voidtreckernet | poi 16, library; video

Entry tags:

poi 16, library; video

Hey guys! [ As soon as the video feed cuts in, so does Tidus's voice, a smile and a hand raised to the screen. He's by one of the tables, breaking the 'be quiet' rule of all library spaces for a good reason - the reason which is spread out on a table, showing a selection of bottles, equipment, and even plants - one of which glows a soft gold. ]

Welcome to the newbies! I wanted to talk some about the healing we've got for people to take when they need it - plus, there's some making I was thinking some of you might be interested in - these!

[ He's grabbing a small pouch, removing the contents, and bringing a view of small green sweets sitting on his palm. ]

They're candies made from the plants we've got here. [ He nods back, and still in view is the golden plant, as well as less glowy variant. ] We've got a bunch growing, and they can be made into salves too - they're from Roland's world, and he got a book that tells you how to make them! But-

[ But- Tidus chuckles. ]

Well I've never made them before, and Roland hasn't either! Sooo... I was figuring we've got enough people here who're good at making with herbs and in the kitchen - how about we figure it out? Give people more options for healing. Then we don't have to pay for 'em. [ Heheh! ]

There's plenty of the plants in the greenhouse if you wanna try on your own - thanks, Persephone! - and the book on them's in the library. I'm gonna put some of these [ he holds the sweets back up, while also putting them back in the bag ] into the supply locker, so you can check them out. Try making them whenever you want!

[ He can't figure out the tie right now, or it's just a little too distracting. But Tidus is quiet, before he looks up from the pouch to the screen, and then to the side. His tone shifts. ]

And... if you ever worry about taking supplies when other people need them, don't, okay? Carry them with you. If you need to know how they work or just wanna ask about them, you can. And you can ask people to buy what works where you're from too. A bunch of the potions we have - they saved me more times than I can count back home. And I know Trunks swears by senzu beans.

So - yeah. [ He pulls a smile, small as it's turned. ] Drop by the library if you want! I've got an alphabet to count 'til it sticks.

[ Heh. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Enjoy that impression of thoroughness while it lasts, Tidus]

I've been here for maybe four hours. What do you think I should know?

[May as well ask someone who has ostensibly been here longer than said four hours, if he's making a trainwide announcement like this and doing inventory.]

Uhhhh.

[ Okay, he knows this question, but just give him a second. Eyes going up, fingers as bullet points coming out- ]

Missions happen near the start of every month; you just missed one, so free time 'til the next one. [ Two. ] No one knows how to get home where we are, leaving the train doesn't take us home, and we're in the stage of hoping someone can figure out how we get everyone back where they need to be and not just- [ he waves his hands. ] Dead? Gone?

[ Ugh. He winces at that, a crinkle of his nose, but nevermind.

Third point! ] Orange team get stuck with repairing or making or handling equipment, Purple goes around protecting, clearing, and fighting, Bluue- [ let him take a breath- ] Blue usually sticks close to people or animals who need help, and Reds go in and fight everything all the time.

You don't have to stick to the team the train decides to put you in, and the train isn't that smart to know what you're good at. Tell it if it does anything wrong, 'cause it won't learn if you don't.

How we doing Wash, you want Tidus to keep going, he's ready to. He hasn't even gotten to supplies yet! ]

[Okay, that's the look of someone prepping for an infodump. Great. He could use it.]

[Wash damn near immediately regrets that thought, and his eyes widen briefly at no one knows how to get home before settling back to neutral - a poker face, slammed into place because they're on a public network. But- great. Just great. Fuck.]

[(Something about it just rankles. It's one thing to be the last survivor of his dimension and have restoring that dimension as a goal to work for; it's another thing to be pulled into fuck-all nowhere to be held god knows how long with no actual way to get home. He hadn't believed he could restore his dimension, but the hope was still there if he'd chosen to take it. This situation, on the other hand, is bullshit, and he has no idea how people have lasted a goddamn year here in a holding pattern with no end in sight.)]

[(But all of that stays behind the poker face, at least for now.)]

[He at least waits for a pause in the information before he says anything.]

So let me get this straight: we could die at any time, but until then, we have monthly missions, we're color-coded by skill set, and the train is run by...what, an AI? Something that learns?

[Give him something to go on, please.]

The train only recently started talking to us more regular after more than a year of this, and it doesn't get why having more supplies without us buying them's a good idea.

[ There's a flat tone that Tidus speaks with, but not unemotional: encompassing a frustration over time that if he puts any more weight to it, who knows which way he might fly? He doesn't look at the screen anyway, a tightness visible even over the feed in his shoulders, a discomfort in the way he ends up fidgeting.

But he seems to find himself, letting out a breath before, more detailed: ]

Yeah, the train's learning. We only found out recent it doesn't bring us in - something else does. It can't stop us coming here, it's just doing the job it was made to do. And the thing keeping us here- [ he makes a motion to his chest, useless, but a symbol for the tether. ] --we don't know how stable it's keeping us to where we got picked up from. Our bodies- ... it's kind of a mess.

[ A mess he knows that's a lot to put on a guy, and he pauses, doesn't continue, maybe needing a moment himself to hear everything he's saying, knows, and the point they're at. ]

[The body language does not go unnoticed; coupled with more than a year of this and the familiarity with inventory tells Wash that this guy has likely been here for most of that year plus, if not all of it.]

[There are questions forming, but he abruptly puts a pin in all of them at that last phrase.]

What about our bodies?

[Because that sounds important, and he damn well would've remembered reading something about it in the welcome brochure. Spell it out for him, please.]

Oh. [ Oh. He makes a pointing gesture. ]

We're here, but peoples' bodies are back where they came from. So we're in two places? I don't really get the details.

But I know it doesn't matter if you don't have a body. Or, uh - [ there's a pause ] - you kinda weren't alive before you got here?

...

...but I don't know how any of that works either.

[ Details?? Don't know them. ]

[They fucking what.]

[There's a very long stare as Wash turns that information over in his mind, then turns it over a few different ways for good measure, trying to find a bright side and coming up a little short.]

[Ah.]

[Fuck.]

You mean to tell me that the train just left our bodies behind [He makes a gesture depicting dumping something on the floor] and took us on an interdimensional joyride without them?

[His temper is rising, but at least the volume isn't. Small favors.]

[(So his body is just...collapsed on the moon base somewhere. Thank God Dr. Tank likes him, or else he'd be really fucked.)]

Yeah. Sorry.

[ And he does sound it - sorry, and unable to do anything about it. He just leans against the side of the table, kicking a foot against the floor out of view. Might've been nicer to tell this guy the news any other way, huh? ]

I wish I had better news, but... well. [ He's trying to think of an upside, taking longer than he means to - just ends up throwing the feed an apologetic look that's difficult. Complicated. ]

We're getting help now. [ So he said before, but - might as well go for the small little upside there is. ]

[Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Don't snap at the guy giving you intel, especially when he sounds sincerely sorry about the whole joyride thing. Not his fault.]

[God damn why does this bullshit always come for him-]

[He puts a nail in that particular existential crisis and leaves it to hang with the others. He'll deal with that later, or possibly never; right now, he's still having a conversation.]

It's fine. It's intel - it doesn't have to be nice to be useful. Plus, it's not like we can do anything about it until we figure out who's pulling us in, right?

[Because if they could, he probably would've led with that. Instead, it had just been it can't stop us coming here, which might be all that anyone knows so far.]

Who's helping us? The Ministry?

[Yondu had said they'd been in contact with the Ministry, so it's Wash's best guess so far.]

[ This is a lot, isn't it? The entire history of everything that's gone down and hasn't on the train. It's an easy enough question, but Tidus still finds himself rubbing the side of his face like someone who's already overwhelmed, but isn't even the new guy here.

(Or it's just the fact of having to own up to how little help they have.) ]

Yeah, there's the Ministry, then there's a woman who does work for them sometimes who's helping us too, figuring out what the train's after. It's not a lot, I know, but this is more than we've had for a long time.

[ Getting even scraps of hope is something, after nothing but silence. ]

There's not a lot we can do to figure any of this out. None of us really know the void, y'know? What's out there. Only help we got is the train or guessing. [ Oh. ] And the Ministry now, I guess.

[It's a lot, and Wash knows he's going to be scrambling to keep up for a while, but at least he knows that and can prepare. It's not nearly as bad as "your dimension is dead and magic is real," at least, though "the train left your body behind" is still one hell of a stumbling block.]

[His gaze flickers, up and left, pulling a name out of the Diagad memories that aren't nearly as sharp as he'd like.]

Anan, right? She's the other one helping us?

[That established:]

Okay, so, how do we contact the Ministry, and how do we get a void primer? Or do we already have one and I just haven't spent enough time in the library?

[In the four hours he's been here.]

[ Tidus gives a 'Yeah' and a nod to the first question. For the next, his brow furrows. ]

Uhhh.. there was a void law text included in some files that the Ministry sent us. Another guy got a version to print out - I don't know if he got that working.

[ Oops? But there's nothing Tidus can do about that. ]

But the file we got - the train got a version too. Ask it if you can have a copy of everything? And, uh - ask it if you can send the Ministry a message. There was something about contacting them if you needed to.

[ Will it work? Tidus doesn't know. ]

[Void law. That sounds like scintillating reading, but at least it's a place to start.]

Am I going to be stuck at a wall terminal reading that, or do I need to hunt down whoever has the printout?

[Please tell him there's a tablet he can borrow. Please.]

But either way, everything goes through the train, huh. [There's a moment of silence as he mentally rewinds the conversation and takes the pin out of those earlier questions.] Except you said the train isn't what's bringing us here in the first place. Do we know anything about what is?

You can get it downloaded on this. [ He waves his SCA in view. ] But if you want a printout... Jingyi, he was talking about it.

[ Can he just leave it at a name? They do have a roster.

But as for that last question, it receives a helpless sound, a small shake of a head. ]

Maybe the previous crew did something? I don't know what the theories are. --You know about them?

[ Since he's new and all. Did anyone say anything about them yet? ]

Do we have anything between 'wall display' and 'fitbit?'

[It's automatic. He should be able to help it, but the filter is being used in more important places right now (namely, railing against whatever decided he needed to be pulled into yet another war that isn't his to fight).]

[Anyway.]

Jingyi. Got it.

[He's tracked down people with less.]

...I barely got the welcome tour. No, I don't know them yet.

[He does want to see whatever Pepe Silvia board the residents of the train have put together, though. Might as well see if anyone's got anything concrete yet.]

... 'Fitbit'?

[ We'll get to the game plot in a second, Agent. You may or may not have just confused Tidus with that product name. He even repeats it the same as Agent does. 'Fiitbiit?' ]

[...goddammit]

Electronic health tracker you wear on your wrist. [He holds up the wrist with the SCA on it to illustrate.] Like these, but fewer functions.

Oh. [ Oh. ] No, nothing like that. Unless you save up for one? Me and some others swiped a few tablet devices this big - [ he makes a rectangular shape with his fingers, the size of your regular tablet ] - a while back, but, we don't use them for everything. 'Cause not everyone's from a world with tech.

[ So, it gets complicated. Even supplies have a paper backup for that reason. ]

[Sometimes, there's merit to explaining the joke. This is not one of those times.]

Yeah, I kind of figured that out when you asked me if I knew tech.

Can I borrow a tablet to read the files? Are they compatible?

[ Oops. He's been on this train as an info dump for way too long.

And speaking of being unhelpful: ] You're asking the wrong guy for tech support.

[ Sorry, dude!! ]

Oh, my god.

[Wash is well aware of just how important a good first impression is. He's also aware of just how quickly his patience is running out despite his best efforts, because today started with a battle against the Hunger, took a hot second to give him hope before completely crushing it, stuck him here, and still isn't over yet!]

Can I borrow a tablet. Please.

[Completely deadpan. He is trying so hard right now.]

[ Well, it's not Tidus's time, so! ]

Sure. [ Sounding a bit baffled, but- ] You know the car with the rows of seats? There's a big computer in there [ ""big"" ] and an old bookshelf. They're on there.

Thank you.

[More relief than sarcasm - he knows there's a possibility for exchanges like that to go in unending circles for literally no reason, and he's just grateful that that didn't happen.]

So. You mentioned theories on what's bringing us here?

You wanna see if you can get the tablet working and the info from the train first? I'll be in the library for a while - I'll let you read the file off my SCA, if you want.

Then I'll tell you about the other thing.

[ You know. One thing at a time, maybe. ]

Or you could tell me now, and I'll do the homework later.

[Is he going to need the information on the file in order for the theory to make sense? Maybe, but he'll just put it into context later. For now, he just wants information while he has someone on the line and answering questions.]

poi 16, library; video

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