Aimless Soul

Small lanterns are lit along the road as the sun slowly sets on Dun Loiraeg. Landers and adventurers both cheerily go about their business, despite the cooler weather. It is the transition time between regular shops closing down for the day and the pubs and taverns getting busy.

Off to one side of the street sites a lone figure, a petite girl in an elaborate black dress sits on the ground with her back to the wall - Seliana. Hugging her knees, and face down also resting on her knees she sits silently.

Despondent adventurers have not been uncommon to see in the world after the apocalypse, and many of those who pass only give her a passing glance. Those few Landers that are concerned quickly moving on after seeing the adventurer icons when she is inspected.

Proteus likes the mountains. There is a cleanliness to them, a sharpness, a purity that she appreciates. The desire to rake the sky with the claws and teeth of the world no matter how far the heavens might retreat. Yes, the mountains are the best. If Proteus were of another temperment she might have decided to make her home here, but the ruin-lands of Ezzo were simply too perfect for her desires. So much for that, sadly.

Still, she walks along through the streets, the cloaked and hooded Imp sliding through the foot traffic of the Root Town without much concern with her compatriots. While others are passing the hunched figure by, Proteus stops, her head turning silently to regard the despondent Adventurer. "..."

There is a rustle of movement, and she turns, holding out a paper-wrapped package with a duck on it to the woman. "Here. Take this." The package is a crude bento-like box with some rice and meat chunks in sauce, a bit of salad, and some tea. "You look like you're having some trouble." The gleaming teeth, visible within the shadow of the hood, frame the gently glowing purple eyes above as the slitted spheres look upon the Adventurer with a piqued interest. "Eat, and let's talk about it, if you're willing."

    "I-It's not my fault! I mean, going easy on them is worse, right?" The conflict between giving your all in a fight and not wanting to repeatedly beat down an inferior foe is visible on Yuuki's face for a few moments.

    But then Amalthea agrees to a duel and Yuuki's eyes light up, also causing her to pump her fist in combined excitement and relief, "Yey!" The imp then spins around to face her previous opponent, waving to him and saying, "Sorry pal, I've got to accept this new duel. You'll have to come back another time. Try and work on your skills in the mean time. I'm sure you'll get better... Eventually!"

    The defeated spearman sulks a little as he walks off, leaving Amalthea and Yuuki to battle. Yuuki phews as she moves back to the top of the hill, "Thanks. Guess I owe you for bailing me out there. Though that doesn't mean I'm going to let you win!"

    Yuuki pulls out her own healing potion to heal up the small amount of HP she had lost in her previous duel. As she does so she explains, "Rules are simple enough. 1v1 only, no help from others. No killing. Loser is the first one to have their HP go into the red."

    As Yuuki raises her sword in preparation, she asks, "Sound good?"

Goldenblade is walking along the roadway, on her way from one place to another. Her knowledge of the gameworld is almost zero, so she's a bit lost, but that means she's not in a hurry to get anywhere. "Hello, on the road," she calls as she approaches. Because you don't want to startle people unless you're trying to ambush them, which is not what she's trying to do. "Everything OK?" she calls as she comes closer.

Slowly looking up with deep red eyes, Seliana peers out from a see through black veil to inspects the imp A moment passes. Then another. Finally, she reaches out and takes the bento box. Lowering it down to herself and shifts her legs sideways so she can place it on the ground. Opening it up she stares at the food without going to eat it. Then looks back up at the imp, facial expression remaining unchanged so far. She seems to have a perpetual slight frown, and her eyes.. They seem dull.

After another moment she finally replies to Proteus, "The problem is that we are here. What else is there to say?" She also glances at Goldenblade briefly but doesn't explain further. Despite this she does pick up the chopsticks, moves her veil back over her head, and take a bite of the food. For a brief moment she pauses after the first bite. Expression still unchanged, but after that she does seem to start eating slightly more quickly.

At least the food tastes like actual food and not rice crackers. It's simple fare but it's better than the tasteless stuff that people have had to bear with since the Black Wave.

There is a frown, and a worried look that crosses that shadowed face as her tail curls up behind her. With a glance over to Kaleido, she nods, and then she turns and sits down beside the despondent woman. She looks up to Goldenblade and waves to the familiar face. "Hey there, Goldenblade." She says. "We're trying to find that out." She says, then turns her attention back to Seliana. "A pretty punchy response. I get the idea, but I think there's a lot more to say than that." She looks away, letting Seliana begin eating. "It's a tough time here, Seliana. Ever since the Black Wave there's been a lot of suffering... but us being in this world isn't the problem. This world was made for us, wasn't it? We're here because we wanted to be here in the first place. Wouldn't the problem be that we can't leave?" Proteus asks, finally turning things back to Seliana.

Goldenblade looks quizically at Seliana, then over to Proteus. "Hey. She okay? Not hurt?" she asks quietly. She'll come over, and settle to a squat, sitting on her heels and looking over Seliana. "We're here, yeah," she says to Seliana. "But that's not cause to stop anything. Why would it be? We all came here to play a game, so we play the game. Living our lives in between, and making things better for each other as we go. I don't know how or when we'll be able to get out, but it'll happen sooner or later. /Everything/ happens sooner or later." Not the best pep talk, and it's got undertones of grandpa telling you to get up and go back in there. Which is kind of what it is. "Anyhow, if you pick yourself up and get your backside in gear, we can find you some shelter, and people who won't take advantage of you. If you just sit here for the rest of your live, nothing will get better and eventually it'll get worse. But things aren't so bad, with friends and allies."

After another bite from the bento Seliana sets down the chopsticks then takes a moment to finish chewing and swallowing before looking at the imp Proteus beside her. She stares a moment. Silent. Then she turns to stare at Goldenblade. Silent. Finally she tilts her head back to rest against the wall while she looks up at the sky and lets out a breath of air in a sigh, the white vapor visible in the cool weather. "Once, sure. Come and go, that's how it was."

She is silent again for a few breaths of time and continues, "Its been so long. Have you seen anyone really die? Think how many of us there are. Can you imagine that emergency response could get to every person in time to save them before they die of thirst?" Tilting her head down and over to look at Goldenblade in the eye. "We're all dead now. There isn't a 'going back'". She then looks to Proteus, "Not just that. We are trapped. We can't even die."

Kaleido nods back to Proteus.

"Personally I'm still looking to get back out the first realistic opportunity that comes up, but until then..."

"... Might as well build our castles in the sand... and I'm hoping that we're just stuck here temporarily, not... actually dead."

A frown crosses the were fang's beak.

"Whatever the case, there's no reason not to carve out a comfortable, um, existence. And figure out why we're stuck here, at whatever cost."

Proteus closes her eyes as Goldenblade attempts her pep talk of a sort. "Some wounds don't show up on the meters." The Imp replies quietly.

Turning her head, she looks back to Seliana and watches her carefully. She doesn't say anything immediately while Seliana goes straight to the Heavy Questions. Her hand flicks and opens up a menu, showing an incrementing timer: 52:23:59:35

"Has anyone really died? I don't know. It's impossible to tell right now. The chaos made it impossible to keep an eye out for everyone." She goes quiet for another moment or two, and flicks her hand aside, dismissing the timer. "I don't know if they could get to everyone in time. I'm guessing no, probably not."

The Imp looks back to Seliana and shakes her head. "I don't know if we're dead or not. But does it matter? We're here. We exist. We /are/." She reaches out, holding a hand before her back and forth. "We can feel. We can think. We can eat and live and do as we wish. Have we been trapped... or have we been liberated?"

Proteus gestures to Kaleido. "Kaleido has the right of it. We're putting the cart before the horse. Even if we're trapped here..." She gestures at the town around them, "Why should we allow ourselves to simply sit here and suffer? Why can't we live in comfort? And then there's something else. Something very important." She trails off there, watching intently.

Goldenblade peers at Seliana, and she says, "I don't think I'm dead. I don't /feel/ dead. As for my body, I imagine one of my sons came back, and if they couldn't get the headset disconnected, I'm probably in a hospital with an IV in my arm. Well, if they could, I wouldn't be here, but here I am, so I imagine they couldn't. You probably are, too. If your brain is dead, how are you here talking to us? Likely your neighbor or mailman called the ambulance to check on you, and they stick an IV in your arm and anyone can change that out regularly, so ... you haven't died by now, so you're likely alive." She nods at what Kaleido and Proteus say, reiterating, "Even if it's not real, it /feels/ real, so you may as well go with it. You'll make whatever faux life this may be much better."

"It's not false." Proteus objects. "There's nothing false about this. Don't pretend what we do and live here doesn't matter."

Seliana sits silently and listens to the others. Looking from one to the next as they share their thoughts. She makes no effort to interject or interrupt as others continue their dialogue. At the mention of food she looks down at the unfinished bento once more, and decides to pick up the chopsticks and continue on the meal.

As each of them concludes their thought she continues to eat. Taking another bite in silence and she looks at each of them again before setting it done once more. After she finishes the bite of food she continues, "Perhaps I'm alive, sorta. Does it really matter if I do try or not? I tried my whole life before. I sacrificed so much to get to where I was. It was for NOTHING." And her eyes glow red for a moment before they dull once again. "Even what I worked for, I don't know if it is there. What good would doing it again be here?"

And then she looks over at Proteus once more, "What could be so very important? More than making a life. Working endlessly for comfort or success? Nothing is looking appealing."

     "The world wasn't fair."

     Shin Heno wasn't really intentionally on his way here. He was, in fact, shopping for some materials he's gonna need later. He's got a makeshift bag in one arm, some animal hide he probably acquired specifically for that purpose, full of...God only knows what. But Proteus is...audible. And he likes Proteus, obviously; they're guildmates. You help out guildmates.

     Shin has a bright, cheerful smile as he walks up and sets the bag down. He leans forward to look at Seliana. "The world wasn't fair," he repeats, his eyes locking onto hers, "You know? You hear about good people losing everything and bad people winning, about good things happening to bad people...the world wasn't fair."

     He sits down across from her, one leg raised. He adjusts his glasses slightly. "But we're not in that world anymore."

     "We've got a unique chance to make the world better. To *make* this world fair. To make it so that bad things happen to bad people here, and good things happen to good people."

     He grins. "Don't you think that sounds worthwhile?"

     "The chance to take a new life and make a world where justice is real and everything we believed in as kids has meaning?"

     "Oh!" He adds, "Hi, by the way. I'm Shin."

     "I'm a Hero of Justice. Nice to meet you."

Proteus is about to answer Seliana when Shin Heno comes in and gives his own speech. She goes quiet, clamping down her sharklike teeth and giving the Hero of Justice a nod of acknowledgement and greeting as he arrives. She gestures over to him as he makes his own case for existence in the face of the horrifying existential dread that threatens to consume every Adventurer.

"What's also important." Proteus says quietly and simply. "Is finding out /why/." She looks up into the sky. "Someone or something caused this to happen. We need to know why. We /deserve/ to know why. And who. And if we don't like the answer..." She clenches her fist. "We're going to make them /pay/. I'm /tired/ of having everything in my life taken away by the arbitrary whims of some distant asshole. Here, I have the ability to /do/ something about it."

Goldenblade sighs a bit as Seliana states her case, and she says, "Actually accomplishing things here will cheer you up. It's how the brain's wired, I was told once. You do things, you achieve things, you get food or a house or a bag of gold, and the reward makes you feel good. I worked all my life, on the outside, and it wasn't because I was expecting someone to shower love and affection on me for eating supper or washing my backside. I did it because that's how you live. If someone's not appreciating what you're doing, either do something they'll appreciate, or find people who'll appreciate what you're doing. Just sitting around wallowing in misery won't help you."

She looks over as Shin arrives, and she nods at what he says. "That's it exactly. Once you find your way in with a group that's doing things, it'll all click together. But that won't start until you pick yourself up and get your backside in gear." She's definitely from the tough love generation. To Proteus, she says, "That'd be a good solution." By her tone, she's not holding her breath for it. "Until we do, though, if we assume that this is our lives, and do what we can to make the best of it, then we will have the best of what we could do. Think of it as being lost on a desert island after a plane crash or your boat sinking. We're Robinson Crusoe, shaping the world around us into a thing that's nice to live in. But if we don't do it, no one's going to do it for us."

     "That sounds like justice to me," Shin notes, tilting his head at Proteus, "It's not vengeance. Bad things happened to good people. So part of making the world a place with true justice is making sure that whatever's responsible gets comeuppance, too."

     His eyes, very briefly, don't match his smile. "Don't you think so?"

Before there had been a momentary spark of emotion, a red glow in her eyes, an increase in volume. It had been the first time her frown deepened in displeasure, but it all quickly faded back to the way she had been before. Now her voice continues in a flat tone without much inflection, eyes a dull red, much like it was throughout most of the conversation so far staring straight at the new arrival, Shin. "Hero. Of. Justice." She parrots slowly barely blinking as she continues to look at him silently, face impassive with her slight frown. "fair?" she again repeats slowly.

Seliana looks around at each of the individuals around her, realizing that there was quite a few now. Then she listens to Goldenblade, "Achieve.. reward..?" and then more silence. Seliana just blinking a few times. Then continuing Proteus quietly continues and she turns to look as she listens, remaining silent for some time before replying, "Oh, I would like to find who is responsible and achieve my own rewards." She says slightly quieter than before, but her eyes once again start to glow a dim red. "Someone should pay." There is a dark tone, disgust in her voice. The glow in her eyes starts to grow. "Justice? Vengeance?" and then the glow fluctuates for a moment, before dimming away completely once again. "I don't know who. I don't know where. I don't know how."

Saliana just closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall, then bonk it lightly against the wall a few times.

     "That's right. Hero of Justice." He laughs. "It's my thing. I want to make sure people get what they deserve." That's an ominous way to phrase that, isn't it?

     "That's what you're asking for." Shin leans forward again. The scars on his hand stretch a little against his skin as his fingers tighten into a fist against his leg.

     "Justice. Not vengeance. Vengeance is just taking care of personal problems. It's not just you who got hurt here. It's everybody. You can't call something like that vengeance. It's for everybody's good."

     The look in his eyes, the look behind his glasses, still doesn't quite match his smile. There's something slightly...off, about him. It's probably just the whole Protagonist Air. That's kind of unreal. Right? That's gotta be it.

    

She opens her eyes again and tilts her head down to look straight across at Shin. "What does it matter what I call it if I cannot do it?" Then she looks at each of those around her. "All I've done here before is get different clothes and dresses to wear or go kill monsters randomly." She sighs deeply again, white vapour swirling in the chill air, "It was just an escape.."

Goldenblade nods at what Shin says, chuckling at justice. "Justice is nice when it happens, and you make it happen when you can," she agrees. But there's an overtone of fatalism about the times you can't, though she leaves that unsaid. "Do what you can about what you can control," she repeats. "But don't give up. Then you lose your stake. You play your cards as hard as you can, and you can win. This is that sort of game, where everyone can win. It's not Monopoly or checkers, with just one winner."

She blinks at Saliana and says, "Well, if you want someone to pay, sitting on your backside here's not going to do anything. Find some people who want the same thing," she eyes Proteus and Shin, "and go out and find the person responsible and kick them hard. If you want to achieve rewards, go out and do quests with people. They'll let anyone join. I got invited just for asking, and I'd never done anything like that. But no one's gonna hand you life on a tray unless you're three."

     Shin's smile turns...plastic. Uncomfortable. Not for him. Uncomfortable in the sense where you can tell the only reason he's still smiling is because he's decided he needs to keep smiling, no matter what. The look in his eyes is almost *viscerally* unpleasant, a blade-sharp gaze pointed squarely at Goldenblade. His fingers drum against his knee. The scars are painfully visible.

     "If you're satisfied with 'what you can control', then you'll be happy anywhere, won't you?" He says cheerfully. "You're too old to want to change at this point, I guess."

     The grandma punch.

     "Let the rest of us make our dreams come true. You just need to get out of the way."

     The smile relaxes, and his eyes go back to normal as he looks back at Seliana. "It's still an escape. You escaped a world where you had no power, into a world where you have power. You think you can't do it because you're still thinking like someone from the other world."

     "This is our world. We don't have to settle for anything."

Proteus watches the exchange back and forth, the responses from Seliana and the way she starts animating causing her to tilt her head curiously.

"Who says you can't, though?" She begins talking again once Seliana pleads powerlessness. "Now, yes, we can't do anything about it. Whoever did it is clearly incredibly powerful. But now we have a goal and a purpose, and now all we have to do is find a way to break out of the restrictions placed upon us. That 'role' we have been assigned. We are people. Not programs. We have our own will and we will impose that will on the world around us to make a better world for everyone."

Proteus looks away. "You can still kill monsters. You can dress however you like. I know someone who /really/ loves to make clothing."

Proteus frowns almost simultaneously with Shin. While her expression might not be as viscerally intense as his is, she frowns and shakes her head. "Why are you willing to accept 'good enough'? It's an excuse. It's a bandaid you use to pretend that you couldn't achieve more. My-" She pauses, suddenly halting herself, and then she speaks again. "... People don't accept that in the old world, why should you accept it in the new one? Success belongs to those who are willing to push farther than anyone else."

She nods again. "This is /our/ world. All we have to do is figure out how best to turn it into something better than anything we were allowed to have in the old world."

"Personally I'm not going to stop till I either have left this world or have control of it, yeah," says Kaleido.

"I'm not gonna let this world push me around. *I'm* gonna be doing the pushing."

Goldenblade is nonplussed at Shin's rection to her fatalism, she actually seems amused. Kids. Full of hope and drive and never found an obstacle they can't overcome. "Well, good for you, then," she says with a dry chuckle. "If you set reasonable goals for yourself, of course, you can meet them all. If you set outrageous goals, you're likely to be disappointed. Or else achieve huge success, it does go both ways. She does nod at what Proteus says, and agrees, "That's the thing. If you've got a goal and a purpose, you just need to do something about it." As to why she's willing to accept good enough, she says with a laugh, "Because it's good enough. That's the whole point. I've lived a good life, this is my retirement. I only work as hard as I want to because I've worked as hard as I could all my life, and now I'm taking it easy."

     "Ah. You're one of those people."

     His smile gets real tight. "I guess that's the only thing you can say to comfort yourself, huh? All you can do is want to drag other people down with the chains of 'reasonable' and 'realistic' in a world where you come back to life when you're killed and shoot fire from your fingers."

     "I guess it's all you can say to comfort yourself. After all, it's not like you'll ever see your grandkids again."

     Shin tilts his head at Seliana. "Don't listen to someone like that. They're people stuck to the ground. They just want to hold you down and make you feel that your work is worthless. They don't mean to, obviously. They think they're doing you a favor. If you don't fight, you won't be disappointed when you fall. They've just accepted their lot in life."

     "You don't have to be like that."

     "You're looking for hope. Plant Hwyden will give you hope. Plant Hwyden will give you a place to find what you're looking for. To get the justice you seek."

     "Won't we?" He tilts his head at Proteus.

Seliana continues to listen as the discussion goes back and forth between the different viewpoints. It is clear there is a difference of philosophy. While it goes on she picks up the bento once more and finishes off the last of the food watching as things go back and forth.

Putting the now empty bento down she gazes with dull red eyes at Proteus and Shin. Then she looks down at her hands. Stating flatly she responds, "I do have power here." Then looking back up she drones in a monotone voice, "Can this Plant Hwyden really point me at to those responsible?" and then after a slight delay she asks Proteus, "Does this Plant Hwyden have new dress designs?"

Proteus doesn't get further involved in the back and forth between Goldenblade and Shin. That's something they have to resolve, that clash of mentality and ideals.

The Imp, meanwhile, remains focused on Seliana, and smiles faintly. "Yes, you do have power. Power to change the hopeless place you find yourself in. Power to take the world in your hands and begin to reshape it the way you want it to be. As far as finding who is responsible..." She shrugs. "That's one of my ultimate goals. Be they hacker, admin, or even some kind of would-be god, I'll find them... And then we will judge them in turn. I am guessing the process is going to be rather messy."

There is a little chuckle at the final question. "We have a workshop where people are coming up with new things all the time. We're based out of Alne right now. If you want, I can bring you there and you can decide if you want to be settled in with us, or if you would prefer to strike out on your own. While I would of course love to have you be with us..." She shrugs, her small wings fluttering behind her as she does so before wrapping themselves back around her shoulders like an overlay to the mantle. "I cannot and will not force you. We are all Plant Hwyaden of our own will. Follow me and we /will/ find those responsible for the Black Wave. The choice is yours."

Goldenblade sighs at Shin, and being one of 'those people'. "I said that I might not see my grandkids /every day of my life/," she says. "Because I could be run over by a bus or struck by lightning. Then, when I do, it's all the sweeter. As for limited expectations, I never said to stick yourself to the ground. This is a game. People can do whatever they want /if they figure out how/. Just wanting doesn't solve anything. That's the step you're glossing over. Results take effort. Food that tastes like soggy crackers was all we could do, then someone cooked something with fire instead of the menu, and now we have real food. You /know/ I'll fight, you've seen me.

"I'm not trying to drag anyone to the ground, either," she says a bit indignantly. "I'm trying to give her reasonable expectations. Optimists like you set people up for depression when they find that doing all the things they want to do and pie-in-the-sky goals takes more effort than you let on." To Seliana, she says, "So, you -can- do all those things. I never said you couldn't. But the more you want to do, the harder you have to work for it. That's the real secret. And the drive of youth," she adds with a smirk to Shin.

The dress design question throws her for a loop.

     Shin laughs.

     "Yeah, what she said." He jerks his thumb at Proteus as he stands and stretches, picking up his 'bag' of who the hell knows what. "I can walk you back, if you want. I'm on my way anyway. I had to get some supplies for stuff."

     He looks at Goldenblade for a long moment. Then, at Proteus, he says, cheerfully, "I told you so."

     And with that he's heading down Main Street. If Seliana and Proteus want to go with him, they can catch up to him easily.

Turning to Goldenblade she blinks a few times, "Do I want any things?" she questions and then looks back over to Proteus, "Perhaps. Perhaps I do.." and then she listens silently, staring with dull eyes as Proteus explains a possible path.

Seliana watches passively as Shin stands up and retrieves his bag, and starts to walk away. But then turns back as Proteus continues. She could lead her to those responsible? Those responsible. Those responsible. ".. Those responsible.." she mutters out loud. Repeats it. Tastes it. She looks off into the distance and her eyes begin to glow a fair red.

And Seliana smiles.

Dead eyes with a slight glow do not give the impression that this is a happy smile, teeth gleam white. And in her eyes motes of other colors begin to appear. Gold. Blue. Green. Black. And they swirl in a chaotic dance as the grin grows.

But as quickly as it starts, it fades. The smile disappears. The glow fades. And she looks impassive again. She stands up. Turns to Proteus. And in a flat voice says, "Very well. Lead."

Goldenblade shrugs at Shin, laughs as well. "Well, anyhow," she said, standing smoothly, "I'm off to shoot some food. Maybe I'll strike oil?" she laughs. She'll head off with a smile and says to Seliana, "I hope you find something that will motivate you. You asked about dresses, maybe that will motivate you?" And then she does the ominous thing, and Goldenblade winces. "Or maybe revenge?" Hopefully Plant Hwyaden can help her find what she's looking for.