Prison World #3: Panultima (tw violence, torture, coercion)

[spoofer]

Characters: Ensemble Cast, maybe even you!
Summary: The third prison world in Xistentia is a terrifying subdimension where sentient people exploit each other in order to run technology that will fend off D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. The 'ruling' class, Primus, are bound to a system of coupling (see: fake dating!), legacy and nepotism, whereas the Servus are put through an elaborate media circus (see: Hunger Games). You're here to study this world. And perhaps even to free those captured.
Date(s): February 8-20
Warnings/Notes: Violence, torture, coercion

Panultima

You cursed your gods and died

The Primus Life

If you thought Earth was a tough neighborhood, welcome to Panultima. Here, life is sweet. At least, as long as you're one of the Primus class.

It's a sprawling city of wicked spires and elaborate canals, covered in a luminous, translucent shield. Rather than a circular planet resting in orbit, instead, it's a flat plane of matter suspended in space, the foundations of the buildings rooted in only a hundred feet of stone and unknown technology. But the vast majority of citizens care little for that. After all, the city has every amenity and experience one might desire.

Restaurants line the streets. Theater is at an apex in development, with a particular focus on integration of moral philosophical themes. Gondolas run the canals, whereas a railway races over the winding laser-track in the air. Fashion is diverse, colorful, characterized by wild shapes, patterns, and accessories. Food imported from worlds both thriving and dying across the multiverse. At the numerous colleges and institutes, premier technology and opera are under constant invention and reinvention.

COUPLE STUFF

Primus culture emphasizes couples. Trios. Larger groups of lovers than that, even. After all, with romantic love and loyalty to care for, and survival hanging on it... who has the time or energy to care about justice for all?

Not these guys!

In this world, the mission and pleasure roll together well. The implant picks up information, so your main job is to explore. Perhaps you and your partner might enjoy yourself a glow-in-the-dark cocktail in a smoky bar where a two-headed singer is providing the music, a tour of the massive shield generators in the sparkling complex. Or pick fruit from one of the hundreds of bonding trees in the city's central park— so named, because it requires successful completion of questions to "the newlywed game" for each before one of the luscious, sweet fruits is released from a vine.

THE SERVUS LIFE

But for the little guy, life is considerably shittier. Welcome to the arena, the fully manipulable bubble reality set up to torture the slave class. The emotions of pain, fear, anguish, and wild, adrenal victory.

Most days, it looks like a forest— incidentally, very much like Xistentia. There are dozens of hybrid creatures in it, most of which are edible, others toxic, several very dangerous. However, the ground below can change at any moment, turning into mud or belching acid baths. Or you might find yourself abruptly attacked by a bear with biological armor growing from its huge shoulders. The control room, operated by Primus, is concealed from view. Its role is to keep the environment challenging for those competing, shifting the settings of the place to advantage some and cripple others.

But the arena's programming isn't the only threat.

Instead, you have a motley host of macabre killers, other Servus locked up in here just like you. Some have survived in here for years, earning favor from audiences thanks to the amount of pure horror they squeezed out of their victims. Some of the better-known brands are the Bantam Butcher, a fallen angel whose first kills were those who took his wings, and now thrives on torture. The trapmaster seems to have control over environmental factors that rivals the control room. And the baker trio will eat the flesh from your bones if they catch you.

For infiltrators, the challenge is worse. Not only might you need to kill, survive, and explore the arena with your implant— but if you want to save the very same people who are out to murder you, how are you going to do that?

Breakout!

Several days into the mission, and that's when it happens-- the control room shuts down, under attack. And suddenly, there's pandemonium. Within the arena, some of the servus know immediately what this means— and they're willing to make a break for it, cutting each other down, crippling each other if it means that the Primus might have slower-moving people to contend with and allow them to escape. Others seem to have long since given up, failing to respond as the trees suddenly go dark and motionless, the birdsong dying into silence. After all, where is there to go? It's either D.E.S.T.I.N.Y., or to join the system that hates them, isn't it?

Are you inside the arena, or out? Are you there to help the fleeing Servus, or are you merely ready to scramble on home yourself and save your own skin?

Footnotes

1. Please ensure that threads are marked with appropriate content warnings!
2. The plotting post for this event can be found here, and the original announcement with some other details is here.

Comments

[upside]

( shepard is used to the way tony kisses by now, and the talent embedded in his tongue and cheek, the way his coarse beard feels on her chin. she knows she likes it, though she new that after the first kiss all the same, when tony tasted half like life and half like smoke of a burning forest. she likes the look of polished boots and fair skin as much as she likes their foils, but at the end of the day, the two of them are soldiers. their teeth don't stay clean for too long.

tony might think this suit fits him, born and raised in name brands and expensive materials, but shepard likes to think she sees through that. metal is practically their skin at this point - tony seems almost naked without it. so does she.

the patterns are all the same - her soft mouth on his, a careful hum in the back of her throat, her fingers digging into the sharp lines of his haircut at the nape of his neck. it's common place, comfortable. it's how she imagines it when she thinks about kissing him in between firearm practice, or when they're working on some machinery, biotics, technology. his beard is always rough and soft together, and his tongue always tastes the same, clever and whiskey dry. )

Are you explaining the Big Bang? ( half her mouth curves, a crooked smile formed as she follows his steps. she doesn't have any problem getting out of here, despite espionage and the greater good, because standing around and dancing isn't going to do any good. one of her crewmates would make a joke about her coming in here guns blazing, but none of them are around to voice it. ) Sure, we have our theories. I think at a certain point, we'd advanced far and wide enough that we stopped questioning where we came from, and started looking towards where we were going. Speaking of.

( she pulls her coat on swiftly, not to skip a beat in wrapping a hand around the lapel of tony's suit jacket and giving it a short pull, strong enough to tug him in for another kiss, swifter but sloppier, more energetic in nature.)

Where are we going, Tony?

[servomotor]

Up the crystal tower with a star at the top, [Tony replies, in the tone of a joke. It is a joke. A fairytale destination for a woman and a man who belong to anything but that kind of a story, even if the forces of their respective personalities have managed to carve out lasting places in history. Even if multiple people identify them clearly and without reservation as heroes. Even if they want happy endings as much as the next grown-up too grown up to admit it out loud.

They go in an elevator. The light paints her electric blue, deepens her hair to purple. He kisses her again, because he can— because her mouth looks like wine and her heart runs pure as water, and he wants to drink it all into him. She asks about the Big Bang, and he shifts his head back, eventually, as the floors of the building go whispering past them one by one and dozen by dozen. He shifts back far enough to be able to say to her,] Yes, I was. You could probably argue that it's as cheesy as any other Creation story, but I like it better than the others for a pretty valid reason, if you ask me.

According to the Big Bang theory, following the chemical and physical reaction that caused the creation of matter and energy from nothing, the universe is still growing. There's more to discover. Every day, we occupy a marginally different space than we did before. The slow spin of stars and the intersection of shifting strings, all of this opens new possibilities. Marginal chances emerge out of odds that should have been impossible.

And then there comes new terrain. [And this is now his hand on her back, coasting down unmistakably toward the taut, athletic incline of her ass, flowing with the slick grain in the fabric of her dress. He smiles at her, a little boyish, a little scientific.] Both intimately familiar and inspirationally unique. Her peaks, her valleys. The celestial light of stars that never blink.