Intro Log: Eight Legs No Heart

[hadrielmods]

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for June.
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: June 10th-15th
Warnings: Spiders. Soooo many spiders. New people. Probably swearing.

For once, the new arrivals to Hadriel will not be waking up on the cold hard ground of the colosseum. Oh, sure, you'll still awaken in the arena - but this time the Door has been kind enough to ensure that you wake up comfortably arranged in a very nice chair. Or maybe not so comfortably. Some of those look pretty awkward - hopefully you didn't wake up with a crick in your neck! And hey, feel free to try to drag some of these super cool chairs to your new homes. They're probably not cursed or anything.

As you make your way out of the arena, be careful getting to close to the walls - well, except that's the only way out, so good luck! Chilling up on there waiting to get the drop on you are Skulltulas. These funky-looking spiders have squishy underbellies, but their upper exoskeletons are hard and very difficult to break through. They really just want to nibble you a few times, and maybe suck out all of your blood. No big deal, right? Have fun!

Have you conquered your arachnophobia and managed to escape? Great! 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 June 10th-15th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► All characters arrive with phones that have network communication.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Comments

[skelebro]

[Oh boy. This is gonna lead into the familiar cavalcade of questions regarding how he can breathe, talk, eat, etc. (the answer to all of the above is probably "magic" which is in and of itself its own fun concept to explain to humans) - except then it doesn't go that way at all, which just makes Sans grin a little wider.]

Nah. Where I come from we just call 'em skelepuns.

[He'll keep 'em coming, long past the threshold where they stop being funny, because puns never stop being hilarious.]

[fortunefavored]

Skelepuns. [omg best. Newt can't help but laugh, cackling]

Do all skeletons have a funny bone, then? Or is that just you?

[skelebro]

Wish I could say it was a species trait. But my brother, Papyrus - you can't make any jokes without him screaming at the top of his ribcage.

[This guy. This guy. Probably the best human audience he's ever had. Which is admittedly not saying much even if he's feeling charitable - the amount of humans he can say he knows-slash-knew personally is a piddly one, and he can tick them off on the fingerbones of one hand.]

Hate to break this off - I'm not one to be exskelusionary, I promise - but you got any idea where we are?

[fortunefavored]

[It gets even better. More skeleton puns. Newt opens his mouth to add to that but--yeah okay, that final question pulls his attention back to the issue at present. He glances around, finally away from Sans, noting his backpack on the ground near the chair he woke up in]

Yeah. It's called Haven, considering--[except he doesn't finish, because under his backpack is a large bloodstain as well as several broken bones, white and shining. Newt yelps in surprise, stumbling back a couple feet, staring in horror]

H-hooooly shit. Wow! Okay! Didn't see that coming! [his voice has now just pitched far higher than it was before, edging hysterical] That sure is a huge bloodstain!

[skelebro]

[...ah. The lights in Sans's eyes shrink a bit at that little sight. Bones are nothing new, and neither is blood - humans and their leakily inefficient bodies - but bones shouldn't look the way those do, so completely lifeless and still.

It'd make him sick, if he had a stomach to get sick to. His smile freezes, assuming an edge that somehow approximates a wince.]

Yeah, so it looks like our hosts aren't too big on consistent seating.

[That would be a cue for a joke, to lighten the mood.

He doesn't bother.]

Or, uh, keeping the place clean at all.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt swallows, hard, a grimace twisting his face and making those scars look particularly garish as he takes a couple more steps back, swinging his backpack up and putting it on the rest of the way] Yeah, well, hate to break it to you but this isn't anything new for Yao. [little does he know he's feeding Sans all incorrect info oops SORRY DUDE]

They're not big on basic needs for their test subjects. [there's a harsh bitterness there that really wasn't there a minute ago]

[skelebro]

Yao better be kidding me.

[That one just creeps out all on its own, he swears. Mostly because he's too distracted being nervous, disgusted, and horrified all at once in the quietest most unobtrusive way possible. He's not sure he likes the sound of any of it. "Test subjects" is not particularly the most consoling phrase out there.]

So, what, you've been here a while?

[He's just gonna...very forcibly tear his eyesockets away from that grisly sight. Yeesh but this guy looks a bit worse for wear. That's the thing about humans. They're durable, and they'll last forever even if you snap all the important bits off and carve 'em up until they're halfway unrecognizable. Human bodies can take way more punishment than a monster's ever will.

How's a skeleton go about knowing something like that? A skeleton's just a very well-read individual, with absolutely no personal experience in the area whatsoever.]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt can't help but snort at the pun, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards because he just can't help it. He hasn't really had cause to laugh in some time, so it's...strange, almost, to do so. But it feels good, even in the face of this gruesome sight.]

Yeah. Almost two years. [Newt's feeling around in the pockets of his leather jacket, pausing as his hand closes around his phone. He blinks a couple times as he pulls it out, surprised, because that is definitely NOT the phone he had in Haven. A frown crinkles his brow as he turns on the screen, met with a text message. This frown only darkens as he reads the message]

...what the hell?

[skelebro]

I'm guessing that's not a good sign.

[Two years. Linear time's a funny thing. What's it like to measure things like that, he's gotta wonder? Maybe he'll get to find out. Won't that be a fun and new and interesting maneuver.]

So I hate to be a bother. [That's a dirty lie. He loves being a bother. He's good for little else.] But, uh...that's not really the expression of someone who's been here for two years.

[fortunefavored]

...something's not right. [Newt's scowling, head jerking up, turning his phone to show Sans that screen] Did you get one of these?

[skelebro]

[Looks like a phone. Not so unique. He's got one, even if Papyrus is constantly on his case about never answering it. Sans digs it out of his pocket, only to find it's not there.

In its place is one that looks sorta similar, but mostly just bears a glaring resemblance to Newt's phone.]

Well, how 'bout that.

[He says, like he's commenting on the weather and not the fact that his phone has seemingly gotten displaced in spacetime and been replaced with another, remarkably similar one - similar inasmuch that it's also a phone, and also connects to a network of some kind, but that network clearly isn't UnderNet.]

This is probably the politest kidnapping I've ever born witness to.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt's jaw clenches] This is some epic bullshit. I don't believe this for a second. It'd be just like Yao to try and convince us that this is something else so we don't put up a fight. [he sounds really pissed, and he's flicking away from the note, shutting down the phone, head jerking up to look around the colosseum before locating the exit]

Let's get out of here.

[skelebro]

Yeah, okay.

[He's amenable to that, even if he's not totally a hundred percent down to, what's the phrasing Newt just used? Put up a fight? Yeah, he's not one for doing that, not in particular. Just got out of the first (...?) fight he's put up in a long, long damn while, and he's not terribly eager to start another one just yet.]

Mind filling me in on this Yao business? I like vague conversation starters as much as the next guy, but right now this really isn't my area.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt starts walking towards that exit as he talks, expression grim and angry] The Yao Corporation controls the world. They basically took it over several years ago, and have been kidnapping people from other universes to experiment on them. We took out one of their higher ups, a psycho named Phillip Kite, and then they put us all to sleep. I'm guessing they're waking people up now and pulling in new ones, and disguising it under something else to keep us from rebelling any more.

[he's wrong, but...you can't really blame him for the theory]

[skelebro]

Wow. That's, uh...wow.

[Not what he was expecting, to say in the least. But it's hard to say what he was expecting. Sans ambles along after, somehow managing to keep up with a minimum of anything that could be described as "hurrying" despite being something like four feet tall.]

Can't say any of this is familiar to me. So they were situated underground, or something?

[Colosseum or no, he's got a pretty good grasp on the tells that a place is located beneath the surface. Call it a monster's intuition.]

[fortunefavored]

Not when we were put to sleep, but the final announcement they made was that they were putting us into storage. The last time they did that they remodeled the place, and there were several underground tunnels before so it wouldn't shock me if they changed and stored us some place that would make it even more difficult for us to get to them.

[Yep still storming towards that exit. Unfortunately, he's almost close enough to reach those spiders which he sure hasn't noticed because they're all hiding up in the shadows]

[skelebro]

[Sans listens with the closest thing to a concerned expression that a grinning skull can have, meaning his supraorbital ridges are knitted down a bit more than should be natural.

That's when he notices the spiders. What can he say? He's just got a trained eyesocket for the things.

Now, Sans has nothing against spiders personally. Some of his best friends, etc. And no matter what you have to say about spiders, they sure as hell make the best donuts you've ever tasted, so long as you don't think too hard about whose legs you're picking out of the frosting. Point is, he likes spiders. Or he likes them well enough, which is the important thing.

That being said, his hand shoots out and grips one of Newt's shoulders with an abruptness that belies his lazy exterior, his eyelights shrinking again.]

Woah, woah. That way looks a little hairy.

[What, a guy can't spring for some cheap humor during what looks to be a bad time? That's practically his M.O.]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt jolts in surprise at the hand (skeletal) on his shoulder. He pauses, blinking, glancing back at Sans] What? [yep turning his attention the exit, squinting] What do you mean?

[skelebro]

Take a minute.

[Sans inclines his bony chin in the direction of a grotesquely large arachnid leg uncurling from the shadows as its owner gets a little too curious for Sans's liking.

Unfortunately, the rest seem to take that as a cue that these two-legged folk make for some real good chow, and start to creep forward more aggressively.]

Yeah, I don't think they're here to hand out bake sale flyers.

[fortunefavored]

[Newt's eyes widen, then, because that is so not a good thing to be seeing creeping out of the shadows]

No, I definitely, definitely think they aren't!

[his voice goes high, cracking, and he's fumbling in the pocket of his leather jacket to close his hand around his switchblade, pulling it out and opening it even as he starts to back up pretty quickly.]

Shit--how good are you in a fight? [his voice shakes, now, because those things are going to be way too close for comfort in a hot second]

[skelebro]

[That is...an impressively small knife. Hardly really constitutes as a knife at all. This is fine. They're boned. Heh. Boned.]

Do I look like a guy who fights? I'm all bone and bones.

[All right, so he's a rotten hypocrite and a liar on top of it. He never pretended to be anything otherwise. He just got out of the worst fight of his life (lives? linear thinking is overrated) and that was only, only because the literal fate of the world was at stake.

Who's gonna miss two guys like them.

He hates himself a little bit for thinking it, but it's the sad truth. The things are getting closer, and Sans is really only good for one thing at this point. He sighs.]

Look, you got any idea where we are. Like, geographically?

[fortunefavored]

I dunno, man! I've met teenagers who looked like normal kids but were vampires who could rip a guy in half, so I have no idea!

[Also his boyfriend will miss him tyvm, Sans. Anyway, at that second bit, though, he jerks his attention briefly to Sans, before putting his attention back on the spiders, fingering the switchblade nervously. He's not a fighter either by any stretch of the imagination] Uh...no? I mean, if we're waking up in this place, that means they've remodeled the area, so I dunno what it looks like. Why?

[skelebro]

[Ahhhh nuts. This is gonna be bumpy. Sans's grin widens, in a very "so this is probably a bad idea but we're screwed if we don't do something" kind of sense.]

Welp. I hate doing this without knowing where I'm going, so, uh - if we end up in a wall, just know that I'm very sorry. Probably.

[His grip on Newt's shoulder tightens, preemptively, as he asks the only permission he's gonna ask.]

But it'll get us outta here.

[There's plenty of loose space around here to blip through, but the hard part is making sure he ends up someplace safe enough to let him catch his breath (so to speak). If he ends up clipping through a cave wall, that's gonna be bad news for everyone involved.]

[fortunefavored]

[Newt swallows at that, glancing at Sans again, before looking back at the spiders] Is this a superpower thing?

[there really isn't time for him to wait for that answer, though, considering how close those things are getting. He sucks in a breath]

You know what? Go for it, dude. Get us the hell out of here.

[skelebro]

[For whatever small amount of comfort it might allow, Sans winks. Which might not be as reassuring as he'd hope. Bone isn't really meant to be as pliable as all that.

Ordinarily he'd say something generic like "hang on" or something along those lines, but one of those spiders peels away from the wall and lunges at them with a batlike hiss, and that's enough excitement for one day, thanks. Sans doesn't get time to parse which thread of direction is best. He just seizes the first one wide enough to accomodate a human and a squat skeleton and snaps them through.

There's no fanfare, or even any perceptible moment where everything changes. One minute they're almost about to be spider-food, and the next they're standing...

Well, Sans isn't really sure where they are. It looks like some kind of shop or store, which is real nice and convenient, because Sans just goes ahead and leans back against the nearest shelf for support. Cutting through the fabric of space like that really takes the proverbial wind out of a guy.]

What'd I say? Told you it'd get us out.