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Sphere Mods ([personal profile] sphererpmod) wrote in [community profile] thespherelogs2018-12-01 12:00 am

(no subject)

Who: Everyone!
What: December's welcome log.
When: Dec 1st-7th
Where: The Merchant Dome/The Pools
Warnings:
Notes: This is your December welcome log. Come in, go nuts.


It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year.

The Council knows that being a newb and not knowing anyone (especially when one might be living in close quarters to them in the very near future) can be a real pain in the ass. So, every month they throw a welcome party, the theme and location tend to vary. The theme for December is Holiday Cheer and this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drunk.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

There are even some carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

However, the meeting isn’t just about socializing! the opposite end from the snowball fight, there are smaller tables set up with people sitting behind them. In front of the tables are homemade brightly colored signs that advertise things like jobs and clubs. The people and interests here in The Sphere are hugely varied and people are just so earnest to tell newcomers about them. They’re earnest to the point where they may just actually reach out and grab a person in order to force them to stop and to listen to whatever spiel they happen to be working on. Booths that are in attendance for jobs include: Agriculture: “help grow the food that feeds us all! Farming is life!”, The library: “No skill needed! We’ll teach you what you need to know!” The school system: “Teachers wanted! Education is the right of everyone!” Maintenance: “Help keep the domes clean!” As well as various restaurant booths looking for help for both servers and chefs.

For the hobbies involved they are even more varied. Book club: “we live in a multiverse, let’s read the books from it! With wine!” Garden club: “we want to grow stuff on our terms!” Sprinkled among are various skill learning clubs, among them: woodworking club, smithing, robotics, technology, first aid. It seems that despite the fact that no one is required to work in the City, people are still offering skills as needed.

If discrete enough inquiries are made, a passcode to the Black Market hidden behind some of the stalls is offered. The entrance is hidden enough that someone needs to be looking for it, and there is a rather large bouncer guarding the door and asking for the proper passcode. The passcode of the day happens to be gumdrops.

Inside the black market is large, but much more dimly lit than the regular market dome that the welcome party was held inside of. There are various pockets of people clustered under bright neon lights. The lights, someone confides to you, are code for what they’re offering. And nearly everything is on offer if a person has the ability to make a trade. Things from home, character skills and even favors tend to be the currency here, but watch out: the hawkers within are shrewd and sharp. If they make a deal with someone, it’s nearly always going to favor them. Eventually.

There’s also a large and loud party happening inside. Think of a rave with a large amount of people who happened to be a bit out of their minds. Drugs aren’t given freely here, they’re too valuable, but should someone want to figure out what they’re rolling on, eventually someone will ask or offer. The drug that they are currently using is called ‘self’ and it’s something that affects your character in an intensely personal way. For some, it’s an experience like your favorite cocktail mixed with a vicodin, and for others it’s just like being drunk. For still more people, it’s like ecstasy without the side effects.

The drug has no physically addicting properties.

But seriously though who cares about Christmas?


While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Wildcard

Go nuts, choose your own adventure!

Inspiration images

wildhorses: angry (which side are you on.)

[personal profile] wildhorses 2018-12-08 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)
'Coco' could mean a coconut or cocodrilos... Laura shakes her head. "¿Por qué me haces esto?" Before she remembers the woman just said she didn't speak Spanish, so Laura's just going to get a lot of aggravating confusion out of her. She shakes her head. "Why this?"
11calls: (6)

[personal profile] 11calls 2018-12-09 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Without thinking about it, Alex taps her finger against the glowing dot behind her ear, it was supposed to translate things, someone had told her, but for now it seemed like it wasn't. Which was weird, but fine, so Alex just gives the girl a smile and a shrug. "Why this which? The hot chocolate or the me bringing it to you?" Without waiting for the girl to reply, Alex just decides to answer both questions in one swoop. "Because I thought you might be hungry, I know you've been here a while, and because I like hot chocolate and it reminds me of home, so I thought maybe it might be good for you too."
wildhorses: curious . angry . eyeroll (you can't always get what you want.)

[personal profile] wildhorses 2018-12-09 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a weird answer. Laura doesn't like it. She narrows her eyes. "Why me?"
11calls: but i can't decide if it's good or a shitty one. (empathy is my superpower)

[personal profile] 11calls 2018-12-09 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh." Alex just shrugs and spreads her hands a little wider, the uniform sign for being unarmed and not a threat before she smiles again and just says gently. "Because you remind me of a friend of mine, actually. And because I would hope that someone would do the same for him if he was here." He actually is here, but Alex doesn't know that yet. "I'm Alex, and I just thought you might be a little hungry too."
wildhorses: angry . sad (i aint got no home in this world anymore)

[personal profile] wildhorses 2018-12-10 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"Laura," she says quietly, and then looks around suspiciously. She doesn't have a context for this kind of unearned kindness, and she wants to analyze it. More than that, she wants to know more about herself, and this woman, Alex, has implied she knows something, if only by association. "Who is this friend?"
11calls: but i can't decide if it's good or a shitty one. (empathy is my superpower)

[personal profile] 11calls 2018-12-11 02:55 am (UTC)(link)
Alex didn’t expect that, of course but given who she is it’s not exactly as if she can fault anyone for asking questions herself. So, Alex just inclined her head a bit towards one of the closer horses but not too close and replied, “I’d be glad to answer your questions, but is it okay to sit down here first?”
wildhorses: static . curious . sad . glasses (the parting glass.)

[personal profile] wildhorses 2018-12-12 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Laura shrugs, impassive. This Alex girl can do whatever she wants; it's not Laura's business, so long as she doesn't infringe on Laura's space.
11calls: (7)

[personal profile] 11calls 2018-12-14 02:48 am (UTC)(link)
Deciding to take that as permission, Alex just leans against a horse of her own a good distance away, not quite balancing on it but not quite not balancing on it either. Then she gives a little smile that has some sadness in it because Alex doesn't know that Simon is here yet. "His name is Simon," she started, because honestly that seemed like the best place to begin with things like this. And saying his name was safe, because it wasn't exactly like it was a secret. "And he's just had a really tough life and needed to grow up too fast and deal with too much. You've got the same sort of look as he does, I think."