Intro Log: Rock This City

[hadrielmods]

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for January
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: January 10th-14th
Warnings: New folks, rockin' dudes made of rock, and collectible friends!

This time, it's different.

There's no cave, no stone walls looming up around you and overhead, no stifling air or artificial light- not that you'd appreciate it, seeing as to how you've probably never been here before. And still, when you land facefirst on the dirt ground of the colosseum, you may not quite appreciate all the improvements and steps we've had to take to get here- after all, you're still surrounded by strangers in a crumbling city on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere.

Oh, and you're being attacked by Earth Elementals. These creatures are tall, between seven to ten feet, and made of solid rock, capable of punching through all the squishy bits of you- and for whatever reason, they definitely want to start punching. They're incredibly strong and, seeing as to how they're enchanted alive and have no internal organs, they're very difficult to kill.

But don't let that scare you off. For all the collectors in you, you can also find a very special array of beanie babies all scattered at the ground at your feet. Do you know that some of these things will be worth a lot of money someday? Better find the rarest one and stockpile it while you can! You might run into the rainbow crab, the platypus, or the sought-after bald eagle, or many more! Be sure to never take the tag off and never ever let anyone play with them so they don't lose value.

Once you've got your kids' college fund squared away, it's time to start exploring! You can explore the rest of the city! Find a house, a new monster, a project to help with, or simply scavenge for supplies. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers January 10th-14th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► All characters arrive with phones that have network communication and the newbie guide installed.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Comments

[circumitus]

Not everyone is. There are a few people here who have nothing to go back to.

[Like Maketh did. Unlike those that can take comfort in the idea that the ones they love have returned to where they're supposed to, Rey sees it as a literal death sentence for some.

[Much as Rey would like to ignore this, she can't.] Someone who meant the world to me was just sent home. She's dead.

[restinglichface]

Hey, that's fuckin' fair. This place majorly sucks, but I can see why some folks would wanna stick around.

[Death is so very different for Lup and her family, but even then, she can tell how touchy a subject this is for Rey. She's clearly still hurting.] That bites, though. Sounds like you could use the drink more than me. Are you always on shift or do you drink with your patrons sometimes?

crap i thought i'd tagged this.

[circumitus]

[Touchy doesn't even begin to cover it, but that's a given. At least Lup has the decency to get it.

[She snorts.] Can drink whenever. Not like there's anyone to fire me over it.

[That's one of many perks of having your own bar. Rules are for squares.]

[restinglichface]

Fuckin' true. Pop a squat, sis. Kick up your feet and take a break with 'cha girl. We've both been here long enough. Wanna know more about what makes you tick.

[circumitus]

[What an odd way of phrasing. Rey gets the gist of it at least though, and that's what matters.

[Sure, she'll bite. Rey retrieves a bottle of bourbon and takes a seat. She's been on her feet too long, anyway.]

You said "long enough". How long have you been around, exactly?

[restinglichface]

[Now that's quite the question.]

Seven months or so. I popped back home for a half a century so I'm not sure if that resets my counter, but pretty sure it's nearing in on eight months.

[circumitus]

Ah. [Rey isn't going to be one of the ones confused by that concept, because...] It was only a few weeks for me. [Her shoulders slump.] Honestly, that... was more than enough.

Time seems like a weird thing to gauge here.

[restinglichface]

I believe it. [She throws her elbows up on the countertop and plops her chin into her palms.] Poppin' in an' out of time takes a hell of a lot out of a person, no matter how much the actual time is.

How long for you?

[circumitus]

In my case, ended up with a little something more from that last round trip to home and back. [She drinks right out of the bottle like a damned barbarian. Hey, it's her bar and she can do whatever she want.] Though that came in the form of a rebar through the fucking chest.

[The implications of what'll happen if she ever gets sent back home through that Door again are not lost on her and she hates that.]

Mm. Guess it's been over two years now.

[restinglichface]

I'll give you that one. I came back liched up, in all my spooky glory, but I'd take that over a rebar through the chest any day. You win that one, sis.

[And Lup lifts her glass to give a little tip of acknowledgement Rey's way.]

Two years? Dang. Got me beat there too. What's it been like? Any big changes?

[circumitus]

[At that, Rey arches a brow.] "Liched up"?

[It sounds almost like "lynched" to her, but something tells her that isn't what Lup meant.]

Well, we didn't have much shit, for one thing. Came here when it was just Hope, Fear, and Rage, so lots of things were still fucked up. We didn't have a proper bar or hangout until Delight came next, then lost that to an asshole who blew it up and didn't ass himself to fix it. Set this place up on a whim back then. [Rey honestly didn't see herself as a bartender, let alone proprietor of the whole place. But here she is.]

[restinglichface]

I'm a lich. Uh, a spooky magic ghost, I guess puttin' it easy. Had to beg Hope for a brand new body, but if this one dies on me, then my lich form will just rise up out of my corpse an' I'll keep on goin'. It's a long story.

[Not really, but y'know.]

Well dang. I didn't realize it was so bare in the beginning. Smaller crowd, too?

[circumitus]

Ah. Am familiar with those. Long stories, that is.

[God knows she's got plenty of them, herself. But she gets the gist of what Lup is saying.]

Think so. Didn't really keep a head count back then, but there were fewer places to live and the city was a bigger mess, so... [That sure was a thing.]

[restinglichface]

Funny how much shit can change in two years, huh?

That's like... So, elves are stupid long lived. We get seven, eight hundred years depending. The ones that live the longest are the ones who never leave the fuckin' villages. Which never change! You can pop into one three hundred years later and they just look exactly the same! Same buildings, same interior decor, same friggin' faces cause elves live forever. It's like they exist in these fuckin' time bubbles.

But with humans, shit's always movin'. Two years and the whole place can be unrecognizable. It's weird.

[circumitus]

[Rey's brows lift at that number. Hundreds of years? She knew her father -- or, rather, the man who created her and whose blood she shares -- had lived longer than any human should as a result of his immortal cells. Cells that he had so "kindly" donated to Rey's vessels so that she can be the bundle of sunshine she is now. But even he had changed, and Rey had changed, even if it could be considered a terrible change. The concept Lup describes is...

[Well, it's weird. Like she says.]

So... Shit really just stays stagnant for that long? No attempt to build anything new?

[Seriously, what the hell sort of life is that? Not that Rey could say she's accomplished much good with her own longevity, she's at least done what she could here.]

[restinglichface]

Yep. [Lup drags that word out, popping the p.] Elven culture is highkey bullshit.

[It's not something that Lup takes the time to think about much, not since they left. It's so strange to realize that if their world hadn't been destroyed that their family, likely even their parents too, would still be in the same place, doing the same thing, day to day to day into forever.]

But that's why my bro bro and I got the fuck outta dodge. Not that humans have their shit together either, but anything's better than living the same life for nearly a millennium. We got bored with it and ran after twelve years. That was all we could handle.

[circumitus]

No kidding. Hell, even synthetics seem to have an unfortunate penchant for evolving over time.

[Which has been pretty bad news bears for Rey's world. The fact that they've been able to upgrade and manufacture themselves has made things complicated in the last several decades.]

Did anyone ever try to stop you, or bring you back, or did they just... let you two go?

[restinglichface]

Nah, they never wanted us around anyway. I'm sure it was a big boring party when we disappeared. Never saw any of them again.

[And honestly? She's always been fine with that. Fuck 'em.]

Elf twins are like, bad luck in elven culture, I guess. Some bullshit like that. Our parents dropped us off with family and never came back. Then our aunts and uncles just passed us around until we had enough. Life on the road at twelve wasn't exactly a picnic, but anything was better than that. We made the right choice.

Got right the fuck outta crazy elf town.

[circumitus]

[She blinks.]

Bad luck? What the hell sort of superstition is that? Why?

[Maybe it's not too insane. Rey, when she was Subject FREYJA, did murder her "twin brother" almost immediately. Not that she has any conscious idea why she had done that, but. It made things complicated.]

[restinglichface]

[Lup can only shrug at that.] Hell if I know. Sounds mega fake, but whatevs. Doesn't matter now.

Two hundred years later and we're still kickin', so shows 'em just how wrong they were.

[circumitus]

[Two hundred years? Man, who's have thought there'd be so many of those types here. You know, like Rey.]

How'd you make it for that long as a couple of runaways?

[restinglichface]

I mean, eventually we were adults and could do whatever the fuck we wanted. Shit wasn't so bad after we hit a hundred and reached elven adulthood. But before that, I'unno. Luck, I guess. We worked odd jobs on traveling caravans, looked out for each other, kept one another safe from creeps out on the road. Never really had a place to stay. Every time we'd get comfortable, somethin' would happen and we'd have to bolt.