EVENT | LANDFALL | VALISHAERA

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: JULY 13-26
Location: Valishaera
Situation: Tu Vishan has made landfall on Siaxhi, to explore the Dreaming Watch City of Valishaera.
Warnings/Rating: Please indicate content warnings in subject headers as applicable.

As Tu Vishan draws near, the heavy jungle visible even from miles out quickly identifies the landmass as Siaxhi, one of the westernmost continents in Konryu and one that has been largely untouched insofar as the kedan themselves have gone. There is a natural inlet along the southeast shore on the continent and Tu Vishan makes for that, though he fills nearly all of it.



OOC INFORMATION
Landfall Questions | Approved Item Requests | Pocket Dreaming Signups

CITY OF VALISHAERA
Exploring the Coast | The Arybar | A Ruined City

WITHIN THE TEMPLE
The Monks' Domain | The Labs & Library | Gathering Rooms & Garden | The Pocket Dreaming Realms

LANDFALL MISSIONS
Dreamscape | Night's Wood | Inan | OOC Organization

Comments

annabeth chase | ota

[sophos]

It's weird to be out exploring alone, though Annabeth wouldn't say she's alone alone. Not with Mrs. O'Leary running around and exploring nearby - and a giant, rhino-sized hellhound makes good backup.

Not that she's particularly worried. Not that she's thinking about attacks either - she's far more interested in the buildings here. Though she's got a knife strapped to her waist, she's carrying a backpack, too, and as she meanders through the ruins, she stops occasionally to pull out a notebook; all her notes are scribbled in Ancient Greek.

If the people won't explain it, maybe the architecture itself will have some answers.

[gearshifting]

Jungles aren't really that conducive to rollerblades, but Gear isn't afraid of huffing it on foot either. It took him a couple of hours to get to the abandoned city and the fact he couldn't find anything resembling people having lived there is more than a little creepy. He had hoped to find something that gave a clue about the monks that built the city, but there's nothing.

So he sends his little robot on its way to investigate for him, since he's not finding anything with his own eyes. "Backpack, scan the area for carvings, books, scrolls, anything you can--oh!" He spots a girl not far away from the building he just exited. "Uh, hi."

[sophos]

Annabeth spots him as soon as he steps out - she's far too in tune with her surroundings the last few months. And always, really, but especially lately.

"Did you just ask your backpack to scan the area?"

With everything she's seen in this place, it's not that weird a potential, probably even misleading, but she still raises an eyebrow.

[gearshifting]

[Sometimes Gear wonders if maybe he should have given his robot a different name. But then reminds himself it's too amusing to have named it anything else.]

That's what you get when you buy name brand. [He shrugs just a little with a half grin because it's meant to be a joke.]

[sophos]

"So not an actual backpack." She looks around, catches sight of the robot and points at it, questioningly. "That?"

[gearshifting]

"Yeah that's him," Gear agrees before calling out. "Backpack say hi." Said little robot stops in its surveying to turning it's red len on it's extending neck toward them. The red light flashes twice with a beeping sound, high pitched then low.

"No you don't need to scan her, you overachiever." And then he laughs somewhat awkwardly. "Sorry, he has his own brand of humor sometimes. So, found anything interesting out here yet? Most of what I'm getting is the that it's really, really empty."

[sophos]

She arches an eyebrow. "Was that a greeting incorporated into the scan?"

Then she just shakes her head. "I'm surprisingly used to robots with a mind of their own." With thanks to Leo. "But no, not really. Whoever built it all knew how to create something strong and stable, though walls can only tell you so much without the right tools." As in, yeah, it's really, really empty.

[gearshifting]

"Ah well, I told him scan for organic life, and we're kind of it right now." Gear raises a hand as if to say "what can you do?" But then he turns his attention back to the building he had just come out of.

"I haven't even found a book," He says. "Usually ghost towns are ghost towns because you see people used to live there. This is more like...someone decided to waste years building a life-size model of a city and left it there."

[sophos]

"Well, can't say he isn't doing his job at least."

Annabeth sighs, but it's a sound of agreement. "A lot of it doesn't look very lived in at all. Someone cleaned it up really well or they never made it to stay here in the first place. No one seems to want to talk much either."

[gearshifting]

"Yeah, the Arybar don't seem that chatty when it comes to this place and there's no one else around to give us any info."

Which is pretty frustrating if you ask Gear, but he's never been good at not being able to figure things out. "We need some kind of clue. Where did the monks go? Why didn't they stick around here? Did another tribe drive them off? There's too much about this place we're not figuring out.]

[sophos]

"Wish I could say I wasn't use to that," she grumbles. It feels like day one all over again, with so few answers.

"It's not that the answers don't exist, but it just sucks when they're hard to find. Maybe one day people will realize it's better to spread information than hoard it."

[gearshifting]

While Gear does think there is certain information that should never be shared--sorry he's never revealing how to make quantum vapor ever--he generally agrees that most knowledge is better off shared. The fact that this city has so little in the way of it is kind of frustrating.

"Maybe we need to go back and ask the locals some questions," he considered. "I found this old lady who sure didn't mind telling me things, maybe we could find a few more who know something about where everything went. If someone lived here, their stuff didn't just up and disintegrate, right?" He paused for a moment to think about that. "I hope I'm right."

[sophos]

She scrunches her face up for a moment. "An old woman? Where? What was her name?"

Annabeth taps at her arm, impatient. He's right - if one person is willing to speak, there could be others. It's just a matter of finding the right one. "Stuff - material items - gets stolen and looted all the time. We can't discount thieves for that."

[unetrustworthy]

The hellhound might have frightened her had Midii not been given a chance to observe it from far away. Appearance aside, it seemed...friendly? The older girl didn't look afraid, and it was causing no damage. If anything, she were to guess it was simply playing.

Still, Midii took care to take the long way around as she cautiously approached. Curiosity winning over any urge to walk away. Particularly when she caught a faint glimpse of the writing in the notebook. Definitely not French. Nor English. Nor Japanese or kedanese.

"What language is that?"

[sophos]

She notices the other girl soon enough - but she doesn't look or feel threatening or hostile, so Annabeth stays quiet with her approach. She recognizes the look of the interested, the curious, and she loves to see it in others.

At the question, she perks up and looks over, her expression faintly on the edge of a smile. "Ancient Greek. Do the Greeks exist in your world?"

[unetrustworthy]

It was a reasonable enough question to anybody who knew about the different worlds people could be pulled from. Still, Midii found herself having to bite back a more sarcastic duh tone.

"Greece exists, yes. I've never been there."

[sophos]

She gets a bit of a look for the sarcasm, but not enough to signify she's annoyed. If anything, it kind of reminds her of herself at that age (and maybe even now). But she won't entirely let it slide.

"Of course it exists, just not for everyone. You could have been an alien." Then a shrug. "But I've never been either." Not yet, not her in this body, technically.

[unetrustworthy]

"Technically speaking, we're all aliens here." Point of clarification. That there wasn't really any need to state, and yet she did it anyway. "If you've never been, how come you're writing in Ancient Greek?"

She could think of any number of reasons off the top of her head. Learning it would not be out of the question. There were any number of schooling opportunities that might have provided her a chance to learn foreign languages. And wasn't it a common tactic for secretive people to prefer writing in them? As a way of avoiding people peeping in on potentially private or personal matters?

[sophos]

"On a technicality, I suppose." Another thing that vaguely reminds her of herself. Pointing out the technicalities.

Then she just shrugs. "Because I can speak it and read it. I prefer writing in it to English."

It's not the entire explanation, but she's not lying either. Annabeth isn't the type to bring up her dyslexia at random, especially to someone she's only just met.

[unetrustworthy]

A personal preference. She could understand that much. Japanese had been the universal language spoken in her time, but she'd always been quick to revert back to her native French whenever opportunity presented itself.

"May I ask what it says? Or is it a secret?"

[sophos]

"It's not really a secret," she muses. Her eyes fall downward, skimming over the words. There are some sketches interspersed throughout the pages, too. "I'm just taking some notes on what I find here. The architecture, mostly, but not only."

[unetrustworthy]

"Is there something special about the architecture?"

Her eyes glanced back up again, taking in the surrounding buildings. Looking at them anew, as if trying to discover something she might have missed previously.

[sophos]

"Yes." The response is instant, though she's referring to architecture as a whole. But then she pauses to think about the question again, looking around at the buildings too. "I mean - I'm working on that, for this place - I don't know how special it is yet, if at all. But architecture itself is something I study."

[unetrustworthy]

She answered so quickly, that Midii again couldn't help wondering what she was missing. It all seemed so...average to her. Structurally sound. Not in danger of collapsing anytime soon. Possibly even water proof.

Of course, she was thinking in functional terms only. When Annabeth mentioned studying the subject, Midii had a feeling there was more to it than just how well the building could keep you safe and/or dry.

"Did you study under a carpenter?"

[sophos]

She shakes her head. "No. Noo. I'm mostly self-taught, at this point. I don't build things so much as... design them, study them."

Annabeth's always a little weird about sharing that, mostly because she doesn't know how people will react. "So every time Asti lands somewhere, I like to get a look at the design landscapes of the cities here."