awashlogs | Intro Log.

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Intro Log.

It's raining, it's pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He bumped his head and went to bed
And he couldn't get up in the morning.

ou wake in knee-deep water, cold as ice and stagnant, in a space that is far too echoey and spacious. It feels like a massive cave, but looking up... there's only one small, circular opening that shows grey sky and shines any sort of light.

It looks like a long trip upwards, a small cylinder with walls of brick that's just a little too high to reach, even when jumping. Getting out is probably going to be a bit of a task, especially considering the water is more than cold enough to make limbs go numb.

The dark makes it impossible to see much further, but the space seems large, all filled with water, but with no other way out, stone walls the only thing for an intrepid explorer to find. Oh, and to make things even better, it's raining today. Water from below (though thankfully only like, knee-deep), and water from above... how fun.

But most importantly of all... you're not alone.

Welcome to Awash's second intro log, everyone! Please review the FAQ and rules before playing. New characters have all woken at the bottom of the well in the middle of the town (which seems a lot bigger on the inside, somehow), and it looks like they'll have to put in some work to get out. Thankfully, they have some friends on the outside, this time.

Once out, they'll be free to explore the various locations the Town has to offer at will. Just try not to die on any of the far-too-rickety walkways.

Please feel free to ask any questions here and don't forget to greet your fellow players here!

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[Three years, then. Less time than Greed had been estimating, but still a pretty long time. Long enough that Ling had more than enough time to heal from the hurt of Greed's last (and first) lie, but not long enough that the bitter sting will have faded.

Three years. God.]

I don't know.

[He admits it grudgingly, his head tipping back to stare up at the sky for a few minutes.]

I don't know how the hell I came back in this body, either. You'd think it'd be with you if anything.

[But here he is, with his leather trousers and fur vest, his hair soaking wet and sticking to his forehead. They're definitely heading for a house in Ruga, because this is getting gross, he wants to be dry.]

I didn't regenerate, though. The last thing I remember is your sorry ass bawling over me, you and the runt and Lan Fan, and then . . .

[He gestures grandly with one arm, throwing it out.]

Ta-dah.

[The true proof of Ling's devotion here is the sheer effort he has to put in to stay attached to wet leather and nasty wet fur. This is gross and Greed's bad taste will be the death of him one day.

He hums, because he doesn't have any better guess than Greed does; they're both here somehow, with three years between them and Greed in a completely different body, one that already died for real before... The details aren't going to be filled in; somehow, he can already tell that much.

It's alright, probably. It's something.]

Strange, [is what he manages, finally peeling his face off the nasty-ass wet fur and daring to look around. Strange, probably no clear answer to any of this, and they're in this... only half-colored in town? It's like a bad coloring book.]

Lan Fan isn't here. [She'd have found him already, certainly--] This place... is a little uncomfortable, isn't it?

It's something.

[It's fucked up is what it is, and the little splashes of color amid the grey only make it worse. He scowls as the road changes to cobblestones beneath his feet; the first empty-looking townhouse he finds he tries the door.

It is, by great coincidence, the house he was assigned.]

Off.

[That's a real order, because all this leather and fur is coming off. Which is why it's good they're in his house, because no one deserves to walk in on that on their first day.

Is there a fireplace around here? There better be, he's gonna poke around for one, with or without Ling on his back.]

[Fine, fine, Ling peels himself off and drops lightly to the floor, watching Greed for a moment before he turns to look away and poke around himself. This sure is a house...]

Look at this!

[It's a laptop, whatever that is!! He probably shouldn't be holding it up by its corners, but look at it!]

What the hell is that?

[Bad news: no fireplace. Good news: the fur vest is off, draped carefully over a chair. He's still got the leather pants on . . . for now. But the laptop is distracting, and he comes over, frowning at it.]

A box? Open it.

[Bossy!]

[Baby steps. Ling motions for Greed to come over and look at this while he opens it, since he's not going to carry it around and also might have forgotten for a moment that Greed can't see out of his eyes with him. Get over here.

He cracks it open. It's not a box? It's kind of a box.]

I don't know what we're supposed to do with this.

[He ends up behind him, plunking his chin down against Ling's shoulder, arms snaking around his sides so he can reach the box too. Which is . . . both a very bizarre position to be in and also very much right, all at once. Of course he and Ling ought to be pressed together, that's simply how they function, but at the same time, he doesn't care for the way Ling is his own separate entity.

Odd.

Whatever.

He pokes and prods at a few of the buttons, tapping random letters, and suddenly--]

Hah!

[--it turns on. He is the computer master.]

[Breaking: 2 idiots from the 1910s discover computers. Ling leans back in the little space left to him and lets Greed do his thing without objection. He doesn't know enough about this mystery box to do anything else, and he's idly thinking most of the same things. It's strange to be two separate people, but - all things considered, including but not limited to Greed not being dead now, which is delightful now that he's not crying sloppily everywhere - well, it's also a little delightful!

Now what the hell does this box do.]

Huh! Now what? [impress him, computer wizard.]

[Master, computer master . . . it takes a bit more poking and prodding before he finds the trackpad, and a bit more time before he realizes the correlation between the moving mouse and the trackpad.

Clicking takes a while.

But! Eventually he gets it. Isn't he smart? Praise him, as he drapes all over Ling and does all this. Which is sort of uncomfortable, so--]

C'mon, let's go sit.

[He will, if allowed, yank Ling into his lap. The laptop's on Ling, Ling is on Greed, it works out beautifully.]

[Wizard sounds more fun! Ling is... not as fascinated by this as he was at first, the longer it goes on. His only contribution is holding up the mystery box and getting more and more bored, until Greed rearranges both of them to be furniture at once. Okay, okay. This is less holding effort now that he's got an available lap.]

So what does it do? What's this?

[He points at the screen so Greed knows which fun icon out of all like 2 or so he wants to see, by which I mean he pokes his grimy finger right up against the screen because he doesn't know how to respect a laptop. Anyway, show him MS Paint.]

This was a lot easier when I could just control your hands.

[He smacks his hand away as he says it. There's a hideous little smudge left behind on his laptop (his laptop!), and he'll have to clean that, or at least get someone to clean it.

But slowly, wobblingly, he heads over to Paint.]

What the hell is it, a paint box?

[Sort of. But he laughs as he draws a line, because that's kind of cool. And then the world's shakiest smiley face, that's sort of cute, in a stupid way.]

You wanted me to sit here.

[So it's his own fault that Ling is here and readily available to get his hands all over this screen. As for this paint box thing, he's much more interested than he was in the random typing. This smiley face... jesus. It's very stupid and very cute.]

Is that going to be me?

[where's the ponytail and the charm?!]

Hmm . . .

[There. There is the ponytail and the charm, and also the giant-ass grin.]

Now it's you.

[God it's atrocious. He loves it.]

I see it, I see it. This one is just for drawing? [Hmm, the inevitable,] My turn.

[He at least clears his hands away, though he hasn't the faintest idea how to get a new canvas. Instead his hands settle on Ling's hips, keeping him put, as Greed shifts and squirms and readjusts. This couch is, frankly, kind of shitty, and there's no fireplace, and he hates it already.

He definitely needs an upgrade.]

You even remember how I look enough to draw me?

Maybe I'm not drawing you, [he says, as he literally twists around to look at Greed over his shoulder and studies at his face. He does this several times while he works on his masterpiece, which is just down a little ways diagonally from Greed's artwork because they're both too dumb to use MS Paint properly...

It's a good one. He added the terrible fur collar because it haunts him.]

There, what do you think? [he draws this and just grins perfectly innocently about it.]

[To be fair, he absolutely bares his teeth at least once as Ling glances back at him, for no other reason than he's delighted to have them back. But he watches this masterpiece unfold, and it's . . .

Actually kind of accurate, honestly, and he barks out a laugh.]

At least you drew clothes. What the hell is wrong with my nose?

[Yeah, of course it's good. He should have been an artist instead of an emperor.]

That's how it looks— big.

[He's been twisting around so much that now, when he moves again to bop Greed on the nose, the laptop slips off his lap and he has to make a sudden lunge for it instead. Nothing but slapstick in this household.]

Oye, oye--

[FOR FUCK'S SAKE LING at least they both end up grabbing it, it's fine, they don't break his laptop on the first day they're doing just fine. All that extra strength (and Ling holding onto it too, that helps) means he only needs one hand to keep a grip on it, which is good, because his other hand is absolutely coming up to smack Ling's cheek.

It's not quite a slap. Just sort of . . . scolding.]

Careful. You break it and you're gonna have to learn enough alchemy to fix it, kiddo.

[But that being said . . . he sets the laptop on his lap, scowling at the back of his head.]

It's proportional. My hands are bigger than yours too, because you're like a size smaller than me.

Edited 2018-05-16 20:58 (UTC)

[Don't scold him, please, he abruptly doesn't know what to do with the fact that Greed can do that. Sure, yelling at him with a couple hundred thousand tortured souls was a lot more stressful, mentally, than getting whapped in the face, but also, don't whap him in the goddamn face.

He waves Greed's hand away and looks at his masterpiece again, drawing some random loops just because.]

Ah, was there someone in that body before you? Like me. [He's assuming that's a no, so...] That must be why you look like this.

[Instead of grafted into Ling's brain again, he supposes. With the time disparity, as well... this is his best working theory and it's barely that.]

Nah. This is all me.

[From his pointy shoes to his . . . not actually slicked up at the moment hair. He plunks his chin down on Ling's shoulder again, watching him draw those spirals. Do Ed next!]

I don't understand how I got another stone.

[Because he has it, he knows. He can feel it in his core, all those trapped souls ghosting around, fueling him. There's just one missing, and he's currently perched in Greed's lap, drawing stupid doodles.]

[What, draw an angry peanut? Thankfully he has a square centimeter to spare in this canvas yet to fit Ed in.]

Luck? Whoever did this is probably pretty scary!

[Because they magically produced a fucking Philosopher's stone and then dropped it down a well like it was nothing. That kind of power is pretty formidable. He doodles some more squiggly things in silence for a bit, then,] There isn't one of these things here for me.

[He should resolve that, probably... where is he supposed to go.]

[Pretty scary is right. But surely they'd sense if something like Father was crawling around, right? Ling and Mei both had sensed him from the moment he came to the country, though they hadn't realized it at the same. But what else could revive him?

Maybe somebody's making artificial Philosopher's stones here? But he doesn't feel any different. He's the result of Father's loneliness, his greed for material wealth and companionship and everything all drawn out. He'd surely feel other things if he was an amalgam of other kinds of souls . . . right?

Hmm. His ruminating is cut short as Ling says that. One hand grips his hip a little tighter, an impulsive reaction towards that hint of separation. Stay.]

Isn't stopping you from using it like it's yours anyway.

Edited 2018-05-16 21:52 (UTC)

[Surely, surely - it's strange enough that Greed has been plucked back from death (again) and put into a body that should already be gone, permanently. Ling doesn't want to think too deeply about what kind of thing could do that even more effortlessly than Father; they'll have to think about it sooner or later, but right now he's keeping it simple: squiggle drawings. Greed here and not dead.

And this isn't his house, but Greed's grip makes a wry grin tug at the corner of his mouth. Please, only one of them is supposed to be clingy.]

What's yours is mine? [haha, jokes, but also not entirely because he's special and they both know it. Anyway, after a beat,] I'll come back after I take a look.

You're going now?

[No, he thinks stubbornly, no he doesn't want that at all, and yet he releases his hip, freeing him. Far be it for him to be like some sort of jealous girlfriend.]

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