Character Dream II

[Farm]

A dream-world? The Warden had no time for this. There were people in reality who needed to be saved, unless... yes, if this were a dream, time would not be moving at the same speed as in the real world. This being a dream certainly helped to explain the oddities she had come across so far. The drunkard's strange weapon, a lizard monster that not only could speak, but seemed fairly affable, whatever the "CIA" was and what made it so important...

"Of course," she spoke. "This must be another test." She purposefully remained as cryptic as possible in her speech. "That settles it then, if what you say is true, then there's no use wasting time here. I shall venture back out to the mists to see what can be found. Anyone who wishes to join me is free to do so. It may be dangerous out there, but I would gladly defend your lives with my own."

Park - Fawn

One minute she was wandering outside trying to get a good shoot going on. The next she was felt like she was falling. Chestnut brown eyes shot wide open to be greeted with a park near a forest. Falling dreams. How she hated them. But did that mean she fell asleep outside back in the real world? Groaning the girl sat up, feeling a heavy weight on her stomach only to see her handheld camcorder fall into her lap. "My...my camcorder? Why is that in my dream?" she mused out loud and scratched her dark brown shoulder length hair in confusion.

The girl picked it up and brushed off her black skirt of dirt and debris before looking around. It would make some sense her camcorder was with her, it was the last thing she was holding when she came...here. Wherever here was. "It has to be a dream. It's got to be a dream." she muttered to herself and wiped her black rectangle glasses with her wool light brown sweater and stepped off forward. At first there was nobody, and then to her shock a whole lot of somebodies. A talking dragonfly, a strange clown doll, other beings, and a normal looking teenage boy that they all approached. Her body froze in place in shock and she looked down to her camcorder. These all seemed like things that would appear, but what if it wasn't? She could make a great story about this!

Turning on the camcorder with her back to the others, she held it forward before hitting record and started speaking. "This is Fawn Darona reporting live for channel six news. I appear to have been teleported to this strange word. Behind me are a bunch of strange beings I feel might be the residents. Or they were transported here just like me. I will find out in a moment." Thank goodness she charged her battery to full before being brought here.

edited 26th Jan '16 9:40:34 AM by Sphinxyness

[Farm]

Dives considered the armor clad woman's offer. A chance to explore a new place would be a nice change of pace for the Argonian.

"I will go with you," Dives said to her, "I need a long stretch. and hopefully I'll be able to find some raw materials to make some armaments."

Turning to Vince as Dives got up, "I am most gracious for your generosity in hosting us. I am hoping that in our return, you and your barn will still be around. If you do have some glass bottles laying around, I would like some. If not, I'll just hope this dream world," they hesitated, "Magics them into existence for me or something."

[Park]

Well, that didn't take long.

Just a few minutes into his walk around the creepy park, Nick already saw a group of...interesting creatures. And it seemed that one of them was kind enough to introduce itself to him. They were strange, but he'd seen far stranger—after all, he befriended two human sized lizards in the past, so nothing would completely faze him anymore.

He bent down to the talking, rhyming doll and shook it's hand.

"Hey there, Fooly." he said, smiling, "Name's Nick. Nice to meet you too, buddy." He then stood back up and looked at the group again, "I'm guessing these are all your friends, right?"

More people were coming to the park, and in a way, it slowly took away the dread Nick felt in the first place. Still, it would be nice to know just where the fuck he was, and where all his friends went to. Ah well. Time to do what he was good at; make friends.

"So, what are you guys doing here?" he then asked, "I doubt you guys just came here willing on your own."

(Orange Tree Garden)

Danielle shrugged when the stranger said that he didn't have any idea where they were either. "Shame." She went and picked an orange. "Allow me to introduce us. I'm Danielle, the tall brunette's Rachel, the small girl's Amy, the black girl's Charlotte, and the big Latina's Olivia." Each girl smiled and waved hello in turn. "Together, they call us the Dragon's Daughters."

edited 26th Jan '16 1:59:03 PM by daird

[Orange Tree Garden]

Although still visibly out of his element, Celso found the situation coalescing and attempted to regain his usual stature. "A pleasure to meet you all," he said. "Celso Merquior, at your humble service. The young senhorita is Miyuki, and her impressive guardian has not yet seen fit to introduce herself." He glanced at the shadow, briefly, then continued. "Apologies if I seem a bit less hospitable than a man should be..." he hesitated. "I'll admit, this strange Limbo has me slightly on edge. That aside, it is a pleasure to meet you all, Dragon's Daughters. Might I ask the meaning of the name?" It sounded briefly insidious to Merquior, bringing to mind the Dragon of Biblical Book of Revelation, but he realized after a moment of reflection that this was almost certainly not the intention. Again, outside his element. Then he moved to Caleb, seemingly not disturbed by his markings. "At any rate, that leaves you, good senhor, to introduce yourself."

edited 26th Jan '16 6:17:37 PM by KillerClowns

[Ritter Clinic]

"Welp, all right then." Friedrich laid a hand on the man's chest, frowning slightly. After a moment, he withdrew his hand. "You were right to suspect internal bleeding, but it's very minor. I'll keep an eye on you for a while to make sure it doesn't get worse, but we don't need immediate action."

He went to a particularly large cabinet and opened it, still looking at the patient. "The key to recovering from broken ribs is a good pain reliever, since you need to be able to breathe deeply. Now, I'd recommend—"

He turned to the medicine cabinet.

... this was not his medicine cabinet.

"How the fuck...?" He gingerly picked up a fat syringe filled with an unfamiliar blue liquid. "I've never seen half of this shit before in my entire life. Who—who did this? Ah, wait." He pulled out a dark green bottle with a yellowed label. "At least I have what I was looking for. We'll start you off with a teaspoon every other hour. And I highly recommend washing it down with water, it's not exactly candy." From another cabinet, he took a spoon and a glass to fill with water, leaving the medicine cabinet open for later investigation. It was probably one of those kids, right? But he hadn't seen them all day. What worried him the most was the fact that there wasn't very much liquid left in the green bottle, and while he usually kept it in high supply, the unopened bottles he thought he had in stock seemed to be gone. Eh, maybe I'm just panicking. "Ma'am, if you could help me look through this cabinet and see if there are any more of these bottles, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have another bottle in my room upstairs, but it's half empty."

Seilaan only sat after Vince did. He was their host, after all. She watched him closely as he examined the candy, was a little worried that he might not be totally enthusiastic about it. Ah, well, one always had to accept that risk when visiting a stranger's property. Besides, he could always re-gift to someone else later.

So... a dream? She furrowed her brow slightly. That was... well—hm. she had to admit that she was mildly intrigued by this revelation, though another part of her urged her to dismiss it as unimportant. She was so busy arguing with herself that she missed most of what Vince said after, only snapping back to attention when the wyvern appeared. She had to hold back the urge to exclaim how adorable it was—but just barely.

So the others were thinking about going on an adventure, eh? She decided to think a little more before volunteering. It might be fun, but she wasn't sure how much she liked these people yet. She would certainly avoid the drunk man, if possible, and Dives had already mildly offended her (what was this, the second he demanded supplies after clearly being told there were none at hand?), but the Warden was rather amusing.

edited 27th Jan '16 5:39:05 PM by SnowyFoxes

[Orange Tree Garden]

All of a sudden, there was a lot going on, and the garden got pretty crowded. And then, almost as abruptly, it got a little bit less crowded. Miyuki just watched for a while, curious but silent. Then Celso mentioned a guardian. "Huh?" She said, turning to the old man. "What guardian? I came here alone." She turns her head and looks all around, but the shadowy figure remains forever behind her, beyond her sight.

Orange Tree Garden

"Ah, thank you-" he sounded the new word as best he could "Senor Celso Merquior. Or just Celso if you prefer. I'm Caleb Andersas; like I said I appeared here and I don't know why." Caleb took another glance at Miyuki's companion. Then he addressed the five, "and greetings to you, Dragon's Daughters. Are you far from home?" he asked, "I don't trust this place not to have slayers."

None of them seemed concerned about his species; or his restraints for that matter. Just how far did he go?

(Orange Tree Garden)

"Well, we got our powers from the dragon goddess Tiamat, so that's where the name comes from. I teleport, Danielle does fire, Amy's a bit of mixed bag, Charlotte got wind, and Olivia ended up with super strength and some earth powers."

"Actually, what I'm the most interested in is everyone else here." said Amy. "We were thinking we had been sent here by Tiamat for some unknown reason, but with you guys around, that no longer makes sense. So, we're back at square one."

[Farm/Lauren]

"You have a point there I suppose. I can certainly learn a lot of the human mind here. However I really need to find my jackass of a husband." Lauren said to Vince as she got up. "Thank you for the information and letting us stay for a bit and gather our thoughts."

She then walked over to the Warden. "I guess my chances of finding Henry would be better in a group. I can promise you that I can more than handle myself in a fight with my proficiency in marksmanship and stealth."

[Farm]

Demo looked up and shrugged, standing up and hefting his grenade launcher over his shoulders once more.

"If this is a party then I'll be more than happy to join," he said. "Going out intae unknown waters alone isn't somethin' I'm too fond of doin'."

Park (The Elemental Guardians, Nick, Fawn)

"Hello there!" Phoebe beamed, jogging up to where Fooly was introducing herself. "My name's Phoebe, and I'm Fooly's Keeper. We're kinda lost actually. We've been walking around the Forest of Distortion for hours and are trying to get to Beta Town, but we can't seem to find the place."

"I'm Gon." Gon followed right behind Phoebe, and Aki returned to his position on his head. Just then, Phoebe shot him a dirty look. There was a pause. "...Oh, right right, I mean my name is Gon. Hehe..." He was sheepishly rubbing the back of his head again. "And this little guy up here is Aki." He pointed to the oversized dragonfly with the glowing tail resting atop his head. "The one on the bench there is Yamiko..." and here he indicated the Elegant Gothic Lolita girl on the bench, still rubbing her sore ankle, "and that's Ashleigh." The modestly-dressed older woman waved.

"By the way," Ashleigh remarked, "did any of you notice we're on camera?"

"On camera?" Yamiko wondered, sounding surprised. She turned around in her seat... and sure enough, there was a girl holding a camcorder with her back turned to the group. "She looks like she's just taking a selfie..."

"Hey, what's the big idea!" Gon shouted to the camerawoman. "This ain't Candid Camera, is it?"

"What's your name?" Ashleigh asked Nick. "And are you a Keeper like us? I'm not sure if this is still the Forest of Distortion or not..." She scratched her head, atop which a flowery barette was fastened.

Meanwhile, Anaissie mentioned something about being tired to Yamiko, whose shawl she was still bundled up in. "Would you like to go back inside?" Yamiko asked her; she nodded sleepily in response. And so she took out a PDA-like device, not unlike the same devices that Phoebe and Gon had. After a couple of touches on the screen, she pointed the device at the little pixie and pressed a button. A beam of light shot out of the device, and when it hit Anaissie, she shrank, and was sucked back into the device.

edited 27th Jan '16 11:37:18 PM by ladytanuki

[Farm]

The Warden considered the group in front of her. The lizard creature, The "CIA" Woman, and the drunkard all expressed interest in heading out and exploring with her. Not exactly a group that instilled confidence. Looking at the three, The Warden even felt tempted to rescind her offer out of fear of the potential disaster that could come from the crew. Deciding to stick to her word, however, she addressed Dives, Demo and Lauren.

"Very well, we shall take our leave and explore the rest of the forest. Lauren, I can promise you we won't rest until we find your husband. Lizard, I'm certain we can find raw materials without much difficulty. And as for you, drunkard... try not to cause any problems for me. There is something I intend to find for myself out there as well."

[Forest]

In a clearing somewhere in the misty forest, people passing through the area would stumble upon a rather unusual sight. A large, writhing mass of inky black tendrils hovered a few feet above the ground, clearly visible to anyone who got close enough. It rapidly morphed between different sizes and shapes, it's individual parts fluttering about in patterns that didn't quite make sense.

Besides that however, it seemed content with simply floating in the middle of the clearing, and made no effort to move anywhere else. Oddly enough, a rhythmic, rumbling sound could be hard coming from somewhere inside of it, almost as if it was snoring.

[Farm]

Dives readied themselves to leave, "Then let's be off as soon as we are able, because I'd rather not be delayed," Dives decided it was best to get it out of the way now, "Please do not call me 'Lizard', my name is Dives-Deep-Waters, and while I would prefer to be addressed that way, 'Dives' is fine."

The Argonian walked out of the barn, leaving it slightly ajar for the others. Taking a stretch in the misty air, Dives breathed in and out as their warm breath became one with the mist. This was going to be a tough journey.

[The Forest -> The Blackwood]

Another pulse and another section of the forest around the Dark Caller turned coal black, the branches twisting and the leaves of the trees turning to dust. This area could now be gifted a new moniker, one that would enter the minds of any who approached this black. It would be called The Blackwood.

Out of some of the blackened trees, more raven shaped creatures made out of shadows burst free, flying to surround the Dark Caller. Though they were smaller than the Dark Caller, the raven creatures still looked like their leader and rested on the branches around it.

Again, the Dark Caller concentrated, shielding itself.

[farm]

He... wasn't expecting that to go over. Like, at all. But okay, he couldn't stop the Warden... from deciding that something was testing her. The nicknames she used were almost kind of funny- he guessed initially that her identifying herself as just 'the Warden' indicated that her culture only used titles outside of immediate family, but it was inconsistent- Lauren was just Lauren. Speaking of Lauren, that was a really fast turnaround from 'get me out of this place' to 'okay, cool'. Seriously, why the hell did people buy that so quickly? He could have easily told them this was a dream just to lull them into a false sense of security, so they get killed for his own amusement or something or other.

And didn't he just tell Dives that he didn't keep anything they were asking for around his barn? That wasn't exactly the truth, there was probably a milk bottle laying around somewhere, but them asking again after being told 'no' once, basically going 'but I'd really like this thing I'm sure you're hiding...' disinclined him to go find it. Hey, if Dives thought hard enough, one would probably turn up.

Vince left the candy at his seat, then got up to go man the door. "There's the spirit! Try not to destroy too much out there." The remaining three got up to follow Dives out.

With the barn now mostly empty, a second wyvern swooped down from the roost. The one that had been preening itself remained where it was and watched this one intently, as it curiously studied Seilaan from a nearby bale of straw with wide hazel eyes. It was a little smaller and slighter, and only had two smallish horns on the side of its head. There was a pause, then it cocked its head, just a bit, then moved its long neck towards her- perhaps just within her reach -to taste her air. Aither, she was brimming with it.

The wyvern moved the rest of its body closer, keeping itself relaxed, inviting her to pet. Out of the corner of its eye, it could see the other wyvern in the roost come closer to the edge of the platform, obviously in protest. It ignored this- pets were nice, regardless.

Park - Fawn, a bunch of strange people and a normal teenager

Fawn jumped as someone had noticed her recording and almost dropped her camcorder, quickly catching it and turned the whole thing off. She held it in her hands which were covered by her sweater sleeves and slowly turned around to them. "Oh, um, sorry. It's just...this is all so strange." she admitted with a sheepish smile, slowly approaching the group. All of them except the teenager and a nicely dressed woman were strange. Well, maybe the gothic girl wasn't that strange. People dressed like that sometimes at home.

She didn't want to interrupt the conversation between them and the teenager and her eyes gazed between the two groups. This felt like a dream and didn't all at once. The conversations and the people were too real for it to be a dream. "I'm um, Fawn, if anyone was wondering." she said really quick and rather quiet. This was just too weird and the girl was trying to make sense of it but failing. Horribly.

[Park]

Nick gave two finger salute.

"Name's Nick." he said, "And no, I'm not a keeper, whatever that is. I am lost as hell and don't know where the fuck this is, though. So that's something." He smirked at Fawn, "Oh, and if I really am on camera, try to get my good side, ok?"

Well, at least he wasn't the only one confused and lost, so that was slightly reassuring. Still, it would help to not stay in this park for so long. It really was starting to creep him out. He really didn't appreciate being torn away from his friends to...this.

"Ya'll don't mind if I stick with you for a bit, will you?" he asked, "I'm just as lost as you guys are. One minute I'm camping with my friends, and next minute, poof! I wake up and I get sucked into a park. That was fun."

[Farm - Outside]

Taking point in the group, his weapon in his right hand and his bottle in his other, Demo looked out at the forest, squinting his eye to see if there were any visible threats. Unfortunately, the mist obscured the trees quite well, making it impossible.

"The name's Demo lad. If ya don't want me ta call ya "whimperin' pup" fer the rest of the journey you'd be well ta remember it. And if what yer lookin' for moves, breathes, and attacks us, then don't expect it to remain in one piece fer too long."

He hefted his launcher, the weapon glowing with a strange blue light.

"I've already set it so this thing doesn't hurt any of ya even if you get too close. But it's still gonna make quite a sound, not to mention the flash. If any of ya like to get close and personal with enemies, ya might wanna sit back for any combat."

[Orange Tree Garden]

Celso counted on his fingers, and muttered under his breath as he racked his memory. "Tiamat... Babylonian, or was it Sumerian? A being of the pre-Genesis chaos, I think?" (Celso wasn't a Biblical literalist, but it was the metaphor that came to mind.) He shook his head. Then, aloud, he said, "I see. But I suspect this place calls to souls of its own accord... of its own will. With reasons unlikely to be unraveled by singular minds in the span of hours or days." Then he turned to Caleb. "You said something about slayers? As in, dragon slayers that might trouble our young friends? Or do your kin," he nodded at the complex vein patterns, "have enemies who would see you exterminated?"

[Ritter Clinic]

After examining the label, Iveya delicately searched through the foreign bottles, trying to find one with the same writing. Ritter's clinic seemed more or less on par with that of an Uelane apothecary, so she basically knew what she was doing. She looked for the exact medicine described Ritter had shown her, but also kept an eye out for other familiar medicines. "No, no, not this... hmm... ahah!" She pulled out a bottle whose label she recognized. Morphine, one of the Uelane's painkillers of choice. She handed it to Ritter. "Here we go," she said. "Perhaps more than their own rifle, the soldier's greatest friend... when it is not their most terrible foe. You know it, yes?"

And now my search history is full of illegal drugs as I double-check against my notes.

edited 28th Jan '16 5:26:22 PM by KillerClowns

[Orange Tree Garden]

The conversation was getting a bit beyond Miyuki, and she wasn't all that comfortable in large groups. She grabbed one of the recently-picked oranges, picking it up off the ground, and took a good look at it. "Doesn't seem poisonous to me." She muttered. She took a whiff of the brightly-coloured fruit. It smelled very tasty...

edited 28th Jan '16 6:46:20 PM by Blackfire667

Charlotte couldn't help chuckling when Celso referred to Tiamat as a being of chaos. "Maybe in her younger days she was chaotic, but in modern times she's more... eccentric than anything else. I guess she's softened with the years, if what you say is true. None of us pry into her past, and she doesn't pry into ours. It's just easier that way."

"And don't worry about any dragon slayers or the like coming for us," Olivia added. "We've been in our fair share of fights, and we've given as good as we've got at worst. Anything here thinks we're an easy meal, well... they're more likely than not to go hungry."

Caleb spoke to Miyuki almost instinctively, "I think he's right, there's something unusual about the air coming off that tree." Calming down from his haste he realized an explanation was in order. "I was once a sylph, so I can notice atmosphere differences." In fact he was starting to pick up particles that must have been from a far colder place closer than it should be.

Then he addressed Celso's question, "what I know as dragons wouldn't be here, only one place has the anomaly that would support them. And while there are organisms that focus on skylings-" he motioned to indicate that he was referring to himself- "the 'slayers' are far more indiscriminate. think of them as organisms of false life; they constantly seek biomass-animal cells over plant cells, because of course they do-and care if the source of such is still using it."

He knew something wasn't right about this place, but it "calling" them here? The concept troubled him, "Listen; all of you have talked perfectly in the human language I'm best with. So-" Any said that the daughters were sent here, so he looked to Celso and Miyuki, "do you know where we are?"

edited 28th Jan '16 9:45:10 PM by Novis

Park (Elemental Guardians, Nick, Fawn)

So apparently this teenager wasn't a Keeper - just an ordinary kid who got separated from his friends on a camping trip. Against all logic and reason, Phoebe looked excited.

"Oh, I love camping!" she exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the heels of her cowgirl boots. "And it's even better with friends! I'm sorry you were separated from them. That must be awfully frightening. Tell you what. While you're here, we can be your new friends! What was that saying... make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold? I guess that makes us your silver friends!"

"Of course you can come with us," Gon chimed in. "In fact, ya know what I like to call this? An escort mission! Since you have no Mystripets, that means you're an innocent defenseless person who we have to protect as we journey through a new area. Don't worry - our Mystripets are above level 40, so you're safe with us. ...Oh, don't tell me you don't even know what Mystripets are! Aki is one! Fooly is one! We all have them - we each have three in fact! I guess they're kind of like both pets and bodyguards, in a sense."

"Tch, for some reason we're programmed that way," Aki the fiery dragonfly sassed. "If I had things my way, I'd ditch this dorky otaku and go find the Isle of Apples and live happily ever after. Like that'll ever happen."

Meanwhile, Ashleigh and Yamiko decided to turn their attention to the camera girl, who apologized for filming and introduced herself as Fawn.

"Pleased to meet you, Fawn," Ashleigh greeted, extending a hand to shake. "Interesting name, I must say. And this is Yamiko, and that's Phoebe and Gon over there." She briefly introduced her fellow companions. "And I suppose it is appropriate that you're filming us, as we are the Elemental Guardians, on a mission to collect magical essences and put a stop to the evil Virtualmon's plans. In fact, we were tracking such an essence in this area, and it seems we got lost along the way."

"What are you filming for anyway?" Yamiko asked. "And how did you get here? Are you a Keeper or..." and here she shot a glance at Gon and the other teenage boy, "did you come from somewhere else entirely? Anyway, we're looking for this place called Beta Town, which is a town filled with robots. We heard an essence was near there, but we're not sure entirely. At any rate, I don't think I can walk much further as it is... one of my ankles is rather weak."

"Well, we gotta head out - new guy here... what was your name?" and here she shot a quick glance at him since she never got his name, "...well, he wanted to get out of here and look around some more, and I agree. Tell you what - maybe you can ride on Peggy!"

"That'll be nice actually," Yamiko replied somberly. "I'm feeling kind of dizzy too."

With a nod of her pink cowgirl hat-topped head, Phoebe took out her Scanner again and pushed a button, similar to the one Yamiko pressed on hers to put Anaissie back inside it. A similar white beam of light shone from it, and a figure started to materialize at the spot of ground it was aimed at. Slowly the figure grew, until it materialized fully: a white unicorn, with a rainbow-coloured horn, rainbow-coloured wings folded at its sides, and a bronze pole with a swirling pattern sticking out of its back, as if it had come off a carousel.

"Heya Peggy! Care to give Yamiko and I a ride?"

The winged carousel unicorn named Peggy nodded in response, blinking her long-lashed and gentle eyes, and crouching down so that the two could climb on her back. Once they were on, she took a few paces toward the edge of the park, beyond which an endless sea of fog lay.

"If any of you get tired, let me know and I'll trade places," Phoebe mentioned from Peggy's back. "I'm only on here because these boots aren't the most comfortable things ever, but I can manage." Fooly the clown doll hopped on Peggy's back as well, grabbing right onto her pole and swinging around on it. Phoebe was seated directly in front of this pole, Yamiko right behind it.

"I can only carry two people at a time, though," Peggy clarified. "One if I fly, which I likely won't." Her voice was melodic and gentle, kind of like Ashleigh's.

"So are we all ready to go?" Yamiko asked Nick and Fawn.

edited 28th Jan '16 10:02:14 PM by ladytanuki