come_sailaway | JANUARY (MINI) PLAYER PLOT: I'LL SEND AN S.O.S. TO THE WORLD

[After their return from the Village, many of the Serena Eterna's inhabitants have been taking time to nurse their psychological wounds. Arilanna Tayrey was no exception, until she was reminded that there was still work to do. Still hope of working towards the escape that she longs for.

The space probe. After months of preparation and testing, on the fifth of January, it's ready. The probe itself was found by Sparkles, and it carries a wealth of encoded information about the passengers (or 'prisoners' depending on whom you care to ask) aboard the ship. Ari and Cassandra collected the letters and videos contributed by the population, and through careful selection and editing, present a picture of a group in desperate need of rescue by anyone – or anything – that might find their message. Also affixed to the probe is a long-range emergency distress beacon, from Ari's home universe via Sundries.

The rocket which takes the probe to the heavens is a remarkable blend of science and magic. Ari and Crichton, Rita and Fever all used their expertise to put it together, but as Sparkles warned them, the success of the launch depends on their ability to distract the Captain and Friday.

This group know how to cause some appropriate chaos. To split Friday's attention, a grand distraction takes place. You may notice some of the following:

- signs around the ship declaring that there are no more rules, and daring you to do something forbidden – smoke wherever you like, 'steal' from a shop, start fires...
- mutiny banners, assorted fires across the ship (mostly courtesy of Natsuno), unknown sigils scrawled on walls
- also look out for a text message from a friend on the space probe team, either inviting you to join them in mutinous mayhem, or, if they don't want to show their hand or don't see you as the mutinous type, to participate in a mass rule-breaking experiment

And as Friday has all this to cope with, the Captain has an unexpected visitor on the bridge…]

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Bastion is ambivalent about this mass reign of destruction; it's not something they personally find gratifying, and they have some concerns about what the cleanup is going to be like, but after the prolonged stress of the excursion – even for those who hadn't been in the Village themselves, where everyone had been stripped of any means to exert force above the human baseline and then punished harshly for everything from swearing too much to returning to their lodgings too late at night – they can see why it would be cathartic.

They take down a bottle of wine which purports to be made from gloomy mushrooms and set it on the bar to see what Grace does with it.

Edited 2024-01-05 01:21 (UTC)

Grace approaches the wine slowly, cautiously. She circles the bar like a shark, sometimes glancing at the bottle, then Bastion. She reaches out to touch it -

- And gets shocked again immediately, seizing up her body in silent agony. The moment she has control of herself again Grace baseball swings the harpoon at the glass.

~Did you know that would happen???~

Bastion flinches back in surprise and distress, more at Grace's convulsions than the glass shards and thick inky black liquid subsequently going everywhere. // No?!?

They had assumed that the effect preventing unauthorised access to the alcohol supplies was a property of the shelves and storage areas, not the bottles themselves.

// I thought the wine would be safe if I removed it. Sorry. They're not exactly in a hurry to get another one down and try again.

~Mmm. I believe you, mechanical one. Join me. Cast down the forbidden fruit of the vine! It is very satisfying.~

By way of demonstration Grace slashes her way through a row of bottles, grinning in malicious joy.

Either the harpoon is non-conductive, or it doesn't count as part of Grace when it touches the wine bottles, they observe.

Well, it doesn't bear a close resemblance to the kind of thing they'd typically be doing on the battlefield, and there's already a huge mess in here. They select another bottle of fermented mushroom beverage from the same shelf and, with an experimental air, throw it overhand across the room. It hits a stool, which wobbles back and forth when the bottle breaks against it.

The act itself doesn't really move them. The satisfying part is knowing that Number 2 can't stop or punish them for their act of vandalism, as would have been the case if they entered an eatery in the Village and threw its stock onto the floor.

// If I throw one, would you hit it in midair?

INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR -

In the form of Grace swimming up to press her back against the ceiling, harpoon at the ready. If Gwen or honestly literally any Spider-Person were here they'd probably sue for copyright infringement.

That's not what they were expecting, but it works. They throw a bottle of two-hundred-year-old mushroom wine Grace's way.

Grace has severely miscalculated this angle, a symptom of her excitement; when she baseball swings the wine she ends up absolutely coated in it.

After a moment's shock, Grace breaks down in silent laughter.

The wine breaks open far closer to Grace than Bastion anticipated, and in the moment between the bottle making contact with her harpoon and the cloud of airborne alcohol clearing, they let out a sharp alarmed whistle, afraid the fast-moving shards will sever an important blood vessel or take out her eye. But she's fine, just soaked. The descending whirr they produce is like a sigh of relief.

It's a vigorous vintage; 1878 was a fruitful year for the production of Black Wings Absinthe. And the drop of Vake-blood that acts as its secret ingredient is as potent as the day it was bottled, no more subject to the ravages of age than the creature that shed it. The dark liquid slithers over her skin like a live thing. Grace feels stronger. Fiercer. More interested in wearing black cloaks.

Grace zooms much closer to Bastion, her face alight with excitement. ~Mechanical one, this wine...it is full...~

...

.....

.........

~...Of bad ideas?~ She swats at the crawling liquid, which works about as well as a screen door in a submarine. ~No! Foul thing! Cloaks drag in the water! You will not argue with me! OF COURSE I WOULD LOOK FETCHING -~

// The wine's communicating with you? Why does it want cloaks? That does sound like a bad idea in wet conditions or close quarters, and also came out of nowhere as far as Bastion can tell.

The Black Wings Absinthe soaks deeper into Grace's everything as she swats at it, scraped from her face and shoulders onto her hands and seeping into her clothes and hair. This room is shamefully devoid of cloaks. Not even a curtain to wrap around herself! She should go prowling elsewhere, in search of cloak material.

Ultimately, dousing oneself in wine is a less effective way to consume it than drinking it, so the effect on Grace's mood only lasts for half an hour to an hour. Maybe less if she finds a nice cloaky beach towel to sop it up with, but by then she and her mechanical compatriot have lost track of each other.

Edited 2024-01-24 12:42 (UTC)

JANUARY (MINI) PLAYER PLOT: I'LL SEND AN S.O.S. TO THE WORLD

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ALRIGHT WHAT DOES THIS DO

it was going to be something inert but I changed my mind, Black Wings Absinthe be upon ye

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Wrapping this up a little more conclusively so it's out of both our inboxes