed, as always, because nothing fitted sat well on her fur, and most clothes were designed to go over horns or a tail. Somewhere between human and animal, but comfortable there, she realizes as she lets him look her over and really take her in at last. "- and I'm your girlfriend."

But there she whithers, she's not being fair to something that isn't his fault, and he would be with her, so she sinks her shoulders. Sighing out her frustration at the whole - whole situation.

"Before you forgot how you got here, anyway. But don't worry, I'm not asking for anything from you. You should just know I care a whole lot about you and don't want you to get hurt." There she finally lets out the breath as she turns her head to look forward, "but what you actually want to ask is 'what are you?' I'm a Minotaur. I wasn't born this way but got turned into it by a magical God that thought it was funny, I guess. She did it to lots of people. So now I can see in the dark, smell things at a mile that humans can't, hear down to your heartbeat, know my way around mazes... and yes, punch through doors if I want to."

Edited 2020-06-14 06:51 (UTC)

His girlfriend? Since when? What has he forgotten? So he's been here before, long enough to bond with people, and he has no recollection of it.

What he actually wanted to ask? He just shakes his head, very slightly. He really had meant who, because it had been so obvious she knew him, when he didn't know her. Not that being told what she is is ... bad. It just also wasn't really what he cared about. Truth be told, he wonders if this is real at all.

He crosses his arms, frowning deeply. This is only getting worse.

"How long have I been here, then?"

"Here? A couple of months. We met somewhere else though. A city. We were there for it felt like a year, I think?"

But if he's lost it all.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Over a year? How is that possible?

"I was on Earth."

He lifts his hands slightly in a questioning gesture. What else does she need to know? He was on Earth and now, somehow, for whatever reason, he is here instead. And it's all wrong.

Yikes.

Right. Okay. Don't panic. Just... everything. He'd forgotten everything. So she nods, gesturing him to follow her into the next room.

"Right. So there was a City. It was called the City of Sin. It had demons and stuff." This one time you got really hot from fighting a literal God and we were all over each other. Clears her throat. Why was it useless information came up when you were trying to be sensible.

But true to her word, when the puzzle is in front of her, she scans the room, slowly, slowly. "That's where we met. You saved me from myself. A few times actually." It didn't matter, really, that was a whole series of events he didn't remember. "- This way. Step on the tiles I step on." Angel began to pick her way through them, one after another in delicate little touches of her sturdy hooves. "It was ruled over by this jerk Emperor. You didn't like him very much, I always got the feeling." Not that they'd ever talked about it at length. "I helped you and the other Assassin out. Mostly with money, that sort of thing. I'm the best accountant you can find."

City of Sin? Demons? The more she talked, the less sense she made. How could he not remember any of this?

When she brings up the assassins, he slows to a stop, his posture tensing as he puts his guard up all the way again. She knows about it? Does that mean she truly does know him as well as she tries to claim? It doesn't, necessarily. She could be lying. There could be so much else going on here.

"Other Assassin?"

Edited 2020-06-27 11:49 (UTC)

Angel turned back to him. The change in his scent, the stop of his footsteps, nervously watching over her shoulder.

"Jacob Frye. He's from London. The Brotherhood there? I don't know, really, you guys... well, it's your business, not mine. You've told me some stuff? But I don't come from Earth, so I don't even really know what... well, London is."

She clears her throat. He's never looked at her like that. In frank suspicion, and it turned her small, turned her unhappy, and she has been on the receiving end of it too many times for it not to hurt. Not from anyone, but from Connor.

"You just get me to help with... stuff like this." Her hand gestures at the room. "I know this kind of stuff. I built the gun you're carrying. I fixed Jacob's hidden blade." She gestures with her chin at his hip.

London. He can't know anything about who that is, then. If there truly is another Assassin here, though, that's a good thing. Someone he could talk to. That's good.

At first, he dismisses the idea that she's made his gun outright, because he knows for certain she didn't. Something, though - some niggling feeling in the back of his mind - makes him reach down to take it, and as soon as he wraps his fingers around Claw he knows that's not his usual gun. So he pulls it out of its holster to look at it proper, and it's ... unlike anything he's ever seen. Not just the shape of it but the metal itself is new, something he can't help but think no one would know how to create back home.

Has he really been here for as long as she said? The very thought of it makes him feel cold. It can't have been.

He takes a deep breath that shakes more than he wants it to, as he puts the gun back into its holster.

Right.

"I need to see every room in this 'maze'."

Won't tell her why. Can't. But he needs to, just in case there are any clues. If he's forgotten things, and something in this maze caused it, then surely ...

He doesn't know. Just has to start somewhere.

"... If you want." She clearly doesn't like it. Given that the first time through has done this to him. But... "We're going to have to go forward first, though. The doors don't open for us to go back, unfortunately, we have to keep going the way we came."

She gestures ahead of them. "Granted I think we're at the exit. So we can meet up Jaco - the other Assassin, you can regroup, find out more information and a better plan, right?"

And he clearly doesn't like that too much, initially. After a moment, he realises that that is better. Someone he could actually talk to about what he's thinking. Maybe.

Might be his best bet, anyway.

"Fine."

"We'll do what we can. Whatever we can. Even if you don't believe me, you're everything to me. I don't want you to get hurt, and I want you to be happy. Our friends, they want the same too."

She doesn't meet his eye as she says it, marching on ahead of him with a deft step. Doesn't have to look at her feet, her hooves delicately picking around rubble and other objects that might fall in their path.

Doesn't look because simply, she can't. Can't face saying those words and looking at him and not having him share it the same.

No, he doesn't believe it. As sincere as she seems, nothing points to this being true. Can he even be honest with a supposed Assassin? He'll have to try to work it out somehow.

He doesn't answer her, but he follows her, because so far she doesn't seem to be leading him into a trap. No trap that he's not just as likely to stumble into himself, anyway, because this whole maze practically is one.

When they finally round the door and get out into the open corridors of where this whole place started... she breathed a sigh of relief.

Though there, she has to stop, and then.

"Alright, I am just going to get... the other assassin here. Hopefully, he can make this... make sense."

Which is when she goes about texting them, pulling out her phone, in hurried messages to Charles and Jacob as fast as she can. Please, oh please, get here soon.

Jacob's not sure what has happened, how it's happened, but Angel is worried, and that worries him. Connor is steady and sensible, but he's also stubborn and independent, and likely to go off on his own if he thinks it's the best option. Just as she had said, he would go marching off and get himself killed. Anchor was not a place to run headlong into if your head had been messed with.

Thankfully, getting to the maze does not take long. And there is Angel, and there is Connor, who looks... not unlike the man Jacob first met, on the snowy streets of the City of Sin. Stern, utterly unlike his grandfather. And they're not hanging off each other. She's normally leaning into him, or he has an arm around her, to their fingers are intertwined. He can feel the uneasy radiate off them, and it's horrible.

"I came as soon as I could," he says, looking from Connor to Angel, noting the worry on her face.

It's a good thing that Jacob hurries, because there is only so long Ratonhnhaké:ton is willing to wait. There isn't much time, and he still doesn't trust that Angel is telling the truth. When Jacob finally appears, Ratonhnhaké:ton looks him carefully up and down. His sight tells him that both of them are friendly, allies, but it's difficult for him to feel like he can believe anything at all right now.

"You Jacob?" he asks, lifting his chin briefly with the question.

may 2020. welcome to the void.

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