Imagine: Picto that turns you into an animal shape.
Regular expeditioners can only get one. Pick carefully.
One of the 40s expeditions was full of shapeshifters, and they met Verso. Shared the tech. They died (as expeditioners do), but the tech lives on.
Expedition 33 embarks and an animal shape picto is standard issue. The change lasts for a few minutes--not enough to fly to the monolith, but enough to do something creative. You're supposed to pick your favorite, but there's pressure to optimize. And yet, many picking tiger didn't save them on the beach.
Gustave probably picks a monkey, or something whimsical and useful. Maybe Maelle chooses a bird to fly away and escape her life. Lune opts for something that watches, observes: an owl or a cat. Sciel picks a gorilla or an elephant to make her students laugh. They're at the start their journey, not the end.
On the continent they meet Verso, and he's got three. It's not supposed work that way: one person's body can't handle the chroma. But he waves that away like everything else mysterious about him. He points towards the quarry to the north, then turns into a black dog, and sleeps in that shape for hours.
They don't trust him, but what can they do? They have a mission. Tomorrow comes.
2087
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
