cityofhex | [open & closed] We walk these streets, but not alone

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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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No. What," what division to start with... uh, "continent and country is Hex in?" Maybe she'll know it.

"Why do you think that the vampire wouldn't have messed with me? And I know that humans think that they're normal, but," not knowing that others exist? That's ridiculous. Nobody can be that deep in denial. It sounds like a happy fever dream of the Humanis policlub.

"Why does nobody else at least try to get civil rights, too, instead of pretending to be human?"

...What. "Um... it's not? It just... is." When he thinks about it more, how could she not be from here? This is making less and less sense the longer this goes on.

"It's... not so much civil rights," Ryoji says carefully, trying to figure out how to explain this when her worldview makes literally not sense to him. "For some people it's kind of... well, it would be really scary for them to find out about everything that's actually going. People who do find out sometimes try to kill everything not human. Which, you know, not humans probably try to want to avoid." Dying is not super fun, he can attest to that. Thanatos rattles in agreement. "And for some, it's better for them that humans don't know about it and can't stop them from doing what they want to do. A lot of groups have rules about keeping secrets, I think."

At first, none of that makes sense to her. But as she thinks about it ...looking at the human-only propaganda of Humanis, looking at what Natascha, former team member and Orc, told her about the internment camps for orcs and trolls that she was born in, looking at how Quebec tries to exterminate shapeshifters, she can see where Ryoji is coming from. Looking at how harshly regulated magic is, too. The dictum about shooting the mage first is different, probably, but it still speaks of (healthy) fear.

"So everyone just managed to hide the moment they showed up?"

Because she can't really believe that people would just forget while people and critters are still around. Things don't just turn into legends and myths within a year or two of keeping your head down, and a she figures that a lot of people and critters needed to keep their collective head down.

"I guess?" Ryoji shrugged. "I don't know how long each thing has been around. I don't even know what they all are." Vampires and werewolves, Sin-Eaters, mages... that's about it for his knowledge. He kind of knows about Changelings, but not really. He just knows there's a lot even he's missing. "Maybe they all were hidden from the beginning, or maybe they've just turned into stories. Or been forgotten all together."

"Which ones do you know about?"

She knows they have vampires here, too. But the others... the one that felt toxic, the one who smelt like the gears in the walls, and the one whose soul had been eaten by something that feeds on nightmares. She won't mention any of them, but maybe what he can describe to her will give her an idea what they were.

"What isn't around anymore turns into stories, and some of them are right and some are wrong." She is allergic to silver, but the moon does nothing to her. Things like that. She grins. "And sometimes people take myths and make them become reality because they mean something to them." Like Tír na nÓg. "Did they forget about what you are?" It's an absolute shot in the dark. She has no proof that he is anything not human. But going by what he said she is sure that he is something.

He'd been wondering, when she would get around to that. It was pretty obvious that he knew more than a 'normal' human should too, after all. Ryoji will go ahead and forego the first question for the moment- he'll come back around to it, but there's some things he would like to know first, too. "Maybe," he says, which is a failure of an answer but it's kind of true. The Sin-Eaters don't really have an agreed upon Mythos like some others, "How about we trade for this one? I'll tell you what I am if you tell me what you are."

She nods slowly. "And you will tell nobody what I am, and I will tell nobody what you are."

Being a cat is something that she keeps close to her chest, normally. Her teammates know, but close to nobody else does. It's just a lot safer to let people assume that she's just a very talented little shaman. Not that that is particularly safe.

"Right." He's glad that's understood. Thanatos is inclined to make her go first, knowing how soft Ryoji will be about it if she doesn't keep up her end. But she is the one who asked. "I'm what's called a Bound. Long story short, I died, but there was a spirit around who could let me live again if he could tag along with me. What about you?"

Okay that's... well, there is a clear moment of side-eyeing him. "Are you saying that you're a possessed corpse?" That sounds about as ridiculous when she says it out loud as when she was just thinking it.

"No!" And he sounds distinctly offended by the implication. Thanatos isn't much for it, either. "I am alive now, just as much as any human. And I'm not possessed. We work together."

"...So he's something like a guardian spirit?

And were you a corpse in-between?" Enquiring minds want to know. She has heard rumours about Aztlan mages, but really if you believe half the rumours about Aztlan mages the whole country would have to be covered in fifteen metres of blood, to start with. Still. They say they rise the dead... It could be possible.

"I... guess he kind of is?" Ryoji glances back, Kitty not able to see the giant hovering very Death-like creature behind him but that doesn't stop him now that she knows. That kind of makes sense.

"I don't know what that means." He guesses maybe kind of, but he's not sure he likes the way she says it. "I just... I was dead, and now I am not." Ryoji's having a hard time finding where the trouble is. "What are you?"

"I'm a shapeshifter." It feels odd to admit that. She doesn't think she's ever done it before - even putting it into words is weird. The word tastes odd on her tongue.

...Huh! So, maybe kind of like a werewolf. But that's very clearly not the word she uses... "What do you turn into?" he asks.

That's a weird way of putting it. She is a cat turning into a human. ...Though the myths forgot that part.

"A cat."

Going by how he automatically assumes that she only has one form to turn into, it sounds like the idea isn't that strange to him.

"Do you have shapeshifters here?"

"Werewolves," Ryoji answers, though he adds, "There mmmmight be some mage's magic that can do that too. And some over various... stuff." There's kind of a vague handwave there. "Like I said, I don't know about everything that's around here. Not all of us get along."

"Who doesn't get along with whom?"

That sounds like vital information, especially if someone might mistake her for a part of one of the groups.

"Well..." Ryoji holds up a handful of fingers, trying to keep track. "Werewolves and vampires usually don't get along very well. Sin-Eaters- that's another name some of the Bound use, by the way- don't usually like it when people try to disturb or mess with the dead. Hunters don't like... well, anyone." Most of the time, at least. "There are exceptions in both directions, obviously. And then the other groups... I assume they've got some secrecy agreement. Vampires do too, I just have run into a couple."

Werewolves, vampires, Sin-Eaters or Bound, hunters. She pulls her commlink over and quickly draws four little pictures in a file: A dog-like creature with a stickfigure human next to it, a head with big prolonged upper canines, a tied up stick-figure with a skull hanging over it's shoulder, and a firearm. To jog her memory later, if necessary.

"Why have you run into more vampires than others?"

Ryoji shrugs. "I don't really know, honestly. It might be because they need to deal with people more than the other kinds? Some vampires will show up in bars and clubs and things so they can find someone to get blood from." Usually without their permission. Maybe they're more obvious, or maybe it's just because vampires are a thing that show up in more TV and stuff so I know what to look for? It could be a whole bunch of different things."

That makes sense.

"How do you recognize the others?"

Werewolves especially. She wonders if she could maybe find one and talk to them. Just because she'd really like to meet another shapeshifter. But wolves are also wolves, and she's a housecat. It might end badly.

"Well, you figured out how to recognize vampires on your own I guess." Those are the most obvious. "Werewolves... they have some forms that are kind of between wolf and person, I think, and that's probably the most clear way to recognize them. You might be able to smell something, though? Sin-Eaters can recognize each other, but there's probably not a good way for you to recognize them. And... well, Hunters are human."

"They're allergic to sunlight and wood and move and hit like they're augmented, but they never have any bodyware. And they drink blood because that is how they extract people's essence."

Guess who's been involved in hunting one before. Guess who also has a different kind of vampire in mind.

"So there is nothing special about hunters? ...And how to you recognize mages, here?"

Ryoji opens his mouth, visibly puzzled by her description. "That's... half right, I think. What's bodyware?" Vampires are definitely not fans of sunlight, but he doesn't think wood actually does anything. And they do move faster and hit harder than humans, he's pretty sure.

"Not other than the fact they're usually well armed, no. And mages... well, they're humans with magic, as far as I can tell. It's hard to tell until they start doing magic."

"No, it's all right. We hunted a vampire last year, so I had to learn. ...They can also be magically active, and turn into mist."

She giggles at the description of hunters, having to think of ...half her team, really. Especially the troll. Being able to lug around firearms that are normally installed on small tanks helps with the impression of being well armed.

"...But you make it sound like humans are the only ones who can do magic here."

Edited 2016-11-06 00:04 (UTC)

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