etrayalogs | JANUARY MINGLE

Entry tags:

JANUARY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: January 17th - January 23rd
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: The arrival of newcomers and some new construction!
NOTES\WARNINGS:

⏵ arrival ⏴
Welcome to Etraya!

Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital.

A coat rack is situated by the doors leading out of the hospital, covered in warm clothing that fits the new arrivals just right - whether it's to their preferred style or not is something else entirely. Some of them appear normal enough. Others? Well. Looks like someone was trying to improve on last month's designs.

Outside the windows, the grass is covered in a couple of inches of loosely packed snow.

We hope you enjoy your stay.

⏵ passion for fashion ⏴

As the newcomers find themselves leaving the hospital as per their usual arrival, they will find that not too far from it is a small boutique. Newly added, just as they have been, though they lack the context to know this. Companion bots will encourage them to go in and meet the particularly unique bot inside, dressed to the nines in line with the fashion the boutique itself is offering. While small, it's clearly been decorated to emphasize the loose era and taste of the particular fashion it's advertising. The building itself is also petite, and made to feel more personal rather than a commercial experience. It has a single dressing room, and outside of it has an area with mirrors where one might take in their lovely visage from nearly all angles. There is a little waiting area with seating in the front, for those who are not being molded through Theobold's vision, or simply waiting for whoever is.

The tastes and aforementioned era of this little establishment is decidedly Victorian, with a bold splash of neon trimming, cog-like adornments, and other accessories that brighten up the otherwise neutral fabrics typically used in the style of dress. Theobold, as he has named himself and will not let anyone forget, has taken to a three-piece suit, a deep emerald in color, with a black vest, and matching black gloves.

He will take it upon himself to judge each person's attire (which he will unabashedly hate), then restyle them into something more along his tastes (even if it takes him a while, he will find something you don't ruin). There are, of course, many different combinations to pick from, all hearkening to a very loud style of dress that seems as much neon as it is punk or steam. One might even name it steampunk with a splash of neon. Neon Steampunk? Something like that.

An interesting combination to say the least, Theobold insists as much.

This is, of course, not simply limited to newcomers, though they will likely be exposed to this boutique more quickly than the others. Any who come near the general area of the hospital (thus the boutique) will find themselves being encouraged by the other bots to come inside, and they will likewise be judged and restyled to Theobold's tastes—which are as bright as they are bold. He really doesn't take no for an answer, though he can't truly stop anyone from leaving any more than a pushy grandmother fussing over her grandchild's clothes might.

He has obviously discovered his passion, why not indulge him?

⏵ trending or treading ⏴

After enjoying the privilege of being restyled by Theobold, he will also insist that you take the outfit for a spin around the city! See what people say, take note of how many looks you catch, how many eyes are on you. He wants to hear about it as well, clearly to validate his own artistry, and who can blame him? Does not every artist strive to hear a little bit of praise for their hard work? Do they not yearn for recognition from the public? Theobold may be a bot, but he is also an artist honing his craft! His boutique is not above critique, though he hopes the critique isn't too harsh...

Should one indulge him, telling about what others thought, he will gladly gift the outfit to the wearer. A humble act of his endless generosity! Or if they fancy another outfit of their own taste from his boutique, then that will suffice as well. Even if it breaks his heart that you don't like the outfit. No, no. It's fine, really. It's perfectly okay. Everyone has their tastes, and yours just happens to stab him in his mechanical heart.

He'll get over it. In time. Probably.

⏵ leaving tracks ⏴

Companion bots have taken to building train tracks, as well as what appears to be a train station, in the South Eastern island of Etraya. The area is, for the most part, blocked off from Etrayans. After all, it is a construction zone, and the companion bots are ever vigilant with safety. At least they try to be. However, if people wish to lend their aid in the construction, well, they won't necessarily stop them. However they will assure them that they are not in need of assistance, and might intermittently remind those especially helpful Etrayans of that fact.

Those who wish to simply watch the construction may do so, but nothing especially interesting is going on beyond the mystery of what this these tracks and the station might be for. Besides a train, of course. After all, since when has there been any mention of a train? Asking the companion bots about it will yield little results. They won't be able to give any further details besides the obvious: when this is done, it will be for a train. It seems even they might not know the full extent of what this entails, or maybe they cannot say.

Regardless the reason of their lack of explanation, it seems patience might be the key to the answer.

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Some may notice that in the area Gorgug's friend had gone exploring outside of the environmental bubble, there is a message written on a massive piece of fabric, which is tied to two large rebar poles. The message is in an alien language, but the earpiece will automatically translate it: DID YOU THINK YOU WERE THE ONLY ONES?

On the bottom of the fabric are four vertical lines. Every Friday, a vertical line becomes crossed through with a horizontal one.

For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kirk adjusts his own hat. He's not used to anything on his head other than the helmet he uses as Batman. Hell, he's not used to fancy suits at all.

"As well as one could be," He says. Truthfully, there've been some issues but as with everything else in his life, he's been trying to make do. "What about you?"

He remembers their last conversation, especially with how worried Vander was for his children. Kirk clocks that the man seems calmer now.

"As in, you've found a place to stay and remain as cautious about our purpose being here as the rest of us?" He might not have been his best when he and Kirk had met, the Shimmer elevating all of his emotions and stress responses. He had survived the withdrawal, which also allowed him to compartmentalize many of the complex emotions that still remained.

"This place is strange. No currency, everything being free, yet few answers. It doesn't feel right." There was too much time on his hands perhaps. It felt wrong to be going through the motions of the day-to-day waiting for a world saving mission.

"I imagine you've been looking for answers? Go-getter type that you are."

Kirk nods, both to Vander's question and agreeing with what he says about how bizarre Etraya is.

"Apparently, home came with us," he replies. "Our building is here. It almost feels convenient. But still no real answers about how we're supposed to save worlds. Just unusual events we're forced into like egg hatching or this."

Kirk gestures at his outfit.

"It could be just a farce for something else."

"Our?" He expected that, like him, Kirk had others from his world here to figure out how to save their world. "Someone from my world has a big fancy mansion, but otherwise, anything from my neck of the mines isn't here." How long would it stay that way? He had no idea.

He huffed in amusement at the mention of the egg. "What did your egg hatch? Mine brought me clothes from home."

He expected all of this was mundane on purpose to force them to either fight each other or be frustrated by the lack of information. He didn't like being idle, not when there was nothing productive to fill the time with.

"It hatched into a bird. He's unusually intelligent for his species but he also likes to play act being dead," Kirk says. He has yet to work out why his bird would do that but otherwise, Schrödinger is cute.

"Someone from my world is also here. He arrived before I did."

Kirk then pauses, thinking.

"Is the person from your world from the same time as you?"

"Well, you aren't the only one to earn an animal companion then." He was reminded of Bitey the Poro and two of the worst people from his world trying to wrangle that ball of light, fluff and teeth. "Was he a companion you knew from your world or new?"

He nodded his head, and he wondered how many people had others from their worlds and how many were endeavoring this task on their own. He couldn't figure out the criteria and no one else seemed to know either.

"No. She is years beyond me," he remarked before shrugging. "They all are. I'm at a considerable disadvantage compared to them, but it also provides me a rare opportunity to not have eyes clouded with shared conflicts."

"The bird is new but the species is from my world."

Kirk finds Vander's view on the time gap interesting and not a bad one to take.

"My friend is about several weeks behind compared to me," he says. "It doesn't make sense though because I only just saw him before I came here. How many people from your world are here?"

"I assumed you named your bird?"

He expected that how people treated animals was a good gauge of their character. Pets were kind of a status symbol where he was from; they were often too poor to be able to provide for themselves let along an innocent creature.

"Ah well, I'm supposed to be dead, but here I am. Others are also several weeks or days apart from each other. No rhyme or reason for it." He sighed from his nose. "Maybe it's a distraction by the people who brought us here."

"Yes. Schrödinger. Named after a historical figure."

And a kind of a nerdy joke given how often his bird likes to play dead.

At Vander's explanation of where he is in the timeline, Kirk slightly furrows his brow. The more he learns about Etraya, the more it feels like the place flies in the face of logic. Though Vander being dead could explain the aggressive state the man was in when they first met.

"Perhaps. It could be a distraction like so many other things that have happened here."

"Huh, we have a historical figure named Heimerdinger. Maybe they knew each other." No, they definitely did not. He knew very little about his own historical - yet still living - figure aside from he was a founder of the city, a scientist and sat the Council of Piltover.

He was thinking that they should do some kind of survey of the people here to determine if there was a pattern with the arrivals. Of course, he had recently seen a case of someone arriving then leaving and having recently arrived back. How did that even work?

"I wouldn't doubt it. Did you see the person who left and came back? They seemed to remember being here. I couldn't make heads or tails what that means."

Kirk nods. He did see the post but decided to just monitor it for now instead of commenting.

"Didn't think that was possible until I saw that. Either what we've been told by Aurora is just a cover or there's still unfinished business he has," he says.

He hadn't been here long enough to understand if that was a rarity, commonplace or a random occurrence people simply accepted. He had also not spent all of his time combing back through the network to see how often it occurred. He had time but not that much.

"It wouldn't surprise me if we're being fed a line. Hold our worlds apparently hostage for force compliance." People with something to lose tended to act cautiously. "They aren't forthcoming with information, and I'm not sure I'd believe proof even if it was shown to us."

"It takes work to maintain a lie," Kirk agrees. "It seems there are people who've been here for nearly a year. Someone's working for the long-term, whatever those plans are. Alternatively, the best lies are the ones with some truth mixed in them."

Over the years, Kirk had to learn to consider as many possibilities as he could think. Mysteries were tricky like that.

"Omission of information is the easiest way to carry a lie forward," he remarked. Information happened to be the only real currency in this place, what with everything else being free or a strange pay system of requests. "But agreed, most of the truth does make the lie even more believable."

Right now, he wouldn't say he had enough information to be anything but wary and offended by his place here. There was curiosity as well. This was basically a second chance for him to perform acts of good where previously there had been personal failings.

"Is there anything you have in common with the people from your world?" Kirk asks. It would be a very small sample but maybe a pattern could be found in there.

"We all come from the same geographical area," he said simply. "Many all know each other or of each other." He was the odd man out in that way. He was adaptable enough to be able to be trustworthy to the Piltover bang at least.

"For me, I've only met some of them for the first time here."

"Interesting..." Kirk murmurs. "From my own end, there appears to be people from alternative versions of my world. I've been recognized but also clearly not who they usually expect."

Though he doesn't appreciate being called a "copycat."

"Meanwhile, I don't recognize them."

"Alternate versions?" The concept had never occurred to him until that moment, and yet it made complete sense given the multiverse concept that brought them here in the first place. "Do you get along with these alternates, or is it now competing priorities on who saves whose world?"

Well, that sounded incredibly complicated, and he was glad so far they weren't dealing with that from Runeterra.

That question has crossed Kirk's mind before and so far, he's not liking what the possible answer is.

"I haven't met everyone from those alternates yet but unfortunately, it might be competition," he replies.

He hasn't had a good impression from them so far.

"An unexpected complication," he said, considering. So, this place was forcing them to complete even against each other for their worlds. It was almost cruel. "I don't expect cooperation in some groups, but perhaps yours will be?"

He didn't expect any alternates of his world to bother with cooperation. Janna only knew that even those from his reality could barely hold it together for a single conversation and even then had not agreed on the single objective to 'work together'.

"At worse..." he trailed off, uncertain if how death worked was common knowledge or not.

"It might take some time before we can have a rapport. We're probably all inclined to distrust others," Kirk says.

Damian threatening Hernan with a kryptonite knife certainly showed how the the kid feels at least.

"Do you think your group will do better?"

They couldn't all be paranoid, could they?

"A personal trait?" So far, he hadn't found Kirk to be a distrustful person, though he may have originally read their encounter wrong thanks to the Shimmer at the time.

However, he had seen that plenty of people here were particularly hot headed.

"Well... I have to reverse psychology one of them, and the others will probably pull in the same direction between yelling, crying and throwing objects at each other." He offered a well-meaning shrug. "You know, politics..."

Kirk nearly raises and eyebrow at that. He's not one to judge considering how one of his teammates tends to use brute force to get his way. A lot of the time, diplomacy doesn't work quick enough.

"They're from opposing parties?" He asks. It sounds like they're opposing in more ways than one.

"In a sense," he replied nonchalantly. "They have history with each other which I am not involved in. It can cloud their judgments at times." More than a few times. He had no doubt that Kirk was a intuitive enough to look into the matter discretely if it was that important.

"I expect we'll all have some interpersonal dramatics the longer we remain here."

"It's what tends to happen to a group when in a confined space for a long enough time," Kirk says, agreeing. "It sounds like you could be the neutral party for them."

Though he wouldn't blame Vander if he would rather stay out of all of the drama. Politics of any kind tends to be chaotic.

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