fluxscape | Arrivals - Beachville pt 2: OTA!

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Arrivals - Beachville pt 2: OTA!

Who: New Arrivals, Jerry Schiff and YOU!!
What: More arrivals show up in Beachville. There are cookies for the people that behave.
Where: The Information Booth which, while at the same place it always is, seems to have changed a tad!
When: Mid-Morning, September 27th.
Warnings: Just mind your CWs. There's probably swearing, too.

It starts off simple enough. There isn't even any warning. No feeling like something's coming. No little instinct in the back of your head or what have you that tells you change is coming. You blink, your setting has changed. It's as simple and as quick as that. From where you stand, you're surrounded by tall palm trees. The ground beneath your feet is green, a well maintained lawn like one would find in a city park. A clean, salty scent only found on untouched, tropical paradises. You can hear the sounds of the beach. People laughing, amusement park rides thundering in the background. And it's actually pretty peaceful. Even the weather is perfect. Just the right amount of Summer heat without being muggy or humid. There are tropical birds singing in the trees around you, and a light breeze in the trees, rustling the leaves. It's pleasant. Until someone clears their throat nearby. And this is when you notice you're not the only person standing there with a confused look on your face. You're part of a crowd, surrounding an information booth with an older gentleman inside, several stone paths leading away from the booth and towards the nearby beach town.

Was that information booth always there? And how long has the man inside been watching you with that look on his face that suggests he's internally sighing at your presence? He seems friendly enough, however, and once all eyes are on him, he begins speaking.

"Can I have your attention please?" he says, voice calm, lightly accented, fairly monotone, but still gets your attention just the same. And certainly 'no nonsense.' "My name is Jerry Schiff and I run the information booth. I have several envelopes with names on them, so if you hear your name, please step forward and claim your money and information."

With that, he runs down the list of names. And what do you know, your name is on that list.

When you approach, you'll be handed a packet containing money, enough to get through the month, and an information pamphlet about Beachville, along with a note from the mayor welcoming you to town and telling you your stipend only lasts so long and there are many employment opportunities in town. There's also a map with an address and a set of keys. This is where you'll live. The last thing he says to you is to check the chest in your living-room, you'll know which one, before he hands the polite people a box of cookies. They smell amazing and the box is warm, like they're very, very fresh. You might even find your favorite cookies in the box. They've won awards and are delicious. Just as an aside, though; for anyone that's rude, no cookies. For anyone that tries to take a box anyway, they'll find the box is empty. Maybe even full of dead leaves and rocks. That's what you get for acting up, apparently.

Rude enough and he'll shut the information booth windows. No amount of knocking and screaming, magic or psychic abilities will get the doors open again. The booth is pretty resistant, as is the man inside.

Once everyone has their information, Jerry will thank everyone for their cooperation, close the booth down and head into town. Try to follow him. After rounding a corner, he'll seem to vanish and no amount of looking will find him again.

It seems as though the only things left to do are either talk to the people around you, or find your new home.

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"Oh those are my dingbots," she said, glancing at them. "Didn't I tell you guys to stay hidden?" They worked together to climb up and put what they were carrying on the table nearest her, then scattered.

She sighed and set the mostly finished device on the table. "I apparently create them in my sleep, and they in turn create others of their own kind. But basically I like to have assistants when I work, and given the lack of access to minions most of the time, they come in very handy. Though sometimes I do have to remind them of the rules when they get carried away. Which... usually works." But not always.

"Wow, you build them in your sleep, and they build more of themseles?" He blinked, tiling his head. "Where do they all go?"

He imagined there were a lot of them, in that case.

"Oh here and there. It was harder when we lived with the circus," she added with a chuckle.

For a moment, he wondered if he'd heard right. "Wait, you lived in a circus? And you were still building stuff like those?"

She grinned and nodded. "I miss them, actually. I was there for horrible reasons, but my time actually there..." She had a wistful look in her eyes. "It was a wonderful time in my life in some ways." She picked up the device and started fiddling with it again. "Of course at the time, I couldn't let anyone know that I was a Spark, so everything I did had to be in secret. It's a wonder I never got caught, at least... not for a while. But then I was the new kid, so they gave me the wagon that no one wanted, so I didn't have a roommate and they kind of expected explosions as a matter of course."

"...why did they expect explosions?"

He was half curious, half wondering if he should still be asking questions. But he just couldn't stop himself.

"Baba Yaga was not in the best shape. The legs constantly got stuck, the exhaust often blew up with small explosions, the ceiling was rotting, the wood was warped where it was even intact. But apparently it laid these Faberge like eggs, so they kept it around. whoever was new had to drive it though, and we generally slept in the wagons we drove."

"Sounds like they wouldn't offer worker's comp if something did explode."

Clearly they didn't think the explosion would kill anyone.

"Worker's...comp?" she asked, head tilting in confusion. Which was kind of exciting, so long as it didn't turn out to be a magic thing...

"Yeah, uh...compensation, for if someone gets hurt on the job."

It was something that seemed pretty standard, but then again he didn't know what it was like in other worlds.

"Like giving your minion the day off to heal if they lose a limb?" she asked, unsure. It clearly was a foreign concept to her. "Or just replacing the limb?"

"....Both? Probably also some extra money too."

That's assuming minions got paid, though.

"And who is supposed to do all that for them?" It sounded nice in theory, but not really practical.

"Generally, the company or whoever hired them. Since they're hurt on the job, it's the employers who provide the compensation."

"Most Sparks would have to take over at least three times as many towns and villages just to afford that..." She frowned thoughtfully, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, that just doesn't seem like a viable system for long term economics." Not that economics were her field, but it was the sort of thing she supposed she had to think of now that she had a town full of minions back home.

"I guess business is different in different places," he said with a shrug. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure how economics worked in his world either.

"I suppose. I'm not sure how science could be done anywhere under any such conditions," she said, bemused as the tried to imagine how Leia would have responded to such a concept and found she couldn't. Leia always reacted in the oddest ways to even basic things.

"Very carefully. Most companies don't like paying workers' comp either."

"Oh. Carefully." She wrinkled her nose. "Wonder if you're from Leia's world, she was always on about careful too..."

He frowned a bit. "I dunno about that, but you've gotta be at least a little careful." He shrugged. "I mean, you can't really keep science-ing if you're dead."

"Well no, not until you're alive again," she agreed, then thought, "Well, I mean, I heard that the Baron's got a few dead Sparks that are working for him anyway, and some people have argued that the old style reverants are dead, even if their bodies are still moving, which was moot since they couldn't think in any discernible way, but with the new ones, not being shamblers, now that Sparks can be infested..." She was now giving that some serious thought.

It was an interesting academic question, anyway.

"And then there is the question of if you die while running an experiment, and come back before it finishes, or even as part of it, does that count as you doing science in that brief gap when you were dead...?"

Another moment where he just stared at her.

"...so, people normally come back to life after they die where you're from?"

"Normally, no. But it isn't unheard of, especially in science labs. I mean... I've died and here I am, still doing science," she pointed out.

To be honest, he isn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

"I'm...sorry to hear that," he finally managed. "You dying, I mean. Uh...it's good that you're alive again though."

What else do you say about that?

She shrugged. "It was the only logical step. I had to die, that was the best way to cure myself." She wasn't overly bothered.

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