epidemiology | OPEN ★ ARRIVAL LOG

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OPEN ★ ARRIVAL LOG

ARRIVALS ( OCT 2 )
The dragons are taken from you, sent off to a safe haven. You're back in Oska for less than a day when you hear the announcement and head to the rendezvous point. You blink, step through the portal, there's a loud crack, and...

You're thrown into darkness. You taste copper and, for a moment, your ears won't stop ringing. All common side-effects of portal travel. The entire crew arrives just beyond the city gates, so you might also be feeling a little bit claustrophobic.

It takes a second for the eyes to adjust, but one can make out buildings and the cobblestone beneath their feet. To the right is the Trade District, where all the vendors are gathered to sell their wares. Up ahead is the City Square, where the rest of the citizens out and about seem to be gathered. To the left of the square is the Commoners' District, and to the right of it is the Nobles' District, the two main residential areas. Further travel west will come to the outskirts, a makeshift residential area, this one densely populated with goblins. Many of the people are holding candles or lanterns. You might want to try getting your hands on one of those.

If you have not already done so, your enchanted jewelry will manifest words in front of your very eyes — or sounds in your ear, if you're illiterate — asking you to identify yourself. A quick look around shows that you seem to be the only one able to see it. All you have to do is think or say how you wish to be identified. After that, you're immediately given a message.

Those who participated in the dragon mission at Anwick will first receive this:

We appreciate your help at Anwick. The wyrmlings will live to grow up and bring about the world's natural end. Thank you.

-- ALASTAIR

Afterwards, the crew will be given an abridged version of this, then told to familiarize themselves with the city and natives, report all information gathered back to ALASTAIR, and wait for further instruction.

At the end of the night, wherever they may be, everyone will receive a letter with the royal seal thanking them for their efforts to end the goblins' defiance and inviting them to the Festival of Illumination on the 4th.

FESTIVAL OF ILLUMINATION ( OCT 4 )
Candles are sitting on windowsills throughout the entire city, but the main event is in the city square. In the fountain float lit lotuses, and people all around are holding lanterns, waiting to light them.

There's a minstrel playing songs, and several of the vendors have pulled their carts up to the square in the hopes of making a sale. Many sweets are for sale, including baked apples, gingerbread, cherry tarts, pudding, and more. There's also some drinks for sale.

Some children are playing games in the corner, and others are dancing to the music or writing wishes on slips of paper to be sent into the sky with their lanterns. Everyone seems merry for once, but you'd better be careful. This is an ideal place for a pickpocket.

About an hour and a half into the festival, the lanterns are sent into the sky. They're sent flying, the sky becoming filled with bright lights, until...

A strong gust of wind sends all the lights out. At least, you think it was a gust of wind. What else could have done that? On closer inspection, however, you'll see that even the candles sitting on windowsills inside have gone out. For a minute or so, there's only darkness and chaos.

Suddenly, the flames begin to burn again, revealing a message in the cobblestone in the center of the square. It almost looks as if it's been burned into the ground: IT IS COMING, followed by a symbol of a creature with a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail.

[MOD NOTE: This is a catch-all log for the first few days. For the sake of organization, all arrival threads should be posted under the subheader ARRIVALS and all festival threads should be posted under FESTIVAL. Threads that don't fall under either of those categories can be top-levels. Also, please remember to add your character's tag to the post! Thank you, and have fun!]

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[ "potentially" a Norse god.

change was what he was, and what he strived to be. there was a whole lot of things in there about "new starts" and "unexpected endings," but he knew what stories were. little bits of lies that you told yourself, expectations that mounted upon you, and fate that decided that you were its plaything.

he knew all of those things, and he wasn't one to be used. ]

Fate is a curious thing. Do you believe in it?

[Fate. Like her fate to be born as the inheritor of the sacred lineage of the Green Witch? Perhaps her fate to be born to such a person who would use her own daughter? Fate to be born a "genius" capable of being used in the first place?

She could have been born "normal"- would her mother have given up those mad dreams and simply raised her if she had? Would she have been abandoned? Or was it fate, to become the Green Witch- whether that was even something real she wanted to claim at all any longer?

Sieglinde stared down at her reflection in the beer for a moment, pensive, before she raised her gaze to Loki, searching his face for something.]

.... In some ways. For those things we cannot control.

[The fate of one's birth. One's natural abilities. One's circumstance.

There were things in which she firmly believe one possessed choice... But It was a bit too painful to cease believing in it altogether.]

[ Loki had fought hard for his freedom, a concept that had changed since his prior incarnation, but something he had no less viciously sought. there was fate and there was freedom, and there was tossing it away in a tizzy of fervent passion and anger. what his mother had given him was his future: a tall, gaunt, evil Loki offering promise of salvation with him as the sacrifice. he had come back in time, haunting his current incarnation and setting up a trap to make him him.

he never liked being told what to be. ]

Do you believe we should have a say in what we'll become?

[ he won't go further. he won't say anything about what happened that day in Asgardia's dungeons, but this is important. there's a flicker of something over his usual whimsical expression, something that doesn't seem to fit just right. ]

[For all that she was a child, yet young and inexperienced in the ways of the world outside her tiny made-up village prison, Sieglinde had her moments of insight. Moments she knew as serious, when she was capable of truly appearing as that which she'd been named- the Green Witch.

She finds something indeed when she searches his face, and observing it straightens up herself, her expression of curiosity melting away slowly. Here she was worried about her own circumstances... But she wasn't the only one. Every one here had a story... Some perhaps similar to hers. Some far more carefree, some far more painful.

But what of "Loki"?

She might cling to a bit of selfish belief in fate to ease her mind, but after all she's been through there's no doubt what Sieglinde believed was the answer to his question.]

Yes.

[ then there was the part that bothered him: this ALASTAIR.

far too long had he been told that fate was the "natural order" and "the true end to a story," and too long had the concept tried to fit him into some deformed box. he knew that it was just a clever lie to cover up the truth, but most things claiming to be that of a "natural order" were. it was a form of manipulation, an easy out to make others feel like they were less powerful than they were.

he had to wonder if ALASTAIR was the same—and if they were? the plan was brilliant. ]

The definition of our mission is to strip this world of that choice.

[ maybe he was wrong, but the words bubbled in his stomach and came out his lips. his own freedom wasn't something that he could brush off and ignore. it hit a nerve that was still too raw. ]

Just like we did in Anwick.

[Like in Anwick. They had spent only a short time there, but what they had done had supposedly changed the course of a world's end. Would it end in fire, then, because dragons yet lived? Though fairy tale stories she had read always cast the dragon as the villain against some noble knight, she knew the truth to be more complicated than that. Potentially. Even knowing it for an elaborate construction now, it had been the same inner villae. The werewolves had been beasts, killer of man, but bound by the supposed pact with her ancestor. Seeking a way to sustain themselves.

Wasn't that not wrong, in and of itself? Wanting to live?

Philosophy is not a strong suit of hers, and her brow furrows with intense thought, the scenarios she lets play through her head. Villagers in Anwick could have slaughtered the rest of the dragon's clutch... And they wouldn't have been wrong to, necessarily- they were simply thinking of their own survival. But didn't those same dragons have the right to survive? Not having seen truly the nature of their kind, capacity for intelligence or behavior... She couldn't say.]

Do you think they were lying... When they said peace is their objective?

[She couldn't say if that was right or wrong either- was forcing peace on people wrong if it wasn't what they wanted? But- who would want fighting?]

If the sun doesn't rise soon... Plant life will die... Then all other life as well, regardless of their nature...

[Human or goblin, it wouldn't matter.]

No.

[ Loki says easily, rolling his head over his shoulder. ]

Most likely not. Not directly, anyway. Lies are funny that way, they always need have a context. Whose peace will it be? What's deemed the greater peace, or their own peace? And those in this world—[ he waves his free hand outward. ]—what about their choices?

If we were to call it a lie, it'd be a lie by omission, and we're meddlers with important titles. [ it wasn't like he hadn't meddled before. it was his middle name. he never really felt bad about making things go his way, but simultaneously stripping an entire people of choice and then having something not go his way? that was irritating. (he found that he even felt a little uncomfortably strong about it.)

this was also an opportunity for him, one that he hadn't quite figured out how to use yet, but an opportunity nonetheless. he wonders if King Loki had meant for this to happen, as if this was part of his nefarious plot to bring about his own goals. maybe it was truly a trip of his ankle into a different universe.

he can only hope that it's the latter. ]

Edited 2015-10-14 13:50 (UTC)

[Lies were funny like that, weren't they.

Peace sounded like such a nice word- but there were costs to such things, weren't there. Would it be peace for the humans at the expense of the goblins? Peace for the goblins at the expense of the humans? Or peace for both somehow?]

... And do you believe that this is the only way? To get home?

[She's been betrayed before, but what choice did they have? She had no spells to spirit them to a different world, and if she was speaking to a god at the moment... Apparently they didn't either.]

There's always another way.

[ there's no hesitation, no thinking about it, no going over it in his head—his is a realm of possibility, as is the nature of chaos. there's always another way, even in situations where it seems like there may not be. that was the challenge, and that was the game, and that's what he reveled in. ]

Think of it less as condemnation and more as an opportunity. Not everyone gets a round-trip ticket through the multiverse, you know.

[ he leans his head over his shoulder and fixes a bright pair of green eyes on her. ]

Leave your doubt at the door.

["Always" was a powerful word.

Words in general were, too. She'd thought more so when she believed herself a witch, when she has full faith that the spirits she invoked and the prayers she intoned were directly tied to the healings and discoveries she made. Maybe she still thought that- just in a different way. Words, (lies), had been able to make her believe she was something she wasn't. Made her agree to have her own feet broken, to live her life in seclusion, to create terrible things.

Large eyes nearly the same shade stared back, momentarily fascinated with the realization.

Suddenly remembered how to move, and she reached for her tankard and took a long gulp before setting it down again, returning her gaze to the man across from her. Swallowed.]

... You speak with at least familiarity to the concept. Have you travelled like this before?

[The way she had been raised to think was in terms of magic- and if she couldn't do it... She would just need find someone who could.]

Let's just say that this isn't my first rodeo.

[ no, hardly. what he doesn't mention (or doesn't want to mention), is that his last rodeo wasn't just a multiversal jaunt filled with all forms of perilous adventures. in reality his last multiversal jaunt had been a calculated plan to win the ability manipulate all reality on a grand scale. a perfect sort of plan that only ended because he felt guilty about it. ]

So, yes, I have. Last time it wasn't really a pleasure cruise, the mayfly dimensions can be unforgiving. One of my companions could kick very literal holes between them. There are ways through, there are always ways. Nothing is built on strict enough rules that they can't be bent a little bit.

We just have to find the means to do so.

[At least this was familiar. Knowledge, and the pursuit of more of it. She had been blessed from birth with an insatiable curiosity, and even in these desperate times... she still had the ability to lose all sense of her surroundings and situation in favor of the learning in her grasp.

Set off by something as simple as a word whose meaning she didn't know.]

What is a "mayfly dimension"?

[The insect she knew- the unfortunate creature burn of water that took to the air only to die within a day's short time, leaving progeny behind to repeat the cycle. But a dimension with such a title? Was it named for it's lifespan? It's series of forms? There were too many options not to ask for clarification.

To file away in her brain, along with other things she was learning from those of other worlds.]

[ it was really the best time of what Loki would consider his short life. at the time, he had been obsessed with an identity that his new self no longer catered to, like an actor in a different role.

despite who he had been, who he thought he was, and who he became, he had friends, and they had hard times and good times. he remembered it fondly. it brings back those memories for a breath of a moment, and he tips his head in brief reverie. ]

An unstable dimension, one formed on rocky expectations of would and could-bes. They don't last long, usually, and those that inhabit them are warped versions of the people that they are in those that have their legs.

Some of them collapse into themselves. For the better, a lot of those would and could-bes don't end very well. The dimensions themselves are full of horrors.

Scary story stuff.

[A world of "ifs"? Without realizing, Sieglinde's eyes had grown wider, even if she's... eating pie absently, not even looking down as hand travels between her pie tin and her face.

Of course, she had considered more than once things of the "if I had done this" variety, how her life might have been different or changed on the edge of a single choice. What if her magic wasn't strong enough to placate the wolves of the wood? What if she couldn't formulate the ultimate spell? What if she had run off with the outsiders earlier? What if her mother had not died giving her life?

But they'd been mere "ifs"- the idea that short-lived worlds could be born from them had not entered her mind until now. Surely they weren't physical in any sense or they would be more easily noticed... and in such worlds... she could have been a normal girl. Could have been free of her village. Could have been eaten by the werewolves. Could have been killed by a failed spell-]

But surely not every possibility forms one of these "mayflies", correct? The sheer number...

[The infinite choices one made in even a single day... then all the people on the earth...]

The ones made of solidified ideas are usually the ones that come into being; saying "all" may be a bit presumptions, but the multiverse is a very large place. [ there's a slight shrug of his shoulders, as if the infinite possibilities floating around made from the span of various decisions didn't seem to bother him. ]

Have you ever noticed that some things are more alike than others? There are even stories that resonate through the multiverse, colliding and forming into something solid. It's funny in a sort of ha-ha way. There's such a fine line between corporeal and incorporeal existence—ah, but we're not here to get wax philosophical, we're here to work.

[ the resonance of the universe was what upheld the idea of Loki, influencing so many hims across the entirety of reality and impacting poor decisions. he couldn't help but feel a little bit bitter. here he was with some kind of understanding on how all of this worked, and he still felt trapped by it. ]

Edited 2015-11-09 03:00 (UTC)

[More words whose use she can assume, but had never heard. Mayfly dimensions. Multiverse. Each filed away, to be dissected later- for as furious as she could charge forward when seized with an idea, a thread she had to follow to the end... This wasn't a theory she had given birth to, a formula painstakingly eked into existence. It came from outside herself- like everything these days since she'd left the shelter of the village in the dark wood.

But she sadly shakes her head. He says it like its something that ought to be obvious... But she has been exposed to very little of the outside world- only those select texts that would aid in her understanding of "magic". "Science". She had no knowledge of the peculiarities of folk legends shared by civilizations oceans apart, the uncanny parallels in certain histories.

... They're here to work, though.]

And what will you do? For ALASTAIR?

[ well, that's a question if he ever heard one. Kida had asked him something close to the same. what will you do with this opportunity? she asked him. he had replied with define myself, which, while vague, was exactly what he planned to do. the universe was filled to the brim with evil Lokis, all of them scheming and causing Ragnaroks in their hatred and cruelty.

so, what was he going to do for ALASTAIR? ]

What will anyone do for those that fulfill debt in fate?

[ he sounds ironically amused. ]

[A rather philosophical sounding answer for one who claimed not to be here to wax it- or so Sieglinde thought. Her expressions were usually easy to read, and there was no missing the wrinkle of her nose over the mug of beer she had to hold in both hands. What would someone do for that? Was the answer to be "anything"?]

I didn't ask what "anyone" would do.

[Perhaps it was because she had not met many people in her short life, unable to make observations on "people" broadly for herself beyond what she's read in books or heard from others... But it was hard for Sieglinde to believe that there was some universal reaction to such a thing.]

What will you do?

[ no one ever said that Loki wasn't a king of the contrary. Loki watches her over his shoulder, still lounging comfortably on the bench. well, she certainly caught him, didn't she? there's a small heh in partial amusement before he turns his attentions back to her. ]

Define myself.

[ the answer that he had already given, and one of the most truthful things that's come from his lips.

there are powers out there that would do anything to destroy him, powers included other Lokis. if that happens, not only will everything he loves burn, but he will too. ]

[It wasn't the answer Sieglinde had expected- not knowing him, or "anyone" well, she couldn't have guessed, and it's why she pressed. To "define myself". It implied one didn't know oneself at the moment...

Not that she could say anything about that.

Her gaze dropped to the mug held in her hands, the blurry reflection of her own face in the half drunk beer. She'd asked what he would do... But what would she herself do? She could heal others... But the last thing she could expect to do for ALASTAIR was fight- to do the things she was afraid they might be required to do.

Her silence stretched on for too long, until she set the mug down.]

I suppose I must do the same.

[Would she remain the Green Witch? Or become something else.]

[ something implacable changes in his expression. ]

The fates are here—or ones that would like us to think that they are. To stand against them and define yourself as you are to the universe, ah, well ... it's not a path that many would take. There's struggle and heartache involved, questions left unanswered as you're pulled in the path that you set for yourself, grating against the one that was set for you.

[ he has experience.

fighting tooth and nail against an aspect of himself that would have him fall right back into the black pit of evil, putting him against everything that he's learned to love. this is an opportunity to fix that. he doesn't want to go home, not yet, not while the one known as King Loki reigns over his destiny, pulling him into a spiral of spite and hate. if he defines himself here, what box could anyone put him in? ]

But freedom is worth it.

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OPEN ★ ARRIVAL LOG

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