Eyeing the water bottle one last time , Arjun stows it away, and lightly leaps over to the great disc.

There, he studies it the same as he did the Fairy Sugar ball, first visually inspecting it and then cutting up a piece of ground to examine.

As Emily plans to leap to the small, blue ball... she finds it is a liquid... and it smells almost identical to salty ocean water! It's a fairly dark shade, also.

Probably best not to jump into that... Emily is not a trophy-winning swimmer, and so falling through before managing to float could be a real issue...

And since falling through would mean a straight old trip into an endless void... well, enough said on how that is not something to attempt.

---

As Jerzy uses his skill on the object, he finds that it is indeed 'an organic sugar', and also gets a strange bit of pure info which eventually translates in his min dinto language as "processed from a waste product" though the connotation on waste product is not particularly negative... this would make sense if this 'fairy sugar' comes from 'fairies' , since though most things that come from the human body are generally repulsive to other humans, that may not be the case for all life forms. Actually, it isn't even for some plants, so there you go.

---

Arjun leaps to the grey (?) ball, and finds that it is almost certainly made of some kind of stone... He doesn't really have a great way to cut up a portion of it.

Edit: Whoops, read that wrong.

"Hmmm, this.....may actually be some form of fairy sugar.

A sugary byproduct that engenders happy vibes. That might be the funniest thing I've ever seen."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:35, Fri 01 Apr 2022.

OOC: Emily didn't take the leap, so she's fine.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:01, Fri 01 Apr 2022.

Arjun scans his immediate area for loose stones or the like, and then surveys the set of ball-discs from his location, figuring he should probably be able to fire an arrow at any target in the region, assuming there's no hilly terrain.

Commenting to the group as he stows his sugar-water, "I'm half tempted to drink this cotton candy water. Bet it will get me high."

After a pause, he adds, "Maybe later."

Emily watches the blue disc for a while, wondering what makes it dark.  She does not jump into that because she imagines falling through into the void and she's not ready to do that yet.

She observes closely, looking for any variations in colour. Perhaps that is where the monsters live.

Then she has an idea. The distance to this water ball is quite short so maybe she can...

...the thought is mother to the deed. She reaches out and tries passing her butterfly net through the blue liquid to see whether she catches anything.

Seeing Emily use the net on blue disc, Arjun gestures to the rope wrapped around his waist. "Rope? It's what we made it for."

Emily nods to Arjun and pulls back the net.  She checks it before attaching it to the rope and twirling it above her head before casting it into the water, waiting to see whether she catches anything.

Arjun takes a look at the spheres around him, and finds they are all very diverse, in more ways than the other expansions have been until now!

The pink disc they are on turns out to be made of some kind of sugar.

The red disc appears polished and glossy... A bit dewy too. Emily will also note that it smells faintly sweet.

The blue disc is like the middle of the pacific ocean, even though Arjun recalls that the hue of the ocean compared to lakes wasn't dark because it was salty rather than fresh, but because it was so much deeper.

The green sphere is a little ... slimy? It has an extremely sour scent... also, it's hard to tell with this level of illumination... but... is it glow-in-the-dark? Emily thinks it may be, but it could just be reflecting the sourceless light and tricking her brain. They will have to wait til nightfall to be sure or not.

The gray sphere is clearly a kind of stone. The brown dirt also very clearly seems to be made of soil, dirt, or mud. It could also be... feces... though, no such smell is assaulting anyone so hopefully that is as unlikely as it appears.

---

Meanwhile Emily watches the blue ball but due to it's relative transparency (the deepest end is a bit hard to see, but not for her with her enhanced eyesight if she squints for a moment and lets her eyes adjust to it) can clearly note it contains no moving things, or even stationary particles. Unless they are invisible or microscopic or something, no chance of it harboring monsters or any other kind of life.

It's a little tough to reach out with just her armspan, so perhaps Emily would request someone to standby her to catch her in case she tips over (or to hold her over the edge to give her more distance)... Her balance isn't any better than on Earth, and vertigo could be a real threat if she loses her cool...

Regardless of her choice, there is no incident, and when she pulls back her net there is nothing in it, but it is very soaked. Notably, a few droplets that she moved fell into the void, and the surface of the sphere rippled like one would expect... though it maintains it's impossibly-floating shape of being an ideal sphere.

Then... Arjun, probably suggesting to rappel hands Emily some rope, and apparently her inner cowgirl awakens as she swings it like a lasso before tossing it into the water...

The rope gets wet, and she has to use most her strength to pull the soggy thing back...

Depending on which rope was offered, about six feet of it is either completely ruined (if the fabric one), or mostly ruined (if the plant one).

It's just water. Though, from the resistance, it seems fairly... heavy?

Arjun - analyzing this after Emily perceives it - has the idea that it could be under pressure... sort of like what you'd get under the surface of an ocean...

Could this ... orb of dark, dense water... have been copied... or even transported from a large ocean of some kind? It appears like that in many ways... Though, of course, it wouldn't be displaying these properties after having it's environment changed...

Strange stuff, anyway

Emily mutters as she looks at all the spheres.  Then she calls over to Arjun, "Try your rope on the brown disc.  Let's see whether it's mud or animal waste before we go there.  Of course, if we don't, I have no clue how we'll get to the button disc, except perhaps by naming this disc."

Jerzy diligently jots down notes on the composition of the orbs he called into being.

Their static existence belies their chaotic origin and Jerzy takes the time his group spends at the orbs studying interesting minutiae. He attempts to bioanalyze the water to see if there's any organic matter there.

The task reminds Jerzy of the quiet hours of the night watching footage recorded by the submersible on the Baluga. The serenity of the moment, away from civilization and most known life caused Jerzy to suspect that just outside of his perception may be a deeper and eldritch truth.

The constant calling of the deep had tempered Jerzy's mind, potentially towards hypersanity as he contemplated the unknown, collecting and studying occult paraphernalia.

Now he finds himself here, jotting notes of floating disks of water and psychic pink fairy dust, steadying his mind between the wild oscillations of reality and world-view shattering events and hyperfixating on minutiae that he could grasp and understand.

Jerzy starts to feel more like himself.

Emily takes Arjun's rope and tosses it over to the mud disc, before pulling it back. As she gathers the 4 or so feet covered in a brown substance, she takes a hesitant whiff and indeed it is a little earthy, but not rancid at all.

In fact, it's less rotten than the mud of a swamp, and more like the mud of a garden... if that makes sense.

---

Meanwhile, Jerzy reflects on various things which cause him various intense emotions, but in the end he finds himself feeling more stable and like himself - which is a great outcome given his current circumstances. This place does seem to have an overall good effect on the mood... and since his judgement doesn't seem less sharp, it's probably not a sort of malicious fascination or anything...

He also spends this time to bioanalyze the dark blue water... it's a bit hard to use the skill from this distance (in that he kind of needs to squint and strain his senses... as well as hyperfocus)... he even feels his toes go a little numb and thoughts become muddled at a point... but in the end he submerges back to his previous mood, though a little tired.

Indeed, this seems to be a short range skill. Regardless though, his efforts yield the very clear impression of 'no organisms'.... in fact he even gets the specific idea of there NOT being any sort of phytoplankton or whatever, meaning this is unlikely to have been actually dragged from an ocean on Earth...

Again, like most things, this is some kind of imitation or interpretation... Which makes sense given everything is being 'created' in some form or another!
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:10, Wed 06 Apr 2022.

Emily says to Arjun, "You need to explore everywhere and given that ball is more soil than anything else, I think it's safe.  You may wish to buy us some wellies first."

She suggests that they absolutely need to get to the brown disc as that's the only point from which they can reach the button.  "We can get to the button and I can try to find an acceptable name for it and then we can think of a name for here.  We don't need to go to the gobstopper or the radioactive place do we?"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:39, Wed 06 Apr 2022.

As Emily finishes speaking, a screen appears before everyone.


After a few moments, a screen appears to both Emily and Arjun.

Emily said to System, "Please define restrictions applied to {Player} Emily the Genocider."

Then to Arjun she said, "I believe that the candyfloss ball and the Pelagian ball are both devoid of monsters. Let us then explore the stone ball before passing on to the soil ball and then the soil ball.  We can explore the gobstopper and the luminous ball on our return."

"I just means that they havd returned to their stations and are paying us attention. ", Jerzy says, making a mental note to probe deeper into the meaning of this place tomorrow at dinner.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:17, Wed 06 Apr 2022.

Emily smiles and nods, "Ah yes.  I should have thought of that.  Thanks Jerzy."

Emily begins close examination of the grey stone sphere.  She asks herself the questions and then checks for answers using observation. "Does it look like a single rock or are there several lumped together?  What does the rock look like when I examine it closely?  What does it feel like beneath my fingers?  How does it smell (and depending on the answer to that, how does it taste?  What is its overall shape and in what way is it malformed?  Do I hear movement within?"

"The number of monsters that spawned is the same as the number of discs and balls that didn't have monsters in them before. Stands to reason there's one on each. But sure, let's grab low hanging fruit first." Arjun comments while taking one last look around the stone disc, hoping to see something he had missed.

After studying it for a few minutes, he agrees to move on. Rationally, he knew that this feeling of emptiness inside him was artificial, was done to him, that his emotions had been somehow manipulated. It still felt real, and he had to get that nonsense in check.

He just didn't know how.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Thu 07 Apr 2022.

Emily frowned.  "Really?  I thought there was only one per disc.  We know the butterflies from cloth, the late beetles from the former vine disc, the worms of the ebony disc, the sniffers of the swamp, which I believe are beast type.  So let's see what we have here on the stone ball."

Music had worked once, so she decided to try again and began strumming on her banjo.

While the other two observe the stone orb, Jerzy finally gets a good look at the green orb.

"Now that is something.....reminds me of an art exhibit at the Warsaw museam of contemporary art.

I wonder if we could get a sample somehow. Oh what I wouldnt do for a full suite of sensors right now.....wait, it almost looks radioactive? Maybe we should avoid spending too much time near the green orb lady and gentlemen, or else we might have to experiment with rapidly regenerating skin and tissue damage....

Actually...have you all experienced a night cycle here yet? Is there any light after "Sunset"?. "

Arjun looks at the green ball at Jerry's words. "Do you mean...", and then proceedes to describe a painting that looks nothing like the green glowing ball, but still somehow resonated with him the same way as when he stared at the glowing orb, almost as if he's listening to himself as he speaks.


Regarding Jerry's second question, Arjun complains mildly."It kind of shuts off abruptly at regular intervals, but it doesn't get dark enough for anything to qualify as truly shadowed."

After a second, he adds, "Though... That could be different now, since the Goddess invested. She was Light, before she chose the mantle of..." He sounds almost wistful.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:06, Thu 07 Apr 2022.

Emily stomps her feet and dances while she plays a rousing version of the Ukrainian folksong, "Dark Eyes" on her banjo.

Emily leaps to the rock disc for closer inspection. She makes the jump.

Once there, she verbalizes some questions. Perhaps to help her focus on answers?

Firstly, determining whether or not this is one rock or multiple, is more of an ontological question rather than anything else, but in general the thing is closer to a single boulder than it is to having any negative space.


Secondly, the rock is a medium gray. It has a fairly rough texture. It's dry. Mundane stuff. Perhaps the most notable feature is how relatively even the color is. Many rocks on Earth are speckled with various bits here and there, but not this one.


Thirdly, the feeling is very hard, as much as you would expect from stone. It is slightly cool, though barely below the regular room temperature of this space. Emily believes she likely only notices this because of these mystical skills and stats of hers.


Fourthly, the smell is almost nothing. Though, by hyperfocusing, Emily ends up getting a very very faint earthen smell that is slightly stale. Yeah, rocks don't generally have a major odor. Pulling back, Emily has a minor headache from the effort of straining her senses.


Fifthly, deciding it's fine to take a lick... the texture is not great, and her tongue is a little scratched... not particles come off or anything, so that means there is no loose sand or whatever. The taste, again is almost nothing, but a very faint aftertaste of .... earthy something. .... does exist, in a way. I mean, it's a rock, through and through.


Sixthly, the shape is basically an imperfect sphere. It's not malformed in any strange way, just that it is not a geometrically-perfect form, which is actually how things NORMALLY work in nature... Emily is worried that she almost forgot that for a moment, given this impossible space's tendency to really really like using perfect spheres (and other geometrical weirdness like repeating patterns of identical grass)


Seventhly and lastly, she finds that by placing her ear to the ground, she does in fact hear intermittent noises that resemble jangles, a little?

It is extremely quiet and softened-out, to the point that the sense of 'hearing' anything is closer to her simply just feeling the faint vibrations through her ears. It actually takes a moment for her to tune out the rhythm of her heartbeat to be able to hear it, so it's less intense than her own internal biology. Meaning, very quiet.

---

After spending some minutes investigating, Emily gets up and plays her banjo. As she does so, she finds herself playing a bit of an irish/scottish/welsh tune of some kind and hopping around in a way that is sort of like a mix between tapdancing and some sort of gaelic festival dance, maybe?

As she does so, she begins to feel something like a tingling in her toes, but does not register it as anything important... before it quickly becomes actually more clearly a rumble!

The others notice it at this point, as they became aware of a vibration emerging from somewhere in, around or under the stone ball.

Emily is nervous for a moment and maybe about to leave in case of an earthquake or something, but then she alone notices that the rumbling is matching her in tune, though it's more than a little delayed, and messes up in some places.

Because of this, she likely feels a bit of a sense comradery with a fellow appreciator (?) of song, but her choices are her own to make on whether she will keep it going or call it quits, as the rumbling is indeed getting louder as she plays.

Public OOC - missed that you specified the song. I'm not gonna rewrite all this, so you can take either performance as canon, as you wish. I'll let you decide since it's your character's taste lol.

---

Jerzy meanwhile considers that the orb may be radioactive... though, he then figures with it's luminance, if it WERE radioactive and glowing that much, they would probably already been dead after having spent 10 minutes nearby...

Though, that is unless some sort of invisible god-barrier exists to block the wavelengths from escaping. It's definitely possible, given that they have already observed liquid staying in shape, while they themselves could pass into and out of it's space.

---

Meanwhile, Arjun speaks with Jerzy about art and the pseudo-nighttime of this space.

Public OOC: I think Arjun may have made a mistake, here. The nighttime gets very dark in this space. IIRC, you guys were almost blinded before getting the skill, and even with it - given its low level - it's still very very hard to see.

Albeit it's not true blackness or anything scary like that... there was a very faint silverly light that could be considered analogous to a moon
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:16, Fri 08 Apr 2022.

OOC: Oops. Feels like it's been weeks since we read about the quality of darkness and I was going by memory. He would have talked about the darkness and how he hasn't successfully Shadowstepped yet.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:06, Thu 07 Apr 2022.