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ximilialog2021-12-05 08:32 pm
- ! event log,
- altered carbon: takeshi kovacs,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- doctor who: river song,
- doctor who: the doctor (11),
- fear street: ziggy berman,
- grishaverse: the darkling,
- gundam seed/destiny: yzak jule,
- knives out: marta cabrera,
- marvel comics: gwen stacy,
- mass effect: kaidan alenko,
- mcu: daisy johnson,
- mcu: erik stevens,
- naruto: shikamaru nara,
- one piece: rosinante donquixote,
- pacific rim: newton geiszler,
- star trek aos: james t. kirk,
- star trek aos: leonard mccoy,
- yakuza 0: goro majima,
- yakuza: zhao tianyou
STATION LOG.02
● ● ● S T A T I O N 2.0
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.
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.
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 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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
F Y I
• 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! ♪ ♪ ♪
no subject
Doesn't sound like a life for him, but he can see the appeal for the right type of person. Sounds hard, but then most orders of monks and other similar religious traditions he's heard of aren't supposed to be easy, because that would defeat the purpose of studying and aspiring to live up to their ideals.
"How long have you been part of the sect? Are you a monk, or... is that the right word?"
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"We are not quite monks, though some would say we are. Lan An left the order he was part of when he met his fated one," he says with a bit of a laugh. "All my life. I was born into the Sect and it is all I know. Lan An was an ancestor."
no subject
"Have you ever wondered what it's like to live by other rules?" he asks, just because he's interested. "More like the people here, for example?"
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Especially since it doesn't harm anyone in the process. Spiritual beliefs aren't really his realm, though he holds a few simple ones of his own, but in general Rosinante does feel they have value. These sound on the more extreme side of things, but if the benefit is worth it, then good for him, truly.
"I haven't seen much of that here, that's all. All these worlds, all these people, and they don't talk much about beliefs. Holidays seem to bring them out."
no subject
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Just guesses from how they act and how things are back home. He's pretty used to people not talking about religion much, at least in most places. There are certainly exceptions.
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"All fair points," he chuckles. Then realizes-- "If it is considered impolite in your world, I apologize."
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Something he reminds himself as he's begun to learn more about it, because it is really strange how many people managed to come from not just the same planet, but mostly the same country and time period, barring a few exceptions. Orbs must really have a soft spot (or a spiteful spot?) for those folks.
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"It seems so. Earth, that is," Xichen offers a bit of a confused look, then shakes his head slightly. "I did not know that was where I was from until I arrived here or that there are different planets at all."
Stars, yes, different bodies in the skies and celestial locations in the Heavens but not what the other Orbers describe. "There is a lot to learn here."
no subject
Not on them, he's learned that. Too hot, can't be people, those stars are like his world's sun. But around them, on worlds like his. Except most, apparently, aren't much like his at all.
"And the thing about people being from different times, too, who would've thought that could happen?"
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A system that, if true, makes for an awful lot of these side-by-side worlds. Can the universe actually hold such a huge system? It's hard to know how much of it to believe, but then again, how can he say he knows any better than Jim? He can't just reject something because it's a new idea that he doesn't fully comprehend.
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It also gives him hope that somewhere out there, there is a world where his brother's back is not scarred and Nie Mingjue still lives. That perhaps there, the dear friend he'd fatally wounded the night before his arrival had not turned to deception and murder.
The possibilities are endless. "That is... a lot of worlds indeed," he says softly, still not fully grasping the limitlessness of it. "I hope there are many versions out there where the versions of ourselves are not compelled to make a deal like we have."
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"But as questionable as this deal is, at least it's a shot at something better. I'd rather give it a try than give up."
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"I share the sentiment. The chance to set things right is not one I wish to let slip away." Not without giving it his all, at least. "For now though, while we are not on a mission, we should take the opportunity to enjoy the snow than to worry too much."
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He won't be able to do it completely, but he can try. The snow, after all, is pleasant enough. Perhaps more importantly, he can see how much the others are enjoying it, and that in turn does give him some temporary peace.
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