Welcome to Gaia! ::

Larry walked down the street, sadly no freak accident with Cyrith as the victim had turned up. Sadly, he would again have to work for a living.

Everywhere he went in this area, although it had the look and feel of a normal city, things seemed different. People were running down the street from grocer to grocer. Jewish delicatessens and Italian salami shops looked extra crowded. And a strange little man seemed to be lurking in Larry's shadow.

Strange people skulking in his shadow had gotten him into trouble before, so he decided to investigate. Spinning around and placing his hand behind his back on the pistol he confronted the man. "All right, pops!" Larry demanded "Who are you and why are you following me like this?"

The man took off his black bowler hat and smiled at Larry. In a true Bronx accent, he said "Let us just say we both represent parties which wish to see things remedied..."

((
All right, I'm going ahead with the time skip. It either goes before Sonny's meeting with the old man (as in, two days of no clues), or just after (like, two days later, Freebird recalled the old man's words), or maybe ignore it completely (the supermarket might be on another world?). Sonny's choice.

Also, anyone remember that stuff we said about the guild? It's getting put into practice. We're setting up a method for us to accept profiles, among other things. Pay a visit, and offer some input.

Mishap Mercenaries guild
))

Arby's, Demannu city, twenty miles south of MMHQ

"No."

"Now, honey, we have to go now..."

"I don't want to weave."

"We have a long drive ahead of us, and we need to be going now..."

"I want to play trucks."

"You can play with your trucks when we get home."

A redheaded boy leaned over from a nearby table. Swallowing the last bite of his burger, he asked "Do you have trucks at home?"

The four year old looked up from the floor of the playroom at Arby's. "Yeah, I have a pickup truck, and it goes vroom, vroom, and it can pull cars."

"Could it pull this car?" the teen asked, pointing to the toy the child was holding.

"Yeah, it could puww this car, and it could drive aww around - "

"Where is it?" the teen interrupted.

"It's at home."

"Then you have to go back and get it."

"Yeah, we have to go back and get it. Mommy, we have to go back and get my truck..."

At a table by the door, Joel grinned. Exchanges like that had been going on constantly for the last half hour, and some of them had ended with a screaming child being carried out the door. Fifty people shouted requests for burgers, all of them trying to be heard over the rest, and any four year old could somehow outscream them all. Joel swore to himself that he would never father a child.

Forty-eight hours had passed since the garage. The suspect had moved out of Sunny Days apartments, and it had taken two days to find him again. Joel had changed disguises four times while following his trail. The current one was hardly a disguise at all - just blue contacts, rounded ears, khakis and a red sweater. At least now he had a new phone.

Joel looked out the window and across the street. The suspect's new residence was a motel at the edge of town. It looked even more run down than Sunny Day's had. One window had moldy cardboard taped over it. If this spot was an improvement over the last, Joel couldn't tell how. He didn't know what the cleric's game was, but it didn't matter. Joel's job was to bring the man back, and let someone else worry about what he was doing.

((Alright, I'll have my next post up tomorrow. Anyone who's still in the actual HQ is invited to show up for it.))

Larry sat on a stool in the middle of the portal room, watching the man make ridiculously over-acted body gestures and dialogue in explaining the history of the Cheesemasons.

Apparently, around the time the Free Stone Masons were formed in the ancient ages, several members decided that the life of a stone mason was not for them. Taking with them the values and blessings of their old fraternity, they set out to become cheese farmers.

Down through the ages, the descendents of these men performed the lesser-known, but nonetheless important work that kept the world safe from evil. One story in particular involved serving Benito Mussolini drugged cheese with his pasta which allowed him to be captured and brought to justice during World War II.

But by the time the man was almost done explaining his story, Larry was shaking his head in annoyance. "Okay." he said "Just pretend for a minute that I believe you or even give a real damn about all that. What does this got to do with me?"

"Because..." the man explained "The world is once again threatened by a force beyond the comprehension of normal men."
"That's fer sure." Larry muttered
"The world's cheese supply is under attack by none other than COWS!"
"Well can you blame 'em? The kind of things farmers have to do to those cows nipples to get the cheese, the hell did you Cheesegeniuses expect?"

The man seemed visibly put off for the first time since Larry had seen him. "NOT COWS!" he cried "COWS! Cheese Over World Salvation! The organization that represents our counter-creed! We Cheesemasons believe in the generous and equal distribution of cheese to mankind." The man turned around suddenly and looked up at the banner on the wall, continuing "But they believe that cheese is a tool. A weapon to be used only by those strong enough to use it and with it to rule the world or destroy it trying!"

"You expect me to believe that?" Larry said, getting up and walking away. Only to be blocked in his path by the man, who whispered "Yes! I do. My boy, you are the world's only hope. They are only steps away from achieving Zero Hour and your friend's life is in their hands. And trust me when I say that when they make their enemies suffer, they are far more than thorough."

Larry looked at the image on the portal screen, the front gates of a facility viewed through the trees of a nearby forest. "Cheesemasons?" he thought "I'm going to be helping a dorky, ripoff organization save the world from another one?" He looked up into the man's sincerely concerned eyes and let out a breath.

((Goddamn I still need to play Diablo 2.))

Riku looked up groggily as the computer buzzed. The translation and analysis was finally done. Three whole days, one of which required him to enter all the phrases in Apocalyptic into the computer's database. Fortunately, a small mental scanner had done this almost instantly.

He popped out the USB drive that now held all of the info on it, and slowly stood up. He got a reflection of himself in the screen. God, I need a shave, he thought to himself, looking at the five o'clock shadow on his face. He looked at his watch. It was almost noon.

First a shower and shave, then I call the meeting, he thought as he dragged himself out of the room.

((Gonna be gone for the week. See ya soon,er or later.))