end-of-month catchall

[morganizedchaos]

Who: [Ghost, mostly open post, one closed prompt
Where: Various
When: End of Kazoo - some prompts have specific dates
What: Ghost engages in food-based bribery, shitty piano plunking, and CHORES, MY GOD.
Warnings: Probably safe for now, will mention anything that comes up in headers

Kitchens/Dining car, Kazoo 26-27

CHINESE FOOD IN EXCHANGE FOR LAB CAR VOTES, reads a flimsy paper sign in the dining car, tacked above the coffee machines. (Other requests: maybe.) is scribbled in smaller text underneath. Talk to Ghost (short guy, purple) in kitchens.

Actually in the kitchens... Well, you know how most of the time, people aren't going to use enough of the spices on the train that they'll need to be restocked, just like in a normal kitchen? Yeah, the train's going to have to restock some of that stuff this time. The smell of vinegar-pepper-and-garlic based sauces has overtaken the area around one of the stoves, and there's a fryer with a growing pile of breaded chicken next to it. The next stove over has actual, more traditional sorts of Chinese food rather than the Americanized edition, though given the limitations of the "generic" ingredients of the train (distinctly Western kind of generic), there's a decent amount of substitution going on and the selection is kind of spotty.

Spoons in the sauces occasionally stir themselves as Ghost himself rolls out some kind of dough at the counter across the aisle. There will be dumplings, just like, give him a bit here.

Closed to Murphy -

Are you suspectible to Chinese-food-based bribery? Because I have the ability to produce Chinese food bribes and an investment in getting a goddamn lab space.

Yes, this is just telepathically dropped into whatever Murphy is doing at the time. Deal with it.

Melancholy hours (Kazoo 27, late night)

The piano in the upper floor of the music car is a good place to be melancholy. Thus, the fact that Ghost is currently sitting at the bench, a mug (of tea, thanks) slightly tilted where it's sitting on the sheet music stand over the keyboard.

He's not doing anything with the piano, at least for the first little while he's sitting there. He's scrolling through his phone, with a wistful expression, very definitely not making any attempt to play. It's only after quite a while of sitting that he actually starts plunking away at the keys, with a snort of 'might as well.'

And it very definitely is plunking, in the way of an adult beginner who has a decent idea in their head of what sounds good but absolutely no formal training. And an experimental inclination, judging by some of the kind of awful chords that result. Eventually the piano experiments are abandoned for just the hot chocolate and a dancepop song playing from Ghost's phone, set now in the place of honor (the sheet music stand).

Scrub, Scrub, Scrub (anywhere, any time)

Purple team is set with cleaning.

Ghost, in his own way, has decent prioritization. That prioritization focuses on "the parts of the train people can't normally reach." Ergo, there is currently a brush scrubbing very energetically on a ceiling panel, while Ghost watches below - occasionally flicking the tips of his fingers in time with the brush motion, back-forth-back-forth - with a sudsy bucket. And a CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign for the inevitable dripping.

Wildcard

Anything else leading up to platform goes here.

Comments

[controlsthedie]

"People don't clean the area beyond the cover?" Does nothing collect there? No one thought to clean up high, but a lot of dust and dirt still managed to accumulate. Forgive his skepticism.

He follows to the floor vent, which he had thought was to drain away liquids. "I'm not sure I've seen a tool like you've described. However, I haven't been looking for it specifically either."

There are a lot of tools on the train Thanatos doesn't know the function of.

[morganizedchaos]

"I haven't seen one either. Most people just take the screws out." Does Thanatos know what a screwdriver is? It's one of the most basic mechanical things known to man, but that which is known to man is not always known to gods.

So, for his part, Ghost just bends down to the vent and pulls a rag out of his pocket. "Doesn't have to be anything more than damp," he says, twisting one corner so it will squeeze through the slats. "Just get what you can like this and I'll try to find a screwdriver that fits the plates later." He demonstrates shoving the corner of the rag in between two of the slats and moving it up and down to collect the dust there.

[controlsthedie]

Thanatos is going to nod along and observe, hoping the technological blanks are filled in by example.

"Wait here," Thanatos says before shifting away. He reappears with a bell toll, burst of darkness, and flash of starlight. In his hands are another rag and a butter knife. Wrapping the rag around the blade, Thanatos dips it into the sudsy bucket and then runs it through the slats on the ceiling.

[morganizedchaos]

Ghost raises his eyebrows like 'where else would I be?' in the half a moment before Thanatos vanishes, and is still in mostly the same position when the bell tolls and Thanatos reappears. "That's handy," is all he says about the teleporting. Not sneaky by any means, but handy.

He nods at the butter knife. "Yeah, that'll do it. I need to take some time to see if we've got a screwdriver running around that can get the plates off, but it'll do for now." He can't really do much about the upper vents anyway, not without one hell of a stepladder.

[controlsthedie]

Chthonic gods have an aesthetic to keep up, and... maybe a certain Mother Night was tired of her baby shifting all over the world and tried to make his appearance more noticeable with the bell.

Thanatos continues working on the slats, lowering back to the bucket whenever the rag couldn't clean off more dirt. Some areas of the rag have turned absolutely filthy, and Thanatos has to glance at Ghost as if to ask if he's seeing what he sees.

"There are a number of people who are inventors or scientists. Perhaps they could help find the tool." (Thanatos is probably taking the idea of a screwdriver literally and is thinking of something to ride.)

[morganizedchaos]

"You're talking to one," Ghost says, with a bit of a laugh. He's gone back to scrubbing the ceiling, though in a region where he's not going to risk dripping on Thanatos.

And yeah, he's wincing at that rag when he catches sight of it, every so often. "If you want to abandon that one in the bucket, there's a stack of clean ones by the door at the far end of the car," he says. "I brought extra."

[controlsthedie]

"Ah," Thanatos says in reply to Ghost being a inventor or scientist. Well, then he's likely already met others with similar interests. They tend to be quite vocal in his experience on the train.

"I appreciate that." This particular rag seems to be finished until it gets a thorough wash, so Thanatos lets it sink into the water and goes to get a new rag. The butter knife is wrapped up again, and he continues this overdue work.

[morganizedchaos]

Ghost is outgoing enough, but he doesn't consider the science thing to be so central to his identity as to dominate his conversations. It's more that it's something he can do, rather than something he chose himself.

"No problem," Ghost replies. The scrubbing brush drops into the bucket once Thanatos is safely out of range and swirls around to get the worst of the dirt off - no reason to touch it with his hands unless he's gotta. "I didn't plan on anyone else helping out with this part, so it's not like I did anything special by it."

[controlsthedie]

In no short time, the vent grating is as clean as it's going to get without taking it off and doing a thorough scrubbing. That's one grate out of... how many? Thanatos drops this rag off into the bucket as well, and then he stares at the vent some more.

"... I'll need to see how many additional vents there are on the train. They are probably in this same condition." Which means that the two of them will have their work cut out for the rest of the month and then some.