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WHO: Asch the Bloody
WHERE: Bunker/Fountain, The Inn and the woods.
WHEN: Sept 5th & 6th
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Cursing, mentions of death, and possible mentions of kidnapping

Bunker/Fountain (Two at most please.)
In one of the tubes floated a young looking man. His hair was nearly to his hips and colored blood red, it looked much darker in the fluids as it floated around him. The name read out was listed as Luke fon Fabre. His eyes hadn't even opened yet when he was jettisoned up the tubes.

Green eyes popped open once he was in the fountain, swimming as hard as he could up to the top. His hands reaching up over the edge to pull himself up and over the fountains edge. Pulling himself over he hit the ground and started to cough the fluid out of his lungs, his hair draping around him and on the ground. It's in your hands now... He remembered saying it through the connection to his replica as the blood ran free. He pushed himself up despite the burning of the water he had coughed up. Pulling up the strange clothes he didn't recognize. He had only the faintest scarring from the blades that took his life.

"What the hell." He spoke sitting on his knees, a strange pack on his back, his uniform gone and he was soaked in clothes he couldn't even recognize.

The Inn
Black what a color to be in. Of course he didn't mind black at all, he looked good in black, he had always wore it in some form or another but the village had a sceme of colors it seemed, so what did black say about him?

He pondered it while sitting quietly on the floor of the front porch of the inn. Looking out at the village. Everything about this place was odd. The houses were not any style he knew but clearly homes. The village was filled with strange people who seemed to all sound unlike any country he knew. Everything was new. He found himself fiddling with the strange device on his wrist. He understood the basics of it, but how strange it was, instant communication. Opening it up his nose crinkling seeing the base display name. It took him a few moments to tape in his other name instead. aschthebloody, though he'd need help later with the caps. At least it didn't read Luke right then. Sure people could find it but that wasn't his name anymore, the dreck took it.

He sat there, trying to wait for his hair and clothes to dry in the hot weather but it was utterly boring to say the least. There was a whole new place for him to explore, a place without the score, without the memories and without Van. Yet, he couldn't find it in himself yet to move from where he had perched on the porch.

The woods - The 6th
The next morning Asch made his towards the woods, he was unarmed and that wouldn't do. Even a good stick would be better than nothing. He was not in the mind to be helpless in a new place. So he made his way through the new land. Paying mind to houses and landmarks so he could find his way back later, though truthfully he wasn't all that worried about making his way back.

Later he could be found walking through the woods, his long hair had some leaves caught in it, not that he seemed to mind. He was busy looking over the plant life looking for anything useful, anything to keep his mind busy.

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Having been spending so much time in the bunker trying to get more information from the computers, Natasha had been close enough to notice when new people were added to the tubes. It was disturbing and yet enough to spark more determination to uncover how it was being done. There's no way all of this could run off computer programming alone.

Deciding to take a break, the agent headed for home, but did a detour to the inn before doing so at the last minute to see if there was another notebook in the storage room. She was quickly running out of pages in her last one while jotting down all the various things she was doing.

Cutting across the front of the inn she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone arriving and recognized him from the tubes earlier that day.

"It's a really long story," she said before actually reaching him. Once she did though, she offered a hand to help him up, be stand or sitting up a little more.

Edited 2018-09-06 22:38 (UTC)

The boy let go of his wet black scrub top as the wide green eyes looked up to the blonde woman addressing him. His eyes those of one whose seen to much, but a pretty shade of green. He pushed his long crimson hair from his face with one hand before accepted her hand to help himself from his feet.

"It is one I wish to hear. I have questions." He spoke before turning away to cough more fluid out.

Steph is heading into the inn with her bag full of rabbits when she spots the newcomer. He looks a little... lost? Maybe just tired. Either way, he's definitely still soggy. She stops a yard or two away to say hello.

"Hey. You alright?"

His hair was still very soggy, it looked heavy with it's weight but the true red was coming out on the bits that were drier than the rest and frizzing with the humidity. His green eyes shifted up as he looked at the blonde speaking.

"As well as can be expected." He spoke simply, he sounded mostly tired.

Tired isn't bad, all things considered. She relaxes some, though she didn't realize she had been tense, and smiles.

"So not great? Welcome to... wherever we are. If 'welcome' is the right word."

An amused noise escaped him. "Yes, I doubt welcome is the right word, thank you, though." He spoke with a shrug of his shoulder, not really sure what else to say in regards to that. "How long have you been here?"

"Ummmm," she hedges as she tries to count the weeks. She really hasn't been paying much attention to the passage of time.

"Not quite two months? I'm Steph," she introduces herself amiably.

Asch knew the proper thing to do would be to stand and offer her a seat, but well, he's stopped caring about being ever the gentlemen years ago. Granted, they were probably the same age, if not close.

"Two months? Well, care to sit and share some insider information?" He inquired before adding. "I'm Asch." He figured if he added his full title he might get funny looks, so a first name for a first name.

Steph accepted the invitation by letting her backpack slide off her shoulders and into her hand then plopping down next to him. She let the backpack rest at her feet. She didn’t care if it got dirty.

“Sure! What have you been told so far?”

He just uncrossed his arms and moved the ends of his hair back out of the way, not that she was close enough to sit on the ends, it was just habit. While sitting the ends just lay a little on the ground around him, at least the porch of the inn wasn't just dirt.

"That we are in this village to survive, that there is a book to read in the inn but most apparently don't bother, and that there is no way home." He paraphrased which worked since he didn't get everything Natasha told him as there was a minor moment of freak out in there.

"That's pretty accurate," Steph conceded, well aware that he was paraphrasing just from the tone of those statements.

"I don't know that we're here for any particular reason. And the book is mostly what plants and animals are safe to approach, touch, eat, whatever. A little bit about building fires and stuff. Nothing really groundbreaking. Everyone kind of combines their skills to make things safe and comfortable in the village. If it's in the kitchen here, it's safe to eat." The jerks a thumb backwards in the direction of the inn.

"That's how I had figured it." It seemed better than duly reciting the way he had been told, but honestly he hadn't paid nearly enough attention.

"That much I gathered, the lack of reason, and lucky me, unless the wildlife if that much different I already have those skills." He replied before looking back. "Thank you, That much is good to know. I suppose no one would purposely poison the village when everyone is stuck."

“Not this crowd,” Steph loftily agreed. She could think of a lot of people who might do exactly that, and there were always the anonymous ‘observers’ to worry about.

“People here seem decent, for the most part. There are houses available, too. There’s more houses than people, and plenty bunk together. If it doesn’t look lived-in it’s free game.”

"Good to know." He spoke with just a touch of moodiness. He was doing his best to hide it but it wasn't his nature to not hide it. He did not yet worry about the observers, but he also didn't know yet to worry.

"Generally most people are without motivation to be otherwise." He added with a shrug as he looked towards the houses pondering it. He'd be anti social as hell if he lived alone but... That didn't sound half bad.

"Without motivation to be indecent? Not where I come from. Pretty sure indecency is in the water or something. This place is much nicer, wherever it is."

"Without motivation to do anything, honestly. Though yes, some people are cruel and indecent by nature." He idly wondered as he said it if he counted in those ranks, if if his life excused it. Not worth worrying about today.

"So, what do they tend to need help with here?" He asked, to get himself right to work.

Steph takes a moment to think about that.

"I'm... not really sure. I've kind of been doing my own thing. I guess probably crafting stuff? We don't have a lot of the fineries that sane people would take camping with them. Like, you know, soap."

"...Crafting." He made a face. "I suppose I can learn a new hobby." Crafting wasn't really part of the Oracle Knights training program. Van would rather have child soldiers than macaroni art. He couldn't help but laugh at that before he realized she was serious, his eyes widening a little. Shit. "Um... I think you need ashes and fat to make soap..." He made an annoyed face, he really should have listened to people more, but there was always someone else that could do that stuff for him.

She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, her face saying "oh yeah, it's that bad."

"Isn't that supposed to be really bad for your skin?" She thought she remembered hearing that during a history lesson, while learning about the development of various hygiene habits and the discoveries that caused them.

"Like, physically hurt bad?"

He gave a shrug of his shoulder. Reaching out to snatch a longer bit of grass before them, and started rolling it between his fingers as his green eyes stayed on it watching the green of the plant stain his fingers.

"It could be, I was not exactly in that field. I do remember being told at least about ash and fat being important. If it is supposed to and I am right, than I have not felt any pain from it." He should have paid more mind. "It is not like there are shops here for us to jump go to and pick it up. I dont even see people using geld to pay for goods."

"Gold?" That's kind of what it sounds like, if he's just pronouncing it strangely.

"None of us have any money to start with. Just the backpacks we showed up with." She shrugs. Honestly, he probably knows more about old-fashioned soap than she does, if he's from a time where gold is still used as currency.

He rolled his eyes like she was the one saying it wrong. Why did he have to deal with people? He didn't know enough of the situation to fully be himself yet so he just nodded despite wanting to tell her she said it wrong.

"...Strange, so what, everyone just works for free?" Oddly, of all things THAT seemed to make him seem less annoyed. No money, meant no ranks, so no one would be poor and if everyone worked together... It was not quiet what he had in mind in his youth but it sure beat blowing up eventually.

“Everybody works to survive,“ she corrected him. There’s one guy who prepares lunch every day to share. I’ll hunt small prey, but I won’t skin it myself. So I leave it at the inn for someone else to deal with. That’s how I pay back the lunches.” She shrugged.

Edited (Siri was my editor) 2018-09-14 05:47 (UTC)

Asch listened quietly while playing with the piece of grass. "That doesn't sound like a bad system." He replied after a second before letting the crushed strand of grass drop looking back at her. "What kind of weapons do you hunt with?" Hey, he could do that.

Ah. She shouldn’t have said that. She didn’t really want to say. Nobody had ever asked. But then, she thought, she’d never let anyone but Kat know it was her leaving the small game. Refusing to answer, though, would be far more suspicious than the truth.

“Uh... knives. Throwing knives.”

He didn't seem bothered by it, as much as he just rose an eyebrow at it. "That seems like a harder way to hunt and a good way to lose knives." He spoke working SO very hard not to sound like a jerk as he said it. "If we can get our hands on something else, I could teach you a better way. I just need to know what is on hand."

She shrugged.

“It’s what I’m familiar with. And I... had some issues getting up close for the kill.” She didn’t mention that she rarely missed and never forgot where a knife ended up. Small animals didn’t tend to make it very far with a knife as big as they were in them.

“There are a few more knives at the inn, mostly bigger. A couple of bows. Some spears, I think? And a hatchet or two.”

He shook his head some wanting to judge but... "Ranged fighting is just as useful." He spoke in his normal gruff. "Whatever your best with is best for you." Everyone was different after all.

The idea of a bow made him think of Natalia. Sure he could use one but he was better with a sword, or his artes, but his artes didn't work here. "No swords?"

She turned to shoot him a small smile at what sounded astoundingly like encouragement. It wasn’t quite overt enough to warrant verbal thanks, but she appreciated it all the same.

“Not that I’ve seen. There’s a lot more survival gear than real weapons. I got lucky, finding knives I can use.” And a staff in a box with her name on it, on the doorstep of a house nobody knew she lived in.

“You might be able to make something mid-ranged, but it wouldn’tt be a sword. A bat with nails on it, maybe...”

He looked away as soon as she smiled. Nope. A shrug given a second later.

"I will look through and figure something out, though I am not sure what a bat is, I do know what nails are." He spoke before pushing up to stand up. "I should probably go look into this."

“Think ‘big-ass stick’,” she offered by way of explanation. It wasn’t exactly untrue.

“Storeroom’s in the back. You can’t miss it.” And he probably didn’t want her hovering while he thought, so she stayed seated where she was.

"Oh." Was the noise he made before nodding heading towards the door without a thanks, but he headed off anyway.

Asch had made a mistake in going to the meeting. It had been fine until some of the words of the other villages made a light in his head go off in his head. What they were hinting at, it was technology beyond what was of his world but the idea of it was not.

The forbidden art of fomicry.

He thought about it as he had walked from the meeting, his head held high, and his arms crossed over his chest as he made his way back towards the in. Something like a hole opening up inside of him. Was he not real? Was he a filthy dreck now? No, his replica had been born with no memories, he had to learn everything like an infant... but...he also hadn't known he was a replica until he was told by his original.

He sat down near the fireplace as he stared into space. Was he a replica? Was this a world where Van's disgusting idea had been made true? Why could he remember everything, even his death if he was simply a mere copy?

He looked down at the floor then, his hands gripping the arms of the chair with wide eyes. As questions and horrors circled in his mind.

Clones, copies; Cael had taken a lot of notes tonight, things to digest in private. There are questions to ask, stories to learn--but he has to find the right way to ask them. He has to find the right questions, that lead to those sprawling, evolving answers. That connect dots.

That don't reveal the depths of his ignorance, where this place is concerned.

After everything that happened, during the Koronokto, it's easier to be the empty vessel. To sit and absorb information, to let it wash over him and settle on the pages of his journal. He'll engage when he's ready, and no one seems in a hurry to force it.

And, it seems, he isn't alone in the lingering shock. He drifts naturally to the fireplace each night--in another life, he'd be seated there with an instrument, playing idly while people ate and drank. But there isn't always drink to go around, and his instruments are not here. Instead, there's a young man staring at the dull floor, nails digging into a similarly dark wood.

He seems to have been here for awhile, and unlikely to move on his own. Cael sets the journal on the nearest table, unwinds the scarf from his shoulders, covers it. There are jars of violet and gold flowers in the kitchen, dried, and he's seen others boil them for tea. He's fond of the gold, but it keeps him up in the night: for the shocky young man, he steeps the violet mixture and returns, using the cup to interrupt the long stare.

"Tea," he offers, waiting to see if those hands would unclench to take it.

It was so much to digest, to much at once for the boy who was staring into that fire like he could make it burn brighter with a look. Which he couldn't, not here.

Asch knew he should have spoken to more people, tried to learn more but by the time he realized what the people were talking about he just couldn't, he had just taken to leaning and listening. Fomicry was outlawed in Auldrant for reasons, he's already been at this game before, he was tired of it. Far more tired than any seventeen year old had any right to be.

He had spaced enough that he didn't notice Cael moving around until the tea was offered over, the voice making his green eyes blink a moment. A few days ago he might have smacked it out of the strangers hand and screamed for being disturbed, but he was disturbed enough tonight to just unclinch his left hand first reaching over, before his right followed suit, almost as if making one's self use the right over the left. "Th...Thank you." He started out sounding shocked but quickly fixed his tone to the coldness he wore so well, trying to build his walls back up. "came from the meeting?" He inquired after taking the tea.

Cael retreats with his own mug, just those two steps to the wall. It's a natural lean, no tension in the shoulders: walls, he's found, force you to set roots to a way of being. Walls invite some to climb. He much prefers to present a moving target.

Or to literally and figuratively scorch the earth, gates flung wide so all can see there is nothing to gain upon entry.

At the thanks, he simply lifts his mug to mime a toast, dipping his head in acknowledgment. He observes over its edge, testing the temperature of ceramic at his lips. The positioning of the hands, the deep red of the young man's hair. Not as significant as the black on his wrist, from what Cael's gathered of the devices. Before this, he might have wondered if he was a prisoner of the Cortuer or a jailer--now it's another mystery, the meaning of his own blue band.

"I think I left before you did," he admits: the hair does stand out. "There are things more easily discussed in tighter quarters."

Two steps may not be much but it was welcomed space for Asch, he didn't like being crowded, the distance was good. After a second he also lifted the gifted mug up and took a small sip to not burn the roof of his mouth.

A nod was returned to the dip of his head. Asch had not given any thoughts to colors or much yet, not with being fresh arrived and already hearing they all may be clones. Why not clone the damn dreck instead of him? Replica's usually lacked memories, what a strange form of fomicry.

"I stayed to the end. I wanted to learn as much as I could." He admitted before arching a brow at that before pushing himself up still holding the cup, his free had motioned out as if a silent command to lead to whatever he considers tighter quarters. He wasn't to worried but he did need information, so what better way than to trust a stranger as much as he was willing to trust anyway?

He'd only meant their brief communion in this corner, away from the press of an entire meeting--but with the meeting ended, and the young man offering, why not retreat further? Soon the others would trickle through, for foul drinks and continued discussion, and they might be right back in the thick of what they'd escaped.

The young man's shock spoke to some greater grasp of their plight; it would be better to hear it and deem it hand-wringing than to not know.

"I have a room, upstairs," Cael offers, extending his mug to gesture him ahead. Whatever this place is, he won't have a man at his back in tight quarters.

It had gone right over Asch's head, but it seemed smart enough in his mind to go somewhere private to talk anyway. He was used to things going a certain way or whispered along, speaking openly in a public room just seemed to easy to be overheard.

"Lead the way." The younger replied, oddly he gave Cael an odd look when he didn't start before nodding as if something had been said despite it not, it was only after the oddly placed nod that he started up the stairs. "Which room?" he asked, not worried about being stabbed in the back or anything of the like, a tea cup could be quite the weapon if need be.

"Room twelve," he answers, appeased to follow and gesture their next turn with his cup. "It's almost directly at the top of the stairs."

And once atop them, the fear of being cornered lessens; Cael slips around Asch to open his own door and motion him inside. A room no different from the others: two beds, a small desk and chair, chests of drawers and a small closet. "Please, sit wherever you'd like."

Cael sets his journal and cup on the desk, taking his own seat on the sill of the window. "Forgive my saying, but you seem--especially burdened by what's happened."

"I know where it is. I have already explored this building." He was the type to always look over a place he might stay in just to be safe, one had to be on top of such things... plus he had been bored.

When Cael slips around him, Asch just follows easily, not really concerned where the man stands just as long as he can be useful. It was a terrible state of mind, but one that's served him well. When offered to take a seat, he moved to turn the desk chair to face the window sill to face Cael, as he took another drink from his tea. The temperature more agreeable now.

"I've been through this before, if it is what it sounds like. I didn't like it before, I will not like it this time." He spoke with a shrug of his shoulders.

"My apologies," he says into a long draw of tea: "I left my gift of reading minds in my last iteration." Not that he could fault the familiarity, he hardly knew how long the boy had been here.

With a roll of one hip, he fits a leg up into the sill to brace himself, folding his hands on his stomach. "You need not speak of it, if it would only burden you further--but, this place is a bit beyond my own experience. I wondered if you had any warnings to impart."

Asch rolled his eyes, but wasn't actually offended. "Such a shame. That might have been useful here. Though it would have left more questions." He replied. After all, he could talk to his dreck of a replica mentally.

"Being here burdens me, what's a little information?" He stated with a shrug as he carefully shifting his hair out of his way before taking a drink. "This place is beyond me as well, but it is not my first time dealing with Replica's, or what most here call clones. When I was ten years old I was kidnapped from my home and replicated. The replica left with my family while I was with the man who orchestrated it all." He figured cut the formaility and just get to the heart of it. "The replica stole my life."

Replica is a common enough word that Cael understands it, but it isn't clone, it isn't simulcra. Each slightly off from the other, and nothing to quite explain--people telling him he's a copy, separate from an original, but why then do the memories carry over?

"Your replica," he asks, "did he know what he was? Or did he think he was his own person, with all of your same experiences? Did he know what he was doing?"

Which begs the question--is Asch still the original, or has he simply been copied and placed all the further outside his life. Without another version on-hand, without distinct markings or records, how would any of them know?

Replica's were not the same as the simulcra then, the memories don't carry over with the replicas. Something that has bothered Asch since he was replaced, who would beleive a ten year old would just forget how to walk and speak? Did his parents think so little of him?

"No, he had no idea until I told him. The dreck was clueless to the world and himself. My...his parents secluded him to the palace grounds to assure another kidnapping never happened again. So on top of being stupid, he was also sheltered. He had none of my experiances, he had no memories before he was found at the estate where Van left him, he was practically an infant in a ten year old's body. That is part of why I am concerned by this, Replica's don't have memories. I do."

"Most things are simple," he advises, lifting and draining his cup. "If a replica wouldn't remember, and you do, then you aren't one." None of them are: similar meanings, but not the same.

And that's all he needs to know of the simulcra. "We have something like it, vessels for magic or--a way to store pieces of yourself. But they aren't direct copies, they're still people. So if it's not like that, and it's not like what you're familiar with--a clone must be something else."

"I suppose." Some things were hella complicated. "I suppose your right, the practice was outlawed long before I was kidnapped, and as I know the man who created it, I know he has not improved on it." He was doubtful but Cael's words seemed to bring some ease to his thoughts.

"It sounds like replicas and simucra are closer than clones from what your saying." Asch agreed as he watched Cael. "The question is how and why when we are clearly of other worlds. And why not allow us our power, it would certainly help here."

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Fountain

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Omg Asch put some clothes on

OMG he doesn't need a nail bat!

R U SURE THO

yeah he needs it, but we got Steve now!

After the meeting - inside of the Inn

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