multiversallogs | How many goodly creatures are there here!

How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

Welcome to Baedal.

These are the first words newcomers hear when the door opens and they are invited into their new world. Some fuss, some fight, some need time before they have the courage to step outside. Others, shell-shocked or jaded, go quietly along with the proceedings.

They are given brief instructions; a repeat of what's described in the pamphlet and a door key.

Please stay in your room. There will be dinner soon.

It's been almost a day for some. For others, only an hour's wait. The latest newcomer is lead straight from the arrival room to the dining hall where candles and lanterns have been set out to compensate for failing electricity. (Those who have been here longer explain about rolling blackouts.) The food, however, is warm, varied and plentiful. Seating is open, and less conventional chair are available to those who need them.

There are many strange faces around the table, the majority of these recent arrivals. The proprietor of the Valhalla Inn is here, as is some of her staff. The Sheriff of Mog Hill is introduced, his function detailed. The reason for the dinner is explained:

It's a celebration. A new cohort has finally been officiated; CeidaryBlue523. Your cohort. Please. Introduce yourself. Mingle. Get to know your fellows, they will be your brothers and sisters for as long as you live in this city.

((OOC post for discussion and coordination.))

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Once newcomers have been shown their rooms, they're welcome to come and mingle in the public room of the Valhalla Inn. This is an all-purpose rec room with well-worn but clean furniture, bookcases, and boardgames. There are a few corkboards up with reminders of the Inn Rules (mostly commonsense), some advertisements for local businesses, and a few snapshots of the locals having fun at the bazaar. It's the sort of comfortable, but not too personal, space common in hostels.

The hall is spacious and can easily accommodate one hundred for dinner. Along one wall there is a buffet of simple, but generally well-prepared foods -- daal, rice, an assortment of vegetarian dishes, something labelled stoneshroom (it has the taste and texture of chicken), and a limited number of meat dishes.

Just beyond the Public Room, there are a few smaller siderooms that some of the staff use for their lunchroom or for storing extra gardening equipment.

There are all sorts of hallways throughout the Inn. Some of them are busy. Some of them are quiet. Some, like those leading into the workrooms, are closed for the day.

Visible through the windows of the dining hall, there's a neat little courtyard with a couple of planters and some benches. Should one look up, it's possible to see the various solarpower panels and small windmills dotting the roof of the Valhalla Inn.

Much as it doesn't thrill Martel to merrily jaunt from one shipwreck to the next, he will give Baedal this: solving the problem of stabling for Kalten within a day frees up a great deal of his time. (To do what, exactly? Marinating in his own self-pity isn't that time-consuming. Perhaps now he can investigate self-flagellation; presumably someone about the place has a horsewhip.)

What's presently occupying him at the moment is an inoffensive vegetarian dish with rice, and not engaging those around him in conversation, his thoughts elsewhere, weighed down by the silver amulet hanging around his neck. Maybe he'll be more approachable after he's eaten.

This shit again, Lyla can't help thinking. It's differently organized, and the city's structure itself is different--it reminds her of something old world and Eastern European, even the Inn itself. She begs out of most of the dinner (she had, like, a sandwich, that counts, right?) and slinks into the courtyard to sit down on a bench, fishnet-clad legs crossed at the knee.

She lights up a cigarette, glad that her current pack made it through the dimensional trip with her.

If she's honest with herself, she misses her friends. Rather than look sad and petulant about it, though, she just exhales smoke up to the sky, hoping none of the employees at the Inn come in to chastise her.

After being locked up in a room for Christ only knew how long, which had logically probably only been a few hours but felt like an eternity, there was no way in hell Ashley was just going to go play nice nice with her 'cohort' just yet. First she was getting the lay of the land.

Considering no one seemed to be trying to stop her just yet, she wasn't bothering with stealth. Therefore there is a spandex clad and masked twenty something prowling unapologetically through the halls, a purple, empty quiver over one shoulder and a matching purple box clenched tightly in one white-knuckled hand. Occasionally she bites out bits of muttered conversation to herself.

"What the hell is this now."

Hellboy had arrived early in the day, and after reading Finding Baedal a couple of times through, spent the rest of the time stewing in his room. But now he was finally out, and rather than head directly for the food, he decides to stretch his legs and wander around a little. This exploration eventually takes him to the public room, where he starts browsing the bookshelves, making note of titles he might want to check out later.

Some people take their transition better than others; Wolfgang is not one of them. His life had been pretty ordinary up until now (more or less) and the sudden knowledge that there apparently existed other dimensions rattled him so badly. He hasn't even been sure that all of this is real and has been spending the entire time he's been here performing little tests, as if he can prove it to himself somehow, but with every one he still finds himself with doubts.

The last twenty-four hours have been hell on Earth. Or not, as it were.

He steps out into the courtyard, visibly shaking and looking worse for the wear, pausing just outside in the hopes that the fresh air will clear his head. It doesn't. It doesn't take him long to pick up the scent of secondhand smoke and he looks over in that direction automatically. "Did you get those here?" he asks, sounding surprised like it's so inconceivable that extradimensional alternate universes could contain something as mundane as cigarette vendors.

Having explored around the inside of the Inn, Hellboy makes his way out to the courtyard. Partially, this is because he wants to be thorough, but also it's that he wants to get a smoke in, and he doesn't want to take any chances with how the staff might take indoor smoking. Since it seems appropriate, he fishes one of the cigars he'd gotten back in Bete Noire for special occasions, cutting its tip with his knife and lighting it up with a wooden match struck off of his Right Hand.

It's only once he's got the cigar lit, glowing in the evening air, that he notices Lyla. He tries to be nonchalant and not stare, but he side-eyes her curiously all the same. Only once he's at least moderately sure does he finally turn and address her directly.

"Hey. Sorry to bother you, but you look familiar."

One hopes Martel will at least be civil-minded as, while the privacy of Mal's room had been a godsend (and the fresh clothing a miracle), he's been here for days already and the stillness is going to finally drive the medic fully 'round the bend for thoughts of what he's left his unit to back home.

Instead Malcolm has pulled on one of the drab olive shirts from his own pack as well as the new pants and, shoving the pamphlet into a back pocket, he heads into the dining hall and sits (by chance, really, it wasn't the lack of evident conversational skills) next to Martel.

Malcolm's right hand clenches and unclenches rhythmically on the table next to his glass as he offers Martel a reserved smile and nod, hmming a greeting from a throat still raw from winter weather and constant yelling.

It wasn't so long ago that he came through the arrival room and Norrington is still a little uncomfortable attending the first night of a new cohort. Not just because it means that more people have been taken from their lives and brought into this city, but because it brings back too many memories of being starched and pressed in a stifling ballroom.

"If they don't have anything to your taste, there is a public library, but they do charge for a membership," he says mildly. Norrington hopes that Hellboy doesn't mind the intrusion, but it is his duty to be here and introduce himself to the locals.

"Disgustingly domestic set up for they've got goin' for a gang of kidnappers. Or whatever the hell this is."

Ashley flicked the spine of a random book with one finger and gave a dismissive scoff. She wasn't happy with the current set up by any stretch, but she was willing to bet the normal laws of her world applied here, too. The big, scary looking guy was usually one you wanted to be on decent terms with from the get-go.

She eyes Wolfgang with a little muted concern--he doesn't look like he's adapting all that well, which she supposes to be expected. The fact that this isn't the first time Lyla's been abducted to a random city lends her a slightly jaded air, which she wears well.

"No, they came with. Thank fuck." She punctuates this by taking a drag, and then pats the stone expanse of the bench by her side. Lyla is tucked up on one edge and she's scrawny, there's plenty of room. "Sit down. You want one?"

Holy fuck, there's a giant red dude with a cigar. She tilts her head to the side, squinting at Hellboy just a little. Well, she's seen weirder, and she appreciates fellow nicotine addicts.

"You don't. And, uh, I think I'd remember..." But she can get a magical vibe of some kind off him, and that is relevant to her interests by a lot. "Where'd you live at before here?"

She just assumes they'll be sticking around for a while. It's how it goes, right?

Judging by the look of him, Martel falls in the 'jaded' category of new arrivals; he glances up from his meal at the nod, inclines his head once in acknowledgement, and all in all gives the air of a man who is no longer inclined to be surprised by much. (It still happens, of course; reality has never cared much about his inclinations one way or another.)

The style of his shirt, trousers and riding boots put him firmly out of time with Malcolm - the amulet, part visible hanging on a chain beneath his shirt, is probably also not much like familiar - but for his own part, Bete Noire already acquainted him with the wealth of variety in the multiverse and he doesn't remark on what looks to him like a terribly unfortunate colour for a shirt.

Once dinner is has been served, the sheriff and his wife can be found seated at one of the long dining tables quietly chatting with each other about the new arrivals, the state of things in Mog Hill, and whatever else comes to mind. While they're comfortable talking to each other, they're both more than willing to talk to any newcomer that chooses to sit with them.

Hellboy glances over at Norrington quickly, just to make sure that he was actually the one being addressed, then resumes looking at the shelves. "Hm. Well, I may get to that eventually, but I seem to be starting off okay here." His eyes narrow and he mutters half to himself, "Tom Swift and his Shining Trapezohedron?! I don't remember that one."

Shaking his head, he pulls himself away and turns to Norrington. "Sorry. I can look at that more later. Name's Hellboy." He extends his left hand for shaking, for presumably obvious reasons.

The two of them sitting quietly together talking - gossiping, partly - in attendance at something Norrington doesn't really want to be attending is familiar in a way that has very little to do with Baedal and puts a small, placid smile on Dominica's face that just barely suggests a private joke. Her husband can make his own mind up as to whether or not it's a joke he's in on.

In the midst of conversation, she is waiting until he's busy talking to quietly thieve off his plate while presenting her best and most attentive expression; she could have just had something else for dinner, but then she wouldn't have been able to have both dishes.

"It is pretty efficient, I've got to admit. Last city I got kidnapped into, I showed up in the nearby forest. Had to get all the basic info by calling the party line."

Having completed a tour of the room, he looked over at Ashley and took in her attire. Lacking any other idea of what she could be in that getup, he asks, "You in the lucha biz or something?"

"Sheriff Norrington," he says with an easy, but earnest, smile and accepts the handshake. He doesn't seem to be even slightly put-off by Hellboy's inhuman appearance. "I don't know it either, but any book that could've ever been written has a chance of arriving here. The central library works to catalogue what they can, but ..."

But there's just so much and it's all so very odd. How do you adapt the Dewey Decimal System to accommodate multiversal novels?

Wolfgang has been having an awful day, but to his credit he's holding himself together pretty well. A year ago he probably would have been a screaming wreck huddled on the floor; now he's able to leave the room he's been assigned and face the situation head-on. He hasn't eaten yet -- the food looks all right but he's not sure what's in it and he doesn't want to offend anyone by asking. Anyway, his nerves are shot and his stomach's all up in knots and he's not even sure he could keep anything down. He feels sort of ill. He's been told that's not terribly uncommon and he supposes it wouldn't be, but it's not comforting to know that one's reaction is normal when one's environment is completely fucking insane.

He touches things occasionally, like he's testing to see if he's not imagining all of this. (That is exactly what he's doing, in fact.) He has his nails dig into the inside of his wrist, but doesn't wake up -- this doesn't feel like a dream either, not even one of his recent, hyper-realistic ones. They never go on this long, for one thing.

He looks about as out of place as he always does, so tall and rail-thin, which normally he's all right with, but... extenuating circumstances and all. When he sits, he looks stiff and extremely uncomfortable, in addition to pale and rather drawn, but at least that can be written off as "I just got kidnapped to another universe" blues. He has to force himself to try and relax and it helps that he can glance at those board games with a look of mild amusement. What a strange idea.

"Christ, you sound like you've made a career out of it. I thought the dimension hoping bullshit was out of style by now."

She places one hand on her hip, still adjusting to the unfamiliar feeling of wearing a damn quiver on her back. Like she was back in the stone ages or something. Hell if she knew why her dad couldn't have picked up sharp shooting like a sane person.

"Which ties in to the get up. Kind of a family tradition, dressing up in costumes and fighting whatever needs fighting. Usually makes me stand out in the crowd, but you're some tough competition."

"--Oh, you're new here?" It's not a difficult inference to make; he assumed she isn't because she looks oddly calm about this. Maybe it's just him. It's probably just him.

He glances at the bench like, frankly, he's afraid it will bite him, which is a distinct possibility if it turns out he is dreaming, although death by chair would be a new one. He sits with visible relief -- Wolfgang is roughly the size of a fairy tale mutant beanstalk, but he is thankfully quite thin. While not normally a big smoker, he figures he could really use something to settle his nerves. "Ah -- yes. Please. If you don't mind."

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How many goodly creatures are there here! :: GAME OPENER

Public Room

Dining Hall

Sideroom

Hallway

Courtyard

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