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Tagger

Her comment reminded Tagger of a time a long time ago. When he was happy. A woman that he..had some kind of connection to had said something almost like that, and a flash of pain came across his face, quickly melting away. Tagger sighed, "All I can do is drown out the pain, after today I'll likely end up a bum on the streets, sent to another job that'll kill me. Might as well enjoy my last few weeks alive in the way I always have."

Jade

Jade clicked her tongue knowingly. She'd seen this type before. Hopeless, despondent, and wanting to die more than anything. She'd been able to convince quite a few of them to get back on their feet, maybe this time it would work as well. Wouldn't hurt to try, would it? So she took Tagger to the bar, saying, "I think we'll start off with a water," going to get it.

Onix
Onix was going to work at the beast.

But then

There was an deafening earthquake that sent the beast and Onix flying, slamming against the ground with a grunt.

---

Briar was in the tavern taking a quick break as she started picking off a few bits of dirt off her jacket, she seemed to take well care of her jacket as it's important to her. She sat down and put her hands in her pockets she was used to all this commotion and closed her eyes she thought and thought then she knit her eyebrows and took something out of her pocket, she grinned for a moment put the paper back and just listened to all of the noise. Then an earthquake, she was completely shaken up, she had no idea what to do... she clutched her stomach she was nervous and sure she was going to lose her last meal.

---

"That's... No, don't say that! Why do you not even care for your own life?!" She sounded confused and her expression was full of pity, but deep down. she knew she felt the same. Why have a positive outlook on life when you live like this? Numbing the pain and sorrow really was the only way to keep going, since she doubted there was hardly any hope in this hell hole. No, she couldn't think like that, she couldn't end up like those poor souls that had their lives taken too early, she couldn't end up like her parents. They thought the exact same way and their last few years as a family were miserable. As a young child, she basically had to take care of them because they had just given up. She looked up sadly at Jade as she fetched a water for the man, staying close to him.

---

Tagger

Tagger gave her a grim smile. "No one cares about me anymore, so why should I?" He didn't know why he was being brutally honest with this girl. Maybe it was because he knew that she understood more than she let on. He accepted the water, and downed most of it in one gulp, slamming the glass on the table. But as he was about to speak, the room started to violently shake.


Jade

Jade looked up, cursing as dust and mortar floated from the ceiling. Drinks spilled, tables rocked, and she shouted, "Everyone, under a table!" She herself dove under the bar, helping Tagger underneath too and saying to Cass, "Come on! Over here!"

---

Cass let those words echo in her ears as sadness and pity covered her face. It was sad to see someone like this, it really was, but she couldn't change the fact that they were probably right, and that she couldn't do anything about it. She immediately perked up when everything around her began to shake, causing her to go in fight or flight mode. She responded quickly to Jade's call, making her way over to the bar and getting under it. She didn't say another word as all of this was happening, and only let the voice of panicked people and the rumbling underground flood the air around her.

---

Letting out a grunt, Yashura felt the world rock under his feet as he stumbled, earth lurching like a beast who had been angered. The dirt split under his shaking legs, sending him sprawling. His head slammed against the ground, sending stars spinning past his eyes as he wheezed through the respirator. The ground opened her yawning mouth, swallowing down any fool unlucky enough to stumble into her maw and scarring those who survive. Even the sun's harsh smile couldn't do anything as a fissure snaked towards Yashura, the earthquake shaking him to his core. Rolling to the side, Yashura evaded the worst of the splitting chasm that opened up under where he had just been and lay on the ground for a second, breathing heavily

---

The earthquake ended with one final roar, before everything settled, all over as quickly as it had begun. As the dust settled, men and women who were once red-faced and drunken were now shaken sober as they picked themselves up from under tables, many of which were broken or knocked over. Things had been flung off shelves, beer was splattered everywhere from the broken flasks, and there were cracks in the roof where tiles had fallen, tiny rays of artificial light from the lights in the room fleeing like they too had been affected by the earthquake and were desperate to flee.

Jade
Jade had spent a long time being used to things. She liked it that way. Jade may have only been seventeen years old but she'd grown accustomed to things no seventeen year old should have to. Jade had, as she put it cheerfully many times, "Learned to roll with the punches." But what she wasn't ready for was a horrible earthquake that was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, because Jade had never been in an earthquake. Born in the underground, she'd grown up only knowing the food warehouses, the tavern, the artifical air and light sources, evreything that had been created in a desperate attempt to save humanity, though if it was really saved was still something to be decided. She'd never been in an earthquake before. It was a horrifyingly new experience. Jade hadn't experienced something she wasn't reay for in awhile, and it shook her up. She picked herself up from under the bar, wringing out her skirt where it had been splashed by one of the falling flasks. Jade managed to find her balance by gripping onto the counter. When evreyone saw her pop up, she was suddenly surrounded by all of the patrons, hungover and confused, desperate for answers and all crowding her, the one person they could depend on even if it was just to serve drinks. Jade was overwhelmed for a minute, and took a deep breath. Focus. "Evreyone shut up!" she yelled as she climbed onto the counter. This quited them down as they stared up at her. "Look, I have-" Jade was interrupted by a loud clanging from outisde.

Tagger

It took evrey ounce of Tagger's strength to pull himself up from under the bar, especially with his leg. He was older than Jade, and had seen a bit more. So he had distant memories of what an earthquake was like, something that lessened the shock at the horrible demise of the area around him. He was almost greatful that Jade hadn't given him any alchohol, because then he would have looked like the drunkards around him, pale-faced and addle brained. If there was one thing that Tagger liked about himself, it was his brain. He wasn't stupid, and he knew what he had to do to survive, and...when it was time to give up. He jumped a little when Jade yelled, putting a bit more of his wheight on the leg, causing him to flinch horribly. But he settled again, his knuckles white as he gripped the counter for balance. He wanted to do something when he saw how all of those people crowded Jade. But, it seemed that she could handle it herself. Like Jade's attempt at a crowd-calming speech, his thoughts were cut off by the clanging sound.


The clanging sound was that of a bell. This bell hadn't been used in years, it was a sort of call-to-arms, or in this case, an emergency town meeting. The man that rang the bell was a haggard man that seemed to always be hanging around, though no one could tell you what his job was. Nonetheless evreyone knew that he was a brilliant yet slightly unstable man. No one knew his name, though the real truth was no one cared to ask. They just called him The Thinker. The Thinker, wearing a long brown coat and gloves with a scraggly brown beard, hung on the rope like it was the last thing that could save him. Evreyone began to file out, and once they were all out, he began talking, walking around the platform that the bell was standing on. "People of the Underground! As you know, we had not had an earthquake in many, many years. This occurence is something rare and unnartural, no? I tell you, it is most definetly unnatural, but natural nonetheless! We are in the feeding grounds of a monster!" The reaction to his words was...mixed. Some laughed, some paled (especially the younger ones, children and mothers) and others shouted for him to get off the platform. No one had the same reaction to this bold speech.


[center]Onyx

They were thrown from the beast, whose corpse jumped and flailed through the air almost as if it were still alive in a morbid display. Onyx came threatingly close to falling into a cavern, but used their sword to stop themself.

They kept crawling forward, towards the trees that were crashing down.

But then

It stopped. They paused for a minute, testing the waters.

Then they looked up, seeing Yashura.

They raised their voice, "Do you know what just happened?"

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