⇨ POLARIS AFTERMATH

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115-118
Where: Polaris/Wyldlands
What: After killing the Mother of Invention, the majority of the carnival has decided to take some time and sort out the Polaris refugees before heading to the Summerlands. This log covers miscellaneous post-Mother Polaris drama, as well as some light camping in the Wyldlands down below.
Warnings: Idk, stuff, I guess.

ADAPTATION↴ After the battle, the majority of carnival members will opt to remain in the secured section to Polaris, hoping to spend some time making sure that the rest of Polaris is liberated. Many of the staff are not capable of coming to grips with the fact that the Mother is dead so quickly, and the remaining Alphas are doing their best to keep Polaris under their sway. It will be a busy few days of changing minds and exploring the remains of the station. Thankfully, with everyone's powers intact and allies at their side, they finally have the advantage. ► SHIFTING STATES: Right off the bat, about 10% of the staff will immediately change sides upon hearing whats become of the Mother. They are actively eager to get away from Polaris, and will do whatever they can assist the carnival. This is mostly Gammas and a few Betas, who were working primarily under duress. Over the next day or two, those numbers will grow to at least 30%, with some of the staff managing to convince their colleagues to join them. About two days after starting, one of the Alphas will surrender to the carnival, encouraging those beneath her to support their cause. That leaves four Alphas remaining, and staff cooperation at 50%. ► CAPTIVE ATTENTION: The loyalist staff's main tactics are trying to create defensive points within the various test group areas, using the prisoners as hostages. Luckily, the carnival (and the staff on their side) will be in a position where it's possible to push them out with a mixture of convincing and force. Once prisoners start being freed, there will be even more force backing the carnival's efforts, meaning that it will essentially become a matter of cleaning up the remaining staff rather than any uphill battles. Most of this is being left vague intentionally, as most of this action is being handwaved. However, you can play out parts of it if you want and NPC technicians and rescuees. Other test groups can be filled with basically whatever kind of residents you like, since they are grabbed from across the multiverse. Most of the test areas are similar to B7. ► THE JACKPOT: Alongside cleaning up the staff, some members of the carnival have expressed interest in convincing the staff to help them with armoury issues as well as hunting down some of the Mother's most private loot. This will be handled in investigations, mostly through summary, because I don't have it in me for another megathread right now. Post your plans, and I will respond! However, know that I also don't have time to generate five million special items, so loot drops will be limited to my availability. Also, the techs aren't really blacksmiths so they generally won't really be able creating weapons from scratch or anything. Meanwhile, Ignatius is going to set up a camp ground outside of Polaris, mostly because he doesn't want to be there anymore. He'll keep a fire going and they can drag things from Polaris down there for camping purposes, and mostly Ignatius is just going to be chilling and making sure that the campground doesn't get assaulted by magical creatures. The Gilded Mark will create a portal between the campground and the station so that people can go back and forth as required. It also creates a handy escape route. You can even see Polaris from here, floating up there in the sky. How picturesque. ► WYLDERKIN: Apparently not everything in the Wyld Lands is a full Wyld Fae - there are also a lot of less powerful creatures called 'wylderkin' - apparently lesser forms of the Wyld Fae, who are more akin to animal level intelligence. They can be a variety of expected fantasy type creatures, such as flower sprites, weird bugs, and general prey animals they probably spend most of their time getting eaten by bigger dudes. All of them are sort of weird and fantastical, and none of them are exactly like earth varieties, though they may resemble them. They are more of a pest than a major threat in this part of the Wyld Lands, and Ignatius will scare away any that cause too many problems. ► FLORA AND FLUID: There are some plants that you can eat down here, that Ignatius will tell you about. Mostly weird berries and roots. There is also some pools of clear water, thought hey are filled with weird fish. Try not to bitten by any weird leeches. You can safely make up some of the creatures you find as long as they fit the general theme of lesser faerie creatures. This is just a rest stop.

Comments

this thread keeps going nowhere i expected, a domino chain of brainstorming

[spaghettimonster]

"Hmmm." Papyrus considers the half-attached bone, and guides it with his other hand into seeming to move around. It's connecting just enough not to fall off, but it's not tethered to his soul in whatever way makes a bone part of him.

"If I knew how to make a basic bone that connected, maybe I could make another skull... But, that's scary, too. What if it started thinking for itself, instead of being an extension of me, and then I had to dismiss it...? Unless."

They've already seen exactly that, haven't they?

"Sans' blasters became their own creatures, sort of. Maybe, if I ask him how he did that..."

lmao FOOD FOR THE MOMSTER I GUESS

[soft_focus]

"Mn.... ...They did?" Oh, hold on. She knows what he means, now- "Oh! The dogs? ...I guess if they were dogs that were connected, they'd listen to you, but still see..."

...

"...And then you'd have a dog head somewhere." Amazing. Amazing.

yeah, likely that remnant is hopeful: at least he's willing to do experiments with reira

[spaghettimonster]

"That... Those are what I mean, but," one detail in particular rubs him the wrong way, and Papyrus shakes his head emphatically. "I wouldn't have a dog head anywhere!"

He turns away and gestures into the air, and a large single blaster forms a few feet in front of it. It's slightly more angular than Sans' blasters' heads, with long fangs, but no particular sign of personality or life behind it - it just floats there.

"These wouldn't be dogs," he clarifies.

[soft_focus]

"...Not dogs?" she repeats, blinking confusedly. The blaster is summoned quickly, and she blinks once more as she looks to it. Long fangs and... Ummmm...

"Is it...a cat then?" she tries, looking over the skull and walking around it. She can't be sure what it is or isn't after all.

[spaghettimonster]

There's a whole lot of things in the world that aren't dogs, thankfully. Though at least most wouldn't get much out of chewing his legs directly. An upside to all of this.

But he spreads his hands, staring at her reaction. He's astonished, Reira.

"I'm astonished, Reira! You don't see it...? In Eden! I had a very appropriate form, there." Mostly, it's the fangs in common. A floating skull, lacking all musculature, skin, and fur, doesn't bear much resemblance to the real thing.

[soft_focus]

Reira is only further bewildered by this.

She looks over the skull, squinting. And then back to Papyrus.

"....Your face was a lot rounder, and softer, and fluffier, Papyrus."

Also.

"...Those things are still cats."

So there.

[spaghettimonster]

"I'm always soft! Maybe not as round, or fluffy..."

He floats the blaster up to where he can consider its plain skull, compare it with his memories of his reflection in Eden, and realizes the truth - it's not at all obvious.

"They are still cats," he concedes a little more sincerely.

fair warning the linked card is a rather disturbingly speared stuffed toy uh

[soft_focus]

"Not that kind of soft!" Reira insists. "Soft like sweaters are- you're a different sort of soft."

So, he's at least still soft.

She definitely beams with that confirmation though. "Yeah! Just big cats. Like...umnh... ...Sora's 'saber' tiger..."

Except significantly less puns.

the saber saber tooth tiger... somehow the eyes and mouth are the worst?

[spaghettimonster]

"Oh, well, okay." He accepts her concession - acknowledging his undeniable softness - with a smile.

Soft-hearted, for sure.

"I don't know Sora's 'saber' tiger... Is that the same Sora who was here for a while? But, that sounds right! They're 'saber toothed.'"

Des-Toys is terrifying yu p

[soft_focus]

"...Did...they have blue hair?" she asks, blinking.

"Um! Yeah! ...His had 'sabers' through it too though..."

I forget what changes the KH Sora had, and i think they deleted their info post

[spaghettimonster]

"I don't remember... He had water magic, and was from an oceany world, so! Maybe! But, uh."

Papyrus pats his blaster, which floats indifferently and uncaring about the whole thing, and dismisses it.

"Did I hear you right...? The sabers were through it?

well i know he didn't have blue hair at least lmao

[soft_focus]

"...Mnhh... ...I guess Academia had an ocean..." It's hard to imagine Sora with water magic though...

But hey. She nods. "Yeah- Sora's 'des-toy' monsters look like big stuffed toys, but cut apart with sharp things."

that's one thing we remember

[spaghettimonster]

There's always the chance of multiple people with the same name. Sora is just two syllables, simple names like that can repeat all the time.

"Those... don't sound cuddly at all? The very opposite of what a stuffed toy is supposed to be..."

He hopes it doesn't need to be said, and that she knows that. But given some of the other gaps in proper childing experiences she's demonstrated before, well. Maybe it needs to be said.

[soft_focus]

"The cuddly ones were the Furnimals," Reira calmly corrects. "Des-toys were made by fusing the Furnimals with the Edge Imps- they're not supposed to be cuddly, I think. They're supposed to be scary." Well that makes a little more sense.

She could probably go on and on about card game logic and lore for quite a while if Papyrus let her.

[spaghettimonster]

"Oh." It seems backwards to him, making scary things seem cute and cuddly on first impression instead of going right for cool, spiky, firey sorts of things... but there's no accounting for taste. And certainly most of the carnival people who saw him, back in Wismuth, had seen Papyrus - soft and cuddly skeleton - before they took note of his attire or changed attitude.

Maybe it makes a little sense after all.

"Well, then, mission accomplished!" Papyrus decides with a shake of his head. "Those do sound scary. You haven't noticed anything like that with your shoulder friends, have you?"

[soft_focus]

Reira just shakes her head- and the sprites seem to wobble with her. "Mnh-mn. Only in duel monsters- there's no evil swords coming out of these." Important stuff to know, that.

"It's only those cards anyway though, I think. Um...I guess it's because it's a fusion deck? So it's supposed to be a fusion of stuff..?"

[spaghettimonster]

So long as they're not holding on with evil - or not evil swords.

"Hey, how does that work? Your cards are monsters, sealed in cards... and they're supposed to be? When they're not fighting."

It's been a while since they talked about it, by the obstacle course, but he remembers that much clearly.

"Are they... sorted into decks based on what sorts of monsters they are...?"

Because it sounds a little like they were made to be fusions of stuff, and he's not sure how to take that.

[soft_focus]

"Ummm....if the duelist makes a good deck, they are?" she starts, pausing. She furrows her brows...but she tries to explain. "I guess...each card has a spirit, so it's more like..."

A roll of the dice, perhaps? Reira will end up rambling a fair bit; about how each deck reflects the heart of the duelist, and how a good deck is one where the duelist understands the cards and respects them...so on, so on. At some point in the talk, she finally gets a bit tired- and after a brief grimace when moving to sit, manages to unceremoniously fall flat to the ground in a sitting position not unlike a posed doll.

The sprites briefly 'poof' off of her, before gently settling back upon the girl as they drift through the air.

"...anyway. Um...I only sort of understand it, I think...but it makes sense, right?" That holograms got so powerful and strong that inanimate cards gained souls?? Sure.

[spaghettimonster]

It's been months, after all, since the first time she explained any of this. So he'd forgotten that the card monsters were originally cards, and the holograms let them put on a show.

"All their cheering fans put a little bit of magic into them, until they came alive... That makes as much sense as anything."

Monsters making monsters doesn't work quite that way, but. There's similarities. And the stranger material monsters had to originally come from somewhere.

He puts that topic out of mind, partly because it's not as though Reira - a human - needs to know where little monsters come from, and partly because she'd sat a little abruptly.

"Hey, are you alright...? You're moving strangely. I could see if anyone down here has good healing magic."

[soft_focus]

At least that bit about the cards was probably more refresher, rather than complete re-explaining. Everything else- the archetypes, the types, the whole matter of different deckstyles and summons and on and on and on...

Honestly he could probably try his hand at the game himself by this point. As it is. Reira blinks, and shakes her head before reaching to the edge of her rather over-sized shirt. "Mnh- no, it's just the thing I got. It looks like a screen, but it makes different colours for people's feelings." She frowns, immediately irritated by it. "...But I already didn't know all the words for every feeling- so now it's just more things to not know..." Terrible!

At least give her something cool, like a video-chat system, or a V-Pet!

"...It makes it hard to move though, since it's flat and doesn't bend."

[spaghettimonster]

Maybe someday, though it would probably always feel strange to be directing other monsters in combat, even if they're cards who express themselves through holograms, and have different focuses in life. Like no need to eat, or any of that.

But, whatever he expected to see in her torso, a glowing screen was not it. Wasn't even on the list of considered options.

"It's... kind of like a turtle shell... except it's on your front," he concludes after a moment of consideration. "If only we had some turtles around, to ask advice from."

Well, they might not help with interpreting the colors. But they could help with the movement.

"Is it... whose feelings is it showing?"

[soft_focus]

Without even blinking or pausing, she answers- "Yours." It's always proximity first, THEN her. "...It only does one person at a time though," she huffs, frowning even more heavily. Useless!

"I guess asking turtles would help though...they have hard fronts too- they can't bend that part." She suspects there is a large lack of talking turtles around, however. "It's okay mostly. I just have to learn how to do action duel things again." And also not turn too fast and hurt herself.

do you have a color guide set up for what the screen's showing at any given point?

[spaghettimonster]

"Huh. So I can see my emotions, a little like you feel them..." Maybe not all that useful for Reira, but interesting! If only it were somewhere more convenient to stare at. Like a necklace, that could be passed around.

With any luck, they'll find some bipedal talking turtles before things get organized so Papyrus visits back home. He knows there's some around - Gerson's a famous veteran, and Undyne talked about him in her childhood reminiscing - but not all that many. And that trip might not be for years yet... assuming everything goes well. If it doesn't, then... who knows.

"Do action duel things help with... sitting down? And other, uh, regular movements?" He doesn't want to criticize her priorities, and if action duel things give her a kind of magical gracefulness that's fine. But that looked like a hard, almost painful sit.

[soft_focus]

[[I've just been using this lmao; more intense, more vibrant/saturated/'pure'. Less, more dull, subdued, closer to grey or 'off'.]]

"Mnnh. Yeah. But you have to decide what the colour means still," she explains. "It doesn't have any words, or names...just the colour."

Anyway. The shirt is dropped back down, and she blinks. "...No, I just want to be able to duel properly. Sitting and moving normal is easy, I just have to remember to do certain things. ...Moving fast is the hard part."

[spaghettimonster]

[[so complete apathy = no saturation aka grey, that stands to reason]]

Flickers of orange and blue cross the screen before she fixes her shirt, colors similar to typical monster magic attacks. Does that mean he feels like moving and staying still at the same time? Or is it based on some other color system, altogether...

"Well... There's two schools of thought on training. One is, you should do all of the slow things deliberately, and practice them, until you get faster at it all..." The safer, more responsible approach, especially if she doesn't have an informed coach guiding her...

"And the other, is you go directly to the hardest things, and give it your all! Then, when you succeed, you should be good at everything!" Undyne is not the worst teacher, but she's sure not the best, either.