etrayalogs | MAY MINGLE

MAY MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 17th-31st
WHERE: On Etraya
WHAT: A mingle log!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A, please note any needed warnings in threads.

⏵ a hero's return ⏴

As champions exit the Labyrinth, they’ll find that their environment has gone through some fairly drastic changes. Where there used to be larger bodies of water is now thinner rivers going through land; the amount of bridges connecting landmasses has decreased, given what had been individual islands are now much more connected. In addition, Etraya is significantly more green; flowers bloom, birds chirp cheerfully, and there are numerous additional species of insects, mammals, and aquatic creatures throughout the lands. Baby foxes roam through forested areas, bees pollinate the flowers to spread them more thoroughly around the inhabited areas, and it feels brighter. Or perhaps that’s just in comparison to how the Labyrinth had been.

There are more areas to explore, new facilities, animals, and Etraya feels significantly more settled than it had before. Aurora’s promise of renovations had been true. And if one looks up, they may notice a city bubble visible on the closest planet that hadn't been visible before.

⏵ coffee break ⏴
After hearing Clarke’s suggestion, Aurora sets up a new cafe close to the apartment complex, and sends out notices to individuals with mandatory coffee hour times listed for them to come to Corrine's Cafe and make a few friends.

While the note does state that it is mandatory, there will be no follow-up from Aurora nor the companion bots to ensure those who receive notes do show. Given this is Aurora trying to take suggestions in mind and see how successful they are among the citizens of Etraya, however, following directives may not be a terrible idea.

It's up like a modern-day, smaller cafe. One walks in through the front door, and is greeted by a companion bot behind the counter who offers a wave of their hand and a friendly “Welcome! Let me know when you’re ready to order”. The menu offers lattes, mochas, espresso, black coffee, several different kinds of teas, and a few drinks that are a little odd to find in a cafe; ale, canned sodas and coffees, numerous bottles of wine, but only pinot noir.

Soft music plays in the background, impossible to place but it sounds as if it may be based on tracks that were popular in the early 90s.

Tables and booths are set up to seat two to four, with packets of sugar and small containers of creamer set out towards the middle. There are charging stations set up at every table, which may seem strange considering phones and laptops aren’t widely available, but Aurora’s doing her best. There are also a few bookshelves full of the classics, a few historical fiction, and several written by H.P. Lovecraft.

Each seat has a placard in front of it, with a name, and a ‘fun fact’. One might say “Hello! My name is Joe, and I like to paint!” Another may say “Hi, I’m Jill! My sister died tragically in front of me and I’ve never gotten over it.”

⏵ new horizons ⏴

Several of the new bridges found in Etraya now have signs posted just outside of them, and on those signs is a QR code that the earpiece’s HUD can scan. Scanning this with the HUD will bring up a scavenger hunt, listing several items and circling areas where they can be found.

Some of these objects will be obvious: find Corrine at Corrine’s Cafe - the companion bot who runs the counter, find a delicious meal at Bangsan Market, break into S.T.A.R Labs, or find room 87 at Point Blanc Academy. Some will be less obvious, like locating a bat, becoming friends with an archer, find a pink shirt, open bagged milk without making a mess, or get a drink at the mutant-friendly pub. Please feel free to make up your own items to find around Etraya!

⏵ NOTES ⏴
Welcome to our mid-month mingle!

Please feel free to use this to explore Etraya, put up wildcard prompts (you don't need to use the above!), or use the open prompts to assist in jumpstarting cr.

This mingle covers the period from May 17th to May 31st. Our next mission (and next mod log) will not go up until June 7th.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Ororo glances up from where she'd already been seated. Her placard is still cheerfully proclaiming her claim to Mars, but she's since amended it. (It now reads "-- and I am ~~Queen~~ Regent of ~~Mars~~ Planet Arakko."

She tips her head at his, though, and gives Dean a wry smile. ]

I danced with Death, once. He was not too bad.

[ These cards are annoying.

He takes a sip before setting his mug back down on the table, ceramic thunking against the wood. ]

Is that a literal statement? [ He squints a little as he reads her card, trying to decipher the scratched out letters. ] Does that say Mars?

Is what a literal statement? [ Be clearer, please! ]

And it used to say Mars, yes. We renamed it.

Dancing with Death.

[ Both, if he's being honest. But he'd meant Death, though he's wildly curious about this queen or regent or whatever of Mars. Arakko. Can you just rename a planet like that? How does this work, he is confused. ]

So it's Mars 2.0. How'd you manage to rename a whole planet? [ A pause. ] Then again, they've said Pluto isn't a planet anymore, but I'm calling bullshit on that one.

Ah. [ One thing at a time! She wraps her hands around her cup of tea. ] I did dance with Death, yes. Youngest son of Apocalypse. [ Horseman of Apocalypse, too. There might be something biblical in that, maybe, but Ororo never got to that chapter. ] He was staring at me from across the room and that wasn't too pleasant. So I asked him for a dance.

And no, it is not Mars 2.0, it is Planet Arakko. We christened it such after some colleagues and friends and I breathed life back into the planet, made it livable again so we could move the island of Arakko to reside there, instead of on Earth.

[ ... ]

They hadn't found Earth very welcoming, so that was our solution.

Wow.

[ The Death Dean knew would not...have done that, and he has to snort into his cup as he pictures it. The sallow faced Horseman parading across the room in a friggin' quadrille or something. It's funny. ]

Earth is kind of a crappy place sometimes. But, you know, I live there so I'm obligated to save it on occasion. [ Another sip and he's squinting a little at her, wildly curious. ] How the hell did you manage that?

I asked him, and he said yes. A friend said he'd been making eyes all evening, and I preferred something happen rather than he stay that way. [ She shrugs nonchalantly. It didn't work out very well, but at least she'd gotten a nice waltz out of it. ]

[ ... ] Ah, unless you are asking about Arakko. It took several of us - until now, I am unsure of all the specific science behind it. All I was entrusted with was making sure there was air to breathe on the planet, a livable atmosphere. [ The climate was her design, though technically it was patterened after Earth's. Nothing quite so special. ] Some others were responsible for transferring the island - I wish I could tell you the exact parameters. But it all involved some physics and reality warping to be possible.

It was only one island, however. Most of my other friends still live on and have to save the rest of Earth... on occasion.

What do you save yours from?

Oh.

[ Huh. To all of that. ]

The, uh - apocalypse, like four horseman bible apocalypse. And Leviathan. And...Abbadon, a Knight of Hell. [ He grunts. ] It's been a rough couple of years.

Ah. [ Also, to all of that. ]

Well, that is a little awkward, isn't it? What do your four horsemen look like? My Death had a... [ she gestures over her head, like she's putting on a helmet. ] He had something of an Anubis motif. But that wasn't the case for the other horsemen of Death we'd encountered previously.

Men, actually. I dunno what I expected, but it definitely wasn't what I got.

[ He rubs the back of his head, brow scrunched. It's been a while since all of that, since he'd lost his brother for a year, his best friend completely MIA. Trying to live some normal life with a woman who'd done her best to deal with a man traumatized beyond repair.

He doesn't think or talk about Lisa often. He can't. ]

Their "horses" were cars instead of, y'know - actual horses.

Cars in place of horses... [ She smiles a little bit; normally she can repress it, but this is amusing. ]

There must be a joke somewhere here, about mustangs? [ Just so they can move the conversation along to something lighter and easier. ]

[ That does make him chuckle. ]

Well, War's car was a red 1965 Mustang GT fastback 289. It was pretty slick, I gotta admit.

[ She's not that well-versed in cars! So... ] Will you tell me about it? I don't think I've ever seen one before. It must have been quite the sight, to be worthy of War.

Oh, it was. Shame it belonged to a horseman.

[ He reaches to move his book and pull out the little black notebook underneath. He'd found his journal in the bunker, and he's been carrying it around, making notes, sketches of things he's seen.

Flipping it open, he calls up the memory of the vehicle, and sketches a rough draft. ]

V8 engine, 225 horsepower. C4 "Cruise-O-Matic" three-speed automatic transmission.

[ Oh, dear, did she bite off more than she could chew by asking this?

Thankfully, Ororo's got more than enough experience in sitting and putting on That Expression of nodding through her exes' explanations of cars, projects, and various other things in their workshops and garages. ]

What happened to him? Horsemen, in my experience, often need to be put down somehow, someway.

I hope his car didn't go to waste?

[ Probably. He likes talking mechanics, it's easy and something he loves. He doesn't pontificate often, Sam gets bored and doesn't care, and he's had his interests mocked often enough he doesn't express them unless prompted, like now. ]

We cut his finger off, stole his ring. Last I heard he was holed up shaking in a corner. Assume that's still true since I haven't heard a peep in a decade. And you know, I'm not sure - we had to leave it, had a bunch of important stuff going on. But with the kind of car it was, I'm sure someone took over it.

[ She makes a little noise of sympathy - another trick learned from spending time with too many attractive gearheads who were sometimes more concerned with their projects than they were with her. ]

A pity. I'm sure you could and would have saved it, if you had the chance to.

Perhaps you will run into it here? There are plenty of strange things popping up from our home worlds. Maybe a nice car will be one of them.

Definitely.

[ At that, though, he perks, because he does have a nice car here. ]

Actually, I do have my car. Black '67 impala. Four door, perfect. Rebuilt her myself. [ A few times. ]

Rebuilt? Did it come to the city in separate parts, and you had to rebuild her? [ That's... strange? Why would something come disassembled? ]

Oh, ha - no, I meant I’ve had to do it before. She’s been wrecked a few times.

[ He looks a little lost for a moment, then chuckles. ]

She was smashed up pretty bad before I got here, actually. But she showed up here fully intact.

Oh, how lucky for you, then!

[ Her brows furrow, though. ] How well does she handle the roads here? [ Are the streets even paved well enough for a car? She has never thought to wonder or ask - she's too busy flying. ]

Not too bad. She can handle dirt roads and highways, but no off-roading.

[ And he sure is lucky, he's just glad he doesn't have to fix her up again. Damn werepires. ]

Well, if you're lucky Aurora will bless us with some well-paved roads for her to try, some time.

[ Little do they know, the coming roads will come with fantastically huge snakes, but. That's fine. At least they aren't werepires. ]

[ Dean mowing down some motherfuckin' snakes in his motherfuckin' car is definitely gonna happen. ]

One can only hope. Wonder if that's something I can ask for, specifically. Like, "Hey Aurora, can you pave the dam roads so it's easier to get around?"

Try it, and if you ever get a decent highway - perhaps we can race.

[ She smiles slyly, already knowing she'd win. Probably. Unless his car had some very good rockets, and she wouldn't put it past him. ]

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1966**

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