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

[levelshift]

'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."

[bootyshortsforoldmen]

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’?”

[levelshift]

"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."