etrayamemes | TDM 005

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TDM 005

⏵ 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 ⏴

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⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

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The responsible thing would be to either try and stop the guy, or get the attention of a robot. Accelerator is aware of this and he does have a brief inner debate about it, because being responsible is important even if it's also really exhausting.

But then, it's just toast, and this whole Bake-Off thing is stupid to begin with. He weighs the pros and cons of doing anything and indifference wins out, so he just continues to watch Hank. When he finishes the toast tower is looking exceedingly wobbly, like the slightest nudge will send it toppling over.

Accelerator, realizing it'd be a bad idea if he stuck around this spot at the table, clicks his tongue before grabbing his crutch and getting to his feet. "Lead the way. I don't wanna get blamed for any toast-related mishaps."

“Don’t worry,” Hank says as he’s shuffling his way down the line of tables. Hands tucked into his coat pockets oh-so conspiratorially. “It’s gonna be... that fucker who gets the robots’ shit.”

He points at the next sorry loser who comes round to poke at the toast tower monstrosity. Dropping his hand after a split second because he’s not that stupid.

And sure enough the toast abomination topples like a house of cards. One of the little robots who handed out the cards comes speeding over, beeping obnoxiously all the while. Hopefully not scanning for fingerprints or something weird like that.

“What would the punishment be, anyway?” Hank asks nonchalantly, rolling back on his heels. “Y’know. Sabotage. Heh.”

Edited 2024-11-13 15:59 (UTC)

Accelerator follows after Hank at a slower pace, occasionally glancing down at the table in hopes of seeing some food that looks halfway decent. Maybe more regular toast, less burnt toast tower.

He only pulls his gaze away when Hank points, watching quietly as the poor sap gets too close to the toast, and - well. There it goes. It's a ridiculous sight, made all the funnier when the robot rushes over beeping in distress. As deadpan as Accelerator is, even his mouth is twitching a little as he watches.

Okay, this is a pretty funny prank. He won't deny that.

"Aurora's robots are a lot more pacifistic than her sister's, so they'll probably just be upset," he responds casually. "It's just toast. They'll get over it."

“No repercussions, huh?” Hank whistles. “You never get in trouble here? An upstanding representative of your galaxy or whatever, huh?”

There’s someone else from Hank’s world here who will probably make up for his bullshit.

...Maybe.

“Dunno what I’m supposed to do here, honestly. Not exactly the right man for the job. I’ve got half a mind to plop my ass down and wait for the end of the world, or whatever.”

But Hank would rather not think about all that. Would rather think about the disgusting tower of toast. RIP.

“That sister, though — sounds like trouble with all her little robo buddies.”

Accelerator shakes his head. "In her defense, her rules were in place for a reason, and we knew what we were getting into."

He can't fault Eos for going overboard with the programming of her robots, not when she was dealing with Im'mari as a threat. Other people may disagree with his stance, and he doesn't really care. He doesn't even blame the bots for having killed him.

"Anyways, I don't know if most people here would think of themselves as a good pick for saving their universe. I sure as hell don't," he adds, gaze traveling over the food on the table. He's going to stop in front of a plate of poorly wrapped spam musubi, which looks downright edible compared to the toast tower. "I'm a convicted felon, and I know for a fact that there are more appropriate picks back home than me."

“Hmm. A convicted felon, huh? Wouldn’t have figured.”

Hank almost doesn’t inquire further. He can’t help the way his nose wrinkles at this, although he’s been a shitty detective for a long time.

But will he be here long enough to care who is and who isn’t a felon from whatever distant world? He hopes not.

“You kill someone?”

Eyeing the tragic assortment of food on display, Hank points to the sushi-looking dish. “Never had spam myself. You go right on ahead. Tell me how it is.”

Bit of a snicker, deep in his chest.

“They do these sort of get-togethers often here?”

Okay, so he’s being nosy. But if he’s going to be here for who knows how long, why not ask? Hank figures he’s got a couple of days, maybe a week, before most people figure out he’s a deadbeat. Which is fine by him. Probably.

Well, he isn't actually a picky eater, so he carefully picks up one of the spam musubi. The rice isn't all that sticky so some of it proceeds to fall back onto the plate. It's kind of a pain when he's only got the one hand to deal with this thing, but he takes a bite anyways.

Surprisingly, it isn't bad. It's salty, and the rice has been seasoned. He chews thoughtfully before answering. "Yeah. I think it's meant to help newbies fit in."

The bots are trying their best, really. They seem to genuinely like people and want to help out, even if they don't exactly understand what kind of help they should be offering. Sort of like well-meaning puppies.

He's about to take another bite, when he decides to lightly add: "Over ten thousand and thirty-one someones, to answer your first question."

Hank almost grabs one of whatever this guy’s eating, but nah. Let him be the guinea pig. What is spam even made out of? Especially here. Hank probably doesn’t want to know.

Luckily, there are more weird donuts. Hank likes donuts, almost has a good feeling about the one he’s just grabbed: covered in a chocolate cream with half a chocolate bar melted on. Whatever.

But then he hears the whole “over ten thousand and thirty-one someones” bit and, right when he gets to the best part of the donut — the chocolate bar! — Hank is choking.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Is this guy joking? He has no idea. Maybe? Hank is still spluttering chocolate, smacking his chest with his fist.

“How the hell did... I mean, was that all at once, or — you a serial killer or something?”

But that is still a hell of a lot of someones, and Hank finds himself eyeing this guy, trying to size him up. Figure out if he’s bullshitting.

Accelerator, being all of five foot six, built like a twig, and relying on a crutch to keep upright, doesn't look like all that much. There's a good reason Salome had described him as white asparagus.

He also doesn't blink when he gives that number out. It isn't exact, he supposes it should be somewhere to the tune of 10 100 adding in the members of Hound Dog and anyone before the Sisters, but when he was younger he wasn't keeping track of anyone who died as a result of his reflection.

He takes another bite of the musubi as Hank chokes on his donut, not reacting at all. That's about the kind of reaction he expected, and the serious expression on his face lends itself to the fact that he isn't lying. He isn't even exaggerating.

"I guess I technically qualify, huh?" He replies thoughtfully. "For that matter, I think this also makes me a mass murderer."

Hank smacks his chest one last time for good measure before clearing his throat.

“Is that what I got to look forward to here? A whole lot of mass murderers and serial killers, and who the hell knows what else?”

His voice is a little raspy. Eyes darting over the stretch of table closest to them, and thankfully there’s something that looks sort of like punch. He grabs a cup, uses the ladle to pour some in, and when he brings it to his lips it’s some weird spicy drink that leaves his throat burning, because of course it is.

“This place is trying to kill me already,” Hank mutters. “And here I thought I was a shitty rep for my world. I mean, no offense. Unless that’s the sort of criteria these people are lookin’ for.”

He would hope not, but what does Hank know about all this multiverse nonsense?

This guy doesn’t seem like he’s bullshitting; he seems so nonchalant about it and it’s setting off alarm bells.

Still, Hank has to ask: “So, you kill anyone here yet?”

Accelerator, chewing on some spam, patiently waits for Hank to start breathing normally again before answering.

"I think most people around here are halfway decent," he replies, setting the musubi down and looking for stray score card on the table to fill out. He's just a very big outlier, which... yeah, he was an outlier back home too, so this is nothing new for him.

"None taken. No, only simulacrums made by Echo, and I don't think they count." Hopefully they don't count. Grabbing a card and a pencil, he starts writing down some numbers. "I'm trying not to do the whole killing thing anymore if I don't need to. It isn't responsible."

The whole killing thing isn’t responsible, this guy is saying. Responsible.

“Well, glad you came to that conclusion all on your own. After, uh. Ten thousand or whatever.”

But it’s at least good news this guy hasn’t killed anyone here — or so Hank thinks, anyway. He doesn’t look like the sort to just randomly stab him with a knife here out in the open, but then again, Hank wouldn’t have thought he’d killed thousands, either.

“I like to think as long as someone’s not hurting anyone else, it’s okay. But obviously... shit, ten thousand? That’s a lot of someones.”

And a lot of grieving families, regardless of whatever excuse — and yet here Hank is, trying to weirdly justify this in his head, because what? This guy doesn’t seem so bad? Because he makes him think of kids back home around the same age who haven’t gone on murder sprees?

“Gotta say, first impression: you don’t seem so bad. Seem decent, even, maybe.” Although Hank has misjudged people on first meeting before. “Would be nice if our pasts didn’t follow us here, but I suppose they will eventually. In some way. Just... would hope I’m not high on your ‘to kill’ list if you ever change your mind about the whole murder thing.”

He goes in for a second bite of his chocolate donut, tragically sans the bar. Eyeing this alleged self-confessed murderer with a bit of a confused stare, because how the hell couldn’t he?

Ten thousand is an absurd number by any degree of measure. Accelerator doubts most people actively fighting in a war zone could come up with a number like that -- they'd have to be doing some mass destruction for that kind of body count, like dropping bombs or something. Even now it makes him sick to think about, and while it isn't obvious on his face the memories drawn up from this subject cause him to hold off on finding some other random competition food to rate.

Making things worse is hearing Hank go on. His face twists into a familiar scowl, and he's quick to shake his head. "You don't know a fucking thing about me, so don't start making charitable assumptions," he growls.

He needs to nip this first impression in the bud before Hank comes to the conclusion that he's a good person. "Just because I'm not actively trying to kill people around here doesn't mean I'm suddenly a good person."

“Didn’t say you were a good person. Said you seem decent. It’s not like you’ve gone and poisoned me.”

Or so Hank is assuming, anyway. Halfway through another bite of his delicious chocolate donut — is this the one thing here that is actually palatable? The one thing? — and he pauses mid-chew.

“You’ve had ample opportunity to do all that. So, unless I keel over dead in the next few hours, I’m gonna say you’ve treated me decently. That fair?”

The number still doesn’t feel real somehow — it’s too big and this guy looks so damn young — but Hank isn’t going to press further. He’d have his hackles raised if someone were poking around his business, too. Can’t blame the kid.

Hank does note, though, that there is no mention of him being low — or high — on any potential kill list. He has to hold in a smile at that.

“How about you tell me how long you’ve been here,” Hank says, trying to de-escalate, but hell — he’s not Connor. He’s not good with people. Living here is going to be a nightmare, isn’t it? “Seeing as how I just got here, and — what do they expect? We plop our asses down and wait to be judged by the AI overlord?”

As annoyed as Accelerator is, he can't really argue with that logic. He hasn't actually done anything violent, or even aggressive. At most, he's been a bit hostile (which could be easily read as a teenager being a typical teenager, so nothing really out of the ordinary). Clicking his tongue in irritation, he glances away.

At least Hank is taking the bodycount seriously? Which does not make Accelerator good, per say, but understanding the horrific scope of it inevitably draws more sympathy for the Sisters, and that is good.

".... Aurora isn't running things, Echo is, and we don't know what the fuck they are. Aurora's more like an admin assistant," he clarifies, at least not explaining that much. It's important to him that people know the difference between the roles of Aurora and Echo - since Aurora is the one they can talk to, he doesn't want people getting unreasonably angry with her over things she can't control.

He continues, "I've been here for about eight months. Other people have been here a little longer or shorter. People disappear and get brought in pretty regularly. The only real information we've gotten on that is that Aurora's told me Echo loses some of themselves every time they bring someone here, so who knows how much of themselves they've got left."

“Admin assistant, huh?”

Hank is piecing bits of the story together, little by little. And it’s all messed up, but... it could be worse. There could be no sense of familiarity. They could have been forced out into a literal hellscape — but they haven’t.

Yet.

“I wasn’t too kind to this Aurora when I first woke up, but — suppose that wasn’t her fault. Just unsettling, y’know. Waking up like that.”

He imagines she probably gets a lot of people coming here like that, swearing up a storm — and worse. Hank probably didn’t even make her top ten worst arrivals. Maybe she doesn’t even remember Hank with all the people who are in and out of the hospital.

Hopefully.

“Eight months, huh.” Hank whistles. “Quite a while. You learn anything interesting? Any weirdos I should steer clear of?”

Hank doesn’t really think he’ll really get an answer, but he’s gotta ask. He’s trying to keep all the details organized in his head — like it’s a case from back home, except this is his life for now. And it’s dangerous in a whole new way.

“Echo losin’ parts of themselves... sounds unstable.” Not that Hank can do anything about that. “Suppose we’re just here for the ride, then.”

'Admin assistant' is the best way he can put it. If what Aurora says is true, then all she's doing is receiving communications from Echo and enacting missions and stuff based off of instructions in those communications. From the information he's gathered, she has no say in what Echo decides, and in his opinion that's the most important part. Hence admin assistant, a position which handles administrative tasks and has no real power.

There are people here who don't agree with that, and people who treat her poorly, and from the scowl crossing Accelerator's face when Hank mentions his first encounter with her he isn't thrilled to hear that. As far as he's concerned she gets a lot of shit over something she's had no control over.

"Not really," is his unhelpful reply. People are annoying or they aren't, and there are a lot of weird jerks, including himself. He doesn't really care either way.

"There's got to be something we can do, but as far as I know no one's made any real headway," he adds. "Our only connection to Echo is Aurora, so we're limited that way. And a lot of the missions have been dangerous or fucking deadly, so we're dealing with that on top of things."

Hank almost smiles a little when Accelerator scowls, but he shouldn’t. Damn, he really should not.

His lips twitch, though. Can’t help that.

“Deadly, huh. Well, that’s just fuckin’ great.”

He lifts his donut and gestures to the people around them. If Hank didn’t know better, he might even call this weird smorgasbord a merry little affair. Most of the people he’s seen so far seem to be adjusting okay, albeit dazed. He hasn’t spotted anyone trying to jump someone else. No knives — or knives turned into lobsters — have been turned on someone else, from what he can tell.

It’s been oddly quiet for a place so apparently deadly. Like the calm before a storm.

“Between these missions, do you just... live? Mingle? Wait till the next time you might die?”

It feels like a stupid question, but this whole situation is weird. The waiting around seems hard, like sitting on the edge of his seat with teeth clenched, until finally... what? An opportunity to prove himself? To die?

A final bite of his donut, then: “What if someone refuses to do the missions? Just plops their ass down, and... nothin’?”

"Yeah, I guess." Accelerator replies with the kind of tone that makes it clear mingling isn't really his thing. Not surprising given his brusque attitude.

"Nothing. But usually there isn't any way to opt out -- when we had to go through that damn labyrinth, people couldn't just hang back because Aurora was redirecting the oxygen from here," he waves his free hand at their immediate surroundings, "into the maze. So you didn't have a choice if you didn't want to suffocate. Same with going to Eos' city, we all had to go."

Then again, it's not as if he tried very hard to opt out of any missions. Despite his own skepticism, he doesn't want to take the chance that Echo is being truthful. He's got too much responsibility back home to turn his back on his own universe.

He thinks a bit more on this. "I guess with the stuffed animals you could've just shoved it into a drawer and left it alone. Someone could've done that and skipped all of that bullshit entirely."

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TDM 005

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