O2 ♚ I'M A LONG TIME TRAVELER HERE

[slaveking]

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Several Rifters and native drop-ins congregate at the Tavern as advertised via messenger crystal.
WHEN: Late January (forward-dated for recentmost app approvals!)
WHERE: The Tavern, private room
NOTES: OOC plotting here! Feel free to treat this like a general mingle log, but I will be making empty starters below for specific topics for group threads/conversation. An infodump/glossary link may also be pending from Araceli/Church.

It's past dinner time. This provides a reasonable excuse to drink only out of the ale pitchers set up for the expected guest, although there's a little bread and salt pork set up on the one bench along the wall. Dozens of chairs and a few less tables are loosely organized into groups. There's no dais or marked center for the room, the bar room version of the principles of the Arthurian round table, all being equal in the private room. Which, granted, is only as private as the public announcement and common courtesy might enforce. In other words, that can't be a real expectation.

However, the other Tavern workers are watching the door and main floor discreetly, multi-tasking with running the usual evening business. It's not so different from any other night, not even for the involuntary immigrants gathering on the second level. Drink, talk, and get to know.

Comments

[lennethvalkyrie]

Lenenth lets her thoughts be interrupted by curiosity as Ariadne spoke. Spirits could manifest? Take human form?

Marcel asks the same question she would, and so she simply watches the young woman and waits for the reply.

[demonicbeauty]

"Pleasant," Ariadne said. It was always the first word to pop into her head when she thought of Cole. Not that she thought of him terribly often. Only in the way a riddle could nag at you for days, somewhere in the back of your mind, floating to the surface only in the place between asleep and awake. "He seems concerned with the well-being of the Rifters."

Or at least, her. He had saved her life once.

"And a capable warrior. Especially for someone who...seems foreign." To the physical world. To being flesh and bone.

But that was just a guess on her part.

[slaveking]

The time is long gone for skepticism. Marcel arches an eyebrow thoughtfully, dark against his complexion, and then he nods his head. Nice men who can fight, and are interested in the welfare of theirs-- if more people fit that description, the Rifters would probably be better off. "Should've figured anybody worth knowing out here is handy in battle," he notes. A beat.

"Any idea if he's immortal?" It's not so strange a question, he thinks. Spirits in battle. One would naturally wonder about the perks. No need to suspect there's a vampire in your midst, ladies.

[lennethvalkyrie]

"He sounds almost..." But no, surely not. If there were no Valkyries here, then what called the spirit? From what source was its energy? Despite her disbelief, she finished the thought anyway.

"Like one of my einherjar. A soul, past death and beyond it, who may manifest to fight in the mortal world. But it takes divine energy for such beings to manifest outside of Valhalla." She frowned slightly. "Or the Fade, perhaps, in Thedas. In my world, such energy comes from a Valkyrie. We give them form--if we are defeated, so too are they. They are immortal, in their own way. As am I."

Her eyes flickered downward briefly. "Was. As was I. Not so here, I think."

"But," her energy returns as she resumes her theorizing, "I cannot know if it is similar in Thedas. If some other being grants him the energy necessary to appear, or if it comes from another source entirely. Perhaps he is able to maintain himself, as a Valkyrie is. If so, if he is hurt enough, he will not be able to keep himself on this plane, but given enough time, he will return. That is immortality enough, yes?"

[demonicbeauty]

It was interesting, the way the two of them talked about immortality. Like it was an everyday sort of occurrence. Ariadne knew that immortality existed, of course. Just like the gods. But she had to admit her personal experience with such a concept was...limited. She only knew the two children of Kallista, who were both demi-gods and therefore said to exist forever.

But they were young. Not much older than her. It was hard to think of them that way. And it was probably harder for them.

She frowned a little, a crease forming between her eyes as she listened to Marcel and Lenneth. "I don't know...if Cole is immortal," she said carefully. "But...there's a kind of...otherness. To him. I sort of like it."

[slaveking]

Marcel looks very interested in the valkyrie's discussion of einherjar. Energy, its transformations, corporeality. It clearly is a little novel to him, but Ariadne is right; immortality isn't a strange concept for him in and of itself. "The ghosts and spirits of my world are a little like that," he nods, and then a smile tricks up one corner of his mouth, wryly. "Though the matter of mortality becomes a complicated where they're concerned." Are you immortal if the substance of yourself goes on forever, after your mortal body is shed? A question for real witches.

The vampire is merely an impersonator. And harmless at that. His eyes shift to Ariadne, and he smiles, lopsided and mild. He likes that about her, he's decided. That she finds something lovely in the strangeness of people unlike herself. "Sounds like someone i'll enjoy running into, when I get the chance. And not too demonic. I guess that's another plus one for the Fade Rift ejecting things that aren't pure evil that begs burning at the stake."

[lennethvalkyrie]

Another plus for the Fade Rift...

Lenneth raised a silver eyebrow. "I wonder... did this spirit exist before the rift? Everyone seems more familiar with spirits than they do with the Breach. Demons as well. This breach seems but an escalation." She huffed a wry breath through her nose. "I do not mean to deem it a trifle. Surely it threatens this world and its people gravely. But knowledge about ones enemy is beyond gold."