hexarchate_rpg | Chapter 2.1 (such as it is)

yhlee posting in

[GM's note: This is Ashari's summation of the mission briefing to Sasha, who is the new team leader in the interests of whisking away inactive PCs. While this letter is addressed privately to Sasha in-character, players are welcome to have out-of-character discussions [in bracketed comments] about, e.g., logistical concerns or things that they would like for their own characters. Regular IC discussion--e.g. if Sasha decides to start a meeting to discuss planning--can also happen in comments to this post, without the brackets.]

[Reminder: I'm out of the country from Sun., Dec. 2 to Wed., Dec. 5, so will be out of commission during those days and maybe a couple after. I apologize for the bad timing but hope this will give y'all something to chew on in my absence.]

[ETA: For reference, this is the one existing map of the hexarchate]. It's ca. Revenant Gun, but you can see some sites of historical interest. Candle Arc, for instance, is near the bottom center, in the Glover March.]

Congratulations, Sasha. You're in charge now. I expect you have very strong opinions on how things should be done. I look forward to hearing all about it upon my return.

As I told you earlier, Kaliyan, Ankat, Yehan, and myself will be siting a new base of operations just in case we need to cut our ties to the rebellion, or the Quill-led part of it. But don't worry. I wouldn't leave you entirely without hawks and foxes to play with. Don't hesitate to bully the new recruits as necessary to get the job done. I for one consider it highly promising that you seem to be getting along smashingly with the new Kel.

Here's your part of the mission. I have received reliable intelligence (no, you don't get to ask what I did to get it, unless you want to arm-wrestle for it after I get back) that there's going to be a significant push into the Lanterner era. Moreover, Quill is involved with rebellion operations via a rift to the heptarchate during 852 [h*archate timeline for reference]. Given what I understand to be the historical significance of that time period, this could be a major push.

Your task is to enter 852 via the rift map that Nirai Remi has provided us and figure out what Quill's people are up to. If this is a major intervention, what are they trying to accomplish? Can we get anything out of it?

The exit of the aforementioned rift will take you to a Lanterner orbital stronghold called Autumn Pyre. (They seem to have gotten their naming sensibilities from the Kel, how tiresome.) It's three days' travel by Cantata to Candle Arc, which has not yet happened. (You know what I mean.) Autumn Pyre is a military base, but it also houses a Lanterner aristocrat-diplomat named Aramis kae Pharon who fancies themself a natural philosopher and is interested in studying rift phenomena. Like civilized people, the Lanterners put their family/house name first, the personal name last. The "kae" designates an aristocrat or person of high rank--it can be given to generals and the like even if they're of low birth, it's all very complicated. Unfortunately for Autumn Pyre, but fortunately for us, Lanterner cultural peculiarities mean that kae Pharon is what we'd consider the "ranking officer."

Quill's people have already made contact with kae Pharon. Quill herself doesn't appear to be on site--yet. I've obtained forged orders that should make you look like reinforcements for the rebellion. Things are chaotic there anyway, what with interdimensional travelers. Get to Autumn Pyre and find out what's going on before it comes around to bite us in the ass. Oh, and if you get a chance, grab me some Lanterner red cordial, I've always wanted to try it. Good luck!

Ashari

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha thinks the sensible thing for her to do would be to stay the fuck away from Reshad, but she needs the fox's skills, so she puts the teakettle on again and messages Reshad to set up a meeting.

From:

hoardingpearls

Reshad is prompt and, being that this is business, dressed down. She keeps the preliminaries brief and the honorifics professional. In combination with the simple bun that holds her hair, and the dark, simple clothing, she presents a very different appearance than she had at the introductory party.

“I read your briefing, sir.” Read it, and indulged in a shiver, in the privacy of her quarters. Autumn Pyre, 852. “That time-and-place is... known.” Not knowing exactly when Sasha is from, she keeps it to that. This is no time to be putting her side interests on display, after all.

Instead, she keeps it simple. “What will your goal be?”

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha succeeds in not standing as Reshad enters, which is one point to her as far as tolerating the pretty people. "We need as much information as we can. Would you like tea, or brandy?"

Sasha's rushing the formalities in a way that would have meant serious pain for her as a child, but the heptarchate gives a bit more leeway, and there's a lot of ground to cover. "You and I need to talk about our cover story, but first I have to brief you on Quill. She's a rebellion 'facilitator', involved with personnel choices. You might have noticed that our initial mix of specialties was a little bit odd; that's Quill's fault. More serious is that she left Mishka by. He's one of the teenagers, a former Shuos cadet. Turns out his signifier sometimes looks like Ninefox Crowned With Eyes. The Shuos told him he had a choice between spying on the rebellion and disappearing quietly. Then they loaded his augment up with spyware and stuck him on a boxmoth. Quill routed him straight from the moth to this ship, without even checking his augment."

From:

hoardingpearls

“Tea, please.” She doesn’t so much as blink at the lowered formality. This, after all, is not the Fortress of Eyes. /Adapt./

She nods along with the briefing on Quill, and considers for half a heartbeat whether taking physical notes would help Sasha to feel at ease. “All right. Do you know why the initial choices looked like they did?” Perhaps, she thinks, Quill has some special knowledge.

Or perhaps she doesn’t. Reshad is too well trained to clink her teacup in surprise at the mention of a Crowned with Eyes signifier (although her attention snaps to Sasha’s face, probing) but ...the name. And the unfortunate signifier, which the rumors whispered by fox-kit cadets assign to a surprisingly small number of people.

“It may come as a surprise, but your Mishka looks a great deal like a man I know as Mikodez.” That strikes her as being perhaps too elliptical, so she adds: “He’s been the Shuos hexarch since just before I entered the academy.”

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha narrows her eyes, doing the subtractions in her head. Mishka's from an earlier origin time than Reshad. [What is Reshad's time of origin? 1250?] But Mishka's also very young, and accounting for hexarchate life expectancies... he would, in sixty-odd years, still look rather like Strashik. The brother that Mishka called an evil clone. "Hell and stars. Grid, display an image of Strashik, please."

The grid obligingly displays an image of Istradez in the common room, laughing at something or other that Ashari said. "Does this person look at all familiar?"

From:

hoardingpearls

[Yup, just before NG. She could have been picked up anywhere from about 1245-1250. I should probably figure that out...]

Strashik?
For that matter, Mishka is a fairly unusual sort of a nickname.

But the grid shows her someone who looks extremely familiar, a face that adorns half a thousand official memoranda and official Shuos announcements. “That looks like him.” Looks like, because if what Sasha says is true, the actual person is young, and half (or worse, not) trained, and had a chip full of spyware before he fell into less malicious hands. She peers closer at the image.

“Is that live?”

From:

zuhrovet

"No, it's a saved image. That's Mishka's brother Istradez. They had a fight which left Strashik with a concussion, amplifying a pre-existing condition, so he's not coming on this mission."

Sasha supposes that now she knows what the fight was about. Mishka is an eightfold-damned little weasel, and she didn't ask him the right questions. She wonders whether Ashari did, later.

From:

hoardingpearls

“I don’t think I knew he had a brother.” None the less an identical one. Or maybe the rumors were true, and he did use doubles, as alike as the finest surgeons - or the oft-denied Shuos exotic ability - could make them. The latter is a silly thought, she knows, but when the universe has abruptly gone mad with rifts, and mothlings, and rebellions, maybe it’s time to give that ridiculous old saw some credence.

But she’s looking at the image as if it’s a live scorpion. “Apologies,” she says in formal tones, with a seated bow over her teacup. “I’ve been distracted.”

“You were telling me about Quill, and how she’d left Mishka in your care. Will he be accompanying us-” she almost says, you- “on this segment as well?”

From:

zuhrovet

"He will. I'm planning to ask Aymad to keep an eye on him." Sasha shakes her head quickly, getting ready to shift topics. She's glad the mysterious note on Mishka's file has been explained, but she doesn't really want to let Reshad watch her figure out what to do about it.

"Our overarching goal is to figure out what Quill is doing: the push into Lanterner space is at her initiative, and it seems she doesn't have our organization's best interests at heart. We're supposed to contact a woman named Flute who's posing as a weapons dealer. She's one of Quill's people. I'm thinking that it makes sense for us to sell weapon designs, too. You're the best choice for a salesperson. For a spokesperson generally, I suppose. My question for you is what data you need in order to prepare."

From:

hoardingpearls

If Sasha didn’t know that (and when is she from, Reshad wonders, that she doesn’t? But the Hexarchate has a long history, and Mikodez occupies only a small portion of it) she might not know more. “I know something of his likes,” she offers. “If you need an extra eye, I’d be happy to assist.” /The more.../ Sasha doubtless knows the watch-words (ha!) - Reshad does not need to speak them.

Sasha’s next words are alarming. “The group organizer may not have your best interests at heart?” Reshad leans back, head high, eyes tracking something not physically present. “You may be in severe danger, on this or any path,” she warns, voice soft. “What interest do you think she follows?” The answer to that will lead to a dozen more questions.

But to the practical question. “I’m going to have a lot of questions.” Less speculative, she leans forward and begins to enumerate them. “I need information about who we’re selling to, and who we claim to be,” she begins. “And I’ll need to study the specifications of what we’re claiming to sell. Oh - do we actually have anything?” This is presented with pure curiosity, as if the answer only changes the forming plan, regardless of what it is.

“I’ll need to either have or make a cover identity, as will anyone else making contact; and we’ll need to have a cover story for this most unusual moth. Can you tell from the outside, that Cantata is different?”

[Haha Reshad is a nerd! And the more information, the better. I’m happy to help cook some of that up if it’s too much.]

From:

yhlee

[Cantata will look like an unconventional moth, but the fact that its harness is "broken" will not be evident unless you go out of the way to make some Nirai suspicious. Assume that between them Remi and Alaric have been able to rig a way to make the Cantata look like a regular enslaved moth as long as it doesn't start singing to the wrong people.]

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha nods at the offer of assistance with Mishka and straight-out grins when Reshad mentions "severe danger", since that's more or less the understatement of this century. "We don't know yet whether Quill is simply amassing personal power, or working with a group within the Shuos. That's one of the things we're trying to find out. For the weapons specs, we're going to be selling designs, not the hardware. One of my next meetings is with Seyli and Alaric and Remi, to sort that out; we should be able to dig something out of the files."

She continues, "Aymad and I can handle the grid side of constructing cover identities, but I'd like your input on what the associated story ought to be. I'll forward you some information on Lanterner culture, and on Flute as we gather it. I believe the Lanterners are monitoring the rift. They may have encountered people from other times or from alternate timelines, so we should consider where and when we'll claim to be from, as well as who. As for the moth, our ship's layout is a little unusual, but as long as Cantata doesn't start singing too loudly, we should be all right."

From:

hoardingpearls

“Understood. I’ll add ‘get information about Quill’s motivations’ to the list.” Reshad’s smile curves even her eyes into a mischievous fox’s grin. “And selling designs really ought to help. Hm - we had some horrors in exercises at the Academy. Do you know, do they have fungal weapons yet?” Listening to Sasha’s description of her task, she nods, and the cant of her shoulders makes it almost a seated bow. “It will be my pleasure to assist.” “If we can claim to be from through a rift, it would make any oddness with Cantata ...very believable. On the other hand, if I met someone claiming to be from another timeline, I might be more suspicious rather than less. That one, perhaps we should keep in our sashes as a cover for slips.” Because slips, as unhappy as it is to contemplate, are inevitable. The immediate question: does anyone speak moth? Seems counterindicated by her conversation with Remi, so she refrains, instead scuffing a foot silently over the floor, as if the big moth could feel it. “The Lanterners,” she begins, tentative. She’d paid attention in history class (of course she had; it hid the template to the fate of her own people) but they had been rather light on the details of heretical technology. “I’ll wait for your briefing, but there will certainly be questions, after.” And another question, now, with the air of one who is gathering supplies: “Do you suspect anyone of having the sort of difficulties in memorization that will make special tutelage necessary?”

From:

yhlee

[Fungal weapons are a later invention, so they won't yet have been invented around the time of Candle Arc.]

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha's own grin fades. "I don't think they do have fungal weapons yet. I am from very early, as you've probably noticed"--she's addressing Reshad with the archaic singular--"but Alaric told me a little bit about how the fungus works." Sasha still doesn't know how any group of people could be that irresponsible and still maintain an empire. Now is not the time to solve that puzzle, though.

"I don't think difficulties in memorization will be a significant issue. Difficulties in caring, maybe. Both of the teenagers, Mishka and Fyedlet, are going to be problems, and Alaric doesn't know how to be scared. I'm honestly tempted to bring Fyedlet to the first meeting with Flute, and let her assume our whole team is a disaster."

From:

hoardingpearls

"Good." Reshad looks somewhat relieved, and nods at Sasha's use of the archaic pronoun. "That was mentioned as a ...turning point of sorts... in my history classes." /For the glory of the hexarchate./

"I'll be happy to work with the teenagers." Her smile takes a sharklike angle; well she remembers her own attitude at that stage of her life. Differing from the trained adult mindset only changes how one relates to it. "And if Alaric is fearless... hm. Perhaps that can be used, as well.

"We're to be weapons dealers... and little knowledge of the target culture. All right, let's discard any idea of blending in. We are already flamboyantly different; Fyedlet in particular. Let's use that to our advantage, such that the larger differences hide the smaller, that we wish to conceal." She eyes Sasha for response to that idea. '

"We have blueprints; very well. We stole them. We're the worst fear of several light-years, pirates from some no-name system. Small fish who have escaped into a larger pond, and wish to swagger.

That should keep the casual onlooker away, unless they're very xenophilic, these Lanterners. And we can appropriate whatever signs of danger we can recognize as we get closer, and banner them all over our dress and our mannerisms. We needn't look consistent or fully trained; pirates wouldn't be. And those who think they're worse than us... we have a way of handling, yes?"

From:

zuhrovet

"I wouldn't want to engage in a fair fight, but our resources for sabotage are extensive." Sasha's smiling a little sideways, and starting to generate contingency plans. "You'll find Alaric is a very useful distraction, I think. We just need to give him something to talk about other than the mothlings."

From:

hoardingpearls

"Sabotage? Excellent. I lack somewhat in military skills, but when it comes to jamming the gears of bureaucracy or shifting attention..." That fox smile again, thin and sharp.

"Of course I don't expect a substantial overhead of bureaucracy in our mercenary group? But no doubt the Lanterners have structures we can put to use."

Her smile becomes somewhat less predatory with the mention of Alaric as distraction. "I think we can manage that. After all, unharnessed mothlings would be in danger if they were discovered, would they not? and none of us want that. Is there some other thing he likes?"

From:

zuhrovet

"Explaining how brilliant he is! But stars forbid you try to check his work." Sasha's tempted to laugh here, which is a fucking dangerous impulse, because she doesn't know what Reshad's true priorities are. Or anything about her, really, except that she's very beautiful and--obviously--very good at what she does.

She says, more slowly, "We might be able to fake a change of orders for Flute, if we really needed to confuse things. Perhaps if we dropped a message pod near the rift, with a couple of sets of recorded commands, and only activated it if we need them."

From:

hoardingpearls

"Well, that's a start." Reshad does laugh, apparently clean amusement rather than anything more sinister. "I suppose I'll learn more as we go." But everyone likes to show their work, Alaric perhaps more than most? Noted.

"That would be a useful thing to do. If we have a message pod to use that way..." She stops, thinks, putting on a display of it for Sasha's benefit. She closes her eyes and taps her pursed lips with a manicured finger. Simple reconnaissance, but with an untrained team, a chaotic situation, and a pending massacre. Not so simple, after all.

"Get in, figure out what Quill is up to, get out before... well, Candle Arc. We have a message pod; we can forge orders for Quill if we need it; we should. A retreat, and a betrayal if we can figure out who's most in need of an angry swarm." Her eyes snap open. "We can generate a distress message to store on the pod; one that will pull people to some backwater of space. That could be useful. Of course, these are nothing more than tools in our hands, with the hope that we never fall back on our backup plans."

She attempts to look reassuring. "And then we get out... how much time did you expect us to have before Candle Arc?" Days, at worst. (No; hours. She resists the urge to look for something wooden to touch.) Months at best.

From:

zuhrovet

[Good question! How precisely do we know when we will arrive, relative to the battle?]

From:

yhlee

[Y'all believe that you are arriving fourteen days before the battle. However, given the disruption to the timeline, the battle's date may itself be in flux. You're pretty sure you'll at least have a week and plenty of warning in case of hostilities breaking out, though.]

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha doesn't habitually bite her nails, but she is immediately and distractingly reminded that last time she chipped the nail on her index finger she pulled a scrap off with her teeth, and she hasn't had a chance to file it down properly. She successfully avoids staring at her own hands, though staring at Reshad's isn't much better. "We'll have two sevendays, if everything's on track. Maybe a few days less, if the rift is unreliable or the timeline is shifting."

From:

hoardingpearls

"That should be entirely doable." She smiles.

And what an interesting reaction that was - with a graceful fan of her fingers, she lays her hands on the table, just to see if Sasha follows along.

"Timeline... shifting? How interesting." Reshad lets a note of worry into her voice. "And how alarming. I'll plan for a short engagement, then, and if we have longer, that's margin for error."

Edited Date: 2019-01-02 03:54 am (UTC)

From:

zuhrovet

Layers of hell, Sasha, this isn't Ashari, you can fucking look her in the eyes.

"When you're trying to change history, sometimes it changes faster than you expected."

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The Intolerable Clock: A Non-Canon Hexarchate RPG

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The Intolerable Clock: A Non-Canon Hexarchate RPG

Chapter 2.1 (such as it is)

Chapter 2.1 (such as it is)

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[GM note re: Cantata]

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