hadriel | Video One: The Play's the Thing (backdated to August 12th)

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Video One: The Play's the Thing (backdated to August 12th)

[the video opens on a young woman sitting sideways on a large, overstuffed armchair. legs crossed and slung over one arm, head resting on the other. she's got an anticipatory smile on her face, like someone who has a secret]

First thing is, I don't know most of you and most of you don't know me, so Alice? This is Hadriel. Hadriel? This is Alice. Moving on.

Okay, I think we're all in agreement that the entertainment options around here? Suck. [she waves a hand] With the exception of the Speakeasy because who doesn't love booze? But anyway, entertainment!

We have no TVs. No movies. No internet. Not even books. [she rolls her eyes to show what she thinks about that option] But there's one thing we do have and that's people.

And what can you do with people, I can hear you all asking. And the answer to that is plays. Acting! And I even have an idea for the play: the history of Hadriel. 'Cause not all of us have been here five million years.

First act can be a drama, the story of when it was just you guys, Fear and Hope. Second act is a comedy, the weird shit that happened when the rest of the gods came back. Third act? The Null attack. Which will be a musical. And you can't talk me out of that one, so don't even bother trying.

So I'm looking for volunteers! Actors, stagehands, costumers, set painters, shit like that. So fucking volunteer. And those of you going out to sea, don't worry. It's gonna take some time to get things organized, so you can get in on this, too.

((OOC: this is entirely the brainchild of Rey-mun who was kind enough to let my character be the public face of her idea. Thank you so much!))

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That's good, 'cause we're gonna need stuff built. Probably starting with the stage itself. I need to scope out empty buildings, see which one would be best.

[Nate originally glanced over this particular post because he does have an interest in theatrics - he spent the better part of his adolescence doing street comedy and magic for tourists when not stealing - so it all sounds good until...this.]

...I don't wanna be a downer, but in case you guys haven't noticed, we don't have anything to build with.

[Exhibit A: the landscape behind him, which is a wasteland of stumps.]

Some assholes cut down all the trees.

[she shrugs]

So we find a building with an area that can be turned into a stage. Or maybe it could be a theater in the round kind of thing?

Well shit that ain't good.

[That certainly brings up a few complications. Also, Magnus is glad he hadn't started any major carpentry projects living here yet, cause he probably would have added a lot more to the problem.]

Yeah, if you can find an area that just needs minor fixing I can probably salvage what's already there and fix it up just fine. I can work with stuff that isn't wood too, so if we gotta get creative with stuff I think we'll manage.

[Plus he's got the pocket workshop and he's always got some scraps laying around there from past projects.]

No, it sure isn't.

[she's trying to not let anger show on her face but the fact is, she's angry that people chopped all the trees down just to serve themselves and some wild goose chase]

Okay. I'll start looking for a building that wouldn't need a lot of effort or lumber to transform into a workable theater. You can help if you want, you'd probably have a better idea of what would be okay than I would.

I'm sure I can work with whatever you find! But I can also look around once I'm back if you haven't found anything.

And if I find anything cool while becoming one with the sea I'll see if I can bring it back and use it for something.

[He's improvised with all sorts of things before and there's probably some cool shit in the ocean that might be useful.]

I'm hoping for a restaurant. The kitchen could be converted into a backstage, dressing room area. And [this is hard, she's not used to thanking people] And thanks for your help.

[she grins] You do that. I bet there's all kinds of wild stuff out there.

[and she's flying by the seat of her pants, that and what she remembers from hanging out with theater kids back in high school]

That sounds like a solid plan to start with at least! That would probably give you enough room to work with!

[Flying by the seat of your pants tends to work for Magnus 90% of the time. So it's all good.]

No problem! It's good to find things to keep you busy in a place like this! By the way, my name's Magnus! Nice to meet ya.

That's what I'm hoping. There's gotta be something workable around here somewhere. Now all I gotta do is find it.

[it tends to work for Jane, too. at least until she found herself here]

It's nice to meet you too, Magnus. Been here long?

About three months that I can remember. Apparently I've been here before once or twice, but I don't remember any of those times.

[And here he thought they'd figured out all their memory loss shit back home, but Hadriel just has to be a dick to him.]

So I'm not gonna know much about what's going on in this play! Maybe I'll learn somethin' new once it's up and going!

Seriously? That's gotta be weird. People knowing you and you have no clue who they are.

[Hadriel tends to be a dick in general]

Yeah, I've got loads of interviews I've gotta do before I even get started writing.

Yeah it's a bit weird, but hey back home I just remembered like 100 years of missing memories that got eaten by a giant jellyfish, so I guess I should be used to shit like this.

[Weird shit happens like this to Magnus all the time]

I'll double check on how long some of my friends have been here, some of them might be able to help out.

[she blinks in confusion] I'm sorry, did you just say your memories got eaten by a giant jellyfish? How does that work?

[and she should be getting used to hearing about all of the weird shit, but nooooope!]

I'd appreciate that. I wanna know as much as I can and not just the scary things. The gods gotta have something of a sense of humor.

Yeah, it's kinda complicated. There's something called the Voidfish back home that if you feed it information it'll erase it from all existence until it decides to release it again. So those one hundred years my friends and I lived got eaten and we forgot all about them until recently!

I named them Fisher when we first found them as a baby like fifty something years ago!

[she shakes her head with an expression of mixed amusement and amazement] How does that--how does that even work? How do you even react to getting that many memories all at once?

How old are you, anyway? You don't look any older than me.

Oh, it wasn't super fun getting them back. Rushed back all at once. But hey, at least a giant world ending monster thing attacked immediately after, so it gave us all something else to focus on.

[Though really, he's totally chill with it all now. But in the moment it was very overwhelming.]

Physically 33 but you can technically add 100 years to that. My friends and I were stuck in a time loop for 100 years. We'd live in one reality for a year and then jump to the next one before the Hunger, aka the giant world eating monster, caught up with us again.

[That's the relatively simple explanation.]

[mind. officially. blown]

Yeah, I guess that would. And who's "us?"

[she can imagine. wait, no, she can't actually imagine. her world is completely "normal," with no supernatural elements at all]

A world eating monster? Like all worlds or just your world? And how did you jump between realities? That sounds really wild.

[and even that is enough to confuse the heck out of her]

Oh, my friends and I. We were part of an exploration team from the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration. There were seven of us all together on the team.

The Hunger was trying to destroy all reality. Our world was one of the ones that was destroyed but we escaped in the Starblaster, which was our ship, right before our home world was destroyed. We'd try to save the world we ended up on before the year ended and the Hunger arrived, but we couldn't always manage.

[Which sucked a lot, but it was their reality for a very long time.]

"Planer?" What's that? I've never heard of it before.

Okay, that sounds really scary. [she considers] And probably really sad when you couldn't manage to, y'know. Save the world.

[this is all way beyond her usual experience]

They're like different planes of existence. Like back home we called where we lived the material plane but there are other planes like the plane of magic and the asteral plane and a bunch more. Honestly, I still get kinda confused by it, but I also wasn't once of the science-y people on the trip.

But our original goal was to visit the other planes in our own system, but we ended up in a bunch of different realities from our own.

[He knows about it since he did live through it, but he certainly wasn't one of the ones doing all the studying and research. He was the head of security, after all.]

Yeah, but after a certain amount of time you can't really focus on the ones you've lost. We were able to help some of the places we went to. So it's better than nothing.

[And they're trying like hell to save the one that they live in and have made their current home.]

[she gapes] No. Fucking. Way. Really? Stuff like that's real? And you've been there? Holy shit. I had friends back in New York who babbled on about the astral plane, but they were usually high.

Doesn't that mess with your mind, though? Seeing all of those other realities? [something occurs to her] Were there other yous in those realities? What was that like?

[EVEN SO this is probably the coolest shit she's heard since coming here, she has her head propped up on her hand and she's all wide-eyed]

No, no, that makes sense. I mean, nobody's perfect? And the ones you were able to save, that's a really big deal to them?

[she'd wish him luck with that if she knew]

Yup, it's all real!

It kinda messes with my head, but the novelty wore off after twenty or so cycles. Though if I try to think too much on the science behind it, my brain does start to melt a bit.

[He's not dumb, but there's so much technical stuff about how the Light of Creation worked and how they were using it that just went over his head. He could only pick up so much information along their travels before it started to leak out his brain.]

Nah, there weren't any clones of us. All the different realities were their own universes. I mean, I guess it's possible there could have been other versions of us out there, but we never ran into any.

[Magnus saw a lot of shit out there, so it wouldn't really surprise him that much if it were true.]

Granted, their worlds still got slammed by the Hunger, so they certainly would have to pick up the pieces but at least we were able to leave them in one piece. Relatively speaking.

Holy shit.

Seriously? It wore off? I'd be all mind blown every time. Granted, the Earth I came from is boring. I wouldn't be able to figure out the science, either, that was never my best subject in school.

[she's not dumb, either, but she never bothered to apply herself. she'd probably try to apply herself to something like that, but she'd fail]

That's even more wild. Every movie about other dimensions and stuff I've seen, there's always another version of the main character out there and they can't meet or else bad shit happens.

[she wouldn't know what to make of another her. probably be jealous if the other her had a better life]

This Hunger thing, it's really not messing around, is it?

Some of the worlds were cool, but there were a bunch of times where it was just an empty planet, so sometimes there wasn't much going on. Though we did land on a beach planet about twenty years in and just had a sweet vacation for a year.

[He's not sure what a movie is, but he thinks he gets the point of her comment.]

We never ran into that problem, but hey maybe my clone would have been the evil version of me and I would have had to fight him or something. That'd be kinda cool.

[And by kinda cool it would be SUPER COOL AND FUN and now he's disappointed he never had to fight his chaotic evil self.]

Nope. We ran from it for a century and back home it had just found us after 12 years of searching. We were in the middle of fighting it, hopefully for the last time, right as I got dragged here.

An empty planet? Hope you got along with the people you were with, otherwise that could get old quick. [an exaggerated sigh] A beach planet. Wouldn't that be nice instead of these crappy little islands we're stuck on. Have a Mai Tai, go for a swim, work on my tan. . .

[yay for context clues]

Yeah, yeah, that's usually how it works! There's a good you and an evil you and there's a fight to the finish. Very dramatic and exciting.

Oh, man, really? That sucks. Not knowing how everything's gonna turn out.

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Video One: The Play's the Thing (backdated to August 12th)

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