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Shimmer, Glimmer, & Gleam - A Quest of Loss & Gain

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Now this should be interesting. After this though, maybe save the other two gifts for later…
 
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Aftershocks 4: Glass Thumb New
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    • There was a fragment of potential in you, and it is now gone. You have two Gifts remaining.

    Your good health has downgraded to okay health, from blood loss.

    Life isn't a videogame...

    "What if it was a videogame?" you rasp. Is this just your voice now? No, focus on that later, maybe your throat just needs more time to heal. You stand, quickly, gesturing to shush Jill's reflexive response. "I have an idea. If it doesn't work, we'll just leave. But if it does work...maybe we have...flexibility, in our plans. You heard the recordings. High walls were the opposite of what the world needed..." You shake your head. "Stay right here."

    First things first: you need a backpack. After you grab the biggest one you can find, a beast of a thing with a metal frame (brought to you by Mountainview Hiking & Camping), you go tearing through the garden section, grabbing a little of every kind of seed you can find, along with some starter plants (tomatoes and strawberries, mainly), some tools, and a shitload of gardening books and magazines. These you bring to Jill and leave with her ("Find the ones native to this climate okay bye don't die -") before you look for a way onto the roof. There's some extremely long ladders that collapse into a more portable state, and you bring a pair of those out, but you're going to need soil, and steel, and glass, and -

    - You go into the storage area in the back and spot a forklift and a cherrypicker. It is here that you learn something vitally important which sends a little thrill of pride through you for reasons you do not understand: you are forklift certified. When did that happen? Why? Hell if you know, but this body understands how forklifts work and fucking loves driving them. You're not going to waste ethanol doing doughnuts...

    ...Okay one doughnut....

    And instead you get the back doors open, load an empty pallet onto the forklift, and stack it with soil, followed by a bucket of shattered glass that you sweep from the parking lot. After some thought, you grab a fire axe from the shelves and hack metal scraps from some of the cars in the parking lot, which you also add to the bucket. You work like something has possessed you, scurrying to and fro, often running past Jill with an absent greeting. The look on its face goes from confused, to bemused, to fascinated as an hour crawls by, hour and a half or so...

    A bit of your precious firewood will be necessary, to make the planter boxes with. Not much, but you don't have much. Say, three days' worth.

    A little less than two hours later, with multiple trips up via cherrypicker, you are up on the roof. Cigarette butts are everywhere, and only an unexplained need to not look...desperate...in front of Jill keeps you from trying to smoke some. Instead the two of you sweep a space clear, and hastily assemble about five planter boxes, which you then fill in with rich soil that you mix with the shattered glass and shredded metal. The largest receives a variety of tree seeds, while the others are dedicated to smaller fruits and vegetables, here very much to include a staggering number of beans. Jill is insistent there; without knowing when or where you'll find meat next, you're going to need protein, and you're going to need a lot of it.

    "So," Jill drawls, a faint note of awe in its voice, "what next?"

    "I'm not sure," you admit in a quiet, scratchy tone. You reach for that warmth over your heart, and are shocked when it turns searing nearly immediately. You cough, and slap your chest through your coat, which - oh, shit, your clothes, can't have those lighting on fire. You start peeling them away very quickly, and when Jill realizes what you're intending it turns around real fast.

    "I don't do that tantric stuff," Jill protests.

    "This isn't that," you answer, almost absently. Your eyes are on the boxes you've built. There, okay. Stripped to the waist. You take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Please pay attention, I'm...please keep me safe."

    You wait.

    And you wait.

    Jill finally turns around, bright red in the face, trying to keep eye contact. This fails, but when it sees the window to your heart it gasps. "Orchid, what -"

    "It's fine," you murmur.

    Okay. You need these to be like a videogame, an absurd bounty in the living world. Trees that bear fruit every day, plants that can be harvested every couple of days, something that still needs to be cared for, certainly, but without subjecting you or Jill to the knife of Time, which has neither pity nor mercy. Is this a big change? It feels like a big change, but when it comes to dreams your opinion is almost a kind of objective fact, isn't it?

    No time to fix that, though. You need to know if you're right.

    You touch the window over your heart and concentrate on that warmth. You focus, the way you were told to during the refraction, on what you want, what you need, and you become aware that you are surrounded by something that cannot be seen, cannot be felt, something that is not tangible and yet has shaped the influence of Domus since before humans discovered fire. The dreamscape...though if it's a medium, like seawater the voice that isn't like yours said, maybe the Dreaming Sea is a better name...

    There is an image in your mind of the beauty and bounty of your garden. There is something hot trickling out of your nose and eyes. There is an illusion made of wishes and light, a reflection of maybe and kind-of and wouldn't-it-be-nice. There is a tremor in your body. Jill is bouncing towards you, crying out in concern, and it says a name that is a hidden and beautiful flower with shock and concern in its voice.

    You take the reflection.

    And you cast the object.

    * * * *

    When you wake up, the stars are out. It's been hours. You're down near the fire, bundled up in a sleeping bag, and you feel Jill's hand gently resting in your hair, smoothing it, almost...petting you? Jill's humming something that you eventually recognize as the fight song of the Salt Bay Pirates, the local lacrosse team. Fucksake. You remember that but got nothing on why Jill didn't wanna look at you undressed? No? Nothing?

    "Fuck," you rasp, thickly. Your head is pounding. The lancing pain behind your eyes is entirely too familiar. Jill turns its head and favors you with a smile. "Diddit fuggin' work?" you slur, around this feeling in your throat like you've done nothing but swallow jelly for three days.

    In answer, Jill helps you sit up (you're still bundled in the sleeping bag, so the end effect is like a weird cartoon caterpillar), and points up at the roof, where trees of glass and aluminum, heavy with fruits, are swaying in the breeze.

    You have cashed in a Gift and received the Glass Thumb. You are forty-seven hours old.

    "You're insane," Jill murmurs, fondly.

    "How would I tell if I wasn't?" you blearily reply, but you can't keep the smile off your face. That's one immediate problem solved; if you can do this again, then all you and Jill need are some bug-out bags and you could make a new home anywhere, any time, even if you're trying to hold on to this one.

    But Jill's not wrong that there's mid-term needs to look into...

    Pick a plan of action
    [ ] Scavenging is going to be scarce sooner rather than later. Raid out into the city and look for useful items.
    [ ] Strike while the iron is hot; continue to modify and fortify your new home.
    [ ] Escape routes will be essential, and you have two fueled forklifts. Open a path out.
    [ ] There might be more survivors out there. You have a phone. Someone might just pick up if you make a call.
    [ ] Write-in?

    Look at the scope of the other options and try to match it for any theoretical write-in.
     
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    • Your first Gift, party people. I look forward to giving others. Remember: it stays with you (and has been added to the Butcher's Bill); this is a thing you can just do now.

    Next update when I get home from work.
     
    Well, that's interesting. Poor Orchid and not knowing anything useful aside from sports teams and god names… but hey, at least we now have a consistent source of food when we absolutely need it.

    [X] Scavenging is going to be scarce sooner rather than later. Raid out into the city and look for useful items.

    I want to see what's out there. Worst case scenario happens, we have our gun.
     
    [X] Scavenging is going to be scarce sooner rather than later. Raid out into the city and look for useful items.

    Fair enough on that front. If things go well, we can find other survivors and bring them to us if we can be diplomatic.

    Will we lose blood every time we make something grow, or was that just the activation/installation cost?
     
    ScorpioSting said:
    Will we lose blood every time we make something grow, or was that just the activation/installation cost?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It scales. A smaller change is less stressful, such as starting the plants growing with a bit of a boost. You ate this cost because you wanted them grown right now, in a state you could use, but if you have a spare month or even a spare season you might not even notice any cost of pulling this particular trick beyond craving some nicotine and maybe a good few minutes of sitting down.
     
    [x] Scavenging is going to be scarce sooner rather than later. Raid out into the city and look for useful items.

    The most dangerous time to scavenge would be immediately after the disaster, but that time has now passed. A day or so to let the most violent time pass, and for those who have been fighting to hopefully be spending time tending to their wounds now, means this is likely the best chance we'll have to find that small window where reward is high and risk is somewhat low.

    Fortifications will be quite important as well, but now is the time were we can find the other things we need to make this place more stable long term, and thus make fortifying potentially even easier.
     
    Oh party people we have some odd news. Got called off from my shift; the delivery for tonight's manufacturing hit a ditch. No injuries, praise fuckin' be, but that does mean I could update rather before 8 in the god damn morning.

    So...let's call it midnight EST.

    Incidentally if y'all know anyone who might be interested in our little party here I'm never averse to more guests. Diverse opinions make for fascinating conversation.
     
    Both Kermie and I would also highly recommend Bitterman's Quest "Project Prometheus". Great, funny, and interesting superhero management quest.

    E: also the link is in Kermie's signature, it's "Perhaps For Love, Or Maybe Justice". Zodiac Squadron, my quest, is in my sig as well.
     
    It occurs to me that if people with imagination and a talent for dream logic can gain power, then, logically, children would have a lot of... potential for using...

    is this Oneiromancy? Technically?

    Whatever Gifts are, that is.

    Obviously we're not going to be fielding child soldiers anytime soon but I say we keep an eye out for kids and teens. Or at the very least, short people given that we've lost skill with identifying people's outward traits from appearance.
     
    And look what time it is. This one goes out to the wanderers and the lost.
    Scheduled vote count started by Morrowlark on Dec 5, 2024 at 5:40 PM, finished with 17 posts and 4 votes.
    • [X] Scavenging is going to be scarce sooner rather than later. Raid out into the city and look for useful items.
      [X] Escape routes will be essential, and you have two fueled forklifts. Open a path out.
    Click to expand...
     
    Aftershocks 5: Into Salt Bay City New
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    • You take your shift while Jill sleeps, and find yourself watching it do so through the partly-open tent flap; it is unseasonably warm tonight, or so your hazy mind tells you, a 'mimic summer' such as you find in the belly of spring. Jill does not rest easily, but you find that it calms if you hum softly, and much of your shift awake is split between attending to the soup - it only needs stirring every half hour or so - and preparing bug-out bags with supplies of snacks, candies, seeds, gardening tools, little foil bundles of glass and metal, and soil, along with road flares, knives, spare clothes (long johns, mainly), socks, and medical supplies. Your first attempts to pack the backpacks are unbelievably sloppy, and over the six hours that Jill manages to sleep you pack, and re-pack, and re-pack, and swear at yourself, and desperately hum to soothe Jill back to sleep, and re-pack, and re-pack, and vainly pray to Clever Jossil (who watches over they who labor) for divine assistance in packing, and re-pack, and re-pack, and finally the backpacks are packed. Gods above. How is this a skill a person can be bad at?

    The sky is greying towards dawn when Jill stirs; you get it a bowl of soup without having to be asked, and show it something you managed to work out in the time period between finishing the packing and now; the huge pot you're using for the Eternal Soup can also be used as a sort of double boiler, and you've lashed a smaller pot of water to the rim, into which you have placed coffee bundled into a filter. Which means, in turn, that it's the coffee that woke Jill up, not that it is complaining even a little about this state of affairs. You vaguely remember that caffeine is also addictive and resolve to ask Jill what the fuck makes coffee acceptable if tobacco isn't. For now, the two of you drink it black and out of thick metal-and-leather cups from camping kits.

    "I've been thinking," you tell it. "You're right about people picking over the ruins. I'd like to get there first, beat the rush, get some things we might need and can store for awhile. If..." you change tack rather than try to save that sentence. "I hope the farms outside the city might be okay. If they are, and we can survive the initial chaos, maybe we can get milk and stuff from them. But in the meantime we need calcium and I don't know how to get it except vitamin supplements."

    Jill makes a Face. "Scams, the lot of 'em...but the do have vitamins in them. We could make it a decent distance just cutting up prenatal vitamins, honestly. So a drug store, probably, if it hasn't been picked clean by people looking for medicine."

    "Are vitamins medicine?"

    "...You might have a point there."

    "And," you add primly, "drug stores have more candy, snacks, soap, foil, cigarettes, and -"

    "Really?"

    You try to give it a plaintive look. Evidently you succeed...or Jill is noticing the way your hands are trembling. Or your face is showing your need, not that you'd know. You don't even really know what you look like, outside of 'auburn hair' and 'short' and a skin tone your mind describes as 'olive' only to get confused because aren't olives green, so why is this olive -

    In any event.

    "I could go," Jill offers, but you shake your head. "Well why not?" More defensive now. Irritated. "You just hurt yourself, lass, I'm fine, if you hadn't noticed."

    You blink, owlishly. "...What's a lass?"

    "It's - answer the question!"

    You hold up your gun and blink again, and you wait, patiently. It's the waiting that does it; Jill sighs with a huff and a slump of its shoulders. "Fine," Jill concedes. "But in and out fast, okay? If you can help survivors, more power to you...I won't even pretend it's partly 'cause more people can carry more things back, but fast. There's monsters out there, and...I'll be worrying." It scowls. "Worrying and having to set alarms to get up and do the soup."

    "...Sorry."

    "No y'ain't."

    It's best to pack light. You re-use that monstrous hiking backpack, and from the metal frame you dangle the fire axe, some road flares, and three speedloaders, which is all three of the speedloaders that were in this building. They might be the difference between life and death. Into your many pockets go various granola bars, candies, baggies of potato chips & trail mix, and some basic medical supplies. After a moment's discussion, you reluctantly add a crowbar and binoculars to your load, and Jill points you off in the right direction. This would have been a five minute drive, so you're gonna be walking about an hour to the closest drug store. Freeways.

    "Hey," you ask as you're leaving. "How do you keep the statues from spotting you?"

    "Spotting...wait. You said...that this Nicole person was talking to you," Jill says slowly, like it's feeling the idea out.

    "...Yes?"

    "...Orchid, flower, they don't do that to me. I don't have advice to give ya."

    Oh.

    Well fuck you then.

    The freeway is mostly quiet, thankfully. It seems that almost anyone who turned into a statue behind the wheel immediately stopped being a statue when their car crashed and their bodies were shattered. Those vehicles and the asphalt around them are portraits of dried blood and fragments of glass in chunky, sharp crystals. This in turn means the cars are safe to stick near, giving you a semblance of concealment since most of them are taller than you are. Despite your preferences, though, there is not enough shade and not enough clouds to justify keeping your hat and mask on in this heat; you stuff both into a pocket and keep going.

    The irregular chatter of gunfire through the city has died down considerably. Every so often there's the bark of shots, but nothing like your first couple of nights. Still, nameless instinct encourages you to keep on the move, keep low, and try not to think about how many windows have an elevation advantage on you. A sniper doesn't have to be good to kill you, if it's feeling malevolent...

    You shake your head. No one has a reason to waste ammunition on you. Right?

    Thankfully the drug store is right off the exit, along with many other businesses; this is a "freeway drag", Jill had said, a chunk of the city that preys on people who try to drive through but need to pull off in order to get food or groceries or supplies or medicine. Other businesses, like optometrists and therapists (there's no less than four proud psych clinics in eyeline from here) or phone repairmen, they cluster there because locals are already going in for groceries and such, and thus the false prophecy of a business district is fulfilled. The thought quirks a little smile to your lips; they, too, took a reflection and cast the object. Just, you know, by hand.

    The supermarket is a half-mile east, and rejoices in the name Bayview. Jill had cautioned that the risk of running into other scavengers there would be higher, and those folks might be going a little mad with greed or desperation or both, so maybe avoid it. Your selected destination is Sorrow & Sons Medicine, an international chain that hasn't belonged to the Sorrows in, oh, ninety years. You approach, noticing with some confusion that the place has stained glass windows, the fuck -

    The doors are locked. And also filled with stained glass. That's very much not correct. No business like this would cut off the view from the outside, or prevent people from seeing other customers on their way in or out so as to prevent accidents. You thumb the fire axe...

    Lose 1
    [ ] Your silence
    [ ] Your access to this store specifically
    [ ] Some time
    [ ] One Gift

    You have 20 .45 rounds, 15 of them in speedloaders. You are 57 hours old.
     
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    • Alright party people, our first expedition outside of our new home. Don't you hate it when you move to a new town and you have to figure out where everything is on foot?

    Thanks for reading and participating; feedback & discussion remain eternally welcome. Next dance provisionally near 8 AM EST, but don't quote me in a court of law.
     
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