etrayalogs | MISSION 009

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MISSION 009

⏵ CAMP ETRAYA ⏴
On May 16th, Aurora and the companion bots direct those not heading off to Solmara to make their way to Camp Etraya.

Nestled away from everything else in a large clearing full of wildflowers and redwoods, Camp Etraya is a nostalgic summer camp experience put together just for it's residents! Cabins are assigned, scary stories are told around campfires, gossiping happens among friends on the trails surrounding the cabins - and don't be surprised when something goes awry. After all, this is still Etraya.

While the rest of Etraya is still accessible and will not be blocked off, characters are discouraged from venturing far from camp for too long: Aurora will specify that they are on a mission, and that missions do require participation, but she has intentionally left them the freedom to wander. Not sleeping in their assigned cabins, not participating in events, and staying away from Camp Etraya will end with her having to take more extensive security measures, so please be on your best behavior! The last thing she wants to do is start enforcing boundaries, but she will if she has to.

Camp is set up much like your generic summer camp! Each cabin is named, housing is assigned to characters as they arrive, there are camp counselors, and rotating daily tasks and chores. There are also multiple activities that characters are expected to participate in, and each activity is worth points that goes toward their camp graduation score. This score will be visible on their earpiece, and follows the A-F grading system. We are not be monitoring this, and are leaving character scores up to players. We do, however, ask that you please report your characters' camp grade HERE for rewards and demerits to be handed out after the mission itself.

Cabin assignments can be found here, which also has their roles, and chores assigned to that cabin. Those who are participating in Solmara have received an assigned cabin, too, but their absence toward the beginning will not harm the cabin's ability to compete given how spread out their assignments are.

⏵ WELCOME TO CAMP ⏴

Camp life is meant to instill a sense of belonging, connection with nature, encouragement towards the creative, all on top of a firm foundation of responsibility. Upon arriving, campers will be escorted towards a table of white t-shirts and countless buckets of dye!

Each Etrayan will be invited to make three Tie-Dyed shirts- as well as required to wear one as part of their summer uniform. Camp counselors must wear 80s basketball shorts or cut-off jeans. Campers may wear cargo shorts or a skort. For those with physical limitations to what they can wear, accommodations will be provided.

Here, bonding is the camp runners' priority. They will be pushed into various ice-breaker activities, such as trust falls, two truths and a lie, and Never have I Ever. As the sun goes down, there will be weenies roasting over the bonfire, followed by s’mores and a sing-a-long! With the stars well-visible, it’s off to bed with campers.

Each day after will start much the same: with the ringing of the bell and raising of the flag (Aurora, while unfamiliar with flag designs but an understanding of the concept, has chosen a rainbow flag for the camp. Rainbows make people happy, right?), followed by a meal at the Great Hall, morning assembly, activities with counselors, chores, free time, and then an evening winding down by the great fire. An hour after sun down, campers will be escorted back to their cabins for curfew. Camp Counselors are expected to keep track of their campers, and ensure they're all within their cabins for bedtime. This is part of their grade, too! Curfew lifts an hour before the first bell.

⏵ CAMP ACTIVITIES ⏴

As with most summer camps, Camp Etraya offers a wide variety of activities to participate in. While some of these activities may be mandatory, others are optional. We'll be leaving this up to individual player discretion: perhaps Viktor is mandated to report to arts and crafts, whilst it's optional for Silco to show. Silco, on the other hand, may be mandated to report to the archery contest. Characters are encouraged to participate in a minimum of one camp activity per day.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of camp activities.

Three-Legged Race - You and a partner are tied together at your ankles, and you must race others to the finish line. Those with abilities that would give them an advantage will find that the rope that ties them together hinders those abilities from functioning.
Archery - This can be more traditional, magical, or include moving targets! If you're particularly unlucky, your target may even shoot back.
Softball - What instills a sense of camaraderie better than a bit of team sports? Games will be held on Wednesdays, the field is otherwise available for practice.
Dodge Ball - Standing diametrically opposed to Softball is dodge ball, the bully’s sport. This is a great opportunity to claim dominance or be sent to the Nurse’s Office.
Obstacle Course - You are directed into a large maze with multiple obstacles for them to overcome, such as rock climbing walls, ramps, tires, and nets.
Capture the Flag - Small teams are put together in order to take the flag from a particular bot, whose entire goal is to avoid being caught.
Canoe Race - Canoes are placed into the rivers just off of the camp, and characters must race to the finish line.
Chocobo Riding - Learn how to care for and ride these magnificent birds! Newbies will be taken around the corral, whereas more experienced riders can take the trail around the lake.
Arts and Crafts - Make friendship bracelets, bead lizards, paint rocks, learn origami! Or perhaps you're tasked with putting together an enchanted necklace. Don't know how to do enchantments? Now is as good of a time as any to learn.
Campfire stories - Share scary stories amongst yourselves around the campfire late into the night. If you're particularly unlucky, you may just hear the thing you were just warning others about..

⏵ NIGHT TIME ⏴

Once campers have been put to bed, the counselors can still stay up. Unwind with hidden beers and the strumming of a guitar. Don’t get too comfortable, though, since without supervision, no one is keeping the campers in bed.

After dark, should campers evade their counselors, they can go exploring in the dark. Eerie lights glimmer from the lake. There’s rumors of a headless spectre walking from the archery field to the edge of the forest. Should you behave, you still might hear a scratching at your bunk house window.

And on the very last night of camp, there will be a talent show. Show off your hidden talent and bask in the excitement of wowing your fellow campers!

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome to Camp Etraya! Please enjoy the s'mores and campfire songs. :)

Camp will last approximately two weeks, going from May 16th to May 30th.

For all questions relating to this mission, please refer to the plotting post. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

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[ Harold takes the device and extracts a short cable from his pocket that he uses to hook it up to his laptop, which he reopens and goes back to typing on, this time much more quickly. He knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it. ]

I'm going to establish two different emergency protocols, both keyed to your voice with a specific code word for each. [ They can get to picking them in a second. Right now he's still programming, eyes fixed on the screen, even as he talks. ]

One of them will alert myself, Mr. Reese, and Ms. Shaw of your whereabouts and that you need immediate backup. The other will alert only me. I intend for you to use it if you feel you aren't in control of your own actions.

[ He pauses, glances up. ]

Is that suitable?

[ Protocols are good, Carver thinks. Protocols can be memorized and stress tested as needed. He watches Harold’s hands fly over the keys, certain and steady, and feels his own breathing settle. This is how things ought to go. ]

Yes, [ Carver agrees softly. ] That’s suitable. But if it only alerts you, how’re you gonna keep you safe?

[ It’s strange and more than vaguely blasphemous to realize he doesn’t want to hurt Harold. Especially not by accident. ]

I think it will be considerably less effective if I tell you, [ he answers mildly, going back to typing. ] Don't you?

[ Harold is secretive to a fault. He purposefully doesn't disclose most of his plans to most of his allies, not even John half the time. Controlling the flow of information is one of the most effective forms of power there is, and it's the one he excels at, even in the absence of physical capability.

He's also good at directing assets, as the Machine calls them -- or rather, as he'd named them in the Machine's core programming. He strives to keep a clear sense of each friend or ally's skill set, their own preferences and morals, and he's made a handful here he feels confident he could call on if necessary. In particular, he thinks Accelerator is likely to be able to deal with anything Carver's commander could try to throw at them, and he thinks it likely that if he explains the situation, he'll want to help purely out of a sense of moral outrage. There's also the sheer fact that Shaw is an extremely competent sniper who could shoot out a knee from a significant distance. To say nothing of John, who hardly needs mentioning.

It's all very calculated... but it's far from callous. He wants it to alert only him specifically so he has maximal discretion in how to respond. ]

[ It helps to know there’s a plan. That this isn’t relying on blind faith. Harold’s smart, Carver tells himself, clever the way Pope and Leah are clever. He has contingencies and protocols and maybe this doesn’t have to end badly after all. Maybe they won’t kick him out for being a liability.

Carver bows his head. He watches Harold’s hands on the keys. ]

Okay, [ he agrees quietly. ]

[ No one gets kicked out for being a liability, or Harold would have to be the first one to go, frankly. ]

If you trigger them both at the same time, I will assume you're requesting an extraction that either is or appears to be against your will.

[ Is that too far down the rabbit hole of planning to go, too remote a possibility? Harold doesn't think so in the slightest. If Carver just wants to be removed from the situation and given a chance to recover without breaking his loyalty overtly, that seems quite reasonable to Harold. ]

[ An extraction from who? Carver almost asks, but he bites it off. Even now, he can hear Bossie screaming as he burned. He can feel the smoke against his face and the heat of the flames from Leah’s test. It didn’t kill her, didn’t even give her a scratch, but it could have.

It could have.

Carver feels his fingers twitch. He looks away. He doesn’t argue. ]

What words?

That's up to you.

[ Harold abruptly shuts his laptop and unplugs the device he'd made, angling awkwardly on his rough seat on a nearby rock to show Carver the screen on the device. It's difficult with his back, but he barely notices at this point; the pain is a constant. ]

This option here, press and hold, then say the word you want. Like setting a voicemail. You'll see they're labeled 1 and 2.

[ No other indicators, just options to select with numbers alone. ]

Once you've set them, it will work immediately. And you can re-set them as you wish.

[ At this point, it’s easier to move on reflex. To follow the orders even if they weren’t spoken out loud because God, at least that’s something. At least that’s real. And so Carver shifts closer, watching the screen as Harold sits down—awkwardly, Carver notes. ]

You’re in pain, [ he observes, a little distantly. There’s probably nothing he can do about that here. ] Okay. I’ll set them.

[ Two words. And then they’ll come, Carver thinks, even if he cannot allow himself to consider a moment when he’d need that extraction—or from whom. ]

[ Or maybe he could. There's much more advanced technology here, even magic, and Harold knows several healers as well as a bog standard Earth trauma surgeon. But he's never asked. Not because he's punishing himself or something asinine like that -- he cannot make up for his mistakes with physical pain -- but because he has to think it would be more trouble than it's worth, especially when he always assumed he didn't have much longer to live anyway.

Maybe that's different now, but he's not ready to think about it.

Harold hands the device over and asks simply, ] Aren't you?

[ Emotionally, of course, and he wouldn't be surprised if he was physically in pain as well and hiding it, the kind of life he's led. ]

[ Carver takes the device, tracing his thumb along the surface. ]

Sure, [ he murmurs. He has blast injuries, too. Probably a TBI or two. Not like Harold’s, no, but enough that he feels it sometimes and knows it won’t ever feel better. It’ll only get worse. ] But that’s just how it goes.

[ For people like him, anyway. He probably deserves it.

He puffs out a breath, then clicks the button for the first word. ]

Alice.

[ Then the second. ]

Jenny.

[ And then it’s done. His grandmother’s name, and then his mother’s. Not words he’d speak casually. ]

[ Harold doesn't ask who they are, though it's possible to make some reasonable guesses. Normally he'd know already, of course, and it's strange that he has to learn personal details now the hard way, same as everyone else. But Carver of all people deserves some agency to decide what he will tell and what he won't, so Harold only nods in confirmation that it's done, confirming on his own device that it's operational. ]

Although pain is inevitable, I don't like seeing anyone hurt, [ he says instead of acknowledging it, an oblique way of continuing their other conversation. ]

Perhaps it's a personal failing, but I've never acclimated to it. And I don't think I want to.

[ It’s said simply, and with a quiet sort of sincerity. Harold so rarely raises his voice, Carver’s realized. He so rarely has to. But he chooses his words with care, commits himself to their echo through the world.

There’s something to admire in that. Something holy, maybe.

Carver scrubs a tired hand through his hair, watching Harold. Wondering what the fuck he’s supposed to do with himself now. ]

It changes something when you do, [ Carver admits softly. ] In your soul.

[ It's a terrible change, and something he'd just used as an example of a way to save someone, the idea that they'd saved Megan Tillman not from death herself but from perpetrating a deliberate harm. Harold can't forget how obviously and deeply it had affected Carver. He thinks of how earlier he'd reminded him of John and he is just as careful, just as deliberate, in how he replies, but angles down a different path. ]

It does, and it's a position I'm able to take because others have taken it on for me instead. I'm well aware of that. There's a reason I hired Mr. Reese and Ms. Shaw. Why I would hire you as well if I were able to in any meaningful way.

Having these beliefs alone does nothing. And I find I'm not satisfied with sitting back and congratulating myself for staying out of the muck.

[ Truly committing means doing something more, means being willing to get his hands dirty. He's been pushed closer and closer to that understanding, first by Nathan and then by Root's death, and now he's come to finally accept what it means. ]

Edited 2025-06-24 02:03 (UTC)

[ You believe in something, Carver thinks, watching Harold close. Not God, maybe, not the way that Carver does. And not in the perfect brutality of the killing fields. Something beyond.

Maybe in a different life, Carver could’ve found that, too. It hurts to realize he wants it. ]

I think you’re a good person. [ Carver gives Harold a crooked smile. ] Or you’re trying to be, anyway.

[ That’s further than a lot of people ever get. A holy thing. ]

[ He doesn't smile back. Harold is somber, not drawn into lightening the mood when he can so clearly read between those lines.

I think you're trying to be a good person... and I'm not. ]

Something John said to Mr. Benton before I cut the line I was listening on, [ Harold says abruptly, standing up and starting to gather his things. ] That perhaps there aren't good people, only good decisions.

I expect you to use the emergency functions if you feel they're warranted.

[ No good people. Only good decisions. Carver tilts his head back and watched as Harold gets his things together. The dog’s still in the corner, watching them in turn. Not crying, though. Just watching as the moment plays itself out, as they say these things to each other and body, again, the consequence.

Carver realizes, quietly, bleakly, that he doesn’t know what a good decision looks like. Only the necessary ones. Only Pope’s orders. And a lot of the time those hurt in that marrow deep way that meant they were important, but—

I had to, he almost says. Didn’t I?

But that’s a cop out. We own what we do, son, the commander whispers. We run into the fire. ]

Yes, sir, [ Carver agrees, very quietly. He’s never felt like more of a ghost than in this moment. ]

[ Well, he's made his point and he thinks he's done what he could, that he's truly exhausted the options available to him. Harold glances at Bear as if to reaffirm to himself that he's leaving him there with Carver, but pauses before he leaves.

He doesn't like the resignation in that yes, sir, feels like he has to say something to at least try to dispel it. I really would hire you. No, he's not sure Carver understands what he means by that, in all its fullness. I think you would be good at saving people. Too serious still, when all he's done is hit home, prodded for weak spots, it seems. Maybe he should reintroduce some trace of just a person talking to another person, friends like he'd said he wanted to be. ]

Would you tell me if you see any interesting birds while you're out here? I thought I heard a heron earlier, but I couldn't trace it.

[ There are ghosts massing in the corners. Boots and black. Carver breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and does his best not to look at them. The part of bud brain that’s still friends with logic knows they aren’t really there. The dog would react. Harold would have things to say instead of coddling a dead man.

But then, Harold had to know he was crazy. On some level, Carver thinks everyone does. There’s a wrongness in him, something that’s bled out from his soul and seeped past the marrow. A new kind of infection. Maybe his ghost was always going to walk hungry.

He twitches. Boots gather in the corners. Birds, Harold says. Would you tell me—?

Carver blinks. He remembers a different moment, following again in Harold’s wake. It’d been colder then. Frost still in the air. And Harold had shown him the birds, listed off their names like talismans. A different sort of faith. ]

Okay, [ Carver replies, quiet like before. He wonders what it would’ve been like if Harold Finch hired him before he crossed that line in his soul, the one you don’t come back from. ] I’ll look for them.

[ As far as Harold can tell, he hasn't hired anyone who hasn't crossed that line. It seems to be a prerequisite. But none of them came around quickly, none of them woke up one day and believed in their own capacity to do good -- it had to be something Harold gave them a chance to do, over and over, until eventually on their own they realized that it was now a habit.

Much like how he'd trained the Machine. ]

I'll return later with food for you and for Bear, [ he says, the only form of goodbye he thinks is warranted, and pulls the messenger bag over his shoulder to leave, limping away into the grass. ]

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MISSION 009

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