WEEK 03

[modmachine]

Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.

Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.

Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.

More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.

Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.

Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.

Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.

Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.

Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.

A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.

Comments

[infinitemayonnaise]

'Cause it could make you sick if you ate it without knowing what you were getting into, Nitou says simply. There's so much more to it than that, but this seems to be an age-appropriate explanation for a kitten.

[runs]

You shouldn't let things lie around that will make people sick.

This is totally a time to sound offended. Dude, that's dangerous to leave your food out in the open like that if it could make people sick. Out in the open in his bag in his tent.

[infinitemayonnaise]

It's in here with me, I'm not just leaving it lying around! He warned her! That counts for something! This is all perfectly safe and controlled!

[runs]

Well, I could just have tried to eat it while you were sleeping.

Clearly that means that it wasn't tucked away well enough.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Well, you would have learned a bit of a lesson there... Nitou winces. It's a good thing you didn't. Don't go eating strange fruit! Kittens don't need fruit, anyways!

[runs]

Well, it smelled strange, so I could have wanted to know if it tastes strange, too. What excellent survival skills logic. And kittens can have everything they want. That last one is just sullen protest on principle - she technically knows that cats can't have quite a number of things, even some thins that humans can have.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Of course it smells strange, goblin fruit's not gonna smell normal, and you can't just go licking everything that smells strange! Nitou is a fine one to talk about good food-related decisions, really. And see, you say that now, but it's all fun and games until the first time you get into something that makes you puke.

[runs]

I've puked before. She's a cat, what did you expect. The worst part is that you're hungry after.

Is goblin's fruit something goblins make?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Well, this can mess you up a little more than that. Make you see things, turn color, that sort of thing if you're not careful. Nitou fusses over the fruit a bit more. It's fruit that they can grow--just comes from the same place as they do, and it's as unpredictable as a goblin.

[runs]

...Are goblins that much more unpredictable than others?

She's learned that a lot of creatures that she knows don't exist here and their names belong to something else, or at least that there is always a chance of that. Or even if there is a similarity between the two things sharing a name, they won't be the same.

So what she thinks when she hears goblin - a dwarf infected with HMHVV - is probably not what Nitou is talking about. Maybe.

And why are you carrying around a dangerous fruit like that?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Man, you have no idea, goblins don't operate on any kind of logic. He's good at dealing with them, but he's chimera enough that he gets mistaken for one of their own sometimes. And I got the fruit because I need it.

[runs]

What do you need it for? Wait. The fruit sounded a lot like a hallucinogen... Are you a drug addict?

The upstairs neighbour of the granny that I live with is a drug addict. He often leaves his door open and forgets where the toilet is.

[infinitemayonnaise]

No! Nitou groans. This kitten is too young for such things. I got a condition, I'll die if I don't eat stuff that came from the place that changed me.

[runs]

A medical drug, like the pills that granny takes and that I can't have, either, then.

See, she gets this. Two kinds of drugs that she can't have without severe repercussions, but one of them is less illegal than the other, only gets you up to an average metahuman mental and physical state and probably will prolong your life instead of shortening it.

Do you have to eat it forever?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Yeah, pretty much. Nitou shrugs. I've made my peace with it, it just makes things a little more interesting.

[runs]

What happens if you don't get your drug?

It's not that magical drugs are something foreign to her - heck, she carries some Deepweed around most of the time, not that it makes much sense to do so here, because the original purpose is to pretend in case of a control that she's not dual-natured by birth but just because she's on drugs, and that doesn't work if people don't know the drug - but she's never heard of one used for medical uses. The rich may very well do that, though.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Then my body kind of goes through withdrawal and the magic kind of consumes me. And there's hallucinations and stuff too. No thanks to that. Not very pleasant. And it's not a withdrawal that's survivable.

[runs]

...Yeah she's not going to touch that fruit.

Ever, if possible.

Iiiiinching away from it.

Are those fruits hard to get?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Oh, pretty hard, yeah, yeah. Nitou laughs. But I'm a really good adventurer, so it doesn't faze me!

[runs]

So can you fight really well or can you be really stealthy?

She wanders back over and jumps on him, and if he doesn't stop her, will climb to the highest point of him, which is probably his shoulder.

[infinitemayonnaise]

I can fight really well! Nitou laughs as she climbs him. She's cute; he'll let her do it. He loves cats. And I can be really stealthy when I want. Just watch. Nitou grins, and with that, goes invisible. Kitty will be able to feel him there, and smell him there, but to the naked eye? He's gone. He'll reappear with a laugh after a few seconds.

[runs]

Kitty could technically follow him into invisibility because knowing how to do full-sensory invisibility is like the one unifying feature of all SR mages, but she is being a perfectly regular kitten here.

Right?

Very unsuspecting, much normal.

So she lets her first reaction, which is to dig her tiny claws in and hiss when the cat she stands on suddenly vanishes, be her last reaction to this, too.

There was nothing to watch.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou ripples back into view. It's still pretty cool, right?

[runs]

It's useful.

But I could still smell you. ...It's a lot nicer to sit on somethingone that's actually visible, though.

[infinitemayonnaise]

No one's perfect. There's a laugh. And if I'm dealing with humans, it's not like they use their noses anyway.