vatheon | (no subject)

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Who: Sol Badguy and ~~presumably Zelda and her welcome wagon~~ anyone who wants to run into a grumpy man.
When: May 27th, evening
Where: Plaza
Style: Anything goes, I'll match :>
Status: Open~

Ochre eyes reflected little other than what could be dulled annoyance but what probably was his usual indifference as the man found himself sprawled gracelessly half-in and half-out of a fountain, long brown hair soaked and winding through the water lazily. The last time he'd wound up in one of these things, a Gear was knocking him around in a deserted city sometime during the war. This one actually had clean water running through it at least, and it did something for the tell-tale stick and grit of salt water clinging to him. It didn't really matter either way, but the lack of salt meant he'd be marginally more comfortable. This left him with a question, even as the bounty hunter hauled himself up onto his feet proper with even less grace than his landing position.

Where the fuck was he? Too blue to be where he just was--dry, drought-ridden, deserted formerly-European city number-whatever this was not.

Popping his neck what felt like back into place, he decided he only cared enough to find a way out. Lotta magic around, but nothing else that caught his elusive attention. The oddities he could sense also felt pretty trivial, but it was when Sol reached for the Fireseal (which had mercifully not landed in the water with him, not that it'd matter too much, just a shit-ton of steam) that he paused, but only for a split second.

He really must've been out of it for someone to be able to ink him unawares. At first, he didn't pay it much mind; as he straightened back up, Fireseal in hand, he stared at the marking just below the fold of his elbow. The longer he looked at it, the more he decided he didn't like it. Thin lips turned down at the corners, and Sol growled on reflex.

It wasn't just some idiot running around with ink and a needle gun. This was a brand.

This would not fly. In fact, that plane was going to crash as soon as the wheels lifted up. Complete system failure, right back to the runway. He'd been branded once, and that was all he needed. Time's up, blue place. This Badguy is just gonna walk away.

. . .

Except he can't, apparently. So he'd been informed by a shopkeep of some kind. They'd thrown a towel at him and some starfish-lookin' thing that even Ky couldn't get mad at. Sol remembered cell phones, PDAs, tablets, and all that shit but this was different.

The blunt edge of the Fireseal struck the ground, partially impaled, and Sol folded his arms while that would-be scowl returned. Well, then.

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"If they do it's likely a result of the coral." Ky gestured at it, taking Sol's suggestion as if it were something Sol might actually think was the case. It was true that some of these things couldn't be explained away by magic as he knew it, but hallucinations didn't fit either.

"We're required to touch it periodically, and apparently it's our energy that it uses to maintain this place." Are you enjoying his exposition, Sol? Tough, because Ky wasn't done yet. "Attempting to hold off from touching it results in a weakness that lasts until we do touch it. I believe, in addition, it's somehow the coral that makes our magic function here."

Ky made a face, then. "The natives worship it as a shrine to their gods."

Sol maintained a flat look as Ky jumped on his sarcasm as a legitimate suggestion. Then again, he supposed it could have been seen as such. Not much else seemed to make sense. Whatever. He turned his attention onto the coral after a while, keeping one ear on Ky and the other open to his surroundings.

The coral looked unassuming enough, other than the fact that it looked like it was pretty much everywhere. And there was no water save for what was outside what looked like a barrier. Unless the energy recyling was some kind of evolutionary strain and it just used energy like plants did carbon dioxide and "cleaned" it... Pretty bizarre evolution, but there could have been any number of biochemical experiments performed to breed this kind of thing. Hn. Too much work, if you asked Sol. Frederick might have been enthused, but Frederick was long dead. Mostly. It piqued Sol's curiosity a little, invisibly so. Ky distracted him from theories.

"Hn. So as soon as it's someone else's god, you get your panties in a knot."

Ky huffed. He should know better than to get into this conversation with Sol, but he'd also had plenty of people trying to make an issue of this subject and Sol should at least understand where he's coming from, even if he didn't agree with it.

"They're clearly worshipping it as some sort of false idol, and that bias prevents them from being able to speak objectively about its capabilities and weakness. Not to mention that the natives are...very odd. And they murdered one of their own because that's what they thought 'April fool's' meant." Ky would never forgive them for that one.

Sol didn't dignify the blond's own biased complaints with an answer. He only theoretically knew where Ky was coming from, having been something of an atheist for effectively his entire lifespan. No church-going household, his. Give him evidence of a god and he might listen for a grand total of five minutes if you were lucky. But really, Ky. God is said to work in mysterious ways, so why shouldn't he be a huge troll and manifest to different people in different ways and numbers if he actually exists?

It probably didn't help that he also took the "murder" as something you'd read about in an anthropology article. Sol vaguely remembered what that was like, not that he remembered why. The human brain, modified or not, wasn't really built to contain that kind of thing, apparently. Or if it was, he didn't bother keeping the memory, so to speak. Different people, different rules. Different understandings of why rules were the way they were. Boy scout, thinking he'd learned everything good, that everything worked the same way everywhere. Naive.

"Found anything useful?" A means of changing the subject.

Fine, Sol, ignore him. As long as he wasn't walking away yet, Ky could drop the whole religion issue. It wasn't as though he'd expected Sol to agree with him. It was in fact probably better to let him change things here.

"There's a Defense Force here, dedicated to protecting against any external or internal threats which may arise. I'm a member and you may want to consider joining as well. I can direct you who to talk to. Also, sometimes people here go into extended sleeps without warning, but they seem to be fine once they awake. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it, nor any rule how long it lasts. Also, people can be killed here without it having permanent effect. They come back after five days.

"Anything you want to buy from this world is free, if you wish to buy anything from the 'Nostalgia Nook' that uses a sort of money. You've been given a communication device which you can use to talk to anyone in the city, or everyone all at once." Was that useful enough, Sol?

Ignoring him was the plan. Ky could talk God and religion until he was blue in the face and Sol still wouldn't give two shits about it. The other fortunate thing about not having to listen to the Frenchman talk theology was that it also meant this wasn't going to escalate into combat yet. He'd really rather not deal with Ky this early into this new situation. One nuisance was enough at a time.

Sol "may" want to consider, but he won't. Thanks for the permission, Ky. Sol'd done his good obvious deed for the world, keeping Ky's ass from being Gear-food for the duration of the boy's time as a commander in the Sacred Order of Holy Knights on the battlefield. He really didn't feel like bothering with being useful in this place. He'd rather spend his time trying to figure a way out. He had things to do, monsters to hunt, vengeance to bring down on said monsters' heads... If he was useful, it'd be indirectly or otherwise byproduct.

"Extended sleep" was interesting. As was the impermanence of death. He'd have to see that one to believe it, though. If the notion of hallucinogenics was plausible the way Ky seemed to latch onto it, then it's possible people were just thought to be dying and instead were just out of their minds.

And then Ky kept talking and all Sol could come up with was an old, fading mental image of some imported game on some console or other. What would the universe shit out, next? But the explanation of the device he held in his hand at least made marginal sense. If with really bad design choice. He realized that this meant he'd be expected to do two things: keep up with the coral and probably keep in touch with Ky, as far at the blond was concerned. Nag.

"Hn."

Ky nodded at Sol, earnestly. He didn't hold out much hope of Sol joining the Defense Force, but it had certainly been worth a mention. After all, perhaps Sol would consider it down the line even if he didn't now. Or if there was an actual threat, then Ky could raise the idea to Sol again. He knew that there wasn't much point to asking Sol to perform routine patrols, in any case. Although perhaps Ky would be able to get Sol to spar with him.

"They're really not too complicated to use, and as far as I can tell they don't pose much of a threat, although there is the possibility of misfiring who a message is intended for, or the filters failing. As for lodging, that is also free for those, like us, who have been abducted. There are somewhere over a hundred people here, I'm not sure precisely how many."

It'd been a waste of breath, he meant. Sol slipped in and out of organization easily, but he wasn't going to devote his time to it. If Ky pushed it though, then fine. Timing and wording were everything. He'd still be as useful as a bump on a log. As for sparring? Hah, no. No. Ky got picky enough when he came after Sol for real, no way in Hell was Sol of the mind to put up with that any shade of regularly. Whine, whine, why aren't you trying, whine...

Sol had no need for data filters, so that wouldn't be an issue. He had no reason to really use the device itself, unless it was actually as useful as smartphones had been before the world went to Hell and technology basically became the new witchcraft. Even then, that wouldn't be for communication. It'd just be for music storage and whatever other useful thing he could do with it.

Sol just made another of his typical non-committal noises at Ky's announcement of the general population size. What, kid wanted to run a census, now? Whatever. He could keep his task forces and his statistics to himself. But free lodging was alright by Sol every time, so that was something to look into.

Ky nodded. Right. This was Sol, on of the first familiar faces he'd seen since Dizzy, and who was an entirely different kind of vaguely nice to see than she had been, but that didn't mean that Sol understood. Ky wondered when he'd last seen Ky on the world they came from, and he was sure that for Sol it was not nearly long enough ago. Perhaps Sol would find a way to be comfortable here, or perhaps he wouldn't, but he would do as he wanted, like he always did.

This didn't really change anything, having Sol here. Just someone else to dislike Ky, someone else who wouldn't understand that what he was trying to do was make a positive difference. Even if it didn't always work, wasn't it important to at least try?

"If you have any further questions, you can call me. If you don't have any presently, then I can leave you to start to settle in."

When had he last seen Ky? When they came to as close to an understand as they were probably ever going to get. And he'd sort of made a promise to the kid, too. This was a little too soon for fate to be intervening, though, if you asked Sol. Too soon to run into the kid at all, really. A month would've been nice. Without being chased or forced in some manner to deviate from his chosen course. Not that Sol did much choosing, instead either following rumour or the wind. As for comfort here? No. He had too much he needed to do. He'd accept it and adapt for as long as was necessary, but Sol planned to catch the first boat out of here whenever one came around. He'd build the damn thing himself if he needed to and got antsy enough.

Sol didn't actively dislike Ky, and it wouldn't be to escape him that Sol would leave. Ky just had trouble realizing that Sol knew exactly what he was doing and simply didn't give enough shits to do anything for or against it. The important thing was doing something when you were able, not to sit there and "try" forever and only manage to piss people off. That was a waste of effort and made things worse.

The American stood silent for a moment, just sort of turning everything over in his head in a lazy sort of way.

"Got a map?"

Ky shook his head. "It's not such a large area here that one is necessary once you've had a chance to settle in, so I don't carry one on me. I do know that the Welcome Center has them freely available, if you'd like to visit there in order to pick one up, along with other information that I'm probably forgetting to mention."

Ky considered for a moment; it seemed to him highly unlikely that Sol would like to have to deal with the people who staffed the center if he didn't have to. Ky could go offer to get a map from there for Sol...and he would, it wasn't that he was opposed to helping Sol out, but he did have other things he could get back to, and he wasn't the one who could best judge if Sol needed a map. Besides, if Sol just stood here someone else was likely to offer one before too long. Perhaps there was also one that could be accessed on the SFC, but while that seemed logical Ky didn't know if it was the case.

"If you see a woman with pointy ears, then she'll probably have a map on her. Or I can get you one, if you wish." In the end, Ky couldn't keep himself from offering it, even after putting far too much thought into why he didn't think he would.

Alright, well, that didn't exactly help Sol, right now. But a centre designed for this sort of thing was probably the best thing to consult. Easy information that didn't have any earnesty or nagging or being entirely too talkative for its own good. And mapping out this place would be good for recall, but he wasn't really feelin' that right now, so having a pre-made map was easier to reference. And Ky, oh, Ky: if he didn't want one, Ky, why would he ask about one? Things really aren't so complicated when it came to Sol. He might have kept a lot to himself, but he was otherwise fairly straight forward and simple.

He'd later end up checking to see if the SFC had any sort of GPS program on it. Lazy man. Or productive in his own way. To"may"to, to"mah"to.

Being told to look for a woman with "pointy ears" though got his attention, and the look he fixed Ky with could be interpreted as saying "have you lost it?" in a very dry and relatively unconcerned manner. The kinds of things Ky was spitting out here were reminiscent of an old sci-fi novel. Probably one of the bargain bin ones, at that.

Ky couldn't help what reality here seemed to be, and lying to Sol just because he might find that easier to swallow didn't seem like a very good option at all. Or the sort of thing that in the long run would make Sol respect him.

"Not everyone here is human, or seems to be. This place is being run as some sort of scientific experiment," and Ky glanced aside to the coral to give it a rather dirty look at that, "or something. Like I said, people come from different worlds, and some of the worlds don't seem to be inhabited by humans and never were. I haven't carried out a survey on the subject, so I'm not certain of the actual demographics, beyond my own personal experience." Maybe if Ky just tried more earnestness some of it would get through to Sol somehow. That was how this sort of thing tended to work, right?

Nope. Always better to be completely straight with Sol, because playing "find the facts" was annoying. And Sol's respect came with a heftier price than just being a good boy and being honest. Ky had some things left to learn if he ever wanted to earn the full of Sol's respect, or even an iota.

Hearing Ky use that phrase gave Sol pause, and he decided pretty quickly that he didn't care for this place. Going after the ones in charge of the experiment seemed like a good plan to him. But it's Ky's statement of uncertainty that follows--that "or something"--that made him halt that train of thought. Get your facts straight. And more earnestness rarely worked with Sol. Ky should have figured that one out ages ago.

Goddamn, if he had to wade through Tolkien's books with some Bradbury on the side in this place, though, Sol would be very annoyed.

It was hard for Ky to give Sol facts when they weren't all available. There were an awful lot of opinions present about Vatheon and why they had all been brought here, but as far as actual, objective facts went, they simply weren't available. And it was better not to pretend he had them when he was living in a continual state of uncertainty. At least that uncertainty was genuine.

There were people who called themselves scientists, but they didn't exactly share what they were doing, and it wasn't as though the curses seemed like the kinds of experiments that he'd read about.

Sol seemed done with him now, and Ky didn't actually want to hang around if he was only bothering the older man, so he sketched a nod with his chin, and smiled. "Like I said, if you run into any problems at all, feel free to call me. I'll be happy to help."

Good choice. But that meant that there needed to be some fact-hunting pretty soon; you can't live somewhere without having as many facts as you can work with. For all of Sol's lazy attitude, he did endorse information gathering. He just endorsed doing it in the least energy-requiring means available. In a place like Vatheon, he'd end up finding that to be a bit ineffective.

Scientists, Sol'd explain if ever asked, don't always share what their projects are. Especially if they're working magic into the mix. They aren't required to tell every detail of their projects to anyone except to those to whom they report. If there's anyone like that.

But Sol just sort of rolled a shoulder with Ky's words, cocking his head to the side to peer at the blond for a second. So the kid apparently is pretty set on being the most obnoxious thing possible at this rate. Yeah, right. "Sure." But having an easily accessible source of information for this place would be good, so there's no point totally turning it down.

Ky took that as he thought it was meant, so Sol wouldn't be reaching out to him for anything, but then, Ky hadn't expected him to. And it wasn't as though Sol would have difficulty coping in this place. So with an incline of his head he left Sol to what he no doubt truly wanted to do -- be alone -- and returned to what he had himself been headed to do.

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