World Tree MUSH

    So... This 'World Tree'. It's nothing like Ysuran's ever seen. So many different worlds, the portals between them ever-changing and almost random. It seems so bizarre, like something that some god of chaos would create to tamper with the mind.

    But this world that Ysuran's found himself it... it's not too bad. It's a world that we on the other side of the fourth wall would call 'modern, with a steampunk twist'. So all the cars look like heavy, forced-sleek-look devices that are part automobile, part steam locomotive. Tall skyscrapers puff out white and gray smoke into the air from a plethora of copper pipes, and gears turn and click on most visible examples of technology.

    And it doesn't completely confuse the hell out of Ysuran!

    Currently he's in an inn/tavern, resting from -- of all things -- having assisted the innkeeper with giant spiders in his cellar. No rats at least -- the spiders ate them all. He's also resting with a plate of food and a cup of something to drink, too... part of the reward of squishing the spiders!

    He sits near a wall -- not because he's afraid someone's going to come up behind him, but because he needs a place to lean his quarterstaff while he eats, and the wall seems like a good place. It's also worthy to note that the pale, black-haired, pointed-eared guy looks very nondescript if one has ever seen a moon elf. The nondescript moon elf is also radiating darkness to magical senses like the sun radiates light and heat. So some people are going to miss him entirely. Others? Not so much...

     It isn't long before Ysuran is accosted by a small, scrawny, very red and black jackal boy in a shirt that's large enough to almost reach his knees. This jackal, too, radiates darkness, though he is presently "laying" on his belly in mid-air, resting his cheeks on his hands and grinning at the moon elf.

"Heya! Whatcha doing?" he asks, tail slowly wagging behind him from under his shirt. It's a good thing he's got so much fluffy fuzzy fur, considering he doesn't seem to bother with pants. "I'm Damian. What's your name? You're an elf, right? You do magic? What's the staff for? Do you beat stuff up with it, or does it shoot fireballs or something?"

Oh dear, he's the worst kind of evil. An inquisitive kid.

    Ysuran is startled to suddenly find a furry person reclining in the air next to him. Fortunately he's not jumpy enough to instantly go on the offensive. Though whent he rush of questions comes out, he blinks a little. Hurricane Damian!

    "Oh, er... please slow down a bit," Ysuran requests, though he gives a quiet, amused chuckle. His voice is a little high, a little raspy, and a little nasally. It's the typical 'evil wizard' voice, ALMOST. There's a lightness to it despite all that that makes it lack the malice.

    He pauses a moment, to get his bearings. "To answer those questions -- my name is Ysuran, yes, yes, and the staff is for hitting things because sometimes magic doesn't work."

     Ysuran's answers get a few nods from Damian as he listens intently, slowly rolling until he's upside down, moving his hands to rest on his belly. "Cool! This place seems like it's got a lot of magic, so I guess it makes sense that sometimes magic wouldn't work. Probably got cool magic forcefields or something, heheh." he chuckles, showing off those sharp little teeth of his.

"Anyway, guess I better tell you about myself too!" he continues a moment later, waving a finger in the air to conjure a mug of root beer with a puff of smoke, which he sips upside down. Magic. "I'm from a place called Safe Haven. Lots of magical people there too, not really any elves though. Mostly furry things like me. Obviously I can do magic, buuuuut I don't really like getting into fights if I can help it. Too much hassle, you know? Let the meatheads take care of that stuff."

    Ysuran watches curiously as Damian pulls off this gravity-defying bit of magical chicanery. He tilts his head, giving a curious look. Not so much a 'HOW HE DO DAT' look, but more a thoughtful sort of curious look, as if he's going over possibilities in his head.

    He almost misses Damian's explanation, but registers that there's speaking before too much of the explanation has passed. But when it's his 'turn', he says quietly, "I... unfortunately cannot offer the same information about myself. I've lost my memory, and lack all memory of anything but my name. And only that because it was written in my tome."

    Yeah, he's got one of those big heavy massive books that the wizards carry around and are thus proof that wizards aren't necessarily WEAK, so much as they are merely bad at applying the strength to anything that isn't 'lifting books'.

     Damian takes note of the book, nodding at the amnesia thing. "Aaah, yeah, amnesia. That'll do it. Gotta be real careful with that, you know. Might run into some old enemies you didn't know you had, or date someone who later turns out to be your sister. Or brother. I don't judge." he says with a wink, rolling right-side up again and "sitting" with his legs crossed and hands on his knees.

"So. Tome. Your name's in it, that's cool. Maybe you checked it out from a library, imagine the kind of fine that'd end up with. But more importantly, anything else in there? Spells I bet." he continues at his rapid fire pace, tail just wagging away.

    Ysuran gives... a look. It's a LOOK. You know the look. 'Seriously'? This is at the whole 'dating' thing. "THAT is hardly an issue," he dismisses. "Though yes, I expect that I've made some enemies in my life. But meeting them will be a clue to my lost memories." So there's a silver lining to that cloud!

    As for the tome? "This tome, I wrote myself. I don't remember it... but the magical formulas inside are in my handwriting, so I must have done." Answering two questions at once!

     Damian just chuckles as he's given that LOOK, setting it aside for now as he checks out the tome some more. "Well I guess that's a clue, yeah! Anybody recognized it yet?" he asks, resting his chin on his hand.

    "Not just yet," Ysuran replies. "However, I have only recently arrived from my world." A pause... he hesitates, to think a moment, and then admits, "...Part of me still thinks this is a very elaborate reverie of some kind. That when I wake from it, I will remember everything normally and none of this will have happened. Or perhaps I've been injured and my mind is creating all this in some kind of delirium..."

    Not a pleasant thought...

     Damian morphs his face to resemble Ysuran's, albeit keeping the red coloration and black eyes of his normal form. Seems colors are hard to do. "You're right. You need to wake up. You've been in a coma for seven years. Your elf wife misses you, please come home to her."

He can't stop himself from snickering though, snapping back to his regular look as he flies around in little circles. "Heheheheh, just a joke. All this is real, sorry. I'm a little more used to traveling between realms than most, so I got a grasp on it faster than a lot of people I think, but it's a reality you'll have to deal with."

    Ysuran's reaction to seeing basically his own face on Damian's head? Is to recoil, hilariously enough. As if something about the sight actually scared him. Though once Damian's told his joke, the elf calms. "...That's really not funny," he admonishes gently. He's got less a reproachful air about his expression here, though, and more just a sad one.

    Though he does note, once Damian confirms the reality of the situation, "Well... I suppose there is one silver lining to it all. Having no memory, I can't feel too panicked that I may never see it again." Hard to miss what you don't remember, after all.

     Damian smiles sheepishly at the reaction to his joke. "Sorry." he says, though he's soon back to his usual demeanor as the subject changes back to the amnesia. "Yep! Live life free of worry! Nothing to tie you down, nothing to hold you back! Forging ahead to explore the unknown! Well, unknown to you at least."

    "Well..." Ysuran seems to hesitate here. "I am still searching for my memories. Though I believe I have less chance of recovering them here. But I've been unable to find a way back to my world as yet. Could I manage that, I would go to Baldur's Gate, to find Omduil the Seer. He would surely know something. Though whether I could have paid his fee is another matter..."

     Damian chuckles a bit, which might come off as unsettling given the very Cheshire Cat-ish grin on his face. "Well don't let me tell you you're wrong. I don't know who this Omduil guy is, or where Baldur's Gate might be, but he reminds me a lot of my dad already. Speaking of, what kind of 'fee' are we talking here? I'm guessing it's not just money."

    Weirdly, despite recoiling from HIS OWN FACE, the Cheshire-like grin on Damian's jackal-y face doesn't seem to bother Ysuran one bit. Though to the question of Omsuil's fee? The elf shakes his head. "That's all I've heard he charges," he notes. "I've never heard tales of him requiring promise of one's firstborn, or one's soul. I have however heard that his fees are... incredibly exhorbitant. He likely has a network of people to see to wages of -- a seer cannot always rely upon the hope of divine insight."

     The grin lowers a bit, though doesn't fade entirely. "Heheh, yeah. A lot of 'seers' are like that, I think. Got their fingers on the pulse of society, whole spiderwebs of informants and stuff." He leans forward, his voice taking on a cheeky tone. "But if you're poor and don't mind the soul thing, my dad has some connections too..."

    Ysuran shakes his head once more. "No thank you. I have no ill words to speak of others who do so, but I would rather keep my soul where it is," he answers. And it's true, there's nothing judgy in his tone whatsoever. After all, he may not actually remember it, strictly speaking, but he's from a world where offering one's soul to a deity -- evil OR good -- is something people regularly do to gain power.

     Damian shrugs as his offer is declined. "Alright, your choice. The offer's still there if you ever change your mind though." Such a good son, trying to help daddy's business! "So anyway, what do you do for fun? You know, when you're not looking for your identity and all that?"

    "I appreciate it," Ysuran replies with a nod... sounding very much like he means it! The question gets a tilt of his head. "Ah, I've taken up the life of an adventurer since coming here. It's not well-thought of everywhere... but I do seem to have picked it up rather well. Perhaps I did this before losing my memory..."

     "Oooh, adventuring. Like in those old tabletop games? Like Mazes and Monsters? Daddy came up with that one, sent it to this college kid in a dream. Heard it led to some guy going crazy and stabbing a homeless man to death or something though. Tragic." he yammers at a thousand miles an hour, scratching at his chin. "Huh. Maybe I should be an adventurer. Exploring dungeons, finding gold, killing uh... zombies I guess? Sounds fun. And profitable."

    This part confuses Ysuran. "'Tabletop'? A board game?" he inquires. Apparently they don't have Mazes and Monsters in his world. Then again, maybe they do but he just doesn't remember. It's always hard to tell with an amnesiac. Though he winces as he hears the results of the 'new game'. "That's rather horrible, yes," he acknowledges.

    Though as Damian mentions taking up some adventuring himself? "It can be dangerous. And it is not a glamorous life. Much less laurels and riches, far more crawling through dusty and ill-cleaned places while dispatching things even less clean."

     "Yeah, with dice and mini-figures and stuff. Guess you don't know about it, huh?" Damian says with a small sigh and a shrug. "Alright, that's fine. Amnesia sucks sometimes too." As Ysuran warns of the dangers and hardships of adventuring however, the young jackal grins and winks. "Do I look like I care about staying clean? Let's just say I'm not allowed in many churches, heh."

    Ysuran actually makes a quiet snort of laughter at that last part, though he politely covers his mouth to muffle the sound. "I take it your god disagrees with the prevalent one where you live?" he surmises. He doesn't quite get the 'single god' concept -- another thing he just 'understands' from his world, the concept that there are many gods.

     Damian chuckles a little darkly. "Heheh, you could say that. Wrote a whole book about how awful my dad is, too. How he's trying to ruin the world and lead men down a path of darkness. All because my dad wanted equal treatment with humans. How's that for petty?"

    Ysuran shakes his head. "That's rather strong. Are there no laws against slander? Could he challenge someone to a formal duel to get his name restored?" He suggests. "Or is formalized duelling illegal?" Which is a weird concept to him, but... he has heard of places like that.

     Damian just shrugs. "The guy's got a lot of followers, and his slander's been accepted as undeniable fact for thousands of years. He just hides behind them all the time, never shows his face or even speaks directly to anyone. Supposedly the slightest whisper would make your head explode and your heart burst from your chest or something... just sounds like an excuse to avoid direct confrontation to me."

    "That... is also familiar," Ysuran replies. "I can offer no concrete examples, but it definitely feels familiar. Gods do battle through their followers on a regular basis. A part of me wonders if they merely DO not, or if they CAN not. Perhaps some agreement keeps them in their realms. Or perhaps, as you said, they fear confrontation. It seems strange for a being with so much power to truly FEAR..."

     "Yeah, makes you wonder, doesn't it? Maybe he isn't as powerful nowadays... or maybe he never really was to begin with. It's been millennia, who even knows for sure anymore? Even my dad wasn't there for the whole thing, and he's known the guy longer than anyone."

    Ysuran nods. "The way I know it, gods become more powerful when they have worshippers," he explains. "The more worshippers, the greater their devotion, the more powerful the gods become. Perhaps neither of them have grown powerful enough to do anything about it. Or perhaps they have, but fear what could happen to the realms -- to their worshippers -- if they were to clash."

     Damian rubs his chin some more, thinking on that. "Hmm... I wonder just how bad it could be. You might have a point though..." He spends quite some time quietly contemplating, a far cry from his talkativeness from before.

    "It is definitely something to consider... though not something I would ask one, if given the opportunity..." Ysuran muses. He notices Damian's quiet contemplation, though, and quiets. He doesn't want to interrupt the jackal-y one's thoughts. Being much closer to the... ahem. 'Source' of the conflict, Damian likely has more knowledge.

     Damian suddenly "stands" in mid-air. "Right! I've got some stuff I need to do. Talk to you later!" he says, disappearing in a puff of smoke. Well, that was abrupt. Wonder what that was all about...?