hadriel_logs | Event Log: It's Aliiiive!

Entry tags:

Event Log: It's Aliiiive!

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the It's Aliiiive! event
Where: All over the city
When: January 17th-25th
Warnings: None

Things just seem a little weird at first - but then, things always seem a little weird in Hadriel. There's probably nothing to worry about, except that you know better, so there probably is. But at first, nothing is out of the ordinary. A creeping sensation on the back of your neck, a feeling of being watched, but isn't that kind of ordinary here?

Then things get weird.

Your coffee cup jerks suddenly, spilling hot coffee all over your lap. Your chair hurls itself over, with you in it. Your favorite jacket constricts, trying to strangle you. What are you going to do? Break your stuff? Run out into the frozen landscape, forsaking all possessions? Try to appease your belongings so they'll love you again? Good luck... hopefully you weren't too attached.

► This log covers January 17-25th.
► 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 get eaten by your nicest pair of pants, please let us know here.

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The first few days of being watched are odd and unsettling, but it's not too unlike Pratt's normal state of being. He rationalizes it as feeling Jacob's eyes on him at all times. Watching him. Hearing him. Owning him.

But then things start to move, and... okay honestly that is weird. He hallucinates sometimes, and he's definitely twitchy enough to see things that aren't there, but he is looking right at these things and they are definitely crawling around. But instead of being terrified, he takes it in stride. He's now crazy enough that he has sentient forks. That's a thing that's happened. Alright then, he can handle this.

|The Range|
Pratt is at the range tending to his targets and maintaining everything. The temperatures are not kind to bowstrings so he has to check on them every few days and thaw them out so they don't snap.

He's being followed by a very angry coffee mug that bounces around after him, bumping into his ankles and trying ineffectually to trip him.

"Not now, I'm working." He shoos it away until he's done with what he's fixing. "Alright. What are you so whiny about anyway?"

He puts his hand in front of it and immediately the mug latches on nomming on his fingers and doing its best to bite them right off. Too bad the mug doesn't have teeth so this is doing nothing. Pratt doesn't seem to mind, stroking it with his thumb as if it's a pet puppy.

|Love's Housing|

"I don't know what you want!!!" Pratt is yelling at a few boxes of things on his porch. "Sunlight? Water? Are you hot? Cold?"

Pratt's pretty upset, running his fingers through his hair as he paces around. Eventually he reaches into the box and pulls out a few squirming spoons spreading them out on the wooden decking of the porch. "What is it???"

He doesn't know how to make them happy, and all his silverware does is wriggle around and try to fling themselves at him. Why is everything mad at him?

Sometimes Sal has trouble distinguishing between "something weird is happening" and "you're hallucinating, take a nap". But after the third time the pencil rolled off the table and practically flew to the other side of the room he was pretty sure it wasn't just him. Naturally, being the ghost enthusiast that he is, he powered up his Super Gear Boy and checked around the apartment.

And got nothing.

That's fine. That doesn't always work. Eventually, things get really weird, though. Even weird for Sal. Edward's little homes and castles constructed from bottles and cans begin to shake, at some point scaring the little butterfly creature from his resting spot and on to Sal's head. Then there was the refrigerator door that slammed open as Sal walked by and knocked him to the ground. Not to mention the chair that tried to trample him and finish the job!

It was probably time to get some fresh air.

Sal bundled up the best he could, still too tired lately to bother sticking his hair into their usual pigtails, tucked Edward under his jacket where he was nice and warm, and headed out. He wasn't sure where he was going to go — the Speakyeasy, perhaps? Maybe go and see if Tyki was at his shop? Either way, he doesn't get very far before he feels an odd and uncomfortable pressure on his face...and the back of his head. As if the straps of his mask were...actually, that's exactly what it is. The straps of his mask were so tight all of a sudden, the metal buckles digging into his skull.

"What the hell?" He reaches behind his head to try and loosen the straps but that only makes them tighten more, causing him to hiss and wrestle, probably looking like a really small, crazy masked kid struggling with seemingly nothing. "What the — ow!"

So now he's just in the middle of wherever, his hands behind his head as he spins around like that's going to help him, stuck between wanting to get the mask of and absolutely not wanting to get the mask off. Life is hard right now.

Tyki isn't at his shop at the moment. He's out wandering about, stressed and irritated over what's been happening in the city. He's struggled enough with this town and it's insane unpredictability, but this time things have gone too far in his opinion. So he's had himself a drink, and a smoke, and he thinks that a nice walk will clear his mind and help him to feel a bit better about things.

And it was working, until he sees Sal in the distance. And suddenly he's moving incredibly fast, whatever is going on needs to be addressed and quickly.

"Oi, Sal! What is it, lad? What's hurting you?"

He doesn't know exactly what's going on, but the hands on the back of his head make him think there's a possible head injury and that scares him more than he'd like to admit. He's a lot of things but he is not a doctor. And he doesn't know what needs to be done in delicate situations like this.

"Let me help."

Sal spun around when he heard a familiar and welcomed voice! However, he hesitates to say anything for a moment, mostly because he doesn't actually know what to do.

"It's my face — it won't stop tightening. It hurts!" Even as he says that he can almost hear his skull being crushed. Except, that's just the sound of the straps brushing against his ear as they tighten further, catching blue strands of hair in them to add even more pain. Great!

"I can't get it off!" His muffled voice is growing panicky, the anxiety welling up in his chest as something that he feels is part of him effectively becomes a prison.

"Shh, it's alright. I'll get it off for you."

Tyki's heart is racing, it's one thing for random items to cause trouble. His taxidermy monsters are snarling at him in his shop, struggling to get free from the stands they're bolted down onto. But that's annoying, not dangerous. This is an entirely different situation altogether. And if Sal is actually hurt by this stupidity he'll hold the gods accountable. And Tyki is an enemy that they really do not want to have.

"Hold still."

His words are firm, but gentle. He wants to try to get it off as quickly as possible, but without stressing him out more. And he keeps all of his actions as careful as possible, gentle and kind and hopefully somewhat stabilizing.

"I'm going to set you down, and get it off. It won't take long."

Once Sal is on the ground next to him, Tyki's hands start working the straps. It's surprisingly hard to actually get them undone, they're stronger than expected and he's not used to having to battle items. Worse, if he's not fast and careful Sal could get further injured. So finally, he makes the choice to use Choose to sever the strap. He has the supplies to fix it, but getting it off now is the most important thing. And once the straps have been cut he pulls the mask away from Sal's face.

"O—okay." He doesn't want it off. But he wants it off because it's hurting him. He trusts Tyki completely, so it has nothing to do with that, but more that it's his face...therefore he feels apprehensive taking it off around others. But as of right now his face is trying to kill him, so he does as told and sits down carefully and stays as still as he can.

It's as if the mask knows it's being messed with because it instinctively tightens again, forcing another hiss from Sal. However, it doesn't last for long and once the straps are cut the mask is free from his face. Or rather, his face is free from the mask. It flails its now broken straps and buckles wildly as it tries to get away, meanwhile Sal takes in a deep breath and reaches for the back of his head, rubbing at the soreness caused from the buckles.

Somehow he manages to forget his exposed face despite his earlier panic, taking the time to take in deep breaths of the crisp and cold air. He looks up at Tyki in relief, even as the mask continues to struggle, forgetting his scarred face. His lips were marred horribly and there was a section where part of his upper lip was torn completely, but he still manages to portray a grateful smile. His entire face looks like the aftermath of a war zone but there was still a face, just a torn and ragged one. His nose is perhaps the worst, barely there anymore, almost skeletal. Despite it all the smile is unmistakable.

Then he realizes what's happening and his entire face falls. He lowers his head and lets his hair fall over his face, a hand coming up and not even attempting at being subtle, but simply just covering himself from view.

"T-thanks...Tyki."

Tyki smiles warmly at that grateful smile, and he's entirely conflicted. Part of him thinks that Sal has a beautiful face, what a sweet smile, and so much emotion is seen on it. Every scar and bit of twisted flesh tells a story. This is the face of a wonderful, beautiful young man. A survivor. Someone Tyki considers family. And he could never see him as frightening or ugly. Not in the least.

But he hates that face too. Or more, he hates that something happened to mark him that way. To leave him so damaged looking that weaker people would be horrified. Some might scream, even run in fear. Sal is at the age where a young man start seeking out the attentions of partners. This can't make things easy for him. That's especially upsetting to Tyki.

And he wants to slowly kill anyone who might have done this.

"Think nothing of it, lad. I'm glad to help."

Tyki grabs the still writhing mask, and sighs. It's not settling down, and it's not going to be easy to get it back on without it hurting him. He'll have to make something at the shop, give him one of his art project masks to use until this whole ordeal settles down.

"But you'll want a substitute for it, hmm? You don't seem to want me to see you, I'll try to keep looking away."

Tyki stands, and gestures.

"Let's go to my shop and see what we can find there."

It takes Sal a moment, but once it sinks in that Tyki returned the smile first and foremost and barely reacted otherwise he feels something tug and tighten in his chest. It doesn't hurt but it makes him fight back a sudden rush of tears that stream down his damaged cheeks. He hesitantly looks up at Tyki before shakily getting to his feet, sill withdrawing in on himself but hiding less. His hair still hung over half his face but he was no longer staring down at the ground.

Much to his own annoyance, he sniffles and wipes away the witness still building up in his eyes. "You..." 'Didn't look away', he thinks, not because of what he saw but because of Sal's own discomfort. It's a thought that dances around in his mind as he moves besides Tyki, now lowering his head because he was out in the open more than anything.

"Okay. Yeah, um, you don't...I mean it's fine. If you're..." 'Okay with looking at him'? He's not sure how to say that. But he knows that maybe he's not so uncomfortable without his face around Tyki. He's family, after all.

"A replacement would be good." Weird, but good.

"It's whatever suits you, Sal. You look fine to me, but that's not important. In this life, we're not afforded a lot of comfort. So we do what we can to feel happy. I cover my scars with my suits, it's easy that way for me. And I-"

Tyki stops suddenly, not sure of how to proceed. He feels like this is important for them, even if it feels stupid to say so. Even to himself. But he needs to be reassuring without coddling Sal. He's young, but hardly a child. So proceeding isn't as easy as expected. And he wants to tell him something, that he has his own face that people scream in fear that. That marks him as a monster. But how to go about things?

He wishes he were better with people sometimes.

He thinks it's time to share a more dangerous secret with Sal. Now that he's gotten one from him that he wasn't mean to have to begin with. This place kills normal progression of relationships, the gods thrive on conflict and emotions, so things like this happen far too often. And it makes him furious. He's mad that Sal has to be seen this way against his will. He's mad that random items are attacking. And he just feels helpless in a way that's entirely disgusting to him.

"We'll talk more when we're in my shop. Best to get out of the streets, you'll feel more comfortable with another mask on."

The mask is still struggling in Tyki's hands. And Tyki starts back up to the shop, ready to block Sal from anyone's view.

— second spiral, house 1202;
➥ closed to red wine;
( The house makes a fine enough base for them to return to in the evenings, after long days of ~~fighting~~ sparring and slaying monsters, an adequate space in which to sleep and eat. Steak has no complaints about the house they live in, just his housemate.

But then again, when doesn't he have complaints about his housemate?

It's later in the morning when Steak returns from his daily solo training and the bathroom is already occupied by Red Wine and his seemingly never-ending shower, leaving him to stew in sticky sweat and pound on the bathroom door uselessly until, eventually, he gives up and moves back to the kitchen.

Something to restore the body after a hard work-out. That's what he needs. A snack, a shower, a better Food Soul to be stuck with for all eternity. The snack is the most doable of those right now, so Steak begins to rummage through the fridge, the cupboards, until he finds something he can throw together into an edible meal. All of these foods in the city are odd, never quite right or like anything he recognises, but he can work off tastes to make something that isn't awful.

But... was that? He turns his head, halfway through spreading something on crackers, and frowns. No. Everything looks the same. Nothing has moved. That frying pan—

Was that always there?

He barely gets a moment to think that before the pan springs back up and floats towards him, hovering as it circles him like a hungry beast checking out its prey. )

What the—

( It darts in as though to strike, like it has somehow been possessed by the spirit of some predatory demon, and Steak does the only thing that makes any sense in this moment:

He punches it. )

— the shops;
➥ open to two threads;
( He's already fought off half his kitchen in an attempt to eat something, shower, and go about his day. Whatever nonsense is going on here, it certainly seems to be responding to the fact that he is a Food Soul.

It's annoying. Perhaps more than Red Wine. At least that asshole occasionally leaves him be.

But in the city, he can avoid such things as dinner knives and frying pans, as he can on the outskirts while fighting anything that he comes across. This is fine, normal even. This he doesn't mind, and the irritation of the morning begins to evaporate in the routine of fighting and eliminating threats.

Until he has to find lunch. Investigating the hodge-podge shops in Hadriel is a nuisance at the best of times, but those times don't involve several forks bouncing behind him like a gaggle of baby geese, trying to pierce his coat and skin with their prongs. )

Get away from me!

( This is getting old, he decides, as his swords slash the air and a shockwave of focused power slices through each of the pieces of cutlery, shaking the walls of the store at the same time. )

— the colosseum;
➥ open to one thread;
( She still visits the Colosseum out of habit, still spends her time staring at the impossible flood of light that is the Door's power for far too long, as though doing so will somehow unlock that one thing she's missed in all her visits here. As though there's an answer in the meaningless mess of bright colour she can see, something that will let them all go home. An urge which grows stronger each passing month, with every reminder of all the things she doesn't have in Hadriel. The friends she misses. The job she cannot do.

The logical part of Kate's mind tells her to give up these sessions, that if it was as easy as observing The Door's power from the Colosseum, there'd be answers already, but she comes anyway. What else is there to do? She left the clinic to work on this mystery, to help save Carlisle, and he's been saved and Sorrow's investigations are done. No fragments of The Door remain above ground, so what else can she work on? Keeping her combat skills sharpened doesn't eat enough of the day.

She exhales and switches off her power with a blink, staring at notepaper decorated with nothing but the dots of someone tapping the tip of her pencil against it again and again.

Yeah, that's all she's got.

Her steps echo through the tunnels under the Colosseum, the distance always so much shorter when you're not worrying about the monster of the month attacking you or whichever newbie you're with, thoughts clicking through her mind like an out-of-date train trying to power through another journey, their topics ever more grim. How long can a person really be stuck here? How much longer can they all endure the monotony of this crumbling landscape and the gods' games? A never-ending cycle of questions, each one highlighting just how long it's been since she first woke up on the floor of this very place.

Somewhere above her, the noise of stone shifting, crumbling, a shower of pebbles dropping to the ground behind her, and Kate stiffens, her head turning.

And then, darkness, the dim lighting in the tunnels — the signs of her exit — extinguished as easily as one snuffs out a candle. More scraping of stone above her, creaking and her breath is somewhere in her throat, stuck as instinct has Kate illuminating her eyes with a flood of power.

But she sees nothing. Of course she doesn't. She's in this alone, with rubble bouncing off her scalp and the spine-chilling certainty of the walls coming down around her, no time, no nothing. She's moving without thinking, heading towards where the light was — or was it? Shit, that's a wall — until she collapses against cold brick. )

Fuck's sake— let me out. ( It's a muffled plea to anyone outside, but within the tunnels of the Colosseum it echoes and bounces, mocking her as her fists bash stone and Kate wants to scream at her powers again. Marc would have moved these things aside with a thought, Jay could have punched his way through. Carl would have simply blinked out. But here she is with eyes like headlights and her additional strength only enough to crumble a bare centimetre of the foot-wide stones.

The dissolving ceiling piles up through the tunnel, until dust and stone cling to her clothes, her hair, her skin, and the certainty of death smells like earth and damp and—

The stones disappear, and she tumbles to the ground outside, eyes still glowing and almost bowled into a person. )

To hell with this! He had few belongings and all of them were suddenly waging a war against him. Even his lightsaber was trying to tug itself free of its sheathe at his hip. He was half afraid it was going to turn on and slice through his leg or his foot, but he also wasn't comfortable being without it.

Around the time a book slammed into the back of his head, making him see stars, Anakin decided that being outside might be...safer. He bundled himself in his cloak and Force pushed a pan away from him before it could mimic what the book had done earlier.

"Stay here."

Who was he talking to? He didn't even know. Opening the door, he threw himself out into the cold and strode as far from his house as he dared go. Once he was in the open, he grabbed his lightsaber and sought to command it. The sword had other ideas.

Soon Anakin was no longer holding the weapon; rather, it was determinedly chasing after him, slicing through the air as it tried to claim some piece of him. Help? Or watch. It was rather amazing to see a trained Jedi-Sith diving and running with obvious athleticism.

Edited 2019-01-18 16:41 (UTC)

1. Lance

Watch out!!! Incoming!

[The shout of warning comes first, but then comes the lance. It's a heavy, strong, solid weapon, and it's flying through the air as if someone had intentionally thrown it. Kain, of course, did nothing of the sort, since the thing had literally just flown off of his back as if it decided to fling itself.]

[Kain hurries along to catch up with his runaway ~~flyaway?~~ weapon as it arcs downward to the ground. Has it impaled something or worse, someone? Is it a near miss? He'll soon find out...]

2. Boots

[Kain is outside stomping around awkwardly and slowly, his boots clearly having a mind of their own as he's forced to step one way, then the other, definitely against his will.]

Stop it! Stop that!

[He sure does feel silly talking to his own boots as if they're alive, but this is just... really frustrating. After some more heavy march-stomping, Kain nearly falls over off-balance, before about-facing, clearly struggling to make the damn things follow his orders. Then, suddenly, the boots speed up, and he's running aimlessly around outside the main housing area, arms flailing as he tries to keep his balance.]

I said, stop it!!

3. Doors

[Everywhere Kain goes today, doors really don't like him.]

[a. He attempts to enter the Guard HQ to report for his usual shift, but the door slams shut in his face as he's headed in. He repeats the process a couple of times, cursing under his breath each time it shuts on him. What in the world...?]

[b. When he tries to enter a store later, the door slams so fast it catches his hand. He shouts in pain, quickly pulling his hand away and shaking it a little. Owwwwww!!! It was only hard enough to bruise and cause immediate pain, fortunately, but still... OW.]

[c. Then, as he tries to go into his own home of Spire One, the door won't even move, not budging one bit. Kain struggles, grunting with the effort as he keeps trying to pull it open. He tries to slam into it next, but this doesn't do any good either. It's as if it's more than locked... ugh... and it's getting cold out here...]

Hey guess who's house is haunted?? That's right, EVERYBODY'S, and Peter Benjamin "Get Off The Ceiling" Parker has had enough of this horseshit. Thus, he's out for a walk because he's fairly certain that the goddamn ground won't come alive and try to eat him, but then he comes across Totally Sane and Normal Deputy Pratt doing...

Well, this shit.

He should probably just pretend that he hadn't seen anything and just keep right on going, but he totally doesn't.

"...Dude? You okay?"

[Tinya was coming over for a visit and this is what she sees. Pratt, yelling at his belongings on the porch.

then the silverware attacks and she leans in to try and bat it out of the way]

Hey! [she yells at the silverware] Leave him alone!

[Tinya's on her way, out and about town, when she sees something very, very, very strange. Anakin's being chased by what looks like a laser sword. he's doing a great job of evading it, but surely that can't last forever?

so she starts chasing the laser sword which is chasing Anakin]

Hey! How do you turn this thing off?

[George is on her way to the Speakeasy, not dressed for the weather at all and the same ambient temperature as her surroundings, after a long day at the Clinic spent dodging scalpels (not that they could kill her, but they would tear her clothes and that would suck) and that's when she sees Sal reaching behind him at the straps of his mask]

--holy what the fuck? Sal! Shit! [she dashes over to him and adds her own freezing hands to the attempts to get his mask off of his face]

[and George has stopped short. staring like a staring thing as the lightsaber chases Anakin around. and the lightsaber seems to be winning. on a scale of one to absolute bullshit, she's got to put this high up on the scale]

...I dunno if I should try to help or see if I have Yakkety Sax burned to a CD. Probably the former, right?

...the hilt! There is a button... [He comes to a brief pause, wondering if he can distract the saber long enough for Tinya to grab it.] Are you willing to take a chance?

If not, get out of here. [He can think of one sure fire way to catch it, but his body won't like it. At all.]

What is...Yakkety Sax? [He rolls onto his feet and avoids a slice at his neck. The saber isn't playing nice!] Don't get in the middle of this unless...you have experience...with weapons!

[Anakin tries to grab the hilt, but the saber shifts quickly, cutting off the attempt. Luckily that's all it cuts off.]

FUCK YOU, GOATMAN early-midway event spooky shenanigans

[Hey, you know who's having a really fun time with this poltergeist shit? Not Peter. Not Peter even a tiny bit. Between random little things scooting around on their own to Peter's spider senses going off basically constantly because of it, Peter's already pretty on edge by the end of the first day. By the middle of the second day, after getting literally zero sleep thanks to said spooky scooting stuff and his spider senses, he's stormed out of the house in frustration, hoping that nothing outside is going to start scooting around at him.

He'll spend a lot of time outside, napping in weird places like on roofs or at the lab. There's a break room, it's not that weird. Until the sofa bed flips over on him, then it's weird. What's also weird is how he's webbing everything down at the Guard HQ when he's on shift a couple days into this bullshit because the pencils are looking at him funny and that chair tried to fight him. Webs, just. Everywhere. Webs and Peter looking like he's about ready to snap the desk in half because his spider senses are almost 100% sure that it also wants to fight him.]

HEY THERE DEMONS, IT'S ME. YA BOI. A thousand apologies to roommates and house guests :( bnr -23rd ish

[This lack of sleep thing is doing Peter zero favors. He's been kind of scatterbrained lately, to the point where he's been forgetting important stuff when he leaves the house. Today he left his web shooters on the living room couch when he went out for the day. He got halfway to wherever he was going, was like "aw shit", and returned home to grab them. Not a big deal, right?

Except that it is a big deal because as soon as he opens the front door, he's greeted with the sight of the entire room covered floor to ceiling in webs, which his shooters are still spitting out from the couch where he left them. There's a solid like, twenty seconds where he just stands there watching in absolute-yet-exhausted disbelief before he finally musters up the will to attempt to put a stop to this nonsense.]

NnnoooOOOOOO--

[And he charges in, diving into the fucking forest of webs, ripping through what he can and wiggling his way closer to the couch. Closer to his web shooters. If he can just pop the cartridges out, this madness will cease. That's what he tells himself, anyway, but his web shooters have other plans. They turn on him directly once he starts to get too close, aaaand that's where we stand now.

Just, Peter swearing loudly at his web shooters in the middle of what used to be the living room, but is now a dense web jungle. Good times.]

Yeah, sure! I can phase out the rest of my body, so the only parts here would be the ones touching the button! [and she prepares to do just that, phasing everything but her right hand, which snatches at the laser sword]

You probably don't wanna know. [he really, really, really doesn't] I have experience with not dying again? If that helps?

...do what you can. [He will figure out what she means soon enough. Back on the defensive, he whistles at the saber and leaps onto a rocky outcropping. The sword angles itself to follow, humming dangerously.]

If you can distract it and run fast, we might be able to get it back in its holster. [Do you wanna be bait? It's fun!]

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Page 1 of 51

Event Log: It's Aliiiive!

Deputy Pratt || OTA

Sal | ota, will match format

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cw for disfigurement and graphic detail

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steak ( closed & open )

kate ( open )

Anakin Skywalker | OTA

Kain Highwind | OTA

y'know what love's housing

Love's Housing. Totes.

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Peter Parker ; OTA

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