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The Diadem ([personal profile] thediadem) wrote in [community profile] diademlogs2025-06-08 10:11 am
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MINGLE ∞ LOG — June 2025

Mingle ∞ Log
No Lifeguard on Duty
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Jump ⇅ :: IntroPromptsNPC 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 ∞
TravelMapSetting
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
unsunder: (🌃 190)

[personal profile] unsunder 2025-07-04 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
[ I wanted to be by the end.

A wayward time traveler once came to him, eons ago now, and told him of the monster he was to become. The very thought raised his hackles, had him decrying a future he would later learn was always going to be inevitable. But more than the horrible things he would do, the dark path he would walk, he could not wrap his head around one thing:

Why would he welcome his own demise? Why would he invite the hero of the star personally to his doorstep, where he would meet his end by their hand?

Having now lived it, he understands. ]


Aye, I wanted it, too.

[ A soft admission, but one that comes out easily nonetheless. Emet-Selch has spent an awful lot of time since he got here trying not to think about what this second chance at life means for him, on the things that he did and what having to live with them now is going to look like.

This mounting understanding between himself and Sunday has done a lot to grease the wheels when it comes to talking about his past, and though he may not show it or admit out loud, it sits a little lighter now that it’s out in the open. ]


After thousands and thousands of long years of toil, I was ready.

[ He was tired, and he knew finally that he was leaving the star in good hands. It was enough. ]
catharses: (054)

[personal profile] catharses 2025-07-06 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[ That admission - though Sunday was not exactly moving before, the weight of it somehow stills him further as he watches Emet-Selch. A weight both within the words but also the action of saying them, and one he acknowledges in himself as having lessened when he'd said his own truth of his actions.

Wonweek was right, Sunday thinks absently. It isn't the being judged for it which brings any relief for what he seeks, but the confessing which relieves some of the frightfully tangled knot in his chest of too many things intricately linked. There's been one conversation he's already had about this, and now here is a second. More steps towards honesty he has not practiced for years.

Years, however, which do not total up to the ones Emet-Selch has spent. ]


Thousands and thousands of years? [ It's more a curious echo than anything with a question concealed within it since it's possible more explanation will follow even without prompting. ] I cannot imagine such a thing when my own time was a fraction of that.

[ And it'd broken him in some ways he knows of and others he's yet to discover, but Sunday allows himself to consider the implication of millennia. He shakes his head as if to reprimand himself and the quiet chime of his earrings does the same with their ever weighted reminder. ]

I cannot imagine that was easy to bear. What I did... what I have done, [ he corrects himself when it sounds too much like minimizing the burden he must now bear, ] cost me everything. I left with the hope of finding a new path, though I know not yet what it will be.
unsunder: (🌃 128)

[personal profile] unsunder 2025-07-07 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
[ He can practically feel the way his admission settles, a quilt of quiet that blankets the room. It does not feel bad – merely different, lighter, like he’d thought. Strange that he’d never say anything like this to the people here from his own world, the ones who’d fought so fiercely by the hero’s side and ushered in his demise. That feels too vulnerable.

Sunday is all but a perfect stranger, and yet there is something here, a thread that while thin and new, seems perfectly capable of bearing that weight. ]


Twelve thousand and counting. If I had to guess, I would say most here can boast only a fraction of that.

[ There are things in this universe far older and stranger than himself, but he doubts there will be anyone like that among the other fluxdrifts. He is ancient. He should be at rest, and instead, he is here. ]

Ah, and that is where we differ. [ Sunday lost everything, but for Emet-Selch himself, everything was already lost. He toiled and tried and did everything he could to bring it back. No matter how desperately he clung to the past, that desperation could not hope to stand against the hope of the future.

Hope. He’s almost forgotten what that feels like.

He heaves a sigh, a quiet huff blown out through his nose, and leans one shoulder against the nearest wall, one eyebrow arching. The look on his face tips toward amused, if only barely so. ]


Still, I cannot imagine this is quite what you had in mind for your second chance.