the_last_resort | 4th Wall Event

4th Wall Event

Who: Various
What: 4th Wall Event
When: M12 D3-D5 (on Mar 7 - 15)
Where: Around Blackway and Blackstaff
Notes & Warnings: Please attach any warnings necessary to thread subjects. This does count for game canon. All 4th wall threads go here, and information is available on OOC and news. The game's navigation is here.

Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, intersexed, androgynes, robots, energy beings, and life forms of all kinds. I am Jeffers, your servant, host, and resort AI.

Let me extend gratitude to you all on behalf of the entire community for agreeing to come and render service in the wake of our unfortunate incident with spontaneously frictionless surfaces. Your assistance in rebuilding is greatly valued.

Visitors, I encourage you to speak with the other Imports. Imports, I ask you to help our guests enjoy their stay.

Please consult with any terminal or one of my android drone avatars if you have any questions that cannot be answered by the residents. I most sincerely hope you find your time at Blackstaff a pleasant one.

For those of you who enjoy “fun” [Jeffers says as if he’s not sure that any of this really qualifies as fun in his book], Mr. Jellicles’ Emporium requires extensive repair. There are broken windows and bottles hither and thither, and do be careful of the broken glass; we wouldn’t want any further injuries. Broken arcade games must be fixed. Furniture repaired, or, if it is beyond hope, taken away. And small, colourful plastic balls are scattered asunder and must be gathered up to be relocated into a “fun cage,” but worse and far more deadly are the skiballs and bowling balls. I must insist no one drop one of those on one’s own or another’s foot

The local restaurants require new food to be brought in. Because of the quarantine, food shortage is somewhat of a danger, therefore any food will do, but I for one would especially appreciate champagne and truffles. In addition, new dishes must be unpacked, furniture repaired, and cooking areas cleaned. I expect the cooking areas to be able to pass the most rigorous of health inspections once the cleaning is finished. Not that we have a ministry of health and safety here, but it is the principle of the thing.

With the clinic having been overwhelmed by recent events, they are currently understaffed to handle the full scope of injuries. Assistance treating the wounded and the ill would be a very great help. Do note that only persons with appropriate physician or nursing qualifications will be able to assist patients with direct care. It would not be at all appropriate to have, for example, vehicle mechanics performing surgery. Unless perhaps the patient is a sentient robot car. Then the clinic will make an exception. Many other tasks are available for other volunteers who desire clinic duties, however. In particular, wounded patients may require assistance retrieving personal items, sending messages, or returning home. Furthermore, as always, the clinic would be grateful to receive donations of medicines from your homeworld

The loss of friction created an extensive mess around town and I so dislike messes. I would like it very much if knocked over displays were righted, broken glass cleared, and disabled vehicles removed from the streets. Let’s have a nice, tidy village, shall we? Furthermore, some residents misplaced pets during the hullaballoo and would very much like them found and returned. (Not to mention the havoc stray beasts are having on the songbird population.) Shelves in various shops must be restocked with new, unbroken merchandise, and many storefronts and signs are in need of general repair.

And with Jeffers announcement to the population, the town was opened up to anyone willing to help. Some of the citizens who had tended towards suspicion towards imports for some time (an as-of-yet unidentified one took part in sabotage against the town) have changed their views and are now extremely welcoming, offering whatever they can to in return for the help they're getting from the visiting imports.

While the guests are here, they have free rein of the village, and even visiting the wilderness if they have a permit. First they must be instructed on how to defend themselves against the planet's hostile species. A guide is still recommended, but with the busy schedule one is not absolutely essential.

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"Most days," he said, shrugging. "I mean, not a lot of exploradores want a guide after dark, so unless some other bullshit comes up..." He hesitated, then managed to look a little sheepish, like he was silently acknowledging how useless that was. "Okay, okay— tonight?" He nodded. "Sure. Tomorrow?" Another (smaller) tilt. "Yeah, probably."

"Just keep an eye out for a very handsome man sat at the bar." He flashed a toothy smile, before using his chin to gesture up to Visscher's hair, adding, "And if not, lucky for you, you're pretty easy to pick out, eh?"

At Pugsy's

As promised, a slightly built (but taller than Tuco) blond German showed up at the bar. The patronage wasn't foreign to him; rough and gruff types, people that he had encountered the like of when he worked aboard some of the stations he had, served during some disasters.

But that didn't mean they didn't make him nervous. For every thug with a heart of gold, there was a genuine asshole that just enjoyed being important and working his way up. In his opinion, life had provided him with half and half as far as temperament went, but that latter half was extremely dangerous when they put their mind to it.

Tuco seemed to be pleasant enough though (Ha... haha..... ha) and when he saw him he went over and perched primly on the chair beside of him.

As the seat was pulled out, Tuco grunted irritably and unhooked his foot from the chair leg, letting his boot heel thud against the floor. He glanced across then, face drawn into the not-quite-neutral expression of a man trying to gauge whether or not he should be glaring instead. He must have settled on not, because half a beat later he was grinning.

"Hey!" he cawed, reaching across to clap Visscher's arm. "Doctor Fish! You showed up, huh?" He sounded genuinely surprised. "...Who knew? I thought maybe you'd take one look at the, uh..." He stopped and waved back towards the entrance. Beamed with the blissful idiocy of the slightly drunk. "You want something to drink? Some, uh... some not-whiskey, right?" His eyes flicked over to the bottles behind the bar and he opened his mouth as if he were about to list every possible alternative.

"Visscher" he corrected, but not meanly. He just jostled with the clap and half hid his face to cover the friendly smile.

"I wouldn't want you to spend any extra money on me. I'll just take water for now." He didn't know that, in requesting just that, he was already attracting some attention.

Tuco turned to meet Visscher's eyes and waited, staring as if he expected the man to betray his mock-seriousness with a wry, playful look—that he had his real request lined up, hovering in the wings.

...When it became apparent that this wasn't the case, he laughed. Loudly.

"Water?" he repeated, shaking his head grimly. "Jesus." He scrubbed at his jaw for a second or two (ample time for that judgmental air to settle in) before flopping his hand across the bar, waggling his outstretched fingers. Having managed to get the bartender's attention, he first motioned to his own glass, ("Another!") and then to Visscher himself. "And a glass of your finest water!"

Edited 2015-03-17 01:49 (UTC)

"Blame it on my medical profession, and consider it an appreciation for the beverage for its medicinal effects alone." He said with a touch of amusement, raised his glass of water as he received it, and took a drink.

He got a laugh from some ruddy, salmon skinned alien at the end of the bar. But even if mockery could occasionally coax frowns out of Visscher, he wasn't rising to the bait just yet.

He let out an amused snort. "Yeah, yeah. Water's good, but whiskey?" He gestured down to his own glass, fanning his fingers out. "It makes you stronger, taller and better looking. Proven to help a bad man sleep better, and a poor man feel richer, eh?"

There was a soft clink as his rings met the glass, and having paused just long enough to take a sip, he continued: "You wake up with your head splitting? Curarse la cruda." A brief pause, and then he leaned right in, cheek inches from Visscher's shoulder. With his voice at a low, conspiratorial whisper, he added, "It draws a little less attention, too."

Edited 2015-03-18 02:07 (UTC)

"If there were an emergency, a good head would be best about me." He chuckled, but a snide comment from further down happened. Whatever language that was, it wasn't friendly, and wasn't meant to be heard but tone was unmistakable. The salmon hued man was mocking the both of them to his friend over his own whiskey.

It was one thing to chuckle at Visscher—a man who chose to stay sober in a hole like Pugsy's deserved a little chastising—but to keep it going, dragging Tuco into it, too? His smile was gone, expression locked right down. He took another sip of his whiskey, then swiped at his nose with the back of his hand—a gesture that wasn't so much through necessity as it was a nervous tic.

"Hey," he said loudly, shifting his eyes from the mocker back to the mocked. "You think Pinky over there's okay?" He drew his face into an exaggerated parody of concern, and turned to point. "I mean, I don't know... he looks a lot like he's choking." A beat. "He doesn't sound too good, either."

Edited 2015-03-19 00:38 (UTC)

Visscher didn't want to make a scene, so he just shifted nervously. "Don't worry about it. I will have a drink, I think." He ordered a whiskey, and downed it as if it was nothing at all. There. He had done it. They could leave them alone now.

But then another man was staring, and feigned generosity by ordering both him and the reddish man another. Visscher just sighed, looked down at it with a puff of breath, and swallowed with the slightest wince of face. Always an unpleasant drink.

Tuco looked a little at a loss. He'd psyched himself up for a fight, only now he seemed to have been sidelined, left to watch the beginnings of an impromptu drinking contest instead. Setting his glass down, he reached over (hesitating briefly like some tiny part of him was trying for a gentler, less encouraging gesture) and clapped his hand against Visscher's shoulder.

"That wasn't so bad, huh?" he said brightly, glancing from one badly lit face to another. It wasn't like the place had gone silent, but the energy had changed. For every few men lost in the bottom of their drinks, there was another staring in their direction. And maybe they were just curious... but maybe they were thinking what he was thinking, too.

"You think you can keep going?" he asked, voice now a hushed half-whisper.

Edited 2015-03-20 01:28 (UTC)

"It isn't bad, Herr Ramírez. Not at all. Like I said before, it isn't that I don't appreciate the offer but it does little for me. I didn't want you to waste your money."

Another drink was slid at him, and to the other man. It was of a different sort. Not poisonous, he knew, the bartender knew what to vend to whom, but still...

He sniffed it and downed that as well, as if he weren't worried about mixing at all. "However, I don't feel entirely guilty about drinking at their expense." He sort of almost quirked a half smile. Not devious, but enough to say that he could still appreciate a man making his own bed, despite having a good heart.

Tuco folded his arms in front of him, dipping to rest his chin atop the point where his wrists crossed. "Yeah," he replied glumly, glancing over at his own half-empty glass. "Maybe it's a lesson to learn, huh? Something to teach to all thirsty bastards. The world famous Dr Fisher on how to keep your throat wet all night without spending a dime." He slid his eyes across again and smiled with his own wonky signature. "'S the kind of guilt we all happy to live with."

Not that he was in any hurry to down whatever colourful concoction a stranger would wish upon him, of course, but that didn't mean he didn't feel peculiarly jealous. It was like their chance encounter earlier had awoken some primitive part of his brain, and now he just wanted attention—all of the attention, good or bad.

Still, he supposed there was money to be made in being a spectator. If the situation continued to escalate, he was sure there'd be some profit in it.

"Just don't get too cocky, okay?"

"Well, I know that I can," he said with some certainty, but now seemed to be trying to hide his lanky form behind Tuco's greater bravado. He didn't share his great love of attention- he would inevitably fail at it.

"But I can keep drinking, yes."

His hesitance, though, seemed to encourage his 'opponent's' bravado, and he took it upon himself to order them both another.

Tuco just shrugged a little, unconvinced. His chin rose and fell again as he pulled one of his arms free and reached for his glass. Watching the bartender pour yet another two drinks, he tilted it back and swallowed. Cleared his throat like maybe it burned a little. "A doctor," he said, wrinkling his nose. "I never drank with a doctor before."

It wasn't a profession he'd have paired with a bottle of bourbon. It wasn't a type he'd normally have readily associated with, either. Sitting there, elbow-to-elbow, he realized how different the two of them must have looked. How destitute he must have seemed for the man to have given him that handout in the first place.

"I probably shouldn't have brought you here, huh?"

"Why?" He looked around Tuco, then down at his glass. "I'm just not very good at speaking to more than one person at once. I don't know why. I never have been.

"I realize people look," he didn't point at his face, but he supposed Tuco could guess, "And then I don't want to talk anymore." He would never suppose Tuco would have been suggesting they shouldn't be drinking together for any other reason.

His eyes were fixed on Visscher again, only now his brows had tipped up in the middle, leaving him looking a guilty dog.

"That's too bad," he said weakly, letting the words hang there for several uncomfortable seconds. "But I, uh... I just meant this place, it's a pigsty. Maybe you used to somewhere with fewer pricks. Something... I don't know..." He sat up and reached for his shirt collar. Mimed straightening some kind of tie, then let his hands drop again, fingers curling in on each other.

"Sorry." He actually looked away as he said it, as if meeting a man's eyes and apologizing at the same time was a step too far somehow.

"I've seen places with well-dressed, wealthy people that were much more impressive pigstys than this, Tuco. The quality of a person isn't in how much money they have. I'm no better than anyone here- I just know how to fix people when they hurt and this is probably a place where a lot of people need mending."

He did have a good heart, even if he was a little afraid of talking, and the last thing he wanted was for someone to feel guilty for being nice to him.

As if to make it up, he downed those next two drinks and shook off the bitter taste, as if to prove his point.

He glanced over briefly, then let his gaze sink back down to his hands. Pulled at one of his cuticles, humming in a bland, noncommittal kind of way. "Maybe," he said slowly, "But it's better to bump into Tuco when he got twenty dollars in his hand than when you looking at a man with empty pockets."

His words had barely settled when he shook his head with a kind of bovine twitch, eyes snapping up again like he was worried. Only he didn't exactly look worried, a convincing half-smile having fallen into place as he leaned his head to gesture across to their florid companion. "I tell you one thing, friend: you keep drinking like that, puerco over there is going to need plenty of mending."

"And I certainly will do so. As I have no intention of harming anyone. But he is making his own poor choice and I'll let him learn the hard way first."

And, bewildered, someone from the other end of the bar is ordering Visscher yet another drink. Which he throws back thoughtlessly. And he only looks the slightest bit tipsy, like he's storing the stuff to use over time like a camel.

Edited 2015-03-25 19:56 (UTC)

With every glass knocked back, Visscher further diluted Tuco's sense of pity; the secondhand embarrassment had been replaced by disbelief, and he was left wondering whether he'd found himself watching the beginnings of a miracle. It was a nice idea—after all, it was either that, or he was just sitting by as some shy doctor was bullied into slowly killing himself.

"I don't know how much he's going to learn," he said, signalling for another top up of his own. "Five more, he's going to swallow his tongue."

The man did indeed look much further along than Visscher, heavy lidded and wobbling, piggish nose twitching unhappily. And then he went face first onto the bar.

Visscher watched what liquid was left in his glass, swirling it around carelessly, before offering it to Tuco. Then he rose with one wobbling step and went over to the man. Scanned him. Took out a packet of tea and left it on the bar with a pat.

"Tell him to drink this when he wakes up. It should help with the headache." And then he returned to Tuco's side. "Bartender, I would like a second water, please."

Tuco's shoulders jerked as the man's face mashed onto the counter. He looked startled, then annoyed, his features stretching and squashing with the realization that it's a lot harder to start bets when one of the two competitors is unconscious.

He took the offered glass, spared it the briefest of glances and drained it. Was busy clearing his throat loudly when Visscher returned to his side again.

"Very kind," he said, nodding towards the packet of tea. "But very wasted, too. He's never going to thank you, friend."

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4th Wall Event

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