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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?"

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Valdis had become accustomed to the way the Kedan looked at her when she passed. They were still angry, but the sword on her hip was enough of a deterrent that most of them left her alone and those that didn't soon learned to.

The irritable voice of one of the Kedan called Valdis' attention to the possible problem as she rounded a corner. Someone who could only be a foreigner was doing a fantastic job of pissing off one of the less reputable shopkeepers in the area. Valdis casually walked over, hand on the hilt of her sword, a small smile lighting up her features. "Is there a problem here?"

The Foreigner community was becoming small enough Raine was sure she knew most of them by sight, and the fact that this one kept actively trying to talk to kedan strangers said he probably didn't have much idea about the state of the city at large. Almost certainly new, then. At least the fact he was new told her that magic still worked, which was something. Better than the alternative.

She might well have made herself a bit too obvious in watching him, however, as in short order she was being asked for the time. "Not more precisely than midday," she answered, a little bemused by his choice of query. "You're recently arrived here, correct? Do you need help?"

By now, Cain knew the conversation was going nowhere. He had figured it out rather quickly with the kedan's disposition clearly screaming to leave them alone, but Cain wasn't one to be deterred. There was information to be had in people who were too angry to monitor what they were saying, after all.

When someone came up, however, Cain took the opportunity as soon as it presented. His hands went up in placation and he took a step back. "Nope, no problem, I was just trying to make nice," he said, shrugging widely. He gave a side-glance to Valdis to greet the woman who would get him out of this, and paused very suddenly when he saw the clock along her neck. Whoa. That was not even close to average.

Although the day had not been very productive thus far, Cain was at least getting a much better feel for the tensions in the city. Learning the streets was going to take some time, but on the other hand, those sectors definitely stood out from each other so it was only a matter of getting lost within them. He'd noticed the white-haired woman paying attention to him, of course, but he wasn't one to make wild accusations without proof. Where would he be now if he didn't still give strangers some benefit of the doubt? Nowhere good, clearly.

"Midday, okay," he said thoughtfully. His eyes flickered to her neck for no more than an instant and then focused on Raine once more. "You got me. Definitely new here. I don't know about help so much as just... getting an idea for what I've gotten into, you know? You know how that is. Probably."

Valdis looked away from the man to see if the shopkeeper had a similar opinion, but the kedan just quickly shook his head and retreated back into his shop, shutting the door behind him. Removing her hand from her sword, she returned her attention to the handsome newcomer.

"The kedan aren't interested in making nice at the moment," she replied, deciding to look deeper. His soul lit up, dazzling against the dim souls of the kedan who were going about their business. She had long since become used to the unusual souls that most of the foreigners seemed to possess, but this man's soul seemed more along the lines of what her own might look like.

Cain shrugged in response to the shopkeeper, watching him go before he turned to Valdis for real. He had long become accustomed to seeing peoples' times out of the corner of his eyes instead of outright staring at their clocks, but this one in particular was testing his ability to remain unaffected. That people from other worlds might have odd lifespans wasn't unreasonable, to see it himself... that was definitely throwing him for a bit of a loop.

"So I've noticed," he said with a guileless smile. "Can you really blame a guy for trying? What else am I supposed to do?"

The man was staring, but his smile was genuine enough that Valdis decided to not comment on it."I can when said man is annoying people who are already on edge." Her smile said she was teasing, but it was true nonetheless. "Have you tried the welcome center?"

She looked him over again, this time without the use of her soul sight, trying to figure out what exactly he found so fascinating.

Edited (typo) 2014-10-15 02:01 (UTC)

The kedan may not have been especially friendly with the Foreigners anymore, but Skulduggery still knew how to get information from them without saying a word. He could tell when something was rattling them, when a Foreigner was making themselves a little too much of a nuisance, or - most importantly, but not completely unrelatedly - when the cultists were beginning to make a push on gang territory. That meant Skulduggery kept a close eye on the man who was rattling the gang kedan from the moment he entered the Metal Sector, and when it looked like said man might actually try engaging some of the cultists, Skulduggery decided it might be a good idea for him to step in.

Which he did, approaching the no-doubt newly arrived man without making a sound and tapping him on the shoulder. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Not really," Solomon said absently, because he was currently standing at the entrance to an alley and trying to determine who had killed who in the particular bout of violence lingering there--payment for some materials he required for his Dreaming portals. With the amount he'd paid out for Emily-Helen's funeral, about the best he could offer was divining deaths of family-members. Fortunately, the kedan had family-groups tightly-knit enough to make it a lucrative practice even in spite of his current unpopularity.

Still, the fact that someone had asked that was strange, and Solomon extended his senses around him just in case he was about to get attacked by a gang. Then he flinched, stepped away from the person beside him as he turned to face them, and managed not to gag on absolutely nothing.

The person was a man who would have looked perfectly ordinary, if it weren't for the fact that looking on him felt rather like looking into oil. Slick, rainbow-shaded, repellent. He wasn't dead, hadn't died--if anything there was a faint skate of people he'd killed nearby, but less tangible than they had been two weeks ago, thank goodness. It was just his very presence, running counter to the death Solomon could feel from everyone else, as if the man rejected its touch completely.

Even Valdis hadn't felt like that, for all that she was meant to be a death goddess.

"Now I do," Solomon said evenly, stilling himself and ignoring the shiver that ran down his spine. "What are you?"

Considering the heightened aggravations of the kedan around him, Cain could hardly be blamed for whirling around at the touch to his shoulder and getting ready to throw down. Thankfully, he was pulled up impossibly short by the sight of a skeleton. A skeleton with a negative clock on its neck, which really made it two for two in things that Cain never expected to see no matter the impossibility of his current situation.

"What?" he said after a moment. It wasn't in reaction to the words, he heard those plenty well, but to the skeleton's mere existence. Who pulled this guy out of the metaphysical blender? His brain caught up with his mouth, thankfully, and he instead said the much more tactful, "Says the crime against all living laws of physics." Because, really, what was a skeleton doing advising him against something dangerous anyway.

Having someone outright react to Cain wasn't actually something with which he was unfamiliar. Those with Deathsight, far and few between as they were in the population, all had some sort of tell that they had noticed Cain's impossibly-long clock. Most asked similar questions or pretended they hadn't seen. One notable encounter had a skittish young man turn tail and flee just at the sight of it.

No, Cain wasn't unused to the reaction and the man in front of him looked closely related enough that it was entirely possible he had Deathsight. On the other hand, this was another world with new rules and he couldn't quite make that assumption out of nowhere. That he was brave enough to ask spoke well of his guts.

"Just a guy," he said with a genial shrug. He canted his head just enough, gave a very pointed searching look. He wasn't one to keep secrets, but he wasn't about to answer something that hadn't specifically been asked. "Why do you ask?"

Edited 2014-10-15 02:15 (UTC)

"Been there, but I always had a way with seeing it for my own eyes instead of reading about it from tour guides," said Cain. He could read as much as he wanted from a book and learn tons, but nothing would replace going out there and experiencing it for himself. Getting himself in the face of angry locals was no different to him.

There was no real clue to what Cain was looking at. By now he was letting the sharp surprise fade and filing it away as something to inspect later, even as he mentally calculating the time this woman had remaining and couldn't help but be impressed. Was this what people felt when they saw Cain's own time?

Well, he was obviously used to the question, or some variant of such; he barely batted an eyelash at the directness of it. For all that the man's presence was repellent, the more Solomon examined him the less invasive that presence seemed. He'd been startled by his initial awareness of the trait, not the trait itself--it felt like a slap at first, but once accustomed it felt more like a polarising magnet.

In fact, the more he looked at the man and the narrow corona around him, the more it looked as though--that was impossible, surely? "You're immune to death," Solomon said slowly, and in spite of everything, in spite of how much he'd changed even the short time he'd been in Keeliai, he felt excitement as a low-grade turn in his gut. "Or at least immune enough that the nuances don't matter. How old are you, exactly?"

This man wasn't like Bakura or Valdis. He didn't die, only to rise again. He just didn't die. Immortality in its true form. In spite of himself, Solomon knew that the fact he was impressed was showing.

"To be honest," She replied, "I never even went to the welcome center." Yet she hadn't gone around asking the Kedan questions either. She had gone straight to the other foreigners for answers and of course soon after found herself fighting cultists and it had only gone downhill from there.

"You'd do well to pick up a weapon," she continued, noting that there wasn't one visible, "It seems to deter the less aggressive kedan and makes the gangs think twice before attacking."

This man was a curiosity. His soul seemed ageless, his scent...like freshly turned earth and death. Her interest sharpened, and she allowed some surprise to show on her face, wanting to see if he would react in any way.

Okay, that was a bit new. For all of the experiments that had been run on him, every bit of self-questioning Cain had experienced for thousands of years, all this time and no one had cut to the chase as quickly as that. It was as disconcerting as it was exciting. Cain was no fool, he knew to be wary of such a man as could tell such a fact of his existence at a mere glance.

Yet he found himself grinning in response. Having someone know what he was and do nothing but express currently-innocent curiosity was like clean air in his lungs. It had been a while. "Almost twenty-eight hundred," he answered with a dip of his head. "How did you do that?" That statement, you're immune to death reminded him sharply of something in an inhuman voice that still haunted him, but he shoved it aside for now.

The one who was abandoned by Death.

"Of course there are gangs," Cain said with an amused sigh. With a city in such a state of unrest, it wasn't surprising. That didn't stop him from being entertained by the predictability of it; you'd think with such a large and noticeable Enemy, the population would be united against it rather than tearing itself apart. Kedanity didn't seem much different from humanity so far, though, so Cain wasn't deterred.

He slipped a hand into his pocket, pulling out the handle of his switchblade far enough for Valdis to see before he put it away. "Maybe it's just me, but I don't like advertising I'm dangerous. Tends to turn off the peaceful people sooner."

"Ah, yes." Now Solomon's smile turned vaguely ironic, and so was his shallow bow. "Solomon Wreath, Cleric of the Necromantic Temple, at your service." He straightened. "Sufficiently powerful clerics can sense the details of a death in a location. I've ... refined that talent, somewhat, since coming here, since so many people arrive after dying themselves."

He wouldn't usually dive so easily into a detailed explanation, but people here and shown themselves to be far less averse to Necromancy and Solomon couldn't remember the last time someone had greeted his ability to sense death with delight. In fact, he couldn't remember it happening at all.

Solomon canted his head, still examining the man. It was almost frustrating how little he actually could see--where in others their death lay in the heart of their souls, this man's soul rejected the presence of death from around him. It wasn't a matter of seeing what was there, but seeing what wasn't--as though the man was a void. "You're repelling the residue of the deaths around you."

Now there was a mouthful. Of course Cain knew what necromancy was and had foiled a few would-be necromancers in his own time, but to meet someone for whom it was an actual practice worthy of an actual title was different. No less a bit disgusting (death wasn't something to just be messed with), but if this Solomon had actual power behind him while still living, it was something to capture Cain's interest all the same.

"Jacob Kane," he introduced. Only family really ended up calling him Cain, mostly because only family knew him over enough identities that using a singular name was easier than the multiple identities. "So you've repurposed the skill. What's that mean? Repelling the residue?" he asked. That was a new one, and he regularly hung out with Enforcers who were the one true group of death magic practitioners.

Both less and more of a mouthful than 'Death Bringer', which Solomon had no intention of using in any context other than a pseudo bluff. Solomon was watching Kane's face and saw the flicker, and smiled grimly. Aha; not so different after all, immortal or not.

"Like this," he said, turning and extending a hand to summon the shadowy silhouettes of those who had died in the alley. They were a spread of three, littered about in the positions in which they died, though Solomon already knew he could reverse the shadows to reveal the preceding events. Not those responsible, unfortunately, but the effects of outside forces on those who had died.

"Death leaves a residue in the place where it happened," he explained. "Usually that's all Necromancers can sense." He glanced over at Kane. "You're standing in the middle of gang territory, Mr Kane. There's plenty of death to be had here, and all of it is avoiding you."

"Those who are peaceful know that they have nothing to fear." Valdis wasn't particularly interested in the kedan or what they had to say on the matter. The opinion of those who had attacked her friends was quite clear. "And it is better to appear dangerous and avoid a fight entirely than to be attacked and have to injure or kill one of them. But of course," she smiled, "If you want to hide how dangerous you are, by all means."

She believed that he was dangerous, perhaps not as dangerous as some, but all the foreigners were dangerous in their own way. Weapons wise, her sword was not the only one she carried, so it wasn't as if she could argue with him for hiding his knife.

It was perhaps because of his immortality that Cain held the sanctity of death above all others. He was the admitted exception to the rule, something that was natural but had no place in the laws of the world, and due to his brother's current vocation, he felt a very sharp need to protect the balance of life and death. Although he was on the side of the living, it was almost unwillingly and he would gladly hand down what deaths needed to be given in order to maintain balance. Anyone who would fight that, through running away from their time or trying to reclaim the dead, was someone Cain couldn't condone.

Then again, in a land between life and death... Cain was willing to admit there might be something he didn't know. That didn't mean he would forfeit his own morals, just that he was open to expanding his understanding.

Cain's head turned, sharp, when the shadows twisted into shapes and watched in quiet and masked awe the bodies that were no longer actually there. That was a trick even the Enforcers couldn't do. Tilting his head without fully regarding Solomon, Cain commented, "Yeah, it's never really stuck with me... Now you're saying it extends outside of me, too?"

"Now that's a load of bull if I ever heard one," Cain said, tone rife with cynicism. Those who were peaceful had everything to fear because the ones without peace were unpredictable. They didn't value the lives around them, nor the tenets that those other people held. How could anyone feel safe when surrounded by misery and violence?

He shook his head, hands coming up into a shrug. Whether he got into a fight or not wasn't the problem. "That always work for you? Put up a front, get left alone?"

"I don't know," said Solomon. "How does it usually work? Do weapons simply not penetrate your skin, or do you suffer injuries that never heal without outside impetus, or do they heal instantly on their own?"

It was difficult to tell the exact distance when Solomon couldn't see anything within the sphere of Kane's influence. He couldn't actually see souls--just deaths. For most people here that was enough, because most people here had died at least once. With someone like Bakura or Valdis, it was possible to see some vague ripple left by the presence of the souls they carried, but even then Solomon couldn't actually see anything within their selves.

For a moment, Cain was silent. Those were good questions and the answer was simple enough but sometimes he just couldn't abide by doing something simply. Not when he was in another world being confronted by a man who could see his lack of death while they were in the middle of a war on the back of a turtle. Simple was for squares.

Instead of answering verbally, Cain snatched the switchblade from his pocket, flipped it out and stabbed it right through his offhand. He grunted, face twisting just a bit; the sheer speed and precision he had done it with actually made the pain less than it would seem, but that was still painful. Blood dripped freely out of the wound he left behind and he waited.

"This help?" he asked. The slowly pooling blood stopped, rippled, began dripping upwards to return from where it had come. As the blood was settled back where it belonged, the frayed skin and torn muscle knitted itself back together. Good as new. Thankfully it seemed the recent spat of violence in the area kept any kedan from lingering and it was just the two of them paying attention to their own conversation.

"Perhaps I should restate it then," She replied, her voice turned icy, "Those who aren't a threat to those I care about, have nothing to fear from me."

Valdis took a quick review of their surroundings, noting where each and every Kedan was and tracing their movements," Does it always work?" she repeated, looking him in the eyes, "No, but I can back up any threat I make."

She'd prefer to not have to threaten anyone, but it came with the territory and protecting herself and her friends was all that mattered. Well, that and taking down Mali before he struck again.

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