mayfield_rpg | [01] the stakes are up and your odds are down

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c: gilgamesh wulfenbach

[01] the stakes are up and your odds are down

[action, 1647 albright]

[Oh, he's alive. That's good.

What's not good is how Gil is not at all where he's supposed to be. It's bright and sunny and there's not a single clank anywhere to be found, not to mention the Jagers that were supposed to be taking care of him. Had someone overpowered them and kidnapped him? It's an unlikely but very possible scenario; who knows what could have happened while he was unconscious?

So yeah, there's a little bit of panic going on. Everything is wrong; he's not injured even slightly, meaning that however long he was under, it must have been days. He's not dead, meaning that whoever took him wasn't looking for an assassination; he's also not anywhere near Mechanicsburg, so he's still effectively out of the picture. Not acceptable. He can't help Agatha like this.

Gil is starting to develop a low-grade headache as he analyzes the situation, which is troubling but not immediately worrisome. Bedroom - logical. Unguarded... not so much so. At least, there's no one else in the room with him. He's not going to leave and walk into a potential ambush...

Well, he can always pitch a lamp at the door and see what happens. He's about eighty percent sure that whoever responds won't end up shooting him; if they wanted him dead he'd be dead already.]

[phone, unfiltered]

...I would like very much to know where I am.

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...Gil?

[holy shit his father is here what]

Father! You must know what's going on.

[Oh

He

Doesn't remember. Okay. Klaus can deal with that. Sometimes people come back to Mayfield and don't remember their previous stay.

It just sucks that what little progress they had made has now been reset.]

I do.

Listen very carefully to what I say and stay calm.

You are in a place called Mayfield. It is, as far as I know, a pocket reality into which many people across vast realities are drawn, for the purpose -- I theorize -- of serving as subjects in an experiment on mental trauma.

You cannot leave. Walk too far in any direction and the town will loop.

You cannot fight. If you do, you will be brainwashed or killed until you comply. And yes, you can die, over and over again, and you will always come back.

Are you following thus-far? It's a lot to take in, but I trust you to understand faster than most new arrivals would.

[Yeah, a lot to take in is one way to put it. Gil rubs at his temple; for now he can accept the explanation, though investigating it further for himself is a given.]

I am. I don't suppose you know how all of this is possible?

You'd think I would, after two years, but those in charge are exceptionally good at keeping us in the dark. They have found a way to disable the Spark, Gil. No doubt you've noticed.

Think about that.

Twenty years of my life and I could never do that.

We are dealing with people who are far beyond our ability to combat.

[There is a long, long silence on the other end of the phone.]

...You can't have been here two years. You've been in the hospital.

[Gil's tone is controlled in a way that's probably really easy to recognize. His head is starting to hurt as he goes over all of the ramifications of this information, but that makes sense -- it's the same symptom Agatha described to him months ago when they were working on his flyer. It's everything else that has him reeling.]

Time works strangely here, I've found.

[Wait.

Been in the--

Okay, no, that doesn't mean anything. Gil might be referring to the past couple of days and just... pointedly not mentioning the more recent shit that went down.

He can't be from somewhere else on the timeline. He just can't. Klaus doesn't want to have to deal with explaining. Mayfield? Mayfield is fine. He can go on and on about Mayfield. But telling Gil about what happened -- what will happen -- back home...]

I have, indeed, been here two years. This is something of a hub between realities, I believe, into which all possible realities feed from all possible points on their timeline. Time here is standard, but time outside is not. Something like the hub at the center of a wheel-- the wheel spins but the hub stays more or less in one position.

But perhaps this conversation would be better conducted in person?

Perhaps it would. I don't know where you are...

[Oh look, there's some mail on the table. How amazingly convenient.]

The address here says 1647 Albright, though.

Stay put. It's probably best if you don't go exploring until you have all of your questions already addressed.

[He pockets a copy of Dist's latest draft of the welcome letter, because he has a feeling that will be helpful.]

[AAAAND HERE'S DAD.

He looks kind of. More tired than Gil might remember.

KNOCK KNOCK SON]

[And he's showing it, which is really surprising. Gil waves him in, looking skeptical but picking up right where they left off.]

That doesn't explain why I'm not hurt, though. I must have been out for ages.

Ah, no. Mayfield, removes all physical problems, I assume in an attempt to normalize its sample. When I first arrived, I was completely healed from the injuries I sustained at the battle outside of Sturmhalten, and I was no longer even a construct. Scars from thirty years ago were gone.

[He sighs, and takes the pamphlet out of his coat pocket.]

This is an introductory letter written for those who have just arrived. It may answer some of your other questions or clear up some points on which I may not have been clear.

[Gil takes the letter and scans it, frowning. It's helpful, and will absolutely save them some time, but... well perhaps Gil is just used to getting more thorough information from Klaus.]

This is just warnings. There needs to be more; this is helpful but it's also just a list of things not to touch! How is this supposed to help anyone past their first day?!

[Oh god there's a bad headache starting to happen. Gil rubs at his temple; he knows what it is but it's still hard to stop.]

It keeps them alive long enough to ask the right questions.

[Oh, dang, he'd forgotten. Gil is without his Spark, currently. Of course he's going to be even more frustrated than normal. He hesitates for a moment, and then puts a hand gingerly on Gil's shoulder.]

I know there's a lot to take in, and I know your lack of Spark isn't helping. I need you to stay as calm as possible. Frustration will not help you here.

No. But my Spark will.

[Gil looks up at Klaus, moving back a little bit.]

It says we can get our things at the post office. We can go get it.

No!

[There might be just a bit too much fierceness there.]

The last time I tried that, it took ten years of my memory.

[Ten years that included his only happy memories of Gil's mother, no less.]

I am not going to risk it doing the same to you, or worse, mutilating you as payment. The Spark is a costly thing to ask for, Gilgamesh. Would you still ask for it back, knowing they might remove your arms as payment?

Edited 2012-05-20 05:42 (UTC)

If they remove my arms I'll build better ones with my feet. If this is a pocket reality then I don't have the influence of your name; without my Spark, what am I? And I'm not going to put up with these headaches any longer than I have to. I don't know how Agatha did it for as long as she did...

[...He has a point. Klaus sighs.]

I cannot stop you if you believe it to be worth what you might lose. I am no longer in a position to forbid you anything.

But I implore you to think over your decision carefully, and take all factors into account. I understand that you wish to help, but your Spark, here, will get you relatively little beyond a reprieve from the headaches.

You acknowledge that our name carries no power here. It isn't so much a lack of name recognition as it is a total lack of power regardless. You must understand that. We cannot fight back. We can only survive. There is no point in hurting yourself when in the end it will achieve nothing beyond making you more dangerous and thus a higher priority target.

I would rather see you safe and with a migraine than dead.

...

[His father is acting strange.]

You've never admitted to this before. There's always a way; that's what you've taught me. It can't be hopeless. No situation is.

[It's partially a plea, and partially... just pure confusion. This isn't the Klaus he knows. His father never gives up; he always has a solution, even if it's based on faulty evidence.]

You want me to just... hide? I'm not a child anymore, father.

I do not want you to hide. I want you to understand the true gravity of the situation, and perhaps dissuade you from any heroic misconceptions of what you can and cannot do.

The situation is not hopeless. Survival is possible. The occasional massacres are bearable. Making a life here is not that difficult, once you understand the principles on which the town operates. The most we can hope for is to be returned home and not dragged back.

[He runs a hand through his hair.]

I... went back, recently. For the first time in two years. The things I saw... Gil, perhaps it's better if we stay.

[Okay, that is very strange.]

Father, you know your empire will fall without you. With me here, there's not even anyone to be the figurehead. What did you see that makes all that worth it?

Ah, well. What I recently discovered is that while we are here, time is at a standstill for us back in our native reality. It is as though our consciousness blinks away for only a moment, and can spend years here with no real consequences. The timeline will still continue as it was meant to, regardless of how long we are in limbo here.

I... Where on the timeline are you. This will be easier if I know how much you may not have yet experienced.

[It somehow hadn't occurred to Gil that they may have been taken from separate times. He frowns, but nods.]

I had just destroyed the war clanks advancing on Mechanicsburg. I was very wounded, had to fight a Jager hand-to-hand, then passed out.

I... hadn't expected you to be so behind. This may take some time.

[And so he tells Gil what he missed-- or at least, what he missed as Klaus saw it. His fight to escape the hospital and fix things before they spiraled to far out of control. Lucrezia. How she got to him, swiftly putting him under her power. How she got him to the Castle as quickly as she could, once he could be moved.

How she forced him to feed Gil lies, to imprison him. How she likely planned to use him too, once she could replicate her Spark wasps.]

And so you see. Everything I worked for has already crumbled. Even if time continued to move without us, it wouldn't matter. She has already won. She controls the empire because she controls me, and I can do nothing to fight her save devote all of my energy to finding the loopholes in her orders.

I have seen my country and everyone I loved razed to the ground once. I have no desire to go home to the certainty of seeing it happen again. I have no desire to be the one that does it, which is almost certainly the role she will force me to play. If the timeline truly continues, and we are merely representations of our own consciousness pulled from select moments within that timeline, than is it truly worth fighting to go back and experience that destruction when it is certain to happen anyway?

[Gil is silent for a long while. He even sits, running his hand through his hair as he takes it all in. It's... almost too much to believe.]

Father... we may not have a choice. You make it sound as if you didn't go back under your own power, and if we're prisoners as you say then they may very well simply throw us back once they've wrung what they can from us.

Mm. I am more trying to dissuade you from what is usually the immediate reaction upon arrival.

You are right in assuming we are at the mercy of Mayfield in terms of if and when we return home. My point is that, then, putting time and energy toward actively creating a way out is pointless. That is generally the immediate and overwhelming goal of all new arrivals, especially those with delicate situations to attend to in their native realities. I do not want you to throw yourself into a useless project out of a feeling of obligation or denial.

What is our goal, then? Putting aside the ramifications of you being from the future, and the chance that someone has simply kidnapped me and given me a very powerful drug, it leaves us with the problem of what to do that doesn't involve getting murdered until our brains break. I'm not going to sit and take up gardening while waiting for the "occasional bearable massacre."

I have been running a long-term study of the mental processes of drone children, personally. After two years I have almost ten notebooks' worth of very interesting notes and some excellent insights into the drone mind, especially a drone mind that is meant to represent a human mind during its most formative years.

And if you cannot fight those in charge, fight those they have imprisoned. There are several among us who need to be policed.

For instance, the Other lives in my house.

Those aren't goals, they're hobbies--

[record scratch]

Wait, what?!

[...Oh, Gil. Klaus smiles, just a little.]

You heard me.

We should discuss her, actually. She is...

This will sound insane. I fully expect you to be dubious. But I have seen it with my own eyes, and you know -- at least, I hope you know -- that you can trust me.

She is safe. Her Spark has been removed, like yours, and without her Madness to warp her she is almost entirely harmless. Still very much Lucrezia, of course, and still Bad, but certainly not Evil.

[He crosses his arms. He knows how crazy this sounds. He knows that given what he told Gil about what the future holds, it will sound even more suspect. But he feels that he almost owes it to Lucrezia, in a weird sort of way.]

This does not mean I am not wary of her. We have a truce, and though she has kept it without fail for months now, I still do not trust her not to break it.

...You can't be serious. You can't be serious! She's done something to you; that's why I can barely recognize you! She can't be truly neutralized when she could have anything she wants returned to her at will!

[this isn't happening]

[Yyyyep. There's the predictable Gil freakout.]

Gilgamesh. She has done nothing to me. Unlike you, she isn't stupid enough to go near the Post Office.

[He has, however, discovered that many of the orders she gave him while he was back home still stand in Mayfield, even if she can't add or modify them without her command voice. He cannot harm her, most aggravatingly, nor can he work directly against her, but he is not bound to follow any commands she gives him without that voice and in that, he is safe. While he was ordered to obey, he was not ordered to obey anything but a command that in itself compels him. Loopholes are such lovely things.]

You must understand that this Lucrezia is not that Lucrezia. She is from a point on the timeline nearer to you than I, and furthermore she has had months to change and diverge from her Madness-influenced self.

I do not trust her, but neither will I ignore her attempts at honoring our truce for as long as she continues to do so. I ask that you do the same. If and when she inevitably slips, you will be free to do as you wish with her.

Edited 2012-05-22 05:32 (UTC)

Oh, of course. She's changed; that fixes everything!

[Klaus stop turning your son into yourself, seriously.]

Does she know about this future you've warned me of?

You are attempting to oversimplify this situation. You of all people should understand that not everything follows a single, clear-cut logical pattern.

She has changed. It fixes nothing, but it is still fact, and it is fact that will for better or for worse color the nature of my dealings with her. I know her, Gil. Certainly better than you think I do, and perhaps even better than she thinks I do. I would know if she were lying. I would know if she were acting. I am tired, but I am not blind.

[He pauses for a moment, clearly frustrated, and then controls himself again.]

As to your question: no. No, she does not. I intend to keep it that way. I believe she is trying once again to truly turn Good, and I do not want her getting ideas and sabotaging what little progress she has managed to make.

It just doesn't make sense! You've given up, which I've never known you to do, and contented yourself with whatever this place wants to throw at you. You're not the father I know. A lack of power has never stopped you; you took a minor house and built an empire! You can't tell me with any sincerity that you're content studying brainwashed children and waiting to be experimented on!

[It's good to keep an eye on the neighbors. Sometimes they change, after all. And sometimes they change into someone nice that'll give you a snack.

So there's a little black kitten with wings creeping along the front windowsill, making a point of peering inside.]

Nyaa, quiet...

[Kitty!

Gil cautiously approaches the window, sliding it open.]

You talk?

[Oh! Someone's opening the window! He lets out a startled mew and steps back cautiously.

But oh! He seems friendly?]

I talk, nyaa! You talk, too!

Are you new? You look new.

[Gil can't help but smile. Such a cute kitty.]

Is it that obvious? Yes, I just woke up here.

I dunnyo. Maybe... maybe you had a sleep over there!

[The kitten seems to realize this is a silly conclusion to draw, though, and he brings a paw to his chin. No, no, no...]

...are you gonna make breakfast, nyaa?

I... wasn't planning on it...

[Is this normal? The cat sure is acting like it is.]

Uh... what do you eat?

[Might as well make friends. In a strange place, they're often the difference between life and death.]

[Breakfast is totally normal in the mornings. Also, delicious and important.]

I like blood, nyaa! [And he grins, bearing fangs much larger than any kitten should have. Also, his little wings flap.

Although, as an afterthought...]

...but I like toast with jam, too. Or... or eggs with LOTS of ketchup!

[...Oh. Vampire cat. Okay.]

I, uh, I can make eggs. Do you want to come in?

Eggs! With ketchup! Nyaa, I wanna come in.

[And come in he does, hopping neatly around Gil and into his house.

What? Rude? Pffft, he's a cat.]

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[01] the stakes are up and your odds are down

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