Red Tide | Glowfic Constellation

Her first conscious experience is a weightless feeling, the muffled sound of wind, and the gnawing feeling that she's forgotten something terribly important. It's like waking up from deep sleep with all the world around her ablaze, except worse. Was she asleep? She feels like she'd been dreaming, but that's not right. It's sort of right, but it isn't, and she can't put any words to why. There's no before the not-dreaming, she doesn't know her name or who she is or what she even looks like. This... does not seem normal. Wait, that doesn't make sense, either. How does she have any idea what normal is when she doesn't remember anything at all? She doesn't understand. What is this thing she's in, why is there the sound of wind, why does her weight seem weird, why does she have a concept of what weight is and isn't weird, isn't that more strange than anything else?

And then the protective cocoon around her tears, and is ripped away, and many of her questions are answered. The ones that aren't are tabled for later, because she has bigger problems right now. Like falling out of the sky. Like that. Quite reasonably, her second conscious experience is panic. This does not seem like a problem she is equipped to solve. Knowledge from... somewhere... notes that this fall is not from the kind of height people survive, especially not someone completely unprepared. A confused amnesiac is probably even less equipped to handle it than the average person. This is so incredibly unfair.

She has enough practicality to flatten herself out to catch the wind. This buys her enough time to figure out that she has no kind of device, some parachute or propulsion system or something, to slow her own fall or catch enough wind to slow herself down enough. And then also to curse, or at least try to, because the ground is very close and she is out of time.

"Oh, fuc—" she begins, and then is cut off by crashing (painfully) into some kind of large glass dome. Ha, she thinks, through the pain and the confusion as she crashes through it, at least I beat the dome in resilience! This is an outrageously petty victory, but it's all she has.

Then she crashes into something else, and all she knows is pain and darkness.

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soul_of_adventure

"Mapper will know!" pipes in Tahir.

kaleido_gogi

Aleks's gaze snaps directly at him. "...yes, he would. How do you know Mapper."

soul_of_adventure

"We're friends!"

HE KNOWS MANY PLACES FOR ADVENTURE and pain WE'LL NEVER GET BORED IF WE ASK HIM WHERE TO GO NEXT

“Of course you are,” sighs Fulsome. “I’ll double your usual fee.” Just for dealing with these people. “Need someone to watch over your little star?”

kaleido_gogi

He looks down at his clinging castoff.

"What do you say? I think it will go easier with your help, but..."

fallen_star

She lets out a breath.

“No, I’ll. I’ll help. This is important. And if it’s castoff nonsense there’s even odds that something involved is locked for castoffs only.”

soul_of_adventure

A FINE START TO A QUEST there will be blood

But despite the voices in his head it seems the golden man has enough sense to not say anything right this moment.

kaleido_gogi

"To Mapper, then." And to Fulsome: "I am truly sorry. Wheedle was a good man."

"He was," says Fulsome, with a grave nod. This is all he wants to say on the subject. "Let me know if Mapper gives you any trouble."

fallen_star

Aleks's clinging castoff is sort of wondering if the bright cheerful golden man is coming. She would rather he didn't, but also it... seems like there isn't going to be any talking him out of it.

soul_of_adventure

Bright cheerful golden man is absolutely coming! He is, in fact, leading the way to Mapper.

kaleido_gogi

...which is entirely unnecessary, Aleks knows where Mapper is, but so it goes.

The man himself isn't hard to find, and he particularly sticks out in crowds, even Underbelly ones. Every uncovered inch of him is decorated in crisscrossing finely patterned lines, in white and yellow and pale blue, even his shaved head. A strange device covers one of his eyes, a deep blue light shining from its center.

He brightens up immediately upon seeing Tahir.

"Tahir!" he says, sounding delighted. "Hello! Found anywhere else interesting? Oh, hello Aleks. And... new girl! Hi, new girl!"

fallen_star

"Hi."

soul_of_adventure

IT'S HIM IT'S MAPPER LET'S ASK FOR A NEW QUEST we have just started a new quest OH RIGHT

"Hello! No, not yet, we are now solving a murder! Very dreadful business. And we imagined you would be able to help!"

kaleido_gogi

"Matkina," Aleks puts in. "Do you know where she is?"

"Matkina! Oh, yes." Pause. "She will probably kill me for telling, though."

soul_of_adventure

"No she won't! Because this," and he gestures grandly towards the castoff, "is her sister! ...one of the good ones. Not the bad ones."

fallen_star

What a glowing recommendation. She waves anyway, just to properly play off of his introduction.

Mapper squints at her.

"... I think that makes her more likely to kill me, not less. She hates her siblings."

soul_of_adventure

"One of the good ones, though!!!"

tell him about the place you found THE REWARD TO A SUCCESSFUL QUEST IS A NEW QUEST

"...also, I hate being that guy, but you know, I did help you complete your map of Sagus Cliffs..."

"That's true..." he admits. "... Okay, yeah, for you. But! You didn't hear it from me, okay, you figured it out while doing adventuring or something."

fallen_star

"What had been missing on your map?"

"Oh, the Changing God's secret lair. We all knew they had one, and I kind of had a good idea of where it'd be located just from the blank spaces on the map, but there wasn't any obvious way to get there! And Tahir got one of the sticha to dig a tunnel right there. It was very clever."

fallen_star