[text] @keeper; EVENT POST: LIGHT UP THE NIGHT [open]

[beaconkeeper]

Hi everyone!! I've got some exciting news!!!! O:

Oh, wait, hold on - a couple weeks ago Peter pointed out that you guys like super don't know what I look like or anything since I'm not around town. Whoops! I forgot! I'm sorry! So, like, here's a little selfie to dispel the ~mystery~...

[She attaches a picture!]

That's meeee. :) Super cute, right? But OK!!! Moving onto the fun stuff.

You should all head down to the beach like right away! I got some reeeeeeally neat stuff off the ferry this month to put on a little show for you guys... You might be able to see it a little bit from town, but your best bet is gonna be the beach! Keep your eye on the lighthouse!

And then after that, I have a cool event planned for you guys! I was thinking, like, the bonfire is still pretty contained in one spot, right? Rastus was telling me there's only a handful of torches around town, and I get that? I get that you want to like conserve this resource and all, super glad you're taking it real seriously, but like! It's meant to be USED, you know? Don't be that guy that hoards a buncha potions in Pokemon because "oh no what if I need all 99x of them one day!!!" but like, you're already fighting the Elite Four, you know?

My point is, Rastus is gonna be handing out torches like frickin' candy over the next couple days! You can take as many as you want, BUT you gotta make sure to place them around town to light this place the heck up! Put 'em in buildings or your houses or like, hell, you can light up paths and stuff to make traveling around easier! Put some on the beach to help with the dock you guys are building! IDK just put 'em in places! Use! The! Resource!

Sound good? Great! Come check out my little show down on the beach 'cos it's starting super soon! And then go DECORATE~ :) And be nice to Rastus since, like, between you and me? Talking him into a bonfire free-for-all was NOT easy. I owe him like a billion favors. You're welcome! Byeee!

Comments

text | @kol

[unpredict]

[ so this is the great lighthouse keeper. ]

Who took that lovely picture of you?

[beaconkeeper]

Oh, I did! I just had my tablet on a stand, lol.

[unpredict]

It's a nice picture for a selfie. Do you take a lot of them?

[beaconkeeper]

Errr not really? Why?

[unpredict]

Just wondering what it is you do to preoccupy your time in your lighthouse. When you're not sending us on fun scavenger hunts, do you spend your time taking selfies? Read? Netflix and chill?

[beaconkeeper]

🙄 You know, you can try just like, asking outright. I'll just tell you stuff.

I'm the data hub. There's all kinds of funky instrumentation up here that generates data, and then my time gets spent trying to interpret it. Thing is, I'm not a quantum physicist or a theoretical mathematician, I'm not a mechanical engineer, etc., so it's pretty hard! I haven't had a lot of instruction in all this.

BUT then there's operating the portal, which I'm getting pretty good at these days! But only with stuff, not people. Never with people. But, like, all that stuff that shows up on the ferry each month? That doesn't just poof outta thin air!

This past month, y'all headcases crashed the goddamn ferry! So a lot of my time was occupied sorting that mess out! Have you ever had a conference call in Morse code??? I suffered through HOURS of crippling boredom for you guys.

And on top of all THAT... I'm a person. :/ I do person things, like reading and Netflix and trying to breathe a little life into this place because I know firsthand what a bummer it is to be stuck here!

[unpredict]

For the record, I did want to know what Robin the Person was interested in.

[ and all the other stuff! a+ reading between the lines that she obviously has to read between with half of these goons. his picture of robin had been less... rounded. going off of the paranoid descriptions of others has left very little humanity in someone who has to have it. ]

No one gets Morse code right. I tried it once and I'm pretty certain it started a very bloodied battle.

Other than data, code and portal manuals, what kind of books do you like to read?

[beaconkeeper]

Oh.

Well!

In that case, I'm sorry!! It's sweet of you to ask. I shouldn't have assumed!!!

There SHOULD be a Morse code translator app floating around somewhere, by the way! I gave one to someone... Matt, I think? You could ask him! Some people have had luck in communicating with the forest spirits that way, since the ocarinas are kind of limiting.

Oh man I read eeeeeeverything these days, but... I think right now I really like lighthearted fantasy stuff! It's a nice break from, like, all this, haha...

@Soldier ; text

[worthallthis]

I have it. If anyone wants it I can install it on your tablet.

Or I can just teach Morse Code, too.

[beaconkeeper]

:O! YAS GURL pass that shit around! You should be able to upload it to the network directly from your tablet!

[worthallthis]

[Oh, that's a good idea.]

I will do that.

[Shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Within half an hour, or so, it'll be available for download for anyone who wants it.]

[beaconkeeper]

Nice! Make sure to let everyone know! :)

[unpredict]

How fond are you of light fantasy in nonfiction?

[beaconkeeper]

Well where I come from, fantasy and nonfiction are mutually exclusive.

Unless you mean embellishing a story. :P

[unpredict]

Do your tales have vampires, witches and werewolves? If not, perhaps it could be considered an embellishment of sorts.

[callada]

Sorry for butting in here.

Data hub for who? Who's on the receiving end of your communications?

[beaconkeeper]

Butt away!!!

My buddies that fixed up the ferry, first of all. I send them crap all the time, but I don't really know if it it means anything to them... They're hard to get in touch with when they're not in town. :/

Thennn I sent stuff to that lady I mentioned that was here before the world went dark!

...Come to think of it, no one I send stuff to is real great about getting back to me. >:[!

[callada]

Right. Remember you mentioning her. Looking forward to meeting her.

Any more on who these "buddies" are? You don't mean literally in town I take it or we would have met them.

[beaconkeeper]

Oh, I literally mean in town! They haven't come around yet, but they will. Soon, too! They told me they're prepping for a visit in December.

...So like, make sure to have the dock rebuilt by then, OK?

[callada]

Seems it's being worked on. If it's not done in time, we can go pick them up with the cog & dories.

Have you had a chance to do what I asked about earlier, try and measure the distance to a star or two? If there's a way to predict where your World Eaters will go next, that opens up a lot of possibilities.

[beaconkeeper]

Weeeeeell, that's a nice thought! It's not quite that simple, though. They set up shop on the docks when they come to town. Like, literally. They're called the Night Market.

We're working on it, don't worry. :P

[unpredict]

[ the plot, it thickens. ]

Is there another town like Beacon across the water?

@m.hughes | text

[dadandgone]

Hello Robin. That is a nice picture, but I can do you one better: attached is a picture of this picture.

I'm Maes Hughes and this is my gorgeous wife Gracia and the best daughter in the world Elysia~ It's an old picture at this point, but I can't imagine she's gotten any less adorable ❤️❤️❤️

Sorry, I got distracted, which might have been your point. You mentioned just now something about a portal? Like opening to the multiverse kind of deal? But you're not responsible for the selection process...how exactly are you able to request items then or, and I suppose this question has already been asked, who are you asking these requests of?

[beaconkeeper]

Omg!!!! They're both so pretty!! What a cutie-patootie... Thank you for sharing these cute lil faces with me!

[She attaches another picture in return!]

This is the only pic I have of anyone from back home, but that's my brother! I miss him a whoooole bunch and I bet you miss your wife and kiddo too so I'm real sorry. :( But keeping them close in your memories is good!!

BUT RIGHT, THE PORTAL... I thiiiink it's an opening to, yeah, some sort of multiverse? Like, what else could it be, since we're all from all over the place. Here's the skinny on how it works:

I *DON'T* control the portal, but we're, like, in the process of trying to develop some tech that will give us more control over it? It's dangerous as all get-out, is the thing, since moving actual people/souls/whatever you want to call us around is... well, we haven't had good results in the past, let me put it that way.

But! The machine thingy I DO have is like, the prototype version of something that might let us control the portal completely, so these days I can use it to... sort of "aim" the portal at stuff? It's really hard to do!!! But that's how I'm able to get stuff for the stores every month, plus whatever you guys tell Rastus you want.

You know how he's always telling people, hey, can't get you that specific personal item from home!!! That's because, like, have you ever tried aiming a huge ass telescope at ONE very specific star in the sky without any sort of guiding stuff? Yeah, that's what this is like, except amped up to a billion because I'm not just aiming at a single star in the sky, it's a single box of Poptarts in a vast multiverse of infinite possibilities!!!!!!

I'm getting super good at it, though. 😎 /dusts off shoulders

[dadandgone]

I've got a few more on me, luckily enough, most of them were in a photo album I received as a gift and must be in the room I turned into an office.

It's nice to have even one though, right? He seems like a fine looking young man. You two must have been close.

I know it's hard. Sometimes seeing these pictures can be painful, but for me they also serve as motivation. You've got to stay focused on who and what matters, you know? I imagine not everyone is as lucky as us to even have pictures on them. Even those without a photo have someone back home that misses them or that they miss by being here. It's not easy, but you learn to deal with that separation over time.

[Then there are some days where it aches even worse, but he'd been coming to terms with this separation or loss for a year now, so he's probably better adjusted than some of the newer arrivals. As for the non-picture related commentary.]

And I guess that tracks. Astoria was able to move us through to different worlds, but I never got the sense it was easy for her and she 'lost' people about as regularly as she was able to summon us. For a long time I assumed they returned home, but my being here means that sometimes something else might have happened.

I honestly can't pretend to understand half of that. Most of what we were involved with got quickly written off as magic and left that that. But it sounds like you're saying it's maybe easier to hone in on items that aren't quite so personal as, say, a specific photograph...but a box of Poptarts (I assume) is a more massed produced item and likely appears in more than one version of the universe anyway.