trans_9 | Meet-n-Greet

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Meet-n-Greet

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

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Trolls hatch from eggs and start life as little limbless grubs, and Tavros is equating the process with what just happened earlier in the pod room. But this is a topic that can come up later.

"Well, I, uhhh..."

Tavros grins, looking a bit sheepish. His kind just doesn't share living quarters with anything but their lusus. It's a new idea to him, but it sounds like it'd be fun. He likes Alex and Alice, and the games, and even the shadow fighting sounds kind of intriguing in some dark way.

"...that is, I guess, if you don't, um, mind."

Alex smiles brightly, still rather red, but at least looking at Tavros, "I w-wouldn' mind at all! I-I don' think it'd h-hurt ta have some company h-here an all." Actually living with someone was bound to be different than crashing on Mikel's couch on a regular basis.

"Yeah," Tavros grins, "I think, uh, it's probably better to, umm, have some kind of allies in a place like this, probably..."

Well this is exciting. He just got here, and already Tavros is doing pretty well for himself. Even in spite of this bizarre alien culture he doesn't entirely understand.

Alex tended to feel like most people were a part of a bizzare alien culture anyway. Having to work around a culture that was really alien was actually a bit nice. He at least wasn't supposed to already know these things.

"Allies a-are useful, b-but so are friends."

"Friends... Yeah, okay... I'd, uh, like that."

He glances around at what's now presumably his half of the block.

"I guess, on the bright side, I don't have to, um, move in much stuff."

Alex laughed as he got up and began to set about moving his stuff to his side of the room. Now that he needed to share, he figured he shouldn't be so spread across the room. It wasn't like there was too much to move anyway.

"D-did you find anything o-of yours i-in the storage, a-aside from the wh-wheelchair?" Unfortunately it didn't occur to him that pointing out that Tavros was in a wheelchair might be considered rude. At the same time, it shows how it didn't bother him at all.

Blink. The console and games Alex had handed him twitch slightly before disappearing from Tavros' hands, apparently into thin air. Tavros then starts helping Alex move stuff.

"Just, uh, just the stuff that was in my sylladex. And the strife specibus. So, uh, not much."

The disappearing stuff on the other hand, causes Alex to gape, frozen midway across the room. "O-okay, y-you're g-gonna haveta explain all of that, i-including h-how you made that disappear."

Sure he had weird powers, and that helped make him more accepting of others', but it didn't mean he was any less shocked whenever he saw them for the first time.

"Huh? No, I didn't disappearify it; it's right here."

Blink. And the items drop into Tavros' hands.

Alex's eyes widened, even more confused. "Wh-where'd it go th-then?"

Alex gets further baffled looks from the troll.

"I just, told you. My, uh, sylladex."

How could anyone over the age of one sweep, let alone a computer-savvy kid like Alex, not already know this? Humans. Weird.

"O-okay, we don' have th-those where I c-come from, so, y-you'll haveta fill m-me in." Alex feels about as stupid as he seems like he might be to Tavros right now.

Tavros looks a bit taken aback by that. Seriously? He has to explain how he picks stuff up and carries it around? Well, then again, everything's foreign today, so why not.

"Okay, uhh, basically it's a... system, that people use, for carrying things. You can carry up to... however many captchalogue cards (http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001907) you have."

Slight pause.

"You really don't, uh, have that here? Where do you... put your stuff?"

Alex turns out the insides of his jeans pockets and then pulls out some of Alice's solid slop (it's called slop by everyone on the ship, but he only carries around bits of the bowls and trays in his pockets for her) as well as his own hand-held out of the pockets of his sweat-shirt. "Th-they're called pockets. W-we don't have captchalogue cards e-either, though, I- I guess i-it sorta works like a d-digital inventory system? M-makes pockets s-seem... primitive."

Now that he has Tavros's version of pockets figured out, time to solve the next mysterious culture gap. He returned to moving his stuff to his side of the room and asked, "Wh-what's a strife speci... thing? W-we don't have anythin' by that name either..."

"Well, I mean, uh, of course there's pockets too. Though I guess... not in these organic, um, suits. Either way... you got it. It's an, inventory system, with codes on the cards, though I never, uh, figured out what they're for. I guess just... for identifying the object, or something."

And then the next question. Tavros rolls himself way back from Alice and Alex just to be sure no one gets skewered. And then he's holding a full-sized jousting lance (http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004015).

"Strife specibus. Sort of, um, the same thing, but this stores weapons. By type."

Alex's jaw drops again, "Y-you, er... wha?" He shakes his head as if to reset, and stares at the lance, "O-okay, I don' like weapons, b-but that's pretty friggin' cool." Weapons often helped make shadows spread more efficiently, but Tavros just whipped a lance out of no where. He could make exceptions.

Tavros grins and puts the lance back in its hammerspace. Wheelchair jousting is a lot tougher than riding into battle on an actual steed, but a troll who wants to stay alive learns to make do. And Tavros is nothing if not adaptable.

"Wow, uh, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they, um, didn't like weapons before. You kind of... have to have one, after all."

"Wh-what? I've n-never had any w-weapon, u-unless you count sh-shadow powers an' all..."

When Mikel had suggested the four of them start to carry guns for protection it was unanimously struck down as well.

"You can... fight with those powers? I thought, it was just like, uh, just a sort of consumption."

The idea of going around unarmed strikes him as ludicrous. Do that on Alternia, and you might as well hang a fresh meat sign around your neck. Tavros is as close to pacifism as his race gets, and he still wouldn't be caught out without something.

"W-well, if ya eat the stronger ones, i-it g-gets... I g-guess it sorta g-gives you a-access to different powers. I-it's a bit like levelling up, b-but ys don't know y-you have access ta the powers till, well, y-you usually use 'em on accident the first time. O-one of the o-ones I jus' found out about i-is the ability ta let other p-people see shadows like I do."

He rubbed the side of arm and looked away, busying himself with trying to stack the disks neatly at the foot of his bed, "I don' like using 'em though, 'c-cause ta use 'em I needta force myself ta feel some sorta n-negative emotion at the s-same level o-of whatever power I'm usin'."

Leveling up? Oh yeah, Tavros understands the basic premise now. These two are going to get along fine, weapons or no.

"Oh, well... can you, uh, not use them? Or, or eat them? Just... let the emotions go away?"

"I c-can't not eat them. It'd b-be like not eating food. N-normal food doesn't sustain me. B-but I c-can just n-not use the powers, i-if I'm c-careful an' stay f-far away from strong shadows."

Alex sighs, "I w-wish I'd never been put into that experiment, th-then I might've h-had a ch-chance at b-being sorta normal." But he had been put in the experiment, and he wasn't normal.

Experiment? What the hell? Tavros had been under the impression Alex was just hatched with the ability. As trolls are.

Awkward silence reigns.

"Well... uh, I guess... I don't really understand how a, a shadow can possibly be, uh food. But there's a lot I don't... really understand, basically."

Yeah. The experiment thing bothered Alex too. It helped that he had no clue what had been done to him. That was the only reason he spent any time in medbay, to have one of the doctors help him figure that out.

"I-I don' r-really get it either. I-I just know th-that I n-need to e-eat shadows an' take th-these," He pulled out a pill bottle and shook it to make the pills inside rattle, "O-or I w-will die. I-if I don't take 'em, w-well, i-it st-starts ta hurt. F-first j-jus' like I'm h-hungry, b-but th-then everywhere s-starts ta ache, an' whatever I e-eat i-it won't f-fill me. I-I d-do stop seeing shadows though."

Every so often he would stop taking his pills because he would rather deal with the pain for a while than need to see those things.

Tavros nods. He still doesn't fully understand, but that can come in time. As his side of the room empties, he removes items from his sylladex. The console and games, his own organic-looking husktop from home, a well-worn copy of Pupa Pan, a stack of cards with a strange black and yellow symbol on them.

"Uhh," he ventures after Alex finishes speaking, "I guess maybe it's better to just... take the medicine, then. If it, if it'll help you stay alive, I mean."

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