isocelesmonster: (GSV HSZWLDH OVMTGSVM)
◬ ([personal profile] isocelesmonster) wrote in [community profile] driftfleet2016-06-22 04:37 am

the devil in the details

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.

Although ostensibly the Golden has a new crew member, there's no new person in attendance at any meals. No new faces in the hall, nothing additional in the laundry. One of the standard crew cabins has been sealed up as tight as a tomb, the brass nameplate on the door unhelpfully scratched out with something sharp. No noises at all come from inside.

It'd take a careful eye to notice the only other change: the same sharp instrument has been used to carve little eyes of providence, no bigger than a fingernail, in strategic public places around the ship. They're shallow markings, not deep enough to interfere with any of the working parts of the craft, and no great works of art - each little scrap of graffiti is a matter of five lines at most. But they're there - and if sometimes the way the gold of the metal hull glints in the pupil is strangely canny, it's probably nothing to be worried about.

(It's not that Bill doesn't care about the flesh puppets that make up his new crew - oh, he does, they're all going to get very careful scrutiny over the coming days - but more important is finding out what his new playground looks like.)

When the fleet sleeps, their minds open and blossom like night-blooming flowers, each one illuminating a new section of the shared dreaming plane. For all of their poetry, few humans realize that the state of dreaming is as real an exploration as whatever meaningless actions they take while awake. It's irrelevant to their survival, most days, so evolution has never sought to provide that particular revelation. They're a young species. Five senses, auditory languages, limited psychic potential, and as far as they know when they dream they're just watching random electrical impulses fire in their brains. Ha!

(There's an expression about a one-eyed man's status in a land of the blind, and Bill intends to make it a reality.)

He steps sideways out of the material world into the closest dream as easily as a three-dimensional being can move along any of their limited axes. He makes himself invisible, at first, just to get his bearings.

[Bill is visiting dreams, as a way of saying hello! His permissions post for this ability is here. I am treating this ability on an opt-in basis. If you didn't give me the okay, he won't be spying on your character at all tonight ~but where's the fun in that~?]
ZOGSLFTS GSRH DVZP ZMW RWOV GSVNV
RH ML NLIV BRVOWRMT YFG Z WIVZN
DSVM NLIMRMT GZPVH BLF UILN NB GSIZOO
YV TOZW R OVG BLF DZPV ZG ZOO
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV BLF)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-27 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Y'KNOW I USED TO THINK IT WAS JUST A QUIRK! POISON SOCRATES, CUT OFF LAVOISIER'S HEAD, BURN THE LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA, SURE, MISTAKES HAPPEN TO EVERYONE!

[Bill stares fixedly at a blank spot on the chessboard.]

I MEAN, HAHA, HUMANS WOULDN'T STAY SLAVES TO PARANOIA FOREVER, RIGHT? I LOST FRIENDS, BUT I COULD JUST GIVE THE SPECIES A COUPLE OF THOUSAND GENERATIONS AND IT WOULD BE WORTH STICKING WITH IT! HUMANITTY'S BETTER NATURE WOULD WIN OUT! AND I KEPT WAITING, AND WAITING...

[He reaches over and gently boops Charles' king's bishop, a thin brown-haired man in spectacles.]

AND THEN THERE WAS THIS ONE.
axiomed: (What turns we missed)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-29 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Waiting and waiting. Charles doesn't make eye contact. ]

And he is?
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV BLF)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-29 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
HE WAS A FRAGILE LITTLE MAN WITH A FRAGILE LITTLE MIND. [Bill growls. He crosses his arms and drums his fingers.

He's so angry he's shaking a little, which is not an act in the slightest. Oops. Maybe he got a little too personal with this story. Inside a powerful psychic's mind is super not the time to become a pillar of screaming hellfire.

Deep breaths.]


THAT - NARROW-MINDED, TERRIFIED LITTLE APE FOUND OUT FROM A FRIEND THAT WE EXISTED. THAT THE WORLD AS HE KNEW IT DID NOT FIT INTO A GREY LITTLE BOX WHERE HUMANS ARE THE ONLY ONES EXTANT. INSTEAD WONDER AND IMAGINATION IN THE FACE OF THE UNKNOWN, ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS GO BACK TO NOT KNOWING. SO HE MADE A WAY TO TAKE THE MEMORIES OF ALL OF IT OUT OF HIS OWN MIND. TO DELETE THE CONCEPT FROM HIS PERSONAL WORLD. DESTROY THE IDEA.
axiomed: (I forgot how to cry)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-30 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles waits until he calms down. He could take offense to the term ape, but he decides it's not worth the battle. ]

Some people can't handle it. That's not so strange.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-30 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
IT'S NOT STRANGE AT ALL. I REALLY SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING.

[Bill looks up. The anger is still there, but banked and cold.]

HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE'D DONE, BUT HE KNEW IT HAD MADE HIM HAPPY - SO HE STARTED USING IT ON EVERYONE ELSE HE COULD CATCH, TOO. THE COLLECTIVE I.Q. OF THE TOWN HAD DROPPED A DOZEN POINTS FROM THE NEURON DAMAGE BY THE TIME I FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING.

[A soft crackling, like the crunch of frost underfoot, precedes a layer of solid stone advancing up Bill's torso. He sits back and closes his eyes as it creeps towards his collarbone, immobilizing him.]

TAKE A WILD GUESS AT WHAT THAT KIND OF WEAPON DOES WHEN AIMED AT A GUY WHO LIVES IN HUMANITY'S IMAGINATION AND IDEAS.
axiomed: (The life I knew by heart)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-30 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles flicks it away. Sunlight pours through the window once more. ]

I don't need. I already know.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

er wait he didn't do anything to the windows

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-31 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill looks sympathetic.]

HEY, DON'T TELL ME YOUR TIMELINE'S GOT ONE. I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE IN THIS STUFF.
axiomed: (We laughed and cried)

I know, he's just making it brighter

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-31 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
My timeline has its own eccentricities. But that doesn't mean I don't know nature.
axiomed: (I couldn't give you all)

no worries!

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-31 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
That being said, my loyalty is . . . to the human race.

[ No amount of affection for anything else would change that. And Charles knows - fears - creatures like Bill. Those who can get under his skin, who see his abilities as something special. ]
tetractys: (UILN Z WRAABRMT SVRTSG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-31 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
YOU'RE A BETTER MAN THAN I AM, PAL. I LOVE EM, YOU KNOW? WITHOUT STUPID, HORRIBLE, BRILLIANT HUMANS I'VE GOT NOTHING. BUT ELEVEN THOUSAND YEARS IS ALL THE PATIENCE I'VE GOT.

[Bill looks tired and sad again, and fidgets with one of his rooks.]

ANYWAY, I MADE A BLIND JUMP AT THE LAST MINUTE AND HERE I AM. EVEN IF THE ATROMA'S GOT MY PHYSICAL FORM STASHED AROUND HERE, I'M NOT IN A HURRY TO TRAP MYSELF IN STONE.
axiomed: (By common sense)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-01 01:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ Now that's interesting. ]

Stone?
tetractys: (ZH LFI UOVHS RH YFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-01 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
WELL, YEAH! THAT'S WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SHOW YOU!

[The crackling sound picks back up again. Here we go, turning to stone from the feet up. Bill knocks on his chest when it gets that high - definitely solid rock.]
axiomed: (Then I pulled out in a day)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-01 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles stares a little. ]

So you're physically made of stone?
axiomed: (Just having you there)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-01 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
Odd. Why would the Atroma do that?

[ It would go against the element of entertainment they enjoy so much. ]
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-01 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
THIS GUY DID IT.

[Bill shakes the stone off and flicks the little bespectacled man chess piece again.]

HIS STUPID INVENTION!
axiomed: (Amazing it seems)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-01 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
What does it go? Certainly not just turn things to stone.
tetractys: (ZMW BLF TVG YORMWVW YB GSV UOZHS KSLGL)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-01 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
[Bill does not let any of the grim exasperation he's feeling show on his face. That was a good story he just told, if he does say so himself. He put a lot of oomph into that story, lots of crocodile tears. Connect the dots, Chuck!

He hides it by saying the opposite of what he's thinking. The smile he puts on is fond and rueful, perfect down to the involuntary millimeters that creatures who wear human flesh constantly can't ever really command.]


HEH. YEP, RIGHT AGAIN! IT WAS THE SAME INVENTION HE'D BEEN USING TO WIPE HIS MEMORIES! I DON'T THINK HE EVEN KNEW THAT FIRING IT AT ME WOULD KILL ME!
axiomed: (By the end of the day)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-02 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
[ That's what he needed to know. ]

He probably wouldn't. Who would?
tetractys: (ZNVIRXZ DZPVH FK)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-04 04:51 am (UTC)(link)
ERASING MY MIND WITHOUT PERMISSION WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN A PICNIC, EITHER! IDEAS ARE WHAT I AM!
axiomed: (I was on a downslide)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-04 10:29 am (UTC)(link)
Not entirely, is it? Not if you come from another dimension.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-05 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill looks startled, and chuckles with a little bit of a nervous edge as he straightens his tie. What do you know, Hot Wheels here got a little close to the truth. Probably by accident. Brush it off.]

NAH, ON THE ASTRAL PLANE WE'RE ALL ENERGY AND IDEAS! FLESH-BASED LIFE DOESN'T END UP AS THE DOMINANT SPECIES ON EVERY WORLD, YA KNOW!
Edited (html iz hard) 2016-08-05 09:02 (UTC)
axiomed: (No strings attached between you and me)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-05 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
I'm afraid I'll have to contend with the mental plane.
tetractys: (ZH LFI UOVHS RH YFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-06 06:12 am (UTC)(link)
[There's literally no way that he could have that information, Bill is sure. No flinch this time, just innocent confusion.]

YA LOST ME.

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