(no subject)

[trainmasters]

Who: everyone
When: Day 35 morning
Where: the lounge car

[This morning, or whenever you wake up, you will find that there are delicious smells wafting from the lounge car. Upon investigation, one will discover a beautiful spread of hot cocoa and tea and coffee and many marshmallow animals, ideal for putting in your drinks or simply eating wholesale. It isn't just cats either, but many animals of a similar quality of marshmallow, whatever kinds you'd like. But you may find the warm fuzzies they impart might be a bit more than internal.

In a conspicuous place is a note in handwriting many of you may find quite familiar at this point:

Thanks for your help.

- Hazel

His signature isn't alone, either. There are a couple of others, though somehow they're far less readable? Some are definitely just little drawings. Weird.]

[[ooc notes: 10% furry event!! many marshmallows have no effect, but those that do will instill temporary animal parts up to a kemonomimi level! enjoy your ears and tails, folks. and your newbies.]]

Comments

[schrodingerscockroach]

[He listens and there's]

[Something]

[Something something something, it kind of makes his head swim and he's rubbing at his temple.]

Huh. So these trials can affect us. A little less like virtual reality then. So we should be careful of what....affects we make?

[bowtiedbones]

[hums, continuing in a much more sober tone]

We couldn't have planned for this effect, and another team with an Everchanger daughter wasn't affected the same way. It was an anomaly.

But we have had other trials where we've been branded, grown feathers, or been otherwise maimed and injured. It's not like virtual reality at all.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[...yeah, that's familiar and he really does not like that.]

I meant more...more like everything else isn't...present, I guess? I know people can get hurt in things like that. It's the lingering that seems weird.

[bowtiedbones]

I have theories about why that is, but nothing conclusive. But on the other hand, that lingering is also how we're also able to be healed from injuries and raised from death.

[schrodingerscockroach]

What are your theories? I could keep an eye out for evidence for or against?

How so?

[bowtiedbones]

My theories are based on necromantic concepts, but if you have any familiarity with those...?

[schrodingerscockroach]

I know what necromancy is? I guess it depends on the concepts?

[bowtiedbones]

I'm a necromancer. Generally, when I arrange for a skeleton to be possessed, that entity will not reoccur. I can use that same skeleton again, but it won't remember whatever happened before. However, while my familiars can be dismissed and recalled from their bodies in much the same way, they do keep their memories and their sense of self in-between summonings because they are, in fact, permanently attached to and maintained by my own soul.

To me, this is very similar to how we are maintained by our connections to our teammates and to the Aurora. I'm not certain that these are our entire original physical bodies.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[There is a pause.]

[There is a very long pause because he's thinking about it really hard.]

It's...a little like a back up copy on a network. You could delete things on one computer, but because the information is elsewhere in the network, you can get it back to a saved state, at least to a certain point.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh! Oh that's another way to put it. That's a great way.

[probably more people know computers than necromancy]

It also works to explain the cases of people whose powers or memories are limited. We'll get them back, but it's only as we generate sparks and strengthen the Aurora. Only an incomplete version of ourselves could be recovered, and we're still loading.

[schrodingerscockroach]

It's always harder to transfer data from a corrupted source. It's a miracle to keep it intact at all.

But that's probably because souls are more adaptable then numbers.

[bowtiedbones]

We do have one issue though that's unique from numbers or necromantic constructs. Sometimes people will get corrupted again.

[schrodingerscockroach]

Corrupted again? What happens then?

[bowtiedbones]

One of the guys that runs the trials got corrupted for a little while, so he was doing some very dangerous things. His entire outlook became negative and warped. But he's better now! When it happens to one of us, we're sent to the front of the train and put into a healing coma.

[schrodingerscockroach]

....it's not so different from numbers, actually. Pull in the wrong data, and it could becomes corrupted.

Are the trial runners connected to some place not the train?

[bowtiedbones]

They're connected to a different Star, I think.

[schrodingerscockroach]

It could be the stream between here and there might be picking up stuff along the way.

[bowtiedbones]

Oh, no, that part is actually simple. The star we're on now is corrupted. There's Malice in the jungle outside the train that's actively trying to attack us.

[schrodingerscockroach]

....how actively?

[bowtiedbones]

It broke into the train and dragged people underground once.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[....well fuck.]

I wonder if there's a way to set up traps...what does it...look like? I guess? What kind of things grab people?

[bowtiedbones]

It doesn't look like anything. It uses mutated animals and plants that are themselves corrupted. Underground we were attacked by a thing that was just slime.

[schrodingerscockroach]

I see. What else can you tell me about it? How it fights, what hurts it?

If it possesses things, it can probably change things up, but better to have an idea for any preparations.

[Soldiers man gonna soldier.]

[bond]

[bowtiedbones]

[staring into her cocoa, reciting. oh right she's on Thyme, so they get points for this. yay....]

The first attack was a giant dolphin beaching itself. If you go to the corrupt end of the beach, the water will still try to pull you in. A guy dropped a sun on the dolphin.

The slime turned out to be mostly invulnerable to attack. It just kept growing bigger and more acidic. Being cheerful at it hurt it.

There was a flower in an abandoned church that would cut, stab, and try to drown people. It may have been a person once, too. It was able to speak. The building flooded.

Re: [bond]

[schrodingerscockroach]

Like...an actual sun or a magic spell? Do you know why the building flooded?

[Still, this is very interesting, making mental notes.] And reacting to emotions, huh...