the_isle | Daycare Attendant intro

Open/locked?: Open!
Who: Whoever wants to investigate
What: The daycare attendant's inglorious intro
Where: Inside the building
Why: Because his player is terrible?
Warnings: Moon being Moon. Yep. (More seriously, nothing just yet past possible violence. Let's see if anyone can get Sun to spill to them, first.)
Extra info: this bot is kinda tall. And if anyone wants to know what they sound like... :D

In one of the lower levels -- not so low as to still be flooded, but unused enough for no one to have turned the lights on lately... there was a crash, and a screech.

It wasn't the biggest crash; someone had just dropped a box of something. But the screeching... that sounded like genuine distress. It was a higher-pitched voice, probably not one anyone would have found all that immediately familiar. "No" could be made out clearly enough at first, repeated, louder and more frantically, until after a few seconds, it sounded strangled... and then it was quiet.

Dare someone investigate?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sun was silent another good moment, simply moving a chess piece again, and then peeking down to see how Foulques was doing with his pants. He'd never really seen someone fix stuff like that before, let alone on him....

"Who um...." He sounded pretty unsure of asking, quiet and hesitant, but tried again. "...What... happened?" Half a second's pause, and then he all but fell over himself backtracking -- thankfully, only verbally, as he didn't move his leg any, merely pulled those spikes around his head back inside it. "I-I mean-- it's nothing I might do on accident, right? I promise I won't steal your lunch or spill your coffee or anything like that!"

What those examples had to do with anything was probably anyone's guess....

Sun would see that the jagged tear had been mostly replaced by a narrow line of small, black stitches. Some of the stitches had left tiny pinpricks of light where they entered or exited the fabric, or where the edges of the tear didn't line up precisely, but while it would be visible if one was looking for it, the repair would be sturdy and highly unlikely to tear further when finished.

At the verbal retreat, Foulques looked back up properly, giving a bit of a wry smile. Sun folding away his points, he was coming to realize, was rather like a dog tucking its tail between its legs, a sign of submission and fear. He wondered idly if it was instinctive or something Sun consciously controlled? "I generally prefer tea to coffee," he said, "but if you can find any of either on this Isle that's worth drinking, you'll be doing far better than I."

He glanced at the board and moved a chess piece of his own before continuing. "But no, it's nothing you could or would do, as it has much to do with how Duskwights- my people- are seen in my own world. We are view as shifty and untrustworthy at best, cave dwelling savages and criminals at worst. Which of course is a self-fulfilling view; when people refuse to hire Duskwights for any honest work, many are forced to become bandits and sell-swords merely to survive."

"My parents though, were upright citizens of Gridania, even if they were not treated as such. They counselled peace and restraint even as my mother was glared at or spat upon in the market place, or my father left crippled and unable to draw his bow or play his beloved lute because no conjurer would deign to waste healing magic on a Duskwight." The last word was half spat and dripping with bitterness. "But even then, I sought to make my way honestly, joining the Lancer's Guild. Though I faced scorn and criticism and though I had to work twice as hard to be considered as skilled as the others, eventually I found a place there, with men and women at my side who accepted me and considered me an equal. Or so I thought."

"One day, out of desperation for coin for the barest necessities, I and a few of my closest comrades conspired to steal from the guild's coffers. We were not discovered, but suspicion soon fell over the guild, it was clear that it had been done from within. Eventually I was unable to bear the guilt, and convinced my comrades to join me in confessing our crime. But when I stepped forward to do so, not only did they remain silent despite my desperate pleas, making it seem as though I was solely responsible, but they turned on me completely hurling insults and calling me foul names that I shan't repeat here. These men and women who I had trusted, who I had called friends, brothers and sisters in arms, not only threw me to the raptors at the first test of honor, they joined the pack in tearing into me."

"I spent the next year or more rotting in a Gridanian gaol, and upon my release was banished and told never to return. For a time I wandered aimlessly, but in the wake of the Calamity, driven by rage and self-loathing, I resolved to forge my courage anew and embark upon what I thought was a righteous quest to see the Lancer's guild shuttered forever and its members exposed for the worthless cravens they were. I marched into the lairs of ravenous fiends covered in blood; put their helpless offspring to the spear that I might know the unbridled fury of their kin. Attacked innocent men training in the forest, and slaughtered any who were sent against me."

"Only to be defeated so soundly by an adventurer who had been training with the guild that there could be no doubt who was both the true lancer and the better person. They shattered my delusions of righteousness and revealed me for the pathetic coward that I was, and were it not for the strange turn of fate that brought me here, I would have mere moments later met an ignoble and well-deserved end, falling from a cliff as a result of my own panic."

He was silent for a moment, allowing Sun to absorb all that. "As I said, I am not a good man. Nothing I do or say now can undo what has been done. But I will not allow others to fall as I did, if there is ought I can do to prevent it."

He finished the last stitches as he spoke, tying them off then carefully cutting the thread with a pair of rusty-looking scissors he'd been keeping with it. "Done. Hardly anything the weaver's guild would accept, but it should hold well enough."

Sun was quiet, moving another chess piece again, and rolled his leg back a little further so he could see better as he tilted his head to the side to do so. He ran a fingertip over it delicately -- the light's reflections off the shiny surface barely changed as he did so; for all that Moon had been being a freaking mechanical horrorbeast earlier, Sun sure was proving himself capable of being gentle here and now.

"Thank you...."

A little pause, and he looked back up to Foulques, and then back down to the chess board. "You know... everyone has bad days. Sometimes it's really bad. Sometimes it's more than a day. And... sometimes they can handle stuff wrong. But doing a bad thing doesn't make someone bad themselves." He pulled his leg back in, his knee going up behind his back briefly so he could turn it to slide his foot down in front of him without putting his shoe up in Foulques's face or kicking over the chess board to do it. "If you were really bad... you wouldn't care about not wanting others to do bad things."

Edited (typo) Date: 2024-11-19 06:36 am (UTC)

Indeed, the difference between Sun and Moon was, in perhaps the most literal sense, like night and day. One a half-mad thing that stalked the dark, threatening any unfortunate enough to encounter him, the other, a gentle, if rather nervous, caretaker of children. Though even as Sun spoke, he did... something difficult to describe with his leg to move it out of the way, proving that he was every bit as flexible in unusual ways as his counterpart when needed.

Despite that minor distraction, though Foulques found himself frowning thoughtfully as he mulled over the mammet's words. On some level, he knew that what Sun said was true. Yet he did not feel it. True, he was hardly a violent madman or willfully destructive without reason, but still...

Still he could not find even courage enough to call Chell 'friend'. Still he could not look into a mirror without hating the man he saw. Ungrateful coward. You don't deserve their kindness. You deserved to die at the bottom of that cliff. Anything more is too good for you.

Outwardly, his lips quirked in a slight smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You've a talent for putting things in simple terms," he said. "I imagine that comes from working with children. And though I prefer to speak plainly, that's sadly a talent I don't share."

He moved a chess piece, then opted to try a less loaded topic. "What sort of fabric are your pants made of, if you know?", he asked. "I've never seen its like before. It seems to have threads with light, or perhaps aether, flowing through them woven into it."

Sun was quiet as he tried to come up with the answer to that one, moved a piece on the board, and apparently had to take another look at his pants himself. "I dunno," he finally admitted. "I know they change patterns when-- well, you don't want to see it, but... you saw it earlier, right? And it's connected...."

He reached down to tug up the ruffles that were over his charging cord, slid his thumb down into the little gap where the charging port was exposed, and pulled carefully, firmly, using his palm against his waist for leverage -- and after a second, putting some stress on it, there was a small pop as something came unplugged, and his pants faded swiftly in the area under that spot, down to his foot, from broad stripes of bold red and gold... to a shiny, plastic-like gray, the fabric's weave faintly visible behind what looked to be some kind of half-translucent glossy layer.

He carefully tugged it down a little more, rolling the hem out so Foulques could see the connector -- a short, wide row of super-tiny metal pegs, sitting in a strip of what might've been silicone, the port it'd been sitting in merely the reverse of it, a slight depression that wasn't very tall, but wound its way around the little plastic shell of Sun's hips, disappearing swiftly under the other part of the pants' waistline... and matching little metal spots lay recessed on his shell there too. Whatever it was, it was clear enough that the little spots of bare metal allowed for Sun's body to direct the pants' colors, where the two touched, from gray to whatever they were meant to look like instead. And from the sound and the way it was clinging, it was at least partially magnetic, in how it stayed on. The tight little fit of that subtle indentation and the strip along the inside of the pants' waistline surely would help, too.

The parts where the gray met the colors flickered faintly, fading in and out as if undecided. "It's not something I'm trying to do. I think it's just part of my design...." A little pause. "I don't think they're all plastic. But I never really thought to ask. And... I'm not sure they'd tell me if I did, anyway." A little quieter, "Or if I'd understand, if they did tell me...."

Edited Date: 2024-11-26 10:08 am (UTC)

Foulques looked at the little connectors and the part of Sun's pants they seemed to service thoughtfully. "So it's more than just a simple garment, it's also somewhat a part of your body," he concluded. "Interesting. Though I have no more idea than you how it functions. If someone were to explain, however, you would be far better positioned than I to understand it; much of the sort of technology that is apparently commonplace in your world is virtually unheard of in mine, so I have little experience with such things."

He moved a chess piece, taking one of Sun's pawns. "I suspect you are correct though, in assuming that your former masters wouldn't have told you had you asked. Assuming they knew themselves, and weren't as ignorant as they were indolent, which would be no great surprise to learn." The state Sun was in clearly showed that they had no idea how to treat sophisticated mechanisms; whether or not they considered him an intelligent being, a mammet like him would doubtlessly be difficult and expensive to produce. He highly doubted that their superiors would be pleased that they were willing to allow him to fall into disrepair.

Which brought to mind another question; was Moon's current state a result of their neglect, or something else? Though he knew nothing about such technology, he suspected the latter; if the former, surely something else would have failed long before one of the jester's two personalities was reduced to all but a raving lunatic. After a long moment's thought, he asked, "If it's not too personal a question, might I ask how Moon came to be in his current state? Asa caretaker of children, I'm certain he wasn't intended to be as he is now."

Sun looked back to the chess board again; he certainly couldn't argue with any of that speculation. Like he could say whether or not any of the staff knew? Well... maybe one of the maintenance people, but he rarely saw them.

He tried to make sure of that.

He eyed the board, picked up another piece, moving it forward... there, a trap. Foulques could take that pawn too, and then Sun would take the piece he used to do that with... or he could go after the opening he just made.

"I wasn't. Er... Moon wasn't, no." He tilted his head a little, still looking down to the chess board, and sighed. Or at least, it certainly sounded like he sighed; he didn't seem to have any lungs, no obvious opening to his mask-looking mouth... never mind that his head was in distinct layers, which separated his neck from his face in the first place... but it was a very good emulation of the sound. "It was the middle of the night... the Pizzaplex was closed. And I was watching some of the employees' children, cleaning up while they were napping -- on-site childcare, just one of the many perks of working at the Pizzaplex!" Something about the way he said that wasn't entirely convincing; he was presumably attempting to make himself feel better about his lot and role, but his rays were sinking back in a bit again despite his words, and he abandoned the attempt right after.

"...So I was Moon, then. And no one else was supposed to be there but the employees and those kids. But... someone was there. There was a security notice to be on the lookout for an intruder, someone that'd stayed inside after the doors were locked.

"I heard something outside the play-area. It... was coming from the bathrooms. I went to go check it out... and someone was climbing through the ceiling panels, and...." His rays retracted even before his hands reached those edges of his head, long fingers gripping the sides gently but firmly. "...I... it hurt. It hurt so much. But I don't really remember much after that. And I wasn't supposed to be Moon again after, either. They started to leave the lights on, in the Daycare...."

He frowned thoughtfully at Sun's story. "So you happened across what must have been this intruder," he said. "Perhaps trying to make good their escape, perhaps attempting to slip off to another part of the building. And from the sound of it, they attacked you, likely to keep you from raising the alarum. Though the fact that they were able to affect Moon as they did indicates that they were no common thief; a blow to the head might explain the gap in your memory, assuming yours functions anything like a human's, but such would have almost certainly caused visible damage even your old masters couldn't ignore, and it wouldn't explain the rest."

Another long moment of consideration. "While the description is of no help to me, perhaps someone on the mainland may have more of an idea of what, if anything, could be done to repair Moon. With your permission, I'll include such questions with the request for a cover for the back of your head." Anything that might be done would likely be a bit more invasive than simply adding an extra part, after all.

Looking at the chessboard, he saw the trap that had been set up. Clever, very clever. Instead of taking either option the trap afforded he moved a piece on the opposite side of the board, hoping to put more of Sun's into play to counter it.

"If anyone here can fix Moon," he said quietly, taking one of his hands back down from the edge of his head slowly, lowering it to hold his other arm in what wasn't quite a gesture of hugging himself, "I'd love that. I can't fix this myself, or I would've already. And the technicians at the Pizzaplex can't-- couldn't find out how bad it is, or I'd be decommissioned." At least, that's what he sounded certain of.

He reached over briefly to move another piece... all right, trap not fallen for. Noted.

Foulques nodded. "I'll ask about it then," he said. "Or you can do so yourself, if you wish, assuming you have the opportunity to meet those among the next delegation." Though frankly he found it more likely that he would end up doing so on Sun's behalf; the nervous mammet would be just as likely to shrink from newcomers out of habit as to welcome them, even if they promised to help.

Foulques moved another chess piece of his own then casually remarked, "In terms of more immediate things that can be done, I can provide you with warm water and a reasonably clean cloth to wash with if you wish. After you've finished recharging, of course." Even he knew enough not to combine water and electricity. "We've no soap though at present, I'm afraid. The rest of us may need to wait for warmer weather to strip down for a good scrubbing, but the cold wouldn't pose any danger to you, wet or no."

He nodded a little, but stayed quiet and took his other hand off his head to lean on his elbows, arms folded over his knees while he sat there. At least his rays were back out again?

While Foulques talked, he moved another piece, and looked around the room. If anything, he sounded... actually cheered up by the idea. "Yeah... I'd be totally fine. I could get this place looking great in no time!"

Foulques blinked in confusion a moment before realizing how he'd been misinterpreted. "Ah, no," he said, moving a chess piece. "I meant the water to clean yourself with, not the room. I could provide more later; heating enough water to even attempt to clean a room like this one will take time however."

"Oh. ...Why would you need to heat it? The floor won't care how warm it is...." Another move, taking one of Foulques's pawns and carefully setting it back into the container.

Edited Date: 2024-11-29 09:11 am (UTC)

"Perhaps not, but hot water dissolves things more easily than cold," he said. "And without soap, it would be prudent to have that advantage."

"Also the water is primarily to clean you rather than the room, as I said." He moved a chess piece as he spoke, and judging by his tone, he wasn't going to allow Sun to ignore the attempt to provide him with help. "And at present I suspect you would find warm water far mor pleasant."

His rays sank in a little again... so much for that attempt to deflect. "I'm not really bothered by it being warm or cold as much as people are," he said, moving another piece. "Do I have something on me...? I thought I got all the cheese off, yesterday...."

"Nothing in particular that I can see," he said, moving another piece, trying to subtly get one into position to dismantle the earlier trap, "but you are rather... generally grimy, as might be expected after spending many days tending to small children, who, even when they mean well, are not known for their cleanliness. And unlike us, there's no need for you to endure that state while waiting for warm weather."

"As for the water being warm, what I said about hot water before also applies to your situation. Especially since I expect that much of you is at least slightly sticky."

Sun moved another piece, seemingly ignoring the move nearer the earlier trap. "...It's never been a concern before...." It wasn't so much a protest, as him simply being a little baffled now. How had this never come up previously?

Foulques gave a snort of distain. "That is entirely the fault of your former masters," he said. "But just because they were too cruel and slothful to even provide you with a cloth and a basin of water to clean yourself doesn't mean that it's a pattern that I intend to allow to continue." He moved another piece, ready to take one of the pieces forming the trap on his next turn if something wasn't done.

Sun sat up a little more, so he could look over what of himself he could see while sitting there. It couldn't have been easy for him to see his own collar, the way his head was shaped, even being on that odd neck of his, but he was trying. "It's that bad? Really? ....I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping things off of me...." He turned his hands over, giving his arms a glance too, and then quickly moved another piece. Despite going back to trying to see the far side of his forearm, he'd apparently caught that attempt on that side of the board. If Foulques wanted to dismantle the trap, he'd have to sacrifice another piece to do it.

Foulques shrugged. "Well you're hardly filthy if that's what you mean," he said. "But it's also clear that you haven't seen a proper cleaning for some time. In fact I shouldn't wonder if was dimming the light that parts of you glow with. You represent the sun; you should be allowed to shine as much as you are able."

He frowned thoughtfully down at the board for a moment, noticing how easily Sun countered him, despite apparently barely paying attention. He was beginning to suspect that he was being played with in more than one sense of the term. But he had to make a move, and so after a moment's thought opted to dismantle the trap even if it meant his own piece would be lost the next turn.

Edited Date: 2024-11-30 03:00 am (UTC)

"Oh. ...Well, someone said something about hosing off the Staffbots once, but that's never happened to me...." He paused, inspecting his big hand carefully, still not certain about all this... and briefly, made it glow a little brighter. Oh... oh, there, now he found a smudge! Another subtle little head-tilt at it, considering this, and then looked away to consider the board a second....

As predicted, he took that piece of Foulques's... and then turned to looking over his other hand, making it glow, the first one dimming again. "I guess I never really thought about it."

"Given the back of your head, I don't expect that 'hosing you down' would be wise," he said. "But you should have been given some means to keep clean, beyond removing cheese and other such things."

Foulques examined the board. What was a move he could make that wouldn't cause him much trouble down the line but would help to show if Sun really was coddling him? After a moment's thought he moved another piece. It was a somewhat sloppy move compared to how he'd been playing so far, but not so much so that it couldn't be written off as an honest mistake. If Sun deliberately matched it, he'd have his answer.

Sun had other ideas. He ignored it and put a different piece forward -- not something Foulques couldn't counter, but if he was aiming to put him in check already, this would be a step towards that....

"Yeah, but it hasn't been missing long...." Quiet a sec, "Maybe I could've taken something from the janitorial Staffbots. I didn't think to, though...."

Foulques considered the board carefully for a moment. A relatively aggressive move, given how Sun had been playing thus far; a trick perhaps? He opted not to risk it, using his move to counter.

"Perhaps you could have," he agreed. "But the point is that you shouldn't need to. You should have been given a means to keep clean as a matter of course."

He moved another piece, not really a move that was obvious about intent... just seeing what Foulques was up to next.

"But it's not people's job to do things for me, I'm supposed to do things for people. I don't-- I'm not even supposed to really mess with the Staffbots, honestly. They don't come into the play-area, just the outer parts of the Daycare, like the hallways and the Theater and the party rooms and the arcade...." That's how it was, he was at the very bottom of the hierarchy... and was now trying to make sense of being told that things weren't quite how he'd always known them to be.

It was going to take some time, to undo some of this damage.

He tilted his head. "...Maybe the Staffbots cleaned each other?" Oh hey, there's the logic catching on now.