POST-HURRICANE LOG | OPEN MINGLE

[oneandmikleonly]

[Past the 9th of the month, the hurricane's finally blown itself out, leaving a great deal of mess behind (but at least, a lot less mess than there would have been without the crew's various antics, right?)

After the calm there's the storm, but after the storm, there's...uh, actually, it's not all that calm again yet. Look at all these notable goings on that you can play with:

SICK PEOPLE are still a thing. Are you still suffering from the ravages of alien cave flu? Finally finding the energy to crawl out of bed? Starting to come down with it yourself? Getting dosed with cure attempts? Doing the dosing? Or maybe you're not sick at all but went hurricane surfing and are now prone in the medbay. It's been a rough couple of weeks.

The HURRICANE'S AFTEREFFECTS still linger. Fish in the base aquariums and biomes are just starting to resume their regular activities. Maybe some of your special fish friends are still spooked and need some coaxing out? Maybe you want to swim out to a more distant biome to check on creatures like the Reefbacks or the Birdogs? Or maybe you want to stick closer to home and do things like finish repairing the busted corridors, and cleaning out the kitchens and showers so the food and bathing situation doesn't descend back into complete travesty.

For those who've started wandering out, there's also FAMILIAR ITEMS washing up -- things from your home, or at least...someone's home. Is an embarrassing photo of you now plastered against an observatory window for the world to see? Your fancy car from home buried in the sand of the Safe Shallows?

Lastly, on the night of the 13th (and subsequent nights...), a distant DISCO LIGHTSHOW becomes totally visible on the horizon, in the Monolith's direction. What the heck? Maybe that's worth checking out.

And of course, there's always PLANNING, MISSIONS AND SHENANIGANS to do. Go nuts!]

Comments

[splinten]

[Hm. Dirk considers it for a moment.]

Do you think that could be it?

[He's already strategizing the best way to clear out the area. He may need to donate a poor Noodle Swing to his cause.

Wait. No. Jake thinks of them as his people. Goddammit. He'll find something else. Maybe one of those douchebag frogs.]

[potentite]

[Jake leans in, still on high alert. After a moment of consideration and taking a breath, he sets into the water, very, very gently, so that the water almost doesn't move. He knows how many things in the water look for distressed or regular movements.]

It's tricky. You can only see it at this angle? And...

[Jake leans down in the water, putting his face in it and opens his eyes, looking for a second before standing back up and wiping at his face.]

Jesus's Christ's dirty bathroom sink it's shady down there. Not a lot of visibility.

[He glances at him, a little concerned.] Will you be okay?

[splinten]

Hold on.

[Dirk drops something out of his sylladex: a repurposed version of their old gas masks. The reason, of course, is for the help filtering through dirt with the (shades-shaped) goggles. He sets it on his head.

Then there are a couple quick blurs: in one, one of those very scary frogs is dragged over cut in two; in the second, the frog is tossed down-river from where they're looking.

Hopefully, that will drag most of the scary fish away from them.]

Got your guns?

[potentite]

[Jake's eyes widen.]

Wowie! Yeah, I do! [He drops them out of his sylladex and gives them a twirl around his index fingers.] But golly you look spiffy, Strider.

[He always liked how those looked and needed to take a moment to appreciate seeing it again.]

[splinten]

[The sound is muffled, but—]

Brings back memories?

[Stop flirting, kids.]

[potentite]

[Too bad because Jake grins, flipping one of his guns in his old, flashy way.] Very good ones.

[splinten]

[He would love to continue this, but that Red Eye is only going to last him so long.]

Eyes on the prize, English.

[With that, he plunges into the depths. He has his sword out already to help ground him, and he works at the marker, seeing if he can get it lifted up or something to help him get under.]

[potentite]

[Thanks for turning around, Dirk. Eyes on the prize indeed.

Jake goes after him, flying just above the water. Being on guard duty makes him restless and he really wants an excuse to shoot at something but he would rather that red eye keep whatever the hell is down there distracted from the fresher meat below.

For now he's just kind of watching the roundsaw in the distance eating the body and its tentacles flail around.]

Do you need help down there?

[splinten]

[Dirk growls to himself, and a jet of bubbles escapes from his mask.]

It's definitely a marker, but I don't have half a fuckin' clue what to do with it. If you've got any ideas I'm open.

[potentite]

Maybe it's like a padlock. You need to turn it in the cardinal directions. Or it's a key! Or it could be a switch...

[He's listing off things from movies and comics of course.]

[splinten]

All of those ideas sound like a shitty way to design a storage space.

[He turns it.]

Goddammit.

[potentite]

[Jake gets excited and spins upside down in the air.]

My idea worked?! Hot dog! Can I come down?

[splinten]

Yes. But move fast.

[He is pretty sure the roundsaws are pretty much done with their red eye.]

[potentite]

[Jake shoves his breather in his mouth and uses his flight to rocket down to Dirk, fingers grabbing his arm since he can't see.]

Lead me in, please.

[splinten]

[Dirk secures his grip on Jake's arm, and then in a series of flashsteps he gets them in and shuts the path behind them. No roundsaws eating him and his boyfriend, thank you very much.

Ex. Ex-boyfriend.

Jake is his ex-boyfriend.]

[potentite]

[Luckily this area is mostly water free! So Jake takes out his breather and rubs at his eyes to get the water out before smiling at Dirk.]

Thanks for the help.

[splinten]

I'm pretty sure this is more Tomb Raider than our entire literal tomb-raiding experience.

[It's a muffled noise, and he takes off his gas mask a moment later. There's a vibrancy behind him as he slips his shades back on and nods his head.]

Let's go further in.

[potentite]

[It's infectious and Jake grins as he moves ahead, a bounce in his step.]

So mayhaps there are traps and other assorted obstacles?

[splinten]

Who knows. Eyes open, Croft.

[It's good they left LARA on the shore, honestly. He doesn't want any chance of this getting transmitted back to Naoko, even if he did disable the monitors.]

[potentite]

[Jake runs his hand over the wall.]

Whoa, it's really dry down here. And cold. Is that because of URSULA? Did they pick this as her cooling tank?

[splinten]

[He lets Jake take the lead here; Jake knows tombs the way Dirk doesn't.]

That would be a smart choice. If they're taking up entire rooms with servers, a natural cooling environment would be to their advantage.

[potentite]

[He doesn't even pause at intersections and his eyes dart around naturally, without any problems. He just knows where to go and how.]

Hey, Dirk? What are you going to do with her? Are you going to keep her? You don't trust her with anyone from this world, right?

[splinten]

[He's a few steps behind Jake every movement along the way, both to let Jake lead and also to watch their backs in case something lives down here.]

Of course I'm gonna keep her. The people from this world don't have a good sense of AIs.

I'm going to compress her code into something more manageable and bring her home where we can protect her. At the least we should have her on Floater Island.

[potentite]

[He glances back with a curious expression.] Are you going to keep her after that, too, if you can?

[splinten]

[He looks back with the slightest tilt of his head.]

Not sure what you're talking about, dude.