37 Dardensrow
The flight into Kerns Mordarte was less than pleasant for the schmooze. A day after his sentencing (with a night spent in a less than comfortable brig with a canvas cot and four walls to while away the time) he was taken by air transport to the city of Odelna where he was transferred to an airship. It was most certainly not by his choice to travel by airship given his last encounter with them (mostly involving escape from said vessel during a firefight as it was plummeting from the sky) but it was the only way on or off the small tower of rock which was the prison facility that rose from the ocean off the west Deganback Coast. The region was known for it's harsh winds that made it hard to approach for helos and airplanes while the waters along that jagged coast of bluffs and spires was tumultuous at best preventing any sane naval vessel from sailing over close less they wished to be torn asunder. It was an isolated hub surrounded by natural extremes which kept the dangerous populace contained as well as helped power the runes that dampened the ether within those confines. A perfect place to house your most dangerous and magical sorts....an end destination for any number of the hunters own prey.
Unloading from the small airship in his danger orange prison jumpsuit (all of his possessions were kindly checked and sealed ahead of time in a lock box container to be stored not anywhere near him) the man was immediately escorted to an isolation room in the medical wing of the penitentiary where he would spend the first month or so of his sentence recovering the rest of the way from his injuries. On top of the recovery for the surgeries he endured to remove his MPC he received additional care and recovery time for his amputated arm after the intense arcane scrubbing done of the remaining magic which was seared into his very flesh from the blow back from that last spell he cast. As well, he got an easy implant of a trainer eye in his empty socket so he could keep up conditioning of his ocular muscles until it was decided what would happen to him after his little stint here. It all was dependent on the review board findings whether he would be getting another spell eye as a hunter, a tech eye as a plain soldier, or a shiny marble to tide him over while he tried to convince the V.A. that a discharged bum like him needed good depth perception to function in the civilian world. And so like a narcissist he got to spend a few hours of each day in front of a mirror watching as moved and flexed the dot in the middle of the trainer eye. This was on top of the other physical therapies and strenuous conditioning he endured so he was in top fighting shape, as it were, before his release into the general prisoner populace.
During this time, when he wasn't recuperating or conditioning, the man worked his charms and friendly personality to get on good terms with as many prison personnel and staff as he could; talk them up and grow real friendly with those who may be the only kind faces he was likely to see over the next few months. Of course it wasn't like he had anything better to do besides given his complete cut off from the outside world. No personal items, messages, mail, calls, or visits were permitted while he 'acclimatized to the culture of the prison' and even now as he finished his last check up and the refreshment of his buzz cut did he receive any hint or clue whether the outside world knew or cared about his fate. It was really for the better that way; for the schmooze to pass on into obscurity without any sort of hullabaloo or fuss. The sort of end where he just faded from folks minds; where no one grieved for the passing that was all together easily avoided had he not, per usual, cocked things up in past.
That was the view he at least worked on believing though a niggling part of him couldn't help but think he'd gotten everything wrong again; that all those folks who told him to just live for the moment might actually have something....might. But try as the man could he just couldn't get past that looming doom that sat ever before him, that engulfed him in a negativity that he just couldn't shake out of on his own. And this was only personified by the situation he now faced, by the hopelessness that spread out before him in the form of row after row, column after column of concrete cells eight foot cubed without windows or internal lights. A mage prison where the very air felt dead, inhospitable thanks the to near complete absence of the thrum of the ether from this place.
Being lead along in shackles the other inmates shuffled to get a gander at the fresh meat that was being brought in. A stockpile of the most villainous and crazed of psyzards and madscis; of folks who not only used their abilities against the law, but reveled in the power that they could wield and the affects they could make with such. It was a shining example of why the hunter program existed in the first place; to protect a non-powered society from those crazed and hungry for more of that beget and perpetuated by power beyond the ilk of common man. A program to tame against nature, to prevent the rise of a totalitarian state based off of social Darwinism where victors of conflict heavily favoring the strength possessed by those of magic and mad science dictated what justice would be. Or simply stated to prevent, as Mach was learning, a place just like Rhy'Din from rising up in Tanga. Though in defense of that trans-dimensional city there was so much staggering power spread across so many odd ideals and ideologies with a healthy lacking of social cohesion and political pressures that it was really more just an anarchy than a totalitarianism. But it was one ruled by might nonetheless....hell, the place dispensed titles of governance and control of regions based off of arena duels!
Shuffling along the man did his best not to let his gaze settle on any one individual for too long while still trying to gather as much information as he could on the different folks locked in there with him. There was a murmur, a thread of tension in the air as the mob sized up the schmooze, racking their memories for any information they may have on him....hey, the community of Class A powered offenders wasn't, luckily, a huge one! But then this fact only worked to Mach's disadvantage as those mutterings began to grow in volume, a few light bulbs going off over some of the other tenets heads. It wouldn't be till he was mounting the steps to the third floor that he began to hear the coming rush. The comments of 'Isn't he..' or 'I thought he...' slipping back and forth between cells before one voice finally rose up.
"You're Mach....you're a hunter!"
That was the match that lit the powder keg, that had the walls of caged people bursting to angry life as they howled viciously at the hunter amongst them.
"...it's the fault of your kind that...", "....YOU PUT ME IN HERE...", "....we're going to have fun with this one...", "I'm going to gut you you...", "....you're Blackjack, you right son of a...", "....you ruined me life!!! All of you pigs that...", "...Revenge....REVENGE!...", "....Hunt him! Kill him!...", "...Monsters!!...", "....Murderer!!...", "...where's your judgment now!"..."
It was a deafening cacophony that the man tried his best to ignore, his shoulders squared and his head held high in defiance of that tide of vitriol that washed over him. Now was not the time to cower or look small. No, now was the time to bluff like hell and hope for the best as he stepped into his cell; the yells, both from the inmates and the guards telling them to shut up, lasted well until his little company finished removing the shackles from him, the cell door sliding shut with a satisfyingly heavy thud. Turning about now that lone cobalt gaze set about the block across from the one he was in, a sea of faces running through the gambit of emotions from rage to fear to uninterest. That....that was a good thing. That for just as many people who jeered and called for blood there were those who feared him for what he had been or simply didn't pay him any ill will. Or else they were the calmly plotting sorts that would devise a devious plan to inevitably eviscerate him in a shower....hey, he was amongst a crowd of madsci. Regardless the man couldn't help but let out a shaky sigh as he stepped back to sit on the simple bunk that was bolted to the wall, his expression stony as he considered his future prospects. "Welcome home Mach....your eternal reward..." A mirthless mutter as he slipped along the lines of the bed further back into what little privacy his cage afforded him.
The flight into Kerns Mordarte was less than pleasant for the schmooze. A day after his sentencing (with a night spent in a less than comfortable brig with a canvas cot and four walls to while away the time) he was taken by air transport to the city of Odelna where he was transferred to an airship. It was most certainly not by his choice to travel by airship given his last encounter with them (mostly involving escape from said vessel during a firefight as it was plummeting from the sky) but it was the only way on or off the small tower of rock which was the prison facility that rose from the ocean off the west Deganback Coast. The region was known for it's harsh winds that made it hard to approach for helos and airplanes while the waters along that jagged coast of bluffs and spires was tumultuous at best preventing any sane naval vessel from sailing over close less they wished to be torn asunder. It was an isolated hub surrounded by natural extremes which kept the dangerous populace contained as well as helped power the runes that dampened the ether within those confines. A perfect place to house your most dangerous and magical sorts....an end destination for any number of the hunters own prey.
Unloading from the small airship in his danger orange prison jumpsuit (all of his possessions were kindly checked and sealed ahead of time in a lock box container to be stored not anywhere near him) the man was immediately escorted to an isolation room in the medical wing of the penitentiary where he would spend the first month or so of his sentence recovering the rest of the way from his injuries. On top of the recovery for the surgeries he endured to remove his MPC he received additional care and recovery time for his amputated arm after the intense arcane scrubbing done of the remaining magic which was seared into his very flesh from the blow back from that last spell he cast. As well, he got an easy implant of a trainer eye in his empty socket so he could keep up conditioning of his ocular muscles until it was decided what would happen to him after his little stint here. It all was dependent on the review board findings whether he would be getting another spell eye as a hunter, a tech eye as a plain soldier, or a shiny marble to tide him over while he tried to convince the V.A. that a discharged bum like him needed good depth perception to function in the civilian world. And so like a narcissist he got to spend a few hours of each day in front of a mirror watching as moved and flexed the dot in the middle of the trainer eye. This was on top of the other physical therapies and strenuous conditioning he endured so he was in top fighting shape, as it were, before his release into the general prisoner populace.
During this time, when he wasn't recuperating or conditioning, the man worked his charms and friendly personality to get on good terms with as many prison personnel and staff as he could; talk them up and grow real friendly with those who may be the only kind faces he was likely to see over the next few months. Of course it wasn't like he had anything better to do besides given his complete cut off from the outside world. No personal items, messages, mail, calls, or visits were permitted while he 'acclimatized to the culture of the prison' and even now as he finished his last check up and the refreshment of his buzz cut did he receive any hint or clue whether the outside world knew or cared about his fate. It was really for the better that way; for the schmooze to pass on into obscurity without any sort of hullabaloo or fuss. The sort of end where he just faded from folks minds; where no one grieved for the passing that was all together easily avoided had he not, per usual, cocked things up in past.
That was the view he at least worked on believing though a niggling part of him couldn't help but think he'd gotten everything wrong again; that all those folks who told him to just live for the moment might actually have something....might. But try as the man could he just couldn't get past that looming doom that sat ever before him, that engulfed him in a negativity that he just couldn't shake out of on his own. And this was only personified by the situation he now faced, by the hopelessness that spread out before him in the form of row after row, column after column of concrete cells eight foot cubed without windows or internal lights. A mage prison where the very air felt dead, inhospitable thanks the to near complete absence of the thrum of the ether from this place.
Being lead along in shackles the other inmates shuffled to get a gander at the fresh meat that was being brought in. A stockpile of the most villainous and crazed of psyzards and madscis; of folks who not only used their abilities against the law, but reveled in the power that they could wield and the affects they could make with such. It was a shining example of why the hunter program existed in the first place; to protect a non-powered society from those crazed and hungry for more of that beget and perpetuated by power beyond the ilk of common man. A program to tame against nature, to prevent the rise of a totalitarian state based off of social Darwinism where victors of conflict heavily favoring the strength possessed by those of magic and mad science dictated what justice would be. Or simply stated to prevent, as Mach was learning, a place just like Rhy'Din from rising up in Tanga. Though in defense of that trans-dimensional city there was so much staggering power spread across so many odd ideals and ideologies with a healthy lacking of social cohesion and political pressures that it was really more just an anarchy than a totalitarianism. But it was one ruled by might nonetheless....hell, the place dispensed titles of governance and control of regions based off of arena duels!
Shuffling along the man did his best not to let his gaze settle on any one individual for too long while still trying to gather as much information as he could on the different folks locked in there with him. There was a murmur, a thread of tension in the air as the mob sized up the schmooze, racking their memories for any information they may have on him....hey, the community of Class A powered offenders wasn't, luckily, a huge one! But then this fact only worked to Mach's disadvantage as those mutterings began to grow in volume, a few light bulbs going off over some of the other tenets heads. It wouldn't be till he was mounting the steps to the third floor that he began to hear the coming rush. The comments of 'Isn't he..' or 'I thought he...' slipping back and forth between cells before one voice finally rose up.
"You're Mach....you're a hunter!"
That was the match that lit the powder keg, that had the walls of caged people bursting to angry life as they howled viciously at the hunter amongst them.
"...it's the fault of your kind that...", "....YOU PUT ME IN HERE...", "....we're going to have fun with this one...", "I'm going to gut you you...", "....you're Blackjack, you right son of a...", "....you ruined me life!!! All of you pigs that...", "...Revenge....REVENGE!...", "....Hunt him! Kill him!...", "...Monsters!!...", "....Murderer!!...", "...where's your judgment now!"..."
It was a deafening cacophony that the man tried his best to ignore, his shoulders squared and his head held high in defiance of that tide of vitriol that washed over him. Now was not the time to cower or look small. No, now was the time to bluff like hell and hope for the best as he stepped into his cell; the yells, both from the inmates and the guards telling them to shut up, lasted well until his little company finished removing the shackles from him, the cell door sliding shut with a satisfyingly heavy thud. Turning about now that lone cobalt gaze set about the block across from the one he was in, a sea of faces running through the gambit of emotions from rage to fear to uninterest. That....that was a good thing. That for just as many people who jeered and called for blood there were those who feared him for what he had been or simply didn't pay him any ill will. Or else they were the calmly plotting sorts that would devise a devious plan to inevitably eviscerate him in a shower....hey, he was amongst a crowd of madsci. Regardless the man couldn't help but let out a shaky sigh as he stepped back to sit on the simple bunk that was bolted to the wall, his expression stony as he considered his future prospects. "Welcome home Mach....your eternal reward..." A mirthless mutter as he slipped along the lines of the bed further back into what little privacy his cage afforded him.