Week 2 Curfew

[anaxagoreia]

[ Welcome, nine of you, to the sitting room.

Surely everyone can get along and act behaved in here, right? ]

Comments

book fort

[fetteredwings]

[ there is a book fort in the corner, with a fairly worn blanket draped on top. There is someone inside but she is currently curled up in a ball. Everyone can leave her be]

[robopriest]

[knocking lightly on top of the fort]

Knock knock.

[fetteredwings]

Who wishes to enter?

[Poking her head up through the blanket. She has a book on sealing magic on her]

[anaxagoreia]

[ Anaxagoras is here in a spot, sitting down, bundled up in some jackets.

...He seems more or less vigilant, keeping an eye on people, though a sneeze does escape him once.

At some other point he can be caught with a book in hand, but that's probably unsurprising. ]

[robopriest]

[He is passing by and hearing that sneeze, mister. >:/]

Professor, don't tell me you're sick.

[anaxagoreia]

[ ...Well, sitting up straighter does not erase that he sneezed, does it.

If only. ]

...Maybe just a little?

[hardyboys]

[ so called 'free thinkers' whenever someone sneezes: ]

Bless you.

[anaxagoreia]

[ He is in fact a free thinker. He is forced to acknowledge this with a little nod. ]

...This place should do away with this snow already.

[fisheyeperspective]

[Curled up in a chair with a book trying her best to focus on it instead of how much her everything hurts.]

"story" time

[kaios]

[ It feels like there's an icepick being driven straight into his skull and like he's trying to function with a spear in his chest, and he's cold on top of all that. Which is to say, doable, he's had worse—but looking around the room, it looks like a number of them are in a similar state of having not outed themselves.

Maybe it's Nala's book fort, the discussions from earlier in the week about home. The colors in the room, or the looming possibility that the doors might lock them in in a few hours for the show to begin anew. ]

Anyone want to hear a story?

Once upon a time there was a war between two countries. Warriors from a desert land and mages from its lush oases pushed by their ruler to conquer their neighbors. I was... a guard, let's say, nearer the middle of the pack. I picked up a rock and threw it and watched the gods bless it so it grew and fell on top of the enemy's chief strategist.

[ He pauses, looks around at the others, then shrugs. ]

Nothing about that letter said you couldn't make shit up if you tell people stuff, did it? Might help some of you with all that pain you're trying to suffer through.

[siriuspuns]

...

[ Great story, probably, but it loses points on account of being heard when their head is feeling it's about to split open. ]

So you're just... dramatizing the stuff you actually did?

[kaios]

[ It's a good thing he doesn't get offended, otherwise— ]

More like figuring out a way to not have to tell our life stories to people we don't trust with them. You don't know how much of that was true and what's not.

[ He's trying to be helpful??? ]

[hardyboys]

... Did it work?

[kaios]

[ "Try it and see" is on the tip of his tongue, buuuuuuut Mabel's probably been through enough already today given that she was part of the crew that came back through the morgue, so he'll actually give her an answer. ]

Yeah, actually.

Not a lot, but the part of that that's true isn't really a big deal by my standards. Something bigger might take away more of it.

[justscribing]

Were any parts of that true?

[He's genuinely curious.] And did you come up with it on the spot?

[robopriest]

...Do you miss that time? Being a warrior. Or whatever you were.

[fisheyeperspective]

The only stories I know are scary ones...

[hardyboys]

[ Also curled up in a chair, trying to disassociate while drawing. Haha, yay! ]

[siriuspuns]

...

[ ... ]

You like to draw?

[justscribing]

[Alhaitham is spending most of the time checking around the windows and doors to see if a more subtle dismantling will work at all. That's different than smashing it, right? He'll also frequently stare out and see if he can see anything strange going on out there.

But there's a moment he turns to everyone else.] This is the third time we're locked in, and we'll probably find ourselves unconscious soon. I think once the morning comes it's time that we start to properly test the limits of this place. Working off the information it reveals is too slow--we need to get ahead of the effects.

[Congrats on being the first people invited to try and break shit with Alhaitham and [redacted].]

[siriuspuns]

Does anyone know how to make a bomb?

[ Isa was the guy that was smart enough to make a bomb. They are not. ]

[kaios]

[ Hmm. Three times a pattern, sure, but somehow he expected Alhaitham to have come up with a plan earlier than this, color him surprised. (Then again, him setting down his notes and telling people to read them wasn't what he expected, either, so he's been wrong before about him.)

Regardless, it's good to know he was right in guessing that he'd be the sort to strategize. Kaios nods. ]

Just tell me what you need.

[hardyboys]

Test how? Everything's technically going to back to normal until it turns out we've been asleep covered in blood the whole time, right?

[anaxagoreia]

[ Looking up from over here despite him wrinkling his nose. ]

If we could find a way to properly interfere with said effects, that would be ideal. A permanent disruption to the status quo.

A device of some kind would be ideal. Light waves, sound waves, or if there is a bomb being put together, it's destructive output would need to be incredibly high.

[ Since they're talking about such things, and then...he turns his attention towards a certain kind of conversation. ]

[siriuspuns]

[ Siffrin is looking... well... not that much better since yesterday. He's sitting down with his back against one of the bookcases, a book on sealing magic on his lap that he's doing his best to read despite, well, everything. ]