Where do we fit in?

Is this historically a… thing?

From what Mimi can find… kinda? Killing games have absolutely happened in Metrianda history but they are certainly not common. The Tenebris Empire ran and are running a series of similar experiments to generate emergency power and, mostly, to attempt opening Gates out of The Elseworlds. For similar reasons The Sun also seems to be currently running at least one and has run several in the past, and of course The Council of Dragons ran several. Some for entertainment and some for experimentation.

Using Heroes to generate power is not uncommon - everything that can summon heroes typically also generates power through their collective experiences. What isn’t common is relying almost solely on Hero Energy. Only 3 other factions have done this in the past, Deathwish with *stolen* Hero energy (though they also supplement this with a large hydrodam that generates most of the city’s electricity), Dunetown up until very recently, and the now dead city of OffRamp, who only had one summoned hero up until she was taken by The Sun.

Otherwise, outside of GIVE, your situation is abnormal. GIVE itself is extremely unique and seems to be the only thing like this in the entire Elseworlds, not just Metrianda. Scattered aspects of the ship can be identified across the world, but nothing quite like it can be found- even down to the civilians and especially the hosts. The Heroes all have expys and copies and iterations of yourself throughout history and alive up above you, but the Hosts don’t. Many civilians don’t. GIVE doesn’t. They are the only versions of themselves that exist and have ever existed.

Where are we?

You are in a Voidship far under the Emperyeon Ocean, which you lay in the center of. This ocean is at the Westernmost edge of Metrianda and is the largest and oldest of all the geographical features of The Elseworld. You are buried under impossible tonnes of silt and sand and debris. Around you, hiding and protecting GIVE from the outside world, is a large pile of summoned vehicles and objects that Metrianda has been dumping on your heads for millions of years. You see them pierce the ship and plug the hull, in segments of clean windows you can see their shadows, they haunt the outside. It’s a miracle you, and her, are still alive, much less uncollapsed.

GIVE is a Matan-Built VoidShip, but unlike the iterations of The Moon and The Sun above you, GIVE is seemingly built with and designed by Meter Matan’s own two hands, which makes you incredibly unique. She is a sentient vessel, not unlike other VoidShips, though she seems to have a much more developed personality and sentience than any of the others. She holds opinions, can feel pain and misery, and her heroes and civilians both can speak with her. No others have done anything like this, at least, as regularly as she does with you and them. Strangely, unlike other VoidShips, she is not a goddess possessing the ship’s hull. Her body is the ship that she was born into, and she cannot leave it. GIVE also possesses some strange powers, likely linked to her proximity to the bottom of Metrianda. Her form has been altered and appears to alter itself, snaking and twirling into abstract and heavily magic-influenced forms the further away from The Head you travel. She can speak in minds and manipulate behaviors, though it doesn’t seem like she acts out of malice in so much as she acts out of desperation and fear, in the way a dying animal might lash out and panic. She claims to be the representative goddess of Hope and Perseverance.

Of GIVE’s many systems, only the first 3 are habitable after a thousands of years long stint of work by civilians and hosts. The Head itself is part of an equally as long and still ongoing bout of repair. As a result of it being the only part of the ship not fully buried under sand and glass, it ends up taking significant damage from The Vehicle Graveyard above it and is constantly in poor shape. Despite this it is the only part of the ship that retains most of its original interior as it was mostly undamaged during The Fall.

At the bottom half of GIVE, where it connects to TAKE, several arms and systems connect to a part of Metrianda called The Subglass- a deeply strange, entropy-saturated pitch dark string of glass hallways and doors that lead to stranger worlds. It seems that The Subglass has grown around GIVE, and she has stretched her arms out through it-- creating several entryways into and exits out of The Subglass. The Subglass Wanderers constantly take advantage of this, hence why they are large sponsors of GIVE. Shades and Omens, strange creatures supposedly native to The Subglass, also take advantage of these entries and often find their way up into GIVE. Due to their aggressive nature and desire to hunt and harm sentient lifeforms they pose a significant risk to The Wanders, GIVEians, and Heroes alike.

GIVE itself was an academic vessel pre-fall, which falls in line with how the ship is built and what resources it has now. Its military was second-added and run entirely by the Master Gunner and Captain of GIVE, it consisted of trained volunteers and mostly second-hand resources. At its founding a set of defense resources were allotted to the vessel, but as time went on GIVE had to begin manufacturing and trading for their own. Being an academic vessel, it was not built with offense in mind, and lacked a lot of typical stock defense systems- ones that had to be built over the course of The Ships life. On the contrary, its sister-ship, TAKE, was built entirely with offense in mind. TAKE was armed to the teeth which prevented most aerial and on-station attacks.

Who are we? Why us?

Iterations of all GIVE heroes exist above glass as other heroes of other places. It’s not unusual for someone to have multiple iterations of themselves, but it is uncommon. Each of your faces and names are known and recognized above glass as other people. The only real through line you see is that each hero is a hero of a Voidship- either The Sun or The Moon- though hardly any of these yous know each other.

Furthermore, you are not the only yous who have participated in this game, and you are certainly not the only you who has existed on The Ship. In the restricted section of the library and an abandoned guard station in Arm 3 Mimi is able to find a vast pile of information relating to these previous millions of yous that have been here before you. There is a call-file of several thousand heroes that could be chosen and septillions of combinations that GIVE has used and intends on using in the future. Little notes, reports, and memos document which people work well together and which don’t. You see faces you recognize amongst the pile, a part of you recognizes the faces you don’t, but you know rationally that you shouldn’t. You find that this particular call-file pile is only using heroes that used to be heroes of GIVE or TAKE, in that original pre-fall world. All of you used to be heroes - knights, using pre-fall language - of whoever GIVE and TAKE were before they became GIVE and TAKE.

Do they care?

Yes.

The Republic wants you out, The Moon wants you out, Deathwish, Dunetown, The Escherin Coalition- they want you out. Unfortunately the war takes immediate precedence. There is no safe place for you to escape to and no resources with which to get to you- in their eyes, despite all of this, you are at your safest here away from this war. However this is not preventing them from trying, nor planning.

Mimi, you find, hidden in the station- either because she wanted you to find her or because you somehow got the jump on her; the Whima Hero Bahde, looking for weaknesses in the system that keeps you trapped. Someone is out here working to help you, you are not alone.