Desert Mysteries

After the defeat of the sand worm and the discovery of Glass, a mysterious individual with both the icons of a player and Lander, most of the adventurers quickly picked up and returned to town. Now abandoned the underground cavern is slowly starting to become filled as the winds blow in loose sand. Before they are lost completely a couple members of Plant Hwyaden return to survey the area.

One of these members is Seliana, still wearing her menu created black dress and veil. She stands in the last location that Glass was seen before vanishing into a gate. Tracks of the worm having moved throw are still scared across the rock ground, and scorch marks of the battle along with the resulting glass is apparent in a few locations. Seliana just gazes with her dull red eyes around the area without any notable focus, seeming to just be taking in the aftermath of the battle.

"Looking for something in particular?"

The voice comes from behind Seliana. Perhaps unexpected, perhaps expected. Still, the voice is familiar. Proteus is there, in her covering cloak as she looks on and observes Seliana's searching gaze. "I admit, these events were unexpected. I didn't think it was possible for a Lander to be an Adventurer... But at the same time, perhaps I should have seen it coming. What precisely keeps them from being like us?"

She sighs, drawing closer to Seliana. "So how are you feeling?" She asks the new member of the guild.

At the voice Seliana turns around to gaze over at Proteus, her expression showing no sign of surprise and her dull eyes are somewhat shaded by her veil. "Is it a Lander becoming an Adventurer or an Adventurer that has become a Lander?" her voice flat and monotone, even without the regular inflection to indicate she is asking a question.

At the question about how she feels she remains silent at first, simply continuing to gaze with a passive face and blinking a few times, until she finally resumes. "Honestly. I'm not sure." She then looks over to the side at one of the scorch marks that have left a crater of glass. "I just don't care sometimes. But I act now. It is what I have to hold on to. Other times I feel like I'm going to explode." She looks back to Proteus. "What about you?"

Proteus smiles at the observation. Seliana's lack of emotional content in her gaze seems to go uncommented on for the moment. "That's a good question, isn't it? Both of them are important, but for different reasons." She looks over at the spot where Glass disappeared. "What /is/ an Adventurer, really? What /is/ a Lander? What does it /really/ mean to be one or the other? Never mind that she called us a Hero instead..." She hums at that.

Finally, she turns back to Seliana, nodding at her description... And then her smile vanishes as she's asked how she feels, her eyes blinking in surprise for a moment. "I'm... fine." Her purple eyes flick to one side as her tail snaps lightly behind her, then busies herself with kneeling at the floor and checking the markings left. "Having something to hold onto is important. You have to keep moving forward and figuring out what meaning you're going to get out of things. There's a good chance we're going to be here forever, after all."

Seliana watches impassively at the reaction to her mirrored question and as Proteus starts to inspect the floor. She takes a step forward and squats down, carefully folding her dress under her, and looks down at the same markings that Proteus is inspecting. "We were once people, and now.." She pauses a moment in silence. "The Landers. They die. They work to remember those who are gone. Are they really gone. I'm not sure."

Seliana then brushes back some of her long hair that fell forward when she looked down, "I'm not sure if holding onto something just makes things worse later. It feels like no matter what I do it will end terribly. Like before. Like the only way out is to not have anything in the first place." Her voice continues in the conversation flatly, a constant drone, and she continues to watch the ground. Some might even find her voice relaxing in its regularity if it wasn't quite so off putting. "What do you hold onto? Does it help?"

Proteus nods at Seliana's observation, her hand slowly tracing shapes in the sandy floor of the cave. "Once people?" She perks, blinking as her head swivels over to Seliana. "Why would we not be people now? No, Seliana. Don't let go of it. Don't let go of yourself." Her hand suddenly clenches, her tone laced with vehemence. "Who we are... Our mind, our memories... It's the most precious thing we have. As for the Landers..." She goes quiet. "We used to die too, you know. In the old world. But you bring up a good point... Are they really gone?" Questions. Always questions from Proteus. How many of them are rhetorical? It's not like Seliana would know, right? Or maybe she's seeking out insight from someone else.

Two eyes are better than one.

There is a rustling as Seliana continues, and Proteus stands, turning fully to Seliana. "It's true that making connections makes you vulnerable. But without connections, what does anything mean? Everything has context. Everything means something only in relation to everything else around it." Proteus' tone is intent, searching, a constant banked well of emotion in stark contrast to the emotionless drone of Seliana. The pair perhaps couldn't be more different in a number of ways.

Again, the question comes, and Proteus stops, again caught off guard by the sudden question. "What I hold onto..." She pauses... And looks down at her hand once again, flexing it back and forth. For a moment, it seems like she might fob it off with some glib comment, but then she pauses, and slowly begins to speak, her words heavy with intense emotion... and anger. "... Knowledge is power. Power brings control. I... I need control. Control of myself. Control of the world around me. Control of my future. That opportunity... I need that opportunity. That hope. It brings me hope."

She suddenly turns away, her cloak flaring dramatically. "I've had my world taken from me over and over and over again. I won't... I refuse to allow it to happen again."

Seliana looks up and gazes at Proteus, "Was I ever a person? Or just a puppet?" and her gaze once again lowers to the ground. "Should this. Should that. Should everything. Sacrifice. Strain. Pain. All for some future gain. A future that can never be. Now it seems my loss is something I never had. To seek something out again. I just don't know." Seliana once again looks up, "I wonder if Landers are gone. Can they be brought back? Like us? Can they be found wherever they are? And those of us who die. There is a delay before we respawn. Where are we then?" For all her claim to not care, it does seem she seeks answers to her own questions.

Seliana stands along with Proetus, carefully smoothing out her dress as she does. "Do we only exist as a contrast then?" though Seliana watches, face impassively, only blinking as Proteus shows a powerful passion. It did seem the two were opposites in how they have coped, and yet, perhaps complimented each other in their own way.

As Proteus turns with a flare of her cloak Seliana watches on, the breeze that makes it into the cavern faintly rustling her dress and causing her long granite hair to sway gently. "Hope." She parrots and then stays silent, listening quietly to Proteus's repeated loss. And as she listens there is a faint glow in her eyes, her once dull eyes giving a faint red glow. Other colors start to bleed into her eyes and swirls for a moment, and then dissipate as does the light. Then after a moment she replies "I have no hope. I-" and she pauses a second. Two. Then finally "I don't know if it is for the best, but perhaps you are best to seek your hope. I may not have any, but I can try help you to try keep yours."

That gaze moves towards Seliana as she asks. Proteus suddenly steps forward, a hand grasping Seliana's shoulder. "A person? A puppet?" She pauses, her grip squeezing lightly. "A puppet doesn't think or care for itself. It's just a vessel to be filled with the will and needs of others. Is that what you want to be?" She arches an eyebrow under that hood... And then lets go. "I won't stop you from choosing that path if that's what you want, but I'm predisposed against it. I think you have much more to offer to yourself and others if you rediscovered the value of self-determination. I didn't recruit you just because I wanted a pawn. You don't need to figure out what you need to do or be immediately. Some people search all their life without knowing. But if you want help... I'll help. We have each other's back, that's how Plant Duck works."

She finally steps back, giving Seliana some space again as the conversation moves to other, more mortal topics. "You have some good questions. I never cared enough about Landers to ask that. There is some degree of necromancy. Grave Call is a thing. But is that simply summoning up a monster entity or is it actually using Lander corpses?" She hums. "I've never thought about trying to resurrect a Lander, but such a thing is usually the province of the clerics. I'm not all that concerned with such things." She looks away for a moment. "Where are we when we die..." She sighs. "I'm... not sure. But I do know this. We're in a system. There has to be something in that system to hold us in the meantime. This world... is an illusion. But it's our illusion. Remembering the core of its nature will keep us anchored."

Do they only exist as a contrast? Proteus blinks again at the question. "... There are some who say... that opposites attract. Maybe that's what drew me to you there on the street." She looks away again. "I have to think. Feel. Listen. Search. I have to /live/. I didn't have the chance to do so before." Finally, she looks back over to Seliana again, seemingly unable to keep herself from doing such poses as she glances back to her associate. There is an arched brow at the way those colors swirl in Seliana's eyes, and her lips purse for a moment... A little smile returning to that face. "We'll help each other. I'll support you until you find out what to fill yourself with, little puppet, and you can help keep me from burning out, I suppose."

Seliana remains still as Proteus grasps her shoulder, but after she removes it Seliana responds. "I think.. I am less a puppet now then I was in life.. Or perhaps I've become a puppet with my strings cut that now realizes its true state." Then she looks up out through the whole in the ceiling of the cave the worm crashed through. "I think.. I think I just want an end to the suffering? Maybe I want an end to this god damn ANGER!" and her voice rises in pitch, her static expression contorting into an teeth grit grimace. Eyes again glowing briefly before they dull to the dark red they normally are and her face returns to her constant frown. Once again she continues flatly, "Why do I hate everything so much?" and she looks back to Proteus asking again. "Why?"

As the conversation turns to the Landers Seliana interjects when there is a pause. "Not all Landers leave when they die. Some stay as ghosts, but they are treated as monsters. They are no longer seen as who they were. They hire the Hunters Guild to destroy these ghosts. But still, if we die and are somewhere unseen for a time, then others may be in this unseen place. Where is it?" Then Seliana leans down and picks up some sand. Standing she lets it run through her hands. "Maybe this is an illusion. At the least there is more. Somewhere."

"I had the chance to live. I did everything right. Everything I should. Nothing I chose though. Not really." She watches as the last of the sand in her hand drains and blows away to deeper in the cavern "Perhaps now is a chance.." and she continues to just stare at her outstretched and empty hand. Then she looks up to stare at Proteus. "I can try. Maybe together we can find the truth under the illusion."

"That's a complicated situation." Proteus agrees. "But I don't know what you did in your life before now. That's not my business. It's up to you if you want to share it." She turns to look at the hole that Seliana does, and the the Imp starts as she suddenly flares with anger. "... So there are still depths to you. You're not empty yet." Proteus says. "... That's good. Anger is something. You can start with anger." The Imp sits down then, beside Seliana. "Why /do/ you hate everything so much?" Proteus responds. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She looks down, then. "I don't know." She admits, her words grinding like it hurts her to admit that. "Maybe one day we can find out, though. Maybe we can access that space one day and see what is there."

She looks over towards Seliana again then. "Nothing... you chose. You did everything right. Everything you should." There is a certain haunted tone as a hand slides up under the hood, pressing against her face and obscuring it for a time. Her breathing becomes strained for a moment, her body tense... And with a light trembling, the hand comes away... The perceptive might notice the faint glistening on her glove...

And then that empty hand is filled when Proteus clasps it in her own. Seliana can feel the dampness against her dry palm there. "We will find the truth. And we will use it to shape this world, Seliana."

"Why do I..?" Seliana looks downward. "I'm.. not sure it is.. even safe.. to talk of. If I look too close.." Then she looks around at the battle scared cavern, the desolation and sand of the area. "..Perhaps.. here.." and she looks into the shadows of Proteus's hood. "It may.. be dangerous.." Her toneless voice halting with repeated pauses as she works her way through the words.

As Proteus clasps her gloved hand around Seliana's delicate black painted nailed hand she glances down at it a moment and then back up at Proteus's hood shadowed face. Seliana then also holds onto the damp glove with her own. Then after a moment she reach out with her other hand to grasp the gloved hand with that one as well. "Together" she finally says in a more steady monotone voice.