Log:A Way Out

A Way Out
What'd you go and do that for?
Participants Olivia Utridge, Saulot as ST	4 July, 2018 Olivia's continued survival in The Borrower's realm comes with a single bright spot. Olivia's Crucible
Location Arcadia
The lava pits seem endless. Any hope or chance of escape is completely impossible. As best she can tell two weeks have passed since she was dropped here. The violence that comes from those around provides at least some manner of distraction. She's had to add seven more to the list of dead. Some attack her outright, some refuse to give her a moment of peace. Now, she's left to her lonesome at the top of a rather high mountain. Despite how far she's traveled this volcanic hellscape looks to go on for forever. The list is longer than she can possibly keep track of now. Olivia doesn't go out of her way to kill others, but she doesn't hesitate when she becomes their target. She sits down as she reaches the top of the mountain, sighing heavily and looking around across the hellish landscape. Her elbows rest on her knees and she plunks her chin in her hands, eyes scanning for SOME direction. Something. Anything beyond this. The only direction she can see from so far up are the movemnts of a scant few dots on the ground. It doesn't take too long to deduce that they're people like her. Changelings and Lost, either surviving as best they can or terrified of what they've become. Eventually she can make out one of the dots moving in a specific direction, as if they know what they're doing and where they're going. Either they know a way out, or they've been to this place for far too long. The people buzzing around like ants aren't anything she can really do anything about. Olivia is exhausted and has mostly lost interest in actively helping them. She doesn't necessarily go out of her way to make things harder, but nor does she try to make them easier. So she just watches them, shifting uncomfortably in the heat. The fact that the heat is bothering her irritates her beyond words. Heat has never bothered her. She puffs out a small, annoyed breath between her lips and focuses her gaze on the one person that splits from the rest of the dots moving around, a brow rising curiously. She pushes herself up onto her feet again, watching for a time before beginning to make her way down the mountain to follow. From the mountain she goes. She doesn't quite remember when or even how. Likely passed out from the pain of the last. When she does keep moving her wings spread by instinct. Instinct has been much of what she's had to go on as the fucked worlds of arcadia have yet to conform to anything close to normal. She glides more than flies, practice with such things being difficult with so much heat. The one she's following swims within the earth and magma as if it's nothing but water, making a bee line around larger obstacles as he goes. Strange things happening to her are just... not so strange anymore. Sharp teeth, overly sensitive vision, control over ice instead of fire... it's all strange and messed up now. What are wings to the mix? Weaver has them, after all. Olivia feels them stretch out behind her, unfolding and stretching like any other limb. She glides overhead, watching the fire-swimmer as it moves across the ground. He's going somewhere, and she wants to know where. This flying thing is going to need a bit of work. He goes on for two hours, at least. Something close to that. Too difficult to tell. The constant heat gives her the added ability to glide with ease, and not put as much strain on herself. He eventually stops at a mountain. It's unclear if it's due to Olivia or otherwise, but he soon begins making his way up the mountain in the same way he was moving through the earth. Olivia is much more content with gliding than she would be with running. It's too hot to run. Especially for two hours or more. She angles her way up the mountain as the man she's following begins to make his way upwards, wings moving slightly to try and fly higher. Though her lack of practice may mean she has to walk for at least some of this. She indeed does have to walk, or at least climb. The effort to outright fly after him would be too much with all of the heat, and a fall from this high would be a very shattering. Left to use hands and feet, looking for something to clasp or stick her hand in on the way up. Up and up she goes, nowhere near as able a climber as she's done with tracking and violence. By the time she gains some ground she can see him for some kind of bestial thing. The second it takes one look at her it continues its ascent as nightfall comes, and she's forced to continue her climbing. Eventually past the clouds they go, and she can hear the faint sounds of something familar down below. Singing, a soft sort heard in her youth. Olivia climbs slowly and steadily. Carefully. She has no interest in falling, nor in losing track of the man she's following. Not when she's gone this far already. The sun sets and darkness comes in, but she doesn't mind; she can see alright. She continues upward, through the clouds, pausing briefly as she hears the sound of singing. Olivia glances back curiously, studying the world behind and beneath before continuing upward. That sing's cut off by the voice of a young man shouting something about the singer's voice stinking in more ways than one. In turn the voice of a little girl reminds him that his hair stinks, his breath stinks, and his his feet smell like death. After a while she remembers it. Her practicing her singing, and the not so distant Weaver mocking her to hurry up so they can go check out some weird nonsense near the Tam. It turned out to be nothing but a near dead turtle stuck on its back. The memory fades to the back of her mind, but that little bit of distraction was enough. The thing she was following is gone from sight. Nowhere to be found, and nothing thigh high up but the rush of wind and her beating heart. Sniffing at the air doesn't reveal much beyond that it stopped at a certain point not too far up, and vanished. No. It went through the mountain. Olivia can't help but smile a little bit at the memory that plays back in her mind, eyes closing briefly as she lets herself enjoy the momentary respite. The small, brief moment of childhood naivete. That brief moment of joy, though, is dampened by frustration as she looks back to find the other person just... gone. Her chin lifts and she sniffs the air, searching. It doesn't take much for her to figure out that it's gone INTO the ground. She's seen it before. Olivia frowns and huffs indignantly, pressing one hand against the dirt. "What'd you go and do that for?" she mutters. "Oh right, you probably think I'm going to kill you. Probably wouldn't believe me if I said that wasn't my plan." He might not be able to hear her, but she's talking to the air anyway. She purses her lips, thinking. She could go over. She could go around. Both those options are going to take time. Going over looks like it'd be one hell of a task. She still has some ten kilometers to go up, and around is even longer. Whoever it may have been can soon be heard swimming through rock again. Somewhere down below and to the far, far left. Before she can get to him another memory returns. The day she got her first guitar with her own money. Hers. Her baby. The first strum. The first note. The first song. All flooding back in a flood of memory that distracts her as the thing has circled around, and is now coming straight for her. Olivia turns her head slightly, listening to the sound of moving rock, feeling the subtle vibrations beneath her fingers. As she considers moving to try and intercept, her eyelids flutter, gaze unfocusing for a moment as the next memory comes forward to flash before her. She closes her eyes, sighing quietly before opening her eyes again to try and orient herself. What's going on? She has no reason to be randomly remembering these things. Something is happening. The thing is more bestial than man. Coveted in scales with claws that look like diamonds as they gleam in the night. Just as it comes barreling towards her it disappears under the stones. No longer seen again, but she can hear him moving right under the surface, pushing rock aside with the ease a swimmer moves through the waves. Olivia frowns and leans back a bit as the creature comes rushing towards her, preparing to simply let go of the edge of the mountain and glide down if she needs to. But it dives beneath the surface of the mountain again, and she simply tightens her grasp on the stones. "Hey," she repeats, moving one hand to pat her hand against the surface of the stone. "Seriously, how many people make an actual attempt to talk to you? Stop swimming in the rocks. I want to ask you something." He eventually stops, bursting through the rocks behind Olivia. Before she has a moment to say anything initially he pokes at her wings a few times. "Neat," it grumbles. When she turns around to get a good look at the thing he's as much a chimeric monstrosity as she's become over time. He's covered in scales as brown and dusty as the rock he's ticking out of, has the banded eyes of a frog, and his overly long tong is flat as it lolls out of his mouth. "What you want? Just going back to arena. You want arena?" Olivia squeaks a bit as her wings are poked at, a strange and unfamiliar sensation. Anyone touching her without intent to cause harm is a bit strange these days, but her wings haven't been touched at ALL yet. She turns a bit so she can look at him, bright eyes studying him curiously. "Why would I WANT it?" she asks, looking confused. "I'm just trying to get out of this... hotspot. I can't figure out which way to go. Everything keeps changing." He leans down on his arms there, staring at Olivia unblinkingly. The laconic beast eventually answers with a shrug. "Arena mean out of hot. Mean chance for home." He smiles, or something to the effect of it. It looks more like he's bearing his teeth as one predator to another. "Can't leave. Tried. Try. Try. Try. No holes. Claws not strong enough. No holes found." He shakes his head furiously, and sends dirty flying every which way. "...the arena means a chance for home?" Olivia asks, head tilting slightly. "Does that actually ever happen? Because I'm a little incredulous that he... it... would let us go by winning a fight or two. How many times have you fought there? How many people have actually gone home?" She squints thoughtfully, closing her eyes and turning her head away as the dirt flies, waiting until it's done before looking back towards the creature. "I KNOW there are other areas beyond this one. I've been there." The thing laughs at her. A raspy cackle that ends when it appears that Olivia is serious. "No fight or two. Fight. Big fight. Really big fight." He looks to his fingers, unsure at first, and then turns them all towards her. He balls his hands up again and repeast the process. "This many. Some times more. Never less. Other areas hurt. This one good. Real good. Want escape, not kill anymore." One big fight. Free for all. Last one standing. Olivia watches, considering, thinking. "This area hurts me," Olivia says, shaking her head a bit. "I don't want to stay here if I don't have to. I'm trying to get to some other place." She sighs and looks up towards the burnt sky. "I want to escape, too. I just don't know how. I don't know how I got here, much less how to get out." He stares at Olivia. Long and hard before speaking again. He kicks his legs beneath the rocks, and brings himself closer. He crooks a claw, calling her forward as if the very mountain could hear them. "I found hole. Small hole. Very very small hole. Cecil not strong enough to break it own on. No no no. You help me. I help you. We both free. You no tell. Yes?" Olivia looks at him warily, not entirely eager to get too close. Not again. "The last person that said they wanted to help me slit my throat and left me for dead in my sleep," she tells him quietly. "He's dead now." She doesn't elaborate further on that. It's implied. One hand gently rubs at her throat, a faint memory as she thinks. "I won't tell, no. I just want to get out."