etrayamemes | 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 ⏴

Please direct all questions to our mod queries comment!

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hard to tell if Will notices the way Accelerator glances to the side, taking a moment. The older man doesn't look up, or even call attention to the action, but it is pretty easy to see that he doesn't miss much.

Instead, his eyes remain focused on the kitten. The kitten is tucked up like a little dinner roll, to small to resemble a loaf of bread, and purring as it receives adoration.

Inwardly he thinks that while nine to ten months may feel like an eternity, it is often just a blink of an eye when one is pursuing a long game. He won't say this aloud, because he suspects the young man wouldn't appreciate the thought. Will hasn't quite determined whether everyone here is like himself, no better options, or if they have something/someone waiting for them back home.

"Has anyone fulfilled their purpose and been sent home on the merits of that success?"

That's a good question. Too bad he doesn't have a good answer. He'd kill to be able to say 'yes, we have proof and everything.'

He huffs, shaking his head. "Not sure. People've left, but...."

But he remembers Laura disappearing, a little kid who deserves more than the crappy life she was given, and his posture subtly tenses before he continues.

"... But there's been no announcement or anything. It's possible all of that 'saving your universe' stuff is total bullshit and we're here for some other reason. No one's been able to communicate with Echo and there's been no way to confirm."

Eyes still focused on the kitten, Will is quiet for a moment as he processes what Accelerator has said. When he speaks, it is a slight tangent away from his initial question.

"The foundation stone upon which most religions are built." He said softly. "The idea that blind faith, in an ambiguous promise of a better existence. But you must follow a certain set of rules."

A pause as he strokes a finger along the kitten's spine.

"Rule one. Obey the decrees of the unseen maker of the rules, with no evidence to support their claim of a positive outcome. The key is that neither the maker, nor the final result, can ever be known to the population at large."

"................................."

That's certainly a tangent. Accelerator is silent, listening and then for several long moments afterwards so he can process what he just heard. Religion doesn't come up all that often with him, and when it has it's been under specific circumstances, so at first it feels out of place to hear when they've been talking about Echo and Etraya's setup.

That said, what Will is saying makes a strange kind of sense. There's been outspoken skepticism about Echo, but at the end of the day, the majority of people here are doing their missions. They're obeying, himself included, all because of some nebulous claim.

Again, Accelerator doesn't have a lot of experience with religion outside of studying it for school and a few specific incidents - Russia, the United Kingdom - but he's finding himself really, really unsettled.

"Did you just get out of a cult or some shit?" It kind of sounds like it! But then, more seriously: "I don't believe Echo is completely unknowable, only out of reach right now. But that's just an opinion coming from an atheist."

Accelerator's response actually elicits a soft chuckle out of the otherwise morose looking man.

"'Some shit' covers it," he agrees and finally looks up from the kitten to the younger man's face. "Someone I knew back home, liked to indulge in discussions about the wanton cruelty of God." And that's putting it lightly.

"Perhaps Echo is, the 'great and powerful, Oz', in which case we're all in for disappointment."

Will Graham, everybody's favorite little rain cloud on a sunny day.

Cool, the guy may or may not have been in a cult. Or at least involved with someone cult-ish. Very normal stuff that makes Accelerator raise an eyebrow.

".... I've never seen the movie," he says bluntly, despite understanding the point Will is getting at. Sometimes his age is very apparent.

At the very least, he continues, offering up some more pertinent information than his (lack of) opinion on a beloved book series and movie. "I don't think you're wrong. There's something else -- I was talking to Aurora about some stuff, and she told me Echo loses some of themselves every time they bring someone new in. Same deal that happens when we die and come back here. Who knows how much of Echo is still Echo."

His relationship with Hannibal, from the beginning, is the poster child for 'it's complicated' and honestly? Defies any tidy label.

Will decides that Accelerator's initial statement does not require a direct response, but his focus visibly sharpens when the younger man shares the information about Echo.

"Do you believe Aurora is reliable in this statement?" He asks the question without sarcasm, or any indication that Will does or does not believe what Accelerator has heard.

It's a smart question, and Accelerator's answer comes without any hesitation.

"Yes."

That's a simple answer, one a lot of people around here would not necessarily agree with. But Accelerator knows how hard it is for artificial beings to exist in the company of so-called natural beings. He knows she's been limited in what she can say and do, and he hopes the recent dive into the lower floors of the hospital have helped her expand beyond her programming.

He isn't sure, but he's willing to go to bat for her. Continuing, he clarifies. "She isn't the type to lie, and there wasn't any reason for her to do it when we talked. The only other option is that the information she was given is wrong, which is possible. I'm not gonna discount the possibility. In that case, it isn't her fault she's wrong.

It'd mean she was fed the wrong information, or something. He keeps going, kind of rambling but not really caring: "But I think it's unlikely, since we've got confirmation that being brought back requires losing something. Could be that a massive alteration of a person's state of being requires a hell of a lot of energy, and the most direct way to get it is somehow through a 'price.'"

Not going to lie, Accelerator's response requires Will to take a few minutes to process. Even as he takes those moments, a question arises that he needs to ask before he responds in depth.

"Who loses something? The person being brought back?"

Accelerator nods, confirming what Will suspects. "Yup. It might be something really, really obvious. Apparently, you also might not realize it at all, but you always lose something if you die here and then get revived. Aurora confirmed that."

TDM 005

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cw: Religious discussions

cw: Religious discussions

cw: Religious discussions

cw: Religious discussions

cw: Religious discussions

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