Mission #14 - Follow Up and Vote

[lucetimods]

By the conclusion of this mission, the volunteers will have the option to either help the Iron Eye or take measures to ensure they fail. There are four options to take, each with their own pros and cons, as well as chances for success or failure. The involvement of the Lucetians will have a significant impact on future drafts and missions.

Of course, the question is: what are the Iron Eye up to? If you haven’t figured it out, you may have to make a decision with just what you’ve figured out.

The voting will impact things thusly:

Options 1 and 2 are pro-Iron Eye. By voting for them, one vote is ADDED to their chance of success.

Options 3 and 4 are anti-Iron Eye. But voting against them, one voted is SUBTRACTED to their chance of success.

Whichever of the four options get the majority vote will be the one that is used to determine the outcome of the mission. So, for instance, if Option 3 is chosen with 10 votes for Anti-Iron Eye, and 4 votes for Pro-Iron Eye, we could end up with:

40% - 10% + 4% = 34% chance of success. This means the Iron Eye would very likely fail, which is the desired option of the majority vote.

Once we have the votes in, we’ll use the random dice roll in an AIM chatroom, where we will roll a 100-sided die. If the dice rolls 34 or higher, the Iron Eye will fail. Likewise, if the success percentage is at 85%, then any dice roll over 85 will result in failure.

Bear in mind that there are 28 characters involved, which means that there is a lot of sway on the success rate based simply on agreeing with any one option.

The dice roll will take place in lucetiplot on September 15th at 11:00PM EST for those who wish to observe. If you do not have your vote in by then, it will not be counted. But this should give you ample time to try and figure out what’s really going on and decide what your character will do.

And so your options are thus:

1. They help the Iron Eye find the entrance to the cultist’s underground city and do not report to the Malnosso. Although this dramatically increases the chances to succeed, it will also put them in danger of some reprisal.

Pro: This route secures them an alliance with the Iron Eye. The repercussions could dramatically shift the war away from the cultists.
Con: Direct collaboration would make them accountable to the Malnosso, and they would lack the ability to deny their involvement.
Chance of Iron Eye Success: 80% + one point for each volunteer supporting the Iron Eye.

2. They help the Iron Eye by not telling the Malnosso what’s going on. This increases the chance of success and doesn’t put them in any kind of danger. They claim ignorance.

Pro: This route frees them of accountability. The repercussions could dramatically shift the war away from the cultists.
Con: Their relationship with the Iron Eye and Malnosso is not improved, but it isn’t ruined either. Luceti’s influence is not altered.
Chance of Iron Eye Success: 60% + one point for each volunteer supporting the Iron Eye.

3. They report the Iron Eye’s activities to the Malnosso, informing them of their ultimate goal. This also reveals Bil’s location. This decreases the chance of success and doesn’t put the volunteers in any danger.

Pro: This route guarantees they secure some tangible physical reward for Luceti in return for their loyalty to the Organization. This could be new infrastructure, an expanded barrier, or some other surprise gift.
Con: This route leaves Bil and the Iron Eye’s fate to the Malnosso, which is not promising for either of them.
Chance of Iron Eye Success: 40% - one point for each volunteer opposing the Iron Eye.

4. They find a way to sabotage the Iron Eye’s activities, but don’t report it to the Malnosso. This dramatically decreases the chance of success, but puts them in danger of reprisal.

Pro: This route leaves the Iron Eye and Bil in tact, but foils their plans. They maintain good relations with the Malnosso.
Con: The route sours relations with the Iron Eye.
Chance of Iron Eye Success: 20% - one point for each volunteer opposing the Iron Eye.

Characters will find out the results of their decision via an NPC post sometime later in September.

Comments

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth gives Gai a measured look. She isn't convinced that the best action is inaction, but Gai isn't her boyfriend right now. That much was easily discerned at the beginning of this meeting. What she needs to say and wants to hear can't be said now. Not in front of everyone.

So she nods and looks down at her hands.

[voidseeing]

For the briefest moment, Gai's expression softens as he looks at her. It doesn't last long, and to those who don't know him, it could easily be mistaken as a trick of the light before he puts his leader face back on again.

He's sorry that Elizabeth has to see this side of him, yet at the same time... this is a part of who he is: the calculating, ruthless leader. He can't divorce this part of him from the part she knows, and right now, this is the side of him the situation calls for.

She can ream him out for it all she wants later. He won't say a word to object.

[tearmeanewone]

After the meeting more or less breaks up, Elizabeth figures that Gai will no doubt be detained by people who need to talk to him one-on-one. Maybe Law even. Elizabeth has to go back to her tent, though. She's not in a good place, she's confused and worried, and overheating isn't helping.

Once she's back at the tent she starts undressing almost immediately to get some relief from the heat. It isn't helping as much as she'd hoped.

[voidseeing]

Predictably, Gai is detained, and he spends some time answering questions (and being lectured at) before he finally manages to slip away. Something tells him that he won't find Elizabeth at the medical tents; instead, he heads straight for her tent, figuring she's most likely to be there.

If it weren't for the situation they'd just been in, he would think nothing of just walking in. As it is, however, he pauses outside of the tent to announce his presence first and make sure she's okay with him being there.

"Elizabeth?"

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth looks towards the opening of the tent and quickly shrugs on her dressing gown.

"Come in, just don't open the flap too wide."

[voidseeing]

Gai does as she says, opening it just enough to let himself slip inside and then closing it behind him.

The look on his face once he gets inside is almost apologetic, certainly subdued. He'd thought he'd left that kind of decision-making behind him back in his own world...

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth goes to Gai immediately and wraps her arms around him. Not for his sake, for her own.

"If I'd known we would have to make this kind of choice..." She doesn't know how to finish that so she lets it go. "If we could run off into the desert..." But that would mean leaving Booker and Robert and Rosalind behind. There's no good answer, nothing is good about this.

[voidseeing]

"This is the kind of thing I had to do all the time," he says, hugging her tightly in return. "It's the kind of thing I wish you never had to see."

Not just the decisions, but this part of him. Gai Tsutsugami, leader of Funeral Parlor, the notorious terrorist organization. A man whose very presence could strike fear into people. The sort of man he'd hoped he wouldn't have to be here... but it looks as if fate won't be that kind to him.

[tearmeanewone]

"Oh I've seen this--" Elizabeth pulls away from Gai enough to look him in the eye. "What do you think I did when Booker first killed a dozen people while I dodged the bullets? I ran like hell. Away from him.

"...and then a few hours later I was opening tears that killed people. And a few months later I was hunting someone down, actively. Because he deserved it."

She breaks her gaze and looks down at Gai's chest. "It isn't whether or not I feel it's right to use on those people. But I couldn't say why in front of everyone.

"My power... it started to manifest when I was a child. And the older I got, the more powerful I became. I would be able to open a tear one day, and the next day it would be almost impossible. It grew, exponentially. I saw the charts. And I realized that whenever they realized I was stronger, they would increase the force of the siphon. The machine that kept my powers contained."

She hides her face in his chest again. "And then they knew they couldn't contain it anymore. And they shoved that, that cable into me...!" She can almost feel it happening again. The restraints, the antiseptic, the first pressure and--

"They were desperate, Gai! They had to control the force I possessed and they scraped together a way to do it out of sheer fear that I would kill them all the next chance I had."

Her tone is straying into something Gai hasn't heard before: quiet and angry, the sort of tone that someone used when they had been pushed too far and hurt too much. There's no doubt in her voice, she would have done it. She had done it.

"They'll do the same. They'll do anything to contain what the Iron Eye has built."

[voidseeing]

Gai just pulls her close and holds her tight, wrapping his arms around her as if somehow by doing so he can envelop her and protect her from the entire world, from everything that ever has and ever will want to hurt her. She didn't deserve any of that, not in the slightest. Not for being born with something she couldn't control.

It was fear that had motivated Keido as well. Not for quite the same reason, but fear nonetheless. Fear that he would be second to Kurosu, leading him to conduct horrific experiments on children for the sole purpose of a rivalry that didn't even exist outside of his own mind. Fear makes both a wonderful and terrible motivator, as Gai has learned all too well, and it can lead to incredible cruelty. He can't even be surprised by what Elizabeth tells him.

"I know," he murmurs, kissing her hair. "They've already tried. Davis lied to the rest of the Malnosso, didn't tell them that Foster had used a Shift explosive in the hospital. Molly didn't know about it when I told her about what happened on that mission. I don't think Davis did that just to cover up not knowing that Foster had the explosive in the first place."

He inhales. "I think he didn't want them to know it had been used."

[tearmeanewone]

"So this has just been building up until now," Elizabeth shakes her head at the sheer futility of it all. "No matter what we do here, it's going to happen. Even if we found the bomb and did something to set the operation back, they would just build another one. This war that we're being forced to fight is going to come to a level of destruction I've never seen before, and there's nothing we can do about it."

[voidseeing]

"Probably. That seems to be a common theme across worlds," he remarks, almost wryly. It's happened over and over in his world, after all.

He gives her another squeeze in the hopes of letting her have even a tiny bit of reassurance. "I think it was leading up to this long before we even arrived here."

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth squeezes him back, feeling another tendril of fear curl through her as she imagined losing him. Losing Booker, and Robert... All to this war that wasn't anything she wanted a part of. She was just here to take care of Gai, not to decide whether or not to escalate a failing war.

"And so I came all this way, across worlds and time, to be right in the middle of another bloody revolt." Things were so easy before this had happened. She had her little family, such as it was, she had someone she could be simple and honest with. What had she done to deserve being thrown back into conflict? "I just came here to make sure you would be alright. Now... now I'll never stop thinking about protecting everyone when we're inside the barrier."

[voidseeing]

There is, Gai thinks, no small irony in the fact that conflict seems to follow him wherever he goes. Even here, where he thought he could escape it and lead a normal life, it's managed to find him too. It wouldn't bother him so much if it were just him, but he can't help but feel that he's dragging Elizabeth into this against her will, and for that, he feels guilty.

"You don't have to," he tries to reassure her, though he suspects it won't do all that much. "I'll protect you-- I already promised that much. And that's a promise I'm not going to break."

[tearmeanewone]

She shakes her head again, still trying to dislodge the images of Luceti being destroyed by one of these weapons. It looked a lot like Finkton, of course, but worse.

"I know you promised that, but Gai... you can't possibly think I'm the sort of person to leave that entirely to you," she says, laughing thickly. "Booker is a walking disaster area, and even then I can't just follow him around and let him take care of everything. There's always something I can do, there's always something I feel I have to do."

She looks up at him again and moves her hand up to Gai's jaw. He had been so intense during the meeting she thought for a moment he was an entirely different person. But that wasn't the case at all, he lived at this level of intensity. The audience changed, the reasons changed, but Elizabeth saw the same man holding her tightly and promising she would be happy.

"Just promise me that whatever I have to do, I won't do it alone. And whatever you have to do, you won't do it alone either."

[voidseeing]

"I know you aren't," Gai says, trying to banter back. "I wouldn't have fallen for you if you were the sort of person to just sit back and let me protect you without any protest."

His eyes soften when she reaches up to touch his face, and with that simple change of expression, he looks more like the Gai she's used to seeing. It's true, he lives at one intensity, and that's full-throttle. Such is the result of living with the knowledge that one's days are numbered. Gai gives his all in everything he does, be it fighting or loving someone. He doesn't know how to do anything less... something that can be both a blessing and a curse.

"But I can promise that much. Neither one of us needs to be alone, not anymore."

He just wishes she didn't have to be involved in this at all.

[tearmeanewone]

"...alright," she nods, still managing to hold herself together as she comes back to the situation outside of herself and Gai. Elizabeth lets go of Gai and rubs her face in an attempt to continue to hold it together, but yet again she feels like she's going to blow the whole tent apart even with the strange shifts in the desert affecting her tears.

"God, I feel like a wound up spring."

[voidseeing]

"I suppose that means resting is out of the question." There's a wry note to his voice; Elizabeth isn't the only one too wound up to sleep, despite how tired he is right now. "Might be the best thing for both of us, though. It's been a rough few days."

The stress is wrecking him, not that he'll admit to it.

[tearmeanewone]

"No, I have to rest, I have to calm down before I bring an entire... militia through a tear," Elizabeth huffs sharply and rubs her forehead again. "Did you bring any alcohol?"

[voidseeing]

The laugh Gai lets out at this is both regretful and amused. "Wish I had-- I could really use a drink right about now."

Then he slips his arms around her again, pulling her close. "Come on, let's lie down and I'll give you a backrub."

[tearmeanewone]

[Nobody wants to see us break this page.]