Dining Area

Clearly the attention James and Brianna had been directing at this new group had not gone unnoticed, as the man with the metal arm looked directly at James and introduced himself and the rest of his party.

James understood most of what Weston said - only the word "engineer" seemed to carry a different connotation to that which James was accustomed; it seemed to mean someone who worked with and repaired complicated machines rather than one who managed and directed an army's engines of war: artillery.

He was uncertain if "human divergent" referred to Weston with his metal arm, the other three in the group, or all four of them.

Brianna introduced herself but Crestfeather uttered not a word - she seemed to have become increasingly withdrawn since Brianna's arrival, more so when this strange crew arrived.

"James Turner, of Cambridge, England; late of the Virginia Colony in North America." He looked at Keiko, Tavi and Sotaro and added "Earth", just to err on the side of caution.

" 'Tis true that I have never seen any such as your crew," he figured that would cover his uncertainty as to how many of them were 'human divergents', and which. "I arrived here not long ago and know not where I am nor how I got here. However, none of you seem surprised by this place nor the people herein... do any of you perchance know what manner of place this is that many diverse people may arrive here - often not intentionally?"

Gabe: Inn, outdoor dining area

Gabe just sat back with her arms crossed, looking up between the three of them with a look that seemed to scream 'are you serious?'. After a moment of this, she just tossed her hair out of her eyes and sighed. "Alright, I'll hhhumor you."

"Horchata," she began. "Gggenuine, none of the powdd-powdered stuff, 'cuz if the menu in ttthere works the way I think it does, it addapts to everyone that looks at it, and you're from Earth, right? 400 years or so behind me? Pplace is a bit of a shitt-shithole where I come from."

With that out of the way, her gaze then flicked back over to Koyel, her orange eyes making the gesture a tad more piercing than it might have been otherwise. She liked to think she had a keen sense for when people were holding their tongues around her, and she saw that look immediately... but opted instead to hold her tongue on the matter as well.

"After old-timer here comes back out, we all sit and we tttalk."

The crew of the Valiant Tailor: Dining Area, Bar Side

Weston had begun to have nagging doubts that the guy was just a reenactor, but before he could dwell on that thought for much longer, their honorable captain had returned with tall glasses of stout beer for each of the party, before making a second trip and returning with a large plate of food—deep-fried nuggets of some description arranged around a bowl of red dipping sauce—and setting it down on the center of the table.

The human took a moment to take a swig of his beer before turning back over to 'James', but it was Keiko who spoke up. "What's even on Earth?" she remarked with some derision. "Besides a whole lot of beachside property and people too poor to leave."

"Her and Sotaro's family are, ah, immigrants." Weston interjected with an explanation. "Left for greener pastures. As for where you are now..." he went on, taking a quick bite of fried nugget. "Tavi, this was...?"

"Rani said it was Savynn II, resort colony." the quadruped replied, looking about the place, a twinge of confusion making its way onto ever her decidedly nonhuman features, though she didn't seem to bat an eye at any of the diverse people present. It was easy for observers to deduce that the group as a whole had seen far stranger. "I don't think this place was on the brochure."

"What are we talking about?" Sotaro butted in through a mouthful of food before gathering the presence of mind to swallow, carrying remarkably little of the charisma or straight-laced mien that James might have expected of a ranking captain.

If anyone, it was Keiko and Weston who took up most of the slack in that regard.

Edited by Chortleous on Aug 7th 2023 at 10:35:13 AM

[Sparring Circle (Gabe; Caroline, Koyel)]

Koyel looked over at Gabe and said. "So I guess your version of the Dying World finally kicked it?" He seemed unsurprised. "Been there once. Damn place gave me the creeps. You got that... death-white moon looming over the place like a skull, and even the air's wrong..."

"For the record," Caroline said, "it's nothing to do with air pollution."

"Yeah," Koyel said, "apparently, uh..." he paused, clearly racking his mind for a recent lesson. "Something in the air humans need... what'd you say it was?"

"Oxygen."

"Yeah," he continued, "so goin' to the Dying World's like climbing a mountain. Still," he shook his head, then looked over at Caroline. "No offense, all that concrete and steel... all them towers and them, uh, them colorful glowing lights..."

"It's home," Caroline said, with a sigh. "You of all people should know I won't abandon my home." She looked over at Gabe. "I don't know what your Earth is like, but mine isn't past saving. Not yet."

Mort had apparently overheard, because as he took a seat and handed Gabe her (genuine) horchata, he said, "eh, we'll see about that..."

For himself, Mort had decided to cut back on the alcohol, and had a fizzing glass of slightly red-hued cola. Not quite Pepsi, not quite Coke, a bit sweet, with a touch of fruity notes. For Caroline, he'd brought a glass of pale cream soda, which she took appreciatively, and for Koyel, some kind of agave-sweetened, hot pink soda that smelled something like orange sherbert, and something like bubblegum.

"There's some newcomers," he added. "None of 'em look Corpo, though. A guy dressed like a Pilgrim, some kinda... big troll lady, two rabbit people, a cyborg, and what looks like a... talking velociraptor, wearing a vest."

Edited by KillerClowns on Aug 7th 2023 at 12:53:16 PM

Dining hall (basically everyone)

Crestfeather stared at all of the new people who had entered the room. What does Corpo mean? Where did they all come from?

Hearing Brianna gesture for her to introduce herself, she decided it was safe to remove her hood. After all, no one seemed particularly unnerved by non-humans around here.

"Crestfeather, of Skylands. Daughter of lost trolls."

But now, of course, came the fun part. She spun a circle with her finger, making fire sparkle. "Aligned with the Magic element."

Dining Area

To James's surprise, one of the rabbit-like newcomers, Keiko, was able to speak English and, from what she said, and the derisive tone in which she said it, she was aware of Earth but viewed it with considerable distaste. Her comment about "people too poor to leave" was perplexing, however. The idea that people could choose to leave if they could afford it - as if leaving Earth were as simple as buying passage on a ship - seemed preposterous... and yet she spoke as though it were not only possible, but preferable to staying.

Weston asked the alien-looking one, Tavi, what the place was but James got the impression she wasn't entirely confident in her answer. It occurred to him that they might expect to be somewhere but have ended up here instead - as he was here instead of in London, Crestfeather was no longer in the Glow Leaf Grove and the woods to which Brianna referred most likely weren't the same as the woods outside the inn. The fact that it seemed that all they knew about this "resort colony" came from some sort of advertisement made it quite possible that they had no better idea of where they were than he, Crestfeather or Brianna.

At around this point, someone else entered the room: a short, wiry white-haired man, his pale skin bearing the flush of recent physical exertion. It was clear from the way he moved that he was a fighter and James took the time to note his unusual clothing style and shoulder-length hair. This newcomer only stopped at the bar long enough to get a number of drinks and then leave again through the doors at the rear of the dining area but James had no doubt in his mind that, just as he had taken careful note of this strange-looking man, the warrior had likewise made note of everyone in the dining hall.

Crestfeather uncovered her head and introduced herself to the others and then made a gesture with her finger that caused a sparkling fire while proclaiming she was aligned with the magick element.

James stared in shock at Crestfeather's hand, his ale raised halfway to his mouth. His rational mind rebelled at the idea that there would be any supernatural explanation for what she had done, so he was left wondering how she had created this illusion. He took a deep, belated, swig of his ale and looked around the room before addressing the crew of the Valiant Tailor.

"On the Earth from which I come, there are none such as yourselves, nor can we leave our world save by dying. How would the likes of I have got from the docks of London to this Savynn Two Resort Colony without time seeming to pass? It would take two days to travel only as far as Cambridge, months to get to the North American colonies... yet coming here seemed to take no time at all. Crestfeather and Brianna have vouchsafed similar experiences."

Edited by Wolf1066 on Aug 13th 2023 at 10:30:46 PM

Gabe: Inn, outdoor dining area, sitting with Mort, Koyel, and Caroline.

Gabe only shrugged. The Earth she knew wasn't beyond saving and it certainly wasn't 'dead', not completely, but... "Shittthole for people like me. Gran'parents took the first ttt-ticket out of Sol, haven't looked back."

She finished her first drink before accepting the new one with an appreciative nod. "Wanna say ittt's been smooth sailing tthen on, but you know how it goes." she remarked, taking a sip. The lemuroid seemed to savor the sweetness and the cinnamon for a moment, her demeanor around the three of them softening ever so slightly as she took stock of Mort's account.

'Two rabbit-people, a cyborg, and a dinosaur' sounded familiar—was that last one a lylunian? If she was right, then that little group definitely wasn't corporate (as much as their self-proclaimed 'captain' liked to put on the airs of a legitimate business). In any case, she opted not to comment, instead letting out an amused snort at one of the other parties mentioned.

"Wonder how the pilgrim's tttaking all that, the poor fuck."

The crew of the Valiant Tailor: Dining Area, Bar Side

Weston had been looking over at Crestfeather as she introduced herself and was the only one of the group to witness her display. "Magic, alright!" he remarked, not yet wholly believing that that's what he was seeing, nor quite grokking that Crestfeather herself was anything more than another of the modified humans with which he was familiar. "Beats having to carry a lighter."

Upon seeing James' confusion, the rest of the group merely looked at Tavi. As the crew's engineer, she had just been wordlessly entrusted with the unenviable task of explaining to an ancient human how spacecraft worked.

This couldn't be much more difficult than explaining it to inquisitive liir'aalu fresh off Avuura, she thought. They didn't even have fire.

The quadruped shut her eyes in thought, before turning to the man. "Okay, you seem pretty quick on the uptake," she acknowledged. "You know ships? Boats, that travel over water? Where we're from, we use a version of that sort of thing, analogous in some ways, uses a lot of the same terms."

She took a breath before continuing, giving him time to soak that in that introduction. "Only rather than the ocean, these are... space-ships, spacecraft, whatever you want to call them. Pressurized vessels that travel the vast, empty airless space between planets. Planets being, like, what you know as Earth, your Moon, and..." she trailed off, thinking back on her own rudimentary knowledge of Earth history, its pre-modern astronomy, and whether or not he'd know about the rest of the Sol system.

Shoving that aside, she instead opted to push on with her explanation, holding on to the hope that James at least vaguely understood her point. "The one my people come from is another, Lylun, so is that colony I mentioned."

"Yep, and sometimes shit happens to spacecraft, that's where we come in." Sotaro interjected as if bragging. "Find drifting wrecks, strip 'em of materials and valuable parts-"

"Not helping." was Tavi's swift rebuttal. "How you got here though," she continued to explain to James with her own anatomical approximation of a shrug, "beats the shit out of me."

Edited by Chortleous on Aug 16th 2023 at 6:07:47 AM

Dining hall (Everyone)

Brianna was still struggling to process everything that was happening around her. An old-timey soldier, a magician, and a bunch of furries from space? She was supposed to be on a date, not in a real-life game of Dungeons and Dragons! She dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

As she hid her device, she hoped to look attentive and engaged. Most others thought of her as a spacey hippie with nothing in her head but the flowers she grew. Which was partially true, but she still had a lot of deep thoughts going on inside. Thinking about where she would go in life, and who she would meet. She was only fifteen; surely a quiet flower shop and a secret best friend weren't going to be the end of it, right?

Dining Area

Of course James was familiar with ships - he was so recently intimately acquainted with a ship that it still felt strange to be walking on ground that didn't keep shifting underneath his feet - but Tavi was not to know this so he did not take offence at the question.

He was also quite aware that the Earth was a planet - as were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, each in their own orbit about the sun - and he listened with amazement as she told him that they had ships that were capable of travelling through the void between planets and his mind sparkled with ideas and questions.

As she spoke he could feel the familiar pressure in his chest and the prickling in the corners of his eyes - the same sensation he had felt when reading Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe and numerous other accounts of travel and adventure, both real and imagined, and when he listened to his grandfather's accounts of his own travels... that visceral yearning for adventure that drove him, in later years, to join the Regiment and sail to the Americas.

He wondered what it must be like to be able to board a ship that travelled not just to other continents and islands but to other planets and wondered what sort of motive force it would employ in the airless, windless expanse of the void and how it could leave the surface of the planet... he briefly wondered if one might achieve it with a large enough rocket but decided against saying anything lest he look foolish.

Tavi's explanation clarified a great many things but also posed more questions. Before he could ask any, Sotaro interjected, mentioning that they spent their time salvaging materials and parts from wrecked vessels. That caused James to consider that when a ship was wrecked on Earth, it sank to the bottom of the ocean and all but some small amount of flotsam was usually lost unless it sank in very shallow waters... but in the void with no water in which to sink, a vessel would - what? According to Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, it should continue in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. With no gravity to pull the craft down and no water to close over it, why, it would be there for the taking.

The way these newcomers used English was unusual but their message was somehow comprehensible and they clearly had no more aversion to vulgar language than he.

A movement from Brianna attracted his attention and, to his amazement, she pulled something from her pocket that seemed to be an unbelievably small and ridiculously flat lamp that turned on and off at will with no obvious means of ignition. After doing something with it, she stowed it back in her pocket with no sign of it being hot. This was definitely something to ask about later.

He turned back to the crew of the Valiant Tailor. "How is it that you know of Earth and yet I've never met anyone who has heard of your planet - and if they had, I'm bloody certain it would have been recorded often and widely enough that I would surely have read about it, as I have read of the other five planets discovered in the solar system and of the satellites that orbit Jupiter and Saturn as our moon orbits the Earth."

He drained his ale and put the glass down beside his empty plate. "I must say I am amazed to be here, meeting such as yourselves. I had thought that my adventuring was all but over when I set foot upon the dock in London, but it seems that a curious chance has ensured that my adventure must continue a while still."

Edited by Wolf1066 on Aug 16th 2023 at 8:31:27 PM

The crew of the Valiant Tailor: Dining Area, Bar Side

James' last question gave Tavi pause, her mouth hanging open for a moment before she remembered to close it again.

"Man, are you a long way from home." Keiko remarked, taking a long sip of her beer and watching the situation unfold from her far seat.

"These ships..." the alien began, ignoring that comment. "Travel very, very far, very quickly, and enabled us t-"

"Colonial era!" Sotaro butted in again, prompting her to roll her eyes—she'd honestly hoped to just gloss over that part, for James' sake and her own. It was just her luck the rabbit had to be so inexplicably well-read about Earth history. "That's where you're from, was right on the tip of my tongue. You got the outfit and everything." he observed, leaning back in his seat. "18th century, I think? That's like... at least 600 years ago."

"Yeeeah," Tavi considered how to proceed. Time dilation? As far as she was aware, that couldn't explain this. "What he said. Where we're from, it's... Earth calendar year 2425, it's the standard we use." she used an opposable paw to grab another fried nugget and toss it into her mouth. "520,370, Lylun calendar. Fun fact, every inhabited planet's got a different one, different historical benchmarks..."

Edited by Chortleous on Sep 9th 2023 at 1:32:56 PM

Dining hall, rooms - Brianna

Uncomfortable with everything around her, Brianna slipped away from the commotion and scurried off to find a room to sleep in.

Behind a door marked 321 - her birthday numbers, she noted, she found a queen size bed with welcoming pink sheets, a painting hanging above with a willow tree inside, a window with autumn curtains, a TV atop a dresser, and a black mini fridge. She had never seen a hotel with pink sheets before.

Inside the dresser, she found her favourite pyjamas; 100% cotton, yellow with white accents. Seeing the blue sky still burning overhead, she supposed she might as well forget about finding Dylan until the evening, when it would be dark and no one could spot her. Laying among the blankets, she felt welcome. Like she was at a grandmother's house. The cozy feeling lulled her into a nap.

Edited by NoonboryKedabory on Sep 15th 2023 at 8:20:27 AM

Outdoor Dining Area/Sparring Circle

The fight came to an abrupt end with Mort taking a blow to the hand and yielding to the younger fighter. Wolf was impressed that the fight had gone on this long... he would've been out of breath, and incapable of continuing, in a fraction of that time. His only chance to survive against either of them - or Koyel - would be an incapacitating first strike that he would have no hope in hell of pulling off against such skilled opponents.

From the following discussion, Wolf gleaned a rough indication of the time differences between Mort's Earth and Gabe's before Mort vanished inside to get drinks. Wolf briefly considered following him in and grabbing himself something else to drink but thought better of it - with the alcohol and the coffee, he'd already ingested enough fluids since he got here to keep him going for most the day; he didn't really need to reach a point where he was having to run to the loo every ten minutes.

Mort returned with the drinks to report that a wildly varied bunch of others had turned up and he was tempted to go and grab a drink, but it would most likely be obvious that he was just being nosy - and still have the problematic side-effects of imbibing more fluids.

Gabe wondered aloud how the Pilgrim was "taking all that" and Wolf - his idea of "Pilgrim", as it pertained to the United States of America, being shaped by depictions of "The Pilgrim Fathers" in popular media - got a mental image of some dude with one of those silly ruff collars and a truncated-cone hat with a big shiny buckle on it gawping in disbelief at rabbit people, a cyborg, a troll and a talking velociraptor in a vest.

For Wolf, a life-long fan of science fiction and fantasy, this place and its exotic occupants was a dream come true... he was already mentally prepared for the concepts of other planets, alien lifeforms, genetic engineering, cybernetic implants and so forth and he was finally able to see it in real life. But what must it be like for someone from... The Mayflower was, what, 1600's, wasn't it?... from the 1600s to encounter such things. The poor fuck, indeed.

"Here's hoping this Pilgrim bloke's like that knight I met earlier and comes from an alternative Earth where they have magic and unusual races so it's not too overwhelming for him." He took a drag on his vape, wishing more than ever he had gone and at least got another cup of coffee to slurp on. The thumb and middle finger of his left hand tapped together frantically.

Dining Area

Keiko's sudden ejaculation emphasised that he was very far from his world and Tavi began to explain that their ships could travel very, very far, very quickly before Sotaro interrupted and to James' shock said that the 18th Century - the current day in James' opinion - was at least 600 years ago from his standpoint.

Tavi confirmed Sotaro's assessment, giving a date more than 600 years in the future... James quickly subtracted 1753 from 2425 in his head and got 672 - very nearly 700 years. All he could do at that moment was stare at them in silence as a void that had nothing at all to do with hunger opened and stretched in his gut and his chest somehow seemed to constrict.

There was no doubt in his mind they were telling the truth and he had to acknowledge and come to terms with what this might mean for him. Returning home was no longer simply a matter of returning to the place he left, but also returning to the time he left - and the fact that he had somehow moved forward in time did not presuppose that he could just as easily move backward in time... after all, his entire experience of time so far was that it always moved forward.

Perhaps it was impossible to return home, perhaps the question of whether his father had still been alive when he left Virginia was irrelevant in light of the fact that his father - and brother, for that matter - had been dead for more than 600 years from the point of view of the people sitting nearby.

He was aware of Brianna slipping away from the table and the room - possibly because she, too, was shocked to learn that her world was now hundreds of years in the past and needed to take time alone with her thoughts.

Even if he could return to the place and time of departure from his Earth, there was no certainty that he would see his father on his return to Cambridge - his father could have died long before the boat carrying his brother's letter reached Virginia or, if he had managed to survive until James reached London, he could die within the two days' coach ride from London to Cambridge - or any time in between.

Fifteen years earlier - by his own reckoning of time - he had joined Thomas Farrington's Regiment of Foot and sailed to the Americas in the knowledge that he may never see father or brother again. He had faced the real possibility of death numerous times - in battle, in the harsh wildernesses of North America and perilous sea voyages and he knew that his family back home were not free from risk. In short, he had long ago come to accept that the last time he saw his family may well have been the last time he would ever see them. Rationally, then, his current situation differed little from the day he left home with the regiment.

He spared some thought for what his brother - or his father, if he were still alive - might think if he never returned. Surely, they too, had long ago come to terms with the possibility that they may never see him again, that he might fall in some distant battle or become shipwrecked and drown. Even on learning that a boat carrying him had arrived safely in London, they would presume his failure to complete the journey home was due to being waylaid and killed somewhere between the docks and Cambridge - and, indeed, such might easily befall him if he did succeed in returning to London in his own time. Returning to the place and time of his departure would not make it certain that he would make it home to see his brother.

Any way he cut it, he could not see that he was any worse off here - on this planet, in this time - than when he left home 15 years younger or when he arrived back in England. The tightness in his chest faded as did the void in his gut; his face softened.

And perhaps he would be able to return to his own place and time and go home to find his father still alive and see his brother again - he would certainly not be able to speak of this adventure, lest he be put in Bethlem.

If he were able to return - or indeed already had returned from the point of view of where he was now - and lived out the rest of his life running his father's business with his brother, it would mean that he, too, would have died over 600 years ago. Yet here he was, alive outside of his own time - however improbably.

Alive, too, was the spirit of the youth that had eagerly listened to his grandfather's tales of travel and adventure and avidly read every account of travel he could get his hands on... and here he was in a wondrous place with strange beings from other worlds and strange flat lamps that did not burn the pocket.

A smile stole across his face. The adventure - however it may end, whether or not he would be able to go home afterwards - was far from over!

He beckoned a waiter and dug a halfpenny out of his coin purse. "Another pint of ale, if you please." The waiter took the coin and retired with a nod.

James looked afresh at the crew of the Valiant Tailor. "I suppose I should have suspected that I had travelled through time as well as through space. There are just too many things that cannot be explained in terms of the science of my time, even if they do come from other worlds, and - of course - there is the matter that the Earth of my time knows nothing of your worlds. Those things alone should have been sufficient for me to determine the truth."

His smile broadened. "This is turning into a far greater adventure than I had ever dreamed I could have. Not even Swift's imaginings compare with this..." he looked directly at Keiko, "I gather from what you said earlier that those who are rich choose to leave Earth in your time. Is there that much fortune to be sought elsewhere?"

The waiter returned with the pint of ale and James took a sip.

Edited by Wolf1066 on Sep 16th 2023 at 6:01:25 AM

The crew of the Valiant Tailor: Dining Area, Bar Side

Everyone at the table was, to say the very least, some degree of pleasantly surprised to see how well James was taking it... but his question about those who'd left Earth, and their reasons for doing so, brought up another topic of discussion that no one present was particularly willing to try and tackle—Weston had raised his hands defensively in the universal gesture for 'not my lane' before busying himself with the food.

No one except Keiko.

She took another long drink of her beer, deciding to bite the bullet as much as the topic seemed to pain her in particular. "Yeah, so, you wonder why we look like this?" she gestured vaguely at herself and Sotaro. "Because we're humans. Just like you or Weston here."

A sigh. "Before we were born, before our grandparents, before their parents," the rabbit began with no small amount of bitterness evident in her tone, prompting Tavi to silently hope she wasn't going to be called upon to explain genetic engineering. "It started with the military, making people 'better', more lethal soldiers. But eventually that fell out of fashion, until someone someplace took that sort of technology and decided they wanted something a little more exotic. Entertainment, let's call it."

Tavi exhaled audibly in relief, and Keiko continued. "At least that's the short of it, that's why we look the way we do, s'why we're called 'divergents'. Offshoot of humanity. Presiding government of the Sol system didn't like us much, so as soon as ships could go far enough, we took the first tickets out of there. Wasn't any fortune we were after, just a safe place to live."

She leaned back in her chair to resume her characteristic silence, all but bowing out of the conversation after having said her peace. One got the distinct impression that the divergent wasn't willing to answer many more questions.

"Climate change didn't help." Weston remarked quietly, taking a drink of his own beer as if to punctuate. "They got a handle on that eventually, but your descendants are gonna have a hell of a time."

Edited by Chortleous on Oct 2nd 2023 at 3:06:18 AM

Dining Area

What exactly marks the beginning and end of a time period? That was the main question plaguing Crestfeather's mind as she simply sat to soak in the events around her. In Skylands, you could be meeting an ancient Arkeyan with wisdom and secrets abound and a modern-day robot with advanced AI in the span of one hour. Not to mention how much clothing styles differed between islands. But whatever a time period was, she knew there had to be decades; no, centuries between everyone at the table.

Seeing a bar nearby, she supposed that no one would question her age if she had something to drink; after all, no one around this place seemed to know a thing about trolls. Approaching the table, she saw a variety of people with glasses of alcohol, eaching looking like they had a myriad of stories is to how they got there. She figured she might as well have a shot at getting closer to her goal. "Do any of you recognize the name Downcaster?"

Foyer - Dining Area

A small figure made its way past the crystal doors, swiftly slithering between the legs of other guests without being noticed. At first, it could pass off as a rat, with its snout with whiskers, its round ears, and sleek body covered in white fur, save for the limbs and long tail. But this one was bigger than a normal rat, about a foot and a half. It also wore clothes (a pair of rags, fashioned as best as it could into the shape of a shirt and pants) and walked on its hind legs. Very nimbly, indicating this creature was young and spry.

Both the outside and the inside of the building were big. That was normal; from Grikkit's perspective, all the Big People's dens were big. They always liked to use up as much space as they could. But this place in particular was big, even for the Big People's standards. The wooden ceiling made Grikkit think of a cavern, so far away one would need wings to reach it.

Grikkit didn't find this reassuring. The upper floors looked a little more protected, but the ground floor was open and there were many Big People around. They didn't take kindly to Grikkit and his kind. No hiding spots around. Grikkit made his way carefully to the left, sticking mostly to the walls, towards the dining area.

Soon, the varied smells of varied types of food filled Grikkit's nostrils. His belly rumbled. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could pick something from the trash. If was not, he might have to venture into the kitchen, where he would certainly not be welcome. Grikkit moved carefully, always staying under empty tables. He heard talking, and next to him was a small group of people talking to someone else on another table. A little further, another one had walked up to the bar. Grikkit stood hidden, hoping he would not be noticed.

Dining Area

James sipped his beer and listened intently to Keiko's explanation of how her kind came to exist, noting interesting points along the way - such as the fact that there seemed to be a government in charge of the whole solar system (he wondered briefly if the head of it was a descendant of one of Earth's monarchies) and that making exotic human variants had been a matter of fashion.

A quick furtive movement at ground level caught the corner of his eye but he was only fast enough to get the merest glimpse of a small figure - definitely wearing garments of some sort and moving on two legs - as it vanished out of his sight under the empty table nearest to the crew of the Valiant Tailor. It didn't emerge again, so it presumably was still under there. He was reminded of the old fairy stories of gnomes and pixies and of Swift's Lilliputians.

Weston made some comment about the climate changing and his descendants - obviously assuming it possible for him to return to the Earth of his own time - having a 'hell of a time' due to it. There wasn't any clarification forthcoming as to which regions or countries were affected or what could cause the climate to change and James figured that it would possibly require a lengthy explanation anyway.

So far, whoever or whatever it was that had taken refuge under the table had not emerged.

He took another sip of his beer and gestured at the 'empty' table with his glass. "Is the little bugger under the table another one of your human divergents or someone you don't know?"

Foyer - Dining Room

A detective is meant to investigate all sorts of strange goings on. A mysterious manor of an inn situated in the middle of nowhere is practically a dream. But of course, this was not a dream, but reality for one Miss Maisy Weatherly.

Entering the dining room, she could see a variety of faces, all different species. Maisy, in her pink sweater and thick glasses, looked completely innocent as she approached the most populated table. "Pardon...has anyone under the surnames McGill or Zootowski checked in?"

Edited by NoonboryKedabory on Dec 17th 2023 at 1:43:15 PM

The crew of the Valiant Tailor: Dining Area, Bar Side

'Downcaster' wasn't a familiar name to anyone at the table, and the query was thus met with several variations of "Doesn't ring a bell, sorry" and one rather more blunt "No".

James' last question, though, was met with a confused look from Weston and Tavi, while Sotaro didn't seem to be paying attention to the conversation anymore—and indeed had pulled out some sort of small, square communication device that he'd begun to tap away at, pausing only to pop a fried nugget in his mouth.

"...uh, how little? H-Divs aren't that extreme." the weasel-like one remarked with that same shrug-approximating gesture from earlier, briefly glancing underneath the table. "Lylunians, though... our system's government kinda hid away what we used to look like, and I know it wasn't anything like this. Looong story."

Keiko, meanwhile, didn't hesitate to speak up as the one in the pink sweater approached. "The tiny one? Went under the table."

Edited by Chortleous on Feb 11th 2024 at 3:20:05 AM

Dining Area

Movement nearby. Grikkit, still under the table, dashed behind one of its legs to hide better. Which was too thin to properly hide him. Warily, he sniffed the air around him, paying attention to what he heard. The Big People around him were talking of Big people things, nothing strange there, and also of someone small... Oh no. Did they notice him?

The Skripp's back tensed, ready to bolt if things went south. He scanned the area, looking for . The one dressed more fancily didn't scare him much, those usually didn't like dirtying their hands. The group dressed in yellow, however, did. The furry creature that was with them didn't look like a cat at all, yet it still looked like something that ate eat rats for breakfast.

Grikkit remembered all the lessons his family had taught him, how to survive in the larger world: Avoid the Big People, avoid cats, stay near the shadows and holes in the walls. He had no real reason to linger here, he could just run away... Still, a part of him felt curiosity. These people knew he was there, but didn't seem to react badly to his presence. Maybe... maybe he could risk it. Just this one time.

Grikkit tentatively stepped forward, showing himself to the people around. "Uhmm, hi?" He said in a slightly high-pitched tone, waving a paw at them.

Dining Area

There was a new arrival, a woman wearing spectacles and a bulky garment knitted from pink wool. Neither of the names she asked about were familiar to him.

From the puzzled looks he got from Weston and Tavi in response to his question, they weren't expecting any more of their friends or crew and Tavi conveyed the idea that 'H-Divs' weren't usually too far removed from normal human size.

Before he could even answer, 'about eighteen inches or so', the figure in question stepped into full view, waved and called out to get people's attention.

James stared. "Well, I'll be buggered!" The first thought was: 'it's a rat', but it obviously wasn't - rats didn't speak or wear clothes. This creature was wearing clothes and speaking, therefore it was no more a rat than Sotaro and Keiko were rabbits or Tavi was the offspring of a weasel and a lizard. But if it was too small to be a human divergent, what was it? Some other species entirely?

Well whatever it was, it could talk, so... "Hello," he said pleasantly and leaned forward to get a better look. "What manner of creature are you? And whence do you come?"

He took another sip from his beer. An astute observer would note that the hand that held the mug was calloused and tanned as if accustomed to a fair degree of hard work outdoors.

Dining Room - Many, primarily Maisy and Crestfeather

No one checked in under "Zootowski" or "McGill"? Then this place would be of no use to Maisy. For you see, on the outside, Maisy looked innocent and sweet, like a baker or a librarian. But beneath that soft exterior lay a cold, hardened heart; that of The Needle, the most ruthless detective within the mile. Mr. Andre Zootowski and his lover, Russell McGill, had been missing for over a month, and their employer had finally grown desperate enough to turn to her to investigate. After tracking their whereabouts, Maisy seemed to have taken a wrong turn before landing at this mysterious inn.

"Zootowski..." Crestfeather mulled at the name. "I think I met a Zoomer at the Cutthroat Carnival." She shook her head; she barely knew anything about the hotel she was in, let alone the residents. "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that."

"I understand that." Maisy pulled down her glasses to peer threateningly at the other members of the table. "Can you?"