HALO 183: The Not Remotely Gritty Reboot

[Reinholdt]

[Kitchen]

"Whaaat?" Reinholdt protests, fire back in his spirit! "That's less than half of the week!" Unacceptable! Rein shall simply have to do something atrocious to see if Friday counts as the weekend.

Hopefully Carlie still being able to see means she turns the lights on for Rein. Outside of his cat form, his ability to see in the dark is not actually very good. But that could also just mean Carlie has taken him from behind in the dark in her evil darkness sneaky hugs. "That right?" Reinholdt says, turning his head towards her regardless and planting a kiss on her cheek as she holds him. And then one on her chin for good measure. "I guess that means we're completely free to do spontaneous, unplanned things." AKA, the best things.

[5a Violista]

[Kitchen]

"Well, maybe with good behavior," she concedes, "I could probably find a way to add one weekday to it, too." But she won't tell him which weekday it is, so he'd have to experiment to figure out. And that's not even getting into whether Friday counts as a weekday or a weekend.

It's pretty easy for her to see around in the dark right now: him, the still-hot candles, and the still-warm food basically glow, compared to most everything else. So it's no wonder she can perform evil darkness sneaky hugs in a situation like this.

But!
Oh no!
She got kissed twice! In order to save face, she has no choice but to retaliate with a kiss of her own.

"Whatever happens, happens," she says, agreeing. "But just make sure you stay close; I used to be scared of the dark." She references how the lights are still out here.

[Reinholdt]

[Kitchen]

"Mmm... I can be a good boy if it's for you..." Carlie may not be the best judge of good behavior though. Time will tell.

He's not being particularly good right now, what with continuing to punctuate each of his words with another kiss placed upon her skin. "Oh?" Rein asks, turning in her arms to face her. "I will have to keep your mind off of it then. I'm told I can be very distracting." Rein says, finishing with a kiss on her lips as his arms wrap around her and hug her close.

[5a Violista]

[Kitchen]

She probably has a weird definition of what 'good' is.


Carlie does her best to counter the strikes with blows of her own, but she can't keep up with the repeated battering. Eventually Carlie is overwhelmed and is forced to give in just before Rein goes in for the finishing blow. "That is true," she admits. "When you're around, it's hard to pay attention to much else."

He won the kissing contest. So that means he gets to choose the reward, right? "So since we can do anything, what is it you want to do?" she asks.

[Morty]

[Fourth Tower Section]

"Thank you." Dorota can't hide her pride at the praise. "You can meet him easily enough. He comes by to help me now and then, though he also works in the store where I used to work. I'm not certain just how unique he is. The golems I had read about seemed closer to... well, what you said. An ego rather than life."

[Lord Magtok]

Location Tag

Spoiler

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[Location Tag]

"..." Julienne looks into the weapon vault. "Huh," she says. "Last time I was here, there were more weapons." Since the last time she was here at HALO's armory was just before the HALO-Watchtower merger, she adds, "I guess Watchtower must've taken them?"

It is a little disappointing, to be honest. Julie was expecting to see a bunch of weapons, and instead it's just a bunch of toys. "Or maybe...maybe they just painted them to look like toys?" She walks in and grabs a nerf gun and fires it at her foot. Nerf bullets come out. "...nope."

She turns around and sees Magtok deflating.
"Hey! Hey, it's not that bad," she says. Um, um, what can she do? She looks around, trying to figure something out, since so far Magtok's been pretty nice so she doesn't want to see him this way. Julia reaches behind her back, and grabs a knife made of bone and metal out of her hospital gown. She holds it out to Magtok. "Here, I know it's not much, but you can have my knife," she says.

Looking at the nerf gun in her hand, she then quickly adds, "And...and we could paint them like fancy guns. Nobody would know the difference."

"It's not even about the guns," he insists, pushing the bone knife back towards Julia. "The whole point of this was to take HALO's weapons, attack someone with them, and frame HALO. Then I'd be back in the spotlight again, a scheming trickster masterminding a false flag attack to pit two factions against each other! They'd only fight for a little while, of course, until they connect the dots and put together the evidence that some duplicitous fiend was behind the whole thing, and I'd have to find some way to talk them out of killing me or fight them both to a standstill, but I've handled worse odds. It was going to be a whole thing, Julianne, and it was going to guarantee my survival for at least another few months," Magtok rants, pacing around the room, desperately searching the room for perhaps some secret real weapon he might've missed, and occasionally swearing a few times under his breath as he frantically tries to find some new idea or scheme to salvage his intentions.

"I'm dying, Julie. Not the kind of death you're familiar with, though. I mean deadtime death, permanent removal from the Nexus we live in. It happens more often than you think, to more people than you can imagine. Do you know why the Nexus keeps pulling in new people all the time from other worlds? It's because it uses people up, Jules. The world plays around with us until it gets bored, and then we fade away until all that's left is dust and maybe a handful of people to tell your story to the next generation of hapless migrants. It's what happened to the founders of HALO, all the other original AMENites, the founding members of GLoG. It happened to Vespe, Elly, Pat, Mime...it took Saurous, Regiji, and it even got Idiotarum, gods help us. People live in this world, this Town, this Nexus...and then a few days, weeks, or even years later, they're just gone...ashes," he babbles incoherently, spouting complete nonsense about fake people Julie's never heard of, people who surely never existed outside this crazed tinman's delusional ravings.

"I don't know why it never took me when I've been around at least ten whole years, but I have theories. The clones, perhaps? Deadtime can't tell Magtoks aren't unique individuals and not the same person cheating death over and over again?" But...but they are unique individuals, cyborg. We've been over this. The Faction has been over this. Magtok is not one person, and never has been. "The sheer number of shenanigans I've gotten up to over the years, possibly? Barring some weird...floral exceptions, lots of deadtimes happen to people who don't have any more quests or adventures left in them. Most parents seem to fade out shortly after settling down and having kids, letting the new generation take their place. Both theories would explain why Reinholdt still hasn't faded out yet. Why me though, why now? Three of my fake robot bodies stopped responding, and I haven't been able to get any kind of message out to the Hegemony fleet. Am I doing something wrong, June? Is saving the world not dramatic and exciting enough anymore? Am I not interacting with the right people, scowling in the dark in my spooky little cave, alone, instead of joining Watchforce and getting beaten up by demons every Saturday morning?! Why me, why?!" he lashes out, throwing a nerf gun against the wall hard enough for it to break.

[5a Violista]

[Location Tag]

Juleka takes back the knife. "Ugh, deadtime is, like, so frustrating. It's, like, you still know what's going on, right? But you can't do anything or speak or whatever. Like being a statue or whatever." She hides the knife somewhere. "I'm just glad there aren't deadtime oozes everywhere anymore. Those things were so gross."

She moves over to grab a nerf gun.

June runs her hand up and down the gun. "Maybe that hegemony people deadtimed," she suggests. "You're still around, though, so." She shrugs. "But none of that matters, let's get back to the important stuff: this false flag stuff sounds really fun."

She moves closer to him, looking up. Her eyes almost seem like they're sparkling. "We should do it." Gesturing at the nerf gun she's holding, she says, "Paint it black and nobody would no the difference. In fact, this might even work in our favor, because if we leave them at the scene then nobody would doubt they came from here. We can also steal things from certain prominent people and leave them in key places in other people's bases. I haven't been at VIGIL's base in a while so I kind-of want to see what they've done with the place, too." She tries to lean up against him and swipe...whatever she can from him. And then show it to him. "In fact, if you won't do it with me, I might decide to do it myself and leave your things there at the scene."
Her voice drops to a whisper. "Sounds exciting, right?"

[Gullara]

[Fourth Tower Section]

"You should absolutely let us know when it can accompany you here. I'll arrange for other members to be present as well. I'm sure they'd be interested in an examination." Onyeka claps her hands together. This is exciting.

[Morty]

[Fourth Tower Section]

Some concern gets past Dorota's pride. She feels she has to make some things clear here.

"I'm going to have to ask him first," she says, putting a little more emphasis on 'him' than is necessary. "But I don't think he'll mind an examination and maybe answering some questions."

[Reinholdt]

[Kitchen]

Winning the contest is theoretically all the more impressive since he had his eyes closed the whole time. "Only what?" Rein replies when asked what he wants to do.

"Hmm... Well unless you want to 'accidentally' add dye to the laundry to turn all of Magtok's robes pink, I wouldn't turn down cuddling on the couch as we pretended to watch a movie." Cuddling is an essential part of any relationship.

[5a Violista]

[Kitchen]

Not only were his eyes closed, but the lights were off too. He was at such a disadvantage.

The thought of Magtok wearing pink robes makes her laugh. Well, it's not just the mental image of that, but it's also the other things he said that are kinda funny.
"Are you sure he keeps his robes around here?" she asks. "I'd think he wouldn't, for exactly that reason." Plus, Carlie owes Magtok for giving her Rein's phone number. If she dyes all his robes pink as thanks, he'd probably be more wary to help her in the future. Doing that would have to wait a couple more months. "We'd have to do some recon first to see where they are."

...Not to mention, you'd need a special kind of dye to turn dark purple into pink. Maybe some kind of magic dye.

Since that option is off the table for now, that just leaves cuddling. "Where are the TVs around here?" she asks, as she tries to pull him out of the room so they can go do exactly that. "Honestly, I haven't just sat down and watched a movie in a long time. Not since..." When was the last time? "AMEN, I think." Yeah, that sounds right. Watching Baywatch.

[Gullara]

[Fourth Tower Section]

Onyeka pauses and takes stock of that. "Oh. Oh of course. I'll be waiting for that then. I'm sure we can find a time that works for everyone."

[Lord Magtok]

Location Tag

Spoiler

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[Location Tag]

Juleka takes back the knife. "Ugh, deadtime is, like, so frustrating. It's, like, you still know what's going on, right? But you can't do anything or speak or whatever. Like being a statue or whatever." She hides the knife somewhere. "I'm just glad there aren't deadtime oozes everywhere anymore. Those things were so gross."

She moves over to grab a nerf gun.

June runs her hand up and down the gun. "Maybe that hegemony people deadtimed," she suggests. "You're still around, though, so." She shrugs. "But none of that matters, let's get back to the important stuff: this false flag stuff sounds really fun."

She moves closer to him, looking up. Her eyes almost seem like they're sparkling. "We should do it." Gesturing at the nerf gun she's holding, she says, "Paint it black and nobody would no the difference. In fact, this might even work in our favor, because if we leave them at the scene then nobody would doubt they came from here. We can also steal things from certain prominent people and leave them in key places in other people's bases. I haven't been at VIGIL's base in a while so I kind-of want to see what they've done with the place, too." She tries to lean up against him and swipe...whatever she can from him. And then show it to him. "In fact, if you won't do it with me, I might decide to do it myself and leave your things there at the scene."
Her voice drops to a whisper. "Sounds exciting, right?"

"...are you flirting with me?" Magtok asks, genuinely unsure if this kind of playfulness counts. He's also not sure how Julyssa got her hands on his replacement fingers without him noticing. We should probably start paying a lot more attention to our surroundings, if some weird nutjob can just reach into a pocket and swipe some chrome phalanges without us realizing. Gods help us if she were, y'know, an actual pickpocket, or if he was keeping an actual gun in that pocket.

"You have to tell me if you are, because I'm completely oblivious to all the signs and everything," Magtok insists, with all the confidence and authority of one of those dimwits who really, truly believes that undercover cops have to tell you honestly that they're a cop if you ask them. He's also not really sure how to respond to any of this, if she is, in fact, flirting. If Caelynn is deadtimed and never coming back that would make him single again, but I think it's a little too soon to assume she's gone forever and never coming back, right? Plus, Judith is some kind of weird prankster monster with a dangerous memetic virus and possibly a secret third arm she's hiding somewhere. Those aren't things we're usually looking for when on the prowl for our next ill-fated whirlwind romance, are they?

[5a Violista]

[Location Tag]

Juliane takes a step back. "Oh, I..."

She holds her hands out, trying to return all the stolen fingers - all but one, which she keeps hidden behind her hand in some sleight-of-hand maneuver. "S-sorry." Judy looks down. "I'm not trying to flirt. It's probably just the glasses." She takes off her fake-glasses, folds them, and hangs them off the neck of her shirt with one leg down it.

She turns around to mess with another nerf gun. "It's just that, you know, you're kind-of nice, right? You haven't tried to ditch me or pointed a sword at me or whatever. And also you don't stink of magic so I don't have to..."

She trails off.

Juliekana then, suddenly, spins around and fires a nerf dart at Magtok. "Ha! See? They still work even though they're fake. I'll bet if we sneaked up on someone and started shooting them, the plan would still work and they'd be really shocked."

[Reinholdt]

[Kitchen]

"I dunno, probably. The MagCave was a mess the last time I was there and he's too lazy to actually fix it, so he's likely using our laundry room." Rein hasn't actually checked though, so he adds a shrug in there as well.

Carlie need not worry about the special dye. I'm sure there are actual, logical reasons that Rein has such a dye prepared and ready to go and it has nothing to do with being petty at all.

But they aren't going through with that so Rein doesn't show it to her. Instead he points down the hall, following her as she pulls him along. "The big one's down that way in a room to the left. It's like all that's even in the room besides those entertaining devices, a couch, and the popcorn machine." Gotta play Smash somewhere. "I can't say I remember the last time I watched one myself. Don't quite understand watching a movie when you could be out adventuring in your own little movie. Maybe more people just need to narrate their actions to themselves. Either way, I guess we're picking blind?" Choosing a movie based on the title. What a dangerous practice.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

Using the laundry room here? "I see. That makes sense. Laundry can get pretty expensive."

Carlie goes in the pointed direction.

"Yeah, sure, picking blind is fine," she says.
...
Remembering something, the bunnygirl brings up a movie that she heard about: "There's actually a new movie that just came out that I heard about," she says, which is surprising since she doesn't really follow new movies or other such news. "I dunno if it's more of a romance or a romance-comedy but somebody recommended to me the book series that it's adapted from." Then, sheepishly, she adds: "I don't really know if the movie's keeping the book title, though. Nymph of my Dreams. Haven't read it, so I don't actually know if it's good or not." And, you know, with these kinds of movies they can either be decent or awful.
Plus, it's brand-new, so HALO might not even have it yet.

"But we're just going to be pretending to watch, right?" she asks. "Probably shouldn't pick a movie that's too distracting."

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

Reinholdt disengages from Carlie's arms briefly to find the remote (some maniac put it on top of the popcorn machine. Why? Just why?). Then he starts searching the digital library for the movie Carlie suggested, tediously typing in using the awkward digital keyboard. It doesn't help that Rein's glancing at the exceptionally cute bunnygirl with a raised eyebrow. "Who recommended that to you?" Rein did get a glance at her book collection when he was helping moving her in, so he's aware of her tastes in that regard at least. And has a good idea of what kind of presents she might like in the future.

It turns out that the movie did keep the book names and it was purchased recently by one F.L. Rein shrugs and starts it up, sitting on the couch beside Carlie and going to wrap an arm around her shoulder and pull her in close. "It's fine, I'm sure. I can't imagine anything distracting me from you," Rein suavely assures her, before being blindsided by the gratuitous, completely unnecessary opening shot of the movie as it zooms out from the main lead's cleavage. Oof.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

"My secretary recommended it," Carlie says. Makes sense; she doesn't really have time to socialize with many other people, and her coworkers at the *one* other job she can still go to as a bunnygirl are all guys. Including the awakened bat. "She knows what kinds of books I like, and she has similar tastes."

Carlie leans in close on the couch.
She's pretty lucky that she wasn't drinking anything as that opening shot happens. "I'll bet that didn't happen in the book," she says, in a tone that suggests she apparently doesn't mind it.

The movie flashes to the establishing shots of someone going for a run, before flashing back and forth between the lead walking though the rain to introduce the main character's daily surroundings and showing her as uncertainty and a lack of confidence, and the titular nymph going through her own introductory shots which basically introduce her as confident and perfect and well-liked.
Meanwhile, Carlie leans closer and closer, trying to rest her head on his chest. It seems like her goal is to eventually lie her head in his lap with her legs hanging off the side of the couch.

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

"You have a secretary?" Reinholdt asks, sounding impressed. "I need a secretary." Secretaries are pretty awesome. A luxury in his eyes, a necessity to others.

Reinholdt clears his throat at Carlie's bet, a gentle blush upon his cheeks. "Uh, Y-yeah, probably not." He gives a brief glance and eyebrow quirk at Carlie, but doesn't question it as soon they're both distracted by the movie. But his chest is more than welcoming to be rested upon and as the bunnygirl sinks lower to get comfy, Rein will end up gently petting her hair and ears with one hand.

The two movie characters meet quite unexpectedly at a Thanksmas dinner hosted by a cyborg that is legally distinct from copy-written material. The nymph's exceptionally tight dress and the cyborg's dress both caught on fire at the same time after a series of crazy random happenstances and the lead happens to have a bucket of water in her arms, formerly holding ice and champagne. She can only save one of them though.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

"Yeah, um...at the city hall." That's where she has the secretary. "She's the only reason why I can keep on doing the city councilor job while stuck like this. When she puts on a wig and a mask, nobody looks closely enough to tell the difference."


Because of how indecisive the lead is, she waits too long to save the dresses, but does manage to throw the water - and the bucket - at the host. Even though she didn't work there, she was fired anyway and, too embarrassed to face anyone, runs off to the bathroom to sob. Luckily, the nymph also went into the bathroom to change into spare clothes. Of course she had spare clothes: she was prepared. Unfortunately, the spare clothes had shrunk when they were last washed, so the lead sees this as her chance and offers to lend the nymph half of her outfit. They get talking and hit it off pretty well, and exchange numbers so that they can meet together later to return the borrowed clothes. While at the party, the lead thought the nymph was stuck-up and too far out of her class, the casual conversation there in the bathroom made her fall in love with the nymph. She vowed to turn her life around so that she could become someone worthy (in her own eyes) of the nymph, even though the nymph apparently didn't care.

Unfortunately, Carlie is a little distracted and misses a couple parts here and there: the way her hair and ears are being petted feels so good. She can't help but stare up at Reinholdt and admire him, and say under her breath, "Why does this feel so good?" And why has she never had someone do it before?

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

That makes sense. Rein thought it was a vet assistant, like one of the people at the front desk all the time. City Hall is more reasonable.

Looking down, Rein's going to miss the next part of the movie. It's probably the best part to miss really as it's the self-improvement montage. With the hand that's not petting Carlie, he taps his own ear knowingly. "I know people like to stereotype that cats like head pets and ear scritches, but it's actually true for a large variety of species. Even humans. They're just repressed and don't do it as often as they need." Rein smiles at her. "Being amazing helps too." Strong affection for the other person just makes everything exponentially better.

By the time Rein glances back at the screen, the movie is establishing that the main lead has not one, but two simultaneous love interest rivals that the nymph is currently intimately entangled with. An arrogant, samurai swordsman and a kinky, dual personality librarian-type witch.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

Carlie considers the secretary at the vet's office to be more of a coworker than a secretary, anyway, considering how often she has to fill in for her.

She smiles back up at him. "It probably is helped by being amazing," she agrees. Just wanting it to continue, she stays distracted like that for a while.

She eventually turns back to watch the movie more closely, instead of just listening and watching out of the corner of her eye. Luckily, she's lying down so that her left eye is closer, because televisions don't give off sufficient differences in heat to actually see what's being shown with her right eye. So, Carlie turns back just in time to catch the main lead befriending one of the rivals - apparently she practically made a declaration of war against the other rival. Over all, it seems to have had a couple interesting twists so far, even though the general structure has been pretty predictable.

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

"It's a good thing you're amazing then." Was it all a set-up by Rein or did he take advantage of an opportunity?

Of course that one rival the main lead hasn't befriended turns out to be completely nuts and entirely over-possessive to the point where even the nymph tells them off. But by then it's too late. The main lead and the now ex have gotten into a huge wager with the lead's life savings/work/hobby at stake and the overt implication that whomever wins the competition will also win the nymph's affections.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

Carlie tsks.
He got her again.
He's way too good at this.
"Just you wait, someday I'll win when it comes to compliments."

She turns her head to focus on the movie.

Although it seems the main lead had no chance of winning, she managed to convince the other rival to secretly help her. As it turns out, however, that one rival cheated - Carlie found it a little weird that both of them, when it came down to it, had cheated in the competition but because they're watching from the main lead's perspective, her cheating is treated as the right thing to do but because that one rival is the antagonist then their cheating is treated as wrong by the film.
Carlie comments as such, saying that it's kind-of funny how differently they're treated even though they're doing basically the same thing.
But then karmic justice hits that rival and - even though they technically won, they completely lost favor with the nymph by hurting her and then, regretting their actions, left.
This way, it seems like it set up the conflict for the upcoming movie, where the main lead and the friendly rival haven't really won over the love interest yet.

[Lord Magtok]

[Location Tag]

Juliane takes a step back. "Oh, I..."

She holds her hands out, trying to return all the stolen fingers - all but one, which she keeps hidden behind her hand in some sleight-of-hand maneuver. "S-sorry." Judy looks down. "I'm not trying to flirt. It's probably just the glasses." She takes off her fake-glasses, folds them, and hangs them off the neck of her shirt with one leg down it.

She turns around to mess with another nerf gun. "It's just that, you know, you're kind-of nice, right? You haven't tried to ditch me or pointed a sword at me or whatever. And also you don't stink of magic so I don't have to..."

She trails off.

Juliekana then, suddenly, spins around and fires a nerf dart at Magtok. "Ha! See? They still work even though they're fake. I'll bet if we sneaked up on someone and started shooting them, the plan would still work and they'd be really shocked."

"I had a few drinks before I got here, so it makes sense I would completely misinterpret things," Magtok nods in agreement, plucking a foam dart from his robe, doing his best to act like he totally didn't flinch when she shot him with the toy a moment ago.

"And I guess it would work as a prank, especially if I took a few minutes to mod them to make realistic laser gun sounds," he admits, grabbing a dart gun and fiddling around with it, adding a few wires, a battery, and some scotch tape in a few relatively innocuous places.

"Do you know any good cowards? Someone who'd crumple and surrender at the very sight of a gun? You know, as opposed to immediately shooting back and trying to kill us like most adventurey types would? I'm trying to figure out how this prank doesn't end in us dodging fireballs and doom, but I'm kinda drawing a blank." He adds, wondering if GLoG is still ninety percent families. Picking on kids with toy guns would be kinda gross, but we're running out of time and there's only so many options. Maybe they could bully Nigel instead? He's pretty harmless and also a lame nerdy science dweeb, right

[5a Violista]

[Location Tag]

It's okay.
Juliane won't make fun of Magtok for totally-not-flinching.

She thinks.
"The VIGIL people seemed a bit like hardtacks," she says. "Probably would overreact but would definitely be fun to do." She thinks some more. Actually, it might even be a little fun being captured by them. She imagines all the subversive things she could do while captured. "If they take it too seriously, don't worry, I'll be a distraction for you to get away.''

Julia begins rubbing the length of the gun. '"The GLoGgers seem like they'd be a little boring to go after, though."

She thinks some more.
"We could maybe do a test run on people here."

But..."To be honest, I don't really know anybody who would just surrender." She doesn't get close enough to anybody to know how they react to guns.






[Shuttle, after the sewing monster]

Carlie, after coming from GLoG to avoid the infirmary here - and to avoid worrying people - exits the shuttle.

Using the wall as support, she makes her way down the hallway to her room.

She's wearing a hospital gown, has bandages around her neck, an eyepatch over her left eye, and is holding a bloodstained-and-perforated shirt. She does her best to avoid calling attention to herself, by walking as naturally as possible.
Of course, she still has some cramps so that affects her ability to walk normally. But that's okay. She's almost to her room.

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

"Never," Reinholdt smirks confidently.

As the credits roll, Rein has to admit it's feeling a lot hotter in here than he thought. Though it probably had a lot to do with the number of male and female shirtless scenes. He looks down thoughtfully at Harley. "So... This what you like, huh? Should I be concerned that my genderbent self will steal you away from me?" The light smile suggests he isn't actually concerned about that.

[Misfortune Hallway]

Carlie does in fact run into someone!

It's Maria. She's walking around with a book in her hands about the difference between freshwater Sahuagins and saltwater Sahuagins open to the chapter on dialect. She honestly probably wouldn't have even noticed Carlie and walked on by if she didn't look like she just escaped from the opening scene of a coma patient waking up after the apocalypse. And if Carlie's quick enough, she could probably hide in a random room before Maria actually looks up.

Otherwise the bespectacled human will notice her and ask with a concerned look, "Do you require assistance?" Presumably of the medical kind.

[5a Violista]

[Theater]

Carlie sticks her tongue out at Rein, defying his smirk.

It's true: everybody knows that shirts notably decrease the temperature. That's why they were invented: to make the place less hot.

Now that the movie is over, the bunnygirl turns her head back up. She starts to wonder and get a little worried: she usually sticks to books, but it was still really good, she thought. Was it not really the kind of thing he likes? Luckily, it doesn't seem like he disliked it, so the worry vanishes. "Oh. It's, um..."
She shakes her head.
"I prefer broad shoulders." While she's willing to flirt with another woman, she'd much rather be with a man. "So, what, it was a little too much for you?"


[Misfortune Hallway]

Hiding in another room would obviously draw attention to her, so she can't do that. Clearly, just walking forward be the best way to avoid being noticed.

And that's why Carlie gets noticed.

"Um."

She stops moving. What should she even say? If she tries to downplay it, she'll probably get called out on it and be forcibly brought to the infirmary. While that would probably be nice, there's a reason she chose to go out of her way to GLoG first, and that's to not be worried over and to avoid being around people she cares about. She literally has no idea what happened, and she's really worried about hurting someone she cares about again.

"I...I already visited GLoG's infirmary," she says. "It's..." Not that bad? Was she really just about to say that? "While I might have to get follow-up care, I feel like the most important thing right now is rest." Yeah. That sounds reasonable, right? "U-um, for natural healing to happen, you know? And so I'm just going to my room."

[Shadowcaller]

[EVENT: The Nexuswide Story]

Every character in the thread will (if their players allow it) suddenly know a story, or perhaps several versions of one story, as if they’ve learned of it long ago.
Do you remember where you learned of Red Riding Hood, Snowwhite or Goldilocks for the first time? Since the characters won’t exactly remember where they learned of this story. Though the story and its many versions won’t only exist inside the characters heads as it's being added to storybooks and other media across the multiverse at the same time.
It’s just a story however.It has no special mental influences or compulsions connected to it. The story just exists as a simple narrative within a characters memory and sometimes such a mundane thing can have the greatest effect.

Spoiler: The Story: Once upon a time...

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...there was a king that ruled over the fairest of lands. There were many beasts and villains threatening the lands but he always managed to best them with the aid of his noble knights. But one day those who he had fought so hard to protect rebelled against him.
They took his title, they took his crown and threw him out of the fairest of lands to be forgotten.
But learning of the king’s banishment, the beasts saw their opportunity and attacked.
Without their hero king the inhabitants of the fairest lands could not protect themselves and without his title and crown the king could not protect them.

Thus the king was forced to watch on his forgotten throne as the beasts rampaged through not only his former home but also the kingdoms outside the fairest of lands. The inhabitants fought valiantly but against the beast's sheer numbers they could not win.
But finally the king had enough and dubbed new knights that would unite the kingdoms against the beasts. Along with his new knights the king returned to the fairest of lands and freed it from the beasts which had taken it over.

Only then could he reclaim his rightful title and crown and used them to once and for all end the threat of the beasts. Once the beasts had been defeated the king would grant many gifts to those loyal knights who had helped him retake fairest of lands and freed the kingdoms from the beasts. Then he would take the greatest among them as his queen and they would live happily ever after as rulers of the fairest land.

This is the “prime story” but it’s likely not the version your character knows. The version or versions they’ve heard of is likely specific to their homeworld with the actors and elements being unique to it. So their players can feel free to invent their own versions of the story that can be wildly different as long as it have these elements:

1. A being/person is a figure of great importance in a fantastical place.
2. They are banished from it for some reason.
3. A great threat emerges which not only threatens the fantasy land but ALL the lands.
4. The banished is helped by a group of people to regain their former glory and with it they end the threat and save the day.

Again, knowing the story have no special effect in itself. It's up to the players if:
A: The characters learn it at all.
B: If they do anything with it.
The story is connected to the King of Rags (who is controlled by the player Morty) so that's where they would have a chance to do anything with the knowledge.

[Reinholdt]

[Theater]

"Shoulders." Reinholdt says, surprised. "Huh." He probably just hadn't heard that one before, but seems to at least accept it.

"Too much? Well, uh, I'm just not used to watching those kinds of things with other people. It was... An experience. I won't turn another one down. So long as it's with you of course." Rein gives Carlie a reassuring smile, caressing her upper arm in a soothing manner.

He leans forward to draw his face towards hers and whisper into her ear. "Besides, it has given me a few new ideas..."

[Misfortune Hallway]

The passage Maria's book is held open to changes to one about how the differences between the saltwater and freshwater Sahuagin's fable of the Banished King impacted their cultures. Not that Maria notices the shifting text because she's looking up at Carlie. Or whatever's left of Carlie after her day.

"Yes... That would be a prudent course of action. Though sometimes a hospital might be prudent as well? Infirmaries tend to historically be for more minor injuries. If you are certain, however, I apologize for delaying your progress." Maria steps out of the way just to be sure.