Stranger In A Strange Land

Garviel's House


 * A single-storey house with lime green concrete walls, a flat slate roof and round windows. It's surrounded by narrow strips of artificial turf that serve as the lawn.

Garviel is seated in his house, sharpening his axe at a wet stone, the wolf is armored head to toe in elaborate steel plate.

And with a cry of pain, a young man in medieval gear is drawn into existence, by a set of glowing blue lines. He collapses to the ground and screams, "Dammit!"

Garviel stands reflexively at the cry of pain, axe in hand as he looks over at the young man, "Wherre did you come frrom?" he asks in a low growl of a voice, his ears flattening.

Sandrim looks up to Garviel blinking slowly. "Shut up, Kael," he mumbles, a bit blearily. "And decide if you're a wolf or a man. And I need a bed."

Garviel peers down at Sandrim, "My name is Garrviel Fairrskinned, not Kael, and I'm a Lupoid, but wherre did you come frrom?"

Sandrim looks up at Garviel, then looks around himself slowly. "Oh," he says. "You're like the dancing bears. Hi there. Feel like playing a song while I figure out where I am? Never seen this place before. I didn't open the gate well."

Perhaps as a kind of answer - or at least an additional distraction - a bright sphere of light seems to float through Garviel's door. As the light fades, a...probably-man sporting a radiant aura and two *huge* gull-wings remains behind. "Sweet baby Jesus," he murmurs. "Tell me you haven't been doing something dreadful with the pyramid people, Garvi." His attention is drawn to the newcomer. "Oh. Oh dear."

Garviel growls a bit, "I'm not a dancing bearr," he says, ears still flat as his fur pricks up. He glances over towards Cephas, "Nothing, this man just showed up out of nowherre, was worrking with my weapons and he popped out of nowherre." he growls again, glaring down at Sandrim, fingers twitching on his axe, "Called me a dancing bearr."

Sandrim pushes himself slowly to his feet, and starts walking, wavering, toward Cephas. "Oh, more hallucinations," he says. "This time it's more and more interesting."

Cephas peeeeeeeers at the newcomer. "Oh, you're not hallucinating," he says, a flicker of light brightening briefly in the angel's left eye. "But you go right ahead and think that, if it makes you feel better." He holds out one taloned hand to Sandrim. "You should come with me. This is Garviel's house. And you didn't knock." He grins. "For that matter, neither did I. But it is a bit important, and *anything* could have come through." He looks over to Garviel. "I will take care of this, it's all right," he says. "And you do look a bit bearish when you're all bristled out like that. He won't do any harm."

Garvi grrs slightly, but does seem to relax a bit with Cephas' words, his fur dropping a bit and his ears moving back up, a bit, but he still eyes Sandrim, paws /not/ leaving his axe.

Sandrim, on the other hand, really doesn't seem very dangerous right now. Well, not to anyone but himself at least. He looks up at the angel through unfocused eyes, considering him, before reaching out to take his hand. "Okay," he says somewhat childishly. "Did you know you have talons? That's strange. I've seen the wings before, but talons, talons are new."

Necromundus - Moldering Meadows


 * Rather plain-looking cookie cutter tract houses line the neatly maintained asphalt streets of this provincial subdivision on the outskirts of Necromundus city center, with lots of earth tones, flat roofs and small yards carpeted with artificial turf.


 * It is a quite cold afternoon. The air is stagnant, not stirring with the slightest breeze. Puffy white clouds fill most of the sky.

Cephas smiles, and leads the mage out into the street. "You haven't seen anyone like me," he says with certainty. "But I'll admit..." and here, he looks closely at Sandrim again, as if reading the man's history off his face, "you've been close to something similar, a few times. Can you remember what happened?"

Sandrim shifts from side to side, looking around the area. "The architecture's weird," he says slowly. "How I got here? Or where I saw those wings?"

Cephas nudges Sandrim forward, out to where one might presumably guess the main thoroughfare to be. "How you got here, of course," he says. "It's my job to monitor the gates - well, one of my jobs - and then out of nowhere there's a rip in Garvi's living room, and *you* come through. I'm a bit curious about that."

Wobbling a bit as Cephas leads him to the town center, Sandrim waves at a passing sauroid. "Hello, dragon!" he calls, sounding like one very heavily medicated. "I opened a gateway!" he says cheerfully. "I was trying to find Garis, but I didn't. It popped! I wonder where Taran is."

Necromundus - Dwellings and Abodes


 * Even the dead need a place to put their stuff. The denizens of Necromundus dwell in clustered subdivisions on the outskirts of the main city, in neighborhoods with names like Dead End Gardens, Moldering Meadows and Rancho Rigor Mortis.


 * At a crossroads between the various subdivisions stands a skull-shaped edifice with a door built into the gaping jaw and a sign dangling from the nasal cavity that reads: Digger Graves, Deed Agent to the Dead.


 * It is a quite cold afternoon. The air is stagnant, not stirring with the slightest breeze. Puffy white clouds fill most of the sky.

Cephas sets a taloned hand on Sandrim's shoulder, steadying him. "Not too much farther," he says. "There's a tavern ahead. I think you'll find it a rather sad little place, but you can sit down there. I need to call someone about you - really, you shouldn't be here at all, but sending you back might be a bit problematic for your world. Stay here too long and the problem may just become moot, but that's a bit cruel, really."

Sandrim continues on his way for the city center, waving at an elf. "He's pretty," he confides to Cephas. "Do they have mead at the tavern?"

Necromundus - City Center


 * The quirky architecture of the mist-laden city of Necromundus is distinguished primarily by the absence of many right angles. Wooden-slats climb walls that are rectangular cubes, but the lines from ground to gable form rather oblong angles, giving everything from the dominant clock tower to the grand gold-domed opera house a rather unstable appearance.


 * Ghostly entities of many shapes and sizes can often be seen traveling the narrow, fog-shrouded streets, on their way to the Place of Choosing or preparing to resurrect after some sort of misadventure or accident beyond the great portals that lead to strange and distant realms.


 * A cobblestone street snakes northeast toward low hills surrounded by wrought-iron fences and tombstones, while a rutted grass path heads south toward the stinking mire known as the Rotting Bog.


 * It is a quite cold afternoon. The air is stagnant, not stirring with the slightest breeze. Puffy white clouds fill most of the sky.

Cephas sighs. "Yes, they do, but you shoudn't eat or drink. Really. Trust me." As they enter the square, the angel tilts back his head and...sings. Perhaps it's a song, perhaps it's a call - a sound, like bells, but at the very edge of hearing. "We do need to sort out what to do with you. But you need to be careful. The rules here - you would find them rather strange."

Sandrim is walking through the town center in front of Cephas, and, really, taking in the weird things in the world of the death in stride. "This is all different," he says, eyes unfocused as he waves at a passing felinoid. "Usually, it's just dancing bears!" A pause, and he peers at Cephas. "Why can't I eat?"

Cephas taps his lips with a taloned finger. "Oh dear. Translations...hm. All right. You know how the Shadowed bear would put Shadow in its cuts? It's a bit like that. If *you* eat and drink here, when you aren't supposed to be here at all, you'll be absorbing a bit of this place into you. You'll start to fit in. And that will make it harder for you to go home again. You do *want* to go home again, don't you?"


 * whump* *whump* *whump* From out in the distance comes a different, liquid song - far more clarion and carrying (and less etherial) - a leather-winged, draconian shape growing larger, low and fast on the horizon.

Sandrim looks up at Cephas as the two are making their way for the tavern, and a dragon is flying in. "I wanna go home, yes," he says slowly. "I can just open a gate though, can't I?"

Cephas smiles as the dragon comes into view. "Thank you for coming!" he calls. "I think this one is one of yours, madam. Are there any rules against my simply sending him home again?"

With a backwash of air from those wide wings, the flame-colored female dragon settles in the open spot of the square, actually leaning in to greet Cephas with a slight touch from her cheek on his shoulder... and then Val'cyn's amber eyes turn to focus on Sandrim. "One of /mine?/ I do not generally keep humans as pets."

Stepping from the Training Halls, Iyaname looks up just in time to see Val'cyn land. Her face shows a serious amount of concern and fear as she looks at the dragon. "What... what is going on here?

Dragon. A big one. Okay, there was the saurinoid earlier, but that was just a little dragon, comparitively. The unfocused mage goes wide-eyed, and then grins, reaching out to try and touch Val'cyn. "Ooh."

Cephas looks heavenward for patience, and that taloned hand keeps a gentle but firm grip on the mage's shoulder. "Not a pet, madam," he says. "This one, you might have noticed, is not dead. Yet. He managed a quite impressive spacetime rip, and landed in Garviel's living room. I think his wits are just a bit scrambled, but he's definitely still living. And from your part of Creation. I thought I would ask first, if I need to keep him here - the usual response is to send them home and seal up the rift behind them."

Val's head snakes back slightly, as Sandrim reaches for her - and she remarks, curiously - "How very odd." She looks to Cephas, then back. "If he does not belong here, then it is best he be returned. It is a violation of the Order, though not a bad one. In the alternative, killing him would set things right."

"NO!" Iyaname can't help herself. She heard the dragon mention killing the man, and that did not seem right. Killing was always a final option, not something one did to make things easier. She pulls out her mace, knowing she has no chance against such a creature. "He doesn't need to die just because he is here."

Sandrim's eyes waver a bit. "Kill me?" he asks, tilting his head to the side. "I'm good with a sword, I warn you!" How well he could use the sword now, though, is questionable.

Cephas sighs. "No one is killing *anyone*," he says firmly. "Not if it's all right to send you home." He nods to the dragoness. "Thank you. I wasn't sure if there might be some reason to keep him from returning." To Sandrim, he adds, "And please don't draw any weapons. You really don't want to get in a fight around here. They'll get up again - you, on the other hand, wouldn't. And they'll think of it as a sport. Mercy's in rather short supply on local battlefields, we don't want to test that with you." Spidery, talon-tipped fingers move to frame the sides of Sandrim's face, the angel studying him closely. "Now that that is settled...think of where you wanted to go, if you can focus on it for me? Clear as you can - and no rush, if you need to rest. Just try."

Val'cyn leans in close to sandrim, focusing on him - her head at the level of the man's, a slow curl of smoke coming up from one nostril. Her curiosity is visible, and intent... but her words are for the other angel. "He does not, no, but it /is/ an alternative."

Iya does not drop her weapon, but she also does not move. As brave as her initial response was, she can't seem to gather the strength to follow up on it. She stares at the dragon, then looks as the other angel touches the mage. This new world still confuses her, and now it is beginning to frighten her as well. Her voice seems shakey as she speaks to the dragon again. "It is an alternative, yes, but a bad one."

Sandrim blinks, then closes his eyes as the talons wrap around his face. "Garis," he says quietly. "I was going to Garis."

Cephas just nods. "Good," he says. "Think about Garis for me, then." The angel's baritone is low, and soothing. "Just like that. And all this place is just a dream you will be so happy to forget. Tucked away in your own place, with your friends, just as you wanted." As the angel speaks, though, there's an echo of other words, unintelligible, floating around the edges of the words understood. And behind Sandrim, those words are becoming solid - a sliver, opening in the air, a Portal that certainly wasn't there before.

Val'cyn turns away - losing interest, it seems - to regard Iya with that same curiosity. "Do you believe I intend you harm?" It's oddly startled, the mace getting a truly intent look, for a moment.

The mace in her hand wavers slightly, and Iya takes a step back under the gaze of the dragon. "I... I...", she stammers, suddenly forgetting that she is dead and cannot really die here. "I don't know... dragons are evil where I am from."

"Dragons are always dangerous, sometimes evil, rarely really good," Sandrim murmurs, opening his eyes, and turning to look at that Portal. "This is the way?" he asks, slowly walking for it.

Cephas nudges Sandrim through it. "Yes," the angel replies. "Now scoot. Go finish living, try not to turn into a demon, and at the end of it we'll probably talk again." He grins. "Shoo."