Logs:Out of Thin Air

Out of Thin Air
Dramatis Personae Budi, Tian-shin
In Absentia Blink, Kiri	2024-09-25 "If only we could read the sign posts."
Location <MOJ> Champion's Circle - Mojoverse
Originally this was intended as a place for the games participants to relax and hang out in between events, but that idea quickly fell by the wayside when their initial participants were all too dead and/or traumatized to do any hanging out. Still. in preparation for hosting a bunch of Earthlings they've taken their best stab at what Earthers might enjoy for a little R&R, which has led to this... place. It's looks like it was kind of a bar, once. There are tables to sit at, though half of them come pre-knocked-over; there are several broken bottles and broken pool cues lying around (no pool tables in evidence.) There are numerous guns. Several of the bottles behind the bar are filled with bullets, a couple more with gasoline; some do have alcohol but none of it is drinking grade. There is also a game of darts. If there ever were any employees there are not anymore, but a very large number of cats are in residence here. The building doesn't end so much as just truncate like it's some kind of movie set. The open back of the "bar" opens up onto, a road that for some reason has a large ramp leading to nowhere. There are a variety of vehicles out there with keys in the ignition and though it's usually hard to tell this from a look, they have the indefinable air of cars that will explode at the slightest provocation. Maybe it's the unnecessary racing stripes. It's five o'clock somewhere, at least it is if Mojoland follows the same rules of time as Earth, and the regulars at this bar (the cats) are giving the young man at the bar a wide berth. Budi is thin to begin with, but he looks in particularly bony form today, with tendony hands and knobby elbows, the I ❤️ I ❤️ NY shirt hanging big and baggy on his underfed frame. He's drinking fava beans out of a can like a strange, thick soup, but slowly, interrupted every few bites by a short and rasping cough; his skin still has a bluish tiny under his eyes and on his lips, though apparently his talkativity is bouncing back along with his appetite -- he is saying, his head bobbing in an odd sort of frenetic cringe as he eats, "I'm sorry, sorry sorry, I didn't mean to eat so much. I bring back more food later, then I go again, sorry sorry sorry -- I hope nobody wants this beans, is it someone's favorite? Sorry, sorry. I --" cough, cough, then, sort of woeful and resigned, "-- ohhh my bones hurt, I didn't do nothing to hurt all my bones out there I don't --" cough, cough. Tian-shin is perched on a stool across the bar, nursing a tall glass of something that probably involves either Kool-Aid powder or blue curacao or both. Hopefully. She's in her actual X-uniform, which she'd been wearing when kidnapped and which has remained largely in tact even through their extracurricular explorations. "It's okay," she reassures him, "eat as much as you like, there's more where that came from. I'm honestly kind of impressed." She gets up to pour a glass of water and set it in front of Budi. "I think the gravity was doing plenty to hurt all your bones." Fine streams of bubbles rise from the bottom of the water glass, first a few and then so many that the water looks practically white and audibly fizzes. It's suddenly just a little easier to breathe. "I guess you don't know how long you were out there, but things that happen to your body while you're like that still hurt afterwards, right?" Budi is about to drink the water when it starts fizzing; he sets it hastily back down, eyes staring wide down at the glass. He clears his throat, then, with polite confusion, "I don't think I fell down anything. I am not -- all asleep all the time. I would notice if I broken something." He props one elbow up on the bar, massages at his temples with his fingers, face twisting into a slight frown. "I am gone maybe... four, five days. Everyone was very much excited for the cars, it was easy to sneak out." "Oh, sorry!" Tian-shin blushes and pours another water to slide to Budi. "That's totally safe to drink, but it tastes weird. I'm using it to make the air...better." She settles back down onto the stool and rotates her glass between her fingertips. "I just meant the gravity is strong, and it makes everything heavier. Including your own body. So maybe it was kind of...squishing you the whole time you were unconscious?" She shakes her head. "It's just a guess. That Genoshan girl or Blink could probably tell you better." She takes a deep breath at the mention of the cars, and a deeper gulp of her blue libation. "I do not love what gets them excited, but I guess even that has its uses. Did you find anything interesting out there? Before you..." She kind of mimes choking, one hand at her own throat. This time Budi does drink the water. "I got squished?" he repeats, now inspecting his hand, his arm like he expects it to be flatter somehow. "Oh no -- no," though the first 'no' seemed like dismay about his squishing, with the second he is shaking his head with a small grimace. "Nobody I was look for. Just, you know, portals... mines... factories... lakes... casinos..." he gulps down another mouthful of beans and wipes his mouth with the heel of one hand. "I don't have credits to go anywhere good as tourist. Next time, maybe I will be a slave, but --" he huffs out a breath, his nostrils flaring -- "I worry they will actually give me work." "We all get a bit squished when we go out there," Tian-shin says, conciliatory. "Well, okay, not Clout. Uh, Kiri, I think her actual name--did you say lakes?" She shakes her head again, quicker, suggestive of clearing her head. "I don't know why I should be surprised. That flat hollow world out there is just a sort of...junction, right? A place to keep all their doors." Her lips compress and she tips back her glass again to drown whatever thought followed her musing. "It seems like a big risk, pretending to be a slave. I guess going out there at all is a big risk, and we have to take it to have any hope of getting out of here. But still, you should go with someone next time. It was really blind luck we found you, this time." "Yes miss, but not for drinking." Like this has reminded him that it's there, Budi gulps down some more non-lake water, long tongue lapping at the tilted glass. "Like, eh, hub," he says, maybe this is just a more familiar word than 'junction'. When he angles his head to regard Tian-shin, very seriously, his eyes are almost entirely black, but when his gaze shifts away again a reflection of the neon bar decor glints eerily behind his pupils. "Everything is big risk here, I don't --" he cuts himself off with a curious tilt of his head. "Oh! You mean you people -- sorry, sorry sorry, I see." He bows his head again. "-- I didn't want to put you in trouble, you have your games. I sneak out, I don't know when is the next door back." Tian-shin more or less manages to keep her expression polite when Budi deploys a tongue that she probably did not realize was quite so prehensile. "Hub, yes! If only we could read the sign posts." She seizes on this quickly, and a little louder than her usual speaking volume. Her blue cocktail is working its magic, which doesn't much help conceal her next startled reaction when she glimpses the unsettling depths of Budi's eyes. "We have our own door." Now she's more hushed than probably altogether necessary. If they were being monitored, the jig would have been up well before now. "That's how we got you back here. Once you've properly recovered, we'll show you how to work it." She manages an optimistic if not particularly bright smile. "Then maybe you can be a tour guide for our next expedition."