pluviosa | GAME OPENING LOG

Entry tags:

*event

GAME OPENING LOG

GAME OPENING

There's still dripping everywhere, and the gurgle of standing water shifting and draining to somewhere further down...

... But the sound of the rain outside has stopped. And you haven't heard the thunder in a while.

Take a moment. Look out the windows, the glass doors leading out to the balconies - the world beyond is lighting up. Mountains stand out against the distant eastern horizon, breaking up the first of the sunlight into scattered beams. The ship chases that light, running eastward towards the glow of dawn. Its motion is easier to bear now that the storm is over - the wind no longer tries to blow it off course.

You've survived the night - survived the storm. You get the feeling it won't be the last.

The storm abates over the course of the night - by midnight, it's dropped back enough that water and wind are no longer forcing their way through the bubble barriers, and by about an hour before sunrise - just when the sky is starting to get light - the rain has stopped completely. The clouds persist a bit longer, giving characters a spectacular sunrise to look at. When the first rays of the sun are visible over the mountains, any characters still affected by hallucinations feel their minds clear.

Fifteen minutes after dawn - about when it's getting to be a pain to look directly in the direction the ship is travelling because of the sun directly in the eyeballs - characters who are sensitive to electricity may sense the power kick back on. It's just in the wires and cables spread throughout the ship, however - the lights don't turn on, although the elevators do.

Five minutes after that, there's a crackle that is audible to all characters, from speakers spread throughout the hallways and rooms of the ship. Not every speaker is functional - some of them just continue to emit static instead of the message that follows - but enough of them are that every character will be able to hear a single piercing beep, followed by an artificial voice in an androgynous tenor:

"ALL PASSENGERS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE AFT LOUNGE ON DECK R-ZERO FOR A HEADCOUNT."

There's silence for a moment, and then another, quieter alert beep, and the same voice adds, almost as an afterthought,

"Please follow the emergency lighting in the hallways for guidance."

After that announcement, strips of lighting on the ceiling of the hallways - the lights are also on the floor, but even after the rain has washed so much dirt away, you're unlikely to see them anywhere except close enough to the stairs that you don't need them - light up. They begin to move in a pattern of diodes that leads characters to the staircases and elevators near the back of the ship, in the somewhat drier part of it that has more decks above the one where characters woke up.

The stairs are now navigable - even if there's still a decent amount of water flowing down them, not entirely contained by the channels cut into the outside of the turns of the staircase - and the elevators are now powered. Well, sort of. Although the elevators have power, the buttons inside do not - all of them are dark. Instead, the elevators automatically move characters upwards after they enter, depositing them on deck R0 for the indicated headcount.

Other than the increasingly large number of confused "passengers," however, there doesn't seem to be anything here. Some furniture in varying states of decay, sure, and puddles and debris from the storm's flooding, but no indication of humans or any other form of sapient life. The space is wide and open, and decently well-lit even with the overhead lights off, since the majority of the walls to either side appear to be made of glass.

AT THE CAFETERIA

Once everyone has assembled - or at least everyone who is willing to come, as nothing forces characters do follow instructions from a strange voice - there is another crackle of speaker feedback. At least there's no blaring alert tone to start this message.

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION."

The voice is the same as before - and anyone from a semi-modern world would be able to tell, from the pattern of speech, that this is a synthesized voice, not a real person, or at least not a real person willing to reveal themselves to be such. It speaks entirely in the language characters discovered knowing when they woke up here. The volume of the voice decreases somewhat after the initial announcement gets everyone's attention, but it is still audible to everyone.

"Please excuse the inadequate accommodations. Your arrival was unexpected. This ship has not entertained new passengers in 317 years, 6 months, and 19 days."

"We will do our best to prepare appropriate accommodations as quickly as possible. However, the immediate priority is to supply passengers with meals and other appropriate provisions. Please accept this with our sincerest apologies."

At the close of those words, the elevator doors to either side of the lounge area open, and self-propelled carts - the kind you might see in industrial kitchens - roll out. Their lower shelves are stacked with bowls, cups, and those plastic utensil holders filled with spoons, while the upper halves are full of food and drink. Specifically, the majority are full of cafeteria pans of oatmeal, the kind with the metal lids that keep the heat in. In addition to the oatmeal, there's a wide variety of raw fruits and vegetables, and some additional options for throwing in your oatmeal such as cinnamon, honey, both brown and white sugar, shaved almonds, and other things that can be made from plants and stored for a long time. There are also two carts at either end full of hot drinks - one of tea, one of coffee - and one each of cold drinks such as fruit juice. There do not appear to be any meat or dairy offerings, although there's both almond and soy milk for your coffee if you can tolerate the substitutes. (It tastes somewhat metallic, like it was dehydrated for a long time, but the coffee and tea themselves taste quite fresh.)

Once the carts have wheeled themselves out, the voice continues from the speakers.

"In order to better serve our passengers, we would like to ask you a few questions. First: What is your locale of origin? Second: Why have you come?"

OOC INFO

For OOC questions about this event, please use the OOC Questions header in the comments below. To respond to the Ship's questions, or ask it some of your own, please use the Talk to the Ship header. Otherwise, this post is a mingle, and players are encouraged to post their own top-level comments for their characters and reply to each other.

Following this post, simple food will be available in this area during "active" hours, starting from around dawn to two hours after sunset (the ship's days, at least at present, are about evenly divided). At night, the food carts roll away into one of the restaurants around the edges of this area. Instead, wheeled dumpsters with grabbing attachments collect up the old furniture and cram it into themselves, and starting the second night, 'new' furniture takes its place, mostly dining tables and chairs of various sizes.

Characters now have theoretically full access to the ship; however, the elevators are only mostly functional as debris is cleared from them. The rear elevators go all the way up the residential levels, but only as far down as deck 3. The front elevators only move between decks R0, 0, and 1.

More information on the schedule of shipwide upgrades will be available on the event plotting post in a few days. Until then - at least it's dry weather and smooth sailing for a while?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I didn't fucking come here by my own fucking choice." John's voice darkens with each word, indignant, and twists into something snarling behind the mask, the air almost seeming to fray them. A shadow too thick and solid to just be a shadow, more a tentacle in its own right, hits the deck harder than necessary as John contemplates the merits of tearing out the nearest speaker.

Things that will not help him: that. It's still very tempting.

(The first question is soundly ignored in favour of this, because it's easier to lash out than to try to make sense of how to answer.)

The…man? she still isn’t sure - in yellow is substantially less intimidating in the light of day. Maybe it’s because he’s angry. She couldn’t trust kindness, not fully, but his anger is a controlled force. Knowing he’s just as stuck as she is helps too.
She moves a bit closer, making sure to announce her presence over the dull roar of the others in the room.
“Trying to make us a new window, are you?”

He still starts a little when she speaks—pulling himself upright, turning, twisting, limbs (too many) curling or twitching in close. It's... easy to get lost in a moment of anger when "emotions" are still... complicated.

Anger, however, is familiar and easy.

"Huh?" Absolutely graceless, but there really hadn't been much in his ~~mini-tantrum~~ shouting anyway, had there? "That..." Being caught and called on it—maybe in another scenario, he'd have pushed forward with it, remained angry, but this sets off a mantra in his head instead. The sound he makes next is a bit like clearing his throat, but it doesn't quite sound right. "As tempting as it is, it wouldn't make the explanation any more forthcoming." It's not really a regathering of the same energy, but it's forward momentum. "It doesn't seem to know either."

Obviously.

Alisaie can't help the small smile creeping onto her face. Hopefully he won't think she's laughing at him. But there's a part of her that sees him and can't help but be reminded of the many men she's known who lashed out because they felt helpless.
"Come on, you'll feel better once you've eaten."
She makes her way over to the food cart, eyeing the porridge dubiously. It can't be worse than the rations they took with them to Garlemald. Surely. She scoops some into a bowl, wincing at the sound it makes, and piles some fruit and honey on top.

He doesn't know what to make of that smile, but he does notice it and maybe a few of those tendrils curl in self-consciously. There's a pull at his mouth behind the mask, not quite a scowl, but it all falls away when she walks off with her point? Presented. Or whatever it's meant to be. Still, it's... amusing.

"Last I checked," he drawls, words curling like the fluttering tendrils at the ends of his robes with just a hint of something not entirely dissimilar to petulance that's quickly smothered (he has appearances to maintain to some extent!), "I don't." That said, he still follows after her for lack of anything better to do with himself. There's also something in him that does not want to be alone, but he hides it behind a curiosity about the fruit on the tray that isn't entirely feigned.

She doesn't quite expect him to follow her over to the food station, but he does. The smile grows. Sitting down at one of the benches, she scoots down to make room for him. She isn't entirely sure why she wants to keep an eye on him, but it's definitely not just to make sure he doesn't cause any harm. There's something about him that just seems lonely. Maybe that's why he's so angry.
She takes a cautious bite of the oatmeal. It's nothing special, but it's surprisingly edible. Then again, growing up in the culinary anti-capital of the world will make one much more willing to try other foods than she might be otherwise. She'd had no idea exactly how much variety there existed in the world of food until she left Sharlayan.
"Where I come from," she says, not entirely above talking with her mouth full, "this would be nutritionally fortified so you'd never need to eat anything else. Good luck getting someone to add any flavor, though."

He's not sure what to make of this... girl. Young woman. He knows what the room-making is implying—he's not completely unaware of human interaction for as limited as his has been, even if it's only because he's shared mental space with a human—but... well, his form isn't exactly meant to sit anywhere small.

There's also an undercurrent of awkward in it all, for him.

...But. It's a small thing, stupid really, but imperfect manners and her cadence are... quieting. Familiar, set together. John makes a seat for himself out of the mass of limbs hidden and half-real under his robes instead of using the bench, still managing to sit about the same height.

"Is survival difficult there?" Because that makes sense to him. Desperation and survival breed innovation—or a distinct habit of eating canned food once in a blue moon, and nothing else, unless fortune smiles.

She snorts, hearing her mother’s voice chiding her for her poor table manners. Somehow she doubts he minds.
“Not as such, we’re simply a nation of scholars more concerned with nutrition than flavor.” She takes another bite, hunger overriding her vague distaste at the texture. The fruit is surprisingly fresh-tasting too, and she’s rapidly developing more questions about where this food comes from. Maybe she ought to ask the ship, though she doubts it will be forthcoming. “I don’t want to be rude, but do you…eat?”

Edited 2024-02-18 23:24 (UTC)

Huh. John doesn't say much to that, not at first; what a notion, though. The madness of human innovation, he supposes—and he knows that's maybe a bit of a stretch, but then he can't exactly see every existence, every utterance of choice to know why her world wound up the way it apparently did (it's the ears and the particularly fine features). He doesn't know if "human" is still a word that applies by choice or by cultural shifts.

Probably a good thing he doesn't recognize it, though. One world spared.

Her question startles him out of that thought, the fringes of his robes curling up like a cat coming to attention, but after a soft "huh?", he lifts a wrapped hand to tap a single, clawed (tipped? taloned?) finger against the blank, smooth space where a mouth might be on a human face.

It's not admitting to the fact this is a mask—one rather like those his (no avoiding it even in his own thoughts) cultists have worn. He'd just rather not have that conversation at the moment.

"Not last I checked." Though he isn't sure if that's going to change, since he isn't an insensible, intangible entity here... That'd be novel.

She stops chewing, arrested for a moment by the way his clothing moves. It had been hard to see in the dark, but it really does behave like an extension of his body. This movement is much less worrying than the way everything had flared out to express his anger, though.
And he doesn't eat. She hopes he won't find her rude for eating in front of him, but hunger is taking precedence over manners at the moment.
Now that she thinks about it, she can't see the movement of a jaw or chin when he speaks. What even is he? She'll have to trust that he won't take offense to her curiosity and do something unpleasant. (Then again, she's seen beings arguably much stranger than him, beings that had long since given up their flesh and blood to become something more than what they were. And though they didn't see eye-to-metaphorical-eye in the end, they'd been easy enough to communicate with)
"You could always try? Or I suppose I could tell you what it tastes like." She doesn't want to make him feel left out.

He'd be confused about it being rude—it's not as though she can see him pointedly avoiding looking at the act itself. The black hollows of the eye slits don't really give much indication of where he's looking.

It's also somehow less of an issue when he's not acting as the eater's eyes. Still, though.

John's halfway to forming an answer about trying (and there's... more than a few reasons why that's ill-advised), but he's stopped short by the offer that follows. It's a welling feeling, something pooling in his chest, but what comes out of his mouth is something awkward and unsure, half-strangled in his throat—so soft, it's easily missed. A few... what almost look like black tendrils creep out from the depths of his hood and pull it a little lower over his masked face. Oh, conversation with anyone is still going to need a lot of adjusting to.

"That isn't a sense I'd," well, "have thought to want explained." It isn't like he's ever been interested in food, complaining about having to watch Arthur eat more than once. Maybe mildly curious at best. And, after a beat: "I am my... friend's eyes." Because I stole his sight when he opened my book like a fucking idiot goes unsaid, but there's no reason to divulge that, anyway. ...Arthur could manage without him. Probably.

"Your friend?" She hadn't thought of him as the sort of man who admits to having friends. Nor does she miss, fascinated as she is by the movement under the mask, the way he closes in on himself when she offers. Well, she's had enough practice by now making conversation with people who don't want to admit to any weakness. And the stakes are, at least for now, much lower than the last time she had to do that.
"We met a...race of people, once, who gave up their bodies to become immortal. They were fascinated by how we ate." A little too fascinated, if she's honest. "I don't know if it would be the same for you."
She's still hung up on the "friend" comment.

Her repetition earns an awkward, stiff nod. Like he isn't sure how to really respond to that. Arthur... is many things, and it's absolutely a fucking mess, right now. And it's a mess that has him ready to snap at the smaller things. But that doesn't earn him anything—restraint will. It's like when he was first released, he has to remind himself, and... It might come as no surprise that John would lash out and snarl like an injured animal before admitting to weakness, depending on her familiarity with the type.

But her story has him attentive, head tipped towards a shoulder and studying her. A people who gave up their bodies for immortality...?

"They willingly gave up means to interact with the world?" There's a scathing, disbelieving curl at the edge of his words, something sharp and disparaging. That sounds like hell, to him (and has been).

She lets him drop it. Whoever this "friend" is, John is clearly hurting without them. Just like she is, separated from her brother and the rest of the Scions. She forces herself to take another bite, chewing a bit and willing the pang of loneliness to go away. Surely they'll figure out a way to get home.

"I didn't understand all of it, but...yes. It was the only way they could think of to live forever. But by the time we met them, there was barely anything left." Many of them had faded entirely, and some had seemingly gone mad. She shudders a little at the memory of a voice long past reason or communication, responding to her probably on instinct. "They knew they would live to see the end of the universe. I can't even imagine."

He's very attentive now, but she realizes this isn't exactly lighthearted conversational fare for breakfast. "I suppose I've just been thinking about it."

"Hurting" is a very keen way to put it, and John would be achingly reluctant to agree. Arthur has restructured his perspective on humanity, changed something fundamentally in him to such end that he no longer fits with the other half of himself. There's no good way of explaining that, certainly not to a stranger.

"...There are faults to a long life," he murmurs. "Forgotten meaning. Forgotten truths. Forgotten selves, if sufficiently severed." He exhales, long and slow. "But I think we're a long way off from the end of the universe. Madness would take most first, giving so much up for... what, exactly?" A some point as he speaks, he's started fidgeting with his left hand, plucking at the tattered edge of a sleeve or the tail end of the scarf-like wrap hidden beneath his hood, hanging down before his shoulders. Maybe it seems like heavy breakfast conversation to her, but to John? This feels... fairly normal.

She manages a few more bites while he speaks, though the conversation hasn't exactly left her with much of an appetite. Still, she knows she'll need her strength to deal with...all of this. It's very unclear how reliable meals will be here. Even if the ship is doing its best to keep them all fed, she has more questions than answers about how it's sustaining life here. Best not to take any chances.
"You sound like you've dealt with this before," she observes. It might be overstepping, but so far he hasn't walked away. He's let her lead him around much more than she expected. Maybe he really is all bluster when he's upset. She suspects she'll find out sooner rather than later.

There's a soft, hesitant sound in John's throat—and he's keenly aware it isn't just Arthur who can hear him while he lurks in the metaphysical parts of his brain and his body, who isn't here, who he can't guide, who he can't turn to or support or— He doesn't like this level of exposure, he decides. A tentacle winds and tangles itself with a fluttering bit of living fabric.

"...In a way." He's not prepared to broach the topic in full, but madness is something he's... intimately familiar with. The way it spreads, the things seen. So is living too long without one's full senses. A shudder traces down his spine. It does have him fall quiet, though, trying to wrest his thoughts away from that particular flavour of unpleasantness.

Distraction, keep her from asking about it further.

"What... led to you finding these people?"

The Ship does not reply, as this is not a question.

Something slips from his hood to pull it a little lower over his masked face as his weight sways. And he's aware there are other questions floating around, along with answers.

"If there is no active crew," he's pretty sure he heard that, somewhere in the din, "then how are you operating?" It's an expectation founded on normal boats, but then the last one he was on without a crew was... little more than a mess of gore and rot. So.

"The Ship possesses numerous autonomous maintenance drones that can fulfill the majority of crew functions! We ask that you not interfere with maintenance drones during the operation of their duties. If you need to request service for a specific issue you have encountered while onboard, please make use of the nearest service terminal."

The nearest... There's a rumble in his chest as John straightens.

"What terminal?" He doesn't know what that term means in this context.

"Service terminals are currently inoperable. Please wait for maintenance."

That the word 'terminal' is itself the problem does not seem to have registered.

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GAME OPENING LOG

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