into each breaking wave

[thisaroma]

[ Well, that was — no pun intended — unfortunate. ...But in light of what they already saw happen the first two weeks, maybe it's not really that surprising, either; and maybe it's at least a little easier to recognize when something is going to be a lost cause, if not necessarily to accept it.

In spite of everything, this is the first time Decus has been in a halfway decent mood after a trial, which he can gather is... probably not the case for most of the rest. So he figures he can take on the party host duties for this week rather than push it onto someone who needs a break. Anyway, he wants to keep up this feeling-okay thing for as long as he can, and if he has too much downtime and starts to think about what happened a week ago today... he might end up a little less okay.

So, he brings some food down to the buffet from the cafes for a little variety (even though most of them probably aren't going to be too picky at this point), along with some tea and cocoa from Starbucks and a few harder options from the bar, and gets that all set up in as welcoming an arrangement as he can manage. And...

Well. Despite how he may come off sometimes, he actually is self-aware enough to realize that some of the others might not appreciate being reminded that he's still alive when three people who'd never had any intention of killing are dead. It doesn't really bother him, but he doesn't want to create unnecessary drama, either; so he doesn't put his name anywhere on the invitations he puts up around the place, just a simple:

food and drinks at the buffet

...Which is almost always the case, technically, this past week excluded, but hey.

And while he might come by to offer a drink or something to someone who looks like they need it, he's mostly going to hang back and let everyone do their thing. ]

Comments

[queceracera]

[a fun fact about me is that i, r, was a local ddr champion for most of high school. the entire ddr 3 song list is just. burned in my brain.]

Yeah! There's definitely a learning curve to games like this. I didn't realize this was in here, otherwise I probably would have played some. [In his defense, he has mostly been trying to play the Plot Game that's also in this arcade.] I was looking for other stuff the last time I was in here.

[scythegun]

[oh my god that is so cool???? congrats!!!]

Oh? That game you mentioned, ja?

[At the meeting! He definitely remembered it unlike me, who forgot about it until just now.]

Would you mind showing me how it works? I don't have much skill with most of these games.

[queceracera]

Yeah, it's that one over there. [He hops off the DDR machine and points to a game cabinet kind of tucked into the back.] It's weird, because I can't finish it? Like it's not working right, not that I suck at it.

[It's a pretty easy game, for Scott at least.]

[scythegun]

What do you mean by that? Is the machine itself broken?

[C'mon, let's go check it out!!]

[queceracera]

Kind of? It's...

[How to explain this to someone who doesn't understand technology in the innate way Scott does?]

Imagine, like, you're running an obstacle course but there's an invisible wall you can't pass. There's an invisible wall in the game that means I can't go past a certain point.

[He absently starts up the game as they reach it.]

[scythegun]

Oh, but it isn't because of anything wrong with the machine, or anything that you would have a problem with in the game normally?

[You don't need to git gud, you're just literally unable to continue for some reason.]

[queceracera]

Yeah, you reach the end of the third level and it just throws you back to the starting screen. Which I guess could be some kind of bug in the game, but it feels ... I dunno. Magic?

[He's kind of just playing the game as he talks. He's played it enough it doesn't take a lot of concentration.]

[scythegun]

[Yeager watches all of this carefully, nodding a bit to himself as the pieces click into place. All of this checks out with what we've learned so far...]

It would seem that it's the limit of what we know so far, at least. Magic certainly could be an explanation for why it stops working. It does seem that they were successful at releasing the sea goddess since Cutler Beckett did die... and Mr. Jones mentioned to me that someone else was to take over his job, only they were ill prepared for it and he had to return.

[But the game doesn't go that far, so there's no more information about it from here. Hmm, curious.]

[queceracera]

[Scott nods.]

It feels like it's been messed with. Usually when it's something wrong with the game, the screen will get all messed up or the machine will make a bad noise - like you know something went wrong. This is like the game gently telling me "nah, you can't do that."

[scythegun]

Perhaps once we've found more it will let you progress?

[this sounds like a video game puzzle.........]

[queceracera]

........ I should have probably asked Calypso about this at the seance.

[He absolutely just shut up during the seance because, well. Scott's stupid and he knows it! Other people probably had that on lock, as far as he was concerned.]

[scythegun]

I wonder if we can find some other way to reach her... She said that method wouldn't work again, but considering that the Captain never mentioned it... I think it's likely Mr. Jones was the one responsible for stopping it, ja? If we could find another way to get in contact with her, we could learn more. But we really do need to be careful - I don't think it's wise to let the Captain know of her presence.

[queceracera]

It's too bad I can't access subspace. [He's mentioned this once before but, uh. He didn't really explain this:] Normally people who can access subspace can also kind of, uh. Dreamshare? Ramona's better at it than I am, but I've also never really tried. Didn't need to.

[scythegun]

[bless you, scott, you've learned!!]

So it's likely something that's blocked here... I imagine this would be much easier if everyone had their powers back.

[Though then again would we have even lasted this long if everyone could just kill with their powers on??]