[OPENING] island hub - day 1

[spellbindmods]

Who: All Characters
Where: Main Hub
When: Day 1
Open/Closed: Open to All

TDM threads can be considered canon if you so choose, they contain the power that you apped with and both parties confer that the thread is canon.

For characters that were on the TDM and who were not accepted/didn't app, these characters will be considered dropped characters that were magicked away.

Night has fallen upon everyone. It's thus far been an eventful day -- you've met some new people, discovered some new aspects of yourself that weren't there before you appeared here (however that might have happened). The original inhabitants of the island have been working hard to prepare a few things. One activity might have been one you were a part of, but there's still time to get your hands dirty. A ▢ Brie has rolled out a large copper pot and created a pit on the beach. It's unrealistic to think everyone can subsist on the few foods she's collected from other words and boar jerky alone. She's got a few boar carcasses sitting on the beach that need attending to as well. Your characters can help feed themselves and others, and here's what needs to be done: Fire needs to be started for cooking the meat AND a large bonfire for light and warmth. The large copper bowl needs to be filled with water. Crabs need to be bravely collected from the bath house for boiling. The boar needs to be either cut up for kebabs or stuck through. Does your character know anything about spit-roasting? Any other helpful magical skills are welcome to help make food. Post feasting, there are dozens of crabs and a pile of roasted boar meet that are up for eating. Even if you didn't offer to help in making any of the food, they're open to eat it -- even if the true helpers may give you dirty looks. The boar is fine, if not a little bland and chewy, but it's probably better than the jerky. The crab is delicious, if not a little tasteless...there problem with the crab isn't exactly the taste, though. B ▢ The crab isn't a species that's immediately edible for most species, though your character will grow to get used to it eventually. For now, the meat isn't settling well within your character's system. Your character will experience sweats, a high fever, blurred vision, potential vomiting, hives...it's very obvious their body is rejecting the unfamiliar meat. This may also cause a bit of an issue with your character's powers. They're still getting physically and mentally acclimated to these new changes, so expect their telepathy and magic to go a little haywire.

It's almost completely dark outside when the next event of the evening happens. You're living your life when you see it out of the corner of your eye -- it's absolutely hard to miss. What you see is a large lit caravan, larger than even an army tank. It's bright white and shining, covered with golden, ornate details that emanate an even more dazzling sparkle. The entire thing is aglow, and it's quickly coming towards the large bonfire that's been made. It's not rolling across the sand, but instead it's floating, and so is a matching trunk that's sailing along next to a figure beside the caravan. C ▢ A tall, slender woman has also come along with the large caravan, quickly opening the trunk that eventually lands on the sand with a large thud. She's handing out sacks, very similar to the ones previously in the large lobster cage. These contain a parka, a type of candy of your choice, a bottle of water, a large shard from a broken mirror and a letter rolled up and bound with a roll of twine. There are two other thread options associated with this prompt: Genette's top level and her telepathy training post. Around the same time as Genette is handing out this new little goody bag, you suddenly receive a telepathic message. It might seem a little strange at first -- but on that note, what about tonight isn't strange? D ▢ The telepathic message your character will receive is a simple one: Hello. It shows up in text form across your character's line of vision and it doesn't go away until they respond back, though the message that's sent out won't go to the original telepath. Instead it will ping pong to a random person in the group. You've made a new friend! After you've met Genette, she's also got a few more supplies that she pulls out a small door in the base of the caravan. She's insistent that you only get two items, since there aren't exactly a lot of them to go around! E ▢ The last of the starter supplies are being handed out, and these are items that are more cumbersome or rare -- they may not be immediately useful for your character, but maybe you can make use of them somehow, whether eventually in another world or with your power. An electronic/technology: these can be as obvious as an MP3 player, as useless as a garage door motor or as scandalous as a Hitachi Magic Wand. If it can be powered by electricity or batteries, there's a tub of them. They're also partially charged if they don't need constant electricity to work. A fashion accessory: there are a lot of these, surprisingly. Flower crowns, belts, bras, shoes, earrings, other types of jewelry. Your character can look cute while suffering from crab vomiting. Books and stationary: maps of various worlds, books written in a myriad of languages (maybe even one you recognize!), writing paper, ink pens, gel pens, stickers. Any kind of stationary can be found here. Other household items: this can include cleaning supplies, furniture, and other miscellaneous goods. These won't be personal affects from your character's home, but they may be useful! Feel free to come up with unusual or alien items -- these have come from all over the universe, remember!

As the night winds down, it's recommended by Brie that you should probably go to be in your hut -- or at the very least get somewhere inside. There are a lot of people around the camp, however, so it's no surprise that there are a few people waiting around to get their fill of food and supplies before heading to bed. The noise of the new members and the light of the fire have attracted a very large pack of boars, who you'll later find make routine trips to the beach every night. Boar mating season has made the wild hogs rather testy, and the smell of food -- even if it's their own boar brethren -- have made them even more volatile. F ▢ If your character isn't quick to get inside tonight, they're likely to get a boar charging at them. The chances are doubled if they happen to be holding onto a food item. Female boars can leave a few bruises and trample you, but beware the males -- they've got tusks. However, it's not like staying up at night doesn't have its advantages. Once midnight hits, another species of animal makes its regular rounds across the base camp. In the sky, characters can see an Aurora Borealis-like sight. Instead of being dancing green and blue lights, however, the reality is that they are a massive species of space worm, and hundreds are wiggling past on their way to travel back home. They're shimmering and in every color imaginable, lighting up the sky with their magnificent hues. G ▢ The space worms operate outside the natural barrier of the hub, but they still are in close enough proximity to shed a film as they travel. If you're still awake, boars or no, you'll be in the middle of a shower. The film sheds from the worms and enters the atmosphere, creating multi-colored, sweet-smelling mists of worm water vapor. Worm water vapor is kind of weird, but it's also pretty cool. It's also calming, and that's a bonus. Inhale too much and you might become a little too calm.

Comments

[andsobelow]

A.1 BUZZKILL DOESN'T UNDERSTAND BONFIRES
[ Carla is still wearing her armor, a construction of shed beetle carapace fashioned sleek and form fitting. It gleams with a faint oil slick rainbow around its edges when the light catches it. Her fearsome helm is beneath her arm as she squints at the firelight. She's glad that night has fallen, and staring at the bonfires now she wonders how the absolute hell they expect to be stealthy with that thing burning. ]

Do we have no enemies to concern ourselves with?

[ Her voice is dry as she keeps to the edge of the light. ]

No creatures to risk enticing?

A.2 LIFELONG VEGETARIAN WONDERS WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS
[ Uh. She is looking at both the boar meat and the crabs with surprise. Honestly, the crabs as essentially sea insects look the most like something she'd eat, but... her kind don't eat aquatic animals, they tend to be saturated in magic that has seeped in through the water from the toxic aboveworld.... She sure as hell doesn't eat animal meat, and an already nauseated look crosses her face as the greasy smell of its cooking hits her nose. ]

No. [ She says flatly when literally any of that is offered to her. ] I will go out into the woods and find... something else.

[ Mushrooms will be the safest, she thinks. ]

X. A COMPANION FOR FORAGING - ONE TO TWO COMPANIONS ONLY PLEASE, ONE THREAD TOGETHER
[ If you too do not wish to eat that, Carla will tolerate a couple of companions away from the group, back to the woods they had started all of this in. It looks very different to her now in the darkness, she had been completely blinded when she had first awoken. Now she moves with ease, the reflectors in the backs of her eyes doing their work.

Her ears however are not used to the profusion of noise when walking in a wooded area, she keeps turning suddenly to peer out amongst the trees, jumpy even though all she's hearing are the footsteps of herself and her companion. ]

E. SUPPLIES! GET!
[ She takes a piece of jewelry, as the daughter of a trader she knows that sparkly little things are always useful for trading later. She is personally more interested in the books and the paper, especially books not in her own language. She'll be shopping the ones she has around: ]

Your language? Teach it to me.

F. BATTLE THAT BOAR - ONE OR TWO FIGHTERS ONLY PLEASE - ACTION ORIENTED, ONE THREAD TOGETHER
[ She is both more comfortable in the darkness as well as uneasy. She is patrolling the area aimlessly when one of the boars spots her. She freezes still for a moment, waiting to see how well it can see her in the darkness, what it thinks of her smell. She is no stranger at all to being challenged by a creature in the dark. She pulls her helm on in a swift motion, longing for her blades but this if this isn't a magical creature... she can handle it. She's certainly going to try anyway, facing off against the creature and its tusks in a coiled position, ready to roll to the side as it comes charging at her, snorting plumes of condensation into the cool night air. ]

G. WOW TOXIC WORMS GROSS
[ Finally, a bit battered and at last tired, she is sitting near the smoldering remains of the bonfires, contemplative in the darkness. She is watching as the strange colors begin to fill the sky... ]

I don't like that.

[ And she pulls her helmet back in abruptly, getting to her feet with arms crossed over her chest, backing up a few paces, observing. ]

A.1

[teratias]

[Waver turns to see who is asking the question, and he stops. That armor is something he has never seen before, the way it shines, the shape of the thing, the helmet. It is impressive, and he can only see it being a thing of terror in any other context.

He articulates none of those thoughts, and instead offers a disapproving sniff.]

Maybe the boars in the woods, but beyond that, who even knows what's here?

[andsobelow]

[ When she turns, her eyes flash an opalescent color as well, like a cat's. Irritated bemusement is the best way to describe her peevish, sharp expression, the corners of her lips turned upwards. ]

Exactly.

[teratias]

[That was not an answer Waver liked. That was the kind of answer that meant getting up at two in the morning due to surprise boars and having someone broadcasting I told you so on her face while making boars into sausages in the sand.]

Not enough wood around to make a short wall either, I guess?

[andsobelow]

[ She contemplates that, looking. ]

Rather build with stone. [ She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, ] I want to know how long we're here, before I waste the effort though.

[teratias]

I'm not the person to ask about that. And that's pretty long term thinking.

[It is not wrong thinking, not at all.]

Maybe just focusing on tonight would be better? Just for tonight.

G

[dangerouslyinlove]

Why not?

[Ryoji, who has never had a reason to be afraid of... well, much of anything (except Mitsuru), doesn't see the issue in this.] It looks pretty!

[andsobelow]

[ She frowns beneath her helmet, head turning to look at him. The construction of the helm has a rather intimidating grimace to it, not entirely incomparable to a samurai's mask, although assuredly much more insectlike. Her voice, already a bit deep and husky for a woman, is only deeper and muffled from inside of it. ]

There are many creatures in the darkness that lure with their pretty [ A note of disdain] colors.

[ Her face goes back towards the worms, tilted back slightly. ]

Worms.

[ Every clan of worms was different, but they tended to be dangerous in the underground: they consumed more of the magic from the aboveground soil that any other insect.

She actually goes visibly tense through her armor as the haze begins to drift towards them. Nope, nope, nope, nope. ]

I don't like that.

[dangerouslyinlove]

But worms aren't dangerous. [Though admittedly he's not sure about space worms. He's pretty sure they didn't exist back in Iwatodai, so he doesn't really have a frame of reference.] Though, I guess there could be different types of worms...

[That thought is sidetracked by the mist coming towards them. It is also pretty, but...] Worms don't normally do that, do they?

[andsobelow]

No unknown creature is to be trusted, especially not here.

[ Wow she... actually backs away from him like he's infectious, she's fumbling in one of the pouches looped around her armor for a set of stones, rune-scribed with protection wards. But it's more likely her helmet that is going to protect her from this particular threat, very little of the vapor will seep through the openings of her helm, and won't seep through its material at all. ]

[dangerouslyinlove]

[Ryoji blinks owlishly at her, watching her grab for the stones.]

Why especially not here? Have you been here before? And what are those?

[Full of questions, but he, at least, is not terribly anxious about avoiding the mist.]

X.

[ofthedemiurgescomposition]

[Joshua is just as on edge as Carla is. His own eyes have begun adjusting, but he can't exactly see far so he follows her closely, never getting more than a meter away from her. He doesn't follow her for food reasons, but because he didn't feel safe around there. He doesn't appreciate the comfort of the herd. Why be a part of the flock at the whims of their Shepherds, when you could instead forge your own path? That's why he volunteered to accompany her.

[Still, there has been silence between them for the most part. Silence which Joshua elects to break.]

"So, what makes you different from everyone back there? Not so, blindly willing to go along." [After all, Josh's following of the herd was mostly reluctant. He had no other choices presented so far, best to make the best of what he had.]

[andsobelow]

[ She pauses, contemplating his question. She is different from them, in many many ways. ]

I am not Sol-folk, you sun walker types are always soft.

[ She says this with a casual arrogance. It is a part of most cultures, but the defining line between us and them for the Hel-folk was particularly important to their identity. They resisted the siren song of the sun, of magic, and their resistance was their measure of their superiority.

She bends then, to examine a plant. They're as unfamiliar as anything else to her, but she'll collect a few and see if she can do a charm for poison check over the next several days. ]

[ofthedemiurgescomposition]

"Well, i suppose that makes me an exception. I trust them about as much as you seem to; which is to say - not at all." [But in Joshua's case, it was nothing cultural. It was more a personal matter. He had once occupied a position of great authority. And while the top dog hadn't yet appeared, her apparent subordinates had. And from his own subordinates, he knew. People like that weren't exactly the most trustworthy types. Though, they did seem friendly enough, so they were markedly better than the Reaper Officers in that respect.

[Not to mention, the very lack of the mastermind behind this incident made him suspicious. Perhaps, the one in charge of this was much like he was with Shibuya. A facilitator, and someone with many, many secrets. And if that was the case, then he had every right to be suspicious.{

[andsobelow]

[ Trust... she snorts derisively. That is not a word her kind use much. ]

There is nothing to trust. That is what magic does, it twists what is set in stone into silt.

[ This is an idiom in Vos, it is used to suggest all that magic undermines and warps. The suggestion is not a positive one. ]

We will know nothing at all of any real meaning until the witch exposes itself.

[ofthedemiurgescomposition]

"Yes. The truth is easily to distort, and to manipulate. And so nothing can be trusted, not even your own perception... you're more apt an observer than I thought." [I mean you're talking to the guy who literally was able to control the laws of an entire alternate plane of existence so... magic twisting what is set in stone has a whole other meaning to him he's not bringing up.] "So Magic is the thing that changes the rules. Or perhaps, it is magic which sets them in the first place.

"But yes. We have no knowledge, nor leverage to gain it, about our circumstances. Which makes things all the more difficult for us, all things considered."

A.1

[yokunaru]

[Yuuri pauses and looks over at her, understanding dawning in his eyes. That's...actually a good point, now that she's pointed it out.]

I don't know. [His eyes scan the area around them nervously.] A lot of us just got here today. If anyone knows about this place, it's probably her. [He nods toward Brie, who's a short distance away in the sand.]

[andsobelow]

[ An eyebrow raised, she turns on him with a cool stance, ]

That's what you've approached to inform me? That I should ask another? What rattles around in your head then.

[ Needlessly judgmental, a hint cruel. Sounds like Carla. ]

sorry for the delay!

[yokunaru]

[Her answer just draws a frown from him.]

You asked a question, and I pointed you toward the person who'd most likely know the answer. I wasn't about to give you false information.

np

[andsobelow]

And you think I can't tell the little witch handing out supplies might have something to do with it?

[ Her eyebrows go higher. ]

E

[tropism]

Sure.

[ a tilt of the head. ] What do you want to learn?

[andsobelow]

[ She points into the book, ]

We have letters such as these, I suppose I could make these sounds. I require a vocabulary and some knowledge of the roots to build more.

[ Her childhood in her father's trade caravan had given her a great opportunity to practice many languages, the different mutterings of the insects, but this is different. ]

[tropism]

[ giorno nods. ] Let's start with a few words, then: beetle, lady, magic, world. [ scarafaggio. signora. magia. mondo. ]

For the most part there isn't really anything tricky about its pronunciation. Double letters sound differently, vowels are stressed, but the letters are read in the same way as they're spelled. For example .... 'c' is like 'k' where it follows 'h', unless it's followed by a vowel. And then the words just .... build from there. Caccia is hunter, but it also means fighter and a great manner of other things, and then it moves on to cacciatora, cacciatore, cacciavite .... and so on.

But it's more difficult to explain when there's magic involved with how we talk.

[andsobelow]

[ She makes him stop and go over the conjugation rules, which she absorbs with a clockwork kind intensity. Only then does she pay any further attention to his romanticism for the language, ]

Language is not magic.

[ She informs him sternly. ]

[tropism]

Probably.

But it's making a lot of things possible here that otherwise wouldn't be, like languages. It's not to be underestimated.