returnjourneylogs | SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Her brow furrows. Time for seriousness. She can summon it over the bright blue circles of doubt frenetically circling his eye, his eye, he looks sick, but he always does-

"I pulled the pin," she says, hoping it makes him proud. "I knew what I was doing."

A thousand words want to bristle out — how could she, how foolish, how little she knows at all to —

"I found you," In the end, it's all there is to say. A thumb brushes skin miraculously unblemished. A reminder of sweat and soot, "I took you home."

There's no home in a surgeon's knife; there's too much of one. Sometimes, death is a kindness.

Fuck kindness. They lived.

One of her hoarded tsanyi falls from her previous perch and splatters on the wall, leaving a pungently sweet scent. Jinx snorts, not fully catching his implication, or maybe reacting to the smell...

"Yeah," she snickers, uncomprehending. "Some home, huh?"

She means this place.

"Did you get sick?"

"Mn," He says, tearing his eyes at last away — they are not alone. "It's not forever."

They'll get out. Only a fool would expect them to sit idly and accept matters. His chin tips, hand falls to her shoulder. Something is going on. This place, these people,

"Shot." There's no gentle way about it. Someone is lying to them: "Crossfire."

Her expression twists up like she's bitten into sour fruit. Voice low, she asks, "Who?"

They both know why. Other people don't matter, until they do.

"I don't know," It wasn't her. Not truly — not with all the burning words that girl whispered in her ear — "It was chaos."

He knows the mistake before he's even said it, can't think what else to:

"An Enforcer got hands on a gun."

(It's where a betting man would have laid odds. The first time, this second.)

She grinds her teeth, and the pain gives her clarity. Guilty colors radiate out, muddied by bright, decisive action. Or, need for action. She can't think of anything she should be doing not.

"Should've been there." And not nosing around after her stupid, stupid sister, the pointless, pointless waste.

"Look at me," A finger to her chin, tipped up. "We're here now."

"I will always be here. Always." His forehead to hers. "And they will never keep us apart."

She hugs him, because she doesn't how how else to get across... anything, when it comes to Silco. The sensation of being wanted, needed, even- the feeling of safety, the delicious power inherent in his trust. He's the one who's good with words. She hugs him, and that has to be enough.

And then, comforted, she lets go.

"What do you, uh, think? Of this place?" What's the plan?

"It's empty," He turns to the scaffolding, squints after Jinx's perch. It's true that there are only so many ways to get around the Undercity - "Perhaps a dozen men in the whole place."

- It's also true that he hasn't been seventeen for a very long time. Hauling upward, onto the first ledge, is excruciatingly slow. Silco stops to breathe.

Prudent to strike early, before they've the opportunity to organize. Prudent in theory, presently unwise. Too easy to shut the doors and starve them out. Too little camaraderie to chance a hostage.

"It explains the locks, the owl. They're staffed as much by machines."

One of them is good with those.

His words inspire comfort. She follows him slowly, carefully-- she won't help him unless he asks, or clearly needs it. But her belief in him is such that she struggles with the idea of him not being able to do something he puts his mind to.

"The machines're really..." She frowns, "they're different."

Of course she's already poked around, or tried to. Some attempts were more successful than others.

"You're different," Cleverer than most. They've yet to find an idea she can't take apart. "None of them are built like you."

But sentimentality doesn't solve their present dilemma.

"Some of them have done this before — a different pit. The same prison. They'll know something."

SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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flips the it's been zero (0) days since my daughter tried to murder someone counter

wow dad thanks fr always supporting her.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/89/ac/dd/89acdd4d929e7b816c78dd73646d77ad.jpg

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