hexarchate_rpg | Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

Entry tags:

moves: chapter 1

Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

[GM note: This is largely a maintenance move so that folks can continue threads from Move 21 without having to dig through a lot of comments.]

For easy reference:
- Move 21 recap (thanks to

zuhrovet) [wiki]
- the escape plan [wiki]
- Station Moongray Timeline [wiki]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~07:90

Confrontation with the baby fox
From this thread:

Sulen moves towards Mikodez, eyes gleaming the brassy color of clock gears. "I think it's time for some truth, Mikodez."

On the Wasp, Ashari (NPC) welcomes the arrival of Sulen, who threatens Mikodez with scrying after Mikodez is recalcitrant about answering Sasha's questions about why he didn't call for help for Istradez (NPC). Iawa is on standby in case Mikodez needs to be sedated again.

The disposition of a magistrate-thief
From this thread:

“‘Belong’ would be an overstatement,” Virmad says, concealing his amusement. “But yes, we did — I was just about to check on him [Gerae].”

He inclines his head to Sulen. “I’ll see you later; good luck with the foxling.”

Then, to Alaric: “Has Gerae had any food? I did tell him before I left that I’d make sure he got something to eat.”

"It looked like someone fed him, yes," Alaric replies, "although I don't know about Fluffy. Dragon snacks might make the conversation go smoother."

Alaric has just informed Virmad as to Gerae's status, and is about to hand Gerae over to Virmad's care. Meanwhile, Yehan (NPC) comes to talk to Alaric about mothling care: she reports that the station is having the remaining mothlings delivered to the Bumblebee and they are due any moment.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mikodez's shoulders twitch, like he wants to look away from Ashari. "I'm sure that's not what Sasha is here for."

[aw :< it's /blind/ me which is even better, and I keep adding 'the' where they don't belong.]

"How did you come to join the rebellion, Mishka?" Sasha asks, in a tone of mild inquiry.

Ashari doesn't seem to be paying attention to Iawa, particularly, but Sasha's always found it hard to let go of a story once it's started, so in the back of her mind she continues: She walked east and the ground rose beneath her; she walked east, into the hills.

"I was curious. And bored."

[Sorry I'm behind on responses--I promise responses tomorrow (Wednesday). Today (Tuesday) got eaten by writing obligations.]

[whereas I spent the day lolling around with fox-spirit/immortal online novels where all the foxes were dimmer than Kel fledges \o/]

"How did you find us?"

She came out of the mist to a wide, flat plain. Her snowshoes sank deep. The tracks of the person who was also a wolf turned back; they curved back the way she had come.

[Kirrish folklore read The Magic Goes Away one too many times when it was small.]

Ashari, like many Andan, is really good at reading people's locations based on peripheral vision and the mathematics of shadows. They hand their dagger over to Sulen with the clear expectation that Sulen should keep it away from Mikodez--this is a response to Iawa's concern.

Then, like a raptor, they catch and hold Mikodez's gaze. "Foxling," they say, brisk and businesslike, "we need to find a better way to use your...talents. To do that, we need to debrief properly. Answer Sasha's question."

[

pengwern: Ashari at this point is basing their enthrallment on an educated guess that Mikodez may be a twisty Shuos BUT he is fundamentally loyal to the faction. What they're doing is interposing themself as an instructor-figure attempting to help Mikodez improve his prospects. Ashari will hope that Mikodez will respond to Sasha in the role of the instructor's "aide" and answer a little less twistily.]

This is Ashari being friendly! And Sasha, well, Mikodez has gotten that look from the guard who oversaw the bloc with the best vending machines, the night of the last New Year. Is she concentrating on reading an augment?

"I walked through the door and there you all were -- no. It started when Instructor Hadhair called me out from analysis class --" He describes the interview he had with three individuals, going into appropriate detail about them and the few questions they asked, but eliding the remark one made about his family. "... explained I could earn extra credit for the next quarter if I took part in an exercise where a variable signifier like mine could be of use, even if I'm not in the right track." He isn't explaining Shuos Jedao unless someone asks.

"I didn't see if anyone else was taken from class after me," he adds virtuously, a weak blind to cover his suspicions about what Istradez confessed. "Then I was taken to a boxmoth, empty for its size, met two people dressed as Rahal on board, and they could have been. Very boring. The journey took two weeks, five days, before the moth stopped for another few hours, probably the rift effect, not that I could tell without a view. The only person I saw after that didn't answer my questions, brought me to a holding room where I stayed for three days or so, and showed me to the Wasp's hangar, and Sasha knows what I did from there."

What he said is true, but Mikodez has something to hide now with Istradez, even if he's acting as honest as he ever gets. "Believe me as you like, but I didn't actually get instructions. It must be enough that I'm here." Mikodez listens to himself, aghast, as he continues, "Or at least not there." He keeps his expression placid with an effort. There was no reason to add the last sentence.

[The Mishka of now is suspicious of the Shuos above the level of a generic (paranoid) student, because he trusts what Istradez said to some extent, subconsciously due to those injuries. He's also willing to relax into the enthrallment if it gets him into the crew's good graces (read me trying to align myself with the plot >-<) despite the risk.]

Edited (adding notes) 2018-07-26 06:37 (UTC)

Prophet's hat, Ashari just de-escalated a threat because Iawa asked them to. Wonders never cease.

"I don't understand about the signifiers," Sasha says. She keeps half an eye on Sulen, in case that part was obvious. "And you visited the Wasp before the mission briefing, Mishka? Did somebody let you in?"

"No, I met all of you before the Wasp, that time with Crow. I don't think anyone could retrofit a boxmoth into an animal pen...in." Mikodez stops talking abruptly about moths. "Can you do that?"

Time for a distraction. "I can't control my variable signifier," he says with entirely genuine regret. His signifier gambols on the ground behind him, cackling. "Do you know about those? There are viewers -- or you can ask your friendly neighborhood wolf to do a scrying. You get a weird picture that occasionally draws doom upon your head! Sometimes people ask before you date or contract for marriages, because it's always fashionable to add elements into the game of attraction."

[when will we find the timeline with Virmad as a venerable author who published THE guide to signifier-based dating.]

"His signifier was Ninefox Smiling before," Sulen explains to Sasha. "It's Ninefox Crowned With Eyes now. Are you familiar with Heptarchate signifier meanings? Crowned With Eyes suggests he's more intelligent than his actions up til now would suggest, and the fact that it changed implies his sense of self is flexible." Sulen doesn't glance at Ashari. Their old coworkers would have said it implied instability, but Sulen totally isn't so judgmental and anyway, they know now that Ashari can control it, so that's different. Totally.

"But why would that matter?" Sasha asks. "He's a fox either way." She has been walking around with an invisible label that says "broken", if the Rahal earlier weren't fucking with her, and that certainly hasn't made the rebellion unwilling to employ her.

Mikodez's signifier resolves back to Ninefox Smiling. "It only matters for faction postings, or if we're in -- hexarchate space."

Sasha keys the grid command to find and summarize information on Ninefox Smiling, Ninefox Crowned With Eyes, and variable signifiers under the hexarchate.

"Mishka, this person who took you from the boxmoth to the holding room, the one who wouldn't talk to you. Tell us what you remember about them."

[I'm assuming Sasha has heard Jedao's name and that he killed lots of people, but is very vague on the details.]

[Should this be anyone relevant (Quill, for instance?) I don't have any plans -- just assumed there should be someone around to guide him.]

Edited 2018-07-27 20:28 (UTC)

[This can be Quill, if you like; feel free to embroider with additional details. Mikodez probably remembers mostly that Quill presented herself as a busybody administrative type, physically tall and spindly, with the gray eyes that people in the hexarchate sometimes have and a buzz cut.]

[Sasha will have heard of Jedao but can be vague on details, yes. If you like, she could even "know" things that are not terribly true but are based on scurrilous Andan dramas about Jedao's life.

The grid will tell her that Ninefox Crowned with Eyes is not only...highly disfavored thanks to its association with Jedao, but that Shuos Academy is usually known for purging people who manifest that signifier. It probably won't tell her that people who manifest N-C-w-E as part of a variable signifier are a gray area, although she might be able to guess that anyway.]

[Sasha might or might not have many episodes of Space Anime about Khiaz's noble efforts to protect the galaxy.]

[That sounds terrifying and great. XD ]

Mishka's either trying to remember or inventing something outrageous. Sasha checks her grid search, and just barely stops herself from whistling. Usually people with this signifier are disposed of, but instead the Shuos sent Mishka here? Three-faced saint, the child has not thought this situation through.

"Go ahead," Sasha says, with the tiniest bit of actual sympathy. "Tell us what you remember."

"About Ashari's height, dark eyes, didn't say much."

[Quill's minion, or Quill disguised?]

[Let's make it Quill disguised. More fun that way.]

That's not a lot to go on, but then Sasha doesn't expect double agents to wear nametags or have convenient identifying scars.

"Did the Shuos tell you how long this 'extra credit' project would last? Did you have a timeframe for your return, or a contact for retrieval?"

"Sasha, please. When they ask like that, it's not for volunteers. I was surprised when I wasn't immediately shot following the interview." No, that's putting ideas in their heads, if it wasn't already there. Mikodez rubs at his wrist and contorts it at a terrible angle, but nothing doing; he can't escape that way.

"What this batch of interviewers at the Academy said was that everything was 'pending Rahal review'. You might imagine I'd have been briefed further on the transport moth, but all I got to see was the inside of my room. No opportunity to gossip with the supposed Rahal." Like some scenario maker knew he'd get bored. He woke up convinced that Istradez was telling the truth, but even now he can't be entirely certain that this isn't an exercise. He ought to poke at the Wasp's crew some more while he's like this.

Mikodez looks at Sasha, who may as well be an instructor. It is important that she gets to hear his critique of the scenario. "I fucking hate this scenario."

Wait, no, that's not constructive. Did he say that? Can he still bullshit his way through if he's volunteering information, rather than answering a direct question? He blinks and schools his face to earnestness. "This could have been quite good if not for some glaring indicators. Great attention to detail, and an excellent selection of threads to pull -- foreign visitors, a disgraced magistrate, an Andan-Rahal misalliance, all that Nirai research, your own inteference," nodding at Sasha, "Not to mention the official mission target. But piling family and traditional Shuos hobbies AND time travel on one single individual is unbalanced." Unless all the other options had equally mind-boggling revelations.

He continues in his most outrageous voice while observing the others in the room.

[SORRY VASS I'm pretending that Iawa said something especially Liozh during Pavn's science tour. And re Quill, got it! I will make up an unfortunate squeaky voice for them if pressed. Enthrallment question: would you know that you're being enthralled, if all was going well?]

[GO AHEAD!]

"Scenario?" Iawa says, levelly. She should leave this to the fox's actual interrogators, but what if they miss the implication?

[Depending how convincing Mishka is/the others are at refuting him, Iawa may entertain the possibility that his training scenario hypothesis is actually correct. Is having lived her whole life thus far just to be an NPC in someone else's training scenario really more unlikely than the rifts? How would she tell if she's just a part of a training scenario? Maybe Iawa is a butterfly dreaming she's Zhuangzi!]

Edited 2018-08-07 12:31 (UTC)

sounds fake but ok

the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

npc discussion

Re: npc discussion

[variable signifiers and other info]

Re: [variable signifiers and other info]

Re: [variable signifiers and other info]

natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

when has 'thinking the situation through' been useful

when you're not dah overthinkingit iawa