♥ 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

[unsunderworld]

I can hardly be said to prefer politics. They're simply something I happen to be skilled at, after many centuries of honing the ability.

[They're a game, a puzzle, but not where his true passion lies. It's simply that, much like one needs ore to smith, one needs people to build empires, and politics are the means by which they are harvested.

He looks back out over the tables, before stepping to the nearest and claiming a piece of sausage.]

Perhaps this will be better than their attempts at specific cuts of meat. Hope does spring eternal.

[How does he manage to make spearing giant sausage on tiny fork look dainty? Surely that's an impossible talent on par with politics. As the kids these days say, nom.]

Mmm, not intolerable. Bland, perhaps.

[astralera]

[ As he moves to try the sausage she watches with keen interest, curious to see what he thinks of it. 'Not intolerable' is practically a glowing review given what their tastebuds have been assaulted with.

Era shoots him an expectant look, as though to say 'well? will you not share?'. There is still a pile of food on her plate left to eat, but Hades has so effectively stolen her attention away and now she wishes to taste what he has. ]

[unsunderworld]

[Amused, he twirls his fork again between his fingers, and then hangs it in front of her where she might take a bite only by reaching out to do so.]

[astralera]

[ With food involved there is no question as to her response. Era leans forward and takes a bite (moderately sized, and thus quite restrained for her), then leans back and takes her time chewing, letting the flavour set in her mouth.

It is...

Bland. ]


...The texture is satisfactory.

[unsunderworld]

For something artificial, the texture is quite good. Just enough effort required to break the shell with one's teeth, and so forth.

But even allowing for the fact that it does not appear to be spiced - [He lifts the sausage back out of her face to look intently into the bitten-off end.] - there isn't nearly enough flavor of meat, let alone anything else.

[astralera]

[ With one hand she plops a green grape into her mouth, allowing the lingering blandness of the sausage to mix with the diluted sweetness of birch syrup. She gives it a moment, then skewers a grape and holds it out for him. ]

Let the juice burst in your mouth, then try another bite of the sausage.

[unsunderworld]

Hmm.

[He'll take your grape, Era, bending and being perhaps entirely too delicate with it. It's clear when he tastes it because his eyebrows rise, even as he takes another bite of the sausage.

Silence, while he chews thoughtfully, and then swallows.]

...Adequate, but very much not a proper grape.

[astralera]

The red grapes taste of plum, and the kiwi taste of green grapes.

[ She smiles at his reaction, then eats another grape herself. Her expression shifts into something a bit more wistful and, while not on the same level of lovestruck as she has around Hades himself, there is some level of the same manner of affection found in her expression. ]

The flavour does remind me of home.

[unsunderworld]

Ah, I do enjoy plums.

[He'll take a bunch of those grapes, thank you for the recommendation.]

It's been some time, I admit, since I last had reason to have time in Coerthas. It's changed a great deal over the last thousand years, though I've heard quite a bit about your recent activities there.

[Through the Ascian grapevine, as one does, and also the Garlean grapevine. He's a veritable wineyard of such things.]

[astralera]

Red plums are amongst my favourite fruits. [ She will reluctantly share whatever red grapes she's stockpiled, because she holds him in such high regard. ] Along with litchi, though I've yet to see any of those fruits here.

[ Coerthas has certainly changed for the better, even in the short time she's known it. ]

It has changed a great deal over the past year or so — more than it has in many centuries. They are working hard to rebuild, though there are still those who are resentful of the change to the status quo.

[ She says nothing of those who resent her still, not just for her role as the Warrior of Light, shining upon the corruption of their nation in a way they could no longer ignore, but also for her race. ]

[unsunderworld]

Mmm, and more still in the years since Dalamud's fall; a miracle that they did not founder then, against the Dravanians, as I can only imagine the famine that followed the snow.

[Don't worry, there's still some on the table, Era! He's not so forward as to take from her plate, considering how she is about food.]

I keep half-expecting to see fruits of the old world here, myself.At this point it would little surprise me.

[astralera]

Coerthans are resilient and inventive, for all that they enjoyed living in the past. I imagine it helped that they were accustomed to harsh winters, so the plants that grew were particularly hardy. It did not take many generations to breed plants even more resilient to the cold clime, though the first few years were likely difficult.

[ Of course that would be what she focused on most. The growth and cultivation of life has always been fascinating to her, particularly when it comes to matters of food. ]

Are there many fruits of eld that are not represented amongst the shards?

[unsunderworld]

True, but some measure of summer is when many such plants thrive; others take to the brilliant stretches of snow-bound sunlight in the thaw, when white hasn't yet stopped reflecting off everything. Neither has happened in any great measure recently.

[He's ten thousand years old, he can't help but have some idea what he's talking about.

As for her question, he simply smiles, and pauses to lick the tip of his gloved fingers.]

Oh, some number of them, yes.

[astralera]

[ Whatever botanical comment Era may have given is thoroughly forgotten as she eyes his tongue against his fingers. Her cheeks flush immediately, and she quickly looks away, turning her attention back to her plate. She valiantly tries to ignore the way his actions set her insides asmoulder in that pleasant, uncomfortable way she is slowly growing accustomed to. ]

[unsunderworld]

[There's a glitter in his eyes that says that drawing that reaction out of her was indeed entirely deliberate.]

A pity that my favorite does not seem native to this world, either. I should like to not have to Create them so much...

[astralera]

[ She's on to you, boyfriendo. ]

Were you to acquire a seed I could cultivate one for you, though it would take time to grow.

[unsunderworld]

Unfortunately, even had I the talent at botanical creation to create a viable seed, the pomegranate is a tree-fruit, and it would be several years at least until we had any.

[Alas.]

[astralera]

A tree-fruit? [ For all that she's sad it would take years to grow one, she can't help but be enthused all the same: ] What do their blossoms look like?