EVENT | LANDFALL | IOA ELANAG MINGLE LOG

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: October 20th - ongoing
Location: Ioa Elanag
Situation: Tu Vishan has come to a rest at the edge of a previously unexplored continent.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.



The empty coastline and rocky beach they disembark to seems untouched, and fish school plentifully in the shallows without fear, something that the kedan are quick to take advantage of.

Once they move away from the shoreline, the landscape quickly turns to savannah scrubland, the arid sand a deep ochre colour. The grasses that grow there are thin and spindly, adapted to what appears to be a lack of water. Although the temperature is cool -- though not cold, despite the lateness of the month in a northern hemisphere -- it would be easy to extrapolate that it would be extremely dry and hot in the summer months.

Like the schools of fish, the wildlife here seem untroubled by the presence of newcomers, unless overtly threatening moves are made toward them. In addition to a host of different types of birds -- which all seem to be hunting each other, and openly cannibalistic -- there are a few types of species which become familiar sights to explorers.

---

Some three miles inland, well within the range that Tu Vishan's protective aura extends to power the soul gems, a city stands quietly, surrounded by a massive wooden stockade. There are no roads or trails which lead to it, as if the city was simply dropped from the sky. This wall is hewn from logs larger than most have ever seen in their lives -- easily as big as the oldest redwoods or sequoias on earth, and many larger even than that.

They've all been cut precisely, ingeniously locked together so that no bindings or fillings have needed to be used to hold it together. Certainly, they're nothing like the scraggly, bent things seem to be growing in the area, which are only deemed trees by virtue of being marginally taller than bushes. The height of the wall is easily fifty feet, encompassing a square area of approximately a mile on each side, and there is one gate which is closed, but not locked, and is in impeccable shape.

---

LINKS
Local Wildlife Encounters | Exploring the Compound | Mysterious Discoverables | OOC Info Post

OOC
Please direct questions to the OOC post! For threading, you can either use the areas described under header, or create your own -- don't feel you have to be limited to threading only in the locations mentioned in the starters! Just don't forget to label your top-levels with specific locations, and remember that Tu Vishan's radius that powers the soul gems only extends ten miles inland.

ACTIVITY CHECK NOTE: Due to the late-month timing of this landfall, threads from this log can be counted toward either October or November AC. Just don't use the same comment thread for both months.

Comments

CW: Half naked spider lady

[spiderforhire]

The Stalk wanders in from another room, having just overheard China commenting. She recognizes her from their console communication, which has been... a few weeks now. She hasn't made much if any headway with the 'cultists', although in her defense, she hasn't actually been looking for them. Certainly not as much as she's been getting drunk.

"What is?" She scampered a little closer and was struck by just how goddamn hot China was in person.

[inkulcation]

"This building." China raised an eyebrow at the woman, declining to be visibly startled by her appearance. She'd dealt with Children of the Spider before. "Have you seen the interior? Nothing in this compound has anything useful in it, and regrettably that includes the library. If you can call it that without books."

She came out of the doorway a pace, straightening, folding her arms across her chest. "You're welcome to take a look for yourself, of course."

[spiderforhire]

"It's a very strong opinion to have about an empty building, is all," The Stalk shot back teasingly.

She did, in fact, take a look, although she didn't stray from China's view for more than a few seconds at a time as she peeked into other rooms.

"I'm more curious, than anything. Was this a building project left abandoned, or was it... left here for someone?"

[inkulcation]

"It's a building that has not only utterly failed to fulfill its purpose, but has failed to provide any semblance of what I was looking for," China returned, slipping a little toward acerbic. An empty library was something like a personal insult.

She stayed at the door as the Stalk wandered briefly; she'd already seen all there was to offer in this area. Unimpressive. "The buildings all appear to be complete," she pointed out. "It would be something grave indeed, to cause a population the size this compound implies to simply leave everything and vanish, or never settle in the first place."

[spiderforhire]

"What if the purpose of the building was to personally annoy you? In that case, it's a striking success. And my guess is that it's completely unconcerned about failing that second criteria."

Yes, this is how she flirts.

Done looking around the empty "library", she returns to China, appearing to float along the floor with the way her legs are hidden by her dress.

"I always find it very amusing when I meet someone from Dart. The planet was long ago destroyed by the war, but the people are scattered here and there, and they took their habits with them, namely discarding one third of anything they ever receive. Food, water, an arm and leg off of a doll. As soon as they get it, a third of it is discarded. Not shared or given, just discarded.

"Turns out it's a tithe to their ancestors. They take it very seriously, not that it saved their planet."

[inkulcation]

"Darling, I'm not so arrogant as to assume someone created this solely to annoy me," China says, amused. She's certainly arrogant, but not that much. It seems personally calculated, but realistically... probably not.

Except where Skulduggery is involved. He might have stooped to this level. But he's gone.

She clicks her tongue at the mention of ancestors, not bothering to hide her disdain. "The dead hardly care about such things," she notes. "This place reminds you of them?"

[spiderforhire]

"You know that for sure, do you?" The Stalk said, partially amused, partially curious. Maybe she did know.

"But yes, just because this place wasn't built to be lived in by us, or people like us, doesn't mean it wasn't built to house something else. Something that, depending on how charitable you feel like being, either doesn't exist, or just can't be seen."

[inkulcation]

"I'm making an educated deduction based on how many enemies I've made in this world," China says, with an amused sort of carelessness. "All of those who would go to this length simply to annoy instead of assassinate have since departed from this world. In the way Foreigners do."

She hasn't outright murdered anyone herself. Yet. It may be a new record.

"This is quite a length to go to for things which don't exist, but I suppose I've heard stranger." Cults. At least there weren't extradimensional horrors in this compound.

Again: yet.

[spiderforhire]

"Made enemies already, huh? As a simple information broker? Generally people like those, even if it's irritating sometimes. Unless you just deal with a lot of people who are obsessed with 'principle'."

The Stalk started wandering towards the door. "Care to leave the library that so irritates you? Maybe there are less offensive buildings."

[inkulcation]

China waves a hand, dismissive. Principles. "A number of old acquaintances from my world were already here when I arrived," she says, as a sort of explanation. "There is, shall we say, some history, and they did enjoy making my life difficult. But they are gone now, and I have not made any enemies in this world so enthusiastically petty that they would set something like this up, which was the initial issue."

She gives the library a last annoyed look, then lifts her shoulders in an elegantly careless shrug and trails out of the library. Outside she stops, though, declining to follow and rather surveying the compound proper. "Oh, I don't know. It seems like if you've seen one empty shelf, you've seen them all, and I have better things to do with my time."

[spiderforhire]

"Suit yourself. The place is odd in a sort of good way. Think I'll keep looking around."

[inkulcation]

Well, if she's not going to take up an argument, that's boring. Still: China follows no one.

"I always do," she says, with a curve of her lips, a smile with some kind of secret amusement behind it. "Feel free to come find me again, my dear."