hexarchate_rpg | Chapter 3.1: The party begins

EDIT: The base is sited in the year 951, in a very odd timeline that has NO h*archate. Supplies have to be brought in via rift from other timelines. Thread here.

Ashari's new base features variable layout, which has been put to use in creating an extravagant ballroom. Tables to one side boast a variety of foods, drinks both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and the occasional euphoric drugs. Candlevines glow blue and violet, and flower arrangements interspersed with fantastic sculptures of lace-woven wire adorn the tables. The arrangements mean various sarcastic things, if you're familiar with the Andan petal language.

Music plays softly enough not to overwhelm conversation, loudly enough to set a mood complementing the low-key lighting.

Remi is one of the first arrivals from the Cantata, shepherding the mothlings. Because he's a Nirai, he has a slate and is taking notes, although he is happy enough to talk to anyone who approaches him.

The kitchen is currently adjacent to the ballroom. Ashari's voice can be heard, raised in some kind of argument with...a caterer?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sasha is just walking into the ballroom when the obvious inference hits her. Hell has eight spheres, but we are at the center. She unfolds her tablet from her jacket pocket and messages the Cantata, "This location may have predators. Please stay alert and plan multiple escape routes to the rift."

She pockets her tablet again and heads toward the tables, scanning the bowls of drugs and candies for anything approximating a stim.

[Hi, everyone! Sasha is very short and of a wiry build; her motions are rapid. She's currently dressed severely in black and charcoal gray. A shining black pin shaped like a feather, formed like one of the fanning clock-hands of the rebellion logo, is pinned to the side of her low-brimmed cap. Close observers will notice that she's wearing a tiny earpiece in her left ear, which she's using to monitor voice messages from the grid and other team members.

I tend to write Sasha's comments in rather tight third person, and hers is not always a reliable point of view. If she is blazingly wrong about something in particular, especially something involving human interaction, you can tell me, but you don't have to tell me!]

Sulen approaches Sasha by one of the tables. They have a drink in one hand but it seems untouched. "Have you seen, or spoken to, Ashari?" they say, trying to sound casual and failing.

"We had a short conversation and they gave me some disturbing news. Have they had a chance to brief you?" Sasha keeps her tone quiet and even. Probably too even.

"I think they've been preoccupied," Sulen says. "Did they seem... how did they seem?"

"Distracted." Ashari will take Sasha apart if they realize she has been so presumptuous as to criticize, but the truth is--"Brittle. Sulen, if what they told me is true, we shouldn't be having a party, we should be evacuating. Will you speak to them?"

"They probably haven't told you most of it," Sulen says. "-I'll speak to them. And I'll be ready for sudden changes of plan."

"Thank you. Please tell them, there are creatures in the depths somewhere that prey on moths." And perhaps ancient radio signals, for dessert.

"I- creatures?"

Sulen receives a flash of memory, disconnected from any context: a henhouse, wire screen torn, and a mess of bloody feathers.

"Do we know anything else about these predators?"

"All I know is legends the Cantata learned from their nurse. I had not thought them an immediate concern, until I spoke to Ashari. I have asked the Cantata to remain alert, and I will confer with Remi and Alaric, when this event is over. They might know other ways, to look for data."

Cantata messages back, "I will stay alert! Will there be sprinting later? I like sprinting."

[I just realized that my characterizations of Arazi and Cantata are very adjacent. I think "giant sentient flying things" are all the same in my head.]

Oh, spheres of hell, if the Cantata was harnessed when they reached maturity--for all their brilliance, they're about the same mental age as Mishka. And Sasha needs to protect them, somehow.

She messages, "We'll find out! Maybe the other moths will come too!"

[Very young giant sentient flying things, in some sense!]

[LOL for the young giant sentient flying things.

I'm so tempted to have Revenant show up. It should be young for a moth and yet it's too cynical for its age.]

Chapter 3.1: The party begins

this is a working party - literally paging Cantata

The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: The return of interpersonal drama

Re: this is a working party - literally paging Cantata

Re: this is a working party - literally paging Cantata

Re: this is a working party - literally paging Cantata