wastedcreation | open post

[ooc: Blanket CWs in this whole thread for medical horror, unethical human experimentation, cult propaganda, racism/xenophobia, concubines, forced breeding/noncon, torture, gore, and probably much more.]

Tox is excited and nervous in equal measure for his first trip to the surface. He's excited because it means he's starting on the path of a spy and assassin in earnest; at the tender age of twelve, this is a promising lifelong career. He's nervous because the picture of the surface and its people that has been painted for him is terrifying and grim. A violent, savage people with no respect for science or innovation, or perhaps too dumb for it; a brutish enemy.

The job is simple, boring and low stakes: perfect for a 12-year-old and one of his mentors, Damian, to take on. Busywork, just to give him an idea of what they do and what the surface is like, without putting him in too dangerous a situation. Of course, he is still cautioned excessively to stay with Damian and not to interact with the surface dwellers, not to even be seen or heard by them. He is cloaked in all-black, with a face covering to match: only his toxic green eyes are visible beneath. He hasn't mastered disguise magic yet, but when he does, he will disguise himself to look more like a surface-dweller. To that end, and to his own curiosity's end, he does want to see what they look like.

But they're out in the woods, mapping pathways and elevation, making note of any signs of civilization they find. There aren't many. Damian says that only loggers and lumberjacks come out this way, for the high-quality wood. He says this casually enough, but Tox himself has never seen a tree, or grass, or the sky. He's never felt the wind on his face like this, drying his eyes strangely, or heard the rustle of leaves and the strange animals singing and chittering in the branches (birds? He's only heard of them). It's a veritable sensory smorgasbord, and he finds it overwhelming. He can't stop looking around and listening in pure awe.

After Damian shows him how to log the details of the landscape on the map, he gives Tox instructions: they'll split up to cover more ground, then come back to one another using specialized navigation devices. Or rather, Tox will stay where he is and his mentor will come back to him, so he doesn't get lost.

He sets out, determined to make himself useful here despite how foreign and somewhat frightening the landscape is. He observes carefully and loses himself in thought as he marks things down. That there- is that type of tree uncommon? Or is it nothing of note? Is that a man-made path, or just a clearing? He barely knows what he's looking at, so he doesn't know what he's looking for. No wonder they wanted him up here so young; it'll take forever to get used to the place enough to be able to navigate it with any effectiveness.

After a while on his solo hike, he hears something strange. It's different from the rest of the forest noises, he thinks. Something melodic, maybe? At first it's hard to catch between the other sounds, but as he moves further, it becomes clearer.

Someone is singing. Not an animal; a person.

Singing is certainly not what he expected to hear from a surface-dweller, and his curiosity burns. It sounds like a girl. The melody is oddly... nice. What does she look like? Maybe he could get a glimpse without being noticed, if he's quiet.

Creeping up slowly, he tries not to step on twigs that might snap, but he is not skilled at forest stealth yet in the slightest. His footfalls can absolutely be heard, as can the small yelp he lets out as netting whips up around him, hoisting him into the air.

He flails and flounders, panicked. They've already captured him! Surely they'll find out he's from underground and kill him! This is not good- he tries to find his navigator to alert Damian, but he's tangled and wrapped tightly in the netting.

It's been a couple of weeks since Sebastian was blinded by the Magnus Pater, the commune's leader, in front of everyone, for his crime of loving a girl on the surface. He was then taken Under Arsil's Eye, not that he knows it, to be healed and corrected. He's been languishing in this cold cell since then, in a hospital bed. He's in immense pain, going over the incident in his mind again and again, reliving it in nightmares, and waking to worry about Juno and Eve. Surely, they're going to capture Juno and torture or kill her, if they haven't already. Surely, they will turn Eve against him even more than they already have, by labelling him a traitor, a disgusting man who would lie down in filth with vermin.

And there's nothing he can do about it.

He's stuck here, miserable and in pain. He's lost everything; his family, his community, his career, probably the love of his life, and maybe his daughter.

He has no idea how much time passes before they throw another person into the room with him. He was hardly aware there was even a second bed in here.

Tox does not know it yet, but there's a new criminal in town, someone who showed up unannounced and unexplained, which of course was met with confusion and hostile interrogation from... Pretty much everyone. No one in this commune likes outsiders; at best, they will interfere with their way of life and be a bad influence that could guide them astray from Arsil, and at worst, they are spies from the surface, here to infiltrate and destroy their community from the inside. As such, any attempt at reason or trustworthiness the outsider uses is only seen as further proof of trickery.

At first, Rastaban was thrown in jail in the general populace, but once mages detected the strange magic in him, he was taken in for experimentation. And of course, there is little experimentation done in this commune that doesn't require a hospital bed afterwards. That is what lands Rastaban here, next to a green-haired man with bandaged eyes, in a dank cell that smells strongly of rot.

As far as missions go, this one could be a lot worse. Devero's been deep into ludd territory on protection details; he's camped out in wild forest to keep a team of Reclamation Corps civilians safe from the kind of outsiders who liked to make their own ignorance and poor choices into Gov's problem. He's had to run interference with megafauna wildlife in extreme conditions to ensure research teams can finish collecting their data. He's had to make choices that result in ended lives. Unlike most World Guards, he's a Scorpion, and that means he's had to fight.

This mission has not involved any fighting.

This time, his squad is accompanying a diplomatic envoy, escorting political specialists to a treaty renegotiation in... whichever outsider town this is. Is this the one with the copper mine? He thinks this is the one with the copper mine. If this place wasn't deep in the NorAm territory, Gov probably wouldn't have sent a Scorpion squad at all, but there are too many uppity ludd factions on this continent. It's not worth risking citizen's lives.

Ah, but right now, he's off-duty. He doesn't have to worry about anyone's life but his own. He and Alé and Keighjo had all set off together to explore this weirdly low-tech little town, but he'd lost the other two in a gaming hall. Watching them watch non-citizens play weird analog games was boring as fuck, so he'd left them to it and continued on until he found this place: a proper bar.

He ducks his head a little as he pushes inside, glad to get out of the dry heat of the town. Sun's been down for almost an hour and it's still hot; he is ready for a drink after enduring it.

He's aware of the locals watching him as he weaves between tables and up to the counter on the far side of the room. He's aware of the eyes on his Interface, its gleam and glow standing out in a place where the people don't even seem to have handheld Interfaces, much less wearable ones. (He knows he's not supposed to judge these people for their baffling indifference to joining Gov, but he can't help but be at least... bewildered by it.)

He finds an empty stool, eases his big frame down onto it, reaches without thinking for a feed that barely connects here like he'll be able to pull this place's menu up for a look. The bartender who approaches him gives him a weird look, but dutifully asks, "Get ya something?"

There's a hitch between the question and Devero's answer, his eyes going a little distant as he checks his Interface for the transcription of their words. Then he nods, head and fist both, and says, "Whatever local beer you recommend, please."

He says it... with his hands, flowing quick and comfortable through the motions of Global Sign. The bartender's brow furrows immediately, but only a moment later, Devero's Interface translates his words. His artificial voice is neutral and pleasant, masculine in timbre, and emits from his Interface eye where it sits on his face. The bartender blinks at him, smiles uncertainly, says, "Uh... sure, yeah," and heads off to the taps at the end of the counter.

Threaded | Flat

and white men who kill god

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