Invisible Parties — 30 of 31

Book - Orgy

orgy is a challenging party in tangle. orgy is north of maying and east of DoubleTwisted. The printed name of orgy is "Ashteroth Karnaim". Understand "club" or "sex" or "fetish" or "kink" or "ashteroth" or "karnaim" as orgy.

[The issue of this room is ]

The description of orgy is "It's sort of a mixture between a hotel lobby and a singles bar, just in terms of how it's laid out; there's a lot of wine-red velvet drapes and abstract erotic photography, just in case anybody was confused about it being a sex club, but really it's not as tacky as that sounds. The light's soft and distributed, and somehow the infographic posters not-so-discreetly positioned all over the place produce a kind of Toulouse-Lautrec feel rather than the sense that you're here to do something akin to buying a house or undergoing major surgery. There's a balcony section above, around which are distributed windowed booths."

the erotic photography is scenery in orgy. The description of erotic photography is "Oh, you know. Black-and-white close-ups at odd angles, of body-parts and activities that are sexy once you turn your head the right way and realise what they are. To the club's credit, there's a pretty decent variety of sexes and body-types." Understand "photo" or "photos" as erotic photography.

the wine-red velvet drapes are an unimplement in orgy. The description of drapes is "They're meant to evoke sensuous decadence, though to you they suggest old-timey cinema."

the balcony is an unimplement in orgy. The description of the balcony is "It's really just a walkway to connect to the second-floor booths, but since it's also a good point for visibility, a good number of people are loitering around up there."

the windowed booths are an unimplement in orgy. Understand "booth" or "window" as windowed booths.

The description of windowed booths is "Each booth is a small room - a little larger than a double bed - separated by from the main room by a door, a window, and a curtain. In about two-thirds of the occupied booths, the curtains are closed; the remaining third might arouse more of your interest given less stressful circumstances."

The threshold of orgy is 2.

The tsadesc of orgy is "You're in a voluminous, ankle-length dressing-gown of padded silk, the sort of thing a leading man might wear at breakfast in a 30s comedy[one of].[p]They may think it's light entertainment to threaten your life and treat your private relationships as the field for a stupid game, but the Rebeccas have at least the basic decency to not drop you naked into a sex club. Which is a shame, really, because that would [i]really[/i] have given you a reason for bloody revenge[or][stopping]."

The listendesc of orgy is "Too loud for conversation: langorous electronica, heavy on the bass end, as if heard through deep waters: over which a husky-voiced woman is crooning extraordinarily dirty things in... man, that's [i]Old Occitan[/i]. OK, that's just showing off."

the club patrons are a crowd in orgy. The description of club patrons is "A variable and polite bunch, mostly mid-twenties to mid-forties. Too ethnically diverse for almost anywhere on Earth; you suspect this is mostly drawn from Upside. The disconnect between those dressed in high fetish gear and those who look as if they're just on a low-key night out is a lot odder than the minority who are just naked.[p]Nobody is [i]quite[/i] naked, though; everyone's right arm contains a variety of coloured metal bracelets."

bracelets are scenery in orgy. The description of bracelets is "Can't be decoration; they're too varied. A code."

[This was, fairly obviously, meant to be a puzzle, but I didn't have time and it didn't really fit in with the tone and pacing of the game anyway.]

The javeinit of orgy is "She's here, but you can't say where. And she might not be here for you."

The javedesc of orgy is "Jave is - you're not sure where, you catch a glimpse of her on the upper level, talking to a man whose face you can't see, but then she's at the bar, hair worn up to show off a collar, but then she turns into profile and it's not her at all, just a girl with a similar jawline. A beautiful boy has exactly her hip-jive mannerism of slipping around someone in a crowd, a generously-built redhead in a vinyl corset has her gentle, private little smirk. She's here, she's imminent, she is just moments away from to coalescing from the crowd."

The javecostume of orgy is "Jave's wearing black silk pyjamas of a vaguely-Chinese cut, and matching slippers. There are bracelets jangling beneath one sleeve."

The rivdesc of orgy is "Rivka Strossi is over by the doors, dressed as a bouncer."

The rivcostume of orgy is "Shades, earpiece, big suit, no-nonsense hair, face impassive as a monument. The other bouncers start out at about twice her weight, but are somehow less imposing."

The rivweapon of orgy is "a set of brass knuckles".

The boozedesc of orgy is "There's a full bar, complete with a craggy, dented mountain of a bartender, but nobody seems to be having more than one or two."

The shortbooze of orgy is "You order a gin and tonic from the bar. They don't skimp on the lime, which is important."

The desolation of orgy is "From outside, very far away, a bell begins to toll, deep and slow. Very matter-of-fact, the patrons set down drinks and curtail embraces, straighten their clothes, and fade into nothing.[p]The lights go out, one by one; the curtains fade to reveal shattered windows and the lifeless amber cut of streetlights. The floor and couches are strewn with fallen plaster. Your bones ache with someone else's nostalgia."

The demise of orgy is "You do not leave, and you do not fade. You don't need food or sleep. It is always night, and it is always a ruin, and you drift aimlessly through the hollow shell of a community that you never fully understood. Forever."

the infographic posters are scenery in orgy. The description of inforgraphic posters is "This one describes the importance of [one of]using prophylactics on shared sex toys[or]phonotactically efficient safewords[or]responding promptly to reports of harrassment[or]appropriate lubrication choices[or]quick-release bondage plans[or]literacy in consent semiotics[or]regular STD screening[or]care and patience in various forms of penetration[at random]."

the closeclue of orgy is "Somehow worked into the decor, a familiar and out-of-place window."

the Masdita window is an unreachable clue. the javeclue of orgy is Masdita window. The description of Masdita window is "Her room in the boarding-house in Masdita was a shoebox - a comfy, clean shoebox, sure, but the one grand thing was this window, old carved wood with little geometric insets around the edges. It was high enough that from the bed all you could see was the sky, broken up by the highest branches of a pepper-tree. On the last week, which neither of you knew was the last week, the week after you abandoned the separate room, you'd lie in bed and watch the morning sun angle across the room. (The mornings were always gloriously sunny in Masdita. Weather like clockwork.) The pepper-tree was popular with songbirds, too early and too loud. You can't remember what any of them sounded like."

Carry out using critic in orgy:

say "Nobody's wearing long sleeves, or else they have the right sleeve rolled. Those bracelets are obviously code for something, which means that they're a language, a script. You scan the room. Here a man holds up a forearm for the perusal of a young couple - brisk apologetic smiles all round, and they part. There two men shake hands, glance down at the wrist, promptly link arms and head for a room. A [i]simple[/i] language, with abundant context and certain things that very clearly have to be encoded. Hardly cryptography; barely even a puzzle.[p]Some of the bracelets have little bands on them, and these exchanges seem to take longer, with gestures at the banded ring: [i]clarify[/i] or [i]with some conditions.[/i] You quickly figure out and select [i]female-identified, seeking women, no groups, no spectators.[/i] There are a bunch so little-used that you can't triangulate, but for that reason they're probably safely ignored. You suspect, too, that there's some implication in the order and position of the bracelets, but that can wait. That leaves an abundant middle ground. Watching the circulation at the tables gives you [i]would prefer to have a conversation first[/i] and - for your purposes, most importantly - the flat bronze armlet that means [i]let's go somewhere else together[/i].[p]That still leaves a huge scope of bracelets that are moderately common but can't be guessed at without perving on their bearers in action, up at the windowed booths. You'd be fine with this, if it weren't for the sense that this is precisely the point at which the Rebeccas would start sneaking in misleading clues for shits and giggles.[p]Well, you're not going to get turned on by anything with [i]them[/i] looking over your shoulder, and this makes watching other people fuck either disturbing or hilarious. You opt for hilarious - [i]this[/i] bracelet obviously means A Rubbish Top But Will Insist On Trying, [i]that[/i] one means Hot Enough That You'll Put Up With My Adolescent Posturing - and you're beginning to feel a little bit bad for being so uncharitable, when Jave slips her arm into yours.[p]'Lets ditch this joint.'";

ruin everything;

Carry out using antinominalist in orgy:

say "This place is built on rules, an intricate, sensitive codification of caution and consent. It's largely sensible stuff articulated as dogma, of the kind necessary when doing heavy construction over a volcano crater. And in another time, another place, another person, you might need that. But for the handful of people who you've truly cared about, the establishment of trust didn't require anything so procedural. You don't need bracelets to figure one another out, and there are always some things that are crushed or obscured by codes.[p]Jave slips from the crowd, tilts your chin up and draws you in for a kiss. It's long, slow and thorough, and your bodies kind of pressure-melt into one another. At length she draws back, eyes locked on yours. 'Let's ditch.'[p]'Shit, I'm going to do [i]such[/i] bad things to you once we get out of here.'[p]";

ruin everything;

Carry out using laughing one in orgy:

say "You hear a laugh that you're sure is hers, but following it leads you back and forth across the club. You suspect that she needs to find you, rather than the other way about."

Carry out using commander in orgy:

say "You briefly consider the possibilities of treating an orgy as an exercise in military command. You're not entirely sure whether the idea is disturbing, arousing or just a kind of category error; regardless, it'd be a distraction."

Carry out using abider in orgy:

say "She can, it's true, manage quite well without you. Or anyone, you suspect. That is not the problem here."

Carry out using warrior in orgy:

say "You do not possess any special expertise in the varieties of violence that are appropriate here."

Carry out using troublemaker in orgy:

say "God, the drama you could wring out of this place if you had a mind to. But... well, it's not so much that you're a good person, per se, it's mostly that the idea of being mixed up in that makes your stomach turn. Oh, sure, and they seem like decent people whom you have no reason to injure, but the determining factor is mostly the gut-dread."

Carry out using forager in orgy:

say "There's a stocked bar. A handful of people are carrying whipped-cream-in-a-can, honey and the like, and one guy has roughly twenty pounds of raw steaks in a grocery bag. You'd hoped for entertaining root vegetables and gourds, but apparently the classics died with the advent of silicone."