tushanshu_logs | [ open. ]

Who: Jacob Kane (Cain) & someone else. Maybe you.
When: October 14th and forward.
Where: All around Keeliai.
What: Hoofing it around town to get a better finger on the pulse of current happenings. If it's a place where people are, Cain could feasibly be there.
Warnings / rating: Nah.

It was really rather astonishing how quickly Cain could adapt to things. He even surprised himself sometimes, what with the fact that he had literally been pulled into another world with a universe-threatening war and only a few hours after the fact he was on the streets looking for more information. Part of it, he acknowledged, was simply that it hadn't sunken in all the way yet. Regardless of that fact, it was always smarter to push forward than stand still when the world was still spinning around him.

Early on, it was easy to see that he was pissing off some kedan just by being around and initiating conversation. Cain started to pick his questions more carefully, but it wasn't going to stop him; kedan population seemed way higher than foreigner population and that was where he was going to need to get gossip or info if from anywhere. He wasn't above pestering some people on the street or trying to get shopping done if it looked like he might get away with starting a conversation.

Hell, Cain was even willing to stoop to the old classic: "Hey, do you have the time?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

An apt reaction, as far as reactions went. If Skulduggery had to hazard a guess, he'd say Jacob Kane was a little more accustomed to strange things happening than he let on, if not accustomed to magic and giant turtles. A completely normal person would have asked how a continent-turtle could possibly be possessed, not why.

"Asti straddles life, death, and dreaming," Skulduggery answered, parroting the line he'd been fed upon his arrival and since discovered to be at least partly true. "A demigod if I ever saw one, and even possessed, one of the friendliest demigods I've ever met. It guarantees our enemy can't be killed, nor fought in any conventional way. Given the bio-technical nature of the consoles and the numerous kedan who used to worship Asti, it also gives him plenty of ammunition. Several months ago, during one of the festivals they have here, Asti gave several of us 'gifts' in various forms. Those gifts were the only magical abilities not to disappear during the nullification period two weeks ago. Since we now know Asti isn't Asti, it begs the question of what the gifts are for."

Part of that was at least somewhat familiar by now. Cain had been told the same thing upon his arrival, although he suspected it had been more out of habit during the entire thing than an actual feeling of necessity in making sure he was informed. Maybe Cain was just cynical like that, but it seemed all out of the blue to grab another foreigner during all of this unrest. Could have been the officials were just pulling names out of a hat and hoping someone, somewhere out there could help them, or else they didn't know what else to do.

Neither was really a comforting thought.

His head tilted to the side. "You got the gifts during a time when Asti was possessed? Or are you saying there might be some kind of trap in them now after the fact because of the new situation?" Either way, sucked to be the people stuck with those gifts.

"It doesn't really matter which," Skulduggery pointed out, far too casual for someone discussing the potential ramifications of mental brainwashing traps. "It might eventually, but either way, the gifts would backfire. And if they do, they're going to backfire soon. If they're anything like the poison I so brilliantly helped you to avoid being tainted with, they're going to turn against us each other."

Of course, as things stood now, the Foreigners didn't exactly need any help turning against each other. Suspicion and mistrust were rife, and apart from a few rumours of tentative plans Skulduggery had heard about through the few kedan contacts who bothered bringing him information anymore, no one seemed to have any idea how to fight back even if the Foreigners did present a united front.

"Eva must be pinning a lot of hope on you," Skulduggery murmured aloud. Then his skull straightened sharply. "Speaking of, Eva's missing. What happened when you arrived here? Did you see her?"

When on the topic of traps that could brainwash someone, there was really no other way to go about it. There would be no use in panicking because that would only make it easier for your brain to be taken over anyway. That, and Cain was lucky enough to know he wasn't one of those poor bastards who might be in danger of it and that was enough for him.

"It wouldn't be smart to turn us against each other," Cain said with a shrug. "There are better ways to use someone who's on the other side whether they're willing or not. Double-agents, right?" He paused, then tilted his head. "Maybe you should be more specific about that poison you keep talking about."

Cain frowned. That was really what he was afraid of, that someone had pulled him specifically from his home in order to fill some shoes or another. He didn't want to be important, he didn't want to stand up and be an adult or a leader or anything like that for at least another decade, although he'd honestly been hoping for a century. He was just getting ready to get to know his brother again and now in some strange time in between, he was pulled into this war where he might have to pull out the first King of Rome. What shit luck.

Shaking his head, he said, "No, it was Milyn and some police. I got the impression it was the same as always if not more hush-hush; they were definitely following a routine. Who's Eva?"

If Skulduggery agreed or had been willing to answer Kane's implied question regarding the poison, it was lost in the wake of the information Kane provided about Eva being absent during his arrival.

"Evastelei," Skulduggery clarified. "A local magician responsible for the magic which pulls us from our various worlds. She hasn't been seen in a while. It's nice to see that she left a contingency plan in place, but I'd like to know the details of that contingency plan, as well as what happened to her. We would have heard if she was compromised, so it's likely she's injured and in hiding." He shook his head. "The amount of trust they put in us is staggering."

By which Skulduggery meant the lack of trust, of course. He wouldn't have questioned it if the Foreigners didn't seem to be Keeliai's last hope for defeating Malicant once and for all; mistrusting your allies was bad enough, but sabotaging your own last-ditch effort for rescue was something else entirely.

At Skulduggery's ending comment, Cain laughed aloud. He had barely even been in town a day and already he was seeing just how far down the creek of shit he had been tossed along with the rest of all these poor bastards. He was no stranger to lack of trust, but considering their current situation it seemed to have evolved from absurd into outright unbelievable. It was all too easy to see that the natives were desperate for hope and too scared to accept the bumps along the way to true resolution of their fears. It was a dangerous combination when put together with their power over the foreigners as unwilling hosts.

"So they leave it to the new guy to maybe eventually tell someone about Eva. Lack of Eva. Wonder what that means," Cain said, tone less musing and more purposeful. If people were pinning hopes on him yet something beyond the norm was occurring, he definitely wanted to know more about the process by which they were being pulled in. "Her contingency, I mean. What's been the pattern for pulling people in thus far? Anything?"

Skulduggery didn't know if they'd left it to the new guy to tell someone about Eva, exactly, but he wasn't about to split hairs. He didn't have any hairs to split, for one thing.

In response to Kane's question, he shrugged. "You'll have to ask people who have been keeping track of that sort of thing. All I can tell you is the flow of new arrivals slowed to a trickle even before Eva vanished. I haven't been counting on anyone new, and I doubt anyone else has either."

Cain let out a small, wry grin at that. At least it meant he didn't have much to worry about in the way of anyone he knew arriving; both a good thing and a bad thing. There was one person in particular he would have killed to see, and then anyone else might as well have been chopped liver to him. If there wasn't even a pattern, hardly even a schedule, then there wasn't much to watch out for yet.

"Any reason why?" he asked. "Or is it one of those things we aren't getting told?"

[ open. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject