realitymods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
realitymods) wrote2010-06-06 10:35 pm
realitymods) wrote2010-06-06 10:35 pm
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The Hosts
| ★ The Hosts The people who maintain the Machine and this experiment are all mod characters. Some are helpful, some are misguided, some are cruel, and some are dancing to a higher power's tune. While they can change and may appear with varying frequency, there are some constant influences. ★ The Shop The shop is a quaint wooden cottage that happens to be perhaps a bit futuristic on the inside. It's run by Jhil and Roen and the double jokers on the gaudy sign make it hard to miss. They're all too happy to sell characters the things they need - even information - for the right price. Can they afford their prices? That depends on what they have to lose. On the plus side, their employer wants them to hire new employees. As long as those employees don't try to get into the back room, behind the purple curtain... Oh, and don't even try to attack them. The door has a trigger to detect harmful intent, and you really don't want it to go off. Though NPCs can see the shop, whenever they try the door, it is locked. They may, if they are lucky, catch a fleeting image of them in the window, but they won't be allowed in. Regardless of what they try to use - magic, technology, or explosions - they will not be able to get into the shop. The door will open only when player characters are alone (or alone with other player characters). ★ Main Hosts Wolf ☆ Unlike Derogative, Wolfgang Albrecht is actually a completely normal human. Well, mostly. Hailing from a world where dimensional paradoxes are common, he searches for a way to save his home before it succumbs to instability and is swallowed forever. Though he dresses and sounds like he's from Britain, he'll be the first to tell you that he has no idea what Britain is. Clumsy, well-meaning and earnest, he's a departure from the old manipulators of the Plane and he's in a class of his own. Like you, he's desperate for answers and unutterably alone. Wolf might be the only friend you have. Recently he's acquired something of a following, and is one of two powers vying for control of the Machine. Jhil ☆ Somewhat mysterious to lay eyes on, she's a woman with long red hair and two distinctive black horns curling back around her ears. She dresses in dark armor made of leather and mail even though she spends all her time working in the shop. She has a sharp tongue and is somewhat cranky, but if you want information, she's got it. Roen ☆ A short man with chin-length black hair and two small black horns that curve forward slightly. He dresses in gray cloth armor embroidered with gold thread in various patterns. Unlike his cousin Jhil, he's generally very hospitable, if not a bit nervous. Da Tian ☆ Wolf's former doctor and friend turned traitor. He is tall and striking, hawkish features and black hair braided down his back, as well as yellow eyes. He raised the 'angels' and released them on people just to see what would happen. Shaman ☆ A little girl who works on the Machine. She dresses like a butterfly cocoon and talks in riddles, much like Meredith before her. It's rumored that she is actually upwards of a thousand years old. ★ Former Hosts These people no longer can be contacted, but their info is here for reference. Raymond ☆ Raymond Keys works for a man named Jed, and that's all he has to offer on that situation. He looks stunningly average, brown hair, brown eyes, average height, dressed in greys and like he can't decide between business or casual. His stature and appearance always seem like he's just barely tolerating being there. And when he says you make him sick, he means it. He comes from a long line of people with the ability to sense the inhuman, but no one has ever had it as strong as him. He has no problems treating you with utter contempt and disgust, but will at least play at being nice to get his job done. Jacob ☆ Jacob Kross seems to be a normal sort of guy; a bit of a jock who is into cars. Short blond hair and an average height, frequently dressed in jeans and t-shirts. He has a friendly demeanor seems to mean well- just don't mention keys around him. Oh, did he mention it yet? He's looking for a key. A specific key. It's very important. If you happen to find it, please, he needs it. Rita ☆ Rita Blake is clearly more refined than her boyfriend. Black business suits and classy, serious glasses are her attire of choice, and her long black hair practically blends in with them. She's a bit odd though, in her way. She always seems familiar to men- she always reminds them of someone they've met before.... Maybe in a dream? 'Grey'/Charlie ☆ Dead. As it turned out, he was host to something quite terrible. Who knew? Derogative ☆ Derogative is an insufferably cheery, usually asleep, new addition. When dealing with most humanoid beings, he tends to take on a human form; a man in his early forties with short, messy brown hair, bright green eyes, and usually dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket. Though when in the shop, he tends to prefer his natural form: a giant canine-like animal with a golden ankh on his chest. Most of the time he does odd jobs for whoever needs him for anything, he takes his role as Guardian seriously, but it would be best for everyone if he just remains as doofy and scatterbrained as he allows himself to seem. The Twins ☆ The Twins are comprised of a girl and a boy - Lapis and Lazuli respectively - who look shockingly young and like perfect, pale porcelain dolls. Everything about them is sheet white and neat, wearing old-fashioned clothes, cropped hair and generally seeming quite delicate if not rather unsettling. Don't be fooled. The Twins are sly, amoral business types. Everything has a price and nothing is sacred. They appear to have ties to everything corrupt - the mafia, crooked cops, etc - as well as everything good - heroes, orphanages, whatever - and keep their cards close. People tend to end up in debt to them but if you have what they want, they might just be your best friends. Also, they have a creepy tendency to talk in unison, as if they share a mind. The only way to tell them apart is Lapis's slightly higher voice and the fact that they each wear a braid but on different sides of their heads. (Lapis wears hers on the right, Lazuli's on the left). If you listen closely when they move, the sound of gears can be heard. Roe ☆ Not much is known about this woman. She fixed the Machine after it crashed from misuse, then disappeared. She seems to be irritable, because she very much is. Recently she has appeared again in glee at character suffering and annoyance that they were getting a vacation. She's a bundle of joy. Meredith ☆ Meredith Sault represents what she simply refers to as 'the Order.' It has a real name, but she doesn't think that you need to hear it. There's something distinctly eerie in her mannerisms, from the distant voice to the fluidity of her movements. Her robes hide her eyes in shadow, but her lips, often curled in amusement, are always visible. Meredith is not your friend, but she is not your enemy, either. She will not be bought, coerced, convinced, or made to care, for she values little and considers everything to be transient. She will not attempt to trick you, but she often speaks vaguely - or else callously offers shattering information, a small smile the only hint at her reason for doing so. Laith ☆ Dead. Laith Kolter seemed like the usual harmless research slave right up until she showed her true cards as a master manipulator. Notable for controlling a long-term peaceful Plane resident into slaughtering half a dozen people and hampering the investigation. Ruthless, unfeeling, and willing to put her own life on the line for the sake of making a new world, Laith took the secrets of the Machine to her grave. ★ Contact A Host In this post, you can ICly contact a mod character. You should leave a comment of whatever your character is doing to get attention - going into the shop and so on - as you would with normal tagging. If you have a preference for what character you get, give their name in the subject line. For the purposes of this post, the characters that can be contacted at any point are Wolfgang and Jhil. However, if you do not specify which character you want, you may receive messages from others involved in the workings of the Machine. |
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[Conan's perfectly happy to remain in the body of the shop, having seen all there is to see (so he thinks) when he came to retrieve the un-candy.]
A writer -- is that why you have so many notebooks?
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[He taps his head, still grinning all the while.]
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[That grin is getting vaguely uncomfortable.]
Ne ... can I hear the story about the Snake?
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Which snake? You have to be more specific, I'm afraid. There's the snake in the garden of eden, there's Jörmungandr, there's Quetzalcoatl, there's a serpent that drank the sea and died of thirst after. There are so many snakes, Conan.
[He gives the boy a knowing look as he says his name, as if privy to a secret.]
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I want to know about the one that only eats people's left hands, please.
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I don't know that story. How odd. Perhaps you've mistaken me for a different man? Or maybe you've mistaken one story for another one. After all, snakes are snakes are snakes are snakes, one severed head biting another and bleeding all together.
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[He stares at Conan for minute before sticking his hands in his pockets.]
It's a tragic story. Everyone dies. Or disappears. Where to begin! Let's see...
Twenty one years ago there were two little boys, Sammy and Charlie. One ten, and one eleven, but never would one of them age. Ten, always ten, all ways ten. They lived out in the mountains, like most tales would say, in a little town not unlike my own. Your own. Our own.
The forests there were thick and dark, deep and dank. The children would coo and caw about the beasts inside; tales of wolves and bears and catamounts. But these two boys, one ten and one eleven, feared not the dark nor the beasts.
They roamed as children, much like yourself, yet not quite yourself, tend to roam. Through streams and rivers, branches and stone.
"Sammy, Sammy, we've gone too far," Charlie would whisper. "Please, I want to go."
"I am the leader," Sammy would say in retort. "You have to listen to me."
And so Charlie listened. Charlie came and Sammy went: gone into the dark. And Charlie, little Charlie, only eleven, went home alone that September. No more Sammy, no more leader, no more deep dark forest adventure. He went home alone to the arms of madness.
So he left. He left the little town in the valley in the mountains and he stumbled into the arms of the man with the serpent. The snake 'round his neck. Charlie tried to hard to save him, that man who was like and unlike Charlie, but no one is ever saved from their snakes. That's crazy.
But he went back, good old Charlie, he went back with the man with the snake in tow. Back home to confront his demons and his monsters.
And he was swallowed up.
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[But Conan's protest is forgotten as Grey continues his story. It's a compelling listen, something of the quality of the ghost stories Conan ignored his classmates telling on school trips and despite himself he is impressed at both the complexity underlying it's apparent simplicity and the pathos it embodies.]
No one is ever saved? They have to save themselves?
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There is no saving, I said that. There's nothing to save! If anything you just... help the snake strangle. You wouldn't want to do that, would you? Grab it by the tail, feel the silky scales in your hand... you grip it tightly and you pull, you pull and pull and pull and it just tightens around his throat. He claws and he gasps and he stares at you with accusing eyes.
Why? Why him, why are you turning on him, stop, stop, you're making it worse! And then you let go. It loosens. And he breathes again; every gasp a tremor and his body quivering with fear.
((OOC: also ff I notice a name typo. Where it says 'the man who was like and unlike Charlie', that Charlie is supposed to be Sammy. :| Whoops.))
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Ne, who was it you couldn't save, Grey-san?
((ooc: no worries! I guessed. Also, apologies for the brevity of this reply. I just cannot seem to brain right today.))
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And who said I was in the saving business? I'm no knight in shining armor. I'm a man with a notebook and a pen.
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Ne ... can you really tell us how to find it?
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[He leans back on his heels.]
Find what? Come on, Edogawa, don't be vague. I'm not psychic. I can't see into that head of yours, though I am certain some people around here could. Or perhaps... a quick strike to expose it all, anyone could do that, but such a mess.
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Ah, sorry, Grey-san! I thought that if I mentioned Menzies sent me, you'd know the story -- and the snake -- I meant.
It's the people we want to find. You know there's more gone missing?
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[He still remains grinning, that grin never fades, even as the rest of his face might change in minute expression to something one might have during a sigh.]
Yes, I know people are missing, everyone knows that! It's as plain as the eyes on your face.
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You say it's plain, Grey-san, but you're not exactly being plain yourself. Are you teasing?
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[Hands go back into his pockets.]
A monster is a monster is a beast is It, do you understand? I hope this clears things up.
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Ne ... let's go back to Menzies-san. She asked you about the disappearances and you told her a story about a non-literal snake, a monster, a beast, an it, thousands of years old, responsible for an ever increasing number of deaths and able to travel between our realities -- is that right?
Two different 'it's, Grey-san. When I asked you about the snake, I forgot Menzies-san asked you about the people--
[Conan paused, the conversation having given rise to a new suspicion.]
When you say 'It' is that because you can't name it?
((ooc: apologies if any of this is weird. I am so hopelessly confused now like you wouldn't believe.))
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[A pause, a shrug.]
But I'm afraid I can't tell you the name.
ooc!
When Grey says 'the snake has nothing to do with It' does he mean that the thing that has killed the people who vanished isn't a snake, that It and the snake in the story are not the same, or that It has nothing to do with the disappearances?))
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