annexedlogs | Relief Log #3

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Relief Log #3

I. In The Aftermath

After the mission is complete, the new recruits are invited back to Central Command for a patch-up and celebration to let loose and socialize a little bit.

The first order of business is the patching up. Anyone who was injured is welcome to go to the Hospital, if the injuries are more serious. Everyone else, those with smaller injuries like scrapes and bruises, minor cuts or burns or abrasions, are welcome to come to the Infirmary in Central Command. There will also be attendants that tell returning new recruits that if they'd like to learn a little first aid and tend to their comrades, they can also head to the Infirmary.

In the Infirmary, anyone who's not injured but shows up will be instructed in basic first aid so they can tend to their teammates and friends. Nurses will be rotating around to check in on people and make sure nothing is more serious than it looks, but generally, the new recruits will be encouraged to tend to their teammates in order to encourage group bonding.

II. The Winter Feast

The relief effort comes at about the same time as the traditional Winter Celebration on the Broken World this month. The Winter Celebration is characterized by spending time with family or loved ones, eating a lot of food, exchanging gifts, lighting candles, and usually drinking a lot (for those who drink). Considering how diverse the residents of the Broken World are, the traditions are relatively loose, with variations that can include fireworks displays, airing grievances, special food dishes, and a wide variety of others. Feel free to pick and choose what winter traditions your characters are introduced to and want to observe.

The rebels at Central Command are celebrating this year by opening the kitchens and inviting all the residents, and any extra-universal arrivals, to participate in cooking the winter feast. Anyone is welcome, including those who don't know how to cook yet, as there will be several cooks giving lessons on how to prepare some of the simpler dishes, like mashed tubers, gravy, and roasting various types of meat, usually pork or poultry. Characters who can cook are encouraged to make traditional winter foods from their own cultures, and the recipes will be met with much interest from NPC residents. Those who can't cook are invited to share their traditional winter foods for the resident cooks to try to figure out - how close they get to making your cherished family recipe is up to you.

After all the food has been prepared, characters are invited to help bring it to one of the big conference rooms that's been decorated by NPCs (and those who aren't into cooking are welcome to help decorate). The setting is cozy and warm, with a temporary fireplace installed with bean bag chairs pulled up around it, and in the corner there is a pile of presents with the names of each extra-universal arrival on them. Before any present-opening happens, though, everyone is invited to dish out a plate of food and settle at the table to eat with friends, tethers, and loved ones. There's also an extensive drink bar with everything from egg nog and milk to hard liquor to various wines and other drinks available to help wash the heavy food down.

III. The Gift Exchange

After dinner has been consumed and everyone is relaxing, The Witch herself enters the room and gestures to the pile of presents in the corner. She makes a short speech about the values of the season - togetherness, forming bonds with each other, keeping each other safe, loving one another - and invites the extra-universal arrivals to approach the pile of presents and find one with their name on it.

Inside the package with your character's name on it is one item from their app inventory that has been retrieved by the rebels from Sylphid strongholds in a series of secret sting operations for this specific purpose. The rebels who were involved are invited in as well, if anyone wants to thank them, and The Witch is available for short meet and greets if characters wish to speak to her.

This is also when characters may exchange gifts with each other, a Winter Celebration tradition they would have heard about extensively through NPCs, advertisements, and other media.

IV. Prank Poppers

Finally, after the gifts have been exchanged, each character is given a party popper - a cardboard candy shaped device that can be pulled at either end and open with a loud popping sound. Inside are several pieces of candy, a foil crown to wear, and a little trinket made of metal - these can be almost anything, from a necklace to a useful mini tool to an ornament to a set of measuring cups.

What's special about these trinkets, however, is that once they're handled, they have a variety of effects on people! The effects are temporary and are very much in the spirit of 'trick or treat' - some of the effects are very positive, some are total pranks. Which one your character gets is up to you!

Some of the effects can be as follows, though you are welcome to come up with effects of your own.

⇝ Happiness: Your character will be just unexplainably happy for 24 hours, regardless of what happens or what struggles they're going through. It's not happiness to the exclusion of looking after themselves or dealing with their problems, it's just a feeling of everything being okay in the end and resiliency.

⇝ Luck: Within an hour of activating this effect, your character will receive a random and totally valid deposit of $1000 into their bank account, and the following 24 hours will be marked by incredible good luck, with everything going their way!

⇝ Animal Features: Upon handling the trinket, the character will find that they sprout animal features, as many as the player wishes, from cute animal ears and tail to a full humanoid fursona to turning completely into a talking animal.

⇝ Forced Honesty: Upon handling the trinket, characters will find that they cannot lie for 24 hours, including lies of omission. They're essentially forced to be honest and blab out all their secrets for the duration of the effect.

⇝ Flying: Characters will find that they float up a few feet from the ground and are unable to stand on their own two feet for a duration of 24 hours. They will float around, and are able to fly to the height of a 40 story building for the duration, moving at will in whatever direction they choose. Other than touching the ground. They can't touch the ground.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Link has ridden a great variety of animals. Horses. Deer. Bears. Even the Lord of the Mountain. (Not dragons, though not for lack of trying.)

And now? Now, there was a flying deer. And there's no way Link's going to pass up that opportunity.

So when the flying reindeer isn't looking, Link makes a running jump towards - and then leaps up to jump on its back.

The flying reindeer is still getting used to being a flying reindeer and dealing with normal old reindeer senses as opposed to normal old human senses...which is to say that Link's attempt will be successful, and he'll land on the reindeer's back.

The reindeer reflexively and immediately starts bucking there in midair. "What the hell?!" The voice might sound familiar. Hajime has no idea who or what has jumped on his back, but repeatedly being mistaken for an actual animal is starting to get on his nerves. "Get off!"

Link blinks, having not expected the reindeer to speak. Buck, yes. Speak, no.

"You...talk?" he says. He does not get off of the reindeer, and instead holds on tight so he doesn't fall off. (He just got on, he doesn't want to get off.)

The reindeer gives up on bucking for a moment. He considers a barrel roll but doesn't think he can quite manage it. Instead, he hovers as low to the ground as he can manage. "Yes, I can talk--" how many times is he going to have that discussion tonight? "--if I couldn't talk we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now get off."

He is still perhaps too embarrassed to admit that he has been transmogrified into a deer thanks to some holiday popper magic.

"...I can't ride you?" Link says, disappointed. He doesn't want to do something the reindeer doesn't want, but...it's a flying deer!

Until this moment, 'ride a flying deer' wasn't something Link had known was something he wanted to do at least once in his life. But then, he hadn't known it was an option before. Now it is, and the thought that he might not be able to do so is mildly crushing.

"No, you can't ride me--" Hajime cannot believe he is having this conversation right now and is far too keyed up to try to figure out who he's having this conversation with "--you didn't ask first!" The answer still probably would have been no but it would've been far less awkward.

Ah. Well, Link hadn't really thought to ask - after all, everything else he'd ever ridden wasn't really capable of having a conversation. But if that's what Link needed to do...

He dismounts, a feat that would normally be made more difficult by the height at which Hajime was flying. But Link was able to use his paraglider to briefly slow his descent. Then, once back at the ground, he looks at Hajime with determined intensity.

"Can I ride you?" he asks.

Hajime is fairly certain he could get out of this conversation by simply pretending to be someone else, by never bringing his own name into it. He sighs. "Only because you asked...and because I didn't have anything to give you in exchange when you gave me a bug earlier."

There's your present, Link, a flying reindeer ride at the cost of Hajime's dignity.

Link does not need to be told twice.

Immediately, he scrambles right back up - which might involve another leap, depending on how high Hajime is right now. Only then, when he's back on Hajime's back, does he stop and realise that the only people he gave gifts to were people. The reindeer's voice is familiar too, isn't it?

"... How are you a deer?" he asks, because Link had not realised that turning into a deer was something someone could just do.

Edited 2022-12-28 22:13 (UTC)

"Have you tried the party poppers?" Hajime asks as he rises higher into the air. "Don't--they're pranks, and one of them turned me into the deer. When I tried a second one, I started to fly and couldn't stop." He sounds almost resigned to it at this point. "I'm told it shouldn't last longer than a day or so."

There were party poppers (whatever that was)? Which could turn him into an animal? Or let him fly?

"...I want a party popper," Link declares, almost immediately.

That actually makes Hajime stop. "Are you sure about that?" Yet he is heading back in the direction of the party poppers. It's not like he could stop Link. "Spending all night getting mistaken for a draft animal has been pretty annoying."

"Yes," Link says, determined. He's not going to pass up this opportunity, now that he knows it exists.

"If you insist." Hajime manages to navigate his way back inside, along with his passenger. "They're over there. Look, see that person who's waving?" There is in fact a volunteer waving at him trying not to laugh. "She's the one who helped me get the second popper. She'll probably get you one." There is an unsaid even if it's a bad idea there.

The moment Hajime touches down, Link deftly dismounts before heading over the woman.

With all the noise, Hajime probably can't hear their conversation - but there's a brief exchange, in which the woman is suddenly wearing a very, very wide grin. Then, she's holding out a whole bunch of poppers to Link - at least six, if not more.

Link pulls all of them.

There's a puff of smoke, and then in the blink of an eye Link isn't his usual self anymore: he's a palomino horse. A flying horse.

Edited 2022-12-29 04:06 (UTC)

Hajime can't believe Link actually did it. At this point, he's assuming that one of the poppers just randomly assigns you a hoofed animal to be stuck as. He float/trots on over there because today just keeps getting weirder and weirder. "...so was it worth it?"

There's a sudden urge to answer honestly, and immediately - not that Link needs it, because he'd have answered the same way anyway. "Yes!" he says.

And he sounds oddly...chipper. In a way that Link, with his usual soft tone and general lack of expressiveness, usually doesn't. But he can't help it. He's a horse! And he's floating! And he just...feels...so happy about it!

Hajime decides that he will never understand other people and inclines his antlered head towards the door. "Well, let's get out of here--people will be coming over here to try to pet us before too long." Though for all he knows, Link would be down for that. He's tired of just getting mistaken for some animal who'd wandered in, at least.

"I don't mind pets." Go figure looks like Link wouldn't mind. And feels compelled to say so, apparently.

(Muffin and all of Link's horses back in Hyrule all liked being pet. So it must be nice, right? Especially since Link's in such a good mood right now!)

Even so, Link still dutifully follows Hajime outside.

Somehow, Hajime is not surprised Link wouldn't mind pets. "It gets old after a while." Or it does when you're inclined to be a grump about the whole thing.

Well, Link still didn't see the issue. He was a horse. If he decided he was sick of pets, he could always kick someone.

But nevermind pets; they were outside. And Link was a horse. Which meant now he could run.

(It wasn't quite running, seeing as he now floated everywhere. But Link's mind still associated the running of a horse with forward momentum - so even if his legs weren't actually doing anything practically, it still sent him careening forward.)

"This," Hajime says as he moves to fly/run as well, "is the best part of the whole thing." He can admit that much.

A thought occurs to him. "...I wonder which of us is faster."

"Horses are faster," Link says immediately. He's ridden both horses and - and while the deer was fun, they could never compare with any of Link's horses.

Steven has maybe been watching the two of them in fascination, because that is definitely Marc's maybe-friend Hajime, and his maybe-friend Link, only as animals. Floating animals. He'd come outside for some air, and also so Marc could open his gift in privacy, but now he's himself again and that is just kind of fascinating.

"I don't know about that," he comments, though he is definitely interrupting a private conversation here. "I'm not sure if running speed is going to matter when you're flying, is it?"

Oh, hi, Marc. Hajime looks down at Steven while thinking of course he must be looking down at Marc. "That's a good point," he admits. "At the moment, the fact that I have longer legs and would undoubtedly be faster because of it doesn't matter."

V

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oh god so sorry for the delay, I completely forgot

no worries I'm so slow this week