amonglions | first baptism (video+action)

Entry tags:

first baptism (video+action)

[Booker DeWitt has found the bar and he is not leaving.

Okay that's only...mostly true (20% tops) but he's seriously in awe of the sheer variety of ways to get yourself drunk here. He's used to beer and whiskey - gin maybe but that was only if he didn't have either of the first.

Right now he's familiarizing himself with beer. Also incredibly varied now. He's not complaining but he's going to try one of everything before he does anything else.

It's beer three or four that motivates him to crack open the journal and flip to a blank page to fiddle with it until he manages to get the video feed working.]

So I've heard that if folks keep an eye out, things from their world can appear in the Item's Shop. That being said I'm missing a few things but right now I wanted to ask if anyone'd spotted a Sky-hook there recently.

It's a.... [How to explain a Sky-hook beyond it's name?] It works like -- See there are these, uh, hook things that...oh fuck it

[Booker gives up on trying to describe it, and vanishes off camera for a few seconds. There's a sound like scratching in the background and when he reappears Booker turns the journal to face the bar and there's something scribbled on a cocktail napkin that looks like this:]

[He's not an artist, folks.]

That's what it looks like.

If you seen anything like that pop up in one of those shops...give me a holler.

[10% Filtered from Elizabeth: Hackable.]

Also, I've been hearing a bit of talk about these Drafts we're meant to be going on.

There something for the non-combatants to do or are they just handed a weapon and wished good luck?

[It's a bit sad that the idea is not that strange nor unlikely to him.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Here Booker have a thin, pale girl frowning at her book, her face slightly scrunched up as she tries to figure out what in the world that is.]

It looks rather like a fan? What's it for?

It's a Sky-Hook. [The name explains everything about it!]

It's supposed to be used to travel Sky-Lines...they're these...rails that go through the sky.

[He really hates explaining this. Can you tell?]

You...ride on a hook...through the sky.

[Don't mind her horrified look, Booker. She's dealing with some agoraphobia issues right now.]

[It's alright. He has a problem with water. They make a fine pair.]

Yeah, it...ain't as scary as it sounds.

[He sees that face.]

It sounds like one of the most horrifying things I've ever heard of. [She sighs.] But I have trouble walking through a clearing without feeling nervous so maybe it's not so for other people.

[Okay it was pretty scary at first.]

Maybe. It ain't exactly something everyone does.

Mm. I've never heard about them though and I've read everything I could find about the rest of the world. Where do people fly around on hooks?

Place called Columbia. Don't reckon you've ever heard of it?

Well there's a country called Columbia, but I've never heard of rails in the sky there. And I'd rather like to think that would've been worth knowing about.

[A shrug.]

So no, but I'm from a place no one should ever hear of either so we're probably even.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know the place. I've only been to Columbia once and I'd never heard about it before then.

[Granted that was because it was in an alternate universe from his but...that doesn't really matter when it comes to 'weird and strange places'

And he wants to do his best not to pry because God knows he'd hate it if someone started poking at his business.]

...Is it hidden? [Well now she's curious again, and not above prying it seems!]

It's uh...in the sky?

[Wow that sounds stupid.]

Huh. Well that sort of explains the hooks, I...[Still, a whole city in the sky...]

I'm sure it was probably lovely but I can't actually imagine going near a place like that.

Yeah, it probably was really nice.

[Booker only caught the tail end of it's golden age before he kind of...brought about the destruction of a city previously untouched by him and his ilk. Daisy Fitzroy was doing an admirable job of dismantling it before but...

Well, no one had blown up Elizabeth's tower before.]

Was? What happened?

[I happened.]

A mess. There was a rebellion brewing from the working class - they were glorified slaves, working for crap pay and living in shacks. It was due for a revolution but...well I just had bad timing.

[That is one spectacularly underrated way of saying it.]

[Eleanor is quiet for a moment.]

So a civil war. There was one of those in Rapture too, but I don't remember it.

I wonder if they happen everywhere...

At one point or another, people think they deserve better. Doesn't matter where they are.

[The sky, the sea...land. The location didn't matter - it seemed like no matter where people were, there would be unrest and war. It was just a matter of time.

Booker does his best not to think about his own experiences in the war he faced, because it wasn't so much of a war as a genocide from where he was standing.]

[Eleanor frowns.]

I suppose. The war in Rapture wasn't about that, it was two power-hungry men tearing the city down because they didn't want the other one to have it.

[He's heard about the war in Rapture from the Doctor, but only by passing mention. He's seen what it looks like after - the hollow quiet of the city beneath the waves was only made more precarious by the weight of the broken shadows in the distant halls of the rooms they discovered. Booker was glad they didn't stay any longer than they had to. Encountering stragglers from the aftermath of that kind of destruction wouldn't have boded well.

Though, at that point, he would be more afraid for the stragglers. Elizabeth would have dismantled them. But maybe the version of Rapture she'd taken him and Songbird to was purposefully crafted to be abandoned almost completely.

He remembers the shadow of a great monster in the hallway far away from where they arrived. As they watched Songbird drown, Booker saw something huge crumpled on the floor - and a little girl kneeling near it. Crying maybe? It didn't matter.]

What did they leave behind?

[Eleanor is quiet for a moment, her gaze distant as she thinks that question over.]

Initially? I don't know. I was...incapacitated for years after the war ended, it was four or five before mother was able to...well.

[She draws in a breath and frowns.]

But the city never recovered. It couldn't recover. The people that survived the war, most of them were splicers gone mad with their ADAM addiction, roving the city preying on anyone foolish enough to be caught alone. Ryan's son took the little sisters and escaped with Doctor Tenenbaum, so they couldn't make more...they began destroying each other...

Mother took advantage, took over. [Eleanor's voice is quiet, as if she hasn't ever really let herself play the events over in her head the way she was right then.]

She tried to establish an order, but...the city was still a ruin. Even using me to make more Little Sisters, to try and bring the populace back into some semblance of sanity, she couldn't save it. Whole sections had to be abandoned to the sea.

The war killed Rapture. [Finally her gaze shifted back to Booker.] It just took a long time to notice.

[Booker feels a pull of empathy for the girl because he knows that long stare. He's seen it so often in other soldiers, in the mirror. In Elizabeth. It's something that speaks of hardships.]

Sounds like a nightmare.

[A little too honest there Booker.]

[She makes a soft, bitter sound that might be a laugh and shrugs.]

If it wasn't, I can hardly imagine what would qualify as a nightmare. I certainly have nightmares about it.

I'm sorry. [And the thing is, is that he means it.]

I didn't mean to make you think back on that.

[He knows he prefers to ignore his past as much as possible.]

[The teen shrugs.]

I think about it all the time. It hardly requires prompting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

first baptism (video+action)

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video] - sorry bout the wait here!

[video] No worries!

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]