[HUB ISLAND | NOVEMBER IC INTRO LOG]

[spellbindmods]

Who: The new coven members and old blood
Where: In and around the hub island, especially the mansion
When: Day 122
Open/Closed: Open to All

IMPORTANT This IC intro log is different in that all characters can tag it! If your character is new, please put [new] or some variant of it in the subject of your top level. New characters can also tag around to old coven members in order to branch out and get as much CR as possible!

All characters are told briefly what their powers are by Genette -- no extemporaneous details. For instance, if your character has the ability to detect lies, they'll be told as such -- no warning about limitations, repercussions or the like. They'll also be given a variant of this letter so they aren't totally ignorant of the situation -- though of course adapt this letter to the current setting and surroundings of the game.

This setting may be familiar to you -- maybe you caught a glimpse of it when you first visited. Maybe this is your first time experiencing this weird world and the panic is setting in. If you're totally lost, a tall human woman with a long scroll of paper will eventually pass by to give you a rundown. She'll also give you a letter, which may give you more questions than answers since the information is a wee out of date. (Maybe someone else can fill in some gaps for you). What is at first painfully obvious is that you're ill-equipped. Any magic or powers you had previously are suddenly replaced with an empty hole in your being. That's not all that's gone, but perhaps that's what's most pressing. Another thing you may notice is that there are others just like you, wandering around and just as confused. If you feel so inclined, you may want to ask around and see if anyone else knows what's up. A ▢ A few newbies may not be so lucky as to wind up somewhere pleasant -- it's currently flooding and storming...up a storm...on the island, which makes spawning outside very trying. Depending on where your character shows up, there's essentially no shelter around, other than some ratty beach huts. If your character's first instinct is trying to find a place to go while outside, you may be in luck -- that is, if someone else is outside, willing to help your character find shelter. B ▢ For those characters who aren't interested in the shelter of the mansion, they may be stuck in their beach huts. What does this have to do with newbies? It's hard to tell that these beach huts are occupied until actually entering them, which is what your character has decided to do. Oops...hi there, stranger. Mind if I stay for a while? C ▢ Other characters who happen to have the luck of a true asshole won't be able to find shelter with any such luck. They'll be stuck sheieding themselves from rain under a tree, in the forest or tucking themselves in a mountain cave. It's not the worst place to wind up, but it might not be the safest -- what happens if someone doesn't find them? Telepathy might alert someone to their presence, which can help with the rescue process.

For those that are lucky enough to spawn in the mansion -- or those who eventually find their way there, soaking wet -- there's a lot of fun stuff happening here! It's warm, inviting, smells like food...don't feel awkward. You can join the fun too! Brie has set up a few party ideas, even though it's not technically a party, in order to keep things light during the storm (which, coincidentally, she isn't very fond of). There's a lot to do, but also everyone has the ability to just chill and hang out in the warm shelter of the mansion for now. D ▢ First of all, there's a bizarrely set up snack bar in the main foyer. On a lot of boxes, all lined up together, are stacks of crackers, graham crackers, marshmallows and other dried snack foods (use your imagination, honestly). There are also tiny kerosene lamps so characters can heat up food if they wish. Alongside the typical snack foods are also more exotic varieties of snacks that Brie has collected, like dried and salty alien bug pupae and tiny trees in chip bags. There's some odd stuff there, and some of it may upset stomachs. E ▢ The large foyer of the mansion is literally filled with pillows and blankets. Most of them have been stockpiled and pulled from Qri's big caravan, currently located upstairs, and others have been pulled from every chair and bed in the mansion. Intricate tents and pillow domes have been made that snake in and out from one another -- some are more private than others, with other pillow circles built for communal spaces. It's definitely possible to get lost in this winding pillow fort, but it's also possible to have a nice, private moment lost in one of the winding tunnels. F ▢ In one of those foretold communal pillow circles, someone (who? you? me? who knows.) has set up a game of spin the bottle. Who knows how your character got roped into this -- or if they are actually willing participants, but this is happening. It's going to happen. What are you doing, oh my god HOW IS THIS BIZARRE ROM-COM SCENARIO GOING TO END...?? F1; Your character is doing the spinning, and another character is choosing to be the victim on the other end of that bottle! F2; Your character happens to have just had the bottle land on them. Who did it? What mysterious being do they have to smooch now? How do they react? G ▢ Another game is going on in another communal circle -- Truth or Dare! This game is also set up similarly, in that your character is a hapless victim or willing participant, but they definitely have to give someone the opportunity to confess something or dare them to do something ridiculous. Will they show mercy, or go in for the kill? H ▢ Slumber party activities aren't for everyone, and there's still a mansion to explore. From various bedrooms to a game room, there are a variety of rooms to wind up exploring and get lost in. Not exciting enough for you? Your character has magic! Maybe they cause a ruckus upstairs that makes someone investigate the loud noise or chaos. Maybe they walk in on someone else doing something with their own magic. What sort of scenario can you cook up? I ▢ Wildcard! How will your character interact with this new and unusual world?

Comments

[splinten]

[does not miss a beat]

Yes. Like you're upset that that thing you do where you see via non-sight senses is also a thing that has stopped being a thing.

[terezias]

[She makes a disapproving sound with her tongue.]

I used to be able to smell and taste colors. Which I can accept is similar enough to magical bullshit to presumably not work in this setting, although that does not mean I have to like it.

[splinten]

That's hells of magnanimous of you.

To answer your implicit question [his name??] it's hard to be taken over by an alien race without picking up some of the terminology.

[so not that]

[terezias]

[To be fair, she did ask for all three.]

Is that what happened on your Earth? [She squints at him with newfound interest.] You do not look all that enslaved.

[splinten]

[you know who can still speak bullshit without drowning people?]

The Condesce developed invisible manacles to avoid enslavement clashing with her desired aesthetic.

[terezias]

[Rude, check your bullshit privilege!!]

That would be more believable if the Condesce's desired aesthetic was not "unbelievably tacky." [Terezi, are you really in a position to call anything tacky.]

[splinten]

I prefer it to juggalo aesthetic.

[also in no position to call things tacky, but they can agree that juggalos are The Worst

But to answer the question:]

Humanity had been wiped out by the time me and Roxy's meteors landed. It was just the Carapacians she had transplanted and a variety of lusii she tried to introduce to the ecosystem.

[terezias]

[Augh, juggalos. She makes a face.]

So the two of you arrived late, if 'late' and 'early' are concepts that apply in the deterministic setting of paradox space. [It could, after all, be argued that everything that happens in paradox space is exactly on time.] I presume Roxy is the one who is not Rose's human mother. Who was around to name her?

[splinten]

She ended up growing up in a colony of Carapacians that her Mom had basically foreseen and set up the seed for.

[Which doesn't really answer the question but]

[terezias]

'Roxy' is not a very carapacian name.

[And seemingly switching gears:]

How long have you been on this unmagical island, manlusus without a name?

[splinten]

Sixty-one days on-island, sixty-five off.

[terezias]

Not a very efficient allocation of days, if the letter is correct about our supposed purpose here.

[A pause.]

I suppose at some point I should mention that I sent someone back to fix our unmitigated disaster of a timeline, if that was of any concern to you.

[You know. One player of the bullshit game that is S---b to another.]

[splinten]

John was here before. He mentioned it before vanishing with Rose and Dave.

[His shoulders are just that little bit more hunched when he mentions Dave. He'd really rather not dwell on that.]

He presumably went back to kicking us out from our place as the Alpha versions of ourselves, and they I guess went to the dream bubbles.

[Dirk is quiet. But he does look her in the eyes, behind his shades.]

Thanks. It's good to know at least one version of my friends will probably make it.

[terezias]

They were here?

[Dave was here? she means, mostly, but fortunately for Dirk's composure the subject of Dave is also a sore one for her, so she doesn't mention him by name. She can't dwell on Dave, anyway. She has to--

To what? What is there left to do when you've effectively made yourself doomed, and yet somehow you're still around? Her gaze, behind her own glasses, flickers back to Dirk's.]

It was something I did for my own reasons. But you are welcome.

[splinten]

Thanks anyway.

[Whatever the reasons. As horrible as it is to be doomed, it's also a relief. He isn't eager to go to the dream bubbles, if he will ever even get there. He doesn't know if Terezi would be.]

All evidence points to this place being outside of the realm of Paradox Space. I'm not willing to say it is when causality has the habit of pulling a fast one on us, but that's where the evidence is pointing. Still, it's probably that our actions here don't contribute to the perpetuation of Paradox Space's reality even to the degree that doomed timelines frequently are roped into its inevitable self-creation.

[So like. Hey. They might be outside of all that? That could be cool.]

[terezias]

[She regards him narrowly.]

You are saying that this place exists outside the laws that have governed our entire lives to this point. That we are no longer bound inevitably to propagate a single, hopelessly intertwined course of events or else perish into irrelevance.

[After a pause:] Or both, perhaps, in some cases.

[splinten]

The 'both' cases are ones I find pretty offensive. [If you're going to doom them then at least let them stop being forced to take part in this? Dickbag P.Space.]

I'm saying that's what all evidence indicates. As it is, I lack Jake's willingness to completely commit to an optimistic interpretation when there is still room for a margin of cynical error.

[terezias]

That seems like a reasonable course of action. What do you consider the 'evidence,' in this case?

[splinten]

On a superficial level, this place lacks most of Paradox Space's hallmarks of recurring phrases and images. No motifs. The circumstantial evidence is the variety of people from universes that do not at all seem to adhere to P. Space's rules and ideas. And we haven't encountered any paradoxes so far, let alone paradoxes in the style typical of that system.

[terezias]

Hmm . . . . [She considers this. The idea that they've escaped the logic of paradox space entirely is hard to process.] This is compelling evidence. But then again, most people born on either of our worlds would have gone through their entire lives without ever knowing they lived under the rules of paradox space, would they not?

[splinten]

Yes. But they also operate under the same universal conventions as we do to some degree or another. Non-players, even Carapacians, have fetch modi and strife specubi. There is also nowhere we know of in Paradox Space where we're cut off from game-given powers or even natural abilities.

Like I said, it isn't conclusive. But given how impossible it can be to prove a negative, it's worth acknowledging that everything suggests we've been removed from it.

[terezias]

I suppose there are only two options. One: we've reached a level of the game none of us have even heard of, one that seemingly operates on very different rules. Or two, we've left the game entirely.

Or put another way, the question is only how far we are from where we started.

[splinten]

That's one way to consider it. Personally, my question was whether or not we're going to end up in dream bubbles.

[terezias]

[A small smile crosses her face.]

That is also a good question. Though I would recommend that you not try to hard to test it.

[splinten]

So you don't want me to visit your place on Alternia. That's cold. I thought we were developing a real friendship here.