Round 1 Introduction Hub Log

[worldkeys]

Who: The Alices and the White Rabbit.
What: What: Everybody wakes up on the first day of the first round inside the World's Hub, greeted by the White Rabbit, who seems largely unimpressed.
Where: The World's Hub.
Warnings: Rabbit is gloomy and has a bad temper and tends to complain a lot. Otherwise, not much.

You entered a closet. You knew that much. You woke up from... somewhere, and you entered a cupboard or a closet and you followed a strange cat with golden eyes. You blink. You feel assailed by the feeling of your body falling somewhere, the sound of heavy machinery--

And then darkness, before... a wooden pathway, and another cupboard, and a boy in a hood. A cat-boy, with golden eyes, much like the one you followed. He cackles gleefully at everyone before disappearing with a meow. The cupboard behind him is locked. Past this area, you find yourself in a strange room of ruined, cracked cobblestone and oddly-shaped lamps. Dead trees line the path. There are old tombstones scattered about. A gloomy boy with black twigs for hair and strange eyes, dressed in fancy, Victorian-looking garb stands in the middle of the room. There are others like you about, you notice. Not TOO many more, but a fair few.

Something about the boy's eyes carry a dreadful feeling. They're red on black. No whites to them at all. He has two white rabbit ears on his head, but one is distinctly torn off, like something had just taken a bite out of it. He looks at those assembled, cocks his head to the side, as if... curious for a moment, before shaking it and then sighing.

"... Ah. Welcome, Alice." There's a pause, as if he's assessing what he's doing. He particularly stares deeply at Clock. "... Oh? No, not at all... well, you're still ▒▒▒▒▒ to me."

A nod to himself, as if to confirm it.

"More pressing... I have a task for all of you. If you could help me with it, that would be most appreciated."

[ OOC: Feel free to respond in either prose or bracketspam. Also, Cheshire will probably have a thread later you can reply to as well. For now, this is the opening log to badger the NPC with questions. ]

Comments

[heartgatherer]

[Honestly, she doesn't want to put too much weight on anything either of them say, but... now that her anger has died down a little, she does feel a little bad for him. Stupid Rules... she's familiar with them. There were a lot of those in Wonderland.]

...alright. All we have to do is find them, right? Then we can go back?

[apatheticguide]

Of course. They open a pathway back to wherever or whenever you want to be. I'd simply like it if I had some peace and quiet around here. A few hundred years without my face and name changing, some people not wandering into here to get trapped... that hardly seems like too much to ask for.

[ He just likes his peace, you know? ]

[heartgatherer]

[So she could go home. Home home - not just back to Wonderland. This was a strange way to go about it, but it was an opportunity all the same.]

...so then what is it? Your name.

[She doesn't understand the Rules of this place yet - why his name or his face would change - but if it's anything like the one she came from then the answer may not be a very nice one. Even so--]

I don't understand what's happening in this world, but-- I'll do what I can to set things back to normal.

[apatheticguide]

[ He tilts his head in confusion when she asks that of him. ]

... A name? I don't understand. I... don't have one. I'm just the White Rabbit. That's all.

[heartgatherer]

...that's what you are... not who you are.

And you're certainly not the White Rabbit I knew. [Ah--] ...that's a good thing, by the way.

[apatheticguide]

... I don't have a name, though.

[ He hasn't. Ever, really. Has... he? Though, for him, he's not very white. Just the way the tips of his ears sort of mesh into a bit of white hair on his head... you could say he's not too white rabbit-y at all, really. Black hair that looks like tree branches, he certainly seems idle. ]

... I guessed as much. Well... I've been other things before this. So I couldn't tell you what to call me aside from that. Just this is fine. Don't worry about it. It's pointless to assign names to someone like me, anyway.

[heartgatherer]

Other things? ...you mean your role has changed?

[That's... different. And it makes the task before her more difficult. Oh but she'll find it-- a name that he likes which to call him by. Just referring to someone by a title... she doesn't like that. It's too similar to the kind of thinking that made people feel lives were disposable in Wonderland.]

[apatheticguide]

Yes, of course. I'm a guide. So I appear as whatever people need me to be. Right now I'm the White Rabbit. That's all.

[ He gives the vaguest of shrugs, as though this is completely normal. ]

[heartgatherer]

They're different from the Rules I know, but... I think I understand.

[It's just as messed up though.]

Well it's no good if I don't know who you are. So...

[Here we go--]

...what about Robert?

[apatheticguide]

...

[ He blinks once, then twice, red-on-black eyes looking at her in confusion. Tilts his head, and then shakes it. ]

... You're strange. ... If you want to call me that, then go ahead.

[heartgatherer]

I was told that in the last world I came from too.

[If her way of thinking was strange, then she was perfectly fine with being strange.]

There were a lot of stupid rules there too. I think work is important, but if the only thing you have to your identity is what you do - that's not right. You have to take in account the things that make you who you are.

[apatheticguide]

... There... used to be something. But I cannot... recall what it is anymore. It's been too long. A few hundred years. Maybe longer. I don't know. Time passes oddly here. It's nonexistent. Just a stream of time with nothingness and then people who wander in here and getting them out...

[ ... It's perhaps the most honest and unguarded thing he's said. ]

So I do not know, if there was ever anything there. People have asked me something akin to that before. "What would you like outside of here?" ... Something like that, I think it was? And I could not give a good answer.

Except perhaps for books. That was all I could recall.

[heartgatherer]

...that is a very long time. Still... I wonder why you would have forgotten something so important...

[Well there, that's something! His admission seems to bring a smile to her face. It may seem small, but it proved what she already knew - there was something there.]

Books? ...do you like them?

[worstofall]

... I don't know. I suppose I did. I read them often enough, I think. A long time ago.

[ ... He'd been very fond of them... he supposes. Fairy tales, perhaps? Adventure books? Something like that. ]

There isn't anything like that here, though. Just the things conjured by people's Hearts. Those things are ephemeral; they do not last. I cannot touch them.

[heartgatherer]

Me too. My sister and I used to read books together all the time out in the garden.

[...well that settles it.

So things from inside of those doors were out of the question. Then...]

...but if it was something from my world, it would be fine, right?

[apatheticguide]

... No, they're not real outside their Doors. I do not think you could bring something out there... something from outside the world could come into the World, but it would have to be brought in with the person, and we never bring those sorts of things in. There's no need to.

Even then... I try to stop people coming in.

[ This is all he need focus on; there's little need to care. ]

It's fine. I'm comfortable as this is.

[heartgatherer]

Why is that? Do you dislike outsiders?

[Wonderland didn't have many Outsiders either, but they didn't seem to dislike them. But if it could lead to things like this, then she could see how one might not like outsiders getting in.]

[apatheticguide]

... It's dangerous for people to stay too long here. They'd eventually turn to foam.

[ It's the honest truth. ]

[heartgatherer]

Like... bubbles?

[That... doesn't sound good.]

Well, if we hurry, it shouldn't be a problem, right?

[She is not failing a fetch quest in her dream, no matter how weird it is.]

[apatheticguide]

Oh, yes. Quite like them. That's the nicest thing I can say about the state, really. I have seen it before. That is why I try to hurry people out of here and why I prefer they not intrude; they would perish.

[ If you die here, you die for real. ... Probably, anyway. ]

I cannot say how much time you have, of course. Such things are relative in a place like this. But I would not dally. And do not think you can do it alone, either; you will need the other's help, since it will be all of your Hearts that, like as not, might contain the Keys.