logsinthenight | The tailback of timorous souls

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The tailback of timorous souls | OTA

characters: Rosinante, OTA
location: Church, elsewhere?
date/time: 7/7 evening
content: After the dubious honor of being the first to die, Rosi also is the first to be revived in the church.
warnings: n/a for now

There's a crash out on the rocks; a rattle of glass and metal, caught just wrong on sharp granite, and then cold darkness overtakes him.

And for a moment, he thinks perhaps he dreamed it, for there is the oddest sensation of waking from a deep slumber. For a moment he thinks he still feels icy cold. But there's no wind over the water, no sharp ache in his chest. The church is comfortable and lit. How did he get here? Why is he basically just lying at someone's feet? Who-

"Uh, sorry. Hello."

A few minutes later, if you weren't present for him being tossed out the trap door, he'll just be sitting on the floor with legs bent at the knees and lantern beside him. Death is never pleasant and he needs a moment, plus it sounds like there were people looking for him. They shouldn't have, but so it goes.

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Although he has met Kuai's brother, the connection is not immediately made. Perhaps it will be later, when he has time to reflect on this information. For now, he's too busy thinking about the awful idea that he too could die again and come back worse. It's not something he wants to experience. He'll have to guard his lantern with more care in addition to finding a way to carry it hands-free.

"I feel like myself. Whether that's fortunate or normal here, I don't know, but I'll take it for what it is." No rage, certainly, other than that which he's always held, buried but present.

"Have you spoken to any of the people we were thinking about for an expedition?" he asks, more interested in changing the topic for now.

The change of topic is appreciated. He doesn't enjoy talking about death, especially not with the deceased. He was planning to simply never bring it up with the two from his realm. Maybe they'd avoid discussing the issue forever.

"I spoke to Nate, who said he may have another. But he didn't seem eager either," he says as he looks elsewhere, recounting what Rosinante had missed. Admittedly some of Nate's hesitation may have been due to a complete stranger trying to plan an expedition and inviting him along without much explination. "Another named Carol indicated they also wanted to join. I haven't spoken to the medics, but one of them made a broadcast about making sure they accompany anyone going into the woods so I think we're safe to assume they will join us. Grandmaster Hasashi also said he would come as well."

Though that conversation had gone about how he expected where he mentioned the forest and got scowled at until Kuai invited him with.

"Good. If Nate doesn't wish to come along, we still have plenty - but he seems like an asset. We should start setting aside travel supplies, if you haven't already. I spoke to another before this, Lord Cao Pi, and he and I will likely set off soon along the eastern shore past the harbor. I don't expect two people to get far or be gone long, but I'd like the opportunity to learn a little about the forest on a short trip before we go as a larger group for a longer duration."

Honestly, launching into planning the exploration of their surroundings is the best way to deal with his death. He can't do anything about it, and he came back whole, so it's best to distract himself by moving straight ahead.

"I've looked through the stores and taken stock of what they have, but I didn't start gathering anything. I didn't want to appear as if I was simply hoarding non-perishable food and supplies," and he'd been a little disheartened by his main excursion partner dying.

"Ah yes. We've met." He nods, approving of their plan. "A couple short trips for reconnaissance will help us better plan for a longer one. I think trying to go parallel from the lighthouse, either north or south, might be a good starting attempt. With any luck that should follow a coastline and if we're hoping to encounter another town or any signs of civilization they'll likely be on the coast."

He pauses, thinking about what he just said, "I'm assuming it's north and south, I don't have a compass on me and I didn't see one in the store. You don't happen to have one do you?"

That seems like something that a sailor might have.

"Yeah, I grabbed one from the store when I went to find clothes," he says. "Maybe they're out. Mine was stuffed back in a corner behind some sort of orange drink powder."

Extremely unappetizing. As for why he didn't have one already on his person? It, the binoculars, the rope, and so many other things had been stashed on the rescue boat he and Law had hidden around the base of the cliff before their ascent to Minion's mountainous shores. The bag he used to cart so much more in had to be pared down to a few essentials so that it could double as a secure way to carry the boy who could barely walk on his own.

"Anyway, since we're making solid plans to head out, I doubt anyone would accuse you of hoarding. I think we're all interested in finding out what our surroundings hold."

"You should see the miserable excuse for tea I found." He had begrudgingly taken it back to his room and ripped open the packets and steeped it properly, but calling that leaf water he'd made "tea" would be akin to calling a puddle of beer in a parking lot "wine".

"I'll work on gathering packs and supplies then. It sounds like we have about six so far? I'll plan for a few more just in case." It was always better to over estimate, the worst that happened was their packs would be slightly heavier for a longer trip than planned. "We should take torches from the bonfire as well. They're brighter than the lanterns, and using something as delicate as these lanterns as a source of light seems unwise."

He's still uncomfortable with the fact he's literally carrying his own life force around in a glass and bronze jar.

"Right. At least two. Gives us the option of splitting up if we have to, and if one is lost, we won't be completely stranded in the dark." Maybe three, with six people, but he knows how these kinds of things go. When you're not actually commanding enlisted people but simply asking for volunteers, only half as many turn up as the number you ask.

"Any news I might have missed while I was... out? Any new discoveries?"

He nods in agreement. Rosinante is sensible about such things, and proving to be a better planner of small expeditions than Kuai is; he hadn't even considered splitting up to cover more ground.

"There is a post office now. One of the spindly forest creatures runs it and collects letters for us. Someone I met had already received one. I'm not sure the necessity of such a place when we have tablets to communicate, but perhaps if we find another town a distance away we could trade supplies. Speaking of, there are some new functions to the tablet; a map, a drawing program and one that translates text." He is not going to mention the Sudoku app that he has spent far too much time playing.

"A map and a drawing program! Dr. Ingram came through," he exclaims, pleased it happened so quickly. Clever, helpful Will. Enthusiastic, he pulls out his tablet to have a look himself.

"I'd asked him for those just a few days ago," he explains. "I wanted us to be able to map out any landmarks we might find along the way so others don't have to redo our efforts. He works quickly."

"The map can be edited by what others have found. They've already added a river a few paces in from the treeline." He pulls out his own tablet to have a look, there's probably been edits since he looked at it too. "There is likely a way to have it notify us if there's a change, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do so."

Because he played Sudoku for six hours straight instead. "The translation function has been useful. Everything I've encountered is in English. I only read Chinese."

His opens the map on his tablet, panning around it to see if anything has changed. His interface is tailored to him, in Chinese so he can read it, and he's changed the colors to be blue. For the aesthetic.

"Oh-"

He's fascinated by the other man's tablet, momentarily. The words look somewhat familiar to many used at home and some are plainly readable to him. But the strangest thing seems to happen, where at a glance it's clearly foreign and then after a moment, the meanings become clear.

"Did you change the language on it just now?" he asks, unaware that the place can translate for them, one way or another.

He shakes his head, "I did nothing."

Nothing new seems to have happened with the map, and he closes it, poking a few more buttons to bring up the image translator. "They added this, you can take photographs and then translate any text in it." He scrolls through the translation options, languages that are familiar and then dialects he's never heard of and symbols he's never seen before.

"I hadn't noticed too many problems, myself," he says with a confused frown. "I don't know what English is, though. I just thought it was written in our common tongue."

But as he focuses harder, he can again see that Kuai's tablet really does have the text written in another language. How strange. Nearly concerning, but perhaps it's a skill gifted to the dead. They can all speak with each other well enough, after all.

"Here, let's try this," he says as he taps on the button labeled "DRAWING". There are more options than he'd expected here, but he ignores them and simply writes out his own name in the common script, "ROSINANTE". Beside it he writes another common phrase but spelled in a different style, reading "justice" as it was written on every officer's coat.

"What do those look like to you?" he asks.

Well this is curious. He watches him write it, something about that act causing it to stay as it was instead of instantly being readable.

"The first one I can't read. The second seems to be Kanji, it would be something like 'righteousness' in my language." Well this is entirely odd. He holds his own tablet up so he can take a picture, letting the translation app do it's thing. "Your name and Justice?"

Rosinante's name is translated quite literally, and slightly unflattering: 不中用的马

"Strange. You can read one but not the other? I guess because it's a name, and not a word." How mysterious. Yes, he recognizes they're two different scripts, but they're part of the same language to him. And of course he can't help but glance at Kuai's tablet and the very bizarre suggestion it makes, from what little sense he can make of some of those characters.

"Something odd is going on, not just with the app but in general. You're speaking your language right now, I assume, right? Because I understand you clearly as if you were speaking mine."

Not being able to instantly translate a name would make some amount of sense. For as much as one can make sense of magical translating tablets and the afterlife.

"I'm speaking English because that's what I thought everyone else here was speaking. That's what it sounds like to me." He pauses, then starts speaking again, this time in Mandarin, "Can you still understand me like this?"

"Okay, that, I didn't get. Never heard anything like it, actually." Which might be fascinating, were he more academically-inclined. Instead he shrugs. It's good to know that something strange is at work here, with certain languages perhaps, or certain ways of saying them, even if they haven't quite solved it fully yet.

"Wish I knew more languages, I'd test one back at you." All he has are a handful of words and phrases from a few different tongues that have made it into common use. Well, and a little bit of that old ritual dialect used in his home country but there's no way in hell that's ever getting used.

"I guess it's something Dr. Ingram would know about, since he made that translation tool. Could always just ask him."

"We seem to be able to understand each other well enough." While he's curious about how it functions, he cares more about the current situation and that they can communicate enough to pool their resources and work together to get out of here.

"He likely would, though what I'm more interested in finding out is why these functions were created now. They've said we're not the first group to arrive, that there have been others. Yet previously they did not have a map? They were unable to translate each others' words? Did they not ask for such things or did he refuse to provide them for some reason?"

"Maybe the reset undoes more than just the people here. Maybe it undoes his work. Retrieves the torches, unmakes some buildings."

That is profoundly disturbing. As far as magic goes, he doesn't like it one bit. It's like wiping memories, but of places. Or maybe it's more akin to time travel. Both concepts that seem pure and utter fiction and his mind just refuses to accept them as real. More and more, this place doesn't feel like it could be real. Perhaps it really is all some bizarre dream in those last seconds before his mind fully goes silent. At least that means it will end soon, so there's some comfort in that.

Well that's a level of unsettling that Kuai had not considered. "Reforming the sands of time."

He sounds distant as he says it, thinking about the fight before he died, a fight against a titan who had the power to manipulate time in such a way; to unmake people from history, to reset the timeline until the outcome was to her liking.

Oh he does not like the idea of that happening here. "That would explain why he was able to create them so quickly. They already existed in a previous timeline, he simply had to retrieve them."

"... That's an explanation?" He smiles and shakes his head. The things these people say, sometimes! How do they come up with it?

"Maybe you're right. All I have are guesses with too little real information to support them. We'll have to wait and see, unless we find something out there in the woods."

"True. No use in speculating." And he doesn't like the road that's leading down either.

"When do you think you'll be back from your excursion with Lord Cao Pi? When should we set out?"

"We won't be gone long if all goes as planned. No more than two, maybe three days. Any time after that should be fine."

And then he'll be dead, but how is he to know that? Hopefully the trip does go according to plan, also. Based on what little he's heard of the creatures in those woods, they may not take kindly to intrusion. But neither do pirates when in their infested home territories and he's handled his share of those. These creatures don't have guns, can't transform themselves into liquid, can't shatter the land and the air with a throw of the fist. He'll figure it out.

"Very well, I'll get things prepared." He turns to leave, looking back at Rosinante. "I don't want to have to meet you in here again, so be careful when you're out there."

He does think that the man can take care of himself, he's more concerned with anything accidental that might happen. Especially when their life force is in a highly breakable object they're forced to carry everywhere.

He's concerned, genuinely, but he doesn't know how to convey that without sounding condescending.

"You too," he replies. Also not condescending, surely. It's good-natured sarcasm, complete with a hint of a lopsided smile despite the situation they're in, and he gives a nod of farewell as Kuai turns to leave.

Nobody here is immune to this place's dangers, and just because he made one simple mistake doesn't make him any more prone to death than the rest here. That's something he's fairly sure of - and he'll do his best to stay alert.

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