You have spent the last few days on Thesa Station, taking in the knowledge that your world is no more. Perhaps you've made some friends (or maybe an enemy or two). Either way, you aren't expected to spend all of your time on the Station. El Nysa needs you, after all, and you promised you'd help the planet thrive. Are you ready?
Submit an AC-eligible thread with a new character as a participant for 2 OLYMPIA REP POINTS OR 2 WYVER REP POINTS, respectively, HERE or HERE. THESA STATION
All refugees on the station are called to the hangar where a large-scale teleporter has been set up; everyone will be sent to the planet together. Simply step onto the space between the arrays and wait. Before they depart, all new refugees will be given a starter kit!
 You may have heard about earlier technical difficulties, but don't worry. I promise everything is in perfect working order this time. I'd say I tested it myself, but since that's not exactly possible, you'll just have to trust me! (Please.)
The older refugees will also be there to guide you to ensure no one is left confused... or behind. Make sure you wait for them — I've been detecting something odd so I'll be having them meet you at the landing site. Good luck, refugees! Not that you'll be needing it or anything...
The arrays begin to hum and glow, quickly building into a brilliant wash of light. It creates a column that travels all the way from Thesa Station to the surface of El Nysa. With the night sky as a canvas, the beam can be seen all the way from Olympia and Wyver — a view that has the natives whispering of blessings.
As a sudden but beautiful aurora splays across the sky, the refugees down on the planet receive a message asking them to travel to the landing site — and warning them to prepare for what may come of the strange readings Zasere's gotten from the teleport itself.
Traveling through the light leaves the impression of blinding starlight, a strange sense of weightlessness, and a disorienting moment of total sensory deprivation. The radiance of your teleport hangs bright in the sky above you, a shimmering aurora that reflects off the calm waters below, visible for miles all around.
You've landed on a peninsula to the east of the South Outpost. There's little here — scattered trees on spring-barren plains, with a few overgrown, dilapidated structures poking out of the brush. All is quiet save for the keening of animals and the gentle lapping of waves against the shore. This lonely desolation is hardly the bustling cities and vibrant cultures you were promised back on the station...
BY CAMPFIRE'S GLOW. But waiting for you is a group of your predecessors, and with them, a veritable tent city, with portable stoves, coolers of food and drink, comfortable bedrolls, and cheerful rings of bonfires — all that you need to make merry of the night, courtesy of Overseer Voss, who has, thanks to his interest in blessed meteorological phenomena and refugees, decided to make a holy expedition of the affair.
Settle in, meet new comrades, and enjoy yourself, for you've safely completed your journey. But don't wander too far from the fires — the dark is closing in, and there's a strange, electric feeling in the air, the scent of ozone drifting on the breeze. And what were those odd readings Zasere mentioned?
A SHEPHERD OVER THE FLOCK. The spring sun dawns on a grey morning, already burning away the fog rolling in off the sea. It quickly becomes apparent that Voss and his entourage of acolytes have been up for hours, hard at work. They've set up a brightly-draped stage and a travel pulpit, magically enchanted to amplify his voice, and as the sun breaks over the horizon, Voss is all set to do what he does best: proselytize.
 As our Goddess has sent Her blessing once before to herald the coming of those touched by Her light, so She has done once again! Here you see them, those surrounded by the light of our Goddess, each of them bearing the mark upon their skin of Her holiest of hands! Do you not see? Do none among you bear witness to the righteousness of Her message? Perhaps this is why our people have shamed themselves in front of our Goddess—
[ He continues for another 15 minutes... ]
Nevertheless. See you them before us now! See them as they are, coming to our gates with Her reminder, that these people must be treated with the utmost respect and care. Thesa's divinity is not to be treated with such flagrant disregard! Those who She chooses are not ours to use as mindless fodder, to hurt, to torture — shame upon those who allowed such deeds to shame us under Her watchful gaze!
To those of you who have just arrived here on our doorstep, be not afraid! The Temples of Thesa welcome you to our home with hearts and minds open! Should you ever find yourself in need of solace, seek out the Temples, as there are no greater allies to you than those of us within the Temple walls. You are welcome all to Olympia!
As he steps away from the enchanted podium, he can be heard saying aside to an acolyte, "How was that? Heavy on the shame, but I think it went well!" While he will not leave the area immediately, his acolytes will politely turn away attempts to speak with him and remind anyone interested that they can leave a message at the Temples.
Despite going off without hitch, the new refugees' arrival isn't entirely without incident. It seems that the "blessed" beam of light that brought the refugees down to El Nysa brought something else along with it — a sliver of the Storm. At least the beam was short enough that only a small fraction managed to squeeze through.
But it's enough to wreak a little havoc around the landing site and along the road back toward Olympia and Wyver — and even, for a few days, in the cities themselves.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. The Storm is an undeniably destructive force, and that's proven with this small sliver's effect as it ripples across the continent. While there's no visible sign of its presence, strange phenomena soon begin to appear, corresponding with Zasere's odd readings.
They're innocuous little things at first. A sudden silence, animals going quiet, insects stilling. All technology, no matter how advanced, ceases working. You discover when you check with a friend, the clock on your phone is twelve minutes slow even though you'd swear only a minute had passed — time missing. Walking through the woods takes longer than it should when brushing past one bush leads to brushing past that same bush again — and again, and again, the area looping on itself. It keeps you trapped, going in circles for minutes, even hours, before finally releasing you in a random direction.
Or perhaps you'll feel a sense of deja vu, like you've walked down this road, taken this turn, seen that bird fly from this branch before. This is the second time that cat has crossed your path. The person you're meeting, you already know their name; you're certain you've already met.
WE GOT COWS. The Storm sliver also ushers in sudden, localized weather anomalies — heavy storms, blizzards, strong winds, and more. Affected areas range from just a few feet wide to nearly half a mile. One minute, the sky may be sunny and clear, but the next dark storm clouds roll in, unleashing torrential rain. Small tornadoes surge along the road, kicking up winds strong enough to knock people over and carry objects away. Hail hurtles down from the sky, but only in a ten foot radius. Temperatures fluctuate wildly between one extreme and the next, from heat waves to cold snaps. Soupy fog blankets the area, thick enough that you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Good luck finding your way!
FORGETTING IS SO LONG. The visions come on suddenly and with very little warning. One second, you're carrying on as normal — but the next, you blink and find yourself (and anyone near you) somewhere else completely. You may recognize this place as a moment from the past, one that you lived through. It's a memory, your memory, and it now replays around you in exceptional detail, unnervingly lifelike. Or you may not recognize it at all. It might belong to the person next to you, or to someone else entirely — a memory that the Storm has swallowed up.
Either way, the scene plays out just as it once did, and there's nothing you can do to stop it — or escape it. The memory surrounds you to no end: every door you open leads nowhere, every hallway you turn down continues on forever, every horizon you flee toward hangs just out of reach. And linger too long or turn the wrong corner, and you may find yourself abruptly stuck in a completely different memory. It's almost tempting, then, to give up, to let the past sweep you away...
But this isn't the full might of the Storm. Look closely, and you can see that in the walls of this trap, there are minute, hairline cracks, a facade of fractured glass. Imperfections in the memory where the real world is breaking through. It seems the only way to escape these memories is to find those cracks and break through them — by force, by will, or by some other method entirely.
The time is coming to make a choice — perhaps not a permanent choice, but unless you want to spend the rest of your nights out under the stars, you'll need to pick which city you will initially spend your time in. On the horizon, you will see that people have arrived to help you make that decision...
A FORK IN THE ROAD. Refugees and the hyper-religious wishing to hear Voss speak are not the only ones out and about under the light of the aurora. Citizens of both Olympia and Wyver have flocked to a point on the road midway between the cities and where the refugees have appeared, and they all have the same goal in mind: convincing the newcomers who have just descended in the blessed light of Thesa to come to their city and not the other.
They've come with bribes — that is, examples of what their cities have to offer. If you spent much time at the exhibition up on Thesa Station, you might recognize some of what's being shown off, though the offerings here are markedly more tangible, and shown off by hawkers wearing substantially fewer clothes.
A herd of pegasi accompanies the Olympians, while a line of flying serpents is stabled at a tent bearing Wyver colors. Refugees are given the chance to experience solo flights and are told that if they prove their loyalty, they may have the privilege of owning such fine beasts one day themselves. The Olympians have also brought couture clothing, jewelry, and makeup to offer a taste of Olympian splendor, while the Wyver delegation has brought along fine weapons, sense-enhancing jungle plants, and small vials of diluted dragon’s blood (drinking confers a temporary boost in strength) to demonstrate their might. The Olympians speak proudly of the glory of the Temples of Thesa; the Wyverns speak of the Volkkran Pact and inform newcomers that they can make a pilgrimage to the summit of Namarak Mountain at the next full moon.
This is as good a time as any to compare your plans with others around you and exchange contact information before going your separate ways with people who are going to the city you are not. When you’re ready to go, don’t worry about safe passage — the natives of each city will gladly escort you there in luxury.
OF WHITE AND GOLD. The people of Olympia are ecstatic that you’ve come to join them... So much so that they’ve prepared a grand tour of the city for the new arrivals. You will be introduced to the major businesses in the city, including businesses that they are proud to point out were founded by refugees.
Refugees who have been here for some time already are encouraged to pair up with newcomers to introduce them to the parts of the city they like best. To facilitate this, they’ve made arrangements with many of the business owners: new refugees who visit their shops (and older refugees who escort them) are given discounts!
Just a few examples of many: the Wyvernest offers free desserts to first time visitors with the purchase of a drink, refugees who visit the Silk Wyrms can have one custom (though not exceedingly expensive) outfit made for them for free, and visitors to Shades Darker are offered a half-hour session with one of the prostitutes at half price… or access to a private room, if they seem to have taken a shine to one of their companions on the tour.
Lastly, tour guides will point out that over the course of the next week, the train to Flona Cove will allow new refugees to board for free so that they can experience the seaside for themselves. With the weather finally starting to warm, this is as good a time as any for a visit to the beach, isn’t it?
OF RED AND BLACK. Life in Wyver is typically a sink-or-swim sort of experience — but in light of the valor recently displayed by their predecessors, the natives are now more willing to assist in getting newcomers settled. The entire journey here they have been talking up the virtues of their city… and now is the time to show everything that's on offer.
The well-known businesses in the city are prepared for the influx of newcomers. Some are giving out discounted samples of their products while others are offering a more hands-on experience: in exchange for working a few hours, they will give training in whatever task is being performed.
At the Forged, newcomers can learn the basics of crafting simple weapons (and take one of their successes home), while visitors to spas near the lagoons are trained in the art of massage. Those who wander to Falmi’s Ring can learn the art of pugilism or how to keep (and fix) books if they're more inclined to the gambling that goes on. Newcomers interested in Wyver's dragons can get hands-on experience at the Fields of the Exalted's nursery. While they walk from place to place, a guide may point out a job posting from Highwind Hires, noting that refugees can make a name for themselves outside official channels.
The last stop on the tour is the Undergrowth. The guides speak of the jungle in reverent tones and caution new refugees not to wander too far in. They warn never to explore alone, but also urge refugees to take time to familiarize themselves with it; after all, the jungle is an important part of life in Wyver, and those who are going to be living here should understand it as well as they do.
You've chosen your path, refugee, but that doesn't necessarily make it a permanent one. Watch out for the strange effects of the Storm, which linger still in the two cities and everywhere in between for the next few days before dissipating just as mysteriously as they came, but otherwise enjoy the welcome and make yourself at home — after all, this is home now.
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Oh you know it. I gotta split for the cave anyway, son, grab my bone club and go bag a woolly mammoth for the Missus. She's got the appetite of a t-rex, you know how it is.
[Richie's sent a hand behind him as a scout, and it finds the door handle before he can rattle off about sabretooth throw rugs. He turns it and flings the door open, spinning on his heel to leave.
Except he's looking in a funhouse mirror maze. The scene of the room he's leaving — two grown men and the kid on the fiddle and the kid at the keys, the musty heirlooms and molding drapes — are all repeated and infinite, growing smaller through each open door but no less vivid, no less real. Richie can see the back of his head tilt as he leans further into the frame, gobsmacked. The sweet tune behind him has now turned to an echoing cacaphony, each iteration amplifying the music two-fold.
It's a rare thing that he's stunned into silence, but here you have it.]
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[ Byerly, meanwhile, seems a bit put off by the oddity of it - but not much more than put off. He frowns at the odd refracted patterns, but, well...Is the distortion of the image so much odder than the appearance of the image? They're searching and digging through his memories; so what if those memories are made strange? So Richie's frightened silence seems bizarre more than anything else. So By urges him - ]
Shall we press on?
[ And he takes a step out into the odd illusion. ]
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Richie frowns, following after and feeling a shiver as all the phantom repeats edge forward too. A conga line of little men drifting off, smaller and smaller and smaller...]
Seems a little pointless, don't you think? We already know what's behind door number two, and three, and four. Wanna take a bet on four hundred and sixty two?
[And the room is exactly the same. The doors all shut behind them once they're through (thank fuck) and they're left with the precocious duo and their genteel serenade.]
What's the deal, anyhow? All this stuff. [He takes a finger to a dusty book. It feels unpleasant to the touch, even if none of the debris comes off when he runs it along that fuzz-laden cover.] Neither one of your clothes fit, either. I thought you were royalty.
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But...Well. He doesn't particularly like the fact that revisiting this memory has sparked questions. Questions that could theoretically be worse - he is not embarrassed of the shit his father put him through; he is enraged by it - but still. ]
What - you're a clever man. Decent education. Musical soul. Haven't you ever heard of the impoverished nobility?
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Bits and pieces. I grew up in a democracy, remember? Most history classes didn't dwell on it.
[Why would a man so sharp and privileged choose to work at a brothel? He'd wondered about it. It was hardly as if there was nowhere else to get hired as a refugee, plenty of them got signed on to respectable things. But Byerly called it a ticket out of starvation.
Richie's gaze flicks to the younger boy. He's not sallow, or waifish. Starving...
It must have come after. There had to be worse than this. Ill wills and misfortunes to give him that edge and that scramble, sharpened the blade that served as his tongue, honed that calculating wit.
Richie leans against a stack and watches the duet. His frown is slight.]
What happened to the family fortune, then?
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[ He smiles slightly, sourness tempered by his pleasure at the clever double entendre. Overbreeding in both senses. There was a reason all the Vorrutyer cousins look like they could be siblings, and all the siblings twins. ]
Père was the fifth in his generation. Not much left for the youngest son. Upon the death of my most dreadful and vile grandfather, he received this crumbling pile and a small income - an income that he refused to spend. Not on clothes, not on repairs, not on food, not on education, not on dowry. Just collected it to brood over, like a fairy-tale monster. [ The smile goes thinner. ] There were several arguments over it.
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You're serious? What a fucking asshole. [He scoffs, eyes the ankles and wrists peeping out of the kid's second rate get ups.] Can't so much as throw a dime your own kid's way. Unbelievable. Did you two split?
[He jerks his to the pair before them.]
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What do you mean by "split"?
[ Though it must be noted - he does rather appreciate Richie's reaction. Not you-poor-things, but what-an-asshole. That's nice. ]
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But that's not what this was. Right. ]
I did. Left with absolutely nothing. She's the smarter one - bided her time till her majority, then gracefully married someone a continent away. Not a single night spent sleeping under a bridge.
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A lot of things make sense now. Just his reactions don't, the prickling up. He's so willing to give over gritty details but he's skirting around something else.]
She's the cuter one, too. [Probably. They're almost identical in their youth, and had struck so in the pods as well. It's strange to see something like that. Features that worked well on both sexes. Most of the time guys made for lumpy, misshapen women, and women's features looked too frail to pass for handsome. Some Like it Hot was a real gas riot, but no one was itching to get Jack Lemmon in a dress again.]
You two keep in touch?
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[ It's telling, perhaps, that that's where he draws the line. And melancholy, too. How many days here has Byerly spent loathing himself for never keeping in touch with Nadine? The specter of disrepute seems so petty here, with her in cryo-stasis, with all the wagging tongues of the vicious rumormongers of his home world stilled for good. Twenty years of silence, when now he wants nothing more than to see her and talk to her and hear her laugh. Thirty years of protection come to nothing at all, thirty years of sacrifices to keep her safe only to end with her vulnerable and alone and imprisoned. He was a fucking idiot.
It is a strange thing, though, that Richie is so free with his questions. What does he care? Why does he care? Does he see some use in this information? Or is he trying to be friendly? The latter option seems...odd, to put it lightly. ]
Maybe I'll answer if you start making this a more equal exchange, my dear. At the moment, I feel quite taken advantage of.
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I'm not after anything, I'm just making some damn conversation. If you don't want to talk about your sister, that's fine. I'll leave off! I'm well versed in how to go fuck myself, thank you very much, but you can't fault me for being curious when we're stuck here.
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Well, it's a rather loaded question, isn't it? Now that we know each other a bit better, friend, tell me: do you beat your wife?
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Do you beat your wife?
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[He takes a step back, shaking his head. Appalled.]
What must you think of me? Christ.
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How strange. I think that's the most sincere I've ever seen you.
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He hates talking to this jackass, he decides. Nothing was ever safe, nothing couldn't be turned into a jab, and he never saw the hits coming. Just walked into every fist like a sucker with his head in the clouds.]
Yeah yeah yeah, I'm a real snake in the grass. But it takes one to know one, asshole. [He turns, tugging at his hair. He strides to the middle of the room and calls out to the ceiling.] Hey, Great Aliens in the Sky! We're done here! We've maxed out on the symphony, time to go home!
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It shows that you're honorable.
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[He turns the knob and flings it open, and the words die in his throat. Sunshine spills around him, blocking the view outside to Byerly.
But the sounds?
Children screaming. Two boys. A guttural, echoing snarl of a beast, wolfish. Then the pang of a gunshot blasts through the room and cuts through the notes of the sweet duet like the swing of an axe.
Richie slams the door shut, skittering back. Shaking. His skin has turned ashen grey and his eyes are wide and owlish.]
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No, By, don't—
[But he fails to hold him back.
Two small bodies whip past the door. There's a dilapidated house behind them, overgrown sunflowers and untamed lawn, rotting wood and musty windows. There's a bike leaning against a tree, too large for anyone but a grown man but the boys make a break for it without pause. The taller of the two, redheaded and more handsome even in his fear and even at the age of eleven, tosses a pistol into the basket in the front before clambering onto the seat. The second boy is buck-toothed and pale, skin and bones, his glasses mended with tape at the middle and the lenses so thick that his blue eyes are magnified twofold underneath. In his fright they are veritable planets in the expanse of his small face. He's climbing onto the flat package carrier of the bike's rear and chancing a look behind them.
Peeling around the corner of the house is an absolute absurdity. Bipedal, humanoid in a high school jacket that's splattered with blood and wet slobber. At its right temple the skull shines through the matted hair and blood: a killing shot on anything else but it wears the bullet's work like it might a hat, or a bee sting. Unbothered and livid mad, feet pounding in its mad sprint. There's white lines of powder and strings of mucus running from its nose. In place of a zipper, there's fluffy orange buttons—
(pom poms on a clown)
—and as it dashes closer, the gold-stitched lettering on the jacket's breast becomes clear. "Richie Tozier", threaded in cursive.
It lunges.
"Go, Bill!" shrieks the bespectacled boy, wrapping his arms around his friends middle as he races to pedal. The doubled weight makes the going clumsy. Slow. Too slow.
Behind Byerly, Richie begins to titter. His hand covers his mouth, but the frail grin behind it peeks out from behind those spindly fingers. He looks like he might shatter, eyes locked to the gong show before them, laughing high, laughing pitchy.
The scene looks like madness from this end. Like something out of a dream.]
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[ Three shots snapped off in the space between one breath and the next, the gun emitting nothing louder than a soft buzz. All three shots hit, splashing with a bright-light sort of halo against the creature's head. Nothing. One hit should have been enough to fell the average man, two surely enough for a slavering wolf-man who looked like he stepped right out of a Time of Isolation morality play. But this creature isn't real, no more than Nadine was real, no more than Vorrutyer Kreposte was real. No more than these children - good God, that's Richie as a child, isn't it, there's something about the eyes - are real.
Yet even so, he lets off two more shots. And even so, he crowds backward, reaching out his left arm like a barrier to protect the older-Richie from any incursions. Both equally effective. He's shooting at and shielding against illusions. Fool. ]
Shit.
[ Then, once the initial buzz of adrenaline fades, that perfect clear focus that makes his heart beat slower and his hand more steady, once conscious thought comes to the surface again and he tells himself that fucking obviously he can't do anything to save those kids, this is a memory, so those kids will save themselves - ]
What the hell is this?
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No, stop!
[His hands fly to his ears to shield from the bang, but there's nothing of the sort. The blasts are odd and the gun only buzzes like some radio tuner. Of course, Byerly probably lifted it off a dead Vulcan, nutty future child that he was. It doesn't matter. None of the shots penetrate the illusion. Wouldn't that be a scream? Phaser shots pulsing in from the future to slay a beast in 1959, the ultimate dues ex machina.
Baby Bill has the bike going now, but it's still not fast enough. His younger self is shrieking as he ducks the beast's swipes. His grip around Bill's belly is an iron manacle.
And the grown man can't look away. His life, thrown back to him like some VR exhibit, coming at ya in three-dee.]
What does it look like, Chief? [His voice is tight, smile odd and teeth gritted.] It's just the Teenage Werewolf. High School of Horror, brought to life by Michael Landon in his finest goddamn hour! [He laughs again, stepping loose of Byerly's sheltering form with shaky legs to keep a better eye on the kids. (Yourself. Bill. It.)] I caught the flick in theatres, fresh new double feature! Laughed my damn ass off, I did, had a real swell time. Then the next week it's busted loose from the big screen to chase me down Neibolt street! How do you like them apples— [His breath catches.] —Shit!
[There's a choking splutter and a scream from Bill. The werewolf has snatched the back of Richie's jacket, but the grip he has on Bill's middle is as strong as Bill's grip on the handle bars, and so the bike rears up like a horse on the back wheel. Bill pedals on thin air, mindless panic clear on his face as Richie suffocates on the collar biting his throat.]
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Are we doing another memory or shunting them back to reality?
why is that even a question
I JUST WANTED TO BE POLITE....
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