Chōsokabe Motochika (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
behisstrength) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
vatheon2012-01-20 11:37 pm
behisstrength) wrote in vatheon2012-01-20 11:37 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Who: Motochika [behisstrength] and Zelos [chosen_gigolo]
Where: Lower District, Akechi-Chōsokabe home.
When: 20th, in the afternoon.
Style: Prose.
Status: Closed.
It occured to Motochika that it must have been Zelda's influence that had lead to this. She had been the only one he had spoken extensively to regarding past efforts in Vatheon, prior to receiving the voicemail from Zelos asking to compare notes.
How odd to see so much passion for grasping answers again. After Akina's disappearance all driven efforts had come to and end; it was hard to sustain a movement when most who campaigned returned to their worlds in a steady stream. He had helped back then, new to Vatheon. And now he would help again as a veteran of the city.
Fitting, in its own way.
He played with Takumi -- his Oshawott -- as he waited for the knock on his door. Motochika had no real answers to give, but there was no shortage of history for him to relate. He anticipated the promise of fresh perspective.
behisstrength] and Zelos [chosen_gigolo]Where: Lower District, Akechi-Chōsokabe home.
When: 20th, in the afternoon.
Style: Prose.
Status: Closed.
It occured to Motochika that it must have been Zelda's influence that had lead to this. She had been the only one he had spoken extensively to regarding past efforts in Vatheon, prior to receiving the voicemail from Zelos asking to compare notes.
How odd to see so much passion for grasping answers again. After Akina's disappearance all driven efforts had come to and end; it was hard to sustain a movement when most who campaigned returned to their worlds in a steady stream. He had helped back then, new to Vatheon. And now he would help again as a veteran of the city.
Fitting, in its own way.
He played with Takumi -- his Oshawott -- as he waited for the knock on his door. Motochika had no real answers to give, but there was no shortage of history for him to relate. He anticipated the promise of fresh perspective.
no subject
He felt silly for having wanted to stay merely to avoid an inconvenient proposal from Tethe'alla's princess. He'd gladly take that fall if it meant he could get Colette and everyone else out of here too.
Hopefully this meeting would set him down that path. He knocked on Motochika's door with purpose.
no subject
"Come in."
no subject
"Thanks for meeting with me too. Zelda told me you might not be working on this anymore as far as she knew but I thought I'd take the chance."
no subject
"I am willing to help. Yet it remains to be seen whether I can."
He took a seat on the sofa. His demeanour was placid, though there was an underlying intensity to him; he was a warlord born and bred and his time here had dulled none of his keenness.
"So let us get straight to business."
no subject
"Basically, judging from what I could glean from Carol and the ensuing conversation a couple days ago, we're in the middle of some war, being used as batteries or whatever. I still don't know about the how or the why of it, but I want out, as do a lot of us." He paused a moment to pull up the relevant network posts on his SFC, as well as the associated documents, and showed them to Motochika.
"I dunno how much of that you've seen so I'll give you a bit to go over it, but I think if we figure out how they're pulling us here, we might be able to reverse it."
no subject
"There is no need," he said.
"The earliest documents were found in my first month here, a year and a half ago. Back then we were cursed every other week. Only after a monstrous shadow crashed through the barrier with the pirate ghosts' ship and damaged the Lamufao did curses become a rare event. It has long been clear that we are connected to the Lamufao's power through our marks."
He tilted his head, interest in his eyes.
"How do you intend to figure it out?" He challenged. "Those who understand how the Lamufao works are the same people who keep us in the dark. We cannot threaten them, nor force their hand. We cannot take them by surprise. And the locals keep their silence."
It was not an accustation or criticism, but rather Motochika's preferred method of assessing others.
"Moreover, some foreigners have returned home only to be swept under again. Reversing the journey alone may not be enough, should we remain anchored to the Lamufao."
no subject
He looks at Motochika. "You don't seem as gung-ho about this as I thought you'd be."
no subject
Regardless, it seemed his point had been miscontrued, though it was certainly revealing where Zelos himself was concerned. Rash, quick to be goaded. That passion was not a bad thing, but could have been trouble were Zelda not there to temper it with her composed consideration.
"I did not suggest that you should. But what good is a route home if you cannot sever your connection to the Lamufao once you have returned to your world? The Lamufao has the power to pull you back. Or do you not seek a permanent solution?"
He lifted his chin, pressing further.
"What is your current course of action? What information do you seek from me?"
no subject
"I am looking for a permanent solution. The problem is there isn't enough information in general available to us to conceive one. What we need is more of it. We need to know exactly how they're pulling us here and if the Lamufao has any weaknesses. I already know we can't break it or anything like that, but has anyone studied its makeup?"
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the oncoming headache. "Really what I need from you is anything you can give me that I don't already know from these documents and discussions. Even theories and opinions. You've been here longer than I have, you've got more experience here."
no subject
What Zelos wanted was not hard to provide, considering that with the exception of four others, he had been here loger than anyone else.
"Did you know that the locals pass through the barrier without trouble? We once had a large number of injured natives appear in the city overnight, likely casualties from the war on the surface. They claimed to have lived in Vatheon all along. And just over a year ago a lone messenger dived down from the surface to deliver a message to Alpha."
The contents remained a mystery, but Alpha had shortly after broken down on the network. That said, Motochika had never trusted Alpha, recalling how Alpha shot Ragna and killed those local men on video.
"There was also an incident in which a powerful vampire foreigner named Alucard transformed all of Vatheon, only to have his magic unwrought, all of his abilities stripped from him and himself and all those who aided him partially transformed into animals. It was Alpha who delivered the chiding, therefore it is safe to assume all of the scientists could do the same to any of us."
Alucard had been a troubling creature, dangerous and cruel -- in that case, the actions taken against the vampire had been welcome for everyone's safety given that the transformation had produced a dark invading force that broke into their homes and assaulted the innocent.
Motochika was not done yet, of course. Something very recent had not seemed to have been spoken of in much detail.
"Before the latter documents were found, a number of foreigners were kidnapped from a party upon the island without a trace, whilst the rest of us were evacuated below. For days we could not reach the island, knowing our companions were there somewhere, despite the denial of the locals. Once we were given access again our missing friends and family were dressed in the same gowns, each with a band around their wrist and a number upon it. They were in a wild, emotional state and they attempted to take us to those who had taken them, until they were freed from their strange moods."
Motochika pulled out his own SFC and brought up a network post before handing it to Zelos.
"We can assume that we all have similar numbers."
Motochika had theories about them and the Lamufao, but for now they remained unvoiced.
incoming tl;dr, sorry! Zelos has been trying to put pieces together.
"I get the feeling, from that incident and from the papers that were recovered, that we're test subjects in some kind of military experiments. The document Matthew retrieved from the church talks about arms building in what I think are adjoining countries. From what I can gather, the country Vatheon is part of is called Fasest, which could be the word that everyone who came back from this experiment was trying to remember but was recalled as Fasset, though I dunno how so many people would remember it wrong."
Zelos takes a glance at the SFC again before continuing.
"It looks to me like we were brought here preemptively. From when these were found, large scale war probably hadn't been declared yet, judging by the language, but the curses - experiments, really, - were more scheduled. Lately I've been told they've been at random, which makes me think the scientists or whoever's running these things are needed elsewhere and only bother with us when they have to test something right away, so there's probably a war going on as we speak."
He returns Motochika's communicator.
"That Carol chick who was looking for the priestess all but told me that the reason they experiment on us is because they don't want to do it on their own. We're less than people to them, subhuman outsiders, and probably not given any more thought than lab rats, but apparently not everyone up there feels that way. She said they were of divided opinion. I asked her about the coral too. She said it wasn't sentient, but definitely alive and my guess is it somehow works like a tree. We have to touch it to keep our energy up, right? Well, and I'm still just guessing, I think it takes whatever's bogging us down and uses that to maintain the bubble. The bubble probably produces some kind of by product which we filter into whatever the coral takes from us in the first place, but causes us to get tired or even fall into a coma if we don't touch the coral to get rid of it."
It felt good to get his theories out in the open and bounce off someone. Zelda had been so busy coordinating the initial discussion, recruiting for the defense force, and helping ready the clinic that Zelos hadn't gotten any chance to speculate with her. Besides, she hasn't been here quite as long as Motochika and probably can't offer the same insight. He'll definitely have to share this discussion with her later.
"What do you think?"