Character Cruise

Ship (First Floor)

Talitha was somewhat surprised when she finally stepped onto the ship and got to see just how large it was. She thought it was a pretty sizable boat from the parking lot, but didn't get much of an impression as to how big this thing actually was. She might even get lost at some point. Actually, she was somewhat confused right now, and just not because of everything else she'd seen up to this point.

This floor didn't look like the place where the passenger rooms were. This floor seemed to hold the various other commodities the ship had to offer. She was pretty certain the ship had more than one floor...at least, that was the impression she got from the brochure. Maybe there was a map around here someplace?

Sure enough, she looked straight forwards and saw a rather large diagram of the ship's interior straight across from the ship's entrance. Partly to get out of the way so that the other patrons could get on the ship, but mostly to figure out where she was supposed to find her room, Talitha walked over to take a look at it.

Ulrich briefly considered throwing out one of his many pseudonyms, before remembering that like an idiot, Ethrein had put his legal name on the ticket, and a future name discrepancy would only make him look worse.

"Ulrich," he said. And this really isn't a good time—I'm still a passenger on this cruise, and it's leaving soon." As he feared, the kid's expression turned to one of betrayal and exasperation.

"Look," Ulrich began again, hoping to prevent another scream. "If this is anything like the stories I heard way back when, you can stay here as long as you want, and when you go back home it'll be like you never left." He shrugged, flashing an expression he hoped would come off as both nonchalant and inviting. "Plus," he said, spotting a winged figure milling about, "you might find this more interesting than whatever book you were reading."

[Dock/Outside]

"Oh, absolutely," Patricia said to Alice, turning around to greet her and smiling, "I'm Patricia8 - but you can call me Patricia, or Pat. (But not eight.) And you are?"

Takumi turned around as well, his ears perking up, and thought, hey, she's kind of cute, I wonder if - oof - as Patricia lightly elbowed him. He then said, "Takumi Nekomura, at your service. But you can call me Takumi, or, er, I guess 'hey you!' Whatever works."

"We're just heading on the ship, if you'd like to join us?" Patricia said.

-Ship-

Whitney was on the ship. "Wow, this is really cool..." Whitney says as she sees a soda machine. "Well, I am kinda thirsty. I think I'll take a Mountain Dew..." She inserts money, and presses the button. All of a sudden, a can of Mountain Dew came down. Then another... Then another. It stopped at three.

"Well... This is kinda awkard..." Whitney says as she grabs the cans.

Katsu, while he was going to be a brazen idiot and scream at first, actually heard what Ulrich said and gave it consideration. This gave him time to pause in his thoughts and ensure that he actually thought out what he was going to say.

After thinking the thoughts over, he said, "Sure, mister Ulrich, I understand. I guess I could stay here for a while, mainly in order to clear my head, at least before heading back home."

Noticing that the line for the cruise was going on well ahead of them, he pointed to behind Ulrich and said, "Uh, is the line moving ahead of us a good thing, or is it bad?"

[Outside]

Once Melvin was outside he got a good look of the boat the receptionist was talking about - although it was large, it was somewhat plain, at least in comparison to Melvin's expectations. However, what did catch his attention was a man with a tail and cat ears and a woman that looked to be part-robot.

Curious, Melvin wandered over to them, prepared to pull the short magic staff he kept in his pocket out if they proved to be dangerous.

"Hello," he said to them. "I couldn't help but notice you guys when I stepped out. Are you here for the cruise? The inter-dimensional one? Do you speak English?" he added, realizing that he probably should have asked that first.

[Dock/Outside]

"Yes, yes, and yes," Patricia said to Melvin, "in fact, I can communicate through almost every known method in the multiverse."

"I usually just use the universal translator," Takumi said, "or Patricia, there's not really a whole lot of diff-oof-" as he was gently elbowed again.

"I'm Patricia8 - but you can call me Patricia, or Pat. (But not eight.) And this is Takumi Nekomura - and you are?" Patricia said to Melvin.

"Oh, and you won't need to worry here, this place is perfectly safe," Takumi said.

[Outside]

Melvin raised an eyebrow. "Melvin Morris - mage and magician, and no, those are not the same thing. How did you know what I was thinking?"

Are you a mind reader? Melvin thought - after all, if Takumi wasn't a mind reader, nobody would know that he wondered this in the first place, and if he was, there was no need to be embarrassed for thinking this.

edited 3rd Sep '12 11:14:55 AM by Collen

"No, not really," Takumi said to Melvin, as Patricia simply rolled her eyes at such an illogical comment.

"Er, I mean, I'll stop if you want me to," Takumi said, "it's just that in our line of work, one can't help but pick up on certain types of intentions. We won't pry or anything - I didn't mean to intrude on your privacy, after all - normally it's just surface or transmitted thoughts, or potentially hostile intentions that I'd notice."

"You see, we work for Interdimensional Patrol," Patricia said, "so it's just part of our job. Of course, we're off duty right now - just trying to take a little vacation time."

[Outside]

"Interdimensional Patrol?" Melvin repeated. "What you're saying is... you go around to different dimensions? What are you patrolling them for? On that topic, are you sure you should be taking a vacation if it's important?"

"I'm sorry if I'm prying," Melvin said hurriedly. "It's just that I've never really met anyone who actually travels around dimensions. Well, that's not strictly true. I've been to the Rift and I managed to teleport here... But I've never met anyone who does it on a regular basis."

[Dock/Outside]

"We can't say too much, but it's rather like an interdimensional police force," Patricia said to Melvin, "we travel around to different universes across the dimensions to ensure stability and safety. We're generally not allowed to interfere with internal or minor affairs, though."

"But don't worry about us taking a vacation," Takumi said, "our squad alone has six members, and there's many others like us. It's not like there's a multidimensional conqueror or universal collapse every day. If there's anything truly important, we might get called back, but if it's a slow day, some of the others might even show up to bug us - you never know..." He glanced around briefly, then looked back, satisfied there wasn't anyone else here (yet). "Also, time is not necessarily consistent throughout the multiverse, if it works out, we probably won't practically be gone for any measurable length of time. I mean, there was this one time I showed up to a time traveler's convention twice. Now that was embarrassing."

"What about you, where are you from?" Patricia said.

edited 3rd Sep '12 12:41:41 PM by Sonzai

[Outside]

"A planet called Earth," Melvin said. "Have you heard of it? It's big... blue... lots of water and stupid people? Although, the place where I live is somewhere between Earth and the Rift, which is basically like space except made out of magic energy with a bunch of disc-shaped planets in it. None of them are held up by elephants standing on a space turtle, though.

"Essentially, my home can only be found by people who have either used magic or touched something with a large amount of magic in it. It's... complicated, I suppose. For an example, look at the Library of Secrets and Misery Mountain. The Library is in the middle of a sprawling forest with golden leaves on the trees, the large Misery Mountain a little ways away from it. To most people, there wouldn't be any mountain there, and there would be no library to be seen there. Although, the forest around the Library has trees with yellow leaves on them year-round, likely due to the massive amount of magical energy floating round there. And if you can't see the Library and Misery Mountain, they're not just invisible - you're not able to access the plane of reality they're on. They're not there at all for you, you could just walk through 'em."

Ship (First Floor) -> Ship (Second Floor)

As Talitha suspected, this floor held the amenities. The things that stuck out most to her were the store, the casino, and the...butterfly garden. That last one added itself to the list of things she was finding awfully odd about this trip. How the heck did the people who built this ship manage to put a freaking butterfly garden on board? That was the sort of thing that normally required a dedicated building. That said, she really wanted to check that out. It was probably going to be easy to find, given that it took up the entire last fourth of the ship. Come to think of it, she did remember seeing large windows on that part of the ship.

She then reminded herself that she was looking at this diagram to figure out where the passenger's rooms were, not to ponder about the strange things the shipbuilders put on the boat. There would be plenty of time to explore the ship later. For now, she needed a place to put her belongings - her back was going to give out if she had to carry it around for much longer.

According to the map, the passenger's quarters were on the second and third floors of the ship, and could be accessed through a pair of staircases to the back of the boat, before the butterfly garden. Sure enough, when she looked to the back, she could see them - one on each side of the boat. Without wasting further time, she headed over to one and started climbing up it.

[Dock/Outside]

"Oh, hey, Earth - we're actually both ((very) distant) descendants of humans from Earth, one way or another," Patricia said, "not the same Earth, and not the Earth you're describing either, but there are quite a few variations on it in the multiverse."

"Nice place, most of the time," Takumi said, "but as for the multiplanar-style reality you're describing, I've seen plenty of places like that - remember the Lost Dimension? Now that was a pain to find if there ever was one."

"I prefer not to remember it if I have a choice," Patricia said. Then, to Melvin, "you mentioned that you are a mage and magician, does that mean that magic is prevalent in your universe?"

Er, maybe we should let a few others post before continuing? :P I don't want to leave Aqueos too far behind...

edited 3rd Sep '12 1:19:24 PM by Sonzai

Check-In

Cain started absentmindedly tugging on one of his inch-long claws, as if if he pulled enough, it would loosen and fall off. His most obvious feature (besides the blackish-gray wing, which the top reached to his earlobe and the tip to mid-thigh with a wingspan of roughly 7 feet) was his great height at 200 cm (6'7"), but his most striking feature was his large, intense red eyes, one covered with an eye patch, that both gave off a feeling of hostility and vulnerability. His brown hair was messy, dress shirt untucked, and trench coat unbuttoned, giving him a scruffy business look. He was thin with narrow shoulders, and he looked quite child-like with his big, soft eyes. As he talked, one could see the elongated canines, fangs.

As Jane Tanner introduced herself, Cain could see that she was lying, but he didn't show it on his face, keeping his stoic exterior. Let her live her lie if she wants to.

As he introduced himself, his first instinct was to create an elaborate lie right from his name down to his bizarre appearance, but he knew in this situation, lying wouldn't benefit him besides adding little amusement and a lot of stress keeping up the lie.

"Cain Stellark. What brings you here?" His voice was soft, and higher-pitched than one would expect with his height. He had a slight Oxford accent that added crisp in his words, but it was mostly Midwestern.

Jonathan started to fidget. What's taking the line so long?

Outside

Haruka could sense the newcomers. They were different, in a way that made her slightly uneasy. They didn't feel quite human. She mentally prodded Gabrielle with this and pointed towards the Man with the Strange Ears and the Robot-Girl. Don't you think they feel funny? Not like a person and a robot-girl.

I added this little bit on Cain's appearance because my former explanation was so inadequate. When I say he has big eyes, I just mean they're bit, not Anime-big. In my drawings of him, they look quite moe.

Also, I'd like someone to talk to Gabrielle, Haruka, Jonathan, Robert or Andrew. I don't want Cain to take the spotlight the entire thread. :/

edited 3rd Sep '12 1:46:27 PM by Tehpillowstar

[Outside]

Melvin paused, trying to think of an easy way to explain it. "Well... everybody has magic in them when they're born - a single, tiny molecule, a spark, if you will. The only way to get your magic 'flowing' and therefore becoming a magician is by practicing it - and that requires a staff with a gem nestled at the top of it. The Library of Secrets teaches magicians and makes them, too. The only thing is, everybody can't be a magician. It just... wouldn't work. Because of this, the Library only lets people who have ancestors that were in it in the past - it's all about family lines. Well, the exception is my friends, they got into there by accident and eventually they took us in. They aren't related to anyone who was in there."

Melvin paused. "Aside from Ena. She is... I mean, she was the daughter of one of the Librarians there - Librarians are the people who work there and teach magicians. Trains them, to be more precise. To help in the war.

"My grandfather was actually a Librarian once. My family is sort of a special case. They don't actually tell their kids about the Library directly, just hint about it when they die and hope that the kid stumbles upon it eventually. It's a matter of belief in magic. Which is sort of the exception to the whole 'only magicians can find the Library' thing. Either you're brought in personally by a magician, told specifically about it, or you just... believe and go searching for it.

"My dad didn't believe, so he never tried to find the Library. I mean. I haven't really gotten to tell him about the Library yet - not sure if I should."

Also, yeah, we should slow down a bit. Don't want to lock him out of the loop.

edited 3rd Sep '12 1:45:41 PM by Collen

- Check-In -

Kazuko regarded the card somewhat uncomfortably. "It... talks? Don't you think that's taking anthropomorphism a bit too far?" I hope you're just taking anthropomorphism a bit too far.

She didn't comment on his first remarks; they weren't exactly unfamiliar. Damn info-paranoids.

The last person ahead of her in the line picked up their ticket and left, and she turned back around, stepping forward to the desk. The receptionist asked for her reservation, and she gave it, then asked for ID.

Kazuko scowled. "You people have interdimensional travel, but you can't just scan for a PD chip?"

The receptionist tapped a few buttons at the primitive-looking interface. "Of course we can. One moment, please." After a few seconds, she looked back up and handed to a ticket (physical, naturally) to Kazuko. "Your cabin has been assigned. Have a pleasant day, Ms. Kimura."

Kazuko took the ticket, nodded to Samuel, and stepped out of the line to continue watching the area for her scratchpad.

Check-In

"Stellark, nice name. Good ring to it." And hopefully not-so-fitting first name.

"Well Cain," Jane spoke as she examined his demeanor, "my job rarely allows for free time, even when I am on a holiday it tends to come along for the ride. I could use a vacation in this century." There's no way this Cain Stellark is from around this time or place, I guess it'd be okay to allow some unbelievability to this. Come to think of it, he reminds me of somebody.

"And frankly I could use some alone time from my usual friends, as nice as they are. You here with someone, I take it?"

"With my companions," he said. He felt Haruka looking through his eyes, and felt her giggles. He wanted to roll his eyes at her, but that would be strange since she wasn't physically here.

"A vacation is nice, especially with the politics that were going on at home."

Feel free to be bold.

edited 3rd Sep '12 2:04:35 PM by Tehpillowstar

"That would be good," Ulrich muttered, walking briskly to the check-in counter, which was free by the time he reached it. He handed his ticket to the receptionist, who scanned it and handed it back to him with much less fanfare or trouble than he'd expected. In his peripheral vision he spotted a teenage girl with glasses climbing aboard the ship. She'd passed through a metal detector and a security gate. This will be interesting, he thought bitterly. Guess I'm never really off work, huh?

"Welcome, Ulrich," the receptionist said, looking up at him. She had a nice smile. He began to turn away from the counter when she spoke again.

"Oh, and don't worry about the gates. Your company has cleared the issue with us already."

Problem solved. Why did the old-timers say it was hard to find good help these days? He gave a nod and a small grin, then headed for the dock.

edited 3rd Sep '12 3:13:59 PM by BrainSewage

[[Outside]]

Initially Alice was a bit irked about having any hope of conversation stolen from her, but the material being discussed was just too interesting. She almost considered taking notes, but she knew that if she started she'd be up spending her whole vacation trying to figure out how the dimensional portals worked.

"Well it seems they sure had the inter-dimensional part of the cruise right."

She taps her tablet a few times to bring up holograms for the others to view, she felt like she should share what she could about her world.

"I believe from what I've been told my world is a tangent off of earth as well, but its current state is pretty grim."

She pulls up a planet, to most it looked like earth, but the land was barren and dry except for a few tiny patches, and the seas were darkened.

"In an attempt to survive we've resorted to genetic engineering and perfecting womb conditions to get the best workers for a job possible. Furthermore it helps us keep the population at a manageable level."

She pulls up another diagram, this one consisting of what seems to be analyzed strips of DNA.

"Originally we humans attempted to engineer ourselves and manipulate our dna, but the results weren't good."

Pieces of the DNA swap and combine, a lump of cancerous cells grows from them.

"Instead we simply use our ability to scan DNA and combine the proper sperm and eggs together, creating the best possible zygotes. Using an artificial womb..." She pulls up an image of what appears to be a glass capsule, "... we introduce the optimal hormones for longevity. We also take a few stem cells at this point, that way we can simply replaces parts that fail. The result is our longevity and our lack of medical problems."

She frowns, "Actually we've lost our ability to know how to treat most of them, we haven't had that issue for so long."

She smiles for a moment, considering the circumstance that had been a great presentation, but she nearly slaps herself for forgetting something.

"Oh, and I'm Alice. Nice to meet you guys."

edited 3rd Sep '12 3:33:41 PM by Aqueos

[Outside]

Melvin looked at her with something like intrigue. "It's a shame to hear your planet got into such a sorry state."

"I know an Alice back from my world. She's nice... a bit stuck up, not too good at magic, but she's bearable most of the time and has a big heart. I think, aside from Vern, she was the one who was upset the most when Ena died." Melvin stopped for a moment and then quickly added, "Not that I wasn't sad, it's just that it effected them the most."

edited 3rd Sep '12 3:46:29 PM by Collen

[Dock/Outside]

"Yeah, there can be quite the conflict when you have those kind of class restrictions on magic," Patricia said to Melvin, "personally, I think it's best if it's all out in the open, but that can be near-impossible under some circumstances. Sorry to hear your friend died - hopefully the relations over there can improve."

Then, to Alice, Takumi said, "hey, that sounds a lot like what happened to my Earth, centuries ago, of course, but they had quite the disaster where all life was wiped out. We, of course, got better, but the result was that all life was artificially created from there on out - including me. (Although I'm a fair bit more complex than just DNA anymore...) Just keep at it - eventually things get better. I'd give you some hints, but I'm fairly certain that'd be against regulations, even under these circumstances."

Takumi also noticed Haruka looking at them strangely, and proceeded to look at her strangely as well.

[Outside]

Melvin shrugged. "Well, it was partially her fault for her death. Went over to the other side - she was confused, see, got lured in, tempted. However, she never actually did anything wrong if she could help it. The problem was she pledged her service to the god of chaos, Yang, and then came to her senses right after he rose back to full power and tried to go back to us - Yang pulled her back like she was a fishing lure when she ran and ordered that traitor, Umbra, to run her through with her own sword. Then she fell through the giant hole in the ground to the cave under the mountain we were all on, sword still stuck in her chest. The real kicker is that although the sword had a tendency to set things on fire or produce some... other effects, it didn't do anything magical to her and she still died."

Melvin's voice dropped to a low whisper. "I was too shocked to move, I didn't try to help her, even though I'm a mage, I could've healed her-"

He quickly cut off himself. "But I've learned to ignore such thoughts. I can't have them weighing me down, not with the war going on."

edited 3rd Sep '12 4:04:04 PM by Collen

[[Outside]]

Alice straightens right up, a bit shocked, "I think I'll take my earth over yours, I certainly hope the war ends soon."

She sighs, "Closest thing we have is when robots go AWOL, but it's simple enough to take them out. I end up having to pilot all sorta of annoying things, I'd really rather focus on agriculture."

edited 3rd Sep '12 4:21:39 PM by Aqueos