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The Liquor Cabinet => Forum Roleplaying => Topic started by: JetSet on September 26, 2016, 09:11:47 PM

Title: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 26, 2016, 09:11:47 PM

Welcome to We are our Avatars. Rules are simple, you play your avatar, don't be a jackass, and have fun. Plot can happen, but most of this is going to be character driven. So jump in!

---

Somewhere in the land left between worlds, a hero was bored.

Sitting behind a counter of the inn-like building he had claimed as his own, a single man sat, twiddling with a die as he rested his cheek on his hand. Another day of nothing and no one, just like the day before and the day before that. "How many days have I been stuck here now?" He mumbled to himself letting his head drop to the counter with a thud as his arm slid out from under him."Ow."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 27, 2016, 12:54:20 PM

"Obviously too many," remarked the small girl with light, reddish-orange hair.

There were obvious signs that something was wrong. The haze of memory, the blur between imagination and reality, how the world around her felt like a smudge over the iris. But that could be investigated later, once she had her bearings. Right now, she'd arrived at this place--this inn--without a strong understanding of how. And there was someone here, someone at the front desk, who looked exactly how she felt. Still, she needed to keep up appearances. Make it seem like she knew exactly where she was, exactly what was going on.

The girl, Emma, was short, just shy of five feet tall, with green eyes, and bushy hair tied back into a ponytail. Much of her bangs covered the right side of her face, concealing a set of scars she preferred remained hidden. Oddly. A bit of memory she had that pierced the haze. Cover the scars. Duly noted. The girl wore a purple spaghetti strap tank top and denim short-shorts. She folded her arms over her chest as she stood before the counter and the rather bored looking man.

"Are you the owner, here?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 27, 2016, 05:16:46 PM

"Hubbduwha!?" The man yelped at the sudden appearance of the small red head, jumping back and falling out of his chair with a crashing thud. A few groans of pain, and a little shuffling, and the man pulled himself to his feet. When he was sure that he wasn't hallucinating the girl, like he had before, he smiled.

"Well, closest thing to one, I suppose. Welcome to the Nowhere Inn. I'm Jack, and before you ask, I don't know why you're here, how you got here, or how to not be here. Sorry." He said before pulling his headphones off his head and let them sit on his neck. He shifted a little, having to look down to the girl due to their height difference.

In contrast to the small orange haired girl in front of him, Jack was a tall, bulky man, shoulder length brown hair left to its own devices. His hands rested inside the pockets of his pants, pushing the leather duster he wore back out of the way.

"So, who're you kid?" He asked,  giving her a cursory glance over. 'And what's with the outfit?' Thankfully, he had the sense not to comment on her clothing.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 27, 2016, 08:45:21 PM

Wasn't he a silly one? What, did he think he'd seen a ghost? Had he not heard her open the door? She kind of remembered opening the door. That was still part of the haze, part of that gap in her recollection. There was an inn, a door, a table, and a very surprised man. Named Jack, apparently.

"Well, good thing I wasn't going to ask, huh?" She punctuated the statement with an innocent smile, "I'm Emma."

She extended a hand to shake his. She looked dainty compared to him--hell, she even looked dainty compared to other teenagers. But she'd meet this guy with chest out, shoulders square, back straight, and as firm a handshake as she could manage.

"Oh, and please don't call me kid," she said sweetly, "Unless you don't mind me calling you old man."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 27, 2016, 11:19:03 PM

Jack smirked at actions the girl had taken, then shaking his head when he realized he should have been paying much more attention to his surroundings. He had gotten a little too lax in the peace of the space between.

When she squared up and shifted her posture, Jack had to bite the inside of his cheek before he laughed at her. He pulled one of his hands from his pockets, and offered it to her. He took a moment to consider the sight of his hand, covered as it was in the metallic gauntlet before taking her hand and shaking it. He had the strength to give a firm handshake, even when trying to go light on her. When he was finished, he slid his hand back into the pocket of his pants, then chuckled.

"Far enough, chickie. I wouldn't call 21 all that old though." He said before looking down to a panel behind the desk and looking mildly amused. "Huh...That's new." He said, taking a key from the panel of hooks and tossing it to her. "Looks like whatever brought you here prepared a room for you...and left the key without me seeing." He mumbled, not even the least bit surprised by something that strange happening.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 28, 2016, 12:48:14 AM

Gauntlets, huh? Interesting. Emma wondered what those might be for. Wondered, too, if Jack even knew what they were for.

"Chickie? I'll take that," Emma said with a roll of her shoulders.

At least that sounded interested, and not like Jack was passing her off as some dumb kid hardly worth his time. Not that his time was going to get her very far where it concerned answers to some burning questions, but this guy was the first person she'd seen since the haze--since forever, maybe?--and keeping up impressions was going to be important.

Attempts at that, however, were dashed once Jack tossed a room key at her. It hit her square in the chest, and Emma quickly scrambled to grab it before it hit the floor, displaying all the grace of a tranquilized house cat after a particularly bad vet visit. Key in hand, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders again as if nothing at all had happened. The key had a large and gaudy "3" tag attached to it, and it was temporarily the most interesting thing in the world, at least until the pride recovered a little.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 28, 2016, 02:27:01 AM

"Good, cause I don't think I had another nickname in mind." He said and laughed, watching her flounder to catch the key. While she was recovering from the toss, he walked out from the counter and stood next to her. "Since it doesn't seem like anything else is going on right now, how about a tour of the place? You're probably going to be stuck here for a while if my own experience is an indication." He said, looking to the lobby. Three doors lead off into the main building of the inn.

"Pick your poison. We have the hall of infinite bedrooms!" He pointed up the stairs. "The room of endless sustenance!" He announced, pointing to the door behind them, and then pointed to the final door, to their left. "Or the lounge." He said very calmly. This man was a goof for sure.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 28, 2016, 12:07:03 PM

Emma pocketed the key. At least Jack being ridiculously silly let her move past the temporary bruise to her ego. The words infinite and endless had also grabbed her attention. That couldn't be right, could it? What had the inn looked like from the outside, again? Ugh, it was still locked in that haze. She'd have to go outside and look again, and for some reason, that felt like a really bad idea.

"The room of endless sustenance for a thousand, Alex." A reference to something before the haze.

But seriously, Emma was kind of hungry. Something of a snack would be greatly appreciated. Although, come to think of it . . .

"None of this is gonna cost me, is it?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 28, 2016, 04:32:40 PM

"Alex? I don't...eh." He shrugged, chalking it up to something he didn't understand. "Follow me little chickie, for I shall show you a place where the food never runs out, the drinks never run dry, and for some reason, battle axes are considered cutlery."

With the explanation out of the way, he pushed into the kitchen, which to someone like Emma, would be something out of a dream. Big enough to fit a full team of people to be working with room to spare, the kitchen had everything that anyone could have wanted. Ovens, stoves, grills, fridges taller than Jack, pantries lining the walls, pans and pots all over, sitting neatly all around the kitchen. Whisks, spoons, spatulas, and all sorts of other cooking instruments, including a rather heavy looking battle axe, rested in their place, looking perfectly natural.

"Chickie, with the clothing you have on, I don't think you have the gold to pay for a place fancy as this. Don't worry about it...And speaking of which, if you ever need something new to wear, I'm a weaver myself, so just ask and I'll see what I can do." He said and flashed her a smile, taking a step back and letting her explore the kitchen while he stood next to the doors leading to the lounge area.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 28, 2016, 04:59:52 PM

Okay, this was bizarre. Cool as hell, but bizarre. This kitchen was huge, large enough that it should have cramped up against the entrance and stairs, overtaken the entire first floor of the building. Emma's first order of business was briefly stepping back into the entry hall, then returning to the kitchen, to conclude that yes, this room was bigger on the inside than the outside. That kind of anomaly couldn't have been possible, but it was here. Wherever here even was, where the Nowhere Inn could feasibly exist.

Satisfied that this building was going to defy all manner of physics, she made for the pantry, eying all manners of snacks. Not terribly hungry, but peckish. Mostly for chocolate, on which she snacked greedily. After the fourth or fifth chocolate laden cookie, she open the nearest fridge, rooting around for something to quench her thirst. There were trays in the fridge that she couldn't possibly reach. Hell, Jack probably couldn't even reach them. But close, amongst innumerable bottles of drinks she'd never heard of, she found cider. Ooo. The glass bottle fizzed once she wrenched the cap off (using her room key as a bottle opener), and going down her throat, it was cool, bubbly, and warm all at the same time.

Emma let out a contented sigh, shut the fridge, and turned back towards Jack again, glass bottle of cider in hand. It'd taken several moments for her to address him, time in which she'd been enamored with what she could find in this room, but she finally asked, "Is something the matter with my clothes?"

Truth be told, she hadn't really looked herself over all that much, not since the haze stopped and the Nowhere Inn began. A kind of low cut tank top and short shorts, huh? Emma wondered if she should've been embarrassed about it or not. She didn't feel embarrassed. After all, if Jack--or anyone, for that matter--was eyeballing her legs, hips, chest or anything like that (regardless of how unimpressive she must've been to anyone but the most desperate of souls), then at least their attention was drawn away from the five tally marks dug into the right side of her face. Upon remembering those scars, she took a moment to make sure her bangs still covered them well enough. She'd no idea how they'd gotten there, where they'd come from, only that they had to be concealed, and that her choice in clothing might've been a way to distract attention from them.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 28, 2016, 06:51:33 PM

"Don't think about how the rooms or anything here works. It will just make your head hurt." Jack said and chuckled, watching her walk around and look at everything like a kid in a candy store. Jack took note that there were a lot of new things he didn't recognize in the kitchen now. Tools, foods, hell, even new containers he had never seen. He was used to everything being laid out bare, like one would find in his home. The sight caused him to ponder what exactly it meant that someone else had arrived. Jack stroked the stubble on his chin, and made sure to keep the thoughts in his head for later.

"Nothing really, but you're probably gonna want something more than that. I don't know if your room comes with more clothing, but mine didn't." He shrugged to her, then tilted his head a little, looking at her, almost meeting her eyes with his own. "Any reason you keep hiding your face?" He asked, taking notice of her bangs finally. "Got a birthmark or some kinda scar you don't wanna show off?" He said, a light chuckle on his voice. It was her choice to answer, but Jack didn't mind either way. Scars were nothing to be embarrassed over where he came from.

Almost as if to illustrate this, he put one of the pointed claws of the gauntlets to his temple, tilting his head to the side, and showing off some black lines under his collar, snaking down like they were either coloring his veins, or a very intricate tattoo. Something from a long time ago, he stopped feeling ashamed of what happened long ago. " Nothing to be ashamed of either way. It's really just you and me here, and I've got my share of marks." He said, offering her a genuine smile. While he would poke fun at her for her clothing, or her way of act, Jack isn't the kind of person to judge someone for a wound, or the story behind it.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 28, 2016, 07:26:08 PM

Emma froze at the comment, briefly looked like a deer in headlights. Conceal the scars. Trying to remember why made her head hurt. Heart, too. It churned up some horror, something clouded by the haze, that she decided wasn't worth approaching. Let the smudges of this world bury that forever. Let the taste of sweet cider drown out that surge of harsh feelings. She'd looked surprised, but that was gone in a blink, replaced instead by a once-more confident swagger.

"Yeah, you're gonna have to make a real good drink for me to go all show and tell here," she replied, one hand on her hip, the other soon bringing the cider back to her lips for another taste.

A bluff, to be sure. She didn't really remember good drinks or have any sort of context as to what would make a tasty alcoholic beverage. She'd just needed to say something, anything, to change the subject.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on September 29, 2016, 02:13:09 PM

"Oh no. No. No. Nononononononononono-FUCK."

It began with a noise not unlike someone throwing a coconut down a distant flight of stone steps. A solitary, ringing 'bong', a moment of breathless expectation, then another, resonant and indefinably organic in nature.That is, if coconuts could curse.

BONG

"RAT SHIT-

BONG

-ASS BASTARDING-

BONG

-FUCKMOTHERING-

BONG

-LIZARD PISS-

BONG

-FUCK!"

With one last crackling impact, a skull, slightly tinted with age, trailing a string of obscenities that'd make a sailor blush, fell from the air conditioning vent above them and landed upside-down on the tile. In accordance with comic tradition, the force of the landing left the skull wobbling around and around, gloing-gloinging it's way to a standstill.

The air was still for just a moment. The skull, having completed its rotation, began rocking back and forth, seemingly using its jawbone as some kind of lever. After a few seconds of fruitless oscillating, it stopped. A milky glass eye, pitted and scratched with age, rotated in a dry socket to fix on the delinquent girl.

"No rush. Don't bother yourselves. I'll be fine." It spoke, it's voice surprisingly lively and bereft of dry come-hither-to-yon-crypt malevolence. The eye ground to another position. Took in the tall chap in the coat. Back to the girl. "That's sarcasm, in case you weren't familiar. Help me up before I call the rozzers on you, ya bloody hooligan!"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on September 29, 2016, 07:00:36 PM

And then, interrupting Emma's swagger, was a noise. A clang, far above them, eliciting more confusion than anything else. Then curses, echoing whilst the clangs grew louder and louder, whatever it was coming closer, until . . .

Emma screamed. Dropped her bottle of cider, jumped back, and threw her hands over her mouth to suppress her fright. It was just-- it was out of nowhere, not what she was expecting, not anything she could have ever expected-- Oh, God. It was a skeleton. No. No, not a complete skeleton. A skull. A talking skull. All but on the tips of her toes, her spine straight, shoulders back, and hands over her mouth, Emma remained still as a statue. She didn't speak, didn't oblige the skull's request to pick it up, didn't move a a muscle. She hardly even breathed.

Inn that defied scientific explanation? That was okay. Skeletons? Not okay. Talking skulls? The least okay!

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on September 30, 2016, 02:30:10 AM

The cider bottle, though surviving impact with the floor, still spewed most of its sharp-sweet contents across the floor, a good deal of it coating the skull, welling in its empty socket, cheeks, like some tasteless novelty cup that even the most blase of viking would think twice before drinking out of.

Right. So maybe 'belligerent arsehole' wasn't the best tactic. Now I've terrified the bloody child. Tone it down, for Christ's sake.

With a little more effort, the second attempt of self-righting itself proved successful. Right-way-up, the skull had a modicum of movement, rolling its jaw to crawl forward and rotate from side to side no faster than a toddler could. It-He, cleared what would've been his throat in a hopeful attempt to try and restart the conversation. The fog of anger and pain was lifing from his mind - but what it rolled back to reveal was surprisingly scant.

He remembered...losing something. Big thing. Very important. Couldn't get by without it. Ah! Right. His body.

Something about double or nothing. Hm.

Name? Had to have a name. Something like...Jones? Sir Jones? Sad Moans? Bad Loans? Sa- Sab- Sab-wones? Sabwones.

Kind of fucking name is that, then?

"Oi. Girlie." Sabwones tried to give the girl a reassuring smile, which is somewhat difficult when your face is perpanently locked to 'rictus grin' but gave it a good try. "Calm down. I'm not gonna hurt 'ya. Not exactly like I even could if I wanted to. Worst I could do would be, oh, maybe bite out yer achilles tendon while you're not looking then chomp through your jugular when you hit the deck or some such like."

There. See? Much nicer.

Wait.

Damn!

"Aw, no, no, I mean. Um. Shit. Wait." The eye rattled around in its housing like a cheap maraca. Eventually it fell slack and rested its gaze on the cider-spattered tile. "Look- What I'm saying is I'm not gonna hurt you. That and I'd really like for someone to give me a run under a tap before this cider dries. Sticky crap never completely gets out." He glanced up, "...please?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on September 30, 2016, 08:59:27 PM

Spoiler: show

(Sorry about no posts in the last couple days. Life hit me over the head.)

Jack, on the other hand, was completely at ease when the strange things started happening. When the skull fell out of the vent, he was less afraid and more curious. "Huh. That's something I haven't seen since I left home. Talking skull." He chuckled, walking over to the skull and picking it up. "Allas poor Yorick,  I knew him, Horatio." He said before setting the skull down on the island counter, taking a cloth and putting it under some water before rubbing the cider off the skull.

"Man, you need to take care of yourself skull boy." He said and whistled to himself. "I knew skeletons who would turn the remains of their nose at a skull in this conditions." He said and finished cleaning the cider off the skull. Totally normal.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 01, 2016, 05:38:39 PM

Spoiler: show

It's okay!

For what felt like forever, Emma remained totally still, staring down at this talking skull until Jack did something about it. Clean it, mostly. Which seemed to be what it was after, since Emma spilled cider all over it. Him? It seemed to have a male voice.

It took a lot of steeling her nerves to calm down. At least enough to no longer seem quite as frightened. She relaxed her posture a little bit, lowered her hands from covering her lips, and made the conscious effort to lose her wide-eyed look. Stupid, stupid skeletons. Why did they have to come out of nowhere? Why did they have to be so damn spooky? Ugh. Whatever! It was just a harmless talking skull. Nothing threatening. Nothing that was actually going to hurt her. Just a talking unknown. The food and rooms were infinite, perhaps, but they did not speak.

That Emma knew of, anyhow.

"Is that . . ." Emma took a deep breath, "Something common where you come from, Jack?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Syn on October 02, 2016, 12:47:53 AM

.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 02, 2016, 02:44:48 AM

He's cribbing the Bard. God help me.

Sab let himself be carried, mostly because he really didn't have any means of resisting, to the sink, where he happily gargled and rinsed his way through Jack's casual explanation of his easy nature around talking skulls. On being admonished for being in such a state, he perked up for a moment.

"Oi. Normally I take my beverages internally, not externally, son. Cheers for the spritz."

He settled on the drip tray, facing into the room. Pitted and scuffed from who-knows-how-many incursions with blunt objects, the skull had a rough kind of charm to it, albiet the kind more normally associated with a better class of tramp.

"Name's Sabwones. Or Sab. I think. Y'all right?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 02, 2016, 07:00:49 PM

"Normal? Heh, remind me to tell you the stories of the Friday the thirteenth wars." He said and laughed at the memories. "Those were a wild ride." The man smiled, looking down to the skull and nodding. He looked to Emma for a second, wondering if she was going to introduce them, or if he would have too. When he got silence, he simply spoke. "Nice to meet you Sab. I'm Jack, and this is Emma."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 02, 2016, 07:19:47 PM

"It's, uhm, nice to meet you, Sabwones, I suppose," Emma said once Jack had introduced them.

Okay, this was still real creepy. And now she was reminded of Jack's disconnect from what reality she thought she knew (which was quite minimal at the moment). That said, she couldn't help but at least be a little curious about these Friday the 13th Wars. Maybe digesting some history lessons would help her cope. Eventually. For now, she could think of a few ways to loosen herself up to all this. Only one of them seemed worthwhile.

Somewhere in the haze of memory, Emma was certain she'd done this before, and that it was mostly positive. Or maybe it was someone else she'd been around. Either way . . .

"So . . . yeah," she turned her attention back to Jack, "I am now suddenly not joking about that good drink comment. 'Cause I think I would like one right about now."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 03, 2016, 01:35:01 AM

If it involves that weird bugger in the hockey mask, I think I'd rather not, all things considered.

Sab did his best attempt at a deferential nod, but only succeeded in levering his head backwards against his chin. "Evening. Or morning. Whichever."

The girl, now without the cider clouding his vision, and not in the fun way, definitely looked peturbed. The way she dressed seemed to try and put out the image of maturity in an almost forceful, challenge-me way, but she hadn't been able to lock down her emotions just yet. A lot of kids who tried that either failed miserably, or did it all too well. A sudden pang shot through where he thought his chest might be, some residue from another time, perhaps.

That said, when she raised the subject of drinks, Sab's train of thought was swiftly dynamited off' the tracks.

"Drinks? Genius." He rolled his eye up for a moment in thought. "I'd murder a rum and ginger beer right now. Ice, straw. Twist of lime. Cheers, matey."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 03, 2016, 09:08:47 AM

How a skull could drink anything was baffling. Enough that a little of Emma's fear siphoned away. She could only imagine that Sabwones was going to leave a mess where his neck was supposed to be. That was too ridiculous for her to take completely seriously.

"Uhm, what about something strawberry? For me, that is," Emma asked, "Or something like coffee? There are drinks like that, right?"

Emma remembered that she liked coffee flavored things and also strawberry flavored things. Lattes, mochas, strawberry smoothies, things along those lines. She remembered that some people called them sickly sweet, but those sorts of drinks never made her sick (to her knowledge), and were absolutely delicious. She could only assume that if alcohol was added, they would only be improved. And that, in turn, may improve her ability to take all of this insanity in at once.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 04, 2016, 01:32:16 AM

Jack shrugged at the comment for drinks, figuring that it would be better to take the edge off and help everyone relax. He walked over to the bar built into a window that led out to the lounge, taking one mug and a pair of small glass cups. He put the mug under one of the taps and pulled the lever, letting it a stream of cranberry colored liquid fill the glass. As the mug filled, he took other items from the nearby cabinets. As soon as his mug was full with the steaming red liquid, he shut off the tap and started mixing up the drinks for the others. And by mixing up the drinks, he mostly just poured them from different bottles. For Emma, he gave a mix of coffee and a shot of coffee liquor. For the skull, he made a mix of rum and ginger beer with ice, a straw, and some lime.

"Drink up!" He smiled and gave them each their drinks. Jack wasn't one who cared for things like 'drinking age' as he happened to be from a place where alcohol was rather common for everyone. Sometimes more common than drinkable, or not enchanted water.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 04, 2016, 09:05:55 AM

"Muchas gracias, mate." Sab chirped, his teeth clacking hungrily as he wiggled closer to the glass, launched his chin upwards with a flick of the jaw and landed with it balanced on the lip of the glass. A moment's careful rocking brought the straw to his side, caught it between his teeth, then he began to drink.

Contrary to what the laws of physics would have like to have happen, Sab considered such things like a working digestive system to be more of a state of mind than an anatomical requirement. After all, if a man can speak without lungs, vocal chords or a tongue, why not drink without a stomach? Only stood to reason, if he could survive not having a body, then everything else after that should be a cakewalk.

That was actually a fair point. Lack of skin and vital signs notwithstanding, he could recall being a bit taller than this not long ago. His recollection wasn't getting any better, it seemed, but he could begin to feel a lingering sense of pressure...not here, but somehow here. Like a phantom limb.

Sab concentrated for a minute and went inside his skull.

Alright. So maybe my body's somewhere 'round here. How do you go about finding something you can feel, but can't see?

A knotty one, that.

Let's try something basic. Right hand. I know I've got a right hand. Wiggle-wiggle, Mr Right.

Somewhere, like a second-hand retelling of an old joke, Sab felt something coarse drum up against a hand. His hand. More pressure. Harder.

Give it a whack!

CLONK

"Ow!" Sab yelped, lost his place and flipped over onto one side. "Buggeration."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 04, 2016, 09:10:43 AM

"Thanks," Emma said as she took the drink.

It was sweet and warm, the coffee hot and bitter, but the liquor cool and sweet. Emma couldn't help but smile broadly at the taste. It definitely reminded her of other things. Lattes. Not mocha or cappuccinos, but lattes. With a lot of cream. Before the haze, those were her favorite drinks. They probably weren't alcoholic, but it was good to know at least one preference. The warmth wasn't exclusive to the coffee, though. The liquor sat hot in her belly, which was kind of like the cider--

Oh crap. The cider was also alcoholic. It didn't taste like it. It was just delicious and refreshing. Whoooops. Oh well. What should I care? It's just me, some guy from some other . . . world? Or something? And a skull.

Speaking of, she was really curious how drinking liquids was going to go for Sabwones. She sipped her beverage whilst watching intently, baffled by how no liquid spilled from him, as if he were somehow able to digest it. She'd been watching intently enough that when the skull fell over, she jumped back a little, but giggled it off this time and took another--albeit longer--drink. Either as a show of solidarity or an expression of liquid courage, Emma walked over to him, picked up the skull, and put it back into his prime drinking position.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 04, 2016, 09:25:21 AM

Righted once again, Sab contemplated the pinched tip of his straw for a second, then eyed the girl again.

"Right. Emma, yes? Think you could do me a favour?" His eye cast about the room. "Contrary to what you might believe, I think my body might be knocking around here someplace. Unfortunately, not being connected to it means I can't exactly go off looking for the bloody thing, so I was wondering...could I get a lift? Just 'til I'm back on my feet. So to speak."

He attempted a charming grin.

He hadn't quite grasped that 'rictus grin' was all he could reliably manage.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 04, 2016, 09:53:52 AM

"Uhhh . . ."

Oh, God. She shouldn't have helped him out. Emma regretted it immediately. Yep, it was definitely liquid courage. And she clearly didn't have enough of it. She took a larger gulp of her drink, drowned herself in the calming feeling that followed, the smile she couldn't suppress, and the lightness of her body.

"Suuure," she finally said, "Like, right now? Or do you wanna finish your drink first?"

'Cause she was absolutely all right putting this off for as long as possible. Maybe she'd be done with her drink by then, which would be more than enough preparation for . . . showing Jack her scars or carrying a skull around or whatever other things to come that she'd otherwise be uncomfortable with.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 04, 2016, 10:13:51 AM

"I can do that. Sure."

So that felt like it'd struck a nerve. Hm. The girl was good at deflecting. Diverting the channel of conversation. Buying time. Hiding. No point in trying to press the issue. Not everyone was comfortable around the undead, for a variety of reasons, and someone this young? Could be anything.

Sab settled back down to his drink. Took a sip, enjoyed the sweet-sour taste and the burn of a proper ginger ale, not that carbonated arse-water.

"So...what's the story here, anyway? Can't be Hell. Too quiet. Can't be Heaven, 'cause the bar's too good." He thought about it for a bit, then added, "might be Purgatory. Place is weird like that. Though that'd mean you're both dead, which I suppose you both probably would rather not be the case. Although...might be some allegorial Dante Alighieri bullshit, in which case I don't have the first fucking clue other than follow the Roman poet."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 04, 2016, 01:03:25 PM

Dead.

The idea didn't sit well with her, but it was nothing she could comment on. Of all parties present, she knew the least about what was going on--and what happened before, for that matter. That personally bothered her. That overwhelming feeling of knowing absolutely nothing, of having no anchor of education with which to relate her experiences.

Dead.

Again the word struck her. Purgatory, heaven, hell--God. No. Please, no. She was too young to be dead. Hadn't done nearly enough with her life. She had . . . what, she was still in school, right? She hadn't graduated already, right? She remembered being smart. Brilliant, even. Took some kind of pride in it. But what good would that do her if she were dead? Emma looked to Jack for this one. She said nothing, but refused to let her expression betray her. Just look bored and somewhat intrigued. Jack had more experience with this place. Even though he'd told her right when she first met him that he knew as little as she did, he'd experienced more of this place than her.

The thought did prompt her to take yet another long drink, though.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 04, 2016, 02:41:03 PM

Jack simply leant against the wall, relaxing with his own spiced wine. Some things you just never get used to having at the tips of your fingers, leaving him to marvel at the drink while the two other residents talked to each other. When the topic of heaven and hell came up, he looked up from his mug and blinked.

"Hm? I was wondering that for a while too. When I first got here, I thought something similar, though mine was more 'I'm in too much pain to be in heaven, and too damned cold to be in hell." He chuckled. "Though that wouldn't surprise me at all. Considering my previous occupation, I don't think I'd be surprised if I was dead." He said and scratched at his neck. "But I don't think jumping through that portal woulda killed me, so I think the only one dead here is you Sab. Sorry to have to tell yah." He said, like it wasn't obvious.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 04, 2016, 03:04:14 PM

Emma was visibly relieved by that. Jack's input might not have totally invalidated the "we're actually in Purgatory" theory proposed by Sabwones, but it set her mind at ease to know that the most experienced person here disagreed with it. He did say something curious, though. A portal. Interesting. Emma didn't remember any portals during or prior to the haze. Just walking up the stairs to this huge tavern with a door much larger than herself and a handle she had to hold with both hands to open.

I mean . . . technically doors are portals of a kind, but I really don't think that's what he's talking about.

"You said you came here on a portal?" Emma asked, taking a sip of her drink after, "What kind of portal? What was going on that made you jump into some creepy hole in reality?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 04, 2016, 04:02:09 PM

"Kinda what I did back then. If there was adventure to have, relics to touch, or things to be messed with, I was the one to do it." Jack said proudly. "Even saved the world a couple of times. It was a pretty interesting life. As for the portal, It was your basic swirling vortex beyond the comprehension of mortal men and women. I thought it would lead me into some kinda alternate plane or some demi-plane with a castle to explore, but it just dropped me above the lake in the forest behind the Inn. Well, far above the lake...like, brace for impact far above."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 04, 2016, 05:16:56 PM

"Saved the world, huh?" Emma mused, and with an innocent smile, as if swooning, added, "Be still my beating heart. I bet you get all the girls with that line."

She took a long, but slow, sip of her drink. Savored the warmth of it. How it sat in her tummy. Yep, the alcohol was definitely setting in. She was willing to take this at face value and not totally freak out.

"So . . . well, first, I didn't know there was a lake behind the inn. That's pretty cool," she nodded to herself, feeling her head bob a little more than it did before the cider and liquored up coffee, "And second . . . If you're this big adventurer type, why haven't you mapped out the surrounding area? Not that I don't appreciate the hospitality, but my first instinct--I think--after getting my bearings and setting up a base camp--like this inn, I guess?--would be exploring and seeing if there's any civilization out there anywhere. 'Cause this whole place is some kinda mystery, right?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 05, 2016, 03:52:22 AM

" I dunno, I'll try it if I ever start really looking." He said and gave her a simple man's smile. The kind of smile that only a man happy in his place in life could give. "I've tried that. I have about seven or eight maps of the surrounding mile, each telling me different things, different, contradictory things. " He said and took a long drink from his mug. "This place liked to shift on me once or twice a week, but only after I had a map of the surrounding mile done, or near enough to it to finish without going out again. I would swear something was messing with me, if I was back home. All I know for sure, is the in is here, and half a mile back, there is a lake. Nothing else stays the same."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 05, 2016, 03:25:40 PM

Hah. What was Jack doing, playing the same kind of game as Emma? Deflection through feigned innocence? Didn't really matter, though. She didn't know the guy all that well, and all the urges to mess with him (prompted, of course, by how much she'd drank by this point) were superceded by other curiosities.

"Hmm. Okay, so we have a lake and the Inn. That's consistent. What about how we all got here? Personally I don't remember; I kinda remember, like, a door, and some stairs, and you," she said, motioning her drink-holding hand at Jack, "Behind a desk, dozing off. You say you came through a portal."

She turned her attention to Sab. It had to be the booze that made her willing to talk to the sentient skull, 'cause she definitely noticed a difference in her demeanor when she looked back at Sabwones.

"What about you, Sab? Was it a portal? Or do you forget, too?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 05, 2016, 04:21:11 PM

A fair question. Without a way of keeping track of time, Sab hadn't been able to ascertain how long he'd spent crawling through the air ducts before making his final descent...but before that?

All right. Let's put on our deerstalker for a minute. Jack comes in through a portal. Emma comes in through the actual door a while later, by the sound of it. So already that's two different points of entry at two different times, for presumably two different reasons. Magic, then, most likely. Not that I have the first fucking clue on how that shit's supposed to work.

"Nah. I was up in those vents for a decent while, though." He replied distantly. "I'm still trying to work out why I'm in two places at once, to be perfectly honest."

How does this normally go? In the movies there's always some word or thing that happens that triggers a flashback, right? Or a solid bump on the head to...knock the memory loose? Do brains work like that? Possibly.

Alright, over-thinking this. Pretend you've left your keys somewhere. Where's the last place you left them?

A cold, metallic sensation, distant, like the coarse feeling before, echoed in his mind. Flat. Small. Circular. A coin? Button?

Badge.

The image rose up and hit him like a brick. The cold tin biting into the soft flesh of his palm as he lay, empty-eyed, in a dusty trench. A figure above him. Fine soil cloying at his nostrils, worrying the delicate sclera as it pooled on his cheek. The distant emptiness, a welcoming void, opening up inside of him. The sense of falling you get as you drift off to sleep. Weightlessness.

Sab was silent, gnawing on the tip of his straw.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 05, 2016, 05:01:56 PM

"Hmm . . ."

Emma thought about it for a long moment. Even finished her drink in the interim. Pacing was out of the question, though, because the world turned lopsided as soon as she started to walk. Abandon that prospect. She could carry Sabwones after she could walk straight. In fact, for posterity, she cautiously walked (visibly fighting the ever present stumble) until she was at the bar, and clumsily pulled herself up onto it. She needed to sit. She was bound to hit the floor if she didn't. She was no heavier than ninety-five pounds. A hundred, maybe, if she'd eaten a particularly large dinner. It didn't take long for the booze to hit her like a crumbling brick wall.

"So I think portals are definitely not off the table," Emma said, her speech audibly slurred.

But the ensuing prattle, despite slurred, might have actually been impressive to the pair, especially if they were taking her age at face value. She seemed to recall a mixture of impressed and disturbed reactions in the past, as if a girl her age wasn't supposed to be as well read and scholarly as she was.

"'Cause if you think about it, portals are . . . Well it was originally a French word if I remember right. Uhmmmmm porta? I think? But liiike, that just means a door. Not, like, anything magical or whatever. It was kinda only in the fifties when science fiction got big that people started throwing around portal like it was some sorta mystical thing. Buuuuut . . . you," she motioned with an empty beverage to Jack, "took a hole in reality; you," she motioned to Sabwones, "crept through a hole in the ceiling; and I opened a door. It sounds a lot like we walked through something and got here, and not woke up in a weird place. I'd even bet the shirt off my back that the stairs and door I remember aren't actually the ones I'd see from the outside, and were totally actually just the stairs and door that lead me to this world in particular. Yours and my portals might seem kinda way more mundane than Jack's, but they were prrrrrroooobably the same source, just with a different paint job."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 05, 2016, 06:03:33 PM

Sabwones would've raised an eyebrow, should have such a thing still been a feature of his face. The girl had managed to get a grip on the logistics of the situation remarkably quickly, making the reasonable hypothesis that while the means may have had cosmetic differences, the nature was still the same.

"That makes a lot of sense," He agreed, "though if we could avoid you losing your shirt I'd appreciate it. Bad enough that you're sitting around getting plastered, let's not add gross indecency to the list."

He sighed, dropped from the lip of the glass.

"Look. We're here. We have a tenuous grasp of what the fuck is going on, let alone why, and pontificating over the why's and wherefore's isn't going to achieve much. Jack says the only two constants here are this Inn and the Lake. Great. I'm pretty sure I can find my body if someone will give me a ride about this place 'til I can hear it bashing about. I think that if this place is a bumblefuck of weird shit, our best bet is going to be finding all the things that we can rely on to stay the same."

Sab paused.

"Sorry. That was a bit strong. Seeing your own burial does that to a man, I suppose."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 05, 2016, 06:27:53 PM

Emma pursed her lips. She was absolutely going to make a joke about bones and male arousal, but now she didn't want to. Sabwones had to go spoil the mood. She was even starting to lighten up about all of this, let her mind dive deep into the scientific method and rationalize some of the things happening to them. With booze! But nooo, he had to get all serious and talk down to her. What, was he mad that she was currently taller than him or something?

"Why is there a problem with trying to figure out how we got here? And why are you all indignant about me drinking? I was just trying to chill out and maybe rationalize some things. That wasn't cool at all."

She set her glass down. Remembered the scars. The pain that still clawed at her face. The alcohol had numbed it, even numbed a lot of the bad feelings that seemed attached to the marks in her face, but Sabwones's reason for a sullied mood reminded her that she probably had a right to be all peeved off, too. She was just trying not to exercise it.

"And like-- my face is all fucked up and I don't even know why and thinking about it makes my heart hurt, but you don't see me getting all fussy."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 05, 2016, 07:07:30 PM

Jesus fuck with the hormones and angst, was I ever like this?

Fuck off you dense bastard, you're like that now. Age has clearly not mellowed your capacity for bullshit. Or death, for that matter.

Sab saw the bile begin to rise. For some reason, this felt familiar - putting the hard word on people. Making them squirm. Drawing out the words that fester under good graces and manners, baring them like a nerve. It wasn't right - she was upset and this wasn't helping matters, but he couldn't help it. The words spilled from his mouth like a ruptured water main.

"Right. Fine."

He sucked in air audibly - where it went was up for debate.

"You're a young girl playing grown-up. You're smart. Gifted, maybe, but you're wearing this fuckin' grown-up costume like it somehow makes you more than what you are. Kids your age drink, they wear dumb clothes, they get snotty, yeah, but you put it all together and it's like a pantomime act of something you think you should be." His teeth chattered as his diatribe became more animated still. "I look at you and I feel like I'm seeing the edges of a very fucking unpleasant story, something bad enough to snatch away what should've been some of the best years of your life and left it to you to find something to fill the gap. I look at you and I see an exit wound. I look at you and I want to find the cunt responsible and-

JESUS CHRIST STOP TALKING

-and..."

The word trailed off, withered away and died in the cavernous silence that followed it.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 05, 2016, 07:29:15 PM

. . . and then Emma fell into absolute silence. She'd have shouted at him, but something he said paralyzed any wrath she could've mustered. She'd have gotten up and stormed off, but she'd have just fallen over when the world caught back up with her.

Something happened to me, didn't it?

That's what got to her the most. The very implication that these scars were no accident. That her appearance, the demeanor she remembered, the wealth of information she knew, that none of it was her fault. That someone else had pushed her, hurt her, and given her those scars to remember them by. But now she couldn't remember them.

Maybe that was for the best.

Silent, Emma leaned forward, folded her arms over her knees, and stared ahead. Blankly. And pointedly not at Sabwones or Jack.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 05, 2016, 07:44:14 PM

Jack just watched them for a few moments, letting this play out. He wasn't actually sure how to react to the two of them bickering. It had been a few months since he had even seen another person, let alone two, and it took a bit for his idea of what it meant to be social to kick him in the back of the head. When it did he sighed and put the mug down audibly. "Relax, both of you. We're stuck here for the moment, no matter what we actually do or say, so getting at each other's throats isn't going to do a whole lot. Let's worry about doing what we can, and save the thinking for after." He said, his voice in a calm steady tone as he got the feeling that he was falling back into his old shoes. He was never really one to take sides on an argument. He just did what he did, and what he thought was right.

After giving the two of them a small glare, he folded his arms over his chest and took a deep breath, then shifted, stroking his stubble with the metal claws on one hand, the other pulling what looked like purple, brown, and black strings of light out of the air. He seemed to be doing some kind of one handed cat's cradle with his free hand. "Alright, giving it a moment to rest, both of you are right. Emma, figuring out how we got here may help us figure out how to get out of here, but that can wait for a bit. We have food, water, and anything else we could need here, so we're not in a whole lot of danger there. I know how to fight, so we're not in danger on the off chance that something comes out of the forest looking for a fight again." Jack said, using the hand that had been stroking his chin to emphasise points. "Sab is right in that knowing that won't do us much good until we figure out more about this place and how it works. I suggest we try and find the rest of him before we do anything else.

"If you can feel your body Sab, that's good, cause if we were just looking for something in a room or something, then we would have a problem. When I told Emma about the rooms, I said that they were in 'the hall of infinite bedrooms." He said, taking a serious tone. "I wasn't kidding. I spent three days walking down that hall and never once reached a point where the rooms, or halls, ended. They just lead up to another flight of stairs, then on more." He explained, twirling a finger in a spiral. "Untill I wanted to turn back, when a door opened to a staircase that led me back here, behind the counter in the front. Straight out of a hidden passage that sealed itself up again after I stepped out."

Jack hoped that getting them focused on a problem would stop their bickering, and perhaps get them to work together. It helped him for sure, keeping his mind off what Sab had been talking about. He didn't want to think too much on that one, in case he had been right about what he said. As he thought about it even for a moment, his hand with the glowing threads moved faster, almost as if it was trying to put the threads together into something.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 05, 2016, 08:18:07 PM

Emma nodded her head weakly. She'd been silent the whole time, letting herself calm down. Willing herself to think about a different kind of haze, the drunken haze, that she'd put herself into. It was a lot better than the pain in her chest or the pain slashed across her face. She was beginning to think that she'd give anything to make those two agonies go away. She was so acutely aware of herself in that moment, enough so that she recognized something she'd failed to notice before: her teeth. Some were missing. Behind those scars, she was missing a few molars. There were stitches there, all still fresh, where they used to be. Empty spaces between the molars that survived. Even one of her canines were missing. Five teeth in all. At least one ruined and removed under each tally. It still hurt when she tongued the empty spaces.

"I . . . Yeah," she nodded again.

Jack was right to calm things down, but she still kind of wanted a bit of time to think.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she sighed, "Could . . . Could you help Sabwones find his body in my place? I-- I think I wanna be alone for a minute."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 08, 2016, 09:13:36 AM

If Sab's fist had been anywhere in the vicinity of his face, he'd have crammed it into his mouth right there and then. Mortified didn't cut it. Jesus, where had that come from? Instead, he just quietly sighed, turned his eye to Jack and muttered, "Come on, then. Let's get my head screwed on properly."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 08, 2016, 03:21:21 PM

"Yeah, I can do that Emma. There are books over by the fire place , and I made sure there is a lot of fire wood if you want to light it. Everything is open to you, so take what you need." Jack said, taking Sab's skull by the back of the head and holding it up, like it was a goblet. "Come on Sab, let's get you mobile." He said and walked out, casting one more glance back at Emma before taking the skull out of the room.

"You alright Sab? You were really getting heated there." Jack said as he took the skull up the stairs, into the endless hall. His free hand kept messing with the threads till he reached for the door, when he noticed them and forced them to vanish before moving into the hall with the skull.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 09, 2016, 06:19:41 AM

Mildly grateful that he hadn't been hooked by his empty socket like a bowling ball, Sab only let out a mild yelp when Jack picked him up and carried him away, further into this seemingly infinite building. When Jack mentioned his outburst, he flinched slightly.

"I'll live. Figuratively speaking." He sighed, then continued, "I'm sorry about that back there. Something just...touched a nerve, or something. Bloody hell, these metaphors do fall apart when you're dead, don't they?"

He barked a short, lifeless laugh.

"Yeah. I dunno. Something about that girl, mate. Not her, like, personally, but I got this gut feeling -fucking hell can I leave these body metaphors alone- feeling that something happened to her, but I couldn't figure out what, and with no body...I just feel fucking hopeless, to be honest. You never appreciate some things until they're gone, but it's one thing if it's something you can get back. Innocence? Once that's gone, it's gone for good."

He watched as Jack's fingers wove the ethereal threads, hungry for another subject.

"So. Magic, eh? Are ye a wizard, 'arry?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 09, 2016, 02:50:22 PM

Jack had trouble keeping himself from snickering from the skull bad use of metaphor. "You're fine, I still understand what you mean." He said and waved his hand, before grabbing a railing, going up the first of many sets of stairs. When he talked about losing innocence, Jack winced a little. He knew enough about that to keep from commenting on it.

"Not exactly. I never had the magical aptitude for being a real mage. I was more the hack and slash guy." He chuckled, miming a sword in his hand. "Though I found out I was pretty adept at magic of the soul. Those threads were bits of mine." He said and sighed. "I have a bad of habit to mess with it when I get nervous or deep into thought."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 09, 2016, 04:11:25 PM

"I'm pretty sure you'll go blind if you keep playing with yourself like that," Sab chuckled, "but that's interesting. I'm still not full whack on where I came from, but I don't remember any sort of magic being...well...something you talked about. Never heard of magic of the soul, neither. Not outside the peeled skulls and heart-in-a-jar shop, anyway."

They continued on for a few paces in quiet contemplation. Sab occasionally remembering to hive his distant body a shake, but as of yet, no audible response was forthcoming. The possibility that his body hadn't made it here was starting to worry him quite a bit. He'd hate to be relegated to someone's hood ornament or wise-cracking perch for a crow.

"So. I. Um. Do remember something. I remember dying." He paused, gave the rattle another go. Nada. Bugger. "Um. Yes, so I'm starting to get the impression that I might've been some sort of...law man or something. There's a shallow grave and a badge and...well...I'm fairly sure I was alive when they stuck me in there. Couldn't move though, so perhaps they thought I was. Who knows. I wasn't really in any state to start asking questions. But anyway, I got buried. Then, I can only assume, some weird mumbo-jumbo brought me back. How, when, why, I'm still figuring that out, but I'm pretty sure of one thing. I didn't have this eye when I went in the dirt."

Another disembodied rattle.

click-clack

"Hold on."

clickedy-clack

"Did'ya hear that?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 09, 2016, 05:02:31 PM

"Least I have something to play with still." Jack smirked, snarking right back to him. "It's a pretty specific subset that I'm good at really. I can work with my own soul to do nearly anything from make clothing, to weapons to...well anything I can think of." He explained.

"Ugh...Death is no fun. I remember doing that a few times...but I think the reaper had a crush on me or something because they always let me go with the promise of a few favors." He chuckled, then went silent when Sab spoke up. "Yeah I did. Sounds like it came from down the hall..." He mumbled, walking farther down the hall, towards the noise.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 10, 2016, 11:47:52 AM

"A crush?" Sab sounded genuinely tickled by the notion. "I do hope she wasn't in any condition similar to mine, otherwise that would've ended in tragedy. Forget throwing a hotdog down a hallway, it'd be like lobbing a chipolata into a mausoleum."

He thought for a moment, then added, "Sorry, mate. I'm sure she's lovely. For a physical embodiment of death, anyway."

Less chat, more finding yer body. Come on, you idiot.

It was a peculiar feeling, a sudden sense of space around a body he couldn't see, but his last attempt at motion had at the very least moved his body to somewhere less confined. His hands grasped at empty air, feet, hard and lifeless yet somehow capable of feeling...carpet? Either that or moss,  underfoot.

"Wherever I am, it's got a floor..." He fell silent, focusing all his mind onto his blind groupings in the dark. "Walls. Painted...not paper. Bed, I think. Pillows..." a distant crash of ceramic caused him to jerk for a second, "...table lamp. Sorry." He tuned out again. He could hear the motion now, but the strange acoustics of the hallway were making it hard to figure out precisely where from.

Come on. It's a bedroom. That means there's a door. With luck, it'll open out into the hallway.

"Right. I'll see if I can find the door. Hmm. Bed again. Wall. There's a corner. Following it along th- AGH! Sodding coffee table. Okay, almost...there you are you little..."

A click came a few doors down from them. The door swung inwards, a little light spilling from within, then a tall figure stumbled out.

The undead have always been considered to be a formal sort. Even in death, there's a little dignity.

The faded denim shorts and black tank-top bearing the crudely stencilled legend "The Bone Zone" with an arrow pointing downwards didn't get anywhere close. The lime green-framed sunglasses hanging from the scooped neckline and the badge clasped in one hand were interesting additions, but hardly championed the 'child of the night' vibe he'd been expecting.

"...was I on holiday?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 15, 2016, 02:31:10 PM

Spoiler: show

Yaaaaaaay midterms.

"Considering my life as of before I came here, I'm pretty sure that tragedy is one way to put it." He chuckled then blinked when Sab took a verbal back step. "All I'm going to say is before they became the embodiment of death, they were a pretty good looking girl, and tends to keep that look."

Of course, the skeleton walking out of the room, wearing something he would expect from a prank didn't seem to help the flow of conversation. "Wow...I don't think I have the sarcasm needed to make this any funnier. Emma is going to die laughing from this when she sees."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 16, 2016, 03:09:08 AM

Spoiler: show

Oh dude. That sucks. Y'all right now?

"I hope not," Sab muttered, "last thing we need are two corpses knocking around the place." He clicked his incorporeal tongue. "Oi! Stumpy! Over here! You dropped something."

At least with his body in sight, he found it easier to manouvre his headless body down the hall towards them. With deliberate care, but still managing to stick a thumb in his own eye socket, he raised his skull to the top of the exposed vertebrae peeking out from his shoulder blades, settled it on top, then with a sharp twist and an audible 'crack', snapped it into place.

Sensations, previously only relayed by a bad fax machine, swam back into focus. Giving his limbs an experimental flex, making sure he hadn't put his head on backwards, he flexed his shoulders, rolled his jaw and gave a little chuckle. "One careless owner. I need to go to the gym more often."

He paused, feeling something shift down the back of his shorts. Reaching around, his hand closed around something heavy and metallic. Pulling it out, he revealed an old-fashioned revolver, blackened steel and dark wood grip. "And maybe the firing range." He added.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 17, 2016, 02:53:28 AM

Spoiler: show

Bit frazzled and panicky, but alright aside from that. One more presentation. Seems I went a little...well, Gm'y, not to mention lengthy, here. Sorry about that! Sab, feel free to say the clothing is whatever our skinny friend would be most comfortable in.

Watching the skeleton move to the body and try and re-attach his head was something to chuckle about, a sight that Jack could never take seriously. When he was back in control, Jack nodded and gave him a smile. "Hm....Looks like a good fit, but that outfit makes me want to throw you into a trash can. Let's see if I can whip you up something better..." He mumbled and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate for a moment. A breath shuttered out of his mouth, and something about the man changed. His aura, presence, or whatever you would call it, shifted as he let the breath go. When he opened his eyes, it was a physical change as well. "Let's hope I'm not as rusty as I think I am."

The sclera of his eyes glowed with an unnatural, almost ghostly azure like someone had taken a gem, rounded it, and fit it with a single ring of chocolate brown and point of obsidian. The blue showed him more than the eye could see normally, looking into the soul of the land. He made a point of looking up, never letting his eyes stray below looking straight ahead of him. One clawed hand reached out, snagging something as if he was grabbing a length of string from Sab's shirt. A pulling Sab would feel with his whole being, something attached to the core of his existence being pulled.

Then it would become visible, strands of thread, connected back to Sab from where Jack hooked his finger. The light from it was beautiful, giving an illusion of color where there was none, much like a polar bear's fur.

Jack moved his hands, relearning a tool he had once used for a living, the metal claw like thimbles on his fingers allowing him to pull threads from the whole like they had always been different parts.  Pulling them around each other, making patches, lengths, weaves, and stitches, Jack worked. After a time, he looked from his work to the thread and held his arm far from his body, fingers of his fist towards Sab, as a blade formed from the back of his gauntlet.

Glowing with dull brown energy, a pattern formed, a spike down the gauntlet connected to the first blade, like the silhouette of helmet connecting to spiral, which spread to a broken crescent moon, hollowed in the center of the blade. From the moment the blade formed, it felt...wrong. Like disease given form, the blade resonated a desire, to infect, to spread, to cause suffering, pain, and agony.

And then it was gone, replaced by another blade. This one glowing with dull gray energy, a T-shaped cross, formed with the center over Jack's fist, the wings spread out like cross guards, and the tail down to a point past his fist, the blades growing into curved diamond shapes at the end, flanked by a smaller cross, similar to a boar spear. Two smaller prongs came from the cross guard, looking almost as if they were there to catch, and break weapons caught in them. Unlike the death radiated by the last blade, this one felt almost like it was a grounding force. Something based in reality, in science, to stand against myths and monsters.

Jack raised the blade, swinging it down against the length of thread, one side retreating to Sab's body, the other snapping to his weave, causing the entire thing to shutter and spasm as his blade vanished, and eyes returned to normal. While jack stood and blinked a few times, a new outfit fell from midair, into his hands, before he slumped against the wall of the hall, looking like he had just run a marathon. "Holy," He started, taking a moment to fill his lungs with air, "hell. That was... a lot harder than it normally is." He almost wheezed, holding the clothing he had made for Sab.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 17, 2016, 11:23:26 AM

Sab stood very still. If his mouth had been capable of producing saliva, it would've been a dry and coarse as sandpaper. He felt like his guts had been uncoiled and run through a mangle, wound around his neck and used as a cord to whip his suddenly brittle, china-like body around and around in an endless black void.

It wasn't nice.

Slowly, reluctantly, he fell into himself again, his sense of being returning like a cat who knew you'd been worrying and was curious if you'd bought better food since last time. As the oddly cold sense of animation returned to his worn old bones, Sab took in the scene. Jack was resting against a wall, beads of sweat running over his flushed face, spent from the exertion of whatever in the blue hell had just happened.

In Jack's arms, he now noticed, hung a pair of pale grey suit trousers, a jacket of the same hue and, somewhat frustratingly, an identical pair of green-framed sunglasses.

Taking them with pronounced care, he looked Jack in the eye and said in a level tone, "I'm sure you did that because you thought you were doing me a favour" he leant closer and his voice took on a glacial edge, "but if you ever do that to me again, I'm parking a bullet in your brain stem."

He stood, clothes slung over one arm, resting a pair of sunglasses impossibly on his face without the aid of ears or nose. "Now come on, the lass is probably wondering where we went."

Sab took off down the hallway at a brisk pace, descended to the bar and upon sighting Emma, tossed the spare pair of sunglasses her way.

"Here, got you a souveneir."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 17, 2016, 01:09:37 PM

To Emma's credit, she hadn't wandered away anywhere while the two were gone. She could've. Was tempted to, even. But she hadn't. She told herself it was because she drank too much and that she didn't want to painfully crash into something. If it had been fear of getting lost or of unfriendly things creeping around these halls, she wouldn't have admitted it. Not to herself, and especially not to anyone else.

Introspection held her, though. Once she'd stumbled her way into the lounge and sunk into a way-too-big chair by a warm fireplace, she let her mind wander to all those places she wished to avoid. These scars were new, but not fresh. The stitches in her gums had yet to dissolve, so the teeth must've been removed recently. But the scars were starting to heal nicely. They were scabbed over and itched terribly (something numbed by the liquor, fortunately) both on the inside and outside of her cheek. She was going to have to rebandage that side of her face, though. It was going to become infected if she didn't.

Five tallies. Cleanly cut. Small near the corner of her lips, and growing larger with each tally mark up her cheek. Cut through the face, pierced into her gums, clawed through flesh and teeth and bone and left that whole side of her in ruins.

Who did this to me? Her heart ached at the question. She wanted to curl in on herself, desperate to warm that choking, desolate nothing deep in the pit of her soul. Her breath skipped and she sucked in a sob. Emma's eyes burned in that moment, a swell of despair wringing her heart like a filthy, mildewed rag. But she choked it back. Held her breath. Counted to ten. Twenty. Thirty. Thought about other things.

This place. The two people here. A skeleton and a strange man from another world. This other world. No, he--Jack--wasn't from this world. But she was here, now. And Jack had been to other worlds. Her own, maybe? Did he like it there? Had he met her before? Was her world too big for him to have had the chance? What about Sabwones? Who was he in life? What'd he do, how did he die? And why was he animated? It was all so . . . unreal. All so fantastic. Easier than a grim reality.

Emma quietly laughed at herself. How pathetic do you have to be, huh?

She had just finished wiping the tears away when she heard the others approaching. Thank God this way-too-big of a chair was facing the fireplace. This way, she didn't have to show her face to them. They didn't have to see her red, puffy eyes. Proof that she'd been crying--or almost cried, anyway. Little did she know, after a few clacking noises of a walking skeleton, there was a set of sunglasses in her lap. Before saying a word, she put them on. They were big on her. But that was for the best, maybe.

"Uh . . . Thanks?" Emma said, then leaned over the arm of the chair to get a visual on Jack and the now-walking Sabwones, still too distracted by all her erstwhile thoughts to notice Sab's shirt, "You found your body, huh? Nice."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on October 17, 2016, 03:07:35 PM

Jack instantly felt the regret of his actions, not even having to see the eyes of the skull as it calmly threatened him. He cursed his impulsiveness and added this to the list of 'dumb things he did that got him into a world of trouble. Of course, his magic would work differently here. What the hell was he thinking?  "I...I wasn't thinking...I'm sorry." He said before pulling himself to his feet and following behind the skeleton, taking it slow and breathing deeply.

Jack simply took a seat in one of the other chairs by the fire, the farthest one from them, closest to the door. He looked back to a mirror he had set atop a bookshelf, letting him see the arch that led to the main room, where the stairs were. He took a breath, happy to see it still in place and still pointed in the right direction. No need to leave his back open when in a place like this.

Seeing Emma and Sab start talking, He took a pipe from the table next to him, took a pinch of smoking herbs from a pouch next to where the pipe had sat and tapped it down. A small snap and one gauntlet vanished, leaving his hand free to strike a match. This was his way of clearing his head, smoking the mint scented herb from his home.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 18, 2016, 09:41:39 AM

Tugging on the jacket over his tanktop, Sab dropped backwards into another of the large armchairs facing the fire, hooked a pouffe with one of his heels and put his feet up. He did his best to act louche and shot Emma some finger guns.

"All present and correct, lass." His hands opened into the 'not bad' hand waggle gesture as he gauged her new look. "Not bad. They make you look like a dork, but...well," he tapped his own pair "...as long as you're in the majority, looking dumb is just fashion."

He felt the warmth from the fire, while soothing, there was a constant sense that no matter how warm the room could ever be, he'd always feel a slight chill, a natural absence of vital heat that he could only assume was a common factor of being undead. It worried him like a hangnail, not just the chill, but the fact that he still couldn't piece together what was going on. He was dead, and for some reason it hadn't taken fully, but beyond the frankly disturbing recollection of his own death, he couldn't figure what had happened since then. The 'bone zone' logo was handmade. That seemed too on the nose to be a flat-out coincidence. How active had his un-life been?

Sab reached into his pocket and felt for the badge. It was thin and light, with a safety pin badly soldered to the back for affixing to clothing. In the light, he saw it for what it was - a cheap toy badge. Stamped tin, with 'Deputy of Radial Springs' printed into the center in a basic 'old western' font. It looked like something you'd get thrown in with your Radial Springs 'Lil Cowpoke Kit.

"Now c'mon little fellahs! We got some cattle to roun' up!"

Sab jerked in his seat, the words slapping across the face like a wet flannel.

That was him. Putting on a fucking terrible American accent, but that was him.

"Jesus."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 18, 2016, 02:40:32 PM

Emma stuck her tongue out when Sab called her a dork. At least I've got a nose, is what she would've said, if the thought hadn't hit her way too late. Awh man. All this despair was sapping away at her wit and charm. That wouldn't do. Maybe after some light conversation and banter, she'd be out of this rut again. Bury that despair for another time. For some other day, some better day, when that hole in her could be approached with some measure of grace. Or not. Maybe she'd approach it sometime when she was alone in a room with a loaded gun.

Whichever came first, she supposed.

Those morbid thoughts were interrupted when the most absurd noise came from Sab's chair. She looked over immediately, mouth initially agape. Then the t-shirt registered. The Bone Zone, lovingly embroidered. Every ridiculous thing sunk in all at once, draping a loose cloth over the void inside her, occupying the whole of her attention.

And then . . . she laughed. Shoved both her hands over her mouth to stifle it at first, but gave up soon after. She laugh 'til she kicked her feet. 'Til she cried. 'Til her marked up cheek stung and ribs protested.

"Oh, God," she gasped between giggles, taking the sunglasses off and wiping away tears, "I can't-- that's-- okay-- okay, I'm good." The Bone Zone. That was actually on his freakin' shirt! "Ohhh, wow."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 18, 2016, 03:23:26 PM

Emma's outburst snapped Sab from his reverie. Seeing the girl laugh, genuinely and without restraint, placed a determined weight on the scale against the frustration and fear he'd felt since waking up in this pit. Finding what you'd lose. An earnest smile. A misplaced act of kindness. Little victories. Bit by bit, we chip away at the impossible.

"Oh, this?" Sab plucked at the material of his homemade tanktop. "Yuk it up, you little git. We'll see who's laughing when every hipster from here to New Jersey's buying these for $50 a pop." He stared into the middle distance for a minute, then added, "actually, fuck 'em. This is too good to share."

He found a little more give in the plush upholstery of the chair and issued a low sigh. You've got a grounding now, man. Just take a minute. Try not threatening someone for a change. Try not being an acerbic jackhole. Y'know. Be a little less...you.

"So," he began, reaching into his jacket and removing the revolver, "any revelations? A sign? Guidebook? Gigantic map of the universe with a tiny 'You Are Here' sign?" Letting muscle (for wont of a better word) memory take over, he opened the revolver at the breach-

Webley Mark 6, or VI if you're feeling cultured. Saw service in the first world war, this one. Lovely piece. Chambered in .455, a bit uncommon, but it had far superior recoil...if you were considering having this 'restored'. Not that I'm suggesting anything.

...and if I was?

I have the number of a man who could lend you a hand with that.

Excellent.

Fully loaded. Hm.

Sab realised that waving a gun around without proper explanation wasn't exactly good manners and explained thusly, "I wasn't expecting to be toting around artillery, by the way." He held up the tin badge by way of clarification. "Real gun. Fake badge. Whoever I am, a strong forward planner isn't it."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 18, 2016, 03:58:30 PM

Once she'd sufficiently calmed, Emma wiped away the last tears in her eyes and set the sunglasses aside. She really didn't need them, not once she (unintentionally) had a good excuse why her eyes were red and puffy. That should go soon, anyway.

"Uhm, welllll . . ." Emma trailed off, about to admit that she'd gotten absolutely nowhere in the search.

But then he pulled out a gun. Which should have scared her a little. But he wasn't really pointing it at her, and seemed more surprised by it than she was. That also made him a skeleton in silly clothes holding a revolver. She should've taken that more seriously. A little serious, to be sure. Unless you were a hardened soldier, if someone brandished a gun around you, you'd feel the hairs stand on the back of your neck every time. But that was the extent of it here.

"Oh, okay," she said and shrugged, "I mean--cool gun, though, right? A-anyway," she paused and cleared her throat, "I, uhm, didn't really get anywhere. Well. I got to this chair, and the fire's real warm, so I've just kinda . . . been here."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 19, 2016, 04:34:49 PM

"Fair enough." Sab shrugged. "Honestly, this place...I haven't a clue. If it was trying to kill us, or, I dunno, something malevolent, I could understand that. We'd have something to fight. This, though, it's a glorified waiting room and someone's lost the door. It's more frustrating than dangerous. Somehow, that feels worse."

He sat and contemplated the fire for a while. The coals in the grate radiated heat, flecked with the beginnings of ash. The clink of the grate became the only sound in the room.

Sab listened.

He waited.

He heard it again.

The clink of the grate.

A crackle, maybe something shifting further up the flue, but then, quite distinctly, the clink of the grate expanding as the fire took hold.

One mississippi. Two mississippi. Three mississippi. Fo-

Clink.

"Is..." Sab leant forward, cocking his head, "...is the fire repeating?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 19, 2016, 07:03:00 PM

Emma raised an eyebrow. She hadn't thought of that. Hadn't really put much of her attention on the fire, really, but honestly wouldn't have thought of it even if she had. She didn't answer Sab, not at first. She just looked at the fireplace and let another silence wash over the room. Hyperfocused on the fireplace, she began to hear it. Every three and a half seconds, the same noise. She let it pass a few times, just to make sure she wasn't going crazy.

"Huh," Emma replied, "It is. Like . . . Same image and everything."

She shifted in the chair to poke half her body out the side of it and look behind her, back towards the kitchen. Continually refilling food. Constantly repeating fire. Endless hallway of new rooms.

Emma sat back in the chair again and looked to Sab. "According to Jack, the food refills infinitely. And there's infinite rooms to stay in. I bet if there were more people, there'd even be more lounges like this one."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 20, 2016, 10:48:00 AM

"That'd be the reasonable assumption." Sab, not turning away from the fireplace, as if it'd somehow vanish if he turned his back on it, reached to his right and felt for the coaster he'd seen placed on the small table beside each of these chairs. It was thick, soft card, the disposable type you normally saw in modern bars. With it in hand, he crept to the fireplace, knelt before it and carefully fed a corner into the cycling flames.

Under his breath, he began to count.

The flames took, crisping and flaking the card apart as the fire burned with a light yellow hue.

Two mississippi.

He counted a third beat, then suddenly, the fire vanished. The coaster remained unblemished in his hand.

Clink.

"I suppose that answers that question." He muttered, standing back up and tossing the coaster back onto the nearest table. "Otherwise everything'd be on fire by now."

Sab flopped back down into his chair. "Patterns. Cycles. Containment." He sighed. "This is starting to feel less like a home and more like a prison."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 20, 2016, 11:11:31 AM

Emma nodded her head, briefly enraptured by the experiment. It was only after the theory was proven--that the damage would be undone within three and a half seconds--that she realized she'd been staring. Emma leaned back, arms crossed over her chest, a myriad of thoughts invading her mind.

Experiments. Theories and hypothesis. Thought exercises. That had dominated her life before all of this, hadn't it? Beyond the boasting and false bravado, she had to have actually been well educated. As far as she knew, kids her age didn't think like that. Right? How . . . old was she, anyway? Young, definitely. Teenaged? Probably teenaged. On the younger side of the teenage years. Eleven through thirteen, one of those. Probably. There was a way to tell, a particular developmental scale, but she'd have to check that later. Once again, though: science. Biology. A theory ("I must be this old") and a process to prove it.

"I think I'm a scientist," Emma blurted out.

Soon after, though, her cheeks flushed. She was so excited to conclude something about herself that she kind of lost the topic they were looking into. Mysteries of the Inn. Not mysteries about herself.

"A-ahm, sorry," she quickly added, voice a little higher pitched from the slight embarrassment, "I didn't mean to deviate from the, uhm, Inn topic. Just, uhm, just now kinda realized what I was probably doing before this, uh, prison, I guess."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 20, 2016, 11:44:10 AM

Sab thought on it for a moment. It made an odd kind of sense. Confident, but awkward. Acting mature beyond her years. It was possible that she was genuinely gifted. Some kids had it in them to go far, but if they couldn't thicken their skin quick enough, it'd be more of a curse than a blessing. Maybe that explained...well, a few things.

He felt a gentle knotting in his gut that maybe he'd jumped on the easy explanation and missed the mark entirely.

"So a wizard, a skeleton and a scientist get trapped in an endlessly repeating paralell dimension..." he tailed off, "...I don't think I can make that one work."

He shuffled around in his seat and rested on one elbow, now peeking his eye over the rim of his sunglasses at Emma. "So, Dr Emma, d'you have a specialist field, so to speak? Or are you more general?" He gave a mock gasp. "You'd better not be one of those 'mad' scientists I've been hearing about. All bubbling flasks and goggles and Doom Rays and such. Otherwise I'd have to thwart your terrible plans for world domination...and I figure that's not going to play too well on your end-of-year report card."

Sab let out a small rattling cackle, something distinctly non-human, but it descended quickly in a natural, lower laugh.

"I'm mucking with you, lass. But you say you're a scientist - that's interesting. Should come in handy."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 20, 2016, 01:25:08 PM

She felt a little more heat rise to her face at the teasing, but didn't let herself respond to it. She had no idea how to respond, anyway. What was she going to do, tell him to go bone himself?

Actually, that would've been pretty funny. Oh well. I'll save that for later.

"I dunno if I had a specialty. Or . . . I guess if I was even accredited? Like a title or anything. But Dr. Emma does sound nice," Emma mused, "I just-- I dunno, I don't really remember anything before all this? Or how I got to this place-- this prison, right? I kinda just realized that I've been picking it apart like a logic puzzle since I got here. And more than just this place. Like . . . for example, I don't know how old I am, but I somehow know all the physical stages of childhood development, so I could actually tell by looking in a mirror. Plus I know a little about architecture. This place is pre-Renaissance. Tudor architecture. The death throes of medieval gothic."

"I even know the history of science fiction, and just literature in general. I know Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and The Tempest like the back of my hand--even that the former was his first big production, and the latter was his final big production," Emma paused and took a breath. "I dunno how I know any of that. I'm, like, what . . . between eleven and thirteen, I'd guess, and I really don't think the average middle school teaches those things. So I have to be college educated . . . or . . . or something. And judging by how I absolutely can't help but pick every little thing apart to its most basic elements, I can only assume I'm, like, a scientist. Or something akin to one. Maybe studying to be one?"

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 20, 2016, 01:39:52 PM

"My God."

Sab sat up his his chair, swiveled and cried out at Jack.

"She's a nerd! SHE'S A NERD! RUN, JACK! A WILD NER-

At that point, partially out of over-exuberance, partly on purpose, Sab threw his weight forward enough to tip the chair backwards, sending him sprawling onto the floor with a cacophanous crash of bones and cursing.

-bugger!"

Spreadeagled on the ground, he rolled onto his elbows and laughed.

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Nayt on October 20, 2016, 01:58:53 PM

"Oh my God, Sab," Emma groaned, "Go bone yourself."

There we go.

She lounged in her chair as if Sab's display didn't bother her: slouched down, arms outstretched across the rests, and giving Sab the most bemused look she could manage.

"I'm just trying to rationalize why I'm here, in magic jail, with the two of you," she said, "I remember things, but not events; I'd really like to know what I did, and if there's some kinda magic lawyer I should be contacting to get outta this place."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: Sabwones on October 20, 2016, 04:20:54 PM

"Bone myself?" Sab righted himself and rested his arms on the back of the seat, chalkstick fingers drumming the wooden frame. "Well, I do have a designated zone for boning, I suppose. Fair point. D'you think I should sell tickets, or just do the equivalent of an open mic night?"

Emma's explanation made sense. If nobody could work out the 'how' of their imprisonment, then they should be able to start puzzling away at the 'why' of it all. How, though? This place operated on a set of rules, that was clear at least, but understanding those rules was another matter entirely. Let's think again.

"This place is clean, well-stocked and designed to keep the people within relatively safe from harm. So this place is intended to hold, but not to punish. Maybe its ends are still nefarious, but if so, they're subtle enough not to tip their hand too early. So it's either a guest house, a very plush prison, or a trap." He sighed. "I don't like how only one of those is anywhere close to a good thing. Still, all three should have one thing in common." He paused for a moment, then added. "People might want to cover their eyes for a second."

He gripped the chair with both hands, swung it overhead and threw it against a wall. The frame was sturdy and the masonry on the walls was solid, but through leverage, supernatural strength and a generous amount of righteous annoyance, the chair splintered at the joints and sent huge splinters of wood across the far side of the room. The crash reverberated around the lounge, although Sab's counting was still audible, just barely.

"...three mississippi. Four mississippi. Five."

He kicked the ruins of the chair once again and nodded. It remained stalwartly and irrevocably fucked up.

"One thing they all have in common. Caretakers. Let's see if anyone comes to clean up the mess."

Title: Re: We are our Avatars
Post by: JetSet on November 01, 2016, 01:40:26 AM

Spoiler: show

Between preparing to move, school, and a new job, I'm surprised I hadn't totally forgot about this rp. Sorry about that guys. -w-;

Jack's thoughts had wandered from the conversation long before the two had started going at it, gently smoking his pipe and watching a spot on the wall, where a stone had a pit in the center, like someone drove a pointed bit at it and cut a groove. He thought about how he had been the first here, and how he had wandered to find the Inn through pure chance, right when he was at the edge of death.

'What a wonderful time that had been.' He thought and put a hand on his shoulder, wincing at the fresh burst of pain that shot through his chest and up to his neck.  Pain brought his thoughts back to reality to hear something about 'boning' at which he tuned out again. Bad puns had a way of doing that for him.

Thoughts went to the exploration of the place, the land, the lake. There was a lot of things that just didn't make sense about this place, but some of it just felt right, leaving him more and more confused at what this was supposed to be.

His mind was wrenched from the thoughts of the past when he heard the snapping of the chair against the wall. He pulled himself from the chair, scanning the room like he was about to deck something, silver glowing blades springing from his wrists. The energy pulsed, giving the same sense of security from the supernatural as Sab had felt before.

When he noticed it was just Sab who broke a chair, he relaxed, the blades vanishing. " Do I want to know why you're breaking furniture?" He asked, taking the pipe in his hand as his gauntlets vanished again.