[OPEN] His Mission, the Transmission of Technology

[lasthumanvoice]

1. He stood upon the last bastions of the place [Time Off Work]
Cecil has, at Gerry's suggestion, taken a few days off from working as Yorick's right hand, the Community Radio Host and the reporter for the Gazette. The process was much easier than requesting time off from Station Management and dealing with their eldritch wrath. So, with some time off, he's going to of course spend some time working with Elias on learning magic and poking at the matter of Lot 37.

But first, he's going to climb some trees.

Perhaps you're in the Festival Green, or out in the forest near town, or even out in Paradesium, when you hear the grunts of a full grown man shimmying up a tree, or see him lose a shoe in the process. Or you look up and notice there's just an impish redhead in a branch above you. Wave hello, he's waving at you!


2. Looked out on the ruins with thunder in his face [Chaos Magic Training Mishap]
The spell had apparently failed, when he cast it with Elias. It was a simple transportation spell, and it had had no effect at the time. But it had, in fact, settled lightly on Cecil, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

KERCHOO!

As Cecil lets out a sneeze (thank you, seasonal allergies), he teleports sixty feet within line of sight, in a manner that some might identify as similar to a misty step. Perhaps he's just landed on your table at one of the cafes with sidewalk seating. Perhaps you were talking to him and now he's over there. Perhaps you now have a bewildered radio host sniffling on your balcony.

Whoops!


3. An introverted spectacle in the flowers on the rocks [Community Project]
Once Cecil returns to Town Hall for work, he begins a new project, inspired by the success of the Potluck. If you're an offworlder in the Town Hall part of town (to include the Library and Festival Green) for any reason, you might get a journalist running up with a notepad.

"Hi, hello, hi, sorry to interrupt your whatever-you're-doing, but I just wanted to ask if I could have a recipe from your homeworld for a project I'm working on. Bonus points if it's something that could be created with the ingredients on hand here!"

Even if you're in the Library, he's at full Cecil enthusiasm here, his smile bright and chipper and insistent.


4. The daisies on the ramparts blowing free [Wildcard]
Come at me at darkersolstice on discord

Comments

[lasthumanvoice]

Cecil raises both eyebrows at Leon. "Are you actually braced for the theological discussion that question can initiate?"

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Absolutely not. Please pretend I didn't say that."

The fact that stupid shit just comes out of his mouth when he's confused or stressed is going to get him killed someday, he's pretty sure. The fact that Saddler got there first is just a minor detail, especially now that he's here, where Death isn't working right.

"Anyway." He shakes his head. "You work in radio back home, too? You've got the voice for it, that's for sure."

[lasthumanvoice]

"When you do want to talk about it, I'll be here."

And then he puts on a shiny, bright smile, moving to the other conversational track with an easy leap and no shame.

"Yeah, I'm a community radio host for Night Vale Community Radio. It's a good gig, most of the time, even when it can get me into trouble sometimes."

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Trouble like random teleportation, or trouble like saying something controversial about Kanye West on air and getting the station flooded with hate mail?"

He's mostly joking, but it does seem like Cecil's bout of being allergic to spatial continuity might have subsided, for now. Hopefully he didn't just jinx it.

[lasthumanvoice]

"Um. There were a lot of things I was not allowed to talk about. Things no one in our town were supposed to even think about too long or too hard. That which is forbidden to know. So we didn't, except sometimes I did."

He's nervous being so open about that even in the abstract, even a universe away.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

If Leon were just a little less canny, it might be easy to mistake this for some kind of bit Cecil is doing and try to lean into it. He almost does, but something about the sudden change in Cecil's mannerisms reading as very real nervousness pulls him up short and makes him think about it first.

"Oh... okay?"

That sounds concerning! His first thought is 'cult town' but maybe that's just because he's had a lot of recent dealings with those. Frowning, he tries to think of how to ask for more information without pressing on anything sensitive.

"You don't have to tell me more if you don't want to," he says, and means it. "But. What sort of place was Night Vale that it had rules about what you could think about?"

[lasthumanvoice]

"Under tight control. Layers of it. City council, a vague-yet-menacing government agency, the hooded figures in the Dog Park, Station Management. It was. Not a place where it was safe to speak your mind. Often, not a place where it was safe to have a mind."

He hasn't told anyone this much directly before. Part of him is braced for punishment, even across universes.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Leon's frown only deepens at that. The dog park thing throws him a bit, but the rest of it all lines up with notions of some dystopian nonsense. He can see Cecil bracing himself as if waiting for someone or something to strike him down, and holds up a hand in a placating gesture.

"Hey, I'm not about to rat you out to anyone for telling me this," he says, shaking his head. "If I had a way to call up your home world the last thing I'd do about it is tell your bosses you've been talking about them behind their backs. Seriously though, that sounds really rough. Takes a lot of courage to speak up in places like that."

Not that Leon knows exactly what it's like, but he's been sitting on the truth about Raccoon City for six years now, unable to breathe a word on pain of death or worse. Wondering just what it would change if he did say something is among the many topics that keep him up at night.

[lasthumanvoice]

"Don't tell anyone here, either. I've worked very hard to earn the reputation as silly fun guy with no worries at all. I don't want people to think I'm...whatever I actually am."

Traumatized, oppressed, a servant of a system that would turn all of his warmth into a blinding light.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Damn if that isn't also kind of familiar. Leon's not exactly a class clown type, but he puts a lot of work into coming across as considerably more okay than he is, for better or worse. He understands the reasoning, or at least knows why he's doing it himself.

"I got you. Thanks for trusting me with all this?" Even if he's a little confused about why. He guesses he asked, but even so. "I can keep a secret, though. It's like half my job back home, if we're sharing."