asgardchrysalis | AUGUST INTRO LOG: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

AUGUST INTRO LOG: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

Who: EVERYONE
What: the August intro log and first god house competition, More Than Meets the Eye
When: August 8
Where: Gladsheim Palace for breakfast, around Asgard for the game/curse
Rating: PG-13; please take anything higher than this to a private log!

morning: a warm invitation

Everyone wakes up to a friendly invitation to breakfast at the castle with the gods. For most of you, this comes as a message on your bracelet, reading:

Join us at the castle today to welcome some new Wanderers into our midst. Breakfast will be served and a lively game will be available to all of our guests, both new and old.

New Wanderers are curious on their own, and this is the first there's ever been mention of a game. Perhaps it's enough for you to make the trek to the castle, to see what all the fuss is about, or maybe even to see if there's someone you know. Perhaps you want to learn more about the game, or maybe you just want the food.

For our new guests, this comes as a bit more of a surprise. Wherever you were before in your world, without even realizing it, you wake up in a strange new place. No time or space inbetween, just an awareness of There and then Here. A matronly figure tries to explain your circumstances with a sympathetic smile, but ultimately invites you meet them all for yourselves: the Gods of Asgard, and the Wanderers that arrived before you.

The sight that greets you on the castle grounds is a rather festive one, regardless of where you're coming from. Colorful streamers and flags are draped above large tables with room for several guests. Natives bustle about, cheerfully offering food and drinks to anyone that wants some. Everyone is welcomed to mingle and greet the new Wanderers on this bright summer morning.

the game: a friendly competition

Among the brightly decorated tables are ones highlighted in a specific color for a specific god house, and most of the gods themselves can be found sitting behind it with a few of their district's natives. They are here to welcome the new Wanderers into Asgard - but they're also here to explain the rules of today's game. There are coins hidden throughout the city and disguised as mundane items, and the god house that returns the most of their coins will win an upgrade to their god housing! No hints will be given, but the natives are excited to help facilitate the activity and happily invite you to wander through their districts to find what you can.

But you don't have to know about the rules to be playing the game! The coins are already hidden throughout the city, and no one knows what they are until they've been picked up. Whether you're banding together with friends to find as many coins as you can or blindly stumbling over an unpleasant surprise, the game and the curse are in full swing!

evening: a fair prize

At sundown, all of the coins in the city disappear at once, whether they're in your pocket or still disguised as a bowl. Points will be tallied and a winner will be announced (OOCly, on August 17) - but Asgardians are keen to celebrate regardless of who wins a rather inconsequential game. The same colorful display of tables and chairs is still spread across the castle grounds, although now they twinkle with fairy lights haphazardly blinking throughout the air. Snacks and drinks are made available, as well as more dinner-shaped meals for those that request it. Mostly the natives simply want to bask in the strangeness of these Wanderers from other worlds for a moment longer - but they're also eagerly listening to any stories from the day's mischievous game. Relax, enjoy yourself, or again, just stock up on some freely served food. Whatever suits your needs today. Welcome to Asgard, dear Wanderers.

[ OOC NOTE: This is the intro log for August, as well as our first god house competition/curse: More Than Meets the Eye. You are free to play with the curse prompts and searching the city in any way you want! If you would like to submit a map to earn points for your god house, please check out the rules to learn what to do. We will accept maps until August 17, at which point a winner will be announced and members of that god house will be allowed to vote for an upgrade to their god housing. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or need any help on the mod contact page. Enjoy, friends! ]

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"Not nothing else."

Vampires had their fangs, wolves had their claws, witches had magic. Monsters were more diverse than that, depending on the day. But she has a feeling that there's a distinction here that needs to be made.

"But ... it doesn't make them less."

"Less?"

There was no mistaking Ariadne's genuine bewilderment now. She couldn't keep it out of her voice, and was only glad that her hood was hiding the crease in her forehead, between her eyes.

Josie was exceptionally confusing.

"How can you be less when you're the apex predator?" Perhaps it was a problem of language. Ariadne understood that their fancy, new bracelets were translating things. But she was used to doing that the old-fashioned way. She wondered what was getting lost. "Where I come from," she said, trying to speak more precisely, "humanoids are in charge of everything. We don't have...democratic chairs for demonoids to sit in."

Josie is also confused, because she isn't really sure where the miscommunication was. She was talking about those that looked less than human, but she decides to just swallow that and react to what's being told to her.

"Where I come from, most humans don't know anything non-human exists. They're either willfully ignorant, or have been lucky enough to never encounter one."

"Really?" That sounded kind of remarkable, actually. In the first place, having a world dominated by Humans. And in the second place...one with...only Humans?

Ariadne didn't have as much experience with Humans as she did with Elves. But she saw much to admire in them, as a race. What they lacked in magical aptitude, they seemed to make up for in a nearly infinite well of ingenuity. All the greatest inventions in the realm were created by Humans. They seemed to strive harder than most to make life easier for everyone.

"But you're not one of those, are you?" she asked. "Willfully ignorant." Or lucky, but it felt rude to say that. "You must not be, otherwise, you wouldn't be telling me all of this."

"No," she gives a bit of a laugh, before shaking her head. "No, I'm not."

She then pauses, because it's not like she could prove her witchy-ness at the moment, but it feels right to be honest and put it out there anyway.

"I'm one of the not-quite-humans. I'm a witch."

The word 'witch' was occasionally tossed around back home. Mostly as an insult. One that had never made a lot of sense to Ariadne. Which was to say, she had only the vaguest notion of what a witch actually was. She knew it was a Human with magical aptitude, but that was it. She'd never met one. Never even seen on before.

And somehow, Josie's confession put her at ease in an unexpected sort of way.

"Do you...like being a witch?" she asked.

"I do!"

She grins in response, because it's more than just like. Being a witch is one of her favorite things in the world. It's so ingrained into her identity, she couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

"It's complicated and messy, but it's part of me. If I try and shove that away, then I'll never be happy."

Now that was a statement more pointed than Josie knew. Ariadne had done plenty of shoving away of herself. She's sacrificed her wings.

And her identity.

And the ultimate irony of it all was that she didn't understand what that meant for her now that she was here. Surrounded by people who had never even heard of Alastrians, much less formed some ill-conceived notion of what they were. She had to rethink everything. And it was happening so very fast.

"Is that...the general opinion of people in your world? That it's important to be yourself?"

"Usually."

Being your own person has become more and more pervasive as of late, especially considering that Josie is from the future. Usually it's terms of your sexuality or your gender or just your general personality, but it applied to supernaturals too.

"That doesn't mean it's easy, but ... we do our best."

Ariadne considered that a moment. And easily decided that she liked it. It was much simpler, anyway. If you always told the truth, then you didn't have to remember which lies you told to which people.

But it couldn't be that easy, of course. She'd seen firsthand what frightened humanoids did to Alastrians and other 'demons.'

Still, maybe...

Very slowly, she unfolded her arms, letting her fists uncurl like flowers on her lap. Ariadne had long, slender fingers. Her skin was the color of the underside of a maple leaf. The nails were onyx black.

Josie tips her head to the side, always more curious than cautious, before reaching a hand forward to take Ariadne's gently. She doesn't have any green friends, necessarily, but that doesn't mean she can't start.

"I like your nails."

Because that seems like the thing to say, other than commenting on the fact that she's green.

A momentary panic seized her heart when Josie took her hand. But the comment was so completely innocuous, that Ariadne almost wanted to laugh. Unfortunately, her nails weren't living up to their full potential as talons at the moment. But Ariadne felt her guard going down exponentially.

She reached up with her other hand and pulled the hood off of her head. A rope-like braid of bright blue hair--the color of candy floss--swung free, falling over her shoulder. Like her hands, her face was pale green. But her lips were a magnificent shade of purple. And her eyes were gray, round like silver coins at the moment.

If Ariadne felt like she was breaking the rules, well, that's because she was. Her mother's rules to be specific. Don't let a humanoid see you in your true form. Simple and to the point. Like Rotspine herself. But this was no ordinary humanoid. The probabilities felt like they were in Ariadne's favor.

For a change.

"Please don't scream," she said gently.

There is a gasp. Josie can't help it because she's a sixteen year-old girl, and she can't help herself. It's not a bad gasp though. In fact, it's a rather enraptured gasp because that hair though.

"Oh my God, you're so pretty."

Honestly it's likely the best that Josie was the first person that this happened with because count on a supernatural teenage girl to have a good reaction about this.

"I love your hair."

Ariadne had been called a lot of strange things before. 'Pretty' definitely wasn't one of them. She didn't mind it so much. Although she found her hands wrapping around her braid a little at Josie's comment. It was probably harmless.

Probably.

Especially if she didn't know about Alastrians, which Ariadne was pretty sure she didn't.

"I...uh...thank you. I think." It was much easier to be articulate and smooth when you were pretending to be someone else. Playing herself was a bit of a new role for Ariadne. "I'm sorry, I...normally, I don't have to look like this."

He brow furrows in confusion, before she realizes it might be a magic thing. One would think she would connect the dots sooner, being a witch and all, but sometimes she's a little slow on the uptake.

"Do you use some kind of illusion magic?"

"Not magic," Ariadne said. "Alastrians don't have magic." Not in any way Ariadne had ever heard magic defined, at least. She'd been the laughing stock of her lessons at the missionary school for it (although she'd shown them something else when it came to figures). "It's just..."

Complicated. That was the short answer.

A little bit beyond her comprehension. That was the longer answer. A hazard of living mostly among the Elves.

"A defense mechanism. Like camouflage."

"Oh. Like a chameleon!"

There's a pause, and then just in case that isn't a thing where she's from.

"Chameleons are a lizard where I'm from that has this ability to blend in to it's surroundings by changing colors. So not saying you're a chameleon, but you have an ability similar to one?"

Actually, being compared to a lizard was sort of funny. It was a green thing. Ariadne smiled, just slightly. "I guess that's one way to think of it." They actually did have chameleons where she came from, but it wasn't quite the same. Ariadne just had two faces, her own and the face of the Human she wanted to be. Pretended to be. Tried to be. Or some combination of those three.

She frowned a little bit, brushing her braid back behind her shoulder. "You're not...scared? Are you?"

She shakes her head. "No. Should I be?"

Josie is used to the world being different. Her father taught her from a young age that the supernatural is dangerous but it isn't something to be feared. Sometimes, fearing the thing that you are can cause more harm than good.

"Most Humans would be," she replied. "Unless they were hunters."

Ariadne's family had learned that the hard way, when she was a child. Lief, her brother, had ventured too close to the Human settlement on the fringes of the Deleo forest. They'd found him days later, stripped bare and bald as a melon.

It had taken ages for him to even start speaking again.

Really, Ariadne supposed, the better question was why she wasn't afraid. Of course, she knew the answer to that.

A small smile played on her lips. "But you're not." She knew that too.

She smirks and shakes her head, because no. She's not afraid. "In my experience, the things I should be afraid of aren't nearly as obvious."

She pauses, before gesturing to her braid. "And I know girls who would kill to get their hair this blue. It's not a natural thing where I'm from."

It was an unsettling choice of words. Back home, Alastrians really were killed for their hair. Blue or otherwise. But Ariadne had heard enough of Josie's speech patterns to assume it was hyperbole.

And she liked to believe the best in people. Hard though it could sometimes be.

"Usually, it's brown," she said. "Like your coloring." Which was also quite lovely. "The best way to survive is to go through life unnoticed, I guess."

"Hey now. We brunettes have our fair share of spotlight moments."

Josie, you have barely managed to step out of your blond sister's shadow. Let's not go crazy here.

"But I can see how you would want to blend in."

She pulled the blanket back over her hair. Even if Josie could be trusted, that didn't mean everyone would be okay with a green girl. She didn't need to look too closely at the probabilities to know it was foolish to press her luck.

And on what might well be the first day of...an indefinite period.

"My home is complicated," she admitted. "Beautiful. But sometimes a little messy. You can't really enjoy it for what it is, when you're...not a part of it. If that makes any sense." She paused. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"No. That totally makes sense."

All worlds have their own forms of complication here and there, but they are also all beautiful in their own ways. Or at least Josie's idealized, sixteen year-old view it is. Even as hard as her world can be, it's still got it's moments of beauty.

"But no, of course not. Its your secret to tell, not mine."

AUGUST INTRO LOG: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

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