♥ 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]

[That caused him to hesitate, one hand on his hip and the other brought to his mouth in contemplation as he stared out at the storm. What, indeed, could have caused it? He considered the options, considered that destructive hand and the daemonic horrors it allowed in. But as he thought about it, the logical outcome seemed clear. Perhaps it wasn't the case, but...]

...Infighting. [His answer was short at first, as Ardyn continued to stare out at whatever laid past the wall.] The same as the old legends of the Astral War, and the same as myself. It sounds the obvious answer; consider all that the gods here are patron to. A pair for compassion and honor, a pair for knowledge and logic. [He paused at that--already not one to speak at length, Ardyn lapsed back into thought and muttered under his breath:]

One to mold the weapon to their fingers, and one to point it at their enemies... [Yet another thoughtful silence passed for a moment, Ardyn seeking the right words for either. Ultimately, though, he already grasped the shape of what they were.]

'Wrath' and 'retribution.' Perhaps not those exact terms, but something to such an effect; one for power, and one for the willingness to use it.

And if such a pair did exist, I propose them as being the odd set out; two nonviolent sets, and one violent. If that concept should ring as truth, 'twould almost make sense to cast them out as the Six did to Ifrit in the old legends.

[kingkingcxiii]

[Regis nods as he listens to Ardyn's words. As much as he doesn't want to fall into the trap of seeing similarities where there are only coincidences, the fact that Ardyn--who has experienced the world and its history so differently than he has--comes to the same conclusions is encouraging.

And more than a little worrying.]

Fire is the most fickle of the elements, even more so than ice and snow which would be better described as 'indiscriminate,' much like Shiva herself was before Ifrit melted her heart. 'Wrath' and 'retribution' are much the same as that fire, sometimes working for you and sometimes against. Those times can shift at the drop of a hat.

[He too is unsure if those are the exact words they should be using, but they work for now, so he doesn't mind using them.]

What better retribution is there for one whose wrath you have drawn then to destroy the very world you hold dear?

[And what is going on outside the wall is most certainly nothing less than utter destruction.]

[scourgingstars]

...

[Ardyn didn't answer that right away either, staring out at the storm as though he hoped something about it would answer that. He wasn't sure if it was a hypothetical pair of gods they were describing or Ardyn himself, and he disliked both options.]

I can not claim to theorize at any length upon how the world would be brought to such a state, or what other manner of power exists to create such monsters. But I can speak from experience in saying it wouldn't be unthinkable to wish it all burned to the ground.

[kingkingcxiii]

[Regis turns an apologetic look in Ardyn's direction realizing as soon as the silence starts to stretch that he should have phrase that question differently. It's hard for him to tell if it would be better to ignore the mistake or draw attention to it, though. After a few seconds of thought, he decides to limit his apology to that look and be much more careful about his words in the future.]

Perhaps we should attempt to replace theories with facts? I would like to spend some time speaking with both the natives and the priests in the various temples. Your assistance would be most welcome.

[scourgingstars]

'Twould be a wise course of action, I think. There is yet much I would wish to learn of this world's quadratheon as it is. Even should we learn nothing of a hypothetical third pair, I think such an endeavor would be time well spent.

[He brushed it off well enough, shaking his head and pulling himself out of his own thoughts.]

...My friend Emet-Selch is better versed in matters of the divine, and likely far wiser than the pair of us combined. I suspect if we asked him he would be only too eager to assist as well.

[kingkingcxiii]

Emet-Selch? Yes, I've met him.

[The way Regis says that implies the meeting was not all positive, but the man did help him during the invasion, and no matter how unsettling that help was, the assistance has gone a long way toward erasing the uneasiness of that first meeting.]

If I recall correctly, he also found a passage mentioning the missing gods. It would only make sense to include him in that case, especially if he has as much knowledge as you say he does.

[And it will also give them someone without a bias toward Eos' history gathering information.]

[scourgingstars]

...Yes, he's sort of like that on occasion.

[Regis didn't have to specify; the tone was enough.]

But I would at least call him trustworthy enough to call upon for this.

[kingkingcxiii]

I will endeavor to keep that in mind.

[Even if he isn't quite ready to fully trust Emet-Selch, he does trust Ardyn.]

As you know him better than I do, what would be the best way to contact him about this? Does he keep his communicator on hand?

[scourgingstars]

I would imagine he does--I don't use mine particularly often, but he seems a bit more at ease with such devices.

[kingkingcxiii]

I'm glad to hear it.

[He knows people have varying levels of comfort with the devices from Ardyn who doesn't use them much, to himself who uses it more like a phone than an actual network device, to Cor and Noctis who use them like they were born with them in their hands.]

If you have the chance can you let him know I will be in touch with him about it? I would be most grateful.