driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Robin
Broadcast: Video!
Action: None!
When: Now!

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[hey, it's Robin. he's lounging around in his captain's chair, feet up on the control panel. he's twirling something around in his fingers--it looks kind of like a glow stick? it's a glass cylinder filled with some sort of glowing, red liquid.]

Back in those casino stations, I won one of these.

[he stops twirling the cylinder. when he holds it up closer to the camera, you can see that it's capped with silver on one end. the insides seem to be bubbling a little, as if the liquid is carbonated.]

This is a Luxilizer... though most people below the surface just called them Dummy Sticks, as in, you were an idiot if you walked around the lower levels without them. They're filled with a liquid extracted from a luminescent fungus that grows in the caves of my hometown.

[he twirls it again. Robin himself doesn't seem particularly delighted about the thing, he's just casually explaining, perhaps out of boredom.]

They were originally designed as a backup light source, in case a person got lost in the tunnels. It also makes it easier for others to see them. It can get pretty dangerous down there, in the dark...

[after a pause, he grips the glowing tube and smiles at the camera.]

It's funny to me. No one where I'm from would give these a second thought, but I've learned that underground cities are not a familiar concept in most worlds.

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[PRIVATE TO JASON | TOTALLY HACKABLE, HE AIN'T NO COMMS OFFICER]

Hey, remember me? [waving from his side of the video feed.] Mr. Mean Everything?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Really, video is kinda pointless with Bobbin but he feels like it's the correct thing to respond with! All you can see is a shadowy face inside a hood, though maybe if you're good at reading body language, he is leaned forward, fascinated.]

That's beautiful... Does it stay lit forever?

[he... leans forward a little as well, but it's clearly a move of confusion. as if getting closer to the camera would help him see who he's talking to better. that's not really how it works.]

Ah, this... [he holds it up again, though.] Average shelf-life is about fifty years, if you don't crack it. Some of the really nice ones can be passed down for several generations. So, not forever, but long enough for most people.

It seems very useful. Do you have other ones on the walls? Like torches, only... [He waves a hand, curled around a pretend stick demonstratively.] ...glowy sticks.

[well, that makes him chuckle, a little.] No, friend. We have actual torches for that. And lamps, and halogens--or whatever the level has cobbled together.

These little things are just for personal use. They aren't even that bright, really.

So...just in case the lights on the level go out? [He knows that nobody he's met here so far has the Guilds system he's used to, but he has to ask anyway. Underground cities sound so inconvenient otherwise.] Are you Miners?

That happens, sometimes. They shut down the power at night. There are other sources of light, but the side-passages and lower tunnels aren't always safely lit.

[he's not used to people talking in levels, but... at least "are you miners" is a perfectly logical question, to him.]

We're not miners on the whole. We're a varied city. We just live underground because the surface is a mess.

(no subject)

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