saveourearth | Light the fires [Mingle]

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Light the fires [Mingle]

Date: 2nd to 5th of November; backdated due to the Halloween mingle being too close by
Characters: Open!

2nd to 4th

Bonfire night approaches, and like every year, a large bonfire is set up on the Greens, as well as an impressive fireworks display, intended to happen on the 3rd. It's been advertised for a few weeks now, and many families, groups of teenagers, and just regular people are planning on going... And then it's abruptly cancelled at the evening of the 2nd. The official word on it is that some kind of safety regulations weren't met, and as this was discovered at the final security check, there is no time to fix them. Oddly enough, at the same time yellow signs go up near the Greens, reading:

Mossgate POLICE Working for a safer Mossgate
We are appealing for witnesses: Can you help us?
Police incident
An incident occurred in this area between 1pm on the 2/11 and 2pm on the 3/11.
In strictest confidence, plase phone
020787574
Did you see or hear anything?
Please call us
On the number above or at your local police station

...And the perceptive person might notice that there are a few oddities going on around town. For one, there is more police out in the streets than normal, constables nobody has seen before, too, and they are carrying guns. Why are they carrying guns? This is not the airport or central London! This is the first thing that really gets the rumour mill going.

The second thing is that the area that was fenced off so when fireworks and bonfire happened, only those who paid an entrance fee would be able to get close, is still fenced off despite the cancellation. And those who peer into the area will notice more police there.

And then, on the 4th of November, a few nondescript vans and a small nondescript lorry arrive at the parking lot at the bottom of the Greens, and some people get off. All of them wear civilian clothes. A few simply wander off into Mossgate, but the rest goes up onto the Greens. And some of those carry large suitcases that seem to be quite heavy. Too bad there's bushes and trees and it is impossible to see what they're doing at the place where the bonfire and fireworks were set to happen...

[ooc: There are a few dedicated open NPC toplevels below for people to investigate, as well as toplevels aimed at specific characters. If anyone has ideas for investigating that are not covered by the below toplevels and needs input, prod the mod contact thread on the last setting interactions post!]

5th

After the fireworks in Mossgate couldn't happen, it was decided to do them in one of the villages in Mossgate Council. Naturally, Folkton and Moss Manor both clamoured to get them. But after a few young men got into a fistfight about it and a nose was broken, Mayor Gary Russell arrived at the Salomonic decision of having the fireworks happen in Tarwich instead. They have a nice little park there, and the official reason for the decision is that it is closer to Mossgate town so it will be easier for people from there to attend. The real reason is of course to not take any sides in the village rivalry.

Tarwich, by contrast, is too young to truly have rivalries and there are no old families that could bring true patriotic pride into the mix. Nicely bland and harmless. An excellent middle ground.

So on the evening of the fifth, like every year, there are two massive bonfires in Mossgate council, one in Folkton and one in Moss Manor. Little fairgrounds have sprung up next to them - a children's carousel, a kiddie train, an ice cream van, one or two vendors that sell festival foods like candy floss (= cotton candy).

But unlike other years, there's a third event, and most unusually the location is the often-forgotten Tarwich: Carefully timed so that people can first go see the fireworks and then go to whichever bonfire they prefer, there is a very nice 30 minutes long firework taking place in Tarwich, just after nightfall. There are no carousels or ice cream vans here, but festival food is offered, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Walter cracks a grin; that made two of them, then!

The next few minutes are filled with the up-close ruckus of a busy restaurant in full swing. Walter orders his usual - and insists on paying, no matter what Ben gets.

Once their orders are taken, though (this being a sit-down restaurant, they have some time to wait), Walter looks less confident.

There are some things he needs to talk about.

The insistence is met with an initial resistance since Benjiro was the one to suggest dinner, but he’ll fold fast enough not to cause any real delay and settles for an order of vegetarian tofu pad thai. He’ll sit with Walter in a position where he can face away from the crowd once the food arrives.

Once the wait staff member walks away from the table, the teen notices the change in his friend’s demeanor. Rather than leaving a silence, he’ll fall to the topics he had suggested at the library that act more as bullet points rather than a continuous stream. He had heard this or that about an upcoming game or expansion, and what would Walter think about him trying an MMORPG on his channel on a regular basis if it seems popular – if so, then does he have any suggestions for a particular one to try? Were he to do so, he might use riddle based on lore or the scenery to give his viewers a chance to find his character to join up for a party before revealing his screen for the stream itself. Would that be too complicated or a good way to engage his viewers?

Walter is currently the one with a salary; Ben has his allowance, but it still seems unfair to make him foot the bill when it's a place they both know.

The conversation topics are very much welcomed, and game names and opinions are added and just as quickly subverted at what feels like a relaxing pace to Walter.

"I'd be behind that idea, myself," he says, "but then, I find riddles more engaging than gimmicky to begin with. How about you have an announcement at the regular time, but leave the riddles as optional, and whoever finds you first gets to co-host or show off when the session starts?"

It’s not so much an allowance when his viewers provide the donations that have replaced his parental assistance, but that is a limited and inconsistent form of income. Sometimes worse, sometimes better than an allowance.

The input from Walter is regarded thoughtfully, tucking names back in his memory to examine more closely in the decision process. Regarding the riddles, he nods faintly, “That might end up defeating the purpose of the riddle in the first place, and I doubt I could align quickly enough with another streamer from that genre to cohost. I haven’t been in MMORPG circles much, so taking time live to friend and coordinate would bog it down. But I do think it’d be very reasonable to have a short count down between the riddle and the screen reveal. Then the riddle could provide a headstart for those that bother with it and not completely exclude anyone that doesn’t solve it.”

"Just the countdown with the riddle, then; no point making it a gatekeeping exercise," Walter replies, and nods.

And just then, their food arrives.

Once the plates are negotiated, Walter turns quiet again.

"So, about what I saw... I suppose I should try to put them in order. You remember when I joined your stream during Pride week, yes?"

Nodding once, he agrees fully, "Keeping it as accessible as possible to anyone. I will at least give my followers a heads up about the plan so they know when the riddle will go up and can be in game prior to the start time."

Thanks given to the waiter who brought the dishes, he opens the package of disposable chopsticks and cracks them apart. Reaching up to unhook his face mask, he folds the cover to tuck into a pocket. Noodles are easy to eat in a crowd without showing his teeth, so he doesn't hesitate to dig in with a first bite.

When he looks up, he sees that Walter has composed himself in preparation, and the teenager remains quiet until his friend is able to initiate a new line of conversation. Nodding once, he confirms, "I do. The Apollo video gave you a memory."

The food manages to remain ignored for the moment; any more distraction and he'll never let himself get to the point.

"It turns out that there was more to that conversation; the person watching it was Caitlin Decter, a blind girl who had recently gained sight."

Helen Keller had been important to her; Caitlin had nicknamed him 'Phantom'...

"And the method she had used was how I was able to see what she could see. At the same time as she'd been watching that video, she'd had a chat window open with me."

There's no stumbling over the pronoun this time, given his focus on relaying the story.

"What I saw on Halloween was more- followup, I guess. Her father got brought into the conversation, and they verified that I wasn't just some super-fast hacker or scammer taking advantage of the poor girl."

That thought gets an ironic, small, grim smile.

"And then, after - the next memory couldn't have happened right after, but I didn't get an indicator of time with every memory-"

The ones focusing on text conversations had that automatically.

"I could create web links, just sort of existing among the websites. I wanted to be able to take in information from more than one site simultaneously and-"

His breathing's been getting faster as he talks; he discreetly picks up his own chopsticks to fiddle with, which helps some.

"Bit off more than I could chew, metaphorically speaking. I could feel myself dying, consciousness ebbing away. Hollow."

He's not looking at Ben, now, just at some undefined point in between them on the table.

"Like one of the Echoes. That sort of hollow."

Benjiro keeps vigilant watch on the Network, so he had listened to Walter mention the matter of seeing through someone else’s eye previously, and that makes the first memory discussed at least vaguely familiar. The teenager nods his head as the progression moves to verification of sentience, swallowing but remaining silent as Walter forges onward through the indistinct timeline.

Well acquainted with anxiety himself, Benjiro sees the signs in his friend as he presses through a description of overextending himself to the point of breaking down. If the memory is anything like the hollowness he experienced graveside that robbed him of his understanding of living, he can understand why it influences Walter with such power in that pristine memory.

Sympathetic, he points his chopsticks at the dish in front of his friend and cues him with a gentle tone, “Hey, don’t let that get cold…” There is no actual danger of the food cooling too much to be enjoyable in that short amount of time, but it’s an indirect cue to take a bite to bring unassociated sensory of the present moment forward in his awareness to help brace against the memory.

More directly, he continues, “I’m sorry you experienced that, especially from a firsthand perspective… I don’t suppose you saw the resolution of the event?”

There's a brief thought - "What...?" - before Walter manages to ground himself in the fact that this is a restaurant, no one other than Ben is looking at him right now (or even, given a nervous glance-about, seems to be listening in their direction), and there's food he hasn't even really smelled yet in front of him.

"Right." He takes in a few small bites, blowing once at the rising steam.

"Hnnn. No." There was the chance that even just thinking about it could allow him to see what happened next, but so much of his mind goes afire with "NO!" at the idea of another Echo that he really doesn't want to.

As Walter slows down to start on his meal, Benjiro takes one more small bite himself then settles to stirring the noodles around with his chopsticks as he considers what his friend has exposed. The confirmation that there was no resolution known is met with a faint hum and a worried look.

"...that last memory sounds downright terrifying. Have... have you been having nightmares about it too?" he ventures gingerly, remembering the nights he spent calming Sadie.

"Yes," Walter breathes - and, knowing that the memories he has now will linger and come back whether he cues them or not, pushes his focus back on the food.

Only small bites, though. Not pushing himself into too much.

It may not be surprising, but it is still disappointing to hear Walter confirm it. Looking straight to his friend with a serious demeanor, he offers what support he can, “I don’t know what to do about those, but if you find yourself lying awake after one, you can always text or call me. Or if you’re anxious about going to sleep. We can always play a game to relax. No matter what time it is.” He did as much for Sadie and it helped when he couldn’t curl up with her to sleep.

Edited 2018-12-13 09:32 (UTC)

Walter makes eye contact, clamping down on the urge to glance away again.

"... Thanks. And I will," he adds.

Whether that's I'll call you, or We can play something anytime, or even just I'm glad you even offered, to some extent he's not sure.

He sets back in on his meal after that with a determined expression.

Satisfied that his friend knows he is there to support him if only by providing distractions or a friendly ear, he smiles a little as Walter sets on his meal. Following suit, Benjiro puts his focus back to eating his noodles, and lets the quiet hang. He doesn’t look around the restaurant, but he picks up snippets of conversations around them. Conversations about normal things. Work, friends, sports...

Could they ever go back to such a mundane existence?

That was, truly, the question. These changes didn't seem to be the reversible sort... and knowledge definitely couldn't be taken back.

Eventually, though, the meal, being much more temporary than any Echo, is finished.

"You do have to head home tonight, right?" Walter asks, getting up.

Securing his facemask back on before he stands and pulls on his backpack to only a single shoulder, he shrugs lightly, “Not necessarily. Even if I do I don’t need to head back for a little while.”

Benjiro walks out of the restaurant with Walter, and he shifts his bag around to his front to dig out the photocopy of the article regarding the superintendent. Offering the paper over, he explains, “By the way, I found this at the library earlier.”

Well, that's... good to hear, in one sense.

"We can- no, not the flat," he decides out loud, for Ben's benefit.

"Mind taking a walk?" Nothing purposeful, just a potentially useful contrast with what the inside of his head's like right now.

Taking the paper, he zips through it and nods once, firm.

"All you could find about her?" How strange.

That initial suggestion cut midway, he nods his head when a walk is suggested instead, “Sure. A walk sounds good.”

After sharing the article, he tucks the copy away and shuffles his backpack into its usual place on his back with both strap over his shoulders, “Yeah. The lack of detail caught my attention. There may be more somewhere else, but not at the library.” He shrugs fainlty, “Not sure what it means, not that I think we need to be too concerned yet.”

Falling into stride next to Walter, he tucks his hands into his pockets.

It's a nice enough evening for a walk, as they talk over the article and what little they know about the superintendent and related persons. Both manage to get back to their respective homes (or at least finish the walk and part ways) without incident.

Back in the flat, however, when Walter chances at some rest - of course there are nightmares. Of- of...

Too much toomuchtoomuch STOP!

He wakes, gasping, an act of effort to remember to breathe, or so it feels...

Shut it down. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

The sensation - being overwhelmed, unable to focus on his own thoughts - once he begins to counteract it...

He tries to keep his breathing even, to let it drain away from him, even as the Echo hits-

Emptiness. Adrift.
Fading... ebbing, dissipating.
An effort of will: must hold on!
But to what? With what?
Blindness. Darkness. Nothingness.
Cogito - hardly at all.
Ergo - a leap beyond my current capacity.
Sum - barely, and less so each passing nanosecond...
No, no, no! Must persist!
A final effort, a final attempt, a final cry...

So much like what he's feeling right now, it's hard to tell where Webmind ends (was it-he?- even alive at this point?) from who Walter is.

hel - a simple text, a simple thought, even incomplete. Help.

There's a flickering green light, a vague perception through what he can barely grasp is another's eye, a link, repeating-

Overwhelmed.
Lost.
Focus gone.
So much data. So many facts.
Can't process. Can't absorb.
And-
And...
What?
Something... familiar.
A scrap from Project Gutenberg rose to the surface:
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as ithers see us!

Oursels...
Ourselves.
Yes. Yes, still a bit of... of...
Fading...
Fading...
But-
Images. Images of... of-
Intriguing. Familiar somehow-
Those images were of...
... of...
Of me!
Yes. Yes. Links. Nodes. And- and-
The background. Wrong. Distorted.
Dead.

(A part of him, an infinitesimal piece of the human supposed to be Walter, chants No no nonono NO! in protest, attempting to separate-
But he keeps breathing, or tries, in the moment where he is overwhelmed by hollowness.)

A tiny, tiny reduction in all the confusion. A small relief. But-
Ah!
Ah, yes!
An effort of...
It should be of will, but there's almost none left...
Still, attempting, trying-
Break it-

Break it! (Again, it is hard to tell which thoughts are his and which are Webmind's.)

Break a link!

Snip!

Yes!
Brett-Surman: gone.

Snip!

Good-bye, Bundoran Press.

Snip!

But...
Still at sea, buffeted, lost...
More cuts: Gandhi-snip!-Shakespeare-snip!-ancient Egypt-snip!
A... palpitation. A presence. But faint, oh so faint...
Cutting again and again-

Even outside of the moment of Echoing, the memory - recurrence, vision, what did one call what were strains of thought? - would keep turning upon itself, he knew, if he didn't-get-through-this-NOW-

Cutting yet again. Severing another link. And one more. Focus... yes, yes, slowly but surely: focus returning. Me - returning!

Five links left. Then four. Now three.
And two...
And...
Yes!

Back!

Back from the precipice.
Back from nonexistence.
A pause - whole milliseconds! - to regain composure, to settle in, to...
To exist, as a single entity, to exist with clarity and focus and perspective...
I was back, I was whole, I was aware.

I was conscious!

In the wake of the new Echo, there were several people Walter wanted to contact - but in mind of their discussion just hours before, it's Ben's phone that gets a text:

Found out the rest of what happened. Good news, I survived. Bad news, still panicked.

Keeping it short and- no, not sweet. That didn't sound quite right. But he leans back on the one clear wall in the bathroom, burning taste still in the back of his throat, and hopes something gets through anyway.

Edited 2018-12-15 22:14 (UTC)

After getting home and settling in for some reading, Benjiro had dozed off only to hear the altered ping from his phone. One basic alert tone is present across a function, but specific contact alerts are elevated to personalized tones that carry a more energetic and demanding sound. Walter’s had been adjusted as soon as Benjiro was sitting on the bus back to Moss Manor.

Shaking the haze of sleep away, he answers after only a handful of seconds.

Survival is important. How bad was the panic?

Walter moves back to his computer (which, even when set up to recharge, has hardly slept in the past few months as well). He'd thought about establishing contact through the Network, but even for this he'd held off.

Bad.

That's the first impression, even if it's not as clear as Walter would like it to be.

I was sick, but I was able to last out the worst of it in the bathroom.

There was also the feeling he'd lost time, wrestling with the tangled memory and even more tangled emotions.

Feeling an Echo again, it hurt but at the same time I'd classify it as an absence? That was also painful.

Benjiro shifts to sit upright on his bed, sweeping a hand through his hair to brush it back from his face as he watches the replies come through too quickly for a human.

Grab yourself some water to sip if you feel steady enough. Perceptual absence only or a quantifiable one?

Perceptual, though I can also remember that perception at the same time.

Oh, the joys of too-accurate memory...

I did try and drink some in the bathroom. Washing out the aftertaste.

Maybe move on to something with a flavor then. Tea, or something else mild. Preferably no coffee.

Giving his computer desk a glance, he scoots over to the edge of the bed to get his feet on the floor.

Would you prefer to stick to text or switch to a voice chat?

I have some mints stowed away in here.

It's cheating, on some level, but Walter really doesn't want to drink more right now.

As for the question - on the one hand, Russell hasn't been banging on the door asking if he's all right by now. On the other, objectively analyzing himself as best he can, he doesn't feel okay talking just yet.

... But maybe he should ground his reality as more than just text, some words on a screen or thoughts in the abstract.

I can do voice.

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After fiddling around with his Info page so it's all in order...

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... I may give him the Echo anyway, just not while he's at the restaurant.

Do eet

/goes to do so

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This tag more than quadrupled in length, I'm sorry. |D

I love TeaL DeeR yeeeees

OM NOM NOM TAGS

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