Trog's Tavern: Roman Numerals Are Dumb

[Zefir]

Cybergroup

The man nods and turns back to his party. they don't exchange much words and will soon leave to make some preperations. Getting some parts for the drohnes is their first step and then they will go to Outside..

[Ironsmith]

There are probably a lot of things people feel when they first come into Trog's. Joyful. Nostalgic. Hungry. At home.

...But Amadel's probably the first in a while who's felt dizzy walking in. Like she just stepped off a roller coaster and is having trouble finding her feet back. Or maybe like she just stepped onto a moving roller coaster and still needs to adjust to the momentum.

It has to be the new body. She's never had trouble with her sense of equilibrium before.

"Whew. Okay, give me a sec, Cat." Amadel pants, leaning against the wall right next to the door for the world to stop spinning.

[Rebonack]

"Well howdy! Welcome to Trog's Tavern," calls out Zee from behind the counter as the girls enter. Cat she recognizes, Amadel she doesn't. But there are a number of aspirants running around the Nexus and she doesn't know them all by name or sight. She DOES try to keep tabs on any that are making trouble, though. "Looks like you're feeling a little loopy. Is everything okay?"

Clearly not.

But sometimes giving voice to problems helps.

Cat glances at Amadel with concern, then over at Zee. "She just did apotheosis a little while ago and she's been glitching out."

Zee raises any eyebrow at that. "Glitching out how?"

[Ironsmith]

"Just little things here and there." Amadel replies, her hair briefly jittering sround uncontrollably before settling back into its natural shape, a few locks now slung over her shoulder. "I'll be fine here in a second. Just got to wait for the room to stop moving."

The aspirant waits another moment and stands up straight, spreading her hands as though she's balancing on a tightrope, before throwing them up in a little "ta-da!" gesture. "See? All better already." She grins.

[Rebonack]

"Hmm..." would be Zee's assessment of the situation.

"A cat monster tried pouncing on her and got glitched into the ground," Catherine reports. "Then it got launched into the sky."

"That IS pretty unusual. I don't think I've seen anything like that happen before?" Zee muses. "Where were you from originally? Not the Nexus, right? I wonder if something about your home universe isn't playing nice with the Empyrean and the Game is trying to compensate for the difference."

That's...

Possible, right?

Maybe?

The Game is just having trouble with Amadel.

[Ironsmith]

"I mean, that itself is a little bit of a complicated question." Amadel chortles. "I'm from Kansas. Well, I was born there, is what I mean. But then I got isekai'd to a country called Ainran, which definitely isn't anywhere on the same world. Then I died there, kinda, and came back as a hivemind, kinda, so I haven't physically had the same body for more than a few years since then, and even then it wasn't really mine and was a bit more of a rental. Which I then jumped out of just before apotheosis to make sure none of my little buddies got hurt."

Amadel shrugs. "If the game is having trouble dealing with that, I don't think I can blame it one bit."

[Zefir]

Sylas sits at the bar and just listens. He's totally confused at the terms they use in their discussion. Glitched, Idekaied those are words he doesn't know the meaning. and on top the new person says it is a hivemind? What's that supposed to mean? Either way the coung boy in his heavy robes will continue to listen, as far as he can from his chair at the bar.

[TeChameleon]

A small figure slipped into the bar and claimed an unobtrusive spot just off the bar, hood raised. He didn't bother ordering anything- there weren't a lot of places that served molten granite, after all. Or maybe there were, who knew when jumping dimensions?

He watched the crowd carefully. This place certainly wasn't as human-dominated as similar places back home, although it seemed that the universal constant of adventurers and bars going together like grey on stone still held true. He settled back a little, still wary, but figured that he might be able to pick up something that would point him towards a cache of magic items or a group heading out.

[quillpleasant]

Trog's is usually full of adventurers, stopping by to spend their hard won gold or planning out future expeditions, so the small newcomer shouldn't have to wait long. And indeed, it's only a few minutes before someone approaches- although she looks less like an adventurer, and more like someone who might live in a dungeon.

She's mostly human looking, with the exception of her electric blue skin, which is further emphasized by a dark blue dress that looks strangely organic. Large, slightly unsettling eyes look out from a delicate face that's shadowed by a her most notable feature- a mushroom cap. It's blue and conical, and almost resembles a wide brimmed hat, but it's clearly part of her body as the gills blend seamlessly into her hair. She walks up boldly, oblivious to the cloaked figure's wariness.

"Hello! I couldn't help noticing your arrival- first time? It's mine too, well, in this body at least, last time I was a different me, but altogether, I think I prefer this one, and I was thinking, why not go back and see how things have changed, while I'm at it, maybe help out a little-" She pauses her run on sentence with an apologetic smile. "Anyway I'm Lia, what's your name?"

[TeChameleon]

The small figure blinked, and there was an actual, visible dimming of light inside the hood briefly, as if his eyes were casting light, rather than simply receiving it.

After a moment, he found his voice- a voice as small as his stature. Indeed, he sounded about ten.

"Call me Eddie." he said. "And, er, greetings in return. Wait, new body? Are you some form of golem as well? I didn't think that was the sort of thing that organics did habitually."

His body language had changed a bit, from wariness to confusion, although he still kept an eye on his surroundings. He wasn't particularly worried about his own safety, but he'd found that a lot of adventurers tended to take it surprisingly personally when they tried to punch someone and broke their own hand instead.

[quillpleasant]

Oh, he's a kid! Considering how varied the sizes of people are in the Nexus, Lia had assumed that he was some kind of halfling or similar. Of course, considering he's also a golem, age might be hard to quantify.

"Nice to meet you Eddie!" she says brightly, pulling up a barstool, "No I'm not a golem- is that what you are? I haven't met a golem before. Well I've met constructs, but those are different I think? Are all golems sapient? The constructs couldn't talk so maybe that's the difference?"

She shakes herself out of this line of questioning. "But no, I'm a mycoid! I'm actually a big network of spores underground, this is just one of the bodies I create to do stuff on the surface. But also I, as in the me in this body, is kind of a separate person too? I don't even know how it really works sometimes, there's some serious questions of philosophical selfhood that I've been avoiding because they make me feel weird!" Lia ends this with a wide smile, seeming indefatigable in her cheerfulness.

[TeChameleon]

If Eddie was less self-controlled, he might have given a tired smirk. Even on Lia's somewhat alien face, the usual reaction was visible. Oh, just a... kid..? Golem? How old? followed by a slightly blank look seemed to be pretty standard for almost everyone that met him for the first time.

He adjusted his hood slightly so that Lia could see under it more clearly, poking into his left ear to turn the brightness of his eyes up slightly as well, adding a bit of a blue tinge to his features.

"As far as I understand it, construct is a broader term than golem- golems are generally fashioned in the form of a living being, at least more or less, while a construct could be just about anything, even a vehicle or a building. And it's entirely possible that the constructs you encountered were able to speak, but simply chose not to- it's a surprisingly common thing, especially amongst constructs designed for more menial tasks; they just don't talk when organics are around."

He shrugged and waved a hand, half-wishing he had a drink to nurse, or at least a mug to hold... nursing a mug of lava ended up as a mugfull of rock annoyingly quickly.

"Granted, there are also some that just can't talk... it really depends on what spells are baked into the stone or metal or whatever."

He raised an eyebrow and talked a bit slower. "A... mycoid? Well, it seems to be a day for firsts, then, as I've never met someone like you, either. I'm not sure your species even exists on my home plane." he huffed a laugh. "And as far as existential questions go, I'm a bunch of spells stuck to a rock. Not a lot of room for questions of selfhood there, not even the 'am I the spells or the rock' question, since I already know that the one doesn't work without the other, therefore I'm both."

"If you've been here before, even as previous self, do you know how adventurers around here party up or anything of that nature? I could use some directions to a cache of magic items... doesn't really matter what, or even if they still function as intended, as long as they're not inert or cursed, and I can handle myself in a fight pretty easily."

[quillpleasant]

As Eddie draws back his hood, Lia's eyes open a little wider and she stares at him, making no effort to conceal her curiosity. However, it's clearly not meant to be malicious or objectifying- more reminiscent of a little kid seeing a wondrous new sight. She tilts her head from one side to the other as she listens to his explanation.

"Ooh... I never even considered that they might be able to talk," she says thoughtfully, "Another of me is heading back that way soon, I'll try to get her to ask." In what way she intends to do that is not made clear.

She taps a finger against her cheek. "Other, as you say, organics... they're weird. I don't get animals, really. Us mycoids, we're rare, but our kingdom is everywhere, interconnected with the earth. But animals are so self contained, really just... alone. Tasty though, once they die. But you, you're saying you're made of stone!" Her voice rises excitedly. "Stone is something I can't understand- spores don't affect it, the hyphae can't go through it, it doesn't even decay. I had no idea it could be alive, magic or no." The world is truly full of wonders, and she's clearly going to be considering this one for quite a while.

As his last question she thinks for a moment, glancing around. "Well, I'm no expert, but parties come through here pretty often, it's a good place to get quests. Just hang around, there'll be more before you know it. Otherwise, you could try joining one of the big organizations- I hear MERC does a lot of missions, I'd imagine they run into magic items fairly often." She nods confidently. That sounds right at least. "What are you looking for magic items for? Wait, do you eat them or something?"

[TeChameleon]

The face that Lia could now see under Eddie's hood matched his voice for youthfulness- round features that were a year or two too old to be called 'cherubic', topped with a mop of curly hair. Everything save his eyes was still clearly made of granite, albeit smoothly polished and animate in a way that, visually, almost perfectly mimicked human skin, musculature and bone structure, despite none of the above being present.

Glowing blue eyes studied Lia with just as much frankness as she studied him.

"You're going to ask another of you to try and talk to the constructs you met before? Do you communicate through the ground?" he asked after a moment, clearly interested, although it wasn't necessarily obvious why.

"And I'm sure that every species finds others weird, at least a little. The notion of being a... disembodied underground brain with semi-autonomous nodes... is likely just as odd to me as a talking rock is to you. Although stone does do a lot of the things you think it doesn't, just... slower. And through different mechanisms, admittedly." A wry chuckle. "As to magic... it kind of just does what it does. I wasn't supposed to be an eternal little stone kid, that was just an oops on the part of the golemcrafting archmage that made me."

"And I... sort of eat magic items? I drain the magic from them to keep myself animate. So I'm perfectly happy with broken items as long as they still have magic in them. I actually had a gig for a few years as a sort of magic-item-bomb-disposal unit where the city fed me artifacts that were too unstable to store safely. Wasn't a bad way to spend a decade or so, especially since I had unlimited access to their library as my payment."

Eddie glanced around the tavern once more, wondering if any of the people he could see were ready to go out on a quest.

[Zefir]

Next to the stone golem and the mycoid at the bar is a human boy, likly in his late teen. Other then a havy lying robe over his shoulders he looks like a normal human with black short cut hair. He had partly listened to the conversation so far and when the mycoid mentioned ' Tasty though,' while talking about animals he shivers. He has encountered these kind of creatures in his world, but he never heared of any consuming the thoughts of their victim.

After that he grabs into his robe and pulls out the broshure he got earlier. In it there should be all the nessesary informations about the organizations and some other places like the city of Inside and some places in outside. He pushes the paper in front of the golem.

"That might help you get around." he says. "I arrived here just a bit ago and the bartender gave me one. I think I got all i need out of it."

[TeChameleon]

Eddie retreated further back into his red hoodie, his face becoming nearly invisible and his body language closing off as he nodded a shy thanks to the human. He took the brochure with a quick, nervous motion. Blue light flicked across it once, and he nodded again, apparently satisfied.

He didn't notice the human boy's reaction to Lia- as a golem, he was able to take a fairly relaxed view as to who ate whom. Even petravorous creatures appeared to be unable to eat him because of the magic coursing through him. Eddie's reaction to being noticed by a human was fairly obvious, though, coming over all shy and hesitant.

It wasn't that he was afraid of being harmed physically- that was, quite frankly, nearly impossible. But he'd had enough screaming lynch mobs for about three lifetimes. He'd actually thrown himself into the sea on two separate occasions, just to get away from the noise, which only got worse when he tried to ignore them and go about his day.

[quillpleasant]

Well, Eddie is certainly quite different from the constructs Lia's met before- they were significantly more robotic, and in no way lifelike. Were it not for her exceptional sense of smell, she might not have even realized he wasn't human. Animals all have a very distinct odor to her.

"We do communicate through the ground in a way, more accurately it's through my hyphae network within the ground," explains Lia, "Although now that I think about it the other me is in a floating city right now so I wouldn't be able to reach her that way." She looks a little disappointed for a moment, but this particular Lia seems incapable of being down for long. "Well, there's always next time!"

The idea that stone could be more than lifeless chunks of the world that she can't access seems to interest Lia greatly. It's not something she's ever considered before. "So are you saying that stone is alive in some way? All this time I thought that life and decay were inherently linked, but perhaps I've been mistaken, which would be very exciting indeed. I love being proven wrong because then I get to learn more, which is the whole point of existence, at least in my opinion!"

She trails off as she notices the robed boy watching them. Something seems to be bothering him, but Lia couldn't possibly guess what. And the golem seems to be nervous too! Do they know each other? Are they enemies?

It would never occur to her that the three of them seem to make up a bizarre kind of rock paper scissors arrangement.

"Ooh, brochure! That seems helpful. Since you've already read it, did it say anything about magic items? This guy eats them, so he'll need to find some sooner or later." Lia is certainly no stranger to unusual dietary needs.

[Zefir]

The boy is as suprised as the mycoid about the reaction from the golem. If it would be humans the golem might have missed the small groupe of them on a table playing cards and other folks inhabit this place quiet well. For him a creature like the small golem is as normal as humans need air to breath.

Then the mycoid addresses him so he turns in his chair to face her. Not much to say about him but he seems to be not rude.
"Not directly to be true." He replies. "The closes things in that matter might be MERC because you might get such items as a reward or Mallside which seems to be some kind of giant bazzar if i got that correct. " Shopping center aren't a thing where he came from. "Might be the easiest place if you got some coin or other currency. It seems you can exchange your money here and some trader accept many kinds of money. "

[TeChameleon]

Eddie, was, in turn, puzzled by the human's reaction. For whatever reason, the vast majority of the humans he'd interacted with in his home dimension had reacted poorly to a life-like golem, to the point of trying (and utterly failing) to destroy him on a number of occasions. He'd even been thrown into a volcano once after a magus had caught him in a stasis spell. The heat hadn't bothered him much, and nobody seemed to have told that particular lynch mob that molten stone had pretty much the same density as regular stone, so he'd just landed on the surface of the lava and slogged out once they went away.

He gave a shy, almost invisible smile when Lia announced that the point of existence was to learn.

"I have to agree that learning seems to be the point of being around..." he said, his voice quieter than before. "But yes, stone is sort of alive. It grows from the molten heart of the world, it decays by eroding into sand and dust, even moves from place to place sometimes, via avalanches or volcanoes or just continental drift. Although I have to admit that most of what I know about stone is what kinds are the best for different sorts of golems and enchantments."

Eddie tilted his head as something that Lia had said a moment ago struck him. "Wait, how big are you? I mean, the underground part of you?"

To the thus-far nameless human, he said "I don't... don't have very much money. I only arrived recently, and I didn't have much local currency from back home, either."

[quillpleasant]

"Money, money money... it's just bits of useless metal. I still don't see why everyone values it so much," says Lia, shaking her head with a frown. "Although a lot of shopkeepers are willing to barter, so that opens up your options. I usually trade with people by growing helpful mushrooms for them, people like that. Maybe you could trade them stones? Can you make stone?" It seems unlikely that he can make stone.

She's also quite taken by what Eddie says about erosion. "So stone does decay... but not in a way I can control. I always thought that was my specialty, but turns out I don't even really understand it. That's so cool!" Lia beams. "The others are going to be so excited to hear about this, I can't wait to see their faces!"

Then she turns to the human and leans in to peer at him. "Hello. My name's Lia. What's your name?" Humans are terribly interesting in their own right. She understands mostly how they work on a physical level, but their brains are still a mystery to her.

Without taking her eyes off the human she answers Eddie's question. "Oh, my network is spread throughout most of the Nexus at this point, miles and miles. I'm still trying to grow into the rural areas, since I started off here. I've only found one other network in this world, so there's a lot of space for me to use."

[Zefir]

The boy does not have any intents to hurt the two of them, after all non of them did anything. Back were he was there are people you might count as very simular and with such a varity of people it's best to learn to accept any kind then judge them. Would he know about those thraumatizing events to the golem he would ask futher into it, just to be sure he didn't do anything to provoke the people.

"In that case you might need to work and earn money, unless you got something at you to sell." he replies like Lia mentions. "Money is just a resource to equalize every good you trade. A sword has more value then one bread, but none would sell a sword for a dozen breads since he wouldn't be able to eat them befor they decay. So we turn things into money which can be split shared and store the value of the eork and goods we sold."

For him that is a rather simple way. But a mycoid might not value things as it doesn't need more then it can produce himself?

"The names Sylas, nice to meet you, both." he says with a nod. Handshaking seems to be less of an option as the golem is shy and the mycoid is... well he doesn't know what grows on her hand.

As she speaks more about her network he does get an uncomfortable feeling, after all this might mean she is everywhere, which hits a bit on the point of privaty.
"Since you mention your other body is unreachable, does that mean she can exist on her own or would she need to reconnect from time to time?"

[TeChameleon]

"'m Eddie." he told Sylas in a near-whisper.

"And I can't make stones... life would prolly be easier if I could." he said to Lia. "A lot of what I can do, a regular big golem can do, and it can reach things on high shelves, too. I'm stronger than most, but that doesn't really matter. An average golem can lift as much as most anybody needs. It's why I usually end up adventuring instead of working." he told Lia.

"I should probably go visit MERC, I guess. Thank you for your help, both of you." he finished, and hopped off the stool he had been sitting on, landing on the floor with a far heavier thud than his size would suggest. He'd pause for a moment so the others could say their goodbyes or join him, but after that he would head out.

[quillpleasant]

Lia's eyes start to glaze over a little bit as Sylas launches into a dissertation on money. It's been explained to her before, and she just... doesn't get it. "I don't need swords. Or bread. Unless it's moldy, but then people just throw it away and either way I don't need stupid little disks to get it." The assumption that she doesn't need many things is correct- or at least the things she needs are things no one else wants.

But she perks up a little bit at the question about her other body. "Oh, we're all pretty independent, we can exist indefinitely without contact, but... if we were isolated for too long, we might start to go a little crazy. When we were just one body, she started acting really irrationally and ended up self destructing, and it's my theory that it's because she didn't have a hivemind to help sort things out." Having a single mind with no direct connection to others? How do people do it?

As Eddie hops down from the stool, Lia waves cheerfully at him. "Good luck! It was really nice meeting you, and I hope you find some good magic items to eat! Or quests to go on. Quests are good." Lia would accompany him, but MERC is a little more combat focused than she's comfortable with. Mycoids are notoriously soft and fragile.

[Zefir]

"That seems to be the point why you can't get it. People do need stuff they can't make on their own or get's thrown away by others." Sylas says. "I don't know much about you so it's hard to give you a proper example."

He listens to her eplanaition about the shared minds. For him it's hard to belive a hivemind works that way and people go mad without it, but he never experienced any. He just assumes that this goes in both ways, it's hard to go from on mind to a hive mind and the other way around.

Sylas then also get's up, like with Eddi he also seems to weight more then his apperance shows. The floor gives sound of protest.

"If it is okay for you I would join you." he says to Eddi. "I d require some coin, since I have to stay here for now." He does wave Lia goodbye since she decides to stay here.

[TeChameleon]

Eddie nods hesitantly to Sylas and also waves to Lia. Sylas didn't seem to be screaming yet, which was a positive, and had been nothing but helpful, so Eddie wouldn't reject his company.

With another quick glance around the room, Eddie pulled his hood more firmly around his face and left the tavern.

[Shadowcaller]

As Harley and Raheeda are heading back to trog's the yuan-ti had struck up a tone.
A wandering song as she calls it.
She's hardly the best singer but she at least seems to know the lyrics pretty well. Getting into the final refrain just as they enter the tavern.

"So happily hand in hand, la-la-la la-la-la
We’re going to the Phoenix’ land, la-la-la la-la-la
The faeryland that shines
of crystals and grapevines
As we’re going to the Phoenix’ land, la-la-la la-la-la"

As she reaches the end she claps her hands together and turns to Harley with a smile. "And just like that we're here! Told you it would feel faster with some singing." Then her attention turns to their surroundings. "Now we just need to find fate guy."

[quillpleasant]

Harley doesn't know the lyrics, but he happily walks in time to the song, joining in on the la-la-las. It's never a bad time for a little music! He half-smiles back at Raheeda as they arrive.

"Right you are! I used to sing all the time, back on the moon." The masked man brushes a little snow from his coat and looks around.

"Okay, you said he was staying here, right? We could ask the innkeeper to send a message up to his room. What was his name, again?" She had it written down, right?

[Shadowcaller]

"Really? What sort of songs do you know? Since I always try to pick up more of them." When you traveled as far and often as her you needed a lot of songs.
But then the subject changed, it was time to get serious. "And his name was... Pax, and I think he stayed here at least." She strokes her chin. "It's weird, he insisted that I should call him just that when I addressed them. That's not too weird I guess, it was just the way he put it. Like it was a secret code or something." Or a magic spell.

"Anyway, the innkeeper is called Zee and she's super-nice." Raheeda walks up to the bar and rings the little Z-bell in the hopes of summoning one.

[Rebonack]

"That IS pretty complicated. But maybe not anymore than most of the odd things that happen in the Nexus. I haven't seen anything like this before, but then again I'm not the most experienced celestial around," Zee admits.

But then!

A bell rings!

A Zee doesn't appear. She was there the whole time!

"Oh, howdy! Welcome back to Trog's! Did you want to try the yuan ti gyros this time around?" Zee asks Raheeda.

[quillpleasant]

"Oh, uh, lullabies mostly. Tell you all about it when we're done here." Right now, they unfortunately have a job to do.

"Okay, Pax it is. Frankly I don't really care about the significance, as long as it doesn't cause us any problems." Harley is already not relishing the thought of being around this guy at all- the less time spent thinking about him, the better.

And then Zee's there! Harley looks a little taken aback by the gyro question. Surely she doesn't mean...?

"Uh, we're looking for a guy who should be staying here. Name of Pax. Could you let him know we're here, or tell us what room he's in?"