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

Well, I'm definitely interested in growing flowers for the sake of it. [ Aerith looks at the lilies in the center of the room with the proud smile of a mother observing her children. ] And why not? They're nice to look at, they smell good, and they just...lift your spirits. Y'know?

[ Especially in a place like Midgar, where nothing grows, and things are...tough. ]

Oh, I don't know how common it is. Planetology, I mean. It's a kinda...philosophy? Back home, that is. It's mostly focused on how people and the planet should live and work together.

[ Plus other lifestream-related stuff, but she's certainly not a practiced student of it. ]

The Cetra...hmm. They look the same as regular people, they-...we just have a connection to the planet that's unique. [ There's a small smile, one twinged with what might be wistfulness. ] I'm only half-Cetra, but my mom would tell me stories. She was really special.

[ "Was," spoken lightly, but with heavy implications. ]

[ It must be easier to feel a little separated from your heritage when you look more or less the same as an ordinary human, Riz thinks. He's full Goblin, sure, but lacking in most of the culture save for what his Mom passed down, hasty ceremonies done a day late, stories passed down in sleepy murmurs, a language spoken almost exclusively in their own home. But nobody outside would ever see him as anything other than Goblin, whereas other people might look at this woman and see an ordinary human.

Which is probably hard too, in a different kind of way. He tilts his head at her, eyes unblinking, undeniably focusing on what she has to say. ]

...I'm sorry about your Mom. [ He's bad at social graces, not an idiot. He knows what that was means. ] I think, um -- telling, or just remembering those stories is a good way of remembering those people too.

[ And there are worse philosophies than talking about working alongside the planet. ]

So your Mom, she was full Cetra? And your Dad was human?

Oh - thanks. [ At the sympathy, she smiles, dipping her chin somewhat. ] It was really sad to lose her, but my mom-...the woman who took me in is amazing, too.

[ Elmyra is a gift that nobody deserves, and Aerith misses her fiercely. ]

But I agree. I try and keep her alive here. [ A hand comes to rest on her chest, against her heart, representing the 'here.'

The question has her bobbing her head in a nod, but there's a thoughtful expression, too. The truth is that she knows very little about her father, though it's never bothered her overmuch. ]

Yep. Never knew my dad, but he was human. [ Whoever he'd been, Aerith had been completely confident that her parents had been truly in love. ] What about you? If you want to talk about family, that is.

[ A mother and a mom -- then Aerith must have lost her biological mother when she was quite young, Riz thinks, filling in the blanks. At least someone took her in, someone close enough to be a second mother to her. That's nice too. ]

Oh -- yeah, I can talk about family! Back home, it's just me and my mom. [ His Dad is a more complicated topic, so he decides to leave that part alone. He'd been telling everyone the simplest version of the story for years, and keeping it that way just seems easier. Still, he can't help the smile touching his lips as he talks about his mom, evidently being one of the few sixteen year old boys in the world who hasn't got the memo that really, really loving your Mom isn't cool anymore. ] Which is fine! My mom's a total badass. We're some of the only Goblins around back home in Elmville, but she's never let that stop her. She's just -- really cool. I'm super lucky to have her.

[ He wanted to be just like her when he grew up. He still kind of does. ]

...honestly, this is the longest we've ever been apart. I hope she's not freaking out too much about all this. I wish we could at least tell people back home that we're okay.

[ Aerith's smile grows into a bright grin when he talks about his mom, enthusing about her in a way that makes clear the kind of relationship they have. It's...familiar, in a lot of ways. ]

You're from Elmville, then? [ There's a small tilt of the head as she listens, nodding thoughtfully. ] What's it like?

[ At that last bit, her smile turns understanding, and a little sad. ]

I know what you mean. I worry about how long we've been gone. [ Though she tries not to, because...what can you do? ] I just try and remember that we're doing something really important: fighting for our homes. And...even if we're here for a while, and people worry, we gotta do what we can here for them.

[ If her head's not in the fight, she thinks, then it could spell disaster for Gaia. ]

Maybe we can ask Aurora, see if there's some way to send messages back home?

Yeah... yeah, that's not a bad idea. It's at least worth a shot.

[ He has a feeling that it won't fly, especially because if he can send a message back home, he wouldn't be sending one to his mother. He wants to; he loves her desperately, and thinking of her waiting in that tiny apartment all by herself breaks his heart. But there's sentiment, and there's smart. Smart means sending a message to Principal Aguefort and seeing if he can bust them out of here.

He'll have to ask her soon. At least to cross their Ts and dot their Is. ]

She'd be okay with me being here, I think, knowing what we're supposed to do here. I'd just like for her to know I'm not, like, rotting in some ditch somewhere. I was supposed to be away on Spring Break.

[ That's putting it lightly, considering their mission on Spring Break -- but his Mom knows that they're adventurers, and stopping horrors in their track is precisely what she sent him to school for. ]

Anyway, Elmville's nice! It's pretty -- I guess I can't really say normal, when everyone here has a different version of normal. But to me, it's a pretty normal little town. My folks moved there from the big city before I was born. It's a good place to grow up.

[ Idyllic, some might say, right in the heart of sweet, sleepy suburbia, even if it is host to the occasional world-ending threat. But that's all of Spyre. ] And it's a diverse place, for being as small as it is. You can pretty much find people of every race hanging around. I'm lucky to be born there.

[ It's the classic immigrant story, and what he'd grown up being told over and over again: how lucky he was to be born in progressive, technologically advanced Elmville, where there are cars and televisions and all sorts of things they could never have back home, where food was plentiful and there was no shortage of shelter, where you could go to school and chase down your dreams unlike his grandparents, raised in the Mountains of Chaos. He'd taken it to heart. ]

How about where you're from? Abandoned Churches that pose huge fall risks aside, that is.

[ Aerith listens, nodding attentively as she takes in another story from one of the other transplant citizens in the city. She's heard a dozen of them by now and commits them all to heart, because...if some of their worlds aren't going to make it, then it's all the more important to hear about and treasure them.

Not that she has any intention of letting any world go unsaved, if she has anything to do with it, but.

At the question about her own home, there's a light scoff and a thoughtful hum. ]

Well...until pretty recently, my whole world was a city called Midgar. Specifically, Sector 5, and the Slums under the plate: the higher section of the city. Grew up there [ First in Shinra Tower as a prisoner, then with Elmyra in Sector 5 ] and didn't leave it until not too long ago. Gaia - the planet - is an incredible world. There are so many different kinds of people and creatures and places I never dreamed of seeing. Midgar, though... [ There's a light strain in her voice and she even winces faintly, glancing to the door of the church. ] Well, it has its problems. Like any city, I'm sure. But the people who live under the plate get by and help each other, and we make it work.

[ Above, though? It's the kind of life she can't really imagine. ]

You get used to looking up and seeing steel. [ There's a faint, helpless chuckle at that. ] To be honest, after we left, the open sky...kinda scared me. It was just...so much.

[ Like you might fall up into it if you stared too long. ]

[ What Aerith describes is, more or less, exactly what Riz has grown up being told he was so lucky to avoid. They may be poor (not poor, Riz would correct people, they weren't poor-poor), but they got to live out in the sunshine, where food and shelter was plentiful, not cloistered away from the sunshine, from bright blue skies, from greener pastures.

Gaia. He makes a mental note of that. Another word for another world, a change from the endless torrent of people hailing from the planet earth. ]

You're still pretty young, right? It makes sense you couldn't leave until recently. I'm sure it took a lot just to get out.

[ She's not as young as Riz is, but he estimates her somewhere in her early twenties, still plenty young enough to need to work to figure out how to leave in the first place. He gives her a sympathetic smile. ]

It must have been weird, seeing the sky for the first time. Where did you go? Above the slums where you grew up, or to another city entirely?

[ Why is another question, but that might be personal. ]

Mm-hmm: 22. [ Pretty young for a lot of races, she thinks, though it's nothing compared to some others she's heard about in the city so far. ] I mean, there was no reason to leave, you know? That's where my life was. [ Even if it was in the shadow of Shinra. ] But, we had to eventually. We have a job to do, and it's kinda taking us all over the place now.

[ Across continents. To places she'd never even imagined. And...to places she has half-formed memories of, even though they slip further away every day. ]

Both. [ There's a half-smile at the question, and she tilts her head thoughtfully. ] Ended up on the plate for...one reason or another [ she'd been kidnapped ] and then headed out. First thing was saw was this...huge, green plain. I've never seen anything like it. And the sky...

[ Aerith has a strange reaction to that, looking more troubled than anything, and bunching her shoulders a bit in discomfort. ]

It was...a lot. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though. [ Eventually. ]

You will. My grandparents all lived in the caves of the Mountains of Chaos. [ He points at his eyes, a little meaningfully -- his eyes, cat-like, are meant for a more nocturnal race, or one used to dark spaces. Riz has never known anything else but wide open skies, though, can't at all relate to that feeling of utter culture shock. ] Even if they saw the sky every now and then, going from that to a city out in the open must've been a lot.

[ But they made their way. Aerith will too. ]

...what's the job that's got you guys running around everywhere?

[ Her brows lift at "Mountains of Chaos" as she's left to wonder how literal the name is, but his story perpetuates the smile, elicits another little nod. ]

I know. It'll just take some time. [ There's more than enough distraction in the meantime, at least.

...Speaking of. ]

It's...kinda complicated. [ Very complicated. ] Um, I guess the "long story short" is...we're trying to get answers. Mostly about someone who should be dead, but isn't.

Oh.

[ That's another difference between Riz's world and others, as he's come to understand it. In other places, dead means dead. No coming back. No talking to them, no nothing. It's hard to wrap his mind around. ]

So I'm guessing coming back from the dead isn't usually a thing where you're from. So, what, is the dead guy bad news or something?

[ Hmm. Aerith turns to look at Riz with an expression he might not yet have seen on her: something that is, all at once, lightly amused, enigmatic, and sad. ]

That's...complicated too, actually. But let's just go with "yeah, not normal."

[ ahem ]

Definitely bad news. [ That's an easy question, at least. ] He's the most dangerous person in the world. Incredibly powerful, and with a strong will. Not the type of guy you could convince to give it up, you know?

[ If only. But Sephiroth is...not to be reasoned with. He can only be stopped. ]

The most dangerous person in the world? How do you even quantify that?

[ Riz thinks back to his own world -- and winces. There are dangers far beyond what he and his friends deal with. Sure, they're pretty big problems, but he knows that they're in-training for a reason. Even bigger challenges loom ahead of them. ]

Actually, I can imagine how. And... you're the one to go after him.

[ There's a question inherent in that statement. Why does Aerith, a young woman who has, by her own admission, spent her life so cloistered away that she only recently was touched by the light of the untarnished sky, the one to chase after someone like that?

There's a story here. ]

Um... [ There's a weak, breathy laugh, and a small shrug. ] ...Power level? Body count? Just - trust me on this.

[ God help them all if Sephiroth is ever somehow interpreted as a possible champion of Gaia and is brought to the city. ]

Yeah. I mean, my group is. [ Another complicated tale. ] There's some history between him and my friend. [ To say the very least. ] Plus, that stuff I told you about the Cetra? Having a connection to the Planet's important, too, when it comes to stopping this guy.

[ There's a pause, and then a larger, albeit apologetic, smile. ]

I'm probably being annoyingly vague, but...no reason to bring all that baggage, y'know? I'm fighting for my world here, and once I win that fight, I'll be off to do the same on the home front. Easy, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MAY MINGLE

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