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

1. Potluck

[talkstoomuch]

[Ari, on the other hand, has been trying and failing to make matzah brei. mostly because whenever she cracks open an egg, it screams.

she's really having a hard time with it and internally debating the whole 'which came first, the chicken or the egg' thing.

right now, she's leaning towards eggs. eggs which could become chicks who've decided to scream at her.

but the guy next to her...damn. that looks messy]

Pretty sure you can't. But, well, you can put it in a pot with some sliced up carrots and potatoes and make beef stew? That's always good and I can help you out, I'm tired of being yelled at by eggs. Can you believe any of this shit?

[nobraincell]

[Oh hello there, are you done making eggs scream, because if they're next to each other then he's definitely been hearing that this whole time.]

I can slice things. [was that the question though] Nothing else has made sense so far...I don't remember kitchens being like this either.

[talkstoomuch]

[she's absolutely done with making eggs scream. she may never be able to eat eggs again.

unless she hard-boils them first and turns them into deviled eggs. can eggs still scream if they've been hard-boiled?

she's hoping the answer is 'no']

Okay, then you're in luck! I wonder if you need some beef broth to really make it a stew and not just a bunch of different stuff all cooked together? And neither do I. Most of the apartments I stayed in had kitchens where you could stretch one arm and touch one wall, then do the same for the other arm. What about you, what kinds of kitchen do you have?

[nobraincell]

Beef broth...I could touch another steak and see if it melts again?

[Surely that'd work!!]

As for kitchens... usually you'd need to start the fire yourself, and get water from a well. Whoever invented all these machines must be very smart. [In other words: please help]

[talkstoomuch]

Hey, it's worth a shot!

[which in translation means, go for it! she's never seen anything like it and is fascinated and horrified in equal measures.

and if she wasn't already feeling culture shocked, his response would do that trick rather nicely!]

Yeah, they're really useful. Especially gas ovens, at least according to my fiancé and my best friend back home. They're both professional chefs. I'll be honest, usually I let them do the cooking and I make appreciative noises as I eat, so this is an adventure? But we'll figure it out. [she says with a confidence she doesn't entirely feel] Anyway, I'm Ari. What's your name?

[nobraincell]

Professional chefs...

[He'd love to meet a professional chef. Especially if the food was free....okay but we gotta focus on other things right now. Focus!]

Chu Wenshan. Nice to meet you.

[As he looks around for something to pick up the steak with before he potentially dissolves it over a pot?]

[talkstoomuch]

Uh-huh. Rhadhya rose through the ranks starting as a dishwasher, but Josh went to the Culinary Institute of America. Very posh. But he grew up posh, so that makes sense. That and he's a fanatical perfectionist.

[so much food! all the food she wanted to eat which of course meant hours on a treadmill, but certain sacrifices had to be made if she wanted to eat tons of sweet noodle kugel with Indian spices.

Nice to meet you, too. Despite the circumstances. I can safely say these are the weirdest circumstances I've ever been in. How 'bout you, any war stories you wanna share?

[it's meant figuratively, not literally, but she may have stuck her foot in her mouth. she should be used to that by now]

[nobraincell]

[See, he gets what a dishwasher is, but Culinary Institute of America has three big words in it and one of them is definitely foreign, so he's just gonna let all of it go in one ear and out the other and assume this Josh guy is just a fancy sort of professional.]

Why would I want to share war stories? I did fight some government men last month, but...

[As an aside, he is near incapable of facial expressions, so it might be hard to tell that he's confused at all.]

[talkstoomuch]

[ehhh, he's right. Josh is a fancy sort of professional in Ari's opinion. has the chef's coat and the fashionable loft apartment in Manhattan to prove it]

Oh, um. It's a saying where I'm from? Like, what kinds of weird things have happened recently? The steak thing is a given. It's a getting to know you question?

[it's okay, the question itself made her realize that she had, in fact, stuck her foot in her mouth. she really should be getting used to the taste of Chucks by this point in her life, but nope!]

[nobraincell]

Oh. [Pause.] Finding myself here was weird? Also everything here. I mentioned I've never seen kitchens like this before, but I've also never seen clothes or people or anything else like this before.

[What happens when you ask a guy from like the BC era about weird things that've happened since he found himself in a future where computers exist...]

[talkstoomuch]

Me neither. It's like being in an episode of Star Trek. Sci-fi stuff everywhere. Most of it's way beyond me. [a pause] If it's okay to ask, what are you used to? 'Cause that's a nice jumping off point where we can figure out what's a nice happy medium between what we're used to and [an expansive gesture] this.

[2024 was a weird year. with the exceptions of getting engaged to Josh and their happy little friends group, it wasn't one she really wanted to repeat]

[nobraincell]

[What the heck is a star trek...or sye fye?]

.....I'm used to trekking on foot. Or occasionally by horse. I've also jumped off a few cliffs before, but I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't a fighter.

[He has completely lost the point of this conversation.]

[talkstoomuch]

[whoops?]

I'm so not a fighter. But is that something I need to be? I mean, usually my go-to move is throwing a drink in an asshole's face. That's not an option?

[damnit, she wants to throw a drink in some asshole's face]

[nobraincell]

A drink to the face is a good move. But it's not very helpful if you're jumping off points, or trying to trek through stars. Have you tried training your leg strength?

[Helpful tips!]