Aegon "Jon Snow" Targaryen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
northerndragon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
eastbound2022-02-07 02:37 am
northerndragon) wrote in eastbound2022-02-07 02:37 am
[un: whitewolf] Two messages, the first backdated by about a week.
1. One week ago.
[Whether or not you’ve spoken to him, you have certainly seen Jon around. The overall impression he gives is likely melancholic, but brave, reliable, and resilient.
Not now. This man looks profoundly strained: pale, desperate, disheveled.]
Please. [The silence here stretches on a little too long. His eyes are wide — haunted.]
— Don’t leave me alone.
2. Feb 6th
[Jon sits with an open wooden box and holds a stack of papers. He seems more himself again: whatever misery had a hold on him before, it seems to have passed. He is serious, but relieved. He has combed his hair. He does not tremble.]
To begin with, I owe a great apology to Lan Sizhui, to Daenerys Targaryen, to Xie Lian. I was not myself when I asked you to wish on the box. I am sorry for what happened to you. I hope you’ve all recovered.
[Strictly speaking, “asked” isn’t the correct word, and he may not owe Xie Lian the same sort of apology.
Nevertheless.]
I’ve opened it. I think it held the answers that some of you have been looking for — what this place was, what they did here. [A look of distaste briefly settles on his face.] You can come look at these papers, or I can tell you what we’ve been able to gather from them.
[OOC: This comprises information related to two plot rolls!
Jon wound up the victim in Five and Dany’s plot roll, and will describe what happened to him if anyone is interested: he has also shared this info in Lily’s meeting a few days after the first of these two messages.
But he also found a Big Box O’ Secrets with Hermione and then spent several days agonizing over it, making a nuisance of himself with the Merchant, accidentally blinding his friends, etc. Ask away: he’ll spill what he’s learned and invite characters to come sort through the papers themselves. Here is all the available info that they’d be able to get from talking to him here and going through the papers. The group involved with killing the Sleepers will be especially interested in this stuff.]
[Whether or not you’ve spoken to him, you have certainly seen Jon around. The overall impression he gives is likely melancholic, but brave, reliable, and resilient.
Not now. This man looks profoundly strained: pale, desperate, disheveled.]
Please. [The silence here stretches on a little too long. His eyes are wide — haunted.]
— Don’t leave me alone.
2. Feb 6th
[Jon sits with an open wooden box and holds a stack of papers. He seems more himself again: whatever misery had a hold on him before, it seems to have passed. He is serious, but relieved. He has combed his hair. He does not tremble.]
To begin with, I owe a great apology to Lan Sizhui, to Daenerys Targaryen, to Xie Lian. I was not myself when I asked you to wish on the box. I am sorry for what happened to you. I hope you’ve all recovered.
[Strictly speaking, “asked” isn’t the correct word, and he may not owe Xie Lian the same sort of apology.
Nevertheless.]
I’ve opened it. I think it held the answers that some of you have been looking for — what this place was, what they did here. [A look of distaste briefly settles on his face.] You can come look at these papers, or I can tell you what we’ve been able to gather from them.
[OOC: This comprises information related to two plot rolls!
Jon wound up the victim in Five and Dany’s plot roll, and will describe what happened to him if anyone is interested: he has also shared this info in Lily’s meeting a few days after the first of these two messages.
But he also found a Big Box O’ Secrets with Hermione and then spent several days agonizing over it, making a nuisance of himself with the Merchant, accidentally blinding his friends, etc. Ask away: he’ll spill what he’s learned and invite characters to come sort through the papers themselves. Here is all the available info that they’d be able to get from talking to him here and going through the papers. The group involved with killing the Sleepers will be especially interested in this stuff.]
video; private: un: stormborn
It's because of me that you were hurt.
[Her voice breaks a little at the end, still shook from the few minutes he had been pulled into the mirror.]
I'm sorry. Truly.
private
I am sorry for your sight. I am sorry the box overtook me like that. But I am glad your sight has returned to you.
no subject
My sight is one matter, what happened to you is another.
I only lost it for a day. I...think yours still haunts you.
Could I help at all?
no subject
They were doing experiments here, like maesters might… experiments to try to surpass Taravast. They got desperate. They stopped caring so much who was hurt.
no subject
[The 'what ifs' haunted her. The possibilities of what could have happened to him. She'd never forget the image of hands wrapping around his throat and pulling him through. That breathless waiting before he was back, tormented and haunted.]
Experiments? What sort of experiments?
video | un:thewrench
Dude, are you alright?
[ -- he knows, thinks he knows, a bad trip when he sees one]
un: absterge
un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)
And the meat bun was edible, so that counts as a plus.
What was in there, then!,
un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)
Does anything int here explain what this place was, exactly? The city, not just this building.
un: white pawn; video
Are you well? Or in need of healing in any way? Or the others you have mentioned?
What has happened?
Backdated- un: sprite bulb [video]
His voice instantly pitches low and soft, bleeding compassion]
Hey. Where are you? I'll come find you.
un: daerienn; video
She's interested, though, that much can be seen in her expression when she answers his call. ]
Tell me what you've learned? You can say I have an invested interest in learning about what happened here and especially to the twenty souls that were on the eleventh floor.
I can meet you.
un:joker ; video
Are you okay?
un: Black Prince; text (feb 6th)
[ He's gonna wind back and... start at the beginning here. ]
no subject
You can look through the papers, if you wish. Hermione has gone over them all already.
no subject
They wanted to surpass Taravast. Very little seems to have stopped them from trying, even if what they were doing was wrong.
no subject
The city was a city that wanted to surpass Taravast. It seems that they were in competition, and Taravast was winning, with all that magic. This tower was an Institute of Technology — as near as I can tell, that is a little like the Citadel back at home, a place of great learning.
It seems they wanted to defeat death.
un: ut malum pluvia | audio
He also has questions that he's not going to wait in line for. ]
Where are the papers?
no subject
[He hesitates, and something in his face crumples a little. He does not appear strong now, nor does he feel it. There is no point in trying to seem so.]
No. We put one of those great mirrors back together. It should have stayed in pieces. It should be scattered to the winds. I can’t stand —
I don’t want to be alone.
[He’s said that already, but it is that simple: he wants someone with him at every moment, until it passes. If it ever passes.
It must, mustn’t it?]
I’m assuming this is Feb 6th!
I asked the people I’ve spoken of to make wishes, so we might know what would happen if I opened the box. Daenerys Targaryen and Lan Sizhui each lost their sight for the space of a day. I know that they were willing, I know I didn’t know anything would happen to them, but — still, I asked it of them.
no subject
I was trapped in a mirror on the tenth floor. It felt like days, without food or rest, always fighting, but the others say it was only the space of a few minutes.
And now I cannot stand —
[He looks bleak.]
If you come, you’ll have my thanks.
no subject
This place was Ellethia’s Institute of Technology. A place of learning. They wanted to surpass Taravast, and they became careless in doing it. I think they thought people could learn to choose not to die.
[He says the last bit flatly. Choose not to die, but not to choose not to live if someone thought their lives could be used. And the choice to be part of it — that had been taken away, too.]
[OOC: jumping the gun here a little so you have enough to work with in the near future: when she comes and looks at the papers, she will see descriptions of the Sleepers in them. They are among the 16 “senior technicians” who were responsible for the project. Zenobius was also one of the senior technicians.]
action!
But he does not look to fight now.]
No.
[Yet he is visibly relieved to have come across someone.]
I will be, but I am not. If you find bits of broken glass in this place, a mirror, leave them. I wish I had never seen them.
Video --> action
Goddess]
I'm coming for you.
[Eleven rushes through the floors, possessed by an inexplicable need to find the man quickly, before it's too late]
no subject
It seemed like the answer. It seemed like what we were looking for.
no subject
no subject
Mend your hurts.
no subject
I’m sorry. They just stepped away, but I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m going to die if I’m alone.
I know I’m not, but knowing it doesn’t matter.
[He had been alone for about two minutes before putting out the call.]
action;
He doesn't immediately grab the papers when he gets near, sparing a moment to look him up and down. Five knows better than anyone how effects from mirrors can linger. ]
You always have this much luck?
no subject
Where're you at, man? I can come hang out for awhile.
no subject
Getting to him won't take long, but in the meantime.. ]
So, it was all an experiment. Does it say in any of the papers how the Sleepers became trapped inside their own minds? Or anything about the attack?
[ ooc: much appreciated, thank you! ]
no subject
Aye. But still luckier than most.
There’s talk of the mirrors in these papers. What they say… it’s all in line with the voices I heard when I was trapped.
They had volunteers, at first, for the things they were doing, but eventually, they stopped asking and started doing as they pleased. They tried to do it faster and faster. The man in charge of it tried to speak against it, then left the work when no one listened.
There was great suffering here.
no subject
What I can tell you for sure is that I heard voices when I was trapped in the mirror about a week past. It took memories from us while we put it back together — these voices might have been the memories of other people. Some of them sounded like they were under attack.
no subject
We knew they were in a rivalry with Taravast... could they have stumbled on something dangerous while trying to outcompete them?
The Merchant certainly seemed to imply their demise was Taravast's fault, but just like the story of Hatisse and Lord Ahra, there are two sides to this story, and this is his homeland, after all.
no subject
[That's.... so mundanely common. How many times now has Xie Lian seen that very thing happen, countries and empires fall to their own hubris?]
no subject
Some of it was an attack — some of what I heard. People telling each other to run.
The papers, they also speak of the experiments going fast and going too far. The man in charge… we don’t know his name, but he left it behind because he didn’t like the way they were doing things. Left in disgust, I’d say, and this Matthias was given the command of it all in his place. They stopped asking people, started forcing them.
no subject
Something is definitely going on here.
no subject
The fact that there was suffering isn't exactly a revelation, but he'd like to know what else he saw. ]
Do you know who he was? In the mirror?
no subject
What did the voices say?
no subject
It's all right. I'll stay with you, I promise. Are you injured?
no subject
[ Which... fair. Wrathion would pick a lock too if he thought it would answer his questions. ]
text | un: wei laozu
no subject
A mirror? I'm guessing it was magic or something?
[He would be surprised if there were any other kind of mirror in this place, honestly.]
yes, sorry, i forgot to indicate that!
[Anduin frowns slightly.]
You mention this box. I take it that -- it is what contained these papers you spoke of?