World Tree MUSH

    It's late afternoon in the city of some contemporary world or other. The sun has vanished behind the buildings, even though it hasn't quite set yet, and street lights are being turned on. On the intersection of 5th and Avarice, there's a jewelry store, and there appears to be something of a commotion inside.

    "Look kid, no money, no sale!" comes a gruff older voice.

    "But... can't I just have one? C'mon they're tiny, they can't be worth that much," comes a younger voice.

    "I dunno what weirdo world you're from, cat, but here, emeralds are worth a lot of money! Now get lost!"

    "But I'm hungry-"

    "Get. Lost!"

    A few moments later, the door is slammed shut as a yellow-furred... cat person stomps out of the jewelry store with a loud clunk-clunk-clunk of her crystal-encrusted feet. She whines, both hands on her stomach. "Uuuugh I'm gonna staaaarve..."

     Suddenly there's a scrawny red jackal boy floating in lazy circles overhead. "Weird place to look for food, if you ask me." he remarks, hanging upside down in front of Boki as he floats along with her, big toothy grin and all. "Don't tell me you were planning on eating the jewelry in there. That'd be pretty strange, even by /my/ standards!"

"You eat emeralds?" The voice comes from the person leaning against the wall, her face obscured. by helmet, goggles and fabric. Her hand rests casually on the silver mace on her hip. "Talk about an expensive diet." She hakes her head. "If you're going to keep that up, you only have two options. Theft or finding a good way to earn lots of money."

Serrah is leaning against the wall right next to Diana, peering curiously at Boki and by extension Damian. She's looking slightly more dead than usual, in the sense that she seems to be still waking up; she wasn't a morning person as a human, and now that she's nocturnal, she is instead not an evening person. "Definitely a newcomer to the World Tree," she murmurs as an aside to Diana.

... She opens her mouth at Diana's suggestion of theft, but then immediately closes it without comment.

    Boki peers at Damian as he just... drops down in front of her, but remains floating in the air. She sighs. "...Thank goodness my feet are KILLING me..." she mumbles, as she just casually floats up into the air with him. "...Okay, who the heck are you, and where do you get off listening in on-"

    And then Diana and Serrah speak up. The cat squeaks in surprise and 'jumps' back, fur stood on end... but still hovering in the air. "Okay come on that was a private conversation! And... ugh, so what if I eat emeralds? I eat other stuff too, but just... so many gems..." She drools a bit, then shakes her head. "I-I'm hungry, okay? I haven't eaten in days!" She crosses her arms and huffs. She doesn't even dignify the suggestion of theft with a response.

Damian tilts his head... in fact, he tilts it so far that it ends up right-side up, at least in relation to the ground. Upside down as far as the rest of his body goes. "Yeah? That's pretty weird! If you can eat other stuff too, why don't you just grab a sandwich or something, like normal people?" he says, obviously not acknowledging his own strangeness.

"And hey, it's just a thing we do. Not me and... those two, I don't even know them I don't think." he continues, gesturing at Serrah and Diana, before somersaulting in place to bring himself back in line with the floor, his head snapping back to its regular position. "But me and my family, it's kind of our job I guess you could say. Listen in on people having a rough time, and... help them out. Usually for a price."

He snaps his fingers, a puff of flame in his palm dissipating to reveal an apple-sized emerald, neatly cut into a hexagonal shape. "But since you're new around here, I can give you a freebie... just this once, yeah?" He offers his other hand for her to shake, the friendliest smile you could ever imagine spreading across his features. "Name's Damian, by the way. Yours?"

    Kian, meanwhile, is at least hanging back as he looks unsure. He's got his hate pretty low as he seems to be trying to figure out where in the hell this is now. Stupid Vine portals. Still, he was at least enjoying the bit of wandering even if a lot of the people seem to look like cats, dogs, and other types. Like a lot. Seeing a pair he does know, however, he wanders over towards Diana and Serrah. Then he speaks up, "So... what world is it this time? One of those things just opened beneath my feet this time."

"What is the current average price of a jewelry grade 1 carat Emerald?" Diana asks out loud, and soon after the smooth sound of a jazz musician's casual voice answers. "In this world, it appears to be roughly one thousand American dollars." Diana asks a followup question, "What is the average hourly wage here?" The answer comes immediately, "Roughly twenty five dollars. Accordingly, it takes forty hours for someone working an average wage to collect enough money to purchase such an emerald." Diana nods. "Thank you, Sirtana."

She turns her attention back to Boki, "And for the record, 1 carat is one fifth of a gram. If you're going to be eating these you probably need much more than one carat per week." She shrugs, "Try something cheaper, maybe?" She glances to Damian's stunt and adds. "I would recommend against accepting valuable gifts from people who can summon them out of thin air." She shrugs and glances to Kian, "Dunno." Then to Serrah, she nods. "Likely."

Serrah tenses up and frowns as Damian makes his offer. She's not entirely sure why she's bothered, but it's bothering her nonetheless. She raises nods in greeting to Kian, though. "Hey, Armstrong," she says. "D and I were just vibing here when this ... cat ... person ... mortal got kicked out of that jewelry store." She looks between Diana and Boki, but ... yeah, Diana has things under control right now.

She doesn't seem to notice that she said 'mortal' there.

    "I've read enough comic books to know this is a terrible idea," the cat says idly even as she reaches out to take that emerald. "...But this looks way too tasty to pass up." She sniffs at the gem for a moment, then takes a big ol' bite out of it as if it were actually an apple - her jaws cleaving through solid rock with ease.

    "This cat personf mortal," she says, though a mouthful of emerald, "is namefd..." Swallow. "Boki. And... ugh, I guess you have no idea what Kitera are. Makes sense you wouldn't know I need to eat gems to stay healthy..." she mumbles, before taking another bite of her ridiculously valuable snack.

Damian winks and dusts off his hands as Boki digs in. "Well, obviously I didn't give her an expensive one. That'd require something like her firstborn in return." he answers Diana, "leaning" back in the air with his arms behind his head. "Just some cheap Brazilian thing, like ten bucks a carat or whatever. Polished it up real nice though! Mom probably won't miss it."

Wagging his tail lazily as he drifts through the air, the jackal gives Boki the ol' up-and-down, particularly noting the gemstone "boots" on her feet. "Kitera, huh? Never heard of 'em! But if you guys eat gems, why don't you eat those shoes of yours? Or are you just saving them for emergencies?"

    Kian tilts his head to one side, then looks at Serrah and Diana before he looks to Boki, "You could say I'm a traveller here. What's a Kitera?"

"Emeralds that big don't go for ten bucks a carat. The bigger they are, the more expensive they get." Diana answers Damian with clear suspicion in her voice, "But I know this game. The first hit is free, the second hit is when your 'clients' get in trouble." She shrugs as she watches Boki eat the Emerald, "Well you're better going to find a good way to get yourself those gems; otherwise I predict you'll end up starving or in gaol real soon. Most places, you're not allowed to steal food; and this food is real expensive." She asides, "Call me D. I'm a hunter." To Serrah, "You're starting to sound more and more like one of them."

Serrah blinks. "Wait. Did I say 'mortal'?" she says, nervously looking at Diana. "Ughhh ..." She shakes her head. "No, yeah, D, we need to start making some solid plans for taking down Vinny so I can get resurrected, pronto." She just shrugs helplessly at Kian's question.

She raises her eyebrows when Damian reveals that the emerald was something he stole, and she gives him a thumbs-up and a halfhearted lopsided smirk which reveals one of her fangs. And then she immediately frowns again when Diana goes off about that sort of entrapment.

    Boki makes a face at Damian. "I dunno. You're made of meat. Why don't you eat one of your HANDS?" She crosses her legs in the air and just sits there, hovering, as she eats. She gives Kian a look, then sticks her tongue out. "What's a Kitera? You're looking at one, genius. Felinoid, crystalline growths, omni-lithovores, perfect night vision, can echolocate because we evolved in caves."

    She looks down at the emerald she's eating, and takes another bite. "...This'll probably tide me over for a few days, at least. I can subsist on meat and veggies for a bit if those really ARE so much cheaper here compared to gems than back home. Ugh, my crystals are gonna go WHITE, this sucks..."

Damian raises an eyebrow, looking at those "boots" again. "You're saying you grow those naturally? What, like toenails or horns or whatever? That's definitely a new one in my book." he remarks, then sticks his tongue out at Diana before winking at Serrah. "Anyway, it's not like I drugged it or anything. Besides, if it's just food, she probably won't be desperate enough for a second 'hit' as you put it... but on the other hand..."

He conjures another one, this time spherical, and winks at Boki too. "I'll definitely charge you less than these jackasses. They crank up the prices for a profit, you know~"

There's a distinct glare behind those goggles aimed at Damian. "You'd sound more believable if you didn't act like a mobster." She suggests, then nods to Serrah. "Well, I'll do what I can to help." She glances at her weapons, "And Vinny sounds like a good form of target practice." She shrugs at Boki's explaration of Kitera, "Just because your diet is strange doesn't mean you're entitled to it. There's people whose diet is feeding upon the blood of people; and I don't cut them any slack."

Serrah peers at Boki's crystal growths. "... huh, interesting," she murmurs. Her halfhearted smirk returns. "Definitely a bit further afield from what I've seen so far. You see something new in the World Tree every day! But, uh ... yeahhhhh, what D said, I'd be careful about accepting 'offers' from this dude." She grimaces. "Uh, D, can you be slightly less threatening, please? She's clearly not a vampire or any kind of menace." At least, Serrah can't detect anything like that. But Boki is not particularly menacing from where she's standing. (The fact that she's hovering doesn't even register to Serrah, because most supernatural beings from her world can fly.)

    Boki peers at Diana. "Who said anything about being entitled? Ugh, what crawled up YOUR ass?" She huffs a bit, then shifts her position so she's floating on her side, as if laying on a couch. "...Sure, sure, I could take the obvious deal with the devil. Or I could just..."

    Boki snaps her fingers, conjuring a small burst of hellfire before an identical emerald appears in her hand. And... vanishes from Damian's hand, because it's exactly the same emerald. She blinks in surprise. "Uh, wait, that was a summoning spell, not a... oh, shit, nope, not stealing from a demon, here take it back," she says quickly, promptly tossing the emerald back.

While the emerald is in mid-air, Serrah and perhaps some others notice time coming to a stop. Diana simply plucks the Emerald out of the air in that span of time, and when time resumes she's back where she was standing before, tossing the emerald from one hand to another. "Tricks like that are why she's clearly a menace." She tells Serrah, "And so I'm going to have to make a point."

>> GAME >> Diana Bp62412 spends an Edge for: Blood Replication: Stop the World

Damian rolls his eyes at Diana, a pinstriped fedora poofing into existence between his ears. "Nyah, see, I'm gonna knock over this town, see, and Ms. Kitty here's my first step. Makin' her an offer she can't refuse, see." he says, before breaking down into a giggling fit as the hat disappears again. "Hehehehe, sorry, just... mobster? Really? My family's way worse than any of them."

The emerald disappears, then, and he gives Boki a curious look as it shows up in her hand instead, including... hellfire. "Oooh I see what's going on here. Got ourselves a... copycat!" he says with a chuckle and a grin, trying to snatch the emerald only for Diana to suddenly have it. This time, the look is not one of curiosity, but confusion. "Hey... what?"

But then, a moment later, he snickers. "Well I guess the contract's complete then. Cough up that soul!" He doesn't mention that no contract was actually made and he couldn't take her soul even if he wanted to. Daddy definitely wouldn't authorize it at his age.

Serrah is startled by Boki's sudden summoning! She's frozen for the duration of Diana's timestop, and she sighs. "Okay, y'know what, I think I know who the menace is here." She stops time herself -- there's a ripple of light, and the world turns monochromatic with a purple tint -- and then ducks around the corner, picks up her sports bag, and lobs a baseball at Damian, just casually throwing it towards him at fifty miles an hour like it's nothing, before she resumes time.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> x2 Stop the World combo!

    Boki glares at Diana for a moment, before looking back at Damian. "Okay you'd better be joking, or you made a mistake entering my Dom-"

    Is about as far as she can get before Serrah lobs that baseball.

Damian gets clocked in the head with a baseball from a timestopping vampire. It sends him rolling through the air and barely stopping himself in time to avoid crashing into any displays, quickly righting himself as he rubs at the forming bump. "Oww... jeez, it was just a joke! I'm not even old enough to start taking souls yet, even if I wanted to! Definitely wouldn't want yours..."

    Boki is startled as Damian is promptly beaned in the head by a baseball. She then promptly leaps in between Damian and the two women. She adopts a combat stance, hands raised but not clenched into fists, legs far apart. Her claws dig into the sidewalk.

    "Okay, what the HELL is going on here?! You don't go around attacking people on Copy Kitty's watch!"

You made me no offer, and I accepted no deal. This was a honest theft. If you want it back though, maybe--" D answers Damien, interrupted by Serrah's timestop and then Damian answers and she shrugs, "Don't joke about claiming souls, it's not funny." She tosses the Emerald to Damian, a casual underhand toss that's easy to catch. "Have this back." She doesn't feel like she has to answer Boki's statement, she's not the one who attacked anyone.

Serrah is equally startled by Boki's sudden interference! "... A joke ... shhhhhhit, sorry," she calls over to Damian. She's looking even more rattled than she did when she realized she'd said 'mortal.'

Damian glowers at Diana, catches the emerald and dismissing it with a wave of his hand, similar to a magic trick. "It's pretty funny in Hell." he grumbles, but is placated by Serrah's apology. "S'okay. Mistakes made, we learn from 'em, yadda yadda."

Then, poking Boki with the tip of his tail, he says, "Alright, chill out there pussycat. We've all made up, didn't even have to kiss or anything. Just a misunderstanding." And then, a moment later, he can't help but have another gigglefit. "Heheheh, Copy Kitty. Wow, how on the nose can you be?"

    Boki keeps up the combat stance for a few more seconds, then draws her feet together and stands up straight. She claps her hands together, bows her head, and exhales slowly, before her body relaxes back into casualness. "Ugh, you aliens are total weirdos..." she mutters, mostly to herself.

    She sticks her tongue out at Damian. "Careful, mine's got spikes," she declares, swishing her be-spiked tail under Damian's nose. "..And 'Copycat' was already taken~"

Shrugs and turns around. "Let's leave these two, Serrah. They seem like they were meant for eachother." She recommends, and begins to walk away. "Good luck finding sustainable meal source, Copy Kitty."

Serrah takes a few deep breaths, and makes another timestop to grab the baseball she threw at Damian. "Right," she mutters, moving to follow Diana. "Ugh I need coffee ... like the kind I used to get at the shop I worked at before Vincent happened ..."

Damian snickers at Diana's comment, his own tail morphing into an exact copy of Boki's... albeit red, and tipped with spikes of what looks to be onyx instead of emerald. "Yeah? So's mine now. You're not the only copy machine around here!" he says with a grin, idly waving goodbye to the vampire and vampire hunter as they leave. "Anyway, what is that, a superhero name?"

    "He is SO totally not my type," Boki calls after Diana and Serrah, grumbling under her breath. "...Well, yeah. I'm a superhero, y'know. Got a costume and everything. ... Even if it's at home and I have no way to get it back."

Diana giggles faintly at Boki's objection, "That's what they all say." She calls back, and then keeps moving. "Let's get you some proper coffee then?" She offers to Serrah, "I could use some myself. It's too early for this."

Serrah chortles. "Watch it," she says, playfully clapping Diana's shoulder at her rejoinder to Boki. "But ... yeah. Agreed ... and we can talk about what we're gonna do about slaying the asshole vampire duke who turned me ..."

Damian laughs like a hyena as Diana and Serrah leave, but eventually manages to get himself under control, clearing his throat to stop himself from tittering any further. "Heh, ahem... Well, wouldn't be the first time I've dated a superhero, anyway." he says with a small sigh, but continues on before anything can be made of it. "Pity about the costume though. I don't think I can conjure that, if your home isn't even accessible. My dad, maybe, but... well, he doesn't joke about the souls thing. Definitely doesn't joke."

    Boki stares at Damian for a moment or two, then swivels about - feet grinding audibly against the sidewalk - before she just begins to walk away. "Nope. Nope, not dealing with this. Absolutely not." And off she goes, in the opposite direction to Diana and Serrah.

Damian shrugs as he's left all by his lonesome. "Eh, pretty weird day for her I guess." he says to nobody, then twirls about mid-air and disappears in a puff of smoke.