SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

[returnjourney]

SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

January 1, 2022 – January 7, 2022
Welcome to the new year and the Return Journey's opening event! We're starting with something light to get everyone acclimated and so no one feels they've missed too much if they app after the holiday season. We'd like to make it easy for any new players to jump in right away.

If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.

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1. What? My name is who? My name is—

Salutations! Now that everyone's respective warden and inmate orientations are out of the way, you've been given a helpful, mandatory name tag. It instantly appears on your shirt and can't be taken off, though where it appears on your shirt is a bit more unpredictable; it's an imperfect science, so it's just as likely to pop up on the back of your shirt as the front. If you try to remove your clothes, the tag appears on your skin; they're waterproof, so a quick shower won't get rid of it, either. What can we say — it's mandatory.

While the tags all follow the standard "HELLO my name is" format and have your name or most common alias, they also include some other information. For wardens, it features a space that declares "I LIKE" and one or two of your most choices hobbies. For inmates, it features these hobbies and "I have killed [x] people" (this may be a specific number or something akin to "a lot of" or "no"). Fun icebreaker, right?

2. Twenty Questions

Speaking of icebreakers, a brief announcement summons everyone to the observatory. Again, yes, it's mandatory; wardens must retrieve absent inmates before any more information is revealed. Better hop to it!

Upon arrival, passengers will discover that the Peregrine's resident bot force has reconfigured the observatory with small, portable cubicles, each with a transparent wall that retains a lovely view of the observatory's massive window. Each inmate is assigned their own cubicle and, upon entering, cannot leave without a warden's say so; the door only unlocks with a warden's CommLink.

Wardens are tasked with interviewing at least one inmate, to get a feel for their prospective charges. They can have as much time as they need to formulate what questions they want to ask, but that might leave some inmates waiting. Maybe that's on purpose, though. In any case, the exercise is over once an inmate is asked five questions and a warden receives five answers.

Archimedes will collect name tags after the interviews for incineration. The robotic owl is, notably, the only one who can remove them.

3. Polite Picnic

The greenhouse doesn't always have enough fresh produce to go around (and often what is collected is frozen and preserved), but given the circumstances — a new mission and new passengers — everyone can reap the rewards this month...if they share. A bot stationed in the mess hall mechanically tells anyone who crosses into range (whether they mean to visit the produce table or not) that they aren't to take more than three fruits and/or vegetables. If you choose not to abide by the rules...well, that depends if you're caught and by who.

The produce available are as follows:

Adalfane: Tastes like cocaine, but very nutritious, especially when eaten raw.
Tuadath: Smells awful, but very hearty when cooked, tasting a little like steak.
Tsanyi: Pure, sugary sweetness. Can be made into a refreshing drink, eaten raw, or sprinkled over a desert.

There are notably fewer tsanyi than adalfane or tuadath. But if everyone's nice and cooperates, each person can get exactly one.

Comments

[sanctus_dei]

[Theo huffs, frustrated about that interview.]

Yeah. Fat lot of good it did anyone. Exactly what were they expecting, that we're just gonna fall to our knees and start repenting for our sins?

[He runs a hand through his hair. It actually did jangle his nerves, but he'd never admit it.]

Do you have any cigarettes? Or is something like that really fucking contraband in space?

[kaijuice]

There's no tobacco.

[ Or surely, Volk would have stopped bitching. Silco presses a finger to chin. He'd kill for a cigar right now, but there's more worth the killing. ]

And did you? Fall to your knees, repent?

[ One eyebrow — his only eyebrow — lifts skeptic. Obviously not, it drawls. So show me what you did.

(What had they expected? A rat to follow; a maze.) ]

[sanctus_dei]

At all? [He slumps against the door frame. Things were going to get ugly for him in the next couple of days without nicotine, or alcohol. Speaking of...] I'm guessing it's the same for booze?

[For the moment, Theo's sense of humor was still thawing out. Everything felt deadly serious due to what happened to him leading up to arriving here. He folds his arms.]

No, I told them to fuck off. If they wanted some sorry sack of shit, they should have picked someone who wasn't me.

[kaijuice]

[ His breath puffs somewhere between amusement and approval. The bravado of youth. Silco steps about the end of the table, and refrains from asking how, precisely, it was that he got out - ]

Oh, they've their fill, [ He plucks absent at the air, the precise height of Theo's nametag. ] So many sorry souls wallowing in denial. There must be a misunderstanding,

[ His good eye rolls. Silco's fingers drift, snap to the communicator. ]

Come, have a look at this.

[sanctus_dei]

[That goddamn sticker. Theo bristles a bit at that being pointed out.]

I didn't say I was innocent. I said I wasn't sorry.

[Silco gets a wary look when he tries to call him over. Not trusting to being with, his paranoia is ramped up for the moment. He also hasn't had much time to look at the communicators, other than the orientation video. The technology was far beyond anything from his time, so he was curious. But all he does is take one step forward.]

... Take a look at what.

[kaijuice]

[ That pauses him. Silco's voice stills; a moment's undivided attention: ]

You shouldn't be.

[ — Back to it. A map of the ship etches itself along the screen. One clipped nail drags an arcing path along. ]

This is the ship that we aren't meant to see. The rooms which won't open to us.

[sanctus_dei]

[That reaction surprises Theo. It at least makes him more willing to walk a few more steps forward to get a better look.]

Whattaya mean? Is there a lot of 'em? I mean, this place is a prison, I guess it doesn't surprise me. Might be some kind of weird, open one, but a prison nonetheless.

[kaijuice]

Quite. Weird, open. Vast.

[ Infirmary. Athletics. SIRE. Click, click. He lingers over a larger complex: Warden Command, drags down — to the base of the ship — Storage. ]

A man could almost disappear. Wouldn't you like to know how the guards keep track?

[sanctus_dei]

[Now he definitely does get closer as he sees everything unfolding on the map in front of them, his brow creasing more and more as he sees how big this ship really is.]

Holy hell. This place looks huge. That's a good question.

[He motions to the communicator, and then all around them vaguely with a hand.] With all this technology, they gotta be tracking us, right? Somehow? [He's from 1948, so it's way past any of his understanding.]

[kaijuice]

Why else issue these? [ He taps the communicator. ] Tie so much to their use?

[ Only a theory. But — ]

It needs testing.

[sanctus_dei]

We don't got anything like this where I come from. Not even close. So I'm probably not a good person to ask. If it worked via magic? Then yeah, sure.

[He thinks it over for a moment.]

I guess the easy way would be to have someone leave one somewhere, then tell a Warden you haven't seen them in awhile and to check on 'em. See where they go - to the person or the communicator.

[kaijuice]

So call it magic, [ Hextech. Wishes on stars — it doesn't matter. ] A puzzle isn't the sum of its cuts. What you've mastered before, you will again.

[ The splay of a hand, an addition to Theo's proposal: ]

Good. Now it needs the element of urgency.

[sanctus_dei]

This isn't magic. I know magic, and this is technology so advance it might as well be magic, but it still isn't the same thing.

[Theo finds a nearby chair. Turns out that mass murder spellcasting, dying, being dragged here, being resurrected and questioned before being turned loose was pretty exhausting. His nervous tic of running a hand through his hair happens again.]

I dunno. Someone sick, someone dying. Someone tryin' to break out. I could think way better if I had a fucking cigarette.

[kaijuice]

[ The boy rakes his hair back, and slithering dark, but he really is a reflection. ]

Trying to break out, [ Silco muses. ] Yes.

[ That'll do. Dicey, to draw attention to every inmate's most obvious goal. But if it's easy to slap the thing down? If they crush an escape, and never bat an eye? There's a story of a boy who cries wolf. In time, the good people of the town stop running.

The wolf doesn't. ]

We need one more. Not Mercer — [ Too blunt. ] — Not Volkhov.

[ Unreliable. He fishes in a pocket, comes up with a dining hall fork. Some sort of foam; useless to sharpen. ]

Chew. It won't help enough, but it will help.

[sanctus_dei]

Gonna have to leave that to you. Got here just a few hours ago so I don't know who's who, let alone you can trust with a plan.

[Theo does take the fork and looks it over, not exactly thrilled by the alternative, but it was an alternative nonetheless. Be breaks off a tine, and puts the rest of the fork in a pocket. It'll work like a toothpick for now.]