out you go, shoo

[groundrules]

READY TO ROLL OUT

That awkward moment when even a brothel won’t have you.

Characters will end their sojourn at the House of Dew early morning, helmed by Haltham (and his murderous goat, chomping on his prosthetic wooden hand for splinter nutrients). Courtesans and attendants will send the group away with parting gifts: a few sacs of grains, handfuls of spice, a small barrel of brew, several of water, thin blankets and four fat chickens.

The decrepit farm stands an hour’s walk east of Sa-Hareth, bordering the forest at the foot of the mountain. ...and it has not wanted for company. Monstrously overgrown wolves prowl the region, with some of the pack settled inside the farm. The wolves are halfway between dead and living, instantly aggressive, sharper, faster, smarter and blue-eyed beyond natural expectation. The wolves are drawn to heat and fire-bearers. They can be slain, or pushed back into the forest. If the brawl drags on, the wolves may receive reinforcements. Distantly, characters can observe silhouettes of pale-eyed, humanoid creatures in the forest, covered in animal skins. They seem to speak to the wolves, though it is unclear if they soothe or set them to attack.

Once an elaborate woodsmen’s station, the 'farm' is a generous, sprawling outpost built, home to now-barren inner garden. The farm spreads across kitchens, bathing rooms, hefty storage barns, a handful of isolated rest halls and broader communal areas. A study room has been crammed with accountancy tomes, papers and other books, many torn alongside glass shards on the floor. A shakily furnished barn was coarsely repurposed for banquets. Set up, inspect, repurpose. There’s enough dust and mildew to go around, and several walls and roof stretches will need reinforcements. “Ah,” characters say innocently, “Surely the cold will keep away vermin —” You have rats. Large, uncuddly, distinctly violent, prone to swarming once the sun’s downed. Enjoy that first night. Haltham will provide some base construction supplies over a few deliveries, along with a personal gift: a herding dog, to watch over two fluffy sheep. Flex those green thumbs: many moons ago, enchantments were set in place to warm the garden to a tolerable level that will allow the expedited harvest of an arctic patch. These spells will need to be activated and periodically recharged every few days by characters donating recoverable amounts of magic or physical stamina, by touching a nearby rune. But, hey: potatoes, turnips, kale, mmmmmmmmm, a balanced diet.

“Never open your doors at night,” Haltham says on parting. Lend him an ear — and, once the moon rises, hear the forest whispers. Some voices will beg rescue from the cold, others will tease and taunt, a few will imitate enemies or kin. Some will even disrupt dreams. The voices will seek to lure characters out of their shelter. Those who heed will find themselves compelled to walk into the forest, entranced and ignorant of the cold that slowly envelops them. They will be vulnerable to the elements, tundra predators and the woodland creatures, growing increasingly feral. Those who survive the night in the forest will wake to find themselves floating in a chilled, but strangely not-yet frozen lake in the morning. They can have faint recollections, as if they themselves lived any of the following events: a friend taking a dark path, the loss of a dear skill, years in a coffin, a close friend parted, a beloved reunion, a lost brother, a tender romance and rare bliss in poverty. At the bottom of the lake, they may spot the still corpse of an undead that feels too heavy for anyone to lift. His arm has a tattooed red sleeve. During the day, characters who visit the forest will find it eerily silent, with some trees showing signs of scratches and lingering rope. The lake can still be found, but entering it during daytime will not allow characters to experience foreign memories.

Karsa will reconfigure everyone’s quartz pieces to translate outside of the House of Dew and communicate in a private channel. Still nothing like individual inboxes at this time! Up to player discretion if Karsa had the time and humour to change their usernames, or stranded them to their House of Dew identities a little longer. Characters will also be able to access a secondary local fishermen’s network and listen in on their schedules, local gossip and daily weather updates. Woodsmen, tradesmen and miners will be surprised to see anyone inhabiting the farm, with some men pulling away, calling the place cursed.

Comments

[somebadnews]

He finds the pot and turns to get the can when he sees Raven standing there. While it doesn’t make him completely stop what he’s doing, he’s a bit more focused on him now. Part of him is curious how he’d make it, though he doesn’t reach to grab him another cup.

“Where did you come from, anyway? I didn’t ask before.” It’s his standard question, so he might as well ask before he wanders off again. “Location and date. It’s almost rare to find someone who knows about coffee around here.”

[corvis]

"Levreaux, 1850," Gilbert answers, going to lean back against the frame of the entrance to the kitchen. As for the others and that many of their group don't know about coffee "Tch', yeah? When are they from, then? Coffee has been around for at least two centuries where I'm from."

( ooc: just fyi I made that date up, and a I'm just guessing at the translation of one of the cities that is mentioned in the manga. I'm pretty sure his world is based on Victorian era Europe, particularly France, but not actually supposed to be a real location.)

[somebadnews]

He hums to himself, seeming halfway interested. 1850. That's not terribly far from someone else here at least. Not enough to form a pattern, but it's something.

"You'd be surprised." He sniffs the can of coffee beans once he gets it open, nodding a bit, then reaches for the mortar and pestle. "The earliest I could place is at the turn of the 17th century, but others aren't as easy to fit in the timeline. They seem skewed in one direction in any case."

Or they come from places that simply don't exist. Kind of like the anomaly they're living in right now, but without coffee.

"Remember anything before you came here?" He hasn't questioned the newcomers yet, so it seems like a good opportunity. For the sake of his notes.

[corvis]

Gilbert listens, giving a small nod. There's a group of them for the same time, and place, right?"

The second question gets him to pause momentarily before he is countering with his own question. "Like what?"

Politics? Friends? Family? Job? People to murder? What he cooked last for Oz and Alice?

[somebadnews]

"A few different groups. Some that know each other, so they were probably together when it happened." Like him with his sister, and the rest of his siblings he has yet to locate. Of course it would have been a lot easier if they would have landed in the same place, but this is typical of them.

"I’ll take that as a ‘no’." Someone in a suit carrying a briefcase would have been the helpful answer, but it’s not like confirming that would make a difference right now. (We'll circle back on murder.)

“What were you doing just before? Minding your own business?”

[corvis]

"I was trying to kill some bastard who deserves worse than death," Gilbert replies, his tone suddenly low and venomous. If only he hadn't been interrupted. If only he would just off-himself and do Gilbert the favor instead of having to hunt him down.

( Next time.
Next time that man will pay for the suffering he caused Oz.
Pandora be damned. Chains be damned. )

[somebadnews]

That reply gets him to actually pause in what he’s doing and regard him more closely. Up until that point he’s been so calm that it’s seems to come out of nowhere, a frustration that must have been building since he got here.

It’s strange when people are willing to be this honest with him, and he feels ill equipped to handle it. Like he deceived them without doing anything at all.

Frowning to himself, he reaches back into the cupboard for a second mug.

“How close did you get?” His tone is impassive, but he’s paying attention to his reactions. It might not even be an uncommon story, even if he doesn’t know the significance yet. But since he’s offering to make it easy on him, he’d be a fool not to ask.

[corvis]

"He's still breathing, so not close enough," is the response given, but Gil's frustration seems to let out slowly. "The very idea he's still around and might go near the young master while I'm stuck here really pisses me off."

[somebadnews]

He purses his lips in thought, still eying him.

"That's unfortunate." And he's back to tending to the coffee. The water is a little questionable, but there's enough to fill the pot. "'The young master'... are you a butler or something?"

The phrase he used reminds him more of Pogo, but he's not offering up free glimpses into his childhood by seeming familiar. And he's not sure he's ever heard Pogo curse, so the comparison sort of ends there.

[corvis]

Does he really want to divulge?

"No, not since I was a child."

That's more than enough, Gil decides. Not that any further information is secret, but Gil knows that the majority of the world is not interested to hear random people's sob stories, even when they ask or seem content enough to listen.

Poor water quality is going too hurt the coffee, but they aren't in much of a position to be picky.

[somebadnews]

A child butler? Probably some family thing, which is interesting. It makes a little more sense with how easily he agreed to run an errand for him. -- That would have been a rare ask, but that might change depending on how this coffee turns out. Everything in the market is annoying for him to get when he's not outright stealing, and they'll need to stock up before they move on.

Heating the water is a bit primitive, but he gets the stove burning without too much effort. He's gone back in time enough that it's not totally foreign to him.

Small talk, on the other hand, comes a bit more forced.

"Well, you never know. Either one of them could be around here someplace." Five for one, is very positive his siblings are here, but they were with him at the time. "You could still get your chance."

[corvis]

It's complicated, trust him.

"He's definitely not here," Gil states a matter of factly. "Not now, anyway."

[somebadnews]

A little too matter of factly. He may not be out to pry too far into his past, but he does like to know what abilities people might have. If that's what he's hinting at.

"How can you tell?"

[corvis]

"My job back home is to hunt down powers like his. They are very distinct."

It's not the full truth, but none of it is a lie, either. Not that Gil isn't capable of lying or other shady things.

"What are you, a sorcerer or something? It's possible you would be able to detect it, too."

[somebadnews]

This just became extremely relevant. Five doesn't answer his question, but it may be obvious that this is the first time he's heard of this particular ability. After weeks of searching, it's hard not to get his hopes up.

"Could you detect mine, before you saw it?"

[corvis]

Gilbert is quiet again.

Truthfully, he didn't ask Raven to check and Raven rarely disclosed things even when one might think it would be worth knowing. He's a lazy ass old crow who does what he wants.

"... Not really. You sense different to me than another person I met on the farm earlier, but I couldn't distinguish it as a power until you manifested it twice. The best I can tell is there is another person on the farm that is... similar to yours. Can't tell if it's your powers or your world, though."

[somebadnews]

Well fuck. That's too good of a guess to be a coincidence. -- He stares at the other man, trying to come to some sort of conclusion about him.

"My sister." No reason to hide that fact, when she'd probably offer it up to anyone who asked and he's made no secret of having family.

"There's four more of us, scattered around someplace." And it's his primary purpose to find them, but he tries to sound casual when he brings it up. The implication is clear enough.

[corvis]

"Someplace? Out of this world or in it?"

Gil is beginning to suspect this guy is looking for a hound dog to sniff his missing family members out. That's fine and all, but what is the reason he believes them all here instead of ... not? (He doesn't want to think on it, himself, because if Oz is actually out there somewhere, so help him—!)

[somebadnews]

"They're here." He sounds one-hundred percent positive. It isn't the first time they've been separated like this, and he doesn't trust that it wasn't by design.

"We were together, right before we used... a device to open a portal." He actually still has the briefcase with him, but it's broken and there's a slight possibility that tinkering with it could suck you through a hole in the fabric of space-time and wipe you from existence if you don't know what you're doing. Since finding his family takes priority over getting back, he's left it on the back burner.

"It's possible we landed at different times, but the place would be the same. I found my sister on the ship."

[corvis]

"A portal?"

Well, even if Five can't sense powers himself, he'll sense the sudden shift in the atmosphere, as if an invisible cloak has blanketed the area. The feeling of being watched is impossible to ignore. If there's is something indeed watching him, it feels like it's something quite menacing. And large like a Trex.

"Hm... so she remembers the same?" Gilbert admits there isn't much flaw to such an explanation, whether it ultimately ends up to be true or not.

"So, you're saying you and your siblings went through a void portal to get to this world?"

[somebadnews]

That's hard not to notice, and he looks up and around them trying to locate the source. Is he doing that? Instead of addressing it, he frowns and settles back on Raven, suspicion in his gaze as he belatedly answers.

"She does." Thankfully no amnesia this time. His jaw clenches slightly, but he continues. "I've used them before, I know how they're supposed to work. This time obviously something happened and it didn't bring us to the right place."

The briefcases aren't like his natural abilities. The portals they make are instant. Predictable. They're designed to be, to leave as little footprint as possible on the timeline. Considering how much his siblings did that could alter history, he hasn't ruled out that they set a trap for them.

[corvis]

Gilbert doesn't seem to notice or give any hint if he is responsible.

He looks thoughtful, though, considering options. It's possible that the portal residue is what he has identified on Five and his sister rather than their powers. If it's enough like the Abyss... then it may be possible to recognize them without confusing them for the surrounding world and its powers.

"In that case, my colleague is better at hunting residuals, but I think it's possible I could sense them as long as they exist in the present. So if they arrived here in the future, it won't register until our timelines synchronize."

It's a hard guess, though. Meanwhile the feeling doesn't let up, but it doesn't enroach any further, either.

[somebadnews]

Five hasn't had many offers otherwise, and his diplomacy has been decidedly lacking, so he should take it as a good sign that he's found someone curious enough to look into it. After weeks of searching through his limited resources, he's getting desperate. Enough that he can try to ignore that strange feeling.

"What do you want in return?" He's made a fair amount of deals since he came here, so he assumes there's something.

[corvis]

Gilbert makes a slight face at the question. This wasn't really something he considered worth exchangeable terms because he was just going to alert this guy if he picked up anything.

Still, he knows that if he just does things for free, it will get out and he doesn't need to be taken advantage of. If he wants to help people out eventually once he's known them, then so be it.

Until then... "...If you find a blonde-haired kid about your age named Oz, you have to make it a priority to get him to me or me to him."

[somebadnews]

His frowns deepens around 'about your age' but he doesn't correct him. All he gets is a nod in response. As sure as he is that his siblings are here, he can't deny that anyone else might find connections. Already he's seen it happen with others on that ship. (He's choosing to ignore the idea that he's doing favors for him because he reminds him of some kid.)

It's only a few feet back to the stove, but he still blinks there and back to retrieve the water ready to pour. He busies himself with preparing the grounds and producing two cups, then looks up like he's about to ask about his technique.

"Is that you?" He'd have to expect him to make some comment about the change in the air around them. And if it isn't him, he'll need to identify the threat.