[log] Chopped: Link's Exploded Backpack Edition

[unsheathedfromreality]

Who: Anyone who wants to salvage the Unreasonably Large Food Pile left in the kitchen ... and elsewhere ... by Link's departure.
What: An Unreasonably Large Pile of delicious fresh food!
When: April 1st
Where: The kitchen and surrounding areas in the Lobby. The bugs and lizards might spread ...
Content warnings: Contains live insects!! Potential insect-eating. Should be pretty tame otherwise!

It starts with a hurried post on the bulletin board in Illarion's efficient script:

There is an enormous pile of food in the kitchen that needs to be saved.

Anyone who can prepare or preserve it welcome.

After an hour or two, a tidy little inventory appears beneath the initial message, along with an attempt to track -- by name or description -- who's taken what, and how it's been used. There are some inventive descriptions on there for the items Illarion doesn't recognize.

(It doesn't look exactly like this -- because Illarion doesn't know the names of everything in the pile, or everyone who stops by, and certainly wouldn't make a spreadsheet -- but the poor digital substitute will have to stand in for his glorious real list.)

---

Those who do respond to the urgent missive will find the kitchen exactly as described: Absolutely full to overflowing with fresh produce that could've grown in the Library's garden, alongside a veritable market wagon of fresh fish, meat, and more produce. (Along with ... rocks and wood?)

Oh, and there's also a minor infestation of live bugs and reptiles actively escaping into the stacks.

Illarion's right in the thick of it for hours, first tirelessly triaging the mass into what should be cooked or preserved first, what will store well in the icebox, and what can be kept around on the shelves. Then he turns his hand to preparing the meat and fish for drying (and saving the fat from the richest cuts).

Once he's certain the most perishable items are taken care of, he sets aside some of the fat, honey, and berries for himself. Then he goes out hunting, pursuing the bugs and lizards loose in the Lobby and stacks. He's got no shame whatsoever about chasing them under furniture or up bookshelves, and soon has his sabertache full of squirmy tidbits.

Then it's back to the kitchen, to render the fat and make crunchy insect pemmican from his prizes.

(He's enough of a magpie he can't resist making off with some of the gems. There's someone out there who will look stunning in rubies and amber...)

((OOC: Feel free to use this as a jumping-off point for whatever you wanna do with your top levels! No need to tag Illarion -- go wild.

The spreadsheet above is fully editable -- feel free to put in what your guys take on tab 2 & I'll eventually get some automation going to track the item inventory and tab 1 will do inventory for us. Have fun!!))

Comments

[icanhearscreams]

He's not sure he's ever been this close to anyone. "... Good. They're not mine to tell except to the people they affect. They're mine to hold on to."

The statement gets a snotty chuckle out of him. "That's what everyone says." He's not sure he agrees, but... "It sucks. The whole situation is awful."

[deinoswitch]

"They affect you," Dionysus points out, "And so I think you could tell them, as they are part of your story now. As you say, they are not mine. But I will listen if you ever wish to speak of them." Just talking about things can help quite a bit. June clearly has a lot bottled up.

"It is." There is not denying that. "I am sorry you all had to go through it. Unfortunately, we cannot change the past. We can only figure out how to keep going forward."

[icanhearscreams]

"The only place I can go forward is here." He pulls back a little and wipes his face with his sleeve. "I'm dead at home. So there's nothing I can do but... be here."

Will it matter, in the end? He doesn't know.

[deinoswitch]

Dionysus can't help but think it's especially cruel to drag this young man here, deny him even the peace of crossing the Styx- of forgetting. But perhaps there is a purpose to this too. To make sure their stories are not forgotten yet.

"Is there something you wish to do here?" he coaxes gently, "I know we have little choice in the matter, but we can try to make the best of it. And we have each other to help do that."

[icanhearscreams]

He shrugs weakly, trying to clean his glasses with a part of his shirt he hasn't gotten dirty yet. It keeps smudging though... hm.

"I don't know. I thought I'd set everything as in order as I could before I went off to my battle... and it's not like I can do what I thought I'd be doing before we got dragged into that mess. I'm never going to be able to study at university, to help fish and other ocean wildlife... it's just not possible here."

[deinoswitch]

Dionysus... doesn't know what glasses are, but he's got some cloth in his bag and he'll hand a clean one over to him.

"Not in here, but perhaps in the Stories I've heard about. And you can always learn more about them in the meantime." There are plenty of books around.

[icanhearscreams]

“Maybe…” He sniffs. “We’ll see. I don’t want to end up as someone else in those Stories, but it might be inevitable.”

As for the books… “I guess. They’re all unfinished, though.”

[deinoswitch]

"Would you even need to be someone else? You could still try to take care of things as you." That's more what he meant, anyway. Something Jun could still do, in what time they had.

He chuckles softly. "All knowledge is unfinished. That doesn't mean it's not worth learning."

[icanhearscreams]

"I know that. And I know that you can't know everything." Thinking otherwise is just stupid. "But when there's important facts missing it's annoying."

"But trying to take care of things... I don't even know what I could take care of." What does he even have left?

[deinoswitch]

Dionysus shrugs. "Well, what sort of things do you care about? If we wind up in a place that has a river nearby, could you look at it and find out if there's something that's harming the creatures there? Could you learn about what the animals of different places need? Could you encourage others to care for the world around them more?"

[icanhearscreams]

"... I don't know. I don't have a lot of training. But... I could try." Animals are easier to figure out than people, after all.

[deinoswitch]

"You might be able to learn some things from books. And perhaps some from others here; I'm afraid I don't know much about fish but I do try to take care of the natural world around me." This is an understatement, but Jun doesn't need to know that.

[icanhearscreams]

"Who knows, maybe there's some nonsense magic that lets me talk to fish." He can turn into a fucking wolf now, who knows what else is there?

He sighs and relaxes a little bit more. "Things here don't make sense, but... it's what I've got."

[deinoswitch]

"Maybe! That would be fun." Animals can be much better listeners than humans. Partially because they are very good at not overcomplicating things.

The witch chuckles softly. "They don't, but they don't need to all the time," he says, "Sometimes we just have to feel out what seems right."

[icanhearscreams]

"... Yeah, I guess. I'm just not used to the... feelings thing. Other than being mad." He's good at being angry. He would like to sometimes have emotions that aren't just 'angry' or 'bored'. Being happy seems like it would be nice...

[deinoswitch]

This poor child. Dionysus is definitely going to keep an eye on him. "Other feelings can be quite nice," he says with a smile, "I hope you are able to find them." He'll certainly try to help.