tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

Characters: ALL!
Date: December 8, 2015 (with some starters for the following weeks)
Location: Keeliai, the Midnight Hotel, others
Situation: The Foreigners have awakened.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

They've been in the Dreaming for so long that when they wake up their bodies feel more like automatons, alien and ill-fitting. They haven’t atrophied, thanks to Milyn, but they’re stiff and a little bedsore, and the solidity of the Life Plane is jarring. Here, the surroundings don’t move on a whim. Here the world is more stable, almost harsh and unyielding in spite of the homey surrounds.

It’s been a year, says the clock on the mantle and on the second floor. Says Milyn, too, when she’s able to stop hugging them long enough to speak.

Nothing much has changed in the Midnight Hotel. There are dishes out of place, objects belonging to either Milyn or Eva in evidence, the diorama exactly where it had been but now brightly-painted thanks to Milyn's boredom. Milyn and Eva took a room each, in the time the Foreigners were sleeping, though neither used them much.

Eva’s upstairs, Milyn will tell anyone who asks. In her room.

Eva hasn't left that room in three days. She hasn't spoken in three days, either, or walked, or moved, or breathed. Her effects are neatly arranged around her bed, and the sheet has been pulled up. There is heavy incense in the room and Milyn has managed to preserve the body enough to remove the risk of too much mess (and other things). In a way, that makes it worse: as though Eva is sleeping. It’s difficult to tell whether Milyn is in denial or whether spending three days with no one to talk to other than sleeping Foreigners and a corpse has had its influence.

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Cain had been in his own sort of wandering mode ever since they had all woken up at the Hotel. He was cleaned up and back to normal; there was no way to judge a passing of time by his appearance. Whether it be a month, a year, ten years or even a hundred, Cain always stayed the same. So did, it seemed, Skulduggery. Even a year unattended by his consciousness did nothing to decay the bones or anything like that... except perhaps for the change of his step, the coloration of his skeleton.

Then again, Cain wasn't going to assume it wasn't the lighting or something. Still, the guy looked pretty damn lost. After years of being highly selective with his memories in order to keep the important things before they could fade away to the rigors of too much time, it was easy to hold onto a dream. Cain remembered creating a mirror image of his brother (and, earlier, killing someone else's facsimile of the same) and making somewhere safe in a war. All of his secrets being laid out like that was a bit daunting, but nothing to start avoiding people over.

He sidled up alongside Skulduggery and tilted his head, a slight smirk on his lips. "You look like someone just stepped on your grave," he said by way of greeting.

Ah, good. A familiar face. With the way the entire face of the world had changed, Skulduggery hadn't known for sure if there would be any left.

He chuckled, and then fell into step beside Cain. "I never actually had a grave. If I had, it would probably be more like someone just danced on my grave, complete with grave-robbing." He sighed. "How have things been on this side of the proverbial track? Any sign of Malicant since the battle?"

Given that nothing happened with Skulduggery's mention of the name, he doubted it.

"Nah, he's gone," Cain said with a large shrug. He watched where they were going, adopting the same sort of aimless walk as Skulduggery. He knew it well enough himself, there was no need to do anything but follow where his feet felt like taking him; he did know, however, that it was easier to do with company of the same mindset. That Skulduggery had apparently not managed to get himself updated yet said more than anything else, really. "Tu Vishan might have gone with him. But hey, on the bright side, now we have mafia."

"Do dirt naps last longer than our regular mortal naps?" he asked. It was lighthearted, but the lack of Skulduggery for the better part of a week after waking and his apparent ignorance was enough to fill the gaps, and Cain was more than capable of insatiable curiosity. "Or is this to do with the grave party?"

Mafia. Of course.

... Hang on a moment. Not of course. Mafia took a while to develop - a while unopposed by any other power. How long had everyone been stuck in the Dreaming? At least a few months, if not more. That didn't bode very well for Keeliai's state of affairs.

On the other hand, Cain's ready explanation meant Skulduggery hadn't been missing for quite as long as Cain was implying. No more than a month. Most likely less.

"I went home," he said simply. "Is Tu Vishan dead?"

"Probably," Cain said with a sigh. That was indeed a worrying prospect, but there didn't seem to be very much to be done about it. At the least, not with all of the turtle hatchlings so far away and most of their allies either dead or as disadvantaged as the rest of the foreigners now. They were going to have to rebuild before they could take any kind of large-scale measures. "That, or he's stuck in the Dreaming like we were. Which, how would we even test that or wake him up if that's what it is? Might as well be dead for now."

Maybe he was just being too optimistic. On the other hand, it didn't sound like there was any way to confirm one or the other and Cain didn't like to make things concrete until he had proof for them. He reached up for a moment to fiddle with his collar, still unused to it after spending millennia avoiding things placed around his neck due to sentimental reasons. "You didn't miss much more than the rest of us did, to be honest. Mostly just the 101 class."

The collar. Cain fiddled with it; it was new. Like the pendant Skulduggery discovered around his neck when he regained consciousness out in the farming communities. He'd put it in his pocket the moment he found it, but very nearly tossed it away before that. He was glad he'd kept it now, since it was apparently important enough for Cain to keep wearing it despite the discomfort. Were they new soul anchors? Certainly more convenient than the lanterns, if a little more annoying.

He made a mental note to take a trip up to Tu Vishan's head at the first available opportunity. Not for a conversation, but to find out if they were drifting - and if so, in what direction. Someone somewhere had to have a map of where the closest landmasses were.

"I missed the formation of a mafia," Skulduggery said. "How much did the rest of you miss?"

"It's been a year, Mr. Pleasant, we all missed that formation," Cain said matter-of-fact. He could tell Skulduggery thought he was further separated from the foreigners' waking and the events that had transpired in that time than he actually was. Probably better to save the guy some grief and give an even more watered down version than Cain had pulled together himself. "And a lot of other things, apparently. Like an invasion attempt. The kedan are acting different, but I'm probably not the person to talk to about that considering how long I was here before the whole shebang went down. Eva died getting us out of the Dreaming."

Although it certainly seemed like a lot to be dumped on someone at once, Cain wasn't all that surprised. So much could happen in a single year that it almost seemed like enough hadn't changed in the face of such a world-altering event such as Malicant's destruction. At the very least, it gave the foreigners to finally band together now as long as someone could use the opportunity properly. Now with Eva gone, apparently their chances of returning home in any sort of a controlled manner was gone with her, but Cain wasn't too fussed about that as long as time remained still where he had come from. "Oh, and we're pretty much all out of living quarters or cashflow but that's probably going to be easiest thing to tackle out of it all."

Skulduggery wasn't too bothered with living quarters and cashflow. He didn't need to sleep or eat. If he needed a place to meditate, he was sure Anton would offer him one - assuming, of course, Anton was still here. Skulduggery was more interested in all the other problems Cain mentioned.

It was little wonder Eva died pulling everyone out of the Dreaming if they'd been stuck for a year, and on top of that, Cain's wording implied less of a time-frame than Skulduggery had been thinking of. How long had he truly been gone for? Weeks? Days? Long enough to be missed, but short enough for the phrase it's been a year to remain valid. He'd spent over a year back in his own world. The time discrepancies no longer surprised him.

The invasion attempt didn't exactly surprise him either.

"Anton and his Hotel are still here, I hope," said Skulduggery. "What about Solomon Wreath?"

Cain tilted his head toward Skulduggery, then shrugged. It seemed the skeleton was taking things in stride, but he wasn't surprised. Skulduggery had a very visible head on his shoulders and whatever he was working out right now would wait until he had come to his conclusions. Cain was patient, and he was in no hurry to be anywhere else.

"Midnight Hotel and Anton Shudder are both where they should be," said Cain. "So is Solomon. Far as I know, most of us are still accounted for. Then again, those aren't the questions I've been asking lately."

That was good to hear, for more potent reasons than simply seeing familiar faces. Would telling Anton about what his world's future held do anything to alleviate Skulduggery's own situation? Or would it only affect Anton's version of events?

"What questions have you been asking?" Skulduggery responded absently, his focus more on his own thoughts than on Cain's answer.

Cain would have no answers to those questions, although he would be curious about what it would mean to spill the future for someone who had yet to experience it. Even if it did change things when they finally returned home, did that mean that Cain himself would change due to the difference or would they end up separated forever by the interference?

"What kedan are still willing to deal with Foreigners," Cain said with a shrug. "Who's all in charge now and who to talk to about getting in contact with them."

All very practical and sensible questions. Skulduggery nodded approvingly as they walked through the city, noting many of the changes for himself. "Did you find any answers to those questions?"

"I'm getting there," Cain answered. He was watching Skulduggery more than the area around them, having already done the song and dance of checking out the visual differences of the year. There was a lot more to it than all of that and that was where Cain's interest currently laid itself. "Found some names, some people willing to talk, not much else aside from that. It's slow-going considering we've pretty much lost all of our ground in the last year."

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[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

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