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.

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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

wildcard;

[sawel]

[For someone who grew up on an island, this is a somewhat familiar scene. Each court back home in New Atlantis owns at least one beach resort and the Sun Throne is no exception, even if Rune's is currently mostly just a stretch of beach off the side of his run-down estate. The fact of that is neither here nor there.

It's the unfamiliar familiarity of it that has Rune awkwardly hovering around here and there, uncertain what exactly to do with himself. At home there would be a barbeque and music and dancing and Brand would probably be at least two beers in by this point and Max and Quinn would probably be trying to drown each other in the pool and Corbie would probably be making himself sick on hotdogs and--

Nope, not going there. He tosses back the rest of his drink, wincing at the burn of the alcohol and at the fact that he's going to have to brave that robot if he wants another one, before he catches sight of a semi-familiar face across the deck. He's seen Logan around here and there, with a few of the other fluxdrifts, as he supposes they're called. Friends of his, Rune had wondered? They had seemed familiar with each other, to say the least. Here and now the other man seems to have found a moment by himself with a plate of the questionable kebab and, more importantly, his own bottle of alcohol.

Rune makes a valiant attempt at casual as he sidles up to perch on the deck chair beside him.]

Fancy seeing you here.

[Rune looks -- better than Logan would have seen him last time. Two functional arms, neither in slings. There are smudges beneath his eyes that suggest he might not have been sleeping so well but otherwise he seems none the worse for wear. He's even dressed relatively appropriate for the weather, in a tshirt and cargo shorts, and he's scrounged himself up a classy short-sleeve button-down that he's wearing overtop, unbuttoned of course, in peak frumpy millennial fashion.]

[carcajous]

[ Instead of the deck chairs, Logan's found his perch among the shrubbery: a wooden ledge where the too-perfect plants are lined up for decoration. He's got one leg stretched out before him, a plate balanced on his other knee, and a bottle of beer on the ground. He's alone, yeah—got Scott home, Erik stormed off somewhere to sulk (probably in Charles' little hut, which he's not gonna give too much thought to for his own damn sake)—and y'know what? This is the least annoyed Logan's looked since he's shown up tonight.

So it's about as good a time as any for Rune to drop by. Logan glances up, a yellow-tinted cube between his fingers. He stuffs it into his mouth, wrinkles his nose (it's not great), and dusts his hands off on his jeans. ]

Finally driving yourself?

[ Rune looks better. In one piece, anyhow. Part of him had been wondering if he'd ever see Rune again. Place this big, it's hard to say. But he won't pretend it isn't good to know the man's doing fine. ]

[sawel]

[Rune raises his arm and waggles his fingers at the other man, lifting his shirt-sleeve to show off the freshly healed skin. Which would be fairly remarkable, if Logan had seen the burn he'd had underneath the bandaging and the sling. Whatever that woman had thrown at him, it had been nasty, and it had taken the whole of a Healing spell to patch it up (the Healing spell itself for that matter had taken hours to store, here without a Sanctum to charge it in). Corrinne and Brand probably had saved his life by knocking him down, keeping it from burrowing any further. Unfortunately, he's starting to think that may have something to do with his appearance here as well.]

All in one piece again. More or less.

[He flicks the other man a smile that doesn't quite meet his eyes, before he glances down at the empty glass in his hands, playing it between his fingers.]

I... Wanted to thank you. I owe you one, for getting me out of there like you did. More than one, really. I, uh. [He lets out a huff of breath, equal parts laugh and self-deprecatory sigh. How to put this...] Wasn't in the best of places.

[He still isn't really but he has at least convinced himself he hasn't lost Brand forever, that he will get back to Addam and the kids in time, which is something.]

I guess it happens sometimes when someone tries to kill you and your family and then you wake up to find yourself... [He waves a hand at the situation they find themselves in.] Here.

[carcajous]

[ Logan tips his head. Both arms, huh? Yeah, he can see that. He could smell it, sort of, the burnt flesh as they drove, but he decided not to ask. Rune didn't say too much at the time. Neither did Logan. He was just bringing the man to the city, didn't stay for much more than that except to exchange a name. Once they hit the Blocks, Logan grabbed his bike and didn't look back.

A shrug. Sure. ] Saved me some gas.

[ Not interested in thanks. He digs out a beer and holds it out. It's an invitation, if he was ever gonna give one. ] Looks like they did a number on you.

[ Brink of death, pulled in the middle of a fight—he's learning that's a common story among the folks who crash land on this planet. Rune's no different—but something about him does spark Logan's curiosity. He just can't put his finger on it yet. ]

[sawel]

[Rune's not gonna say no to a beer, especially not when offered one from a guy like Logan. He takes the offered bottle and holds back the urge to thank him for it again, offering him a nod of gratitude and a raising of the bottle as a little "cheers" instead.

Where the burn had been on Rune's arm and shoulder, the skin is now mostly healed. What's left behind looks to be fresh, pink, newly healed skin. In truth it looks a little bit like he's just had a sunburn there that's still on its way to healing. Fitting, as the Healing spell he had used on the burn had also felt like he was scorching himself under the rays of a thousand suns. Why couldn't his family's magic affinity be something a little less painful?

Rune doesn't know how much Logan really cares to know about what had happened to him, before he came here. He gives off that vibe that he'd prefer not to be told any more than he truly needs to know. But Rune truly hasn't processed the attack, and at the mention of his injuries... Rage, panic, and grief well up within him in equal measure and cracks form in the cool, calm exterior he is trying to cultivate for himself, here in public.]

She was in the house. By the time Brand and I got there she was-- [He raises a hand to run through his hair, over his face.] I don't know how she got in, there are supposed to be wards, there are supposed to be -- I'm supposed to be looking out for them...

[His Court. And instead Anna had gotten stabbed, he'd gotten himself incapacitated, and then he'd woken up here.]

[carcajous]

[ He cares and he doesn't. Thing about him is, he's not the guy you go to when you wanna talk about stuff. He's the guy you go to when you want him to get something done. He's good at that. And all this? Whatever these people left behind in their realities or worlds or whatever you wanna call it?

Nothing he can do about it for them. Nothing he can do about it for his own world, either. Not while he's stuck across the universe.

So it's a pause and a flicker of his gaze before he simply says: ] Well, you're here now.

[ Just something they all have to deal with while they figure it out. Don't get him wrong, he's been spinning his wheels, as well. There's a reason he's sitting here drinking, trying to kill the time he's suddenly got on his hands. Guess that's what the rest of them are doing, too. ]

Look, you wanna get by, I suggest you worry about yourself first.