Copacabinsky - Open

[Ghoti]

For anyone who wishes to join. I'm basically using this thread to get a better handle on Ghoti's character and warm up my long-neglected rping skills, so there may or may not be a plot later on (although probably yes). However I'd like to request that somebody only hop in if they can truly commit themselves to this. :]

There was a plaza, and within that plaza stood a fountain, next to which paced a man.

He was smartly-clad in attire displaced from that of the locals who merrily went on their business under the overcast sky, but these people were used to seeing strangers and, thus, no one really gave him a second thought. The man did indeed seem to be rather perturbed about something, and this alone gave passersby enough of a reason to steer clear. It wasn't that they felt intimidated by the man -- on the contrary, many of them had met enough assholes to recognize a possible 'spoiler of formerly pleasant afternoons' when they saw one. So they kept doing whatever it was they did, maintaining a facade of oblivion toward the restless foreigner.

And Ghoti kept pacing, his shiny black boots repelling the dust of the square with practiced ease.

Normally, movement helped his thoughts slide back in order; helped him center his mind. But today, the movement only offered him different views of the same plaza, the same buildings, the same fucking people, further reminding him of the inescapable hole he'd dug for himself. He paused, passing tenuous fingers through the trim mop of dark hair resting atop his pale-skinned head, casting a wild-eyed look around all-too-familiar surroundings. Bloody. Fucking. Hell.

"AAAAAARRRGAAAAAHAAARRRRR!"

The anguished cry gave way to silence. Ghoti grimaced, acutely aware of the square's myriad occupants, each staring openly at him with mixed expressions. The man fidgeted, distinctly uncomfortable with his new-found celebrity status, before quickly returning to the indifferent frontage he often presented in situations such as these, tugging the wrinkles from his flawless jacket and turning as if to observe the fountain in closer detail.

Slowly, life returned to normal.

"Bloody. Fuckin'. Hell," he muttered aloud, allowing his pupils to relax. Brandy would be nice right about now. Yeah, some of that vintage McKlark stuff Orsen was always pushing. Mmmmmm...

Ghoti remembered the weight of gold in his pocket, a prize he'd acquired entirely by accident. It was something he normally hadn't a need for, (at least when it came to foodstuffs), seeing as his usual diet of late consisted of gutter water and what small animals he could catch. While his projected form could digest large amounts of alcohol with dignity and even a little finesse, he wasn't especially fond of the havoc the stuff wreaked with his feline G.I. tract.

What he would give for some good, honest-to-god Armagnac...

The man sank into his knees, perched atop the crumbling stone wall which held the fountain pool, a picture of defeat. From day numero uno he had gotten off to a horrible start, stuck as he was in this...this contemptible excuse for a reality, in this contemptible excuse for a body. The roaring thoroughfares and dank, polluted streets of home would be sorely missed. Every minute comfort he had taken for granted swept away like so much filth, his existence a leaf caught in the wind, brittle and fleeting.

No. I've survived worse. Although he'd yet to find a suitable comparison for the predicament in which he now found himself.

[Shadow Reaper]

K’s bored.

Today’s been nice enough but nothing much interesting has happened with it. A new day, a new place, a new experience. Well supposedly. So far there hasn’t been anything particularly new about the experiences she’d had since taking this preferred form and moving through the town/city/place/whatever it was.
Okay, so some things have been more awkward than usual. K hadn’t thought on the fact that with such a big place there would be so very many moving bodies and the consequences to herself over such things. But really, that’s not per say a new experience, just a more exaggerated version of an old one she has to deal with most of the time anyway.

A plaza, a fountain, a place where the crowds are more evenly dispersed and she doesn’t have to fear other bodies brushing up against her quite so much or often. That’s a nice change over the past hour.

"AAAAAARRRGAAAAAHAAARRRRR!"

Oooo.. what was that?
As one of the many K stands among others who look at the man beside the fountain after his rather loud wordless proclamation of uh, something. The emotion behind the sentiment is lost on K, she who hasn’t had enough experiences with the different ranges of feelings to really get the point, oh well.

Anyway, hmn. Maybe this can be the new experience?
Sure, why not. K’s feeling personable and this body seems interesting for all the noise it's just made for seemingly no purpose.

So with a bounce in her step the cheerfuly odd young lady makes her way from the no longer interested crowd and off closer towards the fountain and the man by it. With him turned around from her K barely grasps the words that leave the man's mouth and she’s still a couple of steps away when he falls to his knees.
What an odd thing to do.

All curiosity and making not a sound she takes those last few steps up beside the man, does a quick turn and plops herself down on the fountain edge next to him. Before she’s even appeared to of settled into her spot the lips part and tirade of questions and trailing wordings spill forth.
“Hiya there. Whatcha doing? Do you usually do that? Was there a reason? Are you waiting for something? Or one? You could possibly be waiting for someone I guess.. You don’t look very happy about it though. Have you been waiting and they haven’t shown up? I’ve done that before. I gave up after a while. It was much better afterwards, I got to see all different things and see different things and I’m here now.”

K’s an odd thing, she sits there completely at ease as she babbles on seemingly quite oblivious to the man and his current state of affairs and being. Then again she is oblivious to any of the despair and self pity he’s emanating at this present point in time. K can’t read people for the life of her and well.. yeah, she just goes on.
Well actually, she pauses for a moment looking at the man expectantly with her crimson gaze that never quite manages to stay still long enough to be caught.

Then because it’s just how she is, K states quite bluntly, “I’m bored. Will you be entertaining or do I need to look for someone else?” Though to be honest she probably wont leave that easily. No, the strange, oddly grey tinged girl will sit there beside the man in her pristine clothes and bare feet until she gets bored with the matter and moves on elsewhere. Whether this takes five minutes or five days really does depend on how things work out. Joy.

[Ghoti]

He wasn't normally a man to wallow endlessly in self-reprieve, but damn it, if ever he deserved a chance to do so, it was now. Ghoti didn't bat an eyelash when someone sat next to him, the reflections of the sunlight against the water's shimmering surface all too painful and too enchanting to tear himself away from. An intense litany of words strung together in what he recognized as questions -- and many of them -- shot past him then, literally in one ear and right out the other. There was a pause, the laughing of the fountain and the white noise of the bustling crowd neither here nor there.

Ghoti slowly turned his head, his face a conglomeration of subtle irritation and bemusement as he was greeted with the appearance of the young girl. She struck him as incredibly odd straight off the bat, and the perception had nothing to do with her skin tone nor the ephemeral ruby-red of her eyes. The hungry shadows of her pupils touched his own, if only for a microsecond, and he was rewarded with a fleeting, highly disturbing sensation, as if he had just been staring into the empty eyes of a corpse.

Nope. Not an ordinary little girl by any means.

This day just keeps getting better and better.

“I’m bored. Will you be entertaining or do I need to look for someone else?” she asked innocently.

Ghoti had returned to staring at the pool, a brow quirked as he trailed over the new information presented to him. What to do, what to do. He could shoo her away. She was, after all, annoyingly inquisitive and somewhat frightening, both attributes he could gladly do without. On the other hand, she seemed harmless enough. Maybe even 'simply curious'. He hadn't exactly had a ton of contact with the people living here, which was detrimental to his ultimate purpose of finding a way off Althanas. Someone in this mixed-up crackpot of a world might know things.

Valuable things.

"What is your name?" he asked at length, keeping his gaze focused on the brilliant ripples of liquid. For some reason he didn't feel like risking taking another plunge into the bottomless centers of her eyeballs.

I'm glad you decided to join! Your character is most awesome.

[Shadow Reaper]

Oh bother.. He got that look. That one people always seem to get when they catch her gaze. It really is annoying. Is there something really that bothersome about her gaze? It’s not like she can help it. She has tried repeatedly to mask the look in her eyes but it doesn’t seem to matter what she does, it just doesn’t work. So she just avoids looking at others directly. Kinda works, doesn’t always, really depends who she’s interacting with at the time.

Well at least he hasn’t run off, that’s good.

Odd that he keeps watching the water, the fact he’s doing so to avoid her gaze isn’t a point she realizes. So thoughts lends themselves to thinking that there must be something interesting in the water! Thusly she turns herself about so she’s at an angle in which to stare off into the fountain as well.

Oooo.. that is quite pretty, the way the light sparkles and the shades dance about in the ripples caused by the movement of the water. She’s never really bothered with sitting down and watching such things before. Pretty..

She’s not so immersed in the moment to miss the words that pass her way and with a big ol’ flash of perfect pearly whites she grins to the man, “K. My name is K.” There’s something about the way in which she speaks her name that says there’s nothing more to it and that there’s really much less than one would usually find as well. Well that’s K for you.

“Do you have a name? I’d guess that you’d have a name. Everyone seems to have one. You know I never knew that. I didn’t get why they was always saying I should have a name. Just because they all had one wasn’t really a reason for me to have one, after all there were so many other things that were different.. But now that I’m here everyone and thing has a name! So I got one as well!” There’s a moment’s pause after her stream of outspoken thoughts, hands coming to a still after having waved off towards the crowds and all about during her speech. Rather an active speaker she is.
“I like my name,” just to round off the statement as she looks to the man beside her once more.

A time for him to speak!
At least she does give pause between her tirades, even if they are not so long. She has figured out that to get information and things spoken of you actually need to let the other party speak between the questions fired at them. So she awaits an answer that likely she’ll insult in the unknowing way of hers and roll right on with whatever it is that manages to jump to the forefront of her thoughts next.

[Ghoti]

Hell. She was worse than his niece! A literal mile a minute! "Do you always talk so much?" He was unable to keep the growl from his voice. Must have been the headache talking. Damn thing was almost as much of a pain as this girl was getting to be.

Keep your eyes on the prize. You've dealt with worse, remember? Just...tolerate her. For the time being, anyway.

"You can call me Ghoti," responded the man to her earlier question, focusing on a coin someone had tossed into the fountain. While he didn't have much of a use for money, the act still irked him. Careless people. An older man, a beggar by the looks of him, had wandered by, attracted by the sight of two people randomly staring into the fountain. He lingered near, casting suspicious looks into the water over their shoulders. Ghoti's jaw tensed.

"So. K. That's an unusual name. Are you from around here?"

The old beggar was steadily leaning closer and closer, and Ghoti could smell the suggestion of cheap alcohol on his rancid breath. An already foul mood was growing fouler.

"I'm a bit of a stranger here myself, as you can probably tell -- EXCUSE ME!"

The beggar stumbled backward with a small gasp of surprise and shuffled off to bother someone else. Ghoti brushed his shoulder from where the stranger's splotched hand had begun to rest before settling his gaze on K, looking at a neutral place on her forehead. The instinct to...not meet her eyes remained.

Blagh. Short.

[Shadow Reaper]

“That’s a funny name. Goh-tae. Goat-E. Goati?“ and the variations go on for some minutes as K plays with the sounds that make up the man’s name to her own amusement.

A body coming closer to the two of them is ignored for the most part as she goes about remembering there was a question thrown in there after the introduction as well. “No. I am from.. elsewhere.” A pause in there as the girl thinks about her answer before just waving off randomly. K doesn’t actually remember at this point where she’s from. She’s merely here now and that’s all that matters of the moment to her. She does ask though, “does it matter that I am not of here?” Big questioning crimson eyes, not quite looking into his as she queries.

No, K couldn’t tell he was a stranger. People generally all look the same to her. All their behaviours are very strange and anyone in particular that would be considered odd by those locally K just sees as something that’s just a part of the locale.

With movements not quite natural K is suddenly a half pace further along the fountain’s edge from Ghoti and the beggar that had brought themselves so very close. It had almost been an instant too late but K had managed to keep herself from coming into contact with the dirty man. For a moment her expression flickers from a look of worry to annoyance as she eyes off the grubby man as he stumbles away again. Whether this is because they’d been so close to touching her, or the way in which Ghoti had treated them is debatable. Either way he’s soon shuffled off and other than bristling a little inside she doesn’t seem particularly bothered when she looks back to the man still there.

“Why are you here? I am here as it is the last place my feet have taken me. I’ve been lots of places. This one’s very busy. Lots of people and noise and things. I don’t know if I like it really. I might go somewhere else soon.” Seeing as he’d come to pause K fills the silence. Well silence in conversation, there is still quite a lot of sound going on around them with the fountain and the rest of the people going this way and that about the plaza.

Mouth half open with more words K turns her eye to elsewhere. Away from the fountain and out across the plaza where there’s some louder noises than the general hubbub going on. Someone’s shouting something. What exactly she can’t quite make out yet but the noise is growing and a crowd’s forming. Curiosity’s gathering itself and there’s a small pull at K’s interest towards seeing what the noise is about. Right now she’ll hang back though, just in case she misses something with the man beside her already.

If I've got the pronounciation of the name wrong with how she speaks it, I'll make an adjustment to it. N woo, wb!

[Ghoti]

In a way which probably seemed callous, Ghoti had brushed off the old beggar as if he were nothing more than a mote of dust. Fact of the matter was, he didn't like people touching him. Especially people who smelt as if they hadn't seen hide nor hair of a damp washcloth for well over a month. Screw manners. He had one thing on his mind and one thing only -- escape from Althanas. Nothing else mattered, a protracted childhood full of lessons in etiquette and carefully executed dinners be damned.

The man wasn't listening, his ears trained on the growing hubbub opposite the fountain. He hadn't so much as flinched when K darted away from him earlier, just as the beggar's grubby paw began it's fateful descent. There was a...thing going on over there, which was attracting a lot of attention from the square's inhabitants. More attention than he was comfortable being around. He couldn't make out the source, however, as the bodies grew thick. Ghoti stood and hopped up onto the fountain's stone rim, using the more lofty position to his advantage.

Still nothing. All he could see were people. Lots and lots of people, milling around like so many amoebas in this giant cesspool. Yet a few were looking genuinely alarmed, and there were raised voices. Startled expressions. Ghoti stepped down, the motion unnaturally fluid and whole, bereft of jolt or jar, and he habitually ran his hands across his trouser legs before glancing over at K. She had asked him another question, he was sure of it, but for the life of him he couldn't recall just what it had been. Contrary to the goal he had started out with upon engaging in conversation with the young lady, Ghoti found himself distracted.

"Trouble's brewing," he stated quietly.

Eh, it can be pronounced either "Goatee" or "Fish", whatever floats your boat. ^^

[Shadow Reaper]

K doesn’t particularly care that her queries were ignored. No, there’s much more interesting things going on at the other end of the plaza where people are continuing to crowd.

The rather obvious statement that there’s trouble brewing seems to decide to makes point of itself. All of a sudden there’s a succession of screams and yells from the middle of the crowd unseen by the press of bodies currently blocking Ghoti and K’s view. Figures quickly begin to back up, scrambling to get away from the press of bodies are more and more noise grows. Confusion’s spreading and it’s barely moments before people are running all over the place, all quite pointedly away from where everyone had been crowded a moment ago.

The girl’s got a bit of a frown to her features as she watches all the bodies mill about. What’s so bad? Is it really that scary? She doubts it, humans and their ilk fear much too easily. Then again when you’re made of shadows most physical elements just aren’t the same threat as they are to a fleshy body.

K’s turning her head to speak to her current companion when from seemingly nowhere a massive glob of something about the size of a watermelon comes flying at the fountain. It’s enough warning for her to step aside that bit needed so as not to have the goop go through her. Also to make sure that when it does make contact with the stone rim of the fountain none of the splashback does anything more than pass through her harmlessly.

The frown deepens slightly as she looks down at the green mess with funny bits of brown bubbly stuff in it.

“Wha-?“

A question cut short as a rapid fire succession of handball sized goop balls splatter upon the plaza stone around her feet. Really, she’s very lucky she’s not a figure that’s solid, otherwise she’d have at least those nice pants soaked in the slimy sticky stuff. As it is she’s getting a queer sensation from the flicker bits that pass through her shadow made form. There’s a magical element to whatever that stuff is.

“NO! NO! NO!
STOP DOING THAT BETTY!
YOU’RE NOT SUP-!
AHHHHIIIIIEEE!!!
NONONONONO!!”

A serious of loud clangs, bangs and obscenities have K turning around in the direction of rather loud, surprisingly deep voice. A voice that’d be much better suited to bellowing down cave tunnels than attempting to sweet talk a contraption of unpredictable nature.

A contraption standing around three by four feet and made of wooden and metal bits consisting of wheels, cogs, gears, whistles, bolts and the Gods know what else. A contraption evidently called Betty for some reason and that is currently hurling out large amounts of that green and yellow goop in all directions. Balanced precariously on top of the thing a dwarf seems to be attempting to both lovingly persuade the thing to do what he wants and to beat it into submission. Neither of which seems to be having much effect.

K’s enthralled.

As the short statured man in a mixed array of horrible and completely clashing garments attempts to get his gear in order the contraption is not only spitting all over the place it’s also on the move. Between his words of encouragement and critiquing completely random small explosions send it anywhere between a couple of inches and a dozen meters one way or another, left, right, backwards, forwards, even into the air occasionally.

“What a funny little man.”

Really, if the dwarf had heard her utter such a thing he would be up in arms, even with his current predicament. You don’t call dwarves little men. Oh well, K really doesn’t know any better.

With the way things have worked themselves there doesn’t seem to be anyone else about the plaza anymore. Understandable considering blobs of goop are not only managing to traverse the entire span of the plaza but that the occasional one is creating creators in the stone work.

Still, none of that bothers K. With her shadowform not a single bit of the stuff can affect her past that odd feeling of pass through when she doesn’t quite manage to dodge a projectile. So K’s got no trepidation with going closer to the ‘little man’ to observe what’s going on at a closer range.

K finds herself closer to the dwarf and his contraption much sooner than she’d originally intended when with a rather loud explosion the thing propels itself a dozen feet to stop almost on her toes. Any normal person would of felt relief at not being flattened. K’s just disappointed as with that last burst the contraption does seem to of finally brought itself to rest, a rather large cloud of acidic green smoke billowing out from all the tubular appendages and holes that had only moments ago been spitting out goop.

“Is it supposed to do that?”
A perfectly innocent question that would of startled the dwarf had his ears not been deafened from such close proximity to so many explosions over the last ten minutes. As it is he’s gone back to beating the contraption with a spanner and swearing at it in the ever so colourful language of dwarves. This is only really cut short when the green smoke thickens and turns a rather disturbing shade of neon. That and the bright yellow sparks that don’t so much flow out of the machine with the smoke as grow from it make the dwarf decide perhaps it would be best to back off and give it a moment to settle down before resuming ‘working’ on it.

K remains next to the contraption as smoke continues to flow out of every available exit, not the least bit bothered by it’s obscuring properties, the exceedingly foul stench or the acidic value of the stuff. She’s much too interested in looking at the thing.

The dwarf has quickly backed off a good dozen meters from his well, alchemic ‘feat’. A turban hat (one of three different hats that somehow managed to remain upon his head) waves the air about his face to clear it of the residues of smoke as he looks about the mess his contraption has caused.

“Oh –.“
Not the nicest word really, at least it was said in a language most currently present don’t understand.

Mr Ragglend is likely to get into trouble over this matter. Fourth time this month isn’t it? And only two weeks into it too. S-.
At least no one’s about just now.
Well, that is until he turns his head to see another still there in the plaza with him.

Well there's something! N he can see either you or me. Depending if you've kept yourself really obvious, though i'll make an assuption that you did stay! >> Then K's just hidden by smoke still by Betty.

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another admin and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.