nexus_crossings | Into a Rising Wind

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Into a Rising Wind

Winter holds the Nexus in its jaws, and its teeth sink ever deeper.

A month into the storm, the snow has yet to stop falling. The number of mouths to be fed has stopped dwindling, almost. Occasionally people go missing, and those who notice hope they’ve found a way back through their portals. It’s not enough to change the maths on their food supplies - all their supplies. Nobody is getting a full meal at a time, not any more. Isidor and Lyall have begun to enforce the rationing with iron hands. Both ignore the look that crosses Captain Kirk’s face when they upbraid a volunteer cook for being too generous – the look that lingers on Runa’s face if she’s close enough to hear. They’re doing what they must. They need a tight hold on their supplies if they want to get people through this. They need supplies even to send expeditions after more.

And expeditions are a difficult prospect now. Those who ventured into the storm and returned have brought stories that spread faster than Isidor hoped. The Crossroads Cafe has become a semi-official hub for those travelling outside or keeping watch on the bounds, a safe resting place kept warm by the combined power of Pokemon and Persona. In the long dark nights, people sit around the tables and share what they've seen, what they've heard from this scout or that refugee. Whispered tales of the creatures out there hunting in packs, hounding people from rooftops, even tearing open walls to reach them…

No-one goes out alone, now. Those brave enough to take the risk go in groups and arm themselves with the best weapons they can find. Sometimes they’re a risk to themselves. Not everyone knows how to handle that black market plasma pistol they picked up two days past. Not all of their team-mates keep their nerve when a figure looms out of the snows beside them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s run afoul of monsters, and who of their own folly. Safer, but little less brave, are the people recruited to keep watch on that shifting line of torches. Just a precaution. The creatures don’t come past it, everyone says. But quietly, everyone doubts.

There've been bright moments, too. A strange alchemist comforting a lost child. An expedition team fighting their way home, back to back. Families brought safely through the snow by soldiers and wizards, by heroes young and old and sometimes surprising. A volunteer cook stepping up to prepare, if not quite a hundred thousand meals, then something that feels close. A young man saving the life of a stranger who'd threatened him. The past weeks have seen people who may never have known one another before come together to offer a blanket, or guiding words, or a helping hand in a search. Small moments, glowing reminders of how much good the people of the Nexus have on their side. But the Winter goes on, and the winds never get less bitter, and the smiles get more strained with every day.

Slowly the line of torches close on the Plaza, a noose no-one can afford to flee. Sheltered space is at a premium. Most of those who remain are settled as close to the centre as they can be. Whether in the big public bunker or the Cafe, people find themselves crammed all together, and tempers regularly fray among residents not too cold and exhausted for fighting. The more responsible Nexus-goers find themselves trying to duck out of (or break up) fights, or spending hours stuffing drafty accommodation with any insulation they can find. There’s snow to be shoveled from doors, pipes to be defrosted, bandages to be changed. Anything’s better than dealing with the problem of working bathrooms.

At one end of the Plaza headquarters, a makeshift screen has been dragged into place to give a semblance of privacy to Isidor’s desk. It’s painfully early in the morning, though the nights are so long and the days so dim beneath the storm clouds there’s little sense of time any more. There’s no-one around yet to wonder about the meeting going on. The only people present are Isidor, Lyall and a handful of senior volunteers – those who remain. Blaze-37 crouches by a makeshift fireplace, stacking the salvaged wood just right before she punches it lightly, setting it alight with the flames that ripple over her fist. The other robot, Ghost, is hovering over the desk playing flashlight for them, shining a pale beam over the maps and reports laid out there. Light, too, is a precious resource, as batteries die and outlets are lost to encroaching Winter. It’s the only reason those here have gotten sleep. They work until they have no light to work by.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Suou?” the Guardian asks when Isidor says they can begin.

“Officer Suou won’t be coming.”

That’s part of why they’re here, Isidor explains. The torches’ march has taken them past the Grand Library. The Crossroads Café is now on the very edge of the safe zone, along with all the people sheltering there. Katsuya’s magic is the only thing that will protect it. He can’t leave. It’s a turning point that only drives home the larger problem: they’re running out of time. They’re running out of everything. Most refugees are in some kind of shelter by now; what they lack is food to keep them alive and fuel to keep them warm. Isidor’s volunteers have counted heads and counted tins and counted everything backwards and forwards and the numbers never get better. Either they do something now, while they have the strength, or the meals will run dry in two weeks. Less, if anything goes wrong.

She lets that sink in. Nobody looks surprised: she’s confirming their worst suspicions and that gets a few flinches, but they understand. They talk, instead. By the time there’s a hint of daylight outside and someone knocks on the door for the first shot at rations, they have a plan. They need an expedition, bigger than any before. They need enough arms to discourage attack, the skills to get them to any buried supplies and the numbers to haul them back in quantity. Each of them walks away from the table with a mission in mind and an air of grim determination.

They have a job to do, and they’re going to need help.

((As before, so below: the main missions/subquests for the expedition prep are listed below. Tag any of them, threadhop, or post with your own character. I suggest putting your character’s name in the subject to help keep things clear. The OOC Post can be found here! If you have any questions, feel free to message me or one of the mods!))

Threads of Note

Scouting the Expedition | A Fistful of Torches | Scrapyard Sweep | The Home Front | Medical Attention | Isidor's Expedition Call | Main Expedition: The Raid

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Furiosa blinks at Ghost, briefly quizzical, but then dismisses the fact that she's never seen anything quite like him before as irrelevant to the current discussion. She'll ask questions in the Spring if she lives that long.

"That's right," she says, and then smirks faintly at Blaze's enthusiasm. "If you like terrible surprised, bad odds, and being shot at with minimal cover to shoot back from, it was great."

She didn't enjoy it. She's good at fighting, but she really only enjoys a battle if she's on a vehicle. "I'm not sure I'd call it a good look, given how they clung to shadows, and how poor the visibility was, but I can tell you they had knives and rifles, possibly smaller sidearms. They were different sizes; some were about human-sized, a couple were significantly bigger."

She falls quiet for a moment, then says, "The tactics didn't make a lot of sense to me. If they have any hierarchy, it looked pretty rudimentary. Closer to an animal pack than a military unit, I would say. And that's been bothering me."

She folds her arms, foreshortened limb tucking under the full right arm. "With better tactics, they could have had us, if they'd wanted. They were already on the ship by the time we noticed them, so they must have a good sense of stealth in the snow. They could have surrounded it and picked us off one by one, and the fact that they didn't means either they weren't as interested in killing us as they seemed to be, or they're not as bright as they want us to think."

"That's just my take. Harley has a good head on her shoulders and she was closer, so you might want to ask what she thinks. But whoever or whatever they are, I don't understand their behavior."

"Bucklers might be worth the time to build them. I'm not sure what they were firing at us, but I'm sure I'd love to not get hit with it."

They both listen intently, Blaze frowning as she chews over each detail in her mind. Large numbers of hostiles, armed and half-feral, some of them unnecessarily big- so far, so much like another day in the Cosmodrome. But the woman's right. What she's describing doesn't make sense and that's a problem.

"Considering the bodies they've left, they have no problem with killing. Yours is the clearest firsthand account we've had, though. Maybe the other reports were missing too many details. Kinda makes me think someone's playing games with us."

She gives a snort, but practical problems come before griping about spirits who think they're clever. "I wouldn't call myself a smith, but I know one who likes shields. Picked up a thing or two from her. I'll see what we've got."

She pauses, glances over Furiosa again, then salutes. "Guardian Blaze-37, before I forget the introductions. This is my Ghost."

"The only conclusion I can come to is that they must have wanted to drive us away from the ship, without killing us. To leave us alive...for what? To bring the message back? But the message is unclear." She shakes her head.

"In any case, they're tough and well-armed, but at least they're not, as far as I've seen, some sort of ungodly immortal horrors. They're creatures, beings, that can be fought and hurt and killed. I'm not afraid to face them again."

Furiosa returns the salute with a variation of her own, a cross between the V8 clasp and the Vuvalini salute, a two-handed gesture that ends with one hand on her own sternum. "I'm Furiosa. It's good to meet you. Let me know if I can help with getting the equipment set up."

"That's... interesting," Ghost murmurs, almost lost beneath Blaze's grunt of approval for their determined volunteer. Guardians place a high value on bravery, and Titans more than most.

"Furiosa. Good name. Follow me." She crosses to the back of the cafe, reaching out to carefully but firmly move aside anyone in her way, and leads Furiosa upstairs. Ghost stays close the whole way, single optic turning to watch the people they pass. When they're out of the noise of the main floor she speaks again.

"You know what's really grinding my gears? I've been out past the bounds every day and night since the storm hit, and I've never seen hide nor hair of these creatures. Haven't had the decency to fire even a shot at me. I'd be kinda flattered if they were scared off, but I've got a feeling Reynard's just doing it to laugh at me."

Kami-crazy is what the War Boys called it. Not courage, per se--anyone who draws breath in the Wasteland has survival instinct and the courage to use it--but a desperate, semi-suicidal ferocity that propels a person from one battle to another. An unbroken will. But then, War Boys always sought their own deaths, though, and Furiosa never did. She was always chasing vengeance, until she got it, and now she chases survival for her people, and not just herself.

"Thanks," she says, a flicker of a smile appearing on her face. "Blaze is pretty damn good, too."

Mothers. If they survive to spring, and her portal opens up again, Furiosa's going to introduce Blaze to Toast. They'll get along beautifully. Like a house on fire. She follows them quietly, wondering if there's something more to be said, or if they're just about to get some work done. Either way, she's in.

"They haven't shown themselves to you at all?" She hums, frowning. "They're choosing their targets. Do you give off heat?"

That's a wild guess, really, but creatures living in icy conditions could be drawn to body heat. Furiosa isn't completely clear on whether Blaze is entirely mechanical or a human in a heavy suit. It seems rude to ask.

"Do I?" Blaze clearly finds the question funny, for whatever reason. The level of heat she normally vents doesn't stick out much indoors, with so many organic bodies. "Yeah. More than an organic human, on average. They shouldn't have a problem tracking me that way. Unless they're being real picky about their preferred targets, I don't see their logic."

Up they climb, past the coughs and sniffles from the medical ward taking up the second floor. Blaze makes sure to nod to the winged woman running triage on a group of new arrivals. Third floor has the offices, and, in a back room past a watchful scout, an armory. Ghost flits down to undo his tweaks to the lock, and Blaze leads them into a small room currently holding a few locked chests... and two spare sets of the Titan's armor, less fancy-looking than the gear she's wearing but almost as sturdy.

"I brought in some of my own gear when we saw how things were going," she explains to Furiosa, stooping down to key open one of the chests. "Kinda wish we had more now, but mostly anyone who knows how to shoot is already armed. Now. Rifle. Automatic? Burst-fire?"

"So, not that, then. Blood?" She makes a face. That seems unlikely, too. There are a lot of species here and they don't all have the same kind of blood. "...they smelled like chemicals, and their eyes glowed. Maybe they're not entirely organic, themselves."

There's no way to know that without catching and dissecting one, though, and that's something Furiosa would prefer to have no part of. Killing is fine. She'll stand aside if someone wants to chop up a corpse. Torture is something she actively tries to avoid. It reminds her too much of the Organic Mechanic.

Furiosa gives the mini-armory an envious look. It's not something she's considered before; she comes here to trade and rarely meets anything more dangerous than she is (until now), and maybe she got a little too trusting. She always has knives and a couple handguns, but minimal ammunition. It hasn't served her well this time.

Or maybe it has; she's still alive, after all.

"I was just bringing some extra supplies in--flour and water--and my portal froze over. If my people back home are suffering like this and I find out come the thaw, there will be Hell to pay."

"But there's nothing to be done about that now. I prefer semi-auto. I hate to waste ammunition. Force of habit. But I can work with whatever you give me. Probably burst-fire would be easy enough to adapt to."

"Could be implants. Could be construct life-forms. Depends. Some of the aliens we fight smell terrible- oils, gas mixes in their masks, that kind of thing. Then again, could be something weirder. You've always got to watch out for magic, these days. If we get our hands on one Ghost can scan it."

Alive or dead, it doesn't make much difference when the methods are non-invasive. Vivisection would be a whole other story of 'hell no'. Of course, there's no telling what even Ghost could discern, and until they get an opportunity it's all a moot point.

"Heh. If it comes to vengeance, I'd gladly hold the spirit down for you." Blaze learned the need to cache gear here the hard way, and Reynard... was far from the only reason, but he's high on that list. Like most Guardians, she collects weapons anyway. They ought to go where they'll be needed.

The Exo finds a rifle that seems to fit the bill and gives a low grunt of approval. She takes a minute to check it over before she straightens up and offers it to Furiosa. It's a solid, square thing, clean steel-grey and white and a touch of orange here and there, the name Häkke stenciled on the side.

"Won this one in a bet with a Hunter. It's a Herja, from our city's foundries, but it handles faster than most of 'em. Four-round bursts, good range and strong impact. Got a thermal scope for it, actually. Give me a second and I'll find it."

"Scan it?" She eyes Ghost thoughtfully, then nods. Technology might as well be magic, as far as she's concerned, once it hits a certain level. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Can you hold a spirit down?" Furiosa smirks. "I'm hoping it won't come to that. Bad weather is bad weather; my people are equipped for most of what our climate can throw at us, but this? This would kill a lot of them."

It would be invasive and unexpected to a degree she's not sure she can convey. And she's really hoping it's not happening in the Wasteland. What's going on here, in the Nexus, feels less personal. It's not really her territory. Just a place she's used to, where she's willing to help.

Her eyes light up at the rifle she's given. It's perfect; sturdy-looking, heavy without being clunky, and she immediately starts looking it over, careful but eager. "Shoots bullets, or something else? I love it."

With a decent scope, she's likely to be capable of sniper-distance shots. Should that be necessary.

The smaller, shyer robot of the two looks back at Furiosa and bobs his shell a little, like a tiny nod. “I’m equipped to assess physiology and… um, injuries for both organic and inorganic life-forms.”

He gets a lot more practice with the latter, of course. The reason for that is busy making a thoughtful noise to herself and kneeling to search through the chest. The orange glow of the Exo’s optics reflects off black padding and gleaming barrels as her gaze tracks across them.

“Bullets, yeah. Pure kinetic rounds. Won’t do much against energy shields but light ‘em up, but they’re more efficient than the fancy stuff when it comes to punching through bone and armor. Easier to fabricate ammo for, too.” Blaze finds the right scope half by touch, snaps the case closed before she leans back to offer it to Furiosa. She pauses then, arm resting on her knee, gaze tracking over the assembled gear.

“I did it once, you know. Got my hands on Reynard. Couple years back, when he tried to make the Winter last for good. Half the Nexus went out to fight him. He kept vanishing out of our sights, jumping into the wind. But by then I think he was right at the end of his strength, trying to hold off the spring. I managed to grab him long enough to pin him down for our Warlocks and that’s where it ended. That time.” Her distant tone turns into a snort. “Now I wish I’d gotten to punch him again. Couldn't do it afterward.”

Well, that's strangely cute. She blinks at Ghost briefly, smiles, and gives him a nod of acceptance. "Good to know."

"If they have energy shields, they weren't using 'em when we ran into them last," Furiosa tells Blaze mildly, watching her dig through the chest in search of the scope. "So we should be all right."

She takes the scope and looks it over, then attaches it carefully to the rifle. She hasn't used this type before, but it's close enough to what she's seen in her own world that she has no doubt she can make it work for it. "This Reynard," she says, looking over the gun. "He's the Spirit of Winter? And he's supposedly doing what, making the season harsher than it should be here?"

She hasn't been able to draw a conclusion as far as why this is happening. Granted, she hasn't tried that hard. It doesn't matter as much who is at fault as it does that they tend to the business of surviving.

"I never thought much about seasons in the Nexus until I encountered Hazel this fall."

"Right. There's two of them now. Suppose the other seasons must have 'em, too. Not here, though. We'd have heard all about if they showed up." Blaze snorts as she takes out ammo packs and puts her gear back in place, an inelegant synthetic sound. "But yes, to both questions. That storm out there hasn't let up once in nearly five weeks. I've been out there round the clock and I haven't seen it slow down for a moment. That's not natural, not for this place. What we call a Demeter Effect. We've seen him induce it before, that's half the reason my commanders had me install so many sensor beacons. If you're asking me, this is more than harsh weather, though. Space-time portals don't just freeze over. Frost doesn't stop PINpoints from working- or know to attack my beacons, hnh."

She closes over the chest and snaps the seals back into place with a soft hiss. "It's got to be Reynard's doing. That's obvious. Know how I know? Because if someone else was out there 'interfering' with his season, he'd be all over this place throwing dramatic productions about it."

She'd find it all kind of funny, if she couldn't see the cost of his antics. If she didn't have to watch her organic cousins suffer and sicken and slowly inch toward starving.

Again. Perhaps.

Furiosa is quiet, letting Blaze talk, and taking stock of the information. It's all very strange to her; she's from a world where seasons almost don't exist, let alone personifications thereof. She took to Hazel almost at first glance, and now hearing that this Winter is brought about by a being akin to her makes her think about it differently.

In the end, she's not sure whether it makes her warier of Hazel or more gently disposed toward Reynard. She may not know until the end of the season. But it's the kind of thing that makes a person consider, or reconsider, their attitudes.

"Autumn was beautiful," she says mildly after a moment, thinking aloud in a way she very rarely does. "Like a Mother Goddess. I wonder if Winter is the price we pay for that, somehow. We're born, and we die, and we'd like to not die too soon, but sometimes it can't be helped. Mother gives with one hand and takes away with the other. That's just how it is."

Reynard is a man's name, though, and while she hasn't met him, and a season is probably genderless by default, that alone makes her disinclined to roll over and let Winter do what it will. "How do we know what's natural for this place, anyway?" She asks with a soft laugh. "You know, I've always taken it for granted that it would stay roughly the same. I guess that makes me a fool."

In the shadowed room, the little Ghost turns to watch each of them quietly as they speak, the light of his blue optic settling on Furiosa and staying there. Blaze scoops up the ammunition packs as she stands, passing them from one hand to the other as she too turns to listen. Stillness isn’t the enemy it used to be for her, but the need to fidget with her hands remains habitual.

“Doesn’t sound so bad, when you put it that way,” she says slowly, glowing eyes tracking over the woman’s face. “Like there’s some kind of balance. Might not be kind, but it’s… fair.” She offers Furiosa the ammunition. “I don’t think it works that way, though. Not out here. The way I’ve seen it, the night will take everything and everyone it can, if you let it. It won’t offer a hand to match what it robs from you. There’s no mercy in it. No fairness. If there’s to be any balance then it’s our job to make it.”

“We didn’t meet the Autumn spirit,” Ghost remarks softly, almost absent-mindedly, still watching. Blaze turns her gaze to him, frowning for a moment before she replies, a little less certain now.

“No. I don’t know about her. Maybe… hnh.” She shakes her head, looking back to Furiosa. “Guess I can’t argue there are natural laws in this place- heh. And maybe I’m not the person to talk about natural anyway. But what’s happening here wasn’t inevitable. I’m sure of that. I think Reynard made a choice to bring this down on us. And if it’s a choice, then he’s going to answer for it.”

Furiosa hums thoughtfully. "I have to admit, shadow monsters aren't normal seasonal events for any place I've heard of. I want to understand, but understanding isn't as important as outlasting."

"It doesn't matter much right now whether it's something being done out of spite. We can worry about all that once we're sure we can survive. But if I did see Hazel around, I'd love to ask her."

"In the meantime, whatever you need from me, you've got it. But on the off-chance I don't make it until the portals thaw, would you mind checking on my world? Or sending someone else you trust? They...should be fine without me, but just in case."

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Into a Rising Wind

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