theianlogs | Welcome to Theia!

Who: Your mysterious caretakers and you
When: September 1st
Where: The Town Square
What: The welcome wagon has arrived!
Warnings: Minor gore, death

It's a white envelope that finds its way under every door, through every nook and cranny a day or two after your arrival. With the peculiar, bloodstained fingerprints lovingly applied as though they were a signature scrawled into its thin paper body, it doggedly persists--it will find you--until you open it and read the letter written ever so meticulously in fine script. It's a cordial invitation to a party hosted in your honor in the town square today. You should hurry, hurry, hurry! You wouldn't want to be late and keep your generous hosts waiting... or so says that oddly compelling feeling pressing into the back of your head. You make your way to the square, the urgent tugging feeling growing stronger the closer you get, and when you turn the corner to get a glimpse of the festivities, you find it's... not quite what you had been expecting.

The square is small, and looks rather out of general use. The fountain in the center is dusty and crumbling, and if there was ever any water in it it's long gone now. Most of the cobbled stones are broken and loose in the road. There are two long tables stocked with refreshments along either side of the walkway to the fountain, and what appears to be a small stage of some sort right in front of it, holding a large, ornate chair and a third table. The most unsettling thing, however, is the rest of the décor.

The theme is death, or so it would appear. Beside the food table to your left sits a bespectacled man wearing a scarf, but was the scarf always red, or is it only stained so because his head is hanging onto his neck by a thread? Against his lap rests a beautifully crafted cello, which appears to be missing its G-string... Oh. There it is--it's still stuck in the gashed man's neck. The poor bastard has been garrotted with the strings of his cello! Talk about hoisted by your own petard. Where his head lolls against the table, you may notice that behind those glasses, his eyes are missing.

Near the fountain is a large, wrought-iron statue of an archer, where... well, he's made his first kill, apparently. The body of a young girl with long dark hair is speared neatly through the chest by the archer's arrow, her little feet a good half a yard off the ground, now sticky with her blood. If you step closer to peer into the fountain, you'll find another body, this one a man with short dark hair, his face twisted into a mask of desperation and his gloved hands around his own throat as though he were gasping for air. Oddly, his lower jaw appears to be missing. Did he drown? There is no water in the fountain...

In the ornate chair on the platform is the body of another man, this one with his head completely removed from his shoulders. Oh... there it is, in his lap, his hands carefully arranged in his wild black hair. Wait, it seems there are too many hands, though! A second body dangles from a large tree that looms over the square, the rope frayed and dirty where it is wrapped around another man's neck, a strangely peaceful smile on his face, blue though it is. His hands rest atop the first man's, as though making certain the severed head remains still.

On the table in front of the chair rests a chest, its lid wide open and a glittering bounty inside.

If you peer inside, you will see a collection of eggs! Scaly, cool to the touch, and about the size of a football, they come in several colors. There is a note pinned to the inside of the trunk's lid--

Do you take an egg, as the note suggests? Dare you? (Dare you not?)

That pressing feeling in the back of your head has left you now, now that you are here to be welcomed to the city, now that you are here in the presence of your caretakers, but it is difficult to take comfort in the relief from the compulsion when surrounded by so much destruction. Who has done this to the faithful sentinels of the city? Who has killed the Watcher, the Interloper, the Guardian, the Nightingale, and the Keeper? Why have they been left here, at your welcoming home party?

Before you can turn to ask your neighbor, before you can wonder any further, a sound breaks the silence--a terrible, wet crunching noise like a sheet of ice breaking under your feet. You turn over your shoulder to see that it isn't anything so simple as ice. In the middle of the square is one final body, a body that wasn't there but a moment ago. She is small, thin, with dark hair and eerily pale eyes wide in terror. You know this girl, she met you on the elevator, expressed pleasure that you had been found (had you been lost?), and welcomed you home. Where did she come from? It's as though she simply... fell out of the sky! The Dreamer now dreams forever.

As you turn to survey the carnage all around you, a pleasant chiming sound seems to fill the air. It would seem that your mirror has a message for you! Upon inspection, you will find a new icon on the main viewscreen.

If you touch the icon, it will take you to a new application. Welcome to the Task Board! Here you will find a multitude of errands you can run for... whoever is running the city, now. Boy, what a way to announce things are under new management!

Welcome back to Theia, wayward children. Please enjoy the refreshments--watch out for the Nightingale's eyes, they may have fallen into the punch--get reacquainted with your friends and neighbors, and do take good care of those eggs. Or else...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"W-We help ourselves, of course."

There's a shaky false cheer in her voice, arms tightening around the natu she's carrying as she deliberately does her best to ignore the blood on his hands.

This girl... Kamui surveyed her and her strange pet from top to bottom and back again before releasing a disappointed sigh. He didn't hide it from her. That would have required tact. Rather, he turned the display into a show, accompanied with a little shake of his head and a heavy shoulder shrug.

"Making your guests help themselves... This is one terrible welcome party."

Because the corpses weren't the issue here. It was the lackluster service.

As far as she knows, he thinks she's just a rookie trainer, or that her natu is a pet, and that's why he's disappointed.

Dramatics though, she can understand; all they do is make her think he's from an Old Family, or at least someone rich. "T-This kind of thing is typical for something like this."

"Is it?" Genuine curiosity managed to sneak into his tone as he cocked his head her way. Though the shade of his parasol darkened his features, the widening of his eyes was clear as day. "I've never had to do anything like that. I just make Abuto get it for me. He hates it."

"Yes. Here, I'll show you how it's done?" She said, the idea that he's Old Family now lodged in her mind. Poor boy; he probably didn't know how normal people lived, and she could understand that.

Her best friend in the whole world was from such a family, and the first sleepover they'd had had been an eye opener, to say the least. "I-if you want, of course."

Kamui wasn't so much "old family" as he was raised by bloodthirsty pirates who had to start obeying his orders when he hit puberty and grew stronger than them all. But, hey, same difference really. Kamui didn't know how normal people lived, and he wasn't interested in finding out for himself. He was very interested in party food, however.

"Go on then," he nodded. "Show me."

Too bad, because without a by your leave, she grabs his wrist. The tug to follow isn't strong; he could easily break the grip if he wanted. It's a little rude, but it's the only way she knows to ensure he follows.

But, once they're at one of the food tables, she takes two plates, releases him, then holds out the second plate for him to take. "Your plate. I'll show you how it's done, and t-then you g-get what you like, ok?"

Her grip, he immediately noted, was flimsy at best. Though she tugged at him to follow, there wasn't even the slightest bit of force behind her efforts. She was as weak as she looked, and that was boring. Still, he was hungry. Just because the weak were boring didn't mean they had no uses. He toddled after her and accepted the offered plate, though the look he gave it wasn't exactly pleased.

He held the plate out in front of his face and scowled. "I'm going to need more than this."

Old Clan, she though, where used to everything being handed to them on a platter.

'Do what I do; they'll bring the drinks and finger food out on trays. Just do what I do, 'k, Fumi-chan?' Janine had said of the servers the first time she'd been invited to an older cousin's wedding.

"Like this.." Fumiko offered a nervous smile, then busied herself placing this and that on her plate. Some of it was avoided - she didn't know what it was, and she didn't exactly want to take a chance with everything. Even so, by the time she's done, the filled plate is woefully spare.

"H-help yourself. I... I don't think they expect us to eat everything."

He watched as she took care in her choices, sparsely populating her plate with little refreshments. Either she was extremely picky or appropriately cautious. It didn't matter which. Whatever the reason, she was clearly wrong.

With a final grimace at his one, small plate, Kamui got to work. He piled a literal mountain of food atop his foundation, grabbing at least three of everything on the table. Not a minute later, his selection was taller than he could reach. He had to toss a handful of cookies up to the peak. Still, he eyed his leaning tower critically, uncertain if it was enough to satisfy him.

"What do they care how much we eat? They're dead."

"B-Because typically, a-anything left after the party, they'll eat?" It's far more a question than it is a statement, and Fumiko knows it. "Y-Yet if our hosts are dead... Um."

She offers a small shrug before starting to nibble at her own food, appetite almost gone. But it'd be rude not to eat the food she put on her plate. "I...I'm sorry. Anzu would know more I."

She didn't exactly seem confident in her answer. Kamui decided that meant it wasn't worth listening to, not now anyway. He had food to shove down his gullet.

"So they don't care," he summed up simply, brightly. Then he had to start looking for a decent place to set down snack mountain. "You don't have to either."

Welcome to Theia!

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