Lagging Behind

Tyrathlion Family Estates: 24.11.113 - Time to Talk

2011-11-24T22:37:00.005Z

"We need to talk."

Nobody said anything else for a moment, as if they were waiting for the words to echo in the room, to remind them that yes, someone had actually spoken those words. Given the sorts of uncomfortable discussions and subjects that usually followed them, as well as the potential fallout, this response was to be expected.

Reppy looked at her briefly, before returning her gaze to the book she had open and giving a slightly moody-sounding response. "About what?" she asked, as if she knew exactly what the answer would be.

"You," Morwen said softly, uncomfortably shifting her weight from one foot to another as she stood in the doorway to the library's study room. "Something's been bugging you lately. I can tell."

Reppy let out a quiet, noncommittal grunt, turning the page of her book as if she were done with the conversation already. Morwen sighed, then walked over and gently pried the book from Reppy's hands, setting it down on a nearby table before settling down onto her lap sideways, legs hanging over one of the armrests. "Don't give me that look," she said as she tried to make herself comfortable. "We promised we wouldn't hide things like this from each other."

"I don't want to talk about it," Reppy said quietly, tone firm. She looked away from Morwen, towards the study's fireplace, the light flickering in her eyes.

Morwen frowned. "Sweety, I just spent a lot of money renewing your license for you after you told me two weeks ago that spending some time flying again would fix things up for you. I really don't mind spending ridiculous amounts of money on things you want, but please don't lie to me - or yourself - about what you want and need, because it clearly hasn't helped enough, if at all, to have been that simple. I'm not the only person who's noticed you've been having a down spell lately, either," she added.

Reppy looked back at her uncomfortably, waiting.

"Saki and Leela are both concerned about you," Morwen explained. She paused for a moment, then continued. "So is my mother. I know she wrote to you after she got home. She told me." She reached over and took Reppy's hands, squeezing gently. "She really likes you, Reppy. And not just because I do."

Reppy responded after a moment, her voice hesitant. "She wouldn't if she knew."

"Knew what?"

"How things started."

Morwen frowned again. "It wouldn't change anything, and you know that."

The reply came back with a suspicious, half-distrustful expression. "How can you know that for certain?"

"This is my mother we're talking about, Reppy. She's more tolerant than I am." Morwen sighed. "Almost to a fault, given some things she's been poking and prodding me to think about doing."

Reppy wrinkled her nose a little, knowing exactly what the so-called things were. "If you say so," she muttered, leaning back in the chair and saying nothing further. Morwen sighed gently, then reached one hand up to stroke Reppy's cheek gently with her thumb, silently tracing the red markings that were all that visibly remained of Cruoris. Reppy closed her eyes, relaxing under the touch. Both of them seemed content to stay like that for a while; by the time Morwen decided to try again, she'd lost track of how long they'd been sitting there.

"Please talk to me, Reppy," Morwen asked quietly. "Tell me what's wrong, and let me help make it better."

Reppy remained silent for a moment, then opened her eyes and nodded slowly.

"Okay."

Review: Latest version of Incarna on Sisi

2011-10-02T10:36:00.003Z

So, I don't normally do OOC blogposts, but I think the latest release on Singularity merits an exception. I've spent several hours over the last couple days fiddling around in each of the three new CQs taking pictures and looking for bugs and other issues (some not even CQ-related at all), so this post is going to be partly a review of the things that have been added, but also a nice list of things that I need to remember to submit bug reports on! Also, you've been warned, this blog entry is very image-heavy.

So, first things first - the new Captain's Quarters. They are pretty damn well done. As is the smart thing to do, they are tied not to your character's race, but to the 'race' of the station you're docked at. So, if you don't like your racial CQ, you can just pick another station. I'll start the post off with the Amarrian CQ.

Amarrian Captain's Quarters - Welcome to the Gilded Birdcage

The Good: The Amarrian Captain's Quarters are, well, distinctively Amarrian. Gold highlights and engravings on various bits of furniture, an imposingly, impractically long ramp from the capsule gantry to the CQ itself solely for the sake of looking big and important, and the overall feeling that you're a couple pews short of being in a cathedral make this blend in perfectly with the Amarrian station interior. The fact that there aren't any prop-items lying around also gives a sense that *somewhere* there's a slave ducking in and out to clean up the mess.

The mirror fits in nicely with the architecture style, though I think the design on the floor should be the much more appropriate golden Empire symbol (and, perhaps in Khanid stations, the inverted silver version).

Impractical, but imposing.

Climbing back up that ridiculously long ramp, we come to the hangar balcony and capsule gantry. This balcony is pretty similar in design to the Minmatar one, with the most obvious differences being that the floor is safe for the female capsuleers of New Eden (floors without little holes in them are wonderful things when you're forced to wear heels all day because of some lazy-ass "fashion designer"), and a much more compact console.

The Bad: All in all, the things that felt "wrong" with this CQ in particular were fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. For example, the bed is totally not something a capsuleer would sleep on (or, for that matter, an Amarrian) given its appearance of a slab of rock - neither a blanket nor a pillow in sight. And while the lack of props seems fitting with that elusive slave cleaning things up, it does make the room seem a little sparse without any being there.

Noticably missing are the two statues from the teaser video - I assume that there was some issue with them, preventing them from being on the Sisi release. In addition, while I feel the extremely long ramp from the balcony to the CQ fits in with the Amarrian style, without a 'run' command, walking back and forth is going to get seriously irritating after a while.

Next, the Caldari CQ.

Caldari Captain's Quarters - Your Personal Corporate Boardroom

The Good: The Caldari Captain's Quarters are clean and utilitarian, with hard angles everywhere; looking around it becomes clear that this CQ has taken the Caldari design ethos and followed it to the letter. Function over form, nothing present that doesn't need to be there. A few Quafe bottles and cans of Long-limb Roes can be found if you look around a little, but it's pretty clear that this room is kept pretty clean.

The mirror here is nice and simple, with what looks like a small alcove in the wall for your makeup or shaving equipment. Also, the bed looks pretty damn comfortable, compared to what the Amarr and Minmatar CQs call sleeping accomodations.

Apparently the Caldari CQ is the one that CCP and that tattoo designer guy used for a modeling runway. The pillars along the sides of the corridor look nice, and coming back out from the CQ itself you can get a really nice look at your ship through the high ceiling (not pictured). The console on the balcony isn't quite as compact as the Amarrian one, but there's an interesting feature of the balcony's design - the steps to the capsule gantry go *under* the balcony itself.

Just make sure to watch your head while heading down there. It looks like it'd hurt pretty bad. Speaking of which...

The Bad: The Caldari CQ is, like the Amarrian one, pretty solidly done. Most of the issues I found unique to this CQ are not very major. Most prominently, the holoscreens are a little difficult to see against the wall - more contrast would be very helpful here to make the holoscreen pop out more.

See how the Caldari one blends into the background, but the other two don't?

Also, this is a Caldari station. Fuck your Quafe, I want Starsi ads. (Because it tastes like revenge, obviously.)

That just leaves the Gallente CQ.

Gallente Captain's Quarters - A sexy tangent to all of your curves.

The Good: The Gallente Captain's Quarters are made up of curves. Lots of them. Enough to provide a number of calculus pickup lines so great they'd last you a lifetime. (Please don't use them on Morwen in-character; you're likely to get slapped if you do. If you're going to use them on me, at least buy me a drink first, please.) There are little holes in the walls with things stuffed into them - all they're missing is covering panels that slide open and closed. Also, dat mirror.

Oh my god, that mirror. If it weren't for the reflection of the avatar and other things, I would've sworn it was a doorway to another room. It's pretty much flawless. Also, the latex/satin/silk/whatever that is that is used for the pillow and sheets on that bed? Rawr.

This is probably the second-longest walkway from the balcony to the CQ, but it follows the concept art reasonably closely, and looks pretty sweet.

Also, easter egg: if you pay close attention, you might notice that the walkway and balcony are shaped kinda like a penis. Those wacky Gallente!

The circular balcony is nice, and all the transparent green glass is reminiscient of the old transparent headpieces and other doodads the Gallente avatars used to have prior to the Incarna character creator released in Incursion. The console is placed in a way that gives a pretty good view of the pod gantry and your ship at the same time, without having to move around to see through opaque walls and stuff.

The Bad: I honestly couldn't find anything that really felt wrong or out of place in the Gallente CQ, aside from one thing. That pit in the area by the sofa.

Seriously, what the hell is that supposed to be? A Quafe dispenser? A hot tub? A giant holoprojector that'll let you display the 3D starmap from inside the CQ?

As for things that weren't tied to any one CQ in particular, the racially-tinted holograms and console displays were pretty sweet, and I noticed some cool design patterns - for example, allied factions (Amarr/Caldari and Gallente/Minmatar) share the same basic layout of their CQs.

But there were a bunch of bugs that I found.

Many people probably noticed the corporation logo for the station you're docked in over the doorway to the CQ in the Minmatar CQ. It's present in the Caldari CQ, but the Amarr and Gallente CQs both lack it - there's a black square where I assume it would be, though.

Time for a Caldari rave party!

The first nasty one I encountered was that opening and closing the escape menu results in many of the textures simply shutting off, causing most of the environment to go black, aside from what appear to be objects that have their own lights.

Another problem is only specific to certain types of clothing - female avatars with skirts will have clipping issues while sitting on any of the couches.

Double-clicking to move also seems intermittently broken; sometimes using mouse-drive for a second will make it work again, sometimes it won't. Also, there appears to be a range limit for double-clicking in the new CQs - you can move as far as the doorway from the hangar to the CQ itself, but no further, on a single double-click. This is not the case for the Minmatar CQ on either Tranquility or Singularity.

For those who play with the NeX items that have been seeded on the Sisi market and the recustomization tool, there's a bunch of issues here too. For starters, while your skills and assets have all been mirrored from TQ just fine, your avatar's mesh has not, so you will not look like what you do on TQ - instead, you'll be in something resembling a 'default' mesh. In addition, the recustomization tool is missing the icons for NEX items, so you have to click through everything to see what is what; though not critical or game-breaking, it is a little annoying if you can't memorize what shirt was what number. There is one somewhat game-breaking issue I did find, however - the recustomization tool refuses to load and requires a client restart if the player tries to open it after not having finalized a new portrait during the previous time it was used during that login. If you make a new portrait when you go through it, you're golden.

On to the other stuff - next up, ship spinning. Yes, that's right, ship spinning. Our beloved hangars have been returned to us, and as far as I can tell, all of the old functionality is still there. (Plus, the textures on some of them seem to be cleaned up and a little better-looking than before, particularly the Amarr one.)

To access them, it's as easy as walking to one of the two holograms of your ship in the CQ, either on the balcony or by the couch, and selecting the new fifth option, "Enter Ship Hangar." If you're using the one by the couch, you will have to stand up - the option is greyed out if you are sitting down.

To go back to the CQ, just click on the blue button above the undock button, which looks appropriately similar - though pointing in the opposite direction to indicate that the Hangar View is the midway point between being undocked and in your Captain's Quarters. My only issue with the system as it stands is that there is no similar button while you are in the CQ - which I would hope would be implemented as the same blue-colored button, just pointing in the same direction as the undock one - currently you must go to one of the consoles and select the "Enter Ship Hangar" option. There are no right-click options for either direction. Here are the other three hangars, just in case you've forgotten what they look like.

You might've noticed the chat in the window in the last one. More specifically, the new font.

As much as I love the devs who worked on it, I'm sorry, but I cannot stand the new font. I want it to go away just as much as many people wanted to get rid of the CQ when Incarna was first released. It looks terrible and is difficult to read at any reasonable size. Sure, you fixed some of the lookalike issues (I/l/1, O/0, 5/S, 6/G/&, 8/B in particular) but you missed a few (-/~ comes to mind), and several punctuation marks are nearly impossible to see, let alone tell the difference between (colon, comma, period, semicolon - :,.;). The font is poorly spaced, as well - some letters are way too thin (ex: capital L), and others do not space themselves from other letters at all (ex: lowercase r, capital L). Numbers no longer have a uniform width across font sizes, so now those of us using timestamps in our chat will find that they no longer line up - and thus look absolutely terrible and unprofessional. The font doesn't scale properly to parts of the UI, either - when undocked, one of the most obvious cases of this is the target locking progress bar, where the "n seconds" will often protrude outside of the progress bar and look stupid.

I'm not the only person who thinks that even Comic-fucking-Sans would look better than the font that is currently on Sisi. Couldn't they have just fixed the fucking problem characters in the old font and called it a day after adding the whole unicode support thing? Seriously. The new font hurts to look at at any size. Please include the option to keep the old font. It'd make a lot of people happy.

I didn't take any pictures of undocked stuff, but the new engine flares on some of the ships are cool-looking. Nothing like the stuff that was recently added to the Punisher, Maller and Scorpion hulls, but still cool. Also, I heard that there's a new cyno effect, but I haven't yet seen it myself...

The overview/bracket bug from several patches ago has returned - make sure to reload your brackets after jumping and undocking if you're going to be flying around on Sisi a bunch. Also, your HP readout is a lie; it seems to just display a static 66% for hull, armor and shield, which looks really disconcerting with that huge chunk of red on your HUD. And sometimes windows will randomly open even fyou just closed them for the fifteenth time in a row. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Market.

Another issue I found was that when you minimize a window and the little bar appears along the bottom of the screen, on TQ that bar will remain above anything else that is touching the bottom edge of the screen. On Sisi, this is no longer the case - if you have a window that takes focus while there's a minimized window down there, the minimized window ends up behind the window with focus. This is seriously irritating.

Overall, the new font aside, what is on Sisi now is exactly what we should have had at Incarna's initial release. I would've happily taken a couple extra months of Incursion for this to have been the initial release of Incarna, and so would many others. If this had been what was released, I think it's a safe bet to say that there would've been a much smaller mess to clean up this summer - and that perhaps, monoclegate may have caused less of an uproar. Who knows?

In any case, I'm looking forward to this stuff being released to Tranquility - so my heartfelt thanks to the staff and volunteers at CCP who have been working to put this stuff out for us to play with.

Private Video Entry, 30.7.113 - Moving Day

2011-07-30T19:09:00.003Z

Morwen appears to be resting on her back on one of the couches in the living room of her quarters on her carrier as the camera drone begins recording. She's wearing little more than a mottled green tank-top and matching shorts; given the unkempt state of her hair, she seems to be in a rather lazy mood.

Two years.

That's about how long Goinard has been the primary base of operations for whatever corpoation I've been with. First with the Ghosts, then with Veto.

Something flickers outside of the camera drone's view. It turns, then focuses on a projection of a station for a moment before returning its attention to Morwen.

Goinard IV - Moon 5 - Impro Factory.

VETO's home station since before I got my capsuleer license.

For the last couple of months, we've been on an extended trip to Syndicate to fly with some friends of the directorate, Rote Kapelle. I've known a few of their members for a while; mostly the Nihil family who used to run the Three Sisters bar in Jel. I think the place is closed now, which is a bit of a pity, given how fun it used to be. Would've been nice to take Reppy there at some point, but it's probably a little too late now, even if not for her busy schedule.

The corp took surprisingly well to being stationed in nullsec. Even me. It was... very different from what we were used to, but at the same time, it wasn't different at all. Maybe it was just the subconscious feeling that we had more wiggle room out here. That, a few lingering rules and regulations aside, we weren't bound at all by anything CONCORD had to say.

So a few weeks ago, Ethan made the decision to move us out here properly.

I guess it was a foregone conclusion that it would happen, really. That and my security status recovering, which may have been more of a side effect of getting myself burnt-out on combat sorties. When we came out here, I dived into them left and right. If there was something going on when I was around and awake, I was participating. I suppose I overdid it, because now I can barely stand the memory of what using warp scrambling modules feels like. Probably a good thing, given the amount of time I spend in highsec these days.

But... oddly, the time spent away from the corp hasn't really reduced my stress levels. Stopped them from going higher for the most part, yes, but it hasn't really reduced it any. Over the last two weeks, Nation has launched a steady assault across the area of space I now consider "home". First Sib, and Nohshayess two weeks ago, and Amdimmah this past week. Reppy and I had originally been planning to take that week off, but when Nation showed up on our doorstep, I couldn't deal with the feeling that they were right there and I was doing nothing about it.

So I fought. I spent the entire week in space, cleaning the infestation out of my home. In the end, I was there in Bukah when we took down the Revenant-class supercarrier that was the remote "brains" behind the operations in the Nohshayess constellation. Apparently I'd managed to do enough damage to be considered among the top ten pilots who contributed to the effort that week. It felt... kinda good, I admit, but... still awkward, coming from CONCORD of all people.

But that was last week... and now I'm here in TXW again, waiting for the call to go get into my capsule so we can get this show on the road. I won't say I didn't enjoy my time in Goinard. I really did, for the most part; it was a great place for a number of reasons, and I learned a lot while living there, but... I just can't stand lowsec anymore. I can't stand being an outlaw anymore.

There's another flicker, and the camera drone turns briefly once more to focus on another projected image of another station.

TXW-EI VIII - Moon 8 - Aliastra Retail Center.

Veto's (sort-of) new home, and my home-away-from-home.

That's not exactly kept me a ton of friends within Veto, but to be honest, I never had many in the corporation to begin with, outside of the Ghosts I came here with. Some of the newer people I'm familiar with - Evangeline, in particular, from the modeling contest the other month - and I've made a few friends with some of the other old-timers, like Nadia and Rathera, but... I don't know.

I'm feeling less and less like Veto as a whole is my family, and more of a job that I just want to go home from. Some of them I consider family, sure... Kimmy and the other Ghosts, Kyoko, Demetri, a few others... even Inara, to some extent, despite all the shit we've put each other through... but most of the rest of the corp? No, they've not really given me the "family" vibe. Not the kind that I can relate to and feel comfortable and safe with.

Do I trust them to have my back in space? Absolutely, and I would hope they'd trust me in the same way. But outside of the capsule? No. I don't trust very many of them outside of the capsule. I have a hard time trusting people who are more interested in ISK and profit at the expense of everything else.

Maybe I'm really not cut out to be a pirate anymore. Maybe I never really was to begin with. Hilen Tukoss and the Arek'jaalan Project have entrenched that idea more firmly into my mind than anything else has lately. It's like the opportunity to be in the Accord again, only this time the potential of the project isn't wasted on a fool like Julianus Soter. We actually have the manpower and minds necessary to make something out of the project, if we can keep it alive long enough to properly get on its feet and learn to walk. I dread to think of what will happen if Venal decides to have Ethan interfere with the project. I don't know what I'll do. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to make people happy.

Things at home have been... awkward, may be the right word for it. Reppy can tell something's bugging me as she usually can, but she's having as much trouble asking me about it as I am with being able to just tell her.

But it's hard to bring it up with her. Last time it even got referred to, she laughed it off as if it were a joke - and she was the one who even brought it up in the first place. I know she wasn't laughing at me, but it still hurt. It hurt a lot then, even if I didn't let on. And it still hurts now, as does the thought of getting the same reaction when trying to bring it up seriously.

This is just going to get messy when it does come up eventually - and it will come up at some point, I'm just not sure when - and I'm not really looking forward to it. Unfortunately it isn't something I can just swallow and go back to ignoring it like some other things. It's going to eat at me until it gets dealt with, and at this point it's just a question of which one of us is going to make the first move.

Morwen sighs, then opens her mouth to continue; a soft buzzing noise interrupts, however, and she turns her head towards its source - the door.

... Wonder who that is. Guess I'll have to finish this another time. End recording.

The camera drone deactivates.

Fragments of Memories: 14.11.112

2010-11-14T23:37:00.003Z

Darkness.

Then there's light, and a floating sensation. Holding tight to someone who is clutching back even tighter. Awkward movements from both, trying to move into a more comfortable position without losing grip of the other and floating off in opposite directions Success eventually, followed by soft giggling. Soft lips pressed against hers, then --

-- warm, flickering light from a fire. Softness of a fur rug beneath her side, two arms snugly wrapped around her. Quiet words whispered in her ear, a small smile forming on her face. Something moves into view out in the corner of her eye --

-- flash of a knife against her arm, a trickle of blood. It stings for a brief moment, but doesn't hurt; oddly, the predatory smile coming from the woman sitting on her lap feels somehow... comforting. Then she grins and moves in close --

-- the cool sensation of metal around one of her fingers, a hand gripping her wrist warmly as the object slides back from the tip of her finger - a gold-and-silver ring. A smile from the owner of the gripping hand, before she pushes her back against the sofa with a long kiss. Again, something visible in the corner of her eye, a person maybe --

-- running water. Back up against a wall, pinned there by something warm. A face obscured by a black mat of wet hair. Brush it out of the way with a hand, find a pair of brown eyes staring back. Can almost see her own reflection. A hand gently grips hers --

-- a carefully-crafted necklace of sapphires and rubies hangs in trembling hands, the jewels glittering as they move in the light. Her vision is slightly blurry - tears, perhaps - and her attempts to put the necklace around her neck are made difficult by her shaking fingers. A pair of helping hands assists, then wipes the tears away. Once more, something - clearly a someone - out of the corner of her eye is visible; black hair and silvery eyes with pale skin, their mouth moving slightly without making any sound. By the time she reacts and moves her eyes to get a better look, those brown eyes are too close for her to see anything but her own reflection again --

-- a small cutting sensation on her chest. Red facial markings glow back at her, as the woman perched on her lap carefully moves a small blade against her skin. A small diamond pendant, previously transparent, now shines a bright scarlet. The woman gives the pendant an appraising look, then fastens it around her neck. A familiar predatory smile before she leans closer, eyes alight --

-- curled up in a warm bath, soft giggles and quiet whispers; a gentle swat to the nose and a nip at the ear --

-- spoonfuls of homemade soup from a steaming bowl, a content and loving smile; there's that other person again in the background --

-- sitting on the couch, snugly curled up under a blanket while laughing at the absurdity of a holoreel --

-- arms wrapped around her middle, holding tight --

-- those brown eyes again; a playful glimmer visible in them before she's grabbed by the chin and pulled close, the words on the tip of her tongue silenced by a hungry kiss --

-- and then it's dark again.

No...

Morwen. That's enough. No more.

No, no, no, I want to go back...

I said that's enough, Morwen. You've been in here for nearly a week. I'm not letting you hide in here any longer.

But I'm happy there... send me back... please...

No.

Please...

I said no. Time to come back to the real world, Morwen.

I don't want to!

And I don't care. It's time to wake up.

No, no, no, no...

She becomes aware of a rushing sound as the capsule starts returning control to her own senses. Seconds later, dumped unceremoniously onto the floor, she coughs and sputters as her lungs try to clear the remaining pod fluid from her respiratory system before she curls up into a ball where she is, sobbing.

I want to go back...

No. You need to clean out your system and get out into the real world, with real people. You're not doing yourself or your crew any favors by being in this state. You are going to get up, you are going to wash up, and you are going to go out and interact with people. I don't care where you go, but I will make sure that you do go somewhere, forcibly if I must.

I don't want to... I want to go back inside...

Most certainly not. When she asked me to take care of you, it didn't include letting you stew in a narcotic-induced haze in your pod for a week.

You set it up for me...

Yes, I did, and I'm starting to regret that decision. Count yourself lucky that nobody outside of myself, the CMO and your capsule technicians know about it, because it could get your ass thrown out of corp if people knew you were flying under the influence. We don't even know what side effects this might have yet to cause for you. Get up. Now.

She stays there for several minutes, still sobbing, before she tries sitting up, hugging her knees close.

A good start. Let's go. It's not far. We can go to the Keep or the Piano if you'd like.

I don't want to go out...

Morwen, do you think she would want you to be like this?

She sits there silently.

No...

Then let's go. I don't have time for your moping, and honestly neither do you. She needs this... let her try and fix herself.

I need her...

I know you do, but she needs this right now. You need to be patient... things will hopefully get better and fix themselves at some point.

A small nod, and a sniffle.

Now, let's go and get you washed up. You're a mess.

Another small nod, and she cautiously climbs to her feet, one hand resting against a wall for balance.

One step at a time. Maybe having to learn how to walk again will save me the trouble of having to convince you not to do this again myself.

Wobbly steps forward.

Shut up... not funny.

Once you're sitting down with other people, I'll let you be for a bit, but you are my priority right now, okay?

A few more steps forward, then she closes her eyes, nodding as she walks. Those words she understood.

Private Video Log, 3.7.112

2010-07-03T03:28:00.038Z

Morwen sits at her desk again, a tired and defeated expression on her face, her eyes damp. She's wearing what appears to be an old Ghost Festival dress uniform, but the sleeves are missing, revealing two long, uncomfortable-looking gashes on her arms, one on each arm; they appear to have been treated, but there is still a large amount of dried blood smeared on her skin around the cuts.

Things didn't go exactly as we'd planned. We got to Curse, and met with the Dominations representative, got what we wanted... but as we were leaving the meeting... I don't know what happened exactly. We were heading back to the main part of the station on one of the elevators, and then I woke up in a cell with her, elsewhere.

Morwen rubs one of her arms carefully, her fingertips gingerly tracing the long wound.

They... it was Blooders. Using us for their sick, twisted rituals. They took me out once, cut up my arms and made me bleed into this... this pit... when they brought me back to the cell, Reppy was gone. I don't know how long I was in that cell after that, but... eventually help came. Masque, Kimochi, Ms. Alterana, even Andrastus was there. They got me out of the cell, and we tried to find Reppy, but... when we did...

She pauses, biting her lip gently before continuing.

When we did, she was just a hologram. Pretending to be one of them. Or maybe she wasn't pretending. I don't know. She... she called herself "Cruoris." Another personality, maybe... but... she escaped before we could catch her, and tried to kill us by destroying the station with us on it. We made it out, but just barely... and before she disappeared, she sent me a message...

A recording begins to play, Reppy's familiar voice sounding from somewhere off-camera.

I love you, Morwen...

The recording cuts out, and Reppy's voice is silenced, replaced by an artificial, somewhat disinterested "error, transmission interrupted" from the ship's computer. Morwen manages to choke back a small sob and wipes her eyes.

That's it. That's all she could send before... before I don't know what. That message is all we have to go on. Masque's doing what she can to track her, but... she's not stupid, if she doesn't want to be found...

A soft Gallentean voice speaks, tone firm.

We are not talking about someone like Miss Terranova, Morwen. Yes, Repentence is clever, intelligent and resourceful when she wants to be, but she lacks experience. She will make a mistake eventually... and I'm not quite sure that she doesn't want us to find her. It will take time.

Morwen sighs, nodding to herself.

Yeah, I guess so... I'm still worried about it though... scared, even. If... when we do catch her, if we have to force her into the new clone we've prepared for her the hard way...

The Gallentean voice speaks again.

We will have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

Another nod from Morwen before she replies, her voice hesitant and unsure.

Just... if we do, I want to do it. It should be me, not... not some random other person. It needs to be me. I just don't know if I can do it.

There is something that sounds like a sigh from the other voice in the room, then it speaks once more.

That may be out of our control. Go take a shower and get some sleep. I'll wake you if anything important comes up.

Morwen sighs another time, nodding defeatedly.

Alright.

She stands up slowly, then reaches over and turns off the recorder.

Private Video Log, 24.6.112 - A Tense Holiday

2010-06-24T23:48:00.003Z

Morwen is seated at a desk in a room that appears rather small, but distinctly Caldari in decor. She is wearing what appears to be a red variant of her usual loose-fitting Intaki robes. Out in the corner of the holorecorder's vision a bed is partially visible, as is what appears to be part of a body-shaped lump under the sheets.

So, once again, I'm down in Curse. At least this time it's on personal business, but... that's not really much of a reassuring thought given the reason for it.

She gives a small glance in the direction of the bed before continuing.

Reppy's problems have been getting worse, and while we can't fix them outright, Masque has come up with what should at least act as a stopgap measure and provide her with a stable point to get better from, instead of her continuing the downward spiral her body and mind have been suffering through lately.

Morwen sighs, then takes a small sip of water.

That... virus... over time, it's caused a lot of damage to her implants, and some brain damage on top of that. Unfortunately... this has carried over to her other clones, so a jump isn't even an option to fix things or stall for time. We need to get her a new clone, but that requires acquiring a fresh, untainted tissue sample with which to grow a new clone... and of course, new implants. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, in fact it'd be rather easy to do, but...

Another sigh, but when she continues, her voice is lower, with a slight hint of anger and frustration.

... But it isn't, because when she started working for PRELI, the Cartel decided that it would take possession of those samples. Which is why we're down here. I have to go Utopia and convince them to give me a fresh sample so that Masque and I can grow her a new clone. Right, because they'll just let me waltz in, ask for the sample, and waltz right back out with it. Me, the one who they didn't like to begin with, and now technically flies with a Gurista-aligned organization.

Another voice, soft but distinctively Gallentean, speaks from off-camera.

No, she'll be there. You get to sit and look pretty while she does the talking. Shouldn't be too hard, even for you.

Morwen rolls her eyes at the voice before continuing again.

Right, very funny, Ash... anyway. I can't exactly say I'd be comfortable with someone being able to hold something like that over me. It's far too easy to abuse or take advantage of. Capsuleers are effectively immortal, yes, but that only lasts as long as nobody fucks with the cloning process or equipment. It doesn't take much at all to take a capsuleer out of the picture permanently, and I refuse to let that happen to either of us, but... well, I guess Reppy didn't really have much choice in the matter. It'll be something to talk about when we get home.

Her expression softens as she looks over towards the bed for a moment, fingers idly playing with a pair of rings dangling from a small golden chain around her neck.

I know she says it's okay and that it's not my fault and I should stop blaming myself for it, but I still feel horrible about how it took me until just a month or so ago to realize how I really felt, and that I'd been wasting time chasing after something that could never work when I already had everything I wanted and needed sitting right there in front of me. I should have realized it so much sooner, but I was too stubborn to let it sink in, even with everything that everyone was telling me.

Another sip of water, and a small smile. A soft rustling noise comes from off-camera, and the lump on the bed moves a little. Morwen smiles again, lowering her voice again so as not to wake up her slumbering companion.

But I know now. I love her, and would do anything for her to make her happy and keep her safe... it's why we're here in Curse, it's why I've stuck with her through all of the hells she's been through over the last several months... it's why I'll still be there for her when this is all over and done with. Reppy has been, is now, and will be my first priority in life, for as long as she'll allow it. I am happy, with her, being by her side... and I wouldn't trade that for anything. She's everything I ever wanted or needed from someone else... I can only hope that I can be the same for her.

She closes her eyes, still smiling.

Anyway, we'll be here for a while after we get Reppy her new clone; Myrhial had been planning a trip down here that I'd intended on tagging along for, so once she and the others are down here we'll probably be down for another week or two. They should be arriving in a week or so, so it shouldn't be too long before we have compa--

Without warning, a pillow flies into view and smacks Morwen in the face. She breaks into a fit of giggles as Reppy speaks from out of view with a voice full of sleepy, playful severity.

Morrrwennn, as if it's not bad enough that you're hauling me halfway across the galaxy, you're now ignoring me for a machine. Snuggle me, dammit.

Morwen throws the pillow back in the direction it came from, a "Yes, mistress" barely intelligible through her giggling as she reaches over and shuts off the recorder.

Vey System, Central Placid, 1.4.112 - Longshot

2010-04-01T23:36:00.009Z

A faint, barely noticeable tingle ran along her extremities as she carefully scoured feedback from her ship's sensors. Faint signals from combat drones and wrecked vessels in space, stronger, more detailed pings from starbase emplacements... all of that she ignored as she scanned through the list on the display floating in the orange-colored liquid in front of her face. Then something caught her eye.

A battleship. Hyperion-class. A Gallente-designed vessel that was, in almost every way, the perfect catch.

She silently instructed the crew handling the scanner to start narrowing down the general direction the Hyperion was in, bringing up a display of the list of locally active transponders. One name stood out in particular -- it matched the name associated with the Hyperion, according to the scanner. She focused her gaze on the name, and a DED record appeared, floating in front of everything else.

The pilot's capsuleer license had been issued in early November. He'd spent a month with one capsuleer outfit, three working with the Scope, and had been working for his current employer for just shy of four weeks. The scanner's display flashed slightly, and she glanced at it, the DED record fading away. Several heavy combat drones had been detected with the battleship; four second-generation Ogres.

Morwen twitched a finger, and the visuals from the camera drones shifted to a three-dimensional map of the solar system. Icons dotted the space in front of her, indicating planets and other various celestial objects. Several icons glowed brighter than the rest; each illuminating a spherical region of the map. She willed them to move, carefully adjusting their position, then patiently waiting as they flashed and went back to their original state, revealing a number of new icons.

She repeated the process several times, focusing on one set of icons as they slowly shifted in color from red to yellow to green. Morwen grinned faintly to herself and willed the camera drones' feed to come back, sending along the message for the crew to get ready for combat. A nudge, and the ship was in warp.

It was a long hop across the system; and along the way, Morwen sifted through a number of possible engagement scenarios. She winced slightly, remembering the trouble that those particular drones had given her last time she'd run into them. The memory was less than pleasant, and quite painful. Gritting her teeth slightly, she settled on the simplest engagement plan.

Morwen felt a barely noticeable jolt as the ship exited warp in the middle of a Hyasyoda Corporation mining site, about twenty kilometers from the Hyperion. The slow, lumbering hulk of a battleship was moving towards a small cluster of docking platforms, and with a gentle push, Morwen allowed her ship to follow.

The proximity meter ticked down as her ship moved closer and closer. Morwen's eyes flicked almost lazily across the various feeds of information running past her, and focused on the looming target in front of her. Then the proximity meter beeped once more. She was within range.

The faint tingling sensation disappeared as she deactivated the cloaking device and her legs tensed as she sent the order to engage the afterburners; the red-and-gold form of a Pilgrim hull wavered into the view of the camera drones, the silver letters glimmering along the bow, giving its name: Nazara. A few seconds passed, and as the smaller cruiser lurched forward, the slothlike Hyperion slowly began to turn in an attempt to escape.

It was, however, seconds too late; as Morwen's mind and body gave the orders, her crew obeyed, and the Hyperion's already-slow movements ground to a near-halt as its navigation computer shut down and its engines sparked and sputtered. A hollow, empty feeling grew within Morwen's stomach as streams of energy arced out from the emitters on the Pilgrim's hull to the battleship. It was uncomfortable, yes, but not unbearable.

Scant seconds after the Pilgrim's drone bay doors opened and a flight of Hammerhead drones sped towards the Hyperion, Morwen felt a sharp stabbing sensation in her side; a glance towards the battleship showed that the pilot had instructed his crew to start shooting back. A moment later, there were the four Ogres, pouring out of the ship's drone bay and heading back towards the small red-and-gold cruiser.

Morwen instructed the Hammerheads under her control to regroup and engage the Ogres as they ripped through the Pilgrim's shields and began slagging away at its armor plating, the charged antimatter packets leaving a dark scorch mark across the lettering across the cruiser's bow as nanites flowed from the automated systems to repair the damage.

Though it only took a minute and a half, it felt like much more as the Hammerheads bore down on the heavier Ogres and tore through them like a swarm of carnivorous insects. Once the heavy attack drones were gone, the smaller Hammerheads went back to work -- the Hyperion's capacitor at this point was beginning to run dry, its own local repair systems were no longer active, and the railguns were no longer firing. For all intents and purposes, it was dead in the water.

Morwen smirked a bit as she opened a communications channel with the pilot, instructing her crew to maintain a close orbit around the crippled vessel.

I'm screwed, aren't I?
Not necessarily, Pilot.
What do you want?
I will allow you and your crew to leave for a fee amounting to a hundred and thirty million ISK.
Hrm... can't I finish off this contract job first?
I can't quite trust you to do that, now can I?
I only have to remove those two Hyasyoda ships over there. That's all. I won't shoot you; I've got the money.
If I see my wallet indicator flash with a hundred and thirty million ISK, I'll allow you to finish it with your ship and crew intact. Otherwise, my drones will just keep chewing, and well, they're hungry...
... Fine.
I'll disengage when I see transfer has been completed.
Er... I actually don't quite have that much; I only have one-twenty. Want to give me a break?
That will suffice.
Paid.
Pleasure doing business with you, pilot. Fly safely, now.
Er... Thanks...

Morwen's smirk widened into a grin as she closed the communications channel and recalled the Hammerheads to their berths in the Nazara. A gentle nudge, and the cruiser veered off, turning away from the crippled, but recovering, Hyperion. The familiar tingle from earlier returned as Morwen reactivated the cloaking device and issued the order to engage the warp drive, the Pilgrim vanishing from sight just as silently as it had appeared.

She closed her eyes and relaxed a little, smile lingering on her face. It had been a long shot, but it'd paid off in the end. The crew would certainly be getting a well-deserved rest that night, once they'd returned to Goinard.

Unidentified Mountain Range, Goinard V: 12.3.112 - Mingwei, Shi

2010-03-12T21:18:00.017Z

The forest behind her was alive with the sounds of birds and insects; a gentle breeze blew through her hair. Ahead of her, beyond the cliff edge, was a wide view of the several hundred kilometers of land between her and the sea. The sun was bright, and the sky a brilliant blue.

But on Morwen's face, there wasn't a smile to match the rest of the scene. Instead, a look of quiet determination was visible as she surveyed the small clearing along the edge of the cliff. A stasis pod floated several meters away just a few inches off the ground, accompanied by a nearby grav sled loaded with cut wood and small collection of other objects.

Morwen's gaze scanned across the clearing as she started moving towards the pack, gently pulling out what appeared to be a small camera drone, and then a primitive axe. She set the drone down on top of the stasis pod, activating it with a soft click before she moving to the sled and beginning to pull pieces of wood off and stack them on a level patch of ground a short distance away. Her movements were slow and methodical, each piece of wood placed with a careful and precise motion; each piece contributing to a larger whole in its own, personal way.

The camera drone watched her silently for over an hour as the delicately-placed stacks slowly but surely transformed from simple piles to the more recognizeable form of a pyre. Morwen took a few steps back, then started carefully walking around the completed pyre, her eyes scrutinizing every part of it, ensuring that it had been constructed exactly as intended.

Satisfied, Morwen moved silently over to the stasis pod and picked up the camera drone, moving it to one end of the stasis pod before returning to the control panel along the pod's side. She keyed something in, and with a soft hissing sound, the lid of the pod slowly opened, revealing the body of a young Jin-Mei woman.

The woman was dressed neatly in a white hanfu, her pose simple but refined. No visible trace remained of the quick, violent death her body had been exposed to; damage from exposure to vacuum had been repaired, as well as the myriad cuts and bruises caused by the shattering of the fragile chrysalis that had been the woman's hydrostatic capsule until it fell victim to a vengeful State Protectorate fleet in Aeschee.

Morwen cast a soft gaze over the body for a moment before she carefully reached her arms under and gently lifted it out, cradling it delicately as she moved over to the pyre and laid it down on top. A few minutes to straighten out the hanfu, to reposition the body, and then everything was ready. All the while, the mechanical sentinel continued watching her with focused interest.

She stepped over to the sled and picked up the sole remaining piece of wood: a half-meter stick about the width of the narrow part of her wrist and a bit of cloth wrapped tightly about one end. Her other hand moved to grab a small metal object from the sled; a gentle press to its side with her thumb, and a slow and deliberate motion bringing it into contact with the cloth wrapping soon followed.

Thin tendrils of smoke curled from the place the cloth had been touched, moments later turning into a steady flame, the light reflecting dimly in Morwen's brown eyes. She set the metal lighter down again and held up the makeshift torch, looking carefully at the pyre. Approaching it with care, she slowly walked around it in a circle, softly holding the burning torch to the edges of the pyre as she moved, watching as it steadily became alight with flames.

Gently setting the torch down among the flames, its purpose fulfilled, she turns back to the sled, picking up a container and gently prying the cover off with her fingers before setting them both down on the stasis pod. Reaching inside, she slowly pulls out a small canister and a small, delicate teacup with an intricate Jin-Mei pattern curling around its ceramic form. Morwen carefully twists the cap off of the canister then pours a small amount of a steaming liquid into the teacup. Afterward, she gently picks up the fragile cup and moves back towards the burning pyre, the cup held securely in her hands. She stops a few feet away, staring into the growing flames for a few moments before taking a sip of the tea.

A swift, gentle flick of her wrist, and the rest of the tea is cast onto the pyre, a soft hissing noise coming from the blaze as the liquid evaporates from the heat. Morwen stands there holding the teacup carefully, silently watching the glowing flames with an impassive look as the camera drone looks on.

Time passes, neither she nor the camera drone moving an inch. By the time the fire dies out, and nothing is left but ashes, several hours have passed by, and the distant sun is beginning to set, the sky now a deep orange hue. Morwen takes a deep breath, then puts the teacup and the small canister back into the container they had been stored in. She places the container on the sled, then moves over to the camera drone, picking it up gently and looking into its eye for a moment. Another soft click like before, and it is deactivated.

It only takes her a few more minutes to clean up and pack up what she had brought and move it back to the shuttle a short distance away. By the time the shuttle flies overhead on its return trip to the station Morwen had embarked from, only the pile of ashes indicates anyone had ever been there.

But even that is gone after a few more hours, the ashes scattered to the winds in ways only nature could provide.

Private Log Entry, 16.2.112

2010-02-16T16:19:00.005Z

A long time ago, I made a promise. One that I intend to keep.

I said I wouldn't leave you, or let you get hurt.

I'm bringing you home, Lilly, no matter what.

I just hope you can forgive me for what I might have to do to keep that promise.

And that I can forgive myself.

Infirmary, Echidna's Daughter: 1.1.112 - Seeing Things

2010-01-01T20:21:00.001Z

The infirmary was quiet, eerily so; aside from the gentle humming of the equipment attached to the young Khanid woman laying on the medical table next to her, the only sounds in the room were the steady rhythm of her own breathing and the periodic flipping of a page of the book in her lap, a leatherbound volume with a faded but intricate gold-colored inlay on the spine.

The Intaki's eyes were red and tired, her posture slouched as she sat with her legs crossed on a table next to the first woman. She turned the page again, then let out a small yawn as she reached up and rubbed her eyes gently. Letting her gaze drop back towards the pages of her book, she sighed softly before gently closing the book and casting a somewhat empty look off towards the entrance to the infirmary, away from the woman on the table next to her.

The monotonous droning of the equipment was interrupted by a sudden, familiar giggle from behind her, and a cheerful voice:

"'My god, Morwen, you look like crap."

She froze. She couldn't believe her ears; she couldn't possibly be hearing that voice. The doctors had been still as far away from a solution a few hours ago as they had been when her companion had first fallen into her coma. They couldn't have found a way to remove the virus infesting her friend's implants in that time, could they? Or even if they had found a solution, why would they have applied it without being in the infirmary? Could they even do that? She took a breath, then replied cautiously.

"... I know. Thanks, I think?"

There was a hint of amusement in the voice now. "No, seriously. When was the last time you got some proper rest?"

The Intaki -- Morwen -- sighed. "Don't know," she stated tiredly. "Probably several weeks ago."

The voice's response was almost incredulous. "Oh, come on. That's just silly."

"You'd have trouble sleeping too," came Morwen's blunt reply. She turned the book over in her lap, then shifted uncomfortably where she sat on the medical table. "I didn't think things could get worse," she said. "But... yeah, shows what I know, I guess."

The voice was a little exhasperated now, with a hint of expectancy. "Oh come on. Aren't you even going to look around?"

Morwen's response was quiet and subdued. "Do I want to? Should I?"

The voice scoffed. "Hallucinations have feelings too, you know." A pause, then: "All right, no, I suppose I don't, but c'mon, your brain put in a lot of effort here."

Morwen opened her mouth to make what, knowing her, probably would have been a snarky response, but she closed it again and turned her head slowly. Her eyes were dull and hollow, any semblance of the light that usually shone there long gone as she turned to face what was supposedly the source of the voice she is speaking to.

Staring back at her was Reppy -- the woman who should have been lying on the cot next to her -- or at least some illusion of her. She was perched backwards on a chair, presumably not wearing much, if anything at all; the back of the chair hid all but suggestion. The impish grin on her face was as familiar as ever, if slightly blurry.

"Maybe Suzie was right, and I should stay away from Burn," Morwen commented, more than a little surprised by the sight.

'Reppy' grinned. "Or maybe you're overworked, tired beyond belief, and kinda horny. Seriously, when was the last time you got any?"

Morwen almost glared at her. "No comment," she stated forcefully.

"I'm your own brain," the hallucination replied with a smirk. "I can't exactly tell anyone."

Morwen's response came with little more than a blank stare. "I'm not sure if I can even trust my own head anymore, thanks."

The illusion tilted its head a little, almost as if disappointed. "Honestly," it said, wriggling around a bit on the chair, as if trying to get comfortable. "So come on, what's wrong?"

Morwen sighed, then turned herself the rest of the way around, looking into her lap. "Everything, it seems like," she mumbled sadly.

Her hallucinatory companion smiled kindly, then spoke. "Well, let's see," it started, counting things off on its fingers. "I'm in a coma, Inara's giving you the cold shoulder, Lilly's not working out, and you're having second thoughts about your career. That about cover it?"

There was a long pause.

"Something like that," Morwen said, nodding a little.

'Reppy' looked to be deep in thought for a moment, then grinned. "At this point, an interesting question occurs," she began. "I mean, I'm not real, we've established this. But if I start giving you advice, does that make me a personification of your subconscious, your own personal devil's advocate, or just demonstration of the fact that you're horny as fuck?" She brought her hands up to her ears and made a gargoyle-like face. "Or maybe I'm some trace of the Masque, fucking with your braaaaaaaaaaaain," she added in a silly, overdramatic voice.

Morwen arched an eyebrow at the gesture. "Or maybe you're actually awake, being just as much of a pain in the ass as usual," she replied, her voice level, with a slight hint of amusement -- or possibly irritation -- bleeding through. "And the lump on the table next to me is actually the hallucination."

The apparition grinned widely. "Ooh, good one!" it giggled. "Didn't think of that. Or did I? Or should I say we?" It waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind the metaphysics. Why'd you come to be a Ghost?"

Morwen gave 'Reppy' a look that read "haven't we already discussed this?" before sighing and responding quietly. "Lilly really wanted me to, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I didn't know anyone else I could work with or trust."

"You knew what you were getting into," came the reply. "So why's it suddenly bothering you, what your day job is? Being a capsuleer is hardly a job for the completely sane."

Morwen looked back at the hallucination, her expression a little pained. "I sent a pilot six days out of training to the cloning vats just because I was in a bad mood... I don't want to be like that." She glanced away, continuing. "I don't want to be a monster."

The mirage scoffed. "What, you're worried about one sod who has the luxury of getting up and walking around again a few minutes later, but not all those poor Serpentis you keep killing who won't?"

"Sometimes I wonder if I should just stick to wormhole work," Morwen mused. "I'm not hurting anyone that way."

"No," was the hallucination's reply. "You just think you aren't. We know so little about the Sleepers that you can comfortably tell yourself that they might as well be asteroids, it doesn't matter how many you kill."

"We've never found any signs of life," Morwen protested.

"And our definition of life is the only one?" The hallucination waved a hand vaguely, blurring in the air slightly. For a split second, Morwen thought the apparition had taken the image of something else, but by the time that it registered in her mind, it was back to what it had always been. "You're a capsuleer. You're a combat pilot. You're death incarnate. Why's it less objectionable to kill a few thousand ordinary people than to inconvenience some punk who shouldn't have been out here? If you want a full-blown moral crisis, I suggest a convent."

Morwen frowned. "It was a complete mismatch. He didn't even get a chance to shoot back," she commented, pausing for a moment. "I enjoy the rush of combat... but how can I live with myself if I enjoy just... slaughtering someone like that?"

"Cos you're feeling guilty now?" The hallucination smiled kindly, though it appeared to be struggling to suppress a laugh. "You want a monster, go chat with Mortis a bit. You think he's felt a scrap of guilt over a single kill he's ever made, capsuleer or non?"

Morwen grimaced at the mention of Mortis, unpleasant memories resurfacing from the last time she had spoken to Reppy's brother. "After last time, I don't really want to talk to him unless I have to, no."

"Can't say I blame you," her non-corporeal 'friend' replied, smiling lazily. "You talked with anyone else about this in the Ghosts?"

Morwen shook her head. "Don't know who to go to," she started. "Inara would be entirely unhelpful even if she weren't being so blind right now, and Age is busy dealing with her, and..." Morwen trailed off, a couple names still on the tip of her tongue; even though she was really just talking to herself, the names she would have said felt so obvious to her that it felt silly to mention them.

The hallucination looked at her, head tilted slightly, as if trying to guess the names that hadn't been given. "I'm not exactly chatty at the moment, am I?"

Depends on your point of view, Morwen thought to herself silently as 'Reppy' continued speaking.

"What about Kimochi?" it suggested. "Or hell, Myrhial might spare you some time if she knew you were having trouble."

Morwen sighed a little, looking down into her lap. "Aldrith yelled at me when I tried to talk to him."

The hallucination just looked at her. "He's a fucking loyalist," it stated. "What did you expect? He's not gonna be able to have a rational discussion about piracy with you."

"He's never yelled at me about it before," Morwen mumbled in protest.

'Reppy' shrugged. "My point stands, sweetie. A non-pirate isn't going to be helpful. You need someone who's been through this to give some advice. Or at least someone neutral."

Morwen looked away uneasily, still mumbling. "Normally I'd go to you or Lilly."

The apparition just looked at her, a smirk on its face. "The girl who got petrified of even locking a target for ages and the woman who probably doesn't even remember her first kill?" It grinned a bit. "Nice choices," it added, with a hint of playful sarcasm.

"I don't know who I am anymore," Morwen said, looking into her lap again. "Or even what... other than just a mess."

'Reppy' looked at her, smiling gently. "Well... I could say all sorts of things," the hallucination started. "But you wouldn't believe most of them."

Morwen sniffed a little, glancing quickly at her 'companion.' "Of course I wouldn't," she said, her voice sounding as if she were holding back tears. "Why should I believe myself about anything?"

"Exactly," came the response. "Telling you things like when I'm going to wake up you'll just dismiss as wishful thinking. So I won't bother."

Morwen looked away, her gaze subdued, almost sad. "It'd give me something to look forward to," she said quietly. "Especially after that last talk with Lilly."

"Second week of February," the hallucination responded quickly, almost eagerly. 'Reppy' winked at Morwen when she cast a brief glance towards her. "Trust me. By then the virus will have decayed enough to be shut down by the native security systems."

A moment passed, then Morwen spoke cautiously, the smallest hint of humor in her voice. "Why am I so tempted to start a betting pool on this and try and see if I can make money from it? And how would I even know that about the virus?" she added, her expression now confused.

"Doubt Inara would approve," her illusionary friend said, grinning. "And don't bother asking the doctors about it, they don't even know that the virus can decay."

"Still doesn't explain how I'd even know this," Morwen pressed. "Or have reason to guess."

The hallucination simply shrugged. "Doesn't, does it? Second week of February. You'll see."

Morwen looked up. "You'll make my life miserable if I do start a betting pool, won't you," she said, an accusing look in her eyes. 'Reppy' only smiled at this.

"I don't think I need to," she said. "Everyone else is doing a good job already."

"No kidding," Morwen sighed.

"Now come on. You should sleep." The hallucination smiled again, gesturing to the medical table that Morwen was sitting on as well as its neighbor. "Talking to yourself will drive you mad, y'know," it added with a wink before fading from view.

"That assumes I'm not already mad, doesn't it," Morwen commented out loud to herself after the hallucination had disappeared. She looked around the infirmary a little, noting that as before, the room was entirely silent, except for the sounds of breathing and the soft humming of the equipment nearby. She rubbed her forehead gently with one hand for a moment, then set the book aside. She lay down on her side on the cot, staring tiredly at her friend on the table next to her as she carefully took her near hand into her own.

It only took a few minutes for sleep to overcome her; despite being plagued with nightmares, it was still a very deep and restful sleep, something that she'd needed very much for a long while.

Private Log Entry, 31.12.111

2009-12-31T10:37:00.011Z

I had been wandering idly around my hangar when I heard a call from Heyna about a radar signature in Goinard. Ended up bringing out the Rose again to help handle the guards in the complex once she had pinpointed it, then once that was done I headed back to the station to grab the Misuzu to assist in salvage operations and cleanup.

As we were finishing up, Heyna and I saw a Thrasher on scan, somewhere in the system. I switched to the Katana, and we narrowed it down to an asteroid belt near the second planet, and engaged. A Hawk and a Thorax are a little more than a match for a destroyer, and so it went down quickly. An Exequror was also in system, and warped to the belt at range as we were finishing up -- Heyna grabbed what she could out of the remains of the Thrasher, then we decided to attempt to catch the Exequror. We eventually caught it at the fourth planet and engaged.

Unfortunately, we saw spike in local transponders too late, and what we had commented just might be bait... turned out to be exactly that. Heyna's Hawk was unable to escape when the fleet landed and tackled her despite the call to disengage and retreat just as they started landing; when the Pilchard went down, I became the next target... but for some reason, I managed to get out just as the Katana's hull integrity was reaching about three percent. I don't know exactly what happened; my best guess is that everyone who had jammed the Katana's warp drive had disengaged their disruptors (and they were using disruptors instead of scramblers, as I know I managed to burn out of range of one of the larger ships with the Katana's microwarpdrive) in an attempt to catch my pod, but miscalculated in their timing, allowing me to escape, just narrowly.

I feel silly, having forgotten that what smells like a trap, almost always is a trap... it cost Heyna an expensive ship, and a number of crew on the Katana -- about seventy in total -- whose families need to be notified and compensated, and... well, replaced, I suppose is the only proper word. Thankfully I have Suzie to help with that, but... really, if there's a part of being a capsuleer I genuinely hate it is that: having to deal with the loss of my crew, even just one of them.

Later that evening while the Katana was in for repairs, I heard a call from Deckhard and Leo about a Rupture in a belt, so I wired into the Ananta and headed over. I managed to arrive just as the Rupture exploded, and would have simply left to allow Deckhard and Leo to handle the rest, but Leo's Curse suddenly performed an emergency warp, so I helped Deckhard by keeping a point on the Rupture pilot's pod while he continued the ransom negotiations.

A neutral Vagabond pilot entered the system and landed some distance away from us in the belt scant minutes later. Deckhard and I both panicked; he cut comms with the Rupture pilot and destroyed his pod, and I slipped out to sit at Hekhalot. Deckhard, unfortunately, was unable to escape as I had, and was under attack. I turned around and headed back to the belt to assist; I arrived seconds too late as Deckhard's Ishkur fell apart around him and the Vagabond pilot turned to me. I managed to keep distance from the pilot, sending drones after him, but even with a full flight of drones, I couldn't do much to break his shields until Inara showed up in her Curse.

At that point I was able to move in close and apply brute force with the Ananta's blasters; with Inara sapping the Vagabond's capacitor dry and disrupting the tracking on his autocannons, his shields soon collapsed and his armor and hull soon after. We quickly salvaged what we could from the area before any more trouble arrived. Hopefully what we recovered will help pay for his ship; it would be a shame otherwise.

Progress on the Kagami is proceeding as scheduled, so that should be something nice to look forward to this week... frankly, this has been a rather poor month to end the year with. I can only hope the new year is better.

God, I miss her so much...

Private Log Entry, 10.12.111 - Interesting Profits

2009-12-10T00:20:00.002Z

Well, the last several days have certainly been... "interesting."

A few days ago, Kirsa -- the newest pilot to join the Family -- reported having found a Sansha supply depot in Amod. Where I used to base out of while working with the Accord. I used to enjoy flying around the area, and given Reppy's current condition, I thought perhaps it would be worth poking my head in to see if there was anything there that could help her.

It took us several hours, but we eventually managed to bash our way through the outer defenses and make our way all the way into the deadspace complex. There were a number of us there -- Caellach and Leopold in battlecruisers (a Prophecy and a Harbinger respectively), Kirsa in an Arbitrator, Jude and Whit in bombers (Hound and Nemesis, I believe), and I flew the Thorny Rose and handled smaller targets while Heyna acted as a decoy in her Hawk.

In the end, we managed to track down the complex's overseer, a captain by the name of Skomener Effotber, and reduced his Nightmare-class battleship to a smouldering wreck. When we moved to inspect the wreckage and see what we could salvage, we were most surprised to find a specially-modified energized membrane that is worth almost (or over) five hundred million ISK on the contract market. On top of that, I managed to find some things that I hope may be useful to the people working on finding a cure for Reppy's illness; those particular recovered materials have been sent to the proper place.

Yesterday afternoon, Kirsa reported another deadspace complex ripe for the picking down in Gasavak -- this time, one belonging to the Crimson Hand, a group of Blood Raider sympathizers. We couldn't manage to rouse Heyna again, so I got landed with decoy duty in the Thorny Rose while Kirsa, Leo and Milo handled the rest. It took us a while in the last pocket; while I managed to generally keep a good hold of the eyes of most of the Blooders' sentry gunners and the captains of the modified Apocalypse battleships, Milo had a couple close calls with a capacitor-neutralizing attack (as did I, once or twice), and Leo and Kirsa managed to draw the attention of a few of the battleships as well. In the end, the captain in charge of the complex (whose name we were unable to ascertain; his ship only identified himself as a "Crimson Lord") fell to our combined firepower, and like a little pack of vultures, we moved in to see what our prize would be.

I almost rammed my ship into Kirsa's in surprise when Milo let out an excited shout over comms -- his salvage teams had not only managed to recover another modified set of energized plating, but a completely intact blueprint to build an Ashimmu -- the same type of ship I had constructed for Lilly, the one she named Anta. These blueprints run for about two hundred and fifty million on the contract market, and it's rumored that their design has been heavily upgraded within the last couple of weeks.

With Milo scouting, I brought the blueprint and the membrane safely back to Goinard; later in the evening, Naoko picked them up and brought them to Jita to put them up on the market.

And today... well, I've spent a few hours each night throwing probes out in random directions in Goinard and seeing what I could find. I've found and cleared out a few Serpentis sites, but there was this one gravimetric signature that I simply could not pinpoint, no matter how many probes I threw up around it! So, this morning I asked Jude if he could take a stab at it, and with a grin and a nod, he was in the undocking queue before I knew it, and had already pinpointed it for us.

It turned out to have sizeable deposits of Spodumain and Crokite, both very valuable (and rare) ores for this part of the cluster. What happened next, I will never forget:

We had a mining operation in Goinard.

A bunch of flashy outlaw pilots... mining.

And that's not even the best part -- it wasn't just PRELI pilots who were participating as industrial pilots -- we had PRETA pilots helping out too! Jude put a rack of mining lasers on his Maelstrom, Heyna grabbed a Badger, and Anima Arkenath even showed up in a Procurer! (Where she managed to pull that out of, I have no idea, but I suspect Marcus was involved somehow.)

Milo and I were put on site in "freakons" -- him in his Arazu, me in the Innocence -- just in case some passersby thought that the couple of mining barges we had with us would make for an easy evening snack. We didn't have much in the way of trouble until the local troublemakers -- a bunch of obnoxious little bastards who go call themselves "Zawa's Fan Club" -- decided to poke their noses out of the station that we unfortunately share.

Despite all that, we ended up not having to deal with them at all. I think Vaden -- or "Gramps," as we jokingly call him -- undocking his carrier on them might have given them second thoughts about coming to give us any trouble... this time.

We eventually wrapped things up when people started getting tired and needing to go catch some sleep; I stuck around in the Innocence after I docked, then after a little while I got a call for help from Milo over comms. He asked for a Drake when I responded, and that's exactly what he got -- I managed to land on-site in Raeghoscon just in time to rip the hull plating out from under the pod of Milo's attacker with a well-timed volley of heavy missiles.

We attempted to catch a few more unwary pilots, but in the end couldn't find anything, so we just docked up and called it a night; he went to the Skyhook afterward, I believe, but I had some work to do, and a rather desperate desire to take a long bath, so I had to skip.

There's been some progress with Lilly, thankfully; I went to see her last night after we returned from Gasavak, and after a bit of talking, I managed to get her to try out the holographic piano interface that I had dropped off a week or two ago. Much to our surprise... even though she didn't know what she was doing, she still seemed to just... know what to do with it. Perhaps the memory loss isn't total, as I'd hoped -- that she might still have some memories of things, even if they weren't people or places or events, but perhaps something more physical, like playing the piano.

It was wonderful hearing her play again, but... to me, the most important part was that it brought a smile to her face.

And that's why I've been in such a great mood lately, I think. Not just the very successful several days that the Family has had, but that I've also seen Lilly smiling.

I'm glad that some things still make me just as happy as they used to.

Medical Report: Lagann, Morwen: 1.12.111

2009-12-01T19:31:00.006Z

Patient: Lagann, Morwen (GF462207810)
Date: December 1, 111YC
Facility: Teppoyuri
Location: Naraka private hangars belonging to Morwen Lagann
, Goinard IV - Moon 2 - CONCORD Bureau

TIMELINE

02:45 - Patient arrived at medical facilities on the Teppoyuri.
02:54 - Patient admitted and sent to CF1.
03:00 - Clone grade Xi, ID# GF462207810-1111201 activated.
03:15 - Patient begins clone-jump procedure.
03:17 - Clone-jump procedure completed. Previous clone body taken to secure storage.
03:20 - Patient admitted into OR5.
03:25 - Initial dose of hypnotics administered to patient.
03:30 - Visitors for patient admitted into OR5. Both visitors listed on access lists for Uraha and Misuzu, but not Teppoyuri. Patient allowed override of default access rights for both visitors for the day as well as their presence in the OR.
04:30 - Visitors depart.
04:45 - Second dose of hypnotics administered to patient.
06:15 - Final pre-operation dose of hypnotics administered.
06:20 - Anaesthetics administered.
06:30 - Surgery begins.
07:25 - Final implant diagnostics completed.
07:30 - Implant installation begins.
08:10 - Capsule interface implants installed.
08:20 - Communications implant installed.
09:45 - Additional capsuleer augmentation implants installed.
10:15 - Surgery completed.
11:00 - Patient moved to RU, low doses of hypnotics administered.
13:30 - Patient regains consciousness.
19:00 - Patient officially discharged from medical facilities. Patient elected to remain in RU overnight.

SUMMARY OF PROCEDURES

Procedure: Clone Activation

Status: Completed

Desc.: Grade Xi, GF462207810-1111201

Procedure: Implant Installation

Status: Completed

Desc.: Occipital Lobe - Ocular Filter

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Details: Temporal Lobe - Memory Augmentation

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Desc.: Parietal Lobe - Neural Boost

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Desc.: Frontal Lobe - Cybernetic Subprocessor

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Desc.: Parietal Lobe - Social Adaptation Chip

Procedure: Implant Installation

Status: Completed

Desc.: Temporal Lobe - Lepus Insights Dodecahedral Subprocessor

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Desc.: Parietal Lobe - Lepus Insights Actuative Manager

Procedure: Implant Installation
Status: Completed
Desc.: Frontal Lobe - Lepus Insights Librarial Tap

FURTHER SUGGESTED TREATMENT

Pilot Lagann should remain out of the capsule for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and refrain from other strenuous activity during that time as well.

A follow-up appointment has been scheduled for Wednesday the ninth to make certain that the new clone and implants are working properly. If any unusual side-effects or symptoms occur in the interim, Pilot Lagann has been instructed to contact her medical staff immediately.

Private Log Entry, 22.11.111

2009-11-22T16:08:00.000Z

Morwen's voice has hints of a slightly artificial component to it as she speaks; a trained ear would be able to pick it out as being the caused by a capsule interface, which would mean that she is currently wired in and her ship is idling.

In just a short while, I compete in the latest iteration of Inara's "DeadSpace" games. Last time, the fight was between Elysa and Fear in a Caracal and a Thorax, respectively... this time, it's me against Seriphyn Inhonores, in advanced frigates of our choosing.

I've spent some time studying Seriphyn's combat records, and while it definitely looks like he prefers Ishkurs and Taranis, he's flown an Enyo at least once, and I recall hearing something about him flying a Jaguar once as well. To be honest, in a simple duel such as this, I would fully expect him to bring an Ishkur, and if everything goes as planned and I don't screw up, bringing one will be his only fighting chance.

Reppy and I spent the entire morning looking over my ship and plans; I think I like what she came up with better than what I'd been working with last night when she showed up in my hangar. I have to admit I was rather surprised -- I'd never have expected her to know anything about actual capsuleer combat, but she's been rather full of surprises lately, and just looking at things in the diagnostic tool, this should work much much better.

That all said... I honestly am genuinely concerned about the outcome of this duel. So many people seem to think that it's a sure thing that I'll win in the end -- I really don't think it is, if Seriphyn plays smart. He's right in what he said on the IGS, that most of my solo work has been against pilots that really just did not know what they were doing. I've had a few exceptions, but... still, he's right. My experience primarily lies in working in a group and chewing through a target with overwhelming force and numbers, whereas his experience has been focused in smaller engagements with the Caldari militia.

On an entirely different subject, it's been seven weeks -- at least, I think it's been seven weeks, it's been so long I think I'm losing track -- since I last saw Lilly. Three since she disappeared entirely; nobody has seen her since, not Reimei, not any of her staff... and she's not been in her office or on any of her ships, not even the Longinus... Reimei gave me a comm frequency to try listening to, but I've been listening for days now, and heard nothing... nothing at all save the occasional burst of static or interference. It's just... silent.

She sighs softly, then continues.

I hope she's okay, I really do... she wouldn't have just disappeared like this without a reason, and she wouldn't have done it willingly, I just know she wouldn't have left unannounced like that. It isn't her, even though nobody seems to believe me... I just want her to be safe, to come home.

A pause.

Well, there's the call from Inara. Time to get this show on the road.

Private Video Log, 9.9.111 - Bookmarks

2009-09-09T00:41:00.003Z

Morwen appears in front of a metallic green background, her shoulder-length hair down and appearing slightly damp. She looks intently at and around the camera, her hands out of view on either side of the lens' field of vision, presumably interacting with the camera drone's physical controls. The colors flicker a little and the image goes a little out of focus for a moment, but then they right themselves. She tilts her head a little, then nods slightly to herself, pushing the drone away just a bit before stepping back a few meters herself, giving the camera a full view of its current interest. Morwen is dressed in a black podsuit mottled with patches of a green color several shades greyer than whatever is behind her.

Family.

One of those things that everyone should have, even if not in a literal, but a more figurative sense. Even better if you can get both, right?

I've found the latter, here in Ghost Festival.

She laughs.

Well, not here per se, we're based in Goinard with Veto, not all the way up in Duripant where I am now. But I've only been here barely a day, and I already feel more welcome here than anywhere else I've ever been. Most of my closest friends -- Family, now -- are here. Ama, Aria, Inara, Kimochi, Reppy... and of course, Lilly.

A small smile crosses her face as the last name leaves her lips.

I know I probably gush about her enough as it is, but I can't help it. Sure, we might be going through a bit of a rough spot right now thanks to that horrifically stupid mistake of mine a couple weeks ago, but I'm infinitely happier having her by my side than I would be without her. I love her, and I don't know what I'd do without her; I can't even imagine life like that anymore.

Morwen sighs a little, then moves a bit, running her fingers against the object in the background. The camera drone adjusts its focus and floats backwards a bit, giving a better view of what turns out to be a Velator-class frigate held securely in dry-dock. Morwen's expression shifts, towards something that appears to be more thoughtful as her fingers run along the edge of a small nameplate on the side of the ship, the word "Melian" clearly readable on the plaque.

It's been over a year since I last flew the Melian. I've been keeping it in Couster for the last year, just to keep it safe. Today I moved it back here to Duripant, where I started my journey as a capsuleer over a year ago in mid-June. Every graduate from the capsuleer training program was given one as a gift... hence its name: "Dear Gift." I've treasured this ship, like all of the others from my early days. And now that I'm moving on from the Accord, to my new Family... I'm closing one chapter of my life, and starting a new one.

Morwen smiles again, her fingertips idly tracing the lettering on the nameplate as she continues.

But it's impossible to bury the past, to leave it behind you permanently. It's part of you, it changes who you are, changes who you can and will be. This is where I started my journey, and what I started it with... and so I will leave the Melian here, so that it may serve as a bookmark of sorts to that part of my life, for whenever I want to remember and revisit it.

A soft pinging noise suddenly starts from somewhere behind the camera drone, causing Morwen to look over. She blinks, then walks over to the source of the noise -- her datapad -- the camera drone panning and refocusing to follow her as she moves. She picks it up and reads it, then smiles a little, shrugging to herself.

Looks like I'm being called back for a roam... I'll just barely be able to make it on time if I hurry.

Morwen laughs a little to herself as she pockets the datapad and walks over to the drone, grabbing it carefully and fiddling with the controls once more, her expression not doing much to hide how unfamiliar she is with the drone's systems.

Now how am I supposed to turn this thing off again? Maybe this switch is the ri--

The video and audio feeds cut out.

Private Log Entry, 29.5.111

2009-05-29T10:42:00.005Z

Yet again, I screwed up.

Koro and I have this thing we do on one of the public FTL comms channels, specifically the one called "Summit"... it's nothing more than a joke, really.

So one night a new pilot poses a question about how the capsule interface changes your perception of your body -- specifically, how certain ships make you feel larger or smaller, faster or slower, stuff like that -- and I made a crack about how after being in the Uraha for the better portion of a day I keep looking behind me to see if my backside has grown any larger. Koro follows this up with a comment about how it is larger, I responded with a sarcastic quip, we went back and forth with it for a bit... and then someone made a comment about how the "married couple" should take it to private comms.

Which only encouraged us further, as we were already laughing in another channel about the whole thing. It's been "our" joke for the last week or two, and it's mostly for our entertainment than anything else; we've specifically been going with it to make fun of a couple of the more outspoken... idiots... on the Summit.

Anyway... we were heckling each other in the same fashion on the Summit the other day... and didn't realize that Aurora was listening to that channel. Needless to say... she didn't know it was a joke, got upset, cut comms and refused to talk to either of us.

Koro said he'd "deal with it" and went to go find her.

I met up with Koro later at the Skyhook, and he said he'd cleared things up -- she'd been crying when she found him, and smiling when she left. We talked a bit more... about what little of that he would tell me, and some other things... and I made an offhand comment about how cold my hands were.

He called Miss Subaka over, thinking it might be a remaining side effect from the boosters, and she took a look at me, asked me more questions about... that weekend. Short of it was that if anything was still in my system causing trouble, it was the Crystal Egg, and that the best I could do was drink lots of water and see if my CMO could get me a prescription for a detox drink. She left after that... and Koro and I just went back to making idle chit-chat.

Some Achuran lady came in and Koro got up to talk to her... I finished my tea and was ready to leave, so I stopped by to say goodbye... and he gave me a picture he'd gotten of Aurora smiling. It's silly, I know... but I find that looking at a picture of her when she's smiling calms me down and helps me relax.

I went to the Gate after that, figuring perhaps I'd see Amaterasu and Reimei; after all, I had promised Ama that I'd get her a little bit of cider to try -- with Reimei's permission, of course -- but neither of them were there, so I ended up talking to Cia and Math'ra instead. Cia was glad to hear that I was feeling better after my "booster incident"... but Math'ra hadn't heard about it so I had to repeat the story yet again... I really just want these bruises to go away so I don't have to talk about it.

We changed the subject, and Ama and Reimei came up... and then all of a sudden my datapad started beeping... and it was Ama.

She was in trouble, and something about Reimei... being dead... and... I don't know... my mind just shut down. I don't really remember much after that... Math'ra left, I think to try and find her... somewhere in Caldari space... somewhere I can't go. Cia took me home a little while after... and here I am...

I have to call Math'ra tomorrow... see if he found her... but I can't be of any help if Idon't sleep...

Private Log Entry, 26.5.111

2009-05-26T08:23:00.006Z

Today... was way, way too much for me...

Well, it wasn't that bad at first. I stopped by the Gate tonight on a whim, and ran into none other than Hitome and Aurora. I spoke briefly to Hitome about the things that had happened over last day or so; apparently someone set off a Vitoc-dispersal bomb in the Quaesitor yesterday in the morning. I was very worried about Aldrith, Hitome, Leo and Math'ra... I hadn't heard back from Aldrith after I'd sent him a message when I heard what had happened, so I was afraid he'd been caught in everything, but Hitome reassured me that no-one had been killed or severely injured, and I felt much better. She commented that the culprit had been in and out of the Gate a few times, and that she wanted to do something particularly nasty to him. I agreed... told her if I saw him somewhere I wouldn't get in trouble for starting a fight, that I'd take a swing at him myself. She said to make sure to get a picture if that happened... I couldn't help but laugh and promise I would.

We also talked a bit about having to get together with Aldrith and putting on a little jam session; Hitome on the piano, Aldrith on his leteth, and me on my violin... Mr. Roche came by, and Hitome decided to leave with him, I think she said she was going to the target range for a bit, but in any case it left Aurora and I sitting at the bar by ourselves.

It was really awkward.

Both of us apologizing to the other for how we'd acted... telling the other that it wasn't their fault...

We both gave up after a few minutes of that... then she offered to get me a drink. Of course I said yes... but I wanted her to just pick anything she wanted and surprise me.

Oops. Back to the good old indecision cycle. By the time I decided to end it and just ask for another glass of wine, it was about time for her to sleep. I really need to keep better track of time when I'm around her, I am always forgetting that she sleeps a few hours off from me. I bid her a good night, and she left after giving me the wine.

I watched her leave, then people-watched a bit. It's always interesting, the sorts of people you find in places like the Gate. As I found out in a rather... well, unexpected way.

A young Brutor girl came out of one of the private rooms in the back of the club and sat down near me at the bar. Bright red and orange hair, like a flame, almost. She seemed a little bored, so I decided to be polite and start a conversation.

Her name was Amaterasu, which I admit was a little amusing to me, as it was the name I had given my first cruiser-sized ship, a Thorax. She seemed like she was looking for someone, so I asked if she was; she mentioned Mr. Roche and Mr. Verone... and a third person who I didn't know. Apparently she was bored while waiting for the third person to return and decided to wander around. She offered a very colorful fruit drink to me while we were talking. It was extremely sweet; a good thing that there was no alcohol in it. Judging by how she seemed to be bouncing in her seat a bit, and by the ten or so empty glasses on the tray that she'd given me the drink off of, she'd probably have been passed out on the floor if it had.

We kept talking. Apparently Ama used to be a slave, but she was emancipated about twelve years ago. Since then, it seems that she's been doing freelance mining on her own. Aldrith came in at some point and was talking to some Sebiestor woman behind me. While Ama and I were talking, I saw Marius -- the man who Hitome had identified as the person who set off the vitoc bomb -- enter the bar again. I admit I panicked a bit and might have overreacted in my attempt to make sure he didn't do anything stupid... but after he calmed down, I introduced him to Ama. While explaining to Aldrith that Ama had been emancipated, someone remarked that her former owner had attempted to "recover" her earlier that day.

In the split second it took me to turn towards that person to ask them what happened, a young Khanid woman dashed into the Gate and had grabbed Ama by the arm. Before I could even react, she had dragged her off of her stool and was pulling her violently towards the club's exit. Ama was screaming at the top of her lungs, Mr. Verone was shouting at the woman, guards were rushing to block the exit, people were running all over ... it was chaos. And Ama... she was in the middle of it, and she looked more frightened than I've ever seen someone, and I panicked and started running after them.

She stopped at the door and turned towards Mr. Verone, starting to argue with him as she pulled Ama in front of her, grabbing her by the throat. He wanted her -- the woman -- to let go of Ama and come up to his table. She threatened to kill Ama right there... snap her neck. Things kept heating up... someone entering the club saw what was going on and pulled a gun on the woman, putting it against her head... Ama was still shouting, Mr. Verone was moving towards them from his table... and I...

I was standing there, no more than four or five paces away, just watching. Frozen in my spot. I couldn't move. I felt so helpless... and then... the woman said something to Mr. Verone, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him move his hand down to his waist and pull it back up, pointing a pistol at the woman.

I saw a bright yellow flash, and heard a loud crack.

Then time seemed to stop for a moment as... as I saw something so... so horrible I can't even think of words to describe it. Mr. Verone... he shot that woman... right there... in front of everyone. Without a second thought.

She... she crumpled to the floor, dragging Ama with her, not even making any sort of sound... Ama yelled as she fell, and I suddenly could move again. I ran over as fast as I could and tried to get Ama loose from the... the remains...

Ama was sobbing, and struggling to get herself loose. It was hard, but she must have realized I was trying to help her, and she stopped struggling and latched onto me. I started walking over towards one of the restrooms to start cleaning her up, and we were most of the way there when an older Civire man came over to help.

He introduced himself as Reimei and asked me to tell him what happened. While I did, we cleaned Ama up and brought her over to the bar to sit down. I gave her one of those fruit drinks to help her calm down while Reimei went up to talk to Mr. Verone... not sure what about, but it's none of my business.

I don't know... what really was happening. It felt like my body was on autopilot. I tried rubbing her shoulder to calm her down a bit... she picked up a drink from the tray and went over to the host's table where Reimei was talking to Mr. Verone. She gave him the drink, and then came back with Reimei, sitting down next to me again. Ama still seemed stressed... so I asked her to turn her back towards me so that I could try and help her relax a bit. I didn't really expect her to actually do it when I asked, but she turned without complaint... so I started massaging her shoulders and back, idly listening to the conversation around me. Reimei had started talking to Qing Jao -- she prefers to be called King -- a young Jin-Mei woman that I've spoken to a few times over the past week or two over FTL comms. Today was the first time I think I'd ever seen her face to face, but I didn't really get a chance to talk to her for more than a minute or two.

Ama seemed to be feeling better, so I asked her if there were any spots she wanted me to try working on in particular. I was a little surprised when she asked for me to work on her neck, given what had just happened, but I did as she asked anyway. I started talking quietly to other people while I worked on Ama's neck, and turned back to look at her several minutes later only to find that she'd fallen asleep. She looked so peaceful in that state, it seemed hard to imagine that she'd been through so much today.

It was about that time that I received an urgent message from Age, who... well, I guess the best way to describe her is as King's personal secretary, but she's more than that... she's this highly sophisticated -- arguably sentient -- holographic AI that she uses for information gathering among other things... and often Age will be present in some holographic form or another to converse with people if King herself is unable to or otherwise busy.

Anyway... Age said that Koro... that he was saying he wanted to kill himself, and... so, after Reimei took Ama back to his ship so she could sleep better, I left the Gate and was supposed to go to where Koro was and try and talk him out of it...

I was talking to him on the way on private comms... and he... he scared me with the way he was talking... I didn't know what to do. I panicked. I searched through all the names that I knew of people who worked in Ghost Festival, people who could get there in time to stop him from doing something rash... I took the first name I found -- a miss Inara Subaka -- and sent her a quick message asking her for help.

Koro... he... he got very angry when he found out. He... he didn't yell at me... but I could see the anger in his eyes. I.. I started to cry, and then he just said "goodbye" and ended the call. He wouldn't answer when I tried calling him back. I've kept trying to reach him, but still no answer...

Age said it was my responsibility to keep Koro alive... but I think I failed... I hope he didn't... I don't want to think about that.

I need to sleep... maybe I'll feel better in the morning... maybe... just maybe... Koro will pick up and he'll be okay...

Private Log Entry, 23.5.111 - 2

2009-05-23T09:26:00.006Z

Ugh... my eyes are still a little wonky. The lights in my quarters are on at about ten percent brightness and it still feels like it's too bright in here. My hands have stopped twitching, though.

I spoke to Koro briefly over at the Skyhook last night; he didn't have any ideas where I could have gotten the boosters into my system, but he said that the bruising on my wrists looked like "bondage" bruising. I didn't even bother asking why he'd even know what that would look like, but it's perfectly possible, I guess... I just can't see how I would have ended up in a place where that would have happened. Certainly not under my own free will, but then... if the drugs were in my system first... who knows what could have happened after that.

I came back to the Uraha after that, and after a shower I decided to poke around on some of the comms channels; perhaps there would be someone to talk to, maybe Aldrith. Instead I found Miss Roth... Cia, that is. I haven't seen Camillle since that afternoon in Rens. She asked how I was doing, and I stupidly answered that I'd "been better"... she became concerned, and pressed me for the details. I didn't really want to bother her with all of it... I knew she'd been under a lot of stress herself lately, but I like her, and she really seemed to want to know, so I told her what I knew and could remember.

She contacted me privately shortly thereafter, and said she had a question she thought she should keep private... she told me about how a girl she knew in school had had a similar experience... I think it was almost as awkward for her to ask as it was for me to answer.

"... did your CMO run a ... did she run a sexual assault kit?"

She indeed had -- and had found nothing -- so I reassured Cia that that was the case. I wasn't sure if she'd processed my clothing, though, so I hastily added that I'd ask the doctor to check it. I mean, she probably had checked it without me noticing, but maybe there were tests she could do that would need me to be out of my clothing.

Cia also said I should look into getting some security, or at least having someone I trust around me at all times... I didn't like the idea of having guards escorting me around much... and well, that's why I hang out with Aurora and Aldrith... I trust them both completely... and I love Aurora with everything I have. But I can't be around them all the time... perhaps I should be spending time in a more... what's the word... policed, perhaps... environment? Just in case?

Maybe the Gate would be safer than the Sisters... much as I love it, it doesn't have a pair of .50-cal turrets sitting over the entrance, or a security checkpoint. It can't hurt to try it for a while, I guess. Who knows, maybe I'll see someone I know. I have run into Ami and Cia the last several times I've been.

I thanked Cia, and she ended the call. I took the clothing I'd been wearing down to the medical bay and gave it to the doctor. She said she'd check it and get back to me later. I went back to my quarters, shut off the lights, and went to sleep.

And I just woke up a little while ago... and seeing as I'm currently not allowed to get into my pod, I'm stuck walking around on my own two feet or taking the Interbus somewhere. I really should find some way to amuse myself until the side-effects wear off and I can see properly again...

Private Log Entry, 23.5.111

2009-05-23T02:24:00.002Z

What the hell happened today?

I remember being in the Sisters, having a mail conversation with Miss Shantath... and then I remember being escorted to the ship's medical bay when one of the capsule technicians alerted Susie that I was behaving "abnormally" as I was about to climb into the pod. Apparently I'd not only forgotten the names of him and his partner -- Soran and Beren, respectively -- but I was also "seeing things" and didn't appear to be concerned about that at all.

The CMO made me lie down on an examination bed and ran a few tests. Apparently I had some boosters in my system -- specifically, the two known on the narcotics market as "blue pill" and "crystal egg" -- and they were the cause of the abnormal behavior that Soran had reported. She says that it'll be several hours, possibly even a day, before my system is back to normal, and that because of some of the side effects I'm still experiencing -- specifically, dilated pupils and occasional twitching in my hands -- I should avoid bright lights and activities that require fine motor skills. Walking around is okay, so I may go for a walk around the station later, or to the Gate if I'm feeling up to it.

She also said I have some strange bruises on my neck that, at the very least, I couldn't have given to myself. There were also some bruises on my wrists, but those could have been self-inflicted, possibly from a hallucination. But I don't remember how I could have possibly gotten them, or where, so... I dunno...

Still... the last thing I remember was talking to Miss Shantath, and my Neocom records indicate she sent me information on how to get to her place, and she had said she'd wanted to talk about something, and Susie said she had authorized the purchase of a round-trip InterBus ticket to Ashab for me, where Miss Shantath had said her house was, and that I had been there.

I wonder what it was she wanted to talk about. Whatever it was that we did talk about, assuming I even arrived there in the first place...

I can't really ask her if she gave me the boosters or if I got those bruises while I was there, or if I even was there, though. It'd be impolite, and I don't have any real proof any of it happened while I was there, again, assuming I even was at her place. It could have happened somewhere else either on the way there or on the way back. It could have been anyone or anything that got those boosters into my system and got those weird bruises on my neck and wrists.

I only really know one thing for certain, though.

It sure as hell wasn't me.

I know better.

... Right?

Private Log Entry, 12.5.111

2009-05-12T17:27:00.003Z

Dinner didn't quite go as I'd planned.

I mean, the food was fine, despite my rather lackluster culinary skills, and Aurora said she liked it... and of course a straight "yes" or "no" answer would be a little much to ask of her given her usual mental state...

We met up in the Three Sisters, and after an utterly painful attempt at deciding where to eat on the Uraha, we walked back to the ship... really, I'm as horrible at decision-making as Aurora is sometimes; it's a good thing that Aldrith decided to chime in. Once we got on board we headed up to the observation deck.

We made some idle chat, and then the galley called to tell me that the food was done cooking, so I went down to get it, and then we started eating. We talked a little more, some about what her work was like in Stillwater, a little about the work I'd done earlier in the day.

Aurora seemed a lot more distracted than usual that night... uncomfortable too, but she kept denying it. I didn't want to press the issue, so I let it be for a while... after we finished eating, we continued talking. I don't really remember how it came up, but I mentioned the first time I went to the Last Gate with Aldrith, and that question he asked me... strangely, even a month later, I can still hear his voice in my head.

"Have you ever been in love, Morwen?"

I'd originally had no answer for him when he asked. I wasn't really even sure what he'd meant at first. He could have easily meant any kind of "in love", even just a simple teenage crush. After thinking about it for a bit I decided he had meant something other than a little crush, but even then I wasn't sure how to answer. It took me a few days, but I found my answer, and told him. He's been trying to help me make it work ever since... pressuring me, even, to speak up and tell her how I felt, "before someone else does it first," as he kept putting it.

Anyway... I told her my answer to his question, and I have never seen a shade of red quite as bright as what was on her face... I immediately felt horrible, like I should have kept my mouth shut, like I was embarrassing her beyond all reason. She said she was surprised by it... I can't see how she would be, everyone else had already figured it out; hell, Koro had threatened to tell her how I felt himself if I didn't that night... turned out he was bluffing and was just trying to push me into doing it, in his own special way.

I tried to explain to Aurora that I didn't mind if she didn't have an answer for me, that it was okay for her not to have an answer, that I'd understand if she wanted to turn me down... I don't think it really went very well. I think I embarrassed her so much that it'll be a miracle if she ever wants to speak to me again.

I'm a horrible friend... I shouldn't have put Aurora through that. I should have just kept my mouth shut and never said anything at all...

Private Log Entry, 11.5.111

2009-05-11T14:37:00.005Z

What am I going to do?

I'm having dinner with Aurora tonight, and I'm finally ready to tell her everything... but there's so much that I have to figure out before then... I'm just so excited and scared and nervous that I just can't focus on what I need to get done...

If we're eating out at a restaurant, where do we go? Neither of us could think of a place to go... perhaps we should take Norrin's suggestion of the Gilded Rose, or maybe there's a place in the Crystal Boulevard, or somewhere closer, on the station in Jel...

If she wants to eat something home-cooked, where will I get the ingredients? Will I be able to make it properly without screwing everything up, even with the help of the ship's cook? Will it taste good? Will she even like it? And beyond that, where will we eat? Aurora isn't fond of crowded and noisy places, so the mess hall is out... the observation deck or astrometrics lab might be quieter, but will she want to eat there? What about my quarters? They're the quietest place on the ship, but they're a complete mess right now thanks to the thrashing that the Uraha took earlier this afternoon and I'll need to clean it up first...

And more importantly, when do I tell her? How do I tell her? Do I just say it straight out? Do I wander my way there like I'm trying to find a hard-to-find shop at the Rens bazaar? Do I do something I hate doing and lead her into saying or asking something that makes it the logical thing to say next?

What will she say? Will she feel the same as I do? Will she be upset? Will I embarrass her so much that she never wants to talk to me again? I don't think I could ever live with myself if I made her upset, even over something entirely unrelated to this whole mess...

I hope she feels the same way... I really do... I don't know how I'd respond if she doesn't...

Oh, Fortune save me I'm a complete wreck...

Public Log Entry, 11.5.111

2009-05-11T12:00:00.001Z

So many things are on my mind these days.

Where am I going with my life? What's lurking in the darkness of space, just beyond that gate? Do I really feel up to the job that I've told my agent that he can expect to be done well ahead of schedule? Am I really ready for all of this?

Egger, podder, capsuleer... whatever word one wants to use, it'll have been just another way to describe me for a year exactly one month from now. But has it really been that long? It feels like the last eleven months have gone by so fast... and so many things have happened in that time. I've made friends from all over the cluster -- who'd have thought that my best friends would turn out to be Amarr loyalists or from the State? I've moved my way up from that tiny little Velator-class frigate that the Academy gave me upon graduation of basic capsuleer training -- if I recall correctly, I named it the "Dear Gift" as a bit of a joke -- to the Dominix-class warship and Falcon-class reconnaissance cruiser that I use most of the time.

One thing that will continue to amaze me is how much money capsuleers make. I'd only been a pilot for a few months and I was already earning more money daily than my parents earn in a month, combined. It's a scary thought to me: that what I once thought was more than I could ever hope to earn during my entire lifetime as a captain in the Navy like my father is merely a few weeks' work. That I'm making enough to buy an entire town out from underneath someone's feet. It really scares me sometimes, the amount of power that capsuleers have... I just hope that I never find myself abusing it.

On the bright side, I find all of the things I do in the pod to be second-nature now... sure, I still make mistakes occasionally -- usually control issues with my drones doing things other than what they're supposed to be doing, but I swear they have minds of their own sometimes and that it's not always my fault -- but that feeling that the ship is like an extension of my body and mind... I love it. Suzelle, my XO -- the crew and I call her "Susie," at her request of course -- seems to agree, often commenting to me how much more relaxed I appear when climbing out of the pod than I do when I get in it. I don't know what it is that causes it. Perhaps it's just instinct, that while it feels counter-intuitive to be willfully submerging oneself in liquid, being inside the pod triggers long-forgotton subconscious memories of being in the womb... just floating there in the darkness. I guess it explains why sometimes I fall asleep there after a job rather than climbing out and going to sleep in my quarters; I probably should try harder to not do it though, the soreness in my back afterwards is never pleasant. Suzelle said she'd try to wake me up next time, so hopefully I'll be cutting down on the in-pod naps in the future.

On that note... it's about time for me to get back in the thing; apparently someone stole some sensitive information from one of the research labs here in Vittenyn and I'm the only one who isn't already out on assignment that is also able to handle the job. Maybe if they did security and background checks on people they hire for research positions this sort of thing wouldn't happen so often...

... but that's a bit much to ask for, I suppose. Oh well.