broadcast / open log: into the woods

[snikthatch]

WHO: Logan & YOU
WHAT: Broadcast & the gang has a BBQ.
WHERE: The Ruins -- near the Phone Box.
WHEN: Sometime between Ruth's Adventure Into The Thing and the shadow parasite event.
NOTES: Might contain some body horror?? IDK who knows with this place.

[ The broadcast: ]

OK. I'm done bein' surprised by findin' people here. If we're gonna survive and get out of this goddamn snowglobe, we need to talk. All of us.

There's a place set up near that phone booth in the jungle. If you don't know it, send me a message and I'll give you directions. I got some food and some fresh meat, bring supplies or whatever if you wanna share 'em. It's clear this place ain't gonna let us go any time soon. We need to start workin' together.

All right. See you there.

[ Broadcast ends. He won't be replying to anyone who responds via radio, but feel free to text him. ]

---

It's taken a bit of work to clear a space near enough the phone box to allow for any sort of gathering. Vines and plants have been cut back or torn out to make a sort of clearing between the larger trees. A couple of smaller saplings have been cut down. Logan's even gone to the trouble of dragging in some pieces of a large dead tree that can serve as something to sit on.

The main event is the carcass of one of the river goats, which has been butchered and spitted over a fire. There are also a couple of thoroughly roasted spiders stuck on the end of a branch, some tins of beans and boxes of crackers, and a box of unnamed-but-Twinkie-adjacent snack cakes. And a bottle of whiskey, but that's staying in Logan's hairy paw.

Early arrivals will be told to help themselves as Logan stalks around the perimeter and tends to the fire. If anyone brings food or drink, they'll be told to put it near the rest of the supplies for everyone to share (though anyone who brings beer might have a bottle or two liberated from them by the party host). There's no night-time in the Ruins, but it does begin to get darker as time goes on, so it has a bit of a feeling of early evening to it. Some of the nearby plants begin to glow and the fire seems brighter and warmer in the dim light.

Logan won't be making any stirring speeches or anything (even if he did it would mostly be cursing and growling) -- this is supposed to be more of a gathering than a rally, with the intention of bringing everyone together to share what they've learned and help each other out.

Feel free to help yourself to the food, sit near the fire or explore the edges of the gathering. Drink, eat and.. well, maybe recover a little.

[ OOC: this is something between an open log and a mini event, so probably best treated like the latter. Put up a lil top level if you want with whatever your character will be doing at various points, reply to others, etc. Logan will be wandering around and generally being BBQ dad. Hope you don't mind your meat being served on claws! ]

Comments

broadcast.

[ascocarp]

You got the shit to make leather?

I'll bring some of my food. [Not all. Not that she doesn't trust him, just... just in case.]

[omniavincit]

William misses the broadcast. He's in the forest, walking, climbing, sometimes killing. It doesn't seem like time is passing—feels instead like it's building up, like it'll hit all at once. He sways between listlessness and a furious sense of urgency, as though some kind of wire's been tripped in his head.

His appearance at the gathering is accidental—the landscape shuffles around him, and he emerges from the thick of the trees to a newly hacked clearing. “You made dinner,” he says to Logan, or at least in his vicinity, amused and wondering. It's like wandering onto the set of a play. He finds the pile of food and rummages until he comes out with a small bottle with an angry-looking cartoon pepper on it, adds it to the stash.

Then he sits down in front of the fire. In a second he'll take his hat off. In a second he'll get up and get some food.

In a second, he's asleep.

[ascocarp]

Ellie comes back from stringing up some cherts to find a new person at the fire, gently dozing. That's good, everybody deserves some rest, even this guy, whoever he is. New people are important to keep close, foster some sense of teamwork. That's about what Logan said, anyway.

But, well. Ellie gets jumpy sometimes. And you really shouldn't just fall asleep in front of the fire like that... Oh, fuck it, who cares, she doesn't have to justify shit.

Ellie takes out one of the plastic cups she picked up in the world's core, a chipped pink little number that's seen better days. She's been using it to drink from the large pot of water she's been bringing back from the lake and boiling. Currently, the boiled water is cooled to lukewarm. Perfect.

She fills the cup with water, and gently, slowly, places the new guy's hand in it.

[omniavincit]

He doesn't stir, not at her approach, or the touch of her fingers, or even when his hand meets the water. For a few moments William sleeps in peace, expression slack, his other hand curled tight and pressed to the side of his head. He wakes slowly—then with a jolt, knocking over the cup and reaching for his knife. His eyes make a quick, startled survey of his surroundings. Enough to register the fire, the food.

“Sorry,” he mumbles automatically, as though he'd drifted off during a budget report. Then, sharper, voice no longer thick with sleep: “What?”

William sits up, looking down, finally, at the dark patch on his pants. It's not big, but it is unmistakable.

His gaze darts to Ellie—there's that insane hope that maybe, somehow, nobody's noticed his abject humiliation—darts away. Comes to rest on the cup. “Oh, fuck you.” But he sounds more resigned than anything.

[ascocarp]

Ellie lets out a joyful peal of laughter. "Now you're officially part of the team. It's, like, an initiation ceremony."

It's, like, total bullshit.

"I'll plate you up some food, quit sulking. Sulk when you see the food. It looks totally gross." Yet she sounds more fascinated than anything, as she goes to grab some salvaged plastic plates and a skewer for the black-stained meat.

[omniavincit]

William at first takes her literally, the look on his face slipping from embarrassment into dismay. In his defense: he's newly returned to the realm of consciousness, and this does seem like a series of events bound to culminate in a game of touch football. Then he figures it out, what she's saying. You're one of us, now that I've made a laughingstock of you.

How familiar.

“If it's the same to you, I'm gonna go change,” he says, picking up his bag and nodding toward the phone booth, then wondering why he's telling her this. He manages a tepid smile—she's a kid and she seems, if not happy, at least pleased with herself. “You can tell me about your frat later.”

[ascocarp]

"What's a frat?" Ellie asks between bites of black meat. If he's not gonna eat, she'll make up the difference. No skin off her nose.

She turns her back to him, figuring he'll wander off and find some privacy.

[omniavincit]

Which he does.

After poking his head in the phone booth, William decides against using it as a changing room—instead he heads behind it to put on a new pair of pants and, why not, a different shirt. Everything has spider blood on it anyway. The pee-stained pants he tosses into the bushes: maybe fifty years from now someone will find and puzzle over them; maybe tonight some savage creature will pick up his scent and stalk him.

There isn't exactly a crowd to lose himself in, but he joins the line for food and makes a plate of mystery meat, a few crackers, a dab of dip he's not sure he'll be brave enough to touch. He doesn't sit where he was before, by the fire, and he deliberately doesn't sit anywhere near Ellie—he settles down by one of the upended trees, idly tries to match the people with what they might have contributed to the spread.

[ascocarp]

Ellie doesn't really keep an eye on William, either. Maybe the guy's sensitive. She has enough shit to do without worrying about some old man's feelings.

After a little while, though, William may notice her looking at him from across the fire. Or, well, if he's particularly observant, he'll notice she's looking just to the left of him. She tilts her head to the side before pulling the bow off her back and drawing an arrow.

If William doesn't move, it'll fly right past him and hit a chert right between the eyes.

If William dodges to the right, the same will happen.

If William dodges to the left... oops.

[omniavincit]

He tries not to look her way, tries to focus on his food—which honestly is the best he's had in a long time, smoky and greasy and hot. But he does—glancing up every so often, just to keep track—and when she whips out a fucking bow and aims it at his head, William drops his plate and lunges the the side. He's alert, present in a way he wasn't half a second ago, conscious of his heart and his breathing, the dampness of the air. The sound of the arrow burying itself in the chert. Angry, too—if Logan's here Ruth will be, and even if there weren't a blind person among their number, shooting off arrows at a picnic would still be dangerous and stupid.

It's his reaction he resents her for, for provoking what feels like an outburst even if all he does is pick up his bag and sling it over his shoulder.

“Thanks.” It's flirting with sarcasm, not quite there yet. His smile is more than sour enough to make up for it. “It's so hard to know the right time to leave a party.”

[ascocarp]

Ellie rolls her eyes, striding toward, and past, him to collect her winning. A chert impaled on an arrow, just as planned. "It's not all about you, dude."

She begins to take the arrow out, clean it off, and check for any signs of infection or rot on the dead animal in her hands. Black blood slides between her fingers. She pays it little notice. "When I was eleven, the kids in my room stuck porno mags under my bed the night before inspection. I had to do cleanup for like three weeks. You'll get over a little piss."

[omniavincit]

William bristles a moment with rejoinders that will, inevitably, go unspoken. “I'm thoroughly over it,” he says dryly, mildly. His enunciation deliberate.

He doesn't watch what she does with the chert, doesn't gauge her movements. He glances at her face, the blood smearing her hands. He thinks about turning to go, letting her words ooze out same as the dead animal's blood—what's the difference, in the long run? Who cares what happened in some other world when she was eleven? When this whole place is just a tablecloth spread over an abyss.

William breathes in, presses the heel of one hand to an eye. “Why,” he says eventually, more capitulation than question. “Why'd they do that to you.”

[techknowlogical]

Koushirou hasn't exactly been purposefully avoiding people, but he hasn't been seeking them out either. It's less about the people and more about having other priorities--exploring, gathering supplies for daily survival, working on solving puzzles--but it had just so happened that few of those thing had overlapped with being social.

But this is a little different. Working together is not a bad idea and, more importantly, he knows better than to pass up 'free' food or supplies. Of course it could be a trap, but that's probably unlikely in this particular case.

So he decides to show up, a little cautious but mostly curious, and immediately gravitates toward the food first. He's pretty quickly distracted by considering the cooked spiders and wondering if they're really edible--he knows a lot of 'normal' spiders at home are, but these aren't exactly normal--as well as figuring out what in the collected boxes and cans. Are those alternate-dimension twinkies?

Aside from being nosy, he can be found at the outskirts of the gathering area, sitting on the ground and typing on his laptop. He's keeping at least a little aware of his surroundings for once, but most of his attention is on the various images and the text file he's working on; if anyone happens to look at his screen, it's clear he's working on the writing system.

[snikthatch]

Logan spends most of the gathering on the edges of the party, more comfortable in that place, watching the shadows that are creeping between the trees. They're keeping their distance for now, but he's not about to turn his back on them. His gaze tracks newcomers as they arrive, measuring them up.

His gaze catches on the kid sitting at the edge of the makeshift clearing, typing away at a laptop. He wanders over, curious, until he's standing beside the kid. He can't work out what the boy is doing, but it looks a little like the scribbles on the wall where Ruth had contacted the black hole.

"What's that?" He asks, gesturing at the screen with the bottom of his whiskey bottle.

[techknowlogical]

He notices Logan approaching but doesn't say anything until directly addressed, glancing up briefly from his screen--purely out of politeness--before looking back at it as he answers.

"I'm working on the language." His English is improving but still isn't great, so it's probably clear it's not his first language. Although most of his computer displays use English, there are a few written in Japanese and his keyboard has hiragana printed underneath the roman characters, so if Logan is curious he can probably tell right away what Koushirou's native language actually is.

[snikthatch]

Logan can tell, not just from the language on the screen but also the kid's accent. He hunkers down beside him, not hiding the fact that he's reading over his shoulder. The weird alien language mostly looks like gibberish to him, but maybe it'll help them all out if someone deciphers it.

"What have you found out?" He asks, switching smoothly to Japanese. After years of living in Japan, it comes almost as easy as English, though his accent perhaps isn't the best.

[techknowlogical]

He's so not expecting the sudden switch to Japanese, let alone a switch to really good Japanese; he actually looks up from his screen again in surprise, though quickly returns his attention to what he's doing. It doesn't bother him that Logan's reading over his shoulder--he's quite used to that from his friends--and it makes it easier to point out what he's doing anyway.

"I think I understand the structure of the words, in how consonant and vowel sounds are placed, and there are a few individual letters or sounds that I believe I've narrowed down. However I'm still having difficulty correctly identifying enough of them to begin decoding, presuming that this is a language that could be translated into one of those that I know. If it is entirely unique, then it would be very difficult without at least a few words that we knew the translation for."

Which would suck, since then it would be basically a dead end until they could get more information.