ph_logs | you see me now, a veteran, of a thousand psychic wars [Open]

you see me now, a veteran, of a thousand psychic wars [Open]

Who: Chris Freeman & Anyone... perhaps even... YOU?
What: Did I hear you say that this is victory?
When: February and maybe March
Where: around town...
Warning: watch the comment titles

Thread starters in comments this time around. If you have an idea for Chris, feel free to top-level comment this entry with a wildcard :)

2/8: Reposted opener regarding Calloway's Curios for

theresalwaystheview

2/12: Chris has a little breakdown, and Erik overhears

lordoftheozarks

2/18: New prompt, open to all, regarding Chris being sick around the time of Merrymeet.

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"That's right. The last thing we need is attention from Apokolips."

A nod. "Even without the context, anything called Apokolips sounds like something to be avoided. Any idea what you're looking for? Would it be something only you can see?"

"I know what I'm looking for, and I put the details in the note," Chris gestures a bit with the folded note. "Basically I want to let Calloway and his salvage crew to know when to get rid of this shit. 'Throw directly back into the ocean' or whatever. I don't care as long as it doesn't get Darkseid sniffing around the place."

Chris tucks the note into a pocket and puts his hands over Lou's ears so she can't hear the next bit (specifically the cursing).

"There's a version of Earth that got fucked comin' an' goin' because it became the focus of Darkseid's attention. The planet Apokolips was teleported into the same space occupied by the Moon and... well, the Moon exploded. Not a good time to be sensitive to death, what with multiple extinction events going on in succession." Chris lowers his hands again.

[[ OOC: So Vonn, why did it take nearly eleven years of real time for Eternity to show up in comics again? / I don't know, but if you want an in-universe reason let's say his brain got fried by the events of 'Earth-2: World's End' because reading that book sure fried mine. ]]

While he may not explicitly understand what they might be looking for, he does understand caution, and merely nods. He would likely be the same way if anyone came along with reports bearing even a vague resemblance to the thing that had ended his life out in the water.

"Understood," is all he says to that, before turning his attention back to the selection of peculiar trinkets lining Calloway's shelves. There's a muted sort of horror on his face at Chris' explanation of the extinction-level catastrophe they were forced to experience. It would be awful for anyone, he's sure, but to someone sensitive explicitly to the dead, it would be an absolute nightmare.

"This place must be...very loud for you," he muses, looking pensive.

[[Honestly that's fuckin valid.]]

"Less than you might think," Chris replies. "The Mothers, in their mercy, seem to have dampened my sense of it... or maybe it has something to do with no one staying dead."

"Dah pleh! Uh bah bah ma," Lou interjects. She's reaching for a display of blood fruit. Chris turns away from it, and reaches into Lou's bag for one of her frozen fruit teethers.

"That's not a good one for you, Lou-Lou," Chris says. They hand her the fruit and tells her, "Here's yours."

Lou looks up at Chris with a skeptical sort of look, but accepts the frozen treat. After a moment of study, Lou clearly recognizes the fruit teether and jams it into her mouth.

To Bart, Chris says, "Places like this, you usually find the really good stuff in the back. And by 'good' I mean 'unusual'. Wanna head that way?"

"If it's determined more by the presence of souls rather than the deaths themselves then it would make sense that the sensitivity might be dampened here, if the souls are placed back in their bodies within a day..." What a strange metaphysical quandary to have when he's just trying to shop for little things that he can deconstruct.

Bart's hand is coming up to block the little hand reaching for the strange, fleshy fruit at the same time that Chris intercepts her and takes care of it. He's never spent much time around children, but at least it seems like Lou is easy enough to wrangle. It's cute, watching them making sure to keep her hands occupied with something not nearly as hazardous as weird otherworldly secondhand things.

He nods when Chris' attention turns back to him, though he'd never been in a shop like this in his life before arriving here. He'd just take their word for it and start in that direction. Where's the man in charge of the establishment? Curious. He would probably appear at some point, probably in the event that they wanted to purchase something.

"Were there many places like this where you came from? Stores in general were sort of phased out in this format except for out where the colonies were a little more isolated and self-reliant. I've only ever purchased from a catalog format," he explains, probably exposing himself for either a technophile or a rich kid (when only one of those is true).

At least upon getting to the rear of the shop and finding a sign pointing toward a lot where the bigger items were stored, that conversation would be halted near instantly.

"...is. Is that a seamoth?" he asks of the rather friendly-looking little round space-ship looking craft up on blocks.

"I swear, you act like you have to answer every question in the world..." Chris says with a sigh, shaking their head as they pick a path through the shelves, heading for the back of the store.

In response to Bart's question, curio shops and how common they were for Chris back home, Chris says, "Moderately common. There are a lot of poor people who can't afford to buy new things, and a few collectors of antiques and oddities, so there's demand for secondhand goods." At the mention of catalogs, Chris smiles, "Ah, my mom's got some memories of picking out toys she wanted from the Sears Christmas catalog as a kid... y' could make a case that online shopping is another form of picking from a catalog."

"Aa-a!!" Lou gives a happy yell when Bart calls attention to the round craft.

"I don't know what a seamoth is, Bart," Chris points out with amusement.

"It's some kind of carriage!" says Gil Calloway, poking his head out from a door marked 'Employees Only'. "Though how it's supposed to work without wheels, I can't figure!"

[[ OOC: Feel free to take control of one of the NPCs -- you can write out the exchange (haggling) with Gil, or take on Lou for interruptions. I'll roll with whichever character you don't take on. ]]

Bart's mouth opens to argue with that, but he thinks better of it and quietly pouts, his hands gripping the strap of his satchel. He nods at the idea of online and catalog shopping being very similar, intimately familiar with the former as he is. He doesn't bring up that his father really didn't seem to give a damn either way. Or that he doesn't actually have a mother. When you can genetically tailor and grow your offspring in a lab, having more than one parent generally isn't necessary.

Outside, he circles the craft, still bewildered, and jumps a bit at the voice of the man that he's presuming is the proprietor of the shop.

"It's not a carriage, it was never meant to be on land," he argues, gesturing to the undercarriage of the little ship. "It's a one-man submersible. With the appropriate power cell and shielding it's supposed to be able to travel up to nine hundred meters under water."

"You don't say," Calloway comments, knowing nothing about the utility of the craft but already seeing that it seemed valuable, at least to one person on the island. The price just went up, in his head.

To Chris, Bart explains, "during expeditions to ocean planets, our blueprints and supplies are meant to enable us to build these from metal in the environment to be able to explore without interrupting the ecosystem with our own debris. I used mine to conduct surveys and...sometimes just for the quiet. I could sit nearly undetectable with the lights off in the middle of the ocean and just watch the animals."

"I wonder if it has the same... steampunk, clockwork look as First Aid and Vika. You know, on the inside," Chris muses, after hearing that explanation of building a seamoth from the available materials.

Lou is looking at the craft with wide, curious eyes. One wonders... if she understands what Bart is saying, maybe she's imagining exploring the ocean herself.

But Chris caught that calculating look on Calloway's face, and says, "Well, you said without the power source it wouldn't be able to work. What kind of power does it run on, Bart?"

(If it's something Calloway clearly hasn't heard about, then maybe Chris can haggle the price down. Bart doesn't seem well versed in how to get a good price in these situations, after all.)

"It's possible... The power source is supposed to be a kind of lithium ion battery but something that runs on the same clockwork internals as the tech here would likely require something else entirely. I don't know what the changes to it are yet but at best... Something distilled like the liquor that First Aid uses as fuel, perhaps. I don't want to have to ask after something like coal, it would be terrible for the ecosystem to belch coal smoke straight into the water after all."

Lou, unaware of the fact that the thing is meant for water, is so incredibly interested in the little round craft. She herself tends to have extremely negative reactions to the water when submerged; Sam could attest to how badly her autotoxemic reaction would set in in the instances that he'd had to cross rivers on foot deep enough for her pod to dip under the water.

"Sir, how did you even get it back here? It's so unwieldy on land and it's not as if it has some kind of wheels to allow it to be moved across solid ground.

Calloway merely gestures to the spot where the vessel is propped. "It showed up here like the rest of the offworld merchandise does. It was a hassle to put up on blocks, I'll tell you. I'll knock the price down if you can move it out of my lot."

Which cues Bart to pout a little bit once again. How on earth was he supposed to do that?

Chris leans over and says quietly into Bart's ear, "Erik and Angel are both much stronger than they look. I'm sure you could ask them for help."

Bart nods distractedly. He doesn't know Erik, but he's on good terms with Angel, he could at least ask him. And then he knows that there are plenty of people around strong enough to at least be able to move the thing onto a cart to be able to take it down to the waterfront so even if he can't get more help, it isn't the end of the world.

"Deal," is all he says back to Calloway, and...he doesn't like the smile he gets in return. But then again maybe that's just the man's face.

"And since you're here," Chris steps up and hands over the note they've been carrying. "These are notes about technology from Apokolips. I promise you, you do not want the New Gods sniffing around this island. They have a tendency to destroy everything they can't convert. You find anything that looks like this? Throw it back in the ocean or whatever it is you do to get rid of what you find."

Gil Calloway raises an eyebrow at that little speech, but either Chris's seriousness convinces him, or he knows that discretion is the better part of getting a crazy person out of one's shop. "If you insist."

To Bart, Gil says, "And when do you plan to get this out of my shop?"

Bart steps aside to let Chris turn over the notes on Apokolips, occupying himself for the moment with looking around the seamoth where it sits, taking out one of his notebooks and flipping back through the more full of them and comparing what he's got on the page with what he's seeing of the ship in front of him.

"I can't make promises at this juncture but I promise you that I will move it the moment I can pay for it."

Chris decides to assist in making Bart's interest seem more like a legitimate offer. "We know some folks who'd lend Bart a hand in moving the seamoth when he has the funds."

"Hmph. Well, when you pay for it, I hope they can move it quick." Gil waves one hand toward the craft and says grumpily, "You see how much space it's taking up on the sales floor! I could fit so much more stock in that space."

"Bart's not going to work himself to the bone for your convenience," Chris says, "but if he says he'll come buy it the moment he can pay, you can trust his word."

Lou picks this moment to blow a raspberry. "Phbttt!"

"What she said," Bart mutters under his breath in concurrence with Lou's raspberry, huffing a soft sigh and looking back at Chris again, one hand resting on the domed top of the little craft.

"The sooner the better, honestly. I can't always take the Mipha's Grace out, I hate to inconvenience miss Zelda any more than I've already done. But you'll know the moment that I know when I can move it. Perhaps I should ask for one of the carts the postmen use..." Already he's going off on his own little tangent about what the next step in his plan should feasibly be. Sorry, Chris. He's doing the thing where he's trying to come up with all the answers himself again.

"Sam, the courier, is a friend of mine too. We can ask him when the time comes." Chris pats Bart on the shoulder. "Did you still want to look around at stuff here? Lou and I can hang out for a bit."

Bart nods absently, shooting a look back at the Seamoth again then at where Gil had disappeared.

"I think perhaps that I'm done for now. I came to find something I could use, and I have certainly done that."

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you see me now, a veteran, of a thousand psychic wars [Open]

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