[X] (
Timing) "... Now." (Lock yourself, Helen, and Eira in the apartment and Internet for two days solid to get stuff shipped to you.)
[X] ("
In the Meanwhile…") "... We're going to start organizing your group to get things going quickly."
"..." You pause before finishing the sentence, reaching to Helen and Eira telepathically. "
... Guys. I think we'll be well-served cheating this.Two days in the apartment to get everything shipped."
"
... You're right, as annoying as I find that," Helen responds. "
If only we could step out of this world's timestream in a larger space."
"
Maybe we can ask a goddess or two a favor after we've saved the region?", Eira can't help but respond. "
I mean, I don't know what Solaria's like, but…"
"
We can talk shop later," you finish, before, aloud: "... Now. You two, into the tent. And the rest of you… Be ready in a couple minutes for our first idea. I think you'll like it, actually, once you think it through."
Before the Kobolds can muster up a full answer - or, more logically, further questions - you're in the tent. Then the door's there. Then Helen and Eira are through, then you. The door closes, and you sigh.
Helen pauses. "That was a bit hasty, but I can't say it was a bad call."
"Other than the questions it raises," Eira responded.
You pause. "... I think I can market it on some truthful bullshitting. 'I am empowered by resources beyond this world', 'The blessing of a divinity empowers me', stuff like that. Technically accurate but worded so they interpret it conveniently."
Helen purses her lips a bit. "... Mind, I'd like to ask we not pull this particular trick
too often. Sitting around for…" She glances at a clock. "... Almost fourty-eight hours doesn't exactly feel great."
You nod. "I guess it's a bit easier for me; even a decade removed, I'm used to enjoying home isolated for a while."
Eira pauses. "... Yeah. That's something I've been thinking about a bit, actually. Like… In the village, I wasn't exactly going everywhere all the time, but… I still depended on people a lot to do stuff. I still needed to head out a lot. From what I've heard… It sounds like you, and a lot of others, would go days without leaving their places. Is that right?"
You nod. "Yeah. We worked remotely, we lived remotely… A lot of people might dish on that as inherently a bad thing, but if I'm honest, I wouldn't agree. The world beyond the screen was… A lot bigger than we can easily get to in the cities. Even just a couple miles out - which is how far you'd need to go to reach much of commerce or interesting stuff - could require quite a lot of preparation. It wasn't like the tavern was two minutes' walk from home like it was in the village."
"... That sounds like the cities were practically
built to keep people alone."
You pause. "... Maybe."
Helen nods. "It's a known thing that was common under the 20th and early 21st century patterns on Earth. By the latter end of the period, social pressure against it was becoming a thing - even just a few businesses slipped in amongst a residential district helped it be livelier. By the timeframe of starships where I'm from, there was a lot of emphasis on integrated districts where a majority of people could fulfill the basics of their life within a short period's walk. Weirdly, there was opposition to this and most who were opposed couldn't explain why."
You pause. "... I'd suspect a lot of that would be corporate astroturfing - fake grassroots," you quickly summarize for Eira, before continuing, "- intended to preserve dependence on cars. There's a lot of other components to the issue, though, some genuine. I'm glad things got better, but…"
Helen shrugged. "Urban planning, when we're not talking Cityships or the likes of the Transmission series that have to handle theoretically-indefinite-length self-supplied missions, still doesn't entirely reach the whole ideal of the 15-minute city. Not every district can power every single type of specialty store someone might ever want, for example, and specific brands like only having one store in a city as a cultural-cachet thing. Good mass transit covers around ninety-eight percent of that gap in most regions, though."
"... Huh. So a lot of people can live almost entirely carless, then?"
Helen paused. "... I'd, uh, need to check statistics I don't have access to, but we're not entirely away from independent motorized vehicles, no. Businesses that need to transit goods is the most common base, cars as a hobby are still fairly popular among enthusiasts, and in low-development regions, a hardened vehicle and a dirt road is a
lot cheaper and lower-impact than trains, for example."
Eira pauses. "... Motorized vehicles being, like, carts and such, but with some technology replacing draft animals?"
"And people who very, very aggressively modify them for looks," you elaborate. "... Sometimes terrifyingly aggressively."
Helen nods. "That much hasn't changed. Cars are easier to get a license for than anything that deals directly in three dimensions, because there's typically much, much less bonkers stuff you can get up to in one."
You nod. "And I'm sure that the scale of 'bonkers' has only gone up when space travel became common."
"Correct," Helen responds. "I, well, never did get my certification for manual docking on traditional spacedock platforms."
You pause. "... That would be a terrifying task, even from what I know about space physics. Which isn't much."
Helen nods. "Two thousand hours in a simulator,
solely on docking, mandatory. On top of your general certifications and everything else. And even most with that cert trust the autodock in most situations."
Eira pauses. "Like, golem-assisted putting stuff into place?"
"Close enough," Helen responds.
You pause. "... But yeah. I guess you two would be kinda new to the Locked At Home For Two Days thing. I think technically you could just step out and lemme do this alone, but…"
Helen shakes her head. "Better to put this to use reading things. I have the book, for one."
"Your blessing on technological evolution?"
"Yes."
Eira pauses. "... Eh. I'll try to figure
something out."
"Right. So… Downtime it is, then."
---
Rather than a standard vote, I'm going to ask for two things:
1) Ideas for a couple scenes that might be interesting to vignette in over the next two (Earthside, in-story) days.
2) Ideas for selections for
Senaz, Helen, and Eira's Promotion to Level 2! Because I forgot to record the 67 XP each of the party got off of besting Torgo for a couple posts... Whoops.
For now, I'm looking for ideas. A vote phase to lock in selections will then come separately alongside the vignettes.
Multiclassing is potentially on the table, ideas may be nixed by characters or the QM, and don't forget about each of the three having
particular advantages to exploit!
Optionally, you may ask for an
Interlude about a character whose presence is known but isn't immediately on screen, to learn more about this world and those around it!
--
In other business…
I need to go through the Threadmarks and revise them, so that it's Arc.Chapter.Post - so all of the Prologue arc as 0.1.x, Arc 1 so far as 1.1.x, you get the idea. (Arc 1 Chapter 2 will begin after the rest ends.)
This scene kinda got away from me, but I'm pleased to remind that a core thing with Helen's previous verse, is it's Early Trek But With Mecha. It runs firmly on the Hopeful And Idealistic end of the spectrum, albeit with more complex technobabble than the norm.
Also,
with due warnings, I'd like to give a shout-out to a Talia quest that has just begun - Children's Crusade, a post-apocalyptic mecha tale.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-childrens-crusade-a-postapocalyptic-mecha-quest.126094/
(Seriously,
check the content warnings. I know a bit about this one and
hoo boy.)
