★ WEEK TWO: FORWARD MOVEMENT ★

[modaphor]

[A lot has happened in a few short days.

Arche has grown a great deal from her interactions with the assembled agents of the facility; thanks to their influence, her chamber has taken on a few new additions, including a rapidly filling curio cabinet and, more recently, an orange and black Maine Coon kitten has come to stay in the facility as well. Thanks to Ginti's advice, he is no longer confined to his transparent tank in Arche's Chamber; in fact, you may see him wandering around during the week. Please be kind to the local wildlife!

On a more serious note, Arche has located one of her missing memory cores, which comes with some...vaguely unsettling information surrounding it. But, since the general consensus seemed to be "yes, we'll help", she is now hard at work securing the gateway to the pocket dimension; if asked, she will approximate that it will take her until late Thursday night to get everything up to scratch.

In the meantime, she's helpfully provided some recommendations for people to work on this week, in preparation for this week. If you need something to think about, you might try working on one of those?

Otherwise, the facility is still available to you, as is Arche. Have a good week, everyone!]


SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[OOC: As with last week, if you want to talk to Arche, please use the subheadered comments! Also, we had some agents looking around for clues last week, so as a way of encouraging and streamlining that —

If you intend to look for clues, please explicitly mention what sort of thing you're looking for and approximately where you are looking, and consider asking for mod attention in the comment header so I can find it easier! Thanks, everybody!]

Comments

★ SUNDAY ★

[modaphor]

(frozen comment) FIELD AGENT TRAINING RECOMMENDATIONS

[archetyping]

[Because Arche is doing her best to try to help y'all out with this "getting prepared for a trip into the pocket world" thing, she has performed an assessment of the various party members as a whole and has offered these suggestions for training and improvement before you go gallivanting off into parts unknown: ]

FOCUS: PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENT AND STAMINA

• CHIE
• AKANE
• TOBIAS

FOCUS: TEAMWORK AND COOPERATION SKILLS

• SHIJIMA
• JADE
• LABRYS

FOCUS: ADHERENCE TO GROUP-DETERMINED GOALS

• NIGHTS
• KOUICHI
• GINTI

FOCUS: PERSONAL CONFIDENCE AND DECISION-MAKING

• YOSUKE
• MAMI

[Note: Names listed here are for OOC use only; ICly Arche would understandably be using your codenames. Also, Arche will not be releasing the full list to all members of the team. You will be able to see your recommended focus ONLY. This is because she doesn't want to potentially agitate or embarrass members by pointing out their possible flaws in front of everyone. :|b

Remember, this is a recommendation only. Feel free to use it as a plot hook for something to do, think about, or attempt to improve on this week; if you'd rather not, go ahead and ignore it!]

★ MONDAY ★

[modaphor]

ARCHE HOTLINE

[archetyping]

[Coming to talk to Arche for some reason? Drop a starter here!]

[shuttermouse]

[ The local wildlife has given Chie something new to photograph using the instant camera Arche gave her, so she's rather happy about the latest addition to the facility. It helps that the little thing is painfully adorable, too. She wanders into Arche's chamber with a carefree smile on her face, walks up onto the platform and holds up a photo of the cat. It looks similar to this, just pretend it's their cat and not a different one. ]

Ta-dah! What do you think?

[nullorvoid]

[Ginti doesn't know what it is, but Monday's the sort of day where he just wakes up restless. Maybe it's because there's a task to be done but no way to do it yet; maybe it's because he's been assigned a secondary task by Arche but has no idea how to actually go about carrying it out. Either way, it's the sort of day where he wants to smash someone's face in, even though he knows he shouldn't; he should be finishing up what he's been working on for Arche, because that'll settle him and keep him out of trouble, but bluntly put today he doesn't have the patience and besides, at least here there's somewhere he can go if he wants to beat the shit out of something and doesn't have Decim's face as a convenient target.

So anyone entering the gym for a good portion of the day will be treated to him doing...well, exactly that, beating the shit out of something; at least he's confining it to the punching bags and not, you know, somebody's face. His fighting style isn't very refined, more like what you'd expect from someone who gets in a lot of brawls but isn't a professional fighter of any sort; it seems to be based around the general concept of "hit hard and hit fast, and if it hurts you a bit back...good." Not that he seems too deterred by this, and refined or not, it looks like he punches like a damn train so at least there's that.

Otherwise...well, there's always the communal lounge once he's wiped himself out; he's got a fair amount of...well, random crap with him, but at least he's not taking up the couches with it. Instead, he's apparently declared himself lord of the Ottoman Empire tonight, given that he's sitting curled up on the floor with a few sketchpads from the art room and his back against the wall, and he's using one of the stupid glorified footstools to brace a sketchpad against while he draws and the other to form some sort of half-assed barricade to ensure that no one trips over either him or his stuff.

...The Memine plush he got out of the machine is also sitting on one of them. Don't touch it.]

[ribbonsenpai]

[That's a pretty impressive fort you've got set up for yourself there, Ginti. Mami peers down at him curiously from the other side of his footstool barricade as she brushes a stray piece of bangs behind her ear.]

This is quite the set-up you have here. What are you drawing?

gonna be looking for clues here!

[thermals]

[After receiving information about the located missing core from Arche, Tobias seemed to have decided to make himself a little scarce for the entirety of Sunday. Anyone looking for him would have probably had a hard time finding him isolated to just one location. He wasn't deliberately avoiding everyone, no. But he did need the time to himself to think. It would be nice if he just had more room to fly. Being indoors made him anxious, and he would honestly like nothing more than to have access to the open sky again.

Tobias doesn't appear again until Monday morning in which he spends a majority of his time in the Communal Lounge perched on the edge of the table he clawed up the day he got there. Since a lot of the day before was spent flying from room to room, he's exhausted himself to the point where just sitting is more desirable for the time being. He is going to speak up if someone comes by, though, because...well.]

< Hey. ...my hat fell off. >

[And lo, there is the H.A.T., on the floor just a few feet in front of the end table. Tobias shifts a little awkwardly on his talons before continuing.]

< ...do you think you could put it back on for me? >

[Later that evening, Tobias moves on to his bedroom, finding a place to perch on his dresser. The door is still cracked, but the gap there is just enough for him to be able to come and go with relative ease. He's already spent enough time combing the library, and since he knew sleep wasn't going to come easily, he figured he may as well give his room a thorough once over with his hawk eyes to see what he could see.

Maybe there's something here, maybe there isn't. But it wouldn't hurt to look, and he would rather have a focus to keep himself occupied as opposed to restlessly flitting about until Thursday came. There isn't any specific sort of thing he's looking for other than anything that might seem odd or out of place. ...or anything that might just scream "hey, this is a thing you might want to investigate".]

[unit31]

[ so with this whole mission to find Arche's core business, Labrys is doing everything she can to prep. For most of the morning you can find her in the library, curled up in the corner with a veritable fort of books piled up around her. if you care to wander over and take a peek, you'll see they're all instructional books on fighting styles. um.

you may also find her in the gym at some point in the evening, punching the shit out of the punchbag. it's a little awkward - she's clearly adjusting to the absence of something she's used to using, but given how hard she's hitting that punchbag, she's not doing a terrible job without it.

once she's gotten tired of beating up innocent gym equipment, you'll find your resident robot in the music room, having an inspect of the instruments in there. yosuke already showed her the guitar, so what do these other things do... :|a ]

[nekromanteia]

[Jade didn't need technology he didn't understand to tell him his cooperation was lacking. His teamwork skills were just fine...in combat. Where and when it mattered, he would perform as required. Outside of that, he saw no reason to work on anything.]

[Except for one project he was considering.]

[Machines really were more Dist's or Guy's field of expertise, and usually nothing of interest to Jade at all. but the best way to understand something was to dismantle it, and the best way to learn was through hands-on experience.]

[In other words, he was in the lounge, inching towards the VCR when he was almost certain no one was nearby and wearing a look that screamed 'danger' like twenty-feet-tall neon lights.]

[garudynamic]

[Yosuke has a lot to think about today. Both between the upcoming mission and the... assessment Arche had given him. He didn't know for SURE that everyone else got one... God it would be just him, wouldn't it?

PERSONAL CONFIDENCE AND DECISION-MAKING

What did that even mean? It sounded like-

-well, it sounded like 'be more like Yu' to his mind. What, was there something wrong with being the adviser type? He had plenty of confidence! Way more then... well, back before Yu arrived in Inaba, that's for sure. He was working on not letting fears of how others saw him affect him so badly. But damn it, it was a process!

How was he even supposed to practice that?

Such were his thoughts while he waited for his clothing to wash in the laundry room, laying across the machines in the pjs he got from Arche, headphones on and face set. It was also there that someone decided to investigate him. The kitten, seeing his waving cord, made his way over, batting at it... and eventually pulling it out.]

Hey, watch it!

[Yosuke glared at the little thing. His thoughts still focused on, well... what would his partner do?

Yu often told him about things he did to, well, 'enhance his parameters'. Which Yosuke always took for his friend just being weird like usual. Eating at Aiya's 'till he got sick, fishing in the rain, folding cranes.

And... petting cats.

He stared down at it. And finally...]

I really don't get it. You can't practice making decisions unless you're making decisions, right? What, does she want me to go around ordering people to do things all week?

[One might find Yosuke, still on the dryer, the kitten on his belly, complaining to it outloud. Yosuke's Expression and Understanding increased!]

★ TUESDAY ★

[modaphor]

ARCHE HOTLINE

[archetyping]

[Coming to talk to Arche for some reason? Drop a starter here!]

[moonoverjune]

[Akane isn't exactly a paragon of physical fitness, she's more than well aware, but, hey, she's been trying, if her recent amount of time spent in the gym is any indication! She's struggling more than a fair bit with some of the heavier weights, not quite sure where to begin...but the tiny girl trying to benchpress far more than a girl her size should be attempting might be asking for a bit of attention and maybe looking for a bit of help, or at least someone to spot her...

At the same time, she can be found in the library not too long afterwards, and in the kitchen at around dinnertime, trying to make herself something good as a reward for working out so hard...but, unfortunately, the smell of something burning might tip her fellow agents off that she's not exactly the best chef in the facility...

A-at least she's trying, though, right?]

★ WEDNESDAY ★

[modaphor]

ARCHE HOTLINE

[archetyping]

[Coming to talk to Arche for some reason? Drop a starter here!]

there are clues being looked for in the second portion of this, Alex!

[nullorvoid]

[All right, so it's been sort of an off week so far.

Patience has never been Ginti's strong suit, and he's mostly been keeping to himself rather than socializing for a couple days because yelling at everything is not exactly helping anything. He's still not...managing to produce much in terms of those dolls; for the time being he's just kind of letting that lie.

He can actually be found in the game room for the better part of the day, just because that setting is going a good way toward calming him down. It's familiar, and familiarity is something he wants right now; he seems more interested in the cards and a few of the board games than anything, though when he finds a few that have dice in the setup...hm.

You'll all have notes slid under your doors at some point this evening; it'll be something to do tomorrow, anyway, if you don't have any better plans.]

---

[Granted, not doing much isn't helping with the restlessness in the interim, so on Wednesday evening he's going to actually start checking out the library for something a bit more useful than the billion and a half reference books in there – namely, he's going to be looking for any clues that may exist here.

After all, if they're supposed to be some sort of literature protection agency...well, yeah, it's probably a long shot, but you know what it's something to do with himself.

Going through all of the books in here would probably take about half a million years and...honestly sounds really boring, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to check things out; first of all, dealing with the shelves themselves – maybe some of the books have more wear than others. Maybe the others who were here before them really liked research, maybe they'd found some things relevant than others. It's a starting point, anyway.]

Looking for clues and such in the second half!

[garudynamic]

[Yosuke isn't out and about much early in the day. After a day pondering it, he decided to take Chie's advice and try and get information on everyone for the upcoming mission.

So he can be found in the communal room at one of the tables. In fact, you don't have to find him, as when someone passes he'll call out]

Hey! You gotta minute?

[Later, also inspired by Chie (what a fount of ideas) he heads to the sick bay with his school bag, intending to get some supplies just in case. And once he's there... well no harm sniffing around, right? So he starts pawing through the drawers- careful for needles of course.

This is ttly how one of his nurse porns started]

★ THURSDAY ★

[modaphor]

ARCHE HOTLINE

[archetyping]

[Coming to talk to Arche for some reason? Drop a starter here!]

We're looking for clues in the second half!

[redideya]

[For the first part of the day NiGHTS would be found in the flitting in and out of the library. As Arche had suggested, they were thinking about how to work on group goals better.

They've seen a few people get friendly with the kitty prowling around, so that might be a good place to start? And what would be the best way to interact with the cute kitten, besides petting it.

The answer was obvious as it was simple.

Build a makeshift cat agility source from the books in the library and other rooms.

Whether or not you saw them in the library or dragging supplies from another room, the dream jester would greet you with a bright smile.]

Hey there!

---------------

[Later on, after their work was completed and a kitten was put through it's adorable paces, NiGHTS made their way to the music room. They liked it well enough, even if they thought it and the art room felt off.]

[ribbonsenpai]

[After receiving Ginti's note last night, one thing immediately came to Mami's mind: if there was going to be a get-together before the mission, she wanted to cook something for that. And by cook, I mean bake some cookies. ... baking is also, you know, a good thing to focus on instead of worrying about retrieving Arche's memory core.

So, for most of the morning, Mami can be found in the kitchen mixing, rolling, and baking sugar cookies. She's found, midst the rest of the equipment, some cookie cutters. Although she's favoring a cutter shaped like a flower, there are others in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Why not join her?]

[Later on in the afternoon, after she's wrapped up her cookies--(and left them in the kitchen with a note along the lines of, "Please don't touch! These are for this evening. :) Thank you!")--Mami spends some time in the art room. She sits at one of the tables, looking thoughtful, as she twists a bright, yellow length of ribbon between her fingers in a variety of string games. Cat's cradle, Jacob's ladder, a butterfly... it's a way to keep her mind and hands busy, while practicing her magic a little.

The mission... in just a few short hours, they'll be traveling to what Arche called a "pocket world". What sort of things will be waiting for them there? As a magical girl, would she be able to help protect those among them who couldn't fight, if things turn out to be dangerous? Should she have talked to the others about her magic before now? It seems almost too late, now...]

[nullorvoid]

[Well, at least the note yesterday has guaranteed that Ginti won't be hard to find late in the day today, given that he's hanging out in the communal lounge as he'd said he'd be; he's not commandeering the footstools today, at least – in fact, he's got them set up around one of the coffee tables, and the couches may have been moved a bit in the event that people actually decide to humor him.

Either way, he's got a set of dice that he's playing with in one hand, rolling three of them idly without throwing them, and he's got another set of three already tossed down on the coffee table, three fives showing face-up against the wood.]

If you don't know how to play Greed yet, I'm teaching you.


[OOC: If you want to play the game out, it's a dice game that's generally best played in a group of four or more; it can be assumed that Ginti will tell you the rules if you want to handwave it, and the basic rules are here! But the primary purpose of this is to get a good amount of people together in one area, for the sake of any information-sharing and clue-gathering and general strategizing for tomorrow's mission; feel free to threadjack and talk amongst yourselves – even if you don't have anything to share right off, there's still the game happening in the background to play with and Mami's apparently made food because Mami does the Lord's work.

TL;DR – COME GET INFORMATION/SHARE INFORMATION/GET TO KNOW YOUR FELLOW AGENTS A LITTLE BETTER BECAUSE WE COULD ALL USE THAT SORT OF THING.]

going to be looking for clues here!

[shuttermouse]

[ BECAUSE THE MUN IS A SCATTERBRAIN WHO KEPT FORGETTING TO DO THIS... During the afternoon, Chie heads over to the art room to take a look around and search for clues pertaining to previous agents.

She realizes some things have been used by current agents and possibly even removed from the room so she uses her camera to check the pictures she took on the first day to compare changes. Let's start with those sketch pads, shall we? Maybe somebody who was here before liked to doodle things in one of them. ]

[immortowls]

[ Casually hanging out in the communal lounge with his notebook, taking notes about... Space Jam. He does have notes about other stuff but he's pretty sure understanding what the hell this movie is about is something that would greatly benefit the group, and maybe sort of be adhering to group-goals? Maybe not.

It doesn't matter, since if you look at his notes it's just Is this what America is like. Is this what the past agents in this place were into? in Japanese and a crappy drawing of Michael Jordan wearing glasses. He's not even really paying attention anymore. ]