2019-11-13: Maybe It's Just Creepy

• Log: Maybe It's Just Creepy
• Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
• Where: Assyria Base
• Date: November 13, 2019
• Summary: Loren requests a meeting with Leah to discuss the object he found in Linaweyul... and his concerns about it.

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<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Isn't this the commander's office?"

    Leah had received a perhaps unusual request from her brother-in-law. Which is to say, he requested to speak to her directly at all. Usually, the pattern is that she drops in on whatever he's doing rather than him requesting to speak to her -- or catching her off-guard in the first place (this never happens).

    She'd granted it, and he not only has that double-take once he steps in but then in the next instance--

    Realizes that of course she wouldn't have an actual office on this base. And her authority would outstrip the local base commander -- not 'the Commander' as Loren tends to think of one Kahran Ramses -- particularly since they're not at all in and are in fact currently up in Solaris.

    He pauses a long moment, here.

    "...There was something I wanted to talk to you about," he says, readjusting his glasses.

    Something that had gotten lost between recovery and debriefing and handing over his reports and all the rest.

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Under normal circumstances, Leah would be proud of Loren for actually taking the initiative of seeking her out. On one level, she is. However... she wonders what it might be. She has to withhold judgement, until she sees more.

But she did grant it--and his question...

"It is," Leah answers, unnecessarily. She smiles briefly. It is quite brief, because this is a little more business than that. She, in the seat behind the desk, inclines her head, shows a hand to a chair in front of it.

"Then by all means," she says. "We can talk."

"Something important enough to seek me out... I'm glad you took the initiative. It's a good sign."

She leans back, places her hands together, looks at him over them. "So tell me what's on your mind."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He's not the best at hiding his thoughts: at 'it's a good sign', Loren visibly pulls a face that just about asks aloud 'what do you mean 'it's a good sign''. But instead of saying anything, he regains at least partial control of something approaching poker face and simply nods.

    "It was in one of the reports," he says, and considers privately that it was likely considered 'less important' than the other things he'd turned in.

    It had been Leah, hadn't it? Something about the desires of command... something about what they would and wouldn't see as a threat.

    "I came across a strange place that shouldn't have existed. I think," he says, furrowing his brow, "it's related to that Uzda il-Jam place I mentioned once."

    He hands it over. It had gotten mixed up with Lan's things -- along with a few other items he'd had to go to the extra mile to collect -- and so he's only able to present it now.

    At a glance it's a simple black bracer, with an eyeball-sized purple stone on one end, surrounded by a near ring of protrusions. There's an odd light, almost veiny pattern running across the surface of the bracer, starting from under the stone and ring and tapering out the further it gets from the stone.

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"It means you're showing leadership potential," Leah explains gently on the matter of signs. "That you're seeing that you can step out from the pack, as needed, and take initiative."

Also he's willing to talk about his problems, but, the big thing was that. Leah briefly notes that she must be speaking too freely--

She closes the drawer for now in which she'd rested that particular bottle of medication.

"...Interesting," Leah says about the strange place--and then--ah...

"....This is very interesting," Leah indicates. "I can feel... something from it."

She looks up at him. "...So what is it that makes you want to talk about it with me? I assume it's not because of my expertise in archaeology."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Leadership potential... huh.

    He gazes at her for a long moment, as if he were turning it over in his mind. There was a time, for sure, when that was all he would have wanted -- to be as good as his... brother?
    His train of thought slows to a crawl for a moment, like it was sliding slowly past a station despite an attempt to stop.

    The visible hesitation on his part endures but a moment more.

    Technically... he's in charge of people now, as weird as it is to think about, sometimes. But to think of himself as a leader, in a position like the Major, or, and he barely only dares to imagine it, like the Commander...

    He wants to shake his head.
    But even he has to have some pride. And so in response to her remark he just nods.

    "...Because it's weird. The other weapons we found in there were strange, too. Here."

    He reaches out to take it back from her, and if permitted, slips it on.

    He takes a breath and mentally asks it to move.

    The protrusions about the gemstone unfurl, into a batwing-like array. He holds it out to her as if it indicate she should investigate it.

    It's thin but rigid to the touch, however leathery the surface might look.

    "It's a shield. But... it's like it's alive. A little bit."

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Even the fact that Loren has too much pride to deny it--that, too, is necessary, for the role he must play in things to come. But Leah does not explain all of that. She simply notices the hesitation... And she can imagine what it could be, now. Not merely self-consciousness, not merely self-esteem problems. No...

If he has such an issue... How different could his mental state be?

But he said it's weird. Weird, a technical term--but he demonstrates it. A strange weapon, from a place that shouldn't exist, a place of fear...

Leah leans forward visibly to look more closely when she sees the gauntlet become a strange shield indeed, almost looking... organic. Leah reaches, and feels it; she obviously can't feel all the details, but it's not necessary, because she scans it with her hidden eye, considering what she finds. It isn't enough from here... And she can feel it's rigid.

"Yes," Leah says, quite gravely and seriously both. "I see that. ...Very, very unusual."

She looks up, removes her hand from it. "Leave it with me; I will return it to you in a couple of days, after I've had the chance to examine it properly. I may be able to learn something of that place from it--don't worry. I won't disassemble it. ...Or 'kill' it otherwise, I think..."

She then looks with her blue eye at Loren, and there is something that can catch someone, in that gaze--this is not Leah.

This is the Watcher, asking: "Does it speak to you? Do you hear anything from it, feel any communication?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Linaweyul. Like I said, it's connected to that island we found on Lunar last year. It was as if the entire place was trying to play on our fears. Or run us through some kind of gauntlet, I guess." He shakes his head.

    Leave it with her, she says. He pauses, just a moment, only to nod.

    "Sure. I haven't had anyone else take a look at it. I thought about handing it over, but..."

    But that would mean losing it for good, along with the answers to a half-dozen questions he has about it.
    And that place.

    "...Kill it? Do you think it's alive?"
    He makes quite the face, at that.

    Loren has to stop and consider her question, on whether it's said anything to him.

    "Not really. Not technically," he amends, before frowning. "But I know what its name is, and that's..."

    He trails out for a long, long moment.

    "That bothers me."

    As if the rest of it didn't bother him, already.

    "'Orias the Unyielding'. I don't know how I know that. I just do," he says, before willing it to close up again... which it does, with a distressingly organic slide of that nearly circular 'wing' back towards the gemstone.

    "..."

    "...It's creepy," he admits, before sliding it off and handing it over.

    "But it does work well as a shield. It... helped, once."

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"Yes. I see." Fear... a gauntlet. For what purpose...? Perhaps, "I may return with you, sometime, to investigate it for myself. It seems... not a coincidence, that such a thing would exist."

Then she nods. "You did the right thing by holding it back. This sort of thing you should show to me." ...Maybe she killed the cameras like usual before he came in. Maybe she didn't. But then, she is with the Interior Ministry...

She adopts a wry expression on the matter of its life. "I don't know, but you said you suspected. We should treat it as a possibility until we confirm that it is not the case."

But his answer. He knows...

Yes. It bothers him. It hasn't spoken, but it has imparted knowledge.

"If that didn't bother you," Leah says, "I would have to have you checked out by medical," she points out. "Orias the Unyielding... an interesting name, particularly for a shield."

"Many of the most effective methods we hold are unpleasant to use, creepy, off-putting--or cruel. We employ them nevertheless, because we must not--cannot--fail in our mission."

She nods, then, and takes it, examining it thoughtfully. She looks up at Loren. "...I am provisionally extending you authorization to use this item. In point of fact, I did so long ago. I'm certain that your reports, as necessary, will reflect this fact."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "...Go back there, huh." He glances away, towards a wall. "I wonder if that's even possible." He shakes his head, slowly. "...But it sounded like that Linaweyul place is," and he hesitates again, grimacing because the only word he can really bring to describe it all is:

    "Weird."

    She'd said before to come directly to her if anything strange happened -- or if there were anything he had questions about. Maybe it's because he's innately a bit dutiful in that sense. Maybe it's because he's well aware of the way that Solarian society trends.

    Because of the accident, anything they can use against me--

    He walks a perilous path, and he knows it. But better to seek redemption than to disappear in shame.

    He... still doesn't know what he would do with himself, otherwise.

    "I wasn't being serious," he remarks, on the subject of the bracer, though a part of him had strongly wondered. It'd be one thing if it were a barrier of light. It'd be fine if it were purely mechanical. But he looks at it and almost could swear that the thing has a pulse, that something flows in those 'veins'.

    "Checked out by..." He averts his eyes again, as if the thought of getting that sort of review -- psychological, he's sure -- was the last thing in the world he wanted.

    "Probably, because it's a shield... though you'd think one of those, um, tower shields," he has to pause a moment to recall the name, "would be better."
    This is effectively a targe, with a slice missing near the hand. It makes it a bit questionable in defense, but it had still deflected that assassin's attack well enough.

    She then takes the moment to remind him of something important.
    His gaze doesn't return but he seems almost... chastened. It's a step up from sullen, at least.

    "Understood, Major," he replies, just a moment later.

    That's right. They can't fail. He can't fail. ...Whatever the cost, he'd vowed.
    Right?

    Even if it means his own...

    His gaze finally rejoins hers. "Major? ...I understand." He slips easily into a more formal means of address than before, perhaps reminded of their respective roles and ranks by her comment on their mission. That's right. She's...

    And he's just...

    But is there anything else?

    "That's everything I wanted to talk to you about. ...There isn't anything else."

    A pause.

    "It looks like I'm to return to intelligence collection soon." Because of past 'achievements', apparently, in that line of work. "On Odessa, like you said. Damzen City is close and as good a place as any to start. It'll be..."

    He pauses, then shakes his head. "No, never mind. Thank you for meeting with me, Major. That's all I wanted to speak to you about."

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"We'll find out," Leah answers. "But for us, little is impossible in the end. I think I need to see this gauntlet for myself."

...Does Leah fear anything, anymore? It can be hard to say; she certainly doesn't show it. And yet, could a person live that way?

"...But its weirdness is noted. We will have to be careful."

She has said it, in the past. But his perilous path, as he thinks it, is not over yet. And the bracer...

"And yet you may well be correct. Stranger things have found a place in the Interior Ministry's vaults." And, she doesn't say, it may be bound to him in some way, whether 'living' or not. There is much she doesn't know. Maybe she can learn more... Maybe not.

Maybe it's just creepy.

Loren averts his eyes, and Leah nods. "If you hadn't found it bothersome, of course. The line between madness and sanity is often simple awareness that something is wrong at all."

It seems she's confident in his stability, at least. But the shield...

"If it is strong enough, Leah suggests, "Then perhaps it only needs to be the size to deflect a single blow at a time. This is lighter, easier to use, and easier to conceal. ...Overt protection can often be an invitation to attack."

But she does remind him. And he uses her rank. Well, her former rank; it is good enough, for now. She retains it, after all, even retired.

"Good," she says of his understanding, and then watches him impassively, without betraying anything, as he mentions there is nothing else. Intelligence collection...

"I'm sure you will serve with distinction, Captain. In that case, you are dismissed."

She goes with the formality, for once. Perhaps that, itself, is unusual. Perhaps not.

"...And you're welcome. Feel free to contact me again if needed."