hadriel_logs | Intro Log: HOLY F*^K THAT'S A F*&KI%G DRAGON

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Intro Log: HOLY F^K THAT'S A F&KI%G DRAGON

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for October
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: October 10th-13th
Warnings: New faces, new greeting posts, and dragons. What's more to want?

If your first thought upon waking up on the cold, hard ground of Hadriel's very own Colosseum is 'maybe I partied too hard last night', one, Delight would love you and two, you're wrong. Or- maybe you did, but that's not why you're here. Instead, you wake up with the same clothes you were wearing when you were last home, but surrounded by very different people. So, make some friends! Might as well voice your confusion and concern and show the technologically unsavvy of you how to operate these fancy new phones, right? Just be sure not to trip over these odd bags of chips on your way to greet your fellow man.

Don't spend too much time out in the open, though. There are monsters about, and not quite the usual ones. This month, Hadriel is bringing in four dragons, each with their own unique abilities and raidboss-esque stamina. They'll be terrorizing the city until someone puts them down- maybe that someone is you! Maybe you should, uh, actually hide. They're hungry and territorial and mean and they're definitely out for a good meal. Check out our OOC post for more information, as well as who will be eventually killing the beasts!

But hey, once you escape from the dragons, feel free to go explore the rest of the city! Find a house, find a new monster, or simply scavenge for supplies.

New, as of October's intro log is a Newcomer's guide that installs itself by default on every activated phone. Thanks, Mello!

Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers October 10th-13th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► All characters arrive with phones that have network communication and the newbie guide installed.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Privately, he's pretty sure they could. He is really not one for the reassurin' thing. But if there's one thing he knows about Hadriel, it's that it's stuffed to the brim with strong silent hero types who'll be plenty happy to go at a couple of beasts that need slayin'. With any luck, that'll draw the dragons' collective attention for the time being.]

We should be good. The city's got a guard and everything. They're probably takin' care of it as we speak.

[That's a bit more optimistic than is typical for him - especially 'cause that means Papyrus is gonna be out there too, god, though with any luck he'll just be tryin' to keep everyone safe more than actually tryin' to - he don't know, invite the dragons over for tea? Tell them they look nice today? Promise them they can do a little bit better - no. Okay, no. Not goin' there today.

Speakin' of which.

He points ahead, indicating the colosseum's exit.]

Right thataway. We're mostly magic, anyway. We'd make a pretty unappetizing meal, yeah?

[Now that one?

That one's straight-up bullshit. That sure didn't matter to the zombies last month, and it sure as hell won't matter now.]

H-Hah. Yeah. That's, uhm, that's good!

[Unless they're magic dragons, who eat magical beings, at which point we are prime snacks, she thinks, but doesn't say, because she's not even sure she could handle vocalizing that possibility right now. It's just too much. Instead, she just sort of slides close to Sans and tries not to break into an outright bolt out of the colosseum. It'd probably be too forward to grab him, so she's just kind of... hovering. As close as she can without it being weird.

It's probably weird.

Regardless, once they're out, she starts stress eating the weird potato chips again just out of a desire of something to do.]

So... h-how long have you been here?

Couple months, I think. Time's kinda...hard to track down here.

[He jabs a phalanx toward the ceiling, 'cause, uh. Look Ma, no sky! Not that this is new for him, but the lights bein' on some kinda timer is frankly real subjective and difficult to pin down.

He glances at the bag of chips with an easy grin. It's somethin' to do with your hands, right? Somethin' nice and meaningless to talk about.]

What flavor'd ya get?

They don't k-keep calendars or anything? I guess that's, uhm, w-what happens when you get a bunch of humans not, uhm, used to living u-underground.

[Seriously, can none of them tell time? Please. How do the humans even survive down here?

Better question, really, is how they can survive with them. But Sans seems like he's... well, pretty physically present, so that's a good start. Probably.

She shoves another handful of the chips into her mouth.]

I think, uhm, it's c-called 'the sad college student'? It reminds me of what I'd eat at like, t-three am when I was writing my dissertation.

[Graduate school is awful and should not be attempted by anyone, ever. Alphys has a doctorate and therefore can confirm. No one should do this.]

[Sans starts to laugh. Not that it's...well, all right, it is kinda funny, in a real morbid sorta way. Brings back a lotta weird, disjointed memories that...

Well. It was a long time ago.

Sans makes a beeline for one of the shops. Shelter's probably for the best, right now. And now that neither of 'em are in any danger of gettin' torched, clawed, frozen, or otherwise dusted - he can take a longer look at his friend.

(She's wearin' a dress. Her one and only dress.)

(That don't escape his notice.)

He swings the door open and holds it for her.]

Man, that sounds about right. Bet it tastes like bad marks and finals stress, huh?

[She had buttoned up her lab coat when she arrived, but she hasn't thought to check it, and the top buttons are undone. It's not something she's thinking about. She'll kick herself for it later.

For now, she walks in, looking behind her to make sure Sans is coming, too. Everything she can't see right now feels like it might disappear when she stops.]

Yeah, like, p-pure anxiety and really greasy snacks.

[As if she didn't do that already, school or not. In the meantime, she scoots herself to a corner and finds a place to sit, offering the bag out to him when she's settled.]

Want to try some?

[He's always been real observant. It's one of those qualities he kinda wishes he could be without, 'cept he knows he'd be dead in the water if that were true. Really turns out to be a double-edged sword, huh?

Sans lets the door swing shut. He can still hear the dragons screamin' their outrage and whatever the hell overhead, though not, thank fuck, in the very near vicinity. Not like they got a whole lotta cave to put between themselves and the things that might kill 'em - and even if they go too far, they might just end up chomped down by something smaller.

Good times, good times.

Sans plonks on down beside her and digs out a handful, somehow poppin' them into his mouth without actually opening it.]

Wow. Yeesh. Tastes exactly like my old dissertation.

[She giggles, feeling at least a little better for the first time since she arrived here.]

I hope we're, uh, a-actually supposed to eat these. I saw a couple people, uhm, d-doing it? I actually have no idea what the rules of eating food here is. I just, uh. Panicked.

[What if it's like Spirited Away and they're gonna take her name or she's gonna turn into a pig??? These are real worries, okay.]

Yeah, nah. Sometimes stuff gets mixed in with the Door when it drops ya in. For me it was chairs, can you believe it?

[He manages to make a disapproving huff-like sound without havin' any real lungs or an esophagus to do so, 'cause chairs is way less fun than chips or board games.]

Papyrus came through with a whole mess of board games. Pretty sure he's got his heart set on makin' a night of it.

[Oh Sans. You really got no clue.]

[She laughs a little more. That's so... them, though.]

I guess it's k-kind of fitting that mine is chips then, huh? It could only be b-better if it was like, anime dvds. Or figurines.

[That would be so good. It would be raining anime. But at the moment, she's kind of happier to have the chips. You can't stress-eat anime, after all.

... I mean, you probably could, but, y'know, that would be complicated.]

It sounds like he h-hasn't lost his positive outlook, then. That's, t-that's good.

[He chuckles, softly. Yeah, takes a lot, a whole lot, to really bring Papyrus down. A genuine ray of perpetual sunlight, the brightest damn thing in the Underground sometimes. Brightest thing down here too. Somethin' about that unfaltering optimism is just...

Well, he already knows he don't really deserve it.]

So, uh. Weird question, but -

[Sans fishes something from his pocket - a shriveled lump of a thing that, on further inspection, will reveal itself to be a packet of mustard that he has to shake out a few times to loosen up the condiment within. He picks at it as he shreds it open steadily, and asks, without takin' his gaze away:]

What's the last thing you remember?

[He speaks, and she can feel her SOUL clench in her chest.

The last thing she remembers. Rushing water. No fear. No apprehension. Just dread, and exhaustion.

She swallows, eats a few more chips.]

W-Why do you ask?

[He chuckles easily, disarmingly.

Maybe not so disarmingly.]

Gotta check somethin'. People come from all over the place, time-wise. We got a pair of humans - the anomaly, yeah? - they remember different things.

[JUST GONNA. CASUALLY DUMP THAT BOMB ON YA ALPH.]

They... d-don't remember the same things? Like-- I mean, h-how different? Are we talking, uhm, monsters n-never ending up in the Underground different, or, technological advancements, o-or people not existing? Or something m-more like, mundane, like eating different things for breakfast?

[Gotta give some fuckin scope, Sans. Also, she's deflecting the question, but yanno.]

It kinda varies.

[Still, it's a valid question. He settles down as he prepares himself for a nice long explanation. And man, is he just not the guy to be Mr. Exposition over here, but it ain't like Alph has any alternatives. She deserves a bit of effort from him for goddamn once.]

Like, heh, there's some timelines where people come out unscathed, but the six SOULs just...disappear. Papyrus swears the last thing he remembers is everyone gettin' to see the sun after the barrier breaks.

[The lights in his sockets glitter with some difficult-to-name emotion. Sans ain't gonna touch on what he remembers, personally. Not yet.]

.... Oh.

[It's quiet, more of a sigh than a word, but it's... something. She almost doesn't want to respond, but she knows he'll be nervous. Doesn't want to talk about much of anything, and yet she knows he'll pry. Has to say something. She'll make it mostly truth.]

The, uhm, t-the human came through. Nobody died until I g-got involved, and they... h-had to kill Mettaton, to escape. He locked them in a room in the CORE a-away from me. They left for the capital, and n-next thing I heard Asgore was dead too. They'd left w-with his SOUL, and the other six were gone.

[That's all she has to say. Right?

Well, it's all she's going to say.]

[Had to kill Mettaton. Asgore too, though he can't say he's surprised about the last one. Guy always kinda...well, it don't matter. Point is, it wasn't a real great end for her either.

He looks at her, and it's hard to manufacture much of anythin' besides that dull stirring of recognition, the memory of somethin' similar happenin' before, maybe. Grief with its edges so worn down and eroded away that it's hardly recognizable as grief at all.

But he remembers how much she and the guy were - well, they were friends. Alphys didn't always have much of those, but the ones she did have were close. He knows that.]

I'm sorry, Alph.

[He is, and he means it. It's awful hard to conjure much but the barest guttering shreds of truly caring, but - cripes, she don't deserve that kind of end to her story.

None of 'em did, but what can you do?]

[She's back to messing with the chips, but mostly it's her tried-and-true movement of her hands over each other, palms over backs and claws hitting in the middle. The bag crinkles under the movement and she stops, like she's afraid by making noise she's broken the silence, even through his words.]

It's... I mean, it's okay, I g-guess. There's nothing I can do to change it n-now, so, uhm... yeah.

[What could she even do, if she could go back? They had the power to kill Asgore. Maybe she'd offer her SOUL up instead. So nobody else had to die. Just someone nobody would miss.]

What, uhm... what about you?

[It ain't okay. Not really. But he lets it sit like that, 'cause he ain't gonna push and she ain't gonna like it if he does anyway. He's not one to push. Not just now.

And then she turns the question 'round on him. He glances away for a moment, a little almost-exhalation of almost-laughter coilin' out into the air.]

Heh. [Yeah. It ain't a happy sound.] Well, uh. Our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting...

[His sockets go black for a moment, though he's lookin' off into the middle distance more than he is at her.]

Until suddenly, everything ends.

[Oh. Jeez, that's... oh.]

... Oh.

So it's... n-not just one, then, it's...

[For Sans to act like this, to be so despondent...

It has to be as bad as she fears. She reaches out, gently, touching his hand.]

Sans, I'm s-so sorry.

[The contact is...

Well. He's sorta gotten used to it, not havin' that kinda touch. Someone who maybe, uh, maybe kinda gets it. Knows what chartin' the anomaly means. Knows what seein' the end looks like. Sans dips his skull slightly, smilin' at the floor.

The floor won't judge him, at least. Alph won't either, he knows that, and god but that's a foreign kind of relief.]

Had some time to get used to it. And, hey. At least I finally did somethin' for once, right?

[He grins at her, one part tiredly sincere and two parts ironic.]

Actually got off my coccyx and did somethin' about it. For what it's worth.

[Her eyes widen when he speaks, reaching up to push her glasses back from falling out her face just to have something to do with all the sudden energy that floods into her from the fear and possibility.]

Y-You fought them? You fought the Human? Sans, oh my god, that's... I... I c-can't even imagine, doing something like that.

[Because she can't. Dear god, she can't. Doesn't have enough intent to hurt anything in her entire body. And Sans doesn't deserve to go through that, doesn't deserve any of it. God, god, why couldn't it have been her. Why couldn't she have been more help.

Unless, of course... she was already dead.]

Did they... I mean, d-did you...

[She doesn't know how to ask it. Confirm her worst fears. That only the dead are here, walking in a run-down afterlife of their mistakes.]

[Did his damnedest. Pushed all his fear and frustration and exhaustion into making them pay, making them feel their sins on their neck and on their skin and hot in their blood. Watched their spine telescope, their neck snap when they landed awkwardly on the ceiling and didn't shift their center of gravity quick enough. Watched them trip over a line of ulnas, impaled on a line of ribs, watched them fall for the cunning trap of MERCY.

Wasn't enough. Never is.

He traces a line across himself, a diagonal slash that travels from clavicle to hip. Split him open like a goddamn ketchup-filled water-balloon.

Can't really lie about it right now. No point in lyin' about it. And if anyone would get it, hell. Alphys would. His grin is hard and ruthless and flinted and - weary. Utterly fucking resigned.

It's just how things are.]

Imagine my surprise when I wake up here instead of...heh, wherever it is monsters like me end up.

[Burning in hell, probably.]

[She wants to tell him. She wants to tell him she's thinking the same, because she did... something cowardly. Because she was weak and gave up the ghost (haha) too soon. Because she decided she could not handle the fate of one monster.

And yet Sans watched them all die. And still stands. Because he's better than her. He always has been.

She wonders, absentmindedly, how she died, in that timeline. If she went down fighting. She feels like she'd like to dream that. That she made a difference.

She knows, in her mind, she didn't. She couldn't have.]

... Oh. Yeah. That would be... yeah.

[Trying to hold it in. It's only been a few hours but she's already ashamed. Already regretful.]

I'm sorry.

[Nice job there, Sans. Way to put a real damper on what should be a pretty swell reunion between old pals. This is on him, he knows. 'Cause he can't switch that damn instinct off, can he? That curiosity.

Yeah. That's just...real great. And now she's already droopin' like a wilting flower, like somehow this is on her.

Sans laughs, slappin' a hand across the cap of one knee.]

Look at us, huh? And here I figured it was best to start things off light.

Intro Log: HOLY F^K THAT'S A F&KI%G DRAGON

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