Building a Better Tomorrow

[greatcleavage]

Who: Roy Greenhilt and OPEN
What: Roy is doing construction work and needs help, plus he has questions for others!
When: November 13-20th
Where: Outside the mana pool located in the former monkey compound.
Warnings: What you bring?


Stone by stone, the area that had once been home to countless cannibalistic apes gained a semblance of order.

Literally stone by stone; Roy could plan and design buildings, but he lacked the tools and the knowledge to shape stone any more than crudely. Wood was a better resource, and with his hatchet Roy could make makeshift joins like giant blocky teeth, but without better resources wood didn't have the durability of stone, and that was important.

So the structures and buildings Roy put together were ramshackle. No hope for it. So long as they served their purpose, what more could he ask for? A coop for the bludrocs had been finished first; now he turned his attention to making a large building, out of blocks of stone cut from the nearby seaside cliffs and hauled here with brute force, and wooden poles cut as best he could manage and jammed into the ground.

Roy had big plans, because he believed they were, if not literally necessary, so highly advantageous for the long-term survival of everyone here that he couldn't justify not doing this. And thus he labored on.

Honestly, though... the man looked exhausted. Not physically; he could honestly keep this up for days without flagging. Blocks of stone and trees' worth of wood were no real burden to him. No, his exhaustion was all spiritual, bordering from a quiet conviction that had only grown in strength over time: they were all doomed. A chaotic, disorganized bunch that was one pig head on a stake away from being a literary study of the madness that lurked within mankind as soon as the trapping of civilization were stripped away, with a series of unavoidable, unfightable, unmanageable disasters queued up to batter then down till they broke. His last breath of sympathy for the Storyteller had utterly vanished when that god had made clear in no uncertain terms that they were to leave the mana pool in the temple compound utterly indefensible, thus guaranteeing they would be assaulted on the islets in due time. Roy, in other words, was a man bereft of hope; his efforts to build, to protect, to preserve were all grim defiance of the inevitable at this point, a commitment to going down swinging.

Not the healthiest attitude, but it kept him going.

No laboring in grim solitude for this fighter, though! As people passed through, emerging from the mana pool in the former compoundd to conduct whatever mainland business they had to accomplish, Roy stopped to offer them a wave. "Excuse me, just one moment? I'm looking for more resources for this task, anyone who can craft, and compiled information about the Storyteller." (One of these things is not like the others.)

Comments

[prettypurpleparlor]

[As it turns out, there's at least one person who doesn't wait to be approached by Roy. Muffet pauses as she steps out of the mana pool on seeing him at work, taking in the situation, and then steps back through it to the islets.]

[A few moments later, she returns, holding a small bowl made out of a coconut shell in one hand. She walks up to Roy and greets him with a friendly smile.]

Hello, dearie. You looked like you were working fairly hard, so I thought you could use a decent meal.

[greatcleavage]

Hi, Muffet. [She gets probably the first smile of the day out of him as he leans the heavy trunk he'd been hauling up against another tree, then wipes the sweat off his forehead.] Thanks very much. I owe you one.

[He means that literally. Supplies are not in such abundance that he doesn't consider this a gesture in need of repayment at some point.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

You're quite welcome.

[Muffet holds out the bowl for him to take- upon closer inspection, it contains a rather pleasant-smelling carrot stew. She's been practicing that recipe lately.]

[As for any particular debt owed, she dismisses the idea with an airy wave.]

Ah, just consider it advance payment for an egg or two, if you insist on payment at all. Given how tired I am of having to work around a lack of proper ingredients, I have no doubt I'll be trading with you fairly often for access to your little feathered friends.

[Muffet gestures fondly at the bludroc coop. Even with the struggles of the last few weeks still fresh in her mind, fuzzy rainbow chickens are still adorable.]

[greatcleavage]

Oh, I don't consider these mine, they're a community resource. [Well aware he's tempting a Tragedy of the Commons, Roy nonetheless isn't doing this for his own benefit. Or at least not only his own benefit, though he hopes to get food out of this as well.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

A commendable attitude, although I'd still prefer to contribute in some manner.

[While frequently described as 'aggressively capitalistic', Muffet's attitude towards the world was not necessarily opposed to communal ownership of things. Rather, it could be best summed up as 'if not literally everything, then at least as many things as possible should be mine'. However, 'mine' covered by definition both things she personally owned and things belonging to those she considered her people- and by now, she considered the other castaways to be her people by default.]

Speaking of which, how is your current project going?

[greatcleavage]

[Though little obvious changes, a certain amount of tension enters the fighter's frame, and the pause before he speaks is itself eloquent.]

It has been made clear to me that we are not to be permitted to defend the islets from outside invaders. [He says this slowly and deliberately.] In other words, even after having established that hostile forces are capable of assaulting us at any time, we are not allowed to take reasonable steps to prevent that.

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet frowns, looking concerned- she hasn't failed to notice the tension in Roy's stance or the implications in his words, and both are worrying.]

The Storyteller made some objections, I presume? That's... frustrating. Do you recall their exact words on the subject?

[The more information they can get out of things, the better.]

[souris_keteer]

Mickey, as per the usual, doesn't see anything wrong with this situation. "Gee, I dunno any more about the Storyteller than anyone else." Sure, it had left behind a weird page clue, if that was the Storyteller at all, but surely Roy wasn't interested in anything like that. "But I can always lend a helping hand if you need more supplies!"

[greatcleavage]

"More of the birds would always be good, if you're willing to help transport them." Not the easiest task in the world. "Beyond that... well, we need everything, don't we? It's a struggle to survive at this point, and we can't afford to overlook anything."

[souris_keteer]

Mickey salutes, always happy to help. "Sure, I can transport 'em! I can do that, no sweat!"

[greatcleavage]

"The bigger our flock, the better, so long as we can keep them fed. And if we can't, well, we can eat bird instead of egg for a time." Roy let out a breath as a conscious choice, trying to release stress and worry. Without much success, but hey.

[souris_keteer]

Mickey nodded, recognizing the effort. "It's always good to have plenty of both! Smart thinking, Roy!" Maybe a few compliments would make him feel better.

[greatcleavage]

Roy can barely recognize a sincere compliment any more, though the effort was appreciated nonetheless. "We need to pursue every angle at this point, since we know for certain we can take nothing for certain."

[bloodyashes]

[It's not unlikely that Roy has seen the teenager with brilliant red hair around a time or two in the last week; in spite of being a new arrival, the boy's clearly a bit of a rover, and hasn't actually camped in the same place more than two nights running, much less taken to any of the housing. Especially now that the floodwaters have receded.

The wave catches his eyes, though, and he stops on the road to wherever he's headed off to now. He can spare a minute or an hour, or a couple, really.

Not like he's got anything better to do.]

I don't know much about building or the Storyteller, sorry. I can be another set of hands for a while, though.

[Before he inevitably wanders off to set his camp up somewhere else in the jungle.]

[greatcleavage]

More help is always appreciated. I'm looking to construct a centralized compound for resources and fortification... so it's no small task, even if we're not in the least bit short on time to accomplish it.

[From the global perspective. The truth is it could be useful tomorrow, if not downright necessary -- the shifting vagaries of the island meant a threat could abruptly appear pretty much instantly, it seemed.]

[bloodyashes]

[A slightly distracted but considering nod. Asch still feels more secure in keeping on the move, but he slides his pack off and tucks it somewhere out of the way for the time being.]

Hell of a one-man job.

[He's noticed, too, that the rest of the group isn't exactly jumping to help. Hard not to.]

What are you starting with?

[greatcleavage]

Every job begins somewhere, with someone -- and it needs to be done, with one man or ten. [Plus you can't keep bludrocs on the move, not effectively.] Right now I'm trying to flesh out a storage building for anything we don't want exposed to the elements, but if you have ways to improve the coop...

[He motions at said coop, which clearly suffers from his lack of ability to put finishing touches on it. Serviceable, yes, but far from ideal.]

[bloodyashes]

[You can't exactly farm on the move, either. At least not unless you've got ambulatory vegetables.

Look, he's been attacked by enough angry trees that he's not going to rule it out.]

No. Agriculture isn't exactly my specialty.

[They'll just have to trial and error some things.]

[greatcleavage]

Honestly, I'd settle for anyone who has even basic knowledge of woodcutting or masonry at this point. [Which he doesn't expect to come across, but that doesn't allow him not to try. Ah well.] We seem to be a group short on community-building skills.

[onemanstrash]

[Keaton doesn't mind being stopped as he ventures on by. He just was planning on heading off to scavenge for more junk that might have washed up now the water had receded.]

I'm not really much of a crafter. I'm more of a... Get the guy in the back kind of guy. [That's how it always went when he ended up manning the smithy back home anyway.] As for the Storyteller, let's see. You could probably feed a few people really well for like, what, a week? That is one big bunny.

[Not the kind of information Roy is looking for most likely, if what Keaton is rambling about can even be considered info. But he's trying.]

[greatcleavage]

Possibly, but I am fairly certain there are a large number of both practical and philosophical concerns that come with eating a god, even if it is feasible.

[Roy doesn't find the joke quite as unfunny as he would have prior to ascertaining without question that the Storyteller did indeed place its comfort over their lives.]

You know, we COULD benefit from some solid accounting and oversight, though. Keep track of supplies and resources...

[onemanstrash]

Y'know I'm sure I've talked about this before with someone, eating a god and stuff. [The memory is almost dreamlike in a way.] It's probably not right but... Man, you just don't see rabbits that size everyday.

[But seeing as there's not going to be any god eating today, Keaton focuses on the second thing. Accounting and keeping track of supplies? His ears lower slightly as he thinks on this.]

Nnno, a big no on the accounting. But if it's keeping track of things... What kind of supplies and stuff are we talking here? [If it involves watching over trinkets or anything old and dated he might be talked into helping out.]

[greatcleavage]

Supplies and resources. Like the bludrocs, and their egg-laying, for example -- all things we have to keep track of so we can continue to survive here to the best of our ability.

[Sorry, nothing so interesting as all that.]

[onemanstrash]

[Whoah now. Eggs? Okay it's not trinkets or treasure, but he can get behind this.]

Okay, let's say I do wanna help since you're asking and all. [Not because he wants to help or anything. Ignore the brief flashes of black and white fur behind him as his tail begins to wag.] If I helped keep track of things for you... Could I get a hand on some extra eggs?

[greatcleavage]

[Roy politely chooses to ignore the tail, because there is literally no other possible response to that sort of thing.]

Well, in an ideal world, people who contribute to the safekeeping of community resources are the ones who would benefit from those resources. So I'd definitely consider that a justification for a reasonable share of eggs.

[Trying to subtly hint here that maybe everyone needs to contribute in some way... and not expecting it to go anywhere.]