[Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

[trpmods]

WHO: ALL HE ROWS PRESENT
WHERE: Calibrations Area
WHAT: Mingle log for literally anything you'd like to take place in the waiting room between sleep cycles during the event
WHEN: May 9th to June 10th
WARNINGS: Please mark individual threads with warnings
NOTES: If you have any questions, please go Here

For those who followed the visions there is little more to do before and after the dreaming times but wait. At least there is some modicum of comfort offered to those who have found themselves trapped here. From the moment one steps through the door there is no going back, the doors people entered through sealed beyond any hope of opening. And by some twist of fate (or design), it's not possible to be by the door when another He Row arrives, something always calls any waiting away, until at last the door doesn't open anymore.

Some might find the area familiar, having haunted these halls before. Upon entry one walks down a large hallway before it opens into an even larger waiting room with chairs, tables, and the same food dispensers available in the shuttles, save that it lacks any Red Fruit Drink. It's a shame, actually, the alcohol might help you get through things, and since there was no warning this time, the dispensers are the only source of food available. But at least there is enough for everyone. Yay!

There are also communal bathrooms - one men and one for women though nothing would stop a person from using whichever they desire - with several toilet stalls and shower stalls in each, including basic shampoo and soap dispensers. All of the dispensers put out a liquid that smells like Italian dressing for some reason. The water in the showers is only ever cold or scalding, with nothing in between. Pick your poison.

Branching off the main waiting room are hallways that lead to the bedrooms. Each one has a name on it but there is nothing requiring you to use that one. Anyone can enter any room or share with someone else. Each room has a simple bed (approximately queen-sized) and a set of drawers. There is one white jumpsuit in your size in the drawer and a pair of canvas shoes. You can wear them or ignore them as you like.

Some power out there seems to have pity on the heroes too, accounting for the possible boredom that comes with the downtime. While no one may have been able to bring things in with them even if they had them in hand upon approaching, a need for entertainment for those long hours between dreams has been realized. A set of shelves can be found in the waiting room, covered in various boxes and containers. Each is labeled with brightly colored pictures of people seeming to have fun with a game, and the boxes clearly represent all sorts of species, even those that have never been present on Temba to your knowledge.

The complication is that none of the games are written in any language anyone knows, and even the Communications datapoint seems unable to translate. Good news, all the games seem to have all of their pieces, even the single large puzzle that is both solid gray and yet causes a headache when looking at it for more than ten seconds (damn those alternate light spectrum puzzles). Perhaps people can figure out the rules on their own, or make their own games from the pieces. There’s even paper and some sort of pen that only writes on that paper specifically, so maybe some pictionary? Or, if you’re really desperate and okay with fights breaking out, there seems to be a full set of Monopoly Longest Game Ever. Okay, so on second thought, maybe that power out there doesn’t have pity, but is malicious and wants to show you that people truly are driven to strife.

You can opt to spend time in your room or in the larger, common waiting room. But about every 16 hours, all people suddenly feel a compulsion to sleep. Once this starts, you can’t fight it off. You find yourself going into your room for bed or wherever else you feel like you’d prefer to sleep. And then, inevitably, you close your eyes and dream.

Comments

[tsundullahan]

The sight was enough to have her retreat, stepping back to let Tony in before they both ended up with a mess of game pieces at their feet. She looked at the resulting as box contents scattered across her bed, stepping over to pick up one of the pieces. Looking at the rest of the random parts she had her doubts about whatever 'system' Tony thought to concoct, but she couldn't disagree to the following suggestion. At least she could offer a nod now. Lerith, she knew.

Who knew things could get so complicated, she thought with a sigh. Tony sounded so confident that they'd find her head- did he think she'd meant she'd lost it here? She shook her helmet, glancing from Tony down to the pieces to see if she had anything to work with so she could offer some sort of explanation, quickly looking frustrated if not a bit overwhelmed by so many things.

[in_extremis]

Feeling guiltily unprepared for Celty being without her device to communicate, Tony watched her tension ratchet with an anxious frown of his own threatening to overtake his breezy smirk and had to very rapidly find a solution before it seemed completely dire. "Come on, you did this once before," he encouraged, plucking up one of the die to flick into the air then pinch between them where they could both see, "A scale. One for no way, six for absolutely, three for a little of both." Spinning it this time to illustrate, he continued to suggest, "Don't care for it at all--can see the potential--really enthusiastic." They practically already had a whole language.

[tsundullahan]

The reminder gave her something to refocus upon. Tony wasn't completely carefree like Shinra was, but there were uncanny parallels, the insistence, the encouragement. Celty's shoulders lifted and fell in a more controlled sigh, a preparatory action. She held up three fingers, looking down at the pieces they had to work with again.

First...she should try to clarify.

Nudging aside some of the scattered box lids, she tugged at a few flat, roundish boards that were probably meant to be for individual players of whatever that particular game was. She looked at them before selecting one blue and one green, replacing the rest before she set the two on the bed between them. Her fingers sorted through the various game pieces, selecting two that could have been representing people in a simplified form, a round head and a block body. She set one on the blue board, and then studied the second one before she gripped it with both hands to try snapping off its 'head'. Grizzly, sure, and a paltry display of what strength she actually possessed, but her intent wasn't to scare Tony. She placed the headless piece on the same blue board, and after some thought, set the 'head' there as well, although intentionally leaving space between it and the body, pointing to the first piece and then to Tony and the second one identifying to herself. Earth, relatively speaking. Celty wasn't about to even touch the whole alternate reality things.

She took the Tony-piece and placed him on the green board, pausing after a moment to work out which direction had been the way they'd all come in, where the rest of Temba lay before gesturing towards it and implicating the board. Then after a moment she took her piece and set it on the green board as well, leaving the head where it lay- separated by worlds.

[in_extremis]

Who the little people were meant to be was straightforward enough, but it took Tony a moment to work out Celty's intent with them, watching her and her chosen pieces with narrowed eyes like she was presenting a challenging lecture. For a second, he thought she was trying to articulate an escape plan, which was going to take ages at this rate, only that didn't explain why she left the head on the board and Tony had to consider that they weren't talking about the future.

He continued to stare at the little head-piece like he was interpreting the whole story from this simple tableau, until he abruptly concluded, "You're some kind of Ghost Rider." It was a relief that parts going missing was not a feature of being on the green board that Tony had to prepare for, though that did make it particularly difficult to get the head back. Where did Ghost Rider heads go? Hell? Maybe Jon knew how to get there. "You could have just said that, the bike's not exactly subtle."

[tsundullahan]

There was no number for 'What?' but she could convey that with slight head movements at least, as she did then with a tilt of her helmet. 'Ghost Rider' wasn't exactly a familiar term for her. She was clearly more tangible than a ghost. Explaining that she was a fairy from Irish folklore was going to take a lot more than puzzle pieces though.

Tony seemed to understand the main point though, and that was enough for her. It would save him the stress of looking for her head- which she deeply appreciated that he was willing to do- when it just wasn't here to be found. It had been difficult to locate even when she knew it was somewhere in the same country as her.

[in_extremis]

The most Tony could do then to deepen his understanding of this gesture was mirror it, leaving them watching each other with curiously tilted heads until Tony figured out that this was not what he was supposed to have taken from Celty's presentation. He cleared his throat and gestured toward the game pieces before he knew what he was going to say, and something had to come out so, "She can't pull it off like you can," with a nudge of the headless plastic, "honestly, it's a striking look now that I've gotten the full effect, like there's some gals that just look better bald..."

This was not helpful, he did know that, but it wasn't really buying him the time he apparently needed to figure out what else he was meant to do with the image. "How long has it been missing?" he tried.

[tsundullahan]

...and they were back to square one. Celty wasn't sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but all at once Tony dispatched of that mild dilemma by continuing to allude to the very thing she had not understood. Yet somehow it made it a little more clear, just a little. Are there other headless riders? Something in Tony's world? What's this about bald?

His next question put them back on track, something she could actually answer, although it depressed her to admit it. She lifted her hands, flashing all ten digits in and out, twice. Twenty... She hesitated. Therein lay the rub- how to make it clear what sort of timeframe she was talking about. After an anxious few seconds of trying to work that out, she traced a 'y' on the bedsheets.

[in_extremis]

This also seemed to present a challenge, because Tony was left glancing between Celty and the impression left on the bed, like he thought she intended to elaborate further. It sounded unmanageable to him that she meant, "Twenty years?" Granted, it was difficult to tell what tender age that must have made her when this loss occurred without a face to give him some context, but a slow, contemplative look up her body suggested that twenty years must have been most of her life. "How old are you?" wasn't actually that important to the recovery scheme, but it was already out of Tony's mouth.

[tsundullahan]

She'd heard that was a rude question to ask people, but she really couldn't blame Tony for wondering, although at the same time she wondered how these ghost riders could be any different from other supernatural beings in how they came about. The helmet-head seemed to stare at him for a moment as she thought this.

The oldest memories she could recall without her head were at least some centuries old, but she wasn't sure how she knew that exactly. There were so many things she felt she needed her head in order to understand. In the end, she gave Tony a reluctant shrug.

[in_extremis]

"I can't judge you for what you're choosing to be shy about now, but, listen, I assure you, plenty of guys appreciate a lady of a certain age, if I had to guess, most of them would rank the head thing as a larger concern," Tony replied, looking very serious and considering the game pieces arrayed on the bed again like this was all very relevant. With a point toward the head-piece, he said, "So, that's going to have to be a an extended project, after we figure out how to get closer to your head, or bring your head closer to us, and, here's the thing, on the bright side, narrowing the search down to a known planet is pretty powerful, given our circumstances, so we've got that going for us. More immediately, this," with a flick of his finger between them, "is untenable, I can only listen to my own voice for so long, we're looking at about a two-year time limit before we should have some concrete solutions."

[tsundullahan]

Only now is he admitting he'd get tired of hearing his own voice? Celty's helmet tilted in a different way than one seeking to understand. It wasn't a stretch to imagine if she had a face her eyes would be rolling right then.

Right. They were done here. She wasn't going to get anything explained with puzzle bits and pieces, not when so many details were needed for her story. Celty began picking up pieces, tossing them into random boxes. If someone wanted to sort them they could do it themselves, she didn't particularly care about trying to figure that out.