I am extremely bad at emotions
I am somewhat less bad at explosions, though, so hopefully a transition to explosions will help
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
I am extremely bad at emotions
I am somewhat less bad at explosions, though, so hopefully a transition to explosions will help
And now you know why Jamelia didn't recognize herself from the Jazmin beta-fork.
When you keep changing yourself and who you are, you never quite go back to what you looked like before. So in fact Jamelia doesn't look that much like Jazmin did, and the Jazmin beta was probably changed just a little further to get away from Jamelia.
If you put them side by side you'd probably think they were cousins if someone told you they had a famiial relationship. They're similar heights, builds, and have similar appearances, but they don't look like twins or anything.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
This is your body.
This is your body on 40 years of Life effects.
(My initial guess that Elissa ran away when she found out mommy was a construct was way off the mark, but eh)
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Permanent paradox flaws are a bitch, although dissociation and identity issues are a particularly subtle one.This is your body.
This is your body on 40 years of Life effects.
(My initial guess that Elissa ran away when she found out mommy was a construct was way off the mark, but eh)
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Evade: Whatever this means, it can't be a good sign. Get out of their search zone before doing anything else.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Their conversation isn't done, but more importantly if evasion fails and it comes to a fight they can both agree that their chances of survival are better together than if they're caught alone.)
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Their conversation isn't done, but more importantly if evasion fails and it comes to a fight they can both agree that their chances of survival are better together than if they're caught alone.)
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
Thanks. I think getting the likely targets out of there while using Harlan to find out what's going on is the best of both worlds, and I'd hate to see mother and daughter split up quite yet.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
I am extremely bad at emotions
That is factually incorrect, at least from this end.
Also, should we be coming up with preparatory buff rotes? We've been given some precious, precious warning about Stuff Going Down Soon. Seems like the perfect time for preparatory buff rotes.
For that matter... everyone we care about who's here has Corr 3 or more. "Get out of the vicinity" seems like it should be *easy*.
Last edited:
- Location
- Jersey
[X] Observe: There's no reason to engage them without full information. She wants to know who they are and what they want. She plans to double back under stealth and shadow them, just to confirm that they're not here for her.
Evading them is only half the job and Jamelia would never leave a job unfinished. Who are these people, what are they doing here, what kind of sucker believes in coincidence, and more all to be answered on the next episode of NWO - Paranoia Intensifies.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Why?) Because this conversation isn't finished, because run or fight it will be easier with somebody watching her back and offering up knowledge, because if Elissa wants a chance to avenge herself upon Jamelia this is it, and because she hopes against hope deep down that she can have have a healthy human relationship with her daughter and not fail her, or Starling, or her earlier self.
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
Harlan can do clairvoyance, mind reading, and mental communication networks. He should absolutely be on getting info and feeding it to us.
One thing that kept bothering me as I was reading through this quest was that none of the mages had a daily ritual. Every morning everybody could have been getting difficulties lowered or bonus dice for 24 hours. There's a bunch of simple options for every character too.
Jamelia: Brewing and drinking coffee or other stimulants, pouring over intelligence documents, exercising, and bowing toward Mecca.
Henriette: Playing video-games, fine tuning her implants, and maintaining her gear.
Kessler: Running diagnostics on his cyberbody, meditating, and caring for his spirit foci.
Rose: Medical self-check and PT time.
Serafina: Having morning sex, doing crosswords and sudokos, and reading medical journals.
Donald: Wake and bake, exercise, and study the market movement.
Evading them is only half the job and Jamelia would never leave a job unfinished. Who are these people, what are they doing here, what kind of sucker believes in coincidence, and more all to be answered on the next episode of NWO - Paranoia Intensifies.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Why?) Because this conversation isn't finished, because run or fight it will be easier with somebody watching her back and offering up knowledge, because if Elissa wants a chance to avenge herself upon Jamelia this is it, and because she hopes against hope deep down that she can have have a healthy human relationship with her daughter and not fail her, or Starling, or her earlier self.
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
Harlan can do clairvoyance, mind reading, and mental communication networks. He should absolutely be on getting info and feeding it to us.
One thing that kept bothering me as I was reading through this quest was that none of the mages had a daily ritual. Every morning everybody could have been getting difficulties lowered or bonus dice for 24 hours. There's a bunch of simple options for every character too.
Jamelia: Brewing and drinking coffee or other stimulants, pouring over intelligence documents, exercising, and bowing toward Mecca.
Henriette: Playing video-games, fine tuning her implants, and maintaining her gear.
Kessler: Running diagnostics on his cyberbody, meditating, and caring for his spirit foci.
Rose: Medical self-check and PT time.
Serafina: Having morning sex, doing crosswords and sudokos, and reading medical journals.
Donald: Wake and bake, exercise, and study the market movement.
[X] Evade: Whatever this means, it can't be a good sign. Get out of their search zone before doing anything else.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
So, let's look at the logic. Jams is flittish, and professionally paranoid. And she knows there's enough hostiles out there with enough faces that getting involved is dangerous.
Meanwhile, as the last update hammered out, Jams is not quite as clear as she says she is when she considers her own self-identity. She exists because Jazmin wanted to protect Elissa, and oh my, is there all sorts of things wound up in there.
Meanwhile, Harlan is also tied up in familial knots, and is an old tired man laden with guilt. He isn't going to be necessarily acting 100% "rationally" - he wants to make it up with the daughter who's more his than anyone else's.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
So, let's look at the logic. Jams is flittish, and professionally paranoid. And she knows there's enough hostiles out there with enough faces that getting involved is dangerous.
Meanwhile, as the last update hammered out, Jams is not quite as clear as she says she is when she considers her own self-identity. She exists because Jazmin wanted to protect Elissa, and oh my, is there all sorts of things wound up in there.
Meanwhile, Harlan is also tied up in familial knots, and is an old tired man laden with guilt. He isn't going to be necessarily acting 100% "rationally" - he wants to make it up with the daughter who's more his than anyone else's.
[X] Evade: Whatever this means, it can't be a good sign. Get out of their search zone before doing anything else.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Evade: Whatever this means, it can't be a good sign. Get out of their search zone before doing anything else.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Their conversation isn't done, but more importantly if evasion fails and it comes to a fight they can both agree that their chances of survival are better together than if they're caught alone.)
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
Harlan did not survive to become a bitter old man without looking before he leaps. He'll know to observe before he moves to back up, although I'm sure he'll be a chance to do that immediately it once he had some information.
[X] Yes. (Write-in: Their conversation isn't done, but more importantly if evasion fails and it comes to a fight they can both agree that their chances of survival are better together than if they're caught alone.)
[X] Scanning: Harlan himself has a lot of useful spheres for these purposes. He can observe the firearms officers and find out quite a lot about them, while laying low.
Harlan did not survive to become a bitter old man without looking before he leaps. He'll know to observe before he moves to back up, although I'm sure he'll be a chance to do that immediately it once he had some information.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Evade: Whatever this means, it can't be a good sign. Get out of their search zone before doing anything else.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
There isn't much reasoning I can provide that hasn't already been nicely elucidated by EarthScorpion and Others, I like these options and the write-in is nice.
[X] Yes. Because Jazmin gave her life for Elissa, and Jamelia only exists because of that. It's a debt to her own birth, insofar as such a concept exists. Or maybe it's just a memory of Jazmin's willingness to die for the same of her daughter bleeding in. Jamelia isn't sure, and she doesn't have the time to analyse her own motives.
[X] Moving to Backup (1.2x): Harlan has a bad feeling about this. He's going to discreetly move in the direction of the paramilitaries in case Elissa needs the assistance.
There isn't much reasoning I can provide that hasn't already been nicely elucidated by EarthScorpion and Others, I like these options and the write-in is nice.
Update CCXXXIV: Dead Hands
JB CCXXXIV: Dead Hands
Time stretches out for a moment.
"I'm leaving," Elissa says quickly, her movements calm and casual, belying the predatory gaze Jamelia can see in her eyes. Elissa's scanning the street and the cafe for potential threats and potential cover or concealment, making a map of possible fire lanes and ambush locations in her mind. Just like Jamelia. "Maybe you should too. Thank you for the answers."
It's not an acknowledgement of a maternal relationship, or even an acknowledgement that anything Jamelia said was true, but it's also not active dislike. Jamelia is well aware of the distinction between apathy and contempt and hostility.
"Come with me," Jamelia says to Elissa. "We haven't finished our conversation yet and I'd like to-" Jamelia pauses, not knowing how she wants to finish the conversation. She'd like to get the same treatment? Ask her own questions? She'd like to apologize? She'd like to keep answering Elissa's questions? Normally, she'd hate any of the options. Details are dangerous, those little unimportant asides which people might remember, which a cover identity needed to always keep straight. Talking to Elissa is dangerous-she's smart, inquisitive, and well-read. Even asking questions is a risk. And why should she apologize for Jazmin's actions? 'She' didn't exist at that time. Or did she?
"We've already talked about the things that matter," Elissa says, cutting Jamelia off. She's cool, clipped. Efficient. It's a tone Jamelia recognises in herself. "Like you said, you don't know who you are. And I'm not here on some quest to understand my estranged family or some nonsense. I'm just here because if I passed the message on, General Aleph was going to call off the hunt."
"General Aleph is dead," Jamelia points out.
"That doesn't mean he can't keep his word."
"There are others who might disagree and have similar resources. They might be coming for you anyway. And if it comes to a fight numbers always matter."
"If they're here to get at you," Elissa says, infuriatingly reasonably, "why would they waste forces chasing me when they have their priority target here? Right in front of them. Everyone knows how dangerous you are, and you've got backup here and even if someone's hunting you, they don't know exactly where you are, otherwise they'd have done something more than send some men."
And why wouldn't she say it? Jamelia knows that their relationship isn't just 'mother estranged from her daughter.' Maybe Elissa should just think of her as an enemy of her enemy. It's good sense.
"Goodbye, Jamelia Belltower. I hope you can figure out who you are someday." There's something underneath the surface bitterness there-a note of sympathy, or perhaps of genuine well-wishes. Elissa turns on her heel and casually walks towards the exit.
It still disappoints Jamelia. But only a little. Her professionalism hasn't slipped that much. A normal person would be furious, or hurt, or betrayed. Jamelia doesn't. She merely realized that she slipped up slightly. Fell into familiar patterns again. Elissa's almost exited the cafe, and Jamelia needs to act now.
A few brisk steps, and Jamelia grabs Elissa's arm by the wrist. Elissa stays at the cusp of the exit, already moving in a practiced martial-arts motion to remove Jamelia's own, NWO applied kinesthetics meeting NWO applied kinesthetics. Both movements are disguised, looking to bystanders like casual contact between friends. Neither wants to draw attention.
Jamelia might be shorter and have less leverage, but she's faster and stronger and her chosen martial art is WhiteVeil v. 2.0.5, not Elissa's outdated 1.9.7 version. Although Jamelia can see the tension in Elissa's body, Elissa doesn't escalate into a counterattack. Nevertheless, the other woman shifts slightly, ready to counter any transition into a proper grab, her free hand low to deflect an attack by a hidden weapon. Jamelia lets her, because her intent isn't hostile.
She doesn't choose to attempt a transition into one of the injury-causing follow-throughs. Instead, Jamelia raises her other hand, carefully and slowly, holding the programmable smartcard up and offering it. Elissa hesitates for a moment, but she ends up opening her other hand and letting Jamelia the card on an open palm. "If you need to find me," she whispers. It's a risk, and Jamelia's not quite sure why she takes it. Maybe it's another intersplice, a thought from Jazmin or Illiyeen or an alternate timeline self. Maybe she's getting sentimental now that she's joined the old-masters club. Or maybe it's because she thinks that Elissa is a useful ally and creating a possible 'in' might be helpful. She glances at the rest of the cafe. The few people who have looked at them just think they're friends taking a while to say goodbye. A few people look somewhat annoyed that they're blocking the exit, but nobody seems suspicious. "Take care of yourself and stay safe," she finishes and she lets go of Elissa for the first and the second time.
This time, not knowing what will happen isn't as freeing. Intellectually, she knows why. She might not be Jazmin, but she has Jazmin's memories, her thoughts, her personality-just adjusted and melded and shifted by conditioning and time-and Elissa is Jazmin's daughter even if she's not Jamelia's daughter. But that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. Jamelia feels the psychic tingle of something - EDE or RNE - searching for her via their own forms of Reality Deviance, and she knows that she needs to find Harlan.
Fortunately, he's not hard to find. They meet each other halfway, each of them moving towards the other, and the moment they see each other they know how they're going to play it. The police presence is unusual, but not immediately panic-arousing, and there's still people on the streets going about their business. It's trivial to just vanish into one of the clusters of pedestrians and blend carefully into the background.
"Where's Elissa?" Harlan asks, brow furrowed, pouchy cheeks lined.
"She left. I didn't want to try to stop her," Jamelia says, "and a fight would have drawn the wrong sort of attention."
"Figures," Harlan sighs, disappointment tinged with anger. "The first time I see her in decades and everything goes wrong. It's not RDs or Union-I'm feeling some sort of attempts to probe for us, but they're RNE-derived in nature. They're also focused on you, I don't think they even know I exist."
"Do they know where I am?" Jamelia asks.
"No, I don't think so. They're not converging on you," Harlan says, confirming Jamelia's own conclusion from her decades of experience and training, "and you've been keeping yourself pretty well hidden. Union comms are shielded against intercept by mundane tech so if they're RNEs they probably won't be able to even know we're using comms, let alone locate us from that channel. Which just means RNE capabilities."
Something about that makes Jamelia uncomfortable. "I'm not happy that a RNE can search for me via Reality Deviance."
"Neither am I," Harlan says, "because that means that the RNE has a pretty close connection to you. And knowing you, it's not a constructive relationship. You've got a way of making enemies, don't you? We should find Elissa. No matter how much you protest, a pissed-off RNE isn't going to care about you saying that you don't care about your own flesh and blood." There's a bitter yearning in his last sentence. A hope for a happy ending that he knows he doesn't deserve.
"They might attack her to get to me," Jamelia agrees. She knows what Harlan's getting at. He's been good at hiding his guilt, but he was never quite as good as the rest of them. And he hasn't gotten better in decades of disuse. "You want to make sure that doesn't happen." Her tone is carefully neutral. If she sounds like she wants to help, he'll distrust her. If she sounds like she's rejecting the possibility out of hand, it'll burn bridges with a loyal ally.
"She doesn't deserve a lot of things that happened to her," Harlan snaps, his eyes glowing slightly as he searches the area, trying to lock onto a mind he knows, even if he doesn't know her well anymore. Even if he never knew her well enough. "Maybe I've been a shitty father," he admits, and there's a steel in his voice that Jamelia remembers well from his days in HELMETSHRIKE, "but I'm not going to let a hostile RNE happen to her."
Tactically, Jamelia knows that it could be foolish. Intellectually, she knows that she's already finished what they came here for. She's satisfied her curiosity, she's gotten General Aleph's last message. She could leave them to fend for themselves. If she wants to abandon Jazmin's daughter again. If she wants to betray Jazmin's old friend, who gave up so much for his comrade in-arms. She doesn't lie to herself and say that she's doing this out of pragmatism, that she's only helping because it might build up goodwill, so she can retain useful contacts and assets. She doesn't lie to herself and say that she's doing this because Elissa and Harlan both know how to deal with RNEs and if she's going to be hunted by one, she might as well face it with two allies on her side who understand the enemy.
She's old now, and has learned so much about herself, and was forced to accept the truth of the world. She accepts that she's doing this because she wants to. Maybe karma is no more real than anything else, but that just means it's no more false than observer bias or many-worlds-theory or the multitude of other explanations for seeming random chance. And so Jamelia accepts its existence this one time. No matter what her relationship with Jazmin, Jamelia's inherited Jazmin's debts, and she wants to pay them off.
"Fine. But no sacrifice plays," she says firmly. "She's still technically the enemy."
Hiding from the minds of men, shrouded in psychic invisibility, Elissa walks among the crowds. She might be a native, or a tourist, or an immigrant worker or a thousand other things. But eyes slide off her, ignoring her as unimportant. She's just another woman among millions, her skin and hair ambiguous enough that she could fit in for a native just about anywhere in the world. She's invisible, just like she's practiced so hard to be. The legacy her mother left her, perfected by hard-earned experience and bitter lessons. Capable of vanishing anywhere in the world. Capable of operating anywhere in the world. The poisoned gift that Blanc and Illiyeen and Christos have given her. Groomed to be one of the Union's scalpels or one of the Traditions' swords.
She'll never get away from that, but at least right now, she's as free as anyone can be in this world of secret conspiracies and existential threats. Pentex will still exist, and the Technocrats who were hunting her no doubt still will be trying to kill her, even if Panopticon no longer exists and North Korea is a higher priority. Elissa wonders if General Aleph was even threatening her, back in Mexico City. Maybe he meant that he knew she'd pass on his message and by the time she did, he'd be dead and the Technocracy would have other concerns. She chuckles bitterly at the idea.
The one thing she regrets is maybe not talking to Harlan. Foster father or not, maybe she owes him something. But- it would be too painful to acknowledge. What can you say when you've found out your entire family is a lie? They don't make those sorts of cards at Hallmark. How does he feel about it? Does he blame himself for her running away? Or was he secretly happy that she wasn't his problem anymore? Did he actually love her like a father? Or was he just practicing his lying? And if the worst possibilities were true, would she blame him? Could she even blame him?
When she sensed he was scared of her, in a few unguarded moments... Was he afraid that she was a widderslainte? Or was he afraid that she'd realize the lie he'd woven? To protect her? To control her? So many events in her past that take on possible new meanings now, with what Jamelia said. Assuming what she said was true. It seemed that way, but that means nothing, when talking to an Operative.
Assume that nothing she said was relevant, then. Elissa tells herself. You can figure it out yourself, later. Part of her wants to talk to Harlan. To learn more about herself. But she recognizes the danger in it, and she doesn't feel any remorse.
She's still unhappy about being used. But she's no longer as bitter about it now that it's over. Then she passes one of the gendarmes walking the streets, and then all the fear and paranoia comes rushing back. Because it doesn't take much for her to realize that she's looking at a dead man.
The corpse is perfectly preserved, of course, his death-marks carefully disguised. He could pass for living to all but the closest examination. But the unquiet wraith animating him is no human soul. As a police officer, the discomfort and wrongness he'd might be passed off to the uniform, or what a police presence here entails.
He's a hunting dog for a powerful ghost. He's not armed-but he doesn't need one, with the strength and endurance of the grave. And his allies might not be armed with anything equivalent to the hypertech tools the 'Crats have or the wonders of the Trads, but that doesn't make anyone killed with them any less dead. And she has to worry that someone else is planning to use these specters as a stalking horse.And Elissa knows only one powerful ghost who might do something this risky.
The possessed corpse glances at her, but her disguise is well-woven, and she's used to spoofing ghosts enough that it's second nature by now. In a fit of paranoia, she wonders if Jamelia knew. But no, she wouldn't have. They were trained similarly. Elissa wouldn't have based any of her operations around some sort of just-so clever plan. If she wanted to force herself to rely on Harlan and Jamelia - she'd have been open about the deathlord An-Jin Choi. If she knew.
Maybe, Elissa thinks, she's going to need to look at the card and find her parents.
So the thing with Elissa is that she's not actually that interested in who she is. She's mostly gotten the answers she wants on that. And her Vice makes it easy for her to decide to abandon people to their fate, especially when they're just scary boogeymen. It also makes it easy for her to decide to go back when she realizes that the person hunting Jamelia here is literally an angry ghost who thinks that torturing someone to death, torturing someone again after death, then soulforging them into an ashtray is good, wholesome fun.
Who You Gonna Call?:
When Elissa gets back to her extremely dysfunctional maybe-family, the first thing they're going to agree to prioritize is:
[ ] The Enemy: The first and last step is to find An-Jin Choi and set him on fire before he can create a coherent gameplan.
[ ] An Escape Route: Never get into a fight without an exit plan. They need to set up some way of getting out to safer territory first.
[ ] Allies: Elissa knows that An-Jin Choi is a powerful deathlord with immense personal power and massive armies, all gained from his stolen mien and his foreknowledge of the chaos which would occur after 1999. They're going to want allies for this. It might cost them, but Elissa has a handful of favors she can burn and Harlan and Jamelia have their own contacts.
[ ] Equipment: Jamelia and Harlan packed light. They're going to need to find equipment capable of evening the odds against a deathlord's personal army, or tools to assassinate something that powerful. Elissa doesn't think she's going to be lucky enough to catch him unprepared this time.
Time stretches out for a moment.
"I'm leaving," Elissa says quickly, her movements calm and casual, belying the predatory gaze Jamelia can see in her eyes. Elissa's scanning the street and the cafe for potential threats and potential cover or concealment, making a map of possible fire lanes and ambush locations in her mind. Just like Jamelia. "Maybe you should too. Thank you for the answers."
It's not an acknowledgement of a maternal relationship, or even an acknowledgement that anything Jamelia said was true, but it's also not active dislike. Jamelia is well aware of the distinction between apathy and contempt and hostility.
"Come with me," Jamelia says to Elissa. "We haven't finished our conversation yet and I'd like to-" Jamelia pauses, not knowing how she wants to finish the conversation. She'd like to get the same treatment? Ask her own questions? She'd like to apologize? She'd like to keep answering Elissa's questions? Normally, she'd hate any of the options. Details are dangerous, those little unimportant asides which people might remember, which a cover identity needed to always keep straight. Talking to Elissa is dangerous-she's smart, inquisitive, and well-read. Even asking questions is a risk. And why should she apologize for Jazmin's actions? 'She' didn't exist at that time. Or did she?
"We've already talked about the things that matter," Elissa says, cutting Jamelia off. She's cool, clipped. Efficient. It's a tone Jamelia recognises in herself. "Like you said, you don't know who you are. And I'm not here on some quest to understand my estranged family or some nonsense. I'm just here because if I passed the message on, General Aleph was going to call off the hunt."
"General Aleph is dead," Jamelia points out.
"That doesn't mean he can't keep his word."
"There are others who might disagree and have similar resources. They might be coming for you anyway. And if it comes to a fight numbers always matter."
"If they're here to get at you," Elissa says, infuriatingly reasonably, "why would they waste forces chasing me when they have their priority target here? Right in front of them. Everyone knows how dangerous you are, and you've got backup here and even if someone's hunting you, they don't know exactly where you are, otherwise they'd have done something more than send some men."
And why wouldn't she say it? Jamelia knows that their relationship isn't just 'mother estranged from her daughter.' Maybe Elissa should just think of her as an enemy of her enemy. It's good sense.
"Goodbye, Jamelia Belltower. I hope you can figure out who you are someday." There's something underneath the surface bitterness there-a note of sympathy, or perhaps of genuine well-wishes. Elissa turns on her heel and casually walks towards the exit.
It still disappoints Jamelia. But only a little. Her professionalism hasn't slipped that much. A normal person would be furious, or hurt, or betrayed. Jamelia doesn't. She merely realized that she slipped up slightly. Fell into familiar patterns again. Elissa's almost exited the cafe, and Jamelia needs to act now.
A few brisk steps, and Jamelia grabs Elissa's arm by the wrist. Elissa stays at the cusp of the exit, already moving in a practiced martial-arts motion to remove Jamelia's own, NWO applied kinesthetics meeting NWO applied kinesthetics. Both movements are disguised, looking to bystanders like casual contact between friends. Neither wants to draw attention.
Jamelia might be shorter and have less leverage, but she's faster and stronger and her chosen martial art is WhiteVeil v. 2.0.5, not Elissa's outdated 1.9.7 version. Although Jamelia can see the tension in Elissa's body, Elissa doesn't escalate into a counterattack. Nevertheless, the other woman shifts slightly, ready to counter any transition into a proper grab, her free hand low to deflect an attack by a hidden weapon. Jamelia lets her, because her intent isn't hostile.
She doesn't choose to attempt a transition into one of the injury-causing follow-throughs. Instead, Jamelia raises her other hand, carefully and slowly, holding the programmable smartcard up and offering it. Elissa hesitates for a moment, but she ends up opening her other hand and letting Jamelia the card on an open palm. "If you need to find me," she whispers. It's a risk, and Jamelia's not quite sure why she takes it. Maybe it's another intersplice, a thought from Jazmin or Illiyeen or an alternate timeline self. Maybe she's getting sentimental now that she's joined the old-masters club. Or maybe it's because she thinks that Elissa is a useful ally and creating a possible 'in' might be helpful. She glances at the rest of the cafe. The few people who have looked at them just think they're friends taking a while to say goodbye. A few people look somewhat annoyed that they're blocking the exit, but nobody seems suspicious. "Take care of yourself and stay safe," she finishes and she lets go of Elissa for the first and the second time.
This time, not knowing what will happen isn't as freeing. Intellectually, she knows why. She might not be Jazmin, but she has Jazmin's memories, her thoughts, her personality-just adjusted and melded and shifted by conditioning and time-and Elissa is Jazmin's daughter even if she's not Jamelia's daughter. But that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. Jamelia feels the psychic tingle of something - EDE or RNE - searching for her via their own forms of Reality Deviance, and she knows that she needs to find Harlan.
Fortunately, he's not hard to find. They meet each other halfway, each of them moving towards the other, and the moment they see each other they know how they're going to play it. The police presence is unusual, but not immediately panic-arousing, and there's still people on the streets going about their business. It's trivial to just vanish into one of the clusters of pedestrians and blend carefully into the background.
"Where's Elissa?" Harlan asks, brow furrowed, pouchy cheeks lined.
"She left. I didn't want to try to stop her," Jamelia says, "and a fight would have drawn the wrong sort of attention."
"Figures," Harlan sighs, disappointment tinged with anger. "The first time I see her in decades and everything goes wrong. It's not RDs or Union-I'm feeling some sort of attempts to probe for us, but they're RNE-derived in nature. They're also focused on you, I don't think they even know I exist."
"Do they know where I am?" Jamelia asks.
"No, I don't think so. They're not converging on you," Harlan says, confirming Jamelia's own conclusion from her decades of experience and training, "and you've been keeping yourself pretty well hidden. Union comms are shielded against intercept by mundane tech so if they're RNEs they probably won't be able to even know we're using comms, let alone locate us from that channel. Which just means RNE capabilities."
Something about that makes Jamelia uncomfortable. "I'm not happy that a RNE can search for me via Reality Deviance."
"Neither am I," Harlan says, "because that means that the RNE has a pretty close connection to you. And knowing you, it's not a constructive relationship. You've got a way of making enemies, don't you? We should find Elissa. No matter how much you protest, a pissed-off RNE isn't going to care about you saying that you don't care about your own flesh and blood." There's a bitter yearning in his last sentence. A hope for a happy ending that he knows he doesn't deserve.
"They might attack her to get to me," Jamelia agrees. She knows what Harlan's getting at. He's been good at hiding his guilt, but he was never quite as good as the rest of them. And he hasn't gotten better in decades of disuse. "You want to make sure that doesn't happen." Her tone is carefully neutral. If she sounds like she wants to help, he'll distrust her. If she sounds like she's rejecting the possibility out of hand, it'll burn bridges with a loyal ally.
"She doesn't deserve a lot of things that happened to her," Harlan snaps, his eyes glowing slightly as he searches the area, trying to lock onto a mind he knows, even if he doesn't know her well anymore. Even if he never knew her well enough. "Maybe I've been a shitty father," he admits, and there's a steel in his voice that Jamelia remembers well from his days in HELMETSHRIKE, "but I'm not going to let a hostile RNE happen to her."
Tactically, Jamelia knows that it could be foolish. Intellectually, she knows that she's already finished what they came here for. She's satisfied her curiosity, she's gotten General Aleph's last message. She could leave them to fend for themselves. If she wants to abandon Jazmin's daughter again. If she wants to betray Jazmin's old friend, who gave up so much for his comrade in-arms. She doesn't lie to herself and say that she's doing this out of pragmatism, that she's only helping because it might build up goodwill, so she can retain useful contacts and assets. She doesn't lie to herself and say that she's doing this because Elissa and Harlan both know how to deal with RNEs and if she's going to be hunted by one, she might as well face it with two allies on her side who understand the enemy.
She's old now, and has learned so much about herself, and was forced to accept the truth of the world. She accepts that she's doing this because she wants to. Maybe karma is no more real than anything else, but that just means it's no more false than observer bias or many-worlds-theory or the multitude of other explanations for seeming random chance. And so Jamelia accepts its existence this one time. No matter what her relationship with Jazmin, Jamelia's inherited Jazmin's debts, and she wants to pay them off.
"Fine. But no sacrifice plays," she says firmly. "She's still technically the enemy."
***
Hiding from the minds of men, shrouded in psychic invisibility, Elissa walks among the crowds. She might be a native, or a tourist, or an immigrant worker or a thousand other things. But eyes slide off her, ignoring her as unimportant. She's just another woman among millions, her skin and hair ambiguous enough that she could fit in for a native just about anywhere in the world. She's invisible, just like she's practiced so hard to be. The legacy her mother left her, perfected by hard-earned experience and bitter lessons. Capable of vanishing anywhere in the world. Capable of operating anywhere in the world. The poisoned gift that Blanc and Illiyeen and Christos have given her. Groomed to be one of the Union's scalpels or one of the Traditions' swords.
She'll never get away from that, but at least right now, she's as free as anyone can be in this world of secret conspiracies and existential threats. Pentex will still exist, and the Technocrats who were hunting her no doubt still will be trying to kill her, even if Panopticon no longer exists and North Korea is a higher priority. Elissa wonders if General Aleph was even threatening her, back in Mexico City. Maybe he meant that he knew she'd pass on his message and by the time she did, he'd be dead and the Technocracy would have other concerns. She chuckles bitterly at the idea.
The one thing she regrets is maybe not talking to Harlan. Foster father or not, maybe she owes him something. But- it would be too painful to acknowledge. What can you say when you've found out your entire family is a lie? They don't make those sorts of cards at Hallmark. How does he feel about it? Does he blame himself for her running away? Or was he secretly happy that she wasn't his problem anymore? Did he actually love her like a father? Or was he just practicing his lying? And if the worst possibilities were true, would she blame him? Could she even blame him?
When she sensed he was scared of her, in a few unguarded moments... Was he afraid that she was a widderslainte? Or was he afraid that she'd realize the lie he'd woven? To protect her? To control her? So many events in her past that take on possible new meanings now, with what Jamelia said. Assuming what she said was true. It seemed that way, but that means nothing, when talking to an Operative.
Assume that nothing she said was relevant, then. Elissa tells herself. You can figure it out yourself, later. Part of her wants to talk to Harlan. To learn more about herself. But she recognizes the danger in it, and she doesn't feel any remorse.
She's still unhappy about being used. But she's no longer as bitter about it now that it's over. Then she passes one of the gendarmes walking the streets, and then all the fear and paranoia comes rushing back. Because it doesn't take much for her to realize that she's looking at a dead man.
The corpse is perfectly preserved, of course, his death-marks carefully disguised. He could pass for living to all but the closest examination. But the unquiet wraith animating him is no human soul. As a police officer, the discomfort and wrongness he'd might be passed off to the uniform, or what a police presence here entails.
He's a hunting dog for a powerful ghost. He's not armed-but he doesn't need one, with the strength and endurance of the grave. And his allies might not be armed with anything equivalent to the hypertech tools the 'Crats have or the wonders of the Trads, but that doesn't make anyone killed with them any less dead. And she has to worry that someone else is planning to use these specters as a stalking horse.And Elissa knows only one powerful ghost who might do something this risky.
The possessed corpse glances at her, but her disguise is well-woven, and she's used to spoofing ghosts enough that it's second nature by now. In a fit of paranoia, she wonders if Jamelia knew. But no, she wouldn't have. They were trained similarly. Elissa wouldn't have based any of her operations around some sort of just-so clever plan. If she wanted to force herself to rely on Harlan and Jamelia - she'd have been open about the deathlord An-Jin Choi. If she knew.
Maybe, Elissa thinks, she's going to need to look at the card and find her parents.
So the thing with Elissa is that she's not actually that interested in who she is. She's mostly gotten the answers she wants on that. And her Vice makes it easy for her to decide to abandon people to their fate, especially when they're just scary boogeymen. It also makes it easy for her to decide to go back when she realizes that the person hunting Jamelia here is literally an angry ghost who thinks that torturing someone to death, torturing someone again after death, then soulforging them into an ashtray is good, wholesome fun.
Who You Gonna Call?:
When Elissa gets back to her extremely dysfunctional maybe-family, the first thing they're going to agree to prioritize is:
[ ] The Enemy: The first and last step is to find An-Jin Choi and set him on fire before he can create a coherent gameplan.
[ ] An Escape Route: Never get into a fight without an exit plan. They need to set up some way of getting out to safer territory first.
[ ] Allies: Elissa knows that An-Jin Choi is a powerful deathlord with immense personal power and massive armies, all gained from his stolen mien and his foreknowledge of the chaos which would occur after 1999. They're going to want allies for this. It might cost them, but Elissa has a handful of favors she can burn and Harlan and Jamelia have their own contacts.
[ ] Equipment: Jamelia and Harlan packed light. They're going to need to find equipment capable of evening the odds against a deathlord's personal army, or tools to assassinate something that powerful. Elissa doesn't think she's going to be lucky enough to catch him unprepared this time.
FORTHEYOLOZ
Morgana-sama!!!
- Location
- Omega Hell
I just caught up to the story this morning, and got an update in the afternoon.
Despite not knowing a single thing about Mage or Exalted, the story and themes gripped me hard enough that I stuck with it and followed all the way through. And read every single threadmarks, for good measures.
Now, I shall go forth to the wikia! and hopefully I can learn enough to commit to participate in this epic quest.
Despite not knowing a single thing about Mage or Exalted, the story and themes gripped me hard enough that I stuck with it and followed all the way through. And read every single threadmarks, for good measures.
Now, I shall go forth to the wikia! and hopefully I can learn enough to commit to participate in this epic quest.
- Location
- my house
This is interesting to me.
What do we know about this person? What is a stolen mien, how did they know about 1999 before everyone else?
There was a bit where Jamelia went back in time, to just before the Avatar Storm. She ended up possessing the Technocrat An-Jin Choi, and we voted to expend him for our own purposes.
That came back to bite us.
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FORTHEYOLOZ
Morgana-sama!!!
- Location
- Omega Hell
Bishie Korean Deathlord Choi was the pasty Jams used to change history when she time-traveled back to 1999. since we were possessing him at the time, he kinda got access to our mind while we were puppeting him around.
People voted to sacrificed him to accomplished the mission, so he came back as a
Edits: Damnit ninjad!
- Location
- my house
FORTHEYOLOZ
Morgana-sama!!!
- Location
- Omega Hell
A lot of moments throughout this whole quest is awesome. Even the slow, quiet ones, viewed in retrospect. I can't even comprehend how much layering and forshadowing ES and MJ have done to them.
In regards to the latest vote. I'm tempted to either go for allies or just deal with Choi immediately. But I'm not good enough to parse what the numbers and stats means compare to our stats.
- Location
- in the trash
Choi is a ghost. Specifically, a very angry, pissed off ghost who was killed off back in 1999. This normally wouldn't be a problem (I bet he's not the first angry RNE Jamelia's created throughout her long career), but he's been inside Jam's head (or rather, it was the other way around), and he died right at the point where the Underworld underwent a huge shakeup because of the Dimensional Anomaly/6th Great Maelstrom, which upended much of the existing power structures there.
Which meant that Choi, with his own skills and knowledge, possibly with future information he got from being meshed with Jamelia, was able to claw his way up and become one of the major players of the Underworld.
And literally the reason for his entire existence now is "Make Jamelia Belltower suffer for what she did". So yeah, we're dealing with an army of ghosts, led by a very angry and powerful ghost who wants to hurt us very badly and see all that we've achieved undone.
As we've been taking pieces off the board he's one of the few major opponents left, the others being Cat 2.0 and Evil Clone!Jamelia.
Which meant that Choi, with his own skills and knowledge, possibly with future information he got from being meshed with Jamelia, was able to claw his way up and become one of the major players of the Underworld.
And literally the reason for his entire existence now is "Make Jamelia Belltower suffer for what she did". So yeah, we're dealing with an army of ghosts, led by a very angry and powerful ghost who wants to hurt us very badly and see all that we've achieved undone.
As we've been taking pieces off the board he's one of the few major opponents left, the others being Cat 2.0 and Evil Clone!Jamelia.
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FORTHEYOLOZ
Morgana-sama!!!
- Location
- Omega Hell
Ok, the specific parts about the 6th Great Maelstrom I did not know about. so how did it happened?
[X] An Escape Route: Never get into a fight without an exit plan. They need to set up some way of getting out to safer territory first.
If his priority is to make them suffer then an escape route should be nice and distracting?
If his priority is to make them suffer then an escape route should be nice and distracting?
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
[X] An Escape Route: Never get into a fight without an exit plan. They need to set up some way of getting out to safer territory first.
Allies is also tempting, but ultimately I came down on the side of escape route because killing the enemy (again) isn't our primary objective here. Survival is.
As far as equipment, here's a reminder of what we've got to work with:
Plus whatever Harlan might have brought, although I get the impression he tends to focus on his abilities over equipment.
Allies is also tempting, but ultimately I came down on the side of escape route because killing the enemy (again) isn't our primary objective here. Survival is.
As far as equipment, here's a reminder of what we've got to work with:
Plus whatever Harlan might have brought, although I get the impression he tends to focus on his abilities over equipment.
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Sixth Great Maelstrom is unique, because normally the Great Maelstroms are caused by massive deaths and catastrophes in our own world, i.e. the Skinlands, but this is not the case for the Sixth Great Maelstrom. Instead, it was caused by the assault on Stygia (the Western underworld) by Yellow Springs, the Asian underworld, led by Yu Huang, the ghost of Qin Shi Huang. In addition, the Hierarchy was at the same time laying siege to the city of Enoch, which was ruled by fucking vampire wizards or something (look it's been a long time ago i can't remember everything lol) and in the end destroyed it with a GHOST NUKE.
Also there was some Void Engineer idk the POINT IS that a lot of huge destruction happened and in the end, a huge army of Spectres assaulted, Charon transcended and the Sixth Great Maelstrom came.
TL;DR: white wolf is fucking weird man