[WORLD ONE | POST-UVI CELEBRATION]

[spellbindmods]

Who: Coven members and Palai
Where: In and around the Aimintas marketplace
When: Day 39
Open/Closed: Open to All

After an appropriate amount of time for mourning, the Palai have shifted into a more positive mood -- they're a very resilient species, though there is a bit of a muted tone to their celebration. The whole event is a little hodge-podge, mostly because they aren't used to having to celebrate with the coven members added to the guest list. The Palai have gathered together all of their people and have invited the coven members to a small, intimate gathering -- the purpose of the event is to thank them for their service in fighting the Uvi, and the success of freezing the Uvi in their home. While no one knows how long the Uvi will stay gone, any amount of time without the Uvi being a concern is fine by them. The event takes place in the very center of the marketplace, with the Palai interacting on the fringes of the party throughout the rest of the large building. The coven members have time to spend by themselves, but there's room for moving around on their own and also spending time with the Palai if they so choose. A ▢ One of the more noticeable editions to the food the Palai have provided is a large pile of sweet, sugar dusted pastries. You may notice that something about them seems...odd, to say the least. It looks as if the pastries are vibrating slightly, but they smell divine. If you're so inclined to ask what the deal is, these pastries are magically infused by Eltos, which somehow gives them a sweeter flavor and enhances the sensation of tastebuds. The Palai sometimes eat these before meals in order to better the flavor of their entire spread -- though adding this energized magic to an already magical being means magic powers may be a little off kilter. Don't be surprised if suddenly your abilities go a little crazy. B ▢ The Palai aren't participating the party for two big reasons. One, the purpose is to celebrate the victory of coven members. The other reason, however, is one that may be more interesting to outsiders. While previously the Palai were peaceful people, happy to exist submitting to the Uvi, the coven's show of strength and valor has inspired them to be more aggressive in their approaches. Grown Palai can be seen working on makeshift weapons, but the idea of smaller tools like slingshots have already been constructed and almost perfected. The Palai youth have discovered these tools and are playing with them gleefully, though occasionally hitting each other -- and potentially you -- with energized, paralyzing rocks fueled with Elto energy. Watch out or you might get zapped! C ▢ Other Palai youth aren't as fortunate to be so distracted and happy. While fewer Palai died during this attack, the casualty number wasn't zero. Most Palai children still have at least one family member to care for them, but they're still a little disconnected from their people by means of grief. Some are milling about with the coven members, trying to eat or pester them for attention. If you're good with kids this may be more your speed, but those bad with children can find this irritating. Some Palai youth are more muted, however, content to just sit and listen to stories or eavesdrop on conversations. D ▢ For some people, rain isn't that big an issue -- but it certainly puts a damper (get it?) on a party. The Palai seem a bit confused by the sudden shower that comes in heavy as the evening dies down. The Palai have never experienced rain before, using irrigation systems and existing ground water as their means of hydration (both for themselves and for plants). Because the rain is coming from the ocean, the drops are large and salty, and the marketplace quickly begins to flood. The Palai move the party indoors for the most part, but that doesn't mean you or the food aren't already soaked. It's much warming underneath the roofs in the marketplace, but that doesn't provide much relief since the ocean rain is warm and humid. E ▢ Wildcard! How will your character handle this violent and volatile situation.

Comments

[splinten]

I think humanity was worth defending but didn't believe much in it.

[He just felt that he should. That's what his Bro would have done.]

We tend to lean philosophical when we hang, don't we? That or we go full sushi cat.

[rootandbranch]

I like to know things! People are bad at explaining.

[he hesitates again, but as the first raindrops start to fall, asks shyly:]

Do you want to talk for a while instead of going in? It's dry under my wing.

[splinten]

People suck at explaining.

[He can agree to that. And he steps closer.]

Sure, I'll hang under your wing. Are you okay getting rained on?

[rootandbranch]

I lived under the ocean for a thousand years. Water doesn't bother me.

[he shifts the coils of his tail under his sheltering wing, making a place for Dirk to sit if he wants.]

Of course, I was asleep for most of it...

[splinten]

[Huh. That is cool. Dirk will sit there then.]

That sounds like a seriously long nap, bro. Hope you got all the beauty sleep you wanted.

[rootandbranch]

Not really. I was supposed to sleep till it was time for the world to end... I got woken up early, though. Things got pretty confusing.

[he rests his chin on a loop of his own tail, so he can look at Dirk better.]

What was it like, being one of the only humans?

[splinten]

I can understand confusing and weird unexpected circumstances.

[Hello Dragonface. Dirk finds it strangely endearing, like a kind of innocence.]

I guess I grew up after you were supposed to be awoken. It was solitary, is maybe the only way to put it. [Lonely.] The other living human was miles away. I could only talk to her through messages kind of like the telepathy we have. Then there were two people in the past I could talk to, Jake and Jane, and some aliens. [His expression gets wry.] Like I said, I can understand confusing. Anyway, I only met them later. It was mostly a stupid amount of free time that I had to find ways to fill up. Plus lots of water.

[rootandbranch]

You lived in the ocean, too? I don't really understand about talking to people in the past...

[Geir considers what Dirk said. he's not sure anyone's supposed to be able to be alive after he wakes up, frankly. but it's nice to talk about this with someone so underreactive and okay with explaining things -- definitely soothing.]

I don't know if you were alive after I woke up, either. Maybe it was a different place? I'm supposed to destroy the world so it can start over again.

[splinten]

[It's a dire statement from Geir, but Dirk's shades don't show any shock or horror, and frankly, he doesn't feel it. Looking at Geir, he decides that maybe it would help to explain why.]

Nah, I meant more that I woke up after the world ended in my world. Courtesy to some degree of flooding the world, which is why I grew up in the middle of the ocean. I'm pretty sure we're from different places with similar mechanisms of world-rejuvenation.

[Since Geir likes explaining, he will go for it.]

Me and my friends played a game called Sburb. It essentially is Paradox Space's way of destroying planets in order to create new universes. When the game is activated, meteors rain down on the originally planet and destroy the whole damn thing, but the players are ported over to a different dimension where we engage in various levels of stupid quests in order to create a new universe. My session was an unusual one, but that's the basic idea for a normal run.

[Given the vast amount of bullshit that is involved in Sburb, Dirk doubts Geir's situation is identical. But given that Geir has talked about the end of the world, making him some kind of Jörmungandr figure, he thinks Geir might like the chance to talk about it and examine their situations together.]

[rootandbranch]

[Dirk is absolutely correct, and Geir's frankly grateful for his deadpan acceptance. it really helps him to talk through these things -- and even just since getting here, he's had people express bafflement or annoyance when he asks for explanations of things like "why do you want to help people you don't know?"

the real answer, of course, is that they're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the people they're helping and relying on their own preconceived ideas of ethics and how they want to see themselves as people... and no one really wants to say that. but Geir hasn't met a lot of people, and he doesn't know how he wants to be or how to see himself going forward. how should he know that's how they're making their decisions, if he doesn't ask?]

For me, it's just how things are supposed to go. I sleep, then Heimdallr blows the horn and I wake up, then the boat full of dead people sails and we all fight. I kill Thor. If I'm strong enough, I kill the Tree, too. And the world ends.

[he watches Dirk's face steadily.]

I don't know if it starts growing again after that -- I'm not around for that part. Maybe it is all water. I think it'd be dust and ash, though. That's what it looked like for the couple of tree roots I did bite.

[considers further, then decides to share a personal note:]

We didn't like it. That's why I want to think about things.

[splinten]

[The only real reaction is the slight flick of reaction when Geir says Heimdallr. Okay, so Geir apparently is not just a Jörmungandr figure. He is actually the World Snake himself. Once that is confirmed, everything that follows makes perfect sense, and he meets it calmly.]

Dust and ash doesn't sound like a great taste to bite into.

[Ew, man. The World Tree could at least be delicious. Come on son.]

'We' means you and Vern, right? It sounds like you want to think about your role in fate, and whether or not you actually want to act it out.

[rootandbranch]

The Tree just tastes like a tree! Dust and ash are what happen when a root dies.

[Geir nods at Dirk's continuation, pleased he understands so readily.]

And yeah. I mean, obviously we decided not to destroy everything yet. But I still have to think about it... it's supposed to be my job. I don't really know any others.

[splinten]

That still doesn't sounder incredibly appetizing.

[Tree is not yummy??? ...He thinks. He has never bitten a tree. He has barely encountered trees until the base island.]

You call it a 'job,' but a job can be any kind of work. I'm wondering if you mean it more in terms of what your purpose is.

[rootandbranch]

. . . they taste like life. But then they die. That's-- bad.

[shudders visibly, and goes on to address Dirk's next comment with an obvious relief.]

Yeah, purpose. What you're born for! Humans don't usually have them, right?

[splinten]

Not ordinarily. I do, or I did anyway, but me and my friends are a fairly unusual case.

[What with being paradox clones spat out to play a world-ending/universe-creating game.]

Some humans try to find one or believe they have one for various reasons.

[rootandbranch]

You had one? Why don't you any more?

[there are only two options Geir can think of immediately...]

Did you finish it, or did you fail?

[splinten]

[Oh my god Geir.]

You are one blunt World Snake, you know that, dude?

[DID YOU FINISH OR FAIL. PLEASE.

Despite that, Dirk can't deny that he's right.]

We failed. Like I said, we're supposed to start a new universe through the game. Things went bad. [Behind his shades, his eyes flicker away.] Most of us died, which isn't as unusual as it sounds. The problem is that a lot of us stayed dead. There wasn't really a point then.

[rootandbranch]

Oh.

[Geir lets out an enormous sigh - Dirk can quite literally feel it in the air all around them, since he's sitting in a cave made of Geir's wing and side.]

I'm sorry your friends died. I never, um-- everyone was supposed to die in Ragnarok, too. So I never thought about that being bad till just lately. But I know that people dying can hurt.

[it's an incredibly awkward expression of sympathy, but heartfelt. Geir's only recently been introduced to people dying not being the end goal, but all he needs to do is consider what he'd feel like if Vern died to believe in "avoid people you know dying" fervently as a concept. Death Is Bad is a clearly delineated if badly articulated point of understanding for him now.]

What are you going to do instead?

[splinten]

[I hope this gust of sighing ruins Dirk's hairdo. Dirk understands the sincerity, regardless of how it may affect his styling. Geir has been fairly upfront when he thinks something doesn't make sense, and false sympathy doesn't really jive with that.]

Thanks. One of our friends is going to go back and redo the timeline so that we can have a do-over on it. That means that this version of me will stop existing, which makes me doubly without a purpose. Some other iteration of Dirk Strider will have that responsibility.

[He's the dead end, the Game Over. He is the Dirk that just has to move on.]

Honestly? I have no damn clue what I'm going to do. In the spread of possible afterlives, this is a decent pick I guess.

[rootandbranch]

I don't know either. Vern summoned me before it was time for Ragnarok because he wanted to start it faster. But then he liked me, so he changed his mind.

[it's a very short, stark précis of an incredibly involved and fraught period of their mutual lives. Geir is apparently as blunt with his own story as he is with the stories of other people.]

Now we're hiding from my family and I have to decide if I can be alive.

[that should be an incredibly dramatic statement, but it's said with the same glum resignation as "I drank all the milk already and I still have two Oreos left."]

It sucks!

[splinten]

Yes. "It sucks" is exactly the phrase that comes to mind to explore the question of whether or not one has a right to actually live.

[Dirk is deadpan in this, but it isn't really a criticism. He is used to Jake's own way of approaching things, and Roxy's, and Jane's, and then there is his own. Geir, in a way, fits in.]

I'm a little perplexed here about why the question is if you can be alive instead of how you should be alive.

[rootandbranch]

Really? That's not something you think about?

[Geir scoots his nose closer to Dirk. this is a valuable new insight.]

[splinten]

I think about whether or not I should be alive or not all the damn time, but in that respect I'm not considered a healthy specimen of human mental functioning.

[He is concerned that he is teaching bad lessons here? He doesn't want to teach the lesson of how HE thinks.]

Let's try it another way. Do you like being alive?

[rootandbranch]

Sure. Don't you?

[ouch.]

[splinten]

Not as a rule. My thinkpan is just not wired to enjoy my state of being. It's kind of a problem.

[Important lessons for Geir: don't be Dirk.]

Why are you questioning whether or not you can be alive?