(no subject)

[dramatispersonae]

You lurch sideways with the abrupt sensation of being punched in the heart.

For a few moments, darkness clouds your vision. You can't breathe, your chest is clenching, you gasp and no air comes. Your skin crawls with frantic fear. Your body feels heavy, your limbs awkward, your belly distended. Needle-shocks of pain shoot through your legs, and you want to throw up, but can't. You're hiccuping; you hear someone screaming and you can't tell whether it's you. Your mind feels fragmented, and for a moment, you cannot even remember your name--

Everything goes black.

And then you are, almost gently, set on your feet in a new place...

(Join #engineroom)

Comments

The Birdcage

[dramatispersonae]

You're standing in a giant birdcage, wrought of black steel, perhaps thirty feet across and fifty feet high. It seems suspended in midair; you can't quite glimpse what it's hanging from, but below and around there seems to be only empty sky, with little white clouds scutting by and a blue-green dragon soaring in the distance. The bars of the cage are strung with heavy iron chains, looping and dangling all around, and hanging from them on thick meat hooks are various pages from a journal with photos of familiar faces pasted upon them. Some of the pages are locked within small rectangular cages of their own. A small fiery songbird perches upon one of the chains. There are a few heavy trapdoors in the cage's solid floor. The whole cage sways gently in the breeze, chains clattering.

In the center of the cage stands a mannequin in an Amethyst uniform, the old Beauty's realm style, with a black notebook open in one hand and a pen in the other. Or at least you think it's a mannequin at first glance: parts of it appear to be made of living flesh, and it clearly has Paleon's rather distinctive body, but the hands are jointed steel and the face is blank.

You're all dressed in simple but well-tailored black business suits, with black dress shirts and ties in your team color. Each of you has a small metal device hooked over your right ear, with a small blue light blinking on one corner, and from within it, you can hear the faint noise of static. Each of you is also carrying a pad of sticky notes and a pen. Any other items you had on your person have disappeared, up to and including your keys. All magical or supernatural abilities you may possess are inaccessible, unless they are integral to your survival.

"Oh," comes a woman's voice through your earbud. An older woman, perhaps, warm and comfortable and pleasantly surprised, though there's a hint of stress underlying. "This is new."

Re: The Birdcage

[yourpeacock]

[pokes at the ear piece]

Who are you?

Re: The Birdcage

[featherfetch]

. . .

[pulling off the earbud and holding it at arm's length]

Re: The Birdcage

[odetojoy]

[doesn't seem bothered at all, speaking to the voice]

New, huh. Who are you?

Re: The Birdcage

[experimental]

. . .

[tense, fingers curling into fists as he looks around]

Is it . . .

Re: The Birdcage

[stigmateyes]

[Whoa! Strange new technology! Yanking device off immediately to check it out!]

Re: The Birdcage

[repeatrequiem]

[ I HATE CAGES AND I AM VERY ANXIOUS cupping his ear nervously, eyes darting around ]

A...ah?

The Birdcage - Addendum

[dramatispersonae]

There are three, arrayed in a circle around the mannequin, locked with heavy metal bars, with words gouged roughly into them: Rage, Despair, and Anxiety.

"He'd be happy if nobody ever had to go down there, including himself," says the voice in your ear, a little dryly. "But what people want isn't necessarily what they need, and it's the only way forward."

The Birdcage - As Time Goes On

[dramatispersonae]

The clouds have grown a bit darker, and the wind is beginning to gust.

With slow heavy creaks, the three trapdoors open of their own accord, and the wind picks up, rocking the cage. You can still hold your footing, but if it gets much windier, you might be sent tumbling towards one of the doors.

The Crèche

[dramatispersonae]

You're in a large, sterile white room, sleek and high-tech, though the walls are strangely blurry, as if many areas have been combined into one. Along one wall stands a large computer console; it is currently displaying, in six-inch-high letters, "NOBODY ELSE GETS TO READ MAYBE I WON'T DIE." Along another wall stand a pile of blocks and toys and a chalkboard, along with some children in blue and pink pajamas playing; something involving stick figures seems to be diagrammed on the chalk board. The third wall is a large window, overlooking a busy gray cityscape, with bars in front of the glass, and words scrawled across it in red paint; next to the window is a heavy, locked door. The fourth wall appears to be some sort of medical bay, lined with elaborate equipment and a large surgical table with dangling straps.

Sitting on the surgical table is a young boy, maybe ten, in blue silk pajamas. Painfully thin, but with perhaps familiar piercing gray eyes. He's kicking his heels, face occasionally twisting in pain as a nurse, indistinguishable behind her surgical mask, fits a large and heavy brace to his neck and upper back. It's molded to compress his neck and bend his spine, with padded metal hooks that reach over the top of his skull, immobilizing his head. The nurse tightens straps and locks them with small magnetic locks, and then starts turning screws and adjusting the exact form of the brace, molding a normal boy into a hunch-backed short-necked dwarf. As he winces in pain, he clutches a broken piece of something to his chest, what looks like half of a blood-red sphere.

"This won't hurt a bit," she says, voice dripping honey.

Re: The Crèche

[featherfetch]

[can i get into the med bay?]

Hello?

The Barrier

[dramatispersonae]

You find yourself standing on a narrow, water-stained walkway, part of a massive and complicated concrete structure, watchtowers standing high above your head. To one side stands a dam-like wall, and to the other, the sea, roiling dark frothy green, almost level with the ledge you're standing on. The wall is covered in graffiti, black and red paint, "KILL YOUR ENEMIES" written over and over, and in the middle of it is a small maintenance hatch.

Two identical men, both looking much like a slightly younger Paleon but painfully thin, are standing on the walkway, facing each other. One is holding a weapon, looking pale and unsure; the other stands unarmed, intent desperate focus in his eyes. Between them stands a pale, middle-aged man with bright blue eyes, face distorted in an angry snarl. The whole scene seems frozen, in tableau, but fragile, as if a single step would disturb it.

The walkway runs between two large and heavy hatch-doors, one with "regression" scrawled across it in spattery Amethyst paint, and one with "progression" in the same.

Re: The Barrier

[yourpeacock]

[CAN I GO DISARM THE GUY?]

The Warehouse

[dramatispersonae]

You're in a large, echoing concrete room, clearly in the middle of a chase or battle, surrounded by people. A ragged team of commandos, some wounded, in gray-and-white high-tech armor, is trying to herd about fifty teenagers in blue and pink pajamas, clearly civilians, in varying states of terror, resistance, and acceptance, through the big double doors you just came through. Some of them have picked up weapons to help, but most are huddled in terror or sobbing. Their enemies are brown-uniformed guards, scrambling along catwalks and girders high up the walls of the warehouse. Amongst the gray-and-whites, you can spot two Paleon-height men, both thin. One is up at point in the warehouse with a woman by his side, clearly sticking to her side and unused to pitched combat, and the other is running up to join them, shouting and gesturing--

Unaware, perhaps, of the brown-uniformed snipers lining up above them. Somebody near you shouts a warning, and the little man whirls to look at them, then cranes his neck to look up--

Re: The Warehouse

[repeatrequiem]

[ I have no clue what to do here except feel dreadful helplessness, but I will shout a warning too!! ]

Duck!

The Ariel

[dramatispersonae]

You're standing in the middle of a four-way intersection of steely gray corridors. A small window to one side shows a lazily moving starfield, with a planet turning far below. You can feel engines thrumming beneath your feet, and know instinctively that you're on a spaceship. And you also know, equally instinctively, that you're an utter, miserable, desperate failure. You'd failed at everything you wanted to do in your life, and trying only got the most important person in your world killed. You destroy everything you touch, and nobody so much as cares or notices that you meant well in the start; you are utterly alone.

Each corridor leads to a door. In front of you, the door is labeled, in shaky Amethyst-purple paint, "progression," and behind you, "regression." The unmarked doors to your right and left are both guarded by women in gray-and-white uniforms. To your right, the guard is slim and athletic, with close-cropped jet-black hair and elegantly refined beauty; she stands with rigid tension, face a blank mask. To your left, the guard is...some sort of giant, beast-like anomaly, eight feet tall and built like a brick wall, with shaggy hair and wolflike fangs, but definitely female, down to the pink polish on the claw-like nails of her huge hands.

Re: The Ariel

[experimental]

[braces his arm on the wall for a long moment, sucking in deep shaking breaths]

[. . . p-pulling himself together after a few moments, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands and taking a halting step forward. talking to the prettier guard first]

Ah, excuse me—?

The Library

[dramatispersonae]

You find yourself in a large library, paneled with antique wood and lined with everything from data chips and consoles to antique hand-bound books. Large windows look out on an equally mixed cityscape, and there are a few comfortable nooks with overstuffed wing chairs and reading tables. You can hear voices coming from deeper within the library, behind a few towering bookshelves.

"Mark's actions are a language," comes a woman's voice, a rather familiar one. "A language of desperation, mostly. They're not always easy to interpret. That one is obvious, though."

"Not to me," a man's voice answers, cultured and resonant, with a guttural accent. "Analyze, please."

One of the windows has "progression" scrawled across it in Amethyst-purple paint, in a very shaky hand. The large double doors leading out of the library are the black of rotting wood, unlike the rest of the well-polished paneling, and have "regression" spattered across them in the same fashion.

Re: The Library

[odetojoy]

[checking out the books and any anything else here besides the windows and the doors]

The Ballroom

[dramatispersonae]

You've walked through a floor-to-ceiling window and found yourself in a large, wood-paneled ballroom, lined with glittering lights and bustling with people. Men in dozens of different colors of military uniforms, full dress, tall boots, sharp and spit-polished; women in colorful gowns with embroidered boleros and flowers braided into their hair, and the younger women are noticeably fewer than the men of their generation. You can spot the Countess Vorkosigan in the crowd, in a glorious beige gown, talking with a tall, lean young man with a solemn face in a particularly blinged-out red-and-blue dress uniform. A sumptuous buffet is set out; live music plays from a small orchestra in the corner. The whole scene is almost overwhelming--

And you're standing on the ceiling. The dance whirls beneath you, young men and women hand in hand, mirroring each other's movements. You spot Paleon, distinctively short and squat, in a brown and silver uniform, dancing with a laughing woman with ash-blond hair, short and curvaceous, in a raspberry-pink gauzy dress. You have an excellent view down her bountiful cleavage, and something seems to sparkle there.

The window from which you came is scrawled with Amethyst purple paint in a shaky hand, reading "regression."

Re: The Ballroom

[odetojoy]

[well then, will approachPaleon and the woman to grab whatever is sparkling without asking for permission . . . yes, that is the plan]

The Door

[dramatispersonae]

You've reached a small room, constructed of the same black metal as the previous rooms, but completely empty except for a large single door and a scattering of what look like strips of metal on the floor. The door you came from has disappeared, leaving only a blank wall. It is blessedly quiet and peaceful, and if you felt some lingering effect after leaving the cell, it is now fading. Your earbud is still dead, but you no longer feel quite so terribly alone.

The door is a heavy sliding metal door, with faint light coming from the crack in the middle. On each side are four round holes, one atop the other, and each has a slot beside it where a nameplate might fit.

(If another character has reached this room at the same time, feel free to interact with them.)

Re: The Door

[odetojoy]

[checking if the one he obtained fits?]

The Control Room - True Heart

[dramatispersonae]

You find yourself in a cozy, carpeted room, lined floor to ceiling with video displays, speakers, and consoles. There are outlines of eight doors spaced along the walls, etched in the black metal bulkheads, but only outlines, and some of them have equipment or crates piled against them. The video displays are dead black or displaying only static, and the speakers are in similar disrepair. Lights on various consoles flicker in and out of existence. Despite how broken-down the place appears, it feels absolutely safe, secure, and peaceful.

Paleon sits in a comfortable swivel chair in the center, fiddling with a half-lit console. He turns his chair to face you with faint surprise. He's wearing the same outfit as you, black suit with black shirt and Amethyst tie, but his earbud is out, lying on another console with the light dead. He's clean-shaven, hair neatly trimmed, about the same weight as he is in Aather. He looks calm and content.

"I'm surprised you found me," he greets you with a small smile. "I don't think he has yet." You're honestly not sure, when he says 'he,' whether he's saying 'he,' 'they,' or 'I.' It's all three concepts blurred together.

Re: The Control Room - True Heart

[experimental]

Ah . . .

The Cell - Ryner

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Ryner

[stigmateyes]

[fljd;;lds BALLS WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?! Jerking head around and looking for his teammates (which is probably not the best idea when dizzy and queasy) before spotting Paleon out of his somewhat watery eyes. Also, yeah yanking off that bud at that static to check it.]

The Cell - Kagari

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Kagari

[experimental]

[ugh I feel like dying. at least it's not the first time]

[sitting up slowly, gaze eventually falling on Paleon]

. . . hey.

The Cell - Kaworu

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Kaworu

[odetojoy]

[pockets it and kneels down to touch Paleon's shoulder]

The Cell - Syaoran

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Syaoran

[featherfetch]

[so in other words everything continues to suck]

[taking a moment to... try not to be sick]

The Cell - Teito

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Teito

[repeatrequiem]

[ ... oh god oh god oh god not a cell fuck fuck fuck ]

[ give me a moment to try and get over this slave flashback trauma ]

The Cell - Fon

[dramatispersonae]

You wake, dizzy and nauseous at first, in a small, chilly, concrete cell, well-lit by a cold white light set behind bars on the ceiling. The floor and walls are streaked with blood, urine, diarrhea, other bodily fluids you might not care to identify. The door is heavy black metal, and firmly locked. Against the back wall, Paleon huddles fetal on the floor, naked, streaked with the same offal as the cell. He is frozen utterly still, as if in tableau.

The faint hiss of static from your earbud goes ominously silent. If you take it off, you will notice that the light is dead. You are alone here. Help will not come.

Re: The Cell - Fon

[yourpeacock]

[not bothering, checking if he still has the spheres with him, then going to Paleon]