INTRO LOG: A TAXING JOURNEY

[hadrielmods]

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for December. Watch your step!
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: December 10th-17th
Warnings: Taxxon-related violence, teeth shoes, general unpleasantness, mass confusion.

You wake up in the dust of the colosseum with no shoes on, regardless of the state of your feet when you arrived. There's dust covering your clothing and in your hair, but other than that, there's no signs of injury or bruising. You're also not alone- nearby, there are others, either still passed out or just waking up like you are. Feel free to take solace in that fact. Or don't- some of you aren't human, and are clearly not great people either. No offense.

To your left, there is a door in the wall of the arena, supposedly leading to the halls which will then show you to your freedom. To your right, and scattered haphazardly on the ground, are a myriad of teeth shoes. These shoes might be better than going barefoot right now, but good luck finding a matching set, let alone one that fits you.

When you do eventually try to escape, be careful. The halls are crawling with Taxxons. Large and grotesque, these caterpillar-like creatures have circular mouths and multiple rows of sharp teeth. Their sense of smell is impeccable, and they will stop at nothing to feed when they scent blood. So, you know, try to avoid stepping on anything sharp on your way out.

All done with the horrible monsters and awkward greetings? Try your hand at exploring the rest of the city! Find a house, find a new monster, or simply scavenge for supplies until your little heart is content. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers December 10th-17th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well!
► Characters may find their own shoes scattered around with the teeth shoes if you like.
► All characters now arrive with phones that have network communication.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

Comments

Josh Washington | OTA

[pighead]

[a: attack of the giant centipedes]

[The shoes are weird. The shoes are really weird, and losing his own shoes was just as weird. Josh was rather uncertain about them at first, but when it came down to it, wandering around a freaky cave barefoot seemed like a slightly more awful prospect than wandering around a creepy cave with weird tooth shoes on. So he is wearing them. He's not entirely sure they aren't going to end up eating his feet - or, what, liquefying them or something? - but he's decided to take the chance.

Besides. This probably isn't real. Things have been kind of weird lately as it is, so maybe he's hallucinating or something. He's gotta find the way out of here and figure out where the lodge is, or what's going on, or whatever. Josh has things to do, he has plans to set in motion, and he was on his way to do that when suddenly he turned up here.

He's caught up in his own disordered thoughts, so when he turns a corner in one of the hallways he doesn't quite realize what he's looking at at first. Then he does, and he pinwheels back.]

What the hell?

[But hey, no way is that real. Giant freaky centipede monster? No way. So Josh laughs, then, and shakes his head.]

Hey, man! You got me good. Where's the camera? You can come out now.


[b: these mean streets]

[Josh has come to the conclusion that even if this isn't real (and it probably isn't, come on, let's get serious here), he's going to have to treat it as if it is. There's weird monsters, tooth shoes (which actually are pretty comfortable), a crazy cave with crazy buildings in it, and he's just got to - figure things out. It's not easy, though. Part of him is still thinking it's some kind of prank. A more significant part of him is thinking that he really has finally gone totally batshit, and he's hallucinating it all. But he wouldn't be aware of it if he were, right?

Maybe he shouldn't have stopped taking his meds. It had seemed so obviously the right decision at the time.

But whatever it is that's causing this, he has to treat it like it's real, just in case it is. Just in case he really might get eaten by giant centipedes.

And that means finding somewhere safe to stay. Right now, Josh is just sort of - wandering. Actually, he's totally lost, considering the only landmark he's really familiar with is the colosseum. But the streets aren't totally empty, so when he sees someone else, he doesn't hesitate.]

Hey. Think you could help me out?

b

[morphinum]

[ This kid looks dumb as a bed of rocks, Johanna's decided. That works in her favor, though: dumb kids are easy to manipulate. Especially the guys. Messing with them was always her favorite. She may not be in peak condition now, but Johanna's still got plenty of borderline-flirtatious sass left in her. ]

I dunno, [ She says, coy. ] Can I?

Think you might have to be a little more specific. We're all forced into some kind of mindfuck here, man.

[pighead]

[This chick looks like a cancer patient or something. Not like Josh hasn't spent some time in hospitals, but he's never been that bad off. She seems like she's not about to keel over, though, which is good, because Josh would have no idea what to do with that.

And he doesn't recognize her, which means she's probably real. Maybe.]

Yeah, fair enough. This place is pretty fucked up.

[He grins, friendly.]

I'm looking for somewhere to stay, I guess. Without monsters.

[morphinum]

[ Nah, not cancer. Torture. Completely separate issues. Honestly, though, part of Johanna feels like she's gonna keel over, but that's probably due to the depleting supply of morphling in her bloodstream over anything else.

She shrugs. ] Life is fucked up. Anyone who believes otherwise is brain-dead, or a really shitty actor.

[ A place to stay would be good. Johanna's not too picky -- she figured she'd just crash where she crashed, as long as she could defend it well enough. Then, in the morning (or in a couple hours; she could never sleep that long) she'd resume the search. ]

There's a ton of buildings. Take your pick. I don't think we're gonna find too many hotels here. Doesn't seem like a great tourist destination.

[ She grins. Dark humor was always her favorite. ]

[pighead]

[He laughs, then.]

Yeah, fair enough.

[Josh is not going to argue with the assertion that life is fucked up. It's obviously true, and of course Cancer Patient Barbie here would know that.]

You'd think they'd try to spice it up with some free drinks or something. Really make the kidnapping and terror worth our while, you know?

[He looks around at the rubble-strewn streets, the unfamiliar buildings, the cave ceiling curving overhead. It's good he's not claustrophobic.]

Feels kind of weird breaking into some random building.

[morphinum]

Terror?

[ The word comes out as a bark, and Johanna laughs bitterly. The laugh comes out scratchy and completely like mirth, and in some ways, it's more of a curse than a real laugh. ]

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, kid. This is nothing.

[ Her hands ball into fists, her knuckles white. ]

This place is really fucking hospitable compared to a death arena or, you know, torture chambers.

[ Hey, her doctor said she wasn't supposed to censor her thoughts. This is Johanna following professional medical orders. ]

Breaking into an empty building is easy. It'd be worse if there were people in it.

A

[amos_moses]

"Don't talk, move, it's hungry, idiot," Amos hisses as he hurries past. He's not exactly running, but he's not walking slowly either. Running makes him look even more like prey, and so far he's been able to keep from being snacked on by simply moving on before the insect-brains can lock onto him fully as a target. His good luck won't last, but he's going to try, because he does not have the firepower for any kind of fight with these monsters, and especially not in these narrow halls.

[pighead]

"Oh, come on, you can't seriously think -"

The creature moves, and Josh jumps a little, because it sure does seem real. But that's clearly impossible. It's gotta be some kind of special effect, a puppet or something. Some haunted houses do complicated and crazy shit these days.

He kind of wants to get up close and see how it all works. Get some ideas, maybe. But something's keeping him from walking right up to the thing. Maybe the way it moves? But he isn't turning away, either, even as the creature approaches.

[amos_moses]

Amos leans back around the corner, hooks a hand in the crook of the young man's elbow, and makes a good attempt at pulling him out of the way. Amos is short, sure, but he's built like a brick, and most of his mass is muscle from a life of activity and relentless motion.

"I don't think, I know, would you stand in front of a hungry lion?"

Because that's a decent equivalent, but this is the only warning chance and saving attempt Josh will get from Amos: he's not going to risk becoming a bug-lunch himself, thank you. He likes being alive.

But still, even the utterly clueless deserve at least a little help. And the look on Josh's face as the monster approaches? Yeah, clueless. Here's one who hasn't met a fairytale in the flesh, Amos is sure.

[pighead]

He lets himself be pulled, but mostly because this guy's pretty strong and Josh doesn't really want to get into a slapfight with a stranger.

"There's no way that thing's real. It's pretty good, though."

He might not even be able to make something that realistic, and Josh is pretty good himself. It moves again, skittering towards them, and Josh watches the way its legs work. Without the scent of blood, it disregards them - but Josh has no way of knowing that. Of course, he barely thinks any of this is real.

"This has gotta be one of those hidden camera shows."

[amos_moses]

"Saint Jude bless you fool, it's real an' it's hungry an' I ain't stupid enough to stick around an' get et."

Amos lets go of Josh's arm and grimaces at how the giant centipede is following them, at the click of the carapace echoing in the cavern, the musty scent of the thing, the way its mandibles click together. He can hear/feel/taste its hunger, and it's not a pleasant thing to stand so close to a large carnivore that ravenous and knowing you are prey.

"Move or die when the monsters come hunting, child."

That's the last bit of Advice Amos will give, hurrying around the next corner. He's in fear for his own flesh, and he's not self-sacrificing enough to try to pull Josh with him all the way.

b

[dragonbite]

[ He's given a confused look. Or, as confused a look as Vaiz can get on his face, at least. It isn't exactly obvious that he's confused.

But after some moments of silent staring, he nods once, only slightly. Some bubbles float out through the straw between his shark teeth. ]

Aah, yeah, sure. Maybe.

[pighead]

[He watches the guy blow bubbles. It's - weird. He's weird. But he's kinda harmless, so Josh shrugs it off.]

Cool. Know any safe places to stay around here?

[dragonbite]

[ He shrugs. ]

There are houses.

[pighead]

Uh... okay.

[Guy's not too forthcoming.]

Where at?

[dragonbite]

[ It's not that he's not forthcoming. Just oblivious. ]

Over there. [ He makes a motion in the general direction of the houses with his head. ] But there are tall houses, too.

B

[cowardley]

[ Ash never means to wander far from the familiar safety of the house, but often times curiosity finds a way to lure her. Today, a quick visit to the stores turned into aimless wandering.

At a street junction, a voice calls, and she turns to quickly to respond. ] I can... [ try. but then her green eyes fall on him, and the word seems to fail her. her expression twists between confusion, and fear. ]

Josh?

[pighead]

[He didn't exactly expect to see her here, but he's sort of still trying to figure out how much of all of this is real, so he's not quite surprised, either. Still, a familiar face is a very welcome thing, and he grins like he's seeing an old friend, which he sort of is.

The confusion makes sense. The fear he doesn't really get, but this place is pretty scary, so whatever.]

Hey, Ash! What're you doing here?

[cowardley]

[ He grins as easily as he always has, but against the freshness of his torment, it just stings. The last she'd seen him, he'd been next to her, hung up against the hard board with the saw grinding towards them. And then he screamed.

Ashley feels sick. ]

I thought you were dead. [ She had meant to answer the question, but the words tumble out unbidden. ]

[pighead]

[He's not sure what to say to that. He's not sure what to think about that. He'd had his plans, but - as far as Josh knows, there's no reason to think he'd be dead. Unless something happened in this place, or maybe before?

It doesn't make any sense to him, but then not much does these days.]

Well, I'm... not? [Really, what is he supposed to say?] Alive and kicking. Good as new.

[cowardley]

I know that now. [ Ashley snaps, her lips quivering to keep her frown from deepening. She feels like an idiot for thinking going back to Blackwood had been good idea; she knew it was going to bring things up, things none of them really wanted to fess up to or accept.

Her fingers curl to form tight fists at her sides. For all that she hates what Josh has done, a small part of her accepts it as her punishment for her involvement with Hannah and Beth. ] You put us through hell, Josh. You put Chris through hell, and he didn't deserve any of it!

[b!]

[thechoiceisyours]

[It's been exactly a month since Chris arrived in this underground monster-ridden hellhole, and he's spent the vast majority of it holed up in the house he and the others had grabbed that first day. But after a month of mostly staying off his injured leg--which he'd made a lot worse that first day--he's finally healed enough to begin doing his own exploring.

And he has really good timing, apparently.

Chris is pondering the entrance to a seemingly abandoned store, trying to decide if the structure is stable enough to risk going inside--it looks like it, but he's not interested in having a roof come down on him--when he hears a voice. He turns at the sound, not registering it as familiar immediately, but once he sees Josh's face it all snaps together and is suddenly overwhelming. His immediate thought is that this isn't possible--Josh is dead, must be dead--but that's soon replaced with a question of whether that actually matters in this place at all.

His next thought is that just standing here staring and not paying attention to what's going on around them is a great way for both of them to end up definitely dead, should a monster be lurking somewhere.

So he pulls himself out of his thoughts, back to the present and their surroundings, and toward his friend.]

Josh.

[It's so weird to be talking to him after everything that happened, from the prank to the weeks he's had to try to accept that he'd let his friend be taken by a monster and surely killed. He'd never thought he'd be speaking to Josh again, and so doing so is utterly surreal.

Focus, Chris.]

J-Josh, bro, are you okay?

[First thing's first. Make sure he's okay--he looks okay, but who knows--then get him back to the house. The second part probably isn't going to go over super well, but he'll worry about that once they get there.

After that, they can try to figure out what exactly is going on.]

[pighead]

[He's sort of surprised, but also not. Seeing Chris here should maybe be the weirdest thing that's happened to him so far, but honestly, so much weird shit has happened that it seems like he almost should have been expecting it. And anyway, he just saw Chris, before he - got kidnapped, or whatever happened. So as strange as it should be, it doesn't seem that weird at all.

Which at least sort of explains why Josh acts like he's just run into a friend on the street at home, instead of in some sort of magical crazy hell cave full of monsters and strangers.]

Chris! Hey, bro, what're you doing here?

[The other part of the explanation is, of course, Josh's currently rather shaky grip on reality. If anything, it's helping him take this crazy shit in stride, but mostly because he's sort of given up on trying to figure out exactly what's real and what isn't. Maybe he's having some vivid dream, or a hallucination, or something. Whatever.]

I'm fine, I guess. Really can't figure out how I got here, though.

[thechoiceisyours]

Uh, yeah, no one really knows how any of us got here.

[This is so weird it's almost not, and it might be for the best that Chris has no idea how to go about dealing with that part of it all. It's easier to just shove it aside for the moment and concentrate on the important parts.

Alright, so, Josh isn't hurt, or at least not seriously enough to mention. He looks okay, though something is weird--different weird from the rest--and he can't place it just yet, but again that's not super important at the moment.]

Okay.

[It's half to himself, half to Josh, as he figures out what to say next.]

Okay, look, we have sort of a house. It's a lot safer than being out here; were there like... Did you see monsters?

[Sure it probably sounds crazy to ask, but there had been monsters when he'd shown up and if there were when Josh did too then that's something kind of pressing to figure out.]

[pighead]

Yeah. They were pretty realistic, too.

[So realistic they might even have been real. But Josh hasn't quite been able to bring himself to believe that yet, and of course it would be difficult for him. He knows just how realistic you can make things look with the proper effort, time, and money. A monster like those centipede things wouldn't be impossible.

Probably. It had moved like a living creature, though, and smelled like one.]

But come on, man, monsters aren't real. Where's this house of yours? And what is this place, anyway?

[Josh has about a million more questions, but those seem like the most important ones right now. He's half-expecting a hidden camera somewhere, still, and wouldn't that be a joke? Turning his own plan back around on him? He'd have to give them props for that.

Only he's really not sure who 'them' would be. Chris? Chris is kinda smart, but there's no way he could pull off something like this. Someone else, then.]