Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

[yhlee]

[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.

Comments

observations

[yhlee]

[Iawa may well be able to tell that Ashari is growing increasingly agitated/concerned about the situation, judging by the way they keep toying with their dagger.]

Re: observations

[vass]

Iawa is used to Ashari's toying with their dagger, and knows they're not going to accidentally throw or drop it, and hasn't seen them maliciously or negligently throw or drop it either, so she's not unduly concerned by that [high INT low WIS low ability to read people!]. On the other hand, playing with a weapon when you're about to enthrall someone -- and Iawa has seen the Andan Threat Display in the wild before -- seems like asking for trouble, especially when that person is a Shuos.

"Um, Ashari?" she says nervously, this time being careful not to obscure their sight line or to get between them and Avrayen/Mishka/Mikodez/whatever the fox's name is, "I... someone once told me not to handle a weapon near someone who can grab it when you're about to do something they don't want you to?"

She tastes bile in the back of her throat. Reflux, not vomit, she tells herself. It's fine. You shouldn't have eaten right before... watching Sasha to prevent her from torturing Avrayan... and then offering Ashari Vidona advice on how to safely threaten someone with enthrallment...

She swallows surreptitiously. He tried to murder Imsayed. Ashari is going to ask him questions under enthrallment. If they go too far, I'll step in then. It's not torture. Not yet. And none of this would be improved by allowing an attempted murderer access to a knife in a confined space!

minor heresies

[zuhrovet]

Well, fuck. Ashari's got a clear path, if they want to throw that dagger at Iawa. Or, if Iawa's luck is good, just miss. It's probably not poisoned.

Sasha has a feeling that her luck is better than Iawa's. She could likely get Ashari to throw the dagger at her, instead, but that seems... not ideal. Not hitting the medic with a possibly poisoned dagger would be a universally more fortunate outcome, though?

Inside her head, Sasha recites:

The woman took her snowshoes, and walked north. She found nothing.

She walked west, and found nothing.

She walked south, and found two marmots. She singed off their fur, and ate them.

She walked east and found the tracks of a person who was also a wolf...

~Super Andan beams are gonna find me~

[pengwern]

"Uh, Iawa? You should be afraid of the person with the weapons, who is not going to be me. I am minded to be extremely cooperative." Mikodez plops his chin in his hands. "Just not with Sasha, because that wasn't any fun."

[Browbeating is like...Miles on every step towards committing high treason? Or does it come across the same way as formation effect - an instantaneous switch as opposed to slow erosion?]

Re: ~Super Andan beams are gonna find me~

[venndaai]

Sulen crosses the room to stand next to Ashari. If there's one thing a wolf can do it's back up a pack member.

Re: ~Super Andan beams are gonna find me~

[vass]

[I see what you did there!]

"That's good," Iawa says, in her best borrowed-from-father's-magistrate-dramas calm hostage negotiation voice, i.e. not very good. "I think everyone here wants to listen and understand, Avrayen."

sounds fake but ok

[pengwern]

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.]

the joys of mutual understanding

[zuhrovet]

"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.

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[pengwern]

"I was curious. And bored."

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[yhlee]

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

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[pengwern]

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

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[zuhrovet]

"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.]

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[yhlee]

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.]

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[pengwern]

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.]

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[zuhrovet]

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?"

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[pengwern]

"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.]

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[venndaai]

"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.

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[zuhrovet]

"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.

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[pengwern]

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

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

[zuhrovet]

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.]

npc discussion

[pengwern]

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

[variable signifiers and other info]

[yhlee]

[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.]

natural conclusions

[zuhrovet]

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."

Re: ~Super Andan beams are gonna find me~

[yhlee]

[It depends on how hard the Andan is pushing the effect. For example, Tseya was expecting an instantaneous switch with Jedao, which also would have been much safer for her if it had actually worked. Ashari may be pissed off enough to prolong the process, though, if someone doesn't talk them out of it. Which would you find more satisfying to play out?]

Re: ~Super Andan beams are gonna find me~

[pengwern]

[ :(
I'm fine with either, if you could just describe what Ashari expects to happen at each stage!]