hadriel_logs | Event Log: Assassin

Entry tags:

Event Log: Assassin

Who: Everyone!
What: The Assassin event
Where: Throughout the city
When: April 15th-23rd
Warnings: Inevitable character death, potential horror and gore and unpleasantness. Please remember to tag for warnings in the header if it things get too bad!

The morning of April 15th in Hadriel is cheerful, with artificial light streaming through your window. Your blankets are warm, jabberjays are shrieking, and you're probably going to experience a murder attempt today.

Maybe it'll be from a stranger, maybe it'll be from a friend, but the bottom line is that everybody is after somebody and nobody is safe (...okay, twelve people are safe, but that's beside the point). Time will only tell when you'll be overcome by that murderous rage and try to kill someone else. The best thing you can probably do at this point is stay calm, keep your head high, and try not to die for the next eight days.

Helpfully, Rage will have restocked her armory for the event, for those of you have yet to arm themselves. Additionally, for a limited time only, the armory will be stocked with bear traps, tripwire (in both 'general wire' and 'barbed wire' flavor), and voice recorders. Use all of them, use none of them, just get on out there and kill each other!

Oh, and one last thing...

► This log covers April 15th-23rd.
► 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!
► Did your assassin catch up to you? Please remember to hit up our death post!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gansey was about an inch away from pointing out this man could, in fact, use the front, in that case.

He knew why he didn't want to, though. If he'd come here for privacy, then he was here for the same reason as Gansey. There was someone he was trying to avoid, either because they'd tried to hurt him or because he'd tried to hurt them. Or both. That probably explained his mood, too, and honestly Gansey couldn't hold that against him.

He looked up at him, studying his face, and then sighed.

"Fine."

He leaned forward, reaching across his desk and pulling his books closer. By the time he finished, he'd cleared around half of the table, which seemed fair to him.

"Perhaps you'll have better luck than I do. I can't read anything in here."

It didn't stop him trying, just in case he ever found something that made sense. But for now, that was just a vague hope. He was here to distract himself; he couldn't really pretend to anything else.

Laurent easily slid into the space Gansey had cleared for him. At least the boy didn't argue. Looking at him, Laurent didn't think it was a fight he could win.

Yet, Laurent was learning there was a lot more to people than just their looks in a place like this.

As he sat, he sighed when the boy continued to speak. He almost told him he wasn't here to socialize, but decided to test out what Gansey had said instead. He reached for the first book, fingers delicately closing over the spine before laying it out before him.

Sure enough...

"I don't know the language." And he speaks so many. His eyes narrow.

"The books are from the locals who lived here before us?"

Gansey watched him, curious.

At the same time, he took in Laurent's style. This man definitely wasn't from modern America. He was trussed up like a Renaissance knight, his clothes held together with so many laces that Gansey couldn't imagine how he did them all himself. Actual nobles would've had servants who did that for them, he knew. He'd read enough books from that period to know the style, although Laurent's wasn't any particular configuration that he recognized.

Which was odd, in itself, because he thought he would recognize most. If he had to put any guess on this, he'd aim towards seventeenth century France, but even that didn't completely fit.

If it was European in some respect, though, it might mean Laurent had languages that Gansey didn't. He lifted his shoulder, a light shrug.

"I think so. Everything here is, from the houses to the stores," he said. "It's a strange thing to me that there's no language barrier between any of us, but this is obscure. I very much doubt you're actually speaking English, for example."

Not modern English, anyway. But that was what he wanted to find out.

"I am speaking Veretian," Laurent answers easily enough.

Yet he sits back, pouring over the puzzle in his head. If they understand all languages... something made them capable of it. Or someone. And if there is only one language they do not understand, then the someone who granted their current understanding doesn't want them to know that one language.

He doesn't have to stretch his mind to guess at who the someone(s) was. Or at why they might try to hide a native language.

"Has anyone asked the gods why we do not know this one language?" He leans forward again, turning to the front of the book to start slowly pouring through it.

Veretian. Well, it wasn't any version of English. Gansey didn't recognize the name.

Laurent seemed sharp enough, though. He'd already moved to the same conclusion as Gansey had, which made Gansey smile, a little.

Christ, maybe he'd been wrong to come here alone. This - puzzling through a problem, talking it through with someone - that was a better distraction than working alone. It always had been, and he should have remembered that.

"I haven't seen Hope since I started working here," he said, and Christ knew he wasn't that likely to ask one of the others. Delight, maybe - but she was new. Their understanding of languages hadn't been provided by her, and he honestly doubted either Rage or Fear had anything to do with it. Hope was his guess. Hope was usually his guess. "But when I did speak to him, I asked him about the past. About the culture that was here before. He wasn't all that willing to speak of them, beyond implying he'd like to bring them back some day. I don't think they want us to know what happened to them.

So, obviously, I'm keen to find out."

Hope.

What ridiculous names the gods carried. Hope. Fear. Rage. Delight. As if any of them were truly these emotions they claimed to be. Did they embody those emotions? Or did they merely feed off a single one? He hadn't met any of them, yet, to ask this question.

Or the other one million questions queueing up.

"Then I will ask Hope. If he doesn't want to tell us, he can at least give us the means of understanding for ourselves." Why doesn't he want to tell them?

Laurent grinds his teeth in frustration. So much limitation put on them in this place. It's not a city. It's not a cave. It is a prison.

"Have you found anything of interest yet?"

At first, Gansey's head shook. He leaned over, though, pushing the book he was reading between them to let the other man see. None of the words were intelligible, though there was a diagram - one that looked like one of the spires they lived in, separated into its various apartments.

"Some have pictures. They tell me what's being talked about, at least. This could be some sort of design plan, or it could be of architectural interest. But that's definitely one of the spires, isn't it?"

He leaned back. Aside from the library books, there was also a small, circular notebook on the table. Its pages were covered with Gansey's eager scribble, and contained the notes he'd made while studying. Every guess he'd had about this place was in that notebook. It was also in his head, though, and it didn't occur him to show the book to Laurent while they were talking.

"I've been trying to find some kind of Rosetta stone. A book that has this language set alongside something I recognize, but so far I've not had that luck.

I can tell you what I've seen, though. How new are you? Were you here before the caves changed?"

"Less than two weeks here," Laurent half answers. He's only half listening. His eyes are pouring over the diagram. It's irrelevant in as far that they're not trying to learn about the architecture of this place. No doubt that that could prove useful somewhere somehow, he's certain, but he doubts it holds keys to unlocking the mysteries of this place.

But it might hold other keys.

A 'rosetta stone,' as Gansey had called it. Not this particular one.

"We need to look for patterns first.

Have you mapped the language? Every letter you come across?" He's almost forgotten Gansey was about to start on his own information dump.

Gansey paused, caught off guard by the suggestion. He struggled enough with the kind of dead languages he did have a key for. He wasn't useless at them, but even with Latin - the best of his efforts - he'd never had Ronan's natural flair. All of that was hard work for Gansey.

He frowned, leaning forward.

"No," he admitted, and then paused. "But we can't even be certain they're letters, really. They could be symbolic, representing whole words instead of parts of words. And they may not be read left to right, but right to left, or even vertically. There's plenty of examples of that on Earth."

But still. It could be a starting point. He looked at Laurent, curious.

"We could try, though. Is this something you've done before?"

"I'm sure there are.

We should still be mapping the language, however it functions."

'We'? Laurent pauses briefly at that. He looks up at Gansey for the first time since he's sat down, narrowing his eyes at him. How easily they'd fallen into step. Laurent hadn't intended that. In fact, he wished the boy would leave actually. Yet the more they talked, the more they flowed.

"It's not. But you can't make a key if you haven't mapped the language," Laurent says coolly.

"Who are you?

For a long time, Gansey had worked entirely alone. His research had been his own before he'd found Malory to help, and after he'd left, it had been his own again. It was notable, therefore, that in the two years he'd been living in Henrietta, he'd gotten so used to working with others. It felt natural to him now, working as part of a team.

Even with someone he didn't know. He smiled at the question.

"You're right, of course. It's worth doing. I'm Gansey."

Which was one of his three names, but as this was not a place where the others had to mean anything, he didn't offer them. He lifted his eyebrows.

"Who are you? I've never heard of Veretian, you know. I'm guessing you aren't from Earth at all.

The boy- Gansey. Gansey smiled at him. Laurent didn't relax at that smile. He had intended to work entirely in silence. Yet the information Gansey had volunteered lent to more questions. And when voiced allowed, it had seemed natural to continue talking the problems back and forth.

It probably was more natural to do so. That didn't mean Laurent was inclined to do so.

"Laurent of Vere. That is the country I am from. I am from a world, but Earth is not a term I know. I've realized I'm not from the same world as most here," he continues carefully. Gansey is no threat. That's not really the problem he's wary of right now, though.

"How long have you been here?"

Laurent's attitude had relaxed a little, since they began this. Not by much, in fairness, but enough that he seemed cold rather than irritable. Gansey could live with cold, particularly when it came hand in hand with intelligence.

And it still made for a far better distraction than a pile of books he couldn't read. He managed to keep smiling.

"Two months, more or less," he said, and then inclined his head towards the window. "Not that there's actually a moon we can see, but that's my guess. My friends have been here for longer."

Some of them, anyway. Noah, Adam and Ronan. Not Blue.

He couldn't allow his thoughts to spread to Blue. By sheer force of will, he pushed that thought down and locked it away. No. He would concentrate on Laurent. That was far easier.

"When they came, there were only two gods. Now there are four. When I spoke to Hope, he said he wanted to bring back the others, but lacks the strength to do so. That's why he needs us. He's also the one who provides the food we can find here, and the clothes. Probably the air and light, too. There's no other obvious place it comes from, after all."

At least the conversation has moved off of him.

To anyone else, the conversation would be innocent and easy enough. For Laurent, he's not here to make friends. When they leave, he will never see these people again. He has no particular interest in bonding with them. He'll leave that to Damen to do. What he needs is to keep focus on finding a way home.

Which, so far, seems to amount to go through the gods.

"I find it interesting that Hope can raise gods but he can't return us home with this power," Laurent ponders over as he leans back in the chair.

He raises his eyes to the ceiling to avoid having to look at Gansey too long. It also helps him focus on what it is the gods are after, then.

Though Laurent wasn't looking at him, Gansey was nodding. He'd thought the same thing - though, of course, he knew it was not really in any of their interests to go home. He spread his hands, while leaning back in his chair.

"They draw their power from us," he said, while a wry tone crept into his voice. "Or from our emotions, more specifically. That's why all of this is happening now."

Gansey's hand flung out in an expansive gesture, taking in the window, and by implication, taking in everything outside of it.

"The anger...the rage, that's everywhere right now. It all comes from them. It's not particularly in Hope's interest to send us home before he's brought back his friends, if that's what he's after."

Gansey reached for his notebook, running his finger over its spine.

"But he also claimed he didn't know how to control the Door. That it works by itself, bringing us in and sometimes sending us out again. He suggested that some of his brethren might know how, and if he restores them, he may be able to send us home once they're back.

Of course, he may have just been trying to make me hopeful."

At least the boy acknowledges that the god is playing on his emotions.

"Or he's gathering his friends and their power again while keeping a ready supply of energy to feed them all and gain power again.

How lucky he can have his friends come as he pleases, but cannot aid us."

Were Hope truly so innocent, then by the first few he should be at least looking for other ways to help the people. He doubts Hope's first instinct is to help a bunch of strangers he doesn't know. IT owuld be to help the fallen gods. To help the people who were native.

Them? No one was looking out for them but themselves.

Gansey nodded. Nothing that Laurent said was wrong, though the truth was, he didn't really want to believe that. He didn't want to think that Hope was so entirely their enemy. He wanted, ironically enough, to have hope in him. Gansey always tended towards more optimism than not.

"He does aid us in some ways," he pointed out. "Fear and Rage have hurt us before, and he's acted to help us. and when we die, he brings us back, despite having an apparently endless supply of people from multiple worlds arriving every month. He doesn't have to do that."

Which does not mean there's not some ulterior motive for why he's doing it. But all the same, he'd brought Noah back to life. He'd brought back the people that Rage turned into cannibals. Gansey wasn't willing to discount all of that out of hand.

"The others...are less reliable. Even Delight, who appears kind enough, bears watching. The drinks she serves at her bar are fascinating, but they take their toll. If you go there, be careful of them."

"What kindly, benevolent, all powerful beings they are," Laurent murmurs as he sifts through the book before him.

They need a cipher soon. So many patterns repeating over and over. He turns each page, loud and crinkling as he does. These books have sat for a decent amount of time. Untouched by anyone who didn't seem to think there was value in a language that couldn't be read.

It could be solved, though. It was just another kind of puzzle.

As he sifts, he turns over what Gansey tells him in his mind.

"They seem to have struck such a convenient balance recently. Two kindly, two cruel-like." He sighs as he closes the book and grabs another. "It's all too... neat on their end."

It was true. Gansey had leaned back in his chair by now, and tapped his fingers against the arm. In his notebook-journal, he copied a few of the 'letters' down, doing his best to recreate their shape in his hand. It wasn't easy.

"I doubt it will stay that way for long," he said, tone thoughtful. He wasn't sure how 'kindly' Hope and Delight really were, either. "I know there are others that they want to resurrect. They asked us to vote, last time. But I don't think they're truly kind or cruel."

He looked up, faintly smiling, and he lifted his shoulders.

"They just want different things from us, that's all. I don't think they care about hurting or helping us. Both sides are using us, it's just that we like feeling hopeful or happy more than we like feeling angry or afraid. They're no more on our side, either way."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event Log: Assassin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject