Happy Birthday, Senku!

[fun_thementalist]

Who: OTA
Where: Dining Carriage
When: Jelly 4
What: Prompts are under the cut. Create your own top levels! Tag around! Get more points!
Warnings: more cake than the recommended serving size

Birthday Prep! (OTA except Senku)


Setting up food!

Plenty of people have offered to bring a number of treats - cookies, savory dishes, snacks ... Gen was placing a half-sheet cake, decorated with planets and with 'Happy Birthday Senku' written in frosting on the table. He looked quite pleased with himself, and would help lend a hand with other food.


Setting up decorations!

There were roughly a hundred origami stars to fold, which Gen would spend most of his time doing, especially if he didn't have any help. But after, he'd be stringing them up all around the dining car, creating an effect like a starry sky from the ceiling.


Setting up party favors!

Then, of course, there were paper flower crowns to fold. Gen had no idea how many people would end up coming, so he wanted a fair number - any extras could sit in the Arms Band or up his sleeves as part of a surprise to spring on people later. You never knew when you needed a paper flower crown!


Setting up the escape room!

This is really what Gen hoped he'd get the most help with. He only had so many math tricks up his sleeve, and he was very certain that Senku knew them all already. At least Nita would be lending a hand! Otherwise, Gen was sure any room he'd make, Senku would solve in minutes.


BIRTHDAY PARTY

Greetings!

Gen would greet the newcomer with a bright smile and an origami flower crown - placed right on their head! He'd direct them to the food, and let them know of the escape room upstairs. Have a lovely time!

Food!

Cake! Cookies! Popcorn! There's some spicy, savory food that's been made by other passengers, too. But hey, at least take a slice of cake. That's what this party's all about!

Escape Room!

Featuring math, puns, and clever little questions fellow Voidtrain passengers could come up with. Of course, anyone can enter and leave as they'd like, but perhaps if they look particularly stuck on a problem, another person could help them out?

Birthday Boy!

Somewhere in this mess, Senku would be available to chat with. Probably. He's not really expecting a party, or gifts, or even a kind thank you - but all would be appreciated.

Comments

[firewalled]

"Alright, then... I'll keep going..."

He shuffles forward at Nita's instruction, then looks around slowly until...

"Ah!" There's the confetti! "Fuckin' A! That's a win for Team Goranski!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Rich will find the way out a lot simpler than the way in; if he bothers to check with the light again, the walls outright rearrange themselves to provide a straightforward walkway out.

Nita, meanwhile, fistpumps the air in his honor.

"You did it! ... So, how would you rank this, anyway? I'm, ah, not an expert at this sort of thing."

There's a sheepish grin on her face as she says it.

[firewalled]

"Heh, you're asking me? I've never even played one of these things."

Still, if she's asking for an honest answer, he should try to come up with some feedback.

"I was impressed how much you were able to do with what little we have on the train! The puzzles were a lot of fun, but not too challenging for someone at my level. Uh, if I had to pick one thing I didn't like... I guess maybe the beginning Simon Says part wasn't much of a puzzle. Like, memory games like that aren't really based on smarts, I guess? But it was a really small part, so it's not a big deal!"

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita listens intently, nodding intermittently, and gives a wry grin when Rich finishes.

"Yeah, that is valid, though; I'll remember it for next time - now that we know we can have a next time and everything. ... Better watch out, though; I might make it a vocabulary exercise!"

She winks. She is not above teasing possibilities, even as she's taking the criticism seriously.

[firewalled]

"Ugh, nooo! That would be way too much like homework! It wouldn't be fun at all."

Come on, Nita, don't you know better than to incoporate something as cursed as studying?

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita can't help but snicker, as she makes space for Rich coming out of the maze.

"Now come on; I'll need a couple minutes to reset the spells for this part... You wanna watch?"

[firewalled]

"Yeah, sure! I'm curious how you set all this up with so little tech on this train." She must have some sort of ability... but Rich hasn't seemed to catch on yet.

:]

[unfavorableinstigation]

As if in reply, Nita started by putting a hand to the wall and speaking the 'reset' word for the whole function. If Rich aims the green light at them again, he can see the walls fade in and out of solidity, moving back and forth and around. The confetti likewise dissipates.

The Speech still echoed with power, even here - but she's not using much of it for this; she'd designed everything for the escape room to be efficient.

"Gonna need that scorpion back in a bit - unless you want to do that part yourself? I won't mind."

[firewalled]

"W-Woah..." Rich takes a step back, watching as everything seems to revert back to how it was before the escape room even started. It kind of reminds him of something he'd read in a fantasy novel. Just one word, and everything reverberates with power.

He holds out the scorpion to her the moment she asks with a little laugh. "No, that's okay! I'm... I kinda want to see more of whatever you did."

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita grins, non-chalant, as he hands the scrap-scorpion over.

"It's not nearly as impressive with this, though... Back this way."

Meaning back to the table, where Nita teases apart the pieces with both the Speech and her own hands.

[firewalled]

"It's cool enough, though! I mean, I can't do shit like that. Is it magic?"

He doesn't want to guess anything more than that, in case he says something accidentally offensive. He knows enough to know that 'ki' in Trunk's world isn't the same as what it is in his.

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Wizardry," Nita absently corrects - and then, after pausing, bursts out in embarrassed laughter.

"I find myself saying that way too much - but, yeah. That's the crux of it, anyway."

[firewalled]

"Hey, if that's what it's called, I'm not gonna argue with you. Places have different names for stuff. What makes wizardry special, then? If you don't mind me asking."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"It's the language all Life understands - or supposed to be, anyway," Nita replies, as she starts walking back through the rest of the escape room partitions.

"And the language with which the universe was made."

[firewalled]

"Well, that's probably the way Life works in your world, anyways. Or universe. I don't really think there's actual magic in my world."

But that said, there probably aren't malicious supercomputers in Nita's world, either.

[unfavorableinstigation]

"It's an open question, at least for some worlds," Nita admits, putting her hand to an open box and having it fold itself up again.

Be glad Logo turned to the good side, Rich. Things could have gotten much worse.

"But you're probably right; everyone knows their own world best."

Compared to having someone else judge it, anyways...

[firewalled]

"That is true. As much as I think I know my world, I really can only know my experience with it. If there's magic, it just might not be noticable to me. Same as you might not notice stuff that's more familiar in my world."

Thank god she doesn't have that experience!

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nods.

"The worlds are each a lot bigger than they look, too."

Which made the absence of void technology in all of them all the more obnoxious, in retrospect...

"But that makes us having shared frames of reference more important, doesn't it?"

[firewalled]

"You do have a point there... I guess we're both close to the same age. Is that what we're sharing?"

Maybe for now, until he learns a bit more about her, at least. "Or a love of escape rooms, maybe."

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Not sure if it's worth checking the roster, but... maybe?"

The next one, though, gets a smile.

"Puzzles, then. What is your favorite kind, though?"

She didn't need to make whole escape rooms everyday - but something smaller and more specialized, well.

It could be something.

[firewalled]

"Hm, hard to say. I think logic puzzles are my favourite? Ones where you get a list of guidelines, and you have to match stuff from column A to column B based on those guidelines. Do you know about those?"

He remembers his mom used to help him solve them by drawing out the little grid.

[unfavorableinstigation]

"Those are picture puzzles, sort of, right? Or do they do them with words, too?"

Trying to figure out rescencions in the Speech sort of qualified as the latter, once she thought about it - match words to a guideline, try not to use too much enacture and end up changing something or someone you didn't mean to...

[firewalled]

"I've usually seen them with words. It's like, you've got four people, and four drink orders. You know Mr. Smith drinks orange juice, and Ms. Jones hates apple juice. And then you have to match everyone up based on what you know. Does that make sense?"

He's not sure if he's explaining them completely clearly, but surely he still remembers the gist.

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita nods.

"Yup; I'm familiar with those, yeah. Sometimes you only get that much info to work off for other problems, too. Might call it practice, putting it that way."

Assuming (for the most part) that solving the issue wasn't a matter of life and death. *cough*

[firewalled]

"Yeah! You could probably use it as practice for other escape rooms. I don't know, people always like different types of puzzles, I guess. Do you have a favourite?"

He feels a little embarrassed about his own choice, so he'd rather focus on what she would pick.