August 2023 Test Drive Meme

[singmod]

AUGUST 2023 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A group of newcomers find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter.

PROMPT TWO — HOPE NOBODY NEEDS THIS ANYMORE: Once recovered from their journey, newcomers are free to explore the town of Milton for supplies and find any signs of the townsfolk.

PROMPT THREE — THE SIREN OF MILTON BASIN: A mysterious woman haunts the frozen lake of the Milton Basin, trying to lure newcomers to their deaths.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Day One.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

’You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.’

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. You look around, it seems like no one has been here in several days, maybe longer. The fire is cold, the dishes in the sink are a little mouldy. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you. Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

But it won’t be long until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire.

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. As you head into the outskirts and further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up. Other than those heading in the same direction, towards the smoke, you won’t find any townsfolk coming to greet you, or even looking at you from behind curtains. … Where is everyone?

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the smoke rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“It seems like a great deal of you have come.” he muses finally. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. Please, warm yourselves. Eat. Get your bearings. Mother Nature has not been kind to you.”

The room is dim, lit mostly by the weak natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful…. and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold or any injuries. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long, foldable tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas and coffee, along with soup and stew and trays of charred moose, deer and rabbit meats, instant mashed potatoes, and tinned vegetables. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast. The old man has been busy. And Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames. He is troubled, thoughtful.

If you ask him where you are, he will simply respond: “This is Milton, of the Northern Territories.”

If you ask how you came to be here, he will shake his head: “Something has changed. The sky, it was… full of light. The Flare. I felt you coming, a great arrival. But I cannot say for certain how, or why you are here.”

He is regretful, genuinely so. He wishes he had more answers for you, but he does not. Instead he will simply insist you rest, get warm and eat. There is plenty to go around. Eventually, when you feel well enough, Methuselah will gesture to the door: “When you are ready and able, explore the town. Many left, others could not make it out. I have found no one but the dead. They will have no use of the place now, perhaps you might in the meantime.”

HOPE NOBODY NEEDS THIS ANYMORE

WHEN: First couple of weeks since arrival.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: frozen dead bodies, unexplained deaths, suicide, murder.

Other than Methuselah in the Hall, the town of Milton is void of life. While not a particularly large town, there’s a few stores and even a gas station. Life here is rustic. Function over form. Homes are simple but sturdy and warm, it’s a rugged place and one can easily deduce that the folk living here led simple, self-sufficient lives.

Commercial buildings and stores of note include a bank and post office, a hunting/fishing supply store, a grocery store, and a clothing store. There is even a church just on the outskirts of town. The buildings are ripe for picking, with most of them still with the doors unlocked, including the residential buildings. Others are locked, but can be broken into easily enough. A few are even trickier, with some of them boarded up or with entrances blocked. In terms of contents, a third of the residential buildings seem to be almost empty, as if the owners moved out long ago. There might still be things left behind of use: old, warm clothes good for the wintery weather, tools and cooking utensils — but little in terms of food. Even if the former residents move some time ago, they didn’t completely empty their homes.


Most of the homes in Milton seem to be left as if the owner stepped out only a short while ago, and with very little disturbance. Some houses, however, seem to be abandoned in a hurry, with a mess of items strewn about in some last-minute dash to grab essentials: keys, identification, treasured personal items, supplies for a quick exit. Cupboards are typically filled with an abundance of canned goods, and some chilled goods might have survived in the cold weather within the fridge-freezers, but it might be a gamble if one wants to try and eat them. Any and all electronics within homes: televisions, computers, mobile-phones — although dated, will all appear cracked and damaged, and will not function or turn out at all. The same will go for any vehicles around the town: there is no hope of starting any of them.

Diaries and journals kept by the former residents may remark on a change in the weather, with the cold and harsh climate becoming more hostile as of late. Others remark strange lights in the skies, dating several weeks or so ago, strange noises in the air, issues with power and electrical items. Some make mentions of changes to the wildlife, with wolves coming close to the town even when they had never done so before. One or two mention problems on the Mainland, with increasing difficulty of reaching out to loved ones who don’t live in the Northern Territories, or deliveries being unable to arrive. The growing trend is that something odd and terrible has been happening, although no one can truly explain what, and the problems have been growing increasingly worse and worse up to the final entries. You might note that the actual years and dates might not line up with your own: the current year given in these entries is 2014.

The newcomers are free to take over these homes, if they wish. No one appears to be stopping them, and even Methuselah seems to shrug about moving in. And as he’d mentioned, he has found no one but the dead: and plenty of them can be found.

Bodies of the town’s former residence can be found scattered over the town. In homes, in stores, out in the snow. They appear still relatively fresh, although it may be hard to tell if it’s from the cold or if it’s from very little time passing. Most appear to have died from cold exposure, some appear to have simply dropped dead on the spot. Others may be found with a gun in hand. Some, worryingly, appear to have perished by another’s hand. You won’t find the entirety of the town’s population, but there’ll be at least several dozen. Men, women, children.

Methuselah seems to have begun laying the dead to rest, but there’s too many for one man to do. Maybe you can work out what to do with them, try to bury them in their backyards, or try to take them to the churchyard.

THE SIREN OF MILTON BASIN

WHEN: Until the next Aurora.
WHERE: Milton Basin.
CONTENT WARNINGS: mental manipulation, malevolent mythical creatures, falling through ice, attempted drowning/possible successful drowning, potential character death.


Those who venture further south of the town will find themselves traversing the steep, winding paths down towards the Milton Basin. The way down is treacherous, but if enough care is taken you should be able to make it down in one piece. The water is just about completely frozen over down here, thick and sturdy enough to walk over for the most part. Within the Basin there’s more wildlife to be found: deer and rabbit are plenty. And there’s even plenty of foragables, too.

Out on the water are two small ice-fishing cabins, enough to fit one or two people inside comfortably, which hold a few forgotten supplies to try out some ice-fishing if you want to see if anything bites. Both even hold little log burners to keep warm. An old hunter’s shack can be found along the water’s edge, for those not quite brave enough to travel out onto the ice, to take shelter in for when the weather gets a little too difficult, with an old log burner still working within it.

But it’s calm down here, for the most part. Peaceful even. It’s an excellent place for fishing and hunting, and a little more sheltered from the freezing winds.

Until you hear the voice. Something soft and feminine, echoing across the ice. The Basin helps to amplify the sound, and for a long time you can’t quite be sure of where exactly it’s coming from. It’s singing, she is singing. Something old, in a language you can’t quite understand. Maybe it’s not even a language at all, but simply melodic vocalizations. It’s... beautiful, you’ve never heard anything like it before in your life.

And then you see her: a woman standing upon the frozen waters of the Basin. You realise she’s probably the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen in your life, even if you can’t quite even begin to describe her. She appears different to everyone who beholds her, some one might see her hair is long and dark, others might see her with neat red curls. Some swear her skin is dark and rich, that looks almost plum when the light hits it just so, others claim it to be cool-toned that glistens like sunlight on snow. Whatever someone might find aesthetically pleasing is how she’ll appear, and even then to describe her to others will bring you at a loss for words. And she’s singing… to you, for you.

You’re compelled to go to her, although you can’t explain why. You’re drawn to approach her, to hear her better, see her better. Your feet carry you onto the ice, out into the midst of the Basin. You ignore the calls of everyone and anyone around you, fixated on the woman before you. She smiles when you’re close enough, beckons you a little closer.

… Then everything changes. Without warning, the woman leaps for you, her face contorting into something hideous, mouth opening to scream to reveal rows upon rows of tiny, needle-like teeth. She collides with you, and the force (paired with the slippery ice below you) is enough to send you off your feet. As you fall back, the ice cracks beneath you with an almighty sound, plunging you into the frigid depths below.

The woman fights to put you beneath the water’s surface, those needle-like teeth bared like some ferocious beast. She can be fought off easily enough, but she might just drown you before you’re able to. If you’re lucky, someone might be able to help pull you out. Tools or weapons made of iron or silver are especially harmful to her.

Once you’re pulled from the water, getting somewhere warm will be the utmost priority — otherwise the cold will kill you quicker than the woman would. The woman, you’ll find, will have vanished, and the ice where you’d fallen will have restored itself, as if it had never been broken at all.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

2. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

3. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being.

4. If asked how he knew that the Newcomers were arriving, he concedes that although it is a strange thing to know, it is much like how one knows a storm is coming.

HOPE NOBODY NEEDS THIS ANYMORE

1. Characters are welcome to take up residency in any of the homes of Milton. Methuselah will strongly advise characters to leave a huge, dilapidated house — known as Milton House — well alone, due to extensive fire damage.

2. More information about Milton can be found here.

THE SIREN OF MILTON BASIN

1. Characters with hearing impairments will not be susceptible to the Siren's song, or may only be somewhat susceptible depending, but may be entranced to a degree by looking at the Siren. However, this will be far easier to snap out of.

2. The Siren cannot be killed, only fought off. She will disappear for a length of time to recover before she attempts to lure her next victim.

Comments

din djarin | the mandalorian

[metaldad]

i. the feast

He wakes up sprawled in the snow, out in the open, and for a long moment, Din doesn't think there's anything unusual about that. He's woken up in stranger places before. But when the cold begins to set in, that's when alarm sets in as well. His environmental controls aren't working. Most of his helmet's functions aren't working, and the only ones that are -- his vocoder, oxygen access, and visor -- are designed to work even with loss of power. Between his flightsuit and the beskar he's not going to freeze to death, at least.

It's a long, slow trek to Milton. His jetpack is dead, so is his blaster. He's still got the spear, at least. The last thing he remembers, he'd given the kid to that Jedi and had gotten a ride from Boba Fett back to Tattooine. He hadn't known what he was going to do. An apostate with few credits to his name and no tribe to go back to.

Milton, he guesses, is as good a place as any.

In the community hall, there's a warm fire and walls to block out the elements, and Din's stomach churns at the thought of eating here. Around others. Technically, it's not against the Creed, for he has none.

He takes a mug of steaming hot tea, and sits at some distance from the gathering, back turned, quickly lifting the bottom edge of his helmet to take a sip. It puts some warmth back in his bones. And there he stays, slowly drinking his tea, until he hears footsteps coming toward him, and hurriedly tips his helmet back down.

"I've seen a lot of things, but being kicked halfway across the universe because of some Flare is a new one," he says, voice rusty where it comes out of his helmet. "You too?"

ii. empty houses

( cw: dead bodies )

He's settled in a little house at the very edge of town at the forest's start, where there's no windows facing the public and there's a good deal of privacy. With not much to do other than survive, he spends his first few days gathering food -- fishing when he can break through the ice, hunting small prey -- and fixing up the place. There's an ancient pre-holo tech device that's broken, a handheld device that doesn't work, and a radio that's got flat batteries.

But there's a bed that's nice and firm, a ceiling that doesn't leak, warm blankets and a fire that he's stocked up with kindling. It's not too bad. It's as good a place as any to stay while he figures things out.

(The problem is, he hasn't seen any sign of... actual technology. Anything that would let him get off this planet. That's a problem he's going to have to solve eventually.)

A couple days past his arrival, he finds a couple of frozen bodies not too far from his house, tucked away near a fence. Both with guns in hand. Din stores the guns away, grabs a shovel, and starts digging a pair of graves at the treeline of the forest, his typical silence marked with a note of solemness. He's digging for some time, his shoulders straining, back aching, before he hears someone else approach.

"There's another shovel if you want to make yourself useful," he says simply.

i

[groza]

[ ooc: please forgive any typos i'm stuck with phone tags for the next few weeks. ]

Zoya still somehow manages to exude confidence despite everything. She seems tall, and not just from the heels in her boots, but it's in the way her spine is straight, the way her chin is always lifted to make it seem like she's looking down at those who have the advantage of height on her. Ruthless general was not a reputation she earned easily, and apparently she intends on keeping it even if there is no army for her to command.

That does not mean she has amy clue about what's going on. Her mask is much more metaphorical, and her search for a private place to drop it is squashed when she finds the metal man by the fire.

She lifts an eyebrow, obvious and critical as she looks him over. She doesn't think she is the first one, so no point in hiding it. She'd feel more at ease knowing what was under the mask, although Zoya's guard is hardly ever down so it doesn't matter in the end.

"I've seen strange things and been to strange places," there's an edge of exhaustion in her voice. Stories she doesn't seem to quite want to recount. "But no. Not like this. And I suspect that's the case for everyone here."

And everyone is staring to seem like a lot. A pocket dimension shouldn't feel so crowded.

[metaldad]

Din turns his head to look at her out of the corner of his visor, the firelight flickering over smooth silver beskar. He's heard a lot of strange things in this community hall. People not understanding how guns work, or electricity. The best he can guess, whatever natural phenomenon occurred, it must have plucked people from all over the universe and not just in the galaxy that Din's familiar with, because even the most backwater swampers there know how to work a blaster.

With this one, he can't tell where she might be from. But she doesn't have any tech on her that he can see.

"I'd guess you'd be right about that."

He turns just a fraction more, enough to watch a bit of the crowd behind them, people gratefully digging into their food. Din's gloved hands creak around his mug of tea, soaking in the warmth. All of them look just as confused as he feels. Din looks back to his present company, and the helmet inclines just a touch.

"Could be worse. At least there's a welcoming committee."

arrival.

[importance]

This man has been an impossible anomaly to miss — a clad soldier amongst the lost little flock of sheep that have filled in, looking to Methuselah as their shepherd. A comfort to them, she supposes, if they remain blind to the haunted gleam in his eye.

Yennefer has no such delusions. She glides away from the mingling sea of bodies, instead, and toward the hearth's warm glow. It heats where her own magic has left a depthless void as she distantly watches the flames spit up gentle embers. Firelight refracts from the silvery sheen of his armor, once her eyes deign to turn to him.

"Not entirely. The shitty timing is what's truly new."

The tip of her mouth twitches, as though sharing a private joke only she knows. If there is any note of familiarity to this, it's finding herself spat up by portals leagues away. Her lack of means to correcting that mistake, however —

Are hopelessly, horrendously out of reach. Keen to ignore such a fact, she tips her head toward him, nearly cat-like in its show of curiosity.

"First time through a portal, I'm guessing."

[metaldad]

A portal might be one word for it. Din was thinking more along the lines of wormhole -- a really erratic one that somehow managed to take him from the middle of a ship to the middle of nowhere on a planet without turning him into one thin noodle -- but portal works too. Whatever the terminology, he's been taken so far through space that he doesn't recognize the stars here. He doesn't think he's even in his galaxy anymore.

His helmet tilts a fraction, not quite looking at her, but not looking somewhere else, either. Including her without staring her full in the face.

"I prefer traveling by way of something with an engine."

It comes out as a tired sigh, impossibly dry. Yes, it very much is his first time experiencing something like this. But what's curious is that she's just implied it's not her first time having this kind of experience. That's more than enough to pique Din's interest.

"You've done this before?"

[importance]

Her lips lilt upward with understated amusement. The sheen of his armor, the weary grumbling — it's not difficult to clock him, to some degree. His kind rarely is.

"Men of practicality do tend to prefer a more controlled approach."

Engine rings unfamiliar to Yennefer's ears, but the concept isn't so terribly foreign. A machine. More power in his hands, rather than left to the whims of another — whether it be Chaos' call or the natural elements. Were Geralt here, she has little doubt he would say much the same. It's all quite needlessly complicated to deny the equal practicality of magic, but —

Well, their current circumstances don't lend themselves well to disputing the advantages, if a portal is truly the culprit.

Her cloak drapes behind her as an ink spill as she seats herself beside him without invitation, as though accustomed to unapologetically owning the space around her. The tea in her mug ripples, nearly splashing over, then seems to settle. A wisp of a sigh expels out of her, pre-emptively exhausted by her own answer.

"If by 'this', you mean traveled by portal — it's something of a specialty of mine. If you mean to ask if I've traversed through worlds, that requires far more power than any one being is capable of."

Generally speaking, of course. Mentioning Ciri would only place the girl in danger. They hardly need another army to join the Wild Hunt in its pursuit. Yennefer's lips twist with easy ruefulness.

"Sorry to disappoint."

[metaldad]

Din's quickly becoming to realize that many of the people he speaks to here are from very different galaxies than him. In his own galaxy, even someone from the most out of the way, backwater skughole would regard the technology here as primitive.

And as for traveling between planets, well. He does that every weekday.

"In my galaxy, traveling between worlds is common," he offers. "But not in this way. I was in my ship, and then I awoke in the snow. Nothing I know of does that."

His gloves creak where he tightens them around his own cup of tea, head bowed thoughtfully, the steam faintly fogging up his visor. In here, in the warmth and the noise of chatter and the scent of food, it's easy to forgot the cold outside. He doesn't mind her very unapologetic claiming of the seat beside him. It's... nice to have company.

"The technology here is too primitive for space travel. So it's more likely it was a natural phenomenon."

empty houses

[deathroadtocanada]

Kara is in a similar predicament. The house she's "chosen" is far below the standards of even her old owner. Granted, she didn't need much to survive... but what she did need, could she even find out here?

A thought that drags her out into the snow. To scrounge for resources. To be helpful. It brings her to the edge of town, to Din's home, where she finds him in the midst of digging. Her pace slows. Cautious, blinking through the fog until she spots the frozen bodies.

It's almost easy to forget how there was Human life out here. And that they were rapidly inviting themselves into the abandoned homes of strangers. Most of them had left, it seemed. But some didn't seem to be so lucky.

"...How long do you think they've been out here?"

[metaldad]

In this weather, it's hard to tell exactly how long the bodies have been out here. They would have been frozen solid within a day, and if the people here weren't doing anything about burying them, they'd remain exactly as they were for as long as this weather lasts.

"Couple of days, maybe. Could be longer."

It's punctuated with a grunt as he sinks the shovel into the earth. He's about two feet down so far in a rough rectangular shape, and it's been hard getting even this much done. The ground is frozen, even deep down. He thinks this grave might have to be shallow.

He only briefly glances at her, but takes note of her clothes. He's seen all sorts of fashions in the people here, even stuff that looks right out of those fantasy holos that are so popular. But this woman's clothing looks closer to his kind of time.

He nods at the other shovel on the ground. "Can you help?"

[deathroadtocanada]

"Could be that they died right before we showed up."

Her databanks refused to connect, but she knew just enough about the human body to know the effects of extreme hypothermia and freezing to death. Maybe they really were alive just shortly before their unlikely group arrived. Huddled together in the falling snow.

Kara wasn't sure if that thought comforted her more than thinking they'd been laying there for days.

She is dressed pretty appropriately for the weather, all things considered. With the state of her world's climate, the weather could swing fairly hard. So it paid to be prepared. She had never met anyone who wore what looked like metal armor though.

She gets caught up looking at it until his question shakes her out of her thoughts. "Uh - Yeah. Sure."

She grabs for the other shovel.

"It's not right to leave them out here, is it?"

[metaldad]

"No. Leaving them out will attract predators to town."

Always a man of practicality first and foremost, Din's first thought is of the safety of the community, and leaving the bodies means a free source of meat for any nearby predators, and he has no idea what kind of creatures are on this world. The last few frozen planets he's been to have had everything from destructive ravinaks to useful tauntauns. Milton doesn't have the look of a town that's used to protecting itself from massive creatures, but there are plenty of guns, so there's something out there.

There i the ethical question of whether the bodies should be buried, and he suspects that's what she was really asking, but that's not Din's focus right now. Methuselah had encouraged the burying of bodies, so he assumes that's what's culturally appropriate here.

He nods to point her to the loose rectangle he's marked out in the ground next to the one he's digging, for the second body.

"Thank you." He falls silent again, absorbed by digging, and then adds, "What name do you go by?"

i

[bigbaddy]

[ Ironically enough, considering the entire.. armor and helmet situation, Din actually looks more familiar to the man compared to most other people here in the hall. Most of them look like most mundies Bigby has seen - like the way he too looks, right now - but this guy looks way more like he could've come straight from the Homelands.

There's no telling for sure though. Besides-- even if he does come from there, there's still quite the chance he's actually an enemy, so Bigby isn't going to give anything away that quickly.

But it's still incentive enough to approach the other, rather than sticking to sitting by himself and eating the way Bigby has done so far. ]

.. I have no idea what the hell's going on either, if that's what you mean. [ Thanks, Bigby.. Very helpful..

But at least he doesn't just leave it at that statement in his usual gruff tone. He glances around to find a spot to sit down nearby, and then continues. ]

Though you sound like you think you know what's happening.

[metaldad]

"Not exactly."

He has some theories, sure. But Din's no expert in physics or things that could pull a person to a different planet like that. He was in Boba's ship one minute, and then the next, he was laying in the snow. Nothing he's ever heard of can do that, not even the ways of the Jedi.

He turns his head to half-look at his present company through the edge of his visor. The guy has kind of a wild look about him that fits right into this town.

"Could be a solar flare," Din theorizes after a long moment of silence. He goes back to staring down at the cup of tea held in his gloved hands, steam still rising faintly. "Methuselah said the sky was full of light. All of the tech is offline. A lot of it's damaged."

He pauses again, and sighs wearily.

"Doesn't explain how all of us wound up here, though."

[bigbaddy]

[ .. solar flare. Bigby certainly isn't an expert on these sorts of things - he may not be dumb, but his smarts are way closer to street smarts than any book smarts - so he'll just take the other's opinion on it without questioning it too much.

Especially when Din only seems to shove it forward as one possible reason for how they could be here, when it could be really any reason. Bigby first assumed it had something to do with forces he's familiar with, but considering he hasn't ran into a single other fable yet, he's pretty sure it's got to be something that has nothing to do with him specifically. ]

You're right. Sure would be easier if we got some straightforward answers. [ But those don't seem so easy to get by.

He glances around at their surroundings, all the other people in the hall, before his gaze turns back towards Din. ]

You think that Methuselah guy is telling the truth?

[metaldad]

"I don't see why he'd lie. He's in a town full of dead people."

Massacres do tend to make people honest. Whether or not massacre is the right word for what's happened here, Din doesn't know. He'd checked a few of the bodies on the way in, and some of them had died from hypothermia, but others had been killed by gunshot. So that would mean the theory is: solar flare led to mass hysteria.

It's... possible. But Din doesn't love it as a theory. It feels too complicated, when there's probably a simpler answer out there.

"And he's sharing a lot of resources with us." Din nods back at the table full of food and drink; hearty stews and soups, mashed potatoes and vegetables, thick slices of bread, chunks of meat. In a situation like this, most people's instincts would be to hoard, to keep everything for themselves to prolong their own existence as long as possible. But Methuselah is openly sharing with them, happily so.

Din's helmet tilts, faintly curious. "Do you think he's lying?"

i

[mywayistheway]

If he had taken the time to look, Din might have spotted a familiar face and set of armor. But then Bo-Katan had set herself up with some food in a distant corner as she surveyed everyone else. So she actually spots him first, green eyes following Din as he moves around. It isn’t until he sits and begins drinking his tea that she stands and walks over.

With her helmet tucked under her arm, he will turn to find one Mandalorian princess staring down at him with an unreadable expression. Her hair is different than he would remember but it’s definitely Bo-Katan. At the question she tilts her head in a half nod before sitting herself down next to him, though facing the opposite way. “A new one for me too.”

She pauses, scanning the crowd again before continuing. “Don’t worry, I won’t look. I’ve got you covered.” Having a new respect for his creed she effectively uses herself to block the view, or partial view, of his face while staying turned away herself. That is if he trusts her enough to take her word for it.

ii. empty houses

[kindlings]

She approaches in stealth, coming up on this man covered head to toe in armor — not the kind of armor she's ever seen south of the Wall, but she knows well enough now that she's nowhere near Westeros. When he speaks and it's apparent that he knows she's sneaking up on him through the snow, she stops in her tracks, hand on her carved bone dagger hidden away in her coat of furs and skins.

"You're going t' bury them? Better if y' burned them. Then, you know they'll not come back."

[metaldad]

Din pauses, helmet tilted down thoughtfully. That's a thought that he hadn't considered. Coming back from the dead isn't too common in his galaxy, but it does happen. He's heard stories of parasitic worms animating the dead, and old Imperial experiments into immortality going wrong and producing walking corpses.

Having the living dead around would just make everyone's lives here harder.

Din sighs, the sound rusty where it's filtered through his helmet. "You're right," he acknowledges, and hoists himself out of the shallow grave he's built. He takes both shovels and leans them up against the side of the house he's taken for himself, and retrieves an axe from a small shed, propping it over his shoulder.

If only the Darksaber were working. It'd make his next job a lot easier.

"If you can find another axe, you can help," he offers. "I'm going to cut trees for a pyre."

[kindlings]

Ygritte has an axe in fact, a small wrought iron one from the Frostfangs, but she's a little wary of divulging her entire arsenal to this man just yet. Not until she knows she can trust him. She betrays her surprise with a little lift of her brows when he agrees with her, quickly schooling it when he lifts himself out of the hole he's dug.

Still, the prospect of building a pyre to take care of these bodies seems to be a better idea than the alternative of moving on and finding another house — or raiding this man's house for food, when he's not showing any signs of hostility — so she unsheathes her axe from the scabbard slung over her back, which also happens to hold her weirwood shortbow and fletched arrows.

"It's not a long axe, not as long 's the one you've got," she reasons, stepping up a bit closer to show it to him, "but it'll chop just fine."

She takes a moment to glance at the house next to the shed, giving it a once-over. "Find a lot'f supplies in this one, have ya? Food, tools?"

i

[moralabsolutism]

[Rorschach stood on the edges of the room, not engaging anyone, just observing quietly. He'd never been good at socialization, whether that was with his face on or in his day-to-day persona. That wasn't about to change now, especially in a strange place surrounded by people who, from the sounds of things, were in the exact same boat he was in.

He immediately noticed the figure in head-to-toe armor, it was hard not to. Looked a bit like someone who would have been into superheroics back home, though Rorschach already knew all of those that had been active in the past. He took some note in how the figure never took his(?) helmet off, something he could relate to given he never fully removed his mask as he ate. He approached the armored man with the wary caution of an alley cat. He nodded at the question, the voice confirming for him that it was definitely a man under all that armor. The black spots on his face moved constantly over the white surface.]

[metaldad]

With some people, it's difficult to tell if they're from here or somewhere else. When he'd arrived in Milton for the first time, Din had walked through a number of houses, and checking over the dead bodies he'd found -- enough to get a general idea of what their fashion looked like, and how an average person here dressed. Some of the new arrivals are dressed exactly the same, others are very different.

With the man with the mask, it's kind of a tossup. His jacket is long, but it's not designed for warmth in this kind of climate. He is covered head to toe, though, so he's better prepared for the cold than others here.

Apparently he's not from here, though. Like the rest of them.

Din falls silent for a long moment, helmet tipped down to watch the steam rising off the tea he's holding. It fogs up his visor briefly, condensation creeping over beskar steel.

"Where were you, when you were brought here?" Because Din had been in the middle of nowhere in space, so he's curious to know what other people had been in the middle of doing.

[moralabsolutism]

Rorschach spoke in the deep, gravelly voice that made him sound like no one else. It sounded like rocks being smashed up with a hammer. "On an airship."

He and Nite Owl had been on his way to the Antarctic in hopes of stopping Adrian from whatever his ultimate plot had been. He almost wondered if Doctor Manhattan had teleported him somehow, but he'd been teleported before by the man and waking up here had been nothing like the instantaneous movement from one place to the other that he'd been through before. Coming to in the snow had been more like being knocked out and regaining consciousness.

ii

[buriedpast]

It's by pure coincidence that Simon takes up residence near the other man. He had the same idea in shacking up at the edge of the village and by the forest, and like Din, he had been at work gathering supplies. Though Simon cared far less about his own comfort and more about practicality. He was at work building up in one of the tallest trees something that would resemble a rough, but functional, bird's nest.

Naturally, he had noticed Din a handful of times by the time he actually approached the man. Even if he didn't have a sniper's intuition, the man in the silver head-to-toe armor would be a hard sight to miss. One of the stranger people he has seen so far in this place, but he passes no real judgment, and instead, he observes the man. He doesn't think to say hello or introduce himself. Simon had never been a social man even before he "died" and became Ghost, but he was especially not social these days.

Yet he still finds himself heading down from his spot in the tree when he realizes that the man intends to bury the corpses he found. It strikes him as a bit ridiculous, but he was a man who had left unburied bodies in his wake by the dozens. And his own experience with burials was less than pleasant.

He approaches silently, but as he gets closer, he intentionally puts more weight onto his steps, crunching on the snow, allowing twigs to snap so that he didn't startle the other man.

He doesn't respond right away. Instead, he comes to a slow stop near, thumbs hooked through the straps of his vest against his shoulders, and just looks at the corpses for a long second. Then finally, to the man, his dark eyes somewhat shadowed by his mask.

"What's the point in burying them? Seems a bit like wasted energy." He doesn't say it in a cold way, but rather matter-of-fact. Curious, too.

[metaldad]

Din, too, had noticed that he wasn't entirely on his own on this far-side of Milton. He'd double checked that none of the windows were facing in that direction -- they weren't, so no chance of his privacy being intruded upon -- and he'd braced himself for the possibility that the man might try to overpower him and take his cabin.

So far, that hasn't happened. But a person doesn't dress like that without being intimately familiar with violence, and while that doesn't necessarily mean he's the sort that would attack for very little reason, Din maintains a healthy cautiousness nonetheless. The very same cautiousness most people feel when they see Mandalorian armor. The very same cautiousness he's sure the new people of Milton must feel when they see him, with a hunting rifle strapped to his back alongside the beskar steel spear, a shotgun holstered on one thigh and his blaster on the other.

The same caution he feels when he hears the man approach, but his approach is obviously telegraphed, sticks and noisy snow trod upon. It's for Din's own benefit, he's aware.

"Because that's what's sacred in their culture," he replies at length, his voice rusty where it comes out filtered through his helmet. Din wouldn't have had any idea what they considered to be appropriate death rituals if not for Methuselah doing his best to bury some of them.

Maybe it is wasted energy. Din doesn't normally spend his time tending to the dead, but he doesn't really care about the wishes of the criminals he kills. These two, as far as he knows, were innocent.

"Are you going to help, or are you just going to watch?"

[buriedpast]

There were all too many reasons to be cautious in this situation. Against one another, against the residents, and against nature. Simon went nowhere without his own gun and his own set of knives. Neither of which he bothers to conceal even now. Though he leaves it hanging just below him, an arm resting mildly against it. He had no doubt that the Mandalorian was a man used to violence, given his appearance, but Simon was also fairly certain that the man wasn't prone to reckless and random violence at the very least.

It's not trust, exactly, but it's assessing a situation. One he feels is proven right once he hears that the man is merely burying the bodies out of some form of cultural respect.

Simon doesn't respond immediately. His eyes drift to the corpses and he feels a familiar twist of guilt. There had been plenty he has killed who had their own customs and cultures. Plenty of innocents too killed by others in the crossfire. War never left any room for consideration like burying someone properly. You just had to move on and hope you'd survive the next town over.

Too many bodies to bury, not nearly enough time, and not enough resources. You had to kill the part of you that cared. He winds up watching for a moment, not seemingly interested in helping, but his gaze is open and thoughtful. There's nothing else he's doing, so why shouldn't he do the one thing that he had failed to do more times than he could count?

With a sigh, he pushes forward and picks up a nearby shovel to bury into the frozen earth. It's grunt work, sure enough, but it's methodical and easy for Simon.

"Can't say I'm too fond of the ritual myself," he mutters, more conversational than anything. "You find my corpse and you burn it."

His gaze briefly shifts back to the Mandalorian, the silver mask, and he can't see his eyes but that's just fine. "What about you? Any requests you'd like to put in for the disposal of your body?"