World Tree MUSH

    In the busy, if gradually aging, city of Tuqquaggo is the big green square known as Governor's Park, dotted with the towering, slightly magical wendelwoods planted during the bygone Imperial era of the nation. Every year in the autumn, after what would have traditionally been harvest season (before steam-hothouses and coal-burning mechanical automatons were invented), the Tuqquaggoths host a big Faire. In the last few years, this Faire has been revitalized from its fading Harvest roots to instead represent the bygone Imperial era of olde timey history, 300 years before the present. 
    All sorts of vendors and craftsmen and performers flock from around the country, indeed, from around the world, to gather at the single largest Naissance-era celebration each year. Booth counts reach nearly a hundred, with longtime anchor tenants like the 1st Armored Cavalry re-enactors and the East Coast Crystal Engineers putting up the central attractions. 
    Today is the second day of the ten-day Faire, usually the first day that all booths are present and the ornithopter-lag has worn off. Let's see what's in store for visitors and vendors alike!

    A booth is decorated in curtains of a fine silken black, decorated with little onyx stones. In it, a figure sits with dark purple robes, a hood pulled over her head and her black hair hanging down over her pale face. Only her nose and lips are visible. She has a pair of black gloves on, which play with a deck of cards, while a crystal ball shines nearby from the ambient light and the contrast it has with the backdrop of dark cloth. There's no sign put up for it, and no imagery denoting who this belongs to. Just, apparently, a fortune teller's booth.

    This is Dolce. She waits for her first curious souls while practicing her card shuffle. She's not very good with card tricks, so she's taking it slowly! She keeps giggling to herself whenever she fumbles the cards, betraying her playful personality.

    A tree nearby looks somewhat sick. Its leaves are discolored, and there are patches of rotten bark. And there's a handprint on the side of it in that same treerot color.

    Technically speaking, violent sports at the Naissance Faire needed to have protection and padding applied to them, ostensibly because the Tuqquaggo Imperial Naissance Organization did not want the danger ouf legal liability for injuries. More practically speaking, crippling and injuring your customers is a great way to not get more customers. That's why Demon Queen had spent the last few weeks putting together a whole bunch of foam-padded weapons, mostly out of materials stolen from blacksmithies and similar shops, along with a couple of cheap wooden bows and arrows. 
    These set set up in several barrels - plastic ones, painted brown to look kind of like wood - behind her booth. Next to the booth is a cordoned-off area, with a little cardboard sign declaring it to be the 'Arena'. And the big sign over the booth? "Hero Challenge: Team Up Against Demon Invaders!"
    Beyond that prep, the actual decorations and livery was really spartan. There aren't even ribbons or sashes or anything to make the booth not look like cheap particleboard hammered together in a garage. The only thing breaking the monotony is the line of four hulking, horned-forehead figures standing behind the booth, looking around and moving as if they're alive, and each one incongruously wearing nametags.

    Sacrificing minions, is there anything it /can't/ solve?

    Still being early in the morning, before the first big wave of punters show up, Demon Queen looks at her booth setup one more time, and then eyes her neighbor across the "path". They're some kind of... card trick thing. More importantly, their costome is WAY better than what the Demon Queen has on! She didn't even think about what to wear to fit the theme - just brought her usual sweater and skirt and shawl. WAY too modern of a look, really. 
    Daria ambles across the dewy grass separating the two booths and waves, "Heyyy~! Good morning! Did you, like, just set up today?"

    Dolce continues practicing her card tricks without looking up from what she's doing. Her face remains shadowed under her hood. She seems pretty young, and small, and frail. Her mysterious smile remains still and placid even as her voice comes out without a source. Her mouth doesn't move, and instead the sound just sort of happens around DQ by magic. It's distorted and strange, and doesn't feel quite 'right.'

    "Yesterday night. It took a while to get the curtains into place, they're very heavy."

    She reaches with a hand to brush her knuckles over one of the curtains. No sound comes out of it, though. In fact, even her card shuffling is silent, once she picks it up again. It looks like a plain ole tarot deck, though, when she practices some readings. Could've bought it at any magic shop.

    "That's so cool!" Daria reaches towards the curtains and pokes at it with a fingertip, totally incognizant of the auditory wrongness of everything that's been happening with the shuffling and the touching. "Wish I'd remembered to do, like, decs and stuff. So what's your name? I'm Daria, by the way." 
    Back at Daria's booth, the line of demons suddenly pipe up together, "All bow before Her Demonic Maje-"
    "SHUT UP!" 
    Daria turns back to Dolce, "S'ry bout that. It's a... like... thing they do."

    Dolce giggles, actually emoting it this time, though the sound still does the weird reverb. A demure hand placed to her mouth, she says, "So you're royalty." And then she lays her cards out in front of her. She flips them one at a time, giving some time for Daria to stew over the observation. "My name is Dolce. I'm a magician. Well... Close enough." Another giggle. "Why is royalty set up at a faire like this? Shouldn't you be out conquering the weak, and defiling sacred ground?"

    "Seems pretty lame to me."

    Daria's eyes roll back and left, "Ugggghhhh I KNOW, right? Like, it's not like I'm INTO going to Faires and stuff. I'm not even from around here. And it's not, like, -about- the royalty thing." She sidles up to the booth and looks totally blankly down at the cards, obviously failing to draw any conclusions whatsoever. She picks one up and holds it up, "So, this is, like... a six? Of... pencils?"
    Now that she's close, though, she whispers, "Like, between us girls? I'm actually divinity. So like, there's this internship, right? And it's -unpaid-. So I've gotta, like, do gigs, you know? Make some spending money?"

    Dolce lifts her head, and peers past the edge of her hood. Her slate-colored eyes shine behind a pair of round glasses, framed by her bangs. She looks Daria in the eyes and says, "It's the Six of Rods." She then says, "Pentacle. Sword. Cup." She demonstrates each by tapping the cards. "Tarot reading is a form of low magic, used to predict the future. Never the tarot reader's future, just the future of other people. But... I'm not any good at it." She smiles a bit wider at that.

    "Why not steal the money?" She spreads her hands out in front of her. "I do this because it's fun. You don't seem like you're having fun trying to make a little money. So why don't you just take the fastest route and take it from someone else?"

    Daria slumps, resting her chin on her own shoulder while staring down at all the cups and rods and... uh... swords and... other thing she that she forgot already. "Because... stealing it is evil. And evil always loses, in the end. If I'm doing evil things, then I'm on the job, and if I'm on the job, I -have- to get thwarted by a hero at some point, or that'll be a demerit on my performance review. So... no actual moneymaking with evil, you see? Ugh... internships sucks."

    Dolce's face goes from smiling to confused, and perhaps a little disgusted. Then it softens and her eyes close. And her mysterious magic fades away and she speaks with a bit more of a real tone, and pulls back her hood for now. "That's why some places make unpaid internship illegal. It sounds like you're being taken advantage of." She reaches up to tie her hair back into its ponytail, and draws her gold necklace out to let it hang down. She still looks like a mysterious mage of some kind.

    "I have better bosses. Do you want to work for us instead?"

    A strangely indeterminate amount of time later...
                    the Faire is in full swing.

    It's nearing noon and the overcast skies at least spares the Fairegoers the troubles of the sun beating down on their variously colorful and funny-shaped hats, many of which had been purchased at the shops around here and most of which were made of some kind of thin cloth or perhaps cardstock. Very few kids had turned up to Demon Queen's booth - the demons are apparently pretty realistic and scary. Instead, there's a line of teenagers trying to impress each other and show off, wailing away at the demons who are enthusiastically selling the act. 
    Why wouldn't they be? This is service directly in the presence of their goddess! What greater honor can there be than to dramatically fall over and wail when whalloped by a foam sword?

A party. A big street party. And one that seems to involve a fair amount of, well...huh. people whacking on each other with foam swords. Ace smirks a little bit, heading over. She's not much older than the teenagers currently wailing on the demons, but there's something akin to professional assessment in her look.

    There's a demon, covered in purplish bruises and wearing a huge, happy grin, standing at the end of the line and holding up a cardstock sign declaring that "Line Starts Here". He winces now and then when a particularly loud wallop sounds from behind him but, hey, his turn's done! As Ace approaches, he sees two demons run off towards the direction of the food courts, to much pointing and foot-stomping by Demon Queen who's still at the front of the booth. There's almost a dozen demons here now, most of them bruised - it seems that the Forces of Hell have needed reinforcements to put up with the... popularity of the attraction

Ace is watching for now. She doesn't seem immediately inclined to join in on the demon bashing, but there's a bit of amusement in the hazel eyes. This is...interesting.

    The line moves forward again, four at a time, because that's the limit to the 'party size'. Two boys drag their reluctant but laughing dates into the arena, where a hulking demon with a giant, foam-studded foam bat is roaring and growling and being extremely scary-looking, never mind his black (purple?) eye. The wings open up and flap menacingly as he glowers down at the 'adventurers' - and he promptly takes a fist-sized foam arrowhead in the other eye for his performance. 
    The battle starts, the previous party excitedly run from the exit straight to the back of the line, and the "Line Starts Here" demon steps forward a few steps again.

Ace eyes the line, then shakes her head a little bit. She moves over to a nearby stall which is selling something-on-a-stick.

    Ace had been in line for about 20 seconds when a shadow falls across him from behind. An evil presence is behind him! Truly a fearsome force of darkness is looming over him even now!

A fair!, a small kid and a ghost panda wander around, this seems a cheery, friendly place to relax!. He makes his way to the snack both... or rather, chases a hungry pandalike little creature to get popular 'mystery-dogs', a weird... 'corndog?' twisted to the shape of a question mark, there is absolutely no description on the actual ingredients!. While the boy, and the hungry panda nibble at the curiously shaped... food might be a stretch. They stumble with the line and the demon, moving closer.

Ace buys...what she is pretty sure is some kind of chicken on a stick. Or chicken analog. She glances around., Spotting Luke, she offers boy and panda a grin. Hrm. Now, she's heading for the line. Is it fair? probably not...

    The two demons who had gotten in line behind Ace shuffle forward to also get chicken on sticks, but also happen to buy about half of what was on sale at the moment - apparently it's lunchtime, and the whole crew had been promised REAL chicken(analogue). There's also a salad in a small container, probably for the Demon Queen herself. It's likely some sort of ... evil salad. With croutons and maybe cheese. 
    The line moves forward, shoes and boots and a few bare feet treading cornmeal and mystery meat bits into the ground, to the protest of hungry, angry pigeons.

    The boy devours part of the food, adn hands the rest to the critter on his shoulder, waving a few times to a familiar face, deciding to join the line, only stopping as he spots the small group of demons, those seem familiar... At least he doesn't inmediatly lash out at them, even if he seems a bit uncertain, joining Ace, "Do you know what's that about?" he asks, while the small panda inches towards the other person, curious little critter.

"The demons are letting people spar with them for money, it seems," Ace muses. Of course, given her world, she thinks they're just aliens. "It's all training weapons."

    A single party of one walks in, with the other two members of her party apparently cheering from the sidelines instead of actually participating. This challenger seems really well-equipped, with actual chainmail shirt on and a feather-plumed helmet. The demon that she faces is a different one from earlier - that other one had headed off to get an ice pack on his eye - and he has a two-ended staff twice as tall as she is, with big thick foam ends. 
    The Demon Queen looks at the demon, winks, and nods slightly. The demon grins and roars to the ski, waving his staff like he's going all "EVIL FOR THE EVIL GODDESS, MEANNESS FOR THE MAN THRONE" or something.

    Luke blinks a few times, glancing back at the demons with the snacks, "I... see." he says, before figuring, maybe he misunderstood the deal with these particular creatures!. He waves to the ones closest to him, before focusing on Ace, "So, how have you been?." he says with a grin, "On my end, not much seemed to happen, which honestly can be good, beyond an... encounter with some demons similar to these ones, but, I figure it must be some coincidence." he says. The ghost panda meanwhile, seems to jump from Luke's shoulder to 'hover' near Ace, looking at her curiously. "That's quite an idea, wonder how much it costs." he adds, considering the 'spar', not that he had much gear on in any case.

"They seem harmless enough, and lots of races look alike." She grins at the panda and makes scritching motions at it. "And...not sure. This isn't my world either," Ace muses. So, the money only means so much anyway. Currency is *very* relative when you travel as much as she has.

    The demon charges forward WAY faster than the last one had and smacks the cocky, armored girl right in the probably-padded chest, sending her over onto her side almost out of the arena. Her companions all wince in sympathy, but continue cheering her on. 
    "Get up and kick its ass!" 
    "I know you ain't hurt! You've got loads of padding on your chest!" 
    "Go for the legs! Cut its knees off!" 

    Demon Queen is leaning backwards against her booth, watching the spectacle like everyone else is, and she gives the big demon a slight shake of her head. He thumbs his chest and... continues roaring without actually taking another swing at the girl.

Luke Gray nods a few times to Ace, smiling a bit, "True, I just tend to just carry currency from my world, and some things for trading." he says, "But I figure at least looking how this works would be fun." he says, chuckling as the panda moves to meet the scritching motions, "Pangshi seems to like you." he says, "Then again he likes anyone wiling to scritch him." he chuckles. "I never actually... fought myself, usually had my pokemon do the battling, except a couple ocassions."

Ace laughs a bit and, yes, scritches the ghost panda. "I suppose that's how things work on your world. I've fought. I mean, sometimes you kinda have to."

    The boy looks curiously at Ace, "Really?" he says, "I mean... guess that seems not that rare, outside of where I came from." he admits, chuckling a bit, "Still, I am surprised to see how many people seem to have some kind of weird power or is so good at fighting." he says, smiling a bit at the interaction, the panda somehow pushing into the petting despite not touching the ground. "In my world most fights are done wiht pokemon, I am a professional trainer... at least, I tend to maek money that way."

"I think, Pokemon battles aside, your world seems remarkably peaceful." Ace laughs a bit at the mention of special powers. "Nah. I just know how to whack things with a bat when I need to."

    What appears to be an entire classroom's worth of middle schoolers streams by, chattering and being firmly guided by their chaperones. The group takes up the whole width of the passageway and tries to squeeze past Luke and Ace in a rather pushy way, because middleschoolers aren't famous for politeness and in any case they're HUNGRY and it's LUNCHTIME and the food court is OVER THERE. A harried dad who was voluntold by his wife into this apologizes curtly to Ace on the way past, but suddenly-!

    "Oh that's cute!" Six girls are trying to get a hold of the ghost panda and pet it. Chaos!

Ace acks a bit, and tries to shield the panda. Well, unless the panda *wants* to be mobbed by schoolkids...she's trying to read it's body language. Does it need a rescue?

Luke Gray smiles, "I mean... not so sure about htat, there are certainly groups of people trying to cause trouble, but... compared to what I heard otherwise, I figure that might be true, at least, there aren't as many guns back home." he says. Any further discussion about the philosophy of hte pokemon world is derrailed by girls!.

    The small ghost panda squeaks, startled by the group of girls charging at him, squirming and wriggling for a few moments, until it seems to realize there is no harm beind done, tiny tail wagging as it starts to float near the children, making happy noises nad moving between the small group. "Be careful Pangshi." warns Luke.

Ace shakes her head a bit. "Hopefully they won't try to kidnap your friend." Because, they might. At that age...

    Pangshi disappears from sight because it gets half a dozen children cooing over it and petting it and hugging it and fortunately not calling it George. ONE of them has the presence of mind to turn to Luke and ask, "What's his name? It's a him, right?"

    Luke blinks as Ace brings that up, "Please be careful with Pangshi!" he warns tehm, the small panda squeaking as it finds itself being squeezed and held. The boy grins when asked, "He is called Pangshi." he repeats. While Luke talks, the little panda lets out another chirp, seeming still quite content, at this rate, they might just carry it around for a bit before it realized it was being panda-napped.

"I suppose we should ready a rescue," Ace says, wryly. "Before he gets,...well...panda-napped." He, not it. She'll have to remember that.