The Search for the Newcomers, December 2012 Edition.

[stringmods]

Who: Open to Everyone, but only Newly Accepted Characters can start threads.
Where: All around the city! They appear where you want them to appear.
Summary: Newcomers arrive and by now the Government is more ready and sends everyone out to go people hunting.
Warnings: ARRIVALS. Also assume the first thread is the ones who tell you about the city, and the other tags for the character can be talking with others in the city and learning more about it.

[FOR THOSE IN THE CITY:]
They were getting much better at this, it was for certain.

Last month's initial testing of the HORUS system had worked really well. The device which allowed everyone to spot abnormalities; and now even more refined, they could hone in on newcomers at a much faster pace. The leftover energy from the travel (commonly called Magatama Residue) gave them a few minutes to find them before it would flicker out.

Combined with the fact they could appear in most parts of the city, it made finding the newcomers was both easy yet frustratingly difficult.

As the blips appear on your own radar function, it was also nice enough to calculate for you the best transport and destination routes to take to get there. Speed was of the essence, after all.

[FOR THOSE WHO JUST ARRIVED:]
You're not in your homeworld anymore. That much is evident. So how do you feel? Happy? Sad? Troubled? A little of all three? No matter what, the memories of a butterfly man named Philemon are fading like a dream; you'll remember the details, but perhaps not everything he has said.

There is one word that stays with you, however.

Persona.

So...here to save the city, huh? First you'll need to find out more information. And who knows, maybe a familiar face or two...

[OOC: As stated above, only new characters can start a thread, but feel free to jump in any of them. characters arrive with their clothing and whatever items they had on them the moment they were taken; the remaining items will be later found in their apartments.]

Comments

Might as well! :3

[poorlittleblueburdie]

Due to minor timeline shenanigans and Author Says So (because it's a fun rule with a childishly amusing acronym) Avitus had already been there for a day or two, and was now venturing out to see what was in this new city, especially the shopping district. It wasn't so much that he was looking to spend what little money he currently had. No, it was more that he was curious as to what was available, should he need something later. And looking for inspiration, too -- the styles this place had were so different from anything in the Citadel he'd lived in for so long. Different, even, from those styles anywhere he'd seen back in the Empire's days, not that he'd seen many places then, being the timid hermit he was.

So here was this odd, rather androgynous angel-drow-bird-thing, whatever he was, with a cloth shopping bag hanging from his wrist, with apparently very little in it yet. He paused now and then to look into the windows of shops as he passed them, walking down the sidewalk--

--and then, not paying attention to where he was going, bumped right into the man.

"Oh!" He stepped back, eyes wide, wings lifting up a few inches in alarm. It wasn't that he'd been going fast, but all the same, he hadn't been looking, and--!

"Sorry! I-- I um." He blushed faintly, cheeks tinting a little more purple-ish than pink as he took another half step back, all sorts of sheepish here now. "....sorry...."

Yes! :3

[whitebrother]

Kyoji had some idea what was going on from the person he'd talked with before, and if it wasn't for the fact he was standing here he wouldn't have believed half of it. But all of that he would figure out later. For now, he was just reveling in the little things that he'd been denied for more than a year.

Which of course, meant sometimes just standing around and not paying any attention to what other people might be doing. So he was just as surprised as the other when he suddenly felt someone walk into him.

"Sorry, I-" He paused for a moment as he stared at Avitus. No offense, this is his first run-in with a non-human. To his credit he recovers relatively quickly, and clears his throat before continuing. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was going either. ...May I ask, are you one of the... "demons" I was told about?"

((OOC: So since after a few days I didn't have any replies, I worked it out with Snarky that we'd handwave OU!Minato being the one to first find Kyoji and explain what was going on, since she couldn't tag at the time. Hope that's okay!))

<3

[poorlittleblueburdie]

"The... demons?" A blink, that embarrassed smile fading, eyes widening a little. "Oh... oh, um. No. I'm not." Those big wings sank a little, folding up tighter behind him -- her? -- at the idea.

"Why, are they usually out right now?" And now, the burd starts looking around at the other people, not just the stores' colorful displays. A little touch paranoid, maybe? But it seems like they're a bit in the dark about the demons here still themselves. Could be another newbie, even though they're not human. Maybe the beings bringing them here weren't quite that picky?

((sure. I'm assuming one of the natives filled my burdie in on stuff anyway. :3 ...even though he's still pretty clueless. *cough* ))

[whitebrother]

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I haven't seen any yet, so if they are out there don't appear to be many in this area." He gives an awkward smile. "I didn't mean to offend. The only people back home are like me. I'm afraid this is the first time I've had the pleasure of talking to someone so different."

[poorlittleblueburdie]

"Yeah, it's... pretty different here. I haven't seen humans that look like the ones here before. Kind of reminds me of when I was a lot younger, and one of the other clans was still--" he trailed off with a sad smile, looking away a second. Painful memory, maybe?

"I mean, even the... the technology. The stuff in the markets here... it's all like things they'd have made. Winnoc would always tell me all sorts of stories, when he came back from visiting them, and now..." a little gesture at a nearby window, "...oh look, it's like it's right out of those stories." A little sound that was almost a laugh, shaking his head. His wings tucked around his shoulders a little more, pressing against their sides, somewhat like a hug.

"Even kind of the demons part. I guess. I mean-- not like the stories. Like it was at home. Sort of. Except, there it was the other clans, because they turned into monsters... and the Citadel's pretty well defended, so they don't get in. But I guess they do get in, here?" He peeked back to the human, biting his lip a little.

[whitebrother]

If it is a painful memory, he will not pressure the other about it.

"I think I can relate. Monsters and demons didn't exist. They were things of myths and fairytales. But now..." He shook his head. "Even this city. It's like something I'd read about in a history book."

[poorlittleblueburdie]

"...In a history book?" Those big wings are sinking a little again. "Your world lost technologies too?"

[whitebrother]

"No, not exactly. Most of the technology in this place is comparable to that of the 21st Century of my world. But that was over 200 years ago. The so-called "magic" of this place has created some technologies that are incredibly advanced, even to my standards." He gestures at the watch-like device on his left wrist as an example. "But most of what I see here I would have considered incredibly old and outdated. It creates an interesting paradox."

[poorlittleblueburdie]

"Oh! Oh, right." He was quiet a moment, thinking about that, looking back to the store's displays again briefly, before giving Kyoji's watch another glance. He wasn't wearing his own; he hadn't bothered to put it on yet, still having plenty of fun just looking around the city. "I'm still not sure what those are. I mean-- I have one, in the quarters they gave me, but... I haven't investigated it much yet."

[whitebrother]

"I haven't used it much, but my brief examination has show some truly remarkable abilities. It's primary function seems to be for communication, and is seems to achieve this by somehow connecting to the nanomachines that were put inside our bodies when we were brought here. But it also seems to function as part of a small super computer, again in conjunction with the nanomachines. It seems to be able to do everything from play games to accessing information."

Yeah, he's going into scientist mode. Might want to stop him before he can get too carried away with himself.

[poorlittleblueburdie]

It wasn't that Avitus wasn't interested. It was that he came from a world that still thought digital watches were pretty neat hadn't yet invented calculators. Not that he'd said so much yet, of course, but he just wasn't quite following as well as someone else might be able to. At least he picked up on one thing Kyoji had said well enough.

"Put inside...?" Someone didn't hear that part of the explanation, apparently. He'd been busy having a sometimes not-so-silent argument with the glasses he was given once he checked in with the local government, over whether they got to stay behind his ears when not in use, or needed to stay put on the table in his little apartment, beside the watch, where he'd left them. So far, he seemed to be winning -- until he found them behind his ears again at random, without having deliberately put them there. The nanomachines knew what they were supposed to be doing, and where they were supposed to be. His lack of wanting them to do the job they were so determined to do was clearly on him, and he was just going to have to deal with it. Or drive himself to distraction refusing to, which was honestly more likely, for now.

But something put inside him? "I think I'd know if I had a machine inside me," he said, eyeing the man. See that look of mild skepticism and distrust there? Because he's giving it to that suggestion.