Fate/Final Deluge: The Past Is Lost Beneath The Waves

For the past hundred years, only one thing has changed.

You know this very well, because everyone reminds you of it. It shows in the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they make two-hundred-year-old pop culture references like the holos aired yesterday.

You live in a false city, crumbling in its own grandeur. And magic...

Whatever magic was, it doesn't seem to matter that much any more. That was the thing that changed.

And so you find yourself at the start of a war, wading through a sea of mundanity, walking the last remnants of a world that lost itself so long ago beneath the waves...

Djerba Rediscovered; The Canvaserai

Art doesn't have much of a place in Shelter - as a matter of fact, art doesn't have much of a place anywhere.

The world's gone. Done. Dusted. There's just not much left to draw.

But some people still love canvas, for some reason, real raw paper that you can crumble, and this place is for them. It's not too big, nothing fancy. Just an empty hall with four viewing rooms and a supply store pegged to the back. The pieces on the walls go from decent to disastrous. There's one of a charcoal line, just a line, only you can't quite tell if it was drawn or burnt in, and the paper may or may not be coming apart. There's a passable portrait of someone's aunt, only it's clearly been copied from a Shelterlink photo, and therefore has no sense of decorum. There's a collage, a watercolor, the inevitable plain black piece of paper.

And then there's an honest one. It's been torn to bits, scattered inside the frame, so that you have to peer inside and down to look at it. There's a single question there, printed on the only scrap big enough to hold it:

Who cares?

Djerba Rediscovered; The Cabaret de L’Enfer

Human cloning hasn't been illegal for three hundred years, but all the same, most people who come to the Cabaret don't concern themselves with ethical matters. You see, the staff is almost entirely homunculi. False humans, with pale skin and white hair and bright red eyes, too numinous to be human and too ethereal to be vatborn.

The Mayor hasn't cracked down yet, but maybe he doesn't see the cabaret as a threat. It's charming, in a very meandering way, the same way a half-asleep girl is charming - not for the quality of her wit but the humor of her circumstances. The tables are at angles. The food is decent, although much less flavorful than the grown stuff. The ambience is spotty, but at least it isn't rowdy. The shows tend to be amateur, but forgivable.

There's entertainment tonight, as there usually is. Most people come here just to see people.

Demophon Raised/Electric Hades; One Demeter At A Time

Djerba this is not. The Demophon side stinks of protein vats and synthetic churns. Its climate pumps fill the sky with a perpetual pregnant wetness, thickening everything with a rain that will never fall. Not far away, Electric Hades sags into the neon light, its gaunt complexes sparking and glowing with the last embers of the last drug-fuelled party, just waiting for the next to restart the blaze.

Everything's wood here, for some reason. Perhaps Demophon farmboys appreciate nature. The chairs and tables are wood, the bar is wood, the latrine is wood. If the filament bulbs were stronger, you might be able to determine whether or not you were drinking wood.

No, this is the breadbasket of Shelter, its algae-pumping core. Wood would be more natural.

Alicia Blackwood—Hermes Flying Over The Rooftops

In the mysterious, shadowed recesses between the squat buildings of Electric Hades, there lay a network of alleyways used by illicit couriers and messengers. Alicia was very familiar with them, and she glided through the dark, fleet as the night wind, if such a thing existed in Electric Hades.

Her strong legs propelled her forward, forward, ever forward. She clambered onto a roof, leaping from the ground onto a drainage pipe, then using that to scale her way up. A series of red scraps of cloth marked the correct clandestine path through the border and into Demophon Raised, and Alicia knew this path by heart.

However, her path was not to lead her to one Radek Pribyl's hideout. Instead, she was heading to One Demeter At A Time, his favorite watering hole. She dropped down from a roof, rolling to break her fall. She flipped her hair as she entered the familiar place, nodding to a few of her former gang-mates as they sized her up. She still had it, and it was best that they knew.

Edited by JumpingFruit on May 5th 2020 at 9:39:25 AM

I scratch my nose.

What I see in front of me is a painting that's named "The Life Within Ends". I can see the artist's sneering face, more than I can see the work on the canvas.

The way that his lips must've curled back as he finished it, having stared at it from behind his thick-rimmed glasses as it dried.

The joy he must've felt as a name finally came to him.

"I can't believe it," I can hear him say with a mental pat on the back, "I've done it again!"

The elation that his shitty, overpriced scribbles would be salvaged...no, elevated, by the fact that he gave it a vague title. What does it mean? I don't know, it's got a title, though. It has to mean something!

He probably spent more time coming up with the name than he did painting it.

I wish I could kick his teeth in.

I probably could, but should I? I don't know.

I don't even know why I'm here. I'm bored.

I step away and toward somewhere else within this gallery, looking to find whatever it is that makes this place interesting. The other people here...body modded, rich-looking socialite fuckheads with more invested in their outfits than entire countries in the old world...they don't seem to mind how I look as much as the echo of my boots compared to the taps of their high-heeled neon-glow feet. The people who actually pay money for this stuff^* (I know it's hard to believe that people pay for paper with paint dabbled on it, but that's what happens) look so very gaudy, and effete, and Sorry-Dearie that it almost completely masks my presence in comparison. Just some dumb moving sheet of grey nestled in between a bunch of...

...what's the word for those fancy rugs that people hang up instead of putting on the floor?

Ah, I forgot.

Still. Hope there's something worth wasting my time on, here. I loudly yawn.

Demophon Raised: One Demeter At A Time

It was almost instinctual, at this point; while he was waiting for his drink, he plugged in.

He honestly didn’t know what he was expecting. Nothing new had developed in the half-hour or so since he'd last checked, save for the typical Shelter inanity, barely better than carnival barkers hawking their exploitative wares out into the digital crowds. “Come One, Come All!” one ad may as well have said, drifting by through his peripheral as he flicked his way through the headlines, his real finger making a dedicated scrolling motion as though it were taking potshots at a very lazy, very persistent fly. “New Displays At The Canvaserai! Featuring such artists as…”

Radek continued on, eyes flitting through the noise and heat of feeds blooming up into excitement about the latest innovation in attention-sinking. He made it his business to find the intersection of what Shelter had to say, but didn't want to, the only thing that really counted in this world anymore as actual news. Accidents were one, deaths another. Thefts...

Well, it depended on what you stole.

Terrorism was, of course, a big one, but he'd been quiet recently. Maybe it was making him antsy. Maybe it was making him careless, meeting her here of all places instead of some random hole-in-the-wall that seemed to be one of Electric Hades's main exports. He couldn't be entirely sure if she was trustworthy, but he knew that they had at least one thing in common, and that was more than he could say of most people these days.

There was a gruff noise that made Radek furrow his brow, suddenly sure that he was going to have to spend some time tonight figuring out where he had to patch his audio card to work the kinks out. When it happened again, he finally got the message, moving one of his tactile-response gloves up to the goggles adorning his head before somewhat sheepishly pushing them up, mindful of the dextrous finish on the tips of the fingers. On the other side of the bar at which he sat, the bartender shot him a raised eyebrow, Radek's drink sloshing in a rounded wooden mug sitting on the surface of the bar between them.

“Thanks.” Radek said, carefully slipping his glove-clad hands into his pockets before pulling the limbs out glove-free, followed by rummaging through an entirely different pocket before coming up with a piece of honest-to-god physical currency that this place used to keep out the acrid taste of modernity. Flipping it to the man in a practiced maneuver, he grabbed the drink with one hand and slid off of his stool, but not before stealing a glance as the man caught the coin, looked it over, and gave it a hearty bite between his teeth before pocketing it.

Old-fashioned? Definitely. But he liked it that way.

Radek lowered his goggles slightly, setting them to alert him with a chime if they detected any keywords—death, murder, vandalism, anything that could be construed as something that wasn't part of the plan. But once he raised them again, his attention naturally drifted to the dart board in the corner, and how he hadn't made a play for his own high score in a little while. There was a perverse hypocrisy about it, for how much he derided the masses for their distractions and pleasures. But the fact remained, if he didn't have a little fun, just the barest amount, he would end up bleeding through his nose by way of an aneurysm, and then where would he be? His fingers drifted over the fins of the darts huddled together in their little plastic cup, taking a calming sip of his drink before deciding to pick out one that had done pretty well for him in the past. Taking a step back, Radek lined up his shot, finding it straying a bit from the traditional center, to the ring that spiraled around the outer edge, thin and skinny, mockingly unattainable. One Strata away from this very spot, Radek mused dryly, lining up his dart for the pitch, and it might as well be on the Moon—

Just as he made to throw it, the doors opened wide behind him, arcing his shot wide to a predictable result. Radek watched, his mouth a thin, grim line, as the dart vibrated to the stop with its tip lodged firmly in the outer ring, confirming that he most likely wasn't going to be beating his high score that night.

"I didn't bring you out to the middle of nowhere so you could show off to your friends." Radek said, nevertheless holding out another of the darts in Alicia's direction, fins-first. Whether she took it or not, he would take a small sip of his drink, before continuing, lowly, "How was the trip? Meet any other... friends?"

Edited by Uncandescent on May 6th 2020 at 3:12:33 PM

Adeline - Cabaret de L’Enfer

As always, Adeline felt slightly self-conscious at L’Enfer. She glanced about her. There's no one I like here.

Unsurprising really. Kyriake enjoyed inviting large amounts of people whenever she hosted one of these performances. That included her family. But where Kyriake seemed to relish interacting with outsiders, most of the Viviani found it a terrible chore. Small wonder then that when the invitations to this party had arrived in the post, almost everyone had contrived some excuse not to attend in short order.

Clement had claimed a meeting with his friends at the Basilica, and was of course terribly sorry. Roland and Aude insisted they had some experiment going on that would take all their attention that day. Augusta hadn't even bothered pretending and just torn up the invitation.

Adeline herself would have preferred not to go, but Flora had insisted, and that had been the end of it.

She looked at the stage. The curtains were still drawn, evidently the next act wasn't ready yet.

Her cousin piped up beside her. "The next performance is from someone named Euphrasia, apparently," she said, peering at the programme. "Have you heard of her?"

"No."

"I'll ask Kyriake afterwards then. Hopefully they'll impress."

Adeline shrugged and raised a hand. A homunculi appeared to top up her glass with more Bordeaux before vanishing again. She took a sip. "If they don't, at least stop dragging me to Kyriake's events."

Edited by joergenjetsam on May 6th 2020 at 9:00:31 PM

Claire - The Canvaserai

Claire Rosenkreuz did not often leave her home. There was no need, when all the food you required to live was delivered and all the entertainment in the world was at your virtual fingertips.

Even those naysayers who insisted on connecting with people face-to-face would find that Claire did just that; her tournaments drew people to her shop (well, her mother's shop; Claire would have inherited it at some point in the future, if the world had not been coming to a slow and miserable end) to play with actual, physical cards and pieces.

That, in fact, was why Claire was here. Looking for artists, should any still exist. In her purse was a small cloth bag filled with clay miniatures, in need of a coat of paint. Pieces to use in another game, a game where she and her few friends pretended to be something else and forget the condition of the world.

On some level, it was probably horrifying that said game, which involved fighting never-ending hordes of alien monsters, was preferable to their supposed utopian society where all needs were met.

Claire had long since made peace with it. Still, she found herself instinctively rubbing her shoulder, unable to ignore the reason why she didn't like going out in public.

A mark in pewter, signaling her as different. A mark she could not hide; she'd worn both a blouse and a jacket, and yet somehow the 'M' for 'Magus' imposed itself over both. Truth be told, she'd never really encountered any harassment for it; maybe some odd looks, but it didn't seem like anyone in the world cared. Which made sense. Because, you know, apocalypse and all that.

Still, she hated it. Hated the reminder that she was different. Because whenever she saw it, it reminded her that something might have actually been done about the dying core of the city, had the Mayor not been an idiot. She had power beyond the norm, but could do nothing of use with it. She felt like she'd failed humanity, somehow.

Claire forced herself to lower her arm, and instead turned towards the first person to catch her eye. A woman who seemed to be about Claire's age. She stuck out, because she was dressed less pretentiously then the artists here. She also seemed to be of quiet demeanor, which would hopefully make her easier to deal with.

"Excuse me." Claire spoke up, stepping closer to the girl to get her attention. She withdrew one of the clay figures from the bag in her purse. "Would you happen to be one of the artists here? I'm looking to get something painted."

Edited by kagescorpionakki on May 6th 2020 at 4:30:30 AM

Sedryk, The Canvaserai

Ah, to take in the works of one’s fellow artists was a pastime that never got old. It was a sublime feeling, to know that, even in times like this, humans could find the inspiration to tear themselves away from the sims and make masterpieces of the humble canvas, as surface-dwelling painters had once done so very long ago.

Equally sublime, and satisfying, was the realization that many of one’s contemporaries were roughly of the same level of skill as oneself.

Sedryk bore a bland smile as he made his way through the viewing galleries of the Canvaserai, weaving between overdressed and over-auged socialites. He wondered briefly if he would have stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb in such distinguished company, with his five o’clock shadow, sunken eyes and painted-stained sweater. In another time, perhaps, when fashions were more rigid and artists needed to be presentable to secure patrons. But in Shelter, such concerns were a thing of the past.

Like many things.

He stopped in front of his latest contribution to the gallery. Made mere hours ago, it had been an experiment in a new style: a dabbling in the ancient forms of cubism. Lopsided and misshapen, the head of a cow stared out from the canvas with mismatched eyes beneath horns that bent sharply at angles just short of ninety degrees.

That was the title he’d scribbled along the bottom left corner, followed by an original by S. de S.P.

The smile thinned.

One of his better works, perhaps, and certainly far from the worst. And yet… something was missing. Something always seemed to be missing, lately.

His thoughts turned to what was unquestionably the centerpiece of today’s display. Those torn scraps of paper occupying the display case, those two words that managed to say so much with so little… now that was art. And like all true art, it prompted questions in the viewer’s mind.

Namely, why didn’t I think of that?

And, Why doesn’t my own work stir me, for that matter?

Now that was a train of thought no artist wanted to pursue.

Fortunately, a snatch of overheard conversation derailed it before it could leave the station. Someone was asking for a painter.

Sedryk glanced in the direction of the voice and saw a young woman, dark-haired and fair-skinned. A distinctive M was visible through her clothes, much like his own. She was speaking to someone dressed in a hooded grey robe with their back to him.

An eyebrow rose. Not the strangest fashion choice he’d ever seen, but it did feel somewhat out of place here.

He moved a bit closer to better observe and overhear.

The girl was rather photogenic. Maybe she’d be interested in modeling…

Alicia Blackwood—Sheepish Hermes

"S-sorry," Alicia apologized, taking the darts. "For startling you, I mean..." She contemplated a dart, turning it over and over again in her hands until she finally tried to throw it at the dartboard. It landed in a middle ring. Darn.

"It's sometimes necessary to show off before people mess with you, though," she muttered. "But fortunately there was nobody out there trying to poach the goodies couriers carry. If there were any, they'd be lost in the back-alleys by now."

Alicia subconsciously put a hand on the white bandanna tied in one of her belt-loops. A white bandanna denoted a courier, someone who worked for everyone, was not to be held back by loyalties, and who enjoyed a certain amount of immunity from being jumped on the streets. It could be worn anywhere on the body in whatever style one wanted, unlike colored bandannas which declared one's allegiance to one gang or another—Leadership wore bandannas on their head, regular grunts wore them around their neck. Knots and styles denoted different positions. Black bandannas denoted new initiates and declared them off-limits to attacks and ambushes on the streets, and were worn on the arms or wrists.

She wasn't quite sure if this was just some elaborate game made up by the youth of Electric Hades to imitate the gangs of the past or a real and honest attempt by more serious gangs to poach new members once they got too old for this childish game. Either way, street-fighting, vandalism, arson, and 'hanging out' happened on a regular basis.

Poach new members... That was how she'd become a courier in the first place. You got tasked by some shady adult to deliver champagne, caviar, luxury items—with a promised bonus for delivering quickly. You get brought in to meet Leadership if you were good enough at it. They present you with a white bandanna (as if they knew about the Color Code in the first place) and 'ask' you to keep quiet. And then you're respected and feared, just a little bit. Just a tiny little bit.

Couriers got bonuses for working quickly, in the form of illicit goods. It was wondrous and mysterious to the youth of Electric Hades that couriers could seemingly produce them out of nowhere as if by magic, and were sworn to say nothing except for maybe winking or smiling a little. A lot of superstitions sprang up about this secret white bandanna'd gang who flew over the rooftops. Were they really allied together to form a gang of their own, or did they all collectively work for something greater? Nobody knew.

They say if you throw salt onto their secret paths just as they're passing by, it would slow them down enough to catch. They say that if you can ever capture a courier, they'll give you Empyreans in exchange for their freedom. They say if you ever hurt a courier, you disappear the next night. They say, they say—pearls of truth in an ocean of lies.

Gang life was behind Alicia. Mostly. She lobbed another dart. Middle ring again. She was really bad at this, wasn't she? She kept fiddling with another dart. "If you didn't bring me out here to show off, what did you bring me out here for? Have you got anything new planned?" she leaned forward a little in anticipation.

Edited by JumpingFruit on May 6th 2020 at 10:33:10 AM

Someone finds me, first. I turned around as she said "Excuse me", ready to answer her...my mind immediately floated towards "Excuse me, ma'am, but you have to leave." Pleasantly, this wasn't the case.

I got another surprise when I looked at her, though. Not a good one.

Maybe she caught me staring at the mark on her shoulder for an unhealthy amount of time. That M was right there, though...anybody would stare at it; she expected it.

That voice let me paint a picture of the Mage in front of me. Some highly-born waste of space, some—

...Oh, right. She asked me a question.

Took me a minute to remember it.

My staring didn't last too long, so I quickly pulled up with a little smile and looked at what she wanted me to look at in the first place. A little statuette, probably one of those flash-printed ones, some guy with shoulder pads and a gun.

Can't say I didn't like how it looked, honestly. "Nah. I don't really paint, I just came here to gawk," I said. It's been a few days since I spoke to anyone, so my voice sounds raspier than usual. "Can't really help you there. I don't think anyone here's gonna help you either, Mage," my eyes dart towards hers to see how she reacts, "everyone here's a bunch of..."

self-absorbed assholes

"more...conceptual artists. Like, look at this guy." I point over my shoulder to that blotchy painting of a cow behind me. "I don't think he'd wanna paint a picture of a...knight with a gun."

I look it over one more time.

"Still looks pretty sick, though. Where'd ya get it?"

Edited by wikkit on May 6th 2020 at 12:54:03 PM

Claire - The Canvaserai

Of course, the first thing the woman looks at is the mark. Claire rubs her shoulder again, as though the motion would somehow wipe it away. Though despite her vaguely tired appearance - and the obvious emphasis with which she says 'Mage' - Claire manages to smile at the other girl's raspy voice.

Whoever she is, the hooded woman is clearly not high-class. Something Claire can get behind. Her father may have been a loon, but her mother had taught her well. Sydney Rosenkreuz had drilled into her daughter that possessing magic did not bestow any inherent superiority.

Claire concurred. Sydney was not a magus, but Claire still had never legitimately taken a game of chess off of her; she knew her mother had always let her win.

Having better pieces meant nothing if you did not know how to play the game.

"I sculpt them myself." Claire responded, with a hint of pride. Though as she spoke her next words, a forlorn undertone crept in. "With magecraft, naturally. Not like its useful for anything else these days."

She followed the girl's finger towards the vague, surrealist painting in question, then turned back towards her and shrugged. "Well, I'm not asking them to paint a portrait. So long as they have decent brushwork, it should do. Honestly, I'd do it myself, but somehow 'paint' doesn't count as 'Earth.'"

She crossed her arms and huffed, twiddling the figurine between her fingers. "Honestly, magic can be such nonsense at times." She said, more to herself than anything.

Sedryk, the Canvaserai

A thumb and a glance, both jerked in his direction. If that didn’t amount to an invitation, he didn’t know what did.

Smile back in place, he stepped forward.

“Sorry for interrupting, but I couldn’t help but overhear. Parts of it, anyway.” As always, there was just a hint of the family’s ancestral accent to his words. Centuries of life in the last melting pot of human culture had failed to eradicate those French tones completely, though not for lack of trying. “I am Sedryk de Saint-Paulin, or Ess de Ess-Pée as they know me here. And if it’s painting you need, I’m your man.”

As he waited for their reply, he struck the pose contemplative artists had, so he imagined, struck throughout history: leaning slightly to one side, one hand cupping his chin while the other held his elbow. And so poised, he studied his two potential patrons.

Both were female, at least in appearance. The one in the grey cloak was a bit on the ghoulish side, with that pallor and that rasp, though who was he to judge? Between them they made for an interesting tableau: the well-dressed, livelier looking brunette, and the hooded shade from some mythical underworld.

A thoughtful frown furrowed his brow. Was he perhaps looking at his next creation?

Demophon Raised: One Demeter At A Time

Radek raised a brow at her comment, followed by a slight, but familiar to the other girl by now, exasperated sigh. "I've told you before, that kind of thing isn’t up to me.” Radek said, hiding his inscrutable expression behind the rim of his drink as he took a sip, before placing it back down onto the counter beside him, finger idly tracing through the fluid around the rim. Radek took many identities in his line of work, almost all of them born out of a combination of necessity and convenience. The persona of EXT was his most extreme, by far, but there were many, many notches in the spectrum between EXT and Radek. The identity he took with this girl was another one of these, that went by the name of Olympus; because who better to steer Hermes through Hades?

Turning in place, the man lined up his next shot, trying to make a better showing now that he had an audience. But even as he let loose with a few small, strategic jerks of his wrist meant to build momentum and line up his shot, he found the motion getting slower and slower whilst his hand slipped lower and lower, until he was effectively tapping the tip contemplatively against the surface of the bar instead. “People don’t really... die, in Shelter." He began, conscious of how awkward and stilted his words sounded even to his own ears. "And because of that, I don’t think many people are really willing or able to... talk about it. Even if they're not really gone. Every if there's every possibility that you might see them again. But especially if you probably won't." Abandoning all pretense, Radek turned to her fully, her face reflected in his goggles whilst a sadness was reflected in his eyes. "I heard that your parents went back inside. But it's not your fault."

Radek turned to face the bar, staring down into the bitter, dark pool of his drink even while a frustrated exhale sent ripples through his reflection. "It's this place. This colony, this—purgatory of the human soul. You see these people?" Radek said, throwing his arm out, gesturing widely to the slight crowd, the figures Alicia wouldn't recognize constituting all manner of sun-tanned laborer or nimble-fingered technician. “See this bar?” He said, rapped his knuckles harshly against the surface for emphasis, before moving his hands back to grasp his cup in a tight grip. "This is one of the only honest places left in Shelter. Built by people, for people. Mark my words, Electric Hades might be the place where humanity settles to the bottom, but Demophon Raised is where it builds itself back up."

His spiel finished, Radek found that he had worked himself up into a slight pant and a stale silence, that he could only think to bridge by raising his mug up for another sip. But by the time he'd lowered it, in response to some signal or another, the bartender would shuffle back over, dropping off a mug identical to Radek’s on the counter next to them before offering Alicia a nod and wandering off elsewhere. With two fingers, Radek made to gently push the mug in her direction, watching for her reaction. “If you’re old enough to do… whatever it is that you do, you’re old enough to drink.” If she was receptive, he would attempt to raise his own glass, and clink it against hers. “To building back up.” He would say, the words surely coming out more bitter than intended, before taking a deep pull of the brown liquid, grimacing at the taste even as he relished the prospect of one thing out of thousands created by human hands.

Edited by Uncandescent on May 9th 2020 at 3:10:18 PM

Alicia Blackwood—Hermes & Ambrosia

Alicia dipped her head as Radek mentioned her parents. "They...they did. They came home for a while, they... They ate dinner with me. I thought they were going to stay this time, I—" she said, sniffling. "—Thought they were going to stay... That I was good enough... But when I asked them to, they just... smiled at me and then left right the next morning... Ugh. Sorry..."

She took the mug of beer and stared into it. It'd be fine to indulge herself just this once. Just this once. She clinked her glass against Radek's. "To building back up," she found herself whispering fiercely. Alicia then lifted the mug to her mouth and partook. It tasted like life itself: bitter, but not exactly unpleasant. She smiled to herself, enjoying the atmosphere of the bar.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Jul 1st 2020 at 4:12:02 AM

"...Yeah..."

I find myself at a loss for words, all of a sudden. This whole conversation takes a turn for the awkward.

What am I supposed to say, "it always was nonsense, give up on that shit"? I don't feel like being that overt today. I think about it for a moment, scratching my cheek and staring up at the ceiling...

"...it's never made any sense," I finally say with a little bit of hesitation, "but it's not like I know shit about it." Probably the best I could come up with.

The opportunity for me to get embarrassed further is pushed aside. A new embarrassment, the face of embarrassment comes up from behind. This mage in front of me was one thing, but this guy reeked of the asshattery I expected from these people.

On top of that, he didn't even have the decency to shave. What a creep. The way he looked at the two of us told me that he was checking us out.

"Yeah. Alright." I don't try to hide my feelings for this guy. "What did you paint here, exactly? Something good?"

Sedryk, The Canvaserai

That thoughtful frown deepened. Such contempt, such naked hostility…

“This might be just what I need,” he muttered to himself.

But potential future compositions could wait for the moment. And so he smiled once more.

“Good, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,” he said, and waved his hand over his shoulder in the direction of ceci n’est pas une vache. “I’ll leave it to yours to decide whether my latest work qualifies as either.”

And whether the modesty he’d inserted into his tone was genuine or not: he himself did not know.

“Admittedly, it’s not in my preferred style. But what can I say? I like to try new things.”

Oh, yes, break out those sorta-philosophical statements to impress me, just like that! Damn, I'm already wet, keep going with that garbage.

I do turn around just to confirm that, yes, he is pointing at that mess of mess of angles and colors that suggest a shredded cow was dumped into a paint factory. Just my luck, he probably heard me shittalking him beforehand.

I look him straight in the eyes, and I can't help but smile a little.

"Whatever you usually do," I say without hesitation, "you probably should get back to doing it. You didn't have to tell me it wasn't your preferred style."

Claire - The Canvaserai

The girl's words caught Claire's attention immediately, and she stopped twiddling her fingers around the miniature as she considered them.

It never made any sense. It's possible that these were just the words of someone who hated mages. But that begged the question of why; and why would she still be here having a polite (if passive-aggressive) conversation with two such mages?

A lot of questions, not a lot of answers. Claire was a sucker for riddles, so she had to force herself to focus on the words being said rather than figuring out the strange, sullen girl before her.

"I'll admit the art style is... unusual." Claire said, "But I don't think it's bad. Just different."

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face, then smiled at Sedryk. "Of course, as I said to..." She trailed off, realizing she'd never caught the other woman's name. "My friend, here, it's not a canvas I need painted."

She held up the model soldier. "I have a number of figurines I want painted. I have an artbook showing how they're supposed to look. Should be a fairly simple job; I'd have done it myself, but I'm no good with a brush."

Then she paused, realizing something else. "Ah, but I've forgotten my manners." Keeping the figure between her middle and ring fingers, she used her free fingers and other hand to give a small curtsy in greeting. "Claire Rosenkreuz. A pleasure, Mr. Saint-Paulin."

Sedryk, the Canvaserai

Perhaps that was meant to rile him up. The smile on the ghoul’s face certainly gave that impression.

His own smile never wavered as he shrugged. “Fair enough. Cubism and cows aren’t for everyone. Thank you for your honest opinion, though.” And he meant it: much as he loved the Canvaserai, genuine criticism was hard to come by here. You’d have an easier time squeezing blood from a stone, or wringing milk from the teats of a golden calf, than getting a straightforward answer from some of his peers.

His gaze shifted to the other half of the pair. At last, a name to put to a face!

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Rosenkreuz.” He returned her curtsy with a polite nod. Then he turned his attention to the figurine in her hands. “Hmm. Brutish little fellow, isn’t he?” It was some kind of futuristic soldier or warrior, with a big gun and even bigger shoulder pads. Unfeasibly big, almost. Maybe special designs were meant to be displayed there?

He said nothing for a moment, tapping his chin.

“I’ve never painted models like these before,” he admitted. “But as I said, I like to try new things.” His smile returned. “How soon do you need them?”

Claire - The Canvaserai

"Ideally I'd like them before next Saturday." Claire replied. "They're for a war game my friends and I play, so I'd like to have them ready by our next session. But there's no rush. I've been using stand-ins up until now anyway, so one more session with them won't hurt."

She reached into her purse and withdrew the bag of figurines, placing the soldier back in it as she did so. She also pulled out a few printed pages; actual, real papers stapled together. Claire didn't know if the artists here were the anti-tech type, so as a precaution she'd printed out pictures of what each figurine was supposed to look like.

She'd even gone to the trouble of withdrawing physical money in case the artists were that kind of weirdo that didn't accept digital payments. Though she kept the money in her purse, for now. Safe as Shelter was (except maybe for Electric Hades), there was no need to risk being pickpocketed if she didn't need to.

"Given it's something you've never done before, take all the time you need." She smiled. "I'd rather wait then have them be shoddy because you rushed, you know?"

Sedryk, The Canvaserai

Again he nodded. “Perfectly understandable. I’ll treat them with the utmost care.” His estimation of Ms. Rosenkreuz had gone up a notch as soon as she brought out that bundle of sheets. Very few people bothered with physical printouts these days, not when you could get information beamed straight into your eyes. Between that and the models themselves, she was obviously quite dedicated to this game of hers.

And that level of dedication deserved his full attention.

“I’ll get started on them tonight, after the exhibition wraps up.” With that he rolled up his sleeve to expose his watch and began tapping its face. A few seconds later a slit opened along its side, and the watch whirred faintly as it printed out a business card. It always bemused him that the cards ended up longer than the width of the watch itself, but who was he to question how nanotechnology worked?

He offered the glossy grey rectangle to Ms. Rosenkreuz. His initials, written in a white cursive font that glowed softly, were half-hidden beneath his thumb. “Scroll down for my rates and contact info.” He paused, then glanced at the ghoul. “Would you like a card as well, Miss…?”

For a moment there, I felt like I was in another world. The little business transaction revolving around plastic star-soldiers wasn't helping me keep a grip on reality. Pretty sure the hallu—

Oh, my name?

I snapped to attention, and responded with a firm, clear "Debra Petrovich. I'll take it, but I don't think I'll be in the need for your services." I hold out my hand for the card anyway. "Never know 'bout the future, though."

Claire - The Canvaserai

"Thank you, Mr. Saint-Paulin." She smiled as she took the card from him, slipping it into her purse. "You'll find my own contact info in those papers I gave you."

Claire turned towards the woman. Her name didn't ring any bells, but then, Claire didn't expect it to. Still, something nagged at her, and Claire couldn't resist the urge to try and prod for more information.

"So, miss Petrovich. What brings you here, anyway? No offense, but you don't strike me as the artistic type."

Sedryk, the Canvaserai

The future. The thought turned his smile wry, if just for a moment.

“Quite so, Miss Petrovich.” He tapped even as he spoke, and by the end of that sentence he was placing a card in her outstretched hand. “If you change your mind, you’ll know how to contact me.” Then he nodded to his client once more. “And you’re quite welcome, Miss Rosenkreuz. I’ll contact you once the work is done.”

With the cards dispensed and the commission in hand, Sedryk took half a step back. He slipped back into the Pose, the bag of figurines held in the same hand which cupped his elbow while the papers were safely tucked in his armpit.

He paused, glancing down. The front page of the sheaf was pressed right up against a bright yellow paint stain. His brows creased, only to smooth out when he saw that none of it was getting onto the paper.

A good thing those stains had enough time to dry, eh Sedryk?

His attention shifted back to Rosenkreuz and Petrovich. Hopefully they hadn’t noticed that little slipup, harmless though it had been.

“I would be interested to know as well,” he said. “Though it’s always nice to see new faces around here.”

That I was holding a business card felt quaint. A little piece of paper with someone's name, address, number on it; this is something my ancestors did away with, wasn't it? Then again, I was standing in a room full of outmoded things, wasn't I...

I slid it in the folds of my robe-poncho-coat, making sure to keep it intact for later.

"I'm here 'cause I'm bored," I said entirely truthfully. "It turns out I don't really give a rat's ass about art, but it's not like I've ever been here, ya know? The fact that there was a place, in the meatspace, where people were hanging up frames with paper or cloth or whatever instead of just posting their art..."

My own contradiction becomes obvious, so I smile a little.

"...It's a pretty new thing, isn't it? Even if it isn't. I live for that kind of shit."

Sedryk, the Canvaserai

“Quite so,” he said with a nod and a half-smile. “Everything old is new again, to quote… a certain philosopher.”

Who had said that originally, anyway? He knew he’d heard it or read it somewhere before, but he couldn’t put a name to the words. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure it had even been a philosopher. There were so many artists, poets and influencers from the pre-Shelter times that it was honestly hard to keep track of them all.

“But in my opinion, that’s part of the appeal of this place,” he went on smoothly. “Anyone can just be a great artist in the sims, but out here, it’s something you have to work at. It’s a chance to express yourself, to make something real that people will notice…”

His gaze drifted past Ms. Petrovich to ceci n’est pas une vache. More specifically, to the people and patrons that were walking past. A few stopped briefly to peruse the canvas, muttered a few “oohs” and “ahs”, and moved on to the next piece in the gallery. Others limited themselves to a passing glance, and a few didn’t even offer that much, ignoring it completely.

His smile faded. “Or at least, that’s the hope,” he sighed.