Move 24 (Chapter 1.24)

[yhlee]

[GM note: This is a wrap-up move to close off the Station Moongray arc. Well done, everyone!]

[IMPORTANT: There is a roll call thread in this move. Please respond if you intend to continue as an active player for the next arc. Otherwise I will move you off the active list and to the NPC/inactive list.]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~0900

Kaliyan (NPC) successfully guides the Wasp to the rift without complications or interference. She reports that the Rosemallow ship has veered away and chosen not to pursue or harass them further--at least in this timeline. The ship will be spending the next five to seven days in rift travel.

In the Rift:

Ashari orders everyone to catch up on sleep in shifts. After this has happened, they call a meeting that includes Sulen, Virmad, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric, and Mikodez [if pengwern is available], with Gerae (NPC) and Remi (NPC) as guests. The Wasp (NPC) may also venture opinions through Alaric and Sasha as interpreters. Kaliyan (NPC), Ankat (NPC), and Yehan (NPC) oversee the ship in case of emergency, but can be called via the ship's grid if anyone has questions for them specifically.

Tentative agenda as per this thread [Move 23]: (a) addressing problems in teamwork during the Station Moongray mission, (b) how to rectify those issues, and (c) next steps, including any recruitment.

[GM notes: Players are welcome to suggest plot hooks for what they'd like to explore in the next arc. Going after Quill? Rabble-rousing? Crashing the heptarchate's stock market?

Also, I'd really prefer the team leader to be a currently active PC rather than an NPC. If someone would like to volunteer their character for the job, I can move Ashari (NPC) to more of a background/support position, or maybe "shadowy boss who doesn't get involved in the day to day decision-making that much."

For recruitment, I still think the team would benefit from a couple of more fighty/meat shield type characters, and I'm thinking of opening up applications so we can recruit two more PCs. Thoughts on this are welcome, either IC or OOC. I'm personally not opposed to opening up mothlings as adoptable PCs, although they're not really meat shields yet...]

Comments

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[yhlee]

Remi stirs. "Do you have leverage that doesn't involve turning your superiors in?"

Ashari is frowning. "They'll be expecting us to check in, is the immediate problem. Unless, of course, they didn't expect us to return at all. Which is entirely possible, but even a small moth represents an expenditure of resources. But I have no intention of going straight back into what might be a trap."

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[venndaai]

"This does seem very circuitous for a trap. Incompetence fits better than malice, but if they were really that incompetent they wouldn't have lasted this long."

To Remi, "I'm still not comfortable returning to anywhere that uses the mothdrive with a free moth whose ambitions are unclear. I'd guess our superiors would have the same misgivings. I'm not sure they were hiring your services in good faith."

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[zuhrovet]

"We did exceed our mission parameters. The original briefing was to retrieve Remi, not Remi and the magistrate and six baby aliens. In which case, there might be too many of us. Ashari and Ankat and Kaliyan could have brought back a willing agent on their own." And they would have done it more quietly and with less fuss, though Sasha's not going to give Ashari the satisfaction of saying so out loud.

This is seven different flavors of stupid fucking politics. That's not Sasha's specialty, and she's going to get things wrong. But the Rahal are still thinking like Rahal, and that's wrong, too. "You can't expect the rebellion to be organized from the top down, or to have consistent lines of authority. That would be a security nightmare, because the second the Shuos got in, they'd roll everything up. There have to be divisions and redundancies. My guess is, we're dealing with a single person or a small group who have chosen to exploit those redundancies to build a personal powerbase. They're cutting back on training and orientation that would link us to other parts of the organization. They'd like us divided from each other and grateful to them, I'm guessing."

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[venndaai]

That... makes sense. "Good point. If this is the work of a single person, there might even be pettier personal motivations. Sabotaging Ashari's position in the rebellion, perhaps." Or, now that Sulen comes to think of it, sabotaging them. They did interrogate several rebellion agents before turning heretic, extracting information that might have led to the death of others. Not exactly implausible someone might hold a grudge.

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[yhlee]

"They're going to regret picking on us," Ashari says, very conversationally. They're trimming their nails with a dagger. "Fortunately, there are minor rebel outposts at the border where we should be able to resupply and recruit without drawing too much attention. Not ideal, but better than drawing attention with a free moth, among other things."

Re: Gerae + the rebellion

[slybrarian]

"My training and experience in the area of organizing secret conspiracies was sadly deficient, so for now I'll defer to those more familiar with it," Alaric says. "I do wonder if we need to worry about when these orders and personnel choices originated. It's possible whoever made them intended for us to exceed our orders, knowing what the result may be. Whether or not that's a good thing is orthongonal, of course. It's just something to think about, but not agonize over - we don't want to get stuck thinking about causal loops the same way someone got stuck thinking this was all an elaborate simulation."

paging Mikodez

[venndaai]

"Speaking of which, we need to decide what to do with him." Sulen nods at Mikodez. "Have you spent some time considering your situation?" they say to him.

Re: paging Mikodez

[pengwern]

Ankat had carried Mikodez in earlier during the meeting, using a standard Kel hold for amphibious pets and other large mollusks. He blinks when he hears Sulen addressing him. The meeting was all very important, but he's been reduced to gnawing on his tongue to stay awake.

"Oh. Is it time for doing away with witnesses?"

Re: paging Mikodez

[zuhrovet]

Stars of hell, is Mishka volunteering? Sasha shifts her weight forward, watching Ashari. She told them she would pay for fucking up, and they haven't collected yet. Now might be a suitably awful time.

Re: paging Mikodez

[yhlee]

Ashari catches Mikodez's gaze and trims a fingernail with their dagger without looking down. "In four sentences or less," Ashari says sweetly, "I want to hear you make a case for how you can be of use to us, other than as a space-frozen hull ornament for our moth friend."

They add, to Sasha, "And four sentences on how we can prevent the galloping disaster this foxling made of himself even after his extraction."

Re: paging Mikodez

[pengwern]

Mikodez answers promptly. "Keep me to pass misinformation against what's his name, Quill, and any of my instructors that come sniffing after me. Or you could always leave me to the moths."

He gets a splitting headache whenever he tries to remember what he said under enthrallment. Would he be sitting here if he betrayed even a hint of what Istradez said about the future? "If you took whatever scraps of bone left over and flagellated it, that would make my relative very happy."

At Ashari's look, he straightens a tiny bit. "...I could crochet you a rose wreath scarf."

Re: paging Mikodez

[zuhrovet]

Mishka managed one serious sentence, out of four. Sasha supposes that's an improvement, but she doesn't see how it can counterbalance the fact that Strashik could have died.

She doesn't exactly have moral credit to lend, anyway. And it's her turn. "First, we need to scan and clean every augment we can access, now that we know there's a fault in our organization's procedures. Second, I have spoken to Ankat and Kaliyan about expanding the system of alarms, in particular silent alarms, to alert them when we have a security issue on the ship. Third, Iawa and I debriefed and planned some additional training. And fourth--"

Sasha tries to project good posture and professionalism, hands folded in front of her, though the effect is likely spoiled by the fact that she's watching Ashari's dagger, in lieu of meeting anyone's eyes. "Fourth, I need to stop hitting people that I work with."

If Ashari was still worried that Sasha was trying to take over--well, Sasha has just set all of her tentative professional relationships on fire, at their direction. They can bask in the pretty, chemically colored flames.

Re: paging Mikodez

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad still isn’t entirely clear on this whole situation with Avrayen-Mikodez, but. “If we were to trust Miksel” — one of two diminutives in Virmad’s low language, the one for either things that are literally small or people you want to condescend to; he knows the subtlety will be lost on everyone else, but he’s been thinking it for days — “to be our eyes on Quill, maybe Yehan would be willing to, ah, keep an eye on his work. Not that the rest of the crew isn’t very capable, but — set a fox to watch a fox, as they say.”

[note on next mission plans]

[yhlee]

"Not a bad idea," Ashari says, slitting their eyes.

[This is a fine idea! But the current plan is to phase out inactive PCs by sending them to another mission, so this role will be reassigned from Yehan to an active PC. Mainly, I prefer for PCs to get to interact with each other. Just FYI.]