Nerds of a Feather Learn Together

[chefbayardee]

Who: Open to everyone!
When: Consistently in the evenings of May 9th-12th
Where: Curti Center Library, a larger conference room.
What: The howling hordes of airship pilot- and engineer-wannabes gather in one poor, poor place. And other nerds could probably study there, too.
Warnings/Notes: Feel free to write your own top-levels like with Makoto's birthday.

Wholly out of the blue, a message pings into your iMog slate, through the Kali Shashidhwaja Linkshell. When you open the notification, a horrible sound plays, and the text message's contents burst onto the screen in an explosion of confetti.

So I might've raided the Curti Center's library for everything on space, airships, piloting, and magitek. I also might have conquered conference room 3A in the library for the next few evenings. Come keep me company!

Please. It's quiet and lonely and I'm scared to leave by myself.
And I have cookies! ლ(❛ω❛ლ)

For whatever reason, you decide to head on over to the Curti Center, and you're met with a large conference room, with piles of books on the table divided by a few trays of cookies, and a few dry-erase boards because chalk is for bohemians. One, clearly at Hunk's corner of the table, has a sketch of an airship with arrows and chicken-scratched notes pointing to seemingly-random areas, as well as a blue-marker doodle of a bizarre creature circled multiple times and surrounded by question marks.

Another board across the room is partially taken up by a chart titled SKILLS! and broken into three columns: PILOT, MECHANIC, SCHOLAR. Hunk's name is written beneath each, but maybe you should write your own- there's a reason you're here, after all! And resting in the marker tray are about seven pamphlets on the Vaikuntha Pilot License Examination.

Oh, and there's a moogle sitting sternly upon the lectern next to the door, munching on a kupo nut as he gestures towards the bowl next to him, with "Donations" scribbled onto a piece of paper taped to the side.

Go wild, but shhhh! You're in a library!

( Potential baby top-level ideas include "asking your study neighbor what in the world something means," bellowing "HELLO YES I AM PILOT," and "I wandered in because free cookies but I don't want to be here and can't leave without causing a scene, help." )

Comments

open, will match tag style

[chefbayardee]

1.

Hunk seems just a bit preoccupied to notice you. A clever eye might notice a heavily sticky-tabbed copy of the most recent editions of a few nations' Airship Transporation Authority: Rules and Regulations, or a printed blueprint of a basic Manacutter airship. Set aside, almost in quarantine is a book with a sticky note labelled "GARBAGE." It's titled A Moron's Guide to the Dream Width.

Right now he's reading a book titled Magitek Defense and Monster Attacks, Vol. 3: Airships. It's clearly enraptured him, because he doesn't even care that the note-scribbled Pilot Test pamphlet he wedged between his headband and forehead is drooping into his line of sight. Should you announce yourself? Or scare the life right out of him? Or ignore him altogether?

2.

On the other hand, Balmogra can be seen by the entrance of the conference room, glaring at each newcomer. It's clear the moogle wants them to contribute to the donation bowl, because whenever there's not someone at the entrance, the dusty hairball rifles through the donations, counting them again.

And then he sneaks a quick peek at what seems to be a book hidden in the lectern, flipping a page before going back to staring down the door.

3.

It's the end of the night, and most of the guests have left. There are still a few cookies left in the trays somehow, and Hunk is making sure to tidy up before he leaves. That said, he's also taking pictures of each of the boards, in case there's something important that someone wants to keep until later.

But then he notices you're still here, whether you're helping clean up, loitering, or trying to clog your throat with cookies. So he smiles, and gives a little wave, still lost in his own world a bit.

"H-heya. Didn't think you'd still be here."

1

[conniemaheswaran]

Connie herself has brought an... interesting collection of study materials, coming from a variety of fields including molecular biology, microrunes, power crystals, a study on large-scale magitek generators, a variety of more mundane textbooks focused on schoolwork, a small booklet on the Pilot Examination, and three notebooks filled to the brim with sticky notes, neat handwriting, and complex diagrams of machinery, human biology, and magitek runic processors. All three notebooks are entitled somewhat ominously Project Titan: Research, volumes one through three.

She plops her payload down across from Hunk and says, "Um, hey."

[chefbayardee]

"Hey." Hunk mutters, monotone and autonomous. A few moments later, he registers that wait a minute, someone's sitting across from him. Right now. And they're the person who said hello! So he looks up and, upon seeing that it's Connie, gives her a warm smile. At least until he sees all those books, and his eyes widen a bit. Did she carry all those? He wants to ask her if her arms are okay, if she'd need help on the way back, but since she got a little touchy the first time he questioned her muscles...

"You could just take pictures of the pages for those school books." Of course he noticed those. And the personal notebooks. And the library books. Honestly, he wasn't sure if she could take pictures of the library books. "Then you don't have to carry 'em around with you."

[conniemaheswaran]

Connie had barely noticed the strain, partially from the years of physically punishing training that had turned her body into a finely-tuned weapon, and partially from the way she was cheating with the gravity dampeners on her gauntlets. She'd taken a trip to the Illusionist Guild to study their use of Hover and apply a similar if very toned down effect to her own tech, thereby reducing its effective weight, increasing her jump height, and expanding her carrying capacity. Plus, the excursion had given her time to micronize some of the heftier components, making the armor much less bulky. Her gauntlets (which were the only pieces she was wearing) now look like forearm-length black gloves plated with cerulean metal etched with glowing lines.

"Oh! It's nothing, really. If anything, carrying all this gave me a chance to test the gravity dampeners," Connie explains. "I like having the whole text to reference, anyways."

[chefbayardee]

"Oh, okay, a magi-testdrive, got it." Hunk smirks in self-satisfaction at his pun, before doing a quick check of other others and how they were doing. A few seconds passed and, once he was sure there weren't any issues to tend to, he turns back to her.

"I mean, I'd take pictures of the whole text at that point, but..." He shrugs, sighing wistfully at memories of his own past. "Paper books are a bit dated for me. They can't compete with manipulable hard-light projections."

He knew his Earth was a lot different from Connie's, and that his greater universe probably was as well. But dang, paper books were a throwback, and it gives him no end of amusement.

3

[spaceforged]

"Course I would be. Can't let you clean up alone, can I?" He slips books back onto their shelves and smiles encouragingly. "...felt a bit like studying in the Garrison but without the ability to reference data on the computer terminals. All these pilots all dreaming of the sky." His smile turns wistful and light. Shiro glances at the printed blueprints still laying out and strides over to them.

"I'll put these back where they belong." He pauses like he has every time he's seen the Manacutter. "...remind me to ask someone about these. If they're just like the ones I've heard about..." If they're the same, he'll have to let Castor know.

She had sounded like she loved the sky. It would be a shame not to let her have that joy again. "Then I know someone who knows how to fly one."

[chefbayardee]

Hunk can't restrain his excitement at the idea of knowing (by a degree of separation) who already knows how to pilot a Manacutter. His eyes go wide, and he lets out a small little squeal as he turns to take a quick photo of one of the boards. Flash!

But then he turns back to Shiro, and the excitement has left Hunk bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Just use the iMog Slate, that's kinda similar. I could see if I could figure out how to set that up if you tell me who our Manacutter pilot friend is."

Yes, our. Whether the other Paladin likes it or not, Hunk sees himself as friends with anyone who doesn't hate Shiro. Even if they've never met.

[spaceforged]

"Are you familiar with Castor? We had a talk at the Dragoon Guild, she brought it up." His eyes are bright with excitement. "She talked about flying for hours...." He doesn't hide the longing in his voice. To fly, that's important to him.

He digs out his iMog from his side pocket and swipes across it. "When I saw what the Manacutter was called I thought about it. She said everything was the same but different here. This could be one of those sames." And more importantly, it would give her something to find peace with.

[chefbayardee]

"I... Yeah, I know her." He doesn't sound confident; there's no excitement or warmth. "I'm pretty sure? I've met a lot of people." But he chuckles, and some of the whimsy starts to come back.

"Doesn't matter. Even if she doesn't know how to fly a Vaikunthan Manacutter, there's no harm in trying! ...Unless she crashes."

1

[pishirogane]

Staring at the guy currently enraptured with Magitek Defense and Monster Attacks, Naoto's eyes trailed to the heavily tabbed Airship Transportation Authority before looking at the pamphlet in hand. It was one of the required readings even if she would only pilot a smaller Airship - in the event one had to pilot a larger vessel.

However, personally, she did not like being interrupted while in the middle of her own reading, but if she was going to get that book for her studies...

... she cleared her throat to hopefully get his attention without bothering him too much.

[chefbayardee]

Hunk heard that throat clearing. Maybe it was because he was the de facto host of these get-togethers. Or maybe it was because he spent a while as a special operations soldier on-call in a crazy intergalactic war. Either's fine. But he found himself reflexively jumping, fixing his eyes on Naoto.

"I like your hat." He giggles, realizing that the appeal of something as simple as a hat was kind of... entirely lost on him while he was on Earth. Seeing someone look stylish with one? Breath of fresh air. "What do you need?"

[pishirogane]

That was a thing. She stares calmly at their jumpy host, blinking slowly, but doesn't really response at the compliment? Towards her hat.

"The Airship Transportation Authority. Are you done reading it for now and may I borrow it?" A simple enough question while she has his attention.

[chefbayardee]

"Oh, uh... sure!" He laughs, and reaches for it, but his eyes dart to the board for all of an instant. "Naoto, right?"

As a hand grips the book's spine, he makes eye contact. "I've actually got some notes saved on my slate if you want me to send them over. This one's a little... dry."

1

[mech_and_mutt]

[Red, it seems, was considerably less studious in his selection- after ambling about for what seemed like well over an hour, browsing and passing over book after book after book, before he finally decided on books such as Dangerous: Vaikuntha's Top Guns and The Airship Encyclopedia under his arm. After all, it wasn't like he wasn't accustomed to piloting, fighting with, and working or even living on airships... even if he'd still have to actually prove it to the locals, if that pamphlet on airship licenses was any indication.

But Hunk's studiousness did catch his eye- if anything, it was something of a surprise to Red to see Hunk's enthusiasm tempered by the quiet of this scholarly streak- and alongside it, the sole book that earned a special place in exile from his study. He tapped a fingertip against the outcast book on the Dream Width.]

"Nothin' useful?"

[chefbayardee]

[ Hunk was a bit engrossed in his reading, but Red carries a bit of a unique visual profile, since he's a caninu. So he knew the moment his friend walked in the door. And upon seeing that Red found his way to The Garbage Book of Mistakes, Hunk just rolled his eyes and scoffed, but that scoff broke into a wry little chuckle. ]

Yeah, it's... not good. I learned more about the Dream Width on the first day. It... [ He trails off, scratching at the back of his neck. ] ...might help that I'm highly trained spacefaring engineer, but I didn't get much out of it. [ And then his eyes scan the rest of the room real quick. ]

Plus, the rest of these nerds are reading stuff way more in-depth.

[mech_and_mutt]

[Well, Red WOULD take a moment to see if a quick flip through its pages would yield anything promising or informative; who knows? There might be a snippet about lost items or how to return back to one's own world... but after eyeballing three chapters on profiling and two on checking for activity, he was convinced he'd seen enough and set the book back down with a grimace.]

Ugh. No kiddin'. This is half nonsense and half bad opinions.

So what'd'ja find in the good books? I'm waitin' my turn for a copy of the Pilot's Handbook to turn up.

[chefbayardee]

The Handbook? [ Hunk absentmindedly poked a a few buttons on his slate while scanning the books Red had picked out. Vaikunthan armaments and an airship encyclopedia? Clever. A ping on Red's slate comes with a notification of a new message- Hunk sent him some handwritten notes from the Pilot's Handbook! With a smiley face, of course. ] Eh, you'll manage.

The one book was nothing but rules, which is great for my nerves. [ He laughs gesturing to a book with enough tabs to crash an internet browser. ] And MDMA-3 just has me ecstatic. Did you know that hulls made of an alloy combining iron, mythril, and darksteel are almost as sturdy as adamantine, but provide more defense to magical and elemental attacks? Cheaper too.

But some monsters know where to aim on an airship to take it out, no matter how hard you defend. [ And then he sighs. ] Still, learn something new every day.

1

[promiselisting]

How about a combo of the first two? He's one of the familiar faces here, so yeah she's definitely coming over to hover at least at one point. Absorb some of that 'i'm around a friend therefore everything is fine' aura. Peer curiously at his selections.

That lone one in the corner of shame too.

"What'd that poor book ever do to you?" she asks, with a slight grin.

[chefbayardee]

Hunk's keeping a bit of an eye on everyone who walks through that door, for friends and... future friends. So he had no issues with Futaba's hovering, and returned her grin with one of fake offense as she asked her question.

"That book? It was garbage." He sighs angrily, but the smile that's barely leaving his face shows it's mostly an act. Only mostly, because a roll of his eyes shows his tone get cold.

"It didn't tell me anything we didn't learn from the Curti Center. Or from being in the Dream Width." He sighs. "There's basic, and then there's insulting."

[promiselisting]

"Jeez," she sighs herself, leaning onto the table and resting her chin on her hand, "Why do people even make books like that?"

...okay she admittedly probably knows the answer to that - that it's for the same people who wonder why printers don't print gifs. But still. Seriously.

"Anything more useful?"

[chefbayardee]

"Oh yeah, totally." He smiles, and it's like the disdain for that embarrassment of a book never existed in the first place. "I know what to expect for flying a ship into pretty much anywhere in Vaikuntha. The rules, and..." He gulps, a clear sign of anxiety. "...the dangers."

He sighs, composing himself, boxing away that worry as much as he can. "Different monsters like different elemental attacks, and using different alloys in the hull can make your ship a little better at ignoring some attacks. Most ships tend to use a balanced blend, though."

Then he gestures towards the Manacutter blueprint partially rolled up near him. "And Manacutters are pretty cool. I think I get how magitek-based propulsion works now, but I'd have to see it up close to be sure." And then Hunk exhales, letting the excitement get itself under control. They're in a library, after all.

"What about you? Hack anything cool?"

1

[kuposcreed]

Bonnie certainly wasn't trying to scare him. She'd come in with all the others and fluttered around listening as they talked to him and looked over the notes. All of it was a bit over her own head but she enjoyed the noise and all the people busy at work. It was just like old times.

But eventually she noticed that Hunk was spinning his mental wheels in a rut while he was trying to hard to go over his notes, and she wanted to help. So grabbing a snack for him she used her new ninja skills to quiiiietly creep over...

And poke him in the cheek with a cookie.

[chefbayardee]

Hunk was in an academic groove, in a deep flow state. That was hard to do given all the hustle and bustle, so he was savoring it. And sure, he'd noticed that Bonnie had crept into the room, and written some deeply troubling titles on that board. But she was small and quiet and could fly, so he really wasn't paying attention to her. When that cookie poked him in the cheek? Well...

"Guh-aaaaaa-!!" Hunk let out a yelp as he jumped in the opposite direction, except then it turned into a near-soundless gasp, and then his hands clamped over his mouth. They were in a library, after all. Sadly, momentum from that initial startle started to overtake him, and he fell backwards to the ground with a thud. At least the chair didn't topple.

"H-Hi, Bonnie..." It was about all he could wheeze out, between calming the adrenaline, trying not to shout, and attempting to make as little of a scene as possible. He was probably failing, but he was on the ground. Barely anyone could see him there.

[kuposcreed]

She really hadn't meant to scare him. Really. Honestly. But as he flails back she fails at her too late attempt to try to stifle her giggle. But she's quickly after him, coming over the chair and looming from above while holding out the cookie.

"Ah, nfff, sorry kupo. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just trying to give you a cookie, kupo." She gives it a little waggle, trying to hold it out in offering.

"But wow, you're all working really hard on all of this. I'm impressed, kupo."

[chefbayardee]

Hunk just huffs, because he really doesn't need to be spooked in the middle of a library gathering that he set up. Because he often got loud, which complicated the studying thing. Instead, he decides to eat his feelings, and he snatches up that cookie.

"We are." He rolls over so he's on his back, pops the cookie into his mouth in one giant bite, and pushes himself up to his knees. "I didn't expect so many people to show up, so I'm... kind of surprised."

And then he crawls with surprising speed back into his chair. Like it never happened. "Were people not as bookish in Crystallis?"