Chapter 2

[thenine]

Who: OTA
Where: Quad
When: Week 2, Day 5 - Week 4, Day 6
Summary: Chapter 2 prompts!
Restrictions/Warnings: Violence, blood, et cetera. For anything surpassing 'R' on a rating scale, please create your own log.
Notes: Please title your subject line in the following format -- Open / Closed | Date. OOC event information can be found here.

Quick Navigation
The Nine
The Company
Westies
True Leithians
Leith
Resistance
The RAC

The Nine: Poisoned Well

With the heir delivered and Lady Derrish returning to health, balance has been maintained amongst the Nine. Swift and efficient - and, some would say, unbelievable - medical attention administered may have steadied the Lady's life, but for those in the ruling houses, the atmosphere of tenuous peace only grows thicker. Land Kendry has launched an investigation - with particular focus on Land Hyponia - into the source of the 'attack' on Lady Derrish's health. Of course, that is only the surface, and some suggest, with hushed voices, that there may be more to Land Kendry's goals than to weed out an assailant. Land Hyponia has long since been in support of maintaining the Seventh Generation Accords, which it defends staunchly against any opposition. One of the most agitated among those in disagreement with the Accords is Land Kendry. Now is the perfect opportunity for them to rearrange the pieces in their favor, and with the information they've fabricated, they'll be able to replace the head of Land Hyponia with someone who is - at least hopefully - more pliable to their agenda. The Derrish have their own suspicions, the cure surfacing all too conveniently timed to have been a coincidence. When Land Kendry's investigation procures evidence pointing to Land Hyponia as the culprits, inflaming the crime with implied - yet vague - ties to the resistance, the Derrish publically accept the accusation. Behind closed doors, the solution seemed to have come as uncannily easily as the cure, and suspicions only rise. But for now, the two houses remain allied - ready to use one another for their own interests. For those among the nobility, it's the time to reevaluate alliances, assuring the old and gathering the new. The more support you have, the safer you are - unless, of course, you chose the wrong friend. Some turn to other members of the nobility, some to the RAC for hired guards, some to the Company to mandate investigations unsuitable for Killjoys, and some may even turn to the underbelly of society to accomplish anything necessary to stay on top. Or to simply stay alive.

The Company: Cleaning House

There will be no accolades, and no rest, for the hard working Company officials following the response to the True Leithan attacks. Assignments shift from one thing to the next, moving from bureaucratic nightmare to bureaucratic nightmare. While there’s always busy work to distract from the intrigue behind the scenes, it’s not liable to be any safer. Some officials will be charged with maintaining peace and order on Leith, as the outbreak of a pandemic slowly spreads over the moon. From helping the afflicted find their way to a place of treatment, to safe and efficient body disposal—burning corpses by the hundreds—to attempting to track down the source of the virus, it's best anyone assigned here take heed ‘lest they find themselves falling ill as well. Westerley, on the other hand, is a different kind of headache. With Harvest Week in swing, most company officials will be reaching for a drink of their own at the end of their shifts. Rowdy workers celebrating their time off, spending their hard earned Joy frivolously, and citizens whisked away by the atmosphere of celebration all mingle throughout Old Town. Property damage, fighting, less than subtle illegal activity, and crowding all become more of an issue than they usually are during this time. It's the perfect setting to lay down the law, or to not be noticed by it. On top of it all, each and every member of the Company's workforce can expect to have their documents double and triple-checked. Those with any suspected ties to Leith are likely to undergo a more serious investigation. One-on-one interrogations become common practice, and whether you're trusted or suspect, you may come face to face with a companion in your duties. True Leithan sympathizers are what the Company review is after, but anything else unturned will surely not be ignored. Cover your bases.

Westies: Harvest Week

Harvest week is in full swing throughout Westerley - visa workers have been shuttled back in droves from their time on Leithian farms, many of whom were willing to take some of their observations to information brokers for a price. Most had superficial information to sell (the state of unease on the average farm due to the impending Accords, the increased suspicion that the migrant workers were forced to endure, the fear of retaliation by the rebellion for the True Leithian attacks), others with reports of increased security and weapons caches on the farms of those whose sympathies lie with the “heroes” of the attack in Old Town. Old Town, however, is even more of a chaotic mesh of humanity with the mass influx of returning bodies. Bars stay busy day and night, the hokk and ale flow almost faster than most can keep up, and many Enforcers and Killjoys alike can make a good bit of extra joy (or free drinks) by moonlighting as security at the more popular locations. Despite all of the fun to be had, there is still the undercurrent of unrest, because Company checks have increased even more and Intake has become a revolving door of petty criminals being held for the smallest infractions. Everyone is on edge as the Resistance grumbles and the Nine search the shadows for something or perhaps someone. The unrest only worsens once Leith is placed under quarantine. And through it all, criminal activity is on the rise. Somehow, despite the strict regulation and transport of migrant workers, there is an increased access to Jakk and Bliss. Norn has an ever growing market, and weapons dealers are in high demand both in Eulogy and by private buyers alike. Something is brewing beneath the revelry, and no one wants to be caught unable to defend themselves, it seems. Not that any amount of firepower can defend against disease when P43X shows up on W3D7--but it can certainly make the symptoms worse.

True Leithians: Second Stage

Wounded and pressed to a corner, the beast rears its head and bares a maw of teeth and ruthless pursuit. The True Leithian organization does not take pause to mend wounds left in the wake of last week’s retaliation, no. They do not seek the comfort of safe haven and recovery. Instead they turn their anger and fear inward, sacrificing their own for what they believe to be the greater good. On Week 2, Day 6, three individuals slip into the crowds of Leith, mingling with the revelers and the families celebrating Harvest Week. They share smiles and laughter, they share conversation and drinks, but most importantly, they share infection. Each of the three is responsible for disseminating P43X, a viral bioweapon designed by Zan Nikora on behalf of the military in years past. During its conception, the aim of P43X was simple: to create a weapon which could demoralize and destabilize an entire population within a matter of days. To create madness that builds in the blood and eats into the brain, spreading through every tier of society. And though its use has long been out of commission, its engineer has lingered. Zan Nikora, kidnapped and held under threat of death not to himself but to those he holds dearest, is made to choose between the lives of his family on Westerley or the strangers on Leith. His choice is obvious, though far from easy. Reassembling the buried curse takes time, supplies, and testing. He is provided amply with the last two but scarcely with the first. But still he complies. When his madness maker is complete and his existence becomes a potential loose end, it’s not freedom that Zan Nikora tastes, but the poison of his own medicine. Only once the voices in his head have risen above whispers and turned to screams, when his mind can no longer hold secrets worth sharing, does he see his family again. It takes six days*. Six days and Zan Nikora stumbles through Old Town, eyes unseeing, mind riddled with disease—infection spreading. Mod Note: *W3D6. Cure and vaccines will be developed and disseminated beginning on W4D3, but will not be fully administered to all locations until W4D5.

Leith: Pocket Posies

Harvest Week in Leith marks a period of joy and relief. Bazaars are open longer, the ordinary bustle of the business day replaced with celebration and festivities throughout the evening hours. Vendors offer games for adults and children alike, the sky is a constant wash of soft pinks, purples, and greens from holographic firework shows, and music fills the air from different stages. All walks of life are welcome to join in the merriment, just so long as they have the right to be there. Anyone suspected of an invalid visa or citizenship papers are dealt with harshly, but quietly. Tucked away into the darkness of a holding cell like all of Leith’s more problematic elements. It is a time of peace and relief, this week, and they will not abide disruption. But within the hallowed days of celebration, a sickness grows, incubating. Spreading. First, it begins with an ache deep within the muscles. The body tires too quickly, the flesh burns with a blanket of rising fever. Whispers skirt at the edge of hearing, unintelligible but audible, filling the audio cortex with illusions and lies. Food loses its appeal, though the body yearns dearly for energy it cannot hold, and breathing becomes tighter, harder. Next the tide of high fevers, of lethargy. The brain devolves into paranoia and mania, the mind races with delusions and hallucinations. Pain follows, a pain that seems to emanate from every nerve without relief or pause, seeping through the muscles and aching within the very bones of a person. Some may wish for death, and for many, that wish will be granted in an unending sleep when the fatigue pulls darkness across the mind, plunges the last thoughts of a person into static slumber. But not all will succumb so readily, and therein is the weakness that ultimately shelved P43X during its initial creation. Its impacts are not uniform—while much of the population suffers dearly, most are sustained with timely medical interventions, and many others recover with the prowess of their own immune system. For Leith, bountiful in money and supplies, most of P43X’s more fatal properties are circumvented or delayed. But even in this lush world of affluence and peace, there are the poor, the underprivileged, and the weak. They are not afforded the same haste of care, the same salvation. Instead, they’re given graves of sanitizing fires, and their bodies turn to ash.

Resistance: Sleeping Dogs

The chaos of the festivities that go along with Harvest Week provides the perfect cover for the Resistance to begin moving once again. New cells need to be formed in the wake of so many executions and new members need to be recruited. Info brokers with Resistance-leaning sympathies have an opportunity to make a little extra joy by putting the disconnected sympathizers in contact with one another, aiding the vetting of Company insiders that need new handlers within the organization. For Resistance members already embedded within, they need to work now to find new locations to store what supplies remain and to begin rebuilding the stockpiles of weapons and supplies re-confiscated by the Company. Some may have heard of abandoned mines or facilities that can be retrofitted out in the Badlands while others are needed to track down rumors of Company made fallout shelters located within the under-city tunnels. For this, Company moles are essential - the only hope of accessing these shelters is with long forgotten Company passcodes. And the Scarbacks, well. Everyone’s heard rumors that there are many within their ranks willing to help with recruitment and contraband transportation, though there’s little the Company can do to restrict their movements at this time. Because of this, Scarbacks may also be the only ones that have a chance of getting into Leith once the quarantines go into effect. Those already aligned with the rebellion will be tasked with coordinating supply movements, making a deal or three with the devil on behalf of those unwilling to back down from the promises of the Accords. Caution and purpose should drive their movements because if the True Leithian attack is any indication… those nationalists are not going to let go of their precious land and status without a long, bloody fight.

The RAC: Holding Pattern

Warrants still flow in with a regular consistency - enough to keep the average team or agent quite busy. Every harvest season there are visa jumpers that need to be caught and low-level warrants claiming petty theft from farms by Westie migrants. The increasing number of disturbances and crimes in Old Town guarantee a plethora of local warrants to capture criminals across the moon or those that managed to escape an Enforcer’s arrest. Some, however, have either been requested by Seyah Kendry herself or volentold by their seniors within the RAC to conduct investigations into the attack on the Nine. And not all of these investigations are on the Lady’s behest. Some of the Nine aren’t quite willing to take Land Kendry’s word as law and have quietly requested their own investigations into the attack in Old Town and the Land Derrish misfortunes. (MOD NOTE: There will be a comment thread for teams to sign up for the specialized plot related warrants on the monthly warrant post, located HERE. Once teams have posted for a plot warrant, the mods will give them a location and focused assignment.)

Comments

[eggplanting]

That's more like expressing concern.

[She tries to make sure he's a good person, okay. And that he isn't make any bad life decisions.]

[rhygret]

[ It's a full-time job at the very least........... Rhys is just full of bad decisions and poor personality traits. She's lucky she met him after his childhood paid-friend kicked some of his worse ones out. ]

I'm a grown adult. You realize that, right? [ He Can Himself. ]

[eggplanting]

[Please hold a moment while she sets her drink back down on the bar to free up her hands, because she needs to put both of them on his shoulders. This seems important, although she also looks kind of amused.]

Have you ever had a real friend before?

[rhygret]

[ Damnit Steph, Rhys is no good when people actually do that physical contact thing with him in a way that isn't threatening. Especially when it looks meaningful in some way. It just about shuts him right up and makes him look awkward and a little taken back? And probably gets her a few looks from people around them.

Rhys blusters his answer. ]

Wh--ffff, of--of course I have! My parents paid for that when I was like, a kid. I have tons of friends. [ Rhys has "Two Friends": the man who was paid to be when they were kids, and Crowley. Who bites him with his vampiric sex mouth sometimes and it's awkward all around. ]

[eggplanting]

[People can stare if they want; she should care, maybe, but deeper than all the paranoia this place has instilled in her is an attitude that just does not give a single fuck. Not one.

But she does have at least a single fuck to give about Rhys, and that's why she doesn't point out that friends don't count when they're paid for. Nor does she offer him any sympathy for that, because she figures it'll come across more like pity, which she wouldn't want.]

Okay, well, the thing about friends is that they worry about each other even when they're adults. That's why I'm always here to give you a smack upside the head when you do stupid shit.

[And with that, she gives his shoulders a squeeze, before going back to her drink.]

[rhygret]

[ The fact that Steph knows him well enough to make those judgment calls when it comes to dealing with him speaks volumes, and honestly Rys couldn't profess to have the same understanding or tact for her. He'd feel worse about it if he were at all aware of just how good Steph actually is to him, although her words just now give him a dorky flicker of warmth in his chest.

Yeah, he's an ass. But he's sentimental too. ]

Aww, that was almost nice of you! [ ...And sarcastic. Can't forget that. ]

[eggplanting]

Almost.

[She looks smug though, as if she's somehow won a competition between them.]

But if I was too nice you might think I'd been replaced by a clone or something.

[Jokes on him, sometimes she worries it was some shit like that, leaving her without memories.]

[rhygret]

[ ...That's both eerie and deeply unsettling. Rhys is glad his issues only amount to negligent parents and issues of self-importance rather than self-doubt and possibly being a clone. ]

Hah, I'll remember that if you ever actually do any of that stuff you're supposed to. Falling into step, letting me go first... [ Rhys gestures vaguely and plucks up his own glowing, neon drink and wastes no time in holding it up before her.

Do the clinking glasses thing he loves the clinking glasses thing ]

[eggplanting]

[She does the clinking glasses thing, just for him.

And then, in a bit of a hush because she's not completely stupid:]

If I start doing that shit, please just shoot me.

[Clone or not, she doesn't want to be the sort of person who just mindlessly follows rules because they're there.]

[rhygret]

Shoot you... You know I don't carry a gun, right? Or even have a licence to carry one. [ That's the sort of thing grunts and muscle have. Rhys, on the other hand carries a high-voltage stun baton that sends people flying.



Or will. When he figures out how to use it. ]

You're better off asking Giovanni for that sort of thing.

[eggplanting]

Giovanni would actually do it.

[Which means she's absolutely not asking him; she can get along with Gio, but he's a little bit unnerving, to say the least.]

Also, remind me to take you to a shooting range at some point. You need to know how to defend yourself.

[A tiny part of her mind says that guns are wrong, but she's too practical to listen to it.]

[rhygret]

You know part of the point in hiring other people to do the fighting is so that I don't have to, right?

[ He's just going to remind her of that tiny little detail, in case she forgot how rich and entitled and stupidly blindly confident that Giovanni will handle it and if he's not around he's a Kendry so who'd be dumb enough to try? ]

[eggplanting]

I'm not saying you have to start going around shooting people, but what if something happens to Giovanni, or he's not there?

[The fact that he's Kendry is what worries her, really. It puts more of a target on his back than if he were a nobody.]

[rhygret]

Well then there's other Company personnel around? I mean, I'm usually on Leith when I'm not at home. It's not like I go down to Westerley. [ That much. Except the two trips he's made within the last month thanks to that gods-awful resistance, but Rhys doesn't talk to her about those trips. They are secret, incredibly stress-inducing, and he just knows if he told her anything about it'd be...bad. Just bad. ]

[eggplanting]

[What she wants to say is that he can't trust the Company, that he's stupid to trust even his family because politics make everyone disposable, but that's not the sort of thing to say in a place like this.

So she just shakes her head.]

You are way too trusting.

[rhygret]

It's called being relaxed, Steph. You should try it sometime. [ WATCH AND LEARN FROM THIS MASTER as he strikes a pose and tips his head back to take a long, irresponsible draw from his drink--and has to stop like two gulps in because that drink is not made for gulping, it's made for sipping and it burns so bad.

Excuse him while he coughs and gags a little. ]

[eggplanting]

[If he wasn't busy choking on his own drink, Rhys might have caught the brief flicker of something almost like reret that crosses Steph's face, before she smooths it away with a smile.

She'd like to relax, sure, but she's pretty sure she'd be dead if she did that.]

And here I thought you could handle your liquor?

[rhygret]

Okay--okay. So. Maybe I wasn't supposed to do that, [ he croaks, voice hoarse. ] But I'm still right.

[ Okay. This is the face of a champion who is totally relaxed right now and he isn't at all doubled over with a hand on his knee, windpipe burning thank you very much. ]

[eggplanting]

[This is one of those topics that she's deciding it's best not to argue on - he can be right about her need to chill if he wants.]

Do you need a glass of water, Mr. Right?

[wait.]

[rhygret]

....Yeah. That'd be great. [ Mr. Right is also Mr. Pathetic on days ending in 'y'. And especially wheezy after trying to chug hard liquor. ]

[eggplanting]

Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone.

[And by "gone" she means "heading over to the bar that's only a couple of feet away", where she asks for a glass of water off the bartender, who only gives her a slightly bemused look after casting a glance at Rhys.

The best response Steph has is to shrug, before returning to Rhys and his idiot self, holding out the water.]

[rhygret]

[ Rhys would have a comeback for that if he wasn't so busy trying to clear his throat and not breathe fumes here, but thanks Steph. He appreciate the water and hastily takes a gulp or two (hasn't learned a damn thing, apparently) before he straightens with a cough and shudder. ]

Uuuugh, remind me never...to do that again. That sucked.

[eggplanting]

This is exactly what I mean about expressing concern for you, rather than judging.

[Although she's also judging a little.]

[rhygret]

Are you sure? Because, like, I'm feeling just a bit of judgment here. [ Just saying, Steph. But he also supposes it's a little...deserved at the moment. That was not his most impressive display. ]

[eggplanting]

I might be multitasking.

[She's just gonna slowly sip her drink as if to make a point; look how normal people do things, it's amazing.]

But only when you do really dumb things.