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Holiday mingle log

It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year

Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year, which isn't a surprise but hey they're starting the Christmas/Winter stuff the week before thanksgiving. Because why not. this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drink.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

Fun and frivolity.

There are even carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

So you want some summer?.

While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Oh yeah, and there's definitely the baths and everything too!

Network.

In the Sphere, the network is neural, and accessed via touching the glowing golden circle behind your character’s ear. They can identify themselves with a screen name if you so desire, but messages should be one of three ways or a combination of them. 1. Audio. Your character thinks audible words onto the network. 2. Writing: Your character thinks text into the network. 3. Video. Your character projects a broadcast of a video of themselves onto the network. Replies are determined by the player.

The network needs to be accessed by choice, so character broadcasts are not automatically beamed directly into people’s heads. The Sphere isn’t that rude.

Private messages are allowed by pressing and holding and pressing and holding again as you picture the person in your mind. This can be an image or a name, err more on the side of things being more accessible than less.

Welcome to my nightmare.

For anyone within the architecture dome, the library dome, the sunlight rec dome and any personal dome that people chose, around midnight people will have a curiously tired sensation. They just need to rest their eyes for a moment, or some may fall asleep for longer. No matter the length of time that the character is out, the nightmare infects them, and when they wake they will be filled with a curious but urgent sensation.

They have lost something. The loss can be a physical object, an emotion, a memory, a person or perhaps a sense of self. If the lost person is currently present in the game, they will be unable to be seen by the character who is experiencing the waking nightmare. Urgency will grip the character, because the longer the sensation goes on for, the worse it becomes. Characters can search and scrounge for their loss everywhere, but until the nightmare is over, they will not find whatever it is. Even if it is themselves. Instead, they may be frantic, angry, or just play old scared to death. They need to find this at whatever cost. Where they may find it is something that their own brains will settle on, but of course until the nightmare is over, they will not be able to.

The nightmare ends with either the character falling into a normal, restful sleep naturally or through some other means (someone might mention the infirmary has sedation medication just for the is purpose, or that there’s always a brick) or when they are woken with the intervention of someone else. The intervention of someone else is entirely up to you, and can come from a player character or a NPC, depending on how the player is feeling with the thread. By intervention we mean someone who is able to talk the person out of the nightmare, or to slap or shake them out, or to use some sort of trick that shows them that they are indeed inside of a nightmare. The knowledge that someone is affected by a nightmare must come from an external source, and should come from a character that your character would trust. After all, would you believe someone who told you that you were in a nightmare if you didn’t know that? That said, the best way to deal with waking someone is to remove them from the affected domes. Too bad you don’t know which domes are affected.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nah.

Alright.

[After all, the only thing he could've brought with him is some of the stuff he'd gotten from the vendors.]

I'll be there in five.

See you soon then.

[ And Michael’s hanging at the door of his dome, foregoing the shot glass and just drinking out of a bottle whenever the other shows up. ]

[There's not another message back to Michael, not when he was that close. So, when he does get to him, he can't help but smile a bit.]

Already? Must've been why you didn't want anything else.

[ Michael doesn't exactly smile as he looks at Alex. It's still strange to realize that the other is there. He hadn't really expected to see anyone from Roswell here. At first he'd been wanting it but then well, it's not the best thing to wish on anyone is it?

He'd been getting by on his own if nothing else but seeing Alex? Everything hit him hard all over again. ]

Are you surprised?

[It kind of worked since Alex hadn't expected Michael to be there. Actually, he wasn't meaning to run into anyone that he knew. He meant what he'd said though. The military vet had no intentions of walking away.]

Not really, no.

[A part of him wants to hit him for leaving him out there like that, and another part of him wants to kiss him.]

Not a bad little place.

[ Michael shrugs and there's a moment where he considers not inviting Alex in. But he'd never been good at that. He could guard himself against a lot of things but Alex had always been the chink in his armor. He just couldn't turn him away even when all Alex had ended up doing was hurt him, walk away. He knows he'll never really be good enough to deserve him. ]

It's slightly better than the airstream.

[ Michael pushes off the frame then and waves Alex inside as he heads back in himself.

The dome is kept pretty clean. There's sketches similar to what had been in his bunker all over his table but other than that it's clean. ]

Only slightly better?

[The airstream hadn't been a bad place, even he'd liked it. Once Michael heads inside, he follows and notices the sketches. It reminded him that the other had wanted to get off the planet.]

Cozy. You have it all to yourself, I take it?

[ Michael shrugs. Really, he preferred his airstream but the dome isn't too bad. He takes another swig of the whiskey and lifts a shoulder. ]

Mostly. Have visitors now and then. You want something to drink?

[He doesn't sit down, not yet. Not when he's intent on watching Michael.]

Michael Guerin has visitors that he allows in his home?

[He's clearly teasing]

Would love one. Doesn't matter what.

[ Michael just rolls his eyes at that and he doesn't elaborate on said visitors. He feels a sort of creeping guilt even though he hadn't done anything wrong and he's not bitter enough to throw it at Alex as a sort of jab the way he had when Alex had first got back to Roswell.

He moves to grab a beer, setting the whiskey down and taking a beer for himself as well. ]

Here. [ He offers the bottle. ]

You're making friends here, at least?

[He takes the bottle of beer before finally sitting down. It's not that his leg can't take it, but he's been walking around for a while.]

It's good to see you, Michael.

A few.

[ Michael shrugs. Very few. He still keeps to himself most of the time. ]

Is it really, Alex?

Good.

[Despite everything that happened, he wanted him to have friends. To be able to confide in other people that had nothing to do with Roswell.]

Yeah, Michael, it is. No matter what happened or what happens, it always will be.

Kind of hard to believe that.

[ Michael exhales and he really doesn't want to start another fight with Alex and yet it seems like there's a fight waiting to happen around every corner, where it almost feels like you're walking on eggshells trying to avoid the landmines. ]

What do you want me to say, Michael? That I don't know if I want to hit you or kiss you?

[Alex is tired and he doesn't want to fight. That's something that he wants to avoid.]

[ Michael just scoffs, shaking his head and starting in on the beer. ]

I can’t believe you’re fucking that upset I didn’t want you fighting a psycho alien that can take control over other people’s bodies among other shit. You constantly walk away and I still always know what I want to do, Alex.

[ He always wants to kiss him. ]

I'm upset because I could've lost you, Michael! What don't you get about that?

[It wasn't even about being upset that he couldn't fight the damn alien psycho. No, it was about the fact that he could've lost the alien before him.]

So you’re pissed at me for that?

[There was a lot of things he was pissed off about, but the idea of losing Michael... He sighs and takes a drink of his beer.]

I don't want to fight, Michael.

Then what do you want? Do you wanna fuck?

[ Michael’s not really being fair but Alex being there... like this... it’s just screwing with his head. And maybe he doesn’t know how to trust the other and his earnestness. ]

No, I don't.

[He wanted Michael, yes, but he didn't just want to fuck. Michael meant more to him than that.]

I want to spend time with you, Michael. Re-know you if that's what it takes.

[ Michael exhales and he takes another long drink of the beer and moves to drop down onto the couch he has, his head on the back of it. ]

Okay.

[Alex glances over to the other, but doesn't move from where he sat down.]

I mean it, Michael. I'm not walking away. No matter how long it takes, I'm going to be here. I'm never leaving you behind.

[ Michael doesn’t say anything, nursing the beer for a while in silence. He’s brooding and he doesn’t even know why. He should be happy to hear Alex day that but he just doesn’t trust him, one too many times burned. ]

I want to believe you.