FEBRUARY INTRO LOG( FEB 16TH & 17TH )
february 16 ↴ INTRO: NEW WANDERERS' ARRIVAL! Our batch of new Wanderers wake this morning, as all new Wanderers have before, on a plush bed with a mild but lingering sense of recent disorientation. Frigg greets them as per normal, though rather than outright escorting Wanderers to the front doors this time, she and Sigyn allow the Wanderers time and space to leave their bed, meet the pantheon, and even depart the palace at their own pace - but not without a warning. All Wanderers must choose a deity to tether to before dawn the next day, or else one of the gods will choose them. This is of grave importance, as that's precisely how long the magic giving them form is able to last untethered before the Mother's own magic overwhelms it.
(Though the gods are more than willing to allow Wanderers to leave, it's worth noting that many a castle servant - natives, born in this land - might see fit to intercede and insist on the choosing of a god before Wanderers step off the Gladsheim Palace grounds.)
Stepping outside, you're greeted by an almost bright and sunny day... Undermined thoroughly by a sharp, biting wind that permeates any small gap in your clothing. I bet the gods might give you a sweater, if you ask. It probably won't even look that absurd, depending on which one you ask. A trail of what seems like stringless balloons float at eye level from just outside the palace door, guiding Wanderers down the path to a notice board just outside the palace grounds. On this notice board, Wanderers find a brief handwritten guide to accessing the city map on their cuffs, specifically denoting the little colored house icons ( ⌂ ) to help Wanderers make their way to each god's housing.
Also on this board appear to be a variety of job listings, for those who want to get more involved in Asgard as a whole. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? There's more than enough time for that once you've chosen a god to tether to in the first place. february 17 ↴ GOD CURSE: CHARACTER-BUILDING WITH SKADI. The storm brewing within Skadi is hardly a secret. She was impatient during the gods' supposedly unanimous address, and in the days to follow, Sigyn (with all her desperately good intentions) tried to balm the irritation but only abraded the goddess further still. She attended the Wanderers' arrival purely by the letter of her duty and swept back out the doors as soon as that duty released her, and since then she's been holed up in her temple, her pointy-faced statues positioned just outside as sentinels meant to intimidate mortals away.
They dared to tell her that she does nothing. Nothing for the Wanderers, that is. Nothing to help them grow and self-actualize, as if these 'Wanderers' are so much more important than Asgard itself, which weakens by the day as her fellow gods fling their magic about to overprotect the Wanderers, or even to satisfy their whims. The consensus to draw back some of that wasteful protection would have pleased her, if she weren't so thoroughly fixated on the slight that preceded it.
They want her to help the Wanderers self-actualize? So be it. There's no better way, truly, than to confront and overcome the ways in which you're flawed.
So the morning after arrival day, many Wanderers wake up with a stinging, itching spot somewhere on their body. Maybe their arm, maybe their back, maybe their throat. In that spot, as it turns out, is a set of words in a deep ruddy brown (almost like old blood) under their skin as if tattooed in place. But these aren't just any words - they prey directly into the Wanderer's fears, their regrets, their insecurities, and their mistakes. They're facing down some of the worst things they've ever thought or feared about themselves.
The other gods, of course, are eager and willing to try to relieve the poor Wanderers of these cursed marks... but they find that it's not quite so easy. Wanderers who seek a god's removal of the words find that not only do the words remain, but a new set appears: Flees the truth.
But that's fine = For most Wanderers, these words disappear on their own in a day or two. A handful of unlucky souls find that their marks linger indefinitely, or seem to disappear but return at truly inopportune occasions down the line.
MOD NOTES This is the February intro log and Skadi's curse, our mini-event for this month! Skadi's curse is is entirely opt-in - not all Wanderers are affected - and is detailed more fully in the 'This Month's Events' section of the February Bulletin, and you're welcome to direct any follow-up questions to the Bulletin's mod questions top-level. You've also likely noticed that god jobs are now live! The listings themselves can be found here (same link as within the 'arrival' prompt), with a brief FAQ featured over here. |
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asgardchrysalis2020-02-16 10:08 pm
i food!
most of all, she's staring at the food he's digging into like it's the holy grail itself. ⟫
D'you feel strange at all?
⟪ oh, that's an irish one, alright. what she's trying to find out is if he's made a critical mistake in the realm of the fae, by eating, of it's perhaps just as well that she takes the eager natives, who are already pointing her to the buffet, by their offer.
... she does notice that he looks a bit odd himself, this one, but there's no harm in that, is there? ⟫
no subject
[Jet considers the question for a long, passive moment.]
Strange how?
[He opens one hand to gesture at their surroundings.]
Whole place is strange.
no subject
I mean with the food.
⟪ actually, it may be best if she hedges around her point a little less: ⟫
Do you feel weird now that you've eaten some?
no subject
[But - hey, point for her, too. Someone could've dumped a whole mess of toxins into this stuff and he wouldn't know any better if they were the right ones. It's a sign of how unsettled he is by the nature of this place and his arrival to it that he's not regarding the consumables with a bit more paranoia.]
[Rookie mistake. Shouldn't've let himself fall to that.]
[Internal beration aside, Jet considers the weight of that question before finally accepting that even if he does feel weird, he doesn't feel any weirder than usual.]
No. Or not yet.
Think it's poisoned?
no subject
⟪ and a waste of food, too, considering how much of it there is. on the other hand, she's never poisoned anyone, or known anyone who'd gotten poisoned, or knew any poisoners, so she could be entire ways off.
it's curious, though, that this is where his mind goes. he must have had a rough go.
she bites her lip. the smell of food is unbearably good. ⟫
I'm not thinking poison, but there's stories that eating food at the Other place binds you there. 's what I'm worried about. The binding.
no subject
[The term doesn't sound familiar, nor does the...concept. Jet frowns very faintly for a minute as he considers that. There's little to suggest he's truly mulling those words over save for the tiny crease between his brows.]
Don't feel any different.
[But, then again, being bound to this place...what's the alternative?]
[If he goes back, he's dead. No telling what comes next. Curious to find out, maybe, but that's not on the table right now.]
[So Jet just shrugs.]
Already dead anyway.
no subject
only pausing when he continues. ⟫
Oh.
⟪ dead?! ⟫
I'm sorry you're –– you know. I didn't mean to pry.
no subject
Could be worse.
[If this is the afterlife, it definitely could be worse.]
no subject
⟪ there is food, after all, and shelter, without a string of landlords or the question of what can be eaten and what needs to be saved and sold, for rent. still, the question of his fate has her slowing her roll a little. ⟫
Is it alright if I sit with you?
⟪ a little politeness, after asking him way too many a question. ⟫
no subject
[But it isn't.]
Sure.
[Not like he's using up that much space here. Although - ]
Hungry?
[He's got lots.]
no subject
⟪ she is very sincere in her answer, and it’s true – she’s lived on farms most of her life, usually with chickens, a cow, or goats, but animal products usually had to be sold. food was largely potatoes and whatever could be dug up in the forest. berries, roots, herbs, mushrooms in autumn.
she puts her own plate down– ⟫
We can trade around? I think these – ⟪ she points at some pastries – ⟫ are mostly sweets, and I don’t recognise about half the things here at all. D’you get that kind of variety back home?
no subject
Lucky if we find food half the time.
[Subsisting off of bugs and dog food is something you gotta get accustomed to where he's from, and so he has. This right here has piqued his interest immediately simply because it's edible and readily available. You grab that shit while you can. You grab it and you hold onto it, and then you make yourself eat because you won't know when you're gonna get the chance to eat next.]
[Most of these goods are pretty hardy, though.]
Don't know what most of it is, [he admits.] Edible, though.