Move 1 (Chapter 1.1)

[yhlee]

Time: CLASSIFIED
Place: CLASSIFIED

The tan-skinned woman, your contact in the resistance, doesn't introduce herself, but she has that efficient way of walking that suggests some form of military training, and she leads the twelve of you to the hangar where a trademoth awaits. The moth is painted with some kind of stylized insect symbol. "Technically this is a reclaimed pirate vessel," the woman says abruptly, "but we prefer to call it an entrepreneur. We've named it Wasp, mainly because the technicians couldn't be bothered to repaint it."

She faces you fully, unsmiles. "Let me be frank. In an ideal universe we would send a fully integrated team that had trained together. We don't have that kind of luxury. The twelve of you are the people available for this particular mission, so we're sending you."

The woman's expression smooths out a little. "We have been informed of an opportunity to recruit a Nirai defector, who is going by the name Remi, from a certain time period in the heptarchate. Not only are Nirai valuable because they can always tell what the date is--useful when you're time traveling, as you might imagine--this one claims to have invented a method for detecting rifts and predicting where they will take us, possibly even generating them. As some of you know from personal experience, rifts are unstable and figuring out where they will take you is not...exactly a science. That being said, there's always the possibility that Nirai Remi is a heptarchate agent. Stay alert."

She continues giving you details: the twelve of you will be crewing the Wasp, which is thankfully largely automated, to go through a rift and recover Nirai Remi on the other end from Station Moongray. Her briefing materials include some photographs of Remi, a handsome young man with curly hair and striking ice-violet eyes. Apparently this isn't the first time he's run into trouble with heptarchate authorities, and he's much more interested in continuing his research than getting into yet more trouble.

Remi will be expecting you. The woman is happy to leave the details of his retrieval up to you. In particular, there hasn't been time to do a thorough reconnaissance of Station Moongray, as there's some concern that the particular rift leading to Remi's time and place is unstable and may dissipate soon.

[GM notes: At this point, you should feel free to ask the NPC questions about the mission. You should also feel free to organize yourselves either in-character or out of character--is there going to be a command hierarchy? who will specialize in what roles aboard the moth or during the retrieval? cover stories and identities?--and discuss preliminary plans. You can also talk a little bit about how your character ended up here, if you like. It's fine to have multiple threads going for simultaneous conversations. Given that this is a forum RPG and we're mostly in different time zones, some of that is inevitable. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me--I'll be watching the threads.

Once the characters get underway, there should be plenty of room for interaction and flirting and whatever you like--this is mostly to get us started.--YHL]

Comments

[yhlee]

"Remi's local time, High Calendar Year 361. Subjective time in the rift, perhaps ten days, based on our explorations. It should give," and the woman's mouth quirk, "the lot of you time to acclimate to each other. The rift exit is three days from the shadow. And that's part of the problem--the Nirai station has been studying the rift, so you'll probably be seen as you enter." She pulls out a slate, fiddles with it. "I've transmitted maps for your immediate perusal; you can find them in the Wasp's mothgrid as well."

EDIT: [sorry, forgot to reiterate this for your reference]
[GM's note: For reference, the massacre at Hellspin Fortress is in Year 853. Ninefox Gambit's events take place in 1251. So 361 is during an earlier period of the heptarchate.]

She shakes her head, sighs--the first expression of frustration she has shown. "We originally had you down as interdimensional black market traders, because even Nirai researchers are interested in exotic booze, and the Wasp has some of that in its cargo holds, but...it's not ideal. As for local contacts, there is a rebellion agent codenamed Yellow monitoring that side of the rift. In case of emergency, you may contact them for assistance from the Wasp, but we prefer that you not blow their cover unless you have no other options."

[vass]

Not a period of history Iawa's well up on. Was the high language in its present form then? She doesn't want to admit ignorance. Standing awkwardly, not quite in or out of the circle of conversation, she fidgets with a carved wooden bead bracelet she's wearing while waiting for a lull.

When it arrives, she steps forward and asks instead, a little challengingly, "How many years ago was that?"

Before the rifts, she'd never had to ask anyone what year it was, but she can't be the only one uncertain of that now. Or who can't remember where they are or how they got here, for that matter. She hopes.

[yhlee]

The woman grins toothily at Iawa. "This particular outpost is located next to an unusually stable rift in the year 702, which we mostly know for its incredible lack of exciting events to get the historians all heated up." Her eyes flick to Elesa, then back to Iawa. "It's a useful staging point for expeditions."

[vass]

Iawa nods politely. "Unusually stable, you say." She raises an eyebrow. "And the rift that will take us to 361? Is it... usually stable?"

[yhlee]

"Usually. If you're feeling delicate about it, consult Yellow. It's their job to monitor the rift's status."

also

[yhlee]

[GM's note: Oh--I do not have a strong enough linguistics background to have a good sense of how much language change the high language will have undergone over the h*archate's history, unfortunately. If anyone else does, I'm happy to listen! For simplicity I think it's easiest to say that all player characters understand each other. There is some archaic variant of the high language that is still in use ceremonially by Cheris's time, and which Jedao (say) was fluent in, but beyond that I've never gotten into details.]

Re: also

[pengwern]

[I was just about to ask this! Is it alright to assume a bit of accent from different time periods, and are the non-hexarchate characters using translator augments for the high language, so that they sound accentless?]

Re: also

[yhlee]

[Sure, people can determine how much of an accent they have for time period/location. Since the high language is a known language, non-hexarchate characters should have access to translator augment tech if they want it; non-hexarchate characters may also have other means of talking to people, depending? Players should feel free to suggest alternatives.
I don't think I'm equipped to run a full-fledged multilingual simulation anyway so I am inclined toward ease of communication. :p]

Re: also

[vass]

[OOC: Good to know.]

Re: also

[yehan]

[Linguist here! Most languages would have shifted quite a bit in in the roughly 1200 years the h*archate has existed, but there are definitely real languages like Farsi that have existed for over a millennium in roughly the same form. Considering that the the h*archate has somewhat of a vested interest in promoting a relatively stable version of the high language, we can probably say for the sake of the game that it hasn't changed a ton. Either way, Yehan can help out with the details as she's studied historical linguistics :)]

Re: also

[yhlee]

[Awesome! Thank you, that's tremendously helpful. :D We'll go with that, then.]

[zuhrovet]

"If they think we're routinely smuggling through rifts, and they're scientists, they'll want our rift maps. Do we have fakes? Or is that what you meant by 'not ideal'?"

[yhlee]

The woman says, not happily, "We've dummied up some maps relating to...less critical rifts. I don't know if it will satisfy them in the long run, but it's better than letting them know the extent of our operations. They're in the mothgrid. Use your discretion when sharing them."

[pengwern]

Nobody familiar with the hexarchate should go for it, so - “Nirai like shiny new moths even better. Worst come to worst, we can get ourselves captured, if we can’t approach by stealth.” Mikodez goes on to list all the things they could do with exotic booze rather than sacrifice it to Nirai who might burn it up for pretty colors, watching the rest of the team and the rebellion contact with interest.
The people who don’t twitch at the thought of falling into the hands of the hexarchate authorities should either be foreign, good at dissembling, or oblivious.
He’d suggest towing the the wreck of the transport moth he came in to those Nirai, but he hasn’t seen it ever since getting picked up by the same woman earlier.

[yhlee]

[Formatting note: psst--for longer posts, consider adding an extra line break between paragraphs so they don't run together. (You won't be able to edit this comment after I respond to it, sorry!) I think Tumblr inserts that extra line automatically, but DW does not. And I know posting from phones is extra-tough, especially for formatting. Hope this helps!]

[Ahahaha Nirai burning up booze like some kind of chem lab gone horribly wrong...]

[vass]

"And you would rather they burn us up for the pretty colors?" Iawa says.

He seems very young and stupid to her. [18, right, pengwern? Iawa is looking down at him from the lofty height of 20.] Young, stupid, reckless, and way too sure of himself. Terrific.

[pengwern]

The condescension! It must mean that his master plan of appearing as brainlessly incompetent as some of his classmates (and, alright, himself sometimes) is working.

“I’m sure we can escape before the Vidona arrive for anything proper. Don’t you remember that scandal when they tried to play catch up before the centenary audit, and what was his name, Teacher Parenchyma spent two episodes of Sesame Corridor on why finishing reports on time is nearly as important as remembrances?”

Mikodez is still trying to probe for a timeframe of the rest of the team. Sesame Corridor has been under interdict for 129 years, but it was part of kindergarten curricula before that for another 204 years. A popular but borderline heretical meme involved pasting the genially irate face of Vidona Parenchyma over any announcement of delayed projects.

But he should ask the contact. “Did Nirai stations have a full complement of remembrance officials in the year 361?”

(I’m assuming that every place in the hexarchate has Rahal/Vidona to oversee remembrances, given Nija’s chapter? And sorry about the spacing earlier - mobile makes everything look scrunched up anyway.)

[venndaai]

Sulen can't stop their wince. Immediately they feel angry at themselves. They're a seasoned interrogator- were a seasoned interrogator, they keep forgetting, which is concerning, they don't usually forget things like that, they are not absent-minded, no Rahal is-

They're very used to not reacting, is the point, yet this relaxed child made them flinch. This is something they're going to have to work on.

The child looks young, though of course anyone in the Heptarchate can look that young if they want to. But it's harder to regain the mannerisms and energy of the truly fresh-faced. This one looks pretty harmless, but if there's one thing Sulen's learned in the last twenty years, it's to never take your eyes off the fox.

"Interesting suggestions," they say. "You're clearly more experienced on the subject of exotic booze than I am. What did you say your name was?"

[pengwern]

Mikodez notes the reaction of the two by the crate - are they suspicious in general, suspicious because they think that he’s foreign for suggesting it, or suspicious from knowing specifics about his background?

“Oh, I’ve been doing this for the last year. You should try the grassjelly mix in melon goblets some time. Maybe we could swing by the Nirai, tell them that we’re an avant garde travelling bar, like those library ships out near the Pale Fracture? I’m Avrayen, by the way,” raising his voice to reach the whole group. Mikodez is splicing the name of his older sister Avradez together with a generation marker used at other times in his family, and he makes sure to smile brightly at ‘Vauhan Imsayed’. It’s possible that the family resemblance has been noticed, and that he was slung into this group for this psuedo-relative to keep an eye on him.

Sooner or later someone will ask what he brings to the rebellion, and he will only be able to offer the truth: that he said he wanted to join and was accepted. Makes it all the more likely that a trusted rebellion agent will be on the ship, or that this Wasp is bugged, no matter how antique the decor. He'll plan on being a typical student like his cousins back home all the way to the Nirai Station, even if that leaves him with scutwork on the trademoth. (He knows from experience that it's easiest to plant bugs when you're supposed to be keeping an eye on the servitors.)

[smokedetective]

Ashari taps their chin. "The smuggler idea has its merits, and though it's not perfect, I think we should go with it for now. Perhaps we could say that our crew only recently acquired the ship? Any discrepancies and failures in the maps could, for a short time, be attributed to us having a falling out with the seller and them deciding to screw us over. And since this Remi fellow seems to be an expert on Rifts, it will be just our stroke of luck that, even when our maps and systems failed us, we ended up on this of all stations!"

They flick one long blue braid over their shoulder, the mild distaste on their face hiding the true horror at the thought of being captured behind it. "There's no need to fall into the hexarchate's hands if we can just come up and shake them first. So what if we pretend we're relatively honest traders, put up some useless goods for sale as we refuel and try to figure out our tampered with maps? If push comes to shove or the trade opportunity arises, we reluctantly admit that in reality we're smugglers, and then bring out the exotic booze.

Getting Remi out with little suspicion is going to be more of a challenge, but I don't think it's that bad of a start, as far as plans go."

[zuhrovet]

"Actually," says Sasha, "What's wrong with Andan artist as the uppermost cover story? Maybe you hired us to image the rifts for an art project, and we got too close? If smuggling is our source of secondary funding, and not our ostensible goal, we don't have to look as competent at it."

[smokedetective]

"Oh," says Ashari. "Oh, that's good. I'm still a fan of the pleasure ship idea, that's more fun. But this is good, too."

They pause. "Though it still leaves the problem of them wanting to see our rift maps and images. It might explain our files being more scarce, but still, unlikely. An Andan sufficiently invested in the arts would hire only the best they could find." They turn to the contact. "No offense, but this ship doesn't look like anything close to the best. I might be able to dig up better a better crew if given a couple of months in the right location. But we don't seem to have the time or resources for that, do we?"

Then, they give Sasha a reassuring smile. "This is a very good idea, though. A good start. It's the cheapest and most easily sustainable concept anyone's come up with so far."

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad is...99% sure he knows what the woman means, but he has to ask — "When you say 'exotic booze', you do mean foreign, or unusual, right? Not alcohol that generates calendrical exotic effects?"

[yhlee]

The woman's teeth flash in a sudden, startled, silent laugh. "I forget, one does have to be careful with phrasing. Foreign, yes. Not calendrical exotic superpowered booze. Most Nirai can't be trusted with that stuff if you ask me..."

[smokedetective]

"With foreign booze or with superpowered booze?" asks Ashari. "Or both?"