SHIFTING THE PARADIGM - ADVERSE RIG EVENT

[goneawaymod]

SHIFTING THE PARADIGM

PLOT DESCRIPTION
To say that the New Hires are unlucky is something of an understatement. After all, they're here, aren't they? They were the unlucky ones swept out of their worlds, left unconscious for Jorgmund to find, "hired," implanted with shock collars. They were unlucky enough to get caught, and now they're being mega, double, septuple screwed by a casual backhand of fate.

The rig doesn't often face a full breach. It does today.

The announcements start with a tinny warning: "RED ALERT: SEVERE STUFF STORM COALESCING OFF STARBOARD SIDE. PREPARE FOR RIG TO COME TO FULL STOP."

Anyone near windows can see it on the side facing the Wilds, a roiling, thundering mass of gray clouds that look a little more liquid than normal clouds. Lightning crackles, illuminating it from within but the color of the lightning isn't just white or yellow. Each thundering crackle flashes in a prism of unnatural colors.

The rig comes to a stop. Since it was going so slow, there isn't much of a change in momentum but they can feel it in the vibration of the braking mechanisms and creaking and groaning of tons of metal suddenly facing some minor strain. The storm expands up to the top of the atmosphere, anvil-shaped, flattening against the tropopause.

"RED ALERT: SEVERE STUFF STORM COALESCING STARBOARD SIDE. PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE ADVERSE RIG EVENT. SHELTER IN QUARTERS AND OTHER SHIELDED AREAS. CHILD CARE STAFF, RELOCATE YOUR CHARGES TO NEAREST SHIELDED BUNKER. ALL STAFF, REPORT ANY UNREALITY EVENTS TO RIG COMMAND FROM THE NEAREST ALARM PHONE, AND FIND SHELTER UNTIL SECURITY TEAM IS DEPLOYED."

The Stuff storm slams into the rig, making it sway just slightly. The wind pouring through the gaps in the rig structure howls in a way that sounds like inhuman screams. Thanks to the Stuff visibility drops to a very gray 0%.

A prerecorded message now starts playing. Celeste Lillian, with her soothing voice, speaking mantras:

"Staff members and couriers of hope, in this stressful time, I remind you to pause, take a moment, and breathe so deeply your lungs cannot hold any more of our Mother Earth's air. Breathe in, breathe out. The act of breathing is so precious because it's both necessary and voluntary. It is a gift you give yourself. Value yourself enough to give yourself the gift of a full, honest, complete breath."

Super helpful, right?

"Clear your minds, let go of any thoughts. Remember: 'The ocean changes. I can float.'"

But all hell breaks loose and mantras won't do a thing to stop it. The rig's many ventilation shafts have filters and metal covers to help shield against stuff, but they aren't replaced as often as they should be. Inspections are thorough but some material resources are scarce.

Stuff breaks through the covers and ventilation filters, sweeps through the rig, and reality gets less real.

"RED ALERT: FULL BREACH. RED ALERT: FULL BREACH. RED ALERT: FULL BREACH..."

SCENARIO #1 - PRODUCTIVITY

The rig's staff instantly increases by several orders of magnitude. The new employees don't talk and for the most part they don't pay attention to anyone else. They mill through the hallways, gesturing to each other as if they're colleagues walking and talking about the last meeting as they move through the halls.

Most of them are in full professional dress, suits and ties. But sometimes this dress is from a variety of eras, hearkening back to the idea of business. That means a lot of power suits and shoulder pads, and even some old fashioned bow ties, top hats, and glittering gold pocketwatch chains. Here and there, sometimes there's even a glimpse of someone in older merchant's clothing, flashy in a way that suggests "people send me regular complaints on cuneiform tablets about how I sold them inferior copper ingots." The mystery executives despawn and respawn randomly, phasing in and out of existence. Sometimes two will spawn in the same spot, somehow superimposed, like a glitch in a video game, twitching helplessly until reality goes "whoops!" and phases them back out of existence.

They have no faces, but the way they sometimes randomly turn to face the New Hires, staring them down, body language wary, makes it clear they can somehow see or sense without eyes. They sometimes speak with no mouths but the sounds don't sound like real language, and are always muffled.

New office or meeting room doors start flickering in and out of existence. Each time one appears it draws the nearest New Hires in, warping the metal floor in front of them so every step draws them inexorably inward. Inside, the New Hires find themselves pinned by stares from nonexistent eyes, the drones expectant. Maybe even impatient.

They're late.

Each room has a different scenario that must be satisfied to make the room go away, all of them the subconscious corporate imaginings of rig executives and staff, fears and secret wishes and ambitious aspirations all rolled together. The drones watch the New Hires carefully to make sure they follow "corporate policy" and obey the rules of the scenario, their body language growing more and more aggressive and threatening the more they fight it. They will eventually attack if New Hires don't follow through. There's no such thing as simply reporting someone to HR in their (nonexistent) eyes.

When each scenario is forced to completion by the New Hires playing ball until conditions are satisfied, the drones...dissolve. Trees suddenly sprout through their clothes, then flower. The petals scatter through a sudden breeze that always smells of grass and leaves and wet plants and gentle rains.

Finally free.

PROMPTS

a) resource management
The room has a table and chairs at the front. It's stacked with piles of unsharpened pencils and several electric or manual pencil sharpeners. The table looks out on rows of chairs, filled with faceless drones.

Watching... waiting...

Every time you finish sharpening a pencil there's light applause. It's a big pile of pencils, but at least it's an easy task. The drones don't seem to mind if you talk to break up the monotony.

Like so much of corporate life? Thrilling.

b) flipping through the deck
Have you ever had a nightmare where you had to do an oral test in front of the class that you weren't prepared for? Now imagine one where your teacher and classmates will beat you senseless if you get it wrong.

The slideshow being shown on the smartboard is completely nonsensical. That means the presentation can be just as nonsensical. New Hires can work together to bullshit on any topic, or maybe even just spout total nonsense. Either way, the drones around the conference table occasionally offer light applause and then turn to each other to confab in their nonsense mutterings, before turning back to watch once more.

When the meeting is perceived to be over, the drones stand, lightly clap, and flower.

Sometimes in rooms like this the drones hand over a list of corporate buzzwords that must be included, but they don't seem to care if it's in context.

Buzzwords: Break down the silos, tee it up, paradigm shift, low-hanging fruit, move the needle, run it up the flagpole, on the bleeding edge, synergy, core competency, leverage.

c) on the spot improvisation
Similar to the other presentation rooms except...

Oh, these are actual Jorgmund executives. The door sucked you into a normal meeting that they're cheerfully having despite the Stuff breach. They ask you your opinions on improving rig operations and quality of life and expect you to give honest answers.

But not too honest.

d) you've got some splainin' to do
You're handed hair nets and aprons and glared at until you put them on. The room is a small room in a factory line, with a conveyor belt passing through. The drone that henpecked you into putting on the aprons holds up a chocolate, points to the aperture the chocolates go through at the end of the conveyor belt, and shakes her head furiously. Then she wraps the chocolate in one of the wrappers from a stack of them, points back to the aperture and nods.

The garbled nonsense she "says" doesn't communicate it, but the gestures do: Wrapped chocolates go through, unwrapped ones don't.

Once the New Hires are in place in the conveyor line, the drone smacks a hand twice against the wall and the conveyor belt starts. Fortunately the drone leaves, but now the New Hires have chocolates they have to wrap, and they have to wrap them quickly.

The line is fast but not impossible. It's still a scramble and chocolate might have to be shoved in their hats and clothes to keep the drone from coming back and getting angry. Fortunately, you only have to reach a quote of 100 (as stated by a helpful sign on the wall) before the room spits you back out - sticky and smeared with chocolate - and fades away.

One perk: the chocolate won't disappear, but it's definitely some waxy, cheap stuff and sometimes the filling is a flavor that doesn't really pair well with chocolate.

e) the it crowd
You're led to desk with computers that don't actually work. Only nonsense words and memes (and nonsense memes) show up on the screens. That's fine because the people calling in on the phones are real people on the rig, trying to work despite the Stuff storm because of Company Loyalty™, and that means their problems are real stupid. Even laymen might be able to guide them through it.

They may include questions about the "cupholder," them not realizing the monitor has to be turned on, and issues easily resolved by a restart. Since the calls are real, there's a chance you can use some good old fashioned psychological engineering to gain useful things like usernames an passwords.

The drones don't seem to care if you chat among yourselves between calls, confer with one another (or mock the caller) while the phone is on mute, or whether the advice is even good. They only care that it's given. After a seemingly random quota is met, the drones expire, and room spits you back out and disappears. You'll find you have a small rubber duck in your pocket after you're spit back out again.

The ducks seem to not do anything. Yet.

Players can request the mods come up with idiotic IT issues for their thread.

f) breaking the ice
What is with this place's obsession with never-ending icebreakers?

This time it's less optional. You're are forced to sit in chairs across from each other or in a ring if more than two of you are pulled in. A sign on a small table between you says "2 truths, 1 lie" or "Truth or truth" (The drones seem to have forgotten the dare part). But sometimes a different game (of players' choosing) is displayed. The drones can seemingly sense whenever New Hires are lying and their behavior starts to grow hostile if they do, relaxing when they tell the truth.

The room won't release New Hires until there's been enough growth or honesty equivalent to a life-changing field trip.

g) corporate (property) restructuring
The drones are based on the thoughts of employees and that means the things they dream of doing, like taking a bat and going ham on a printer-copier. When you're pulled into a nonexistent department you're handed baseball bats and pointed at various pieces of office equipment.

The hostile language of the suited drones - also with their own baseball bats - means it would be wise for you to direct your un-vented frustrations at the equipment. All of it.

Or the drones might vent their aggression - with bats - at you. At least smashing shit up with a buddy - old or new - is cathartic? And that baseball bat can maybe be tucked away in a hideyhole somewhere for later use.

h) staring at the camera like...
This room is a small office space with chairs against a wall that has a window with closed blinds. The drones have a professional looking camera set up, pointing at the chairs, like it's some kind of confessional. These drones look more like the crew of a documentary than the other office drones, but have the same blank faces.

They gesture for the New Hires to sit down and hold up a paper that says: "Tell us how you really feel about this place and your fellow employees."

It's not like the drones are Jorgmund employees so maybe it's a safe place to let loose and have a vent session with a fellow New Hire? Interacting with each other during the vent gets nods of approval from the directors and crew. Trashing Jorgmund? Gets even more approval. They're loving that chemistry, guys.

i) wild card
Have a scenario idea that we haven't thought of? Go crazy! Pick some weird corporate scenario to play around with. The Stuff has plenty to work with thanks to the anxieties of the real corporate drones working for Jorgmund, and also because of all the office-related TV and movies they consume.

SCENARIO #2 - VIOLENCE
Some beings created by Stuff are alive and/or sentient. These are the New, but the drones are not New. They don't think and are therefore unable to reify the occasional wisp of stuff around the rig. They're more like programs in the computer of reality or like animations set into motion by the minds animating them.

But even if they're not alive, they are dangerous. They have no brains, no vital organs, no easy way to kill them. Since you need a thick skin to survive corporate life, it's very hard to break through their skin. When this finally occurs they start bleeding odd substances and objects. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black printer ink. Paper clips. Sometimes it's thumb tacks, which makes walking and fighting very fraught. Go down even once and you might have a butt or back full of them.

No matter how much they bleed, however, they don't deflate or bleed to death. Only total destruction or dismemberment can slow them down. Fortunately, how much it takes to damage them seems to always be magically scaled to what the New Hires in the room are capable of.

That means it's somewhat unwise to fight them but it's at least not impossible. New Hires that want to try will be given their weapons and gear if they manage to make their way down to the armory near the training room. While New Hires will be hunted down later if they don't return most weapons and specific gear items, the chaos means some of the more disposable items - grenades, arrows, throwing knives - might possibly be tucked away somewhere without notice. For later. Excuses can be made about their use or loss, after all.

Players that know ahead of a time they want a fight scenario can always list one of the other scenarios above and note their preference for combat.

Since New Hires will have to go to the armory to get equipped, they can also have some threads with weapons and others without, to suit player needs.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Finite threat: While the doors can open anywhere and suck anyone in, the total number of rooms that need to be eliminated is finite. This means the New Hires clearing them out can eventually shut them all to avoid permanent, perilous addition to the rig's reality. They'll notice the number of doors that flash in and out of existence decreasing the more they go through scenarios.

➤ Opt out: Players may opt out of the plot by having it so New Hires mysteriously find their room door locked and impossible to open, even by force. Or players can make use of the "alternate reality" mechanic, where the characters are shifted temporarily into a calmer, alternate version of the timeline where they have a normal, quiet rig day. That band of possible reality will collapse and fold them back into the main rig reality when the event is over. This means if players want to completely ignore the event and work on their old threads, they don't even have to come up with a handwave. Their character might just be a little confused and need to be filled in when the event is over and reality folds them back in.

➤ NPC request: If you'd like the mods to npc a stupid IT call in a thread, hit the thread below and link to where they should come in.

➤ Questions: If you have questions about the event, want to know what your characters can get away with during the chaos, want to know if your characters can squirrel away secure info or grenades etc., feel free to hit the questions comment below to make your requests.

Comments

[somnioergosum]

To Ronan's ears, Zero-Zeno sounded like some kind of study trick. Latin class was his only real passion in school, but it had never covered philosophy. He was entirely self taught and that mostly consisted of just reading and relying on his own reflections. He might encourage his boyfriend pursuing higher education, but when he thought someone else was forcing themselves to endure that?

Ugh.

"What, did you take a class in college?" Ronan sounded less than thrilled with the prospect. "I don't know about Noble Truths. But if they're about like self-control and not letting other people's shit affect you, then maybe it is." Naturally, Ronan would be a terrible adherent to the Stoic philosophy, not that he ever bothered. But some part of him longed for that life while his own spiraled out of control.

"No idea what a physical adept is but I'm going with miniature dragon. But God, that would be pretty badass." He then remembered the last dragon he encountered, from the mind of another dreamer.

That had objectively been badass. Subjectively, it'd been terrifying. He still remembered its death and the death of its creator.

Ronan reached for the leather wrist bands that weren't there. He pulled his hand away, empty and unsatisfied.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Ha!" Saturday points at Ronan, grinning with delight. "The dragon is not a lie! His name is The Right Honorable Sir Ignacious Iguanodon Smashmouth Baby Lofwyr III, Esq. Or Iggyfyr."

And he is a very good boy, yes he is. Saturday wishes she could show him the wallet pictures.

"His favorite foods are deli ham and blackberries," she continues. "We saved him from some poachers, that's how he attached himself to Maggie. The Noble Truths are Buddhism and it pretty much boils down to: living is hard and will suck. It sucks more if you get super bent out of shape about it not sucking. You can stop feeling like the world sucks so much and being in pain all the time if you practice proper mindfulness and meditation - self-control and not letting other people's shit get to you," she parrots back. "Physical adept means magic makes me fight good. Your turn."

[somnioergosum]

And people said Ronan was bad at naming his pets.

"Your friend named a dragon that? That's just a waste. Was there even a I and II?" What was the use of a dragon if you gave it fake titles? Though maybe a miniature dragon just looked sad instead of cool.

...Nah, that still didn't excuse the name.

"Wait, so does that mean you use your magic to help you in physical fights, like boosting your strength or speed, or do you just fireball your opponent?" This was important to him. Not that he'd ever learn how to use magic like that, his abilities were exciting in different ways, but he had a vested interest in learning how people might try to kill him other people.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday draws herself up, affronted

"First of all, I named him, second, you are wrong, because Iggyfyr is a very useful and cool and dignified dragon." Especially when he's sprawled on his favorite rock with his wings all higgledy-piggledy and one paw over his head.

"First one. I'm fast and I'm tough, and I punch above my weight class. Some other stuff, too." Like being impossible to ambush, and punching through brick walls. "My friend Maggie is the one with the fireballs, though actually she uses stun and lightning more."

[somnioergosum]

Ronan shrugged in response to her indignation. "Never said he wasn't. But I would've named him something like Deathclaw or Devourer." No, Ronan hadn't played Fallout. That was just how his brain worked. This was the man who named his raven Chainsaw.

He considered her explanation of her abilities. Great, she could probably beat the crap out of him though it'd probably be fun. Not that he was going to offer to spar again. "Sweet," was his final assessment.

He'd probably delayed his own truths and a lie for too long. He stretched his neck, cracking a joint, as he thought. "My dad taught me to box, I have one brother, and I had a sword before I came here." If Jorgmund was watching they knew that last part for sure.

Could they let him keep something cool like a magic sword made of sky? Nooooo.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday tries not to giggle, snorts so hard she starts choking, and has to put her head down on the table to recover.

"Deathclaw.... pfft. That would be a terrible name for Iggy. The only thing he devours are mosquitoes. Uh, let's see..."

First one was possible, so was the second. Third was too specific to be a lie; he's never seen her fight so he has no way of knowing that her sword is always with her, so he's not going off what he knows about her to throw her. If he has a sword, then he probably knows how to fight generally.

She narrows her eyes.

"You have more than one brother."

[somnioergosum]

Iggy sounded more like a large lizard at this point. Disappointing, but they weren't a bad pet. At least he imagined they weren't.

"Chainsaw eats crackers and garbage and I still gave her a good name. It gives her something to live up to." He said all of that with a straight face.

There was a slight curve to Ronan's mouth, reminiscent of a smile before it returned to its usual state. "Two brothers. I'm the middle child."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Chainsaw? Who's that, your goldfish?" Saturday is teasing him, now, in a friendlier fashion than before. "And what'd you name your sword, friggin' Heart-drinker or something?"

"Brothers? I have one of those, older. His name's Solomon, but we call him Sol mostly. What's their names?"

[somnioergosum]

"She's a raven." Ronan sounded surly, but not as bad as usual. He apparently didn't seem to mind the ribbing. Although the sword was a bit awkward... It wasn't the name he thought he'd choose, but it was hard to argue with his subconscious.

If it was his subconscious.

"It's Vexed to Nightmare." Which was apparently all caps but he had no idea how he was supposed to say that out loud. His fault for bringing up the sword.

"Solomon? Poor soul." That might have been a joke. Hard to tell when the pronunciation was a bit off.. "Mine are Matthew and Declan. Matthew's the youngest."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Ravens are cool." Saturday approves of ravens. "My friend, the one who has Iggy? She's got a raven familiar, he's real sweet. Brings us shinies and spies on our enemies."

She snorts at the name of his sword. "Good grief, what does that even mean? And Solomon isn't even a fraction as stupid as elf names normally get, trust me."

[somnioergosum]

"A familiar?" Ronan considered that. Would Chainsaw count as a familiar? No, he wasn't a witch. "They are clever. But she gets too distracted to do any spying." Or stubborn. It was annoying that she had to inherit that trait from him.

Ronan shifted at the subject of the sword. "You wouldn't get it." Which was true. He didn't really get it himself. "So, your turn."

[wheyoftheadept]

"All right, all right." Saturday leans back in her chair, lacing her fingers behind her head. "Hmm, let's see. Speaking of swords - my sword has my brother's personality, one time I got paid for a job in cheese, and I once dated a dwarven princess."

[somnioergosum]

"The first one," Ronan said immediately.

It seemed too impossible, even for him, for a sword to have a personality.

And then he thought of all the ways it could. Like one of those swords in a cartoon, capable of speech and everything. Sentient. He thought of how he would do it.

He closed off that part of his mind and stared at Saturday as coolly as ever.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Wrong!" Saturday chirps again. She extend her metallic right arm, palm-up, and a hilt grows out from the underside of her wrist for a moment before sinking back in. "'Ni-chan has some of Solomon's memories, a big chunk of mine, and most of Sol's personality because of it. It's kind of a long story - Sol didn't die or anything, it was more like a magical accident. And my best friend dated the dwarven princess. I did get paid for a job in cheese, once."

Magical accident is a very mild way of putting it, considering the end result had been a ten-year estrangement and a stupid, destructive feud that had nearly killed her and Maggie both - had killed them, really, except that their fates were changed at the last moment.

She's not sure Ronan wants the dirty details on her memory loss and Sol's refusal to cope with it, though.

[somnioergosum]

Magic could do all kinds of things, couldn't it? Bryde had tried to tell him that although he'd never said the word magic, if he even thought of them as magical.

Ronan almost accepted the answer but then confusion flashed across his face. Just because he'd thought of a solution didn't mean that was how it played out in this scenario.

"How does a sword have a personality? And how did it get your brother's? And it has your memories? What kind of accident was that? It sounds more like a disaster."

[wheyoftheadept]

"It's a long story," she says, carefully. "Big family drama. Kind of weird. I almost die like three times. You really want to know?"

It'll at least be interesting to see his reaction. She hasn't shared the personal stuff since arriving at the rig, just big, spectacular, world-ending parts of it. Not how it began.

[somnioergosum]

One of Ronan's eyebrows quirked up at that. "When you put it that way, yeah." Ronan had been annoyed by people wanting to know details or whispering about when he almost died. Now he felt that same curiosity.

Everyone had to be a hypocrite at some time or another.

Though there was one other factor. "If you're fine with them hearing." He jerked his thumb at their audience.

[wheyoftheadept]

"I don't think they're actually real." Saturday glances at the silent, faceless crowd. "Like that post said the Stuff can make people but doesn't always? I don't think they're that. They communicate, kinda, but they don't seem to reason, and also when they're done with you they turn into flowers and float away. Kinda pretty, really."

She chews on her lip, trying to decide where to begin.

"Okay. The place t'start, I guess, is that I'm adopted. For a long while I thought my birth parents were scum, but it turned out that wasn't true - I got stolen, which is a different story, and when the woman who stole me died, her boyfriend sold me. I was about to be purchased by the kind of person who buys four year old girls when Solomon announced himself. The trafficker had been trafficking too close to Pops' territory, and poached a couple kids from there. Pops has what you might call a one-strike policy towards slavers, and since Sol was young enough, he volunteered as bait.

Sol was adopted, too, but - not the same way I was. When he was about the age I was then, his family got killed 'cause a gang war went the wrong way. Pops didn't get there in time. I was one of the kids rescued who didn't have a family, and I guess Sol just decided that was gonna be him and Pops from now on. Not that Pops argued any.

Oh, the other kids got returned home or found new families, by the way."

She pauses here, taking a moment, a little surprised at how much she doesn't want to say this next part.

"It's... another story to explain, but my pops is one of the guardians of a kind of magical vault full of artifacts and writing and things that are too dangerous or worrisome or inconvenient to have in circulation, but that no one wants to destroy or that can't be destroyed. Or people will fight over them, so it's better for no one to own them. Or the person storing them just never wants to see them again - I guess if you're immortal you can rack up a lot of reminders of things you never wanna think about but can't bring yourself to get rid of. That sort of thing. Just a big ol' storage facility for the ancient and magical.

One of the artifacts was a sword." Her flesh hand comes up, unconsciously, to cover her metal wrist. "I wasn't allowed in the vault, I didn't even know it existed. But I did know that Pops and Sol were always going in and out of a secret door I wasn't supposed to go through. Probably because all their cool hero shadowrunner stuff was behind it, which didn't strike twelve year old me as very fair. I could be a hero, too, if they'd let me."

She spreads her hands open in a helpless, shamed gesture. "I was a kid. I was stupid. They knew I was stupid, that's why they always closed and locked the door behind them. Except for the one day Pops was distracted an' the door didn't latch, an' he didn't see it. An' I went in. An' there was this sword, an' it was really cool, so I picked it up and started doing forms, daydreaming about how I could be a hero with a magic sword, an' - "

Saturday shrugs.

"What I didn't know was that the sword I'd picked up had a thing going on where, in order to bond with the wielder, it needed an offering. Specifically, the memory of someone you love. It - well, 'Ni-chan is sapient now, but he wasn't then. He was just an it. And the sword's magic decided my daydreaming was asking to bond with it, which it decided it wanted to do, because they were, like, pure dreams or something, I guess."

She says those words with a profound and abiding embarrassment, practically daring Ronan to say something about it. When he doesn't, she continues.

"So it took Sol. All my memories of him, involving him, about him. Half of my life, at that point. More than half. An' they're never, ever coming back - I know what I know because I was told it, an' because I got to kinda see what happened in a vision, later on.

Sol blamed Pops. Pops'll tell you, he was right to. But he also - cause of some shit in his life that ain't mine to tell - had this idea that Pops had done it on purpose, or let me do it - that it hadn't been an accident. An' he wouldn't believe Pops. An' every time he visited me in the hospital, someone had to introduce him to me all over again. He'd been replaced, overnight, with the sword. He - kinda freaked out and left."

She closes her eyes, throat feeling sore from talking so long. Yes. Talking. Not from thinking about the consequences of his leaving, and his return.

"Came back when I was nineteen, which is the second half of the story. If you still wanna hear it."

[somnioergosum]

Ronan looked at the drones. They could just be like the dreams he made that weren't fully formed, weren't really people and couldn't just go on about their lives. But if he hadn't made them, how could he really tell?

Saturday was probably right though. They seemed to just... react. And if they turned into flowers they probably couldn't take back information either.

He turned back to Saturday and listened. His hand went to his wrist before he remembered there was no wristband to play with and then he just tried to remain still. The moment Saturday mentioned a magical vault of artifacts, his body language changed. His eyes turned sharper and he leaned in slightly, eager to hear more.

A vault like the artifacts both he and his father kept in the shed.

He was overcome by this need to just tell her about it. Even if he didn't really know her and she'd pissed him off. After just meeting Hennessy, someone like him who didn't just want to use him, it was cruel to end up here. He was just... alone again. He desparately wanted someone who could understand him.

That couldn't be Saturday.

"I'm listening. You can talk about him so I'm guessing you at least fixed some of the problem."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday nods. Her shoulders heave, once, like she's bracing herself, then she continues.

"So Solomon left, deciding that he was gonna find the fix for what happened to me and come back and show Pops and save the day and blah blah blah I'm nineteen and I didn't think it fucking through." She makes a dismissive gesture, but it curdles; there's a curious inward slant to her bitterness, as though she sees herself in the story she's telling. "Didn't work out that way. He got in deep, then deeper, and eventually found himself thinking there was no way out except through, which is where he was mentally when he came back."

She looks around, clearing her throat. "Wish there was some water - oh, hey." A glass appears out of nowhere, or possibly was there all along. She picks it up, shrugs, and downs half. Her eyes seem oddly bright, a little watery.

"He came back, and he had this very clever notion that he was gonna take over running the neighborhood from Pops, by playing a bunch of gangs against each other... and he was gonna use me to do it. Not tell me the truth, no - he was gonna protect me. By using me. Move me around like a pawn, because he loved me too much to tell me the fucking truth, him and Pops both - "

Her metal hand clenches.

" - I didn't remember him, but my best friend did. She told me, and Pops told me there'd been an accident that hurt my memory, an' I figured hell, if he wants to be my brother again, why not work with him? An' if this is a con I'll just fuck him up, right?" She snorts. "Pops missed him. I could tell. I thought - we could maybe be a family again, even if I'd have to work a little harder. I wanted to be family again. Nothing wrong with more family, right?"

She takes another sip of the water, to hide her hand trembling.

"So he needs me to do this run, right? There's a new group making and selling a kind of drug called a BTL, which is - it's a chip you slot into a plugin in your brain that lets you live another life. Full-sim fantasy, dig? Except these were way, way powerful, could fry your entire brain powerful - more likely to kill the user than addict them. Sol wanted to know what was up and so did I. Turned out the whole thing was a front for a cult of bug spirits. Which, to summarize a lot very quickly, are beings from outside reality who enjoy eating people's minds and souls and wearing their bodies as skin suits in order to pave the way for their even nastier bosses. The BTLs were designed to kill so they could manufacture enough soulless bodies for a serious incursion.

"I tried to do it right. I did." Her hand has not unclenched. "Reached out to contacts, explained the situation, gave them proof. But - Sol - stupid bastard was outclassed. It was all a setup, though at the time all I saw was someone blocking my moves, cutting me out of my circles, couldn’t tell who. It was Sol's boss, taking me out to fuck with Sol - he didn't believe the situation was as serious as it was. Just saw a chance to ruin Sol's life and punish him by hurting me.

"This next part's on me. I shoulda stopped there. Gone to Pops, explained things all the way, everything I knew. But he was trusting me, you know? My first real job, all my own. I didn't - want to need his help so fast."

Stupid, she just barely manages not to call herself, and drinks the rest of the water very quickly instead.

"We did the run. It went to hell, fast. Maggie - they made me watch, the bugs. While they slit her throat. As a sacrifice. Choice ended up being, blow the hive with us inside or let the buggy bastards win. We made the obvious one. It - should have killed us, but it didn't. Maggie either, thank god. That's yet another story. Got thrown into the spirit realm instead, bodily. And the last thing I saw was Sol breaking in - stupid tit figured out the screw just a second too late - with a goddamn army and shooting the cult leader in the head but - too late. Too fucking late."

She shakes her head.

"This next part I found out after. Once the dust settled and everyone figured out we weren't dead, just missing, Sol, apparently - just fucking yeeted himself through the rift left behind. No plan, no friggin' backup, just 'I fucked it up I gotta get them back.' Nice sentiment, didn't work. He found us, sure, but - we were stuck in a bad place, an' he got stuck there with us. Really don't wanna go into detail on that, if you don't mind. Quick version that it was a realm designed to teach you about your limitations by forcing your best instincts to lead you to become your worst self. For us, sent there by accident with no preparation - it wasn't a good time."

Putting it mildly. But Ronan isn’t entitled to that; she’s surely sharing more than enough to please the drones.

"We got out, got bounced somewhere else, an' that place turned out to be close enough to home that we could get there if we did a whole bunch of other shit first that ain’t part of this story. The part that matters is that apparently my family's been interacting with that place for ages, an' Sol has a friggin' ex-wife and kid there, which is how I found him again, after all that. His ex was part of the same military outfit we fell in with, see. God, first time I saw him again I almost fucking broke his jaw - "

She shakes her head.

"But, long emotional story short - it only took getting his little sister killed to make him realize he'd been a shitty brother and a worse son and an equally terrible father. So he's - trying to change. Part of that is, he gave some of his memories to 'Ni-chan, here."

She extends her metal arm, rotating it to expose the underside. There, on her forearm, among the other engravings of great deeds - a stylized image of an elven boy holding a little elven girl's hand, pointing at something he wants her to see.

"Still not sure why. I guess - he figured 'Ni-chan earned it. See, the whole reason I got this metal arm in the first place is that while we were escaping the bad place, I lost the original. Friend wandered into a ceiling turret, I could survive the hit but she couldn't. Got me right at the shoulder, nice and clean."

She pulls her collar away to show the seam where metal meets flesh.

"Normally the sword would abandon its user after something like that. But because of my memories, and my, I guess, purity of intent? It didn't want to. And it could decide not to. So it made a choice to become a person, to piece a personality together from my memories of love and family, an' it made itself my new right arm. He made himself, I should say," she finishes.

"And that's the story. Sol is still around, trying to figure out how to not be such a shithead. Mostly I'm over it, though I ain't sure if I've forgiven him for any of it yet. Helps that my niece is so darn cute.”

She shrugs.

"So that’s the end of that. I got two brothers, one's a sword, the other's an idiot, and they're kind of the same person. ....the fun part is, that's just the weirdest thing about me, personally. I ain't even getting into the other shit."

[somnioergosum]

That was definitely a lot more complicated than Ronan expected and he wasn't sure he'd even followed all of it. One thing was sure: he preferred his idea of how to create a sword with a personality. Not that he'd ever go through with it.

Ronan was silent for a few moments. He had no idea what to say to all of that. He'd never had someone give him so much information after essentially just meeting him. He'd been raised in a home of secrets and his friends usually had secrets of their own, especially the kind of secrets they had from themselves. It was overwhelming.

He raked his hand over his shaved head. He let out a breath. "Yeah, that's a lot just on its own. And I thought my family was complicated." Not that he thought Saturday's was more complicated. Just very different. "At least Declan doesn't have a kid." He then thought about all the girls Declan had dated or just been with. "Christ, I hope he doesn't."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Aw, Nina's a sweet kid, though," Saturday says automatically. "Wouldn't trade her for the world."

She means it, too. Nina's something about all of it that's never gone sour, or ended in tragedy. She's just a smart, interesting kid.

Saturday doesn't mention the part about her being Death's granddaughter 'cause Sol's ex-wife ended up being her daughter from that time Death decided to be mortal for a while to see what that was like. Or the part where that means she can control the extra-dimensional soul-devouring horrors giving everyone such a headache. She also hasn't talked about the artifact quintet, Gray, Thera, Caim and Gwynn, Mangheath, or Maggie turning out to have been a dragon who is also an ork, after they'd only just processed her being an ork who can sometimes turn into a dragon.

Honestly, the only real secrets she's given away here are her own, and - okay, probably she's supposed to be secretive about like, the vault and the bug spirits and the horrors, but the people who'd be wanting her to keep those things secret are also assholes whom she does not respect.

"Who's Declan?" She nods towards the watching crowd of drones, who are silent and seem enraptured, waiting for the next moment. They seem to be enjoying it.

[somnioergosum]

"My older brother. We don't need a sword to hate each other." Though maybe a sword had played a part. He remembered making a flaming sword and Declan saving him from it. They were only children then and now that he knew how much watching over him Declan had done, everything else started to make sense.

He paused, thinking that over. Revelations about feelings didn't come quickly to him. This one had been turning over and over in his mind for over a year. "Maybe hate isn't the right word. I don't know. He resents me. I resent him. We're working on it. Were working on it. It's not like I can do much about it here."

He glanced at the drones to see how they reacted to that bitter statement but they seemed eager, even happy to hear this talk of familial strife.

Great.

[wheyoftheadept]

"So if you don't hate each other over a deeply stupid misunderstanding, why do you hate each other?"

Saturday leans back, hands interlaced behind her head. "Or resent each other? I mean, did he ever get you killed and stuck in a hell dimension?"

She's never getting over that. It's become her standard for fuckups: as long as no one got killed and stuck in a hell dimension, it's not that bad.

cw: implied child abuse/neglect and at best someone just being a shitty dad

[somnioergosum]

"He resents me because Dad loved me more." And was shitty to Declan, which wasn't something Ronan felt comfortable saying out loud. He wasn't even comfortable thinking it. No one should speak ill of the dead and especially not their beloved father. "I resent him because he tries to control my life and he enforced my father's will and didn't fight to see our mom or let us stay at the Barns." Ronan clenched his jaw. It wasn't being stuck in a hell dimension, but at the time he felt like he was.

Technically his father was completely to blame for the last part. No matter what he'd meant the will to be, if it really was just to test Ronan's abilities or something else, it'd been a terrible thing to do to his grieving children. If Declan had tried to contest the will, how much attention would it have drawn?

Ronan hadn't seen it that way. He'd been sixteen, traumatized, and had his parents and the only home he'd known ripped away from him in a matter of days.