Desert Diversions

People (other than Salamanders maybe) tend to see deserts only as big empty spaces of sand. When such was really not the case. Just that between the blistering heat (even in winter seasons!) and beating sun, most of the interesting life and death came out and night.

Perfectly fine for Kauchemar, she prefered the night anyways. Not that heat would bother a nightmare much, but that's besides the point. Not that she was going anywhere in particular either. Just picking across the sprawling dunes, occasionally scooping up a handful of sand, or picking up some bleached bones and looking them over. Things that aren't really that strange, but it's her doing it, so it has a tendancy to seem a little creepy regardless.

    Uta is on an aimless trudge among the dunes, rubbing her eyes. Today she's not wearing her usual gi/nurse's uniform hybrid, but what looks like a (tame, to be fair) harem girl's outfit, mainly composed of a short lilac gloves that reach almost to her armpits and leave her shoulders bare, poofy pants of the same color, a draped blue sash tied around her hips, held in place by a large brooch with a huge green gem, and a blue bra over a short lilac bustier.

    She stretches and yawns regularly, meaning she's probably just woken up. A lot of squinting goes on, and as of yet, she seems not to have taken care of the Nightmare.

A bit of sand, a bit of Air magic... and *woosh* a dramatic flare of one arm sends a small dust devil spinning across the sand for a few feet before dissolving back into the two elements that spawned it. "Not a full elemental yet, but the theorycraft is sound." Kauchemar dusts her hands off, and turns to resume wandeing.

Being a creature of nocturnal disposition she does have exceptional vision in the dark, and spots the lavander clad form well before being spotted. ".. Uh..." It's not quite teleporting (yet) but it is moving fast enough to barely be noticed in the dark as she circles around a bit to come trotting up behind the wandering figure. Raises a brow when she realizes who it actually is. "Well now, fancy running across you out here. And all glamoured up for the local, too!... I almost feel overdressed now."

    Uta jumps in the air, startled, landing in a defensive karate stance. Intense stare, squinting. "...Who is ther- oh, wait. I recognize this voice. Kauchemar, is that you?", asks Uta, who tries to still project a sense of alertness, but whose posture relaxes slightly enough that a skilled fighter would be able to 'read' her as feeling slightly less threatened now. "...It's not meant to /look glamorous/. It's for /practical survival purposes/." Apparently, she's not familiar with the usage of 'glamor' in gaming jargon.

It would be a lie if we said Kauchemar wasn't amused by the reaction. She does get a kick out of doing that to people. "Yes, it's me," she replies with a chuckle. "And no, a 'glamour' is when you make your basic outfit appear as something else, like a costume of sor--" She pauses a moment. "--Wait, you mean that is an actual outfit and not just a visual recreation?"

    "I... I don't know?" Uta squirms, although it's unclear whether it's due to her admitting her ignorance, or at becoming increasily conscious of what particular outfit she's currently being seen in. "...Gwen gave it to me, and I've menu-equipped it, just the way I did with the spare uniform I bought in case my main one got totalled during a fight?"

"You didn't examine it first?" This causes the nightmare to rock a bit with laughter. "Uta, you really are the epitome of random!" Though it being Gwen's handiwork does explain a lot. That tailor is already making a reputation for herself. Kauchemar tilts her head to side, considering. "You ever watch I Dream of Jeanie? One of the Alladin movies? Or anything Arabian Nights themed in general?" She taps her chin and then points the finger at Uta. "Because that is very much a -tasteful- Arabian dancegirl outfit."

Uta admits, not without blushing a little, "I got it wrapped in a parcel, stuffed it in my inventory, and forgot about it until actually arriving in the desert." She stands up normally, no longer in a defensive stance. "I am actually familiar enough with tidbits of middle eastern culture, yes." She looks down at herself, and adds, "I agree with you, in the hands of a lesser crafter, this could have ended up much worse. Seriously, Gwen is amazing at what she does. It's just that I'm... you know... not used to..." She looks down at herself and fidgets with her fingers, and gives the rest of the sentence a long thought before uttering, "...glamor. Both the gaming and non-gaming kind."

    She straightens her back, and chin held high, she announces, "But it /is/ nice and cool, and perfect for surviving a harsh environment, so, hey, there's that."

The brief stumbling over how to express that certain point gets Kauchemar to smirk a bit more, viper fangs poking out between her lips when she does. "Ah, yes. 'Glamour' in more than the appearance of outfits." The Nightmare gets the hint, though it just amuses her all the more considering her own familiarity with such states of affairs. "It does suit you as well as it does the environment." But she doesn't feel like getting too obnoxious about it.

So instead she stands, folding hands behind her back and glancing off towards the distance in the dark. "This is the best time to be out in the desert regardless. Not so... exhaustingly hot. The more interesting creatures are out, too."

Uta acknowledges the first compliment with a grateful silence. "Thanks," she says some time after the nightmare is done talking. "And yes. The most interesting creatures are out right now." A playful smirk is offered to Kauchemar. "...because we two are out, isn't it so?"

    Some laugh, then Uta continues, "...it makes sense, here, really. Trying to avoid the worst times of the day for traveling. Don't want to get slowly roasted under the sun." She turns to look at Kauchemar.

    She gets lost in thought, drools a little, then shakes her head, blushing again. "Sorry, sorry, got distracted there for a moment!", she hurries to say, sounding even more contrite than earlier.

    For someone familiar with Japanese cuisine, it's probably not hard to guess what she was thinking of, given the mention of sun-roasting and her vacuous staring past Kauchenmar:

    Tasty tasty cooked horse meat.

"True, true. Though I was talking more about the natural residence." Kauchemar starts ticking off with her fingers. "Giant scorpions, dire coyotes, both kinds of Salamanders, various species of large poisonous snakes.. and then you have things like animate cacti, quicksand elementals, monsterous lizardmen that aren't Salamanders, bleached bone golems..."

She pauses as she notices the way Uta is staring after that comment about roasting. ".. Trust me, girl. You don't want to go there. Late night cold pizza has nothing on the bad dreams I can cause."

Uta's blusing is dialed back until it veers straight into 'paling' territory. "...I think I should go back to my camp, just in case...", she whimpers as a response to the list of things, it is appropriate to say, 'that go bump in the night'. She isn't moving, yet, but she does look uncomfortable.

Kauchemar maintains her composure, but the way her ears perk and tail flicks as she glances sidelong at the smaller Adventurer she is clearly enjoying that bit of discomfort. Then tilts her head to glance up at the dark sky. "I guess we should be glad it's not the American server. They probably have jackalopes and chupacabras and Diamondback snakemen..."

Uta, again, falls silent. "What about Bigfoot?", she eventually asks, after some time. For some reason, these monsters do not seem to elicit as much fear as the previous list. Probably because of it not posing an immediate danger, and hence, feeling more abstract. "...wait, have you ever been on the American server?"

"Nah, Bigfoot prefers forested areas. Easier to stay concealed." Kauchemar chuckles a bit, then gives her head a mane swishing shake. "Not the server. I have been to the Americas though." 'I' in being the player behind the dread horse currently standing alongside the small monk-nurse, that is. "So I can fathom a guess or two on the sort of things they'd use to inspire content. Same as Yamato has creatures from Japanese and other Asian folklore mixed with the European mideveal fantasy touches."

    Uta furrows her brow. "They don't have forests in the American server? I though they had as varied a landscape as we do." She shakes her head and smiles, unconcerned. "That shows how much of a non-gamer I am, eh?"

    She puts her hands behind her back and stares in the distance. "...have I ever mentioned I was really hoping for the Expansion to open up inter-server travel, and go visit the European server?"

"I meant Bigfoot wouldn't be found in a desert very likely," Kauchemar replies, giving an arm gesture at the dark sandy landscape around them. "It would be interesting to see what the other servers have." Kauchemar cups a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "My older sister was still stateside, but I don't know if she got into games very much. So she's probably not in there." Pause. "Not that I could ask anyways, considering the situation." She shrugs it off.

    Uta stays silent, hands still behind her back. A soft breeze blows, ruffling her hair a little.

    She turns to Kauchemar and says, "I hope that either your sister will be there, and you can meet again, or that we can all get out of this game, so you can meet each other in the real world." She stares into the distance. "...if there still /is/ a real world which is not this one."

    Silence.

    "As for me, I was hoping to meet scores of people familiar with Renaissance poetry and discuss its finer ponts." She turns to Kauchemar and grins. "...after a couple of months here, though, I've realized my hopes had been... how to put it. Misplaced."

"Any one of those is still possible. Who knows what hobbies she picked up going to college there and after." A brow is raised a little at Uta. "Uh..."

It actually takes Kauchemar a moment to process all that for a response. "... I think you mistook the reference of a previous cultural area for something a bit more... historical than fantasy yes."

Uta chuckles. "Hey, Dante's Inferno is pretty much a huge multi-level dungeon pit thing with a final boss at the bottom, and Purgatory is pretty much a tower you climb to reach Heaven. How's that different from what we have going on here?"

Kauchemar opens her mouth to say something but then pauses. Resumes rubbing her chin. "That is... oddly observant considering your usual absent mindedness..."

    Uta pulls the corners of her mouth in a sly smile. "I'm not just a pretty face, you know? I have hidden depths," she teases playfully.

    "In truth, I'm not /always/ absent minded. Just..." She goes silent. "...on occasion."

    Which seems to be often.

    "...I've actually been thinking about this. You know how I got every single aspect of my character from the random generator, right, not just the appearance? Well, I'm a bit of a literature and storytelling nut, so I went on a slight semiotic rampage to try and piece together the symbolism associated with my in-game avatar." She starts pacing around, gesticulating as she speaks, as if delivering a lecture. "Why am I a Godhand? A bard? Why a Spriggan? Why female? Why is my kingdom the Eastal Free League? Why is my profession-"

    Silence.

    She turns to Kauchemar. "I mean, I know this isn't /really/ a story, and there is no big Author with a Master Plot pulling the strings of our lives..."

    She sighs, returns to stare ahead of herself, and continues, "...but we humans are hardwired to recognise and process what's going on around us in terms of storytelling. Like we can't avoid seeing faces in stuff like cars or houses or electrical sockets, we can't help seeing the structure of a story in anything that happens. So, uh, if we have evolved to do so, maybe it helps somehow. Maybe. Even if I don't find the right answer, because there is no such right answer, maybe I will stumble onto other, useful information while looking for it? Maybe it will... just work?" She smirks. "Evolution doesn't care if it makes sense, only if it /somehow just works/."

It may be a surprise to some but Kauchemar actually stops to pay attention to all that. Sure, Uta is probably looking for symbolism in places it didn't exist, but if she makes something be there, isn't that the same thing? If it gets her more in tune with her place within those world, all the better it would be. That and the ramble does strike a few familiar cords. Could be chords, as they both have Bard as one of their classes, but neither is singing. The 'hidden depths' aren't quite so hidden at the moment, though.

"Well, it's purely coincidental, but Bards in the classical sense -are- storytellers. So you just got a lucky random fit there." Kauchemar chuckles as she rests one hand on her hip. "And we -are- trapped here on the whim of someone or something else we don't know or understand entirely, so there's the strings to pull... we just need to find the way to pull back on them -harder- to straighten them out again."

She puts a hand to her chest. "But you're speaking to someone that made themselves play the role of an antagonist because that is what made a story -interesting-. Made people think on their choices outside what the game storylines told them they were. Provided a bit more depth than the thin quest lines provided most of the time. I'm hardly evil, but it was a really good motivator for people."

Then she shrugs and waves it dismissively. "But playing villianess doesn't really suit the current state of affairs." The viper smirk returns to her expression, eyes shimmering in that way only their psychedelic lavander color can. "I can still play the rival though. Give people something to aspire better than, so they're ready for the other challenges ahead."

Uta smirks. "The bard part was easy, yes. I think I've figured out a bunch of symbolism already, to be fair. There's still a couple of points that elude me, but, hey, that's what stories are like, right? Pacing. Find out at the right time. And have big revelation moments where you discover that you were spectacularly wrong on very important bits you thought you had nailed down."

    She bursts into laughter. "Hold your horses, Kauchemar." YES SHE DID. "Pulling some strings back is for the second part of act 2, right after the midpoint. I don't think we're anywere near there yet."

    "You know better than me that antagonists don't need to be evil. Just contrary." She walks closer to Kauchemar, facing her. "We /need/ antagonists, Kauch. It's who drives the story. It's the pressure that breaks the protagonist's shell of resistance to change. It's the dark mirror the hero has to face and shatter to finally reject the Lie and embrace the Truth." Having reached the point where the Nightmare is, she looks up, way up at the much taller figure, but still tries to look straight into her eyes. "Please do your antagonist thing. At least for me. I still don't know what I /need/, but the kind of pressure you exert is the only way for me to find out... and achieve it."

Kauchemar just gives Uta the absolutely most possible flat expression she can at the 'hold your horses' line.... Though technically she probably could literally hold a horse if she has a summon for another type of Dire Equine monster? For now the world won't know, because it's not the right moment to twist something more literal for the sake of revenge against a bad joke.

She lets Uta finish her latest string of thoughts, symbolism and ideals. Though a brow does raise again when she's practically requested to play up the role. Though Uta proves to understand that antagonist =/= evil. Oi, if more people could grasp that simple concept, her methods would be... well, she maybe wouldn't have to be so misleading with some of them.

Once Uta finishes Kauchemar blows a bit of smoke between her lips. "Well." Then said lips turn to a more sinister grin, one that makes her snake-like fangs all the more prominent. "You're now standing out in the middle of the desert, away from your group, in middle of the night, talking philosophy and symbolism and story pacing with someone that could be distracting you from whatever other dangers lurk." Just think of that list she went over earlier.

Kauchemar pauses to lean over, partially to be intimidating and look Uta eye to eye, and partially because she's a lot taller so leaning forward is necessary to do so. "So how do you know I haven't already?"

After which she just cackles ominously as she stands, does a neat little turn on one hoof, and starts to walk away. Between her dark colors and her dominance over Dark magics, it won't take long for her to fade almost literally from sight, blending into the night around them.

    Uta stares through the thin air Kauchemar seems to have vanished into. With a grin that could equally be satisfied or terrified, she says, "This was either my best or worst idea ever," before turning and walking back into her camp.

    But looking over her shoulder a lot. That list wasn't reassuring.