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[open & closed] We walk these streets, but not alone
1. Open (Nov 4th)
There is a very basic problem that occurs to Kitty towards the end of her first day in Hex, around the time when the candy from the night before runs out: She has no currency on her that would be accepted here, no place to return to in the evening where she will find food, and no way of finding work that she could earn some money with. Even if there is something that she could do to earn money, she wouldn't know what it would be and how to get to do it.
She resorts to shoplifting that evening, but that really only helps for one meal and smuggling food out of a shop is not that easy when you're young and thus turn people's head just by being in the store alone and not in the candy section.
No. She needs to find something better to do. So that night, she can be found out in the streets where there are bars, or even just shady looking backalleys, hoping to find someone who passed out from alcohol and still has their wallet on them. Or who can't resist her searching hands for other reasons, she isn't picky (and doesn't even think to call an ambulance or police because that just wouldn't even be an option back home). It takes all night, and doesn't turn up with much, but she has a few bucks in the morning, enough to last her for a few days. But she's tired, and it was a pretty tedious search with more than one disappointment and one or two unpleasant almost-encounters.
Still, the money doesn't last her long and thus she's out on the nightly streets again a few days later. She almost squeals in excitement when the first limp body that she finds still has its wallet, creepy as the corpse is. Because that is what it is, she notices. It isn't even the lack of breathing that tips her off, it is the unnatural lack of essence. As if someone forcibly removed it... Her head shoots up and she jumps to her feet and dive under some garbage bags that are piled up behind her, just in time as a woman turns the corner. She can hear the woman curse about children (?) and then some shuffling and rustling, and when everything is finally quiet again and she crawls out from under the garbage bags, only enough to peer down the street, stinking and shaken, the corpse is gone.
If nobody finds her there, she will quickly retreat then - not to any specific location, just to somewhere else, further away from the bars, and once a quiet corner is found, sit down there and try to catch her breath. "Drek," she whispers and closes her eyes for a moment. "Drek."
2. closed to Ryoji (Nov 5th)
Kitty is a busy bee during her first week in Hex. Aside from trying to figure out how to eat, she also tries to learn more about two people: Corwin and Ryoji. The former because something is just seriously wrong with that guy, and the latter because ...well, he gave her her phone number and is local. He might be a very useful contact, but she wants to know more about him before she uses this.
It doesn't take her long to find him - knowing that he is a college student helps a lot. She follows him for two days - mostly in her cat shape - before she finally decides that he might be eccentric, but safe enough and calls him. She'll just let the phone ring until he answers, no matter how long that takes.
3. closed to NPCs (Okt 31)
She's been around for a few hours, joining other children while trick-and-treating, and thinks that she has a decent enough grasp on the concept. It's for children that still have early bedtimes and need to be attended by an adult.
So seeing a group of children who are still out and about and who don't have an adult with them, a good while after she has parted with her second group and watched the trick-and-treaters vanish from the street gives her pause and makes her halt her steps just after stepping around the corner to watch them.
Sure, she's still out and about without an adult herself, but that's different. What are they doing here?
There is a very basic problem that occurs to Kitty towards the end of her first day in Hex, around the time when the candy from the night before runs out: She has no currency on her that would be accepted here, no place to return to in the evening where she will find food, and no way of finding work that she could earn some money with. Even if there is something that she could do to earn money, she wouldn't know what it would be and how to get to do it.
She resorts to shoplifting that evening, but that really only helps for one meal and smuggling food out of a shop is not that easy when you're young and thus turn people's head just by being in the store alone and not in the candy section.
No. She needs to find something better to do. So that night, she can be found out in the streets where there are bars, or even just shady looking backalleys, hoping to find someone who passed out from alcohol and still has their wallet on them. Or who can't resist her searching hands for other reasons, she isn't picky (and doesn't even think to call an ambulance or police because that just wouldn't even be an option back home). It takes all night, and doesn't turn up with much, but she has a few bucks in the morning, enough to last her for a few days. But she's tired, and it was a pretty tedious search with more than one disappointment and one or two unpleasant almost-encounters.
Still, the money doesn't last her long and thus she's out on the nightly streets again a few days later. She almost squeals in excitement when the first limp body that she finds still has its wallet, creepy as the corpse is. Because that is what it is, she notices. It isn't even the lack of breathing that tips her off, it is the unnatural lack of essence. As if someone forcibly removed it... Her head shoots up and she jumps to her feet and dive under some garbage bags that are piled up behind her, just in time as a woman turns the corner. She can hear the woman curse about children (?) and then some shuffling and rustling, and when everything is finally quiet again and she crawls out from under the garbage bags, only enough to peer down the street, stinking and shaken, the corpse is gone.
If nobody finds her there, she will quickly retreat then - not to any specific location, just to somewhere else, further away from the bars, and once a quiet corner is found, sit down there and try to catch her breath. "Drek," she whispers and closes her eyes for a moment. "Drek."
2. closed to Ryoji (Nov 5th)
Kitty is a busy bee during her first week in Hex. Aside from trying to figure out how to eat, she also tries to learn more about two people: Corwin and Ryoji. The former because something is just seriously wrong with that guy, and the latter because ...well, he gave her her phone number and is local. He might be a very useful contact, but she wants to know more about him before she uses this.
It doesn't take her long to find him - knowing that he is a college student helps a lot. She follows him for two days - mostly in her cat shape - before she finally decides that he might be eccentric, but safe enough and calls him. She'll just let the phone ring until he answers, no matter how long that takes.
3. closed to NPCs (Okt 31)
She's been around for a few hours, joining other children while trick-and-treating, and thinks that she has a decent enough grasp on the concept. It's for children that still have early bedtimes and need to be attended by an adult.
So seeing a group of children who are still out and about and who don't have an adult with them, a good while after she has parted with her second group and watched the trick-and-treaters vanish from the street gives her pause and makes her halt her steps just after stepping around the corner to watch them.
Sure, she's still out and about without an adult herself, but that's different. What are they doing here?
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...correctly. Maybe she needs to go the other way around. "If someone wants a thing stolen, an information gathered or altered, a person extracted, killed or shielded, a place protected or damaged or anything like that, is there a ...well-established, fairly easily accessible market of people or groups of people offering such services out there?" She assumes that the answer will be no, at this point, but one last try.
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"...Yeah." It's obvious anyway, isn't it? "If it isn't a thing here, I'll have to find something else, though." Especially since she has no plan to fall back on, here. At home, she could always just return to being a kitten if things went terribly wrong, until Chantalle dies one day, anyway. Not that she would want to by any means, being human gives you so many more things to do, but the option would be there. Here, she has to figure out food and shelter and all that all by herself.
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"But... no, nothing like that really exists here, that I know about. And a lot of places aren't likely to actual hire someone that looks your age, if nothing else." ...She might have to just steal, which is not really a thing he wants to encourage but...
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"A lot won't hire kids my age, or all won't?" That's a rather important distinction.
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Ryoji hums, having to think over that a little bit. "...A lot. Most," he says, sighing, "You might be able to get a job delivering newspapers or something simple like that, but most other places that would even consider hiring you would be illegal and not at all safe."
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Illegal doesn't bother her at all - she would by default be unable to ever become a party in any kind of legal contract back home, and really, many things and people in her everyday life aren't legal one way or the other. But she wonders about the 'not at all safe' part.
"What do you you mean with that they wouldn't be safe?"
She'll have to look into the "delivering newspapers or something similar" thing, even though she assumes that it wouldn't earn her enough money to even eat.
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"Well, some people might be nicer to you because of your age, but a lot wouldn't. They'd send you out to situations where you would get hurt, or try and hurt you themselves if they thought it would help them." He's being vague intentionally, because while he knows way, way more bad stuff than most people think he would, he still has a suspicion he doesn't know all of it. "And if something happens to you, telling people is harder because you'd get in trouble too."
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Here, she has nobody like that.
She'll have to look into the newspaper thing, boring as it sounds. Assuming they don't want to see any proof of identity. Or maybe something different. ...Some kind of stealing, probably, considering her general options.
"Okay." She looks around and, upon spotting some infrastructure, points to the offending wall. "Describe that wall to me."
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"Um..." Ryoji turns to look at it, regarding it and not at all sure what she's on about now. "It's a plain brick wall? Kind of reddish brown, with concrete in between the bricks. There's ivy growing up it on one side...?" Is that kind of what you're looking for?
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So he isn't a 'stigmatic' or something like that.
She scraps a few of her questions. "No, but it's okay.
If I wanted to leave this city, what's the best way to do so?"
She hasn't found anything that seems to be meant to let you travel long distances yet.
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That's ...worrying doesn't quite cut it.
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"We could go looking together."
This one is an offer, not a request. She doesn't need him, but it might be useful to have someone who will actually be taken seriously along.
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She ...really has everything that she own on her, and she can't do any legwork here ahead of time, so she for her part would be ready to go.
...As soon as those sandwiches are eaten. She reaches for the last one.
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"Now!"
With that, she'll stand up - on the bench, that is - and then jump down from there, not without collecting her commlink first but while completely ignoring the empty boxes.
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Those are all places that should lead at the very least to the next city.
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