paixaorpg | Alphonse Awakes at Nifleheim. [Complete]

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Alphonse Awakes at Nifleheim. [Complete]

Character(s): Alphonse Elric (and whoever)
Content: The youngest Elric brother awakens to find himself in a strange place indeed.
Setting: Nifleheim gates and beyond.
Time: Afternoon

It is always a shock when a giant suite of armor decides to move on it's own. Sometimes, even for the armor. Al groans as he starts to come back to conciseness. That fact in itself is very odd, considering he has not needed to sleep for that past four years. A light behind the eyes sockets of his helmet light up as he gains focus.

"What happened..?" He mutter's before he realizes that he is face to stone with the corner of some wall and the ground. Apparently, his head has been knocked from his body. Oh joy.

What to do now? He can hear the hustling and bustling of people nearby. But how near? Can he pick up his helmet and put it back on without causing mass panic? Is his body even- ok, good. It is here. He twitches his fingers just enough to knock the side of his helmet gently.

The helmet rolls slightly, and he gets an idea. He flexes his fingers, pushing against his helmet enough to roll it over while the rest of him remains still like an abandoned pile of metal.

Dirt. Wall. Sky. People. More dirt.

Crap.

Well at least the line of people seemed to be a decent distance away. He shifts his hand and rest his fingers against the back of the helmet and pulls back enough to lift his eyes out of the ground. He tries to get his bearings, focusing finally on the line of people in the distance. It moved quickly enough, allowing entry past the gate of silvery ice.

No one seems to be paying much attention to him, so after a few minutes he grips the helmet in leather fingers and sets it atop wide shoulders with a sigh. After a moment of quiet contemplation he stands slowly, trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

He follows along the length of the wall -dome?- until he comes up on the line of people in front of the gate? He stands taller then most of the people, so it was an easy scan of the crowd as he searches for his older brother.

"Brother?" He calls as he walks towards the end of the line. "Ed?" The emotionless metal helmet hangs low in parts frustration, confusion, and the fear of being separated from his brother. He tries to keep his spirits up, hoping that Ed ended up somewhere inside of the domes when they...when whatever happened.

Wait? What did happen?

The last thing he remembers was getting lost in that hedge maze, Ed started using alchemy to open a way out, then he was here. What could have happened? There must have been something odd about that maze, but he can't put his finger on it at the moment.

"Name?"

Al was brought out of his thoughts suddenly, looking down at the blond haired, blue-eyed man at the gate. "Huh? Oh..uhm.. it's Alphonse. Alphonse Elric. Have you seen my brother? Edward Elric? Did he come through here?" Despite his size, his voice still sounds like that of a child.

The man just ushers him through the gate to keep the line moving. There he is met by someone who hands him a small metal box. In his confusion he just takes it and steps to the side, moving his large metal body out of the way of passers by.

He whimpers softly and hangs his head, the metal scraping against metal. He lifts his hand and looks at the electric journal, his helmet masking the confusion he feels inside. What in the world is going on?

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She was aware of warmth. That was odd. It should still be cold.

Unless Felix had lighted the beacon of Mars Lighthouse already? No! She had sensed the Eye still there. It had such powerful Psynergy that she could sense it as a distortion in her own. Now she could not sense it. It did not seem as though the Eye had left. Rather, it felt as if the Eye was not!

She opened her eyes-- and immediately scrunched them shut again. It was so bright! After a few moments, she slowly prized her eyelids apart. The sky was blue.

When had her location changed? She had been in Mars Lighthouse. She had been dying. Now she was outside, and someplace Southern-- Prox did not ever have a blue sky, even in the warm months, the sky had been dark gray-green. She had never seen a blue sky until she went South.

Vaguely, she wondered what had happened, staring up at that blue sky and drinking in the color. Blue was a beautiful color. It could be hateful, as it was the color of water and the color of Isaac's eyes, but it could be beautiful. After all, she had known Hunters with blue skin and hair. She had seen blue gems in Southern jewelry, and she had seen the living blue gems that Southerners called butterflies, dancing and twirling in the air and forever just out of reach when she had chased them.

There were two plausible explanations for her sudden change in location. One was that Alex had sensed their distress and teleported them someplace far to the South, where it was warm and they could recover. The other was that somehow this was an afterlife, in which case-- She suppressed the hope as brutally as she could, somehow sensing that she was really and truly alive and that her beloved sister was really and truly dead and they were forever separated.

She got to her feet and found that she was standing outside a Southern city she had never seen before, a tremendous confection of golden colors encased in giant transparent domes. She'd never seen so much glass in one place before and wondered at the skills of the artisans who could have made it. It occurred to her that this was no place in Weyard. Perhaps it truly was an afterlife? Or perhaps the Eye had cast her over the Rift into another world for some reason.

There was a number of people gathered into a short line outside a huge gate into one of the glass hemispheres. The gate was beautiful, silver and gold tracework of ice and snow, spangled with crystals and with dangling glass icicles on chains that chimed as they struck one another in the gentle breeze. It was more for show than to keep people out, as she could see everybody who waited in the line spoke to a person at the gate and then went in.

Whatever her answers were, they were inside that city. They had to be. She made her way to the line, standing behind a person in a ridiculously huge suit of armor... at least, she hoped it was a person. Whatever it was was blocking her view, so she had to be quick on her feet to keep the line moving, as she couldn't anticipate the movements of her large predecessor.

She heard a male voice ask the armor for its name and was slightly surprised to hear the voice of a young boy coming out of that huge armor. He wanted his brother. She felt a stab of emotion. She knew how it felt to be missing a sibling. Then the boy/armor moved on and she saw the man.

The person waiting at the gate to greet the newcomers was a blonde and blue-eyed Southerner whose hair was a shaggy mass! She bristled and squared her shoulders, telekinetically making her cape flare out so she seemed larger than her actual small height.

The gatekeeper looked startled at the hostile reaction. "Uh... name?"

"Karst." This Southerner did not deserve her time.

"H-here," he stuttered quickly, pressing a black rectangular object into her hands. "You'll need this, uh, Miss Karst... Welcome to Paixao... NEXT!" This last bit was a squeak.

She'd frightened him. Good. Karst wasn't sure what this item was he had given to her, but she kept it anyway, jogging to catch up to the armored boy. If he was a warrior, perhaps they could stay together for a while, until she found her bearings and could get back to Weyard. She had... unfinished business there.

"Hello?"

---

(OOC: Hopefully I've fixed enough?)

Alphonse has the journal open and he's poking around at it, but his fingers are a bit to bulky to work it properly. Maybe he could use this thing to find his brother. It seems to be some form of communication device. He rubs the back of his helmet as if it were his neck, one of the many manerizms that have held over from when he had a normal human body.

At first he doesn't realize the small woman's voice was directed at him, and he jumps when he finally looks down and sees her. This woman is definitely not human, and that puts him on the defensive.

"A chimera? Here?" An alchemical combination of human and animal. To him, it was the obvious explanation. He and Ed have been attacked by chimera and homunculi more times then he can count. He snaps his journal shut with his hand and steps back on one leg, bringing up his arms in front of him. "You took my brother, didn't you!"

(OOC: WOMAN? She's fifteen-ish! Admittedly that would come off as old to Al, but... seriously! And it just occurred to me that someone might ask one of the Paixaoans for the voice-recognition device the animals get for their journals... that would save Karst the effort of learning to read/write.)

Hostility. Not good. And the term, "chimera". She'd fought such creatures-- grand chimeras populate the Northern Reaches, along with many other monsters, and she didn't quite understand how she could be confused with such a beast, but she knew the connotation wasn't good. And the hostile reaction-- she didn't have her scythe with her, and her Fire Psynergy would most likely kill the poor boy outright, an end she did not want to have to explain to onlookers and passersby. Thus, the only possibility is communication and negotiation.

"No-- do I look four-legged and three-headed to you?! But since most Southerners don't know, I am a native of the Fire Clan of Prox. You probably haven't heard of the place. And no... I don't know where your brother is..." Her voice faltered a bit, thinking of someone. "I was going to ask if you had any idea where we were. You're the only person here who isn't a blue-eyed blonde." This last bit was spoken with a bit of a snap.

"Three headed?" What in the world kind of chimera is she talking about? Not that he should be suprized, who knows what else was lerking in Labratory 5.

He relaxes, lowering his arms back to his sides. "And no, I haven't heard of it..." He looks her over carefully, noting that she's younger looking then he had originally thought.

He looks around, and it's true. The great majority of the people here were all blond and blue eyed. That is going to make finding his blond haired brother a bit more difficult.

He looks down at her again, not sure if he can trust what she says. He just sighs and shakes his head, his entire form drooping a bit. "I have no idea where we are, I just want to find my brother so we can get back home."

"Three. That's how many heads I have to cut off before one of those things dies." Karst ticks off on her fingers just to make sure. One, two, three. Vaguely, she thinks there should be something else with three heads that's even more of a concern, but she's not sure why or what.

The armored boy is even more childish than she thought-- and she's not sure whether to scoff or sympathize. She's not exactly an adult herself, and knows exactly what it means and how it feels to miss a sibling. Hers just isn't likely to be coming back.

"I didn't think so," she says, both of his not knowing her origin and of his not knowing where they were. She allows a slightly more gentle side of her personality to peek out. "I know how it feels to be missing a sibling, perhaps I can help you look. And if you can find a way to go home..."

... I'd like to go home, myself. But she leaves that part unsaid. If this is an afterlife, then there is no way home for either of them-- and no real reason for her to go, either. If this is a Southern city of Weyard that she has simply never been to, than home is on the northern edge of the world and thus not hard to find, and from there Vale is directly south... If this is another world... there's not likely to be a way home. She doesn't think farther than that. She doesn't want to.

"You're lost too then?" Whatever she is, she doesnt seem to be intent on hurting him and that's always a plus when meeting new people. It seems that people not ready to attack first and ask questions later are starting to become few and far between.

He straightens up to his full height again, lifting the journal and flipping it open. "I think I saw a map in here somewhere..." He pokes around a bit, grumbling that his fingers are too big for this tiny apparatus. Finally, he reaches under the side of the cloth hanging around his waist as if he were rummaging in pockets and pulls out a piece of chalk. He uses that to poke at the buttons, easier even if it does leave a white dusting.

"Here it is! The city is called... Paixao.." He lowers the screen to show her. "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to go beyond that though."

Karst couldn't make sense of the item even after pulling herself up on the giant metal arm to get a better view, but she saw a square of glass that was covering what appeared to be a tiny map and realized that it was a map of this city, that this person can read. It was inside the item the armored person got at the gate, and she got one, too.

"I... I don't recall hearing of a city called Paixao, and I've traveled four, five continents," she said slowly. "Maybe this isn't even Wey-- the world I'm from. Do you have any idea if it might be an afterlife?" She hoped that was a much more tactful approach than asking if the armored person might have been near death or dying recently.

She also avoided the question of his being able to read, as it was something Southerners do and he was most likely a Southerner-- such questions in the past had prompted Southerners to ask why she couldn't read in a very condescending tone of voice, which she didn't like.

And she didn't want to pick a fight with someone in that much armor unless she had a weapon, which she didn't. Perhaps she should look into acquiring one here in Paixao... whatever it was.

---

(OOC: *grabs GBA, turns on, loads map of Weyard and counts how many continents Karst has been on* She was here, she was here, we met her here, and she comes from here. Four continents, possibly more.)

He crouches down low enough so she can easily see the journal's map. "Afterlife?" The thought shocks him and he falls silent a moment. Could it be? Could that transmutation have killed them?

No. He shakes his head. "Couldn't be. . . We're still alive. I'm sure of it." His soul is still attached to this armor, and this armor is hard to damage let alone destroy.

In a sence he has died once already, yet he's still here.

He shakes his head again, trying not to dwell on the past when the present is more important. He idly scrolls through some posts, coming across the message board. "If my brother is here, I think I can use this thing to find him. . " He starts poking at the keys again with the chalk.

"My brother is a State Alchemist, and we've traveled all across the continent and back again. We've heard of the big cities in other countries. But not this one... not even in our school books." Then again, he wouldn't be suprized if this is just another thing that has been kept secret by the military.

That sealed it. Not only was this not her world, but the boy in the armor was also not of her world, as evidenced by the interesting title his brother bore, division of the world into something called "countries", and reference to that bizarre Southern concept of "school" (and the implication that he could read since he was very young).

Karst wasn't sure whether to be grateful of distraught at his reassurance that she is alive. For one thing, it means that idiot Eye didn't get its way with her after all, but for the other... it means she and Menardi won't be having a family reunion any time soon.

Worse yet, the entire city's populace seemed obsessive over those things, where the map had vanished and eventually brought up nothing but random images and a whole lot of writing. Looking around, the little Proxian could see blonde head after touseled blonde head bent over brightly colored rectangles.

"Lovely for you..." she muttered. "I don't read." Not that she wasn't happy he could find his brother (was he wearing an even bigger suit of armor?), but she was plenty bitter about her own family problems, and this perfectly decent person didn't need to know that.

"I was afraid of this, this isn't even my world. All Southerners, they all look alike, they're all blonde and blue-eyed like him, and they all read. Is everything that ever existed out to get me?"

---

(OOC: Maybe we should go get voice-recognition stuff for Karst? And hopefully we can get her a scythe before the Nobodies start rearing their ugly heads and noticing people, I hear there's Creepers and Xigbars in the area)

He lifts his head when he realizes what she had said. "You don't know how to read?" His helmet tilts slightly then he looks back to the journal. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize." He finishes poking with his chalk then closes it, then slips both it and the chalk into the pouch hanging on the inside of his thigh, kept hidden by the waist cloth.

"..and I'm sure everything isn't out to get you, even if life can feel that way sometimes." He gestures kindly with his hand. "I'm certainly not!"

(OOC: Sho nuff.)

Pity. That was even worse than a condescending sneer. He was wondering how she'd ever lived without being able to understand the random-looking marks of written language.

"It's not something my people do," Karst said finally. "We educate one another by showing and telling, not by writing and reading. Those are things Southerners do." She sighed. "Maybe I should begin learning, since it doesn't look like I'm ever going to go home. I'd rather not, it seems such a hassle..."

She knew everything wasn't out to get her, but it did feel like it. Especially with the local population being... Isaac. She had walked into a city, and every citizen was Isaac, only she couldn't fight them because they weren't.

---

(OOC: So... start heading towards *brings up map* Auntie Unde's? She'll probably have something for an illiterate and bizarre-looking girl with a giant armored companion. XD)

"Well, you shouldn't have to change who you are just because everyone around you is different. That just seems so...wrong. There are alot of different people in the world...uh...worlds?" Another world? Part of him can't believe it and part of him isn't suprized. It takes alot to suprize him now adays. He has started to just accept the weird as it comes along.

His mind drifts back to the Ishbalan people, how different they are from his own people. And how they are constantly persecuted for it. Dark skin and curiously red eyes, they even think that alchemy is a sin against their god. It's still a strange concept to him, since alchemy rules his life, literally. Yet, part of him has started to agree.

"If you really want to learn, I can help you. But I'm sure we'll find our way home somehow. There was a way to get here, so there has to be away home. It's equivalency!"

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Alphonse Awakes at Nifleheim. [Complete]

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