hadriel_logs | Intro Log: Off my chest

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Intro Log: Off my chest

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for April.
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: April 10th-13th
Warnings: Newbies, explosions, and things that are definitely treasure chests and not evil monsters out to get you.

Welcome to your first day in Hadriel! Enjoy your surroundings, meet your fellow travelers, and be sure to start exploring so you can collect as much loot as possible!

On the ground around you may notice bang snaps, scattered haphazardly. Try not to step on any of them, or you might burn your feet! Feel free to gather them up and use these baby fireworks however you see fit; there are dozens strewn about on the ground. Popping them will emit clouds of smoke of various colors, and... well, not much else.

Is there anything else lurking around? Glad you asked! If you look around, you may find a few innocent-looking treasure chests. Which you know, normally means free loot- except, in Hadriel, nothing is quite the way it's advertised of course and the chests are actually dangerous mimics. Mimics- often disguised as treasure chests- are monsters with surprisingly quick movements and gaping maws filled with teeth. They exist to try and fool an unlucky traveler into thinking they've gotten something good... only to lunge at them in their moment of triumph and prove that life is actually terrible and nothing comes for free.

Good luck!

Once you've managed your daring escape from the colosseum, feel free to go explore the rest of the city! Find a house, find a new monster, or simply scavenge for supplies. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers April 10th-13th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well!
► All characters now arrive with phones that have network communication.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Perhaps that's the wrong word. Maketh grits her teeth and resists the urge to grab Rey by the shoulders and shake her. Wrongwrongwrong, don't do that, stop, your hands are shaking again even though they hurt make it stop. Maketh tips her head back until she's sure her voice will come out steady. "You have people who care if you're bleeding."

That... is logic not even Rey can argue against. After all, Glacius and Nick came to help her aid when she had been pinned to the Colosseum ground. They both made sure that she was well enough rather than dumping elsewhere. Certainly there are a few others who would've spared their time and efforts as well, because Rey would have done the same for them. Who knows. It isn't like she has a very healthy experience with friendship.

"Oh," is all that she manages to say at first. She ducks her head, breaking eye contact as she scratches her face in thought. Perhaps a little too much thought.

Simply because she just doesn't think about these things.

Oh. Really? Is that all she has to say?

Maketh snarls a curse under her breath and stands, stripping off her surgical gloves. She's shaking and doesn't really know why, hands trembling, she's gotten Rey's blood on her jacket, it will have to be disinfected. This shouldn't be bothering her at all, she barely knows Rey, has no right to be angry over any of it. Especially not so angry that it hurts to breathe, her hands trembling with the urge to do something foolish. Maketh thinks of the mirror in the bathroom, the one that she just replaced, and has the sudden urge to smash it again. Watch the glass scatter across the floor. She can already hear the sound it would make...

No. Stop. Stop that.

She grabs the whiskey, in the meantime, and stalks into the kitchen to wash her hands. Focus. Remember the protocol. Get rid of the gloves, that's right, put the bottle down on the counter, good job...

At one point Rey could feign being socially inept and pretend like she didn't notice Maketh's emotional state. She could be the stupid robot who didn't understand human emotions. The old Rey would have put on a front, let people make their assumptions and find reasons to hate her. Because she didn't mind so much if she was hated. In fact, she almost encouraged it.

Spending all that time traveling within prison walls, fighting for her life so that she could save others', it has a way of adding a new perspective on things.

Even when I try to do good, I can't ever seem to get it right.

Her hand stops over her mouth. It hasn't even been that long, and she can still feel both Faye's suckerpunches and Faye's kiss. Mostly the kiss, despite the split lip, the swollen eye, and the bruises. She had spent all this time trying not to think about it, and Maketh's words and her silence had Rey thinking about it all over again.

Shit. She's messed up. She really, really messed up. Can't ever get a goddamned good thing right if it smacked her in the face. Figuratively, not literally.

"It wasn't wrong," Rey finally says, turning her head in the direction Maketh had gone to. "The mirror. Thought it was full of shit, but it... wasn't wrong. Not entirely, anyway."

It's relevant. Thinking about someone who matters to her and vice versa, more than anything, is relevant.

The mirror in the bathroom, Maketh thinks for a moment - she wants to break it suddenly, wants to wreck her hands against the shards - but that's not what Rey means. No, she's talking about the mirror that Hope gave them. A taunt or a kindness, it hardly matters. It's not right now.

"That's nice," she mutters. "Are you going to be sensible now?"

She washes her hands, in the meantime.

Not for a moment does Rey kid herself to believe that Maketh's curt response was a surprise. She almost expected it.

"Will try." In contrast to this, she tries to stand up. Fails when the sharp sting hits her chest again, and sits back down over the couch. Know your place. "Am just as good as dead back home, anyway, so. May as well try to get comfortable here."

Or so she assumes. Not because of the impalement, but because of what she can only imagine is going to happen next.

It's almost a relief to be here.

It takes Maketh a moment to compose herself by the sink, hot water running over her hands. She stops before it can hurt. That's not the point of this, it's really not, she just finished explaining that to Rey. The point finally stuck.

She walks back into the living room, whiskey in hand, and sits down with her back against the couch. Rey needs watching. So it's practical. "You're not dying here. I won't allow it."

She's tired, and in too much pain to fight. And somehow the concept of arguing is even more exhausting in nature than combat itself right now. She shakes her head, more at herself than anything else, before Maketh returns and places herself down over the couch.

Rey squints at Maketh's determined response. "You have control issues, don't you?" It's almost a joke.

Death isn't something anyone can just 'not allow' -- Rey has accepted that a long time ago. Her deaths were always inevitable. Though now, she isn't so certain.

Control issues. Really. Maketh huffs, and takes a swing of whiskey. It burns down her throat. "I was an officer once."

Sort of.

"It comes with the territory."

Rey could almost relate, though she was a soldier, not an officer. She was in a position without control.

Still, Maketh is far from the first person to have that sort of attitude. She should be used to it.

"So it would seem." The corner of her cut lip twitches. "Well, no worries. Have no intention of dying here. Even if Hope has some way of bringing people back, somehow."

Maketh pauses, bottle halfway to her mouth. "He does. Did you not...know that?"

She blinks, and nods, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Did. It just seems a little too convenient, that's all." Like it's supposed to make them grateful or something.

Maketh closes her eyes, the whiskey held loosely in her hands. "It's not without pain."

It's many things. But not convenient.

Color Rey curious.

"Has it ever happened to you? Don't trust these people here to put us back together in one piece." She's died plenty of times to be very familiar with the pain.

Maketh keeps her eyes closed, focusing on the feel of the glass in her hands. The weight of it there. "During the wendigo--incident. The process itself...uh. Showed no adverse effect."

...And Rey knew there was a good reason to be suspicious of the food. She had more or less been capable of keeping to herself at the time, save for a couple adverse encounters. Being a living fireball against creatures weakened by fire gave her an upper hand during that incident, though.

"Did you become one of those things or were you killed by one?" That may be a rude question, but her interest knows no bounds.

Maketh keeps her eyes closed. It seems better this way. "I got sick. Had--had to fix it. Got it fixed."

It had to be done. It was the most logical choice. Rey should understand that.

Indeed, she does understand that. In fact, Rey would know what it's like, choosing death over harming others.

"It still bothers you. Would consider that an 'adverse effect'." She scoffs. "These people who call themselves 'gods' are assholes."

Maketh doesn't want to talk about this, actually. It ended already. It's been dealt with. She grits her teeth. "I'm going to kill them."

No one has the right to do this to other people.

Rey starts to lean forward, then stops when a particular pang shoots through her chest. She leans back once again, masking her pain behind a querying look.

"How do you think we'd fair if enough of us staged a mutiny?" she says in a not-so-joking way.

Well. Isn't that just the question of the day?

Maketh opens her eyes slowly, then passes the whiskey over to Rey. It's not the best decision for someone so recently injured, but they're both goddamn adults. "We won't get anywhere until we get control of the Door. None of my plans are viable."

She pauses. "There are -- extreme measures. If it comes to that."

As much as she could blame this sudden rush of thinking on the pain and alcohol, Rey is very serious now. She'll be taking that bottle, though, thank you.

"Wouldn't be so sure about that. We've got numbers, and supposedly they're the ones relying on us for power." She takes a moment to take a long drink of whiskey, fueling her focus. "Besides, was able to orchestrate a jailbreak in a high security prison over forty-five thousand feet in the sky. If we play our cards right, warring against the more problematic gods doesn't sound so unfeasible."

It's hardly the same thing. For one, the warden of the aforementioned prison had been messing with Rey for a long time. But she still survived what one would consider impossible odds. Why is this so different?

"I've only determined one way to physically hurt them," Maketh says softly. It's not a good option. She's almost disgusted for coming up with it in the first place, but she was trained to be a strategist. Look at every angle. Find your opponent's weakness and then exploit it. "Starvation. Deprive them of their food source."

She tips her head back. "If the majority of the people here were incapable of feeling emotion, they would provide no food. Animals panic when they're hungry. An advantage could be gained. Putting the civilians in medically induced comas would create such a situation. But the risk is...great."

They don't have enough doctors to make sure that everyone would survive the process. Surely there would be deaths. And without the gods, Maketh doubts this resurrection could be repeated.

Maketh closes her eyes. "Lobotomization would be the extreme measure. Should it come to that."

Comas and lobotomies? "Those sound like bad ideas," Rey blurts. "Not to mention the possibility that more people can just show up through the Door to give them more power, which may backfire tenfold if we're not careful. Doubt that many people would take being comatose or lobotomized kindly, either."

Rey herself is not warm on the idea. She is a soldier; she gets things done by taking action, not inaction.

As much as she hates to consider these people holding them here as gods, it's difficult to think of their tricks as mere smoke and mirrors as she had initially suspected. No, there is definitely a power to this place that she wasn't so inclined to believe right away.

"There has to be other ways. Hope is the one who's capable of bringing the others back, as well as anyone who dies here. We just need him to cooperate." She huffs. "This is supposed to be a war between him and Fear? We can give them a goddamned war."

Perhaps this is just residue of rage from having been impaled, but Rey doesn't sound like she's giving up on the idea.

"It's a last resort," Maketh says softly. One she's not keen on turning to. It might come to that, in the end, but not just yet. She holds her hand out for the whiskey. "What did you have in mind?"

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