Samhain was an unusual town that was both perfect and absolutely horrible for someone like Maël. On one hand it was mysterious and filled with so many questions, but on the other hand it seemed almost as though its mysteries were never meant to be solved in the first place, as though the point of the town was to always be wrapped up in a giant question mark. That being said, that didn't stop the ever scholarly man from trying his best to study and experiment in the place. Wearing some bandages around his arms in what was perhaps the laziest attempt of all time to resemble a Halloween costume, Maël hummed to himself as he attempted to throw a little pebble through the doorway to a place called the void. On the other side of the void's door was, well, the void. It was a chaotic realm, one where random things happened. The laws of physics changed slightly, the laws of magic changed slightly, the landscape was weird, the feeling of being in there was weird... where in the world would someone even start with that place? So Maël started with the only good place he could think of: the entranceway.

The Void wasn't exactly the most crazy popular place in Samhain, with most people opting to stay in the town itself. Most of the people going towards the void were either those with intense morbid curiosity or those who were too drunk out of their mind to know what it was in the first place. Maël stepped in and out of the thing doorway to the void, not really paying attention to his surroundings, instead studying the way both he and objects around the area reacted to being plunged in and out of this strange dimension. He wrote down little notes in his notebook, blissfully unaware he was essentially blocking up this place's only exit and entrance...

Kali was not pleased. There could have been a thousand other possible ways to bring a disaster upon herself but she chose to get the cat called curiosity killed early when stepping into this mysterious realm called Samhain. It was the strangest place she has ever been to and that says a lot considering all the traveling Kali does. But what tickled her nerves in a rather uneasy way wasn’t this place’s weird inhabitants or eeriness but that something automatically transformed her outfit and herself. She now has a pair of fox ears and a cat -god knows what kind of hybrid they were trying to achieve- tail that she would now do anything to get off her. Even her hair has somehow grown longer than she was willing to keep.

“Ugh…”Kali was pouting to no one but herself walking down a random path when she found a strange dude in front of an entrance stepping in and out of it as if he was playing a game. She stood there for a while, hands on her hip, eyes squinting, and then, without much words approached the still distracted man with her soundless nature before raising one leg up and placing a firm foot down on his butt. She kicked the man into the void or whatever was inside the strange entrance and stood on the doorway herself as if refusing to let him play his games any longer. “Don’t just block the way, you dolt.”

Maël's investigation was swiftly interrupted by a sudden pain in his backside as his guild tattoo was slammed upon by what was very clearly a foot. Though it didn't exactly send him flying or anything it was certainly enough to push him into the other side of the void. Oddly enough he still kept his cool even while being suddenly assaulted, with only a little "oof" exiting his mouth, barely audible. An annoyed but still rather mild look on his face, Maël spun around a little bit to face up towards his assailant, his back still on the ground. "Now who in the wor-" Maël paused to himself as he looked at the woman in front of him. Needless to say he almost instantly stopped caring about the doorway, his curiosity now shifting to mysteries that were just as complex as the void, but much more manageable... supposedly. The woman was already beautiful on her own merits, but the costume (or so he supposed) she wore only served to enhance every single strength her body showed off. Researcher's eyes were trained to observe and take in things in a split second, and Maël was certainly glad he had received that kind of education right now. "Sorry about that." His tone almost instantly changed from one to annoyance to one of a rather neutral stance. Maël stood up, brushing off his pants a little as he straightened his back, revealing himself to be much taller than the woman in question - standing in that doorway no doubt made him look much shorter considering he had to hunch himself a little to make it through. "Still though, can you blame me? You can't deny that it's pretty interesting, no?" Maël pointed past the woman.

Should she have looked around she'd find that there was no way to view the other side: when one looks through a doorway they expect to see what's on the other end, whereas here there was simply... nothingness. "And if you go out the other end it's all back to normal." He'd add, closing up his notebook and putting it away. "It's even weirder in here itself. I've seen the most bizarre sights just by going in one direction for a few minutes. I'm glad I decided to go back to the doorway though." Maël turned his eyes in the woman's direction, a small and sly smile filling the lower part of his face now. "It let me meet you, after all." Holding out his hand, Maël clearly intended for the woman to shake it - he half expected her not to. She just kicked his literal ass only a second ago after all. She certainly wasn't nearly as calm as he was. "Maël's my name. And your's?"

Kali was ready to hear her victim’s angry reprimand with a I-dare-you-to-finish-that-sentence look when the man stopped in his tracks by himself, no doubt when his eyes landed on her appearance. For a moment, Kali shifted her feet uncomfortably with a slight blush starting to paint her cheeks. She wasn’t exactly shy due to the rather striking -Kali would never be caught admitting she finds someone attractive- features of this stranger or the way he looked at her but instead because she got conscious of herself. Fox ears and cat tails were insanely weird attachments to have for the usually cool and chill mage. She was used to carrying herself with an air of sophistication and natural elegance but the ears and tail were completely throwing Kali off her element.

‘Gods, he is a giant,’ Once the man straightened up, Kali realized just how short she was compared to him. She hadn’t noticed before because he was bent over while examining the door and whatever was inside it. Now that both were standing up, Kali found herself at least a head shorter than him which threw off her earlier momentum even more.

She schooled her expression into that of indifference, however, and leaned sideways to look over his shoulders when he addressed the door. “Quite true,” Kali mumbled. The door and everything inside it were indeed something Kali felt she had to explore. Maybe some mysterious creature will appear and drop a huge bag of Jewels in front of her. Eyes, almost taking the shape of Jewel signs, were starting to appear on her eager countenance as she listened -only partly because the dream of becoming rich was still playing behind her eyes- to the taller man. It almost made her miss his flirtatious words until a hand was held out for her to shake.

To even her own surprise, she took it, giving him a curt nod before sidestepping in order to enter the door to this “void”. Kali’s magic was called void too but the dynamics behind it couldn’t be any more different from what was in this place.

“Kali,” she belatedly introduced herself as she took in the bizarre scenes inside. “So, you have been here exploring for…how long?” She asked seeing as he had the most answers to her questions without needing to explore the place on her own. Yet pure boredom made her want to go further and since this man seems to know his way around…

Kali eyed him for a very subtle second before letting a huge smile bloom on her face. “Such a pleasure to be meeting you. Looks like you enjoy unraveling some mysteries,” Kali said gesturing toward his notebook. “What else do you have in there?” She leaned forward as she asked, tucking a few strands of hair behind an ear as she did so. “I would love to have someone accompany me while I go through the place myself. You wouldn’t want to see a beautiful, helpless woman like myself get lost in here, now would you?” And cue the batting of some eyelashes. The hook was thrown.

Funnily enough, Maël's attention never once veered towards the cat ears or tail, with his eyes and mind instead focusing on the much more... feminine features of her appearance, though not quite long enough for the woman to notice - notice it too much, anyways. "You Fiorians are just small is all." He'd snarkily respond quietly to her comment, thinking that perhaps she just thought out loud by accident.

It was of Maël's great surprise that the woman actually took his hand, and of even greater surprise that her skin as as soft as it was - and he definitely was expecting it to be incredibly soft going in. "Kali? That rolls off the tongue quite well." He had never once heard the name, wondering where in the world such a sound could come from. He was never good at geography so he most likely wouldn't be guessing her nationality anytime soon. His eyes remained focused on her as she spoke, now admiring her face since it was so up close - her eyes caught his attention most of all, the way they gleamed being utterly unique to him. How curious...

"I've been here for about half a day." He'd respond, still rather focused on her eyes, obviously distracted by Kali at this point. There wasn't even a dry and witty remark thrown in there! It was then that he was at his most vulnerable, and perhaps she saw that too, for her charm worked almost instantly on Maël. He was always the type to have much of his focus shattered by women, but the particular act Kali did was almost tailor-made to all his tastes. He almost wondered if she had said those kind of things many times based on how good she did it. It was so odd to Maël how he knew that he was being played like a fiddle yet still let it work anyways - perhaps he simply liked letting it work, or perhaps he was simply physically unable to resist. He liked the latter explanation better. "But of course." Maël gripped onto Kali's hand somewhat lighter than before, bringing her forward softly and gently as they started walking, as though he was escorting some sort of noblewoman. His heart was pounding, the image of the way her face looked still fresh in his mind, even while he looked down upon his notebook, trying to pretend he was seriously intending to be some sort of guide in a place that was pure and utter chaos. "Perhaps we should take that way then..." Looking down on his map Maël planned a rough idea of where they'd be heading should they simply go straight, already imagining how his new companion would react upon seeing these sights. "It's very dangerous, but very fascinating. Don't worry though..." Maël now squeezed Kali's hand tight. "I'll protect you." He looked down upon her with eyes full of vigor, something that certainly gave him a much different look than 30 seconds ago.

And with that the two began walking, with parts of the void oddly forming and deforming around them as they walked. They soon arrived in the first area Maël had encountered. "This is an odd one. I couldn't figure out exactly what was going on in this part of the void." The space they were in was an area full of rolling green hills with a purple sky, a peaceful wind gently swaying in the breeze. "See anything weird, Kali? Perhaps it's something that you can only spot with two people..." Maël's hypothesis was right, but perhaps not in the way he expected. Kali would find that this as the type of area that changed how you looked at other people, something that you couldn't really understand while alone...

‘Oh no, he just did not call me short and assumed my ethnicity while at it’ Kali thought, slightly raising a foot and almost letting her intrusive thoughts of kicking him down win when she got distracted by the experimental way he said her name. ‘Well, for the sake of my needing a guide, I’ll just let you be,’ she thought in her head with a stiff smile. Honestly, she didn’t know why she chose that name either. There were obviously millions of other options but a certain book she read that came from a certain nation that almost no one has heard of before had the word in it, the name of a goddess, a word that meant emptiness. It just seemed extremely suitable at the time.

Snapping her attention back to Maël, she barely caught his words when he took her hand. Kali knew she started it but this man was enjoying himself an awful lot, now wasn’t he? Her eyes twitched a bit as he started escorting her like a knight in shining armor. When Kali acted like a damsel in distress, she was not expecting the dude to just straight-up treat her like one. Oh, how she wanted to kick him down; her left foot was subtly raised once again.

Trying to keep the huff that threatened to spill, Kali decided to just keep up with the pretense and let him walk her around. She was soon distracted by all the strange things that surrounded them and her earlier irritation ebbed away. Without realizing it, Kali was just letting Maël hold her hands, sometimes even excitedly gripping his hands herself when encountering some particular peculiarities or another in the void. The spell was, however, broken when he uttered the words “I’ll protect you” and Kali had to stop a moment and stare at him with an incredulous look.

‘Oh this…this…utter playboy,’ Kali laughed dryly in her thoughts. She did not believe a single thing that spilled from his lips. The ease and expertise with which the corny lines just rolled off them told her she wasn’t the first person he had spoken to. Sure, he appeared as if he meant it but was Kali so naïve to assume this dude she met like five minutes ago would lay his life down for her? Besides, “if anyone is saving someone, it’s my patience saving you from your demise right now,” the void mage slightly rolled her eyes and looked away while mumbling in an inaudible whisper.

The character cannot be broken at the moment, though. She still needed him. So, while she hoped he had not noticed her strangeness, Kali looked back at him with a soul-stirring smile. “Oh, I know I can count on you,” Kali said as she squeezed his hands back, letting a shy look wash over her features.

Thankfully, she was once again distracted by the place they finally came to. Purple sky fell like a long veil above them and the green hills below it that formed a striking contrast was pretty and a sight worth preserving. Kali listened to Maël’s explanation as she casually let her eyes roam the place before returning to him. This time, the sudden astonishment in her eyes was very much noticeable.

There were words, in all sorts of fonts and sizes, floating above Maël’s head and the most prominent ones that danced behind him made her eyes twitch. Void, Kali, Breasts, Beautiful; All these words seemed to burn into her eyes while she also noticed some subtle words like mystery, guild, maps, and eyes floating around as well.

“Oh it’s something you can’t spot by yourself alright,” She chuckled. A thought suddenly entered her mind before her eyes widened and she looked back behind herself. True enough, there were words there as well with phony, playboy, hands, and money being some of the prominent ones while the tinier ones were handsome, explore, void, and weirdo. Kali gave no thought as she quickly clapped her hands down on the word handsome, watching it fizzle away from in between. “Phew”

While Kali in reality perhaps was a bit lukewarm on Maël, he viewed his own prospects with a lot more optimism. It wasn't as though he was unaware of the possibility he could be being played, but he simply believed a few signals that could point towards this endeavor being a success. "That you can." He'd confidently reply, knowing he would most definitely find some sort of way to impress her. That would require a bit more studying though: what was this girl like? What was she into? He was more excited to get inside of her head than anywhere else, truth be told.

It definitely took Maël a little longer to notice the words, perhaps because he was looking in the wrong direction at the time - over at the hills rather than towards his partner. Oddly enough he was never able to see his own words beforehand, perhaps due to his lack of awareness to it. "What do you mean?" Maël asked as he quickly turned his head back towards Kali, almost instantly seeing the different words flying behind her - he had managed to catch her just as she clapped up on a word that looked as though it spelt 'handsome'. Hm. Perhaps he wouldn't let her know that he spotted such a useful piece of info... in fact, perhaps Maël would simply not tell her he observed these words at all. "What in the world are you talking about? I can't see a thing, save for your beautiful face." He'd comment, really earning him that title of playboy - though with a comment like that it was clear he was phoning it in for the day. Hm. Perhaps these represented what were on a person's mind? Still unable to view his, Maël instead decided to focus on Kali's. Would her words change depending on what he did and said?

First of all, an amplification. Some words varied in size. Could he make them bigger? "You know..." Maël stopped in his tracks, turning his body to face Kali for the time being. He placed his other hand on the other side of Kali's, gently placing it upon her's as opposed to the firm grip he had with his left. He tried to make his touch soft - soft enough to be just as noticeable as any tight hold, just in a different way. "I must say, you're far too beautiful... elegant to be around here. Why come all the way out to this wasteland?" He asked, wondering if any of the other 3 big words would expand. Would playboy grow larger at his words? Would phony signal her doubt? Would money signal some type of true intention? Perhaps handsome would revive itself? Maël stared into her eyes, watching for any sign of change.

A stiff smile grew wider on Kali as she was left not knowing how to reply. She could not be sure if he is really unable to see the words or if he is pretending not to see them. They are all just around him, still floating up and down -some even in front of his face- or moving like waves.

‘It can’t be that I’m the only one seeing this, right?’ Kali wondered, honestly beyond perplexed by the situation. Kali, like many other people in Earthland for sure, is not fond of getting her thoughts and emotions read -literally in this case- at all.  There are so many things she could not afford to let others know; so many things she rather keep to herself. So, at some point before Maël placed his other hand on her, the word ‘doubt’ and ‘suspicious’ must have popped up over her head in small letters.

‘Beautiful and elegant? I agree, but your pick-up lines?’ she raised an eyebrow at his gentle speech. Without a doubt, the words ‘playboy’ and ‘phony’ probably grew bigger as well. Honestly, Kali did not bother to check on them anymore. Even if Maël could see them, it wouldn’t change much. Only, the void mage now started to become anxious to get out of this place.

“Wasteland? I see more than that,” Kali spoke while she eyed the floating words above his head. “I’m probably here for the same reason as you; curiosity.” With a finger pointing to Maël’s book, she would ask, “In fact, aren’t you even more invested than me? Now…”

In a swift motion, Kali would bring the finger pointing to his book up to press upon his chin in a threatening yet not exactly threatening manner and say, “Speak up. You see all those words too, don’t you? Did you already know this place had such a phenomenon? Is that why you brought me here?”

Kali had almost completely dropped her damsel act at this point. She was just as interested in getting into his head as he was into hers. The way his words flew made her think he was too used to doing this to women but if that is not the case…

Kali smirked amusedly, tapping on his chin with her finger a few times “You are either being earnest or you need to work on your technique in picking girls up. We hardly fall for these types anymore. Plus, with that face of yours, you should go for the cold and unapproachable persona instead, darling.”

Maël was certainly trying his best when it came to not making it obvious he could see the letters, but no matter how good of an actor he was, his eyes would most definitely have to move to check on them from time to time: it was just a question of if Kali was observant enough to recognize such a thing. His fasciation grew in regards to the size the words: it seemed very clear now that his hypothesis was correct. Handsome was unfortunately still gone, but perhaps Kali just delivered a truly fatal blow. When Kali eyed the words near Maël his heart stopped for a second: he hadn't noticed it himself. But the calm look on his face still upheld itself. He got a quick look at his words, somewhat embarrassed but by no means ashamed of a certain one, and went back to looking towards Kali. "Curiosity? I suppose that make sense..." That bit about money still left some doubt in his mind, but if her reason truly was the same as his he definitely respected that.

Kali's choice to put her finger up on his chin really seemed more sexy to him than intimidating, said word actually appearing in a tiny fashion behind him. "I still have no idea about what you mean by the words..." He said, his lie being slightly less convincing now - though he did genuinely not see them until this recent trip with Kali. "But no, I didn't choose this route for this spot. It's what comes next that's the really interesting region." He smiled in anticipation, a gleam in his eyes signaling that what he was saying really was true: what they were in for next was worth the wait.

Perhaps Kali was more than Maël gave her credit for after all. It was tough to make Maël fall off his balance, even for someone like her. But her words calling him out suddenly made him tick a little bit. "Excuse me? Do you not think I've done that a hundred times?" He asked, his pride getting the best of him just a little bit. A slightly different look filled his face, one a bit more intense than his usual calm demeanor. "It gets too easy after a while. Life gets boring if you use the same stra-" Maël paused for a second. Wait a moment. Did he just say all that out loud? Oh no. He looked towards Kali, a small bit of embarrassment on his face, a moment of weakness. "Never mind." He tried to brush it off, grabbing onto her hand again and leading her forwards into the next area of the void.

This new region seemed rather normal at first. It looked similar to a forest, one filled with pine trees and thick grass. A small dirt path carved its way through the trees, leading the two of them towards... something. "This path has no end. Or at least none that I've found." Maël noted as he looked down at his book again, eventually closing it up. "But that's not the interesting part about this place. What's really interesting is this..." Maël let go of Kali and walked up towards one of the incredibly tall pine trees in the area, placing his hand on its bark. "Don't ask how I figured this out, but these trees grant wishes." Maël closed his eyes and put his forehead on the tree. "Please become a wooden chair." Maël asked, as the tree quickly disappeared out of sight. Soon a chair would appear from what seemed like thing air, practically popping into existence.

Maël sat on the chair, reclining in it comfortably before facing back to Kali. "Obviously I've tried all manner of things with this tree. It seems like there are some rules to it. First of all, nothing it can create will exist outside of this void. Everything I created crumbled on my way out, near the door." The pebble Maël had been throwing in an out of the door was one he took from the regular world, not the void. "Secondly, it can't do obviously impossible wishes. No immortality, no making you suddenly stronger, nothing like that..." Maël looked up towards the trees, admiring their odd sense of beauty. "Finally, I asked them for wisdom. The trees are quite good at answering questions, but it seems they have a limited scope of knowledge. Anything related to this area, they knew about. Anything about me, they knew about. I even asked them about the contents of my notebook and they knew. But people who've never been here? Events from the outside world? They know nothing of it."

Maël figured that Kali had probably grown bored of his extended lesson on how these things worked (according to his hypothesis, anyways) and instead decided to give her something more entertaining to do. He pointed towards the tree directly towards his right. "Why don't you try it out? I'm curious to see what you'll wish for..."

‘I knew it!’

Kali cheered inside her head, unable to hide the smug little grin that spread across her lips, especially when she spotted the small word ‘sexy’ floating up shyly next to him. “A hundred times, eh? I’m not surprised,” Kali raised an eyebrow at his out of character slip up, thoroughly entertained by Maël’s expressions transitioning from realization to embarrassment. With a smile that seemed to say ‘yah, that’s what I thought,’ Kali scratched Maël’s chin one last time before allowing him to grab her hands and pull her along to whatever came next in their strange itinerary.

This time, Maël took them to a forest with pine trees reaching for the skies and a small dirt path snaking its way around them. Unlike the previous place, the sky here wasn’t purple and there wasn’t anything in particular that could be spotted by the naked eye which would seem intriguing. In fact, it looked very bland and boring until Maël started giving her long and detailed explanations on what was peculiar about the place. He resembled a teacher as he did, eager to share the little fascinating pieces of knowledge he found in his long career, taking pleasure in conveying them to those unimaginative and unexcited minds that stood before him.

Fortunately or unfortunately for this teacher, Kali was exactly the type of student who was hard to impress. She followed his every movement with her eyes but said almost nothing until Maël spoke of something about wish-granting trees. This was the only point during the entire “lecture” that Kali looked at least partly stimulated. She even looked like she was about to interrupt him with questions only for all of it to inflate the moment he specified that no item she wished for could be taken out of the place. In which case, the whole area in general -for Kali- just became useless.

Once again like a good teacher, when Maël gave her the chance to test the place out for herself, Kali grew thoughtfully silent. She was still unable to find the worth of this place. If there was no way to take all the money she wished for outside of this place, what was even the use of it? Even if it made sense for anything made in the void to cease to exist outside of it, even if the rule seemed extremely reasonable, Kali could not help but get pouty about it.

She gave it a try anyway and went up to one of the trees. After placing a hand against it, she seemed to pause in thought for a long time once more. Honestly, none of Kali’s true wishes were something a simple tree could make come true, and she did not want to wish for a huge pile of gold coins to jump into because she still had an image to keep up in front of Maël.

So after thinking and thinking and more thinking, Kali decided to ask for an apple. Yes, a simple, red, juicy, tasty -the insanely expensive one that only the top 1% got to buy from the most exclusive markets- kind of apple. Even the tree seemed confused with Kali’s choice for a wish because unlike the time it instantly turned into a chair for Maël, this one took a while to take the shape of an apple that fell right into her hands.

“So Mr. Expert-with-a-book, tell me what if I wish for something consumable? What if I eat it? Does it still disappear once I take it out of this place? Does it disappear from my stomach? Do I disappear instead? How does that even work?” She launched a series of questions, playing languidly with the apple in her hands.

Kali did not know when it started -totally a lie because she knew exactly when it started- but the vampire had started growing extremely fond of throwing Maël off his perfectly put-together loop. So taking the apple to him, she slowly sat down on one of the armrests of his chair, placed a hand on the armrest at the other side, and effectively trapped him where he sat. A seductive smirk bloomed on her lips as the mage took the apple to Maël’s mouth and said, “Do you...want to try it out?” She started slowly leaning forward. “Do you want ‘us’ to try it?” Kali continued to lean into him until it reached a point where it seemed that only the apple seemed to separate them when, out of the blue, as if the person just now was not her at all, she quickly sat up and walked away.

With her expression going back to that of indifference, Kali would then ask, “For real though, I’m quite curious. Did you ever try it?”