sixthiterationlogs | This Shouldn’t Happen | Log + Network (Morning After)

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This Shouldn’t Happen | Log + Network (Morning After)

WHO: Seifer Almasy (Guest starring Nida)
WHERE: Blacksmith, Schoolhouse, Inn
WHEN: January 10th - couple days following
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS:Nothing beyond the usual casual profanity. Will update if needed!

Network Video:

UN: ItsTooEarly

The video clicks on to show Nida, annoyed, with Seifer leering over his shoulder completely invading his personal space. “Come on, ask ‘em!” He insists, leaning down to try to peer at the tiny screen on the wrist device. Apparently oblivious to the way he was more or less leaning wholly on Nida’s shoulder. Because Seifer’s a giant brute with no concept for how heavy he is.

"I'm asking, stop it. Geez, lose some weight. There aren't weights here for me to keep my strength training up," Nida grumbles. Then looks a bit calmer after a moment.

"Okay, Seifer's an idiot who managed to lose his wristband. If anyone sees a black one hanging around, come staple it to his wrist, okay?"

In emphasis Seifer held up his wrist in front of Nida for the camera to see, casting him a mild glower at the comment. “Maybe you need to find a way to improvise, scrawny.” He quipped lightly. Nida was absolutely not scrawny, didn’t stop Seifer from making the accusation for his whining.

"I'm already carrying your weight, so clearly I've improvised."

Seifer dropped his arm then, smirking. “In that case I’m doing you a favor.”

Blacksmith:

The first, and presumably most likely location to search outside the house was the blacksmithing forge, where Seifer spent most of his time in the village. His search involved first a cursory search of the floor, tables, and work benches he most commonly occupied. “Hey, has anyone seen a watch?” He called to whoever might be around. Regardless of the reply he’d then move his attention to digging to the bottom of the nail storage. Emptying everything out, sorting through it, then having to pile the huge mess he made back in. Finding no success he moved on to his other frequent projects. Gears and hinges. If it had fallen into the fire he knew he would be out of luck, but surely the melting plastic smell would have alerted someone to the problem earlier.

With how clean they kept the blacksmith it was hard to believe it wouldn’t have been found and placed where he usually worked. After a few more rounds of searching, including digging among the tools and even performing a cursory sweeping just in case he decided that there was nothing to be found there. Time to move on.

Inn:

Second on his list was the Inn. Being a frequented spot for afternoon meals as it was easier to catch lunch there than run home and cook, he spent a little time nearly every day there. Figuring out where to search would be much harder here. Sure he poked around searching under things, on things, and in things that might make sense for his watch to have gone but this location was better for asking people than searching himself. Upon finding someone he’d turn his attention to them.

“Hey, you haven’t seen a loose watch around have you? Black one? Mine took off this morning it’s the damnedest thing.”

It really was, given he was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be possible. And yet here he was, watch-less and confused.

Schoolhouse:

While less likely than the other two candidates Seifer knew he’d be remiss if he didn’t search every feasible location, no matter how unlikely. He’d spent a good number of hours there back and forth researching forging techniques and really anything else that caught his fancy. Fortunate that the schoolhouse had been well stocked with instructional manuals. Evidently whoever set them there had taken some mercy, enough to allow them learning materials. Regardless, that wasn’t Seifer’s goal today. Instead he could be found searching beneath desks and chairs, checking under edges of shelves or any other small crack on the floor or otherwise where a wrist watch might have scurried off to.

Honestly, at this point he wasn’t even sure why he was trying so hard. He barely used the thing and didn’t care for its existence until it was gone. It just felt weird to have lost the thing that wasn’t supposed to be able to come off. Finally, frustrated with his search for the day he slumped down into a chair to sulk. This was insane. Things don’t just walk off on their own. Something had to be going on, but what? Idly he kicked at the leg of a nearby desk, huffing out his frustration. If only there were monsters around he’d really like to blow off some steam.

Wildcard:
(OOC: Use this post for any of the in-between areas one might bump into him!)

Plenty of opportunities to catch Seifer out and about, looking distracted and confused. His expression was one of serious confusion. Where in Hyne’s name could his watch have gone off to? He knows he had it on when he went to bed. So how could it have escaped off of his arm and wandered off on its own? It was completely illogical.

Even so he was still searching. On his way between locations he’d stop to search alongside the roads, in water run-off ditches, digging through brush, anywhere he thought a watch might be hiding. Didn’t help the thing was black so of course it would blend in with the shadows. Why couldn’t he have a bright one for a situation like this?

At one point he nearly climbed bodily into a patch of brush, having spotted something he was almost certain was the wristband in question. By the time he climbed back out, with twigs and dead leaves sticking to him he was holding…

A twig. “Damn it.” He cursed, scowling at the twig as though it had personally offended him.

(OOC: Network responses will be from Nida’s wrist device, sometimes involving both of them bickering. Enjoy!)

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Reading is useful. Perhaps not always as useful as practice and experience, but it was a good starting point. Hence why he spent some time there trying to pick up information on all manner of topics he'd never been able to learn before. Like cooking, knitting, and blacksmithing. Funny how all in he'd jumped once he learned he could do things other than fight monsters or wage wars.

Not that any of that was important at the moment. What was important was that he was trying, desperately and to no avail, to find that damn watch. At the question Seifer picked his head up and shot the guy a flat look that, if anyone could read expressions would very clearly state 'duh'. "What tipped you off?" He asked dryly, holding up his arm where the conspicuously absent watch was... well not present.

"Something I don't think I'm supposed to lose." He grumbled, going back to scouring under a shelf in the vain hope that maybe upon the third inspection it will have appeared.

Desmond was trained from childhood in a similar way to Nida and Seifer, but he did have some time in a normal life. When he got to read whatever he felt like and see movies and go to the grocery store. All of the ordinary things that he ate up and valued. It didn't last too long and now he was here, so normal was out the window. The books were helpful though. He might actually put his mind to something useful.

He was genuinely surprised when Seifer showed him the lack of the wrist band. "Wait, I thought you couldn't get those off?" He tried once and it didn't go well, and people told him not to try again. Eventually he just got used to it. He w ore a watch occasionally on earth, so he pretended it was the same as a cell, and not something strapped on him agains his will. "Seriously I'm not sure anyone's been able to get it off so far."

Normal may be out of the window, but so was anything they were used to. Had to start over from scratch here. Daunting, but at least they weren't alone. Seifer certainly wouldn't have thought of half the things the people here had come up with were he having to rely only on himself. Books were very useful. Nice to have some guides.

"I thought so too," He confirmed, straightening back up after a brief search. No dice. Nothing but dust under there. "That's why it's so weird. Not like it should have just fallen off on its own, right?" Maybe his was defective?

"I don't think so. People who have been here for awhile I don't think can take it off." It really seemed bizarre. Desmond frowned at him. "Maybe yours wasn't put on correctly or something. It's not like we know what our overlords or whatever do to keep them stuck." But that also meant he wasn't sure how he was going to get it back on either, even if they found it. Oh well.

Desmond looked at his own for a moment, and happens to see the video of him and Nida talking, before tapping it off. "You know Nida, huh?" He liked Nida. He was cool. He shrugged. "I'll help you look." Two eyes were better than one in this place, because it did have some nooks and crannies between all the books.

"That's what I thought too," But his had come off without his noticing and simply disappeared. Which was... really weird. Incredibly weird. "Maybe mine was defective." And whoever was responsible for bringing him in knocked him out or something to replace it later? If so, why didn't they just bring a fresh replacement so he wouldn't notice? It didn't make much sense. If he found it he could at least put it in his pocket or something.

"Nida? Yeah, we live together. Same world." The implication was that they'd known each other from before, so it was only natural to bunk up with familiarity. What little piece of it they could find. "Thanks. Doubt we're gonna find it, be on my head if it turned up and I hadn't tried." He would try. No matter how futile he'd still try. Sometimes stubbornness came in handy.

"Yeah, that might be. You'd think they'd replace it quick though, if they want us for sure to have them." So basically Desmond was on the same wavelength in suspicion on this. Nothing happened without reason from what he could tell of this place. He kept wanting to take it off, but on the other hand, it meant being disconnected from the network and communicating with others. Now he can really tell why someone would be frantic to get it back, even if it was a trap.

"Cool. He's a good guy." They've had a few conversations and all good, so Desmond considers them friends or on friendly terms at least. "Not sure if we'll find it, no, but it's worth looking. I gave up on losing my cell phone a few times and always found it like a month later." Not the same thing, as his phone was never forcefully strapped to him, but who knows with this place. "It's weird that this thing is so high tech when the rest of the place is old school tech."

"You'd think," He agrees. It doesn't make a lot of sense that they'd take his watch for repairs or whatever and not slap on a replacement if his having it was so important. Which might imply his not having it was part of the experiment. But why? To what end? Not that he was expecting he'd ever understand the reasoning behind it. It was especially strange given the devices, as far as any of them knew, couldn't be removed by normal means.

"He sure is," Seifer's grown more fond of him as time goes on. So far he's been pleasantly surprised. Nida seems like good people. Better than himself by miles. "What's a cell phone?" He asked idly as he proceeded to try to shove a shelving unit over enough to try to peer under it. Just in case. "That's a good point. Figure it's part of whatever science experiment is goin' on. Like the bunker. Haven't been there, heard it's got some weird stuff going on."

Desmond is not smart enough to speculate on the level some other people did about this place. But he also is very, very paranoid, and that means suspecting everything is off and everything is a test. So far there is compelling reason to think that way. He might have to ask around and see if this guy is the only one, that would be interesting. Although 'this guy' makes him realize something. "I'm Desmond." He hadn't introduced himself.

"It's kind of like the watch, but you call people on it. Similar to how we put video on the network, but you call one person and have an audio conversation with them. You can also use the phone to take photos and video, and look up information on the internet. That's an online system that lets you search for basically anything. " Desmond is getting used to explaining things here. "So if you were going I need to know how to make a turkey sandwich, you can search for it and you'll get a huge list of recipes and suggestions."

Neither is Seifer, really, but he does enjoy a good story and there were plenty of fantasy and science fiction ones out there to allow for some outlandish speculation. The truth, of course, was still entirely outside of his grasp. Honestly he wasn't even sure any of this was real and not just in their heads. But he'd not voice that one, he didn't like that idea much. Oh, right, introductions. Might be important. "Seifer." He offered.

"So it's a phone with a screen that you don't have to hook to wires?" Had to wonder how they communicated. His world had been limited since radio frequencies stopped working for a good long time, everything had to switch back to cables. And with only one nation at all capable of entering space and no real satellites in existence yet, he had no real concept of how any of that would work. Phones, though, phones made sense. "How's it work? I mean, how's it all connected. Where's the information stored? Surely it's not world-spanning cables right?"

Wait. "So uh... people have access to a shitton of knowledge and they use it for a cook book?" And cat pictures, do tell him about the cat pictures and pointless arguments.

"Yeah, it's hooked into wireless, so you can use it anywhere. Which isn't dissimilar than this, it's just higher level and has more options." He doesn't know how they do it here. He's seen no radio towers, no where for a network to hook in, no wi-fi options. It just works. Desmond thinks about how best to describe it. He almost says a series of tubes but doesn't, because it only makes sense to people from his world and time.

"So the internet is basically a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. These networks use a lot of software that connects them to other computers, sometimes using satellites." God is this making sense. He's never had to explain it before. "The information is stored on something called a server, and those servers can talk to each other when you're looking for data which then gives you the information someone else has stored by searching for it. Some servers are huge, like computer companies have giant ones for all of their data and usage, but at home you can just have a computer that can tap into the information everyone else has." He's really not sure how helpful any of that is. He really misses computers.

He does laugh though. "Yeah, they do. Recipes, looking at cute animals, screaming at strangers, and looking at porn. That's what the internet's all about."

The series of tubes would sadly only confuse him. Seifer was familiar with an intranet, but not a world-spanning internet. At the time he came from it wasn't possible due to worldwide signal interference. It was also still wired in, they hadn't quite hit the wireless stage of development.

"Alright I kinda get what you mean, my school had all their computers hooked up on a database that could communicate with each other. Not worldwide though." Wait, "Satellite?" With only one nation capable of sending anything to space, and them being so secretive they've been hiding behind an invisibility barrier for the past 17 years, the concept of satellites was still a little foreign. Thoughtfully he nods, evidently capable of comparing enough of the technology from his own world to understand the gist.

"I think I get what you're sayin', for the most part. A lot of that's not been possible on my world. There's a signal interference that keeps radio and any other signals from traveling very far. We gotta use cables instead, and the HD cables tend to get damaged by monsters more often than not." So it was a lot of upkeep.

That last part earns a barked laugh. Alright, yeah, hell even he used the school's little forum for shit posting. "Yeah, sounds about right." As soon as boobs are on it that's it, that's the end of any reasonable thought.

"Yeah, exactly. So like your school, just globally accessible." Desmond's aware of how lucky he was, being in that time, since he loved technology. He spent three lifetimes in the heads of his ancestors who were from centuries ago, while his brain was hooked into an advanced computer system that made it possible in the first place. "Groups and schools still do have their own kind of networks for things, but it's readily available for anyone who knows how to bypass internet security." You know. Like him.

Desmond nods. "I mean, I'm from a city area, so it's easier for me, but there are definitely towns on earth that are too far away from civilization and don't have the same access. They can't have radio signals that far, or phones." He personally hadn't been to one of those, even the order farm was not so private that it lacked advanced technology. They needed it too much.

"Monsters." He raises an eyebrow. "I think he's mentioned that before, and how you're mercenaries back home. I'm a fellow child soldier." Desmond thinks that's the smartest way to put it, without any judgment. He isn't exactly jumping for joy that he was learning how to kill at five, and he wouldn't want it for others, but it's how it is. "I was raised in a group that put a weapon in your hand as soon as you could lift it."

"It's hard to fathom," He admits. Having lived his entire life in a world where that wasn't especially feasible it made sense he had a hard time grasping the concept. Yet the technology here worked, so he wasn't brushing it off completely. "Sounds like somethin' Nida would train for." That seemed more his area of expertise. Seifer was the punch them until they stop fighting back type.

"I think that qualifies as most of my world. Few large cities, you could count 'em on one hand. The rest little towns spread across the countryside, if they last that long." As he said before, monsters. They made making large metropolitans difficult.

"Are you? Welcome to the funny and horrified looks club, in that case," He smirks, shaking his head. The way people reacted to them was often frustrating. They weren't some poor, damaged souls. Didn't need coddling damn it. It is how it is, no one likes it, but it's the truth of their lives. "Garden's the same. Only add in typical military strictness and attempting to hammer into your head to follow orders without question or deviance and that's what we got. Monsters for you, too, or somethin' else?"

"I was an expert on all of it. I mean, still am. A hacker, they're called, I could get into other people's tech. It's not hard when you know what you're looking for. Also people are terrible at picking passwords." Desmond laughs. "The amount of people who have password as their actual password, of 12345, is obscene. It's like they want trouble." It's why he sometimes checked those first, just in case. He normally could tell the type of person who couldn't think beyond that.

Desmond shrugs. "It makes sense, doesn't it? People who don't grow up that way can't imagine it. Just like I can't imagine what having magic is like. I'd go how the fuck do you learn to live with that, and you guys say easily. There are a lot of people in my world who never had that training." The majority of people don't. "I guess if I had a choice, if I could've grown up normal, I would have." He would have lived past twenty-five, for sure, and maybe done the white picket fence and family. Desmond wanted that for himself.

"That being said, people really have to get off their high horse. It's not like we asked for it." He survived. Until he didn't. That was how it was. "No, human enemies. We've been fighting each other thousands of years at this point."

"Heh, yeah that ain't a surprise." Admittedly his passwords weren't that exciting and were probably very easy to guess. "They just don't wanna remember it. We all got way too much to remember as it is." He offered in defense of all people who have used password as their password thinking they were clever.

"I'm still tryin' to wrap my head around a world that doesn't have monsters." It's incredibly strange to him. It's such a fact of existence in his world he barely knows what to do with himself without them. Troll people over the network, mostly, which now he can't do because he's lost his wrist device. It's awful. "Dunno what I'd do," He muses distractedly, now choosing a new point of the room to search for his lost wrist device. Mostly so he didn't have to look at Desmond directly while he spoke. "Ain't like I had a choice one way or another, so I guess thinkin' about it doesn't matter."

What happens when some was what you'd want, to be a great warrior. To be a hero? Then realizing that the price of all of that was everything. He doesn't think he'd be satisfied with a normal life. Then again how could he know? He has no concept of what that even is.

At last he nods decisively. "Yeah, that's the thing. Could've been a lot worse, I'm not complainin' about it it's just how it was. Everyone's got an opinion on it." Funny how with all those opinions no one had ever reached out to try to stop it. As was always the case, "adults" doing a lot of talking, no one acting. "Ah yeah, we do that too. I'd say in about equal amounts." One might think with the monsters being a threat people would be distracted. Nope.

"It's okay, we just replace it with a lot of human monsters instead. People who are monstrous. We have plenty of those." His tone is dry but he's being completely serious. "The funny part about it is that probably if I did grow up boring and normal, I'd wish I had a more exciting life instead. Grass is always greener on the other side." Desmond only knew that he wanted it one way because living the other way was so rough.

"Opinions are something you can always count on other people to have, whether they're asked for it or not." Desmond rubs the back of his neck, looking around. "Maybe it dropped off your wrist outside or on the way here. Let's keep looking."

[wrap if that's okay!]

"Got plenty of those ourselves, maybe slightly fewer. From what I've heard cities get pretty damn big around where you're from?" Which was an interesting concept. A snorted laugh of agreement. "Exactly. Don't think I could take boring." Although if he could have had a family he thinks he might have been a little happier. Probably wouldn't have ended up where he did in the long run.

Except it had to happen that way. Stupid time loop bullshit. "Tch, no kidding." Which was always frustrating. The indignance didn't exactly help him a decade too late now did it? "Sure, thanks." He offered a nod and moved on to search elsewhere. He'll tear the town apart if he must.

[Sounds good!]

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This Shouldn’t Happen | Log + Network (Morning After)

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