logsinthenight | INTRO LOG: JULY

INTRO LOG: JULY

characters: everyone.
location: the harbor, as well as the rest of town.
date/time: july 1-3.
content: beacon's newest batch of residents arrives on the ferry. winters, will, and rastus introduce themselves and explain the situation.
warnings: n/a.

welcome to beacon.

It's dim, and the room won't stop swaying, gently rocking you back and forth. A loud sound startles you fully awake, a deep, moaning call: a foghorn. As your eyes adjust, you note faint red light streaking through the room from a tiny, round window.

You've found yourself in a private room, lying on a bed. The last things you remember are the events that led up to your death. Beside you is a folded tablet and a lantern that glows steadily with a healthy flame.

You're on a ship. And that ship is docking.

Making your way to the deck, and eventually the pier, you find only moonlight to greet you, and a dark forest beyond. There are other people here, each with their own unique lantern, and many of them look just as lost as you are. On the ferry you've just disembarked from, the speaker system begins to play a song.

In the distance, across the waters of the lake, you can see the tall silhouette of a lighthouse, its red light slowly turning.

•••
Winters and Will are waiting for you on the beach. Winters flags you down from where he's standing atop a large rock, surveying the gathering crowd. Will stands next to him, though he's monkeying with his tablet and looks rather bored. He barely looks up as Winters speaks:

"First thing's first: I'm sorry you're here. There's no easy way to break this news, so let's just get it over with, hm? You're dead. Or, ah, you've died. Call this the afterlife if you want, or don't if that ain't your thing, but point is, you're here 'cause you died. Those are the facts.

This world's dead, too. You've noticed by now it's pretty dark, yeah? That's 'cause there's no life here, not anymore. And that lantern you've got? That's your life, so to speak. The flame goes out, you die, and vice versa. Keep it close. Should be easy enough to remember on account of how the sun don't rise. You'll need something to see by.

This place is called Beacon, and that's Lake Red Jacket. Town's 'bout a mile down the road, and we've got a bonfire there, but that's the only other light you'll see in this place. Save for the moon and all, though the sky won't do you much good out in the woods. I'll let Rastus explain the bonfire to y'all.

Ah, right. I'm Ben Winters—Winters'll do—and this here's Will Ingr— What? For christ's sake, Dr. Will Ingram. Likes to think he's the brains of the operation, as you can see. If you've got questions about these tablets, he's your guy. Rastus tends to the fire, and you'll find him in town. He's married to his job in a way. And you may never've seen a person like him back wherever you came from, but don't make a big fuss over it. He's a nice fellow. Mind your manners.

The three of us are leftovers from past resets. We came here on that ferry just like you, but it's just us left now. 'Sides the Lighthouse Keeper, but it'll be a bit before you get to meet her. She's got control over the town, see, and if she ain't satisfied with a group's performance, they get the axe. Town gets reset. If she pulls a reset on you folks, a couple of you might end up like me and Will here, giving this speech to the next crop."

The red beam of the lighthouse pulses over the group, over the trees. Winters glances up to watch it swing out over the bay.

"But don't hold it against her. Ain't her fault we're in this mess, and we've all got a job to do, including you.

For now, concentrate on accepting your lot, yeah? We're here to answer your questions, but we ain't gonna tell you all there is to know just yet. Some things are best learned on your own, and some of it we just don't want to saddle you with yet. There's a limit to how long we can stay here safely, that's true, but thing is, we do got time. Time enough to play this smart. Do better than the folks before us did. Settle in, make peace, explore a bit if you're up for it. Use these first couple weeks to come to grips. You ain't gonna be any good to the town if you don't sort yourself out before worrying about what comes next.

So listen up: You're dead. You died. Whatever your old life was, it's done now. None of us can go back, so all we've got is forward. Welcome to Beacon. Could be worse, yeah?"

ooc.

Hey there, wonderful players, and welcome to In the Night! For this intro log, all three NPCs will be available for chatting with, whether your character wants to make casual conversation or ask questions about all this. The headers on each NPC toplevel are there for easy reference as to what each of them are responsible for, but you're welcome to go to any NPC for whatever reason. You're welcome to assume your character has overheard any NPC conversation to learn more about the game. After the NPC threads have died down, we'll compile the info learned ICly and add it to the game history page. If your character would contribute something specific to the game history records, let us know!

DELIVERIES

The following packages can be found in the cargo hold:

The monthly store restock

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Yeah, I-

[ He isn't perturbed by Five's seeming ease at standing near the edge of a building. Nate can relate to that, point of fact, because there's something about the heights that can never get enough of. Not tempting fate, not risking his life, just...seeing everything. Taking it in.

But what's important is- ]

...wait, how did you get up here?

[ he shrugs, says casually, ]

I made a spatial jump. Pretty straightforward. Let me guess: you climbed up the building.

[ Spatial jump, he says, like it's a perfectly normal thing. Maybe it is, where Five is from, and Nate just looks like an uneducated asshole for raising his eyebrow in response. So be it. ]

Yeah, I like my vertical traveling analog.

[ He quips, resting his pencil between the pages of his book and looking out at the dim expanse. It's disappointingly dark, same as it was ten minutes ago. ]

Find anything yet?

[ not too surprising. nate hadn't struck him as someone with powers -- namely insofar that it feels like it might've otherwise come up the last time they spoke. ]

Nothing too useful. Have you had any luck?

Nothing besides the creepy trapdoor and just...making general notes of things.

[ He gestures a little uselessly at his sketchbook, the pages covered with details, and glances back up at Five. There's a distant scrutiny to him that makes Nate furrow his brow - it isn't looking, it's looking. Calculating. Familiar.

Somewhat casually, Nate shuts his book and tucks it into the little bag at his belt. ]

Decent vantage up here.

You noticed that too, huh? [ he doesn't sound surprised. probably a lot of people have, the way so many of them are combing the town. he stopped to talk to a guy or two about it, and that's just while he was there. ] Locked trapdoor. Just another mystery around here that needs figuring out.

[ five had looked at nate's notebook at the gesture -- before that, too, but his eyes had flicked back -- but blinks when nate shuts it. ]

Yeah, it is. [ turns his attention back to the view, such as it is. ] Too bad the lighting's shit.

[ Under normal circumstances Nate would enjoy the mystery. He likes solving puzzles, cryptic riddles, ciphers in ancient languages, and were this a place he could explore back home he would be a great deal more enthralled with it. As things stand, his experience in another world hollows the allure, something compounded by the omnipresent, pressing darkness. ]

Yeah.

[ There's a laugh in the word, and he rubs at the back of his neck, feeling tight. Stretched thin. ]

Reminds me of this cave in Yemen I once went into, place was pitch-black and full of these huge spiders that hated the light.

[ he slants nate a glance, sideways, expression disbelieving. not of nate, just...the shit he seems to get himself into. ]

You and I have had very different experiences in Yemen. What happened to the spiders?

Oh, they swarmed us.

[ Badly. Very badly.

He can still remember the chitinous mass with detailed clarity, skittering over the stone, pincers clicking, eyes laser-focused on him as he held the door for the rest of them. They moved like one enormous mass, a coordinated school of enormous arachnids and it makes his skin crawl just thinking about the sound of shattering exoskeletons popping with every shotgun blast. ]

Had to barricade them behind this giant door because we couldn't find a way to stop them. If I never see a spider that big again in my life, it'll be too goddamn soon.

[ five manages to have the grace not to point out that nate has managed not to see a spider that big again in his life.

it must be a miracle. ]

Well, that's disturbing.

[ like. the spidERS ARE STILL THERE?? jesus ]

With any luck, we won't run into any of those in the forest.

[ somewhere in the woods, aragog lurks ]

[ Oh, they're still there. They're the reason Sir Francis Drake decided to pack up all his shit and get the Hell out of Dodge. ]

Yeah, let's hope not.

[ He laces his fingers, arms in front of him as he stretches and something pops. With a small sound of minor satisfaction Nate leans back and props himself up on his elbows. ]

So why were you in Yemen? Sightseeing Sana'a? Hiking in the Dhofar Mountains? It's pretty nice after the kharīf.

[ unlike the last time, five is -- casual. he hardly misses a beat, expecting the question this time. he stays standing, hands in pockets, looking out into the darkness beyond them. ]

Sightseeing around Aden, actually. Wanted to see the fortress.

Really?

[ His tone is light, conversational, no accusations to be found as he pieces together fragments of Yemeni history from research he did once, years ago. They never moved close to the coast on his own travels, but it was where Drake once docked before setting off into the desert in search of the old city of Sana'a, the outpost of Iram.

The warnings, carved into the walls of the ancient well. ]

Was this when it was under Sabaen, Turkish, or British rule?

[ five had hardly been moving, but he's very, very still now. except to cut a sharp glance towards nate, calculating. it isn't a strange question; five had mentioned time travel the very first time they spoke. but there's something about the question that feels deliberate, leading, in a way he wouldn't have guessed of nate.

(rookie mistake, underestimating someone because of a friendly demeanor.) ]

British.

[ there'd been some men with the east india company he was sent to eliminate, who'd had aspirations a few decades too early. they'd been easy marks, one of his earlier missions, before he'd built his reputation to where it is now. ]

Oh.

[ Airy, acknowledging. The sort of gentle exclamation made by someone who has just found a penny, heads side up, as opposed to considering the genre of profession that a person capable of time-traveling might maintain. It narrows down the timeline a bit and Nate purses his lips, thinking, acutely aware of the sudden, unnatural stiffening of Five's teenage frame.

It's that reaction that really cinches it.

Being caught out, the same startled stillness he's experienced before when Marlowe opened a file on a table in Sana'a, told him who he was, who he wasn't. It isn't a fun sensation and because of that he hedges carefully, intent on not coming across as a smug asshole fitting together puzzle pieces into a more accurate picture. ]

Lot of uppity Royal Marines around, I bet.

[ When Nate looks up at him again his face is open, at least, and honest. Sincerity is the best he can manage with someone he's fairly certain is a contract killer. ]

I'm guessing you didn't work freelance.

[ there are a lot of things five could do, doesn't do.

he doesn't snap back immediately.

he doesn't teleport away, tempting as it is.

he doesn't even push nate off the roof, tempting as that is.

(it'd be so easy, actually, to kill nate here if he wanted to. he doesn't -- much as the line of conversation tests that -- but there's always a part of his brain watching, calculating. looking for potential weapons, potential threats, assessing. he wasn't the best of the best for nothing.

for better or for worse, this is who he is now, and it can't be turned off. he can jump into the past, but he can't turn back the clock, not ever. every time he looks in a mirror, he remembers that he wears the face of a boy who doesn't exist anymore.)

he doesn't, also, answer the remark about the royal marines. there were, but it doesn't matter. isn't the question. ]

No, [ he says, slow. then: ] I guess you'd call this payback for the last time we spoke.

[ It occurs to Nate - albeit belatedly - that the last thing he probably should have done in front of a professional killer is suggest that he is aware of the killer's profession. Five could easily kick him over the side of building, slit his throat, any number of things with that spatial jumping he can do, and Nate would be bleeding out on the cobblestones below. Distantly he does understand he would have earned it, being as presumptuous as this with a man two decades his senior, but Five just looks at him.

Assesses him, with a scrutiny far older than he appears. Nate tenses himself for a hit, anticipating rebuke and getting nothing when Five finally breaks the silence. ]

Payback's kind of a dirty word.

[ Nate lifts one shoulder in half a shrug, more confident now that he hasn't been immediately gutted. ]

I just figured we ran in similar circles.

[ five tips his head back, makes a sound that's sort of a wry laugh, self-deprecating. he'd had a similar feeling himself, but, ]

You figured wrong, Nate.

[ nate might be surprisingly canny, involved with something of a criminal element himself with all that so-called treasure hunting. but he doesn't have that bone-deep cruelty it takes to survive at the commission. the handler's casual dismissal of human life, hazel's and cha-cha's famed bloodthirst, five's legendary brutality -- no. ]

You don't have any idea what kind of circles I've been involved with. So don't fool yourself into thinking you understand anything.

Edited 2019-07-11 13:33 (UTC)

So, you're not a hitman hired by someone to knock people off in different time periods?

[ Sira Fort, Yemen, early 1800s.

"Business" in Colombia.

General world travel, with an intimate knowledge of particulars, of specifics, of details.

He recognized a specific type of alcohol by its region, for Chrissakes. That level of familiarity comes from research and quick thinking, adaptability, and extensive experience. Five might remind Nate of Sully, if he was fractionally more charming. ]

The underworld's kind of small. Everything illegal just sort of runs together, after a while. [ His mouth thins a little and his tips his head to one said, as if ceding a point. ] And you're not exactly the only person up here with a body count.

[ nate laying it all out in the open makes it easier, somehow. this isn't personal; they're talking business. ]

No, you were right about that. [ he'd said nate didn't understand, not that he was wrong. of course nate wouldn't be unfamiliar with five's type, has mentioned mercenaries before. this isn't trying to (not) tell his sheltered siblings, raised to be public heroes. ] I was the best there was. The perfect weapon.

[ he can't help dismissing nate's claim; oh, he'd fully believe nate's been in firefights in his time. but that's far from level ground to five's record. ]

You're good, I'll give you that. Not everyone could've guessed, even knowing what you know.

[ It's refreshing to get one thing right in all this mess. Refreshing to know that he's still capable of coming to conclusions about something, instead of ceaselessly wondering and never getting a solid answer. That it sacrifices Five's comfort - and perhaps good will - is the price he pays for the knowledge, but Nate is oddly relieved by the revelation that their career paths are at least tangential to one another.

He doesn't know why, and it's best not to examine it too much.

The best there was. The perfect weapon. ]

I believe it.

[ He does, without a shadow of a doubt. Nate lifts his shoulders again, dropping them. ]

...I've killed a lot of people, there's- sometimes you can see it.

Takes one to know one. Huh.

[ he doesn't question that someone can look at him and see the real shape of him. understand that he is a weapon, that he has killed countless times before, and would again. you don't become a goddamn legend at the commission without tearing out every soft part of yourself, whatever scraps the apocalypse didn't burn first. ]

But make no mistake. Whatever you think you've done, I've done worse.

"Honor among thieves." Or killers.

[ Codes are deeply personal things, and sometimes you compromise. Sometimes you don't and you pay for it, with interest, and you decide whether that kind of thing is worth the risk to you.

Both hands lift in a placating gesture, understanding the tone and what it means. He doesn't intend to share this information with anyone, and he's under the impression that Five will extend the same courtesy in his direction. ]

Believe me, I'm not challenging that.

[ five ducks his head, says, ]

Good. Sounds like we have that settled, then.

[ seems like they have an understanding: what each one of them is, and what they'll be (or won't be) doing with that information. and that's enough that, without further preamble, he teleports away. ]

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INTRO LOG: JULY

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