phantasmalrift | INTRO LOG

Eventually, Charm starts herding people towards the parked exploratory drone, a few at a time, mostly people who have finished their noodles or other business. "It's almost nightfall at the Station," he says, "and with this many new arrivals, we're going to have to make multiple trips."

(For those who might ask, he also explains that they've chosen not to stabilize the noodle shop for the time being, as the other androids will almost certainly want to speak to Viella, and have no other way of doing so, due to the fact that they don't dream. Aside from that small region, the Fissure is largely stable.)

It in fact takes four trips total to get everyone to the Station. Those of you who don't fall asleep on the way there - the minute you hit stable reality, the inability to sleep vanishes, and most will be hit with a wave of exhaustion - will find that the Station Annex, a building off to the side of the main station, has been finished, at least outwardly.

By the time the first group arrives, the sun is dipping towards the horizon; by the time the last gets there, it's set, leaving a few pink-tinted clouds in the sky. The drones drop everyone off (and that is everyone, even though of you who have fallen asleep) on the observation deck, where those of you who didn't get your fill of noodles will find several buffet-style tables set up with...

...Pizza? Yeah, pizza, in damn near every variety you can think of, including a few things that only loosely fall under the heading of "pizza." Half a table is full of calzones of various varieties; another significant chunk is things that are just desserts in the general shape of pizza, including a couple of iced cinnamon pastries, a pair of brightly-colored "pizzas" made of canned fruit over cream cheese, and a two-layer cake that's just decorated to look like a pizza, with strawberry jam and round slices of strawberry 'pepperoni' sandwiching yellow icing. Finally, the last third of the third table is just three baskets of breadsticks with varying amounts of cheese and garlic, accompanied by two turrens of dipping sauce (one white, one red) and a tower of little plastic dipping cups.

(Those who opt to head directly to bed will find that the banquet gets packed up and moved back to the kitchens around midnight, though it stays warm under a stasis enchantment for roughly the next day before someone packs the remainder into the fridge.)

In the common room, meanwhile, the usual boxes of clothes and trading post sign are set up. Unclaimed rooms can be claimed by writing your name in on a list set up next to the boxes, on what seems to be a broken music stand with a large ROOMS AVAILABLE sign hanging from it. There is also a rather hastily assembled, hand-poked Braille version of the sheet (with the paper punched through in one or two places).

Those who go looking will find that the androids are somewhat more absent than they usually are after an expedition; save obviously for Charm, and Strange who arrives on the deck as usual not long after, you'll have to go looking. Considering the amount of the station you have available, they could be just about anywhere... But perhaps it'd be worth checking over in that new building...?

[Mod note: Strange is the only NPC with a top-level this round, but others may respond to your top-levels, especially in the Annex areas! Consider it a fun surprise. c:]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'll be careful, don't worry. I step light. But like, you sure?

[Talon eyes the android warily. No place was truly safe back home. It really was a different world if there wasn't any kind of threat.]

No locals or groups that might target the building? No hostile wildlife in the area? Those Fissures don't effect the station?

We are the locals. It's just us, uh... for most of the continent, as far as we know.

[Down doesn't look a hundred percent sure, but sure enough to count, right?]

Most hostile wildlife is seagulls, and the Fissures nearest the Station are stabilized. We did that one first.

For most of the continent...? There aren't any people here, besides the ones pulled in by the fissures? There has to be someone, somewhere.

[Talon looks incredulous. He furrows his brow, scanning the horizon. It seems...lonelier, with this knowledge.]

Who built you then? Or did the fissures pull you in, too?

[Talon that's RUDE you can't just ask who built them.]

They're in stasis, because the Fissures tend to give humans unstable magical powers, and it's safer for them that way.

[If that's rude, it doesn't seem to register with Down. They seem... Well they haven't actually seemed less anxious through this entire interaction, but not offended.]

The entire continent is in stasis, except for the new people. Holy shit.

[That's some dystopian shit right there, and Talon comes from a literal dystopian future. There's something supremely unsettling about these androids being awake and around while the humans are frozen in time. He wonders if all the humans agreed to be put in stasis. If the androids forced them there. How many androids there are in this world...]

My magical abilities are very well controlled, for the record. Try to lock me in stasis for those and there's going to be a problem.

Er, what? No one's going to do that.

[Down looks extremely nervous, now, shifting on their feet.

Please consider that you are the one holding a gun and making threats towards what's clearly a shy noncombatant, Talon.]

[It wasn't a threat! Just a...warning. And the gun isn't pointed at them! Talon's shoulders relax a bit, though, because he's starting to catch on that Down is just the equivalent of a civilian. He kind of assumed the androids were more like authority figures at the station.]

I'm not...gonna shoot you, you realize that, right?

[Authority figures? Maybe. But from a world with a very different baseline of violence.

His words don't seem particularly reassuring.]

I'd prefer it if you didn't shoot anyone.

I mean I don't plan on it. When I'm sure that the station is secure, I might even leave the gun in my room.

[The thought makes him a little queasy. Just leaving his gun somewhere else, walking around with just a knife in his pocket. So far he's met carnivorous deer and been told of giant, invisible seagulls. And those were funny and all, but what if something else giant and invisible and carnivorous decided the station was a buffet? What if there was an internal threat they won't be aware of until it's too late? He can't shoot the weather but what if a storm brings the cliffside down, collapsing the station, and everyone falls into anarchy? So many what ifs.]

[Still, he can see he's not making things better, and he does feel a little bad.]

People are being pulled in from other worlds, you never know who's going to come through the fissures, right? All I want to do is be sure nobody comes through that wants to hurt me or anyone else. And once I'm sure of that, I'll be so out of the way and quiet, you'll forget I'm here.

It's plenty secure, we've been here for a century!

[Huff! You are not doing great at this reassuring thing, Talon.]

And I don't think I'm going to be able to forget that there's someone who might leave their gun behind, if they feel safe enough.

Look, I'm doing my best here,, chummer!

[Talon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.]

Drek. Okay, look. Just consider me the insurance policy if something goes fantastically wrong. My goal is not to shoot something, the gun is a "just in case" thing, not a "gee I hope I get to shoot someone" thing. I prefer when people live, especially uninjured.

[...is he helping yet.]

I don't want you to be afraid of me, I want people to feel safer knowing that I've got their back.

Does anyone really feel safer like that?

[Down doesn't, and they don't seem to get it.]

Just... okay, keep doing your thing, I guess. I'm done up here, anyway, so you can have the roof as long as you want.

[That's blatantly a lie, but clearly Down is about ready to scuttle the fuck out of this interaction. They can come back later - you know, when scary humans are asleep - to finish the job.]

[Talon doesn't say anything else, letting Down scuttle all they like. He does, however, spend the rest of his time on the roof considering whether or not he should just leave his gun in his room and trust the android outright.]

[After a while, he clicks his mask into place and sighs. Yeah, he'll leave it behind. If he's making people nervous, he's making the environment more dangerous, making people unpredictable. It's not an easy decision, Down, he hopes you appreciate how far out of his comfort zone he's going to ensure that nobody else has to leave theirs.]

INTRO LOG - APRIL/MAY 18

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