[Jaunt] Check-in

[shiroganeheir]

[Naoto's mental voice is higher than usual, and definitely worried.]

Can someone please tell me what's going on? I seem to be stuck in a compact. Again. If someone could help find me, that would be greatly appreciated.

[She coughs and composes herself.]

At any rate, those of us who are Investigating should likely check in. Please let us know who is here, and any information you might have. For those who are new... welcome to your first Jaunt.

[Another pause.]

Oh. And I am Naoto Shirogane, usually small with a blue hat, but sometimes larger. Or a rock. Or a cat person. It is complicated.... but I always have my hat.

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

And depending on the situation, it may not translate directly.

[vrepit_no]

Exactly. Had some experience with alien languages before?

[leftbehindagain]

Only on a couple of jaunts, but yes. Hecatite swearing tends to link to structural damage, which given that they're made of rock makes sense. I'd be hard-pressed to translate Gorgon swearing into Japanese or English, though, even if I remembered more of it.

[vrepit_no]

Can't say I've run into any of those before, but it doesn't surprise me. Ever heard of Altea or a Balmara?

[leftbehindagain]

They don't sound familiar, no.

[vrepit_no]

Good to know. Must be a different universe, then, or a distant part of it. How about Earth?

[leftbehindagain]

Earth's definitely part of the Questing Country-slash-Junkworld universe. Outside of jaunts, that's where a lot of us are from.

[vrepit_no]

Ah! Good, then at least people will know a little about what I'm talking about. Junkworld and questing country don't sound familiar to me, unfortunately.

[leftbehindagain]

Those were a pair of jaunts that turned out to be connected, sort of. But yes, most people will at least have a common starting point, or have heard enough by now to smile and nod.

[vrepit_no]

Any chance this one is connected to anything people know about from before?

[leftbehindagain]

...I'd call it slim. There's at least some kind of record of everything that people remember, and I don't recall hearing about anything like this before.

[Of course, that doesn't rule out pre-Moebius shenanigans, but the only way to be sure about that is watch for veterans having weird flashbacks or infiltrators who know too much about them.]

[vrepit_no]

That would have been too easy. This looks like it could be Earth, but either way before or way after my time. We're usually a little less... brightly colored.

[leftbehindagain]

Sometime in the 1990s. I can't get a good bead on whether it's before I was actually born or not.

[vrepit_no]

Before me, then. And I'm pretty sure we didn't have actual little non-human creatures running around like this on my Earth. Pretty sure it would have been in the history books. All right. How do we usually go about this, then? Figuring out the objective?

[leftbehindagain]

Usually? Faffing about until we stumble into something that looks like a purpose and hoping everything's not on fire by that point. If we ever figure out the purpose at all. [He still isn't sure what the point of Nova Venezia was.]

[vrepit_no]

[......]

[vrepit_no]

Okay, we're going to need a plan of attack. Who's in charge?

[leftbehindagain]

Unfortunately, that's another good question. Between infiltrating and group dynamics, it's next to impossible to appoint a full-time leader of any sort, and this time we don't need nearly as unified a backstory as the investigators did last time. Planning tends to come down to 'who does the thing first' and 'who happens to find the information.'

It's also difficult to make a good plan of attack this early on. We know there's a tournament, and based on the pattern of past jaunts it's unlikely that's what we're actually here for, or it wouldn't be so early on. On the other hand, that makes the tournament a good way to try to find out what is at the heart of this.

[whydoyoushine]

Hey, if we're talking people being in charge, I nominate myself.

[vrepit_no]

How many jaunts have you been on?

[whydoyoushine]

Hell if I know, I haven't counted. But I've been here well over a year, and I'm used to being in charge of stuff, that counts for something.

[vrepit_no]

Sure. Any success? It's not going to be easy herding Travelers, I'm guessing.

[whydoyoushine]

I think I do alright.

And nah, it never is.

[Mostly because he is included with the Travelers and won't listen to anyone but Zoe.]

[lunchleader]

Don't make him leader! He sucks and is a jerk and the last time he got put in charge of any big group, he took all the money and ran with it.

[whydoyoushine]

Hey, in my defense, that was an infiltration. I wasn't myself!

[Granted, he thought this was all absolutely hilarious when he was back to himself and is kind of proud of it...]