The underneath is a network of sewers and cold basement levels, filled with the stench of mildew and death. You hear sounds - at a distance, and nearby. Like many legs in the dripping water, like soft voices echoing down the halls.
More notably, no matter how you got here, you can't seem to get back out. However you arrived, it's a one-way entry, and there seems to be strong magical warding stopping anything from leaving.
Are these the dungeons? Or was your arrival here a mistake?
THIS IS A SECRET LOG! THIS MEANS THAT ALL CONTENT INSIDE OF IT IS SECRET BOTH IC AND OOC UNTIL YOUR CHARACTER IS ONCE AGAIN IN A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REVEAL IT!
It's okay to make vague commentary on how things are going for your character, but please don't tell anyone OOCly the specifics of the location, characters, or events. That's for you and anyone else who joins you to share.
Start with your character arriving, and things will go from there.
After a pause - and that's right, 'Curse' doesn't really seem to fit them, that's all really weird - Julien just says. "That seriously sucks."
They've been walking for a while. Shifting his path so he walks nearer to a wall Julien stretches out his wing, part of the way. There's not space for full extension this way but there's enough to say that yes, he's in better condition now. Bringing up his inventory again he selects more things to break down.
He could start building another human body now, he thinks. It'd take quite a while before it was something that could survive and be used though, longer than he suspects he has. Maybe if he'd been with the elder champions for longer they could have taught him about making smaller, simpler peripherals.
"If you don't want to call me anything, that's fine. Newcomers often found the sensation disturbing - both referring to others with such a feeling of unfamiliarity, and being referred to by others with words they'd never own. Of course, the idea of not using names altogether can be even more disturbing to those unaccustomed... and more than a little confusing, in a work environment. We usually just went by vague physical descriptors, when required, or words related to our work."
"The only way to regain your name when it's been taken," they say, "is to have it given back to you by the one who took it. Names are something that can be bought and sold, as it turns out. Or even stolen."
"So you can't steal it back..?" Gears may or may not be turning in her mind-but, all the same. "....I just thought it would be mean. ....If you don't feel nice when you're called a name that isn't yours, it's not fair to keep making someone feel that way." That's what it seems, at least.
As it is. "....How long has your name been gone..?"
"So whenever someone comes into his service, your master strips their names away. How does he even get new people? Does anyone ever get to go home?" And why hasn't his name been taken, or Reira's? He glances down at her. Still Reira, regardless of whatever her true name is.
"I had regained my name for a time, while I served as butler. It's considered a reward for a particular level of service - a butler is meant to manage the rest of the household, and therefore is meant to be a close and loyal servant, and rewarded as such. However, before and after that... I'm not sure, now. Many years. Longer than I should have had, as a lifespan."
As for Julien's question, Curse casts him an odd look. Almost uncomprehending.
"Going home? Of course not. Why would they be allowed to do that?"
Now that brings a blink. ".....I guess the Prince is just a lot worse, then..."
...After all.
"....She doesn't take names. ....But....she also makes contracts. If you work for a year and a day, you can get something in return. Or if you do something wrong, you can work for a year and a day to fix it. ....That's all that happens though. ....Unless you break the biggest rules-the three rules, the things that happen if you do something bad aren't like this." She hasn't even been around for a month, and she knows THAT.
She does, however, look to Julien to explain a bit further if he can.
Julien makes a deep pigeony mrrmmm down in his chest. He hadn't heard about the rulebreaking, but then, he's not violent or inclined to cause trouble. Not intentionally cause trouble.
"She lets people go home even if it hasn't been a year. We went somewhere kind of... weird and unpleasant, and she got us out, and like half her staff went to see her and went home. Supposedly they'll be back, some of them came back right away, I think they won't be off the hook or have the reward until they've served their year." He thinks it's more complicated than that, but that's what he's picked up anyway, in his all of two months.
"I get the feeling she wants us around, we're like entertainment, but she doesn't bear her staff ill will. Guess she was the exception. The fae in that other world were pretty openly cruel."
"Then you are fortunate, indeed," Curse says, with seemingly no more to say on the subject than that. Just can't relate, sorry. "This is the only life among fae we've ever known."
It's about then that they arrive at Curse's abode, which... is not all that impressive. It's mostly a dead-end tunnel that has been blocked off as a separate room, with a mostly dry floor and some makeshift piles of skins and webbing that function as beds. There is also a pile of stone slab that serves as a table, and a pile of stone that makes some sort of fire pit in the middle. It's currently full of blackened cinders and little else.
"Here we are," they say, gesturing around with all four arms. "It's not much, but it's home."
It does not seem much, but Reira comes in and looks at it with what can only be read as clear interest. It is with wide eyes that she looks around-taking in every detail she can, her bare feet tapping along the ground. A table...a fire-pit...she pauses to blink at the skins, wondering how long those will last if 'organic things' rot away, but after a while....
Her daemon, invisible, but still there, brushes against her. "....It seems sort of like... ...what my home was," she says after a moment. A dusty, ruined room, with nothing but rubble at all ends. There are obvious-and numerous differences, but the association is there. "...I didn't have a place for fire though. ...It's a little cleaner here, I think, too." Only a little though, and only in here, really. Out there it's definitely more than bad. "...we can really stay here right now?"
The world Julien is from has certain resources that different things from different dimensions or realities - he's really not sure which - have been vying for for a very long time. One of them likes acting through human proxies who serve it with great enthusiasm and fervor. By all accounts it's possessive and wants to take them back to wherever it's from if it succeeds.
He hadn't connected that with the Ringmaster taking people into her Carnival, but he can kind of see it here. That's... well. He feels numbed and cold by all this. Everything comes down to being used and yanked about, though, doesn't it?
A handful of eyes form just to look specifically at Reira. She'd been homeless? By the standard of not living in housing, anyway? That explains some things, poor kid.
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lostchance) wrote2017-10-06 10:01 pm
no subject
They've been walking for a while. Shifting his path so he walks nearer to a wall Julien stretches out his wing, part of the way. There's not space for full extension this way but there's enough to say that yes, he's in better condition now. Bringing up his inventory again he selects more things to break down.
He could start building another human body now, he thinks. It'd take quite a while before it was something that could survive and be used though, longer than he suspects he has. Maybe if he'd been with the elder champions for longer they could have taught him about making smaller, simpler peripherals.
no subject
"The only way to regain your name when it's been taken," they say, "is to have it given back to you by the one who took it. Names are something that can be bought and sold, as it turns out. Or even stolen."
no subject
As it is. "....How long has your name been gone..?"
no subject
no subject
As for Julien's question, Curse casts him an odd look. Almost uncomprehending.
"Going home? Of course not. Why would they be allowed to do that?"
no subject
Now that brings a blink. ".....I guess the Prince is just a lot worse, then..."
...After all.
"....She doesn't take names. ....But....she also makes contracts. If you work for a year and a day, you can get something in return. Or if you do something wrong, you can work for a year and a day to fix it. ....That's all that happens though. ....Unless you break the biggest rules-the three rules, the things that happen if you do something bad aren't like this." She hasn't even been around for a month, and she knows THAT.
She does, however, look to Julien to explain a bit further if he can.
no subject
"She lets people go home even if it hasn't been a year. We went somewhere kind of... weird and unpleasant, and she got us out, and like half her staff went to see her and went home. Supposedly they'll be back, some of them came back right away, I think they won't be off the hook or have the reward until they've served their year." He thinks it's more complicated than that, but that's what he's picked up anyway, in his all of two months.
"I get the feeling she wants us around, we're like entertainment, but she doesn't bear her staff ill will. Guess she was the exception. The fae in that other world were pretty openly cruel."
no subject
It's about then that they arrive at Curse's abode, which... is not all that impressive. It's mostly a dead-end tunnel that has been blocked off as a separate room, with a mostly dry floor and some makeshift piles of skins and webbing that function as beds. There is also a pile of stone slab that serves as a table, and a pile of stone that makes some sort of fire pit in the middle. It's currently full of blackened cinders and little else.
"Here we are," they say, gesturing around with all four arms. "It's not much, but it's home."
no subject
Her daemon, invisible, but still there, brushes against her. "....It seems sort of like... ...what my home was," she says after a moment. A dusty, ruined room, with nothing but rubble at all ends. There are obvious-and numerous differences, but the association is there. "...I didn't have a place for fire though. ...It's a little cleaner here, I think, too." Only a little though, and only in here, really. Out there it's definitely more than bad. "...we can really stay here right now?"
no subject
He hadn't connected that with the Ringmaster taking people into her Carnival, but he can kind of see it here. That's... well. He feels numbed and cold by all this. Everything comes down to being used and yanked about, though, doesn't it?
A handful of eyes form just to look specifically at Reira. She'd been homeless? By the standard of not living in housing, anyway? That explains some things, poor kid.