westwhere | [ closed ]

WHO: Kaneki and Marcos
WHEN: After Kaneki's arrival
WHERE: Spina hunting grounds
WHAT: Merchant asked the boys to go get something for him
WARNINGS: Pulsating hearts, violence against undead animals, one of the boys is a cannibal )=

[ He had just arrived but there is little Kaneki feels capable of doing right now. Politics are not his forte and he has a hard time caring for a situation this convoluted and with so much already going underway. He is meant to be some sort of reinforcement, at least that's what he was called, however he mostly feels behind in a situation he doesn't care terribly about.

But when the Merchants gives Kaneki a specific task, he takes it because now he has an objective and a clear idea of what to do. He is also curious about this thing he was asked to retrieve and perhaps even suspicious, therefor he readily accepted it with a half-smile that held no actual feeling to it. He doubts the Merchant would care, anyway, for he doesn't seem like a sentimental man.

But naturally, Kaneki was given some reinforcements, even though he believes he could easily do this on his own. Marcos was the name of the man who would be coming along with Kaneki, and the half-ghoul did not complain. That is fine with him, he will make sure they are both safe during this small side mission and that they will find what they need.

Now standing in front of the gate to the hunting grounds, Kaneki looks back at Marcos ]

Do you have any experience with this?

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[ Marcos understands the sentiment. If he thought some of them might sabotage their means to get home, he'd be more reluctant to travel with them, but right now they at least seem to have enough of a common goal. ]

...Back home we tried to vet the people we worked with, to at least weed out some of the troublemakers. [ They took in about anyone, but they did make an effort to manage psychopaths who only wanted anarchy. As well as that turned out. ] That's harder to do here. Supposedly the Merchant knows more about us, so it's possible he has some standards, but I don't know how we'd get our hands on that information.

[ knows? kaneki wonders about that; he seems to know, but he just seems set of sending the newcomers out of his world and not die here so they won't be turned into powerful undead people. ]

Nobody knows much about the merchant, do they?

[ He shrugs, because he sure doesn't. There's been so much going on that he's barely had a chance to do what he probably should have been looking into since the first day after he escaped. ]

Not enough to get his real name. The ones who have been around a while might know more than me, but I don't know how many have met him. [ He looks at him. ] Or been asked to run his personal errands.

[ kaneki stops, thinking for a second ]

... Do you worry we all might be a bit too trusting of the man? [ what if he is actually planning something different? Maybe find a way to use these overpowered people for himself? Kaneki is far too paranoid not to consider it, but truth is, he knows nothing about the man. He could be an undead warlord for all kaneki knows ]

[ Marcos has a lot of people he's indebted to here. The ones who broke him out of that cage, and those who offered him everything they could when he was getting acclimated. The Merchant is another entity, and he's not sure how to interpret the way he seems to be watching their every move. ]

In a word? Yeah, I do. [ He hasn't voiced it often, but he won't pretend it doesn't bother him. ] We were put in an impossible situation without any alternative but to follow him. He could be behind all of this, for all we know.

[ he hums softly ] It could be.

But in the end, we do not have a lot of options, though. I mean- I don't even have a map of this place, I have no idea where to turn. [ and magic isn't real, or at least wasn't in his world ]

There are always the undead warlords, but from what I've heard, they are much worse. [ at least the Merchant seems less willing to rise the undead and destroy everything ]

[ He sighs out his nose. That's one thing he's happy that Kaneki missed. ]

They are. I only caught a glimpse of them when Taravast was invaded, but I don't know if any of us would still be here if it'd been more than a warning. [ All the Merchant needed to say was that this leverage was going to be used against the warlords and it would have been an easier sell. ]

Which I also don't get. They must see some benefit to leaving so many people alive, but if they could turn anyone into soldiers for them... there must be more that we don't know.

[ a pause ]

You saw one? [ that interests him, deeply in fact. He stares at Marcos for a moment longer, before his eyes finally fall to the ground for a second ] Can you tell me about them?

[ He nods, but hesitates to go on. What little he saw... ]

I only got a good look at one of them. She wasn't what you'd expect. A beautiful woman on a horse, who crumbled the ground she walked on. They said death and disease followed wherever she stayed, so we had to keep her moving. [ She was also very naked, which was extremely distracting in the middle of a battle. ]

The other one was nastier. I heard stories afterward, but mostly I was busy trying to fight off the monsters he brought with him.

[ It sounds like a thing out of a fantasy novel. But then again, they are in a fantasy world, aren't they? With magic and undead... kaneki hums softly ]

How many warlords are there? [ so what marcos said is that they haven't really faced them directly. Is the merchant trying to avoid them, then? ]

[ Marcos glances at him, and tries to think of how to talk about this without creeping him out. Despite what some people might say about mutants, monsters don't exist in his world. Undead warlords are an entirely different thing that he hasn't begun to understand. ]

Not that many. I got the impression there were four or five, maybe six? But one of them seemed to be against the others. [ Who knows how many undead they control, but it's... a lot from what he's seen. He shrugs. ] I'm probably not the best source of information about them. I had no idea what we'd be facing until they invaded.

[ little creeps out kaneki - after all, he looks at himself every day. He is very much aware of how creepy he is on his own. ]

Few warlords... and we have seen two. [ uh. It could be what the Merchant said: they are looking to have the arrivals from other worlds, and that's why they are around. Then again, kaneki doesn't know how big this continent or world actually is. It could be minuscule for all he knows. ]

Are they specifically after us, or did they just show up by coincidence?

[ He wishes he had more to give him, but his arrival didn't get him any more clues to why they were brought here. Just a lot of warnings about staying away. ]

That time, I think it was a warning to Taravast. ...I guess they didn't get the offering they were expecting. Something about weapons that got diverted by some in our group.

[ aren't they the weapons themselves?

But still, he makes a mental note to somehow ask others later. Others who have been here longer... but he also fears they might be too paranoid to share. or might be too trusting to see any red flag.

Still: ]

I will stay alert. I would not like to meet one of those warlords. [ even if he is curious about them ] But I have been wondering... they have the power to bring us to this world, right? After all, the Merchant said we were brought to become powerful pawns for their war.

That I don't know. I willingly jumped through a portal before coming here, but the person who created it is gone. I also don't remember anything between jumping through it and ending up in a cage.

[ That doesn't mean that's not the case for some of them though. ]

It'd make sense if that was the reason why we were brought here, and why the Merchant wants us to leave, but I'm not sure that's the whole story.

[ closed ]

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