Trog's Tavern CLIII

[KerfuffleMach2]

The figure pauses for a moment before glancing down at a rather ornate watch worn over his dominant wrist. After pursing his lips for a second or so, the suited figure shrugs before taking a seat, facing the counter. A few bills are passed along, and a little while later, a clear liquid is brought back.

"I suppose I've a few minutes, yeah. Sure."

"So, tell me about yourselves."

[Bar]

Darsy takes a long pull from her mug before answering, some foam on her upper lip still.

Well, I like fighting. All kinds. Studied a bunch of different kinds, combine moves and forms and stances. Use what fits best. And I figured I could share some of that with people, so I opened a dojo.

She sets her mug down and brings a fist up in front of her, grinning at Marco.

I can also channel energy though my limbs.

Suddenly, her hand bursts into flames. Her grin widens a bit as she shows off. She lets the fire stay for a moment, then it suddenly disappears.

[Hattish Thing]

[Bar]

Marco nods quietly here, watching comfortably as the woman across the table displays her own talent. "You've got powers."

"How'd they manifest?"

[Rebonack]

Snatching up the next ship, the one being perused by the germ navy, proves to be an easy enough affair. They were, however, sailing between some chair legs, so it might take a minor feat of acrobatics for Jack to apprehend them. As with the other pirates, they don't take kindly to being shanghaied by a giant (in their opinion) bird. They'll begin using ropes and grappling hooks in an attempt to 'board' her and begin whacking at her with tiny swords. It's probably about as irritating as a bird mite infestation. So nothing a dust bath wouldn't fix.

Minor annoyances aside, this sail likewise appears to be another part of the map! It would seem Jack's guess was correct.

She'll just need to collect them all before the enchantment ends, probably.

And judging from the fact that the water level in the tavern is gradually decreasing, she might not gather them all quickly enough unless she gets a move on.

Maybe if someone else helped?

Or maybe if she just got all the ships out of the water before they go down the drain. Collect the sails once they're all safe?

Whatever she does, she had best do it swiftly!

Meanwhile!

Ibby's expression lights up a bit at Michalson's description. "Ah! Well, that sounds like an exciting line of work. My father was an adventurer, though not one of the planes as far as I know. He mostly stuck to Faerun until he found the pathway that lead here to the Nexus. I've always thought it might be interesting to try my hand at adventuring, but I must admit that I'm not exactly the most, ah, imposing individual. I've always wondered how wizards and other scholars manage to work up the courage to go traipsing about on adventures rather than staying at home with their books."

He glances over at the tavern proper. Now there's a bird flying about abducting tiny ships.

This place never ceases to be a font of strangeness.

"What sort of places did you visit on your travels? Anywhere particularly dangerous or exciting? Aside from here, of course."

[Morty]

"I guess the one I'll remember till I'm in the dead-book is Limbo," Michalson says, after a long pause. He dredged up the memories through a haze of alcohol. "Ever heard of it? The plane o' chaos, where nothin' really exists until someone wills it to."

[Earl of Purple]

Jack's not going to stay a bird. She flies towards a boat, getting bigger as she does, her wings turning into arms, her feathers retracting back into her clothes and her legs growing. She doesn't bother completing the transformation, so there's still patches of random feathers poking through the clothes, and she's kept her beak. She'll stalk through the shrinking sea like a bizarre heron, snatching three boats; one in her beak, and one in each hand, and dump them on the nearest unoccupied table before splashing through to do it again, to the next three. She's not moving as fast, but she's quicker; grabbing more at a time and not taking them all the way to the table she's got her satchel on.

Though if there's a bystander who wants to help, she probably wouldn't say no. Not least because her face is in totally the wrong shape to talk with.

[Rebonack]

Jack has successfully collected a bunch of tiny ships!

And just in the nick of time, too. The water (along with one vaguely whale-shaped protozoa) vanishes down an overly large, cartoony looking drain in the middle of the floor. Which in turn also drains itself, too. Not sure how a drain can go down a drain. Probably best not to think about it. Or watch the event, for that matter.

Regardless! Jack should be able to assemble the treasure map without any great difficulty. It's in nine little square pieces, however, so figuring out how they fit together might take a minute or two. Then there's the matter of fitting them all together so they don't flop apart while being read.

The map looks like it's depicting somewhere in Seaside. Two huge sea stacks rising out of the ocean like a pair of gigantic pillars with some cliffs beyond them. The cliffs being notable for the waterfall cascading over their face and feeding a large stream flowing out into the ocean. The map looks like it was drawn from the perspective of someone out at sea looking toward the coast. And on the northern most pinnacle of the northern sea stack there is drawn an X.

Yep.

Looks like this thing is a genuine pirate treasure map.

How nifty!

Meanwhile!

"Only in passing," Ib'bahali admits. "Something to do with giant frogs? Though I'm not sure what that has to do with a realm of absolute potentiality and nothing else."

He gives a little hum, pondering that description.

"Limbo sounds not terribly dissimilar from the Dreamheart. Though with the important distinctive that one can return after going there."

[Earl of Purple]

Jack reaches into her satchel now she's got the whole map and withdraws a needle and thread. When she's sure she's organised the map properly, she'll sew it together. She's reasonable with a needle and thread, and she can do it to keep as much detail as possible. She'll have to go there soon, before anyone else finds out about it. Or the sea stack collapses, which is also a possibility. Hmm, maybe she'll need help moving it? She's not the strongest, and her first plan- find the sea stacks and the river, fly to the X, start digging- probably won't be very effective.

[Rebonack]

From the illustration, which is little more than a sketch, the sea stack in question appears to be substantial. Large enough and old enough that there's substantial vegetation growing on it. Big enough that it could probably be considered a small island. So not the sort that are in danger of falling into the sea any time in the near future. Both of them are about that size, in fact. Judging from the general shape, they probably both used to be part of the same sea arch at some point in the past, though the bridge between them has collapsed.

Shame.

That would be a cool place to take pictures of one's self.

They're pretty rocky looking features, though. What soil is on them is probably fairly thin. Enough to support plant life, not enough to bury a chest in. More likely there's some hidden grotto the treasure is squirreled away in.

Of course, we're assuming here that the treasure is one of those great big oak and iron chests. It might be something small and relatively valuable.

Or maybe there's a big hollow inside the sea stack filled with piles and piles of coins? And possibly a bronze dragon.

Or maybe something else altogether?

Really, there's no way to be sure except by setting out and discovering the answer!

[Morty]

"Only in passing," Ib'bahali admits. "Something to do with giant frogs? Though I'm not sure what that has to do with a realm of absolute potentiality and nothing else."

He gives a little hum, pondering that description.

"Limbo sounds not terribly dissimilar from the Dreamheart. Though with the important distinctive that one can return after going there."

"Giant frogs, aye. Slaadi, they call 'em. Nasty things. But that's just a part of what lives there. There's also tough bashers called githzerai." Michalson takes another drink. "Can't say as I've ever heard o' Dreamheart, but this place has so many dimensions attached to it, can't one body keep track of 'em all."

[Rebonack]

"Ha! Yes, that's certainly a true statement if ever I've heard one," Ibby laughs. "Though I can't help but wonder, why frogs? When I think 'absolute pure chaos' frogs really aren't the first thing that leaps to mind, if you'll pardon the pun."

No frog puns, Ibby.

Bad!

No!

"The Dreamheart is... well... defining it is difficult, as a lack of definition summarizes it quite nicely. Perhaps the closest thing one could call it is a place of absolute creative potential. Everything there is mercurial, inasmuch as whatever can be found there are even considered things." This makes it very hard to describe in any concrete terms, as might be imagined. "Fae of a sort spring forth from the Dreamheart, taking on some measure of identity in the Dreamlands from where they occasionally come burrowing up into reality like termites through the foundation of a house."

"Ehehe, termites? That seems like an awfully rude analogy!" comes a small, adorable sounding voice from the rafters.

Ibby studiously ignores it.

"Nothing concrete can survive the touch of the Dreamheart. Substance, identity, even the most basic of natural laws come unwound there," Ibby concludes.

"It's like a big pile of yarn!" comes the voice from the rafters.

Ibby scowls upward. "It is not like a big pile of yarn. That analogy fails on so many levels that it's wholly without merit."

"It's totally like a big pile of yarn!" the voice insists. Should Michalson turn his gaze rafterward, he may spy a cat-sized creature looking down at them. It's head bears a resemblance at once to goat and a feline, bearing large pitch-black eyes and a wide, toothy, cheshire grin. Maph'Tey, resident pooka, and eternally obnoxious source of Random Encounters at the Trog's. "You could knit a sweater out of it, if you felt like making something nice. Or maybe knit a world out of it, if you felt like making something awful."

[Earl of Purple]

Well, now that that's decided, Jack orders a lemonade to go and grabs her satchel and the map before leaving. The ships she moved onto tables, if they don't disappear on their own, remain where she left them.

[Morty]

"Ha! Yes, that's certainly a true statement if ever I've heard one," Ibby laughs. "Though I can't help but wonder, why frogs? When I think 'absolute pure chaos' frogs really aren't the first thing that leaps to mind, if you'll pardon the pun."

No frog puns, Ibby.

Bad!

No!

"The Dreamheart is... well... defining it is difficult, as a lack of definition summarizes it quite nicely. Perhaps the closest thing one could call it is a place of absolute creative potential. Everything there is mercurial, inasmuch as whatever can be found there are even considered things." This makes it very hard to describe in any concrete terms, as might be imagined. "Fae of a sort spring forth from the Dreamheart, taking on some measure of identity in the Dreamlands from where they occasionally come burrowing up into reality like termites through the foundation of a house."

"Ehehe, termites? That seems like an awfully rude analogy!" comes a small, adorable sounding voice from the rafters.

Ibby studiously ignores it.

"Nothing concrete can survive the touch of the Dreamheart. Substance, identity, even the most basic of natural laws come unwound there," Ibby concludes.

"It's like a big pile of yarn!" comes the voice from the rafters.

Ibby scowls upward. "It is not like a big pile of yarn. That analogy fails on so many levels that it's wholly without merit."

"It's totally like a big pile of yarn!" the voice insists. Should Michalson turn his gaze rafterward, he may spy a cat-sized creature looking down at them. It's head bears a resemblance at once to goat and a feline, bearing large pitch-black eyes and a wide, toothy, cheshire grin. Maph'Tey, resident pooka, and eternally obnoxious source of Random Encounters at the Trog's. "You could knit a sweater out of it, if you felt like making something nice. Or maybe knit a world out of it, if you felt like making something awful."

"That sounds mighty interestin'- what?" The half-elf looks up and blinks. "Okay, so if you also see an' hear that critter up there, it means I'm not just too deep in the bub and seein' things."

[Rebonack]

"I'm able to see him, yes," Ibby confirms as the impish little thing blows a raspberry at him. "Regrettably," Ibby adds.

The pooka giggles to himself as he goes prancing off across the rafters, no doubt intent on visiting trouble on someone at some point.

"Very much a 'speak of the devil and he shall appear' situation, I suspect. That creature is a fae of the Dreamheart. One tied closely to both sleep and dead time of all things. I've read some speculation that the little imp introduced the stuff to the Nexus years ago. Not sure how much truth there is to that speculation."

Hopefully none, since that's a pretty scary idea.

Temporal stasis is deeply unsettling.

"Regardless, if the Dreamheart lies outside the bounds of reality, its converse lies deep within it. A place of absolute reality, more real than real if that makes any degree of sense. I've heard it most commonly called the Far Realm, though it has more than a few names it's known by. If ever you've met some mind-bending tentacle monsters on your travels, there's a not altogether unreasonable chance that it may have resulted from a confluence between the Far Realm and some poor mortal being."

"Your dad knows a bunch about confluencing, huh?" comes the voice in the rafters.

"Hush, you."

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

"Honestly, I forgot I had that in there. It's a quick-acting local anesthetic with some magic ingredients to move it through the skin. It wears off in a couple hours, but you should be thankful it's only touched your arm. If it hit your lungs, say, or your heart - they might stop working."

"Do you want to see what else I have in here, or just pay up?"

"Pfrgh," he says, his derisive scoff derailed by hand-related concerns. "I don't carry that much cash on me!"

"They have a card reader now," a tiny red pegasus helpfully chimes in from inside the tavern. Poirot shoots the pony-child a dirty look. The kid doesn't notice. "They put it in last month! It accepts PearCharge and everything!"

"Algernon, wallet!"

Leslie's pet dutifully jumps on the pseudo-frenchman and jams his nose in Poirot's pockets. The deadbeat's blackened hands bat at the big rat uselessly. "This is robbery! I'll call the police!"

"Ha! If you were going to do that, you would have done it first!" Leslie accuses, then catches her voice slipping in her excitement. "I mean, ah, I think you know you're in the wrong. Or else are trying to avoid getting them involved for some, ah, other reason."

Leslie's muscular doppelganger looks irritated. She hasn't moved from the booth where everyone was sitting a while ago.

Algernon returns to Leslie with the wallet in his mouth. She takes it and points for him to sit and hold the door open. "Great! I'll, ah, be right back!"

In short order, she returns with the wallet, a pen, and a long receipt written up by the gnomish manager. "We, ah, need you to sign this," she says, clearly embarrassed.

Poirot squints up at her and raises up his frozen hands with a growl of irritation.

"Oh, right. Ah, J, you... don't happen to have an antidote for that on you...?"

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Bar]

Marco nods quietly here, watching comfortably as the woman across the table displays her own talent. "You've got powers."

"How'd they manifest?"

[Bar]

Darsy shrugs a bit, taking another pull from her mug.

Eh, lots of training. Not exactly sure. I just figured out I could channel my own energy through my limbs. Then I figured out how to change it a bit. Different kinds of energy. Fire, lightning. Bunch of different things.

She sets the empty mug down, where another was already waiting. Bartender must have dealt with her before.

What about you? Why's a guy in a suit as fancy as yours looking to learn how to fight? Darsy's tone doesn't suggest any accusations or such. Seems like she's just curious.

[Hattish Thing]

[Bar]

The suited figure leans forward a little here, glancing elsewhere as he responds. "Bit of a hobby, nothing serious."

"It's good exercise as well. You know what they say; sound of figure, sound of mind."

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Bar]

Darsy shrugs a bit.

I know quite a few fit people that are crazy, so that can't be true. She takes a long drink from her new mug. It's now half gone.

I'm gonna pry a little bit, here. I'm all for helping people learn how to fight. But...you start using what I teach you to hurt people? She gives him a side long glance, all the glee from before gone from her face. Can't have that. She turns back to her mug. So! I'm gonna need your word that whatever your hobby is, you don't go around terrorizing people or stuff. Got it?

[Hattish Thing]

[Bar]

The suited figure shrugs before offering a small smile. "That so? You must live quite the exciting life."

"Hurt people? Of course not. You've my word."

--

At that, he offers a hand.

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Bar]

Darsy will take his hand to shake.

Man, her grip is strong for its size.

Good. And my life is kinda normal. Normal for somebody in the Nexus, at least.

[Morty]

"I'm able to see him, yes," Ibby confirms as the impish little thing blows a raspberry at him. "Regrettably," Ibby adds.

The pooka giggles to himself as he goes prancing off across the rafters, no doubt intent on visiting trouble on someone at some point.

"Very much a 'speak of the devil and he shall appear' situation, I suspect. That creature is a fae of the Dreamheart. One tied closely to both sleep and dead time of all things. I've read some speculation that the little imp introduced the stuff to the Nexus years ago. Not sure how much truth there is to that speculation."

Hopefully none, since that's a pretty scary idea.

Temporal stasis is deeply unsettling.

"Regardless, if the Dreamheart lies outside the bounds of reality, its converse lies deep within it. A place of absolute reality, more real than real if that makes any degree of sense. I've heard it most commonly called the Far Realm, though it has more than a few names it's known by. If ever you've met some mind-bending tentacle monsters on your travels, there's a not altogether unreasonable chance that it may have resulted from a confluence between the Far Realm and some poor mortal being."

"Your dad knows a bunch about confluencing, huh?" comes the voice in the rafters.

"Hush, you."

Michalson nods at the fae before responding to Ibby.

"Oh, I've 'eard of the Far Realm. Never met anything from there, as evidenced by my skin bein' in place and my guts on the inside. Can't say as I've ever heard of it bein' real, though. All the accounts claimed that it was more of a reality itself, sort of sideways from ours. And mixin' the two turns 'em both ful toxic."

[Sniccups]

"Oh, right. Here..." J rummages inside her bag for it. She finds it after a while, and gives it to Poirot so he can sign.

After that's done, J walks back into the main tavern.

Oh, hey, Sam. How's it been going for you?"

[Hattish Thing]

[Bar]

Darsy will take his hand to shake.

Man, her grip is strong for its size.

Good. And my life is kinda normal. Normal for somebody in the Nexus, at least.

Marco nods somewhat, a pleasant smile upon his face. His own handshake is particularly firm, and his fingers instinctively press up against Darsy's wrist. The connection lingers for just long enough before he pulls away, as if the exact duration and the force which with he carries out his shake had been frequently practiced.

"How long have you lived here?"

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Bar]

Darsy doesn't take much note of how long the grip lasts. She's more focused on the strength and feel of his hand. It'll tell her quite a bit about his potential fighting university.

Been here my whole life. Different parts of Inside, but still.

You?

[Hattish Thing]

[Bar]

There's quite a bit of strength there, yet his reflexes appear relatively slow, overall.

"Ah, Nexus, born and raised. Me too."

"Skyside, though."

[KerfuffleMach2]

[Bar]

Darsy winces a bit.

Oof, yeah, okay. Now I get why you wanna learn how to fight.

She finishes her third mug of beer now. Well, third that Marco has seen. And there's number four, ready to go. How the hell does a woman this small drink this much?

[Rebonack]

"As is oft the case with the Nexus, I suspect there may be more than one such Realm," Ibby reasons. "Just as there's more than one land of the faerie or more than one land of the dead. This place has a nasty habit of making otherwise tidy cosmologies about as organized as a plate of noodles."

A big wibbly wobbly ball, so to speak.

Ibby briefly glares at the rafters, as if daring the pooka to make more heckling commentary from the peanut gallery, but when none is forthcoming he continues.

"The Far Realm, as I've studied it, aligns reality with itself. It's touch invariably and irrevocably changes things. And the shift in perspective these changes cause often results in the poor fool that stuck his nose where he ought not going mad, or worse. And that's merely its influence. Not that the things there are evil, as such. The Outer God Shub Niggurath is arguably well-meaning with respect to mortal life. The only problem is that her perspective is alien to the extent that 'well-meaning' results in little that any sane person would consider desirable."

Tentacles?

Tentacles.

"There ARE mortal creatures touched by the Far Realm that are largely harmless. The flumphs, most notably. One ought to always trust of flumph."

Even if they are rather silly.

"Though now we're getting quite far afield. What sort of experience did you have in Limbo?"

[5a Violista]

Dramatic entrance!
The kind of entrance everyone wishes they could have

A robot enters the tavern.

Why would a robot need to go to a tavern? I don't know, probably because taverns are the place to be. Who cares about drinking? Who cares about eating steak? Nobody comes to taverns for those reasons (quiet you, your experience doesn't count because you're not sufficiently representative of the people who come to taverns for exciting reasons). Everyone comes to taverns for adventure and for the time of their lives!

This particular robot is a Malicebot. Imagine a Magbot, except better. And it looks like it was based off the designs of Marvel supervillain Ultron, kind-of, but it has a glowing M on its chest. And it has a cape. And it has a whip-sword.

That's what it looks like.

The robot, known to his friends as Malicebot#8, lets his cape flutter dramatically in the wind (at least, until the tavern door closes behind him).

As soon as he has determined his entrance was sufficiently awe-inspiring, the robot goes in the rest of the way, sits down, and orders a drink.

[Morty]

"As is oft the case with the Nexus, I suspect there may be more than one such Realm," Ibby reasons. "Just as there's more than one land of the faerie or more than one land of the dead. This place has a nasty habit of making otherwise tidy cosmologies about as organized as a plate of noodles."

A big wibbly wobbly ball, so to speak.

Ibby briefly glares at the rafters, as if daring the pooka to make more heckling commentary from the peanut gallery, but when none is forthcoming he continues.

"The Far Realm, as I've studied it, aligns reality with itself. It's touch invariably and irrevocably changes things. And the shift in perspective these changes cause often results in the poor fool that stuck his nose where he ought not going mad, or worse. And that's merely its influence. Not that the things there are evil, as such. The Outer God Shub Niggurath is arguably well-meaning with respect to mortal life. The only problem is that her perspective is alien to the extent that 'well-meaning' results in little that any sane person would consider desirable."

Tentacles?

Tentacles.

"There ARE mortal creatures touched by the Far Realm that are largely harmless. The flumphs, most notably. One ought to always trust of flumph."

Even if they are rather silly.

"Though now we're getting quite far afield. What sort of experience did you have in Limbo?"

"We were there to search the ruins of a githzerai burg," Michalson explains. "A bunch of the giths didn't like that... some of us didn't make it. Not sure why that burg was destroyed in the first place. I know Githzerai cities can sink into Limbo if their focus wavers, but... this didn't look like that. Somethin' ful weird had happened there. It's why chunks of the place were still intact."

[Rebonack]

"Curious," Ibby mutters. "If the realm is as unstable as you suggest, the city should have decayed into the chaos as soon as there wasn't anyone there to will it into existence. Correct?"

That sounds about right to him.

If anything, Limbo sounds rather akin to the boarder between the Dreamlands and the Dreamheart. Things left unattended tend to dissolve, but otherwise it is quiet malleable to the mind of one who is sufficiently lucid. The biggest, nastiest fae tend to make their homes there. A place with just enough coherence that form and identity can be maintained while still allowing complete freedom to shape 'reality'. The very idea unsettles Ibby deeply. A place with no set rules or structure to rely on? Where nothing can be trusted to behave in a rational way?

Ghastly.

"And these githzerai, was it? They don't sound terribly welcoming. I take it they aren't particularly hospitable to outsiders?"

He would imagine not.

Especially if Michalson and his crew were there to loot the place.

More than a few cultures take issue with grave robbers.

[Morty]

"The giths don't like outsiders much in general, that's true," Michalson says with a nod. "That lot, though... we must've torqued 'em off by enterin' that city. They didn't exactly stop to explain. And you're right. In Limbo, everythin' only exists when someone wills it to. But those ruins stuck around somehow."