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nexus_crossings2019-02-02 12:56 pm
handsofwinter) wrote in nexus_crossings2019-02-02 12:56 pm
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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
Blaze-37 - Guardian on Patrol
She’s been patrolling the Nexus for years now- most of the years she remembers, at this point. If nothing else, she’s a familiar sight for many of the refugees, whether they’ve met her in the heat of a previous disaster or just know her as the robot who’s always around. Her armored figure remains a constant now, always on the move, always seeking a task. The Light she carries burns stronger against the cold, restless without her usual outlets for it and warming the air around her. She’s only too eager to answer questions or offer a helping hand to those who ask. Or look like they might ask. Or might have been about to forget to ask.
Unlike other explorers, Blaze has found no battle beyond the torches. Nothing has shown its face to attack her, even while others are found frozen and sometimes headless. It’s the one troubling aspect that breaks her fierce confidence in their chances. A Titan is born to face her enemies head-on. A Guardian is born to die so others need not. To be denied both makes her weapon hand itch and the fire seethe within her.
Just once does she find a quiet spot to hunker down on the floor in a back room, back to the wall and rifle propped beside her, and let herself sleep. Ghost watches over her, ready to flutter a warning to anyone who stumbles in and rouse her if she’s needed.
The rest of the time she’s easy to find, making a point to be out and about when her organic compatriots need to sleep. When she’s not on a mission, she can be found bunched into a corner table at the café, repairing some delicate piece of electronics under Ghost’s supervision, or more often outdoors hauling supplies or shoveling snow, especially after dark. If she’s not at a café table, or on the streets… then very often, especially at night, the Titan will have set her helm on her head and marched out past the torches, rifle at her back and embroidered mark fluttering at her hip. She’s looking for a fight. If anyone else should come across her, however, be it in shelter or on the street or out in the storm, she’ll be quick to lift her hand and voice in greeting to them.
((General non-mission thread if any characters want to talk to Blaze or have an encounter with a restless robot. Unless otherwise specified, I’ll assume all threads take place before the missions are announced.))
What needs to be done is best done in the dark
It's the things people don't think about that are equally as important. Taking care of waste that would infect and spread sickness. Dealing with the bodies of those who simply don't wake up. There aren't many yet, but there aren't none. People get sick. People die. And maybe it's a waste to have someone like Steve Rogers on this kind of unpleasant duty when he could be out fighting or running expeditions but he comes from a time that's dealt more personally and viscerally with sickness, death, and filth than his more modern cousins.
He's been in a camp during the dead of a winter before and kept it running.
Steve knows what has to be done. He spends most of his time resting, because with his metabolism the rations he gets just aren't enough to keep him going as good as he could otherwise be. His bulk needs more calories than others to keep going and there just isn't enough food to go around. When he is awake, he does whatever Isidor Durant needs doing. Whether it's carrying bodies, waste management, shoveling snow...he's there with his head down trying not to make a fuss no matter how bleak things get.
No matter how much his insides ache and the cold makes his skin crawl with unwanted memories. He settles into a numb sort of autopilot after a while. It's late the night he spies a familiar duo patrolling in the dark. He's spent and filthy from shoveling snow, near stumbling back toward the warm beacon that is the cafe.
"Find anything...?" Steve's voice is quiet, barely heard over the wind. One step, then another crunches through the snow as he approaches the bots.
no subject
“Just a body.” One of theirs. Always is, or she’d be less grim about it. Blaze falls into step with Steve automatically. “Brought him in for ID but it’s one of the scouts.” They’ve lost very few, lately. The result of growing caution. Most of those who fell early on were brought in all at once by a mystery scout; Blaze hasn’t found out who pulled that off but she’s got to respect the deed. “Looked like he tracked down a cache of some kind – found a few tins and wrappers frozen into the snow. Only he wasn’t the first there.”
Her disgust is rumbling, molten discontent beneath the surface. It’s an easy scene to picture and she despises it. Maybe he stumbled on the creatures breaking into the supplies. Or maybe they stalked him, waited for the man to lead them to his prize.
“
How are you holding up, Steve?” Ghost has to speak up over the wind. “There hasn’t been any trouble here, has there?”no subject
Instead, he's put his head down and silently kept on walking even if it's at a slower pace than he used to take.
"Another body. Right. I'll handle it." One of their own giving their lives for The Cause. Always for the cause. And once more, Steve wasn't there to jump on the metaphorical grenade. Wasn't there to protect anyone. Maybe he was burying someone else when this scout was attacked. Shoveling snow. Managing pipes, de-icing walkways, any number of things. It doesn't matter because he wasn't there. None of them were.
Tired eyes flit up and study the hat tied firmly to the little Ghost. A gift given when both he and Blaze were different people. It makes the corners of his mouth twitch upwards ever so slightly.
"Fight broke out in the shelter last night. I got it handled. Everyone's running on fumes. We gotta take a win soon here." His own vitals say more than his words do on just how worn down Steve is himself but a single data point can't do overmuch to give Ghost an accurate idea of a trend. All he can do is compare it to the others he's studied. In that regard Steve is still pretty well off by comparison. His body fights pretty hard to keep itself going better than most.
no subject
Palmer's exhausted, partly from hunger, partly from a sorely felt lack of weed, and most importantly from a recent battle with the creatures. When he sees Blaze on patrol, though, he manages a friendly wave.
"They're real," he says, though thankfully his head is still attached. The new patches on his clothes, however, suggest something tore at them. "Beats me where they came from. All I know is there's a lot of 'em and they aren't ones for conversation. To think I came here to get away from ice monsters, huh?"
He turns grim, something troubling him. His expression's visibly somber.
"I hope the rest of my team's all right." The weather makes Palmer think of Antarctica, and more importantly of the other eleven members of Outpost 31. "I meant to organize the party so we could help them by now, but with this storm I'm thinking I'll have to wait until spring. Gives us more time to plan, though. Gotta look on the bright side."