riverview | [video | un: urtv.668]

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[video | un: urtv.668]

[the video comes on with Citrine looking at the camera as she begins walking outside. the picture's a bit shaky, but she figures it's better to make this introduction quick instead of getting tangled up in individual explanations later. for all its familiar technology, this place sure has the worst housing system for its newcomers.]

Since I have no other reliable way of addressing all of you at once...

To the inhabitants of floor six in communal housing: This is just to let you all know that I will be spending most of my time at work or scouting the outside, so we are not likely to see each other very often. Don't take it personally if I don't socialize with you.

[she stops in her tracks and hesitates a bit before softening her tone slightly. she knows better than to be rude right off the bat, after all.]

If you require anything of me, however, feel free to reach out to me via the network. I will see what can be done.

[still, the thought of sharing living space with a group of strangers (or almost-strangers, which adds a whole new level of strange to this situation) makes her grimace for a second and she can't help but add the last bit under her breath.]

People better have the decency to leave my space untouched while I'm out or else...

[she turns the video off, with just the audio on for the last part]

Citrine out.

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[Business as usual is how he's felt being here. It was similar to how things were toward the end, the prophets trying to fix things, the Powers themselves trying to fix things when they went haywire. Thylas, when it was his own fault and an accident. Not in any suspicious way, thinking it was too similar to be a different place. No, Ed had Attollo as a buffer between worlds and thinking he was in Purg still when he wasn't? Been there, done that, not naive enough to do it again. Even though Attollo hardly had so many recognizable faces he did attribute that to coincidence more than anything. It made sense in a way, to him. That people were labeled sinners and pulled into Purg would also be the types to feel an unease in their worlds, the burdens of those sins weighing on them in a way that might cause feelings of displacement. It was only a theory though, more a humorous mental note than a concept he thought seriously about. At least, being from a reality that lacked any sort of similar technology, Attollo also gave him the comfort with his own communicator to get through here with ease. It functioned enough like a phone to suffice.]

It is. We don't really get a break here.

[He almost says unlike back there, but he stops himself. She wouldn't really get it anyway, if she wasn't familiar.]

There's also a weekly festival every month, down time is a rare luxury in this place.

[Especially if one had friends or family to drag you to every event.]

I'm not sure, but that might be a good idea.

[Honestly, he was more concerned with doing his own thing and not having it policed by anyone else so proposing something official hadn't even occurred to him if it didn't already exist. Which, in this place, it probably did.]

There's a public record of who has left through the portal, I've been keeping track of that because apparently anyone who leaves does so willingly, no matter what they say about their preferences before disappearing. Otherwise, I've been keeping track of things myself where I can, anything I can't find answers to on my own I've researched-

[A pause before he offers a sigh.]

Some of that research was lost in a fire in August, the whole communal building practically went up in flames. I wasn't around so I couldn't recover anything. We're rebuilding, though.

[Festivals? Really? She almost grimaces at the prospect of wasting time with such trifling things, but then again, it makes sense, she supposes, considering this place is much more inhabitable than Purgatorium, even with the dangers surrounding the city center. Still, she knows she won't be celebrating if she can find more important things to do. Having orientation staff assign work to her from the beginning is a blessing.]

That fire... was it caused by someone living here or did it...

[How to say this in a way that doesn't make her sound crazy? Did it go up in flames by itself at the whim of a higher power? Or did an extensive drought and heatwave set a building ablaze? After what she's heard so far, it wouldn't be surprising either way. She knows to be prepared for anything now.]

Did it occur without a plausible reason?

[Festivals. Welcome to Ed's personal hell, Citrine. He escaped Purg to wind up on a sex island and then managed to leave there only to spend every month faced with some new party. Also pretend that said week long, not weekly.]

Investigation determined a resident accidentally set their room on fire and it spread.

[Not that Ed would find that crazy, after all he spent far more time in Purg facing the heat waves, droughts and fires that resulted from them than Citrine had.]

We are surrounded by forest and jungle though, an abrupt fire wouldn't be too out of the ordinary if it would ever stop raining here.

[She sounds like she knows a thing or two about sudden fires, but nothing said gives any indication of where she might have had that experience. He doesn't want to think about a drought in this place, unless the wall could protect the city from that level of destruction it was hard to imagine how things would go in such an instance. At least the forest here was safe, so if a fire did start there action could be taken in order to fight it before it got close, the forest fires in Purg were hardly the worst thing about the forest, it wasn't unlikely anyone would have been able to put it out even if they dared to try.]

Ah, so it was human error.

[There is one other thing that sprang to her mind when she asked because she realizes she has been so caught up with wondering about Purg that she didn't even bother to check if any of her siblings somehow wound up here. It wouldn't have been out of question that a fire might be caused by one of their powers. Especially if it was Rubedo somehow overusing his waveform. That careless chipmunk.]

I assume there are people here with certain powers here. It was the norm in my world.

[She is referring to both her home and Purg here, somehow almost feeling like considering Purg 'her world' in this scenario.]

If someone inadvertently misused their powers, it could have caused the fire, so I thought to ask. I guess if investigators found the cause, there is no reason to question it further.

I didn't get the details on the resident.

[Might have been human error, but having a room mate like Garrus could teach a person about assuming anyone here was specifically human. Even his experiences prior to Riverview cast a new light on his interpretation of those in the worlds he was in before.]

Yeah, full power as far as I can tell. It sounds like someone's backfired unexpectedly, from what I've heard of the story anyway. That doesn't seem to happen often here, though.

[Ed still isn't used to having alchemy at full power with less taxation even after all his time away from Purg, so it was worth noting in his mind that abilities were not nerfed here as he had come to acclimate to during his time in Purgatorium.]

Sounds like you're from a pretty interesting world.

[He's honestly curious, he'd never really talked to Citrine about where she came from before or what it was like. Possibly, like Lyle, this new meeting was a chance to do things differently. Not that he expected - knowing Citrine - that even here she would be the social or talkative type. It would take some work, but starting with a common ground such as the desire to research this place was probably a good position to be in.]

Interesting and collapsing.

[She's referring to her original universe here, although who knows, perhaps the nature of Purgatorium was more like her home than she thought. There was that one incident where Gnosis showed up. And that man...]

What I find more interesting is that people seem to have full powers here.

[She pauses there, unsure how to explain. Maybe it's better not to talk about it, even if Ed mentioned having been to a world with similar entities controlling everyone's stay. She's not in the mood to go into a storytelling session explaining her previous strange journey. Not after coming to a place that explains most of their predicament in scientific terms she's familiar with.]

I expected a force field suppressing at least part of our powers considering everyone here has to live together in relative peace. But I guess technology is not advanced enough for that over here.

Sounds familiar.

[He's assuming she means her own world and not Purg here, so figures the similarity is only a coincidence. After all, Riverview took in the displaced, whether a fleeting feeling, death or a collapsing world. Citrine just seemed to fit into all of those categories.]

I've been to a lot of places, having full power is hardly the exception.

[Full power here, full power in Attollo, nerfed power in Purg, no powers in Munich - it was actually more common for everything to be in control of their abilities than not in his experience.]

Maybe those more powerful are suppressed to a point, I just haven't noticed since I'm not. This place is supposed to be a peaceful sanctuary though, so the idea of being controlled like that hardly fits the bill.

[There were gods here, it wasn't impossible to imagine they weren't capable of things they should be. At least some of them should be able to get home if they wanted, in that case, shouldn't they?]

[Ah, yes, she remembers Ed's powers. How could she not? She even had it for a short period of time, not too long ago. This is the best part of ending up in the same housing area as Ed: She knows what to expect from him, powers-wise. But it doesn't make the thing he said less concerning.]

A self-regulated environment with no restraints sounds like a breeding ground for trouble.

[If what orientation staff said is true and people from all kinds of worlds are coming through the portal unregulated, who's to say there won't be conflicts and chaos? On the upside, being here might get more interesting that way. She might as well research what type of powers people have here while she’s at it.]

That said, I suppose I prefer this freedom over being controlled by a higher power again. People seem able to cause conflict with little to no power, too. Wouldn't you agree?

[What was not long ago for her was a lifetime for him, but he has no idea she even knows a thing about alchemy or that she's used it herself. She hasn't given him any reason to put two and two together on that front, yet.]

Every one of these places is a breeding ground for trouble.

[Cynical? Nah. He's not particularly impressed by how "dangerous" this place is, if only because he'd dealt with so many unknown worlds already.]

Yeah, that they do.

[That might sound a little bitter, after all - unlike the Ed she knew - he has memories of having to stop a completely powerless human from invading his own world and trying to destroy it. People were dangerous no matter the environment or their abilities.]

[The bitterness in his voice doesn't escape her when she hears his answer. Every one of them, he says. It makes her glad she's only moved worlds once so far. How frustrating would it become to watch the same mistakes being made by different people in different worlds over and over? It's probably better to be expect it here, too. All the more reason to research both the environment and its people.]

Greed and fear... the cornerstones of humanity's downfall...

[She's murmuring that to herself here. A part of her knows it applies to her, too, but she won't let anyone know about that.]

Anyway, I think I've taken up enough of your time.

[She realizes just how long this conversation has been going. It was not what she expected to be doing when she first turned this device on to make her announcement.]

I can share whatever I can gather on the environment with you if you want.

Greed and fear are human nature.

[It was weird repeating the words someone had used against him, in conversation. Still, it was true. If he'd learned that anywhere it was from Eckhart, there were worlds where humans couldn't be trusted to live peacefully together for the simple reason of fear. His own was a perfect example of the results of humanity's greed. It applies to all of them, every one, and it makes for terrible actions.]

Sure... and I'll keep you updated on any information I find that might be useful.

[He's not sure what she'd consider useful but time would tell.]

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[video | un: urtv.668]

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