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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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(Part 1, apparently, since writing a six-person game generates a fair bit of dialogue)

“Tonight is game night!” Kjiersten shouted, walking into the common room with a box under their arm.

“It’s what now?” Crowe asked from where he sat, typing something out on his tablet. “Game night? No,” he said, shaking his head, “I am not doing a game night. It’s stupid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” They put down the box and opened it up, putting the instructions carefully off to the side and removing the board. “You should join us, though. It would be fun, and it’d be nice to play with six people instead of five.”

He hesitated. “But it’s Monopoly,” he said at last. “Nobody likes Monopoly. Even the designer of Monopoly didn’t like Monopoly.”

Silicon stuck her - the blue badge on her collar was lit up, so it was her right now - head out from the door. “I like Monopoly. Are we playing Monopoly right now? Come on Crowe, you should play with us. Unless you’re scared that you’re going to lose, that is. Are you - is that it? Is that why you don’t want to play?” She vanished back into the room for a second, muffled shout coming through the door. “Hey! Emil! We’re playing Monopoly! Come on!”

“Fine. I’ll play,” he said. “But I want the battleship.”

“The battleship is mine!” Emil shouted, bursting through the door. Silicon followed, rolling her eyes. She sat down next to the board and picked up the dog token, turning it over in her hands before placing it on the starting position.

“What’s all this shouting?” Anise asked as she walked in. “Why’re you guys fighting? Can I join, or is it like something that’s personal between you two?” She picked up a token from the board and dropped it onto the starting position. “Deal me in.”

“If you’d just let me have the damn ship-“ Emil started.

“Like hell I’m giving you the ship!” Crowe shouted. “I got here first!”

Silicon sighed heavily, giving Anise a Look(tm). “Emil, give him the stupid ship and come sit with me. I got you the top hat, look.” She picked the token up and put it on top of her head, where it very slowly began to slide off. “Top hat.”

“How will I ever survive without the ship, though?” he asked cheerfully, tossing the ship over his shoulder (Crowe had to lunge to catch it), and grabbing the top hat just as it slid off of her head. “Don’t you know that if you have the ship, you’re guaranteed to win?”

“Unless you’re named after a bird, of course,” she added, swiping the token and throwing it onto the board. “Then you automatically lose.”

Kjiersten cleared their throat. They had managed to set up the rest of the board, doling out the money into six piles and setting out the cards. “If you’re quite finished. Before we start, do any of you know where I could find Sadie? I’d like to invite her to play as well, but-“

“She’s, um, sitting right behind you,” Emil said, pointing. They turned and saw that Sadie had managed to slip into the common room without them noticing, and was now sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was staring intently at the instructions, and a small silver token rested next to her.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” they said, turning to her. “Do you want to play Monopoly with us?” She nodded, not looking up from the paper. “Do you…know how to play Monopoly?”

She nodded again. “Now.”

“Alright then. Everybody else knows how to play, I think-?” They left the question hanging and were met with four nods from the rest of the group, who were organizing their initial stuff and seemed to busy to talk. “Good. I guess we can get started.”

——————————————————————————————————

-Turn 1-

“Roll,” Sadie said, addressing the computer, and holographic dice tumbled in midair.

While she moved, Anise leaned back against the wall. She looked bored. “This’s taking too long. Can we play the VFM version?”

“What’s that?” asked Kjiersten. “It sounds interesting.”

“It makes the game a lot quicker,” she said. “Because you can only use money for everything - if you can’t pay with what you have right now, then you go bankrupt. Basically, you can’t sell anything you’ve bought, although the name No Sell for this version didn’t sit too well with marketers.”

Sadie handed Kjiersten a bill, who took it without comment and passed her back the title deed. She placed it carefully next to the board, aligning it with her small stack of money, then passed the dice controller to Emil. “So are we playing that way?” he asked, making the gesture to roll the dice. “Not that I have anything to sell on the first turn, of course, but are we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Silicon added from where she was very slowly beginning to fall into Emil’s lap. He was pretending not to notice and failing miserably.

“I don’t mind,” said Crowe.

“I suggested it. Yeah, course I think we should do it.”

Kjiersten nodded. “Alright, Sadie, do you care?” She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Not that that was unusual. “It looks like we’re playing that way, then. You bought it…you bought it, I suppose.”

“Was that really Oriental Avenue you wanted, huh?” Silicon asked, sitting up and leaning forwards to peer intently at Sadie. “Because…now…you can’t sell it back…” She hesitated, then shrugged, settling back onto Emil. “That was not a well-thought-out sentence, ignore me and get on with your lives.”

“It’s your turn, Syl,” he said, passing her the controller. “And I could never ignore you.”

“Oh, right, it is my turn,” she said, tossing the dice and waiting as the small simulation ran the numbers. “Did you buy anything? Are you the proud baron of whatever avenue was unfortunate enough to have you land on it?”

“Ha ha. Like you’re any more qualified to run, uh, Reading Railroad. Do you even know how a railroad works?”

“Of course I do. It’s like a subway, except it’s on top of the ground.” She passed the dice to Crowe. “Plus my railroad is going to be the best there is. It’s going to be one of those old velvet ones, with all the brass fixtures and purple and where there’s a special dining car - you know the ones.”

As Crowe traded them a bill for the last of the sky blue cards, Kjiersten raised a finger. “That’s actually an interesting point. Even here on the Foundation, there was still trains, because people still needed to get places over the ground. But now that instantaneous transportation between any two points exists, will there still be trains? Ships? Anything besides wormholes?”

“Well, the wormholes right now are ‘bout six feet in diameter - so they’re still not good for anything besides people, and not tall ones. And nothin’ on you, Sadie, but there’s a lot more being transported than just people. And…twelve. That puts me right on the electric company. I’ll buy it.”

“That’ll be a…hundred and fifty,” they said. “And I see what you’re saying, but now the technology’s here. And so it’s only going to get bigger, and more improved until all that cargo can be fit through a wormhole. So ships and trains might stick around for a while longer for transportation, eventually they’re going to be replaced.”

“People will still use them, though. Hell, people still use their old cars that they’ve had for a hundred years or whatever.”

They shrugged. “True. But they’re only keeping the luxury cars, not the mass-produced ones. So there still might be ships, but they’re only going to be AES-type ones, mostly. All the big IS ships will probably be scrapped, plus most of the STS. No one will need them.”

“I’m glad we’re having this discussion,” Crowe said, “but can we please get on with the game? I’d like to be able to”

——————————————————————————————————

-Turn 4-

“Roll.”

“You really going to burn through all your money like that, Sadie?” Crowe asked. She had bought a property on each square she’d landed on so far. “Or is it all part of the ‘plan’? Bankrupting us all in twenty turns?”

She ignored him, shuffling the title card and setting it out with the others. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“And yet you’re ignoring the true threat on this board,” Silicon responded, watching as Emil rolled. “You think you’re going to be the railroad baron, or whatever with your two railroads, but I am catching up. Silicon…Vanderbilt, that’s going to be me. Or Stanford, I suppose. I like Stanford better, because alliteration. Silicon Stanford, that’s me.”

“I assume you’re going to treat your workers a little better than the actual Stanford did?” Emil asked. “And yes, I’d like to buy Marvin Gardens. I don’t know why they named gardens after the most depressive robot in history.”

“I won’t have workers,” Silicon said. “I’ll run everything myself, plus an AI to get the trains running. I’ll call it…um…give me a second while I think of a pun.” Accepting the dice from Emil, she let it roll and pushed the small silver dog token forwards. “I get to pick a card…um…I advance to St. Charles, and take my 200 for passing Go. Hold on, you own St. Charles, don’t you?” she asked, pointing at Kjiersten. “How much is rent?”

They smiled. “You’re just passing through. I won’t make you pay rent.”

“That’s not how you win in Monopoly,” Crowe said. “You gotta…build your empire, like I’m doing here with…Pacific? This is Pacific?.”

“And how’s that working out? I can’t see that you have any two properties of the same color, let alone three,” they said, handing over the title card.

“No one does. It’s early days yet.”

“If you say so.”

“Ah, damn.” Anise was rolling now. “Guess who’s going to jail, bitches? Me. Evidently this square is a speed trap or whatever, and I was runnin’ this wheelbarrow too fast. See ya there.”

“The perils of a lawless economy,” Kjiersten said, rolling their own dice. “Oh. It appears I have landed on your ‘empire’, Crowe. Take my twenty-six dollars as tribute to Baron Leonid.”

“Very funny.”

Silicon sat bolt upright. “Scanford! That’s what the AI will be called! Leslie Scanford!”

Part 2 will come out on Friday, probably!

If you want to see the numbers for the whole game played out, there’s a spreadsheet here.

Since I don’t know much about who wants to be tagged (i only got one response on my ask post :/), I’ll just use my other tag list and then if you want to be added or removed, just let me know!

@lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @micastarsandmirrors, @thebloodstainedquill, @anip-ocs, @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten, @thewitchthetimeladythehuntress

#game night #empty space #turns out a six-person game ends up being long #because everybody (except sadie) is TALKING #anyways #have at it

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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hola, my dude! so, uh, I know next to nothing about any of your characters other than Sadie, which is obviously a tragedy. Open invitation rn to ramble and/or link me to stuff about them :D

Obviously a tragedy. Yes. Thanks so much for asking, since I sometimes think I’m not…great at managing more than around two characters. Between the three WIPs that are at least semi-progressing, there’s fourteen? main characters? And I’ve been really bad at talking about more than three of them, so…

I probably should make them all individual character pages at some point, but until then I have a Character Overview page here and also on each WIP page (Technomancy | Empty Space | Contact Magic) has some brief information about the characters (although don’t trust the faceclaims there - they were just the closest I could find)

But because I’ll feel kind of bad if I just post links and say ‘here, go look at these’, here’s a paragraph overview of the character groups:

Technomancy

The protagonist and narrator is Lin Karimi - a tall, reserved, magical diplomat who hides her anger issues beneath that reserved facade. Contrasting her in almost every way possible is Raedir Riis, who’s a (non-magical) engineer trying to create technology that works with magic because he’s seen - and experienced - firsthand just how bad the magical medical system is if you’re someone without magic. Why is he even there if he doesn’t have magic? Well, his sister, Eva Riis, does, and the faction is so paranoid about being discovered they decided to take the whole family to avoid discovery. She knows nothing of this, being bright and cheerful almost constantly, and is also Lin’s best, and only, friend. Presiding over the entire faction is William Esperante, who is really…just…a…terrible person, only caring about power and how to get more of it for himself.

Empty Space

Besides Sadie Hintzen, who you already know about, the leader of their engineering division is Kjiersten (van) Aarle, who actually, genuinely cares about the people that they’ve been ordered to lead (which is uncommon among officers). Their second-in-command is Crowe Leonid, who’s much more standard for the military; ambitious and not unwilling to make some sacrifices to get where they want to be, although they do generally want to do the right thing. Within the division, Anise Torosian is the only other one helping Sadie with the wormhole project, as, even though Sadie doesn’t trust anyone, she also doesn’t know how to program. Talkative and flirty, Anise’s relations with Sadie are…strained, at best. Silicon Ohn doesn’t feature until later, being a chemist and ambassador from the GSF, but they quickly ingrain themselves with their kind and bubbly personality. The last of the major characters is Emil Ciringe, who would normally be ‘the quiet one’ except that the group also includes Sadie.

Contact Magic

Two characters share the spotlight here. Zoe Suzembachi is a cheerful, nihilistic assassin who’s an integral part of the revolutionary movement even if what she does (who she kills) isn’t officially part of the revolution. Aurum “Aura” Calius is golden in almost every way - she’s a luck mage, which means that both her hair and her irises are a bright, metallic gold. No one knows where she came from - it was only that Captain Helle Calius found her on one of her dye-trading runs and decided to raise her on the ship. The last major character is Janos Iason, glassmaker and revolutionary, who would die for the revolution but would really rather not.

Sorry I took a while to answer - I hope this is good enough! (Also, I totally stole this character format from @ratracechronicler, so sorry about that)

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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KJIERSTEN is my favorite because they're wonderful and kind and selfless and just all the reasons!! When they first showed up in a WHG story of yours, for some reason, something in me clicked and said "I'm going to like this character, even if this is their only appearance ever." I was so glad it wasn't!

Thanks! I had no idea they were your favorite (that was sarcasm) but you’re so right and they are the best.

#character: kjiersten #ratracechronicler #asks

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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Shall I do 50 ★'s for America today??? Nah, I won't go overboard...but I'll do five instead, if you have time! One ★ for Kjiersten, one ★ for Zoe, another ★ for Calius, another ★ for Silicon, and the fifth ★ for Aura!

Thanks so much for the ask! You could say, in fact, that it’s a five-star ask!

Aura: Aura sleeps up on the crow’s nest when she can (all times when it’s not raining or freezing) because she loves open spaces and the crow’s nest, surrounded by horizon, is the best place to do that. And don’t worry - she keeps her luck magic burning low when she sleeps to keep herself from falling off.

Calius: So you know the story of Mansa Musa, the Malian king who devalued the price of gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca? Well, a similar thing happened with one of the Thennaian leaders who wanted to sail around the world, but unlike Mansa Musa, she didn’t go back the way she came and buy all the gold back to fix the economies.

So what happened was that Calius (well, Cali then - she was just a sailor and not a ship captain yet) went on a second expedition - a bunch of merchants went out to go see what money they could make off this situation. Half of them brought luxuries that people were suddenly able to afford with the gold, while half brought supplies that people who had sold them all for gold now needed. All of them of course got filthy rich of this, and that’s the story of how Cali was able to buy a ship and become Calius!

Kjiersten: They keep all the messages people have ever sent them and read all the positive ones sometimes multiple times a day. This helps.

Silicon: They really hate the Erlenmeyer flask shape because they think it’s not useful and actually really annoying to work with, so they’ve enforced a strict policy that no one can use Erlenmeyer flasks in their lab.

Zoe: There was a point where she tried doing assassination by poisoning, but then she decided that that wasn’t dramatic enough - especially considering it could be topped by Bloodboilers - and so switched to knives and flames. Turns out it’s slightly easier too, since she could also abandon the whole ideal of ‘stealth’ then.

#thanks so much for the ask!#five stars is a lot #but i had that story about calius ready for a while now #so here!#character: aura #character: calius #character: kjiersten #character: silicon #character: zoe

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

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WHG - Kjiersten’s Victory

Alright, so I felt I should make something to describe Kjiersten’s victory in the Writeblr Hunger Games; (I can’t do any of the other days really since this turned out to be like 3k words already and I do need to actually get other stuff done haha)

It’s going along with the rebellion/conspiracy started by @ratracechronicler and @concealeddarkness13 - also, @writer-denois and @owlsofstarlight your characters Ra’ae and Maldl showed up as the only other two in the final days of the Games.

I should have an ‘after-the-games’ post made for Kjiersten as well sometime, but here’s my take on how the Games ended;

Day 19:

Kjiersten stood at the edge of the forest, thinking. All three of the tributes had managed to get together the night before, but with the Capitol clearly listening in, there had been no way to discuss how they would get out. It had been an awkward conversation, then, none of them able to say what was on their minds, but there had been some interesting topics brought up, and they had been able to learn a bit more. Like the fact that Maldl had once served in a communication outpost left over from the days before Panem, handling the wires there.

They glanced over at the trees. It seemed like a nice day for some whittling.

Grabbing a vaguely straight tree branch, they hiked back into the forest, around where they knew the other two tributes had been last night. They were both District 11, so they’d likely stick together. Then, making sure he was close enough to the clearing that the tributes would be able to hear them, they started scraping at the edge of the branch with their knife.

Scrape. Scrrrrrrrape. Scrape. Scrape. Pause. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Pause. Scrrrrrrrape. Pause. Scrrrrrrrape. Scrape. They kept methodically slicing at the edge of the bark, making as much noise as possible, until they were almost sure they had to have attracted the attention of at least one of them. Then they repeated their small statement, making sure that Maldl would be able to understand it:

Lstn. Msg. Rply w 1 arw e.

They were sitting about to the southeast of the clearing. Ra’ae had been carrying a massive longbow the day before, and Kjiersten waited for about five minutes before a long, black-shafted arrow came whistling through the trees a few meters away from them, directly east. They had their attention. Again they turned their attention to the branch, clearing another section of bark to get the next message across:

hg nds. tdy o tmrw. o Cp wl snd smthg. Y? N?

Another few minutes passed, presumably while the two of them translated the message. Then came the sound of an axe chopping at wood, five strokes delivered quick, then the same five to repeated the message.

Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. Pause. Chop.

SN. Understood. Maldl and Ra’ae were agreeing, and also implicitly stating that they would follow their lead on this. Kjiersten mulled for a second about how the other two could fake their deaths. It would be the best course of action, especially since the Capitol had always been suspicious of their leadership of the Connection Project. Losing the Games would mean losing that - at least in the open - and that couldn’t happen. And besides, he thought a little ruefully, it would be nice to win the Games, at least in practice if not theory.

R, they finally sent. expls at nw cnr. st off nd rmv trckr. hc pk. QSL? (Do you acknowledge?)

QSL, came the reply. Acknowledged. Ra’ae was going to go find the explosive Kjiersten had rigged up back - was it two weeks ago now? The Games were really starting to blur their perception of time. Ra’ae would set it off from a distance, with any projectile he could find, then rip his tracker out. The others - Tom and Kallias especially, although they guessed a majority of the mentors might be in on it by now - would come collect them then, and most of the Capitol would be none the wiser.

What about Maldl, though? Both of District 11 dying together, especially after having been alive so long, would be suspicious. And if they died simply setting off a trap, the Gamemakers would be even more incensed. Best to let things go out with a bang, then.

M. Tmrw. Hr. Fht s Cp wnt spct ayt. Fg ot wo srv thr. QSL?

More silence, and they worried that they’d omitted too many letters in the interest of speed. But finally the reply came back QSL, and they sighed in relief. Tomorrow morning, they and Maldl would meet back here for a fight, and they’d decide then who would win and who would fake their death. But until then, there was nothing to do but kill a few hours until the next day, although hopefully not literal killing.

What to do until then? They looked down at the now mostly-shaved stick in their hand, and shrugged. Why not whittling?

Night 19:

The anthem had just finished playing. They had managed to get to a hill overlooking the northwest part of the forest, and looked up just in time to see a blinding flash of light illuminate the edge of the dark mass of trees. Flaming debris lit a few of nearby trees ablaze, and they burned with bright yellow light. Smoke billowed into the air.

Even though they knew it was fake, they couldn’t help but wince. That was a much bigger explosion than they had expected, and they hoped Ra’ae had known more about the explosives than they had and had been able to get out of the way in time. But they couldn’t know, not until after the Games ended. Even as they still stared down at the conflagration, a pitch-black Capitol hovercraft descended through the smoke and fire to retrieve him. It hovered only a second over the edge of the flames before launching itself back into the sky.

Kjiersten watched it go until it was only a speck in the sky. They hoped desperately that Ra’ae was alright, and that they hadn’t just witnessed a sacrifice like Val had performed the Games before in order to make Dean’s win believable. Something like that shouldn’t have to happen here. Everyone else had been able to get out fine - Veth, Kaine, Erya, Kallias - they’d watched them all get rescued, picked up in nondescript hovercraft and taken to the safe house. Sadie too, although they were sure there’d be no shortage of teasing about the fall that had allowed her to rip her tracker out. Especially since they themselves had managed to get up the trees several times to rest.

Tomorrow was coming fast and with it, the end of the Games, one way or another.

Day 20:

It was time. Early this morning, they had hiked back down from their hill and back to the clearing, trying to decide which weapon would be best for a theatrical fight. They found a mace they didn’t remember picking up or even carrying around, as well as a few different knives and one Molotov cocktail, but no matches. Barring anything else, the mace would probably be best to give the Capitol a show. At the very least, it looked interesting. They shuddered at the thought of having to actually use it, though, and hoped Maldl had either a way to convincingly fake his or their death.

Maldl had gotten there before them, and stood, bored, leaning on a massive longsword. They were taken aback slightly - where had he managed to hide that when the three of them had been talking? - but recovered, trying to adopt the same casual position with the ‘mace-over-the-shoulder-“ look. Since that nearly overbalanced them and made them fall over, they decided against it.

“So!” he called, voice echoing. “This is where it ends. Right here, right now!”

Typical theatre. The Capitol would be eating it up. “Unless you want to keep chasing each other back and forth. There’s just the two of us now. No point in dragging it any further!” they shouted back.

“Well then, who’s it going to be? Me or you?” he shouted again, raising the sword and charging. Kjiersten managed to drag the mace of the ground and block his stroke, the longsword locking against the head of the mace. “So what’s our plan?” Maldl hissed against the rasp of steel on steel.

“One of us has to fake dying!” they whispered back, pulling the mace away and stumbling back. He spun the sword in his hands, an impressively agile move for a five-foot-long blade, then spun an underhand stroke at them, which they were only barely able to block.

“Again, me or you?”

“I don’t know! Are you a good actor?”

He grinned. “The best.” Then he twisted his sword, wrenching the mace up and out of Kjiersten’s hands. Dimly, they heard it clatter to the ground behind them. “At acting, that is.”

“What?” they asked, taking a nervous step back. “No - no, you’re not doing this.”

“I am,” he said, his face changing from his amiable smile into something harder. “But you’d know about it, wouldn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” they asked desperately. “Please - I just want to help everybody get out of here alive? Why are you trying to stop that?”

“Get everybody out alive?” he asked mockingly. “You tell that to Ra’ae too, before you killed him?”

“I-“

“You modified that explosive last night! Gave it a bigger radius and everything! I watched him die, Kjiersten! He thought he was safe and then you killed him!”

They felt their blood run cold. So their suspicions last night had been correct. The blast radius of the mines had been changed to be larger than usual, probably by some sadistic or ‘tech-savvy’ sponsor. They hadn’t known, even though probably even a cursory inspection could have revealed it. And now Ra’ae was dead because of it. Actually dead, not all this Games faking-your-death stunts they’d been trying to arrange. “Why?” they whispered to themselves. “Why did this have to happen?” they asked again, louder this time. Falling to their knees, they stared at the ground as if it could hold the answers now.

“He was my friend!” Maldl shouted. “So now I’m just paying you back! You thought you were safe here, and now you’re going to die! Sound familiar?” As he shouted, he spun the sword again, then brought it down in a sweeping arc. Silver flashed bright in the morning sun as the blade whistled through the air.

Just before it hit, Kjiersten looked up at it. Time seemed to slow, and they realized something. Even though it felt like a part of them had been ripped out at the news of Ra’ae’s death, they hadn’t done it. They hadn’t made the mine or even modified it. Maybe they were complicit, but they were not at fault. Maldl was wrong.And despite everything, they still didn’t want to die.

With a cry of despair, they dove out of the way. A tearing pain split their left side as the sword came down, but they managed to get far enough that they could claw their way back up to a standing position. “Not ready to die quite yet?” Maldl asked, venom in his words. “That’s alright. Ra’ae wasn’t either.”

“I didn’t do it!” they managed to choke out. “Can’t you understand? I wasn’t the one who modified that mine!”

“Sure. Tell that to Ra’ae.”

“Damn it, Maldl, I’m trying to help you!” they shouted, wincing as the pain in their side flared again. Pressing a hand to it, they found it sticky with blood. “We can still both make it!”

He lowered the sword for a second, eyes blazing with anger. “One of us is going to die here today. If the only way to live is to accept the help of a murderer, then I believe I will be happy to go down fighting.”

“Please! No matter who dies today, Ra’ae’s still going to be dead!” They stumbled over to where the mace lay. Suns of Thiorna, they didn’t want to fight. But they didn’t want to die either. And they had a terrible feeling that, in just a few minutes, those desires would enter direct conflict.

“Yes, he is,” he agreed. “But, personally, I have a feeling that it might be more than a little dishonorable to his memory to accept the help of his murderer.” He adopted a fighting stance, sword held out straight in front of him. “No more words. It ends here.”

“PLEASE!” Kjiersten shouted, but it didn’t do any good. Maldl charged. They managed to dive out of the way, raising the weapon defensively and listening to the shrieks of metal on metal. No theater this time. “I didn’t kill him! I had no idea the mines were changed! Just listen!”

“No. You broke your word to Ra’ae,” he said, swiping at their head and missing by just a few inches. “I’ve no reason to trust whatever you say.”

They raised the mace to fend off a particularly vicious swing. “Maldl. Please! I am begging you – just let us get out of here! Continue-“ Metal clashed on metal again as he slowly drove them back, their feet sliding uselessly on the ground. “-continue your vendetta later! But right now you’re just playing into the Capitol’s hands!”

“So were you!” he shouted. “Betraying Ra’ae with a trap! I’m sure the Gamemakers just loved that!”

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill him!” They knew it was useless, though. Maldl had seen Ra’ae die and blamed Kjiersten for it, and in all honesty it was an understandable reaction. If they had watched Sadie die – following orders from someone who had promised them safety – they suspected they’d react similarly. “Please, Maldl!”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.” Then he started to advance again, swinging the sword wildly in front of him.

They stumbled backwards, frantically looking for a way out. In a perfect world, they would have had the advantage here – Maldl was almost blind with rage now, and any experienced fighter would have been able to slip through his defense. The problem, of course, was that the world was not perfect and that they were far from an experienced fighter. Plus, they didn’t want to kill Maldl if it could be helped, but he appeared to have no such qualms.

So what could they do? Kjiersten was fairly sure almost the entire Capitol hovercraft fleet was under their control – if they could make it look like Maldl was dead, and remove the tracker somehow, then he could be picked up. But he was getting closer, sword still windmilling in front of him, and they were running out of places to go to.

Their gaze fell on their backpack, on the other side of the clearing, and something resembling a plan began to form. There were weapons there, weapons he wouldn’t know about. That could give them enough of an edge, at least for a few seconds, that it was possible they could overpower him and win the fight. It’d be hard to get around him, though, and-

You know what? they decided. Screw the worrying. Either I do it right or it’s not my problem anymore. And with those inspiring words, they grabbed the mace and threw it at him, whipping it through the air towards his head.

He flinched and ducked, which gave them the opening they needed to dive past him and start running. The backpack was close, and they had just managed to scoop it up when Maldl tackled them from behind. They crashed to the ground, managing to keep their grip on the backpack but screaming in pain as the fall seemed to rip open their side again. Somehow they managed to roll over, and found themselves looking up into a face contorted in rage.

“This is how it ends!” he shouted, levelling the sword.

“Maldl-“ they managed to gasp out. “Just – one – Ra’ae said something – for you – he talked to me-“

“Did he now?” he asked, putting a little less pressure on.

No.“Yes – he was talking to me – about you – and he said-“ While they were trying to think what a fictional Ra’ae would have said about Maldl, their other hand scrabbled in the backpack, looking for – where was it? – there.

“What did he say?!” he almost screamed at them, pressing the sword once more into their neck. “Tell me nowor you die!”

“He – he said-“ In one movement, they pulled their hand out of the backpack and threw what they had managed to grab at Maldl. The Molotov, though it wasn’t lit, was still a fragile glass bottle full of liquid. It shattered in a burst of glass shards and alcohol, sending him reeling back, almost dropping the sword as he clawed at his face.

They didn’t wait. Closing their fingers around one of the knives, they lunged at Maldl and buried it in his upper arm. He screamed in pain, but they still twisted the knife, burying it deeper until they saw a glint of gold and copper instead of the silver knife. A flick of the blade, and the small computer chip was out.

Maldl was still fighting, though, and he managed to backhand Kjiersten with the butt of the sword. They managed to stay upright, but it gave him the time he needed to clear the blood, glass, and alcohol from his face. If he had been murderous before, they thought distantly, now he was pushing the verge of madness. His eyes gleamed with a burning light through the mess of cuts and bruises, and his mouth was twisted into a snarl.

“Now-“ they started, but he cut them off. With an incoherent scream of rage, he threw himself towards Kjiersten, who only barely managed to dodge in time. They dropped the knife, leaving themselves with only the mace – a knife wouldn’t help against this kind of fighting. No more time to think as Maldl barreled towards him again, sword whistling in a deadly arc.

Think – what could they use? They weren’t more experienced fighters than Maldl, not even in his state of unthinking rage. So they had to be smarter. He had brute strength on his side, but he wasn’t using it as well as he could have. So how could they use that to their advantage?

The first thought that came to their mind was leverage. Their mace was heavier than his sword, and with the way he was swinging it…They waited for Maldl to take a particularly vicious swipe, bringing the sword in from the left. Then, gritting their teeth and knowing that there were about a hundred ways this could go wrong, they stepped betweenhim and the blade, using the mace and the weight of their body to twist the sword from his hands.

Maldl tried to step back and recover, but Kjiersten didn’t let him. This might be their only chance, and they didn’t want to let it slip away now. They wrenched the mace up and over and slammed it into his head. As they had brought it down, though, they had let their fingers slip down the handle to the point where only the handle, and not the spiked end, had slammed into his head. He was unconscious, cut and bloody, but he was alive. The Games were not going to claim another victim.

He looked terrible, though – crumpled on the ground, with his face covered in blood. His arm looked a mess, and they hoped they hadn’t damaged anything while they were trying to cut the tracker out. But it was necessary – Maldl had to both look dead and act dead, and they didn’t think he would have done either of those willingly.

After just a few minutes, a silvery-grey hovercraft descended from the sky. They knew they should get out of the way, but they had a question they needed to ask. The pilot, who they recognized as one of the mentors, emerged from the ship to pick up Maldl, and shook his head. “You should get out of here,” he said. “Dangerous for you to be seen too close.”

“Wait – please,” they said, raising their hands in a pleading gesture. “I just need to know – is Ra’ae really dead? Did that explosive really kill him?”

The pilot was silent for a second. “I don’t know,” he said. “It wasn’t one of ours which picked him up – it was a genuine Capitol hovercraft. How they got there before us, I don’t know. So Ra’ae might be alive, just in the Capitol’s custody. We’re thinking of mounting a mission to get inside – possibly with the help of your Connection Project – and seeing if we can find him. You’ll be updated as things happen.”

They nodded. “Thank you.” The pilot saluted, and turned back to the craft with Maldl’s limp form in tow. Kjiersten watched as the hovercraft lifted off again, engines rotating back to horizontal once the ship had cleared the trees.

It was over. They had won the Hunger Games. Almost all of the tributes from this Games had been rescued – a greater percentage than they’d ever managed before. They were people who would be able to build or continue their lives back home, or join the rebellion and help to build better lives for everybody.

It should have been an achievement. They should have felt proud – after all, winning the Games was almost the ultimate status symbol in Panem. But it felt like a hollow victory. It felt like they had failed the people they were supposed to be protecting.

Just one, he thought miserably. One tribute. One out of the six. Five others got rescued. That’s a pretty good percentage, isn’t it?

No. Because it’s one tribute who I failed. Who’s not going to get back to their family. Who’s not going to be able to live the life they could have had. And that’s the problem here. Rescuing tributes from the Games is just treating the symptoms. The Capitol needs to fall for any of this to be worth it.

But you did the best you could. You couldn’t have known that the explosive would have been modified.

I could have checked. Because there’s no room for ‘good enough’ in engineering and there’s no room for it here. I should have done better.

It’s too late now, isn’t it?

No .Because it wasn’t over yet. There was still the messy business of revolution to come, and they would need people to help, to protect those who were trying to make the world better. They’d been hesitant, before, about committing the resources of the Connection Project to the revolution. But the revolution would need it. And now they knew what the others had been through. How they’d suffered just to stay alive. And as they stood there, hovercraft long vanished into the clear blue sky, they promised themselves that nobody else – not a single person– would have to go through it again.

A note: Transcript of each of the messages in Day 19:

Kjiersten: Listen. Message. Reply [to acknowledge] with one arrow east. [arrow is shot east] Kjiersten: Hunger Games end. Today or tomorrow. Or the Capitol will send something. Yes or no? Maldl: Understood Kjiersten: Ra’ae. Explosive at the northwest corner [of the forest]. Set it off and remove your tracker. Hovercraft will pick you up. Do you acknowledge? Ra’ae: Acknowledged Kjiersten: Maldl. Tomorrow. Here. Fight so the Capitol won’t suspect anything. Figure out who survives there. Do you acknowledge? Maldl: Acknowledged.

#writeblr hunger games #hg: kjiersten #but i like it #sorry if i got either of your characters wrong #but here it is #kjiersten as a revolutionary #bonus rebellion material #is that the right tag?#i hope so

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spacebrick3 · 6 years

Text

WHG: Sadie’s Death

The Official Story:

Tribute #3 from District 6, Sadie Hintzen, was crossing through an open area in the approximate direction of north-northwest when Aurum Calius, Tribute #1 from District 8 began to fire a Proxen Model 3 (tm) crossbow at her. Her first shot missed, but the second shot hit Hintzen in the right leg and the third caught her in the head. Approximate time of death was 11:38 AM. She was the 12th tribute to be killed.

That’s what the Capitol says happened, anyways. But is that what really what happened? Let’s see what Aura and Sadie had to say about the experience, shall we?

@ratracechronicler

Aura’s Experience

She was starving. She hadn’t picked up any supplies, anywhere - all she had found were weapons. She had two daggers and a crossbow strapped to her belt now, but no food or water. And it was the second day now. She’d need to find something fast, to avoid becoming too weak. She headed towards the edge of the forest, eyes scanning. There must be a few tributes in this area of the arena, and at least some of them must have supplies.

She reached the beginning of the mountains, then hesitated. Where to go from here? There’d probably be more tributes in the forest, but the mountains were much more open, and she’d be much more likely to find one there. Maybe she could compromise. She scrambled up to one of the outcroppings that was on the closest hill, surveying what she could see from there. A fair portion of the mountains were spread out behind her, and the same view of the forest in front. As long as she was alert, this would be the best position to try and find somebody. And it didn’t require her to do any more walking, which was a blessing on an empty stomach.

She settled down to wait.

It didn’t take long for a tribute to appear. It was the girl from District 6 she had teamed up with, briefly, last night, still clutching her yellow backpack of supplies. She was heading for the edge of the forest, almost directly towards Aura. It was the perfect opportunity.

She loaded her crossbow, then tried to sort through her thoughts. Could she really kill somebody? Was she willing to end another tribute’s life just so that she could stay alive for what might not be much longer? Was she really going to give the Gamemakers what they wanted? Because by doing this - by killing Sadie, whose name she remembered now - she’d be playing the game they wanted her to play.

Well, she wanted to live. Sadie had supplies that she needed. She’d killed pirates and brigands as a dye trader for District 8. She could do this. There’d be time to debate morality later. Jaw set, she rose from where she was crouched and fired the first bolt.

It missed. She swore under her breath, trying to reload as fast as she could. It had been almost a year since she’d used a crossbow - evidently, her skills had atrophied slightly. Sadie spun around, breaking into a run back towards the edge of the forest. Aura scowled and raised the crossbow again, this time making sure to sight properly down the spine of the bow. She wasn’t going to get away.

Her second bolt hit Sadie in the leg. She stumbled and fell, the backpack dropping from her shoulders and scattering its contents across the rocky ground. Aura hesitated, then reached for another bolt. Sadie wouldn’t make it anyways like this - either she’d starve, freeze, or another tribute would find her and kill her. The least she could do now was put her out of her misery, right?

Still, it was a lot harder to sight down the crossbow this time. Sadie looked frantic, fumbling with something small in her hands. It glinted silver, but that was all she could see. She gritted her teeth. She could do this. The crossbow wobbled slightly - her hands were shaking - but finally, Sadie’s head appeared in the sight. As soon as it did, she pulled the trigger. The string twanged as the bolt was released.

There. It was done.

Or it would have been, if not for what happened just as the bolt neared Sadie. A small black circle appeared in her hands, then quickly widened to fill the space around her. It seemed to warp the light that passed around it, skewing depth enough that Aura had to look away, her eyes watering from even her glimpse of the sphere.

When she looked back, Sadie was gone. There wasn’t a body, or anything like that. She was just…gone. There was already a Capitol helicopter hovering over where she had lay, but it looked as confused as she did. “Hey!” she shouted at it, even though it was unlikely she’d get an answer. “What the fuck just happened there?”

No answer.

Sadie’s Experience

It was a new day, and Sadie still hadn’t made it to the mountains like she had promised Syl she would. But she could make it today. Make it to safety. It would provide a relief from this constant feeling of dread that soon she’d meet a tribute who hadn’t been as friendly as the ones she had seen until now. It would happen sometime if she didn’t get to the mountains. She didn’t think she was ready now to face someone like that.

She was able to pack up her camp quickly, “camp” in this case just being a blanket that she had curled up in for the night. Breakfast was a simple nutrient bar that she had chosen simply because it was on top in the backpack. It was bland and tasteless, but at least it was food. The metal of her token was cold - she had taken it off during the night to stop the pins poking her - and she rubbed it between her hands to warm it up before slipping the chain over her neck again.

The edge of the forest was only a mile away. She could make it there in no time, and be able to set up camp in the mountains well before dark fell. She wished she had a weapon, though - maybe she wouldn’t know how to use it, but it might stop other tributes from accosting her as frequently as they had yesterday. Oh well. Once she was in the mountains, then hopefully that wouldn’t happen anyways, weapon or no weapon.

After maybe half an hour, she reached the line where the trees ended and the mountains began. The forest was clearly artificial - there was no natural fading of the trees, just a straight border where the dirt ended and the rock began. Mountains rose up in front of her, grey and imposing, and as she walked out of the forest her mind began to wander. How high would the border actually be into the mountains? More importantly, what did the border look like? If it was invisible, that might be a problem - after all, she’d heard that crossing it would-

A crossbow bolt whipped past her head. She stumbled backwards, trying to trace where it had come from. There was a glint of sunlight, and she saw Aura, the golden-haired girl from District 8 standing on an outcropping above her. The same hunger that Sadie had seen yesterday night was still there, but now it was focused with a burning passion. Focused on her.

Turning away, she started to dash backwards for the cover of the forest. It wasn’t that far away. She could make it. She could survive. This couldn’t be it. She couldn’t die right here, right now. There was still so much she could do. The forest was closer now. She was going to make it-

The second bolt stabbed her through the leg. She screamed and fell to the ground, the backpack sliding off her shoulders. The pain was incredible - she had heard that being shot was like white-hot fire, but that couldn’t come close to this. But she had to keep going. Maybe her leg was gone, but there might be one last thing she could do. If she was right. Please - if there was anything other than the Gamemakers watching, let her be right.

She pulled out the token Kjiersten had given her, turning it over frantically in her hands. The blue light - she knew that blue light. There had to be something, somewhere that - there. Nestled amongst the circuits and blobs of solder, there it was: a switch. With trembling hands that were only half shaking from the pain, she fumbled for a second before managing to flip it.

The token split open with a whine, revealing a mess of wires and tiny fluid links. She stared at it, dumbfounded for a moment. It was her work, she was sure, but shrunk to an amazingly small size. The blue light that she had seen last night through the cracks in the cube was pulsing alarmingly, and she didn’t even have time to drop the cube before a shimmering black sphere formed around it.

The Connection Project.

The sphere grew rapidly, warping space and light around it in a dizzying and disorienting display before enveloping her. She had never been through the Project before, and she could tell immediately why those who had seemed at a loss for words when asked to describe it. It was darkness and light all at once; crushing pressure and empty space; omnisicience and blindness in the same instant flashing before her eyes.

She didn’t know how long it was; the Project seemed to change how time flowed inside of it, and the pain still shooting up her leg made it hard to focus on anything. It could have been hours or it could have been seconds that she stayed, curled up and shaking, inside the Project - all she remembered was it fading, eventually, and a familiar room - her old labs - swimming back into focus.

As soon as she could feel the ground beneath her feet - feel that it wasn’t the same ground she had fallen onto after being shot - she broke down completely. Her injured leg gave way under her, and she collapsed to the floor, sobbing. It was over. She had made it out of the Games. And she was still alive. Somehow, someway, she was still alive. Still there. Still feeling. Still thinking.

Still alive.

#writeblr hunger games #hg: sadie #hg: aura

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