Welcome to Gaia! ::

The shop itself is rather unassuming. The street it sits upon is itself rather unassuming. However, not is all as it seems. At night, a strange unearthly glow can be seen through the windows. Look closely and the facade itself is of an ancient, gothic design, strewn with an intricate intaglio design that can only be seen upclose. A lone lightpost, in a similar design, sits in front. Strange enough, this lightpost has no lightbulb, yet glows a pulsating emerald light at night. The sign post above the door is weathered, yet one can still read out, scrawled in an intricate hand "Codex Obscura." One cannot simply open the door. Look closely and there is an intricate mechanical device inlaid with runes. Only the right combination unlocks the door, which requires knowledge of multiple dimensional locks. What is inside cannot be expected. The interior is enormous and resembles a gothic cathedral. The size of it can almost not be fathomed. Stained-glass windows showcasing indecipherable figures line the walls, letting in light from an unknown source. Chandeliers flicker high above, almost as if they're constellations in the night sky. Not only does it appear to be a cathedral but also a store of some kind, a forest and a home. The air feels alive with energy. Shelves line the area, not arranged in any particular order. Some hold what appear to be ancient tomes. Others hold a variety of odd objects, none of which are new, none of which are plastic. Strange mechanical devices, statues, glowing crystals, jars containing things that may or may not be alive, and various other strange things that cannot be described. In some places, one can see trees growing. The leaves glow with a soft green light. Various streams, glowing blue and azure, run through here and there, and various carved bridges cross at different intervals. Giant strange statuary and crystals can be seen scattered about. And, looking back, the wall that contains the entrance to the place is one large carving, or mural, or altar. It is massive, seemingly miles in both height and width, with enormous carvings of figures, inlaid with glowing lines and stained-glass figures. One cannot be sure, but the central figure is tiny with enormous wings that stretch outwards. One can easily get lost in here. You could take a lifetime wandering through this cathedral and still miss out on everything.

In what one may assume to be the center, but it cannot be totally known for sure. One can easily see a small, forested hill, rising up from the floor. On top of this hill is a small compound of building, decorated in a similar style to their surroundings, but made of wood and stone. One building, taller than the others, is shaped like a lighthouse, with a glowing crystal on top. Attached to this "lighthouse" is some kind of airship. One building appears to be a workshop or a laboratory of some kind, on top of which a dome of a observatory can be seen, a large telescope sticking out. However, seeing that the cathedral has no sky, one may wonder why it is so. Another building appears to be a library, but also a storage place of strange vehicles and machinery. An outdoor cafe of some sort sits by the entrance, sheltered by the redwood-esque trees that stand up from the hill. A huge brass coffee machine lies on the premises. The main building looks cozy, several stories tall, with an odd round door in front, with a similar locking mechanism to the front of the "store." Several chimneys can be seen on top. And indeed, the home is cozy, filled with leather furniture, books, maps and things lining the shelves and laying about everywhere(no doubt taken from "outside") Every room appears to have a fireplace. In the study, what appears to be a young woman is spread out upon a red velvet couch. On top of her are various heavy books and a snoozing black cat. The girl snores. Loudly. Suddenly, loud church bells ring throughout the cathedral. This would happen to be the doorbell. The girl stirs, stretches and tries to get up, knocking books and a decidedly unhappy feline to the ground. She rubs her blue eyes and yawns. She is a striking beauty. Pale skin, black hair with highlights of emerald, violet and maroon with a strange set of pig tails that consist of a few loose strands. She wears clothes that one may expect to find at a goth club, yet up close seem to look almost homemade, and of a different time. She wears a black corset, made of leather and fishnet, accentuating her figure. Long elegant, black gloves cover her arms. On her fingers are various rings, some glowing with a mysterious energy. Around her neck, she wear a black leather studded choker. Around her waist, she wears a short black skirt, covered with leather belts and chains. On one chain hangs a peculiar cross. Her shapely legs are accentuated by black leather stockings and she wears heavy black high heeled stompy boots. At first glance, she appears to be just your standard goth girl. However, the black is not all black, at different angles, it shimmers green and purple. And most stiking of all, she doesn't appear human. Attached to her back are two bat wings that twitch and flutter as she moves. She also appears to have a long tail with a devilish tip at the end that moves according to her mood. Certainly not human. Yet her demeanor doesn't appear all that demonic, or gothic, for that matter. And the bells are still ringing. She blinks, yawns and pulls a small mechanical device with a glowing crystal at the end out of her pocket and pushes a carved wooden button.

What seems like miles away, the front door's mechanical lock grinds and opens up, letting in the first customer of the day.

The door to the house opens up and Mara stumbles out, half-asleep.

"You have to synchronize the crystal lattice quantum array-something or other...."She mumbles, then notices a bat....the wooden, ball-hitting sort, not the living, flapping, blind kind.

"Ah, what the hell." She beats the side of the coffee machine repeatedly. Lights start to flicker and parts move.

"All you have to do is press these buttons and pull that lever and honk that horn.....I think..... and then whatever you want pours out out of that spigot. It doesn't just serve coffee and other coffee-based drinky-liquids. It can serve water, milk, juice, soda, wine, beer, whiskey, vodka, tequila, moonshine....." She yawns and gives a sharp look at the cat who just walked up beside her. "Stop looking at me that way, Spooky! I know how this thing works.....I think....."

"Well, you gotta know which runes to press and in which order....say, you want cappuccino, which is what I want, because I am NOT a morning person......" She presses an intricate series of buttons on the machine. The machine clanks away. Steam whistles out of vents everywhere. A cup falls down in front of the spigot, and an unappetizing reddish-brown.....slime slops into it.

Mara look at the cup, picks it up and sniffs it.

"I don't think this is cappuccino...." She looks at the slime again, and it begins to move. She quickly tosses the cup into a trash can, which appears to have some sort of fire in it, and runs off into the library/storage building. After several minutes, she comes out with a heavy, dusty tome and opens it up.

"Alright, found the instruction manual!" She opens up to the right page, and inputs in a rather different code. The machine clanks again, and out comes a rather decent cup of vanilla-peppermint iced cappuccino. She drinks it down and lets out a contented sigh.

"Yeah, I should probably get a manual that's written in English or something, rather than in the mad, esoteric tongue of an Irish alchemist who once got stuck for 436 years in Tir na nOg, the unseen realm of the Tuatha de Danaan. Good machine for coffee though." She presses the code again, and out comes another cup of cappuccino. "That would be 2 dollars, or whatever the equivalent is outside."

She hands him the coffee and notices his eyes wandering. "Nice boobs, huh? Name's Mara.....I think."

"M'yes, whatever." Mara's eyes flicked this way and that. "Where is that damn cat? Spooks! Damn cat..." She mumbles as she walks back into the house. As the door closes, loud noises and lights can be seen and heard from the house. The door opens up and she comes back out, holding Spooky by the tuft.

"Now why don't you be a good cat and go organize the technomancy section of the library. Good kittie." She lets him go and he runs off into the library.

Mara waved. "Good luck finding your way out. Things sometimes.....rearrange themselves. But since we're so close to the front, it shouldn't be too hard."

Mara went back into the house and flopped on the couch. She removed some books from the coffee-table and found some leftover pizza. She hates cold pizza so she went to the kitchen and rummaged through some cabinets. Finding the device she was looking for, a bronze wand with a few buttons, a display screen and a crystal attached to the top, she headed back to the living room, pointed the device at the pizza and warmed it up. She flopped again on the couch, pulled up a book and munched on the pizza.

At the house a big poof of purple smoke came out of nowhere and Mara suddenly appeared. She walked over to one of chairs at the "outdoor" cafe, was greeted by Spooky, opened up the guitar case she was carrying and strummed a few notes. Suddenly, the churchbells began to ring again.

"Damn," she said. "Another customer."