un: jaycetalis | video

[hexcope]

[In a rare moment of using video on purpose, there's Jayce. To those who know him, he looks the same as he always does. To those who don't- he's an early 30's man with seemingly a permanent five-o-clock shadow, bright golden eyes, and perfectly coiffed hair. The background is out of focus, but to those who know it, it's clearly a part of S.T.A.R. labs. Normally a little more jovial or at least less serious sounding, Jayce looks into the camera like he's giving a press release.]

We’ve got about forty-eight hours or less until Aurora allows that toxin into Etraya. Which means if you haven’t started taking precautions already; start now. Get easily carried food, medical supplies, whatever you think you'd need. Better to be over-prepared than under.

Considering what Aurora's told us about the "mission"... If you’re someone prone to having weapons, do us all a favor and throw them into one of our many, lovely lakes, before you wind up using it on someone else. Or, if you’re going to be touchy about it, let me know, I’ll talk with Harold about how we can get them locked up somewhere for the mission’s duration.

As a reminder to those who don’t want to think about it, and maybe new information to those who are new: if you die here, for whatever reason, you lose something. I don’t know what, you won’t know what, and you might not even know what it is you’ve lost even after you’ve lost it. Maybe it’s an eye, maybe it’s the memory of your best friend. Either way, whatever you're afraid of by not having your weapons on you isn’t worth what you’ll be making someone else lose because of your bad decisions.

If you have any special concerns, worries about any specific denizens in this upcoming mission, now's also the time to voice it.

Comments

[hexcope]

Sure. I get that that gut reaction, but I'm looking for us to all work beyond that. Aurora's told us before when we will need to fight to survive, and she didn't say anything like that at all here. So why would we need a weapon? She didn’t say “attack the vent with a sword or gun.” She said find it and close it. I’d say your comparison is closer to if someone asked me to "fix this unstable planar gate," and I decided I could fix the whole thing with only a screwdriver.

[lockdownbuild]

Miss on my metaphor then. What I was going for was a sense of total powerlessness. The feeling of being totally unable to do anything without that tool. Or weapon. More than that, the feeling that you will be actively hurt without it.

Again, not saying that's right. I support what you're saying here, even if it's not particularly easy for me. It's not limited to weapon-users either, in my experience. Spellcasters feel absolutely useless if they can't use their magic. And being fair, some of them actively are... but personal issues with horrible warmages aside, it goes past 'tool' and into 'identity'.

[hexcope]

Is that... really how you'd feel without it? Total powerlessness? Loss of identity?

[Would you believe this is the first time someone's told him this?]

[lockdownbuild]

[She started this conversation for a reason! The man had a sensible idea doomed to run into some unfortunate realities.]

Me, personally? Less so, because what I do isn't tied solely into thrusting a guisarme around. Without it, I'm not as useful, but I still have Skeldric's grace and all that entails. Or when I don't have that, thank you mysterious pits full of balls with personal questions, I can still rely on my weapons and armor to get me through a fight. Having both gives a little perspective on how I don't need only one or the other to get through.

But I'll tell you generally, I am dealing with a constant sense of powerlessness here. Regardless of what I use to get it done, I've been on the battlefield for decades. If you put me up against an undead horde or a demon army, I'm as happy as can be, I can deal with that. I understand that and my toolkit is suited to dealing with it. Here, there's none of that. Even all those snakes were pretty harmless. Instead, I'm told I'm supposed to prove my material plane deserves to survive, and the skills I've honed for years are not only useless for that purpose, but could be actively detrimental. That's a real hard thing to digest. It has to be much worse for someone who has a more singular focus than I do. I can only imagine.

And identity? I know I'm more than just a Justicar of Skeldric. But (and this is an exaggeration here, but not as big a one as you might think) I'm also more than just a human, but that's a pretty inherent element of who I am. Been one all my life after all.

[hexcope]

[The problem isn’t that Jayce never understood the desire for a weapon to begin with. He understood it all too well. His weapon of choice is just as unsubtle as it is dangerous. But that’s why he knows exactly what can happen, when someone’s out of their mind with fear with something lethal in their hands. His stance comes from one who wants to everyone else to be better than he was, with an intentional effort to ignore the time that same weapon saved his life.]

I appreciate you giving me a more nuanced view of this. Violence is, well. Really frowned upon, where I’m from. People measure their worth in skills that prize intelligence over most. Part and parcel to that is knowing everyone has something of value to bring to the table that isn’t measured in how strong they can hit or how fast they can hurt something. It just seemed obvious to me that if we know we’re doing this mission on home turf, with only our limited numbers to achieve it, killing or maiming each other’s just going to make every step of this harder. We have to use our brains here more than any other mission before— even if it’s the thing that’s going to be lying to us the most. I know that’s the last thing you, or any other fighter, wants to hear, considering you’ve said not having an obvious enemy to take down makes it feel like parts of your own skillset go completely unused.

And, this is unrelated, but I want to ask you a hundred questions about what a Skeldric is. Once this is over, can we talk about that along with your armor? Thoroughly?

[lockdownbuild]

Sure, I'd like that.

Just one more thing for perspective. If I hadn't started fighting at six, I wouldn't have made it to seven. I said it wasn't much of an exaggeration to say I'm as much a warrior as I am a human. I'm sure my story isn't the only one like that, so try and keep that in mind when you're thinking about how damn stubborn everyone is?

Other than that, we'll talk when this is over. Good luck with everything. This and what we're heading into.

[hexcope]

Right. I'll... think about what you said. Thank you.