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
God help them when Logan's apparently playing peacemaker.
He's squatting in front of the grill's open doors, peering under it when somebody looms over him. Logan ducks back out. His gaze travels up. A stranger—but most he meets are just that. It's a big city. ]
Yeah, well— [ He pulls his hand out, fingertips blackened with soot. ] I got half a mind to let them riot.
[ 'Cause he actually can't find what's wrong with it. And frankly, he doesn't normally use these things. He wasn't taking regular visits to the park back in the day to cook up hotdogs. He went with the kids like, maybe once. Twice. Summer field trip or whatever. ]
no subject
Hell, let 'em go long enough, they might take care of it themselves. Spark the whole thing off.
[ He'd say more than anything else right now, he's just curious about getting a closer look at this thing. Lot about this place is new to him. New and old. Old stuff he knows of, things that mostly aged out on Earth, stuff he's got only a passing idea about and just hasn't ever really seen before like this. There were some street vendors around Baltimore, passing off shit food mostly, and there wasn't anything like this, or...the idea of this. Probably meant to be a community thing in theory, people hanging around while one or two people handle the food. People talking, getting to know each other.
Not his thing, but — he can almost imagine it.
— If it weren't for the grill not working, and for this small group of people seemingly more ready to throw punches soon enough than they are about getting to know each other. On his own, can't say he'd be motivated to actually stop them either, really, they can do what they want. He's just in it for learning a little more about how the parts work, and then getting some food out of it. He doesn't get in the guy's space, just gets close enough to kneel near the tank, start to take a look at it. ]
What'd you try already?
no subject
Some jackass shouts, What's the fucking holdup? and Logan rolls his eyes. Yeah, alright. Forget it. He's passing on the torch before he starts the riot. ]
Gas seems busted. [ He shuffles back so the other man can get in there for a better look. Knock yourself out, new guy. ] Dunno how to get it back up. If it's got a leak, I can't find it.
[ He's pretty sure it's as simple as replacing a line or whatever, maybe unscrew a few worn down parts and clean them out. If they had tools. But there aren't any spare parts around and Logan's only handy enough to jerry-rig a fix for his bike or a broken bathroom pipe when he's got access to a hardware store. A roll of duct tape, at least. Out here, they've got...
A bunch of meat-flavoured cubes and a pile of dead robots. So. Oh, sorry. Meat and tropical fruit. Can't forget those. ]
no subject
Other than grabbing some loose parts from the robots, he doesn't have tools handy to do anything complicated. Not yet. But — this whole thing doesn't actually seem that complicated. He's no grilling man, no expert at this type of equipment specifically, but it follows along a basic premise — some valves and hosing connecting a source of fuel to a cooktop. Different points along the way can break down, maybe something's loose or clogged, or leaking, like the man said.
He gets closer, peering under the open doors in a similar way, starts fiddling with a few of the parts to see what's loose and not. ]
Don't help that a lot's rusted out here.
[ He moves away from the open doors, shifts a little and runs his fingers over the hosing near the tank now, putting an eye on the valve on there. Seems a good place to start. ]
Used to workin' on bigger things than this. [ He's testing the hose, feeling anything brittle along the line, but it seems solid. Can't be that. ] Fancy it up as the years go by, but — point a to point b, lot of parts and systems are the same on the inside.
[ As he puts a closer eye on the fuel valve again, he'll trust the other guy to keep the crowd from swarming either one of them. ]
no subject
[ How's the bushes gonna be perfectly trimmed, but the grill's rusted to hell and back? Anyway, this isn't his problem, never was, but now he's curious if this guy can actually fix the thing.
He pulls over a half-empty bottle of beer, glass bottom scraping against concrete. ]
Oh, yeah? [ Don't worry, he's keeping an eye on the antsy crowd. Irritated, but nobody looks ready to start something real. He won't even try to guess why or what might eventually set them off. People are just like that sometimes. Unpredictable.
When a breeze swings one of the doors shut, Logan reaches over to hold it open. Before it knocks the man on the head. ] How big's big?
no subject
Same concept here. Silently, he taps all the components that work together, identifying them in his head at least in a way that makes sense to him. The tank with the gas is the whole damn issue right now; tank's full, it's just not getting there. That little valve on top of the tank keeps the system running safe, he figures, since it's that point between the tank and the hose. Too much of something and might've choked out the fuel from getting to the hose, getting anywhere past the tank at all. Like a safety mechanism. So then the igniter has nothing to do at all. While he's thinking that through, he just barely feels that breeze hit his skin before there's a light groaning of the doors and he doesn't have time to —
Huh, how 'bout that? Nice looking out. ]
Ice hauler, frigate. All up there. [ He turns to glance at him over his shoulder briefly, giving a nod to acknowledge his silent maneuver with one of the doors, before he looks up to the sky. ] The Rocinante, our ship, Martian Navy had her first. Could've been...thirty, forty heavy if they had to be. So — decent.
[ He turns his attention back to the tank, goes back to his thought about a failsafe maybe kicking in, and so he decides to shut the valve, to choke off the flow of whatever gas was trying to move through the line at all. Make sure the knobs on the cooktop are off. Then he unscrews the hose from the top of the tank, to let any pressure bleed off. Then he'll wait. Somewhere behind them, he hears a broken murmuring of, "not a social call" and almost laughs a little under his breath. It's kind of entertaining, the more restless they get. Makes him wonder if they'll deflate or explode. ]
no subject
Then it all clicks, and he blinks. ] Did you say Martian?
[ He huffs. Uh-huh. Okay. Not what he expected. There's a sense that Logan doesn't disbelieve him, exactly. Just kinda taking it in before he shakes his head and shifts his weight. He plants his ass on the ground, giving up on the idea that this is gonna be finished any time soon. Or that he's gonna take off in the next few minutes. Logan glances over his shoulder at the crowd—scans through it, as though he's really thinking about picking out who said that—and maybe something about his expression gets them to shut up for another thirty seconds.
Outer space, is that right? ]
And I thought I was from the future.
[ So much for that. First the one-armed time traveller, now this. Really starting to make 2023 sound like the ancient past. Suppose time is relative, as Hank would say. ]
no subject
[ He's already met some pirates from a lot of years back, and met others who are sort of...not completely human, so he wouldn't be surprised to meet people from way into his own future anytime now. Different worlds, different species — someone even mentioned vampires and werewolves as just a thing in their time, so he's gonna just continue to be mostly unsurprised, if no less — interested, in the things he's learning about where others are from.
Amos shifts a little on the heels of his feet, leans back slightly in his kneeled position, just scanning for anything else he might want to unhook while he lets the pressure bleed off. Really just a few last things — he reaches into his pocket for some of the loose screws he'd picked up from the robots, holds up a couple to see if the sizes match the hose going to the fuel tank. One does, the others don't, so he pockets them again, unscrews the rusted one — takes a little extra force, like it doesn't wanna give easily — and gets that new one on. Another minute or two, he'll hook everything back up, see if this "reset" worked. ]
I'm from the twenty-fourth century. Plenty's changed, plenty hasn't. That's how it goes, though. [ Amos looks over at the guy, taps the ground near the beer bottle. ] That any good? [ He's drank things just to drink them before. Don't mean they were good, so. Figures he'll ask. ] Gonna stop by there after this, if they don't turn on us.
[ Considering the way the two of them are effectively sitting and seemingly not actually working on the grill for a minute, Amos can almost feel the tension starting to boil over behind them. No one's advanced on them yet, still, but it's hard to miss the angry murmuring, voices rising in volume. ]
no subject
[ The girl who'd never heard of a car before, sword on her back—yeah. He's seen a lot of things in his life, but this jumble of time is brand new. It both does and doesn't make him feel better about what it means for his future. Whatever's happening...it's far bigger than anything he could've done. Time travelling or not. Gonna ask more about that twenty-fourth century part later, by the way.
While the other man fiddles with the screws, Logan turns the bottle around. He considers the label. Nothing he recognizes. Decent, though. Better than what he can usually find in the city. ] It's on the house.
[ Hard to be picky about shit he didn't have to pay for. Less hard to be picky about the amount of damn space they're getting as they sit and wait. He can't tell if the crowd's just inching forward from momentum over time or if some idiot at the back's started pushing. He doesn't really care, either. All he knows is, somebody knocks into him a little too hard—and he grabs the stray hand without thinking. ]
Hey, take a step back, pal.