IC INTRO - FEB

[phantasmods]

The first thing the new arrivals will see, as the sun sets, is a set of distant lights turning on - the roof of the Station, perched on the cliffs above the beach.

The next thing, probably, will be the exploratory drone, a flying chrome thing about the size of a horse, descending near them, wherever they are.

"I can't believe it spat out people this time," says a voice through the speakers - androgynous, somehow sounding young and old enough to be incredibly tired.

Another voice, almost identical but almost unmistakably that of a different speaker from the cheerful tone, says, "Worry about it later! Hey, do you want a ride?"

And with that, the door of the drone's cargo bay opens.

--> WELCOME, NEW ARRIVALS.

Drones drop characters off on the well-lit lower section of the roof, where a pair of tall, gangly humanoids meet them. The two are clearly artificial, formed of silver metal and white silicone, and perfectly identical... Except for their standing posture, which is very different.

The one on the right, a step further back, looks indisputably excited, and peers at the new arrivals curiously. The one on the left has a bag slung over their shoulder, clearly thrown together at the last moment and not completely closed. They take a step forward and say, in a calm tone, "Hello. My name is Strange. Do you have any injured?"

A few minutes after the characters start to arrive, a third android bursts out of the door into the station, exclaiming (in the same voice as the rest), "Here! Wear these!" before shoving a purple scarf at Strange and a red scarf at the curious one. The new android is already wearing an orange scarf.

Once all characters have been brought up, the remaining three androids arrive on the roof, wearing green, dark blue, and white scarves. The one in white hangs back a little from the others, while the one in blue carries themselves with authority.

"Welcome to Keystone Station," says the one in blue, in a voice that must have the volume enhanced to carry across the entire roof. "You may call me Up. My siblings and I have been maintaining the station in the absence of our creators, and researching the phenomenon that brought you here, which we call Fissures. ...I am sorry to say that we have no way to return you to your worlds at this time, so please accept our hospitality."

They bow, low at the waist, and that seems to be a signal to the rest of the group to break up and join the confused, milling group of new arrivals.

--> INDIVIDUAL NPC TOP-LEVELS

Strange - Charm - Top - Bottom - Up - Down

--> THE REST OF THE STATION

Once explanations have been made as much as they can be, the newly arrived characters are set loose to explore the station itself. The labs are currently closed off, as is the door down to the generator level, but characters are welcome to explore anywhere else they please.

The androids, too, depart the roof, each setting off with a distinct task in mind. Charm and Bottom can be found on the lowest accessible level, the two of them working magic on stored seeds long into the night in order to tempt the infant plants into growing. Up and Strange vanish into the labs, (which open to characters the next day, the biology lab having been converted to a medical bay, along with the generator level).

Top and Down, meanwhile, make their home in the central gathering room of the residential floor for the night. Down is distributing network devices from a case at their side, while Top is noting down character housing arrangements and who is taking which of the station's rooms.

There's also a table set up near them, which is covered in a variety of snack foods that characters can grab and munch on before they head off for the night. Most of the packages have sand or dried salt clinging to them, indicating well enough their origins, and the expiry dates are of course all over the place even on the snacks characters might recognize... But it's certainly something to eat, isn't it?

--> THE NEXT MORNING

When characters come into the common room the next day, there's a set of large boxes on either side of the couch-filled lower area. One side is full of clothes of approximately modern Earth origin, loosely sorted by fit. A note tacked to the boxes says Limit yourself to one outfit, please!

The boxes on the other side of the room are empty. A clip-board set on a white folding table in the middle has a piece of paper and a black pen strung to it;

Trading Post

Found something you don't want? Leave it here in case someone else does.

If you're looking for something specific, scribble it down on this pad with your name!

Finally, those who adventure into either kitchen will find a box of plain donuts left out on the counters.

TRADING POST

Comments

[bulletnews]

Anyone else hear a record scratching?

"Do you... not have the press where you're from? Bunbunmaru is just the name, but have you seriously never heard of a newspaper before?"

Still, she can tell from the fang that this guy definitely isn't human. Right now she doesn't have her wings out, anyway, so if he's going to give a tell so will she - and now there's just a pair of black feathered wings sticking out from behind her where there just weren't any.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"My court lives in a tree," Stone says blandly. "We have books, but no, I don't know what a newspaper is." This time he says it right, at least. "I can guess it has something to do with paper." He eyes her wings, and adds, "And I can also guess you're a shapeshifter. Not human like most of these, then?"

[bulletnews]

"More or less, then, I record local events, and sometimes others' impressions of those events, and then make the records available for a small fee. The Bunbunmaru Newspaper is that record. There are others like it, but only the Bunbunmaru is mine."

It's clear her explanation is uh... unpracticed, but that she has a lot of pride for her work.

"And, I wouldn't so much call it shapeshifting as hiding my wings. But you're correct, I"m a crow tengu."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I don't know what either of those words mean, but since I doubt you'll know what I mean when I say I'm a Raksura, I won't hold it against you." Stone looks vaguely amused, but amiable. "We obviously come from very different worlds. Most of our local events get passed along through word of mouth, or sometimes letters. And Raksura don't have 'fees', since we don't have money. We trade, and we're bad at that, too, if what I'm told by my great-grandson is true." And he believes Moon is probably right.

[bulletnews]

"Nope, certainly not a kind of youkai or otherwise I've ever heard of... 'youkai' being a catchall term for magical beings."

Which includes her, as far as a number of people are concerned.

"Still, raksura as a species must be good at something, even if it's not trade, right?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"We're good at all sorts of things," Stone says, mock-indignant. "Flying, hunting, tracking, telling stories, the usual things a flying predator would do. I'm not any good at it, but the Arbora are all great artists. You should see some of the murals in the colony tree. I've never heard of a youkai, though. Then again, we don't even have humans where I come from. Just a whole bunch of groundling species. Probably there's nothing like either of us on each others' worlds."

[bulletnews]

"Likely not. Gensokyo is a fairly enclosed space. Finding a youkai of any kind outside of it is supposed to be nearly impossible."

Not only are they really good at hiding in darkness, various thrusts of scientific inquiry caused a lot of them to simply stop existing.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"And now here you are, with a bunch of people who aren't yokai, outside your Gensokyo place," Stone says, tilting his head at her. "I'm at least used to traveling."

[bulletnews]

"I did say supposed to be and nearly impossible. Really, how unusual this situation is was already evident... at least for me; you make it sound like you've been spirited away like this before."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I was, actually. To a traveling moon, if you can believe it. Not quite like this--" They didn't wander around a beach with a red sky first, then. "--but everyone was very apologetic and accommodating and spent a lot of time telling us they didn't know how to get us home, which is a lot like this."

[bulletnews]

"So wait, the Lunarians were accommodating in their natural environment?"

That is honestly the weirdest thing she's heard yet. Everyone actively living on the moon she's ever heard of kind of hates life (they don't count as life). And by kind of she means definitely does, a lot.

[scarsolderthanyou]

"They weren't... Lunarians," Stone says with a blink. "They were people from some other world who turned their moon into a traveling thing, hollowed out so they could live inside it, when their world started falling apart. Normal humans, for the most part, though some of them had magic, and there were dragons. Decent sorts, those."

[bulletnews]

"Oh yeah, the Lunarians I know would never do that, what with all their talk about purity. Dragons, plural, though? They really must have been special."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"There were a few hundred of them," Stone assures her. "They weren't really any more special than any other six-limbed flying species out there, though, that I could tell. My other form looks a lot like them, to be honest. People kept mistaking me for one."

[bulletnews]

"Six-limbed? The ones in Gensokyo only have two, and aren't especially common."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Six. Four legs, two wings," Stone clarifies. "Same as me. I'm guessing we come from very different worlds, so our 'dragons'-- or their dragons, come to think of it-- are different from yours." Like everyone else he's met, pretty much. He's used to it by now, to be honest.

[bulletnews]

"And yet they happen to be called the same thing. Odd."

This is not a mystery that needs to be solved.

"So how is it possible for you to appear human then? Magic, probably?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"If you want to be specific about it, I don't appear 'human', since we don't have those where I come from." He flips his hands over thoughtfully. "We probably look most like the groundling races in the far East. Most of my people aren't gray, and would fit in better here in their groundling form. But it's just the way Raksura are. We have two forms, one like this, and one with scales and wings." He looks up with a dry sort of expression. "Legend is it was to fit in among groundlings so we could hunt them, but we don't do that anymore."

[bulletnews]

"There are a number of youkai that can disguise themselves as humans, so that legend may well be true."

Wait, although...

"-Ah, I don't, I just always look like this."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Well, that's good to know. Though you look pretty much human to me, besides the wings, and you could hide them," Stone points out, half-seriously and half just to needle her just a little bit. "So that counts as a disguise, as far as I'm concerned."

[bulletnews]

"I have done that occasionally for such a purpose..."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Sometimes it's just easier to fit in, or at least be thought unremarkable," Stone agrees amiably enough. "What is it like, where you come from?" Since it's a lot different from where he comes from, obviously.

[bulletnews]

"On average, there's kind of a tenuous, weird peace between humans and youkai, which is the way it's supposed to be.

But then occasionally someone starts something, some other people like the shrine maiden take care of it, and I write about what happened. I ended up here just after such an incident, so soon I haven't done that last thing yet."

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Sounds like what happens between Raksura courts," Stone comments. "Generally at peace, but all it takes is someone taking offense at something before we start making a mess of it. Who usually starts it, between the humans and youkai?"

[bulletnews]

"Usually some youkai or another. They're hardly a united front, though, so usually incidents are trouble for everyone.

Then again there's also a matter of definition, since sometimes it's been immortals or ghosts or celestials or what have you. Once the incident was actually a regular natural phenomenon everyone just forgot about."