Scene #9854: Join The Band!

Owner	Pose
Dimokratia	After the first cycle of character generation comes and goes, and people enter the game, log out, or linger around, Kratia doesn't ever seem to disconnect, nor does she continue on into exploring the first zone. Her objective, at least right at the start, is culture and enjoyment, indulgence of the initial space, and a plumbing of the experience of stats. She had been reviewing the documentation for Skills, having not passed the final check just to make sure she would start off smoothly in her. Shifting into the World skills, she had toyed with Mathematician and Artist, not knowing how the development of such would affect her ability to Compose but knowing her Trait would ease such burden, imagining in what notation she would be inscribed with. The self inspection and continued tinkering had carried on as everyone finished up, and before Regulus had left entirely, Kratia had asked the party rocker an important, purpose-dripping question. "You're all done and settled on this one -- you can play at any time... But I'm here now, and will be for a bit. Why don't you come back, and craft yourself into something beautiful and different!" An urging, a leaning, an invitation to pluck and play at her pipings, Kalliope was all to eager to invite more to join the band. "Think about it." --- She's still there, later on after the first wave clears out, attending to suggesting Songstone-forms to the rest of the people who attended after the Elites had run through. Sometimes she succeeds, though not always on first character generation, and other times she lets people go on to enter the game... But Kratia -- Kalliope -- is incredibly persistent, and constantly present.
Regulus	Regulus does want to try out the life of an Explorer but she figures having a proper Pilgrim will be a good idea too. She's accustomed to being flirted with, she has very pretty eyes, an energetic friendly personality, and her origins are thickly tied to the Free Love movement and, philisophically speaking, she doesn't think anyone should ever be too bashful about having a good time with their bodies-- --but like, okay, people like Dimo and Kratia and Dylan are just a whole new world for Regulus so she still finds it pretty easy to be a bit bashful around them all the same. Just a bit, though, because a Tone of New Horizons really does fit her, just as a person. She reaches out with her hand and strums Kratia's harp-strings with a finger. She's not an experienced harper, but she has enough inuition as a musical artist to make sure each plucked string has a nice clear ringing sound to it. "Wow, perfectly in tune, huh?" She grins. "You make a wonderful instrument, Kratia. I'll be riiight back." Her second character instead of being Regulus has picked the name Electric Ladyland as her new character name--she almost did Rolling Stones but she thought it wouldn't hit right and Electric Ladyland is one of her favorite songs of all time. She decides to focus on her character design first this time rather than build, her new disembodied form heading into the character design drapes as she spins through the options. She had some time to check them out before but... "You know, I'm a musician in real life, but it's good to experiment right? Let's see what kind of instruments would work best. I do want to go for the metal/stone combo like you did for sure--"
Dimokratia	Kratia had undergone several additional touches, having lingered in character generation for the entire time and refining herself steadily. Her stone legs arch naturally, now wrought through with further brass pipework that leaves a series of holes at knee and again at the tops of thigh, and her wedge-raised heels drop with a triangle hollow such that her steps do in fact ring and click-ting! with each fall on appropriate terrain. Her stone face has been updated with metallic eyeshadow and her vine hair has been enlarged into the shape of a ponytail, yet the trunk of it is a flower-wrapped further array of woodwinds accented with metal fittings like jewelry across lacquered locs. She moves, and sound comes with her, jingling and chiming with the skipping gaily about she did up to Regulus, only to arch and lean into the rocker's fingers for her seeking pluck and strumming. "The more I acclimated, the more I felt connected to the world," Kalliope scales with the tuned brush of insubstantial fingers, tone modulating as she's played. "-and the more 'in tune' I felt, and I've only added more detail as I've spent time with the options. It's a very robust option-set, and I've found more and more depth with every choice. Now," Pulled away from, Kratia sighs in lowering vibrato and slowly follows, aimed to boldly join Regulus in the 'changing' room. Lilian had invited others into hers! Clearly, she was invited here. Probably! She'd be told if she was too bold. "I had an idea you were a musician, so I thought you'd be a perfect member for the band! You should become the complete and perfectly wonderful instrument you can dream of too -- don't limit yourself with any human reason. You're not!" Human, that is. "You're a Songstone, a beautiful member of the choir from composition, an instrument meant to be played." Encouraging, Kratia waits as close as she can - ideally, right there hands-on with Regulus as she options around!
Regulus	"You really are making yourself into an instrument..." She can't help but think of the Manus Vindictae ... monsters? She doesn't know what else to call them, but they had a whole music theme going on too, though they were definitely way less pretty than Kratia is right now. They sort of gave her off the impression of instruments without a love for instruments, instruments to make noise rather than music, or perhaps music but not the kind of music that speaks to her. Regulus is not slow to judge music tastes that she doesn't like but she fears dismissing the Manus too readily out of hand now that she's met so many members of the Manus who later became good friends. Or could have been. "But Lilian said that traits might change what we look like too, and it sounded like in ways we couldn't exactly finetune. Since she ended up with antlers shed idn't want and all." She's worried that Dimo might not appreciate what sounds like a core element of the game. "Sorry if I kept you from playing for real though." Regulus wonders if she should feel weird about someone being in a changing room with her, but she also doesn't even have a body yet so maybe she shouldn't feel too weird about it? She selects the Songstone Template, flipping through the many many options. Anyway, she's not a prude, so she's not going to be telling Kratia she's too bold. "Good point." Regulus would grin but no face yet. "Let's see if I can get outside of my own head a little bit and enter a whole other fab mindset..." Regulus ends up going for a more rock-like base with metal accentuation rather than the alternative. It is still a sleek feminine rock-form and she considers for a while between going for like ivy-moss covered rock, or a kind of magma rock with little magma seams pulsing out with lava hair. Eventually, Regulus goes for the latter, with metallic studs around her feet wrists, head, and waist--similar to her leather outfit minus the outfit, still wearing the tutorial outfit. Then she thinks about the instrument elements, adding some 'horns' across her shoulders that blow out steam and a kind of guitar string furnace around her stomach. "How do you think so far?" Regulus asks. "I figured you're already metal enough, but music's also about turning up the heat!"
Dimokratia	Regulus's initial response is something that delights Kratia even as she lyrically moves to correct with piping laughter. "Kalliope has always been an instrument - has never been anything but. I was simply refining Kalliope into the complete and total instrument she always was, removing the excess and filling the holes to leave a more complex whole." Kratia draws hands up the exteriors of her sides, the strings in her arms making little plucked noises as she explores her own outer contours. "I knew I must be beautiful, but before beauty, I must be purposeful - as from purpose, beauty stems." Kratia continues, and then extends out the hands, to move tone upon the empty bubble of Regulus' presence in the booth. "I'm welcoming it fully, this experience, this possibility. Don't be boring! Go wild, craft a character whose beauty speaks to every part of you, and the world!" Kratia's encouragement turns thoughtful when Regulus brings up Lilian's comments. "Traits are things you equip, so if it changes me in a way that I don't like, I won't use the trait. But, at the same time, it's not like we Songstone-" 'We', already! The full-send mentality was already on loud display. "-could grow animal ears. So, I imagine I'll change to become a stranger and more exotic instrument - and I welcome that. It's why I picked Contir!" Waving off apologies, Kratia keeps her distance while Regulus finds options, drawing in to await for a few moments. "I was sharing the joy of joining the band with others the whole time. I promised to make a guild as soon as I could, too, but being the greeter gave me plenty of time to learn about the game anyway." Kratia explains. Spreading culture was important! Given a look at Regulus' first take, Kratia steps in, thinking about the shape and the hot-stone hair, dipping a hand to gently inspect her guitar-belly, brushing the bellows-hole edge before thumbplucking the guitar string and seeing how it played. "The hot hair might make it harder to be played, but you could get a something similar with glowing crystals spun with flowers? Imagine it's... a part of your display, a decoration to your edifice, and adjusting the crystals can change your harmonics..." Her hands rise up, tracking string past it, to stroke stone collar. "If you were strung from neck to belly, and bellowed out more internally, you could arch into a bass or bend into a shorter-stringed guitar... Imagine being held, played!" Kratia, drawn in, leans brow towards Regulus indulgently as she speaks into the Songstone Regulus' bared neck. "Go ahead, try me. Take me up, tutorialize." Across her brow, fluteholes and pipe-ends give her newly woodwinded hair the character of a panflute brace, a warm breath of air down back, changed in tune by the lean of her body-frame. Regulus can play her just by kissing her brow!
Regulus	''filling the holes to leave a more complex whole.'' "Is that a complex hole with an h or a complex whole with a w h." Regulus asks though maybe she's being a little bit of a shite there. "There's a lot that's beautiful that has no purpose but to be beautiful, or perhaps the beauty is the purpose? Or maybe the purpose is just something I don't innately recognize yet." ''It's not like we Songstone--could grow animal ears.'' "I was actually thinking Barit for this one, more Morphological Trait access right? More focused on Journey rather than World, but got my Explorer for that." She mulls on the game a bit. "I don't want to tutorialize too much or I might never play, if I focus on something I tend to hyperfocus, and otherwise I'm pretty distractable." Regulus snaps her fingers, "Oh I love that, flower power! The crystals can sing like piano keys, or maybe a vibraphone--Let me just..." She scrolls around. "Well I can find the crystals, where's the flower accessories---there we go... you're so right, I was stuck on the whole magma rocker too much, needed more color and melody!" ''Go ahead, try me. Take me up, tutorialize.'' Regulus taps the side of her neck and the horns toot while blowing out steam. "I, um, I never played the wind instruments before, nothing against them or anything, a well timed flute solo goes ''hard''--" Her hair shifts from hot lava to a warm crystalline pattern as Regulus slowly adds some hippie style flowers to the crystalline 'hair'. "You think I should be more 'opened up' here..?" She points towards the guitar strings, "Well, this one's the E string, it's a standard six string, E A D G B E, I didn't include frets and--mm--you're right it'd need more space to properly strum down the length of a guitar if that's how we're doing it, maybe a more vertical furnace..."
Dimokratia	"H! And Wh. Both!" Kratia laughs, though Regulus is definitely being a shite. Still, Kalliope is absolutely wrought with holes and channels, metal and stone and wood all built to be played, for the world to wind through, to be instrumented more. Her every motion, her very existence, her interactions were all vergingly to actively musical, drawing all around her into an orbit of music. She resonated with music, with sound, and had spent idle moments making each piece more guided, more purposeful, learning and compressing skill to fit more into Kalliope, an entire orchestra condensed into a concentrate that dripped from her channels and pipes. "Beauty can be a purpose. We're artwork, as much as we are soundwork. But also, being able to accept purpose you do not yet know is the soul of being designed, rather than designing." Kratia answers, and appreciates the transformation wrought through Regulus' new avatar all the same. "I decided the connection to the physical was the connection to the physical, for Songstones, but it might just be one lens to it. I want to explore every aspect, through myself and others. The band! A tribe, a society of experience." Exactly as the Silver taught, experienced a different way. "Flower power! We're a part of the world, instruments that are alive." Kratia continues to guide and encourage, her own woodwind locs still gathered with orange flowers around the valves and holes. Color and melody is exactly how Kratia felt as well, wanting nothing more than to exalt as an instrument in every sense through this experience, a whole different way of being she had taken to sprintingly and had kept sharing with everyone who would listen. There hadn't been one person gone through chargen who hadn't been invited to the band, suggested and welcomed to feel the very music of the world, and Regulus now was being ministered and played with purpose. "It's a tutorial!" Kratia insists, but if Regulus won't play at her pipings, then she eventually gives in, having so hoped that Regulus would play her, reach in and take hold of her fully orchestrated self and draw her into a soul-duet of song. It was more than natural, but a fully intended purpose of being a living conduit of music! Nothing was cosmetic - all of it was beautifully purposeful. "Absolutely more opened up. No, here," Kratia instructs, eventually rotating around to settle behind Regulus and draw the resonant crystals into the empty space of her skeletally openharped chest, leaving Regulus looking starward, metal hands taking stone throat to pantomime frets and drawing Regulus into being the double bass laid across and contiguous with her -- a single instrumentpiece, vibratophone within acoustic chamber and four arms laid across bellows of chest and stringing of deep toned strumming. "Like this, Regulus. Join the band completely, lose yourself in the sound." As she's played, Regulus' entire crystalfall sends cascading notes and hums through the fluting of Kalliope, the whole of her acoustically accompanying as Regulus shifted and refined her options. "You could carry the neck through you, use it as the top of a ponytail, crank the tuning valves on yourself or have them twisted and tightened so you carried the exact frequency..." She suggests, her own musical experience mechanical but finding a spirituality with each bodymotion.
Regulus	Regulus isn't exactly unsusceptible to the ideology of the Silver, or this version of it really, it really isn't too different from the ideology back home, just a little weirder. She doesn't know the term transhumanist. But even if the talk about the connection to the physical being the connection to the physical is maybe taking a minute to perfolate in Regulus's brain here, she understands the appeal of the tribe for sure. That's one of the ways she finds the idea of The Silver endearing. "Hey you got me there, what's the point of all this if we're just going off doing our own thing, but if we go together it'll be a lot more fun. Also I'm definitely more focused on support, you know? So it'd be reeeeal rough if I don't got some nice big and strong Songstone buddy to look out for me while I'm harvesting loot." She thinks it over. "Plus that card ability? It'll probably help us out more the bigger our band is. I don't know what the 'party max' is, but we get the most benefit out of it with a max sized party, plus what i'm adding." Not that this character here is bound to have the same abilities, but she figures even the version of her that isn't an instrument can still be part of the band here. "You sound like you've played the game before, but I guess you just adapt to the lore real fast." Regulus says. ''It's a tutorial!'' Regulus isn't unwilling, she's just a little stupid. "Oh! You want me to play!" Regulus says after a moment. She will examine the pipping and then experimentally try a few blows. She's not really hesitant about it, but she does seem to be checking to make sure Kratia is at least neutral about it, ideally enjoying being tutorial-played. Bodily exploration is something she does for others, she's never really enjoyed it for her own sake, but the novelty of a Songstone body is making up for her natural disinclination. And she likes making other people happy. It's what makes her happy. She's her own musician. "Oh! You can help? That's neat, I didn't know that!" Regulus kind of raises her arms so Kratia can adjust settings freely. "Oh that's different." Regulus mulls, looking it over, closing her eyes as she listens to the tones that she makes, the little crystaline tones hitting. It'd be like learning a whole other instrument that she can only play in this game. "What kind of concerts do you got over there?" Regulus asks, scrolling through settings. Lose herself in the sound...
Dimokratia	"It looked like," Kratia asides. "Your trait adds one Pilgrim to Explorer parties. Which means that if you're there, a Pilgrim can come with you - and you're not denied partying on 'Regulus'. Even so, you'll experience more like this! A true, immersed experience." She reasons through, closeby Regulus. 'Oh! You want me to play!' "I want you to play! We're made to be played!" Kratia returns, laughing. She had to do this more than she expected, and yet, each time there was a moment of realization. "I'm like this, because Kalliope is an instrument. And here, I'm Kalliope!" She proudly declares, both 'exploring her body' (positive) as well as sharing a certain musical experience with Regulus. Blowing through the flutes, she produces a clear yet hesitant sound - reflecting her own nature in touching and playing, but becoming as firm as she plays. For the motion, Kalliope is indulgently engaging, an instrument interested in being played and leaning in to the performance it is engaged in. The natural construction of the Songstone leads to the music trending sweet, warbled by the motions Kratia goes through. When Regulus turns - is turned, raising arms and falling into being moulded and played both by Kratia. She had spent dilated hours in here, days already exploring the character creator, and her particular Silver-assisted access to the standard VR control sticks lets her execute arbitrary touch controls within the limits of the hardware. Guiding Regulus arms supportively around her metal-capped shoulders and arrayed in her pipes and out of the way, Kratia stretches out and leans Regulus back, lifting her as a living double bass and drawing her strings through neck by selecting a different neckingpiece. Suddenly, there's more to Regulus' spine, chest, and stomach, her torso reconfigured as she had just imagined into the humanoid shape of a bellows-bellied stringed instrument of stone, ceramic or enamel over wood, with the neck of it continuing through headpiece and rising like a bob of hair, 'the strings vibrating through her neck and warbling as strangely intuitive 'vocal' chords, her whole soundscape built around this stringtone through her soul, reverberating around. The crystals falling back and bend the sound around her strung-through harmonics, giving her a deep vibrational quality for her entire upper body. The horning pipes contour up from the base of her hips, bracing for her sides and framing for her bass-boned front. "Feel the sound, that you make, as you play. Breathe-" She instructs, fingers to neck-frets, touching notes to strings and beginning to play through Regulus in the deep vibrations of her new long-length strings, through neck and about head to flow down crystals, and dominate senses. It was different entirely, from playing to be played, and not just alone but contiguously, through crystals into the cavern of Kratia's amplified front, and from there whistling through her flutings as a great shared sound that originates in concert from their cooperative construction.
Dimokratia	"-and know." Kratia had spent subjective days being instrument-embodied and occupying this tutorial, having tuned herself and been played by the brave until she found a highest point of self-sound, a kind of character creation knob tuning at the tension lines of the contact points between virtual self and real. "Do you have any ideas for the legs? Stone's rocking! But what about..." Kratia reaches down Regulus' skirting and runs through a few more options in the hip region to reproduce brilliant monochrome ivory keys across the skirtings of Regulus' hips, such that she keytars or plays against her own internal tone by brushing the keys with purpose, and continues to play just that for a few more moments, as if ti test this arrangement and fill Regulus' head with music to dominate all their thoughts while they dream of new conveyance.
Regulus	Regulus says, "Oh! I was wondering hwo that worked, with the whole Pilgrim and Explorers in different party things, but it makes sense--letting a Pilgrim join a party of Explorers. Does that mean they can engage the main story if a pilgrim is there? Or maybe it's for having a bit of extra protection for harvesting." She taps her cheek lightly with her index finger before shrugging both shoulders. She'll figure out that deal soon enough for sure. "But it'll be nice to actually know what the story is, I kind of didn't even know for sure there was a story at all when I started. Do video games have stories a lot these days? I don't think The World had one, but I guess I wasn't in there long enough to really figure out, it usually felt more like 'settings'--but even that's really unusual for me, aha, the games I'm used to involve pixels and you can be done with 'em in a few minutes easy." She wonders for a moment about her out-of-timeness. She's still not used to it, and it's been over a year. She's even getting told her sense of music is grandma music. A sudden surge of that familiar loneliness hits her at such the worst time and it feels a little silly playing music on someone who is also a person, but she IS a musician and even if it's not her expertise, she knows what makes a good sound. She's quiet a moment, mulling on the strangeness her life has become. Even if her era wasn't washed away, the presence of the multiverse is not unlike a Storm in of itself. It's full of the miraculous and the grand and the giant and the even gianter and Rita's maybe a vampire octopus woman of some kind but only because some jerk called Foid made it happen and that's apparently just a thing that happens. And while a human body is an isntrument, it is strange to become more and more instrument thanks to Kratia's--Kalliope's--ministrations. Would she become a better musician if she understands what it is to be 'played'? It feels weird! But feeling a little weird is the whole purpose of experimentation like this. It's far too soon to say 'yeah this isn't for me' and she isn't entirely sure it isn't for her either. "Oh! Wait! One more thing--Petra can't be the only one with a tail!" As Kratia adds a piano skirt, Regulus adds a power chord tail, like for an amp. "They might not have electricity here yet but one day it might have a place to plug in and make the sound LOUD as all out!" Then she then reaches down and pokes around the skirt for a bit. plink! plonk! plank! "Groovy, though it does sorta feel like the tutorial robes don't work too well with this character design, I'll have to find some more fashionable digs." She looks towards Kalliope, "Do you know any tunes? Maybe we can do a jam session right now!" Using..each other as instruments? Well, if Regulus thinks about it like that, it's pretty normal.
Dimokratia	"As far as lore goes, or story, I totally don't know!" Kratia warbles with laughter as she admits. "This is entirely new to me, but I've absorbed enough with my big COG," She doesn't actually mean her cognition score in game. "So that I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen. Call it a predictive model, or divination, or a good feeling." The trait still has a question, and Kratia has a feeling of it. "It sounds like it lets you bring a pilgrim along with the Explorer group, or pair up with someone to experience content as an... ally? Maybe even able to revive them much more easier. There's a lot to it, and being able to reach a certain point in the game for Explorers means eventually you can have large explorer-Pilgrim parties. There's a lot of depth implied! Some of the traits seem quite specific, from those that've been shared." Not everyone had been as free as the initial crowd of Elites, but Kratia had gotten at least an idea from her observations. "The games I'm used to are much more warlike simulations. Fleet motions, plasma and warheads and thousands of kilograms of metal hurtling around empty space. It's romantic, but empty. The personal actions are better, but this is a world apart from what I'm used to. Remember - I'm a giant machine!" She snickers again. "So this is my off time. I'm enjoying all of it. And this kind of self-building is addictive, enough I've been an ambassador of it." Kratia is, of a sort, also sent from a distant time into now, to participate in a strange re-homing of her body. She was just going with it! She was a Champion, an expedition into distant lands for a people, and she was here for fun. "The robes are awful," Kratia agrees, but has been working around them for a while. "Just relax, and feel through the form!" Kratia continues to insist, rotating through little options and making small zonal changes. Her hands finish choosing the pieces of collar, adding pieces around shoulder and neck that make the bass-stem, frets, and all look like a stone jacket, wings tight around the bass bellows, and the brass works neatly as piping for both horn and jacket, and the robe does get in the way, of course... But Kratia also changes gently, widening and deepening, a little more solidity to her exterior and broadening the interior of her to channel sound down and through, and fit more when played face-to-face. The little changes - the speed and care at which she manipulates and builds to artful task - come with a subtle but palpable increase to the harmonics and acoustics of Kalliope that Regulus feels in her hippie crystal hair, and Kratia peels her hand from Regulus' controls as they peel apart, still in contact but side-by-side and at rest for a moment and not interfaced into each other with the mixing of their orchestration. "I've got a media library, and if you give me a reference period, I'll jam with you however you like." Leaned in, one arm around Regulus' stone shoulder and another at the high point of her bellow, Kratia's gentle tension leads to stringlplucks of amusement and soft strokes of Regulus' solid sides. "I'd love for you to lead, love more for you to play me, or for us to play together -- why don't we just free associate, jamming where our souls take us, and we'll learn more about our possible sounds doing that than talking about it." "Let's do both. Let's do it all! We've got all the time we'd like, and you can learn how to rock on harps with my help - obviously."
Regulus	''But I've absorbed enough with my big COG'' Regulus is about to ask a question that will get her mocked on twitter or, possibly even worse, Banter but manages to clamp her mouth shut in time. Sometimes thinking before you speak does actually pay off! What a miraculous bit of knowledge she learned today. Instead, she makes an assumption about Kratia, combines it with what she knows about how big she is in terms of overall size in real life, and then mentally calculates how big a COG that creates and her eyes widen with amazement at just how big a COG that would be. Of course, since she is the Silver, there are endless beautiful design posesibilities some of which might eschew conventional proportions but she's seen mecha pictures before, she knows how many have giant sharp spikes sticking out, or a massive cannon. "It's good to trust your instincts!" Regulus says eventually after her mind runs across the entire obstacle course. ''Some of the traits seem quite specific, from those that've been shared'' "It felt like the game heard me that I was worried about not being able to play with all my Pilgrim friends as my first character." Regulus quips and, well, it's entirely possible that's true, Nika could've been paying attention! It is a little weird getting so friendly into someone who is this into war action, but in games you can war without really hurting anyone, usually. That's part of the appeal of games! "Of course you're a giant machine, you need to be to make room for your giant COG." Regulus quips, this time too slow to stop herself. "But I'm glad you're having a good time even if it's not really a war game." Though maybe there is a war system somewhere in here, it feels like it has everything and she still sort of recalls all those disclaimers. And the fact that death still hurts even if it doesn't permanently kill you. "I was gonna start with alchemy but maybe I oughta try to get my tailoring up quickly." She is not aware that typically crafting in video games are tiered and gear and proper cosmetics tend to be higher tier than stuff that simply makes materials, but she'll figure it out once she gets into it. As much as Regulus extolls personal expression, she appreciates the help in expanding to an expression theme. ''I've got a media library--'' "I know maybe it's 'grandpa music' but I actually kinda miss doing the hits from my era. We're fifty years from it now, practically in both directions." The time in most places in the multiverse she's been to, and also the time in her own era fifty years behind. "Mind hitting up with some of the 'oldies' from the 60s?" She snickers a little bit at saying oldies but it's a bit of self-abashment. "Then you can show me some of your faves, back and forth! I'd be thrilled on how to rock out while harping out!" Yeah they might be in the tutorial zone for a while.