The Nineteenth Trial

[hot_mess_express]

Who: Everyone
When: Day 43, evening
Where: The Mermaid's Beach

Come on, come on heroes...! Come hither!

[ There's a playful giggle and the sound of splashing as the Mermaid's beach appears in the clearing. ]

Let's play a game...!

Comments

[time5kip]

And there goes my masterful reprimanding. Wasted like that.

[malignstar]

It could probably still count.

[time5kip]

It better still count, I'm putting it down.

Do you know what a selfie is?

[malignstar]

Sure do! It's a picture you take of yourself and sometimes other people.

[time5kip]

[ The answer is just so confusing to him that he doesn't have an immediate come back to that ]

... A picture. Am I supposed to take one with the chain?

[malignstar]

Yeah. I'll show you.

[ Pulls out his own chain and sidles next to him, holding the chain out ]

Then you just click. Like so.

[time5kip]

I'm going to go ahead and assume you had the same task on yours, but — thanks. I appreciate it.

[ and as far as things go this isn't even a terribly embarrassing task, so he'll get his chain out so he can take a selfie as well ]

What else do you got there?

[malignstar]

[ Sheepish smile ]

You got me. And hmm, let's see. How about wrestle? We could probably get away with thumbs.

[time5kip]

This is a terrible moment for actual wrestling. Sticking with thumbs sounds good enough for me.

[malignstar]

Awesome! Let's go.

[ Holds out thumb ]

[time5kip]

[ He's giving his thumb a look before he just sighs and decides to go with it, time to wrestle ]

[malignstar]

I'll have you know, I'm a champion wrestler.

[ TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THUMB WRASSLING!!!! ]

[time5kip]

[ He's terrible at this so it's not going to take a whole lot of effort, he barely has any idea what to do and it's clear he's going through the motion for the point only ]

Good to hear you've been spending your time in such a productive way.

[malignstar]

Well, you got to find ways to keep yourself busy here.

[time5kip]

My plan was to just get drunk during down time, but that works just as well.

[malignstar]

Sounds expensive here. You'll have to do a lot of bonding to afford it.

[time5kip]

Maybe I'll propose a shared alcohol fund. It's not that hard to get piss drunk at thirteen, so that makes it cheaper.

[malignstar]

I don't know how Eliza would feel about me contributing to minor delinquency.

[time5kip]

I'm pretty sure you should have questioned the strangling proposal first if that was a worry.

[malignstar]

I wasn't an accessory yet.

[time5kip]

Fair enough.

I could beg you for sparks to get drunk and get a square out of it, but that's too low even for the sake of this game. But if it puts your mind at ease, I'm not actually thirteen.

[malignstar]

Now, I'm just confused.

[time5kip]

My body and consciousness' age don't match. Simple enough to understand. I've decided to get that out of the way as fast as possible, you know. To avoid people treating me like a goddamn baby.

[malignstar]

Something preventing you from aging?

[time5kip]

I haven't had the chance to test whether I can age again or not, actually.

But no, I traveled through time and had to project my consciousness to a quantum version of myself that exists across all possible timelines. I got the calculations wrong and this happened.