[Nexus] Home 17 - Where you know all your friends and all your enemies

[Recaiden]

Coconut Bee Maze- Middle

Right, OK. I think I know what you mean. How about you, Jacqueline? You seem a bit grumpy at the minute. Alice is quite excited by the new sensation of hearing people's thoughts in her head. She wants to know if it's just them or if she's now telepathic.

It's not right to know anyone else's thoughts like that.

Sure it is, just like talking to them. she doesn't really talk enough, this Alice girl is much better. Was so boring waiting up there. Oh no, she can probably here me and

Jacqueline points at a the entracne behind Grape.
The way out. Let's leave quickly and maybe get back to normal. Just focus.

[Terumitsu]

[Summit Springs - Riss' Room]

"Is it possible that you might just be off balance? It is a huge change from before so maybe you just need more time to get fully aquatinted with how it is now?" she suggested, nibbling on her lip as she considered a few ideas. Reaching out with her tail, she retrieved the small glass of pomegranate juice while remembering how much trouble it had been to squeeze out the juice she did get. She didn't particularly mind eating around the seeds but they ended up being a bit of a task with how much leftovers she ended up with. Maybe I can just dry them and mix them with some tea leaves so they don't end up as a complete waste.. "Or maybe it's just a trade off?" she supplied although it wasn't possible for her to confirm or deny any of those ideas just yet.

"I'm glad that you listened to it all, though.. Still I.." Riss paused for a moment, taking a sip of juice as she formulated just what she wanted to say. "Well... Do you remember when I was speaking about the couples from.. Back then?" she began. "I had the luck of being in a cell with thin walls and being between two of them for a long time.. On my left was Lurch and Sef.. Sef was such a drama queen now that I think about it but Lurch managed to keep his feet on the ground. I've mentioned them before... They would always talk about everything. They still fought and they had their hard times but... Well, if it weren't for.. I haven't told you about Chess and Short, have I? I'll have to do that sometime.. But they would talk and.. Well, they wouldn't communicate. They would just talk at each other but neither of them really listend to the other and... Well, eventually they just came apart. It took me a while of listening to both sides of my room before I figured that out but Lurch and Sef.. Not so much taught me but I learned from them how importaint it was to really communicate..." she said, her expression somewhat distaint as she recalled the less painful memories from what she might literally call her past life at this point. "I didn't ever expect that I'd ever really have a use for that knowledge but.. Then I met you." she said with a gentle smile. "So you can partially blame them for why I want to tell you everything... Thinking about them now, though, it makes me wonder what they would say if they knew that the quiet, screwed up weirdo that they had to put up with turned out like this... Aside from most of them probably being insanely jealous, I mean." she said, breaking out of her distant expression to focus once again on her Misha.

[Earl of Purple]

Coconut Bee Maze- Middle

I'll let you lead, unless you're willing to let me read the directions from your memories. I think I can figure out how to do that. But she won't try it, in case she gets it wrong- she'd hate to hear anybody's thoughts as their brain leaked from their ears.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Jace smiles at her response. "I'd really just gotten tired of her thinking it'd be alright for someone with her level of maturity to be taking care of a child and by extension making me shoulder most of the work, so I asked her to try moving to GLoG where the poor kid wouldn't be stuck all alone without anyone her age and wouldn't rely solely on people my age or younger."
He takes a moment to gaze out the window at the dark skies.
"Blast it, he's late. He'd better not complain of the cold with that timing."
he says, scratching at his side a bit.

Kell nods. She doesn't really understand the situation, but suspects that Jace has been stressed about it and wanted to vent. "How are you two connected, exactly? If he's in danger, will you know? Or should we be worried?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

"It's an emotional and telepathic link. I'd be able to know if he was within a reasonable distance and was stressed or such, and we can directly communicate." then he shakes his head. "And no, it's just a lot colder without any sun at all and he'll complain if I 'made him walk all the way home from the store holding stuff in the cold.'" he says with a smile.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell nods. "Why's it always the sun? The sun turns black, there's an eclipse, The sun rises angry, etc, etc, etc." She goes back to her book. "Except for the one time it was the moon, but I don't think that was really doom-related."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace raises an eyebrow. "Oh? What happened that time? I don't think I was around for it." he says, standing up and looking out at the windows.
"Nexus moons are so odd. What's it tonight? Ah, the quartet. All different phases too. I have no idea how the tides stay even remotely workable." he says, before going back to scratching in a manner that can be described as both "furiously" and "absent-mindedly."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"It was big and creepy, and apparently it agitated weres, but I didn't really notice any changes. I heard that it also caused some zombie trouble in some places in outside, but apparently they're used to it there." She looks at Jace's scratching. "Run into the wrong plant on the way back?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace turns his head a bit, still looking out the window peripherally.
"It agitated 'men?'" he says, making fun of Kell's colloquialism. Scratch Scratch. He looks back up at the satellites shining before him. "It sounds about par for the course. We've got a sun looking like it's dying out, freezing all which sits under its pale light. Why not an equally eerie moon, awakening the dead and pricking the hackles of man-beasts under its full gaze, each night appearing alone or with its companions in the Nexus' odd cosmology, each face more great and cratered than the rest- he says, sounding a bit dazed, his ears twitching oddly, almost seeming to grow and change. -and remaining so for as long as one of them continues to wax and remain for its waning brothers and-"
there's a soft tearing sound he shakes his head and turns back to Kell completely, his ears rather long and hirsute and his face seeming just a bit off as well. "Sorry, what was I saying? Ah, right, the plants. No, I don't recall encountering any odd flora today or yesterday. Just the very ordinary sort. Such a shame this time of year. If it wasn't so cold it'd be much easier to find tasty grasses to-"
he stops as a much louder rip! comes from floor level. Jace (and possibly Kell) looks down at his feet, which have rather abruptly grown long, furry, and oversized enough to rid them of his socks. He keeps a rather blank expression for a good, long moment, wiggling the foreign toes with their odd, pointy nails before the ripping sound is echoed by his pants, and a long furry tail thumps! itself onto the floor. Jace doesn't bother to look this time. He just face-palms.
"Aw, cripes."
is what he manages to get out before a swift but still somewhat disturbing shudder wracks his frame and a rather extensive restructuring of his legs leaves his pants a torn wreck at his (long, furry, oversized) feet. Luckily for Kell by that point he's already grown a thick coat of fur and a pouch on his lower torso, and while his player is not an animal biologist he's fairly sure this will mean she does not get an unwanted view of his manhood. At the same time, his skull completely shifts over as he gains a snout for a face and his neck grows a bit just as the fur finishes covering the last of him. His arms remain the same basic shape, although his shoulders end up different to match the changed proportions of his torso. During the whole thing, which was only a few seconds, really, he loses a bit of height, and it's concluded by what according to most descriptions of this sort of thing probably should be a howl, but since poor Jace isn't capable of really doing that his subconscious just decides to make it a quick barking sort of sound.
And thus, Jace is now one very large kangaroo, fur coat the same color as his human hair and still sporting a version of his previous haircut thick enough to stick up over the fur. He's been left in just his T-shirt, which is now a bit large on him. His eyes are the same piercing blue, though, and his arms and fingers are a bit more large and dexterous than a normal animal's, although that's no more noticeable than the other subtle remnants of his human shape.
The were-kangaroo looks at Kell and the look which is probably on her face.
"Hrm, somethin' up, Kell? I think I blacked out for a minute there again." he says, with an accent which apparently came with the marsupial territory. Lucky for him it's noticeable but not cartoonishly stereotypical, so he won't have to worry about offending any actual Australians. Then he stares down at his (long, furry, and oversized) feet and looks surprised- and bends down to gather up his ruined pants and socks.
"I'm definitely sure that I wasn't standing in a pile of rags when the conversation started." he says innocently.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"Also, you were a guy when this conversation started," Kell remarks, and points at the pouch. "Looks like you were recently cursed to be a...werekangaroo? Either that or a really big werewallaby." She shuts the book again. "You okay?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace gives Kell a rather funny look, lays the torn clothes on the table next to him, and cautiously looks down for a moment, tugging at his pouch a bit. Then sighs.
"Still a guy, thank you very much." he says, having apparently misinterpreted what Kell meant. Now a bit more relaxed, he leans back a bit and lets his hands hang off the edge of his pouch.
"Pretty sure those two critters don't look that much alike, really. Never seen too many, m'self. Probably the damn Die. I need to lock that thing up after this."
He goes back to inspecting his shape, this time a bit more comprehending.
"And I'll take your word for it, because it all seems pretty natural to me. I Feel perfectly normal. " he says as he looks up at her and shrugs.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"Bad news, friend, but only female kangaroos have pouches." She shrugs. "What's this about a die? If you have it, maybe you can figure stuff out about it and fix it? I don't really know how that works, really."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Well, at the very least she didn't call him out on not knowing that wallabies really do look very similar.
Jace's jaw drops for a moment, butbutbutbut and for just a second pats his front before immediately straightening up nopenopenopenotgoingtherenotevengoingtogothere and making a rather long hop over to his bag on the hook, pulls out a small mulitcolored d6, and makes the trip back in another bound, placing it carefully on the table. "I couldn't make heads or tails of the thing while it was inert or doing things, there's no way in Hell I'll be able to do better in this state! he says, panic creeping into his voice just a bit. But I'll be better in the morning. That's how it always works; transformations from the full moon last until dawn. Just because the sun's a bit dim doesn't mean it won't count, right?" he says.
Sadly for him, the Dice of Wonder being what it is of course the resulting curse had to make him the most stereotypical image of the animal in question possible, even if it's the female most people imagine. Now, chances are that just means he's anatomically incorrect in his male/female dimorphism and not actually female, but he doesn't know that. And his voice is a bit more high-pitched, but that could easily be because he's smaller. Fun fact though: Male Thylacines had the pouches too.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell shrugs. "It might take a bit longer for it to register as dawn, but I think it should work? I don't know, I'm not a magician." She thren looks down at the dice, curious and cautious. "So... what does this dice do?"

[Recaiden]

Coconut Bee Maze- Middle

I'll let you lead, unless you're willing to let me read the directions from your memories. I think I can figure out how to do that. But she won't try it, in case she gets it wrong- she'd hate to hear anybody's thoughts as their brain leaked from their ears.

Alice will get some impressions of the way out anyway, as Jacqueline is thinking on it, as well as a fair amount of distress. But they are making their way along.

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace finds Kell's answer somewhat reassuring despite knowing full well that she doesn't know much about how it works. Of course, the Nexus might just throw a full moon in the daytime sky for all either of them knew, but positive, positive, positive!
"You roll it, and it does random things. So far it messed with my appetite, gave me a tail, and made a woman I was talking to grow, all of which were dispelled somewhat easily. It also did this, since I don't remember being mauled by any strange marsupials. And lastly it summoned a demoness, who among other bits of dialogue suggested I not roll it again. And while I don't actually know what sort of demon she was (and in the Nexus they're pretty diverse) almost anyone will tell you that if one of those gives you an honest warning, it's best not to blow it off. I would not suggest using it. I certainly won't be."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell raises an eyebrow. "Oh... kay. Well, then, anything else I should know right now?"

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace looks a bit nervous and begins wringing his forepaws a bit.
"Well, unless I'm willing to go out in public like this and try to find someone capable of dealing with this sort of curse, I'm almost definitely stuck like this at least until morning. I mean, I think there's a place in the mall that specializes in body-magic, and Zebes should be home any minute, but I don't know. It's going to be a long night, Kell. I know that I'm being a bit selfish complaining to you about weird body magic, but I'd appreciate it if you stayed around. I think I'd go nuts being alone like this. That or start nibbling the neighbors' lawn, but that wouldn't end well either."

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"You should go get yourself a salad if you're hungry. FYI, Kangaroos chew cud, so... don't be too surprised if that happens." Kell gets up and heads towards the kitchen.

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

"Yeah, I actually did know that. Read something somewhere how they work differently than cows and such. Don't remember if I have anything all that fresh, though. Zebes and I restock the place often enough that we don't hold onto much in the freezer." says the fuzzy sorcerer, attempting to sit down on the couch, realizing the size of his tail makes that difficult, and will likely be spending a good bit of time flailing about in an attempt to find a comfortable position while Kell messes around in the kitchen, and really hoping she doesn't notice or comment on it.

[Earl of Purple]

Coconut Bee Maze- On the Way Out

Most of what follows as they leave, from Alice at least, is a low-level stream of random thinking, much of it tangentially related to the maze, each other, Derek, Coconut Bee Island or the Skyside Compound. One that might baffle is the thought Wonder if they've found my brother yet and the curious mix of love, hatred, betrayal and mental anguish accompanying the thought of Charlie.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

After a bit, Kell will come back with some bread. She offers him a slice. "Here, see how this tastes. I'm hoping you're human enough to like it."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace, who found some sort of sideways-laying means of using his couch and is extremely embarrassed at how ridiculous he must appear, looks at the bread.
"Erm, plain bread? That's a bit bland even by omnivore standards, but I can try, I suppose." he says, tentatively taking the bread in a paw, and morbidly making the observation that unless he always used to complain when he had trouble getting a stray hair out of his mouth, and now with his face and hands furry that's likely to happen with anything he eats.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

"Well, I don't know how kangaroos react to margarine." She shrugs. "I know they eat apples, carrots, and alfalfa, but that's all I know. I'm not exactly an expert."

[Murkus]

Maxwell's Office

Shark is still perfectly able to hold his breath. He swims towards Maxwell without any problems.

For a few moments, Shark will find himself in total darkness, hitting the bottom of the cavern before it flattens out, leading off beneath the ocean floor. Lest he be totally lost, glowing, rippling reeds begin to appear along the walls in his presence, leading him down a brief jagged corridor.

He'll see less natural light before emerging upon the surface of an underground lake, upon the shores of which waits a golden temple. Enormous, embattled statues and carvings of gold line the walls, reminiscent of ancient Greece. Before him, up a set of blunt marble stairs, waits a solid gold dining table. Fresh fish sautéed in butter, shelled mollusks, a mound of shrimp, all these and other things wait steaming in the dusky torchlight.

"I've taken the liberty of choosing our wine, I certainly hope you won't mind," Max says, standing beside the table and a slightly chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio. He slicks his hair back with a careless gesture, smiling, silently hoping for approval from the far younger man. Was this too much? Would he have preferred a regular old restaurant? Bah. "If seafood isn't to your liking, there are other things I can provide..."

Fettina's Place

Shrike grins, cocking her hips just so and arching her back just so. Giggling, she leans against Fettina, her arm sliding around her lower waist, winking at the neon girl before looking back to Sebastien.

"Together would make for a better...composition, wouldn't you think?" she asks, winking.

"Oh yes. The two of you. Together." Sebastian agrees, maybe a little too quickly. The lucky fellow is looking a bit mesmerized by his companions. "Why don't you two... arrange yourselves? I'm sure you know what you're doing more than I." He asks, nodding to the bed.

And regardless of whether they're still talking about photos, I'd guess whatever happens next will be risqué enough to necessitate the curtain falling on this scene.

Indeed! Tina's quite good at showing off, one of her many talents, so it contributes to that photogenic nature modeling requires. She's no professional, but between Shrike and Sebastian's suggestions they can work out some wonderful pictures.

Inevitably, Tina gradually grows closer and more bold with Shrike. Unless someone protests, the neon-eyed girl might well try to drag her friend beneath the curtain. The fact that Sebastian's still there is of little concern.

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

"I'm surprised you even know that much." says Jace simply, staring down at the bread before taking a small, tentative bite. He chews very slowly, an absolutely miserable look on his face and then swallows. He looks at the food again though and drops it on the table in front of him.
"Oh gods, Kell, what am I going to do? I can't eat this, even if I can get it down. I'll be making do with whatever vegetables Zebes got for me, and then have to spend hours chewing them over and over again. I'm stuck as something of questionable gender whose most flattering description is 'not the most ridiculous thing possible,' and the Nexus being what it is there's no way at all to predict when it'll happen. This is a curse that's notoriously difficult to get rid of. How can I go anywhere knowing that at any bloody time the Nexus might decide to have a full moon and turn me into a furry cud-chewer? " he says, disgusted. Hopefully Kell won't be too annoyed at his whining.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell shrugs. "I guess you'll have to look into cures fast, then. If there's anywhere that you could get a cure, it'd be here in the nexus. It'd just a matter of knowing where to look, right? Until then, I guess I'll just put my zoo experience to good use."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace's ears twitch. He can't quite tell if her nonchalance is infuriating, comforting, or both, and decides that it's one of the last two. Somehow he feels even worse knowing she worked at a zoo, somewhere between the comparison of helping him with taking care of stupid animals, and the fact that he's going to be reminding her of work whenever this comes up.
But! That mood can't last too long as the door finally opens and Zebes comes in wearing the shape of a kobold with his usual coloring, carrying a very large bag of groceries.
"Gooood evening, Honored Guest and Fuzzy Boss. I, the great and reliable Zebestrius*, have returned from my biweekly ritual of The Gathering of Foodstuffs. Which has come to several canisters of beverages, colorful and otherwise, three packages of fresh animal proteins which will do wonderfully to celebrate the return of...various things, a fresh loaf of bread, several bags of snackables, one bottle of ketchup, one bag each of fruit and vegetables, and a little box of fresh-cut grasses from that nice centaur lady with the corner stall who said they'd be gentle on your stomach in case you shifted back before your guts were done with 'em." says the reptile as he casually tosses the listed containers which all somehow end up in their proper places. Once finished with his little speech he shifts into his natural shape and flutters over to Jace and curls up on the couch with him. His presence seems to comfort his master greatly.
[He b****ed to you didn't he? Thought he would with all that stress I was feeling. Thanks for dealing with that.] says Zebes to Kell, in a magic Sending whispered to the back of her ear. If Jace's fancy new ears picked it up, he makes no comment, simply stroking his familiar's head and spines in a ritual which seems to be more calming to him than the dragon.

*A name Jace and Zebes use when making fun of the pretentiousness of most dragon names.

[Lost_Deep]

Jace's Place

Kell will get one of those fruits and hand it to Jace. "You know... in a way this is putting things in perspective for me. You have it off a lot worse than I do, really. I thought my situation was bad, but..."

[Deathkeeper]

Jace's Place

Jace, who had gotten rather hungry at this point, happily begins munching the fruit, taking just a moment to magically fetch a napkin to avoid getting the juice everywhere.
"Well, thanks for the sympathy. I mean, maybe I overreacted a little bit. In the end I do know what the problem is, what happened, and I've still got plenty of resources. It's the unreliability which worries me. But let's not start arguing over who's got it worse. Please, help yourself to anything."