MINGLE ∞ LOG — June 2025

[thediadem]

Mingle ∞ Log

No Lifeguard on Duty

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Jump ⇅ :: Intro — Prompts — NPC Interaction

Summary

What's going on?

An unexpected heat wave in mid-June, coupled with the cycling shutdown of all air conditioning units in motels across the Blocks, has made the summer unbearable. Meanwhile, the ever-eager storm chaser, Felix Bjurstrom, has uncovered a fancy resort with a pool in a diffusion zone only 1 hour out from Panorama. Lucky, right? Well...kind of. It's got some quirks.

When is this happening?

June 10 - 30

What should I know?

• This area is one of many diffusion zones that appear throughout the planet.
• A storm chaser is someone dedicated to studying the cosmic phenomenon in the Diadem. Felix is a pioneer in his field.
• A winding highway filled with old empty barrels will take you to the zone.
• Characters can travel with a friend to save on gas! Parking's limited, so it might not be a bad idea.
• At any given time, there's max several dozen visitors. Most work long hours, some are traveling through the diffusion zones, and others prefer not to risk the drive or waste precious gas, so it won't draw a huge crowd (but there's still a crowd!).
• This is a mingle rather than an event. Plot-heavy elements will be minor. The game's first proper event will be posted in July!

What does my character know?

• Having lost his phone, Felix will spread the word using good old-fashioned printed posters that he's put up around Panorama. A young woman is seen helping him. They appear to be close. Some say that's his daughter.
• Though the timing is impossible to predict accurately, Felix believes that due to this zone's unusual proximity to an anchor point, it has a high chance of persisting for 2-3 weeks.
• Directions are printed on the posters, though characters are also free to stumble across the zone by accident.

∞ Links ∞

Travel — Map — Setting

Introduction

The resort looks like your typical upscale vacation spot: a beautiful pool, lovely cabins, and plenty of pool chairs. The sky is perpetually nighttime and there are two moons. One moon is smaller than its sister and glows purple. The other looks like the Earth's moon. The weather is pleasantly warm. In fact, conditions are almost too perfect.

Other fluxdrifts are here, too, and you might come across them, all of whom are taking advantage of the pool. They'll converse superficially with you and will come and go randomly. You'll want to keep a close eye on your belongings. Other than cooling off, this isn't a bad place to start making connections. Life in the Diadem is better when you've got allies if not friends.

Just outside the resort is a spacious parking lot, designed for visitors. Nobody's following parking rules so put your car anywhere it fits. If you get blocked in, well, that's a problem for when you leave.

At the end of June, the diffusion zone will flicker and morph into an unremarkable overgrown park, long abandoned to the decades.

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Prompts

As you wander around, you discover deactivated androids in many of the poolside huts. These androids cannot be mistaken for any organic species: their chassis is metal, and their heads are shiny. Circuits and wires are visible. But each is dressed distinctly human in a way that borders on disturbing. You spot lipstick drawn on some of the metal faces, as though they're playing dress up...or as if they don't realize they aren't human. One android is frozen in place with a diary clutched in its hands. Another has a hairbrush for its nonexistent hair.

Something seems to have destroyed them—perhaps a powerful EMP wave that knocked them all out. All except one.

The Bartender

The poolside bar is at the eastern end of the resort. There are plenty of seats. A few are occupied by deactivated androids. The bartender is also an android and appears to be the only functional one in this place. He speaks with a modulated voice and has a neutral accent. He exhibits the following behaviors if you sit at his bar:

• Icebreaker. Whether you're alone or with a companion, he'll try to get you all to be friends, asking random self-generated icebreaker questions. He'll be visibly disappointed if you don't play along.
• Bartending. While cheerful, he can't make the correct drink: it's always too strong, incredibly weak, added salt instead of sugar, messed up the ice. He's obviously doing his best, but it's just not working. The harder he tries, the worse he performs until it becomes a comedy of errors with stuff falling over, ice dumped in your lap, champagne corks flying, and any number of slapstick mishaps. You can help him out by mixing the drink yourself.

If you're nice to him, he'll introduce himself as Thomas Lustras. He's happy to tell you about his son. Strange, you think, but who says androids can't have paternal instincts? Yet, when the android takes out his wallet to show you a photo of his son—named Edward Lustras—the picture is that of a human child, roughly 5 years old, in the arms of his human father.

The driver's license in the same wallet confirms that Thomas is (was?) a real person. The picture on the license matches the human male in the photo. A half-scorched business card states that Thomas was a consultant at Outer Rim Resettlements. Thomas believes he's on a company retreat and wistfully declares he's eager to return home to his son.

Maybe don't look too closely. After all, this place will soon disappear. And so will he.

The Grill

It's not a vacation without a grill! Not a grillable item is in sight, though, so you'll have to rely on what you can bring out of Panorama. Some of the visiting drifters will pitch in to share, unloading hotdogs (some synthetic, others authentic, and some far past expiry), burger patties (same) and buns, and "kebabs" made of blocky frozen vegetable squares. The squares vaguely resemble corn, mushrooms, and pineapple. The texture is passable, like a flavor-infused block of tofu.

Fire up the grill and take turns grilling. You'll also have to manage the propane. The grill's also prone to sputtering out, requiring regular minor repairs to get it back up and going. Any loose bolts or screws can be taken out of the dead androids to replace the rusty ones in the grill. You're unsure if you should feel uncomfortable doing that or what, but it is a solution.

Parking Woes

Like any crowded event, the parking lot can get chaotic, and the lawlessness of the diffusion zones doesn't help. While some are happy to help barbecue, others are more interested in picking fights over who got to the parking space first. It won't take much for a fistfight to break out, and a knife fight isn't out of the question, either, though nobody'll be killed (this time).

You can let the troublemakers beat each other, or you can try to intervene if somebody who doesn't deserve it is getting harassed. Just avoid causing too much of a scene. Breaking noses is acceptable; gutting someone head to toe is not. There are Enforcers visiting the zone, and if you interfere with their nice pool time, they won't hesitate to haul away everybody involved and make you sit in jail for a few days.

Questions? Ask here

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Comments

POOLSIDE

[vestments]

⏾ AROUND

( it's not the sort of place that marc would gravitate towards otherwise, but being (still) somewhat new to everything, and still not quite certain of the ins and outs and the whole ... reality of everything, marc opts to head to the diffusion zones as a matter of sating some degree of curiosity.

to start, he doesn't get a drink — in recent years, he's made a point of drinking less — and instead heads towards the beach huts. he looks entirely out of place, once again dressed in the entirely impractical all-white three-piece suit he'd turned up in.

for those that have met him previously, there's a chance it's familiar — it's what he'd worn when making his way through the motel, but even if not, it's not hard to piece together that this man is probably the man that's left the odd crescent moon spray painted on walls and doors in the immediate vicinty of the motel he's claimed as SOMEWHERE TO SLEEP — the evidence is there in the tiny crescent moons that make up his cufflinks and the buttons on his waistcoat, although in contrast to the details, marc himself looks as sleep-deprived as ever, though none of that stops him from strolling from poolside hut to poolside hut, something that edges towards bemusement evident in his expression.

eventually, he'll pluck a diary from the hands of an unresponsive android, one he makes precisely zero attempt to bring back to life, and— )

Mm. ( it's a soft murmur, quiet, clearly meant more for himself than company. a rustle indicates the turning of a page and — is marc interested by the contents? fuck, no. it's boring, mundane, intimate in all the ways he hates, and there's a sudden, resounding thud as he snaps it shut.

his gaze flickers up towards the door, eyebrows arching before knitting together in surprise at the realisation he has company, before— ) Who knew robots could have love lives. ( it's utterly, utterly dry, giving zero indication as to whether marc actually thinks it's strange or not.

(he doesn't: he's known androids (or similar) to get married, so who's he to judge?) )

[kingsroads]

Is that what he is? [ Strange asks, just barging into the conversation, as he looks over Marc's shoulder, trying to read the diary himself. 'Ask before you barge in and start reading what he has'? No. Just blatantly shove your nose into this. Strange is curious! And whatever that diary is, it's interesting. Maybe it will help explain what others here are viewing as commonplace but what he is absolutely astounded by. ]

A robot? I've never heard the term before.

[vestments]

( marc recognises the voice from his equally rude interruption and barging into strange's motel room, and so while marc isn't thrilled with the invasion of his personal space, he can't quite say it's unfair or unwarranted.

and so, though he stiffens and he straightens, he doesn't immediately step away from jonathan, just lifts a shoulder in a vague approximation of a shrug and— ) I can't guarantee that's his preferred term for it. ( measured, conceding, and entirely unbothered, followed by a slightly more pointed, ) They're after your time.

( as if to say, jonathan, that's not a surprise, and why would you have heard of robots? )

[kingsroads]

[ Personal space? What personal space? Jonathan Strange knows nothing about 'personal space'. He is outright trying to read the diary over Marc's shoulder, not caring about how close he is. ]

In that case, mind filling a man in? I doubt I will understand a complex definition, but a simple one should suffice.

[ He is well aware of just how out of his depth he is. Cliff notes, plz! ]

[vestments]

( unfortunately, explanations have never been marc's strong suit, particularly not when it comes to technology — for that, he'd always had jean-paul. he'd just gone I WANT THIS and jean-paul had always — eventually — found a way to make it work.

robots, as far marc's concerned, are just robots.

though once it becomes evident that jonathan is going to just continue standing there, attempting to read over his shoulder, marc will take a pointed step to the side — jonathan's welcome to the diary, but he can use his words and ask for it — before answering. )

Machines. ( accompanied by a gesture towards the one in the hut. it's dressed much like a human on vacation, albeit one with an unfortunate and garish taste in shirts, and a penchant for mid-thigh length shorts and sandals. ) Usually designed to look like some kind of organic life.

( is jonathan going to ask him 'why'? as if to pre-empt it, he offers a shrug, tight and little dismissive. ) Probably in an attempt to make them seem less threatening.

[kingsroads]

[ Rude, he was reading that! Strange gives Marc a 'what gives' sort of look, before temporarily abandoning his quest to be a nosy bitch. There's something more important to talk about now anyway: what the heck are these robots.

The explanation seems simple enough. It's less threatening if a machine looks like a person compared to a beast—and they would probably treat the machine better if it looked like a person compared to a carriage. But that offers up more questions: what would these machines do that would seem threatening?

A machine to sew a dress or replace a carriage probably would seem unthreatening no matter what the shape. But a machine designed for war or hospital work...less threatening certainly matters then. ]

If that is the case, why have them here? I can understand a nonthreatening machine in some circumstances, but absolutely nothing about this area seems threatening, [ said with a vague gesture to the cabana as a whole. ] Unless...whatever the threat was, it happened prior to our arrival.

[ it has not escaped Strange's notice that these machines are doing fuckall. ]

[vestments]

( marc mms his agreement to strange's suggestion about the threat — he's not inclined to think there's any lingering, overt concern to themselves, although he does think that thomas's belief in himself as REAL BOY with an equally real human son is— HMM.

it's the confirmation that it's not a condition limited to thomas that has him perplexed — or at least, that it wasn't limited to thomas, given the inactivity of every single other android present in the resort.

marc's assumption is that the androids were given the consciousnesses of people, living or dead, and — didn't doom do something similar once? with some town he'd lived in, with doombots that were programmed to believe themselves individuals that had long since passed away? he doesn't know the ins and outs beyond that — it was something the fantastic four had dealt with, marc had only heard about it second (third—) hand, and ultimately, he supposes the details are mostly unimportant. for now. )

An experiment, maybe. ( it's the verbal equivalent of a shrug, an 'I don't know' in another form.

he drops the diary down onto a small table, the thud audible in the momentary silence. ) The bartender believes himself human and on some kind of work-related trip. The— ( he waves a hand. him. diary-man. ) Is getting divorced. Also thought themselves on a company retreat. So either something was done to the real workers, or someone gave a load of robots a bunch of fake memories and lives.

Hard to guess at why without any other clues.

[kingsroads]

[ This is remarkably far outside of Strange's wheelhouse. Something done to the workers? Fake memories? He has half-formed spell ideas that could help, but he certainly would like to learn a bit more information before doing anything rash. Like Marc said: it's hard to guess at. ]

Do robots dream? I doubt it would be much use, but I know a spell to view one's dreams. Perhaps...I don't know, perhaps it dreams of it's time as a robot. Or whatever gave it those false memories implanted them so deeply that it has changed their dreams.

[ Strange doesn't know! All he knows is that he kind of wants to do something. What specifically, that's the question. But something nonetheless. ]

[vestments]

( it's not really in marc's wheelhouse, either, he's just used to being confused and having no fucking clue as to what's really going on. he is, as they say, really good at faking it. the rest of what they say might boil down to 'if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit', and while marc might not be a fan of the latter, he is exceptionally (and inadvertently) skilled at it.

and so his eyebrows dart up at jonathan's question, and there's a very real moment in which marc thinks about remarking on how that's a book title, then thinks of saying something about 'electric sheep' instead, but neither thought get much past merely existing — he's not that conversational, and he's definitely not that quippy. poorly timed and bad taste jokes can remain the skillset of the peter parkers of the world, while marc instead offers a shrug. )

Even if it doesn't dream, it'll have memory banks. ( or, you know, whatever. close enough.

—is it close enough? )

[kingsroads]

[ Strange frowns a little, looking down at the androids. These things can store memory apparently? That's useful and good to know. And yet...there's something about this scenario that rubs him the wrong way. Him and someone else, staring down at a body, trying to decide how to get information from it— ]

Ah, [ Strange muses, as he squats down to further look at the android. That's what this reminds him of. The peninsula, when he brought those dead Neopolitans back to life—something which still haunts Strange more than he wants to admit. The desire for information is now butting up against his dislike of necromancy. Idly, he reaches a hand towards the smooth metal face of the robot, tracing his fingers over where the lips, the nose, the mouth should be. ]

I'd prefer to start with the dreams over the memory banks. While magic can meddle with the mind, the results can be dangerous. If something were to go wrong, it would be far easier to explain away a bad dream.

[vestments]

( marc has no such scruples. his mind's been messed with enough times that he barely spares a thought to it, and he's died enough times that he thinks that— well, if the android's beyond repair, it's not as if he's going to miss any of his memories. working with the dead is nothing new.

still.

strange earns a sidelong glance and a shrug as if to say 'whatever, suit yourself'. it's not him that's going to be doing the work, so his thoughts on it don't matter quite as much. it'd be different if they themselves seemed to be in imminent danger, but as it stands — luckily — they don't.

not that it stops him from remarking, ) Robot memories aren't anything like human ones. If I knew where they were saved, I could take them out to access them later. ( probably. maybe. with the right equipment. then— )

I've had my dreams messed with before. I wouldn't call that pleasant, either.