♥ November Event Log

[hugtopiamods]

November (Malom) Event Log
The chaos of Lasohm's invasion is still fresh in the mind, but it's over. The ugly scar of the hole in Havenwell's wall is a jarring reminder that this world is dying and nothing goes quietly into that dark night. The phantom is gone as Malom overtakes Lasohm, the weather turning colder and chillier with each passing day. Still, the city of Havenwell has all of you offworlders to thank for its survival, and the fearful citizens make sure you know just how much they appreciate you by stopping you on the street to say their thanks. Your new home still needs your help to recover from their ordeal though, so will you lend them your strength once more?

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❥ PROMPT I: Rebuilding Effort

The magic barrier over the hole that unknown monster punched through Havenwell's wall is repaired, stopping the onslaught and encouraging any other nightmares that lurk outside to move on and away, but the hole itself remains. Throughout the month of Malom, robot natives are working tirelessly to gather bricks and stone and patch the breach, but they could use some help. Work together with other offworlders and natives alike to repair the wall and be rewarded with a handsome bump to the Dora in your bank account. They need all sorts of help, from clearing away the dead bodies of the spider-like creatures for cremation, to retrieving and hauling stone for the wall, to actually slotting the heavy blocks into place to cement them back together.

Outside the barrier, now clearly visible through the hole, a storm rages on, obscuring the view of the world beyond it. Gray and black clouds whip against the invisible barrier, and occasional debris slams into it, causing the impact site to light up with silver, pink, blue, or white hues before it fades away again. It seems even without monsters, the world outside is as inhospitable as was rumored.

Work together or take a break along the base of the wall and get to know your fellow offworlders a little better. It's going to take a while before this mess is cleaned up.

❥ PROMPT II: Air Sickness

Those who worked at or were near the breach in the wall for any extended period of time will notice that, over time, it gets harder to breathe. Then they begin to feel feverish, even if they don't have flesh bodies or are immune to disease. Their bodies ache and groan and it gets harder to move about without help. Once the natives notice, they set up a recovery area away from where the breach occurred: a giant tent with cots and pillows, thick rugs and blankets to keep the chill away. Unfortunately, they don't have medicines available to treat flesh bodied people, so they're at a loss of what to do otherwise. The priests gather anyone who is ill and brings them here...which is when a curious thing occurs.

While conventional medicines and healing spells seem to have no effect on the illness, staying in contact with another person alleviates the symptoms. After a period of contact with another person or persons, the fever breaks and it's like you were never sick at all.

Return to the wall, however, and you'll notice your symptoms coming back with a vengeance after a few days. It seems that making regular trips between the wall and this recovery tent is the only way to keep working. At least it's an easy fix so long as you're not a germaphobe.

❥ PROMPT III: A Tasty(?) Reward

Toward the end of the month as the hole in the wall is completely repaired and the risk of illness declines, a message is sent to all the offworlders' communication devices. Those who choose to open it will find a very official looking message from The Havenwell Council that reads:

Greetings, Saviours of Havenwell!
We of the Havenwell Council greet you and wish to express our eternal gratitude for your valiant efforts to keep our wonderful home safe. Without you, we would not have survived this terrible onslaught. As such, we wish to express our gratitude in a more concrete form. Your emissary, Magolor, has been in contact with this venerable Council and has brought to our attention that your greatest concern is for the food available. We apologize that due to our inability to taste we have been unable to supply you with satisfactory meals.

To that end, we invite you to work with our scientists to improve upon the taste of currently available offerings from our replicators. Please come to the Northern Research Tower (map included) at any time this month to sample what our replicators can produce and give us feedback on their flavour and textures. We ask that you be as specific as possible in your criticisms so we may improve upon your general quality of life. Please feel free to bring as many friends as you wish.

May the Gods Protect You,
Havenwell Council, Community Liaisons

Those who take the invitation will arrive at the Northern Research Tower and be taken directly to the 40th floor, where a large banquet hall has been laid out. Five rectangular tables, over 5 meters long each, stretch down the room, creating aisles for people to walk down. At the far end are several high round tables, covered in white cloth, and high round stools for those who wish them. The tables are overflowing with food, much like the welcome dinner, but at each table and scattered throughout the room are scientist robots with arm bands that read "Experiment 73" in that peculiar Aellyn script you saw during your time at the Archives. They invite you to taste the foods - both raw and cooked - and to give your very honest opinions.

Enjoy the food, help them improve the flavours, and walk the room to talk with the others who have come. Those who participate will receive a small synthetic fruit basket to take home with them on their first visit. Feel free to come back as often as you like, however! Each time, they'll be changing and adjusting the food available so your first and last visit may be very different. Perhaps that strawberry actually even tastes sweet, finally.

❥ PROMPT IV: A Virtual Spa

The VR cafes are uncharacteristically quiet while the rebuilding effort goes on, but there are still those who come to plug in to unwind after a day of intensive labor. And what better way to unwind than with a hot bath, right? Since the people of Havenwell can't actually submerge themselves in water, they're doing the next best thing: going to a virtual hot spring. There are several types to choose from and despite being digital, their calming and soothing effects on the body seem very real. Choose from:

• The Classic Outdoors: a rock lined hot spring with natural rock floors and steamy mineral infused waters nestled in the mountains. All around you is beautiful greenery like a sweeping pine and low fragrant bushes. The serene air and the calm forest is only occasionally broken by the sound of a wooden pipe thudding hollowly against a rock at a steady interval or the sound of birdsong off in the trees. The relaxing atmosphere is enough to set even the tightest wound nerves at ease.
  
  
• The Marbled Columns: white and painted marble columns lead to a series of different shaped baths with statues of the gods pouring water into them. Each bath has a different healing property, which is clearly marked with a plaque at the rim of each: good for your circulation, your bones, your aches and pains, even acne and metabolic rate. The columns support a beautiful open ceiling that shows the perfectly blue sky overhead dotted with the occasional cloud.
  
  
• The Steamy Sauna: though seemingly austere in their white tile and deep blue bath basins, the air here is thick and steamy and the baths are deep with hand-rails leading down steps to help you enter. All around the basins are stone or wooden benches with towels laid down for those who wish to simply sit and let the warm air open their lungs. If you get too hot? Grab a bucketful of cold water from one of the freestanding tubs and douse yourself to get a shock and cool off.
  
  
• The Milk-and-Honey: a beautifully tiled bath with a large shallow rectangular basin. The surrounding walls and ceilings have blue, white, and gold geometric designs laid out with loving care in pleasant designs that ease the mind. The bath water here is filled with a concoction of milk and honey to soothe and smooth the skin, filling the air with a pleasing sweet scent. The effects of these baths on a person's skin is said to make them glow from the inside out for at least a day after bathing.
  
  
• The Theme Park: the first thing to greet you is the comically oversized bottle of red wine tipped to pour a continuous stream of red liquid into the large crystalline bath basin. The smell of wine is heavy but pleasant in the air and the crystalline basin is round and shaped like a wine glass. Climb up the glass steps and give yourself a good old soak in the red water. You might even find that taking a dip here gives you a heady happiness that lasts all day. And if it feels like you're a little drunk while there? That has to be your imagination! ...Maybe.

Hot springs are great to experience with friends to deepen that feeling of skinship you have with each other, and several Havenwell natives are doing just that. But what about those who don't have a friend to log in with? Don't worry! The game will randomly select another player from this or another facility and match you together. Isn't that nice? We're sure it is! Who doesn't want to talk to someone else while naked, right?

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This event will run from November 14th to the 31st. 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 here.

Comments

[scourgingstars]

I'm sorry?

[unsunderworld]

Both you and she would avoid placing anything that even faintly resembles a burden on anyone else, regardless of how willing they might be.

[scourgingstars]

...

[he doesn't like it either, okay]

It's...just the way I am. I know that mindset has already been my ruin once, and yet it isn't a habit I've yet been able to break.

[unsunderworld]

Every journey starts with a handful of steps.

[Something wry about his expression then, quickly fading.]

Personally, if I must put up with some contact, I would rather do so in a space a bit more private than that quite public 'healing' tent they've set up near the work site.

[scourgingstars]

I'm not-...

[he hates everything about this]

I understand the ostensible necessity, but contact is...I am perhaps not entirely reaccustomed to it yet.

[unsunderworld]

All the more reason to do it somewhere more comfortable, should you wish to try.

[And that's all the more he'll say on the matter. He doesn't push, because the pressure of being miserable will eventually break. Instead, his offer is one of an out without judgement or the awkwardness of having to ask someone, and of, indeed, a more discreet place to deal with the matter.]

[scourgingstars]

I...suppose it would be prudent to become accustomed to the action.

[It wasn't a no.]

[unsunderworld]

[Look, he waits for a yes!]

If you only do so under pressure, it does not become any less unpleasant. Take whatever time you need.

[scourgingstars]

I'm...fine with that. With Aera around, I'm going to have to reacquaint myself with the idea as it is; it wouldn't do to worry her by flinching away for no reason.

[unsunderworld]

With what you've experienced, it's hardly for no reason.

[Trauma's trauma, bro, even if he can understand why you might not want to worry her.]

I start to think that I am lucky, feeling as disconnected from any mortal form as I do. It makes the whole thing easier.

[There is an offered hand, but Ardyn can take as long as he needs to grasp it, should he do so at all.]

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn swallowed hard, looking to Emet-Selch's hand before glancing away. Hesitantly, he reached out with his own, moving in much the way of a cornered animal before cautiously settling his hand around the other.]

[unsunderworld]

[And in the same way as one behaves towards a cornered animal, Emet-Selch makes all the show of being disinterested, allowing Ardyn to go at his own pace. Beneath the ever-present glove, he's perhaps slightly warm, but there's really nothing to set him apart from any other human.]

[scourgingstars]

[It didn't take terribly long; once Ardyn was aware that physical contact was a thing that was occurring, he tended to realize how badly he actually needed it. Still, he was cautious about it--ultimately just leaning against Enet-Selch with a faint tremble to his shoulders.]

[Ardyn himself had just one or two immediately noticeable differences from humans, if only slight: in this case, a lack of radiated warmth as one might find in a corpse.]

[unsunderworld]

[Fortunately, he's hanging out with an Ascian who has occupied his share of corpses in the past. And probably some coldblooded creature or another over the centuries, too.

The clasped hands are released as Ardyn leans against him, that he might wrap the arm around the other man's lower back instead. In spite of the slump forward to his own posture, Emet-Selch is, it seems, surprisingly muscular and has no issue with however much Ardyn might lean on him]

Somewhere more comfortable, perhaps?

[scourgingstars]

Y...yes, of course. Forgive me, I-...these things are more difficult than they should be.

[unsunderworld]

There is no 'should be' for one's own comfort. Things are precisely as difficult as they are.

[And with that - congrats, Ardyn, it's your turn to take the Ascian express to somewhere quiet and safe. It's unmistakably the living room of the apartment Emet-Selch shares with Era, with the same sad generic couch and the lights, for now, off.]

[scourgingstars]

[He didn't flinch or bat an eye at the transport; it felt enough like his own power that the instantaneous movement didn't bother him. Even if that wasn't the case, he was a little too busy being attached to his fellow ancient immortal to care.]

[unsunderworld]

[That's fine. C'mon, let's sit on the couch, buddy.]

We're unlikely to encounter any disturbances here, at least.

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn nodded slightly, trying and only somewhat failing to stop himself from clinging once they were settled on the couch.]

[unsunderworld]

[He can cling. It doesn't seem to bother Emet-Selch much at all, really. After all, the flesh is but a vessel. He wraps one arm around the man's shoulders without a further word.

He'll let the silence stretch. No need to push. If Ardyn has else he wants to say, it will come when it comes - such is the infinite patience of the immortal.]

[scourgingstars]

F-...forgive me. If this should bother you, by all means tell me as much.

[unsunderworld]

It bothers me not at all. I can scarcely think of why it might.

[scourgingstars]

I can't say I would know.

[unsunderworld]

Then why do you fret over it so? Your existing is not a burden.

[scourgingstars]

...isn't it?