Character Cantina II

The door opened, and two bipedal dragonlike creatures, both silver-scaled entered the Cantina, one of them pushing the other.

"No, Vincent," said the one being pushed. He managed to dig his heels in, halting his movement.

"Come on, Xavier," said the pusher, Vincent. "What's the big deal?" He tried pushing again, but although he was a little bigger, Xavier was stronger. They didn't budge.

"I have enough problems at home," said Xavier, flapping his wings angrily. "Here, the likelihood that something will bite my face off increases dramatically."

"So don't piss anyone off. Besides, we're paying you."

"You do know how compound interest works, right? Of course you do, and I've had money in the bank since-"

"Buy yourself something nice, then." Vincent gave Xavier one last shove and ran out the door, leaving Xavier sprawled awkwardly on the floor.

"Drakei," muttered Xavier, the untranslatable word causing the cantina's universal language field a brief blip. He pushed himself to his feet, ordered a beer, and sat down at a table with two men, one of whom was abnormally pale-skinned and dark-eyed. "Hello," he said. "My name is Xavier Sunyo. I am not a dragon, I am a chimera, and I don't want to hurt either of you."

He's sitting with Kokabiel and Lafayette, if it's not clear from the description.

The lieutenant noticed the rather nervous looking man feel the piano, she found herself staring at him with a bit of contempt on her face. He was touching the piano keys as if he was fondling a woman; what's he up to, she wondered.

Apparently more and more people, human or otherwise were streaming in in increasing rates. She shifted her position on the wall and she noticed a conveniently placed spittoon, almost like what she saw in those old pre-century westerns. She hocked up a wad of phlegm and spat it into the spittoon, it made a characteristic wa-Toong! as the spit hit the bottom. The likeness and antiquity of the action and the object itself made her laugh out loud, a bit louder than actually intended. The small boy and the odd couple turned their heads to look at her, she returned their glances with a brief nod and a smirk.

The man's eyes momentarily widened. "Skill in magic? Oh, I am honored. And you're right, of course. That's an all too common story back in my home too." He thought, that's a bit of a familiar trick...

"My name's Wesley. Malcolm Wesley. Pleased to meet you again..."

He grinned.

"... Harold."

edited 13th Sep '11 8:54:43 PM by Gault

"It's just a theory," Finn said, glancing down at the table. Great craftsmanship had been put into rounding the edges and smoothing the surface. "but from where I'm from, there are Manifestations—spirits created from emotions—that can affect people's dreams."

Abandoning any hope of prying information from Lafayette, Kokabiel said, "that was a fascinating conversation, but I must bid you adieu." He stood, considering the others in the cantina. Finally, he took his water and stood near a seat with Ian, Pandora, and Finn. "May I?" he said. "Oh, and allow me to introduce myself. You may call me Kokabiel, and I'm hoping you can spare me some interesting stories. My Master has developed quite an interest in them lately."

edited 13th Sep '11 8:39:37 PM by KillerClowns

Pandora turned to Kokabiel and adjusted her tail again and gestured him to sit, immediately turning back to Finn, "Interesting, we don't deal with that kind of magical stuff regularly, but I never heard of manifestations."

Cyrus takes the now-full tankard and heads back to the side room. The doors open.

Dragons?

"WILLIAM! HELP!" He drops the tankard and runs to his friend, shaking his shoulders. "DRAGONS!"

William holds back a sigh. "I told you this place is weird, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"What else did I say?"

Cyrus only looks nervously back at the main room. "William, what's that purple thing?"

"I said that the landlady doesn't allow violence."

"Oh."

"More whiskey and some cookies." William tilts his head back and finishes off the bottle.

Cyrus edges back to the main room, staring at the mess he made on the floor. With magic, he mops it up and the broken glass puts itself together again. "Sorry!" he says to no one in particular, and returns to the bar to fill it up again and get William's requests.

Idiot. William picks up the song right where he left off.

Lafeyette's attention was getting a bit obvious now.

On the other hand, large silver dragonlike thing. Still not completely impossible, still just barely within his experience, but those were usually meant to fight and a fight here might end badly. Or extremely badly. So be careful.

Samuel shifted over a couple seats closer to address them. "Your pardon gentlemen, but one of you seems overinterested." A look at Lafayette specifically to make it clear who's being addressed now. "Is there something I can do for you, sir?"

I'm just going to give them a table by the door for tracking purposes

[Table 8] (By Entrance)

Finn scooted back in his seat and pushed the chair back an inch. Hiding his discomfort was difficult. He resisted looking to the side, biting his lip, and constrained his own body language. He would be going against Bryan's advice, but acting presentable was important. Show too much weakness, even more that he already have, and the others would stomp all over him.

"It's understandable," he said, "I doubt your world has Manifestations. Should I explain them to you? Be warned, the explanation can be a bit wordy."

edited 13th Sep '11 8:47:21 PM by chihuahua0

Ah, crap. Someone had screamed out "dragons", and, from the sound of things, broken something.

Xavier got up and walked to a brown-haired man of about twenty, who had appeared to be the screamer. "Look," he said bluntly, "I am not a dragon. I am not a monster that steals virgins or gold and burns crops. I am a chimera. I would really, really appreciate it if you don't call me a dragon. My name is Xavier. Okay?"

I should've borrowed Vincent's shirt.

Ian addressed Finn with interest, "I doubt we have anything similar to Manifestations, but what we do is kind of human-related, so no mind-raping so far," Ian smirked while Pandora smacked him upside the head.

She turned back toward Finn, "Please excuse my partner, he has a real talent for sarcasm, and please do explain what a Manifestation is."

edited 13th Sep '11 8:51:15 PM by draconiansuperior

Cyrus holds up his arm weakly to shield himself and thinks about taking out his gun.

The landlady doesn't tolerate violence.

He puts down his arm and laughs nervously. "Uhm... sorry. I just... uhm... panicked."

Well, that's fucking obvious, you idiot.

"So, what's a chimera?"

edited 13th Sep '11 8:55:47 PM by snowfoxofdeath

"Actually," said Xavier, "given some of the other reactions I've seen, you handled it well. You didn't try shooting me, for example. It's just so damn annoying to be called something that, for me, means 'monster', that I can get a bit hard sometimes.

"And a chimera is, well..." He shrugged. "Me. We're actually pretty similar to what humans call... dragons... because we inspired those myths. We can use magic. And we're long-lived, and... um..." He paused, his tail flicking around on the floor. "It's kind of hard to answer that question, because it's rather general. We should sit down." He threw himself into the nearest chair.

[Side Room]

Cathy rushed right in to sweep up the tankard with her broom, which she whipped out of nowhere. Pieces of it vanished under the bristles.

"That's right, no violence, so no need to worry."

[Table 8]

Finn focused on the concept of Manifestations. Should he give the short explanation that he gave to victims, or should he give the long one that Bryan received? Perhaps something in the middle may suffice.

He started to gesture with his hands, "Well, in my world, there are two planes of existence: the physical plane, and the psychic plane, where the mind partly occupies, and where psychics receive their powers. Manifestations are creatures of human emotions. They come to being when their creator has lingering feelings that bottle up together and come out as either a parasite or a free-roamer. While they can be both positive and negative, both can be harmful."

Finn looked up more and pointed to himself. "A psychic's job is to hunt down and destroy bothersome Manifestations."

"All right." Cyrus glances at William, who has just begin a very long sonata. He won't be missing the whiskey too soon. He sits with Xavier and smiles. "I come from people that can use magic, but we don't live that long, hehe. So... tell me more, if you... well, don't mind."

Pandora listend to the rather short explanation as her tail flickered around Ian's leg. Ian turned toward Kokabiel and cleared his throat, "We have many stories, pick a number between one and fifteen for some of the best."

edited 13th Sep '11 9:06:42 PM by draconiansuperior

Kokabiel seemed intrigued by Finn's descriptions. "If you don't mind me asking... what can you tell me of the psychic plane? Aside from these 'manifestations', are there any other creatures that make their home there?" The place sounded rather familiar to Kokabiel, and yet at the same time, it was unexplored territory. He hoped it was as interesting as Finn had made it sound.

A commotion to Wesley's rear caught his attention and he craned his head around to get a better look. He heard someone scream out the word "Dragon!" and a smile lit Wesley's features. Oh, that sounded quite familiar.

Turning to Hector for a moment, he said "I hope you don't mind, but there's a little something I've got to take care of first. I'll talk with you later- I suspect at great length."

He slid off the bar stool and swaggered over to the group of people that had congregated around the six foot tall winged humanoid sitting at a table. Wesley was conscious of the fact that even without the scars he looked quite different. It had been several years and more than his fair share of battles since he was last involved in one of these Nexus Events, as he had decided on calling them. He wondered, given all that, whether Vincent would recognize him. "Harold" certainly hadn't.

Approaching the table, he thumped a hand down on it's top. Looking to the silver lizard-person, he growled out, "Hey! You know what I said to myself when I got up this morning?!" in his best impression of a gruff soldier type.

—————

While all this was happening, the dull green scaled creature hiding in the corner of the bar peeked it's head out from under the table. It had at first thought that the yell of "Dragon!" had been directed at it, although looking around it was quick to realize that this was not the case. Feeling a bit curious despite it's trepidation, the creature sat back up in it's chair to get a better look. Instantly, it noticed a newcomer to the bar. A tall, winged being that in many ways looked similar to itself. Well- at least when compared to the majority of the other patrons in the Cantina.

Intrigued and more than a little thankful that attention was directed elsewhere, the dull green creature decided to keep watching to see how things would unfold.

edited 13th Sep '11 9:15:03 PM by Gault

The hole in his field where this person occupied — it was strange. Very strange. And he had seen the person change color. There was something very different about him than anyone he'd ever met. The intangibility (at least, by Lafayette's standards) set him at unease.

Oh, he'd come over, and asked a question. It was strange, that people were not running away. Often the people close to him would sense wrongness, and that wrongness was sensed by others and all the way down the line it caused mass panic. Being close enough to talk to everyone... he wasn't sure if he liked it.

But, Lafayette was apparently overinterested. Anyone would be interested by a person who wasn't there.

"Can I touch you?" he asked.

I made a boo-boo

edited 13th Sep '11 9:08:10 PM by snowfoxofdeath

"The usual lifespan for a chimera," began Xavier, "is about five thousand years, give or take. I'm almost twenty-one hundred, myself.

"The kinds of magic we can use are pretty general. Fire-breathing-" -he blew a smoke ring to one side to demonstrate- "-elemental control, conjuration, various psychic powers, the usual. It's kind of hard to organize the different types of magic for humans, because the right words don't exist out of my native language, Menyic, and they hold all kinds of subtleties differentiating this conjured fire from that conjured fire."

He took a quick drink of beer. "Our strength in magic grows as we get older. Chimeras over forty-five hundred can even shapeshift. Each type of magic works differently, so different people are good at different things." He got up and walked to a relatively open space. "For example, I'm decent at conjuring stuff..." He reached out, and a sword crystallized out of the air. "...and I've got some fine control over fire." The blade burst into flames.

Xavier twirled the sword a few times before it and the fire vanished. As he sat down, he couldn't help feeling a bit smug; he hated to admit it, but it was kind of fun doing something so casually that most humans would never be able to do.

Someone thumped a hand on the table. "Hey, Wesley," said Xavier.

Cyrus leans away from the man called Wesley. Bold and one of the scary soldier-ish people... please don't be like his sister, please, please, please.

"Anyway, Xavier, that's interesting. In my world, magic isn't... like that. Much."

IGNORE ME IGNORE ME IGNORE MEEEE

edited 13th Sep '11 9:25:00 PM by snowfoxofdeath

"Right," Kiora said, climbing up on stage. "Now that I'm bipedal again, let's jam. Where's a guitar?"

There was a thud as an amp and guitar stand materialized on the stage. Kiora seized the instrument and ran through some warm-ups before flipping the amp on. A glance over William's shoulder let her get a general idea of the song, and she played along with some soft, arpeggiated chords.

Hope this guy knows some rock, she thought. This classical stuff is gonna get old quick.

[Table 8]

The pale-man's question made it clear he didn't explain it clearly enough. It was tragic that the textbook definitions were too academical for most people to understand them. Finn quickly went over all the facts before responding again.

"Actually, nothing really occupies the psychic plain," Finn said. "Most of its only psychic and spirit energy, ready to mingle with the physical plane to be converted into something that would affect the physical plane. Manifestations are unique that they alternate quickly through the two plains, which gives them the power to be selectively tangible and affect emotions, since the mind interacts with the physic plane...Words can't do any justice."

Finn leaned back in his chair. "The closest a being can get to occupying the psychic plane is for a pocket to form during certain parts of the year, but anything foreign that enters the psychic plane is quickly pulled back."

[Cathy]

Cathy quickly walked through the Cantina to keep track of all of her customers. She saw the chimera demonstrating his magical abilities, and the vampire summoning a guitar to play rock music.

Things were just getting started in the Cosmic Cantina.

edited 13th Sep '11 9:26:10 PM by chihuahua0

William stops playing and stares at the guitar. "What the fuck is that thing you're holding?"