♤ There's a Method in His Madness

[deal_me_in]

WHO: Cayde-6 and yooou
WHERE: Around this weirdo city
WHAT: Getting into trouble Trying to track down people he knows
WHEN: Mid-May
WARNINGS: N/A



Arson
We'll both have to do something separately. Each should try to get the attention of one of those groups or try to find others that remember Temba. It had sounded like a decent plan to Cayde. The question had just been the what. He supposed vandalizing Stark's place was out of the question, not to mention the security he'd have to avoid. The same probably goes for the other big-name buildings. Who's this Djarin anyway?

In the end, the only casualty is a billboard. That had been a slight mistake on Cayde's part, having underestimated how quickly one would catch fire, and he only hoped at least something of that by now trademark Agrii face he'd traced out had been seen before the rest of the board had been caught up in flames.

The second attempt had been bolder, down a street and done at late hours when traffic was near non-existent. Few witnesses would say they'd seen a hooded figure running about the middle of a street for the length of a block. Just before he vanished, the street was lit up in flames. Images taken from above street level would see the message better, a fiery, strange message by someone who obviously couldn't spell:

DON'T FORGET, HE ROWS


((OOC: Not actually a prompt Cayde will be responding to so much as a 'here's a thing he did' but reactions are welcome! Unless someone wants to catch him leaving the scene of the crime message. If so, only one taker please!))



The Super Sleuth..?
The newspaper he'd borrowed from Echo had shown him some interesting things, and not just Captain America in a tree trying to rescue the cat Cayde had also borrowed. Obviously after that strange alien invasion the other day, it's probably safe to assume that this city is anything but normal- aside from the fact that it probably shouldn't even exist. He'd seen Ikora blasting aliens with void magic. The Soldier had suddenly taken on some hero roll and seemed downright chipper about it. And then there were other names floating about in articles that got him thinking.

Hopefully Echo doesn't expect this paper back. It's got circles around names in headlines and things. Names of local heroes (he rows?) and vigilantes.

"Oh yes, Cayde, you are so very clever," he tells himself as he folds the paper up while he crosses a street. Which he totally has the right of way! The hand thingy's not flashing yet! It's the truck's fault for having its brakes go out as it comes down the sloped street, horn blaring as it lurches this way and that in the driver's effort to shave off some speed but it's still coming rather fast. "-seriously?"


Warlock Hunt (For Lark and Ikora)
Spending time thinking and reminscing about Ikora to, what was it- acclimatize the wool thread he'd bought had been extremely strange and borderline creepy in his opinion, although it had also been a sobering suggestion of what could easily just be gone if whatever was going on in this city continued. Cayde had given Lark the thread once she was ready to work with it, eager to see how things panned out with this magical map she said she could create. And he had not been disappointed.

"So does that work with like...objects too or just people?" he asks as they set foot into the library. That map trick had worked spectacularly, and Cayde being one who liked his paper maps had bought a city one just to match up with the one Lark had woven. He'd almost smacked himself in the head. Where else would a Warlock be in a city?

"Let's see. Do we ask for Miss Rey...?" he wonders aloud even as he tries and fails to stifle snickers at that. He wonders if Ikora's ever been called 'Miss Rey' in her entire Guardian life.


Wildcard
((OOC: Want his 'sleuthing' to have him end up where your character is, provided he might have seen a hero name in a paper and took a guess at who they might be if it seemed obvious to him, or if they had their own names come up in it! ...oh gosh is he gonna get kicked out of the newspaper office too...))

Comments

[deal_me_in]

Well this is a twist! And probably not the most comfortable rescue given that it's not flesh and blood under that fashionable hoodie! Blue light winks in and out as the Exo blinks at his apparent savior.

"Y-yeah, I'm fi-" Squint. "Richie?"

[mrsklover]

Huh?

Richie looks at the blue lights and has a memory. Or maybe something like a memory? At any rate, he feels like he knows this person even if he can't entirely place how or why.

Without his notepad he has to keep his conversations short lest the man pass out on him, so he can't start interrogating. He settles on:

"You know me?"

[deal_me_in]

Cayde grabs him by the shoulders, and then looks where they are and starts a little closer to the sidewalk. Crazy drivers in this place!

"Yes! You're Richie, the guy who likes doing standup comedy and had a bad run-in with alien clowns or something." Or maybe that's not going to get them anywhere if he doesn't remember anything, the Exo reminds himself. "-anyway I'm Cayde. Robot guy? Made a bar in Temba? Home of little fangy pink alien creatures with four arms that we're supposed to be saving? Ring any bells?"

[mrsklover]

Richie blinks a little, both because everything he is saying sounds familiar and because the guy hasn't even yawned yet. Richie talked to him and he seems pretty steady on his feet. That hasn't really happened before.

"Cayde..." The name sounds familiar but he can't entirely place it. He tries to focus on it and the idea of a bar. Funny enough, it's more the comedy bit and the clown that rings true to him. It sounds like something almost from a dream, but no. No... He can almost remember it...

"I...uh.... No? I'm Richie, the guy who can't talk without putting people to sleep." Or was he? "Uh. But that clown thing... I mean. It sounds a little familiar..."

[deal_me_in]

Familiar is better than the blank looks or the ones that make it seen like he's the crazy one here, and he's gotten enough of those. Cayde looks hopeful as he tilts his head, watching for some kind of light bulb to connect but all he's getting is a flicker.

Know what, he'll take it.

"You put people to sleep when you talk? You gotta work on those jokes, kid."

[mrsklover]

Okay, that is funny. Richie laughs, surprised at the joke as much as he is by the fact that he can have a conversation with someone for more than a minute. That alone makes him mildly desperate to stick around Cayde. Add on the mystery stuff he's dumped here and Richie is hooked.

"What can I say? Not a lot of ways to practice when people pass out. But... You know me as a comedian? How? When?"

[deal_me_in]

"Oh, so you weren't kidding? You meant like...literally. Okay that's kinda weird but this place is weird so I guess it all works out." Cayde shakes his head. "Anyway, I know this all sounds crazy but you thankfully have not given me the crazy look so I'm taking that as a good sign. So hear me out."

He takes a second to figure out how to start things off. "So there's this ruined city called Temba on an alien planet called Agra Ten, and we were all brought there to help the Agrii- the ones who called the place home- to solve some problems so they can come back. And we were all there not a month ago, but then suddenly...all this." He gestures vaguely. "-which I'm not sure how to explain but anyhow that's how I know you and you told me you had a thing for wanting to do stand-up and I said you could use the bar space."

[mrsklover]

Richie wants to make a face but everything that Cayde is saying sounds familiar. It sounds a Hell of a lot more real than...well. Anything that's happened the last few days, really. Except for maybe Eddie, but that was an outlying data point. Otherwise, this all was striking something deep inside him. Something he couldn't shake off as the rantings of a crazy person.

Richie's face went into the unfamiliar expression of 'serious' and he furrowed his brow.

"But...I mean. If that is true...what is all this? It doesn't look ruined. I mean, maybe in the environmental sense you could argue... But it just looks like..." He pauses because he wanted to say the city's name and was coming up with a blank. "Uh. It looks like... Dang. What is this place called?"

[deal_me_in]

That's definitely a more preferrable expression than the 'you're obviously insane, please get away from me look'. Cayde waits, letting things sink in. As Richie starts to reason he feels like sighing, but at that falter the Exo gives him a pointed look.

"I really have no idea, but you'd think if you were living here forever then you'd know, right?"

[mrsklover]

Richie nods. He should know. The fact that he doesn't seems like more proof than anything else Cayde could say. He was sure he'd lived here all his life and yet couldn't actually think of the name nor anything in it other than the places he'd already seen in the last few days. That made no sense. None of it made sense.

Richie blinks up at Cayde.

"...How long have we actually been here?"

[deal_me_in]

Welcome to Cayde's life these past how many days.

"About a couple weeks or so," he says. At least the days were easier to keep track of than back on Temba, but he's not sure if that makes much of a difference in the long-run, especially not knowing where the heck they are for sure.

[mrsklover]

"Crap..."

Richie rubs a hand over his face and thinks to himself about what this all could mean. So the world might not be real? And if it wasn't real, then...

"Wait. So...back on this planet place... I can just talk? All the time? And nothing happens?"

[deal_me_in]

"Oh yeah, absolutely. Nothin' stopping you," Cayde confirms with a nod. "Good jokes, bad jokes, you could talk someone's ear off if you wanted."

[mrsklover]

The idea of that is like an answered prayer. The idea that he could talk to people freely--talk to Eddie even is too good to be true. Unless... Unless Eddie wasn't actually real?

Richie looks around at the people near them and in the city. Were they all kidnapped people like them? Or were they just illusions?

"And...how many 'someone's' are we talking about? I can't imagine everyone here is part of our kidnapped group? Or are they?"

[deal_me_in]

His metal face scrunches up as he tries to do a quick headcount. "No, there were only so many people back where we were. There's like... there's at least twenty people," Cayde says after a moment, tossing up a shrug. "I don't know where an entire city comes but none of this has been making much sense to me to begin with."

He stuffs a hand into his pocket and pulls out a napkin that he'd started to jot names down on:

ℬ𝒾𝓁𝓁𝓎
𝒯ℴ𝓂𝓂𝓎 ?
𝒥ℴ𝓃 ?
ℒ𝒶𝓇𝓀
ℰ𝒸𝒽ℴ
ℐ𝓀ℴ𝓇𝒶 ?
𝒞𝒶𝓅𝓉𝒶𝒾𝓃 𝒜𝓂ℯ𝓇𝒾𝒸𝒶 - 𝒮ℴ𝓁𝒹𝒾ℯ𝓇??
𝒯ℴ𝓃𝓎
𝒦𝒶𝓏
𝒯𝒽ℯ ℳ𝒶𝓇𝓈𝒽𝒶𝓁𝓁 - 𝒱𝒶𝓃𝓉𝒽?
𝒯𝒽ℯ ℋ𝓊𝓃𝓉ℯ𝓇 - ℋℯ𝓁𝓂ℯ𝓉 ℊ𝓊𝓎?

"These are names of the people I've either run into or heard or read mentioned and figure they should be people I know. If they're crossed out then I already talked to 'em and came up empty," Cayde explains, frowning.

[mrsklover]

Richie takes the napkin and looks over the names carefully. None of them sound overly familiar at first but then he realizes that they probably wouldn't to him. Either his memory was scrambled or they were going by something else here. Some superhero name.

Still, he looks over it again and frowns, a weight dropping into his chest. There is one missing that he hoped wouldn't be.

"I...uh. I met a guy named Eddie? Do you know if he's part of our group or...just one of the fake prop-people?"

[deal_me_in]

"Eddie, Eddie...sounds familiar," Cayde thinks, tapping his chin. "I think he's been by the bar? -yeah, yeah! You had that meeting thing- that you probably don't remember but anyway, I'm not sure if it's the same Eddie we're talking about here. But then again for all that this place is one big city the chances of running into a familiar face is uncanny."

[mrsklover]

Relief rushes through him like a shot of heroin which....he hasn't ever done. Right? Right. Yeah. No. He's done...He's done other things, though. Hasn't he?

Memories bubble up, none of them good, but all of them there and vibrant enough to be real. Richie blinks at the surge of them and shakes his head a little, clearing it away to refocus on Cayde and what he was saying.

"Yeah... I mean. You found a lot of people already. And..." He pauses and thinks deeper. "You know... I don't know that I can remember having really meaningful talks or interactions or whatever with many people. It's you, Eddie, and maybe like two other folk that are probably from this place, too. I wonder if we're just drawn to 'real' people?"

[deal_me_in]

The Exo snap-points at him. "Right?! Exactly. Or maybe it's that part of us that still has some vague awareness of what's supposed to be. I don't know, really- that's more like Warlock territory. Hell, I'm just glad you're actually agreeing that this makes sense!"

It's the pick-me-up he needs. He's had more misses than hits for people even relatively familiar with anything he's tried to explain and it's been wearing at him.

[mrsklover]

Richie can't help but smile back at Cayde now that he is clearly perked up. It feels sort of nice to be the person to make someone happier. That was part of why he's always wanted to be a comedian. And, apparently, he is in the real world. Richie wants to get back to that.

"Okay. Okay, so...There are other people around here and some remember and some don't. And we've only been here a little while. Did...something happen? Something had to have caused this, right? Is it the alien things who kidnapped us?"

[deal_me_in]

Cayde shakes his head. "I have no idea. It just...happened. No warning. Probably why it caught everyone off guard. But you're right, something had to have caused it. One of the other people who I found that haven't been affected by it says it feels like magic."

He wishes he had more to go off of than that. Magic is really out of his territory. "I got a friend, Ikora? She's down at the library. I figure it's easier to direct people there, a little meet-up hub. We're trying to work things out, find others."

[mrsklover]

Ikora doesn't sound familiar. He shakes his head a little but looks toward the library as though he'd be able to see her there. Stupid.

"Okay," he says with a nod. "I mean. I don't know if I am going to be any help for you, but I can at least show up and try to help work things out. I mean, who knows? Maybe this is all because someone needs a nap and I'll save the day!"

[deal_me_in]

At least he knows where the library is?

Cayde grins. "After all this I could totally go for a nap. But hey, you never know. And maybe the more faces around in one place that are supposed to be familiar, the more it'll help jog more memories." And the more brains they have on this case, the closer they'll get to breaking out of this not-quite-illusion.