Welcome To Arena 08

[gamemakers]

Today begins particularly early by normal standards. Long before the sun, or even a hint of dawn arrives. When the world is still and black and quiet, save for the parties still raging on from the night before. Night owls still have not gone to sleep. Everyone knows what today is, even if you've only just arrived.

There is a palpable tension in the air as everyone is ushered out under the cover of darkness to board the hovercrafts. A stream of faces both familiar and unknown filter in and take their seats, and very little is said as tributes are strapped in and attendants make their rounds, activating tracking devices. There are no windows, no openings no view of the outside world as it passes silently, below. The journey takes hours. And when everyone finally arrives, there is no hint of sky or grass or cloud or tree. Just long concrete hallways and rows of uniformed peacekeepers that remind everyone to keep in line in the underbelly of the unknown.

One by one, each tribute is lead into a small concrete room where stylists outfit tributes in their only bit of protection for the next coming weeks. Little is given away by the clothing each stylists put their tribute in. No flair or flourish or costumed monstrosity this time. Just simple, functional mundane civilian clothing. Khakis, cotton shirts, boots.

There is little time to dress and say goodbyes. Only a few small moments left to gather your thoughts. And then, the countdown starts. A countdown displayed in holographic blue begins:

25. 24. 23. 22....

The smell of earth and grass and a general damp green fills your lungs as you rise, slowly into a large grass field. At first, its the only thing you can see in all directions until the pedestal locks in place.

20. 19. 18. 17....

In the near distance, the cornucopia looms. Massive. Copper. Even hidden by the grass you can see its spoils are plentiful, tempting anyone with even a mild curiosity streak to come explore. Some may see this as a warning sign already .

15. 14. 13...

You can see the others, around you. Their heads, maybe the shoulders of taller tributes, and very little else. If there is anything hidden in this field you would never know it. The grass is too tall and too thick to show what might be lurking near the ground.

10. 9. 8....

There is just a hint of a breeze and the lingering scent of recent rain. The humidity is more uncomfortable than the heat., its a thick, jungle-like warm. You can see a dense tangle of trees in the distance. Blue sky filled with towering white clouds. Its the sort of place where nothing ever truly seems to be dry. At least you might not have to worry about freezing to death.

6. 5. 4...

For just a moment, everything goes perfectly still. Perfectly silent.

The grass rustles.

You feel the breeze.

2.

1.

0.

You will have two hours until a short warning alarm will sound and the sonic fences turn on across the entire arena.

Comments

[amplifying]

Beck's in the middle of taking off with a good sum of things...until he sees that face nearby.

There's not a lot he can really, truly remember from his past time here; everything, literally everything seems foggy. He knows for sure that he didn't make it through his first round in one of the Arenas. And he knows that he didn't make it his second time around. Did he even make it to see who won that one? Beck isn't so sure he could answer if he wanted to. ...And honestly, he didn't want to. Foggy memories wasn't a thing he often complained about.

But seeing R's face nearby triggers something. Beck can suddenly see himself somewhere dark and secluded with these huge, bloodshot eyes watching him and all of a sudden there's just pain, and...-

...This wasn't a real pain, though.

This was his User brain acting up, wasn't it? The brain of a User and the 'brain' of a Program was different. This was his User brain reacting to stigma. He just had to...

He could see R raising his hands in the ear, and heard the word 'help'. They fixed this.

Something in the battlefield startles Beck back into the present. He jumps and quickly sends R a nod or two, jogging his way over to the corrupted User. "Do you need help too?"

[shambler]

Hey, it worked! R feels something, maybe relief, uncoil in his stomach. It's a little weird Beck's so welcoming and...helpful, but it's easier this way, too. R can try to roll with it, as much as a walking corpse can roll with anything.

"Look for...people. Where...people go. Hide?"

Hopefully he can find his friends there. Somewhere safe with four walls and limited access points is probably his best bet. R peers at Beck, really really glad he hasn't eaten at the Cornucopia. After that talk in the elevator, he probably wouldn't have helped things along if he'd shown up picking someone's hair out of his teeth with a femur toothpick. R reaches down to pick up one of the supplies, not even bothering to check, and holds it out like a peace offering. It worked with the others, kinda. It's the only thing R knows how to do to present a peaceful, non-cannibalistic face.

He thinks Beck understands. It's either trust the zombie for a few seconds or wait around longer until someone arrives to chase him around the Cornucopia with a trident or something. Or wait until Karis arrives. No clue if she's still here, but...

[amplifying]

Oh, man. Karis.

Beck knew now that he made amends with R before. But with Karis? He knew that there were a few other people behind his death that first Arena, and one of them ground his nerves down until the cycle he left. He would help R out, but Karis would get a big fat 'no'.

He looked at the food R picked up and took it from the corrupted User's hands, offering him a smile. "The sooner we get away from here, the better off we'll be." Beck quickly tucked it away in the bag he managed to nab, while starting to edge forward. "I think I picked up a tent. We can always run as far as we can, and then camp out the night." Did he pick up food, too? R picked some up at least; that could hold them off for however long it took. Maybe.

[shambler]

Maybe it was because he was a known quantity, the rotting Dead that went bump in the night, that made Beck almost at ease instead of running for the hills...or jungle. R thought the smile looked a lot better on his face than the expression that froze when he died, Arenas ago, under the weight of three zombies. The smile looked more alive. More the real Beck.

"Have...this," R had been dragging a bag that he'd dropped. Now he picked it up off the ground, something inside rattling. He did remember that part of last Arena - a sleeping bag, Wyatt putting more supplies in, dragging it along like a shopping cart with no wheels. It'd been easier on the sand, though. "Help...you...survive. Owe."

He hated to bring up what happened their first meeting, but he wanted to be clear what the footing was. They weren't friends. They weren't enemies or even zombie vs food. It was something weird, something different he'd never run into until now.

[amplifying]

Beck wished he could see it like that. Not friends, not enemies. Just something...weird and neutral. He wished he could see it that way with everyone, not just a User here or there. If he did, this whole User-Games thing would be a lot easier to handle.

There was still some naive part of him that thought he could save everyone, though. If he just worked and tried to rebel like he did in Argon, he could end all of this. And there wouldn't be any Games anymore, just like it was supposed to be.

But he couldn't. And Beck didn't like to think about that.

...What he could do was be as neutral as he could. Help those if they seemed open to the idea, close himself off and defend if need be. Yeah, he could do that for now.

He smiled, picking up the bag that R had dropped. "You don't owe me anything." Which was true enough, as far as he was concerned. The apology had been made (so he remembered, anyway), and that was more than enough.

"Where should we go?"

[shambler]

In his mind, he did. He kept thinking about his talk with Eponine and the way she'd insisted he did owe her for the last Arena. Handing over a piece of plastic. The suspicious way she'd looked at it and grabbed it out of his hand like he'd change his mind. R didn't see that look in Beck's face but the thought was still rattling around his Dead skull. There had to be some way, some small, insignificant way, that he could lessen the horror of Beck's first Arena.

"Go...away from...that," R said. That being the Cornucopia, a shining body-count magnet. Putting action into words, R picked a direction and started shuffling, his head barely visible over the grass. He cut a straight path away, dragging whatever he had grabbed at the Cornucopia in the sleeping bag behind him.

R waited until they were a good chunk away before he started groaning, checking over his shoulder to make sure Beck hadn't been murdered behind him. The other Tributes could be tricky like that.

"Find...walls," R had to pause, pick out what he'd stolen from some survivor or two along with any hair or skull fragments from his teeth. Beck needed the How To's of survival. "Get...armed. Hold...out?"

Yeah, that seemed about right. A little foggy on the specifics, but they were at least good guidelines.

[amplifying]

Beck looked to the Cornuciopia, and offered R a nod. "That sounds like a pretty good plan."

They hiked off together. And surprisingly, Beck didn't mind it at all. There was something almost kind of bittersweet in working together (for the moment, anyway...). It didn't bother him in any way shape or form, but at the same time it gave Beck a weird pinging feeling. Beck wanted to put his trust into R, he really did. But how could he put his trust into anyone, considering what kind of a game they were all sucked into?

Some time later, they paused. Beck tilted his head as R explained what to do, and nodded along. "I think I managed to grab some things from the Cornucopia." He knelt down, searching into his bag. "Is there anything you need?"

[shambler]

It almost felt comfortable to be shuffling along. Somehow he thought traveling in the Arena with Beck would feel more awkward, what with the I totally ate you and you had to watch thing hanging over their heads. Beck was so fair it almost felt inhuman. Which, uh, which made sense knowing what R did about where he was from.

He tried to focus on the present, stumbling along as the grass hiding them from the other Tributes began to open up in patches to reveal a big root network from the jungle ahead.

"Don't...know," R said with a shrug. He was rusty on the survival front. When he scrounged, it was things that caught his eye - they didn't have to be useful. "I guess...food. My...friends."

R let the sleeping bag he'd hauled off after him plop to the floor. It was an unspoken offer to Beck: you can take a look inside if you want. Knock yourself out.

[amplifying]

Beck looked down at the sleeping bag, before kneeling down, and carefully digging through the contents. Before he really got down into business, he paused, and then dumped whatever contents he got from the Cornucopia onto the ground. Might as well!

"We could combine our things, if you wanted to." He held up his own sleeping bag, and a smaller bag beside it. "I have a tent we could both sleep in." And then there was his bow and arrows, and all the food inside it. "We have some stuff we can eat too..."

He looked around once...twice. Was there really any place they could eat and know they wouldn't be mauled by someone? At the same time, they were in the jungle, and there was enough stuff around to hide them pretty well, at least.

"I think we could take a break if we wanted to. Just enough to eat."

[shambler]

R shrugged. Combine away, Beck. "Eat..."

His groan was dubious now. Of course he wanted to eat. He was doing much better than before but there was always a part of him that eyeballed people like Beck and dreamed about ripping their flesh from their bones. Stealing away each and every precious memory and letting it run through his veins. Gulping, R shook his head hurriedly. Nope, no eating here!

"Am...good," R said. "You...eat...okay?"

He decided to busy himself copying Beck - look busy, pretend he knew what he was looking for in his share of supplies. This would've been easier if Julie or Howard were here to point out what was worth keeping (that whole Living perspective) but it was just him now. He'd have to wing it.

R got down to his hands and knees, his movements ungainly like he could tip over at any second. He began to paw though the stuff, picking up a can of food and peering at the label, aware of. What he assumed were words swam. The meaning tickled his consciousness like a bad itch. Holding out the can toward Beck, R grunted:

"What's...it say...?"

[amplifying]

Beck tried not to think about R still being corrupted, and still having the urge to eat other Users. He tried not to think about any other time R had to kill anyone; maybe with a weapon, but not with his teeth. The whole entire thing was weird; it was like his User brain was trying to deny that R behaved like...well, R. He read some stuff about how the human brain worked, but it was a handful to take in.

He wasn't a medical person, anyway. User or Program.

When R suggested he eat, Beck nodded, and tore into a pack of crackers he managed to snab at the Cornucopia. Things grew a little...quiet. It wasn't completely awkward, but at the same time, you could tell that something kind of bad was there.

At R's question, Beck raised his head, swallowing whatever food was in his mouth. "Beans." He said, with a little smile. "That's all it really says." Big and bold in black.

"Need help with anything?"

[shambler]

Beck was doing a hell of a better job than he was - all R could think about was the day he and two other corpses killed Beck, how it'd felt to see that light go out behind his eyes. How he'd tasted. R was happy to hunker down and wait for the other Tribute to get some food in them, the air hanging heavy and quiet with humidity.

"Beans," R repeated. Beans were good, weren't they? No clue how you ate them, if they were raw or had to be cooked, but he remembered beans. Beans were Living food. He put the can of beans down in front of Beck, nudging it toward him. "More...stuff.."

He pulled the sleeping bag closer to show off his haul to Beck, trusting him not to grab and run. R couldn't even say he had that vibe, not when he knew who Beck was - or thought, felt, he was - and he knew he was honest. Eager to help, even when sticking his nose into places was a Bad Idea. It was qualities like that which got him killed. Reaching into the sleeping bag, he pulled out more stuff.

i should have given you a list of the stuff beck got...

[amplifying]

Beck looked over what R had snatched, biting his lip as he tried to sort things out. He wasn't used to this whole User-survivor thing anymore. He knew how to survive as a Program, but as a User in an Arena like this? It was a heck of a lot harder. There were too many functions to a User body that needed tending to on a daily basis.

Was this making him uncomfortable? Beck had to wonder, because if this was him, he'd be anxious.

"Here." Beck slid over his own bag, smiling to the corrupted User. "You can look through some of my stuff, if you want."

[shambler]

R reached out and dragged it closer to him, so slow he almost look unhurried despite the Cornucopia not being that far away.

He came up with a potato and a can of tuna (he liked the shape, the curve of the steel; the little picture of a fish on the cover), holding them up to show Beck his trophies. R was banking on them being food and/or something useful to a human. If he lived long enough to make it to Julie or Howard, he'd let them take their pick.

"Thank...you." R started to lurch to his feet. A scream, faint but not faint enough, cut through the air from the Cornucopia's direction - a reminder that they might've survived the first hour or so, but that could easily change if they weren't careful and on the move. R held out his hand to help Beck back to his feet. "Stay...safe, o-kay?"

He bobbed his head, looking Beck in the eye.