PORT: MEODRIOTOPE

[returnjourney]

PORT: MEODRIOTOPE

Feb 11, 2022 – Feb 13, 2022
Welcome to Meodriotope! (Try spelling that without double-checking. I double-dog dare you.) This is our first port. Ports are, as the name implies, a visit to "shore", which can be just about any planet in the Oos Galaxy. This time, the Peregrine is dropping in on a flower-gathering errand, but it's a good opportunity for characters to stretch their legs.

The full OOC write-up for the port is here. If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.

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Questions & Answers

1. Disembarking

For some passengers, this will be the first time they've touched land in almost forty days. Is it unusual, stepping down onto solid ground and breathing cool, fresh air? Is it frightening, to look upon the sea of blue grass and pale sky and realize you have never been so far from home? Is it exciting? Awe-inspiring? Gross, because who likes the outdoors anyway?

Of course, not everyone will disembark. Inmates cannot leave the ship without a warden as escort, and wardens will be responsible for inmates in port — they don't have to be glued to each others' sides, of course, but it's harder to make trouble under a watchful eye.

2. Camp

There'd be a lot of walking without the ATVs, so the Navarch has deployed both vehicles to serve as transport and support for housing. The campsites, once set up, look very much like regular Earth camping — turns out at some point in human development, people pretty much perfected what a rapid set-up/rapid tear-down camp can be, give or take some aesthetic trappings. A sleeping bag is a sleeping bag. A camp stove is a camp stove. It's just cooler when it's made of sleek white metal with designer rounded edges and blue lighting, and all.

There are four tents set up, each sleeping 4-6 people, so even if everyone decided to camp, it won't be too crowded. They are equipped with a solar-air tube that can generate power from sunlight, so they are climate controlled and have built-in lighting. An additional tent serves as a mess tent, though you'll all be eating on little folding chairs. Plastic trunks store rations. Those who want a bit of local fare will have to work for it.

Wardens also have a locked toolbox containing a hatchet, a firestarter, and a pair of utility knives. Should be handy for setting up a campfire at night. Shame no one picked up marshmallows from the commissary; that would have been nice.

3. [Mis]adventuring

There's plenty to see out in the world of Meodriotope:

Burrowing holes — Beware your ankles: the fields are home to colonies of littari, rabbit-like creatures the size of labradors. They leave large holes that are easy to fall into, if you're not watching where you step. This time of year, they usually stay deep in their warrens, but occasionally they pop up to smell the wind and scavenge for edible plants in the thick grasses. They're largely harmless, preferring to flee when possible, but they may go for the calves with their large, blunt teeth when cornered or struck. (They also taste good with mint sauce.)

Lover's Kiss — These little plants can be difficult to find, as they thrive under the grasses' shade, but when you find one, you find a lot of them. Each vine has fifty or more bright, red blooms, pinched at the sides and bowed in the middle like a pair of juicy lips. The Navarch requests that they be harvested; they're used in medicines on a neighboring planet and the Admiralty has asked the Peregrine to pick some up while we're in the area. Be careful, though: if you pluck them too roughly, they'll explode, and the red markings take weeks to wear off skin, even with dutiful scrubbing.

The Fishwives' Village — Five hours west is a small village close to the shore, home to...well, who knows if they're wives, but they have fish heads and bodies with humanoid arms and legs, and they wear little robes. Kind of like reverse mermaids. They are quite small, barely reaching four feet tall, and they speak their own language, leaving communication to little gesticulations and gestures. They live in small stone huts, arranged in concentric circles with a small market in the middle, and barter roast seafood, handicrafts, crabgrass beer, and small tools for off-world goods. Most of their culture seems to revolve around fishing and goods made of woven grasses. The fishwives are fussy about outsiders and carry little fishing spears when they visit, just in case.

The Shoreline — Long, long, long coastlines looking out at the sea, with beaches made up of smooth stones. There are plenty of interesting sea creatures to see in the rocky tide pools, but try not to handle anything indiscriminately (many things bite and some of those things are venomous). You can walk a long way out before the water gets deep, but be careful and make sure you aren't too far out when the tide comes in.

Rock Formations — Weathered in fascinating shapes from centuries of storms and high winds, these formations curl across the southeastern plains. They make swooping sounds when the wind passes through them, like deep and echoing woodwinds. Suneoff, resembling cat-sized mudskippers, dwell in the formations' shadow, while the bat-like knassu nest in the better protected crannies.

4. A Very Wet Last Day

Looks like we didn't manage to miss the rain. The storm clouds on the horizon take their sweet time to arrive, but on the last full day before departure, wardens and inmates will wake to the sound of heavy rain on the roofs of their tents. For some, it may be a struggle to leave the warm, dry confines of the tent to venture into rain. It's the kind that comes down relentlessly, soaking you to the skin within minutes, and cold to boot.

To make matters worse, the rain has transformed the long grasses into a veritable slip-n-slide. Step too quickly and you might find yourself shooting down a sloping hill, or at the very least on your ass. Visibility drops to barely twenty feet ahead.

Packing up in this? Ugh. We have to be back on the ship by nightfall! Anyone who isn't aboard gets left behind.

Comments

[grindset]

The same could be said for the plants.

[And yet.

He stops to let some little chitinous thing with too many legs crawl across his glove, turns his hand over to watch it continue. Its carapace is red; curious. Perhaps a good sign.]

I must admit, this was not at all what I imagined when I accepted the terms. Does this happen very often? Troubling circumstances, as she put it.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire steps closer to look at the little critter. She's not about to pick one up herself, but she does find them curious. New.]

I don't know. This is the first time we've done anything like this. Are you worried?

[grindset]

[After a facial shrug, mildly,]

No... not really.

[Since she's interested, Viktor lifts the telltale critter a little closer while it makes a few more circuits: knuckles, palm, fingers. At his glove's cuff creeps a dusky discolouration of skin, purple or grey, fading into the pallor of his wrist.

He lets the insect go.]

Are you?

[nineteenfortyfive]

A little. A healthy amount, I think.

[She can admit that much. The bright blue eyes that took in the sight of the strange insect didn't miss the fact that whatever she caught a peek of didn't look bright and glowing. In the healthy sense.

She looks like she doesn't want to ask, lips pursing together, but one side clearly wins over the other.]

Are you feeling all right?

[They have people with robot arms! Missing arms! Sue her for being hypervigilant.]

[grindset]

[He knows he ought to recoil from the question—he ought not to have brought his hand so close in the first place—but the impulse fails to manifest.]

No, [he says, because he finds the symmetry a little funny,] not really. [And being a doctor, he thinks, maybe she'll find this a little funny:] But I'm fine. Thank you for asking.

[The tone is conversational, more or less; no big deal. So lacking in big deals, in fact, that he's already resumed searching, stepping away from Claire now, following some glimpse or hunch with an interested squint.]

It must have been challenging to wait this long. —As a doctor, I mean.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She does huff out an amused noise, but lets him move away without complaint. She starts to carefully search again too, making sure her foot is firmly planted on the ground before taking another step.]

Very.

[She smiles over in his direction.]

I don't want you to think I see any ill health before I see you.

[He looks like one of the more fragile wardens, and that worries her when there are inmates like Travis, but she likes him. It's more of a worry because she thinks he's a nice young man rather than that she's a doctor or warden.]

[grindset]

[The kindness intended in this sentiment grinds unpleasantly, like a botched shift juddering up the arm. His mouth does something reflexive, tight, brief—but the tone of his answer remains more or less unchanged.]

You don't need to worry about that; I'm not delusional.

[He knows how he looks, and can appreciate the gesture objectively, even if it grates. All these things can at once be true.]

It's what you're supposed to see, anyway. As a doctor.

[nineteenfortyfive]

I'm a lot of things beside a doctor. [Mother being the other part of her that would take High Notice of his health. The herbalist in her is the one collecting some of the grass to have as a keepsake of sorts.]

Just like I'm sure you're more than just a [she has to say the next word slowly, but she does get it right] techmaturgical engineer.

[grindset]

[The careful way Claire says his own word back to him, that pulls from him a breath and relaxes his expression into some softer compromise between smile and frown. No, he thinks, not really; but twice was enough.]

What things?

[Distracted phrasing. Having just glanced to check he hasn't wandered too far from his crutch, he's now squatting to check something out. (Is he favouring one leg, or just using his knee as an armrest? Yes.)]

[nineteenfortyfive]

Mother. Wife. Grandmother. [She loves the grandkids but damn if calling herself a grandmother doesn't make her pull a face--] Gardener, when the other things don't demand my attention.

[Warden now, too. That's a scary one.]

Find something, Viktor?

[grindset]

No, [he says, crouched and prying at the soil.] Just a rock.

[It's a neat rock, though. And... slightly more submerged than anticipated. He's still digging at its margins, though, just to see.]

So now you're minding other people's kids.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She laughs because, yeah, kinda.] I suppose you could say that.

[Claire thinks she sees something different in the grass, and leans down to inspect.

She just makes a little squeak when a moth-like thing flutters up, just missing her face.]

Christ. Maybe we should just take the bugs back.

[grindset]

There are certainly enough to spare.

[Alas, this rock isn't going anywhere. After squatting there a moment longer, just looking at the dirt and the grass and the little weeds that aren't the weeds they're looking for, Viktor sits. Just sits down, right there, and lets his leg out straight in front of him.

Why not.]

Do you miss them? Your family. [Not the bugs, they're still everywhere—]

[nineteenfortyfive]

All the time.

[But it's worth it, to be here. To have the opportunity to not die abruptly and leave behind her family.]

And you? Do you have a family waiting for you at home?

[grindset]

[Shaking his head,]

No... no living relatives. It's just me.

[He grasps a particularly healthy blade of grass, gently pulls to free the newest growth from the sheath. The leaf tears; he drops it and tries another.]

And a friend. But if what the Navarch promised comes to fruition, he won't even have the time to notice I'm gone.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Well, if that doesn't make her heart ache a little for him. She gives him a little smile instead of saying as much.]

I'm curious, but I understand what we ask for in return for being here can be... personal.

[This is her, asking.]

[grindset]

It can be, yes. It is.

[This is him, gently closing that door. We just met, lady.

This next blade tears too, so he grasps a few together, pulls them all. A few roots and pale rhizomes come with.]

I meant the timeline, anyway. I was assured that, on my return, things would continue as though no time had passed—that everything we're doing here, and will be doing, until the contract is up, will at home seem to have taken no longer than the single blink of an eye.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[It's fair. Claire takes no offense, poking around the grass some more.]

I don't think most of us would have come here, otherwise. I'd say that's unbelievable, but the fact that we're here--on some alien planet, after being on some ship in space--I... find the words hard to say.

[grindset]

Mm. I know what you mean... it's like a dream. Whether it's a good one, [head dips, shoulders lift, one hand turns over, who am I to say—]

Maybe something to ask if you wake up craving a lively debate among the passengers.

[nineteenfortyfive]

Or coax some of them into a crisis. I think not, thank you very much.

[Poor Volk. Claire's about to say something when she spots something, and instead gasps in surprise as she crouches down.]

Oh! Here, I've found some. The plant. A hell of a lot of it, actually. The Navarch said to be careful not to--

[Crush them. Which is exactly what she does when first trying to pluck one.]

Damn. Good thing there's a lot.

[grindset]

Oh— careful, they—

[They not only crush, they burst. He's sitting right up, turning to see,]

The red pollen, it... stains.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Well, fuck. Claire grimaces, lifting her red fingers to wave at him. Then, she gives them a closer look, rubbing them together.

Nothing to be done about that now. Maybe something on the ship can help her clean up.]

Caught red handed.

[grindset]

[What a corny thing to say. Absolutely terrible. Of course it jerks at him, like a little nudge in the belly, tightens his mouth against what might escape.

He lifts his arm, the cuff already rolled up, and shows Claire his elbow: red. Like he leaned on someone's blush palette.]

Weeks, they said.

[nineteenfortyfive]

Very kind of you to tell me that after the fact, Viktor.

[Terribly rude! Not that Claire seems upset in the least. She flicks the remnants of the crushed flower in his direction, though it doesn't go very far. There's really nothing to do but wipe her hand on her shirt, leaving a red stain that may or may not be looked back upon as foreshadowing, one day.]

[grindset]

[It doesn't go far, but he leans from it anyway, gawky in the set of his shoulders.]

Sorry, [sounds too close to a laugh for that to be true.] I thought you knew. They're medicinal, so... maybe it will enhance your skills.

[Clowning aside, they're out here in all this sun for a reason, so he gathers himself up to join her.]