lostcarnival | ⇨ GREYSOL

Entry tags:

⇨ GREYSOL

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 155 - Day 169
Where: Greysol
What: The carnival resumes its tour, this time heading to Greysol, a city tied deeply into the fabric of the multiverse. Here, everyone has an animal companion from birth that is the second half of their soul - and thanks to the Ringmaster, so do you. (Remember,

joysweeper is our guest event runner for this location, and location specific questions should go to them.)
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE CITY OF GREYSOL↴

The carnival arrives in a manicured park in the center of a big city that sprawls out along where the river reaches the ocean. It’s spring, early enough that nights are chilly, warm enough in the days that people and their souls savor the weather, and sometimes shelter together from the rain. Greysol was designed from the bottom up to accommodate the human-dæmon bond. Go out and see!

► THE SHAPE OF YOUR SOUL: The dæmon-forming spell kicks in at about four in the morning. Most characters will wake up with their souls in some small form, curled against them. Even if they were awake, they became dazed and unfocused while their souls were being drawn out of their bodies and have little memory of how it happened.

Until that evening every character's dæmon is able to change shapes, and children and some teens will continue to do so. Most will settle on their permanent forms by evening. Characters without dæmons will just look on, and the few who are thousand-pound bears have to handle being really big.

► IT’S GOOD TO SETTLE: Elaine Tavis Aracari, sixteen-year-old daughter of two actors and a moving pictures sensation herself, just ‘settled’ - her dæmon Tavis stopped changing shape - as a stunning blue peacock. Settling is a major coming of age milestone and celebrated as such in different ways all over the world. She and her family are throwing a massive party in the central park and inviting the public to join in! Enjoy easy access to free catering, live music and showings of moving pictures, and displays of mostly trivial magic. There are also form readers from across the country setting up booths, happy to accept a small fee to inspect your dæmon’s settled or most favored forms and tell you what they mean. Is there anything to these analyses? Eh, maybe, but they’re flattering and fun.

► WITCHING HOURS: Characters who are clearly witches for this event will often be assumed to be in town for a lover, and people, witches and not, may want to know who that is. Humans usually regard them with wary respect and interest. Real witches living with their human families or on business quickly suspect that something’s up, but without clear and present danger take a relaxed wait-and-see attitude. Wait for long enough and any possible decision will come around again, they believe.

There isn’t time to learn much witch magic, but witches, real and carnival-made, have an inherent power: the ability to fly using branches of “cloudpine”, an attractive soft-needled tree common in the park. Witches usually ride large branches as if they’re steeds but can use even short sprays, and you’ll probably see the few witches in the city coming to the park to do so. Why not try?

► BEAR PUN: Human-panserbjørn relations have historically been troubled, but have warmed in the past century. It’s the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Bertin, a much-mythologized time when Spectres flooded Greysol and a company of panserbjørn arrived and directed efforts to get the survivors out of the city. A statue is being erected and many florid accounts of the story are being told. If you’re in a panserbjørn shape for the duration of the visit you will probably get thanked and celebrated by people trying to hide their nervousness of you. Expect someone to ask if your dæmon would be a human - it’s a common supposition.

► KERNER ISLAND: From the harbor you can see a wooded island. Although there are no rocks to speak of it sports a tall lighthouse, and nearly all boat traffic avoids it carefully. On a clear day someone with binoculars or a particularly sharp-eyed soul can see loads of trash, birds and various other animals that don’t seem local, and… children? Adults and settled teenagers will see tall vague shapes moving about too.

When asked about it the most important thing adults will tell other adults is don’t go there. They’ll hold their dæmons close and tell you that on that island are things that eat souls. They may also admit with mixed pride and shame that it’s been a source of wealth and innovation for the city. There’s a facility there that can open windows into other worlds, and the children who can reach it can cross through and bring things back. Many of the children are recruited by research and development teams on the lookout for items they can use, but there are also kids out to have adventures or who’ve run away. More on this later.

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Once Francis is scooped up, 9S relaxes his stance. But he's still got an eye on you, cat!

"Well... no," he admits. Pod 153 is perfectly capable of taking care of itself, especially since it has to be used in combat against the machines. Pods are even capable of basic repair functions, so he doesn't even really need to perform maintenance on it. "But you'd be upset if he played with your blastia, wouldn't you?"

"...I guess so," Rita concedes, having taken a moment to consider that scenario.

"You could try to be more helpful," Krios admonishes her in a flat tone.

With her cat cradled in one arm, Rita waves the other in a dismissive gesture, then turns back to the trailer door. "Anyway, I'll show you inside." Her daemon's suggestion goes ignored as she opens the door and steps inside, then makes room for 9S to come in after her.

Of the two beds, the top bunk is a mess, with its blankets twisted around in a clump, while the bottom bunk is neatly made. Paper litters the table, and books can be found stashed on various surfaces. While most appear to be thick textbooks, there's also a thin, colorful book titled Litten and Me, an illustrated guide to caring for Littens. A few clothing items have been shoved into the closet without being folded, including a biker jacket that doesn't look like it would fit around Rita's wings. The kitchenette appears to have been used very little. There's a loaf of bread and a bunch of bananas on the counter, and the fridge is mostly empty, housing only a few condiments.

It doesn't look like anyone's dusted in a while. There are some scattered feathers on the floor, and some corners have accumulated clumps of cat hair.

9S follows Rita in, Pod 153 trailing after him. Wow, this trailer is... this is what humans would call a 'pig sty', isn't it? 9S sucks in a breath.

Don't insult the human don't insult the human don't insult the human.

"Wow. Do you ever clean this place?"

Whoops he insulted the human. Even Pod 153 has some words to say about the state of the trailer.

< Analysis: Interior does not appear to have recently undergone proper maintenance. Proposal: Begin cleaning immediately to prevent increased levels of dust and other foreign particles from entering filters >

Edited 2017-09-24 09:01 (UTC)

Just as 9S suspects, Rita has pretty much never cleaned the place. Childermass was certainly the cleaner of the two of them, but between their month-long absence while in Portland, the time he took to recover from injuries, and then his sudden departure, some tasks were put on hold for a while. And when those tasks fell to Rita... she couldn't be bothered.

"Hey, it's not that..." Rita begins to protest 9S, but Pod 153 interjects before she can finish the sentence. "--You too!? Come on, it's just a little dust. If it bothers you that much, then you clean it." She folds her arms and humphs at them. As far as she's concerned, this is a pretty normal level of cleanliness. What are they, a couple of neat freaks? Maybe androids are used to more sterile environments.

Yeah, no. Sure, he can take a little mess, but this is a bit much. That said, he's not the one who does the cleaning for his own room in the Bunker, sooo...

"Pod, I'll leave it to you."

< Affirmative. Initiating clean up >

And with that, Pod 153 hovers over to the top bunk in order to neaten the bunched up covers. Isn't it convenient having a robot buddy who can do this sort of stuff for you?

To Rita, he asks, "Where do you keep the cleaning gear? If you show me, my pod can handle the rest."

They're actually cleaning for her!?

Rita blinks a few times, not having expected this, but she recovers quickly. All things considered, this is probably an ideal outcome. "All right. Just don't mess up my notes on the table there." Some of them could easily be mistaken for scrap paper, and the way they're spread around the table looks like they were haphazardly dumped there, but Rita knows where and how each of those notes fit together.

"Most supplies are in the cupboard under the sink. There's a broom in the closet there." For all the cleaning Rita doesn't do, she at least knows where everything is. After a pause, she adds, "Seems pretty handy, that pod."

"Don't mess with the papers on the table. Got it. But if any of that ends up on the floor, don't blame me if they get moved." Pod 153's intelligent to know to not mess with the notes, but he may as well try to keep THAT particular mess contained to the table rather than allow it to start spreading to the floor.

As soon as Rita tells 9S where the broom is, Pod 153 makes its way there.

"Yeah. Pods are kinda more generalised in function than androids, but they are designed to support us. It's normally got a bunch of other functions, but we're not connected to the Bunker here and I had to disable most of its ranged support options as part of the Ringmaster's conditions. She, uh, doesn't like guns for some reason?"

Rita's gaze continues to follow the pod, but she nods at 9S's words. "Yeah. I'm not sure why, either. It could be because a lot of them use iron, but... so do swords, and those are allowed if modified. Maybe the fae just don't like mortal weapons powerful enough to be a match for magic..." She sets Francis down on a seat and pets him idly as she ponders that.

But then she raises her head suddenly, seemingly thinking of something else. "Oh, right." She walks over to a drawer, opens it, and retrieves an object. "If you still wanted to examine a blastia... I've got another one here." She holds it out. Like her bodhi blastia, its core is a small red gem affixed in a metallic body, though it appears to be a handheld device rather than a wearable one.

Too bad there's no vaccuum, sweeping is a little bit harder for a box bot like Pod 153. But it's doing a reasonably ok job of gathering all the feathers into a pile using the broom before sweeping them out the door into the yard outside. Thanks, Pod, you're a pal.

9S blinks, before his lips draw into a wide smile. "You're letting me look at it?"

He can hardly contain his excitement at examining this new piece of technology, barely restraining the urge the snatch the blastia out of Rita's hand. As it is, he hurriedly takes the blastia from her, immediately scanning it. Like her pendant, it does seem to be some kind of technological device, though on closer inspection, the core seems be a biological component.

"So this is biological and mechanical? Is the core some kind of power source?" he muses aloud. He can't get a read on the biological part -- that's not his specialisation, unfortunately -- but if it's a complex bit of technology, it's bound to need a source of energy. "Hey, you don't mind if I hack into this, right? I won't make any changes, if that's what you're worried about."

Biological...? There's a flicker of surprise in Rita's expression. Right... the core is sort of like a fossil. It's incredible that he was able to tell just by looking at it.

"The core is essentially a power converter. It draws a sort of energy from the atmosphere and converts it to magical energy through use of a formula. The surrounding part, the blastia's body, then has a formula that determines how that converted energy is used."

There's a pause when he asks to 'hack' it. Fortunately, Rita's been to enough computer-era worlds to understand what he means by that, though it takes a moment. "Be gentle with her," she says with a consenting nod. "Juana... this blastia, she's a sort of memento."

9S lets out a low whistle. A natural converter, huh? So it'll never need to be replaced, as long as it's properly maintained and there is energy in the atmosphere? That's pretty interesting.

But man, the blastia is named, too? Rita sure is weird.

Nevertheless, 9S smiles and says, "Don't worry, I know how to treat a lady right."

Looking down at the small device -- this shouldn't take long -- 9S hacks in. From all outward appearances, it just seems like he's looking at the blastia, but his consciousness enters it. Notably, Pod 153 stops its sweeping; the pod is assisting him by keeping an exit route available in case things go pear shaped.

9S needn't have worried, though; the blastia doesn't have defences the same way machine lifeforms do. Navigating within the hacking space of the blastia's body is different to what he's used to, though; it must be the 'formula' Rita was talking about. But it's similar enough that he can parse the formula as if he were navigating through machine based circuits. He can sense the energy eminating from the core and flowing through the formula, converting it, just as Rita had described. He can't tap into the core, though; it's like a traditional black box to him, where he can see the input and he can see the output, but not any of the in between. But if he analyses the data...

Disengaging, 9S' mind is soon back in his body, and he lifts the blastia up so it's about eye-level. All in all, the entire process hadn't taken longer than a few seconds; even if the blastia's foreign technology, it isn't as complex as hacking into a server or the mainframe of a factory. A single, isolated device with a restricted purpose is easy by comparison. "So Juana's core converts energy into heat? That's weird. Normally heat's considered a waste product of the energy conversion process, so naturally you'd want to avoid that. But... it looks like you've adapted the heat into a sensor that monitors heat fluctuations from a distance."

He holds the blastia out on his palm for Rita to take back.

"Why do you want to know that sort of information?"

Taking the blastia back in her hand, Rita nods. It seems like he was able to make an accurate and detailed analysis in just a few seconds. It really would be handy to have an android like him back in Aspio...

"It's for research and analysis, mainly. The scholar who made this blastia, Hermes, did a lot of work in developing efficient, high-output energy conversion formulas. He probably had to use something like this to monitor the cores he was working with, to make sure they didn't overheat and cause damage." Of course, they ended up causing a whole hell of a lot of damage anyway... but that's a topic for another time.

"Thermo blastia like this one are normally used to produce heat for cooking, or for staying warm in winter. They aren't very common, though, so most households just use wood-burning stoves and fireplaces for those purposes."

"Hm. Makes sense. Overheating's a real pain to deal with."

Hacking assistance done, Pod 153 returns to cleaning up their trailer, sweeping up the cat fur on the ground, too.

"What kind of maintenance do you need to perform for your blastia?" He explains his line of thinking, "It seems unlikely something with a mechanical component wouldn't need regular maintenance. Unless it's like Pod 153, which can do its own maintenance."

And himself... to a point.

"These two don't need much," Rita says, indicating Juana and her necklace. "Just some cleaning, and tweaking the formula for my bodhi blastia, mostly." She puts the thermo blastia back into the drawer, then turns back to face 9S.

"But some blastia are different. Larger and more complex ones do need mages to come by from time to time to fix or maintain them. It usually involves things like taking them apart to clean the components, realigning anything that needs it, repairing any damage to the body, testing the energy output and making sure it's stable. Stuff like that."

But it seems like 9S may be asking for a reason, and she notices he said the pod could perform self-maintenance, but said nothing about himself... "What about you? How do you handle maintenance?"

So the pendant is called a bodhi blastia? Clearly it must serve a different purpose than the thermo blastia. Too bad she won't let him touch that one...

"It's a bit like what you do with blastia. I can handle the 'formula' part of the maintenance, easy. It's part of my duties back home. But cleaning, realigning, and repair? I'm gonna need someone else to do that."

He shifts his stance, folding his arms.

"Usually it's not a big deal. If I need repairs, the maintenance crew handle that while I'm in another body. ...Er, if there's enough of a body left for them to bother repairing it."

Getting blown up is fun!!1!

"Someone else, huh..." Rita's lips curl into a slight grin. "Well, you're in luck. I can help with that, no problem. Might be an opportunity to learn more about how androids like you work, too." Is it creepy that she's looking at him like he's a specimen to be dissected? She means it in the nicest possible way, of course.

Additionally, she can't help but wonder at something else he mentioned. "You have multiple bodies?" And also trashed a few of them?

"Great!" Rita helping him was exactly what he had been hoping for. The first time he'll have to be awake to help guide her through it, but after he sees how she goes, he'll decide if he'll shut himself down during the process.

"Yeah. All the YoRHa number 9 type S models are for my use. The body isn't important." He taps the side of his head. "It's the personality and memory data that make me who I am. If something happens to my body down on Earth, my data will be uploaded from my last backup into a body in the Bunker, which is in space."

Rita sits down on a seat by the table. Her Litten moves out of the way, then hops up onto the tabletop, knowingly tiptoeing around the scattered papers as he finds a spot he can watch the whole room from.

As alien as some of the concepts mentioned by 9S are, they fit together logically, and Rita finds the explanation satisfying. "I see... it makes sense. Replaceable parts, transferable data... must be nice." She kind of envies him, and it shows. "But... I suppose it's not that easy out here, is it? I mean, without access to all those resources."

Following Rita's lead, 9S walks over to sit at the table in the seat opposite her. Pod 153's still cleaning, but the trailer already looks noticeably cleaner.

"Kinda, yeah." But he already gets a whole lot more socialisation here than he does when he's out on solo missions. It'd be nice if he could still talk to 2B and 21O, though... "But that's what you have to live with, isn't it? I think it makes your life unique. Special. You only get to live once, after all."

He leans his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers between each other.

"Us YoRHa androids out on the field, we die over and over again. If I haven't backed up my data in a while, is the me that gets put into a new body the same as the me that died?"

He knows he was rolled out on December 30, 11,942AD but given how few memories he actually has, the only explanation is that large swaths of his memory data was corrupted or lost in the line of duty. He'd thought 2B models were cold, but she had thanked him for an action he doesn't even remember doing. It makes him wonder...

Edited (i forgot words) 2017-09-30 09:10 (UTC)

It's a good question. Without really having the concept of transferable memories until this very moment, it isn't something Rita's ever had to consider. "No... maybe not," she concedes after some thought. "Whatever way you look at it, you'd still be losing something every time that happens." What's more, he may never get to know what that something was. Maybe easy wasn't the right word to describe the process.

"Still... I don't know that having one life is all that special. It'd be nice to have some assurance that, even if something happened to me, it wouldn't just be the end." Rita's not one to get too hung up over her own mortality, but she's had a few close calls, which is enough cause for her to think about it from time to time. "I've got some important work I wouldn't want to leave unfinished, at least."

"Oh..."

Yeah, that's a good point. It's a bit hard to really grasp the idea of a lifetime's work when YoRHa R&D has such quick turnaround. But he can understand feeling like everything you worked on vanishing or stopping with your death. Maybe the reason he's not afraid of dying is because he knows that whatever be discovers will be passed on to other androids. That his life was useful.

Well, aside from the being reuploaded to a new body thing.

"You know, records say that humans passed their most important memories to each other in all sorts of things." Something Rita should already know as a human! "Things like... ink on their skin, or in the weapons they made, or journal entries. Maybe... if you recorded your important work, someone could finish it if something happened to you."

Rita leans back in her seat (squishing her wings a bit against the back), looking mildly amused. He's talking about her people like they're some ancient civilization... but maybe to him, they sort of are.

"Naturally, I keep records of everything. I've even started writing a book about blastia, to make sure that my knowledge and feelings about them can be communicated, without ambiguity, to future generations." She gestures to the papers on the table. While some appear to be notes and sketches relating to things found in the carnival and in the worlds visited here, there are a bunch of pages in slightly neater writing (Rita's penmanship is generally atrocious) that make up a partial rough draft of a book chapter.

When Rita thinks about all the things the Geraios civilization must have known about blastia, but failed to pass on, she knows she has to do better. She doesn't want historians to hypothesize about her motives for changing the world, and she doesn't want future generations to repeat the same mistakes that humanity already made before.

"Still, there are some things I need to do that, even if someone tried to continue my work, they probably wouldn't be able to learn enough in time to do what needs to be done." It might sound egocentric of her to say that no one else can do what she does, but as far as Rita's concerned, it's the truth.

Well, that's good! Rita, at least, has better forward planning than all the humans back in the Old World. Though... if she's writing books, would they truly survive the test of time...?

9S decides it's better not to bring that up.

Well, at some point, he's going to read those papers, whether Rita wants him to or not! You can't just leave information out in the open like that and not expect him to pry. But something she says strikes him as odd...

"Wouldn't be able to learn enough in time to do what needs to be done...?" 9S repeats slowly. Somewhere behind them, Pod 153 is done with the sweeping and has started on folding the clothes. "Rita... is something bad about to happen to your world?"

Edited (missing words D:) 2017-10-04 10:34 (UTC)

Rita always imagined a being with artificial intelligence to be overly literal, perhaps not much of a critical thinker. But it seems 9S is perfectly capable of reading between the lines.

Well, there's no point in mincing words. "Precisely," she answers with a solemn nod. "Right now, we're facing a catastrophe that could mean the end of the human race... or of all life in the world. Once I return, the next few weeks will be critical in determining what happens in the long run."

"...Oh."

If he had a heart, it would feel heavy. As it is, it feels as if suddenly the weight of the world was dropped on his shouders. The humans of her world, too...?

"That's the reason you're researching magic and technology from other worlds, isn't it?" 9S brightens, a smile spreading across his face. "Then allow me to help!"

Well, technically he'd already offered when he proposed they work together.

"I'll assist in any way I can."

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anti_nonsense - 2017-10-06 04:23 (UTC) - Expand

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