logsinthenight | Round 2 [open]

characters: Cao Pi and everyone who wants to show up
location: town hall
date/time: Dec. 8, starting at moonrise
content: Community meeting, take 2! After the Dreamer/Defender incident, there's a lot to talk about and Cao Pi has encouraged everyone to come and publicly share what they learned while asleep or what ideas they have to make the next massacre less massacre-y. Feel free to handwave catching his post or hearing about it from a friend.
warnings: none likely but lmk if that changes. Threadjacking likely; if you don't want to be threadjacked, make some sort of indication.

As before, Cao Pi arrives ahead of time to ensure the town hall is ready for a session, righting any chairs that might have been thrown about in recent melees and checking the logbook for recent information. When a fair amount of people have arrived and he can see the waxing moon rising through the leafless trees outside, he rises to begin with a short intro.

"By now we know that those who succumbed to the food at the feast had a strange experience - they shared dreams with each other, in which they found themselves seeing Beacon as it was in the past. I encourage all those who dreamed, and remember it well, please tell us all what you saw. There may be considerable clues to our purpose and progress in even the smallest detail.

"The rest of us, well. We managed to make it through and I believe those who were killed are whole again, but for our part we can go over what worked and what didn't. Defending ourselves isn't merely a matter of being trained to use weapons. The spirits which attacked were formidable, powerful. We will need more than just our strength to outlast another attack. Ideas are welcome, as is any new information we have on everything from communications to threats."

That's all he'll ramble about this time, he'll take a seat and allow others to have the floor before he makes any more grandiose speeches.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's possible, right? I mean, the way I see it, there's got to be a reason why the town gets reset to the point that it does. [ a beat. ] Because sure, resetting the town eradicates the source of light that attracts the World Eaters, [ the comment's punctuated by a quick downwards quirk of peter's lips: the resets, as a solution, aren't something that sit well with him ], but if it was just a case of getting rid of the light and diverting the World Eater's attention away from this world, that's not the only way of doing it.

[ it's something to ask robin; peter's not sure she'll have an answer, but she might know something, enough to be able to make an estimation. she was the current keeper. ] But linearly speaking: there's no way this town has sat through a hundred years.

—Maybe it took two years for the World Eaters to reach and destroy this place originally. Maybe someone else found some other dates we can use to pull together a more cohesive timeline.

Oh!

[ the conversation bringing up the world eaters finally jogs something in daylight's processors. he begins to go through his messenger bag/belt, digging something out for himself.

it looks like a sketchbook. ]

Speaking of the World Eaters- I- Um- Sarissa and Kol and I- We saw them. The World Eaters, I mean. They... They were approaching Beacon and I think it was just before they...

[ judging by how often he stops and starts and trails off, daylight finds it difficult to talk about that bit of the dream/vision. for a variety of reasons he rather not get into here or any time in the future, honestly.

so daylight focuses on flipping through his sketchbook instead, stopping at a particular page that makes him visibly flinch. and for good reason, in his opinion, as he turns his sketchbook around to show what he had done:

a world eater. ]

What. [ he can't quite help the shocked exclamation-slash-statement, although he doesn't push day past that, given the way daylight stops and starts. instead, peter waits, although it's hard not to miss the slightly nervous energy, the slight impatience that comes with wanting to know what, exactly, they'd seen.

it's a relief, in a way, to know that the world eaters are creatures, and peter leans into the sketch. it's nothing he recognises, nothing like anything he's ever faced before, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to stop them.

the corners of his lips dip down momentarily as he straightens back up. ] Is it insensitive if I say that they look like they've got a face that only a mother could love? 'Cause yeesh.

[ would it be too much to hope they're weak against radiation? water? ]

[thanks Day that's...helpful but also horrible, yep. To Peter, though...]

It looks much like the blurry picture Dr. Ingram showed us, once. I would call this confirmation. [he tries to be flippant, but] ...and it's definitely bigger than the Hydra which killed me.

[back to Daylight, then] It wasn't a picture, you saw them in person? Was there still a sun in the sky, then?

... Yes.

[ daylight falls almost quiet now. he clearly doesn't want to talk about it with how upset he looks now, with his optics dim and his winglets hiding behind his back as if to avoid getting hit, but they're asking and it's selfish to not bring it up here, not when all their lives are on the line and they're living on borrowed time-

~~this world's death is inevitable. portal is still uncontrollable. irresponsible to cling to a stolen existence while other worlds suffer further consequencedaydayday~~

-so he tries to suck it up and explain a bit further: ]

There was still sunlight and colours and some signs of what was once life. Enough electricity to keep the radio tower running and stuff. It was, um, around autumn. At the late stages of it, I think, because of the fact that the trees had little leaves on them yet.

Then we looked towards the lake and saw the World Eater. It was... It was huge. I didn't think it could move from how big it was but it did. It did move and it was approaching Beacon. There was this... trail of shadow in its wake. I tried to sketch it but every time I tried, my helm felt like it was going to...

Sorry. It's just- [ daylight presses a servo to his helm, either to stop some processor pains or to pull himself together. ] Other things went down and it's kind of tied with what that... When I saw it. When I realised what was going to happen... It felt like everything clicked for me and... Yeah.

[while he would like nothing more than to press Daylight to come out with whatever's so uncomfortable, because it's probably important, Cao Pi decides to tackle that later. Not in public, where it could derail good discussions.]

Then, if that's true...the World Eater has already been here. If it caused the darkness, then what reason would it have to come back? What is it actually eating, what is its purpose?

[nothing they can really answer right now, but he feels like casting rhetoricals into the audience might get them all thinking the same thing, and lead to routes to uncover the answers]

[ daylight, for everyone's sake, flips his sketchbook close so the ominous image is no longer leering at them. he then purses his lips in concentration, wishing he could answer the questions but so much information is still either up in the air or needs to be put together.

but... it does make him think of something he wants to address: ] -Dr. Solis and the other survivors. If they're still out there... They probably have the answers. At least to stuff pretraining to events leading up to...

[ daylight makes a vague gesture, hoping it'll say 'everything about beacon and the freakiness we're all in because it's kinda messed up when you think about it, yeah?' to the others without him needing to say it. ]

... Do you think we can go to the coordinates any time soon? Or find it where it leads, at the very least? [ he looks at the others with big earnest optics, his winglets hitched up hopefully. ] Maybe they're still alive. They could use our help.

It's something that we certainly should look into. [with a general nod around the room] The coordinates mean nothing to me, I wouldn't know how to interpret them, but surely someone does. This is where the expertise of others is important. Anyone with a greater grasp of technology, have at it.

[ daylight finds himself wishing for the hundredth time that dialup was here. data interpretation and configuring coordinates had been her thing back on the lornful light, thanks to her position as intelligence in the fireteam.

but there's no sense to stew over the could have beens and what maybes. the meeting is about what to do next and day is going to do what he can to help out. ]

Okay- So- [ he tilts his helm side to side, trying to articulate his thoughts. ] What do you think is the most effective thing we can do now then, Sir Cao Pi?

[you know, that's kind of a tough one. He looks at Ignis, who started this whole conversation, then Riku and Peter and Jason and pretty much everybody in turn, mulling it over.]

This is a time for those with the right expertise to volunteer to look into it. Master Ignis has provided us several clues, which may require several different routes. Explorations, research, communication with the spirits or with the Keeper. I would leave no stone unturned, so to speak, but I would also not ask one person to try to do everything. If you see someplace where you know you can be of use, then do so.

Round 2 [open]

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