DECEMBER MINGLE

[etrayamods]

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⏴

Comments

[ascarylady]

Ha, really? I figured all you Pilties had up there was wine.

[ Sevika knows that isn't true, but she can't let him slide by entirely unprovoked. She's stamped the worst of it down, leaving what is, at best, a light-hearted prod. He's getting off way easier compared to their last chat so far.

But he raises the shot glass, and she'll follow suit. She won't say the word back, but she'll incline her head to him in a little nod — cheers indeed — and then throw the shot back. Click goes the glass against the bartop as she sets it down again. For a mercy, she won't move to refill the shot glasses immediately. ]

[hexcope]

[Jayce throws it back with at least some practice, but still squeezes his eyes shut and makes a noise of complaint when it goes down harsh.]

Did you pick the cheapest one on purpose?

[Ugh, it's still on his tongue. He'll finish the rest of his beer to try and settle the taste.

He's only getting off easier for now- he did the shot to ease his nerves enough for what he's about to get into. One of the very topics Sevika vehemently defended when they last spoke like this. With glass empty and on the counter, he can feel the warmth already spreading to his face and stomach. Better go for it now, before it actually gets to his brain.]

Shimmer. You said it was your largest source of defense and income- I checked the shipping manifests for half a year prior to the Progress Day attack. Silco planned on shipping Shimmer outside of Piltover using the Hexgates that day.

[That much isn’t a question, but a statement of fact.]

But for how much of Shimmer Silco was producing, it was disproportionately being used more by your own people than by topsiders. Was Piltover really the target demographic for profits sake, or was it about exerting control over a populace that had nothing to lose? And when you say defense- you mean the shimmer-infused soldiers that I saw, don't you? Were they even conscious people anymore? Or just mindless slaves?

[ascarylady]

[ ...okay, those will be much more challenging to answer than the one about Hextech. Sevika can't help it. She scowls at Jayce over it but doesn't bite his head off for asking. She offered to discuss Zaun with him and already knew most of it wouldn't be pretty. It does, however, prompt her to pour two more shots. She's taking hers immediately. This time, there's no real push for Jayce to follow suit. Where to even begin?

She's left fiddling with the once more emptied shot glass as she considers what approach to take. It doesn't take long, though. Jayce isn't getting answers without first answering a question of her own. ]

Tell me what you know about Shimmer first.

[hexcope]

[He doesn't take the shot immediately, but he's not disregarding it as quickly as he has the past two drinks.]

It's... a drug.

[What does he know about it?]

Highly flammable, enables superhuman-like dexterity and strength.

[What had he seen at the factory? A pulsing-like biomass sitting atop the main chamber, bottles that looked like they belonged to a chemistry set…]

But overuse or over-dosage can cause addiction-forming behavior and leave behind permanent disfigurements or…

[He looks to Sevika. Specifically her left cheek.]

Scarring.

[ascarylady]

[ Sevika doesn't react to the mention of scarring. Oh, she knows what he's looking at. She just doesn't care. They're battle scars, same as all her others, and there isn't a single one that she's ashamed of. ]

That's all true.

[ And it gives her a baseline to build off of. ]

But you're missing the other pieces. It's a power source. Chemtech can run off of it efficiently. It can offer huge power boosts to machinery when needed. My old arm was designed around using it.

[ Which explains why her scarring is only on that left side. ]

It's also medicine.

[ Which she feels will be the big one Jayce won't be willing to accept. ]

It has regenerative properties even at the safest dosage. Break a bone? Shimmer. Recovering from a factory injury? Shimmer. Managing an illness? Believe it or not, shimmer. It won't cure anything terminal, but it'll sure make your life easier. Shimmer's saved plenty of lives in the trenches, and it's a good deal cheaper and easier to get than hauling yourself off topside and hoping you'll find a doctor willing to treat you.

[hexcope]

And that makes it worth it? The stress and pressures it puts on a body isn’t healthy or sustainable. I understand using it for machinery-

[Even Viktor thought Jinx’s Chemtech work was “inspired.”]

-but the side effects of shimmer on people hasn’t been researched or studied, it could span to more than just the obvious. There has to be a cost to something that works that well. Shortened lifespans, birth defects, compromised immune systems…

[It’s a weak argument on his behalf, and he knows it. He’s not that kind of scientist, biology has never been his thing, and he’s never exactly expressed concerns about Zaunites healthcare system. He leans his head into his hands, both palms covering his eyes as he sighs long and loud.]

Counterargument: Zaunites already suffer from those conditions regardless of shimmer use, the risk of addiction and deformation worth it if it means you get to fight another day, and there’s no "easy to afford or access" solution from Piltover because healthcare isn’t a profitable sector unless you’re gouging your clients.

[He’s still leaning into his hands miserably as he adds:]

Am I missing anything?

cw: mentions of drug, alcohol abuse

[ascarylady]

Well, look at you. Doing all the work for me.

[ Sevika hadn't anticipated that. She's actually somewhat surprised. Huh. She finally sets her shot glass back down with a quiet tink against the bar. ]

You got it, more or less. We're already struggling with all that, so what's there to lose? You'd find that most users aren't addicted or deformed. The majority of it is casual when used to get high outright. It's probably why Silco was willing to consider shutting production down. Only a tiny fraction would suffer and die from withdrawal. Of course, that's the case with any drug, isn't it?

[ She'll nod to the mug of beer Jayce has been nursing. ]

How many people do you think drink themselves to death in Zaun? Or even Piltover? Yet we're not here arguing over whether or not us having a few drinks together is moral.

cw: mentions of drug, alcohol abuse cont (oops should have added this a few tags ago)

[hexcope]

[Jayce's problem has never actually been being stupid to find the right answer, it's been being too hopeful and misguided to think the right answer could ever be anything as easy as a black and white solution. And as much as he doesn't know about biology as he'd like, he knows a decent amount about the Piltover healthcare system. He could speculate on what Silco’s finance plans were post-shimmer operations if he was truly alright with shutting it down, but that’d be getting even further off topic.]

Alcohol abuse is… frequent in Piltover.

[He finally looks up at Sevika, his eyebrow twitching upward in annoyance as he rolls his eyes.]

Some of the councilors never stop.

[Salo. Hoskel.]

Then again, if I was on the Council for years, maybe I would too.

[League lore confirmed. He’s been on it for less than a week and he’s already planning on giving the position up.]

But to implement the changes we’d need to support a better system for shimmer dependence, we’d need a… a dictator, not a council.

[Jayce runs a hand through his hair, the fingers of his free hand pushing around the still full shot glass in front of him like he’s considering it despite what he’s just said. He can’t imagine anything less of a full takeover would be able to bypass all the arguments from councilors and sycophants on restructuring budgets to give out resources to people for free.]

zaun mentioned, all content warnings activated tbh

[ascarylady]

[ Dictator. Ha. There's a twitch to the edge of Sevika's lip and for the barest passing moment, she looks like she's going to laugh, but she doesn't. It's fine. It's nothing to worry about. No, no, let's just pour out another shot for herself instead. Funny how she'd be far from the first councilor to be a raging alcoholic... maybe she should consider cutting back, but not today. ]

Hmm, doubt even a dictator would do the trick. You might not look at us and see trencher trash, but the rest of your people? I feel a dictator from Piltover would just solve the problem by wiping Zaun out.

[ Anyway. ]

There's no easy answer in the end. Shimmer has been more of a boon to Zaun than a bane, no matter what anyone else tries to tell you, but sure. It has its problems... and... some peculiarities. For example, Renni's goons. You know, those shimmer-infused soldiers you mentioned before.

[ She hadn't forgotten his question about them. As much as she would have preferred this part of the conversation, it'd only be a matter of time before he remembered and asked again. ]

yeah basically

[hexcope]

Yeah.

[He exhales loudly again.]

I know.

[Jayce still has enough blood in his brain to avoid saying how they’d need a nice dictator. You know, one he could trust. That exists, right?

He tries to drag himself out of that sort of spiraling when Sevika mentions the soldiers again. ]

Who’s Renni? And I’m going to need you to elaborate on peculiarities. Are they alive or not?

[Did he kill half a dozen people, or just one?]

[ascarylady]

Renni. One of the chem-barons. I mentioned her to you before when we first met. That was her son, the one at the Shimmer factory.

[ Jayce will know. There's no way he'll ever forget, she figures. ]

It's a name you should remember. Silco had no plans to go after you for your incursions, but all that did was piss Renni off more. Watch your back if you ever get back to Piltover.

[ Yeah, yeah, she shouldn't meddle, but a vague warning likely won't change how things fall into place. Now excuse her while she puts away her third shot before going into the stranger side of Shimmer. ]

...right. [ A sigh at the now-familiar burn of the vodka, then she sets the glass down once more. ] They're dead. Renni's into some of the weirder shit as far as experimenting with Shimmer goes. You know how I said it has regenerative properties, right?

[hexcope]

[Oh. Right. That Renni.

No, he won't forget that now.]

…

[Jayce reacts in silence, just slack-jawed for a full moment.

Dead. Well that’s- not really as reassuring as he thought it might feel. Better they weren’t fully alive for what he and Vi did to them, but… he’s vastly underestimating shimmer, if it could go that far. Reanimating someone who’s fully gone, even if it’s an almost entirely devoid manner. Hextech has nothing on that.

What if…?]

I don't even know where to start on that.

[ascarylady]

You and me both...

[ Because Sevika tries to know as little as possible about what Renni is up to most of the time. Sometimes, she wonders if Renni hadn't bit it in her revenge attempt, would she have been next on the list of who she executed herself?

Well, regardless, she rolls her shoulder in a shrug. It is what it is. ]

I can tell you they aren't as efficient as you might think. Those suits need to be full of shimmer to keep them going, and breaking the seal in any way puts an end to them pretty fast. You probably noticed that yourself, though.

[hexcope]

Seemed pretty efficient to me.

[They killed a few enforcers in seconds, and if he had been any later on his reaction time with the one that was up close, it'd be his head skewered on one of their blades. Vi's the only one who came out of that entirely unscathed.]

I didn't notice.

[And normally he's pretty perceptive, but that whole event is a blur. Adrenaline moving him in ways he didn't think he could, bursts of blue light he never ran practice tests on. You just never had to look it in the eye. One dead kid? There's hundreds more.

He's just staring hard at the counter now, replaying that moment.]

[ascarylady]

[ Funny. He didn't? Hmm. ]

Was that your first time in a real fight?

[ Because someone who knows what they're doing? They notice those things. Sevika knows those things are fast, can take you out before you know it, provided they got the drop on you. She still saw them as inefficient. Everything relied on the enemy being unprepared, as Jayce and the enforcers had been.

Had Vi led them straight into a death trap for the sheer sake of revenge? Seems more likely than not. It could be an easy win to push the "Vi is the dangerous one" narrative here, but... fuck, she's too tired to bother, and she isn't Silco. ]

[hexcope]

That obvious?

[Of course it is. To someone like Sevika, he must seem like a complete novice.]

[ascarylady]

Extremely. You have the same lost look on your face as a kid who's killed for the first time.

[ Same look she had once, very long ago... ]

You don't expect it. You don't mean it. But you're scared and trying to survive. That look.

[hexcope]

[”Same lost look as a kid who's killed for the first time.” How often do kids kill for this to be something she says so easily? How often are children the victims?

He scoffs, the assessment honest and demeaning at the same time.]

That’s... enough. For now.

[He can't really take much more in one sitting, even with the drinks. At least this time it's not because of Sevika's anger, but her empathy, so he stays seated.]

[ascarylady]

[ Sevika just... nods, along with a faint noise of agreement. That's enough. Knowledge like this is only a burden, no matter how much it reveals. In that silence, she once again reaches for the bottle, but lets it linger there rather than pouring herself a fourth shot. ]

[hexcope]

[He could go. He doesn't think at this point she'd blame him for it. But something about the way he watches her consider yet another shot, clearly indecisive on whether or not to try find comfort in the bottle- it doesn't feel right for him to just leave her like this.]

...

Want to hear a joke?

[ascarylady]

[ He better keep that feeling to himself unless he wants to be reminded that Sevika is a huge jerk with a bottle over the head. ]

A joke?

[ Well, that does have her moving her hand off the bottle and back to the bartop as she gives him the weirdest look. Like, what? They're going from dead kids to a joke? ]

...sure. Why not.

[hexcope]

[What better way to change the subject, than to something abruptly different? He's just trying to stop himself from spiraling over it, once again.]

A physiologist known for studying classic conditioning walks into a bar. He orders a pint and sits at the table sipping his beer. The bartender rings a bell for last drinks. "Oh shit," the physiologist says. "I forgot to feed the dogs!"

[ascarylady]

[ Wow, the silence that follows that is harrowing. Sevika frowns, brow furrowed, making a vague attempt at understanding any of that before giving up. ]

Talis, I don't even know what a physiologist is.

[hexcope]

[Absolute flop joke. Disastrous. This is going to ruin the tour.]

It's someone who studies... parts of a body.

[That's it. He's done. He folds his arms on the bar and lays his head down. Let him die of cringe.]

[ascarylady]

[ Oh, the misery, and yet? Watching Jayce give up and lay down on the bar in defeat? That earns a very amused-sounding ha. It's quiet, but it's there. ]

Alright. Definitely don't try telling Silco jokes.

[ It'd be funny to watch happen, but he might end up stabbed for it. ]