[Safer]: Penina's Training

[HurriSbezu]

*CLICK*

The electric light illuminated the dungeon-like basement. The door opened wide as a young red-headed woman entered the bottom floor of the library. Long shelves loomed all around Penina Hargreaves as she wheeled a cart of books to the far wall. Her tennis shoes slapped the uncarpeted floor loudly, almost uncomfortably.

The shelving began in earnest. This was her favorite part of the day: closing time, when everything was to be put away and she could go back to her barren room, where her computer with the Internet connection awaited her. Damn work-study, she thought quietly to herself, damn college, and damn life.

She glanced over the titles that had been perused by the patrons. The Neverending Story, Momo, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, The White Deer. “Someone’s a children’s book aficionado,” Penina muttered. She went over her shift at the checkout desk in her mind, looking for who it could be. Bingo. It was a young man dressed in a shabby trench coat. He had borrowed a yellowed copy of Gulliver’s Travels and a little beige tome labeled on the spine with the appellation Grimm’s Fairy Tales just before the public hours were done. Just the sort of romantic fool who would be interested in these. Going back over her time at this college, she discovered his name to be Thaddeus Smith. He did not go to this college: rather, he was a vagrant who was more popularly known as “Mad Thad”. She had seen him out of the corner of her eye several times while walking through the streets.

After filing this away for future thought, she placed the books on the shelf quite precisely with her steely arms. After putting the cart back in its place, she paced through the aisles between shelves, searching for misplaced volumes. Once that was taken care of, she walked back to the cart to grab her bag. As she neared the exit, she saw that it was shut tight.

Penina stopped dead in her tracks. No one else was in the library, and she had placed the doorstop under the door to prevent this from happening. Even if it had slipped, the door could not be locked unless she had done it on this side of the door.

Her senses pricked up as she listened carefully. She inhaled deeply of the musty air. She looked around her. If there was anyone here, she would have known. Nothing other than the shut door seemed out of place. However, there was a reddish flickering light cavorting on the floor, whose origins she traced back to the glowing crack beneath the door.

She reached to her side and pulled her keys out of her pocket. Penina plucked the key off the key ring, and left her room key and ID card on the cart, from which she retrieved her delivery bag.

As an academic exercise, she had filled her bag with what she would absolutely need if she was to run away, to get out of here and enter the world. It was filled with things she would need to run away from her life. Well, it looks like an opportunity just came up.

“Could be Hell,” she said to herself, “but that would sure beat the **** out of this place.” Unlocking the door, she threw it wide open and boldly stepped through it. She made sure to lock and shut the door before she left, of course.

[Safer]

Hmm... You're definitely fit for Advanced, but your character raises questions. I will have to think about what to do with you before we get you involved in the Advanced Class joint assignment. Go ahead and look in my homeroom for a link to the Intermediate Class (or beginner, what I'm asking you to look at is the same in both of them) and find the pre-lesson. Do that, and then post it here (and don't worry about it being in Intermediate/Beginner, it would be the same for Advanced if Advanced didn't have the joint assingment). Then I'll figure out what to do with you.

[HurriSbezu]

The first thing that she noticed was the torches ensconced in the walls of the room. She counted three torches and three doors, arranged in a hexagonal pattern. Then there was the matter of the winged gentleman standing in the center of the room. Dressed in kimono and hakama, he affected the stance of a traditional samurai, complete with katana at his side, although she noted that he lacked a wakizashi, so he did not possess the full daishō necessary for absolute formality. His hair was done up in a chonmage, though, so it was not due to his being a slouch. His wings were folded on his back quite neatly, although they were still rather noticeable. She estimated the wingspan to be about three meters. Standing approximately 1.7 meters tall, he forced Penina to tilt her head back to see his warm hazel eyes.

“Hello, young one,” he said with a smile playing on his lips, “My name is Tokum—”

“What do you suppose yourself to be?”

“Well, I am an angel.” He generously paused to let her take it in, not noticing that she was walking towards him at a brisk pace, elbow pointed toward him with her right fist up against her chest. In a blur of motion, she knocked the wind out of him.

He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath as she commented, “Rather organic for an angel, and very solid. Not very spiritual, now are you?” She paused to pluck a feather from his splayed wings.

As he regained his composure, he did not bother to get up on his feet. Instead, he arranged himself into seiza as he watched her stroke the barbs back to separate them, then smoothing them out, and then staring down its rachis, muttering that it was solid. She was absorbed in her examination, so he decided to give a little demonstration of his power.

Tokumaru snapped his fingers. Shimmering light rippled through the feather, giving off sparks. It then combusted into a blue flame, which seamlessly expanded and became crimson in a matter of seconds As it burned down into ashes, Penina did not take her eyes off it, holding tightly to it as long as she could.

“If you have questions, perhaps you should address them to me.”

Noticing his posture, she sat down on her heels as well and faced him. “All right then. I am Penina Hargreaves.”

“I am Tokumaru Kyô.”

“What is this place?”

“It is called the Dome. No one is sure exactly how old it is, or who created this place. It is a place of flux, where rooms shift and rearrange at will. It spans all the known universes, but does so randomly. We are not even sure if this place is sentient, or what its true purpose is. However, tradition leads us to treat this place as training grounds for warriors who are a cut above the rest.”

“Seems to be lifted from The Neverending Story.”

“Excuse me . . ?”

“Never mind. Has anyone attempted to use this place for time-travel?”

“It is possible, but such things would require knowledge of the Dome that I do not currently possess.”

“Then I shall have to work on that myself. How do you know English?”

“I am an angel, and as such have the gift of xenoglossy.”

“And pyrokinesis as well, evidently. Am I to be your student?”

“Yes, if you will have me.”

“ . . . I’ll allow it for now.”

“Let me show you to your room.”

He got up from his seat and walked over to a door, which he held open. She walked right past him to the room it concealed. Tokumaru looked in after her. The room was barren, save for a simple futon on the hardwood floor, a door leading to a toilet and shower, and an electrical socket in the wall in which Penina had already plugged her laptop’s power cord. She was attempting to connect to the Internet, as an experiment. Having succeeded, she glanced up to notice that the angelic samurai was still at the door, with a look of concern on his face. <Please do not fret over me, Tokumaru-sama. This room is quite lavish in comparison to my room at my previous school. Good night,> she said in flawless Japanese, smiling all the while.

Smiling as well, he turned around, saying, <Do not stay up too late, Penina-dono. Class starts early tomorrow morning.> She paid him no mind, being absorbed in thinking and learning about this strange world she had been thrust into.

[Safer]

Haha, well done. While Tokumaru does know Japanese, I might add that he's not one bit Jap, due to some things in his history. I do enjoy your character's personality.

Now, with that out of the way, I ask you to make one more post in this thread, whether or not I've posted in Underground Twilight. In this post, have your character exit her room and walk through the dome, then arriving in a room of pure white. She will then walk to the end of this room where she sees a giant gate-like portal. She enters, and is taken into a swirlling void of sorts. Please describe this void vividly; there are flashing lights, pillars of energy, all sorts of stuff. End your post with your character seeing an exit to this void, and have him begin to step forward towards it. When he gets near it, have him be forcefully sucked into it. End your post there.

I will then PM you ALL the details about UT so you can understand what's going on and who you're working with, and then I'll add you to the plot by means of my post. :3

[HurriSbezu]

OoC: Sorry for not copying your void exactly, but I thought my rendition of the basic idea had more . . meat to it. Hope you don't mind!

BiC: It had been hours since she had begun surfing the Web, and her eyes felt like they were bleeding tears. That was a clear signal to stop. It was getting boring anyway. The place outside her door should prove to be far more interesting. She pushed herself off the floor with her quicksilver hands and groped her way to the door in the darkness. There was a light switch, to be sure, but she preferred to be alone with her laptop in the darkness as an aid to her concentration.

Penina Hargreaves opened the door to reveal a corridor utterly jammed with doors. Physics operate in a non-Euclidean fashion here, evidently. She closed the green door tight, and began to wander the halls of the Dome, trying the doors as she went.

While most were locked, the rooms that she could see into were quite fascinating. The first room she looked into was filled with stars the size of her hand. Penina touched one to hear a resonating tone ring throughout the dark void she had revealed, causing the others to respond in kind. It sounded like the opening to Bohemian Rhapsody. I wonder if my thoughts and knowledge echo throughout this building. It may not have to be sentient, but a highly advanced mechanism that obtains knowledge and power from the travelers through this hub of the universe. Closing the door, she tried to find another room for more evidence.

A room that poured forth sand, then sucked it back in as she closed the door in a temporal reversal. A chamber filled with a lion/tiger locked in combat with a horned dragon/serpent. A ballroom filled with giant dancing insects that evidently had some form of endoskeleton in order to stand upright, though they hissed menacingly when she drew near. The last room she opened, however, was the strangest.

It was an utter blank: the palest shade of white she had ever seen, unstained by shadow or by dust. She tried to walk inside it, but she could not stop herself from floating and drifting through the emptiness. No gravity. Penina bounced into a wall which she immediately gripped tightly. To her left, a giant maw opened wide, revealing a swirling vortex of colors and shapes. Its teeth were sharp and glistened redly, dripping things best left undescribed away from the wall towards the door, which was closing itself as she stared at it. She worked her way over towards it, doing her best to avoid the teeth and to come in at the hinge. As she slipped inside it, the jaws closed tight. This should be good.

It reminded her of an arcade game, with the aerial leylines made of blue light and the two-dimensional smiley faces and the strange fruit that decorated the palm trees. She had found floor this time, so she had a bit of leisure to explore her surroundings. Avoiding the occasional ricocheting meteors and the bottomless craters they left behind, she entered into a maze made of playing cards, evidently arranged according to Klondike rules of solitaire. A few mushrooms grew in the corners, which she picked for future investigation.

A face card in the wall noticed her, and rasped, “You are being summoned for training by Tokumaru.”

“But I have not had a chance to rest yet, Jack of Spades.”

“That would be your problem, not mine,” the aristocrat drawled.

Suddenly, yelling from another corridor rang out, “Help her, or off with your head!!” The Jack turned a paler shade than paper-white, to the point where he was positively glowing with fear.

“Just have a tart. It’s good for the exhaustion.”

Pen deftly caught the pastry in her right hand. As she devoured half of it, she queried, “Now how would I find a way out of here?”

“Just go to the heart of the labyrinth. The door will be sure to find you there.”

“Thank you for your assistance.” She strode off towards the center, keeping an eye out for any outlets on the prowl. The walls abruptly changed to brick when she reached the center. There, she saw an all too familiar sight: a Porlock. They were as common as rodents in her world, and as far as she knew, she was the only one who could remember seeing them. She had no idea why their mind scrapes had no effect on her. She was going to find out, if she had anything to do with it.

It was sleeping, so Penina kicked its face. It shuddered to its full height of nine feet and stared with large globular eyes at the young woman with the metal arms. Its white and yellow fur stood on end all over its body. “. . . You!!” It then began to run for its life through a keyhole-shaped opening that was not there before. Penina ran after it. Nothing was going to stop her from grabbing and interrogating this creature.

Dropping through a gaping hole in the floor, though, was certainly enough to make almost anyone stop. At least, that is what she thought as she was falling through it.

[Safer]

Alrighty! Just hold up for me, and I'll get you in UT soon enough.

[HurriSbezu]

OoC: I know you said to just reboot and have them doing junk in their room, but I decided to simply pick up where I left off and send her to sleep, after having her clarify for herself what it is that she wants to do. I pray that I did not betray her character, though. This internal monologue is nowhere near Shakespeare, but it serves well as a transition, I think. Anyway, I need to post something to continue training, so it might as well be this. ^_^;;

BiC: ****. He got away.

She could see nothing but black void and hear nothing except her own breath and the wind whistling in her ears. There was nothing solid within her grasp, no ground to stand on. Penina waited and waited to hit the bottom, but her freefall continued. So, she got comfortable and started to think.

I wonder if I will survive the fall. Will it come to an end, though? Or will I just fall forever and rot in mid-air as best I can without assistance? Hmm . . . well, is there anything to really regret? Is there any reason to wish to continue to live? There is certainly a lot left to learn about the world, but it is very unlikely that I will ever learn everything. I am not even sure if I want to do that.

What do I want? I should be striving for something if I am to be wandering worlds. Simply learning without any aim in mind is something that anyone can do. I should be striving to learn something to some end. But what purpose should I set up for myself?

Perhaps I should find out more about myself. That sounds good: now what do I know already? I am the child of a Dream of the Red King and of a human being. So that makes me . . . what? Half Dream, half Dreamer. It does not really seem to cohere too well.

How human am I? How do I differ from humanity at large? Well, I certainly have their physical form. Then again, my blood is a black substance that is rather incommensurable with science. I guess that rendering conventional investigation useless is part of being part-Dream. The hands are also strange. I think I made them myself, but I have never really gotten a chance to reproduce what happened that day. I wonder if that was me, or if that had something to do with my parents’ agreement being violated, or if it was something else entirely.

I wish I could ask them what happened, but I am fairly sure that my mother is dead, and my father is . . . wandering worlds! Just like I am going to be doing as soon as I learn what I can here! I can find him and learn what is going on with me! I can learn exactly why he taught me about the Red King and his Dream-world. I might even find out what my real purpose is!

Okay then, looks like we have a plan. Find the Boots and make him explain who I am and what happened to me. And learn what I can in general along the way, but that is pretty much a given.

Penina smiled as she finalized her plans for her future, then realized that the whistling had stopped, and that she was lying down on a futon. Getting up, she found a light-switch. Pen was back in her room. Shrugging, she turned off the lights, crawled into her bed and went to sleep, dreaming strange dreams.

[Safer]

Awesome, although I'm going to make a comment on the monologue. You seem to be suffering from what I call the "As you know" syndrome. The name comes from a type of dialogue that many people use to infodump. It has two or more characters, with one starting the scene off with "As you know, so-and-so, we are in this situation with this issue and these people in danger, blah blah blah."

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying you were infodumping. But think about your life for a moment and summarize it like Penina summarized hers. Now run it through your head, word for word; does it honestly seem like at one particular moment in time you would run all of this through your head in such a manner? Even if Pen was in a really stressful situation, when people think, they don't think in such a manner as "well I'm about to die so let's summarize my life."

This thing is a ***** to describe, so I know you're probably terribly confused. If you need some help, we'll talk on AIM. Anyway, for your next lesson, I have prepared a nice little BiC post to start it off. :3

BiC: The hall was narrow.

Twisting, tumbling, intricate vines of swirling energy confused the Tamer as he squinted, not quite sure where the wind which billowed his short, blond hair was coming from. Orysius put a hand in front of his eyes, hoping he might be able to come up with a vision of where he was. He found that this was in vain.

The corridor was alit with heat, and sweat soon began to drip from the Tamer’s brow. His glasses fogged over, and he removed them promptly, taking note that the heat was getting more intense as he wiped them clean. It was not long, too, before the heat began to overcome Orysius, and he fell to his knees.

However… it was then that he saw the source of this dreaded heat. A man with black hair and calming eyes, wreathed in white flames stood before him, a red-tinted katana at his side.

“Rise, my friend,” he said.

Orysius was filled with a newfound energy, and rose. “Where are we?”

“We are in the Dome,” the man said quietly. “This place is an ancient school of battle. I am Tokumaru Kyô, a veteran teacher here.”

“Wonderful,” Orysius said sardonically. “But what does this have to do with me?”

Tokumaru turned to face Orysius, and his hazel eyes became inhumanly alit as they reflected the flames. “The Dome is a sentient being in its own right. It chooses whom it wishes to teach, and when they are ready to leave. In that same respect, it chooses whom it feels would do the best job of teaching.”

“And?”

Tokumaru smiled at Orysius’ hurried nature. “My time here as a teacher has come to an end… and the Dome has brought you in here to replace me.”

Orysius laughed, shaking his head. “I’m afraid I can’t comply with that. I haven’t the time to teach.”

“Do not worry,” Tokumaru reassured. “The Dome exists outside the realm of time. It can pull you in at one moment, keep you for years, and when it finally tosses you out, you’ll discover that not a day has passed in your realm.” He closed his eyes. “And if you are feeling like leaving, you are sadly mistaken. The Dome will not allow you to exit until it feels you have served a true purpose.”

“I’m…” Orysius said at length, “…stuck here?”

Tokumaru approached the Tamer. “If you want to put it that way, then yes. I will stay with you for a short time to instruct you in the art of teaching, but the time will come when I too shall leave you.” He paused. “I was just as distressed as you were when the Dome asked me to teach, but I cam to enjoy my stay here, and you shall as well.”

Orysius, realizing there was no way around this, sighed. “I see. Well, then, teach me.”

It was then that the hallway disintegrated around them, and the tutelage of Orysius under the wing of Tokumaru began. For many weeks, Orysius learned—at first, reluctantly—how to teach, and eventually the day came when Tokumaru led Orysius through an unfamiliar part of the Dome, a part that Orysius knew meant the end of his teacher’s time in the Dome.

“Ahead,” Tokumaru said, pointing down the hall, “you will find the pathways to the doors of your students. You have learned well, Orysius, and it is time that you took on my students in my place.”

Orysius, now fully ready and willing to teach, nodded. “It’s an honor.”

Tokumaru placed his hand on Orysius’ shoulder. “Go to them, one by one, and tell them what has happened to their teacher. The Dome will show you the way.”

“I will,” Orysius said. “Farwell, Tokumaru.” And with that, the Tamer strode down the hall.

Tokumaru watched in silence, speaking just as his traditional flames wrapped around him to lead him out of the Dome one last time.

“I have passed onto you what my beloved teacher, Aurora, passed onto me. Instruct my students well, Orysius Solian, so that they too might know what you have been taught, and what I have been taught before you…”

The flames then dissipated, and Tokumaru Kyô, the Heavenflame Samurai, disappeared from the Dome without a trace.

OoC: Basically, since Orysius is going to each student, he's eventually going to stop by your door. Oh, and if it seems like Tokumaru was saying all the students board in the same hallway, that's not true. The particular hallway they were in was the one the leads to the areas in which students bunk, not necessarily the exact hallway. (Hence Tokumaru saying "The Dome will show you the way.") Your lesson will be to write a post with Penina meeting Orysius for the first time. I know, it's stupid, but it's necessary to move into the better lessons.

PS: Be SURE to read Orysius' profile to get an idea of how he acts.

[HurriSbezu]

Orysius Solian sang a strange little song to himself as he walked down the corridor, clicking his boots against the linoleum floor. He searched for the door of his newly acquired student, rolling the notes on his tongue.

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?” His sword hung freely on his side, swaying back and forth pendulously as Solian looked around casually, running a hand through his blonde spikes.

“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme . . .” His shades perched on his nose
almost merrily as his cerulean eyes roved behind them.

“Mention me to one who is the-ere . . .” The trench coat rocked gently to his pace, knocking stiffly against his knees.

“Sheee once waas a true love of miiiine.” Then the Norwegian wood of her portal sprang into his sight. With a sharp turn on his heel, he stopped in front of it and rapped his knuckles against the door of his prospective student.

Penina woke up in the middle of a peculiar dream about attempting to do a tango with a pile of applesauce. She muttered to herself, “I had almost figured out where its arms were.” She stumbled over to the dresser that appeared during the night and grabbed a blank green t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Pen pulled them on drowsily as Orysius whistled his song outside her door patiently. Finally she padded over to the door and confronted him bluntly,

“What do you want?”

Smiling, he continued, “Well, good morning!! You were one of Tokumaru’s students, correct?”

She stared at him blankly with the dully impotent rage of one recently awakened against their wishes, her gleaming metal hands limp at her sides. Her red hair cascaded over her shoulders carelessly as Pen responded, “He did promise to teach me: however, this has not yet materialized in any fashion, so I could not really call him my teacher.”

“Well, due to circumstances beyond the angel’s control, he is no longer teaching here at the Dome. However, he trained me before he left: so I am to teach you in his stead!” He spread his hands at his sides in a melodramatic manner, as though he were waiting for applause from an unseen audience.

“Who are you?”

Bowing deeply, he responded, “Orysius Solian, at your service! And what might your name be, my lovely protégé?” He took one of her hands in his own to place his lips upon it, then recoiled visibly from the metallic prosthetic and snatched back his hand.

“I am Penina Hargreaves, and I see you have encountered my defining feature.” She clenched her hand into a fist and withdrew it slowly. “A pleasure, I am sure.”

A bit thrown off his game, Orysius stumbled for words. Penina stared at him unsympathetically. “W-what ore are they made from?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“My arms are Metal.” She stretched them both out, exposing to his view the boundary between skin and chrome.

Once more, he took up an arm, studying it closely. “I’ll be buggered . . .”

“What do you see?” Pen perked up somewhat, recognizing that he had something to tell her.

“This is an element that I have not encountered before. And of uncommon purity to boot!” Solian gripped her fingers with considerable strain, fascinated at how unyielding they were. “How did you come by these?”

She smiled for the first time this morning. “I think the answer to that question can wait for a while. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

OoC: Well, I hope it is all right that I left it hanging like that. Sorry it took so long! :embrsd: ((I miss the old smilies. v.v ))