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Who: The People Staying behind and those who go to the Sphere
Where: The Agricultural dome, the tunnel to the Sphere chamber, and the Sphere chamber itself.
What: The Choice plot.
When: ICly: August.
Warnings: Sudden disappearances, despair, depression, violence.
Important Notes: This is the final log for the Choices plot. This log only covers Those staying. . The other choices will have their own logs up. Please remember to warn for things that need warnings in these threads.
Additional important notes for this part of the plot: Important NPC threads will have their own threads. Max will have one, Annie will have one and so will the Sphere obviously. If people would like Laurie, John or any of the other NPC interactions for additional clues in the investigation, let me know and I will do my best to accommodate you.
Each person who goes to interact and try to convince the Sphere can have their own comment unless you decide not to.

The First Three Days

The doors out are closed, and no matter how hard you try, there’s nothing that you can do in order to get them to open. It seems like whoever told Enis that they would only open once was entirely correct. So it’s all you can do is wait. There’s an anticipatory feeling in the air, whether you’ve got abilities or not, and it’s the generalized sense that the sky is going to fall down around them. Even if it already has. While it’s getting cold and it is the temperature seems to linger at a livable 45, but it’s still cold to those who were living in a perfectly climate controlled environment. The air is stuffy, but it’s not enough to do any real damage yet. Instead it’s more like being in Denver with all that implies: altitude sickness. People may experience something that is close to having the worst hangover of your life: headaches, nausea, fatigue. Additionally, because of the hunger combined with this and everything else, tempers are short and flare hot when necessary. The effects get worse if people end up trying to be more physical, so most of the NPCs in the Sphere don’t. They just sit or lay down with a generalized sense of apathy; for them there is a lack of hope that almost seems infectious: no one is going to fix this, and none of this matters.

Food continues, the rations getting smaller as the Council tries to keep feeding people for longer. All of the blankets are removed from storage, and people huddle together to try and sleep.

Some try and make music, or hold conversations, but other than what the player characters are doing, an eerie stillness hangs over the Sphere.

The Great Departure

No matter how apathetic the general population is, when it comes to times where food is being distributed, they all line up to make sure they’re eating. Even the worst of them do. Being in the food time is the place where they seem most themselves, and most animated. Like in the days before, they try to barter and steal other’s rations, even if attempts to raid the storehouse proper have largely stopped. Perhaps they are even trying to steal your rations. It’s not like they haven’t tried before, honestly. So, there’s nothing for it but to just try and stop them, and try not to let the lack of oxygen get to you.

But then it happens. There’s no flash of light, no sound of thunder or a booming. Even if you were making eye contact with someone they’re just all of a sudden they’re not there. Whatever they were holding drops to the ground in a clatter left vacant in the wake of two hundred people vanishing. A third of the population is just gone without a trace.

Then the screaming starts: people who have lost loved ones, people who lost friends or enemies, they all just scream out. Wailing and screams echo off the top of the dome, and reverberate around them as people realize what has happened. All of the empty spaces and anticipatory silence are lost in the din of loss and fear.

Loss and fear permeates the Dome, spreading almost like an infection. Whatever lingering hope that might have remained in the NPC population is entirely gone.

The Investigation.

While despair is spreading, the Council does something that it hasn’t done before. Or at the very least Max hasn’t. There are secrets that he’s been holding about his time here at the Sphere and it’s time for him to spill them if people ask. Additionally, there are clues hidden around, pieces among the camps of the missing people that had vanished in that first wave. Picture frames that you know you’d seen people longingly looking at before, are just empty frames, missing even something like a stock photo.

Rations and things that NPCs may have taken from player characters are in the tents entirely untouched. There’s a stockpile of rations and water in each tent as if someone had just come back to these tents and deposited them.

The beds are made still, as they were when the refugees first started streaming into the domes en mass. An outline of people remains on them, but it’s nothing more than that. Despite the chill, it’s clear to people who have looked that once people had gone into the tent, they hadn’t needed to cover themselves with blankets anymore.

Even the remaining NPC population has an odd vacancy in their eyes that has never been this apparent before. They answer questions in a flat voice with no affect. Questions are answered in the simplest ones of yes and no as if they can’t grasp anything more complex than that. It’s a frustrating effort, but perhaps one worth making.

Max, however, sits on the top of one of the picnic-like tables, with his foot resting against the seat of it. In his hand, he holds a good smelling cigar, and there are spent ends of others all around the ground on him. More than that, he’s also got a bottle of whiskey that he keeps drinking from. Whatever is going on with the other NPCs isn’t affecting Max in the slightest. Instead his eyes simply just offer resignation, a quiet sadness and the pain that has always been there is moved to the forefront. “Well,” he barks, but most of the force is missing from it. “Go ahead and fucking ask me.”

The Second Departure.

The next day after the first one, thirty more people vanish. This time it’s not as showy as it was in the lunch line, but it happens nonetheless. Those who disappear this time however are those who seemed to be the furthest gone with the despair. Those who couldn’t respond to questions. And anyone who could. All of those who talked to anyone investigating are gone in the second round of disappearances.

A Ghost from the Past

On the day after the second disappearance, Annie makes herself known to those in the agricultural dome. It starts quietly, the anger about this. NPCs murmur and mutter as she walks past. Those who remember her or those she hurt are welcome to try and stop her or talk to her. She will. Unfortunately for you, whenever she decides she’s had enough, Annie just moves on. It’s that simple, really, she moves on and there’s nothing that can be done to stop her or hurt her as much as some people might want to.

In the end, Annie ends up in front of the crowd at the dinner line. Standing on a table, she makes an Announcement and all of her responses will be on there. Then she walks into the crowd and seems to disappear.

Depature/The Tunnels/Reaching the Sphere

Perhaps Annie is worried about Max (or possibly others) attempting to stop her, but when she arrives at the door, it’s five to six and she seems to appear out of almost nowhere. She looks the same as she did yesterday, the look of resolution on her face. At precisely six am, Annie stares at those assembled and then she nods. Raising her hand a bit, the knuckles of her fingers extend outwards, and she presses them against the side of the dome. Unlike the two other doors, this one almost seems to dissolve slowly like it’s in a movie. As the well-light hallway behind the door lights up with golden light, fresh air whips through the door, showing just how stuffy their oxygen had been before. Just how bad it’s getting but they don’t notice because they’re essentially frogs in a cooking pot as the water starts to boil. The opening itself is wide enough to allow people to go three abreast if they chose to, and this time Annie steps through the door after the last person does.

When the door closes, the dome disappears. The hallway is warm and clean and clear, the familiar illumination giving familiar animals swimming in the deep sea that same shadow it always did. The walk isn’t as long as the others, hours instead of days. Annie doesn’t talk but she doesn’t mind if you do. Instead she just steadfastly leads you forward always somehow three steps ahead.

At the end of the tunnel,‘you can clearly see the Sphere on the other side of what has been, until now anyway, sealed behind the dome of its own. Annie touches it, and it just dissolves away, leaving the ten feet around the Sphere open for anyone who wants to look at it. The Sphere up close looks like it’s always looked, large and shiny and gold and metallic, even if there doesn’t appear to be any other sources of light in the room other than the Sphere itself.

Annie allows you to walk around it, be awed by it before she just softly says: “Come on.” And walks right into it.

Do you?

Inside The Sphere.

Walking through the outer barrier of the Sphere feels like the tension in the air before a thunderstorm. It doesn’t hurt, and no one gets wet. Do you remember before you woke up in your domes and there was the white room where you talked to the person who was most trusted by you, and they explained not to be worried? You’re in the same room now. Perhaps the person you’ve trusted most has changed during your time here. Perhaps not. But for the most part you’re alone with that person, sitting facing them on comfortable sofas and speaking.

The Sphere’s voice is soft and kind for all of the tension of the situation and it just says through that familiar mouth: “what is it that you wished to say?”

photo inspiration

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The not blinking is most assuredly unnerving. Yet there was something in the thing that was almost... a poor imitation than that. There was always so much depth of emotion in Kell's black eye. Others didn't see it, they didn't look. But Rhy had known his brother for so long.

The question give him pause. Rhy closes his eyes for a long moment, thinking of the best way to respond before he does so.

"The fact that you question my question makes me suspect it is not your intention. Or perhaps that it was an unintended part of your efforts to either serve this place or return us home. Much as with the period when we were... not ourselves. If this is correct, I thank you for your efforts. I do wish to return home, to those I love. However if this was intentional, I cannot fathom why. You are unknowable to me. My world has but one being that might even begin to mirror you, but it has no compassion, no interest in the weakness of the flesh. It sought only perfection, and in the process destroyed it."

So really, he needs to be asking another question.

"Is there some manner in which we have harmed you, or that harm has been brought to you. Is that why this has come to pass?"

"You say that I am unknowable to you." The Sphere muses softly, and Kell steeples his fingers and presses them to the bottom of his chin as he leans forward, studying the man before him intently. With a gaze that is deep enough to go into Rhy's soul, he just watches him again without speaking. It's an oddly human gesture, as if the Sphere is weighing the words that they're about to speak on his borrowed tongue.

"What makes you believe that there is any answer that I may give to you that you would understand, Rhy of Red London, son of King Maxim and Queen Emira, adopted brother of Kell who's life is tied to yours. Those things would be unknowable for someone else to understand who has not lived your sort of life Rhy Maresh. How would you even begin to explain to them what each aspect of you and your life mean? How do you explain the world to an ant?"

To be known so deeply makes him uncomfortable. But he tries to relax. But he sighs at the ant comment. Better to make a joke he thinks.

"With small words? But I have tried to explain myself, to Watts. He slowly comes to understand because we try. We keep trying."

“Of course I know you so deeply. I have been connected to your head and your thoughts the entire time you have been here, Rhy. You don’t hold secrets of your pasts from Me. Instead it is only your actions at present I do not know. The actions of your future. I am no Oracle.” There is amusement and truth in the words of the Sphere and Kell’s eyes gleam at him.

“You came when none of the rest of the council did. Why?” Is the Sphere ignoring his question? Yes but for the moment. They’ll get back to that.

"An interesting question, is that not? You are connected to my head, you know my thoughts. Therefore you know why, or at least my speculations as to why. And you know their thoughts as well. Unless this whole process has somehow disconnected you from us."

Now wouldn't that be interesting? An outside force, perhaps like Osaron, that was cutting the Sphere off from them. The very idea left him to shudder. Good thing the Sphere seemed unlikely to take the form he trusted least.

"Max, from what I have heard, distrusts you for the existence of Annie. For Laurie, she fears what she would lose if she walked away. But I? I fear what I would lose if I do not. Not only my brother, not only Watts, but every person here. Whether they are those I know or not. New or old, long term resident or hoping to go home. Every one here is important to me, and so I speak for them. For us all. For the Council. For those who cannot speak. For those we have lost."

Rhy sighs and looks down at his hands.

"You are aware of what I am. I do not truly live, I have not since my brother took it into his own hands, into the darkest form of magic, to put life back into a dead body. Break the spells that preserve me, and I wither away and die. Kill him, and I die. Disrupt his magic and I die. And yet still I must live, to carry their memories and their fears and their burdens to you. To beg you. Do not let them fade."

“I am not looking into your head for this, Rhy. I am not knowing whether or not you are lying, I’m not knowing what it is that you wish to say or to speak. Instead, I am allowing myself to be swayed or not, depending on the words that you say. The arguments that you make. If it was something as simple as knowing what was in your head and being able to predict how you would react I wouldn’t need to let you try.”

The Sphere purses it’s lips for a moment and then rises and gestures Rhy closer to a space in front of them. Waving his hand, the white shifts into a familiar scene: the pods in the domes, the people inside of them. Familiar faces die and then are reborn within them. “Do you think this is that darkest form of magic? My returning them to life?”

Rhy shakes his head. This Sphere makes no sense. But for now he reaches up and undoes his shirt, showing the complex scar over his heart that was part healed skin, part magical binding.

"No. This is. This is magic unrestrained, unbalanced. You offer balance. Arrival and return. Things grown to be consumed and then grown again. Balance comes, I presume, in part from the space outside of your spheres, from the waters beyond us. Your balance is achieved on a slower scale, but you do not seek stagnation, you seem to seek change and restoration, upon the cycles of life. Or as near as you can approximate."

“So you believe in balance in all things, then?” The Sphere sounds a little amused at the concept. But there is as far as he gets with it.

“Are there theories in magic like there are in science? Ones about equal and opposite reactions?”

“There are, as you know. Magic out of balance is corruption. It is either too weak to be effective and therefore crumbles, or it overwhelms the user, consuming them from within. It is only with supreme balance of the elements that one can heal or foster growth of natural things.”

And then there was how he lived.

“Magic has a cost. Usually the energy of the user. Life itself in my brother with blood magic. The cost of my life is I am ever tied to him. Our pain is shared. Our pleasure. Our emotions. And our deaths.”

The Sphere is silent for a moment, and he steeples it's fingers and presses itself against his lower lip and the tip of it's nose as it considers for a very long and quiet moment, the eyes in the face curiously blank as he does so.

It's long enough that the Sphere forgets to breathe, so when it goes to speak again, it needs to take a long breath in order to find the words to push across it's vocal cords.

"Would you undo that bond if you could, Rhy? Would you remove it so that you could be yourself? Providing you would still be alive of course. I am not asking you to commit suicide or something, I'm not that much of a monster. But indulge me for a moment. If you could, would you do it?"

Would he? Rhy considers this very very carefully. He had not consented to what his brother had done to him. And yet...

“It was what was done to me that saved my city and my people,” Rhy says. “It was what was done that shall allow me to do something good for my people, despite the fact that I have no power of my own. I fear the way it limits my brother and it gives me great sorrow that it does. But I do not think I would undo it, even for the freedom of life it would I’ve me.”

“Hmm.” It’s a very human sound from a not very human thing and the Sphere just moves it’s hands into its lap and taps its fingers gently together. For a moment, it’s gaze is far off, almost as if it’s listening for something or some sort of cue.

“You believe in your duty over all else it seems. Which duty is higher? The one to your country or the one to the people here? Would you want me to send you and your brother home to your world in exchange for letting the people you represent here die?”

What? Rhy looks immediately horrified, coming to his feet as he looks at the Sphere.

"You would ask me to sacrifice everyone here for my home? I would sooner stay here than have these people suffer for my sake. Can you not understand that? A man such as I would be a horrid king if he was so quickly willing to let innocent people die, no matter the cause it be for!"

He's angry, so damn angry. How could the Sphere think such a thing of him?

The Sphere doesn't seem at all offended or moved by the speech that Rhy gives it. It just stares at him calmly in the face of the man's indignation. Leaning forward, it just asks another question: "do you think that they would sacrifice as much for them as you are willing to do? Do you truly think that they care enough about you here to do that? Do you think those you live among would make the same choice that you are willing to?"

No. He doesn't.

"What I would do for them and what they would do for me doesn't matter. I would do this for them because that is who I am. If they would not be kind to me in the same way, I don't care. I want to make them safe!"

“Would you give everything for that to happen? Would you give your life? Your brother’s life?”

His brother's life? That's the only thing that makes him hesitate.

"I... would give mine. But his is not one I am free to pay, no matter how we are tied together."

“But you could not die unless your link to him was severed, yes?”

Yes, that was very true. But it wouldn't kill Kell.

"Are you suggesting that breaking the connection is something beyond you? Because if that is your price, my life for those here, then I will pay it. Granted, if you can assure me they have returned home, that they are safe, then we have a whole other matter. There are those that wish such a thing."

And those who do not.

“I am not suggesting anything, Rhy. I am simply asking questions and giving you the chance to answer them. I know there are those here who wish to go home and those who don’t. But that is not the point. Do you think something as simple as severing a magical connection is difficult for the power that brought you here? I am simply asking: where do your boundaries lay. What could be worth the lives of the people here.”

"I cannot offer the lives of others, I cannot give consent for them. That is not what a king is. But I would give what I have of myself to make this place better for them."

Rhy, always the one to offer himself. Perhaps it was an issue of self-esteem. Maybe the lessons that a king serves his people's needs really had sunk in.

“How noble.” The Sphere borrowing Kell’s voice lets a cruel note into it. “Aren’t we such a good little king?”

Really?

"You can take his voice, take his form, but you are not my brother. And he would not mock me for such a thing. If you think to move me, you're wrong."

"I am not your brother. Nor would I want to be. Why on earth would I want to do that? No. I am simply the Sphere, using the form you choose and reacting in the way that you expect. Do you have anything else to say or pleas to make, little king?"

Of course he has something else.

“I have a question. Why?”