Event 1: Gods and Monsters

[letsplayamod]

[Time is a bit difficult to measure in this place. The storms that rage beyond your safe barrier, overtaking the horizon with their shifting lights and shadows, aren't doing it any favors. If you were to ask Athena, she'd say it's been about a week since your arrival. And since then... there's been scant signs of things improving.

Today, you wake up to quiet. No drone of distant winds. Not even birdsong breaches your bedrooms. Like a inhaled breath, the world seems to have paused.

And then, it exhales. The ground under your feet trembles and shakes. Dirt flies. Rocks shower down from the direction of the cliffs.

There, like an open wound stabbed into the earth, was a large crack where there wasn't before, spilling out an oppressive red light. Stranger still, some larger rocks are floating over the opening itself.

...Investigate?]

Comments

[latinumsbetter]

You could buy her a drink at the bar. [he lifts his chin towards where Luna is sitting further down the bar] She seemed to like the drink I fixed her earlier.

[cannotunravel]

I'd have never thought of that. [Horses can drink cocktails...? Oh my!] Out of curiosity, what did she order...?

[Seems like despite Misane's very direct nature, she has enough politeness not to approach someone to go ask what spirits they're fond of. Small mercies, thank goodness]

[latinumsbetter]

She let me decide, and I mixed her up something special. [he considers]

Let's call it...a Midnight Mane.

[cannotunravel]

[Misane sips her fake cocktail, thinking...]

Is this something you do often? Having to create new things because someone asks you to?

[Only a good host will do this, Misane!]

[latinumsbetter]

Not as much as you'd think. Most people have a set drink that they like. But I don't have a lot of the ingredients here that I normally do, so I gotta improvise.

[cannotunravel]

Was that incident that ended up in fire a moment of improvisation?

[Misane has heard rumors! You probably know how rumor mills work, Quark, they kind of distort things!]

[latinumsbetter]

[...okay, maybe he didn't expect that, even if he really should've. And he blinks, startled, before his expression turns a bit sulky as he straightens]

That was an accident. And not my fault! [okay maybe it kinda was but he's never going to admit that.]

[cannotunravel]

I heard from someone-- [Who will stay anonymous because I'm so making this up for roleplaying convenience, haha] --that you and Aoi and Lebkuchen were at the kitchen, trying to make slug cake, and then the entire stove caught on fire because it was antiquated. Then Alex had to come to extinguish the fire by throwing water on it and the cake was ruined.

[Perhaps it's a good thing the tale as Misane heard it does make it sound like an accident...but an accident born from improvisation at trying to cook with slugs]

[latinumsbetter]

[that'll make him scowl] A slug--you can't even make a cake with slugs! It gets too soggy!

[he grumbles] I'd use grubs or silkworms if I wanted to make a cake with something like that.

[ANYWAY--] Alright, listen, something did catch on fire, but it wasn't a result of improvisation. Aoi was just teaching Leb how to use the stove. I just happened to be there. [...all of these events may or may not be true.] Alex did run in and put out the fire with a bucket of water, though. And then Jeira made it rain inside.

[cannotunravel]

It sounds as if you have tried to make cake with slugs at some point of your life.

[Were you speaking from experience, Quark?]

That sounds kind of funny. It almost makes me wish I was there to see it.

[latinumsbetter]

[he huffs] Well, you would've caught my brother and I ruining our mother's kitchen when we were kids. She really wasn't pleased to find baked slugs on the inside of her replicator, let me tell you.

[cannotunravel]

I will keep this in mind to ensure I don't ruin the kitchen here when I experiment with slug cuisine, then.

[She never plans to experiment with this, of course]

Cerejeira and Alex will be grateful about my caution.

[latinumsbetter]

Yeah, no kidding. Not that I have any interest in trying to use that piece of junk again. I'm just waiting on a proper replicator.

[cannotunravel]

Erm...what's a replicator supposed to be, anyway?

[I'm going to take advantage of Misane's nebulous worldbuilding to say replicators don't exist in her world yet]

[latinumsbetter]

A replicator is a machine that converts energy particles into matter. So you can make just about anything, as long as you know how to program it in, or get the recipe from somewhere else.

[cannotunravel]

...woah. The future beyond the year 2231 seems bright.

[As if hers wasn't bright enough in many ways. There's goddamn time travel in small scale already]

[latinumsbetter]

[...hold up]

You're from 2231 and you don't have replicators?

[cannotunravel]

If there are any, they're not used widespread. People still do things with their own hands.

[If there still are, like...human waitresses and the such -- something you'd think would have been automated in such a futuristic setting -- I bet a whole lot of other things still haven't gotten much technology advances, hah]

Technology developments have been invested on other fields. Perhaps not the wisest fields, though.

[latinumsbetter]

What kinda fields?

[cannotunravel]

Androids -- they have gotten to the point where it's hard to differentiate them from any random person on the street. Apps for your Bitphone with all kinds of effects on you, like that one going around that increases your strength by a lot...

[Actually illegal, that one, because some people were using them to punch each other]

...and also general communications. The phones you use with your brainwaves got popular about forty years ago. By now literally everyone has one, customized in any way they can want. Doing whatever you need with just your thoughts is very useful.

[That's partly why she feels a bit nerfed around here: her Bitphone had a lot of investigative tools and resources she could use]

[latinumsbetter]

...alright, controling things with your thoughts is a new one to me. If that's available, it's not common. Androids, too, aren't very common, but there are some known ones that exist.

That whole phone thing seems pretty useful for some people. I could see that technology being pretty popular in my universe. [he's got an intrigued look in his eye lmao]

[cannotunravel]

I'd show you mine but I seem to have lost it since my arrival. It's been strange to not have my Bitphone on me at all times...

[She actually has two different Bitphones in her regains, so hey, she'd give her old ones to Quark if he wanted to take them back with him if he wanted to get them reverse-engineered, hah]

[latinumsbetter]

Hey, who knows. You might get it out of that cornucopia thing if you're lucky.