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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The Helpdesk

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

[hiddenblade]

Ezio, who has looked for William's face first and his name tag second, finds himself smiling with bemusement. Fuck off? Is that a way to greet someone familiar on a strange and unusual place? The shift in William's posture tells him otherwise.

He gives William a once-over, brief and curious. The cut of his clothes is different. From somewhere else, but he isn't entirely sure when.

"No," Ezio says, with a spot of controlled disappointment. "We reconnected briefly off of the ship, but we were separated. I had hoped I would find him again here, but..."

A helpless wag of pinched fingers. Alone.

[omniavincit]

Fleetingly he thinks of insisting they look now, they look everywhere—he can't have checked the whole ship. But no, he's always known Ezio to be diligent. Exploration: right there on the fucking name tag.

William makes a small noise at the back of his throat, a high, involuntary sound. Not quite pained. He glances up and down the hall. “What happened?” He lifts his face to Ezio—gaze narrowing into watchfulness.

His words are toneless, bled dry. “Is that why you left?”

[hiddenblade]

"I could not stay," Ezio replies. An admission as much as an answer: the only thing that struck him as more untenable than leaving was to stay. His voice feels taut. "Labouring to guide a man to better the lives of others, to travel through space and time, to meet gods and men from all walks of life... for an Admiral determined to run from his pursuers instead of facing them, even if it meant starving his captives. When Kovacs was sent away, I could not abide by such resignation. To what end would it serve?"

[omniavincit]

For a moment—an unbearably vivid moment, where his skin feels too tight, the very air abrasive—William doesn't react. Then something in him goes slack: his head bows, he buries his face in his hands. He laughs like it's being squeezed out of him. “It made me sick.”

He scrubs his hands over his face, through his hair. He's clear-eyed when he looks up, but his breath trembles through him. “All that—all that bullshit. And it was just another guy who didn't want his boss to be mad at him. Jesus fucking christ.”

A cracked laugh, another breath. His eyes stay locked on Ezio. “Tell me about Takeshi.”

[hiddenblade]

All of that for seemingly nothing. Ezio feels Larry and Kovacs' deaths like cuts into his flesh, worse than his sword arm being too slow or his instincts leading him in the wrong direction or his enemies simply being ruthless enough to take once more. This time there is no excuse, not even the ability to say cruel things happen on whims of unseen forces like pestilence. A man did this, or at least allowed it to happen.

Ezio breathes in deeply.

"He resented that I knew so much about him but seemed to revel in it at the same time," he replies. "He prided himself on having no cause and yet abhorred those who could not set a standard for themselves... I was glad to have someone who expected me to be on my toes."