hadriel_logs | Event Log: The Beach Episode

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Event Log: The Beach Episode

Who: Everyone!
What: The event log for the transition to our new planet!
Where: The city, which has now been fragmented onto four separate islands.
When: May 27th-June 10th
Warnings: Surf's up! If by 'surf', you mean separation from your friends, weird sea creatures, and cold rainfall.

The sun and the sand and a drink in your hand- well, it all sounded pretty nice when you voted for the island planet, but ultimately what you're getting is a bit less glamorous.

The transition takes place instantaneously, with very little noteworthy shakeup, though those of you who are particularly in-tune with the supernatural may feel a bit dizzied or nauseated by the sudden movement. And that's exactly what it is: for those of you who are outside, the change is fairly noticeable, as in the span of a single blink, what used to be miles of desert is now rocky ocean. The city is simply in one place one moment, and then somewhere entirely new a second later.

And that somewhere new is exciting! The islands have plenty of landscape to explore and weather conditions to adjust to, fish to catch, and- wait, how do you get to the other islands? What if your friends or your home or the bar is on these other islands? Enjoy having to figure out who is where and how you're going to get by with only a small fraction of the city to work off of- hopefully those boats will come sooner rather than later...

► This log covers May 27th-June 10th.
► 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 drown or get eaten by an alien shark, let us know here.

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"They definitely add, uh, something." Perhaps her home is covered in crazy thorns all the time, so this is, like, familiar? Michael is trying not to be rude.

He's slightly familiar with illusion magic, but not enough to know that's what he's looking at. Harlan's thing is snakes, not thorns.

"And yep. Guilty as charged." Now that she brings it up, there... kind of is a disproportionate number of Americans, isn't there?

"I'm gonna guess you're from somewhere that's probably not even on Earth?" That seems to be the divide, actually: America and Not Earth. Apparently the Door doesn't give a shit about other countries. "I'd guess a country, but I haven't heard the same one twice."

Bingo. They're very homey. What a nice comforting appearance, all black and glossy and covered with thorns. If you look carefully, some might even seem to be slick with blood - mostly just to keep people from realizing they can just walk right through them.

"You're right. I hadn't even heard of Earth before I got here. It must have quite a lot of humans on it, though - or maybe the gods just particularly love dragging your kind here to suffer." She smiles, shrugs. It's probably completely by chance. It has become clear to her that the so-called gods have no idea what they're doing, much less how to control the Door.

"I haven't met anyone here from the same place as me, so I doubt the names would mean anything to you."

"My version only has humans. I mean, besides animals and stuff." And apparently ghosts? Or potentially just ghost singular. "And you know, I'm not sure if the level of suffering has actually increased or just, I don't know, stayed the same?"

Is he being cheeky? An attempt is being made, at least. Welcome to conversations with Michael.

"There's at least one version of Earth with elves and dragons and stuff, though. So I guess even out of all the lame Earths, some of us got the even lamer one. Maybe we should all learn magic and go home with it. Rule the world or something."

This part is more obviously a joke, even if it somewhat echoes Caedra's thoughts about mass destruction.

"You should! If you get to keep it. Maybe your world is so terrible that you'll get there and lose any abilities you gained here. But otherwise I bet some world-ruling would be pretty easy."

Which, okay, she seems to be laughing along with the conversation but she's counting on them not being able to take new powers home. Obviously she wants to keep what she has learned here, but that's information. That's different. And anyway she doesn't mind at all if she's a hypocrite.

"I guess now I just have to find people to teach me world-ruling magic." Which actually isn't all that farfetched, but he'd never actually ask Harlan to teach him any of that enchantment stuff.

He doesn't count on being able to take anything with him, either. Apparently, people have come and gone without ever being the wiser. Which means they probably lose everything, and not just the memories of it. Besides, if magic doesn't exist in his world, then it just doesn't. The spells he learned wouldn't do anything if there was no force to power them.

"Sorry, I don't think thorn bushes would really help the conquest."

"No, they probably wouldn't - but I imagine in a world without magic, even the simplest of things might put you far ahead of the rest. If nothing else, you could make easy gold simply by charging for whatever services you could provide."

No offer from her on teaching magic, though. It doesn't help that her knowledge was granted, without involving any actual study. She wouldn't know how to teach most of it even if she wanted to, and the few things she could teach, she has no interest in sharing with the others here. Well, except Hayden, but he has so far made a pretty terrible student, and most of her attempts at instructing him had little to do with magic so far.

"Gold. Right." One more thing to be jealous of in fantasy lands. They have way cooler money. "Unfortunately, most of our currency is, like, imaginary. It's just numbers at the bank." But wow does he not want to try to explain the entire American banking system, so, sidestepping that.

"There are people who already do that stuff, except all the magic is fake. Sleight of hand, you know? People would probably just think whatever I did was smoke and mirrors."

Imaginary money? No, she doesn't really care anyway, but that is definitely one of the more absurd statements she's heard in a while. What's the point of the money, then?

But he seems eager to continue on, and she isn't interested in banking systems anyway so that all works out just fine.

"They might at first, but when it holds up to inspection they might realize you have something special. Or, bring home magic that can't be faked. If world domination is your goal, they won't laugh when you blow up a few heads, will they?"

What indeed, Caedra. What indeed.

"... I mean, there is that standing offer of a million dollars for anybody who can prove they have supernatural powers." Yet another reason he's convinced magic and stuff isn't real in his world. Wouldn't somebody have claimed it by now?

"Exploding heads is kinda messy, though. If I'm that showy, they're gonna send the army after me or something."

He... still thinks she's joking.

"Then aim to learn magic that will let you evade the army. Or control them like puppets," she replies with just enough of a smile to continue to suggest she might be teasing, even though her tone of voice is as casual as one discussing the cloudy sky.

Come on Michael, be creative. Or don't - it would be awfully funny for the one person in a world with magic to be executed once their powers were shown to be too out of hand. Or imprisoned, and kept as a subject of study. What a tragic little end to a life.

Michael is pretty sure not even Harlan could control the entire United States Army, but to be fair, he hasn't seen much of a demonstration of those particular abilities.

"Yeah, don't think that would work out in my favor. Maybe I'll just settle for buying extravagant stuff with illusionary money. And like, hacking peoples' phones and stuff with my mind."

Data theft is a serious crime, Michael.

"Right - well."

The look she gives him is skeptical, to say the least. Buying luxuries, sure, that's a reasonable thing to do. No world domination involved, but she knows the joys of a life full of everything one desires. She can't blame him for wanting that also. How he gets from that to... what, breaking people's phones? That just sounds like general mischief. Perhaps he's a bit dense. Quite a lot of humans seem to be.

"Your world would be wholly unprepared for those particular infractions, wouldn't it. Sounds like fun. I know that there's a rumor that when people go home they forget everything that happened here, but that only applies to the ones who then come back again." Not that she expects this one to actually be able to learn here how to do the things it sounds like he wants to do. Illusions are simple but he doesn't seem likely to catch on quickly.

If he knew what she was thinking, maybe he could claim that seeming dense was some kind of defense mechanism, and the reason that people usually overlook him. But it's not exactly something he does on purpose, so that probably wouldn't be a great excuse.

"It's not just a rumor." Michael hasn't been home, he hasn't forgotten anything himself, but he knows people who have. And it was Rough. "I mean, I guess technically we can't prove that people who stay gone don't remember, but given what we do know, it seems like a pretty good guess. I'd say it's just the brain shielding itself from some kind of cognitive dissonance, like the whole alien abduction hypnosis theory? Actually, you might not know what that is. It's not important. Anyway, it happens to people who know about other worlds to begin with, so that's probably not it."

Good. She's glad that part wasn't important because she had no idea what he had just tried to tell her. She's pinpointed this one as one of those nerdy academics, though, just now, and it explains a lot. He's not dense, he's just unable to see past a very narrow range of focus. It's a creativity problem, not an intelligence problem. At least, according to her snap judgment of someone she's only just barely met.

She shakes her head. "No, I travel between planes frequently, normally. I've never forgotten any part of the experience," she says, leaving out of course the part where she did forget most of her human life. But, details. That's just one of the usual side-effects of being reincarnated in the Abyss, from what she's learned since.

"Which means the limitation on memory is specific to this place. The suiralukki cause it, or the Door, perhaps." She would bet on the Door, if only because those creatures who pretend to be gods seem too incompetent to be able to pull off such a thing as wiping the memories of all who witnessed their location - even if that would be a smart thing to do.

Her snap judgment isn't entirely incorrect, to be fair. There's a reason he's so unobservant, and it isn't purely a result of the distraction in his head. He just gets a little lost in whatever he's doing. Maybe more than a little.

"I'm gonna guess that, um, suiralukki? Is your word for the gods?" He makes an honest attempt at pronouncing that correctly, but he sure doesn't get there.

"I don't think it's them. They barely know how to use the Door, from what I understand. Only one of them really does, and he apparently can't figure out how to send anything back through on purpose. My guess is that it's, I don't know, broken? Like I'm guessing whoever built the thing didn't do it to accidentally drag monsters and weird objects through at random. It probably used to work better than it does now, but something about how it's messed up means you can't make the transition with your memories intact."

"Well, they don't deserve to be called 'gods', do they," she replies, deadpan. Her language's word for common slavers feels both more appropriate and appropriately insulting.

"But you're right, of course, about them not knowing how to use it. That's the information I had gathered as well. I hadn't considered it might be broken, though." It's just speculation of course, but it would make some sense. Hopefully it's not quite as complicated as that, and instead just a problem of a lack of knowledge, which might be uncovered in this new location. Once they obtain a ship, anyway.

"If you're right, if it can be repaired, or better-controlled so that people can come and go and remember what happens in between then that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, doesn't it?"

Yeah, he's not gonna argue that one. People here are pretty divided on the whole "gods" thing, and Michael doesn't care enough about calling them anything in particular. Gods is just easier for him. For much the same reason that it's easier for him right now to avoid this conflict.

"I mean, I guess that 'memory wipe' might be a setting on it." Assuming it's some kind of machine, which is what it always sounds like. "And they just don't know how to turn it off. But if we could figure out how to fix that, yeah, it would be... something." Something either really beneficial or really terrible, depending on who figured it out first.

"Since the people who can travel between worlds regularly have no idea about this place, or about each others' worlds, the Door's probably connected to way more than anything else is. Meaning it could be used as, like, a hub. To basically anywhere."

Caedra probably already knows that, but Michael is a rambler.

"It's hard to have known about this place in particular in advance when there are so many worlds. But it does seem like the Door might make travel between them simpler, you're right about that."

It wouldn't be right to say the concept is an old one; it was only within the past year, after all, that the ability to link material worlds with fragments of the origin stone became known outside of a few isolated groups. Word of Svala Lindgren's research spread like wildfire once she began sending her people to collect the stone shards. But each one links only to one place, and she still doesn't know fully how they work. This Door seems far more flexible - and if she can figure out how to use it, the worlds of the multiverse will crumble to Ironhold's vast armies.

"It's funny, though. If we gain control of the Door, I expect many will simply want to return home. Our captors will be left without hosts again - won't they have to try to stop us?"

"Yeah, I'm guessing that's why they won't let us have access to the thing in the first place. If we figure it out, they're probably in trouble, because most of us are going to leave."

Most everyone except those who have nowhere to go. Which is mostly just the ones who are dead back home.

"And it's not like we could just invite them back with us. That would mean potentially inviting the Null back with us, too. And seeing as how they killed all the gods' other hosts, that's not exactly a great idea." Michael doesn't like to think about this too much, but- "If we figure out the Door before they figure out the Null problem, then it'll probably come down to a fight."

"Right, right. Although I suspect luring the Null along to another world may not go so poorly if the right one is chosen. Aren't there worlds here where people have advanced knowledge of machinery? Just because these fools couldn't figure out a solution doesn't mean other places can't."

In any case, the Null don't seem like that much of a problem to Caedra. It seems they simply want to be left alone, away from the influence of the gods. So, then - kill the gods, gain control of the Door, and everyone is happy. Left in isolation, the Null may well turn to invading other worlds, bent on wiping out emotion-expressing people throughout the multiverse, but it won't be her problem any more.

"I mean... I guess. Probably. If we managed to fight off an invasion, a whole world probably could."

Assuming that whole world had magic or powerful weapons. Hadriel's kind of cheating, like every other person is a wizard or something.

Of course, the invasion force they fought was somewhat smaller than intended, since Fear moved the city before they could all swarm in. A whole world of Null against a whole world of other people? Might be a more even match.

"Exactly. Probably not what anyone really wants to bring home, but it might not be so bad," she says, then pauses a moment in thought before nodding at her own suggestion. Yes, of course she's right.

"And if that world can't, then the next one will, once the Null are weakened. They're only one race, after all, and they can't survive a war of attrition against a multiverse. Are they magical in any way, the Null? Do you know?" She assumes not, with how everyone describes them, but a construct that has some sort of innate ability fused into it isn't unheard of.

That sounds awfully close to the idea of sacrificing an entire world to weaken the Null, but he'll ignore that for now.

"They don't have magic, no. They have laser cutters and devices that make your brain melt out of your ears, but nothing supernatural. They do have a weapon that can affect things like the gods, and spirits, stuff like that. So they're definitely aware of it? But they didn't use any spells."

Look, mortal worlds and their civilizations are cheap and plentiful. Nothing more than pools of resources to drain, burn, or sell. It usually happens at a level well above her, though, even if she speaks as if she's very involved and knows so much about how these things are managed.

"Well, then that makes them very limited, doesn't it? Put them against enough well-prepared war casters, and handling them should be trivial. If our jailers would simply lend themselves toward cooperation, this would all have ended long ago."

"You mean like taking the fight to the Null? It's been suggested before and, yeah, they weren't that into it."

Of course, unless they do grab an army of mages or whatever, they'd be kinda screwed going up against them on their turf.

"At the end of the day, I think they're just scared. All of their choices seem to be playing it safe. Not saying that's a good thing, but it is what it is."

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abyssalarcana - 2018-06-21 17:03 (UTC) - Expand

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