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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New to the city is becoming more likely; she read the frankly overwrought guide and doesn't know her way around. That doesn't clear her of any suspicions, though.

"What do you want with it?" Quill asks in return, pleasantly enough but the hint of a challenge lurking beneath her cocked eyebrow. She's not about to let this woman plant bombs there or something. Not without a good reason, anyway.

Marian opens her mouth to say something, then hesitates.

What is she going to do once she has resources to work with, really? Who knows what's happened back in her dimension by now. How much is there really left to go back to, even? Does she even want to know? She's certainly not going to go back to where she was...

She folds her arms, suppressing a shiver. Can't think about it too much, just keep forging ahead. "I want to know what there is to work with. The answer so far is 'not much'."

"Yeeeah, that answer isn't likely to change the longer you're here," Quill agrees and folds her arms in a mirror of the nervous stranger's gesture, leaning against the bookshelf. Maybe that will put her at ease, make her more likely to give some information of interest. "I get the feeling our oppressors aren't too keen on us developing actually useful technology. Can you believe there aren't even projectile weapons in the armory stronger than crossbows? It's the bloody Stone Ages out there." That has clearly been a source of some frustration for Quill. Entirely regardless of the fact that she wouldn't actually be able to use a weapon against anyone. It always pays to be prepared.

"So what's your deal, then? You an engineer of some kind? A scout, maybe?" She definitely looks like she's been through some stuff, but that may have just been whatever monstrosities are currently populating the arena.

"Physicist. Applied research, nothing you'd have any idea about," Marian says offhandedly with a frown. Nothing more than crossbows? She didn't really plan to visit the Armoury, but that's good to know that it's just as hopeless.

"They had to have built this city with something more advanced than hammers and chisels." At least she hopes so. Even worse would be 'magic', which means she doesn't have a frame of reference for whatever advanced technology it actually is. "What about the shops?"

Okay there, Miss Genius, need someone to fetch you a tall horse or something? Quill hasn't had a chance to talk to an actually intelligent human yet, though she's been told they exist, so she has no way to judge just how undeserved Marian's dismissive attitude actually is. But her '''Advanced Level''' human students have proven consistently moronic in the face of basic physics familiar to all Quill even in wartime. So she's prepared to be disappointed.

"Good luck finding anything in the shops besides canned food and knick-knacks. Let me know how that goes," she shrugs with a dash of sardonic encouragement. And now it's her turn again, so she asks "What kind of research?" through a thin-lipped smile. "Try me."

"Unless you're familiar with thermodynamic state transformation through quantum entanglement and its applications to macroscopic systems, I don't think you'll follow," Marian says flatly. Of course it's possible, considering the so-called 'magic' she's seen in use that the other woman is from a more advanced time than herself, but holding out hope for that seems like a long shot.

That certainly does get Quill's attention, though her expression carefully shows little of the surprise she feels, aside from a raised eyebrow. "Quantum energy transfer? That's fancy. Didn't think humans would get anywhere near the applied research stage before getting distracted by another Pokemon game or something." She sounds disdainful but that's just what happens when she talks about humans; this is actually pretty interesting and she's almost ready to reevaluate her impression of the stranger.

Except then she remembers why her people abandoned this kind of research in its early stages, and she frowns. "Hang on, wasn't there a pretty high likelihood of punching a hole in something important, like, you know, your own dimension? What are you doing about that?"

If Marian seemed nervous when they first met, her reaction to the implication that Quill herself isn't human is not great, jerking back to put another couple meters between the two of them.

Normally, she's be quite interested in the fact that someone has even an inkling of what she's talking about, but she's still very, very new to the situation here in Hadriel, and her personal experiences with non-human intelligence has not been great. On the other hand, Quill still looks a lot closer to human than even the entities' best attempts.

"How about you tell me just what you are first," she counters with a query of her own.

Right, humanity is an isolated special snowflake species who is mostly unaware aliens are among them. Kinda forgot about that, after a month cooped up with all sorts of bizarre beings. Should she have seen this overdramatic reaction coming? Perhaps. Is she gonna be annoyed about it anyway? Absolutely.

"Oh for God's sake," she sighs and throws up her hands in exasperation. "If I was going to suck your brain out through your ears, don't you think I would have done so by now?" With magnanimous patience, she explains, "I'm Quill. And if you're that spooked by someone who at least looks like you, you're not going to be popular with the real weirdos around here."

"That's not the worst thing that could happen," Marian says darkly, eyes narrowing. "What do you mean by 'real weirdos'? I've already run into one simpleton babbling on about magic, if that's what you're talking about."

Quill can't help but snort at that. "Yeah, there are a couple of those around. God only knows what superstitious nonsense or genetic mutations they're using to justify that." But that's not what she was talking about. She puts her hands on her hips, maybe a little smug but mostly she just wants to make her point memorable.

"I mean people who don't meet your xenophobic ideas of normalcy, out there, minding their own business for the most part. Meanwhile, the ones who seem as human as I regrettably do have all sorts of fascinating powers. So I suggest you try not to waste your paranoia on appearances."

"'For the most part', huh? Where and when and......," she stumbles a bit at this part, lacking sufficient words (and coherency, when it's brought directly to mind) to exactly describe the situation she'd been in, settling for, "...in my experience, they didn't just 'mind their own business'. So where on that scale do you fall?"

Suspicious still, yes, but it's true that everything so far has been fairly calm once she skipped past the monsters in the colloseum.

This lady sure is rattled. Possibly what's rattling is a few loose screws. But she is intriguing, with her quantum research and her unfortunate alien experiences. Whether or not Quill has the patience to put up with her neurotic behavior for the sake of finding out more about her remains to be seen, though.

"Is there a 'just trying to get through the damn day' part of the scale? Because that's where I am." There's another long-suffering roll of the eyes as she figures she needs to spell it out for this woman. "Look, I have no reason or interest in harming you. I want to go back where I came from, like most people here. And in the meantime, I'm just curious," she shrugs and tilts her head. "So who did you run into, that didn't mind their own business?"

"Something... we weren't meant to meet." She shivers again. It still feels so cold, even here.

"Never... never mind. Wanting to get home. Right. Sure," Marian repeats, as if trying to establish even to herself that is isn't a big deal here, apparently. Aliens. But simply ones somewhere near the same level of existence as humans. "Let me guess. Nobody has made any meaningful progress on that yet. Has anyone even located the 'Door'?"

Well that's ominous. Quill would love to hear more about these obviously terrifying creatures, but there's no point in setting off this woman all over again. She seems to be just slowly coming to grips with the fact that aliens can be regular people. Progress! Maybe now they can have a conversation without Quill having to pat her head and play ambassador every five seconds.

"I've been here for a month and all the progress I've seen is of the 'settling in' variety. It's like most people decided to just... roll over and live here now." Her distaste for the lack of open rebellion is palpable. There is nothing wrong with establishing a functional base and building up your resources, but at some point you're just getting comfortable so you can pretend you're not really being oppressed. "Don't think the Door has been found either. We probably don't have the right technology to detect it, as I'm sure you can guess. You think you can help with that?"

"Yes," comes the immediate answer, as if there was no doubt in her mind. But then there's a pause and a slightly less certain, "...Probably."

While confident in her own abilities, there's the lack of resources and, more importantly, the question of whether or not it's even a good idea. If whatever the 'Door' ends up being, if it can do more than just pull people in and send people back to their homes...

"Alright, well, you better prepare for an extended stay." Quill isn't completely incapable of empathy; she can see the lady is struggling and she's not going to get much more out of her for now. That's fine, they'll have plenty of time to get acquainted.

For a moment, she hesitates, appraising the woman anew and weighing her worth against her obviously prickly personality. But Quill well knows the value of a good scientist in an army, so she offers, "If you need anything, let me know. What's your name?"

"Marian Tenebris. Dr. Marian Tenebris," she amends, more out of habit than anything at this point. And the other woman is Quill, she recalls easily no need to repeat anything. "I'll... keep your offer in mind. Thank you."

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Intro Log: Eat Your Veggies

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