etrayalogs | FEBRUARY MINGLE

Entry tags:

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

[ Okay, so he was right about that one. It makes the surprise fade from his expression, but it's instead replaced by something that looks more fatigued. Even a touch annoyed, though it doesn't seem to be aimed at her in the slightest. ]

I don't want to do those challenges.

[ Maybe that might give a bit more of a hint as to what his annoyance is aimed at. Not Shaw, but this place as a whole. He even takes the bear from her, like he doesn't blame her for participating in it all the same. Or that he at least doesn't mind helping her. ]

It's dumb. These people in charge don't even know that it's not as if you can force friendship or kind acts.

I mean... I guess it depends on what you mean by 'force'.

[She says it reluctantly - not wanting to defend the weird-ass Valentine's pageantry going on here, but also (thanks to her own personal life experience) taking some pause at Fabian's phrasing.]

How it's playing out right now is dumb, yeah. But if an act is kind, does it matter that much if the person doing it is just going through the motions?

[ Fabian does have an answer to that.

But as he opens his mouth to answer with it, he closes it instead and frowns. It's pretty obvious she must be thinking something different than him here - otherwise she would have no reason to ask.

So rather than approaching it that directly, he instead asks after that slight pause: ]

I mean, how would you define kindness?

[ Fabian is usually not one for semantics, but in this case.. ]

[Too philosophical for me, she almost says, but... she was the one who brought up the topic to begin with. The least she can do is not blow him off when he engages with it.]

Uh-- a good thing done with good intentions, I guess. But maybe you're right; maybe you can't do kindness by just going through the motions. I think you can do goodness that way, though.

Well, at least one person today got mad at me after they just held out something at me without saying anything and I asked what they were doing. So.. [ He shrugs a little. Not that he can't see her point, but-- it's just that there's a reason why he's saying all of this to begin with. ]

It's not exactly only people going along with this with good intentions, from what I've seen.

And that's why how it's playing out right now is dumb.

[She says, shrugging.]

Gifts are usually pretty pointless in general. You ask me, they should be bribing us to do things that actually matter - like, I dunno, stopping people from hurting other people. We've got a small population here, but statistically, some of us have to be bad guys, right?

[ There's a slow nod on Fabian's part. The slowness seems to indicate that he didn't really think all that hard about that angle before, but he does definitely seem to be agreeing with it. ]

Of course. I mean, even among our school staff back home there ended up being plenty of bad guys, and that is a much smaller sample size.

[ Another pause, though even slighter, and then he adds: ] I suppose that does make it surprising that no one has attempted a coup of this place or anything of the sort.

Considering what's at stake, would you want to risk it?

[It's a rhetorical question, mostly - even if someone suspects that the nature of Etraya is a lie, acting on that assumption is a massive gamble, and one she assumes that even the baddest of bad guys wouldn't want to take.]

Oh, I have seen people make terrible decisions all the time. [ Even with these stakes. That's why Fabian is calling the decisions terrible in the first place - they're often just really dumb, one way or another. ]

Especially when power is involved. People truly seem to go mad whenever that's on the table. Haven't you seen any case like that before?

[ Surely she has. Fabian feels like it's a pretty common thing where he comes from, so surely it must happen at least sometimes in other worlds too. ]

Sure. Mostly from a distance, though.

[Most of Shaw's career has been spent working in the shadows, where being noticed is something to be avoided. Special ops work doesn't always attract people who are in it for the right reasons, but it also doesn't tend to attract the power-hungry and glory-seeking.]

And okay, you got a point; some people would be dumb and megalomaniacal enough to think they can take control of whatever--

[She pauses, stumbling over what to call Echo, to call Aurora, to call all the insane and impossible things that they accomplish together.]

-- of whatever the hell is going on here.

[Close enough!]

[ Fabian is mouthing something like 'lucky' at the first part of what Shaw is saying, but there seems to be no malice in it whatsoever. He apparently genuinely thinks she's lucky to have avoided that, but then--

Then Shaw continues, and Fabian's slightly grumpy expression seems to slowly change. It's not a full out laugh, but he does look a little bit amused at the way she stumbled over the description of this place, and he adds: ]

See, you also think stuff is totally crazy here!

Every day.

[Enjoy the utter exhaustion and contemptuousness in her tone there, Fabian. If you think this place is horrifically weird and that that sucks, she's fully on your team.]

[ Hell yes. Every single person more on his team is a good thing from Fabian's point of view, really. Especially when so many people make him feel like he's crazy for disliking this place in the first place..

So he holds up his hand.

Fabian should probably be a little more direct about it, but he's waiting for a high five.. Who knows if that high five will come from her end.. ]

That's great! I mean-- Not us being there, that part sucks. But the more people we have hating this situation, the more we can start doing something about it, right?

[Shaw eyes his hand, knowing that he's looking for... but doesn't reach up to slap it just yet. Sorry, bro.]

Easy there, tiger. That depends on what you mean by doing something about it. Just because it's lame and it might be a big scam doesn't mean I think burning it to the ground is the right move.

[ :(

Fabian is just.. going to move that hand into his hair. Because that's clearly what he meant to do with it this entire time. Nothing else. H-He wasn't just left hanging for a high five, that's something for uncool people!! N-Not him!! ]

Who said I was going to burn it to the ground? What do you think I look like?

[ Like a pirate, Fabian. You're literally wearing a pirate eyepatch!! You have a golden neck tattoo!! ]

[It should also be noted that she says this in part because she likes to burn things to the ground when she dislikes them. She's definitely speaking to herself here as much as she's speaking to him.]

Hey, just making sure.

[She says, with a shrug.]

You look like a perfectly respectable guy to me.

[She narrows her eyes, gives him a hard, searching look... and holds up her hand in the exact same way that he had. Fine, fine; you can have your high-five, bro.]

[ He does stare at that hand for a second - like he's wondering if maybe he's going to get too-slow-ed after she didn't reciprocate his high five earlier.

But apparently Fabian is willing to give it a go despite the faint distrust on his end here, since he does raise his hand again to give her that high five. ]

Of course I'm a perfectly respectable guy! I am Fabian Aramais Seacaster! [ He really is saying that like it's supposed to mean something - despite the fact that Shaw clearly doesn't come from the same world as he does. ]

You aren't going to find many more respectable guys than me in this place, I can assure you of that much! I had to tell off a guy older than me for eating suspicious candy without the slightest bit of hesitation, you know! [ Which clearly makes him more respectable, right. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

FEBRUARY MINGLE

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