MISSION 009

[etrayamods]

⏵ 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⏴

Comments

[cantilevers]

[Vander was well aware that Silco was out here for opportunity, not because it was a planned out scenario. Perhaps there had been the makings of a plan, but this was a random attack, the actions of a man who wanted an opportunity and had taken it. There were always certain scenarios that required immediate action with no plan, and it either worked out or it didn't. Normally that was a Vander special, but he knew Silco had it in him too. They'd always had it in them.

And for his part? He knew that other man was hard pressed to not be unreasonable with him, so there were plenty of times that he left openings to lure Silco in. Etraya had nothing better than to provide them opportunity to crash together, standing on opposite sides of whatever argument they could find. It was stupid honestly; they should simply avoid each other.

That's the problem with emotion. It wouldn't quit. They were like an immoveable object meeting an unstoppable force.]

Why did I send it? [He repeated the question, letting it hang there between them like he was judging Silco, like the man in all his brilliance had simply missed the actual answer along the way. Lost in details. Lost in emotion, he thought.] I didn't want things left unsaid between us. If I was gone, you'd be just as mad if I didn't write you anything. I was covering my basis.

[He spoke calmly despite the tension in his frame. His side ached and blood was still marking up his shirt, but he knew it would stop. Silco technically had the advantage of a knife, but that was little concern for him honestly. He mostly didn't care if the other man came at him again.

To show that, he was putting the cigarette he had recently dotted out on the tree and lit it with his lighter. See, he had one. There was no point pretending this wasn't a confrontation like many before it, like a routine they had taken up and took comfort in the volatility of it.]

Oh, it's your due, is it? [He sounded amused.] You technically already had me killed before I arrived, so I would say our score is settled. You managed two bonus kills of my kids too. If anything, I would say I owe you on the score card.

[Vander laughed though because it was so childish. Silco was leveling the same 'do this or else' that his kids did when they wanted a particular outcome and thought brute forcing it in negotiations was going to do the trick. He would usually give Silco credit for points as the older man was eloquent and methodical, covering all basis in negotiation. Right now? He sounded like a spurned child.

That's how Vander knew his words had effect. He knew he had unsettled Silco and yeah yeah the man would prattle about due and hate and what was owed, but in the end, it was the same argument.

So he laughed. Confident, easy, welcoming as if Silco had managed to tell a good joke for once. He didn't bother to stifle it.]

Janna, Silco, you sound like you're ten again. So you did read my words, and they bother you and now you're out here pretending to be the big man because there was a chance I'd be dead and you've have nothing to throw your shit at. I knew you still liked me somewhere deep, deep, deep, deep - and I mean deep - in that narrow little chest of yours.

[That wasn't it, but the whole scene here? Vander had control now. He knew it.]

[zauneyete]

[ That's the problem with emotion. Deep, deep down it still controls Silco. Oh, normally? When there's no emotion, even when the hate isn't personal, he's at his most effective. A little spider at the center of the web, plucking each one over and over again, watching it all go down. Even here. He's careful, he's quiet. He hasn't made waves. He's kept his head down since the explosive start. All the signs that he'd (mostly) gone to grown, planning and plotting.

That's where Silco is at his best.

Unfortunately, Silco has blindspots. Angry spaces. The places where he loses his head. He'd spent so long planning Vander's downfall, and even then, it had already been well on its way, before his emotions had gotten in the way (and very nearly ruined everything. Again.) That was Silco's fatal flaw. It was always his fatal flaw, and normally it was kept carefully under control, and yet. Vander, in everything that he was, he represented, everything that made him so, so blindingly angry, he could set it off like a match to tinder. ]

You continue to blame me for them, I notice. [ Like he cared about the children. Collateral, yes, but not actually a factor he wondered about. Bothered to draw in. Something to deal with, yes, but they were Zaunite children. They were simply doing what Zaunites did best. Vander simply refused to understand that.

Or perhaps it's a wound he can't heal. How funny. How ironic. ]

I'm here because I was coming back from a smoke, Vander. You just happened to be in the way, and I thought to pay you bac for that drivel. [ A scoff, sharp, and biting. ] You didn't want to leave things unsaid, did you? Yet you could hardly say them.

[ He has control. Silco can feel the anger rising. He aims to cut it. Make it snap. ]

Seems to be your little calling card, doesn't it? Leaving letters and hoping I see them? At least I read this one, I suppose, though it hardly made a difference.

Congratulations, Vander. You made me angry.

Does that feel good, old friend?

[ As if he isn't always angry. At Vander. At the state of things. At Etraya, at Sevika, at all of it. At being impotent and left behind, with no way back, no future, no cause, no nothing. ]

[cantilevers]

[Sometimes, Vander was certain that Silco saw through him and the pain that he carried and probably reveled in it as a insignificant but still present mirror of Silco's own pain. And he was reminded how so many people looked at a single snap-shot in time and considered that all that was and all that would be, neither considering or caring about their own involvement.

He actually stared at Silco in the dark, picking out the man with the angry glowing iris so similar to the cherry of the cigarette hanging from between his lips. He wondered for a brief moment if Silco was daft or purposefully trying to incite him. It would not surprise him if it was either or both.]

Your lack of self-knowledge is honestly breathtaking sometimes. [The problem was: he felt it. The stir that stemmed from a deep hurt, a yawning grief so large it threatened to swallow him, an insurmountable wave of emotion that crawled its way up his chest to close out his throat. Not here, not now.] You've surrounded yourself with your pain for so long you've lost the ability to see anything beyond it.

[He sucked on the filter of his cigarette aggressively, shaking his head as he considered marking this standoff as over and walking away. He didn't have his punching bag in camp, so he's have to find an alternative if he should have any hope of finding sleep tonight after this little conversation.]

Well, considering you're always in hiding, it's hard to come knocking on your door to have an actual conversation with you. A note seemed the best alternative. Besides, we used to leave notes for each other all the time a long, long time ago. [When they were boys with separate occupations, always having little spots to leave notes to communicate and organize them meeting after their tasks were done.

He huffed, blowing smoke from his nostrils.]

How is that congratulations? You're in a constant state of anger with me. This is no different, so I would actually require congratulations if you experienced any other emotion around me.

It feels the same, brother.

[He shook his head, turning aside.] I'll let you have that smoke in peace then, shall I?

sorry for the wait on this one... gotta be on my a game

[zauneyete]

[ Angry with him?

Silco knew he was. That he blamed him for his kids. Of course he did. He wondered, if maybe he left it, if he'd let the enforcers take him away, and let those foolish children follow him to take him, would they be in the same boat? A pack of dirty Zaunites trying to break into Stillwater, only to end up right next to him? Oh, but they would still be alive, right?

Hardly living.

He inhales the smoke. He wants to tell him that he's surrounded by pain, as if that was their choice. As if he couldn't look at everything they had, and not be angry? That was the problem. Silco wreathed himself in anger. He felt it. He thrived in it, and it motivated him. He was alive out of spite. Because he wouldn't allow anyone else to have domination over him. He wouldn't let them. Not Topside, and certainly not Vander. ]

Look at you, talking about it all like you're above it all.

[ He doesn't stop him. He doesn't intend to. ]

Like that anger and pain doesn't exist, hm? Or is it that you're taking it out elsewhere? After all, you can't take it out on me, now can you? Not really.

After all, you don't want to isolate yourself from the last of what you have left, isn't that right?

[ Idly, he taps the cigar, ashing into the detritus. ] You have to play nice instead. Is that why you're sending little letters? I can't imagine you would want to communicate with me otherwise, hm?

[ Or... ]

Or is it that you want to make sure I don't forget that you're still haunting me? [ A cloud of smoke escapes with his words, inhaling before he speaks: ] You had the indignity to plan for death, and then not even die.

[ Had the indignity to leave that letter. And for a half-second he'd read some of that and hadn't been angry. That's what makes him so mad. ]

[cantilevers]

[Sometimes, like in this very moment, Vander wanted to let himself be angry. He had developed such a strangle-hold on it since the Pilt that he had almost forgotten what it was to experience the full breadth of his rage, the frightening exhilaration of it rampaging through his veins. He felt unstoppable, and often time he was.

Yet, that strangle-hold remained even as his emotions twisted like cutting knives into himself. He could see it though, how Silco's anger was like armour, a repellant for any other hurt that might come his way. Cool and calm once, now a trembling mess of fury while Vander had swung in the opposite direction, practically neutering his rage as little more than a flicker in his chest.]

I'm not above it. I just hide it and control it better than you do. [Perhaps it was his first and only acknowledgement of a suffering he preferred not to give voice to. Vander the coward. Vander the protector. Vander the Hound of the Underground. He had no room for public meltdowns, even out here. Especially out here.]

Do you want me to take it out on you? We both know how that would end. Or are you prickling at me to see if that man on the gangplank is still there?

[This was the game, the maneuvering around each other. All because of a letter that annoyed Silco, no doubt. It scraped at their long and twistedly bitter history with each other, where normal conversation had no room to exist between them. It was better to rail and fight each other, and yet how does one fight against a letter? Smoke and be snotty apparently.

It wasn't like Silco could hand the words back to him. They were written and read, and there was no easy take-back to that.]

Jinx doesn't care what I do with you as long as I don't cut you. That's the rule, but otherwise, I think she's seen the writing on the wall and knows there's not getting together as she had thought. So I expect she prefers us apart than squabbling like a couple of sumprats.

[He rolled his eyes, stamping out his nub of a cigarette on his boot heel.]

Janna above, I knew you'd harp on the letter, so yeah, maybe next time I'll make the extra effort to die so I don't have to put up with your hissing whinging. And for the last time, I sent it because, at some point a long time ago, you once mattered to me. And I figured you deserved closure. I should have known that was too much for you to manage.

[He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and took his first limping step to leave the area. Slow, steady, painfully, he tried to put distance between them.]

[zauneyete]

[ He tries to put distance between them. Silco feels it, like the tide, all of that anger. It bubbles over like a kettle left on the heat for too long. He's so angry. He feels it festering like static in his head.

Silco had never had to deal with Vander back in his space, alive and real. When they had co-existed before, they were aware of one another's presence, but they had been apart. Silco like a spider deep in the depths, in the fissures and abandoned spaces of Zaun, where the smog clung the most, like thick smoke lurking against his skin and in his lungs. Where people didn't go, unless they were discarded, and that's what he was too. Discarded.

That's what it had always been since that moment in the Pilt. Oh, he'd said that there was no choice, but there had always been a choice. He had been the payment. His death, paid in full — one more trencher, one more death, and then that would be it. Quiet complacency. "Peace", paid for with continued poverty, starvation, poor water and air. So little changed.

Silco had never been able to simply accept it. No price too high.

Or so he'd thought.

He'd learned otherwise, of course. It was the same price Vander wouldn't have paid too.

Here, with him alive, it feels like nauseating acid, bubbling in his stomach.

In the end, they were no different from one another. ]

I had that!

[ He snapped. Uncontrolled.

He ran his hand through his hair, putting it all back into place (it was not out of place) while a burning pit of an eye burned through the dark like a laser, focused on his back. ]

No, this was not for my closure. There's no such thing.

[ Not anymore. It itches under his skin, like a tremble that threatens to lead his fingers to a knife that he's promised to withhold. Like he can excise it from himself, if he just excises Vander as well. Oh, but he cannot, can he?

The stain is there. He can't excise it from his face, his eye, anything. He has to live with it, this anger. Simmering under the surface, leaving him spiraling constantly.

Before, he'd had his plans of revenge. Before, he'd been able to fight him. Now, his weakness — Jinx — demands otherwise. She holds him back, redirects. She was a child, she wanted what she saw as home. He'd given her what he could.

It could never be good enough. What was? When was he ever? ]

There can never be closure, after all. Can there?

[ What's closure for broken men who only knew how to hurt? ]

Don't bother trying to delude yourself. Whatever I "mattered", we both know that it was never enough.

I know what the purpose was. To use it as motivation to do what you really wanted to do: remind me of that.

[cantilevers]

[That was the right of it. When they had existed in one another spaces, they had been entirely different men. Yes, they had begun to grow apart as he slid into complacency and Silco seemed driven to carry on well passed the Lanes and beyond like a madness still. They had orbited each other for so many years, knowing in intrinsic value of looks and body language and how they played into situations they found themselves in. Even growing apart, they still knew how to operate together, effectively as one, keeping the arguments behind closed doors.

And after the Pilt, Vander was keenly aware that Silco had survived. It was on the stagnant wind sometimes, and he had seen the signs but been unwilling to follow that thread. He'd had opportunity, but shame and resignation had kept him in the relatively safe confines of the Lanes where he still had a base of power. Their orbits were wider, but a part of him knew that Silco was only laying in wait back then. He had thought the other man was waiting for him to die and then would sweep in, but he had underestimated Silco back then.

Now here they were squabbling like children with adult grievances against each other. They pounded verbally rather than physically. It was more back to the old times after all, arguing, bickering, lashing out at each other in their own respective festering wounds that wouldn't heal. One would think that either one of them would realize that there was only madness on that path repeating the same scenarios expecting a different result.

He paused halfway stepping over a low-lying log and glanced back at Silco's display of old grief and pain. He shook his head then scrubbed his fingers through his hair smoothed back against his scalp.] Right because you can't let anything go. There will never be punishment enough to satisfy you for your grievances and the slights made against you.

[And for a long time, he felt awful about it. Even now, he did had moments when he knew there was nothing he could do to make up for the scar that marred Silco's features. No, an identity had been built around that grievance, so his empathy had waned as Silco railed and yelled and festered.

That offer on the gangplank had probably been nothing but a ploy to lower his guard.

He took another hobbled step away.]

Do you actually want closure? Do you think I do after what you did as your comeuppance against me?

[He actually winced at the accusation, his shoulders twitching in the dark of the forest. He wanted to argue that point so badly. He wanted to openly speak of how much Silco had once meant to him, but those days were gone and only ash remained. Why incite them both? Silco would never believe him and he didn't have it in him to feel that way again.]

You were always enough; the world was never enough for you.

[He hobbled further away, using a tree as support to make his way over roots and rocks lining the path.]