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Cross Effects 1.0 Archive / Re: Cross Effects - Sign Up, Discussion Page
« on: December 18, 2013, 08:38:36 PM »
New character sheet up, because cowardly titans make for interesting characters.
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She still hadn't let go of Luka's hand. That was something to note, in that 'personal space' way that Valda simply did not care overly much about.
Still, the pattern seemed to fit. She had simply been sitting in her office before being dumped into the alley with no warning given. She was not consulted at any point about a possible trip to other dimensions, and it was certainly unwelcome. Well, mostly unwelcome.
"Then we are the play things of some titan's whimsy? Pieces in the games of a being without purpose or meaning behind it?" Valda asked rhetorically, her face lowering so that her eyes were focused on the table. Her glasses gleamed with malevolence in the flourescent lighting of the bakery, and her hands squeezed. "Then we will find no retreat until we have satisfied it, or driven it to such boredom that it casts us back from whence we came."
Henderson had found the Bakery early on. He'd suddenly discovered a craving for a good couple dozen donuts. Skating in on his heelies, Old Man Henderson rolled up to the counter, mirrored aviators flashing in the lights.
"Can I have... 32 raspberry Bismarck's, 12 donuts with sprinkles and frosting, and..." Henderson frowned, turning to the stuffed parrot on his shoulder before asking a simple question, a scottish accent slipping into his voice.
"So what do you want?"
The silence from both the bird and the dumbfounded cashier.
"Rupert here wants a jelly donut."
"Uhhhhh..."
"Don't worry, I have the cash. Chop chop... er, what was I buying again?"
The cashier hurriedly took the 100 dollar bill before the crazy man could speak again, and in no time, the waitress brought his order to a booth next to the one with the talking skeleton. To Henderson, that just proved that he'd gotten some good shit.
Of course, he couldn't restrain himself from commenting, even as he ate his pastries.
"You know your problem? I'm not saying its cultists... but it's probably cultists. Gnome stealing bastards..."
"I don't know. I think if we could at least talk to whatever's responsible for this, it would be possible to convince it to send us back," Luka murmured. Unlike Valda, who seemed to be holding back anger, or Bonesington, who was obviously having fun with the whole thing, he was thinking of someone else. A seemingly omnipotent being whose cruel actions had initially been driven by the simple desire to not be alone. Perhaps it wasn't boredom. Perhaps it was something else. They couldn't know yet.
He only realized that he was still holding Valda's hand when she squeezed it.
"You should let go," Salamander warned him. "That could be taken the wrong way."
"What wrong way? It's obviously to seal the deal," he said.
"...really? You don't think there could be some other motive?"
"Not at all," he snapped, a bit tired of the spirit's insinuations. "Look, would you please stop with all this suspicion? Miss Valda hasn't done a single thing other than help me all this time. Besides, she's from another world, with a different culture. Hand-holding might just be her way of affirming cooperation." Just to punctuate his mental words, he squeezed back. Sure, it made him feel a bit uncomfortable, but there was no way he was going to do anything to offend his only lifeline in this strange new world.
"Oh dear," Undine murmured to herself as Salamander retreated, fuming. "The poor boy's completely blind."
"..." Gnome looked up from her concrete castle, curiosity plain on her face.
"It's subtlety," Undine explained. "The women of our world are usually fairly... straightforward in their methods of seeking affection. Our Hero's certainly had enough experience in dealing with that type of courting, but he's never experienced a less direct effort. This might prove to be a problem."
Gnome looked outside, to the boy's situation, and nodded. A problem indeed.
Then she noticed the crazy old man sitting in the next booth, and shook her head, pointing to him.
"Ah, yes, cultists," Undine murmured, her voice unconsciously transmitting through Luka's glass of water. "Always a problem. Thankfully, some Gnomes are harder to steal than others."
"We're not really tourists," Luka said. Sylph was muffled, but he'd caught the gist of the skeleton man's words enough to reply. "Both of us are here against our will, too. I mean, I was just crossing the ocean when I got sucked into this weird black portal without warning, and we don't really have that kind of magic in our world."
Well, perhaps Ilias would've been able to do something like that, or Tamamo with a few weeks of preparation, but it didn't fit. The world was still recovering from an earth-changing war, and anyone with the capacity to do something of that calibre would've done it months earlier. So... it had to be an outside force.
"But I don't think it's a coincidence either," he continued. The spirits were silent for once, letting the boy formulate his thoughts properly. "If we're all from three wildly different worlds, that must mean someone or something deliberately brought us here. The only question is... why?"
"Uh..." Luka was lost. Completely.
"Translate! Translate!"
"He's basically saying that he's in the same situation you are!" Sylph, of all people, piped up. "Like, he wants you to help him out and stuff, and he's asking to sit down."
"H-how did you-?"
"I'm a published author, silly!" The wind spirit giggled, doing aerial acrobatics as she flew through Luka's soul. "I know complicated words and stuff! Copacetic! Oblivious! Guacamole!"
A boulder smashed the spirit over the head, sending her crashing into a pile of sand, which was instantly doused in rain. "Aaaah! Heeeeeeeeelp!" She screamed as she sank below the muddy, watery quicksand.
A short distance away, Gnome and Undine shared a fist bump.
"Uh, sure," Luka said, choosing to forget the chaos in his head. "Go ahead. We were just about to ask you anyway."
That was when Valda reached over, took his right hand in both of her own and smiled. "Then it is a promise between us," she swore for them both, just somehow knowing that this Luka was a being worthy of trusting to keep it.
Which would be great when the reciprocation began in earnest between them. Delicious, satisfying reciprocation, which would be even better than the blueberry muffins she still had to consume.
She would have said more, but then the bizarre specimen of unlife approached their table without prompting by either of them and caught them with their hands together like that.
"Before we begin, Sir Bonesington, I must inquire: are you of this world, or is this foreign to you as well?"
She did not care; shame was a pitiful human foible she had gladly cast aside in the purifying furnace of truth.
The Undead Scourge in Warcraft ripped off much of its fashion and architecture from a pseudo-Egyptian race of spider people that it committed genocide on and then reanimated wholesale.
Oh shit. A fight between Luka and Fate sounds like it would be awesome. They both have like a dozen different attacks and abilities they can spam at each other.