ArchivedLogs:Random Encounter

Random Encounter
Dramatis Personae Peter, Mya
In Absentia	2013-08-04 Peter rolls a Lich on his random encounter table.
Location <XS> Roof
The view from up here is phenomenal, a panorama of the expansive Xavier's grounds, forest and lake and rocky cliffs alike. Even without the view outwards, the rooftop itself holds its own delights, in the form of the tiny jewel of a flower garden tucked away up here, tended by one of the school's teachers. From the edge of the roof, with a veeery careful jump, it looks like it just might be possible to reach the treehouse in the old oak tree. It's a beautiful day; Peter's spending it on the roof. The lean-bodied teen is clad in his red hoodie (with a patch on the upper left breast, dark blue!) and blue sweatpants; he's currently /clamboring/ up the brickwork of the mansion, hopping up on top of the tiles with a tiny whump. He stretches his arms over his head -- glancing this way and that to make sure there's no one in /immediate/ sight -- and proceeds to drop his black nylon backpack down, roll across the tiles onto his back, fold his arms behind his head, and /peer/ at the sky. Ooo, fluffy clouds. One unusual feature about Peter's hoodie: It's got strange shoulder-slits. The slits allow black metal plates to be partially exposed; a very tiny whirring is coming out of them, along with a steady gust of warm air. And Mya? Well, Mya is also enjoying the beautiful day. Just in a different fashion. She's sort of eating it. OMNOMNOM, SUNLIGHT. It's probably why she's not easy to spot all the way up there in the clouds. Peering out of them though, she can see a very odd looking dot crawling around the mansion roof. So of course, she has to go investigate. This involves basically allowing herself to just drop out of the clouds onto the roof. Her impact is almost no impact to speak of. The roof doesn't shake when she hits, nor is there any real sound other than a soft 'puff' sound as she discorporates into a cloud of harmless black smoke. About ten seconds later, though, and she's forming up with her usual yellow and purple scarf over the lower half of her face in place. And the alien-looking girl's first words,"Oh, hi. I don't think we've met. Are you a student too?" "--wh." Peter blinks out the sun as he catches sight of something descending. He's shifting, shuffling and sitting up as Mya makes impact with the roof -- and suddenly he's /moving/, his entire body flexing back to shift weight to his shoulders, before he rolls forward and springs to his feet with a quick WHUMP! "Who are--" he starts, eyebrows crumpling together -- before taking a very /tiny/ hop forward as she reforms. Hop, hop. Hop. Closer. Closer... and finally, he reaches out, with a fingertip. Maybe, very tentatively, trying to give Mya's nose a poke. "--you're made of. Smoke," he says, as if this was the most fascinating thing /ever/. "--yes I'm a student I'm Peter I think someone told me about you. You're the smoke lady," he says, the words coming out in a rapid-fire rush. The boy will find that underneath her scarf... there is no nose to poke. She doesn't flinch away or bat at the man's hand, though. "You're made of meat." She actually giggles,"This isn't really my body, you know. It's more like... a chassis for my mind. My body is down in the basement. Needs a lot of radiation-proofing." She extends one slender, eminently fragile hand,"Peter. Okay! Nice to meet you Peter. I'm surprised I'd elicit comment! Anyway, I'm more like the smoke girl. Not so much a lady. I'm a southern gal, you see." With her oddly hollow voice, her accent doesn't particularly translate well. "I'm Mya." She says it like 'Maya'. "I was just curious what you were doing up here. I was eating sun up there when I saw you. You're not afraid of falling?" "You're a projection," Peter says, as if the ramification of this is only now occurring to him; suddenly, he's quickly nodding, absorbing this new information -- even as he reaches for that hand! Very carefully, but very swiftly; he seems to be worried that he might /crush/ it in his chitin-clad palm. "Actually I know another student who -- does something similar? Mostly just in her sleep, though," he adds, a violet tint sweeping up to his face. "Radiation-proofing?" As he accepts that hand, Peter glances up to the sun, though his eyes do not focus /directly/ on that burning orb: "Oh man you eat the sun too? So many people here eat the sun it's kind of weird. But cool. I mean I guess it makes sense it's a pretty immediately accessible power source but /still/ is kind of, um, interesting I guess?" At the mention of falling, Peter /tches/, like this is the most ridiculous thing ever: "Falling are you kidding I am the /Master/ of high places I jump off skyscrapers for /fun/." This announcement might come with just a hint of pride. It's got an oddly textured, almost sooty feel to it, that hand. What's more, it seems almost breakably fragile. She doesn't appear worried, though with the way her face works, there's a chance it wasn't immediately apparent. "Yeah. Radiation proofing. I'm projecting because my real body would kill most people who got too close in one of several very horrid ways. I'm... kind of an environmental disaster. Damaged genetics, you know? My mutant gene is a little screwed up. Anyway, who is this person so similar? I'd love to meet her." She looks up at the sky then,"I eat anything that belts out radiation or hydrocarbons... Pollution in generally. It's kinda nummy. It doesn't have a taste, but... there's a quality to it that I can say some is more likable than others? Also... um... Maybe you should say you're the king of death-defying stunts? Or something similar? Saying you're the Master of jumping off of skyscrapers for fun and stuff sounds mildly psychotic. Which is bad since you're so nice." "--oh, it's -- uh, Sophie," Peter says, maintaining that hint of violet! "She can astrally project. Also, Karolina eats sunlight. So does Jax -- one of the teachers? Oh, oh," at the mention of the radioactive WASTELAND that is Mya's body, Peter nose wrinkles. "I'm -- sorry to hear that, that's gotta be -- well, I mean, at last you can. Walk around and stuff, even if it isn't your original body. But still..." At the mention of radiation, Peter grins, just a little crookedly. "--well, solar radiation is just -- I mean, can you only absorb -- ionizing radiation? Or can you absorb non-ionizing radiation, like radiowaves or lightwaves--? Oh man could you eat /radio-signals/?" This idea seems to fascinate Peter. The mention of death-defying stunts manages to get him to puff up a little! "I /am/ the master of death-defying stunts, yes. It's basically my mutant power, I defy death--um, actually, I'm just. /Really/ agile, like, I have bizarro prioperception basically I never lose my balance and can do crazy--" Peter steps back, releasing Mya's hand, and proceeds to -- on the spot! -- Pull a cartwheel. Just, step, SWOOP! Land. He does it like he was just taking another /step/. "--acrobatic stuff." Mya waves a hand dismissively,"Oh yeah, I've met most of them. Karolina is so pretty and friendly. She's practically my role model. And mister Jax is pretty cool. Anyway, don't worry about it. I'm not particularly attached to my body as long as I'm allowed to get around, interact with the world, that sorta thing. I was dying before I mutated. Cancer, andall that. Now I'm so... ACTIVE, you know? It's actually pretty great." "I've never tried, but I think I could, yeah. It's just, the more deleterious to life the radiation or hydrocarbon, the more... nurturing it tends to be. I suppose we could always do experiments." When peter begins to show off, however, he gets, of all things... delighted clapping. Yeah. That's her impressed face. Her eyes are glowing yellow. "It /sounds/," Peter says, "like you get more out of ionizing radiation than non-ionizing -- ionizing radiation is the kind that -- well I mean any type of radiation might be theoretically capable of hurting organisms, but the ionizing kind is stuff like -- radioactive waste, uranium, that stuff." The clapping gets Peter to grin! Bright and cheerful; he looks like he might be tempted to even take a bow. He doesn't, at least. "--experiments are cool," Peter adds. "I mean uh I don't want to like, creep you out," he says, quickly raising his hands as if to ward off. THE CREEP. "--but I find powers fascinating and stuff? I always want to know how they work. There's a stuff about my powers that don't make sense, for example. I can /stick/ to things. I still don't know how. But--" Peter creeps forward, back to Mya, covering the distance between them again! "--astral projection stuff, it's just /totes cray cray/, you know? Just bah-nay-nay. Uh, scientifically speaking." Again, he grins. "I just like figuring it out, I guess." Mya grins brightly at Peter,"Sometimes I think it has to do with all the radiation therapy I went through when I was still being treated for cancer. My theory is that my body used all the most abundant resources it could latch on to. Waste products, you know? Direct conversion of energy instead of processing relatively low grade food-stuffs for energy. Our bodies are basically extremely complex internal combustion engines when you think about it. I mean, we measure in CALORIES. Heat, you know? ATP synthesis, etc, etc... It all relies on heat exchange. Human body tops out at about... 37% efficiency when it comes to energy usage... about 12% better than a high-performance engine's efficiency." She starts to get lost in that thought, but shakes herself out of la-la land,"Really, though, it's impossible to harm me by disrupting this projection or avatar as I call it You're not going to creep me out, you know. Maybe you're sticking to things by linking your personal magnetic field?" Pause. "You know... sort of like an invisible climber's harness? I-" Her eyes color a pinkish color. She'd be blushing if she had skin,"Sorry... Um... I think... I think mine is a form of macro-telekinesis that responds better to certain particles... Less of this 'astral' stuff. I think I'm configuring artificially linked sensors... You know, audio, visual, propioception... All the things I sense through this avatar have less texture than my real senses. More like accurate data and descriptions rather than real vision, you know?" "Ionizing radiation /does/ -- I mean, yeah, what makes it so... dangerous is the fact that it has a chemical impact on the matter it interacts with, so it would make sense that -- it'd be the most energy-rich for you, I guess?" At the mention of not being able to harm Mya by disrupting the projection, Peter reaches forward again -- veeeery tentatively -- and pokes at her scarf. Tiny-poke. "Though I guess I'm at a loss as to how you can transfer the energy you're harvesting to your /physical/ body. Or is all that energy just going to maintaining your projection...?" Poke, poke. "Ohyeah I mean, I haven't actually --" Peter's hand pulls back; he wiggles his chitin-clad fingers and peers at them. "--tested it? Yet. But I figured it must have /something/ to do with -- static charges or something. I dunno I mean it's not like I get static shocks or anything. Maybe it's just bizarro telekinetics, like your," and here, Peter gestures at her, as if to implicate -- well, /everything/. When Mya's eyes go pink, Peter threatens to go violet! Just a hint of it. "--that's /weird/," Peter says, but soon follows: "ButImean, in a good way, it's just. Mutant powers," he finally decides, "are /weird/." Mya chuckles at the boy,"Because of the way ionizing radiation constantly interacts with and breaks down matter, my theory is that it plays an important roll in how I spontaneously propagate smoke and other things. Also possibly why I can change chemical composition of the smoke at will. I'm... still relatively certain I'm violating the laws of mass conservation, though. That makes me a little uncomfortable for some reason, to think about." She looks down at where the boy is poking her. A moment later, she looks at the chitin,"Well why not set up a test... I mean, you've already got your own position and I- Oh, sorry. Yeah. My eyes are like mood-rings. I don't... uh... really have much control over them yet. I'm still modifying my avatar, trying to get it to look more... human. But it's slow going. I didn't come with any inborn 'make it look exactly the way I want' power, so it's.... It takes a lot of modification. So yeah... I guess I am pretty weird. But so are you. So, are you, like, some kind of bug-guy?" "Yes," Peter announces, very firmly! "I am pretty much a /bug/ guy." He grins! And then continues: "S'chitin." He pokes his face, as if to demonstrate this. "--I mean, kind of buggy. Still freaks me out a little. My roommate, Ivan, can /talk/ to bugs. How's that for weird? He can't talk to me -- well, he /can/ just, uh, /talk/ to me, but I mean -- he can't -- talk to me -- like he can talk to bugs," Peter rapidly clarifies, eyebrows crushing together as he tries to work his way through this logic puzzle. "Though I mean he can just /talk/ to bugs, like a normal person, but I mean, he can also talk to them in a way they understand but when he talks to me like that I don't understand because I'm not... /that/. Buggy." Mya purses her lips for a while, then decides,"I do not think... That you are a bug guy any more than I am a smoke girl, really. I think your mutation is just cribbing bug-traits for survival and profit. So it's sorta, like... counterfeit? Which is why his power probably doesn't work on you. So you're still human guy. Just well-prepared human guy, you know?" The place where her eyebrows should be narrows together a little bit in thought. "I could just be metaphorically talking out my ass, though. I... might be able to do that less than metaphorically, actually, but I don't really wanna try and omigod it's like I can't shut up." "--oh it's fine," Peter announces, at that last comment, with a tiny wave of his hand -- followed up with another grin. "I mean, yeah, I'm not -- I don't have bug /eyes/ or anything," he says, his hand reaching up to grasp and /stretch/ the skin around his eyeball, making it bulge. "--though you should meet the sharktwins if you haven't yet. They're, uh, /pretty/ much -- sharks. I mean, they get pretty close to it. But they're not /really/ sharks, I guess, I mean, they talk and walk on land and stuff, so..." Mya grins in that eye-stretching way at this point,"Do you think you ever will have them? Will you use them to look around? Do you think it'd be awesome? I'm just an animated skelton in my real body." She holds her hands out wide,"With, like, fire and smoke, like hella lots of it. It's pretty awful. I'm glad I don't have a functioning nose, or the smell would be hella bad." She nods emphatically,"I'll meet them. Then I'll ask them about being sharky. I bet they have lots of insights I don't really 'get'." "--I kinda hope," Peter says, "I don't. I mean, I'm okay with -- the chitin. I don't know if I'd be okay with anything else. I'm hoping -- it's just gonna stay... chitin. Whoa you're a /Lich/," Peter says, eyebrows zooming up. "Well, that's cool. We've got a dragon, too." The side of his mouth makes a tiny tick upward, into a ghost of a smile! "Maybe we should make a D&D club." The girl's eyes widen. For a moment, it might be touch and go as to whether or not she's offended! The seconds tick by, and then... she says,"WE SHOULD DO PATHFINDER. I CALL BARBARIAN, FERAL GNASHER! OMIGOD, I'M GONNA GO ROLL UP A CHARACTER!" Like that, her form dissipates into a puff of smoke. ADHD much?