♥ 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

[shroudedsecrets]

That is fair.

[She knows she can have that impression, even if it's complicated.]

I am not opposed to the company of others. Although there is a lot that is... happening here.

[daikonrose]

[ Kyoko tilts her head curiously as she constructs a bite of salad, cutting bits of this and that to spear on her fork. ]

A lot... with the robots? I guess walking around and questioning everyone reporter-style isn't the most efficient way to get this kind of information... probably.

[shroudedsecrets]

To be fair, it is for their research. It is likely they have not had any one to properly test such things on in... a very long time.

[Which she understands, despite the way they're going about it.]

They seemed quite prepared to dive back into such work.

[daikonrose]

[ Mouth full, Kyoko shakes her head as she chews. ]

No, I meant, the method, you know? Food should be eaten thoughtfully and savored, to get the full impact! But it's hard to do that when you keep getting approached; even the pushiest waiters know not to stick around and hound the customers when they're eating. --Well, not that these guys are that bad. But couldn't we all just be quietly taking notes for them, or something?

[shroudedsecrets]

[She inclines her head in understanding.]

I see. It is likely that the excitement for being able to revive this Experiment... if it had ever truly been dormant at all, has added to their eagerness for hearing the results. They may not have taken into consideration how much time would be needed to properly analyze it by a subject capable of doing so.

[Sometimes scientists could get quite single minded about results.]

[daikonrose]

[ There's a nod. ]

They do seem kinda excited, don't they? I guess it's not strange, then.... But don't worry! [ She spears a tomato on her fork. ] I'll field all of their questions for you next time they come around. It doesn't bother me!

[shroudedsecrets]

[ They're scientists, not real waiters, which makes all the difference in how strange it is, easier to rationalize those actions. However, at the conclusion of the young woman's words, Honerva finally slowly starts to realize what might have initiated her comments in the first place. ]

... That is generous of you. I am unfamiliar with much of what is being served here, though that has not dissuaded them from bringing samples by.

[daikonrose]

Ohh, is that how it is?

[ She'd figured the lady was just naturally reserved and didn't enjoy the all the pestering, but if Kyoko looks at her, it makes some sense. Probably she's an elf of some kind, right? So it's natural that her native cuisine would be quite different from anything the likes of Kyoko knows! ]

That's too bad, though, that they can't make anything for you. Even if this stuff is still kinda off, at least I can recognize all of it.

[shroudedsecrets]

[Well... that's closer to the mark, in some regard.]

Do not worry. That aspect of it does not trouble me. It would not do any good for me to only experience the incorrect versions. At least there is something to be learned by... listening to the descriptions that those more familiar are able to give.

[daikonrose]

Something to be learned.... [ Kyoko chews her tomato thoughtfully. ] Is it really so completely different? The kind of food you know, I mean.

[shroudedsecrets]

[She's quiet for a moment; she's not used to people asking her these sorts of questions, even when faced with socializing.]

The difference is that while these meals are synthesized, they are created with the intent to imitate the fresh components, or ingredients of what might be considered a standard. The food I am accustomed to was... densely packed with nutrients and lacked flavor, and the color was uniform.

[She has little recollection of what it might have been before then, but this she does not say. Instead, she adds, almost absently:]

My chef companion was appalled, when we first met.

[daikonrose]

[ Her head tilts to the side, eyes going wide with bewilderment, before narrowing again as she frowns. ]

What... really? That's not what I would have guessed at all.

[ It's kinda disappointing! But Kyoko mulls it over some more. ]

So... like some kind of okayu--or even just broth, I would think, but with vitamins added? Or maybe something like those meal replacement bars, if they weren't flavored.... Huuuuh!

[ Just go ahead and spoil all her fantasies about elven cuisine, why don't you. ]

[shroudedsecrets]

It is likely not in the way you are imagining, but... that is of little concern.

[ She really had to be careful when describing that situation. Space food was an odd subject to begin with, but unfortunately that was what with what she was most familiar.

And she was not accustomed to it coming up in conversation at all, so, this in itself was new. But a friend had always insisted that she practice, so here they were. She does her best to smile, an attempt at reassurance. ]

My close companions have been assisting me to rectify that, but it takes time, to become accustomed to the varieties of foods and the specific flavors.

[ And once they had their cafe open, they could certainly recover those tarnished fantasies about Elven cuisine, or one would hope. ]

[daikonrose]

Is that why you came here? You wanted to experience more?

[ Surely their robot overlords wouldn't have any trouble creating flavorless nutrient porridge, compared to the apparent effort going into all of this. So if she's eating new foods, it must be something she actually wants, Kyoko has to assume. ]

[shroudedsecrets]

I did not come here for the meal.

[She shrugs faintly. Certainly there was effort involved in their task, but if it was incorrect, it would still be little use to have her correct anything she wasn't familiar with by now. In her view, anyway.]

However the invitation had been extended, and I was... curious, about the experiment, and what others might have to say about it. For being unable to taste their own creations, they seem to have the concepts in mind, even after all this time. And they are able to apply the adjustments to an entire system remotely. It is very interesting.

[daikonrose]

Ohh? So the interest point is actually the scientists. [ An unexpected development, considering how this all started! Looking at her plate again, Kyoko taps her fork against a lettuce leaf thoughtfully. ] I guess it is kinda surprising they got this far, if it's really been so long since any of them could eat these things themselves. Did they only start making it when the gods decided to kidnap us?

[shroudedsecrets]

There were indications that they had been working on this project at some point in their past. Having subjects such as ourselves brought in seems to have... reinvigorated their work. The replicators had already existed when we were brought here, likely dormant for a time, but it was only with complaints from others that the quality of them was assessed in the first place.

[And now this invitation, of course.]

It can make one wonder about what else they may be inclined to pursue again.

[daikonrose]

[ A barely-there thoughtful hum on her breath, Kyoko is quiet for a few moments. So they started replicating food before everyone made the robot transition? That's the only reasoning that makes sense, unless this isn't the first time people have been brought in from other worlds.

Eventually, she smiled a little. ]

Bringing us all here to solve their problems ended up making more work for them, huh?

[shroudedsecrets]

Perhaps.

[The reality of it is truly unclear for what they've uncovered, and it is not as if the citizens do much to clarify aside from seem alarmed, occasionally.]

Has it given them more work, or provided them purpose? For a long time they have only stagnated here.

[daikonrose]

Work and purpose might as well be the same thing, in that case. [ In most cases, really, Kyoko would say. ] But that shouldn't have been our problem.

[shroudedsecrets]

[ Perhaps she is not wrong, but going into it would be far more philosophical than either of them want for such an idle commentary. ]

It should not have been, but here we are. It is not unusual for the troubles of others to become someone else's, before long.

[daikonrose]

I can't say you're wrong. [ Kyoko sighs, but then shakes her head a little, smiling apologetically. ] And I ended up making you explain a lot of things, when I thought I was coming over here to rescue you from that. Sorry about that.

[shroudedsecrets]

[ There is warmth in her expression, as she regards her response. ]

... You meant well by your intent. One does not learn without some inquiry.

[daikonrose]

[ There's a sheepish little eheh! ]

I think a lot of the things I've been hearing for the first time are actually old news, but it can't be helped. I guess you've been here for a little while already, ma'am?

[shroudedsecrets]

Such is the nature of the world. Any amount of time would allow the potential for information to accumulate.

[ All things considered, even if it felt little, perhaps more had been learned than they were aware of. She does pause, because units of time are always rough to measure. ]

... It may equate to four or five months. I was among those who had initially arrived.