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

arrival part 2

[godkaru]

[Hikaru is still on the lookout for her friends, or anyone from Cefiro really, but she pauses when she's asked a question.]

Me? Oh- Um. I'm not from this world either. I think most everyone who's come out of the hospital is taken from other worlds...

[You do look very interesting though! She looks at him with some interest.] You just got here?

[lastonetodie]

Then this place...truly is something beyond my ability to imagine. [ For all the Drzyr's calculation, for all his complexity, they had never imagined worlds beyond their own - and so he could not, either, inheritor of their will as he was.

Her hair and eyes are a bright colour, but that does not really perturb him. He has only seen one human, after all. That is hardly a good sample size.

He inclines his head in a small nod. ] Yes. I have only recently arrived.

[godkaru]

[She doesn't seem bothered by him at the least. The mask to the clothes feels enough like a mix of Autozam and Cefiro that she can make sense of it visually.]

It must be really different where you came from then. Um. Welcome, I think. I hope they were able to answer your questions, but I can try to answer some if you want?

[One day she'll stop making this offer.]

[lastonetodie]

It is...very different. [ How can words possibly be enough to convey the difference between his world - his universe - and this one? It is a staggering magnitude of difference, starting with the largest one:

That this world, this world above worlds, assumes a world that is alive - and his is not. ]

I...do not think you could answer my foremost question. [ She is a helpful one, isn't she? She speaks to him kindly enough. It is a small boon.

She does not need to be burdened by... The traveler had been different; they had come to him seeking their own favor and he had asked for their help in exchange. This is different. ] But it is kind of you to ask.

[godkaru]

[She keeps watching him. Not out of suspicion or unspoken trickery or anything, but concern. And a want to help, if she can.]

If you're sure...

I know sometimes this place can be kind of confusing, and I don't know everything. But there are plenty of others who have been here longer that know a lot more.

[lastonetodie]

[ It has been a long time since he was looked at with trust. Certainly, some of the Seekers, those more mechanically minded...but even that had not been a trust among equals. A trust - a truce - between creator and creation, perhaps...

That simple trust given, without expectation or knowing - that may be the strangest thing of all.

(He has no idea he should ask for help. He has no idea there is anything that could be considered wrong with him. It has been so long, so long...) ]

I am certain.

It is not this place I am confused by. The principles are simple to understand, though the power required to achieve them is something that even my creators never conceived of. I would certainly like to see the workings used, but since I am the subject and not the tester, that is not an authority I can demand.

[godkaru]

Mm...

I haven't been able to figure out how they brought us all here either. Or how they keep doing it.

[Is he really directing her conversation? Not particularly.]

I keep thinking of trying to find a time to talk to Aurora to find out more, but I keep missing her. [And getting distracted by everyone else around, one guy has a DOG and she can't not play with the dog-] I should do that. I think I will.

[lastonetodie]

By my current calculations, it would require a power source of considerable magnitude. That in itself is not impossible. My...home was powered by a star at its core, a self-sustaining one. It would be logical to expect a similar system here...but I am basing it on all that was required to maintain the world in which I lived.

Since I lack relevant data, it is very likely that my calculations are erroneous. [ At least he can say that now, without an entire world - an entire species - resting on such decisions.

Oh, to even think that thought. It is a betrayal of all he is and was. ]

I would be interested in any answers you obtain. She seemed busy when we first met.

[godkaru]

[That is. SO many words. She doesn't really understand the finer details, but what she does get is that this world isn't working like his own and he ants more information.]

I'll let you know what I find out.

I'm Hikaru.

[lastonetodie]

[ Did you want to hear about all his tech theories? No? Too bad it's happening. This is what happens when you make an immortal caretaker for your entire species and then essentially accidentally abandon him for millenia, he's got no idea how to talk to people. ]

That would be much appreciated, Hikaru.

[ He inclines his head. ] I am the Custodian.
And...you are a human?

[godkaru]

[That gets a smile from her. She nods at the question.]

I am!

...Are you not?

[lastonetodie]

[ He shakes his head a little. ]

No. I am not. I am the caretaker of the world-ship N'Erud, designed to oversee it and its people, the Drzyr...or at least I was.

Now, I...I suppose I must serve a different purpose, though given the duty we are assigned here...it is not so divergent from what I was made to be. [ He sounds a bit uncertain. ]

[godkaru]

A caretaker....

They must really mean a lot to you if you're still wanting to look after them here.

[She hopes it isn't like what she's familiar with. She would hate to know another world has a system set up like that.]

[lastonetodie]

[ Mean a lot? Yes, they do mean a lot to him...in a sense. He sort of shakes his head a little bit. ]

I cannot experience emotions the way an organic lifeform like yourself would. However, that is my design...the purpose of my existence. To care for them.

[ Does he want to care for them? Is there such a thing as individiual want in him besides that desperate and all-encompassing need to save them? He doesn't know. He doesn't know. ]

[godkaru]

[While she's only just met him, she doesn't want to make assumptions about what he's saying... But she does have her own strong feelings she can't help but project even a little.]

I think... Caring for them is an emotion in a sense, really. It sounds like you want them to be safe and be all right.

[lastonetodie]

[ unstoppable force vs immovable object gooo... ]

It is what I was made to do. [ The time to save them has long passed, but is that not all his desperate attempts were? ] If there is even a fraction of a chance that I might save them, I must see it through to the end. It...is my nature.

[ If this 'Aurora' thinks there is something worth saving in his dead, empty world...Maybe there is a chance. A possibility he had not considered, or something he can earn in this world above worlds that he could take back. A singular spark of hope, like those Tal'Ratha had once devoured.

What else can he wish for here but that? ]

[godkaru]

I think they'd be happy to know someone was looking out for them so determinedly.

[She does smile at that. It's interesting, being able to really talk to someone like this, about this specific thing. They never got a chance to talk to Emeraude.]

So I think giving Aurora the minute to calm down and maybe talking to her again would be worth it.

[lastonetodie]

[ He tilts his head, adjusting his grip on his staff. ] I do not know if they would. Many of the Drzyr were not fond of artificial beings like myself. [ Some were - but it was not a common sentiment among the higher houses. ]

I am a necessary system to N'Erud's functioning, but machinery is not equivalent to organic life in importance. You would be a marvel to them, as you are to me. I would simply be a fact of life.

[ Well. He can understand the mistrust. The first Custodian had rebelled in an attempt to save them, after all. And parts of that first iteration are still in him...simply repurposed. The Drzyr were incredibly efficient. ]

I may talk to her myself, if I can find her. If she has anything of particular import to say, I will share it with you.

[godkaru]

[The finer details of those words mean nothing to her.

But she can understand something: it's a similar cycle. She hopes she's wrong, maybe she is misunderstanding something. But she hopes it's different.]

All right. I hope you can get the answers you need though.

[lastonetodie]

[ He inclines his head in a small nod. ]

I will try.

[ A pause, and then, in a lighter tone: ] Would you tell me about your world? I have seen a human before, but they were different from you.

[godkaru]

Mm...

Earth is... Huge. Covered in water and land, and people are everywhere. A lot of small and big cities, and everyone tries their best to get through their lives.