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

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?"

[hellpyre]

"Like... boom. Gone."

Not the best explanation in the world, no, but at Rin was never very good at that sort of thing anyway.

"Erm. There's others that know what happened better than I do. Don't worry, though, everyone here is pretty nice. We're all just tryin' to survive together, y'know?"

[treasureling]

He turns away.

"I want to find someone else." Someone who makes more sense. Someone who isn't saying these things.

[hellpyre]

"... they're gonna say the same thing."

She won't stop him if that's what he wants, but she at least gives him that information before he can get too far away.

"I mean, they'll say it better than me. But it's still gonna be the same story."

[treasureling]

"Then how did it happen?" he cries, rounding back on her. "How am I here? How did I survive?"

He's definitely starting to verge on panic again.

[hellpyre]

Rin rubbed the back of her head, harder than she really meant to with her own anxiety working up with his.

"I don't know how-- ... why... you survived. Why any of us did. We just... did."

Not a satisfactory answer, she knows, but that's all she has.

"... they were fightin' a war. Over... what, I'unno. They've never been very clear about that. Caels didn't like Ura and Ura didn't like Caels. But it was the Caels that did it... buildin' this thing they were gonna use on the Ura. It didn't work that way, though. It took out everyone, everything. Not just here, but in a lotta other worlds, too..."

[treasureling]

Another stupid war, destroying everything. Warriors, so caught up in their conflict that they don't care who else it hurts.

"And what do I do now?" His voice is small.