[IC] Waiting for Godot

[Powder Miner]

Finally, after traveling through multiple dimensional locales, the bus and the Weatherlight stop in another location, the slight jolt of landing announcing to the passengers of the latter that the ship had touched on solid ground. Those waiting for the vehicles to continue would find that even after several moments, they stayed firmly planted where they were. End of the line, then, at least for now.

 

Leaving the ships, those of the party still remaining would find themselves immediately struck by two things. The first was that wherever they had ended up was an awfully barren place. In three directions, there was nothing but dirt, light brown, dry, and dusty, stretching as far as the eye could see — no matter how good said eye was. There were occasional patches of green grass, but even those faded away with distance, growing sparser and sparser before the horizon became absolutely nothing, stretching far away.

 

The second striking thing was that the place felt strange. Even those without any magical senses whatsoever could feel something unsettling about the place — something they wouldn’t be able to put their finger on, but which did not feel natural. For two people, these feelings were significantly more acute, and likely quite concerning. Ena’s internal sensors were practically blaring to her that everything was fucked, ever, but other sensors to the outside, such as sight and hearing, were completely unable to verify this reading — she could not detect anything specific. As for Kusuke, he was getting a very distinct feeling of dizziness, one that was likely extremely alarming but which he could at least evidently banish with effort... though the unnerving effect of it likely remained.

 

Though three directions of the area from the ships had nothing, it seemed that one actually contained a few things. Several yards away from the ship was a road, a narrow little one which stretched into the horizon, and a few yards off of that was a pair of rocks, around four feet high, and a tree — a bizarrely deciduous looking one, for such a dry place. On top of each of these rocks was a man. They both looked like older fellows, in their fifties most likely, and both had brown hair with grey streaks, old suits, and bowler hats. One of the men was somewhat rounder, and fairly short, though not fat, clean-shaven — and his suit looked absolutely beaten up, the man missing one shoe (which on closer inspection appeared to have been flung several feet away). He was sleeping. One of these men was thinner, gaunter, taller and looked more pristine, with a thin beard and mustache. He... well, he was freaking out.

“Buh— whuh— huh— G— Gogo! Gogo! Estragon!”

 

He grabbed the bowler hat off of his head and tossed it like a frisbee at the other man, the hat bouncing lightly off of his head. The other man sleepily blinked and stirred, then his eyes shit open as he beheld the party and also started freaking out.

“Vladimir; what did you wake me up fooooOOOOR?! Are— are they Godot??”

 

“Good question... I really have no idea!” He faced the party: ”Hey! Is one of you Godot?!” 

 

The more beaten-up-looking man spoke again, causing Vladimir to turn his head. “Wait, wait, wait, Didi, Didi, what if they’re all Godot?”

 

This got a pensive pause from the thinner man, before he boded and looked back to the party. ”Hey! Are all of you Godot?!”

[Hal Henderics]

Law feels extremely uncomfortable, but every part of his mind agrees on one thing.

 

"No!"

 

he shouts back, hands cupping his mouth.

[StormLord]

As the ships land Tim makes his way to the top deck, noticing the ample light and wasted energy he makes sure that his two Energy Collectors are situated in full sun.  Sure this place was creepy and gave him a twisted feeling in his gut, but if he was ever going to stay afloat in all this he sure needed the extra resources.

 

"What's a Godot anyway?  Can I eat it?  Can I sell it?"

 

Tim aims his question aloud, but mostly at Law who seems to be the only person around at the moment.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Azgrurk

 

"I SWEAR, I'LL GUT DA PERZON FLYIN' DIS SHIP. A SQUIG COULD LAND DIS BETTA DEN YOU!" Azgrurk shouts as he stomps his way out of the ship, taking in the sight of a barren wasteland. Nothing for miles, aside from a bit of grass, but there was something wrong in the air, something that was unnatural.

 

Must have just reminded Azgrurk of home.

 

Nonetheless, he took notice of the two Humies that were currently freaking out. Had they never seen an Ork before? Probably not, they didn't seem like the type. Regardless, at their questions, Azgrurk only had one thing to shout back,

 

"WHO'Z DIS GODOT?!"

[Strider]

Ena approached, and responded, "What would you do if I do tell you that's who I am?" In the meantime, something was off, so very very off. Her primary sensor suite was a warning system, barely more than voice shouting to be prepared. But it was a very sensitive system, and was rarely wrong. Could she afford to procrastinate? Well, things didn't look too bad. And there was a conversation at hand that might be important. She'd run the detailed diagnostics later, those worked best in stillness and isolation.

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke stepped out of the bus. . . and immediately stumbled several steps sideways. He heard the two men shouting back and forth with the party, but wasn't quite able to catch everything being said by dint of trying to get his head to stop spinning. Something about Godot? "Uhh, I don't think I'm Godot, no." There was always the slim chance he could be, but that didn't sound quite familiar to him. Plus, this place didn't feel like home, unless you considered what it probably felt like to stand next to an active nuclear reactor. "I take it you two are waiting for him?" Kusuke held a hand to his head as he spoke. A quick glance around him showed no signs of anyone else being ready to fall over, though maybe they'd just adjusted faster than him - now that he'd had a moment, it really wasn't that bad. "Anyone else feel dizzy?"

[DragonRage]

"This place doesn't feel right," Vitor agrees, "I can't place why.  The closest comparison is something I read in a science fiction book once.  The description of a place that exists outside the universe, drawn from the imaginations of three people who'd all, simultaneously, tried to use a time machine that gets its destinations by reading the user's thoughts to go somewhere completely different.  Unless there's a big, white sphere the size of a large dog sitting around here somewhere, that's not what's going on here though."

[Powder Miner]

Satomi moved to catch Kusuke -- though the physical contact made her somewhat nervous, she found, since Kusuke had done her the favor earlier of... well, helping her get through... Satomi decided to cut off that train of thought, and to instead peer up concernedly at the time-traveling boy. "Kusuke-san? Are... you alright?" At his question, she frowned and thought for a moment -- it felt... unnatural here. Unnerving, actually, seeing as the unnatural feeling of that place with the marionettes had frankly shaken her quite badly too. But... not dizzying, no. "No, um, it just... feels strange. I don't think it's making me stumble around."

---

“Uh...”

The two men looked briefly stunned at all, before they got to replying.

“Godot... Godot... uh, I think he's a person? I guess you could eat him but you probably shouldn't?”

“I think I've been told... he has a white beard?"

“Wait, what? When did you find that out? That's not fair!”

“Gogo, it... I can't explain it. But... yes, we are definitely waiting for Godot! For quite some time..."

The thinner man frowned and lapsed into thought, but then Ena spoke and both men seemed to perk up.

“If you're Godot...!"

“If you're Godot...!”

Several seconds of silence followed as they both, now, lapsed into thought.

“If you're Godot I think we were maybe hoping for you to tell us what we'd do?”

[Strider]

"!"

Memory problems! The blank expressions, the confusion, the complete fixation on a single idea. . . Well, Ena wasn't going to fall for that, oh no. First, she checked that all of her internal clocks seemed to be ticking. After that, she could get to leaving messages to herself. Crude, perhaps, but if something messed with her internal systems, this might prevent it. But for now, more data was necessary.

 

"I can't very well tell you what to do if I don't know what you've already done! . . .What've you already done?"

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke leaned into Satomi just a tad as he righted himself, shaking his head as if it would disperse whatever strange feeling in the air was interfering with him. "I think so. Something about this place is making my head spin, though." He realized he was standing slightly closer to the samurai than might be deemed proper once he was no longer actually supporting himself, but figured moving away at this point might be even more awkward. "I guess it's just me." Which could mean any number of things. As far as he knew, Satomi, Vitor, Tim, and himself were all baseline humans. Well, Harry had mentioned mutations, but he was pretty sure there wasn't nearly enough of that to make his responses to whatever this was markedly different from theirs. It wasn't magic sensitivity, otherwise everyone but Satomi would be reeling at the moment. He briefly went to age, but that wouldn't make sense given Satomi's lack of response - not that he really remembered what age he properly was. Time travel made things like that weird. Perhaps that was the difference? "Do you think it's my Drive?"

[Endlessblaze]

Leo came out of the ship in an obvious state of thinking about something.

The days in transit had been spent fairly well he supposed. Though a few things still concerned him.
He had fixed up that one sword Freya seemed interested in as much as he could without getting more matrials, and come out with a few new spells. Including that one....somewhat concerning ritual.
The Agony lightning infused food had been mostly a failure, but he was sure the idea was sound, he just needed a less direct method of using it. Some kind of engineered spice or herb. 
Vitor's assessment of the starfury he was sure was helpful. Though at the moment he didn't quite know how he would acquire what he needed.

Helping the girl, lucine with her gun had been intresting he supposed. The case he had made was cheep but served an alright proof of concept and test.

He had some good mana types to work with now as well.

He still needed a way to study the gem more, but he had a few ideas, he just needed time and space to work. That timefucked gold seemed like it could be fun to play with to.
So many experiments to try, so when he stepped outside to see nothing but empty fields all around, he was quite pleased. Oh the things he could get up to without having to worry about nearby pepole and places....

Well there was those two guys on the Rocks, but what were two guys going to do about a little noise pollution and small explosions? Call the Two guys in the middle of nowhere paladins, bane of adventurers everywhere? 

Though....The place did feel a little off....
He would need to investigate that as well. 

 

[Powder Miner]

“What we've done... ahaha--"

“I'm really not sure what we--”

“Ahaha, ahahaha, ahahahahahaha!"

The thinner man slapped a hand to his forehead as he begin to laugh uproariously, gales of chest-rocking laughter that lasted so long and was so loud that he began to tremble, gasping in and sucking in breath as his companion began to look at him with an expression of concern. Sharp bursts of amusement left his mouth in a cascade of laughter that seemed to be without end, lasting for several seconds and ending up with the gaunt man wiping a tear from his eye, his laughter finally trailing off into little bursts of giggles that came at irregular intervals between his words.

“Ahaha, aha, ha. Ah. What a question. Ha. We waited for Godot."

The portlier of the two men looked at his companion for a few seconds before he turned uncertainly at Ena.

“Um... does that give you any ideas, then? We would really like some. As I'm sure you can see, we've had trouble thinking of them.”

---

Satomi frowned, her hands still on Kusuke's shoulders to stabilize him in case he ended up needing it. "Your drive... that would be the power that has been allowing you to jump around in time, yes? I don't think I could tell you whether or not it is your drive that's making you feel that way, but I suppose it would make sense, considering that I don't feel that way and I don't think he--" The jerk of her thumb at Leo and her barely restrained tone made it clear who she was talking about, "is very dizzy either, by the looks of it. Maybe you could try... a minor usage of your power? Just, very minor, in case whatever this is turns out to be harmful."

[Strider]

Ena chewed these responses over carefully. This wasn't funny enough for them to be laughing like that. "Of course you waited, that makes sense."

 

"But now that that's over, you need something to do. . .Maybe you could draw a picture of Godot in the dirt? Who told you about Godot, anyway?"

[Hal Henderics]

Law, meanwhile, takes a seat atop his QED, mostly confused.

 

On the one brain, he might do well to wait for these fellows to explain more before he does any real work, but on the other point of view, he should probably not waste any time in this strange place.

 

He can't help but argue internally about what would be the best course of action.

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke nodded. "I've been thinking of that." The prospect made him slightly anxious; if something was interfering with his drive, the wrong move could potentially tear chunks out of his soul. He wasn't sure if the thought of that was worse than the one that followed: the only one who might be able to patch such a rent would be Arminius. His musings were briefly interrupted by one of the men erupting in laughter. The vigilante hadn't been paying that much attention, but he was fairly certain that whatever had been said wasn't that funny. Listening to the two men talk seemed to be an exercise in frustration, too; it seemed their entire purpose in life was simply waiting for this Godot, with doing anything else (including reacting to his arrival) being incomprehensible. Great, MORE lunatics. "Here, stand back for a moment." He moved away from Satomi slightly, then proceeded to attempt to do two things with his power. The first was simply slipping three feet to the left through space; after that, he'd try to jump two seconds backward.

[Powder Miner]

(Belated) Background Track:

Spoiler

 

 

As Law sat atop his Quizzical Emanation Device, pondering, Ena's perfectly logical and reasonable questions brought the two men sitting on the rocks to a standstill for a few moments -- they both looked at each other for a silent couple of seconds, both of their brows simultaneously furrowed, and they both began to speak.

“Uhhhhh, he looks like, kind of like, somewhat like--”

“He has a white beard, I'm mostly sure he has a white beard."

“Does-- does he? He has a white beard? Okay, what Didi said, then, er... whatever your name is, ma'am. Godot? Is your name Godot? I don't think you have a white beard. I don't think she has a white beard, Didi.”

“I could be wrong, you never know. Maybe it's a she-- no, I think it's a he. With a white beard."

“Are you actually a he, ma'am? Are you... hiding a white beard anywhere? Er, how do you know about the white beard, Didi?”

“The Boy. He always comes with the messages from Godot, Gogo."

“I don't remember... oh... maybe I DO remember you telling me about those.”

---

Kusuke's usage of his powers was... well, it hadn't stopped working, but the results were bizarre. His jaunt three feet to the left popped him directly in front of Satomi, drawing a surprised squeak and a reflexive step back from the girl, as he was sent left of both of his own feet and one of Satomi's. "W-wha-- Kusuke-sa--" His jump intended to move him two seconds into the past then proceeded to disappear him from the group's view, causing the samurai girl's voice to falter as she watched him then disappear. Well, that was at least normal, right? But he didn't appear back for a while. "Kusuke-san...?"

 

Kusuke woke up behind one of the rocks the men were sitting on -- neither seemed to notice him at all. Actually, it was strange -- aside from the fact that he was profoundly disoriented, because his sense of time was completely garbled while he'd traveled, he had the distinct feeling that he'd been asleep behind that rock for hours, despite the fact that he was confident he had willed his drive to move back exactly two seconds in time. But he at least knew that he hadn't moved beyond the day they were currently in, that much was solid.

[Strider]

Finding as yet no information, Ena continued along her line of leading but technically not lying questions. "Well, I'm certainly not going to say I don't have a white beard. The boy never said it was a visible white beard, now did he?"

 

"Anyway, can you tell me about the Boy? Which of the messages has he given you?"

[Chevaleresse]

"Oh god. . ." Kusuke groaned as he sat up, ". . . what the fuck?" His bleariness and disorientation turned into a flash of horror, and he stood up quickly before realizing that he was still in the same day. That was good, at least. He didn't seem to be missing anything more out of his head, either, but something was definitely very wrong here. "Ugh. . ." He turned to the two men, who had evidently not thought it was strange for him to have been sleeping back there to hours. "I don't suppose either of you have seen a greasy-looking man with green hair in a suit, or a guy in an opera mask, have you?"

[Hal Henderics]

Law is startled by Kusuke's disappearance, sitting up straighter on his QED.

 

Oh dear, that's a problem.  Should Law make something to go after Kusuke?  No, maybe something to drag him back?

 

Law's internal dialogue fails to come to an answer by the time Kusuke stumbles his way awake, though the votes are leaning more towards following him by that point.

 

Perhaps, if the metaphorical votes aren't sufficient, public opinion might be better for coming to a conclusion?

 

Law continues his internal debate.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Azgrurk

 

For the most part, Azgrurk had, surprisingly, fallen silent as he processed what was going on. It had taken him a while, but he was now taking notice of yet another sinking feeling, like something was wrong. Not helped by the fact that one of the Humies just teleported over to the rock. 

 

Yeah, so clearly, the Universe just liked giving him a hard time by challenging what he knew. That was wonderful.

 

"GAH, I'M GOIN' BACK TO DA SHIP. TELL ME WHEN DERE'Z A FIGHT DAT NEDZ CLOBBERIN'" Azgrurk grumbled, waving his mechanical hand as he turned around, stomping back to the Weatherlight without really seeing where he was going. He could at least get some stuff done, instead of waiting for something to happen. He could even get some of his boys together. That would be nice.

 

 

[Powder Miner]

Ena

 

The portlier of the two men frowned at Ena's words, clearly thinking.

“That... I don't think that makes any sense.”

“Gogo, my friend, nothing makes any sense here."

“I... I suppose that's true, but... Didi, I really don't think sheeee?'s Godot.”

“Yeah. Maybe not. Don't think we really have anything else to do, though."

“...no. It's for the best, then.”

 

The gaunter one, Didi, looked directly at Ena.

“The Boy. I don't know his name, and I suppose I never thought of asking. He comes every... couple of days, or every day, I think, and tells us that Godot was delayed and will come tomorrow."

“...hah."

 

Wait... that was strange. Ena could have sworn... Earlier, when she had checked her clocks and her space sensors, they had told her that she had been somewhere very different, and in a very different time? It read that she was hours and decameters away from her previous position, but she could have sworn it had only been a couple of minutes, and that she hadn't moved.

 

Kusuke (and Satomi)

The sound of Kusuke's voice startled both of the men, who turned to look at him.

“Wha... when did you get there?”

“Nope. Just, uh... Mozzo, I think his name was, his slave, the boy, and then you all out of nowhere. Are these people in your group? Are either of them named Godot?"

 

Kusuke heard Satomi's voice waft over concernedly from where the rest of the group was. "Er... Kusuke-san? Did you mean to go all the way over there?"

 

Law

Law continues to sit on his Quality Existential Dweller, his internal debate continuing briskly.

 

Azgrurk

Azgrurk stomps into the Weatherlight --punting a carrot which seemingly appeared out of nowhere into the ship by accident, where it falls to pieces-- and when he gets into the ship he finds that things feel much less bizarre here. For whatever reason, when he's in the large dimension-traveling ship, he feels like things are much more normal, and even for an Ork it's a welcome respite from the wrongness of the dimension they're in.

[Endlessblaze]

Leo calls over to Tim with a wave as he starts walking away from the rest of the group
"Hey Tim, this place looks like it would be a good place to work, Ive got more stuff we could imprint and use. Interested? Ive got some experiments to run that could benefit and I picked up a lot of intresting stuff last mission."

[StormLord]

Tim disappears into the interior of the ship for a moment before reappearing at the main doorway.  A look of disgust flashes across his face before he banishes it and moves forward while calling back to Leo.
"Boy someone needs to educate you on the difference between a good place to experiment and an unstable flux plains."

As he approaches he starts tapping the skull ring on his hand until the eyes finally flicker and light up again.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the magic here is in a state of lopsided balance just waiting for a few good shoves to knock it into all out anarchy.  I'm a bit shocked that there aren't already flux pools and tentacles sprouting from the ground yet."

[Chevaleresse]

"No, neither of them is Godot. I think. I hope." Kusuke shook his head, still feeling a bit disoriented. "And no, they're the worst kind of people. But that doesn't matter to the current situation." Though a place like this felt like it could be a trap. He wasn't sure how one would set up this kind of temporal flux, but if anyone could figure out, it would be the One. . . He started to shuffle in Satomi's direction. "Uh, no, that wasn't the idea. I apparently skipped backward several hours, which means something about the flow of time here is wrong. Very wrong. That or it's interfering with my Drive directly, but I'd prefer not to think about that possibility." He gestured at the two men. "These two might be caught in some kind of. . . eddy current. A time loop, sort of. But I don't know what would cause that outside of something actively resetting them." 

[Powder Miner]

Leo

Aiming to perhaps soothe the worries of his older, more jaded companion, Leo decides to check on the ambient mana within this world. For these purposes, he turns to Stone Heart, who he's used for similar purposes before -- and just as the last time he tried this, shortly before the battle with Flora, he gets a strange response from the golem. However, this time, the response is, well... In a quick, almost aimless ramble from his golem, Leo is told this: "...iven the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasonos unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plung..."

 

Kusuke

“The worst kind of person, so... like... Pazza?"

"You mean Poisson?”

“No, I mean Qozzo."

"Passa- anyway, no, probably worse than him. I imagine there are lots of people worse than him... somewhere.”

 

Satomi

The samurai engineer frowned as Kusuke explained the situation to her. She supposed that that made as much sense as anything else did, but she didn't have enough information to really say anything meaningful about it. But, hmm... "Kusuke, how is it exactly that your Drive works? Maybe we can get some ideas as to how whatever is happening is happening if you explain it to me. I think I'm capable of helping if you just give me a little more to think about."