- π ββ ππππππππ οΌ
β πΏπ°ππ π πΈπΈ β female β’ human β’ the walking dead β’ tags: zagreus
"Heh, well, you sure know how to cheer a girl up." The young woman teased at Zagreus' reassurance that her survival had been more than just the product of random chance. He seemed to understand, or at the very least be able to process, the various rambling thoughts she fired off at him, which was a plus. There was obviously some sort of disconnect between them, with her having not even known there was actually an Underworld or gods (not just one, but apparently a number of them) and him acting almost like such was common knowledge, but they were communicating well enough, so maybe he knew at least a bit about her so-called 'surface world' after all. Either that, or he was just humoring her, but even then he was at least trying to be conscientious. Wait a minute, did he mention 'Ares'? Wasn't Ares the name of an ancient Greek or Roman god or something? Were the 'gods' he was referring to a pantheon like that? That was an interesting twist on this whole situation - imagine finding out those were all real beings after years and years of human history had come and gone! Of course, the thought had passed through Princess' head that Zagreus was just some random guy who'd gone completely off his rocker, decorated himself with skulls, and decided to run around telling people he was the prince of the Underworld. After nearly a year of being alone, she'd started calling herself 'Princess', so maybe all it took was a little more isolation to start getting into 'I'm-an-immortal-god-from-the-Underworld' territory. A point in his favor, though, were the little scorch marks he seemed to leave behind when he walked - that was either a supernatural effect or a really seamless magic trick. Either one was at least a little bit impressive. Considering she'd just minutes ago apparently walked through a portal into an inter-dimensional space, it wasn't too much effort to suspend a little more disbelief for Zagreus' sake. The man seemed happy to have at least gotten out of the Underworld, but Princess could imagine how a place like that could get a little stifling after a while. There were at least a few good things on the surface...there were cute clothes, hair dye...and nobody around to tell you you needed to pay money for them anymore.
Though, despite not having likable odds and ends to collect, Princess was cautiously optimistic about this new place - unless its calming exterior was meant to be a trap, or an illusion of some sort, something to lure people in from the other sides of the portals and trap them here for an unknown purpose. That wasn't a comforting thought - and all the more reason for them to investigate. Princess smiled, feeling a touch of something like excitement as Zagreus offered to let her lead the way. She re-adjusted the strap that kept her gun slung over her shoulder (though as of yet there seemed to be no reason she'd have to use it) and standing up to her full height to walk past him so that she could lead the way. "Well, 'trespassers' is a bit of an unpleasant word for it - we're explorers, or pioneers." She suggested. She had, after all, assumed Zagreus presided over this place when she'd first seen him, but how did one even quantify owning what appeared to be more or less a whole dimension? If there was a lord of the Underworld, she supposed it was possible...so maybe they were trespassers. Well, at least they would be telling the truth when they said they didn't know anyone was in charge of this weird...forest...dimension...whatever it was. "I haven't seen any signs of anything dangerous, but it's still probably a good idea to keep our eyes peeled. I mean, if there's more portals out there, who knows what could end up coming through them?" Princess suggested, narrowing her eyes to keep a keen view of the horizon. There was still nothing stirring, though, so she took a few cautious steps forward, assuming Zagreus would follow.
β ββ πππππππ οΌ
β πΏπ°ππ π πΈπΈ β male β’ synthetic human β’ death stranding β’ tags: reza, pechebelle
Reza seemed confused, but wasn't quite rejecting his idea. She didn't understand what he was describing. Where she was from, games were different, perhaps more primitive. The hybrid then turned to analyzing Pechebelle, using some sort of sensory ability Deadman had never seen before. He would've loved to ask about it, but that was not the subject at hand; as strange a creature as Reza was, Pechebelle was an even stranger being. Reza's behaviors seemed normal, seemed human, despite the fact that she was obviously not one. The hybrid also seemed quite certain, through whatever form of perception this was, that Pechebelle was not an automaton - though, without knowing how she was making that determination, he couldn't be entirely sure she would recognize a sophisticated android. But, defaulting to assuming that she was right, then how could that have come about? How could a naturally-occurring creature, even in the infinite realm of possibilities wrought on by an interconnected multiverse, end up understanding its world in this way? "Unless, maybe..." Murmured Deadman, mired deeply in his own thoughts. "It is so receptive to its environment - absorbing and internalizing everything, like a child - that if it were exposed to these kinds of terms in the context of a simulation, it might come to assume it has such statistics and abilities too." Yet again, it relied a lot on assumption, but having so little to work with he was grasping for any glimmer of hope that Pechebelle was her own, natural being, or at the very least independent. Had he not been so viscerally aware of the things synthetic life lacked, either by virtue or additional circumstances, he would perhaps not have been so disappointed - and perhaps even somewhat saddened - by the thought she was unnatural. It was simply an unfortunate fate for any being, at least one as obviously aware of itself as Pechebelle was. "That would, after all, give it a very simplistic, logical way of thinking about itself, without any need for philosophy." He rationalized, at least as well as he could given his already-spurious train of thought.
His further extrapolations were abruptly derailed when Pechebelle sought to answer Reza's next string of questions. Her response was more interesting than any before it, namely because she was doing what Deadman had wondered whether or not she could do - putting words together in formats she hadn't heard before. Using words, trying to form sentences that described her thoughts. She was breaking down what she had heard and extracting the meanings she wanted, rearranging them to suit her needs. In time she could perhaps learn to speak very naturally - and, based on her displayed level of intelligence, it was indeed likely she could find her way to near-fluent English given enough time. However welcome this new revelation was, the subject of her statements was another thing entirely. She seemed to clearly dismiss all of the ideas Reza presented to her, as though she had known absolutely nothing before this place - yet she still seemed to identify with the idea of coming through a portal, the same way he and Reza had. If that was the case, then what was on the other side of her portal? If not others like her, if not a home, then what? "Do you remember where you came from?" Deadman tentatively tried to ask. The way Reza had re-phrased her questions to contain new words she could use in her response seemed like a smart idea, but it was hard to decide what the most useful words would be when there was such a broad spectrum of possibility regarding where she had come from. "Do you remember anything at all other than us and this place? Being somewhere else? Other things...plants, animals, people?" Broad concepts - the mere idea of living things or locations wasn't a lot more to work with than she'd had before, meaning she still likely didn't have the capacity yet to verbally describe what she had seen even if she could recall it, despite her obviously increasing ability to use the words she had heard. If she did indeed have no recollection of anything else, that meant there were many things Reza and Deadman might never be able to really know. Had she simply sprung into existence mere moments before going through the portal, or was she somehow isolated from her own memory while she was here? Such a thing seemed impossible, unless she had been disconnected from some sort of telepathic hive mind, wherein all but perhaps the basest of knowledge and memory was a part of the collective (or harbored by one powerful being, the 'queen bee' of the hive mind) and unable to be retained by individuals if they were to be suddenly severed from the rest - but even then, that wouldn't answer all their questions, and was, perhaps more than ever, a lot to assume at once.
β ββ πππππππ οΌ
β πΏπ°ππ πΈ β male β’ vampire β’ d&d oc β’ tags: --
The burning hit him before anything else did - not sight, not sound, not scent, but searing pain. The man growled in the back of his throat and yanked his cloak up over his head, shielding his skin from the sun - albeit only temporarily. Somehow, of all the things he had been prepared for, that accursed orb's influence wasn't one of them. Perhaps it was because he'd been sure - so, so sure - that this was an alternate portal to the Abyss that he hadn't even bothered to properly address the possibility that it wasn't - and yet, here he was. The man scrambled to take shelter under the boughs of the largest tree he in his line of sight; being out of direct sunlight would keep him relatively safe, but he could still feel the lingering sting of the sun on his face for several more seconds. Even when it died down, it left a more subtle but still uncomfortable pricking feeling in its place, like what it felt like when a numb limb was waking up. Not to mention the fact that even with his eyes narrowed and his hood up he was still half-blind in this level of light. He needed to find a cave, or at the very least some sort of scrape underneath a ledge - and do so quickly. But it felt prudent to determine where he was before he It did look somewhat like Wy, but it definitely wasn't the Shadowfell (that blasted sun), and didn't seem to have any of the distinguishing traits of the Feywild. It seemed more likely it was one of the outer planes, and the environment would more closely match what he had heard of The Beastlands or Arborea. But there weren't any animals, which was distinctly uncharacteristic of the Beastlands, and in fact it didn't seem all too celestial at all. If neither was the case, then this had to be some random demiplane...great. Marbas had nothing to say but murmurs; his body wasn't here, and his remaining spirit had no connection to this plane, so despite how eager he had been to get through the portal he was now as sour towards this place as he was everything else. Solomon agreed that this place was quite repulsive, not as handsome as the arid, windswept depths of Tartarus, but he was curious about it in a way the demon lord wasn't even capable of being.
Even without animals, this open wilderness reminded him of Atla. It seemed like the kind of place she would have enjoyed being alone with her thoughts, tending the plants as if they were animals. Solomon was suddenly flooded with memories of her, almost prophetic in how vivid they were. Perhaps it had just been so long since he'd been in an unclouded wilderness like this that he'd very seldom had a chance to remember what it was his lady had liked so much about the wild world. He could almost picture her striding among these trees, half the height of some of them, ducking to keep her headdress from raking the boughs as she lumbered barefoot through the valley. It seemed unlikely, but not impossible...could she be here? If this were some celestial glade, it would certainly be possible. Atla would long for no afterlife other than an eternity in an unfettered wilderness. Perhaps she had even summoned him, created that portal herself or pled to some higher being to allow Solomon access. The thought was enough to stall him from going right back through that useless portal; if she was here, if any of this speculation could possibly be true, Solomon had to find her. Marbas wailed from his prison within the ring at this very thought; Atla was not important to him, never had been, and now that he was faced with the idea of Solomon reuniting with her he was angry and indignant. Of course, he had no connection to her, no reason to want Atla to be here or anywhere. This place, like all places, was destined for ruin at his hand, and if Atla did not want that, she was an obstacle. Solomon promised to him that he would find a way to devastate this place if he looked around enough, that maybe he could find new allies to corrupt here, and maybe some of them could even be the help he needed for Marbas' becoming. The demon lord had no interest in exploring, no need for investigation outside of a very narrow scope, and this place was useless to him. But the promise of destruction, deception, corruption, pleased him. Dual motives it was, then. But before either Atla or ruination, Solomon needed shelter, and a better one than the shade of a tree. Hopefully there was such a thing as nightfall on this plane.
βΆ ββ πππππππ οΌ
β πΏπ°ππ πΈ β female β’ human β’ hannibal β’ tags: --
On the surface, had just looked like a door she'd never seen in the hospital. She hated that place, but she'd grown familiar with it - familiar enough to recognize when a door hadn't been there before. That was a weird enough occurrence in and of itself, but what lay on the other side of the door was way, way weirder. It was outdoors, but not at all the hospital courtyard; rather, it was a massive expanse of loose woods, some sort of sweeping valley with a bright sun shining overhead. Was this supposed to be Narnia or something? The girl didn't want to admit it, but she was riddled with fear at the prospect of what lay out there in this strange and silent wilderness. Maybe she should go get someone else, tell one of the nurses or something? No, if they didn't see what she saw...if this portal somehow disappeared, then they'd think she'd gone off the deep end. Even Hannibal would probably think she was nuts, and it was too much of a risk to go all the way to him to try and explain...whatever the hell this was. So...what then? Should she just...go out there? Taking a few cautious steps forward, Abigail nervously fiddled with the scarf shrouding her scarred neck and called out, "Hello...?" - though nobody answered. Perhaps just as well; who knows who or what would have answered. Abigail felt her shoes sink a little into the loamy earth as she peered around a tree, looking silently into the distance for any sign of movement. This kind of environment felt familiar, yet simultaneously very alien. She'd been in the wilderness many times, most often on hunting trips with her Dad, but this kind of wilderness was...different somehow, and she couldn't put her finger on it right away. Then, it hit her: there weren't any animals here. She couldn't hear or see a single bird, a single deer, even a mouse or a cicada or anything at all. It was completely, unnaturally empty. The revelation sent a chill racing down Abigail's spine - if there were no animals, where had they all gone? What had caused them to so wholly evaporate? She immediately turned back to look at the doorway she'd come through. Several deep, slightly trembling breaths followed as she attempted to calm herself down.
This was scary - the unknown was scary - but still Abigail felt a deep compulsion to figure out more. Even though there was a chance this was all some feverish hallucination, there was a gravity about it all she couldn't deny. Why had it been her to walk through this gateway, and not someone else? Had this place sought her out somehow, or was it just pure chance? Would another person come walking through that door at any moment, or was she the only one who could cross? There had to be something here that would give her an answer - or even a fragment of one. Curiosity was still tugging persistently at her sleeve, telling her there was something she needed to find out. Again, the idea of trying to tell someone still felt like it would only end with her leading someone back to an empty closet and ultimately getting thrown in the Baltimore State Hospital or something. Sighing and running her fingers through her hair, Abigail kept on slowly, hugging the trunks of trees and frequently stalling to look around. The mild sun and the ambient smell of pine in the air were almost nice, but the lack of living things outside of plants was easily unsettling enough to counteract this. "Is there anyone here?" Abigail asked the seemingly empty woods. Did she really want someone to be here? If this was something as crazy as an alternate dimension, it could've gotten both weird and dangerous in a heartbeat. Not to mention the fact there must've been a reason there were no animals here, after all; what if something had just destroyed them? Some all-powerful cosmic being or wave of disruption or catastrophic all-consuming plague or any other number of equally horrifying things could've been the culprit, and whatever it was would probably spare her no extra mercy. Maybe it was just nicer to imagine that this was some fresh untamed location so remote no animals existed in this world just yet, or they were still living in an ocean somewhere waiting to evolve to walk on land or something. That seemed...all-in-all less likely than everything in this world having been wiped out or this all being a horrifically vivid dream, but it was still possible...right?
~
