faderift | Open - A gunslingers day in the Gallows

WHO: Open
WHAT: Open post for anyone wanting to talk to a Weird Western, card slinging huckster
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Various, see posts
NOTES: None

I. Inside Kirkwall, at the training grounds, Jang is practicing. She’s got a bow, a stack of arrows next to her, and the target set downrange has an almost notable lack or arrows in it. Anyone watching her firing the bow would be able to tell very quickly that she’s never really fired one before. Her stance is wrong, she’s holding the bow wrong and just about anything she could be doing wrong, she is. Frankly it’s a bit amazing that she’s holding the bow right way up.

II. In the gallows in the merchant district, she is walking around the stalls and crafters, trying to find anyone who looks like they may be good at their job. She’s got a holster on her back with a oddly shaped…staff maybe? It seems to be made of wood and metal, and she has another small metal object in her hand, showing it to various craftsmen, and then going away. Seems to be that she has a lot of rejection.

III. At a bar in the gallows, Jang is sitting at a small table, muttering to herself, a long day with not a lot of progress. She’s working on a large mug of something and seems to be building a house of cards. The cards look odd though, smaller than normal ones you’ve seen. If you look closer, you may notice that the cards seem to be…sticking to each other oddly. There also seems to be more than one that are intersecting other cards. If you were to take a even closer look, at this point Jang would probably look up at you in annoyance. “Can I help you? You know it’s very rude to just go up to someone and stare.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jang pauses for a moment, the cards stopping their shuffle. She looks up at Newt. "Magical creatures? Like...A hunting guide? Or something like a "How to Escape", perhaps with lairs and whatnot?" Jang looks back down at her hands, and starts shuffling again, tossing the cards, but a bit distracted.

Jang - 3D, 7H, KC, 3C, AD
Newt - 6H, 6D, 4C, 5D, 5H - Two pair

"Ahh, two pair! Well done, never can rely on luck, can you? Now, then, you asked about the Maze. Well, I told you about California, how a huge earthquake shattered the coastline. The Great Maze is the result. The whole coast of California, sometimes inwards almost 100 miles, is a maze of mesas and cayons, ocean far below. People use it for mining, cause the earthquate revealed huge veins of gold, silver, and of course, Ghost Rock. Course, the Maze Dragons are a problem, as are the sharks and the bandits." Jang shurgs. "Wherever you have a lot of money, you have people trying to take it."

The 'hunting guide' comment reminds him so much of Tina, such a memory causes a physical ache in his chest. But he smiles, regardless. "No," he explains. "More like an educational field guide. A treatise on why we should be protecting and working with creatures instead of killing them. It's a very important project of mine, you could say."

"Maze Dragons?" He sits up, very much interested. "Are they actual dragons or is that the name of an organization of some kind?"

But he supposes he'll have to wait to see if he wins the next round to find out anything.

"Ahh...A field guide, for protecting magical creatures and working with them." Jang collects up the cards and starts to shuffle them, but doesn't deal them out, seemingly distracted.

"A maze dragon is a huge creature, in the Maze. It destroys boats, eats anyone who happens to fall in, and as one of the common easy ways to mine is to rappel down from the clifftops and mine straight from the walls of the maze, that happens fairly often. It is not a nice creature, and if it had it's way, it would eat and destroy everything it could."

Jang shuffles the deck again, not looking at the cards, just staring at the table. "See, we don't have anything that needs protection. We have monsters. Tumblebleeds, nibblers, Scarecrows, Bone Gloms and Mojave Rattlers. Horrible creatures that will kill you the instant they see you. Not because they're hungry or angry, but because they want to. They feed on fear and pain and they hurt you because they like doing it."

Jang looks back up at Newt, fear and worry behind her eyes. "Ever hear of the Wendigo?"

"But they can't get out of these mazes, I assume," Newt says, watching her shuffle the cards. "If they are as dangerous as they sound, I imagine they would do a lot more damage if they could escape from their confinement." But, again, he doesn't know Jane's world, so he can only guess. What he has learned so far makes him surmise that her world is as dangerous as his own and Thedas itself.

"I've heard the legends," he says, taking in everything she tells him with care. "They're rather vicious, aren't they?"

"I assume you use your magic to help fight these monsters?" He ventures to guess again. "Do you have other means of defense against them?"

"Oh, I misspoke. The Great Maze isn't really a maze, they can get out whenever they want to. But why would they?" Jang gives a humorless laugh, "All the food they could want is right there. And as for defense, well, magic users are very rare, most people have one means of defense against them. Cold steel and hot lead."

Jang takes another drink and a deep breath. "The Wendigo are very vicious. Much taller than a man, with a massive mouth, seemingly nothing but teeth. Covered in filthy fur and with a hand of huge claws. But that's not the problem. The problem is where they come from. Imagine you're moving out to the west. New life, new land. You get a wagon train together and head out. You have plenty of food, as you've heard the stories of people getting stuck in passes and dying over winter. But you make it through. You set up a home, a farm for you and your family. Things go well. Until winter hits. Maybe it hit early this year, maybe something else went wrong. But it hits, and it hits hard."

Jang picks up the cards again just to give her hands something to do, so she doesn't have to dwell on what she's saying. "Months pass, and you and your family get hungrier and hungrier. You pray for thaw, for spring, for anything. Then, one day, one of your family goes to sleep and doesn't wake up. And then you suddenly have a horrible choice. Save your lives...or save your souls. You would maybe even convince yourself that it's what they would want. They would WANT you to live, they're dead already, use them to save yourselves. And so you do it. You eat the only thing you can."

At this, Jang looks up at Newt, looking him in the eyes. "But you don't live. You get more starving, until it's all you know, all you know is hunger, and you're no longer yourself. You have become the embodiment of hunger and winter and fear. Unable to die, cannot be killed, and you roam the woods, looking for others, other people to eat. So yes, Wendigo are very vicious."

Jang takes another long drink and puts it back on the table. "Enough of that though, You sound like you come from a place with magical beasts who inspire wonder, not fear. So tell me about some of those creatures, things you want to save, not kill before they can kill you."

He tilts his head, considering with a bit of a furrowed grimace. Of course. Why go to the food when the food so very easily comes to you? "Why do they call it the Great Maze if it isn't a maze?" He asks, genuinely curious. He always finds it fascinating, trying to uncover the reasoning behind the names of things. He takes particular pleasure in names themselves; there's a certain power to the meanings of names, he thinks.

He listens as Jane explains, expression sobering immensely as he does so. He shakes his head. He's seen and heard of too many other horrors to be truly shocked by Jane's explanation.

He takes a swig of his own drink as well, smiling at the shift in subject matter.

"We have dangerous creatures too, don't get me wrong," he says. "But generally speaking, they're only dangerous if you don't leave them alone, for the most part."

"We have many amazing creatures," he continues. "Dragons, unicorns, Hippogriffs, and bowtruckles, to name a few. They are all wonderful in their own way."

"Well, imagine dropping a plate on the floor. The pieces are all scattered around, and you might call it mazelike, but it's not really a maze. People like giving dramatic names to things."

Jang nods at Newt's listing of creatures, and takes another drink. "Unicorns? Heh, do they still only come if you're a virgin? But what about Dragons? Tell me about those. Are they real, flying dragons, breathing fire and everything?"

"Interesting," Newt comments, trying to picture what a world (or state, really) looks like composed of shattered plate pieces. "So not so ordered as a maze, but chaotic and unpredictable? And easy to become lost in, I assume?"

"Well, they tend to prefer women," he says. "Except the young coals, who tend to like everyone."

"They are," he nods. "I've worked closely with them on several occasions. They're magnificent creatures. Though, of course, also highly dangerous."

The way Newt speaks, it's clear he doesn't mind their dangerous natures at all.

Open - A gunslingers day in the Gallows

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