World Tree MUSH

    The interior of the city gate is an enormous affair, with hidden barricades along the 'street'. Hangars housing strange-looking aerospace fighters line the top-most levels, while sally ports and staging areas for infantry and land vehicles are near the ground level. In-between are cargo containers stuffed with goods. Cranes and cargo-loading exoskeletons busy themselves moving things. As enormous as the space is, it feels as though there aren't enough people.
    Syd spreads his arms out to present the gateway, facing towards the visitors. "This is the entry bay for the city. We're putting together expeditions to map the countryside and establish some outposts." The sounds of industry can be heard echoing throughout the metal chamber. Syd scratches at his stubble. "You folks hungry? I could pull some strings to get us some decent food if you are."

    There's a trio of individuals that seem to have suddenly arrived at this particular location. Well, they kind of arrived a little ways off but they've since managed to join the collective here. Definitely part of the whole visitors vibe are these individuals. One of which looks like a giant chicken trying to read a map, another looks like a giant warrior of bearded glory, and then there's another one that just looks like a human teenager with a lot of M's on his clothes. What a collection.
    "Mighty One. We really should be going. We have a tight schedule to keep." That giant chicken seems to be trying to impress some urgency upon the human teen.
    "Shhhh, Virg! That man up there is talking about food. /Free/ food! We should hear him out!" The human teenager is all about getting some free food up in here. "Right, Norman?"
    The Warrior Beard says nothing. He just glares around at everyone to make sure nothing nefarious is afoot.
    "See? Norman's hungry too!" The Mighty One raises his hand to try and get Syd's attention. "Pull those strings, my man! We're starving major over here!"

Daisy looks around at the activity... hmm. Yeah, space this size could fit twice this much activity without feeling any busier. "Plenty of room to grow here, Syd." She says. "And I wouldn't say no!" She grins, looking over at Max and crew. Beardy's the muscle and the chicken guy is the crew boss. "WHat he said, I'm proper Hank Marvin." She agrees happily. She looks up at Beardy and waves, bouncing *right* up to him and offering him her hand, along with a number-14 Bright Sunshine Grin (that should, but sadly doesn't, come with a Pinkie Pie squeak). "Hi! I'm Daisy!" She announces, in the tones of a Mario princess, an ear carefully scanning for the sound of annoyed twitching from the vague direction of Marceline

    Luke has learned his lesson and this time is not wandering around with the small ghost pokemon, he much rather not freak out anyone, or make then uncomfortable!. He seems to enjoy admiring the Bay and the machinery, it's certainly cool. 
    Of course, his attention shifts the moment Syd offers some free food and looks at his pokeball belt, "I'd like that, I mean I can certainly pay for some extra to share with my pokemon... but only if that's ok, I know animals might not be allowed in some places.". 
    Daisy draws his attention to Max and entourage and he smiles, another kid!. He waves happily in the direction of the trio and moves closer, simply wanting to meet them.

    Marceline may be cool and moody but she's not in a terribly bad humor or anything tonight! Orrrrr whatever it is, here. The mention of food does make the hovering vampire lass a little twitchy, though and she scratches behind one pointed ear. "Actually, uh. If you got anything red? That'd be sweet; gotta have enough to make it home or I might snap and kill all those weird peeps at their party."

    She's clearly trying not to smirk, as if she's perfectly happy with everyone thinking she's some kind of volatile menace. Then she eyeballs the trio. Okay, now she smirks. Loud, boistrous kid, a put upon manager type and a gruff brute? Oh dang. She'll be hoping they overheard at least some of what she'd said a moment ago.

    Daisy, of course, gets a look. She's still not sure how she feels about the hyper enthused varmint-gal but annoyed probably isn't within her emotional scope at the moment. Besides, she's absolutely going to levitate just a biiiiit higher so she can look down on even the tallest of this slowly growing entourage. Even LMuke and his weirdly tame critters.

    Syd uhs when Luke mentions paying. "We've rationed our supplies for now, so... I guess if you got a source for fresh food we can trade for, that'd be repayment enough." He claps his hands together, smiling. "Right then, if you'll follow me, we'll pay a visit to the culinary labs, where we're working on new food from er... the local plants and animals of the new world out there. Certainly beats recycled nutrient paste and I'm sure the head cook will love some outside opinions."
    Syd leads the way to some kind of freight elevator, which takes the group up and out of the entry bay. Glimpses can be seen of different levels and areas through the grate, most of which are decidedly industrial and mechanical in look. The lift stops at what, for most observers, looks like a subway station. A thick reinforced rail is hung from the ceiling, leading deeper into the city of Ot. Into the inky depths one can see the orange glow of the city's internal lights.
    Syd checks the schedule posted on the wall. "Sorry, it'll be a minute or two before the tram arrives." He grins, rubbing his hands. "While we wait, how about you all tell me a little bit about where you're from. I'm sure you have very interesting homeworlds."

    "... That doesn't sound like pizza. I think I've made a terrible mistake." Max almost immediately attempts to turn around to the giant chicken. "Virg, about that sched--!"
    "Ah ah, Mighty One. We have made a commitment. We shall see it through." Virgil might just want Max to learn a lesson about jumping the gun and not staying on schedule. He even tucks his map away into those giant robes of his.
    Max frowns and spots Luke out of his peripheral and offers him a nod and a wave. "If this food is still moving when they give it to us, I'm running away at top speed. You?" Max just making conversation right now while silently pouting about the lack of pizza.
    As far as Norman goes, his attention is drawn to Daisy. He almost glares down at her and her boisterous nature. "Norman." The tone is more stating-of-fact than rude before his attention returns to scouting the rest of the crowd while following behind Virgil and Max.
    Marceline gets an extra three seconds of Norman Stare. Yup, he heard it. Hm.
    "Eh! I don't know about interesting. I'm from Earth! It's pretty lame, not as exciting as my life's been since I met these two..." Max thumbs at Norman and Virgil. "But we do have cable! So that's pretty cool." Earth is so boring even Max can't make it sound cool.

    Luke ponders a bit, "Well, I am sure I can get some food back from home, like ingredients or some seeds and plants?" he asks, "All I have on me right now are some sandwich ingredients, some pastries and bottled water." he says, considering how to trade. Max's friendly interaction gets a chuckle, "If my food tries to take a bite out of me, I'll leave my pokemon to take care of it." he says, smiling and offering one hand to the kid. "I'm Luke gray, nice to meet you." He then makes a similar introduction to the other two in the group, that Norman seems rather serious!.
    The question about describing his home world seems to give him pause, considering the best way to describe it. "Well, my world is apparently close to a lot of others I have seen, technology wise, but... seems cleaner?, more plants, less cars... not so much polution..." he begins, before adding, "it is also populated by multiple species of creatures that we all call pokemon. They are all pretty cool, I am a pokemon trainer and got a few with me." 
    He reaches for his pokemon belt and considers for a moment... what to show. He finally settles for a simple one that likely won't freak others, or try to run away to steal coins. "Like my friend here.". There is a 'click' from his belt, and a tall (7 feet) figure emerges in a flash of red light, it is bipedal, and looks strikingly like a person wearing a theme park mascot costume. Pink, black and white, somewhat bear like, with a long ringed tail. "This is Bewear.". The large figure looks around slowly and pauses to match Norman's gaze for a moment, giving a nod, seems this pokemon gets the idea of being serious and alert. "It can be pretty cool, if you are careful."

Daisy blinks up at the rail in the ceiling "..a suspened monorail? Nice!" She giggles. "Harder to surf than normal trains, but you can hang under them instead"
She blinks at Syd's question. "Um. My world... wasn't carved from raw chaos by anyone, as far as I know. It's a ball world that acreted naturally from stardust simply under the force of gravity... it was a fairly techno-corporate society until about a hundred and fifty years before I was born when magic rather violently came to, or back to, the world. It's called the Break... society sorta collapsed but we're recovering... now it's a techno-magical-coprorate world. I'm from a city called London... and apparently there are a lot of variants of my world scattered across the tree. Cause I'm from Earth too but I don't think it's the same Earth as he is."
She beams up at Norman, somehow giving him an even brighter smile. "Nice to meet you Norman!" She grins.

    Marceline simply returns Norman's look, lips pulling back to show all of her way pointy teeth with a pleasant smile. "Jeez dude, thought I was the only one here with vibes like that."

    To Syd, she simply reclines, laying back on nothing but air and crossing her legs. "Hmf. Well, I'm from Ooo. The name's not on me. That sort of happened..." She rolls a hand in the air as she thinks back. "Hnh, don't remember. Anyway, Ooo's what happens when the world's had enough of that whole living thing and goes to war against itself full-scale style. Reckon the subsequent Something Big finished the job after awhile. I dunno. Anyway!"

    She rolls over, eyeing Luke and his massive pink bear-thing. "Mmmyeah, thiiiink I'm gonna hustle off before I decide to try eating that. Maybe I'll smell you peeps later!" She laughs, begins moving back in the direction we'd come from and begins to fade from view.

    

    Syd scratches his stubble. "Multiple versions of Earth? Interesting. Here I thought by all accounts the Spiral was vast. The fair folk camped outside talk as though there's worlds without number hiding just beyond the chaos they came from. I'll have to visit some once we've secured a sun."
    The tram arrives as Syd bids farewell to Marceline, pulling a very red apple from his pocket and handing it to her to 'eat' as a snack later if she wishes. Syd explains all the warning glyphs on the tram. They amount to: Keep your limbs inside the tram while it is in motion, don't jump out the windows, don't touch the rail unless you want to be electrocuted, don't get caught by the doors when they're closing. He then punches in a destination, overriding the usual schedule and calling a new tram to sit at the station. The pill-shaped tram then lurches into motion, picking up speed as a subtle shimmering flickers on within the windows. The group is now traveling at high speed above the city, with loud clacks signaling the switching to a different track. 
    Syd explains as the huge industrial complexes go by below, enveloped by more basic structures such as housing and civic buildings. The buildings and structures reach upwards, actually moving slowly around a central column complex. 
    "This is the Patropolis of Ot, also called the Starstriding Engine. He volunteered to be converted into a voidship. Autochthonia was attacked as we were getting ready, so we're actually only at around half our crew complement. Roughly fifty thousand out of the planned hundred thousand. That's one of the six engines there. Over there near the center is where the World Weaver is. It burnt out when that Ishiika facsimile attacked. We're not going to repair it because it's more valuable as resources to be repurposed elsewhere."
    Eventually the tram traverse a long slow curve and slows to a halt at another station, people scattered on the platform waiting. A chime sounds as the doors open.
    The reactions of the people are mixed. Some quietly flee the offworlders for their strange appearance, others are indifferent, and a curious few approach, marveling at the (relative) aliens.

    Max is super fascinated by what information Luke is dropping into his lap right now. "Yeah, uh, I'm Max and I'm going to need to be a Pokemon Trainer too. Like yesterday." Max is looking at Bewear right now because how can you miss him?! "Virgil! Find this place! I need to go there immediately!" Because of course a child like Max would be into Pokemon so quickly.
    Virgil just sighs and shakes his head. This is what he has to deal with.
    Norman watches Marceline until she fades from view and when he returns his gaze to the rest of the group, well, Daisy is still right there. His stoic visage hasn't changed. "Likewise." Even though it doesn't sound like it. At least his matter-of-factness is polite? Norman has manners!
    When Syd starts explaining a bit more about how things work around here, Virgil seems to be paying the most attention because he loves learning about new worlds, obviously. Norman is attempting to pull Bewear into a 'flex off' by doing a bit of muscle posing. And Max? Well, of course, he's busy being focused on Luke right now. "So about these Pokemon. How many are there and can I have them all?"

Daisy  Daisy nods as she listens to Syd "Yeah out on the Tree, that's... like..." She scratches the back of her head. "The tree is weird. But there are worlds of all kinds out there on the other end of the Vines." She listens "Is the Patropolis still.. awake? Sapient?" She asks curiously.
SHe beams up at Norman again, apparently quite enjoying testing the bodyguard' stoicism. Still, an ear follows the conversation Ma and Luke are having. Gotta love having active ears like that.

    Luke is glad his pokemon didn't upset anyone, except perhaps Marceline?... oh wait, it is just being hungry. The boy's focus goes from the tram, and back to Max and his group, unable to help a little chuckle, he enjoyed the enthusiasm!. "We can go visit later, if you'd like." he says, offering a friendly nod. "There are many, many types, you might need to take a class or two about handling pokemon but with enough effort I am sure you can become a great trainer and get in the league." he says proudly. He hopes poor Virgil won't be annoyed by the insistent requests to find his world. 
    Bewear now focuses on Norman, tilting its head a little at the display, before raising those fluffy, very fluffy limbs and trying to take a pose, one issue it has, far too fluffy to normally see the muscles! so it looks mostly goofy. Luke notices the exchange, seems harmless enough, unless Norman tries to do arm wrestling or something... then he might need to intervene.