[EVENT] Phase II reunions!

[zenderael_mods]

Who: OPEN!
When: Week 32
Where: Bastan/Fall City/Underwood
Before/After: After the Phase II merge
Warnings: TBA

[Suddenly we have almost the entire cast of the game in the same place at the same time! What does that mean? REUNION THREADS!]

[Here is an open post for all your threading needs! This should make it easier to have mingling threads, open threads, random encounters, multiple participants, etc etc etc]

[Basically any characters you'd like to have meeting up in the new, merged Bastan may do so here. Stick a time in your subjectline and if you're doing it on a day other than Sunday (this post is good for all of week 32), add a date tag for it. Go wild!]

Comments

[taking_names]

It had only taken a couple of misunderstandings and re-explanations for Nova to understand:

Zenderael and Earth were connected! He could go home! An even more fantastic turn of events after the already-fantastic turn of events of having been returned to life!

Since he had no way of actually telling a warp mage where he wanted to go, he had asked Irena to write the word Omghan on a piece of paper so he could simply show it to them and ask to be sent there. The Nenakret, he knew enough landmarks to describe.

That should be enough to get him home. And then, and then...

And then he would see Chisaki! And Iravati! And everything would be wonderful and there would be no more problems ever.

In a nutshell, if Ravindra was exuding darkness, Nova was shooting off beams of light at the moment.

He was delighted to spot a familiar face, even in its familiar state of gloom. That was Ravindra through and through. He couldn't shout his name the way he normally would, but that was no problem!

"My favorite grumpy paladin!" Nova cried, descending on Ravindra and attempting to scoop him up in a hug.

[paladont]

The cry caught Ravi by surprise. He looked up, but was too stunned to react in time to prevent the assault, and then too stunned to do much more than tolerate it. Who the fuck--?

Wait.

Was that Nova? Why was his hair different?

It was definitely Nova. Only Nova would call him that and be this embarrassing this early in the morning.

All he managed was an awkward, "Ah..."

[taking_names]

"How are you!"

This hug was still happening. Nova didn't relent even when he remembered about Alex. Although it did sober him a tiny bit, it merely convinced him that Ravindra needed a hug all the more.

"Oh. Terrible. I forgot."

[paladont]

No, okay, this hug needed to stop, this was weird. Ravi made an attempt to shove him away. "I'm fine."

[taking_names]

Nova allowed himself to be extricated, but continued to shine a high-beam smile right in Ravindra's face.

"I'm really happy to see you again! I've been stranded on earth for weeks and then I was dead for a couple of hours yesterday."

[paladont]

"What?"

[taking_names]

"Your player shot me in the head."

Delivered oh-so-casually.

"Oh, and when I came back I forgot everyone's names so maybe you could write yours down for me so I can try to relearn it?"

[paladont]

"What?!"

He said that so casually!

[taking_names]

"Yes. But I'm so glad to be back, though. Everything is beautiful. Your gloom is beautiful!"

He paused, considering how that came out.

"I probably shouldn't be enjoying your gloom..."

[paladont]

Annoyance flickered across his face, but not because Nova was enjoying his gloom. His gloom didn't matter right now! Ravi grabbed his shoulder and gave him a shake, trying to force him down from his lofty perch back to the CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID FOR A MINUTE level that Ravi was still on.

"My player shot you?!"

[taking_names]

Oh, but did they have to talk about all the whys and hows just now? They were going to wind up estranged, he just knew it... (Nova why did you bring it up, then.)

"He was angry," Nova answered cautiously.

[paladont]

"Enough to shoot you?" It was easy to see players as monstrous, and to want to believe that Heimdall's actions had been disproportionate in response to whatever Nova had done to anger him. So, instead of skeptical, Ravi sounded dismayed and incredulous--and definitely on Nova's side.

[taking_names]

A little nervous, now, Nova looked aside.

"We've never exactly been friends... in fact I guess you could say we had a bit of a rivalry..."

He was probably going to have to explain it properly sooner or later.

[paladont]

"You had a rivalry with my player?" There was something strangely uncomfortable about that idea. It was his player, after all. If anyone was going to have a rivalry with him, shouldn't it be Ravi?

[taking_names]

"He made my oldest friend, and he was the first one I ever spoke to. That was back when they were still marionetting half the people around us, so -- so he was like this evil god who'd been spying on my life telling me for certain that my friend and everything else I knew were false."

The situation seemed much clearer now that he felt he'd moved past it.

"I blamed him for it all, even more than I blamed my own player, I think. As if he could have chosen to just be really who I thought he was instead."

[paladont]

Ravi grew somber hearing the explanation. The first player he'd met was Jordan, when she'd taken over Alex to try to kill him. His own picture of players from then on had been monsters with no regard for the autonomy of their creations. It was easy to see Nova's perspective, despite the falseness of it being comfort for Ravi more often than it was upsetting.

He definitely understood the spying sentiment, at least. He avoided thinking about how much of his life Heimdall had been watching.

"What happened to lead to him shooting you?" he asked, still sympathetic, not yet thinking that Nova may have done something that warranted it.

[taking_names]

"Ah... about that."

He set a hand on Ravindra's shoulder, thought about it for a second, decided he might need a running start, and removed it and took a step backward instead.

"This has been an enjoyable -- if short -- friendship. It has been nice knowing you, I wish you well in all your endeavors, I kind of murdered his sister."

[paladont]

...Awk...ward...?

The answer almost got lost in all the inexplicable farewelling Nova was doing, but Ravi managed to catch it. It took a few seconds to separate it from the rest of his words and parse it.

But once he did, his expression flattened. "What."

[taking_names]

Nova talked quickly, making nervous movements with his hands.

"Payback for a tragedy he put in my friend's life. But a terrible idea! But actually she's back now! And he became the -- the -- the leader of the clerics and brought me back too but not because he forgave me or anything but that's how she came back too. But I heard she's blind so it didn't exactly get undone..."

[paladont]

"He became the Vahishta?!"

That was not outrage. Just pure shock.

Heimdall was not allowed to be a guild leader! He especially wasn't allowed to be one of Bastan's guild leaders!

omg this was terrible

forget the part about nova murdering missie, that didn't even matter anymore

[taking_names]

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT WORD IS BUT I GUESS SO!"

Nova took a deep breath to calm himself. At least Ravindra had not decided to arrest him or perform some other act of impromptu justice (did paladins do impromptu justice).

"A friend who was there when it happened said the cleric leader refused to do any resurrections and had a private talk with him and when she went back into the room he was dead. And then he threatened her into destroying the body so I guess he killed him out of desperation..."

[paladont]

"He what?!" Murdering Nova and then murdering the Vahishta! Heimdall, what even--!!!

Wait, but Nova had murdered Missie first, and Duncan shooting him for killing his sister was probably the same kind of response Ravi would've had, and then if the Vahishta was right there but refusing to resurrect her...

Okay no but this was Heimdall, it was different.

[taking_names]

"Do you actually need me to repeat it or are you just expressing the depth of your shock?"

[paladont]

"Quit being you for a second," he muttered, shooting Nova a dark look. He was having a hard enough time trying to get this straight in his head without Nova's silliness butting in.

"You had a rivalry with Heimdall, so you killed his sister, and then he killed you, and then the Vahishta was there but wouldn't resurrect anyone, so Heimdall killed the Vahishta and resurrected both of you?" If he sounded skeptical, it was because there were still pieces that didn't quite fit. Like, why resurrect Nova at all...? (Not that Ravi preferred this option, it was just puzzling.)

[taking_names]

"You used a lot of names in there but I guess so," Nova said, bristling a little at the 'stop being you.'

Every couple of words had been nonsense; that was hard to follow even knowing the story of how things had gone.