EVENT | LANDFALL | EVIDET

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: January 28th to February 11th
Location: Evidet
Situation: Tu Vishan has washed up near the coastal city of Khatronma.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.



The suddenness of the looming cliffs takes even the kedan by surprise, in spite of a number of them trying to plot their course with as much knowledge of the ocean’s currents as they already had. Tu Vishan makes landfall without any of the grace shown in previous times, bumping into the cliffs before finally coming to rest on the reef and rocks at the low tide around Khatronma.

Most of Khatronma's shores consist of steep iced cliffs, and once it becomes clear there is no threat, the residents of Khatronma oblige by establishing scaffolding across from the walls of their city to the turtle’s back. A customs area is quickly set apart, and the residents of Keeliai welcomed -- with some slight confusion. The Khatronmans are just as surprised by the unexpected docking as the kedan.

---

LINKS
Khatronma's Landmarks | Launch Day! | The Emissaries | Item Retrieval | Special Location (initially closed) | OOC Post

OOC
Please direct questions to the OOC post!

Comments

KHATRONMA’S LANDMARKS

[ironwood]

There are a few locations of note within Khatronma itself. Much of Khatronma is built either on the cliffs or into the cliff-face -- particularly the shipyards, which are all located at the bottom of the cliffs near the short strip of the shore, where the ships can be hauled into the air through a system of pulleys in order to build or repair their hulls (or in the event of the infrequent but destructive storms). The city’s harbour is a broad inlet leading up to the cliff’s height, and is where those few ships at berth are located.

Khatronma is grid-like, squares within squares, and surprisingly easy to navigate. Although the shipyards are the city’s heart and industry, its urban centre is its market square in the middle of the city, which cultivates trade between the complexes passing as suburbs. Most inter-city exchanges, including those for snow equipment, occur here. The building complexes are built in relation to the main square, though each has its own smaller square for community play, parties, gifts and other such events. The main difference between the market and the smaller squares is that currency is accepted in the former, but barter is more common in the latter.

Foreigners and kedan alike won’t lack for places to stay. Although it’s customary to offer the hosts a gift before entering their living-area, most Khatronmans are perfectly willing to extend invitations. Since Khatronma isn’t one of the main trading strays in the republic, the opportunity for some unique wares and gifts has made the residents of Keeliai something in demand, and Foreigners shouldn’t be surprised by being offered a room for a night (though, again, gifts to the hosts are customary!). Fortunately, Khatronmans won’t be insulted on being declined.

Just outside the city’s dome, circling almost the entirety of the city save where the land turns to cliff or shore, are sled and ski-tracks among the hills. They aren’t permanent; every night the new snowfall refreshes the tracks, and new ones are made wherever the dunes fall. There is nowhere to hire skis or sleds, but there is a thriving exchange for second-hand and third-hand equipment, and it’s not uncommon to barter for equipment for a few days before turning it back into the exchange.

Around the edges of the dome, where the city’s square-shape doesn’t fit into the circular dome, are the scrapyards. The scrapyards are exactly what they sound like: anything unwanted or unused, particularly by the shipyards, are left here. That doesn’t mean it’s trash -- it’s a lucrative practice to go scrap-hunting. Unbroken objects are rare, because re-gifting unwanted gifts is the usual practice within the city, but sometimes broken toys or equipment are relegated to the scrapyards to save time finding someone to hire for repairs. Scrap-sorters are also commonplace, as they find and sort specific grades of used metal for various industries, and dig out slag to for use in construction.

The actual trash-heaps are elsewhere, outside the city’s dome.

[unetrustworthy]

She went straight for the scrapheaps.

The moment Midii heard about them. She had a small allowance, yes, enough that she could have even indulged. Spoiled herself a little. It had been...how long since she could do that? A year? Longer?

But there would be time for that later. Anything she could get for free first, she would consider buying later.

"...this would be a lot easier if I had learned mechanics too," she muttered absently, shifting through pieces of what looked like some sort of radio or ship navigation system.

[wintershepherd]

"Wouldn't everything get boring pretty quickly if you knew it all already?" Jack quipped cheekily, perched on his staff. Having seen Midii, and not having had the opportunity to talk to her lately, he'd dropped down on a gentle nip of wind.

[unetrustworthy]

She jumped, not expecting any voice to suddenly appear out of nowhere. Let alone his voice.

"...Jack?"

A year. Maybe longer. That was how long it had been since they'd last spoken, if one took into account the Dream world. A lot could happen in a year, particular when one went from a young thirteen year old to fourteen. For one, she had grown. At least two inches. her hair was longer, darkened slightly into a more golden hue. Though his skin was just as fair and her eyes as sharp as ever.

Her mouth, on the other hand, was currently slack-jawed. Clearly, he had caught her off-guard.

"You're...still here."

The most surprising thing of all. Most everybody else she had known were gone.

[wintershepherd]

Jack's expression falls slightly at Midii's obvious shock, like he's guilty for causing it even though he doesn't know why. He hasn't had the chance to speak with Midii directly since they returned to Keeliai (and that's his fault, he'll admit) but he has made a couple network posts since then. Erroneously assuming that all the Foreigners had seen them.

"Yeah," he replied, softer this time. "Surprise?"

[backwordscompatible]

"Hey, I realize we might seem like we need a lot of things..."

She had to bite back a small laugh, glancing down at the object the merchant was attempting to sell her on. By all accounts, it looked to be in pristine condition. Well maintained. The metal pieces were even shiny.

There was just one small problem with it.

"...but, trust me, one thing we have absolutely no use for is a snowblower."

shipyards | ota

[wintershepherd]

"That... is a seriously big ship," Jack said, craning his neck upward to look at the massive Bronzeglider, due to be launched in a few days. While it didn't compare to some of the modern ships like super freighters or ocean liners, its detail was far more impressive.

"Is anyone else getting Mississippi River deja vu, though?"

[theideaguy]

Said ship was certainly bigger than most of the ships Sokka had ever seen. It was certainly an impressive beast, but well, Sokka was familiar with ships that were at least near her equal.

"I don't know what sort of stuff you saw on your river," Sokka says after he hears the Spirit of Winter's moment of awe, "but you're certainly right. That is a big ship. What in the world do they even need a ship that large for?"

[wintershepherd]

"It can't be something landlocked," Jack says slowly, thinking out loud. "I mean, the temperatures here, even if there were lakes and rivers, they're probably frozen solid. This place is practically the Arctic on Konryu. So... ocean-going?"

[theideaguy]

Sokka just listens to Jack and continues to stare at the boat with some grand amount of awe. "It'd have to be, yeah; otherwise, it wouldn't make sense for them. Besides, I don't know how much more there is to civilisation on this continent." Granted, the Water Tribe did well for themselves at the Poles of his world, but he knows just how hard a life that is... and they had magic!

"It's way too large to be a fishing vessel; there's just way too much boat for something like that," he continues. "Could be military, of course, but I don't imagine too many people would want to conquer a place like this. So... trading vessel?"

marketplace | ota

[denyamenti]

Any world, any time, any universe... still nothing beats a busy market to pick up the pulse of a place. Bakura has already move through the crowd a few times, lifting coin here and there (not juulan, but triangular shaped coins embossed with the silhouette of various ships; where the different ships represent different denominations) without attracting undue attention. It's not that he hasn't been noticed -- he's at least a foot shorter, and considerably less fuzzy -- than any of the natives walking around, but they aren't paying him enough attention that his proclivities are curbed.

At the moment he's standing just off to the side of the street, sorting the coinage into pockets by their value. He isn't sure if he feels like buying anything, but the pickpocketing has been a pleasant distraction.

hope this is all right to start with?

[inkulcation]

For all that China's tack in the marketplace is markedly different -- oh, no, I couldn't possibly accept such generosity -- she does know a thief when she sees one. She can respect the skill necessary in this environment, even, so long as she's not the one being stolen from, and to his credit if she had not already been watching the standout Foreigner, she might have missed his activities entirely. Fortunately, in this case, they do seem to have had one similar idea: that it is much tidier to steal or otherwise, ah, charm people you are unlikely to see within the next year or more.

Mostly, apart from keeping idle track of his location, China ignores the white-haired Foreigner till she's done with her business. When she actually has concluded with her initial purpose, the fabric she wanted folded neatly and tucked into the crook of one arm, she takes another glance around to see where he wound up, and, on something like a whim, stops not by the same side of the street but across it from him. She finds a wall to lean against, and watches him, pale eyes intent on his motions even despite passersby in between.

China isn't making an effort to hide it; rather, she's waiting to see how long it takes for him to notice her attention, if he does at all. With any luck she can get him to come to her, instead of the reverse.

definitely!

[denyamenti]

Bakura finished counting the stolen coins and tucked them away in various pockets, where they would be harder to discern if for any reason he was searched. During that time, he gave no indication that he was aware he was being watched, except when he did finally look up, his gaze locked onto China's without hesitation, without need to sweep them over the crowd to find her. There's suspicion in the gaze; he doesn't like to be watched, but at the same time, she didn't draw attention to him to the market crowd, so that's something.

It doesn't take but a moment for the suspicion to visibly abate however, even if some part of him thinks, that's... strange?

And as she wished, he did maneuver through the press of the natives toward her.

[inkulcation]

China smiled as he drew near, pleased with the result, and straightened. "I don't believe we've met," she said, light, completely passing over the matter of thievery for the moment. He was impressively subtle, especially for someone who'd stand out so much even among other humans. No need to draw attention to it right now; he knew she'd been watching him. "My name is China Sorrows. And you are...?" It was less of a question than an unfinished sentence, with no consideration that he wouldn't fill in the blank.

scrapyards; open

[inkulcation]

China is markedly out of place in the scrapyards, even with her hair up and her outfit simple clean-cut pants and shirt, slim concession to practicality over elegance. Nevertheless there she is, intent, picking her way through scrap like it's the most interesting thing in the world. What interests her mainly are the smaller pieces of scrap, broken bits of delicately machined metal or half-cracked lenses, and she already has a few sharp-edged pieces cupped in one hand for later examination.

Of note is that she's for the most part avoiding the scrap-sorters, preferring to look at the unsorted piles herself, and that she seems not at all bothered by the relatively cooler weather, despite not wearing anything like a coat.

---

[if this is the first time you've met China, you may wish to eyeball this; she does a passive magical Thing.]

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony is also rummaging around in the unsorted piles. He'd already scoped out the scrapyards earlier, and now he's back, in the armor, to gather up some stuff that had been too heavy to carry the first time around.

At the moment, he's got his sights set on a large piece of fairly high-quality steel sticking out of one of the bigger piles. It's wedged in there pretty deep, but it ought to just slide out without causing too much disturbance... He gives it a tug. Still stuck. He pulls harder. The scrap pile shifts, and as he pulls the metal free, it starts a minor avalanche of miscellaneous detritus. Oops.

Tony turns on his boot jets and launches a couple meters into the air, checking that there was no one in the immediate area who he just dumped a pile of scrap on. Oh, shit— there's a woman standing right there on the other side of the pile he just toppled. Er. At least it doesn't look like anything hit her?

"Sorry!" Tony calls. He lands in front of her and retracts the faceplate. "Sorry about that, I, uh, I didn't realize there was anyone over here."

Now that he's getting a good look at her, he can see that she's... well, gorgeous, for one. Also, not anybody he recognizes. She doesn't look like the locals, so, one of the new foreigners, maybe? Crap. Now he really feels bad. What a way to greet a newcomer.

"Are you okay? I didn't drop anything on you, did I?" She looks fine, but he's anxious anyway. What if she's hurt? What if she's mad at him? He really doesn't want her to be mad at him.

[inkulcation]

Some of the debris Tony had dislodged would have hit China, but the sound of shifting metal is warning enough, and she snaps her forearms together, producing a force field as the tattoos there line up. What would have hit her instead falls to the ground, and by the time the armored boy comes around to her she's lowering her arms again.

She does look a little bit irritated, despite the fact that she's visibly fine. "You did," she informs him, a little pointedly. "If you were trying to make even more of a mess of this place, you've succeeded."

But the irritation's fading fast in lieu of studying his armor. She hasn't seen anything like that before, and she's not wholly disguising her interest. "I will assume, however, that you did not pick a fight with the scrap heap for no reason," China allows, less grudging than she might otherwise.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony looks stricken. "Shit, I am so sorry. I had no idea— god, that was stupid. Are you okay?" he asks again. He can't bear the thought of having hurt her, even accidentally.

"I'm sorry, I, uh, I saw that... piece of metal last time I was here," he fumbles, and gestures to the scrap in question, "and I... wanted it. It's... nice?"

Wow. Good job, Tony. Really smooth.

Because I'm a glutton for punishment

[theideaguy]

Sokka is out in the scrapyards too, looking for good deals. It's amazing how much cheaper stuff on the land is, even though most of this, admittedly is slightly broken. But hey, Sokka will need some projects to keep himself sane, and there's plenty of stuff here that he could probably engineer back to working order given enough time.

But Sokka is a rather choosy shopper. He's extremely careful and tight with his coinpurse, so he's often really really unable to make up his mind. And so it just so happens that he's looking at a telescope at the moment. He's looking through it, and everything is completely blurry. But Sokka's trying to determine exactly how blurry the image is, how easy it would be to fix, and if it's worth the cost of actually buying it. After all, it could come in handy... maybe.

It just so happens that as he's turning around, he happens to point the thing directly at China's face. And the objects in Sokka's eyes are MUCH closer than they actually are, which means that he can't even see her entire face! He practically jumps back a bit before looking at China with the biggest and stupidest grin ever.

"Hi!"

[inkulcation]

If China could be trying any less hard, she would be. She knows that sort of grin. That's enthusiasm, raw and unfiltered, and it's all directed right at her.

Lovely.

She closes her fingers loosely over the small bits she's so far collected and turns her gaze on Sokka, decidedly cool. Another Foreigner she doesn't know yet. She does know it's valuable to get to know every member of this tiny, enforced community, but really, she was in the middle of something, and not feeling particularly charitable. "Do you need something?" China asks, brows raised, and gives the telescope a brief, faintly dubious glance.

[theideaguy]

Well, in truth, Sokka's got all the willpower and mental resistance of a dog trying ever so hard to not eat that biscuit right in front of its nose. Sorry, China. Unfortunately, right now, your best isn't good enough for a first meet-up here.

"I... uh, no... not really," Sokka says with a quite dumbfounded and confused expression. There's a subconscious undercurrent that's asking what in the world is even going on, but the rolling of something just keeps him from really listening to that voice. "I mean, I was just... uhm, shopping? In the scrapyard. Looking for... interesting things. To buy. Like... this, er, telescope! It's a little blurry, and I was trying to figure out if was the lenses that were wrong, or the alignment was incorrect or what." As Sokka's focus goes back to the telescope, his speech seems to become more fluid, and whatever effects that China was having diminish, but only so long as that distraction is present. He looks through it one more time. "How about you?"

Starting in Keeliai, then hopping around Khatronma; closed to Solomon

[skeletonenigma]

There were three things Skulduggery noticed right away about Khatronma. First, it bore no resemblance to any city from Earth, which struck him as mildly inconsiderate. Second, the natives were not only welcoming to Asti and the kedan, they were almost relieved, which meant news about Malicant's demise had spread throughout the technologically limited world of Konryu in the space of a year. Third, Solomon Wreath didn't make so much as a single visit to the mainland within the first two days.

Technically, the third part wasn't an observation about Khatronma itself, but Skulduggery wasn't going to split hairs.

That was why, on the morning of the third day after docking, Skulduggery went and knocked on Solomon's door in the Hotel.

[peacefullywreathed]

As it happened, Solomon was coming downstairs from his and Raine's room with an empty mug. His old room was near enough to the intersection that he saw Skulduggery there, and saw Skulduggery knock, and managed not to laugh out loud. Even the great skeleton detective had to miss some things.

"Someone you're looking for, Skulduggery?" Solomon asked innocently as he stopped in the middle of the intersection instead of going toward the stairs nearer the kitchen. They were in the wrong direction.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery turned, surprised that the disturbance in the air currents coming down the stairs was Solomon. Coming down the stairs, so he wasn't returning home, unless he'd somehow learned to fly in the last month. Coming from... Raine's.

Had the pair actually moved in together yet, or were they still making nightly visits to each other's bedrooms?

"You, as a matter of fact." Skulduggery moved away from the door to follow Solomon down to the kitchen, where he was presumably headed with the empty mug. "You haven't been to Khatronma yet. Would you like to?"

[peacefullywreathed]

Since Skulduggery was joining him, Solomon turned to continue his original path. "I haven't slept in that room for nearly two weeks," he pointed out. "Could it be that the great Skeleton Detective is slipping, even just a tad?"

The fact that Skulduggery had missed that seemed especially incongruous given he'd been tracking Solomon's movements enough to know he hadn't left Keeliai. "Are you stalking me?" he asked, torn between feeling coddled, exasperated and strangely reassured. "How would you know where I've been lately, otherwise?"