Log:Union's Dues: Interlude 2

Union's Dues 2021/03/11 Helen Felix 4

Eljudnir, Nairheim

The hall is filled with many trestles, long tables with long benches upon which gather scores of people. A low murmur fills the long, pillared place. Virtually everyone, coming through the hall, will have come to realize that ... the dead are /many/ sorts of people, here. Yes, humans, and humans of many sorts, but also light elves and dark, plus jotun of various sorts, regular and fire and ice. Those with familiarity of Greater Faerie will see all of the races represented in some part; dragons as well, albeit of small, 'humanish' size. Plus others, many others, of races not before seen by the eyes of man ... but many human races nonetheless.

After the conversation between (mostly) Hel, Helen, and Union, Helen gives a courtesy to her mistress, and the group draws away in order to allow the Dead to once more approach their queen. Helen mentioned something about talking to fellow apprentices, but also having to learn something, and as anyone knows, learning almost invariably takes time, so several of the 'party' choose to wander amongst the denizen of the Hall. The more they do, the more the conversations become intelligible -- wide-ranging conversations, about almost every topic conceivable.

Felix wanders around, shamelessly eavesdropping as his eyes soak in the sights. He'll be quite busy later drawing all that his mind absorbs here. The grey and black figure has no destination in mind, but he does keep an eye out on the others he traveled here with. Felix has no desire to be left behind in Hel's hall.

Nor would Helen leave you; you've known her maybe a couple of months, but all of the teens who gather now and again at Takaga Mansion know she has a sense of duty a mile wide. She'd leave you here only under severe pressure -- and would be back for you as soon as humanly possible.

That being said, Felix will discover it's easier than he might have originally thought to keep an eye on his compatriots; from a distance, the difference between the living and the dead is unmistakeable. Any colors worn draw the gaze, and even those wearing (as Felix does) primarily monochromatics still catch the eye -- vividness is, it seems, less a matter of hue and more a matter of the life of the wearer.

As the ear becomes more keen -- as fewer and fewer of those around you appear to be of races other than human of some type, and more and more seem to be speaking in English -- a couple of knee-jerk tune-in keywords get caught. 'Cateran' and 'Justice Squadron'.

Felix stops at the sound of Cateran's name and the Justice Squadron. He scans the area to see if he can spot the speaker or speakers. The fact that they spoke English should narrow it he hopes.

That they're speaking English does not, unfortunately, narrow it; everyone around you is speaking either English or, oddly enough, Scots Gaelic -- even in the same conversation, and with the apparent ability to understand each other entirely. Tracking down the voice and the conversation isn't difficult, though, having keyed in on those words. "... turned into an absolute reign of terror. Dozens dead every day, just ..."

The voice falls silent, but you've located the man by that point, one of a half-dozen in the conversation.

Felix makes his way towards the group and the man in particular. He's not rude in moving through the Dead, but if he's blocked he'll resort to acrobatic tumbles, rolls, and/or leaps to get over to them before the man gets lost in the crowd.

Almost everyone is seated at the benches and tables; there are pitchers every group, and most people have a cup in hand. Those who are on their feet are quite accomodating, shifting out of the way as Felix approaches the group the man ... the man ...oh. Oh boy. That's one of the mayoral office talking heads, executive assistant or something like that, of the Mayor. Uh, of san Francisco. On /your/ home Earth.

Felix blinks behind his goggles, his eyes widening for a moment. He hesitates for a moment then forges ahead. As he gets close he says to the former government spokesperson in a NorCal accent rather than the Scots one he normally affects as Felix "Pardon me fur interruptin', but did I hear you mention Cateran, sir?" He glances at the man's companions to see if he recognized any of them.

The man looks up, appearing sad and drawn; none of those around him are familiar, though a few seem to be ... huh. Of different races? But that particular difference seems to slowly be fading, their forms 'regularizing' towards human. "Yes," the man says, somewhat dully. "She killed me. At a press conference. To make a point, I guess. I -- wait. Are you ... are you alive??"

Felix looks at the man then nods. "Yes, I arrived as a guest of Lady Hel's apprentice." He pauses for a moment then says, "I'm sorry she killed you, but, well, why? Cateran doesn't normally care about politics."

"Which one?" someone asks, to the dry chuckling of a few of the others. Still --

"Someone stole her kid, something like that," says the mayoral assistant, his focus muted but still upon Felix. "Hers and others. She went on a righteous tear. Mayor was ... um ... having a ... press conference? I think?"

Felix starts to respond to the man who asked 'Which one?' but is struck dumb by the government spokesman's words. He finally mutters, "But, she /knew/...they weren't taken, they ran away." He looks at the man, raises a hand, then drops it. "I'm sorry, I didn't know," he says in a thick voice.

There's a deep, deep sigh from the man, echoed by half-a-dozen others. "'s all right," he finally says, looking down at the cup in his hand, then lifting to drink the water inside, holding out the cup for the pitcher. "Only fault is the one who did it. Wasn't ... wasn't you." He closes his eyes for a long moment, then opens them again, more clarity there than before. "Why did you want to know?"

Felix looks at the man through his goggles before he softly says, "I remember your face from the news even if I don't recall your name, sir." He adds after a moment. "And it is my fault. She's my mother. I ran away to escape her with the others. I'm so, so sorry."

The man shakes his head slowly. "Young man," he says heavily, "it may be your guilt; sign of a man with a conscience, that is. But every man and woman must own their own acts, and it's on your own actions, not those of someone else, that you'll be judged." The half-dozen listening in nod in agreement, some murmuring their confirmation. "We say this," says one, "-- who are dead," adds another, "-- and have been judged," adds a third.

The group is quiet for a moment, and then the aide exhales hard. "Mother, huh? She ever find you?"

Felix listens to the man speaking, his survivor's guilt not letting him take comfort in the words, but he nods in the end to acknowledge their words. Then he turns to look at the aide as he speaks, "No, not yet. We fled to other worlds, other Earths. We finally found one that, well, it's a good world, not quietly rotten on the inside like home. The mana is clean there, untainted by...ash."

The man mulls this over for a while, then gestures to the bench across from him, where there is a spot open -- one that didn't seem to be there before, the people not appearing to have moved aside to make room. "Sit. Tell us, if you will."

Felix takes the offered seat. "Well, I am not certain where to start. We Gated to over 20 different Earths before we ended up where we live now. Each world had something wrong with it or was just a bad fit for us. We ended up on three different worlds in various stages of zombie apocalypses. One was even a fight between different zombie types and their sometimes controllers. That one was...well, humans were caught or leading or just stuck between different sides."

The men and women nod, listening closely. There is some discussion -- including a question as to what 'zombie' means, one that gets handled, as it were, in a sidebar with someone more modern, and the term 'draugr' does get used, though that gets clarified to 'aptrganga', literally meaning 'again-walker'. "How did you go from world to world?" wonders one participant, of which there are eight or so in addition to you and the ex-executive-assistant.

"Well," murmurs Felix as he reaches up and rubs his neck, "I can use magick as well as tech. So, using what little I knew about transdimensional engineering, which turned out not to be enough, I, well, created a Gate using technology but powered by magick. I'm really simplifying this, by the way. I could go into details, but, well, most people find it really boring."

He gets out a sketchpad and quickly and accurately draws an image of his 'creation'. "I call it Twisting through Dimensions. The device is pretty fragile and I can't control where the Gate opens, but, at least, it's always initially safe to cross over. No dropping into a pit or drowning or other accidents. But I cannot pin down the random nature of the Gate. Cannot even get back to places I've been before." The sketch is a strange mix of tech, runes, and symbols powered by batteries and utilizing lots of gold wire. "Setting it up takes a lot of time as well."

The various dead all seem rather interested; after all, there isn't anything new but what new people bring in with them. None of them seem to be able to entirely understand the strange blend of tech and magick Felix is talking about, but all of them are /interested/.

At the 'complaint' of not being able to control its destination, one of the dead suggests, "You should speak with the apprentices. They know of the roads between worlds."

Felix looks over at the dead man. "Well, I don't know if they share their secrets with me. I'm not one of Hel's followers after all." He looks around. "To be blunt, if you asked me if gods of any sort really existed, I'd have said 'No' a few hours ago. Even now," he shrugs slightly. "Not sure. Extremely powerful, yes."

There is muted chuckling -- though to be fair, everything in this land of the dead seems to be muted, toned down. "Last I heard, the apprentices aren't strict on keeping things in-house," says the man Felix remembers -- Michael? Maxwell? something like that. "And Hel is ... firm ... about not being a god."

................... ........... ..... ... ...

The conversation continues for ... well, quite some time. Felix finishes his story (supplying a surprising amount of detail and number of explanations), and a couple of the others share tales from their lives -- and then Felix shares another, and another three of the others share ones from theirs, and so it goes, the water passed around lubricating throats dry with talking, someone getting up and going to replenish the pitcher from time to time.

After some time, though, when Felix rises to go, the once-executive assistant reaches out across the table. "Wait," he says, then reaches back behind his neck to pull over his head -- of all things -- a pendant of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer. The necklace itself is a long leather thong, appropriate to a pendant of that particular weapon. "Here," he says, pressing it into Felix's hand. "It ... I always felt it gave me luck, that I was watched over. May it do the same for you."