[open] ...okay, so I did a catch-all a month+ later, technically it's not a lie...

[firekiss]

Who: Guinaifen (firekiss) and various and sundry other people
Where: various and sundry locations
What: Dealing with various and sundry glitches. (Catch-all feat. open prompts, basically.)
Warnings: Profanity, and given the general death that happened I wouldn't be surprised if someone brings death up as a thing.

I.

[So, the glitches have gotten worse.

Guinaifen's trying to focus on what's important, which is eating. She needs food. She wants to cook. Something in her calls for the familiar flavors of the Xianzhou, and while she's not a chef she thinks she can fake fried rice? Which requires getting rice. Which requires being in a store.

Getting in had been pretty normal. Shopping? Also normal. It's something she can lose herself in, and, if but for a moment, pretend like she's...maybe not back home? But this is a brief trip to a different planet, and once she's done with her vacation she can head back.

All of this lasts up until the point in which she gets to the cash register and she discovers the NPC is suddenly a mara-struck mutated thing with ginkgo leaves growing out of its arm, and Guinaifen fucking screams and throws the bag of rice at its head.]

II.

[So, the glitches are still terrible.

There's probably plot going on elsewhere that she should be paying attention to, some serious club activities or whatever, but Guinaifen's preoccupied with the fact that she knows she's gone in a circle and the door is gone again. She saw the door! She blinked. And then, the door's gone.

But it could be worse. She's not alone.

What's with this? You saw the door, right? I can't be seeing things.

[Theme of Prompt II.]

III.

[So- oh, you know by now.

Counter situation. Two people eating. Without warning, Guinaifen slides over a plate of what appears to be onion rings...]

Hey, tell me what these taste like to you?

[They do not taste like onion rings to her.]

IV.

[Wildcard option: surprise me, PM me if you want something specific, you know the drill.]

Comments

i

[entreats]

[ Well, it's hard to not notice a scream like that all throughout the store.

Which means Ange leaps into action. Before Guinaifen will see Ange herself appear, she may notice two weird stake-like weapons flying through the air, only barely missing the shopkeeper to instead drill themselves into the wall behind the mutated being.

A moment later the redhead comes running from the nearby aisle, her facial expression more concerned than she usually looks. ]

What's going--

[ ...

Yes, that's her cutting herself off since she just spotted the NPC. ]

What is that?

[ Help? Guinaifen? You got any idea?? ]

[firekiss]

[She's backing away as the thing lurches up, frantically slapping at her waist for her polearm before remembering that she left it at home because this was supposed to be a quick in-and-out - why travel heavily armed when all you need is rice - and she wants to curse but they don't have the luxury of it-]

Mara-struck. [The thing is, fortunately for the both of them, taking a couple of moments to chop at the counter, enough time for quick exposition.]

It's- they can't die. [She's throwing the rest of her groceries at the thing as it tries to lurch at them- enough exposition for now!] Run.

[Hey bestie, she's grabbing your arm to make a quick getaway out the door while the aesthetic zombie ginkgo thing (basically) tries to kill them but is distracted by the cash register.]

@demonicbookworm

[firekiss]

[So- okay, granted, Guinaifen's been at Aldrip for all of not that long, so she doesn't exactly have a good idea of what the average temperature of Aldrip this time of year is. Different planets have different weather patterns, and she doesn't know where on this planet Aldrip is located, so for all she knows she's way up on the northern hemisphere or way down on the southern hemisphere just in time for the hot season.

And so forth and so on.

So she's hanging out with Ruca, because Ruca strikes her as an easily bullied yet cute kid brother type (don't tell him that), and due to the unseasonably strange weather (it's a glitch, they don't know it yet but it's a glitch) one thing led to another and they're getting ice cream!

The NPC turns to them as they ponder, and cheerfully asks, "⬥︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ●︎♓︎🙵♏︎ ♋︎ ⬧︎♋︎❍︎◻︎●︎♏︎✍︎"]

Uh.

[Hm.]

ii

[garbagecanned]

[if he hadn't been here for a hot minute, he would've figured she was just losing her mind. or maybe they all were... ?

who knows.

anyway, at least he had seen the door before it disappeared, and he frowned.]

Okay, this is getting out of hand...

[he grumps it out.]

This isn't cat and mouse or anything!

[firekiss]

I don't know if I'm glad it's not just me or not. [She's tapping on the walls, trying to see if they feel fake or not. (They feel like normal walls. All of this seems normal.) If this somehow backfires horribly, then, well, remember her as she was: tempting fate and not seeming to care.]

If it was just me, well- I'd be losing my mind but at least you could get me out. [............probably.] But at least we're not along, right?

iii

[baldrshand]

[Ethlyn is indulging herself in a nice sausage-inna-bun (aka a hot dog) when some battered and fried circles are suddenly thrust under her nose.

Onion rings, right? Well. Things around here are strange, so Ethlyn takes one and carefully nibbles it...

Then she breaks it in half, pulling out the stringy vegetable inside. No, that is an onion.]

It tastes like toffee. [She frowns.] This doesn't make sense.

[garbagecanned]

I mean, it could be worse.

[he... guesses??????]

But I don't like pranks, and I definitely feel like I'm getting one right now!

[he sees a door reappear and runs to it, trying to grab it.

and then it disappears again.]

Dammit!!

[firekiss]

[Meanwhile, Guinaifen's taking a step back, looking up, around, behind them.]

Don't suppose you've got anything...well, explosive, do you? [Listen, she doubts it, and she's not expecting any miracles, but try all avenues and explore all possibilities and reach out to the truth, alright?]

I could try breaking something. Don't expect too much from me, but best case I make a hole, worst case I do fifty hours of community service or something next month. It's fine! I don't mind helping out if it's for a good cause. [Well, kind of. She's also looking for something to swing like a handy hammer (doubt one will be lying around, but she can hope) or a stick or a shovel...bar stool, maybe...]

[firekiss]

So it's not just me!

[Okay. Good. Good. A tension leaves Guinaifen's shoulders. She reaches for her water. Hesitates because what if it doesn't taste like water but no, she's not going to live a life of fear, she's drinking the water (which tastes like water).]

I was wondering if I was going crazy. Worst part? It tastes pretty good as toffee goes, but...the texture's all wrong. Or is it just me?

[demonicbookworm]

[Ruca is... not doing well in temperatures this high. He's literally melting, so anything that would help bring him at least a bit of relief from the heat is great. Bless ice cream for existing.

Ruca is very happy to hang out with Guinaifen. She definitely seems like an older sister type (don't tell her that) and he desperately wishes his brain could function better in the current weather. He was going to ask her questions about her tricks and how it is to be an entertainer...

Thankfully they're now in the store about to get those ice cream. But the moment they're spoken to, it doesn't sound like any language Ruca has ever heard, not even here. He's pretty sure he was able to understand everyone without much issue, so this is quite a shock.

He turns to Guinaifen to voice his confusion.]

Gnineppah stahw dnatsrednu tnodi...

[But he's unaware that his own words sound like gibberish.]

[firekiss]

[Okay. Alright. She knows what's going on. (She doesn't know what's going on, but she's got a close enough frame of reference she's assuming that she knows what's going on. To be decided if they figure it out or not.) Clearly, the Synesthesia Beacons they all got injected with are malfunctioning and that's why they're having language problems. Clearly!

...clearly. Actually, this brings up more questions than answers, but- focusing on the important part.

The NPC is helpfully asking, "✋︎⬧︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎♏︎ ♋︎ ◻︎❒︎□︎♌︎●︎♏︎❍︎✍︎ 💣︎♓︎⬧︎⬧︎✍︎ 💧︎♓︎❒︎✍︎" Looking a bit concerned. The NPC doesn't matter.

Guinaifen points at Ruca. She mimes a mouth or a duck's bill flapping - open, shut, open, shut - points to Ruca, points to her own ear, and makes an X with her hands.]

Sorry, Ruca, nothing you're saying makes sense. [...which, and Guinaifen frowns, because wouldn't that go both ways as well? Well.

Only so much she can do about that.]

[demonicbookworm]

[The fact that he can't understand Guinaifen either makes him widen his eyes. Everything seemed to be normal until they entered the store. Well, aside from the abnormal heat... Actually maybe all of this is the weather's fault? Is it so hot that they lost ability to communicate?

Ruca casts a look at the NPC, then at Guinaifen, nodding that he understands. They both can't communicate with words right now.]

Evael ew dlouhs?

[He points the entrance to the store trying to indicate a retreat. Maybe change of place would fix something. Or maybe this is a temporary inability.

...The worst part of all of this is the heat awaiting outside. Ruca's element is fire, so why can't he be immune to high temperatures! He's doing so much better in cold.]

[entreats]

[ Too bad that Mara-struck says absolutely nothing to Ange, huh. She figures it's probably some sort of local term for monsters where the other comes from, or maybe some specific kind of monster. The latter would be kind of interesting to the redhead, considering where her very specific interests lie, but..

.. yeah, she also realizes this isn't really the time to casually talk about it. Maybe once they've far, far away from this thing.

Which means that when Guinaifen pulls on Ange's arm, she doesn't resist in the slightest. She just allows the girl to drag her along, quickly moving her own feet to keep up with it as well. ]

Why-- [ She starts, only when they're running out of the place, still on the move. ] Why was it here?! You recognized it!

[ And Ange doesn't. She hasn't ever seen anything like that in this place before.

And yet now there's one suddenly here, straight from Guinaifen's world? ]

[baldrshand]

No... [Ethlyn takes a moment to run it against her teeth, chewing it a little.] It still feels like an onion.

[The sheer weirdness of it suddenly becomes overpowering, and she has to spit it into her napkin to avoid gagging on it.]

What happened to it? It looks like an onion, it feels like one, how is this possible?

[garbagecanned]

Um... no. [Susano-o doesn't do anything explosive.] Do you really have to get in there, anyway?

[he's just making sure before they. y'know. go further on the property damage thing.]

I got something that might be able to smash through the wall, though.