ercookies | TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!

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N A V I G A T I O N

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[That prompts a smile, the corners of her mouth twitching with gentle amusement. Usually her guildmates were too focused on wolfing down (to pardon the pun) hot food, not caring if it scalded their lips and tongue and throat, to bother with such effusive praise....before and after tasting it.]

Well, I hope you still think so after you've had some. [Using the shell, Lys scoops up a generous portion of gumbo and holds it out for 6O to take, miming the correct way to hold the shell so that nothing would spill.] Here — careful, it's pretty hot! Give it a second to cool a little, first.

[ 6O took the offered shell, carefully as she could, and gives a blow over the wafting fumes to help cool it down a bit, at least on the surface. It was a ritual that was strangely human, one done seemingly out of imitation, especially since androids weren't exactly harmed by hot food the same way organic beings were, but even so, she took to the ritual as instinct, just as any human would. A few more blows, and she had a sip...

Ah. Food. Real actual food. Made from actual, organic matter. The flavor was amazing, and she could feel tears welling up on her eyes in reaction to the gravity of the sensation. ]

It's so good...

[Sitting back on the rush mat, Lys seems content to wait and watch, making no move to sample the gumbo herself. Her small smile widens, seems to deepen at the compliment. Or maybe just at the fact that 6O was eating at all.]

Thanks! [But.] ....you okay, though? Did I make it too spicy?

I'm fine, really! [ Yeah, it had some heat to it, but the fact that it had flavor at all was remarkable. ]

The synthesized food back at the Bunker couldn't really replicate flavor like this! It's amazing and full! I can feel it tingling in my nose!

Heh....there you go with that word again.

[Not that she's making any great pains to understand it. She could, if she felt like it, piecing together the obvious context clues, but for now.....she's content to keep watching and waiting, more concerned about 6O's enjoyment.]

But since you like it so much, you can have as much as you want.

[ 6O took a bigger gulp of the gumbo, reveling in its flavors for a moment and just enjoying the blend of texture and taste. Real food, prepared with real ingredients... it was something she'd never imagine she'd ever do, before. So many new experiences, and she's only been there less than a day.

She honestly had become so lost in herself that she hadn't realized Lys was watching her, or had even said anything. Again, her cheeks darkened. ]

I-it's fine, I don't think I could eat too much... [ She only had so much space for it, after all, before it was processed by her core into usable fuel. ]

Like I said, as much as you want! Even if you only have room for a little. You won't hurt my feelings or anything.

[And whatever 6O can't finish, Lys will happily polish off.....eventually. Right now, she's in no great hurry to do much of anything besides talk, wiggling her bare toes in the sand.]

Sooo...I guess you're gonna need a place to stay, huh?

[ Ah, there was the dose of reality to drag her out of her food based reverie. ]

O-oh, that's... right. The machine lifeform that greeted me said something about that, too. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

[ Too busy being absolutely blown the fuck away by being on a planet surface. ]

Yeah, not everyone does....it's a lot to take in, you know? I think I spent most of my first day exploring, not house-hunting.

[Glancing away, she watches the living, scuttling tide of crabs move across the sand. Thinking, for once, not of all the ways the spiny creatures would make a tasty snack.]

Do you need help?

Well... [ 6O hummed. ]

I think so long as I find a place that won't get sand or saltwater getting inside me, I'll be fine! I'm an Operator, but all YoRHa units are pretty well built to withstand natural environments...

[ Because at any moment, an Operator may need to convert into a Battle unit, which was something she didn't really like the idea of, but it was an accepted truth of being an Operator. ]

Uh.

[OH FINE, I GUESS WE'RE DOING THIS NOW!!]

"Built?"

[ 6O tilted her head slightly, thinking there was some missing context here... or maybe, rather this Lys person was confused by what she said? ]

Yes? YoRHa specs are a little different from standard androids. But I also admire the versatility standard androids can have! Like you are obviously really well built, even if you're not strictly following your original design specs. Most standard androids don't, from what I understand...

[When Lys can only understand one word in five of someone's explanation, and if that explanation happens to register as being non-essential in some way, she has a bad habit of tuning it out. This, however, has her full attention, if only because it sounds so....absurd? Alien? Like 6O was talking about playing table tennis with a brick, or claiming that she could hold a conversation with butterflies.

Though polite enough to let 6O finish speaking, Lys immediately holds up both hands as soon as she's done in a bid for silence, a chance to marshal her thoughts.]

Wait, wait! I, uh, I think we've been talking about two different things? I'm not a "android" and I don't have "specs", so.....

[ And there it was again... She'd brushed it off before. A turn of phrase, not meant to be taken literally. "Human nature". But she couldn't brush this off. And slowly her eyes widened again, and for a long moment she just... stared at Lys. But it wasn't a normal sort of staring it was more like...

Baring witness to God. ]

You're... human...

[ Her reverie spoke the name as if it were holy to her. ]

[The sheer intensity of that look makes her twitch, guild training automatically — and unsuccessfully — assessing it for suspicion, hostility, the dreadful spark of dangerous knowledge. Recognizing 6O's stare for what it is, however, perversely makes it harder to swallow a kneejerk denial. Because she's not human, hasn't been for years, doesn't deserve to be gazed at as though she still was—

But she can't say that. Can't even hint at it. Admitting her true nature, even obliquely, that's....it would be.....no, she can't even think about it. So Lys won't, instead dipping her head in a slight nod.]

I was born, not "built". [An awkward sort of smile.] But, um, I'm guessing you were?

[ 6O's hands were slow to do so, but after setting her shell down, she was reaching to bring gloved hands to Lys's face, to gently hold it there and just... feel her reality for a moment, to process within her sensors that this was an actual person, not a simulation, not an error in her data processors. She was real, organic, actual blood pumping just beneath her skin. ]

You're human and... real. And right in front of me...

[ Her words were a whisper, quivering. ]

YoRHa exist to serve humans... but I've never met one in my entire life. No android has...

[Despite mounting reservations, Lys holds still, allowing 6O to touch and explore as she pleases. Breathes out slow and calm and even, feeling the nervous, guilty thud of her pulse in her ears and throat begin to fade. She's not used to being stared at like this, examined and studied and....admired? It feels pleasant but strange, enjoyable and yet wrong, all at once.]

Y-Yeah.....yeah, I am. This place is full of humans, actually. [She blinks down at 6O, blue eyes wide and clear and quietly troubled.] But you don't have to serve them. Or me. I was happy just talking to you.

[Maybe not the most sensitive thing to say to someone programmed literally for that purpose, but...it's difficult to flip that switch, making that mental leap from "person I've shared food and a conversation with" to "machine that goes beep boop".]

[ She hadn't known Lys for very long, but she wasn't surprised to hear her say something like that. And it oddly... brought 6O back down to where she had been before, just regarding Lys as a friendly stranger, and not some human to be worshiped or revered. If this was like meeting God, it was like realizing God was a friendly neighbor, and not the Almighty.

It helped her process it. ]

It's fine. Really, 'serving' for me is probably just being nice and friendly. I don't have a whole lot of skills to be put to use...

[Cautious relief twisting through her, Lys tries for an encouraging smile, tamping down on the anxiety that still lingers. Much as she doesn't want to be treated like some lofty god, she also doesn't care for the idea of 6O desperately throwing herself at the feet of the nearest human, either.]

People here appreciate "nice and friendly", don't worry. And if you need more skills...maybe I can help with that? If you wanted.

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TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

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