⇨ 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]

On the whole, despite the fact that they've been allegedly saved, things still aren't in the greatest shape they could be. Lambert may be battered and bruised, but he's still up and walking, which is better than can be said for a lot of others. He doesn't require particularly urgent medical attention enough to warrant taking it away from anyone else, so after the brief conversation with the Gilded Mark -- still a vaguely confusing, head-turning experience -- and retrieving the iron knife from the Mother's still-steaming body, he'll limp his way away from the battlezone and debris to try and do some quiet self-repair.

Sure, there are showers, but there's also a perfectly large pool of water there, debris-laden or not. He'll make his way over there, pausing to step through to egg space and retrieve a fresh set of bandages and disinfectant for himself to bind his wounds, and slip the texting ring and the shapeshifting ring back onto his fingers from where he'd stored them for safety. He should probably pass a message to Childermass to tell him to safe to come out, but given the state he'd been in, it can probably wait until he's cleaned up his injuries some and can pull the glamour back on him. He doesn't need to freak the magician out any more than he already has.

Lowering himself painfully down beside the water, Lambert sets the two iron knives aside and starts to wash off the dirt as best he can.

[atouts]

A bit late for glamours now. Childermass shivers where he perches when Lambert limps into view, feathers shaking slightly, and he has to look away. Horns so unlike what he's used to, flesh stripped down to some foreign, unnatural tail, bolts and hard lines under his skin speaking to even worse than just a new tail and headgear and it's all enough to make the magician sick to his stomach.

It's a blind, wild notion to flee a second time. If he's going to run from a fight, why not this, too? He could vanish. Go as far into the shadows as he can and never be seen again. No more worrying about England or Strange or Lambert or this entire pack of fools.

These are thoughts he'll stew in for a time, giving Lambert some illusion of privacy before he finally stirs from his tree. With the soft sound of wings and feathers, he takes off and lands in the grass a generally safe distance away from the witcher. He could run away, sure, but how lonely it would be wins out for now.

[whattaprick]

Time enough for Lambert to clean and bind the worst of his wounds, and move on to debating if it’s worth putting gauze on the others. The witcher pauses when he hears the beat of wings, turning his head to look, and for a moment there’s sheer, reactive relief in his expression before he forces himself to wipe it off his face.

Childermass doesn’t remember him, he reminds himself. He can’t go about treating him like he would recognize or even welcome that now.

“Your knives did the trick,” he says, shortly, concentrating on gathering his supplies. “You can have them back now, if you want them.” He’s not sure how much Childermass saw of the fight, but he’ll assume if the violence wasn’t enough to scare him away, the sudden fog of fear-choking shadow would have been.

[atouts]

The knives are the least of his concerns right now. There's a flicker of motion, of shadows, and the crow becomes the man. He's still stuck in the clothing looted earlier from one of the Gammas they took down, although he's added back a few regained items, though the anti-toxin necklace does lay hidden under his top, not out for all to see. There's a ring that'll be all too familiar to Lambert, too, saved from the furnace by the sheer coincidence of Eden's magic still clinging to it. It's back on his thumb, Lambert's clumsy attempt at sizing a ring while a cat, of all things, leaving that the only real choice.

Though he already has his hands up, folded against his chest defensively, it does allow him to idly run a finger over the fine scaling laid into the stone of it. Regardless, however, of any apparent fondness for it, he's still keeping his distance, not bothering to hide how distraught he feels. He wears it plainly on his face for once.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

An accusation is the last thing any of them need but he can't help if that's the first, most immediate of all the problems he's having here and now.

[whattaprick]

It's enough to make Lambert's head jerk up, fixing onto Childermass with wide eyes, hope surging frantically in his chest.

"You--" And he catches himself, marshals his tone into something calmer. If Childermass is this obviously uncharacteristically upset, raising his voice isn't going to help much, is it?

"About what?" Is what he settles on, visibly wary. What he feels guilty about looms large in his mind, but that's not necessarily what's on Childermass's. "What do you remember?"

[atouts]

"Everything," Childermass answers sourly and looks away, scowling across the pool of water instead. You'd think he would be glad to have that done and over with but he can't find any joy in it right now. "It's still a little scattered but it's all there. I never forgot that I loved someone, you know? I just couldn't place a name and face with it, all we've been through together. It was so frustrating and when no one said anything about it, I was left assuming the worst. This entire time..."

He has to stop for a breath or two, forcing another bout of panic or anger down, even if he already sounds miserable about the entire ordeal. It passes. He continues.

"All these days thinking you were dead and gone and all I wanted to do was give up but you just didn't want to tell me."

[whattaprick]

"You never asked," is Lambert's defensive, half-pleading answer -- it's weak, and he knows it, but he's relieved now that Childermass didn't. Because if he had, Lambert wouldn't simply have lied by omission: he would have lied, right in Childermass's face, spun a story about a lover who was safe and far away that the magician could strive to return to.

"There wasn't a good time. You had to focus on yourself." The witcher pushes himself to his feet, visibly conflicted on what the best course of action would be. If they were somewhere else, under different circumstances, it would be easy. He'd pull the magician to him and just hold him tight until that panic passed. But even if Childermass claims to have recovered his memory, the distance he's keeping from suggests that wouldn't be welcome right now.

"You would have done the same."

[atouts]

"Would I have?" Childermass honestly asks, gaze turning back to Lambert. Maybe he would have. It's not like he can wholly deny the sense in making someone overly worried about him all over again in the thick of danger but that isn't the point. He didn't do it. Lambert did. Lambert would have been just as angry about it.

"Would you have even said anything if I had asked?" He doesn't know the answer to that one. He may not have answered, either. "Does it even matter?"

The magician turns, dropping his hand away from the ring on his thumb. He almost takes a step closer but catches himself before he does, still preferring to rail at Lambert from a distance.

"I woke up one day with you missing and then they ripped me open and shoved the Void back in—" He grips the fabric of his shirt, right over his heart. He's sure that's what it is. That's what it had to be, what they injected, what they were experimenting with. "And all I wanted was for this to end and Ignatius couldn't even manage that much!"

[whattaprick]

"If you thought it would protect me, you would." Or because it was easier. Or because Childermass is just generally a secretive bastard who doesn't say much of anything even when there isn't a crisis going on. But Childermass is right; it doesn't matter. In the end, it was Childermass who lost his memory, and Lambert who chose not to say anything.

The magician may not take a step forward, but the witcher will, forgetting his resolve as his eyes catch on that flicker of light off the ring's surface and the mention of Void catches him up with concern as Childermass clutches at his chest. Interpreting the gesture as pain, he closes the distance between them, reaching out to rest a hand on the magician's shoulder before he hyperventilates himself into a fit.

"Hey--" he tries. He's not sure what to say, only that he should be saying something instead of just standing here getting shouted at.

[atouts]

It's not pain in a physical sense, which leaves Childermass free to cringe away from Lambert's hand.

"Don't," he says. No actual pain, sure, but panic certainly holds an edge in his gravelly voice. "I don't want to be touched. Just... don't." That said, he can't help but laugh. "You think you were protecting me? If you had meant to, you wouldn't have gotten yourself thrown into Theta. I told you, I told you to take care of yourself, but you didn't listen, did you?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert pulls his hand back to himself as sharply as though he'd been burned, and takes a step away for good measure. He can't really contest that, or revisit the reasons the decision seemed more straightforward at the time, but...

"I did listen," he says, quietly. It's hard not to want to mirror the tension in the way Childermass is carrying, to press for a fight he doesn't actually want in response to the uncomfortable emotions welling up.

"I just picked the wrong trial to take. I didn't know there was anyone outside trying to get in, so I picked what I thought could help more people if we were stuck here longer." Maybe that would have changed the choice he made, maybe not. And it turned out all but useless in the end, any information he'd gotten something that the Deltas could have gotten just as easily. He hasn't even seen Shima since. For all he knows, the kid's gotten flattened with an energy blast...

[atouts]

"How could a trial demote you?" Childermass asks, but knowing he did and still ended up there, ended up like this, takes the wind out of him and just leaves his shoulders sagging, looking tired. "This place never made any sense..."

At least with him answering for Lambert, rather than pursuing the question, leaves him free to not explain what had happened, what the trial had been about. Worse, it reminds him that he had his own secrets he never told and it has him turning away and stepping up to the shore of the pool, if only to sink to his knees, exhausted. He doesn't even want to stand anymore. How will he even find the energy to fly away again?

"The archer's message, it told me to stay quiet," he admits, "And so I did. I thought if it got around, too many eyes everywhere, too many ears, that it'd be nothing, but now it seems people were passing her mark around like it was candy to share. I really am nothing but a fool. The bear, the mark, Ignatius, everything keeps backfiring on me."

Even if the mark did, in the end, help him free everyone. It doesn't change that he never said anything about it, not to anyone. Bad enough Gild had stopped speaking to him when he turned up confused. What if she had withdrawn her favor on top of that? What then? Obviously that hadn't happened but it was still foolish. At least, it feels that way.

[whattaprick]

No, the place never did make sense. With Childermass turning away, Lambert moves to the pool's edge too, though he remains standing instead of sitting down. He's glad to not have to explain it, because it leaves him feeling like a fool too, looking back on his own choices. Not that he knows what else he could have done, remaining on the Farm, but at the very least, he wouldn't have ended up like ... this. Maybe. Who's to say they wouldn't have pulled him out anyway?

"You're just human," is what Lambert finally settles on. "At least your mistakes gave people a chance." In some cases, the chance to try something stupid, but ... probably not helpful to bring up how Strange using that burst of magic to drop himself in Theta, right now.

"I hate what you did, but we couldn't have gotten ourselves out without what happened to Ignatius. I know that." The rest -- shadows, the doors to the dimension holding their things -- it's impossible for him to imagine how they were meant to help Gild with nothing but the Marks to arm themselves and carve their way to the Core. Compared to freedom, a little soul damage and some lost memories seems cheap, but it's hard to try and comfort Childermass while trying not to choke on his own relief at the same time. It could have been worse.

"Can't help with the bear, though," he tries to joke. "That was all you."

[atouts]

"It was," Childermass agrees dourly, any attempt at joking ignored. Following that, he's silent for a moment or two, just gazing out across the pool at what few carnival members are still milling around over on the other side. He can't make out who. He doesn't really care to, though. It almost seems like that's the end of what he has to say, like it's over, nothing left, but—

"And I'm not," he says, falling back to an earlier comment. "I'm not just human anymore. I haven't been since Portland, I just haven't wanted to accept it. I can't go back to England like this, Lambert. Even if that's ever an option. Without the Ringmaster, I suppose it isn't..."

Whether it's an improvement or not that he's fallen into a tired, gruff monotone rather than yelling or panicking again, who knows.

[whattaprick]

“You know what I meant,” Lambert scowls, crossing his arms. It’s not like he doesn’t know that other Carnival members care a hell of a lot more about getting home — wherever that is for them — so he gets that admitting this is sort of a big deal for Childermass.

“Why not? John Uskglass came back after living with the faeries, why can’t you? Even if the Ringmaster’s gone, she can’t be the only fae that can bring you back. Might take a little longer, but if the Caravan can manage to hop worlds, maybe you can too.”

[atouts]

Well, that's one way to get him looking over at Lambert again, though it'll be with a scowl. Childermass isn't an easy man to offend but comparing him to the Raven King? Really?

"John Uskglass was raised in Faerie," he points out coldly before looking back across the pool and finally deciding to get back to his feet. "He came back to our world and told our lands to be magic and they were. You can hardly compare me to that."

That's like saying if God could do something, why not Childermass?

"And trying to find my home without the Ringmaster would be folly, anyhow. There are infinite Earths, infinite Englands. Worse, I'd be going back with nothing to show for all my effort."

[whattaprick]

“I can and I will,” Lambert snaps. “Maybe you’ve changed, maybe you can’t go back to the same life you had, but you can still go back. If there isn’t a place for you, then make one. Or do you really want to leave the Raven King’s legacy up to his drunken book and the magicians you left behind?”

His voice hasn’t raised as much as one might expect, but it’s getting harder to keep himself from just reaching out and shaking the magician. He turns away from Childermass instead, crossing his arms tighter and drawing the illusion of the Gamma over himself again.

“We might be headed to the Summerlands next. See if we can get the Summer Maiden’s help get the Ringmaster back.” It’s easier to be calmer without his own voice in his ears. “The Gilded Mark thinks the Huntsman allying with Winter is a problem, maybe enough of a problem for the Summer Court, so that might be a fight coming too.”

[atouts]

There's just the barest flicker of amusement when he looks at Lambert again, declaring how, yes, he will compare him to the greatest magician of all time. A faint twitch of his lips, maybe a smirk, but that's it.

"Strange is closer to the Raven King than I'll ever be, Lambert," he says, adamant to clear that here and now. Flattery from one's lover is nice but there are limits. "Before the carnival, I hand nothing but a handful of parlor tricks to be creative with."

But he'll leave it at that. It may not matter in the end, if they never even get back to England, their England, any England. That's where his sad bout of amusement will fade. It's tempting to remind Lambert that the Summerlands left the Summer Court, that they had no say in what the Court would do, but...

"It will be a difficult argument to make," he settles on that instead. "They aren't a people for war." And after saying as much, he'll frown and scrutinize the illusion the witcher has pulled about himself. It would be a lie to say hiding the Mother's alterations is a relief but, at the same time, that isn't Lambert. "Why are you hiding under that?"

[whattaprick]

Are magicians incapable of conceptualizing the world or themselves in a way that doesn’t involve magic? Lambert wonders. It’s starting not to feel like it.

Lambert shakes his head; Childermass’s misunderstood his point. “I think the Summer Court would be happy to have the Ringmaster taken. But maybe they’ll fight Winter for their own sake, that keeps one enemy off our back. If we can get help from the Summerlands, maybe...”

And Childermass asks that, of course. The Gamma’s expression mostly remains neutral, Lambert’s tone light and mocking.

“Why not? Maybe I just like the look, and I don’t feel like stripping a technician for clothes.”

[atouts]

No, they really cannot. They've only just gotten it back and they would really like to keep it, so even Childermass agrees with them on that.

In any case, the explanation from Lambert is lacking and the magician can only look at him in mild disbelief.

"You'll steal whatever you want from whoever you want or wander around naked as you please. It's never bothered you before."

Everyone's seen Lambert naked by now. It's a constant.

[whattaprick]

“You’re right. Maybe I should just steal your face instead.” A mirror of Childermass in an all too familiar purple-patterned shirt stands across him, though he’s missing some of the changes he’s picked up since Alola. The wry smirk on his face is entirely out of character.

“Too bad this probably wouldn’t fool Baker for long. I always meant to try that...”

[atouts]

That is an immensely difficult shirt to be miserable at, truth be told, even if Childermass does try to keep a blank face when Lambert swaps illusions. Good God, is that really how he looks in that? A thought that inevitably leads to a snort of laughter and him rolling his eyes.

"Someone might expect you to take things seriously looking like me," he warns, at least making some small effort to go along with the joke. It's a start, at least. "I am going to miss that shirt. I left it back in my trailer. Baker, though... He's at least in my shadow."

He's just grateful he had no cause to release the Arcanine. Everything is beginning to seem too dangerous for the dog, even if that dog happens to be as tall as him and breathing fire.

[whattaprick]

Yeah, it really is how he looks. At least Alolan Childermass didn’t opt for shorts or this illusion would be a lot more ridiculous.

“Are you implying I don’t take everything seriously?” Lambert makes a show of drawing his brows down and pouting at Childermass. It’s also probably a little different hearing his own gravel-rough voice coming from someone else’s throat instead of in his own head, no matter how mock-offended it sounds...

“Let him out this instant so I can give him some very serious belly rubs.” And Lambert has a suspicion that while Childermass might not want to be touched by Lambert right now, a big, dopey dog with no concerns except whatever innocent doggy thoughts go through his head is a different story.

[atouts]

He'd be right. Different rules apply to dogs, especially Baker. Still, Childermass looks unconvinced and trying hard not tell Lambert to stop talking. It's alarming to hear that voice mirrored back at him, even if that will wear off quickly enough.

"You demand that now but you'll regret it when he tackles you," is the only warning Lambert gets before he closes his hand -- a small pocket of shadow and an idea is all he needs to rummage around these days -- and produce the Pokeball, sized small until he hits the button. It expands and pops open. There's that telltale flash of light and, just as expected, Lambert is about to find a mass of orange and cream fur with a wildly wagging tail and way too much drool for anyone's own good leaping at him.

He does look like Childermass, after all. Leap first, smell later.

[whattaprick]

The illusion is a good one, but it doesn’t quite extend to touch. What Baker will feel as he pounces on Lambert distinctly doesn’t match up to what he sees and very unfortunately for the witcher, he can also feel Baker. Who’s jumping on an injured man.

“Fuck!” Childerbert cusses colorfully as a paw plants itself on the entire giant bruise of his side right now and the recently bandaged gash. Wheezing for breath, he raises a hand, pushing at Baker and trying to pitch his command like Childermass would.

“Get off, you great beast, you’re not a puppy anymore!”