XIII nodded when Rozalind confirmed his thoughts on the second circle. Now, he only had the third circle to think about. He followed Rozalind to the punching bag and watched as she placed her fist against bag. "I figured that's what you were getting at, but I'm puzzled. There was a... I don't know, a feeling that there should have been a third circle just around the altar, but there was nothing to say that there was. Not only that, but I got a partial memory from the night of the rift, or something close." XIII stared at Rozalind's arm before deciding to change the subject for a bit.

"Is that tape on your arm decoration? If so, you up for a friendly round of sparring?" XIII asked as he jerked his thumb towards the mat set up for gym users to spar. "You look like you want to punch your frustrations away."

Rockin briefly felt something strange in the air. He shook it off, literally, before continuing his walk with human. Upon rounding a corner, he saw a pair of beings he had never seen before. One of them was grey and appeared to be made of stone. "Um... what is he?" he asked the doctor quietly. He listened as the pair of beings ahead of him spoke. The one who didn't appear to be made of stone sounded female, young, and not very intelligent. He shrugged as he began walking again. He jumped when the big guy fell through the floor, laughing at the smell. "That's gross." he put a hoof over his nose as he walked ahead looking down in the hole. "I won't tell anyone either." he said with a chuckle. "And I'm not a monster." he added, looking at the... what was she? He didn't know. "I'm a pony. A unicorn to be exact. I can do magic."

Dutifully, Charles had scribbled down Dimitri’s abridged history of his world on a note pad and made a thoughtful noise as he read over it.

“Well it all sounds…interesting.” Charles scribbled out the chanted words with annoyance. “From the sounds of it all Catalysts act like batteries; storing magical energy to be used at a later date. Quite ingenious actually.”

With a quick thank you Charles picked up the curiously cold drink. He could smell the alcohol in it and yet it was still sweet, enough to take away the sharpness of everything else but not so much as to be sickly. While it was against rules to drink while on duty he saw no harm in having little taste, for scientific purposes of course. Frowning more in thought than the drink itself he then asked

“You said that Catalyst is fused with your Soul Essence. Would that be some sort of ritual of some kind or a specific spell?”

Taking a swig Charles took a moment to savour the flavours and enjoy how surprising smooth it was. Thoroughly impressed, setting the drink back down Charles opened his mouth to continue questioning Dimitri.

Then the drink hit his stomach, and then his skull with the force of truck.

“Oh.” He blinked several times trying to make his eyes come back into focus. “Wow, that is…umm…uh. Jesus Christ, um. Strong.”
It took Charles several attempts to pull out one of the chairs surrounding the table, but thankfully one to fall into it.

“Sir. May I be excused?” He giggled with his face in his hands. “Just…just gimme….uh une très minute . Haha, one very minute.”

@Affili

@Arty Fox@Affili

Charles, Dimitri, and Twain

Twain, of course, would take his fair share. He was less refined than Charles, preferring to gulp his alcohol down in large swigs.

“Damn Dimitri. That’s good stuff! We need to figure out this rift thing so that we can have a tap line from your world into ours!”

Then he sat across from charles, spun the book on the desk three times.

“Behold. Our Book Of The Dead. It is made from the skin, bones, and ligaments of the first wizard who defied death!” His presentation was very dramatic, perhaps because of the drink… He took another swig, then opened the first page. This time the ink could be seen upon the pages. Dark red ink.

“This, my padawan learner, is my---our lineage!” He made a grand sweeping gesture with his arms. The first few pages were now full of symbols. Rows and rows and rows…

They were all about the same size, there would be ‘trends’ and themes for a few characters, sometimes there would be a gradual shift in the symbols themes and every so often a dramatic shift would be noticed. One who could examine handwriting would say that none were written in the same hand, nor with the same pen, nor at the same time. Intermingled there were also symbols that were smudged or scribbled out, as if struck from the record. (In one instance there were 12 of these in a row), these were nearly illegible. Twain impatiently skipped a few chunks of pages to the last page, half full. The second to last symbol was one of the smudged-out-symbols, and it was very similar to the last symbol. Both had a ‘T’ base, some of the smaller details were different including a sweeping crescent on the second skewed off to the right instead of to the left.

“The first thing we are gonna hafta do for you is to make you a ‘wizard’s symbol’. Do you remember the nail in that guy on the mountain? What was his name… Ah… you know what I mean right?” Twain’s mind was slowed by the drink, his speech slurred. “The head of the nail had a symbol on it. It was a Wizard’s Symbol. That is the symbol of the guy who cast the spell. Let me explain. It was kind of a binding spell.”

He mimed hammer and nail motions clumsily with his hands. “The wizard bound the man’s soul to himself. *tink tink tink*. Attached it to a loooong ethereal string. Sooo Normally when someone dies, their soul hangs around a bit before crossing over. When Mikkel died, his soul was pulled back to the wizard by that thread.” Twain made a sudden yanking motion, then grasped an invisible pole, and began to reel in an invisible line as if he were fishing. “Yooooooink! That’s why I couldn’t get at ‘im when he died. Tricky! It was very clever actually!” He laughed. “If your lackeys don’t live to tell the tale… Well… They have to anyway!” He lauged for a few more minutes before composing himself.

“So, anyway, you’re going to need one of those soon. I mean a symbol not a lackey. Not yet anyway…” he grinned like the chesire cat when he was drunk.

He pointed to the last symbol. “So this is meeeeeeee. Dimitri don’t look it’s a secret! And yours will go right here!” He gave Charles an even look. “I have veto power if what you come up with is totally laaaaame.”

He pulled out a black bag from one of his many pockets. “And this is for you. A starter set.” Inside the bag was six crystals, they would fit in his palm, they were all smoky quartz.

@Konan375

XIII and Rozalind

She froze a bit when he mentioned the bandages. She rolled her arm in circles, warming it up, clenching and unclenching a fist. "The good doctor Twain tell's me it's as good as new..." She frowned, the smiled tilting her head toward the sparring area. "The best way to know for sure is to test it out."

She walked over to it.

"You think you remember something?" She was on the matts now, facing him. "Maybe I should be careful, wouldn't want to knock it out of your head."

~~~~

XIII in the past

He was in his cell. Isolated, mostly. The door had a small rectangular slit in it that opened and closed. Sometimes they left it open, you could see them coming, you couldn't stop them, It might have been part of their mind game. There was no way to tell the time of day. He must have gotten food, because he hadn't withered away, but he didn't quite ever remember eating... Or how or why he was even here... or Why....

He sometimes had company. He could hear his cellmate through the wall.

"They are coming for you soon." A male voice. Encouraging. "They are good, but you're better. You can hold out."

@Arty Fox@Fetzen@RokkuHoshi

Shannon, Vaughtar, Rokin, Zesiro, and Winston

Winston strolled along beside Rokin’ until they found more of the otherworlders. He folded his hands behind his back and stepped back, nodding to Zesiro (Who only rolled his eyes and looked away), and watched everyone interact with one another. He occasionally took notes. Zesiro raised an eyebrow and peeked over at the notes from time to time.

XIII smirked as he made his way to the mat. "My head's pretty spacious," he said as he knocked on it. "One of the upsides of having only four years worth of memories. You'll have to hit extremely hard if you want to knock something out, that is, if you can hit me." XIII took his stance as he faced Rozalind. "Ready?"

---

Years ago.

XIII shivered as he sat in his cell. It was always cold. He couldn't remember a time where he felt warm other than when he was taken of the cell. There wasn't much he could remember, but he could always remember when he was taken and what happened to him during the time he was out of the cell. They were trying to make him afraid, but it wasn't working. All they did was make him angry. So many times had he tried to lash out at his captors. Every time he had failed. But it never stopped him. Now he was waiting for the right moment. When he can inflict as much harm on them as they had on him.

When the voice spoke to him from the next cell he smiled. "Damn right!" He reached up and touched the left side of his face, wincing as he did so. The burn was still fresh and sore. "These guys are playing with fire and gasoline, and one of these days their luck is going to run out and they're going to get burned alive."

That unvoluntary expediton into the deep bowels of this strange 'sub' had not exactly been a pleasant surprise. Things like this small... pond... filled with filthy and strangely oily water didn't exist on Munimis, and even if they had he'd still have been able either to search for another pond filled with clear water, to roll himself in a patch of nice grass or to go for a high speed dive in the air in order to rid himself of the dirt. Obviously none of those options were available in this steel tomb.

The huge stone creature shook himself in order to shed at least some water, but there still was an abundance of droplets sticking to him. Had anyone introduced Vaughtar to those strange devices called showers yet ? Maybe now would be a good time before he could dare to visit Dimitri for the promised drink...

"You can do magic ? Then maybe..." Vaughtar spread his wings, putting even more of the bilge water onto display. The fact that it was spread over a large surface area allowed it to quickly evaporate, making the stench stronger. "I need to get rid of this!" He looked at Rockin, inspecting the rather strange creature. A unicorn ? Never heard of that kind before. Apparently another unfortunate being which had been sucked through one of those rifts. It reminded him that they had a job to do.

"I can." Rockin' nodded. "All Unicorns from my world can. My name's Rockin' Strings." he smiled, his horn beginning to glow. Shortly after, all the gunk on the gargoyle began to glow and slide up, forming a good size ball above Vaughter's head. "It's a bit harder than back home." He moved it far enough from the larger creature that it would fall without splashing the stone being. Releasing the magic, the glow stopped on both his horn and the ball of stuff before said ball dropped back into the hole. "So, you know what I am, what type of creature are you?" he asked, looking at Vaughter.

Propped up on his elbow Charles allowed his eyes to meander to the left whilst Twain spoke.

“Holy shhhhhiiii-shugar nuts that is...rude.” He slumped into elbows. “Like…50 shades of rude. Lackies should be allowed to do a die in peace because it’s uh…their rights as lackies.”

Charles pushed himself back up and continued in a very serious manner but promptly ruined it trying to stifle a giggle.

“ I read the terms and conditions of Lackie-ing. Hell I bloody wrote the damn things!”

The appearance of the bag cut off whatever rant Charles was about to begin and, quickly distracted, he riffled through it too find the crystals. With a small coo and a gasp he pick up one of the crystals in his hand, holding it up to the light for a better look at it. Not that it helped much in his current state.

“Ha….cool rock. I know about this rock and how…uh…rocky it is.”

Furrowing his brow Charles tried to kick his intoxicated mind into gear. It then promptly stalled and farted out a single fact.

“It’s a Quartz and like, this Roman guy; Plinny, he thought that they were made from…uh…water with corners.” This prompted another flurry of giggles from the man.

“And mate. I will draw the prettiest damn picture that ever did pretty! Dimitri! Teach me how to make a pretty!” He demanded and slammed a fist onto the table.
@Eyeris@Affili


“But pony eyes smaller.” Shannon muttered, still with her nostrils clamped shut.

With all these not-Monsters and Not-Agents about Shannon was beginning to feel very confused and out of her depth; a lot of the rules of things she knew were being challenged or being simply proved wrong. Shannon wasn’t entirely sure how she should feel about it.

Her jaw had almost hit the floor when Rockin put the disgusting water back, her wide eye gaze never leaving the glowing orb and even stayed fixed onto the hole it had fallen into.

“Rockin Friend, how make smelly water float?” Shannon stumbled over to look into the hole to see the glowing orb but was met only with a horrid stench and equally unpleasant view. “Smelly water no float. Smelly water stay in place.”

Shannon remembered something and a thought clicked into place.

“Can Rockin Friend make fishies float?” Shannon moved away from the hole and sat down beside Zesiro, with an annoyed grumble. “Fishies float in Bad Place.”

@RokkuHoshi@Fetzen

Dimitri:

He glanced over at Twain, barely containing the laughter that was building up within him at the sight of Charles after his few gulps. As funny as it all was, the monk was truly impressed that Twain and Charles had both managed to stay awake.
"I must admit, I half expected you two to flop out onto your asses after such long drinks, so I applaud you both for your efforts! But I recommending waiting a while before you get to drawing pretties Charles!"
He brought his hands together several times in mock applause, then looked back at Twain with a grin
"How much do you reckon I could sell this fine creation to the people of Earth? It would have to be vastly diluted mind you or else the whole world might fall into chaos and burn itself to the ground! Some of the finest brewers of Temperance would charge no less than sixty to eighty gold talons for their finer brews... But all the ones that I have sampled taste like shit" he finished with a laugh.

Dayna scoffed rudely at the three men, not at all impressed with how easily the monk's poison had led them off topic. She was none the less impressed at his magic though an how easily he had executed it, even in his current state which seemed to be quite a normal state for the jovial monk. She floated around the desk and behind Twain to observe the book and how all the symbols materialized and crept over the once blank pages at his command. This was also impressive to the elemental sprite but she was confused as to how Twain could apply what was written in the book into his magic. Back home there were no runes or symbols to learn. She simply willed the elements to respond and so they did which enabled her to manipulate them however she desired. The closer she got to Twain, the more sensitive she became to the power that was coursing through him. she spun around to face him and narrowed her eyes "Why Am I so sensitive to the energy that courses through you Mr. Twain? The closer I get to you, the more attracted I feel your power. I don't like it...Silence it right now! before I unintentionally start to syphon it from you! I'm not sure how I'd react to such a strange power should too much of it bleed off of you into me. You're like a strange power source that I can use to recharge with right now and I'm not sure how wise that is at this moment!"

A few sparks of green and violet sparked through her form. Once Dayna realized the reaction, she quickly backed away from the necromancer and slammed into Dimitri's chest which caused him to grunt a little bit as another spark shot through him on contact like static. It was more surprising than painful and Dimitri chuckled as he moved to the side of Dayna to break contact. He wisely remained silent as Dayna recovered and became stable once more then glared at Twain.
"You! You feel like what those like me describe Deseroh's energy feeling like. At least those that maintain some shred of sanity after exposure anyway..." she trailed off into silence then slowly backed out of the room. "I'm going to find Natasha now!" she called from the hallway.

Dimitri looked at Twain and then Charles with a shrug "I wonder what that was all about. this whole thing keeps getting stranger!" he raised the flask and toasted to that thought.
"Now, Shall we fetch a stretcher for Charles and get someone to tuck him in to bed?"

For a brief moment, Vaughtar stared at himself with eyes wide open as he saw what started to happen to the liquid filth that was sticking to him. He had never seen such magic before, but after a few seconds it could easily be seen that it was very far away from the plethora of mailicious applications of magic in his own world of origin.

"I'm Vaughtar, a gargoyle." he replied politely, though the extremely chesty and roaring nature of his voice probably made this a bit harder to find out. "Do you know what a gargoyle is ?" he added towards Rockin'. He decided to answer his questions first before asking his own. And he had some -- unicorns didn't exist in Munimis.

Unlike Shannon he had no intend to look back down into this annoying pitfall to see the ball of contaminated water vanish in there. He had been down there himself and even though it had only been for a few seconds it had sufficed to make him feel really... ugly. Vaughtar was however interested into what answer Rockin' would give to her questions.

Rockin Nodded at Vaughter with a smile. "There aren't any living gargoyles where I'm from. They're all just stone statues." He then had to sit through Shannon's questions. "I can make all sorts of things float. I can also teleport and walk on clouds." He looked Shannon over with a slight frown. "And what type of being are you?" he asked, smiling.

@affili
Trisitan and Natasha…

Tristian looked uncomfortable, his mouth opening, then closing, then opening, then closing without saying a single word as the redhead went straight to work grilling the leader of TRIDENT. She stoked the coals with her sharp wit, suggestive body language, and even accusatory glares.

He glanced down at his desk when she criticized it’s empty state, touched his hair uncomfortably when she accused him of being ‘only a handsome face’. He knew that logically he should feel extremely insulted, though, he felt in that moment only extremely uncomfortable. When she was finished, he frowned a bit, his big blue eyes looking a bit sad.

“Perhaps you have a reason to be angry with me, but, there is no need to be cruel to Karma.” He spoke in defense of his secretary. “She works very hard to make sure everything comes out alright in the end.”

He took another moment, his frown vanishing and his becoming thoughtful and curious as he studied Natasha’s features. Tristan had heard many times before that women were like the sea. He was puzzled. Tristan didn’t agree with the old adage. He understood the sea, he did not understand women. Natasha reminded him more of a wildfire, or perhaps a volcano. She still smoldered and Tristan was not quite sure when she might erupt again.

“I spoke to Twain and Rozlaind about what happened on the mountain. They have given me a full report. I am aware of what happened, and am sorry that you were in danger.”

“Though… It is our job to do so.” He reached over to the picture on his desk. “Face dangers that others can not. You knew that when you joined us, Natasha… Trident has been this way from the beginning… Back when there were only seven of us...”

“... I could never forget that name, Slay. Nor any one of us. We hadn’t even imagined TRIDENT as you know it today. Back then we were just… Looking for adventure or something...” He looked a bit wistful pulling out an old picture from his desk and pushing it toward her.

Natasha had seen this photo before. One of Natasha’s now-missing-teammate from MOON had possessed a copy. Hibiscus was their necromancer, and used the photo as a bookmark. One day Hibiscus had shown Natasha the photo, and named everyone in it. Trisitan would do the same now.

It was in much better condition than the photo Natasha had seen before. Tristan preserved the photo in a glass frame. It was still an old photo. She would recognize a much younger version of Tristan, pulling an unhappy Hibiscus into the frame. There was a man with a gamblers smile and a long trench coat: “Magnus.” There was a woman with a soft dark round face and long dark hair: “Sooleawa.” She was flanked by two men. The one of the left had a sharp nose and impeccable posture: “Ibrahim”, he put an arm around Sooleawa and looked at her fondly… But she glanced toward the man on her right. This man wore a leather jacket and wore dark sunglasses… This was... “Slay.”

“I can’t believe she talked about him… I thought that man was invincible, but he isn’t. He is dead. Sooleawa too. Probably Magnus, knowing him…”

“Ibrahim is alive, but he left to run his father’s business. Hibiscus left long before that… I thought she was cross with me and would never return. I thought I was the last one left to carry our work. Then Hibiscus came back. She agreed to work with MOON… Yet… Now she is missing.” He frowned and looked up from the Photo.

“All of MOON is missing… Except for you, Natasha.”

He pulled out a glass pyramid from his desk.

“MOON’s missions were so sensitive that even I did not have direct contact with Hank, your unit leader… He would leave me messages every three to six months with updates and requests. These messages should have been recorded and delivered in secret from the rest of the team. This is the last message I received from him…

Hank’s face appeared in each facet of the pyramid. His long white beard and aged facade were unmistakable. His voice was genuine as well.

“Tristian. I am sorry to inform you that we must cease all of our investigations for the time being. Natasha is still missing. It is still unclear if she was taken by force or... Abandoned us… There was no sign of a struggle… yet… I hate to think that…” His old face looked troubled. “Finding her is our unit priority now. I will contact you further if we need back up.”

His face vanished and the pyramid became simply transparent glass once again.

“This was recorded shortly after you supposedly began your vacation... Natasha... Where what were you really up to? What happened to your teammates?”

The door opened. Wolfe entered. @cpldingo

Tristan stood, blushing a bit. Not prepared for the interruption. He glanced from Natasha to Wolfe.

“Please come in… Ah… We were just talking. We will continue shortly, so, please stay Natasha…”

“You know Wolfe, it is good to see you. I have been thinking a lot about you your friend, and that ritual you witnessed before you were pulled through the Rift... I was hoping you would remember something useful... Perhaps the ritual you saw was somehow related to the one that brought you through the Rift."

@affili@Arty fox

Twain smiled at Dimitri. “You could make more than that here, you just gotta find the right clientele. However, HR might not want you spreading magic around willy-nilly… They have rules about that sort of thing…”

He was then distracted by Danya’s statements.

“Attracted to me?” He flipped his hair out of his eyes and gave the sprite a sultry look. “No need to be shy, bright-eyes…” She sparked green, and sped away, babbling about how Twain reminded her of her ex boyfriend.

“I’m not worried. She’ll be back for more.” In his intoxicated mindset, he was confident that it was only a matter of time before he and the sprite got to know one another better…

Dimitri suggested they end their party. Twain clapped Charles on the back, perhaps harder than he meant to. “NAW he’s fine! Right Charles?”

@RokkuHoshi@Fetzen@Arty Fox

Zesiro frowned as Shannon sat beside him. He wasn’t used to others taking a liking to him.

“They float in the bad place or they swim?” He wondered if the ‘bad place’ was also underwater… Had she been somewhere like this before in her world? The thought disturbed him. He looked out the window pane and into the ocean. He put a hand against Shannon's back to comfort her confusion and her memories of the 'bad place'... A rare display of compassion for the moody teen.

Wolfe noticed some tension in the room but didn’t pay it any mind. Instead he decided to tell Tristan everything, at least everything he could remember.

“Full disclosure?” He asked, glancing towards Natasha, then shrugged.

“Well, back in 2014 I was stationed in Afghanistan, Kandahar. During the deployment we came across a site covered in dead bodies, near a dilapidated temple or mosque I’m not quite sure but it was old. We cleaned up the site and egressed out. We came back later that day, only….” Wolfe trailed off a bit, remembering the G-man and the conversation he had with him.

“There was this man, I thought some sort of government spook or contracting recruiter, he talked to me about my skill set, history and wanted me to work for him, though he was vague on the details- I turned him down.”

Taking a breath he continued:
“We set out a few hours before dusk, the LT was acting funny ever since we got back to the F.O.B. Like, not himself, at all, I wonder if that had anything to do with it…. I do know he wanted to see the bodies we brought back…”
He shrugged again.

“We landed and the LT wanted myself, and Hirsch to go with him.” He narrowed his eyes, “When we got to the bottom of the temple we noticed the temperature had increased exponentially. What we saw was around seven or eight people surrounding a women, who was crucified, she was in front of a large red pulsating crystal. There was one man in the middle, leading a chant, with the others repeating in tow.’’ He took a breath.

“What happened next is kinda blurry, we took cover behind a fallen pillar to see what was going on, but the LT kept walking toward the group, like he was entranced or something. That’s when I noticed this sword…the man in the center of the half circle was holding it, he made in incision from the naked women’s neck down to her pelvis. A moment later she began screaming erratically, and that’s when a large, black, muscular arm with four inch claws on the fingertips began pushing its way out….”
Another shrug.

“I didn’t hesitate, I blew it to hell with a 40mm grenade. The sword landed near me, and I think it has some sort of power, because for some reason, it felt like it wanted me to pick it up, and when I did…it felt…warm? Familiar...?” he cleared his throat.
“After I snapped out of it, I noticed the LT, injured, limping his way to the crystal that was beginning to pulsate harder now. I tried to stop him, but when he touched it, the crystal exploded and I got caught up in the wave…”

He trailed off, his voice became a bit shaky, but he cleared his throat again-this was the hard part.
“Now…. Hirsch said he woke up in the temple when the team found him… He said one minute he was in Afghanistan on top of a mountain in a temple…the next he’s in Russia.” He shook his head, and ran a finger over the white streak in his hair.

“Me…on the other hand…. I went somewhere else,” Wolfe struggled with the words, he didn’t want to believe it, but the nightmares are too real anymore. It didn’t sound believable. ‘Fuck it’ he thought.

“Look I am going to be honest, I have no clue what happened, and I may be wrong but… I think… I think I went to hell…” He trailed off, the looks both of them were giving him made him think he may just be crazy, no…. he was there… had to have been.

“I feel like…I was there longer than just a few moments…even though I can only remember moments… my body feels older, I have the dreams that I think are memories… I really don’t know, but something happened to me…” He trailed off.

“That’s all I know, I am not sure if it’s any help though."

Charles was caught in a small fit of ‘the giggles’ and took him more than a minute to calm down enough that he could actually speak between gasps.

“Nah, nah mate I’m fine.” Charles kept his face against the mercifully cool desk. “I just need a um…. a thing that is uh…a pizza!"
Charles then burst out into another fit of giggles over forgetting the name of a very tasty food.

“My room is a mess too.” He continued, still face down. “Underwear every like, absolute-OW!”

“At least give me the safe word first!” Twain’s ‘pat’ had been a little bit painful. “This is why the sparkler left; you tried flirting and it went badly”

---

“I Monster.” Shannon said in a manner suggesting it was a well-known fact, and then in a much quieter voice she mumbled. “Gargoyle not Monster?”

A hand on her back sent a freezing chill running up her spine and her hackles rose. One of her eye turned towards Zesiro, her hackles lowering upon seeing it was his hand that was touching her.

“Bad place fishies float.” She turned to face him gestured, using her free arms, to the air around her.

Shannon was about to continue when smell, one that was floating just beneath the rancid stench, caught her attention. Her snake of a tongue wriggled out between her claws to taste the air.

“I smell good smell.” Waving her tongue to-and-fro Shannon strode forward after the smell. “Good Smell come from here.”

Shannon was all too glad to leave the rancid smelling hallway. Proceeding on all limbs she followed a route down a few more corridors that was more left’s than rights. IF the others followed her they too would soon be able to smell the mouth-watering scent of freshly grilled burgers tease their appetites.

The room that Shannon loomed her way into was fairly large though it evidently had once been a much smaller one. On one wall was a large television where a news anchor was declaring this month’s lottery tickets whilst on the other side of the room was a minimalist kitchen with a frying pan soaking in the sink. It what was in the centre of the room however that held Shannon’s attention; two TRIDENT members sat at a metal table, the man still with his thumb in his mouth after cleaning his plate and the woman midway through her own greasy burger, both sharing the same perplexed look.

“I like good smell.” Shannon grinned from the doorway.

Denise held her burger closer.

@RokkuHoshi@Fetzen@Eyeris

With a glance towards Vaughter and the other one, Rockin raised an eyebrow as he began following Shannon. He thought she was strange but kind-hearted. She seemed to be acting like a filly. Or whatever foals of her species are called. He added as an afterthought. She had said something about a good smell but Rockin' couldn't smell anything. Following her, he was eventually aware of a hint of scent in the air, which grew stronger, though not pleasant, as he continued following her. "What is that?" he asked, holding his nose behind his hoof. "It smells disgusting." He tried sticking his head in beside Shannon to catch a peek but it turned out to be quite difficult to maneuver his head and foreleg around Shannon's body.

Vaughtar sniffed. "Hmm... I think that's called 'food'." He tried to hide his amusement. How couldn't one know what food was and how it smelled ? On the other hand he actually failed to remember that just because Munimis and this world appeared to have strange, but great similarities when it came to humans (though certainly not their technology), this didn't need to be the case with everyone and his respective homeworld.

"You do know what eating is, do you ?" He feld quite a bit silly asking this, but given Rockin's question he had felt the urge to ask this while approaching the cafeteria himself. People looked up once he entered. Had this oasis of food encountered him ever before ? Well... his stomach was empty enough to probably make sure that it wouldn't from now!