8FOLD: Daylighters # 2, "Dungeon Crawl"

[Drew Perron]

On 6/3/2019 11:49 AM, Tom Russell wrote:
> On Monday, June 3, 2019 at 2:46:28 AM UTC-4, Drew Perron wrote:
>> On 11/24/2018 9:25 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> 
>>> Pam Bierce, LOOP, age 30.
>>> Chronomancer. Has reemerged after having been presumed dead for six years.
>>
>> ...wow she was really young in Jolt City, huh. @@ I feel weird now. X3
> 
> Yeah, she would've been 23-24. A few years older than Derek (who wasn't quite 20), but significantly younger than Martin or Dani.

...I did the math wrong and thought she would be 21-22 and I feel _slightly_ 
less weird but. X3 Wow.

>>>      "Actually," Medusa whispers in her ear, "Reverse lives in Kyoto. I
>>> can ping her, see if she has time to use her negenthropic powers to
>>> repair it."
>>
>> That's such a cool idea.
> 
> Reverse (and her husband) are characters I keep trying to write into these things and the high concept with the two of them - think of it as a Rick Jones/Mar-Vell thing - is sufficiently weird that it overrides everything else and never quite works with whatever story I got going on. Some day...

Oh man. :D I would love to see a Journey Into or such with them.

>>>      "I fear that is not the case, machine woman who lives in my ear,"
>>> says Cascade.
>>
>> Heeheehee. Female characters don't usually get to do this kind of speech pattern
>> and I love it :>
> 
> She's a lot of fun to write. Part of the appeal of doing this story for me is that Melody is basically playing straight man to a couple of absolute weirdos with idiosyncratic ways of talking and interacting with the world.

Yessssss GOOD. I'm really enjoying that part.

>>> San Francisco. Cradle Tech HQ.
>>>      Pam and Knockout Mouse spend about an hour waiting in one of the
>>> conference rooms, and over the course of that hour, Pam gets kinda
>>> sorta caught up on the last six years. Intergalactic space wars and
>>> universe-erasing primordial destroyers are quite a bit heavier than
>>> the stuff she was used to in Jolt City. "And they put Derek in charge
>>> of all this?"
>>
>> Ohhhhh, of *course* Pam's the perfect viewpoint character here.
> 
> Yeah, I really like the idea of taking someone who has been mostly peripheral to the genre stuff, a supporting character who clearly doesn't want to tango with this nonsense, and then putting them in a role where they're now dealing with that nonsense on the regular. It also gives her a different perspective on certain aspects of the job, which we'll see in the back-end of this arc.

Yesssss. <3 <3 <3 That's So Fun, and she's especially good, with her snark and 
her feelings

>>>      "Metamancer," says Rainshade. "Basically I borrow the magic of
>>> others, use it for my own nefarious ends." She smiles, but it's a
>>> flat, lifeless smile, a smile that feels like an affectation.
>>
>> ...must not hug...
> 
> I'm not a betting man, but I'm reasonably certain you're going to want to hug her by the end of this arc. That is, if I've done my job halfway decently.

Oh noooooo <3 <3 <3

> 
>>>      Lemuria itself is contained within a pressure-resistant dome that
>>> also provides its inhabitants with artificial atmosphere. The ruins of
>>> the necropolis lie just outside the dome. That's no problem for
>>> Cascade and Lobsterman, both of whom can breathe underwater and can
>>> withstand the pressure and the near-freezing temperature.
>>
>> Fascinating. I forget why Cascade can but not, presumably, all Lemurians.
> 
> The Lemurians are amphibious (unlike say Apelantis, where they can only breathe in water). But just because they can breathe underwater doesn't mean they want to spend all their time doing that, and it's hard to create and maintain the cultural products of a civilized society -- to make clothing, to write or publish books, to cook -- when everything is soaking wet.

Ooooooh. That is an excellent answer. :D

>>>      "Dude," says Melody, "it's over a thousand times the pressure at sea level."
>>>      "Dude," says Lobsterman, "it over thousand pressure at sea level!
>>> Ha! Lobsterman still laughing!"
>>
>> XD XD XD
> 
> I love this big red doofus

YES! :3

>>>      Derek squirmed. From his tone of voice and his body language, she
>>> could tell he had rehearsed this encounter in his head, and she could
>>> also tell that he wasn't expecting any pushback.
>>
>> Derek why would you not be expecting pushback from Melody of all people. Like.
>> She's a Very Opinionated Person.
> 
> Well, this is Melody's point of view recounting it naturally, so maybe he was, but I think it was more the sense that he had thought to himself, this thing that I am saying and the way I am saying it will convince her, she'll say this thing, then I'll say that -- only she didn't say this thing and now he's off-script.

Ahhhhh, yes. X3 That is very familiar.

> 
>>>      "Small mistakes," offered Derek. "Just enough to show them that
>>> you're human, and that it's okay for them to make mistakes. Just
>>> enough to let people think that you need them, even if you don't, so
>>> that they know it's okay for them to need other people, too."
>>
>> Derek is giving good advice, in an authentically kinda-awkward way. I like him a
>> lot.
> 
> He understands personal relationships and social glue more than someone like, for example, Rainshade. He's a much better leader/hero now that he's not out in the field, for sure; in this sort of administrative role he's really coming into his own I think.

Yesssss. <3 I mean, he's brought together this whole loose network and put 
energy into it so now it really runs! That's amazing!

Drew "radicool" Perron