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

[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.

[She shakes a bit when he makes any kind of noise, but finds it in herself to laugh anyway. He's trying. She should be trying, too.]

W-Well, jeez, no wonder. We've lived underground our w-whole lives. We probably don't have a good grasp on light, huh?

[That's... god that's not funny why is she doing this. He's the guy with the jokes. Shit.]

So, uhm... d-do you just, uh, live somewhere around here? Do all the buildings look l-like this?

[Funny or not, it sure gets a chuckle outta Sans. She's better at this than she thinks. But then again, she's better at most things than she thinks she is.

He rolls with the subject shift as it comes. Who wants to talk about their own death, huh?]

There's apartments. Houses. Papyrus and me have gotta place in one of the four-room houses Delight made. [He don't look at her when he says the next words - seems unfair, somehow, like he'd be puttin' pressure on her shoulders. But the offer is genuine.]

You could, uh, live there too. If you wanted. We got two free rooms.

[She shrinks just a little less when he laughs, even if it's out of pity. He's trying. Looking out for her. She appreciates it. But she can't help but perk up at his proposition.

He... actually wants that? He's not just being kind? She hasn't lived with someone else for a long time, barring the genetic mutations in her basement, but those don't really count much for roommates. From the looks of this place, it wouldn't be healthy or smart to be alone, either. But... it still feels like an intrusion. They're brothers, and she's... what, an old coworker?]

Are... a-are you sure? I mean, uh, I wouldn't want to put pressure on you t-two, or anything, or uh, take up too much space or a-anything.

I mean, c'mon. Who else am I gonna watch garbage movies with, huh? Papyrus always spends the whole time acting like they're all works of art.

[Sometimes you gotta take a break from unrelenting positivity and criticize the heck outta something that looks like it crawled outta Plan 9's ass and shriveled up on the sidewalk. He don't even know if they get bad movies here, but he kinda wants to find out.

That's funny. That kinda leaves him with somethin' to look forward to, huh?

Weird.]

[Surprisingly, this... this actually kind of makes her feel better. He's offering. Maybe he's lying for her convenience, maybe he just doesn't want her to die and would feel too guilty if he found her dust later. But she wants it to be real. She wants him to want her around. So maybe she'll let herself believe, just once. Just let her believe and feel included.]

Well, I... I don't really h-have anywhere else to go. And it would be... nice, uhm, not to be alone here, if I'm going to be around for a while.

There, y'see? Who says colleagues can't be roomies?

[The contract is sealed and all that jazz. He grins at her, and for once - for the first time in longer than he cares to count - it feels like he means it.]

You ain't alone down here, Alph. You got Papyrus 'n me.

Edited 2016-11-29 08:37 (UTC)

H-Heh. As long as I'm not interrupting the skele-bro party.

[They are family, and she is... not... but she doesn't want to lose this, so she lets it go.]

Well, uh... show me the way, then.

[she smiles, and it's genuine. Better than she has in a long time.]

Thanks, Sans.

Hey, fuhgeddabout it. I know a shortcut.

[And right quick he'll get her there with an carefree meander and a step in the right direction, landin' the pair of 'em right outside the house he shares with Papyrus, mercifully still intact.

It ain't much, maybe, but it's somethin'.

'Bout all people like them could ask for.]

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

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