etrayalogs | 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

I mean, I figured.

[Children rarely kill their parents if their parents are great people, after all. Second generation capes like her rarely have good relationships with the people that inflicted this fate onto them.

She thinks about Carol - about her mom, and her stomach twists with an anxious feeling.]

We don't have to talk about it. It was just surprising.

It is what it is.

[ Not talking about it would be great, honestly. Adaine doesn't mind shitting on her dad amongst friends, but this 'coffee date' scenario is putting her a bit on edge.

She looks at Amy's card again, eyebrows raising slightly. ]

Is a supervillain the opposite of a superhero?

[ She's only recently learned of the concept of costumed vigilantes with secret identities. The whole thing is kind of fascinating to her. ]

Sort of.

[If things worked the way that they should, then the answer to that would be yes. There was a time when Amy would have insisted that actually the answer to that question would be yes with no room for nuance. Superheroes are the good guys, supervillains are the bad guys.

Except that it was a supervillain that saved all of humanity. And it was the world's greatest superheroes that ran a conspiracy that sacrified untold amounts of people just so they could develop better stronger heroes for the so called greater good.]

There's a bit of overlap but it's sort of like - villains are criminals with powers, heroes are a bit closer to cops with powers. My dad ran a large part of the city as a crime lord before he got arrested when I was a toddler.

[ It sounds to Adaine like the nuances of "superhero" and "supervillain" may also differ from universe to universe. Not that she knows for sure that Amy, Tim, Superman, and Red Robin are all from different universes, but the individual definitions she's gotten all seem to vary slightly. She's internally taking notes, building a case profile, but it's hard when everyone seems to have a different opinion of what a superpowered hero is or does.

Still, she's not about to harp on semantic differences. So, she continues the conversation on. ]

I'm sorry... [ Though she hesitates a bit, not sure whether it's something Amy would want to hear "I'm sorry" about. ] Supervillain or not, losing a parent when you were that young sounds hard.

[The idea rankles a little - that she'd be better off being raised by her father. The old fears linger in the back of her mind. She would have turned out a villain. Not a monster, not like what she did end up becoming, but a villain. Like an Undersider?

We could have given you that.

You could have. But I wouldn't have taken it.]

I didn't remember him for most of my life but... thanks. [It's a what if. She knows her dad wonders about it too.]

I did reconnect with him later. [She was, after all, sent to the same ultra high security parahuman prison.] He's not a bad person, for the record. And he cares about me a lot.

[A lot more than her adopted mother did.]

That's good, at least. More than I can say about my father.

[ Angwyn Abernant wasn't really a 'bad person' or a 'good person.' He was a selfish prick, only concerned with status and privilege. If he was bad at anything, it was being a father.

Adaine sighs, sipping her hot chocolate. ]

Not exactly the kind of ice breaker conversation I would have wanted to have, but... I suppose it's not that bad, to be upfront with people.

[She purses her lips - unsure if she should commiscerate - talk about her adoptive parents.

No. It's too close to the things she absolutely doesn't want to be upfront about.]

I wouldn't have chosen this either. I used to be really ashamed of it. [She was raised to be ashamed of it - in a pressure cooker of moral guilt. The crime of being born - being adopted into a family that didn't want her.] Not so much anymore, I guess.

[ Adaine can tell this is a tough topic of conversation for Amy. She feels a bit uncomfortable, as she doesn't quite know how to interact with whatever this all is.

She takes a deep breath, and decides to shift gears. ]

Let's talk about something else. How do you feel about frogs?

[Her eyebrows raise in surprise. That certainly wasn't where she thought this was going.]

Uh.

[Hm. What are her thoughts on frogs.]

Like... regular frogs?

Sort of. Only much rounder.

[ Adaine twists in her chair to pull her backpack around from where it hangs on the back, and unzips it, revealing a perfectly spherical frog just chilling inside. She withdraws it from the bag, setting it down on the cafe table proudly. ]

This is Boggy. He's my familiar.

[She stares at the frog somewhere between surprise and wonder.]

...Can I touch him? Is he like, alive?

[ Adaine hems and haws for a moment, trying to formulate an answer. ]

Nnnnnot really, no. He's an arcane spirit which I summoned into an animal form. If he gets injured, he just decorporealizes until I summon him again.

[ Which is probably more information than Amy asked for, but... Adaine then puts a big smile on her face and holds Boggy out towards Amy. ]

You can touch him, though! He feels like any regular frog.

MAY MINGLE

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feel free to ignore if this is too old...