hexarchate_rpg | Move 9 (Ch. 1.9)

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moves: chapter 1

Move 9 (Ch. 1.9)

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening / day Seventeen (Monday), morning

On the station's carapace
The ammunition drone reports to whoever is listening that it has not exactly caught a spacegoing slime mold; rather, the slime mold has clogged up its legs and it's clinging rather precariously to the station's carapace. It is requesting, as forlornly as a nonsentient drone can, that somebody repair it. Until someone does something, it's...stuck.

On the station, during Mikodez and Iawa's science tour
Pavn, having noted Iawa's interest in the question of sonciousness, adds, "If you like, the researcher is probably busy at this hour, and he's in one of the classified labs, but I think that research assistant is currently off-shift. I could introduce you to her, if you like. She's always happy to talk about philosophical questions."

On the station, during Sasha, Yehan, and Alaric's science tour
Pavn looks quizzically at Yehan during the tour. "You remind me of some of the other visitors we've had recently," he says, in a friendly enough fashion. "You may have caught sight of their ship on the way in. Granted, phenotypes can be so misleading. Where did you say you were from?"

On the station, visitor's lounge, later
Sasha and Alaric are debating over carbon-fiber sculpture aesthetics when a ping comes in from the lokwor to indicate that Sasha's program has picked up more information on Remi. [Edit: sorry, hit post too soon.] He's not in his lab, but has signed out a spacesuit and has apparently gone for a walk outside the station. The lokwor has no idea why--it wasn't able to ferret out that information without Sasha's hacking guidance.

On the station, Rahal Gerae's office
Armed with an extra slate containing information about Rahal Gerae's known black market dealings, Sulen and Virmad head to Rahal Gerae's office. [Feel free to insert any preparations you may have wanted to make beforehand in a thread of its own.] The door is neatly labeled in a peculiarly Rahal style of calligraphy, recognizable despite the drift of time. There is a potted plant outside the door, its elongated flowers wilting.

More problematically, the door isn't locked. It appears to be stuck halfway open.

On the station, Nirai Alissa's dance studio
Before Ashari can say anything one way or the other to Alissa, a short man, dark-skinned, their shaven head covered with gold mesh-tattoos, stomps out of the office. He glares at Ashari. "I always knew you would be sucking up to any 'artists' who showed up on the station," he says. "Excuse me. I'm artist-designate Kwor, and I simply must demand that you authenticate yourself."

Alissa closes her eyes and looks pained. "Ah, yes," she says, "our resident artist-designate..." She leaves it at that.

[An artist-designate is basically the station's arts & entertainment coordinator, and in particular it means that Kwor is not an Andan but sort of secondary artist hired through the Andan, because a real Andan couldn't be arsed to come out to this posting.]

[Also note that Istradez is lurking in the background in this scene, if you need to borrow him.]

On the station, bubble tea stand 4:30 Monday morning
The bubble tea cafe is already open, or maybe always open, based on its sign. Mikodez and anyone else who decides to come here will notice several people sipping their bubble tea or coffee in a small area with seats and tables and decorative floating lanterns. There are many flavor shots offered, from mango to orange creme to root beer.

The barista frowns when she sees Mikodez. "Excuse me," she says. "Where are your parents?"

Character status
- Active characters as of last post: Sasha, Alaric, Yehan, Sulen, Virmad, Ashari, Mikodez, Iawa

- Currently inactive: Ankat, Kaliyan
Inactive players should feel free either to jump in wherever it feels logical, or to message me asking for an updated storyline so they can rejoin in a graceful fashion.

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The man's signifier is Wolf Wandering, indicating an independent temperament--not really favored in Rahal, and probably why he's at a not-exactly-desirable posting in the first place. "I'm Magistrate Rahal Gerae," he says, shoulders drooping. "I didn't mean any harm by breaking house arrest. Just--Fluffy has a nervous temperament." The winged lizard chirrups at the sound of her name. "Given that I'm not exactly in...good graces at the moment, I didn't want to risk anything happening to her. She hasn't done anything wrong."

There is indeed poetry on the bookshelf, mostly of an orthodox bent, peppered with the occasional volume of lyrical poetry by well-known non-faction poets. The bookshelf is not too tall and Virmad could reach Fluffy if he stretched. Fluffy herself doesn't look particularly dangerous--the size of a small cat, maybe eight pounds, and her small talons look to have been tipped so they won't be sharp.

Let's say Fluffy is an iridescent peacock green, with violet highlights on her wings.

Virmad looks at Fluffy, blinking slowly, since he knows for some animals that helps establish trust — it worked with Ejad’s cat, at least. “Hello, Fluffy. I am Rahal Virmad.” It’s rude to introduce himself to an animal before introducing himself to the magistrate, but if it helps throw the magistrate off-guard, so much the better. “You are a majestic creature, aren’t you.”

He extends his arm slowly towards Fluffy, pausing when his hand is within reach of her face so that she can investigate it if she’s so inclined.

He turns briefly to look at Gerae. “The Administrator put you under house arrest and didn’t leave you under guard? I suppose one can’t expect Nirai to understand this sort of thing. Law enforcement isn’t their” — he emphasizes the word slightly, hopefully making it clear to Gerae that they know the details of his situation — “job.”

[if Fluffy seems unperturbed, Virmad will try to grab her, but I’ll wait and see what her reaction is.]

Fluffy blinks slowly back, then calmly and regally sniffs Virmad's arm, her little pink tongue flickering in and out. She submits to being grabbed, blunt talons digging into his arms.

Gerae's expression is a curious mixture of delight and resignation. "The Administrator instructed there to be guards," he says, hands flapping as he tries to explain the situation, "but the guards were conscripted by one of the researchers because they had a minor emergency and needed more hands--something to do with a recalcitrant centrifuge. I am afraid that Nirai are fairly terrible at being guards. But in the commotion when I went out to look, Fluffy escaped, and she's so used to my office, and I couldn't leave her wandering about. I heard about what happened the last time someone's pet got attacked with a splutter."

Gerae straightens his shoulders, although he can't quite look either of you in the eye. "But you're not here for any of that. I'm ready."

[not to be a shameless flirt but the thought occurred to me and now I have a burning need to know: what does Gerae look like, about how old is he, and is he attractive?

I'm going to poke venndaai about responding before Virmad says more, probably.]

Gerae is probably in his late thirties, and is mildly attractive in a bookwormish way, if one swings that way. :) Slim physique, a bit pallid from a life spent on space stations, and just slightly hunched shoulders, but a surprisingly friendly face with large gray eyes. Well, friendly modulo the fact that he startles guiltily whenever you look at him.

[OH NO, HE'S CUTE.]

[But if you kill him, we can keep Fluffy!

... This set of priorities may explain Sasha's signal lack of romantic success.]

[Well, we could always kidnap them both. We're already wildly exceeding our mission parameters as it is!]

[At this rate we're gonna end up with more regular NPCs than PCs unless our host institutes a rule that any NPCs you ~~adopt~~ kidnap, you have to ~~feed them and clean their cage~~ play too.]

[If anyone wants to adopt a kidnapped pet NPC, I think this would be perfectly fine. But only if you wanted to!]

[Also, I originally read the last part of your sentence as

you have to ~~feed them and clean their cage~~ play with too

which made it read...differently...

[I know, I know, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's miniature dragons.

I'd think he might come willingly. Staying on the station can't be a good alternative for him.]

[I was thinking the same thing — I absolutely think we should try to recruit Gerae.]

[Well, Bumblebee arrest has to be more secure than house arrest!]

[Those wacky Nirai...]

[Sorry for the disappearance!]

Sulen watches Virmad approach Fluffy with horror that transmutes to stiff disapproval when he doesn't get his face clawed off. Then they turn to Gerae. "What do you think we're here for, then?"

"The matter of my corruption, of course," Gerae says, eyes downcast. "I'm corrupt, not stupid." There's a tremor in his voice. "You may as well get on with it. And"--this to Virmad--"thank you for being patient with Fluffy. She's harmless, I promise, as long as you feed her in the mornings first thing."

[to clarify: what would he be expecting us to do? a team effort scrying, rendering summary judgment, or...?

in any case (@venndaai), I assume we're going to say something like "actually we just came to look around your files; we're not from this time and so have no official mandate but we offered to help the Administrator navigate the situation you've created"? i.e., stalling until we've had time to "investigate" the situation.]

[Your best guess is that panic means he's not thinking very clearly. If he were, he'd realize that a real official Rahal team would have announced themselves and followed a bunch of procedures to put him back under house arrest until an investigation of the circumstances could be completed. Depending on how bad he's been, he might well expect summary judgment, or if things aren't so bad, he could simply be arrested and escorted back to the local Rahal HQ to, e.g., be stripped of his post and faction standing. That being said, he absolutely would expect a team scrying and is unlikely to resist even a deep scrying.]

[Sulen's going to try and imply that we have more official power than we do for as long as possible, and is going to go for the intimidation route with Gerae, but would appreciate a good cop to their bad cop, and probably could be convinced it's a good idea to recruit him (I love the idea!)]

"We have more important priorities than dealing with you," Sulen says brusquely, and adds, "At the moment," to indicate that this could change, and Gerae had better hope it didn't. "We're here to access your files. Since you're here, you might as well stay while we take a look, in case we have any questions to ask you. I do hope you didn't use poor, hapless Fluffy as an excuse to creep in here and cover your tracks."

Gerae closes his eyes for a moment, looking pained. "I would expect no less," he says with surprising dignity. "I will be happy to cooperate. In a way--I suppose it's a relief having nothing left to hide." His voice trembles.

[OH NO, HE'S ADORABLE AND I WANT TO PROTECT HIM.]

Sulen starts looking through the files. They pull up the official station public calendar, then start looking through the Rahal files on each Remembrance and holiday. Fortunately, the Space Excel of the past is easier for their brain to parse than the station welcome page.

How to cause chaos? They could send out an emergency bulletin with fake adjustments to the Remembrances. They could just delete all these files, and hope this office doesn't have great backup practices. The candles are an idea, if Gerae's indiscretions have lowered the stocks. Maybe they could send out instructions to dump the remaining ones in the station recycling system.

Thinking about Gerae puts an idea in Sulen's head. If they could put out a propaganda message painting Gerae as unjustly accused and the station authorities as heretical...

"Why did you do it?" Sulen asks Gerae.

Gerae draws a shuddering breath. "I suppose at this point it doesn't matter." There's just the faintest spark of defiance in his voice. "I have a niece who got herself involved with some obscure heresy. Stupid of her, I even told her so, but...she's family. What could I do? I needed to raise money to help smuggle her out of the heptarchate, to somewhere safe. Safer, anyway. You'll never find her now."

Virmad’s interest is decidedly piqued — if before he vaguely thought it would be worth trying to recruit Gerae, now he’s absolutely convinced. This is a man with nothing to lose, .

“In other circumstances your commitment to family would be admirable; with heresy involved, however...” Virmad does his best to feign cool disapproval. They have to keep up this charade at least until he and Sulen have a chance to talk things over. (And realistically they should probably run it by Ashari first...)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Move 9 (Ch. 1.9)

Re: paging virmad

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a description of Rahal Gerae

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[adoptable NPCs]

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Re: paging virmad

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talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen

Re: talking to Gerae: paging GM, Sulen