lazybox | World hoppers gonn' world hop

Jumping between worlds never stopped being interesting. Starting to get a little lonely, maybe, but certainly never boring. Even calm worlds had something new to discover, although it was probably a good thing that he tended to run into other "survivors" of the Tower on this trip.

He sure would have appreciated one of those now, even if just so that he had someone to crack jokes with about monsters coming out at night. That eclipse had started not long after he came here, and was the apparent reason behind the insanity around him; dark monsters popping out everywhere, and an imbalance in the world that was sending the First Fonon into a berserk state, or at least so it seemed to his perception of things.

It was making finding enough of Sixth Fonon to do anything kind of a pain in the ass. At least he could use the Seventh to duplicate any of the others, now, and had enough of an ambient cloud of them to do what he needed. There didn't seem to be a naturally occuring source of them in this world, so he was stuck with what he'd brought with them and the few he could make with artes himself. Learning that had been enough of a challenge, thanks.

He had, eventually, made it to a town, to be promptly greeted by wonder from the townspeople. He heard the phrase "powerful Adept" tossed around in his vicinity a few times, and well - at least that gave him a starting point. So he pulled a barmaid to the side and asked about Sheba and Felix, wishing he could remember the names of their other companions.

The woman had stared at him, but after a bit of coaxing, she pointed him in the direction of some ruins outside town. And really, he shouldn't be surprised, because it was Sheba and she was always up to her neck in trouble. Sure enough, the small blond figure is exploring as usual, a weapon in one hand - it's a familiar sight, even if they've both aged a few years.

Or more than a few years, in Sheba's case, given how time seems to slide off her. And there's no telling if she's the Sheba from the Tower, but... He clears his throat, stepping into sight behind her.

"For the record, I think you're a little too old now for me to be doing your laundry."

The worst that could happen is that she zaps him for being crazy, after all, and it's not like it would even be the first time.

Threaded | Flat

Between the near-constant darkness and the creatures that seemed to thrive on the shadows, Sheba was just a little on edge. Certainly she could handle them, but she'd already had to bail out one well-meaning "rescuer" who had seen a "poor defenseless little girl" out here alone and had decided to play the hero. Her would-be rescuer was now back at the nearby town's inn and was likely to stay indoors for a week, and she'd resumed her explorations.

Over the past few years she'd come to realize that there was very little in modern Weyard that would point her towards the answers she so desperately craved - her best clues thus far had come from long-forgotten legends, so she'd begun by revisiting some of the older places she'd explored with Felix, Jenna, and Piers. Had that really been thirty years ago, she wondered? They hadn't held the answers then and they still didn't now - but there were other ruins in Weyard, other remnants of older civilizations.

It wasn't at all uncommon to find her deep within the ruins of some ancient civilization or another, these days, and while the Grave Eclipse definitely posed a bit of a hindrance, her Psynergy had kept her safe so far - in more ways than one. Where Isaac had learned to sense life from miles away, Sheba had learned to read messages on the wind.

She was turning towards Asch before she even heard his voice, preparing a Djinni even as he spoke. The wind was screaming, This man is not of this world!, and Sheba reacted on instinct.

"Haze!"

She glowed, just briefly, before vanishing into a haze of vapors. When they cleared, she was gone.

Moments later, her voice came from a good distance away - from the sound of it, from the top of a crumbling column. Her tone was incredulous.

"...Asch?"

After she spoke, she flickered back into view, crouched at the top of the column with a wary expression on her face. This wasn't the Tower - her mind wouldn't be playing tricks on her... but it had been so long. How had he come to be here now, of all times?

[For Asch, it has been about a month. For Sheba? ...it's been about twenty minutes since she found herself in this strange new place.

The first thing she notes is that her collar is gone. It's a relief, but at the same time it makes her worried. The last thing she remembers, all of the color had disappeared from it and she'd died. With no collar now - and the fact that she'd woken up somewhere that wasn't the Tower - she can't help but wonder if maybe she really did die for real, and this is some sort of afterlife, all in her head.

Or maybe she still is in the Tower. Maybe the administrators are playing some sort of cruel game now. She just doesn't know, but what she does know is that this house seems a little too normal. Warily, she makes her way through the house to explore. Asch, with his exceptional hearing, may hear her as she pads her way through the house, opens doors and cabinets, makes her way down stairs and then opens another door into... some sort of a bedroom?

She furrows her brow and steps inside, her eyes darting around the room. There's a high ceiling, and... a few stray pillows on the ground, and... is that a hammock, on the other side of the room? It looks like it is. Her gaze lingers on it for a moment or two before the door shuts behind her. She looks over her shoulder, startled, but a cursory attempt at opening it tells her that she isn't locked in. There's a small sigh of relief before she looks back at the room itself.

A desk below the hanging bed, a high window - she wonders how whoever lives here would get there, until she sees a ladder. Bookshelves, a wardrobe, a couch, a record player... someone clearly lives here. Sheba clears her throat.]

Hello..?

no subject

and then they were somewhere else entirely because we're impulsive