Character Cantina II

Noah hesitated in talking about Virgil to Koiina. She certainly wasn't a child, but she had a kind of innocence about her.

"Virgil... Is a bad man. He did some horrible things, because horrible things happened to him."

"That's an Understatement," Charlie piped in. He then turned to the newcomer. "You know, you can set that gun down if you want. I don't think anyones going to try anything dangerous."

"I... do not entirely know," Qrlil said in response to Tokanae. She halted suddenly at Sigmund's confrontation with the armed human. She hadn't seen him this agitated before.

"What is wrong?" she asked Sigmund in a slightly worried tone. "Who is this?" U.N. - United Nations? She might not think much of the human government, but what Sigmund was talking about suggested that they were significant more unpleasant in his reality.

He stayed silent while Sigmund conducted his little show, leaning his back against the edge of the table, giving a slow, sarcastic clap when he finished. He said, voice dry and scornful, "Wow, it really is true what they say about you people. You should really enter theater, I think you'd do great."

Unfazed, the man responded without even missing a beat. "If that's what you think then you're a LOT dumber than your position would make you out to be. Then again, being successful in this day and age really only requires playing backseat bitch to the right people so it's not all that surprising. Tell me, which rich yuppie's cock did you suck to get to where you are?"

His tone of voice and the emphasis he placed on the words gave the impression that it wasn't the implication of homosexuality that he found reprehensible (as Sigmund was an avowed gay rights activist), but rather the implication that Sigmund had gotten to the position he had solely through political manipulations and was too lazy or incompetent to build the company up on his own.

"Was it the Koch brothers? The big banks, maybe? Although- not so big anymore what with the United Nations Resolution on the Regulation of Corporate Power in Member States, passed by majority vote in the General Assembly circa 2016." He had folded his arms and was looking Sigmund straight in the eyes, unflinching.

"Oh yeah, and you're wrong again. I'm not here to shut this place down- I doubt that we could, even if we wanted to. I'm just doing a little recon. And do you even know who I work for? Here's a clue: it isn't your 'higher-ups'. Hell- do you even know who they work for!? Wow, you really are missing out on a LOT, aren't you? Oh yeah, before I forget, next time you meet the POTUS tell him to pay his fuckin' taxes! We need more Mi-24s for chrissakes!"

edited 16th Oct '11 12:58:19 PM by Gault

Sigumd chuckled coldly. "Thanks, pal. Where I come from, it's 2015, and Alice — Alice Snow, name ring any bells? — just got a new assignment." Smirking as he considered the man before him, he said, "oh, don't get me wrong, I'm sure you've got your little secrets ferreted away, but don't get too cocky. It's like when you were an angsty teenager and hiding porn from your mommy. Oh, she might not have known exactly where you hid it, or exactly what it contained, but she knew enough." He smirked slightly, and added, "and I also know enough. Funny that somebody from the U.N. should accuse me of playing backseat bitch, though." He leaned in close and said, quietly, "you exist because people like me permit it."

Qrlil stood up abruptly.

"What. Is. Your. Problem?" Her mouth opened as she briefly sniffed at the armed man - it didn't seem likely that he was about to start anything violent. "You - whoever you are - why are you harassing him? And you" - she turned to Sigmund - "stop" (she tried to think of a proper idiom) "stop encouraging him!"

Stupid mammalian machismo. Whatever doubts she had about her own species, at least she knew that this kind of behavior was not something qrtxians would engage in.

edited 16th Oct '11 1:17:49 PM by nrjxll

The man in the combat vest visibly drew back, as if surprised. Any small satisfaction Sigmund might have gotten from seeing this evaporated with what he said next. He dropped the pretense of what he thought to be this amusing little banter contest completely, saying with genuine bafflement, "You- you don't know? You're this big of an international player and you don't..." A penny seemed to drop, and the man was now half-doubled over trying to suppress fits of laughter. He said what he could in between guffaws, "You really- ehehehseriously!? You'd never have said that iffffffahahaha!" He shook his head, disbelieving. "You really don't know who I work for, do you? It's not the UN, not really."

His laughter died down after a while, and he righted himself. Pretending to wipe a tear from his tactical goggles, he said, "Oh yeah, if you plan on assassinating members of the UN General Assembly, don't tell anyone. Though I'll probably let you do it, do us a favor more than anything. The GA, as it stands, doesn't do nearly as many things as we want them to. Alice could clear up a couple seats for a little gerrymandering, good idea. I'll have to bring that up at the next meeting, thanks."

edited 16th Oct '11 1:27:59 PM by Gault

"He just copies what he had done to him? Not try to undo it?" Koiina said to Noah, "He sounds rather impressionable to me."

Oh, great. She shot down another topic, Tokanae thought about Qrlil's reply.

Watching the antics between the newcomer and Sigmund, Shiko thought, are these two actually from the same universe? Or do they just like doing this for fun?

Sigmund looked down at Qrlil, and sat. "Yeah, she's right. For all I know you're talking to the wrong Sigmund, and there's some other, different Sigmund from your universe you should be wasting time on." He scoffed. "You aren't even worth my time. Bartender, a martini!"

Sigmund decided not to mention that Alice's goal would have been intimidation, not assassination. He'd already said too much.

"So," he said to Qrlil, "sorry I let that little shit get under my skin. Anyways, Qrlil, did you always want to be an ambassador? Or did you have other dreams when you were young? Don't worry, I won't laugh, no matter how silly they might seem to you."

edited 16th Oct '11 1:25:05 PM by KillerClowns

Noah sighed.

"He lost some people that meant a lot to him, and it drove him... mad. I don't want to regale you with stories of what he did after that, I don't want to sadden you."

Decided to bring Donovan back to Catina: Reloaded

As the door opened, a Nighgaunt flew into the Cosmic Catina, before being speared by a sword, nailing the creature into a wall. A familiar individual walked in, Donovan. He still had white hair and red eyes, something Nyarlathotep's power gave him, and his moving eye coat was dormant and his pants where the same, but he wore a gray shirt with a red design, new shoes, and a single fingerless glove on his right hand. If one knew, he had his two pistols, Black Rose and Bloody Thorn (Because every rose has it's thorn), holstered under his coat, and a strap with a magnet on his back.

He approached the nailed Nightgaunt as he thrusted the sword, causing the creature to scream in pain as it dissipated into smoke. He removed the sword and holstered it onto his back and looked at the people of the Catina, "Sorry for the disturbance, just had to kill that thing."

He noticed the bar with some of the people he had met before and approached, "Anyone remember me?"

Yes, his guns are in fact a reference

edited 18th Oct '11 6:52:22 PM by draconiansuperior

I don't think it's actually the matrix... :)

"Oh... I can see how losing people like that could be pretty traumatic..." Koiina said to Noah, "I don't know what I'd do if I was disconnected from my sisters..."

"Don't worry about her," Tokanae said to Noah about Koiina, "I don't think it's possible to sadden her for more than a moment."

Perfect. More theatrics, Shiko thought, watching Donovan enter.

Qrlil sat down and bent back a little. Other dreams when I was young. Another... interesting... word choice.

"No," she replied. "I have always been interested in learning about other cultures, and becoming an ambassador was among the only ways I could do so. If you have not noticed, we are not, as a whole, among the most gregarious of species."

She sipped her water. "Qrtxian childhood is, I think, different from that of humans. We choose our future paths very early on. So yes, I suppose I have always been intended to become an ambassador."

She flicked her eyes over to Tokanae, who seemed somewhat irritated, possibly at her failure to respond earlier. "I am sorry," she added. "I was distracted. Let me think about that question for a moment."

Forget the exact post, but she ordered some water a while back.

edited 16th Oct '11 1:50:09 PM by nrjxll

Sigmund looked at Qrlil, slightly admiring. "Huh. Good for you. Same story here; I always wanted to take over my family's business. My father was the very idol I sought to be, the smartest man I've ever met." He then looked down into his martini, and, his voice faltering slightly, said, "but sadly, a very old-fashioned man at that." He sighed, letting others read between the lines of what he meant. "And of course, there was my older brother. Took my father a long time to realize he'd never be capable of running Western Amalgamated. Too long..."

Suddenly, putting on a face of false cheer, he said, "sorry, am I boring you people with my whiny stories?"

edited 16th Oct '11 2:12:32 PM by KillerClowns

"Just when I start to like this guy, he goes and reminds me why I didn't," Ryan thought. Actually, as much as he didn't care for Sigmund's practices, he though that the armed newcomer might turn out to be far more dangerous. "Guess there's his type everywhere."

Ryan discretely placed the steak knife in his sweater pocket, motioned the bartender and asked for a replacement, then stored that as well. If things did get ugly, they might come in handy. He might need to see exactly how much of his skill he'd retained over the past few years.

Answer: A LOT. Also, Gault - mind explaining what's going on with your new guy?

edited 16th Oct '11 2:36:52 PM by KyleJacobs

Donovan shrugged as he slammed his foot, the forced directed entirely at a chair at another table. The chair flew as he caught it midair, put it down so that the back of the chair was infront as he put his hand and chin on the top, "How kind to see you all."

"Still," said Noah, "I'd rather not talk about Virgil right now. Today's a cheerful day! I have money to spend, and I have the company of a lovely lady like you for a while..." Noah gave Koiina another kiss.

Charlie looked over to Donovan. Noticing the sword and handguns... and general attitude, he added "Oh great, another Noah..."

"No, no, not at all," Qrlil replied to Sigmund. "I am not entirely sure I understand the exact nature of your problems" - Was that rude? I hope not - "but I understand the general idea".

She stopped a moment and turned her head down at the antics of the newcomer. Deciding to ignore it, she went on.

"I do not think we put as much emphasis on family as you do... but I can sympathize. My family was certainly a pleasant one, but I was considered - how to put this best - the 'strange' one of my siblings."

She blinked briefly. "I have hardly had an unhappy life, but I do think that, if I had not become an ambassador, I might have had much more of an isolated one."

Major miscommunication. Me and Gault talk a lot about our works and world building, so he knows quite a bit about mine and vice-versa. Problem is, he assumed our two worlds could safely cross over when, in fact, they couldn't. In mine, the U.N. has been losing ground due to demonic manipulation of their member states, to the point where by 2015, they're irrelevant. In his, as you can see, they've been growing more powerful.

Sigmund glanced at Donovan and thought to himself, oh, great, another guy who could afford to learn a thing or two about subtlety. (He failed to recognize the irony.) Then he noticed Ryan. It seemed he'd pissed him off again. He couldn't really blame Ryan, though; the new guy really had gotten under his skin, and he'd gotten ugly fast. So he sipped his martini, and, said to Qrlil, "strange one? Huh. I can understand where you're coming from." More than you think, he thought to himself. What would they say if they knew about her interests? It would be rude to discuss them, of course, but in a culture like hers... he supposed his life wasn't that bad, all things considered.

Avea had been quietly avoiding the two overly loud newcomers. Sigmund had calmed down, buy she wasn't sure about the new guys. Joining the conversation between Qrlil and Sigmund, she said, "I always wanted to be..." she stopped, unsure of herself. Had she ever really considered, aside from childish daydreams, doing anything other than taking over her mother's business? As though trying to convince herself as much as anyone else, she said, "I suppose I've always wanted to follow my parents' footsteps as well... "

edited 16th Oct '11 3:47:55 PM by KillerClowns

Donovan chuckled, "Come on guys, no one remembers me? The guy who came in like this," He changed into his Elder Form. He looked very much the same way it had before, pure black skin, white eyes, the long coat's eyes pulsating and moving, and bladed tendrils sprouting from him, but the major differences were the fact that the coat had the appearance of being wings, and the guns and the sword were there. He shifted back as he chuckled again.

"Aw, thanks." Koiina said to Noah. Then, turning to face Donovan, she said, "Nice to see you too!"

"I wouldn't worry about needing those." Shiko said to Ryan, noticing his knife-hoarding, "This place forbids fighting."

"Your parents' footsteps?" Qrlil said to Avea. "What would you do if they went somewhere where their footsteps did not show up?"

"Er. That was a joke," she added awkwardly. Save the human humor for a later time. "What do your parents do, exactly?"

Sigmund glanced at Donovan, unimpressed. Standard magical theatrics. Avea flinched and leaned away, but said nothing, hoping this mage would be unable to harm her here.

To Qrlil, Avea said, "my mother's a glassmaker, and my father's a merchant. I guess, in a way, I'm doing both of those things. It'll be nice, help keep food on the table, that sort of thing," she said, unenthusiastically.

Ryan muttered to Shiko, "Fighting? Yes. Throwing them next to people for intimidation? No clue. And last time I checked, my aim was good enough that I'm able to do that without worrying." Ryan considered for a moment, then added, "Although, to be fair, I haven't tried that particular trick in some time. It does make me feel more comfortable, though."

To Donovan, he said, "Nope, sorry. Then again, I may have been passed out at the time."

edited 16th Oct '11 4:07:35 PM by KyleJacobs

Donovan seemed indifferent as he turned to Ryan and scratched his chin, "Hmm, well then," He extended his hand to shake Ryan's, "Donovan, the more or less willing servent to Nyarlathotep himself!"

Qrlil blinked a little at the antics of the newcomer. The purple tinge to his scent seemed familiar, but she wasn't that interested in following up on it. She tilted her head back towards Avea.

Merchant? Glassmaker?

Oh, that's right, she's from a prim - medieval-era planet.

"Er," she said. "If it's not too forward, you sound somewhat unenthusiastic about that."