milliways_bar | (no subject)

Bastion hasn't, exactly, been out of the bar. They've been upstairs, mostly in the library, and they lost track of time. However, it's possible to lose track of time on a truly unprecedented scale inside a transdimensional bar, which has more rooms than fit inside the building, situated in a pocket of looping spacetime at the end of the universe. Their system clock tells them it's 7:31 pm on Monday, July 12, 2077, 67 hours after they entered the building; they're certain that's not accurate.

As soon as they step near the Bar, an old-fashioned wooden box materialises on the counter with a note indicating that it's from Khadgar and passing along his warning about its reliability. It contains a mysterious mechanical device covered in levers and dials, plus a whimsical lime-green reptile-shaped bag to carry it in. The latter is apparently from Bar herself, since it's made entirely from synthetic fabrics that really don't mesh with the level of technology suggested by the rest of the gift.

"What does this item do?" A tinny, synthesized, childlike voice from the unidentified machine repeats the omnicode sentence in English after they say it. They pause and tilt their head at it, Ganymede mimicking the motion. "I see."

Now how are they going to carry it? The box fades away once they've taken the translator and the bag out of it, and they manage to get the device into the bag without knocking any of the levers out of place, but the straps won't fit around their shoulder armour-- oh, it has handy little quick-release buckles. Well, that makes things easier. They undo the straps and redo them so the bag hangs from their right shoulder joint.

After a moment's pause, they whistle a request to the Bar, which the helpful device translates as "May I have my T-Minus client?" in the same tinny voice. That goes into the lizard bag as well.

[OOC: Open until it scrolls.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The engineering nerd that exists somewhere deep(-ish) within Yamato is freaking out right now. He's never seen a robot that wasn't either a) Actually a Digimon, and therefore not a robot at all, or b) Cisco's robot, under the control of a metahuman, literally trying to murder him to double death.

"That's a pretty cool looking device," he remarks as he wanders over, gesturing with his chin at the translator. "Is it some kind of translation device?"

Bastion answers with an affirmative trill, which the device translates as "It appears so."

Ganymede lands on one of the levers sticking out of the bag to get a good look at the thing. Gotta inspect it. For safety.

"Pretty useful, especially if the bar's translation field doesn't work for you."

Yamato's gaze flicks over to Ganymede, then back to Bastion's ... well, sort of face. Face thing. Face-oid area.

"Cute bird. Is it yours?"

Faceplate, anyway. They look back at Yamato with their big blue rectangular eyelight.

"The translation field works over a digital connection, but it doesn't shift the message into audio for listeners unequipped with electronic transceivers," Bastion elaborates, with the gnomish auto-translator converting that from what sounds a lot like a telephone's dial tone followed by the three rising notes of a failed call.

"He's my friend." They wouldn't exactly say Ganymede belongs to them, but they're definitely the reason he's in the bar today.

"I guess that makes sense. It translates the words but not the voice," Yamato says, giving Bastion a quick nod.

He glances over at Ganymede again, smiling a little. "He seems like a good friend. Very diligent about thoroughly examining that bag, too."

Ganymede chirps. This is a satisafctory bag, though it is disappointingly lacking in contraband snacks. It passes the inspection.

"His name is Ganymede," Bastion says with a fond boop.

"Nice to meet you, Ganymede," Yamato says to the bird.

To Bastion, he adds: "I'm Yamato. Yamato Ishida. It's nice to meet you, also."

Ganymede chirps a few notes back at Yamato, possibly by way of greeting.

"I'm a SST Laboratories E54 Bastion unit. Most people call me Bastion or E54. It's nice to meet you too, Yamato."

Yamato has a vague memory of somebody mentioning a Bastion unit, in less than positive terms, but this robot seems perfectly pleasant.

"Bastion works," he says, offering them a smile. "Have you been coming here long?"

Pleasant, but heavily armed. There's no mistaking them for anything other than a battlefield model, with the large multi-barrelled gun attached to their back and the smaller one at the end of their right arm. Though, having said that, their intrinsic capacity for destruction doesn't really set them apart in Milliways; it's just more obvious than it is for many of their human or human-shaped counterparts.

They wave at him, and beep a cheerful fanfare.

"About three months of my time but closer to a year and a half in Bar time. The amount I've experienced is between the two." It's hard to put a more precise number on something so inconsistent.

Being positively lined with weapons is a fairly normal thing for Digimon -- and even moreso for Machine-type Digimon. Yamato is, at this point, used to seeing people covered in weapons.

"That sounds familiar. I started coming here when I was a kid, but some of the visits in my past are in this place's future, so actually figuring out how long I've spent here is next to impossible."

"Once I went outdoors for an hour and when I returned three weeks had passed inside the building," Bastion says, the gnomish device translating a descending whistle and a short chirp.

"That, at least, hasn't ever happened to me," Yamato says, with a little bit of a chuckle. "Time seems to stay relatively stable no matter what part of the bar I'm in."

"Do you remember what happens here in the future?" Bastion asks, curious what that would be like.

"No, no. Not clearly, at any rate," Yamato says. "It's all kind of blurry."

Gaster smiles. He hasn't seen Bastion in a while. He glides over to greet them.

"Hello, there, Bastion," he says. Then he spies the device they have with them. "What's that you have there?"

"Bweeeip," says Bastion. "A translation device," says the thing in the bag.

"Hello, Dr. Gaster. How have you been?" For him the translation isn't necessary since Gaster can intercept the omnicode transmission with his aura - or something like that, they're not entirely sure how it works on his end - but it might make the conversation easier to follow. Also they're not sure where the device's off switch is and can't be bothered to look right now.

Something to that degree, yes. Gaster's laptop can run a translation filter for Bastion's transmissions.

"I've been alright. Still adjusting to being solid again. In and out of the void."

Gaster inspects the device. "How interesting. How did you come by it?"

Bastion cocks their head slightly. "You went back in the void? I'm glad you were able to get out again."

"I met a human whose personal translation magic worked on omnicode, but poorly, and he offered to craft a better solution." They were kind of expecting it to be a spell but this is way better.

"How interesting. I've never heard of translation magic before." Not that it was needed in the Underground.

"Yes, the Bar is kind enough to find me after too long. And the accelerator keeps my form and memories stable while I'm there."

"My world doesn't have magic so it's all new to me," Bastion says with a shrug of their shoulders that lightly jostles the translation machine; there's a muffled clunk as it bumps against their back.

They make a relieved whirr, which the device translates into "That's good to hear. I'm glad its effects carry over to your world."

Edited (markup accident) 2019-10-12 07:33 (UTC)

Gaster nods, a bit absently. He's still looking at the device. "Yes, it was a bit strange at first, meeting people who had never used it."

He smiles. "Bar seems to know not to leave me there for too long."