♥ September Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

September Intro Mingle Log
Welcome to Hugtopia, and to the city of Havenwell. This mingle is meant for new arrivals to get settled and meet the other inhabitants. New characters should be the only top-levels but everyone should feel free to tag around and make new friends. Who knows, you may find that Perfect Hug in here. You can use the prompts here, or create a wildcard of your own.

ICly, this takes place from the 2nd to the 16th and then we'll have a shiny new event post up for you all soon after that date range. The prompts below are optional, but are a way to get you started if you wish. To help you create your own prompts, please take a look through our Settings and FAQ. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below.

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❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. It's not the most comfortable place to sleep, a stone slab, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes in and explains you're in Havenwell and leads you out of the room and into the main portion of the temple where a welcoming committee of similarly humanoid-looking robots hand over a clear smartphone-sized tablet, some starting funds, and explain their dilemma. Then they release you into Havenwell to pick your new home from free housing in the city and give you the chance to settle. It might be a bit disorienting, but thankfully there seem to be a lot of robots and even some non-robots around. Maybe ask them for help?

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes going on, it might be hard to be a new arrival to Havenwell. The natives understand! Sort of. When some new arrivals begin to appear at the temples, receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "Here's your guide to Havenwell! It's dangerous to go alone, so be buddies!" before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT III: Weather Wildcard

Havenwell's weather is generally so well controlled, with beautiful blue skies and temperate climes that it's hard to remember that there's a whole world out there that might not be so nice. Every so often, however, the controls break and something not so nice and temperate comes through. Pockets of unpleasant weather happens all over the city at random intervals and new arrivals might find themselves and others caught without warning. Is that a snowstorm with green snow? Sure is. A windstorm that only seems to affect three streets? Yup. Did a deluge of rain just pour the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool of water on you? Uh-huh, sure did. A deep cold fog that suddenly rolls in and blankets your entire area? Yeeaaah... hopefully there's someone around to help you get about and find shelter or just dry off and get away from it all. Good luck, offworlder.

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Comments

[astralera]

[ Era pauses as he arches his brow, finally taking in his whole appearance and demeanor. The situation is suddenly even more deeply unsettling, and were she not completely certain that Emet-Selch was not sundered in any way she might wonder if this man held a shard of him, for they were even more similar than she and Ardbert. ]

Your... essence. [ She doesn't know what better word to use, since he likely doesn't know what 'aether' is. ] It is twisted with Darkness.

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn didn’t answer at first—she wasn’t the first to make such a comment, and it set him no less on edge a second time. Maybe he wore his inhumanity like a sign, a smoldering brand screaming Adagium to any number capable of seeing it.]

[So much for not telling anyone. He’d known Noctis was just spouting nonsense he didn’t understand, with such an asinine suggestion.]

Let me guess. You’re an associate of the particularly tall one with the streak in his hair. Am I incorrect?

[astralera]

[ Her expression shifts immediately to one of mild annoyance, exasperation, and oddly enough a vague sort of fondness. Of course, she thinks. ]

You are, unfortunately, correct. And it is of no surprise that the Architect would have discovered you first.

[scourgingstars]

I don’t claim to know how the pair of you can see such a thing or what he said to you, but it’s far from your concern. And I would thank you to keep such revelations to yourselves.

[astralera]

He has not spoken of you to me, nor would I speak of you to anyone else. [ Era seems mildly baffled by the thought that she would bother gossiping about a stranger to anyone. ] I cannot see it — not in the way that he can. I was simply following the path to you under the assumption it was to him. [ She makes a small, dismissive gesture with a hand. ] My ability to sense aether is rudimentary at best, but Darkness stands out to me like a beacon these days.

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn didn’t exactly seem at ease about that, but at the very least his paranoia was a little less out in the open.]

I know little of the term. What you call aether is, I presume by the sound of it, multiple forces of other names in my own world.

[astralera]

Aether is life energy. Magic. Matter. Everything in my world is comprised of it, both physical and incorporeal. There are six primary elements of aether, astral and umbral alignments, and the classification of anima as compared to aether — one's expendable reserves next to the unexpendable...

[ Realizing she's rambling on, Era quickly trails off with a small shrug. ]

I was stolen away by a world lacking in aether prior to being stolen away to this one. I'm accustomed to people being unfamiliar with the concept.

[ She gives a small shake of her head, as though trying to rid herself of distraction. ]

Regardless, if your corruption of Darkness is not causing you harm then I am gladdened. I have seen the extremes of both corruptions of Darkness and Light, and neither is a pleasant thing.

[scourgingstars]

[Not causing him harm? Laughable. Oh, sure enough it wasn’t the damaging ruin that it had once been to him, but at what cost? What was he now if not harm incarnate?]

[Oh, but he had lapsed into silence for too long. Fumbling for a response, he came up with:]

Magic is no prevalent thing in my own realm, and use of it falls to one—no, perhaps two bloodlines in the modern age. It is power granted by the gods, and the mortals of such blood are agents of divine will.

[astralera]

Magic is a divine Blessing of the gods in your world? [ That is certainly a horrifying prospect. ] What is your definition of magic?

[scourgingstars]

[That seemed enough of a distraction from any more dire subject, Ardyn thinking over how to phrase it before holding out a hand palm up. In succession he called a small flame, a brief frost, and hint of sparks before lowering his hand again.]

Simple elemancy, as well as the myriad powers afforded the royal blood. Most can be shared with retainers, others are more unique.

[astralera]

[ She remembers doing something similar with her magic quite frequently in Deerington — drawing upon the aether in her hands, then carefully shifting the alignment more strongly to one element than another...

Era tries it now, holding her hand out. Sparks arc between her fingertips, a vibrant blue-violet. With more effort there are flames that lick at her skin, leaving behind small burns. Ice is... She furrows her brows, struggling to recall how to align her aether to it. Eventually her hand goes cold, frost blooming on her fingertips, and then —

She feels herself lose control of it and quickly shifts her aetherial alignment back to unaspected. Her skin is left raw and ice-burned, and she's left with that sinking feeling of dread as she tries to recall any knowledge she had of thaumaturgy. Surely she must have, if she was using it in Deerington?

Her other hand is quickly lit up with healing aether (this, at least, she knows how to do) and wrapped around the injury. Era does this all with a feigned nonchalance, deciding not to draw any further focus to the concerning mishap. ]

My 'elemancy', as you call it, seems to have been meddled with by the gods here, unfortunately. But that aside, you said those with magic can share it with their retainers? How does one do such a thing?

[scourgingstars]

I wouldn’t know. I’ve never-...

[Ardyn trailed off, watching the healing magic as though Era had grown three heads. (The horns were odd enough, but Ardyn elected not to comment on it.) How was she doing that? Even Ardyn had never held the power to heal himself—indeed, where would anything have gone if he did?]

How did you— [He gestured with the same hand that had cast magic a moment ago, and without the elements wrapped around it one could see a scar lancing straight through from back to palm.] ...how are you doing that?

[astralera]

[ She's confused by the question at first, because healing magic so basic is as easy as breathing to many. She herself was notably skilled at...

Basic healing spells?

Era frowns again, that sinking, uncomfortable feeling weighing heavy in her stomach. She does her best to ignore it. ]

It is the most basic of curative magics, and one of the first things an arcanist learns.

[scourgingstars]

That isn’t-...that’s impossible.

[She might as well have told him the sky was purple and Bahamut lived in the moon—oh wait.]

Something like that...is common practice in your world of origin?

[astralera]

I— yes? It's... This is the most basic of healing skills. There are various disciplines of magic solely focused upon healing, such as conjury, white magic, and astrology. Red magic also stems in part from white magic, and thus has some focus upon healing, and revitalizing those fallen in combat. Arcanima — what I am most adept in — has a basic healing spell, and a basic spell to return consciousness to fallen comrades.

[scourgingstars]

[????????]

There’s no such thing for us. Magic to craft things like healing potions and phoenix down, certainly, but not-... [Another bewildered gesture.] Only one was ever gifted with the divine power to heal, and even that was nothing so straightforward.

[astralera]

We've potions for healing and other various uses, but one primarily relies upon healing magicks. [ She seems equally bewildered. ] Perhaps your bodies are not comprised of your world's version of aether, and because ours are we can stimulate healing with our magicks?

[ At this point she doesn't seem to be entirely speaking to the man, but merely aloud, contemplating. ] But no... Then it should not have worked on anyone in Deerington, but it did... Though my curative magicks had turned into wound transference there rather than truly healing...

[scourgingstars]

[He didn't seem to like that concept at all, shifting uncomfortably and folding his hands behind his back.]

Perhaps it merely...operates differently. Surely the answer must be some fundamental and immaterial difference.

[astralera]

I would offer to heal a small cut upon your hand if you were willing to indulge, but... [ Era seems mildly uncomfortable. Though she has learned — unintentionally or not — that this man is infested by Darkness, and so it is only fair that she balance the ledger, so to speak. ]

I am to Light as you are to Darkness, so it may be somewhat... uncomfortable.

[scourgingstars]

N-no. [He quickly stepped back, as though the offer alone carried a myriad of problems.]

[So far as Ardyn knew, it very much did.]

Darkness and light are...complex things, where I come from. More than mere concepts, and the darkness over our star is a dangerous one. It would be better not to involve yourself with it.

[astralera]

I saw Light all but destroy a world, drowning the night sky in permanent Light for a hundred years, and spawning all manner of corrupt, aether-hungry beasts from the bodies of innocent people. An endless cycle of souls destroyed and malformed by something I once thought to be inherently good. [ She can't help the way that she shivers, remembering despite her efforts to remain distant from the memories... ] I have also seen the end result of a world destroyed by Darkness.

I am already involved with both Darkness and Light, and have been since the moment of my creation. If I had to claim a preference for one or the other at this moment it would be Darkness, though I would hope that you withhold that particular fact from the one called Emet-Selch.

[scourgingstars]

The plague which brings ruin to our world is not one of light, and only by light may it be banished.

[Or so he still assumed.]

Your alignment is not my concern, so long as you are no daemon yourself.

[astralera]

If it is a plague of Darkness then it is not Darkness itself to blame, but an imbalance. Light may banish it, but where is it being banished? Opposing elements can neutralize each other, if met with equal force, but not truly destroy. Regardless, if you do not know the source of the imbalance then it is liable to simply come back again.

[ She pauses at that; hesitant. ]

I know not what a daemon is, but if it is not touched by Light then I am assuredly not one.

[scourgingstars]

[Where is it being banished?]

[If Ardyn looked uncomfortable before, now he was starting to seem like he wanted the ground to open up and devour him immediately.]

You aren't.

oops right 5.0 spoilers here

[astralera]

[ Era can relate to that feeling, just a little. ]

...If one were to take the Darkness within themselves, containing it within their body and soul... Imagine if instead of Darkness it was Light — Light that sought to destroy your soul and twist your form into something monstrous.

[ There is that hesitance again, but she presses on. She hasn't shared these details before. It feels freeing, almost. A relief, in a way. Like the easing of a burden. To share with someone that she may in fact be a monster still, deep down. ]

I am not a daemon. Nor am I a Sin Eater, or a Lightwarden, however it is possible I am not... not those things. Even after expelling that monstrous Light from my body and soul, I cannot be certain some does not still linger here.

[ Her previously wounded hand is now raised to her shoulder, where she strokes the odd, faintly glowing weasel curled around her neck that has been largely hidden by a curtain of wavy brown curls. Era doesn't look at the stranger, but at her feet, and her tail has wound itself around her thigh. ]

Regardless of what I may be, or the Blessings I bear, I am Era. [ Hand still in place upon the small mustelid, Era offers a polite bow in greeting. ] Might I ask your name in return?