World Tree MUSH

It's not too long after Iron Lotus- the strangely heavy but rather short girl- was rescued from a mysterious schemer and his goblin horde. Having said their goodbyes to some of them, Lotus has nevertheless been unwilling to simply walk away by herself, and seemed to want to loiter near at least one of her rescuers.

    That rescuer turned out to be Gonta! So the two of them are together and she is sort of wondering what to do as evening begins to draw in on this particular worldlet.

Gonta tilts his head as he peers down at Iron Lotus. "Are you feeling any better," he wonders curiously, "You seemed a little...confused earlier. Gonta wasn't sure what to do, but you've been staying around Gonta, so maybe Gonta can do something to help?"

Iron Lotus has been rather guarded and quiet since all of this happened. She's not been scared enough to seem traumatised, thankfully, but she's looking around at everything as if utterly mystified by just about anything you might care to mention. When Gonta speaks up, she pays attention to it immediately.

    "I'm... unharmed," she says at first, slowly, as if not convinced about it herself. Then, second: "Where am I?"

"Ahh, Gonta's still trying to understand that himself," the large guy states, "It's some kind of tree that's connecting different worlds. Gonta's been helping his school study it to see what it is... He's discovered all sorts of cool things!"

The starmetal circuitry wired through Lotus' brain might just blow a fuse. "A... tree?"

    "...I don't know what a tree is," is the first strange thing she says. She holds out her hand and looks at it curiously for a second, then works her way down the rest of her body in order. "But... you say... worlds? More than one world?"

Gonta goes wide eyed at that. "You don't know about trees," Gonta wonders, "Do you know about any other kinds of plants?" Gonta nods though. "Gonta's world is here, and lots of worlds that are nothing like Gonta's world. Gonta's met lots of Pokemon and other things in his exploring. Gonta needs to show you trees, Gonta grew up surrounded by LOTS of trees."

"...hang on a moment," Lotus says, trying to find something to sit down on. After successfully finding a rock, she rests briefly.

    "...the last thing I remember was ... trying to use our... gate to go to the other world. Huh, you know, it's funny, I should feel excited but I don't feel much of anything at all. And then... something happened... and this is now a liminal zone between several worlds..."

    She stops and puts her hands on her temples, which is hard considering the plate taking up most of her forehead.

    "Alright, this is too much to think about all right away. Show me a tree instead."

The large boy smiles and happily shows Lotus to the nearest tree he could remember the placement of. "This is a tree, it's really important. It helps make air, and sometimes it houses animals, and sometimes it makes food!" He adjusts his glasses a little before peering to Lotus in curiousity again. "Umm, but...why were you trying to get to another world?"

"That's... fascinating," Lotus replies, genuinely taken aback by the tree once they find it. She spends a minute or so moving around it, looking at it, looking for animals and so on.

    Gonta asks her about what she mentioned, and she suddenly realizes perhaps she shouldn't have said it. Think fast, Lotus!

    "Uh. We were part of an... exploration. We were going back to another world we left a very long time ago, long before even I was created."

Gonta blinks at that and nods. "Oooh, interesting. Gonta didn't know anyone had ever successfully changed worlds. ...that seems a lot easier here though..." He'd look at her curiously again, frowning slightly. "Are you sure there's nothing Gonta can do to help you?"

    Lotus thinks a moment and smiles. "No, no! On the contrary, there's lots you can do for me. After all, I still need to find some civilization to anchor myself in before I do anything like thinking about what to do next... or I could just walk along and see what comes to me first."

    "Would you like to be my friend?" she asks Gonta, with complete sincerity. "I feel as if I may need to make some new ones in this strange place."

Gonta smiles widely and nods. "Thank you for being Gonta's friend," he replies, "...finding civilization though...what kind of place do you like? Gonta's seen some different kinds of places. ...if Gonta was choosing and couldn't be in the wild, he thinks he likes the beach a lot as a second choice."

"I don't know what a beach is either!" she says with a guileless smile, and laughs a little as she realizes, with no small degree of fear, just how out of her depth here she really is. "I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I guess I have no choice but to put myself in your hands."

    "Hey, my name is Iron Lotus, by the way. What's yours?"

"Gonta is Gonta Gokuhara, he is a student at Hope's Peak Academy and he is called the Ultimate Entomologist," the large boy says with a bow, "It is good to meet you Miss Lotus. Hmm, Gonta had never been to a beach before he came here either! The sand feels nice on Gonta's feet and the water's cool and pretty, and it sounds nice too."

"You study insects," Lotus fills in after a brief look in her memory banks. Yes, that's correct! She knows about what insects are, at least. Well, mostly for eating. Mm, delicious game cockroaches. "It sounds wonderful! Alright, Gonta, let's go and find a beach!"