tushanshu_logs | Arrival and Settling In

Entry tags:

Arrival and Settling In | OPEN

Characters: Ryou and OPEN
Date: August 25th~Early September
Location: Throughout Keeliai / Mu-Hao / Wood Sector
Situation: Ryou arrives and has a look around! For a job and for fun. Also he wastes like half his funds on a bike and food.
Warnings/Rating: None

[a; Mu-Hao]
[Talk about impressive. Finding himself suddenly kidnapped and being stuck on the back of a giant turtle was almost okay when he saw how cool his room looked. The soul lantern thing was kind of unnerving though, so he was just going to try and ignore that. Some of the other things he'd heard were less than pleasant too, but there wasn't much he could do about it right now.

Ryou was going to try and remain optimistic, so once he's put what few belongings he had away in his room, he starts to wander through the rest of the suite for the other residents.]

Hellooo? Is anybody else home?

[b; Around the Wood Sector]
[After squaring his things away and taking a couple days to let things sink in, Ryou takes the juulan he'd been given and heads out. He's pretty cautious of where he's going, afraid of getting lost in a city that looks the same at every turn for a newcomer. On his first few days in the Wood Sector he doesn't leave, but instead sets himself to a few tasks:

A) First things were first, and he purchases an inexpensive bike to ease travel time. Ryou can be found at one point trying to fix the jammed handlebar. You really get what you pay for...

B) Life without some sort of game was unfathomable, so he buys the first interesting board game he can find. Unfortunately he forgot to bring his backpack and ends up having to balance both the gameboard and walking the bike back to his suite.

C) Once he's spent some of his money on the above and food, Ryou's set out for a job hunt to help support himself. With all this war business going on he knows he can't be of much use there, but at least he won't feel like a total bum this way. He can be found frequently referring down to his pamphlet for information.]

[c; Choose Your Own Adventure / Around Keeliai]
[A week or so after situating himself in the Wood Sector to the best of his ability, Ryou decides to give the other areas of Keeliai a look. He can be found walking through the streets with a look of total awe at just how ornate everything is, as well as taste testing anything that looks interesting. Which is everything that doesn't involve oysters.

One might also spot him traveling between sectors on the carts, apologetically stuffing his bike in with him. At least he didn't forget his backpack this time.]

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Since the experiment in creating a Dreaming portal Solomon had been on the lookout for purer materials than the limestone and coal he had used previously. Finding white marble or obsidian would be a bonus--those were stones he needed, regardless over whether or not he used them right away. Unlike kitchen ingredients and chemicals, rocks had no shelf-life. He could afford to stockpile.

It was crowded enough in the markets that when Solomon first caught a glimpse of white hair he assumed it was Bakura. A few of the kedan had white hair, but none as long or thick as the thief's; it was rather distinctive.

Since the Dreaming portal was a new development related to the help Bakura's kin had requested, and it had been a little while since they'd spoken, Solomon moved around the crowd to go to him. But as Solomon got closer, he frowned. Bakura didn't, as far as Solomon knew, own a bike. There could have been ways to explain that--but there was nothing to explain the complete lack of ghostly greeting once he reached what he already thought of as the basic ghost-zone.

Not Bakura, then. But someone who looked almost identical, save in mannerism. This youth had none of the wariness, none of the worldliness; the way he was gaping around him barely spoke of someone who'd left his own country. Solomon had to wonder--

"Good morning, Bakura," he said once he was close enough, his voice slightly raised over the crowd. (It was mildly accented, definably Irish but cultured.) If the youth answered, then that would tell Solomon something, at least.

Ryou stopped when he thought he heard his name, his hands resting on the seat and handlebar of his bike as he turned to catch a glimpse of who was greeting him. By now he'd seen quite a few people, but that voice didn't ring any bells, so who could it be?

"Ah, good morning," He bowed his head before anything else, and he couldn't help but notice that this guy's face was anything but familiar. As Ryou straightened back up, the slight apprehension in his smile is all too obvious.

"I don't think we've met before... How did you know my name?"

So it was his name. And his appearance--it was far too coincidental. Bakura had said that his body reflected that of his host as much as or more than it did of his original; that was the most he'd said about his host. It was enough. This must be him.

The accent was a touch of a surprise, though; Bakura had implied his host wasn't Egyptian himself, or at least his appearance implied that, but Solomon didn't recall it arising that the youth was Japanese.

Solomon gave him a disarming smile, and wondered whether Bakura knew his host was even here. "The worlds which intersect here are many and timelines are varying," he said, truthfully but vaguely. "You looked familiar. I took a chance." He bowed shallowly, enough to be respectful but obviously still someone who was more used to receiving that respect than the opposite. "Watashi no namae wa Wreath Solomon desu; yoroshiku onegai itashimasu."

His Japanese wasn't fluent, by any means, but it was still a far cry better than the average tourist; enough to hold a conversation, at the very least.

He didn't seem as relieved as Wreath might have hoped. That was just a wishy-washy answer, wasn't it? It didn't really tell him exactly why he looked familiar, why he knew his name. Maybe he was just reading too much into this, but Ryou's words seem a bit stiff. The familiar of his own language, free from weird magical translations, wasn't going to help.

"It's nice to meet you too, Solomon-san. Could I ask you to explain a little more, though...? I don't really understand."

He just got here, nobody should be recognizing him unless he was somehow here before. Ryou digs out his pamphlet and looks at it again. Maybe it says something here that he forgot?!

The behaviour was a marked difference to what Solomon had come to expect from someone wearing that face. It was amusing and faintly baffling at once.

"It's something of a complicated circumstance," he said, holding out a hand toward a short wall between two stalls, one with enough room for the bicycle so they weren't in the way of the crowd. "I presume people have explained Asti and the planes of Life, Death and Dreaming to you," he continued as he sat, "but the metaphysical waters in which Asti swims are a river which runs between planes and universes. That means anyone can be drawn into it, from any point in time. I have a colleague from my universe who is four years ahead of my present day, and therefore remembers things I haven't yet experienced."

He inclined his head toward the youth. "I've known someone here who looks like you. I took a chance that you might be a version of him from a different time." And mentality, and power, and ... everything else, but even so.

"Yeah, complicated...," Ryou managed to weakly mumble, his smile lopsided and uneasy. It was a bit of an information overload back at the Welcome Center, so even if he knew the general idea he still didn't really get it. That and it kind of reminded him of why he was actually here, and it wasn't to actually enjoy the sights.

"What do you mean when you say they "look like me"? I mean, is it a family resemblance, or..."

He had only been addressed by his family name, so it was still a possibility. Though given the vague and slightly cryptic way he was getting information out of this guy, Ryou sort of doubted things would be that convenient.

The expression was a familiar one, and Solomon shrugged, though not without a wry smile. "I did warn you. And no, not just a family resemblance, and he used your name. I believe there may have been an age difference, however. He wasn't in the habit of talking about himself."

To put it lightly. Solomon had no idea whether it was wise, in either direction, to be going around mentioning that the spirits of darkness-possessed Rings might be hovering about, especially since the youth seemed particularly ... inexperienced in handling that sort of thing. Maybe the boy would figure it out, but as of now, Solomon wasn't planning to tell him directly.

Instead he canted his head, regarding the youth, and asked, "You haven't been here long, if you're still internalising information. Is there anything in particular which was vexing you?"

"Ah...," Ryou didn't seem to even hear the question. His face had gone pale and his jaw taut at the description of the man that used his name. Already his mind had readily jumped to the conclusion of the Ring, because there was one thing that's been bugging him since his arrival...

The Ring, which he had been wearing before he woke up here, was missing.

He shook himself out his stupor and realized he was staring, "I'm sorry... What was that?"

Well, that put paid to any of Solomon's attempt to keep Bakura a secret. Then again, the boy had a suspicion--there was no need for Solomon to confirm it or not, and he didn't plan to. Bakura's standing in Keeliai was tenuous enough without adding outright to the instability. Bakura wasn't the sort to draw undue attention to himself, so at least Solomon could be decently sure he wouldn't do anything detrimental to the boy offhand.

"Is there anything about the city for which you needed further explanation?" Solomon repeated, but not unkindly, willing to pretend the teen hadn't reacted in any negative way.

"Oh, well...," Where does he even start? There was so much to take in between his arrival here and now, and there was so much more for him to learn. At first Ryou just offered Solomon a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. He was still distracted from the news that the spirit of all people and things might be roaming around, so questions about the city were the least of his worries.

"I don't really know. Ahhh... Do I still have to attend school? I'm going to be so far behind when I get back home."

Solomon laughed and then stopped, but he was still smiling a little indulgently as he answered. "No. There aren't any schools here, as far as I know; the kedan seem to train their children in trades and practicalities at home or in their work. You can find a tutor, if you wish, of course, but it isn't required."

Either those who had explained things to the boy hadn't done so very well, or they hadn't seen the point in trying. Possibly the latter; aside from his obvious connection to Bakura, the boy seemed positively mundane.

"You won't," Solomon reassured him. "Time stops in our worlds when we leave them; when we go back, we don't remember being here. It's as if we'd never left at all. You will be precisely at the point you were when you left."

Ryou still seemed a bit distant, but eventually tuned in enough to begin nodding quietly to each tidbit of information. Now that he pointed it out again, it seemed to spark his memory a bit.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It's pretty unbelievable, that time could jut stop like that...," he reached up to scratch anxiously at his cheek. More unbelievable things had happened already, so he wasn't going to question it any further.

"I guess this means I can look forward to an extra summer vacation, at least..."

"If you consider a war-zone to be summer vacation," said Solomon dryly, and shrugged. "It makes logical sense, in as far as our knowledge of alternate realities extends. Time is a fluid and conditional thing. Being taken out of time would, from our perception, necessitate its apparent alternation or cessation altogether--but only in relation to the world from which we came, of course. Time here seems to move at a conventional pace. Perception again."

Not that Solomon was particularly interested in metaphysics for its own sake, but understanding it did tend to help him understand how the universes worked, and his research with regard to that was proceeding at a decent enough pace.

Edited 2014-09-11 00:42 (UTC)

"Ah...," Ryou wilted, looking down more at Solomon's chest than at his mouth as he spoke now. All that technical stuff was a bit beyond him, so he concentrated instead on what he did know.

"I really don't think I'm fit for a war, so why they brought me here is beyond me. I'm just trying to make the best of a bad situation."

"So are we all," said Solomon. That's almost all life was, really: making the best of a bad situation. Some people's situations were worse than others, of course, but that didn't change the fact that it was something that occupied most people's time.

The boy did have a point, however, and it was one Solomon had been pondering on for some time now. Why bother bringing people, bringing children, into Keeliai to fight a war? Why bring people who were so obviously unsuited for doing so? It didn't make sense as an agenda for a rebellion. Either Eva's ability to select certain persons wasn't all that accurate, or there was another agenda.

Just one more thing for which to view the Emperor with suspicion, frankly.

"The city is a civilian ground," he said instead, opting for the diplomatic route. "A war can't be fought without infrastructure; and infrastructure falls when there's no one around to maintain it. The kedan need all the help they can get. Perhaps that is the purpose of bringing those who aren't soldiers."

Ryou didn't know if what Solomon said was true or not, but he did know that it made him feel less useless in the grand scheme of things. That much he was more than willing to cling to, consciously or not.

He nodded once Solomon had finished, "I was already thinking of getting a job to help out since I can't do anything else, so maybe you're right. I mean, the only other thing I'm good at are tabletops and building dioramas, ahah..."

He forced a smile as if it were a joke, but eflt more useless somehow now that he'd said it all out loud.

It was as close to the truth as Solomon could divine, and as far as Foreigners making themselves useful went, that was all it needed to be. Purpose was important. Sometimes the context of purpose was overly important for some people, but it was better than having loose cannons running around.

"That would be wise," Solomon agreed, looking thoughtful as he did. "You make dioramas, hm? Are they any good?"

A question he could probably ask Bakura, but it was worth following up on the boy as well. If he was good at making such things, Solomon might be interested in an interactive map of the turtle.

Ryou's hobbies were a big part of how he spent his time, so when Solomon asked about his dioramas he instantly perked up, like a light being switched. Even the somewhat rude wording of it wasn't enough to dampen.

"I think so," he smiled with that sudden renewed cheerfulness. It was a complete 180 within seconds. "I mean, I hope so! Besides games, it's one of things I spend the most time on. Though most of my dioramas are for Monster World anyway... So they're kind of related!"

He should have known better than to expect an objective answer from a teen. At least the boy obviously wasn't predisposed to being offended; that helped. It was hopelessly naive, but it helped. No wonder Bakura was able to manipulate him so easily.

The fact that the boy--Ryou would be easiest--spent so much time on construction implied they'd be at least good enough for basic tactical layouts. "Could you build one of Keeliai and the turtle's back?" Solomon asked. "To be finished in fairly short order?"

It wouldn't be much use if they couldn't use it for the war, after all.

Somehow, Ryou hadn't predicted a request like that, although he did have a feeling something was coming. After he blinked off his shock, one question came to mind before he answered anything else.

"A diorama of the turtle's back? What for?" If he was to sink weeks or months into something like that, he'd at least like to know why, but before Solomon can answer he continued, "I'm sure I could do it, but I'm not very familiar with the area so I'd need a lot of help to make it accurate and to map it out before I build it. Plus without a bird's eye view I can only estimate the scale, so there might be some inaccuracies. Depending on how much detail you want it could take a few weeks to a few months or more. I'm not sure... I'd need a lot of supplies too."

Supplies that were a bit out of his budget right now, but more than that was the issue of how he could possibly come up with a map in the vaguely named "short order", let alone an entire diorama. Ryou would need help with the footwork at the very least.

Edited 2014-09-13 02:59 (UTC)

"Strategic purposes," Solomon said calmly. "We are at war, and all our maps are two-dimensional. Not that we need a diorama--but if you need something to do with your time, why not create a three-dimensional map for planning purposes?" He shrugged. "And if it turns out to be not quite as useful in that regard, I am sure I will find another use for it."

The turtle's back was far too filled with death and far too lacking in resources to make such a map useless at any given time. If it was possible, also, to go beneath the shell--well, why not have a map that covered the beneath? Why not have one that allowed for the examination of buildings? If nothing else, it could be interesting for the metaphysics.

"I have maps already," said Solomon. "But I'll need the diorama to be in useable condition within a decent time; maps you may have, but don't focus on the detail of the buildings except the palace and the police-station. Anything else, I can contribute for materials, or bring to you."

"I see...," Ryou nodded thoughtfully at the explanation, both anxious and a little excited to know he'd be actually helping for the cause he was brought here for instead of just being a busybody. Of course he would rather be home more than anything, but out of the options he had now...this was certainly the better of the two.

"Ahh, that's great! If you have maps, that will make my job a whole lot easier! And if you could help with the material too, that would be great...," he bashfully scratched his cheek, a little unwilling to go on, "since I haven't exactly gotten a job yet. Usually my Dad pays for all my living expenses, since we weren't allowed to have part-time jobs while going to school."

"Certainly." Most of his work involved investigation, particularly investigating what had happened to dead ancestors and giving kedan families a chance to reconcile with their fates; perhaps not noble work, but it did give Solomon something of a stipend. "You'll have to give me a list of what you'll need; over the console would suffice."

Solomon smiled a little, for no other reason than to make himself seem a little more friendly to a boy who appeared rather flighty. "Feeling more settled now?"

As if that bright smile of his weren't enough to tell, Ryou nodded his head once more, "I am, thank you."

It wasn't that he'd forgotten the news of having a lookalike running around, but that he was more than content to temporarily shove it to the back of his mind. His opinion of Solomon might have started out dubiously at best, but now that he'd been given a chance to do some work he's warmed up to him.

"I'll send you a list of supplies, and replacement supplies if you can't find certain ones, as soon as I get home, okay?"

Normally Ryou wasn't the type to just accept things for free, but he was making this diorama for Solomon's uses. It seemed like a fair trade to him.

Edited 2014-09-22 23:14 (UTC)

Certainly the boy was easy to reassure ... manipulate. Not that Solomon intended to manipulate him--much. At least, not in a fashion that would harm him. "Of course," he said, "though I would request you do most of the shopping yourself, and I will arrange the financing."

Solomon had no idea what was involved in building a diorama, and he certainly wasn't going to do most of the shopping when he had other things to do and the boy had a lack. The list was to properly calculate the funds, rather than anything else.

"Okay," Ryou cheerfully replied, already mapping plan out in his head. The supplies he would need, the paints and clays... He's really not sure how much it will cost in the long run, so he'll just have to take it in parts.

"I can do that! It'll probably be better that way anyway, since sometimes you don't even remember you need something until you see it! I'll try to come up with what I'll need for...," he counted silently on his fingers as he trailed off, "the basics, like the surface and all the stuff I'll need to make the models, and I'll just let you know about anything I need after that point. How's that sound?"

"Very well," Solomon agreed. It meant they would have the bare basics, and anything else were things the boy would have to haggle for; Solomon, being the one paying for much of the equipment, could refuse anything he felt was too much a luxury.

He rose and bowed. "In that event, I believe I will take my leave, and allow you to return to your exploration."

It really felt like Ryou was being properly commissioned, he couldn't deny the fact that he was excited. Part of him always wanted to be able to build dioramas for more things than just Monster World, and now he was finally getting his chance.

"Okay, have a nice day, Wreath-san! I'll send you the message over the console later today," and with that Ryou bowed his head in a polite goodbye and took his leave with a friendly wave.

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Arrival and Settling In | OPEN

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