( 002 » ENSEMBLE ) gravitational.

[reveriemod]

» WHO? EVERYONE
» WHEN? JUNE 1 onward
» WHERE? ALL OVER THE STATION (literally)
» WHAT? Gravity is always on, until it isn't.
» WARNINGS? zero g, paralysis, the vacuum of space, possible asphyxiation, possible character death

0 0 1 » LOSS OF GRAVITY

The outer rings of Reverie Station rotate around the shaft of the station, using inertial forces to simulate gravity. One moment, this works fine — people are walking along corridors, sleeping in their beds, eating in the mess hall or having a drink at the bar. The next moment? In some parts of the station, a crunching sound can be heard, like metal against metal, and shortly thereafter, the rings cease to spin, causing a jolt to go through all rings.

And then what passed for gravity just stops.

Your food, drink or blanket might have floated off after the jolt. Remember to engage your mag boots, if you're wearing them, lest you follow suit. Good luck getting around in zero g.

( ♪ )

0 0 1 . 1 » UPSIDE DOWN AND FLOATING

The lack of gravity may be disorienting at first for those not used to operating in zero g environments. Fortunately, mag boots mean you can continue walking along corridors — though the boots will engage with what used to be the ceiling of the corridors as much as what used to be the floor. No matter which part of the corridor you're attached to, if any, better make sure to collect anything that may be floating around, lest it becomes a dangerous projectile whenever gravity turns back on.

The mess hall and the gym area in particular are in a significant state of disarray. In the mess hall, some cutlery (of the grey, hard plastic variant) has been left unsecured and is floating harmlessly through the air. The same holds true for a large amount of protein powder. In the gym area, meanwhile, the entirety of the dirty water from the pool is no longer in the pool.

( ☺︎ )

0 0 1 . 2 » PARALYSIS INDOORS

One moment, you’re walking — or maybe you’re floating, mag boots disengaged. Either way, from one moment to the next, you become unable to move. Your arms, your legs, even wiggling a toe becomes a thing of impossibility. There’s a heavy weight on your chest, despite the fact that gravity is still not back on. Taking a breath is an ordeal. You can’t call for help, you can’t signal to anyone, you can only stay still.

( ♪ )

OOC: The length of paralysis is up to players.

0 0 2 » TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

It isn't clear why the rotation of the rings has stopped and gravity ceased, but one thing is certain: life on the station is a lot more difficult without gravity, especially for those not used to living and working in a zero g environment. The sensible thing would be to fix whatever is wrong, but in order to do that, you have to figure out what's wrong first.

One way to get an idea might be to put on a suit (if required) and go out an airlock to have a close look at the upper ring, where the crunching noise could be heard the loudest. The objective is to identify the problem and, if possible, fix it — but unless you have the power of flight and can breathe in the vacuum of space, the walk from the airlock to surveying the ring will be taxing in and of itself.

Better not lose hold of the station or each other and whatever you do, do not disengage those mag boots. Hopefully, no debris will come flying at you. The station may be built to withstand it, but you aren't.

( ♪ )

OOC: There are some 20 vac suits with oxygen packs and small thrusters for (weak) propulsion available in the spaces currently accessible to characters; these can be found in various airlocks.

0 0 2 . 1 » FLOATING AROUND

The station may be built to withstand debris, but you aren't — which makes it all the more unfortunate that some debris does catch you. In the side, in the face or in the legs, it doesn't matter: what matters is that the impact is strong enough to disengage the mag boots, which means you are now floating in space.

Did your suit take damage? Do its thrusters still work, or not? Is your oxygen pack still connected properly? If your connection to the station network is still intact, now would be a good time to call for help and hope that someone's close enough to get to you in time before you float too far from the station to still be reached, before your oxygen runs out, before any possible injuries you may have sustained take their toll.

( ♪ )

OOC: With this prompt, the extent of possible injuries, the time before rescue and factors such as oxygen or damage to the suit are all up to players. Please keep in mind that character death is very much a possibility — but that death means relatively little. Should a character die from their injuries or lack of oxygen, they will awaken again. As per the death mechanism outlined in the FAQ, characters are brought back to life (possibly repeatedly, if rescue takes a while), but they lose something. What they lose is up to players as well (a limb, memories, senses, social skills, ...) and the duration of the loss can range from a few days to permanent loss.

0 0 2 . 2 » PARALYSIS OUTDOORS

One moment, you are walking along the hull of the station. The next, you're frozen. Your arms and legs no longer move and there's pressure on your chest. Even taking a breath becomes an ordeal. You cannot move forward. You cannot move back. You can't even signal or call for help.

What choice do you have but to wait out this paralysis and hope that it loses its hold on you before your oxygen runs out? Better not panic, lest you use up more of it.

( ♪ )

OOC: The length of paralysis is up to players.

0 0 3 » WORK IT

For those who've successfully made the walk across the hull of the station to find the problem, it will soon become obvious what has happened: debris crashed into the station and got lodged between the uppermost ring and the shaft of the station, where it is stuck, preventing the spinning of the ring.

You will need to work together to cut through the debris or dislodge it. It's heavy, and you have little leverage in the absence of gravity.

Keep in mind also that if you successfully dislodge the debris, the outer ring will start moving again. Be prepared, especially if you're still connected to the ring by your mag boots. Inertial forces can be quite strong, so you will need to brace yourself or risk being dislodged yourself.

( ♪ )

Comments

[dvmn]

Akira is not on the ceiling.

He's not on the floor, either. Or on any of the walls. When the gravity had disengaged, it'd found him way up shit creek without a ladder, because he'd recently received some familiar clothes from home, and he hadn't hesitated before putting them on. And that included a pair of running shoes.

So, without his mag boots, he doesn't have any way to gain purchase on anything. When Rhea'li floats up, ferried by what looked like an angry bunch of glowing orange rocks, Akira is spinning hopelessly in empty space in a wide open corridor, flailing sometimes in ways that look like swimming, other times looking like running — none of them seem to be doing him much good, as he's barely making much headway in any particular direction.

He stops his struggling when he hears the question, ending up floating upside-down. That makes the sight of the white-haired, cat-eared guy floating up with his little rock buddy even weirder. He blinks once or twice, an incredulous, "uhhh," being the only thing escaping his lips before he pieces together an answer. "We must'a lost gravity but — hell if I know how or why." He frowns, teeth clicking together a moment before he continues, "And I, can't seem to -"

And now he's kinda windmilling his arms, trying to get right-side up again, but... it's not really working. He's just ending up listing sideways.

[lightduties]

This stranger is basically doing exactly what he was doing when he found himself floating around with no rhyme or reason to the direction he was going in. So it's with a wry smile that he wordlessly commands his rocky friend to approach the stranger, a single stony disconnected arm reaching over to none too gently push Akira so he's right-side up... at least, that's the intention.

"Hold onto my Egi." His potato looking summon, that is. Did he look so foolish when he was struggling with the sudden lack of gravity? Though his expression remains neutral, the wave of his tail shows his quiet amusement. "We can move together with it."

[dvmn]

Akira is floating sideways in the air when the Titan-Egi approaches. To the kid's credit, he doesn't seem all that afraid of the thing (he's dealt with far worse, to be honest), but it's definitely weird. He can't do a hell of a lot besides accept the help, the prod of the creature giving him enough centrifugal motion to get him right-side up again.

There's a brief pause before he replies with an, "...okay." He reaches out to take hold of the weird, glowing thing, just as this cat-eared (and -tailed??) guy is doing. The creature feels hard like stone and faintly warm, even though he feels as though he can see something swirling inside of it.

"Wait," he's just now recalling what he'd called it. "An eggy? Is this thing some kinda egg?" He's looking to Rhea'li in shock.

No, Akira. No, it's not.

[lightduties]

Rhea'li's grin grows wide, showing off his elongated canines.

"'Tis the egg of a dragon, the fiercest of peoples!"

It's not. That his tail is lashing behind him completely gives away the fact he's just fooling around, even if his expression hasn't quite hit the point of a shite-eating grin.

Titan-Egi, on the other hand, looks as grumpy as ever.

Though it occurs to Rhea'li...

"Have they dragons in your world?"

[dvmn]

Wow, the guy's teeth are even sharper than Akira's. And that's saying something, seeing as though he's hauling around the body of a demon nowadays.

He gives a slow blink, squinting a bit at the smiling Miqo'te. He's not really brushed up on his cat-person body language, so the way his tail flicked didn't really mean much of anything to him. He just remembers that Tako's tail usually flicked like that when he was pissed at something, but that doesn't seem the case here...

So, unfortunately, Akira takes him at face value.

"Oh, wow..." he says, utterly credulous. "No wonder it's a titan eggy, then."

No wonder Titan-Egi looks so grumpy, having to deal with this treatment.

"Hm?" It's the kind of question one should probably be able to answer quick, but for some reason it takes Akira a second. "Uhh, not really. Maybe? But I haven't seen them, if there are." He only says this because demons can take lots of forms, and maybe some of them were dragons? (Some of them are totally dragons.) "You deal a lot with 'em back home?"

[lightduties]

Yeah, that's right, Titan-Egi is a titan eggy!!

Rhea'li rests an elbow on his Egi, leaning a cheek against his hand. Boy, did he deal a lot with dragons! Never did he think that his journey would involve having the father of all dragons tag along with him, or did he ever think he would get involved in helping to end the Dragonsong War.

"Not until recently." And by that, he means in the couple of years or so. A small smile. "'Tis difficult to treat with a dragon during a war."

But no, he can't in good conscience let this guy think Titan-Egi actually is an egg of a dragon. He can't imagine Vidofnir would be pleased at the comparison if she heard it. Rhea'li shakes his head, the corner of his lip curling into a grin.

"Nay, this," and he raps on Titan-Egi with a closed fist, "is a being of my creation. Hardly an egg."

Titan-Egi doesn't even react to this treatment. Still grumpy looking, though.

[dvmn]

Akira's eyes grow wide, and he leans in a bit (or as well as he can do such a thing, in zero gravity and clinging to a floating egi) to listen. "Oh... wow." There's a lot to unpack here! Not only that there were dragons, but also that they were intelligent enough to go into negotiations, and also that there was a war? Though this guy seems to be a whole parcel of strangeness, what with the glowing rock (egg) friend and the cat ears and cat tail. He feels like there's a lot lost between the lines of their conversation he wouldn't be able to get, just because he... doesn't have a clue.

"Yeah. I bet. They're not really known for bein' all diplomatic, are they?"

Well, there's some different interpretations of dragons to be sure, but some of them he heard of were pretty mean and violent and greedy. Others were pretty chill. But if they were involved in a war, he has to assume they were the former kind.

And... wait, what.

It's a good thing that he added on that last part, because Akira would've had a lot of questions about how this cat-man had laid an egg that big.

"What d'you mean, 'your creation?' Did you make it or something?"

He's thinking, like, with a hammer and chisel. And then maybe a bunch of chanting.

[lightduties]

The corner of his Rhea'li's mouth curls upwards at the comment about diplomacy. Should he correct the stranger? Surely none of the dragons would arrive here; the likes of Hraesvelgr would hardly fit in the corridor!

"Aye. 'Tis merely a spell, to be summoned and dismissed at will..."

He could demonstrate, but with them clinging to Titan-Egi, that doesn't seem like such a good idea. But he can show how Titan-Egi can effortlessly move through the space despite the lack of gravity, which it does, pulling the two of them along... if they continue to hang onto it.

"...and commanded as I please."

[dvmn]

Hmm... Well, you don't necessarily have to correct him now, but should a dragon show up (or if they ever run into them for any other reason) and should diplomacy ever become necessary, perhaps it'd be smart. Before Akira rushes off to start a fistfight with one.

"A spell... Like magic?"

He should've gathered as much from the glowing rock guy much sooner than this, but, hey, he doesn't like to jump to too many conclusions without information to back it up.

"Wow..." He seems impressed, eyes wide and expression a little slack with awe as he turns his attention back to the little guy. Despite his size, he's tugging both of them along, like a very determined tugboat through the canal of the corridor. "What sort of stuff can you ask him to do? Sit? Fetch?"

He doesn't have legs, Akira, how can he possibly sit.

[lightduties]

Choo choo.

Rhea'li nods. "Like magic."

But Titan-Egi does indeed have legs! Very tiny legs in comparison to the huge rock for its body, but they're still there.

"I could. 'Tis a construct, not a pet. It will obey my commands, if they are within its capacity to perform." A mischievous grin. "I could command it to spin you around."

He could unleash the wrestler within Titan-Egi!1!

[dvmn]

Oh... Well, that just makes sitting more dangerous. If his legs were too short and he sat down, would he even be able to get back up without help? Truly a mystery.

"A construct, huh..." Akira parrots, his eyes a little blank, the slightest tinge of sympathy to his face. Leave it to this guy to sympathize with a glowing avatar for a primal's power. He looks to the egi, letting go of it with one hand to pat it on the top of the head. "It's okay, little guy."

He gets immediately distracted by the comment, though. The... suggestion? The offer??

Akira's face lights up, and Rhea'li's mischief is met with an impish smile. "What? Yes!" He lets go of Titan-egi with his other hand, suspended once more in the zero gravity. "Tell him to do it!"

Because that sounded like fun.