Arrival Mingle

[iterumadmin]

Who: Everyone.
What: The Chosen return or arrival in the City.
When: July 1st.
Where: The Districts of the City.
Anything Else? Feel free to make your own arrivals, or throw an arrival starter here! The party is open to all. As a reminder, language barriers are not an issue in the Tower.

The City hadn't changed at all in its time without the chosen. If anything, The City seemed a little dusty. The Chosen would find themselves waking in their assigned homes. Even if they were returning and had other homes. They would wake in their chosen home. For the most part, anyway, a few chosen had special ways of arriving.

The assigned housing varied depending on the district they were assigned according to their sin. However, everyone had a box, a welcome package awaiting them upon waking. Inside the box was an extra invitation inviting them to the tower if they so decided to come visit upon arrival.

The city was once again bustling with life. Cars, demons, and the people of the City moving as if time had never stopped. Business as usual for the returning Chosen.


The Tower

While it was not Aiden's district, he had talked the Duchess into opening up the ballroom, and Skiffell to provide food, that just didn't seem to end. The grand ballroom was filled with many delectable dishes, and a small band of demons playing big band music in the corner.

The doors were propped open with the music drifting out to help lull the chosen who decided to attend. A handwritten poster board outside the open doors displaying 'Welcome Chosen!' with about 10 smiley faces drawn on it. While normally parties at the tower demanded fancy dress, Aiden throwing a party meant that rule would not be abided. He didn't dig out the fancy threads for anyone. This was a different kind of party, put together by the lord of Leisurebrook.

While Aiden didn't plan to reveal himself as a magistrate, he did love to mingle with people and hear their stories. So he was there. He was napping at a round table off in a corner, his messy brown hair spilled over his crossed arms as he napped as if he didn't have a care in the world.

Comments

[needsabreak]

Her offhand comment about their only being this city and nothing else catches him offguard. It's something he hadn't realized, or considered. Why would he?

"Wait. What do you mean just one city? Like... we can't leave or there's nothing else beyond this place?" He's getting to the point where nothing will really surprise him about this place. The whole thing is bizarre.

"Huh. You're not the first person I've spoken to who mentioned multiple universes. Can't say I ever thought that kind of thing was real. I'm also from... an Earth, I guess. Feels weird to say it that way."

[geomagnetically]

“Trying to leave has been an absolute bust, so yeah. This is all we get, apparently.” She makes a face. Lucky them.

“The multiverse can be a bitch and a half, so you might be better off not having had the chance to be flung through time and space like that, honestly. Most of the time I feel like that meme of the guy in front of a board with red strings all over it and looks like he hasn't slept in days and is living on caffeine or possibly MDMA.” A short pause, then: “What's your earth like?”

[needsabreak]

"One of the people in charge - what do they call themselves here? Magisters? - she said we were here to complete some purpose. Again, I feel like they'd benefit from less culty language. But if we do whatever the City brought us here to do, then we get sent home. Have you heard anything about that?"

Sorry, party or not, he's not about to pass up the opportunity to gather as much information as he can.

"You feel like what?" He's completely lost, "A 'meme'?"

He shakes his head, not following.

"What's my earth like," He echoes, finding the question overwhelming at best, "I guess... okay, it's not super different than this city. Uh, there are cities that kind of look like this. New York, LA, DC. The technology seems pretty similar."

He's going to leave out the viruses, bio organic weapons, and zombies for now.

"What about you?"

[geomagnetically]

“No, but I didn't have the patience to entertain that network post from one of them, because PR stunts from captors is not my style, so if they said something in there about it, I missed that shit. Knowing that along with everything else though, I can't decide if that sounds more like Scientology or Mojoworld. Pick your circle of hell, basically.” She sighs.

“A meme is like .. a funny post on the internet, usually including either simple or questionable humor or both. As for my earth, I guess my earth is kinda like it too. We have cities, tech, but we also have more than average humans there - we have mutants, inhumans, and other species.”

[needsabreak]

He tilts his head, expression shifting to one of deep understanding and respect. The fact that she can see through the bullshit with ease is refreshing.

"I can't say I know what either of those things are, but agreed. Their PR stunt was mostly bullshit but she did answer some questions. Whether there's any truth behind what she said is debatable, of course," But it's a start.

"Oh, got it. I didn't realize those were called something," Memes. A new word to add to his vocabulary.

He maintains a neutral expression as she brings up mutants, inhumans and other species but his mind is racing. Could she be from his world? Or maybe a world where the virus affected more people? 'Other species' is an odd way to refer to BOWs though.

"What made people into mutants or inhumans?"

[geomagnetically]

“Never google either of them and consider yourself blessed for it. Veeeery curated answers I'm sure, but if you can find an iota of truth in them, hell yeah.” She just doesn't have the capacity to dig for it from sketchy people like the ones in charge here. She'd roll her eyes too much.

“Comes down to different genes than homo sapiens, really. There's a lot of scientific jargon and nuance between the two, and then between them and humans, that I won't bore you with, but basically, they have abilities - superpowers, that can be anything under the sun.” She swipes a fork from the nearest table. “Like me? I'm a mutant.” that fork then suddenly twists into a spiral.

[needsabreak]

Once again, he's not positive what she means by 'googling' things but he feels like he already made himself look like an idiot already and this didn't seem overly important.

"They were definitely curated but even if there's a hint of truth in things like that, it's worthwhile. I don't really know anything about this place, so any sliver of information seems worth it at this point," He sighs.

"Different genes?" He squints slightly, trying to follow along with that she's saying, "How did their genes end up different? Are you saying people are born with different genes or do people manipulate the genes?"

He's not a scientist, but he's pretty sure that's what the viruses do, change the structure of a person's DNA and twists them into a monster.

He watches with a guarded expression as she twists the fork she's holding without apparently doing anything to it.

[geomagnetically]

She nods slightly as if to concede that fair point about information. Maybe she's just more a hands on type personally.

“For mutants, it's born.” The terrigen mist thing makes the inhumans a little harder to answer on that question. So she leaves that one there. “It's not like a science experiment gone wrong thing, or a you accidentally touched a weird space rock thing, or a whoopsies you went through an unknown magic portal and came out changed thing. Although, I won't say shit like that hasn't happened to some people.” Because dear god she can think of a handful of examples of the top of her head for those categories.

“Is it just average humans where you're from?”

[needsabreak]

He definitely wouldn't mind 'hands on' at this point. If someone could just point him in the direction of something he's supposed to shoot at, he'd feel a lot more in control of this situation.

"Okay... so... close to human but genetically slightly different? Like, uh, cavemen kind of?" He's trying so hard, you have no idea.

He takes a little too long to answer her question and then ends up letting out a sigh. The answer was obviously 'no'.

"You mentioned science experiments gone wrong. it's kind of like that, but these experiments went exactly like they were supposed to and turned bodies into weapons. Biological warfare. That's how it started anyway. Then it evolved into being able to be applied to the living. People aren't really people anymore after they're infected," He pauses, seeming to go somewhere else for a moment before blinking and continuing, "Most people aren't people anymore. They lose their sentience, can be controlled, or are just instinct.

Other than that. Yeah, humans."

[geomagnetically]

“Yeah, something like that. Everything a human is, but with genetically-gifted powers - or appearance. This green hair did not come from dye from Hot Topic.”

Her eyebrows raise at his explanation. “So someone decided, hey why not desecrate corpses For Science, and then somehow make it even worse?” That sounds, well, horrifying, to her. To not know who might be next, or to live in that torture. “Any chance there's a vaccine or prevention for that?”

[needsabreak]

"Wow, that's... honestly, pretty amazing. So the species is literally evolving through mutations," He doesn't quite understand that the mutations aren't all the same but evolution, to him, meant adapting, so the species was changing and getting stronger in his mind.

"Well, not 'For Science' really. For... 'biological warfare' is probably more accurate. Sending an infected person into an enemy city to die or get killed and then..." He'll let her imagine the rest.

"There've been as many vaccines as there have been new viruses made. Seems every week there's some new terrorist group with a new virus," He sounds more tired than anything else.

[geomagnetically]

“Jeez.” A pause. “At best that sounds like it should be a violation of some international code of conduct.” And she thought she'd seen all types of classifications of war crimes and human rights violations. Turns out, nope, it can be worse.

“There's gotta be a group working to fight all that, though, right?” Some sliver of hope.

[needsabreak]

"Well, yeah, that's why they're called terrorists," He answers dryly, obviously being a little bit of a smart ass.

"Mm. There are. There's an international group focused on fighting bioterrorism. And the US government is-," He takes a breath as he looks for a politically acceptable way to phrase this, "-protecting its interests - investigating and destroying any threats to the American people."

[geomagnetically]

“Oh, oh — I know that phrasing. That means genocide against its own people, right?” Politically acceptable, meet Lorna Dane, the bluntest person and always ready to rip facades off things. “The international group sounds maybe a little more halfway useful.”

[needsabreak]

"Not..." He pauses and sighs a little because she's not wrong, "-exactly."

"The international group can be pretty useful but they run into some jurisdiction issues. Generally, a country has to want them there. And governments aren't always forthcoming when it comes to outbreaks," Mostly because it usually turns out those same governments were funding the research that led to the outbreak.

"Either way, it's complicated."