come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

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None of his friends. There's a cold twist of doubt in her stomach.

Right after she signed that encoded note to him, that he was her best friend. (Max's too, but she refused to choose between the two.) But if that had been true, they'd have seen each other before now. Ava rolls over onto her side, plucking at at blades of grass.

"All I mean is... life itself is inherently devoid of meaning. Back home, here. And we weaken ourselves when we look to figures of authority or... deities to give that to us. We're not puppets looking for stage directions, Skulduggery. Maybe there's no winning, but losing is letting him pull you along on a string."

"The ghosts here are really, really fucking weird. It's like- back home, you stick around for a reason, ehn? Some last thing you want to get done. All ghosts want something, even if it's just to know how a story ends, or to send a last piece of mail. These ghosts are all... hollow. Empty. Nothing left of them and no reason for them to stick around."

Darcy wrinkled up her face in displeasure.

"It's so fucking weird. Like it's obvious why the Captain has them here, but it's still weird. Like if your Grimms had tea parties instead of trying to kill people."

"Oh shit, if Fio's your counselor I can't do anything to overrule her authority. She's adorable."

Darcy hadn't noticed her whistle while they were making bracelets, but she also hadn't exactly been looking.

"I have literally no fucking idea. I've never been camping before and I'm pretty sure this is all an American thing."

[ At having the obvious pointed out, Darcy makes a low, annoyed 'rôhhhhhhh' at the back of her throat. The universal noise of teenage annoyance. ]

I guess. No point in checking out early.

Sh-shut up! You got something you wanna say?!

[Because it's totally logical to tell Jinx to speak up after telling her to shut up???]

"Never really went as a kid either," he admits. "Had to camp out under the stars when I was older and enlisted in the Marines. But it was a little different. Didn't get cabins or-- these ridiculous little shorts."

He's still angry about their attire, okay.

"Kinda hoping it's not as much murder as the--" What did he hear it called? "Battle Royale thing that went on or whatever."

Wait, you can sense the aer?!

[That puts a pretty stunned expression on Rita's face. She doesn't know any humans who could do that, not even Estelle who's capable of directly manipulating it...]

Even a blastia doesn't let someone sense it... There are tools that can measure the density, but knowing it isn't required for magic--ambient aer density is more than enough, no matter where you go.

What...does it feel like? Do you feel it through your fon slots?

[Meanhile, she tucks the FoF information away in the back of her mind--she'd certainly like to see a demonstration with it, but this additional tidbit puts his ability to alter spells mid-cast into more interesting context.]

Edited 2022-06-14 23:31 (UTC)

"Proofing's only complicated if you suck, or if you kill your yeast."

Darcy freezes in place when Rich steps closer, keeping one dark, intense eye on him as he reaches- to clean it out of her hair. She visibly relaxes, holding still so he can finish his work.

"Thanks," she gives him a small nod, "whoever invented communal showers is going to hell."

"Well. I like to sleep indoors, too. When I can." He shifts position carefully, so he can lean back on his braced arms and look at the perfectly blue summer(?) sky. It's a little tricky with the roof angle but he counterbalances with his legs easily enough. "If you really don't mind."

Sleeping on the roof is fine. He was telling her the truth, both about that and that he really does consider it a safe place to sleep. But inside four walls would be even safer... and the longer they're here, the more the lack of animals is freaking him the hell out. Not that he's about to show any sign of that or admit it unless asked a point blank question he can't deflect.

Ginko smiles back at her again at the last thing. "Well, I'm sure you had your reasons, but I'm glad to hear that." He's had enough people decide they don't like him for any number of reasons in his life. It's nice to hear she isn't one of them.

That does not bode well for all of this then.

[Max hasn't watched them but he is aware of the whole slasher/killer/teenager at camp genre of horror movies.]

Has anyone been murdered yet?

[~~A truly dire situation...~~]

Not if you want to get all smelly and sweaty.

[Says Rita who has definitely not showered since this excursion started. And probably won't before it finishes, either... She can tell that he's really only sulking about it because he's not a fan (and who could blame him when he looks like that?!).

Speaking of heat and sunburn, though--Rita's complexion isn't dire like Jade's, but the shade is very welcome. She fans herself with a hand for a moment while Jade unpacks their lunch, and--

Yeah. Yeah, that sure is a package of marshmallows that she chose. Not only that, though: several pudding cups, cookies, cinnamon-sugar pretzels. And a single banana. It's a perfect spread ~~for TP recovery~~.]

"So you send those little guys all over, huh?" He's still not sure if that feels less or more invasive, but he's going to try to give it the benefit of the doubt that it's trying to just keep some bad shit from happening.

"When you came over-- seemed like you were a little irritated. What happened between you and Steven anyway?"

"I already thought about throwing myself in the lake, but I don't want to accidentally kill Mizuki." He sighs, because it would really be so much easier if he just offed himself and ended up back on the ship. But also, he's a little annoyed at himself for being this upset about... whatever the issue is.

"You could hang it with the pictures on that wall in the ship. Start your very own art gallery."

"I do get the sense that if she wanted to take over, most people would allow it. Fortunately she seems to not be letting the power corrupt her." Though she might make him go on a scavenger hunt, which will test the limits of his patience following a human around.

"Ah, that explains why it's terrible."

Your-- suggestion is really to sit around and do nothing?

[C'mon, buddy...]

Or he'll just dump some crazy shit on our laps and make us do something.

"This is true. If the point is to build fear through suspense, then of course we need to wait." He's a writer, he knows how this sort of thing goes. "Not sure whether it's ideal for the captain's purposes for us to let out guard down first or whether to have disaster happen at the moment of highest tension."

He pauses, then adds, "Though as... strange as this is, the tension has nothing to do with anything actually happening here, only what we imagine."

"Ah, this isn't much like a real forest," Watson says with a shrug. "It's not even much of a botanical garden. It's too quiet, for one. No insects, no birdsong, no small animals in the undergrowth. The restaurants and shops and libraries of the ships are... well, except for the invisible staff, much more what I would expect."

Ava tucks the note into his hand and vanishes without a word. Well that's odd, but he's been so out of it these past few days he doesn't really remark on it.

Though he wishes he had once he opens the letter and looks at it. Whatever this language is, he doesn't know it. But the hearts in the corners have him thinking it might be a code rather than an actual written dialect. He's not familiar with the Zodiac Killer specifically, but cyphers are definitely a thing in his world.

Well this gives him something to focus his attention on rather than attempting to run away in the forest and die. He heads over to the craft area to grab a pen and sits at one of the tables to attempt this. But only a few minutes in and he has a problem. Not counting the hearts which he assumes are meant to represent themselves, there's fifty-five characters. That rules out any language he's familiar with. Which means this translates to either a language from a different world (plausible) or that there's more than one cypher per letter (rude).

Malcolm will find him making notes on another piece of paper about which symbols are used the most (+, Φ) and starting to puzzle over some of the letters being reversed. He notices as Malcolm enters, feeling slightly awkward that having never interacted with him before he's going to have a first impression of Max puzzling over some serial killer cyphers.

Momentarily he's glad he's sitting down and that hides these horrible shorts. "Good afternoon."

"He expected me to be a nice person. I failed to meet his expectations on both counts." It's a snarky answer, but then it sighs.

"He managed to push a few buttons in quick succession, talking about 'fleshy bits', commenting about how I wasn't made to be polite, saying I'm the culmination of someone's dreams or some shit. Look, I know I'm a rogue SecUnit, dangerous to human life and if people back home knew I'd disabled my governor module, I'd be scrapped for parts. I'm not...good. Alright? And I kinda wanted to prove that to him all at once so he didn't get expectations about me."

"Okay, good" she grabs hold of a rope and swings herself out a bit, leaving room for Stede on the easier route she'd found on the way up "I'll be right next to you the whole time, just in case, but you got up here you can get down again"

She smiles as encouragingly as she can, and tries to point out where he should go

After a moment, she timidly lifts her eyes back to Skulduggery. It must look strange, with how easily a little girl can look at a magic skeleton and remain calm about it. She may have found him to be the least scariest-looking face during the "victory" party after the first excursion, that one evening.

"I'm sorry," She apologizes again, "Next time, I'll tell you."

Try to tell him. In most cases, she does try to be an obedient child. But she did sign up for camping even after all the red flags and warnings, driven by the fear of being left alone...

She doesn't want to worry him any further by lingering around the forest for too long. Just pick the flowers and head back. The camp itself is safer, maybe. There's really no way to tell though. There are more eyes to look out for her there, at least.

"I'll be quick. Can we walk back to camp together when I'm done?"

Yes, it sure is a name. A totally ordinary name belonging to a totally ordinary person. Look how ordinary he is.

"Ah, same was true for my own days in the service. This is hardly worth complaining about, in the greater scheme of things. A pleasure, Mr. Spector."

Watson takes a moment to lay out some toiletries on the counter by the sink. "My second, so I suppose that does make me a professional at it. This trip is, so far, much better than the last. I think I may have died by this point into the last one."

There's silence for a moment and then Malcolm can't help but let out a giggle. "So if I hated it, you'd say you lied?" Somehow her nervousness is helping to decrease his. "That's a lot of work to put into a lie."

Malcolm glances down at the letter again. "I don't think anyone's ever told me that they adore me before, at least not anyone that I happened to adore too." A crooked smile. "I um.. guess that's a good thing?"

Nope, maybe tomorrow I will!

"Not really" that's a lie, she definitely was worried, at least a little, she may not have been here for the murder island but she'd heard enough about it to be concerned. But she'd also been incredibly bored on the ship, so it had been an easy decision to come, all told.

"So what else do you do at camp, other than try not to die"

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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