ARENA 10-Placid Hollow

[etcircenses]

The Tributes are taken early in the morning, most of their support teams seeming in good cheer as they dress them in warm clothes, getting them to their tubes. There is obvious comfort in the familiar for the prep teams, and they chatter with, or in some cases, over the heads of their Tributes as they get them ready and load them up.

20

19

18…

If the Tributes could see the area they are passed up into, they would see a deeply overgrown, dilapidated town green, with a large bandstand rotting away in the middle. The spoils of the cornucopia are not gathered in one spot, instead scattered throughout the thigh high grass and weeds around the town green.

Around the edge of the green, the old business stand a silent sentry, looming out of the fog as it thins and winds into them, providing much desired cover.

8

7

6…

But the Tributes cannot see the ground around them. The fog, thicker even than it will be in the rest of the arena, makes the world small around them. The sound of the count down echoes strangely, the tributes seeming too close as the fog brings sounds of their breath, their coughing, the snap of twigs under their feet right to ears of the other Tributes. But with the fog bringing visibility down to only a few feet, it's hard to tell what is a true danger, and what is only the fog playing tricks on them,.

3

2

1

The gong rings out, and the countdown's voice announces "the Arena is now open". The Games have begun.

Comments

[ka_sera_sera]

"You've got several good ones." He catches the wood smoothly, looking it over. Warped by moisture and age, but good enough. He opens the door, not too pleased with the noise it makes, and heads inside, making the split-second decision to walk ahead of her and show her his back in doing so. It's not as if he's got anything to steal, and he finds himself less concerned with the idea that she's lured him here to kill him than he perhaps ought to be. "May find some better weapon in here anyway. Have you done this before? This arena business?"

[firefall]

"This? Nah." She recognizes the significance of him offering her that momentary trust, but doesn't comment on it. He knows it, she knows it, no need to talk about it. "But back home, everything's pretty much wrecked. Not too different from how things are looking around here so far."

She finds the kitchen and starts going through all the drawers, searching for anything of any use. "And you?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Much the same. Towns are usually in better condition than this, but they're rare." Since she's covering the kitchen he inspects the hall, cautiously opening a door and looking through the closet inside it. "First time I've done anything like this for entertainment, though."

Hm. "Might have a box of tools here," he calls. It's old, the hinges are stiff, and it takes a moment to get it open. May be nothing in it so useful as her prybar, but she may want a second weapon anyway.

[firefall]

This Roland guy's definitely making a lot of goodwill gestures. Riley doesn't trust him, hell no, barely knows the guy from Adam, but she at least relaxes her fight-or-flight instincts. She can watch out for herself without being paranoid.

"Just a minute," she calls back, as she stuffs all the cans into her pack. She heaves it up again and jogs through the hall till she reaches the closet. "Here. I'unno how much of it's not rotted yet, but canned food lasts a while so there should be something still good. This house ain't in bad enough shape to have been abandoned more than a few years."

She opens the bag again and shakes out the cans onto the floor, though she's careful to keep her own supplies inside. "Half's yours, fair is fair if we're teamed up. Fair warning, I've got people to find so I'll probably be taking off in a few hours unless something drastic happens. No hard feelings, you seem like a cool guy and all, she's just...I gotta find her."

She averts her eyes a touch uncomfortably and starts rummaging through the toolbox to see what she can find. "Oh yeah, did you pick what you want from this? I got a better start'n you and you found it first, it's only fair." She might be okay with killing whoever she has to to get Ellie out of this hell, but she's not a monster. She's not gonna fuck people up for helping her.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland nods, sliding off his windbreaker and tying it up to hold his share of those cans. Not the most secure, but it'll do for now. "No hard feelings at all. I'd be with my friends now, if I could have found them." It doesn't occur to him to ask who 'her' might be. He'd be surprised if most here didn't have someone besides themselves they were aiming to protect. As far as Roland's concerned, there's no real story there, and nothing more he needs to know about it.

"She may yet be well," he says absently, poking through the tools and trying to decide on the usefulness of each. "Even the youngest tribute I've seen has some experience with guns and knives and dangerous worlds like this one." He picks out a hammer and one of the screwdrivers, holds them up with raised eyebrows to show her he's finished with the toolbox, then moves to look through the closet a little more. "My own friends are deadly enough. I think they can do a little while without me."

[firefall]

"She's fine," Riley says, the words whipping out flat and harsh. "My girl's fine. She knows how to handle herself. But I'm gonna feel a lot better when I find her."

She moves in to poke through the toolbox, stirring the implements around a little. Decides on a wrench and a screwdriver; between them and her crowbar she should be pretty well able to handle a lot of the finicky bits involved in old, long-ruined buildings.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland keeps rooting through the closet, noting but not reacting to her tone. "I know the feeling well."

Something orange catches his eye and he pulls it out of the closet - it's been quite a while since he's seen one of these, but he knows that the metal on that one end and the rubber on the outside says this was once meant to carry electricity. None of that here now, but well, why not? It'll make an adequate rope, if not a fantastic one. He recoils it, winding it through one of his belt loops, and turns to face her. "Any more that can be used from this place? Or do you mean to go looking for her right away?"