tushanshu_logs | [EVENT|4TH WALL] THE NEWCOMERS’ ARRIVAL

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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tony's shoulders slump. He hadn't really expected his dad to be talked around to Team Gene on the first try, but it's still a little discouraging. After what had happened the other day... More than ever, Tony hopes that he can find some way to make this work.

And Howard, appearing here - it seems like the perfect chance for Tony to explain things to him on neutral ground. Back home, with the whole rest of the world gunning for Gene too, it would be nearly impossible. But here? Well, getting Howard on board ~~this ship~~ now would clear the first, biggest hurdle to working things out when they all return.

Tony couldn't ask for a better opportunity. Now it's just a matter of whether or not he can bring his dad around.

"If you can't trust him yet... Can you trust me enough to at least give him a chance?"

That slump of the shoulders - odd, a bit, to see from Tony, especially about a subject like this, a subject like Gene, who'd been hated by Tony to the point where Howard had needed to talk him down. How does his son go from calling Gene a monster to asking Howard to trust him?

Tony's optimism about their memories - if he shared it - would be encouraging. But remembering all this might be impossible, if Howard ever returns home.

"Of course I do, Tony, I trust you." Even if he doesn't entirely trust Tony's judgment sometimes, the evidence of the ring right here in front of them is difficult to ignore.

"Thanks, Dad." Tony's expression relaxes into a relieved smile. It's not much, but it's a start.

He slips the ring back into the shielded pocket and tells the backpack to fold up again. "So, do you want me to show you around?"

Bringing up Gene had gotten them a bit sidetracked from the logistics of Howard's arrival. The issue of Gene aside, Tony is ecstatic to have his father here, and he's eager to introduce Howard to the place that's been his home for months now.

"Yeah, lead on," Howard says, smiling at his son. It's clear Tony's excited to show him around, and glad to have his dad here. Howard's glad to have a familiar face around. Well, one of them. The other...

...he's not certain how he'll react when he runs into Gene. He supposes he'll burn that bridge when he comes to it.

"Great. Um... I just need to... let me go tell Gene that you're here. So it's not a surprise." So Gene doesn't have a heart attack. "Just a sec."

Tony smiles and then scoots away before his dad can protest. There's no good reason for his dad to complain about Tony giving Gene a heads-up, but... just in case.

He walks several meters away to stand under a nearby tree, and pulls out his radio handset. He punches in Gene's handset code. "Hey, Gene, I need to talk to you. Pick up if you're there."

Why...does he need to tell Gene anything? It bothers Howard, somewhere, that Tony seems to be on such good terms with Gene, like a grain of sand under his shirt.

But he gives his son his privacy until the conversation's concluded. Just as well - a surprised Gene would be apt to either startle and bolt like a rabbit or lash out like a caged beast. Howard's not certain he wants to find out which.

Edited 2015-04-29 02:28 (UTC)

Tony returns a few minutes later, still wearing a (now slightly strained) smile. "Okay. All set. You want to get some lunch before we head out? I was starving when I got here."

Which probably had less to do with the interdimensional transport, and more to do with the fact that his crazy metabolism had been working in extreme overdrive for many hours before he got yanked, but a little food before the grand tour can't hurt.

"Sure," he says, smiling at his son, not letting any of his unease about the situation show. He is hungry, and he has a thousand more questions to ask Tony about this place...but perhaps over some lunch.

Tony's body language relaxes, and so does his smile. "There's a place near here that's selling really great meat-and-veggie kabobs. Come on."

He shrugs the armor backpack on again, and leads Howard through the festival, chatting animatedly about the sights and sounds. Once they've gotten food and done a brief pass through the highlights of the festival, Tony turns them towards the city.

"I'll show you the old Palace grounds first. We tore most of it down after the big boss fight, and we're turning it into new foreigner housing and a bunch of other things."

"That's the, ah, 'big evil chaos monster' you were talking about," Howard says, just to refresh his mental notes. (Yes, over lunch, there had been a joke about Tony treating his dad to a meal. Believe it. You are not safe from dad jokes, even with time skips, Tony.)

"Why did you tear it down?"

Ooh, Howard, you don't wanna go down that road.

"That's the one. Malicant."

Tony doesn't say anything for a few seconds, and when he finally does speak up again to answer Howard's question, his voice is quiet and serious.

"The Palace is where he set up shop for a long time. There were a lot of... bad memories. He did some pretty nasty things to a whole lot of kedan. Magical experiments and rituals. Blood magic. Death magic. Everybody decided it was better to... start over fresh. There's a few things we kept, like the gardens and the library, but the rest of it got razed."

"Ah. I see." A den of evil, more horrifying than Howard could probably even begin to imagine. Though he'd been responsible for a good deal of blood and death in his lifetime, it had been all indirect, and mundane rather than arcane. Not like that's much solace to the dead.

"Probably a good idea," he notes.

"Yeah." Which is a hell of a grim note to start the tour with, so Tony turns the focus back to the positives.

"But we're trying to turn it into something good for the whole community, now. I think the Merchant's Guild wants to turn some of it into a new commercial district, with shops and art galleries. Real estate is a hot commodity inside the city, so it'll be the biggest new development in a long time. There'll be a tram line for it and everything. And one of the foreigners, Wan, has been keeping up the gardens. They're really nice. And just wait till you see the new foreigner housing."

His enthusiasm returning, Tony starts rattling on about the project, covering the technical engineering side of things, as well as the amenities and luxuries and clever design elements that the construction team has included in the new dormitories.

He chooses to gloss over some of the bleaker tasks they'd had to perform, like washing bloodstains off of reclaimed marble and walling up the dungeons.

Howard listens intently, and he's glad to find that his son has really taken to this new place like a fish to water. If there was anything that would give the lie to that, he sure isn't seeing it. Tony's as enthusiastic about this project as he's been about almost anything in the lab.

Speaking of which...

"Is there a lab around here?"

HOWARD NO

"Um." Tony rubs the back of his neck and clears his throat. "Sort of...? I'm not really there much. As much. It's..." A long, frustrating story that doesn't paint him in the kind of light he wants his dad to be seeing him in.

Well, he'd better tell his dad something— before Zanru gets to him. That is definitely not the side of things Tony wants Howard hearing first.

"So... way before I got here, there were two other, older versions of me. From alternate universes. I never met them. But one of them started Stark International - well, he called it Stark Industries - here. Aya - she's the AI - she was running things after the other two Tonys left, and when I got here, I started helping her."

Are you ready, Howard? Because now it starts to get complicated.

"Then, after we beat Malicant, all of the Foreigners were lost in this... realm, I guess, called the Dreaming. It really was like we were dreaming, except it was for a whole year. And while all of us were conked out and locked up in the Hotel, the Kedan went back to life as usual. They took over almost all of the foreigner businesses— including Stark Industries. A kedan woman called Zanru runs it now." He mostly manages to keep the distaste out of his voice. Mostly.

"I wanted to take it back, but... Everyone decided that it would be better if we let the kedan recover from the war and run things the way they want. Since it's their city. So we let them keep it."

Yeah, 'we let them keep it out of the goodness of our hearts' sounds a lot better than 'I made an ass out of myself and everyone told me to shut up and play nice, or else.'

Well, that sure is a lot to take in.

Beginning with: "Alternate universes? So it's not just the vastly different ones like you had mentioned with the sigils you showed me - there's multiversal forms of us around?" That is both a really fascinating and a really weird concept.

Tony having a sour opinion of someone is still strange to him. He makes a mental note to follow it up later. "You got lost in this...dream realm? What does that mean?"

Sorry, Tony, your dad asks a lot of questions, and none of them have easy answers.

"Yup. Or... mostly of me."

Tony looks a little flummoxed as he realizes for the first time that, despite all the talk about it, he really doesn't know that many people who've had doubles. Or triples. He kept expecting to run into more, or hear about more and... never did.

"Guess I'm a hot commodity on the multiverse market," he says with a little grin (because being smug is always better than being confused and having an existential crisis).

"But that's the idea, yeah. Anyway, Malicant was this... death dream monster... thing," vague handwaving, "so when we fought him, we had to fight him on his home turf. Matrix-style. Except the person who was supposed to give us the red pill lost the prescription. So we all got a non-refundable year-long vacation in Wonderland. The Matrix. Whatever."

Nicely done, Tony, A+ metaphor. ~~Idiot.~~

~~Are you a mercodity, Tony?~~

"Knew I did something right raising you," Howard jokes with a laugh. But his expression settles into something more serious when Tony explains the situation with the Dreaming. How horrible that must have been!

"I still can't believe that you lost a year like that," he says, sounding disturbed. "Trapped in a dream. Did you know it was a dream? What was it like? Was it anything like Yogthulu's realm?"

"No, no way." He suppresses a shudder. If they'd all spent a year trapped in a featureless void (giant centipedes optional) they'd all have woken up stark (haha) raving mad.

"It wasn't so bad." It was quite nice, actually, at times. For reasons that involve Gene and will remain locked in the strictly confidential Never-Ever-Tell-Howard-Ever file until the end of time.

"It was a lot like a regular dream, except we could move in and out of each other's dreams. Not everybody realized they were dreaming at first, but once we snapped out of it, we could manipulate what we were dreaming. The weirdest part was that it didn't feel like a whole year. That was a little shocking to wake up to. I had a beard." An awful beard. "And long hair!"

It was so traumatic, Howard. He looked like a sleazy, unwashed drug dealer. Long hair is not a good look for him.

Long hair isn't a good look for him. But if he wants people to take him seriously, he might want to invest in a beard. A beard might work for him, make him look older. But not just yet.

"That's pretty frightening," Howard says. "But at least it wasn't all bad while you were there. I can't imagine what it'd be like to lose a year like that, really lose a year." And to wake up looking like Rip Van Winkle? Yikes.

"So we're stuck here, then, you and me?" There are worse people to be stuck with. "If we put our heads together, I bet we can come up with a way home that keeps our memories intact."

No, Howard. No beard. The beard is banned. Even if his imaginary older self did look pretty good with one, his older imaginary self was also a huge evil asshole. So. No thanks.

"That was the least frightening thing about the situation," Tony says, with slightly grim humor. Besides, a year doesn't feel like so much to lose when you're young, healthy, and guaranteed a body reset at some point in the indefinite future. Living in Keeliai really changes your perspective on life. And pretty much everything else.

"Yep. You, me, Gene, and all the other foreigners. Until we get zapped out or find our own way home. With our memories." He smiles at his dad. "I think we can do just about anything if we put our heads together."

"Well, none of it sounds like a picnic, that's for sure," he notes. There's not a lot that sounds great about Keeliai. But Tony seems if not entirely happy to be here, then certainly well enough. But Starks are known for making the best out of a bad situation.

"Okay, so let's put our heads together. If we don't have access to the lab, where can we work? And..." He pauses as mundane concerns catch up to him. "...I guess I need to figure out where I'm staying. The Hotel, right?"

"Well, all the foreigners will have a lot more space to ourselves once the housing is finished. Till then, Anton has some garage space he rents out. But we'll get everything set up at the Hotel later. I still have to show you around. The construction site is just up ahead."

If he was about fifteen years younger, he'd be skipping with excitement. Everything seems better with Howard around. If anybody can solve the mystery of the foreigners' arrival and departure, it's the two of them. Together, the two Starks can do anything they put their minds to.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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don't use that flirty icon on ur father hdu

unfortunate keywording for the situation

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