⇨ 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

[npcarnival]

Gild furrows her brow. She was expecting him to be mutilated, traumatized, changed... but not quite like that. He's both more healthy and more messed up than she was expecting and she isn't sure how to deal with that.

It would probably be easier to deal with him if he was more hurt.

She crosses his arms, frowning, but right now she isn't going to dignify his reaction by chasing after him. Instead, she looks at Rita, and then the rest of the group. Meanwhile, some of the people from the airship start dropping into the room by rope ladder.

"...Right," she says, carefully. She looks at Rita. "Well, I'm the Gilded Mark. I think we met." Though, she pauses there. "Are you his...? Uh..."

She had no idea that Ignatius had children, what the fuck.

[kingsroads]

As Rita goes and explains Ignatius's everything, Strange gives her a look like she's a total idiot.

"What happened to Ignatius is a private matter that's possibly very embarrassing," he hisses, slightly under his breath. And then, in full voice, he turns towards Gild and gives her an accusatory glare. "And honestly, considering that I've no idea just who the hell you are or how the hell you found us, you're the one who should be answering the questions in the first place!"

Fun fact: not everybody knows who Gild is. Sure Rita said 'Gilded Mark' but that name means absolutely nothing to Strange. Fill up the rest of the crew on the plot, please.

[npcarnival]

The Gilded Mark's lip presses into a firm line as she turns to face Strange with a similar amount of force and accusation. She is actually quite tall, much like Ignatius is, so she has the advantage of glaring down her nose at him.

"I'm his sister," she says. Then, all in one moment, her severity melds away as her shoulders sink. She sighs. "...Though I'm sure he wouldn't have told you that."

[kingsroads]

Strange glares up at her with the force of someone who is absolutely not impressed by how tall and impressive she is. They murdered one fae already today and Ignatius's entire friggen domain changed, this day can't get any more chaotic than it already is!

"That doesn't answer my second question. How did you find us?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita looks a bit uncomfortable as Gild trails off, but is immediately thrown off by Strange's scolding. She answers him with an irritated scoff and a roll of her eyes.

Fortunately, Gild steps in to introduce herself, and Rita's content to leave her to dropping that bomb on the group. There's little change in her own expression, having heard this much from Shimmer already, though it's still pretty damn weird to imagine.

At last, she'll answer Gild's question to her. "My name's Rita," she says plainly. "I'm not his..." And there's a pause, as she tries to actually think of what she is to him, and frankly, she has no clue. She shakes her head. "...Ugh, I don't know. Whatever we are, that's complicated too."

[npcarnival]

Gild glances at Rita uncertainly, but she'll take her word for it. She's not sure how you can be sort of someone's child, but alright. She assumes there is a lot to catch up on. So, she answers Strange first.

"I'm the Gilded Mark. My domain is that of... well, Marks." She gestures at the golden tattoos on her body. "Anyone who bears my Mark, I can find anywhere. Did you ever notice the tattoos Ignatius has?"

[kingsroads]

At the tattoos question, Strange nods, quickly putting together what she's implying. He's certainly not going to admit it out loud, but he's seen Ignatius shirtless a few times, he's pretty aware of those tattoos on his dumb pretty ripped abs. So if a tattoo is her Mark, then she should be able to find him no matter where he is. Strange hems and haws as he tries to find a nice way to say 'so you stalked your brother across the multiverse, do you not realize how absolutely creepy that is.'

"Well no wonder he doesn't want to see you," Strange simply remarks, raising a wry eyebrow at Gild. "Nobody likes unexpected visits from family, least of all after something like this." Said with a vague hand gesture to encompass all of Polaris's everything.

Still, he got what he needed to know, so he'll finally back down a little bit and let someone else take the floor...though he's still watching Gild a little too intently.

[npcarnival]

Gild looks a bit shocked, but not in a 'the audacity of this mortal, questioning a fae', so much as just a regular 'wow this dude is an asshole.' In fact, she gives him a middle finger.

"I came here to get him out when I heard he'd been captured, but you know? I don't actually care if he wants to see me. I fought that robo-bitch for him, and if that's all he wants out of me, then that's just fine." She narrows her eyes. "But you're not the one that gets to tell me that."

[whattaprick]

Well wow-wee, look at Ignatius go. Lambert doesn't think he's ever seen him peel out that fast.

"I'm Lambert," Lambert raises the hand not holding an iron knife. "The one who was with Steven. Marks worked like a charm, far as I could tell." Even if he ultimately ended up using his on something relatively smaller in the grand scheme of things, it did do its job, and for Childermass too. So, the backup's much appreciated.

Though given the present situation and the current mood of the conversation, he debates whether or not to 'fess up, and finally ruefully settles on, "And I might've had something to do with Ignatius getting caught in the first place." He looks at her a little warily, still bleeding and slightly singed, scratching at a cheek. "So, if that's an issue..."

He trails off. He did expect someone to show up for Ignatius eventually, for all the Ringmaster's worrying about it, but not like this.

[npcarnival]

The Gilded Mark turns to look at Lambert, easily dropping her dispute with Strange. She just looks sort of confused though.

"Caught...?" she repeats. "By who, the Huntsman?"

[whattaprick]

Now it's Lambert's turn to look confused, because he'd sort of taken it as a given that when the Gilded Mark came to find them, it was with the knowledge that Ignatius had been seriously bullied by the Carnival beforehand.

But apparently, her knowledge isn't all that up to date.

"No," he says, awkwardly. "By us. He's been a prisoner of the Carnival since the Summer Court attacked us in the Athenaeum."

[npcarnival]

She looks at him and laughs.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, he had that coming, didn't he? When I heard what happened, I started tracking his mark to try to keep you guys from killing his dumb ass. It'd be really awkward to have a distant ally kill my brother, you know?"

She's grinning slightly as she speaks.

"I knew he was in trouble with the Ringmaster, and originally I just wanted to ask you to go easy on him. But... when I tracked him to Shabon, it was pretty obvious things had taken a turn. Now... I'm here, I guess. Surprise, surprise, he doesn't want to see me..."

[kingsroads]

It's amazing how the more Gild talks, the more Strange just finds her intensely obnoxious. She's such an asshole! Who the hell responds to their brother being tortured with 'he had it coming?' He just gapes at Lambert and Gild with an expression of pure disbelief before rolling his eyes.

"You must be an incredibly distant ally. The Ringmaster's never spoken of you before."

[whattaprick]

Lambert's in completely the opposite boat, flushing slightly as she laughs -- what did he say that was so funny? -- then flushing deeper for slightly different reasons and glancing away. Being reminded of the Ringmaster sobers him up quick, though, and he looks back at her.

"How much do you know about what happened in Shabon?" he asks, to steer the conversation somewhat back on topic. He doesn't know how much was left of the town after they left, but last he checked, it was in pretty bad shape. "The Huntsman took the Ringmaster, and he it sounded like he was working with Winter."

[npcarnival]

Gild frowns, crossing her arms as she considers that. She shakes her head.

"I asked some of the locals, and found out about the generalities of what happened. The carnival came into town and the Hunt followed. When the Hunt started going after the carnival, they left a huge mess in their wake..."

She exhales uneasily.

"One of the locals spotted someone matching Ignatius's description and talked about him losing a fight with the Wyld Hunt. They said the Hunt cleared out, and a bunch of servants following some kind of mechanical device took him and the rest away. Someone mentioned a dragon was there, but they didn't see what came of her..."

"...If the Huntsman is working with Winter, that's a bad thing for everybody. He's been gaining power fast... Faster than anyone was expecting."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita gives Strange a glare. "Would you stop!?" she huffs at him. What's his problem, anyway!?

Some of that irritation fades as the conversation turns to Shabon, and her expression turns pensive. "We sure didn't see it coming," she mutters bitterly. "I don't know how much you've figured out, but... the Ringmaster was killed back there. The Huntsman took what was left of her, and that's the last we saw."

[whattaprick]

"Took her egg," Lambert supplies, crossing his arms. "Based on previous experience, though, that means she'll hatch eventually."

What that means while she's stuck with the Huntsman, he doesn't know, and he's reluctant to speculate.

"Winter should be pretty happy about that, shouldn't it? Having a stronger ally taking care of its unfinished business."