crystal malfunction memevent

[faderifting]

crystals get fucked
(a meme slash tiny game event)

The Inquisition’s sending crystals are typically very reliable and not susceptible to accidental transmissions or misdelivered messages. They’re also fairly limited in function and security.

The latter is something that researchers in Skyhold are working to address, when they have the time. Unfortunately, one of them—maybe a little angry about having to work alone on First Day, maybe day drinking while she does so—has now made some significant errors while meddling with proposed improvements. And from the beginning of the day on Wintermarch 1, the sending crystals will start behaving badly:

Messages might transmit to the wrong person.

Messages might transmit to the right person but also a few additional unintended people.

Messages might transmit to everyone at once.

Pieces of old conversations from any point in the last year or so might leak, either to individuals or to everyone. Delayed messages of that sort will sound distant, like they’re coming from the end of a long tunnel.

Attempts to transition from a public to a private conversation will sometimes fail.

Crystals may start transmitting to people or to everyone at random, without being touched.

All of this could occur at any time—sometimes at the beginning of a conversation, sometimes midway through it, sometimes when someone isn’t using the crystal at all.

The problems will start out sporadic enough to seem insignificant or like probable user errors, but grow increasingly common as the day wears on, until the issue is identified and corrected at Skyhold in the early hours of Wintermarch 2 and the tipsy researcher disciplined accordingly.

This meme/event is game canon. You can decide among yourselves if there’s something you would rather try out for fun with no consequences and/or retcon after the fact, as always, but unless otherwise established by players, this is really happening. Threads done in this post can count toward activity rewards.

Additionally, this specific post is for open top-levels that anyone can tag and threadjack. Think TFLN in style/format, missing pants optional. Don’t post closed or locked conversations here. If you want to do specific misfires with specific people, you can use inboxes. You can also post to the rookery comm if you want to use the event for a more visible gamewide open post.

Comments

[assistente]

Oh. Uh--

[How is this happening.]

The, requisition form is in order? Um, I could modify the... the request. [A pause.] Um, what-- what is, the project?

[nadasharillen]

Well... I'm still talking to the Viscount, but I was nosing around some of the books brought back from Tevinter and one of them was architectural and it looks like Kirkwall used to have a harbour chain, back when it was built, and I thought if it did and we could restore it it could be a huge help if Corypheus's forces ever tried a direct assault on the city, given that it would very likely have a naval component to it.

[ does she need to breathe? ]

We could either trap the ships in the—

[ apparently so. sheepishly: ]

You know, I should probably find out whether or not there's a chain before I ask for supplies to grease its mechanisms.

[assistente]

The-- chain, used to--

[Thinking back on his history, Salvio actually leans over to look out the window.]

Surely they would not have left it. Out there. In the water.

[nadasharillen]

[ after a time that might accurately be described as 'brief chat with the Viscount' length.

excitedly: ]

There is a chain down there, Viscount Perrin Threnhold found and used it to get a stranglehold on trade in 9:14 Dragon. It didn't turn out well for him, and nobody's used it since he got thrown in the dungeons in 9:21, but it's there, and the Viscount has the key to raise it again.

It's not just a chain, it's a net between the city and the lighthouse and it can block off ship travel to the entire Waking Sea. If we get it in perfect working order again, he'll never be able to get a fleet past us.

[ pause ]

So... can I reinstate my extra bear fat order?

[assistente]

Yes, I have read the-- I mean, the condition, of a chain, kept beneath the water-- rust, and, seawater, the corrosion, it is-- I have seen new chains reduced to, you know, flaking away, under the assault of such elements--

[Scratching down some quick maths, trying to imagine the condition of a chain and net kept beneath the water, Salvio is a little distracted.]

Um, the requisition form. Rey has it?

[nadasharillen]

As far as I can gather they hadn't been used for a much longer time before Viscount Threnhold pulled them up, and they worked well enough then to make the Divine send Templars. I imagine the links are half again the size of a man, like the ones that go from the Gallows to the mainland, which means—

[ right, form ]

Oh. I'll um... write up another one.

I didn't know it was a net.

[ or that it existed outside of theory, but better the Inquisition have supplies and not need them than need them and not have them, right? And there's always a use for bear fat.

but he doesn't need to know that. ]

[assistente]

Yes. That's-- Well, just a revision of the existing form should suffice. Provided it has not been filed. A memo to be attached, if it has, or...

[Links half again the size of a man. Salvio starts on some new maths besides the maths he was already doing.]

You think that six crates would suffice? Not, er. I do not know the precise width, of the-- or the, er, chains, the length that would span such a... Six, perhaps, yes...

[Mumbling now, as he sorts through his own thoughts on this.]

[nadasharillen]

It's just for the raising and lowering mechanisms, I'm not sure trying to do any true restoration on the chains themselves right now would be worth the time, money, or personnel, but I'll lay odds the mechanisms are pretty large still, so maybe...

[ Having dropped the crystal to hang freely from her neck while she walks so she can use her hands to do calculations of her own there's a quiet rhythmic thumping, and her voice is a little quieter. ]

That's thirty-six, already rendered, and assuming they're the same volume as —but I don't want to use too much of it, surely there are other reasons to have ordered...

[ she's back ]

Is there a quantity at which our supplier gets to be amenable to price negotiation?

...and are the crystals broken?

[faithlikeaseed]

[also helpfully,] Yes.

And some messages are ending up where they're not wanted so if you get someone with amatory interest in the bear grease or the chains, don't be too surprised. [something dryly amused but also apologetic there.]

[assistente]

Some messages.

[An important emphasis.]

[faithlikeaseed]

Only some.

Anything that can be done on our end, Seneschal? Or I should say--that we could do?

[nadasharillen]

[ cheerfully wry: ]

Stop talking on them for now, probably.

[assistente]

[In a hollow tone:] Stop talking on them for now.

And we might consider the use of the, the. Books. And-- we might require the help of the... research... I mean, we are working, the Inquisition, that is, is working--

Just. Caution.

[nadasharillen]

[ her silence is, perhaps, an indication that she'd taken the advice. ]

[assistente]

Uh--

[Lulled first into quiet save for his own mumbling, Salvio starts as she comes back louder than before. He lifts his pen away from the page at the last second, narrowly avoiding inking on the page.]

I, uh-- Would not suggest negotiation, or not overmuch, negotiation, the--supplier, is-- prickly, I would say.

And the crystals are. [Fucked.] Being addressed.