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

[nockturnal]

"I don't need to feel better. My feelings do not need to be coddled so. Knowing the risks and being prepared is far more valuable."

He lifts his arms to fold them over his chest for a moment, as Reynir demonstrates a little skating and...appears to be waiting for him to do so as well. He's not going to have fun, and you can't make him.

...

Fine.

With a grunt he lowers his arms, and moves forward. Shifting his weight, he glides forward without too much effort, slowing to a halt not far away. Both eyebrows lift in turn. Happy?

[braidmage]

All this talk about not needing to be coddled, as if someone being nice to you somehow made you weak, definitely has Reynir thinking about Onni. Honestly, he has half a mind to tell Hanzo to find Onni and talk to him, since they seem to think in similar ways. But actually he's trying to get Onni to stop thinking that way and he doesn't need anybody reinforcing those ideas to him. So he just gives the tiniest of sighs and amends:

"Okay okay, sorry, bad choice of words. I meant: what can I tell you to help you know the risks, so you can prepare better?"

When Hanzo tries a few tentative steps onto the ice, Reynir smiles, and moves beside Hanzo, starts to skate slowly, deliberately. Looking at Hanzo and waiting for him to follow. They might as well have this conversation while moving. And he doesn't think just gliding three feet really counts as giving skating a try.

[nockturnal]

"What sort of dangers has this place endured? What enemies have presented themselves? From where do they appear most often? Is there a place to replenish our weaponry stores, should they dwindle?" He says these things as though they were obvious, the only things one should need to worry about. Or at the very least the first things.

But it was the sort of priority he'd had to set, being on the run and constantly worrying about getting a knife in his sleep.

There's been little time to focus on anything else. It is somewhat soothing to have something as mundane as ice skating to concern himself with, though he'd never admit that out loud. Slowly, he starts to follow after Reynir, smooth, even gliding steps as he shifts his balance from one blade to the other.

Hmph. Not as difficult as all that, it seems.

[braidmage]

"Ummm..."

Reynir takes a moment to think it over. Hanzo had asked an awful lot of questions, like it's some kind of prepared list he considers, and Reynir doesn't have all that information at the front of his mind right away. He keeps slowly skating, keeping an eye on Hanzo's balance and his feet and how he's moving on the ice, in case Reynir needs to steady him at any point.

"I can't tell you about any dangers from before I arrived. There were some zombies up in a store outside the doors, but that vanished a while ago. The shift can bring... places and people, from other worlds. Some bad people showed up and hurt a friend of mine but um. They're gone now. And uh, I think there's an armory? I'm pretty sure it's locked. My magic only needs a paintbrush and some paint to work so I'm not the best one to ask about weapons stuff."

That's about as thorough an answer as Hanzo is going to get. Reynir is trying to be helpful! But also, he doesn't know shit, for the most part. At least he is self-aware enough to add:

"It might be good to ask around, and not just rely on my answers. Other people have been here longer than me."

[nockturnal]

Well it's a good thing he's just presented another point of inquiry for Hanzo to switch to, then.

"Your magic?" he repeats, with all the skepticism in the world loaded into that tone of voice. The rest make sense enough. If they can be brought here, so too can other creatures, other people. Perhaps doorways could be opened, like portals, to other places. That's far beyond the technology he's familiar with, but he can wrap his head around it.

Magic, on the other hand? Ridiculous.

[braidmage]

"Yeah. I'm a mage."

Reynir delivers that information without any fuss or fanfare, in roughly the tone of voice someone would use to say yeah I'm a plumber or yeah I'm an accountant. He blinks a few times at Hanzo, and then hazards a guess:

"You come from a world without mages, huh?"

He gives a knowing little shrug; it would have thrown him, at first, but he's not a newbie here, anymore! He knows that people come to this place from all sorts of worlds. Of course, other worlds have other gods, and perhaps it suits them not to choose special humans to whom they bestow wondrous gifts. Reynir finds it a little bit sad, but he knows it would be pretty rude to say that aloud. So instead he just says:

"That's another thing about this place. All of us come from really, really different backgrounds. So you can't really assume that just because something impossible or unheard of in your world, that's gonna be true for anybody else. That's important to keep in mind. You don't want to just... blindly trust what people tell you - though I'm kinda thinking that might not be a problem you have?"

He asks it with a gently amused lilt to his voice, then goes on:

"But you want to keep your mind a little more open when it comes to what might be possible."

[nockturnal]

"Spare me your lecture. I can see what is happening around us well enough," Hanzo snaps in response, once again bristling. The audacity. Tell him what he should or shouldn't do with his mind. Of course things are different here.

Clearly he's in possession of something he does not understand, and magic is the easiest way to explain such things to a simple mind. That must be it.

Of course, his ire distracts him for a moment, and with an undignified wobble, his ankle slips the wrong way. Suddenly, he's reeling back, smacking his tailbone against the ice as he collides smartly with the surface. A grunt of pain later he's glaring at Reynir, as if the distraction were entirely his fault, before slowly moving to pick himself back up.

[braidmage]

That sudden flare in temper from Hanzo takes Reynir aback, though to his credit, his only response is a widening to his eyes, a slight tightening to his jaw and shoulders. In a way, though, it is useful information. Hanzo is, it would seem, a hothead. And not somebody who likes being in a position where he doesn't know more than the people around him. Reynir might have guessed at that latter one just from Hanzo's desire to find out about this place, but for him to be that prickly... maybe it's coming not from a place of paranoia alone, but insecurity?

In any case, everything he's seen up until this point tells him that offering Hanzo a hand up, once he's fallen? Not a good idea. Not in the least. He meets that glare steadily, without flinching from it, but without laughing or smiling at Hanzo's fall, either.

Simply, he says:

"Everyone falls when they're first learning. And I thought you wanted me telling you about what happens around us in this place?"

[nockturnal]

It is a strange thing, falling from a pedestal you've been placed on your whole life. You grow accustomed to being addressed a certain way, respected or revered or feared, or some combination of those things. Then suddenly you are out in the world, and all those trappings fall away too.

You realize how little of this world and its protocols you understand, having only ever known the other. Not being able to find that familiar footing and know your place in things is sometimes liberating. And sometimes it is terrifying.

He picks himself up gingerly, rising up and remembering where and how to shift balance. Staying upright without sliding wildly forward. It's a new balance. But he has to figure it out at some point.

"...you are right."

Which is as close to an apology as Hanzo gets, in tone rather than in word. The glare loses its edge as he glances aside, along the length of the icy surface. "I would not have asked you for answers if I was not willing to entertain what might be possible."

[braidmage]

Reynir, for his part, seems more than happy to accept even such a small and sideways apology as that. He knows that falling down, showing any weakness - metaphorically or literally - is very hard for some people. Some types of men in particular.

So he just waits until Hanzo is steady on his feet again, and then carefully starts to skate forward once again. Moving away from the moment - metaphorically and literally.

His smile is back again. A smaller version of it, this time, but still warm.

"I believe you. And I know that it takes adjustment. There's bound to be things I forget to mention, or other questions you have in the coming days or weeks. You can always ask me, if you'd like. Those devices they gave us - you can send me a message. I don't mind. I know what it's like to want information and be frustrated when no one will give it to you."

There's a hint of something a little bit... bitter, a little less sunny, in his tone and expression as he says that last bit. But then he seems to shake it off, putting his grin back on deliberately, and does a little spin on his skates. He whips around in a circle, fast, his hair hitting him in the face. He laughs when the momentum dies, skates a little forward and tries it again. He goes even faster, this time. The third try, he overbalances, and is the one sent toppling to the ice, next.

He seems to take it in much better spirits, though and laughs, pushing his hair from his face and then rubbing at his scrawny backside, which provided very little padding.

"Owww!"

[nockturnal]

Empathy is not his strongest suit. But even he felt the smack of contact with the eyes, watching him tumble over.

Still, he averts his eyes. For Reynir, offering help up is the correct course of action in this instance. But for Hanzo, this is what he would expect as a favor from anyone: not acknowledging the fall at all, and allowing the other to pull himself up again with dignity.

As his father would have done.

"Is it common, for those trapped here to withhold information from one another?" he questions mildly, before glancing out of the corner of his eye to see if Reynir is still struggling.

[braidmage]

Reynir definitely would not have minded a hand up - he doesn't put too much stock in pretending to be any more dignified than he actually is. But he gets it, when Hanzo pointedly looks away and doesn't comment or offer assistance. He knows the guy probably means well. So he uses his own gangly limbs to get himself back on his feet. And for all that Reynir looks sweet and a bit hapless, he doesn't seem too put off by a hard fall. He just picks himself back up, tugs his clothes back in order, and flips his braid back off his shoulder. Good as new!

"I mean, yes and no?"

Reynir knows why Hanzo is asking, considering what he'd said, but that doesn't make the answer an easy one, necessarily.

"This is a place like any other, so... you're going to meet honest and helpful people and you're going to meet dishonest, unhelpful people. But one good thing about here is... whatever biases and bullshit reasons people cooked up to be jerks to one another in whatever world you're from, a lot of the people here probably haven't even heard of them. So that can be a real advantage."

Reynir gives a little shrug, starts skating once Hanzo looks over and sees he is fine.

"People here are a lot more forthcoming than I was used to back home, that's for sure."

[nockturnal]

A rather salient point presents itself in all that. Reynir is right again, as it turns out. Whatever was happening where he had come from, it was doubtful that it had managed to follow him here...unless, of course, this was all some elaborate plan on the part of his family.

Their attempts on his life had been rather simple, up to this point. This all seemed a bit needlessly convoluted for them.

"Survival instincts tend to bring out a more cooperative nature in people. If it is a matter of sharing information or remaining isolated and weak, the choice is clear," Hanzo replies gruffly, before leaning forward to follow Reynir once more. His gliding steps across the ice do appear to be going a little more smoothly, now that he knows what to watch out for.

And he's not twirling.