save you a seat next to me down below

[rookvision]

Who: Jacob Frye and you!
When: early April pre-event
Where: Free Cities
What: catch-all for early April!
Warnings: blanket Assassin's Creed warnings (violence, guns and otherwise, murder, suggestive humor, death, conspiracies). possible mentions of period-typical prejudices. likely mentions of parental death and complicated/strained father-son and sibling relationship.

Comments

[itookashot]

Jesper learns a few things right off the bat about the stranger, including that he doesn't mind pet names and he has a good eye for who can give him better information. Interesting. In his professional criminal life, Jesper was often the person who found news on the streets and gathered it for the boss, so he has continued that with keeping his ear to the ground in Cadens.

"Ah, I see, that's why I haven't seen you yet. Spent too long in the barracks. Me, I got out of there the moment I could, don't feel comfortable around any military." That's an understatement, he is openly hostile and paranoid about the army. It comes from an anxious mindset where he was threatened every day of his life to be sent to one to die for stranger, being born with the wrong set of genes. The Free Cities truly has not helped his natural suspicion.

"But I'm afraid I've got plenty of bias, just on the opposite end." He sips his drink and leans forward. "You can get a room here, it's where most of us live. It's free until you get a job and then it's expected to throw some coin in." In his case, he puts a whole lot of money in, but he's been here longer.

"You can make a decent living here, better than in the other two. We can buy houses and businesses, albeit with the understanding we can disappear at any time." And then it'll be repossessed by the government no doubt, but that's pretty reasonable. "Don't trust the government here. Marlo declared martial law and hasn't allowed elections in over a year. Her political opponents are rumored to go missing. They haven't revealed yet what they want from us, but it'll be something, eventually."

[rookvision]

"You and me both," Jacob says with a chuckle. As an Assassin, he has something of a healthy mistrust for authority in general, and as a criminal, he has first-hand experience with how easy it is to get the coppers to get in bed with his or with any other gang. "They were hinting I ought to enlist if I wanted to stick around, so I left. I'm not one for taking orders."

He's usually the one giving them.

"I don't mind that bias," says Jacob. "And if all the rooms haven't filled up yet, I might just get myself a room here to start with. Who should I talk to?" He's willing to put in the work and find himself a steady job soon, or at least one he can use as a cover for his real purpose.

Now, the mention of the other two—Solvunn and Thorne, if he's recalling right. He hadn't heard much about them beyond some brief comments in the barracks about the Free Cities being much better than a castle or a commune, but he had heard something about travel between territories being restricted. Leaves something of a bad taste in his mouth. "Is there a way to get into contact with people from the other two territories?" he asks. "There are telegraph wires back at home, but I imagine those would be a tad difficult to put up here."

Martial law? Jacob's grip on his tankard tightens a little. He doesn't know this Marlo yet, but already he's suspicious. Half a year ago he'd be asking where she is in the hopes of learning her routine and taking her out, but he's learned better since then. He's not about to destabilize the Free Cities because this woman might be making her political opponents disappear, is placing the Cities under the suffocating collar of martial law. "Suddenly the Free Cities don't sound quite so free as they've been saying," he murmurs. "Any guesses what they might want out of us? It must be something big, considering they're dragging us in from our worlds for whatever it is."

[itookashot]

"It's very rare for any of us to stay there. I think there's only maybe two or three people who chose to sign up, the rest of us left." Jesper knows Shepard and Garrus are at least still there, and that's their choice, he's not going to blame them for it. He used to go to the barracks semi-regularly to check in for any newbies who might be there unknowingly, but eventually he just waited for them to willingly come in. The inn is well-known now as the Summoned space.

"Second floor, third room down is open." Yes, Jesper knows that off the top of his head. He knows almost everything about this inn. He's been working on it since he arrived, fixing it up, and they did a huge makeover only a few months ago, adding more rooms and space. "You can make it more formal with Mag, she's the owner here, but she'll just tell you the same thing."

Oh he's very new if those are the questions. Jesper nods, realizing this is high level beginner stuff, but he doesn't mind at all. "Yeah, we have something people called a network, it's strange though. It's magic that translates messages across the territories. It'll appear before your eyes whether you like it or not, which can be a headache if someone is talking too much, which sometimes I'm guilty of." He flashes a grin. He actually might be one of the active problems, but he's chatty, he can't help it. "It takes a little focus but it's pretty easy."

And also. "There's a psychic plane called the Horizon we all have access to. It's basically this fantasy place where you meditate and go into this space that you can morph to your liking. Any of the Summoned can go there so it's the easy way of meeting up. With Nocwich closed, it's currently the only way to see people from there." Jesper adds since he is thinking about questions. "Nocwich is this square that we used to be allowed to visit and see one another, but they had some conflict between the natives there and it's been closed."

Which is frustrating for people who want to see one another, especially for Jesper who has so many friends everywhere, but at least they have the Horizon. They didn't right away, he can't imagine what that must have been like.

"Well, I think in the start the Free Cities didn't have a plan. They Summoned because Thorne started it and they didn't want to be left behind." It's logical! That is the one thing that he understands and doesn't blame them for. Enemy logic, power plays, that's stuff he understands. "I think for now we're just weapons they're leaving around until they want to pick us up and pull the trigger."

[rookvision]

Two or three Summoned who've decided to sign on with the military, compared to how many more of them are striking out on their own into the Cities. That ratio tells a vivid story all on its own, and he wishes those Summoned who've decided to enlist the best of luck. "If they wanted weapons, it's a rather ridiculous choice to start bringing people in," he says. "I can see the logic in that decision, but...the thing about people is, we're a lot more complicated than weapons are, and a lot less predictable. If you pull the trigger on a person, there's a high chance it'll backfire."

Second floor, third room down. Jacob commits that to memory. "I'll speak to her later," he says, "just to make it all formal. I don't have much to move in, anyway." For now, but he has plans.

He's about to ask what the network is and why it's so strange when the word magic is mentioned, and he just sits back. Oh. Right. Magic. That's something he'll have to get used to. He listens, and chuckles a little. "I don't mind someone talking too much," he says, cheerfully. "My sister tells me I'm all too talkative, in fact." He feels the briefest twist in the pit of his heart, at the thought of being alone here in this strange new world full of magic, with no backup and no Rooks, before he shoves it away. He'll be fine. He knows he will be. And when he goes back home, oh, what tales he'll tell! "Is this magic network something that only we Summoned have access to?" he asks.

As for the Horizon, Jacob blinks in surprise. Then he takes a long sip of his drink, because this is a little much to consider and he's only just started to accept that magic is real here. "How long do you need to meditate to get to the Horizon?" he asks, already dreading the answer. Focusing is one thing, Jacob can do that. Outright meditation where you sit and empty yourself? There's a reason why Evie's the stealthier Assassin between them, and that reason is that Jacob cannot sit still for so long. "And what happened in Nocwich that it's been closed off? Have you an idea of how long it'll stay that way?"

[itookashot]

"It's true, but they keep Summoning us, so they must think it's worth it." Jesper has no idea how but the logic is right there for them to see. It keeps happening, and the Free Cities has more Summoned than either of the other places, so who knows the reason for it. If he had an answer to that, he might be able to figure out what to do next.

"Yeah the network is only to us. It can be useful that way, and does allow you to have some fun private conversations." A little smirk may or may not be suggesting what kind of conversations Jesper ends up having in those, but it could just be a harmless statement. (Nothing is harmless with him.) "So is the Horizon. It's because for whatever reason once we came into this world, the Singularity, the center of magic here, decided to claim us. So we have privileges ... and sometimes, more headaches because of it." Like gods running rampant through their psychic plane. That wasn't particularly fun. Or the nightmare situation, and the memory wiping. It's as much a curse to be one of them.

"The first time, probably some time, but you'll need one of us to go in with you. You lose your memory the first time, don't entirely know why, but the second time you go you remember everything." He assumes someone smart might have theories about why this happens, but Jesper has zero idea. That's not his brand of intelligence, he's more street smart. "After that, it's as simple as sitting down and counting backward from ten. It's a grand place, you can create anything you want, home away from home."

Jesper's domain is shared, at least half of it is, and he's fond of the spaces he's had to create. It helps in the time between Nocwich meet-ups or when there is no access to a shared space. Speaking of. "So Nocwich is made up of Ikorr, vampires, and Luna, werewolves, and they're always fighting over who should dominate it. They've temporarily made a peace the past year or two so we can meet in person. But recently we went to a party at Ikorr and some drama went down. An artifact of theirs got loose and we found the thief, but Luna demanded they destroy the artifact. They refused, so the peace is suspended until they work their shit out." He sighs. "Too bad for us."

tw allusion to period-typical homophobia

[rookvision]

Jacob can see the logic just as well as Jesper can, and it makes him more than a little nervous. He doesn't like the idea of being a weapon in a war he never even asked to be a part of—it sounds exactly like the sort of idea a Templar might come up with. "How often do these Summonings happen?" he asks. "If it's going on a regular basis I can check the barracks when the time comes, talk newer people into the inn." And, maybe, see if they've brought in Evie, or Greenie, or hell—he'd even take Nigel. Someone he can count on to cover for him.

It doesn't take long for the implication to sink in, and Jacob smirks back. "I'm sure they'll be quite fun, even moreso for the privacy," he says. This also sounds very much like a harmless statement. It's...not not harmless. (He's dancing near an edge and he knows it, talking like this. One wrong move, one word that's too flirty, and he might fuck up a good thing before it even gets started. Careful, Jacob—it doesn't sound like Evie, it sounds like Roth.) "I take it this Horizon causes headaches of the metaphorical kind?" he asks. "Besides the memory loss the first time around."

Another thought, and a question that he asks before it slips away from him in the storm of questions swirling around his head: "The magic—this Singularity—has a mind of its own, then?" Odd. But he can use this information. Probably.

God, this really is the kind of thing Greenie and Evie would lap right up. Jacob's more a man of the street. Still, he'll do the job in front of him, if he needs to.

"What was this artifact that they were so keen on having it destroyed?" He thinks of the Shroud of Eden, how it had healed Starrick over and over and over despite Jacob's best efforts to cut him down. It had only been when he and Evie had gotten it off him that they'd managed to kill the Templar Grandmaster, once and for all. He can understand why Luna would want to see an artifact destroyed if it's that powerful. "Does it have some kind of terrible power in the wrong hands?"

[itookashot]

"Every other month, I don't know if it's because the spell takes a lot of power, or they have it on a rotation. It's nice of you to offer to go. Anyone I should keep an eye out for you? Friends or family? Sometimes people are snagged from the same world. There was five from mine, once upon a time." It's only gone down to three, technically, but the loss of Inej and Wylan were heavy ones for the Crows. It has been a few months but it still stings. It's one of the things people get used to, they have to.

Jesper grins at him and winks. "Wait until you see how fun the Horizon can be, love. It's not headaches, mostly a good time." Jesper likes teaching people about the wonders of a space where anything you imagine can exist. He only has the Horizon these days for his liaisons so it's been getting quite a work out. There is nothing holding him back from openly flirting with handsome men. His world may have issues, but that's not one of them.

"Yeah, the Singularity's an entity itself. Doesn't seem like it can communicate with humans well, so we're usually in the dark about what it wants or can do. Not much we can do about that." Jesper shrugs and sips his drinks, no sense in putting it to waste if he's going to be explaining things. Julie knows more about the Singularity than anyone else and she's at a loss to handle what's going on outside, so the rest of them are useless.

"Oh yeah, definitely some terrible power. To be fair, it did kill the person who stole it, so it didn't want to be in his hands. Ripped him to shreds." Jesper was sober enough to watch that, although not so sober that he put in a vote for it. "The vampires wanted to put it back in hiding, there was no telling what would happen if it was destroyed. The Summoned were asked their opinion, group vote was to leave it alone. I was too drunk at the time to cast a vote." In fact Jesper didn't bother to think on it, he was too busy stumbling back to bed.

[rookvision]

Once upon a time. Implying they can leave—or, perhaps, are forced to leave. "What happened, that two of you are gone?" he asks, and his voice is noticeably gentler, softer. Like he gets it, to some degree—he knows loss well enough to know how it can still hurt even a little while later, and it sounds like Jesper's grief is far less complicated than Jacob's own. "And...yeah. My twin sister, Evie, and her friend Henry Green."

Or, well, they're not exactly just friends anymore, if all the gushy looks Evie and Greenie keep exchanging are any indication. Jacob—knows it's being selfish, but he kind of hopes he doesn't have to deal with that here for a while. Not until after he's figured out where to put this misplaced grief and hurt over Roth.

Love. Jacob quickly ducks his head, a corner of his mouth tugging upward into something real. That's. Very sweet of him. Daringly so, at least back in Jacob's era, but perhaps things might be different here. He hopes so, anyway. "Well, now you're raising my expectations for it," he says, going for casual and hoping he's succeeded. "My schedule's wide open, so I might try going into it soon. You're not busy tomorrow, are you...?"

Is it flirting or is it not flirting? (It's flirting, a little bit. Nothing serious.)

"What a surprise, the magic entity can't talk to humans all that well." Jacob sighs. One of these days he ought to stop being so surprised when something unexplainable happens, or when he's told about something so fantastic he can barely believe it. Anyway. "I'm less surprised the artifact did that, though. I heard a rumor about a powerful artifact on my world that once blew up an entire building—one person barely managed to escape." This is actually true, save for the part where it's a rumor. It's Evie's fault, he heard it from her own mouth.

"Probably a good thing, to leave it alone," he says now. "Things like that shouldn't be messed with. Who knows what they'll do in the wrong hands? And in a place like this, it's hard to know whose hands are the wrong ones, and if there are even any right hands at all."

[itookashot]

"We still don't know. People just disappear. We do know that they appear to go back home because we've had a few folks return, having remembered their time here and that they experienced their life like normal." Jesper has accepted this as fact as he knew one of them, Peter Parker. It's the better option for him to believe in, given that he knows both Wylan and Inej are going back to a happy life. The Crows got lucky in that particular time and were thriving. If he goes back, he also has a good spot, so it makes everything a little less tense.

Jesper knows flirting when he sees it and that pleases him to no end. The man seems a little tentative, interesting. Then again, few people are as blatant and forward as Jesper himself is. "For pretty people like you, I make the time." He is actually a fairly busy person but that's what he has a business partner for. They cover each other when they have other things to do. "Start thinking now about your ideal spot. I share a bar from back home with my best friend and have a cabin with a shooting range. Some people have giant libraries or parts of castles." It's a choose your own adventure. Jesper loves seeing what other people come up with.

If he's also thinking about showing Jacob the wonders of the Horizon when it comes to one-on-one discoveries, that can wait.

"Nah, the fellow learned what happens when you mess with things you don't understand. There even was a story about how a person was ripped to pieces by using the artifact. Hubris came for him." Jesper didn't meet the man although he sounded really hot by all accounts, but it also sounds like he got what was coming to him. You don't mess with things like that willy nilly, it's asking for trouble. That's why Jesper is fairly hands off on the major supernatural elements of this world. No god or Singularity obsession for him.

"Well and they stomped into their rival's space and demanded to destroy something powerful with no promise about how safe that idea was. Foolish." Jesper didn't vote but he probably would have voted against that sort of nonsense. "You'll get used to all the ridiculous politics here, although I mostly recommend staying out of it."

[rookvision]

“There’s that little comfort, I suppose,” Jacob murmurs, relieved. There are people he’s left behind back in London, work that still needs to be done there, and while he trusts Evie and Greenie to be able to manage the Rooks in his absence, it’s still good to know everything will be fine back there if he stays here for a time. “It would be rather inconvenient to come here right in the middle of something urgent, otherwise.”

Not the case for Jacob. With Starrick’s death the Templars have been dealt a grievous blow, and it’ll be a long, long time before they can recover. No better time for the Assassins to move back in.

But he doesn’t say that. Instead he huffs a soft laugh, receptive enough to the flirting. “Pretty, am I?” he asks, playfully. “Careful there, if you keep flattering me like that I may just swell up like a hot air balloon. And then where would we be?” This feels nice, though—sweet, a little bit refreshing, so long as he doesn’t think too much about Roth calling him brave. “Hm. How about a train station?”

The station in Whitechapel, to be precise, where he and Evie first set foot in the teeming city of London. If he closes his eyes he can trace every detail in his mind’s eye as fresh as if he’d been there yesterday.

“But I would so love to see that shooting range of yours,” he adds. “I like a little gunplay, myself.”

A little.

“From all the stories I’ve heard about such artifacts, destroying them usually tends to end in rather catastrophic explosions.” As he’s sure Evie can attest to. He might’ve gotten a train derailed but Evie got a whole building blown up. “Though I imagine it was a hell of a dilemma at the time.” He waves a hand, with a snort of laughter, and says, “Oh, believe me, I will. I’m not one for politics myself.”

He’s more of a direct action sort of guy.

[itookashot]

"There are people who are lucky to come here when they have; it's not common, but there are a few Summoned who are dead in their world, so this is their only option." Jesper knows at least one of those and he suspects there's more than one, but they haven't revealed themselves. It means losing that person would mean a lot more than simply missing their presence. He counts himself lucky that missing is all he has to do for Inej and Wylan.

"You have a mirror, you know you're gorgeous, but I'm happy to keep pumping up your ego, it's one of my favorite hobbies." The hobby is technically flirting with hot people, but it falls under being complimentary. Jesper is the person who has made a list of attractive qualities of every Summoned there, a census of thirst.

"Sure, a train station, whatever you like. And I'd be happy to have you come to the shooting range. People have added types of guns I've never seen before." He doesn't comment on the gunplay reference because it's too hot for him to elude to at the moment. But it is the truth, more modern Summoned have added weapons that are futuristic to him.

Jesper shrugs. "Yeah, I wouldn't have voted for destroying it. Seems stupid. It was a tense situation though. The werewolves are pissed at us over it, so don't be surprised if they seem disgruntled the next time they open up Nocwich."