logsinthenight | Round 2 [open]

Entry tags:

Round 2 [open]

characters: Cao Pi and everyone who wants to show up
location: town hall
date/time: Dec. 8, starting at moonrise
content: Community meeting, take 2! After the Dreamer/Defender incident, there's a lot to talk about and Cao Pi has encouraged everyone to come and publicly share what they learned while asleep or what ideas they have to make the next massacre less massacre-y. Feel free to handwave catching his post or hearing about it from a friend.
warnings: none likely but lmk if that changes. Threadjacking likely; if you don't want to be threadjacked, make some sort of indication.

As before, Cao Pi arrives ahead of time to ensure the town hall is ready for a session, righting any chairs that might have been thrown about in recent melees and checking the logbook for recent information. When a fair amount of people have arrived and he can see the waxing moon rising through the leafless trees outside, he rises to begin with a short intro.

"By now we know that those who succumbed to the food at the feast had a strange experience - they shared dreams with each other, in which they found themselves seeing Beacon as it was in the past. I encourage all those who dreamed, and remember it well, please tell us all what you saw. There may be considerable clues to our purpose and progress in even the smallest detail.

"The rest of us, well. We managed to make it through and I believe those who were killed are whole again, but for our part we can go over what worked and what didn't. Defending ourselves isn't merely a matter of being trained to use weapons. The spirits which attacked were formidable, powerful. We will need more than just our strength to outlast another attack. Ideas are welcome, as is any new information we have on everything from communications to threats."

That's all he'll ramble about this time, he'll take a seat and allow others to have the floor before he makes any more grandiose speeches.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh! We heard about Solis too! Er... Dr. Solis, at the very least.

She might be the one behind these- [ gesture raises his lantern. ] -because, um, Sarissa, Kol, and I heard a recording that mentioned she found a way to, um, 'rehouse a person's life force' and stuff.

Did you and the others, um, find anything that indicated it belonged to staff members and stuff? Like a painting or photos of founders and stuff, mister?

[ rehouse a person's life force, excuse me, what. ]

Are we talking souls or are we talking—. [ a beat. honestly? he's kind of been thinking clones, because that's basically his life, alright. ] What are we talking when we say 'life force'?

[ and this is where daylight looks apologetic, tilting his helm to the side as he tried to remember what he heard exactly. ]

... Sorry. I don't know for sure what he meant by that. It was just mentioned in passing during the recording. Sheriff Hobaugh was more concerned about trying to get the news out that he and the others were still alive.

[ okay okay okay- let's back up a bit, day. ]

If you want, I can try to repeat it to you? The, um, recording, I mean.

Sheriff who? [ aka yes, please, let's back up for a second.

which is to say: the mention of replaying the recording earns a briefly startled expression because how did you manage to record that? it begs a couple of questions regarding the nature of the dreams (quote-unquote), but those can absolutely be circled round to later. ] You managed to get a copy? [ "yes, please." ]

[ again, daylight shakes his helm and continues to look apologetic. ]

No. I just... I just remember the dream super well after I woke up. Enough to sketch some stuff down. Which is weird, I guess, because I shouldn't be able to dream like how I can't cry and-

[ but. hm. a talk about his weird biology another time. (or never, if he can help it.)

day takes a deep vent and begins reciting the recording from memory: ]

Comm check. This is Sheriff Owen Hobaugh. We've got 34 survivors here, along with medical supplies and fresh water and food. We're located at 45.717643, -86.667802.

Dr. Solis is here, and she can keep us alive. She's found a way to... temporarily rehouse a person's life force. If anyone's still alive out there, send us a signal. We might just be able to save this world yet.

[ sarissa and kol might realise that daylight's version of the recording, while accurate enough, is missing a few key details in it. but, at the very least, it carries the spirit of the broadcasted message.

daylight falls quiet after that, as if pondering to add something to it. in the end, he gives this: ] I was communicating with the radio tower. It was, um, basically broadcasting this message in hopes of getting back a reply from anyone.

It never got a reply.

[ a breath of a pause and before day continues, peter interjects with a: ] I don't think they were dreams in the truest sense of the word. [ visions, perhaps. he thinks doc strange would call it something else entirely, would probably have a slightly more accurate term for it — kind of like the quote-unquote meditation he does, where peter's not really sure he's really there, or—

like, there was that time when he had to deal with the shade, and— (maybe.) he'll think about that later.

he remains quiet as day recites the recording; that he remembers the coordinates is impressive and it's reflected in peter's expression, just for a second and he looks over towards maes hughes and his maps. ] —So it was an SOS. [ beat. ] I'm kind of hung up by the use of temporarily, if I'm being honest...

[ like, yikes? ]

[ daylight suddenly looks relieved to learn that the dream might not be a dream after all. huh.

but then peter's observation makes daylight expression fall, looking down at the miner's lantern he has clipped to his messenger bag/belt. ]

No. Definitely not. The lanterns, if that's what the Sherriff meant, is definitely not meant to be a permanent thing. Judging by how he ended his transmission, the Sheriff hoped there was still a chance to fight back against the World Eaters.

[ ... ]

Ms. Robin said it’s been a hundred years since this started, right? If Sarissa, Kol, and I were there the day everything… stopped… We cant trust the calendar we found. It was 1979 so it would now be, um, the year 2079.

[ his mom would have been born by then, he realises with a painful twist in his unhappy tanks. possibly already dead, since she was in her thirties or so, and dad would have been dead long by then. ]

[ peter thinks of the cell degradation that the clones had gone through, and he wonders, briefly, if the temporary doesn't allude to something not entirely unlike that. after everything they'd been through so far, after the so-called answers they'd managed to get, he'd always kind of assumed that the lanterns were some kind of vague magic thing he'd need doc strange to understand, but now? maybe not. maybe there's more science to it than he'd started to believe.

(which would be great, actually.) ]

—Right, but it was 2019 for me. Doc Ingram's from a future relative and adjacent to mine, right? You're— [ peter gestures loosely and vaguely at daylight. ] From somewhere and somewhen else entirely, right? I don't know if we should be too hung up on the when—. [ the comment hangs a little at the end, as if there's more to the thought that peter doesn't immediately vocalise. the when could be relevant, but probably only in direction relation to beacon.

—but then there's the question of the resets themselves. he sighs sharply, eyebrows knitting together before he looks back up at day. ] The calendar might be correct, but uh. [ he gestures towards a window. ] Beacon's been reset countless times, just because whatever occurred here occurred one hundred years ago, that doesn't mean we're in 2079. We could be— like a bubble?

[ day lets out a chirp, '2241!' but the momentary cheer is quickly erased. ]

Ack. [ daylight presses a servo against his helm, feeling a dull throb come up at the raised possibility.

temporal shenanigans. for some reason, it never occurred to him that that could happen if multidimensional shenanigans could happen. ] So we're in... like... A time loop, then? Not a casual loop, since we're changing stuff and that's the whole reason we're here, but an honest to goodness Timmothy Graves' Day of Forever?

[ must be daylight's version of bill murray's groundhog day. ]

So that's why we have a specific enough time frame to solve this problem or else?

It's possible, right? I mean, the way I see it, there's got to be a reason why the town gets reset to the point that it does. [ a beat. ] Because sure, resetting the town eradicates the source of light that attracts the World Eaters, [ the comment's punctuated by a quick downwards quirk of peter's lips: the resets, as a solution, aren't something that sit well with him ], but if it was just a case of getting rid of the light and diverting the World Eater's attention away from this world, that's not the only way of doing it.

[ it's something to ask robin; peter's not sure she'll have an answer, but she might know something, enough to be able to make an estimation. she was the current keeper. ] But linearly speaking: there's no way this town has sat through a hundred years.

—Maybe it took two years for the World Eaters to reach and destroy this place originally. Maybe someone else found some other dates we can use to pull together a more cohesive timeline.

Oh!

[ the conversation bringing up the world eaters finally jogs something in daylight's processors. he begins to go through his messenger bag/belt, digging something out for himself.

it looks like a sketchbook. ]

Speaking of the World Eaters- I- Um- Sarissa and Kol and I- We saw them. The World Eaters, I mean. They... They were approaching Beacon and I think it was just before they...

[ judging by how often he stops and starts and trails off, daylight finds it difficult to talk about that bit of the dream/vision. for a variety of reasons he rather not get into here or any time in the future, honestly.

so daylight focuses on flipping through his sketchbook instead, stopping at a particular page that makes him visibly flinch. and for good reason, in his opinion, as he turns his sketchbook around to show what he had done:

a world eater. ]

What. [ he can't quite help the shocked exclamation-slash-statement, although he doesn't push day past that, given the way daylight stops and starts. instead, peter waits, although it's hard not to miss the slightly nervous energy, the slight impatience that comes with wanting to know what, exactly, they'd seen.

it's a relief, in a way, to know that the world eaters are creatures, and peter leans into the sketch. it's nothing he recognises, nothing like anything he's ever faced before, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to stop them.

the corners of his lips dip down momentarily as he straightens back up. ] Is it insensitive if I say that they look like they've got a face that only a mother could love? 'Cause yeesh.

[ would it be too much to hope they're weak against radiation? water? ]

[thanks Day that's...helpful but also horrible, yep. To Peter, though...]

It looks much like the blurry picture Dr. Ingram showed us, once. I would call this confirmation. [he tries to be flippant, but] ...and it's definitely bigger than the Hydra which killed me.

[back to Daylight, then] It wasn't a picture, you saw them in person? Was there still a sun in the sky, then?

... Yes.

[ daylight falls almost quiet now. he clearly doesn't want to talk about it with how upset he looks now, with his optics dim and his winglets hiding behind his back as if to avoid getting hit, but they're asking and it's selfish to not bring it up here, not when all their lives are on the line and they're living on borrowed time-

~~this world's death is inevitable. portal is still uncontrollable. irresponsible to cling to a stolen existence while other worlds suffer further consequencedaydayday~~

-so he tries to suck it up and explain a bit further: ]

There was still sunlight and colours and some signs of what was once life. Enough electricity to keep the radio tower running and stuff. It was, um, around autumn. At the late stages of it, I think, because of the fact that the trees had little leaves on them yet.

Then we looked towards the lake and saw the World Eater. It was... It was huge. I didn't think it could move from how big it was but it did. It did move and it was approaching Beacon. There was this... trail of shadow in its wake. I tried to sketch it but every time I tried, my helm felt like it was going to...

Sorry. It's just- [ daylight presses a servo to his helm, either to stop some processor pains or to pull himself together. ] Other things went down and it's kind of tied with what that... When I saw it. When I realised what was going to happen... It felt like everything clicked for me and... Yeah.

[while he would like nothing more than to press Daylight to come out with whatever's so uncomfortable, because it's probably important, Cao Pi decides to tackle that later. Not in public, where it could derail good discussions.]

Then, if that's true...the World Eater has already been here. If it caused the darkness, then what reason would it have to come back? What is it actually eating, what is its purpose?

[nothing they can really answer right now, but he feels like casting rhetoricals into the audience might get them all thinking the same thing, and lead to routes to uncover the answers]

[ daylight, for everyone's sake, flips his sketchbook close so the ominous image is no longer leering at them. he then purses his lips in concentration, wishing he could answer the questions but so much information is still either up in the air or needs to be put together.

but... it does make him think of something he wants to address: ] -Dr. Solis and the other survivors. If they're still out there... They probably have the answers. At least to stuff pretraining to events leading up to...

[ daylight makes a vague gesture, hoping it'll say 'everything about beacon and the freakiness we're all in because it's kinda messed up when you think about it, yeah?' to the others without him needing to say it. ]

... Do you think we can go to the coordinates any time soon? Or find it where it leads, at the very least? [ he looks at the others with big earnest optics, his winglets hitched up hopefully. ] Maybe they're still alive. They could use our help.

It's something that we certainly should look into. [with a general nod around the room] The coordinates mean nothing to me, I wouldn't know how to interpret them, but surely someone does. This is where the expertise of others is important. Anyone with a greater grasp of technology, have at it.

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sunborne - 2019-12-17 06:41 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

pure_havoc - 2019-12-18 05:43 (UTC) - Expand

[ sets this after the talk with daylight??? what's continuity.

despite the fact that transmission's content had taken him back to new orleans and way, way back to the viking age, kol shrugs rather casually. conceal, don't feel. ]

Souls being rehomed into another host was almost a commonplace for me. [ he hasn't been too quiet about his second resurrection in the body of kaleb westphall—although, that had always been in talk with witches. post-dream, kol hadn't realised how traumatising that had been for him.

again, conceal, don't feel. perhaps he can somehow help with this... ]

I doubt anyone from this world was a practicing witch to achieve that. But the actual act itself is not an impossibility.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's an impossibility, it's just the temporary part I don't like. [ beat. ] It might not be magic, but at this point, I'm not going to rule anything out. [ god, but he hates magic though. (if only he got to choose.) ]

But given that a doctor's involved—. [ he lifts a shoulder in a loose shrug. ] I knew of a guy back home that swapped his consciousness into a new body before his old one [ a beat and peter's expression flickers momentarily in discomfort ], died. The same guy also transferred a copy of his consciousness into an entirely different, clone body via means that were definitely not magical because he's staunchly dedicated to the scientific method and ensuring everyone knows it. [ another pause because honestly, what is his life? he's still slightly sore about the fact that it took so long for anyone to notice that overnight, he managed to sound like he'd swallowed a dictionary.

anyway, details. ] Neither body was meant as a temporary home, unless we're talking in the sense that all bodies are technically only temporary... And I mean, soul versus consciousness is probably just a matter of semantics, but that's not really my wheelhouse.

[ Riku conspicuously puts down his lantern on a chair nearby with a loud clunk. ]

I don't think it means a body.

[ Some time spent listening has seen his voice recover a little. He points to his own lantern. ]

These lanterns are our lives. They can be broken. Sounds pretty temporary to me.

So can a body. [ LISTEN. he managed to get! that! it's probably the lanterns. ] It's less the what and more the timeframe I'm taking issue with here.

—I mean, I always knew I wasn't going to live forever, but reminders of my own mortality aren't really my favourite thing.

[Ignis shakes his head-]

Unfortunately, I didn't see anything of such thing as my dream was rather short. That single room was filled in with scientific equipment. The printer did start printing out something and there was one more room in the corner, but I personally didn't get to see it.

[Because he fucking activated sun.exe and got burned to death. Nice going, Ignis, now you're embodiment of your name.]

I suggest asking Castiel and Miss Scarlett about it. Hopefully, the blast from the device didn't reach them as well.

[ rip ignis. he had to die for the sweet morbid beacon aesthetics. ]

Oh. Sure. [ he nods his helm, committing the names to memory. ] I definitely will, Mr. Ignis.

[ ... a new question occurs to daylight now, in the wake of getting that answer. ] Um... Are they here in the townhall meeting? Or would they be cool with me hitting them up in their inboxes if they're busy at the moment?

[ if that's a safe option, of course. (he thinks) the reason they're here in the townhall meeting is because of the risk of this information and their discussion being heard by less than charitable spirits. ]

[Beacon at its best.

Ignis looks around the place,] I haven't seen them yet around. But if they don't come up, do message them about it.

[He ought to do the same. He wonders if there's anything else of importance that he missed in that other room.

And if spirits have anything against this, they are free to attack. Ignis was asleep at that time, but he's a menace when he fights.]

Sure! And you can do the same with Sarissa and Kol if you want their perspectives when we were on the Radio Tower. At the end- [ daylight stops here, looking a bit troubled, but he shakes his helm and continues, ] At the end, we all had very different experiences so, um, yeah. You should totally seek them out.

[ he pauses. ] I think Kol is here, actually. I remember talking to him for a bit at the start of the townhall meeting.

Just- Just ignore Kol if he makes a mention about the dead birds. [ here, daylight puffs out his cheek and looks like he's pouting? no, that isn't right. he's actually pouting. ] It was an incident that happened to us when we were in the dream and a super gross one at that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Round 2 [open]

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/casually jumps in

gosh how very dare

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