MISSION 004 (NPC INTERACTIONS)

[etrayanpcs]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: July 19th-August 9th.
WHERE: Moorecroft Village
WHAT: NPC interactions throughout the mission.
NOTES\WARNINGS: Potential death.

Please use this log for any NPC interactions occurring during the mission! In your tag-in, please include which NPC you want to speak to (if there's one specifically), and let us know if there's any information you're looking for in particular.

Comments

Text to Eos

[levelshift]

[Shortly after arriving in the new bubble, Accelerator sends out a text message to Eos.]

Hey. Thanks for letting me use your network.

[Ugh, he isn't good at gratitude, but much like with Aurora Eos is under no obligation to let him use the processing power of her network in this way, so at the very least he should say something.]

[etrayanpcs]

I am required to maintain your basic needs.

[levelshift]

My needs are a little less basic than most people.

What's with your bubble being a facsimile of American suburbs? Etraya is a lot more eclectic. Who decided this?

A Moorecroft resident who's been around a while

[agoddessonce]

[ At work and at her side of the neighborhood, Ororo is sociable and even-tempered, trying to get to know what life was like here - what the people know, how they operate. She seeks out any resident who's been in this town for a year or more, if possible, and makes the equivalent of water cooler conversation. ]

We don't have houses or jobs like these where I am from. Was it always like this, or did you need to request them?

[ ooc: please let me know if this's all good! ]

[etrayanpcs]

[ At the makeshift "news" station that Ororo works at are numerous other individuals: cameramen, sound engineers, technicians, engineers - you name it, and there's someone there who's at least trying to complete their job duties, even if they have no idea how to. One of the sound engineers, Declan, looks around Ororo's age. Brown curls fall over his forehead in a look that could only be called I tried really hard to make it look like I didn't try at all. When she strikes up a conversation, he throws her a playful, flirty grin, and raises his coffee mug to his mouth to finish the last of it. )

It's been like this as long as I can remember. Running theory is Eos really, really likes old sitcoms.

[agoddessonce]

I suppose it would help quite a lot, if one had an idea of what old sitcoms were like. I did not watch much television on my world.

[ The grin is a familiar sight, at least, and she wonders if she can use his interest to keep him around for answers, without encouraging him too much and without scaring him off from answering her.

She fiddles with the lapel microphone on her collar idly, a potential reason for keeping him around her for the moment. ]

Did you? And do you find that things are so predictable?

Raz (also Clarke is tagging along with him)

[neverleave]

["Raz," they called him, the person who's been here for six years. Natsuno doesn't want to out himself as the person who sent the morse code to Moorecroft, but surely just asking around about veteran residents isn't weird. Their mission is to blend in, so it makes sense to ask for advice, right?

So there he is, with Clarke in tow, inclining his head politely.]

Hi, Raz? We heard you've been here for a while. Mind if we ask some questions?

[etrayanpcs]

[ Raz, they had called him, given it is his name. The person who had been speaking to Natsuno hadn't been lying when they'd said he'd been around longest: Raz has been on Moorecroft for a while. It's aged him, too: Raz may be barely hitting his 30s, but he looks ten years older. A massive scar goes from the corner of his mouth up to the top of his right ear, which Natsuno will be told to look for when asking after him. He works at the shop as a mechanic, maintaining vehicles within the city bubble, which is the easiest place to find him during the day. When Natsuno and Clarke approach him, he takes his head out from under the hood of the vehicle he had been working on, hands covered in grease and brows furrowed at the unwanted intrusion, but he doesn't tell the kid off. Yet. ]

The welcoming committee's better for that. They've got a whole spiel and everything.

[skaikru]

( natsuno had pioneered the morse code communication with moorecroft in the first place, and clarke allows him to pioneer this approach. she follows a step behind and hovers at his left shoulder as, but when faced with that feels like the beginning of an attempt to divert them: )

We're not really interested in a spiel. Especially not one that's been well practiced and is probably meant to put people at ease, you know?

text → Eos

[reconstruction]

Hello, Eos. I spoke to Aurora, I'm not sure if you're in direct contact with her, but she told me you might have some information for me.

Are you able to tell me anything about who made you?

[etrayanpcs]

What information are you looking for specifically?

[reconstruction]

Aurora hasn't been able to provide what I would consider necessary information for the inhabitants of Etraya. I'm not sure if this is because of her programming or because she doesn't have the information on file to share.

There's been involvement with other planets, but no data on the survivors, or if there were survivors. Nothing is known about Echo, or if Echo is AI. I was hoping with your experience you could help me. Dates, names of those involved in any creation or experiment, and your history as well would be appreciated, if possible.

Action ; Looking for Theo!

[keepitgoing]

[Peter is very worried about this 'Theo' guy.

Call it a simplistic venture, considering the scope of Etraya and this bubble, too; maybe he should be focusing on behaving and getting good scores on... whatever it is Echo's basing her assessments on. Maybe he should be trying to think of other ways to save universes or at the very least keep his off the chopping block.

But the funny thing is, he just keeps thinking about how this 'Theo' guy is doing. He can't stop thinking about it, even as he's about to settle down for the night; how absolutely nightmarish it must have been, to be delivered that role. How he can't possibly be doing well in the wake of it. How there might be people looking at him differently. Stuff like that. He worries about the guy, maybe more than he should — but that's just it, isn't it? Spider-Man always worries about the people in his community, even if he's only a visitor in this instance.

So he shows up at the man's residence with an apple pie he tried really hard on, and... asks for Theo. He's not sure what he'll get at first - but he's hopeful he can at least do the right thing and check on him, just in case he really needs it.]

[etrayanpcs]

[ Theo doesn't spend a significant amount of time at home these days. 'Home' is full of people he's gotten used to: his best friend, Adam. His on and off again fling with Lyra, as well as Yera, the teenager who he'd become quite close to a few missions ago when they'd been stranded together and had to watch each other's backs. She's supposed to be his 'daughter' here, and while their age gap isn't that far apart, he'd be lying if he said he didn't have paternal feelings towards the kid. Which is why he's been staying away:

The bloodbath of the last mission hit him hard because he hadn't wanted to hurt anyone at all. Unfortunately, Eos hadn't given him any choice, so he'd left several bodies in his wake across Moorecroft.

The door to his home opens, and Peter is met by Yera: a seventeen-year-old girl who looks like she's battle-ready at all times, just in case. She eyes him for a moment, suspicious of what he wants with Theo, then leans back through the doorframe to yell out Theo's name down the hallway.

Even as Theo comes down the stairs that lead from the second floor, she keeps a grip on the doorframe, not letting Peter or Theo pass the door for the moment.

And Theo, who looks absolutely exhausted with dark circles sitting deep under his eyes, looks to Peter over the top of Yera's head. ]

You need something?

[keepitgoing]

[Peter shifts awkwardly on his feet, looking at Yera like a boy about to be consumed whole by jaws that may or may not unhinge. Yera, please, he comes in peace.]

Um...! Not really, no. I mean, I guess I came to talk... if you wanted.

I'm new — I'm Peter? Parker. Peter Parker. [Listen, nobody ever gave Peter a medal for introducing himself in any other way than nerdy and uncool. But he's earnest, and that's what matters!] I heard things were pretty rough recently, so... I just... wanted to check in and see how you're doing. If you're okay with that.

... I brought pie?

text, Eos

[tinflower]

[ It's a few days after arrival, and he kinda doesn't want to be talking to the equivalent of a headteacher, buuut he does think about that whole 'doing a good job' thing, so, even if maybe he isn't going to be the best guy in town...!! He should try to do the mission, right? ]

Hi, this is Gorgug. Can I ask you about your town and the culture?

[etrayanpcs]

Please specify.

Text → Eos

[hauntedsnowfall]

do you have a longer version of the rules
?

[etrayanpcs]

Yes.

for the loose-lipped town drunk;

[waytodie]

Yelena has had a handful of shifts at her bartending job now and has already fallen into something of a decent groove here; it isn't hard, she is chatty and can be incredibly personable when she likes, and she already knows how to make a decent drink and can even do a few bottle flip tricks for some entertainment.

That groove has led her to realize the regulars she sees every night she's here, and so she's taken to cozying up to those lot, making jokes and flirting in all those "right" moments. She's hoping one of them might start talking about things they've dealt with, or glitches in the perfect cookie-cutter outfit they seem to live in.

[etrayanpcs]

Yelena's amazing socializing skills have given her numerous opportunities with the locals: quite a few of them are chatty, as they don't have much reason not to chat.

A man named Raz occasionally comes by the bar, orders whiskey, and grumbles about how stupid this whole identify the outsiders among them mission is. But at least, he offers, it's significantly less violent than the last mission, and they have no reason to worry about something bad happening during it.

Declan is another man she'll see, albeit less frequently. He's chatty and friendly, throwing an arm around strangers and friends alike to pull them into whatever antics he's getting into: a game of pool, a card game in the corner of the bar (where points are put in rather than chips), or the occasional gaming console hooked up to one of the televisions for a bout of Kart which never turns out well.

It's the girl who keeps to the corner she'll get the most out of: a younger lady named Erai, with deep black sclera and incisors that are a little too long to fit into her mouth. She asks for tequila and nothing but tequila and often laments about previous missions she's gone on - how hard it's been when they've been thrown into games of real war, or when they've been placed into positions where they need to show off their ability to be sneaky. Once, she'll say, she had to shape-shift into an engineer to sneak passed the guard to plant a bomb on the engine of a massive ship. The ship hadn't blown, it had ended up being a test of their capacity to take out the ship, rather than any want to remove it from existence. But she hadn't known that at the time, and she still thinks about it: how many lives would have been on her hands, had the explosives gone off.

She thinks that maybe, that's part of Echo's game: whoever, or whatever, they are: they don't care what happens, just how far people are willing to go. Theo killed so many during their last mission, and the poor guy had been a pacifist before he'd gotten thrown into the mix - but he hadn't been left with any choice and, sure - no one was dead permanently, but think of how much that's going to weigh on him for forever: the blood on his hands, feeling someone's life fade away because of actions he did.

At least they have Moorecroft though, right? Eos isn't the worst. And the weird shit going on at night--as long as they use earplugs they can ignore that whole mess. It's not as if it's ever touched anyone. Her voice gets low as she continues, leaning her forehead against the rim of an empty glass:

"I saw it once. I think? One of my 'kids' thought they'd camp out when they first got here, and I had to get them in before it came. I can't remember what it looked like, and neither can he, but I remember... you know how sometimes when you dream, all your teeth fall out? It felt like that."

Tea and gossip

[mutually_doomed]

Claude would have brought his immediate neighbors some treats as a "I'm new to the neighborhood" initiative to build relationships with people who might know more about what was going on than him. He would say hello in the morning, wave when he was outside, talk about the weather, other nice, neighborly things to do. He would also like to invite neighbors over for tea once he spent a little more time bonding with them over casual conversation outside.

Would he be able to learn any information about the situation that he was in (what was going on in the neighborhood, why they can't go out at night, how his and his families actions may be perceived for safety purposes, etc). Even if it is just little secrets like how the neighbors feel about each other/other neighbors.

[etrayanpcs]

Yes!

Most of the Etrayans are stationed in a new section of housing, but some newcomers were placed into newly emptied houses with Moorecroft residents living next door. Many of them are friendly and are open to conversing with their neighbors; partially because it's part of what is expected of them, and partially because - every neighborhood has a few extroverts, right?

In one of the houses close to Claude is a woman named Erai and the two teenagers who live with her. Erai is a shapeshifter, and some days comes home with a bright smile on her face, happy to chat about the weather, the recent missions, and offers to help Claude get used to the neighborhood. Some days, she comes home exhausted, looking miserable and quite done with everything. She'll let it spill how Moorecroft's current mission is to identify which newcomers are from Etraya, and which ones are new semi-permanent Moorecroft residents. Not that there is any intention of causing harm to anyone, they just have a map to mark off which residents they suspect aren't theirs. She'll mention that whatever it is that's outside, Claude had better keep an eye on the kids under his rooftop, because sometimes people get out and they don't come back. Ever.

A few events are happening, like neighborhood barbecues, skating competitions, and a few other normal, neighborly things. All things Erai and a few others would be happy to invite Claude to while he adjusts to Moorecroft.

The kid androids out after curfew | open to threadjacking if that's allowed

[wannasmash]

Izuku is in full hero gear and darting between groups trying to protect them from the robots (and the other thing). He deliberately broke curfew. They're kids a little younger than him as well as small children. He doesn't recognize them. From this city? Androids like Eos? It's hard to get a good look in the dark.

He hurries over with his flashlight attached to his shoulder, but he's not used to kids running away from him.

"Hey wait! I don't mean you any harm! I just want to know why there's a curfew and why the robots shoot to kill!"

[etrayanpcs]

Izuku manages to catch wind of one of the older kids, who continues running even after she hears him call out to her. She turns to look over her shoulder as she runs down the streets, dodging benches and trash cans and anything else that may get in her way.

"You're not supposed to see us! Or be out here! It's gonna get you!"