o1 . january catchall

[sanctuarymoon]

Who: sanctuarymoon and you!
What: A rogue murderbot arrives in Trench.
When: Throughout January.
Where: Throughout Trench.

Warnings: Will be marked as needed.

Comments

ARRIVAL.

[sanctuarymoon]

( 1. winter mourning; memshare )

[ A human handed it the housing decoration, okay, it's not like SecUnits are known for their arts and crafts. And it definitely did not expect this.

Congrats, Sleeper: you're standing in one of your memories. Is it an embarrassing one? Is it a personal one? Either way, you have company.

And your company looks absolutely floored to be here. ]

Uh.

( 2. cozy coldbloods; enclosed space / body heat )

[ The weather hasn't seemed too bad, lately. Which makes this sudden flurry all the more annoying.

It should have known exploring like this was going to backfire. Sleepy Town is just as eerie as it expected, and it wanted to get out of here before running into the monster that apparently guards this place. But with the storm up and no HubSystem to guide it home (fucking planets), there's no way it should try to cross the wall back into town until visual improves.

This is the least-collapsed of all the dilapidated buildings on this block. It looks like an abandoned human domicile, now thoroughly rotted and halfway smashed by something worryingly big. Whatever. Murderbot sits down heavily in the corner to wait for better weather. ]

( 3. wellness; horror / enclosed space / monster fight )

[ You know which local monster hasn't been too active lately? You know who has just the luck to get dragged into her lair anyway?

Murderbot has very little time to process what's happening, and then it's scrambling for a grip in a shaft of dark water. SecUnits are heavy, what with being more shock-resistant metal than organic components, so treading water isn't a comfortable option. It clings to the slippery stone walls of the well, instead.

A stone rolls into place overhead, and darkness settles. ]

Fuck.

( 4. the things they carried; rescue / monster fight )

Don't move.

[ Hello, stranger. You are suddenly being commanded by a tall, imposing person with readily-visible metal components in their head and arms. Their gaze is fixed on you, and their expression is somewhere between baffled and horrified.

Except Murderbot isn't really looking at you. It's looking at the drops of blood drifting upwards from the snow just in front of you: the sign of something just under the surface. ]

( 5. the things they carried; gore / parasite horror / hurt-comfort / healer or vileblood needed )

[ So.

That went badly.

Murderbot staggers into Lumenwood looking half-dead. It's covered in blood and other, more mysterious fluids, but at least it's no longer actively leaking. That's not the problem. The problem is the glazed, feverish look in its eye, and the odd roiling sensation of infection it doesn't know how to articulate.

There's something inside it, and it needs to get it out. ]

1. cw: umineko spoilers, gore

[forwantofahorse]

[The scene opens in what may be a distressingly way for Murderbot: a gunshot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

A portly old man in a doctor's labcoat topples backward, collapsing onto a blood-slick floor. Most of his skull is caved in from the force of the shot, and a fragment of bone zips past Murderbot and embeds itself in the wall behind it.

Standing over the corpse is a young woman in a gore-spattered maid's uniform with a hollow expression on her face and a Winchester M1984 aimed precisely at where the doctor's head used to be. She lowers it slowly, looking at the gun with what appears to be blank disinterest at first but is in reality all-consuming rage only held in check by soul-rending despair. But the former quickly fades, leaving only the latter.

She gives the doctor's corpse a vicious kick, then one more, and perhaps a third before she hears crying coming from the door leading out of the hallway. That blank expression changes into something mournful as, after hesitating for a few moments, she creeps her way inside, not making a single sound.

A girl with bandages wrapped around her eyes sits under a table, clutching her head and calling for Kanon-kun. The culprit looks down on her with something approaching pity, raises the gun, levels it at her next victim's head...

Then pauses.

She breaks. Her formerly-numb, now-melancholy expression becomes just plain exhausted. Carefully, she lays the gun down on a nearby table, kneels next to the sobbing girl, and in a voice that's totally incongruous with her entire presentation—sounding more like a moody teenage boy than a maid—says:]

"Milady... I am always waiting by your side."

[On the other end of the room is the same person as the one clumsily attempting to calm the girl beneath the table, although Murderbot would be forgiven for not realizing that for a few moments, given the change in outfit to something significantly less bloody and more androgynous in a simple white button down and slacks, as well as the lack of enormous breasts.

Sayo stares down at the scene replaying itself from her memory, not even realizing Murderbot is there as tears fall from her eyes until it makes itself known by clearing its throat.

She looks up, locks eyes with it for an interminable moment... then laughs hollowly.]

Van Dine's Eleventh, [she says, without any explanation. It's clear from just those few words that the voice the memory-Sayo is putting on for Jessica is an affectation, albeit an expertly-crafted one, but the real Sayo's voice is still rough around the edges and exhausted. A little bit deeper than Murderbot would expect by looking at her slight frame, but not by much.]

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Okay. So. A lot happens at once.

In one moment, Murderbot is on the street among a throng of humans. One is offering some kind of decoration, and in a moment of stupidity or just a willingness to make this interaction end more quickly, it touches the creepy wreath of bone—

And then there's a gunshot, and gore, and Murderbot throws itself backwards before it can think to. Its threat assessment module is screaming. The human on the ground looks super dead. There's a human with a gun.

The human with the gun is dressed like a character from some really boring historical piece. And from one look at their face, they're what Murderbot would professionally categorize as pretty fucked up right now.

It starts forward, intent on getting the gun away from a rampaging human (why do humans always think AI want to go on murderous rampages when it's always them) before it realizes: it just walked through a table. Through a table. The human with the gun doesn't look up at the startled SecUnit in the room, which is so baffling and suicidal a move it actually stops Murderbot in its tracks.

Nothing here feels... real. It feels like watching media. The sense of distance is the same.

Except for the human watching with it.

Murderbot stares at the newcomer for several flat, baffled beats. It's still off-kilter, frozen half a step into approaching combat, not sure what to do with itself or its posture or its hands. The maybe-real human is still sobbing on the ground, the maybe-real murderer now crouched beside them. Only the person in white seems to genuinely be here, and genuinely be aware of it.

The look on their face also rates as pretty fucked up. ]

What does that mean?

[ It's meant to come out like a harsh demand, not... half-desperate. ]

2

[shiro2hero]

[It's too cold. His whole body aches. Especially the joints of his arm - the right arm. The one that isn't supposed to hurt at all. He just needs to get out of the cold, out of the wind. Hole up for a minute with his omen until the aches subside.]

[He doesn't realize he's not alone in the empty space, not until the lioness growls, low and humming. It's not a warning. Not a threat. It's the sound meant to alert her human of another presence.]

Hello? [He calls out, pulling the hoodie tighter around himself under the coat.]

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Oh, great. Now it has to share its shelter with, apparently, hostile planetary fauna and—

Oh. An augmented human? It's actually kind of a relief to find something familiar. It was starting to think every single human on this planet was unaugmented, which would mean the visible metal and lines of light in its own head, neck, and hands would make it awkwardly visible to literally everyone.

That means the fauna is a pet, or a weird smoky nonhuman intelligence like it own drones. It just needs to announce its presence in a clear, nonthreatening manner, so it doesn't provoke the augmented human into overcautious panic. ]

Hey.

[ Nailed it. ]

3

[slayerskiss]

Jesus. [Is all she says as she claws herself to the surface of the water and grabs hold of the wall like it's a lifeline. Luckily her knife is still tightly gripped in her hands.

She peers out into the dark. Of course Slayers don't get nightvision, that would just be an immensely useful ability for them to have.]

Hey, where the hell are w – [And then she's being dragged and the fingernails make contact with her skin and her poisonous blood starts to leak.] Motherfucker!

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Oh, great. This situation has now gotten distinctly worse, because it includes a human with a knife. At least it's only a knife, and only one human.

Except then something drags the human under the water.

No, really, fuck.

The bloom of Vileblood makes Murderbot's visual input go spotty, which is kind of terrifying because normally that only happens when something hits it really hard in the head. But there's no time to second-guess the plan, which currently amounts to Don't let the hostile keep the human.

Murderbot launches itself off the stone wall. This turns out to be a horrible idea, because, again, SecUnits do not float. But it manages to swing a solid kick into the hostile, which might be enough to jar its grip. ]

3

[hearuthinking]

[Jason must just be a magnet for falling into places infested with monsters. He hits the water and mercifully doesn't break any bones. The moment he recovers from the impact he takes in his surroundings. Unease stirs in him. Alone in the dark... He listens hard but he can't hear any of the tell-tale noises of the vampires. Which does nothing to assure him since they could just be off in the distance somewhere.

He hears movement and another voice, saying the thing that is on his mind]

Yeah, what you said.

[He taps at his flashlight until it comes on, letting him get a better look at their surroundings. He turns to shine the light on the stone walls looking for hand-holds. Jason doesn't know where they are but he does know he isn't about to be stuck in a hole again]

Eric had the fuckin' climbing gear. Gotta make do with what we got. You good up there?

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Murderbot looks down, and thinks: well, shit. This is going to be a lot harder with a fragile human in tow.

Having worked a lot of shitty mining operations, Murderbot knows its way around a horrible dark hole in the ground. This is definitely one of those. It frowns down at the light below, and carefully shifts its grip on the stones. ]

I'm fine. Are you injured? [ A beat, and, with an air of resignation: ] Do you have any other equipment on hand?

1; also lmk how much/if you want Illarion to be able to pick up on Murderbot's internals!

[unsheathedfromreality]

[There's two versions of the same person in this memory, but anyone looking at them would be forgiven for thinking they're different people entirely. Both of them occupy a space that's as much a garden as a home; to the discerning mnemonaut, one (the smaller) feels like he belongs there and one (the larger) stands out from the background like a sore undead thumb.

Version one is a kid sitting in puddle of cloudy sunlight, bare knees pulled up to his chest and shoulders hunched. He'd be maybe eight, if he were human--which he isn't; he has glossy black-and-white feathers instead of hair, and pointy feathered ears, and little talons on both his hands and his dusty feet.

Version two can be mistaken for a human if he's got his hood up and his eyes hidden, which he does, because he's standing about as far away from the kid as one can manage while still being inside the garden. Look at this beautiful night-blooming cereus he's found: He sure is!

It's the feathery kid who looks up at the noise, red eyes (redder for crying) widening as he takes in the stranger standing in his home. He's clearly miserable, but shock and curiosity are stronger forces than misery in the instant.]

Why did you come in here? [Not quite a human voice, either, with those overtones.]

go wild dude!!!

[sanctuarymoon]

[ That is a weird-as-fuck-looking human.

Like, Murderbot has seen humans. Murderbot has seen humans corrupted by exposure to alien biological remnants. This is definitely looking more like the latter, which puts it really on-edge really fast.

And then the small corrupted human looks at it, and it freezes awkwardly in place. ]

Uh. [ This wasn't articulate the first time, and it's not articulate now. For an agonizing half a second Murderbot fumbles for something to say, and then it opts for: ] By accident, honestly.

Wellness

[wapples]

[Billie sticks his head up from under the water in the middle of the well with a splash and a gasp of air. He shakes his head, trying to clear the water from his face and looks around.

He doesn't mind the water so much - it doesn't even seem all that cold to him, and floating is easier than trying to tread, so he just lays back in the water, and spreads his arms and legs out like a tiny round starfish and looks up at Rin.

Oh, hey! It's his friend who cut him down from the trap in the tree! This is fine, Rin is great at climbing, they'll get out of here no problem.]

Well.

[It's a little more alarming when he hears the scraping of stone on stone and looks up to see the stone lid sliding into place, sealing them in.]

Ummm... Hey! Don't! There's people down here!

[He groans, and starts suddenly when he feels something brush past him beneath the water.]

Rin... That was you, right?

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Great. This is great. Bad enough to get sealed down here (and it is not thinking of a contaminated storage shaft on a shitty abandoned planet, thanks) but worse that the world's tiniest human is here too. Now Murderbot has to actually stress about things like air and drowning. ]

What?

[ Its attention snaps over to the tiny human. ]

Did you hear something?

5 finally!

[necrosaint]

[ Harrow is working on learning blood storage techniques via creating stones—as in, specifically right at this moment she is doing that—but sets her experiments aside when she sees a familiar-ish figure.

Someone she met in the archives who now looks just a bit different. She stands, takes a step forward, waves it over. ]

Come here.

[ Sorry for the lack of gentle 'Have a hard time?' It's just that it's Harrow. ]

[sanctuarymoon]

[ For a moment, this sucks marginally less. It remembers this human. She'd been unfazed by the drones, and hadn't insisted on constant eye contact like every other member of her species. If anyone would see what is obviously a rogue SecUnit staggering into a human medical suite, and not react by screaming and waving their arms around, it would probably be this human.

Also, she's from a system so weird they probably, maybe, almost definitely haven't even heard of SecUnits.

Maybe.

Murderbot doesn't say anything, just drops its head in a nod and follows her instruction. It feels awful, racking up weird fucking errors and performance reliability dips it can't attribute to anything solid. Curling up alone in a corner to hope the situation gets better has lost its appeal. ]

Are you familiar with the carnivorous tentacled fauna that live in the snow?

6. i do what i want

[hacktivated]

[ They might be robots, but they do still need a place to live - or at the very least, a place to store their stuff and wait when they need to enter low-power mode. Rin seems to prefer the idea of living near the edge of town for some reason, but there are still plenty of options to be found. Like this one, for example! ]

The technology here is powered by moonlight, and we do not have the same requirements for shelter that humans might. Therefore, I believe that a partially open-air residence will provide the maximum benefit to us without claiming a resource that another resident of Trench may have a greater need for.

[ And with that she gestures to the prized 'partially open-air' residence, an old and rundown two-story home with a massive hole in the roof. And just to sweeten the deal: ]

The nearest neighbor is over 100 feet away from us, as well!

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Murderbot looks... uncertain. It steps forward to approach the door, trusting that Penny Polendina will trail behind. ]

It looks alright. [ It looks like a place no one else is going to bother with, which puts it top of Murderbot's list, even if the gaping hole in the structure kind of stresses its risk assessment module. ] It's not like any humans or augmented humans will be competing over it.

[ The door is unlocked, but that might be the wrong word: whatever lock mechanism was in place seems to have rusted into unusability. Murderbot pulls open the door with a bit of force and an unpleasant sound from the hinges, and looks into the darkness just beyond.

Then it slides a look to Penny Polendina. ]

If anyone sees where we're staying, they might realize we're not augmented humans.

4

[onekindsoul]

[Ruby freezes on the command and her eyes glance up at Murderbot but she catches the horror in his eyes and realizes he's not looking directly at her. Her eyes follow his gaze down below and she catches sigh of tentacled creature beneath them.

Instead of looking terrified there's a hint of a smile on her face.]

Woah that's so cool.

Want to kill it?

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Oh, no.

Oh, no, why are humans like this? ]

We don't know what it is. Or how long the hostile's reach could be.

I will handle it.

[ Tone of: please let me handle it. ]

[onekindsoul]

[Ruby catches that tone and quickly pulls out a box on her back that unfolds into a rifle.]

No, no, no.

I'll handle it.

EVENT.

[sanctuarymoon]

( 1. snake den; socializing / the rare possibility of cuddles )

[ How the fuck did it get here.

Murderbot finds itself in among its least-favorite situations of all time: it is at a human party. Specifically, it is sitting in a pile of huge soft bedding items, holding a skinny little glass drinking receptacle on a long glass stem, and looking completely out of its element. Someone handed it this drink, and now it has to keep holding it and hoping no one will notice that it refuses to consume any.

Murderbot awkwardly puts the champagne flute down, but its movement causes the pillows to squash around and nearly knock its drink over. With startlingly fast reflexes it snatches the glass up again, still looking kind of mortified that it's here at all.

All it can do is avoid eye contact and wait for this to be over. ]

( 2. wildcard )

[ Hit me! ]

(1)

[terriblepurpose]

[Pauline had sometimes fantasized about being able to attend a social engagement incognito, acting as if she was any one of the other Bene Gesserit sisters invariably flitting through the social waters like the ancient predators they are. This wasn't quite how she pictured it, but never mind that - she's not one to miss an opportunity, however it comes to her.

The pleasure of doing what one does well is one of her favorite kinds, so she's in good spirits as she strolls through the celebratory atmosphere, sipping at a tall glass of sparkling alcoholic wine, and she witnesses the startlingly quick recovery of a similar glass with a quirked eyebrow. Well - why not?]

Are you waiting for anyone?

[A small human in a dress stands in front of Murderbot, her tone lightly friendly.]

[sanctuarymoon]

[ Oh, no. It got worse.

Murderbot looks up with the air of a rabbit in a trap. A big, burly, visibly tech-augmented rabbit looking profoundly uncomfortable in a stack of squashy pillows and wow this metaphor is horrible, it should just stop. ]

No.

[ Even the brief moment of direct eye contact has it wanting to claw its organic skin off, so it looks back at its glass. Oh, so this is the purpose of a drink at a party: it gives you something to interact with, something to stare at.

It doesn't mean to say any more, but for some reason: ]

I hate parties.

1

[frogiturgy]

[Murderbot wasn't the only one trying to avoid the crowd. Perell had found the quiet corner as well, and quickly ducked behind the curtains for a chance to have a little bit of quiet and release from the bright lights. A chance to breathe was all he needed at that point, and the bubbling champagne in his hand provided both an excellent distraction and escape.

He was never one to socialize. Wizards rarely gathered, and even before that he had chosen a profession which allowed him the freedom to feel the night breeze and listen to the trilling frog songs as the sun slipped down below the horizon. While he admired and appreciated a great deal of what he was seeing...

A break was appreciated.

He had flopped down onto the bedding and removed his dapper hat before he noticed a familiar face, and immediately he smiled.]

Rin.

[This was great. Really!]

It's you! I-- I had wondered about-- uh...

[A quick look spoke volumes of Rin's apparent discomfort, and Perell redirected his plans.]

--How are you holding up?

[devilmind]

[ The Operator isn't exactly in their element here, either. They're not the sort to get invited to lavish parties, especially given that the last one they attended is still a subject of infamy millennia after the fact. They suppose inviting a Tenno to a party is a little like inviting an earthquake or other natural disaster—not guaranteed to bring ruin, but why tempt fate?

Admittedly, their mood had darkened when they'd seen the decor outside the Red, all gilded marble and the like. It had looked terribly Orokin. But now that they're inside, they feel strangely at ease. In fact, they feel downright cheerful.

So much so that when they see a stranger who looks like they'd be right at home in the Origin System, they feel only excited curiosity rather than suspicion. They certainly don't notice how badly the stranger wants to not be here. ]

Nice tech. [ The Operator nods to the sleek metal augmentations on the stranger's arms. ] How'd you get it?

[ Easier to ask that than to ask if it was by debt or by choice. ]