— audio, open.

[webshoots]

@ parker

Uh, hey. For anyone that's just arrived, my name's Peter and I've had the dubious honour of having been here since the beginning of this group, so if you've got any lingering questions about how, why and what, I can't promise I can answer them, but I can do a very good job at pretending I can answer them.

Failing that, if you haven't already seen them, there are a few guides on the tablet that cover what we've been through a little more succinctly, which—

[ followed by a pause and the vague sound of movement — for what it's worth, peter's outside, as evidenced by the sound of wind in the background. for the more observant, or perhaps those with super-senses (oy), it might sound as if peter's somewhere a little higher up. ]

—is actually kind of my point.

[ a beat. ]

What I'm getting at is: this isn't the first time we've been caught on the back foot by the spirits. I don't really want to get into whether their actions were right or wrong, or whether they're operating on a morality that we can't comprehend because that doesn't really matter. The point is what we've been doing hasn't worked, so maybe we need to rethink tactics.

—But does anyone else think it kind of weird how the importance of unity has been touted since the very beginning, and then suddenly we've got two different groups vying for our attention? [ a beat and a huff of breath that's almost a laugh. ] I'd say something doesn't smell quite right, but that might be tempting fate a little.

Comments

[webshoots]

I feel like I don't say this enough, so for posterity I feel the need to point out that I really hate this place.

[pure_havoc]

[another soft and sardonic chuckle. He needed that. They all need that.]

At least it can neither be mistaken for heaven or hell. If it were hell, there should be a few gods floating around with the instruction sheet for how to pay our way out.

I am not so superstitious as to chalk up every coincidence as a deliberate distraction, but by the same token, it wouldn't be prudent to dismiss all of it. If the Wild Hunt had no hand in the spirits' action, they certainly had no problem taking advantage of it for their own gain.

[webshoots]

[ peter utters a noise of vague acknowledgement at the first remark — the one about this being neither heaven nor hell. he knows it's not, his conversation with solis had confirmed lingering thoughts and suspicious at least partially about beacon, and slightly more about them, as people.

if hell had gods or demons floating around — well, that was irrelevant, ultimately. (note to self: ask quentin beck sometime, maybe.)

wryly, then: ] Thinking everything's been orchestrated would be paranoid, even for me. But it's food for thought, you know? [ beat. ] I know, I know, conversations have been had with the spirits — conversations, quote-unquote, to a point — and the spirits don't understand death, which implies they're acting out of, uh, animal instinct, I guess. [ beat. ] Or it brings a whole new meaning to spiritism. Kardec's probably rolling in his grave.

—I'm just saying that if we've got two camps who've managed to survive multiple resets, I don't believe for a minute that we're the first people that have decided to try and talk with them. Maybe we've had the wrong end of the stick, maybe it's not previous resets that have influenced the spirits' actions towards us. [ intoned entirely with the verbal equivalent of a shrug. ] Maybe this is all the result of playing an incredibly long game. Robin did say that some of this is new to her.

[ for however much robin can be trusted, oy. ]

[pure_havoc]

Hm, yes. There was that. Without more direct answers from them, it's hard to know whether they've attempted to contact every group or just the ones who survive a certain number of months without being reset. For all we know the Keeper has never seen them for that reason.

We still need more information overall, from both camps as well as the spirits, but this development concerns me. It seems we no longer have the luxury of taking things at our own pace.