[WORLD TWO | INTRO LOG]

[spellbindmods]

Who: All coven members
Where: In and around the new world’s apartment building where the coven is staying
When: Day (the calendar isn’t syncing for me hELP)
Open/Closed: Open to All

You’re in a room. It’s pretty bright — blindingly so, even. There’s something very stark and very clean about the place, and also the person you’re sitting in front of. You’re sitting? You’re sitting. There’s also a pane of very powerful plexiglass separating you from the uniform-clad person who is now speaking to you. It’s impossible to transcribe what they say verbatim, but here’s the gist of it: - You’re being welcomed to a city called Shehui. Depending on who you are, the level of technology may be light years ahead of you or child’s play. - There’s a very strict policy about magic. While there are measures put in place to prevent magic from happening, this is still something that they reiterate over and over. They don’t want to take chances. - Crime is also frowned upon. Small infractions will result in credit deductions, while major crimes will get you banned. Antisocial behavior is also looked down upon. You’re locked in the city for your initial eight weeks. You can leave afterwards, but trying to break out of the city or cause social unrest will result in monitoring and a potential ban. - This city is supposed to be somewhat relaxing. Is it a free pleasure cruise? No. Is it a self-contained society that runs on community and indulgence? Yes. - You’re being given an allotment of credits in order to stay in the city, which is what the economy there runs on. This goes on for quite some time. - You’re being moved to a housing location. Despite the slotted speaker in the middle of the plexiglass, the only time you have a chance to ask questions is when a small slit opens in the bottom and a package is slid towards you. - What’s in the package? There’s a credit card-like apparatus that has apparently taken a picture of you. It contains a place to write your name, an identification number and barcode. It also has a thin strip near the top that has scrolling script floating by. It states “WELCOME TO SHEHUI. YOUR ID WILL UPDATE WITH COMMUNITY NOTICES AND PERSONAL PINGS FOR JOBS AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES RELATED TO YOUR INTEREST.” It’s a lot to take in, but that’s the long and short of it. Have questions? The person will reiterate a few times that there are information desks around the city. That’s all for now…now you’ll be traveling to your next destination: your new home. The floor slowly lowers as if you’ve been in an elevator the whole time. It connects to several other glass containers, much like your own, all suddenly clanking together in a chain. After a short wait, the chain begins to move — quickly. Faster, maybe, than you’ve ever gone before. It’s hard to even make out the scenery when you’re zipping past everything so quickly. Where does this trip lead you? The ground floor of your new apartment building. The plexiglass cases open up and you’re in a hotel lobby. There’s a flashing board on the wall — NEW ARRIVALS, COME HERE. A ▢ So now’s the time to get settled into your new digs. Your name is on the board, and there’s a promise that your things — which, by the way, were mysteriously taken — will be located in your room. No need to fight over bedrooms; those also hold name placards that are digitally installed. Maybe everyone else is already there. Maybe you’re the first person there and need to find a way to stake your claim on the fridge or a bathroom. B ▢ Maybe you don’t want to fuck with anybody right now and are busy exploring the apartment building. You may encounter some aliens, some strangers, some ice machines. There IS that floor that’s nothing but recreational stations. If you’re overwhelmed, the garden is a good place to start. The sport court is pretty empty right now, if you want to have any regrouping meetings.

The apartment building is locked up tight for three hours in order to let new arrivals get their bearings. After that, the ground floor lobby doors open into the city of Shehui. There’s a lot to take in, but let’s cover the biggest bases: C ▢ Right outside this communal apartment building is a large, digital job board. The list of available jobs and credit opportunities are constantly flashing by. Want to pick one out? Just hold up that ID card you were given and the instructions and location will be sent to the ID’s text scroller. D ▢ You’ve got 500 credits to blow on clothes, food, strippers…whatever you’d like? Right next to the apartment complex are tons of local businesses, from bistros to outlet malls. A movie theater, an arcade, a video game store…and the best thing about Shehui? Most everything is dirt cheap. Where are you shopping? What are you buying? Enquiring minds would like to know! E ▢ Right next to the shopping area is a wooded park. It’s akin to a nature trail that’s similar to Yellowstone in scenery and topography. If you’re more comfortable someplace less…tech or modern…then this may be exactly where you’d like to be. F ▢ Wildcard! How will your character interact with this new and unusual world?

Comments

[lalliho]

[IT ISN'T JUST THE SNOW, GOSH]

Okay.

[He loves telepathy, he's ready to learn more about this weird contraption that definitely doesn't look like how he's imagining, but oh well.]

[splinten]

[ok but it's at least partly the snow isn't it]

[Dirk flashes the telepathic image of a bicycle. It is the prototypical image of a bike, the bike on which all bike emojis are based. It is the platonic bike ideal.]

You take a seat on that part in the middle that sticks up and use your feet in a running motion to move the pedals, which turns the back wheel. That also turns the front wheel, but it's primarily for steering courtesy of those handlebars.

[He has never ridden a bike.]

[lalliho]

[it's a little bit about the snow...it's mostly about JOBS!!!

Lalli goes quiet while he mentally goes over the build and thinks on Dirk's explanation. That...sounds like it makes sense. If it was powered by his feet but had the power of wheels, then it had to be pretty dang fast.]

That's... [That's so useful. Not necessarily for scouting, since he needed to take his time and get all the information he could, but for this job being proposed.] I can do that. It can't be hard.

[splinten]

[STOP SELLING OUT TO THE MAN, LALLI

Unaware of Lalli's new comfort, exactly, although noting he does seem better than usual,]

Yeah. Apparently the hardest part is keeping balance? I've never personally tried on account of all the bicycles in the world being rusted and under the sea by the time I got to Earth. But you could probably get it with some practice. Supposedly, once you work out how to keep balance it becomes completely natural.

[lalliho]

[HE'S NOT SELLING OUT, HE JUST HAD AN EXTREMELY UNCONVENTIONAL CHILDHOOD]

Oh. I can do that, I have great balance.

[For as clumsy as he is, he sure demonstrates his point well enough with how he takes a few steps back before flipping himself onto his hands. This will be vital to biking.

Back upright, now.] Do you want to try a bicycle with me?

[splinten]

[Dirk has to give him a thumbs up for that move. Which is totally vital to biking, yes.]

Yeah, sure. It'd be cool.

[also is surprisingly friendly from Lalli??]

[lalliho]

[Thumbs up are strange....... He doesn't totally understand their purpose outside of military signaling. Still, they're going off to learn about bicycles and everything's gonna be so cool and fine.]

Okay. I guess they'll have some at the job's base, since they say you can use them...

[?????]

[splinten]

[exactly, things are great]

We might want to not practice in front of your potential future employers. I'm not sure about here, but I know that some people find it objectionable if their employees don't appear to already have the necessary skills.

[lalliho]

Mmn. Makes sense.

[Just hire someone who can already do it.]

Where else can we get them to try, though?

[splinten]

[Hm.]

I could get hired and get a bike for us both to practice on. After, I get fired for never doing my damn job, without telling them it's because we were practicing, and you can go replace the newly fired asshole who sucked at this.

[is this what they call a Zany Scheme?]

[lalliho]

[thinks about this...

He likes the idea of being a big hero to them, but he's not sure what the point of every part of that is, really.]

But then there's all those people not getting stuff they might need.

[splinten]

[.........Yeah ok fair]

Maybe there are bike rental places.

[lalliho]

[He can just shrug at that one.]

Then it's mostly your job. You know what it looks like. But I could probably see it and know that's what it was, from what you said.

[Basically, let's go sniff out some rental place... Speaking of which:] What's a rental?

[splinten]

It's when you pay someone to borrow something for a while, then return it to them. The idea is that you don't have to pay full price for something you'll only use maybe once, and the person renting it out will recoup losses by loaning it to multiple people.

[So the problem is that Dirk knows a lot of City Life theory and not a lot of City Life practice.]

Hang on. I need to check Alt-Universe Google.

[He does however know that google is a saving grace. He can't read anything on the computers, but he can figure out the interface enough to put it on voice-reader and input voice commands to get the information they need.]

Alright. I think I have directions to one.

[lalliho]

Oh. That's useful.

[He thinks so, anyway. Kinda lost him with jargon after a while, but the idea of just getting to pay a little to use it for a little when you didn't want the dang thing forever... Yeah, that's good.

..........okay he's saying nonsense again.]

Alt-Universe...Google...?

[Remember, Dirk, this was the dude absolutely THROWN by portable music players.]

Ah. How did you do that?

[Magic!!!]

[splinten]

[Oh he remembers. Let's see if he can pull this explanation off.]

I asked the computer to turn the letters into sounds and turn my sounds into letters. It has a list of every store in the area and its location, and I asked it to search that list for bike rentals. Once it did that, I asked it to show me the location on a map and tell me where I am on the same map. So now we have directions.

[There's nothing condescending about his tone here; the fact that he's from a technologically advanced society compared to Lalli doesn't make him smarter, and Dirk has always been aware of that even when just interacting with his friends in the past. So he tries to make it make sense without computers as a frame of reference.]

[lalliho]

[Lalli is quiet during the explanation, but he's clearly riveted... With the way Dirk talks normally, he figured he was in for a game of twenty more questions, but other than the initial mention of computers, he's pleased to find that keeping up isn't hard at all.]

Oh. That's a map? No one has to carry around a big paper thing?

[Amazing!! Not that he really does that, either, just memorizes and goes. This, though... Imagine!]

[splinten]

Yeah, all the maps in the world can be stored on things like this. [The computer, he means. He also points at his shades.] And I keep all that kind of information on my shades.

[lalliho]

[ W H A T ]

That isn't true. The whole world is really big, you can't put all its maps there.

[splinten]

The maps aren't physically there. I can try to explain how it works if you want.

[lalliho]

[He squints down at his feet, gears in his head turning. Not physically there... Well, he has experience with that.]

Mrrh, even stuff that isn't physical needs space. They can't all be in one space or they'd get really... [He waves his hand around in a vague gesture. Words, words.] Tangled. And corrupted!

[He's sure of it. Thanks, ghosts.]

[splinten]

[......]

That's actually an accurate reflection of how computer storage works in a way a lot of casual users of technology don't understand. With computers, the maps are converted into a much smaller form, as a series of gates that are either off or on. Those are a code that represent the shape of the maps. The computer has a language that lets it change that series of offs and ons, called binary code, into images and sounds for humans to understand. So yeah, they're physically there, but not in their usual form. They're in a much, much smaller form that gets made larger for us to look at and then gets put away again.

[lalliho]

[He instinctual understanding because of ghosts goes out the window... Storage, gates, binary... Hmn... Technology is complicated.]

So it's like folding up a normal map to put it away. Except folding it lots and lots, and it's not physical.

[splinten]

In a sense. Advances in technology help us fold things smaller and smaller.

[lalliho]

Weird.

[Sounds pretty dumb...but he can't really complain too much, if he's benefitting from it, now. Not out loud, anyway.]