JANUARY (MINI) PLAYER PLOT: I'LL SEND AN S.O.S. TO THE WORLD

[sailmods]

[After their return from the Village, many of the Serena Eterna's inhabitants have been taking time to nurse their psychological wounds. Arilanna Tayrey was no exception, until she was reminded that there was still work to do. Still hope of working towards the escape that she longs for.

The space probe. After months of preparation and testing, on the fifth of January, it's ready. The probe itself was found by Sparkles, and it carries a wealth of encoded information about the passengers (or 'prisoners' depending on whom you care to ask) aboard the ship. Ari and Cassandra collected the letters and videos contributed by the population, and through careful selection and editing, present a picture of a group in desperate need of rescue by anyone – or anything – that might find their message. Also affixed to the probe is a long-range emergency distress beacon, from Ari's home universe via Sundries.

The rocket which takes the probe to the heavens is a remarkable blend of science and magic. Ari and Crichton, Rita and Fever all used their expertise to put it together, but as Sparkles warned them, the success of the launch depends on their ability to distract the Captain and Friday.

This group know how to cause some appropriate chaos. To split Friday's attention, a grand distraction takes place. You may notice some of the following:

- signs around the ship declaring that there are no more rules, and daring you to do something forbidden – smoke wherever you like, 'steal' from a shop, start fires...
- mutiny banners, assorted fires across the ship (mostly courtesy of Natsuno), unknown sigils scrawled on walls
- also look out for a text message from a friend on the space probe team, either inviting you to join them in mutinous mayhem, or, if they don't want to show their hand or don't see you as the mutinous type, to participate in a mass rule-breaking experiment

And as Friday has all this to cope with, the Captain has an unexpected visitor on the bridge…]

Comments

Lunchtime on the Promenade, day 2

[takethatnature]

[ Wilson sees Ari coming and finishes his fish and chips in a hurry. He's talked the situation over with Maxwell, plus it's been at least twenty-four hours and counting without a giant shadow hand reaching out of the sky to snatch up the ship or whatever other form They would take, so he's past the initial panic, but the threat is still very present in his mind. He stands up and waves one arm furiously at her, then shouts in her direction just for good measure. ]

Tayrey! Some of us have horrible things out there that want us back, did you take any kind of precautions with that beacon to make sure you wouldn't be delivering us right back into their hands?!

[ Wilson's never actually talked to her on the ship and he wasn't even in the Village, so he mainly remembers her as that young woman who appeared in the Constant one winter and shot a giant hole through a Deerclops. In typical Deerclops fashion this was not enough to kill it immediately and it kept trying to smash the survivors into paste and bone fragments for several minutes before they could bring it down, but it certainly made an impression. ]

[astrogator]

[Tayrey's looking a little beleaguered by this point, but she's still walking around openly, having truly underestimated the depth of the feeling against her. Maybe that's why, when she sees Wilson waving, she walks right up to him, unafraid even when he shouts. She remembers him, of course. You don't forget a Deerclops in a hurry. She'd always meant to talk to him about it, but she'd been so preoccupied. Nothing but working towards escape, day in and day out, for ever so long.]

Peace and prosperity. [She says it quietly, but she still says it, because adversity doesn't make her any less a Tradeliner.]

I did. Your name didn't go up as part of the message, and even if it had, the beacon is just... a beacon. A distress signal. Which one has to approach to find the message. It might never even be found, and if it is, it's vanishingly improbable that the people who find it will be known to any of us. Your enemies likely won't even exist in whatever universe it emerges in.

[Her voice stays quiet and calm, trying to reassure him. Other people's hostile comments she responded to in kind, knowing they were allies of her captor, but if Wilson has taken a side, Tayrey doesn't know about it. He deserves a fair explanation.]

[takethatnature]

[ He does at least stop shouting when Tayrey enters conversational range. Wilson listens to her explanation with a look of anxious consternation on his face. She hasn't given him anything new to worry about, it's not any worse than the picture Maxwell painted for him, but he still has a lot of concerns and only a few of them have been put to rest. ]

I never thought I'd be glad not to have been cited. I assume Maxwell wasn't included either, since he had no idea what was going on until I told him... [ He makes a visible effort to stay focused on the task at hand. ] My enemies can already reach across universes. They pulled me out of mine to begin with.

[ Wilson struggles with the wording, not wanting to talk about it in terms of magic Doors established in the physical world with as little as a verbal agreement. It sounds absurd and unbelievable even to him when he describes it that way. Unfortunately, if Maxwell is right – and he's the one with the expertise, Wilson can't remember much that's useful out of what They told him on the Nightmare Throne – that's the most accurate terminology. ] They can't just let Themselves into whatever universe They want, They need someone on the inside to let Them in first, but you'll never get rid of Them after that, and you don't have to be fully aware of what you're doing to make an access point. A distress call addressed to absolutely anyone or anything who finds it might count as an invitation, if it didn't land in a universe They already had access to.

[astrogator]

Yes, Citizen Maxwell didn't participate either, and I didn't use any material from people who did, but who I knew would be against the idea of calling for rescue. [Ethics and integrity, even in desperate times. She couldn't have used people like Ava and Helena like that, it would have been utterly wrong.

Tayrey takes a moment to think. What Wilson is telling her sounds overblown, unbelievable - but it's equally clear that he believes it, and she's seen his homeworld. How different it is from her own. So Tayrey's private doubts don't matter; she'll proceed as if all that he has said is true. It might well be.]

So if your enemies noticed my beacon, they might take it as an invitation to enter this bubble universe and attack you. You know I don't want that. Only I suppose... to do that, they'd have to perceive the beacon, and that seems unlikely, doesn't it? They can't know all things in all universes, and I'm really not important enough to be noticed on a cosmic scale. If they did know everything they'd already be here, hammering on the barrier and trying to get to you by whatever means they usually entice people to let them in. And an invitation can't serve double purpose, can it? If it's governed by rules strict enough that it could be extended by someone who didn't know what they were doing. It wouldn't invite them both into the universe the beacon is now in and this one.

[She pauses, sighs.] You want to stay clear of your enemy. Of course I understand that. But my enemy also pulled me across universes, kidnapped me and trapped me here. I have to do all I can to try to get out, because this place is intolerable. Freedom is my highest value.

cw narrational mentions of a vehicle crash and hypothetical amputation

[takethatnature]

It'd be less attack and more reach in and grab us with their giant shadow hands and drag us back into the Constant. [ Wilson makes a gesture tilting both hands from side to side at 'attack' and 'reach in', and then an overhand grabby-claw. By 'us' he means himself and Maxwell rather than either the entire ship or himself and Tayrey, but it's anyone's guess whether the Tradeliners' language combines or distinguishes those meanings of the word in translation. He sure is putting an unusual amount of emphasis on each use of that third-person plural pronoun referring to the things trying to get him, though! ] Where They could wait for us to get upset about it and then attack us at Their leisure, I suppose. Or sic hounds on us.

[ Hounds are a weekly occurrence, and like Christmas, Deerclops comes but once a year. Except that one time when Wanda wanted to make both an eyebrella and an eyeball-powered death ray turret in the same season so she tied three flares together and dipped them in Glommer goop, and the ensuing fireworks display attracted another one from science knows where. ]

[ Wilson looks disquieted by that counterfactual scenario. ] No, They didn't know we were here beforehand, or else They would have caught the rocket and grabbed us as soon as it cleared the barrier, even if They weren't able to communicate through it before that opening. They aren't all-seeing or omnipresent. So it's a matter of whether They find the beacon, or someone in a universe known to Them does, which we might not find out until they come and take us somewhere. [ That last is a regular they, not a They. ]

I didn't think you wanted anyone to get dragged away to the shadow dimension, except maybe the Captain I guess, but whether it happens anyhow regardless of your intent sounds like a matter of luck. Historically my luck has been pretty rotten, and it's never been worse than when I tried to escape Them. Every time I built or activated a portal or an air- or watercraft it failed to get me back to Earth, and half the time it sent me somewhere worse than where I started, like the even less hospitable worlds Maxwell stuck in between the regular Constant and the Nightmare Throne, or the last time we tried to use a portal to get out and Wigfrid jumped into it- did you meet Wigfrid? She was the Viking with the red braids- and we all got sent to a place that was nothing but a gladiatorial arena surrounded by molten lava. [ Crashing his hot air balloon in some equatorial mountain range might count as a lucky outcome in a way, since he walked away from it with only a few scrapes and a headache that took weeks to clear up. He may have lost all his provisions except for a single machete, but he didn't get trapped in the wreckage and have to saw off a limb with it. Or die on impact, but that would just have kicked him back to the central Constant anyway and then he wouldn't have had to deal with Swinesbury's terrible weather. ]

Is it worse than the Constant? [ A tactful man might have kept that question to himself when Tayrey said it was intolerable to be trapped here, but unfortunately Wilson's here instead. ]