hadriel_logs | Event Log: Is It a Wonderful Life?

Entry tags:

Event Log: Is It a Wonderful Life?

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for Is It A Wonderful Life? event
Where: All over the city
When: Jan 4th-8th
Warnings: None

Throughout the next few days, you may find yourself plagued by visions and dreams of back home. The dreams will be lifelike and difficult to tell apart from reality, as the world will be constructed from what you remember of your world. However, unlike usual dreams, you won't be present, and will find yourself unable to be seen or heard by those around you.

The dreams are vivid reminders of what might happen in a world without you: a world in which you disappeared when coming to Hadriel, a world which desperately needs you back for some reason or another. You may see your parents putting up missing posters, your significant other moving onto their next relationship, or even your hated villain finally taking over the world without you there to stop them.

When the vision leaves, you're back here and nothing about the city has changed. Though maybe you have a different outlook on it now...

► This log covers January 4th-Januray 8th.
► 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 try a weird solution to make it back home, please let us know here.

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"You want to go hunt one of them down?" She nods slowly, considering it. Hadn't Harlan said something about them being communicative? In a simplistic manner, maybe, but there could still be something to gain from the general feelings he said they conveyed.

"I admit to not paying too much attention to how the others encountered them. Were they in the city or outside it?" Being out in the open tundra would make them look like easier targets, but if the things are stealth hunters, they would want cover as well and hesitate to attack in the open. Hm. She thinks it through for a moment, weighing her skills against the little they know of this mysterious enemy, then smiles and looks up at him. "Maybe it doesn't matter. The only way to find out is to try it ourselves, right?"

There you go, about a minute or two of planning is the best she can attempt before it's time to just walk in and wing it.

"Maybe." Law doesn't have his preparations in place to go very far outside the city, but Caedra doesn't have his limitations. Hmm! "As far as I know Harlan-ya found them around one of the temples, so. Inside. It does sound like they're sniffing around suspiciously, but they have to come from somewhere."

And as he said to Harlan, there's enough wildlife of unusual size around that his haki can't distinguish tentacled cephalopods from mammoths at distant range.

"Or they don't come from anywhere and are just around. Maybe they only show themselves when they think they can take the upper hand. Ooh, although - it would be nice to find a race of creatures who are not the Null and yet are antagonistic toward the gods, wouldn't it! A three-way struggle is so much more fun."

Well, at least she's sold herself on the idea of learning more about them. "We just need to draw their attention. I don't know how to do that, but we can always try things until they work. When will you be ready?"

"As long as they are," Law warns, "and don't immediately decide to tar us with the same brush. I suppose the only thing for it is to figure out whether they can even communicate. If not, we're sort of screwed."

He did catch her mention of communicating with spirits or something, but who knows if these bastards are the same thing? Contemplating what he has and what he needs, Law sighs hard again. "At best, the morning. The days are short and the nights are damn cold, I don't want to set out and only get an hour's hike in before we're forced to stop and camp." He gives her a direct look. "Having me along will slow you down, you know."

"I know. But you've proven you're worth dragging along," she sighs, as if he's such a terrible burden, though she allows him a smile in case he had doubts.

"I can avoid them easily, I think. I can certainly avoid the furry ones well enough, and dispatch them with no trouble. But if these are as hard to kill as we've been told, going in pairs makes sense if we want to achieve anything. I don't need you with me to explore, I've done plenty of that on my own - though without any luck - but I want you along if we're going to try and tackle one of these creatures."

Even avoiding them could get difficult, she realizes. She can't teleport or fly or hide invisible forever. If one of them is determined enough, and if it could survive a fireball or a smite with that hardened shell, then she could actually be overwhelmed with some persistence from the creature's part. Better to have someone along who can just dismantle the thing for her. He's useful like that.

He sure is, so that's why the caveat has to be offered first. As long as she knows his limitations, Law is fine going along for the trip for his more useful skills.

"All right. Then, let me get together a few things. We'll set out at dawn." He shakes his head wryly. "Maybe once we get out past the city limits, our heads will clear. I'll take carnivorous mammoths over visions any day."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it. At least the - mammoths, you called them? At least those can be useful. I've heard they are good eating, and the fur isn't very pretty but it looks warm."

Maybe nice enough to try and trim some boots with, or to add to the hems of some of the clothing she has picked up over time. Sewing may not be her finest skill, but there's little else to do here, she can practice.

"That's the best word I have to describe them." He's also slammed them as elephants but ahaha. Sure, whatever. "It's true. Far more meat on them than a rat. I could even excise a leg and leave it to ramble around on the other three and that'd feed me for a few days."

Let's just not end up in a situation that requires slicing open a fresh kill and sheltering in its innards. It's not that cold yet.

Law tips his head up in an acknowledging nod. It's been a while since they openly consulted. Mostly because the last round of godly shenanigans left him uninterested in talking to, well, everyone. "Everything all right, otherwise?"

That's a pretty good image. His skills lend themselves so well to torture, and it's such a shame she doesn't use them more for that purpose. Perhaps there isn't always a place for it here, these people would get so terribly frustrated, but she would just love to see some of them stranded with limbs removed, unable to do anything but scream in terror and pain as they watch their own bones break under force-

Oh well.

"Hm, since when do you worry about me?" she teases, but with a shake of her head her expression returns to a bitter frown at their general surroundings. "Well, I had quite a stock of coffee built up after the Door gave us so much of it, but it seems the gods saw fit to have me suddenly decide I should offer it up to everyone that I normally wouldn't even stand the sight of, much less allow in my home. Now I have all sorts of people thinking I still want to talk to them." Disgusting. Atrocious. And such a waste of coffee.

Give him someone to interrogate and he'll make up for that. Law shrugs. "Just making conversation," he notes despite the irony that both of them know he doesn't need conversation to exist. "That's a shame, though. There's none at the clinic and the only substitute now that Hope is back is the instant shit."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Did they make you nice during all that?"

"Nice. Hm, I wouldn't call it nice. I felt like I wanted to understand them. Like I wanted them to like me. But the funniest thing was that I was still who I am, of course, and yet any mention of, say, killing one or more of them before was met with an equal amount of understanding and acceptance. I think I even convinced one of them to swear her soul to Lord Nisariel."

Which in retrospect is actually really funny. So yes, she's mad at the gods, but more for the loss of her coffee than any other part of it. The rest, she's already over.

"And I distinctly remember hating you! So you got no coffee." Not that he asked for any.

Wow, poor Caedra. He got off lucky compared to that. Law snorts. "Yeah, well. I couldn't be assed to give a shit about you, so maybe not crossing paths during that time was a lucky break. I'll take a passive indifference over actively feeling anything, positive or negative."

"The rest of them ought to be grateful too, they just don't know it. You and I could level this city to dust if we really got in each other's faces." Which is still mostly just funny to her, thinking about it. It would have been the fault of the false gods, clearly! And therefore perhaps the little mortals who whine and cry would have to accept that she hadn't meant to, see. In fact, based on how they had been acting, they might even have cheered her on.

But then they would all die of exposure, probably. Oh, maybe some of the more resourceful ones would build little huts out of the rubble, or dig themselves into the ground, but the rest would die and Hope would have so much work cut out for him.

Don't think he hasn't thought about it! And, in fact smirks a bit as the thought recurs. "We could," he says knowingly. "There but for a quirk of fate, I suppose. Next time we might not be so lucky."

So what if Hope has to work hard? His fault for not reining in Confusion or Love or whoever's at fault this time. Next time. Or the next...

"It's almost like you're looking forward to it," she presses, not sounding at all put off by the idea. "Perhaps all we need is a good excuse, hm?"

If things get too boring, or too stagnant, perhaps. The city could use a shakeup. Could stand to fear her again. She knows that she and Law are well-matched despite their different techniques. He can cause broad damage with a single swipe of his sword, but she can rain down fire on unprotected flesh and bone with little more than a flick of her fingers and a simple incantation. It would be so much fun.

"Until then, though, do you have anywhere you need to be?" she asks, still just as teasing, as she brushes up against his side while they walk. He might be a very welcome distraction, so long as the visions don't plague either of them at an inopportune moment.

"I feel like it's bound to happen sooner or later." Law gives her a quick flash of dry smirk. "If I don't kill you completely, I'll fix you back up. Let's leave Hope out of that equation."

Ah, yes. He wouldn't have hung around and started up a chat if he wasn't coming around to that eventually. "Mm. Well, I do need to prepare for our jaunt," he has to remind her. "But after that, I should be free. And I do think my bedroom could use a little extra body heat sometimes."

"Oh, you won't kill me. Not a chance." Of that she's certain, but if it sounds like she's just goading him on then that's fine too. Banter about a fight to the death? Really just another day, isn't it.

"Go on, then. Get what you think you need. You know how to find me afterward. I would hate for you to freeze to death before we depart, after all."

"Ah, I sure do." Law even offers her his best smug look as he drifts away, deciding to go straight ahead and get that taken care of. True, they may have to worry about sudden visions in the middle of it but at least he'd be able to recover his wits around her easily. She wouldn't ask and he wouldn't explain.

He'll text her later, after a couple of hours as the sun is sinking to the horizon. Between the supplies still cluttering his kitchen after the invasion of Straw Hats and Hearts, taken off the Corazon, and what he manages to find in the shops, that didn't take nearly as long as he expected. And now he's home.

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Event Log: Is It a Wonderful Life?

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