Pahuuden Maa Event Catch All Log

[tramitem]

Who: You and everyone else
What: Exploring Pahuuden Maa, the newly expanded universe
When: Pre-dated Dec 15 - but all events in this thread happen Dec 21 - Jan 4
Where: Pahuuden Maa
Rating/Warnings: Please add approprite CW/TW labels to your threads if necessary when necessary
NOTES: Solstice Plot Dec 2020: Pahuuden Maa


Welcome to a new universe, everyone.

Please use this as a Catch All Log Event post for all your winter adventuring needs. You may use the link above to remember all the various things you can do in this new space. But below, we've listed a summary

1. Visit the Ice Palace

• The Ice Palace has gardens with ice and snow sculptures
• There is also the ice maze to have fun in.
• The Ballroom
• Fine dining

2. The outdoor ice rink

Spend a day skating the whole way around, there are skate rentals and food all the way around the rink.

3. Visit the Ski Lodge

• For skiing and snowshoeing
• Rent a room for a night or week, or whatever
• There's the dining room for a good warm meal
• The saunas
• The hotsprings

4. Explore the Mountains and Forests

• Go for a walk
• Take note of the unique plants (get high?)
• Take a picture of the unique animals
• Run into a wild Energy Burst

5. Visit the town

• Go shopping!
• Go for a sleigh ride
• Remember, there's a big trolley pulled by a team of reindeer that is essentially a bar on wheels
• Visit the reindeer stables
• Run into/capture some mischievous Energy Bursts

6. Generally marvel at the magic in this place

7. Have fun!

Comments

[traceofeffort]

Lisa isn't certain she's met Ellie in person, hermit she's been, but she's happy to see someone that she even kinda-sorta knows. Her own smile, mind, is a little more amused, but she doesn't let it color her tone too much, waving eagerly toward herself.

"No, no, please! Anything but standing out there any longer than you have to!"

[seawalled]

"Thanks, luv." It's six of one, half a dozen of the other if she's red-faced from cold or slight embarrassment, but she drops her robe with a squeal of protest at the cold before sliding into the water.

"Ooo! Well, that's sure a one-eighty, now isn't it?" Her eyes are wide with the shock of adjusting to the extreme change of temperature, but she's grinning, even so: determined to enjoy herself despite the obvious age gap between them and the new situation. Only once she's settled into the water does she realize Lisa might not recognize her.

"Ellie," she reminds her, reaching out a dripping hand. "From the Network?"

[traceofeffort]

Lisa does recognize her, thankfully, but the reminder certainly helps anyway, and she stretches out her own hand, not quite wrinkly from the water yet, to shake. "Mm, I remember, I think! Sorry, school's really done a number on my sense of time. Nice to meet you in person, yeah?"

...but boy, once she's shaken Ellie's hand, she retracts hers into the water. It certainly isn't getting any warmer out here. And on that note- "How's your vacation going, such as it is?"

[seawalled]

"It's alright. I know it's been a while since I was in uni myself, but I remember it being a pretty crazy time. Especially once I got to those last couple've years." She, too, huddles down in the water, giving a contented hum as the current of the springs sends slow ripples of warmth over her limbs.

"It's been fun! I just got back from going through the maze at the Ice Palace, that was really neat. Definitely need this soak afterwards, though."

[traceofeffort]

Lisa shakes her head, sighing a little. "Yeah, I'm kinda hitting that point. And being in what's basically an art program isn't exactly helping either. I've got a lot of quality time with my laptop and my bass in front of me, never mind my textbooks for my more normal stuff."

...Then some of her hair comes into her field of vision and she sees ice crystals forming in it from the steam. Nope, that won't do. She briefly dunks her head, only managing to keep it under for a second or two before she pops back out and hisses. "Damn, I don't know why I did that. Maybe hearing about the palace made me cold by proxy. Glad you enjoyed it, though! I've been thinking about hitting that up myself."

[seawalled]

"I've always wondered what art studies look like, once you get to the end of it," Ellie confesses. "Do you have to create something as a final project? An album, or something like that, instead of a thesis paper?"

Her eyes widen in surprise as Lisa sticks her head under the hot water. "Oh my God, Lisa, be careful! What if you'd burned - I don't know, your eyes?!"

Ellie has heart, but sometimes she does not have too much in the way of knowledge.

[traceofeffort]

Lisa chuckles, although there's a little bit of an uncertain edge in it. "It's normally some kind of final project or something like that - something to prove you can mechanically do the things you've been learning. Maybe not a whole album, I'd be in a lot of trouble." Because there's no way I'll be able to get away with borrowing my own music for multiple songs, let alone an entire album, she carefully doesn't add aloud. "But a song or three, sure, that's not out of the ballpark."

She shakes herself to get some of the worst of the water out of her hair before it freezes again, and giggles a lot more honestly. "It'd take a lot more than that to burn something important! Anything hot enough for that would probably be scalding us now."

[seawalled]

"Well, good luck with it all! D'you have a space where you can work on it all without being interrupted? Do they let you use a studio?"

She let the hot water issue drop, mostly because Lisa's comment had made her feel a bit silly and sheepish. Still, she could have sworn she'd read something. Maybe it only applied to commercial hot tubs, not natural springs...

[traceofeffort]

"There's space for me to use, yeah," Lisa confirms, though she sighs softly. "But, of course, there are a bunch of us and only so much space. So the schedule for them can get a bit crazy. My roommate is pretty understanding, thankfully! I'd be doomed if she took more offense at my instruments." Another reminder of someone she needs a gift for... actually, that'd be a good excuse to swing downtown later and browse the shops, huh?

[seawalled]

"Who you're with in a place can make loads of difference," Ellie agrees. She could think of a billion examples, her current living situation looming large among them. "I'm glad you've got someone who understands. I could imagine anyone less happy about it would make things a nightmare pretty fast. ... What other instruments d'you play?"

The warm water was silently dissolving any of her sore muscles from walking around the ice maze in the cold all day, and she found herself relaxing bit by bit. Even briefly thinking about her living situation with all the boys in her family hadn't made her tense up - which was a good sign.

[traceofeffort]

"Oh, tell me about it. I didn't even get that many strange looks about my bass!" she adds, relief in her tone that she still definitely feels. "With the whole... logo of a band that doesn't exist thing. I thought I'd have to talk my way out of that really fast." Which goes neatly into Ellie's question, as Lisa lets herself bonelessly sink a little deeper into the spring, letting out a small sigh. "Just the acoustic guitar, and the bass, really. I know bits and pieces of other things - the other me's been around too many of her band members for too long not to pick up a couple things, and college means I have to know the basics of other stuff - but mostly just those two."

[seawalled]

"Well, you can always say it came to you in a dream and you're saving it for a future project, yeah? Not completely a lie if you put it that way." She gave Lisa an encouraging smile, but it faded a bit as she realized what they were actually talking about, here. "So ... wait. You have ... your bass ... from this other life? Here?"

[traceofeffort]

Ah. Had she not-? Lisa let out a soft breath and shook her head softly, her hair loosening from the motion and flopping a bit. "Mm, I do. Just found it by my desk a few months back, in its gig bag, a little wear on the strings like I'd been playing it." Her tone was a little distant, as she remembered the morning and the wonder of finding something both hers and not hers at once. "A few picks in the pockets, with our band's logo on them. We had merch. That almost surprises me more, y'know? We were good, but... other people thought we were good enough to want stuff with our names."

...unbidden, the thought of her own image on a wall scroll came to her. She shuddered at the idea, pushing it out of her mind.

[seawalled]

"That's so surreal!" Ellie's eyes widened. She wasn't thinking about it in the moment, but later, once she was back in her room, she'd realize that there was something about the way Lisa spoke to her that made her feel so much younger, like a teenager again. Maybe it was because she didn't feel like she was bringing herself down to a younger level like she did with a lot of kids, she wasn't conscious of curating her responses.

"I haven't found anything like that. If I did, I don't know, it'd probably be a police hat or a jacket or something. I'd feel a bit odd wearin' it."

[traceofeffort]

"Isn't it?" It felt really strange for a while there, but... at a certain point, when one leaned into their other self so much, well.

Her eyebrows went up a bit at the mention of what Ellie might have for herself. "Police, huh? Well, then again, you see a fair number of NYPD jackets around from people that were never officers. Treat it like memorabilia, maybe, and only you would know the difference?" She brought a hand to her cheek as she thought for a moment. "Would it be anything local enough for people to call you on?"

[seawalled]

Ellie sank a little deeper into the water to let the bubbling current hit a sore spot on her shoulder as she thought. "I hadn't thought of it that way, that's a fair point. ... Especially since I was a DI in Wales, and no one would mistake me for actually being in law enforcement around New York. The jackets are completely different. We've got black and white check on ours. Really a bit sharp."

[traceofeffort]

Lisa nodded. "That sounds very striking. And yes, also very not local, so I don't imagine you'd have too many comments on it. You'd want a cover story ready in case someone does ask, though..." It'd be fairly nasty if she were caught unprepared.

[seawalled]

"Yeah..."

She let her voice trail off like the steam dissipating off the water into the night sky, looking up at the stars. Lisa had a point, but she wasn't in the mood to come up with cover stories at the moment. She could do that at home, where everything was what she was used to.

"God, it's so gorgeous out here. Nice to be able to see the sky so clear, in'nit?"