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

[ Riz has it right. Krouse misses his mom in a way that he skirts around at the edges of his thoughts, never letting himself linger on anything that has to do with her for long. He can't let himself go there after all the time he's spent working away from the worst, sharpest pangs of wanting to see her. He's past it. Past having the kinds of problems she could fix, even if he could talk to her.

He wants to be past it. It's just sometimes he brushes up against it again, a live wire mostly tucked out of mind until bumps into it by chance.

There are arcanotech waste disposal techniques to think of, coffee to sip, a bot moving behind Riz to watch clearing a table. The moment passes, like it usually does. ]

From what you're describing, probably a cellphone or an iPod. Long range communication device with some other features, or a device that stores music and other audio files. And I'm afraid mine didn't come with me.

[ He'd only had a burner cell, anyway, which he has to assume was either destroyed or confiscated. If it was here, it wouldn't have anything interesting on it. For the first time since he showed up, Krouse wishes he could log back onto the PHO forums and track down some of the more informative postings there. ]

I could try recreating some from memory. [ He's kidding. Mostly. ] I think I remember about...half of one about the Nova Scotia diaspora. Seventy five percent of that was about lobsters, in this excruciatingly tortured metaphor for the resilience of the survivors via crustacean behaviour. Or they were actually just extremely concerned about the impact on lobster habitat, I guess.

Did you know lobsters are pretty much immortal? Our lobsters, anyway. Which are not crabs. Crabs are a whole different thing. Apparently more related to spiders, if you can believe it.

[ There is a long moment in which Riz seriously contemplates telling Krouse that he knows an abundance of shellfish facts in particular, and that his friend Gorgug is the undisputed (okay, fairly disputed) crab king and that he's the little shrimp of the crew -- and then he remembers that he's trying not to seem like a total loser, and going around telling people that you're a little shrimp has certain connotations that he's trying to avoid. So he keeps that little fact to himself.

Even if Krouse would probably be kind of good for it? Riz thinks he's cool, which means he's also kind of a loser who'd listen to the Dry Guys during roadtrips and thinks that learning is fun and probably isn't going to be winning any push-up contests anytime soon. Still, he's trying his best to make a friend here. He can practice restraint. ]

Yeah, you got it. [ Riz digs his crystal out of his pocket to show it to Krouse -- not for Krouse to hold, but enough so that he can see it. It looks like a modern day smartphone, complete with several apps (camera, podcasts, messages, two separate e-mails, a couple of games, a couple of dictionaries), just on a flat plane of crystal. The background is a group shot of the Bad Kids, but it's pretty difficult to make any of it out with the rest of the visual clutter. ]

I've been checking it every time stuff here changes, just in case I'd be able to pick up a signal from somewhere, but no dice. [ He wants that for more serious reasons than downloading more podcasts -- but he plants a smile on his face, determined to keep it light. ]

So all of our shellfish facts have to come off the top of the dome -- which we do have on Spyre, by the way, but I don't think I have any fun shellfish facts. [ He pauses. ]

Circling back to the cellphone thing... I was talking to someone, and they had the suggestion of asking for the chance to contact someone from back home. I doubt they would, but they gave me back my briefcase, so they're at least granting some requests. I'll let you know if they do.

[ A small implication being: so that you can call home. Call your Mom too, let her know that you're safe. On a purely emotional level, he has to imagine that calling their families is what most people would do. ]

[ Krouse leans forward on both elbows to examine the crystal, his eyes sharpened with interest and then widened with mild surprise at how familiar seeming it is. Not just like a cellphone, but like one of the newer, more expensive models, the kind of thing people whip out as a status symbol.

It's cool, and it's contextualizing. Krouse makes another revision to his concept of Spyre, which is already starting to hew closer to the reality of the place than he has a real barometer to judge by. He's preoccupied enough by that to not see what Riz says next coming, and he pulls back slightly to shoot Riz a rare unfiltered look of surprise.

He wouldn't have made the request on his own. He wouldn't even have really thought about it as something he could ask for, which sends a sliver of shame down the back of his throat. But that's soon swept away by the soft yet insistent tug of want, coming on without reason or caveat. ]

Cool.

[ He settles back into his seat, picking at his hoodie sleeve to pull it over his thumb in the spot where he's already working on worrying a new hole. His smile flickers like a candle flame, small but warm. ]

That'd be - reassuring. [ Not quite the right word, but he doesn't know what to substitute. ] Probably. I guess it'd depend on who you'd be calling. I... [ He tucks his chin as he lowers his eyes, huffing a dry exhale that crackles short of laughter. ] My mom would have some strong opinions about all of this.

[ He extends the admission as a sort of reciprocation, a sideways acknowledgement of something that he hasn't heard come up much in the circles he tends to travel in - of course, there's no way of knowing how much of that has been him avoiding the subject in the first place. ]

[ Riz shoots Krouse a grateful smile, relieved that he'd connected the dots without Riz having to say it out loud. He knows that the smart move here is to call someone with power, magic, connections, able to do more than his Mom who has none of the above. Everyone here - Krouse included - has by and large been logical, which is a boon in their current situation, but... nobody's really talking about the important things. Maybe because it's a sign of weakness. Or maybe because thinking about it makes it worse.

But he doesn't want to be the only one here who's missing his family. Krouse is in a similar boat -- no mention of his Dad, though. Dead, bad, or just closer with his Mom, Riz figures. ]

I'd want to call my Mom too, let her know I'm okay. [ He fidgets a little with his mug. ] She'd, uh, also probably want to have some strong words with whoever's in charge, but it's better they know than having us just go missing out of nowhere.

[ In the middle of Spring Break, on his way to defeat a dark god. God, she must be beside herself. ]

We share this, um, one-bedroom, back home? So we're pretty much always in each other's space whenever we're both home. [ There's nothing but wry fondness in his voice. He's never really felt the need for more space. They're small, and she's home rarely enough that having her around was always a welcome, not an imposition. ] Going from that to here is all kinds of weird. At least I have my own bedroom here, I guess.

[ Then, to lighten the mood (sorry, Fabian): ] I gave Fabian the bigger one, though. According to him, having a walk-in closet is a fundamental need.

[ So Riz's family is him and his mom from the sound of things. Krouse didn't expect the closest mirror of his own household arrangement to show up attached to a green guy half his size, but 'expecting' is something he should really be getting over.

There aren't a lot of guys their age who talk about their moms with open fondness. Krouse imagines the field of jokes about 'your mother' is one of those things that lines up between their worlds, if reality TV and podcasts do. It's not cool to like your mom, for reasons apparently so obvious that no one ever seems able to explain it without ending up in a self-justifying loop. It's kind of a relief to find that snare-trap absent here. ]

Oh, obviously. How is he supposed to get by without being able to see all of his sleeveless shirts simultaneously? Rummage in drawers like some kind of peasant? [ But he jokes back before anything else, rolling his eyes in played up commiseration. ] You did the noble thing. I'd say he'd sing of your compassion, but I guess he'll have to come up with an interpretive dance for it.

[ He actually wouldn't mind seeing that. It probably wouldn't be that hard to convince him to do it, either. Thoughts for another time. ]

And yeah. It is probably better if she knows where you are. [ He fiddles with the handle of his coffee mug, again, wondering how many passes it might take to wear away a fraction of the enamel. ] It is weird, isn't it? You don't know how much you're used to someone else being there until they're not.

[ Riz laughs, quiet, fond. ] That's how he gives you inspiration, you know. I'd take it.

[ It's best not to go into the facts of how watching your best friend dance gives you the inspiration to fight better (or, frankly, do anything better; watching someone twirl around with a blanket shouldn't reall do all that), so Riz moves along pretty quickly. Some things translate to other worlds well, and some things, less so. ]

It is weird. Living with someone else helps, but... [ Living with Fabian is a lot different from living with his Mom. They take care of each other, of course, which is a huge part of it, but it's just -- different. Different from the unconditional love that's provided between mother and son, that ramped up sensation of anxiety and the sensation you're one step away from doing something wrong, the unspoken understanding between two people who have lived through so much of the same shit, the shared history, the reassuring presence of the person who has always, without fail, been there for him.

He shrugs. ]

I'm really grateful Fabian was up to living with me. [ He's a lot. He knows that. He knows that he's going to continue being a lot. ] But it's not the same. You and your Mom, you guys are pretty close too?

[ Krouse is content enough to chalk Fabian's dance-spiration up to the catch-all category of 'magic'. Maybe Riz has a podcast that gets into more detail, even if just on a pop metaphysics level.

He's not dwelling on it right now, even if he'd probably be better off. ]

Yeah.

[ He takes a long sip of his coffee, eyelashes shaded down. This isn't as bad as it could be. Riz is his age, so he doesn't have to worry as much about a hit to his reputation from sounding like a homesick kid. ]

My dad wasn't ever really in the picture. Nothing traumatic. He just opted out. [ He shrugs in turn, brushing past the long-resolved trivia of his paternity. ] So it was her and me most of the time.

She's a good mom. I know everyone kind of has to say that about their moms, but she really is. And I wasn't exactly an easy kid to deal with. Born smartass. Which was slightly her fault, since I get it from her.

[ Like his strong nose and sharp, dark eyes, and how he tilts his head when he's annoyed, and his intolerance of bullshit. Fondness hovers at the corners of his wistful smile. ]

I hadn't seen her in a while before I got here. Not her fault. The commute wasn't feasible. But you're right. It's not the same.

[ Riz nods along, not bothering to mention his own paternal situation; the angel revelation aside, he knows that the whole dead dad origin story is kind of a bummer. He's learned not to mention it. It makes things awkward, or people try to give him their condolences, or they want to know how it happened, and -- well, it's easier just not to talk about it, even if Krouse is sharing a little more about himself.

Opting out is better than what most can hope for anyway, Riz thinks privately, considering the amount of truly dreadful parents he's encountered by now. Sometimes it really is better just to not have anyone else in your life. So with the true confidence of a child raised by a single parent, he just nods and says, ] One good parent's all anyone really needs.

[ Everyone always tells him how much he looks like Pok, how similar he is to him, how much he's his father's son. That's all true, and he's proud of it, but deep down? He knows he's a lot more like his Mom than anyone else, the two of them practically a single organism working in perfect tandem. ]

I wasn't really an easy kid to raise either, [ he offers with a laugh, ] but it's the same here. My mom's nosy too. She's a Detective, actually, so we've both made it our jobs.

[ Not for much longer, if she has her way, but finding out more about that is just going to have to wait. ]

So I guess you moved to a different city once you graduated high school, huh? You must have missed her a lot.

[ That's going to be him, soon. He's kind of dreading it. ]

[ On the other side of the table, Krouse is making his own calculations about what might be kind of a bummer. He does notice the gap of information when it comes to Riz's fatherly circumstances, but he's familiar enough with being on the receiving end of questions in that arena to reflexively rule it off-limits. One good parent is enough.

But having a good parent also means that missing them is straightforward in a way that folds back to complicated. Krouse doesn't realize there's a faint bruise of regret lying under his eyes, or he'd be taking steps to correct it. ]

Well, I didn't exactly graduate, but I did move. It might as well have been another planet.

[ He reaches for a sugar packet and taps it on the table, shaking all the crystals to the bottom. He presses on either side of the creased seams to make the centre puff out, then pinches it back flat. ]

I missed her more at first. But you get used to it. And it's not all bad. What they don't know can't disappoint them, right? [ His chuckle is as papery as the sugar packet. ] I'm assuming having a professional investigator for a mother makes getting away with anything slightly more complicated. Hell of a family tradition you've got there. It's cool, though.

[ So whatever issues Krouse has isn't with his Mom. It's with himself. Which is... a different sort of bad, Riz supposes, one that's a little more familiar to him. He can imagine why Krouse would fear his mother's disappointment, why there's remorse in his voice; whatever circumstances had led to him stealing a car and presumably get involved in some shady shit is probably the sort of thing most people don't tell their Moms. ]

Disappointed in some things, proud of others, [ Riz says with a shrug. ] I guess you take the good with the bad.

[ Sklonda Gukgak would not necessarily be proud of grand theft auto, but... okay, yeah, she'd be a little proud if he did it well enough. ]

Being nosy just runs in the family. My Dad was in a similar line of business. [ He offers Krouse a crooked smile. ] So I just never really bother trying? Besides, it makes things a lot easier to have someone to bounce ideas off of when I'm stumped in a case.

But I mean -- I guess it's different? She's the one who okayed me going to adventuring school, so it means she kind of has to be okay with all of the wild shit we get up to.

[ Krouse isn't jealous. Jealousy would involve treating their situations as comparable, which they're plainly not.

It's more of a wistfulness that seeps out through the twist in his smile at the broad strokes of the picture Riz is painting. His mom hadn't always loved all of his choices, but she never tried to stop him from seeing them through after she'd had her say.

And there's Riz's heretofore undetailed father, apparently enough of a known quantity to be mentioned fondly. Good for him, however he left the picture. ]

And you're good at it. [ An established fact, as far as Krouse is concerned. ] Who doesn't like bragging about their high-achiever son? 'Oh, that's my Riz - he slew a dragon last semester.'

[ The inflection of his imitation is gently friendly, not mocking. It almost definitely doesn't sound like anyone's mother, but it's more about the spirit of the thing. ]

I wasn't ever any good at lying to my mom either. Other people? Not a problem. But she always knew. Didn't always call me on it, which was honestly worse, sometimes. Like when I started smoking - [ he laughs, twisting the corner of the sugar packet ] - I actually thought I was getting away with it? But then this one night, I snuck out back after she went to bed, and when I came back in there was a bottle of Febreeze and a pack of nicotine gum on the kitchen table. I felt like such a fucking idiot.

[ But it's a warm memory now, the sting of panic and guilt at being caught eroded away. What's left is the support hand-in-hand with the tacit disapproval, even if he never did manage to quit. ]

[ Riz grins -- proud, but not proud for the reasons that Krouse may think. Sure, Riz is proud of having a hand in defeating a dragon. He'd never doubted them, really, whether that's blind faith, overconfidence, or simply an accurate appraisal of the abilities of the truly exceptional group of people he found himself thrown together with, by fortune or by fate. But more than that? He's proud of his family. ]

She can't brag about that without bragging about herself, [ he counters. ] She was right there killing the dragon with me.

[ Mother and son: dragonslayers, and dragon-devourers. But he turns to Krouse, the smile on his face small but genuine as Krouse recounts stories of his own Mom. He's glad, he thinks, that they can think about them and smile instead of being caught in the moroseness that is missing them. It's not like they're dead. They're just... apart, for now. ]

Hah! She got your number, huh? That's kinda embarrassing. [ Sorry, Krouse. ] But at least she didn't get on your case about it.

[ He swigs the rest of his coffee (which is a little alarming, considering its size, large even for a human), and sets the cup down with a quiet click of laminated cardboard against the glass table. ]

I bet she was just wishing she could've seen your face when you found it. [ And that she smelled it on him, he figures. That's the biggest giveaway that you really can't shower or deodorize away. ] What'd your Mom do, anyway? Like, for work?

[ He knows that's the sort of thing that's generally considered boring small-talk. But it's interesting too. He's curious about where Krouse is from. It tells you a lot about where he's going. ]

[ Dragonslaying is a hell of a mother-son bonding activity. Krouse hopes he looks suitably impressed as his eyebrows shoot up and his eyes widen for a moment as he takes that in. It's less and less of a surprise that she doesn't mind Riz's adventuring perils if she's an active participant.

It's nice of Riz to let things circle back to Krouse's mother after that. He's not sure he'd be able to shut up about it, but Riz seems to possess more humility than he does. He shrugs off how embarrassing his busting was, huffing a dry half-laugh at her wishing she could have seen his face. ]

I'm pretty sure she could imagine what it looked like.

[ He says, wryly, the tip of an iceberg of incidents studding his checkered past. ]

And she's an office manager. She used to say it was all paperclips and Post-It notes, but it's a little more involved than that. She organizes things. She did it outside of work, too. She was always dragging me to school events, community halls, stuff like that.

[ He's not defensive, exactly. Riz doesn't seem the type to be judgmental. But it's not exactly comparable to being a monster-battling detective, and he wants - he wants her to make a good impression anyway. ]

It's harder than it sounds. But, I mean - you're on a team. You know how getting people on the same page for a project is.

It's freakin' impossible. And then when you try, it's all oooh you're trying to be the team leader even if I'm just trying to figure out a day we can all meet on.

[ Okay, apparently Krouse hit on a sore spot. But life can be hard for someone with a friend group that consists of only one other type A individual, at least two people with undiagnosed ADHD, a rich boy who never checks his phone, and...

And Gorgug's pretty solid, actually. ]

...anyway, I can sympathize. It's not an easy job. [ It doesn't seem like an exciting job either, but Mama Gukgak raised him with enough sense not to say that out loud. As unexciting as it may be, though, it seems a good fit for Krouse, who seems charming and personable enough, but coming from a single-parent household? Sometimes you need that extra kick in the ass to get involved instead of holing yourself up at home. Besides, Krouse is proud of her, which is the most important bit. ]

I guess that's why you're good at, uh, people-ing. You must've learned it from her.

[ He loves his mom. Teaching him people skills, though? Loooowwwww on this list of her own skills. ]

[ Krouse twists his mouth in commiseration as Riz goes off about the burden of organization, lifting his fingers in a desultory ripple to encompass the hassle.

And then his eyes widen slightly as Riz connects dots that he should have already. He shifts up in his seat a little, mouth parting as if there's something he wants to flick off the tip of his tongue, but he hesitates. ]

I don't know if I'm good at it.

[ The legs of his chair squeak as he leans forward, one heel rising off the floor under the table. His knee bounces as he pauses, working his way through that unfinished thought. ]

It's like you said. Sometimes you just end up in charge because you're the one with an idea. But honestly - [ he cuts himself off again, face softening into ruefulness, and he plants the sole of his foot back on the ground ] - and you were talking about my immense personal charm, not my leadership capabilities. Right.

[ How could Riz even have an opinion on something he's never seen, and ideally, never will? ]

Sorry. I guess it's been on my mind, with everyone breaking off into factions. I don't know if most of them would call them that, but you know what I mean.

I dunno, I think I've got a pretty good eye for that sort of thing.

[ The thing about not being very charismatic is that it's easy to tell when someone else is -- a certain openness in the way Krouse carries himself, conversational and congenial even over text, the way that he can keep a conversation going and flash a smile at the right time every now and then. It probably doesn't seem like much to an ordinary person, but to someone like Riz, it's a skill he's had to cultivate rather than one that comes naturally to him, and even that cultivation's been a little rough. It's hard, connecting with people. But it's been easy during this conversation, even for him, so that's gotta mean something.

(The fact that he could just be connecting organically with someone -- that's not quite there.) ]

By factions, d'you mean like -- people who all know each other, or who're from similar worlds clustering together? [ Should he be worried about different factions? Wait, do he and the Bad Kids count as one? ] I guess that's to be expected, though it kinda sucks for anyone who's flying solo from their own world. [ He pauses. ] Their own variety of world.

[ All you Earthlings...! ]

[ He still wants to push back against the observation, and all that catches him up is the question of why. Isn't that how he wants to come across? What's been the point of years of building up a persona if he kicks the legs out from under himself as soon as he's actually pulling it off?

It's just that with Riz, it's been easy. Easy enough he can't feel like he earned it, because he's been enjoying himself, everything clicking into place without the friction that underlies so many other conversations. Usually his fault.

He realizes, with a small, acid curl of self-loathing, he thinks Riz is someone he'd probably have liked to have as a friend. It's no wonder he wants to set the record straight. And he can know that, but still not feel bad enough about it to stop. ]

The latter.

[ He smooths out the wrinkles of thought from his forehead by raising his eyebrows high before bringing them down, like flicking a sheet out so it settles evenly. He hopes it passes for arch knowing. ]

Not even similar worlds, precisely. Similar status in similar worlds. The way a group of heroes tackle a problem is going to be different than how a group of villains do it. That kind of thing.

So far, it seems like the heroes are doing what they usually do - ignoring potential collateral damage so they can pat themselves on the back for sticking to their moral principles. I'm sure you know the type.

Edited 2024-08-20 08:25 (UTC)

[ Whatever's going on in Krouse's head, Riz is cheerfully none the wiser, still underneath the distinct impression that they're talking shop and getting along famously -- and honestly, seeing as Riz sees no reason for the guy to lie. He hadn't expected this when he stumbled across these dumb cards set out at every table, but he's relieved for it; this conversation has been perfectly nice, and he lucked out with one of the few people around who weren't immediately scared off by wanton violence.

Still, he can't help but wince at his next words. ]

Yeahhhh... as much as I'd like to just agree with you there - [ it would make him look a lot cooler, a lot more mature ] - I don't feel like I can talk? We've caused, like, a lot of collateral damage. And we basically never stick around to help clean it up.

But! [ He brightens. ] At least we don't call ourselves heroes while we do that. Honestly, that seems kind of presumptuous to me?

[ Sure, Riz thinks of himself as one of the good guys, and everyone he kills as one of the bad guys. That's natural. But trotting around calling yourself a hero is something else entirely. He leans forward, chin rested in his cupped hand. ]

...but it makes sense that the people who do all band together. There's a lot of really fancy looking buildings that keep popping up.

[ Training centres, mansions, clubhouses; this place seems to favour people of status, wealth, and influence as far as he's been able to tell. It's not like anyone would be impressed by Strongtower Luxury Apartments popping up overnight. ]

[ Krouse snorts lightly before he thinks of how he should best adjust his fellow feeling. It's not something he takes lightly, collateral damage, but - you can't take it too hard, either, or where does that leave you? Windows don't unbreak, city streets don't repave. The bodies in the morgues don't get back up.

The only respect he can pay is not pretending it's all for a good cause. It's for his cause, or it was, and he owns his selfishness. ]

That's the thing, though. Everyone leaves behind collateral damage, even if it's only in small ways. It's acting like it's righteous that makes you a dick. In my opinion.

[ As if he'd bother to express anyone else's opinion for them, unless it served his. ]

Especially when you're getting rewarded for it. [ He flicks his hand towards the window, where the silhouettes of some of those fancy buildings can be seen. ] You get the money, the nice headquarters, the PR agents, the positive media coverage, your face on a lunchbox, and no one cares that you dropped a building on some poor schmucks moonlighting for the villain of the week.

I'll take someone honest about what they're doing over someone who acts like that doesn't matter any day of the week.

[ It's reasonable to have these concerns. It's reasonable as any citizen living in the world Krouse lives in to worry about these sorts of things, to hold grudges, even if hearing Krouse talk about it as though he's talking to an ally makes his chest twinge a little with guilt, with the idea that he's presenting a false face.

He's the one who leaves behind collateral damage, and gets rewarded for it. One day, it's going to be his career. He intends to get rich doing it, if he can -- buy his Mom a nice new place, a new car, be financially stable, be comfortable, everyone who's hurt in the crossfire be damned. And he can do it all saying that he's one of the good guys, if not a hero, because they're helping save the world. They own it, sure. But maybe not as much as they could.

It's food for thought, even if it makes him feel uncomfortable, uncomfortable in the same way he'd felt when his Mom sat him down and frankly told him that she was thinking about leaving the force, that the job he'd idolized as a kid was doing more harm than good to the people of Elmville.

Those are thoughts to be cradled on his own, in private. There's the second part of the mystery that's presented itself here, and that's Krouse himself, speaking with a sort of passion that comes from experience. He could just be a really socially aware guy. These things are probably common points of discourse here and there. But... ]

...you sound kind of like you're talking from experience, [ he says slowly. ] Did your street get demolished by one of these heroes, or something? From the sounds of it, the chances of getting wrapped up in this kind of thing are pretty high, especially if most of this happens in urban areas instead of, say -- a nightmare forest, or whatever.

[ Or whatever. He's not looking forward to getting back to all that. ]

[ There's a deflection there. He recognizes it, but he isn't sure of how to identify it. That makes a difference in how he'd turn it around, push this new question back across the table without touching on it himself.

Maybe Riz broke something he feels particularly sorry for. Maybe it's the accumulation over time. Maybe, certainly, it's not currently any of his business.

But it's something to hold onto, filed away in another section of his expanding catalogue. If only, he can tell himself, to put up some polite caution tape around the topic for Riz's future comfort. ]

No. Nothing like that, really.

[ He lies, lightly, picking up his coffee to sip its cooling contents. ]

I'd say I'm talking more experience adjacent. And [ he smiles into his coffee mug, eyes shaded unhappily amused ] from an absence of experience, I guess.

I'm not too proud to admit it. I'd be less cynical about the whole thing if anyone came swooping out of the sky to save my ass when I needed it, but - well, you get it, right? You're not exactly in the prime rescue material bracket yourself.

So... less personal, more political. I bet there are lobbying groups against them, only, most people don't wanna go publicly against someone who could totally stomp you out like that.

[ At least there's that. At least his whole adventuring deal won't be lumped in with Krouse's childhood home being crushed, or his dog dying, or whatever the hell else happens when you get superpowered people running around urban neighbourhoods. It's a selfish relief. Riz is underneath no illusions about the limits of his own morality, about the people he's killed, but he's never been in a situation where he was meant to feel sorry for it.

Maybe he should have, seeing Penelope and Dayne labouring in Hell. They'd just been kids, manipulated by greater forces. But Riz and the Bad Kids had just been kids too, and so any remorse he might have felt quickly curdled in his chest. Still. Maybe feeling no remorse is worse, actually.

There's still something there. Something personal. Someone Krouse knows, or a friend of a friend, or something. He doesn't mean for it to be an uncharitable reading of Krouse, but frankly, people tend not to give a shit until it happens to them, or someone they care about. Disliking people who the government calls heroes and regularly swoop in to save ordinary civilians just isn't natural, even if they do do an awful lot of damage.

He tucks it away for later. He doesn't have a file on Krouse, exactly, it's just... he likes to know people like that. Know them more thoroughly. Understand them on paper to make for the way he can't seem to understand them as organically as everyone else can. Professional gamer, moved away from home early, worried about disappointing his Mom, fatherless, smoker, dislikes superheroes, eager to dive into conspiracy theories, little facts that he can stack up and up and up until he can make sense of the whole. ]

We all need assists sometimes. Even Adventurers. It's just one of those things where a good action doesn't overwrite a bad one. [ He lifts both hands, as though he himself is a scale of justice. ] You just gotta hope that the good outweighs the bad in the end. [ Whoof. This is too serious. Dial it back, Gukgak. ]

Or I guess you could just get really chill with the idea of going to Hell really quickly. It's not that bad.

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MAY MINGLE

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