THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE ※ RIVENDELL ※ LOG 2

[wildermods]

THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE
OOC POST
The group is told to take a week of rest in the Last Homely House as the injured and sick among them heal. The Elves promise them that at the end of that week, there will be a great Council, with representatives of several peoples in attendance.

Until then, they can wander the peaceful halls of Rivendell, which are filled with travelers from all over the Wilderlands who are making a rest stop while they travel through the lands of Middle-Earth.

The most notable part of Rivendell is the Hall of Fire, a great feast hall where people can eat, drink, and be merry. This is the great social hall of Rivendell, where the Elves and their visitors share news of lands far beyond, tell stories, or perform music. The music here almost sounds divine, especially when the Elves sing and play, but they're just as eager to hear songs from other lands, so if any of the squad decide to share, they'll be glad to listen.

Some of the hall's guests are a touch more lively than the others, like a party of dwarves staying at Rivendell. Their stories are a mite more adventurous and if you get in their good graces, they might be willing to share some of the beer they brought with them. Listening to their stories or their talk about their craftmanship is a way to get into their good graces.

The Elves love learning, so there are libraries the group is allowed to browse, though they mostly only contain tales of Middle-Earth (for now), though the Elves seem to be collecting what books about other lands they can. These libraries often have viewing stations with telescopes pointing at the sky. The Elves have been almost delighted by the changing skies, enjoying the challenge of trying to understand how the sky has been knitting itself together with the addition of new worlds.

There are also beautiful balconies here, overlooking the gorge and the waters below, and terraced gardens filled with flowers, bushes, and flowering trees. Their rooms are open to the outdoors and have beds that seem grown into the shape of bed-frames instead of carved. The bathrooms actually have running water. The Elves have figured out how to direct the clean running waters of the gorge in primitive indoor plumbing. Water for hot baths has to be heated first in brass cauldrons over coal braziers before getting dumped into the bath.

It's time for the squad to rest, eat, and regroup. If a great Council is going to be called involving them, it might be a good idea to make sure they go into it as a united front, lest decisions about their fate be made for them.

---

NOTES
✦ Joint log: Since this camp period won't be particularly long, everything will take place in a joint log. Players can post starters with prompts for others and tag into other players' prompts.

✦ Post in actionspam format. Plots and mod-run events in the game are meant to be in actionspam format to keep a brisk pace.

✦ Cursed Weapons/Powers: So they know about how they'll be treated: those with cursed weapons and dark powers will be tolerated by the Elves after entry. While they'll get the same general treatment, the Elves around them may at times seem uncomfortable. Those with cursed weapons will only be distrusted a little, as the weapons themselves will seem more suspicious than their bearers. Those with dark powers or some kind of dark nature (such as being a vampire, Necromancer mage, werewolf, etc.) will be treated with the greatest distrust.

✦ Fairy Swaps: The Elves may be slightly alarmed by the Brugh fairy swaps but get over it easily. However, if the character swapped in is one of the "dark" characters, the swap might be extra cause for alarm. (A potential prompt idea).

✦ Npcing: There will be two npc threads. The "Random Encounters" thread is for characters to have a totally random encounter with an npc. These npcs will be fellow travelers from lands beyond. While they can't give much information about the group's status as Chosen Ones (that will happen during the Council) they can provide info about events in the Wilderlands beyond that may come to affect the squad in their travels. The "Specific Requests" thread will be for more specific issues your character might want to discuss with the Elves. While they'll push any Chosen Ones discussion off to the Council, they're willing to discuss issues with the characters, like if they have questions about having received magic, about being bound to their weapons, etc. The Rivendell Elves have heard a lot of gossip from all over and can potentially provide info based on things they've heard.

✦ Clothes: The group will not yet be fully equipped for their travels (that will happen upon leaving) but everyone will at least be given new clothes since theirs are dirty and sometimes torn. Characters without appropriate travel footwear will also be given light and sturdy boots that will somehow be in their size without their size being asked. They'll also be given basic toiletries like scissors that can be used to cut hair and beards. There are no razors, however, because the Elves don't need to shave so they don't keep them on hand.

Comments

[greyerrant]

I don't think about it, much. I was a soldier for most of my life, and aside from that, I mostly studied history. Music is interesting and lovely but I am not a well-educated listener. The Blood angels, come to think of it, specialized in making harps and other instruments and playing them. [ So many legions to keep track of. And then there were the Emperor's children, but nobody needs to remember or be informed of their corrupt selves if Loken had his way. ]

So this is... something of a new experience to me. You could say.

[awfulcer]

[Honestly, if she'd just stuck to normal human, Dixon wouldn't have believed her. As far as he's concerned, he's the only "normal human" here. Even the medieval ones are like, medieval, and that's got to be some kind of abnormal.]

That might come in handy. We didn't get attacked by ghosts on the hill, at least, I don't think they were ghosts, but they looked like they might know ghosts. [It's a convoluted way of saying that half the shit they've faced looks like it belongs in a haunted house.]

[awfulcer]

It shouldn't be. I know a few people who'd give an arm and a leg to be...cyborgs... [Wait, hold up, pretty sure he just inadvertently said something too close to the bone. His face reads "whoops".]

[awfulcer]

Ah. Right. [At least Alacruun is taking the time to walk him through it. Dixon's fairly certain he's opened himself up to ridicule - probably started open to ridicule when he was getting beaned in the face by his own shield - and so far he and Alacruun have had a testy but not straight-up negative rapport.]

Humans do. [Just in case Alacruun's as in the dark about humans as Dixon is about dragons!] We've got a lot of different guard forces for different things, actually. Local law enforcement, fire response, immigration, military...you know.

[greyerrant]

[ Loken roars at Mita, but with Revan's imposition of herself between Garviel and the object of his wrath, his headlong charge is cut short, shifting into a stumbling tackle that brings him and Revan down in an awkward tangle of limbs. He huffs angrily, trying to extricate himself from the situation with something approaching dignity while quite aware that Mita, a self-professed psyker, is close enough to do him great harm. Or at least threaten it. ]

[suckitblue]

[ Simmons just gives him the most withering look. ]

[awfulcer]

That's not what I meant!

[He doesn't words good, Simmons, cut him a break.]

[awfulcer]

[Half the words she says to start with mean nothing to him - Taris, Sith blockade, hyperdrive, whatever - so instead he just listens to her tone and absorbs that. A good ride. He believes that it's homesickness. He believes there's affection, too.

He's not even a little bit surprised that she's amassed a following; that, to him, is only sensible when you're met with someone so enthralling. She's got a magnetic, gravitational pull; of course she had a bunch of people following her around. He'd probably be one of them; he probably is now.]

My friends on- my friends at my job were a little tough love like that too. [He doesn't want to say "the force" yet - besides, he's like, 99% sure "the force" means something way different to her. But it's really the were that trips him up, the past-tense for a community he was ejected from not by coming here to quest for but weeks before that. A group that, as soon as he lost his employment with them, turned out not to be friends but just colleagues.]

How much of your job was stealing shit from crime lords? Because that's only sort of legal. [Actually, he's pretty sure that earth laws or space laws, stealing is one of the constants in terms of illegality.]

[suckitblue]

[ Dealing with Dixon is so goddamn confusing sometimes. Simmons expects people to take calculated potshots at him. That's always been normal. Dixon backpedaling over it because no, he really just didn't think throws off the entire cadence of how interactions are supposed to work. ]

Really?!

[immaterium]

[Suddenly, they are all a lot closer than she feels they strictly ought to be. Mita yelps as she is knocked off her feet and they all go down, limbs entangled. Far too close and confused to be defending herself telekinetically, she lashes out mentally.]

Unhand me!

[A whisper of a razor knife of thought flies through the air, splitting a path into Loken's being. While it just barely avoids Revan by a hair's breadth, she is unfortunately not as powerful as she once thought she was capable of. Instead of utterly destroying the pathways in his brain and leaving him an empty imbecile, it merely gives him an enormously nauseating migraine. Not quite the intended outcome.]

[awfulcer]

Really! I didn't mean it like that, it just came out that way! Jesus! [Now it's Dixon's turn to look annoyed, as if Simmons is being deeply unreasonable for not letting the bad wording slide. It wasn't meant as a slight, so fuck off, Simmons. He just wanted to compliment your stupid robo-arm.]

[therevanchist]

[Distracted by being pinned under Loken, Revan notices the psychic attack too late, reaching out to take the brunt of it with her own mind but instead feeling only the wake of its passage. She winces in sympathetic pain as the headache explodes across his mental presence, but he seems largely unharmed, which means she can let her head fall to the floor, staring at the ceiling over Loken's shoulder.]

There is no emotion, there is peace.

[It's muttered, clearly a mantra or part of a litany, and just generally a better choice to vocalize than what Revan's thinking as the storm clouds roll across her mind. When she addresses the others, it's with the clear enunciation and taut control of a person who is biting back something much harsher.]

Garviel, are you all right? Mita, did I mention you could expect your powers to be weakened here?

[greyerrant]

[ Loken makes a moaning sounds and sort of rolls away from Mita and revan, probably squashing them both further, trying to rise only to clutch his head a few times. Eventually, he manages to make it in a low crouch, but the migraine is clearly impairing him beyond the point of speech, at least for a while. ]

[therevanchist]

[She waggles her hand in an "eh" gesture.]

The Republic has bigger things to worry about and I don't care what the Sith think. The Exchange--the big crime syndicate--might put a bounty on me, but I doubt it. They're too pragmatic. The Sith already have one out on me, and anything they'd do to me if someone managed to collect would be way nastier, so the Exchange might as well save their money.

[Revan shrugs, unconcerned, like this is a normal thing people have to deal with. Taxes. Oil changes. Prices on your head. Besides, the Sith already caught her once and she broke out...though it cost her dearly.]

We're at war, Dixon. The Exchange is the least of my problems.

never apologize, he's great!

[awfulcer]

[Dixon snorts.] Don't worry about me thinking and rationalizing my way into nothing evil. I guarantee you thinking ain't a problem.

[He wants to agree with Kal. He very dearly, very sincerely wants to think that just listening to your heart will be enough. He wants to think of the human heart as like someone you can call for guidance, like a hotline you could phone to for a straightforward answer. He wants his heart to be a power on high instead of a part of him. He wants clear, incontrovertible rules so that he doesn't have to sort through messy grey areas.

He wants to believe people are good at their core, too, but for a moment he wants to protest, because he knows people do evil things. He doesn't believe there's anything good at the core of whoever burned a teenage girl to death, a teenage girl who became nothing but autopsy photos on his desk for nine months. He doesn't believe there's much good at his core, either.

But he doesn't protest it, because some of the little acts of kindness he's benefited from have lodged themselves in. Back home, people he wronged ran to put him out when he was on fire, stopped him from being beaten to death, gave him something to drink when he was in a hospital bed. Here, on this quest, people have carried his things when he couldn't keep up hiking the mountain, have healed his injuries, have encouraged him to succeed instead of mocking him for ineptitude. And he's gone from kindness to kindness like a stray dog going doorstep to doorstep for offerings of food.

So maybe there is good.]

You aren't the first person telling me not to hate. I think it's kind of a shame that hating is so damn easy.

wow look how much my shit was not together this week. mea culpa.

[followingdawn]

That was leading into an offer to fix it. For the record.

[ Not that he really has much room to give anyone else crap about their sass, to be fair. ]

[awfulcer]

Point. [There's a mercenary logic to what she's saying, and Dixon gets it. He sticks his hands into his pockets and looks back out at the stars. For as much time in his life he's spent looking at them, he never really wondered about what might exist among them. Maybe he once thought there might be aliens, but he never thought of whole governments and empires and wars and anything beyond little green men.]

Littler problems don't go away just because you're at war, you know. [It's not one of those impudent attempts to save face upon being corrected; it's just a fact he believes, and a way to hold open the door to her that if she ever wants to talk about a littler problem, he'd hear it. He'd probably be a lot better at hearing it than a large problem anyway.

But he doesn't suspect it would really be about stolen spaceships, at least not out here. And he doesn't expect her to ever take him up.]

tag in and then die for a week, apparently this is who i am now. /o\

[followingdawn]

Ravens. It was kind of weird, I'd get it if they were laguz, but they weren't nearly big enough for that.

[ As if anyone else in this merry little band knows what the hell a laguz is, but Sothe just goes right on past it. He ticks off the major points on his fingers. ]

They said this place used to be a bunch of worlds, but they all got smashed together somehow. There's a lot of evil out there, and we're chosen to do something about it, goddess knows why. A lot of things are after us already, because some jerk called the All-Seeing Eye already knew about us. The other big evil was the...uh, I think was Unfinished Princess, whatever that means. I guess by now she knows something about us too, after that fight on the way here.

[followingdawn]

It's not like I became a thief because it sounded like fun, you know.

[ Where were the nice elves feeding everybody in Daein. Life could've been so much easier! ]

[followingdawn]

I dunno. If it's untoward, I don't really care, though, so it doesn't really matter.

[ Manners are for...nice noble girls like her, mostly. ]

[followingdawn]

Daein's the kingdom. The city I'm from is Nevassa.

[ Not Nevada, thanks for that one Dixon. ]

So, if you're from the Imperium of Man, what else is out there?

[therevanchist]

[Dixon's effort might not have met with success--Revan certainly doesn't venture anything--but he's rewarded with a truly warm smile nonetheless. Pain shared is pain lessened. He had been listening.]

Believe me, I don't have any little problems.

[The smile shades into something sadder. Revan has only a Potemkin village of false memories stretched inadequately over endless nothing. You have to have a life to have little problems.]

[awfulcer]

Not yet, maybe. But we do this adventuring thing long enough and I bet you'll get some small problems. Even if they're just blisters on your feet or something like that.

[He's resisting the kneejerk impulse to ask about her bigger problems. She hasn't pried into the particulars of his life, only the symptoms. There's been no digging for salacious details. He'll do her the same courtesy.]

[greyerrant]

Worlds not yet re-unified under the banner of humanity. Orks. Eldar. Worse things besides. A hostile universe where war is the only constant.

[ It's almost like Garviel's from a real crapsack of a place. ]

[cursemarked]

Ah... If I get my hands on a camera, it'd be nice to document this weirdness, I suppose.

[She pauses a moment, taking in the name before she bows a little] Rei Kurosawa. How long have you been involved in all of... [She makes a vague hand gesture around]