Futuristic Arcadian Dreamers (Accepting and open)

[YohhananArbuckle]

Our story begins on the ocean world of Arcadia, population six billion, ruled by the interstellar and at best unevenly benevolent Association. It was colonized thousands of years ago, and is now inhabited by a multicultural, multiracial stew of Association species. Some choose to live in floating arcologies, while others live in dome bound cities beneath the waves. Air barges and ultra fast aquatic craft ply from habitation to habitation, transporting goods and people across the open sea.

You live in, or at least you are currently visiting, an archipelago bound metropolis called Port Gladys. PG was the first settlement on Arcadia and is now the largest, housing two hundred million souls across a single enormous island chain. The warm tropical climate, killer beaches, and vibrant cultural attractions of the city bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and the safe parts of the city are delightful. You could be a desk jockey on a good island and never see a body or hear a gunshot.

Of course it being an enormous city (two hundred million people!), conditions in certain areas are much worse. Poorer islands or neighborhoods are de facto ruled by criminal outfits or questionable corporate interests. The Association, which always has bigger fish to fry elsewhere, tolerates this so long as mayhem doesn’t become the norm. When things become untenable teams of cleaners are sent in, and by hook or by crook order is restored.

Here are some other details that are not quite the point. But they do provide color. In the Association cybernetic and biological augmentations are standard fare, not exceptional. On a nice day the piers ringing Savoy Island are packed with people drinking at cheap patio tables and watching a touring vessel dock one isle away. Public transit is accomplished via a fleet of fast and generally reliable air barges. At night magnetic interference turns the sky streaky indigo and gold, and you can tell who isn’t a local because they walk around looking up with their mouth open.

Here are some details that are the point. You are anybody, but you aren’t /just/ anybody. You are a Dreamer. The phenomena you control is recent, having first been recorded a millennium ago. It is the sole paranormal phenomena that anyone has discovered and it manifests in around one in one hundred thousand people without pattern. No satisfying scientific explanation has been forwarded.

When you sleep you dream of a different world, and in the dream you are not yourself but you are always the same. You may find yourself moved forward chronologically in the dream but you always understand what you are doing and how you got where you are. It is not jarring. In the dream you wield power that commands respect or fear, if other living things are inside your dream they know you or know of you. These dream worlds vary endlessly in composition and character and defy classification. They do not correctly reference places or historical events, but are occasionally and obviously influenced by such. The temperament and character of the dreamer appears to matter. What is hard on most dreamers is that the dream and the world seem concrete and real to the same degree. Various philosophies are adopted. I don’t know what you’ve decided to do.

If you focus you can manifest your dream powers in the real world, not forever but long enough to be useful. If you choose to be a violent person you are a frightening one indeed.

If you are lucky or a hard worker your abilities will go beyond that. Some dreamers can turn a space around themselves into their dream, and be more perfectly both selves in that location. Others can pull living beings out of the dream and into the world and make use of them. Some learn to permanently and effortlessly maintain some small aspect of their dream self that is useful.

An immoral dreamer who finds others willing to believe in their dream draws strength from that belief. While they do so they drive their supplicants insane. This is in the main not a socially useful trade off and it is illegal in the Association.

Dreamers always recognize other dreamers. The best way to describe the feeling is like seeing someone you remember from university forty years later but then realizing right away that they haven’t aged a day. Every hair on your body stands on end and you get icy cold at the extremities. You don’t magically know the other guy’s name but you know what they’re about. For a very confused second you can see their dream and feel how it makes them feel. This tends to pull dreamers right together or push them right apart.

What is happening the literal moment this story starts is that a fixer is stepping off of an unmarked Association vessel with his kit bag and verbal only orders to bring to heel a dream cult that has started to take hold in a sorry, by-the-wayside section of Port Gladys. You are not necessarily involved in this, perhaps you have happier business elsewhere. If it is compelling other dreamers might be pulled into your ambit - I hope you will welcome them.

(To join, peruse this post, the lore tabs, and any character sheets that exist, and then fill out a profile and post it in OOC or message it to me!)

Motivations:

To be filled in as character profiles are completed, mine included.

 

[YohhananArbuckle]

RESERVED for Motivations (which I will post in a bit)

 

[YohhananArbuckle]

It was Olly’s mortal failing that he would, to the best of his ability, help anybody that asked.

He was seated in a suite, way up the side of an expensive tower, with a breathtaking view of the shuttles humming by and the bahama blue planetary Arcadia sea. Faintly, music with a driving bassline came from somewhere else in the building. Down below crowds of well heeled sapients navigated skywalks and vanished into shops and cafes and generally went about a sleepy, too-hot weekend. Things would liven up in the evening. Whenever Olly’s attention wandered he would put his head almost right on the glass and zoom his machine-eyes in on random people in the throng and pull them up on the Arrow OpNet. An administrator at an expensive private school. An executive at a deep sea mining outfit. Lawyers, press critters, retired brass… nice neighborhood.

The woman seated across from him watched, intently, and if he had been less artful he would not have noticed the nigh imperceptible tells that she was getting impatient with him. He made her wait, not because he wanted to be a jerk but because he was at a genuine loss for words. She had replaced one of her arms with a gold and ivory prosthetic with too many fingers and a nautilus shell fancy on the shoulder that made her profile asymmetrical. Her head was waxed, and her face was austere and very slightly inhuman in its inexpressiveness in a way that gave Olly the heebie jeebies. That was, of course, the point. She was a cosmetic and augmentative surgeon that specialized in work that set the ultra-ultra-rich and avant garde apart from the conventionally touched up masses.

She was also a major financial backer of the Arrows, who had in twenty years of contributions never asked for a thing. That favor was being called in now. Command had phoned him on a maximum security line while he was landing his gunboat, and they had in one sense made this conversation easy by just letting him know how he was going to decide. Yes to basically anything that Olly thought he could keep under wraps. It would be tricky, but…

“Doctor Van Zijl. I’m not offended, but I do wish to clarify. You are correct that I hunt dream cults. That I, uhm, ‘tear them out root and branch.’ Everybody is on board with the first half of what you are saying. Even if you had never asked, someone would have been around to deal with this Many Eyes fellow eventually. His root and branch would have been torn.”
Because the Doctor was smart, she responded with a polite nod, and made him keep talking.

“Where things become difficult for the Arrows, and, selfishly, myself, is the idea that he is a contract killer who murdered Ms. Hardinel at someone else’s behest. It is as you say - merely killing him would punish the instrument and let the player walk free. The problem is that based on what Ms. Hardinel did, and who she knew, this player is almost certainly someone, in the big ess sense of the word. We will start, start, by proving out your assertions, and by getting a name. I won’t make promises past that point.”

“To put a finer point on it, Mr. Fairbanks, you are saying that you will let someone who had a young woman disemboweled while she was taking coffee on her balcony walk free as long as they have impressive friends.”

“You are from around here, Doctor. You know how this works, and you know that I am not saying this because I am happy about it.”

“But you are saying it.”

Olly sighed. He was saying it.

“I promise that I will do right by you and by Ms. Hardinel if I am able. I am even willing to promise that I will incur significant personal and organizational risk to make it happen. But we don’t need to dwell on that unhappy eventuality with no evidence to suggest it is the case.”

It took a moment, but the Doctor nodded, and on the inside Olly heaved another thank-god sigh. The hard-nosed shtick that was necessary to navigate Association power politics did not come easy to him. When she spoke again, it was clear as day that she was angry with him, but that didn’t matter much. People being angry at him rolled off his back like water. A tactical error. It was weeping that would have gotten more concessions out of him.

“We will start by proving that this dreamer was indeed the killer, and by unmasking the people who paid for it. If you feel that you can do nothing past that point, we will discuss it then.”

-----------------------

Two hours later, and still in the sweltering midday heat, Olly was in an open air shuttle humming across the water to one of the other islands that made up Port Gladys. The rest of his conversation with the doctor had been tense, but productive. As promised her own investigators had unearthed things about this Dreamer that were useful indeed.

For example - his home neighborhood was the slum of Sand Elms, a heavily developed part of PG that had fallen on hard times some fifty years ago and never recovered. It was now the hidey hole and mini fiefdom of a criminal outfit that supplied wealthy Arcadians with illegal offworld fauna*, both as pets and as very frowned upon high dining.

Another tidbit, and the one that Olly was more specifically following up on, was that Polyocules (a pseudonym) had his own little cult, and that they were for the most part annoyingly good at covering at their tracks and not leaking info about themselves. The next step that Van Zijl’s investigators recommended was following up with an on-the-ground resource that they had identified but not contacted. A Gelaris with a humanized name - Ms. Micael, that owned a small pet store and had been doggedly investigating the cult for apparently personal reasons. The files Van Zijl had turned over noted she was not expected to be easy to work with, but didn’t provide any color past that. Olly had breezily insisted that it would be fine. People liked him, usually. Meeting two people he rubbed wrong in a day would have been a total fluke.

The shuttle came to rest at a skydock that he immediately noted was less well maintained than the one he’d left. The skyline here was louder - every square inch of vertical real estate was covered in digital billboards for every kind of crap or venue imaginable. Down on the street he could see street stands set up in front of permanent store fronts, and as he scanned the crowd his sensors, predictably, lit up. If he’d had to put a number on it, about every tenth person was carrying a weapon. This was more like a spot he would get dispatched to. He checked that his arms were where he wanted them and that his armor was on and powered up, and then he descended into the crowd. Curious Creatures - he figured the place would be hard to miss.

* They had the good sense to stay away from the really dangerous stuff, and to not hide what they were doing too hard from the Association, so they got to stay in business. Better the middlingly audacious criminals you know, Olly supposed.

 

[Blemmigan]

"What you don't understand is that this stretch of water has belonged to my family for generations, and it's well within my rights to sail there."

Vixkrik resisted the urge to just close his eyes. To most people, Druner expressions were difficult to pick up on, particularly if mostly hidden behind a translation mask, but that would be one sign of frustration that this client might notice.

He hadn't slept well, and it was still morning. On arrival his secretary Shanli had told him (somewhat nervously) that one of their pending clients had shown up early, refusing to speak to any of the junior staff about her complaints. Crimaron was nowhere to be seen, so Vixkrik had resigned himself to being a verbal punching bag in his office for a good half hour.

She didn't look like somebody whose family had held land (or water) for generations. She was a young human woman with her clothes in fashion up to the minute, the few visible augmentations she had being just as cutting-edge. Nesting in her deliberately-tousled hair was a spray of butterflies, their bright wings twitching while at rest: miniature surveillence drones. That meant that she was recording everything that happened, for her lawyers to pore over later should she take offence.

"The AAC is in no way restricting where you can sail or what you do with your yachts," Vixkrik said, patiently. "However, we are unable to insure them for damages incurred while in the D'Arcit stretch, into which your usual sailing route does go, as stated in your application. Which can be clearly seen marked on the maps we returned along with it." He transferred the image to the screen in front of her, for emphasis. "You may not be happy with my staff's assessment, but I cannot disagree with it: the shallow rocks and riptides are a valid and constant risk. Would you like to hear the statistics on irreparable watercraft damage or serious injury of persons involved?" He held up a hand, ready to flick the numbers onto the screen, but she just stared at him.

Thankfully, most clients spared him headaches like this. Most were old and wise enough to not take unnecessary risks which would be too expensive to cover, or at least make it less obvious that they were trying for payouts. Vixkrik had taken the liberty of looking up the young woman's many previous claims. Either money was more tight than her appearance made it seem, or her parents had given her a caveat for her reckless sailing. The Great Mechanism forbid that she take more care with her parents' five-million-Mark yachts, he privately added.

"I've sent you a more detailed breakdown of the assessment—" he began, but before he could finish she jumped to her feet. The soft-close door almost slammed behind her.

Crimaron should have been here to deal with this. He probably would have convinced the human to settle for a less comprehensive cover while still staying on the books... at least, he would have been able to back when they first started. More and more often now, he seemed to be avoiding his job. In terms of profit, it didn't matter: Vixkrik had enough staff running numbers and feigning politeness that the Arcadian Assurance Company was still doing well, but the absences made him suspicious. Before, even when he'd been awake for forty hours gambling and rubbing elbows with some elite circle, the Hamaedron would still show up, downing half a bottle of microsleep and being sure to keep tabs on everything that was going on. Either he had since given up on pretending to care, or he was more focused on something else.

And that something else... Vixkrik would have thought he was just being paranoid, had it not been for what he'd seen. No: he hadn't seen it. He'd dreamed it. Just glimpses, half-remembered, leaving him with a feeling of dread on awakening with no real explanation as to why. But that feeling, baseless as it might be, was slowly congealing into a suspicion. Crimaron was up to something, something that he didn't want the Druner knowing about, and his disdain for the AAC he'd once been so keen on was becoming more and more obvious. He was trying to sink it somehow, run away and leave Vixkrik with the fallout, ruin the company that was his just as much as it was the Hamaedron's.

He was too tired to think about it properly, still recoiling from that dream... that Dream. Crimaron had been in it, talking to Onta-ti about... something. There had been an argument, between the two co-owners. But he couldn't remember why, just that it had been important.

What did it matter? It was all imagined nonsense, anyway. And even if it wasn't, what was the point of these vague notions and half-memories? The whole thing was a waste of time.

Annoyed, he gestured to open up a window on one of the desk screens, closing the risk breakdown of the D'Arcit stretch and preparing to look over the news for relevant information updates. Shanli would be delivering a summary from the desk workers later today, but he liked to keep track of things himself. Incidents, new laws, major crimes, new property developments, folding companies, all of it processed and stored according to how it was calculated to affect the future. Even gossip columns had their use, something he never would have thought himself to be reading just a few years ago. Lady Tiaso had come into a sudden inheritance after the death of her third elderly spouse. A string of disused buildings alongside Red Kelp Pier had been bought by the Keit twins, probably for yet another luxury hotel. Details had been released about the murder at a home in the Golden Bay area. Former president of—

Vixkrik gestured back to the last story. He had thought that the name he skimmed had been familiar, and yes, there was a photograph of the woman to accompany it, standing beside a painting and looking into the camera with a serious expression. The young Hamaedron who would appraise art: sometimes called in by the clients to validate their claims of worth, and on a couple of memorable occasions called in by him to shatter a client's notions on how valuable a painting really was. They hadn't been friends—he had seen her perhaps twice outside of work, always at some larger gathering—but the news of her death still shocked him. The news of her murder.

The article had no details about the crime, only some statements from both people who knew her and those who hadn't, as though the author had been struggling to meet a word count. Crimaron had gone to some event to see her, Vixkrik remembered hazily. They had spoken and, from the sounds of it, arranged for him to attend. Had he already heard about her death? Did he know more?

The feeling of dread reared up again, but he refused to give into it. Shock, he thought. She had been young, the death sudden, and he was only hearing of it now: in the tabloids of all things. What he was feeling was probably shock.

 

[Ambiloquous]

Callista Micael

​

The mornings of her day always started late; there was no need and definitely no want to rise early. Her usual customers usually didn’t even bother knowing her name, much less visit her shop during opening hours, and anybody stupid enough to think that her shop was an actual pet store in an area as trashy as this could just wait outside. Nobody with a mental processor — brain or otherwise — sold them in an area where too many barely had enough to eat, nevermind the money to raise another organism for entertainment. She honestly wondered why she had to keep up the working ruse. People were dumb, yes, but a good chunk already knew Curious Creatures wasn’t as innocuous as the name.

Rolling her body and shaking out her limbs, she rose from her sedentary floating position, moving to pass out of the material her sleeping area was made of. It was experimental technology; the material kept her water tank in a vaguely circular shape and let no water out even as she exited from the tank. It was one boon from having wealthy, novelty-chasing clients, she supposed, having easier access to the conveniences they invested in. She didn’t believe it was worth it. Their fussiness and conceited attitude gave her malicious urges on a good day, and the wisps of stories she had overheard when it came time to transport only further exacerbated her desire to sting them a new one.

Drifting to her “kitchen”, she whipped up a foamy coffee with more sugar than strictly necessary for a simple wake up drink, ignoring the fact that the panel beside her had coffee as its first option, set at a short, short wait time of two seconds. Tapping a holo-screen that had appeared the moment she stepped foot in the room, she skimmed over the current news, politicians, passings of sums, real estate, and a murder. Nothing differed from the norm. That is, nothing would have differed from the norm if just a minute later her daily report on the local Dream Cult hadn’t stamped in blaring red the connections between the article on the murder and the leader of the cult himself.

Her lips turned upwards. The bastard had gotten impulsive. Okay, murder was bad, whatever. But new leads were always a nice present in her decades-long search, and she had no reason to stop her glee from manifesting simply because the death of some random rich woman happened to show her the way. What could she say? She had no pity for the prosperous. They had an easy enough time in life that it was no skin off her back if they didn’t live past forty.

Reading and rereading the coded report on the activities her contacts had caught in the past month and the overblown article on the Hamaedron’s demise, she frowned. There was still no exact coordinate for his main place of operations, which was a surprise since he himself seemed to be not as careful as he could be otherwise. The sparse bits of information that were found were only a few locations he might have been seen in, the time and place of the woman’s death — which was common knowledge anyway — and the fact that he had gained a large amount of mass-produced firearms and would likely receive more soon if the rumours of anonymous orders of vast quantities of weaponry to a certain known reception point were to be believed. She grimaced. Money and power made the world go round, and she really didn’t have enough of either to be threatening any weapons dealer that she knew of for more details. In the group, her importance wasn’t significant enough to even speak of something of that level, nevermind ask for it.

She let out a few choice curses and a frustrated sigh, tossing it all to the back of her mind to prepare for the day. Not that there was really much to prepare for, Nettle likely had already done all the work to open it to the few curious people and casual browsers that popped in once in a while before she even reached the store itself, unless it had broken down again. A few minutes and a shuttle later, she found Curious Creatures was indeed set up as usual. The back was orderly and no critters had broken out of their enclosed areas. The shelves in the front were stocked, the display tanks, cages and other sections clean and animals mellow. Checking it over for the last time, she flipped the old-fashioned “Open” sign made with neon gas-filled tubes and settled down for a long wait for her working hours to end.