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 ⏴

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⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[maria wonders what she should say. what are the chances it was a different silent hill? but then what is the chance they're from the same one. the exact same world...

yet she knows deep down it has to be the same. it explains the draw that isn't just motherly. something even more.

what can she say? technically she should say she is from there too. it isn't like there had never been normal people there. even someone like mary had loved the place. so it doesn't have to mean anything. but if there's too many questions asked then how easy would it be able to tell that maria wasn't even real at all. never was...]

Ah. Visiting and running into a weirdo. How lucky for you. But if you were just visiting, it isn't really home I guess.

( unaware of the impact her words had on the other, heather seemed to take a more casual approach to the way she spoke with maria and handled the ingredients that stuck together. she had met half-humans, half-orcs, angels, and all sorts of interesting people and creatures here. something as simple as mentioning the town that once held her past self prisoner [in mind, body, soul], didn't seem all too crazy among the chaos.

additionally vincent knew of most members of the cult. if any of them had shown up, he would have told heather. at the very least he had that much going for him-

for all the taunting and bitterness he showed her, he at the very least was telling her things she should know. )

I.....I guess not.

( her words do bring about a sense of nostalgia for her, because even if that town meant suffering for her, for alessa, there was some positive things about it. lisa for example, the nurse who helped alessa all those years ago. she still held her in high regard, and even claudia, before the cult truly degraded her mind. )

Enough about me, sorry I'm being kinda selfish aren't I? Tell me about you Maria, is anyone else from your world here?

Nah, you're not. I like hearing about other people. [she was grateful for any conversation. and this was nice with heather. already she did like the girl and wanted to talk to her more. though maria did wonder if she should tell heather she was from silent hill. but did it matter? and if she talked about that then where else would that go? and maria didn't know what to say about herself. the 'life' she had was never hers anyway.]

Just me, I think. Which suits me just as well. Not like I ever made that many friends or anything. This is more conversation I've had in a long time.

[she's smiling because that sounds sad and the truth of it all does make her feel that. it was why she was content in hearing heather talk. she looks around at other ingredients, eyeing a tomato and wondering if she should go for it.]

( in the meantime, heather is wrangling the toppings she gathered up, trying her best to pull apart the oregano from the bottle of oil. she placed down the items onto the table before she reached for a spatula nearby to help her. )

Well the way this place is setup, you'd think it would be hard to make friends. However I've been pretty lucky, I've run into some kind people. There's actually a few others around my age who seem pretty nice.

( not that she wanted to divide maria and make her feel old, but heather was trying her best to comfort her. she knew what that was like, not having many friends, being ostracized and isolated. it made her heart ache for the other, even if she barely knew her-

what she did feel though was that maria was a kind person. she demonstrated it in her actions, hadn't she? )

Just stick to me Maria, I'll be your friend. Now if only we could get this salad to actually work...

[maria had already met other people here and they had been friendly. it had been a big surprise honestly and she was still taken aback by the fact she could talk to others. they could see her. seemingly enjoy her presence? it was novel. not something she thought she would ever experience.

and if she told the truth about anything about herself, would that still be true? or would they think she was something bizarre. something to stay away from because maria didn't really know that answer herself.]

Won't it get tiring being around an old lady like me?

[she's still joking and doesn't seem to mean it. but she is an adult and they're supposed to be uncool to teenagers. so the story goes.

though as she's touching this damn tomato, it keeps growing and she sighs, putting it down.]

Is this a test of patience because mine is being tested alright. You think a salad can just be lettuce and whatever you managed to pry apart?

( it doesn't take long to heather to see how maria had been struggling with the tomato and while it was true that adults were lame and uncool, someone here gave her a great piece of advice sometime before maria came in-

'make friends, look out for each other, and try to get a gun'

she was still working on that last part, but those words resonated with her. while she had made some efforts to be connect with a few other people here, they hadn't quite made a 'truce' about protection. she wasn't trying to use maria per say-

in fact she was trying to protect her despite the difference in physical age. )

There's lots of old people here, in fact, one of my friends here could pass for my grandfather.

( she chuckled a bit before moving closer to the other, after managing to pry apart the items she had been struggling with before. )

I think whoever is judging us will be happy we managed to make anything at all. Let's add in this stuff before it sticks together again?

[she laughs.] Good to know you are willing to friends with a grandma. [Maria, you are not even close to that. but it's honestly nice to be able to joke, and have fun, with someone at all. Heather is good company and she was in desperate need for good company. honestly, in need of any company. at this point, she wasn't picky.

the tomato is the size of her head when she tries to pick it up again and she throws her hands up.]

Well, at this point it feels more like your salad. [Maria had only shredded some lettuce because every other ingredient she touched seemed to want to go haywire.] Think it can be judged as a team effort?

Well if you're a grandma, you're the coolest one around.

( with a wave of her hand, it was clear heather was referring to the pink ends of her hair and her stylish outfit. it had been a long time for heather as well to just joke and have a nice conversation with anyone that didn't involve the order, pain and suffering, and other generally negative things. even if they had been struggling with this challenge, it still left her with a sense of happiness.

with one last bright smile of her own, heather chuckled a bit at her exhaustion with the tomato. )

I'm happy to share credit, let me just add the final toppings and we'll see what they say?

[it's true. she is truly so far from being a grandma. it's just not who she is.

she really had had fun with Heather, though. it'd been easy and she had never imagined conversation to be as such. nor did she imagine fun. especially since the last words she'd heard was James signing her death sentence basically.]

Somehow I doubt they will accept me doing much but I was also never made for the kitchen. [she motions to herself because what part of her looks like that either?]

( heather was truly all smiles despite the chaos, noises, and general bad time they and others were having in the kitchen. she was unsure about how to feel about etraya and being forced to be here, but she did have a personal goal despite it all-

to try and be happy. she had suffered for so long, in so many forms, and this was a breath of fresh air.

at maria's words, she topped off the salad as best she could, as fast as she could before the ingredients decided to fail on her all over again. once she finished, she lifted up the bowl they had worked on together and offered one last smile at maria before they headed out to be judged. )

Eh, it was your dish to begin with anyways. I just came in to help.

TDM 005

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