Arrivals - Beachville pt 2: OTA!

[fluxscapemod]

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.

Comments

Gwen Stacy - Not an arrival, but OTA

[hibana_incursa]

If Gwen new people were arriving again, she'd be at the information booth to see what this looked like, maybe even see if familiar faces were showing up. But she'd only been here a little more than a month, and she'd gotten used to the trains bi-weekly stops at new platforms for new passengers. Since a few weeks had gone by and no one showed up (that she was aware of) Gwen just stayed at work a bit after hours. She'd finished teaching for the day and there was only one thing left for her to do.

Play.

Seated at the drum kit on display at Beach Beats, she had music playing over the speakers. Kinda loud, sure, and she did have noise cancelling headphones on, but she knew the song well enough by heart (not to mention she had spider hearing) to know when she was to start playing.

And while she absolutely was into what she was playing, she was also aware when anyone walked into the store. She was off the clock, however, so the other employees at the store are quick to handle customers.

And if people stop to listen to her play, she'll give them a grin and keep playing. When she's done, she'll take her headphones off.

"Hi!" she'll say to everyone. To the people she's never met before; "I'm Gwen. I've never seen you around Beachville before."

[rottedking]

Athol was one of the people who stopped to watch and listen to her play. He didn't exactly smile, but his eyes were bright and friendly, and he nodded along with the music. For someone who was as young as he assumed she was, she had a lot of talent. Or rather, more accurately he figured she'd practiced a lot.

"Hello," he said amiably. "You're very good. You remind me of a friend back home who plays guitar." He knew the instruments were vastly different, but Taos had a similar passion, which they'd all been forced to deal with at varying hours of the night at one point or another.

[hibana_incursa]

Hey, a smile is a smile, even if it doesn't show. She's pretty sure something like that has some dumb name like 'smizing'. Or something. She's not really into the whole "America's Top Model" stuff.

Stretching her arms over her head and flexing her fingers some, she grins. "Thank you. I've been playing for most of my life."

She was a high energy kid. She needed an outlet. This was one of them.

"What are you up to today?"

[rottedking]

He nodded. "It shows." The only thing he'd been doing for most of his life involved violence, and that wasn't really something to brag about. Maybe in the right circles, at the right time, but that wasn't now.

"Enjoying a day off," he continued. "Just...getting a better feel for this place." Noticing weird things, was what he meant. "I've vacationed in places like this before, but never stayed in one this long."

[callmegladio]

He was just walking around, checking out the sights, when he heard a song... Now, the song itself was unfamiliar in it's current format, but the tune...

Gladio stood there listening for a good minute, before it clicked, and he started to walk.

Now, Ardyn had never told him exactly what the song was or who it was who sang it, but Gladio knew the tune from that strange galaxy coloured bird of his, before he had left the train. And now he heard the song again, and he couldn't help but follow it to it's source. And when he did, it took him another handful of seconds to realise that there was a girl playing the drums to the music. A girl that, while he didn't know personally, he knew of in passing. He just couldn't place her name... It was on the tip of his tongue... A friend of that kid, Peter... a friend of Tony...

"Gwen..." The name came to him all of a sudden, muttered under his breath. Gladio had no idea he'd be heard, of course, he was just surprised. Another Void reject?

The music stopped while Gladio was lost in thought, and the 'Hi!' caught his attention. "You're good." He said with a nod to the drums. "That song... What is it?"

[hibana_incursa]

There's that moment where her Spider-Sense tells her to look. Not because she's in danger. It's because it sometimes just knows there's something she needs to see, or somewhere she needs to be. In this instance, it causes her to look up as the song ends and takes in the semi-familiar face.

"That's me. Do I know you?" she asks, unsure of what her Spider-Sense is trying to tell her.

[callmegladio]

"Not personally, no..." She'd heard him? Well then, Gladio would have to remember to keep his thoughts internal from now on.

"Name's Gladio. I... was a friend of Tony." That was a good way to introduce himself, he hoped. At least to explain he wasn't some kind of stalkerish asshole. "I was on that train, never had a chance to really say hi though."

I think that this is where Agatha works atm...?Re: Gwen Stacy - Not an arrival, but OTA

[agathaheterodyne]

Agatha had been just coming in for her shift when she saw the girl who didn't like food from home rocking out. Agatha did NOT know the song, but she knew music in general, and she couldn't quite help herself. She sat down at the most complex and elaborate keyboard life device the shop had available for playing and joined in. The music she played worked, if you didn't expect the original song. It still sounded good. It just... wasn't Queen. It was more like an improvised counterpoint.

She smiled when they were done, and nodded to her. "Just coming on shift or heading off?"

It was so ODD having a normal job. Well, normal as anything she was involved in could be. Like at the circus she was subtly modifying everything that was staying in the store - the floor models, the register, the sound system - for just in case they were attacked. that would get her fired eventually, but as of yet no one had noticed.

And besides, she was enjoying the chance to be "normal". This was what she kept telling people she wanted, right? Too bad the guilt of not having answers to everything that needed fixing was making it so hard to enjoy it all that much. Except for rare perfect moments like that. But then she was raised by Lilith. Music would always be a part of her.

if you haven't had her ICly fired yet then, yes.

[hibana_incursa]

Therein lies the problem. Gwen expected the original song. Actually, scratch that. Gwen didn't expect anyone to play along, especially without some kind of warning or at the very least asking first, and when Agatha sat down and started playing who-the-hell-knew-what, Gwen got a tiny bit irritated and side-eyed her coworker a bit. But she tried to ignore her and kept playing the song until the end.

When she was done, she didn't bother to respond to Agatha's question. She just took her headphones off and stared at her in frustration for a moment, working out the best and most polite way to react to what she considered, just at the time, an intrusion to something she was doing for practice.

"So, hey...future reference," she says after a silence that probably went on longer than it should. "If you see me practicing, like I was just then, please ask to play along. What you did was actually kind of distracting. And kinda rude because it was done without warning and, like I said, I was practicing."

That...eh. She sort of tried to be nice about it.

Awesome, that'll happen soon!

[agathaheterodyne]

"Oh... I'm sorry," she said startled, and... slightly annoyed herself. "In my world, when someone plays music in a public space and aren't clearly there as an entertainer, it is an invitation for others to join them. My adopted mother was a music teacher, I've seen a number of impromptu concerts growing up because one person started playing and others joined in. I thought you were attempting to start one. Again, Sorry." she stalked off to the employee area to get her shift started.