A Sleepless First Night

[aleifr]

Who: Aleifr and anyone who chances upon him
What: Insomnia-Driven Wanderings
Where: Various places around P90
When: Night One
Warnings/Notes: Nothing at present, but I'll update if that changes

It’s clear fairly early on that Aleifr’s first night on Piper 90 would be a restless one.

Simply put: He didn’t like it here.

He didn’t like the fact that he was a dozens floors off the ground in some metal monstrosity, feeling the vibrations of it's slow, steady movements like the faintest tremor of one of Fenris's summer quakes.

He didn’t like the distant engine noises, or the echoing footsteps of boots on metal. He was used to near silence at night; gently whistling winds carrying the soft crackle of a campfire or the murmurs of a distant conversation. If a night got that loud on Fenris, it was either feast day revelery, or you needed to be on your feet with an axe in your hand.

He didn’t like that he was trapped here. He didn’t like that he’d been dragged here against his will on someone’s whim. He didn’t like that he had no idea why either. He didn't know if there was even an ounce of truth in the rat-faced man's story about the near end of the world, or what the hell part he was supposed to play in that design if it was. He fucking hated that there was nothing that he could do about it.

He didn’t like sleeping alone, either. Wasn’t used to it anymore.

He’d still made an effort, if only so he wouldn’t be sleep deprived while dealing with whatever tomorrow brings. He might have been able to find an hour or two if he was on his own furs, but even the bed worked against him. It was too damned soft, and no matter which way he lay he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was sinking into it.

Needless to say, sleep didn’t come. All he did was toss and turn for a few hours until he grew sick of it.

He decided he needed to do something. Walk. Memorize his surroundings, get something to eat, something to drink … Busy himself until sleep started to sound appealing again, really. Anything but lay around in that fucking bed that clearly wasn't made with someone his size in mind.

So he put on the jumpsuit that was given to him -- that at least fit -- and decided to walk the halls. It felt ... strangely dreamlike, honestly. Maybe it's the fact that he's tired, maybe it's all so alien to him that it doesn't seem real ... he doesn't know.

He doesn't want to dwell on it, honestly.

Anyone who happens to be awake can find him. He’s not a hard man to spot. Maybe they catch him as they exit his room. Maybe they find him in the halls, wandering around and trying to commit landmarks to memory so that he has some rough picture of the place in his head to navigate by.

He’s awake for a good, long while that night. Plenty of opportunity.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"It truly is." Saturday hears the second meaning, and agrees completely. "But hey, the least us dancing monkeys can do for our benevolent overlords is put on a happy face. After all, we're working for the biggest and best employer in the world." You could melt industrial steel with that acid.

"Anyway, there's a decent handful of people on the rig willing to smile you in if you can't face it. I'm one of 'em, there's this kid with black hair I haven't met yet, a few others. We get by."

She pockets her precious, diminishing stash with well-disguised gratitude

[aleifr]

"Most of the people I've met have seemed like decent folk." He concedes with a nod, though the undercurrent of disdain for Piper 90 itself ... that's clear as day.

"Might have to take one of those people up on their offer, though."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Easier than fighting with the damn thing, that's for sure. You'll be visiting the mess a lot," Saturday says, sweeping a practiced and assessing eye over his unreasonable large form. "They calculate the feed for people with normal sizes and metabolisms. But you can horde snacks, no one cares, that's been helping me."

She does not explain why such a tiny tiny person would have trouble with not getting enough food; Saturday's issue is metabolism. Magic needs fuel.

[aleifr]

The more complicated terms go over his head, but he understands the concept underpinning them. Generally speaking, bigger folk need more food to keep up their strength than smaller people do. If the idiots in charge of this place are giving everyone the same share of food, it could be a problem for him in the future.

"Good advice." He grunts, appreciative of her help despite his annoyance with the circumstances. "I'll have to do that my self."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Otherwise, how you settling in? Got your bearings yet?"

Saturday pats idly at her pockets, looking for something or just checking that everything's still there. "Need the grand tour? Training gym's nice, only decent thing about this place."

[aleifr]

"The gym, I've seen." And he was impressed by it, even if he doesn't know how to make heads or tails out of most of what he saw in there. "The rest of this place is a bit more ... opaque."

The biggest building he'd ever seen before this was made of stone, and it was only two stories tall.

This is a bit beyond his ken.

[wheyoftheadept]

"C'mon, lemme show you around a bit. There is a logic to it, you just have think like someone who really likes efficiency and really doesn't understand people."

She starts walking, shoving her hands in her jumpsuit pockets.

"So, us new hires only have access to about ten floors of the rig, and not even all of those floors. There's no signs, but you can figure out where you are by the piping." She points overhead. "That big bastard up there is the water main for this floor. That means we're on the main hall. The pipes coming out of it are jointed so they point behind me, which means I'm facing towards the front of the rig. See?"

Indeed, it is as she describes, though you have to take a hard look through grating and smaller pipes to do so.

[aleifr]

Aleifr falls into step behind Saturday, listening intently and looking up towards the metal channel embedded in the ceiling when she points towards it.

"That feeds water to other parts of the floor?" He asks, looking back down towards Saturday, arching an eyebrow.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Yeah." She nods. "I'm not sure how the rig gets its water, yet - there's a few options I can think of - but that pipe is part of the system. Each floor has at least one central corridor that everything else is off of. And they always have the big water main running along the top. Maybe it's different other places, I dunno, we're not allowed everywhere."

She points at a heavy metal door, set in a frame with complex electronic locks. "Speaking of. That's one of the Forbidden Doors. They're off limits, in a very serious way. Can't hack them or break them, it's been tried. But they make really good landmarks. And those," now she's indicating a puke-green metal door with slits at face level, "are utility doors. Also make good landmarks. Mostly just cleaning supplies in there, and not the fun kind you can make explosives with."

[aleifr]

"Hh." Aleifr grunts, looking up at the pipe with a sort muted wonder that will probably strike someone from a more modern world as inappropriate for something so basic, but ... well, he didn't exactly come from a world where such things were commonplace.

Saturday points towards the doors, and Aleifr's eyes follow.

He was about to ask about all how she felt about all the secrecy, but the last part ...

"Explosives?"

The concept of an explosion isn't new. He's seen the land erupt in fire during the summer quakes, and he's seen the blast caused by a lightning strike ... but this word is new, and it has his attention.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday blinks, caught off-guard for a second. "Uh, explosives, you know - " she rubs her fingers together. "'slike, chemicals and stuff that when you put it together right, you can use it to blow things up. Kaboom. Real bad day for the other guy."

It does confirm for her, however, that this guy is from Really Not Around Here; she's been classifying the other New Hires according to how close their basic assumptions and understandings are to her, and so far no one else has had that awed reaction to plumbing.

"Do you have something different, where you're from?"

[aleifr]

Aleifr responds with a slow shake of his head.

"If there's something like it, I don't know of it."

Maybe the Iron Masters have something like it - it seems like something that could be within their power - but anywhere else ...?

[wheyoftheadept]

"Oh, hey, you have a learning experience ahead of you. Some time when the gym is open, I should show you the basics - there are some handheld explosives used as weapons. And also guns that shoot explosives. And really big guns that shoot really big explosives - it's a pretty versatile class of weapon. Not very precise, though."

She tilts her head up at him, inviting him to say more. "Where you're from seems like it's pretty different from this place, huh?"

[aleifr]

"It's hard to see the similarities." He mutters quietly, sounding just a little forlorn. "Something like this rig ... it couldn't exist."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Why not?" Saturday asks it kindly. She's been far away from home for a long time now; missing it has become a steady, chronic thing, something she barely feels unless she focuses. That doesn't mean she doesn't understand. "What's it like there?"

[aleifr]

He takes a moment to consider his answer. He's never had to describe it before.

"It's a sea without end," Aleifr eventually says, "full of islands that are driven up or dragged down by quakes during the summer."

"We don't build like this because there isn't a point." He continues. "It could all go away when the summer comes, and then we have find a new one."

[wheyoftheadept]

"How do you build anything at all?" Saturday is curious now, quite genuinely. "Do you live on boats, instead?"

Saturday has a vision, and it's a very stressful one. "You guys must get tsunami all the time, that's awful."

[aleifr]

"I don't know that word."

With some assistance, he could clarify. For the moment, though ...

"We settle the islands in the worldsea, but it's impossible to know how long the land remain. Some islands are sturdy for generations, others will be swallowed back up within a year."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Sorry - tsunami are these big fuckoff waves that form when there's an earthquake off the coast. Like twenty feet high, wipe out whole towns, kinda thing. If your planet gets them, then you know what I mean. They can be a problem where I live, but not regularly and not as far inland as my home town, generally."

She frowns a little. "Why not live on boats, then? If there's no way to tell. Hell, why live there at all? Did your people like, evolve there?"

[aleifr]

"Then those tsunami are part of the reason." Aleifr replies, scratching at his chin thoughtfully. "The seas are even more unpredictable than the land, and the beasts that live under the waves are ... bigger."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday is impressed. She'd never thought she'd meet anyone who could beat the Barrens for a hard time, but this is a new level. Disease and crime are one thing; the closest thing Red Town has is -

"Well, we got a big patch of radioactive waste where I'm from, but at least that mostly stays in one place. You guys must be tough, surviving all that."

[aleifr]

He arches an eyebrow at 'radioactive waste'. Another unfamiliar term.

Aleifr moves past it, though.

"Fenris was forged by the Gods to be a proving ground. Nothing that isn't tough would survive long, and even strength only gets you so faf."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Radioactive means if you go there without protection you melt into meat soup and die," she explains at his eyebrow raise. "It's to do with nuclear stuff. I can explain more, but I don't understand it that well myself. So what do you do when strength runs out?" she asks, straightforward and curious. "How do you cope with it?"

[aleifr]

"You've got to be clever, then."

Though, frankly, he's still looking deeply concerned by her description of 'radioactive'. Whatver the fuck it is, it sounds foul - like the darkest maleficarum.