hadriel_logs | INTRO LOG: A TAXING JOURNEY

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INTRO LOG: A TAXING JOURNEY

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!

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Kaz isn't the only one scavenging at the moment. A young woman in her late twenties is a short distance away inside the store, against the wall opposite. She slows when another person enters, eyes sharp and trained on the stranger, but continues her own search with occasional, wary glances toward Kaz.

"I had better luck at the next block over," the woman, Cecily Trevelyan, says. Unlike many of the others in Hadriel, she's dressed as if from another time, wearing a longbow strapped across her back, and determinedly ignoring the beeping that's undoubtedly coming from the device at her hip. Nevertheless, she offers the advice with a hesitant smile, placing a few cloth bandages into the pouch she wears.

"Is there anything in particular you're searching for?" Cecily questions. "If it's food, you can eat the fish from the river and lake; they're safe enough. We tried the bears, once, too, but... you know. It's hard to trust anything 'given' to us by Fear."

Or Hope, either, she thinks, but doesn't say. Not everyone agrees on that count.

It's not surprising that there are others out and about with the same idea as him. Miller hasn't gotten an actual count on the number of captives, but either way, there's a fair amount of people wandering around in need of shelter, food, and clothing. Weapons too, but those are apparently harder to come by.

While he and this woman could have carried on with their tasks in silence, Kaz prefers to engage in conversation. Even a simple chat can lead to more information, and he doubts that anything here will actually be simple. The way this stranger dresses and speaks feels similarly out of place to the other people he's met so far. Everyone in this massive cave is foreign to him.

Save for Snake. But that doesn't mean Kaz is going to go crawling back. He can survive just fine on his own.

The advice this stranger offers him he'll take without any complaint, though. Fishing in the river he can probably manage even with his arm missing. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that this place is run by people who embody different emotions." Or... apparently they referred to himself as gods, but that was just too ridiculous.

"And I'm looking for food, clothing, medical supplies..." He takes a few hobbling steps toward her, looking over her strange dress and the bow on her back. "What's your name?" The more people he knows, the better, even if they do look like they walked right out of a fantasy novel.

It's a fairly big number, at this point. Cecily has been in the city for a few months now, and each one brings new captives to the caves. New monsters, too, which is just as concerning, particularly when (as he's noticed) there are few weapons to find.

"It does seem like something out of a story, doesn't it?" She scoffs, rearranging a few things in her bag to make room for more. "They have power, that much is for sure, but as for their being gods... well. I think it depends how you define that."

She doesn't trust them or like them and is therefore less inclined to bring them tribute, or whatever else they'd asked of their prisoners.

"There's some of that to go around." She retrieves some of the cloth bandages from her pouch and walks over, extending it in an offer. "My name is Cecily; I've been here a while now, if you've any questions."

As out of place as this woman might look to him, she seems to agree that this place is almost too strange to be believed. That's a relief. If everyone around here acted like getting kidnapped by the embodiments of Hope and Fear was normal, Miller might have ended up feeling like the crazy one.

Kaz can't say that he believes in gods to begin with, so he already takes some issue with that terminology. He doesn't have any intention of kneeling down to them, that's for sure.

He isn't expecting her to offer him anything more than basic human decency, so when she hands over the bandages, he raises his eyebrows in surprise before adjusting his cane so that he can reach out and take the roll. Whether she's doing this out of the kindness of her heart or because it will leave him indebted to her, he's in no position to refuse. "Thanks. Kazuhira Miller. And I guess my first question would be, what kind of power do they really have? Those... gods, I mean."

Thankfully, not many who've been brought to Hadriel seem to have any intention of kneeling. More often, they just complain, then settle passively into the town that's seemingly been waiting for them. The only way they've found to be able to fight back is to kill the local monsters, when they appear (to the best of their abilities, which isn't always very much).

"Enough to endanger our lives, but not enough that they can return us... or, so they say." It's crisp and conversational; he's still a stranger, after all, and anyone could be an agent of Hope and Fear or even one of their monster lackies. Kaz seems humanlike-enough, so she just looks back at him, expression touched with the distaste she has for the 'gods.'

"They can grant gifts to the people who they favor and one draws out our memories to let loose monsters from our homes, if you can guess which that is. He's also inflicted awful illusions on us to cause fear. ... Ah, look, I've already given the game away. Sorry about that."

As Cecily explains, Kaz tucks the bandages away into his coat pocket. It's really only the start of what he intends to turn into a stockpile. Back on Mother Base, they'd had whole shipping containers full of various supplies. He might not be able to create something on the same scale here, but he's never been comfortable with feeling unprepared.

"Well, that's convenient," he grouses with a shake of his head. These gods will make their lives difficult, but not actually send them back to where they came from. Then again, they must be here to serve some sort of purpose, or they wouldn't have gone to the effort to transport them in the first place.

When it comes to monsters, Kaz's world doesn't have a lot to choose from. Sure, he's met plenty of people who could earn that title, but Hadriel seems to prefer a looser definition. Then again, the Parasite Unit might count. At Cecily's apology, Miller manages a wry smile. "I think in this case, I'd rather have it spoiled ahead of them. And let me guess -- Hope isn't really all that his name makes him out to be." As he speaks, Kaz continues his search, bending down with some effort to grab a dinged-up first aid kit.

"Not exactly." She, too, returns to the search, but there isn't much left that hasn't been picked clean from the city's stores since the first group arrived months prior. "He gathers power just the same as Fear, but using less painful methods. Unless... it's his own brand of illusion, which only sets you up for massive disappointment later on."

Once you realize you aren't where he's made you think that you are. When the little daydream ends.

The Inquisitor straightens up, hovering near the doorway with a hand on the frame.

"If you have any other questions, I can do what I can to answer them. Else, I'll take my leave."

Given how new Kaz still is, he hadn't had the chance to really think about it, but Cecily's words make perfect sense. Given that they've been abducted, there isn't much chance for hope to exist here, unless it's manufactured by playing with their minds. There are ways to do that, chemical imbalances that can be created to make people hallucinate.

The whole idea of "magic" is something he still refuses to believe if there's a better explanation available to him.

After doing some one-armed juggling, Miller drops the kit and the bandages into his pack and then slings it back over his shoulder. It looks like Cecily's ready to be on her way, but there's one more thing he'd like to find out.

"Just this... has there been any progress with finding a way back to where we come from?" Snake hadn't had much to give him on that, but he's not the end all, be all of everything. And this Cecily seems to know what she's doing.

'Magic,' 'chemical imbalances,' it all adds up to the same thing. Hallucinations, visions, artificial feelings and thoughts, hopes and fears. None of it is any good for them, not when their likely-captors are gathering power and strength from it all, day by day.

"We don't know much," she says truthfully. "Hope has said that there is a god, one of the fallen, who would know how to return us. He won't say which, though, and it's all for nothing unless that particular being is resurrected."

In the meantime, the pair will likely be restoring a slew of other, less desirable gods who'll cause a mess of trouble for them. Or worse.

"They say it was some kind of artifact that brought us." She thinks of the anchor lodged in her own hand and curls it into a fist. "But we don't know much more than that. They aren't fond of answering questions, of being straightforward, or of helping us with anything."

Cecily doesn't hesitate to say what she really feels when it comes to the gods. Not that Miller imagines that there are many captive who have anything but disdain for them, since from what he's heard they've been brought here to have their emotions milked like currency.

It's never a pleasant feeling, being used.

"So now it's a matter of guessing which one could actually help?" he asks with a long-suffering sigh. He hasn't even been here for a few days and he's already exhausted by this mess he's gotten dragged into. Then again, he gave up on ideas like rest and peace a long time ago.

"And maybe if that artifact could bring us, it could also send us back. Do you have any idea what it is?" All of this sounds insane, if he's honest. An item that can move people across dimensions sounds like it belongs strictly in fiction, and everything about his situation seems better suited to some elaborate, bizarre dream.

He knows he isn't dreaming. In his dreams, he still has all his limbs. In his dreams, it's still 1974.

No, she absolutely doesn't hold back. She has a lot of feelings regarding their captors, and almost all of them are negative.

"We don't have much of a list to go off of as far as the dead ones go, and Hope says he's got an idea, but won't tell us."

Maybe he could be coerced, she thinks mildly, and stores that idea away for later.

"Exactly. But, no, I've no idea. I think you would have trouble finding anyone who did know, maybe even Hope and Fear, though they're a better bet than any others."

Coercion is always an option. Even back during the MSF days, they'd found ways to convince people to join their cause. Some of it had been Big Boss' overall charisma. Some of it hadn't.

Annoying though it may be, for a moment Kaz finds himself wishing that Ocelot were here. If anyone would be able to get a straight answer out of Hope, it would be him.

"It looks like I'm going to have to wait for one of them to show themselves, then." Kaz may not be an interrogation specialist like Ocelot, but he's not unfamiliar with the concept either.

It doesn't seem like Cecily has much more that she can tell him, and at this point Kaz has already kept her too long. He considers leaving off with a slightly flirtatious comment, but... he isn't really that kind of man anymore, is he? "Anyway... thank you for answering my questions. I'll let you be on your way." He nods firmly at her.

Cecily feels the same way about some of her own people. If anyone could coerce Hope to action, to do something for them rather than just pretending at it, it would be Leliana. The Spymaster of the Inquisition always seemed to know where everyone's weaknesses were tucked away, even if those people were gods, or claimed to be, anyway.

"It won't be long," she says, wryly. Not when Hope and Fear love attention in the way that they seem to, whether it be positive or negative. 'Don't understand humans' my ass.

"You're welcome. I hope you'll be able to make some sense of all this, and... good luck."

With a nod of her own and a polite smile, the Inquisitor departs.

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INTRO LOG: A TAXING JOURNEY

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