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f20202020-09-15 12:53 am
- allison hargreeves ⧓ krakoa,
- anders ⧒ the white tower,
- beckett mariner ⧓ twin cities,
- cecelia ardenbury ⧓ olin vale,
- count dooku ⧓ the white tower,
- david alleyne ⧓ krakoa,
- declan lynch ⧓ sanctum aurorae,
- finn onaru ⧒ the white tower,
- fuu hououji ⧓ eden,
- jin bubaigawara ⧒ twin cities,
- jonathan walsh ⧓ northwestern imperium,
- kang ⧓ seekers of the new dawn,
- kylo ren ⧓ sanctum aurorae,
- lucina ⋈ ␣,
- luther hargreeves ⧓ krakoa,
- midnighter ⧒ the white tower,
- number five hargreeves ⧓ krakoa,
- padmé amidala ⧓ luminary,
- pepper potts ⋈ the white tower,
- rey ⧓ the white tower,
- ronan lynch ⧓ sanctum aurorae,
- rude ⧒ olin vale,
- stephen strange ⧓ the white tower,
- tony stark ⧓ the white tower,
- wei wuxian ⧓ house of m,
- wen ning ⋈ house of m,
- xue yang ⧓ sanctum aurorae
SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2020: THE SYNOD IS CONVENING.
THE SYNOD
While the Gates are the simplest form of transportation, those making the journey to the Synod from the White Tower have the option of travelling by train, if they wish. Despite the playfully grim moniker, there haven't been any recorded fatalities on board the Death Train in many years. Or ever, really. Raw, untamed entropy doesn't do anything as simple as kill.
For that delightful reason, passengers will be reminded at frequent intervals not to attempt to leave the train once it enters the active zone of the Porter's defenses, or to do anything that could jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.
The journey is relatively comfortable and takes approximately two and a half hours. A limited menu of pastries and alcohol is available from the buffet car. The smallest tables seat two.
As the train passes through the entropy-saturated wasteland of the Deathdome, the view from the heavily tinted windows of each of the train's four-person cars is impossible to comprehend: every atom of the landscape is in a constant state of flux, scattered in endless possibilities across the multiverse.
WELCOME CARPET
Inside, you get the impression of three towers; no view from outside is possible. You're totally sealed inside for the week, by the same Fate-built tech that shields this place from the ravages of cosmic radiation— the train station is built into the structure, entrance tunnel hermetically sealed.
You're greeted by welcome robots, primitive little things full endless enthusiasm and covered in dents. What they lack in intelligence they make up for in persistence and durability. Each and every ImPort is assigned their own personal robutler.
Though they tend to hinder more than help.
Boop boop boop boop. They provide you with a complimentary swag bag. Inside is one (1) t-shirt, one (1) top of the line tablet (pre-loaded with this year's Agenda and a simple game app that looks suspiciously like 2048), a stress ball, personalised souvenir pen and eraser (but no pencil), and of course, a lanyard keycard for accessing the comfortably adequate accommodations provided for all attendees.
Given the week-long Synod, your room itself is a decent suite, furnished with dark colors, redolent with a smell you can't quite place. You may find yourself assigned an unexpected roommate, which may feel awkward considering you'll find arrayed on the beds, a half-dozen complimentary tickets to the spa, restaurants and the power gym, with its preternaturally durable equipment.
Robutlers constantly remind: do not attempt to leave the Porter facility or do anything to jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.
Talks and panels take place in the convention area, which feels like a miniature city within the Porter's defenses, a hive with padded audience seats, wide stages, and complete with holographic audiovisual equipment that's curiously compatible with presentation software from every city.
Here, ImPorts will present and debate various topics regarded as major concerns for all. [OOCly, players are invited to suggest topics! Scroll down; they will be added below.]
This is also something of an expo, where cities practically demonstrate— or show off their good works. From the latest hovertechnology models to demonstrations of healing powers, playful duels in the forcefield-enclosed stages to magical books that temporarily transfer skills on touch, this is the place to pretend you're showing off your cards... while playing the most important ones close to your chest.
PANELS AND DEBATES
Every night of the Synod, ImPorts gather to dine in a grand hall with a ballroom party. Each dinner is hosted by one ImPort city, gruntwork complete with robutlers-- which guarantees food safety, and complete with multiple cuisine options, cultural decor, and entertainment.
Given the range of cities represented, food options vary from greasy burgers to six courses of seafood and blue venison, and rarefied vegan fare.
When ImPorts aren't here eating, they're most often talking. Ergo, it's not uncommon for low-key drama to break out, but this year, the majority of Synod days seem to be passing uneventfully.
Fortunately, speeches are reserved for daytime. After dinner, it's time to dance.
The last song of the night is always obscure music no one can quite remember the words or melody to afterward. It's a slow dance song meant for two or more partners; the ballroom grows dark and the world seems to fade away. Or rather, it just fades back into one's hotel room.
On Monday, September 21st, shortly before the Gates are due to resume ordinary function and allow attendees to leave, the Porter building suffers a power cut.
Abruptly, all the lights cut out. Music stops. Your faithful robutler freezes in place, unresponsive— though its internal systems appear to be running, the centralised command hub that it relies on has fallen silent.
Though the robutlers are out of comission, technology-minded ImPorts and their tech drones hasten to reassure that systems analyses are underway. Within a few hours, repairs begin, the estimated time being two days.
In the meantime, thanks to the diversity of powers on hand, there is enough food and water. Candles start to circulate. It might even be a little romantic, if it weren't for the chaos outside. Characters might find themselves trapped in an elevator for a few hours, or compelled to seek comfort from one another.
pepper potts ⋈ the white tower
daytime events | ota
The fact that they're effectively sealed in for the week causes some anxiety to churn in the pit of her stomach, but what's done is done. This could be a terrible decision, but she has to try something. After carefully stashing her Rescue suit in her suite, Pepper grabs her keycard (and the stress ball) and hits the convention floor. She keeps as low a profile as she can, Stark's (she can't think of him as Tony) warnings regarding the First Lady present in the back of her mind.
She tours the Expo sections and pauses to watch some of the duels and demonstrations. She attends several lectures as well, but always picks a place off to the side, making sure to mark the nearest exit. She makes small talk with others and tries to recall the days when this kind of networking came so easily, keeping an ear to the ground. Through it all, she keeps an eye on any familiar faces, even if she knows the likelihood is slim. The stress ball barely leaves her hands, slim fingers idly toying with it. Whoever thought to include it in the swag bag was pretty genius, honestly.
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You don't need to be biokinetic to see unease when it walks past you. Josh blinks, the flash of red hair making him think of someone else entirely.
"Hey," he says, with a half-smile on his face. "You look like you could use a breather. Want a free demo of some Krakoan healing tech?"
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"...Healing tech?" Pepper's tone toes the line of being vaguely suspicious instead of simply pensive. It's nothing personal, she promises. She's just a little leery of this strange world still and the way it works, the motivations and agendas of its citizens. It's not very charitable, she knows.
Making an effort to shake off her surprise, Pepper smiles wryly. "I seem that out of my depth here, huh?"
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He extends a gloved hand with a lopsided smile.
"Josh Foley. Is this your first time?"
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"Josh. It's good to meet you," she returns. "Pepper Potts. And, yeah..."
She trails off with a light chuckle. "I'm very new to this place in general. Still trying to find my feet, if I'm honest." Understatement of the year.
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"It gets easier. Being here... I know it doesn't seem that way now, but it does." He gestures back towards the booth brimming with Krakoan technology. He can claim credit for precisely none of it, other than providing some research and being a willing guinea pig here and there. "Finding a project helps."
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She thinks she can do that. Or could, under usual circumstances, but there's hardly anything usual about this situation. She watches the booth Josh points out for a moment in silence.
"This whole thing is strange enough on its own, but it's made harder when you discover familiar faces who are... not as they should be. I don't know how common that is, though." Maybe she's just unlucky.
۞ Daytime
Her name sounds partly like some kind of announcement, partly something edging toward shock.
Look, Stephen might be Sorcerer Supreme, but he's not psychic. Even dressed in his "work clothes" it would be hard to entirely mask the surprise on Stephen's face.
Something twists uncomfortably in his stomach, a reminder that last time he saw the elegant figure of Ms. Potts he'd been stealing Tony away for a fight that would ultimately see half the population wiped out and Tony drifting through space. Or at least that's one outcome of things, there are many, many others branching off from the fight on Titan--the last true memory of home Stephen has.
He draws in a breathe, holds it for a brief second or hesitation, then exhales it sharply through his nose in vague disbelief at the world: of course.
"Welcome to the Synod, I suppose."
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You could knock Pepper over with a feather just then, complete shock-laced surprise written across her face. Relief follows quickly, a surge of hope mingling with it. She can't believe she's finally found someone she knows-- even if not particularly well.
"Y-you know who I am?" Well, obviously, but what if he's like the Tony of this world she'd met; practically a stranger, wearing her husband's face but possessing none of his soul, his memories and experiences? "Where I am from?"
Maybe that's a more accurate question, deep down telling herself not to get her hopes up but unable to help it all the same. Maybe Strange can help her make some sense of what's going on. God, she hopes he can.
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"Yes, I know who you are. Or I knew who you were, in a different time and place. Judging by the look on your face, I'd guess you wandering into our merry little hellscape very recently."
Her phrasing of the question is astute though, and anyone who would expect anything less of her would be an absolute fool.
Stepping closer, Stephen wears his air of calm seriousness like the cloak about his shoulders, very even, very still, a little worn around the edges of his face and eyes, but overall he's strikingly unchanged.
"And I'm surprised you don't have some very choice words for me right now at the very least. The last time I saw you in person and in real time was in New York--our New York. I was interrupting your morning jog. And reuniting you with Bruce Banner. And taking Tony on an intergalactic jaunt to face Thanos."
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"Very recently," Pepper agrees with a small huff of laughter, no mirth in the sound; just weary disbelief. She's quick to grow even more sober when Strange steps closer, meeting his eyes steadily. A different time and place. She's not the same Pepper he remembers, not entirely. There are more fine lines by her mouth, the corners of her eyes-- and some heavy, sorrowful knowledge in her gaze that everyone who lived through the Snap carried with them.
Her lips curl in a faint, brief and sad smile, and she closes her eyes for a beat, nodding her head. "I remember. That was five years ago. Any choice words I may have had... well. They wouldn't make me feel better or change what happened. Tony found his way back home a few months after that day, but... Thanos got the stones. And he used them. We rebuilt from the ashes and tried to just keep going in that new normal. What else could we do?"
She shrugs her shoulders just enough to be noticeable, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it slowly. "I don't know how much more I should tell you about the future. Are there rules to such a thing?" she asks a little haplessly, throwing her hands up just a little in expression of helpless indecision and frustration.
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"Well, you can't spoiler me for the outcome of our world, if that's what you're worried about. It's probably more of an issue the other way around in that there's a lot I can't share with you. And others."
He takes a neat side-step to avoid one of the weird Stark-bots trying to usher them toward one of the presentation rooms, the lower part of the cloak flaring out to encourage the AI to skirt on by while Stephen himself seems to barely notice the thing.
"May I ask what was going on for you in our world before you arrive here?"
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She's momentarily distracted by the cloak shooing the bot along -- that's different -- but the question snaps her attention back to Strange.
"The Avengers went back in time to fetch the stones before Thanos could get to them and undid the snap. Brought everyone who vanished back. But somehow, past Thanos followed with his army." It sounds even more insane out loud than in her head, and Pepper shakes her head again. "It was an all hands on deck sort of a situation, as I understood it-- I was on my way to help however I could, but instead I ended up here. And now nothing makes any sense."
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Stephen's head tilts back slightly, one brow raising in slow but carefully measured interest befreo he offers a very insightful, "Huh."
His face becomes a well- practised apathetic mask, not cold precisely but used enough that it clearly closes a great deal off before he clicks his teeth thoughtfully
It's only then he seems to see her again and this time there's a hint of sympathy.
"You look--" kind of like you might be about to cry "--hungry."
Sure, he'll go with that.
"Or maybe I'm hungry and I'm projecting. Either way, this seems like a heavy kind of topic for the conference floor. Care to join me for a bite? Or perhaps a drink that it's way too early for, if you'd prefer. It's--" he glances around the space briefly and huffs out a breathe of a humourless chuckle, "--a lot to take in, I'm sure."
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"A lot," Pepper echoes with a tiny chuckle of her own, a somewhat hollow sound. "Yeah, l met the illustrious High Chancellor Stark hours after ending up here, and he's decidedly not the man I nowadays call my husband. He also kindly informed me that I should resign myself to the fact that I could be stuck here for a decade like he was. Did I mention Tony and I have a four-year old daughter, and just the thought of not seeing her in years tears me up from within?"
She smiles, wide, close-lipped and entirely humorless. "That's a roundabout way of saying I'll happily take you up on the drink offer, especially. Gotta be five o'clock somewhere, right?"
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evening | ota
There's a curious sense of masquerade about the dinners. These evenings are purely for socializing and slyly plying whatever agenda people have, business and personal alike. It's easier to play a role now and during the day, get dolled up and pretend. Pepper is practiced at this, conversing and smiling easily even if her smile rarely reaches her eyes. She makes the rounds after dinner, drink in hand she only occasionally sips from. She might even indulge in a dance or two if so asked. But all the while she keeps searching for something, making sure she doesn't draw too much attention from anyone; here and there locating a quieter spot to catch her breath in for a couple of minutes before slipping back into the crush of people in their evening finery.
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"Good evening," he says as he approaches, a drink in hand. He offers a soft nod of his head as way of greeting and straightens his black and gold coat styled in a very Wakandan manner. Not that, you know, Wakanda even exists here.
"This is your first Synod isn't it?"
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Just in time to spare the approaching, rather elegantly dressed man a polite but impersonal smile at his greeting.
"Hello," she returns easily. His follow-up question garners a small laugh, the wry, slanted smile that tugs at her lips far more genuine than the previous one.
"Is it that obvious?"
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“It is more that I am very skilled at recognizing such things these days. I’ve been going to them for quite a while at this point. David Alleyne of Krakoa. And you?”
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"It's nice to meet you," she says with another smile, pleasant enough. "Pepper Potts. I'm... well, I'm very new to this place, as you already figured out."
To put it mildly. She doesn't exactly want to identify herself as being a part of any of these factions, despite stumbling out of the porter in the White Tower. With a small gesture to their surroundings, she goes on.
"Just trying my best to navigate all... this."
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“It’s a lot to navigate as a new arrival. I’d offer advice on some things, but it would be seen as trying to lure you to my nation. Most people don’t see that positively.”
He’s got a joking tone, but it’s serious. This place is... bad at times.
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"Mm, I've noticed there's a certain degree of..." What's the most diplomatic term for it? "One-upping, among the different nations."
Sniping or barely leashed hostilities might be more accurate, but... diplomacy. It's not exactly polite to tell someone you've only just met yes, in fact your world is terrible and I'd like a way out of it, thanks, is it?
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It's okay, a lot of people want out. Hell, this place would be better if they had a chance to be out.
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