The man she's spoken to gives her a sympathetic look. "First time, kidda?" he asks, almost gently. He's holding a tray with drinks and food on it.

"First time what?" she asks, and glances around as inconspicuously as she can. Nobody she recognizes, and it looks like a perfectly ordinary bar except for a window in one wall with... some kind of series of constant explosions behind it. She doesn't go for the wand in her belt. Yet.

"Getting a door to Milliways," he says. "Which, uh, is this bar. It steals doors. Well. Borrows is probably more accurate. You have the lost look of someone who's door just brought them somewhere they weren't anticipating. Where were you aiming?"

Answering this man's questions can't hurt anyone. Probably. "I was going out my front door. What kind of magic lets a bar -- the building? its owners? -- make doors lead somewhere else?" And can she go back, or is there a problem here that needs solving first? 

He shrugs. "We didn't investigate too closely. And Esch and Raef weren't screaming about needing to leave, so we hung around. Apparently time's kinda frozen back home until you leave. I'm Trap by the way," for obvious reasons, he doesn't offer his hand, but he doesn't quite seem like the type to offer a hand anyway. "You can leave any time you like. Ain't nothing holding you here. But it's a good place to take a break from whatever's causing you problems."

She only grimaces a little at "take a break", but doesn't turn to go. (Her own idea, or her lodger's?) "That sounds... nice," she says after a moment. "But I was hoping to blow off some steam, it's why I was heading outside."

"There's an outside here as well, and...I don't think Security will have too much of a problem, so long as you're not hurting anyone? Follow me, we're sat outside anyway." He starts forwards, pausing to see if the girl is following.

What the hell, why not. She follows. If shit goes down the tube it's not like she can't defend herself. "Just planning to gouge a few trenches in the ground," she assures him. "I'll aim well away from people. --Security?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Bouncers I guess you could say. Prevent fights, put instigators in timeout, things like that." He shoots a curious look back at her. "Gouge trenches in the ground? How're you intending to do that, like?"

She raises an eyebrow at his confusion. Doesn't he see the blue crystal wand she's got? "Magic, of course." (She ignores the laughter in her head. Maybe it's not a good thing she's getting good at tuning it out.)

"...Well. Not the weirdest thing I've ever heard," he comments as he steps out into the outside.

Magic is hardly weird, but she's clearly missing something. Hopefully nothing likely to try to eat her face.

There's a lake. And trees, a whole forest. She feels in a blowing-up-trees kind of mood. (Or is that her?) Trenches are safer... but exploding trees is so much more satisfying... She frowns and shakes her head. Trenches. (A sigh, or maybe it's a breeze passing by her ear.)

A purple skinned girl's head snaps around, eyes focusing on the girl behind Trap, and she's on her feet before they can blink.

"You're-" she starts, and then she isn't speaking, she's too busy aiming at the...alien force in the girl's head. Because that isn't right.

The alien force wasn't expecting anyone to notice he was even there, but somehow that purple-skinned humanoid is doing something. He struggles. He's slippery. Slippery enough to escape?

Oh, no. That is not happening.

She spears directly into that force, sending burning tendrils along with it, and then yanks. Even as she pulls it free, she's locking everything down, keeping the thing isolated, locked away tightly where it can't harm anyone. (Ready to be extinguished, even if her instincts are screaming to crush it now.)

"Esch?" Trap sets the tray on the table they'd set up earlier, stepping close enough to brush his hand against Esch's shoulder, looking worriedly between the girl he brought with him, and the younger teen still at the table.

There's a purple-skinned girl staring at her, and Lilaina can't tell if the girl's going to attack or not so her hand goes to her wand and then it's like-- an emptiness in her mind, a pressure lifting, an abrupt change in the tenor of her thoughts--

"What did you do?" Confusion, fear, anger, hope, all mixed up together.

The girl seems distracted, not entirely with it, focused internally.

"I have no idea," Trap says. "So, gonna guess she did the psychic thing."

"You had...something else in your head," the boy says. "Ma-Esch pulled it out."

"Someone else?" Lilaina echoes. "Someone-- oh. Oh." She starts shaking, a little. There's a lot of her to shake. "Sliske. Is he dead properly this time?" Just a bit vicious with that last bit, maybe.

The boy shrugs. "Not yet. Ma-Esch wants to make sure she read things right."

"Kill him," Lilaina snaps, directing it at the purple-skinned girl. "Everyone except a poor girl he screwed up to adore him thinks he's already dead, it ought to be reality. He needs--" Her voice cracks. "He needs to be dead."

There's no deception that Raef can feel from the girl, and he makes sure Ma-Esch can feel that, inwardly focused as she is.

(Trap guides Esch back into a seat.)

She, meanwhile, is very focused on the alien mind. She only vaguely hears the girl's words, but acknowledges Raef's assessment, but still hesitates (killing someone like this is horribly intimate and definitive, and she needs to be certain).

She manifests her mind on an empty plain, the mind in a cage in front of her, heavy steel bars. "What are you?" she demands. "And why were you in her mind?" (She is seething with rage, ready to snuff this invader out.)

He's clearly an alien compared to human Lilaina, a foot and a half taller and gray-skinned and wearing intricately patterned purple robes with a hood, and lounging against the bars of the cage like he hasn't a care in the world. (His mind is racing with ideas on how to escape, but for the moment he's really just watching.) "Clever of you to notice me," he says, mock-cheerfully. "How did you do that?" He ignores her actual question, but the answer's there: he couldn't let the World Guardian kill him! He can't see all the chaos he's wrought keep propagating when he's dead, obviously.

"I really don't see how that's any of your business," she responds, entire being curiously bland - there's no emotion to pick up, not from her tone or her body language. "Given you were a leech in someone else's brain. Just to watch the chaos you caused? Really? No other defence?" She pauses. "Oh, and don't try to escape. If won't be pleasant for you."

Sliske stills. He's not afraid, exactly, not with millennia of survival and power behind him, but this is new. This being can obviously read minds. "Leech is such an unkind term. I prefer... uninvited guest. She was trying to kill me, you know. I merely declined to die before all my plans had run through, and I have so many plans." More, now. What exactly is Milliways? Might it be useful to him?

He vanishes from the cage and appears before her, straightened to his full height, yellow eyes glowing. (Or appears to. Wouldn't it be interesting if she notices he's really still right where he was?) "You're an unfamiliar kind of face. What plane are you from?" Let the escapability of this cage be a problem for later. He can be patient when it suits him. (A stray thought of what escape might mean, if he's in the girl's mind right now; it gets as far as thinking about hiding in minds before he cuts it short.)

"I told you not to try anything," Esch says, completely unintimidated, absently sending burning sensations at the mind that is definitely still in the cage. "Illusions counts as 'anything'. My mind is the one place I definitely don't miss illusions." She tilts her head about to-

She blinks at the stray thought, and just for a second, that blank facade wavers, and there is fear, and close on its heels fury, and this is her mind, and reality is what she makes it, and she is suddenly the only thing he can see, a righteous judge, with no doubt that what she does next is right.

You will not hurt anyone ever again. It isn't spoken, and it's strangely hard to tell if it's an ice-cold whisper or a burning-hot roar.

But the burning sensation intensifies, and along with it, crushing pressure. This mind will be extinguished.

Well. That hurts like home. He pushes back against the pressure and grits his teeth through the flames; he's not done yet. And if illusions work, maybe--

Bloody red fire, leaping towards her from his real hand, a spell seeking to sap her life energy and make it his own. He's not done yet, and who is this child to try to kill him?

This child has survived more in her life with people trying to fuck with her head than he could imagine.

(And this is still her mind, does he really think she can't just not be where he's aiming, and a solid metal wall (the hard shell instead of the soft underbelly) be in her place?)

This child survived an entire planet being wiped out, survived people reaching into her head and trying to twist her to their will. This...parasite isn't even a real danger. (But parasites have ways, could subvert her defences, make her think they're part of her mind, or try to, there's always the cold fingers twisting their way around her brain stem.)

The burning and pressure do not waver.

He's grudgingly respectful of this child's power. Maybe she'd even be a more interesting host than the World Guardian. (He doesn't care, now, if she knows what he's thinking. This is all so fascinating, and he doesn't believe she actually has the power to kill him.) Now, where is she...?

She's nowhere, and everywhere. Surrounding him, pressing down, pushing to extinguish him, and a distant, unreachable force.

He can try if he wants. (There's fear in there, subtle, but present, and a quiet chant of I will not lose (myself).)

He cannot die here. He cannot!

A last desperate shove of his entire being to get somewhere else--

There's screaming, but it's more angry than scared, and everything increases, the pressure, the burning and the you will die.

The boy turns his head away, and brings a hand to his forehead. "Moment," he mumbles.

And then there's another mind there, adding pressure, adding hurt adding deathdeathdeath, and it is distinct, and yet somehow the same.

And it is implacable, and unavoidable, and deadly.

"--What's going on?"

And the snake was no more.

The woman's eyes abruptly refocus, and she sways, but she has the content smile of someone who just won a gruelling battle.

'Dead,' she announces - her lips don't move.

Trap gently steadies her, and steers her into one of the chairs, nudging a plate of salad towards her. "Hon, you're doing the psychic thing again," he says, his tone one of a person who's made this comment many hundreds of time. "Success?"

"Uh-huh," the boy says, pulling a plate towards himself. "Dead leech is dead."

Lilaina takes a shaky breath and lets it out. "He's dead. He's--" She's not sure if she'll be able to believe that until she hasn't heard him for a long while, but... "Thank you.

I think I need to sit down before I fall down." Her voice is only shaking a little bit.

"No thanks required," the girl says, remembering to speak aloud this time. She looks exhausted, and is poking at the salad like it's not really appealing.

Trap graciously pushes the third chair they'd pulled outside towards her. "D'you want a glass of water or something?" he offers.

Lilaina sits down heavily and stares off into the distance.

"What I'd really like is a dragon bitter, but I don't think I'm on Gielinor anymore. So-- water's fine."

He shrugs. "Worth asking Bar, she's apparently able to produce pretty much any non-weapon, non-living thing in the apparently vast multiverse? Be right back."

And he disappears off back inside.

"Apparently he was listening when I explained that," the girl says, tone bland if you're actually listening, her almost-surprise being transmitted psychically. "I'm Escher by the way," she adds, seeming to remember that she had skipped pleasantries in her need to dispose of the unwanted brain leech. "Kid's Raef. I suppose Trap introduced himself before dragging you out here?"

She focuses back on the people she's now sitting with. "--He did. I'm Lilaina." Just Lilaina. She doesn't even want to think about being the World fucking Guardian right now, no matter if that ends up biting her in the ass. "And I have almost no idea what's going on. Who's Bar, exactly?"

"Exactly what she sounds like," Raef says, kicking at Ma-Esch underneath the table. "Sentient bar. Welcome to Milliways."

Trap returns at that point and offers Lilaina a cup. "One dragon bitter compliments of the first drink is free, Miss...?"

"Lilaina," Escher supplies, starting to eat.

Trap nods his head.

"Sentient bar," Lilaina repeats, almost all of her incredulity purely mental, and takes her red-with-white-froth drink and knocks back a large gulp. It's definitely what she's used to: it burns like dragonfire going down. (She is maybe indulging in unhealthy habits right now, but if there's ridiculous wizardry afoot she'd rather be a bit tipsy. It doesn't hurt her aim any.)

"And... Trap, you said multiverse. I don't suppose that just refers to all the planes the Elder Gods made, does it?"

"That was mine and Ma-Esch's response," Raef agrees. "But she does good drinks and food."

Trap laughs. "Given I've never heard of your 'elder gods' probably not. 'Sides which Esch has pretty much confirmed that a variety of the patrons here are from worlds other than our own. And far as her and the kid are aware, we only have one plane of existence really."

Sentient bar with pronouns. Lilaina judges this is enough whimsy to drop her guard some and rubs at her face.

She sips her dragon bitter while she thinks about more planes. And then, because being incurably curious is what gets her into half her problems, asks, "What's your plane like?"

"Loud," Esch says. "Violent. The Clans want their territories safe, and the raiders want what the Clans have. And then you have drifters like us who're just trying to survive."

"What Esch isn't mentioning is the high prevalence of psychics, and the fact that the Seers try to fuck with everyone. And the fact the Clans can't seem to get along if you pay them."

She's walking right into a quest hook and she's not sure she can or should stop herself. Damn her curiosity.

"...How do the Seers fuck with people? And what exactly is a psychic, in your world?" (Seer, psychic; Lilaina recognizes these as words for people who see the future, and not always very clearly. Things like what Escher did for her... not entirely familiar.)

"The Clans all want their Clan to come out on top in any power struggle. Elael have all the Seers. They're quite precious about it in fact. And Seers don't like people who don't do what they have set out in their little plans. So...they try to get people who are making things unclear, or difficult for them, eliminated. Psychics...uh. Esch? Wanna take this one?"

"Broadly speaking," she says, poking at her salad some more, "we can read minds. There's a bit more to it than that, but a lot of the other stuff requires a lot of power, and quite a few psychics don't have anywhere near enough to do anything more than read unguarded thoughts."

"--How do I guard my thoughts?"

There were other things said, and she'll get back to them in a moment, but the frozen panic at the idea of someone pawing through her brain again-- (He's dead. He's dead. It's not him doing it. And she's grateful he's gone. But.)

"I do apologise, but it's not rummaging if you're yelling," Esch says quietly.

"That is probably not reassuring, Esch," Trap murmurs.

"Oh, apologies? I. Am. Bad at judging these things? I-." She stops, closes her eyes, exhales through her nose. "One way is thinking quietly. But that can be hard to make...second nature. The most common method is...imagining a shell around your mind? Normally a kind of...safe space that is easy to keep in mind? I use the cockpit of HalfRise, my fighter. I've met people who use like...a library? Or. I dunno. I'm bad at giving examples. I try not to be inside these rooms." (She isn't saying she can't get in.)

A safe space. Ha.

... Her room in her parents' house. Lilaina doesn't know if he never connected them with her or just never got around to using them against her, but the effect's the same: it's the one place he didn't get the chance to violate. She closes the door and draws the curtains. She's safe here, and so is her privacy.

"Did that work?"

Escher looks impressed. "I'm not gonna lie and say it's perfect, but it's better than most first timers manage. Well done."

Raef's grinning at Lilaina as well, and Trap seems pleased.

Lilaina catches the rush of relief and imagines shutting it in her old journals for good measure, but lets it make her smile. "Thanks."

She sips her drink and considers the problem of the quest hook she'd been chasing. Are these people even her responsibility? She's only the World Guardian, after all...

Fuck it. "Is there anything I can do for you as thanks for getting--" (stop being a coward, Lily, he's dead) "Sliske out of my head?"

"The leech had a name," Escher says thoughtfully. "Huh. He never mentioned."

"I actually think...uh. Given a couple of things, and what I know of your situation, you would have been hard pressed to stop Esch getting that thing outta your head."

"We don't like brain leeches," Raef says emphatically.

"Our pleasure," Escher translates. "Besides which. I'm not sure our problems are easily solvable."

Lilaina thinks about that. "I'll take you at your word on how solvable your problems are." she says after a moment. "The Clans thing sounds like politics, anyway, and I'm more a hitting-people sort of person." (That's not quite accurate, but it's true that diplomacy's not her strong suit.) "Just figured I'd offer. I-- really don't know what kind of things he'd have had the chance to do otherwise." She's distracted: it might slip through that she's worried he might have brought about the end of her world.

"Honestly, the Clans did spend a long period using 'hitting people' as a diplomatic method," Trap muses.

"More shooting each other than hitting most of the time," Escher notes clinically, reaching over to take Raef's hand, squeezing gently. "And then they realised the end result of using that kind of force against each other. Much too late. And well. I suppose we can claim our universe has ended at least one world." Her demeanour is entirely blank, but the grief she's sending psychically is heavy.

Lilaina blinks, retraces her thoughts, and thinks more firmly about closed door closed curtains private thoughts. "I'm sorry to hear that, about-- the end of a world. I've seen the remains of a few." (Yu'biusk's poisoned ground. Freneskae's blackened, anima-stripped landscape.) "My job nowadays is making sure it doesn't happen to mine, from people or gods."

Escher and Raef don't respond, both looking a little distant.

"They escaped it," Trap explains quietly. "From what I've been able to tell it was a complete mess."

He shakes his head. "Sounds like a hard job. Hope you got good people helping you." He pauses, goes back over what she just said. "...are gods seriously a threat to you?"

"... That's good," Lilaina says of the escape. "I'm glad there were survivors. Because yes, gods are a threat in my world. They're--" She thinks about how to phrase it. "Scarily powerful people who ascended from being mortal via the use of extremely magical artifacts, almost all of them, and usually they ascend by killing a previous god with an artifact and the dead god's power flows into them.

"They've destroyed and scarred worlds by fighting over artifacts, or just because they were angry or bored or people weren't sufficiently worshipful. They've left scars on my home world, from a war a long time ago and again more recently." She sighs and shakes her head. "Gods aren't like that on your world?"

"...I'm not entirely sure we even have gods," Trap admits. "But yours sound terrifying..."

"If we have gods they don't have minds as we know them," Esch adds, still somewhat subdued.

"A few of them are decent people," Lilaina says to Trap, "but terrifying isn't a bad description."

And to Esch, "How far away can you sense people? --Do you only sense people?"

"We've never really tested it," Esch says with a shrug. "Pretty far. Can definitely do off-planet, normally we're pretty focused on not hearing every living mind in close proximity. And believe me, for a world with psychics that is terrifyingly hard."

"You had a hard time shielding before you went to Toal," Trap points out. "And you came from a Clan with a high proportion of psychics."

"Who never really bothered to teach me how to do that," Esch retorts. "As for animals...they don't really register, apart from a few minor species. They're more like baselines than the Clans."