hugtopia_logs | ♥ December Event Log

♥ December Event Log

December (Ranir) Event Log
The city of Havenwell is recovering very well thanks to your efforts, offworlders. The hole in the wall is sealed up and, while maybe not looking like new, it certainly looks sturdy and safe. The city itself has removed much of the rubble from the battles you fought, and the people are back to their regularly scheduled lives. They're eternally grateful that you continue to put in the time to rebuild this final bastion of civilization and are pleased to see that you enjoyed their festivals so far. As the weather of Ranir turns colder and the nights longer, some may even see snow dust the cobblestone and paved streets in the morning. The time of Rawna has come and with it...

❥ PROMPT I: At Least It's Not a Sweater

a pair of hands holding each other with a red ribbon tied around their wrists

Normally when a new season belonging to a god rolls around, the temple priests gear up and start with temple festivities. Seeing how this is Rawna's month, however, nothing much of the sort seems to be happening. In fact, it's almost as if Rawna's priests don't even care that their god's season has started. Rawna is, after all, chiefly the god of Apathy, so is it all that surprising?

What might be surprising is the sight of Ainea's priests in pairs out around the city in their stead. Each pair carries with them a single bright silver sash and they alternatively stand in broad daylight or hide in the shadows of the buildings. Walk by on your own and you'll be left alone, but when the priests spot two people walking even remotely near each other, they spring into action.

The two robotic priests zip around you and another person with surprising speed, tying the sash off around you - either around your wrists, your waists, your legs, whatever it takes to tie you to another person. With a triumphant buzz of excitement, they declare "Happy Ranir! Kindness comes in many forms!" and depart to find a new pair of ~~victims~~ patrons. As they leave, one of the pair calls out an additional clue for you: "Be kind to unwind!"

Good luck, everyone, you're now stuck with this other person. You can either wait until the sash naturally falls off in a few hours, or you can take the direction of the priests and be kind to the other person to encourage the magical knot to come undone. Each compliment, word of encouragement, or other act of kindness directed at your new partner seems to loosen the sash a little each time, so get to winning the Niceness War.

Oh, and in case you were thinking of blasting, teleporting, or cutting your way out? No amount of magic or physical force seems capable of cutting or removing the sash. Hopefully you went to the bathroom before they got you.

❥ PROMPT II: A Delicious Delight

After a long hard day of dodging Ainea's priests or just slogging through the colder weather around the city, what could be better than imbibing a seasonally festive drink? Well, the scientists in charge of Experiment 73 certainly think so! They've added a limited edition drink selection to all of the replicators and have some delightfully festive booths spread about the city staffed by a few robots wearing Rawna's colors in their sashes and hats. There are five drinks in total to choose from and you should certainly try them! They're only here until the end of the month and then the scientists say they'll be gone! The best things in life are fleeting, aren't they? The best things in life are also surprises, so when you take a sip of these exquisitely delicious (honest! For once they're good) beverages, prepare yourself for a little trick with your treat.

Ginger and Honey Tea: A hot, thoroughly warming drink with the bite of ginger and the sweetness of honey. Drink this and you'll be shored up against the cold, but also feel compelled to tell or blurt out the truth. Whether you're asked a question or trying to tell a little white lie, you find you can't say anything but the truth. This effect lasts for up to an hour after drinking the tea.
Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie: A cold sweet treat of vanilla smoothie topped with sweet strawberry pieces and whipped cream. At the bottom, you'll find a layer of sweet sponge cake cut up into pieces. Drink this with its own special thick straw and enjoy the taste of cake; and the effect of a personal miniature snow cloud that appears over your head. The cloud dusts you and your immediate area within a foot of you with beautiful multicolored snow - and that snow leaves splotches of color behind that last for up to an hour after drinking the smoothie.
Hot Cinnamon Apple Cider: A deliciously steamy beverage that tastes of apple and cinnamon and comes with a cinnamon stick stirrer for effect. This beverage smells as delicious as it tastes and the aroma wafts around the area more strongly than the others. Drink this penultimate holiday drink and you'll find yourself heating up so much that you'll want to stay cold by giving your heat away via holding someone else. You'll want to be everyone's personal heater for up to an hour after drinking the cider.
Gingerbread Latte: A nice piping hot latte with the hint of gingerbread threaded through the coffee, topped with whipped cream and dusted with gingerbread spice. Served in a tall red cup that seems to transfer the heat uncannily well through its thin walls, sip this and you'll find yourself painlessly sprouting an animal's appendage at random. You can have one functioning or non-functioning, cosmetic animal appendage like a cat's ears, a dog's tail, a duck's beak or whatever else you can think of for up to an hour after drinking the latte. They can replace your original body part (e.g. your ears become cat ears) or grow superfluously (e.g. you have regular ears AND cat ears). You can move the appendages or talk with them as if they are your own, but they don't confer any special magical powers with them. So you can fly with those griffin wings, sure, but you're going to need to put the effort into it.
Hot Mulled Wine (alcoholic): This one isn't for children - and in fact, under 18 people might find it hard (but not impossible, be industrious, little ones!) to get their hands on this drink. Red wine is heated with spices and citrus fruit over low heat for several hours - or it would if it wasn't all synthetically created. The effect is the same though, a delicious adult beverage that's a nice way to spend an evening with someone special. And you'll want them to be someone special because drinking the hot wine makes you inclined to get a little steamy with people. Kisses, both chaste and passionate, seem to alleviate the urge which you'll be under for up to an hour after drinking the wine.

❥ PROMPT III: Winter (VR) Wonderland

a wooden lodge at night, blanketed in snow

There isn't quite enough snow on the ground to allow it in reality, but in the VR Cafes anything is possible. This month, the VR Cafes are decorated with snowflakes in odd patterns and designs - holograms, naturally - that spin and change shape and color in a timed routine. Plug into the games and you'll find a new selection among the usual offerings: Winter Wonderland.

There are two modes to Winter Wonderland and each are fun in their own ways.

Snow Fight! Head out into the powdery snow where fantastic snow forts await and battle it out with snowballs to claim the most territory or just see who can hit the other side the most. You can choose Team Battle, Solo 1vs1, or Battle Royale. All magic, skills, and cunning are at your disposal. While the snow might not be falling outside, it's definitely going to be raining down on you here, so bundle up and have some fun. You earned it!

Ski Lodge But maybe you don't want to go flinging snow down someone's shirt and would rather cuddle up on a couch in front of a big warm fire, huh? Sure, we understand that. Welcome to the Ski Lodge, a cozy getaway up in the mountains where you can relax with a hot chocolate (or cider, or glass of wine even) and curl up on the couches and experience a lazy afternoon in thick fluffy sweaters. It's even better with a friend, they say, so why not create this private little getaway for the two (or three or four, we're not judging) of you? For people wanting a romantic lean, you can always slip out the back (and out of your clothes if you prefer) into the private jacuzzi on the wooden deck, too.

For people who want to have some fun tearing it up on the mountain-side though, we suggest trying Ski-venture! A year-round game that lets you ski or snowboard your way down the mountain.

❥ PROMPT IV: A Mysterious Gift [REGAIN EVENT]

Toward the end of the month starting from the 20th and on, some people may find themselves drawn to Rawna's temple late at night, when most of the priests are offline or elsewhere. The only native creatures you can see here are the fledgling rainbow dragons which watch you from their various perches all around the sanctum. As you approach the temple's altar, you realize someone else has been drawn here as well. In the quiet, dim lighting, the barest of candles still burning and the watchful eyes of the dragons, you feel compelled to unburden yourself to the other person. Tell your tale of woe or sorrow, relieve yourself of a secret you've kept hidden for too long, and listen to your companion as well. They say a burden shared is a burden halved after all.

Once you've both shared something, a pair of dragonlings crawl up into the altar's clawed hands. They wind around each other until an iridescent light shines from their scales. The light is blinding and you must look away as it reaches its pinnacle and releases a burst of rainbow light. When you look back, the dragonlings are slithering away and in their places are two objects - one familiar to you and one to your partner - so long as both of you have shared. It seems your tithe has been rewarded with something from home.

OOC: These items from home must be approved by a mod. They cannot exceed the Medium Item regain limit. It cannot be a power or other ability. It cannot be something your character did not own or have knowledge of in their canon or their CRAU. Please post your regain request in the Regain Request thread before threading out the receipt of the item.

This event will run from December 6th to December 31st. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. You are welcome to use this log, or create entries of your own! If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was just taking a shoe off. What was there to get flustered about here? Did other people get flustered when they took shoes off? So weird. He had feet too. Most people! Had feet! Not everyone, of course, but. Most people.

So he really has no idea why she was staring at him so intensely. Ah, had he not been gentle enough? Maybe it had hurt. He might have asked about that specifically, but-- whup!

"Whoa, you good?" It sure had gotten roomy all of a sudden. Somehow!

Shoes counted as clothing! Kyoko was pretty sure she wasn't the one with an unusual level of fluster here! Right?? In a normal setting, anyway!

But this wasn't a normal setting, in many ways--a thought that weighed heavily on her mind as she steadied herself and looked at the loosened bindings. "Y-yes! I'm good." It was still too tight to wiggle her hand out, but, hm. "I guess it makes sense that there would be a special trick to breaking the spell, but... stripping down can't be the answer, right?"

They'd gone from 0 to 60 Revenge so quickly that any echoes of "be kind" had been lost to time. There'd been a hint, Kai was sure, but it was ???

It definitely wasn't stripping though. Kai had been nodding along as he moved to grab his bag of strawberry ice, but he stopped just before applying it to her ankle to give her a perplexed look. "Huh? Who's stripping?" Here came the ice, pressed gently against that scandalously bare ankle. Yowza.

"All I did was take your shoe off."

Kyoko leveled a serious look up at him. "That's the first step." Stripping had to start somewhere.

"... But I don't know why they would want that, unless the real goal is to scavenge all our clothes for scrap and recycle them into more of those fancy cloaks and hats the robots like." Surely the robot clothes trade wasn't in such dire straits. Tilting her head, Kyoko hrmd. "And, now that I think about it, didn't it kinda seem like the sash got looser once or twice before now, too? Just a little bit?"

Kai gave this clothes scavenging idea a longer amount of consideration than was really necessary. He even gave her shoe a sideglance, as if it was about to start sliding away for harvest. No, this was a silly idea.

"Huh... Yeah, I guess it did? I'm not sure getting injured is really the idea here either."

Ridiculousness aside, removal of clothing just didn't match up with the other instances of the sash loosening. If she thought about it... well, it wasn't like she could be sure she'd noticed everything promptly, so maybe there were other details, but hadn't it happened after he'd caught her? And... after she had given him a hand up, maybe? Something like that?

... Something like that. Yes, it would be. Pushing herself up until she could rest her forehead on her knees, she let out a long sigh.

"... It's just about making contact, right? It has to be."

"Y'know, I'm not so sure on that one."

Which wasn't even being said because of how resigned she had just become about the whole thing. Kai gingerly shifted the ice around to another side of her ankle.

"Usually it does the trick, yeah. 'Cept we've pretty much been making contact this whole time? If it was Ainea's... maybe something helpful..."

Something helpful.... Kyoko was quiet for a few moments, her shoulders sagging uncharacteristically. When she piped up again, her voice was still low, but the tone wasn't resigned so much as... discouraged?

"Then, I really don't know what to do. From the very beginning, I've relied on you way beyond what's reasonable, you know? If it's helpfulness, they should let you go ahead and cash in everything you've already done. I don't... know how to compete with that level of kindness."

And yet, the ribbon became that much looser around their wrists. Kai gave it a small glance, but his focus was mainly on her.

"Mm. I think your definition of unreasonable's a bit...uh. Wrong. It's not like I'm putting up with anything. You're fine just being you, y'know?"

Those were awfully nice things to say--so nice, in fact, that the sash kept going--look, it was almost sagging around their wrists now. So nice that Kyoko had to look away, something like shame staining her cheeks pink.

There was quiet for another moment, before she mumbled, "Jeez... concussions aren't something to put up with?"

There was a quiet note of that reaction, but Kai otherwise just huffed softly. "Hey, better me than you. Breaking a fall is one of the only thing's my hard head is good for. Gotta put it to good use so it doesn't go to waste."

"Wrong," she said flatly, finally looking up again so she could aggressively deadpan at him. "Every sentence you just said was wrong, it's actually impressive. Are you sure you didn't crack your skull even a little?"

Kai cocked a brow a bit at her. "We're already playing the icing game, how much better do you think this would turn out if I'd crashed onto you instead?"

"Crashing onto me and falling on your head weren't the only options! Haven't you ever caught yourself on your hands?" Ah, already this was way easier than that close brush with emotional talks. "Just so you know, your hard head has plenty of good uses! Showing off your dye job ranks higher than breaking my fall!"

"Well isn't it handy I can do both at the same time," he huffed with a roll of his eyes. "Look, I just did what I wanted to do and it turned out about as well as I figured it would."

"Well you--!" She wanted to say something biting back, but the words got lost as she turned what he'd said over in her head again. It was what he wanted to do, even expecting an outcome like this. Even when it was just for someone like her, who he had no real ties to, and who had already been plenty of trouble to him. Once again, this must just be the kind of guy he was, huh?

"... Thank you," she finished tamely after a moment, head dipping a little. "But don't go that far again, please."

That was precisely the kind of idiot he was.

"That was hardly anything," he assured her, reaching up to lightly pat her on the head. A moment later he realized that the silver sash that had tied them together had slipped away entirely. (Her appreciation had done the trick when he wasn't looking.)

"Oh, hey."

Kaito might not be able to see it, because she didn't look up when he administered that pat, but Kyoko's eyes had gone big and round with the gesture. Not quite hearing what he said, she stayed frozen for another moment, all the reluctance and shock at the suddenness swirling around with the rush of fierce longing and homesickness, keeping her in a headlock. It had already been so long....

When he spoke up again, it was enough to jar her out of the lonely spell. "--Huh?" Half dazed, she looked up and blinked. "Oh." A beat. "Oh! You did it!"

He'd missed it, down there where he couldn't see. It might have slipped past him entirely this time, if her coming back hadn't made it so apparent that she had gone somewhere. There was a small incline of his head, considering, and he gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

"I think it was probably a mutual effort."

Now that they were free though! It was a lot easier to move that ice around her ankle with two hands.

"No, but you were the one who came up with the solution." Or, well, close enough to it. He'd gotten them on the right track! "Who knows how much time we would have wasted on skinship, if you hadn't said anything. --Ah, hold on." Kyoko was taking advantage of her own restored freedom to wiggle back and pull her foot down from the bench. When she pushed herself back up to take a proper seat on it, it was with enough space between them to rest her swollen foot, if she kept her leg bent.

Ah, there we go. Much comfier for everyone. Kai hummed his approval, taking a moment to assess how the swelling was doing.

"I'm sure we'd get there eventually." P...robably. Here came the ice again, ginger as could be. "But I'm glad, it'll be a lot easier to help you home."

And here came her hands, darting over to take that sweet strawberry ice away, briskly pressing it to her ankle herself. There was no hiss of pain this time, but her relieved sigh did have something like a quiet shudder in it. There was no comment on any of this as she gave Kaito a stern look. "Shouldn't you be going straight home, now that you can? Get some real ice and lie down."

Helper Dog blinked, confused by this sudden turn of events. "Huh? Yeah, probably, after we get you home?"

Obviously??

"No, I said now," she corrected. "Now that you can. That's what I said. You don't need to be my crutch." He had obviously already done his time, and then some. "You hit your head, so it's better if you don't wander around more than necessary. Just go directly home."

Kai blinked again, this time to look at her deadpan. "Don't be stupid. You're not hobbling home by yourself, and I'm not going to argue about it."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject