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pluviooc2024-07-19 05:35 pm
pluviosamods) wrote in pluviooc2024-07-19 05:35 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE 03
TEST DRIVE
Hello, and welcome to the third Pluviosa Test Drive!
This Test Drive corresponds to Days 20-27 in the ship calendar, and will run until around the game's next major event. You can get a better idea what's going on in the most recent Game Update which covers Days 19-27, including the end of our previous event. Because some of the prompts in this test drive have differences based on whether they occur on Days 20-23 or 24 and on, you may wish to choose a firm date for your character's arrival and note it in your top level for other players.
Test Drive threads involving characters who are accepted are considered canon to the events of the game unless otherwise agreed by players/mods. Pluviosa does not do welcome mingle logs nor does it have any kind of in-character welcome information, making your test drive threads your character's arrival to the game setting. That said, mod-run interactions such as formal exploration and/or interactions with the Ship as an NPC are not available on the Test Drive.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game. If you have any further questions, you can ask them on the QUESTIONS header in the comments!
If you're test driving a character, you're welcome to join the game Discord and hang out and meet your fellow players!
Something jerks hard around your stomach, like a movement adruptly stopped. Something trickles through your hair, down the back of your neck - it's warm, and you get the feeling you know what it is.
But when you lift your neck to check, all there is is water. Somehow, counterintuitively, you feel a flash of disappointment. You feel someone's eyes on you...
As characters gain awareness of their surroundings, they will feel as though their head and neck are damp, as though they had just been in a light rain without any protection (even if they are, in fact, wearing a hat or hood). Unless they're particularly unlucky in the location where they wake up, though, the rain is in fact on the outside of the ship, and they are at most subject to humid air. Although the rainstorm in fact ends on Day 23, characters who arrive after that time will still be convinced that there is rain outside, complete with a hallucination of the sound of raindrops in the background, until they go to a window or an open-to-outside place (balconies, topside decks, etc) to check for themselves.
Rain aside, the feeling of being watched is stronger in the upper decks where characters arrive, which may send them seeking to go down instead of up. This might pose a problem in terms of actually making their way to the cleared, prepared-for-use parts of the ship... Especially with all that fresh rainwater breathing new life into the plants in the lower decks.
Note that prior to the rain ending, looking out the windows, glass balcony doors, or up into the domed roof of the passenger lounge will make it appear that the ship is underwater until late afternoon on Day 22. More information on this can be found on the So Below event posts. Additionally, the rainfall hitting the deck of the ship has a tendency to flood into the lower decks of the ship, particularly via the stairways and in rivulets down the hallways. It falls freely on the top deck and down into the open space in the center of the ship, though with less intensity than it does outside the ship's protective barrier.
And while going down decreased the feeling of eyes on you, it brings about other complications. Ghosts have been present on the ship for around a week now, and their time being visible is nearing its end as the ship comes above the old sea-level line on Day 22... At least as far as the longer-term passengers are concerned.
New arrivals, however, will continue to be able to see ghosts haunting the decks for the first 24 hours of their stay onboard the ship, regardless of the exact date of their arrival. These ghosts largely take the form of vacationers and researchers (as described here under the Haunting Feeling and Growing Shadows sections, respectively), and do not respond to attempts to interact with them any more than they did during the event. Less, even - once the ship is above the sea level line (evening of Day 23 and on), the ghosts perform their loops without registering any attempts to communicate with them. No matter what a character does, their attempts to interact with the spirits are for nothing - even standing in their path just gets you walked through as though you weren't there.
However, there are also a few new ghosts who only appear to the new arrivals, and are invisible to characters who were on board the ship previously:
-> A young man in extremely worn clothing, nursing a bruised jaw wanders the upper parts of Fern deck. When he sees the newly arrived character, he says "Oh, not more of this shit," aloud before turning and booking it off in another direction. Characters who chase him will find that he is visible and audible for a decent amount of time, but that his knowledge of the twists and turns of the Ship exceeds theirs and that he is unhindered by any of the overgrown vines as though they weren't there. As such, characters will inevitably fall behind and lose track of him.
-> At night, a dark-skinned woman can be seen in the lounge, looking back and forth between a glowing tablet she's holding and the sky above. If she notices a newly arrived character in the dimmed-to-nearly-nothing, she tells them in a firm voice, "You're not night shift. Go back to bed, you need your rest," before going back to whatever she's doing with her tablet screen. She fades slowly out of sight afterwards.
-> An androgynous person with a nearly-shaved head and a small flower dangling from a green marking over their ear comes out of the communal showers near the cafeteria. They glance around and ask, "Hey, did you see where that new guy with the eyepatch went?" but head off down the hallway without waiting for an answer, scrubbing at their cropped hair with a towel wrapped around their head.
-> A young woman in an open bathrobe with bandages around her middle looks out the back of the ship from the cafeteria deck, sitting with her feet dangling over the edge over where the ship's protective bubble attaches. Her light brown hair is blowing into her face constantly by the cafeteria's slight wind tunnel effect, but she doesn't seem to care, supporting herself by leaning her arms onto the lower rung of the railing. If approached, she gives a tired smile and says, "It's alright. I'm just waiting for that nice angel to come back," and resumes her watch out the back, not responding to any further questions or interactions.
These ghosts do not seem to register the presence of those who have been on board the ship more than 24 hours, even if pointed out directly. New arrivals who attempt to interact with the ghosts will be able to see and hear them, but not touch them. Attempting to touch a ghost in a way that 'proves' that they're not physically there (eg walking through them) causes the ghost to disappear, and they will not reappear.
Of course, the upper floors of the ship are not exactly free of eyes. A rather sizeable fleet of motorized drones zips around the hallways, ranging in size from knee-height to large enough to contain a moderately sized couch. The former are often equipped with scrubbing devices along their undersides, and work hard at portions of the floor in the hallways; the largest are functionally dumpsters on wheels, and other drones with long unfolding arms prune and rip plants from the walls, floors, and even the ceilings to fill them. These top two levels of Fern - not the open deck but the two floors immediately below - are clearly undergoing renovations, and renovations start with getting the plants out of the way. A few are even doing electrical or plumbing work, once things have dried up enough after the rain that it's safe to do so.
Since these are also the primary floors on which new arrivals wake up, it's very difficult to not come across some form of cleaning bot soon after arrival. However, there seems to be something a little... off about the ship's cleaning crew if you're a new arrival. They don't seem to register new arrivals as passengers yet; as a result, new characters may find themselves sprayed down with hot soapy water or subject to a set of surprisingly strong mechanical arms trying to shove them into a dumpster. Even if you aren't actively being aggressed by cleaning bots, they don't provide the kinds of loud "warning: backing up" noises they do for other passengers, nor do they slow down to avoid running you down in the still-mostly-dark hallways. The drones either have very good night vision or have some other way of finding their way around, since the only thing that brings them to a halt is particularly bad patches of floor.
Ship drones will continue to treat new arrivals as part of the walls (at best) or particularly stubborn plants in need of pruning (at worst) until either a light is shined on them - but beware, because this will cause any plants in the area to experience a surge of growth - or another, more known passenger intervenes. Admittedly, at that point the drones will be positively apologetic, as much as robots not equipped with voices can be. Soaked characters will be given a complimentary warm-air drying (if they stick around long enough) and anyone thrown in the dumpsters will be appropriately rescued - but it's still not all that great of a first impression, is it?
Or perhaps it's not the ghost of a person or the drones of the ship that you first encounter. It could be something significantly less civilized.
Strange animals have begun to appear in the ship's jungle - but you'd be forgiven for not noticing them at first. At rest, anyone would dismiss them as strangely shaped bundles of plant matter, because that's exactly what they are. Tails formed out of plaited vines; pelts and feathers formed of interlocked leaves; legs grown out of twisted wood with roots formed into toes. And, occasionally, sharp claws made of bent nails, fangs made of shattered glass, and antlers of rusted pipe, and, always, eyes like black pits that could swallow you up if you stared into them too long.
The 'animals' occupying Fern deck, if they can be called such, are formed out of plant matter with scattered bits of debris from the ship itself. They are, by and large, animals appropriate to the environment of the temperate rainforest that consumes the deck - no elephants or giraffes here. Deer, foxes, the occasional big cat or even a bear, and any number of smaller creatures... Smaller being a relative term, because the animals aren't always to their proper scale relative to humans. A deer might be only knee-high (antlers included), while a squirrel may come up to your waist. On most decks, they're limited to the height of the ceilings above them (9 feet or so), but if you manage to encounter them either on the open upper deck (with its much less height-limited tree canopy) or at the bottom (where the gap in the ship's decks, down the center, leaves lots of space for clearance above the mud and standing water), they could easily be taller.
Most of them are quite skittish, and will bound off into the jungle from which they came and disappear as though they were never there. A handful, though, respond as though threatened - or hungry. And while it might be funny to be stalked through the underbush by a cougar the size of a house cat, it will be less funny if it manages to sink its very real rusty claws into you, and getting trampled by a wooden deer whose antlers scrape the rotten ceiling tiles won't be fun at all.
It is possible to fight the animals, though most will make an attempt to flee if they get the chance, especially if you bring light or fire to bear against them. A 'killed' animal collapses into a pile of plant matter (leaves, branches, vines, etc) with the occasional bit of metal or glass; these heaps don't maintain their form as the 'body' of an animal and don't seem to have been connected together in any way. If lit on fire or otherwise affected by supernatural abilities, the animals react to this as an animal would be expected to, but their bodies are affected in ways consistent with the plant matter they're made of. In addition, no attempts at animal communication will work on them. On the other side of the coin, if you attempt to flee from them, most won't bother to give chase.
This Test Drive corresponds to Days 20-27 in the ship calendar, and will run until around the game's next major event. You can get a better idea what's going on in the most recent Game Update which covers Days 19-27, including the end of our previous event. Because some of the prompts in this test drive have differences based on whether they occur on Days 20-23 or 24 and on, you may wish to choose a firm date for your character's arrival and note it in your top level for other players.
Test Drive threads involving characters who are accepted are considered canon to the events of the game unless otherwise agreed by players/mods. Pluviosa does not do welcome mingle logs nor does it have any kind of in-character welcome information, making your test drive threads your character's arrival to the game setting. That said, mod-run interactions such as formal exploration and/or interactions with the Ship as an NPC are not available on the Test Drive.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game. If you have any further questions, you can ask them on the QUESTIONS header in the comments!
If you're test driving a character, you're welcome to join the game Discord and hang out and meet your fellow players!
ARRIVAL - GAZE FROM THE CLOUDS
Something jerks hard around your stomach, like a movement adruptly stopped. Something trickles through your hair, down the back of your neck - it's warm, and you get the feeling you know what it is.
But when you lift your neck to check, all there is is water. Somehow, counterintuitively, you feel a flash of disappointment. You feel someone's eyes on you...
As characters gain awareness of their surroundings, they will feel as though their head and neck are damp, as though they had just been in a light rain without any protection (even if they are, in fact, wearing a hat or hood). Unless they're particularly unlucky in the location where they wake up, though, the rain is in fact on the outside of the ship, and they are at most subject to humid air. Although the rainstorm in fact ends on Day 23, characters who arrive after that time will still be convinced that there is rain outside, complete with a hallucination of the sound of raindrops in the background, until they go to a window or an open-to-outside place (balconies, topside decks, etc) to check for themselves.
Rain aside, the feeling of being watched is stronger in the upper decks where characters arrive, which may send them seeking to go down instead of up. This might pose a problem in terms of actually making their way to the cleared, prepared-for-use parts of the ship... Especially with all that fresh rainwater breathing new life into the plants in the lower decks.
Note that prior to the rain ending, looking out the windows, glass balcony doors, or up into the domed roof of the passenger lounge will make it appear that the ship is underwater until late afternoon on Day 22. More information on this can be found on the So Below event posts. Additionally, the rainfall hitting the deck of the ship has a tendency to flood into the lower decks of the ship, particularly via the stairways and in rivulets down the hallways. It falls freely on the top deck and down into the open space in the center of the ship, though with less intensity than it does outside the ship's protective barrier.
SOMEBODY'S FOOTSTEPS
And while going down decreased the feeling of eyes on you, it brings about other complications. Ghosts have been present on the ship for around a week now, and their time being visible is nearing its end as the ship comes above the old sea-level line on Day 22... At least as far as the longer-term passengers are concerned.
New arrivals, however, will continue to be able to see ghosts haunting the decks for the first 24 hours of their stay onboard the ship, regardless of the exact date of their arrival. These ghosts largely take the form of vacationers and researchers (as described here under the Haunting Feeling and Growing Shadows sections, respectively), and do not respond to attempts to interact with them any more than they did during the event. Less, even - once the ship is above the sea level line (evening of Day 23 and on), the ghosts perform their loops without registering any attempts to communicate with them. No matter what a character does, their attempts to interact with the spirits are for nothing - even standing in their path just gets you walked through as though you weren't there.
However, there are also a few new ghosts who only appear to the new arrivals, and are invisible to characters who were on board the ship previously:
-> A young man in extremely worn clothing, nursing a bruised jaw wanders the upper parts of Fern deck. When he sees the newly arrived character, he says "Oh, not more of this shit," aloud before turning and booking it off in another direction. Characters who chase him will find that he is visible and audible for a decent amount of time, but that his knowledge of the twists and turns of the Ship exceeds theirs and that he is unhindered by any of the overgrown vines as though they weren't there. As such, characters will inevitably fall behind and lose track of him.
-> At night, a dark-skinned woman can be seen in the lounge, looking back and forth between a glowing tablet she's holding and the sky above. If she notices a newly arrived character in the dimmed-to-nearly-nothing, she tells them in a firm voice, "You're not night shift. Go back to bed, you need your rest," before going back to whatever she's doing with her tablet screen. She fades slowly out of sight afterwards.
-> An androgynous person with a nearly-shaved head and a small flower dangling from a green marking over their ear comes out of the communal showers near the cafeteria. They glance around and ask, "Hey, did you see where that new guy with the eyepatch went?" but head off down the hallway without waiting for an answer, scrubbing at their cropped hair with a towel wrapped around their head.
-> A young woman in an open bathrobe with bandages around her middle looks out the back of the ship from the cafeteria deck, sitting with her feet dangling over the edge over where the ship's protective bubble attaches. Her light brown hair is blowing into her face constantly by the cafeteria's slight wind tunnel effect, but she doesn't seem to care, supporting herself by leaning her arms onto the lower rung of the railing. If approached, she gives a tired smile and says, "It's alright. I'm just waiting for that nice angel to come back," and resumes her watch out the back, not responding to any further questions or interactions.
These ghosts do not seem to register the presence of those who have been on board the ship more than 24 hours, even if pointed out directly. New arrivals who attempt to interact with the ghosts will be able to see and hear them, but not touch them. Attempting to touch a ghost in a way that 'proves' that they're not physically there (eg walking through them) causes the ghost to disappear, and they will not reappear.
JUST ANOTHER WORKDAY
Of course, the upper floors of the ship are not exactly free of eyes. A rather sizeable fleet of motorized drones zips around the hallways, ranging in size from knee-height to large enough to contain a moderately sized couch. The former are often equipped with scrubbing devices along their undersides, and work hard at portions of the floor in the hallways; the largest are functionally dumpsters on wheels, and other drones with long unfolding arms prune and rip plants from the walls, floors, and even the ceilings to fill them. These top two levels of Fern - not the open deck but the two floors immediately below - are clearly undergoing renovations, and renovations start with getting the plants out of the way. A few are even doing electrical or plumbing work, once things have dried up enough after the rain that it's safe to do so.
Since these are also the primary floors on which new arrivals wake up, it's very difficult to not come across some form of cleaning bot soon after arrival. However, there seems to be something a little... off about the ship's cleaning crew if you're a new arrival. They don't seem to register new arrivals as passengers yet; as a result, new characters may find themselves sprayed down with hot soapy water or subject to a set of surprisingly strong mechanical arms trying to shove them into a dumpster. Even if you aren't actively being aggressed by cleaning bots, they don't provide the kinds of loud "warning: backing up" noises they do for other passengers, nor do they slow down to avoid running you down in the still-mostly-dark hallways. The drones either have very good night vision or have some other way of finding their way around, since the only thing that brings them to a halt is particularly bad patches of floor.
Ship drones will continue to treat new arrivals as part of the walls (at best) or particularly stubborn plants in need of pruning (at worst) until either a light is shined on them - but beware, because this will cause any plants in the area to experience a surge of growth - or another, more known passenger intervenes. Admittedly, at that point the drones will be positively apologetic, as much as robots not equipped with voices can be. Soaked characters will be given a complimentary warm-air drying (if they stick around long enough) and anyone thrown in the dumpsters will be appropriately rescued - but it's still not all that great of a first impression, is it?
IDEAL CAMOUFLAGE
Or perhaps it's not the ghost of a person or the drones of the ship that you first encounter. It could be something significantly less civilized.
Strange animals have begun to appear in the ship's jungle - but you'd be forgiven for not noticing them at first. At rest, anyone would dismiss them as strangely shaped bundles of plant matter, because that's exactly what they are. Tails formed out of plaited vines; pelts and feathers formed of interlocked leaves; legs grown out of twisted wood with roots formed into toes. And, occasionally, sharp claws made of bent nails, fangs made of shattered glass, and antlers of rusted pipe, and, always, eyes like black pits that could swallow you up if you stared into them too long.
The 'animals' occupying Fern deck, if they can be called such, are formed out of plant matter with scattered bits of debris from the ship itself. They are, by and large, animals appropriate to the environment of the temperate rainforest that consumes the deck - no elephants or giraffes here. Deer, foxes, the occasional big cat or even a bear, and any number of smaller creatures... Smaller being a relative term, because the animals aren't always to their proper scale relative to humans. A deer might be only knee-high (antlers included), while a squirrel may come up to your waist. On most decks, they're limited to the height of the ceilings above them (9 feet or so), but if you manage to encounter them either on the open upper deck (with its much less height-limited tree canopy) or at the bottom (where the gap in the ship's decks, down the center, leaves lots of space for clearance above the mud and standing water), they could easily be taller.
Most of them are quite skittish, and will bound off into the jungle from which they came and disappear as though they were never there. A handful, though, respond as though threatened - or hungry. And while it might be funny to be stalked through the underbush by a cougar the size of a house cat, it will be less funny if it manages to sink its very real rusty claws into you, and getting trampled by a wooden deer whose antlers scrape the rotten ceiling tiles won't be fun at all.
It is possible to fight the animals, though most will make an attempt to flee if they get the chance, especially if you bring light or fire to bear against them. A 'killed' animal collapses into a pile of plant matter (leaves, branches, vines, etc) with the occasional bit of metal or glass; these heaps don't maintain their form as the 'body' of an animal and don't seem to have been connected together in any way. If lit on fire or otherwise affected by supernatural abilities, the animals react to this as an animal would be expected to, but their bodies are affected in ways consistent with the plant matter they're made of. In addition, no attempts at animal communication will work on them. On the other side of the coin, if you attempt to flee from them, most won't bother to give chase.
Banging two rocks together
Caught up in her thoughts, she doesn't notice that it takes her two quick shots to put the beast down instead of one. An inefficiency she'll scold herself for later when she counts her shots. She runs up to him for now though, holstering her sidearm and grabbing at his hands. "Aventurine!" she's not stressing his proper title for any reason of course, that diminutive doesn't make her mad at all (it does) "What happened to your hands! I look away for a single system hour and you fuck up your hands! Where are we! What is Happening!
She might be a little more stressed than she's letting on, actually. Woops
Dizzy rock but he's trying to be helpful lmao
It's...hard to concentrate. His head doesn't hurt as much as it's been before, but...the dizziness is really setting in, and his ears are ringing, and his chest hurts--
Is she okay? He needs to hold the shield for her...he can't let her get hurt like he did working here...
What...?
She calls his title, furious. Why? Hands on his aching ones. He hisses, the healing wounds still rather tender, but the pain grounds him a little, helping him focus. Topaz. She really is here.
And she's way stressed. Heh. He smiles at her, eyes bleary. "A system hour? I'm not sure what you mean. I've been here a week at least. Even then the plantimals are new." He groans, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. He drops the shield, and that helps alot. He sighs, wincing. "The hands were...an accident. Long story. Wanna discuss it over some food? It's...safer." And he was famished when he got here. She might not be doing much better. He tilts his head at Numby. "And I'm afraid alot of the metal here is rusted and not shiny enough for your little partner, but I'm sure we can find something?" He's almost disappointed he can't garner favor with the trotter with sneaky snacks behind Topaz's back like he did at work. It was pretty funny...
Tsundere mode activated
A WEEK. Her reports are so late, her schedule is going to be absolutely ruined if she’s been gone an entire week. “Oh Qliploth preserve us Madame Jade is going to be so disappointed” she mummers before she snaps forward and starts dragging Aventurine along, back the way he came. “Alright, fine. A week. And you haven’t tried to reach anyone at all? You need to tell me everything and I mean Everything. We just got your cornerstone fixed, we do not need two of the stonehearts slacking right after a big win…” she continues to grumble under her breath as she stands in front of Aventurine, forcing him to stay behind her even as she seeks directions. She’s not letting him collapse or get hurt on her watch.
Numby jumps straight onto Aventurine’s shoulders, squeaking along in response to Topaz ‘s words as they fuss with Aventurine’s hair, they’re considering the cost of getting Aventurine a proper spa day, they can’t have him looking like this (not that the two of them care, of course. It’s all for the amber lord)
Sometimes it is easier to move with the Topaz than against the Topaz (and Numby)
He snorts when she starts despairing, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I said I've been here a week, Topaz, not you. You just got here, didn't you?" He huffs. "Jade isn't here, so you don't have to worry about her opinion on the matter." Nor is Qliploth, but he should...probably save that one for another time when she's not...quite as frazzled.
He yelps when she starts dragging him along shortly after, his feet stumbling to keep him upright. He's still...a bit dizzy. If he grips her hand back to keep his balance, well. It's her fault really. "I mean I tried in the beginning, but there isn't exactly cell service on the ghost ship, y'know? So pardon me if you didn't get any- urgh- calls," he drawls, rubbing at his temple. "Also alot has happened in the time I've been here; I can try to say everything but it's...it's alot. Seriously. You'll need to be more specific or I'll be telling you all about meat tomatoes which you probably won't care much about~" he says, clearly teasing but with some sincerity to it.
He blinks at one comment though. "Fixed? How- I...I don't think...Toppa, my cornerstone was never fixed. What do you mean??" He pulls out a piece of it, still clearly broken and small and faulty. "I mean it's still...kinda useable but usually not worth it in this state. Definitely not fixed though- oh, yeah no, go that way-" This would be easier if she let him lead the way. She's clearly not letting him and...well. Sure. Fine, she can have her way on that. Take the hard route, it's her choice. He's too tired to fight her much on it anyway.
He jolts a little at the weight on his shoulders, but laughs softly when he realizes it's just Numby. "Sorry little buddy, I don't have much for you..." he murmurs, giving the creature some scratches behind the ear with his free hand. He feels the trotter's snout snuffling through his hair, trying to smooth it down. It...has gotten pretty messy huh. More of what little fight he had in him drains out, his shoulders relaxing. Who knew a trotter fussing with your hair could be pretty soothing actually? He stifles a yawn. "Mmmm nothing like a spa here, I think. Not even mirrors, sorry about my looks. Just...alot of ghosts, plants, rain, possessions, people from other universes...no IPC though, so like...we're not in that much trouble, right?"
He would not be caught dead wearing this coat at the IPC. It'd be giving people more fodder to ridicule his culture, his home, his life before this. Also it was...really comfortable. He's not allowed to dress comfortably with the job he has...but here...nothing bad happened for wearing it. Topaz will probably figure that out eventually. Maybe.
Re: Sometimes it is easier to move with the Topaz than against the Topaz (and Numby)
What. The. Fuck. Universes? Ghosts, plants, possessions sure she can work with that but. His cornerstone is broken. They fixed that… she pulls out her phone. No notifications. But the clock is still set to the right timezone, two system hours since she looked at it last. No signal. No Signal. Fuck she can’t think about that right now. She’s got to prioritize. She’s so good at prioritizing. She steps closer to Aventurine to stare him in the eyes, whispering. “Aventurine, I need you to be 100% serious with me. No Jokes. No Tricks. No Gambles. What happened to your cornerstone. We fixed that at your Trial two system hours ago. Everyone but Diamond was there.” She reaches up, grabbing him by the arms. Her hands aren’t shaking, Aventurine is. Right? Right. She’s just trying to steady him. “What do you mean No IPC. Where… where are we.”
no subject
not on purpose--So what if his laugh is a bit hysterical when Topaz checks her phone to no avail. Of course that would be a concern. Of course she'd think he hadn't tried. He did. He may not really want to go back to the IPC but like an idiot he did try, just like this, just like her. "No service. As I said. Sorry," he says, shrugging.
She's staring him in the eye. He will meet her there, even if it makes his left hand shake for some reason. What sort of gamble...was there any?
He can't lie. Not to her. Not like this. She grabs him, and she's shaking. Something...seems to tighten in his throat. He wants to say something to make her stop shaking, to make her less scared. But the answers he has....
He leans into Numby's curious snout, taking some odd comfort in it. Right then.
He smiles. He's a little sheepish, using it to bolster his nerves. "Sorry, I know it's alot at first. I uh...don't know what you mean about a trial. I drowned in the primal dreamscape and wound up here over a week ago." He grins. "Of course you know I'm harder to get rid of than that. What was left of the cornerstone protected me, leaving...just pieces like this." He grimaces."Nihility did a number on it. I...don't think it can be fixed."
He's still keeping a smile on his face, but he reaches up to pat her hand, taking it. He tugs her behind him this time, his mind less fuzzy with a goal. "Honestly sounds like a timeline discrepancy or something. I dunno. Ratio might; he's here too, yknow?" He takes her along, stepping around the worst bundles of plants.
"But no IPC. You saw no signal. We might wanna sit down for more, if this much is already freaking you out," he adds, tossing a smirk at her. A challenge, knowing it's something she will rise to. "We're almost to the cafeteria at least. Better seats than plants."
She's not freaking out! You are!
She dosen’t know what she’s trying to do. She needs more information. She can’t let anyone see them like this.
She siezes on that thought, spits it out as words as fast as she can. “Hey wait no, not the ‘cafeteria’, that’s a public space. We’re the ten stonehearts, or you know two of them. We just had a huge win, you were just reinstated. We do not need that kinda thing getting around! Somewhere private Aventurine. You got that?”
She’s… going to ignore the fact that the cornerstone is broken. And that Aventurine dosen’t remember his trial. He’s wearing weird clothes and is probably suffering some kinda trauma response to everything that happened on Penacony.
“Ratio is here?” When? How? “Good, he can provide some answers. It’s his job.” That’s a plan! She’s got a plan now. Wring Aventurine dry and get Dr. Ratio to explain his mess of a report. That’s how you do it Topaz, simple steps! Just like Madam Jade says.
Her hand is shaking still, fingers clenched tight around Aventurine’s hand as she talks. She’s sure trying to sound confident and reassured, and yet.
Sure Jan, whatever keeps you sane!
And then she insists they need to go somewhere private, to not be seen like this. He stops, turning to her, an eyebrow raised. He's just about to correct her again on having no idea what she's talking about with the big win and reinstatement stuff, but stops when he sees her face. She's shaking still, and...barely holding it together, it looks like. Right, so they're masking here, huh. He gives a crooked grin in response, tired around the edges. "Roger that~ I think I know a quieter place, hold on..." he says, changing his direction and taking her to one of the elevators.
Taking Topaz to his room might be "improper" for different reasons, but he just won't tell her it's his. It's private, safe, and quiet. She needs some quiet and security right now, it seems. "Although several people have been seeing me 'like this' for several days now, just so you know. Can't do much for me now~" he hums, unable to refrain from taking a little jab at her...weird view on time.
Is he suffering trauma from the everything at Penacony? Yeah, probably. Is the supposed amnesia a part of it? Nope. He'll...broach that again when she's calmed down.
In the elevator, he thinks on that. "Ratio? He's been here...almost as long as I have? He popped up a day or two after me and has kinda taken over the abandoned clinic." Keeping busy, like they're all trying to! But..."We can go to him later. I think he's...resting right now." Which he will do all he can to not disturb, since...Ratio's been running himself ragged since he's gotten here.
He's very aware of how she's shaking with barely contained anxiety and energy, but keeps leading her through the halls, chatting amiably about random stuff on the ship; the food, the meat tomatoes, the plants, whatever. Keep her attention on different places. They reach his room eventually, and he badges it open with his bracelet key, smiling.
"Alright, here we are! Safe and secure from prying eyes. Now," and he tugs on her hand, swinging her towards the small couch so she'll sit on it. He then takes Numby from his shoulders and passes them into her arms. "Before we get into the details, why don't you take a few deep breaths for me, okay?" he suggests, his voice breezy and a little gentler as he pulls up a chair to sit in front of her, settling in to help Topaz ride out what is very likely a bad panic attack.
She's a little disoriented
She hadn’t harmed him, he’s just squirming and mumbling wordlessly, she cracks a weak smile and blinks again and… Aventurine is infront of her. Seriously what is he wearing? Her mind locks onto the thought and it spills out of her mouth in a rush. “Seriously what are you wearing, you’ve got to have better clothes than that. I mean, I know you do, cause I saw your card statements before the whole penacony mess. So where did that come from.” It’s not addressing the point, she knows it’s not, but she’s staring at numby and trailing off as she continues to take deep breaths.
Just like in training right? Identify, Adapt, Plan. She’s just… a little stuck on the identification part is all. She’ll get there. She looks up, when did she look down, Aventurine is staring at her with those eyes seriously they’re hypnotic what is ..? “What is going on here man. You. You keep saying impossible things and I think one of us is crazy here. What am I supposed to do I CAN’T.”
She’s standing, Numby is on the floor and her hands are in the air. She blinks and puts her hand over her mouth. “I can’t contact the IPC. We’re alone in this mess. How do we get out of here Aventurine. I know I know you’ve got to have something right?”
Right?
And this yapper is yappin. Feel free to pick and choose what she responds to, sorry lmao
Aw Numby. They did their best. He sets his elbows on his knees in a casual posture in front of them both, giving the trotter a pat on the head as it skitters away.
Then she asks about. His clothes. "Excuse me?" he snorts, more amused than offended. Still just a little offended though. Just a little. "This just so happens to be my favorite jacket right now, back from the dead! It's a treasure, so I wear it. Why, what's so strange about it, hmmmm?" He's laying a trap for her. Some would consider it mean-spirited. To them it's just another Tuesday. "This is actually one of my newest acquisitions! I've been here for awhile, Topaz, there aren't exactly clothing stores here on the abandoned ghost boat. Gotta take what I can get~"
And then she's spiraling more. He holds her gaze, still smiling, albeit a little strained at the edges. Oh boy. He goes to take her hands but then she stands up, stress bubbling over. "Now now, calm down. I already told you, but I can start over if I was going too fast for you. Anything for my poor little subordinate~" He's really playing with fire with that one. But if she snaps at him, it'll be a normalcy.
He sighs, leaning back, hanging his arms over the back of the chair. He gives Numby a little scritch on the snout as it passes. "Yep. No contact with anyone. IPC, Penacony, Xianzhou Alliance...no one. Not even the Nameless. Believe me, I tried! No cell service. But!" He holds up a finger before she can start spiraling again. "We're hardly 'alone'. I've been making...alliances, shall we say, with the people on this ship. Many are from many worlds, ones even the IPC hasn't reached or heard of. Isn't that fascinating?" He grins, figuring the possible profit might catch her attention. "I'm sure putting our heads together, we can figure out a way off this boat, but in the meantime, Aeons preserve Toppa, breathe. It's hardly the end of the world. It's okay. You're okay."