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etrayamemes2024-11-11 03:04 pm
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2024-11-11 03:04 pm
Entry tags:
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…
* 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:_______
 ⏵ 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
Please direct all questions to our mod queries comment! |
no subject
By keeping contentment in the majority of the population, those who fight do not have the support of the whole. Keeps dissidents in a weaker position.
[ Will pauses next to a closet and opens the door. Eureka! Scrubs.
Not that a dull, green scrub top is going to be flattering, and Will isn't allowing himself to dwell on if/when this top was last washed. It isn't soaked in blood.
Without thinking, he ducks out of his shirt, exposing his torso for the couple of minutes it takes to get the scrub top sorted out. Long enough for Carver to see the scar that runs, practically from hip bone to hip bone, just under Will's navel.
To experienced eyes, the scar does not look fresh, suggesting it was a wound healed by this place. It's a scar that has been in place for years, long enough that Will doesn't appear to even be aware that it's on display in the moments before he gets re-dressed. ]
Crowd control is easier if you manipulate the majority into keeping control over the, minority. Maintain a position of benevolent authority. Keep your hands clean. If you start doling out punishments, you make yourself a target.
[ Sighing softly, Will looks around, shrugs and throws his old shirt into the closet and closes the door. ]
Whoever this Echo is, they aren't interested in making themselves a focal point. Hiding behind whatever 'Aurora' is, even though their message is made to sound dire.
no subject
A blessing. Maybe God loves this one.
He listens silently. He's being taught, he realizes; part of him resents it the way he always resented it when officers condescended to him. But he moves past that bristling part and listens. It's an honor to be taught by a master. ]
Sure, [ he agrees after a moment. ] Divide and conquer. So, who's the majority here?
no subject
which his idiot player forgot to mentionare less dramatic, easy to over look. Interesting only in that he has one on each shoulder, both covered now.In truth Will doesn't intend to come off as condescending, but he does tend to slide in that direction, whether he's conscious of it or not. ]
Good question. [ He says with direct honesty. ] You and Aurora are the only two 'beings' I've have interaction with since I woke up.
[ Glancing up the hallway towards what looks like it could be a door to the outside, Will sighs deeply. The sort of sigh that speaks to a bone deep exhaustion; mental in this case.
'So much for peaceful rest.' ]
'“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead”' [ He quotes Shakespeare in a quiet voice, as if an internal dialogue just happened to make it out past his lips.
He does shake himself free of wherever his thoughts have gone, and turns to Carver. ] Suppose we'd better go find answers.
no subject
[ There are more. Otherwise this scheme doesn’t make much sense, does it? Carver inclines his head ever so slightly as the other man dresses himself. A survivor. Scarred, probably blooded. Maybe the commander would have spared this one. There were times in the beginning when Pope didn’t have them salt and burn all they came across. It wouldn’t be a sin to return to that now, would it? Just for a moment?
Besides. Shaw’s the commander now. God always loved her best.
Absently, Carver unhooks his belt and begins winding the leather around his forearm, the teeth pressed between his knuckles as a makeshift punch dagger. There’s no ending here that doesn’t involve a fight, so best to be prepared for that. He doesn’t know what the other man can do except survive. It might fall on Carver to do the killing. But then, he’s used to that. ]
Suppose we should, Hal, [ he agrees, in that same bland tone. They haven’t given names and perhaps won’t, but Carver knows his Shakespeare better than most people assume; it’ll do for now. ] You good with your hands?
no subject
He watches as the larger man prepares a makeshift weapon. It is probably a wise course of action, but Will makes a mental note not to let Carver get behind him. The man seems to have walked himself back from the ledge of violence, but they haven't even exchanged names yet -Will's fault, he doesn't people well- and it would be foolish to blindly trust.
Will has a great deal of faith in his abilities, but he also knows that his ability to stay on the correct side of the line between self-confidence and hubris often fails. No, he'll just do his best to keep Carver beside, or in front of him.
The Harpy knife is still in his pocket, where it will stay for the moment. ]
If I have to be. [ He answers, in those soft tones. ] I can appreciate an over abundance of caution, but I try not lead with violence.
[ He is stronger with his mind. The physical fights he's been in were started by the other participant. Well. Except Cordell. Will was the one to initial introduce violence to that relationship.
Stepping to a door that has signage to indicate it is an exit, he adopts a traditional law enforcement position. It allows Will to open the door, while providing a clear path for Carver to ambush any threats.
Dear Carver. Please don't some random person walking with a latte. ]
no subject
These things happen, the commander used to say.
He twitches, refocusing. There's a task in front of him now and the thought settles him the way nothing else has since Carver woke up here. ]
Then I'll handle it. [ He's used to that, anyway. He was a doorkicker long before he was trained as an interrogator. First in, hit hard, act as a battering ram for the rest of the team. Hal gets into position, opening the door, and Carver gives him a single nod before stepping through it neat and controlled as a dancer. Ready to kill whatever he finds on the other side.
For better or worse, there's nothing. He lowers his arm, scanning the area. ]
There's no dead here, [ he says after a moment. ] You notice that?
[ It's strange. Not even the smell of them in the distance. ]
no subject
In the next microsecond of thought, Will processes the fact that Carver was looking for dead? Not only looking for dead, but appeared to have prepared himself to fight the dead.
Will's experience is that the dead usually do their fighting before they end up ... dead.
Before he speaks, Will also identifies that for whatever reason, Carver was expecting the dead. Speaking in a way that suggests such an encounter would have normal in the world Carver originated from.
...
Will has a headache. ]
Given our circumstances, [ he begins as he steps out through the door and starts to look around at the environment. ] I think we should be thankful that we don't have that as an added complication.
no subject
That takes effort. That takes time. And there was enough food laid out to feed a large group.
His jaw works. ]
Maybe.
[ But just accepting this as they are was a problem in Meridian, one of his many mistakes. He didn't see the trap massing outside their gates until Pope pointed it out. He cannot do that again. ]
Stay alert, Hal. I almost like you.
[ It'd be a shame if he died now. ]
no subject
It registers with Will that Carver means him when he uses the name, which reminds Will he hadn't offered his name. To be fair, he'd been focused on trying to de-escalate the tension in their initial meeting, and avoid getting snapped like a twig.
He briefly considers correcting the man, briefly considers sharing his name, but a gut instinct tells him to let it alone. Carver is winding back up, and Will has a sense, that if he tries to interject the tedious 'normalcy' of civil introductions into the current atmosphere, he might yet end up with his neck snapped.
Will wraps his words in the soft lilting voice he'd used when they'd initially met. One that is designed to avoid imposing stark reality upon whatever mental landscape the other man is traversing at the moment. ]
I appreciate the sentiment. [ His tone is genuine. He suspects that -much like himself- Carver doesn't 'almost like' just anyone. ]
There does not seem to be an identifiable threat. Which suggests that it might be wise to approach the food and drink with an abundance of caution.
no subject
[ It's said rather blandly. Dying from rat poison is an ugly way to die. People writhe. They go slowly and they go in pain. But people will do stupid things when they're starving like trust. They'll accept a stranger's offered hand and think it won't bring them to ruin.
Not him. He's learned that lesson too often and too well to risk it now. He hopes Hal's learned it, too. Henry V had a few things to say about that, didn't it? ]
no subject
Will thinks about the events that least to his distrust of pre-prepared food. Rat poison would have been considered preferable, at least in the beginning. It might have hurt in the short term, but that would have ended. As it was now, Will had to live with the knowledge of the ingredients he'd sampled at Hannibal's table over the years. ]
I'm concerned about drugs. [ He admits. Again, rat poison and glass were no picnic, but at least you were dead once it was all said and done. ] Something to make us more compliant, or susceptible to suggestion.
But glass would also be quite unpleasant.
no subject
[ Pope didn't like them relying on drugs back in the old world, before the fall. Unreliable, he called them. But sometimes the orders determined what methods were used. Sometimes there wasn't much of a choice. It's better to know what you risk with an enemy like this than to be caught unaware. ]
There are probably cameras here. I couldn't spot any but that doesn't mean shit.
[ He doesn't have the tools to look with more than his own two eyeballs right now. ]
no subject
It would be foolish of them not to have us under surveillance. [ Will agrees in a pensive tone, even as he looks upwards and tries to spot cameras on any nearby buildings. Nothing stands out to him. But given the technological sophistication that can be assumed from Aurora's existence, Will suspects they might never see the cameras. ]
Especially if what we were told, about our reason for being here, is genuine. It stands to reason this Echo, will want a full picture. Not just pieces of us being on our best behavior.
no subject
[ It's a kindness to be in company that understands. Hal isn't a Reaper, but he knows. He walked through the Valley and the fact that he survived means God loves at least some part of him. It's important to remember that.
Carver rolls his shoulders, watching their surroundings. Calculating. ]
Can't have us fucking it up, either. There'll be contingencies in place.
no subject
He has no trouble believing the larger man is correct. There will be some sort of control mechanism designed for this place. You don't bring in complete strangers, especially men like Carver and Will, simply on faith that they'll behave.
Hmm. ]
Those contingencies might help us learn about Echo. [ He says, tone pensive. ] The more confident they are in their power and control, the less need they'll have for contingencies.
But, if they're bluffing? [ He leaves the statement hanging, expecting that Carver will have no trouble following his line of thought. ]
no subject
You want to play this out. See exactly what we’re working with.
[ We, he says, almost unthinking. But they are in task together, aren’t they? ]
no subject
I believe what we don't know, vastly outweighs what we do. [ He says, slowly rotating as if to absorb as much of the environment around them as possible. ]
We need to be patient. Unassuming little worms on the hook. Let the fish come to us.
no subject
[ Carver hasn't seen many yet, not up close. But he has a feeling. This is a situation that can be manipulated. That can be controlled. They can make this work. ]
no subject
[ His response is given with a knowing glitter in his eye. He is thinking along the same lines as Carver. This situation can be made to work, but for now they are in the watch, listen, and learn stage. ]