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

[dreamofrain]

[ 6O, despite how nervous she clearly was, laughed off Mara's suggestion waving her hand. She stepped to start walking away from the stand as well, but mostly seemed to just want to... follow Mara. As if she were on some kind of escort duty. Mara may not have appreciated 6O's assessments of the purpose of androids like her, but for 6O, there was no more profound truth than that, in her existence. ]

Trust me, no one looking over my dossier files would have picked me for being me. I'm dedicated to my work, but if they wanted the best Operator unit, they definitely would have picked 21O, or really any of the other girls, over me. [ An anxious little giggle. ]

I'm kind of a problem unit, really. Commander had to constantly scold me to focus on my work. Things must be pretty dire if I'm here, but I still intend to do my best!

[shemara]

[Leaving one stall and moving through the crowd so she can get away from the "Festival" area is Mara's current objective. She won't tell the other girl to leave if she seems interested in following, but 6O's words wdon't help her feel any better about this place that she must come from. She sounds so sure and accepting of it...]

...Maybe they don't want someone perfect. [That would certainly be a reason to bring Mara herself here. She failed to save Etheria. Left it to someone else in the future. She was certainly not a success as She-Ra in that regards.]

I don't know what they want with us yet, but if they wanted someone else, they would have brought them. You're here for a reason.

[dreamofrain]

Mm... I think I feel a little more confident, when you put it that way. [ 6O sighed, letting her head hang just slightly. ]

But... You're also a human. Or at least humanoid. For an android like me, it's my natural inclination to put faith in your assessment. If you think I'm here for a reason, I'll believe it.

[shemara]

I'm an Eternian. I don't know what humans are, but a lot of alien races look similar enough, I've found.

[Considering how many planets Eternians have visited. Despite the warning bells 6O blares just from saying she trusts Mara more than she trusts herself...Mara decides not to fight about it. Not then. She's already made some progress and can push her to see just how wrong she is not to trust her own thoughts and opinions later, except...]

You should remember that you control what you do here. I'm honored you trust me, but...don't let anyone make you do something if you don't want to. Okay?

[dreamofrain]

[ The talk of her being an alien struck way more of a chord with 6O than any conversation about personal agency, and she tilted her head even more, just... absolutely puzzled by what she'd been told. ]

You... are an alien? As in... from another planet, alien?

[ But she definitely wasn't one of the aliens that had attacked Earth all that time ago, the creators of the Machine Lifeforms and their Cores. Those, as she'd recently learned, had all been killed off by their own creations. What's more, she didn't look a thing like them. ]

You seem pretty human to me... [ She whispered, still very confused. ]

But then again, I've never met a human... Ohhh, this is really vexing! [ 6O pinched her eyes, groaning slightly. For once, the information overload wasn't just causing her to get lost in thought, and was more just... frustrating. She felt like she was trying to read a book with every other page missing. ]

[shemara]

Like I said, a lot of species look similar. I'm from Eternia, but I've been on a planet called Etheria and people there do not look so different from us.

[She gives a little shrug there because not all aliens look similar, but enough of them do. She just assumed it was certain types of life forms evolving in similar ways.]