Character Halloween

[Ballroom (Priss, Harry, Rachel)]

Wait, she fights monsters? That have a king? Holy shit, Priss isn't kidding. Harry sighed ruefully and shook his head, looking down at his costume. Well, at least she's not a cartoon character. Starting to feel like there's a bit too many of us.

He shook his head again, trying to focus. This whole thing had become majorly, majorly surreal in a matter of moments, even by the standards of these little... adventures.

Standing up, he looked around the room. The worker seemed mostly finished at this point, so he glanced at one of the others. "So, what now, do you think? There hasn't been any more spectral pianos or whatever you were hearing earlier..."

[dining room]

Henri waved goodbye to Jackson, then turned back to the exchange between the worker and Herr Komm. They were suddenly joined by some kid he didn't recognize who basically asked the worker the same thing. He was honestly too contented to mentally run through all of the people he saw in the entry hall to try and determine who it was. When the kid walked away, Henri halfheartedly watched him dump stuff on his arm and lay down, then ask that they not mind him. He simply looked away without a word, downing his now lukewarm coffee and going back to smoking the last of his cigarette as he waited for Herr Komm. to sit down. Or leave. Or whatever. Meh... it was all meh. He wasn't tired... just feeling ridiculously mellow. Mellow was good. He liked mellow.

[Castle ~ Entrance Hall] (Oswald, Krajn)

Oswald huffed a small laugh, grinning at Krajn's enthusiasm. "Fair enough, fair enough. Although I'm afraid I don't have a great deal more experience with castles than do you. I've read of them in books, I've seen them in films aplenty, but if I were to count those in which I personally had set foot..." he pointed a finger downward, "this would be the first. The first, the only."

He paused, taking a few seconds to look upon the rest of the hall himself with greater care, eyeing each door with a bit of Krajn's own contagious curiosity.

"Well," he said finally, glancing back towards Krajn and shrugging, "if it's all the same to you, I think we should try to find some stairs. I'd like to see whether or not the tops of the castle's great walls house as fine a view as I'd expect them to."

[Entrance Hall]

Krajn hissed loudly. "Stairs like those?" she said, gesturing at the stairs set against the walls at the back of the room. The one on the left - as she was looking, anyway - led up to the next floor.

She scurried up to the landing of the stairs and glanced upward. There seemed to be no light in the next room, and she tilted her head. "Hrrm. Oswald, I don't suppose you happened to bring a light source of some type, did you?"

Lightning flashed through the windows, followed quickly by a loud BOOM of thunder, and she turned to look at them. "I suppose we could also try using that, though... oh!"

From out of nowhere a cold breeze had sprung up. Krajn shivered in her faux-Zhrrq Z'hrrn robes and watched as it blew up a spiral of dust before dissipating as suddenly as it had come. "That was... odd," she said warily, suddenly keenly aware that she was still holding her programetal fighting sticks.

[Ballroom]

Priss tilted her head again, as though listening, and shut her eyes. There was a sound, maddeningly, at the edge of her consciousness...

Gone again. She shook her head to clear it, and then jumped as it seemed lighting hit one of the walls of the room, yelping a curse in Japanese, her arm snapping up in that general direction and fingers splaying out as though she intended to fire the laser. A few seconds later the arm came down. "Please tell me that isn't going to be regular. Nice thing about being a city girl is there's always some nice tall building to keep the lightning interested."

[Castle ~ Entrance Hall] (Oswald, Krajn)

"Well yes, but who's to say that those stairs are the stairs that ah- that we..." Oswald let his words trail off as Krajn headed up the stairs anyway. "Ah, never mind it." he said, shrugging off his unnecessary deliberation, then trailing towards the stairs after his Qrtxian companion. "Every wrong direction is a new direction explored. Unless you start running yourself in circles, that is. Hmmn."

He paused just past the foot of the stairs when Krajn asked if he had a light source.

"No, I'm afraid not." he answered, frowning down at his chest for a moment. "As you may have guessed from my story, I did not come terribly prepared. And when I realized the distinct nature of our otherworldly locale, I was afraid that, should I have dared to depart early, I would not be able to return. Perhaps it was a bit of a foolhardy decision, but-"

Again his words drifted away, overtaken by the same chilly breeze that bore it's way through Krajn. Oswald stiffened up slightly, and speaking through a tightly clenched jaw, said, "I certainly hope you're warm enough under all that, Krajn. Maybe it's warmer further into the castle, but I fear the air will become only more frigid as we ascend. Still," he quickly climbed to the landing, taking the steps two at a time, "all the more reason to get our blood pumping. Oh, no, wait— that wouldn't..." He frowned again, giving Krajn a bit of a concerned glance.

edited 10th Mar '16 11:40:30 AM by Ryuhza

[Entrance Hall -> Second Story Stairwell Room (Oswald, Krajn)]

Krajn set her neck at a dismissive angle. "I am fine, if you're concerned. One needs much colder temperature than that breeze to significantly affect a qrtxian. I'm rather more concerned about the way it just seemed to appear from and return to nothing. Perhaps its origins were... not quite of this world.

She tilted her head. "Or perhaps I simply do not know that much about natural atmospherics inside this sort of structure. It was not something I trained for when younger."

Turning, she headed back up the stairs into the room at the top, but froze as she entered it: instead of the near-total darkness there had been before, a single candle now glowed, illuminating a fairly spartan room devoid of everything but a few chairs. She sniffed cautiously for any sign of what had lit it, but nothing could be detected.

"It appears we will not need that light source after all..." she called back, speaking slowly. "Though that may not be entirely a good thing."

[Ballroom (Priss, Harry, Rachel)]

Harry looked over at the window in the wall. "No, looks like it's going to be a most total storm," he said. "Gotta say, I actually don't mind that. Under the circumstances it's a bit cliche, but storms in general - man, there were lots of them where I grew up. Always helped me sleep at night, actually."

He looked back over at Priss, realizing belatedly he had probably sounded a little insensitive there. Though I guess with her it's better to be insensitive than to try too hard to sound sensitive, so hey, could be worse. "Hey, so you never mentioned - what exactly is Tokyo like in... on, whatever - your version of Earth?"

He turned to Rachel. "And where's it you're from, by the way?"

edited 21st Dec '14 1:42:08 AM by nrjxll

[Castle ~ Entrance Hall](Oswald, Krajn)

Oswald mounted the second set of stairs but paused, gripping the bannister's handrail and looking over the entrance hall below. "Yes, well... 'tis the season for the unnatural and unexplained. And one could hardly ask for a better stage to play upon." He fell silent for a second, his eyes slowly moving from left to right and back again, swaying like a pendulum. "Not that we shouldn't keep our eyes open and our wits about us." he added in a murmur. "Still, the castle must be very old, or was created to seem as such. It might have ventilation slits scattered about, fit to carry wayward breezes to us. At least I think so. I certainly wouldn't start rewriting the thermodynamics textbook based on my idle guesses."

Oswald continued to watch the hall below in silence, focusing his eyes on the doors leading in, watching for rattling, for rumbling. However, he did take notice when Krajn headed up to the room, taking advantage of her distraction to fold his arms tightly and hunch his shoulders inward. Even his tail was held close against his leg. This lasted until Krajn spoke again.

"And why is that, exactly?" he asked, loosening his arms and following her up the stairs. He stopped just outside of the room, leaning in one way, then the other as he looked around curiously. "Fortune bestows a candle upon us, and this room is not full of fat, bloodsucking bats." he said, sounding a little confused as he stepped into the room. "Am I'm missing the bad here?"

(Ballroom)

"Whoa!" Rachel jumped back in shock as the lightning bolt struck. "That definitely got my attention."

"Brooklyn, actually. 2015, to be precise." Rachel responded to Harry. She adopted an exaggerated 'Dese, Dem, and Dose' accent just for the humor of it. Never hurt to poke a little fun at oneself.

"It's a great place to live, if you don't mind the fact that there are Blackgates all over the place for... things to come in. So far, I've dealt with a slime monster, a rock-breathing turtle, and some sort of bug that could possess machines. None of which was particularly fun."

[Second Story Stairwell Room (Oswald, Krajn)]

Krajn gave Oswald an askance glance. "That candle was not lit just a moment ago when I looked in here. Someone" - she avoided saying or something as even under the current circumstances, it seemed as though it would be somewhat excessively melodramatic - "obviously lit it, very suddenly. I find that rather suspicious."

She sighed, stuck her fighting-sticks to the sides of her robes, and wrapped her arms around herself against a cold that was more mental than physical. Ooh, poetic. "In truth... all this is bothering me more than I've been letting on. I wanted to get into the, the Halloween thing because it seemed as though it would be fun and it seemed to annoy Harry, and it has, both. But I was not exactly expecting any genuine unexplained events. Part of me is very intrigued and wants to know more, to break through the mystery. Part of me... just wishes this had been the boring and socially uncomfortable interpersonal event I was anticipating."

[West Wing (Moreena, Recon, maybe Warren and Dakota)]

As Moreena continued towards the room with the mysterious metal box, she suddenly realized that Recon wasn't following her. She spun around, and looked back into the room with the vandalized paintings. Recon was still looking at one of the paintings, but he seemed a bit different somehow. Probably because his hands were covered in blood.

Moreena's eyes widened at the sight, but she didn't say anything. The lack of dead bodies in the room likely meant that the blood had come from the painting Recon was examining.

She moved closer to him, and tried to catch a glimpse of his eyes behind his strange mask.

"Are you starting to feel better yet?" she asked.

Warren and Dakota were indeed still there. They were just looking through the book and ignoring Moreena and Recon, until now.

Warren looked up. "Did we miss something?"

Good enough.

Recon looked at his hands, watching the glistening liquid. He stayed like that for a minute, before speaking.

"...So...who'd I kill this time?"

[West Wing]

"Thankfully, you didn't kill anyone," Moreena answered. "How much do you remember?"

[Castle ~ Second Story Stairwell Room] (Oswald, Krajn)

"Mm." Oswald mmed, offering Krajn a weak smile of reassurance. "It is, on the face of it, inexplicable, yes. A little... what? Eerie. Spooky. Maybe even unsettling. But that's what the holiday is all about, isn't it? To celebrate the unnatural, the terrifying. To be charged with awe and even a bit of fear." he stood next to Krajn, lowering himself slightly to come closer to her height and extended an arm outward towards the candle. "To question whether what you're seeing is truly possible."

He then straightened up and shrugged, "At least, that's what it's grown to become in my world. I've heard differently about it's origins, but I couldn't speak much of that myself. In any case, this," he pointed again at the candle, then raised his hands above his head and spread them apart in an arc, "this, is all very familiar. It is very 'Halloween', and we are attending a Halloween party, are we not? It's not that great of a stretch to imagine that this castle has been, eh... outfitted to especially suit the occasion. Maybe it's a trick candle of some sort. Maybe the whole castle is- is enchanted. Maybe someone did light the candle for the sole purpose of scaring you; maybe that's a part of the event."

Oswald paused for a moment, raising his eyes to the ceiling before sighing. "I suppose my point is... you... you may be taking things a tad too seriously, Krajn. And perhaps you need to see a few more horror films, or what-have-you. There's no reason this can't all be in good fun."

He walked over to the candle and looked back at Krajn, opening his eyes unusually wide and smiling a little goofily, as though to prove that nothing was the matter. Then, reforming his usual composure, he said, "However, if, at this point, you would rather seek out the other guests and perhaps find that socially uncomfortable interpersonal event realized..." he spread his arms out in a shoulderless shrug, "you'll hear no qualms from me."

"I remember walkin' into the room. I remember walkin' into...someone I'm not to fond of. I remember reliving the worst day of my lif-f,"

He shook his head and tapped the side of his helmet. His armour retracted at a startling speed, until it was back to being a small satchel bag hanging from his back, leaving him in civilian clothes.

"Sorry, said too much. Anyway, find anything?"

Warren shrugged. "We found this book," He replied, but didn't hand it over to Recon- he didn't want blood to get on it. For some reason, he and Dakota had grown very attached to it, even though they couldn't read it. It had a strange affect on them...

Recon tilted his head, outstretching a very-bloodless hand. His gauntlets had retracted back into his satchel bag, and they had done a good job of keeping him clean.

"Well then, let me take a look at it," he said.

[Ballroom]

"Having never been anywhere else, I can't offer you a perspective." Priss said. "It's a big city; it's got is grungy crime parts, its shiny high-tech parts. It's got its pretty rich and its ugly poor. The cops try to keep it running, but hands tied and not enough of them. The corps try to keep it running, but get in each other's way and fight. Keiretsu at work. Sometimes the robots go nuts."

Priss shrugged. "What about you, then? You've heard ours, where you from?"

[Hallway-West Wing]

Silently, all four teens walked to the hallway until they reached the West Wing. But by the time they got there, Recon had already recovered.

"Oh! Recon!" Nick said, "Welcome back. For a moment we thought we lost ya."

"...So, I just wasted my time coming here, then?" Jackson asked, crossing his arms, "Looks like your problem has been solved."

"Jackson, we still need to know what's in that room, and if it was the cause of Recon's...reaction thingy." Marie said, "Can you stay for a little while? Please?"

Jackson sighed heavily. "I did promise to help you. Let me catch myself up first." He walked over to Morena, Darren, Warren, and Recon. "Ok...which one of you is the goddess?"

Warren nervously handed Recon the book, and then looked up at Jackson.

"Ah, hello."

[Second Floor Stairwell Room (Oswald, Krajn)]

Krajn raised her head slightly. That was certainly not going to happen; at least, not unless they encountered something that was actually dangerous, and in that case the party would be off. She was a Qvn Jxilkr, and she was not going to run away from... miscellaneous spookiness.

But still... "I am trying to take it in good fun - no, actually, it is fun. I just... I just wish you would acknowledge that there is something a little wrong about this as well. These are hardly ordinary circumstances we find ourselves in, but still, from what I understand of Halloween, it is not a time where actual supernatural events normally occur. Something is different from normal here, and my training teaches me that things that are different from normal should be treated as a potential threat."

She flinched slightly as she finished speaking, realizing the way that had sounded. How unpleasantly old-fashioned.

"Although personally," she continued in a different tone, "I'm more inclined to think of them as something to be explored. Which is what we should get back to doing. Er, exploring, that is."

Turning away from Oswald, she looked around the barren room. "Though there is not much of that to do in this room, I think."

[Ballroom (Priss, Harry, Rachel)]

Harry grinned. "I'm from New California. It's a planet that won't be colonized for almost two hundred years from when you're living, so don't bother looking it up. A lot like Earth but nicer - nice weather, warm temperature, lots and lots of beaches. That's the terraforming, though, not luck or anything; there aren't a lot of really Earth-like planets out there."

He fought the urge to run a hand through his hair - it'd mess up the costume - so he waved it around a little instead. "When I was born my parents lived out in a little self-sufficiency in the countryside, but after they had a couple of kids they figured somewhere with a few more sophonts would be better for us. So I mostly grew up on the edge of Gadelco City, the colonial capital. That's from 'Galactic Development Co.' - they did the terraforming - but New California's an independent democracy, not a corporate colony." He grinned again, reminiscently. "So yeah, nice place. I'm only back like once a year, though."

Recon pointed over his shoulder at Moreena at the response to Jackson's question, but his attention was on the book.

"Hmm...well it's all Greek to me!" he concluded cheerfully. "But if I can just remember what they look like, I'll be able to draw it up for my team later."

If he was being affected by the strange nature of the book, he wasn't showing it.

[Castle ~ Second Floor Stairwell Room] (Oswald, Krajn)

Oswald cringed as well, shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw rather tightly for a moment. But the moment passed, and he said, "Krajn, plenty is different from normal here, you've said so yourself. People from separate existences don't normally come into contact. One does not normally round a tree and end up facing a completely different landscape. Frankly, this candle lighting itself is one of the least peculiar or supernatural things I've seen during my time in places such as these."

He glanced at the candle, then at Krajn, then at the floor, taking a deep breath and declaring, "If it means much to you: yes, I acknowledge that things are not normal here." he raised his eyes back to Krajn, "And I'm not sure what to make of it."

He took a few steps over to one of the rooms chairs, gripping it's edge as though to check it's firmness, all the while speaking, "Well, if you want to get a move on, then get a move on we shall. Maybe we'll run into our discreet candle lighter, eh?"

I'm not entirely clear on the room's architecture, so you can go ahead and lead here.

Parlor

Kaguya raised an eyebrow upon hearing Inzami describe what was happening elsewhere in the area. She vaguely remembered Cyana having a similar ability, but in that case Cyana was actually physically present and it made more sense. In this case, however, Inzami was elsewhere and yet somehow knew a lot about the place Kaguya was currently staying at.

Well, it wasn't like she could think of something better to talk about.

"Um...may I ask just how you know all of that?" she asked, "About how you know what's going on here, I mean. It doesn't look like you're...um...actually here...are you?"