Day 276 :: Log [Open]

[treasureling]

Who: Malak
Open: Open
When: Day 276
Where: the Open Plains/Skyway
What: Intro; Malak arrives, flips out, needs rescuing. Feel free to bring in monsters; he will absolutely not fight.
Format: Log, but if you tag in actionspam, it's cool with me.
Warnings: None atm

He is elsewhere. Elsewhere, the only way he can think of to describe it. There were shifting tiles under his feet and a long drop, and now there are grassy plains and pathways and he is high in the sky and nowhere he has ever been before. He doesn't know where to go or what to do, sporadically prays to nameless gods, finally stops and huddles in on himself, shaking. What's happening? Where is he? What's happening?

~*~

"Wait!" calls Malak, after the retreating form.

But there's no question he can ask that would get a satisfactory answer. Where am I, what should I do now, what place is this. All he can do is go and find out.

He steels himself, trying to school his expression into something resembling calm (and mostly failing), and he goes in towards the center, towards the large monument he sees there.

"Hello?" he says, to the people he sees. "Hello? Can you tell me what town this is?"

Comments

[polariity]

Things that are likely not going to help pull Malak off the confusion train- the gray-skinned sharp fanged horned individual floating off in the distance who pauses when he notices an unfamiliar figure. The Helmsman doesn't do much but watch people in the Bastion. He knows most of them just by that. The person standing off on his own doesn't match any of them.

For a moment, he just floats where he is with crackling red-blue keeping him up and waits for his presence to be known. He's not technically supposed to be out here, not with how worried Disciple gets, so he's not going to risk too much.

[treasureling]

A ghost? A god?

Malak is in mid-turn when he sees the creature, and he flinches back, nearly stumbling. He is stressed to the breaking point; he is as brittle as steel heated wrong.

But even brittle metal can be fixed in the reforging, and that's what Malak's anger does to his fear.

"I'm not kneeling." No matter what power is displayed. Malak will not prostrate himself before another being, even a god.

[polariity]

A grimace passes over his face at the word 'kneeling', lips peeling back over protruding fangs in distaste. He's had enough of people kneeling to others to last more than a few lifetimes. His shoulders jerk up in a shrug to show he couldn't care less and doesn't expect it before, carefully, he comes closer.

[treasureling]

At first he thinks the disgust is for his failure to kneel, and he has a moment of mindmelting terror. But that clears up just as fast as it came, on the shrug, leaving him feeling a little shaky but also a little curious.

"Who are you?"

[polariity]

Since neither of them have attacked one another, not yet at any rate, he comes closer to indulge his own curiosity. At this distance, his own starvation-brought thinness should be clear with how gaunt his face is, eyes too large and hollow in their sockets, and it's easier to see the thing twisting scars like vines which sweep down from his eyes to his cheekbones and up into his hairline.

An appearance like that might be laughable depending on the god, but 'ghost' is a descriptor even he wouldn't argue with even if he could.

At the question, he shakes his head and reaches up to cross a finger over his throat. No voice. At a guess, however, he has energy form a symbol floating in the air: Ψ . No guarantee this alien will know what it means, but worth a shot.

[treasureling]

Shaken head means at least that there isn't a language barrier, or, if there is, there's some remarkable coincidences going on. Touching the throat, without responding - muteness, Malak thinks. "You don't have a voice," he guesses.

But the symbol, he has no idea.

Malak looks to the symbol, then back to the ghost, then back to the symbol.

It might have something to do with the horns, he thinks, but if so, he can't tell what. "You're... a pitchfork?" he ventures, after a moment.

[polariity]

The laugh escapes him before he can even recognize it's coming, raspy and grating. A pitchfork- now isn't that an image, that gold atrocity She was so fond replaced by a common farmer's pitchfork. He rubs at his throat, a dry grin stretching across his face, and shakes his head.

[treasureling]

Well, he knew it wasn't the right answer anyway. Saying his best guess out loud didn't do much more than demonstrate the depths of his ignorance.

"Is this the land of the gods?" It's the only thing Malak can think of.

[polariity]

There's another rough snort, and he shakes his head once more. A bunch of freaks is what they are, and that's putting it nicely. Gods aren't gonna help them.

But that isn't likely helpful or explanatory. So he finally points to the man before pointing back to the Bastion- a small mass on the distance but not too far away.

Near the monument after his arrival

[hellpyre]

Another newbie? They were arriving here like rats fleeing a sinking ship lately. Or rather that was how Rin was seeing it, but her own self-imposed seclusion for nearly a month likely had something to do with her not realizing how many new faces were really around.

This one sounds like a newbie, though, for sure. The panic in his voice is easy to pick up, and she doesn't need enhanced hearing with those pointed ears to catch it either.

She's not actually at the Monument itself, rather walking past it after having taken lunch over at the gazebo further away. A stacked bento box pained in black lacquer and decorated with gold stems and red and purple flowers is in her hands, long fluffy tail swishing beneath the hem of a flowy dress. A voice calling out to her is plenty to get the half-demon teen to stop, though, and she looks up with a blink and a tilt of her head.

"It's--..." not really a town-- "... it's called the Bastion."

[treasureling]

He focuses on her, the first person he runs into, the first one who answers him.

"What does that mean?"

What it's called doesn't help him much, except to let him know that this is not a godly place. Godly places don't have names, just as the gods don't have names.

"A ghost with horns brought me here," he adds, probably unhelpfully.

[hellpyre]

If they're gods then the world really is screwed. No one wants to be governed by a bunch of kids who barely know what they're doing.

The description gets knitted eyebrows, but after a second she issues a quick "oh!" in recognition.

"Psii! He's not a ghost. He's just... really really skinny."

She shifted the box in her hands, nudging one of the layers back in to place carefully.

"Well, see, it's called the Bastion 'cause that's what it is. A bastion, like a safe place. It's not a town or anythin'. I mean it's gotten a lot bigger and whatever, but it's still not a town."

[treasureling]

"A safe space from monsters."

Like the ones that Psii drew in the air. Psii; what a strange name. But he was a strange creature, so Malak supposes that fits. Strange matches with strange. Bizarre and bizarre.

Gods.

"How did I get here?" he asks, helplessly.

[hellpyre]

"Yeah."

At least he got that much.

The question strains whatever calm expression she had on her, and a fidget in both her fingers and the tail beneath her skirt.

"... is that somethin' you're really ready to hear right now?"

[treasureling]

He draws back, slightly.

She, he thinks, is offering him the option of a lie. And there's no reason she would do that, unless the truth were terrible.

"I can't know that unless I know what's happening," he points out.

[hellpyre]

Bingo.

She hates this part. She'll always hate this part. Even if the option for a lie is there it doesn't make the truth any easier to hear when it eventually comes out.

"You'll hear people call it the Calamity. Somethin' happened here that destroyed everythin'. Not just this world, but all the places we came from, too."

[treasureling]

He doesn't understand, which is perhaps something that saves him the shock, for a moment.

"What do you mean, destroyed everything?"

[scary_music]

"Ah!"

Ibuki is quick to approach any newcomers, so she runs up to the man when she notices him.

"Yes! Hello! Ibuki welcomes you to the Bastion! Famous for its donut trees and magical jerky cows! Here, have a welcome gift!"

With that, she offers him a strip of chocolate chip jerky.

[treasureling]

He takes it automatically, reflexively. Stares at it. He's never seen something like that before; they don't make chocolate on the island.

"It's food?" Bizarre enough to distract him from his need for answers.

[scary_music]

"Yessssssssss!" Ibuki nods repeatedly in response, "Oooh, Ibuki's just met you and already a culture gap is discovered! That's right! Food! It's beef... with chocolate chips in it! Meaty but sweet! Delicious!"

[treasureling]

"I don't want this." He tries to give it back to her. "I want someone to tell me what's happening." Spoken firmly, as though some implacability could make the truth magically appear.

[scary_music]

She takes it back, looking a bit disappointed. Malak just had to ask the big question.

"Weeeeeellllllllll... something big happened! Magic, maybe! And it brought alllllllll sorts of people from alllllllllll sorts of world here!" after a pause, she added, "Ibuki might not be the best at describing it. Um, um, if you want normal jerky without chocolate, without the sweet, Ibuki has that, too."

She helpfully pulls out a normal piece of jerky, offering it to the new arrival.

[treasureling]

He doesn't reach out to take it, this time. He doesn't want to be placated (even if he's kind of hungry).

"Someone else said all the worlds were destroyed."

[scary_music]

She slowly puts the jerky away and doesn't say anything for a long ten seconds.

"That... miiiiiiiiiiight be what happened? But, well, well, it's a weird thing because, because, even if people you know aren't here now, they couuuuuuuuld show up later, still."

[treasureling]

That catches his attention.

"They could?" Does that mean that they have?