they show you how to swim

[headandhand]

WHO: All Dualizens, old and new
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Dualis Oasis
WHEN: Nov. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!


Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

The weather outside may be taking a turn toward chilly, but you can still get your swim on during this month’s NAPs, held at the Dualis Oasis, an indoor temperature-controlled aquatic amusement park with giant slides, swimming pools, and lazy winding float rivers. Appropriate swimming gear is required for entry to this part of the park, but there are a number of shops just outside that will gladly sell you swimwear and accessories.

For those of you who wish to avoid a humid environment or just hate fun, a dehumidified lounge and restaurant offer quieter, dryer spaces for chatting and snacking. The actual speed-friending itself is in progress here, but you’re welcome to stick around and continue conversations with your new friends.

So c’mon, what are you waiting for? Just dive right in for fun and friendship - the water’s fine, fine, fine, just like everything else in this fair city. But hey, remember to play safe. No running!

Comments

[skyward_eyes]

Definitely before he had time to realize that. And he's glad he didn't pick up more back then when he had thought about it.

"Bursts of wind. Very limited control. Nothing like the last place I was taken to. There I had mastery of the winds, and I could change form into a hawk, so I could fly."

And his wistful tone says he wants it back.

[hellofishies]

Her eyes widen at that and she looks completely and utterly fascinated by the revelation.

"You could turn into a hawk?!" That just sounds beyond cool. "I can talk to birds. Animals. But not become them." And now she's jealous of someone that could actually fully become them.

[skyward_eyes]

"I could," Nida smiles. And he'd had a friend that was a little robin. They would fly together. The sky had been his and he adored it. The wind in his feathers, the way the world was laid out below him. That was beautiful freedom. "The place we went? It could grant you powers for periods of time. Shapeshifting into animals was part of that. I miss it."

He misses the village in its whole strange self now. Even the whole thing where people died.

[hellofishies]

"What did they take for it?" Because obviously they must have taken something, right? It couldn't have just been a nice place that randomly gave people abilities for nothing.

"I wonder if I could learn to do it on my own." Probably not here. Maybe if she remembers if she goes back home.

[skyward_eyes]

"Nothing," Nida admits. Which was worrying in its own right. "We didn't have currency there, or any interaction at all with our captors. For that was absolutely what they were."

But it had been nice enough for the time he was there. Until the dopplegangers came, but that was just something that had happened and from there things had gotten harder.

"Learn to shape shift? I don't know. Are you magic?"

[hellofishies]

"Strange. Did you know who they were? Your captors?" It sounds weird but then again what doesn't sound weird here? Or anywhere. Most things sounded weird.

She shakes her head. "No. Maybe. We're not sure what we are." Which was another weird thing to say. "We just are. But I haven't found anything we can't do yet. I've gone to the future. I think. Or I just saw it. I can talk to animals now! And see through them. And we broke the world a bit once." Less fun of a thing to do but hey, they were trying to fix it. And it's not the entire world that got broken after all, just a small portion. Not so bad, right?

[skyward_eyes]

“We never met them. But they did clone us.”

He opens his mouth to explain more but no. There it is. The bell. And he looks frustrated. With a sigh he stands and offers his hand.

“We should meet again to talk about this. I am quite intrigued by your world.”