[Open] There's a Point Where It Tips, There's a Point Where It Breaks

[zerotohiro]

Who: Everyone in Cerealia who figured out the code words for this meeting
When: Evening of IC 5/31, after Hawke's network post
Where: Sanctuary
What: "A pizza party" aka a meeting about the new masked figure that appeared.
Warnings: N/A, maybe some talks about what Alien-kun had to say, etc.


[It's evening by the time Hiro gets to the Sanctuary. Anyone who had seen him this morning will have spotted him with Baymax, both of them sans their normal armor and Baymax carrying what looks like a giant box. They had preparations to make, after all. He makes his way in and out of the building a few times but by the time the first of their guests arrive, everything's set up.

Upon entering the Sanctuary, Baymax moves to stand guard and collect your CereVice in a box at the door. Please don't cheat, he doesn't like when people aren't playing fair. In exchange for the CereVice, you will receive a form and a pencil before Baymax cheerfully waves you away.

Hiro's sitting on a table at the head of the lounge watching people come in. Hawke had promised these people pizza and cake (Hawke why) and he's delivering on that promise. The stack is about as tall as he is, more than enough to feed everyone who's shown up. He waits until a majority of the people show up before he clears his throat to gather attention.]

...uh, hey! [Well. That's a great, confident start.] I know this was sort of last minute and everything, but I really appreciate all of you coming by and actually listening to Hawke. [Sorry Hawke. But there's a grin which says he's more than appreciative.] I know you're probably here for free food, but there's a couple of things you should know. [Sliding off of the table, he moves to stand in front of what looks like a small mechanical box.]

When we all got back a few days ago, I started thinking about the fact that CERES can watch us from...pretty much anywhere. So I took some plans for something else I've been working on, improvised a little bit and created this thing. It'll deflect the signal from our implants and block them out completely as long as we're in this room. I've tested it out a couple of time already, the whole thing gets thrown off. It's...why I wanted to meet here! Because that sort of leads right to my next point.

[There's a small sigh as he paces the room, Baymax waddling after him. He moves back to the table he'd been sitting on to pull up the mask he'd been given a while ago.]

All of you probably received one of these either from that fortune teller, Aria, or it just showed up. And while we were out there? Some of you probably found the terminal like I did and spoke with a masked figure. [A beat.] I'm starting to realize that it told all of us something different, but the most important part is that it's with the Flamine Federation. You know. The guys who supposedly destroyed our planets. Baymax gave all of you a form--um. [And here he pauses, unsure if it's really appropriate to be ordering people to share information but then again that's what they all need. He's always believed everybody needs to be aware of what's happening.] Basically I guess just...answer what you can and tack it up on the board--[A gesture to a large bulletin board he pulled from who knows where.]--and talk amongst yourselves about what happened out there? Alien...the monsters, that weird altar? A bunch of you saw that, right? What was that about?

[Dear god somebody help him.] ...look, I tried. There's free food. This is about all I could throw together so fast before something else happens here. So...yeah. Let's just start figuring out what's really happening here, okay?

[Vague hand gestures? Vague hand gestures. He shuts up after that and sort of shrinks back into his hoodie, jumping back up on the table to hand out food and keep an eye on the room. All right, colonists. You know what to do.]

[ooc: Welcome to the info-sharing mingle! The idea behind this is for characters to ICly fill out this form (coded by the wonderful Fidgey/Katsura-mun) and have it displayed for everyone to view that information. You can post your sheet in your comment or link it to a post elsewhere in your journal, or even post it in the post I made that the form's posted into. HOWEVER this is open to everyone even if your character didn't speak to the alien and just wants to check stuff out! As a note: characters will start to feel sick after about two hours in the Sanctuary due to the frequency deflector. Sorry about that! Any questions hit me up via PM or plurk at alternatively]

Master List of Forms

Comments

[moribound]

[He's fine, everything's fine. Minato doesn't quite tuck in to his newly-acquired dinner yet though, balancing the plate as he turns to look at Hiro properly.]

Have you talked to anyone who wasn't sent there yet? It seems not everyone was taken to that dark place...whatever was done to these masks, it was probably only meant to follow us until it served its purpose. [And now he's going to tuck into one of the piping-hot pizzas, excuse him for a few seconds.]

Everyone seems to be talking to one another at least, and I'm sure that's what you hoped would happen.

[zerotohiro]

Maybe so, but what was its purpose? To drag us there? None of that really makes sense, Minato. They're masks. I'll have to talk to more people who stayed behind but weirdly, it wasn't that many.

[He grins in spite of all of that though.] It's exactly what I was hoping for. This is a lot easier than trying to pass messages between one or two people, you know? We all need to be on guard for whatever's coming next.

[moribound]

[He'd say none of much they know makes sense, but that already goes without saying.

A second pizza slice disappears in the meanwhile. Huh, was Minato always this hungry?]

The alien wouldn't talk to us without our masks, so it might have had more than one function...I wonder if Aria is truly working with CERES if she was giving us these masks, but it did say that it wasn't interested in us and where we were.

[Whatever misgivings he might have had about the alien Minato couldn't say that it seemed dishonest, not that it was necessarily a good thing in this case.] And I agree with that. We might not have much time left if the alien's insisting that we bring CERES to them...I wonder if it's even possible.

[zerotohiro]

I sorta wonder if maybe it functioned the way my glasses do. Deflecting the signal? It wouldn't give me a straight answer about that, either, though what I know about Aria I don't know if she's working for CERES either. I doubt she cares about us either seeing how she tried to kill people the last time they saw her. For all we know, she's just another third-party seller.

What makes you think it isn't entirely possible?

[moribound]

I don't think she's working for the Flamines, so you might be right. [Yet Minato's huffing under his breath, finding this whole mess even worse than the one he had been in before.]

Remember how those implants had the Flamine Federation on them? It's possible that the mask transmits information to them rather than the opposite...and it's just a guess, but I think there must be a reason why the Flamine chose to talk to us instead. [He starts to nibble on a third slice, only looking up when he thinks of something else.]

Come to think of it...don't you think it's strange that the Flamines can't find CERES? I wonder if they might be using something like your deflector to hide from them, and if the energy they're getting from us has something to do with that. [They were supposed to be able to do anything after all, and presumably that includes individual hit jobs.]

[zerotohiro]

That seems like a bit of a stretch, Minato. Not entirely impossible but...[He mulls that over for a few moments. He had wondered if CERES found a way to use their energy to hide from the Flamine Federation but at the same time that sounds overly complicated and not like something CERES would put so much work into.]

I don't think it's that weird they can't really find them that easily though seeing how the last couple of times I've been in their tower it's been really weirdly unmonitored. I don't think CERES is actually where we think they are.

[moribound]

That's not what I think is strange, though. [It's only common sense to not linger in one place with the equivalent of universal hit agents coming after you for compensation, and he knows from bitter experience that the best way to keep something hidden is to not reveal anything about it in the first place.

Thanks, Ikutsuki.]

CERES's headquarters is located on another planet, and we're not sure if the Flamines have already tried contacting them there or if they've tried any other planet besides this one. Did it have any reason to think that we could bring CERES to them, or would it have asked the same from anyone else? [Now it's his turn to pause, concurring with Hiro that whoever's responsible for this mess might not even be on Tellus any more.]

Has anyone in this city met Bellona before? I've read that Julius was more open, and the alien did mention that it'd accept whichever of them would pay. [Which is to say...assuming they couldn't get to Bellona, could they try finding Julius? Neither options sound great, honestly- finding them didn't mean they could actually fulfill their debt, after all.]

[zerotohiro]

I know a couple of people have talked to her. I've never met her personally, but I asked something similar not too long ago. And with Julius being dead or whatever...[The way he trails off indicates he's not entirely sure he buys the story of Julius being dead as well.]

Let's pretend we found CERES. How bad do you think it'd be if they still couldn't pay the debt they have laid out? We don't even know how many people are working for CERES, that's what really bugs me. We know there's a handful on this planet in this colony, but what about others? How would we even find information like that?

[moribound]

[Or whatever is indicative enough, and Minato knows Hiro would never believe anything so transparent either.

He frowns faintly, thinking of a way to describe how out of luck CERES would be if the Flamines found them. There's really no question of whether they can pay their debt, not when it sounds like the Flamines have been rather patient.]

As bad as being on a train that's going to collide with another train, I suppose. [This is followed by what might be a sage nod, but it's impossible to tell from the utter dryness of his tone.] Mosley-san might be able to tell us something useful if we ask nicely, but there's too much information that we can't seem to piece together. [There's a pause as he ponders that bit again: Which should they do first, gather more information or work to connect what they have? The latter seems more useful, but there's no way to tell if they were right about it.]

I've actually been thinking about trying my luck with Maris since I'm one of his and he doesn't like them- he doesn't seem to care much about us either, but if we knew why CERES came to Tellus it might answer a lot of our questions.

[zerotohiro]

[An involuntary wince follows.] Sounds about right anyway. The thing is, a lot of us have been asking Mosley nicely and he's still vague as ever. I can understand why but at the same time how hard can it be to really give us a little bit of a clue to what we're working with?

The problem with not piecing stuff together though is we've already pieced some pieces wrong. [He can admit that to Minato at least. Yu can tell him that story later, if he hasn't already.] We need to figure out a new angle.

[The idea of talking to the spirits again seems to be a good one though.] That's...not a bad idea. Maris seems to know a little more about what's going on from the three times I've spoken to him. I'd try with Caeli but...Caeli's a cloud. The "airhead" jokes kinda write themselves. You think Maris could really tell us something like that?

[moribound]

I don't think Mosley-san can tell us everything...he's still a CERES employee. [And a part of him wonders if CERES hasn't bound him in some way.]

That's why I think we should talk to the spirits. There's no guarantee they'll help, but they might be able to help us put the pieces together.

[zerotohiro]

[He's had very similar thoughts as well, considering the few times he's spoken with Mosley.]

See what you can find out from Maris. I'll check out some of the others, too. We'll regroup if we've got any kind of answer.

[moribound]

[And of course it wouldn't have worked in CERES' favor if Mosley could say whatever he liked, yet he seemed to have some autonomy...who or what was he, really? Minato wonders if they'll ever find out.

He nods after a while, determined to give it a shot.]

Got it. Anything they tell us might be useful to remember, especially if the spirits have a bigger part in Cerealia than we've seen.

[zerotohiro]

Considering the natives were here first? I'm pretty sure there's a whole other mystery we're in the process of unraveling with the spirits than what we've seen. Just stay on guard, okay? I think they'll help us, but we also can't exactly trust them yet either.

I'm not sure we can trust anybody, really, but we're getting better at figuring it out.

[moribound]

I agree. Everyone wants something out of this, and there's a lot that we don't know. [Minato's choice of words are rather telling in how he uses the word 'everyone', indicating that he thinks some of the colonists might have personal agendas that involve CERES, the Flamines or both.]

There's a lot of people I don't recognize here...I'll go talk to them too.

[zerotohiro]

Sounds like a plan. I'll catch up with you later. [They both seem to have a lot of things on their mind, but it's all stuff to discuss later. For now, the most he can do is split up and make his own rounds as well.]