[EVENT|4TH WALL] THE NEWCOMERS’ ARRIVAL | APRIL 15-22

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL and plus ones.
Date: April 15-22 2015 (2016 in-game)
Location: Farmlands outside the city walls, but this log can also be used for locations within the city.
Situation: Spring planting - fourth wall event, week one!
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

The days for the festival dawn sunny if a bit chilly, but the air is clear and the soggy ground has dried enough that there isn’t too much mud in the lanes between fields and homesteads. The broad dirt path to the Woodsmen’s land leads past the tram-line construction, lined with waving ribbons on sticks along the sides. The Woodsmen’s territory circles the city, separated from the city’s walls by five hundred yards of neutral land.

The festival’s central area is Liangken’s Clearing, and this is where the festival will begin and end each day. Liangken is an ancient tree, among the oldest on the turtle’s back. Though it doesn’t flower or bear much in the way of leaves anymore, the kedan have cultivated it carefully and now it’s an excellent representation for the revitalisation of old wisdom.



The lanes between the fields and homesteads will house the stalls, contests and walking areas. The Woodsmen will be keeping an eye on these to prevent anyone from walking off the marked paths. The homesteads provide ‘hotspots’ in among the lanes and fields, with Woodsmen families lending their yards to the comfort and entertainment of their guests.

In general, the Woodsmen are a taciturn, soft-spoken lot who nevertheless take great pride in their work. Their lands are all but sacred -- they accept no attitude, no trespassing, no attempts to thwart their authority. This causes some noticeable tension with the Snakes, who are accustomed to being the sole enforcers within the city; but though there may be some ill tempers and raised voices, at no point will anyone come to blows. It’s hard to argue with someone built like a brick wall and carrying sharp farm implements.

The Woodsmen are a touch anxious about having strangers on their land and this shows in them being overly officious or bossy, but at the same time their pride shows clearly and they are eager to show off the state of their lands, their greenhouses, and their farming processes -- practically without being asked. The residents of Keeliai tend to think of the Woodsmen as ‘cowards’, and the Woodsmen are taking this opportunity to prove themselves otherwise with feats of strength and tall tales.

Due to the farmers’ hours of “early to bed and early to rise”, the festival ends in the early evening at sundown, but begins again before dawn -- usually by greeting the sun with a song.

---

LINKS
Heojin, Ran and Lin | Liangken’s Clearing | Stalls and Lanes | OOC Information post | 4th Wall Character Check In

OOC
While Heojin and his bodyguards are open to everyone (including fourth-wall characters!), they are not available for small talk and general directionless CR. For the integrity of the mod’s inbox, please only request a thread with him if you already have an idea of what you’d like your character to ask/do. Other NPCs can be requested by sending a PM to the appropriate journals directly, with the same guidelines.

The top-level comments are for the festival, but fourth-wall characters should feel free to use the rest of the post for anything within the city of Keeliai itself! Just remember to label the top-level comment for location and date.

Comments

STALLS AND LANES

[ironwood]

The lanes between the fields stretch from homestead to homestead in a great web. Ordinarily used so the Woodsmen can haul produce and equipment between farms, now they are lined in ribbons, with four different colours marking out the different bearings and a fifth colour representing a lane leading back into the city of Keeliai. Many lanes spread out into a kind of clearing to overlook the fields running along side, and all eventually come out at a homestead.

Though the houses themselves are barred from trespassers, the Woodsmen will delight in showing off their outbuildings and processes -- accompanied, of course. This is an opportunity to prove how important their work is, and they’re not going to let it pass by. They will answer any and all questions about farming, soil, crops, even give tips on homemade recipes. The greenhouses are a particular point of pride for the Woodsmen, though only a handful of them will be open for supervised tours. These are the crops which saw the Woodsmen through the winter, and many have small square flower beds flanking the entrance to accompany the crops inside.

The food stalls will lean toward rice dishes, candied and fresh fruits, popcorn, freshly made bread, smoothies -- the sorts of things the Woodsmen will have made themselves in their own houses with their own produce. Other stalls sell subpar crops for very cheap prices, seedlings, even houseplants. There are also, of course, the requisite farmers’ contests, which usually take place near the homesteads, where there is the most space; these take the form of anything from ‘best produce’ type competitions to ‘fastest performance of duty’ races.

It's customary for greetings and exchanges to include some wishing of luck -- it's meant to be a lucky event, after all!

One of the most popular items for sale are small potted plants that look surprisingly like pussy-willows, except that their stems are an iridescent purple colour and the puffs are pale blue that emit a faint glow in the dark, much like the bioluminescent glow from the turtle’s shell once did. The kedan will call them what loosely translates to ‘Sea Wisps’, as they're harvested in small clusters at the shell's shoreline in the spring, in accordance with a legend that good luck spirits are said to be attracted to the glow. Due to their rarity, they must be purchased (as opposed to being given away) for 5 juulan each, or the equivalent of about $25, making them the most expensive souvenir of the festival.

Someone please save the kedan

[tntina]

A wish of luck will be sorely needed for one hapless kedan, who's suddenly found his little stall of sweets and popcorn besieged by a thirteen year old girl toting a bundle of dynamite on her hip.

"Hey. Hey. Hey hey hey hey hey." Tina is practically halfway over the counter, leaning forward and standing on the tippiest of toes. "Heeeeeeey. What's goin' on? Is this a party? I looooove parties, but I dunno how I got here, and I gots places to be, girl, yaknowwhatimean?"

She's got a wild look on her face, but that's normal. Tiny Tina always looks off-kilter. It's part of her charm, a carefully cultivated charm of Pandora's leading expert on blowing up everything and looking cute as a button while doing so.

"Is that candy? Candy is one of the most important food groups, right behind chocolate chip cookies in creatin' supreme BADASSES. I want one!" The stallkeeper is starting to look rather hassled; the girl is quite clearly off her rocker and he's not appreciating how her presence is causing other potential customers to give the booth a wide berth. Not to mention she's doing a fantastic job of distracting him from keeping a close watch on the next batch of popcorn.

Tina leans even further forward. "What's up with those tiny tree things? They're all glowy and shizz." She hasn't given him a chance to answer even one of her questions, and doesn't seem to be inclined to do so any time soon.

[donotforgetmyname]

"Does there seem to be a problem here?"

Javert had no clue where he was, or what these people were. Everything was a mystery, and he found himself lost. Whenever Javert was lost, he always found that it was best to narrow your focus. Cut out the extraneous. Drown the competing voices out, the niggling thoughts, and concentrate on the more important thing that can exist: the law.

Javert had a nose for disruption. He could smell discord on the wind like a shark could smell blood on the water. He appeared next to the stall, chest puffed out like a proper man of the law, hand on the hilt of his saber.

[mercuryadept]

Mia is horribly, horribly confused. Apparently she accidentally wandered into a festival of some sort. That part wasn't quite so strange. Really it wasn't. That she was suddenly in the middle of a great field surrounded by farmlands was a little more strange. She had been in a village the night before, and suddenly she was out in the country? Granted, there was country all surrounding the village, but she hadn't been quite there.

What was strange is that all of the people were unlike anything she'd seen before: shapeshifters, people with exotic clothing and appearance. And the food they were selling wasn't quite identical to that of her home, even if there were vague parallels. But even more strangely is that her money... wasn't quite good enough. There was that word of "Foreigner" dallied about, which wasn't entirely untrue since this clearly wasn't Imil, though she hardly remembered any of the places she'd visited being quite so uncooperative as these.

"Sorry, I can't buy anything," she says apologetically. This despite that she has a rather rumbling stomach, much to her embarrassment. "I'm afraid I don't have any of your coin..."

[wintershepherd]

Jack just happened to overhear that bit, and combined with the young lady's sheepish expression and evident hunger, Jack stepped up next to her and nodded at the kedan manning the stall.

"Pick whatever you want," he said to Mia with a friendly grin. "Can't have the new arrivals going hungry."

[inexplicablygerman]

Well, he most certainly hadn't been expecting this. Or, well, anything at all. But, the merchant in him won't sit still, and so while Yeager walks, he pins a hard looking case to his side, and sets to fixing his shirt - retying the cravat so that no spots of red are visible, and pinning it in place.

These stalls hold only most of his attention - he is very aware of those wandering past him, but that was what one does when you should be dead.

[problematical]

Yeager will abruptly find a young woman standing in his path, looking up at him thoughtfully. "Did you know that someone broke you?" she asked, in the most absurdly conversational tone, given the words.

A pause, and then, "I noticed. But just in case you didn't."

i swear you are worse than my ex (and you can't even record my journals)

[arewefriends]

There seems to be some trouble on one of the farmsteads. Some woman pistol-whipped a woodsman in the face then fled into a storage shed, which she has barricaded and is now yelling at people to get back, shooting at them if they get close. Well, that's if you believe what all those other people are saying, and not listening to the real story, which is that the man made a face at Patricia Tannis, a face with intentions of a malicious intent, probably? He had a boorish, flat face and really anyone with a face like that can't have any kind of redeeming characteristics and a pistol butt to the face was probably doing whatever world this was a favor.

There were too many people around. Too many people. People everywhere. And colors. And smells. And joy. Oh god the joy, it made her sick to her stomach. Why couldn't all of these strange imaginary people express their enjoyment by deeply repressing every outward expression until the veins in their brains swelled up and burst like normal people? But no, they just have to be everywhere, walking, talking, breathing. She had had to get away.

The storage room had been perfect for this purpose. It was cramped and smelled of dirt and nature (some of Tannis' least favorite things, right before people, and also being alone), but it put a significant barrier between her and the outside world. If only all these brutes would just leave? She'd fired a few warning shots (at least that's what she'd decided after she missed) but they were still shouting at her.

"No, this place is mine now!" she yelled at Greg. Greg was from the looks of it a grain thresher of some sort. Crank powered? Who knows, who cared. More importantly he was so annoying. He kept insisting that she open up the door and meet people. Maybe some of them were nice? They might know where she was, or how she got here?

"Be quiet, or I'm exiling you from the storage shed!" Who knows what horrors these barbarians would unleash upon a defenseless farming implement without her ingenuity and genius to protect him. That would shut him up for awhile.

There was more movement outside!

"I said get back!" she said, firing off a few more 'warning shots' at the silhouette moving between the cracks of the shed.

[gistful]

For an event that was so very large and with so many different factions present, it was remarkably well enforced. Everyone seemed to be aware of who the authorities were, even the Snakes who begrudged ordinary Woodsmen the right to exercise authority on their own land. It was ... calming.

Anton didn't get much time off, so he was making the best of it, and it was soothing to be able to do so in a locale that he could trust was well in hand.

Until he heard the gunshots. And the shouts.

It wasn't so much a decision as a habit, an ingrained sort of duty, that made him join the crowd around the shed. There was a small huddle around a Woodsman bleeding from the face, and the crowd in general seemed reticent to approach the building. Which was, apparently, cursing.

One of the kedan spotted him and thumbed back at the shed. "It's one of yours--Mr Shudder."

Ah. Repressing a sigh, Anton stepped forward and the kedan stepped back. His shadow stretched forward and someone shrieked from inside, and Anton instinctively ducked at the sound of gunshots zinging overhead. The kedan backed up a bit more.

"I beg your pardon," he said to the person in the shed, falling into parade rest, his hands behind his back. "My name is Anton Shudder. How may I help you?"

[dreamfandom]

Okay, this was definitely one of the stranger things that Pascal had experienced. Granted, as an Amarcian, she'd grown up with a lot of what most Elympians would consider pretty crazy, but this was a whole new level.

She remembered falling asleep at an inn in Strahta, but she'd woken up under a tree near some farmland. Considering that Strahta was about 90% desert, that was already pretty weird, but apparently there was a festival here, too! Not one to dawdle, Pascal will immediately set about exploring the various stalls and lanes, with a look of childlike curiosity on her face.

What really catches her eye, though, are the people. They look to be a kind of shapeshifters, coming in various shapes and sizes. They seem to be saying something about a foreigner as she passes by, but she's too enthralled taking in the new scenery to pay it any mind.

Of course, the people can only hold her attention for so long, and eventually a stand selling candied bananas catches her eye. She rushes up, only to realize that she doesn't have whatever currency this place uses on her. Whatever, still worth a shot.

"Hey, ya wouldn't happen to take glad, would ya?"

When met with the expected 'no', her expression drops noticeably. Someone help a poor girl out?

For Jack!

[nothim]

So, trees. That was new.

Farmland. That was really new.

Tim sat uselessly on the grass for a lot longer than was probably safe, staring at the greenery like he'd never seen anything growing before - and honestly, he probably hadn't. Greenery was hard to come by on the borderlands planets. Guns weren't. Guns were practically a staple, a stated requirement for any sort of contract work, easy to use and easy to find. If they made guns which could double as food, scavs would be blowing themselves up all over the place.

- Crap. He didn't have his gun. He didn't have any of his guns. Didn't look like it was going to be an issue, though. No one brandished weapons at each other. No one wore oz kits. No one hopped in grand arcs across the landscape like overworked and overexcited rabbits.

"Uh, guys?" Tim got slowly to his feet, looking around properly for the first time. "Jack? What just happened?"

Kevin Levin / Open

[buffing]

Usually when Kevin woke up in a completely different place, there was someone around ready to rough him up for some money he owed. That wasn't the case here, though; He'd woken up in some Asian-esque countryside that looked like it was stuck on the wrong side of the twentieth century.

So clearly someone dropped him off here to watch him squirm.

Kevin wasn't about to provide that satisfaction, though. Instead he strolled from stall to stall, keeping his expression neutral -- or "angry", which was more or less his neutral state. As usual he generally tried to keep to himself, but would occasionally ask questions that left the Kedan disgruntled at best.

"So, hey, goin' out on a limb here, but don't suppose you got anything for sale more advanced than an egg beater, do you? Any tech? Something I can trade for a ticket off this rock?"

Dr. Thomas Light / Open

[makesright]

Fascinating.

Thomas was generally the sort of person who chose to see the positives in any given situation, and today was no different. He gazed around in wonder, taking in the breathtaking countryside, quietly analyzing the intricate layout of the farmland, curiously gazing at that city in the distance. Fascinating was the word he chose to focus on here, because otherwise he might have been panicking, and what use would that be to anyone?

He was certain once the novelty and curiosity of it all ebbed away Light would find himself frustrated and upset and the laughably outdated technology available here. Until then, however, a man like him who'd spent the better part of his years surrounded by steel and concrete found the sights absolutely breathtaking. He made his way toward the city -- surely they'd have something he could use to contact his children, or at least find out what was going on -- but took the time to pause and get a better look at the culture and the festival around him. Perhaps someone around here could at least help him figure out just how he'd gotten here.

[sweetpumpkinspice]

A beautiful petite ginger stood with her hands clasp in front of her. She was dressed in a black dress of a puritan age. Her blue eyes were filled with wonder as she watched the little potted plants that glow. She seemed endlessly amused by them. She didn't really understand what was going on around her, but this was much more lively than being back home in the Hollow.

She knew she should go, but she was just so entranced by the little plant.

[exsituangelus]

Another among the sudden influx of newcomers: a young woman with blue tattoos that ran in arcs up her left arm and over her heart, and a pallor that suggested she maybe hadn't seen actual sunlight in at least a decade. There was, incongruously for someone suddenly in a strange land, a bounce in her step and an actual smile on her face as she moved from stall to stall, asking questions of a fair number of the people she ran into but always polite. ("Where is this place? What kind of plant is that? Really, no satellites at all? You've never heard of someone called Handsome Jack?")

Honestly, Angel had been expecting to be dead. This world, wherever it was, appeared so far to be lacking not only in bandits but also in overtly hostile wildlife, heroically psychotic dictators, and eridium. In light of that, Angel couldn't bring herself to care very much about the absence of her powers or her general lack of knowledge of the situation.

So she wandered. At one point she stopped -- not quite in the middle of traffic -- to simply look up, for solid minutes. Skies really gained something when seen in person. More than once she changed direction a little too rapidly, nearly ran into someone, and made a hasty apology. She wasn't quite used to being around so many people.

OTA | 15th only

[slantinglight]

Among the Organization's first lessons was the importance of going unnoticed when doing recon missions. Roxas knows this isn't a recon mission; it isn't a mission at all. The Organization didn't send him to this world. He just... woke up here. But it's because he doesn't know anything that he needs to do recon.

The trouble is... It's awfully hard to go unnoticed in a party. Especially one where people are constantly trying to get his attention, for... for games, from what Roxas could tell, or to sell stuff to him. Roxas pretty quickly gives up hope on trying to do recon in the middle of all this. Instead, he becomes desperate to find an unoccupied corner... somewhere so he can open a corridor of darkness.

Except... in this area, there don't seem to be a whole lot of "unoccupied corners." Maybe he'll have more luck around the back of this house over here.

But there's another problem with crowds that Roxas isn't entirely used to dealing with: personal space. There are people everywhere he turns, and if he isn't careful, he's going to inevitably run into someone, or someone's going to run into him. And with how many distractions there are, sights and sounds and smells...

Yeah, Roxas isn't being too careful. Something happens, he's not entirely sure what. Either he trips over someone's foot, or someone bumps into him, or he backs into someone, but the end result is the same: he's sent stumbling, and he knocks solidly into a barrel. Fruit goes tumbling into the dirt.

"Waugh -- " Roxas catches his balance. So much for keeping a low profile, he tells himself bitterly. He's managed to go and make a scene instead. There are people in the crowd nearby looking at him, and the person running this food stall (who is green, and has three eyes) is tutting angrily at him. "Uhh... Sorry. I..." Roxas turns his head to look behind him. Who did he run into? Are they still there? "I'll clean it up..."

Billy Costigan | OPEN

[lostundercover]

Costigan had been wandering since shortly after his arrival. It didn't take long to realize a great deal of time had passed - things were different now. His place was no longer his own and the consoles didn't seem to recognize him. He was equally convinced this was a dream as he was a ghost of some kind, the hundreds of memories flooding back to him the more time he spent here. He began to wonder about the people he'd left behind, then began to wonder if it was worth trying to contact them or whether it might be better to stay hidden and hopefully leave as quietly as he'd come.

The festival drew his attention after trying, in vain, to reorient himself. He wandered through the various lanes for some time before eventually ending up at a competition for largest plant. The thing looked not unlike a pumpkin, but a different color and oddly shaped. It was a way to kill time while he considered how to get some money for some food. This wasn't like last time, he knew that much, but money still talked.


[ooc: Feel free to run into him in the lanes, at the competition, or trying to find money via cards or offering to do a task of some kind.]

Howard Stark | Iron Man: Armored Adventures | NOBODY TELL HIM ABOUT GENE I'M SUPER SERIAL

[clarkesthirdlaw]

There's a slightly...lost expression on the man's face as he makes his way through the festival, and it's odd in that it's clear this man isn't used to feeling all at sea. He's not quite walking briskly through the crowd, but he is moving with purpose, trying to figure out where he is and what's happened and if this is all in fact just some crazy dream brought on by the stress of the cleanup effort.

Watch out, everyone, Howard Stark has come to the turtle.

OTA YO

[bigdamnhiro]

Hiro's somehow acquired himself a contingent of cooing little girls and he doesn't know what he did to deserve this.

There's four or five of them, all Kedan, all even smaller and probably younger than him, tailing him while he strolls up and down the lanes peeking into the stalls to see what's going on. It'd been mostly innocuous at first. A couple of them challenged him to a shapeshifting game and then realized he couldn't shapeshift. And then they'd gathered, and multiplied, like giggling little amoebas, bringing gifts; little candied fruits, a carved wooden figurine, an entire garland of flowers, oh god what's happening, plopped without warning on the top of his head (he wants to get rid of it. has to get rid of it at the first opportunity. he's gonna hang it on the dumb tree and run like hell). They're all wearing flower garlands and now, for whatever reason, he's wearing one too. Hiro excuses himself. For some reason, they follow him.

He ignores them at first, but they're really starting to give him the creeps, hanging back at a distance and giggling at him. He's not really strolling, anymore. More like stalking irritably, looking for an opening where he can duck out through a gap between one of the stands and disappear.

Vincent Moore | CHAPPiE

[sadisticmoose]

"I'm dreaming."

These are the first words out of Vincent's mouth as he stares, slack-jawed, down one of the lanes. While, yes, that might be true, it doesn't make it any less real.

It still doesn't stop Vincent from squeezing his eyes shut and slapping himself across the face. He didn't need this, he had stuff to do. Important only to himself, but that just made it all the more urgent he gets back.

Anyone looking at him will see a tall man in cargo shorts and a polo shirt, combat boots, with a nice case of mullet, trying to will himself awake. Around his neck is an ID Badge on a "Tetravaal" lanyard. Eventually, he opens his eyes, blinking, frowning deeper. On his right hip is a, seemingly out-of-place, holster containing a side-arm. And, yes, it's loaded.

"Alright... Not a dream." He remarks in a thick, Australian accent.

Re: STALLS AND LANES

[bluejade]

Jade has visited a grand total of five groundling settlements in her life. In all cases, with her consort. Moon had grown up in groundling settlements and knew how to trade with them, so Jade let him handle turning whatever trade goods (or, if necessary, their jewelry) into food and shelter and other things. Because Moon knew what trades would be insulting and when he could push for more goods.

Now Jade was trying to persuade a kedan stall-owner that one of her rings was good for a meal. The kedan seemed to agree it was worth it (probably many times over), but kept trying to explain that she had no desire to find a place to sell jewelry, and maybe the Foreigner woman should do that first?

Jade was having trouble with this. "I don't see what the problem is."

Re: STALLS AND LANES

[whopraysfor]

Zack walked around in a daze. After all, it had been a very short time since his only experience with non-humans, magic, and general strangeness was comic books and such. Now... well, his last few experiences had been alarming so he's trying to keep calm and escape the crowds.

"Excuse me? Which way to the exit?"

{OOC Note: Yes, Zack is wearing a clerical collar. Also, he is a bit of a media geek with a focus on comic books (more Marvel than DC), so please let me know if you are alright with fourth-walling.]

[whatparenting]

Disoriented and uncharacteristically quiet, Cass is wandering through the stalls of the festival hugging a very fat Japanese bobtail close to her chest, almost as if the cat might perform like some sort of basic life preserver in the event of an emergency--although she's pretty sure this actually does qualify as an emergency, and Mochi's doing a pretty good job of life-preserving already. She's not sure why someone would choose to kidnap both herself and her cat but she's just the tiniest bit glad for it nonetheless. Mochi's presence, while a little alarming (how is she going to take care of him if she can't even take care of herself?) is also soothing enough that she hasn't progressed into full-blown panic just yet.

Give it time. Give it time.

After all, she woke up in a ditch (more or less) outside an unfamiliar city, without her purse or any sort of identification or money. She isn't injured, thank God, but... but what the heck is going on?

And what about Hiro? Is he here? Is he safe? If he's still back in San Fransokyo, who's going to take care of him until she gets back? She can't even find a phone to beg someone to let her make a call from; every time she's asked one of these odd looking people, she's been met with nothing but blank stares or shrugs.

She hugs Mochi tighter, eliciting a grumpy meowl.

"Sorry, buddy."

Around the 20th | Closed to Raine

[skeletonenigma]

After all the events of the past month - and particularly since more and more of the gem-less Foreigners were arriving each day - there came a point where Skulduggery couldn't help wondering if putting all his current investigations on hold for a few hours wasn't the best thing to do. It felt like he was going around in circles, and Larrikin's presence in the Hotel was a further reminder that Keeliai routinely escaped understanding. A break could be just what he needed, and there was always a chance he'd meet someone else he knew from his world.

Raine went with him. They hadn't had the chance to talk about anything unimportant for a while, after all.

"I'm not a scientist," said Skulduggery, peering down at the glowing plant for sale, "but I imagine studying that would help us figure out whether or not Asti is still alive."

... Mostly unimportant.

Backdated to the 15th

[ashyperfume]

". . . Would you like an arm and a leg too?" The voice is a woman's sardonic, cutting through the air.

The voice seems to belong to a woman near one of the stalls, tapping long nails against the counter in an irritated tattoo of restless energy. A woman wearing . . . far too little. She seems to be dressed in a battered bathrobe that barely covers her bottom, a bit of red satin poking just beneath the hemline. Her legs are long, pale, her feet bare and poised in the dust.

"I don't even know the currency here, and I can tell you that's too much." Her voice continues to slice through the air around her. "I'm dumped god knows where into god knows what . . . at this point I'd say the world owes me a cigarette -- and if it doesn't think so, it needs to reconsider its priorities."