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annexedlogs2022-10-21 09:04 pm
modaccount) wrote in annexedlogs2022-10-21 09:04 pm
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.
no subject
He's not quite sure what to say in response to binding spirits into service. It sounds almost as surreal as bringing someone back to life, but given they're walking in a cemetery supposedly filled with ghosts, it puts things into perspective as to what's possible and what's not.
Perhaps he shouldn't be nearly as surprised as he initially is at the admission. But those two words help to connect a few lines. He could hazard a guess as to the who, especially given what he knew of Anakin Skywalker and of the most prominent deaths within the recent timeframe. It certainly clarified more drive for the interest of the technology the Sylphid were making use of.
"...I see," he says softly, his tone apologetic. Belated condolences, but it wasn't as though they had the chance to pay their respects.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
"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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
His focus flickered toward where Tech had looked. Not acting, but focusing and ready. In case.
no subject
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.
no subject
Vader watched them but didn't stop. He expected to meet ghostly beings, of course, but he wouldn't stall given there was a time limit on the quest of sorts. And better to not wear himself out, in case the ones they met weren't friendly. These didn't feel hostile. More that they understood he in many ways was more like them than he was like Tech. Fair really.
no subject
Still, the clone doesn't show it, although Vader would certainly sense it, not exactly nervous, but then of all his brothers it would be Tech who remains simultaneously calm. Cautious and still curious. The dead they may be, but they had been alive once, and are still people. The only real concern he has is in the event that these ghosts do prove hostile.
Vader's presence is an odd anathema in some ways, keeping some of the more adventurous spirits at a distance, leaving their stroll through the graveyard unimpeded for a time. Of course such a strong presence also draws like to like, and the Sith lord can sense them, the angry, the distraught. The dangerous.
no subject
And he'd much rather Tech, with his disposition, in that place than one of his brothers with a more excitable temperament.
He can sense them. And he hasn't forgotten the oranges either - and that they were supposed to offer them. As a result, if he sensed someone lurking but being shy, he'd work one loose and levitate it over to the spirit, offering it that way. Something the shy ones seemed to like - they felt relief and gratitude at any rate.
But the bolder ones...well. He could sense those too. Was using his ability to sense them to weave his way deeper but also clear of them - he'd be exhausted come the end of this, better to not court a fight too early - in a way that wasn't avoidant. Respecting a boundary, or trying to, but if their space was crossed into, Vader wasn't going to back down.
Which looked to be coming to a head, as something quite angry was heading at them and didn't seem inclined to respect their space at all. "Our midnight-twenty." He kept his voice quiet, enough to carry to Tech but not beyond him.
no subject
For as careful as he's being, Tech's still unable to be as aware of the potential threats as a Sith lord can be. The very nature of the spirits themselves makes it difficult to keep track of them as it is. He glances at Vader when the other speaks up again, on his guard out of reflex even as he looks for the approaching spirit, something that becomes quite easy to spot soon enough. With his hands full it keeps him from going out of reflex for his weapons, not that he figures they'd be of any use here.
no subject
But they were what was offered.
Vader doubts any weapon Tech has would protect him or Vader, and he's not certain his own weapon will. Better to learn into the Force. Eyes closed he focused, sensed beyond what humans would see or hear, judging hostility, strength, intent. His stance shifts, as if he was planting feet he didn't have, about a third of his body covering Tech. Braced. Waiting. Ready.
"Come and face me then."
no subject
At Vader's invitation, or rather challenge, it flies directly at the pair, wispy limbs raised to strike.