(2018-01-29) Welcome Aboard, Lily
Welcome aboard, Lily
Summary: Lily receives an offer she can't refuse…
Date: RL Date (2018-01-29)
Related: None
Player Characters: The Muse, Lily
The2ndMuse.jpg medium.jpg

It was a strange little Easter egg game, and it took a lot of thinking outside the box for Lily to figure it out and solve it, but in time solve it she did. Once defeated, it unlocked a brief video of a rather goth-looking young woman who spoke perfect Cantonese. She congratulated Lily on her success and said she wanted to meet. The date, location and time were given as two days later at the club Lily tends bar at. Kind of freaky, given it was a recorded video and not a live stream. How did she know when Lily would beat it? Or that it would be her to do so? Something is definitely not normal.

Lily, of course, is always up for a challenge. So as suspicious as this whole thing has been, it's sufficiently intriguing that she just can't turn it down; as far as the girl is concerned, it's three days well spent.

Not that she was expecting a million dollars in lotto money for solving the puzzle, but the video does set off some warning bells. The whole thing smells of a scam — or worse, a police sting — but if this person already knows where she works, Lily really doesn't have much of a choice, now does she? So two days later, she shows up at work — as usual — and changes into her somewhat exploitative bartender uniform designed to attract male attention, complete with bow-tie and shorts and all that nonsense. It's still early before the late night crowd shows up, so Lily goes about her usual preparations, while keeping an eye out for this mysterious Goth woman.

"Evening, lovely," says the woman, already seated at the bar. While she sits on a stool, there's an empty wheelchair next to her - a really strange, steam-punk looking wheelchair made of brass clockwork and velvet. She's currently sipping a gin an tonic, and looks like she could have been there for some time.

Her hair is an inky explosion of teased out fluff with cropped bangs, and her eyes are shadowed in a shade of purple that matches her lipstick. She's dressed like an early 80s goth or punk, as they were somewhat similar back then, with a big leather jacket left open over a fishnet top, under which a black bra is visible. A lace choker with a dangling cross encircles her neck. Fingerless leather gloves adorn her hands, the nails painted silver.

"Good work on that little game I left you. Well done."

Goths are pretty darn rare in Hong Kong, and steampunk wheelchairs are probably even less common in nightclubs; almost as soon as Lily gets behind the bar she spots this strange woman. Quickly asking for another girl to cover for her, Lily heads over to join the goth-lady.

"Hey." She greets with a wry little grin on her lips, tilting her head curiously to study the woman. "That was a real brain-teaser you left me, but I bet you don't go around leaving puzzles for all the bartenders, am I right?" There is a pause as she quirks a brow. "So the real question is… are you a cop? Or are you a robber?"

"More than you might think," the goth woman replies with a little smile. "Fourteen others have solved that before you - not all bartenders, to be sure. But they weren't you. You're interesting. Pretty."

She sips her drink and makes a faint snort at Lily's question. "Definitely a thief," she replies. "Once a soldier, never a copper. But that's still not the real question. No, the real question is this: are you satisfied? Are you getting everything you want in life? Or is there something missing? A feeling that there is so much more out there and you'll never get to see it?"

Lily's look of skepticism is unmistakable, but at least the woman seems pretty adamant that she's not law enforcement. Idly tucking a lock of hair behind her left ear, the bartender shrugs and puts on a big, wide smile. "What's not to be satisfied with? I have my dream job, right here, right now." She gestures around the nightclub. "Dressing up like a tart and letting guys ogle me for tips. Working till 3 AM every night. Smelling like cigarettes and booze when I leave work. I can keep doing this till I retire!" Yep, she's pouring on the sarcasm thick. "Wait till I'm sixty and my kid's kid asks, 'Grandma grandma, why are you wearing shorts and pouring drinks?'" Beat. "Oh. By the way, you want another drink?"

Finishing her gin and tonic, the other woman smiles again. "Only if it's to go," she answers. "I want to show you something." She turns, planting her hands on the bar, and pivots herself off of the stool and down into the seat of her wheelchair. "Come. It'll only take a minute."

She pauses her wheeling away from the bar by hand and looks back over her shoulder. "Well, it'll take much longer, but it'll only be a minute as far as anyone else is concerned."

Lily's smile gives way to a look of slight confusion, because what the woman said doesn't make much sense. "I hope you're not planning to drug me or something." She murmurs, but clearly curiosity is her Achilles' Heel, as she is already coming out from behind the bar and all set to follow wherever the wheelchair-bound Goth-woman is leading. "Uh. I assume you already know my name, it's Lily. What should I call you?" She asks once she's caught up, but looks vaguely unsure whether she should be pushing the wheelchair or not.

She seems quite capable of wheeling herself. "Ah, names. We'll get to that, lovely. You'll have loads more interesting questions in a moment."

It seems at first like she's heading to the restrooms, but she stops at a utility closet that Lily has never noticed before. Was that always there? Stranger still, the woman in the wheelchair has a key to it and unlocks the door. She pulls it open a few inches, soft, warm light spilling out.

"In you go."

How exactly…? Lily's eyes narrow at the stranger having a key to a closet in /her/ nightclub. Suspicious much? Yes! But still, what's going to happen in a utility closet? After all, it's a woman in a wheelchair, not a handsy-burly-drunk guy. Hesitantly she steps past the wheelchair, sparing a look back at the goth-woman, then proceeds through the door into…

And TARDIS!

Exhibit Room - The Gallery TARDIS
While hardly large, it's immediately apparent that it's bigger on the inside than any outer facade might imply. The vaulted ceilings are the biggest tell, with ornate, gaslight chandeliers hanging throughout to illuminate the room. There are no windows. The walls are covered in subtly-patterned wallpapers that would be right at home in the gaslight era. Many individual gaslight spots are affixed to the walls to provide extra light for the numerous pieces of art collected here.

It's an art gallery or museum of sorts, and it appears to be organized into individual exhibits, with each exhibit focused on a single subject. Most of the subjects appear to be human. A few can only be described as alien.

Every exhibit is different, but each depicts a different person in various media through various time periods, some of which look futuristic. The media used ranges from paintings and drawings to photographs and even a few sculptures. They do not seem to be by the same artist or artists, and a few of them are by known masters from history. If they are authentic, the value of this private collection may be staggering.

There are several antique sofas and chairs throughout the room, making conversation areas complete with end tables and coffee tables. A single door on the far side of the room from the entrance is marked 'private', an eerie glow seeping out from under it

Lily finds herself inside the exhibit room of The Gallery, the woman in the wheelchair nudging her a bit further in from behind so she can enter. The sounds of the club fade as the door closes.

"Welcome to The Gallery," she says, pride in her voice. "I'll give you a minute to go through all the various reactions you lot tend to do."

Lily inches forward a couple of steps, just enough to make room for the wheelchair to follow in. She just stands there, stock still. Instead of turning her head to look around this inexplicable place, it's just her big dark eyes that shift around in their sockets. When she does move, she is turning her upper body to see if the door is still behind her.

At least the door is still there.

"Uhm." Lily finally manages to find her voice, and tentatively steps forward. "Okay, is this some reality prank-TV show?" She asks aloud. "Where are the cameras?"

"Oh dear no," the woman in the wheelchair replies. "Not a prank at all. The Gallery is my TARDIS - which stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It's a little pocket of reality I can fly all through time and, as it says on the tin, space. The control room is back there." She gestures to the only other door.

"I'm a time traveler, Lily. A Time Lord, to be precise, and this is my ship. It blends in on the outside with its surroundings so you don't end up with something daft like a police call box in ancient Rome."

Now Lily's attention is definitely, irrevocably focused on the woman in the wheelchair, with a seriously look of skepticism on her face. "So A, I don't really think this is a ship, because… ships don't look like this." She points out helpfully, then with a bit more of a tone of disbelief. "And B, you are a time traveler?? Alright, I'm going to need some proof. What are the winning lotto numbers for tomorrow?"

"And drink!" says the Time Lord, smirking at the response. "Sorry. We had a drinking game we'd play when we brought someone new into the TARDIS. You're reaction is hardly new to me, is what I'm saying. Travel the universe and drag along strangers long enough and you hear it all. And of course it doesn't look like a ship. This is the exhibit room. Why would it? The control room looks more like a ship, but the point is it looks like whatever I want it to look like because it's mine and it can."

She starts wheeling off to the other room. "You want proof? I can do that. This way."

Despite Lily's smartypants comments, she actually looks very, very unsure about all of this - especially once the wheelchair rolls off towards the control room and the woman can't see her wandering gaze. She moves to follow, and now she is turning her head to take it all in. It slows her down a few steps but Lily hurries to catch back up, at which point she has to ask of her hostess, "What's a police call box?"

Yeah, millennials. What are you gonna do?

"Long story," answers the Time Lord. "One of my kind busted his chameleon circuit and now his TARDIS is stuck looking like a little phone booth they used to have in England to contact the police. He could fix it if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He likes it that way. Makes him stick out, but that's kind of his thing."

She opens the 'Private' door and heads through.

Yeah, this looks more like a space ship. There's a hexagonal control station at the center of the room, a long, clear tube running down from the ceiling through the center of it, and several rings circle the tube up high, spinning in different directions and etched with strange, circular symbols. There are seats fixed to the floor around the console, away from it, for passengers to strap in. The console itself has no seats and is piloted standing - or not, in her case. Several monitors flex and extend out in various places. There are several more doors from here leading to who-knows-what.

She rolls up to one side of the six-sided console and begins flipping switches and levers, the wheels of her wheelchair turning flat on their sides as her chair now hovers in the air. It swings off to one side, gliding around to a different part of the console where she hits more buttons.

"When you were a girl you used to go up to a cliff and throw rocks off into the ocean," she says. The room begins to vibrate gently and the machinery inside the tube at the center of the controls pistons up and down. They're moving.

If Lily was skeptical about an art gallery being the innards of a ship, she is less so once inside the control room, yet arguably more awed. Her gaze takes in the room, with technology she definitely can't identify…. and when the wheelchair turns into a hovercraft? She stumbles back against the wall behind her, and lets out a murmured "Holy sshh…"

Needless to say, she has nothing to add when the room starts to vibrate. Even for someone unaccustomed to time travel, she knows the 'ship' is now in motion. Her eyes are wide now, and she seems like she's barely registered the woman's comments about her childhood.

It only takes a moment, then she's flipping levers back and the room comes to a still once more. The flying part done, her wheels return to their normal position and touch the floor again, and she starts to wheel herself out.

"Come on, then. And whatever you do, don't get yourself's attention. That gets messy."

Assuming Lily follows, she leads the way back through the exhibit room and out of the TARDIS. The nightclub is gone, and now it's day and it's outside on that very cliff. The TARDIS has taken the shape of a tool shed. Off in the distance, an adolescent Lily throws rocks over the edge, into the ocean below.

"Great view. I can see why you came here."

Of course Lily follows, and frankly she wasn't expecting this when she asked for proof. Even keeping a respectable distance away from her younger self, Lily knows who she is looking at. Staring speechless for a minute, she eventually turns away and leans a hand against the TARDIS/Tool-shed to brace herself. Then drop to a crouch, looking like she might be sick.

It takes her another minute to recompose herself, at which point she turns her head back in the direction of the wheelchaired woman. "Sorry. That was… my brain melting." She mutters, then a bit louder. Bit more excited. "Oh. My. GOD." Now she exclaims. "This. Is. AWESOME!! You're the real deal! You're like that guy! With the car!"

She's content to let Lily take all the time she needs to gather herself, simply watching the younger Lily with a gentle smile. "Yes, only I can properly say gigawatt," answers the Time Lord.

"I'm one of the Time Lords, an ancient race that mastered time travel long ago. I used to be a soldier for my people in a war, the Great Time War, but I've deserted and sworn it off, along with my name. I'm done with fighting and killing. I go by The Muse, now. I inspire, and live, and chase my passions and help others chase theirs. Or I used to."

Her expression becomes more solemn. "I need your help, Lily. I sent all of my companions away a couple years ago, but no matter what I do I can't find a way to finish it alone. So I'm breaking my rule and taking one last companion to help me finish what I started. You help me crack a code, and I'll take you on a few trips through the universe, show you things you'd never see otherwise. That's my offer."

Lily listens to everything the Time Lord says, content to stay crouched throughout all of it. There is clear bewilderment in her eyes, but there is also wonder. A bright eagerness that seems to suddenly flash to life. It takes Lily all of two seconds to consider the Time Lord's offer, to which she enthusiastically bobs her head. "I'm in." Now she gets back to her feet, and casts another look at her distant, younger self. "I'm ready to go whenever you want. Well, maybe after I get some of my stuff? I don't want to travel through time in this ridiculous dress." She gestures at the bartender uniform she's currently wearing. "And do I call you 'The Muse'? Or just Muse? Miss Muse? Mistress Muse?"

"Mistress Muse had an enticing ring to it," she allows with a little smile, eyeing the outfit. Hey, she did imply fourteen others had cracked the code Lily did, but they were boring and not pretty, so while she seems to sincerely want this 'code' thing cracked, she was willing to wait for someone attractive to do it. "Just 'Muse' is fine. And I guess you can grab your things. I should've made the outfit a part of the deal. A few years ago I would have. I'm slipping. Maybe that's a good thing." She gives younger-Lily one last smile before going back inside.

"We'll pop by your place. When we're done with everything, I'll return you to your timeline where you went into the closet with me. You won't have missed a thing."

Before she follows, Lily also takes another look at younger-Lily. Oh, she's tempted to go give her younger self some pointers (like, don't take the bartender job, seriously!), but the Muse did warn it might get messy. So no, she'll just return to the TARDIS.

"That's okay. I'll bring this outfit along." She takes a deep breath as she catches up. "You never know when it might come in handy; they have nightclubs in Ancient Rome, right?" Lily smiles coyly and tilts her head at the Muse, clearly taking the comment about her outfit in stride. "Oh this is so exciting! Please tell me it'll be more fun than Playstation. I'm so going to take selfies with Chairman Mao. And Genghis Khan. And Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Maybe a dinosaur."

"Selfies?" asks the Muse. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. So we're agreed - I'll show you some things, you help me with my little problem. When it comes time for me to use your code and end my little problem, you go home. Game over. I'm not putting you in any more danger than I absolutely have to, and there likely will be some."

Back to the control room she goes, and she starts up the TARDIS once more, taking it to Lily's apartment where it doesn't bother disguising itself and is just a silver cylinder with a door. She lets her new companion grab whatever she likes for the journeys ahead, then makes for the Vortex while she plans her first move.

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