thebastion | Day 230 | Open

Who: Rob, anyone and everyone
Open: Open
When: Day 230, morning (backdated)
Where: Near the donut bush
What: Rob's created an endless supply of lumber.
Format: Any
Warnings: None

With the immediate threat to the Bastion's survival dealt with for the time being, Rob's finally gotten around to spending his shards. The result? An oak tree made of perfect 1-foot cubes. The trunk is 15 feet tall without a single branch and is surrounded by cubes of leaves starting at 6 feet above the ground, which all grow from a complex web of thin twigs without a branch in sight.

He circles around the tree at first with a grin on his face, then stops, focuses for a moment, and gives it a kick. Nothing happens, but his grin still gets bigger. A series of punches, tackles, and other strikes follow, but the tree barely quivers. Then he stops and flicks the trunk with one finger. Instantly the tree is severed at its base and topples over, the twigs in its crown cracking as they hit the ground. When the trunk itself hits the ground with a large crash, every twig snaps at once and the entire leaf mass drops to the ground leaving a square log lying on the ground in a mound of oak leaves. And a single bright red apple, which Rob picks up and bites into with a look of satisfaction on his face.

Oddly enough, despite there being only one stump there are other logs lying on the ground nearby.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Are these just technical and scientific libraries or...?"

"Cultural archives," Colin says. "If it's been put on a public network of any of the planets I scooped up, I've got it. Universities, libraries, offsite storage, etc. etc."

And a great many private networks, but Colin won't exactly admit to that.

"So fiction too?"

Why is Rob not dancing with joy at this discovery?

"Fiction, both text and vid, games, anything that's gone out over the 'net," he explains, grinning. "Where do you think I got a copy of Star Wars from? To say nothing of all the other movies I'm going to show."

His face is neutral, his voice a bit too neutral.

"I guess you haven't gotten around to setting up a few terminals or something so everyone can partake in this bounty at will?"

Colin, Rob has spent the month he's been here on the verge of gouging his eyes out in boredom, and he was not told that this existed before now. This is Rob starting to get pissed and trying not to show it.

"I've made or recovered four pads that can access my library, two of them are permanently spoken for, and there are over fifty people here," Colin says, shaking his head. "We don't exactly have the resources here to give everyone a full entertainment center, you know."

"Obviously not, but a few public terminals for everyone to use, perhaps?"

He's trying not to be unreasonable, but he's also not delighted at this discovery and is putting effort into limiting how much he shows his lack of delight.

"Those ARE the public terminals," Colin says. "I would like nothing better than to have everyone in the Bastion with a computer at their disposal, but that's just not the case."

His fingers twitch slightly in his pockets. He remembers asking Colin about books when they'd first met and not hearing about this. He could've been spending a couple hours a day watching instructional videos, looking up plants and animals that could be useful to bring to the Bastion, anything other than just trying to distract himself with work and sleeping when he ran out of stuff to do.

He's mad, but still maintaining his normal facade enough that there's a good chance that Colin will never realize that.

"Well, being able to look at a guidebook'll prolly make things easier. Least once I've got tools together."

Moving on before he says or does something that won't help the situation.

"If you're willing to blow the shards on, you can probably get a computer that can interface with mine and have more access to the stuff. Eighty to a hundred would probably cover it. I just can't justify spending those shards when there's so many other things we need here," he explains.

Those pads had only been functional for a couple of weeks, AFTER Rob arrived. After the plague. Roughly around the same time that Colin began to feel unwelcome around here.

But nobody ever asks him about these things...

It's probably safe to say that neither of them are that great at communicating.

"S'why a computer wasn't the first thing I bought."

Having feelings of responsibility sucks, doesn't it?

Day 230 | Open | Got Wood?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject