ximilialog | STATION LOG.02

● ● ● S T A T I O N 2.0

GO NORTH, YOUNG MAN • UNDERNEATH THE MISSILE TOAD

// PART I. go north, young man  

A few days following the arrival of the latest batch of the new Orbers, Viveca’s voice filters through the communications devices across the station.

// VIVECA.AI

Hi everyone. I know you’re all assuming this to be another call for a mission, but it’s not. We’re doing some maintenance on the teleportation platform to adjust to the number of people we now have on the team, so you won’t be going anywhere for a couple of weeks, at least. But I’m still asking you to come to the control room as soon as you can. So… see you there.

As soon as you arrive at the round room in the middle of the station, you’ll find that Viveca in her robot body isn’t the only one there to greet you, but Degar is present too, this time wearing a leather tunic and what appear to be cargo pants under his ever-present hooded cloak.

// DEGAR

Great you could make it! Right, so, Viv tells me you guys have been having questions about the North Wing and all that, and we figured we’d show you we’re not hiding, like, bodies or a giant chocolate cake there. So! Consider this your very limited time offer for a tour in the North Wing! We’re keeping it open for about a week, give or take, just so you can come back and see we’re not illusioning it up or anything.

With fingerguns directed at those on the team who can see through illusions, Degar grins and then turns towards the door to the North Wing, waving his hand — and with that, the doors slide open with a hiss.

// DEGAR

Ladies first!

Degar bows to Viveca with a flourish and waits until she’s past the door before he waves his hand again at the team with the universal sign of go, go, go.

And what else is there to do but go?

1.0 The room you step into is long and rectangular, and without any furniture to clutter the space — instead, you’ll find a large sphere, almost crackling with magical energy front and centre and surrounded by open circulation, perhaps for its own protection — the barrier of this object is so powerful that even those without any magical talent can feel the way it feels, almost like static electricity. A (slightly) closer look will wield three different globes of light circling each other in colours of gold, red, and green.

If you choose to take a step closer, you’ll immediately sense it: there’s an awareness, a quiet whisper in your ear, or a chorus of indistinct words, reaching out to you.

// DEGAR

Oh, whoops! Hold on —

Degar, walking back to the room, directs his steps right towards the sphere of energy… and as he walks right up to it, something strange happens — his cloak begins to glow with the same energy as the barrier, allowing him to simply walk into the field of energy… and disappear.

// VIVECA.AI

"Don’t worry, he’s fine. This is what he does most of the time, here… he’s making sure the orbs are contained." Viveca, floating closer, smiles wryly at the team. "Come on, go and have a look at the other rooms. I’m sure you’re dying to know what’s in there… but I have to warn you, it’s not very exciting."

Should you circle back into the room when neither Viveca or Degar is there, you might be overcome with the urge to approach the energy sphere still situated in the middle … but touch it and you’ll be flung across the space like a rag doll. Maybe some of you will stick the landing, but those of you without a 'Poser' finishing move might need some assistance after.

2.0 As you leave the room, it turns out Viveca really wasn’t joking about the lack of excitement. After a sight like the one you’ve just witnessed, this next room appears to have nothing of note except for a set of chairs lined up along the sides of the room, and then one larger one in the middle — a mechanical armchair with several different wires running directly into it.

On both sides of this space you’ll find maintenance rooms directly adjacent: one for the station itself, and one for the AI. Both of these rooms are filled with advanced machinery and screens — and one thing to note is how … clean the one designated for station maintenance seems to be. Not a fleck of dust to be found anywhere. On the other hand, the AI maintenance room feels quieter, looks darker … but as soon as anyone walks in, they’ll find a little cleaning robot beeping at them angrily. Whoops, it seems as though you’ve located the robot’s home, so make sure to not trail in any dirt. (This room is also spotless.)

3.0 Connected to the station maintenance room is the power and life support, a room with a large engine at its back, and closed pods on its sides. Most of them have a blue, glowing stripe on them; only one has a red one. But no matter how you try to open any of them, they don’t budge.

On the other side, connected to AI maintenance, is a room that has clearly been used as sleeping quarters. If anyone were to check, they’d count twenty beds in the room, half of which are divided into bunk beds on either side of the room… and most of them still have some items near them: clothes, a few books written in a language that your translators can’t seem to decipher, a soft elephant toy, and a photograph of eighteen people — a diverse mixture of women and men, older and younger, of different races, and makes; a few droids among them, but all faces unfamiliar to the current team. The group are all posing with smiles across their faces — it’s a commemorative picture, that much is clear. The right upper corner of the photo has been torn away.

Only one of the beds seems to still be in use — everything else in the room smells slightly musty, as if none of it has been touched for a long time.

4.0 The last place to explore within the North Wing is a hexagonally shaped room that matches the ones teleporting food and other essentials onto the station. Indeed, in the middle of this one is an almost identical platform, though what it connects to is a little unclear — in any case, it doesn’t seem to be powered up right now. At the end of the room is circular cut-out and a heavy-duty latch, currently locked into place to seal whatever is beyond it. It’s a door, of course, but it isn’t just any door … for anyone wondering about exits on this station, you’ll realize now where it’d been all along. There’s a control panel on the wall next to it but it requires a passcode … unfortunate for anyone who wanted a scenic tour outside of the station itself.

Perhaps it’s a little less exciting than you were hoping for, or maybe it’s just what you expected — whatever it is, the mystery held above you for the last three missions has finally been revealed and you’ve now seen what the previously enigmatic North Wing has to offer. As most of you exit the wing, you’ll notice that there’s still no visible signs of Degar anywhere (and also no strange whispers in your ear, no awkward feelings of being watched) ... but if some of you decide to return to the orb room and watch for him, you’ll see him leaning against the wall, using magic to create different shapes out of a smoke he seems to have charmed into existence in front of him. Watching the little performance will demonstrate Degar forming a puff of smoke into a ship with many sails, moving through an orbit of several smoke rings. Pretty funny, right? Clearly word travels fast.

Throughout the week, whenever you return to the North Wing, you will find it unchanged.

TOP

// PART II. underneath the missile toad  

5.0 For those of you who often cross through the sunlight room to break paths into other areas of the station, you may notice some changes in the optics around you. Where the trees had once reflected images of a lush foliage of a typical temperate planet during its warmest season, now a series of various conifers (firs, spruce, cedars, hemlocks, pines) in deep greens and soft, spiky, needle-like foliage takes its place, scattered across your field of vision in no particular pattern. Snowflakes glisten and glitter at the tips like miniature crystals, catching the simulated wintery sunlight above from a crisp, cloudless blue sky.

Follow the path into the trees and you’ll find that the room’s detritus is now covered in a fluffy white blanket of snow not yet trodden over: perfect for your footprints. It even feels just a little cooler, brisker — each breath you exhale coming out in a cloud of fog, and yet it never feels uncomfortable enough to require any sort of winter gear.

When you’ve cleared the patch of forest, on the far end of the room is a snow-covered meadow just waiting to be populated with snow angels and maybe a family of snow-people. Grab some twigs for arms and a handful of pebbles for facial features, and you’re set to spend a couple of hours playing in the snow. The rest of the sunlight room has become something of a winter wonderland: the shallow river beneath the bridge has frozen over into ice, shiny and clear, leading into a small pond perfect for sliding across even if you’re lacking skates.

The atmosphere in the room makes for a pleasant in-between to the rest of the station’s rooms, or simply a pleasant space to chill (heh) for a little while.

6.0 During the early days of the festive month, Viveca’s cheerful voice will broadcast across every Orber’s communications device, announcing the appearance of a box to be left near the mess hall. The purpose, she explains, is for any Orber feeling the holiday spirit and wanting to spread a little joy and cheer by way of a surprise gift.

// VIVECA.AI

— we’ll be leaving this up just until the first supply drop arrives, giving us some time to make the arrangements, but we’d like to accommodate as many surprises as possible. No need to be shy about it — it’s nice to do something for your fellow teammates, right?

Anyone is welcome, of course, to put in a gift request for another Orber on the station. The intention is to spread good cheer and encourage team-bonding, and honestly? It’s just a nice thing to do. Once in a while you might come across another fellow Orber on their way to the box, or you might find someone already there, inputting their request onto the box’s screen. Don’t peek (or do, we’re not your mother) or you might ruin the surprise!

7.0 This month’s supply drop arrives like Christmas itself is here, in two parts and with a fairly obvious theme in both. There are a lot of reds, golds, greens, and blues, and the scents are unmistakably festive.

Part one arrives earlier in the month with a smattering of requested holiday goods: decorations in all colours of the rainbow (tinsel, streamers, bells, bulbs, and canes), a tree outfitted with a bright silver star at its top, and a small woven basket filled with sprigs of mistletoe tied in blue ribbon. There are also small bags of baking and cooking ingredients, as well as a modest array of equally quaint glass bottles filled with holiday-specific spices: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, to name a few.

Halfway into the Orbers’ reprieve at the station, a generous stack of completely concealed, gift-wrapped boxes will arrive on the transport, each one with a tag addressed to its recipient in bold black letters. They will have to be moved (some more carefully than others) to the tree that a few Orbers will have set up in the station by now, awaiting Christmas morning to be unwrapped.

8.0 As the month continues, anyone who stops by to visit the infirmary, either to visit patients currently in stasis, to replace some bandages, or grab something for that headache and the like — you might notice that the room seems to have changed enough for it to be noticeable even to the occasional passerby.

It’s bigger, for one thing, and some of the room has been sectioned off to include a pharmacology centre. Equipment to synthesize medications has been installed on one end of the new room, and adjacent to it are a couple of shelves with medical texts from across familiar and unfamiliar galaxies alike. Across from this are overhead cabinets to house a generous amount of first aid supplies, and similarly, stored in cabinets under a long counter space are more equipment: beakers, pipettes, meters, and basins.

Most of this will be foreign (and dare one say uninteresting?) to anyone who isn’t involved in the medical or chemical fields, but for those who are, it might feel like the Christmas spirit has spread to even the most practical ends of the station. Nevertheless, the upgraded infirmary room should prove useful in the future.

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F Y I

• The events in this log take place during the month of December.

• Throughout the month, remember that all the locations in the two wings and the center of the station are available to use, even if they’re not detailed in the prompts in this log. So feel free to make your own wildcard prompts using the training room, the armory, the living quarters, the kitchen, etc.

• If you have questions about anything in this log, please direct them HERE.

• And finally, have a soundtrack for this log! ♪ ♪ ♪

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sounds like fun.

[And he means it, says it warmly. A celebration of culture and freedom without having to dwell on the negatives - simply an expression of joy at living and being people with their own roots.

He wonders if, perhaps, liberated people from Mary Geoise who end up settling on other islands have such celebrations. If he's careful, perhaps some day he'll get to find out.]

Even if not everyone here relates directly, it seems like this is a pretty pro-celebration group. I'm sure we'd find ways to pitch in, if you wanted.

[ erik frowns slightly, though it's not really directed at rosi. ]

I dunno. Seems kinda weird, like calling myself to attention.

[ like "hey, here's the one black guy who isn't big on this thing everyone else is." even the aliens are into it and it's never made erik feel more alien than that. he doesn't think he's a special snowflake, but his experience, the blood and the pain and the history — they live inside him, tangible and barbed with wire. ]

[A fair point, one that he deeply identifies with and has throughout his own life. Why call attention to yourself when you just want to be seen as the same as anyone else? So he nods slowly, because he gets it.]

When you put it that way, yeah. Well, at least I'm glad to know about it. I'm glad they're all having fun with their Christmas, but variety's even better.

Yeah. I think it'd be fine if it was a mixture of different stuff.

Doesn't even need to be called Christmas, y'know?

Sure. We could make our own holiday name up, that'd be fitting. Have bits and pieces from everywhere all wrapped up in one so everyone feels like they're part of it.

[But he can sure see why people cling to their home traditions. They all hope to go back and make changes, don't they? It's one of the strange things about this place - they've formed a community of sorts, but everyone understands it's only temporary.]

[ something in his face softens. ]

I dunno how many people we'd get into that, but I'm here for it.

I bet more than you'd think. They're all celebrating the one holiday they know best, but they're a good group. I'll put out a call on the network, see what we can come up with. Might be fun.

[This is not his thing, not really. Organizing events? He'd rather sit back and watch from a corner, and spend time with one or two people he feels comfortable with. But the call to make someone else feel more at home is stronger than his introversion.]

Besides, they're all about things like cookies and my vote's for holiday food that isn't basically just sweet bread.

[ erik huffs in agreement. ]

Yeah, man, I dunno how they can eat that much sugar. Hell, my teeth were the pits because of that stuff.

Give me alcohol over all that any day. Or, well, all kinds of other stuff. I could go for seared tuna.

[Just, in general though, don't need a festival for that. He chuckles a little, shaking his head.]

Guess that's what happens more often back home anyway. Hard to recognize standard holidays with all the sailing if you don't stick to one kingdom, but you can make anything a party with enough booze.

I would definitely be in for more variety than candy canes and mulled wine. Mulled wine only works when it's cold anyway.

[ that's interesting. he was a navy seal so he could relate a little, but being out at sea has changed a great deal. ]

Is there any kind of holiday you miss? One in passing, one you celebrated before?

[Now, mulled wine he's all in favor of, but not enough to bother protesting. Sounds like a better use for all those spices than cookies, though.

He has to think a moment about the question, being that he's never been one for making a big deal of holidays. They're mostly all fine, and mostly he does the same at each, wherever he finds himself - gets a sample of the local food or drink and hangs back to watch. And that's when he gets to celebrate at all, since often the party means people gather in places like the town square, leaving other areas free for the criminal element to prowl, and so plenty of festivals become just another day at work.]

I've been several places that do versions of the same thing. Write a wish, or the name of a lover you want to spend your life with, or maybe the names of your ancestors on a card, then put that on a little boat or floating lantern and send it out to sea. Always thought those were nicer than the big, noisy parties. Meaningful. ...Hard to do something like that here though, with no sea and no way to really send things out sailing the stars.

[ erik runs his finger over his beard. ]

Maybe that's something I can figure out. If I get creative 'bout it.

Yeah? I bet more than a few would appreciate it. Lights are popular, obviously, with all these decorations. And I always liked the lanterns.

[Easier to say that than to lean too hard into the sentimental side of things right now. Yeah, he misses people from home, but so does everyone.]

The lantern festivals were always nice. Pretty, thoughtful.

Give me some time to brainstorm it but I can probably pull it off.

Can't wait to see it. And if you need a hand with anything, let me know.

[He'll do his best to not break everything in the process.]

You got it.

STATION LOG.02

● ● ● S T A T I O N 2.0

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