Intro Log: Death Comes

[hadrielmods]

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for July.
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: July 10th-15th
Warnings: Deathclaws. That's all you really need to know.

As usual, the new arrivals in Hadriel will be waking up on the dirt ground of the colosseum, and as usual, they won't be waking up alone. This month brings coat hangers of all shapes and, uh, sizes strewn about the colloseum floor around all of the new arrivals.

Get up, get out, meet and greet, find some new exciting interior decorating options, but don't forget about the more prominent threat: the (newly) local deathclaws roaming about in the inner halls of the arena. These deathclaws are vicious bipedal creatures with long arms ending in curved talons, horns ripe for goring and, of course, teeth as long as fingers. These animals have been engineered to be as deadly as they can possibly be, so you might want to buddy up before taking one on.

Have you escaped from the deathclaws? Made a few friends? Not died horribly? 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 July 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

[valiantabsurdity]

[ Kneeling. Kneeling in her home, if one is to be — precise about these things. Not that Lir, still pointedly avoiding the finer nuances of actual eye contact, is too particular.

One if (finally) dawns on him that his cape's gone without contenders, he pulls himself up to his proper, full height, and takes a step back. And another. Nearly stumbles on the threshold — then happily finds himself just a sliver beyond it. There: order restored. ]

Forgive my oversight. [ Now back to matters of plainer interest. ] And your moon? Where has it gone?

[mismanagement]

[Maketh raises an eyebrow. Surely he can't be that prudish when he nearly broke down her door in the first place?

What a strange man.]

We are underground. There is no sky. What you see is an illusion - a clever one, I'll grant, but nonetheless.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ Whatever balance they've brokered seems to hold, Lir nearly content to stay behind his invisible line, studying this woman who is his host in a new land.

Besides, she is speaking sense now, and he starts to nod with her, tentative: ]

An illusion. Do you know the magician who wove it? There are not many left in employ.

[ Quieter after, the littlest bit maudlin: ]

There are not many left to any kind at all.

[mismanagement]

This is not your world. The ones who are responsible call themselves gods and have the power to back up such foolishness as they wish. [Her opinion of the gods is not subtle. Maketh eyes the man up and down. He's armored and carrying a sword. Perhaps he even knows how to use it. He moves like a man well accustomed to armor.] I am Maketh Tua. I organize the Guard here.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ So, then: diversified sorcerers, who've taken it upon themselves to build a city of their own. It's good, he supposes, that enough wizards have congregated that they could even think of settling into their own village. Sorcerers, in Lir's opinion, have too strong a habit of wandering towards their own devices.

The is Maketh Tua, and she claims to organise a guard. His brows lift, slightly incredulously, but he has the grace to not mention that women shouldn't be leading guards, even if they are called something as suspicious as Makes Tool. ]

How do you do. [ There. Much better. ] I am Lir. I organise nothing in particular. [ But hastily, so she needn't concern herself: ] But I don't disorganise much either. I keep tidy.

[mismanagement]

[A strange man indeed. Maketh nods just once. She doesn't move to put the rifle away. Just in case. She doesn't know Lir well enough to judge him as a threat one way or another. Best to be prepared.] Can you use that sword?

[valiantabsurdity]

[ That sword. Which...?

Ah — confusion pales, the look of him turning from puzzled to faintly intrigued — his sword.

He rushes to present it, the sheath struggling under fumbling hands, until it gives, and there's a show of steel, the blade scratched but hardly blunt. A dragon's fallen to it, scales bathed it, a mystical bull's fire. It's survived better than Lir, and he has the honour of letting Maketh glimpse it in part. ]

Against the vile, the oppressing or the unworthy. [ A moment's consideration. ] Or twigs, I suppose. But no more.

[mismanagement]

[Twigs. Wonderful. Maketh keeps her expression neutral.] We have an armory if you have need of another. There are others here who fight with such weapons. And we have need of more guardsmen, if you truly wish to stand against the oppressing.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ Ah, a cause: all-encompassing, challenging and strange. He brightens with the possibility of it, carefully nodding along as he considers that not an hour (?), fate has already thrust its chosen hero towards a new quest. ]

Certainly. My sword is yours. [ Wait. Softer: ] While remaining with me.

[ No, that doesn't quite sound right either. ]

Yours, but in spirit.

[ ...moving on, now. ]

But who oppresses you?

[mismanagement]

[There is something wrong with this man. Maketh eyes him up and down, hiding her suspicion. Perhaps he's a threat. Either way he'll need watching. Keeping him in the guard is an easy way of doing that - she trusts everyone else, and they know to act as her eyes should something go wrong. Possibly Lir is just...different, from what she knows.] I do not need protection myself. But others do.

[She lifts her chin.]

The ones who brought us here. They call themselves gods.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ Some ghost of peace seems to have been reached between them — that, or Maketh agrees to his service, because she speaks to him plainly now, and so (inevitably) he listens.

Pulling himself properly together again, he tidies the fall of his sword in its sheath, the drape of his flimsy mantle. Gods. Yes. She has said they are... not sorcerers. And they've taken them, and they've taken the sun, and — ]

How many are they? [ An army, perhaps. That would explain the want for a guard. But, then, that's the other matter: ] How many are we?

[mismanagement]

Currently there are five. They feed off human emotion and take their names from their favored meals. Hope, Rage, Fear, Delight, and Sorrow. [Maketh exhales sharply.] They are few and we outnumber them easily. But we cannot match their power.

[valiantabsurdity]

Hope, Rage, Fear, Delight, Sorrow...

[ All names for the heart's hurt, when it lends itself to excesses. He frowns faintly, trying to place what unsettles him, but failing fitfully at first.

Then, hastily: ]

...and indifference? What of... indifference? Is it not among them? The cruellest of all?

[mismanagement]

[Maketh tips her head to the side.] If it is, it has not shown itself. There are others who have yet to make themselves known. They died once. Hope has been bringing them back one by one.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ Died, but reborn.

He stops altogether — staring, thinking, breathing — and slowly opens his mouth to speak the words, Bringing them back. But he stops himself, shrugs off the impulse. Doesn't laugh, but there's the smile again, thin. ]

Are they kin to Hope? Perhaps he — she mdash; it. Perhaps it only means to wake its family.

[mismanagement]

He has stated as much. [Maketh's face goes hard suddenly. This is not the first time she's considered how best to kill Hope, and whether she could manage to make it painful.] If it were only their affair, then I would leave them to it. Their appetites aren't without pain - or sadism, though they dislike that term.

[valiantabsurdity]

[ He. A man. Hope, the gentleman. Strange, how something as straightforward as a concrete form can leave Lir's understanding of it entirely adrift. He'd never thought of Hope the man. Hope the concept, perhaps. Hope, the pigeon? But a man...

He stirs himself awake from stupor, barely in time to nod along with Maketh's new displeasure. ]

Have you... offered them help before? A hand in kindness can soothe even a cruel heart.

[mismanagement]

Have we offered to help the beings who imprison and torture us against our will?

[Maketh's voice is decidedly neutral. The look in her eyes is not.]