Mingle ∞ Log
No Lifeguard on Duty
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 ∞
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.
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.
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thediadem) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
diademlogs2025-06-08 10:11 am
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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? )
no subject
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.
no subject
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.