hadriel_logs | Intro Log: Eat Your Veggies

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Intro Log: Eat Your Veggies

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for January
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: January 10th-16th
Warnings: Luscious greenery and confused newbies

As has become tradition within the good (well, okay) city of Hadriel, new arrivals will awake on the floor of the half-destroyed colosseum. Confused and disoriented, you may be wondering where you are and what you're doing there. Don't worry! Someone will probably tell you sooner or later, as long as you get out of the colosseum alive.

Oh, right. About that. Along with the poor, innocent, vulnerable new arrivals are a number of other new friends! Well, maybe less 'friends' than 'horrifying monsters', but are you really going to be picky? Wandering the arena are Shambling Mounds. These creatures are large, unattractive piles of vaguely humanoid-shaped vegetation. They hit hard, they can take a lot of damage, and if you're really unlucky they might manage to engulf you with their weird plant bodies. If that happens, you'd better try to get free fast - otherwise they'll just walk off with you stuck inside and kill you later at their leisure.

The Door appears to have cast a wide net for 'plant monsters', and while Shambling Mounds are the only ones that can actually hurt you, it's managed to pull in a number of smaller, less dangerous carnivorous plants. Some of them are even kind of cute! So if you were looking for a pet venus flytrap or a new pitcher plant, you're in luck. Scattered around the colosseum are carnivorous potted plants, just waiting to find a new home.

Make a new plant friend, or get eaten by one, or run screaming! Whatever you choose to do, once you find your way out of the colosseum there's plenty of other distractions. Feel free to go explore the rest of the city! Find a house, a new monster, a project to help with, or simply scavenge for supplies. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers January 10th-16th.
► 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!

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It's as she catches her breath that she starts to hear the muttering, and she freezes in place, listening. For those few seconds in the Colosseum, she'd seen people too. There were some people alive here. Actual people. Probably.

Slowly she starts to edge around the building, catching sight of the blood trail. Nothing horrible that she's familiar with bleeds.

Still mute with apprehension, and unable to see anything through the windows, she makes her way around the building. With definite trepidation, she opens the door carefully, just far enough to slowly lean past the doorframe and peer inside - and at Carlisle - with that blank, thousand-yard stare.

Carlisle doesn't spot Marian immediately, as his focus is elsewhere -- namely on his leg, which looks like it got into a fight with the lovechild of a tentacle and a thorn bush. As she peers inside, he's just getting the last of the thorns from his leg, completely detaching himself from the tendril he brought with him into the store. He hurls it as far as he can -- not very far, given his flimsy physique -- and watches as it writhes on the ground a few feet away from him, still clinging to whatever form of life animated it in the first place.

"Serves you right," he grumbles at it, sighing as he looks down at his leg. With both bloodstained and tears in several places, revealing numerous punctures from the thorny plant in his pale skin, his slacks are ruined on all counts. Just by running his hand over his calf, he heals the first hole, then another before his eyes suddenly catch sight of someone watching him.

His response is immediate: he stiffens, then scuttles behind the nearby counter with a yelp as he puts pressure on his injured leg. He also regrets that decision as he realizes belatedly that he left his companion behind: a small, potted flytrap.

Maybe she's just a newcomer, he thinks. Maybe she's not some monster brought in by the Door -- he didn't get a good look. Most importantly, maybe she doesn't want his plant. His pants suffered for that plant.

Unintentionally ominous, there's the faintest creak as the door swings open further, followed by Marian's quiet, hesitant footfalls.

The plant he left behind is alive, too. Healthy, even. If it wasn't for the fact that everything seemed slightly off about the city, she'd almost thing she was somewhere else in the world, not long after... the mistake. But that doesn't seem right, there's too much that's not right. Her gaze swings past the little potted plant to the counter where Carlisle is hiding.

It takes a moment before she finds her voice. Has it been too long since she even used it? How do you describe time spent in a place where it has no meaning?

"Hhh... H. Hello?" she finally manages, not advancing any further. What was she even hoping to accomplish? Without a frame of reference, any idea where anything is, it's pointless. Maybe she should just leave.

Okay, so it's not a monster, Carlisle reassures himself. Monsters don't greet you. Well, some do, shades in particular, but that sounded tentative, so she's more likely to be a newcomer. She doesn't want the plant. Hopefully.

Carlisle peers out from behind the top of the counter. Aside from that piece of technology on her back -- Carlisle has lots of unpleasant feelings regarding modern devices of any sort, his communicator included on most days -- she looks less like a threat and more like someone who is as apprehensive as he is. That's a true feat, and... surprisingly comforting.

"Hello," he replies, getting to his feet behind the counter -- he hisses through his teeth, the punctures that remain in his leg still stinging, still bleeding. "Sorry about the, ah. Moment of panic. Thought you might've been something that followed me in here."

"Are..." She hesitates again, taking a deep breath. Talking. Right. "Are they still around?" It would make sense with how he was hiding, and her eyes dart to the window. Though she doesn't duck for cover, she does fold her hands in front of her, one covering her watch, ready to jump out on a fraction of a second's notice.

Maybe she can go earlier. Earlier is always safer. At least... for physical danger.

"Aside from that," he answers, his eyes darting to the still-wriggling vine in the room, "no, I don't suppose so." Or at least that's what he hopes.

He leans on the counter as he steps out from around it, blood still trailing down his leg. "Most of the monsters that come in seem to stay around the Colosseum until the false gods banish them to the caves. I got unlucky."

All of the words are technically understandable, but the blank look he gets at that entire statement is the definite sign of a newcomer.

'Where' wasn't a helpful question not that long ago. When is out of the question. When. Marian didn't even have the presence of mind to check if there were any problems, and looks suddenly and abruptly horrified, lifting her hand from her watch to check for any warning signals.

But the look is fleeting as she confirms that at least in terms of timeline, everything is fine. Trying to get at least some kind of a grip on reality, she looks at Carlisle again. Colosseum, she gets, clearly the ruins she ran from.

"What's.... going on," she settles for, gaze drifting down to his injury. Maybe she could help? Maybe not. "...caves?"

Carlisle isn't entirely sure what to make of the expression she gives him, nor of the way she looks around them, nor of the questions she asks.

"Caves, yes," he answers, getting the distinct feeling she is probably new. "The city itself is in a cavern, but there are caves all around filled with horrible things. I don't recommend them."

He limps past her back over to the plant on the floor and slides downward along the wall, taking a seat beside it so he can get back to work on his leg. "I assume you were just brought here. I'm sorry."

Marian gives him lots of space, backing up when she thinks he might be coming too close on his way past, standing awkwardly in the middle of the store, unsure of her next course of action.

"'Brought here'. By who?" she asks after taking a deep breath, before realizing the obvious answer. And it's one she doesn't like the sounds of, starting to pull it together. "These 'false gods'? What are they? Where are they?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he replies, flexing his fingers before setting his hands on his leg. "They are beings that feed off our emotions, harvesting them like food."

He hisses again as the next puncture closes up beneath his palm. He moves his hand, revealing fresh skin where there had been a wound as he moves onto the next one, a hole closer to his knee.

"They don't make it a habit to hide themselves, however. The speak to us on the communicators, making it no secret what they're doing and why they're doing it."

"Communicators," Marian echoes, staring now at the seemingly 'magical' healing. She fled in such a panic, and slowly recovering now that she's somewhere that has some semblance of being a real place, she pats down her pockets, finding the phone there.

But she doesn't even open or look at it yet. Voice flat, she asks, "What are you doing." Healing like that isn't a real thing. Nor regeneration, at least, not a human thing.

Carlisle hisses as another hole shuts -- that one had been painful. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he seethes, his temper flaring.

He bites it back not even a minute later, taking in a deep breath. "I shouldn't direct such irritation at you when it is better aimed at the damnable beings who bring such abominations into the city. You have my apologies, Miss."

She recoils a little, apology seemingly rolling right off her as she retorts, "Maybe... I'd have a better idea if you told me just what you are."

She'd assumed human until now -- hoped, from the blood and all visible indications - and although he's clearly not one of them, the things from beyond, they could regenerate themselves, tapping into the endless drain of energy they had accessed in her dimension. So this is an uncertain grey area, and she's not about to trust anyone just because they sound like a nice person.

Stifling a cough from the back of his throat, Carlisle gives the stranger a puzzled look.

"Human," he answers, his nose wrinkling in confusion. "And clergy. What else would I be?"

Though to be fair, demons can parade around with an almost-human appearance, and he is cursed, though he doubts she could figure that out so quickly.

Edited 2017-01-14 04:26 (UTC)

"I don't know," Marian says darkly, "But humans don't usually have their injuries heal up on their own like that."

'Clergy' is an utterly bizarre addition to his statement though, unless he thinks it's some kind of holy miracle, which Marian seriously doubts. But at least, even without looking at looking at her new communicator, she's starting to get her wits about her again and see the pieces start to fall into place.

Everything is not right here, and people being 'brought' in means... wherever the hell she is, it isn't Earth. She's not sure if it's really a relief or not.

"Are you from here or were you 'brought in' too?" she adds for clarification, eyes narrowing.

"Cisth, you are new," Carlisle utters, his hands moving to the last puncture in his leg. The massive thorns got him tightly there, but just like the others, it's there when he places his hand over it and gone when he removes it.

"No one is 'from here,'" he clarifies, getting to his feet now that his leg is fully mended -- his pants, unfortunately, are still a complete mess, one leg filled with holes and tears where the plant got a hold of him. "We were all brought here, spirited away to be used as food for the beings who rule this place. And for the record, no, most humans don't usually have their injuries heal up on their own, and mine weren't doing that to begin with. I was healing them."

He'd thought his being clergy would be answer enough for his abilities, but he has to remember that they are from different worlds, and some have no magic at all, no matter how strange that may sound.

Edited 2017-01-14 22:38 (UTC)

None of this helps to alleviate the suspicious squint. "Right. Just like magic," she says sardonically. Maybe it was something she just hadn't noticed. "What were you using? And just when and where are you from?"

If it wasn't for the fact it was affecting her directly, it would be almost interesting. Of course there are parallel dimensions beyond the one she'd unwittingly tapped into. There hadn't been time to even think about it in the chaos of what happened in hers, and maybe there wasn't here either -- that much wasn't clear yet. But if she ever had the chance sometime...

"Yes, just like magic, because it is magic." He stifles another cough as he stoops and picks up the plant, turning the pot this way and that to make sure it wasn't damaged, his eyes skimming every crevice for cracks or breaks.

"I'm from a place called Bear Den, but much like everyone else here, I doubt you've heard of it." And given his standing with his own bloodline, he's actually grateful for that.

She's actually like to get a closer look at just how well-healed those injuries are, but she's also not about to get that close, the concern that someone might try to take her device still nagging in the back of her mind. 'Magic', indeed. More like a suspicious cover-up for whatever advanced tech he's using.

"I don't mean your home town, I meant..." what exactly? Even assuming this meant the Everett interpretation was correct in some form, nobody quantitatively described any form of coordinates in the universal branching yet. At least in her dimension and her time. "...decoherence branch. Superposition on the universal waveform. Or whatever your preferred terminology is," she settles for.

Carlisle's eyes narrow, his brow knitting together as Marian absolutely loses him.

"Right. Going to have you stop there, because I have no idea what it is you're going on about. I don't particularly" —his gaze flicks to the device on her back, then returns to her face, uncertainty coloring him— "...like technology." Or trust it. He questions the communicators on a near-daily basis. "So you're going to have to either explain some of that to me, or just take my initial answer."

Hey, they can be uncertain together. Marian doesn't trust this so-called 'magic' is one bit.

"Never mind then," she snaps. Some kind of Luddite who doesn't know what he's dealing with, maybe. Is this place going to end up being some twisted version of 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'? "You said there are others. Is there anyone around who would know what I'm talking about, or is everyone here all about using 'magic' instead."

Her fingers twitch at the urge to make air-quotes, but she resists. Of all the stupid beliefs...

She doesn't make air quotes, but Carlisle feels her disbelief all the same.

"I don't know what answers it is you're looking for," he sneers, holding his prize tighter, "but if mine are not sufficient, then you are welcome to look elsewhere. Perhaps ask on the communicator who can help you."

And this is one of the many reasons he doesn't go out of his way to help the newcomers.

Right, the communicator still in her hand. Marian looks at it -- it seems obvious how to turn it on and quickly skim the basic functions and network.

"This is accurate as far as everyone here is concerned? Minus the drivel?" Marian corrects her own question, not exactly convinced between Carlisle and a brief glance at the network that there's much to be gained here.

Still, it's communication with the others who've been brought here... and judging by the message quality, they don't seem to be in immediate fear for their lives. It could be worse, in other words.

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Intro Log: Eat Your Veggies

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