spherememing | 001. Test Drive Meme.

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001. Test Drive Meme.

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Welcome, welcome, welcome.

The Council is well aware of how hard it is to get used to that whole ~~kidnapping~~ being brought to a new place you don’t understand is, and because of that, each month they host an open welcome party for all residents both old and new. The party and its theme and location vary by month, and November’s theme is funnily enough Thanksgiving. The location is in the market dome, and all of the stalls have been closed in favor of long, large and communal tables for sitting around and eating and talking. The Market dome is large, roughly three city blocks would fit comfortably inside of it. The stalls themselves are lined with bright lights, giving the activity within more of a carnival atmosphere than that of a normal shopping experience. Around you, the air hums almost, teaming with life and vibrancy among all sides. The way that the tables are seated encourages some intimacy despite the space, offering a large family sort of feeling versus something like a restaurant.

The people there are happy to see new people, that much is evident. People who one doesn’t know are greeted with smiles for the large part, and questions are eagerly answered, even if there is a slight ‘no one really knows’ vagueness to them. For the most part, of course. No city is ever a Utopia, and there are those who give newly arrived people flat looks, and answer questions with short and curt monotoned responses.

There are conversations happening at some parts of the table that aren’t meant for you to hear; they’re just whispered snippets of something about ‘Cruz doesn’t know what she wants.’ Or ‘Tearing is keeping it all under wraps of course, because that’s what she does.’ More common are grumbled complaints about ‘that bastard Tinder won’t stop just because…’ When they notice someone listening, they definitely glare at the listener. But whatever else, and however many secrets they may be keeping from the newcomers, the people complaining seem honest about it.

There’s a huge food table on one side that’s completely loaded with everything one could want. Turkey, and all of the fixings, including vegetarian and vegan options for those who would require them. (Though, someone leans over to mention, “the meat’s not really an animal anyway.”) The food is definitely sort of a potluck, given the variety of types of food in various sorts of serving dishes and states of presentation. Some of the foods include some weird stuff that looks terrible but is delicious. Probably. There are foods thee colors the likes of which only would be found on Earth if someone added an insane amount of food color to them.

Do try the grey stuff though. It’s delicious, ask the dishes. The blue milk? Less so.

However, food isn’t the only thing at the meeting. On the opposite side from the food, there are smaller tables set up with people sitting behind them. In front of the tables are homemade brightly colored signs that advertise things like jobs and clubs. The people and interests here in The Sphere are hugely varied and people are just so earnest to tell newcomers about them. They’re earnest to the point where they may just actually reach out and grab a person in order to force them to stop and to listen to whatever spiel they happen to be working on. Booths that are in attendance for jobs include: Agriculture: “help grow the food that feeds us all! Farming is life!”, The library: “No skill needed! We’ll teach you what you need to know!” The school system: “Teachers wanted! Education is the right of everyone!” Maintenance: “Help keep the domes clean!” As well as various restaurant booths looking for help for both servers and chefs.

For the hobbies involved they are even more varied. Book club: “we live in a multiverse, let’s read the books from it! With wine!” Garden club: “we want to grow stuff on our terms!” Sprinkled among are various skill learning clubs, among them: woodworking club, smithing, robotics, technology, first aid. It seems that despite the fact that no one is required to work in the City, people are still offering skills as needed.

As the night progresses, music starts, and there’s dancing and more adult fare. Liquor is broken out, of various sources from various worlds, including some that offer the Sphere’s own label on them. If discrete enough inquiries are made, a passcode to the Black Market hidden behind some of the stalls is offered. The entrance is hidden enough that someone needs to be looking for it, and there is a rather large bouncer guarding the door and asking for the proper passcode. The passcode of the day happens to be turnips.

Inside the black market is large, but much more dimly lit than the regular market dome that the welcome party was held inside of. There are various pockets of people clustered under bright neon lights. The lights, someone confides to you, are code for what they’re offering. And nearly everything is on offer if a person has the ability to make a trade. Things from home, character skills and even favors tend to be the currency here, but watch out: the hawkers within are shrewd and sharp. If they make a deal with someone, it’s nearly always going to favor them. Eventually.

There’s also a large and loud party happening inside. Think of a rave with a large amount of people who happened to be a bit out of their minds. Drugs aren’t given freely here, they’re too valuable, but should someone want to figure out what they’re rolling on, eventually someone will ask or offer. The drug that they are currently using is called ‘self’ and it’s something that affects your character in an intensely personal way. For some, it’s an experience like your favorite cocktail mixed with a vicodin, and for others it’s just like being drunk. For still more people, it’s like ecstasy without the side effects.

The drug has no physically addicting properties.

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.

Harvest time

The Council hopes that you enjoyed the party the other night, because now it’s time to put out the call for volunteers to come in and help with replenishing the city’s stores from the fields and orchards in the agricultural domes. Your friend neighborhood councillor in charge, Annie Cruz has sent out a message that volunteers who come in to help out will be given payment in the form of lunch and beer and wine.

The jobs involved are varied, and involve harvesting crops such as corn, picking apples or grapes and handing out water or the boxed lunches provided. People will be assigned an area and given a bucket or basket in order to put the fruits of their labor inside of. Either way, there’s a festive atmosphere, and most people who have been there longer than your character seem to be old hat at this.

There’s even a large tub of grapes for people to smash with their feet (“but for fuck’s sake make sure they’re clean first!”). If asked about it, someone will explain that the city makes its own wine and brews its own beer every season! A good chunk of the things picked, you are told slyly, will probably end up drunk rather than eaten, “once the off the top happens.” If asked to explain it, a character will just touch their nose slyly and not say any more. It’s also explained that the grapes crushed with people’s feet don’t actually end up in the general bottles of wine: they’re not savages here!

So, jump in and help with something, or sit down and have lunch and just get to know the people around you with a glass of wine or beer. You’re all here for the foreseeable future, might as well!

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.

Wildcard!
This can be meeting a possible roommate or dorm mate (if one is choosing to go that route), the use of a communal kitchen, waking up and dealing with the things that you were just told about the City, yelling at the sphere, or anything else that your little heart desires. Go nuts.

OOC note: if you feel that something requires an NPC interaction, please go to here and reply with a link and a brief summary of why you need it and the mod will try and be accomodating.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

then we are both arguing about things we dont care about
that is very stupid

you're right.

[ He could leave it that. But he needs information. Needs connections in this new place. ]

there must be something else we can argue about.
what do you think of this place so far?

[sorry, but,]

so now you care what i think?

you might have some opinions that aren't stupid.
thought i'd give it a shot.

i think you are very strange
but also funny

this place is too nice
i think they are hiding things but i can't find it

the people here dont smell afraid or like they're lying
but that just means they believe what they were told

everything is too much to be what it looks like

[ Bean would have used different words, but he's glad to see they're basically on the same page in their assessment. ]

so you don't trust what you've been told either.
see?
i knew not all of your opinions would be stupid.

if we could get access to the maintenance grid, we might be able to find out what they're hiding.
air has to be circulated somehow.
through every dome.
it's an expensive operation to run with no plan or reason behind it.

how do you know this
you are just talking yourself up

where is the maintenance grid
what does it smell like
i can find anything

i'm very smart.

i don't know.
smells like clean air.
machinery.

when you say "find anything"...
what kind of anything?

prove it

if i have the scent
i can track it
my nose is very good
the best

test me.

only by scent?
are you a dog?

no
you test me
tell me what you smell like and i will find you
i dont care about your brain

im not a dog
i am wolverine

how does that prove to you that i'm smart?
all that proves is you can track things by smell.

are wolverines known for their sense of smell?
i've never seen one.

you are not very smart if you think i mean wolverines the animal
but that does not matter
where is the last place you were before here
are you a boy or a girl
are you old
this is all i need to find you

what other kind of wolverine could you mean?
you're not an M10 tank destroyer.

[ Part of him doesn't want to play along, but the rest of him is actually curious about this person's claims. they're obviously young, from the way they default to "boy or girl" instead of "man or woman," and by the way they asked his age. Meeting another kid might not be a bad idea. ]

the last place i was before here was an asteroid in space.
i'm a boy.
i'm not old.

come and find me.

It takes longer than Laura would like. She's never been to space, and she's a little envious. She read once that space smells different, though, like burning, like matches. She looks for the scent of a young man and metal and old fire. He must be some sort of astronaut.

It takes longer than she'd like, so it takes about twenty minutes for an eleven-year-old girl, grimy and with dried blood on her knuckles, to find him. Laura lands flat footed before the person she's almost certain is the one she's looking for, smelling like nothing else here, metal and strangeness and like a boy who hasn't become a man yet. She jumps from a high ledge, dropping immediately, subconsciously, into a fighter's stance.

"Hola."

Bean almost gives up on the "wolverine" finding him. Any other seven year old wouldn't have the attention span to remember that he was the target of a scavenger hunt. But Bean isn't any other seven year old. he doesn't forget anything. So, once he gave up on the initial waiting and set about once more exploring the dormitory dome, he still kept in the back of his mind to keep an eye out for this mysterious "wolverine."

He's very good at knowing when he's being followed. So even before she drops down, he knows that someone's there. So he's ready, turning to face her, noting the way she immediately crouches with her hands raised to fight him.

Maybe he should be ready to fight back. But she didn't seem like a threat in this moment. All they'd done is argue about stupid stuff. Food and animal nicknames. Nothing worth getting into a real fight over.

"Ho, Wolverine."

That makes her smile. No one's ever called her that before. She stands, hands on her hips, and speaks tonelessly, but her pleasure is obvious in her expression. "I find you."

And then she leans in, sniffing a little closer. "This is what space smells like?"

Bean lets her sniff. He's never been outright sniffed before. It's an odd experience, but again, not a threatening one. But he has been sized up before, and knows as the smallest kid in any given room, the best way to react is just to stand his ground and let it happen. Let them form their opinion of him. He'll prove himself soon enough.

"Guess so. You speak Common? No solo español?"

He is small, but Laura's baseline for what normal humans look like is a little... limited, not least because she's wondering if he's a mutant. A mutant who's never heard of Wolverine, though... do those exist?

He doesn't smell like a mutant, but that only means his powers could be internal or force-based rather than physical. Rictor didn't smell special, and neither did Charles.

At his question, she shrugs. "Inglés es aburrido. But I speak it."

Bean doesn't know if he smells any different than any of the other kids of Command School would. He's been living in space for the past year, first on a sterile space station, and then in a converted Formic outpost. Whether the genetic differences inside him create a different scent or not, he has no idea. He can't imagine they would. The differences are so small.

"¿Algo más? Besides Spanish and English."

Strange that she calls it English and not I.F. Common. They were essentially the same thing, but most people on Earth as Bean knew it called it the latter.

She can't decide if it's a challenge or not. She knows verbal challenges, fighting with words, arguments, those exist, but in the end, in her experience, everything is physical. She decides she doesn't really care about winning unless it becomes a physical contest (and then it's no contest), but that doesn't mean she's going to concede to his terms so readily.

"Veo, two languages is not enough for the very smart boy?"

It's honestly not a challenge. He just wants to know what she knows. What she can do. Anything that might be a clue as to who she is (what? she is?) and where she's from.

"I'd tell you how many I know, but no one likes a bragger."

The answer is five, fluently, plus bits and pieces of two more. But none of that will help him gain Wolverine as an ally-- and he's already decided he'd rather have her as an ally than an enemy. Nowhere in his mind does the word 'friend' filter in.

"Tiene un nombre? Besides Wolverine or 'claws'?"

Laura's never had a problem with bragging. It's about knowing who's in charge, who's strong, and who needs to be protected. This boy is young, obviously, and likely needs protection. She wants to make it clear she can provide it, and that fighting her is not a good idea.

But she's not sure she wants to show her entire hand just yet. She's already made it clear she's a mutant, and called herself Wolverine. This boy hasn't reacted to either. Maybe secrets are better? She's not sure.

She's never known anyone who didn't know exactly who she was with a look. Not really.

"Laura," she says. "Do you have a name?"

She sits, idly kicking her feet against the table she landed on, no longer in a prowling stance.

Laura's a much more sensible name, but then, the young boys and girls Bean surrounded himself with at Battle School often had nicknames that were just as wild as 'Wolverine.' Shovel. Hot Soup. Hell, even Ender was a nickname.

"Which would you rather I called you?"

Shovel would rather be called Ducheval. Maybe Laura would rather be Wolverine.

"I'm Bean." A nickname of its own, of sorts, but it feels more like a real name than Julian Delphiki. He'd been Bean far longer than he'd been Julian.

Laura considers it, and realizes she knows the answer, which is a new and welcome sensation. She doesn't smile, but something in her body language eases, and she continues to kick her feet idly in front of her. Those with a watchful eye may note that both of her shoes have holes in the exact same place in the front, finely-cut slits rather than worn edges.

"Laura. Wolverine when I fight."

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justlittle - 2018-12-18 20:00 (UTC) - Expand

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wildhorses - 2018-12-21 16:50 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001. Test Drive Meme.

sounds good!

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