The Underground City

Enide thought for a few seconds, a flicker of frown flashing across her face. A god? She'd never met one, though she'd heard of a few. One came to mind. That deity would explain the lack of a noticeable presence, as well as some of Lexal's erratic behavior. On the other hand, Enide was reasonably sure that deity was dead. That left two options - a deity she wasn't familiar with (none of those she knew would live in such an abandoned and strange place as here), or some powerful being that had duped this fool into believing that he or she was a god. Neither boded well.

"Odd?" Enide said, glancing back to see Casey inject a needle into his arm, his hair color changing rapidly. His excuse of "space drugs" was clearly a lie, but she couldn't begin to piece together the truth. Nor was it the most important thing to worry about at the moment. "Could you specify?"

He waited for Aleks to have some sort of reaction to what Enide had asked, but his counterpart remained stubbornly silent. Lex inwardly sighed - having been reminded that Enide would question any suspicious action he committed - and tried to think of the best way to describe their god.

Telós was....well, he was Telós. If he hadn't known who he was back when they first talked after that, he would have probably guessed he was talking to a normal person. "You won't be able to tell who he is when you meet him," Lex said. "Not until he introduces himself."

Bo couldn’t remember the moment arrived or the moment he was home. He was pretty sure he’d just gone to sleep, but now he was awake, in a building he didn’t recognize no less.

He looked around, somewhat panicked and definitely confused as he took in the scenert. It seemed pretty straightforward. He was in a building that was fancy and had high ceilings (which he was thankful for), but his eyes also caught a glimpse of something else. A person.

But it was only for a brief moment. The moment he saw them they were gone, and all he saw was a flash of a long dark braid fluttering behind before they fled down a corner out of sight.

Not sure what else to do, he followed slowly, hoping to run into someone or something that made some sense.

Casey caught up so that he was walking a few steps behind Enide and Lexal, his boots drumming a steady rhythm on the semi-paved streets. He was tired, and his body ached as a result of how long he had waited for an injection. He rubbed absent-mindedly at the tiny pinprick on his arm.

That still wasn't an answer, but Enide nodded politely. He didn't seem like he was going to explain any more than he already had. Which, of course, was extremely suspicious. She started to plan escape routes for when she arrived at the building and met this god. At least it'd be easy enough to recognize the god; even if Lexal had told her otherwise, wasn't figuring people out her specialty?

Spoiler

Meet Telós! He's Lexal's god. His description is pretty simple and I don't have a character profile up for him, so I'll just list the important details here. He keeps his long black hair in a braid that goes down the entirety of his back. He has golden eyes. He's currently wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers, a dark purple hoodie and a black t-shirt with a Minecraft gold ingot on it. He's average height, and probably looks to be somewhere in his early twenties.

He had been wandering through these halls for who knows how long before he caught a glimpse of a mob who could have only been a ghost - the setting was perfect, and ghostly activities could possibly explain his sudden appearance here. He had no idea where here even was, but he would gladly risk not finding out if it meant not being discovered by the ghost.

He ducked into one of the nearest hallways and hid in the corner. He sent a brief message to his chosen - finally able to reach them after a strange period of silence when he first arrived - and then returned to wandering the halls. Hopefully the ghost had long since vanished.

But just as he went to turn the corner into another hallway, he went running right into an enormous figure. It was too dark to make out any specific details - like what kind of mob they were - but it was just light enough for him to realize that he was looking at his ghost.

So he did the thing anyone in their right mind would have done.

He screamed.

As he turned the corner, the guy ran into him - which surprised him ina dn of itself, but when the shrill scream filled his ears he cringed.

“Geez, man, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whined, holding his ears. ”Chill dude.”

That wasn't a very ghost thing to say. Telós took a step back and look up at the giant of a mob, still unable to make any major identifying features in this light. What he was able to note was perhaps the most telling thing of all: he had ran into the man. Therefore, he wasn't dealing with a ghost. The realization made him sigh in relief. He wasn't sure how he would have survived an encounter with one without his chosen there.

"Sorry about that," he apologized, a sheepish grin appearing on his face. "This place is creepy. I thought you were a ghost. Which you're obviously not, seeing that I just ran into you."

He brushed off the dust and cobwebs that had gotten stuck to his clothes when he was hiding away in the corner. He was well aware that he hadn't gotten it out from his braid, but he had other matters to attend to. Mainly figuring out who he was with, because he had no recollection of hearing that voice before.

Well, names were always a good start.

He stuck his hand out. "Telós, god of gold and king of the End because democracy takes way too long to be put into place, at your service!" His name wasn't just a good way to get the mob to open up; it was also a good way for him determine who they were based on the reaction. He doubted he was dealing with an enderman. While he may have had the height of one, he was far too muscular. But it didn't hurt to check.

Ryder followed the small group to the building casually. He didn't pay much attention to the path immediately in front of him, rather he opted to look around, see what was around him. He decided that he liked the look of this place. Even with all it's confusing architecture, he still liked the general aesthetic of it. He looked ahead to make sure he was still following the others. His eyes landed on the Fox Lady.
"Hey, miss Enide, what's your world like?" he asked, trying to make conversation.

Enide looked back. Ah, the boy with the strange music. She smiled at Ryder. "I live in such a massive world," she said, "That I could never perfectly describe it, though I have seen a good part of it. I could perhaps describe my home? My husband and I live in a fairly large house not far from the cliffs of our country. The weather is mild, the people are extremely polite to us, and we do not want for food or other necessities. It is a comfortable life, though busy." At least all of that was technically correct.

Ryder nodded, stepping closer so he didn't have to strain to hear her over the dull sounds of the surrounding area.
"Sounds like a pretty chilled life," he said, clasping his hands behind his head.
"So like, do you have a job? Or are you like royalty and you don't do the working things?" Beneath his sunglasses, he glanced down at her hands. She didn't look like she did much physical labour. Her hands were soft, delicate. His eyes flicked back up to her face, and he waited for her reply.

Bo squinted down at the guy in the dim light, trying to get a good look at him - his eyes shining a bright blue as he did so. He gave the fellow's hand a good firm shake.

"I've never heard of you, but uh, nice to meet you."

Telós raised an eyebrow at the comment. Most of the mobs of Minecraftia had heard of him at some point in their lives, either back then or in more recent times. He spent almost every chance he got in Hero's place or the Nether, so it wasn't like he was an unfamiliar face.

Weird. So he may have been dealing with a mob who had been holed up in the middle of nowhere, or someone who wasn't even a mob. Everything about this encounter was suggesting the second option: the lack of recognition, the features that didn't match any mob he knew and the way that the man's eyes glowed blue when they were talking.

"Just give me a sec," he said, scanning the hallway for some sort of light source. He eventually found what he was looking for in an old mining lamp laying forgotten against one of the dusty walls. One flick of his flint and steel later, and light was enveloping the two of them.

Yeah, he definitely wasn't a mob.

He was enormous, and looked suspiciously like a player. He would have been eager to call him exactly that if it wasn't for the fact that he had just heard his voice instead of seeing the words appearing over his head. Maybe he was a chosen. But even that seemed unlikely, since there should have been a bit more panic involved if he had just woken up in a different body in a strange new place. Since Telós had been the one to wake up in the strange place, he was starting to suspect that this whole thing was going outside the realm of what he was used to.

"So what's your name?" he asked.

Ugh, of course somebody would notice her hands. Enide smiled, burying them in the folds of her dress. "Administrative work," she said. "I work for royalty. It is not exactly what I would call hard labor. At least, not in the traditional sense. It certainly pays well!" Still only bending the truth, but less so now. She hated how astute this kid was.

Aleks, unsurprisingly was still being stubbornly silent. Seeing that he couldn't go and storm off to have some time to himself, Lex suspected that Aleks would remain closed off for quite some time.

And if Aleks wasn't going to provide any input into the conversation, he would just go off of what he wanted to do instead of trying to figure out what his counterpart would do in the situation.

He turned to Enide and Ryder, who seemed to be having a conversation about Enide's job. "So what exactly is like working for royalty?" he asked, letting their hands hang down at their side instead of putting them into their pockets. "Telós - my god - technically is king of the place we live in, but he tends to burden himself with every responsibility under the sun."

He thought for a moment.

"On second thought," he added, "that seems to be a god thing. We've all been trying to get them to share the work, but they're all as stubborn as can be."