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

[greatcleavage]

It means we have to view information, offers, and requests as potentially suspicious. It's a way bigger irritation and worry than just being able to trust would be. [Roy heaves a sigh, because he knows perfectly well who here is going to do all the worrying. People either trusted the Storyteller wholeheartedly or hated them; little middle ground for nuance.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

What is it exactly we would do differently, based on that mindset? From a practical standpoint, I think the only thing that's changed is our stress levels. Which, I admit, really didn't need the help.

[greatcleavage]

[By way of an answer, Roy lifts the bowl she'd brought him.]

It's the difference between me being able to accept this unquestioningly because I trust you, and me wondering whether you handed this to me out of some plan of your own, if there's a string attached, if it's a trick, or if it's just pure self-interest. Maybe it is just stress levels, but I think the difference runs much deeper than that.

[prettypurpleparlor]

Well, there goes my clever scheme to bribe people via soup.

[Muffet's tone is dryly sarcastic in a way that Roy will probably find very personally familiar.]

I suppose that part of the difference is that I don't think we really have been accepting the Storyteller unquestioningly, without any worries about their intentions. Accepting that we don't currently have a better option, yes, but we haven't really been assuming the benefit of the doubt with them they way we have with our fellow castaways- or perhaps I'm merely speaking for myself on that point.

[greatcleavage]

It's the difference between suspecting something is amiss and knowing it. This is direct and concrete evidence. I was doing my best to give the Storyteller the benefit of the doubt before...

[And coming under withering criticism for it, to his irritation.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Ah, I see. I think... part of it may be a difference in perspective, given our professions.

[She elaborates:]

I'm a businesswoman. Trust is always preferable, but ultimately the idea that I may have to work with people who are entirely out for themselves and will cease to help me as soon as it stops accomplishing their own agenda is... regrettably not unfamiliar. Even a formal contract can only do so much.

[It was kind of a difficult adjustment, for someone with a monster's natural inclination to trust, but she managed as best she could.]

You've told me you're a fighter, and I assume you don't fight entirely alone. I don't know what your work is typically like, but I'm also assuming that you need to have at least some basic level of trust with those you work with, simply because you need to in order to survive. That's not to say that people might not have their own goals in mind, ones that might even conflict with yours, but there would have to be at least that basic assumption that they won't abandon you in the middle of a fight.

[greatcleavage]

...Honestly, I'm used to unreliable teammates. And not relying on teammates as much as I should. [Flaws in them, flaws in him. He's working on his part, and that's all he can say on that score.] But I'm much less comfortable when someone with massive power over us has proves unreliable, particularly when it would be incredibly easy to justify any level of mistreatment or abuse of us.

[prettypurpleparlor]

[She nods sympathetically, reaching out and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. Her touch is light, easy for him to brush off if he's not comfortable with it, but there all the same.]

At this point, I think all we can do is keep on surviving and helping others as best we can. One way or another, this situation isn't stable enough to last forever, but we can try to make sure we outlast it.

[greatcleavage]

By definition, we outlast it so long as we choose to keep coming back to it.

[The small consolation Roy had found, which he is not certain he can trust except insofar as it aligns with the mechanics of resurrection he understands, is that the Storyteller cannot force them to return to life. Or so they claim.]

We can probably wrap this soon.

[prettypurpleparlor]

One assumes. But, for now?

[She briefly looks over the area and nods briskly to herself.]

Why don't you finish your food, and then tell me how I can help you with what you're building right now. I might not be able to solve our problems singlehandedly, but when I put all six of them to the task I can lift a fair amount.

[greatcleavage]

I don't know what I'd do without you, Muffet. [For all that his tones around her generally go either playful or bitter despite the topic du jour, that statement is pure, appreciative sincerity.]

[So he'll do just as she suggests -- enjoy his food, and then figure out where they can go from there.]