etrayalogs | DECEMBER MINGLE

Entry tags:

DECEMBER MINGLE

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: December 21st - Early January
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: Newcomers, a surprise gift from Tatianna, and a visitor!
NOTES\WARNINGS:

⏵ arrival ⏴
Welcome to Etraya!

Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital.

The lobby is filled to the brim with tables of freshly baked goods. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banners are taped to the walls, and several other typical birthday decorations can be found in this area. A few of the baked goods tables are lined with massive cakes covered in unlit candles, just waiting for someone to grab a lighter and sing off-key. Is it anyone's birthday? Who knows! The companion bots seem to believe it's every new arrival's birthday and will greet them as such - with friendly waves and cheers as they make their way to the lobby.

A coat rack is situated by the doors leading out of the hospital, covered in warm clothing that fits the new arrivals just right - whether it's to their preferred style or not is something else entirely. Some of them appear normal enough. Others? Well. They can't all be perfect, now can they?

Outside the windows, the grass is covered in a couple of inches of loosely packed snow.

We hope you enjoy your stay.

⏵ an unexpected gift ⏴

Out by the hospital stands a tall, decorated tree covered in candles and golden pinecones with a handsome, red velveteen tree skirt. In front of it are a few oversized wrapped gifts for show- and atop one of those sits a familiar woman. Or unfamiliar, if this is your first time.

It's Tatianna in a slutty Santa outfit with a big ol’ burlap sack.

“Hey, I got something for you,” she says, digging into the bag and rummaging for a moment.

She produces a painted egg and holds it aloft.

“It’s your Winter Solstice Egg! This is the egg holiday, right? Wait, shit. I’m mixing them up, aren’t I? ...Well. It’s a little late to change it. Here you go!”

How one treats their egg is fully up to themselves. They can choose to ignore it entirely, or destroy it and leave the yolk and innards to rot on the ground. They can hand it over to someone else or care for it as if it were something precious. No one will prevent them from doing whatever they please with it!

⏵ naughty or nice ⏴However, how they treat the egg will define how the egg treats them in return.

Those who keep the egg and tend to it will get the benefit of being able to watch it hatch seven days after they are handed the egg. Eggs that are treated with attention and love may yield a loyal companion, or a weapon of choice that always returns to its owner, while neglected eggs may yield a curious, cursed trinket or an animal who treats its new owner very much the same way its owner had treated it before it was born.

Please submit an egg request below for what items you would like your character's eggs to hatch into! Please note that these cannot be things that would be applicable in the game.

Those whose eggs are destroyed or forgotten will simply get the gift of... nothing!

⏵ free your spirit ⏴

With the winter chill gripping the air, a mysterious figure makes their presence known in Etraya - a towering, horned creature dragging a massive sack behind them.

𝓐 𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊 𝖇𝖚𝖎𝖑𝖙 𝖔𝖓 𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖘 𝖍𝖆𝖘 𝖆 𝖜𝖊𝖆𝓴 𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓.

Regardless of a character's strengths or weaknesses, they will find that when Krampus raises his massive sack over their head, they are powerless to stop him from catching them. Those capable of great magical feats or other supernatural abilities will sense something... otherworldly about Krampus, but will not be able to place the source of that sensation.

Once within Krampus' sack, they are welcome to fight, but escape is impossible. It will feel as if Krampus is dragging them over every rock possible, dragging the sack in through the rivers to the point it soaks through and drenches them - potentially almost drowning them.

When the sack opens, they will find themselves in an impossibly dark space. Around them are others who have also been captured and dragged here by Krampus, trapped in small cages hanging from a massive, wiry tree.

Krampus will return often, banging clawed hands and birch rods on the walls of the cages and knocking them into one another.
𝕮𝖔𝖓𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖘𝖘𝖘𝖘𝖘.
The whisper resonates through the darkened area, regardless of Krampus' presence. Confess your secrets, and be freed. Otherwise? You'd better hope someone figures out where Krampus has set up base; those who refuse to confess may find themselves stuck here forever.

⏵ NOTES ⏴

Krampus' base is under Etraya! Deep within the catacombs, he has set up multiple cages to capture those who inhabit Etraya to punish them for their naughty habits. Fighting him is possible! Defeating him by means of combat is not, however, possible. Think of it like fighting a god: Krampus creates the rules in the space around him, including who can use what ability.

For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, right around half a year now..." Yuri says it casually, as though he hasn't counted the days. No one needs to know how very aware he is of the true length of his tenure. Well, no one but Dimitri, but now he's apparently vanished.

Hopefully he went home. Hopefully his war is over. Yuri sorely wishes to believe it, though he struggles to. "Others have been here far longer, if the network's anything to go by."

“For something so high stakes, our esteemed hosts don’t seem very forward with how we’re supposed to save our worlds,” Kirk says, holding up his egg and looking it over again. Is this one of the activities Aurora meant? We’re they supposed to bond over eggs?

"They certainly don't." Yuri agrees with him easily, shifting his egg bundle in his arms. It's something that has stuck with him in his tenure here. "Sometimes they test our teamwork, our willingness to sacrifice for others... Then other times they have us competing against each other. Maybe it's some evaluation of the qualities we embody as representatives of our worlds, but I'm not convinced that's so."

It somehow feels a little too much like these are just ideas someone had on the fly, but he's biased as the planning and plotting sort.

"They sound like messy character tests," Kirk says, frowning. "They could be just excuses and we might be more like entertainment to them."

Kirk has seen the darkest parts of humanity over the years. It's easy for him to imagine someone having darker ulterior motives.

"Has anyone ever left here?"

"The thought's crossed my mind." It could be an elaborate jest. It could be some elaborate theatrical performance for some unseen audience, for all they know. Yuri'd despise the latter, but they're so much in the dark that there's just no telling.

His first answer to the question is a frown and an uneasy shift of weight. "Don't know whether leaving's the word for it, but I've had some familiar faces vanish on me."

"Perhaps they were sent back home," Kirk says. It's only a guess though and it could be a mixed blessing at best. There was still much to learn about Etraya.

"I'd like to think it. Rather they be home than here." Let him handle this — they're needed back home. Dimitri can end the suffering of their people, and he knows the man loves them enough to work toward that goal. As long as that can be achieved, Yuri is willing to endure what their overseers throw at him here. "Home's predictable. This isn't."

Kirk nods. That's certainly the impression he's had of Etraya so far. If there's a logic to who or what gets pulled into here he can't see it yet. Even the buildings don't make sense as they're all clearly from different worlds. It's like someone took jigsaw puzzle pieces from different sets and try to jam them all together.

"Perhaps there are patterns we're not seeing yet."

Kirk would certainly like to get to the bottom of it.

Patterns seem likely. Certain minds will incline toward certain sorts of ideas. Plans and preferences can be linked to individuals if seen enough to be recognized.

"Might be easier to stay on top of all this if we managed to spot them." He suggests it by way of agreement.

"Something might emerged if someone pays close enough attention," he says. He's been going through old network posts and collect some information from there. Evidently others have tried to investigate.

"Or perhaps the chaotic nature gives more credence to the entertainment theory."

"Authors and artists have pet themes and subjects, don't they? Maybe if we looked at it from that angle, it'd make better sense." Yuri's been down this mental avenue before, but he hasn't had someone to discuss it with this way. With some, the risk contemplating a demoralizing prospect too deeply wasn't worth having another potential perspective. "...As much as anything can make sense here."

He punctuates the words with a nod toward their eggs.

"True. It's worth a perspective," Kirk calmly says. Demoralizing or not, Kirk is used to having to consider all possibilities given his time as a scientist and a vigilante.

He looks at his egg. He'll need to take it to a lab.

"Do you recognize it?"

Yuri shakes his head. Knowing how things work here, it's probably nothing that any of them could easily identify. "Too large for any bird my world's got, and too small for a wyvern, so your guess is as good as mine."

He just hopes it's something that won't bite them when all's said and done.

"Great," Kirk dryly says. He then remembers an earlier conversation he had with Kimie. "Do you think anything is native to Etraya?"

Yuri folds his arms, weighing the notion. "Best I can tell, it was just Aurora and her mechanical brigade... Though that begs the question of how she came to be here to begin with."

"Perhaps Echo is their creator," Kirk suggests, remembering when he messaged Aurora about his... dietary accommodations. "She seems to follow them at least."

"It'd make good enough sense. Cities like this one seem to have a similar setup." Yuri offers up that tidbit, shifting the egg in his arms. He doesn't know as much as others may about it, busy as he was working on Dimitri's mental health and trying to play his role well enough to succeed in their first bizarre mission together. "Though how well they get on and how long they've been at it varies. Some guy mentioned on the network that some other city has been at it years, if what they told him is to be believed."

...He backreads too.

Behind his red goggles, Kirk raises an eyebrow in interest.

"There've been other multiverse hubs?" he asks.

The theories behind alternate universes were always complicated but that detail further mucks up unpacking how they work.

"Other cities like this one, yeah. My first mission was to one of them — that Moorecroft place." The name's a useful inclusion, he expects, if the man's as inclined to investigate as he seems to be. "That other one...some guy contacted them remotely from this place using light signals of some sort, from what I gather."

It's strange but also kind of fascinating to Kirk how the more he tries to dig into Etraya, the more questions he winds up having.

"They hoped from one hub to another or was there a break in between?"

"Seems to me that whatever sort of operation this is, they've expanded over the years. Those other places are still up and running." Yuri's a layman where universes are concerned. What the stars even really are isn't common knowledge in his world, and all of this goes beyond that by orders of magnitude. "The trouble with comparing notes with the neighbors is they might just decide fresh meat's an easy target, yeah?"

It's difficult to ply any other cities for information when they have to be careful not to tip their hand. Vulnerability is dangerous.

Kirk nods.

"Too many unknown factors for now and not enough certainties in what to trust," he says. "Not too many people have experience with the multiverse."

"I certainly don't." Yuri admits it readily, airily, because it'd be abundantly clear to anyone with that knowledge that he lacks it. "But the premise here's one hell of a motivation to learn, whether it's true or not."

So many people, so many worlds exist beyond the small scope of his own.

Kirk already missed Bekka before arrived in Etraya but part of him wishes she was here. She's seen so much more of the universe than he ever will. Plus, maybe her sword could be their means of escaping.

"The premise establishes a dramatic entrance for everyone at least," he says. "How did you come here?"

"Funny thing about that." Yuri pauses for dramatic effect, shifting his egg to one arm so he can point a finger at the sky. "I was among a few poor saps who popped up in some vessel that traverses a sea of stars. There was, of course, something terribly wrong with it, including an endless parade of murderous mad jesters."

It sounds like the most terrible jest, and he delivers it with full flippancy, but it's all true. "Imagine my surprise waking to that."

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the way kirk is contemplating jamjars

He's not wrong...

It's true

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