[OPEN] RV Park Party

[eirs]

WHO: Any and all OUTSIDER personnel that wants in and their respective campervan companions. Or maybe you wandered out away from your group and found this commune.
WHAT: The gang parking together at night to swap information about the things they've found in their investigations, night watches around a fire, ghost stories......? General tomfoolery in the desert where there's no one else for miles. Cooking their hunts in successes and mishaps?
WHERE: The Mojave Desert
WHEN: Mid to Late May
WARNINGS: Will be updated or tagged in the thread as needed!

Comments

[penaltypoints]

[ These are much better circumstances than their last conversation, no alcohol or tears in sight. Yesod glances over at Marcille as she speaks, pensive. ]

...Light pollution tends to be the issue, in a city.

[ Factory smoke as well. He can't recall a sky like this, not even from his first life, but he tilts his head back to study it now. It stretches on overhead, dotted with its own glimmering lights. ]

You were able to see stars as bright as these in your world?

[picky]

Light pollution?

[ Should she google it? She turns her head to look up at Yesod. ]

I was. I lived near the countryside where there were a lot of hills. If you stood at the top of a big one, it felt like the stars were all around you.

i'm sorry to subject marcille to this.....

[penaltypoints]

[ He tries to picture what she describes, a wholly unfamiliar landscape. An open space, then, no buildings or man-made lighting there to obstruct the view. ]

Light pollution is a phenomenon caused by the excessive use of artificial light outdoors, which disrupts natural light levels. This over-illumination interferes with the visibility of the stars, for example. Conversely, your home must have been free of such obstacles to viewing the night sky.

[ Climbing a hill to be engulfed by that sky sounds like an experience that would leave a lasting impression. ]

thank god she's smart

[picky]

[ She does squint her eyes a little initially, but she mostly picks up on what he says. It isn't too abstract. If he added newer technologies or scientific discoveries into the mix, she would have absolutely no clue what he was saying. ]

Natural light levels... [ That's one of the few confusing parts. ] So if you're in a place that's too bright and uses, um... lightbulbs, it makes it more difficult to see the stars. Is that right?

[penaltypoints]

[ Mild surprise crosses his features — choosing to discuss this topic further is unexpected, since he doubts that it's especially exciting. It also interferes with viewing the stars currently perfectly visible, after all. Still, he nods in confirmation soon enough. ]

Yes, that is correct. I'm unaccustomed to a clear sky like this myself.

[picky]

You are?

[ She sits up, bends her knees, and folds her arms over them. The stars can wait, apparently. ]

Were you from a place with a lot of light pollution then? A city?

[penaltypoints]

[ Once again, Yesod pauses to consider how he should approach his answer so as not to contradict anything that his coworkers might already have said or might say sooner or later. Preferably, he'll avoid causing that sort of confusion... ]

...I was. That said, prior to arriving in this world, I spent my days indoors.

[picky]

Really?

[ That's not good for you, she wants to say, but. She was also indoors for a while. She also should try to have context for these sorts of things. ]

What were you there for?

[penaltypoints]

...Simply to carry out the work expected of us.

[ That might be the best way to summarize it, without elaborating on the nature of that work at length. Which would be even less pleasant than light pollution...

And he regrets that somewhat as it is, considering that her initial remarks were quite a poetic comparison, appreciating a peaceful night while it lasts. ]

However, there are a few others here who came from the same City. They should be able to corroborate the extent of the issue, if you are curious.

[picky]

Oh...

[ It doesn't take her long to guess, since Yesod's prior answer reminds her enough of Netzach. ]

Do you know Netzach, Malkuth, and Ishmael?

[penaltypoints]

[ If she has spoken with Netzach and Malkuth, he wonders what she knows — beyond any general overview of the City, that is. He regards her in contemplation. ]

...Netzach and Malkuth are colleagues of mine, whereas Ishmael and I met here only recently. I take it that they have told you of our City?

[picky]

I heard a little.

[ And am still hearing more from Netzach in another thread, screams. But we're working with what we have. ]

Are you... like Netzach? Or Malkuth?

[ Robot or human (supposedly)? ]

[penaltypoints]

[ Yesod, meanwhile, perceives yet another conundrum to handle with the utmost care. For Netzach, they are all AIs, machines. For Malkuth, in the future that she has experienced, they are no different from her, beings who have human bodies once more.

Yesod's description of himself at this point in time would fall somewhere between the two. He remembers his former life as a human, a distant past unlocked not long ago; his memories as a so-called AI are still fresh. ]

I am using a cloaking device, like Netzach. If you've seen his true form, there are a number of outward design differences between us.

[picky]

[ Marcille instantly recalls it, a jarring piece of her memory: a machine lying on its side, his flashing green eye jutting out of the side of his head, his stick limbs, his name in neon in the middle of his "forehead."

She refuses to call him "it," though. That's Netzach. And Yesod is the same? ]

He did. I don't come from a place that has anything like you two.

[ But some part of her is still curious, trying to fathom what she sees. ]

Can I see what you look like? If you're okay with it.

[penaltypoints]

...That is for the best.

[ To come from a place that isn't the City, especially if the possibility of people dying weighs on her. To come from a world where she has the freedom to stand atop hills and admire a star-filled sky.

Of course, he and his colleagues are what they are — what they were and what they will be — for a specific purpose. He could tell her that this avatar is his first incarnation's appearance, but Netzach has no knowledge of any of that, restricted to his current understanding of their existence.

After a moment, as there should be no consequences to revealing his mechanical form out here, Yesod deactivates his cloaking device. Near Marcille now, a purple box-shaped robot wrapped in darker strips gazes at her with his glowing eye. Where Netzach's design gives him a permanent slouch, Yesod's reflects his stiffer posture. ]

[picky]

[ Marcille's experience with Netzach gave her a little bit of preparation for this reveal, at least. Her shoulders squeeze and she holds her breath for what's coming—and it's just as jarring to see this robot blip into view where a man once was. Her shoulders squeeze tighter and her eyes dart around, trying to process every inch of this inorganic box that's staring right back at her, forming sentient thought behind its metal exterior. ]

Y-... Yesod?

[ She asks like he had somehow changed underneath there. She just wants confirmation that it's still him. ]

[penaltypoints]

[ He can imagine that the switch from man to machine is particularly odd and unsettling to witness, even if Marcille has experienced it at least once before. It's different, certainly, from the robots that exist in this world.

And yet, though the tension in Marcille's posture is discernible, she chose to make the request to see this form of his herself, and she looks him over, taking in the entire sight. He waits to let her do so, and he answers, the quality of his voice slightly altered then, much like she would have heard while Netzach's cloaking device was deactivated as well. ]

I'll reactivate the cloaking shortly.

[ And with that, Yesod's avatar conceals his metal frame once more. He remains the same person. ]

[picky]

[ she hears it—the tinny, mechanical undertone in his voice, but also the timbre of it that's unmistakably his. she absently touches her fingers over her mouth before the cloaking switches again, and suddenly he looks as she remembers him. ]

You and Netzach really do look different from each other.

[ she hesitates before offering her hand. ]

So if I try touching your hand, will I feel metal? Or are you corporeal too while you have this turned on?

[penaltypoints]

Our other colleagues also had unique designs.

[ Aspects of which resembled features that the humans they once were possessed, he supposes, such as the color of their hair or an accessory like Malkuth's red headband.

At Marcille's question, following a brief pause, Yesod extends his hand in kind, palm open and upturned. Like this, it's an ordinary human hand in appearance — and its skin looks unmarred, despite the visions and the memories that he recalls. ]

I believe that the technology utilized allows us to appear physically human even to the touch.

[ But he isn't sure whether that goes as far as the illusion of warmth or a pulse and the like, as long as anyone interacting with them perceives these things as present. ]

[picky]

[ she carefully presses her fingertips on his hand before placing hers on it fully. ]

Oh... Yeah, it's like any other hand. How does it feel?

[penaltypoints]

[ Staying still, Yesod watches Marcille's fingers as they near his palm and connect with its surface before her hand comes to rest on his. All of this must be strange, after seeing the truth behind the cloaking, hearing robots speak without a mouth. Without their avatars, their arms end in three-fingered grippers.

Yet Marcille has only expressed understandable curiosity. ]

...My sensors interpret the contact as changes in pressure and temperature.

[ It's something muted compared to human senses, he thinks. He splays his fingers a little, able to move all of them as though this is his body nonetheless. ]

That confirms what others feel, then.