Day 329 | OPEN

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Who: Rob, anyone
Open: Open
When: Day 329
Where: Between the library and the cottages
What: A new building has appeared, and it's kind of spiky.
Format: Will match
Warnings: Nerdiness

So there's a new building in town, located between the library and the cottages. It looks similar to this one, although since it's not embedded in a cliff face all five sides are accessible and it has five spikes on the roof instead of three. The main door is smaller than in the picture, though still large enough for all non-dragon residents to comfortably use, but there's also a larger closed pair of doors at the rear. This sign next to the main entrance might give passerby an idea of what the building's function is, but the door is open and Rob's inside, so taking a closer look is certainly an option.

Inside is a rather cramped space with an elaborate touchscreen computer console to either side of the door and a counter with various pieces of equipment on it straight ahead. Currently there's also a figurine of a wolf holding an odd-looking arm in its jaws sitting on the counter, eyes glowing red, a small stack of Rob's alchemy books, and an open book that a machine is turning the pages of as if reading it. Above the counter is a clear partition, through which can be seen some complicated machines in operation which some might be able to recognize as being for printing and binding books.

Rob is sitting on one of two deerskin-covered swivel chairs and tapping away at one of the consoles, but he turns when you appear in the door, squares of gauze still taped on his cheek and shoulder.

"Welcome to the print shop. Any books from Earth you've been looking for?"

Comments

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko is not terribly surprised to find this building is one of Rob's creations. It fits with his bizarre sense of style.]

This is a print shop?

[It also shouldn't be surprising that the machinery is unrecognizable to her. Printing in her world is a labor-intensive profession that requires skill and long hours, and printing an entire book would be a significant undertaking.]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[It is the best sense of style. Also you've seen nothing yet.

He nods.]

Yeah. Automated, since we don't really have the skillset and manpower to operate a manual one. But it can print just about anything, so long as it's made of paper. Only have books from my world for now - or at least Colin's version of my world - but I'm having it read my alchemy books so people can get copies of them too.

[He gestures to the book that's having its pages turned by a machine.]

If you've got any books from your world I can show you how to add them to the list so this place can make copies.

[daughterofursa]

[A machine that can read books and then copy them. She guesses it's like when he took that photo before, but she still doesn't understand how that works.]

I'd have to get them from the Monument first, right? I'm not sure there's much point in copies, if only my sister and I could read them.

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

That's the other benefit of this being automated; it can translate between different languages. Actually...

[He turns back to the console and taps at it a few times, then rolls to the side on his chair.]

If you see your language here touch it. Or hit the arrow in the corner and it'll show you some more languages.

[The console's main display shows a list of words, each in a different language: English, French, Latin, Elvish, Ura, Dovahzul... Every written language from every world affected by the Calamity, with subtitles in English in tiny letters beneath each one. Zuko's language is in there too. Somewhere.

When she does finally find and touch it, it will become highlighted and move to the upper corner of the screen, the rest of the text vanishing to be replaced by a search dialogue in her language, allowing selection of what document she wants.]

[daughterofursa]

[Like many people unfamiliar with computers, when Zuko does touch the screen it's more of a hard jab, overestimating the pressure required to get a response. And it takes a few screens, but eventually she does spot what to Rob would be traditional Chinese.]

"Search"? What exactly is this searching through?

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[One benefit of having Colin around is that Rob can have the Monument copy Colin's super-durable displays.]

All the books, images, and documents the system knows about. You can search by title, author, subject, and a bunch of other things that aren't really that useful here. But...

[He moves in and taps at the screens several times, switching the input to English then entering a title, "Fundaments of Alchemy", selecting the highlighted document from the list, then going through more screens and selecting the format ("Book, Hardcover") and details of the binding, like cover color and design. Finally he presses "Done", looks over the description it gives him, then presses "Confirm". The screen goes back to the search dialogue and the title of the book appears on a screen below the clear partition along with a progress bar. He repeats this process for a book called "Lord of the Clans" and finally something called "zukodragon-03.jpg" that gets the format "glossy color photo paper". He turns back to Zuko.]

I queued up a few things for you, but go ahead and search for anything else you'd be interested in reading. Stories, instructional books, whatever. It may not have anything from your world yet but there's still thousands of books in here.

[daughterofursa]

[This is all Greek to Zuko. Or English, as it were. Even if she could read what he was doing, it probably wouldn't make much sense to her just from the sheer lack of cultural context.]

So this has histories in it from your world?

[The look on her face could best be described as "but where is it keeping them?"]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Unfortunately Rob is unable to recognize the precise meaning of that particular expression at this moment in time.]

Among other things. Seriously, just enter a topic- whoops.

[He realizes the input mode is still in English and toggles it back to Chinese.]

Just enter a topic and it'll give a list of everything it has related to that topic. Put in "history"... which I have no idea how to write in your language, but it'll give a list of everything it has on history. Though for something that broad you'll probably want to be more specific since there's gonna be a lot of books about it.

[He makes an "after you" gesture towards the console. Below the main screen is a keyboard of sorts, displaying all the different characters in her language, organized by stroke count. There's definitely a scroll bar involved here, along with a "jump to X strokes" selector, because the display isn't big enough to show all those characters at once and still be legible.]

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko is slow about it, not because she doesn't know her stroke counts thankyouverymuch, but because computers. Luckily once she has one character in, it suggests the second one. She manages to bang out "History of China," which thankfully she knows how to write since it's literally just "Middle Country."]

This is still a lot of books...

[How are there so many books? She never saw Wan Shi Tong's library, but she wonders if it had as many as this odd little screen.]

[notachickenhawk]

Tobias examines the buildings from all of the angles available to him before fluttering in. He cuts his speed so he doesn't have to flap, and lands on the counter with only a little fumbling. He jerks his head to the side, looking over at Rob, and there's a moment of silence before he 'speaks'.

<Rob, did you seriously put this inside of a building from Warcraft?>

Not that he's ever played himself, but he remembers the style from the video game magazines at the library...

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Helloo~ There's a gleam in Rob's eye as he looks over.]

You know Warcraft?

[notachickenhawk]

<I couldn't... really afford video games so I mostly just... read magazines in the library...>

[He actually sounds kind of like he'd be blushing right now if he could.]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Oh, well, uh, it's a building from Orgrimmar, the orc capital in World of Warcraft. Less dangerous-looking than some of the other ones I could've used.

[notachickenhawk]

[Uh...]

<'World' of Warcraft? I just know Warcraft... I think Warcraft II came out already but I never saw much about it...>

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

...Oh right, from my point of view you're from the past. After Warcraft III came out Blizzard made World of Warcraft instead of Warcraft IV. It's a game that's completely online, where tons of people are all playing a character in the same world. "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game", that kind of game is called.

[notachickenhawk]

<... Wait. How can they all be on at the same time?>

[Earth internet is way too slow for that...]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Blizzard has a ton of servers set up just for WoW. Though they still have to have multiple copies of the world running, since several million people all using just one server cluster would probably break it pretty quickly, not to mention how slow it would get.

because I'm terrible

[scary_music]

[unfortunately, for both Rob and Ibuki, a certain musician was drawn to the appearance of a new building!]

[On first hearing Rob's voice, Ibuki's first instinct was to turn on her heel and walk out... unfortunately, common sense wasn't one of her strong suits]

Rob-chan is a hy-po-criiiiiiiiiite~!

THE WORST

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[And suddenly this day became less enjoyable.]

...What do you mean?

upupupu- (a-also shouldn't this be day 329 tho...?? Otherwise Ibuki can't even be here XD; )

[scary_music]

Hmm... what was it that Rob-chan had said about Ibuki's music venue? Let's try it on Rob-chan now!

Ahem!

"What the heck do we need a print shop for?"

[... well Rob had used "hell" back then and mistook the venue for a strip joint, but it was the same idea...]

(what are you talking about? We've always been at war with Eastasia)

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob looks at her for a moment before answering, not getting the reference she's making or what objection she could have to something so practical.]

To make books, among other things. It can translate books between languages too, so everyone'll be able to read something.

*is now ded*

[scary_music]

... ahh, Rob-chan, so young, so naive...

[Ibuki pulls out her datapad, pulling up a random book from the database and pointing the display towards Rob]

Objection! Take that!

Now, apologize for insulting Ibuki's music venue and raining on her parade or Ibuki will continue calling you a hypocriiiiiiiiiiiiiiite!

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob leans in slightly and peers at the screen.]

...The Kama Sutra in French?

[He has no idea what she's trying to say by showing him that.]

[scary_music]

...

... Whoa.

Are you being like... purposefully dense or is that just how you are?

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

...

[Okay he's getting extra-annoyed here, but most of the time he does make an effort to avoid outright snapping at people so he pauses to think for a moment. This is kind of reminding him of a particular kind of plot, and that plot is...]

If you're trying to hit on me by showing me a sex manual I'm still not interested in you.

[NAILED IT.]