Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was strange how quickly people adapted, mortal or otherwise.

The atmosphere was frantic and jagged with unquelled energy, with people for a mile or so in each direction from the Pantheon indulging themselves in every fashion imaginable... but they were all also very aware that this wouldn't last, and that the week of Lust was fast approaching the end of its final hour in is final day. Some patches of mortals were actually slowing, waiting, watching and listening for the signs that would herald the next Week, wondering what new sensation would grab them by the collar and drag them further away from their usual selves. How far were they going to degenerate into creatures of base instinct and malice until the End they were sure it all was leading to would finally happen? There were a few who claimed to know, but equally few were willing to listen or believe the opinions of a mortal depraved as they were.

Others had taught themselves to simply not care. Whether they were going to see the End of All firsthand, or end up killed by the circumstances that were leading up to it, all that mattered to some was to get the most out of their vice-entrapped lives for however long they had left to exist. And then some more simply laid as quietly as they could before what they saw as fate, allowing the effect of each Week to drag them wherever it pleased.

David was, at that moment, the only one still sitting inside a 'house' that he had stayed at for the evening with a small handful of other people that had crossed paths enough times that they could consider themselves acquaintances. He had been invited to... a 'party'... when one of them noticed that he still had some scraps of pot left on his person; enough to pass around between the group. It seemed that a few of them reached a consensus that it would be a fun idea to get together and share all of the drugs they possessed for what they knew was probably the last night of this Week, and his arrival at the house and some forced conversation for the first ten minutes or so would probably be the only thing he would remember clearly. That was probably for his own good. If the soupy fragments of memory that were slipping through his mind as he became more aware were any indication of the evening's events, he was better off not remembering the rest of it. He was sure that the more able-bodied people there were going to regret their decision more if whatever vice came next would allow it.

It looked like everyone else had gone outside. They must have been curious about what was going to happen next, or the cocktail of substances poking curiously at their brain cells had ended up prodding them elsewhere. David could only sigh at that thought, wondering how grateful he should be that he wouldn't get very far at all as a crippled man in a dangerously altered state of mind.

A sluggish look around the room, and he saw that his cane was on the other side of it. Okay, so he had tried. Thank whoever that Medicine god Sh'khin had mentioned was that he wasn't successful. His limbs curled and shook themselves until he was no longer sprawled awkwardly on the ground - it took some concentrated effort, but he was able to stagger, weave and crawl across the room until he plopped right back on the ground next to his walking stick. He was vaguely aware of a distant shattering noise, and a trumpet sounding, albeit a little more muffled than it would have been were he more sober.

Something shifted in his mind, in the air. Where he would normally let his cane rest anywhere within arm's reach, it was instead clutched weakly in his hands, as if everyone in the world was coveting the now-beyond-tarnished silver on its handle. Everything in the room - all the items that he had eyed with indifference just hours before, because they were nothing that could be used, nothing to be enjoyed - now seemed to glint and sparkle in the dull, dust-choked sunlight, all because there was no one here to claim it except for himself. Although the gears in his head were still having trouble turning, slowed by the thick and syrupy sensations of the after-effects of last night's indulgences, they able to slowly bring in frantically joyful thoughts that those bits of furniture, that plate of half-eaten food, all of the things within these poorly-structured walls, were his.

The disheveled darkness of David's face cracked and crumbled, giving way to a lopsided grin for this realization, which looked almost malicious when combined with how tightly his brow was furrowing in concentration. His blue eyes drifted to and fro across his surroundings, feasting on the forms and colors of all of his newly-found treasure. There were several plates - not made of paper of makeshift ones fashioned of woodscrap, but real and undamaged plates - that made him childishly giddy; it didn't matter to him at this point whether they were made of porcelain or plastic, they were still exponentially more valuable than the other sorts of things he had seen people eating off of.

And there were little pieces of plastic silverware, articles of clothing draped over rickety furniture, a comb, shoes- three perfectly good pairs of shoes!, two glass jars that were chipped and dirty but still all too precious, some bits of silver or platinum that looked as though they may have been broken off of a bracelet or necklace (another fuzzy memory nudged at his mind on that one, but he impatiently waved it away), and things that didn't have enough light or were too hidden by something else to discern what they were, strewn across the tiny building. Right by his foot was a fist-sized bowl, also made of glass... smeared with something, but it didn't matter to him what that was. He wasn't going to use it.

It was almost painfully annoying to see it all so carelessly scattered about the place, disheveled and neglected by people David was confident wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. It would be better to see them all in the same place at the same time, so he could relax and admire them as time ticked by without him noticing or caring.

The cane wobbled between his hand and the floor, uncertain whether it could support a man in such a state as he was. Motivated by Greed, David rose to his feet and got to work on his 'collection'.

The air had changed again. For so long it had been to pull things inward, to gain some form of comfort or satisfy unquenchable desires; to hoard and collect and feed hungers that existed in the eyes and hands. Now it was pushing jaggedly, frantically outward - there was anger and restlessness tickling every mind, making people form close-knit groups that waged pathetic little wars against others for a scrap of bread, a bottle full of dirty water. No hour of the day seemed to go by without the clashing together of ill-formed weapons, followed by shouts of triumph that wavered with desperation and raspy cries from wounds both shallow and mortal. Some, it seemed, were consumed by the drug of war and fought just for the sake of seeing blood spill on their hands.

Among the anger and desperation, there was also fear and paranoia. There were some people who knew they couldn't possibly hold their own in a fight, so they took to hiding wherever they could find a shadow to duck into and hoping that this Week would be over as quickly as the previous ones were.

Somehow, the house was still intact. Somehow, nobody had thought to look in here for resources to salvage and somehow, David had gotten through the first half of the week of War without sustaining any damage. The very moment he had heard the first person shouting, eyed a shadow of a punch being thrown, he could feel a rise in concern for his own survival seep into his bones and he had tucked himself into a corner of his ill-gotten shelter, away from doors and windows and with few holes in the wall.

And for the most part of the past few days that's where he remained. The thought of getting up for any reason, no matter how small or essential, was altogether too terrifying for him to begin to attempt. He was certain that a dozen pairs of eyes were centered on the house every second of the day, and attached to those eyes were inhumane monsters of people, ready to tear him apart and leave him a bruised and shredded lump of meat on the ground if he so much as breathed too loud.

They would come, they would come and take his things, and make sick torture games out of the man they found huddled in the corner, they would come and kill him and take his belongings and watch starved dogs fight with themselves over his body and they would they would burst through the door and come at him with knives and laugh at his screaming and kill him and leave him to rot they're coming be quiet don't breathe don't MOVE

The shadows cast by the weak and angry light formed into half-beast-half-men with wicked grins that laughed at how weak he was, taunting him with sing-song chants about how they were coming, coming to tear him up and watch him die. Little cinematic sequences danced before his eyes when they closed them, grindhouse-thriller scenes of watching himself being mutilated in every way his imagination could dream of, over and over until the blank concrete of the floor was an easier sight even with imagined footsteps and droplets of blood all over it. The silence was unbearable, but if he made any noise at all it would ruin everything, he'd descend into madness and then they could find him. His arms and legs rattled silently, trembling uncontrollably in strangely rhythmic little bursts.

He went on like this for hours, his mind jerking around in sick little spirals until a tiny spark of rationality was able to loosen it, enough for him to finally breathe in disquieting little waves that stirred the dusty air like an unhealthy pulse. The pool of stale moisture that had accumulated in his mouth was quietly swallowed - his throat felt like damp sandpaper.

Outside his line of vision, a tall shadow that couldn't quite decide how it should be ordered briefly stopped at a window, before lumbering towards the door and gently pushing it open. Quietly, the shadow took on more defined forms and colors; tones of flesh and fabric with maliciously-glinting faces seeped into it, and their footsteps scuffed the dusty floor, towards the man inside, who put all of his effort into making them into figments of his imagination until he looked up.

He whimpered, the noise startling himself, but that was a small spark against a sickly-colored and ever-brightening glow of real, rational fear as two of the people who found him grabbed him by either of his arms and lifted him up, dragging him to the middle of the room. He was dimly aware of a chair clattering to the floor, and then there was -

please don't kill me

- the muted noises and unstoppable little cries as he felt fists trying to ram themselves through his body; there was a small chuckling noise from a younger girl whose aim with her worn little shoes was far too good, making dull bursts that rang out into a sharp ache across his shins.

David wasn't quite sure what happened between then and when he was dropped on the road nearby, except that his feet were suddenly exposed to the air when one individual thought to remove his shoes, and other people had armfuls of the things he had collected over the last week. When he landed on the ground, his bones lashed out against his muscles, which struggled to move his body in some fashion but were barely able to even make him uselessly shift an arm and a leg. He groaned in pain and frustration and still-existing fear - there was always the chance that someone would come along to finish what his attackers had started, and now he was plain in view for anyone to run into.

In a brief moment of consciousness, David sighed with something approaching contentment. He was bruised, exhausted, and half starved to death, but was still feeling the best he had felt in the past... how many weeks? Four? Five? Something like that. The point was that he was feeling extremely well compared to how he was doing before, and hoped it would last a while yet. He had been taken to an in-shape house with a roof and real food and was sleeping on a sofa - a real sofa - when he had just about forgotten that such things existed, and become far to accustomed to referring to a spot of ground without rocks as a 'bed' and a sheet of metal propped against a wall as a 'house'.

David...

"Hnh?" His eyed widened briefly and twitched about the room, trying to find something between the blocks of dusty light that shone in through the windows. When he came across nothing that could have made any noise, he relaxed again, returning to focusing his thoughts on nothing in particular so he could get back to sleep. He must have been imagining things, or it was something outside he didn't particularly care about.

But the feeling of something calling to him continued. As much as he tried to ignore it, there was something pulling at his mind, invisible little filaments wrapping around his wandering thoughts and trying to tug them in an alien direction.

David.

"Shut up," he growled at the air - a month ago this may have been more interesting or frightening for the man, but after being thrust into a fantasy world with cat people and gods and talking horses, a voice in his head was only an annoyance. If he had the strength for it, he would have turned over to his side with a frustrated grunt, but as it was he was only able to shift himself enough to smooth out a few little wrinkles in his clothes. He mentally batted at the metaphysical little tendrils reaching out at him until they finally quieted down enough for him to sleep.

His sluggish subconscious was punctuated with some primordial wisps of dreams, little phantom noises that licked at the corners of his mind along with formless strokes of color that struggled to become images... along with a warped and muffled voice that continued with the irritating task of trying to bring him closer. To where, David couldn't be sure. The dream and the events preceding them would be forgotten by the time he woke up, at any rate.

"You sure do enjoy wasting time, now don't you?"

His eyes opened more fully and made attempts at focusing on things when that voice pierced through the remaining fog that hovered over his consciousness. While tentatively curling his fingers and shifting his shoulders, he wondered how long he had been in-and-out for.

"You've been sprawled on that couch for nearly a week, surely you must be ready to put that body of yours to good use by now."

Oh. That long? It had felt more like... well, actually, time had had a way of bulging and thinning of its own accord when he was fighting off that fever. He really couldn't be the judge of that. In response he grunted sleepily, slowly making his way up to a sitting position. At least the haughty voice was right, in an annoying sort of way; he was definitely feeling a lot better than he had been before. Enough to grin a bit cheekily at - oh, it was that weird-a**-looking masked dude he had seen when he got here - while mumbling, "Why, are we going somewhere?"

"Yes, we are."

David looked surprised; he had been expecting something a little closer to a no. "Wait, what? Where?"

His response got him a sigh from whoever it was in the beak-mask and the robes, as if he had just asked an incredibly stupid question. "To the Pantheon. Jin Huang requested I escort you there," he answered. It was quite obvious that he wasn't very enthusiastic about the job. He didn't pause in doing it, however, and in a swift, unceremonious motion, he presented what looked like a tree branch that was unprofessionally carved into something that one could grasp without worrying about chafing or splinters. "You should be able to walk well enough with th-"

"Waaaaait a minute, hold on," David interrupted, holding up a hand that quickly drifted back down to his lap. He had suddenly remembered that there were some questions from last week he had never gotten answers to, and the masked man had just provided him with new ones. "Who the hell is Jin Huang? And what did he say that makes you think you can order me around like that?"

This sudden little outburst made the other stiffen in annoyance, much as if he were a startled bird. "Jin Huang, the Futs Lung, is in the highest circle of the gods, below only the Twin Crown and his Court. Which makes him a great deal more important than you," he explained. His voice acted like he had wanted to add something else to the end of that sentence, but he appeared to then decide for some reason that it wasn't a good idea. "Surely you remember meeting him before, upon your arrival? He is currently, err... making use of the body of the human called Delmin Brock."

The lecturing tone he was being given only caused David to sigh and roll his eyes as if he were a problem child being scolded by a teacher, clearly not too thrilled to be hearing more of this god business. He decided to just let the guy run his mouth until it was dry - until he heard a familiar name at the end of a sentence, which caused him to perk with more concern than interest. So... that asswipe that Delmin had switched personalities to was a god? He narrowed his eyes and frowned, leaning forward as much as he would allow himself. "Using his body? What..."

"Oh, don't worry about that, the answers will... come to you soon enough," was the answer David received in a tone that was suddenly syrupy and oversweetened; the adult way of teasing another with a secret they weren't about to share. "Now, take care of whatever needs you humans have so we can leave in a prompt fashion. You have overstayed your welcome, and most likely will have greater business to attend to than freeloading here soon enough."

He accepted the replacement cane that had been (somewhat poorly) crafted for him and shakily got to his feet, going on to get some scraps of food he felt comfortable taking with nobody to ask, attempting to make himself look somewhat less disheveled, and doing a few stretches that he remembered were supposed to be a good idea to do on a regular basis. Now that he had been provided some quiet for his brain to stretch out in, he also became increasingly aware of a feeling rolling about in his skull that he could only describe as a 'headache' for lack of a better word. It was as if his thoughts were out of synch - no, it was like the feeling he would get back at the hospitals he had gone to. Even if there was nobody around directly examining him, he knew it was still happening in some form or another.

It was the feeling of being appraised.





The trek back to the area he was found at was uncomfortably silent. David wasn't about to ask or say anything to his escort, knowing he would only get more lectures and roundabout answers, and Lysander (he was able to wrestle his name out of him before they left, thankfully) seemed just as disinterested in any small talk. The only things that were exchanged between the two of them were impatient sighs from the masked one, clearly annoyed at what a slow pace David was hobbling behind him at, which were answered with equally annoyed growls which did well enough to convey that he would be walking faster if he could, but the mage (as he claimed to be) would just have to deal with it.

Along the way they stepped past a sign that was for a National Federal Bank, proudly established in 1893. David chuckled bitterly to himself upon seeing it in total ruin - he remembered that he had an account there once, before something had turned the world upside-down and proceeded to violently shake it until everything familiar and comfortable fell out.

If there was any scenery worth commenting on and if they had hit it off better, there might have been less awkward silence, but there was no polite or tasteful way to bring the increasing density of the sick and dead littering the streets. It was like the week of Sloth all over again, though the hopelessness and fatigue that had plagued everyone had real reasons now, after how much the mortal numbers had thinned during their pointless rampage last week, and how disease had taken the place of violence now. Which begged the question, why had David, who was of considerably poor health to begin with, been able to recover so well, when so many others who had probably been in better shape were unable to fight off the cocktail of pathogens they had contracted?

He was puzzling over that one in an attempt to distract himself, when he noticed something across the throngs of people in the 'road' they were walking in. Someone had been following them, a shapely being of green too bright and minty to be from illness; David could make out a white pair of eyes that was focused on... him? Peering over to Lysander, he carefully asked, "Is that one'a Jin Huang's? She looks like... that one other goat chick."

Surprisingly, the mage provided an answer. "No, I do not believe it is a servant of the Golden King. Otherwise she would not be looking at - well... at you..."

He trailed off, both from an odd-sounding uncertainty and because they had reason to keep watching the toothpaste-colored satyress: she was bounding towards them, kicking up little sprays of dirt, an all-too-hopeful expression shining on her face. "My... my Lord!" she called out even as she was still running. She stopped in front of David, clasping her hands together and looking as if she was trying to catch her breath as quickly as possible. "Please - please forgive me for not approaching you sooner, I was uncertain about... whether it was really you, and wouldn't want to greet the wrong host by mistake!"

She continued to ramble on about virtue this and former-glory that, and David could only stare out into the space her head was occupying with a thoroughly confused look on his face. This was just like Eirlyn, except he has even less of an idea what this one was talking about than he did with the catgirl. To make things worse, the 'headache' had returned, providing an undertone of muted curiosity that wasn't his.

He made an irritated noise and tried to interrupt her. "Hold on a minute. I have no idea what the ******** you're talking about, but I think you have the wrong guy. I'm nobody's 'Lord'. And I'm nobody's host either."

It bought him only a small moment of silence. The goat girl faltered for a second, but then brightened back into a smile. "Oh, but you are! There's no need for humility, I'm only a servant..." Her cheeks darkened into a murkier shade of mint as she shyly cast her head down and to one side. It would have been kind of cute if it weren't for the whole mess that the situation was.

"What are you talking about?" David asked exasperatedly. Every fiber of his soul was yearning for something in this world that made sense.

The mage seemed to think it would be a good idea to frustrate him more, chuckling slyly. "The answer is quite literally written across your forehead, human," he said with that sickeningly sweet tone. "That means... you must be his, yes?" When he got a nod from the goat girl, he then said "Very well. I entrust him to your care. Farewell."

And without anything that would even come close to a concrete explanation, he was gone. Vanished into thin air, too much like magic for David's mood to get any better upon knowing he wouldn't have to deal with the guy anymore. Which left just him and... Neurotic Toothpaste Girl. Great.

He sighed heavily, and turned to the grinning satyress to wearily glower at her. "Look. I don't know why people keep thinking I know what the hell's going on. Because I have no idea," he started. "So if you could just give me some straight answers for all of this bullshit, I would really appreciate it. I'm sick of feeling like everyone I've met is part of some exclusive club that won't even tell me what they're about, okay? Just..."

The satyress' smile had faded as soon as David had started talking, and she looked like she was actually willing to calm down and cooperate with him - the only reason he had trailed off is because she had bent down to the ground to gingerly pick up... what looked like a spoon. She used her gloved fingers to wipe off the dust and grime until it was shiny and reflective again, and before she could be asked what exactly she was doing she had held it up to his face; it functioned like a tiny, albeit somewhat distortive, mirror.

David squinted into his reflection. What Lysander said was starting to make sense; he could see a tropical-sunset-colored gem set into his forehead, gazing back at him like a slightly misaligned third eye. "Wait... the hell is that?"

The stirring in the back of his head sped up, flowing in tighter circles until it was able to condense itself into a voice that was oddly familiar.

It is my essence.

"It is my Lord, the Verdict of Midas, gathered into a stone so he can be reborn," the satyress supplemented.

Peering warily at first the bulging reflection of his forehead, and then at the servant, he carefully tried to figure out what that meant. Fancy titles and mention of rebirth... "So wait, you're a..."

Correct. A god, the mind-voice answered. And I am to ascend through you, David.