hadriel_logs | Intro Log: Eight Legs No Heart

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Intro Log: Eight Legs No Heart

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!

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Well, that is an excellent start, though he would have preferred if there didn't need to be another start at all.

So he simply starts talking about the Tranquility, and how it had floors with monsters and how Firo helped him to try and recover needed items from a floor with manticores and they failed. How they just kind of kept getting closer. How they got intro trouble and a jump was forced and the ship crashed.

...The last description is a bit vague, because he never quite figured out what was going on.

And then he starts describing the planetside.

Firo listens attentively, and by the end his eyes are bugging out of his head. How can any of that be possible? It's strange enough already that he apparently knew and forgot about a whole kid.

In a way, it's almost easier to accept this because of that--monsters and jumping ships are less important overall than friends--though still not exactly easy.

"...Christ. You're serious about all this? It sounds like somethin' from a movie."

He shakes his head again, pressing his palm to his forehead. Thinking about this stuff is too hard. "No, it wouldn't even be a movie, because everybody'd ask for their money back."

"Why would they ask for their money back?"

Sure, he isn't a storyteller, or at least not someone trained in the art or particularly talented in it, but he still thinks that becoming friends with someone is always a great story to listen to even if it isn't artfully delivered.

He laughs, "Because they'd think it was ridiculous that they were supposed to sit through all that bull."

But then he smiles, and it's almost gentle. He doesn't want to put the kid ill at ease--no matter what they were to each other, Firo does know that Muscovy has done nothing to him. So he's all right. "You're lucky, though, because I didn't pay anything to hear that."

"For now... Well, I can't understand any of that space stuff, so I think it's better if I don't ask you questions about that. Maybe someday but not now. Come to think of it, you've probably got some questions about this place, huh?"

It's good that Firo doesn't want to know much about the "space stuff", because Muscovy could answer very little. He has accepted some basics about the setting, like that there is nothing to breathe in space and it is very, very cold, and he knows some things about the ship - specifically about the shuttles, and he could describe a good deal about the oxygen gardens - but as he lacks a lot of the foundations to understand the technical and science side of all of it, most of it is a case of "it works like this" without being able to answer the how or why.

Questions... He thinks for a moment and nods. The most important ones.

"Who rules this place and do they bring us here deliberately? Where do we get food, and where do we live?"

He gets right to it, doesn't he? Firo nods, thinking only a little bit before spouting out the answers in the best order he can. "There's these four people who say they're 'gods'--I think they're runnin' this joint. They say they don't try to bring us, though, and that it's this thing called The Door instead."

Firo has his own opinions about all of it--some of which is already coloring his skeptical tone when he repeats the narrative. But the immediate concerns about food and shelter, he figures those are more important.

"Hope says he puts out the food. In the shops and stuff." Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Don't take meat from Rage and Fear, okay?"

"As for places to live, they're all over. People just find an empty place and move in--no need to pay rent or sleep under the stars." Not that there are stars here.

"So they say that they cannot bring us back, no matter what we do for them?" That's a bit worrying, because what if that means that time does pass back home while they're here? If his people stop being his because he is gone for too long, there will be nothing to return to...

"Fear is a very silly name." He can somehow get Hope and Rage - a girl and a boy, most likely, in that order - but why would anyone call their child Fear?

"And what is wrong with the meat?" And why would they be doling it out?

Firo nods reluctantly; it's a truth he's not particularly fond of. "They say there's more of 'em who aren't 'awake' yet and one of those might know how to get us back. But they might not. Then it sounds like we're screwed."

He can't help but laugh at the remark about Fear's name. "Yeah, maybe it is. But he can do some pretty crazy stuff, so you might not wanna get on his bad side just yet."

"Speakin' of..." He runs his hand through his hair. He probably shouldn't be sharing this with a kid, but said kid needs to know what he's getting into. "Well, they gave us human meat to help out Hope. But eatin' it turned a bunch of people into monsters."

"...Once they can get us back, will time have passed back home?" Because if not... if he has no place to go back to... He might want to make a deal about going somewhere else. Sure, he could still spend time with his sisters, and he misses them, but maybe it will be less painful to have gone away if he's nowhere close other nations at all anymore.

Annnd that sounds like very crucial and good-to have knowledge, but it is also very scary knowledge. His eyes go wide. It's not that he couldn't have seen the monarchs of his first world doing something of that kind, considering that they encouraged people to kill each other for their shards, but...

"Do they do such things a lot?"

The first question is one he’s wondered himself, and his expression darkens. “That? I really don’t know. Just try not to think about it.” If they can’t fix it or find out, worrying is pointless.

The next one is a lot easier to answer. More immediately important, too. “Depends on what you mean. They mess with us a lot, but it’s not always stuff like that. One time they just tried to give us nightmares.” Firo, like many others, didn’t appreciate it, but it definitely wasn’t near the worst that could happen.

"...if they find a god to send us home, would they only send us to our own worlds?"

Firo doesn't remember him now, and Rey doesn't want him now, but it will not stay that way, he is certain of that.

"Nightmares can be very mean, too." Especially when they take physical form. But he gets the feeling that that isn't what Firo meant here.

Firo rests his palm on his forehead and shrugs. "Sorry, Muscovy, I've got no idea. They don't give us a ton of details. I mean, I'd assume we'd all just go to the right place." Who wouldn't want to go home?

He drops his hand and hooks his thumbs in his pockets. "Well, Fear can be a pretty mean guy, from what I've heard."

Firo's suspicious of most authority that isn't his Family, generally. He's certainly suspicious of these 'gods,' because anything connected to this place has to be shady. Then again, their services can be valuable. Maiza or Luck would probably be thinking of how to butter them up for an alliance, he realizes. Firo's not that type--not clever enough, he thinks--but he does have some gratitude to a specific 'god.'

"Delight ain't so bad, though. ...You, uh, you shouldn't be goin' near the bar, though. But she's nice. I haven't talked to him personally to vouch for him, but Hope seems all right too. If you've got questions, it'd be good to start with her or him."

He wouldn't want to send any kid to Fear, and Rage, useful as she is, probably isn't someone a little kid should mess with either.

Muscovy listens attentively and nods slowly. He'll hit up either Delight or Hope for questions, then - but. There is one question here that need to be addressed, though.

"Why should I not go near the bar?"

Also, what is a bar? The automatic translation throws its hands up and gives him 'tavern' as a translation, but he's fairly sure that that isn't quite what Firo means, because why should he not visit a tavern? It sounds like that'd have warm food and lively people.

Firo blinks. Shouldn't that be obvious? How's he even explain?

...Well, he supposes he wouldn't have listened to someone telling him to stay away from the bars and saloons when he was that age. He scratches his head and finally starts, "Sometimes when people're drinkin', they get mad and can cause a lotta trouble. A kid like you could get trampled."

"...You probably shouldn't drink at all at your age, too."

Alveare served children sometimes--though Sena still took issue with Firo taking his drinks undiluted, for some reason--but never one who looked this young. And so small, too; Firo couldn't see anything like that ending well.

"But if you don't drink anything then you'll die, too." Everyone needs to drink. Sure, there is a difference in if it's a weak beer only strong enough to keep the liquid safe, or if it is a stronger kind of alcohol meant to actually get you drunk, but either way everyone has to drink.

"And people can get drunk and angry everywhere."

"Point..." He shakes his head abruptly, "Wait, what the hell do you drink?" Firo tends to skew towards alcohol and coffee as his drinks, but they're far from the only thing. Water, for one. That's kind of important.

...Damn, he hopes he wasn't a bad example for this kid.

"Beer and wine and water and cocoa." Mostly beer back home, because beer is safe. Wine sometimes in the Drabwurld, just because it would be the corresponding drink to beer. Water back on the Tranquility and on the planet, because they were very clean there and everyone assured them that he could drink them - and also because there just was no beer or wine. And cocoa always since he encountered it in the Drabwurld, because cocoa with marshmallows is delicious.

...He does wonder why Firo is asking, though.

That’s a weird mix if he’s ever heard one, but he supposes it’s no reason to get too distressed. “…I guess you’re at least not havin’ hard liquor or anything.” He’s not sure how normal it is for a kid to consider beer or wine things he’d die without, but some isn’t too bad.

Something’s still off, though. Firo frowns, “You should drink milk so you can grow.”

He hasn't had pure milk in so long, he forgot about it. It's just even tastier as hot cocoa. And well, then he hasn't had it in any form for even longer. Downsides to weird jungles and such.

"Do you have milk here?"

Not that he will grow from it, but it is still a very filling drink and it tastes good.

Firo scratches his head and smiles, a tad apologetically. He hadn’t much thought about actually putting this plan into action. “Well, not anything real that I’ve found. But they’ve—Hope, I think—put some stuff on the shelves that’s like it.” Powdered or canned things, mostly. Stuff that kind of tastes the same but is just a bit off. They can still make do.

"Do we have it at home?" Because obviously wherever Firo lives is Muscovy's home too, and if they don't have it there, maybe they can pick up some on the way. Even if it isn't quite the same, it's worth a try.

"Home? Like... where I'm from?" But he said 'we,' and Firo's sure they're not ultimately from the same world, based on what Muscovy told him about the ship and the jungle. That was another world, and definitely not home.

Muscovy shakes his head. "No, where you live now." He thought that was obvious, but maybe it was a bit unclear after all. People talk a lot about home right after arrival, after all.

"Oh." Pretty forward kid, isn't he? Firo laughs to himself, but he's accepted people into his house knowing nothing about them before; this wouldn't be too weird.

"I think I've got some of the replacement stuff, yeah. Do you want some?"

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