etrayalogs | FEBRUARY MINGLE

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FEBRUARY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: February 14th - March
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: The arrival of newcomers, a mini mission, and some new city features!
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.

In the hospital's lobby are several party tables set out with miscellaneous baked goods: croissants, cookies, breads, cake slices, as well as tea and coffee to accompany them - or hot chocolate, for those who are opposed to the other offerings.

Outside the hospital, the last remnants of snow are melting in the sunlight as the weather begins to warm up. It's still chilly enough one might want to put on a coat, but not so cold a jacket is necessary for wandering around without freezing off one's fingers.

We hope you enjoy your stay.

⏵ heroes return ⏴

As the Quantum Rail train glides to a halt, returning passengers step out onto familiar ground - the train station, right where they had initially begun their mission. When exiting the station, their earpieces vibrate, indicating the automatic download of a detailed map which highlights key locations, transit paths, and notable landmarks. As Aurora promised, she had been working on a few renovations around Etraya! A sleek trolley system now winds through Etraya, following clearly marked pathways through the city bubble to make travel across the city smoother. However, the trolley only moves one way, eternally following the loop Aurora has set it on. And because of this, it takes six hours to complete it's loop all the way around. Don't miss your stop!

Pets and animals have been returned to their usual preferred areas, some awaiting the arrival of their owners, and others keeping to themselves in the forested areas throughout Etraya.

Beyond the small upgrades, things seem relatively unchanged - until one familiar sign catches the eye. One marked by four vertical lines, methodically crossed out one by one: the final slash has now been drawn through. The tally is complete. What it indicates has yet to be made clear, but it has to mean something, right? No one would go through the effort of making an ominous-sounding sign without following through.

⏵ love in the air ⏴

This Valentines Day, Aurora and the companion bots have opted to try something a little different: they have scattered mystery valentines across the city. Hidden within mailboxes, tucked into cafe menus, slipped under doors, on the outside of high windows for those wall-crawlers to spot. There are countless of these little slips of papers, strewn throughout the city. And within each valentine, is a challenge or gesture to complete. Please feel free to make these up yourselves as long as they fit in with the theme!

Some examples include:

Deliver a flower to a stranger.
Write a heartfelt poem for someone.
Share a box of chocolates!
Confess your feelings for another.
Play matchmaker for two people - this can be platonic, or romantic!
Gift a friend with a stuffed animal.
Give five different people a genuine compliment.

While not mandatory, completing five tasks will earn an individual an additional ten points to use towards anything they would like!

Each little Valentine is signed "Your Secret Admirer. ♡", and some of them may even be addressed to specific individuals. Don't be surprised, Eddie, if you see one or two that are specifically addressed to you lurking around your collection of chicken friends!

And while most of these are harmless, some of the valentines cards come with effects for those who come into contact with the paper. Perhaps they thought it was a piece of garbage, or were just kicking it out of the way rather than intending on taking part. It doesn't matter! They get to join in on the fun, too.

Heart Eyes - your pupils literally turn into hearts for a few hours, making it hard to focus on anything other than things (or people) you find attractive.
Love-Struck Stammer - You can only speak in poetic compliments or romantic declarations, regardless of whom you're speaking to.
Chocolate Bliss - Everything feels good. Simple. Easy. As if there's nothing in the world to concern yourself with. You feel happy, without any concerns or worry.
Rose-Tinted Vision - everything looks soft and romantic, as if you're in a romance novel. You know the ones.
Magnetic Attraction - regardless of what you had been doing, you suddenly find yourself unable to leave the side of the person closest to you. Had you been eating chocolates while walking down the street? Well, have fun getting stuck to the guy who'd been out for a jog!
Serenade Syndrome - you find it impossible to resist the urge to sing your words, turning all conversations into love ballads.
Heartstrings - A thread appears, connecting you to someone close by who you share many similarities too. Perhaps you had never met this person before, but the threads tied around your pinky fingers that refuse to let go until you allow yourself to open up to them clearly means you should be a little more familiar with them.

Love is in the air—or maybe just a bit of well-intended chaos! 💕

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome back from the mission, and welcome to Etraya for our newcomers! We've tried to keep this log simple for an easy introduction, as well as some downtime for our mission-goers who worked hard to solve the Quantum Rail mystery.

There is something else going on, but. . . well, no one seems to know what! The computer that had been on the lower floor of the hospital is now missing, and Aurora may seem a little flustered as she flits around Etraya, in search of something.

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

Friends, [she agrees with a soft smile.

Gods only know what she's done to deserve it, but here they are. Friends. As easy as that. There's a thrill of newness and excitement that comes with John's agreement, and even of relief. Shadowheart's spent so much of her life in darkness; making a friend feels like one more small step towards the light.]

Go on, then. Show me how to use that thing.

[She can't help but wonder about his former employers, and how they discouraged friendship. He was a soldier, he'd said, in an army; is that where this stiff, quiet man learned to dampen his feelings? Were his commanders in the army the ones who convinced him – falsely, she'd say – that he doesn't make a good friend? He'll tell her in his time, she supposes. She knows better than to pry.

In the meantime, they've got a pie to bake. She scoops up the cat, who's once again trying to lick the sugar off the counter, and with her free hand grabs a bag of flour and places it on the counter next to John. Then it's into the large, cold box up against the wall to fetch the remainder of the butter.]

[ It's good to have a concrete task after all that talk about friendship. He can make pie. He can make pie with Shadowheart. The circumstances are wildly different, but there's something a bit nostalgic about standing in a kitchen making pie.

John sets the food processor on the counter and plugs it into the wall before going to consult the recipe. He's going to have to improvise a bit because this isn't the exact recipe he's read, but it should be close enough. He measures out half the flour and all the sugar, adding them to the bowl of the food processor. He accepts the butter and finds a knife to cut it into smaller pieces. ]

The idea here is to cut the butter down so it's easier for the blades of the processor to cut it into really small pieces. The blades get stuck if you put something too hard in.

[ Butter chopped, he distributes it around the bowl. ]

Spreading it like this will ensure it incorporates easier. And the food processor has been plugged into the electricity so it has power. There's generally two ways to use these: you just turn it on and let it run, or just pulse it so it does short spins. Just as a warning, it's a bit noisy.

[ And with that John turns the dial to the "hold" setting and gives it five whirls. The result is a fairly cohesive paste, but not something that looks quite like pie dough yet. Once the noise has died down, ]

Any questions so far?

You mean to say, [she says incredulously,] I spent an hour figuring out how to make a pie crust, when I could have put the ingredients in this thing and had it done in seconds?

[It really had taken her a full hour; she's never even been in a kitchen before, that she recalls, let alone baked anything.]

[ That earns a small smile. ]

Modern conveniences. My mother had a special tool to cut butter into flour but it was still manual labor.

[ Now that he's shared a little about that time, it's easier to mention the afternoons standing in the kitchen with his mom. He can remember standing at the counter and reaching into the bowl with the pastry cutter, if only barely. Still, better to get back to the task at hand. ]

We'll add the rest of the flour next. Same thing in the food processor.

[ It's a quick measure and then a short five more spins in the machine. At the end it's much drier and clearly not ready to be pie dough. ]

We'll need to add cold water to the dough next to make it come together. Grab a bowl and dump the dough in, then grab your water and add it a bit at a time, mixing it into the dough until it all sticks together.

[ John takes the container off the food processor and leaves it on the counter for her to do the next steps. ]

[Modern conveniences, indeed. To her, electric lights and food processors and indoor plumbing and boxes that stay cold round the clock all seem like some sort of advanced wizardry. She can easily wrap her mind around gods raining down wrath or people who can throw things around with their mind as easily as their hands or dragons soaring through the skies. Kitchen appliances, though...

Shadowheart sets the cat down to fetch a bowl and run a cup of cold water, doing as he says with the sort of awkward care of someone who hasn't got the faintest idea what she's doing.]

My mother used to bake, too.

[Normally, she wouldn't share anything about her parents, but John is so nice. The truth is, she doesn't remember her mother at all. She only has the picture Aurora gave her of her mother standing in the kitchen brandishing a rolling pin over a ball of dough, while her father bounces a three-year-old Shadowheart on his hip. A picture of a life that was stolen from her.]

[ John watches her work the dough, ready to offer advice if she needs, but she's doing a great job so far. Or, at least as good of a job as he'd expect from someone who hasn't done this before. He also notes the comment about her mother, but doesn't call it out directly. For all that they're friends, it's a careful friendship, and she'd been reluctant to share her past last time he asked about her traveling companions. He also knows what it's like to not want someone to pry. ]

Maybe that's just a thing moms do.

[ Even growing up he didn't have that many close friends. Friends, yes, but not close ones. He didn't go over to houses for playdates, so he doesn't know if other moms baked. Maybe it is just a think moms do. ]

Edited 2025-03-16 01:29 (UTC)

Some, perhaps.

[The only maternal figure Shadowheart actually remembers at all is the Mother Superior, and she would wager quite a lot that Mother has never once baked anything in her life. But there's something comforting in the thought that her real mother and John's mother both did. Two people leading completely different lives in completely different worlds, who both made pastries for their children.

She pulls the dough out of the bowl and gives it a skeptical look.]

Is this right?

[ John takes the dough from her, feels the moisture and looks at the flecks of butter throughout. He's not a pie expert, but it seems good enough for him. ]

Looks good to me. Next we'll want to form it into a disc, wrap it with plastic wrap, and chill it in the fridge for a while. Do you have any plastic wrap? Usually comes in a long roll in a cardboard box. If you don't have any I do.

[ He's happy to put the conversation about moms aside and talk about practical things. ]

I don't even know what plastic wrap is, let alone have any of it.

[This world is teeming with things she doesn't understand, and it's always frustrating to encounter yet one more thing. At least she's discovering this one in a harmless context.]

I'll go get mine, be back in a couple minutes.

[ He leaves swiftly and jogs over to his apartment, quickly snagging the box of plastic wrap and jogging it back. It's a light enough pace that he's not out of breath when he gets back and lets himself back in.

John returns to the kitchen with the box and tears off a piece, untangling it when it starts to stick to itself and holds it out for her. ]

Wrap the dough up in this and stick it in the refrigerator. It's good at sticking to itself.

[She takes the clear sheet from him and holds it up curiously for a moment – she's never seen anything remotely like it – before wrapping it around the dough. The cat, drawn by the sound the plastic wrap makes, hops onto the counter and tries to 'help,' which only makes the process take that much longer.

Finally, Shadowheart puts the dough away, and scoops up the cat again to keep her out of trouble.]

I suppose we'll have some time while it sits in there, won't we?

About half an hour. There's a lot of baking that's just waiting.

[ Which leaves them with... what, to do? Back home John would clean his weapon to pass the time, or maybe read a book or go on a run. All activities for one, not two. The obvious thing for them to do is talk, but. He gives an unsure smile. ]

Sorry, I'm not much of a conversationalist.

[Shadowheart considers for a moment, wondering what they could spend half an hour on, until she finally makes a decision. John has been awfully kind, he hasn't pried, and perhaps it would be nice, after all, to have someone to speak with about her past.]

There's something I'd like to share with you, if you don't mind.

[ That gets his attention. He doesn't mind listening, hearing what she has to say. She's been nothing but kind and friendly so far, John doesn't have any reservations here. ]

I'll listen.

[Shadowheart doesn't know the term 'polaroid photograph,' but that's what she goes into the bedroom to get, once again depositing the cat on the floor before entering the other room and fetching an envelope from a drawer in the bedside table. She pulls out one specific picture, and takes it out to the kitchen to show it to John.]

Some time ago, Aurora had us play one of her little games: we were given pictures of moments in our past, and had to discuss them with others. Not something I cared to participate in, but I kept the pictures.

[She sets the picture on the kitchen counter, so John can see it. It depicts a rustic kitchen scene – all copper pots and wooden spoons and bread set over an open fire to bake, soft sunlight streaming in from a wide window – and a young human woman with dark hair, her sleeves rolled up and a rolling pin in her hand. Next to her is an elven man, black hair and the same pale green eyes as Shadowheart, balancing a very young girl, with black hair and green eyes and delicately pointed ears, all of about three years old, on his hip. The little girl is reaching up to tug on his hair. Both the adults are laughing.]

I don't remember my childhood, or my mother. I barely remember my father. [She has exactly one memory of him, and it isn't a good one.] This is all I have of them.

[ John looks at the picture carefully. It's clear from the photo that despite her white hair, these are Shadowheart's parents. Normally he wouldn't ask questions, but he thinks she wants to talk about this. ]

You didn't grow up with them?

I was taken from them as a child.

[She taps her fingertip against the little girl in the picture.]

That was me. We were... happy, I think. [She doesn't remember what it is to be happy, but she sees it in the faces of this family that used to be hers.] The same people who took me have them now, and the longer I'm trapped here, the longer they're waiting on rescue.

[Rescuing her parents is all she cares about, in a way. For so long, her only guiding principle, all she ever wanted or was allowed to want, was serving her goddess. After having been forsaken, she needed something else to guide her, something else to want. And now she wants to find and save her parents.]

[ He can understand that, the desire to go home. To return to the mission. He's itching to get back to the numbers, to his purpose. In some ways the only thing that's keeping him together is Harold.

He can't offer her comfort by saying she'll get back to them, because he doesn't know that they will ever leave. Who knows how long it will take to prove their worth? ]

Did you know they were captive as you grew up?

[She shakes her head.]

I didn't even know my parents existed. They took my memories and told me I was an orphan. Just a street rat bound to rot away in a poorhouse or a prison cell and be tossed in a pauper's grave before they so graciously rescued me, [she says with biting sarcasm.]

I haven't shown this to anyone else. But seeing as we're friends now, I...

[It isn't easy to open up, but she finds that she desperately wants someone to open up to, someone to know and understand all the dark parts of her she hides. This barely scratches the surface of that, but it's something. A beginning, perhaps.

She tries to project a confidence she doesn't really feel into her voice.]

I wanted to show it to you.

[ Is this what it means to be friends? To tell each other these things? To share parts of their lives? He is, historically, very bad at that. Whatever Harold knows he doesn't bring up, and John doesn't share. He barely knows anything about Harold and that's fine too.

But Shadowheart has shared this, has given him a piece of herself. It feels significant. He gives a soft smile, just a tiny one. ]

We can talk about things as much or as little as you want, I'll listen.

[ He almost says You don't have to tell me anything but she said she wanted to tell him so he holds that back. He thinks she genuinely did, not that she felt obligated. ]

That's kind of you. Kinder than most people would be.

[Shadowheart thinks back on their first meeting, and his repeated insistence that he's not a hero. And perhaps he isn't, but she's got to believe the kindness counts for something. Even just his offer to listen is, in her experience, more than most people would give.]

But we needn't spend all day talking about my past. [It's enough to have shown him the picture, and told him something true about herself. It's enough to have someone know her even a little bit more.] I don't suppose the dough's spent long enough in that box yet, has it? [What had he called it? The 'fridge'?]

[ Is that kind? He's pretty sure that's... what being friends is about. Listening. Being there. It's what little he's good at. He often listens to the troubles of the numbers, hears them pour out the source of their troubles, tries to give them a comforting shoulder while their lives falls apart around them. But with the numbers he gets to walk away. A few days at most, and then they never see each other again.

He will see Shadowheart again, this will not just be a fleeting encounter. Friends. ]

Not quite, so we'll have to entertain ourselves a bit longer. Do you have any appliances you have questions about? I can teach you about them.

I could say I have questions about everything. My world hasn't got electricity, or fridges, or any of this.

[She gestures around the kitchen.]

I was trying to uncover the mysteries of the stove when you came by. In my world, you've got to put wood in them, but this one hasn't got any place to light a fire, just a lot of buttons.

[ Has she been without a stove this whole time? Thankfully that's an easy one to teach. Probably. ]

Here, I'll show you. [ He moves over to the stove and gestures at the various knobs and buttons as he talks, demonstrating his explanation. ]

The top part has burners and the inside is an oven. We can start by preheating the oven for the pie. Like this, we'll press the "Bake" button, and then use these arrows to set the temperature. For the pie we'll do 350 degrees.

As for the stove top, these knobs on the front control the flame. You turn it to the little fire icon and wait for it to light. You'll hear it click like this as it tries to ignite the gas that gets released. Once the gas ignites you can use the dial to turn it from high flame to low flame. If the gas doesn't ignite and you just hear a lot of clicking and smell gas, turn the knob off and wait to try again; you might have a large cloud of gas that ignites in your face if it does catch fire. If you really can't get it working call one of the helper bots to fix it.

[ He turns the burner off. ]

Give it a try.

[Gas? She's well aware some gases are flammable, but why anyone would want those in their home, she can't say. Skeptically, she turns the knob as he demonstrated, hears the clicking, and watches a little flame spring to light beneath one of the metal grates atop the stove.]

And the inside gets hot all on its own, without any fire at all? And you can choose its temperature?

FEBRUARY MINGLE

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