Meetings in Oblivion: Angantyr

Meetings in Oblivion: Angantyr
Date of Scene:	21 July 2013
Location:	Castle Oblivion
Synopsis:	Anganatyr arrives at Castle Oblivion to have answers questioned and questions answered.
Thanks to:	Angantyr for patience.
Cast of Characters:	Suspect Cheese, Angantyr Vespar
Tinyplot:	Fragmentary Passage

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Suspect Cheese has posed:
Castle Oblivion.

A long way and a hard road and very near to perilous concentrations of the heartless, yet there are no immediate signs of lingering darkness in the surrounding countryside. There is not much in the way of landscape here. A long and narrow passage that juts crookedly in several haphazard directions ends in a broad clearing in the middle of a murky abyss from which the castle juts from the turf like a dragon's tooth.

It's in fact the right term for the castle and it's pointed, angular green towers which poke every which way like the hands of a demented clock. It's less of a full castle and more a structure folded roughly over on itself multiple times by the inexpert hand.

There is a vague feeling of unreality here as well, the faint smearing of the edges and a slight blurring of colors like a slightly off kilter watercolor painting. No melting clocks certainly, but enough to frame the boundaries of this silent space in an unusual way. Another thing to discover is this place has little in the way of natural sounds.

Even footsteps of approach seem to be muffled.

Yet here you are.

The gates are open.

And you are expected.

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr arrives at last.

He does not even know why he showed up at this point, besides needing something to do...something to work towards. His brain could not handle no goal...he wasn't sure if he could live without something driving him anymore. Worse, the realization that his hands have caused another...cycle. Playing into Garland's hands...

Angantyr shakes his head...no focus on what's ahead of you, something is...wrong. This place...unreality? Unrealness? Something is off...and this place is wrong to him some how. He walks forward, the only way to go was forward, and Angantyr is nothing else was good at driving ahead. His eyes looking around for threats...heartless or otherwise.

Then the doors open...

He steps in, looking around. White...white on white...annoyingly bright.

Suspect Cheese has posed:
The searing white continues into the distance. Geometric designs march along the insides, ridged columns and delicate artwork all crafted in the same white material. The shear blank whiteness is broken only by the ceiling where diamonds of light blue against a darker background strolled into the distance. The sense of distance is distorted and there are traces of darkness like echoing footprints coming and going through this space.

The corridor stretches, or seems to stretch for much longer than it should without any visual cues that should have it stretching towards the horizon.

There are a number of closed doors with symbols above them. They are engraved neatly in a foreign and slightly eye-defeating series of glyphs that seem to shimmer slightly out of focus when any attempt is made to read it.

Eventually though the hallway does end, a small staircase leading up to a platform where a trio of white archways are inset into the walls. One goes forwards, another to the left and a third to the right. The one going forwards is closed. A small and well apointed study can be seen through the open door to the right. Strangely enough, the glyph on the left door is similar to the gold white circle that was the only thing to come from the dream.

There is even less hint of noise than the outside. Footsteps make no sound. Even the ringing that ears ring in silence has been stolen, making this place seem utterly abandoned.

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr grunts...

"Bright as hell...I mean, eldrich places can't afford a few colored drapes or a few damn rugs?" Angantyr mutters to himself, questioning the design capabilities of whatever caused this place, without knowing the history. He often makes such guesses, because why the hell not? Still...it looked like he had a choice...

"...Of course, the middle part is blocked...probably have to go through the two side doors before the middle one opens...might even have to kill monsters or heartless to get a key fragment or something." Angantyr knew how this stuff worked...

Left and right...well, the symbol was on the left door...the right door was a study? He scratched his chin for a moment...and...

Went right.

Suspect Cheese has posed:
The inside of the room is completely different than how the castle hallway is appointed. There is a faint aura of pressure around the door somewhat familiar from the dreams if the threshold is passed.

An old radio sits on a wooden bookcase. It's jarring and immediate because passing that faint pressure returns life and sound again to the world. Something soothing and instrumental drones with a faint crackle from that radio on the bookcase. Bookshelves line the small and comfortable space, the wood varnished to a dull sheen. There is a small reading lamp on a small table and several comfortable chairs tucked into the space.

A tall black haired man in a white greatcoat and vest with a red lining opens a door at the far side of the room. "Then take care of it." The man says with calm finality to whoever was behind him, the voice the same as the dream except this time grounded in reality rather than dreamlike fiction. There is still that faint sense of changing tone and inflection underneath the surface of the calm precision as he turns to face Angantyr. The door closes behind him with a click.

He gestures with a hand, moving over to a bottle on the table. "Ah. Come in, Sir Vespar. It is good to see you have safely made your way here." He uncorks and pours a sinuous red liquid into a short pair of glasses set on the table, which perhaps had not exactly been there on first examination. "A drink perhaps? Questions are a thirsty business." a small chuckle.

"And sometimes required, when the world seeks to loop back on itself."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr looks frankly out of place in this kinda deal...but eh, he hasn't let being out of place bother him before...he is a very road worn man. Especially with the worlds as they are...

He observes the office...reminds him of the movies he caught from Manhattan, the detective ones...the ones Mercade seems to have fashioned himself after of a sense...

The tall Black Haired man catches him, having felt like he walked in on something, but takes the seat when offered...no reason to be rude, yet.

"Sure." he takes hold of the glass and gives it a customary sniff. And a taste. Angantyr has a taste for alchohal, but more to the point a taste for shennanigans.

"I guess you're the man with the answers, or am I the one being asked questions? It seems positions are everywhere these days...but if I had it right the first time, then your comment about the world looping on itself seems.."

"A good place to start."

Suspect Cheese has posed:
No hint of shennanigans here.

Honest.

The liquor is something exotic and possibly expensive, for any measure of exotic to those who have traveled so much and so far. A well aged spiced wine that is sharp and tingling with warmth and smoky undertones.

And the black haired man drinks as well, or appears to, lips curving into a faint smile around the edge of the glass as Angantyr sits and begins to question. "Yes. I suppose it is. There have been others that came here searching for answers and in each case I have sat and fielded them as best I can for a man who employs the good sense not to simply dump trivia on a person from a great height."

The man stretches slightly as he sits on the edge of the chair and raises his glass slightly as if in a toast. "If you are familiar at all with the world of Manhattan, one has put it to me that I am the antithesis of Yoda." Another chuckle. "If you are not aware, this character was a reknowned and learned sage, a mentor who taught others in a specific way." A brief pause before continuing. "I show people the way but I do not tell what they will find there, and neither do I know." The radio falls quiet and then clicks over into another instrumental piece in the brief silence. "I asked for your presence here because Castle Oblivion is a place of.."

another brief pause and another careful, small drink. "uncertainty. The aid I spoke of and the power of the old traditions lay here, but they lay here unformed. It must be earned like anything of value and while I have the key to such trials, I cannot partake of them myself. Magic works in that fashion sometimes, in which you can never give to yourself."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
"You have power, but only to give onto others." Angantyr echos, trying to get this right.

"Truly, that must be a frustraiting power." Angantyr muses, taking a sip. Comfortable in the fact that he probably won't end up dead...or worse, in a tub somewhere in Mahnattan missing a vital organ with a card saying to call 911 immediately. That would be...a issue.

"Alright...so...The reason I really came here was to hear your speal and see what the great cosmic destruction and the fat lazy wizards thing was about, but apparently I got more than I bargined for here, huh?" Angantyr muses. "Oh and thanks for sparing me the on high treatment. If I gota hear another on high statement, I might have just punched someone." He means it too. Pow.

"...Okay so, where do we start first."

Suspect Cheese has posed:
"Well then." The man says with faintly teasing alacrity. "Perhaps it will be sunshine and rainbows after all." He raises from his seat and crosses to the door, opening it to reveal a white span of corridor.

"It is a somewhat significant walk to the place where everything starts but not entirely overlong. Depending on one's perception. I do warn however that there is a blue line across our path in the corridors beyond." He steps out into the corridor leaving the door open for Angantyr to follow. "Many of which are folded in unnatural spaces and ways. If you happen to get.."

a pause. "--misplaced. Follow that line. It will eventually return you to the main foyer."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr shrugs.

"Right. Blue line gets you back to the main white hall." Angantyr says, "Gotcha." he stands finishing the drink and steps forward, towards the opened door...well, there was only one way forward, it seems. "Right. I guess we'll see what is there." Angantyr says, not entirely getting everything, but at least lets hear the message, or...experience this place. Angantyr steps forward, into the corridor and stats following it.

What is the worst that could happen?

Suspect Cheese has posed:
"This place is truly a marvel" And Angantyr's guide moves down the corridor with ease and no great hurry.

"There are many rooms, hundreds perhaps and many ways to get lost. It does not abide intruders fondly, as my associate Xemnas has discovered. But many things are lost within it as well, including the memories which he studies." He makes a waving gesture as they pass several doors. The corridor is blank and empty save for a thin line of blue which snakes across the floor near the corners.

"Although whoever created this place was overmuch fond of the grandiose and the pretentious color scheme."

There is a turn in the corner and then a sharp feeling of disorientation as if the perspective has radically shifted. The corridor seems the same, but two steps takes them to a small contained garden courtyard. The flowers are a riot of color in this stark white maze, and this place seems almost completely disjointed from the rest of the castle. A small island like the study.

The man lingers in this garden for awhile, hands loosely clasped behind his back. "There is a certain irony to this place. It tends to create more questions than it answers."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr walks...

He listens, a rare thing these days...

Xemnas is a name commited to memory...a name freely given. It is almost...subtle. "Yet you seem to come and go as you please." Angantyr seems to point out right as they hit the flower Garden. Whatever it was...it seemed less important to him, and more t the mysterious man. "Well, don't answers themselves sometimes create more questions? The truth is arely such a grounded thing." He points out, "Though I will agree with you on the pretentiousness. Mirage tower only rivals this place in that degree...and also dangerousness. It might not tolerate intruders, but it doesn't seem to be actively trying to murder us with every step."

Yeaaaaah...

"I never did get your name..."

Suspect Cheese has posed:
"I am Lucas Sheridan, and I come and go exactly where proper safeguards will allow." The man explains genially, moving back into the corridors again. "But in a land folded over and over on itself, even a handful of safe places is a triumph." The distorted landscape becomes increasingly esoteric as they move along.

There is a time or two in which the gravity seems to be inverted with no actual change of perspective wrenching around. This usually results in a slightly escher-esque portrayal of white on blue. There are windows that look into other spaces than the dark abyss of the outside.

An endless field of sky unmarred by any sight of land. A great swarm of luminescent jellyfish can be seen making the sky glow in long wavering streaks.

"We use the tools we are familiar with.. and I am a man whose temperment tends towards reasoned argument. The sorcerors believed they were clever. They were not. There is a balance to the universe and believe or disbelieve as you will but the heartless play a role in that design. Light and Darkness are meant to coexist in these worlds, but they do not. The keyblades are a means to an end. Them and those who wield them are supposed to retain that balance." he shrugs.

"You can already see what their absence has caused. Too much chaos has put it's claws into the design."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr walks and continues to listen, This place is certainly...weird. Too weird. He stares at the Jellyfish for a moment, at least it wasn't Eels...not even Eels like Eels. He continues to move, walking behind Lucas, "I see." He says finally to the safe places, it is better than no place at all, but still...

"So the Heartless are...natural?" this is new to him.. "I haven't seen them before the world's collapse..or rather, when I was accidently thrown into the space between worlds..." That was a memory he'd not like to repeat. "So are you saying they've always been there?" And then... "Well, Light and Darkness do seem fairly..." he shrugs, "Uncooperitive...it is likely that each side seems to think the other needs to go away."

"Keyblades huh? Well we only have the one..well two. King Mickey and the Sora kid, but in the dreams I saw that too many keyblades caused some sort of massive war too. So...too many keyblades bad, too few bad..."

"And who even decides who gets a keyblade anyway?"

Suspect Cheese has posed:
"And from conflicts generations of soldiers are expended." Lucas says with an obvious tone of distaste. "Uncooperative is a word of charity." he shakes his head and then continues on.

" In a way I am, in giving you the opportunity for it yourself. In a way the sorcerers were, by casting their wide net and fishing the cosmos for those worthy. In the manner of many things. It is those who have the power to believe they can make such decisions that often change the world, for good or ill. "

A long painting up against a blank white wall. It looks like rolling hills but the view is sideways and it is snowing heavily, everything blanketed in a sheer sheet of white blizzard. A suddenly, abrupt flash of red streaks across the window while Lucas continues. "-- And here we are. The beginning, as many worlds have beginnings." He stands in front of a double sided door, white and featureless save for the engraving.

"This is where you start, should you be of the mind to do so. There are trials beyond these doors. And you may face them or not as you wish."

Angantyr Vespar has posed:
Angantyr wasn't sure about this now...

Did he just say what he thought he said? Nah...just reading too much into it. Instead, he frowns, "Sometimes I'm charitable." Angantyr says...though he decides he could learn to be a bit more often. Then the double doors...everything around him is starting to get a bit weird...

"Always with the tests." he says, muttering, "One way or another, there is always a test...or a challenge, or a game of Chess where I am forced to also avoid death." Angantyr mutters...

"What's one more.." he shrugs, and pushes the doors open, walking through. He wasn't going to back down...he had to keep moving forward...showing weakness wasn't something Ang did to anyone...at least not lightly.