TDM 005

[etrayamods]

⏵ arrival ⏴ Arrival goes as anticipated. Characters awaken in a sterile hospital bed in a clean, white room to the hum of machines under the unnatural lighting common to well-kept institutions. Every bit was designed to be comforting and calming, even with the jarring undercurrent of this situation. The first face they see is Aurora's: her smile appears to be warm, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. She might offer a quick explanation, or leave characters to figure it out for themselves depending on their approach. The door to the room swings open, revealing a hallway that stretches out ahead of them. There’s noise from outside and strong pumpkin spice scents coming from the lobby. Ah, muffins and tea. Grab one and head into the crisp, sunny fall morning ahead. ⏵ potluck ⏴ Cutthroat Iron Etrayan Bake-Off As you step out of the arrival holding area into the main thoroughfare, the entire street has been turned into tents and chef stations to accommodate the activities of thirty people at once. There’s seats, trailers, and robots bustling about to make sure everyone is ready. A couple of cheerful robots in aprons and colorful sweaters approach and redirect you as you step towards the cooking area. There’s gas ranges, ovens, grills, blast chillers, mixers, and set walk-ins and pantries with just about every ingredient you can imagine. There are cameramen (also robots) patrolling the area to capture all your best moments and to broadcast them directly to your fellow citizens’ devices. Your instruction? “Make your signature dish. You have one hour, chef.” It can’t just be straightforward, can it? The land itself is held together with pure chaotic energy. If you’re lucky, all goes as planned. If you aren’t… well… Roll a Die 1 Your leg is now tied to another chef’s 2 Your meal is continually un-cooking itself. 3 All of your ingredients are pickled now 4 The longer you touch an ingredient, the bigger it gets. 5 Every time you lift your pot lid, a component changes. 6 The aromatics are glowing and flashing like LED lights. 7 Your knife has been replaced with a cheese grater. 8 The ingredients are now magnetically stuck together. 9 Your meal is becoming deep fried. 10 Kittens are multiplying out of the cupboard. * 11 All of your ingredients have become incredibly heavy. 12 Your cook pot moves burners whenever you turn around. 13 Eggs scream when you crack them 14 The kitchen has become incredibly slippery. 15 It’s soup now. 16 All utensils have been replaced with crustaceans. ** 17 Your knife has a mind of its own. Watch out! 18 Your fridge catches fire. 19 Your pasta is trying to escape. Go get it. 20 Any ingredient not in the pot starts to float away. * All kittens disappear at the end. ** These however, stay. ⏵ share a meal ⏴ As all the cooking concludes, you will be invited to plate your meal into one of many casserole dishes, regardless of what was made. A ladle will be tucked into the corner and placed on the table with a folded bit of cardstock declaring the chef’s name and the name of the dish. A helper camerabot will come around to each participant and ask for their thinking and their process. Even if you got away without having to cook, even looking towards the table of dishes will spur a helper bot to start making you a plate with one of everything. The helperbot will insist that it is rude to not at least try what their peers have made. In fact, if you are to fill out the score card for each person, you really must taste everything! The robots can’t try the food, so it’s up to you. The cards look like so. The grading system is opaque. Is it meant to be numbers? Stars? Letter grades? Well, you’re the judge. You figure it out. Chef: ___________ Dish:_____________ Judge:___________ Overall Rating:_______ Flavor Presentation Stackability Wet Originality Rizz ⏵ tummy ache survivor ⏴ No matter how well your compatriots cooked or baked their dishes, there are… factors. You see that carrot? It’s really just condensed chaos in the shape of a carrot. No matter how powerful you are, these particular ingredients may not mesh with your being. …And even if it is truly a carrot, do all the chefs know the proper cooking temperature of chicken? Even chickens are aliens to many. (Optional) Roll a Die 1 Tummy Ache. Go lay in bed. Complaining alleviates symptoms. 2 That plate of food has energized you. You feel compelled to race or spar. 3 The food has reminded you of home. You must tell someone a detail of your childhood. 4 That food was so horrible that it simply must be washed out somehow. Spicy peppers? Booze? Gravel??? You’re going to over do it. 5 You have now discovered your new favorite dish. Make them teach it to you or you’ll lose sleep over it. This is all you want to eat for the next week. 6 The oddity of the ingredients has transferred to you. You start floating away. 7 The range of food and textures have inspired you. Acquire an annoying new hobby or habit. 8 You are now haunted by the digital souls of chickens. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ Please direct all questions to our mod queries comment! ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

Potluck II

[bigpoofymammoth]

[Manny watches as the kittens multiplies out of the cupboard. It was a strange sight, though nowhere near as strange as utensils being replaced by shrimps. However, the mammoth couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at Little Cato's words.]

What exactly do you mean by "mutant Ventrexian babies"?

[furtitude]

[It's a particularly large alien that asks him the question but still, this guy with the trunk would fit right in in galactic society back home. Cato's seen plenty of big aliens, plenty of furry aliens, and plenty of big, furry aliens.]

I'm Ventrexian. My dad is human and he's always saying my species looks a lot like Earth cats. I get it now; they look like deformed Ventrexian babies.

[He gently cradles a cat against his chest, supporting its legs so it doesn't get spooked. It rubs its head against his chin and he keeps cooing at it.]

Look at you, you adorable little freak of nature. With your weird little freak legs.

[bigpoofymammoth]

...

So you’re saying that you’re an alien that just happen to look like a cat?

[Sounds unbelievable, but so is everything that happens in Etraya.]

[furtitude]

I'm pretty sure my species has been around longer than Earth cats because we prob'ly used to be like them and then had time to evolve to become us.

So it's more like Earth cats just happen to look like Ventrexians.

[He's bullshitting because he has no clue about how long cats on Earth have been around, but he could still be right. His species did need time to evolve from cat-like animals to bipedal sentience after all.]

[He's careful to check that none of the cats are there and lays on his back, letting himself get absorbed into the growing fluff collective.]

It's prob'ly like crabs. Almost every planet with some kind of temperate ocean has stuff that evolves into crabs. They call it something. Carcin - Carcizine-ing?

Maybe in some places, animals cat-acinize.

[bigpoofymammoth]

I see...

[Manny ignores the kittens that were wandering around his feet. At least he's careful enough to not step on them by accident.]

If that’s the case, how did you find yourself in your world's Earth?

[furtitude]

I haven't really hung out on Earth much.

[Just that time he and his crew tried (and failed) to save it.]

[But he doesn't talk about that, not knowing if the big guy here has some kind of attachment to Earth. He's not human, but he sounds familiar with it. What if he's from a version of Earth from another dimension? It'd be a little downer to mention "I went there once but now it's gone."]

[Instead, he briefly looks a little sad and reflective for a moment, but he shakes himself out of it.]

My dad's human, though, so he talks about Earth sometimes. [There's a small smile.] He adopted me. He calls me spider-cat - I guess because spiders climb around all over like I do and also I look like Earth cats? Which, I can toootally see it now.

Most of my crew is human, actually. [Especially now after they've lost the others.] Like my dad's girlfriend Quinn - she's my friend, too, and so was another dimension version of her, Nightfall? And my grandma. They've all mentioned Earth stuff sometimes.

[He had been drowning in grief after losing his other father - devastated until they eventually saved Avocato through time travel. At one point, he'd curled up on the floor of the ship's hold, weeping over how alone he was, until Gary promised he wouldn't leave him. And he hasn't since. He even chased him down to try to bring him home safe the time he'd run away.]

[He'd been taken in by a group that for the most part, wasn't the same species. But until they figured out a way to save his other father through time travel, there was no journey for him, no tribe or other parent to take him to.]

[So they had all said "he's ours now."]

[And given him a new family after he'd lost the only family he had.]