annexedlogs | Relief Log #2

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Relief Log #2

I. In The Aftermath

After the mission is complete, the new recruits are invited back to Central Command for a patch-up and celebration to let loose and socialize a little bit.

The first order of business is the patching up. Anyone who was injured is welcome to go to the Hospital, if the injuries are more serious. Everyone else, those with smaller injuries like scrapes and bruises, minor cuts or burns or abrasions, are welcome to come to the Infirmary in Central Command. There will also be attendants that tell returning new recruits that if they'd like to learn a little first aid and tend to their comrades, they can also head to the Infirmary.

In the Infirmary, anyone who's not injured but shows up will be instructed in basic first aid so they can tend to their teammates and friends. Nurses will be rotating around to check in on people and make sure nothing is more serious than it looks, but generally, the new recruits will be encouraged to tend to their teammates in order to encourage group bonding.

II. A Fine Meal

On an evening a few days after the mission is complete, all the extra-universal new arrivals will be summoned to one of the large meeting rooms in the Central Command for a feast. When they arrive in the room, it is decorated with orange and brown streamers and fall iconography - bundles of twigs and dried flowers, bundles of fragrant herbs, dried pumpkins with faces and fall scenes carved into them, and other decorations. In the center of the room there is a large table laden with delicious-looking fall foods - poultry birds so large they had to have been roasted on a spit, huge roasted portobello-style mushrooms, mashed tubers, gravy, stuffing, bean casserole, candied yams, mooncakes, boiled spicy crayfish, roast herring, various types of stews ranging from traditional stew to fish stew to mushroom stew, and tons of desserts like tarte tatin, ice cream, apple crumble, pumpkin pie, and almost any other fall food you can think of.

Characters will be invited to sit around the table and feast together, while quiet music plays in the background, facilitating conversation. Some of the rebels have volunteered to keep restocking the table as people wander in and out to sit at the table and eat in rough shifts, and these volunteers will encourage characters to share things they're thankful for, things that make their lives better. All of those things that make life worth living, that make the fight worth fighting.

On a table near the door to the room, there is a stack of beautifully cloth-wrapped bento-style boxes that characters are invited to take with them. They are told by volunteers that these boxes aren't just leftovers for later, but a necessary component of the night's test of courage. They encourage characters to take one and participate, as it's a particularly bright feather in the cap of anyone who undertakes it.

III. The Skyclad Light Show

Once the feasting throughout the late afternoon and early evening is about complete, characters will be invited out into the courtyard of the Central Command for the evening's entertainment. The courtyard is essentially a small but beautiful park, with benches, patches of grass, a few ornamental trees and gardens, and plenty of places to spread out a blanket (provided by friendly volunteers!) and watch the show. And what a show it is!

Every year around this time the Skyclad take magical lights that trail behind them, and put on a spectacular light show in the sky. Streaks of vibrant color follow each hoverboard as those riding them in the sky flip, twirl, dive, and perform other feats of hoverboard artistry for the crowd below. The show goes on for about 45 minutes, with the Skyclad twisting and twirling, drawing beautiful designs against the evening sky.

Characters who really bonded with their hoverboards and took to tricks and flips and kicks after the mission would have been invited to participate, especially if they were interested in joining the Skyclad. The Skydance, as they call it, is quite highly choreographed to avoid midair collisions, all with the goal of producing something truly beautiful and ephemeral. Try not to choke!

IV. Night of Remembrance

The final tradition of the evening is a solemn remembrance of the warriors who have fallen in the fight against the Sylphid. After the Skydance, volunteers would have set up another table of those bento boxes from earlier as well as little bags containing 5 mandarin oranges, and would brief the people in small groups about the traditional Night of Remembrance. The Night of Remembrance is a really big deal among the Witches, and is a great opportunity to prove yourself if you're looking to gain respect and rise up the ranks, as it's also partially a test of courage. The tradition involves taking leftover food from the feast to the shrine at the cemetery in the Mages Sector in order to 'prepare a feast' for the dead and honor those who have fallen, and offering oranges to the fallen along the way. The food must still be at least a little warm when it's presented to the spirits. Sounds simple, right?

Once characters who wish to participate find their way to the cemetery, they will discover a couple more volunteers with a variety of lanterns. For some reason, nothing electric, battery-powered, or at all technological will work in the cemetery, and they haven't for as long as anyone can remember. Any light source must be either very old-school or magical in nature, and texting someone for help would be completely impossible. But why would you need to call someone for help?

Well, it wouldn't be a test of courage without a little danger, right? On this night, every year, the spirits in the cemetery are stirred up and come back into the land of the living. Yes, ghosts do really exist. The ghosts have a variety of temperaments - some of the ghosts are very pleasant and will chat with people for a while before accepting their orange, some are playful and mischievous and will play pranks on people coming into the cemetery (these pranks are sometimes harmless and sometimes very not-harmless), and others are angry and resentful at being dead and won't hesitate to viciously attack interlopers. Some of the more unfriendly ghosts can be calmed down with pleasantries and shows of respect, but others cannot be and will continue to attack interlopers until offered one of the oranges that they've brought.

There are two types of lanterns available: traditional lamps that are simply a candle in a glass bell that can be easily carried with a ring on the top, and magic lamps that attract spirits and appear as a glowing blue-green orb floating in a glass bell fitted with a ring for portability. People carrying traditional lamps are seen as quite brave, but those who take a magical lamp are absolute legends.

Participants will need to take a bento, some oranges, and a lantern of either variety, present the oranges to various ghosts as they make their way to a shrine on the other side of the cemetery, where they will set out the food from the bento as beautifully as possible...and don't let that food get cold, or your offering will be worthless - who wants congealed gravy and soggy stuffing?! At the shrine, they will find an assortment of delicate beaded charms attached to the branches of a large weeping willow tree. These are protected by magic, and can only be taken by someone who's completed the tradition. They will light up a different color depending on what kind of lantern the participant is carrying. These charms will provide a one-time magical boon to whoever takes them.

Characters carrying traditional lanterns will find their charms lighting up orange and these charms will, when used through the calling of a keyword by either Heba or Tian characters, summon the spirits of the dead in an area with a radius of around 50 feet to attack an enemy or group of enemies. The keyword can be set simply by speaking it to the charm. This charm can be offered to another person as a gift or kept for the character's own use, and can be used only once. If the charm has been gifted to someone, it will turn red, but will still be functional.

Characters carrying magical lanterns will find their charms lighting up blue and these charms will, when carried on a character's person, provide one resurrection from death without the loss of memory that usually comes as a side effect of resurrections. This charm can be offered to another person as a gift or kept for the character's own use, and can be used only once. If the charm has been gifted to someone, it will turn purple, but will still be functional.

Regardless of which charms are given, characters are encouraged to show them off as evidence of having participated in the Night of Remembrance. Anyone who is gifted one of these charms should be grateful, they are regarded as high-value gifts to be given only to someone you care about a great deal. Many people, regardless of whether they've earned the charms themselves or been gifted them, will attach them to their network devices to show them off.

NAVIGATION

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Codi nods and lapses into silence. It takes a lot of effort for her to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and even then, she's having trouble keeping her mind on-track towards the goal. It keeps wandering like her weaving legs, fixating on things that she thought she'd already worked out in her mind.

Her relationship with Juhani, for example. She's been a curiosity so far and Codi has been happy to keep it that way; by Juhani's own admission, she's average in a lot of things related to the Force that Codi would otherwise be very interested in exploiting, but her knowledge of other parts of it and her willingness to provide it for nothing make her interesting to keep around and interrogate.

On the other hand, Juhani saving her ass just now has made Codi realize that she could be much more of a practical asset. She specializes in concealment and healing - the latter of which is important for reasons made apparent mere minutes ago - she has so far followed unquestionably her orders and shown regret for making mistakes with them, and her emphasis on balance makes her a level-headed voice when things get dire, as they frequently have over the last few months. If she'd had Juhani around during this last mission, rather than just bothering her at the start of it, maybe she could've avoided a lot of the pitfalls she ran into during.

She needs to keep this woman close.

Codi's pace slows, partly because she's getting sluggish, partly because she wants to walk level with her companion. "...Juhani," she says cautiously, an eyebrow raised. "How've you been doing? Like, in general?"

Good enough. "Nice work!" Codi says brightly. She cuts the end of the gauze, ignoring the quiet, pleading looks of their patient in favor of following Jack's gaze around the room. He seems...curious. Which, of course, makes Codi curious.

"You ever done stuff like this before, Jack?" she asks, tone is conversational rather than accusatory.

Long ago, Vader had had a conversation with Padmé, about how if people didn't agree, they should be made to. Vader still believed that. He was, however, working on doing it with something less than smacking at differing forces with his lightsaber.

At least, in this case, it seemed to be working.

"People aren't meant to know me. I'm a threat, a weapon of the Empire. Not a person. I gave that up when I became this." The Sith inside the suit.

"I am grateful and I will remember." Given everything: "I will also come to your aide if find yourself in need."

"If I didn't believe you were still a person, we would be having a very different conversation."

Probably one with threats and lightsabers. Or at least a whole lot of cursing. She still can't say she likes Vader exactly, but she doesn't hate him. That's still a surprise.

"It's still strange to think that you'd help me, but I do appreciate it."

Even if she feels a little bit like the worst Jedi ever for striking a truce with Darth Vader -- but if Obi-Wan Kenobi could do the same, she certainly could. She had no personal grudge, after all. Things might get awkward if Luke ever decided he needed her help to stand against his father, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Essentially like canisters attached to either side of a belt. They're not much larger than a can, since they have to fit underneath a skirt, but there's a few per side.

[As she says that, her hands move back to the wound area, starting with whichever wound looks the worst currently. If he doesn't move away, she'll start to clear the blood around it first, then move to the wound itself.]

I may have to go over the worse punctures with a swab as well, but all things considered, these shouldn't be too hard to clean.

[Since she has no idea what might be in or on the mouths of the robot dogs, she'd rather be thorough here, and that means treating it like any animal wound and trying to avoid the situation of having germs caught in the depths of a puncture.]

[That point does have him arch a brow. He wouldn't think that sort of placement practical, but he supposes if they're meant to be a surprise advantage... Or perhaps that's just how she does things.]

All right. I'll make note of it.

[Tech seems to be a good patient at least, letting her do her job without complaint. He nods at the assessment.]

Better safe than sorry. Don't think I caught your name, by the way. I'm Tech.

"They were trying to fight the calamity a new way, in the hopes that it would break the cycle." She probably shouldn't assume, but at some point human mortality would catch up with one of them, and she'd prefer not to still be hearing this story when it does.

"Tian," Morgan says, immensely amused. They made a Mage into a -- mage. Of course, there's no small amount of irony to it, since it's a very Hermetic style of magic, and he'd never quite seen eye to eye with the Order of Hermes on... most things, let's be fair. He wouldn't describe them as the magickal Tradition he had the most in common with outside of his own, that's for sure.

Just like that, he begins withdrawing the needles, as sure-handed as you could ask for -- fingers keeping the skin from stretching, other hand pulling them free and tossing them onto a nearby tray. Technically speaking, they didn't need to be sterilized or anything for him to treat another person with them, but there's so much wrong with that it's better not to try.

"I hate rushing this," he says conversationally, rocking his head from side to side to stretch his muscles. "But we don't have an hour to burn."

No, that wasn't quite right, was it? Not from what little Link had been told.

"...No," he says. "They wanted to create something for the next cycle." Something that could help in the fight, again and again, so that no one would have to fear Ganon again.

She moves alongside, ready to grab hold of Codi if she stumbles - turning her head when she talks.

"As well as can be expected, being drawn into another universe and it's strange war."

What is an ethical thing to do to someone who was, really, forced into his service? No. Did he feel guilt over it? No, not really.

But it was tied to regaining his wife and family, and it's probably not surprising how obsessive and focused he is on the goal, given everything. And to bind people to him so he can't be abandoned.

There's a moment where Vader pulled in on himself. He was levitating to be about his actual height, his chin tucked down and head turned away from Tech, arms shifting as if he crossed his arms over himself to grasp his right wrist in his left hand. It was possibly a familiar posture, one Tech might have seen or heard about, or one captured on the holonet of The Hero With No Fear being moody in the aftermath of a battle. "Rex knew we were together, but not the full of it. I couldn't tell him. I'd have been dismissed and her career would have been left in tatters."

It's an odd juxtaposition but it underlines that even revered Jedi and generals or fearsome Sith lords are still not so different from anyone else. Tech doubts it's a side Vader allows to be seen by many, and he can only imagine how lonesome and heavy a burden it's been to bear, such a secret, such a deep loss.

He's not surprised to hear that Rex knew at least something of it. The captain was sharp and given how long he's served under Anakin and how close they'd become, it seemed highly unlikely that he wouldn't have picked up on something. Tech nods.

"A precarious situation for the both of you. No, it's understandable why you kept it a secret. It must have been difficult..." He's certainly no expert in relationships but the two in question were hardly low-profile.

"You can believe as you wish, but if you ever question what the price of being in my position in the Empire is, do not forget I truthfully told you." And yet, he still, firmly believed the Empire was good and could be a force for good.

Just not under Palpatine.

"I have an ally within the Empire. A grand admiral. He believes in the face of a greater threat it becomes imperative to shelve any other conflict. Over time I've come to see the wisdom of his tactics and I've adopted it here. We have a much greater threat than any differences we may have at home. You are also important to my family, which makes you important to me. I offered Obi-Wan a chance to stay out of our conflict a long time ago. He didn't take it then, but he seems to be now."

Given the secret of their marriage, her pregnancy, his nightmares, the sheer weight of everything had played a significant part of his Fall...
In many ways - some of them literal - Anakin had died when Padmé had, and left behind a broken shell of a man, trapped in his choices. That his children had survived had been the lifeline he didn't know he had.

But it still wasn't a side of himself he often allowed others to see. Not even Obi-Wan, save once. Once, just try to bandage the raw, bleeding wound between them. But he's always felt most at ease with his men, always allowed something to show, to slip, that he couldn't with others. It was just...more natural with Tech.

"If we were home, everyone is gone. Padmé, Obi-Wan, they've all left. Leia will forever hate me, and the only chance I have is Luke. There is never once I thought the three of us would be so separated. It is not like the bond you have with your squad, but something parallel. So I can imagine how you feel here. The loneliness of it."

It's a loneliness he's more or less been distracting himself from, and for the most part it had been fairly effective. But there are always the reminders that come in the most unexpected and sometimes simplest forms, teasing out a memory, prompting an errant thought- where are they now? What are his siblings doing?

"It's...an incompleteness," Tech says. "An obvious absence, no matter what you're doing. As much as you busy yourself with, maybe even forget it for a little while, it's still there, waiting."

It's difficult for him to really put it into words, and even this attempt is almost a clinical dissection of a feeling, but for Tech it's a big step in that he's acknowledging such a feeling at all.

Vader comes from a point where he's been bearing something greater than loneliness, too late to restore most of those bonds lost. Tech would admire him for it were it not such a miserable thing to have had to shoulder. It's not something he'd wish upon anyone. Even here, second chances had been a tease, and he's not sure how much anyone could take of having something they wanted so badly torn away one too many times.

"An incompleteness." He can completely agree with that. He didn't know why, back on Coruscant so many years ago that he'd been able to feel her as he had, more than he ever had with Obi-Wan, even when there were times upon waking on the ground, Obi-Wan near his side, that almost sworn he could feel his feet inside Obi-Wan's boots instead of his own. But he'd not felt whole since then. Not own he hadn't felt whole until then.

And since Mustafar there had been nothing. A gapping bleeding out.

This made the second, nearly the third time, she'd been restored to him and was the third time she'd been ripped away.

"Yes, it is. It is, in part, what makes some here so angry."

Is this how Crosshair feels? He'd made his decision, but it had still been clear he'd hoped his brothers would change their minds and join him, in spite of their encounters. By choice or not, that absence is likely the same, but the variables as to how permanent differed, though at this point they may as well be one in the same.

Tech's eyes drift towards movement amongst the gravestones as he listens to Vader's words. Had it been there before, or are they just coming into focus?

"What keeps them hanging on..." he quietly connects, their conversation coming full-circle.

"Hope, some of them hope. For reunions, for answers. Some want to hurt others as they have been hurt." He could feel that, hope weaker than the anger, but he could feel them.

His focus flickered toward where Tech had looked. Not acting, but focusing and ready. In case.

Tech falls silent, thoughtful. Hope can be a strong driver, although he wonders how long some of these have waited. And if they ever get tired of waiting...

Ghostly forms linger by the headstones, coalescing into more distinguishable shapes as though being noticed gives them more acknowledgment. There's nothing that comes off as a threat at the moment, mostly curiosity and some of that underlying hope. This night brings some interesting people into their midst.

[It does make things easier to have someone who doesn't move or fuss about having wounds cleaned - it means Mikumo can make fairly quick work of the initial cleaning with the wipes. Some of the wounds are shallow enough that a slightly firmer hand on this clean is enough to get them well cleaned, but there are a few that definitely look like they could use a further clean.

As she works, she inclines her head slightly at the mention of his name, as if remembering it.]

Mikumo. I take it your name also has a lot to do with the kind of work you do?

[Considering the talk of reprogramming or replicating the robotic dogs.]

"I know what you've done, but you forget I also know what you've yet to do."

Anakin Skywalker died in the Light. Leia had been skeptical, but Luke had firmly believed it and Rey chose to latch onto that belief herself in the absence of anyone who could tell the unbiased truth. However, it raises a question she hadn't considered fully until just now -- if perhaps a different ending were possible for Vader. If there could be a world in which he walked away from that final conflict. If Kylo could grow up knowing his grandfather from the start.

It's something to consider. There won't be any way to know unless she goes home to find everything changed, and maybe that's for the best.

"Master Kenobi cares for you. I can't imagine he'd seek to harm you here without a pressing need to do so."

That much had been obvious since Obi-Wan had kept Vader to recover in his hut. She didn't know the entirety of what had passed between them over the years, but it was clear that they weren't enemies here.

"That so?" Codi says, tilting her head curiously. "Me too! Whatever on the Broken World gives those out has good taste."

Her thoughts on the matter are a bit more complicated than that; she's been trying to figure out a pattern between Hebas and Tians for a while now, based on her observations of each group, and so far has been drawing a blank. The only thing she's really determined in that there seem to be significantly fewer Tians among the rescued Witches and they are typically very quiet. Codi finds herself a notable exception. Morgan also seems to break that mold, which means that he's probably got a lot going on that's similar to her - which makes him someone she should keep a very close eye on.

Not that she wasn't planning on doing this anyway; it just helps to have extra incentive.

Speaking of, she hasn't been paying nearly enough attention to what Morgan's been up to with those needles. Her attention snaps back to them with a slight lean forward (probably the most she's focused on their patient this whole time). "Where'd you learn to do that?" she asks. Codi is tempted to follow up and ask if it's actually healing them or just making them feel better, but she doesn't want to offend Morgan's sensibilities by implying that he's a fraud, even if he is.

[He's definitely better about sitting still than his brother is. Normally Tech's the one treating injuries for his squad, and while he could probably have handled some of his own treatment, there are some things that are better done with two hands than one.]

Ah, yes. It's something of my field of expertise.

"Fair enough," Codi says, followed by a somewhat hoarse, nervous-sounding chuckle as she slumps to the side, gladly accepting Juhani's support. "You find a Tether yet?"

"That sounds... dangerous, more than anything." After all, it only takes one misstep to surrender those creations to the hands of the enemy, doesn't it?

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Relief Log #2

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