Intro Log: April

[faileas]

Intro Log: April

I. ARRIVAL Out of nowhere, a glint of light catches your eye; your heart thunders in your ears as your body moves on its own, your mind consumed with inspecting the source. Your reflection stares back at you, just as curious from the surface - a mirror, a pool of water, your most trusted sword, something fleeting that your mind can barely remember - then ripples at your touch. A moment later, you feel a tug, and you find yourself stumbling into a dark, musty room. Behind you, a mirror stands ornately decorated with reminders of home wrought in brass and wood: the faces of people you know, and symbols important to you; all things that send a pang through your chest with the desire to return to them. Touching the mirror's surface does nothing but leave the stain of your fingerprints. When you turn to survey the room, you find there are hundreds of other mirrors. None of them are as decorated as yours - they're plain and dusty, speckled with age. Then you realize a second thing: You're not alone. Distantly, the ringing bell of a clocktower can be heard. But no matter its distance, the time is clear to make out: it chimes three times, stark, resonating like a pulse of something in this mirrored hall that you and many others have found yourselves in. For those familiar with magic, they might feel the power of the witching hour upon them, though it will feel different from what they're used to - in fact, everything does. You're certainly not the only ones here, however. On the first floor, with the doors wide open behind them in the foyer, is a small group headed by two individuals. As people begin to arrive, to come from the higher floor, they're waiting - and they're waiting for you, and your questions. Explore the rest of the mirrored halls you've now found yourselves in, or proceed to the foyer? Leaving the Looking-Glass House makes it obvious that the clock striking three was for 3 AM - the night sky is faintly cloudy, but the stars are dim in the face of two moons, even with them only a quarter full. The Looking-Glass House is rather nondescript two-story cottage made of grey brick, sitting at the edge of The Coven's courtyard; stones which glow as you step on them mark the path to and from the two buildings. While fairly small and plain on the outside, the inside has been enchanted to be the size of a large library, with hundreds upon hundreds of mirrors hanging, standing, and resting inside its walls. Some are broken, some are cracked, and some seem completely uninjured - but all of them are just as plain as the cottage itself, showing age in the silver beneath their glass and in the greening of their metals... Well, all except a character's personal mirror; to characters, one mirror - the one they came through - will be decorated lavishly with metal-and-wood-wrought reminders of home, and the surface will be as clear as a brand-new mirror.

II. THE WELCOME PARTY Whether you've decided to find a way out of the building you've arrived in, or decided to explore the rest of the Looking-Glass House - and perhaps finding a few familiar faces among the crowd - you feel a pull towards the foyer of the first floor. It's like a firm suggestion, as if to take you by the hand and draw you to where it begins, and the source of it becomes quite apparent upon finding one's way to the front room: a tall, comfortably-dressed older woman and her even taller wolfish companion, along with those which feel to resemble yourselves in a world-traversing sense: Mirrorbound, they're called. "Not as many of you this month, are there?" The woman sets her hands on her hips, with her Bonded casting a glance at those looking confused - newly arrived - and those who may have followed them in to talk to the newest addition of their mirrorbound bunch. "About time for introductions though- this here's Mhairi Ainsley, ambassador to the Parliament and my Bonded, and I'm Nerissa Bell, Head Witch of the Coven - but you can just call me Miss Nessie, you can," she adds, winking. "The lot of you must be as tired and confused as the last batch - hullo to those who've joined us, too! - so just a moment, dearests, I'll set all you right up—" With nothing more than a wave of her hand, rows of seats are summoned; despite their wooden nature, they're all sturdy and comfortable, filling the foyer and spreading out a ways into the lawn behind them, making room for all of the new arrivals as well as the previous batch. After all, they'll find this just as interesting. The Witches and Monsters that accompanied Nessie and Mhairi move to make room, and some disperse into the building itself to see if there's anyone who needs tending to. Mhairi steps forward as the chairs materialize. "Please, those who are able, join us for a moment. There are many questions that I'm sure you have - we will do our utmost best to answer them, and you may take any that we can't as a promise to find some sort of solution or answer." NOTE: If you wish to handwave an interaction with Nessie and Mhairi, please comment here. You can OOCly ask what questions your character might have for them, for us to summarize an answer for. For those that'd like a more player-based interaction, Aefenglom has its own Welcome Wagon that may answer in their stead! These are players who've volunteered for the role, and those that didn't sign up may assist as well if they'd feel their character would -- have fun, and make friends. Additionally, those with notable injuries or sickness will be attended to ASAP by Coven-based witches, and should anyone be curious about what they are - if they have magic potential, or if they swing a different way - then this can be done during this and the general hour or so the new arrivals are within the Coven's grounds. There are ongoing classes on magic, monsters, and Bonding as well, though they take place more during the day than at night - feel free to have your characters attend them at any time!

III. THE HAVEN After an hour or two of general chaos, questions that the natives attempt to help with, and injuries tended to for those who arrive in poor condition, it's time to make a trek to where you'll be staying while Nessie and Mhairi continue to search for a solution to the situation. As you're leaving with a few Bonded for guides, peculiar-looking devices - watches, the native Witches explain, compliments of Parliament - are passed around to all the new arrivals; they're given a quick rundown on their functions and bid to test them out when they can. They can even do it as they make their way out of the Coven's courtyard and to the Haven. Formerly part of the Aristocratic District, The Haven is just as well-kept and brightly-lit as the district it hails from. The houses err on the tall and ornamental-side, large enough to fit several families (or, according to the upper class, their one family, several dozen servants, and guests), especially closest to the Aristocratic District. They become a little more modest and smaller as one gets away from the realm of high society and nearer to the Residential District proper. Newcomers are shuffled here and invited to find somewhere to live - the Coven is currently handling expenses for the houses themselves in a program implemented by the Parliament, though if your character wishes to have anything extra - like maids, chefs, and so on - they'll have to pay for them themselves with their own earned money. Much of the landscape and fixtures are the same as in the Aristocratic Districts, though it lacks formal emergency services due to its roots as part of a district that already did. Much of the housing already has furnishing due to the speed at which homeowners were relocated; they were given enough time to collect their valuables, but standard furniture such as kitchenware, couches, beds, etc. were left behind for those moving in. Other houses appear the same, but the dust on the floors suggest these houses were left before the new arrivals even showed up - a reminder that the Cwyld can strike just about anyone, regardless of standing. Another portion of this district has been opened up to the new arrivals: the barracks, the row of buildings pressed against the very edge of the Bright Wall. As the city's military force no longer has the same presence it previously did, the barracks have gone into disuse, and a cleanup effort has been in place since before the new arrivals came through the Looking-Glass House. For those who desire something a little less opulent, the barracks might just be the answer. The barracks can also be used for business, for a welcome center, a communal space, for anything that the residents of the Haven see fit to use it for - so long as the legality isn't questionable, on the surface. To help with filling up the larger houses - and even some of the smaller ones, and the shared rooms in the barracks - the Witches put together a little roommate finding service, on a smaller scale from the grand opening of the Haven. For those who aren't entirely sure who they want to shack up with, they have a small survey for them to fill out and post on the board they've magicked up in the center of The Haven. The board also very helpfully reads aloud each form for everyone to hear in a cheerful, monotone voice. It isn't able to be shut up, nor is it easy to ignore, being imbued with a kind of amplification magic. It reads simply the information you've offered up yourself, or that someone might have written up for you, should that be their idea of fun.

IV. APRIL (meteor) SHOWERS At the beginning of Aereuer, exciting news comes out of the Coven. A few Witches devotedly studying the stars have predicted a meteor shower will be visible in the night sky on the night of the 3rd - and even better, the weather is most likely to be clear, allowing for full visibility. These meteor showers are not unheard of in Geardagas, occurring every few years and never causing any damage within Aefenglom proper, so this news is met with excitement from the locals, and within the Coven, it's considered an auspicious sign for those new arrivals - the heavens are welcoming new Mirrorbound, maybe! All throughout the city, up until the night of the 3rd, citizens hastily plan get-togethers to view the meteor shower from rooftops, balconies, or hills just outside Aefenglom. While there won't be one large party to attend, most groups will welcome strays into their gatherings to have snacks and drinks on picnic blankets and watch the show in the sky. A few magitech shops even run a sale on clunky spyglasses and telescopes beforehand, which can be used to get a closer look. A few hours after darkness falls on the big night, the skies light up with more than just the twin moons. The sky takes on an aurora rainbow of soft, muted colors rippling across the inky night and dozens of bright meteors fall far in the distance, trailing streaks of soft white behind them. It only lasts for a handful of hours, but many say it's the most brilliant meteor shower they've seen in a long while. a. Wish Upon A... One tradition locals are happy to tell Mirrorbound about is choosing a particular falling meteor in the sky with someone else, someone dear preferably, and both making a wish upon it (not the same wish, but wishes made together) - the more vague, the more conceptual, the better, they caution, warning that specific wishes just aren't likely to come true. Funny things happen after meteor showers to those who have made a proper wish, but while the younger generation thinks it's all coincidence, the elders believe there is a little bit of magic in the pieces of heaven that fall to the earth. And maybe there is some truth to that. Wishing for wealth might see you finding an abandoned cune note on the street the next day. Wishing for love may put you in the path of a lovely stranger, or a familiar person in your life. Wishing for friendship might see you meeting a new person that will eventually become important to you. Or maybe nothing happens at all, in which case the elders will tell you your wish just wasn't possible for the universe to grant. Maybe it's all just superstition, but what can it hurt to try? b. Cometflies With a meteor shower lighting up the night always comes a swarm of cometflies, small insects named so for the fact that they lay dormant beneath the earth until one, beautiful night, when they can finally sprout wings and take to the sky. Cometflies resemble fireflies, but come in a myriad of rainbow colors, and fill the night with their tiny lights. When a cometfly alights on a person, that part of their body takes on the same colored light glow - a harmless, temporary effect that will fade before dawn. Superstition says that if a cometfly lights up two people with the same color, they're meant to meet, and laughing natives will push such people together to talk. Some cometflies have other effects as well, all temporary and relatively harmless, apparently relating to color. Perhaps a blue one makes you want to seek out the warmth of others, or perhaps a yellow one puts you in a sunny mood despite yourself. Maybe a red one makes you want to flirt with the nearest lovely individual, or green fills you with envy for something another person has. There isn't any guaranteed way to tell which little buggers will make you feel what, so all are advised to avoid the swarms or go with the flow. The only constant is that any effects besides the glow are mild at best. Enjoy them while they last, or wait a handful of hours if you don't; when the meteor shower ends, and dawn breaks, all the cometflies die at once wherever they might be, their lights (and effects) snuffed out until the next meteor shower.

Welcome to the intro log! While mingling on the log itself is highly encouraged, feel free to make your own logs; take the prompts offered and go wild, go crazy, go stupid, have fun. The network system is free to use once characters have their watches as well; information on that can be found at the bottom of the Setting page, while any extra questions about it can be found in the FAQ index. Quests can be picked up now as well! While new characters will have to get settled in, you can go ahead and put your name on some by replying to the April's Quest Pickup thread on the Quest Board. Finally, if your character is getting into any Shenanigans, let the mods know and if you have any questions about the log, ask them here!

Comments

[indispensabilis]

Will Henry pockets that pastry, not knowing what kind of food will be available when he gets to the Doctor who refused to cook let alone be bothered getting groceries. He considers the skeletons reply.

"Skeletosmultisformarus," Will Henry supplies helpfully. He had worked in the Monstrumarium for months, there was nothing but specimens with their ridiculous latin designations. "But the Turnbone could be your common designation."

The only two people in all of Aefenglom who would get this joke also wouldn't have humored him in it, so Will Henry himself almost doesn't even bother to see the humor in it. What a serious boy....

[spaghettimonster]

"My uncommon designation, I think you'll find!" Papyrus corrects, though he squints as he tries to parse the scientific-sounding one. Skeleto, he followed, but then it just kept going...?

"As I am the coolest and only skeleton in Aefenglom," he completes, explaining the joke while he's at it. "There aren't natural skeletons in this place... and necromancy is illegal. Thank goodness."

Which, now that he's run into some necromancers and their constructs, he understands why. The whole business was horrifying. Dead peoples' bones and ghosts bound and made to attack people, in one case even their previous bond..!

[indispensabilis]

Starting around the 1930s, cool began appearing in American English as an extremely casual expression to mean something like ‘intensely good.’ William James Henry was born in 1876. So he does not know, at all, what being 'cool' has to do with being a skeleton. Was that some kind of reference to his total lack of body heat? A quizzical look crosses Will Henry's face.

"Common designation means it's what the locals would call you, instead of what the scientists named you," he says, unable to entirely follow what was said to him.

Natural skeletons? Don't they all have natural endoskeletons and its this one without any skin that's aberrant? Well, apparently not to himself.

"Were you always a skeleton? Or did something have to die first." A little blunt, a little dark, but he's trying to understand something that is-- Surreal. Yes, a little silly and dreamlike imagining a world where skeletons walk around without skin as an everyday occurrence.

[spaghettimonster]

"Sigh," Papyrus says slowly, with enough of a huff that it's a sigh in and of itself. "No, I'm not a corpse. That's a common misunderstanding. A frequent one, even."

He doesn't quite realize the scale of the vernacular divide between them, but he's picking up on the slightest edges of it. The emphasis on scientific words, at least. He'll pick up more of it as they talk, or Will Henry will pick up on more of the turns of phrase used so often by so many of the Mirrorbound. Or maybe both.

"I've always been a skeleton, and once, I was a little skeleton. Even smaller than you!"

Of course, that comparison doesn't mean a whole lot with Papyrus staying seated as resolutely as he is, the better not to loom over people. But he's a bit over 6' tall, tall enough.

[indispensabilis]

"Huh," he doesn't mean to let that out, but the image of something with no digestive system and thus no way to metabolize energy with which to grow is a lot. As soon as he realizes he's made the nose, Will Henry's face turns red with embarrassment. The Doctor hated when he did things like that. He would easily have been mocked for what a witless thing 'huh' was to say.

He swallows, and feels the pressure of that. The pressure that he understand and be clever, or else.

"What other common misunderstandings do you hear?" See. Clever. Now he doesn't have to be the one ignorantly asking them.

[spaghettimonster]

"Other misunderstandings...?" he mulls over the question, taking it seriously enough to ponder for a few seconds. It's not one of the sorts of questions he'd really prepared a speech for, this time.

"Mostly, they're the same misunderstanding. 'How can you move, if you don't have any muscles'. 'How can you eat, if you don't have a stomach'. Questions like that."

Papyrus shakes his head slowly and dramatically, intentionally long enough to leave Will a chance to look or feel embarrassed without anyone watching. Really, he gets some of these a lot. Sometimes people even insist on watching him eat something, gathering around and marveling at the sight. Other times, they shriek or close doors before the conversation even starts.

"The answer... is very simple! Where I come from, monsters are magic, and come in all shapes. Stuff like 'biology' is a little optional." Unlike the monsters here, who are so biological that it's even rubbed off on the robot.

[indispensabilis]

"Oh, that is simple," and while he can imagine being soundly mocked by Warthrop for accepting this answer, he also has the skeleton as proof right before his eyes. Maybe magic itself isn't as simple as the skeleton makes it sound though, that much at least seems logical. "If biology doesn't matter, what do people study and learn about?"

He's the apprentice of a full-time, professional scientist. His world is dominated by the rigors of science. All the papers to be read, all the correspondence to be kept, all the specimens to collect, and dissections to conduct. He's trying to imagine a world where that is now optional, a world where the rules could just be thrown out--

It is, definitely, existentially disturbing but maybe Will Henry is still child enough he can imagine some giddy relief in it all.

[spaghettimonster]

"Lots of things! All the sorts of things you might expect in school," Papyrus says, shrugging. "Responsibility, history, puzzle-making, math... Doctor Alphys, I heard, studies human history. And my brother likes space and quantum physics."

He hesitates a little on the word likes, since it's hard to use the present tense for someone he hasn't seen in nearly a year. But he doubts that's changed in the time past.

Partly to buy himself a minute, partly to satisfy any curiosity Will might be secretly holding about how skeletons eat, and partly because there's no sense in making all these pastries and not even having any... Papyrus grabs one of them, and takes a bite. There's very little chewing involved, it mostly just... disappears in the back of his mouth, somehow. Like a magic trick, but with no showmanship to distract the eye at the critical moment.

[indispensabilis]

"Puzzle making?" The others had mostly made sense to him, although Will Henry's timeline is still a decade too early for the merest inklings of quantum physics. "You have to go to school for that?"

He's imagining something much more akin to a wooden box puzzle or something like that. He is immediately distracted from that however because he is very curious how skeletons eat. He watches, his mouth a little bit agape.

It isn't like him to be even this expressive, but it's also been a very long time since he saw anything that caused a sense of wonder in him. Usually he just felt a kind of relentless dread. For a moment, he's really just a boy.

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is on to that childish astonishment, even if he has no idea how unusual it is for this boy to express such things. He takes a second or two to feel smug about it, another second to mumble, "needs more cinammon," to himself, then takes a second bite.

Through a pause that's theoretically for whatever passes for chewing or swallowing, he nods.

"I know! Amazing, isn't it?" He gestures at the room around them, at the excess of humans and mostly-human people around them. "Monsters in my home... We have long, loving traditions of making puzzles. 'Ancient diversions', somewhere between culture, and entertainment, and logic twisters... Of course, these days, monsters just don't respect the tedium. I bet there isn't even a class for them specifically. Just a unit in History."

[indispensabilis]

He's almost about to ask if Papyrus can really taste that, but seems to realize that is likely one of those questions he's heard before and Will Henry doesn't want to make himself look stupid. He's rather careful about that, gets yelled at too often for minor gaps in his knowledge by the Doctor all the time.

"You just make them for fun? Not even to keep a secret door hidden?" That is the only kind of 'puzzle' he has encountered. There had been a puzzle lock hiding a secret entrance to the tunnels below the graveyard. That was how Warthrop's father had kept a den of monsters secret from the town. Well, at least until they had escaped after his death.

[spaghettimonster]

"Secret doors... Sometimes monsters do that," Papyrus muses, tapping a finger against his chin. "But, mostly we don't hide doors. Just lock them, with puzzles for opening them..."

He leans back for a moment, thinking through the various sorts of puzzles he encountered in the Ruins, the main area where the classic puzzles were still in place and active. Most of the underground, they'd been disassembled and moved to make life more convenient.

"I guess... They couldn't help but hope friendlier humans would come visiting." He's projecting, a little bit, because that was his own reasoning in making some less-than-effective puzzles along the Snowdin forest road. "Hidden doors wouldn't help that happen! So much better to put obvious locked paths. With puzzles right there to open them."

[indispensabilis]

"You could just invite them?" he's very confused about why the more passive method, but then he doesn't have any insights into the monster to human relationship of this unnamed world. Maybe he's ended up asking a stupid question after all.

"Well, uh--" he bumbles forward and out of the uncertain waters, "Thank you, for the welcome."

It's really not the kind of situation where he would have expected it and it's almost as unnerving as a person with no flesh.

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus glances away at the notion of inviting them. The passive method does have its reasons, of course... But the situation seems convoluted and lengthy to explain. Especially in what is, as Will has just reminded him, supposed to be a welcome. There's still a good number of other new arrivals milling about the room, talking and asking questions.

"Yeah, you're welcome! That's a long story, and one I'd be happy to tell you about..." For a given value of happy. Bittersweet nostalgia and homesickness, mostly, if he dwells on it.

"...But you have enough to get used to. A new city, a new world... Probably some kind of new powers. Did they explain about witches and monsters?"

[indispensabilis]

"I travel with Doctor Warthrop. All over the world, sometimes," another little boy would sound excited about this adventurous life, but the Doctor's adventures always ended with a trail of dead bodies behind them. Will has been the personal executioner of a few. "This isn't so bad."

It was dreamlike in how abrupt and strange it was, he won't lie about that, but he does genuinely feel he has the capacity to assimilate it. He's already been through a whirlwind of changes, and here is one more.

"They did test us. I'm not a witch." He had known that 'in his bones', as it were. He was already aware that he was becoming a monster, even back on Earth. Innocence and childhood coming undone around him to slowly begin revealing a young man too damaged to be human. "How long does it take to find out what kind of monster you are? Does it hurt?"

[spaghettimonster]

One of Papyrus' ears flicks at the phrasing, 'not a witch', though his face stays impassive. It sounds to him like another once-human hesitating to claim the word 'monster' for themselves... which isn't really a surprise, but a disappointment. Like most worlds use it for not a person, something to be feared. All the more reason for him to be positive, helpful and friendly and overcome those assumptions.

"Maybe a couple months," Papyrus offers, thinking back to his transformation. "I was more transformed in dreams... so I knew very early. But it took a few months for much to happen to me. Changes come around the full moons... or when you spend a while outside the city."

Which might be motivation to stay inside the walls as much as possible, or to take every outing to speed things along. It's trickier to travel around this world, with the Cwyld presenting such obstacles... But at least there's boats, and a little bit of teleportation, for people who really want to see something new.

"I... used to be shaped, well, a lot more like your bones." He puts a paw-like hand to his face, turning his head to show the silhouette of his muzzle. "It mostly didn't hurt. Just aches, and itching. I had to move around a lot." Still does, especially around the full moons.

[indispensabilis]

Maybe he hadn't entirely meant that kind of hurt. He looks away at nothing, contemplative, with his hands stuffed into his pockets and his shoulders a little hunched. He has to accept it because it's beyond his powers to change, but it also doesn't feel real yet. An abstract threat right there on the horizon. Its lurking is almost the most dreadful of all, at least when it finally did touch him, the momentum of the inevitable would numb him over.

"So it doesn't really take that long at all."

[spaghettimonster]

"Less than a year," Papyrus agrees, more softly than usual.

In some ways, that could be an extraordinary amount of time. Just a day was enough time for a single human to pass through the underground, demolishing some peoples' lives and taking out the ruler of their kingdom. The months that followed were tumultuous, leading to a wholly changed monster society. But through that, his surroundings had changed, and his priorities had changed with them, but Papyrus himself had stayed the same. The way it's almost happening in reverse here, with a city that stubbornly clings to its monthly celebrations and its reluctance to really get along...

"But, you never know what might happen. Magic researchers are trying to figure out, what's pulling us all here, anyway? They might figure it out."

And then, maybe, send them all home. Or give them the option - he knows there's some happier to be here, fur and all, than wherever they'd been before.

[indispensabilis]

Figure it all out is very abstract to Will Henry. He knows the Witches had done their best to explain it all, but trying to condense the entirety of how and why they're all here and going through this into one lecture was... a Sisyphean effort. It will probably never fully make sense, but the pieces of context will have to come one at a time. He also doesn't have any faith in himself to understand it, that was for someone like Doctor Warthrop. He can imagine it, really, the Doctor's demanding questions with no clear answers and a childish tirade about Must I do everything myself?

"Doctor Warthrop might," there's a mixture of pride and revulsion in this.

He stuck by the man because he really believed in the esteem of his work, but being his assistant was an unpleasant business. Warthrop was quick to forget he was a person, not just a tool at his disposal. So Will Henry tended to forget that too, there at his side.

[spaghettimonster]

"Hmm... Yeah, he might," Papyrus agrees, one clawed finger gently scratching at his chin. "Last I heard, he's studying monster changes... But he seems the researcher type. I bet he studies multiple things."

Wanting to understand the changes people go through, the nature of being monsters vs witches, is just one kind of trying to get some feeling of order and control in this baffling world. It's not a far leap from wanting to figure out how they were brought here, and how it might be reversed, after all.

After a few seconds of mulling that over, he double takes. "Wait, you know him?"

[indispensabilis]

"I'm his assistant," he says.

Every once in a while he gets arrogant enough to call himself the Monstrumologist's apprentice, but considering Doctor Warthrop was not actually training him as such... that often felt false. The things that Will Henry was learning were not precisely Monstrumology, although he has learned a great deal about what is truly monstrous.

[spaghettimonster]

"Oh! Wow, go figure! I've met you both," Papyrus explains, unsure if the strange tone to the young human's voice is envy or something else. "He's... somewhere in the city, has been a couple months, I think."

The first he'd noticed the researcher was that watch message asking for people to participate in a study, that most of the responders had shot down in varying levels of discomfort. But it hadn't gone too awkwardly in Papyrus' experience. He's still unsure what they were on about, too.

[indispensabilis]

"I asked the Witches. It wouldn't make any sense for me to be here without him, so they told me."

He has been abandoned by the Doctor before. He had needed to know right away if he was alone again, and maybe the knowledge that he will see Warthrop soon helps him stay calm in the face of all these changes.