[The Delve] 07/01/16: A Visitor In A Strange Land

You cannot break your promise to Ibris; you have to rely on that bird and that means building trust.

Is "after work" earlier than "after hours?" Might you be able to do both?

>Sorry, I have appointment already

>You'll have to leave your arms behind then
>Humans only? I didn't know you were a purist
>Besides I already told Ibris I'm taking them out to eat after work
> Nah, you're already committed to something else.
>You cannot break your promise to Ibris; you have to rely on that bird and that means building trust.

>Is "after work" earlier than "after hours?" Might you be able to do both?
>Sorry, I have appointment already

Making new friends would be important, and Liam is kinda cute (if he is talking about the person you are thinking of), but something about this guy rubs you the wrong way. Besides, you have an earlier commitment.



“You know, Bob-”
“Rob. It’s short for Robbie.”
“Robbie, I-”
“Robbie’s short for Robert, Robert Robawanga. Good ol’ Ro-Ro, that’s what they call me! But do go on?”
“Robbie isn’t actually shorter thananyways the hybrids are our colleagues and friends, don’t you think that saying ‘humans only’ sounds a little...hmm?”
“Oh no, I don’t have any trouble with those guys, they’re totally fine! It’s just nice to have an all-human company once in a while so you can chat about human business without misunderstandings and frankly I’m not fond of giving long explanations, see?”
“...right. What is human business exactly?”
“You know, stuff. Like sportsball or who’s dating who-”
“Oh I cannot help you on that front, I’m single-”
“-m, and that’s great, so’s Liam! We humans already have so much in common!”

You wiggle your arms and lie, after a fashion, that you would love to come but you have a delve today and you know how these things grow on you and take forever to root out maybe the next time thank you for asking, and then excuse yourself.



The delve chamber is dimly lit and cozy like a ghost’s womb. Its deep burgundy tones and the franchise mandated mystical mumbo jumbo decorations give an unearthly air to it - not actually necessary for your work but it does set the mood which helps. Rich smoke wafts from a multitude of incense sticks, making the air conditioning whine as it works feverishly trying to scrub it off the recycled oxygen. You have added a touch of personality here and there, putting a mug featuring your favorite show on the relic shelf, pictures of your family and friends amidst the psychic mandalas, your good luck charm-

Where is it? You can’t see it anywhere!

>Look for evidence of BREAK IN

We could help you look for it if we knew what it was.

Your favorite show features a talking horse and a car that can think. There they are, pictured on the mug. You chuckle when you are reminded of their freewheeling adventures.

Relax Aino, it's on your person already, remember?

(i am thrilled with everything about this adventure tronn)

SpoilerShow

We could help you look for it if we knew what it was.

It is up to you to decide! This is a stealth prompt meant to help establishing Aino's personality - whether the item she considers lucky is for example a memento from parent, rosary beads, or the first coin she earned tells a lot about her.

(i am thrilled with everything about this adventure tronn)

Thank you for your kind words! I was worried that the start of the story was too weird or off-putting, so this is what I needed to hear!

It's a small piece of burgundy yarn

Lucky robot's foot?

It's a special d20 with a 20 on every side - because why trust to luck when you can cheat?

A weird looking bug preserved in a glass pendant.

> Check under the pillows.

A weird looking bug preserved in a glass pendant.
Relax Aino, it's on your person already, remember?

No, that is what you are using as the key chain for your security dongle. It is right here, in the pocket of your work uniform-

God.

Dammit.

It's a special d20 with a 20 on every side - because why trust to luck when you can cheat?

As a kid you played a role-playing game with your friends, and for the first session your father fabricated a die with the best result on all the sides. He did not consider it cheating per se, but more like… ‘manufacturing favorable circumstances’ - why trust blind luck when you can make your own, after all?

You know that people are quick to judge someone successful as ‘lucky’ even though that is not true. According to your father success comes from working with passion, being clever and seizing opportunities others have missed, not from being blessed by some invisible hand of noisy quantum chaos.

As a result he did not take his downfall well or even gracefully.

He struggled like a drowning animal, pushing himself harder and farther from his remaining family until the inevitable happened. Afraid of following his fate you have led a far more subdued life, content to make do and being leery of anything smelling of ambition. So far it has worked for you - you may not be happy, but at least you survive.

(Your mother however thought that encouraging cheating at children’s games as a didactic tool was complete nonsense, and brought a swift end to that. Your parents did not always see eye to eye, but you like to think that they complemented each other magnificently.)

>Look for evidence of BREAK IN
>Check under the pillows.

You rifle through the cheap plastic religious iconography, toss around the comfy cushions, and peek under the tables only to find everything clean and spotless, devoid of any mementos...The Custodian, of course! You check the security log and at the top you spot the eerie user number #RJ45 having signed off a maintenance request.

The Custodian! According to the legend it was a regular cleaning drone gone rogue, driven insane by the state of disrepair the station is in. Now it spends its time lurking in the shadows, tidying up the place and doing small repairs when no-one is looking. It is a silent janitor, a watchful handyman - The Custodian.

The records state that there was ‘a rattling noise from the air duct’ which was fixed by ‘removing the obstruction and placing it in the waste disposal’, together with ‘a non-company approved drinking vessel’.



The bastard threw away your stuff!

Oh no, this will not do.

Relax; breathe in - hold - breathe out.

Good vibes. Mellow. MELLOW. Calm.

Now you can plot revenge.

go see if you can rifle through the garbage. your arms are wooden so you shouldnt feel any sludge you gotta touch.

>Send emergency message to the chief janitor

>Send emergency message to the chief janitor

You can’t, you just broke up with him this morning!

(Besides, he likes to call himself the Chief of Staff.)

go see if you can rifle through the garbage. your arms are wooden so you shouldn’t feel any sludge you gotta touch.

The items must have been tossed down the garbage chute and already on their way to be recycled. Everything on the station is printed on demand - tools, clothing, furniture, droids - and when no longer in use they are broken down back to mimeomorphic paste, ready to be re-constructed into whatever is needed.

Oh no, this will not do.
Relax; breathe in - hold - breathe out.
Good vibes. Mellow. MELLOW. Calm.
Now you can plot revenge.

Alright.

Focus.

You still have the schematics of the items saved in your personal cloud, and you can always print another copy of the dice your father gave to you or the Inspector Horse & Car Show Collector’s Issue Limited Run Memorial Mug. You have everything backed up. Nothing is lost.

It is a matter of principle. Maybe you would have liked to get a new pair of curtains or the boxed set of your favorite show this month, but now you are forced to spend some of your hard-earned credits recovering your childhood memorabilia just because of the actions of one malfunctioning over-ripe piece of hardware. Infuriating!

You swear that if you ever catch the Custodian in the act you will turn it into something suitably ironic, like a bucket and a mop, then silence a call from Ibris who is already getting worried what is taking so long. You are sad and angry and tired and just want to be over with this day. The sooner you do your job the sooner you get to pass out!



You utter the incantations and make the gestures, mind carefully numbed to the sheer impossibility of what you are trying to do. Your movements are rigid and precise, thoughts reigned in like holding breath with your brain.



Magic - real magic - is not about spiritual enlightenment or discovering hidden knowledge of God’s works. It is about strict adherence to form, about rote repetition of a protocol to channel terrifying power.



It is about following the letter not spirit of the natural laws, about interpreting the poorly worded sections in the most convoluted way imaginable so they do not apply to you.



It is about inviting the universe to a fake tea ceremony and not letting it leave until you have had your way with it.



Magic is about cheating politely and not getting caught.



“Ibris, status report please.”



“The forecast is calm, global psychoscape at nominal levels. Translation lag 53 ms, your current lag 0.11 ms. Lag accumulation rate at safe 0.001 ms/ms. You are clear to go, have a good voyage Aino!”



“Roger that. Proceeding to the thermocline.”







You are nearing your destination. What shape will you take?

>A sphinx

A wolf lion, the fiercest of spirits as to ward away any unwanted guests.

Whoops, misread it as "what shape will it take", and thought it was about the destination, fixed my suggestion now :B

Shape of: A tourist! Form of: Madras shorts & a Hawaiian shirt!

> Dodecahedron

A tree, with legs.

A futuristic panther

>Dodecahedron
A tree, with legs.
A futuristic panther

As you descend you flit through a multitude of shapes conjured up by your restless mind. Here, in the transit zone between realms, form is a just a matter of opinion, a pleasant memory, a desire revealed. Here nothing is permanent and even time itself is in a state of constant flux, ebbing and flowing at a pace of its own.

A wolf lion, the fiercest of spirits as to ward away any unwanted guests.
Shape of: A tourist! Form of: Madras shorts & a Hawaiian shirt!

Eventually you settle for a fierce predator - not your favorite but useful for warding off unsolicited companionship - tempered by clothes marking you as an affable traveler. You are sure that if you had a body they would feel comfy, and you have heard that some cultures hold great spiritual significance to them to boot. Very thematic!

>crumbled desert monuments
>A sphinx

You land on top of a ghost of a nuclear-powered lighthouse, rattling off tiny flakes of rusted paint that dissolve into nothingness before hitting the ground. You peer across the pale landscape basking in the embrace of a perpetual dusk, devoid of any definite source of light. Instead pools of lack of darkness, in want of a better term, emerge from the twilight like islands out of mist. The ground below is covered in dead coral ground up into soft sand by the weight of generations passing by, and jutting from it lay discarded ancient monuments, permanent fixtures disgorged from some other layer of this turbulent realm. To your left you think you recognize a stepped pyramid, a perennial visitor making its slow circuit across the thermocline riding the currents of glacial time. A sphinx guards it, looking deceptively man-made, but you suspect that it is a memory of a being not place, making it inherently more dangerous. To your right hangs a pair of wooden vessels still in the process of sinking. They whisper at you that they are English warships sunk by the Dutch herring fleet and wish to know who won the battle, but you pretend not to have heard them - the scenery is in habit of being a great liar, and you have a personal rule against engaging it in conversation.

The contact that was supposed to be waiting for you is nowhere in sight, which puts you in a bit of a pickle.

Over the countless millennia the world above and the world below have grown out of synch (because the dead do not observe daylight savings time), making your body and soul accrue age at differing rates - spend too much time in this place and they no longer recognize each other upon your return. You are not yet in any particular hurry and could afford to wait for a while longer, or you could look for the contact by yourself but then you would risk missing each other - this is where you were supposed to meet after all.

What should you do?

you have heard that some cultures hold great spiritual significance to them

Fuma's blessing upon you.

which puts you in a bit of a pickle

Oh crap oh crap .. no sooner do you think it than the Pickle appeareth!

Try to avoid getting trapped in conversation with the Pickle. Its smarmy conviviality is obviously insincere; a diabolical ruse.

... unless the Pickle is your contact ...?

Maybe wait for a bit and see if they show up? Sometimes you are late for your death meetings, it happens.