RE419S | audio/text sent to everyone but DI481O | Night 23

[aluminumandash]

[ Hours—several—after Q&A with the anonymous callsign's come to an end, Rust breaks his walkie silence for the first time since the storm. He sounds raspy-voiced but keyed up, intent. His drawl's more clipped than usual, but he doesn't rush. ]

Bout a week ago, the man who's been calling himself Officer Ben De Guzman pulled a gun on me, knocked me out when I fought back. He then cuffed me, took my shit, and up till today had me leading him around that fucking cabin to the Northeast. Ah, this included forcing me to help put together a bloody arrow, leave it out for the guy living there like some kind of a fucking love note.

His callsign's DI481O. [ He repeats it for good measure. ] Mid-forties, Mexican, six feet. Muscular build. He's got a mustache, a grey streak in his hair. He dies, he'll come back in jeans, a button-down workshirt, red bandana. He'll have sustained a gunshot wound to his left leg and he'll be limping. His gun'll have four rounds, but I don't think I gotta tell anyone how easy it is to pick up new weaponry around here.

Most of what he said on here was bullshit. As you mighta gathered.

His name's Eduardo Salamanca. He's cartel, top of the fucking food chain. Drug manufacture and distribution, wide-scale killing on his say-so. This is a powerful man used to getting his way. He's also— [ The merest pause, a huff of breath. ] obsessive. Vengeful. Prone to fixate on people he sees as having wronged him or diminished his status. Capable, too. Not a hunter, but he can survive alright on his own.

[ Another, longer pause. When he comes back some of the weariness from the past week bleeds into his voice. ] I'm gonna type all this up for you. Ah, anyone who can write it down, please do. Tell anyone you know who might not be on the walkie.

Um, I took a print of his boot—I'll see if I can't get that out there. Anyone who's talked to him recently, I'd like to hear from you. You think he might come after you, I'd like to hear about that too. I've also got some questions.

Whos hurt/how bad?
Anyone familiar with Salamanca's name?
Anyone turn up something from his world during the storm?


[ OOC: True to his word, Rust will painstakingly type up a text version of this, which will take him a good twenty minutes.

He will ALSO be monitoring Lalo's walkie for a conveniently unspecified period of time, so if you want your char to look shady, now's your chance! Reply here with a message for Lalo and Rust will intercept it. (Or ignore this if your char is too smart for such ploys!) ]

Comments

audio | KD201D

[obeir]

[ Oh. He'd thought Martin knew; he's always wondered what "lonely" might mean, and was hoping to ask one of these days. His own call sign is rather on the nose, no mystery there. ]

I've noticed several call signs are weirdly specific considering we're not able to choose them ourselves... Almost as though whatever brought us here knows something about us, maybe.

[ It certainly seemed to know what he is. ]

HE412T | text

[timaeus]

No "maybe" about it.
The fact that it's only some is the bigger clue, in my opinion.
All the non-obvious ones could have some personal meaning the rest of us aren't aware of.

[He remembers this guy saying he's an android, but Dirk's also the kinda person who names his robots shit like "Squarewave", so he's not gonna jump straight to a model number.]

Alternatively, the entity in charge is just occasionally in a goofy mood.
Or there's more than one person responsible for assigning callsigns and at least one of them has a sense of humor.

[obeir]

That's true. Out of curiosity, what's the significance of "heart"? You haven't struck me as someone who's especially romantic or sentimental.

[timaeus]

[ plot twist he's totally both romantic and sentimental, his versions of those things are just batshit and/or stunted ]

It's a title.
I'm the Prince of Heart.
And no, it doesn't mean anything in the sense of romance or Captain Planet.

[obeir]

[ Well, Dirk's always welcome in the island's small romantics~💖 club anyway. ]

Oh. Cool title. Does it have anything to do with those special abilities you're not able to access here?

[timaeus]

Yeah.
I won't bother getting into the whole breakdown of classes and aspects, especially given I'm not exactly an expert in everyone else's shit.
But on a practical, tangible level, mine pretty much translates to "Destroyer of Souls".

[obeir]

Soul powers.

[ Wow. That raises so many more questions. And, predictably, K has the urge to ask whether Dirk can definitively tell if he has a soul... But publicly airing his existential insecurities isn't high on his list of things to do today. ]

So you can do damage to souls? Are you able to affect them in other ways?

[timaeus]

"Damage" in the sense of tearing them out of a person's body, at least.
I'm pretty sure I could trap them inside something else too if needed.
Haven't really had a chance to experiment yet, not that that'd be easy to do in an ethical way with this powerset.
Luckily innate knowledge of what one can do seems to come with the godtier package.

[obeir]

Sort of like a horcrux... I've heard of those.

[ From a vampire wizard who actually attended a version of Hogwarts, no less. ]

Yeah. Can't imagine many would be willing test subjects for abilities like that. What was the purpose of you having them, though? Were you your universe's version of a grim reaper?

[timaeus]

[God, where's Roxy when he needs her, she'd love to talk about that wizard shit...]

"Purpose" is kind of a weird and existential way of putting it.
I only really had a chance to use them for the sake of taking down some endgame bosses shortly before waking up here, so it's hard to say what the longterm intent was.
Maybe you're onto something with the grim reaper thing.
I guess being the god of death would be pretty badass.

[obeir]

Endgame bosses in a figurative or literal sense?

[ Maybe he's from a video game-logic universe. K's certainly heard stranger. ]

Guess it's really not surprising the powers that be here nullified those abilities if they're wanting to make island survival a challenge for us. If that even is their goal. But I wonder if there's any way for those of us with special abilities to regain access to them... [ Hell, it'd just be nice if the electrical storms here didn't scramble his systems so much. ] Gotta say, it'd be pretty amusing if you reaped that cabin dork.

[timaeus]

Literal.
It's complicated.
Anyway, would we really want to take out the cabin person?
Sounds like we'd be breaking Salamanca's heart.
As the Prince of Heart, I can't abide that shit.

[He's kidding.]

[obeir]

I could argue that they have it coming for their embarrassing villainous monologuing alone, but I see your point. As the Prince of Heart, you're probably the closest thing to an officiant here. So you could be called on to solemnise their union in the future.

[ Who are they to stand in the way of the cabin creature and Salamanca's love? ]

BT612L; text

[ichoosefight]

How are you a prince then? Or is it in the sense of Sailor Moon

[timaeus]

It's more like a class in a video game.
So what's "BTGRL" mean?

[ichoosefight]

idk, maybe BT stands for something? I never really thought about it

[timaeus]

"Bluetooth girl"?

[ichoosefight]

not really a computer person

my last name is Brown, maybe that's part of it? I don't have a middle name though.

[lonelynotforsaken]

They know something and have... some kind of sense of humor, yeah. But why only some people? Is there more information about a few of us than others?

[obeir]

Could be. I've never made a secret of being an android. And you haven't made a secret of missing your boyfriend. [ His tone becomes a little wry: ] Ours could have been more creative...

"Diablo", though. [ There's a quiet huff of what might be raspy laughter; his voice is hoarse from exhaustion and the electrical storm making him "sick" in a robotic sense. ] That sense of humour theory could be right.

[lonelynotforsaken]

[Yes. Missing his boyfriend. The only reason for that callsign. Yes, good. At least it just makes him look pathetic instead of like he's aligned with a horrible fear monster entity. Used to be aligned... Mostly used to.]

I guess we should maybe pay more attention to the callsigns and if they might mean something. I really thought Ben was- Eduardo was a police officer.

[...]

Although, 'diablo' would work for a cop, too.

[obeir]

[ K doesn't think it's pathetic at all, it's endearing, sweet. He can easily relate to that sort of romanticism and longing. But maybe one day he'll know the truth... ]

I'd say it's even more fitting for a cop than a cartel member, but I know my experience with human cops in my home universe influences that. I hope they're not as bad in other places.

[ Thoughtfully: ] Easy to guess who "Meow" belongs to. But I couldn't find Ellington's — the talking cat — radio anywhere. So if any messages start appearing from that call sign, probably safe to assume it's being used by someone else.

[lonelynotforsaken]

I mean... they're both usually awful sorts of people in different ways? At least cartel people are open about it. Except when they're lying through their teeth, I guess.

Also, that-that's adorable. Like the cutest thing I've heard all day? Meow for the kitty? Gosh! Oh, do you think if we get a talking dog they'll be 'BO012K'? Or something like that? That would be so sweet!

[obeir]

I wonder if everything was a lie? [ Because he really didn't have that impression, personally. ] Or mainly just the cop part. Everyone here seems to hate cops, so that's a strange thing to lie about being.

[ What the hell Martin, that's adorable too. ] We can only hope. Matching onomatopoeic call signs, that'd be very cute. [ He sounds amused. ] Now I'm a bit disappointed I didn't get some variation of "beep boop". [ You know, stereotypical robot sounds. ]

[lonelynotforsaken]

I don't know about... hate. Mistrust? But it's not like he could have known that. There are a lot of people who're really pro-police, too. Or would trust the police. Especially over, like, a cartel drug lord? If you gave me a choice to trust one of them with a kid like Kokichi, I'd probably lean toward the police if I didn't know anything else about the two different people.

Maddy and I were talking about maybe being able to change our callsigns in the future. You could maybe make that a reality? BE980P? That's more like bep-bop, but if we've only got six characters to play with and it has to follow the format of the other callsigns.