hadriel_logs | Event Log: Bad End

Entry tags:

Event Log: Bad End

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Bad End event
Where: All over the city!
When: August 23rd-September 5th
Warnings: Bad futures, awkward conversations, smashed mirrors

You wake up to find a mirror at your bedside - a pretty nice one, too, a silver hand mirror perfect for fixing your hair in. Only when you try to do that, it's not your gorgeous reflection that you see. It's something else - a terrible future, just about as bad as anything you could imagine for yourself.

Maybe you see your loved ones dead on the ground, and you know it's your fault. Maybe you see the goal you've been working so hard for pulled out of your reach forever. Maybe you see someone you've hurt in the past ruining your life. Maybe you see your hot girlfriend leaving you to shack up with your worst enemy. Whatever you see, it really sucks, and you know that it's possible. This future could happen if you make the wrong choices, give in to your worst impulses.

Break the mirror if you want, but you'll see the same vision in any reflective surface in the city. You can't break them all, but you can sure try. And what will you do when you see your best friend's vision - and it features you betraying them?

Seek reassurance, give reassurance, lash out, vow to yourself that you'll never let it turn out that way, sink into the depths of sorrow because you feel like the future you see is inevitable. Whatever you do, it won't take away those visions - not until the event is over.

► This log covers August 23rd-September 5th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you can't handle the idea of your dark future, or maybe you just accidentally slip and fall on a mirror shard, let us know here.

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[The elves of Spire 4, Room 201 have been suspiciously absent for most of the last week, holed up in their shared room with only each other, content to let the rest of the world pass them by until this whole mirror thing was over.

But it didn't end overnight. Or even after the second or third day. Eventually, they both have to return to some semblance of normalcy. Lup can't stand to be cooped up for so long indoors, she needs to stretch her legs, to run and jump and get out some of the restlessness that's built up inside of her limbs. Which is exactly how she stumbles upon Merle while she's out scavenging the shops for clothes, a pair of new heels dangling in her hand.]

Sup, weed grandpa. How's it hangin'?

[ Merle can always relate to a little restlessness. He practically invented it, and Lup's always been a pretty prime restlessness candidate. Some people, well, they're just born to move. Last time he got to thinking about that, the circumstances were way different. The dance that never happened. The offer that tanked. All this mirror stuff is a lot more intimately personal than widely-spread deaths-- maybe he'll get around to asking her to dance again one of these days.

Lup is a welcome distraction, and welcome company on any day. ]

Ten if you're countin' toes, nine if you mean fingers. [ Par for the course. ] But hey, look who's hanging out again! I was startin' to think you went off-grid on me. I know Taako loves his off-grid stuff.

[ merle, who could at any point have knocked on the door to see if they were home: wow it's been forever ]

[Bad jokes are pretty much their thing, so it's no surprise that Lup's mouth twitches into a bright, but small smile. Being away from her brother worries her, more now than ever before after hearing of their extended time apart, but she'd already asked Kravitz to pop by and check up on him, so she's in no rush to get back.]

Well, Taako finally started to smell so... [she lets the sentence trail off, but not before shrugging her shoulders in a 'you know what I mean' kind of way.] Up to anything fun? Need a hand or two? Between us, we'll have nineteen fingers, so that's gotta count for something.

Hey, and two heads! So that puts us at better than one. I like our odds at better than one, sis.

[ It's hard not to worry about the others with this stuff going on. He knows what he sees in the mirror. Who knows what they're all seeing? Heck, it's probably hard for everyone not to worry about everyone else. If in their own unique, potentially absentminded ways.

They all care.

That's a good thing. ]

I've just been lookin' around, mostly. Sometimes you gotta go out to the store when you don't even know what you want! Thought I might be able to find some music or something. Bag of marbles. Whatever the kids are into these days.

[It would certainly make life easy if she could turn off the part of her brain that needed to care so deeply about her friends, but most of the time it manifests itself in good ways. Nights spent together laughing, dunking on each other, with the occasional sentimental moment that just really sticks in their hearts and solidifies the fact they are family.

Lately though, it's just been a lot of quiet worrying. They all suck at comfort so it's seems easier to wallow in worry than to actually sit down and talk their shit out. But that's kind of the IPRE way by now, right?

Lup shoots Merle a thumbs up, just as eager to distract herself with random looting as he is.] Weed and fantasy bitcoins, then. Gotcha.

[ He absolutely laughs.

This coping method is easier for Merle than most other methods. Not thinking about things, not confronting them. People have a million small victories a day! Why not focus on that? Why put it all into the air and ask and open up about things? Why drag his issues out in the open every time he walks past a window?

Made him a shitty husband. Makes him a dad that nothing comes naturally to, always trying to make up for the mistakes caused by his own issues. But why focus on even that?

Finding joy in life, on almost any day, is a joy in itself. Sometimes it's only a convenient front for running away-- and damn if he wasn't good at running away long before he ever got married. ]

Yeah, why not? And we could always use one to get the other if we don't find both! I'm not picky.

[Lup has spent more than enough time focusing on the reflection she'd seen with Taako, the twins clutching at one another and whispering soft reassurances under blankets that neither was alone. It doesn't erase what they'd see whenever they pass by a reflective surface, but it does mean that Lup has zero patience in talking through her feelings about it with anyone else.

This is just what she needs. A mindless, kind of stupid, but ultimately fun distraction. And being with one of her favorite people? That's just a bonus.

Merle's laugh has Lup chuckling too, her grin too bright and wide, just a little more toothy than usual, but her enthusiasm for the adventure is nothing if not earnest.] Let's get looting then, grandpa! While the rest of these dweebs sit inside on this fine day, we'll be rolling in dank kush.

[ In times like these, sometimes earnest enthusiasm is all a person has to bring to the table. Merle's always found that it works wonders. ]

They're gonna be soooo jealous. Just what they get for not tryin' to get a little fresh air! And what's anyone gonna do about it if they find us? Sue us?

[ What's the point of being in the chaotic alignment column if you don't do some random looting once in a while? ]

[Nothing like ignoring the whole problem and going straight to ridiculous shenanigans! It may not magically solve any of the real underlying issues, but damn, they were all getting pretty good at continuously pushing them away!]

Does it really count as fresh air if we're stuck in this closed off cave? Like, does it even have a proper filtration system in place? If someone started a fire, or like, really went down on smoking a shit-ton of weed, would we all just hotbox until we suffocate? I don't think this cave meets OSHA regulations...

[It's bullshit. All of this is bullshit, but Lup's smiling and Merle's as happy as he always is, so it's a good way to put this event to the back of their minds.

Looting is easy when they live in a world where everything is free, but they are going to make out like bandits anyway.]

OSHA'd lose their minds if they got the paperwork on this.

[ He chuckles. ]

I'd say we should test it out and see what happens anyway, but I'm tryin' to keep my death count under like. Seventy. Really settle in with the giant moldy cave.

Seventy, [Lup repeats, with a soft, slightly awed whistle. That's new information. Still, she can talk and loot all at once. Bitcoins and weed are great and all, but she's on the lookout for a new pair of boots.]

I'm guessin' the parlay shit didn't just magically start going better after cycle forty-seven? Can't believe the Hunger didn't get tired of kicking your old ass after that long. It must really have nothing better to do in that whole year leading up to when it finally appears.

Well, I guess. Yeah, it didn't go uphill long-term or anything. Turned out John was a big douchebag, and he liked to end every conversation with murder. I mean, maybe that was just his hook. Killin' my ass as a quirk.

[ Is murder a character trait? Was he so all about it because he wanted to be especially evil or because he didn't get to exist as himself unless he was hanging out with a shirtless dwarf? Nah. He was just a big douchebag. Merle shrugs. ]

But I'll be fair. I was only at fifty-something when we got outta the cycles. Me and the boys tied a few on after we started relic hunting. Got ourselves a few freebies! Before we remembered how many freebies we already had and it got less cool.

[Lup absolutely agrees. John Hunger was just a giant douchebag on all counts.] Somehow I'm not completely surprised that he kept murdering your ass, more questioning why you kept going back for so long. What was the tipping point? He finally admit he didn't like your weird tea? He regift a present from Candlenights?

[Taako's told her a little about the boys grand relic hunting adventure across Faerun and she's at least heard about the awful run in with the twin liches, but the rest is mostly a big ol' mystery.] I always thought death just followed all of us around, but maybe it was just the three of you and the rest of us got sucked in by proximity. I'm not gonna jinx things by saying I'm glad you've slowed your roll here in Hadriel, am I?

[ That all gets a laugh. ]

If anything, we're probably jinxing you by being around! Just going off our track record.

[ People drop like flies when they're around... what dark curse follows the Tres Horny Boys. He wonders if that's weird to say since she's not a lich yet, but it's also already out there. ]

I can fill you in on all the John stuff sometime, if you want. It's nothin' too complicated, though. More like a liiiittle philosophy clash.

Jeezy creezy, what am I sticking around you bums for, then? [Said with her usual grin, as if a little thing like hearing about her dearest friends dying was going to kill this party. Hell nah.] Bringing down my luck score and shit. I really need to get out and met new people. Luckier people. Maybe with a little less apocalypse followin' them around.

[Yeah right.]

Cool, I'd be down. I could make those weird-ass cookies you like and I'll have a glass of red and you can give me the whole John Hunger spiel. Knowing him that much better is gonna make punching that dick's face in all the more satisfying.

[ It's not necessarily a bad picture to paint. Lup punching John in his smug mopey face. ]

Now, Lup. How weird-ass can cookies be if I like 'em so much, huh?

[She'd happily do it for Merle's amusement. And y'know, for all that pent-up rage from being chased all those years, but mostly for Merle.

It's not much of an argument, but Lup laughs, delighted and amused. Merle is the best person to spend time with when shit is going down, because it's fucking impossible to be upset around him.] Don't try and talk your way out of it, man! They are so fucking weird. The texture is like straight up mush.

But whatevs, it's a date. Bitching about the Hunger and chowing down on some nasty ass cookies.

[ Boy he sure loves this elf. ]

You're on! Everyone's gotta get roasted sometime. Even avatars of evil world-eating entities.

I think you mean especially avatars of evil world-eating entities. Besides Taako, there's like no one else better to drag.

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Event Log: Bad End

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