december 2019. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Sixth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of December 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. the generic holiday cheer prompt.

It's a dark, quiet, uneventful night. Only those up and about in the wee hours will notice something odd starting in the park.

It's snowing.

The phenomenon seems to be coming from a small bank of unmoving clouds hanging suspended above the trees and lake. A cloud that, upon closer inspection by any scientists in the room, appears to be made of harmless nanites whose sole purpose is to unleash a cheery, blustery kind of weather that remains mostly contained to the park.

Some bots are out serving hot chocolate, cider, flavored snow cones, and other small baked treats. Others are building a solid-looking bit of scaffolding that the snow is rapidly turning into a sledding ramp. In fact, there are sleds ready and waiting at the foot of the slide. The smaller ponds have frozen over in a sharp cold snap that came with the nanites' release, and there are other bots handing out ice skates - careful, though, because one of them is a chef bot and he's made the blades of the skates ridiculously sharp. At least they'll glide well?

Around the middle of the day, the intercoms squeal loudly, crackle, and start pouring generic seasonal music out into the air. Is it for Hanukkah? Christmas? Kwanzaa? Some strange holiday no one has heard of? Who knows, since half of it is in alien languages, but man, it sure is peppy! And kind of annoying after a while! Maybe someone should hack the system and change the music up?

b. the body heat trope prompt.

As the day wears on toward evening, the nanite winter storm starts to gather a little more force, sending cold seeping through the halls of Anchor. There are pockets of warmth here and there - notably, for once, the agricultural areas are largely unaffected thanks to their temperature regulators--but most of Anchor has a wintery chill, and snow is starting to bluster across the levels from bottom to top. Temperatures continue to drop when the suns go down.

The bots are out being helpful, though they can't stop the storm. They're rolling around handing out blankets and thermoses of warm drinks. Unfortunately, it's one blanket and one thermos per two people. Better get cosy - it's going to be a long, cold night!

c. the terrifying monster attack prompt.

The cold has woken up some creatures that have been slumbering away in one of the sealed-off areas of the labs. They couldn't get through the door that kept them caged, but they sure could freeze the windows and escape that way when they got cold enough to break. The little critters make a beeline for the park, prepared to wreak havoc-

If eating snow and ice and rolling snow into tiny balls for meal stockpiles is havoc.

These little creatures look conspicuously like the western dragons of Earth, though most are no bigger than a person's forearm. Their wings - some strange shade of white that sparkles when they move - seem largely decorative. They use them to communicate, to posture, and to keep themselves balanced when they rear up on their hind legs, but none of them appear able to fly. They're a mix of colors, blue and silver and white, some of them with a variety of shades swirling down their bodies, others with one color on their bellies and contrasting colors on their back and head. Some have splotches, or speckles, or tiger stripes of blue. They breathe steam and can freeze things with their clawed forepaws.

Also, if you feed them a flavored snow cone, they will follow you forever. No, really. You'll have yourself an undyingly loyal new pet.

Navigation.

Comments

[circumitus]

A greeting fit for Rey -- she doesn't even balk at Kabal's comment because she has other priorities in mind. Namely in keeping a creature breathing.

"There even a place around here with sweaters that small?" Because Rey's knitting skills are nonexistent and she's pretty sure she hasn't seen any baby clothes around to fit onto a hairless cat. She can keep Tripod tucked into her bag for only so long until he needs to eat and do other things.

[kaballin]

"Sorry, I'm not up on the latest designer pet fashion. But someone could probably make one. Otherwise you're going to have yourself a catsicle." He's getting colder just looking at Tripod.

"Probably a good first step is being in a room instead of out here. It's kinda warmer in there. By about half a degree."

[circumitus]

That would make two of them not up to date on pet fashion. Rey's never even had a pet before, so all of this is bizarre and new to her still.

Rey makes a face at his suggestion, though.

"Ugh. Guess if there are rooms available, can't hurt to temporarily crash in one..."

She's yet to really claim one. It'd feel too much like settling in and that's the last thing she wants to do here.

[kaballin]

"Seriously? Haven't you been here for months? How did you not claim a room already?" He's positive he's seen her around plenty before this, so she's not new. Has she been outside sleeping on park benches? Kinda reminds him of home, all nostalgic for the homeless people he sometimes prodded to see if they were dead.

"If you want to stay out here and become an ice sculpture be my guest, don't let me hold you back from your dreams or anything."

[circumitus]

"Yyy... es?" Rey affirms slowly between her teeth, her brows knitted in response. "Well, no, haven't claimed a room. Don't sleep much and don't carry around much shit, so didn't see the point."

Though now that she's got a little creature following her around, it seems she needs to start making some life changes. Tripod sleeps for a good chunk of the day while she's constantly moving around. If anything, she'd need a space for him.

"Don't get cold either, so that's not an issue. Can't say the same for this guy." She indicates Tripod with a grunt.

[kaballin]

"You know whats pretty rad? Sleeping behind a locked door where you won't wake up with a knife in your ribs. Just throwing that out there as a bonus for modern living." When everyone and everything is trying to kill you its nice to have a little security.

"Don't get cold at all? Is that your superpower because that is a really weird one."

[circumitus]

Rey gives him a puzzling look at first, before waving her hand. "Thanks, will file away your advice for consideration in the future."

While she might be a little smartass right now, saying that, she will be caving on that sooner than later. For Tripod.

"What?" Rey snorts at his question. "No, being able to regulate body temperature to adapt to climates is just a part of it. Heat energy plays a part in that, too."

[kaballin]

Smartass is his primary language.

"I was joking but that sounds crazy useful. You can just decide to not be cold? That's some mind over matter shit."

Why the hell can't everyone do that? That sounds awesome. He can't really feel the cold either, but that's because he can't feel much of anything. Too much nerve damage for that.

[circumitus]

"Mind has just about nothing to do with it. Cold's not a big deal when you can just burst into flames whenever."

To demonstrate this, she holds up a hand. Red veins glimmer underneath her blackening skin, pulsating until a (very controlled) fire erupts from her palm. The orange-red glow illuminates the side of Rey's face, neutral rather than twisting in agony as one should.

[kaballin]

You know what Kabal is not a fan of? Fire. This delightful burnt to a cinder look he's sporting took a whole lot of it to achieve and he'd not like to see what happens if he gets melted again so he'll just be backing away.

"Well that's handy." In a: no thank you- kind of way. "Maybe oughtta get a bonfire going for your ball of skin and bones there."

[circumitus]

For all the social skills Rey might be lacking, her common sense makes up for it. It helps that she knows that reaction well, and it's a pretty understandable one. Almost anyone would see fire and think 'do not touch'.

With a quick flex of her fingers, the fire snuffs out as quick as it was made, leaving only trails of black ash falling and disintegrating from her hand.

"Heh, 'handy'. Good one-- Oh," Rey stops, once she realizes he's talking about Tripod again. "Ah, yeah. Right. Might be a good idea, actually? Will consider that."

Hopefully without burning the whole place down or purposefully setting anyone on fire to do it.

[kaballin]

"I have some good ones occasionally." Ideas, jokes about people and their hands, whichever. He doesn't actually care about this weird alien cat-thing, but it's not like he has anything better to be doing than this. There's nothing to fight (and he's been looking for yeti's or killer snowmen this whole time) and he's bored.

"Just don't kill yourself starting a fire inside. Unless you don't need to breathe either."

[circumitus]

If there's one good thing that's come from this weird alien cat-thing, it's given Rey something to do among the monotony of her usual routine. There's only so much meandering and hoboing she can do before it starts to drive her stir-crazy.

Maybe Peter wasn't too far off the mark when he said that people here need a little more direction than they seem to have.

"Er, no. Wouldn't dream of burning the whole place down. Need to breathe, too."

She winces. The memory of drowning, of blood in her lungs and water filling her throat is too fresh, too real, like it's happening in the moment. These days, she's better at staying in the present, but that doesn't stop her memories from wandering in the back of her mind at times.

[kaballin]

"Ever had a cat before?" Because he hasn't and he only knows the basics of: food, water, a place to piss. "Cuz I think there's probably something about them needing shelter. Food too. Water. Mice to kill. Shit to knock off counters."

That's totally how cats work. Nailed it.

[circumitus]

The look she gives him all but screams 'does it look like I ever had a cat before?' but Rey refrains from making the words. The rest she can figure out. If nothing else, it gives her something else to think about that isn't... literally anything else right now.

"Okay, got it," she grumbles. "With how big this place is, there has to be a bunch of empty rooms to choose from, anyway. Will figure shit out, or ask one of the other cat people here on what to do..."

[kaballin]

"Boy do I look forward to your message looking for old cat ladies to start a knitting club to figure out what to do with this thing." Not that he really thinks she'll do that, but the mental image is amusing.

"Have fun with that. I'm gonna go not freeze. Not everyone can self immolate at will."

Sometimes people just look like they can.