voidtreckerexpress | [Open] Escapades With A Mad Genius

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[Open] Escapades With A Mad Genius

Who: Senku Ishigami and anyone who wants to spend time with him.
Where: Various
When: Imagination 1-6
What: Senku apparently has all kinds of things to do pre-mission.
Warnings: One prompt is medical in nature, it's not really graphic.

Kitchen

In the absence of a laboratory, Senku appeared to be using cooking to cope. No, he wasn't on the purple team, meaning he wasn't officially cooking, but it was keeping him busy, and no one really wanted him to have idle hands for too long.

From the time they left the platform, until the night before the mission, he could likely be found in there at least once a day working on one project or another.

The first day, he was busy using the new ingredient of honey to make a caramel on the stove, and he had bunches of cilantro and some limes on the counter in front of him, as well as a water carbonatation machine.

After that, he could be found with a few other projects. In one instance he had lemons, honey and coconut oil in front of him. In another, he appeared to be making some kind of marinade with soy sauce and a variety of spice packets and some kind of meat. In a third, he was slicing ginger root and daikon as thinly as he could.

On Imagination day 5, he'd found his way to a few mangoes which since he didn't wear his SCA on the train very often, he didn't get the reminder that peeling mangoes was a bad idea. He'd barely started the first one when he developed a rash on his hands and at least the skin that could be seen swelled up, including his eyes and lips, thanks to urushiol being present between the peel and the fruit. One might stop at that point and deal with the allergic reaction, but Senku proceeded to continue peeling fruit as though he wasn't immensely uncomfortable.

Spa

Senku will likely check out the spa late in the evening when he couldn't sleep one night. For modesty's sake, at least other people's modesty, he will select the requisite orange swimsuit and sink into the water for a little soak. Notably, when wet, his hair collapses into some semblance of ordinary.

He wasn't interested in a massage, but a soak and a steam wouldn't be out of place.

[OOC: Also available, choose your own adventure. Senku haunts most cars, he doesn't sleep a whole lot and he doesn't usually mind company. You can just add whatever you like - don't be afraid of the pre-planned threads, or you can contact me on Discord: Ammeschan#5385 or

Ammeschan]

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By then, Senku was already pulling meat away from the limbs first, and he used the trick of bending the bone the wrong way so he could cut it away from the main part of the body. He had big pieces of meat set aside on the counter, they were going to have to do a good job cleaning up afterwards.

"Dumplings? Yeah. They're not typically difficult either."

He was nosy though and leaned over to look at what Tidus had before wiping his hands on a towel and summoning a packet for him. "This should be good with it."

He offered him some rosemary they'd picked up at the last stop.

Tidus is working his knife through the peel, a thin slice. He might not seem it, but he liked cooking as a hobby, knew at least how to peel and chop.

But he stops before he really gets into it, seeing what Senku has. He makes a surprised noise, then laughs.

"Where'd you get that? Your personal supply? Or did you buy some from the last mission?"

"Rosemary? This one we bought with the money from the last mission." Senku answered, letting him take it before focusing on what he was doing.

"I made sure to stock up on a bunch of spices. We've used some of them, but not that many, I'm sure the Mentalist won't mind as long as he gets to eat some of this."

"Yeah, that's fine. We've got a few bears, so I'll give you both a few of the tubs. How about that? It's all for the passengers anyway - for missions. 'Specially since it looks like people are keen to be cooking with what we've got in the stocks this month. I'll leave the actual dinners to them."

People really like honey, apparently! Or maybe it's the duck and chicken.

"A good trade." Senku said agreeably. "And if you want me to break down the other ones, I can do that too while this stuff is cooking, it takes awhile. Then you'll just have the meats to do things with."

"Yeah, there's a lot of great ingredients in here now. Daikon and ginger. It's like someone told the train that some Eastern flavours might be nice." Senku observed wryly. He found the pantry lacking.

"I ordered in a few things for me and Gen this time, some wasabi and bonito." He paused.

"Speaking of ordering, did your...personal item come?"

"If we want to get it all done with," Tidus shrugs, agreement in his voice. "Sure-! And you can take some, I guess, if you want to? Actually," if he's offering anything, "you got anything you can do with bear fur? Inigo's still got all of it. He's the one who cut and did all this in the first place."

A gesture out, meaning all the busy work of getting the bears de-furred in the first place, draining the blood. But Inigo had no use for the fur, and Tidus didn't, unless he gave it to the Spider to work with. But who knew what a guy like Senku could do with it? It was always worth asking.

He would ask next about what East meant, as the mess of cultures come out- but then Senku asks what he does next, and-

Tidus looks back down at the carrot he's working through. Peeled, and another picked up to be done.

"...Yeah!" He sounds amazed and awkward at once. "Can't believe it. I guess this train can make anything exist, huh?" A pause. "Did you order your album in the end?"

"Won't turn it down, I'm not afraid of eating bear meat." He grinned. Gen wouldn't mind either, and if there's a couple of bears? It would be fine.

"The fur's great for lining clothes to make it warmer, or even a warm throw to sleep under, or sleeping on when you're on the ground." Senku explained. "What did he do with it, aside from remove it from the bears?"

He could certainly show them how to do it, if they wanted to keep them.

"Yeah, it came, embarrassing pictures and all." Senku confirmed.

"You'll have to ask Inigo that. I've got no clue, I had nothing to do with it." And he definitely didn't have an eye to know what Inigo did with it other than... separate it from the bears!

But as for their photos, Tidus hums. "Yeah, I figured you would. Mine was, uh... more of a surprise. My home's kinda funny. I thought it'd need to attach something to the frame to keep it around. But," he says after a beat, "--it was exactly like I remembered it."

It slows his work some, thinking about it.

"Maybe I will." Senku grinned. If Inigo truly didn't want it, he wouldn't complain, maybe he could get them. He wouldn't mind using the leather he got with the fur to prepare for winter. They hadn't seen winter yet, but that didn't really mean anything, it would come, he was sure of it.

"I don't know why mine is more likely than yours." Senku answered. "In my world's current state all that stuff has disintegrated. It doesn't exist."

"'Cause I knew you'd get it! I got something from a city that hasn't been around for thousand of years." Or did he? Now he isn't so sure, and he smiles some of that - wouldn't it be funny, that he's been worrying about getting something from home when he already did?

"But my city... nothing can exist unless someone dreams it to." Or, well- "Anchors it. Wills it, something like that... or you don't, it disappears."

He speaks thoughtfully, slowly; already committed to not being so secretive, but it's not entirely easy to talk about either, yet. Tidus pauses before he nods his head.

"Maybe if I took it off the train, it'd start to disappear. That might be it. The train might be supporting it."

"Tidus, Tokyo stopped existing precisely 3722 years ago when civilization ended, I'm not sure how that's different." Senku admitted, but then again maybe he didn't understand the dreaming aspect?

"Well, if you want my observation, it might not be the train that anchored it in that case, since you asked for it, maybe it's tied to you." Senku responded.

"Do you know if items that people requested disappeared when they did?" He figured that seemed like a valid question, actually, he hadn't thought about it.

"I wouldn't suggest testing that if you want to keep it. It seems risky, if you think you're right." The points were too expensive to gamble with something that likely meant a lot to Tidus in the context of the conversation they had before.

How to better explain it? He sighs, not out of frustration or any particular emotion. Wanting to mess with his hands, but he already is, so-

"You're talking about time. We already know the train doesn't care about time, right? People come from different points in time - you and Gen do too, right? And there's bigger differences between people. What I'm talking about is..."

He looks about the kitchen for some kind of example. The stove? He points at it with his knife. "Imagine if you didn't have power for that, and you..."

--but does that work? Tidus frowns, aiming the knife down as he tries thinking. Ugh, how can he explain?

"I can't have anything anchor to me," he says slowly.

Senku was quiet as he considered Tidus' words and his hands didn't stop, he was now taking out the insides of the bear, setting them aside.

"I can't say I understand really." Senku said after a few minutes. Hopefully he wasn't bothered, it was just how he got when he was seriously thinking.

"However it worked, it did, at least. Maybe it's anchored to the train. Maybe it's anchored to you even if you think it can't. I'm not sure how your world works, but it's good you have it, right?"

Tidus isn't bothered - not about Senku's reaction. If anyone, he's more bothered about himself, unsure of what to say. Ready to be more honest, but how do you be that when you're not used to it in the first place?

Not about this.

"Yeah," he agrees, as distracted as it sounds. "I think... the train just grabs things and keeps them here. I'm not sure they nee an anchor. They just exist." That he can answer, and even, for what Senku said before- "My girlfriend's... I gave her a blanket from her home. It stayed with me when she left. And some of the books in the library are from passengers that're gone."

Or he knows about one - but for the amount there are, there's probably more.

"The train... really doesn't have trouble getting anything, from anywhere. Or keeping around stuff that shouldn't exist."

When he thinks about it- "I don't know what the train can't get. But," he adds, "you do need to use your own ticket for more personal stuff."

"That's interesting, and encouraging, if people were going to order things for the community, like the popcorn machine, it wouldn't disappear." Senku hummed thoughtfully.

"That's true, I'm sure if I tried to get my photo album with Gen's ticket, I bet it would've told me no." He said after a moment's thought.

"It's all interesting, there's a lot about this system I think we don't understand."

"I was worried about that when I got potions for the mission supplies," he admits, "but nah, it's safe if you're getting it for everyone. I guess it depends if it's on you or not."

Something like that. Tidus isn't too sure, hasn't really tried to keep check.

"Well, I know the train could be doing a lot more to help us, but it's making us pay for it instead." Since the topic's reminded him - as he goes back to actually chopping now, slicing up the carrots - of a certain bizarre point. "We have this potion in Spira, right? Can take a person on the brink of death and put them back in top shape. Only seen two or three of 'em. Ordered them from the shop? We've got a hundred of the things now."

"Of course it could be doing more. It obviously can, or whoever's running this thing, as you see these new cars showing up, obviously whatever magic is working it could be used to make things better." Senku agreed, and he saw the new spa as proof of that.

"It's interesting they offer distractions but care so little about our safety, like providing appropriate medications in the medical car." They had to pay for those, someone had to sacrifice points for what they had.

"Picking and choosing certain foods and only offering small selections for each month." Senku shook his head. "I don't think much of this points system, I don't like it, and it's worse because we don't understand it."

That gets a scoff from Tidus. "You been talking to Roland? He hates the things. Me too, really - what makes people get what points in the first place? Plus, like you said," he cocks his head towards Senku, but he's not stopping in his chopping, moving onto the onions, "it's not giving us what we need. Eighty points for weapons? No potions to quick-buy on the shop? I keep asking," he points out. "Always have. I told it it should be giving us drink bottles and lunchboxes for free... and then it put the lunchboxes up for sale on the shop."

Which is said as dry and unamused as it deserves.

"It's a pain in the ass."

"No, we never talked about this, but I talk to Gen." Senku answered, although he didn't divulge what Gen thought about everything.

"It's grossly overpriced, and honestly, I wouldn't pay for anything I could make myself." Senku paused. "Within reason. I'm lacking a lot of my equipment here, but if I had a set up with a lab and a forge and everything, I wouldn't ever need to order anything."

He huffed. "If we need containers, I can try and look for some clay, make some pottery. It's fragile, sure, but if we're careful, I can make whatever you need. Or even..." He held up a bone. "You planning to use these for anything?"

"They're all yours," Tidus offers, whatever Senku wants to do with it. But there was some upside to the containers. "We managed to cover the lunchbox and containers, thankfully. Piccolo, one of Blue's Team Leads, he can make them with magic. We got him to make two hundred of everything for the missions - maybe we can stick a few somewhere in here," he reasons, a quick glance taken away at the kitchen, but he isn't going to get distracted thinking about it right now.

"But the train doesn't listen. Doesn't matter that Red Team got stuck in a desert with barely any access to water. Terra - were you here for that mission? With the globe fiends?"

That would save time, and he could think of many uses for bones so he vanished them into his arms band. That was nice and easy, for the moment. It would give him options for tools and things later, even containers.

"I honestly hadn't considered needing to bring my own water." Senku admitted with a bit of a frown. "I'm betting they didn't either."

He now had a series of piles of bear meat in larger pieces on the counter and the entrails to one side.

"I've only gone on one mission." He said with a small shake of his head, if one could believe it, he hadn't been there terribly long in the end. He was just a bit of a busybody.

"There's a lot about this that I don't like. I don't know if the train is running things or if it's someone from afar, but every time it offers a new car I kind of wonder what that's about. A distraction."

"It gave us tents." Which by the mirthless tone he's already using- "We got attacked once the globes all over the place turned into fiends. And kept attacking 'til the sun came back out. Then it wanted us travelling across the dessert on foot."

And, as Senku predicted- "With no drink bottles supplied. For a week."

Yeah, he's absolutely glad Black Squad exists, why do you ask.

"I feel like it's the train itself doing this... Nita feels someone in this, and it's listening to feedback post, and us." He sighs, shrugging. Takes the chopping board over to the smaller saucepan to dump them in. They'll need to be filled.

"But if it's the train or somebody else, I don't care. It's picking or choosing what it thinks we need. I ask for stuff for missions, it tries and make us buy lunchboxes? People can't buy drink bottles when they arrive. They can't protect themselves on missions." He makes an exasperated sound, the board put down and a jug grab to put water in.

"I didn't know if it was a trust thing. You know--I'll give you more if you do a good job. Or something." Which is remarkably unfunny. "Or it's just a dumb stupid train. Maybe it's both."

He doesn't like it either way.

"Leaving aside the question of train sentience that we don't agree on, that part doesn't matter so much in context." Senku mused. He took one of the hunks of meat and began cubing it for the stew.

"When you arrive, you can't get anything with points, you rely on everyone else to look out for you." Senku didn't comment on what he thought about that, or what he thought about how that was working.

"It's probably, definitely, a reward. Or it's a carrot." Senku explained. "They offer you something nice so you do what they want you to. Everyone gets points so randomly, it makes no sense at all how it works. Some people get a lot of points, some people don't, and we don't know how to maximize the point output, nor are we particularly well organized, so it leads to people looking out for themselves."

"Yeah..." Really, he didn't like the points at all. Even as someone who got a lot often, it made him feel bad. Why others who put as much work into missions didn't reap the same rewards.

"It doesn't matter how hard you work. I wish I knew what I did to get points." He pauses, so the sound of the water pouring doesn't interrupt him.

"Even the cars are useless. I'd rather we have supplies than a new spa or library." But then, his voice rises with frustration as he remembers then. "--And what was with that? An empty library? It's never left a carriage empty! What a load of bull! And it put the stupid clocks up to a vote."

Ugh! Reason 4858 why he hates this stupid train designed to stress him out!

"People say we should be nicer and understanding to the train -- I don't care. They can do that. I wanna tell it what I think."

He may just be griping at this point...

"I've had a fairly steady stream of points as well." Senku answered. "I have no idea what I'm doing to get them. Gen's done pretty well too." He couldn't help but speak of the pair of them as a team, because that was just how it was.

"I'm sure the spa is nice, but it's utterly useless." He agreed. "And I'm just as vexed as you are about the library, reading books is something I enjoy and there just aren't any." He grumbled a little bit.

"And I've read the non-fiction ones already." He added.

"Well, despite how we live our day to day, we're all prisoners here. We've all been kidnapped from our respective worlds. Talk nice to the train or rail at it, I don't think it gives a shit either way."

He'd never tried to contact the train. "Which is just as well because if I figure out how to break it, I'm going to do that. Partly, because I want to know how it works - okay, a lot of it is because I want to know how it works. I also want to know what happens if we do."

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