Welcome to Amygdala Circuit, a mecha-horror RP in a world beset by the Modir: bloodthirsty, interdimensional giants wielding devastating weapons and magics. To face these hellish invaders and the hordes of horrific creatures they lead, your characters will need to arm themselves with humanity’s only real hope at survival, and perhaps even victory: the monsters themselves.
But outside of the cockpit, the world is no less dangerous. While some of Illun’s people enjoy living in “post-war societies,” this international peace is often tenuous, and exists on the exploitation and suffering of smaller nations without monsters of their own. With armies rendered nearly obsolete, the struggle for power revolves mostly around the unspoken threat of violence carried by these reined-in monsters. From nation to nation, pilots are revered as everything from celebrities to pariahs; symbols of peace and the faces of oppression.
Your characters will endure hell, both from without and, especially, within. Together they might just survive, but alone they could become the things they fear most.
Nothing brings people together like the threat of extinction.
Illun faces an alien enemy that cannot be reasoned with, which knows no fear and wants without compromise the complete and utter annihilation of every living thing. Naturally, when presented with the option of dying on principle, or uniting and surviving, the people of Illun chose the latter. The best and brightest minds from across the world came together to develop a means of fighting back against their invaders—and fell embarrassingly short. Even their most advanced weaponry could only slow the tide of lesser creatures, to say nothing of the giants, from which they drew nothing but the meagerest drops of blood. It wasn’t until they began experimenting on the strange, dead things that headway was made.
The shift in power was gradual at first, and derided by most for the secrecy shrouding it; no one knew how these weapons were being developed, how long it would take, or if they’d even work at all. The people were met with complete radio-silence, and a fearful unrest began to boil: until the first of the Modir fell.
Awe silenced man and beast alike. Government militia swooped in like vultures, the giant was ripped apart limb from limb until nothing remained but the head and torso, and then it was carted away into the deepest, most well-protected bunkers. Nothing was heard again for months. The attacks resumed, increased in frequency and fervor. Cities crumbled, millions died. Humanity was once again pushed to the brink, and in what would have been its final hour, it found deliverance.
A man-made Savior.
The taken giant emerged, its body restored, and turned its weapons and magics against the other Modir. More of the enemy fell in one day than had fallen in years, and when the dust settled, the Savior remained. It knelt to the ground, a hulk of flesh and alien metal steaming with Modir blood, and went slack like a puppet without strings. From the back of its head arose a lone, human woman.
In the aftermath, the fallen Modir were once again cut apart and dragged away. Another Savior emerged, and another, and another. Before long the reined giants were at every invasion, ready to repel the Modir and their ravenous armies. The war was no longer so devastatingly one-sided; humanity could finally fight back. For the first time since the invasions began, Illun found hope.
The better half of two hundred years has passed since the first Savior rose, and the war between Illun and the Modir has reached a plateau. The Modir’s forces are seemingly endless, but the human-piloted Saviors are, generally speaking, much stronger. Now and then a new variant of the giants will emerge, wielding some powerful new weapon or hitherto unseen magics, and they may succeed in felling one or two Saviors, but if the bodies can be salvaged, Illun is always ready to replace lost pilots.
The depths of Modir intelligence are not fully understood, but they seem aware that they tend to lose man-to-man confrontations, and so their personal appearances are rarer these days than earlier in the war. Nevertheless, their invasions continue, and wherever the singularities appear, tides of smaller—but hardly less deadly—creatures pour forth.
The mightier nations of Illun are more than happy to keep the stalemate going. Smaller nations without Saviors of their own find their larger, more fortunate neighbors often leveraging their safety for compliance in border disputes, and leniency in trade deals. Governments like to tote that their people live in post-war societies, where international conflicts are resolved with diplomacy and, failing that, the silent threat of whatever horrors might be wrought by homeland Savior warfare. Minor disputes are sometimes handled with a degree of theatre, wherein nations will send one or two Saviors to remote areas desolated by Modir invasions to duel.
The reality is that much of the world lives under the iron boot of a privileged few nations, and the post-war bliss that exists for some is more often a pre-war anxiety for most.
Humanity’s hope: the enemy, weaponized against itself. So much about the Saviors is kept hidden from the public, and even from the pilots. Most assume that the people inside simply puppet the dead giants around, but this is only half-true.
They aren’t dead.
When a Savior is made, a section of the subdued Modir’s brain is removed, rendering them essentially comatose. That void is filled by the pilot, who, once linked with the Savior’s mind via the cockpit, is able to control them with as much ease and familiarity as their own body.
Here are some key aspects to piloting a Savior:
Modir bodies are an amalgamation of flesh and a hyper-resilient, alien metal dubbed “modium”. The modium weaves in and out of the skin like a patchwork exoskeleton, and while all Modir share a generally uniform figure, their individual armors can vary wildly from one to the next. They all stand at roughly 35 meters tall, with builds that could be considered “average” to “hideously thin,” with the occasional outlier.
Saviors and Modir are also shockingly fast for their sizes, with speed and reflexes that seem to completely disregard terrestrial physics. They are not the slow, cumbersome giants of fairytales, these things can move, and move they do. As such, pilots are trained not only to utilize a Savior’s unique weapons and magics, but also in CQC.
Modir bodies display the miraculous ability to regenerate almost any damages done to them, so long as the brain remains intact. This regeneration slows significantly if the heart is damaged, but even a severed Modir head will, eventually, grow itself a new body. All pieces removed from the body and head rapidly dissolve into pools of the near-black ichor that is Modir blood.
This presents a danger to the pilots. The Modir themselves are evidenced to be resistant to pain, but linked-in pilots are not. Chemical inhibitors can trivialize most artificial wounds, but if a Savior has its arm ripped off in combat, the pilot will, to put it gently, struggle with their composure. As well, while a Modir can technically survive having its heart destroyed and its head removed, these injuries will almost always result in instantaneous death to the pilot.
Each Modir—and by extension, each Savior—has access to a unique weapon, which they can quite literally pull into existence utilizing smaller, more localized versions of the singularities used to invade Illun. These weapons vary wildly in appearance and application, some of which are simpler, and some which are entirely alien in design.
A Modir’s weapon is also the catalyst for its magic, called Grace, and like those weapons, Graces are unique from one to the next. These abilities might be tied to or influential upon the weapons, or may be entirely removed from them; the spectrum of Modir Graces is vast and often inexplicable.
However, using Grace takes a notable, physical toll on them, burning blood for fuel and ripping their bodies apart from over-exertion. As well, for pilots, Graces can only be accessed after “phasing,” a meta-physiological event that occurs after the pilot has been connected for a period of time—which, crucially, varies from pilot to pilot.
The development of Saviors is a closely-guarded, international secret, the finer points of which are kept even from the pilots themselves. But what could not be hidden from them were the dangers they’d face just for linking up with the giants, and there is no greater danger than the one at the core to the entire process itself: The Amygdala Circuit.
Linking to a Savior comes with a myriad of risks both physical and psychological. Rule one of piloting is and has always been: “Do it as little as possible,” and for good reason; the longer a pilot stays connected to the Savior, the likelier they are to lose control. Remember that the Saviors are not dead Modir, only subdued, lobotomized, and comatose due to the removed section of their brains. Pilots aren’t just pilots, they are bridges between the Saviors and something…else. Something terrible. Prolonged sessions in the cockpit can and have led to pilots being completely overtaken by the Savior’s cognitive regeneration, losing both themselves and the giants to that elsewhere thing.
The usage of Grace drastically hastens this process, a caveat worsened by the fact that most pilots need to be connected for several minutes before they can even access their Savior’s ability.
Veteran pilots have also reported issues outside of the cockpit, from invasive, alien thoughts, to modium growths on the skin. While so far, none of these side effects have proven to be directly fatal, they have driven more than a few pilots into an early, permanent retirement.
The advent of Saviors quite literally brought humanity out of the dirt. Gone are the days of bunker-cities and strongholds built beneath mountains, of disconnection and power-scarcity. The biggest cities of Illun are incredibly advanced, with skylines comprised of massive towers and roadways that sprawl and wind, connecting hundreds of miles of urban landscape together. Titanic space stations orbit the planet, housing Saviors to be deployed at a moment’s notice wherever they may be needed.
Outside of these cities the world is still widely modernized, however the propensity for singularities to appear in lesser-populated areas has led to more than a few towns being cut off from the rest of the world by ruined, untraversable terrain. This is especially true in less powerful countries without Saviors of their own, who have had to make compromises not only for the lives of their people, but then for the aid in rebuilding afterwards.
Here are some of the major players in today’s world stage:
Eusero has an industrious history, and has led the world in technological advancements since even before the Modir’s invasions began. Indeed, the first Savior arose on Eusero soil, and though it is generally taught and accepted that the Savior project was an international collaboration, Euseran schools tend to focus more acutely on familiar, less foreign-sounding names.
Eusero has arguably the most expansive defense program in the world, boasting a whopping seven Saviors, and some of history’s most remarkable pilots. Its cities are vast and vertical, and between them the land is mostly flat, hospitable, and well suited for agriculture.
Eusaran society idolizes their pilots, treating them like celebrities. They make public speeches, visit children’s hospitals, and routinely appear on late-night talk shows; you’ll find their faces on everything from billboards to cereal boxes. To be a pilot in Eusero is to have one’s name forever etched into the hearts and minds of an entire nation.
In the mountainous country of Helburke, civilization is…strange. Their architecture is ancient, their laws are draconian, and their wills are utterly unshakable. Helburke’s cities lay behind prodigious walls of stone and steel, and are built in tiers descending down the faces of mountains older than written history. High-towered castles and sprawling cathedrals are not uncommon sights in Helburke; indeed, one might look upon a village there and be shocked to find something as mundane as electricity.
But Helburke is not lost in time. Its aesthetics are only that, representative of their national identity, but never a hinderance. Helburke is bested in Savior-count only by Eusero, having six to its name, all of which carry long and brutal histories, and while its technological advancements might not be as plentiful as in Eusero, it is still a nation of keen, practical minds. Helburke has never shied from displaying its might in the face of any perceived slights, and is always the first to put forth duels as an answer to any diplomatic dispute.
Its citizens are hardy and proud; when the world reformed following the rise of the Saviors, and the nations’ governments collectively banned firearms from all but military use, the citizens of Helburke chose to carry swords at their hips rather than be unarmed—a practice still present to this very day.
The pilots of Helburke are regarded more with respect than adulation. They are seen as warriors, standing at the vanguard to defend their home, and their people, from the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. It is a legacy-defining honor to be selected for the Savior program in Helburke, and often times tournaments are held in which prospective candidates must fight, sometimes to the death, for their spot in the cockpits.
The Tohoki peninsula is a lush, vibrant land guarded from the Dim Sea by a range of snow-capped mountains. Once ruled over by the Arideans, it declared independence following the empire’s fall, though Helburke to this day still claims Tohoki was rightfully ceded to it in the aftermath. As such, tensions between to the two nations have always been high.
Though it holds only two Saviors, Tohoki has made advancements in defensive technology rivaling, and in some cases even surpassing Eusero. They were the first nation to successfully graft extra modium onto a Savior without rejection. Though other countries have managed to replicate the feat, none achieve the same quality. Nowadays, Tohoki is regularly commissioned for armor from programs across the world, cementing itself, for now, as a necessity.
Tohoki pilots are viewed with a respect more closely resembling Helburke than Eusero. There’s little in the way of fame, but plenty of reverence, and pilots are often selected from its engineering schools, whose students spend most of their academic lives working on and studying Saviors.
Considered by many to be the most beautiful country in Illun, Casoban is a land of rolling hills and seaside vistas, where people spend their lives in luxury, relaxing on beaches and indulging their hobbies with all the time and means in the world. Though not the smallest country, it is still dwarfed by its political contemporaries, and its influence marks the first notable drop when moving past the “big two” of Eusero and Helburke.
That said, one should not underestimate Casoban. In more ancient times, Helburke was said to have tried to conquer them on no less than three separate occasions, and was rebuffed each time by Casoban’s comparably small yet devastatingly effective militia. Nowadays, and as is the case with most places, their military power is devoted almost entirely to their Savior program, of which they possess four.
Casobani pilots share a similar sort of fame with their Euseran cousins, only with a bit more pomp. Here, the pilots are not just protectors, they are cultural icons, and as such they are often as well educated as they are trained. Casobani pilots are always also lauded artists, musicians, actors, writers, and so on. The people revere them, almost even deify them, and those that retire—who can still function—normally go on to teach at the country’s world-renowned Savior Academy.
Sometimes called “The Pastel Isles” for the unique, gentle colors of its trees. Runa is a single, large island surrounded by a handful of smaller islands, and more than a handful of smaller islets. While once only really considered for its tourist trade, Runa has recently stepped into political relevance in the fallout of a disaster fifteen years earlier, where the neighboring island-nation of Westwel was overwhelmed by a Modir invasion. With their home ruined beyond repair, most of Westwel’s survivors were forced to emigrate, and were welcomed with open arms into Runa.
As a result, Runa acquired Westwel’s single Savior, and shortly thereafter, went on to acquire two more. Today, Runa still finds itself strongarmed on many matters by other, larger nations who believe they are unready for—and perhaps even undeserving of—such power. Whether or not they’re right, that power, along with the raw skill of Runa’s pilots, have kept the vultures at bay. For now.
And here is a timeline of some notable events:
2000
The first singularity appears, and the Modir invasions begin. Millions of lives are lost, and many nations crumble in the first days before the Modir mysteriously withdraw. Attacks continue in this sporadic fashion for years.
2010
The first Savior, classified “Spirit,” emerges from a bunker in Eusero in the midst of a devastating invasion. The Modir are driven back in the ensuing fight, and two more giants are collected. The tide of the war changes almost overnight.
2015
The Modir invasions are repelled by Saviors with consistent success. The various remaining nations of Illun come together at the new, hopeful dawn of their world, and form the Illun Accord, swearing that the only war left to be fought is the war against the Modir. International regulations are set, beginning what many consider to be an era of world peace.
2300
The Aridean Empire breaks faith with the Illun Accord and uses Saviors to invade its neighboring countries. Eusero and Casoban attempt to intervene, but it is not until a single Savior from the tiny, occupied nation of Helburke attacks from within that the Aridean front is broken. In the aftermath, the Empire is crushed, and Aridea is ceded to Helburke.
2455
Westwel, a relatively small island nation, manages to repel an invasion and subdue a Modir without a Savior—a feat which has not been achieved for nearly half a millennia. With its newfound influence, Westwel manages to bring both itself and its neighbor, Runa, out from beneath the iron heel of tariffs imposed upon them by Eusero and Helburke.
2485
The Modir invade Westwel again, in the widest-scale assault launched in hundreds of years. The island is overrun, and both Eusero and Helburke conveniently fail to intervene until it is too late. Casoban Saviors arrive and manage to repel the Modir, but the damage is done. Westwel’s scarce surviving population leaves their ruined home behind, and find refuge in Runa.
2496
Runa’s sole Savior acquires a new pilot with an unprecedented phasing speed. Dahlia St. Senn, an orphan from Westwel, manages to capture two more Modir for Runa in her first year. Helburke manufactures two conflicts justifying duels with Runa within a single month, and loses both, costing it two prized pilots, and nearly one Savior. St. Senn becomes internationally known for her piloting skill, and Runa begins to see begrudging respect from other major players on the world stage.
Location: Drox Fraternity House -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
It was bittersweet to see the hall so busy. Outside of the occasional holiday event, outsiders generally didn’t have much reason to travel all the way to Thorinn for Drox’s sake. She liked those days; the people who came through were happy, seeking help and willing to help others. Now it was overwhelmingly more of the former. In the back of her mind she knew this was what the hall had been designed for, originally, to be a place for the new and afraid to take shelter and find helpful souls to guide them, but in practice…well, even the best hospitals suffered during pandemics. And that’s what the fallout of the glitch was: a pandemic of fear. Missy...
Seele led the pair of them inside, smiling and nodding to the plethora of faces she’d become familiar with over the past few weeks, wayfarers and denizens alike. Most were much to busy scrambling about to do more than nod themselves, but a few smiled back. Seele was apt at making herself useful, especially so if that meant easing the workloads of her fellow attendants. Her arrival meant that some of them might get a sliver of downtime. It killed her to look at them, to see the bags under their eyes, and know that some of them would have begged on hands and knees for sleep in the hours she’d wasted staring blankly at the dark. ...you sleep too much... The guilt brought the nausea back, briefly, but Seele managed to compose herself. Before long they came to one of the clerical desks, to the lone attendant who at first seemed impatient, then relieved to see more and familiar assistance.
Seele beamed, keeping her voice chipper. “Good morning! Seele and Alex, reporting for duty! Point us at whatever’s most urgent and we’ll do our best!”
Just as the dopamine was wearing off, and the food was beginning to taste like the garbage slop that it was again, lo and behold, there be delivered before her another hungry sap to torture. He approached cautiously, with all the confidence of a lost fawn. His eyes were mile-a-minute between her and everywhere that wasn’t her, and she craned her head this way and that trying to snatch his gaze up in the brief instants they made eye-contact.
God, how come nobody’d told her it was her birthday?
There was a touch of command in his voice that the rest of him couldn’t back up, which was surprising coming from a red. As far as she’d seen in the past few weeks, the engineering students tended to keep to themselves, and she’d picked up a sort of toothless hostility from them towards the operators and, especially, the pilot-cadets. Of course, it didn’t help that the pilots played into it. Some of her peers relished in the envy, which seemed like a great way to utterly ruin things for themselves down the line, when their livelihoods would depend on those reds.
Of course, that didn’t mean Cinny was about to show the guy any mercy.
Cinny tapped her lips in feigned thought, then snapped her fingers and, at a prompt from her, he held out his hand. She dug into her pockets, miming excitement when she found what she was looking for. With the reverence and sincerity of someone bequeathing a precious family heirloom to a loved one, Cinny took his hand in hers, and gently closed his fingers around the prize that had been hiding amongst the lint in her pocket. When he opened his hand, there it was.
An empty, crumpled Zhenko wrapper.
Cinny pretended to be shocked. She quickly snatched the wrapper up, inspected it, sniffed it, pulled it flat and taut. She rolled her eyes and smacked her palm against her head, as if to say, Ah, of course, how silly. The wrapper was sealed at one end, so Cinny put the other end to her lips and with a quick breath, inflated it. Then she licked her finger, sealed the other end, and playfully bounced the ballooned wrapper between her hands.
This went on for some moments. Patience was a rope you could measure many times, but cut only once, so before too much time had been wasted, she signaled again for her victim to hold out his hand. She was surprised when he did, but not very. Taking the featherlight wrapper, she waved it about like a wand and tapped it three arbitrary times against her forehead, before holding it out over the red’s hand.
Lem would have said: “Now you really, really have to want it.” Cinny just waggled her eyebrows. She let go, and the wrapper dropped like a rock into Bel’s open palm, full of Zhenko-goodness.
Cinny did some mystical jazz-hands, then picked up her fork and let the serotonin persuade her to take a few more bites of slop.
Ezmy was a bit disappointed that Disker didn’t take the bait, but she’d come to expect as much from him, boring as it could be. Sometimes she suspected a good chunk of the crew had been secretly lobotomized, but then she remembered people like Kellen and Irina, and decided maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Leon intervened on Disker’s behalf, and she rolled her eyes. Fuckin’ white-knight manlet, she thought, but decided it would be best to keep that to herself. Ezmy didn’t usually shy from getting on people’s bad sides, but pissing people off before a fight wouldn’t do her any favors if they were pissed off at her. She wasn’t going to lick any boots, but she could do her best to keep the snipping to a minimum. Maybe.
“Vanguard,” she said, staking her claim. Now that they had something resembling a plan, fucked if she was going to sit in the ass-guard while everyone else did all the hard work—she wasn’t Disker.
Ezmy shot Gaida one more venomous glance, and then hopped down from her pile as Disker wandered off with the toy. He’d be staying aboard on his usual roost, as far from harm’s way as possible. Surprise. The only pilot who’d be safer than him was Marlowe, and though normally the good ol’ Voltus-nepotism would have pissed her off, she never felt the urge to argue over this particular point. The truth was that she didn’t want Marlowe out there with them. He wasn’t cut out for it. He was just fine at picking up trash, but his incorrigible pacifism didn’t just make him fucking insufferable, it also made him a liability to everyone else.
“Yeah, something tells me it’s not gonna be hard to get permission for this one,” she said, starting off for the hangar. “Guess I’ll suit up for the green light. Maybe we’ll finally get some fucking action.”
Ezmy’s fists balled up on reflex the moment Gaida touched her, shuddering like the temperature had suddenly dipped into the negatives. She shot the woman a hard look, eyes flicking from her to her hand, as if, surely, it was just some tragic mistake that it had landed on her shoulder. But no, it wasn’t, and Gaida went on to agree with her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Ezmy might not have been a very socially-conscious person, but she knew when she was being patronized.
“…little Ezmy’s plan.”
Oh, she’d be paying for that one.
“Gee Gaida, thanks.” She said through teeth grated in the closest approximation to a smile that Ezmy could muster. When the woman took her hand away, Ezmy brushed imaginary grime off of her shoulder. She wasn’t done with her, but Disker’s sharp interjection reminded her that there was, in fact, an actual conversation of import going on. Fine. There’d be plenty of time for getting even later.
“Okay, and?” she snipped back at Disker. “If the pirates come back, the options are run, or fight, and you’re out of your mind if you think this hunk of junk is outrunning anything. Fuck’s sake, you don't have to stall like this, you can just say you’re scared. Not like anyone’d be surprised.”
That was a bit of a low-blow. Ezmy didn’t have much respect for Disker’s…“cautious” piloting style, but that didn’t mean he was useless; he was a coward, she thought, but even cowards could be good shots. Still, with how quiet the man usually was, it was worth snatching at the opportunity to get a rise out of him.
“The real question is whether or not we’re gonna sit around scrapbooking until they get the jump on us.”
Ezmy was relieved to have traded the crowd of whining rescues for the usual junkyard entourage of the Cathartes’ crew. They weren’t that much better, but she’d found a begrudging comfort in their company over the months, especially compared to the people they usually did business with. Watching Cornell guile respect out of Feds and Zeons made putting up with all the creeps and freaks on his payroll worth it. There’d be no escaping war—that the Cathartes existed at all was proof of that—but meeting its horrors with self-serving indifference was a pretty close second, in her opinion.
They came to what was left of the scrapheap. Ezmy hopped up onto a pile of flattened debris and watched as Disker went to work doing…Thinker things. To her it just seemed like he was obsessing over ash-marks and slag, but she’d come to understand that there was usually more going on behind those eyes than might appear.
"…Because whoever jumped our guests are certainly packing tech that shouldn't be in service right now."
Wow, or maybe not?
"You mean the pirates are using illegal weapons?" she asked dryly. "Killer detective work there, Disker."
Beside them, Marlowe dragged a Fed over to ask him some questions. She found herself scowling again, already—it never took long when Marlowe was nearby. The younger Voltus had an effect on her, like the effect a cheese grater might have on the side of someone’s face. She could practically feel the headache coming on as soon as he opened his mouth. Sometimes he didn’t even need to talk, just his presence was an irritant.
When the Fed shut up, Marlowe looked to the rest of them. Ezmy rolled her eyes.
"I don’t get it," she said. "If we’re worried about the pirates coming back, we should just suit up and get out there. The trash isn’t gonna tell us anything that seeing them won’t."
“Mm, every now and then I suppose I could be just a teensy bit irresponsible,” Seele giggled, at once relieved and disappointed with how easy it was to lie, when it mattered. “Though I think I’ve just been nervous about that new dungeon, honestly. And those poor villages. I hope it isn’t this bad in all of the regions.” Can you see it? She made a dismissive wave at herself. Such negativity was unbecoming, and certainly not the thing to say to someone trapped in just as bad of a situation as everyone else. Seele adopted her smile, and listened while Alex put in his two-cents on today’s plan.
Like her, he seemed exhausted, just in a different sort of way. He’d said himself that the routine was beginning to eat at him, and of course, she couldn’t blame him. What he was saying made sense; Pariah was real now, and real meant reality. Reality meant responsibility. People didn’t often play games seeking that sort of thing out. She imagined Alex, like most reasonable people, wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of having to pick up a fantasy nine-to-five. Of course you can.
Well, she didn’t have to imagine very hard. Alex spoke often and frankly—but not unkindly, she’d noticed. He wasn’t blunt like Rael or Graves, or analytical like Kazuki. He was genuine, and easy to listen to. A bit like Alja, albeit with less of a…presence. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d found herself enjoying what conversations they had, and she was glad to have him accompanying her.
“You’re right, unfortuantely. As long as we’re staying in Thorinn, the Drox Hall is about as close as we’ll get to steady work, but it’s still better than nothing I suppose. Hallmasters it is. Hopefully they’ll have something for us.” She gave him a little wink. “Fingers crossed it has nothing to do with the sewers. Shall we?” How could you not? Together they left the Laughing Worg and went about navigating the morning foot traffic to make their way to the Fraternity Hall.
Cinny had managed to balance the stylus of her data pad between her nose and upper lip for nearly five minutes when class suddenly ended, and she realized she’d missed most of the lecture. Oops. New record, but oops.
“And don't forget that I want your essays on Isao Taiyōtawa in my databanks by Tuesday!”
Right, she knew she’d forgotten something. Essays, important robot history, big ol’ chunk of her final grade; she hadn’t started it yet. Oops, again. Seemed like she was going to have a few late nights ahead of her, which wasn’t a big problem. Cinny had always been a bit of a night-owl—everyone back home was, really. This wouldn’t be the first assignment she’d cranked out on a tight-deadline, and like the others, it wouldn’t be pretty but it’d keep her afloat.
Some of her classmates enjoyed the history lessons, enjoyed learning about all of the egg-heads and big-wigs that’d built the mecha programs up, but Cinny just didn’t. It wasn’t why she was here. Isao Taiyōtawa was probably very smart, and very important—you didn’t name schools after idiot nobodies—and like every other hero and scientist they’d learned about, he wouldn’t matter when it came time to actually pilot. The bullets weren’t going to fly any faster because she knew Taiyōtawa’s favorite color.
The lot of them were herded into the cafeteria. She waited in line, never overly eager to get first-slop. They’d had weeks to adjust to the academy’s tailored-diet, and while the groaning had mostly stopped, she knew better than most that silence was not the same as complacence. Cinny hadn’t said anything the whole time, and she hated the paste. Every meal was a reminder of how nice she’d had it back on the farm. Sure, things were usually tight, dark, and miserable, but in addition to good company she could always count on a well-cooked meal at the end of the day. Not all of the invasive creatures introduced to her home were safe to eat, but some were. Some were downright delicious.
Finally seated, Cinny stared down at the goop on her tray, mouth twisted in distaste, and started to eat.
“Hey.”
Someone sat down across from her at the long table, an upper-classman she didn’t recognize. He had an untouched tray of his own goop, and he looked at her with the sort of muted intrigue of someone who didn’t want to appear desperate. But Cinny had been dealing with looks like that for weeks now, she knew exactly why he was here.
“I heard you, uh…” he mumbled. Cinny cocked a brow, feigning ignorance, and the student chewed his lip. “You’re Cincinna, right? Uh, sorry, I mean Cinny.”
She nodded, and he stared at her until it became clear that she wasn’t going to offer anything else. Something approaching frustration seeped onto his face. “This stuff tastes like solid-vomit,” he said, poking the goop with his fork. “And word is you…like…have stuff that doesn’t taste like that. Maybe. Right?”
Cinny put a finger on her chin and batted her lashes at him. Who, me? she seemed to say.
“Yeah,” he said. Most people were quick to pick up what she put down. A bit impatiently he added, “so do you or not?”
He was reaching a familiar point, she saw, contemplating whether or not that sweet, delectable contraband was worth putting up with her. Unlike most students who got their hands on—admittedly harmless—illicit goodies, Cinny didn’t charge, but people who came to her thinking that meant they got stuff for free were always sorely mistaken. The price was that they were subjected to Cinny’s weird bullshit.
Ugh, she loved it. It was so hard to find reasons to smile up here.
Cinny conceded, nodding, but just when he seemed ready to thank her, she held up a finger. He watched exasperated as she tugged down one of her sleeves, showing that it was empty, and then did the same to the other.
“What are you doing.”
She twinkled her fingers, waving her hands in mystical circles. Lem used to chant ridiculous incantations when he did parlor tricks, Cinny just turned up the gestures. He flinched when she reached out at him, but stilled at a placating look from her. Her hand went past his face and into his hair, and she screwed up her face with mock-puzzlement, only to pop her mouth into a little ‘o’ imitating discovery. Then, as if from thin air, she produced a Zhenko bar from behind his ear.
Lem would have said something like: “Now how did that get back there?” Cinny just mimed amazement. The student blinked. He was more than just unamused, he was now openly aggravated. Without so much as a thank-you, he snatched the bar from her, stuffed it into his pocket, and stalked off with his tray.
“Fuckin’ hell,” she heard him mutter under his breath.
Cinny was beaming. The next bite of goop didn’t taste quite so bad.
As the captain finished up his spiel, and the survivors began to disperse, Ezmy found her interest waning. No one had tried to press their luck, or whined about their shitty accommodations—which were only marginally less-shitty than the crews’ own—they all just seemed happy to be breathing. Which was stupid. They were attacked, stranded, and now they were essentially being robbed in exchange for their lives. The fact that a few of these idiots would consider the Voltus company heroes when they got to Mars was one part hilarious, and nine parts fucking annoying.
Some Federation roach skittered up to Cornell and introduced himself as a Lieutenant Commander. The captain shot that shit down pretty quick, and Ezmy scoffed when he winked her way. She hopped down off the table and made her way to the back of the mess again, but did it without hurry so that she could still hear the conversation. There was no reason to eavesdrop; Cornell was just telling the same story all of them had heard before about his past rodeos, and the suit just groveled compliance. Nothing special. Besides, even if Spare Change or Tire or whatever-the-fuck his name was did say something interesting, even if he’d just started spilling Federation secrets, so what? Who was she gonna tell? Who was anyone on this bloated iron tub gonna tell? She quickly found herself tuning it out.
Some of the survivors followed Kellen out of the mess to where they’d be bunking. He was easily one of the most aggravating people on the Cathartes and, probably, in the whole galaxy—an opinion shared by other crew-members, she was sure—however, through the doorway she caught a glimpse of first-place: Marlowe.
He was badgering Disker about something, showing off a…toy? It looked like a toy. Had he picked it out of the wreckage? She felt herself growing annoyed with him already, a familiar feeling when it came to the lesser Voltus. Pirates ambush a pack of helpless traders, and Marlowe manages to salvage a toy rubble.
With effort, Ezmy suppressed the urge to yell “grow up!” through the door, and chugged the last of her coffee instead. Her face twisted at the taste, and for a moment she thought she might not mind if the newcomers did drink it all.
But the moment passed, and she went back for a refill. There were still enough people in the mess for her tastes; she'd stick around here until that changed, or until someone barked at her to make herself useful. No one ever got away with loitering on the Cathartes for long.
Sunlight spilled through the open window of Missy’s room at the little inn across from the Laughing Worg. She lay on her bed, staring out at the open sky as the warm air of a Thorinn morning settled around her. Outside, the city was waking and anxious. No doubt most of the wayfarers, and perhaps even some of the denizens, were finding it hard to rest each night, and harder to rise in the mornings. It was a plight she empathized with.
Missy had not slept in four days. You sleep too much, Missy.
Sitting up was an ordeal, as though she was rising back into her own body. She sat at the edge of her bed, hunched, eyes half-lidded, hair strewn across her face, and stared blankly at one of the half-dozen candles she’d set up across the room. Most of them had melted into puddles in their sconces and snuffed out, this one’s wick was barely standing on a brittle, bent pillar of wax. She’d have to replace them before tonight. As the days went on, it wasn’t enough to just be awake anymore. Her dreams were seeping into the shadows, breeding whispers and harboring strange, violent shapes. Things had begun nesting in the dark.
Missy stood and dressed. She was reeling; her head throbbed, she was nauseous, her whole body was beset with tremors. Her mind felt like liquid, holding onto her own thoughts was like trying to grasp water. It was a struggle just to wrap her wrists and secure her robes. She left the inn with her parasol sheathed at her hip, and made a brisk, if unsteady trip across to a smaller tavern a few streets over.
She paused at the door, rubbed her eyes; they hurt as though two coals were simmering in the sockets, but she took a deep breath and pushed the discomfort aside. Seele smiled and went in.
The place was quiet and mildly busy. Wayfarers with the coin to spare bought hot breakfasts and others just nursed cups of water or milk or weak ale. It wasn’t as nice as the Laughing Worg, but Dariel had put much into that place. He was a pleasant man. Experienced, and intolerant of nonsense—though more tolerant than Arie—but nice. She hadn’t forgotten the headache her group had caused him weeks ago, and that he still allowed them in was testament to a patience not present in other denizens, at least when it came to wayfarers.
At a table in the corner was a lone man, and she went to sit opposite him. He was a recent acquaintance of hers, a surreptitious healer she’d met on one of her evening walks. He hadn’t given a name, but he was sympathetic towards his fellow supports, and, importantly, prone to discreteness. They exchanged greetings, and then he placed two fingers on her temple.
Dim, comforting light drifted into her vision, and slowly—very slowly—the headache, the nausea, the little tremors, all began to fade. She felt precious clarity returning to her. The fatigue lingered, lessened but not erased. Days ago his magic would leave her feeling downright well-rested. Now the effects were weaker. It was better than the alternative, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stay awake tonight, when the effects wore off. She would still try. It was an old habit, but it was a hard one to forget.
At length he pulled his hand away, and there was concern on his face. “This is the longest bout so far, it’ll be a week, soon. I think you should consider finding a real healer, or maybe some high-end apothecary. Someone who can at least tell you if this is a disease, or some kind of curse, or…I don’t know.” Did you dream? Seele hid her guilt well. This man had been quick-fixing the fallout of her sleep-deprivation almost since they’d met, and she didn’t have the courage to admit she was doing it to herself. He’d wondered if her group’s healer could help, but she’d asked for his assistance to avoid worrying any of them. Which was true, in all fairness. She didn’t want to be untruthful with her friends, but more than that, she didn’t want to burden them.
Politely, and with more than a few grateful thank-you’s, Seele excused herself from the tavern and started back for the Laughing Worg to meet up with Alex. It was still early, but with how crowded Thorinn had become, she wasn’t surprised to find herself in mild traffic. Many of the wayfarers she saw seemed to be wandering aimlessly, with uneasy looks on their faces somewhere between worry and shame. They didn’t have much, and what little remained dwindled quickly away as the days passed and the call for action went unanswered. When she was able to think about it clearly, it troubled her.
Seele felt an obligation to the Fraternity Hall. Whatever despair she saw outside of it was so much worse inside, where the wayfarers were mainly newcomers with little grasp on the workings of the world. There was panic there at almost all hours, and at night it often devolved into terrible, inconsolable fear—one of the reasons she chose to sleep elsewhere. She was glad to help, glad to lift what spirits she could, glad to teach what she knew to those with bravery enough to even consider striking out on their own. And yet, Aetheria was getting worse.
Her group had discussed the new dungeon already, and while Seele had offered to follow whatever decision was made, she secretly wished to stay and assist the Hall. Perhaps not so secretly though, as she’d been counted as “against.” Now, though, she wasn’t so sure. Only a single group had decided to brave the new dungeon, and they hadn’t returned. Monsters were still appearing, and with so few wayfarers to cull the numbers, denizen villages were falling, quickly and brutally. The people in Thorinn needed help, but it seemed to her now that the people outside needed it more.
Gradually, Seele’s mind was made up. She would do her duty for Drox today, but afterwards she would tell Benkei that her vote had changed. Someone had to do something, and as long as Pariah had been around, that someone had been the wayfarers.
Eventually Seele realized she was standing by a street many blocks past the Laughing Worg. She blinked, but was only momentarily surprised. Time had slipped her again, another side effect, and one she was as dreadfully, intimately familiar with as the rest. At least she was still inside the city. Turning about, she headed back towards Dariel’s tavern, and made a point to keep herself focused the whole way. Alex had been so nice in offering to come with her, the last thing she wanted to do was annoy him by being needlessly late.
When she finally made it back, she took a seat at a table inside to wait. Thankfully it was still early, and she hadn’t missed him.
“We could stick to the courtyard— ” she said to Alex, and a yawn overtook her. “Oof, excuse me. We could stick to the courtyard, or we could go in and see if the Hallmasters have anything specific they need done. We’ll be helping out either way, so I really don’t mind. Any preference?” Was I in it?
Lemons
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Yankee
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