♥ November Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

November 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 is 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 around the 10th, with a proper event coming soon after applications are processed. 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, (up to) three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. A stone slab is not the most comfortable place to sleep, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes into the room and explains that you're in Havenwell, then 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? Strike up a friendly conversation, get to know your neighbours! It seems as if you may be here for the long haul.

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes and the fear of a secondary attack lingering, the natives are a lot more protective of their newest arrivals. When new characters begin to appear at the temples, they receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, and a warning to stay away from the walls. Then 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, "It's dangerous to go alone, so please show our newest resident around. Please be buddies!" They wait until they're certain the pair is going to be moving off together 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: Virtual Research

After the attack, every part of the city is on repair duty and the means the Entertainment District as well. As new arrivals wander the city, they might be called into one of the numerous Virtual Reality cafes. These cafes vary in layout, but most have areas for the natives to plug directly into the machines and other areas which have older looking virtual reality helmets that allow flesh bodied people experience the games. For those who need assistance with their sensory inputs, basic options like audio descriptions of visual scenes, enhanced audio and descriptive speech, closed captions, and crude mobility chairs are available. A handful of cafes have other options like direct visual or audio cortex stimulation to simulate vision or hearing, or suspension tanks to allow simulated movement, but these are currently unavailable due to damage.

All of these facilities are, unfortunately, under repair. The direct plug-in systems are easier for the robot natives to fix because they can do the most important part of it - testing - by themselves. But for the helmets and other interface systems, they need your help. Naturally, they'll pay you for the work, but they need the offworlders to play the available games and record any areas where they find glitches. Playing with a partner increases your chances of finding and fixing any issues, so feel free to log in for free for once and test any of the following games:

• Big Bass Fishing
The beautiful lake has blue-green waters surrounded by forest and rocky, reedy shores. You and your companion are on a small single-motor fishing boat and you have fishing gear - two poles in the water. As the game starts up a read-out announces the objective: Catch the largest fish before the time limit ends. What's the time limit? ...Well, that's your first glitch because it reads as static. Might as well start fishing though, right? It doesn't take long to catch a few regular sized fish, nothing too exciting, and then? You get the big one - it bows your fishing rod nearly in half as you reel it up. The fish leaps into the air and you realize this is your next glitch because the fish hangs there - the size of a minivan - and yells, "BIG. BASS. FISHING. ATTACK." The fish slaps its fins and tails at the boat and now you and your fishing companion better fight this fish or you'll end up in the lake or worse.


• A (un)Familiar Experience
Jump into the life of the temple familiars and see life from their perspective! Choose the temple, any temple is fine, and be transformed into a fledgling rainbow dragon, a purple mouse, a white raven, or a blue feline. You're free to move about the virtual confines of the temples and, in fact, you can even interact with other familiars in their temples - who may be other players in this game. Play, climb, try to get your fledgling wings to fly, tumble about with the other mice, enjoy your simple life as an animal! --or you would if you weren't an insane size. Rather than being a small mouse, you're the size of a horse. That fledgling rainbow dragon? About the size of a fly. The building sizes are off, too - one might have door that's 30 feet tall, but a ceiling that's only 12. Everything else seems fine, but those sizes? Well, you better figure out how to get around that.


• Robot Crossing
Logging in with another character will net you a little farm and a variety of games to choose from:
1. Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Strangely, when the timer runs out? It flashes 00:00 and the game...doesn't? Stop? In fact, the fruits and vegetables just keep multiplying and multiplying and if you don't hurry up you might just get buried in them all!
   
2. With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points. Or they should, but whenever you clear away a matching set, the fruits explode, sending fruit bits and juice everywhere - most notably on you and your partner. Still, the game is going on and it looks like it won't stop until you finish, so good thing it's all a computer game, right? Sure feels real though - reeeeeeally sticky.
   
3. You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, for whatever reason? This pumpkin is already the size of a grizzly bear and it just won't stop growing! You and your partner better find a way to stop it from growing out of control or you might get (virtually) crushed! You could do a song and dance routine together to touch the pumpkin's soul to teach it moderation or calm its insane vegetable puberty. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels satisfied that it's grown enough. You could just hack and slash at it in an attempt to reduce its unwieldy bulk. The possibilities are endless and so is the pumpkin's growth, so you better hurry!

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Comments

[iustaegis]

[ She pauses.

--they went through the mechanization process in the first place to try and reverse the damage they'd already done to their planet. ]

As in... their planet was already in its last throes? Their mechanization... could have been a way to protect themselves. [ Is she understanding this correctly. ]

[begguiling]

It could have been, but I think it was a way to protect the world itself.

[He'd read the post in question, but it was hardly clear from just the snippets they had. Most likely it's a little of column A, a little of column B—either way, the prospect of finding out more is exciting. He waves his hand again in front of them, while the other stays hooked over Pyra's arm where he's settled.]

Not needing to eat anymore, no more waste, no population growth . . . they'd depleted their resources, and rather than abandon the planet, they decided to stop taking from it instead.

[iustaegis]

They reaped their planet, and then they gained immortality as a result. A way to be with loved ones forever... at the cost of dishonoring their gods. [ She begins slowly, thoughtful. ]

Yet they seek to honor their deities still. The gardens, the zoo-- they are trying to rebuild what they have destroyed. [ Or, perhaps, the species in those gardens and zoos come from different worlds. She doesn't quite know. ]

They are trying to undo the damage they have done.

[begguiling]

Sounds like you've got a handle on how it works here. And that's where we come in! Or so they say.

[He isn't entirely convinced, and he knows he isn't the only one, either. But for now, it's what they have to go on.]

But whatever the real deal is, they went far out of their way to bring us here and accommodate us. They're invested in whatever it is we can do for them.

[iustaegis]

...I wish there was a way to only help them more. [ ... ] They may, ah, be "invested" in us, but it seems they do not trust us.

[ Still heading towards the archives, she turns down a street. ]

[begguiling]

Can you blame them? A lot of us don't trust them either. And I sure wouldn't trust someone I kidnapped to my planet to help out with something that had nothing to do with them. Oh, but I'm happy to help, of course!

[You know, as long as they're being rewarded for doing so.

The time might come eventually that he has a personal investment. It's happened to him before, and he's not not enjoying his time here for the most part, the occasional blip in their comfort aside. But that time isn't yet.]

[iustaegis]

[ He raises a good point, and being brought to an understanding by that point, she nods in response. ]

Do you trust them?

[ The robot-people. The gods. Etc. ]

[begguiling]

[How to answer? The fact that he even has to think about it—of course it says something about him, that he never just comes out with the truth without thought. But it says something about the answer too. Every time he expresses uncertainty or discontent, Magolor has to wonder whether the natives are keeping tabs on such things somehow, or if they're not, whether the gods are. It'd be equally easy for both parties to have ears everywhere in this city.

So, no. He can't honestly say he does trust them.

Not being able to say something honestly isn't enough to stop him from saying it at all, but after a moment's thought—there's no benefit to pretending either way. He may as well be blunt.]

The natives? Not really. But I'm not afraid of them, either. They aren't making the kinds of choices they'd be making if they had us in the palms of their hands.

[iustaegis]

[ Another turn down a different street. She sees the archives ahead. ]

The Four, too. [ In the distance, she also spots one of the temples, but her eyes return to the path directly before her. ] If we have been truly brought to this world by them...

They are only doing what they believe best for their world, because they love it so.

[begguiling]

Hehehe . . . the gods or the natives? You might be right either way.

[Might be. Or the reasons could be entirely self-preservation, or some mix—or those things might not be very different in the end.]

Who knows? The situation we're all in is the same either way. I don't trust the gods any more than I trust the natives, but it's whatever! We're still here. Why not go with it?

[iustaegis]

[ A beat as she glances down at him. ] 

You've... been enjoying your time in this world. Haven't you?

[ This? This is said playfully. ] You enjoy, ah, learning about new things.

[begguiling]

[The sudden shift is unexpected, but not unwelcome. He blinks back up at her in a moment of surprise before he smiles again and waves his hand in that half shrug.]

I've been on worse planets! I've been on better ones too, of course. But for the most part, you're completely right. It's all very interesting! You're the same kind of person, hmmm? You like learning about new things too. It takes one to know one!

[iustaegis]

[ She chuckles softly, nodding her head to concede. ] There is so much to learn about this world... [ Wondrous, fascinating, incredible-- there are many more descriptions she can place upon this world, not just in part for the mysteriousness of its past, the gods, and the world outside of the walls. This world exists with a energy not found within her own: that of which is, apparently, generated by contact. ] 

But I would say that you have a keen, almost scientific eye about it. [ She inclines her head. ] Or am I wrong?

[begguiling]

Weeeeell . . . nope! You're absolutely right. In fact, I'd say you yourself have a keen eye for me! You like learning about new people as much as you like learning about new places and concepts. Did I get it?

[He's compelled to turn it around on her. Of course she's right, and it's nothing he's not proud of. But there's still an instinctive discomfort that comes with being, well, Seen. He can only do the same in response, giving her one of those knowing smiles.]

[iustaegis]

[ To that, she only chuckles-- afterward adjusting him just slightly so that he might not slide down her hip. ]

Are you a mind-reader?

[begguiling]

[Magolor echoes her laugh back at her, shifting comfortably in her grip. It feels . . . secure. He's gotten entirely used to it by now, distracted by the conversation.]

I wonder about that! Maybe I'll let it stay a mystery! A guy's got to have a few of those to stay interesting.

[iustaegis]

[ A mystery, he says. Well, there is one mystery she would like the answer to that does not pertain to this world. ]

....If I might ask. I've never seen anyone quite like you. What do they call your kind, in your world?

[begguiling]

Oh, you can just think of me as a Halcandran. That's where I come from, Halcandra! So that's what I'm called . . . but I prefer Magolor, if it's all the same to you. Hehehe!

[It's . . . close enough. He still doesn't see any need to go into more honest specifics, pun intended, even though on this planet there's not much harm to doing so. OLd habits die hard.]

[iustaegis]

Magolor of Halcandra.... [ It doesn't give her much of an explanation, but she appears delighted to know, all the same. ] 

Is that that the name of... your world? Your planet? Or just a city...?

[begguiling]

It's a planet! I never really lived in a city on it while I was still there. Anyway, no one's ever heard of it before, so you're in good company. And you're not missing much, either. This place is much nicer!

[Even with the disturbance of the outside world, which is much much worse than Halcandra, there is at least Havenwell here for them to live in, which is nicer than any place left on Halcandra. He'll take it.]

[iustaegis]

[ That gets her to-- not nearly trip, but there is a stutter in her walk.

This place is... nicer?? Yeah, the outside world... she's heard of its apparent waste-land like state. He couldn't possibly mean... ]

How do you mean?

[begguiling]

It's just not a place you'd want to vacation unless you're reeeally into volcanoes and factory wreckage. Hey, I'm not judging, though!

[So lightheartedly, even on this subject. Halcandra is, he hopes, a thing of his past now, not one that he'll see again in his future.]

I'd still take my volcano den over the world outside the barrier here, though. But Havenwell itself isn't so bad.

[iustaegis]

If you... can survive in the harsh environment of a volcano... [ Yes, this is also spoken slowly, as if she's trying to work through the absurdity of it. Or, perhaps, impressiveness. Maybe both. ]

...can you not venture outside this barrier unharmed?

[begguiling]

[Sure can't be blamed for that. It's not anything special for him or his kind, but her reaction is still pretty fun, so he laughs.]

I haven't tried! Maybe, maybe not. I can take a lot, but I'm careful about taking chances like that.

[iustaegis]

[ They're approaching the archives. How appropriate; his queries are for within the walls. ] 

You prefer to find more information inside before exploring outside. I suppose... it would be helpful to know what we should all be looking forward, if we ever venture outside.