lifeaftr | November Adventure: The Good, The Bad, And The Dirty

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November Adventure: The Good, The Bad, And The Dirty

NEW ISLAND: MONSUN

Who: Everyone!
What: Monsun appears, and a new adventure begins.
When: November 24th
Where: Across the islands!
Warnings: Tag as you go!

I've Never Been Better- Or Worse
As per the Storyteller's advice, the morning of the 24th will find characters waking to the sight of land in the far distance; Monsun is now accessible for one-way travel. Your mission, should you choose to volunteer for it? Traverse to this new land, and locate the mana pool. All characters will be reminded on departure that they may not be capable of returning until they have, so pack wisely.

The land of Monsun, even from a distance, may strike travelers as a peculiar one. One half appears to be made up of lush, deciduous woodland entirely at odds with the coastal, tropical aesthetic that Ensō so boasts. The other half appears to be dry and bare, full of cracking cliffs and sandy wastelands. Indeed, once characters set foot on this new land, they will discover that this is precisely the case: the island is divided by a dark ribbon of water, an east side rich with life and a west side stark and rife with danger.

And yet, it isn't that simple.

Feeling prepared? Now is the time to make arrangements and collect what you'll need for the journey. Find companions, say goodbye to loved ones- and of course, take your first step forwards into new lands. Best of luck, adventurers.

You may need it.

Welcome to the new island of Monsun! As the island is now accessible, feel free to begin preparations and explorations in this log- or create new ones of your own! For further information in regards to the island, or plotting, the following links may prove handy:

OOC info and plotting post

Group Arrangements and RNG Group Opt-ins

Monsun on the locations page

Search Requests

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Muffet blinks, briefly looking baffled at the question. Why wouldn't she want to help him if she could? He's never done anything to her, she has no reason to want him to be harmed.]

I've more than enough energy to spare, trying and failing would cost me next to nothing. The idea of catching this... condition does sound worrying, but we don't know if I even can. My species normally can't catch any kind of illness, our biology doesn't work that way.

[She doesn't try to touch him without permission, but she doesn't move back or lower her hand, either. She just keeps holding it out to him, patient and steady.]

Perhaps something from another world is different enough that it could infect even me... but by the same token, perhaps my magic is different enough that it can help where something from the same world can't.

These are not the lands we know. Here and now, we don't know what's impossible.

[One quick touch is all she'd need to try. All he has to do is give her permission and find out.]

I don't-...

[Ardyn trailed off, either uncertain of how that sentence would end or confused by knowing what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.]

...I don't want to hurt anyone. My life isn't worth that.

Rest assured, I don't have any intention of throwing my life away recklessly.

[Muffet's voice is calm and gentle, pragmatically acknowledging the danger but containing not a trace of fear. She raises one hand, still not moving the one held out for Ardyn to take, and declares solemnly:]

You have my word that if I hit the limits of my power, or if I feel that I am in any way about to harm myself, I will stop.

But having said that, your life is still a life, and I don't want to see you hurt if I can help it. I will gladly help with caution and with care, but please just allow me to try helping at all.

No, you don't understand. This is not going to kill me, and it could do far worse yet to anyone else.

It's fine. I'm used to it, this is just...unusual.

You aren't dying, that's good to know. But you are quite clearly in a lot of pain, and don't try to convince me that you aren't. I may not be terribly familiar with human- or formerly human- biology, but even I can tell you're hurting.

And if it comes down to it, what kills me... may not kill me, in the permanent sense. We've seen that the dead can come back here. I don't particularly want to try it personally, but in the end I wouldn't be taking a permanent risk.

...No one should have to exist like that. Dying only to come back and suffer through it again and again and again. It isn't fair; this world and the god which presides over it are both too cruel.

[Somehow, Ardyn didn't seem like he was talking to Muffet or anyone in particular with that much. He looked very, very distant behind the black corruption and hellishly dark eyes, slowly shaking his head.]

I doubt that you can help me and I am quite certain you should not. But I don't want...to be like this any longer.

Well, whether your doubt is correct...

[Here's a hand, Ardyn, held just a fraction closer and not wavering in the slightest.]

There's only one way to find out, isn't there?

[Compassion really was just...so difficult to understand.]

[Regardless, Ardyn only hesitated a moment longer before awkwardly reaching out with a hand cold as death to lightly take Muffet's, as if solid contact with someone else was something he didn't want or didn't have any idea how to proceed with.]

[Muffet reaches forward, smiling gently, and clasps Ardyn's outstretched hand in her own.]

[As soon as they make contact, the green magic at her fingertips spreads out and into him, doing its' best to soothe and heal. It feels oddly gentle- not a feeling of scouring and purifying, but more the sensation of being offered a kind word in the middle of your doubt or a chance of rest in the middle of your weariness.]

[...It wasn't a sensation he was accustomed to. Or one he particularly liked, all things considered. It didn't quite hurt in the same way that the endless fury in his head did, simply...defied comprehension. Ardyn didn't--couldn't--understand it, and dwelling upon the feeling only made him more aware of a nameless something he'd lacked for a very long time.]

[Whether he understood it or not, for the moment things were...quieter. Hardly cured by any stretch of the imagination, but driven back like a lit match pushed away the night's darkness. The markings on his face and neck had started to retreat, pallid complexion still stained black but eyes a little clearer now.]

...Why?

[There's too much here, she knows- her magic doesn't tell her what she's dealing with, only that it's still there, but she can feel it all the same. Something her healing is pushing back against, old and vast and unrelenting, like the depths of an ancient sea. Her will is strong, made stronger by the way the effects of this desert blend with her natural inclinations, and a monster's magic is their will made manifest- but in the end, she's only mortal, for all that she isn't human. No matter how long or how hard she tries to push it back, there is no doubt that she'll reach her limit long before it does.]

[Muffet holds for a moment longer before she lets her magic stop flowing with a soft sigh, keeping her word not to overreach herself. It nags at her to leave a job unfinished, but she knows her limits- and anyway, she did promise. Keeping one's word is a very important quality, in a businesswoman. Whatever little she did, for however little it lasts, will have to be enough for now.]

[She looks at Ardyn, her expression tired but calm, and gives the only entirely honest answer she can:]

Why not?

Because you've nothing to gain and more than you could ever know to lose. Because you scarcely know me, because selflessness like that is naught but dangerous, because nothing you just did will make a dent in anything that I am.

Need I continue?

[She meets his gaze steadily, counting off each point on her fingers as she replies.]

I gained a little more knowledge and lost only a few moments time and effort. I know that you are another person, capable of feeling pain. Selflessness is a gamble like any other, the potential danger matched by the possible success.

And, in the end?

The universe is an unspeakably vast place older than both of us and everyone we've ever met all put together, and I am a very small amount of magical energy holding an even smaller amount of physical matter together in the shape of a five-foot-tall arachnid. Taken as a whole, no matter how far I go or how great I become, my entire existence will be so insignificant to the universe that I may as well have never been here, let alone anything I've just done in the past five minutes- and yet I stubbornly persist in doing things anyway. If I haven't stopped trying in the face of that, why would I stop because of you?

...

[Ardyn laughed in response, a bitter and pained sound with no real humor to it. There weren't many things older than he was, and the irony of her saying that was funny in the way some things weren't funny at all.]

So you waste such a short existence upon a risk that will eventually backfire. Not 'might', but absolutely, unequivocally shall turn upon you in the grandest fashion.

[Even 2,000 years was only a tiny fraction out of billions.]

If you have anything specific in mind I should watching out for, beyond the general untrustworthiness of mankind and being careful around infectious substances, I'd welcome the advance warning.

[Her tone is hilariously polite, given the whole situation- she's being entirely sincere. She's fairly certain that if Ardyn's implying he intends to hurt her at some point down the line he wouldn't actually warn her, but it couldn't hurt to ask.]

Is that meant to be a joke? Of course that's what I would be warning you against.

[She gives him a flat look.]

I am entirely serious. There is, sir, a very large difference between 'you cannot put your faith in others' and 'your downstairs neighbor is planning to lure you into an alleyway and stab you'- or, for that matter, telling me you're infected with something and telling me whether it's bloodborne or airborne.

I have, as you correctly point out, a short and precarious existence to my name. Ultimately, I cannot avoid every possible danger without spending the rest of it wrapped in padding and sitting in a small box somewhere. Yes, there are more risky actions and less risky ones, but it's always going to be a question of which risks I take, not whether I take any at all.

A specific warning might help me to work around the inevitable catastrophe- telling me only that there will be one gives me remarkably little to work with.

Either you believe that I am capable of avoiding disaster- in which case I would genuinely and sincerely be thankful for whatever information you are willing to offer me- or you believe that I'm already doomed by what I've just done- in which case I'm not entirely sure why you're bothering to warn me at all.

Edited (I'm not fussy about word choices you are shut up) 2017-12-03 04:00 (UTC)

...Bloodborne, for starters. Regardless, it's not--I'm not safe to be around.

[Ardyn frowned slightly, the look one tempered by concern rather than anger. At least...that's what he thought it must have been. Anger was easy to understand, and this was something complex. Something he couldn't quite explain or pin down. Was this what concern felt like? The desire to not want someone to walk the same worn-down path he once did, for their own sake?]

You can't simply...heal the afflictions of everyone you happen across. Eventually it will backfire, whether through disease or by the ingratitude of those you wished to save. Or perhaps both at once.

Edited (wait no different link) 2017-12-03 04:21 (UTC)

[Muffet nods politely, acknowledging the information.]

Thank you for telling me. I'll make certain to be careful of what I touch.

[Honestly, she's not thrilled with the amount of bodily fluids humans seem to have in any case. It just seems kind of excessive.]

[She could point out that he's gone back to being vague in his next sentence, but she has the sneaking feeling that isn't really talking about her- or at least, not just about her. He seems too insistent on the idea of good intentions ending badly to not be speaking from experience.]

[Normally, she'd brush off his concerns, talk playfully about her high-reaching ambitions, infamous greed, or simple stubbornness- and all of those things would be true, but she'd be using them to hide all the same. But having caught that small glimpse of sincerity from him, whether intentional or not, she feels she owes it to him to respond in kind.]

In all honesty? That was never what I set out to do- saving people was never my job, I simply wanted to take care of my family as best I could. I make my living as a baker, for angels' sake- I'm not a healer trained for these things, nor a member of the Royal Guard trained to defend people.

But no one from the Royal Guard is here, nor is any healer I know. I am. And so are these problems, and these dangers, and they aren't just going to go away if they're ignored. It isn't my job, and I don't have to... but if I don't, who will?

Someone else would, and I would warn them all the same. Healing is a miserably thankless job, and it's path no one should walk if they wish their health and sanity kept intact.

[Ardyn glanced away, some semblance of color slowly beginning to return to his face.]

...I used to be human. Ages and ages ago--now look at me. This thing before you is no more than the animate corpse of one long since worse than dead. Existing like this is a nightmare, and if anyone else were remotely smart they'd avoid the same path at all costs.

But if no one does, we may well all die anyway. Problems grow, if left unchecked, and diseases spread. If I simply walk away, then who's to say I won't end up facing the same thing somewhere down the line anyway, only worse because it's had more time to fester?

[She's fairly certain most of the healers she knows back home are doing fairly well, but she's also pretty sure Ardyn isn't just talking about being a medical professional- he means healing as a calling, not as a career. More and more, she's certain that's what he was.]

[She doesn't have the power to heal this, nor any real clue how to make it better. All she can offer him is an honest answer:]

I'm sorry. I wish I knew how to help you, no one deserves to suffer like that. May I ask... just how long it's been, for you?

...

[He didn't want to answer. If they all knew what he was, what they were living with...it would be the whole thing all over again. Even the people he'd pretended to be affable with would turn on him, try to get rid of him, Accursed, Usurper, monster-]

[And yet he didn't know what else to do. Ardyn Lucis Caelum wouldn't burden others with his problems, but he also couldn't help but to reach out in this first vulnerable moment in memory. If that was what happened...maybe this time he'd actually deserve it, for all he'd done.]

...I have cursed our planet for some two thousand years.

[Two thousand years. Unusually long for a monster, but unheard of for a human, as far as she knows. And he'd said that he couldn't die.]

[There is concern in Muffet's expression, but it's clearly for him and not for what he might do to her. There's surprise, sorrow, compassion... but no fear. After all, she's not used to the idea that 'monster' is a frightening word.]

[To her, they're just people. And she can't see any reason to believe that's not what he is, too.]

Among my people... we tend to live longer than humans, yes, but only the very most powerful of our kind would live that long- and even then, only because they choose to do so.

Bearing a burden as painful as yours for as long as you have... I can't even imagine what that's like.

...it hurts. It hurts and there's naught I can do but take it out on everything else, because all I feel anymore is anger and hatred. I'm a daemon myself and worse yet; all but a force of darkness and evil given form.

[Ardyn shook his head, pressing a hand to his face like that could stop him from speaking before he thought.]

I never...wanted this.

[Muffet speaks slowly when she replies next, like she's thinking it over carefully and trying to put the thought together in just the right way.]

I think... that if there's truly nothing else you can do, I can't rightfully call you evil.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I would say that evil requires a choice in the matter- a man strangling someone to death is evil, because he could have done otherwise, but a snake crushing someone to death in its' coils isn't evil, it's just... doing as a snake does, which is all it can do.

It doesn't mean that people should just let you hurt them, of course, any more than they should just let a snake eat them. But if you don't have a choice, then I don't think you're evil.

And... if you are evil, then maybe you do still have a choice.

[She shakes her head slightly, looking at him with genuine sympathy.]

Though I can't say what that choice would be, if there is one, nor can I find it in myself to truly blame you if you do choose to hurt others in your suffering. No, it isn't right to do it, but... Human, or monster, or animal- we all lash out when we're in pain. It seems to be our nature.

[At his last statement, she simply looks at him and answers, quietly:]

I believe you.

[It's such a small thing to say, she knows, so useless and insignificant- but it feels like it matters somehow, still, that he know. This is a man who was once something more that what he is, so long ago that she can scarcely even picture it, and what he says sounds almost like a plea to her:]

['I never wanted this.' I'm not the kind of person who would have chosen to be this way. Please remember that this isn't who I am.]

[She has no idea who he really is- whoever Ardyn was in life she never met him, and she barely even knows him now. But dying men will ask even strangers to stay with them, just for someone to watch their passing and keep them from being alone, for the knowledge that at least one person will remember that someone was even there.]

[She doesn't know who, but she can acknowledge that someone was lost once upon a time, like bowing your head to an unmarked grave as you pass. He didn't want this. She believes him.]

November Adventure: The Good, The Bad, And The Dirty

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i'm sorry i could not resist the siren call of shitposting

Never be sorry for shitposting.

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