revivalproject | [Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

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[Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

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: June 10th to July 10th
WARNINGS: Please mark individual threads with warnings
NOTES: If you have any questions, please go Here

An Agrii, or what may have been an Agrii, led you here, and now you can't get out. From the moment one steps through the door into Calibrations there is no going back. Luck, good or bad, even prevents people from being in the entrance way when another He Row arrives, meaning there's no slipping out to be hoped for. This is because Calibrations at their core keep you from going out and seeing the world, keep you from doing much but exploring the space and interacting with your fellow trapped He Rows. This wouldn't be much of a problem if there was a lot to do in the lengthy hours between the compulsion to sleep. At least there is some modicum of comfort offered to those who were tricked into this timed trap.

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 ships, 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 likely the only source of food available. There is more than enough to feed everyone, even to the point of being overstuffed at every meal. At least there are those small favors.

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 motor oil for some reason. The water in the showers is pleasantly warm and just perfect for getting clean. Well, it is for good little boys and girls who don't blow up buildings. Given that sort of comfortable temperature hasn't been available in past sessions, it's a real relief.

Branching off of the main waiting room are hallways that lead to a number of bedrooms. The door of each bares a nameplate on it, imprinted with the name of a He Row. Those who are returning here won't find their name plate in the same place it was previously, which might be frustrating in its own right. The doors aren't locked though, and anyone can enter any other room or share with anyone else if they wish to. Each room has a single, simply made queen-sized bed, and a set of drawers. The drawers have a white jumpsuit in the size of the He Row whose name was on the door, as well as a pair of equally white canvas shoes. It's kind of your captors to offer you clothes, and for a change there will be new ones available to you this time through, replacements appearing once every week. You can wear them or ignore them as you like.

Greater pity has been offered this time than before for the He Rows, offering a variety of things to do in the downtime. Given most of what He Rows may have been able to grab and bring with them for their 'escape' may not be much good for entertainment, it's helpful to have even the little things. Shelves are available in the large waiting room, filled with boxes and containers. There are pictures on each box, brightly colored and then defaced with Agrii smilie art, showing all sorts of aliens having fun with games.

Sadly the games are not written in a language anyone knows. Luckily the Communications datapoint is working right this time, and it's possible to translate the instructions for a change, letting people play things with all the fun you need. Unfortunately this year there are pieces missing. Because of course nothing can ever be easy. The only thing that is fully intact is that solid gray puzzle and of course, Monopoly Longest Game Ever. There's even paper and pencils and crayons! It's like the Calibrations area was upgraded just for you!

In fact, you don't have to rely on just the board games to keep you occupied this year. In addition to them, the food, getting to know each other, and probably building forts out of all the beds, there's one big plus offered to everyone: arts and crafts! That paper and those crayons aren't the only thing. There's containers of water based paint, there are brushes and canvases, there's even clay for modeling and glue for pasting paper together if you decide to cut some up. No scissors or knives though. But maybe you can spend some time beautifying your mostly white surroundings. Or maybe committing some graffiti in your frustration. Anything to pass the time.

You can opt to spend time in your room or in the larger, common waiting room. But about every twenty-two 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.

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Insomnia? Steve frowns, not sure if he understands that point, but in the great scheme of things it didn't matter. Especially since he picks up on that past tense pretty fast and, Christ. They must have had a bloodbath back home. Steve understands that all too well.

"Are you...happy to be here, then?" Steve is, sometimes. It is one of the things he feels guiltiest, honestly, but he is.

Ah, that. Gladio nods.

"Here I can be with him," Gladio says. Which wasn't true back home. "Here I can love him and shelter him and care for him. Back home, well, there are lots of other things affecting us both. Doesn't mean I don't still miss our friends."

Ignis would be so useful to have around.

The nod loosens something in Steve's chest that's been pulled tight for awhile. He nods in return and purses his lips for a second before trusting himself to reply.

"I have miss my friends a lot, too. But...home there was always some danger. Something I needed to be worried about. And there was no Eddie." He looks down. "I feel bad about it, but being here is... I don't know. Better? Different? I guess, yeah. Better. Even though that's probably fucked up with my family and friends still in the shit at home..."

Danger wasn't something that would turn Gladio away from his home. He was raised to stand between people and danger, so he would do it. Would keep doing it all of his life. Did it here too. But Noctis... He was worth staying for.

"I know what you mean, trust me. Eos is in the midst of an apocalypse. I was taken right from before what would have been a final battle to win our freedom back."

Steve smiles at Gladio and leans back. He feels calmer and more relaxed than he has in awhile. Gladio, it seems, is just a great guy for shit like this. Comforting, maybe. Either way Steve is a big fan.

"Well... Freedom is a big deal, but for what it's worth I hope you're able to stick around for awhile. Especially for Noctis." He pauses a second, looks pensive, and then:

"But...uh... Where are you from, exactly? There's Eos...Insomnia...Amicitia...?"

Hey, he'd been raised to be level headed and steadying. When he wasn't freaking out himself. Then he could be... a bit harder to tolerate and less patient.

"I'm staying as long as I can, to be here for Noctis. Like I said, different versions of our reality." And if he leaves, his boyfriend will be alone.

"Eos is our star," which to them meant 'planet'. "Insomnia is the capital of our country. And Amicitia is my family name and lineage. Though I guess you could also stay I'm 'from' the Amicitia manor, which has been in the family for generations."

Steve nods and finally looks back at their game. "Thanks," he says to the board more than Gladio. "It's nice to talk to someone about this shit and have them get it. Especially with the whole 'home is in trouble' stuff, too."

He looks up and smiles.

"Have you met Eddie yet? I wanna meet Noctis now so we should have like... I don't know. Double date seems weird. Partner...showing... No, that's weirder. You get what I mean."

Yeah, he really does get it.

"Eddie? No, can't say I have. Spoke to him once on the network. He almost seemed jealous that I come from a world with dragons and catoblepases and knights and all of that."

Which had been half amusing, especially when the guy found out that Gladio's clothes for his guard uniform were woven with kevlar.

"But Noctis might be up to that. But it would probably have to involve fishing."

"Okay but for real. Sushi restaurant, fishing all the time. What is up with all that?"

Gladio will barely have a second to reply though before Steve realizes what he said.

"Holy shit, wait. What? Dragons? Real dragons? Like big, huge, fire-breathing ones? Jesus, Eddie would probably give his left arm to go there!"

"And he hates his veggies," Gladio laughs. Yeah, Noctis had a thing about fish. He liked catching the fish for the fun and challenge, but you know Ignis had cooked up the ones he could.

The other part always seems to catch people though.

"Why would dragons breathe fire?" he asks, confused. "Yes, big, huge, scaled, lizard-like creatures that are irritable. Actually, we seem to have a lot more megafauna than some other worlds do."

That much had been made clear to him when people weren't as prepared for the giants as he was.

"Mega...fauna..." Steve's brain goes immediately to a very large Bambi. A 'fawn', right? Fauna must be the Latin name for them or whatever. That made sense.

"We don't have dragons, but we do have myths about them. For some reason those myths include them breathing fire and stuff like that. I guess because..." His face scrunches a little. "Yeah. I don't know why, actually. Lizards are in the water, usually. Should probably breathe...bubbles? Less scary that way though."

He shrugs. He didn't come up with it.

"Do the Mega Fawns do anything cool?"

Mega what? Oh no, the kid misunderstood, and Gladio had to chuckle.

"Well, it was more like one of those power wash hoses but even stronger, or sometimes tidal waves. But compared to daemon evil dark energy beams, or petrification, that's not so bad."

And don't get him started on death spells.

"And I mean, they're just animals. Sometimes they get dangerous. Or live in places where they pose a risk to other people. But otherwise, they're usually just animals, and sometimes aggressive ones. I guess I mostly just feel bad that you guys don't have animals around that are much bigger than you are?"

"Demon evil dark energy beams...or petrification..."

Steve is suddenly glad that the demodogs and stuff would only eat him, now. Painful, sure, but you'd just bleed out, go unconscious, and that's it. Being turned to rock or whatever seemed like it would be pretty awful compared to that.

"Some places have big animals," he feels like he has to point out. "Africa has giraffes and elephants. I saw those at the zoo once and they're pretty huge. Moose? Also huge. Saw one when I was in Canada as a kid. Oh!" He snaps. "Dinosaurs were enormous! We had dinosaurs like hundreds of thousands of years ago." Bit longer, pal.

"Yeah. Dry skin after being a temporary statue is a bitch."

There was not enough lotion to make that immediately better. Damn he hated it.

"What's a dinosaur? And a moose? Elephants. Never heard of any of those."

Dry skin? Yeah, Steve isn't going to ask. His brain might explode.

"Dinosaurs are these really old creatures. Lizards with like. Long necks or huge jaws. They were super tall and giant until an asteroid hit the planet and they died..." He's not sure how that worked. Maybe they were all just unluckily hanging out in the same spot?

"And a moose...that's like a deer but way bigger and with horns like this." He puts his thumbs on either side of his head and spreads the fingers out to mimic the antlers. "Just like. As big as I am tall."

It won't. That's a whole other curse.

"Oh, like Bandersnatches. Fought one of those. Annoying as hell," he says. Less annoying than a King Behemoth though. Still, he's listening to the other stuff and they sound... weird.

"That sounds like an extremely diminuative Ahak stag. Does it have a really long neck? And leg spurs? And fangs?"

"I...don't know what any of those things are. But no leg spurs. Or...uh. Fangs. And the neck is sort of just. Normal?" He blinks, finally realizing how different their fauna probably was.

"Giraffe have really long necks? They're like all neck. Spots all over and some long legs, too. They eat plants and oh! Weird thing about them? Black tongue!"

“All neck sounds like an Ahak. But they’re striped instead of spotted. And long ass legs. Mostly plant eaters, yeah. But no black tongue.”

Gladio has to smile. That kid’s world sounds interesting. Though less like there are big animals to eat.

"Wait..." Steve is fascinated now. "What kind of sushi did you have, then? Was it salmon and tuna and shit like that? Or did you have these super fancy whale things that were made into rolls?" There's so many things he needs to know now.

"Was the Ahak burgers? Dis the cows have fangs?"

“Why wouldn’t we have salmon and tuna?” Gladio asks. He’s confused. Those are normal fish. It’s Steve with the weird animals. “Noctis is actually a champion fisher, loves going after those. Ignis made this amazing grilled rainbow trout too.”

But eating whale sounds so wrong.

“Let’s see, Ignis did Prairie style skewers and breaded cutlet with tomatoes with most of the meat. Anak is coarse and sorta stringy, but it’s decently marbled and goes down pretty easy.”

Oh. Okay. So the fish are still normal. That's nice to know if Steve ever ends up over there and needs to eat something.

"So no cows? Beef? What meat was the best for...um. skewers and stuff?" Okay, he's getting hungry. It's sort of a tragedy that they can't get anything truly decent to eat here. He'd give an arm for a steak.

Everything there that isn’t a daemon is normal. Not his fault that Steve doesn’t know it.

“Anak. Garula. Midgardsomar, Zu, Catoblepas. Basically most meats can do skewers. Even Gigantoad. Oh, and wild trout, which is the best.”

Dude, they eat most things.

“But really, I’m a fan of cup ramen the most.”

Steve has no fucking idea what this place is like, truly. Giant animals and cup ramen. Wild.

"I wish I could see it. It sounds really cool, Gladio. But hey, at least we can still have ramen here, right? Once we're able we can get some as a reward from the replicator?"

Dude, what will really blow Steve’s mind would be finding out that the main ramen brand that Gladio liked was Top Ramen, which was a brand in Steve’s world too. Crazy.

“When we get out,” Gladio says with a smile. “We’ll replicate up some quality ramen. I know how to punch it up a bit too.”

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[Event] Calibrations Waiting Room Mingle

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Wow I misspelled Anak so many times.

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hav dinnur wif me dahd.

Awwww of course son.