Just a bit chilly

[furtive_heroics]

A man grumbles at the cold. He always grumbles at the cold, here. Everyone does. There's no escaping it. You can wear the warmest clothing possible, sit by a roaring fire, and still the cold bites. It doesn't numb, either, you'd think that after a while you'd just go numb - no. It's not that kind of cold. The victim shivers and curses and bundles up with a thousand layers and still it's so cold that it hurts. Almost everyone here travels from tiny insufficient fire to tiny insufficient fire to insufficient and drafty bar run by a terrifying dragon, trying to stave off the cold. It never works, but it makes it slightly less torturous. And cursing and grumbling at it always helps.

He is not staying here any longer than he has to. He is not going to fucking stay here, no way. He's been through too much to languish as a sacrificial lamb in the eighth circle of hell while an archdevil goes on a rampage. Cania's for traitors. And he's not one. He was loyal until the day he - well, not died. Was banished. And he doesn't deserve to be here.

He'll find a way out. Eventually. And then someone's going to have a very bad day.

But he's not thinking about that right now. He's thinking that he's pretty sure some vital parts are going to turn blue and fall off from the cold, so he's picked the warmest of his available frigid options to try and plan his next move. He'll take the bar with the dragon. He opens the door -

...

And this is not the bar with the dragon. It's much, much warmer.

His head screams trap, but he can't bring himself to close the door and walk away. Inside he goes, shivering. Warmth.

Comments

[furtive_heroics]

...

Yeah okay, that works.

He stares at the woodgrain, looking for little flaws or repeats or slightly off edges or blurry bits or things that change just a little bit when you look away -

...

Nothing. All the same. Detailed and woodgrain-like.

"Excuse me a minute," he says, and he gets up and inspects everything else in the bar, for the itty bitty obsessive details. Are they right? Do they move? Do they repeat? Do they make sense?

Yes, no, no, and yes.

Well.

He sits at the bar again.

"So this is actually just a, a, a bar. That borrows doors."

[alicornucopia]

Well, it's a little more fully featured than your average single-dimensional brewhouse, but yes.

[furtive_heroics]

"And time is actually paused outside and I have all of the time in the world."

[alicornucopia]

That feature is not absolutely consistent, but it may generally be relied upon.

[furtive_heroics]

"Okay," he says, in a small voice.

And then very carefully he supports his head on the bar and mutters, "Tymora, I will never ever say you never got me anything."

Pause.

"I'll have that drink now, if and only if it won't addict me to anything or take my soul or turn me into a slave or a rabbit or teleport me to Mephistopheles naked or anything else I wouldn't appreciate." Hey, it's the devil side of hell, they're sticklers for rules.

[alicornucopia]

I would never, Bar assures him, and she gets him a mug of delicious spiced hot cider.

[furtive_heroics]

"Thank you," he says, and then he picks up his hot cider and considers it for a long moment.

...

Sip?

...

Mmmm delicious. But he could put it down and walk away, no problem. Sip.




After several minutes of this he calms down enough to peel off three of his jackets, stashing them in a booth and drinking his cider. It has been too damn long since he could do this. It's fantastic.

[subtly_artistic]

The door opens.

[furtive_heroics]

He straightens up at once and looks for an exit and assesses the potential threat and mentally goes over his list of weapons and -

..........

Security apparently has it covered.

He settles back down in his chair and will just. Wait and see.

"Hi," he says, a touch nervous.

[subtly_artistic]

"Hi. So what are the extraplanar studies people up to this time?"

[furtive_heroics]

"... Um. Well, this is Milliways, apparently. And apparently the door will take you right back to where you were and time's paused while you're away." Pause. "And it's not an illusion, I checked, wood grain all makes sense and the bar can get you books and they have information that's actually information instead of gibberish. And none of the information came from me."

[subtly_artistic]

"What kinda low-grade illusions are you accustomed to?"

[furtive_heroics]

He's briefly at a loss for words there.

"I haven't really had to deal with many illusions," he says. Because he hasn't. Just being turned to stone or fighting vampires or sneaking into kobold lairs or helping golems negotiate or helping crazy cursed people become un-cursed - "But, maybe wistful thinking on my part, but I would really like it to be real."

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh, it's probably real, I'm just not sure why your distinguishing criterion is detail."

[furtive_heroics]

"With the illusions I'm used to on Toril, it was the little details that were where you saw through it. Repeats in little things that wouldn't repeat in ordinary circumstances, or logic that didn't quite make sense while your head was all fuzzy and you stopped to think about it, or - I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with it. I'm not an expert on the subject. But I keep not getting tricked by the few illusions I've been up against, so it seems to work okay." Pause. "Unless of course this is an illusion, and then I will have my words with a side of mead to drown my sorrows."

[subtly_artistic]

Snort. "It looks like extraplanar studies people got a little too creative near the supply closet, not an illusion. There's no motive for it to be an illusion, anyway. Toril's your plane?"

[furtive_heroics]

"Mhm. Bit of a mess, and you can't walk anywhere without tripping over something bizarre, but it's home." And currently having an archdevil problem, that's great. "What about yours?"

[subtly_artistic]

"I'm not sure if it's got a name besides 'Prime Material'."

[furtive_heroics]

"I bet it does. Everyone thinks their plane's the main one until they go to another plane and get told that the people there think theirs is the main one."

[subtly_artistic]

"I haven't gone into enough thaumatology to say if there's a good reason to call mine that."

[furtive_heroics]

Shrug. "Might just be easier that way."

[subtly_artistic]

"Maybe. There's worse reasons."

[furtive_heroics]

"There are!" Sip. Delicious cider. Gosh it's great to pretend that everything is normal and that his world isn't in peril. For a little while.

....

Ugh nevermind now he has to work to go save it, that's his home. Smalltalk to find out what she has, do not mention the archdevil. He will have exactly zero helpful people if he says that he wants to stop an archdevil.

"So um, I'm Veron, my job description seems to be adventuring now because I keep tripping over adventures and handling them competently. What do you do?"

[subtly_artistic]

"I'm a subtle arts major, sophomore year."

[furtive_heroics]

"Subtle arts?" he asks, because the only subtle art he's ever heard of is the art of cheating at cards without getting your teeth knocked in.