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vatheon2013-04-28 05:19 pm
thalassino) wrote in vatheon2013-04-28 05:19 pm
a clandestine meeting; Backdated to Friday 26th of April
[It has been a bit of a wait, the kind of wait that feels days longer than it is in reality, but Friday evening has arrived at last. It is a rather busy night, all in all.
First off, at quarter to ten while people are still gathering in the storage building, an explosion shatters the peace on the other side of the island. That scenic light house? Gone. The culprit? Unknown. Luckily, with how big the island is, the explosion is hardly noticeable in the village. There's a momentary shaking of the ground and smoke on the horizon, but beyond that little happens.
Station Master does not seem to notice or care about the short shaking of the ground, instead continuing to welcome people inside the building, occasionally making sure that nobody brought along their SFC. Inside the building is rather plain. Most of the items inside of it have been moved and put in other storage buildings. Some crates remain, mostly stacked along the walls, giving a seat to those that want or need it.
There are a couple things that stand out. The first are four tall devices in each corner of the room, glowing faintly. If anyone tries to come close to them and touch them, they are shied away by Station Master along with a promise that he will explain the devices once everybody is present. The other is a woman sitting on one of the crates. Some might recognize her as the one who had been cast in the role of the Cleric during one of the previous curses. For now, she does not engage anyone, simply sitting there silently, her fingers tracing over the mark on her wrist.
Once 10 pm rolls around (with a few extra minutes bumper time in case of stragglers), Station Master makes his way to the center of the room where he can easily be viewed and heard by all of those present.]
Good evening. I'm very pleased to see so many of you here. As you all know I've been contacting you recently over a possible way to fix the barrier below. Tonight I'll be giving you all the relevant information I know, and I'll try and answer as many of your questions as possible, so please do not hesitate to ask them. However, I want to underline that nobody will be forced to help. In fact, if my explanation does not convince you on why it is so important to act, you may all walk away from here tonight and continue on your own ways.
First, I want to explain the devices in the corner as I promised. These four devices are currently creating a barrier over this building making it impossible for us to be monitored while we are in here. I'm certain that most of you have come to this conclusion already, but your captors are monitoring your every move and your every conversation over your SFCs, which is why I asked you to leave them outside today.
In essence, while we are in here, you can talk freely. Nothing you say will become known to them, unless you repeat it outside. Anything planned within these walls would come as a complete surprise to them. If you agree to help me out today, I will let you have this building and the barrier technology inside. I can even try to set up similar ones in other locations or teach you to do so, however I must caution you that at best only a few of these barriers should be made. While a single blank spot will not be detected by your captors, if too many of them are created, they will likely catch on and investigate.
Now, first I would like to introduce someone to you.
[Here he motions to the woman sitting silently.]
This is C. Up until recently she was part of the group you have come to refer to as the Natives. Though she was not brought here from another realm like yourself, she was kept captive because she was judged to be a danger to the Vatheon experiment. Her memory had been taken from her and she was kept docile as all natives are. Recently she has started to slowly come to and regain some of her memories. These last few days she has been helping me put together a possible way for restoring the barrier below. It seems that the reason the barrier was failing to begin with and the reason why her memory has been starting to return to her have the same cause. Namely the fact that the coral has been starting to become desynchronized.
As you all know, you have been marked. These marks were supposed to act as a connection to the coral allowing it to cast these so called curses on you, but also to draw your energy in return. And this energy was instrumental in keeping the barrier strong. However the problem is that the coral is not a static entity. While it is not alive per se, it is also not unchanging. Over the last few years it has slowly been changing, whereas your marks have remained the same. This was a variable overlooked by the scientists. By now it appears that the marks you carry and the coral are so out of sync that it can no longer drain enough power from you to properly project the barrier that has been keeping the underwater city safe and protected. The connection has been muddled with too much white noise, so to speak.
Yet this is also the reason why C has been regaining her consciousness. Similar to yourself, the natives also carry marks, though for a different purpose than yourselves. Rather than being used to drain energy, they are being used to suppress them. With the link between the marks and the coral becoming this desynchronized, it seems C's connection no longer fully functions, giving her back part of her memories. There is a chance that in time more natives will become disconnected from the coral and will return to their true selves.
Together C and I have been creating a technique to change the marks which will hopefully bring them back in alignment again with the coral and restore the bubble. It is not all that needs to happen, but by doing this, we can solve 80% of the problem, we believe.
Now, I know this is a lot to take in. And I am not completely done yet. For now, I'll allow you to talk about this, and to ask both C and myself questions. We'll try to answer them as best as we can.
[ooc: Okay, you guys. Here it is. This is the post. We apologize again for getting this up so late. what we'll do is this. This post is pretty much a big free for all discussion post. Don't hesitate to jump in anywhere or at any time. This is happening in one room so it is easy to overhear other people talking and such.
There will be one separate thread for C answering questions and two for Station Master. With Station Master one will be for asking him questions directly and one will be summarizing the questions that have already been asked of him and answered. This is mostly to keep everybody from having to crawl through all the discussions. Please read up on what has already been asked via these bigger subthreads as much as possible so we can avoid having to answer the same question over and over. You are free to ask him any question you want, even if it's unrelated to this current plot. He will answer at his discretion. I know this might end up being a bit of a messy post, so once most of it has been threaded out, we'll put up an ooc post summarizing the proceedings.
Of course, characters are allowed to make their own threads to discuss among each other! We ask just one thing of you. If you character has a direct question to either Station Master or C that you want us to answer please mark 'NPC QUESTION' in your comment title. We'll be trying to keep up as much as possible, but this way we can quickly see where we are needed and where people just wanna discuss things among themselves for a little bit.]
First off, at quarter to ten while people are still gathering in the storage building, an explosion shatters the peace on the other side of the island. That scenic light house? Gone. The culprit? Unknown. Luckily, with how big the island is, the explosion is hardly noticeable in the village. There's a momentary shaking of the ground and smoke on the horizon, but beyond that little happens.
Station Master does not seem to notice or care about the short shaking of the ground, instead continuing to welcome people inside the building, occasionally making sure that nobody brought along their SFC. Inside the building is rather plain. Most of the items inside of it have been moved and put in other storage buildings. Some crates remain, mostly stacked along the walls, giving a seat to those that want or need it.
There are a couple things that stand out. The first are four tall devices in each corner of the room, glowing faintly. If anyone tries to come close to them and touch them, they are shied away by Station Master along with a promise that he will explain the devices once everybody is present. The other is a woman sitting on one of the crates. Some might recognize her as the one who had been cast in the role of the Cleric during one of the previous curses. For now, she does not engage anyone, simply sitting there silently, her fingers tracing over the mark on her wrist.
Once 10 pm rolls around (with a few extra minutes bumper time in case of stragglers), Station Master makes his way to the center of the room where he can easily be viewed and heard by all of those present.]
Good evening. I'm very pleased to see so many of you here. As you all know I've been contacting you recently over a possible way to fix the barrier below. Tonight I'll be giving you all the relevant information I know, and I'll try and answer as many of your questions as possible, so please do not hesitate to ask them. However, I want to underline that nobody will be forced to help. In fact, if my explanation does not convince you on why it is so important to act, you may all walk away from here tonight and continue on your own ways.
First, I want to explain the devices in the corner as I promised. These four devices are currently creating a barrier over this building making it impossible for us to be monitored while we are in here. I'm certain that most of you have come to this conclusion already, but your captors are monitoring your every move and your every conversation over your SFCs, which is why I asked you to leave them outside today.
In essence, while we are in here, you can talk freely. Nothing you say will become known to them, unless you repeat it outside. Anything planned within these walls would come as a complete surprise to them. If you agree to help me out today, I will let you have this building and the barrier technology inside. I can even try to set up similar ones in other locations or teach you to do so, however I must caution you that at best only a few of these barriers should be made. While a single blank spot will not be detected by your captors, if too many of them are created, they will likely catch on and investigate.
Now, first I would like to introduce someone to you.
[Here he motions to the woman sitting silently.]
This is C. Up until recently she was part of the group you have come to refer to as the Natives. Though she was not brought here from another realm like yourself, she was kept captive because she was judged to be a danger to the Vatheon experiment. Her memory had been taken from her and she was kept docile as all natives are. Recently she has started to slowly come to and regain some of her memories. These last few days she has been helping me put together a possible way for restoring the barrier below. It seems that the reason the barrier was failing to begin with and the reason why her memory has been starting to return to her have the same cause. Namely the fact that the coral has been starting to become desynchronized.
As you all know, you have been marked. These marks were supposed to act as a connection to the coral allowing it to cast these so called curses on you, but also to draw your energy in return. And this energy was instrumental in keeping the barrier strong. However the problem is that the coral is not a static entity. While it is not alive per se, it is also not unchanging. Over the last few years it has slowly been changing, whereas your marks have remained the same. This was a variable overlooked by the scientists. By now it appears that the marks you carry and the coral are so out of sync that it can no longer drain enough power from you to properly project the barrier that has been keeping the underwater city safe and protected. The connection has been muddled with too much white noise, so to speak.
Yet this is also the reason why C has been regaining her consciousness. Similar to yourself, the natives also carry marks, though for a different purpose than yourselves. Rather than being used to drain energy, they are being used to suppress them. With the link between the marks and the coral becoming this desynchronized, it seems C's connection no longer fully functions, giving her back part of her memories. There is a chance that in time more natives will become disconnected from the coral and will return to their true selves.
Together C and I have been creating a technique to change the marks which will hopefully bring them back in alignment again with the coral and restore the bubble. It is not all that needs to happen, but by doing this, we can solve 80% of the problem, we believe.
Now, I know this is a lot to take in. And I am not completely done yet. For now, I'll allow you to talk about this, and to ask both C and myself questions. We'll try to answer them as best as we can.
[ooc: Okay, you guys. Here it is. This is the post. We apologize again for getting this up so late. what we'll do is this. This post is pretty much a big free for all discussion post. Don't hesitate to jump in anywhere or at any time. This is happening in one room so it is easy to overhear other people talking and such.
There will be one separate thread for C answering questions and two for Station Master. With Station Master one will be for asking him questions directly and one will be summarizing the questions that have already been asked of him and answered. This is mostly to keep everybody from having to crawl through all the discussions. Please read up on what has already been asked via these bigger subthreads as much as possible so we can avoid having to answer the same question over and over. You are free to ask him any question you want, even if it's unrelated to this current plot. He will answer at his discretion. I know this might end up being a bit of a messy post, so once most of it has been threaded out, we'll put up an ooc post summarizing the proceedings.
Of course, characters are allowed to make their own threads to discuss among each other! We ask just one thing of you. If you character has a direct question to either Station Master or C that you want us to answer please mark 'NPC QUESTION' in your comment title. We'll be trying to keep up as much as possible, but this way we can quickly see where we are needed and where people just wanna discuss things among themselves for a little bit.]
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[A small, sardonic twist of the mouth.]
In fact, I imagine it would amuse her greatly to see you try and repair the corals. Rats repairing their own cages, as she would say.
[No need to say who he is talking about, right?]
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[There's a moment of silence as he thinks over it. Keep the locals out... Hm.]
Do you think it would be easier if we repaired it right now while the city is still submerged? Even not counting Zelda's tunics, I still have a device which lets me go underwater. I know a few of the others could possibly be counted in this as well.
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[A slight tilt of his head as Carol is mentioned.]
So she can be trusted as well?
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[Probably more than him, wait, don't tell anyone I said that.]
She got involved in this project in a completely innocent way.
You must understand, the way the ones in charge of this experiment present themselves, this is a legitimate, scientific experiment to create a new, stable source of energy without the limitations of the ones we currently have available. There are many people working on this who have no idea what goes on this deep into the experiment. Carol was one of those. She got involved with a honest drive to change the world for the better. When she realized certain things were not adding up as they should, she chose to investigate and got in too deep.
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[Oh dear, here he is thinking about releasing all those nasty details to the major populace if he can just get a little opening! Whoops.]
What about you, then?
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[Yeah, he noticed that pause, don't think he didn't. Pushing probably won't do any good, so. Sigh. Stupid enigmatic natives.]
There's been something I've wondered for a long while now. Are the scientists and the rest of your populace located on a different planet, or are Vatheon and its island simply in a remote place?
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[At least they know what direction to go in if they ever manage to break through the upper barrier.]
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The Head Nurse has always made it rather clear what she thinks of us. Now, the priestess on the other hand... Much like yourself, she seemed to have our best interests at heart. That obviously isn't the case.
Where does she fall into all of this, and will she involve herself with us again?
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How to best describe this... In our world, in addition to the normal elements you may know, we also have an element called Sors. At best it can be described as a very raw form of energy. The coral, in fact, is connected to a rather dense deposit of this element. Sors can be manipulated to various purposes, either through ritual and force of will, which is what we term Magic, or through machinery and technology which is what we term Science.
Now, manipulating this Sors through magic is an old disciple, nearly as old as our society itself. It has always played a very prominent role in our world, and as a result, even today, much wealth and natural assets are controlled by the old mage clans. And they have already guarded this wealth and ability rather zealously.
Now science is rather a younger disciple. Rather than manipulate the Sors through ritual and natural aptitude, machinery is used. This makes if far more accessible and has made it a rather popular undertaking, with many of the younger generation turning to it rather than the old schools of magic. Which in itself is not a bad thing. Our science is still rather young, all things considered, and it could certainly do with some societal attention. The main problem they face however is that, with so much of our societal wealth and prowess held by the old clans, they are finding it hard to gather the funding and basic materials they need to perform the experiments they need.
That is also why this experiment is so important to them. To discover a completely new form of usable energy that is not controlled by the old clans. It would not solve all their problems, but it certainly would be a step in the right direction.
Anyway, knowing this, you can probably understand why some of the more defensive clan members consider experiments like this as some sort of personal threat to everything they have build up. Thalassino is one of those, and I believe from the start her involvement in this project was on the one hand to gather data, just in case any of the experiments here would be usable to the clans, and on the other hand make absolutely certain that project Vatheon would fail. If this project fails, our government would be hesitant to fund any new projects of this calibre in the near future. That has been her goal all along. And she is under the impression that if this bubble breaks down now, it will spell failure for the project and a personal victory for herself. Or at least, that is my impression of her actions. She believes me to be completely and truthfully involved with the project, so she has never said yes to any of my tea invites.
[So. Rude.]
Will she involve herself again? It is hard to say. She is but one individual, but if driven enough, who knows what steps she could take. It would certainly be best to keep an eye on her.
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