[ People respond to their messages so quickly here! Vash sends a quick 👍 in reply, then hurries off to run his planned errand before heading down to the engines.
He'll show up about thirty minutes after Jedeo's message in full Stampede attire: spiked up (black) hair, his floor-length signature red coat, beneath that a leather body suit held on with far too many belts and buckles, and hidden by the coat, a very large .45. His errand, and the reason for his delay, is made obvious by what he's got in his hands -- a flat pastry box, with a selection of fruit horns. Does he beat Jedeo to the door, or is the other man already waiting for him? ]
Jedao doesn't appear from the engine room, but from the next door common room - which has a weirdly symmetrical tree in the middle of it, for some reason.
"Hi, Vash. I'm Jedao. Go ahead and open the Engine room with your key, but don't step inside."
It's a neat tree shape! It reminds Vash of something he saw in a picture book years ago, on a knight's shield, maybe?
"Open the door but don't go inside, check! ...Oh, but first, here."
He hands over the box of pastries, which contains two of each of the flavors he'd asked Jedao about. Well, there's two apple and two lemon, but only one berry. Sorry -- those are really good!
"You didn't say which one you wanted, so I brought them all!"
"That's my fault, sorry - I get a little fixated on the engine room sometimes," he admits with a sheepish smile that does not at all convey how true that is.
Jedao considers the possibility that the pastries are drugged, then trusts to his metabolism and takes a bite of the other berry anyway.
While a small, selfish part of Vash's heart wishes that Jedao hadn't responded to his flavor preference question because he doesn't like pastries, and therefore Vash would have no recourse but to eat them all himself, he's still delighted to see that his gift is a welcome one.
"They didn't have any donuts today. Those are my favorite," he offers, turning to the door and pulling out the key he's been issued. "But these are good too! I don't think I'll ever get tired of having fresh fruit every day."
Jedao goes inside and checks the roster. Sure enough, there's a new supervisor listed.
"Vash the Stammede?" he asks, deliberately making a mistake, as a last check in case this person is an imposter, shapeshifter maybe, who's stolen a new warden's key.
Hovering in the doorway -- he hasn't been told to enter yet, so he won't -- Vash is still taking in everything he can possibly see in the engine room. He's been working on engines his whole life, after all, everything from a half-corroded patched together mess of two-stroke internal combustion to the vast energy manipulating systems that had powered the last spaceship he'd been on. He's excited!
Excited enough that he forgives his new co-workers mispronounciation with just a nod.
"That's me! ...Well, that used to be me." Can he come in yet? He wants to see everything! "I'm not really stampeding much anymore, which is better for everyone! Certainly safer for the engines."
Please can he come inside?
"So yes, one Vash, minus the Stampede, reporting for duty."
The glimpse of the Engine Room behind him is wildly weird - levers and lights, arcade games and crystals and a little steam boiler, and what looks like maybe an ancient roman version of a foosball table made of marble and bronze. An iridescent robot cat with mechanical fairy wings peers at him and makes a soft sound like wind chimes. Jedao gives it a little pat.
"Alright, Vash," Jedao comes back out and locks the door behind them. "I've got to show you a few other things first." He heads for the elevator. "Is that what you'd like me to call you?"
Vash is staying put on the other side of the doorway, but only just barely. Like a little kid in front of a Christmas window his head's on a perpetual swivel, eyes wide as his attention jumps from one improbable object to the next. The boiler he thinks he recognizes, and the walls and panels covered in levers, those he was expecting. He's pretty sure that one of those 'panels' is actually a video game, though, and is that a wind chime?
Jedao comes back through, but Vash hardly glances at the man... at least, until the man walks past him and closes the door. "Wait, we're not...?" Now they're leaving? He's so confused by this place. "Yeah, Vash is fine, but aren't we...?"
He trails after Jedao, eyes still on the engine room door. That room is a madhouse, and he wants back in!
He's following! Once they're in the elevator, though, that wide-eyed exthusiasm settles into something a bit more suspicious. Is he just being fucked with here?
"Is this the part where you tell me that I need to go find a snipe pelt? Or a hundred bucks in small bills?"
A secure spot. What's a more secure place to talk about the engines than the engine room?
"I promise this is not hazing," Jedao says. "Fox's honor." Which no one from his own world would trust as far as they could throw him, but that's neither here nor there.
On the third floor, he walks to cabin four and lets them inside. It has a plain, unpainted wooden door, and flatpack cream furniture inside. It's sparse in the way of an area that gets regularly tidied, but not much actually lived in. As soon as the door closes behind them -
"We have a lot of extra protections on the Engine Room, in case keys get stolen by people trying to harm the barge. If you tried to step inside it before we add you to the magical wards, you'd get teleported here."
Jedao goes to one blank wall and touches something, which opens a hidden door into another room: a small, neat room with plush carpeting. There are a few different comfy chairs, even a bean bag, all inside of a chalk circle, with a little red dot a few inches inside the circle. There's a basket full of little water bottles, juice boxes, and snack bars from the commissary. Painted on the wall, in neat, bright red letters eight inches high, is a message.
HELLO INTRUDER!
YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER THE ENGINE ROOM. YOU HAVE BEEN DIVERTED HERE. AN ENGINE ROOM ATTENDANT WILL BE ALERTED AND WILL RELEASE YOU SHORTLY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE UNCONSCIOUS UNTIL THE ATTENDANT ARRIVES, SIMPLY ERASE THE RED DOT ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF YOU. OTHERWISE, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE UNTIL AN ATTENDANT ARRIVES.
"...I suppose I could have let you get here the fast way, but it seemed a little rude."
Fox's honor? Are foxes particularly honorable? Isn't there a saying about being sly as a fox, and doesn't that indicate that they are not, in fact, all that trustworthy? Vash has never seen a fox (outside of a wildlife show he saw as a child) but he's pretty sure that this is, in fact, going to end up being hazing.
...Which is fine, really. He didn't have anything else to do today anyway!
Jadeo explains their side route, and Vash just nods along because yes, okay, this is a ship that's half full of people who were brought here against their wills to try and get them to stop committing crimes. It's reasonable that they'd have extra protections around the engines, just in case they...
Wait.
"...Magical wards?"
Then the wall sides open, and Vash spots the comfiest prison cell he's ever seen. Huh.
"Localized time suspension. The same thing happens if you try to destroy or break out of the circle. Anyway, me and a couple others get an alert when the spell triggers, and then someone has to come down here and do a bunch of math to deactivate the containment. We've only had to use it a few times, but better to have it and not need it, and all that. The Engine Room is...it looks like a lot of nonsense, but it's closer to being the real barge than most places. If it gets really damaged, there could be problems," he explains.
"Problems," he repeats, still trying to wrap his brain around all that information. "Magical problems, with the magical engine, that you're solving with magic."
Sabotage he understands. Trap doors to prevent intruders, sure, that's reasonable enough! But Jedao is talking about magic like it's a real thing.
Is this the hazing part? Is he being hazed right now?
"It's overlapping gravity generators, or compressed magnetics. It's not magic. Magic isn't real."
At least, not on his world. For Vash, the only 'real' magic is tricks for children, sleight of hand and concealed, planned reveals. Scarves tucked inside a ring, or coins hidden behind a knuckle, just tricks.
The word for what happens to Vash can only be explosion. He flings himself back faster than a human his size should have been able to move, arms and legs loving at triple speed as he tries, simultaneously, to climb through the wall, grab something to wield as a weapon (although he's aiming more for the fly swatter variety of weapon -- a rolled piece of paper would do nicely), to hold himself up in his shock, and to demand answers while also yelping in utter surprise. It's a lot of flailing, and noise.
"Drugs!" he lands on at last, casting an accusing finger in the bird's direction. "Drugs, you gave me drugs! But when? How?!" People don't just turn into birds!
"Was it the pastry? Did you drug an innocent fruit horn!?"
Jedao is much more vulnerable as a swift, but fortunately he's also extremely dexterous in the air. He zips away in a little tumbling whirlwind and lands in a corner on the far side of the room, where Vash would have to make his way around the invisible walls of the containment circle to get to him. As a swift, he's also not terribly stable on flat ground, without anything to grip and perch, although the carpet is better than tile would have been.
To that exact point, he gives a shrill, indignant peep.
The bird flies off into the magic cell, and Vash watches it go, curl of paper in one hand still ready to swat at any other hallucinations that might decide to pop up.
Because he's hallucinating. He has to be. "That's really the only rational answer," he replies to himself, backing towards the room's door and away from the bird. "I finally lost it!"
Honestly, it's kind of a relief?
"I didn't think it'd be birds, but I guess it could have been worse!"
"Your world probably didn't have magic. But the barge is an intersection," Jedao explains quietly, without coming closer. "That's actually one of the things the Engine Room is doing, I'm pretty sure - mediating all those different sets of universal rules."
Look, he can't say he hasn't noticed things, okay? Places on the ship where the ceiling goes higher than it should be able to, the amosphere on the deck, yeah... whatever is going on behind the walls in the Enclosure...
But none of that is somebody turning into a bird. He's catching up, he really is, but he needs a minute. The rest can be explained with science that's simply beyond his understanding, but...
"...But there's rules though. The universe has a set of rules, science has rules." He might have spent most of his life an outlaw and gunslinger but once upon a time he had a truly remarkable education, and that education taught him that physics wouldn't allow for a person to turn into a bird.
"Conservation of matter, for one! The displaced energy when you transformed, it should have..." He brings his hands together and then pops them apart, a visual explosion. "There should have been heat, light, radiation!"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He'll show up about thirty minutes after Jedeo's message in full Stampede attire: spiked up (black) hair, his floor-length signature red coat, beneath that a leather body suit held on with far too many belts and buckles, and hidden by the coat, a very large .45. His errand, and the reason for his delay, is made obvious by what he's got in his hands -- a flat pastry box, with a selection of fruit horns. Does he beat Jedeo to the door, or is the other man already waiting for him? ]
Hello again!
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"Hi, Vash. I'm Jedao. Go ahead and open the Engine room with your key, but don't step inside."
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"Open the door but don't go inside, check! ...Oh, but first, here."
He hands over the box of pastries, which contains two of each of the flavors he'd asked Jedao about. Well, there's two apple and two lemon, but only one berry. Sorry -- those are really good!
"You didn't say which one you wanted, so I brought them all!"
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Jedao considers the possibility that the pastries are drugged, then trusts to his metabolism and takes a bite of the other berry anyway.
"This is really thoughtful, though, thanks."
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"They didn't have any donuts today. Those are my favorite," he offers, turning to the door and pulling out the key he's been issued. "But these are good too! I don't think I'll ever get tired of having fresh fruit every day."
There: the door's unlocked. Now what?
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"Vash the Stammede?" he asks, deliberately making a mistake, as a last check in case this person is an imposter, shapeshifter maybe, who's stolen a new warden's key.
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Excited enough that he forgives his new co-workers mispronounciation with just a nod.
"That's me! ...Well, that used to be me." Can he come in yet? He wants to see everything! "I'm not really stampeding much anymore, which is better for everyone! Certainly safer for the engines."
Please can he come inside?
"So yes, one Vash, minus the Stampede, reporting for duty."
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The glimpse of the Engine Room behind him is wildly weird - levers and lights, arcade games and crystals and a little steam boiler, and what looks like maybe an ancient roman version of a foosball table made of marble and bronze. An iridescent robot cat with mechanical fairy wings peers at him and makes a soft sound like wind chimes. Jedao gives it a little pat.
"Alright, Vash," Jedao comes back out and locks the door behind them. "I've got to show you a few other things first." He heads for the elevator. "Is that what you'd like me to call you?"
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Vash is staying put on the other side of the doorway, but only just barely. Like a little kid in front of a Christmas window his head's on a perpetual swivel, eyes wide as his attention jumps from one improbable object to the next. The boiler he thinks he recognizes, and the walls and panels covered in levers, those he was expecting. He's pretty sure that one of those 'panels' is actually a video game, though, and is that a wind chime?
Jedao comes back through, but Vash hardly glances at the man... at least, until the man walks past him and closes the door. "Wait, we're not...?" Now they're leaving? He's so confused by this place. "Yeah, Vash is fine, but aren't we...?"
He trails after Jedao, eyes still on the engine room door. That room is a madhouse, and he wants back in!
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Jedao waves him along, and if he follows, takes the elevator up to the third floor.
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"Is this the part where you tell me that I need to go find a snipe pelt? Or a hundred bucks in small bills?"
A secure spot. What's a more secure place to talk about the engines than the engine room?
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On the third floor, he walks to cabin four and lets them inside. It has a plain, unpainted wooden door, and flatpack cream furniture inside. It's sparse in the way of an area that gets regularly tidied, but not much actually lived in. As soon as the door closes behind them -
"We have a lot of extra protections on the Engine Room, in case keys get stolen by people trying to harm the barge. If you tried to step inside it before we add you to the magical wards, you'd get teleported here."
Jedao goes to one blank wall and touches something, which opens a hidden door into another room: a small, neat room with plush carpeting. There are a few different comfy chairs, even a bean bag, all inside of a chalk circle, with a little red dot a few inches inside the circle. There's a basket full of little water bottles, juice boxes, and snack bars from the commissary. Painted on the wall, in neat, bright red letters eight inches high, is a message.
YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER THE ENGINE ROOM. YOU HAVE BEEN DIVERTED HERE. AN ENGINE ROOM ATTENDANT WILL BE ALERTED AND WILL RELEASE YOU SHORTLY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE UNCONSCIOUS UNTIL THE ATTENDANT ARRIVES, SIMPLY ERASE THE RED DOT ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF YOU. OTHERWISE, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE UNTIL AN ATTENDANT ARRIVES.
"...I suppose I could have let you get here the fast way, but it seemed a little rude."
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...Which is fine, really. He didn't have anything else to do today anyway!
Jadeo explains their side route, and Vash just nods along because yes, okay, this is a ship that's half full of people who were brought here against their wills to try and get them to stop committing crimes. It's reasonable that they'd have extra protections around the engines, just in case they...
Wait.
"...Magical wards?"
Then the wall sides open, and Vash spots the comfiest prison cell he's ever seen. Huh.
"So what happens if you erase the red dot?"
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Sabotage he understands. Trap doors to prevent intruders, sure, that's reasonable enough! But Jedao is talking about magic like it's a real thing.
Is this the hazing part? Is he being hazed right now?
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More or less; magic is the safer word for it, in Jedao's opinion.
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Isn't it?
"It's overlapping gravity generators, or compressed magnetics. It's not magic. Magic isn't real."
At least, not on his world. For Vash, the only 'real' magic is tricks for children, sleight of hand and concealed, planned reveals. Scarves tucked inside a ring, or coins hidden behind a knuckle, just tricks.
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"Drugs!" he lands on at last, casting an accusing finger in the bird's direction. "Drugs, you gave me drugs! But when? How?!" People don't just turn into birds!
"Was it the pastry? Did you drug an innocent fruit horn!?"
Vash, you brought the pastry.
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To that exact point, he gives a shrill, indignant peep.
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Because he's hallucinating. He has to be. "That's really the only rational answer," he replies to himself, backing towards the room's door and away from the bird. "I finally lost it!"
Honestly, it's kind of a relief?
"I didn't think it'd be birds, but I guess it could have been worse!"
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"Okay, buddy. You call me when you're up to speed."
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"I'm really gonna need you to stop doing that!"
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But none of that is somebody turning into a bird. He's catching up, he really is, but he needs a minute. The rest can be explained with science that's simply beyond his understanding, but...
"...But there's rules though. The universe has a set of rules, science has rules." He might have spent most of his life an outlaw and gunslinger but once upon a time he had a truly remarkable education, and that education taught him that physics wouldn't allow for a person to turn into a bird.
"Conservation of matter, for one! The displaced energy when you transformed, it should have..." He brings his hands together and then pops them apart, a visual explosion. "There should have been heat, light, radiation!"
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sorry did not see this tag
no worries!
Re: no worries!
Re: no worries!
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