pluviosa | Information Meeting [Open]

Information Meeting [Open]

Who: Kaeya, Casper, and WHOEVER (open to all!)
What: kaeya and Casper have organized a meeting in the wake of everything that has been going on. Both of them have arranged a meeting to collect information and figure out exactly what everyone (who is willing to share) knows.
Where: R0, Cafeteria
When: Day 23
Warnings: N/A, other than talking about events

There are several posters posted on the walls of the ship’s upper floors. It appears to be a made from regular paper and tape to keep it up, despite the plants giving the paper not so much room in some locations to actually stick properly. In bold letters is:

[INFORMATION MEETING: Day 23, after lunch, in the cafeteria.

Be prepared to share, not just lurk in the corner.]

Aside from some of the doodles on the page, the information is quite clear.

----

“I had planned to talk to others more individually, but I think you may be onto something,” Kaeya admits as he glances over one of the copies of the poster in his hands. Kaeya had purposely gotten a few extra papers to write down his own findings of what is going on.

He adds, “You know, it’s more annoying people haven’t written a log sooner. That would’ve made this all much more easier.”

He’s already taken a seat and looks still a little tired, though not the same sleep deprived man of before. There is some refreshments (or rather some snack foods from the lunch carts), Kaeya had managed to take just in case anyone wanted them.

"So...." Kaeya adds and taps the pen to the paper. "Anyone want to start with anything they saw over the past few days? Or any information that should be common knowledge by now?"

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Casper nods as Kaeya taps the paper, standing up. "As most of us know, some of us seemed to be... possessed by something. Ghosts, though not entirely ghosts that I'm familiar with. Has anyone ever encountered a possession like this before? I admit I have... little experience with it."

He turns to the others around him. He's not... lying, but the truth is a little more complicated. He doesn't want to go into the whole 'I'm possessing myself' thing. "I'd have liked to study the ghosts more, but uh... there wasn't a lot I could tell. There wasn't a ton there, so to speak."

Wriothesley has his coat off (the heavy fur wasn't doing any favours for his still-healing shoulder) and his Vision hanging from his waistcoat pocket like a watch fob. He also has a little friend hovering over the back of the chair he's sitting on, the crystal on top emitting a dark blue glow that reflects off several cheerfully shiny stickers stuck to the side. "I can't say I've encountered any kind of possession before, but I'm curious what other people experienced while they were possessed. I didn't feel like there was anyone else besides me in my head, I was just having... strong emotions. Until I was, uh, encouraged to examine them more closely, they felt like mine. Even then, they were able to overwhelm me again once I'd let down my guard."

It's probably not the venue to do a whole guilty song and dance about how sorry he is for his behaviour while he's possessed, although part of him is itching to do it. There's a time and a place and he's not going to derail the discussion just to soothe his feelings of guilt. "I had a very strong sense that we - the crew of the ship - were involved in something extremely illegal, but necessary. I also believed that someone had betrayed the crew to law enforcement and a raid was in progress."

Edited 2024-07-06 00:14 (UTC)

Childe emerges from the elevator, sufficiently drenched in murky water. He looks more than a little wild, full of scrapes and mud and with more than a few roots and leaves sticking to him.

"Long time no see, everyone! There's a ghost bird in the pit of the ship, by the way. Deck 9. It's hungry. Watch out."

His voice is very casual and nonchalant, as if these were words normal people say and other similarly normal people expect to hear.

Aventurine's eyes flick around, waiting a bit to not interrupt anyone after Wriothesley. It's interesting he recognizes many here. And Casper...he remembers the guy has experience with the dead, but in a different sense. Something tells him he's not sharing the whole truth, and that's fine with him.

And he...definitely recognizes what Wriothesley is talking about. He does feel a pang of sympathy for the man.

So he raises his hand, still bandaged with no gloves to cover it. But there is...an oversized sleeve covering half of his palm instead, part of a strange "gift" he'd found in his room earlier that he got dried and now wears over a dressed down version of his normal outfit. No one would have seen him wearing it before this, except...perhaps Ratio, but only from a photo or two of a much younger version of himself. Aventurine's not...sure how an adult sized version of his childhood jacket even existed, but he'd take it. It's warm, and much cozier than his clothing he usually has on hand.

"Yes, I've also had some...experiences with that. It took me awhile to understand what was happening," he pipes up, trying to appear casual, leaning on the table he's seated at with some snacks. "I've never encountered this before the ship...it made me see things that should be impossible." He pauses, his smile faltering for a moment with the memories. "I also didn't...notice someone else really. In fact, the occurrences made me think I was alone in the wastes outside. There was some wreckage and burning...I'd thought it was the ship? It's all a bit jumbled, it could have been something else," he chuckles, a bitter edge to it for relaying a clearly unpleasant experience.

"I'd assumed it was just ghost hallucination pranks until Aurelia...investigated. I wonder what the patterns were for drawing ghosts to some of us, and not others?" he muses aloud, looking around curiously if anyone had more to add.

Kaeya pipes up, "As someone outside of this... It seemed you all were lost in a daze. And to my own knowledge, that's not the only strange occurrence going on concerning the ghosts."

He adds calmly, "I personally was seeing a ghost that didn't exactly... loop like the rest. Interacted quite differently with some additional information... but I think its more likely that these...ghosts were stuck with people in different ways?"

Kaeya taps on the paper and writes down what he's hearing, fervently. He glances at the group and adds, "Since this could get very confusing, I wasn't able to find a board in the storage rooms... So if anyone wants to assist in that, be my guest. I will keep a written log just in case." He smiles, albeit tiredly.

(For referencing with a google sheet)

Edited (I forgot the link) 2024-07-06 01:25 (UTC)

"... Tartaglia. Did you attempt to engage the spirit in combat."

It's not actually a question. Just look at the state of this man. But he needs nominal confirmation for procedural purposes.

Neuvillette's question is. Well. Not really much of one. His tone is very flat and matter of fact about the ordeal, actually.

"It was tall enough to reach Deck 7. You can't blame me for wanting to check it out."

And still using his more formal title, huh? Childe would neg him about it, if the Justice didn't sound so serious. Childe grins, despite his sore muscles and how sodden his boots were.

"...Will you arrest me if I say yes?"

He has very clearly fought the spirit. There is no reality that exists where he would choose not to.

"I lost sight of it a few days ago. I've just been heading back down there to look for it, since."

He has also lost track of time.

"Do you even have to ask?" Wriothesley's comment is sotto voce, not really intended for anyone to hear. It's Tartaglia, of course he fought the ghost bird.

In a similarly low tone of voice, Neuvillette replies, "I am a man of procedure, Wriothesley, even if the evidence is self-explanatory." He does sound more amused than disapproving.

Edited (icon) 2024-07-06 01:25 (UTC)

"We are well outside of Fontaine's jurisdiction, and there are no laws against engaging in combat against two-story ghost birds at any rate."

Fontaine has a number of odd laws, but not that one. Someone would have had to anticipate the existence of such a bird in the first place, after all. Neuvillette just gives Childe a sigh that manages to communicate that yes, this is exactly the outcome he expected, but he still had to ask.

Aventurine...blinks at the state of Childe- Tartaglia? Not the time to ask. The Iudex's tone makes it sounds like a full name an exasperated parent calls an unruly child. He is not getting in the middle of that.

"I didn't know such a thing could be down there. What kind of bird was it, Childe, besides, uh. Really big?" he asks, eyebrows raised.

He gives one of his earliest boat allies a once over. "Glad you made it out okay...you are alright, right?" He's smiling conversationally, but he watches the man closely for injury, since he seems to intend on returning to danger...well. Can't have an ally dying on him.

"Well, I'm free to extrapolate from previous experience and I think it's pretty obvious he fought the bird." Wriothesley is pretty good at keeping a straight face, but he's also quite amused. Concerned about the ghost bird, but amused that Tartaglia keeps being Tartaglia no matter what.

Neuvillette confirms that no, he isn't in trouble-- wrong jurisdiction-- and there were in fact, no laws against fighting the native fauna, dead or alive. Good enough for him.

Childe absolutely sort of hears Wriothesley and Neuvillette's quiet little conversation, and flashes them both a wink. They knew him so well. At least they seemed a little amused by this rather than concerned-- But he supposed they were also relatively equipped to handle... er, an abnormally large ghost bird.

Childe turns to Aventurine-- Oh? He was wearing something a bit different this time. Real cozy looking. He was almost jealous.

"You found some new clothes? Good on you, buddy."

He dives right into it, as Aventurine did ask, and Childe figured it might be kind of important for everyone to know what it was, what to look for. There's a quiet feeling in his gut that hasn't left him, of the idea there could be more like it.

"I was fishing on Deck 9 when it came right up to the water to play with my bobber. I guess it thought it might be food. Normally you wouldn't expect a spirit to actually physically effect the world around it, but I think the metal claws and beak weren't part of its body, initially. I attacked it when it saw me so I could better understand what I was looking at."

Don't know what something is? Fight it! It was his favourite option.

"It looked like a crane, or a heron of some sort. A massive fisherbird made up of leaves and scrap metal, is my best guess. The metal parts were sharp as hell and rusted. I'm fine, promise. A little banged up, but I don't think just anyone would be in the same shape."

Edited (typo :() 2024-07-06 02:05 (UTC)

Aventurine stiffens a little at the mention of being...seen out of control. Thankfully Kaeya doesn't go into more detail. "Yeah. I wasn't...seeing what was actually in front of me, that's for sure," he agrees, with a forced smile.

But then Kaeya goes on to mention the strange ghosts, and that gets his attention. "Huh...I haven't seen that. All interactions with the ghosts themselves seemed to fall oddly flat," he says, thinking of him and Mario trying to steal the shoes back for that one kid. "Learn anything interesting?"

At the question about writing, Aventurine holds up his injured hands with a wry smile. "As much as I'd love to offer to help write things down, I don't think my handwriting would be the most legible right now~"

Okay. Well. He has to ask.

"What kind of ghost bird?"

"There's... well, for at least me I think that there's a natural affinity with the dead. I don't know if anyone else shares that though? And I think I'm a little more prone to ghosts and haunting... does anyone else work with the dead or - and this is personal, you don't have to answer - have a lot of dead people in their life?"

He knows people don't like talking about that, but... yeah.

"Also apparently while I was possessed I tried to get people out of the elevator and then hit thirteen and seven. I don't know if that means anything - does it mean anything to anyone else here?"

"Casper! My buddy! I knew you'd wanna know."

Of course the guy with a bird would wanna know about the new bird. It also makes Childe wonder if he could talk to it, like he'd mentioned before.

"It was like a heron. Real tall and gangly. Its feathers were made of leaves and it seemed to be blind in one eye. It had a massive metal beak and claws, but they were pretty rusty. Not fun to get in the way of, I'll tell you. It was also two stories high, if you'll believe me."

He knows it sounds a bit out there.

"Unlike Mr. Aventurine, I don't think I was seeing or hearing anything that wasn't real. People were telling me they weren't involved, but I didn't believe them." At least, not most of them. But no need to bring up the exception to the rule right now, it wouldn't be useful. "So it seems like even the possessions weren't all working in the same way..."

Wriothesley has his arms crossed over his chest, but he's pretty good at seeming casual while he's actually quite tense. It seems like Aventurine is having more or less the same reaction to all this as he is - nothing like having to admit you weren't in your right mind to everyone in the area, right? - so he shoots the blond a half-smile of understanding.

"At my age, having a long list of the lost is rather unavoidable," Neuvillette comments. He does not elaborate. "However, I don't appear to have been as strongly affected by the spirits as what you and the others describe. Possibly this may be due to my unique constitution; all of the 'possessions' I witnessed influenced people via particular strong emotions, which is something that I would imagine I am naturally resistant to."

At somepoint during a lull in all of the chatter and stuff, Malos hops on one of the cafeteria tables. This already draws plenty of attention, but a shouted: "Hey!" surely draws the rest.

"Alright!" Malos says, once he has the floor. "I don't trust any permanence of our memories around here - unless one of you isn't sharing something - so I'm cutting out the middle man! We already have someone keeping notes - " He nods at Kaeya, " - But who knows what one of y'all chucklefucks didn't feel like bringing up, or which one of you got talked over, or what. So you know what I've got?"

He holds up a thick stack of paper with printed text on it - it's enough he can hold it in one hand, easy, but it's still three times the amount of people he knows are here, just in case he missed anyone, just in case anyone fucks up, or loses it, or spills juice on it, or what fucking ever. Malos knows humans need their goddamn redundancies.

"FORMS!" Malos announces.

"I've got forms for everyone to fill out! Huge buzzkill of me, I know. I hate paperwork, too. But this way we can have a more in-depth consolidation of data. What can I say? I'm the kind of guy who likes information."

Piece said, he hops off the table, slaps the stack of papers down onto it with a thwack!, and shuts his mouth. Come get a paper from the table! Fill out your forms!

But whatever kind of ghost that can get into the head of a goddamn Aegis is one that Malos wants to know everything he can possibly know about. Hence, the crowdsourcing. Approach or don't! Maybe his glare intimidates you into doing what he says. Maybe his glare keeps you away - he'll walk away from the table at some point, and the forms will still be there, waiting to be taken.

"...What?" he asks, disappointed, if you linger to make converastion. "The hell are you looking at? Forms are over there."

On the table are not only the stack of forms Malos was referring to, but also a place to submit them (both clearly labeled - wow! he thought this through!) (of course he fucking did: he knows not to underestimate human stupidity). There's also a cup that has been filled with a plethora of writing utensils that Malos has snagged from literally who knows where. Face down, you'll even find Malos's own form, though he gives you a kind of Look if you try and touch it.

When you take a form, you'll find this to fill out. (Please place in comments below!)

"This was very efficient and thoughtful of you. Thank you." Suffer the genuine smile of approval, Malos, as Neuvillette grabs a couple of forms (so that he can take Wriothesley one without the man straining his injured knee).

NAME:
Childe

ROOM NUMBER (FOR CONTACT PURPOSES):
4-017

(WRITE GOOD DATA SO I DON'T HAVE TO CONTACT YOU)

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE?
A week or so? [It has been over a week.]

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SHIP?
It's been uninhabited for going on 400 years ish, and it's following the Captain's last order. Same as everyone else.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE RELEVANT?
There are no fish on Deck 9.

WERE YOU POSSESSED?
No.

IF YES, WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR GHOST?
N/A

DID YOU INTERACT WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS POSSESSED?
No.

IF YES, WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN THE INTERACTION?
N/A

DID YOU TALK TO ANY GHOSTS?
I fought one.

IF YES, WHAT DID THEY TELL YOU?
It was a bird.

DO YOU HAVE ANY THEORIES? PLEASE SHARE.
I was sure the ship was haunted by past events, but uh. If everyone else is seeing specific ghosts and getting possessed, I'm definitely wrong. The bird I saw seemed to be using metal scavenged from the belly of the ship as part of its body.

ANY OTHER INFO YOU THINK IMPORTANT TO SHARE?
[There is a crude drawing of a bird here.]

Edited 2024-07-06 04:43 (UTC)

"That they are, friend, that they are," Aventurine laughs, holding up one form between two fingers swathed in white, and his other hand in the same state.

"I'm afraid my handwriting won't exactly be...legible, at the moment, however." He gives an almost sheepish grin with a 'what can you do?' sort of shrug. "I do like the idea here, though. Do you think there is an alternate way to fill one out? Unless you think you can read my writing."

And...yeah. There's only his name on the paper so far, and it very much looks like someone writing with their non-dominant hand. And badly.

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Page 1 of 6

Information Meeting [Open]

Big Discussion Thread

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Dropping in!

Raises hand (revised)

Re: Raises hand (revised)

obligatory

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do not feel obligated to respond to this

i'm assumign they're probably standing near to each other

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stadtler and waldorf over here

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FORMS! FORMS! FORMS!

TALK TO MALOS....?

FORMS

sorry malos

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Great idea boss, but we got a problem boss