asgardmeridiem | OPT-OUT EVENT LOG: SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT, WEEKS ONE AND TWO

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OPT-OUT EVENT LOG: SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT, WEEKS ONE AND TWO

The volunteers from the LOCUSTS! event last month found in Odin's office endless research into Ginnungagap and a handwritten note from the King prior to his collapse. All arrows are pointing in the direction of the sacred canyon, and so it is that the Travellers will be initiating their own investigation into whatever Odin believes may be down there. It will be done without the eyes of the gods, however, so the trip will be a dangerous one without a map to lead the way and there may be many unforeseen obstacles along the way.

Day 441 ( April 30/May 1 ): As per the whispers on the street, the Travellers that've decided to go on this trip will meet up in the earliest hours of Day 441 at the Gate of Fire. Pack and prepare for a long haul, as this one will be a difficult journey. Any of those that went on the Down This Road opt-out event may want to offer up their memories as a vague guide into the canyon, but either way - without the guidance of the gods, making it to Ginnungagap safely will be nigh impossible.

After the Travellers sneak their way out of Asgard, they will make way towards the canyon to the east. Travel will be slow and difficult, particularly in moving through the forests that have been ravaged by the recent flooding. When they make camp for the evening, they will suffer the same strange sensations as those in Asgard just before 11PM: they will simultaneously feel a flicker in their bodies, like a missed heartbeat or a cut-off breath. Those in Freyr house that were present for the god's death and those that were present for the Friendly Fire event will recognise the sensation; it will happen twice more before one final blip. In that moment, everyone will essentially have a minor blackout: their vision will fade, their bodies will freeze, and there will be an internal sensation of dropping.

After this, the Travellers outside of the city will feel something of a drag towards Ginnungagap. It will feel like an outside force beckoning them inward, to someplace they belong. The compulsion will be relatively easy to overcome, but it will linger all throughout their journey through the depths of Yggdrasil.
Day 443 ( May 4/5 ): Approaching the border between Asgard and Ginnungagap will bring the Travellers closer to the Fire Giants' kingdom of Muspellheim. From this distance, they will just barely be able to make out the great volcano, still lit at its peak, and a heavy black cloud that lingers over most of the kingdom. In this area, it may behoove them to keep an eye out for Giant patrols and pockets of defects from Surt's ranks, all seeking safe ground somewhere in the relatively neutral territory of Ginnungagap. They will be volatile and attack upon sight, but no groups will be any larger than five, maybe six at most.

As they sneak and fight their way across the plains, they will find that Ginnungagap is sparsely littered with old trees and short, soft grass on the outskirts of the canyon, streams flowing from varying mountain peaks into the vast space below; deeper within, it is sheer rock and sharp edges that are harsh and unyielding. If one were to look at it from above, they might think someone stabbed a knife into solid stone and carved out a jagged wound, and so it is moving through the canyon itself, where one false step can lead to certain and painful death.

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What does a hand drawn steak taste like anyway?

[ a synthesizer is one thing: it was science that assembled the steak to perfection, but for a steak to be doodled out? how did the artist represent a steak, perfectly seared and seasoned? ]

and I didn't get anything too interesting— just the ability to stay perky all day without any sleep. So if any of us needs to go out hunting... I'm your man.

[ energy drain, in other words. he hasn't found much use for it besides pulling all nighters, but hey. something was certainly better than nothing. ]

There's no way I'm eating something that lives out here. ( which is perhaps not the most adventurous viewpoint, but he doesn't have anything to scan foreign meat with and they'd no doubt under or over cook the thing and end up with some kind of horrible case of food poisoning. )

You'll have to think of something else to do with that energy, Jim.

( he shakes his head and reaches into his own pack, pulling out a small loaf of bread that hasn't gone too stale yet. )

We'll stick to more conventional camping.

Well, hard tack and grog it is.

[All right, not quite literally, but near enough now that Leonard's pulling out some bread. Evy opens up her bag and digs around until she finds bags of dried fruit and jerky.]

The animals out here aren't too bad, you know. Aside from the giants, of course.

Come on Bones— where's your sense of adventure? I'm sure a campfire's capable of decontaminating any meat you find questionable.

[ because it has to be a germ issue, and while Jim has reservations of his own about eating what could be a magical rabbit, food is still food.

hard tack gives Jim a newfound appreciation for old time explorers; they had to have been tough as grits to survive eating the stuff, while dealing with scurvy and inaccurate star maps and who knows what else.

the thought reminds him that he did need to pick Evy's brain on the subject, or various related, when they weren't in danger of being murdered by marauding trolls. he assumes that archaeologists did quite a bit of field work, and that perhaps for Evy, all of this was second nature. ]

Camp often, Evelyn?

I'm sure. ( that's nodding at evy with more grace than he manages for him. he busies himself with ripping the bread into equal pieces, and then passing it between the three of them to go along with whatever else they have.

he doesn't know what he'd been expecting of the region outside the city, but he has to admit there's a strange kind of beauty to the landscape. he's still wary of it, but it isn't as awful as he'd feared. at least not yet.

but when jim asks the question he turns back to evelyn, interested himself in the answer. )

Since coming here, I suppose. I spent most my time at home in the city--Cairo, that is.

[Leonard would know that, but she's not sure Jim would, whether or not that claim of babbling is to be trusted. And here she pauses, considering, as she takes her share of bread. (Leonard gets a smile of thanks for that--dried meat and fruit are more palatable with something a little less petrified looking.)

She doesn't want to talk about the adventure, as she's begun to think of it, in great detail, but this is one she can pull from it without that queer feeling of guilt overcoming her.]

I was, however, camping--after a fashion--just before I came here, and it makes our lunch today look like a feast. We were in the Sahara, you see, and by the end of things, we hadn't much more than what one of my companions could catch. And that is why I can tell you without question that I'd much rather eat a deer from these forests than another monitor lizard.

[ as far as Earth goes, it's not the most interesting of planets, but that's coming from a guy who spent most of his formative years in Iowa. The picture Evy painted made the planet sound exciting. ]

I've suddenly got a new found appreciation for the food we've got. [ hard bread or not, it probably beats eating lizard, and he tries not too much of a face when he swallows his first bite ]

So, were you digging up Nubians? Phoenicians? [ a beat, followed by a grin ] Or maybe something undiscovered?

( monitor lizard. he may wince a little at the mention, because honestly it's a bit much. maybe he shouldn't be so hard on the synthesizers.

he's munching quietly on his own food, which isn't half bad all considered. it's edible, and familiar, and with any luck will last them until they're back to asgard. new-found appreciation, indeed. )

Makes the old tin can seem like a five-star hotel, doesn't it. ( and yes, maybe he's referring to the enterprise like that just to piss jim off. )

At least there was someone else to do the catchin'.

Something undiscovered.

[She doesn't grin to match his, though; her expression draws a bit more closed, her lips thinning. The conversation's touching a little too close to subjects that have been painful for her lately, and as much as she loves to talk about the Book of Amun-Ra, she'd rather not get into the Book of the Dead.

Affecting a lighter tone, she changes the subject.]

But I doubt my travels have anything on a starship captain's.

If you can find a hotel as good as our ship— [ he shoots Bones a look ] I'll eat my shoe.

[ he'd kick Bones for that dig at the Enterprise if it hand't been for company. but he notices Evy's change in expression, as subtle as it is, and he changes tack. Jim's got the emotional capacity of a teaspoon, but even he isn't brusque enough to touch on a subject he knows is a sensitive. ]

Exploration's interesting, no matter where you go. But we've got a few good stories of our own— [ he pauses to think, trying to remember of a time when both he and Bones were on the ground ] like this one time, when Dr. McCoy wouldn't abandon his Hippocratic oath and decided to operate on a pregnant Gorn.

[ is it breaking the prime directive to talk about other races when you're trapped in a world of magic with people from other universes? the world may never know. ]

( if that is breaking the prime directive, mccoy's already done that a dozen times since being here. he's taken the "you'll forget all about this once you're home" clause to heart, and even if he hadn't he wouldn't have cared too much. starfleet's regulations have always seemed a bit unnecessary to him. )

I don't know if a c-section's exactly dinner table conversation, ( he says, arching a brow. ) And you're leaving out the part where you and the rest of the crew were fighting gorns while I was birthing them.

( which, in retrospect, seems a little counterproductive. but there had been a pregnant gorn, what was he supposed to do? )

[The conversation quickly turns to their world, and while Evy understands the general gist of it, the finer points are lost on her. She listens with interest, but when there's a pause in the conversation, she takes advantage to make an inquiry.]

Er--what is a Gorn?

["Some manner of beast" is the best guess she can come up with.]

[ ahh, good times with the Enterprise and crew. he smiles nostalgically, almost as if he misses life or death struggles with giant lizard creatures from another galaxy. ]

They didn't seem that interested in talking things out.

[ he says in a matter of fact tone, before turning to answer Evy's inquiry. ]

They're a reptilian species— smart as hell, taller than your average man, and prone to biting. [ the biting information courtesy of Bones. he pauses for a moment to think of a good comparison 20th century analogy. ] Kind of like your monitor lizards.

Except more territorial. ( he says that with a grimace. still, he does miss the relative normalcy of it all-- at least, back home, there'd been some kind of expectation that you'd encounter new species and new worlds and all of that. here, they just sort of get thrust at you with no warning. )

I figure we ought to switch, one day. You can take us along to the pyramids.

Edited 2014-05-07 02:23 (UTC)

They sound a bit nastier than "my" monitor lizards.

[She's smiling then, but she positively beams at the thought of trekking around Giza with the pair of them. They'd only start there, of course; after the Great Pyramids, there's the temple at Karnak and the approximate location of Alexandria's library, and so on and so forth.]

Only if I can come aboard your ship. There's nothing in the world like it at home. [It occurs to her that Jim, again, might not be aware just how true this is, so she offers him a bit of explanation.] I'm afraid my world is about two hundred years behind yours; it was 1926 when I left.

Two hundred! [ he blinks, trying not to look overly surprised ] That's pretty far back.

[ even farther back than they'd get by slingshotting around the sun in a klingon warbird. he'd love to see the period, back before they'd nearly destroyed the earth with nukes and the eugenics war. flappers, the Great Gatsby.... he could do without Prohibition though. ]

I'm sure the Enterprise could make do with another science officer, as long as Spock's learned how to share. [ he quickly adds on an explanation, in case ] Spock's a friend of ours— great guy, great sense of humor— he just gets a little too possessive about his job title.

Oh, yeah, he's a real peach. ( it's a pavolovian response, by this point: someone mentions spock and mccoy lifts his brows disparagingly. it's not that he doesn't like the vulcan-- they have, in fact, something of an understanding-- but his manner leaves something to be desired. )

Anyway, if this place has figured out no strings attached time travel, we might as well make use of it.

[Evy listens to them talk about this Spock fellow, amused. She has just enough detail to follow along.]

Once we can convince them to let us leave, anyway.

[Because as lovely as these castles in the air sound, they don't amount to anything if everyone's still trapped in Asgard.]

I doubt I could stay long enough to be any sort of an officer--but I'd like to see what the stars look like when you aren't standing on the ground.

Once you've see them seem up close, you'll have a hell of a time convincing yourself to leave. Assuming all the vaccinations Bones'll give you don't scare you off.

[ he winks, half joking, half serious, knowing that the scenario they were outlining would almost never come true. regulations, time travel shenanigans, paradoxes— he still can't shake the feeling that this romance could be wiping out a future generation of librarian children.

Jim's sure that Cairo is nice, wonderful even, but nothing truly compared to space, or the adventure that came with it. he wants to talk about his ship, how the Enterprise was the finest ship in the fleet and the first chosen for a Five Year Mission, but he's distracted by the sudden thought of what he'd do if they really were stuck in Asgard ]

How long have you been here anyway, Evelyn?

Same as everyone else, I'd bet. Too long.

( it's a strange thing to consider, really. the best outcome of all of this would be the gods getting their act together, defeating the giants, and sending everyone home. but that would still leave something to be desired, wouldn't it?

he huffs, sitting back on his heels. )

Edited 2014-05-09 04:19 (UTC)

[Evy's painfully aware for a moment or two just how callous it might sound to suggest she'd gladly see Leonard romantically and then leave for her own world without a second thought. But at this point, suggesting they might be anything more permanent than that is a promise she might not be able to keep--and considering that they've yet to actually go on a date, it's rushing things, anyway.

But it sounds rather cold to her nonetheless. She's more than happy to talk about something else when the opportunity arises.]

A few months now. And unlike some people--[a glance in Leonard's direction, smiling]--I rather like it. Well--mostly, anyway.

He doesn't enjoy much; you get used to it after a while. I like it here enough.

[ maybe Bones enjoyed not enjoying things. who knew. he glances from Evy to Bones and back again, gauging the situation, and deciding to hold back on his romantic advice (and help) until he had a better read on their relationship.

being the third wheel really was awkward. ]

( there's maybe some small part of bones that appreciates the reversal of this situation, but he doesn't dwell on it. he's about to say that he enjoys plenty, and everything just happens to ruin most of those things before he has a chance, but that doesn't seem like it would help his case very much. so instead he gnashes his teeth and looks at them both pointedly. )

I'm here, aren't I? How we feel about it isn't really going to change that one way or the other.

Though, when it's not under water, I s'pose the city could be worse.

So you are. And I'm glad you've come. [She touches his arm gently. It's always nice to have company on these sorts of things; the last one, the trip after the flood, wasn't terribly pleasant.

But wow, way to leave Jim out of things again.] Both of you, really--the more, the merrier. And the better chance we've got of getting something worthwhile out of this entire business.

[ this lovey dovey stuff, with the touching and glancing and smiling? was really weird. he'd find an excuse to go off, something along the lines of 'i need to do some reconnaissance', but this was also fascinating in its own way. ]

We've got a good crack squad organized here; I figure there's nothing here we can't handle.

[ smuuuuuug ]

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