Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

[lucetimods]

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

• The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
  
• Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
  
• Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

Comments

[relictusdeus]

Medical supplies, weapons... [He echoes with a humourless, deathly calm, gaze panning across the cityscape.] …in but a few hours 'twill no longer matter for the bomb shall kill us all if yet unfound.

[A certain means to a permanent death had held more appeal than it ought to, but the burning urge to exact revenge – and something more he wasn’t ready to admit – had overwhelmed his long-held desire to find rest. It wouldn’t be the first time a bone-deep anger has sustained him, has given him the drive to push forward like a man possessed.]

But there is no corner of this city the enemy can hide it where I will not soon be upon them and tear them limb from limb. [His gloved fingers wrap around a bladeless hilt at his hip and Abel bristles in response, more than ready to blast and shred and claw its way through mobs of hostiles.] Do not doubt this, Elizabeth.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth watches numbly as Isaac and Abel chomp at the bit, so to speak. It's true though, the bomb hasn't been found yet. She's ready to mobilize and aid the effort in disarming it, however the fact that they haven't found it yet is causing her to lose hope.]

If we could just... narrow down where to look, it would help. Booker and Robert, they tortured a few cultists and they didn't give up the location. The other teams are trying to get information from the computers, but I don't know how successful they've been so far.

[She smiles weakly.] Well, at least if I die again today, I'm married this time around.

[relictusdeus]

[At her weak laugh, he turns his head just enough to glance at her from the corner of his eye, the implications of her lattermost statement sinking in. In a place like Luceti where unexplained and irresistible forces can restore a man dead in his time to life one day, and have him vanish forever the next, he has never understood the interest so many others have with marriage. With one missing then all was lost, and none of the light and warmth shared would be remembered when both drifted away without a trace, back from where they were taken. It all would be forgotten; rendered meaningless. Perhaps it’s a desperate effort for peace of mind, he thinks. A move to lay claim to someone in a grander way than what is accomplished with a few hushed words and kisses stolen behind a closed door before a shift or new arrivals threatened to throw it into question.

But what would he know of love and marriage? Hector was better equipped to make sense of it.]

‘twould seem ‘tis nearly all that the humans know to do in this place.

[Time's running short and it's all he intends to say on the subject.]

[tearmeanewone]

What would you do, then, if you had less than a day to live? [It's not accusatory, or indignant, but complacently curious. Isaac is a complete mystery to Elizabeth sometimes, and she can't help but ask questions.]

[She smiles again, resigned.] Even if it's found, and we find out how to keep it from detonating, I'm not a soldier. He is. [She shakes her head.] My luck only goes so far. He deserves to know I loved him enough to tie myself to him. That's all I want for my last day.

[relictusdeus]

[No hesitation; no remorse:]

I would slit open the throats of those responsible.

[With the last of his days long behind him, the moments leading up to the end – and the way he might have spent them had he been free of the curse and all its complications -- have not been in his thoughts so much as the freedom of death. But he’s convinced that saying so would present himself as weak when he has fought fiercely against man and monster to prove himself as everything but. Fought his way through enough of life that he ought to cling to what he has here with a white-knuckled grip. This isn’t much of a life at all, dragging himself from one joyless day into the next. But he thinks he wouldn’t know what to do with a feeling so strong and overwhelmingly positive as joy. It’s unmeant for devils.

Isaac looks away, blank-faced, moved only to annoyance by her tenderness and stung by envy. It’s hard not to wonder and harder yet to imagine what it would have been like had he never played second fiddle to anyone for whose attentions and respect he had competed. Would if someone had valued him in the way Elizabeth spoke of the man she loved. Would if Hector had chosen him, had lain with him rather than Rosaly and not left him to be further consumed by the corrupting evils of the demon castle.

But Hector had to go. He knows. But knowing a blade could cut didn’t make it hurt any less.]

Spare me that sweet and fatalistic heroism of yours lest my brain turns to rot. [A beat.] I believe I know where the bomb is being held -- and using my power, I should be able to contain it at the very least.

[tearmeanewone]

[Fair enough. Elizabeth probably would do the same if she could marry Gai and do something else. She nods and gives Isaac a little shrug at the comments about her 'sweet and fatalistic heroism'. It was, probably, but that didn't make it any less true.]

[The incredulous look is saved for the next thing he said.] If you'd told me before now, I would have spared you my fatalism altogether! Where is it?

[relictusdeus]

[Though time is short, he’s in no hurry to answer. But when he does he meets her incredulity with the cool and calculating calm of the general he once was.]

Bring your beloved soldier if you must, and a handful of others whom you trust to do well, but know that their lives are no responsibility of mine and should they get themselves killed, the fault is theirs. The lot of you will focus your efforts between eliminating the bomb in the event that I am unable, and crushing the opposition alongside me. But, heed my words – [He pauses, his gaze trained on her and burning with purpose] -- any enemy in our way who is neither shift hunter, cultist, nor elite is mine alone.

[A muscle clenches at the corner of his jaw.] ‘tis not a request.

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth is on board with all of what Isaac is saying, until he gets to his Not-Request. Then, she frowns slightly and tilts her head.]

I'm going to tell everyone-- the more people we have on this, the better, isn't that right? [Besides... Gai was in his military-mode, he wasn't going to follow her as her 'beloved soldier'. She had barely seen him since the ceremony.]

But I'm confused-- who else is out here who isn't a shift hunter, a cultist, or an elite, and is still our enemy?

[relictusdeus]

[Were it not for the lack of dark aura hanging heavy in the air he’d have suspected something the likes of Legion or Dullahan lurking deep in the dead city from the pulsing waves crashing against the edges of his mind – not a bomb. It’s a use for souls he had never considered.]

War has need of leaders. Should the higher-ranking members of the Third Party have so much as half a brain in their skulls, they would see to it that a bomb of this power is especially well-guarded and its use not left entirely within the discretion of ungoverned soldiers.

[And while he’s prepared for the disappointment of said leaders offering guidance from someplace beyond the front lines and therefore beyond his reach, he’d rather not believe in that possibility unless it’s proven true. Similarly, he clings to the idea that the bomb’s creators might not be too far from their work should it become in any way unstable.]

From here I cannot so much as draw a single soul to me, let alone twist it to my whim. It may be that a sorcerer of some skill has erected a barrier surrounding the bomb. But, either way... the truth shall soon be revealed.

[Right -- he ought to elaborate on the bit about souls, perhaps. He pauses, looking to her.]

Find me here with your group. You have ten minutes.

[Or maybe not.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth frowns and tries to parse what Isaac is even trying to tell her-- trying to figure out if he even answered her question--but ultimately just gives up. There's no time, they have to make a stand immediately.]

I'll bring who I can, ten minutes! [And she takes off.]