Lusamine made her way towards them, with...an unusual, almost Pokemon-like gait. "Greetings! I am Lusamine of the Aether Foundation, and I simply must have a strand of the Torracat's fur, as well as the Espurr's. I must. I must. I must. I must. I must. I must. I must. I will be beautiful again. I must. I must. I must. I must."
Clovis's brow wrinkled as he gazed intently at the bizarre blonde woman's gait...and her even more bizarre greeting. He felt some of the hairs on the back of his neck stand up involuntarily, because her behavior felt eerily similar to those of some long gone sacrilege cases he'd had to look into. It wasn't that it was scary; more like it hit far too close to home.
But, she couldn't have come from his world specifically. The Aether Foundation's president in his world was a sane woman.
"Let me guess," he called, pointing his cigarette at her. "Meth? No, wait. Heroin. Crack? It has to be something. There's no fucking way you're sober."
I certainly wish I wasn't.
He took another drawn out breath from the cigarette and exhaled quickly. "From one researcher to another, it's generally
horrible etiquette to approach another person and state you
need a sample from them. It's creepy, not to mention atrociously problematic. Perhaps snorting illicit substances while doing a research project should be a big
no-no, don't you agree?"
That voice. Why was that voice familiar?
Wes turned to its source and did a double take. Clovis was smirking at him with a cigarette held loftily between his fingers, as smug and dainty as ever. And looking perfectly alive and well, despite the circumstances when they had last met.
Wes tipped his head back slightly and mirrored Clovis’ smug grin back at him. “Would you look at that. You haven’t changed one bit. Looks like you’re taking good care of my lighter, too.” His mouth twitched in amusement. “Doesn’t really change the dandy look though.”
Jabs aside, he was actually glad to see a familiar face in this place. Whether he could afford to trust said face was another matter, but, well…he hoped he could.
Pushing thoughts of that weird Aether president copy aside, Clovis decided to just enjoy the company of this other familiar face. He stuck his lower lip out jokingly, tilting his head for added effect.
"That's not true," he whined, the humor clear in his tone, "I wasn't stupid enough to wear a full-blown suit this time."
Nonetheless, he shrugged. "Can't really help the dandy thing, though. I spend far too much time curating my wardrobe. Really need to live up to the stuffy, well-dressed Kalosian stereotype."
At the mention of the lighter, he chuckled heartily and pulled it out of his pocket. "How'd you know? It's become my 'world hopping' lighter. Quite handy. Of course, if you need it back, say when. Gods know a nasty chain smoker like me has plenty more on hand."
And even though he didn't speak, there was the strangest impression he was saying "howdy partner!"
He'd been so invested in the conversation that he didn't notice the little rodent-esque 'mon approach until Wes leaned down to greet it. Clovis took another breath from his berry stick, watching the interaction with curious eyes. What even was that thing? Some Unova-variant Linoone?
For good measure, he also knelt down. Best to be polite back. "Howdy," he greeted. What a funny word that was. "That's a nifty little hat you've got there."
Brisa padded around to put herself between Starr and Lusamine, ears flattening against her head. What the fuck.
[[Vote Shini/Spliff]]
Once more, he felt his brow furrow as he looked up toward whoever had the balls to cast a vote so early.
"Already?" he asked. "Nothing's even happened yet."
"You could very well lose a potential useful role or innocent if you're just gonna vote people willy-nilly since there's only what? Eight, nine of us around? If I die and I'm innocent – which I am – then whoopsie-doo, higher chance of losing to Mafia."
He'd been doing his best to tune this weird girl out. She didn't freak him out--more like she drained him of his energy. Reminded him far too much of the wacky 'mon and humans he dealt with back home. He could understand the reasoning for the vote--churning reactions, maybe trying to push something to
actually happen, and who better to test the theory on the one who conjured up
spider hands--but with such an uncharacteristically small group, they ran a lot of risks voting just to stir the pot. However, this girl in question wasn't really doing much to help herself.
"Fair point," he agreed, "but on the other side of that coin, the longer we go without information, there is also a higher chance of losing to Lycanrock. Or Mafia. Whatever the hell you want to call it."
With a final deep inhale into the cigarette, he finished it off. As he exhaled, he blew out a perfect smoke ring, admiring his handiwork before speaking again. "I'm not saying I'm on board with voting somebody off so early, especially with little to go on. In fact, I'm more inclined to believe that a misplay this early in the game will give our foes a higher advantage. But just keep that in mind. Voting does equal information in some capacity."
"In a game this small there probably aren't more than two mafia at most, right? That means a three in four chance of hitting a townie if we kill someone today, and the mafia will probably kill someone tonight. Then all they need is a myslynch and a night to win. We can't just recklessly kill people."
