hadriel_logs | Intro Log: Fly, My Pretties!

Entry tags:

Intro Log: Fly, My Pretties!

What: The intro log for May
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: May 10th-14th
Warnings: Flying monkeys! New friends! Prosthetic limbs!

Here in Hadriel, we do introductions right. That means dumping you on the ground of an old Roman-style Colosseum with a bunch of scary monsters and also a bunch of weird shit. Your monster of the day happens to be Winged Monkeys, more commonly known as flying monkeys, from the Wizard of Oz and affiliated stories!

As you may have been able to guess, these creatures can fly and they're rather intelligent- intelligent enough to wield spears and daggers as crude weapons and strong enough to pick someone right up off the ground and fly with them to a perch, where they'll... you know, stab them with their knives and stuff.

Why? We don't know. It's Hadriel.

Just in case you lose a couple of limbs in the process of escaping these critters, we've got you covered. Scattered around the newbies are prosthetic limbs for various body parts. These limbs are all fully functional, even if they look a bit... odd, so if you've lost an arm or two, or a leg, or even a pinkie finger, feel free to grab one and try to figure out how to use it!

Good job dealing with those monkeys! It's kind of a weird thing to be threatening, but clearly someone was afraid of them once. Once you're done, 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 May 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't know about saved...

[But she grins and shrugs, faking a touch of modesty along with the pride of the accomplishment that never actually took place.]

But it's how I ended up working as a sellsword eventually. Realized I was better at that than making nets at the docks.

Well, who knows how many people he could have electrocuted if you hadn't stopped him? And at full strength, without a blade in his chest.

[As far as Avisheh's concerned, the town was saved. Let her live in this fantastical magic world, okay. She's a little jealous her backwater, no-tech city before the Nexus didn't have magic and orcs, just swords and gardens and cults.]

I'm amazed, though. You're much too charming to be a mercenary.

Now, now. Being a charming mercenary means you get paid better for doing the work. They're not exclusive.

[But if the flirting from the doctor had gone somewhat unnoticed before, she's definitely caught on now. Hm. She's not bad. May as well see where things go.]

Tell me, Dr. Razi, do you have a first name?

Doctor.

[She says, with a completely straight face. After a moment, though, she laughs.]

It's Avisheh. I guess you've earned that much, with your thrilling story.

Avisheh? That's pretty. Do you know what it means?

[Idly, she wonders what language the woman is even speaking. Given her interest in language, it's a bit of a shame that this place automatically translates so much. Nuances can be so easily lost. It's why she sticks to Common - as best she can tell, that's what most here speak naturally and likely what the system is translating to. Less of it gets lost that way. And there's less risk the translation will be too literal for these people to make sense of, if she regularly spoke in Abyssal casually.]

It has its origins in the name of a spice plant, "avish", common to the gardens I lived in growing up. It was just a common girls' name in my world of origin, actually. I didn't care much about the meaning when I took it.

[It was a very spur-of-the-moment thing, and then she was just sort of stuck with it. But she needed to give some kind of first name to the refugee services of the Nexus, upon her being spirited away from Tirazis, and a boys' name wouldn't do.]

Oh - you took your own name? I don't know of many cultures in which that's common. But it's nice, I suppose, in its own way. Deciding who you are for yourself, rather than your parents choosing for you. I like it. Even if perhaps for you it didn't mean much.

[It does resonate a little. Caedra had chosen the name she now uses as her surname, deciding to share it with the lord she swore her service to so long ago, before they had become lovers. It holds far more meaning for her than the surname she inherited from her human father, whose face she now can't even remember. Perhaps some day she will change it again. Sticking to one name for too long is dangerous, she has heard.]

[Not quite what she was trying to hint at. She's a little unsure what spelling it out might mean, if Caedra's from a particularly insensitive world on the topic, but she's long past caring about that at this point. Still, she takes a quick sip of cider as a short distraction.]

Well, my parents did choose a name for me. It's less a cultural thing and more the fact that they thought they were naming a young boy.

[She shrugs.]

My name stopped being appropriate at some point, so I took another.

Ah, I see. Well, that also makes plenty of sense.

[No sign of shock or judgment. Tanar'ri change so often throughout their lives that she has long since gotten over any traces of human surprise at such a thing. Caedra has always been female, but she's still young for a creature with a potentially infinite lifespan. Anything could happen.]

I don't often hear of humans making that change, though. Not like elves. They seem very fluid.

[She grins, meaning it as a bit of a joke, though probably one lost on someone who might not have elves at home. Oh well. But it's clear from her phrasing - humans, too, are other. She hasn't counted herself among them for decades.]

[Well, that's good. No shock or judgment is generally how she prefers such things to go.]

It's not so uncommon. Perhaps your humans never shared that part of themselves. It can be very private, especially on certain worlds.

[Like Avisheh's world of origin, which she hasn't called a "home world" since she left it.]

While we're sharing private things, what would you describe yourself as, if not human or elf or orc?

Edited (phrasing) 2018-06-10 05:36 (UTC)

[It's a good point. Caedra can't say she's ever been too close to many humans - though of course there's always the issue of her previous memories being so full of gaps.

The question Avisheh asks, though, is a little too personal for someone she has just met. It's complicated by the fact that a lot of people here think they know so much about her and shout about it to the network like a bunch of shrill old ladies - and that, incidentally, they're often right about some of the things they say. She watches the doctor for a moment as she sips at her drink, studying her face, trying to decide what to say.]

You'll hear a lot of things from people here about what I am. Namely, the word "demon" will come up often. It's not entirely accurate, but it serves well enough.

[There have only been three people here who she has told more to. Three is a good number. Four is too many.]

[Ooh. That's juicy. The term "demon" captures Avisheh's attention immediately, but she's a bit disappointed when it's proven inaccurate. But, that only means there's something more to Caedra than she may appear, and that is just as intriguing.]

Well. People say a lot of things. I think I'll just call you Caedra.

[Avisheh has never much cared about peoples' species -- she was only asking out of curiosity and her earlier assumption that Caedra was human. The black sclera could've been explained away in any number of ways.]

You'd make a very lovely demon, though.

[Ah, now from flirting to being directly hit on. Caedra grins, and brushes a few stray strands of hair aside, tucking them behind an ear. She always enjoys flattery, she can't quite help herself. It has occasionally been hard to come by here, with so many fearing her.]

Mm, would I? Have you ever met one?

[Other than the one presently asking that question. Naturally. Despite the earlier deflection, she knows what she is - but the term still feels a bit too broad, the way mortals use it. They lump in the succubi, the yugolothi, and here it seems there are some who even try to include devils in the term, and the very thought makes her skin crawl with disgust.]

[Good thing Avisheh fears very little.]

No. I've certainly heard of them plenty. Mine were myths, things to blame chaos for. I've been called a demon, myself.

Of course, they just took issue with Disorder. I remain thoroughly human.

[They didn't have a name for Disorder there, in Tirazis, where demons were creatures of the night, bogeymen to keep the good Lord-fearing folk on the straight and narrow and excuse them when they weren't.

A young child living in the gardens with unruly parasites on both legs was enough to bring forth the image of something dark, to recite scripture to finish the job and rid the world of it.]

Aha. The mythologies that are passed on between cultures are always interesting to me. They get us wrong so often. But sometimes they get us right. To embrace chaos is inherent to my kind. I'm glad your myths say that much.

[This, too, is how she knows so many of these material worlds are not so closely linked to the center of things as Arneth. That world has outsiders who come and go with regularity. They know the gods are real, and that the fiends are right next door. What other worlds regard as myth, the mortals of Arneth know are reality. And that reality seems to have diffused throughout the rest of the multiverse in the form of all sorts of stories.]

I'm far removed from that culture by now, since I left that world for another, but something about demons always called to me.

[She knows some version of them must be real somewhere out there in all the worlds, and knew even on the Nexus, but she never had the pleasure of meeting one until now.]

If embracing chaos were the only requirement, I'd be a real demon. What do the myths get wrong?

It varies from world to world, from what I've heard here. Like I said, the term 'demon' isn't always used well, so that causes a lot of confusion. In a lot of worlds they claim that demons aren't real at all, that they only exist as frightening stories for children, or threats to be used by religious figures. I've heard that we all have red skin, horns, wings, and fear symbols of worship, which is awfully funny.

[She could go on. Or she could stop to have a drink. The majority of people she has spoken to here seem to say that her people are myth only - and that's fine. Their ignorance will be their downfall, some day.]

I've never heard the red skin thing. Imagine if you had wings, though.

[She laughs.]

But there was belief in my town of origin that nightfall was the time of demons, and particularly religious types would recite scripture after sunset to keep them at bay.

[There were even some of those religious types among the homeless in the gardens and the Parasitized, as baffling as that was to Avisheh at the time. She'd always had a healthy dose of skepticism to counteract that, and that wasn't an unpopular stance among her fellows either.

When you're a group that is the subject of religious disapproval, it can be difficult to find peace in religion. Still, people persist.]

I vastly prefer fact over fiction, anyway.

[She does hope she'll end up with wings some day. Perhaps when she returns, she'll beg Amo for a pair, since he can grant them without her having to undergo a transformation. She knows he likes her current form, but she does so love wings. They have a certain beauty to them.]

Well, I can tell you that I don't fear scripture, and that I'm quite happy at any time of day or night. But I think the greatest fault in most stories is that they assign certain things of us that must always be true - and as creatures of chaos, that's a silly thing to do.

[If this human is so intent on her flirting, then luring her into privacy will be easy. The question then becomes what to do with her. It becomes harder and harder to ignore the urge to kill with each passing day, and she finds herself briefly fantasizing about ripping the woman's throat out with her teeth - which would be hard to actually accomplish, but such is her hunger after this long dry spell.]

[Fearless Avisheh, meanwhile, is so deeply Into This that she would never imagine it would be a bad idea to get involved with a demon.

After all, Caedra is a creature of chaos, and so is Avisheh.]

So you can be anything at all. Even a charming mercenary from a port town.

Exactly. Or a schoolboy, or the sweet old grandmother who hands out sweets.

[An ability she has demonstrated once or twice here, so she doesn't mind revealing it. Not only is she a near-perfect liar, she can construct near-perfect disguises with her short-term shapeshifting.]

Now I'm going to be paranoid everyone I'm talking to is secretly you.

[But Avisheh says it with a laugh.]

That would be a lot of effort on my part to focus so intently on speaking with you in particular.

[Sounds like wishful thinking, Avisheh. Caedra drains the last of this second drink and nudges the glass aside. It feels nice to be wanted so intently, she won't deny that.]

Not everyone all at once!

[Avisheh didn't realize what that sounded like!]

But you know, you could be any one of them, and I'd never know.

No no, not all at once, I know. So yes, you're right. I could be anyone, anywhere. A fun little game, isn't it?

[Still, a lot of faces to wear just to try and converse with one single person who she has no reason to stalk so intently. Yet, anyway. One never knows what will come next in a place like this.

Caedra reaches for her empty glass, then slips out of her chair.]

I may see you again sooner than you realize.

(no subject)

unnature - 2018-06-11 20:55 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only