kingdomcomes | INTRO LOG ☆ WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM

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INTRO LOG ☆ WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM

☆DAY ONE | THE GRAND ENTRANCE☆

When you awaken after a nice, long, deep sleep (facilitated by some herbs burning in the fireplace, perhaps) you have made your choice. When you exit your room, you’ll see a signpost in the middle of the corridor that you didn’t notice before. There are three signs, all pointing in different directions, with the words “Apprentices”,”Guards” and “Etc” on their own sign.

Potential Apprentices will head towards the very hall they entered just last night. The Mistress isn’t here this time. In her place there is a table and a long, open scroll of parchment with the words “APPRENTICE CONTRACT” written at the very top and a small, near indiscernible paragraph of what looks to be legal jargon under it. The only other obviously readable words say “SIGN HERE”. A quill and ink lies next to the parchment for this very purpose. Whether you linger to read the entire thing before you sign or simply sign, it doesn’t matter. If you get cold feet, you can leave. If you sign, a soldier will push yet another tome into your hands.

The tome contains a short, congratulatory spiel about the honor of being an Apprentice and proceeds to go into great detail about duties that sound an awful lot like castle maintenance. There’s talk of polishing knobs, sweeping corridors, wiping windows and mopping up after orgies but very little is said about magic.

It advises you to check the notice boards in the library at least once a month to accomplish tasks and earn coins. In the back of the book is a map that marks the important locations within the castle (including the location of your lovely, new room) and a sparse map of the kingdom. Think scribbles with “forest goes here” scrawled over the top.

Potential guards head into the courtyard, where a table is set up and surrounded by a small group of current guards. The table has a banner pinned to it that reads “GUARD SIGN-UPS” and upon approaching the table, you will be asked to beat one of the current guards in hand to hand combat. When that has been accomplished, they will ask about your previous experience with protective services, your experience with weapons and offer you the job. If you fail, you’ll be turned away (you also run the risk of being laughed out of the courtyard without a chance to prove yourself).

Upon signing up, a guard will take you on a tour of the castle, walking you through the barracks, the halls, the corridors and a few of the short cuts. You will be given a map, a weapon and taken to a nurse to unlock one of your powers (if you have one). Of course, you are warned of the consequences of misusing any of these privileges. Death, torture and a life spent in a prison cell are distinct possibilities.

They urge you to check the notice boards frequently for odd jobs to complete for extra spending money and shadow you while you try on your shiny, new uniform and tour the castle. You’ll be shadowed for about a week on duty before the guards get bored and let you do your own thing.

Finally, the et cetera. The last lot. You take your pride, your clothes and whatever you can fit in your pockets and you march with purpose (probably) toward your designated route. Maybe you’re angry, maybe you’re expecting a fight, maybe you’re getting fired up and ready to fight off anyone who tries to stop you.

You’ll be disappointed.

The corridor leads you to a very normal looking door that just...opens. Amazing. You step out of the castle and into the mud. It was raining, after all. There’s a guard there, waiting to escort you into the village. It’s about a ten minute trudge through the mud, and they lead you past beautiful towers, decent cottages and toward some worn down, empty shacks. One of these lovely hovels is yours to keep, and there’s even a little bit of food there for you.

You won’t get told anything about jobs or notice boards by the guard. Once they’ve dropped you off, that’s all the guard is obligated to do.

Snooping around the village will find you a notice board with jobs posted on it and information about some sort of tri-weekly market is readily available. If you want a job you’ll have to canvas, just like the good old days. The good news is that despite Mistress’ tyranny, the economy is pretty good. Many taverns, inns, apothecaries and brothels are hiring.

☆DAY TWO | THE FESTIVAL OF THE FOOL☆
The Off-Worlders have arrived at an opportune time, this month. People in the village might notice a hustle and bustle around them. Poles are mounted, banners are raised, euphemisms are crafted and everyone seems to be getting ready for something.

You don’t need to ask what it is, at first, because the banners indicate that it it’s April Fools. A little late in the month for it, you might think, but the occasion is celebrated for almost an entire month in this little Kingdom. After all, the Mistress does dearly love an opportunity to unleash malicious humor.

Thankfully, the festivities here are far from malicious. There’s food, drink, music and dancing all around town. Everyone is dressed in bright, colourful clothing and costumes and the Off-Worlders are encouraged to dance and celebrate alongside them. Cream pies, enchanted hand buzzers, the ol’ switcharoo with various possessions and other fairly lame pranks are standard.

Apprentices, guards and even outlier scum are encouraged to participate freely in the festival. It will be a week long binge of FUN.

-Food stalls provide free drinks of all flavours (some of which providing new sensations or strange tingles), cakes and baked goods (some of which are provided by the Fuck Bakery: Cakes that Make you Want to Fuck). It’s hard to differentiate the enhanced food from the regular food, but Off-Worlders will soon figure out that many people have a penchant for aphrodisiacs, enhancers and drugs in their food.

-Hookah pipes with many flavours to partake in, within silk tents amongst silk pillows for getting reeealllll comfortable. The warm, fruity scents are alluring and can have aphrodisiac-like effects if inhaled for long enough. They also lower the inhibitions and calm the mind, making everyone in the tent more open to suggestion.

-Jelly wrestling for prizes (of which you are free to take liberties) and shoulder wrestling for prizes (of which you are also free to take liberties) along with other familiar carnival games with erotic twists. Bobbing for candy dicks, pin the bikini on the nude girl, cock rodeos and extremely violent games of whack-a-mole.

-The brothels are in full force. Girls in ridiculous, skimpy costumes (think octopus, jesters or plague doctors) are outside selling their wares, they’re just too tempting to resist.

-Most exciting of all is the Fun Worm, who makes his way through the whole festival. He looks like six or so villagers under a really shitty costume, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone. On closer inspection, you will be lured in by the fun pheromones and powerless to resist them. Inhaling fun pheromones forces a big, cheesy grin on your face. Suddenly, fun is the objective and your inhibitions are severely lowered for an hour or so. He’s constantly cycling around the festival, so it’s hard to avoid him. What’s important to note is that the Fun Worm is a new addition, a gift from the travelling Fun Cult to enhance the festivities. The Fun Cult has brought fun and laughter to kingdoms far and wide, although those kingdoms became a lot less prosperous when their priorities shifted from trade and farming to jello shots and week long benders.

The festivities continue even through nightfall (lanterns will be lit, some of which float through the sky of their own accord, bonfires with incredible scents will be lit too) and will do so for the rest of the week.

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[ Oh jeez, oh gosh. This uniform sure is something else. Day one of guard duty and John doesn't really know what he should be doing with himself. He's been assigned to a relatively low activity post to start off with, partly because it's easy and partly because who the hell wants to do it, but that doesn't really help. People still walk by and he still feels insecure about the scantness of his uniform. He struggles between trying to pull down the corset top, pulling up the shorts that leave very, very little to the imagination, then pulling them back down when he inadvertently gives himself a wedgie.

He's in the middle of doing just that when someone approaches him, someone who looks like they don't belong as much as he doesn't. He stops the rather undignified tugging of clothes (what little he has, and straightens up, offering a smile. She looks sweet, and she's lost, and John "Mr. Suave" Egbert can't help but give her his undivided attention. It takes his mind off his attire, that's for sure. ]

Oh. Hey there! Uh.

[ He peers at her map, scratching his chin. Finally, he puzzles it out and points to a spot that's nowhere near her room. ]

I know this is where you are. Does that help?

Edited 2017-04-10 05:07 (UTC)

[Oblivious as she was, John would find that he was lucky enough to miss being caught in the seat-picking act. Unfortunately, as her gaze flicked upward, she found that her obliviousness was not nearly enough to protect her from the sight of the uniform itself. Angel had the displeasure of activating security cameras just in time to see a nude Psycho running across the screen, and yet somehow, this was worse.]

[At least Psychos weren't intentionally trying to show off the goods. Usually. These uniforms were another matter entirely.]

[The man couldn't be faulted for what his employer assigned to him, however, and he certainly wasn't the first guard she'd seen. Just the first one to smile at her and offer to actually help.]

[As he prodded her map, a sigh escaped her. She'd been close enough once she'd started, but considering the fact that she'd been sequestered to a lab chamber for most of her life, she barely had any sense of direction. And the map wasn't anything like the high-quality digital ones she was used to using.]

I... suppose it helps me figure out where I am. I don't suppose you know your way around enough to help me?

Oh. I don't know if I'm supposed to leave my post? It can't be too hard though, right? See here, you just...

[ He peers at the map again, as though he's going to try and point out the path to her, then realizes that he doesn't really have a clue him. But his "mentor" is rolling her eyes at him and making a shooing motion which he takes to mean as yes, this is your job now, go take her to her room. That's what he's going to believe anyway. Anyway, this girl seems nice, and she looks like she really could use the help and company, and it's probably better him than one of the native guards. ]

Hahah. I guess you just follow me then. At least if we get lost forever, we'll have company.

[ Honest assessment, or gentle jab? Maybe it's both; he doesn't give much indication, and instead starts off uneasily in what he thinks is the right direction. How does he always manage to get roped into this kind of thing? ]

[At first, a frown crossed over Angel's lips. She'd been hoping for help, not random pointing and gesturing as to where she should be. The map was vague enough as it was -- she didn't need anymore of that. Thankfully, the man seemed to think better of it, and she let out a silent sigh of relief.]

Yes I -- I suppose you're right.

[Not that she wanted to spend eternity lost at all, of course. She'd just managed to snatch her own life back (she still wasn't sure on the details of that mess). She'd be mildly annoyed if she was to spend it lost in a massive castle.]

I'm Angel, by the way.

[ John tries his best to make a good impression, but sometimes he falls a little short. His joke runs flat and he decides that maybe a different course might be better. When she introduces herself, he mentally breathers a sigh of relief, because it absolves him of having to switch the topic all on his own. ]

I'm John! That's a nice name. I bet you get a lot of cheesy pickup lines with a name like Angel, huh?

[ Strike two... John, you're really not playing your A game today, are you? ]

[Though she had to take a second to simply stare at the man, taken aback as she was, eventually a smile worked its way over her lips. She'd never had the pleasure, but the thought of it was enough to spark up some amount of mirth within her chest.]

[And considering her companion's apparently playful nature, she couldn't help but offer a quick ribbing right back.]

If I said no, would you attempt to be the first?

Well, I'd have to defer to the masters, but cheesy pickup lines are pretty great comedy in the right hands. Something that cliché would be hard even for them, though...

[ A little voice inside his head stops him and tells him that a nice girl just offered him a free pass to use a corny pick up line. No matter how trite, it'd be foolish not to, no matter what angle you look at it from. ]

But if I had to take a stab at it, I'd ask if you got that name before or after you fell from Heaven!

[ Still not his best material, but it wasn't much to work with. Anyway, she looks a little more relaxed to him, so that's a plus. ]

[Well, she certainly wasn't won over by the man, wasn't flopping helplessly into his arms in a fit of lust or anything else. But he had succeeded in amusing her. A delighted peal of laughter burst from her lips, one that she quickly tried to muffle with a hand.]

That's a good one, John.

[It sounded exactly like the kind of thing Axton would have said. Maybe it made her feel a little homesick, but it also left her feeling considerably more at ease around the man as well.]

Before, for the record. A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really.

[ Either way, he's pleased with himself. He's doing a good job! Also this is the first time in a long while he's tried to socialize with anyone new. He's really only talked to the humans and trolls he knew before moving to the new Earth... ]

Yeah, I kind of figured-- wait, what's that supposed to mean? Did you actually fall from Heaven??

[ After all, he's seen weirder things. Just look at what they got him to weird. If that's not weird enough. ]

[Much as Angel didn't like to think about herself or her abilities back home, there was something about John's humor that brought a certain fondness to the memories. She wished that she might be able to access her powers, to show him rather than explain (some things were impossible to believe, after all), but something about this place had pushed them out of her reach.]

[Or perhaps the cycle had simply reset itself, and the siren no longer possessed her abilities.]

No, no, nothing like that. [A giggle bubbled up in her throat.] But I did have wings, once.

Oh, hey. That's pretty cool! Could you fly? Or were they just for show?

[ Nothing about the way he says it indicates that he's joking or being sarcastic-- actually, he's legitimately interested. A girl with wings is really just par for the course, even mundane, after spending three years with your best friend turned weird bird ghost. ]

I could... float. Levitate. Something along those lines.

[It was hard to remember whether or not it was the injectors messing with the gravity around her, her abilities on overdrive, or if it was simply yet another latent ability that she had no control over.]

I don't know that it was the wings causing it, though. Sometimes it seemed like they were just for show.

Well, hey! Floating is pretty cool too. Real flying is pretty sweet though.

[ Is that a weird thing to say? When he just asked her if she could fly and she already said no? ]

If they ever let me fly again would you want to try it? It's the real deal, and it's totally safe!

[Honestly, screw floating. Angel looks absolutely thrilled to bits to hear about John's apparent ability to fly.]

Can you really do that? [She stopped moving, instead turning to face the man with wide eyes and a wider grin.] That is incredible! Please, I would love to see it in action if you ever can manage it!

Yeah! I could carry you on my back, or something!

[ Jeez, now he actually has motivation to behave himself. If it means he gets to take someone flying... most of his friends could already, so the novelty was lost on them. He hasn't had a chance to show off, really. ]

I think your room is just up this way. I think I have to go back to my post once I drop you off, but maybe we could hang out, when I'm not on duty?

On your back?

[She considered asking if he would be able to do so, before realizing that she likely didn't weigh all that much. Besides, he seemed a strong enough man -- at least physically fit enough to carry someone as small as her around.]

I'd really like that. [She glanced around, recognizing some of the architecture from the vague scribbles on her map. He was right, they were close.] You know where to find me, now, so. I... look forward to seeing you!

Uh yeah! I'll be looking forward to it too?

[ If he sounds unsure, it's only because he doesn't even know if that's the right thing to say-- but the sentiment is there, all the same. He stops and looks at the map again, and points out a door, three doors down. ]

I think it's that one. You can make it from here, right?

[All of the doors looked alike, really, but that wasn't the point. They were doors, the ones that had been seemingly described but impossible to find. She nodded to the man as she took a step forward, then hesitated.]

Is... there any way I can thank you. I'd offer money but... well I'm sure you understand why I can't do that right now.

Would you take an IOU?

Technically I'm already making money off this, it kind of is my job after all.

[ He shakes his head; he wouldn't accept money even if she had it, and even if he weren't already getting paid, anyway. ]

As long as we actually get to hang out again, that's enough for me! So, uh. Yeah!

That's... that's true, isn't it? [A short laugh left her, before she cut herself off with a quick nod.]

Alright, then. It is a deal. You know where my room is now -- come find me when you want to hang out.

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INTRO LOG ☆ WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM

day one

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