etrayalogs | MISSION 009

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MISSION 009

⏵ CAMP ETRAYA ⏴
On May 16th, Aurora and the companion bots direct those not heading off to Solmara to make their way to Camp Etraya.

Nestled away from everything else in a large clearing full of wildflowers and redwoods, Camp Etraya is a nostalgic summer camp experience put together just for it's residents! Cabins are assigned, scary stories are told around campfires, gossiping happens among friends on the trails surrounding the cabins - and don't be surprised when something goes awry. After all, this is still Etraya.

While the rest of Etraya is still accessible and will not be blocked off, characters are discouraged from venturing far from camp for too long: Aurora will specify that they are on a mission, and that missions do require participation, but she has intentionally left them the freedom to wander. Not sleeping in their assigned cabins, not participating in events, and staying away from Camp Etraya will end with her having to take more extensive security measures, so please be on your best behavior! The last thing she wants to do is start enforcing boundaries, but she will if she has to.

Camp is set up much like your generic summer camp! Each cabin is named, housing is assigned to characters as they arrive, there are camp counselors, and rotating daily tasks and chores. There are also multiple activities that characters are expected to participate in, and each activity is worth points that goes toward their camp graduation score. This score will be visible on their earpiece, and follows the A-F grading system. We are not be monitoring this, and are leaving character scores up to players. We do, however, ask that you please report your characters' camp grade HERE for rewards and demerits to be handed out after the mission itself.

Cabin assignments can be found here, which also has their roles, and chores assigned to that cabin. Those who are participating in Solmara have received an assigned cabin, too, but their absence toward the beginning will not harm the cabin's ability to compete given how spread out their assignments are.

⏵ WELCOME TO CAMP ⏴

Camp life is meant to instill a sense of belonging, connection with nature, encouragement towards the creative, all on top of a firm foundation of responsibility. Upon arriving, campers will be escorted towards a table of white t-shirts and countless buckets of dye!

Each Etrayan will be invited to make three Tie-Dyed shirts- as well as required to wear one as part of their summer uniform. Camp counselors must wear 80s basketball shorts or cut-off jeans. Campers may wear cargo shorts or a skort. For those with physical limitations to what they can wear, accommodations will be provided.

Here, bonding is the camp runners' priority. They will be pushed into various ice-breaker activities, such as trust falls, two truths and a lie, and Never have I Ever. As the sun goes down, there will be weenies roasting over the bonfire, followed by s’mores and a sing-a-long! With the stars well-visible, it’s off to bed with campers.

Each day after will start much the same: with the ringing of the bell and raising of the flag (Aurora, while unfamiliar with flag designs but an understanding of the concept, has chosen a rainbow flag for the camp. Rainbows make people happy, right?), followed by a meal at the Great Hall, morning assembly, activities with counselors, chores, free time, and then an evening winding down by the great fire. An hour after sun down, campers will be escorted back to their cabins for curfew. Camp Counselors are expected to keep track of their campers, and ensure they're all within their cabins for bedtime. This is part of their grade, too! Curfew lifts an hour before the first bell.

⏵ CAMP ACTIVITIES ⏴

As with most summer camps, Camp Etraya offers a wide variety of activities to participate in. While some of these activities may be mandatory, others are optional. We'll be leaving this up to individual player discretion: perhaps Viktor is mandated to report to arts and crafts, whilst it's optional for Silco to show. Silco, on the other hand, may be mandated to report to the archery contest. Characters are encouraged to participate in a minimum of one camp activity per day.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of camp activities.

Three-Legged Race - You and a partner are tied together at your ankles, and you must race others to the finish line. Those with abilities that would give them an advantage will find that the rope that ties them together hinders those abilities from functioning.
Archery - This can be more traditional, magical, or include moving targets! If you're particularly unlucky, your target may even shoot back.
Softball - What instills a sense of camaraderie better than a bit of team sports? Games will be held on Wednesdays, the field is otherwise available for practice.
Dodge Ball - Standing diametrically opposed to Softball is dodge ball, the bully’s sport. This is a great opportunity to claim dominance or be sent to the Nurse’s Office.
Obstacle Course - You are directed into a large maze with multiple obstacles for them to overcome, such as rock climbing walls, ramps, tires, and nets.
Capture the Flag - Small teams are put together in order to take the flag from a particular bot, whose entire goal is to avoid being caught.
Canoe Race - Canoes are placed into the rivers just off of the camp, and characters must race to the finish line.
Chocobo Riding - Learn how to care for and ride these magnificent birds! Newbies will be taken around the corral, whereas more experienced riders can take the trail around the lake.
Arts and Crafts - Make friendship bracelets, bead lizards, paint rocks, learn origami! Or perhaps you're tasked with putting together an enchanted necklace. Don't know how to do enchantments? Now is as good of a time as any to learn.
Campfire stories - Share scary stories amongst yourselves around the campfire late into the night. If you're particularly unlucky, you may just hear the thing you were just warning others about..

⏵ NIGHT TIME ⏴

Once campers have been put to bed, the counselors can still stay up. Unwind with hidden beers and the strumming of a guitar. Don’t get too comfortable, though, since without supervision, no one is keeping the campers in bed.

After dark, should campers evade their counselors, they can go exploring in the dark. Eerie lights glimmer from the lake. There’s rumors of a headless spectre walking from the archery field to the edge of the forest. Should you behave, you still might hear a scratching at your bunk house window.

And on the very last night of camp, there will be a talent show. Show off your hidden talent and bask in the excitement of wowing your fellow campers!

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Welcome to Camp Etraya! Please enjoy the s'mores and campfire songs. :)

Camp will last approximately two weeks, going from May 16th to May 30th.

For all questions relating to this mission, please refer to the plotting post. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

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[An Zhe frowns slightly, clearly thinking hard about which of these might be the lie. After a moment, he looks up and tentatively says,] Is it that you became a god?

[What even is a god? Are they real? All he knows of religion is some guys reciting the Lord's Prayer in a room he was passing by once...]

Wade thinks he's learned to decipher the slight differentiation of scowl on Cable's face. This one has a slightly more downturn on the left edge of his lip. So he's concerned.

Or he's got to take a shit.

He shrugs at the question, "This seems like a more interesting plot to me. I love slice of life bullshit. I heard friendship bracelets and I was in."

"I mean, you run out of magic power eventually, and that can be pretty bad if you're using it to fly or fight at the time, ha ha..."

Popp is trying and failing to sound professional and like he has not done exactly that multiple times. While he's feeling quite chatty, he doesn't really know Barnabas well enough to talk about the time he outright died, and frankly he does not want to think about it either. So he quickly starts yapping on about something else that none of his teachers would approve of. These foreign warriors sure are a bad influence!

"I don't know a lot about Forbidden Magic - there's a few spells that only rare monsters can use, or spells that have bad side effects, or some that are just plain evil. I've seen a few of them up close, but obviously I wouldn't study under someone who would go around teaching people that kind of thing."

Popp goes to cross his arms in indignant emphasis, remembers that he's holding a marshmallow stick before he does, and self-righteously eats the marshmallow instead. Homph.

Running out of magic power was often something very lethal for bearers and Dominants in Barnabas' world. Though, that was because people were often pushed past the point of exhaustion, starved and abused as they were. They would be forced to cut into their own lifeforce, destroying their own bodies for the whims of their masters. Those who were afforded a better life, able to enjoy the luxury of rest and care, did not suffer the damage so immediately, but it would eventually catch up with them.

Just as a warrior's body would eventually succumb to the damages from years on the battlefield, those who utilized their magic would find their bodies paying the price of these exertions.

That Pop and his people did not seem to carry such concern was strange to him, though not as strange as it could be. Barnabas himself is but a nigh endless fount of aether, his body untouched by the avaricious use of magic, but he is an exception.

"What marks the magic forbidden? The nature of the spells themselves, or simply their yield?" His voice is as neutral as it has been this whole time, and he doesn't even react to Pop almost crossing his arms while holding that stick, nor to his swift recovery.

That some of these spells are seen as "plain evil" does not tell him much. After all, what one might consider evil could very well be someone else's good.

Vax shrugs, since he can't really pinpont one specific reason. "Guess I don't like being told what time to go to bed." The people in his cabin are nice, and it's not the counsellors faults they're in charge. Vax hopes he's not giving his own counsellor too much of a hard time by sneaking out.

"And when someone says to stay in one place, I have to find out why." Is Aurora and Echo keeping something from them? Maybe. Maybe not.

Oh, nice! Wade gets to pop his gold star cherry. How exciting! Not quite as sexy as the other way, but still fun! He watches him put it on, taking in the man and his lack of knowledge of gold stars and beer cans.

"Wine? Sure, sure. That's cool. I'm not fancy enough for wine. I'm a beer, tacos, and cocaine kind of guy. And having wine after a long day, sitting by the fire, isn't quite the same. Now... if we were in a hot tub? That'd be a different story."

Vax can't help but smile. "I think my best bonding was in survival mode." He knows the friends he has now is likely due to being thrown into perilous situations together.

"But I don't think you're wrong. Why don't you show me what you can do with that bow?" Jason said he knows how to use one, at least to some extent.

Jason grins as he takes one of the heavier bows and a couple of arrows. It's been a slow day so far and this could be fun. It beats arts and crafts at least.

"Sure," he says. "Care to join me?"

[What a nice guy...a stubborn guy...for half a second he wonders if Dion could carry him on his back for hours on end like Lu Feng did that one time, before dismissing the thought and preparing himself to attempt jogging again.]

Thank you for your concern. I'll...try my best.

[To be honest, he could go much farther walking than running, but—before he starts!] Were you in the military, before coming here? [The only job he can think of that requires training like this!]

[Antigone squints, smirking as crookedly as the muzzle can let them. there's a slight sharpness to their eyes one could interpret as condescension while they more carefully scrutinize this kid's features - the nose shape, eye size, hair color, all that jazz. stowing that into memory.]

No? So you're not a barbarian just on the bottom rung?

Have you? How interesting. What were they like?

[ He sounds sincere, but he's already trying to figure out how hostile they were to Kirk. And if Damian's involved? Very hostile. ]

[would Knife get any points for shoving this guy into a door. would backhanding him cause some stupid incident.

Get those fingers any closer to me and I'm biting them off, asshole!]

Don't be stupid. If someone asks, I say so. Nobody asked and the sky had it. The--[irritable snort, the equivalent of an eyeroll.] The technology had it.

[ Dean just stares at him, blinking once like he's been personally betrayed. He throws his arms out, then slaps a palm to his chest. ]

Do I look like part of the Borg to you? Seriously? I'm not assimilating unless it's into dodgeball or taco night.

[ he does enjoy a good taco and margs night , just sayin'.

He looks down at the dodgeballs scattered around, the whistle, all the trappings. ]

I just... I wanna make sure I'm doing what I can to keep my brother safe back home. If playing camp counselor gets me one step closer to that? Fine. I'll wear the damn whistle and roast marshmallows.

[ This whole bullshit forced "PROVE YOUR UNIVERSE IS WORTHY" crap is grating on him, ngl. He's been here over a year, just mission after mission, each one tossing more fuel on the trauma fire. At least this one’s something he can lean into. It’s simple, way more manageable than the train or the labyrinth or the Stepford crap. It feels like one where he can actually be useful.

But even Dean has a line. He'll play camp games because he wants to, because it's fun. He'll blow the whistle, and he'll lead haunted hikes and arts and crafts, but if Aurora or the powers that be ever ask him to cross a moral line? To do something cruel, something that really does makes him one of the Borg?

He won't do it. ]

[ Well. To be fair, Dean is a thief, he is shady as hell, and he is drawing demonic patterns all over the place, cabins, windows and whatnot. It's pretty sus and a fair (and accurate) assumption. So for someone to be literally half a second away from tackling Dean into the dirt yelling “DID YOU EAT THE CHILDREN??”? Not really an overreaction.

He's almost through scribbling a very complex angel proofing sigil (because those bastards are wily, believe it or not) when he hears the voice. He doesn't jump, because he's been expecting something to jump out at him all night, but there is a ripple of tensing muscle down his back, shoulders straightening. He'd been expecting something spooky, not a guy who smells like burnt hot dogs and suspicion. ]

Salt on the windows, this is chalk. [ He's going to finish the sigil, making sure not to get anything wrong, then he turns, wiping his hands on his jeans. ]

Angel proofing, demon repellant, that kinda thing. Salt keeps all the baddies out, or at least it should. Been putting demon traps under every cabin's front doormat. No demon's killing these people on my watch.

[ he has no idea there is a murder goo goblin hanging out and lurking. ]

Name's Dean, Cheetah's counselor. [ He pauses, then scrunches his brow in thought. ] Maybe I should teach a class - How to Survive the Supernatural, 101.

Edited 2025-05-26 00:19 (UTC)

[ He blinks.

Turning toward her, he lightly shakes his head. ]

Oh, I don't know.

Oh. They must really care about you.

[ That's probably what that means, right? Yeah. ]

More in general. Friendly to each other, I think.

[ Henry would like to dissociate out of the conversation, but he stops himself from doing so. He has not yet done a social faux pas when he has to get up and leave; he's doing fine. He's using words. It's all right, and he likes Sephiroth. He'd like to make sure that the teenager is doing well and is happy. ]

I hope you've made some friends...

[Oh hello there, strange person he does not know. (Chu Wenshan, among his many other talents, has a severe case of face blindness). He pauses in his paper-crumpling activities to give the man a small wave hello.]

Should I? The other options seemed to be about as difficult, I think.

[Laura isn't very good at this whole birthday thing, but she's doing her best. She'd employed the help of people who know how to bake cakes — or at least she hopes they know how to bake cakes — and even added one of her favorite toy figures on it for flourish. The camping area has a small table with the components needed to create fabled 's'mores' — marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate. All delicious on their own, mind, but Peter Parker has decided to offer a temporary demonstration so that people don't ruin their first time making one of these mysterious creations.

Outside of the campfire that continues to burn as the day goes on, there's a long table where Laura's carefully made sandwiches are protected under small nets — you cannot really fight off flies with adamantium claws, anyway. She wasn't sure if sandwiches were a birthday food, but it was the only thing she really knows how to make.

... And that's it! Nothing is particularly luxurious or complex about the small party she'd set up, mostly because she had no idea how to create one. But she'd like to think she's done a good job, yes?

(Then why does she feel so nervous, like everyone will see she's the worst party maker in all of the worlds combined?)

... A little anxious, she starts gobbling up some of the sandwiches to curb the worry.]

[OOC: Just a quickie, nothing too fancy! Laura's small birthday is open to everyone at camp and takes place on the 23rd of May, at 3:00 pm. Feel free to just have your character drop by, or even just a quick comment on if they were leaving a gift. No stress here. :) Peter Parker will be giving a smores demonstration at this campfire party as well below this comment.]

[At that question, very slightly furrows his brow underneath his helmet]

Unfortunately, aggressive. The other Batman called me a copycat. And a kid threatened someone from my world with a knife.

[*which just so happens to correlate to a little girl's birthday.]

Welcome everyone to the mandatory smores demonstration.

I'm Peter Parker, resident counselor for the Narwhals and professional s'mores maker. Uhhh. Not that I camped a lot as a kid. We mostly did this kind of thing in our apartment, using the stove. But it's still the same idea. Nature is just a plus. Hey, did you know it stands for 'some mores'? Like, 'can I have some more'? The girl scouts totally make the best campfire snacks. One time Tony Stark bought out the entire batch of their cookies from a local elementary school and gave me, like, thirty boxes--

[Oh. Rambling. He stares back at what is likely a baffled audience before proceeding:]

See, all you gotta do is stick the marshmallow on a stick — like so! Once it's nice and golden, you put the chocolate on the graham cracker, then the marshmallow gets squished between like this.

[EASY PEASY. Nobody could get this wrong.]

Any questions?

You don't know.

[Clearly, she believes him. Given how gripped she is by the story. If it were anything like the Otherworld, he'd probably be able to describe it in a way she recognized. Though she doesn't think they're from the same world.]

But what did they look like? These worlds kept changing?

[This just seems to scandalize her further.]

Neutral colors are perfectly fine!

[Like the solid black dress, apparently.]

[ Bruce spares Kirk only a brief glance. ]

That sounds dreadful. I hope your friend wasn't hurt.

[ Probably that unhinged Superman on the network and if Damian's attacked him, he must have had a good reason. ]

"Sunset of the following day. It was really close. Don't ask me how the timing works, it's... an elemental thing. Sun and moon, hot and cold."

A light flash of frost from Popp's fingertips keeps the chocolate from melting all over his everpresent gloves this close to the fire, and a flicker of flame from the other hand gets it properly oozing once it's safely ensconced in the cracker. His father would be so disappointed that he's not putting any of this effort and craftsmanship ability into weaponsmithing.

"Seeing with your mind's eye and a pure heart is the key to mastering Air Strash. Or something like that, I didn't pay much attention to that part of class because I'm not a swordsman."

Airy, dismissive. He was absolutely supposed to be paying attention, but... look, past Popp was who he was. He did not know how important all of that would end up being extremely soon. He snaps the s'more in two and holds out half to Sephiroth. Sharing food around a fire is an ancient tradition that goes back to the dawn of humanity.

"The scientific way to say it, since I know how you are, is that he had to use an extra sense to find Flazzard's hidden core and then hit it with a ranged attack."

Well... there was a subway but there wasn't an exit. And a forest. And a prison. And buildings that were stacked on top of each other. Also there were strange creatures running through all of them.

[ As he explains, he gestures weakly in the air. Not because he isn't sure of what he's saying (well, that, too) but he also just isn't 100% sure what he should be doing with his hands. ]

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Page 33 of 118

MISSION 009

two truths and a lie

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cw: mention of drugs

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Laura's Lil' Birthday Top Level

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Peter Parker's S'mores Demonstration*

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