hexarchate_rpg | Chapter 3.2: Old and new friends, old and new enemies

zuhrovet posting in

Sasha has distributed flutes of sparkling water and small glasses filled with a clear liquor. She finds a clear place to stand near the edge of the party--Jedao and Alaric are to her left, the cluster of people around the mothlings falls at about 3π/8--and signals the grid to adjust the light so that she is highlighted and the other partygoers are very slightly in shadow. She asks the grid for a ringing sound and waits for people to quiet. Her voice slightly amplified by the grid, she says, "Welcome, everyone. We have a unique combination of expertise, on the Cantata. I'm glad that you are here." (It's a formal situation, so she uses the plural 'you'.) "While we are gathered, let us toast to the success of the rebellion."

Sasha waits for an answering murmur, then raises her own glass and knocks it back. The liquor tastes like snow and homesickness; but these are her people now. A slight gesture of her left hand makes illumination linger on Jedao for a moment, before the room lights return to normal.

Sasha sees Remi trying to explain that shot glasses are not for mothlings, and grins in genuine amusement.

[We have some really fascinating conversations running in the previous move. I don't want to cut them off, but please put new threads here!

Also, an out-of-character public service announcement: Remi is a youthful, apparently non-sociopathic version of Kujen, plucked from an earlier timeline. He has not yet interacted with Jedao.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hoardingpearls

Out into the party: habit has Reshad assessing the flows of people's movement, the little eddies made by chatting groups. Tensions and connections, none of them drastically different than they were a moment ago. It's an unspoken reassurance, and that in turn helps her quell her own worry.

Not that anything is going to camouflage the ripples she's about to create.

Reshad skirts the wall, keeping herself between Jedao and Remi until the former steps away, headed for the buffet.

Xiulan is near, sleek and elegant, her military clothing advertising danger restrained. "Sorry for the interruption," Reshad says. "But there's been an assessment of a threat. Would you come and keep an eye on it?" She gestures to the little door.

Ione is next, spectacular in her gown, and nearest of the group around the mothlings. "Would you take a moment? Sasha would like your presence to speak with Remi." Just that, but with the context, hopefully it's enough. Again she points out the new door.

Sulen is conveniently near Remi, and so Reshad presents herself and smiles at both of them after Xiulan and Ione are in place.

"Would you come chat with Sasha, please?" A flat hand indicates both XO and scientist, to eliminate confusion.

She leads the way to the room, lets herself in last, and waits.

From:

yhlee

Remi's expression is worried. "Do you want me with or without the mothlings? I understand they can be distracting. If someone would volunteer to look after them..." He looks at Seyli, Dar, and Shess in appeal.

From:

chomiji

"Certainly," Dar says. She is wondering whether she can find something more suitable for them to eat than party food, though. If they really eat energy, this stuff must be pretty sparse for them.

Why aren't they nibbling on the lighting?

And for that matter, where is everyone going?

From:

yhlee

Remi smiles at Dar. "Thank you. Er--if for some reason this goes long, they can be safely handled and placed elsewhere for safekeeping." He whistles three notes, and the mothlings drift toward him; he whistles again, a different fragment of melody. "That first three-note melody--it usually encourages them to come, although sometimes they're a little quixotic."

The mothlings return to the shrimp puffs. Maybe shrimp-energy is tastier?

From:

chomiji

"So I'm gonna get them some different foods to try," says Dar. And then, seemingly as an afterthought as she turns to go back into the kitchen, "Hey, do you guys know where everyone else is gone off to?"

From:

kese_seyli

replied here to keep threads from getting muddled https://hexarchate-rpg.dreamwidth.org/39711.html?view=1499423&posted=1#cmt1499423

From:

zuhrovet

While Reshad is collecting people, Sasha adjusts the room, widening it subtly and adding more places to sit. She is tempted to let the variable layout variably consume her sanbosak, but that would be both rude and a waste, so she eats it instead. It's the sort of food that would be better with a drink, which of course she has not got.

From:

stormglass

Having been taking a moment to eat a little more, Xiulan wipes her hands off at Reshad’s question. “Sure.”

Trial by fire. Okay.

Details would be good, but rather than ask them where others might overhear, she makes for the door that had bloomed out of the wall earlier, having noted that Sasha did not emerge when Reshad and Jedao did. With a glance over her shoulder showing that Ione is apparently being gathered as well, she steps through.

“What threat am I keeping an eye on?” she asks Sasha, briskly professional.

[Given the wording of Reshad’s post, sounded like there was enough time to get a question in before Remi and Sulen were lead over.]

From:

zuhrovet

"Jedao has an enemy who can take other people's bodies, and thereby escape death. His name is Kujen. Jedao says that Remi looks like a younger form of Kujen. The biographical details match. I believe Remi is our ally, in this timeline--but if problems arise, it may be safer not to kill him."

From:

stormglass

Trial by fire indeed. But, at least Sasha has not been one to equivocate. Better to know, than not. Even though the threat is of such a nature that it’s impossible to get one’s mind around in a snap second. Focus for now on the immediate. Mental cupboards open and others slam shut.

“It’s harder to subdue someone without long term damage than fiction tends to make it seem. But I’ll do what I can, if it comes to it.”

She doesn’t add: it’s more dangerous too, to the one attempting it, than more decisive action. It’s a job hazard, one amongst many.

Swiftly considering the layout of the room, Xiulan moves towards a spot that will best position her behind other occupants once they seat themselves. As she does so, she plays back an earlier scene, Jedao’s colorless expression of horror and the possible targets. What Sasha has said has added another baffling element, one that implies...

“Would Remi have had to make an effort for Jedao not to see him until today, or not?”

And with that, she looks toward the door and waits.

[She’s not saying this with the expectation of a conversation around it right now so much as getting it out there for thought before anyone else shows up.]

From:

zuhrovet

Depends on how big you are and how good your medtech is; but it's not the time or place for that abstract discussion, so Sasha makes herself nod in recognition.

"We were keeping Jedao away from the mothlings, till we had a better sense of his reactions. And Remi--he's smart, but he's not much interested in other things."

From:

venndaai

Sulen replaces their empty glass with a goblet of water, but don’t drink it. “Of course, specialist.” They follow slightly behind Remi.

From:

yhlee

Remi and Sulen enter shortly after Sasha and Xiulan's conversation conclude. Remi looks slightly anxious, clutching his slate; it's not hard to guess that he doesn't like being separated from the mothlings.

From:

hoardingpearls

Reshad follows, having given the rest of the group she interrupted an apologetic smile and a few words to the tune of 'sorry, just a little work to do.'

The mothlings... well, she hopes they'll be fine. They've been good company aboard Cantata, and there's people out there who can message if anything begins to go amiss.

Her cheer evaporates as the group assembles in the little room. Remi has been nothing but gentle where she's seen, but deception is not limited to any faction or person.

It's with respect for past kindness that she asks, "Remi, does the name 'Kujen' mean anything to you?"

From:

venndaai

Sulen silently offers Sasha the glass of water. She looks like she needs both hydration and a potential weapon.

From:

yhlee

Remi startles when Reshad addresses him. "I haven't heard that name in a long time," he says slowly, as through an old pain. "My full birth name is Hajoret Remi na Kujen. But I prefer to go by Remi, and the orphanage registered me as Hajoret Remi."

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha nods to Sulen in thanks. The water tastes good. It feels good, acting in coordination with them, even if they are Ashari's first.

"Remi, do you remember the conversation I had with you and Fyedlet, about the person both unkillable and undying? Can you speculate as to what calendrical changes might produce such an effect?"

From:

yhlee

"Give me a moment..." Remi says, his brow furrowing. He scribbles at his slate, scribbles some more, pauses, blanches, scribbles. "Not that this is a surprise, but the expanded regime of torture in the high calendar of later periods in certain timelines is one possible prerequisite. I would have to do much more work to give you a more precise answer, of course."

[Remi has not particularly bothered to put strong crypto on his slate beyond whatever was on it when it was supplied to him.]

From:

hoardingpearls

Reshad gives a nod of apology. "Thank you," she murmurs, after the name. It isn't easy to hear one spoken that you do not prefer.

The easy part is done: confirmation that it is as Jedao feared, and Remi is some precursor to the Nirai hexarch. She can almost hear it again: someone like him wouldn't rise high. And yet -

Hexarch Nirai Kujen would have been extraordinarily well placed to make sweeping changes to the calendar. And what is the calendar here?

Remi's immediate dive into calendrical mathematics has implications, too. He seems confident he could model it, given time. Given resources. There's no way for Reshad to derive the information she wants without tipping her hand, and so she does not bother to try. This is unkind, but scanning around the exhaust plume is likely to be worse.

"Could you do it?" she asks. "Knowing that." She'd seen him blanch; she can hope the answer is no.

More, she's seen him in a reaction she suspects to be honest. She watches, now, for the telltales of a lie.

From:

yhlee

Remi stiffens and looks mutely at Sasha in appeal. After a hostile pause, he says, "Certainly I could," he says. "But I would not pursue this line of inquiry further unless I were absolutely assured that it would be used, say, to undo the effects of such a calendar, or attack it. Such research could be all too easily abused."

[Remi's offense seems genuine; there is no sign that he is lying, and he doesn't seem to be a particularly good liar, either.]

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha meets Remi's eyes with sympathy, but does not turn the question aside. Instead--after a pause, in case Remi wants to elaborate or qualify--she asks, "Whom did you intend to become, before you thought of the rebellion? You studied many different things--what goal brought them together?"

From:

venndaai

Sulen waits for an indication from Sasha that she wants them to scry Remi. Doing it from the get go might put more pressure on Remi than Sasha currently wants.

From:

yhlee

"In a way," Remi adds reluctantly, "knowing what shape the calendar took in later years and other timelines simplifies the research problem considerably. But the math is nontrivial, and we may deduce from the fact that we don't seem to be overrun by immortals of this type that there is some kind of restriction on the associated technology, which puts further bounds on the system."

[Uh. ACTUAL MATH PEOPLE PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR THE TECHNOBABBLE; IT'S NOT LIKE ANY OF THIS IS REAL SCIENCE ANYWAY AND I REALLY DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO GET A PHD TO RUN A GAME.]

In response to Sasha's question, Remi meets her eyes and says, still stiff, "I'm sure this sounds trite to you, but I wanted to make life better for refugees and children. I've seen my share of horror. I wasn't sure what would be the best way toward stability--I did some work in psych surgery, thinking I might volunteer to work with traumatized patients. But it was--" He turns his head away, flushing. "It was very upsetting work, and my supervisor recommended that I try something less apt to burn me out." He tilts his head back up again, almost defiantly. "So that's how I wound up in moth research."

[Scrying info will be available on request when indicated.--the GM]

From:

zuhrovet

[I mean, I have a PhD involving number theory associated to extradimensional physics, but tragically it has not conferred an expertise in SPACE MAGIC.]

Green saint, he is so soft. The Nirai do not exist to help people, nor does any other faction; they are made to sustain power, and to channel it. And if you channel power in a righteous cause--that will not absolve you, when your people break. Sasha knows this, it is the trap she could not escape save by leaving Naxarat.

Remi hasn't fucking got people. He has the mothlings; and he has her. In another universe, perhaps, he had no one at all.

"Sulen, we will want confirmation here." She waits for the telltale changing of their eyes--she doesn't look at Ione, it isn't safe--before she says, "Remi, we have information about another of your selves, in another future. We are going to ask about similarities to, or contact with, that person. Based on the information that we have thus far, I judge that you are not the same."

That, or he is the best liar she has ever encountered; but if so, it harms nothing, to appear to be fooled.

From:

bariolage

[Biostatistics doesn't do much for that either. But it has probably come up with Remi in discussion in a lab at least once that Ione came from a war-torn world and was working as a doctor in places that were literally exploding, so she really is being genuinely sympathetic here!]

Ione, also one of those people -- a researcher of many things, a naive and gentle soul who wants to use science purely to aid, who has been burned by this utterly more than once and become bitter -- has been silent, because she has been trying to balance listening and feeling.

When psych surgery comes up, just those words have her moving a hand to the top of her head; a slightly trembling hand, so it's very good that no one is looking at her. The quasi-immortal, really just very long lived, competent adult who was once a little girl whose brain had to be shielded and tinkered with a little bit. But the hand lowers, and she bites the edge of her lip, watching.

Dropping the listening a little bit, raising the feeling, but she doesn't offer to remove a glove. If they need her and not just Sulen, someone else will know, someone less emotional. But she's got enough control of her concentration and expression to be giving Remi a sympathetic look. One that's understanding, to some extent. The idea of contact with another version of oneself is something she's trying to not think about.