hadriel_logs | Event log: Who What Where Wendigo

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Event log: Who What Where Wendigo

Who: Everyone participating in the wendigo event!
What: The accidental-cannibalism-turned-horrifying-monster event that is the Who What Where Wendigo event!
Where: All around the city
When: Feb 14th-March 1st
Warnings: Cannibalism, body horror, evil monsters lurking around.

Don't forget to check up on the Wendigo Guide that Ami posted!

On February 14th, Rage and Fear decide to give Hope a little bit of help taking care of the residents of Hadriel - they'll provide some food for awhile. How nice! Except, of course, that there's an extra ingredient in this food. A can of beef stew? Yeah... that might not be beef. But hey, it still tastes pretty good! Unfortunately, some spirits slipped through the Door last time it opened, and they're ready to possess anyone who participates in cannibalism - even if they don't know it.

Anyone who eats the provided meat will be possessed by a wendigo spirit. Over the course of twelve days, they will transform into a monster that feels little but rage and hunger. While at first it can be explained away easily enough (people are super annoying, and isn't everyone a little hungry most of the time?), by February 18th, wendigo transformations are impossible to ignore. A few days after, on February 22nd, the anger and cravings of the wendigo spirit will overcome all other emotions, and possessed characters may begin hunting.

The physical and mental transformation will be complete by February 26th. The possessed characters will have lost themselves completely at that point. While physical healing (done by a character with Hope's blessing or another healing ability) can turn back the physical and some mental effects, they will remain possessed until death or until Hope removes the wendigo spirit - which can only be done on the altar of Hope's temple. So have fun dragging your angry, possessed friends there!

On March 1st, Rage does Hope a solid (because she feels sort of bad) and kills all remaining wendigos. Upon revival, the spirit will be gone and the character will be fully recovered. Hopefully no one holds what they did while possessed against them!

► This log covers February 14th-March 1st.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► Please report any character deaths right here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As Firo sizes her up, Rey takes some mental notes as well, from his accent to his style of clothes and his reply. If nothing else, she can learn more about her fellow cave prisoners here this way.

"You probably can't, other than taking a stranger's word for it," she admits. Even she can't deny she would feel a little suspicious of someone approaching her with meat. If anything else, his reluctance also tells her something. "But it's either this, taking whatever it is the 'gods' are sharing, or starve. Better to pick the lesser evils."

The way she says 'gods' might as well be said with air quotes. Even after what she's seen so far, she's just as skeptical to validate their complexes.

She then shrugs. "Can at least tell you that this is leftover bear and snake meat. You're not a vegetarian, are you?"

Probably best not to volunteer that one of those evils may not be so evil for him personally--not just yet.

He listens closely, blinking blankly at her question. "Vegetarian?" What. "No. Don't really care what it's from, so long as it's not poisonous."

Wait, are snakes poisonous? He tries not to think about that too hard lest the Szilard-o-pedia pop open and volunteer answers. Something's already trickling into his head about the difference between being venomous and poisonous, but he doesn't really care to hear it.

Instead of giving a straight answer right away, he zeroes in on her inflection when speaking of the gods. Food is comforting. But knowing someone else may be skeptical is comforting too, and maybe through this he can learn more about her and the reliability of her meat offerings.

His tone is curious, not combative or judgmental, "What've you got against those people, huh? The 'gods'?"

"Well, you can neutralize the venom if you cook it, if that were the case." She shrugs a shoulder. "But no, these are fine. Have eaten some without any adverse effects."

At least that's out of the way -- Rey has indeed sampled the goods.

Despite bearing one of the gods' blessing on the back of her right hand, Rey arches a brow like the answer to Firo's question should be obvious. "Knew someone once who tried to play as the divine savior of humanity. Turned out he was a brainwashing fraud. Am not going to validate the god complex of a people who are prone to torture and parlor tricks, let alone buy whatever it is they're selling right now."

Some people would call her paranoid, but considering what Rey has seen these assholes do, she believes that her doubt is justified.

Firo snorts in disapproval of this mystery 'savior.' "A fraud? There's a shocker."

Though to be fair, he'd claim that anyone, no matter what they could do, was a fraud if they played themselves up like that.

"That's all good to hear." His smirk takes on a tinge of amusement. "All things considered, so far you're soundin' a lot less weird than some of the other people I've met here."

Like the guy who didn't know what cars were. Or those freaky 'gods' themselves.

"If your offer's still open, what would you say to sharin' a bite?" It's a little more comforting if they both eat.

Rey could almost join him, but she isn't the laughing type in front of people she's just met.

Instead she just scoffs at his next comment. "Don't know about that. Am plenty weird."

Perhaps not weirder than a guy not knowing what a car was or someone who's going around telling people she's a goddamned god, but she's weird. Even by her own world's standards.

She hesitates, eying and studying him for a moment before she reluctantly nods.

"Sure. Um, will need a kitchen to cook with, unless you want to dine on jerky. The steak's just better."

Your place or mine?

She does look pretty weird. All the same, he has to laugh at that, to hear it said so plainly. Jokingly, he holds his hands up. "Didn't mean to offend you, lady."

The hesitation might be suspicious, but Firo instead finds himself primed to consider another possible cause when she mentions the need for a kitchen and thus a place to go to. She is, after all, a woman, and he's just some guy who showed up.

He's not quick to answer either, finally broaching the subject almost gingerly. "There's one at the place where I'm stayin'. I bet I can figure out a way to cook it no problem." He pauses and adds, "If you, um... don't mind that."

She hardly looks like what would be considered a lady in his time, but he doesn't give a damn about that. He doesn't want to creep her out, realizing that such an invitation might seem too bold to some.

"Rey."

It's not common for her to give a name first, but she'd rather not be called lady.

While some women would probably find it cagey to go into the home of 'just some guy' who they just met, Rey isn't quite as reluctant. Not because she's naïve by any means, but because she's pretty sure she can handle whatever this guy throws at her if he decides to get strange. It's a little hard to feel threatened when you're a walking torch.

But people are full of surprises.

"Don't mind. Lead the way."

While her sentences are short and choppy, her mannerisms aren't completely inimical.

"Huh--?" Oh. That makes things easier! He nods as he turns to walk down the hallway. "Firo Prochainezo. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but from what I've seen of this place so far... It's really not."

He'll start leading down the spire and to one of the nearby houses as they talk.

"Thanks, by the way. For the food and all. Haven't met too many people who'd just go around like that."

"Have met people under worse circumstances." Rey shrugs, though knowing what Firo had meant.

As he leads the way, she follows alongside him, carrying the full basket in her hand. There should be enough in there to keep people fed for at least a week or so, perhaps more if they were smart with their rations.

She blinks at him. "It's nothing. Better to share the food than to let it go bad. Don't need to eat that much to live." So it may as well go to people who need it more.

"I wouldn't say it's nothin'. Some people'd rather let it rot than share, you know." He shrugs, his tone mild despite his distaste for such things. People are people and people are assholes.

He points ahead to indicate their trajectory. "It's right around the corner. Bianca and Jack live there, if you know those two."

With a rather unladylike snort, Rey rolls her eyes. "Well, some people are stupid."

And wasting good food is like the pinnacle of human stupidity as far as she is concerned. Ugh.

"You live with people?" Honestly, the possibility hadn't occurred to her, since she doesn't really know anyone here. And yet here this guy is, already settled in, it seems like. She pauses a moment, her mouth forming into a contemplative straight line. "Can always bring extra food sometime for the others. Should have enough for them, too."

He laughs, "Not gonna argue with that."

At her question, he bobs his head once. "Yeah. ...Kind of a long story." It's not the fact that he lives with two people he's just met that is strange to him--that's the story of his life back home--but more who they are. Both strike him as a little strange, though he feels protective of Bianca and fascinated by Jack.

"Really?" Damn, that's some generosity. Part of him mutters that he should be all the more wary of her for it. That part doesn't have the stranglehold that it once did on him, but it's yet another part that points out that this will only increase what he owes her.

"If you really do have enough, I think they might like that. What do you want?" As an exchange, he means.

She doesn't doubt the lengthy story. "Did you know them from before?"

While she hasn't been around nearly long enough to say that she knows everyone here, Rey can't help but wonder about the people who choose to live together. It's got to be better than her own freeloading 'roommate' -- if you could call it that.

Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, she shrugs a shoulder. "Nothing. Don't want anything," she says simply. "Just don't eat the food the gods are giving. The fewer people taking their handouts, the better."

So she'd rather people take her handouts. Well, it isn't entirely an act of goodwill on Rey's part. If there's something wrong with the food, and there likely is, it'd just be a pain to have to deal with the fallout.

That's what she keeps telling herself, anyway. ~~It's not like she cares or anything.~~

"Nah, met 'em on my first day here."

He slows by the first house in the spiral and moves to hold the door open for her. "That's nice and all, but what do I say when you show up here in a couple weeks to collect a favor?"

He's grinning like it's a joke, and it kind of is. But not totally--he does honestly wonder. The old him would have completely refused from the beginning, but Firo likes to think he hasn't gone so soft as to be more stupid than he usually is.

That's... impressive. At least it is to Rey.

She blinks at him for a moment, stopping in front of the door. It's obvious that, while he's seemingly making a joke about the subject, he seriously expects her to have some ulterior motive to this. And, in a way, she does...

"Just would like someone to talk to other than a goldfish, is all. Not that-- Haven't been talking to a goldfish or anything." She feels the need to make that last point clear, before she makes the immediate decision to go inside.

Firo stares at her retreating form before he moves in behind her. The amusement in his voice is much stronger now, with no real attempt to hide it. "Wow. You really are desperate."

And, yes, he's skeptical of that denial. He smirks. "Goldfish sounds awfully specific."

Wasting no time, he makes straight for the kitchen. When they get there, he gestures toward the table to indicate where she should put the food.

With all the residents being new, the kitchen (and the whole house) are rather spare. But there are a few cans in the cupboard collected from wherever they could scrape it together, and Firo intends to see what he can work with those and the meat.

Maybe she is. She'd spent the last four years living with her brother, that it feels weird to have a whole place to herself. Most of the time it was because she couldn't be trusted to be left to her own devices; Rey was as much of a danger to herself as she was to others. But something recently just snapped, like a flip of a switch.

No, it's not desperation. Loneliness, perhaps? Hell if she's going to admit that.

"Hope left it. It's really just stupid and useless. Don't know what he was thinking." Rey would never trust herself with another living thing, let alone something as pathetic as a fish.

She may or may not be changing the subject, either, as she sets the basket aside on the table while Firo checks to see what he's got. Her eyes wander at the spartan appearance of the place; not much different than her own.

Edited (OH GOD I MADE A TINY HUGE MISTAKE) 2016-03-03 05:42 (UTC)

Her vitriol towards what Firo assumes is an innocuous fish only reads to him as more denial. He wouldn't put money on it at this point, but he's starting to wonder if she really does have some small amount of affection for the thing.

He shrugs and takes a can of what look like string beans out of a cupboard. "Don't know about useless. If it gets big enough, you could probably eat it."

The only 'pet' fish Firo ever saw in the tenements were the occasional Christmas dinner carp dumped in the bathtub and allowed to grow until the day of their doom. Perhaps that's what Hope intended with this lady's little thing.

And Rey, being Rey, would do anything within her power to deny the fact that she does, in fact, give a damn about something she's deemed useless. Especially a little freeloading creature that serves no purpose.

She just scoffs. Firo isn't the first person to suggest such a thing.

"Not going to be desperate enough to eat a goldfish."

Firo clatters around the kitchen as they speak, retrieving the cutting knife and pot he's managed to scavenge.

He snorts back. "Then what are you gonna do with it? Ain't about desperate or not." The little thing isn't very useful just hanging around, is it?

"Haven't decided yet."

There are a number of things she could do with it, like flush it down the toilet, or drop it in the river, or do the sensible thing and give it to someone else who actually knows what they're doing. All the same, it would leave her talking to herself like a crazy person. Because crazy people don't talk at fish. Not at all.

After a moment she glances at Firo busying himself. She folds her arms over her chest. "Don't suppose you need help with anything?"

She may not be a cook, but that doesn't mean she can't lend a hand.

He moves to fill the pot with water and place it on the stove. Though his back may be to her, the smug skepticism in his voice might be audible."...Uh-huh."

She totally likes that fish.

"You can saw off how much of that--" he indicates the meat with the handle of his knife. "--you're willin' to part with, and then I'll get started."

He offers the knife to her, handle first.

She just might have a certain fondness towards the small fish. Shh.

Regardless of whether Firo believes her or not, she's going to take that uh-huh for what it's worth. The truth is, the creature is just so pathetic that she can't help but feel somewhat sorry for the damned thing. All it does and can do is swim around in a bowl all day, serving no other purpose in life. That's rough.

"Okay." She fully intends on leaving the whole basket contents at the house because she may as well, but doesn't say anything in the event that Firo just happens to be one of those who'd decline her goodwill. She's trying this 'being nice' thing, goddammit.

After taking out one of the knives from the drawers and cutting up pieces of the meat from the basket over the counter, she casts Firo a glance. "What are you making, exactly?"

He nods his thanks as she begins working on it. He's considering the cans once again, then wrestles through another drawer to stab one open.

"Soup. It's pretty easy to stretch out if you need it to go for a long time. Seems like we could need it, so might as well."

It might not taste super great near the end when it's further diluted, but that hardly matters in times like these.

"Plus, it's not like it's really hard either."

That's... definitely one way of opening up a can.

"Smart." Rey nods in approval as she continues cutting the meat.

Firo is thinking ahead, about the long term. She can appreciate that.

As someone who's spent so long without being able to even tell the difference between good and shitty soup, it could be diluted as shit and she wouldn't notice. It'd be as good as gourmet to her.

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