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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"Neither would tell. I did not ask the..." A pause. Bird-esque creature seems a risky thing to call him, and so she refrains. "Rastus. Perhaps he knows more on the matter."

At any rate, she leaves her 'tea' behind and has a look of her own again, though she steers clear, in her own way. She doesn't want to upset whatever lurks down there, in all honesty. "The question is, do we leave this place if we die."

"Maybe. Either back to nothingness, or to some other place. There's at least two people I've spoken to here who have been to worlds other than this one and other than their homes. Maybe it keeps going."

Sounds exhausting, though. He steps back over to reclaim his cup, and sips from it while eyeing the stained glass windows, and the little array of candles. It strikes him as sort of a funny conversation to have in a church - the very sort of place that usually speaks of an afterlife.

"What did your people think happened when you die?"

His exhaustion carries over to her. How many more years can she be expected to fight? Her thirst has left her, not that she ever really feels it anymore, but her voice carries just as well over from where she stands.

And truth be told, it balances out the height difference just a little.

"The world we live in is hell. Its nights are dark, and full of terrors, it's days are filled with pain and strife. There is a reason the Temple finds its acolytes in slaves – who would understand this better than children who have known nothing else?" She walks back over, eyes on the painted windows the lightless night won't allow her to fully appreciate. "When we die, we are to ascend to the Hall of Light, where R'hllor reigns, in fire and joy." Her smile is crooked. "Sounds lovely, no?"

Slaves.

"I'm... so sorry," he says, voice low. For slavery is surely alive and well in his world, and it makes him deeply uncomfortable. The Marines, their justice, all of which he considers himself a part of and a defender of, for justice should protect the common people, are also ultimately defenders of the status quo. The peace and stability brought by the government military ensures that its member islands are safe places to raise families and maintain livelihoods. But the ones who form the top tier of society, who they ultimately answer to, are the slavers. To defend the common folk was to support their cruelty, in an indirect way that never sat quite right with him, much as he attempted to rationalize it.

"I can see why you would follow such a cause. Bringing hope to those most in need of it is a true kindness."

"It was many years ago."

There is no way of knowing, for her, that their thoughts are circling along similar paths in this moment, though she does wonder about her own kindness. Oh, she has no doubt that she is good, that are actions are just and her choices are rooted in pure intentions. But kindness? How long can one fight a war, and still be kind?

"I believe God blesses us, but I am not sure if every soul within the Temple is necessarily using the blessing wisely. Isn't this the nature of institutions?"

Edited 2019-07-06 11:07 (UTC)

"Any group of people, really," he agrees with a shrug. "But you're right, when it's a group with a goal, it's disappointing when not everyone truly agrees to follow it. I guess all anyone can do is to lead by example."

If he sounds passive, it's by intent. The ethics and politics of his world quickly become too personal a topic for him to wish to broach with someone he barely knows. But she has plenty to say about her own world, thankfully, and he's interested in hearing it. There's so much to learn from these people, in all their variety - and so much of it shows that people are largely the same wherever you go, for better or for worse. But that, too, is possibly too early a thing to judge so quickly.

"Have you been an example?"

It is a loaded question, and she genuinely considers it more loaded than even all the times she has asked people how they die. Death is an inevitability each and every single person faces, there is no use in dancing around it – but what one does with life, what chances one is given, and which ones could be taken, those are different.

"I thought I could be one, when I was young. Now... My task was of a different nature."

She avoids asking questions she wouldn't answer herself.

That is indeed a big question from someone he barely knows. He does have an answer for it, but one that won't receive much elaboration.

"I've tried," he says. "In that I do what I think is right. That's all I would ask of anyone else."

Which is not strictly true. As commander, he would ask that those under him follow his orders, and he recognizes the potential for hypocrisy. But to his best ability, he would never ask someone else to do something he didn't think was the right thing to do. To end a conflict, to save a life, whatever the situation might be. He knows not all orders can be followed to the letter; that not all missions need to be seen out to completion. Justice should take priority over blind obedience, and it's that pattern of thinking that landed him here, dead. But Law is alive and well, and had he done what he'd been ordered to do, he's doubtful the boy would have lased more than another few weeks. He couldn't have lived with himself. Perhaps his example will guide Law, now.

"What was your task, then?" She's hinted at it, but he's having trouble grasping it fully. Religion in general is a difficult subject for him at home but hers is so utterly foreign. What was she doing, aside from spreading the word of her god and following some savior over the sea?

"The land I died in," she begins, as she returns to where he sits and kneels down into what she seems to consider the most comfortable position for a story that is clearly going to take a moment longer than such a quick question warrants, "is divided in many ways. The world itself is, too, of course, but Westeros has been at the brink of war since I arrived, and its people have been eating one another alive for the past two years. At its northernmost border stands a Wall of Ice, a hundred feet high, guarded by the Night's Watch, so called because they watch out for the things that bring the Long Night."

She sips her... odd drink, tasting the lemons, thinking of Stannis. "Beyond the Wall lives the Free Folk – or wildlings, as the Westerosi are wont to call them – though the King plans to resettle them. Farther away than them reside the Others, creatures of ice and evil. Their touch turns men into one of them, they move faster than the eye can follow, and only fire and Valyrian steel –– a rare kind of steel – can stop them. They are marching on the Wall, and if it falls, they will march on all of Westeros, and after, they'll cross the sea. If they are not stopped, all of mankind will perish."

So, you know. Large scale type problem. "My task was to find Azor Ahai reborn, which I have, and guide him towards this battle, which I have. I failed to see it through to the end."

"You did what you could," he assures her. What a terrifying world she's from, though. Everything she's spoken of before sounded troubling enough but an army that seeks to destroy all people other than themselves is still well beyond anything he's seen. Wars tend to be between islands, between nations. Rarely between races. Never against a whole world.

"I know me wishing him luck now probably doesn't do anything at all. But if he's the person you say he is, then I hope he can fight them off."

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INTRO LOG: JULY

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