(open)

[eyeinfusion]

Characters: Judai and YOU
Date: Feb 16-21
Location: around Aifaran
Situation: trying out his Talent, trying to get his yimo fixed, getting ambushed
Warnings/Rating: n/a


A. just call him the hairdo-ruiner (meta 2)
[Why hello, someone who's passing by this terrace. You may suddenly feel the wind picking up once you get within a certain distance of this kid leaning against the chest-high fence. The wind seems to be circling him, in fact, while he stares speculatively at his palm.]

Heh... This doesn't suit me at all.

[He turns around to see a couple of Aifarans fast-walking away from him. ...Whoops.]

 

B. now how will he consume cat pictures (sci-tech 2)
[He doesn't know why, how, or when, but for some reason or other his yimo handset has been acting up, has been from practically the moment he got it, but no one he's talked to seems to know what's wrong.]

[So it isn't exactly a surprise that the next time he tries to get it fixed, he spots technicians ducking down behind their terminals or running behind the nearest wall.]

Ah...this sucks... [He shakes his yimo, like that'll help.]

 

C. mirage of nightmare (faith 5)
[He was ambushed. There he was, minding his own business, when several someones come running up to him, insisting he lead one of their functions. Inspire it, they say. Lead by example, they say.]

[—And suddenly he looks very uncomfortable. Halp?]
 

Comments

C.

[spoilsfun]

[Conan had no idea why he was doing this. He'd never met this guy, and this would most likely just cause trouble for himself.

Still, he looked like he needed a hand. And maybe that was reason enough.

A soccerball comes speeding into the area, aimed just low enough to force the locals to dodge quickly or lose their footing. A small child quickly follows, chasing after the ball and accidentally knocking over anyone who'd managed to avoid the ball.]

[eyeinfusion]

H-hey! [The discomfort is suddenly gone, replaced by a laugh as Judai dodges the ball and the child.]

[He calls to the bowled-over people—] Looks like the signs point to “no”!

[And then he takes the opportunity to run away, glancing over at Conan to see if he can follow him or something. Even with Judai being a pretty lucky guy, that was way too perfect timing. And even if he didn’t do it on purpose, he wants to thank him, anyway.]

[spoilsfun]

[ Conan takes a moment to call out some apologies, before continuing to chase after his ball. In a direction that just happened to follow after Judai. Once well out of sight, Conan traps the ball under his foot and kneels down to pick it up. ]

[eyeinfusion]

You did that on purpose, didn't you? [Judai cheerfully plops down on nearby stairs.]

Thanks for that, anyway. I'm Judai.

[He snickers a little.] They caught me by surprise! I guess I have them to thank for letting me see such a cool trick of yours, though.

[spoilsfun]

You looked like you wanted an excuse to get out of there. [ There wasn't much point in denying it.]

Nice to meet you. I'm Conan. And it wasn't really a trick. I just like soccer.

[eyeinfusion]

Don't be so modest! You really saved me back there.

[Granted, he might have recovered enough to come up with something himself eventually, but someone helping him out makes him really grateful.]

You were pretty handy with that. Do you do it often? [Playing soccer is different from creating a distraction with it, after all.]

[spoilsfun]

Mmm, I played a lot back home.

[Both playing actual soccer, and using his kicking accuracy to take out criminals. It was a surprisingly useful skill. ]

B. oh no, not the cat pictures - anything but that!

[perfectenn]

[Pathetic. He won't say it in front of a client, but the look on Tenn's face as he watches tech support scramble promises they'll be catching it from him later.

Please excuse the cowards; he casts a wry smile to his fellow Dreamperson.]

It does. [Tenn glances down at the yimo.] I take it you've been here before. What is the problem?

[eyeinfusion]

[Ah, someone who didn’t run away...!]

It keeps fixing itself whenever I come in, though.

[...Please don’t ask him why he keeps coming in, then. He misses his cat companion and cat pictures fill that hole in his life.]

I don’t know what’s wrong, but I guess no one else does, either. Maybe I should get a new one! [He’s joking, since this one was provided for free and he doesn’t have a job yet.] The big terminals are too inconvenient...

How often do you see this kind of problem, anyway?

[perfectenn]

[That description didn't help, but at least here is someone taking their otherworldly tech issues in stride and with good humor. Why did the other technicians scatter, he wonders.]

Since you haven't told me what the problem is, I can't answer that. I can say that these units from the Bridge aren't inherently faulty, however there have been various complaints this month.

[eyeinfusion]

That is the problem! No matter what it is, it always fixes itself when I try to get it fixed.

[He can't really pinpoint what the problem was, himself. Audio issues, slow connections, unresponsive buttons, sudden app terminations...the list goes on. The only conclusion he can come to is that something's wrong with the device itself.]

[Not like he's a tech person or anything, though, so he holds out his yimo.] Want to give it a shot? But! You're not allowed to hide from me later.

[perfectenn]

[As he listens, Tenn brings a hand to his chin and smiles.]

Then you could work here in tech support and no malfunctions would occur?

[Joking, of course. But Tenn is intrigued; he’s heard enough strange stories around Opara Core not to dismiss it. Either way, he is here to add his perspective. So he nods and accepts the yimo.]

I won't. List the errors, please, in the order they occurred if possible.

[eyeinfusion]

[That gets a laugh out of Judai.] Maybe I should. [He isn't very good at fixing electronics himself, though, so he probably shouldn't, even if he wanted to.]

[But at the request, he, uh.] Um... [He scratches his head. Sheepish, he continues—] I don't remember the order. But things were shutting off and stuff...things were glitching, and there were weird sounds. Also it was being kind of slow randomly! Not all at once, though.

[So yeah, helpful. Maybe that's the real reason people were running away from him.] Think you can do something with that?

B.

[sanzulines]

[ If possible, Kid is having even worse luck with his yimo - he can't even get the thing to turn on, despite having repeatedly checked that it's been charged correctly. Seeing someone else evidently having trouble with theirs, he approaches. ]

Yours is broken as well?

[eyeinfusion]

Yep. You too?

[At least he's not alone!] I've been coming here so often, everyone's hiding from me now. [But he needs it.]

I'm Judai. What's the problem with yours?

[sanzulines]

So it appears. I've come asking several times if the one I was given might by chance be defective, but they appear quite offended by the mere suggestion. I can't think of any other reason why I can't even keep the device powered on.

My name is Kid, a pleasure to meet you, Judai.

[eyeinfusion]

Nice to meetcha!

[He tries shaking his yimo again.] Different from mine, then, it just gets all weird.

Think the old users did weird things to them? [Because it's natural for him to assume that there were previous users; subconsciously the yimos remind him of student PDA's, a bit.]

[sanzulines]

[ Kid laughs a little at the suggestion. ]

I suppose that would be an easy explanation for the devices' behaviour, yes. Although you'd think they would have checked that before re-issuing them.

It seems I'll have to go back to the Opara Core yet again. Is that also where you're headed?

[eyeinfusion]

Haha, you think so? It starts working again whenever a technician touches it, though.

[But, despite that—] I think I'm going to have to. [This place isn't a small enough island and the facilities and people too decentralized to really be able to keep in touch with people without a phone or PDA-like device of some sort. ...Which is usual for a city. But the point about having a phone still stands.]

You're a Dreamperson, too, right? Maybe we could help each other out if we can't get ours fixed. I'm in Breakwater room #6!

A

[lasergrenades]

[Pepper's hair is a little too short to be ruined by a stiff breeze, but she does notice the sudden and highly localized burst of wind. She pauses in the street and looks around, sees people moving in the opposite direction of a young man, and blinks at him for a moment.]

Uh. Was that you?

[eyeinfusion]

Looks like it!

[He holds up his hand—showing the Alteration mark on his palm.]

I'm Judai. You're not running away. Are you used to stuff like this happening?

[lasergrenades]

Pepper. [She raises her right wrist to show the Restoration tattoo, smiling.] Sort of - we don't have magic where I come from, but we've got some pretty weird things that happen, and this isn't the first time I've been in this world, either, so.

[She shrugs lightly.] Weird is kind of relative by now. Nice to meet you - did you just get to Aifaran?

[eyeinfusion]

Nice to meetcha!

[The wind dies down.]

I guess I just got here. It’s been a day. [And a lot can happen in a day, but thankfully his had been mostly uneventful.]

It isn’t your first time here, you said?

[lasergrenades]

Yep! About 560 years ago. [She grins and shrugs it off. Pepper is mostly used to the extended time jump.]

I'm part of a group of Dreamfolk that kind of got stuck in the Dreaming for a while when Tu Vishan went plane-diving. So, basically everything is completely new again, it was in a totally different city on a totally different turtle, but my tolerance for strange is still pretty high.

How're you doing with the whole 'transplanted to a new reality' thing? I spent like a solid week freaking out the first time around.

[eyeinfusion]

He~h? That's a pretty long time.

[He doesn't know the term "Tu Vishan," but hearing the Dreaming being referred to like that finally makes it...sensical to him that they're called Dreamfolk.] I hope I'm not really dreaming. I'd be really hungry when I wake up!

It's not the first time I've been to a different world. [Those worlds...had been much more dire for him than this one seems to be.] Don't know how I got here, though. How'd it happen for you, did you just appear at the old turtle?