TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

[erkumods]

TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

Arrival This time, you come out of the water. While the Augur reboots, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy draws people in. It's like being suspended between realities and walking through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you and carrying you to shore. Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. Inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I. Feel the friendship! Recent arrivals and visitors to the beach may notice a sudden influx of hundreds of bright red crustaceans crawling (and coupling) across the sand. It's crab mating season, as it turns out, it's a regular invasion! To keep the beach a pleasant place to gather for the island's inhabitants, the robots are offering credits to especially enterprising crab-catchers. Grab a bucket and get to work! Be sure to watch out for their pinch, mind you. Their little claws are tiny, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. Surprisingly, there is another effect that even the robots don't anticipate: islanders who are pinched by the crabs find themselves feeling instantly buddy-buddy with the next person they spot. Did you just become best friends?! Get pinched one too many times, however, and those feelings may sour into a crabby mood, indeed. If you are feeling particularly vengeful (or just hungry), the little crabs do make for delicious gumbo. Once cooked, they have no side effects whatsoever. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● II. Phallus Phestival Although the Augur is offline and supplies are scarce, the robots of Erku are still eager to make their run-down little island a welcoming place for the new arrivals. To that end, they have arranged a three day festival to boost morale and promote the generation of plenty of Eros energy to assist in the restoration of the damaged and decayed parts of the city. The robots claim that this celebration was once a cornerstone of the long-lost civilization of the island. By the dawn of the first day, every island resident will find at their doorstep (or tent flap, mobile suit, etc) the traditional costume of the ancient islanders to wear to the festival. It appears to be... a giant sheet? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the sometimes garish colors and patterns of the fabric, but at least the robots have uploaded instructions on how to wear it to your bracelet device. Attendees will find food (mostly crab-flavored), confections, and household necessities in rather suggestive shapes, as well as goods you might find handy to complete your A5 squares: sex toys, pervertibles, sexy maid outfits, and the like. While islanders are welcome to set up shop on the festival grounds and sell (or charge) whatever they like, all items from the robots are offered up for free to those who wear their traditional island garb! ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● III. Fireside Adventures Each night of the festival is wrapped up in style with an enormous bonfire on the beach, where drinks, fruity cocktails, and lively music appropriate for dancing is all provided at no cost by the robots. Even if you’re not usually much of a dancer, the longer you stand by the fire and allow it to warm your limbs, the more you feel like moving! Not only that, but everyone is looking quite beautiful by the firelight, are they not? If you’ve grown tired - or if dancing just isn’t your thing - you might prefer to sit back and swap stories on one of the many driftwood log benches the robots have prepared for seating. Or, maybe you’d prefer to rough it for the night in one of the beachside canvas tents. Better claim one quick, though, or be prepared to share… there’s only one sleeping bag! ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● N A V I G A T I O N

Comments

[ambitionless]

[ The laugh cuts right through his ears, loud and unrestrained, and Trevor has to fight down a sour mood suddenly bubbling to the surface. It shouldn’t surprise him though, that people are equally shitty here as they are in Wallachia. It’s just the nature of things, after all.

He looks up to see who exactly pulled that jerkass move, when his eyes land on a very reclined and very undressed woman with the most otherworldly looking hair. By the time Trevor's brain catches up to what he's looking at, he’s already gotten an eyeful of everything fully on display. A blush rushes to his face and his eyes snap to the ground, clearly embarrassed that he’s just seen something he shouldn’t have.

God down in Hell.

The need to be pissed off is high, but there’s a very sudden, very unwelcome urge in his chest. An urge to go over and talk to her, to drum up conversation and to find out what the hell is going on here. But in a friendly way.

Maybe he smacked his head on a sand dune on the way in.

Clearing his throat and trying his best to ignore the very hot blush still splashed across his cheeks, Trevor yells out: ]

If you’re looking for entertainment you had better move along. Can’t guarantee a crab won’t land by your feet next.

[ Behold: the Trevor Belmont being genuinely helpful special.

But really the very last thing he wants her to do is get up and leave. So he adds: ]

Or don't. It's a free bloody beach.

[oomfies]

[ Eesh!! She can't tell if he's giving her good advice, or if he's giving her a fair warning. Still, she isn't going to continue sunbathing if it means a chance for crabs raining down on her. But before she can actually lean over and grab her things in a fuss, Trevor switches his tune and all Lottie can do is frown.

He's not wrong, but.. But, is she.. Not in trouble? Is he not mad?! God, she can't tell and it's killing her.

The magazine hiding her face is slowly lowered, eyes squinting in his direction. Unluckily for her, lowering the magazine means the rest of her face is exposed - Trevor can see the prominent furrow to her brow, the splash of pink dusting her own cheeks that only grows when they maintain eye contact. Shit, now that he isn't yelling and screaming all she can think is: oh no, he's hot. Why is he hot!! And why is he blushing? It's just a swimsuit!

..Does it look bad??

She pouts, tosses the magazine on her lap completely before taking a long sip out of the straw in her drink (and maybe, with her other hand, she adjusts her bikini as inconspicuously as possible to, she doesn't know, spruce it up??). ]

Did the robots tell you to do this?

[ The caveat is: Lottie cannot yell for the life of her without sounding like she's got a cough, so her volume is terrible. And she is very much aware of this, judging by how she tests the waters to try and stand on the sand - maybe toy with the idea of moving closer. ]