[OPENING] island hub - day 1

[spellbindmods]

Who: All Characters
Where: Main Hub
When: Day 1
Open/Closed: Open to All

TDM threads can be considered canon if you so choose, they contain the power that you apped with and both parties confer that the thread is canon.

For characters that were on the TDM and who were not accepted/didn't app, these characters will be considered dropped characters that were magicked away.

Night has fallen upon everyone. It's thus far been an eventful day -- you've met some new people, discovered some new aspects of yourself that weren't there before you appeared here (however that might have happened). The original inhabitants of the island have been working hard to prepare a few things. One activity might have been one you were a part of, but there's still time to get your hands dirty. A ▢ Brie has rolled out a large copper pot and created a pit on the beach. It's unrealistic to think everyone can subsist on the few foods she's collected from other words and boar jerky alone. She's got a few boar carcasses sitting on the beach that need attending to as well. Your characters can help feed themselves and others, and here's what needs to be done: Fire needs to be started for cooking the meat AND a large bonfire for light and warmth. The large copper bowl needs to be filled with water. Crabs need to be bravely collected from the bath house for boiling. The boar needs to be either cut up for kebabs or stuck through. Does your character know anything about spit-roasting? Any other helpful magical skills are welcome to help make food. Post feasting, there are dozens of crabs and a pile of roasted boar meet that are up for eating. Even if you didn't offer to help in making any of the food, they're open to eat it -- even if the true helpers may give you dirty looks. The boar is fine, if not a little bland and chewy, but it's probably better than the jerky. The crab is delicious, if not a little tasteless...there problem with the crab isn't exactly the taste, though. B ▢ The crab isn't a species that's immediately edible for most species, though your character will grow to get used to it eventually. For now, the meat isn't settling well within your character's system. Your character will experience sweats, a high fever, blurred vision, potential vomiting, hives...it's very obvious their body is rejecting the unfamiliar meat. This may also cause a bit of an issue with your character's powers. They're still getting physically and mentally acclimated to these new changes, so expect their telepathy and magic to go a little haywire.

It's almost completely dark outside when the next event of the evening happens. You're living your life when you see it out of the corner of your eye -- it's absolutely hard to miss. What you see is a large lit caravan, larger than even an army tank. It's bright white and shining, covered with golden, ornate details that emanate an even more dazzling sparkle. The entire thing is aglow, and it's quickly coming towards the large bonfire that's been made. It's not rolling across the sand, but instead it's floating, and so is a matching trunk that's sailing along next to a figure beside the caravan. C ▢ A tall, slender woman has also come along with the large caravan, quickly opening the trunk that eventually lands on the sand with a large thud. She's handing out sacks, very similar to the ones previously in the large lobster cage. These contain a parka, a type of candy of your choice, a bottle of water, a large shard from a broken mirror and a letter rolled up and bound with a roll of twine. There are two other thread options associated with this prompt: Genette's top level and her telepathy training post. Around the same time as Genette is handing out this new little goody bag, you suddenly receive a telepathic message. It might seem a little strange at first -- but on that note, what about tonight isn't strange? D ▢ The telepathic message your character will receive is a simple one: Hello. It shows up in text form across your character's line of vision and it doesn't go away until they respond back, though the message that's sent out won't go to the original telepath. Instead it will ping pong to a random person in the group. You've made a new friend! After you've met Genette, she's also got a few more supplies that she pulls out a small door in the base of the caravan. She's insistent that you only get two items, since there aren't exactly a lot of them to go around! E ▢ The last of the starter supplies are being handed out, and these are items that are more cumbersome or rare -- they may not be immediately useful for your character, but maybe you can make use of them somehow, whether eventually in another world or with your power. An electronic/technology: these can be as obvious as an MP3 player, as useless as a garage door motor or as scandalous as a Hitachi Magic Wand. If it can be powered by electricity or batteries, there's a tub of them. They're also partially charged if they don't need constant electricity to work. A fashion accessory: there are a lot of these, surprisingly. Flower crowns, belts, bras, shoes, earrings, other types of jewelry. Your character can look cute while suffering from crab vomiting. Books and stationary: maps of various worlds, books written in a myriad of languages (maybe even one you recognize!), writing paper, ink pens, gel pens, stickers. Any kind of stationary can be found here. Other household items: this can include cleaning supplies, furniture, and other miscellaneous goods. These won't be personal affects from your character's home, but they may be useful! Feel free to come up with unusual or alien items -- these have come from all over the universe, remember!

As the night winds down, it's recommended by Brie that you should probably go to be in your hut -- or at the very least get somewhere inside. There are a lot of people around the camp, however, so it's no surprise that there are a few people waiting around to get their fill of food and supplies before heading to bed. The noise of the new members and the light of the fire have attracted a very large pack of boars, who you'll later find make routine trips to the beach every night. Boar mating season has made the wild hogs rather testy, and the smell of food -- even if it's their own boar brethren -- have made them even more volatile. F ▢ If your character isn't quick to get inside tonight, they're likely to get a boar charging at them. The chances are doubled if they happen to be holding onto a food item. Female boars can leave a few bruises and trample you, but beware the males -- they've got tusks. However, it's not like staying up at night doesn't have its advantages. Once midnight hits, another species of animal makes its regular rounds across the base camp. In the sky, characters can see an Aurora Borealis-like sight. Instead of being dancing green and blue lights, however, the reality is that they are a massive species of space worm, and hundreds are wiggling past on their way to travel back home. They're shimmering and in every color imaginable, lighting up the sky with their magnificent hues. G ▢ The space worms operate outside the natural barrier of the hub, but they still are in close enough proximity to shed a film as they travel. If you're still awake, boars or no, you'll be in the middle of a shower. The film sheds from the worms and enters the atmosphere, creating multi-colored, sweet-smelling mists of worm water vapor. Worm water vapor is kind of weird, but it's also pretty cool. It's also calming, and that's a bonus. Inhale too much and you might become a little too calm.

Comments

[p_mortem]

[ Noxious crab meat to go with his rancid gravy, good, good. Minato doesn't even notice until he reaches over again, the back of his hand lightly hitting Lenka's leg before it registers to him that he's being spoken to. ]

Oh. What is it?

[ He also stops moving, so that Lenka can find whatever it is he's searching for, but the beads are pretty small, and maybe working in the sand isn't the best idea, because any that falls from his palm would have gotten buried and lost forever, good luck. ]

[probablynoteren]

[Lenka is ridiculously patient, and keeps sifting the sand just in case, but he also glances at the handful that Minato has with him -- it was hard to tell in the dark where his... magicked crabs might have gotten away to. Certainly, it's just food and there's definitely plenty more where that came from.

For the moment, curiosity about the beads and Minato's handling of them is winning out; it helps that this is after dinner, of course.]

Just some of the crabs. The cooked ones. Can you find them?

[All of the beads look about the same to him, but surely their owner-slash-creator can tell them apart...?]

[p_mortem]

[ What kind of respectable magician can't tell the things he's magicking into apart? Minato, apparently, who stares down at his beads, thinking maybe the ones on the right side are more recent additions? He picks out of those up, holds it in the palm of his hand and...

Nothing happens for a good five seconds. That bead is just a bead.

He tries another— out pops crab bread! Actually, bread baked into the shape of a crab. He hands this over to Lenka in exchange, because ]

I can't tell what's what.

[probablynoteren]

[Minato, why do you have normal beads mixed in with your magic beads...... this seems even worse for efficiency than actually not being able to tell the magical beads apart. Lenka watches with increasing bemusement before he's given the crab bread, and accepts it reflexively.

He's not actually sure what to do with it, since he's not hungry for the moment. It seems pretty edible, though, when he examines it. That brings up something else, though...]

So... how do you find things? [and he thought his own power was a mess] And, if you have food, doesn't it go bad?

[Rancid gravy and rancid crabs seems like a bad combination in advance. Possibly something to avoid.]

[p_mortem]

[ Because those normal beads used to be magical healing beads he can't bear throw away because what if they worked again someday? They could still be useful, just as rancid gravy could be useful in the right situation and with enough desperation. ]

Preservatives help.

[ He won't tell Lenka how many months he'd been carrying that crab bread he'd handed to him. Giving up for the moment, he returns what beads he has in his pockets and toes around the sand for any that might have been buried. ]

I'll learn how to find things. Still figuring things out. [ That much is probably obvious, in that he couldn't find Lenka's crab. ] How are your powers?

[probablynoteren]

[This power is enabling Minato's hoarder tendencies.... If his power goes haywire one day who knows what could end up coming out. They're going to need to quarantine him for the good of the universe at this rate.

Lenka gives his new crab bread a bit of a dubious look. Certainly, preservatives help, but preservatives only go so far... Maybe if he roasts it over the fire a bit...? He can't see any mold, and he hates to waste food. What a great combination here.]

Well... it's the first day. [none of them are going to get this right off the bat -- he hands a few beads back to Minato, whatever he's succeeded in digging up] Mine are okay, they could be worse. Probably easier to organize.

[After seeing this mess, maybe he won't be as irritated with the random nature of his own abilities...]

[p_mortem]

[ Some day his powers might grow to the point where he can tuck away entire planets into his pocket, no universe is safe.

He rolls the beads about his hands for a moment before putting those away as well. It's strange to him, having a power that doesn't come intuitively, but at least the visualization is straightforward, of shrinking and expanding... although the latter is made difficult because he has no idea what the end product is. ]

What power do you have that needs organization?

[probablynoteren]

[Katamari Daminatocy....

What hath magic wrought.

At any rate, Lenka resigns himself to having traded crab for crab bread. Actually it's kind of impressive that Minato even found something along the same theme; maybe he'll eventually get the hang of it, like he said.]

I summon refrigerators. [the faintest bit of deadpan; he still hasn't found a good way of introducing his power] They're usually organized, but not always.

[He's still not sure where exactly they're all coming from, but he's seen a few things already, by now.]

[p_mortem]

Refrigerators.

[ Maybe he mumbled it to himself, maybe he thought it to Lenka, but the disbelief is there in barely raised eyebrows and slightly widened eyes. ]

That's useful. You could put the bread in there.

[probablynoteren]

Refrigerators.

[He feels like he should help confirm it. There's definitely a dry note in his voice this time, but his face is totally serious.]

I can only have a few at a time. If I put the bread in it... I could. [he shrugs, then shakes his head] But I'd forget about it.

[And then chaos would ensue.]

[p_mortem]

[ No, he's not allowed to forget about it; Minato had paid 80 yen for that bread and Lenka has to eat it. ]

Does one disappear if you summon one too many? Or can you just not summon any more? What if I turned one into a bead— would it still count as a refrigerator?

[probablynoteren]

[He'll probably end up eating it if he keeps holding it, that's what happens when you hand him food out of the blue, even if it's just after dinner... Minato's questions are intriguing, too, so he's sufficiently distracted.]

There can only be three. Then they don't appear anymore until I send one away. [a moment's thought, and then a shrug] If you want to turn one into a bead, I think it'd be worth trying.

[He settles down next to Minato, and then carefully points a little ways away from them; there's a muffled FWUMP and a tiny spray of sand. Have a refrigerator for all your experimental needs.]

[p_mortem]

[ Minato squeezes his eyes shut at the tiny sand storm that peppers at his ankles, then opens them up to see... that sure is a refrigerator; he would never think to doubt Lenka again. Instead of using his magic right away, though, Minato does what anybody would do when faced with a sudden refrigerator: open the doors and stick his head inside, what's in here and can he eat it? ]

[probablynoteren]

[Honestly, if refrigerators hadn't come running at his beck and call pretty much all day he'd still be questioning it, too. As it is, he's still trying to wrap his mind around it... Lenka sits back and lets Minato have at it with the fridge, which is... filled with eggs. Like, 10 cartons of eggs total. Someone ran into a sale or something.

There's also like, two bags of garlic and some duck in a carton, if you're into cold duck or worried about vampires.]

... It'll be interesting if you can turn everything inside into the same bead...

[How does Minato's power even work.]

[p_mortem]

[ Minato opens one of the cartons of eggs to hold one up to the light as if he could tell if they're any good by doing so. How useful... Being able to turn everything into the same bead is also useful, and he'd been practicing this sort of "collapsing" power before Lenka had arrived.

He does it like this: each carton of eggs gets turned into one bead each, the carton of duck into another bead, the garlic... gets combined into one of the bags so he has the other one free to hold all dozen beads at this point. Which as a whole gets turned into a single bead. Impressive! Or he could have closed the door and magicked the fridge itself without the complicated layers, but it's a good demonstration of how he's found his powers can be used. ]

[probablynoteren]

... That's handy.

[And it's only going to get more so if they're expected to travel at all, even just on this island. It seems like a pretty big expanse of land, if what they've seen so far is anything to go by -- and the amount of people expected to stay here.

Lenka contemplates the beads Minato's made of the fridge contents for a moment, and then--]

Hmm. I'm going to try something. Can I have those beads? [he motions more or less to the ones that were just created] And if you can turn the fridge into a bead too.

[p_mortem]

[ It's handy for storage, but a mess if all he wants is a single egg because he can't extract something at the core without unpacking everything. But maybe one day he'll think of a way around that too, so he lets that thought sit for now and hands the beads over to Lenka before pressing the palm of his hand onto the fridge and likewise transforming it to hand off. ]

[probablynoteren]

[Lenka carefully stores the beads in his pocket for now (luckily enough, he doesn't really have anything in his pockets) and then reaches for the bead Minato just created. For what he has in mind, it's a much safer bet to put the bead down, even if it might get lost forever.

He's pretty sure it won't get lost forever.

Whenever Minato hands him the bead, Lenka will concentrate on banishing it, the way he'd banish a normal refrigerator. And he isn't really expecting anything to happen, besides maybe the fridge popping back up in protest, but--

Nothing.

As in, there's now nothing where the bead used to be. There definitely had been a bead there.

...

It might be lost forever.]