tushanshu_logs | EVENT | LANDFALL

Entry tags:

EVENT | LANDFALL | ZESHORA

Characters: ALL!
Date: June 17th to July 8th
Location: Zeshora
Situation: Tu Vishan has washed up near the cities of Atoce and Uessaire.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

The cities of Zeshora were renowned across all of Konryu as works of art, and even with the upheaval which sank and destroyed many of them centuries prior, that distinction remains evident. The Erol'a will recount, if asked, a terrible series of earthquakes and resultant tsunamis that rolled over Zeshora, and how great chunks of the continent simply dropped away. Zeshora was one of the oldest continents, and its landmasses upon the backs of long-dead Great Turtles had been so constant, that no one had even thought it possible such a thing could have happened.

Testament to the Erol'a's resilience however, they adapted and reclaimed the cities that had fallen to, or just below, sea level. Arches, pillars and soaring ceilings dominate the architecture in both cities, and every surface is painstakingly decorated with tiny inlaid shells and coral, turning every hall and room into a mosaic of colour. It's not uncommon for Erol'a dwellings to have multiple stories, and likewise it's not unlikely to have at least a few of those levels under sea level. So it's entirely possible to have one's upstairs be above water, and one's downstairs be below the water! Imagine having to take a swim to get a midnight snack. Of course, the Erol'a don't find that strange at all. Likewise, it's perfectly normal to them to walk down the hallways of their homes in ankle, knee or waist-deep water, something that the Foreigners and even some kedan might take some getting used to. The water temperature during the day is a delightful 80℉/26℃, and about ten degrees cooler throughout the night, so it's pleasant for nearly everyone.

LINKS
Atoce - City of Pearls | Uessaire - City of Lilies | Ollesse - The Coral Ruins | Secessi - The Floating Reefs | Hatchling Messages
Astegune | Landfall Surprise | Landfall Update - Jun 23 | OOC Post

OOC
Please direct questions to the OOC post! You can either use the areas described under header, or create your own -- don't feel you have to be limited to threading only in the locations mentioned in the starters! Just don't forget to label your top-levels with specific locations (eg the Height or the Deep).

ACTIVITY CHECK NOTE: Due to the late-month timing of this landfall, threads from this log can be counted toward either June or July AC. Just don't use the same comment thread for both and you'll be fine!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When she first heard about this whole 'landfall' thing, Pepper was a little nervous. She'd only just gotten to Keeliai, and now there's a whole new place to try to figure out. Of course, no one is forcing her to go out and explore, but her curiosity, as usual, gets the better of her.

She spends most of her time in Atoce, wandering around the Heights. As much as she likes being treated well for being young, the caste system does weird her out a little bit, and she's happy to escort other Foreigners around Zeshora where they might be barred because of their age. They might have to deal with a little teasing, though.

Not everyone has been having an easy time of it. As soon as Solomon heard about the caste system and the fact that this landfall was on a series of islands, he'd lost much desire to even try to navigate anything. Eventually, grudgingly, he'd ventured out, if only due to a matter of restlessness.

No one warned him that it was perfectly legal for youths to bombard adults from walls. Or that it was rude for adults to, in any way, retaliate. Or that no one would stop youths from fixating on Certain People because Certain People couldn't see the projectiles coming.

Which is why Solomon can be found in the Deep, shadow-walking hops of ten feet down the straight, narrow stretches. On the Height a band of children follow him, laughing and cheering and every so often darting in to throw squid entrails at him. Most of them miss. It's hard to hit a moving target.

If only Solomon had figured out how to shadow-walk more than ten feet again. Not having sight had thrown him off more than he thought it had.

Shadows rise up and whisk him away, but he's moving so fast to try and keep abreast of his pursuers that he doesn't realise the turn is only a few feet ahead of him; instead of the shadows depositing him in the Deep they shape themselves out of the side of the city's wall. Solomon puts his foot down on air, curses and drops a few inches before shadows lance out from the wall like a temporary scaffold, and he stands there in the brisk wind on a thin surface of darkness.

... Oh, what the hell.

He keeps walking, the shadows stretching out further and further away from the wall, sliding up under his feet with every step. When the first of the fascinated children tries to step down to follow, the surface fluctuates under their feet and hurriedly they draw back, pouting.

Sooner or later, he's going to come up on the wall belonging to another of the city's 'towers' on the other side. They'll have to find him again, then.

Edited (wording) 2015-07-05 06:06 (UTC)

Pepper has spent most of her time wandering around Atoce just looking at things. They don't have much to speak of in the way of clothing or shoes here, so she's not quite so intent upon another shopping spree. Besides, she doesn't have much to trade to get the currency they use here.

It's been nice to just absorb this place, though. The Erol'a themselves have helped her to come to better terms with the fact that she's living in an alien dimension on a turtle.

Her pleasant thoughts are interrupted by the distant sound of children's laughter, and as she turns toward it, she sees a very unlikely sight.

Someone is walking on air. Or, rather, on shadows. Pepper's brain does her best to digest this information.

...Solomon?

"Hey, over here!" She yells and waves her arms around a bit. Although, if it is Solomon, he won't be able to see her anyway. If it's not Solomon...well she'll burn that bridge when she comes to it.

It was some combination of sharp hearing and a vague sense of familiarity regarding the souls on the wall that made Solomon turn. He still couldn't do anything more than know that someone was there, but there were little nuances which told him who it was.

Usually. At this distance, he couldn't quite tell who had called, except for 'someone he knew, but not well enough to remember offhand'. For a moment he debated going back at all, but then he sighed and the shadows rippled and wheeled around him, crawling along the wall while he stood stationary in the air. Once they'd reached roughly the spot of the person who'd called he strode back along the path as if he wasn't practically on thin air.

He reached the wall and shadow-walked directly onto the Height beside the person who had called. If they had called from the Height, they were probably a Crest; and there were only so many people that could be. Okay, there was only one Crest whom he knew but didn't know well enough to recognise, and who would want to get his attention. He bowed. "You called, Lady Potts?"

His tone might have been just a teeny bit sardonic.

As he got closer, Pepper could see that it was in fact Solomon, which was a minor relief. She wasn't really in the mood for any other scary shadow-walking whoever to have to deal with.

She's also really glad he's blind, because she can heat on her cheeks at his comment. What is it with all the gentility around here? Pepper isn't used to it and it still takes her a little off-guard.

"I thought you might prefer having solid ground underneath your feet," she explains. "Having fun in Erol'a? It's pretty neat here, even with the whole weird age thing."

"Fun." Solomon's face doesn't change at all. "'Fun' isn't the word I'd have used, no." On the one hand, it was gratifying to know that blindness was such a nonentity here that they didn't think him any less capable of dodging their projectiles. On the other hand, he couldn't dodge their projectiles. It was beyond a nuisance.

Although a great part of that was that Solomon was used to some measure of respect from children. Even if the children here did respect him, it would be in a complete different way than he was used to. It was irksome. He was irked.

And he could hear children calling down the way, the wind bringing their familiar voices from probably several hundred feet away. "Is there something you need doing?" he asked at once. "An escort on a shopping trip, perhaps?" Yes, he was that irked. "Turnabout is fair play, after all."

"Oh. That's too bad," Pepper reflects. She'd heard some of the older foreigners weren't having a good time, and some hadn't come to Zeshora at all. Maybe the age castes were more problematic than she thought.

Solomon's sudden offer is a little strange. It was rare that anyone offered to go shopping with her, especially after having experienced it once with her as a companion.

"Uh, not really. I mean, I would if I had any money that worked here, so I've mostly just done window shopping." She sounds disappointed. "We can totally walk together, if you like. You kinda need a minor to walk around up here anyway, unless you feel like getting arrested or something."

So not too fast on the uptake, then. "There's a group of ... Crests ... following me who take inordinate delight in flinging things at my head," Solomon said calmly, the sort of 'calmly' which also said something along the lines of 'if this keeps on someone is going to get hurt and someone else is going to be in trouble'. "At this point, getting arrested for walking on the Height is beginning to seem like a good alternative."

But then he smiled, and it was a slow, spreading smile, one of consideration and bland mischief. "But if you're just looking for a way to ... earn ... some currency ... have you ever been to a carnival?"

"Well, that's rude of them. Was it squid guts? That's just gross." Solomon sounds utterly peeved, which would be more amusing if she didn't know the kind of power he wielded. It's still amusing enough that he'd be willing to go shopping with her just to avoid the children she can hear laughing down the wall.

"When I was a kid. Why, what are you suggesting?" His expression has turned almost gleeful, the way hers does when she planned things that had the potential for serious trouble.

"I haven't the faintest. I tried not to look too closely." He said it blandly, the wording deliberate both for the dry humour and the metaphor. He'd had to pick some out of his hair and they'd been squishy, though he was used to squishy. He just didn't appreciate squishy in his hair.

He smiled and held out his arm to her. "I'm thinking it's a pity that a young lady doesn't have any money for souvenirs in a new city. You've been here a few times already, correct? Where's the best place for an unstalled street display?"

Solomon could do carnival 'magic tricks' in his sleep. And sometimes practically had. He was a bit rusty, but in lieu of observing behaviour it was their best option.

"Good idea." Pepper can agree with the whole squishy-in-the-hair thing. It makes her shudder a little.

She takes his arm and starts walking away from the direction of the children Solomon was evading. She thinks about his query.

"Hmm. It would be nice to get something to decorate my room with." Right now she's got her armor and the picture from home, but that's about it. "There's a big square near the continent side. It's pretty public and out of the sort of industry area. And there's usually a bunch of people on the beaches."

It took a missed step to match her pace, but Solomon was fairly adept at that by now and it didn't cause him to stumble. With the light behind him, his shadow ahead was enough of a guide that he didn't strictly need Pepper to lead him either, which was nice.

Ordinarily he'd suggest the beach, but the shadows between grains of sand were simultaneously simple and required a significant amount of precision to control. So, not the beach. "The square," he said instead. "Have you ever picked a pocket before?"

Not that it was something Solomon did regularly, of course. But it was useful for sleights of hand and 'magic tricks'.

Although her legs keep moving, they've temporarily been disconnected from Pepper's brain. She gapes at Solomon.

"What?! No!" ~~Not that she hasn't done plenty of things equally bad if not worse.~~ "That's illegal. Er. At least it is at home. And probably in Keeliai. And probably here. What does that even have to do with carnivals?"

"Ah, so when you say 'carnival' you mean the boring ones with cheap stalls and plastic prizes," Solomon teased. "Magic tricks used to be authentic." He found a juulan in his pocket and showed it to her, and then turned his hand and made it 'vanish'. Alright, so he used the shadow of his sleeve to help him do it, because he was so rusty, but he liked to think that he just using all assets at his disposal. "Now check your pocket." She'd find the extra juulan there, with nary a rustle of her clothes.

"Yeah, well, magic doesn't exist where I come from; not real magic anyway. And our carnivals are still fun." Pepper pouts slightly, but the literal magic trick distracts her. She does as she's told, and there is indeed a juulan in her pocket that definitely wasn't there before. "That is definitely authentic, you got me there. And technically that's a gift, not pickpocketing."

"Magic tricks do, I should hope." It was amusing how difficult some people found it to tell the difference between magic and tricks. The word 'trick' in the phrase really was the key. "Unfortunately no one's come up with a phrase for the opposite," Solomon said dryly. "It's the same principle, however. The skill is useful, even if you don't use it to steal. But, if you're not interested ..."

He shrugged casually and flicked his wrist, and a shadow flicked out to take the coin back.

"Tricks, yes. You'd probably get a kick out of Penn and Teller." They are indeed hilarious, and Pepper thinks Solomon would appreciate the magician/comedians' sly charm.

"Hey!" The coin in her hand gets snatched out of her hand, although Pepper tries to hold on to it. "Are you suggesting I learn how to pick pockets so that I can make money on the level? That's seriously backwards. In a weird, kind of cool sort of way."

She's torn on this one. It seems like a neat ninja skill to have, but anything that resembles stealing (when it isn't stealing back something that was stolen from you, or something that could cause destruction) is a little off-putting.

"I did indeed." He'd seen them live several times, in fact, though he'd stopped paying much attention once they started broadcasting. Television. Sure, it was convenient, but it had nothing on the old charm of theatre.

He smiled. "You'd be surprised how many crimes can be repurposed for opposite uses." He flicked the coin over his knuckles, back and forth. "It's as though most people think tools are inherently good or bad, instead of the person who uses them and the manner they choose to do so."

"You have Penn and Teller where you come from, too?" Pepper frowns slightly. For some reason this is seriously clashing with the way she imaged the world Solomon and Skulduggery and Anton has come from. "This is like, eight different kinds of strange."

Pepper quiets as Solomon speaks, watching the coin. She knows he's right, and she has more examples of that than she'd like. Gene. Hammer. Both Stanes. Even Tony.

"I guess I can't really argue with that logic. Well, I could, actually. A lot. But I won't," she replies, forcing any unhappy thoughts from her mind. "So. You've got shadows, but all I've got is hands and whole lot of awesome. How do I go about charity-pocketing?"

"Indeed we do," said Solomon. "Most of the worlds the Foreigners came from seem to be some version of Earth." Then he chuckled. "You can always argue with logic. It's just often foolish, unless you know you can prove the logic illogical. And you're going to practice--on me, if anything else offends your sensibilities."

But he smiled at her, to show there was no edge to the words, save the sardonic one. "Or, if you want to earn some currency before we actually leave, you can be my manager and let me do the charity-pocketing, and I'll teach you on the side."

"I guess. It's just kind of weird having similar experiences when everything else seems so... different," Pepper elaborates. Weird, but not in a bad way. It means she might have more in common with some of the Foreigners here than she'd thought.

He's doing that thing where he's all smiles and charm that makes his teasing seem like chivalry. It's annoyingly successful.

"You'll teach me?" It seems like she's picking up skills left and right here in Keeliai. She has zero problems with this, however. Unlike with SHIELD, she doesn't need a four-year degree to become a badass here, she's learning. Plus, playing Solomon's 'manager' does sound rather appealing, even if it's only pretended authority. The Zeshoran's wouldn't know the difference, since she's a 'Crest' in their eyes. "That would be awesome. Managing I can do. I'm good at getting into people's business," she says, beaming.

"I would never have guessed," Solomon said blandly, but with a faint smile, teasing more than anything else. He didn't really doubt that her enthusiasm would serve to obscure anything suspicious about their 'act', though there wasn't really much suspicious about it. At least this way she'd have some currency to work with, and he could always show her more on future days.

He could tell when they came off the walls, because the breeze subsided and some of the dampness set in, and the ground turned grittier with sand. "In that case, all we need right now would be a square," he said. "I'll leave that to your judgement."

Even if Solomon hadn't been teasing her, Pepper wouldn't have found the comment offensive - she takes a great deal of pride in her ability to scheme, control, and/or distract attentions. Tony and Rhodey had even said that if she ever turned evil, they'd all be in trouble.

She doesn't know Solomon well, but he has yet to demonstrate any reason for her to avoid him. This seems like a fun thing to do, and relatively harmless. He can't see her, but she's grinning as they descend into the city.

"Awesome," Pepper says. "Let's go put on a show!"

At first, she had thought the caste system was some sort of prank, but it didn't take long at all for her to realize that the people of Zeshora were dead serious about the youth in their society - and Tonks was several years departed from being one of the favored few. It irked her to find that not even her magic could set her apart and draw attention like it normally could, and after a while, she stopped trying.

Not one to wallow for long, she tried to make the best of it. In this case, making the best of it was attaching herself to someone with whom she had a rapport and enjoying the trip. It's not only because of the by-proxy special treatment that Tonks is appreciative of Pepper's willingness to escort her around: she likes Pepper. She's a good kid, and it's fun to be with someone from the younger crowd, particularly when they're so vibrant and cheerful.

"So what do you think of all this?" She gestures around, indicating the town around them, but what she means isn't anything physical. She's indicating the attitude as a whole towards Pepper's age.

In addition to just being treated well, Pepper is enjoying that she gets to ferry some of the older Foreigners around. It gives her a chance to get to know them a bit better, and it's a lot less awkward than retelling her adventures upon the Heights to those who legally weren't allowed up there.

Tonks, for example, is awesome. She's a proper witch, in Pepper's mind, and she's treating Pepper like an adult, which - while rare back home - seems to be the norm here.

"Not gonna lie, it's pretty cool. On some level at least." She shrugs. "It also kind of sucks after about a day, since basically everyone I know here is a 'kelp'." She sticks out her tongue at the word as she makes air quotes. "I dunno. It's fun to be treated like royalty but it loses the appeal when your friends are literally not considered citizens. It makes me wanna go all crazy Thomas Jefferson on them or something."

Not really. She's got nothing against the Erol'a and she'll play by the rules - so long as she can bring her older friends along with her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT | LANDFALL | ZESHORA

Open | Backdated to June 17- June 21st

18th JUNE

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want to handwave the pickpocketing? follow up in a new thread?

Sounds good!

June 19th

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