Log01.entry

[ugh_emotions]

Who: SecUnit, Charles, and eventually other people depending on how things go lots of other people, everyone join in
What: SecUnit checks up Charles, no one has a good time
When: Just before the start of the Story
Where: The stacks
Content warnings: SecUnit getting accidentally bricked

Every time SecUnit or one of its drones caught sight of Charles, he seemed to look even more dead than the last time.

Which was weird. He was already dead (which was also weird), surely he couldn't get any more dead. You were either dead or you weren't.

Whatever. It wasn't SecUnit's problem. Charles wasn't one of its humans. It didn't need to worry about him.

(It worried about him.)

Eventually though, it gets to the point where it can't ignore it anymore, and it stomps over to where Charles is in the Stacks.

"What's wrong with you?" it demands.

Comments

[hellandbackpack]

Some things were easy enough to wave off- humans tended to shed clothing layers for comfort so Charles being seen less and less in his dark coat and jacket wasn't so odd. He might be a ghost, but habits died hard. And the black polo instead of the red? Surely just a fashion choice. It wasn't the only thing he did out of habit- the way he tended to still blink, to still do little audible breaths or sounds, the noise of footsteps, how he shifted his weight like it was still a thing he could feel.

What both SecUnit and his drones would note, was that he was doing those little habitual things less lately. At the same time, he looked... just a bit different. A bit more sallow, some warmth stolen from his complexion. Dark circles carving under his eyes, a faint cool tinge to his lips, and on the rare occasion he was without his gloves, his fingertips as well. Sensors would note that while he was never really above room temperature in general, he was even colder now, the shift just creeping downward slowly as the days passed.

He still acted like he usually did. For the most part- around people he was cheerful and chatty, but alone, he lapsed more into quiet. Like now, which let him easily pick up on the sound of someone approaching, unable to help the mild surprise of seeing SecUnit. Actually approaching of his own volition in a direct manner.

"Well that's a funny sort of hello." Charles replied, a bit bewildered. Remembering the other didn't seem to like others looking it in the face, he let his gaze settle somewhere around the other's shoulder for the moment- close enough to see expressions without making the other uneasy.

[ugh_emotions]

SecUnit might not be looking Charles in the face, but its drone is certainly getting right up and personal. The drone flies right up to Charles's face, the camera pointed right at him.

Yeah, he looked different. Maybe not enough for a human to notice. But SecUnit was built to have a high attention for detail, to look for anomalies. Things that were off. Right now, Charles was definitely off.

"You look shit," it says, ignoring the comment about its missing hello. It starts running a scan, and - yeah, even Charles's temperature is lower than usual. Something was definitely wrong with him.

[hellandbackpack]

It was hard to really put a finger on things without the sorts of things in a living human to ping sensors. But SecUnit's drones have likely seen Charles in passing enough to learn what 'baseline' looked like for the ghost, at least as far as sensors went. The strange electromagnetic field that normally was fairly stable, calm, taking up mostly just the space that his body seemed to, was a bit more volatile in the moment. And the cool temperature was seeping out into the ambient air, not that Charles seemed to notice that. Even without human vitals, the visual appearance? Definitely in line with hypothermia, down to the dilation of pupils.

"What, suddenly a ghost expert?" Charles huffed, the smile offered a little tighter than it should be, for all he didn't realize. Nor did he realize he'd been tracking wet footprints across the carpet- for all he looked bone dry in the moment. "M'fine."

[ugh_emotions]

"You're exhibiting unusual characteristics. Do you, specifically. I don't need to be a ghost export to notice that," it says. Its eyes drift down to the wet footprints Charles has been leaving. "And you're leaking."

(How does a dead human leak? This dead human thing was baffling.)

hey c'mere if you wanna be in the peanut gallery

[logosmaxima]

Magnus stumbles upon the dramatic scene -- the fallen servitor, the soul of a young man, and the young mutant woman attending them -- entirely on accident. He'd been following the tantalizing signature of a text through the Library's interminable stacks, searching for the flavor of something lost with burned Zoah, when the sound of voices caught his keen primarch's ear. Curiousity -- what else -- and concern drive him to find their source, and the Library (un)helpfully resizes around him as he pads through the stacks to the an area full of much smaller people.

Surprisingly, it's the drone he recognizes immediately in all the tableau, and then he can make a guess at its owner. "Oh, the helpful servitor," he remarks to no one in particular. There's a note of pity in his voice; yes, it's not exactly a person in the eyes of the Imperium, but it did have an aura (dim, slumbering now), unlike a merely mechanical cogitator. Anything that could suffer deserved a little pity, in the throes of that suffering.

He'll stay out of the way, otherwise. Knowledgable as he is about the principles behind servitor creation and maintenance, it is not an area of expertise. But the servitor's continued function -- given its aid to his family -- is an area of concern.

((ooc: have a lil containment zone for people wanting to gawk at what's going on to chatter amongst themselves. no comment order GO WILD.))

[steelfeathered]

Stormwings feed on mortal suffering generally, and having starved for so long Hisako is sensitized to it, is compelled by the flavor of subtleties in annoyance and embarrassment. But it's fear that feeds them best, as she remembers while gliding closer to that great invisible fountain. This is more of it than she's picked up before and it's so clear! So pure!

She tells herself that she's coming to check what's going on, to find out if it's something she should escape or to try to help with. And that would be useful to know, and she would have helped if it was something she could help with. It's clearly not though, with a hawklike gaze she looks upon the main scene from a range and quickly decides that her landing to muscle in and ask these concerned parties would be a distraction at best. So she should just fly away again.

Hisako swoops to perch on a catwalk, at too great a distance to overhear these nice people acting prudently. She isn't quite as careful landing as usual, steel feathers clattering against the metal, the primaries putting nicks in the finish before she furls her wings. It's so good, it would be better closer, but she's not here for that, she's going to leave. Oh, no, she's salivating again. She clenches her feet, swallowing hard and feeling a stinging in her eyes. If she still had a human sensibility about disgust she'd be disgusted right now, wouldn't she? She should go, she should go.

[logosmaxima]

The clatter of metal on metal somewhere above him catches Magnus' attention. He looks up, eye narrowing and psychic senses unfurling to take in the new arrival.

Since the new arrival has not announced herself -- and her aura is a muddle of conflicting negative emotion -- he does not call out to her, merely watches until he's distracted by a question.

[steelfeathered]

If she avoids flavor metaphors then the fear presses, it pounds, it writhes like an animal in pain, intensely compelling, and she has a prey bird's desire to take it in her talons and squeeze. Wow that's maybe even worse! She hates that her mouth wants to pull into a smile. Hisako can keep herself from approaching but she finds herself afraid that if she leaps from the catwalk she won't be able to make herself fly away.

If she'd known she could get sent to a boat for attempting to harm the library she would have done so. She doesn't, so she starts preening energetically, licking her feathers in an effort to calm down, the way a trapped rat will wash its face. Sharp edges nip and slice into the outer layers of her tongue, moreso than when she's more cautious about this, but she's been a Stormwing for a long time and doesn't cut herself deeply enough to draw blood.

She casts around with the sense that had almost never seen use in the Divine Realms, trying to 'look' in any direction not at the tableau of winged people and a collapsed someone and that girl with the shadow problem and the ghost whose emotions are just inherently clearer and brighter than those of the living.

There's a... Huh. She double-checks location with her eyes and yep. Sanguinius practically hands his sweet guilt out for the taking, and the formerly wonderful-smelling one drops bittersweet-sour kernels of despair and madness with every motion. The short-haired one keeps things closer to the chest, or at least, he wasn't basically in crisis when she spoke to him, but there was physical pain and a fascinating sort of tingle going on. This beetroot-colored giant, who she's seen before only at a greater distance, has some degree of similarity - aren't they all supposed to be brothers? surely she can't just tell that from the ways they're miserable, she must be influenced by having read and heard this and that - but also. What. It's a welcome distraction. She stares at him talking to someone who's a much more ordinary degree of tall.

Re: hey c'mere if you wanna be in the peanut gallery

[thickasacastlewall]

"Do you think he's going to be all right?" Dunk asks, frowning, as he keeps looking between the gathered crowd of people near the fainted man--which has two small winged people at this point--and the red-colored giant. He's still not quite used to all the odd-looking people here at the library.

[logosmaxima]

Magnus has his single eye turned not toward the assembly around the fallen servitor, but up toward the rafters when the young mortal asks his question. He stares a moment longer at what he's sensed up near the ceiling, then turns his eye on the smaller man.

"I believe it will be," he rumbles, reassuringly. "It wasn't hurt, merely stunned, and needs time to awaken after the insult."

[thickasacastlewall]

Dunk frowns. He doesn't like that the red giant is calling the unconscious man an 'it'--but given how easily the red giant could squash him, he doesn't quite feel like he should challenge him on the subject yet.

"The sorcerer is there with him," he says after a moment. "Mayhaps he'll be able to help?" Even if the tiny, winged man is currently fending off the affections of an equally tiny, very drunk woman at the moment.

Bathroom hiding time (OTA)

[ugh_emotions]

So. It lives in this bathroom, now.

SecUnit had run here, to the dorm bathrooms, immediately after...that whole thing. It was the only place it had thought of that would let is get away from everyone, lock itself away where no one could see it. And once it was safe, it could stop and review all of its drone's footage, from when it was offline.

It was bad. It was real bad.

There was getting knocked offline in the first place. Multiple people trying to check its vital signs. That one human trying to stick a compress on its head, like it was a helpless human. And then of course there was Siobhan trying to drag it, and that other human fucking carrying it, and...

...And waking up. All of those people there, looking at it. Everyone one of them hearing exactly what its buffer said.

It was absolutely mortifying.

It was absolutely terrifying.

So yeah. It had maybe had a bit of an emotional meltdown. And then it made the mistake of looking at the stupid journal, where it saw Charles telling everyone that it collapsed, and then it had another emotional meltdown.

No one else had better want to use this bathroom ever again, because it wasn't leaving. Not for the rest of its life.

[obeir]

K may not be able to relate to the experience of hiding one's true identity (an impossibility for him) and then having it unintentionally revealed, but he can understand why it might be upsetting. Especially for a fellow AI who'd been posing as a human; outside of this place, he knows that could mean the difference between survival and death for someone in SecUnit's position. That ruse had obviously been important to SecUnit, and K regrets not being able to get there in time to prevent anyone else from witnessing its reboot.

His normally nigh-silent footsteps have some deliberate weight to them now. He's not stomping around, just being loud enough to physically announce his presence as he approaches the door and knocks a couple times.

"Are you hurt?" he asks through the door. "I don't know what happened to you."

[ugh_emotions]

SecUnit had stationed a drone outside of the bathroom, in a out-of-the-way spot where it couldn't be easily noticed. So it knows, even before K knocks, that he's coming.

Inside the bathroom, it sits on the floor, curled up into a ball of SecUnit. It doesn't really want to talk to anybody. But at least K's not a human.

I'm...fine, it says, speaking through the feed rather than out loud. I don't...Charles did something. I don't know what. It knocked out all my systems.

[obeir]

K responds in kind, heedless of how awkward he knows he must look silently standing outside the bathroom door like this. Probably better to keep their conversation private anyway.

And there's no lingering damage?

Charles mentioned that ghosts like him can negatively affect tech. Whatever happened, I'm sure he didn't mean to do it.

[ohaiyo_isekai]

Rin is socially awkward at the best of times, and this is absolutely not the best of times.

Which is why Hikaru waits for a few hours before initiating the sendjewel ping.

I hope you're alright, Rin. The situation was not ideal.

Such a gift for understatement he has.

[ugh_emotions]

There’s a very, very long pause. Long enough that it almost seems like maybe SecUnit didn't hear, or is purposefully ignoring any messages. But perhaps Hikaru will notice a chance in the feed; the presence of a channel. SecUnit is there, even if it isn't saying anything.

Eventually, though, it does reply.

They'll all be scared of me now, it says. You should be scared of me.

[ohaiyo_isekai]

I do not fear you, Hikaru says. You have been nothing but kind and protective of people you did not even know in a situation that would test the best of us. You may be dangerous, yes, you are quite clearly never unarmed, but neither can I be.

And I, of all people, understand concealing your nature out of fear of of how others will react.

[lightsgift]

Reliable plumbing and unlimited hot water may be the best thing ever about this new, strange place. Technology is mostly a mystery to her, and will be for some time to come, but even she can grasp the concept of "turn the lever, hot water comes out".

It's like magic, really, except not a prohibitively expensive luxury. It's a wonderful thing, and an amenity that she's happy to take advantage of.

That's Cinthe's plan when she heads toward the bathroom in all her blue, elegant glory. Dark hair tied back from her face, stripped down to her simple breeches and blouse, towel tucked under an arm in preparation for a gloriously hot soak. She moves with light, easy grace on bare feet, the long lean lines of a dancer packed into a frame of slightly above average height.

Except, it's locked, and isn't that an unpleasant disappointment. The tiefling frowns, pausing by the door and tilting her head in plain question. Her eyes are blank, bright amethyst, pupil-less but still searching with her gaze and a mild furrow of brow beneath her curved ivory horns.

"Hello?"

[ugh_emotions]

Outside the bathroom, tucked away up in a corner near the ceiling, is a tiny drone, no bigger than a centimeter across. She likely won't even notice it. But it sees her, so SecUnit knows that she's there, even before she calls.

It's tempted to just...not reply. Say nothing, pretend it isn't here, hope the SOB (aka: Sentient Organic Being) goes away. But it's pretty obvious that someone isn't here, and if it looks like its hiding they'll just make even more fuss.

"It’s occupied." The voice that comes through the door is muffled, and terse. It's a voice that doesn't read as particularly masculine or feminine.

[hellandbackpack]

It takes a bit before he eventually writes something for SecUnit in the journal. At this point? He's definitely not expecting a reply, but he at least wants to apologize somehow.

I’m sorry. I know that it doesn't change what I did, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.

If you want me to stay away, I will. That may be safer.

I won’t contact you anymore unless you say it’s okay.

[ugh_emotions]

It takes a while before there's a response. Mainly because it had kind of been avoiding looking at the journal too much. It hadn't wanted to keep seeing everyone talk about it.

Eventually, though, it does send a reply.

...I know you didn't mean to.

(It doesn't say anything about Charles staying away, or not. It doesn't really know how to answer that one. Especially since it's still feeling fucking mortified at having such a vulnerability in the first place.)

Hiding in the Stacks (OTA)

[hellandbackpack]

SecUnit wasn't the only one hiding in the Library today. But unlike them, Charles hadn't holed up in a bathroom. He hadn't really had the thought process beyond getting away from others, which meant anywhere people might linger was right out. So instead he'd bolted farther into the Stacks. Found the dustiest, most abandoned-seeming aisle he could manage, and tucked himself back into the small corner of the shelf and the wall to one side, knees drawn up, elbows against them, hands buried in his hair.

It wasn't easy to spot him back there, but there were signs of his presence all the same- the shift of lighting, a subtle dimming effect as one of the lights nearest his hiding spot flickers then holds steady again. A thin wet sheen of damp over hardwood floors, and an icy chill to the air. Charles didn't notice the damp, or the cold, but he noticed the flicker of the light, which just encouraged him to draw back a bit more tightly into his hiding spot in response with a grimace, like that might make it stop.

Otherwise, he didn't budge, or speak. He hadn't meant to hurt Rin, or Siobhan. But... that didn't matter, did it? Because he had. He'd fucked up, he wasn't safe to be around.

He wished Edwin were here. Of anyone, he knew Edwin would understand what happened. Would be able to help him fix things. If they were fixable, anyways. And aside from that... just being around him would be comforting. He missed him, and the sensation just had the lights shifting again, from a cozy tone to something a bit colder.

It wasn't like he could leave. They were all stuck here, whether they liked it or not, him included. So all he could think of to do was just... stay away.

Tangled up in his own thoughts as he was, he wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings, or he absolutely would've gone noncorporeal again the second he heard footsteps anywhere nearby. As it was, the edges of his form were a bit blurred all the same, a sure sign of his agitation.

[unsheathedfromreality]

And Illarion was surely careful to make his footsteps audible, for one didn't lightly sneak up on the dead. It rarely went well for either party.

He hadn't been looking for Charles, exactly; he'd been roaming the stacks in the interminable patrol pattern he falls into out of habit when he's out of other things to do. A part of the Library that looked different from the others -- disused, flickering lights, moisture -- stood out enough to warrant investigation.

And that is how he finds Charles, visible through the unsolid, flatter things around him but still mysteriously opaque to Illarion's ((out))-eyes. (He wonders, briefly, if that means his ((outself's)) visible to the boy, in turn. Sets the idea aside for later.) He considers the situation for a half-second, then paces over to a nearby bookshelf he can crouch down beside and put his back to.

Pulls out his copy of the recommended reading and thumbs it open to the middle, skimming the text with relative disinterest.

"How long are you hiding for?" he finally asks, turning a page. (The voice might be familiar, with "Forster Green's" awful echoes and undercurrents.)

[hellandbackpack]

Charles heard the footsteps but at first he didn't quite realize what they were. Not until it was too late- the other had spotted him clearly, if the way he just settled down... with a book?

That was a bit strange. The teen glanced from under his hands towards him, brows furrowing as if he couldn't quite figure out why they were there. It helped that they weren't obviously focused on him. Made existing near someone else for even a moment a bit more bearable as he tried to sort what to do. Pretend he was still alone? Go invisible and find somewhere else? Was there anywhere else?

Considerations that were put on hold when the familiar voice spoke up. Earning a slow blink as Charles' mind quickly put a voice to a face. Not the face he'd seen before but then that had been in a Story.

"Dunno," He admitted finally, with a faint little shrug. "Didn't really think that far ahead."