Recording #002 | June Log

[the_archive]

WHO | Jon and OTA.
WHAT | DITL mostly, with a few starts in the comments. Feel free to run into Jon anywhere mentioned. He's flexing his Knowing, so if you're interested in dropping some knowledge, that'd be lovely.
WHERE | The Castle, Thorne, the Library, the Dungeon
WHEN | Post-Festival through the rest of June

Realizing that his connection to the Eye is whole again rather soured the end of the Festival for Jon. He spent a day behind the curtains in his room, enduring a headache, but now that's settled down to a mute throb, he's walking off the rest of it while he wrestles with himself.

It's not a surprise, this reconnection. Ambrose told him the respite would only be for a few days. And it's not explicitly unwanted. There are a lot of questions to which he needs answers, and he knows he can seek out those answers, but not without some cost. He knows he'll do it, since the information isn't only for himself. He has to work up the courage.

And he hasn't read a statement in over two weeks now, which is... troublesome. Despite taking full advantage of the dining hall daily (okay, nearly daily), he's aware of a constant vague hunger.

So the walking is as much distraction as exploration. He's going to wear out his sandals pacing the corridors of the castle and the aisles of the library, walking out into the town. He mostly confines his town visits to mid-day, when folk are often too busy to waylay an "honoured guest."

Comments

Closed to Stephen Strange

[the_archive]

The castle's courtyards are popular, with the warm summer weather, but this one is small and almost entirely shaded by some weeping sort of tree, and so Jon's found it to be a bit of a refuge. Something about the gray flagstone bench under the tree makes him think of a corner park in London, a spot near the Archives where he used to take his lunch. Back when he thought it was just an ordinary job.

It's here that he's chosen to try to be a little selfish, to reach out and see if he can know something, anything - anything at all - about what he left behind.

So he puts his back against the tree, shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath like a diver about leap, before letting that door to the absolute ocean of knowing open just the smallest, smallest bit.

[rehandle]

Following his brief trip to the mountains Thorne is sitting even lower in his estimations than the existence of the imprisoned had placed them to begin with. Coming back to all the comforts of the life of an honored guest is a lot more uncomfortable than it had been even then, knowing people are still locked away beneath their feet.

But there are still things to be learned. Thoughts to be had, plans to be made. So Stephen spends the majority of his time falling back into his original habits, spending his time between the library, the study halls and the prison. It's approximately the same schedule as he'd kept before with only one major addition: he has his own magic back.

The location is never set. He finds a new corner every few days, somewhere somewhat concealed where he can cast without amassing a regular audience or meditate without too much ambient noise. It's on a quest for one such place that he steps out into the courtyard— and stops.

There's something here. Or maybe something somewhere adjacent to here, in the gaps between the here and there. An unshakable feeling of being watched, being seen - and somehow also of being overlooked - that can surely have nothing to do with the man minding his own business beneath the tree, the only other person here... except it seems inextricably linked to him. The uncomfortable sense emanating out from a central point.

Stephen watches him for a handful of moments, taking in the rest of the courtyard too, trying to get an idea of what that oppressive feeling could be and where it could be coming from. Maybe the tree itself? Maybe something native buried beneath the flagstones? But the simplest explanation is almost always true, so eventually he breaks into the peace of the little courtyard to ask,

"Are you happy to share? I could use somewhere quiet."

[the_archive]

Jon almost flinches at being addressed - it's like a ringing phone when you're defusing a bomb, or a bird diving too close to a tightrope walker. Innocent, but with the potential for disaster. Reflexively, he looks at the stranger with that door still cracked open.

And It Knows You looks too.

Overlooked becomes overseen in a heartbeat, sharp as the focus of a laser, and so hungry to Know. Jon's breath catches, almost a sound of pain, and he clenches his eyes shut, pressing his back hard against the tree, and wills that door shut again, with an effort that leaves his face ashen and his breath shaky.

[rehandle]

Space, bright and alight and alive, empty and teeming and neon and pitch, from one nowhere place to a thousand grasping hands to the inside of his iris as he fall into his own screaming mouth, to stillness.

Angry, violent plains of open void, speckled with great cell structures that swell and pulse, colour cutting through dark space like fractal knives of purple and green as angry clouds of starstuff loom. A face that appears from the darkness, roiling, a gargantuan mask of living rocklike stripes that eddy in waves, two piercing eyes of flaming purple set within them.

He doesn't know what it is when he sees it that first time, but he remembers that journey through everywhere as he returns here later to bargain with that vast entity. Dormammu of the Dark Dimension does not take that kindly, and for it Stephen dies. And dies. And dies. And dies. He bats away flaming rock with sacred mandalas until there is too much to keep at bay. He's engulfed in beams of boundless power and disintegrates to nothing. He's pierced through from every angle by spines of planet rock.

He loses count of the times. Of the ways. Time resets, he dies again, time loops, the spell holds. He hovers once again down from one swollen cell of land to another to face the glowering godthing, offer his bargain, and await an imminent demise.



There's a shift. Pronounced, dramatic, and immediately evident in the look on the stranger's face, the little noise he makes that can't have come from nowhere. There's a struggle going on in the man in front of him, however brief, and when it's over it leaves him looking — unwell.

Stephen's not sure what he'd felt. But there was a marked difference in the sense of the space between eyes closed and eyes briefly open. Before was standing far below someone looking out a window, a general sort of watched that only includes you because you're standing in the scene. Peripheral. The latter was something closer to a spotlight on a dark night, a breath down the back of the neck, the inevitability of being perceived.

Being looked at doesn't do that. Not with one pair of human eyes. His expression pinches into a faint frown, tight with opposing concern and caution.

"Is that a no?"

There's a blunt edge to the question, dry humour devoid of it's usual play. He doesn't move to help, stands rooted to his spot, waiting for whatever might follow. Unsure exactly what it is that he's walked in on.

Around town

[not_caroline]

Most folks are probably too busy to waylay him, but another honoured guest - or really, prisoner on probation - has absolutely no qualms.

Coraline's been practicing with her Glamour a little, hoping that exercising her limited magic potential will help it come back fast enough to be useful, but she's found fairly quickly that at the very least, her Blessing are already usable. Which means among other things, she's nearly perfectly invisible against the trees scattered around the town, even in hew new, fitted uniform; her bark skin and hair shifted to match, so when she spots Jon her skin has the uneven orange-ish scales of pine, and her hair is whip-like branches with thick layers of rich green needles.

She's not immediately noticeable at a glance, from her precarious seat on a branch above head height - most things don't look up, she'd learned very early on, when they're actively searching for something - but when she sees Jon walking underneath it's too tempting not to harass him.

"You look like shit." Eyes of nearly pure yellow - perhaps a little paler on the iris - gleam down at him from the gloom of the tree's shadowy interior, narrowed in an amused grin.

[the_archive]

Jon looks up before his steps pause, the line between his brows deepening. "Very astute of you. You have a little something in your hair."

[not_caroline]

"Probably." She shifts along the branch a little, so she can tilt backwards off it like a gym bar, hanging by just her knees so she's upside down on his face level, arms folded across her chest to keep her shirt down; there's more light down here, but it just makes the cracks in her bark deeper from shadows that are a bit too sharp for the ambient light. Her hair hangs upside down in stiff branches that make her look even scrawnier, like a diminished Christmas tree. "I do a lot of tree-climbing when I can. They make me feel safe."

[the_archive]

It's an interesting effect, and he can't help but smile. It's so good to see her out here. And out of the prison rags.

"I would too, with camouflage like that. If I liked heights."

[frontlinetitties]

Gideon is lounging in the courtyard when she finally looks up from her shady spot beneath a towering structure that seems to be entirely organic, a particularly large plant of some kind perhaps, with a wide spread of rustling green shapes along it's reaching limbs (spoilers: it's a tree, though she has no name for it). She looks up, because she's noticed this guy and his listless pacing, and his constant back and forth movements are beginning to give her motion sickness.

"Yo," she calls out, pushing herself up to sitting, one tawny hand held up to shield her eyes from the bright, unaccustomed glare of the sun, "you're gonna wear a hole in flagstones if you carry on pacing like that."

[the_archive]

Jon comes to a stop, pushing his hair back from his face. "Sorry. Trying to-" He gives up on that, there's no easy explanation.

"I saw you sparring at the Festival, right?"

[frontlinetitties]

"Huh? Oh yeah, that was me. I was definitely sparring at the festival," she says, crossing her legs and sitting up a little straighter. He's caught her interest now at least, and any minor exasperation that had tainted her voice in response to the pacing has bled out of it, replaced with something brighter.

Perhaps he's about to say something nice about her, and so here she is, all ears.

Room 7

[the_archive]

It's only notable because of where they are - there's nowhere in Thorne anyone could have gotten a tape recorder. It's just there one morning, sitting on the chest beside his bed. Black and silver plastic, old and so worn there's no telling what brand it ever was.

[moremilkplz]

It takes him a while to even notice it. The tape recorder. Sure, it's old and outdated and Homelander hadn't seen one at home for-- years. But he still grew up around them, he knows how they work and seeing it from the corner of his eye as he gets up, as he goes through his day and return to the (sadly) shared living space.

It just doesn't connect that it's out of place. Not for days.

And when he sees it, like really sees it, it's all he can see. Because it doesn't belong here at the castle, with the well-water and the goats screams. Which, who knew goats screamed that much?

"What in the hell?"

[the_archive]

Sitting reading in his bed, he looks over, just raising an eyebrow. "What."

Yes, he knows what.

[moremilkplz]

"That!"

And Homelander stabs a finger in the general direction of the tape recorder. "What the hell- how did they get that here and yet they can't seem to- you know what, I'm going to have a stern word with those lying mages."

[lone_horse]

Kiryu's not really going to remark on it so much as he's going to pause. And stare at it. And frown.

He'll move on until the next time he has a chance, when Jon's in the room, he'll point to it and ask-

"Jon, may I ask... about that?"

[the_archive]

It's something towards late when Jon's back, and he's pulling off his tunic when Kiryu asks. Pauses with just his eyes still showing, and looks where he's pointed.

And sighs deeply.

"Those just... show up sometimes. It might turn itself on. Just turn it back off if it does."

[not_caroline]

Coraline's never actually seen a tape recorder like this in real life. She was born in the year of our lord 2003, by the time she was old enough to actually use technology this was fully obsolete.

Coraline has no hesitation or qualms about other people's property when she spots it, and picks it up so she can sit with it on Jon's bed and press play.

[the_archive]

The cassette inside has a worn, blank label - maybe something was written on it and rubbed away? But it just plays an empty hiss.

Or is it?

Maybe, if she listens to it when it's very quiet in the room, there's the faintest hint of a male voice, but it's so eroded as to be unintelligible and unrecognizable.

Library

[iobject]

Phoenix has never been too bookish, but he's operating in an entirely foreign legal system and he has to effectively put himself through his own law school all over again. He has mostly been ignoring the troubled-seeming man that passes through occasionally, but eventually, his curiosity (and desire to take a break from the tomes of legal research) eventually gets to him.

Buried in dusty brick-like books of case law and legal theory, Phoenix perks when he notices the man pass again. He props his head on his fist, offering a tired but friendly smile.

"Hey there. Are you looking for something in particular? I keep seeing you here."

[the_archive]

Jon has a book in his hand this time, but it looked like he picked it up at random as he walked past a shelf, his last time through.

He lets himself come to a stop, looking around briefly to note where in the library they are.

"No, not in particular. Pacing, mostly." Taking a step closer, he looks over what Phoenix has spread out. "You look like you're moving in."

[iobject]

Phoenix gives a little huff. "It definitely feels like it sometimes." Phoenix taps on the law book nearest the stranger, welcoming him to look at it. "I've been studying the legal system around here to try to help our friends downstairs. I'll be talking to Ambrose soon, and I want to be prepared."

Phoenix is a lawyer. A badge that looks like a sunflower with the scales of justice at its heart belongs on his lapel, but it's not there. He's more accustomed than he'd like to people being thrown in prison for flimsy reasons and authorities being reluctant to allow them out. His job is built around creating ironclad proof of a person's innocence in three days or less.

WILDCARD

[abraxasnpcs]

Ambrose is in his study working away at a rather complicated-looking spell written on a long scroll. There are several books and papers and tarot cards scattered about (he knows where he's put everything, and that's organized enough for him), but the deck used to summon the newcomers and the book he was reading from when they were summoned are nowhere to be found.

The door is unlocked because it's late and almost time for bed, and because no one in Thorne would dare to bother him without knocking anyway.

"Tomorrow," he says when he hears footsteps coming closer, "Whatever it is, leave it 'til tomorrow. I'm getting a good night's sleep for once."

July 4

[the_archive]

No one from Thorne, at any rate.

Once Jon decided on this course, there was little to it. It took very little effort to take directions to this room, and be told when it would be occupied and might be open. Almost effortless. He doesn't make the mistake of assuming his actual goal will be easy.

Which is why he doesn't introduce himself, or apologize for his presence. The first words he says to Ambrose's back are weighted, laden with the presence of the Ceaseless Watcher, a sudden pressure in the room. The feeling of being seen, of being exposed, of all your secrets laid out to be picked clean. His voice tolls like a bell.

"Tell me the reason we all have been brought here. The true, full reason. Spare no detail."

The pressure that accompanies his question is not from Jon Sims, but comes through him like the ocean through a keyhole - a fierce beam of influence. If unimpeded, it won't allow for evasion, for incompletion, for obfuscation, or for anything but a clear, full answer of the spirit of the Archivist's question. A Statement.

[abraxasnpcs]

He's not sure who he expected - one of his apprentices, perhaps - but it wasn't one of them. He knows damn well that they've been poking around and he hasn't cared to put a stop to it, especially because there aren't any particularly unflattering accounts of Thorne in the Royal Thornean library. The last thing he anticipated was for a newcomer (and an honored guest, no less) to come and interrogate him like this.

He can almost respect it beneath a layer of disdain, but what frightens him is the fact that whatever Jon has done seems to be working. Not to the extent that the Archivist is used to as Ambrose still has some modicum of control over what he's saying and what he really wants to hold back, but it is working nonetheless.

"Have we not treated you well? Have we not granted you all the luxuries the palace has to offer? Ungrateful. I've set my life on the line for the lot of you," he says through clenched teeth, "You're here for our world, your world, and all worlds. The Singularity is what holds us all together and yet it isn't inherently good, not like those fools in the Commune would lead you to believe. It needs to be studied, and we need to direct its energies. Tame it, if you will, to preserve us all. The Commune would leave it to its own devices and let it devour us. The Cities to East and their reckless leader would destroy it outright and turn all worlds to dust. We've been at this stalemate for centuries now, but you and yours could turn the tides.

Only you outsiders can truly harness its power. Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You can approach the Singularity, touch it, soak it in. Gods, I'd give anything to be in your place, but if I set so much as a toe over the line it would end me. We are its hosts, and yet you are its favored."

He sneers, his long nails digging into the wood of the table as he tries, in vain, to hold his tongue.

"We tried this once before, many thousands of years ago, and the results were a disaster. But I've refined the spell and am not as careless as my predecessor, who refused to imprison or eliminate his mistakes. I admit I was overly cautious in my initial judgements and have been willing to listen to reason and release some of the prisoners.

You, on the other hand, seem to be a rare slip-up in the other direction. I was looking for a Gertrude, anyway, but thought you'd do well enough. My mistake. Even the High Mage must be humbled every now and then."