epidemiology | EVENT ★ EXPLORATION

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EVENT ★ EXPLORATION

With the storm gone, the water surrounding Komo has calmed considerably. Much of the affected area is in ruins, but thanks to ALASTAIR, a large contingent of Komo survived the disaster. However, with parts of Komo uninhabitable, they need to be able to reach Nalawi’s other islands. With their technology so limited due to dependence on their Gifts, it’s all they can do to build a few tiny, shoddy canoes, powered solely by elbow grease. They only fit two regular-sized people (but four Nalawi), and the wait time is long, but they do the trick. If you aren't willing to wait, you can always try to get creative.

Strangely, though, anyone trying to use their magic to cross the waters will find that their powers are beginning to dampen. Similarly, anyone with superhuman abilities at all will find them waning, albeit at different rates. Those without any special powers at all will be completely unaffected.

But that's nothing to worry about, right? It’s time to see the rest of Nalawi.

PU’ULAI

PU’ULAI is the centermost island of the archipelago and by far the largest. Most of the travel between islands is to and from Pu’ulai, as it’s the cultural hub of Nalawi and the location of Nalanni’s largest temple. It’s very populated during the day, but isn’t a residential area and clears out once the sun goes down.

The first thing you'll notice is that the deer hate cats. The citizens of Komo are far more likely to let it go, but if you have anything slightly cat-looking with you here, at best, you'll be yelled at. Some Nalawi try to start fights, and no one but Komoans will allow cats anywhere near their homes or inns. Recruits might notice children running away from cats, screaming, "Dakal!"

THE TEMPLE, referred to as Nalanni’s Garden, is closest to the Nalalona volcano on a neighboring island. The regular ash from it was viewed as a good omen from Nalanni, who’s rumored to live within the volcano, but it’s been months since anyone has seen any activity from it. The temple is dark as obsidian, which is coincidentally what it’s made of. There’s a copious amount of brightly colored flowers around the temple, hence the name. The gardens are free for anyone to walk through, as is the temple. One image is constant throughout the temple: an inhumanly large, vaguely feminine being made in stone and fire, a walking volcano. It would be easy for such a woman to look frightening, but she looks welcoming and caring, arms outstretched to embrace her children.

Inside the temple are more murals of Nalanni, but also some curiously unrelated to her. They depict the Nalawi fighting against large, predatory cat-creatures, finally culminating in their enemies attacking Nalalona. This is when Nalanni reappears, striking them down. The temple is tended to by several Nalawi of varying ages, all very welcoming to strangers, especially those they’ve heard heroic tales of. News traveled fast once the Komo villagers crossed the waters and spread the news of their timely rescuers. There are plenty of Nalawi in the temple, making offerings and asking Nalanni to return to them -- some are hopeful, but others appear desolate.

CITY HALL is where the ten members of the Council convene. No one is allowed in, as they’ve been discussing the changing state of Nalawi nonstop for days. There’s a group gathered around the hall each day, hoping their leaders will emerge and announce their plans, but nothing has happened yet. It’s a good chance to sit around and listen, though -- you’ll quickly find out that Nalawi is a meritocracy; the Council have the strongest Gifts of anyone in Nalawi, determined by a nationwide competition to prove their worth every time a seat opens. Some of the more disgruntled deer whisper that some must have lost their powers by now and no longer deserve to sit on the Council.

A few arguments are beginning to break out around the city hall, and even a few scuffles. Luckily, their weakened powers have also dampened the damage they’re able to deal, and no one has been injured too badly. Just try to be respectful -- otherwise, you might upset the wrong person. Those hooves can hurt.

ELSEWHERE, there's a marketplace where traditional Nalawi clothing can be bought, among other things, inactive spas shut down due to dormant volcanoes, and maybe -- if you’re very lucky -- you’ll stumble upon a ferry that still works. It’s unlikely, though, and haggling with its owner will be difficult. You could always steal it, but you wouldn’t do that, would you?

You can always explore the SURROUNDING ISLANDS, which are mostly residential areas, similar in theme to the parts of Komo that haven't been destroyed.

Oh, and if you're disrespectful to the islanders or were at any point rude to the people in Komo, you might wake up to find a bunch of tiny, adorable Nalawi around your bed, swinging around bars of soap in socks. Don't worry, they won't actually do anything but threaten you for a minute before storming out. ...Yet. The moral of the story is 'don't mess with the Nalawi.'

OOC INFO

The entire map of Nalawi is now available to characters. Updated location information can be found here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ This is exactly the last place Ramir had intended to be after dark, but she's not really sure how far this Dead Walk thing goes, or if there's any way to loop around it to get to where she's going. It's totally bullshit, the inn and the bathhouse she likes best are pretty close together! Just, with this thing in the middle. That the natives keep telling her about.

She'd almost had a heartattack when she'd heard drum beats — holy shit is this stuff actually real, are there dead deer taking a stroll down to the shore — but she remembered what the locals had advised she do in the same breath that they told her about it at all. She's real quick to cast her eyes down, and even drops into a less-obvious crouch, head bowed. There is no way she's looking up and seeing anything spooky. No way. If she stares really hard at this pebble right here and doesn't see anything, then she doesn't have to admit anything was there.

The flickering torch light in the periphery of her vision and the drum beats are probably totally unrelated.

It works, though, which is why when the drumming fades out again, it's Ramir staring in mild surprise at Jason and not the other way around. He'd been a ways down the path from her, she hadn't even known he was near, but that is some uncanny stillness. She's pretty sure she can put together what happened here.

She heads over, head dipped a little to try and catch eyes that probably aren't going to catch hers back, and she tries hard not to think about what all this implies about the validity of ghosts. ]

You fucked up, huh?

[ Is she going to have to hoist him back to the inn, because there's no way she's waiting around on this path. ]

[Look, a little professional curiosity comes with the territory. Along with, y'know, a slight habit of fucking things up on occasion. Jason has a strange relationship with the subject of ghosts, but maybe that's why he's bold enough to dare spitting in the face of it. His life choices aren't always particularly reasonable ones, and he's pretty confident in his ability to handle himself when things go south. Hadn't accounted enough for the stories being true to the letter.

Usually—usually—urban legends aren't exactly what they say on the tin. So he'd heard drumming and ducked in toward it for a better look, despite the way it had pricked at his nerves and picked up his hackles. A gut sense of caution that freezes in his veins when he finds what he's looking for—and then just...freezes.

So it's clear pretty quickly that she won't get an answer like that. He doesn't seem to hear her—doesn't even blink. Try a little harder.]

[ She would try harder, except that would involve sticking around on this trail, and there's no way that's happening. But she's also definitely not leaving Jason out on this trail. What if the second time the ghosts which totally don't exist come around they're hungry, or something?

She gives it a good five seconds, searching his face for some sign of motion or life, before she gives up with a huff and a shake of her head. ]

Alright, come on.

[ She picks him up. It's effortless, done without hesitation, she just lifts him up, slings him over her shoulders, and starts walking. First up: get off the path, she doesn't mind walking through the jungle to make that happen. She ducks under branches and around trunks, and will take him straight to the inn if he doesn't give some sign of coming back to himself before then. ]

[You're a good sport, Ramir, not leaving him to the mercy of hypothetical carnivorous deer ghosts. Time to make you regret it.

She hoists him up like the dead weight he is so she can maneuver them out of dead-deer-danger zone. And apparently that's what it takes to rattle him loose and spark alarm bells through his reflexes. He reacts before he even really comes to his senses. Twists suddenly in her arms and retaliates—knee to the chin, boot to the gut to kick himself off of her. Whatever it might take to get himself free and mobile again.

Provided it works—it's fast, and he hits hard for someone with no superpowers to speak of, and really she's well within her rights to drop him for it anyway—he rights himself and lands on the ground in a crouch. Give it a second.]

[ The hits don't hurt, not at all, in fact it might feel a little like kneeing a brick wall — but it does still do a pretty good job of knocking her back. Being made of metaphorical steel does not equate to weighing like literal steel. She stumbles back, surprised for an instant into forgetting herself and dropping into a ready crouch like she's down to fight back. That keeps happening. She keeps forgetting that she's basically super awesome and invincible now, falling back onto the old instincts that've kept her alive so far.

She straightens as soon as she remembers herself, all of a second or two, and hikes both eyebrows up incredulously. ]

That's a hell of a comeback. Do you wake up every morning this dramatically?

[ Not that she can blame him. There were ghosts involved, any reaction is fair game. ]

[Yes, it was definitely the ghosts.

It's not quite like waking up. Takes a few seconds for the world to snap back into place, a little too loud and a little too bright, despite the moonlight, and the stinging where he made impact with Ramir is overshadowed, at first, by the residual fog in his head. Until he claws his way back out of it.

His hands twitch out of fists when he recognizes her voice. He blinks hard and narrows his eyes as they snap back up to her in proper focus. The answer still takes a few seconds too long.]

Must have been the wrong side of the bed.

[The spooky dead people side, apparently. It comes out a little too hoarse to be flippant. He recovers himself admirably, if not very apologetically, scrubbing his hands over his face like he really did get up on the wrong side of the bed. That was not pleasant. The adrenaline rush from the rude awakening kind of comes as a relief. After another pause to get his bearings, he pushes himself up experimentally to stand, casting back to the last thing he can remember clearly.]

What the hell was that?

[ Ah, there he goes, coming around. Ramir watches with a sort of casual intensity, paying close attention to the details. She's not sure how much to chalk up to him, though, and how much to pin on ghosts. ]

Nothing I wanna run into again, and we're still on Haunted Highway or whatever they call it. [ She knows what they call it. She strides forward, grabbing for his arm to use to pull him toward the jungle. ] Come on, be all spacy and shit when we're out of here.

[Her concern (?) would actually be pretty touching, if he got around to properly notice it. (Not a thing he really gets very often, lets be real.) But he mostly spends his attention on being sure he's got full control over his faculties again. As scares go, it's a pretty harmless one in the end. But something about it left a bad taste in his mouth and an agitated thing sitting in his chest, anyway. (Maybe the whole feeling hit a little too close to a mess of damaged and foggy memory still sitting too-recent at the back of his head.)

Mostly, he tries not to think about it.]

Dead Walk. [Corrected while he picks back up on the answer. Right, that's it, he was going ghosthunting. He lets her pull him along while he gets his bearings because his sense of direction's shot, and getting out of Dodge to regroup is a pretty safe fallback when things get hairy. Still, he twists in her grasp to get a look out at the general vicinity of the forest behind them, favoring one leg because he feels a little like he busted a knee on steel plate. Okay, catching up, here.]

That also why I feel like I ran into a freight train?

[No Jason, that was just her.]

[ She relaxes a little once they're off the path. She'll even let him look around when they get there, loosening her grip from one that says they're definitely getting off of the Dead Walk right now, to one that says they should probably head this way, toward the inn. ]

Yeah, whatever. [ What a fucking creepy name, she hates it. She shoves past a palm frond with a scowl. ] And I dunno, do I look like a frozen-by-ghosts expert?

[ Although... ]

...Might be because you kneed me, though. [ That's out just a touch apologetically. He deserves some honesty after all that, though. ]

[You got something against dead people Ramir, that's a little offensive.

If fair, really, he's not feeling too well inclined at the moment, either. Stupid. Farfetched or not, he shouldn't have taken the chance on the road without an exit strategy. That could have gone way worse, if she wasn't around. He can't berate himself over the poorly laid out investigation very long—they cross over into more familiar territory, and she lets the pace ease up a little while she answers. He remembers fighting free of her, but—]

What, are you made of concrete under that jacket?

[He got her in the chin, this is irrelevant. There are, of course, the other kinds of explanations for that kind of thing. Metahuman, alien. Hell, maybe they just make people denser in some future Earths.]

[ There is a downside to being off the path, Ramir is realizing, and that's that it's now really dark. The canopy blocks out the moon and stars, and generally speaking, this sucks. She wishes she hadn't left her phone at the inn. Her pace slows down even more to accommodate for all the squinting she's doing. ]

I mean, yeah, basically. You can't be super strong without being super durable too, right? That'd just be stupid. [ She would have broken her fists into unrecognizable pieces by now, she's pretty sure. ]

[Spooky. On the bright(?) side, the dark probably means there aren't actually any ghosts around. On the (literally) less bright side, it's hard to be sure where they're really going, winding through overgrowth and tripping over tree limbs. So he doesn't pull away from her grip on his arm, even if she's loosened up on it—getting separated and lost would just be the cherry on top of the bullshit sundae tonight.

He does take a few seconds to process this revelation. Explains a thing or two about the day they met, if nothing else. Okay.]

Anything else I should know about? Heat vision? Leaping tall buildings in a single bound?

[Not that she owes him the answer. Because he's been so forthcoming and all. But since we're sharing. (It probably comes out more skeptical than he really is.) He bats a wayward palm frond out of his face as they walk.]

Night vision would be particularly helpful, if you're taking requests.

Holy shit, I wish. [ Except, hang on, after some thought: ] I think I could do the building thing, though.

[ She's jumped up onto buildings, what's taking it just a little further? She's still considering that when her foot catches a root and twists (twists through the whole root, actually, but that doesn't stop the fall), and then she's less hanging onto Jason's arm and more hanging from it. ]

Oh my god. What if I just jump us out of here — if I knock your head off on a tree branch or something it'd still be worth it, right?

[They pitch forward a little until he stops and compensates for the added weight all of a sudden. Luckily, she's inhumanly sturdy, but not inhumanly heavy, so they don't go down in a heap.]

For one of us, maybe. I'm a little attached.

[And he left his goofy red helmet back in Gotham, sorry. It probably wouldn't help all that much anyway, at the right velocity. Isn't that a nice picture. So, pass.]

Be my guest if you want to try it solo, Supergirl.

[He'll make it out of here eventually on his own, darkness or not. Or the sun will come up. Just a matter of time and energy. He's learned his lesson about chasing down ghosts, for now.]

Attached.

[ She mutters it under her breath, and laughs quietly despite all the bullshit. That was a good one, Jason. A second later she rights herself again, which does great work draining the amusement away again. ]

But yeah, no, if I get myself killed I don't wanna die alone, so I guess I'll stick it out. [ She heaves a sigh. ] At least I'm stuck in semi-haunted territory with someone that doesn't suck.

[Hold your applause, he'll be here all week. Or at least all night.]

Dying's sort of a downer no matter who you're doing it with. [And he'd know, huh. Hah.] But I guess I should be flattered.

[This is only sort of sarcastic, in a dry kind of way. (She's probably his favorite person on the crew, for what's it worth. So, you know, thanks for not abandoning him to the ghost deer.) He makes sure she's steady before he kicks through a particularly dense bit of underbrush in an attempt to press on.]

Ghost deer manage to be scarier than leaping tall buildings?

[They did sort of hypno-freeze him a few minutes ago, so maybe he can't entirely blame her. Hard to punch your way out of that.]

Ghosts are bullshit.

[ Deer or otherwise. She makes a face in the darkness that he probably can't see, and shoves at a thick branch hard enough to leave it bent and probably doomed in her wake. ]

Kinda working on not acknowledging th— [ She pauses in word and pace for a second as she suddenly remembers something, breaks into a grin, and switches into Italian: ] —I'm working on not acknowledging them. Holy shit, I almost forgot you're still on Italian duty!

[What did that branch ever do to you, Ramir. That branch probably had a family.

Anyway, the switch takes him off guard for half a step before it registers. Ah, right. He'd forgotten in all the excitement. They seem to be out of the woods (theoretically, definitely not literally,) so he obliges and switches languages with her. Hasn't been a month yet, after all.]

My bad. Guess I got a little sidetracked by the booking it.

[Away from the ghosts that Ramir's currently working on not acknowledging.]

You ignore everything you decide is bullshit?

[That bullshit that had him frozen in place a few minutes ago. Which is kind of alarming, all things considered. Seems like a dangerous thing to write off.]

Yeah, basically.

[ Particularly when it comes to Life Issues, boy does she love ignoring those. She shrugs, another gesture lost to the dark. ]

It's working pretty good. For example, I'm not the dumbass that got frozen by them. [ Not that she's pointing any fingers, or anything. Probably. It's dark, anything is possible. ]

[He'll take a leaf from her book and ignore that bullshit (if fair) fingerpointing to see how this philosophy works out.]

If I decide on a repeat performance, you'll be the first to know.

[He's not really planning on it. Once was more than enough. But he's less sure about letting the mystery of the ghost deer lie. Straight up ignoring things because they're inconvenient just isn't in his nature. And there's clearly something going on out there.]

Oh, yeah, great, so you can flip out on me again when I try to rescue you?

[ She snorts derisively, but honestly, it wasn't that bad. It definitely would've hurt a lot pre-powers, but whatever, that's the kind of thing she doesn't have to worry about anymore. ]

You make a shitty damsel in distress, by the way.

[It's a possibility.]

I try not to make it a habit.

[Forgot to pack his damseling dress, you know. But she's got a point. This is probably the part where he's supposed to remember to apologize for that.]

Didn't leave a mark, did I?

[Hard to tell with superpowers.]

Don't worry, you couldn't if you tried.

[ There's definitely a note of pride in that. Her powers are more than just her usual self-aggrandizing and bragging, there's a lot of self-worth tied up in them too. She gives his arm a pat. ]

Nice of you to care, though. I guess it's the least you can do after you ruined my short-lived heroic career.

[Kind of figured, from the feel of it. He'll take that reassurance with a grain of salt, because even Superman's got a weakness somewhere. Good to have a ballpark for future reference, if nothing else. He catches the note of pride, contrasts it with her short lived heroic career.]

Not gonna dedicate your life to using your superpowers for good?

[Seems to be the general course of action. The cape and cowl game's not all it's cracked up to be, anyway.]

[ Not that she's thought about this part that much, but she's pretty sure that would make her a superhero, and also pretty sure the opposite side of that looks way more fun. She laughs. ]

Hell no, who has time?

[ Not that she wouldn't, you know, lend a superpowered hand if she saw someone she liked (or who just looked like they weren't a shitty person) in trouble, but that's totally different. And not worth mentioning, besides. ]

EVENT ★ EXPLORATION

b!

excellent

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oh look at this great icon I just found

shit that makes such a cute icon, I'm so proud

as you should be!!!

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