sphererpmod: (Default)
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

eyefortrouble: (wat)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-18 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"Civilization collapsed?" Aya's head snaps around to took at Eric. "What the hell are you talking about?" She had killed Eve, destroyed the Ultimate Being. NMCs had been almost completely wiped out by the time she'd finished her drive out to LA, and sightings were becoming less and less frequent. So what the hell, man?
amorea_mortuus_sum: (eric_018)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-18 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"There was a sickness a few years ago. People got sick, died, and came back; then they started biting people. It..really didn't take long for things to go downhill." It was a huge pill to swallow as it was happening, but he and Aaron had adapted, and even found their own community to thrive in as best they could.
eyefortrouble: (gasp)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-18 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Aya searches Eric's eyes with her own, trying desperately to detect any hint of a lie. There is, of course, none. How could this have happened? With Eve and the Ultimate Being gone, the consciousness at the head of the mitochondria's rebellion had been removed. The mutants had regressed to a more mindless state, wandering and acting on instinct rather than being unleashed and directed to attack specific locations. Aya's mind races. Could human mitochondria that attempted to rebel be the cause of such a 'sickness'? Without Mitochondria Eve to control them, perhaps...

She shakes her head. How long had she been in that pod? For civilization to collapse in such a way, much more time must have passed while she was kept in that pod than she thought.

"When...when did it start?"
amorea_mortuus_sum: (eric_003)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-18 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"It started in.. 2010? I believe that's right. The bigger cities were disabled first. In order to try and quell the epidemic, the government threw napalm, which didn't help much.. Thankfully the survivors were evacuated first. Those that cared to listen, anyway."

They had been some of the first out of DC, first the important politicians, then others followed. Aaron being a lobbyist had certainly helped get them out of dodge. They were taken to Alexandria just outside of DC, where they were now. Others have had it so much worse than them..
eyefortrouble: (cell)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-18 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"2010?" Then either she'd been in that pod for eight years, or...

"Have you heard of the New York Blockade Incident? Took place in 1998." She focuses on Eric, eager for his answer.
amorea_mortuus_sum: (pic#12716958)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-18 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, that's not familiar, sorry. Let's see.. the biggest thing I can remember that happened in 1998 was Bill Clinton being impeached."

Boy, that sure doesn't date him, or anything..
eyefortrouble: (breathe)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-18 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh." Aya looks away in a feeble attempt to hide her confusion. The New York Blockade Incident had been the biggest news story moving into 1999, as close to the new year as it had happened. Bill Clinton was one thing, but the entirety of Manhattan being evacuated due to a series of terrorist attacks wouldn't have been something Eric could have missed.

Moving on from that whole confusing mess (which she'll figure out later, when she's not trapped in a ferris wheel), Aya shifts in her seat uncomfortably. "I'm from Boston originally. I move around a lot."
amorea_mortuus_sum: (pic#11907545)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-18 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
The tone of her voice gives him pause- she was expecting him to know. To that, he actually does have an explanation of sorts. "You know, my partner remembers more than I do. We're from different points in time, if you can believe it.." He laughs, though it's more of a jerk reaction. He can laugh or he can cry, right?

"Boston, huh? I've only ever been once before, but it was a fantastic city. There's so much history, there was no way for us to get to it all."
eyefortrouble: (Default)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-18 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Aya nods. "It was a nice place to grow up. I have a lot of good memories."

That catches her attention, though. "What do you mean, you're from different points in time?" Is he referring to a large age difference or something?
amorea_mortuus_sum: (eric_018)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-18 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's such an outlandish declaration, isn't it? I mean, what sane person says that? When we first woke up here, we were talking, and he made a comment that made me question what he was talking about.. it turns out that he remembers months worth of things that haven't happened to me, yet."

Some of those are worse news than others, but so far, they've managed to weather everything together, and it sounds like the new additions to their community are making it all the better.
eyefortrouble: (sigh)

[personal profile] eyefortrouble 2018-12-19 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
"You're taking about time...lines?" Aya shakes her head.

Christ...

This is some sci-fi bullshit, and Aya has evolved mitochondria that let her effectively use magic for chrissakes. And if Eric's story is true, and it seems like it is, then Aya's theory about the Sphere being some kind of government conspiracy could go right out the window. They might not even be on Earth.

"That's wild." Read: what the fuck is going on, man.
amorea_mortuus_sum: (pic#12716948)

[personal profile] amorea_mortuus_sum 2018-12-19 03:26 am (UTC)(link)
"I know. It's crazy, but we're also in the middle of the ocean who-knows-where, in a giant fish bowl."

It's all a matter of perspective, at least.