milliways_bar | First Entrance

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baze malbus

First Entrance

Lestallum's...architecture, culture, location, it's everything was different from Insomnia by virtue of it being an entirely different city. A simple concept. Obvious, even, not one that needed to be stated or noted.

He is only noting it to himself now because there is absolutely no reason why the interior of a building should look so different from what he was expecting. Nor is there any reason for there not to be a door when he turns around to exit.

"Oh, what the bloody--"

Is he dreaming? His senses tell him he isn't, but there is no other logic that can explain what he is seeing. Not even the presence of a crystal powered prince could explain this--and it did not matter, because Noct was not with him when he walked through the door. The possibility of this being a dream was...problematic, to say the least. Had he suddenly fallen asleep, or had he been found by the Empire? Neither was ideal, and neither was a thing his little group of prince and retainers could afford in their situation.

He turns to face the bar at large, wanting to catch someone's attention to ask just what the hell was going on, but uncertain whether doing so was worth his time. If this were all a dream or a dying man's fantasy, whatever facts he could learn from the people he imagined here would be meaningless. Perhaps he should just go to the bar and order a drink. Why not? The situation was absurd enough as it was.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Ignis Scientia takes his first steps into the bar.

[ ooc: Hello! I wanted to get him in on the 13th in celebration of his DLC, but honestly I was too distracted by... responding to it to think of a good EP for him in time lol. If you haven't seen my back room post: I am a returning player from The Ancient Times bringing you the good recipe boy from Final Fantasy XV! I hope you enjoy him! :3

EDIT: Als pls forgive me if I'm a little slow, I'm fighting off a cold and hopped up on medicine :< ]

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There's a woman in well-tailored business dress - a red silk blouse and a narrow, grey pinstriped skirt, and black shoes that show a glimmer of a red sole under their high heels - sitting at the bar, cradling a cup of black coffee in her well-manicured hands. She watches the man approach the bar with the dark, somewhat wide and expressive eyes set into her angular face, her curiosity clear.

"You look like a man who's found himself somewhere other than where he expected," she says with a slight smile, not unkindly.

He stops, turning his head just slightly in her direction. The thoughts running through his mind are unreadable beyond his neutral, somewhat steely expression--but he is thinking. Whether it's worth stopping to talk to her, whether it would be rude not to do so, whether the concept of politeness exists or applies in an imaginary bar full of imaginary people.

"Do you see such people often?" he says, his voice, with its prim and proper accent, sounding just friendly enough.

[ ooc: sorry for the super late reply... stupid cold :( ]

Her slight smile grows just a touch. "More often than you'd think. It's the pause right after they come in, you see," she says, conspiratorially. "And the way they check behind them for the door. It gives them away."

"Milliways, this place, likes to turn up uninvited behind doors that should lead somewhere else. Just this morning, I opened my office door to go and attend a meeting, and lo and behold, my office door led here."

"The universe's way of saying I needed a coffee break, perhaps."

(ooc: No worries! Colds are the worst. *sends tea* I'm fighting off being the latest victim at my workplace, myself.)

Edited 2017-12-16 05:03 (UTC)

"Is that so?" he asks. It sounds a touch cold to his ears. Maybe it doesn't to her. Maybe he should stop worrying so much about how he comes off as to imaginary--

--if this is imaginary, then adjusting himself to the social mores of it sure is exhausting. Shouldn't he be free to do and say as he pleases in a place of one's imagining? Perhaps he's simply far too used to doing this and can't simply snap out of it. Perhaps doing so is familiar and gives him comfort in a situation that's hard for him to explain.

Perhaps he's simply putting too much thought into this.

"What, precisely, is this place, then?" he asks, folding his arms.

Her smile is gentle - friendly, but not overly so, and understanding that newcomers might be a little off-balance from odd taverns showing up where they shouldn't be.

"In practical terms, Milliways is a bar and tavern where one might get food and drink and meet new people, and an inn where one might get some rest. More broadly, it is a... gathering place, of sorts. A crossroads or nexus where sometimes, people from different worlds or times might visit." The woman says this quite frankly, but with a hesitation that suggests she half-expects to be disbelieved. "Its door can lead to many different places, depending on who opens it. If I were to open it, it would take me back to my office and my incipient meeting, whereas it would take you back to wherever it was you were a moment ago."

She is being disbelieved. Instantaneously, like flipping a switch. He chooses to disbelieve it all. He's never heard of the word "Milliways" and he's not inclined to imagine things as fanciful as a nexus among worlds, but there is no explanation for any of this, beyond that he is imagining it. No matter how real it feels.

Which means something terrible has happened to him. That realization alone causes his whole expression to change, from distant to almost horrified. By gods, he hopes he's simply fallen asleep. A tendency to fall unconscious suddenly was not ideal, but it was far preferable to the alternative of having been found by the Empire.

He turns around, facing where thee exit should be. "I must get back to--" But what good would that do him when there's no door?

Well, she can't really blame him, however much she prefers to be believed.

"Well, if your door is gone, which I am assuming entirely from the look on your face, you won't be getting back to wherever just yet," she says, taking an unconcerned sip of her coffee. "At least for a little while. Until it comes back. Which it will, I'm sure, but there's no telling when."

"Really, you might as well have something to drink in the meantime. Disbelief is quite a common response, so tradition dictates a newcomer's first drink is free."

Edited 2017-12-17 03:45 (UTC)

Something about that...sounds logical. Feels logical. He's almost inclined to believe it, but it goes against everything he knows to be true. There's no definitive way to prove that any of this is true. So perhaps he should do as she says: have something to drink in the meantime. That coffee did smell very good...

"Why does the door disappear?" he asks instead.

"Fair warning," she says, not unsympathetically, "the answer's a bit shit. No one knows for sure why the door sometimes disappears for a patron, leaving them stuck here for a while. It doesn't happen for everyone, just like not everyone finds this place to begin with."

"If it helps, time generally stops on the other side of the door while someone is here. However long you spend here, when you leave again you will return to the same moment in your world as when your left. Just as I will. I found the door to Milliways this morning while on my way to a meeting. I might take a leisurely coffee break, or might spend a few days here, and yet when I return through my door, I will still be back in plenty of time for my meeting."

He shakes his head. "This is all so very..." What, he's not sure. It's definitely something, though. "If it is imaginary, my subconscious has far outdone itself...

"Where are you from?" he asks suddenly, turning to face her. He suspect her answer won't ring a bell.

"If it is imaginary, I do thank you for including me," she chuckles, offering a hand to shake. "I'm Hedda Winchell, currently of the city of Los Angeles, in the state of California, in the nation of the United States of America, in the year 2017."

She says it as one somewhat used to including more information than would normally be necessary to someone of the same world. Someone who likewise expects her answer and his, in turn, not to be familiar.

"And you?"

His calendar hadn't even gotten so far as 2017!

He's trained himself well not to instantly shake any offered hand, to assess the situation, the person, but he's honestly so confused and overwhelmed that he's not quite sure what to do. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Very confused."

Hedda chuckles, turning the offered hand so that her palm faces up in a slight 'Well, what can you do?' gesture.

She will find out eventually, one way or another.

"Pleased to meet you, Very Confused. You really do sound like you could use a drink," her words are wry but not wholly unsympathetic with his plight. "What would you like? Tea? Coffee? Any variety of stronger drink to steady the nerves? They can get anything here - and I'll do my best to answer any questions you have, to try and reduce your confusion."

The man whose name is not Very Confused--though that does not preclude someone in his world being named Very Confused, just in Latin--shakes his head. "Anything, you say?" he asks. He may be very confused in all but name, but that doesn't stop him from forming a strategy. And that strategy is: "What is the strongest drink they serve?"

Her eyebrows rise in mild amazement at the man whose name is not Maxima Confusa, that most annoying of status ailments (or strangest of boss battle themes).

"Why, I believe the strongest mixed drink they serve has the fanciful name of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. I have heard it is good despite its legendary potency, but have not tried it, myself. The strongest wine would be the Atlantean, which is stronger than the gargle blaster by sheer strength per sip, and is... rather divine in flavor," her smile is a little more sincere, there.

"Though if you wish to try the Atlantean, I would suggest only imbibing a thimble-full unless you have more than a human constitution or know a very effective hangover cure."

"The wine is the strongest drink, is it? Must be my lucky day," he says with the air of a Cultured Individual Who Likes Fancy Things Because He's Fancy, which he likes to present himself as being, rather than a confused and scared young man who wants to get as hammered as quickly as he can, which is what he actually he is.

"And where do I go to order such a divine beverage?"

"You must simply ask the bar itself," Hedda replies, placing a hand on the counter. "The bar can serve drinks and food and provide keys to the rooms for rent upstairs, simply by asking. No need to catch a bartender's eye, for most often there isn't a bartender to be seen."

"Could I have a warm-up on my coffee, please?" she adds by way of example, setting her near-empty cup of coffee back on its napkin on the bar counter. A moment later, the cup is full again. "Thank you, dear Bar." Hedda smiles and lifts the cup in slight salute before taking a sip.

It is good coffee.

"You have simply to ask the bar for what you'd like, though it is best to be polite."

"Ask the--?"

Yes, the bar. Yes, it's strange. That's been established. No use or time marveling over it, or the magical refill of the coffee. The only time he had was for one specific thing: to get drunk as quickly as possible.

For strategy, you see. Definitely strategy.

Ignis walks over to the bar, and, after a moment's hesitation, asks a bit uncertainly: "I would. Like a glass of your strongest. The wine."

When the glass miraculously appears, Ignis makes a slightly startled expression, stepping back just a little from the bar--and staying that way, for just a moment. For just a moment he was convinced of the reality of the situation, that this all, undeniably, felt too real. That there was some undeniable logic to this, as illogical as it should have been.

But that was what the "strategy" was for.

If this was real, then drinking that beverage would have undeniable physical consequences. If it was too powerful for a human to drink a full glass of, then surely he'd be plastered in no time, would inevitably have to spend the night in this "inn" and wake up hung over the next day. Of course, he couldn't merely sip this drink. He would have to steel himself, steel his mind not to fall for the illusion. If he could withstand the allegedly strong elixir, that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was fake. But, if he succumbed--

"Oh, hell."

He grabs the drink, chucking it back in one gulp.

That may not have been the best idea.

"'Hell' indeed," Hedda echoes, eyebrows raised.

"What a waste - did you even taste it?" she asks, dryly. "Hopefully you'll remember enough not to want to do this again, at least. Maybe the hangover will be enough to convince you. I do not envy you the night you're going to have. Not at all."

"Taste? Ah, drat..."

No, he didn't. And somehow, in the haze overcoming him, he has enough brain to spare an acute horror that he, a man of culture and taste, did not take the time to savor the "divine" flavor of the wine, that he inelegantly chugged the beverage like the uncultured men he's been travelling with these past few days, chugged it was flavorless, watery beer in a tacky red cup. Which he's been drinking far too much of, on the road, with those men, and their terrible beer, and their red cups.

"Perhaps...next time..." he says a bit woozily, letting his hand rest on the bar surface.

Hedda chuckles, tilting her head as she watches him.

"Oh dear. Perhaps next time you find yourself in a strange place, you won't disbelieve the evidence of your own senses and immediately seek to incapacitate yourself. Not everywhere is as safe as Milliways."

"If you do pass out," she promises kindly, "I will do my best to stash you somewhere safe so you won't wake up having had obscene things drawn on your face as you slept. The infirmary isn't far."

She'll probably have to ditch her heels, if it comes to that. Those shoes weren't made for carrying drunk off their ass royal retainers.

Whether there's someone currently behind the bar or not, there is someone seated at it - a lanky teenage boy, attention utterly absorbed by the denizens of the fish tank in front of him and the sketchbook he's drawing them in.

Yusuke had thought the lobsters at the beach were exquisite; these creatures are simply delightful.

Well. Given that he's unexpectedly walked into a large bar with no exit door, a teenager seated at the bar in front of a fish tank shouldn't be any surprise at all. Quite normal, in fact. Yes, quite!

He takes a seat not far from the teenager, trying not to be too obvious in the way he glances at the teen's work. Though it shouldn't matter if he stares directly, as this is all imaginary, and propriety doesn't apply. Ignis must say, though, if this is all in his head, he must have quite the aptitude for art. This boy's art is remarkable. Maybe he is staring too much, just enough to be noticeable.

[ ooc: yusuke!!! i have not beaten p5 at all but i already love this mf, look like he walked straight out of an old smt game lol ]

Damn right his art is remarkable. Of course, he'd say having such a wonderful subject as the trilobites is a big help, but if there's one thing Yusuke knows, it's that he has talent.

Fortunately, what most others would call bad manners is in fact enough to get through Yusuke's focus and make him realise he has company. "May I help you?"

[OOC: He is the most precious melodramatic art nerd and I will not hear a word spoken against him. XD I'm moving him slowly through canon, so depending on how far in you are you may not want to read his OOMs, but I've only just nudged him into September.]

"Ah, my apologies," he says. "Was I staring too much? It's simply that your art is exquisite."

Why he's saying that to an imaginary boy drawing art that he imagined is beyond him. Paying himself a complement, perhaps?

"Thank you. It helps that I have exquisite subjects." He may be literally the only person who thinks so, but that's never stopped him before.

"Ah, yes. Seafood can be quite inspiring," he says, a bit amused he would go so far as to call fish in a display tank "seafood". He of all people should know not every fish was edible. Some were for show. For selling. Then again, none of the fish in these tank really looked like the sort of fish that--

Push that thought aside. He wasn't even sure if this place was real. Now was not the time to reminisce. "Not that I'm familiar with their inspiration, from an artistic standpoint."

"They must be some relative of the crustacean family. Or is that taxonomic group larger than a 'family'?" He can't quite recall at the moment. Not that it matters; either way, they're quite a joy to behold, and he was in need of a change of pace from the observation window that so captivated his attention on his first few visits.

"I don't believe these fellows are here as part of the menu, either. They appear to be well cared for."

"Are they not edible?" It's strange he would imagine a scenario where seafood was not edible. Seafood was a specialty of his.

"I wouldn't know. I believe trilobites are extinct, or at least considered so, on Earth, or at least the one I hail from."

Milliways: complicating this sort of definition since 2004

Ignis stops himself just short of saying they should try eating one, just to find out. On the other hand, if this is all his imagination, what was the harm in trying? They probably tasted exactly like lobsters. Or perhaps his imagination would run wild, and say they tasted of chips.

"'The Earth I hail from.' What an odd thing to say," he muses to himself. "How can something be extinct in one part of the earth but not the other?"

Said perhaps like someone whose Earth is not named Earth.

"Well, I can't help it if the planet was unimaginatively named." He'd like to think he would pick something more inspired, if he were charged with naming something on such a grand scale.

"More often, if an animal or plant exists in one locale but nowhere else, it is simply a unique development to its home area, rather than extinct elsewhere."

"Unimaginatively named? I'm afraid you've lost me."

But he does take this time to remember that he's only having this conversation because the store he entered somehow turned out to be an expansive bar. He's been lost this whole time.

"That would put you from a more creatively named world than 'Earth,' then."

There's a giant of a man sitting at the bar, drinking tea. He's armed and armored to a ridiculous degree, what with his staff and giant repeater cannon, coolant tank, and power cells attached to the red carapace he wears.

"Hoi, there! May the Force of others be with you! I'm Baze Malbus," he says, standing and approaching.

"I've never seen you around Milliways before."

What

Look, Ignis isn't an avid consumer of media. He just doesn't have the time. He'll see what Noct is playing on his television from time to time and vaguely be aware of ads, but he isn't so familiar with media to such a degree that he would imagine this.

"--I beg your pardon?" he asks, looking as stunned as one might when staring at a very dedicated cosplayer.

"Oh, you're a newbie?" Baze says, chuckling. He sips his tea, which he carried with him, and returns to the bar to order a pamphlet. He carts the brochure over to the newcomer and offers it to him.

"You're in Milliways, the bar at the end of the universe. It appears unexpectedly the first time, so your first drink is free."

"A pamphlet?" he muses, taking the brochure from Baze. Has his imagination run so wild that he's thought up of an entire pamphlet of this imaginary place? With its own extensive rules? None of this was like anything he had ever thought before. And being here felt real...

He shakes his head. "This is all a farce," he mutters to himself.

"A farce, huh?" Baze says, raising a brow. He laughs again.

"I guess? I know a lot of people who take this place seriously that would probably be offended! Milliways is my home now. What's your name?"

"You say it's your home but aren't offended. Curious, that," he says, dodging the question.

Baze squints at him, seeing that he's evading the name question. Oh, well. In his good time.

"It's silly to get offended at what someone thinks about this place," Baze says, smiling once more.

"After all, if they're breaking one of the three rules, I can arrest them, as I'm part of the volunteer Security force. If they're not, then, well, there's nothing I can do about it, so why rail against what I can't change?"

"This place has a security force," he says with a laugh in his voice as he peruses the pamphlet. "The bar is sentient as well, I see."

Well, if he is dead, or unconscious, at least his imagination is being ridiculous enough to stop him from panicking.

"This place does, and she is. Lovely lady, bar is. Said by some to be maternal," Baze says, chuckling. He steps over to the counter and sets his cup down, and she refills his tea for him. He offers her a pat and a murmured thanks, and picks up the earthenware mug.

"Most of the information you need to know is in the pamphlet, but it doesn't cover everything. Do you have any questions?"

"Did you just thank the bar?" he asks.

One of the many confusing things swirling around his mind like a miasma of wtf.

"Of course," Baze says, squinting at him again.

"Since she's sentient, why not be polite?"

Edited 2017-12-20 20:14 (UTC)

"But it's..." He pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a disgruntled sigh. He's not handling this very well and he doesn't have anything to fall back on to make it any better. No extensive training that would tell him exactly how to handle such an elaborate illusion. And he's not enjoying this sensation at all. He's not enjoying not knowing what to do or even what's going on.

"It's what?" Baze says, folding his arms. His opinion of this kid is sinking lower by the minute.

It can't be helped. He is a mere mortal who might be used to things like sleeping gods, but not things like sentient bars that demand respect and politeness.

"I suppose it would do well to thoroughly inspect this...pamphlet," he says, with no small degree of cynicism.

"Yes," Baze says, his patience at an end.

"I'll leave you to inspect the pamphlet at your leisure. May the Force of others be with you, whoever you are."

And he turns to start walking away.

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First Entrance

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ANCIENT TIMES HIGH FIVE this is Jill

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