EVENT ★ LOST IN TRANSLATION

[futurologists]

RETURN TO OSKA Upon arrival in Oska, new and returning recruits alike will find that something strange is going on. Any attempts to communicate with someone who doesn't speak the same language as you will be just that -- like you don't speak the same language. Let's hope everyone is good at charades, because you're going to be out of luck for a full day. On the second day, a text comes across -- surprisingly intelligible to everyone. Is it over? Well . . . crowley: Hello, Audentes. We are currently experiencing magitek difficulties, as you may have guessed already. Temporal insects have arrived with our latest arrivals, and as you may imagine, we have had our paws full. cherenkov: We are working out how to mitigate the pest problem for good. For now, please put your unpleasantly huge feet to use and stomp them out. Or other such methods. crowley: We have created a quick patch to facilitate text-based communications, but verbal translation will continue to be down until the insects are exterminated. Thank you for your patience. It's not over. TEMPORAL INSECTS This invasive species has worked its way in through the rifts along with the newest batch of arrivals, and information on them is available in the library (provided you can read the language it's written in!). It seems they behave like locusts, living quietly within the space between rifts for many years until their numbers suddenly balloon and they begin to swarm in search of food. These bugs move fast and pack a nasty bite, but are unarmored and easily squished. Each one is about the size of a football, and leaves a little tell-tale slime trail that makes it easy to track. They can cling to any surface, and won't hesitate to leap onto attackers and bite if they feel threatened. One can take a decently sized but non-lethal bite out of someone, but a number of them together will pose a real danger. If punctured or squished they tend to explode into moderately acidic goo that can cause caustic burns if not immediately washed off. They are attracted to any area of high temporal energy, which can be literally any surface, corner, or point on or within the castle and its grounds. As they begin to feed they cause temporal distortion in the area. This manifests as the immediate area seeming to flicker backwards and forwards through time. An insect gnawing at a table leg in the dining area, for example, might cause the area to stutter between years and years of dinner parties, ghostly attendants of all fashions and species appearing and disappearing as they enter and leave the affected area. An onlooker can't interact with temporal distortions directly, but if the insect is left to its own devices, it will eventually eat through all of the temporal energy and render the immediate area gray, frozen, and completely inert. It's highly recommended you kill or otherwise chase off an insect before it manages this, as it can do irreversible damage to a world. For affected Oska locations, please see this post. OOC NOTES The translation errors will continue through the rest of the month. For more information or to ask questions, please check the plotting post here! New bounties are available in Oska! Please remember to fill out your squidge success form before August 31, 23:59 UTC! Filling the form out is mandatory, even if you do not have the 3 squidge threads. You will not pass AC if you do not fill out the form. Characters who have been accepted on August 20th are exempt. Please direct questions relating to the success form here.

Comments

III

[perma_banned]

[Ban turned to stare, bleary-eyed in Laedo's direction. His expression was dry and absolutely devoid of understanding as Ban could have sworn Laedo was attempting to sober him up with words, alone.

Ban replied in the older English tongue, his head shifting as if he were at sea. Laedo found Ban on the ground on a small, meager pile of liquor bottles.]

What do you waaaant? I don't understand~.

Re: III

[asscan]

And it was precisely because Ban was trashed in a pile of bottles that Laedo, ever the one to proselytize, decided he needed to get to the point. He settled a hand on Ban's spiky hair as though soothing a sick dog, muttering something likely an oath under his breath, then attempted to push in, thought to thought. Truly, he was wary of making a connection with someone of Ban's standing, but there was a part to their fraught relationship that left Laedo frustrated and annoyed, that balanced the reverence he was well aware he should employ towards what, to him, sounded like a hypothetical Lord. A Lord of what people, though? A Lord of none... that was the problem.

If anyone was going to shape Ban up, the egotistical asandus figured he was going to have to turn his life-long piety to good use, which explained the risk he was taking now. "Aperi cor tuum--stultus."

[perma_banned]

Ban hadn't ever been pet, before. He stared at Laedo, deadpanned, concluding that it was alright. He didn't feel he was being condescended too--though he wouldn't have cared at all were that the case. Everyone acted condescendingly to him, anyway.

Laedo didn't seem terribly angry at the moment, which was weird, admittedly. He was used to Laedo at least briefly fighting consternation to stomach a reply.

Maybe it was because they didn't speak the same language. Maybe Laedo was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"I dunno what you're saying."

He pointed at his mouth and then pointed at Laedo's face--sloppily, though. He might have lazily reached a bit too far to poke Laedo's cheek.

heckit I'm just going to use gold-speak to stand in for fantasy-latin!

[asscan]

"I said, hold still so that I can get into that foolish head of yours." Not that Laedo believed this was in any way a good idea... but Ban seemed to be chalk full of bad or worse ones. He slapped the drunk's hand away, disdainful of the touch, then, wondering if Ban could even follow gestures, pointed to his forehead, and then to the immortal's. Without further ado, he attempted to touch his thumb to Ban's temple to see if getting inside his head to listen (or rather to watch) for familiar content might help form some kind of translation.

[perma_banned]

"Ah?"

Ban's eyes followed Laedo's gesture to his temple and furrowed his brow. Even barely sober as he was he still managed to understand part of the gesture. He didn't know what Laedo was saying but it wasn't as if he didn't understand what language it sounded like.

"You sound like a monk. I thought you were a lion."

Getting in Ban's head wouldn't have been terribly easy, but not impossible.

Ban's inner dialogue?

He's had that black-eye for a long-ass time.

[asscan]

And if Ban wants any better, he can imagine an old and wizened asandus covered as though in purple mold, but that is Laedo's insecurities percolating right to the surface as they zip briefly against one another's minds and he fails to keep himself restrained.

Frowning and complaining with a single curse, the asandus imagines a bed. The bed is for Ban... perhaps to get him out of the hall.

[perma_banned]

A number of weird things popped up in Ban's head. He squinted towards the hall and then at Laedo, trying to mouth the words before actually saying them. His gibberish was probably obvious enough.

"Buddy, why're you purple? Where'd that bed come from?"

He was just drunk enough for those questions to be drastically important. Even so, he still wasn't moving.

[asscan]

Of course, drunk, these images might bleed in a strange way... and Laedo, barred from even speaking the same langauge, was not going to be able to explain away the differences between a telepathic image and a hallucinated one. Rolling his eyes ceilingward, he gave up and grabbed a couple of fist-fulls of Ban's clothing, then began dragging him down the corridor. "Does anybody know where this brute sleeps?" the askan called, hoping for an answer that would relieve him of this burden.

[perma_banned]

Anyone passing by Laedo and Ban didn't bother to acknowledge the request. Even if they knew the two of them--simply knowing Ban meant they wouldn't want to bother trying to help or translate any possible requests. Laedo was the one burdening himself with the immortal.

They would happily avoid it.

"Ahhhh~. Where're we goin'~? You're acting like a bruuuuute..."

He hung limp, letting Laedo do exactly as he pleased. Moving too much seemed pointless to the drunkard.

[asscan]

"Soon you'll be somewhere that nobody can smell or hear you," Laedo retorts, regardless of whatever Ban had just whined. The tone is even more grating when the meaning is absent, he's finding, and with the lack of luck in finding help, things are getting more desperate.

Finally, frustration showing in his jarring movements, Laedo gives a sharp grumble and hefts Ban over one shoulder. Luckily his epaulets are tame today, so no knife-sharp spikes are jutting into the man's stomach as Laedo hoists him into a fireman's hold. Turning to the nearest door, he kicks it open. He could have tried it by hand at first, but this is honestly more satisfying. The first thing he plans on doing is tossing Ban into bed and perhaps smothering him with blankets... though the last thought is one he only privately dreams of. Chances are the immortal is incapable of suffocating, too.

[perma_banned]

"Kahahah~. Are we stealin' from somebody?"

Dizzily, Ban regarded the sudden open door--one that wasn't familiar to him at all. Ban tried to get a better look at Laedo but found the angle wasn't working in his favor. He mostly just saw Laedo's ass. He made no effort to be helpful, letting his arms dangle uselessly. He didn't feel weak but controlling his movements was difficult enough that he didn't want to bother moving at all.

"When're you gonna start speaking the common tongue, eh?"

[asscan]

"Settle yourself," Laedo snaps, still unaware that Ban is speaking any kind of common tongue; as far as he is concerned, the man is slurring and garbling through a drunken haze.

Luckily, the ass-gazing is cut short as Laedo drops Ban into the empty bed. "Sleep it off, you fool, nobody needs to stumble over your drunken waste of a body."

[perma_banned]

"Oof--"

With a sound thud, Ban sent the bed a bit to the right by a few inches. It was a testament to Ban's weight and Laedo's strength of arm that the bed actually risked breaking outright. Ban groggily lifted his head from the covers, fixing Laedo with a dazed, open-mouthed look.

"Bed? I was gonna sleep, anyway..."