Changeling-Earth 2: Freehold Earth - The Tenpenny Clan Goblin Market

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle can only stare at Billy in mute incomprehension as he conducts his hasty explanation while stooping to scoop her up. Her body is hideously light, even lighter than her reduced size would indicate, as if she were slightly not there at all.

"But..." she whimpers, tears starting to form in her eyes. "...that's not fair. I -won-."

Wasn't that how it worked in the stories? Once the hero won, all the spells were broken, all the curses were undone as if they'd never been. The dark tower crumbled and the sun came out.

But not this time.

As Billy lifted her, she pressed her face against his arm and desperately fought her tears...with only limited success.

[Rorx]

"Let it out Roach, no-one would blame you. I'm still coming to terms with what's happend to me. After all, I never had wolf ears or claws for fingernails before I came round about a day or two ago, and I got off light compared with Tim and Fingers. Hell, the doctor we're heading to, Khalid from the Manifest, has a couple of people with him who look like honest to god Ogres now!"

Fumbling in a pocket or pouch he finds what passes for a hankerchief and passes it to her.

"Yeah, you won, but this isn't like the stories you probably heard as a kid. This is more like the older stories, the myth and folklore ones. I read some of the old Grimm's fairytales to my nephew a couple of times and they didn't often have happy endings like most of the kid's stories. More like stories of the old Faeries, or Sidhe than the nice light kid'c fairytales."

"Hell, I've even found I can do somethings now that I can only describe as some form of magic. It's also the easiest explaination for how they have changed all of us that were taken so easily and so uniquely."

[Rorx]

As he talks to Roach, trying to both inform her and calm her down, Billy keeps a lookout to see if they are being followed and how Tim and Fingers are doing with the other person who was in a dreamcoffin.

Keeping to the shadows as much as possible they stealthily thread their way through the stalls to the Doc's tent and wagon beside the Arena.

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle shakes her head furiously and wipes her eyes.

"Magic isn't an explanation," she accuses. "It's just code for 'I don't have an explanation.' This could be some kind of...genetic manipulation. I don't know, that's not my field."

The last traces of sunken features have filled out now, and she's back to normal...as normal as a tiny, abnormally lightweight pixie-ish woman can be at least.

"Do you have to carry me?" she asks peevishly. "This feels really weird."

[Rorx]

"I wasn't referring to what they've done to us physically, although that's weird enough, but to some of the other stuff I've seen, and can apparently do myself. There is something I can do, a spell or glamour, for want of a better term that means that for a time I leave now tracks. There are other things as well, but that is one of the more obviously testable, when we get to a safer location."

Still scanning the area as they walk towards the Arena, he continues, "Do I have to carry you? Yes, I think it best I do at the moment. You've been on display in that device we cut you out of all day and been quite a popular attraction in the Market. I wouldn't want anyone to see you and question why you were walking about free from the device that you had obviously been kept in for quite a while. It shouldn't be much longer now."

[Dawn OOC]

Tim was helping the taller member of the other coffin; he stumbled along uneasily, clearly confused. As Billy scanned the crowd, Fingers suddenly appeared at his side. "She didn't have much on her," she softly reported. "I have some trinkets and a few small tools though. Oh, and a paper map. Not of the woods, but of the area around the Manifest. If we can find the right path out of this hellhole, we can get home."

[Rorx]

"Well done Fingers, that will help a great deal."

Billy partially opens his cloak from around Roach, "Look I'll show you what I mean about the 'magic'. You see that tall guy that Tim is helping along with us? Well, he was strapped into another dreamcoffin next to yours, and that is how groggy you looked initially. However, I used one of these 'tricks' shall we say, that I seem to have picked up and you're obviously doing better than him."

As he spoke he walked them over to Tim and the tall man, once there he holds the man by one arm, to get his attention and to support him, mutters the appropriate terms of the Contract under his breath, then blows gently in the man's face. Immediately the man straightens up and seems to take a clearer look around him.

"Good evening sir, we've just relieved you of a potentially dire situation, but we think you should see a doctor before we try to explain further to you. So if you could make you way with us at your best speed we will take you as directly as circumstances dictate. You may see any number of odd sights or have odd memories, for the moment I ask you to take them at face value, but without prejudging things until we have an oppurtunity to talk to you in better conditions. Do you understand?"

Having obtained a reluctant nod from the Tall Man, Billy leads them off to the Arena side and the Doctor's surgery. As they move off he once again at least partially hides Roach from view with his cloak.

"You see what I mean Roach, the right words and I feel a lessening of some form of energy, and a tangible effect has been made on the world. I don't know what else to call it but magic."

[SalmonMax]

"Call it what you like," Rochelle mutters rebelliously.

She peeks around the edges of the cloak and shakes her head.

"I don't understand. Where is this? I was at the Manifest Destiny, in a tent. Have people set up this place? Does that mean the settlement failed? Did the aliens capture everyone?"

"What -happened-?"

[Rorx]

"No-one I've meet in the few days since I came round knows much more than you do. The aliens, I've heard them called Fae, seem to have grabbed some people, but not all, and used them as slaves, servants and god knows what other purposes. All of us taken seem to have been changed physically and sometimes mentally as well. Most, if not all, seem to have been taught or otherwise picked up some of these 'tricks' in the process. I think that a lot, probably most of the people taken are still under their control."

Looking ahead he can see the lights at the Arena and hear the crowd cheering and jeering. The docs wagon and tent where close at hand now.

"Those of us who have gotten free need to warn the colony and do what we can to help them. However, I'm not sure what their reaction to us will be, we may end up caught in the middle somewhere."

With a last check that the way is relatively clear, Billy leads the way over to the tent, pushes the flap to one side and lets the others in before squeezing himself and Roach in.

"How are things here Josef? We have two patients for a quick check up."

[SalmonMax]

"But..." Roach steps into the tent and squints as she peers around; the light momentarily too dim to see easily in.

"If they still have most of the prisoners, and the ones they don't have are still with the ships, then who are all these OTHER people? There was no human life on this planet before we got here."

[Khalid Al-jamari]

The dark skinned man, well dressed and with a porclain mask covering his face, turns to meet the newcomers. There is a large, large man-being next to the table with a worried demeanor. A cloaked woman waits in the shadows of the tent, watching. They are also masked.

"Certainly. Come in."

He motions the waiting surgical table and the array of instruments beside it.

"I'm Josef, though I was once Doctor Khalid Al-Jamari. Let me see what I can do for you."

Motioning to the large man,

"This is Orderly. He assists me."

He then motions to the woman in the corner.

"And that is Saffron. They are not from the Intrepid/Manifest crew."

As the first stranger approaches, Josef/Khalid looks past the patient and asks Billy,

"Will there be any pursuit? I am ever curious about how much time we have."

[Rorx]

"The woman was already down when we got there, and I have not spotted anyone following us, or indeed any particular interest in us at all as we made are way here. Virtually everyone is in the Arena now, or seeing to packing away their stalls for the night."

He taps Tim on the shoulder, and nods his head towards the flap.

"Tim, and perhaps Fingers, will keep a look out in the area to give us some warning of any undue interest. One thing of use that Fingers found with the woman is a map of the area around the Manifest. That should help us find our way back there in the future, hopefully the near future."

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle steps hesitantly towards the creepy-ass 'doctor,' then stops and shakes her head, folding her arms tightly over her chest. Everyone was so BIG...they towered over her! The masks were horrible...and then Rochelle feels her blood run cold. Why might they want to cover their faces?

"No," she said tightly. "I'm not doing this. Not until I start getting some answers. And I want you to take those masks off. All of you! I have to see your faces."

[Khalid Al-jamari]

"Well, I can not speak for my friends, but I will do as you wish. I think it will feel like freedom."

Khalid reaches up and takes his mask off. He reveals a face both beautiful, yet ancient and worn. There is a kindness to his looks and a sense of wisdom his wrinkles add to his visage.

"There. Is that better?"

Khalid, of course, has no idea how much his durance has altered his youthful appearance, nor may he wish to know.

[Rorx]

"Roach, your being rude. As I said on the way over, we don't have a whole lot of answer, just plenty of questions. And these people may not want others to see what has been done to them during their captivity. Wouldn't you rather be your normal size and be seen that way instead of how you are now? I know I'd rather I could hide what they've done to me, but I can't, and nor can Tim or Fingers much."

[SalmonMax]

Roach moved forward, peering intently at Khalid's face.

"You're really the...doctor?" she asks, hardly able to see the resemblance. But the crucial point was made. He wasn't one of Them.

"Thanks," she tells 'Josef,' then turns to look at Billy.

"I appreciate you helping me out of there, but there was a very good reason I'm asking about the masks. And what I would -rather- be doesn't matter. What is, is."

She can't keep the bitter tang out of those words, and barely even tries.

"I need someone to tell me what happened. Starting with the riot in the tent at the Manifest Destiny. Where did all these 'extra' people come from? Where are we on the planet right now? How much time has gone by?"

[Rorx]

"Like I said we don't have many answers. From my knowledge, whatever riot your talking about was after I was grabbed. I don't have a clue where these 'extra' people cae from, perhaps previous people trying to colonise here, perhaps grabbed from other planets. We don't know where on the planet we are, but from the weather and what I can see of the stars at night I think we are fairly close, a few hundred miles at most is my guess. How much time, well that's the crunch question, we don't know. All of us have been through something that has changed us, and in the process our sense of time has been scrambled as well, until we snapped out of their influence somehow at least. Personnally I can only clearly account for the last couple of days, but I feel that it has been at least weeks since I was taken."

[Khalid Al-jamari]

"These extra people were here already, from what I've been able to tell. Much like us, but with important differences, like size and shape. More importantly, are the Powers behind these people. They are almost ... well not almost, they are mythical. The technology they have is in some ways light-years ahead of what we have. In other ways they are rather primative, such as witnessed by the circumstances we find ourselves in right here."

"As far as I've been able to see, medical technology is around the nineteenth century level. We are in a bloodsport arena. I came here by human transport over dirt roads."

"As for the time we've been here ... I don't know. It seems like months and months for me most of the time, but other times it only feels like a few days. Something is playing a trick on my mind, but I can't hazard a guess as to its nature."

"I also believe we have a duty to get back to our fellow explorers. Not only will it provide us with a greater deal of freedom, but those who are still free need to know what we've been through. We should also help as many of the natives as possible. Many of them live in abject bondage as well."

"I think we will find allies enough here if we are patient and learn were to look."

[Rorx]

Billy nods at Josef's comments, "I agree. Personnally my priorities would be to get back to the colony and help it as best we can, secondly to free as many of the colonists taken as we can, and thirdly to help any others that we can. Having said that, I am concerend about what the colonists are going to make of us that have been altered by the aliens."

[SalmonMax]

"I need to sit down," Rochelle squeaks, finally just plopping down onto the tent's floor mat. "This is too much. This is...I just have to..." She shakes her head helplessly, overwhelmed.

"What do we do now?" she pleads.

[Rorx]

Billy squats down on the floor beside her,"We're going to get you checked out to make sure that there isn't anything wrong with you other than the obvious shrinking. Then we, hopefully, will pass the night here and all move on, probably with you two hidden from view, in the morning and start trying to find our way back to the Manifest Destiny. Josef here has an associate fighting in the Arena tonight otherwise I' d be more inclined to push on through the night."

Rising, he turns to face the Tall Man and puts his hand out for a shake.

"I'm sorry this has been rude of us not to introduce ourselves. I'm currently know as Billy, and the two outside who helped get you out of that thing are Tim and Fingers, you've heard the rest of the people here be introduced. Before I was taken by the aliens, or Fae or whatever you want to call them I was with the security detail for the colonist on the Manifest Destiny. Did you come on the Intrepid or Manifest, or are you a member of one of the other peoples? Can you remember anything from before you were taken?"

[Dawn OOC]

"You may call me Gabriel. Taken?" Sad, blue eyes focus on Rorx; Tall Man's reactions are still a bit slow, thought Rorx can tell it's not physical anymore. He was just as overwhelmed as Rochelle. He knelt on the floor, allowing him to straighten his back with a sigh.

"I'm not sure what you mean by taken," he added, "unless you mean you taking me now. Where is... everything? What is going on?" His long face looked at all assembled, trying to find the answer in their eyes.

[Rorx]

Poor bastard, his minds gone, which isn't surprising considering what he must have been through.

Billy gently says to him, "Hello Gabriel, my name is Billy and it was my friend Tim who helped you out of that box you were in. What can you remember before Tim took you at of the box? Can you tell me who gave you the name Gabriel?"

As Gabriel tries to put his answers together Billy will glance across to Josef and mouth to him "Your department this one."

[Khalid Al-jamari]

Khalid returns Billy's nod.

"Gabriel, what is the last thing you remember. For instance, who named you? Also, can you remember any others in your world before awaking here? Also, did you have a Keeper?"

Khalid didn't have much hope. The very environment here seemed to baffle the senses and confuse the mind. It was hard to determine what was real and what was a dream ... or a nightmare.

Still, it was human to resist and not give up in this mad world. Sure going home might have it's own level of emotional pain, but it had to be better than here. It had to be.

[Dawn OOC]

"My mother. My mother named me. But..." He looked at Rochelle, his eyes lost and hopeless. "She wasn't real. Was she? She was part of that world. That's what I remember. Washton-on-the-Glen, the Luna High School... none of that existed, did it? I don't remember one thing, I remember a lot of things, a lot of lives. And I don't know which one is real, if any of them."

He pressed his hands to his face, hiding from their compassionate gazes.

[Rorx]

Billy watches the interaction between Josef and Gabriel with a sinking feeling. Gabriel had definitely been in the device too long, anything of his original memories and indeed perhaps his personality had been lost among the thousands of other peoples memories, dreams or fantasies that he had been forced to play through so they could see them on the screen.

Billy moves back closer to Gabriel and to his current level, then he addresses him in a firm but gentle voice.

"Ok Gabriel, I want you to look at me now. Look at me. Good. You are going to have to forget about your past for now. Right now, you are real, we are real and this is really happening. You are not going to go back into one of those boxes. I want you to concentrate on what is happening in the present, what you see, what you hear and what you smell. [with a grin] Hell, maybe I'll be asking questions later. Let's deal with the things we can do now. Josef is going to give you a checkover to make sure your not ill or injuried, and after that we'll find you some food if you are hungry. In the meantime, [looking around at everyone present] we better see what we can do about sorting you out some clothers other than that hospital gown style thing."

Standing back up Billy gives his arm a squeeze, but looks at Roach as well, "You two let Josef check you over now. I'm just going to step outside to talk to Tim and Fingers briefly, then I'll be right back."

Once again he nods to Josef, then steps out of the tent and looks around for Tim and Fingers. Spotting Tim he walks quietly over, while checking to see what anyone else in sight is doing and where they are going.

"How's it going Tim, any trouble brewing? The tall man's name is Gabriel, but his mind is pretty fragile from his time in that thing. Little, if any, memory of his own left, so we will have to watch out for him and guide him more than the others. Where did you last see Fingers? We could do with some clothes for these two and I doubt that much we have with us would fit well enough, so pass it on to her when you see her. I better get back to help keep things calm inside."

His message delivered Billy heads back inside the tent. Inside he turns to Saffron, "I assume you will be travelling with us? In which case it would be helpful to know of any useful skills or abilities that you might contribute to the group?"

[SalmonMax]

Rochelle's eyes widened as she popped up off the floor, suddenly possessed by a fury of revelation.

"That's RIGHT!" she bleats in her piping voice. "Luna High School! They took that from my mind...only...it was wrong, it was different. It was obviously dreamlike. How could I ever have thought it was real?"

Her eureka moment dims quickly, and she puts a hand to her head. "I don't know...it's so hard to remember now. But I remember fighting an old woman, once I realized it wasn't real."

[Rorx]

Billy perks his ears up as he re-enters the tent at the end of Roach's comments.

"Perhaps you fighting her in the dream was enough to do something to her out here. Congratulations, you may have fought your own way out of your captivity."

[SalmonMax]

Roach gives him a wan smile, and shrugs.

"Fat lot of good it did me. When I woke up I was still in those straps."

She does seem a bit pleased at his words though.

[Rorx]

"Don't go putting yourself done. The straps were a minor problem. I could easily see how to cut you out, but until you did something to the woman and woke yourself up I had considered how I was going to do that as the much greater problem."

[SalmonMax]

"So...was she one of them? These things that abducted us?" Rochelle wants to know.

"It would make sense. She...was off. They were off. There was something in their faces, like a blankness, kind of. Like when she made them, she couldn't quite make them human."

[Rorx]

Billy looks from Roach to Josef uncertainly.

"I don't think she was actually one of them, from what we saw she was one of their loyal servants, and obviously quite a powerful one at that to be trusted both to come here, and to have the dreamcoffins under her control. One of those areas of magic that I spoke of earlier deals with Dreams and stepping into other peoples dreams, manipulating them etc. I would guess that she was quite powerful in that area, but still either loyal to or under the control of one of the Fae."

"I would guess since you defeated her there that once you get a chance to recover a bit and get used to your new form that you will find that you are proficient in that Contract as well. I know a little of it as it helps to travel in the strange tangled woodland around us that they call the Hedge. So we could compare a few notes on at least that much of it."

"Josef, have you felt any affinity for things or situations that might indicate that you may be able to draw on any of these magical Contracts that I've heard of and tried to describe here? How about you Saffron, do you have any knowledge you could share with us?"

[Khalid Al-jamari]

Khalid/Josef's brow furrows and he seems to think over the implications.

"No. I don't have any of these contracts or affinities that I'm aware of, but that may be a combination of the environment were I was kept, the amount of personality loss, and the amount of time distortion."

As almost an afterthought, he adds,

"I've always had a preference for the Land in Spring. Funny how I've never really considered it before now."

He looks to Saffron to hear what she has to say about this.

[Rorx]

"Perhaps, I seem to have picked up quite a few Contracts, or whatever you want to call them, but virtually, if not all of them seem to be related to my role both on the Manifest and in the pack to which Tim and I were members. They do things like increase my senses, let me talk to normal canines and birds of prey, help me find things or places in the Hedge, aid me in leaving less tracks etc."

"Yeah, I've always preferred the awaking of new life and new potential that comes with the Spring, and even that has lead me to one of these Contract things. I used it to help Roach and Gabriel recover enough to get here. Nothing actually healing per se, but it helps relieve tiredness, exhaustion etc. It makes you feel like you've just had a good meal and a good nights rest. It wouldn't surprise me if you could find some way of doing something similar."

Billy also turns to Saffron, "I get the feeling you have been here longer than us, and so hopefully may be able to fill in some of the gasps in our knowledge of this area."

[Dawn OOC]

Saffron looked uncomfortable, or rather her mask did. She clasped her hands and looked down, then glanced up. "I've always been here," she said simply, her voice hollow behind the mask. "The Contracts are the ways we can approach the Fae's power. When you contract with Spring, you're making an agreement with the season, if that makes sense."

"That's insane," Gabriel said, frowning up at them. "You can't make deals with a season."

"It's not... it's not like that, but it is," Saffron said, struggling to talk about it. "It's not exactly spring, I don't think, but the primal essence of the season." She paused and shrugged. "Am I making sense?"

[SalmonMax]

"Not really," Roach replied. "For one thing, what does a 'season' get out of it? If you're making a deal, what can a person offer to an abstract concept? Not to mention, we're not on Earth anymore. Who's to say this planet even HAS a spring? The cycle of indigenous life could be totally different."

She softens her tone a bit.

"Look...I don't know who you are, but I know you weren't here always. These things...they seem to be able to change our memories. Maybe they just made you think you've always been here. I mean, at this point, who knows what's real anymore?"

[Rorx]

"Perhaps you have answered the question yourself, in such a place where reality seems to be flexible, it may be that the seaons and other concepts need people to remember them in order for them to survive. After all if no-one remembered or called on the powers of Spring perhaps we would be stuck with it always bing the middle of Winter?"

"On the other hand if science is still at least partially applicable then the planet did appear to have an axial tilt, so it should have the normal range of seasons. Until we know otherwise we just have to accept that the information our senses give us is true and represents reality."

"Josef, when in the programme was you associate fighting, would he have started yet?"

[Dawn OOC]

Saffron spoke up again. "Slasher will start late; they have the more experienced fighters later. And we'll hear when the games start - it'll be-"

A sudden roar from the waiting crowd hurtled through the night, making the nervous Changelings in the tent flinch. The roar died before a rolling drum beat, changing into a vibrating rumble of excited gambling. The drums stopped and another cheer rose, followed by some kind of animalistic scream.

"It'll be just like that," Saffron ended, swallowing hard. Josef knew that she was thinking of those dying for the Gentry's entertainment.

[Rorx]

"Are they likely to get many fighters who are just injured? It sounds like the crowd expect at least some of it to be to the death. I just wondered if you are likely to get other customers before Slasher fights."

"Saffron, how common are these Contracts, does everyone here know some, or are they rarer than that. How about numbers? I feel I know quite a lot, although only fairly basic ones, is that how it goes a little bit here and there, or do those who learn them tend to concentrate in only one or two Contracts?"

[Dawn OOC]

"Oh, no," Saffron said. "Josef is only supposed to care for Slasher." She turned to look at him, and her mask seemed to smile as she added, "He may choose to do more, since he's kind like that. But our master only anticpated that he'd work on Slasher, if Slasher is hurt."

Saffron next turned her gaze to Billy, telling him, "It is different for everyone. The Goblins have some, which they'll teach, for a price. Some are easy to learn, some hard. They're... they allow you to manipulate energies that the Gentry use at their whim. It's hard for us, but we have learned to perform pale imitations of what they do."

She glanced at Rochelle. "Am I helping?"