Triviis (IC)

Marsh examined the group before him, figuring the fact that he was holding a weapon to be scaring the others off. The group was...an assortment to say the least. It reminded him of home, the amounts of varied species mingling amongst themselves through their husks. It was oddly comforting. Nobody seemed exactly threatening. He spun his revolver and holstered it, taking a few confident strides towards the one who tripped and a howling creature.

He cleared his throat a bit, "Saw a camera flash, then the flash never went away. I am now here." Direct as always, Wonton, He thought to himself.

Honey’s ear twitched, and she had a sudden, puzzled expression on her face at the gold-armored man’s words, but her immediate concern turned to Rouhn, who had started howling. Was he…maybe not a child…? His response was not verbal, and he had seemed deeply confused when everyone began talking. Maybe he was very young? Perhaps he was confused by all the people talking. His speech had been very simple, so maybe he did not know many words. It might have been her tone that he had found reassuring, more so than what she had said.
 
She looked up at him, and pointed in the direction of Torrent, “Rouhn,” She began, to get his attention, “He is Torrent.” She gave a pause, so that that information could be processed. If Rouhn was very, very young, then this would add complications. It was difficult to communicate with few words, and if she did not speak slowly, sentences would run together and make no sense to him. She doubted, though, that Rouhn could answer any questions about how he had gotten separated from his mother. If a detailed description was needed, then that was too much to ask of him.
 
She put one hand to her chest, “I am Honey.” She said. ‘Honey’ was not actually her real name, but she preferred her nickname over the real one. It was not that she detested her real name, but the fact that the name Simona was literally just the male name ‘Simon’ with an ‘a’ tacked onto the end to make it feminine. And Honey dare not let people start calling her ‘Mona’. It was so sleepy-sounding, and almost ugly, to her ears.
 
She tilted her head to one side, “Does Rouhn understand?” She asked, trying to use the same, gentle, soothing tone she had used before. The word ‘understand’ was very complex, but it would be good if he knew what it meant. That way, she could tell how much of what had been said really made sense. If he never knew what anyone was saying, he might as well have been stranded with people who did not even speak the same language.
 
One ear swiveled towards the two newcomers, both mentioning something like a white light. Something in common, then, she thought. She turned briefly to look at them, and nodded, “Same cause, probably.” She then thought briefly, and added, “I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ignoring you. I don’t mean it that way. I am listening.”

Rouhn, as he was very used to his mom trying to teach him new things, quickly realized what Honey was trying to do, and the plumage on his head flicked upward as he gave his full attention. New names and words were hard, especially ones with harsher sounds, but he was capable, usually, though it took a few tries many a time.

His head swiveled to look at Torrent, as Honey pointed. "Rrrorrenr," he huffed. "Rorrenr." He nodded and turned to Honey again, pressing his very hand-like foot against her chest. "Honey." He seemed quite proud of himself despite his obvious lack of complete accuracy, though he wasn't one to forget the real situation. In spite of the distractions, he couldn't ignore that he needed to find home, and mom.

For being only 4 cycles old, he looked fully grown, and was quite capable of doing a good amount of damage in a fight, but he had the face of a rather ditsy angel at the moment. Feathers askew from being in his helmet and amber eyes glittering happily at his newfound friend, he chuffed quietly and gave a few guttural clicks before dropping to the grasses next to Honey, his head resting near her side. "Honey... not-mom."

MeinMein decided to approach the stranger-s?.. Something about this hopping rock was peculiar to her, so she decided she may as well investigate. Carefully approaching from behind a seemingly gold figure, she hoped she wouldn't startle it.

Petri hadn't moved when Dorado was about to pick him up, remaining calm since the being with the golden armor didn't seem aggressive, nor was his mouth large enough to try to swallow him. However then he seemed to change is mind, and moved over to the other beings, who's conversation Petri easily eavesdropped on (which he was likely going to have to be doing a lot, until he had a better surface to write on, to his dismay).

Then he saw the being, who seemed a mix of human, feline, and perhaps a goat or something like that, approaching him slowly. At her approach, he decided to display the fact that he had seen her, and levitated into the air until he was at her eye level, before zipping over to about 2 feet away, in a manner that would suggest looking into a person's eyes.

Torrent nodded, listening intently to each account. So far as he could tell, they had nothing in common aside from the light. Certainly no one else reported being stabbed, so maybe that wasn't relevant after all. He glanced at the approaching figures occasionally, marking their pace. They would be arriving soon, and he was no closer to understanding what exactly was going on. It was possible that they had all been chosen for a particular reason, he supposed, but judging by his first impression of everyone, the only thing he could guess was that they may have been selected to form the most varied group possible, though he had no idea why.

"Then it seems we all have that in common, at least," he said, "if nothing else." He frowned, at least as much as he could with a beak. This discussion was likely going nowhere fast, he ought to tell them about the incoming... Whatever they were. "There are people coming," he announced, indicating the approaching figures. "They may know more." Assuming, of course, that they were friendly. But the group was already on edge enough, there was no point upsetting them more without reason. He alternated between watching the two coming over the hill, and the group he was with, trying to gauge their reactions.

Roach frowned nervously. For the most part he was out of ordinary earshot, "They're definitely unique this time."

Goose scoffed, "You should've been with me last week. It was like the Jody took them straight outta false False's ***hole." He spoke in such a way so he was slightly more audible than Roach.

Roach took a deeply unnerved glance at Goose, "It was that bad?"

Goose shrugged, "It's only as bad as you make it. But eh..." He took his right hand out of his vest's pocket and waved at the summoned, "Hey!" He returned his hand to his pocket. "My name's Goose, and this is Roach." Goose motioned to Roach, who smiled meekly.

For the most part Goose and roach had identical attire. The only difference being that Goose had no sweater under his vest; one could see most of his frontal torso.

Roach had a highly decorated steel spear that he held at his side. The head of the spear seemed to be held in place by a mysterious force that allowed it to float. He also seemed to radiate raw magical power. Everyone was able to feel it.

Goose smirked, "If you're wondering where you are, you're on the island on Triviis. You were brought here by my god, the Gjothyme, or Jody as I like to call the ****er." He chuckled, "Something I like to make clear every time someone comes here, is that you cannot leave by magic or any of that ****. Technology is a no as well. Respawn points, as some call them, are useless too. If you die, you only get teleported back to this very island, so don't killing yourself thinking you got your ticket outta here. The only way you can leave is to prove yourself worthy to my god by climbing that mountain," He pointed north towards many snowy peaks, "That mountain. The tallest one." He put his hand back in his pocket. "At the top of that mountain, there's a temple, and I can get you back home from there."

"A temple!" Idgó, looking up from Snail to the two stranger who had just approached, exclaimed to no one in particular. Upon the prompt of the bare-chested biped, he turned to lay his sights upon the distant mountain.

"It must beest a grant construct indeed, that one did place it such," Idgó once again murmured. In his extreme (involunary) isolation from his birth to only moments prior, he had picked up a habit of speaking to himself, with no one to talk with - he had simply been born with the knowledge of language, it seemed. "'Tis wondrous that your god dost possesseth such things."
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A cold sort of feeling washed over him as he spoke his last sentence. How peculiar.

Idgó looked back down at his friend, "Snail, asketh I must: 'tis beeth normal to be summoned to this plane without warning? Left mine own plane prior, I hath not. Knoweth, I would not, either."

Dorado took this new information with a deepening frown. Summoned by a god? Why did it always have to be a god messing things up? There were too many of those. In all truth, Dorado would’ve preferred if gods just left mortals well enough alone. Idiots. He looked toward the mountain that the newcomer so named ‘Goose’ had pointed to. It looked far off… Too far off. He bit his lip, suspicious. Come to think of it, this whole situation reeked of treachery.

“We’re just supposed to believe you?” Dorado inquired without thinking. A wide variety of emotions flashed across his face, but eventually he seemed to settle on disbelief and slight anger. He squinted at Goose. “What if you’re just leading us up there to sacrifice us to this god?” he said. He didn’t know the others in the group and doubted they’d be the best of friends, but for the moment they had one thing in common: according to Goose’s words, they’d all been abducted. Maybe it’d be enough.

Snail happily clacked his beak at Idgo, "My good sir, I have not experienced such a feat either, thus I would not know. I came here voluntarily, by the way, so I still do not have experience." As Snail said this, there was a faint angelic call heard from the mountain. It's words could not be deciphered, but it could be heard by everyone in Triviis, no matter who they were. It seemed to affect Goose and Roach a lot more than the others.

Goose flinched, and then flipped off the mountain, "**** off Jody!"

When the furry creature calmed down at -Honey, was it? - at her simplified words, Kumori gave a slight smile. Though admittedly she was confused on why he could not understand hers - Kumori did not speak in a particularly complicated or intellectual way, did she? How could she be any easier to understand? It was perplexing.

Before reintroducing herself to anyone else, two others caught her eye, one speaking on their current situation. Gjothyme? That did not sound like a god she heard of before.

“Offensive is not my intention, though the god Gjothyme that you have done the mentioning of, stranger Goose, is a name of unfamiliarity to one such as myself.” Was it perhaps some sort of alias she was unaware of? “The summoning of us all is of...what purpose, for god Gjothyme? These intentions of his are not known to the majority of this group. This has the inclusion of myself. If you please, do the expanding on of this god? Collective confusion is not what is desired, but collective cooperation, yes?”

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After a few moments of watching other people react to the explanation of how they got home, which, thankfully, did not include trying to throw a ring into a volcano, Honey could not help but think that this whole experience was surreal. It was almost like being stuck in some old movie plot, minus the concept of a ‘Chosen One’, and made worse by the knowledge that there were probably not many good apparent reasons for being summoned to complete a quest in the first place. Not only this, but any person willing to make an offensive gesture and swear at their god had probably gone through this experience many times, and Goose was likely tired of playing the role of the noble guide. He probably decided he was sick of his god messing with his life, but he could not do anything more than swearing, because gods trumped their subjects in power, regardless of what was done to change that.
 
“Well, given that reaction and your introduction, I’m going to guess you’ve done this a bunch.” Honey finally said, breaking her initial silence. “Well, I don’t actually know if I have a reason to complain. Being able to get home, regardless of what I have to do, is pretty good news.” She turned to the golden-clad figure, “I’m not going to say you don’t have good reason to be suspicious, but where I came from wasn’t that good of a place. The current situation is better for me right now than it was about half an hour ago.”
 
Honey did not elaborate on what she meant about the last sentence. She did not know these people, and she was not inclined to talk about what she had seen. Besides, if they weren’t changelings, they could have come from any sort of world, so really, their imaginations would probably be sufficient to fill in the gaps.

Top of the mountain. Home. Rouhn lifted his head to look at everyone in astonishment. Suddenly scrambling to his feet, he grabbed his dropped helmet and put it back on carefully, though he had a bit of trouble with it for a few seconds. "Damnit...." His mom didn't have a very clean vocabulary.

"I have to go there!" he howled, nodding his head enthusiastically.

Marsh snorted loudly, "I've organized the destruction of many races, their god unable to help them." He didn't think this was any different, but he hardly had an army to command and fight alongside. With the assortment beside him, could they accomplish such a task?

He realized he left his comment on a bad note, "But if it takes me back to giving some horrendous speech on my home planet, so be it." he stated

At the mention of climbing the mountain and Goose being able to get them home, Petri zipped away from the neko satyr being and hovered over to where the others were talking to Goose.
He circled around the admittedly vulgar man's head and then hovered off to one side, unsure of what the man had said.

On the one side of the stone, the man could be lying and assigning some made-up reason to something that had happened. On the other however, some of them (including Petri himself) had not been doing anything that would've transported them anywhere, and so the fact that it had happened lended some credence to the man's words.
And while Petri was not overly worried about being here, having little attachment to his home due to a lack of family or friends, and he was more of an explorer and was looking forward to seeing the island they seemed to be one, he did want the option to return eventually.

MeinMein began to approach the rather unusual crowd. The bouncing rock amused her, so she'd figured she may as well see it. Perhaps the individual hovering over the stone could be performing some sort of telekinesis on it. Gently pushing herself forward, her tail nervously curled up around her leg. She wasn't quite sure if it would be safe to meet these strangers. A life or death situation, she still wasn't sure. She hoped someone here has some food.

Goose laughed at the cat creature, "Lady, I've been doing this for trillions of years." Realizing this, he grew slightly more menacing, "Helping all these people and Jody still can't give me the sweet release of death." He cleared his throat and spoke more quickly, "Huh? What's that? Suicidal? Not me!"

He threw a look at the man in gold as he deviated from his original stance, "Anyway, you don't have to believe me if you don't want to. You could become a falsehood like me! Serve the Gjothyme for an eternity and a half. That sounds fun, right?"

Goose smiled at Rouhn, "Yes, that's what we're planning on doing."

Goose glared down at Petri, "Even this rock wants to go home!" He glanced at Roach, "He does want to go home, right?"

Roach beamed awkwardly, and powered up his aura suddenly, "U-Uh, he wants to go to the temple, but is rather suspicious of you."

Goose grimaced, "Well, whatever. Are we ****en going or not?"

Torrent listened carefully to Goose's explanation, and the opinions of the others around him. He had only picked up a couple of their names, and knew nothing about any of them, but they were most likely the closest thing he had to allies, and it would be best to take their thoughts into consideration. Most of them seemed hesitant, but willing to go if there were no other options. He tended to agree there, but there was also the question of if they could even trust these people. But then, could they trust each other? Probably not, really, but he had long ago learned to distrust anyone who pretended to know far more about something than he did. And- there was a rock floating around Goose's head. Apparently it wanted to go home too. He had no idea what to make of this.

Anyway, it was far safer to align oneself with rough equals, in general. He really didn't know what any of these people were capable of, but they were all in the same situation, and they all wanted roughly the same thing. What Goose and Roach wanted was entirely unknown, but they didn't seem very personally invested in helping anyone go home. Still, it was easily their best bet for the moment. He nodded, and took a step forward. "If it will get us home, we should go," he said. His head was about at Goose's eye level, but he raised his neck slightly, and let his feathered mane ruffle just the tiniest bit. "But if you are lying..." But, perhaps he shouldn't threaten the person who claimed to be able to get them home. He lowered his head, and softened his expression slightly. "We should get moving, then."

Dorado’s expression slowly soured as everyone talked and seemed to reach a consensus: they were going with the strange man with a bird for a name. “Great,” he mumbled quietly. “Is his name Goose because he’s rude and offensive? Probably…” He shook his head and looked again toward the mountain Goose had indicated. Temple. Gods. Being summoned. He didn’t like this, no, not one bit. In all truth the idea of going back to where he’d come from wasn’t all that appealing. Would it just dump him back into the bottomless pit he’d been falling in? Would it actually take him to his home dimension? The latter was more terrifying than the pit.

Idgó was perhaps most intrigued by Goose's explanation of what had just happened - incredibly interesting aliens aside, of course. He made a mental note for himself to speak to them later. Quietly, he watched the aliens' reactions to Goose's explanation - the violet-eyed, gold-clad alien lamented his chance to go home, perhaps emotionally strained. The large, brown, winged quadruped seemed to try to be taking charge of the situation. Idgó knew not if the bouncing, flying rock was expressing emotion of any kind, of if things like that just happened in Triviis. Goose seemed particularly annoyed by it. There was a silent joy in seeing another nonorganic life form here - Idgó reminded himself to speak to Petri (assuming it could speak) when it wasn't quite so busy.

As for himself, Idgó had initially felt nothing but happiness when he had been, apparently, stolen from his home. A part of him wondered if that was... the wrong feeling. Maybe he was a freak for it - maybe these aliens would never accept him for it. Maybe he was broken, in some way.

Well, at least Snail shared his joy. Maybe it was all the others who were the oddballs, so upset at losing their old homes when a great new one just begged to be eplored.

"Snail," Idgó initiated, "Why would'st thou cometh here voluntarily? What has Triviis to offer us?"

Marsh took a moment to reflect on Goose's explanation along with the various creatures interpretation of such. He noticed the golden fool wasn't too keen on the situation, while the blue lighted bot seemed to be treating this like a travel destination. The avian looking one seemed to share his sentiment of careful approach, which Marsh himself admired. This....Goose wasn't exactly his idea of a tour guide, but he lacked the thought of other options.

His head turned to the golden fool, "Golden one, if you wish to turn over every rock in this land," his head glancing towards the peculiar stone, "or cut every third blade of grass to get a door out of here to appear, you're welcome to do so. I'm not keen on trusting strangers, but my people will need me. Surely we are capable of striking back if the situation is against our wishes, no?" He said to the creature, his voice gaining slightly towards the end. His years commanding might win him some favor here, hoping to appeal a bit to this group of stranded individuals.

The metallic one raised an interesting question nonetheless, did this place have much to offer them?

As if in answer to Goose's question, the floating rock rapidly accelerated in the direction that Goose had indicated, vanishing out of sight rather quickly with a slight swishing noise, before returning back a moment later, decelerating down to a stop near its original hovering position near Goose.

However those in the group would quickly notice that upon its return, the rock that was Petri had changed shape into an arrowhead shape, which pointed in the direction of the temple and made a stabbing motion, as if to indicate that they should get moving.

Honey’s ear swiveled towards the golden-armored being, and a slight wheezing sound escaped from her at his explanation for Goose’s name, before her expression was again hidden by an unreadable poker face. Unfortunately, humor was the weakness to anyone’s best façade. Some people though terrorizing or scaring someone would destroy it, but usually, laughter was harder to suppress, especially given that it was a pleasant thing that most people wanted in their life, anyway. Honey had quickly regained composure, but she’d lost it for a moment. She would have to watch out for jokes made at Goose’s expense.

It was not the case that Honey, overall, completely disliked Goose, and it was additionally not that she favored any single person in the group, aside from perhaps Rouhn, at this point. But given how irritable Goose was, and the fact that as a native in Triivis, his help would be useful, she was treading carefully, to avoid getting too far onto his bad side. The golden-clad individual’s willingness to say something, even if it might cause serious offense, shocked the laughter out of her. The fact that Honey knew what an attack goose was like made it worse; the birds were notoriously foul-tempered. She did not know if any of the other alien creatures would know what a goose was, so perhaps she was the only one that got the joke.
 
Quickly deciding to brush over the fact that she’d laughed, Honey proceeded to comment, “Well, I always figured, immortality might not be that fun, if you never got to pursue what you always wanted to do.” She said. If she was lucky, Goose would think she laughed at his suicidal joke, even though she couldn’t really comprehend it, having only lived for nineteen years, and fully-well thinking death was permanent.
 
The gold-clad being, however, might have learned his comment was far funnier than he had intended.
 
After listening to more conversation, her ears lowered slightly at the white-scaled creature’s words, and she immediately felt bad for the armored stranger—she really needed to learn his name and commit it to memory. Sure, he might be wrong, but that’s kinda harsh, he could be right, we could be the ones making a mistake just as easily. She thought. Plus, even if this alien was some sort of general, he was not in charge of a trained, elite force that would blindly accept his orders, and certainly, he was not above anyone at the moment.
 
“Hey, buddy, I know you must be really respected by your own people, or something, and maybe mocking someone and going into crazy detail to describe paranoia might have worked at one point, when you had status, but right now, it doesn’t matter. So, I’m just going to say this right now. Quit it.” Honey looked sharply at the alien general, her tone suddenly harsh. “You’re not winning us over, you’re making yourself look like a horrible person, and boasting won’t work, either. If you want respect, earn it.”
 
Honey’s mane stood on end, and she looked like a lion prepared to pounce for a moment, before her fur suddenly smoothed down, and she stopped baring her teeth. “Now, I don’t enjoy losing my temper and snapping, but I have had a very bad day, before I even got here, you don’t even know how bad, and I am at my limit right now. My patience is gone right now.” She said finally, seeming to calm down. She looked at the floating arrowhead the rock turned into.
 
“…I’m with the rock, I think we can keep talking as we go. I’m ready to get out of here.” She said, sighing, and suddenly looking very tired. “Let’s just go, already.”

Dorado had not intended to be funny, but he smiled to himself upon finding that at least one person had heard him and found his comments humorous. The slight increase in his mood abruptly deteriorated as another person mocked him. Right. He was about to say something along the lines of ‘I know I’m a moron, you don’t have to point it out for me,’ when the very same creature that had found his joke funny jumped to his defense. Abruptly he swallowed his words and went wide-eyed as he watched the fireworks—or in this case the impressive display of hair. There was someone sticking up for him? A very stressed person, it seemed. He’d have to thank her when there were less people watching.  

Regardless, it was shaping up to be an awful day with an awful journey ahead. Resigned to his fate, Dorado supposed he’d have to go along with it. He didn’t want to go home, but staying in this place, wherever it was, with unpleasant bird-for-name man didn’t seem like a good alternative.

Marsh certainly wasn't surprised by the hairy being's choice of words or its tone, but he wasn't exactly keen on kissing and making up here. If anything, he knew he was far from an orator. He noticed she had marks of stress, probably from the events before they were brought here, just like the rest of them.

He turned his attention back to the one with the outburst, "Perhaps I was a bit excessive in my attitude towards the man. Nobody here needs to like or respect me, or care about these medals that mean nothing outside of my home sector. Nobody needs to step in line to my order or even should. All I'm asking is that we're tactful but not to a fault. Make strong decisions as a unit. That, is where I want my experience to show." he ended calmly.

Striding forward towards the arrowheaded stone, Marsh retrieved his shotgun from its holster and moved forward, eyes set ahead.