Spaceside

[Cyber Punk]

[Salmagundi Station - Viewing Area]

Fixer and Sybil appear in this location. There's a large window in front of them that enables one to be able to see the stars and the heavenly bodies in all their glory. "Feast your eyes, Sybil." By now, Felicity's waking up, and looks around. "W-where are we?" Then, she feels Fixer's emotions and realizes he knows. She starts to telepathically convey what happened, when she catches sight of Sybil, looking questioningly at the ghost lady. "Who's she?"

[goto124]

[Salmagundi Station - Viewing Area]

'What the...?' Sybil boggles as she looks through the window. 'Where are we? How high up are we now? We seem so... close to the stars...'

When Felicity speaks up, Sybil turns around and sees her. She holds the hem of her cotton dress, and curtsies.

'Greetings, little lady. My name is Sybil, and I'm from Portcity of Dalara. I hope you're well?'

[Cyber Punk]

[Salmagundi Station - Viewing Area]

Fixer smiles at Sybil. "We're... very high up. Be nice, Felicity."

Felicity stares at the ghost lady. "Hi." Huh, she's not acting overly enthusiastic. Must be the depression thing. "I'm... not too well."

Fixer sets Felicity down on a nearby window sill and stares at her for a moment. "Tell me what happened between you and the pink kid."

Felicity sighs, looks to Sybil, then back to Fixer. Sighing again, she begins to speak. "We were having fun. We got along well. Then when she went out, I saw a meadow in her room, and I didn't want to leave. She tried to send me out, and I told her I knew about her... that she's..." She looks at Sybil, then telepathically speaks to Fixer <she's a goddess, disguising herself as a human.> This causes Fixer to widen his eyes. Whaaaaat?

"Well, she's not who she seemed, and I let her know that I know that. She got angry for some stupid reason and disappeared. When she came back to her room, she disappeared her whole room and kicked me out. I hate that *****!"

Fixer sighs and turns to Sybil. "Like I said, childish."

"Hey!"

[goto124]

[Salmagundi Station - Viewing Area]

Sybil chuckles lightly. 'Been there, done that. Never want to leave a nice place once you're in. Come one, look at these stars.'

She gestures to the window. 'We must be really high up, to be literally closer to the heavens. Even the tallest tower I've climbed didn't give this effect, and it's a wizard's tower.'

That tower was high by Sybil's standards, but not by modern ones, let alone sci-fi.

'It feels like we can touch them...'

[Cyber Punk]

[Salmagundi Station - Viewing Area]

Felicity looks at the stars. "We're in space?" She smiles a bit. "That's cool." Then she looks back at Fixer, sees the look on his face, then looks away at the stars.

Fixer nods at Sybil. "If we stacked a thousand of those towers together, we might still not reach this height." He sighs. "It's... really something, isn't it?"

Fixer exhales. "Felicity, you do realize you're in the wrong here?"

Felicity's eyes widen. "What? I-" She starts, before she's interrupted by Fixer. "Listen to me. You let her know that you could see through her facade, and it sounds like you bragged to her about it. No wonder she was upset." When Felicity doesn't respond (because she's busy pouting at the glass), he adds. "Seems to me you put all the blame on her without considering what you might have done wrong." He turns to Sybil. "Wouldn't you agree?"

[goto124]

[Something Station]

Sybil wasn't listening to the last bit, because she was suddenly gripped by acrophobia as she backs off the window.

'We're more than a thousand towers up?'

She attempts to cling onto Fixer, and whimpers softly.

[Cyber Punk]

[Something Station]

Fixer sighs, then points to Felicity. "You're not off the hook, Fel. Think about what I said." Felicity looks ready to defend herself, but then sighs and looks down.

Fixer then turns to Sybil, whose coldness is attempting to cling onto him. It works, but only barely. "Easy, Sybil. We're out of the earth's gravitational field." He pauses, as it occurs to him that she might not know what 'gravity' is. "Let's just say..." He begins, then trails off. Felicity finishes his sentence for him in a quiet tone. "... like, we're on a vehicle that travels through the stars."

Fixer attempts to pat Sybil, causing Felicity to look at them quizzically for a bit. She realizes that the lady is a ghost, so it's alright, but still a bit weird.

[goto124]

[Station Allllll the Way Up]

Her hair gets ruffled a bit from the pat.

Sybil doesn't get most of what Fixer said, but she does understand Felicity's last 4 words.

'We're... among the stars... literally,' she says. 'I've always thought it's heaven here, all the way up in the sky.'

Sybil lets go of Fixer, and drifts towards the window again.

'Or is this heaven? Quite unlike the bright-and-fluffy-white-clouds-with-angels heaven I'd imagined.' Sybil grins. 'Just as beautiful though.'

What can be seen through the window? Any spaceships, wierd planets made of metal, etc?

[Cyber Punk]

[Station Allllll the Way Up]

"Nope, heaven's probably still far up." Fixer steps forward, looking at the stars with her. Just then, a random spaceship warps somewhere in the distance, then flies by slowly. A meteor flies by from the left to the right. There's a white and green planet with brown rings around it, and Fixer points it out to Sybil. "In the Nexus, there's probably creatures living on the planet."

Felicity flies onto Fixer's shoulder, mumbles something about needing to think and starts to sleep, disappearing out of sight.

[goto124]

[Station Allllll the Way Up]

'Not sure if that's a relief. On one hand, it would be really weird if heaven was black with floating giant castles, small flying spheres, and larger colorful spheres- called planets?- with creatures living on it.'

Sybil's hand rests on the window. It should be able to go through the window, but she still has human-like thinking.

'On the other hand, I know something the royals would burn me at the stake for,' Sybil says, grinning. 'I've always wanted to learn the skills- technically illegal in Dalara, but used up and down by the very royals who banned them. They just don't want peasants using the skills.'

Sybil muses for a while. She's still grinning madly.

'Hiding, stealing, picking locks, assassination, that sort of stuff. Oh, how I would love to learn them...'

[Cyber Punk]

[Station Allllll the Way Up]

Fixer exhales. He gets that she'd have memories of where she's from, but he wonders just what she'd do when she learns that the rules are different here. "Well, you're not in Dalara anymore, Sybil."

He grins. "You just correctly guessed what I do for a living, since I know all of that stuff." But then, anyone who sees him might assume something of the sort. That's why he wears hoodies in casual-wear mode. "I can teach you, but apart from self-defense, why are you interested in that?"

[goto124]

[Stations]

Sybil falls silent. That was a rather good question, in fact. Maybe it's the forbidden fruit effect. Maybe it's about having something that people kept using against you. She never really thought about it. But did she want to tell Fixer that?

Maybe she can just dodge the question? (OOCly, I've difficulty answering that as well, so please let me dodge. Thanks.)

'To have power that's long out of my reach, I suppose? And you do have a point about self-defense. From what little I know, having those skills also means a much easier time spotting people who use it on you.'

Sybil's still looking out of the window. Or is she watching Fixer's reflection?

'You... assassinate for a living?'

[Cyber Punk]

[Stations]

Fixer looks at Sybil, studying her. She didn't answer the question to his satisfaction, but decides to let it go for now. "True. You learn to tell when others are trying to pull a fast one on you, among other things. Things like being more aware of certain things in your surroundings."

He turns around and walks to a nearby chair, about to sit down when Sybil's question reaches his ears. "Yes, I do." He says like it's the most natural thing in the world. "I'm a bounty hunter." And spy, but he decides not to mention that part. "That's why I was getting protection from that shop. The rules of the Nexus are different from Pandora's rules."

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

The door to the canteena is pushed open by someone who hasn't ever set foot inside before. A... lioness? No, not a lioness, she has a few feathers around her face, neck, and legs. A shedu! One of those weird Mesopotamian winged lions. But wait, what's this? She's holding the door open with dragon-like wings covered in coppery-red scales. And there's a chestnut-brown coated kirin head sticking out of her back. In fact, her whole back half is blended together with the hindquarters of the deer-like creature. And their reptilian tail ends in a head that looks equal parts wolf and dragon, a wyvern!

That isn't a shedu at all!

That's a chimera! A chimera named Tristan! A chimera questing for a pair of pants. They aren't sure why the mysterious old sage suggested they start here on their search for pants, but you don't argue with mysterious old sages.

They're carrying a brown denim jacket and a pair of shoes slung between their first and second head for no readily apparent reason. Considering how they're hanging onto the clothing with one of their wing-claws, it must be important to them.

"Well... this is the place," Kirin says, his tone a bit on the uncertain side.

"Haha, this is great!" Wyverly laughs, swinging her snake-y neck from one side to the other. "Look over there! Storm Troopers! And there's a space marine literally wearing armor made out of refrigerators. And there's a bothan! And an ork! And a cyberman! This place is great!"

"Super heroes, adventurers, some... kind of sapient jello?" Leona muses aloud. The quivering mass of lime jello waves a pseudopod at her. She hesitantly waves a paw back.

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

There's a bit of trouble right now, as it looks like there's something wrong with the cantina computer. People can't order their custom sandwiches, hand-made with love by disturbingly intelligent machinery! There's someone working on it, a human girl with long orange hair.

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

Oh no!

Not their sandwich making robot-slave!

Seems like a machine that makes sandwiches wouldn't need to be that smart. Just needs to be able to toss the right sammich bits together properly. But Tristan isn't going to argue with these people about how their needlessly complicated toys work.

Most of the patrons seem to be engaged in their own business, but the gal fiddling with the computer is...

Well.

Tristan can't put a finger on it, but there's something about her. Almost like she... kind of stands out from everyone else? It's weird, like their attention keeps getting drawn to her. Maybe just because she's the most normal looking person in the room?

"Is anyone else catching that?" Leona asks, her tone low.
"How my focus keeps drifting to her? Yeah," Kirin replies.
"I bet she's a PC and everyone else here is just an NPC," Wyverly says with a sagely nod.

The other two heads give her the look.

Then they sit down in the woman's general proximity and wait, fishing out their phone with their wing-claws to fiddle with the thing. They'll probably need something bigger, eventually. They aren't just going to interrupt her, though. Clearly she's busy!

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

The machine comes back to life, and the girl stands up. A different reason to look at her comes up: Her skin is made of a silvery metal. She goes over to the cantina owner, and they share a few words before Kate goes and sits down in a booth with some cheesecake.

She doesn't seem to notice the chimera.

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

Well.

Silvery skin isn't very normal.

And she didn't notice the chimera that was literally sitting right next to her waiting for her to finish her job? The one that politely said, "Excuse me?" as soon as she was done working?

Wow.

That's some pretty impressive drive to block out all else but cheesecake.

Their attention still drawn to the weird metal gal, Tristan follows her over to her booth and gives this whole socializing thing another shot.

"Eerr, excuse me?" Kirin begins, still hesitant.

"Are you the player character the Mysterious Sage told us that we were supposed to meet at the Salmagundi Station Canteena?" Wyverly blurts out, her tone cheerful, outgoing, and a bit hopeful.

Leona heaves a sigh. "That sure won't make us sound crazy..."

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

Kate jumps a little. "Uh... what?" She just looks confused, and doesn't seem to know which head to look at.

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

Confusion is understandable.

Kirin heaves a sigh. "We just got dumped into the Nexus, along with a large chunk of our town surrounding a big park. But since it was the middle of a week day, most everyone wasn't home and now there are a bunch of empty houses. Then I, eerr, we I guess, got turned into a chimera."

"Technically, we were a chimera to begin with," Leona points out. "Fraternal triplets fused in the womb. The Nexus just decided to make that more mythologically literal."

"Yeah! And then we met this Mysterious Sage guy. He sent us on a quest to find a 'Player Character' in the Salmagundi Station Canteena, which I'm pretty sure is you!" Wyverly adds. "But we don't know why. Yet. It's all pretty exciting!"

That might deserve another 'uh, what?'

"So! Are you the player character we're looking for, or do we need to wander around and bug people to find out who has more than three lines of dialog?" Wyverly continues.

[goto124]

[Salami Station]

An awkward pause passed.

Mostly because Sybil couldn't figure out what to say.

''Well... er... let's go somewhere?'

But where?

'Er... maybe there's a place to eat here?'

Huh.

'I wonder if I can still smell food...'

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

Kate blinks.

"Okay, one thing at a time, please? So, you were originally a human chimera, where twins-triplets in your case, merged in the womb. And then you get here you... get turned into a chimera."

"...that stinks. Were you at least a multiple before?"

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

"Sweet! You're not freaking out! You must be the one we were-mrph!" Wyverly begins, only to have one of the wing-claws clamp down over her mouth to prevent her from running it.

"I'll do the talking, just to keep things from growing too confusing," Leona says. "As far as we know, we didn't have any form of dissociative identity disorder. It was just... us. Me. All of us together?" she wrinkles her nose a bit. Describing this is obnoxious. "We were only one person, near as we could tell. When we got here three hag sisters told us we had three souls, said something about needing our blood, and then slashed us with an obsidian knife. After that, exposure to magic caused a fairly rapid metamorphosis."

They transformed from a human chimera into a chimera... chimer.

Yeah.

"Truth be told, we've taken to this far more naturally than we probably should of. But none of us could really work up the will to have a proper nervous breakdown or identity crisis over it."

That's good, at least.

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

"You didn't hear this from me, but a little breakdown can be healthy as long as you fully recover. Getting needs out of the way first is good, though. Wait until you have a job, a bed, a roof, and some savings. Survival first, THEN the the existential terror."

Kate nods. "Now, what was the other thing?"

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

"I think just being at peace with one's situation is a bit healthier," Kirin replies. "If we find a way to get changed back, that would be nice. But stressing over what ifs and ontological minutiae about the nature of personhood that we have no control over is an exercise in grasping at the wind."

Well.

That was pretty philosophical.

Though, what else would you expect from a kirin?

Well. A kirin that isn't a cat-girl, anyway.

"A quest!" Wyverly blurts in response to Kate's question. "We were sent up here on a quest by a Mysterious Sage to find a player character in Salmagundi Station Canteena to talk to, so that must be you!"

A beat.

"And we have no idea what the point of the quest is. We waggled his eyebrows all mysteriously and said," Wyverly then does her best Mysterious Sage impression. "'Only you can find the true meaning of your quest!' I think he might have just been a hobo with a staff and a robe."

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

Kate shrugs. "He might have been from a JRPG. There's a few people like that running around. In any case, I have no idea why any kind of quest would end with me, I mean, I'm no one special. I don't have anything to tell you or give you. What are you looking for? Did he just tell you to go here, or did you ask him something?"

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

"Those darn JRPG quest-givers!" Wyverly says in faux disgust.

"Perhaps we can help you out with something?" Leona suggests.

And then Tristan's belly rumbles, causing all three heads to glance down at it.

"Woah. That was cartoonishly loud," Wyverly snickers.

"Food would be good. We only have a bout a hundred dollars in our wallet," Kirin says. "Though I have no idea if this place takes Federal Reserve notes or not."

Someone is going to have to explain how money works in the Nexus.

Or...

How money doesn't work in the Nexus.

"We should probably find someone who can get our phone to work, too," Leona adds. "It can't seem to interact with the cells in the area around Inside."

[Lost_Deep]

Salmagundi Station - Canteena

"The money will work. Trust me. All the money works, don't ask how, don't think about it. As for getting a job, that's a bit more complex, but generally speaking the Nexus has no lack of jobs. You just have to figure something out an ask. I think the local paperwork office is run by a giant space flea? If you don't attack people and you have opposable digits, you can get a job. What kind of job do you want?" Kate asks.

[Rebonack]

[Salmagundi Station - Canteena]

"We were working on our degree before we got snatched up," Leona muses aloud. "Nuclear engineering with a double minor in solid state physics and materials engineering. We would just need to catch up on the techniques used here."

"Our friend Arty suggested taking up work as a fire fighter," Wyverly interjects. "Since we're durable, strong, fire-proof, and smoke inhalation doesn't bother us at all."

"Maybe a bit of both? This place must have a volunteer fire department. Most cities back home did," Kirin points out.

"BUT! We still need to figure out what's up with this quest," Wyverly adds. "I'm thinkin' some kind of trading chain thingy. Do you have any kind of random useless trinket we're going to need to trade for the next thing?"

That seems to be how it is with trading chains.

You never know what kind of useless nonsense you're going to start with. It might even be a frog.

[Cyber Punk]

[Salmagundi Station => Space Bar]

An awkward pause passed.

Mostly because Sybil couldn't figure out what to say.

''Well... er... let's go somewhere?'

But where?

'Er... maybe there's a place to eat here?'

Huh.

'I wonder if I can still smell food...'

Fixer smiles slightly. "I doubt it, but no harm in finding out, I suppose. Come, let's go and visit the bar."

The bar is like any other bar, but in space. There are people, nexus members and aliens alike either drinking, eating, dancing or doing one thing or the other around the place. There are viewing screens around where one can see the stars, nearby planets and any ships that happen to be passing around. To the side is a dancefloor where a few people seem to be dancing.

Fixer'll lead Sybil to the bar, where a blue-skinned bartender awaits. He'll then turn to her. "What do you fancy?"