EVENT ▸ RETURN TO HQ

[futurologists]

RETURN TO HQ After a tough mission, it's time to return to Headquarters for a well-earned rest. Hathaway's medics and healers are there to patch up any lingering injuries (as are any teammates with healing abilities!), everyone's room is tidied up for them, and the entirety of Hathaway HQ is ripe for exploring. Take your time -- you earned it. Also sharing downtime at HQ are Guilds Horatio, Montague, and Watchman, composed of humanoids of various shapes and sizes. Temporary pop-up shops down in the promenade include a spa where one can get a manicure, pedicure, or other beautifying procedures; a yoga studio; and an imported salt cave for meditation. After a few days of silent relaxation, members of Guild Ophelia will all receive a text message on their magitek from Imogen -- their Guild Master, if they don't remember. Imogen, while not directly involved in any world-saving affairs, has a rather sizable amount of inheritance that she puts towards the Hathaway cause. Specifically, she uses it to finance Ophelia's endeavors. This sort of makes her in charge, or as much in charge of this rag-tag team as any one person can be. Hello, Ophelia! Once again, allow me to congratulate you on your successful mission in Hanabira. I hear the wedding went smashingly. Hathaway's analysts should rift down someone to check in on your success in several years, but the mathematicians are confident your solution has brought peace to the region. One should never rest on their laurels, however. From what I've seen in magitek messages, this guild is sorely lacking in the ability to work together and trust all guildmates, regardless of who they are. I've spotted more than a few barbs exchanged. Hanabira will be only an exception if you continue to behave this way. We'll be conducting guild bonding exercises today. While they are not mandatory, I assure you I've procured incentive for you all to participate. It isn't cheap to finance your exploits, and I won't spend my resources on a group of ruffians slinging insults at each other. Meet by the memorial fountain in one hour, and do try to bring a positive attitude. Your Guild Master, Imogen Those who choose to participate will find Imogen, a very prim and graceful elf dressed in elaborately embroidered robes, standing near the fountain. She greets everyone by name -- "nice to see you" and "glad you could make it" -- before directing them to the training rooms on the upper deck. The training rooms include run-of-the-mill exercise equipment and the training simulation room, both of which are free to use by participants and non-participants alike. A tall, strong-looking man whom some may recognize as their recruiter is making use of the equipment. His name is Khalef, and he is happy to answer questions about the training facilities or anything else about Hathaway. Between exercises, Imogen is available at the memorial fountain to chat but she's otherwise busy with paperwork. ▸ SECRETS Two partners sit in a room furnished only with two (very comfy, if it matters) chairs and a table between them. On the table sits -- floats, really -- a colorful orb, softly glowing. It is comfortably warm to the touch. The instructions automatically flash across the participants' magitek, thanking them for participating and asking them both to answer the following questions with complete honesty to gain the most from this exercise. Then, the first question pops up: What is something you like about your exercise partner? It seems simple enough. If a participant tells the truth, they will notice the orb's glow brightening, almost as if it is starting to flame. If a participant lies, they will notice the orb's glow dimming. Otherwise, there is no penalty for lying. The questions slowly get more personal, with the aim of getting the two partners to open up to each other: If a crystal ball could tell you the future, what would you want to know? What’s the one thing you would like to change about yourself? What are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think existed before the universe was created? What do you think is the worst crime a human could commit? Do you think jealousy has value in driving people to improve themselves, or is it a purely negative emotion? If you could start your life over, what would you do differently? If you were given only one week to live, how would you spend it? Who had the greatest impact on your life? What was it? What’s the difference between justice and revenge? Is it possible to live a normal life and not ever tell a lie? Do the ends justify the means? Are some people’s lives worth more than others? Why or why not? Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..." If a loved one died, but someone created a perfect copy, would they be the same person and would you love them just as much? If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know. ( Mod note: the above are just ideas! You can pick and choose, or come up with your own. Whatever is most fun for you! ) If the two partners truthfully answer their questions, the orb will eventually catch fire, although it will curiously still remain only pleasantly warm if anyone attempts to touch it. It will blaze until it burns out, leaving two small marble replicas in its place. When one of the partners grasps it in their hand, they will be able to see through the other partner's eyes for one minute (although they will not be aware of their own surroundings, so you might want to be in a safe area). The other partner will be aware of this and able to sever the link by removing the marble from their person. These items are bound to their owners and cannot be used by others. If one or both partners lie, the orb will eventually fizzle out entirely, and the magitek will inform them that the exercise was failed due to deceit. ▸ RIFTING Next, guild members are directed to the rifting pad located on the upper deck. Technicians scurry about in the rifting area, spinning dials and taking readings, as volunteers are directed to stand on the rifting pad and wait. It's just like rifting to a different universe for a mission -- the world goes bright and then, in a flash, you're standing somewhere else -- except the technicians emphatically explain this is not a mission. It's still part of the training exercise, you see! Participants have been rifted to an unpopulated garden planet, in the middle of a forest clearing. The grass is tall -- nearly 150 cm in height -- and is surrounded on all sides by forest. A notice pops up on your magitek that informs you there is no aggressive local wildlife, but there are aggressive plants: including, unfortunately, your goal for this part of the exercise. Spread throughout the forest are aggressive willow trees, sentient flora that will lash out with sharp, clawlike branches at anyone who comes too close. The branches have incredible reach, but the trees have no other defense, and are rooted to the spot so they are also unable to maneuver. The goal of the exercise is to gather as many willow seeds as possible, ostensibly without hurting the trees themselves. Willow seeds are around the size of a small marble and have a fluffy attachment that will allow them to blow away on the wind; you can scour the forest in search of them, of course, but the highest concentration is below the willows themselves. Once participants feel they have gathered enough seeds -- or if they simply want to give up -- they need only speak to the rift technicians via magitek and they will return back to Headquarters immediately. The participants will each receive a pot of soil and a seed to plant within it. The plant that sprouts from it will be no ordinary plant; it will require no water to sustain itself, but it will require something else: friendship. As the relationship between the two participants strengthens, the plant will grow, its appearance representing how the other participant feels about the plant owner -- pink and red blooms may represent romantic love, whereas bright, multi-colored petals may simply represent a strong friendship or budding blooms may represent... well, a budding friendship. (Of course, there's no "flower guide", so it's up to them to decide how to interpret this.) As the relationship weakens, the plant will wilt and, if the relationship turns sour enough, die. So take care of your relationship and take care of your plant! ▸ COMPOSURE This exercise completed, participants are free to return to the first deck and go about their business. But on the elevator back down from the rifting pad, the elevator suddenly jerks violently and then stalls. You're stuck! The emergency button doesn't seem to be working, no matter how many times you press it. And for that matter, no messages seem to be going through the magitek, either. You're effectively trapped in here with whomever you stepped aboard -- a friend, an acquaintance, or even a stranger. But don't panic -- surely Hathaway hired you for your ingenuity and not just your pretty face, right? The elevator can be broken out of in a number of ways: If you brute strength the doors open, you'll find that the elevator is stuck halfway between floors. This means that you must either climb up or down to escape the narrow opening, and, if your partner isn't the athletic type, help them out as well. If you hack the elevator's control panel (prying the panel door off first, obviously), you may be able to guide it up and down the shaft. Depending on your expertise in this sort of thing, the ride may be jerky and uncomfortable, and there's always a risk of the elevator plummeting down to the bottom if you lose control -- although strangely, there's never any impact if this happens, only the elevator springing back up the shaft after the fall. Either way, you should be able to figure out how to get the doors open. If you open the access hatch at the top of the elevator, you'll be granted access to the elevator shaft. It's a dimly lit tunnel of cables and wires, and unless you're lucky enough to find a service ladder in the midst of all of it, you'll have to use the cables to climb. It's dangerous -- you could lose your footing at any moment and slam back down onto the elevator below -- but you should be able to find a door eventually. And then it's only a matter of figuring out how to get it open. Or you could try a combination of these, or something entirely different! No matter what method you choose, once you find your way onto solid ground, your magitek will light up: Congratulations! You passed the final exercise. Rest assured, you were never in any real danger, I promise! Your Guild Master, Imogen Indeed, if you found yourself falling too far down the shaft, you would have found yourself instantly buffeted by invisible winds to keep your landing soft -- and if you found yourself unable to find a way to escape within two hours, the elevator would automatically start up again. Those who succeed will receive a flashlight that does not seem to work at first; however, it is capable of taking and storing light from its immediate surroundings, which it can then release into similar light sources or, in the absence of those, floating orbs of light. It is incapable of taking light out of an entire building, for an example, but can darken a room. ▸ OOC NOTES If you have questions about this log, please direct them to this comment on the plotting post. Questions about the game in general can be directed to the FAQ. ▸ Up now: Hanabira Bounty Board is still open! Bounties must be turned in by the start of the next mission on 15 April. Congratulations, Guild Ophelia now has an official uniform! The uniforms may be modified in any way characters like. The FAQ and Headquarters pages have been updated to include the uniform information. ▸ Coming next: 25 March: Mandatory How's My Driving meme. Participation is required to pass March AC. 28 March: April calendar, including news about apps. 01 April: March AC begins, ending on 5 April 23:59 UTC. ▸ Plotting ▸ Hathaway Headquarters ▸ Hanabira Bounty Board ▸ March Calendar

Comments

[theseuschip]

[ To be fair, Simon ruminates over it more than most, even considering his whole... deal. Most takes on the matter are simple by comparison. Catherine would maintain that he mulls over it way more than is warranted.

Suddenly the question they’ve been tasked with answering is like, standard essay fodder, which is simple enough, even if thinking about it is kind of an atrophied muscle. But Veronica expects Simon to coherently answer it after whipping that out. ] Well... it.... uh.... I don’t think it’s—

[ okay no he just... makes a brain-is-full-of-fuck gesture ] Sorry, you have a serial killer? I thought there was just that one guy?

[ And her dad, probably. How many times can a person wonder what the whole hell is wrong with Riverdale? ]

[refashioned]

If it were only that simple. Don't worry, we caught the serial killer. In fact, we may have been able to catch him sooner if my initial hunch regarding the matter had been followed. [Archie said that his eyes hadn't been right. She had believed that, but if she had gone on her own, she may have been able to prevent Archie from nearly being buried alive. She would honestly give anything to prevent him from having that experience.

Which is part of why she's here, in a roundabout way.]

Now you understand why I was so peeved over being treated like I was ill-equipped for every aspect of this experience once I was already handling it head on.

[theseuschip]

I think most of those people know better now. I can’t think of anybody who’d say you’re not competent, at least.

[ Veronica may get mixed reviews in other areas, but anybody who said she wasn’t good at this would face some serious opposition, Simon’s pretty sure. Even people who don’t personally like her would be hard-pressed to find a way around admitting that. ]

We just didn’t know any of... this, [ he sounds impressed by her fortitude and disturbed at the same time ] so we had to learn it the long way.

[refashioned]

Well, despite my breakthroughs with the Black Hood—[she doesn't specify, but it's clear that she means the serial killer]—most of the detective work was handled by Betty. I'm more her assistant on call than anything else. Most of my work back home is still focused on ... what I do here, but obviously to a lesser scale.

[Diplomacy. Being there for people. Trying to solve problems. It goes on. She's just never had to step up like she's had to since she arrived.]

[theseuschip]

Your BFF, right? [ Her words, of course. ] She made you her assistant, and you call yourself her assistant? Willingly? She sounds like... a force.

[ Veronica’s never struck Simon as the assistant type. What the hell is a bigger fish than Veronica like? He can only assume that her friends are, like her, just generally so much all the time, not that you can blame them when you’ve heard what Riverdale is like.

Oh right they have to do this thing. ]

What was the question again? [ and the crystal ball flashes it, again. ] Right. [ he drums his fingers on the table ] The essay answer would be that art is a means of communication that transcends language and preserves our place in history and everything. Which is true, but... it keeps us sane. It’s a coping mechanism.

[ There were a lot of doodles in PATHOS-II. Some of them were more coherent than others, but they were all part of the sad breadcrumb trail of the mostly-dead crew. Amy’s sketches were incredibly good, even, and nobody but him would ever see them. ]

[refashioned]

[Try to clarify the "Betty of it all," or answer the question? Veronica decides to go with the latter, at least at first. Some part of her does consider leaving Betty as this amazing force that can even keep Veronica nipping at her heels, if only because it's funny. But she loves Betty. Betty's her other half, even if that means they have different priorities. So, she'll get to it.

But first:]

Art is also a means for someone to express themselves. Sometimes you can find someone's truth in their art, even if they may not mean to display it. Art allows us to communicate on a different level. It can help with coping, I agree, but it can also cement our place in the world, one way or another.

[After saying all that, Veronica leans back and watches the orb begin to glow even brighter. Their lengthy answers seem to have appeased the fire-filled orb of it all. That's good.]

As for Betty—I'm not her assistant, per se. We have different ... motivations. She grew up on Nancy Drew, whereas I was more Olivia Pope. Different eras, but you get the gist of it. When she needs someone to sub in—or even keep her sane, because Betty is a lot of things, but she is not the best at reading people—she brings me in on things. Does that make more sense of it? Because—yes. Betty Cooper is a force, but no more than I am. We're two halves of a whole.

[theseuschip]

[ At least the crystal ball is happy with them. It’s a good answer, too, but Simon’s distracted by Veronica’s explanation of her detective partnership.

From her description, Betty sounds like a workaholic. And that’s on top of all of them living in a town that sounds like it has no well-adjusted adults, and having to put all this time into doing things that, really, they shouldn’t be having to do. And they have to take shifts? The descriptions just get worse, as far as Simon can tell, and he leans back just fractionally with that tilt of the head that says ‘huh, well that’s kind of troubling??’. ]

Do you ever get to do normal things to keep yourselves sane? What are you guys investigating all the time?

[ That’s a trepidatious question. How many Riverdale murderers are there?? ]

[refashioned]

One serial killer, a drug enterprise, gang activity, and, of course, my father's intentions. [Veronica doesn't seem too bothered by any of this information. Hiram hasn't done anything all too worthy of attention.] Not to mention trying to keep certain Riverdale businesses from shuttering. We do what we can. We're involved. [With the full list given, Veronica also figures her role in it is likely clearer. What she would do with those things would make more sense.]

But aside from all that, I'm also a cheerleader and in a band. Betty's a cheerleader and a budding journalist, and Jughead's in the Serpents as well as a budding journalist. And Archie's a musician who's sticking to football to get a college scholarship.

[It's a lot. They are kids who somehow also sleep regularly and Veronica has mimosas with breakfast six out of seven days of the week.]

[theseuschip]

[ There are those names again. She always says them like it’s no big deal, too. But it’s never been a good time to bring them up. Veronica is once again talking about stuff that sounds... bizarre and exhausting like it’s nothing at all. ]

Christ. So, being a time-traveling astronaut diplomat is actually—

[ the next question flashes:

How replaceable are you?

Simon falters, trying to remember what he was just saying, tapping a forefinger on the table but stiff like he’s ready to bolt — not that he can, they’re almost done, they must be. ]

—is- is- practically a vacation.

[refashioned]

We're almost done. [Veronica says what he's thinking without knowing it's crossed his mind. She disregards the whole remark about the vacation because she can guess what's going through his mind right now. If she had died and woken up in that body ... well, things would be the same. She would just be a mind, right? Displaced. Filled with dysphoria. Pretty messed up.]

But even though we are, we can pass on finishing this. It's up to you.

[theseuschip]

No, it’s fine. I don’t want to throw away our progress, let’s just...

[ He can’t just walk out on it, even though this is literally Simon’s least favorite thing to think about. Well, one of them. It’s up against some stiff competition, but he glances back down at the words anyway. ] Uh, very. No. I don’t know. I don’t feel like a very good replacement.

[ It’s not the greatest increment by which the orb has brightened in response to one of their answers, but the exercise is looking for honesty, not objective truth, so apparently Simon’s fierce but amorphous blob of dysphoria is, you know, adequate. And by now, the thing’s pretty damn bright. ] Okay, great.

[refashioned]

Right, well ...

[Time to not have a cripplingly low self-esteem. Veronica doesn't like who she was in the past, but she doesn't know she'd be the person she is today without them. Simon helped remind her of that. A reminder is all she needed.]

I'm not someone who's replaceable. I think people assume I'm a certain way until they get to know me. Once they do—well, I'm definitely one of a kind. Especially these days.

[And off the orb goes with glowing brightly, indicating that the exercise is over.]

[theseuschip]

Looks like we’re done.

[ And later Simon will be grateful to Veronica for being so chill while he went full dog-getting-its-nails-trimmed about this exercise. As it is, he’s glad it ended on a high note. Veronica recalled all that and retained the confidence that makes her both a force of nature and good company, which in itself practically makes up for the shitty questions.

No sooner has he said that than the orb bursts into colorless, smokeless flame, and he jumps and leans back.

It goes out just as quickly, leaving a marble at each side of the table in front of them, instructions for which flash across the magitek. ]

This is pretty cool. [ he picks it up and examines it..... ??? not sure what you’d use them for, but. ]

[refashioned]

[Given her sensitivity over the exercise, her next thought feels a little callous. Hence why she's going to frame it in a very specific way. Veronica knows better than to completely trample all over someone's hurt feelings (even if they aren't her fault in the first place).]

Is it wrong for me to wonder if I literally see what it's like to look through your eyes? I'm a little curious, if I have to be honest about it all.

[theseuschip]

I don’t think things will look that different, if that’s what you mean. My senses are pretty much the same as I remember. Except for the— [ he gestures around his face ] diving helmet thing.

[ Simon isn’t cagey or easily offended about his weird body situation. It’s obvious, weird, and the accompanying philosophical problems have no objective answers, which makes it pretty much the perfect emotional battering ram with which to smack all the other things he doesn’t want to fully internalize. Which leads to weird seeming incongruities where being a walking existential crisis from a destroyed Earth who’s attained dysphoria bingo is in his public file, but Veronica is the only person in Hathaway who knows he was in a car accident. Some might say these are strange priorities.

As for their participation prize, Veronica will find that Simon is pretty much right — were she to use it, it would probably be implacably off, missing blind spots and other details humans don’t consciously notice. The difference between looking through human eyes and looking through... well, a camera. Mostly the same, but also not. The helmet, at least, is really not much of an obstruction, despite how dark it looks from the outside. ]

[refashioned]

[As it is, Veronica does take up the marble to immediately see what it looks like. There's a smile as she sees that it's not so different, but she can see that it's like a camera in a way. Like he's unable to completely view things from the periphery. It's not like she can hear anything, but she can see it, albeit for a moment.

Or a minute, to be more precise.

Of course, she can see herself, but she doesn't seem all too bothered by it. Veronica Lodge has confidence in spades (... when it comes to certain things).

And then it ends, with her freeing the marble from her grasp.]

I suppose we'd need something a little more like the surround sound, IMAX experience to truly help me understand. Also, my hair looks great today.