Bottom of the Barrel [OPEN!!!]

[Satra]

[Okay, people. This is finally going to be done. This is open to anyone with a reason to be here. Lowland? Great! A Josiggy who caught rumor and is looking for a fight? Great! Anyone is welcome. I'm just trying to get some muse back, and if you are too, come along for the ride!]

Victor waited patiently in the community center. He knew he was early, but the wait was still unbearable. It had been a week and a half since his fliers went out.

"All those with Lowland inheritance:

We must support one another, in lieu of recent events. The first Lowland Support Group meeting will take place in the Etherton Community Center, next Tuesday the 17th at 3 pm. We remaining survivors must reach out and support each other."

The fliers were only posted in the slum areas of the Capitol, as the audience would be more sympathetic. And yet, more than half were torn down or vandalized with derogatory language. A part of his nervousness was due to how public it was. The past few nights he'd been tossing and turning in his sleep from nightmares of Josiggies showing up to finish the job. But he had to do something, and he didn't quite have the spell yet to only reach a target audience.

He straightened his vest nervously. He'd developed something of an attachment to vests since that day. That, and people stared at his new skin worse than they did his rot. He was jarred out of his nervous fidgeting at the sound of the door opening. He swallowed and tried to put on a welcoming smile.

[Kari Muffin]

Loreta was in a bad mood, of course that wasn't really unusual. However lately things had been worse. Since the Lowlands had, for lack of a better word, exploded she was getting more attention than she wanted to. Everyone in the part of Corvistowne where she lived and worked knew full well she wasn't even remotely related to a Lowlander, the rest of the world was a completely different matter.

With the goal of making life hell for anyone possible, she decided to go for a stroll in her human form. It would be a nice change of pace, children screaming, people gasping in horror, it was just what she needed to bring back the sunshine of her day,

During her stroll, her bat and tove close by for self defense, she stumbled across a few fliers in the slums. The Lowlanders were having a meeting and announcing it in public. That sounded utterly fascinating, and she couldn't help but wonder what made someone think it was a good idea.

She decided to go. It would be fun to see if anything went terribly wrong. With a smirk on her face she went to investigate. When she opened the door, she honestly didn't know what to expect. She was hoping to be late since she hadn't the foggiest idea what time it actually was. But when she arrived there was only a Lowland cat in a vest.

"Am I late or something?" She asked as she took a few steps into the room.

[Satra]

Victor blinked at the odd woman who walked through the door. He did his best to keep his composure at her odd leg. A human form with a biped's leg? He felt himself shudder. He forced himself to relax, then tried to give a relaxed smile, only to make his nervousness more apparent. Kirby decided that was when he needed to poke his head out of Victor's bag. It looked up at his master then back at the woman and bubbled in warning.

"Kirby, hush," he snapped at the blob. He smiled again at the woman, "Sorry about that. N-no, you're not late. You're actually early. Let's see who else shows up, hmm?" he extended a paw clammy from anxiety, "M-my name is Victor."

[Kari Muffin]

Loreta raised an eyebrow as she eyed the cat. A small smile twitched on her face, at least he was just as uncomfortable as she was. Her human form really did do the trick, didn't it? The mechanical Tove on her neck twitched as it stared at the feline, though it clearly had no expression it didn't seem to like him, and it's metal wings flared when the ink creature popped out of his bag and bubbled.

The ink think did catch Loreta off guard, and for a moment she looked disturbed. The sudden conversation snapped her out of it, she brushed her Tove lightly to prevent it from doing anything stupid.

""I'm Loreta," she said as she waved her hand. She wasn't about to touch a Lowlander stranger. Not today, not ever. Unless she was drunk, and right now she was unfortunately sober. "Nice to know I'm early... Mr. Victor." The heron walked towards a chair, her gait surprisingly fluid with the odd limb. Years of practice and all that.

Casually she took a seat and propped her bat up against her chair. The tove still wrapped around her neck, staring at Victor like it was trying to burn a hole through his head. "You're not what I was expectin' to be honest."

[Satra]

Kirby continued to stare down the other pet, but kept quiet as its master wished.

"A pleasure to meet you, Loreta. And, please, just Victor." He tried to relax. It wasn't so much her, the limb was odd but Victor knew that judging others for their oddities would be hypocritical. No, it was this whole situation and her attitude wasn't helping. He put his paw back down on the chair and watched her sit.

"Might I ask what it was you were expecting?" He really wasn't looking forward to the answer, as it probably wasn't going to be a nice one, but it was a start in conversation, wasn't it? It also would be a great way to get her kicked out before anyone else showed up if she needed to be. Victor was having a hard enough time, he was in no mood for someone looking for a fight.

[Kari Muffin]

"Well you know," She began as she scanned the empty room. "People? I'm never early so this is either a bad omen or a miracle."

Maybe all the Lowlanders were dead. She honestly didn't believe the reports, but she wasn't about to go out of her way to investigate. Victor was proof that the entire race wasn't wiped out, but there were probably only a handful of people left. Kind of like the Selkies, but uglier.

"And you don't have as bad... of an affliction as most," She said after a few awkward moments of silence. He wasn't visibly rotting like most Lowlanders that she had seen. Her damn leg was visibly rotting and there was nothing she could particularly do for it. Maybe he had something that could help? Though with her luck it would make something worse.

People needed to get here. This was going to get boring fast if she was just chatting up some random "gentlemen Lowlander."

[Bee]

Mirek was scouting, that is what he firmly believed. He was scouting because there were very few Lowlanders left in the world and somehow the entirety of the Hellhounds managed to pull through and out of all of them, he was the least recognizable face. As much as he craved glory sometimes he had to admit that it was a comfort just to be known as Obadiah's lackey, if anything at all.

Of course, with his particularly odious case of rot and the paw that had been bitten off and replaced by bone, it was going to be incredibly hard to be inconspicuous. He was relatively safe in his circle--hell, they had a couple of face cards among them, and Zeus was nothing to laugh at beyond the obvious reasons--but it could never hurt to gather new contacts. If he were a more sentimental kind of person, he might also have admitted to just wanting a bit of company.

He approached the event center via a lot of skulking. He was pretty good at that, and since the announcement for this had been public (albeit public in a very specific demographic), he felt he couldn't be too careful. But when he got inside he was...well not surprised, exactly, but certainly a wee bit disappointed. There were only two people here and one of them did not look like a Lowlander at all outside of the leg. But then, perhaps more would come.

"A tip of my metaphorical hat to you fine people," he said. "I always did like a cozy party."

[Kitty]

Two humans were the next to make an appearance and the first in, the shorter, older of the two wore the most delightful little scowl. Osias had made it a point to clean his eyes rather well today and only the slightest bit of snot colored ooze glittered at the corners of them. He was small, but he wore many visible scars, just a coat and no shirt was good at showing that off, and his suit was simply another scar on his chest that was only definable as Red from the Q that sat next to it.

The next in was tall, slender and wearing a bit of a self satisfied smirk. He was still healing and his ribs stung a bit but he'd ignore it in favor of the little gathering he'd heard about. He'd let Osias in first simply because the rest of his kind might still be a little too.... edgy to not blink past all of the green he sported and focus on those twin spirals of purple that he wore on his cheeks in even this form.

Well, that and he came armed.. He definitely wasn't going to leave his weapon behind when there was such a promise of an interruption. He even had his glass talons tucked away in a pocket.

Morpheus's smirk broadened into a grin for a short moment as he swept his eyes over those in attendance. Was this really it that wasn't kin?

Well hello everyone.

Osias simply rolled his eyes before scanning each individual a little more intensely then he probably should be. It had been quite a long time since he'd been around any number of lowlanders and he wasn't wholeheartedly committed to being here.... more curious then anything else. He couldn't say he was impressed either.

[Satra]

Ah, people. Yes. Victor shrugged. "Who's to say how many people are left over, given everything. Even then, I doubt all of the survivors will show up. Honestly, I'm not sure what to expect," he said in a somewhat distracted tone. Every time he thought about how he set up this meeting, he went through a series of doubts and and nervous thoughts. "Oh, my rot? Actually, it was really bad before that day... then something very odd happened and it cauterized my rot. Hasn't bothered me since. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what happened or why..."

Then, someone else! Well this was a friendly looking fellow! Victor smiled. "Hello! It is a pleasure, indeed, sir. My name is Victor. I'm the one who organized this," he paused, allowing the woman to introduce herself if she wanted to.

Moments later, two more walked in! Oh, oh my! Both humans and one a Queen! Victor blinked a few times. This was... much more than he expected.

"W-welcome! Both of you!" Given the signs, both appeared to be Lowland (or at least mixes). Victor's face brightened and he gave them a wide smile. This was turning out well so far! His nerves switched to a different kind of anxiety. If this is all that showed, he'd feel this was a success.

[Bee]

"A pleasure, Victor," he said. He had caught a wee snippet of their conversation walking in, enough to process a bit about rot, and the feline's--recent?--lack of it was quite interesting indeed. Mirek thought of his own malodorous intestines and gave a dejected little internal sigh. How cruel, fate. To look at one Lowlander and give him a cure and look at another and cut off his damn paw.

Mirek fought not to do the animal equivalent of raising his eyebrows, and succeeded, as the two humans entered the building. They were quite a study in contrasts. One of them, aside from the honking and impractically large weapon, looked like a dapper dandy, and the other like a deranged homeless man. A very intent deranged homeless man, perhaps a serial killer.

And yet they had entered together, pretty much. If they were in a party Mirek was going to assume they were related, because there was absolutely no other reason he could fathom that the two would be in each other's company. If the tall one didn't intend to murder them all with his weapon and the homeless man wasn't actually a serial killer, they could prove incredibly useful people to know. He filed this information away.

"That looks incredibly heavy," he said, by way of cheerful polite conversation with the tall human. "I hope none of us are on the chopping block."