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: (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.
axiomed: (You shut out the light)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-06 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
I have some . . . experience with creatures like you. From other dimensions. Able to bend the physical plane with the help of others.
tetractys: (OVZIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-06 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill beams - although really, he's got a nearly-perpetual smile, it's just a matter of how wide it is.]

HEYY, WHAT'S ALL THIS ABOUT NO MAGIC, THEN? YOU HAD ME GOING THERE! MAN!

[The idea that there was no Bill or Bill-equivalent in some human timeline was a) weird and b) basically impossible, they'd still be bumping around in caves.]

WHO'D YOU TALK TO, HUH? WAS IT KRXSKL THE UNPERCIEVABLE? THAT GUY'S SUCH A CUT-UP!
axiomed: (My head and my heart)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-06 09:16 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, my world has no magic. There would be some mention of it.

But I've been to places like these. That trap beings like us.
tetractys: (ZH LFI UOVHS RH YFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-07 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
I'M NOT SO SURE ABOUT THAT ONE!

[Bill snaps his fingers. Right, yeah, the other safe havens. Asgard, the Court, Exsilium, that kind of thing.]

AH, YOU'VE SEEN OTHER POCKET DIMENSIONS! HOW'S THIS ONE STACK UP? IT'S MY FIRST TIME.
axiomed: (What turns we missed)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-07 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
It's a lot . . . nicer than the ones I've been to.

[ The others involved far more murder and violence. ]
tetractys: (ORHGVMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-08 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
YOU EVER REMEMBER THEM WHEN YOU GET HOME?
axiomed: (You let go of laughter)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-08 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
Quite clearly. Though I'm aware this place does not let you.

[ And he has his own theories on that. ]
tetractys: (ORHGVMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-08 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
THOSE AUGMENTS REALLY DO A NUMBER ON YA!

[He's not stupid enough to think he's exempt from alteration, of course. The phrasing is just habit. The risk he took was calculated, he'd accepted this as a price. Bill's hand goes to the bump on his newly human skull.]

AND THEY WATCH IN DREAMS TOO, I HEAR!
axiomed: (The days and nights)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-08 06:16 am (UTC)(link)
It wouldn't surprise me.

[ Perhaps they sacrificed their actual involvement for eyes everywhere. ]
tetractys: (UILN Z WRAABRMT SVRTSG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-08 06:36 am (UTC)(link)
ANYWAY, IT GOES TO SHOW! NOT HAVING A PHYSICAL FORM DOESN'T REALLY MEAN I'M NOT TRAPPED HERE JUST LIKE ANY OF YOU!
axiomed: (I've been standing on the shoreline)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-08 06:40 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I don't doubt that.
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV RG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-09 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
SO WE CAN COME TO SOME KIND OF AGREEMENT ABOUT YOUR TERRITORY HERE, RIGHT?
axiomed: (Hard to believe how people move)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-09 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
[ He blinks. ]

I'm sorry, my territory?
tetractys: (ZH LFI UOVHS RH YFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-12 09:13 am (UTC)(link)
THE FLEET'S COLLECTIVE MINDSCAPE!

[Bill blinks.]

YOU'RE THE BIGGER FISH AND YOU WERE HERE FIRST!
axiomed: (Just having you there)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-12 09:14 am (UTC)(link)
I'm . . . pretty sure I'm the only person with the power to use the mindscape. Besides yourself.
tetractys: (ORHGVMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-12 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[GOOD.]

I THINK WE'RE USING THE WORD DIFFERENTLY! EVERYTHING THAT HAS A MIND HAS A PIECE OF REAL ESTATE ON THIS PLANE!
axiomed: (Hard to believe how people move)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-13 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
I suppose that's true.
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV RG)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-13 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
- AND I'M GOING TO BE BOUNCING AROUND BETWEEN THEM! THAT'S THE NATURE OF BEING ME! LEAVING THE ASTRAL PLANE ISN'T AN OPTION FOR THE REASONS I JUST EXPLAINED. I KNOW YOU'RE NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT, BUT THAT'S THE SCENARIO WE'RE WORKING WITH HERE!
axiomed: (You let go of laughter)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-08-13 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
Bounce around all you like. But go anywhere near the people I love and I'll lock you.
tetractys: (SV'H TLMMZ GZPV FH WLDM GL KOZB)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-08-13 08:41 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill looks concerned. Buddy are u ok? Who hurt your friends? His tone takes on an element of someone trying to calm a spooked animal.]

HEY, HEY, EASY. I CAN DO THAT, NO PROBLEM.

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