Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

Ari!

[fuelmayor]

They've never spoken, only seen each other in passing over the course of a few weeks, but he stands out enough that she'll likely recognise him anyway.

The Fuelweaver - Number 119, for the duration of a deeply unpleasant chapter of his afterlife that feels far longer than it could possibly have been - is standing on the edge of the gathering precisely because he wasn't planning on eating any of the dishes. If he tried, he wouldn't gain any nourishment from it. He turns his skull to look at the dish Number 27 Lieutenant Tayrey indicated. It's soup with dumplings floating in it.

"It would be unsurprising, but I cannot be certain," he responds in a deep voice with an eerie resonance that doesn't at all fit with the acoustics of the room. "There are dishes at the far end of the table which contain only vegetables."

It's the same table Anzu is sitting on, and he labelled his ingredients.

Hi! <3

[astrogator]

You shouldn't judge all skeleton men by the first one you've met. That's the first, absurd thought that enters Arilanna Tayrey's head when this one answers her. All strangers get the benefit of the doubt - and he still falls into that category, despite the fact that he's not an unfamiliar sight.

Tayrey was seen in public in the Village playing endless card games with Number Nineteen, an older woman, spying on the patrol routes of others, reciting stirring rebellious poetry in conspicuous places, and being dragged about by Number Two's henchmen, sometimes as a consequence of said poetry. Until she disappeared altogether, into the hospital, not to be seen again.

She remembers him - and his number, even if she wishes she didn't.

'Thank you,' she says politely. 'I'll head down there presently.' And she will, and meet Anzu into the bargain - but for now, she hesitates.

'I don't know if it'll mean anything, coming from me - but I'm glad you got out of that place.' It's true, regardless of who he is, what he's done, because nobody deserves endless torture.

[fuelmayor]

The poetry was what stood out the most. Other newcomers had snuck around, made friends with the long-term captives (it was always difficult to tell when Dave Strider, the youngest among them - he won't insult the boy's memory by calling him 1025 - was being sincere, but he seemed happier in the presence of that grey-skinned boy), been dragged away by Number Two's most reliable lackeys, and eventually ceased to reappear. The Fuelweaver hadn't dared to express appreciation for her rhetoric at the time.

"Thank you." The Village is the place he assumes she means, being the freshest in his memory. "Number Two betrayed us all. He deserved his fate."

He's not up on the exact details of what happened to Number Two, but the man must be dead, permanently or near enough, to have let so many prisoners escape. Good riddance.

[astrogator]

The Village is part of what she means. The Village, the ship, whatever network of interlocking torture realms their captor had created. Nobody deserved to be trapped there, she thinks. There are plenty of people that Tayrey will readily say deserve to die, her own tormentors first among them, but what happened back there was worse than death. Nobody deserved the Nothing. Not pirates, not murderers - not even Number Two.

Fortunately for both of them, Ari Tayrey didn't see the eventual fate of the man who ran the Village. Being teleported into a locked room full of people had left her capable of nothing more than blind panic and a desperate need to escape.

'He deserved to die,' she says, soberly, 'and I hear that he did. That's a victory for you. For everyone he hurt. I hope... it's going to be easier here.' Her voice carries a cautious hope. 'Peace and prosperity,' she offers then. 'I'm Lieutenant Tayrey.' In case he'd forgotten. In case he'd never know - and because she's hoping for a reply that isn't one-one-nine.