⇨ POLARIS 3.0

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115
Where: Polaris
What: On the morning of day 115, a couple hours before the technicians would come to pick up the test subjects, the escape plan will officially come into effect. If your character has been left out of the loop up till this point, feel free that someone hastily explains the plan during the initial phase! The meat of everything else will be played out via megathreads and any private toplevels people want to make.
Warnings: Probably violence.

PEER REVIEW↴ The plan starts with getting everyone out of their cells. Childermass is going to be using his Gilded Mark to enhance his shadow movement abilities, unabling him to teleport himself and other people out of containment. If your character has other ways of escaping they are free to pursue that, but on a base level, it can be assumed that everyone gets out thanks to Childermass. (Thanks Childermass!) Once everyone has been removed from their cells by some means or another, they will be forced to split into teams as swiftly as possible, as the moment people start breaking out, negative attention from the staff will start building. The area is poorly guarded at first, but as people become aware of the breakout, more will arrive. Gild, speaking on behalf of her inside plant, will say that those that 1) want to get their stuff back, 2) want to find Ignatius, should get the assistance of their allied Deltas to access sector A5. From there, they will have to access Polaris's storage in A3, a neighbouring sector, and find access to C2, the station where Ignatius is being held. They should expect to be met with armed resistance, but with any luck allies will be there to assist them. In general, characters will be most effective if they back one of these major objectives: ► TEAM LOOT: This team is trying to get back the items and pets that were confiscated when the group was brought into Polaris. Their objective, according to their allies on the inside, is to get to A5, and then make their way to A3. The important thing is being able to locate their stuff among a sea of other items, and to make it through security in order to reclaim it. Gild's plant has said that they will assist with this. After getting these items, Team Loot may wish to merge with Team Rescue. ► TEAM RESCUE: This team's primary focus is to get to A5 and then make their way to C2. If desired, they may wait for or join with Team Loot, or they may strike out ahead in order to take advantage of the element of surprise. The key factors are obtaining a way to access C2, as well as being prepared for armed conflict with the technicians guarding it, as well as possibly the Mother of Invention herself. Though, the ideal is that Gild will be distracting here at that time. ► TEAM DISTRACTION: This team can do their thing wherever they please, as their main intent is to sew general discord and distract the staff from the teams doing more important things. They should be prepared for armed resistance, but what tactics they pursue beyond that point are highly variable. ► TEAM FORTRESS: This team is attempting to set up a protective base of operations in the original sector in order to survive the conflict and protect their noncombatant comrades. How they accomplish this is also highly variable. Other objectives may exist, of course, and can be made with their own separate top levels. Chunks of these megathreads will have to be played out in summary form, so when characters are simply trying to get from place to place and specifics aren't necessary, feel free to stick to that format. Assume that everyone is already out of their cells for the purpose of the megathreads. Here is a shitty map of how the sectors connect, from a side view of the central Polaris hub.

Comments

[whattaprick]

“You were only supposed to kill me if I got caught in the Hunt and was trying to attack the Carnival! Not try to kill me when we all get captured by the damn Mother of Invention!” Lambert protests. “You’re the magician, aren’t you?! You’re supposed to think of the magic things!”

He twists out of the way of a spike of earth, but not quickly enough — it rips along his side and sends him rolling sideways along the dirt, cursing. He shoves himself up on one arm, coughing, still clutching the contract. If they’re going to write another contract, they’ll need its damn paper, considering Lambert doesn’t see any more readily available around.

He pushes himself up, flinging his hand up again. He can only do so much magic at a time, but he can at at least try to work on the solution Strange is suggesting while he’s trying to dodge his shit. “Give me that blood quill.”

[kingsroads]

"I didn't even want to do this in the first place!" Strange complains. He sends up a few more spikes of earth before axii hits and, true to form, it hits hard.

Strange unbuttons his top enough that he can easily reach the quill. As he mutters a spell, it pops out of his mirror. Strange walks back over to Lambert, hands him the quill...and then it's second verse same as the first as Strange immediately tries to attack Lambert once he's closer. Although this time, he's just straight up trying to rake a claw across Lambert's eyes.

He looks so pissed off at himself that this is the second time he's fallen for that stupid spell.

[whattaprick]

Lambert gets ahold of the quill, but now it means both of his hands are occupied when Strange tries to claw his face. The witcher wrenches his head around and shuts his eyes so the strike doesn’t just rake out his eyeballs, but the points will find purchase on skin, tearing open parallel gashes on his left cheek and brow. That immediately proves to be annoying, as blood starts to pour down from the head wound where it’ll inevitably leave him half-blinded unless he can stem that. It’s not as bad as where Strange got him with the earth spike, but it’s seriously inconveniencing in an entirely different way.

Being this close and having Strange’s torso offering an open shot, though, is an opportunity too good to miss. He clutches tightly on to the contract and quill, unwilling to let go of them now that he’s gotten them, and twists to try to slam a roundhouse kick into Strange’s side with enough force to hopefully send him flying a decent distance away. Unfortunately, Lambert isn’t great at judging his own strength right now, so if it makes contact it’s likely to feel a bit like someone’s just slammed a truck into the magician, to say nothing of what it might break.

“Tell me what to write!” he hollers, because well, if Strange is occupied with the whole trying to commit a murder deal, Lambert is obviously the one who’s going to have to write it.

Haha this is gross

[kingsroads]

As Lambert goes for the kick, Strange tries to twist out of the way. Lambert's foot misses Strange's torso...but unfortunately, it connects with Strange's arm. There's a sickening shattering noise as Strange's right forearm (made entirely of mirrors) just straight up breaks.

Strange lets out a yelp of pain as he falls to the ground, clutching the broken arm which is just flopping at his side in a completely gross fashion. On the bright side, some of the mirrors that cover his veins and muscles do their job and keep the bone mirrors from piercing his muscles. On the negative side, there sure are a lot of loose mirror shards floating around the inside of Strange's arm now and not everything is covered in mirrors: more things are going to inevitably get pierced.

Strange gets to his feet, clutching his upper arm while his lower arm just flops around like a glove full of water. Weirdly, it doesn't hurt as much as it should. More than anything, Strange is in a bit of shock. "Just write that it's null and void," he explains, still looking down at his arm.

Murder shall be put on hold because body, what the hell.

[whattaprick]

What the hell indeed. That’s definitely not the sound a breaking bone should make. Not that Lambert intended to break anything in the first place, mind, but he has to shove the urge to immediately check on whether Strange is all right or not. Don’t look a gift magician going into shock in the mouth, and all that. Using his own thigh as a makeshift writing desk, Lambert flips the contract around and starts to scrawl hastily on the back. He’s never been a wordsmith, so hopefully it gets the point across:

Our last contract is null and void.

His blood soaks in, and after a moment’s hesitation, he signs his name. Then he looks to Strange.

“You need to sign this too, don’t you?”

[kingsroads]

The pull of the contract is already fading from Strange's mind. Partly due to Lambert signing the retraction, partly due to one specific clause Lambert wrote in at the start of all this: Strange acting with at little harm to himself as possible. Any action he takes with a broken arm will inevitably cause him more harm, ergo he shouldn't do it.

At Lambert's question, Strange nods. He holds his hand out for the quill. Once he has it, he signs the contract right underneath Lambert's name. Both men can feel the sensation of something lifting from their mind. A moment after, Strange gives Lambert a weak smile.

"Next time we do this, we'll need to—oh hell!" Strange winces and clasps his brokenass arm as a spasm of pain shoots across his face. "You don't have any healing magic, do you?"

[whattaprick]

Thank fuck for that, because Lambert’s not at all enthused about accidentally injuring Strange even further as he tries to keep him from killing him. He hands the quill over gladly, shoulders sagging in relief when it appears the contract is signed without any further incident.

“Who do I look like, Steven?” he asks, pressing a hand against his bleeding side with a wince, only to grimace further at Strange’s question. “I think I saw Herbert stowing some medical supplies. I can get something to splint that, if it’s still even bone. Don’t move.”

It didn’t sound like it. Nonetheless, he’ll pause, and that flare of magic that comes with opening the portal comes up. He steps on through, and he’s back in short order with a generous amount of bandages, splinting supplies, and half a dose of healing draught. He’s already wrapped a quick, makeshift bandage around the wound on his head, if only to stop the blood from getting in his eyes, and an equally slapdash bandage around his side.

“Drink this then hold still,” he grumbles, thrusting the potion at Strange.

[kingsroads]

As Lambert steps through the portal, Strange puts the quill back in his chest mirror. As Lambert steps out of the portal, Strange turns his arm to smoke: a surprisingly large quantity of mirror shards fall to the floor: that's the loose bits of mirror that were hanging out under Strange's skin.

Strange chugs the potion with the ease of someone who's drunk a whole bunch of nasty shit before he answers Lambert's question.

"It's not bone anymore—at least, my arms aren't. When I was put in Theta, the Technicians wanted to see if they could spur more Silver Mirror growth. They spurred something, though I don't know if it's due to the capital-letter-Mirror or to the way my body naturally takes on mirrors."

He's not moving as he talks, though occasionally Strange winces a little. There might not be any more loose mirror shards inside of his arm, but there are still some broken, jagged edges.

[whattaprick]

Yeeeah, unfortunately for Strange, Lambert can’t do much more for Strange at the moment other than frown and bind his arm so the broken part is as immobile and held as close to his chest as possible.

It’s about halfway through that when the first distant sound of something like tearing metal becomes audible, and Lambert pauses.

“Did you hear...?”

[kingsroads]

Strange did hear it. He frowns a little as he turns to look at where he thinks the sound is coming from.

"I did set the entire farm on fire," Strange points out, as if it's obvious. "Maybe that's a technician coming to check it out."

But based on his frown, he doesn't think that's the case.

[whattaprick]

“Maybe,” Lambert says, but his frown says he doesn’t think so either. He bends his focus to finishing binding Strange up, and quicker this time, because he has a pretty good feeling that whatever happens next they don’t want to be caught like sitting ducks for it.

That feeling is pretty much confirmed when the Mother of Invention herself — or her body, at least — steps right on through, and the witcher groans.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Guess the Mark didn’t get her after all.”

[kingsroads]

Strange remains still as Lambert binds his arm up, though he too has a wary expression on his face like he expects everything to go south.

And so it does when a goddamn robot just bursts through the wall. Strange makes a very annoyed noise as his hatred of technology just keeps on getting worse.

"You don't have to get in the thick of it," Strange says, frowning at the Mother's ridiculous robot body. "Let somebody else who didn't get their ass kicked by Theta get their ass kicked by a True Fae." He says this despite the fact that he knows Lambert is probably going into the thick of it.

[whattaprick]

“I could say the same thing to you,” Lambert points out, as Strange is very much someone who’s also had his ass kicked by Theta and is still pretty damn likely to shove himself in the middle of thing, broken arm or not. However, there isn’t any real time to keep chatting about it because a bright bit of light that is Ignatius heads to engage her, and then there are suddenly blasts of energy flying everywhere.

“Duck!” the witcher snaps at Strange, tugging the magician low to the ground by his (uninjured) arm and crouching over him protectively as the blasts start to slam and shake the ground around them. He throws his shield up, and not a moment too soon, as energy crashes into it. The shield breaks, but the attack disperses around them. Unfortunately, more are coming.

“We can’t stay here.”

[kingsroads]

Strange can barely duck before Lambert throws him to the ground and casts the shield spell over the two of them. Strange tenses and doesn't move as the attack goes around them.

"We can't," he agrees. "But if something like that keeps happening, it doesn't matter where we go." And Strange is a big breakable target already, even before he became a big breakable target with a shattered arm. He's obviously worried about what he's going to do next.

[whattaprick]

In the meantime, while Lambert's not at all unbreakable, he's a little more durable than he normally would be. He hasn't tried shapeshifting back into a dragon yet, but he could already feel the difference in how much stronger his magic is again, compared to before.

"Then the only way to stop her is to head towards her." More blasts crack into the skyways, shattering them further. Moving is looking pretty urgent.

"I need to find Childermass, and you need to get somewhere with cover or a better vantage point," he tells Strange, face pinched. "Can you still travel through reflections?" Breaking arms tends to be a pretty good way of crippling mages, he knows that much.

[kingsroads]

Strange nods. Thankfully, he can use his magic with just one arm. Very carefully and awkwardly, Strange gets to his feet.

"I think I'm going to ride this out as smoke or fire as much as possible. You should stay by some water as much as possible. I can best help that way."

He doesn't really want to split from Lambert, but Strange knows how it is: with his shattered arm, he's more of a liability than anything else.

[whattaprick]

"I'll try," Lambert nods, then reaches out to clasp a hand briefly onto Strange's shoulder, before nudging him back to the water. Time to head out, buddy.

"Be careful."

[kingsroads]

"I'll be as careful as you usually are," Strange can't help but retort, with an ironic little smile.

Nothing like calling out your friend before you possibly go to your deaths.