hugtopia_logs | ♥ November Event Log

♥ November Event Log

a gloved hand places a brick in place on a wall

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?

❥ PROMPT I: Rebuilding Effort

a stone wall with a large collapsed hole in the center

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

a collage of different foods on display: salads, meats, and pasta

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

a spa/water park with large open pools, an enclosed building, a bridge, and a water slide in the background

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?

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So very scary, Mr. Criminal, coming to Shinji's rescue with blankets and water.

"Hmm..." Possibly, possibly. On the other hand, "Would you have even done it if I was feeling better?"

That's kind of the crux of all of this, after all.

"Probably."

He didn't even stop to think about it???

"I mean it's not the first time I shoved you on a bed."

Oh. That sure is a point he has there. Is Shinji gonna stop and think about that? Just for a second, not for too long.

"Okay," keeping that in mind, then, "I don't think that counted as kidnapping either."

"Oi, oi," Kai chuckled mildly, "don't let your fever talk for you. That'll be trouble."

"What, do you think it did?"

Is there some kind of loose definition of 'kidnapping' Kai's playing with that mostly just consists of 'make sure people around you are okay'? He can forgive the strong-arming him into resting in hindsight.

"Hmm."

It was just daylight again, and playing a jokesy bad guy made it easier to deal with that recurring feeling of tricking people into things. Shinji had thanked him no fewer than three times already, even though Kai hadn't? Done anything? Special? He couldn't keep it up though, because all roads were leading to Stockholm and that was kind of exactly the kind of thing he was avoiding??

"Nah, you're probably fine. I guess I can take your word for it on the kidnapping thing."

Hey! At least one, arguably two of those thanks were a matter of politeness!!

Even as a joke, Shinji can't quite see where he's coming from with that line of thinking, though. The number of times he's gone to Kai make the number of times something quite like this happened feel rare. Maybe that just has something to do with how hard it is for him to not feel like he's being selfish when he does seek out company, though... it's hard to say. Kai coming to him first, even if there isn't any clear benefit to him for it, always strikes Shinji as significant in a very positive way.

Either way, Kai's shown that he'll let Shinji go without any argument. How could he possibly be the greedy trickster in this case? Still, he lets Kai's thought settle for a moment before he softly speaks up again.

"I think..." If they're done being lighthearted about this, he sort of wants to make sure Kai at least kind of understands where the gratitude comes from. "I'm not as good at being alone, as I used to be."

His actions resulting in actually tangible, positive outcomes... wasn't a thing that happened. Believing he was some shit kid meant it didn't hurt when things fell through. It was just what was supposed to happen. These ideas were getting called into question by other people recently, and Kai...

Kai needed more time. Some patience. It was so much easier to frame things around what other people needed from him.

Like... this? Kai frowned a bit, letting that thought sink in. Ah. Wasn't this kind of what he was afraid of for himself? Though if he really let himself think about it, he was probably in the same boat. That was the true danger of friendship, wasn't it. Kai gave Shinji's back a small pat, letting his hand rest warmly there.

"Good thing y'don't have to be, then," Kai said quietly after a few moments.

It's a good thing that nobody has any plans on disappearing any time soon, huh? There will be plenty of time to be patient for anyone who can afford it.

It's still frustrating, though. He could have very easily been left alone to be miserable in solitude instead of letting those feelings leech out to all the very kind and attentive people he's come across, leaving him worried that he'll end up hurting them somehow for it, or that they'd do as much to him.

Needing others is just... so hard. It would be so much easier if he could just keep himself at arms length. Keep a nice, polite and impersonal buffer between himself and the world.

And yet. Here he is.

Sharing that particular worry. Letting Kai keep an eye on him. Tightening that hold on his shirt.

"Maybe," maybe he didn't have to be alone? Maybe it was a good thing? Just. Maybe. "But... I'm glad you're here, too."

Maybe.

Kai wasn't sure if this was something he should have felt bad about. It was.. kind of his fault, wasn't it. Some people would have said it was absolutely a good thing, but was it? Was it really? What happened when Summer was over?

Except Summer had already ended. They were both still here. They were both glad for each other's company. Kai might have been struggling when it came to trying to accept himself, but he wouldn't deny all the things that Shinji had come to be.

Lifting his hand, Kai cradled the back of Shinji's head, drawing him closer to gently bonk their heads together.

"I'm not planning on going anywhere."

If they can weather gruesome nightmares and the following emotional honesty, surely a little, or even a lot of time, will be a cinch.

But this sure has turned into quite the close and cozy position, hasn't it? Shinji's sure he could blame the fever for allowing himself to get pulled in so easily, and maybe for the fact that he kind of doesn't want to let it stop just yet. If nothing else, it is at least a very convenient excuse. With that in mind, he lets his eyes slip closed.

"Me neither."

"Mmm."

Having a fever is a lot more respectable reason than just being a weirdo with no real sense of where good boundaries stopped. It was nice, and the kind of grounding Kai needed for a second there. He would have been content to obliviously stay like this for a while longer, if it wasn't for this scorching reminder of Shinji's condition.

Though he did stay like that for longer than was strictly necessary. Weirdo.

Feeling some sort of responsibility for Shinji's health, seeing as he'd gone and dragged him here, Kai eased himself back. "Alright, you should get some rest. Drink up, let's get you tucked in or somethin'."

Sometimes you just have to milk a warm and cozy moment for as much as its worth! Sometimes that means being so warm and cozy that you almost start to drift off right then and there, but the benefit of Kai speaking up and peeling back like that is that it rouses Shinji before he can loosen his hold on that cup of water. Disaster: Averted.

He does let out a tiny, faintly displeased sounding grumble, but relents without any further fuss.

"Right..."

Drink up he will, then.

Kai let out a soft huff, amused. It was like he was dealing with a fussy cat that wasn't ready to get out of his lap yet. Sorry, bro, you were going to have to curl up somewhere else.

At the very least, Kai still didn't go anywhere. He'd just dropped his hand back to Shinji's shoulder, on standby to take that empty glass from him.

"Y'need anything else?"

Give him a nice sunbeam to to snooze in to simulate his natural habitat (hot all the time), then.

Until then, water: finished. Cot: as comfortable a place to rest as any. It's not exactly the perfect set up to wait out a fever, but it'll do. He shakes his head a little, he won't ask for anything else.

Does his hair count, its the only sunshine he's got. Unless you count him, the furnace, because that was also an option and one that was readily available.

May the cot shuffle commence. Kai moved a bit, but it was mostly just so Shinji could get as comfortable as the cot would allow. He was still right there, sitting on the edge with him with his hand resting lightly on Shinji's side. There might not have been anything else that Shinji would actually ask for, but it was going to take a long time for Kai to forget that tug on his shirt.

"I'll stay as long as you want me to, 'kay?"

These are both incredibly acceptable alternatives. He will simply bask in Kai's presence in lieu of any actual sunshine. Wonderful.

That hand resting on him feels so nice and warm, he really doesn't want him to leave at all. That'd be a little ridiculous, though, he's sure Kai has other things to be doing. But, if he's sure he'll end up feeling just as bad sooner or later... What's he going to do, tell him to go back to work? Hm.

"If I fall asleep, you don't have to stick around."

Does that sound like a good compromise? It isn't like he's going to be any good for company if he's dozed off.

Yeah, that one was good. That would have been his suggestion if Shinji had protested, so, worked just fine for him. Kai nodded, offering a small hint of a smile for him.

"Sounds good."

Though considering how quickly Shinji had just almost dozed off, Kai figured it probably wouldn't hurt to stay a little longer than that. Just to make sure he was okay. That kind of thing.

He's kind of banking on that fact to not eat up more of Kai's time, but what's he gonna do? Tell him to leave? While he's asleep? Too devious, Kai.

"Okay."

It's a deal, then. Give him another second to make sure he's bundled up as much as he'd like - feel free to ignore the slight shivers he gets while doing so, and... he reaches out slightly from under the blankets to lightly brush his hand against Kai's. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Look at him, being so sneaky.

Though not nearly as sneaky as Shinji with this little hand move. It'd be a little harder to slip away, but whatever. Kai went ahead and slipped his hand in Shinji's. It was okay. You could go ahead and rest. He'd figure out what to do with those extra shivers in a moment.

Oh, well, he hadn't quite been aiming for this outcome, it was mostly just a gesture of appreciation on his part, but he's also not going to complain. Kai's hand in his is warm in a way that's become so familiar, maybe in such a way that it can at least take a little bit of the edge off those chills on its own...

He gives that hand a slight squeeze before loosening up his hold once more. Don't worry, with how cozy he's gotten, he definitely isn't going to take too much longer before that dozy state overtakes him once more.

Kai stayed right there, just as promised, as attentive as any good watch dog could be. He had to wait for Shinji's hold to go lack beneath his fingers, until the rise and fall of his chest was as deep and even as this wheezy fever would allow. Both happened in record time, and then Kai stayed right there a bit longer.

Just to be sure.

When he was, the blonde carefully went about extracting himself from the cot. Every care was taken to make sure he didn't jostle anything. Before he went too far, he figured he'd try to get another blanket or two to get those shivers outta here. Those were no good.

But. Ah. It seemed. Someone. Had taken all the good blankets to achieve their dreams of being a sick croissant or something like that. Fuck off? Anyway. Kai considered this new problem.

Solution: Steal a cot, shove it next to Shinji's and join him. Easy! And that was how Kai ended up curled up around him, snoozing quietly.

Again, Just to be Sure.

It's a smart move on Kai's part, for sure, to add that bit of warmth into the situation himself. The blankets only help so much, and while Shinji isn't getting into too deep of a sleep, his drowzy mind is still being left an awful lot of room to reason why he's still so cold, still having trouble talking deep breaths. Having something as warm and real as another person nearby is enough to reel him out of that all too familiar drowning sensation, and into something that's becoming almost as commonplace.

Just... having someone there.

Not really giving the extra presence too much thought, Shinji eventually finds himself turned toward the source, curled up and pressed close into Kai's chest as he continues to doze.

The shuffling around on the cot roused Kai a little bit. He'd only been lightly snoozing at this point. It seemed like maybe Shinji was waking up, so Kai yawned and blinked his eyes open.

Oh. Huh. That was definitely a Shinji curled up against his chest, not a Shinji that was waking up. Kai looked down at the sight of this, considering the way it was making him feel. As much as he might have needed to downplay things to make them easier for him to start dealing with, there was... it was...

Kinda nice, to feel like he was actually needed. There was a part of him that wondered if he should have been the one putting up a buffer here but. Well. He'd meant it, when he said he didn't plan on going anywhere. If this was where he was needed, where else would he go?

Kai wrapped his arm around him then, holding this shivery (though less than before) bundle close and tucking him under Kai's chin. Content with this, Kai let his eyes slip close to get some sleep for real.

Sometimes, desperate times are a plenty good reason to eschew personal boundaries and seek out comfort. A more rested, more vigilant Shinji might be more wary of letting himself get so close without a very good reason for it, but a tired, unwell one won't always hold the same reservations. He may only be very loosely aware that he's even doing it, but it's a brutally honest and incredibly human mentality of 'why bother feeling sick and lonely when there's a solution to at least one of those things right here?' which... it'd probably be completely unsurprising to find out, given how the everything in Havenwell has worked so far, that the gesture is a nice solution to both problems.

As the nap draws on, and the two remain cozied up to each other, breathing becomes easier, those shivers subside, and soon enough, Shinji's fever breaks.

His initial excuses for his condition, though, hadn't been a lie - Shinji really wasn't used to the kind of chill in the air that Havenwell was experiencing. The kind of chill that makes staying in bed under some nice, heavy blankets, curled up with something (or, in this case, someone) warm feel incredibly enticing. It's. Different. But profoundly cozy. Even as the mysterious fever makes its exit, Shinji remains sleeping solidly where he's planted himself.

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