hadriel_logs | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Ushahin is here as he is every month. Always, there is just a little hope within him that someone from his home will come. Well, this time, there is someone he recognizes amidst all the confused minds. He senses Sharon just before she lights the vegetation on fire.

He approaches her slowly and with no undue caution. She could just as easily turn that fire on him. He catches her eye, assessing her overall mental state. Physical is of little concern to him, provided she's not about to bleed out in the dirt.]

So, you have returned.

Oh, thanks for stating the obvious. [ The area near him may warm but she does not do it with any intent to harm or even warn. She is too tangled to pay much heed to what her abilities do to protect her and, if she could, she would call her protector in this moment because now is when she needs him the most.

But this is not the fog or the Otherworld and she knows she only has herself in this moment.

Physically, she's only dealing with strains and bruises and knocks to the head, but mentally, she is drowning in an ocean of memories—memories that are old and new, both fresh and antiqued with aged, with the memories of Hadriel peeking through the gaps. Her head is tangled but right now is not the time to even attempt to untangle it. She shoots a quick glare at the smoldering mound as it still attempts its approach before it slows as it turns to black ash from the inside out.

Her attention returns to Ushahin and she raises her head up high. ] Did you return just now?

[ Or are you one of the fools who waits for their loved ones? She knows better than to do that, even all brand new again. ]

[Her usual sarcasm is to be expected, so Ushahin lets it roll off of him. He'd be more worried if she seemed at all glad to see him. What disturbs him more is what he can feel bleeding out of her mind, something he doesn't even need to push into. It's coming off her in waves. Everything is all jumbled up, Alessa's and Sharon's and Hadriel all mixed in together. He could help. He knows he could. But she would likely spit in his face after all that he's done to her.]

No. I always come every month. The minds are always the same: confused, wondering where they are, and what is going on. I enjoy the consistency.

[That's what he'll use as an excuse. The Door keeps bringing more people in, even those long dead. Someday, perhaps Tanaros or Vorax will make their way to him. He still has hope, small as it is. They didn't survive a thousand years of each other's company to be parted now.]

Where have you been?

[ No one ever said Ushahin was normal, and to learn that he comes here every month for the consistency shouldn't, and isn't, much of a shock. Sharon simply gives a shake of her head, grinding her teeth as she looks away from him. The monsters were huge but they seemed easily distracted by the more moving prey. She returns her blues to him at his question, brows drawn down for a moment of confusion and then dawning realization and relief. ]

Home. I-I went home. [ And for all the pain she feels, whatever exhaustion that clings to her thanks to Claudia's touch, she's so incredibly glad she did. She saved her dad. God, she saved her dad and that's the only thing that matters in any universe.

She saved her dad. Vincent, too. They'd just been ready to leave, the fog lifting, and... Fuck. She can suffer through Hadriel and it's monsters and gods if only because she did what she had to do: she saved her dad, fuck everything else out there. ]

That leaves me with one less thing to worry about. [ And she can focus more on Hadriel and how to fix shit here than trying to force a way home. ]

[Ushahin pushes up against her mind, not enough to look through recent memories, only to feel the emotions that came with them. Exhaustion is there as well as immense relief. It's better than what he usually feels coming off of Sharon.]

Your father, he is...?

[See, he remembered Sharon mentioning him. If she was alright with being back here, that had to mean her goal to keep him safe had been met. Her motivation and reason for doing the things she had done. Such love and loyalty was impressive. No one could ever procure such emotions through force. That was genuine in its intensity and long-lasting nature.]

Safe. [ She does not like the fact that the other man remembers such an important facet of her life, likes even less that he bothers to ask of Christopher, but, at the same time, finds that she appreciates it. There are so few here who would think to ask of him. ]

I saved him, made sure the bitch that took him was dead and scattered the rest of the Order's members. [ And they were going to leave and never look back. Let The Order rot in the fog world they'd created. There's no doubt that they'll recoup one day and hunt her down but, until then, she's free of all of that. There's a warm sense of pride and accomplishment rolling off her. She did it. ]

Very good. [There's a definite note of approval in his voice. She was strong and powerful. No wonder she had saved her father.]

You have done what I never could. [It was what Ushahin had tried and failed to do in his own world. The web of the patterns he had seen had drawn in and taken, first a little here, then a little there. In the end, everyone he had cared about was dead except for him.]

[ She drops her gaze, feeling a sharp rise in sympathy towards him. She doesn't want to imagine what it would have been like to fail. Fuck, it wasn't really an option in the first place. Save her father or, in all likelihood, die. ]

Yeah, well, you know what they say about things lasting. [ They don't. She doesn't say it bitterly or sarcastically, just honestly. ]

[It hurts, even now all these months later, to know he failed so badly to protect those he loved. It is what has led him to wait for his cousins and his god each month to come through the Door. If they do show up, he will not fail them again.]

The dragons in my world have a saying. "All things must be as they are." [He shrugs. There is always a pattern at work that rules the universe. He sees it even here.]

I don't like that saying very much. [ Bluntly. ] It sounds a lot like 'fate' or 'destiny' bullshit.

[ And it's pretty clear she doesn't believe in things like that. The Order prophesized the birth of their god and, instead, they got a one-way ticket straight to nightmare land to live out the rest of their days in rent-free homes or apartments while being hunted by monsters. They said it was her destiny and she promptly told her destiny to go screw herself. ]

People have a hand in making their own fate, this is true. But there is a pattern at work, something that we don't consciously realize until we are wrapped up in it. Once that happens, there is nothing to be done as it constricts around us, and draws us in.

[He knew all too well, for he'd tried to shake the pattern off to prevent his god from dying, and everything else he cared about from being destroyed. It hadn't worked and Ushahin had been left in despair.]

Intro Log: Eat Your Veggies

Coliseum

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject