pawnstorm | INTRO ♚ FEBRUARY

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INTRO ♚ FEBRUARY

WELCOME TO CAISSA

We’ve all had those dreams: you wake up on a table, to blurry, ominous images and the certainty that you are absolutely buck-naked in a room full of strangers. This is not quite it.

Instead, you come awake to the sun on your face. The soft burble of water nearby. The hustle and bustle of a busy street and the faint, fortifying smell of bread. You open your eyes and there’s no one there at your bedside, but there is what appears to be the end of the world happening just beyond your window.

There’s a crack in the world across the sky, the “sun” is the totally unnatural light spilling from that crack straight into your eyes, and someone’s left a neatly pressed and folded uniform at the foot of the bed that isn’t yours. Somewhere in the room, there’s a strange clatter like beads, the click of claws on the floor.

Something’s in here with you.

Also, you are naked.

ONE ♟ Settling In

Welcome to Blanc! You wake up on one of the beds inside the Hall of Glory. You might still be feeling a little light-headed, but sudden dimensional travel will do that to a body. You could have sworn visions of a fantastic world flashed before your eyes not long ago: monsters, magic, and a mission to save the world. You can't quite recall much beyond the basics, but could this be it?

Save your questions for later! The room nannies are quick to urge Heroes into their uniforms (with their beaks if necessary) and to point them to the pick-up locations for their Blanc-issued Weapons and Carriers. Hopefully, nobody but the pigeon’s watching you change. On the other hand, maybe you're the type to turn every roommate into a new friend before you even step foot outside the room.

As you make your way down the halls, you might notice strangely familiar faces around you. But don’t linger too long to chat—the people in charge of the armory and the menagerie have gone through many Heroes before you, and still have many more to go after you. NPCs need meal breaks, too! If you don’t make a decision in time, the random Weapons and/or Carriers they pick for you can be just a little odd.

And if you’re hungry? No matter how rich you were in your homeworld, you’re penniless now until you earn some colle. Thankfully, the Hall of Glory provides free meals to Heroes and those associated with them! Sunday’s breakfast and lunch are bananalicious and seafood pasta. A friendly visiting scholar may have a word of advice for you: “Beware the dining hall on Mondays.”

But you’ll barely have time for lunch before guards come and round you up. “For the parade,” is the only reason they’ll give you.

TWO ♟ Welcome Celebrations

Trumpets sound, cymbals clang and the crowd roars as the parade gets underway! What’s all the fuss about? Well, you Heroes were sent by the gods to save Blanc, right? Of course they’d celebrate! Smiling and waving at the citizens of Caissa from your uniquely crafted float might be a chore, but hey, they love you. Are you really going to let them down, or lose the spotlight to the fellow Heroes sharing your float?

The reception after the Prime Minister’s speech is like some kind of idol session, with Caissa citizens coming up to shake hands and welcome the Heroes warmly. Some are even asking for autographs!

There’s a lot of things to do in festive and lively Caissa, even late into the night under a light fall of snow. Sparrow Town is all lit up, ready for another festival next week.

While some shops are closed for the holiday, others have buffet tables or are giving out free samples to the Heroes. The food stalls here are way better than the bizarre cafeteria menu at the Hall of Glory! Why waste the opportunity to finally gorge on real food? The shop owners have done their best to impress, showing off their local cuisines proudly along the city streets: from the local hamburger joint to the exotic L'adderan curries, you'll find a little of everything to whet your palate. Your growling stomach will likely thank you for the food. … Oh, wait. That wasn’t you? You think the fish sandwich on your plate just sang? Nonsense. That just means you had a marvelous piece of fish bread. Please remember to visit them again sometime when you have the colle, okay?

Various stalls with games and activities have also been set up. Maybe you can impress the crowd by nailing an apple with an arrow or by sacrificing your friend(s) at the water tanks! An unusual Go-style stall offers something like fish scooping, but be careful: touching the fish with your bare hands will leave you feeling funny… Wow, you’ve never seen that color before! But whatever it takes to impress the children, right?

Said children might try and get you to dance in the falling snow. Better not mess up, though, because everyone in Caissa seems to be watching.

THREE ♟ The Day After

Hopefully, you didn’t sleep too late after yesterday’s celebrations! Or maybe you slept badly, since it felt like something was watching you…

The free breakfast that awaits you at the dining hall is… something special. Please enjoy it to your heart’s content! Remember: no food fights, and leave no leftovers! Nothing will save you from the chef’s disapproving mustache swirl if you do!

If you want to make money (to get away from Monday’s Horrors), there are now jobs up for taking at the Hall of Glory and the Poisoned Pawn! If there’s nothing to your taste, check back again every so often. Something new might pop up!

Heroes not in the mood to be errand-runners (it’s understandable, you’re Heroes after all!) can hang out in the parlor, read in the library, or express yourself in one of the Hall’s many studios or other rooms.

If lying back and taking it slow isn’t your thing, you could train or spar! Being summoned to a new world takes a toll on the body, and some Heroes have lost abilities familiar to them. Besides, it’ll take a while to get used to your weapons. Some of them might even be disobedient, backfiring at worst and unresponsive at best. Try not to hit your fellow Heroes (including yourself), or you’ll either have to find enough Heroes to cast weak healing spells or carry the wounded to the infirmary. While the snow has been cleared overnight, it’s still very cold!

INFO ♟ Welcome!

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[Gaius, meanwhile, just is trying to not lose his shit and start laughing, because of all the things he thought he'd see on this day, in this land, with this...nothing makes sense right now, he wasn't expecting whatever the fuck was unfolding to proceed to unfold in front of him. He's contributing nothing to this. No. If he knew what it was and understood the cultural references he'd be wishing he had some popcorn and a seat.

So, his contribution to the shitshow: leaning against a wall and covering his mouth with one hand, and is trying very hard to keep a straight face.]

[In all fairness, Gilgamesh possessed a body designed by the gods themselves. It could be worse. Granted, everything just hanging loose like that was bad enough already, but somehow... maybe... probably... it could be worse. All parties present should count their blessings that he at least seems to shave.

But in pretty much every other regard, it's awful, because Gilgamesh just keeps shouting, immune to anything like common sense or shockingly good advice like you can dress yourself because he's being seriously insulted here, dammit, why can't anyone else see this?!]

I'LL SHOW YOU THE MEANING OF FEAR, YOU IGNORANT TOAD!

[Alright, got that out of his system. Sure told him what's what. Calming down a little and glancing warily back to the bed. Then to Gaius.]

And what are you staring at, mongrel? I did not grant you permission to gaze upon this divine figure. Avert your eyes, they offend me.

Whoa! [And immediately, his hands went up in a not very convincing placating gesture, a really badly faked one. It looks like the shitshow just became a three man show. Abort! Abort!]

Easy, there! [He's upright, away from the wall, prepared to back off in case the nudist decided to advance and he needed to get away.] Listen, Goldie, I'm not interested in your...er, cripes. Dagger. Or what you sheathe it in. Or what you decide to try stabbing it in, as long as it's nothing I own.

[Oh, gods above. You should not have opened your sweet mouth, Gaius, because now Gilgamesh turns around and you're getting an eyeful of divine full frontal whether you wanted it or not. He slowly raises an eyebrow, and hypocritically, calls him out:]

Is there a problem with my "dagger"?

[Yeah. Definitely consider aborting mission. This was going nowhere good nowhere fast.]

[ To be completely fair to Gilgamesh,about 90% of what comes out of Koon Aguero Agnis' mouth is one form of a veiled insult or another. So really, he has every right to feel insulted? Sort of? Once again, true royalties at play here.

And to continue this madness, Koon hardly raises an eyebrow. He's about to open his mouth and make some smart comment --

Only to close it again. Not that he realizes that right now - mostly it's a mixture of annoyance at Gaius for stepping in (he had this) and a embarrassment that managed to get himself riled up within 3 hours of arriving. Smooth move. People are starting to stare. ] ...

[ No, he can't do it, he can't lie straight faced when a stranger decides to look this angry while being butt naked. He can't do it. ] If you have no shame in showing it to everyone out in the hall, maybe. But the first day is a bit too forward, isn't it?

None of us-

[...]

None of us are interested in your penis, Dagger.

[Yup. Helper.]

Perhaps so.

[The first agreeable word out his mouth since he'd awoken, though it's hard to say just what that's in response to. Either way, Gilgamesh does calm down, folding his arms. Something more important prickles at him, and he decides to make a stab for neutrality that way.

...with his words, not his dagger. No, not even Gilgamesh was quite that forward.]

Answer me this, the both of you. Are you able to access your abilities? Did you arrive with any of your own possessions?

[Because Gilgamesh was currently feeling as though he's been run over by a truck. A truck that's stripped him of everything, and it's fast becoming worrisome.]

[ Koon's surprised that actually worked - and it shows with raised eyebrows. That's ...

That's some change in topic, there. Naturally, his eyes narrow, and he holds the silence for a moment as he contemplates his answer. ]

Depends what you mean by "abilities". [ He begins, not quite allowing himself to be left vulnerable to what could be another potential outburst. He also doesn't want to admit that the lack of shinsoo in the air is disturbing, not yet. ] But nothing I own.

Also woke up naked. [And he sounds disgruntled about that. Something direly important was taken from him, surely. (It's his chocolate.) As for abi-

...if they turn out to be taguel he's leaving.] Not the first time, but at those made more sense. You know. Pissed off a few people, woke up naked and confused...

[Gilgamesh waves to magically grab the uniform from his bed and levitate it over...

...

...

...right. Gilgamesh scowls and walks back to his bed to retrieve the uniform by hand and, thankfully for everyone forced to endure him in all his bare-chested and bare-butted glory up until this point, starts to put it on. But only because it was chilly. Actually, that also strikes him as odd—I feel temperature now?

Whatever the case, throttling these two simpletons probably wouldn't provide any answers. May as well squeeze them for anything else they knew and dispose of them when they're no longer useful, same as usual. His eyes flicker over to them, over their faces, and commits each to memory.]

I am called Gilgamesh. I do not know how long we'll find ourselves entrapped together, but for the duration of our stay, you may refer to me as such. So long as I am not disturbed in any way, I will spare your lives. Respect me and I respect you. Those are the rules.

[Though I respect you may have been a bit of a fib. Or an outright lie.]

If you've something else to share, now is the time to do so. It would surely serve as a benefit to us all.

[ Koon's seen more than his fair share of "someone tried to do something cool with their abilities but it didn't work" gesture; so while he definitely won't be saying anything about it, he definitely looks a lot more smug than before.

At least there's some sort of silence (peaceful, peaceful silence) while Gilgamesh dresses himself, and he takes a moment to glance over at his current partner-in-crime, Gaius, with just barely raised eyebrows. It's a look. A "I don't like this dude at all" look.

Not enough to reply with an introduction himself, skipping right to the important bits. ] I don't really like respecting people just because they tell me they're going to spare my life. [ You're not really the prime example of "respecting others" yourself, Koon. ] Usually they're lying when they say that anyway.

So I'll pass. [ A shrug. ] If you have a problem with that, make some better "rules" - then we'll see about accepting them.

Ones that you'll actually follow.

[The look is echoed back with a slight flattening of his lips and then a shrug. Egos.]

Unlike my friend here, I got something to share. Heard the cafeteria's gods nasty. [Flippant, flippant, flippant. He's not trying to convey any useful information here. It's like the punchline which would be followed by a rimshot.]

[Gilgamesh shoots Koon a look of his own as he pulls his boots and gloves on, which reads roughly as I resent your implications and will now proceed to disregard everything you just said. He walks past with a haughty sort of stride and gives Gaius a cursory glance up and down. Maybe this one will prove good for something.]

And?

[You made the mistake of answering him, Gaius. He's just going to occupy your personal space until you fill him in on the rest.]

Don't expect me to hold your head if things turn nasty after you eat there.

[Yup.]

[HAHAHAHAHA wow you're so hilarious isn't that just the funniest thing he's heard all day HAHAHAHAHA seriously, sir, you've got a gift, an incredible gift, you should take that show on the road and HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—

[Gilgamesh grabs Gaius by the throat and begins to throttle him.]

[ So sometimes after someone's said something, there's this sinking feeling that something went southward and --

Yep. Yep there it is.

Only there's nothing calm about the way Koon's eyes widen, because the first thought he has is "this guy is actually off his rockers" and the second thought is "who actually chokes people out of the blue??". Though his first thought kind of explains his second.

Fortunately he's built up nearly a lifetime of reflexes for this. So while it's nothing compared to the strength and speed he would have had back at the tower, he's still closes the distance between himself and Gilgamesh (no one look at the fact that he needs to be on his toes for this). One arm loops around his neck, grabbing at the shoulder on the other side, and the other hand doing something similar on the other side -

But this one stops at his throat, pressing the dagger in his hand dangerously close to the skin. ] I'd let go if I were you.

[He's just gonna continue being throttled here, but given that Gilgamesh probably has a decent set of arms he's preoccupied with trying to get them off of him, isn't doing a good job of it, and doesn't have anything really witty to contribute to this stage of things. His head hurts (and in retrospect he'd be unsurprised at this turn of events) as well as his neck, but. Kind of busy with the quite successful throttling because he is a thief and he has been in sketchy situations before, however, he'd been expecting a punch and not throttling and that kind of threw him off a bit.

It would be a learning experience.]

[It wasn't truly intended as a threatening gesture, though it certainly looked that way. It was more an expression of frustration than anything else, annoyance at his situation manifested in the form of hands around a stranger's throat. For Gilgamesh, this wasn't really escalation at all. Rather, it was typical behavior, expected from a tyrant who always got their way no matter what.

However, when he feels something cool at his throat, he abruptly lets go. And he turns, as much as he can in such a position, and he stares at Koon, and he's treated to a front row audience of just how inhuman their noisy roommate really was—red eyes and the pupils of a snake, which dilate and narrow and suggest that he has just committed a fatal error.

Gaius is off the hook, effectively. Koon is not.]

Step away from me.

[His voice is harsh. This isn't spur-of-the-moment fooling around anymore; Gilgamesh will kill him he raises one finger further against him.]

[ The alarm bells that normally go off in his head at the sight of a strong foe - one much stronger than he is, theoretically - don't go off. So while the eyes are unsettling to say the least (considering the fact that he's fought actual snake-people before...), the fear that should kick in doesn't come. And since it doesn't, it serves as a helpful reminder that whatever strength this man (creature? Monster?) is expected to have isn't... here. Koon can still work with this.

So he steps away - he's not stupid. Gaius is no longer going to die from choking on his first day here, dagger still held in his hand; but now it's held as if he was going to... cut a steak with it, or something. His index finger on the thin side of the handle, the rest of his fingers holding it loosely.

All the while, he's still staring right at the red eyes, seemingly unfazed. His back is straight now that he doesn't have to be threatening anyone, and his hands slip into the pockets of his pants. ]

Good to know I was right. [ A pause. ] You were lying about the whole respect thing.

Edited 2016-02-07 01:57 (UTC)

[He coughs, one hand at his throat, meanwhile, and mentally has basically decided that Koon is very good people and they'd discuss it later because now's not the time. It was strangely straightforward versus the punches and kicks he would've expected. Odd taste. Breathe.]

Least we know where we all stand with each other. [You gigantic asshole. But at least you're honest about being an asshole, and in a strange way he can respect the fact that now they're not pussyfooting around. No false pretenses of friendship. He'd say this if he wasn't still inclined to nope the hell away. (Note to self: find alternative places to stay. Steal good roommate.)]

[The alarm bells should have been going off. Gilgamesh was dangerous, if not for his strength then for his willingness to act completely out of turn and utterly out of his mind. Gilgamesh just stares flatly at Koon; Gaius may as well not even exist right now. His focus is entirely on the one who touched him without his permission.

For Gilgamesh, that was as good as a death sentence.]

I wasn't.

[And he'd stand by that. Gilgamesh flexes his hands, as if he intends to strike. He doesn't, but the implied threat lingers.]

But I refuse to respect the likes of rodents. Mind your space and mind your hands, lest I relieve you of them the next time.

[Gilgamesh does not doubt there will be a next time, no matter how many warnings he doles out. Gilgamesh moves to brush past Gaius and all but storms out the door, leaving the two to themselves. For now, at least, they can breathe air that's free of the surly King of Heroes. It feels infinitely less murderous already.]

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INTRO ♚ FEBRUARY

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Koon went to sleep, but I doubt she'd mind if I cut ahead for this.

o7

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gilgamesh ducking out! feel free to go on without me! o7