WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

[abraxasmods]

WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

Welcome to The Free Cities! The portal exits outside the capital city of Cadens. The first impression of the city is its sheer size. It sprawls out across the landscape like a great hulking beast at rest. The wall that encircles it barely contains it, the buildings of Cadens practically bulging against its restraint.

The air here seems thicker somehow, tinged with a scent that’s acrid and smoky. Smog hangs high over the city, belched out by smokestacks that tower over the industrial district. The desert stretches out behind it, dotted with towers and dust clouds that disappear into the horizon. Multiple gates lead inside and each is staffed by soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms that wave a steady stream of people through without appearing to pay much attention. People are coming and going almost all of the time, to and from the outposts and areas of activity around the city proper. It’s difficult to tell just what’s out there beyond the impression of tall metal structures and a great deal of labor. Wagons carrying travelers to Libertas and Aquila roll out from the Travel Post outside the city wall.

Anyone who can sense magic will notice a much lower concentration here. No one will be stopped or questioned at the gate, even if the soldiers seem to take note of the fugitives from Thorne.

The activity and sheer number of citizens can be overwhelming. It’s crowded and loud and feels constantly in motion with everyone talking and yelling over each other. It’s easy to get swept up in the ever-moving throng or find oneself ducking into the mouth of a narrow alley just to breathe.

Anyone who’s willing to make their way to the northern part of the city and Portham Hall will find Prime Minister Marlo Reiner available to receive them.

Comments

[cryptsleeper]

On that we agree.

[It was the worst end goal. His father had been too beset with grief to realize how terrible the plan was. That all it really was was a terrible cry for help that he could have had. Hell, if he had only killed the priest that had set everything in motion, things would have been different.

But no. Disproportionate response had been the only logical conclusion so far as he was concerned.]

In the end, everything, even if it started out with only one country.

[frontlinetitties]

What the fuck.

[Is how she eloquently responds to that. She's perplexed enough that she pushes away from the glass case again, her voice having temporarily risen to a level that jars oddly against the hushed silence of the museum. Just as well the hall of natural relics is currently empty save for the two of them; it's the kind of loud exclamation that would have doubtless received some irritable looks.]

I mean, what's the point in that? Where does that leave the annihilator, if everything is gone?

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard's not surprised by the response, even if the way he flinches might imply otherwise. This is dangerous, tender ground that they've stumbled onto. He's realized too late that he doesn't have a plan to properly back away from it.

His reply is quiet, hardly offended at the reaction but making it clear that this is incredibly personal in a way he doesn't wish to elaborate on.]

Sometimes, destruction is the point.

[frontlinetitties]

[Gideon cannot be said to be well-versed in the picking up of social cues, nor how to respond accordingly. To say she's badly socialised is a monumental understatement. Left alone in a swift-decaying place with only ancient nuns and a few old military leaders too decrepit to fight any longer for company, people who's views on her varied from abject hatred to cool indifference, she hasn't exactly had much chance to practice. Still. There's something in the way his voice drops, in the tone with which he speaks, that has her pausing. She narrows her eyes at him, trying to discern what he's attempting to tell her with his quiet words, the odd stillness of them.

He'd said associates of my father. Which meant they were talking about his dear old dad. Parents who commit terrible acts are something she knows just a little about, even if the parents in question weren't her own. Finally something clicks in her, hot and sharp, and she affects a casual shrug.]

I guess people do all kinds of messed up things for reasons that make sense to them at them time. Like that.

[And she points back toward the taxidermied abomination, having gathered together enough of her sense to attempt a distraction.]

I mean, there are people in this world who go around defiling the bodies of deceased...whatever that thing is, for the fun of it. Now that's fucked up.

[cryptsleeper]

[Thank God for that taxidermy nightmare. Having to go on would not be Alucard's ideal, and it might finally let Hector's little secret of I definitely helped Dracula with his crusade against humanity secret slip. Not that Alucard is opposed to that part, precisely, but it is probably better unspoken for now.

To move away from the topic is a blessing in and of itself, although there's no thank you from Alucard's lips. Just a moment where he pauses, stuffing every thought rising to the surface back down into the hole he has forced it into. He'll address all of this later. Run out into the night in his wolf form and howl for a time, or else try and enter the Horizon again to make and destroy and make and destroy until he's reached a temporary catharsis. It is all he is capable of obtaining recently.]

At least it is given some time in the spotlight. Perhaps it is a means of apology for the poor craftsmanship.

[frontlinetitties]

[She lets it go, easily. Even politely looks away whilst he seems to be regrouping, pulling something inside of him back into some corner of himself where it's usually contained. There may be whole swarths of things she knows jack shit about, but having something shitty and bad defining the past is not one of them. so she just makes a rude sound when he answers her, still turned toward the unfortunate, long-dead creature inside its glass case.]

I dunno. Would you want people staring at you all day if you looked like a bag of ass?

[cryptsleeper]

[There's relief in being provided that courtesy. Alucard, once he's had time to decompress from the emotions of his, will realize it is the first time he's even brushed against a portion of what happened back home with anyone - even Hector who was an active participant in some of it. It is probably a step of some sort, but he isn't sure if it's forward or just off to the side.]

I don't think most of us get a choice of when that happens. I existed in that dungeon for three months in a similar enough state.

[He still looked decent, save for his hair. It had been a mess by his standards, although a little bit of frizz was probably the opposite of noteworthy for anyone else.]

[frontlinetitties]

That was a bit different, surely. People weren't coming down there specifically to gawk at you. I know I came down there asking stupid questions, but I wasn't gawking.

[She says this last part in a tone caught somewhere between defensiveness and apology.]

I just needed to know where I stood, you know? I guess you could have been bullshitting me when you said you'd been tossed down there for no reason, but things already weren't adding up. I just needed to hear it.

[She shrugs, and once more she's quick to try pulling away from anything that gets too deep, or dark, or serious.]

Besides, there's a significant difference between needing a sonic and hairbrush, and looking like that.

[cryptsleeper]

I was going more for the feeling, rather than the practical truth of it. And more to the actual point, plenty of people feel that way when in public on any given day.

[He doesn't care about the apology, or the defense. Observation is observation as far as he is concerned. It is also a chance to sidestep most of this.]

But I take your point all the same.

[frontlinetitties]

Can't relate. I was born devastatingly attractive, of course people are gonna look. I can't hold it against them.

[She says, with a shrug and a wink, despite the fact that there have been plenty of times when she's felt less than devastatingly attractive. When she's been observed, in fact, as though she's something that can only be killed with a stake through the heart at midnight. But that makes for much less interesting and far more vulnerable conversation, so naturally it remains unsaid.]

But whatever. I don't know about you, but I'm gonna look around and see if I can find any more hideously ugly corpses to gawk at. You have to admit that they make the place more interesting.

[That way she can bring Harrow here later and try to get a laugh out of her, regardless of the fact that it's a sound so seldom heard she'd be better off searching for unicorns.]

Oh, right. And I'm Gideon, by the way.

[cryptsleeper]

[There's a soft noise that in better times might have been a laugh at that. If nothing else, the way Gideon phrases her total self assurance is enjoyable, and her turns of phrases prove yet again to be a source of genuine humour.

also like come on this is the son of dracula he's got some opinions on driving stakes through hearts]

I think there's a map up ahead. You could look at the listings of exhibits and try to divine what might deliver your exacting specifications. [Or like, just walk through the museum like a normal person?]

Alucard.

[frontlinetitties]

Well, it's been real, Alucard. I'm glad we got to meet under less shitty and altogether more amusing circumstances than last time. Maybe I'll catch you around?

[And she finds that she actually kinda hopes she does. Whilst his wit may be drier and more dusty than the most ancient of Ninth House bones, she can see the potential. Perhaps she can test more puns out on him at a later date, see if she can raise a real laugh out of him.]

I think I'll check out that map. You never know, maybe they do have a fugly category hidden around here somewhere.

[She'll saunter off through the hushed silence of the hall once their parting words have died away, in search of more hilarious monstrosities to tell her necromancer about later.]